I hope I get so many obituaries while I’m alive.
First, Chris Bertram sings Castro’s praises - though not to praise him, apparently, merely to counter those who disparage him. We all need hobbies.
Next, Brad DeLong condemns him on the grounds that authoritarian communism is a crappy ways to run a country. Which is so. Still.
It seems to me that Castro’s Cuba is exceptional for two reasons: the regime’s longevity, and its extremely lucrative client-state relationship with the USSR – everything flows from these two points, and the first owes a lot to the second (while it lasted). People may argue that, financial considerations aside, Castro was sympatico with Moscow. Maybe so. Maybe the people who run Pepsi’s ad campaign truly believe it’s the choice of a whole new generation; maybe the people who write for TCS honestly believe that global warming is a myth invented by commie luddites; I’m sure that you all laugh extra-loud at your boss’s jokes because they are always extra-funny. I believe all this and more. People can be so cynical sometimes.
Apart from that, it’s hard to see what the fuss is about, except the inevitable fussing about the fuss. Castro was a Communist in the 50′s, like basically half of everybody. It is not fashionable these days to question the wisdom of capitalism, as one can’t point to a successful modern economy which is not a variation on this theme. In the first half of the last century, this was not true – not in America, and most definitely not in the Third World. Probably 50 years from now we’ll roll our electroeyes that proto-androids ever questioned the wisdom of our infallible One World Robotarchy; but now’s not the rocketcar future, and 50 years ago isn’t now.
Castro’s human rights record is generally lousy, but not remarkably so. Cuba had some success with education and health care – even after the rubles stopped flowing, though obviously less - but many countries have done more with less. One can find reasons to nurse a special grudge against Communist Cuba, but one can find reasons to hold a grudge against 85% of the world (and 85% of the world can find reasons to reciprocate.) Holding grudges for a thousand-plus years is no trick – look at Ireland, look at the Middle East, look at the Balkans. Letting them go takes some effort, but not so much, and the benefits are real and lasting.
And if we have to totally hate an island, can we pick one that’s not nearby, with great weather, music, and food? Embargo Greenland. Fuck those losers.
[Shorter this post: get over the sixties, people. Then get over it some more. I'll tell you when to stop.]
February 21, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Very true. The fruits of capitalism in the first part of the 20th century were the Great War and the Great Depression within 15 years of each other. More than enough evidence to discredit it for a generation. Capitalist economies were impressively outperformed for a decade in the 1930s by the apparent alternatives – European-style goose-stepping race-baiting paranoid Fascism, or Russian-style goose-stepping class-baiting paranoid Communism.
Plenty of Americans who opposed Communism were quite open in their admiration for Herr Hitler’s impressive train schedules, autobahns, and tank factories.
Modern-day FDR-and-New-Deal haters don’t realize he essentially saved capitalism as a credible economic system by addressing the harshness faced by the aged and infirm.
February 21, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Chris Bertam is a commie. I don’t know why we let foreigners have the Internet if they’re just going to write stuff like that. Can there be a decent Europe?
February 21, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Can I stop getting over it now ?
Can I stop getting over it now ?
February 21, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Castro? Isn’t he a gay guy in San Francisco?
February 21, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Once, one could know that a given government somewhere might actually do right for somebody someplace. But sadly, this has become a physical impossibility after postmodernism. We must each forget about the happier times of the past and bravely face our grim future.
February 21, 2008 at 6:56 pm
I really think part of the reason politics is so messed up now is because the opinion-makers are still stuck in the 60s. The right is still in full-on commie scare, kill the hippies mode, when there hasn’t been a commie or a hippie in sight for 2 decades. On the other hand the left consists of an extremely tiny but vocal fraction of genuine hippies and commies that have absolutely no power, and the remainder of the left, which is so busy running away from the former, they ended up where the right used to be.
February 21, 2008 at 7:16 pm
I, for one, look forward to the paradise that will be post-Castro Cuba. All those expatriates in Florida will be re-united with Saint Elian of the Dolphins, to rebuild their magical land of rainbows, unicorns, Batista and Meyer Lansky.
Or maybe fill it with Walmarts and sweatshops. Whatever.
February 21, 2008 at 7:29 pm
As per usual, the last laugh is Fidel’s. His announcement is formal confirmation of a transition that has already happened: the handoff of supreme political power in Cuba from one Castro to another. Nonetheless, Fidel is by no means gone from the Cuban political scene, his ailing health permitting. As The Editors notes, he is not yet dead. And he didn’t exactly resign, since Raúl has served as interim President of the Council of State since July 2006. What he did was make clear he will not seek reelection to this post when the National Assembly selects the Council’s members this Sunday. Raúl will most likely get it. Fidel is still a member of Cuba’s National Assembly, and he could very well be elected to another position on the Council of State. He will certainly continue to write and publish his reflections, and tea-leaf readers of all persuasions will continue to mull over them and yell at each other about them. He will also certainly have a say, though now not the definitive one, on the next transition, the one from Raúl, who’s 76, to the next generation of leadership.
And when he does finally retire from politics, which will probably correspond with his physical passing, we’ll get another flowery announcement and another international brouhaha. Something to look forward to, and something you can bet Fidel is already strategizing and smirking about.
February 22, 2008 at 12:31 am
You can.
February 22, 2008 at 12:33 am
And probably a Brit, and thus a resident of a far-off island with dreadful weather and chip butties with marmite. Make my day.
February 22, 2008 at 5:15 am
I gather you beggars want to slap an embargo on Britain, now?
Visca el Marmitistas!
February 22, 2008 at 7:05 am
After Castro is gone (and my transcopterization is complete) I’m going to open a pork auction site in Havana named “eBay of Pigs.”
February 22, 2008 at 9:40 am
No, fuck you.
February 22, 2008 at 10:03 am
If we’re going to embargo an island, it should be Pitcairn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_Island
February 22, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Modern-day FDR-and-New-Deal haters don’t realize he essentially saved capitalism as a credible economic system by addressing the harshness faced by the aged and infirm.
And quite possibly averting some sort of revolutionary uprising; people start considering drastic options when they can’t see any way of meeting their basic needs. If some heartless incompetent boob like Bush had been in charge during the depression, would we have the same largely laissez-faire capitalist system as we do now? These jokers should offer prayers of gratitude to an FDR shrine every damn day.
February 22, 2008 at 6:35 pm
” Cuba had some success with education and health care – even after the rubles stopped flowing, though obviously less – but many countries have done more with less.”
i hate to get all truthy on your ass but, this is not true. no country has done more with less. it’s possible you might have wanted to say ‘many countries do less with more,’ which would certainly be accurate.
also the rubles stopped flowing in the late 80s. how bad is cuba? there is actually a semi-objective standard for determining such things. would you rather live in cuba or us oriented paradises (paradisos?) like colombia, guatemala and panama? there are dictators and then there are just plain dicks. fidel is more of the former and less of the latter. i say this as someone who actually has lived under several dictatorships and can subjectively evaluate him on a dictator ranking scale of my own devising. thank you, that is all.
February 22, 2008 at 7:15 pm
India. South Korea. Mexico. Half the world, actually. I’m glad he’s your favorite dictator – mine’s Islam Karimov, btw – but all sorts of free societies with much much greater natural and political handicaps and no superpower sugardaddies have left Cuba far, far behind.
February 23, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Depends who you get to be, doesn’t it? I actually do live in Guatemala and have been to Cuba twice, and I’d say that all the way down through the middle class (ie, the top 10% in both places) Guatemala is the place to be. There’s probably another 30% (the upper-lower class) where it’s a wash. And being really poor, really sucks, in either place, though obviously even then it’s nice (and healthy) to be able to read so Cuba wins there. But even if you have to roll the dice, it is possible to reasonably choose Guatemala.
No great fan of Glorious Capitalism, and being embargoed may have something to do with that, and all. But to say that Cuba is just objectively better-off than Guate is misleading.
February 24, 2008 at 4:09 pm
It’s Raúl!