Too bad we didn't elect Romney. He was right on Russia and right on still having troops in iraq. Obama has been a disaster.
Binders full of women. Doesn't sound so sexist now, does it? Nor does Barry Goldwater seem like a Nazi in comparison to Trump. I guess this is what happens when one party has absolutely no imagination when attacking their opponents: racist, sexist, rinse, repeat.
I must have been on vacation all those times the "conservatives" criticized Trump for his glowing comments about Putin leading up to the election. Just like I will probably be on vacation and miss all of the "conservatives" opposing Michael Flynn and KT Macfarland.
Somehow I don't find this a compelling line of criticism of Democrats. So your point is that it is the Democrats fault that opposing previous sexist and racist candidates led to republicans electing an even more sexist and racist candidate?
Crying wolf time and time again took away all credibility and demonizing half the population of the country along with nominating the worst major party candidate in recent memory (toss up with Trump) led to someone worse winning. This time IMO it's justified to cry wolf, but with no credibility and no viable alternative, you got eaten.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/11/fidel-castro-cruel-dictator-ignore-revisionists/ COFFEE HOUSE US ELECTION Fidel Castro was a cruel dictator. Ignore the revisionists Andrew Roberts (Photo: Getty) Andrew Roberts 26 November 2016 12:46 PM Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Email Why are left-wing dictators always treated with more reverential respect when they die than right-wing ones, even on the Right? The deaths of dictators like Franco, Pinochet, Somoza are rightly noted with their history of human rights abuses front and centre, but the same treatment is not meted out to left-wing dictators who were just as monstrously cruel to people who opposed their regimes. The death of Fidel Castro is a perfect case in point. BBC News described him as ‘one of the world’s longest-serving and most iconic leaders’ only mentioning in the fourth paragraph that ‘Critics saw him as a dictator’. Critics?! What other objective noun is there for a man who held no free nor fair elections for half a century, imprisoned his political opponents after trials presided over by crony judges, completely controlled all the national media and installed his brother as his successor? The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation documented more than 8,600 politically motivated detentions of government opponents and activists during the year. Despite that, the Guardian announced that ‘The revolutionary icon, one of the world’s best-known and most controversial leaders, survived countless US assassination attempts and premature obituaries, but in the end proved mortal.’ In its 11th paragraph it mentioned ‘concerns over human rights under the Castro regime,’ but only insofar as they were mentioned by Francois Hollande rather than the paper itself. Any reader would have been forgiven for thinking that Castro was ‘controversial’ not for his vicious dictatorship and use of torture but simply because the CIA didn’t like his Marxism-Leninism. The Telegraph, disgracefully for a conservative newspaper, also headlined their obituary ‘Revolutionary hero’ and stated ‘At home, he swept away capitalism and won support for bringing schools and hospitals to the poor. But he also created legions of enemies and critics, concentrated among Cuban exiles in Miami who fled his rule and saw him as a ruthless tyrant.’ That implies that the Cubans living in Cuba itself loved him for his healthcare and educational reforms rather than secretly hating him for keeping their island living in the 1960s. When I visited Cuba last year, I saw how everywhere outside Havana was stuck in an earlier technological generation, with donkeys and carts carrying people to work rather than buses, and oxen being used agriculturally instead of tractors. Doctors earned more moonlighting as tourist guides in their much-vaunted health system. Amnesty International – which the Guardian would take note of when describing a fascist dictatorship – stated in its 2015/16 Report on Cuba that despite all the efforts by President Obama to normalise relations with the Castro regimes, ‘Government critics continued to experience harassment, “acts of repudiation” (demonstrations led by government supporters with participation of state security officials), and politically motivated criminal prosecutions. Reports continued of government critics, including journalists and human rights activists, being routinely subjected to arbitrary arrests and short-term detention for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly and movement.’ Fidel Castro was a foul tyrant and his brother Raul is no better. Free Western media outlets ought to have said so right at the top of their news reports, instead of admitting it towards the end like some uncomfortable detail. Andrew Roberts is a visiting professor of the war studies department of King’s College, London
It turns out being a dictator that brutalizes their own people is a good career path that leads to a long life if you avoid the assassination attempts.
I'm going to guess those Cubans celebrating his death are mainly of a lighter skin color. (Not to say darker skinned Cubans didn't hate Castro but it's not on the level as that of their their fellow Cubans.).
What Professor Roberts fails to realize is that you'll find a majority of those that don't outright consider Castro to be the devil a la Pinochet, Franco or Idi Amin, are from certain countries in Africa that Castro actually reached out to and assisted while they fought oppressive colonialists/apartheid and certain western countries hemmed and hawed. Add in the rights provided under his regime to Cubans of color which they didn't have prior to his ascension to power and that probably plays a part in why not everyone viewed him as the devil. He wasn't an angel of a leader but he also wasn't the devil.
For what? For saying what I know to be a fact? You don't have to agree with me, the world will keep on spinning and we'll all be ok.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/o...-in-cuba-the-revolution-hasnt-begun.html?_r=0 For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn’t Begun By ROBERTO ZURBANOMARCH 23, 2013 Cuba, though for Afro-Cubans like myself, this is more dream than reality. Over the last decade, scores of ridiculous prohibitions for Cubans living on the island have been eliminated, among them sleeping at a hotel, buying a cellphone, selling a house or car and traveling abroad. These gestures have been celebrated as signs of openness and reform, though they are really nothing more than efforts to make life more normal. And the reality is that in Cuba, your experience of these changes depends on your skin color. The private sector in Cuba now enjoys a certain degree of economic liberation, but blacks are not well positioned to take advantage of it. We inherited more than three centuries of slavery during the Spanish colonial era. Racial exclusion continued after Cuba became independent in 1902, and a half century of revolution since 1959 has been unable to overcome it. In the early 1990s, after the cold war ended, Fidel Castro embarked on economic reforms that his brother and successor, Raúl, continues to pursue. Cuba had lost its greatest benefactor, the Soviet Union, and plunged into a deep recession that came to be known as the “Special Period.” There were frequent blackouts. Public transportation hardly functioned. Food was scarce. To stem unrest, the government ordered the economy split into two sectors: one for private businesses and foreign-oriented enterprises, which were essentially permitted to trade in United States dollars, and the other, the continuation of the old socialist order, built on government jobs that pay an average of $20 a month. It’s true that Cubans still have a strong safety net: most do not pay rent, and education and health care are free. But the economic divergence created two contrasting realities that persist today. The first is that of white Cubans, who have leveraged their resources to enter the new market-driven economy and reap the benefits of a supposedly more open socialism. The other reality is that of the black plurality, which witnessed the demise of the socialist utopia from the island’s least comfortable quarters. Most remittances from abroad — mainly the Miami area, the nerve center of the mostly white exile community — go to white Cubans. They tend to live in more upscale houses, which can easily be converted into restaurants or bed-and-breakfasts — the most common kind of private business in Cuba. Black Cubans have less property and money, and also have to contend with pervasive racism. Not long ago it was common for hotel managers, for example, to hire only white staff members, so as not to offend the supposed sensibilities of their European clientele. That type of blatant racism has become less socially acceptable, but blacks are still woefully underrepresented in tourism — probably the economy’s most lucrative sector — and are far less likely than whites to own their own businesses. Raúl Castro has recognized the persistence of racism and has been successful in some areas (there are more black teachers and representatives in the National Assembly), but much remains to be done to address the structural inequality and racial prejudice that continue to exclude Afro-Cubans from the benefits of liberalization. Racism in Cuba has been concealed and reinforced in part because it isn’t talked about. The government hasn’t allowed racial prejudice to be debated or confronted politically or culturally, often pretending instead as though it didn’t exist. Before 1990, black Cubans suffered a paralysis of economic mobility while, paradoxically, the government decreed the end of racism in speeches and publications. To question the extent of racial progress was tantamount to a counterrevolutionary act. This made it almost impossible to point out the obvious: racism is alive and well. If the 1960s, the first decade after the revolution, signified opportunity for all, the decades that followed demonstrated that not everyone was able to have access to and benefit from those opportunities. It’s true that the 1980s produced a generation of black professionals, like doctors and teachers, but these gains were diminished in the 1990s as blacks were excluded from lucrative sectors like hospitality. Now in the 21st century, it has become all too apparent that the black population is underrepresented at universities and in spheres of economic and political power, and overrepresented in the underground economy, in the criminal sphere and in marginal neighborhoods. Raúl Castro has announced that he will step down from the presidency in 2018. It is my hope that by then, the antiracist movement in Cuba will have grown, both legally and logistically, so that it might bring about solutions that have for so long been promised, and awaited, by black Cubans. An important first step would be to finally get an accurate official count of Afro-Cubans. The black population in Cuba is far larger than the spurious numbers of the most recent censuses. The number of blacks on the street undermines, in the most obvious way, the numerical fraud that puts us at less than one-fifth of the population. Many people forget that in Cuba, a drop of white blood can — if only on paper — make a mestizo, or white person, out of someone who in social reality falls into neither of those categories. Here, the nuances governing skin color are a tragicomedy that hides longstanding racial conflicts. The end of the Castros’ rule will mean an end to an era in Cuban politics. It is unrealistic to hope for a black president, given the insufficient racial consciousness on the island. But by the time Raúl Castro leaves office, Cuba will be a very different place. We can only hope that women, blacks and young people will be able to help guide the nation toward greater equality of opportunity and the achievement of full citizenship for Cubans of all colors. Roberto Zurbano is the editor and publisher of the Casa de las Américas publishing house. This essay was translated by Kristina Cordero from the Spanish. A version of this op-ed appears in print on March 24, 2013, on page SR5 of the New York edition with the headline: For Blacks In Cuba, the Revolution Hasn’t Begun. Today's Paper|Subscribe
RIP El Comandante, now that you have passed the baton of lying scum foisted into power by stupid desperate people to your neighbor to the north. Enjoy your well-deserved rest with Mao and Stalin in the land famous for its sauna.
I don't think anyone really cares for Castro - most of the people singing his praises do so because they want good relations with his brother and to get access to Cuba. Castro will always be remembered for standing up to the U.S. more than anything. And baseball. His country is poor and miserable other than that.
