Thursday
Of course, it’s been half a century since Cuba has had a real new leader. This is one of the down sides to life extension.
On the other hand, as Aubrey de Grey pointed out at the LA conference, dictatorship is not a low-risk occupation.
On the other hand, technology seems to be increasing the power gap between government and citizens.
Posted by Hugo at April 23, 2009 04:51 PM
On the other hand, technology seems to be increasing the power gap between government and citizens.
Hello? You are posting this on ye olde internette, reaching thousands, millions, potentially billions of people. Brining the power of mass media to the masses has reduced the gap enormously.
On a different note, why hasn't the CIA ever assassinated Castro, especially after the SU collapse? Did they think he'd just die after a while?
Posted by lukas at April 23, 2009 05:32 PM
Surely the second "On the other hand" should have read "On the gripping hand"?
Posted by the other rob at April 23, 2009 05:34 PM
RRS: yes, indeed leader. He has been leading his country for a very long time. Where has he been leading it to is an entirely separate matter.
Posted by Alisa at April 23, 2009 07:41 PM
Leading?
He has just been squatting on the face of the place
for fifty years.
Happily living in that sunny paradise of equality, propped up by the Largesse of the old Soviet Union swapping crap sugar cane for oil. A political not economic deal.
Now they will have to make other arrangements.
Well it's warm, and not too many people get shot, they are pretty literate, even if they only have the Works El Castro to read...
A world in which your last new car was a 1962 Caddillac, held together with string would be a nightmare to me,
But George Monbiot probably thinks it's the future!
Posted by RAB at April 23, 2009 08:50 PM
Sorry RAB, but you are wrong. What you describe is more someone like Putin these days: you are pretty much left to your own devices as long as you are not directly threatening to him. Castro has been deliberately leading his people in a well defined direction. Incidentally it is the same one Obama is trying to lead us.
Posted by Alisa at April 23, 2009 09:23 PM
Any country that still runs 1962 Cadillacs is fine by me. Life was good in 1962.
Posted by John McClane at April 23, 2009 11:42 PM
The CIA has tried to assassinate Castro on many occasions (exploding cigars, anyone?), but has failed. And a good thing, too! They'd have turned him into a martyr for communism. Now he's just another pretentious dictator, with no excuses.
Posted by Nuke Gray! at April 24, 2009 04:37 AM
A minor error there Nuke Gray.
Plans and thought experiments ("what if we.....") are not assassination efforts.
The Agency was not always crap (even if it is these days).
Back in the 1960's if the order had been given by the President of the United States "I want Fidel Castro killed " he would have been killed.
But the will to clearly give the order was never there - it was all vague "well it would be nice if...." and "we know someone who is really close to Castro who might......"
Pathetic.
Posted by Paul Marks at April 24, 2009 10:05 PM
"Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" (Or revolutionary.)
I guess toadies aren't as good today as they were in Henry II's day.
Posted by Laird at April 24, 2009 11:47 PM
Paul Marks, according to your view of history, the Bay of Pigs should have been a success! If America wants something, America gets something!
But the CIA is not as successful as it wants us to think.
Posted by Nuke Gray! at April 27, 2009 02:06 AM
And when will the USA just give guantanamo base back to the natives? And agree never to interfere in Cuban affairs unless invaded by Cuba? Castro didn't come out of a vacuum, after all.
Posted by Nuke Gray! at April 27, 2009 02:16 AM
Castro didn't come out of a vacuum, after all.
That is correct. It is my understanding that there was a lot of Soviet and East German involvement. I also seem to recall that the US imposed trade restrictions on the Batista regime and told him to leave the country voluntarily, which he did as Castro occupied Havana. And that the US had stopped supplying Batista with arms way back in 1958. And that the US officially recognized the Castro regime a mere 6 days after the revolution succeeded. So yeah, there're a lot of decisions by foreign powers that allowed Castro an in.
Posted by Joshua at April 28, 2009 02:59 PM
Nuke Gray.
The Bay of Pigs site was decided on by President Kennedy (it was not the site either the CIA, very different to the modern C.I.A., or the miltary wanted).
And President Kennedy also refused to allow the air support that was promised to the exiles (by the way supporting the Republic of Vietnam without gaining control of the supply lines through Laos, against the warning of Ike, was another of J.F.K.s less than brillient command judgements - and, no, Laos could not be held by irregular forces and air power as J.F.K. and Johnson thought, only by the regular U.S. Army on the ground in large force).
I am not having a go at you Nuke Gray - but in history there is no subsitute for knowing the facts.
There is no such thing as a priori history - one of my problems with the Rothbardians.
Not that I would have supported the intervention of 1898.
Cuba should have been left under Spanish rule - independence had proved to be a mess long before Castro arrived.
As for the Americans and Castro - at first they supported him (quietly) as certain people did not like the racially mixed sergeant Batista.
Again you will not find that in the school history text books.
Posted by Paul Marks at April 28, 2009 05:16 PM
