Fidel Castro was a symbol of the struggle for justice in the shadow of empire. Presente!
Harvard Kennedy School Professor George J. Borjas:
Fidel Castro died last night at age 90. My first reaction upon reading the news this morning was “Good riddance!”
As I recount in We Wanted Workers, I have many not-so-wonderful memories of growing up in the very early years of Castro’s Cuba. It has always pained me to see Americans who are so ignorant of what a communist dictatorship is about singing praises to the Castro regime. It pains me even more to see people who should know better, like Pope Francis, saying that the “death of Cuba’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro was ‘sad news’ and that he was grieving and praying for his repose.”
My family owned a small clothing factory prior to the revolution, and that factory was quickly confiscated after Castro’s takeover. Here are some personal and random vignettes of what it was like to live in a revolutionary utopia from the perspective of someone who was 10 or 11 years old at the time ...
Click over to read the rest.
5 comments:
JIll Stein proves once again, that Green is the new Red.
- Mississippi
They sure seem like watermelons to me.
When I die, I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like Fidel Castro, not screaming in terror, like his victims.
-Johan Norberg
https://twitter.com/johanknorberg/status/802465313581252608
forget the modicum of respect. I was wrong.
Jimmy Carter is bent as well.
Jimmy Carter Mourns Castro’s Death, Praises Dictator For ‘His Love Of His Country’
http://dailycaller.com/2016/11/26/jimmy-carter-mourns-castros-death-praises-dictator-for-his-love-of-his-country/
It is interesting that some dictators did seem to briefly have a desire to raise up the poor when they started out: Ceausescu, Hussein, even Castro a bit. And many of their initial followers were true idealists as well. But they wanted to punish the Wrong People more, and as soon as they had power, that is what they did.
It's part of why I left liberalism decades ago. Even among those who had a deep and legitimate concern for the poor and downtrodden, the desire to punish "oppressors" wherever they found them was stronger.
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