Fidel Castro is dead

[Scooter]

Watching it on TV, haven't seen any online stories about it yet.

[Gob]

http://www.smh.com.au/world/former-cuba ... sy899.html

[Lord Jim]

It's a damn shame...

It's a damn shame it didn't happen a lot sooner...

In Miami, celebrations break out after Fidel Castro's death

MIAMI — Carolina Nunez Plasencia was sound asleep early Saturday morning when she got the call from her daughter telling her the news: Fidel Castro was dead.

"Is it real?" Plasencia asked. "Is it confirmed?"

Once Plasencia turned on the TV and realized that it was not another rumor, she raced to Little Havana to join the thousands of other Cuban-Americans who took to the streets to celebrate the day they had all waited so long for.

In every corner of this Cuban-American city, people waved Cuban flags, honked their horns, banged their pots and pans and hugged each other late into the night. Police departments blocked off roads to allow people to have their moment.

There were Cubans who left the island shortly after Castro took power in 1959, expecting that his rule would be short-lived and they'd be back home soon. There were Cubans who have poured out of the island in the decades since, fleeing political persecution and economic ruin.

"It's the first step on the road to change," said Valencia, 59, an architect and former U.S. Army pilot who left Cuba when he was 13. "The change could be fast, it could be slow, but this is the start."

Luis Iznaga, 77, watched quietly as jubilant people bounced past him. The Havana native who left the island in 1972 said he struggled with the idea of celebrating any man's death.

But Iznaga said Castro deserved a different kind of treatment. He listed off his friends who were forced to flee the communist island. He talked about other friends who couldn't get out, forced to stay and survive there. He spoke of friends who left their parents behind, never to see them again.

"This is different because Castro affected so many people," Iznaga said. "There's so much misery and sorrow that he created. Pain accumulates. It must be released."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/worl ... /94465040/

Scenes from Miami:









Sorry I missed the party...

Now if his brother can just be talked into jumping into the grave with him...

[Jarlaxle]

He didn't suffer enough.

[RayThom]

Well, it's about time. Every time I saw him lately I kept thing about "weekend With Bernie."

[dales]

Since the United States has somewhat normalized relations with Cuba, will we send a delegation expressing our "sympathy"?

[Econoline]

[Scooter]

Trump fails his first diplomatic test

[Joe Guy]

Well, I'm very depressed about Castro's death. I was watching CNN's series, 'The 70s' when they came in with "Breaking News," and didn't only announce his death, they continued to talk about him for hours. Now I'll never know whether or not Roe v Wade passed....

[BoSoxGal]

Our long national nightmare is just beginning.

[Scooter]

I was watching CNN's series, 'The 70s' when they came in with "Breaking News,"

That was exactly how I heard it.

[Scooter]

Langley, VA – A decades-long plot to get Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to pass away peacefully in his sleep has come to fruition, according to a statement from the CIA.

“We are proud to announce that our 53 years of patience have finally paid off,” said CIA spokesperson Ryan Trimarchi. “It seems silly in retrospect, but when President Kennedy first approved the plan there were many detractors who said it would fail.”

First hatched in 1963, so-called “Operation Sit-Back-And-Let-It-Happen” was one of many CIA plots intended to end the life of the Communist revolutionary and the only one to succeed. The mission’s completion was formally declared after Cuban State television announced Castro’s death at the age of 90.

“It’s just a shame that JFK didn’t live to see it,” Trimarchi added. “Or Johnson. Or Nixon. Ditto Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. They all would’ve been real proud.”

The CIA’s announcement has been met with praise by Cuban-Americans, including policy advocate Mauricio Diaz.

“I give the CIA a lot of credit for being willing to play the long game in bringing down this oppressive dictator,” said the lobbyist and director of the Cuban Liberty PAC. “Until now no one in Cuba realized that ‘failures’ like the Bay of Pigs and all those assassination attempts were just a great cover for this master plan.”

“Now all we need to do is wait 5 or 6 years for Raul to have an aneurysm and we can finally bring Democracy to the Cuban people,” added Diaz.

The top secret plot is considered the longest continuous operation in CIA history. When the Cuban President outlived the operation’s initial target date of 2003, George W. Bush approved an additional 15 years of funding to send agents to hang around Havana. When Castro’s health led him to abdicate power in 2008, the CIA focused their efforts on deploying SR-71 Blackbirds daily to take pictures and confirm whether he was “still moving”.

“Some felt the program was wasteful, but there’s no denying it didn’t work,” said Trimarchi.

“And now, thanks to these efforts, Fidel Castro is no longer a threat to our democracy,” he concluded.

[liberty]

The Bible say’s you reap what you sow, but that was not the case for Castro. He sowed a lot oppression and reaped a long life. Who can understand the ways of God.

I have no proof, but I will always believe that Castro had something to do the assassination of President Kennedy. I doubt the world will ever know now; I can‘t see it having been documented by the Cuban Government and most of that generation is dead now.

[RayThom]

... Who can understand the ways of God... I have no proof, but I will always believe that Castro had something to do the assassination of President Kennedy. I doubt the world will ever know now; I can‘t see it having been documented by the Cuban Government and most of that generation is dead now.

Well nourished conspiracy theories never die. This is the greatest "who done it" in all of American history. The CIA, the Mafia, the KGB, Castro, LBJ, Space Aliens, Big Business, Umbrella Man, even the limo driver. The list goes on and on. Personally, when you check the facts I'm pretty sure it was the worst case of suicide ever. On top of all this, who out there doesn't believe the Zapruder film was photo shopped? I bet even God is uncertain.

Regardless, Fidel is dead and, just like the JFK assassination, his contributions to the Cuban people will live on forever.

[Gob]

Fidel Castro, who has died aged 90, was a "huge figure in our lives", Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said.



Mr Corbyn praised the former Cuban president's revolutionary "heroism", his presence on the world stage and Cuba's health and education systems.

Mr Corbyn, a long-time supporter of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign - which campaigns against the blockade on, and foreign intervention in, Cuba - described Mr Castro as a "huge figure of modern history, national independence and 20th Century socialism".

He said: "From building a world-class health and education system, to Cuba's record of international solidarity abroad, Castro's achievements were many.

"For all his flaws, Castro's support for Angola played a crucial role in bringing an end to apartheid in South Africa and he will be remembered both as an internationalist and a champion of social justice."

He acknowledged "there were problems and there are problems of excesses by all regimes" but "we have to look at the thing in its totality" and Mr Castro had "seen off a lot of US presidents".

Former Labour London mayor Ken Livingstone called Mr Castro an "absolute giant" of the 20th Century.

Former Labour MP George Galloway tweeted a picture of himself with Mr Castro, writing: "You were the greatest man I ever met Comandante Fidel. You were the man of the century."

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Fidel Castro had been a "historic, if controversial figure".

Mr Johnson expressed the UK's condolences to the government and people of Cuba, and said Mr Castro's death marked "the end of an era for Cuba and the start of a new one for Cuba's people".

He added: "The UK will continue to work with the government of Cuba on a wide range of foreign policy priorities, including on human rights."

[dales]

[liberty]

http://babalublog.com/fidel-castros-gre ... s-in-cuba/

Fidel Castro’s firing squads in Cuba
Fidel Castro is often portrayed as the “benevolent” dictator of Cuba, such portrayals are unarguably wrong. The evidence of his bloodthirsty and murderous nature is unequivocal and available for anyone who wants to know the truth. Unfortunately such evidence is rarely discussed by the news media and at schools. There’s perhaps no more grizzly atrocity committed by Fidel Castro than the firing squads which he implemented. Beginning as a rebel, before he would eventually take power in Cuba, Fidel Castro used firing squad executions to enforce discipline, punish followers deemed disloyal or intimidate potential opposition. At the beginning of the Castro regime there was a reign of terror typical of revolutions in which the firing squad was used prominently but the executions continued for decades.

The Cuba Archive which documents deaths and disappearances resulting from Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution has documented 3,615 firing squad executionsconducted by the Cuban state since Castro took over on January 1, 1959.

Opponents of the death penalty should be horrified at the amount of death Fidel Castro and his accomplices have directly caused. It’s important to note that in Revolutionary Cuba there are none of the due process guarantees found in a western-style democracy. Most of Castro’s firing squad victims were afforded only a perfunctory show trial the outcome of which was predetermined, some didn’t even get that. Ernesto “Ché” Guevara is a popular culture icon, his face adorns posters and t-shirts around the globe. Most people don’t realize that he was Fidel Castro’s chief enforcer and had a personal hand in at least 100 firing squad executions, often delivering the coup de grace personally. In response to questions about Castro’s firing squads Guevara once said, “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution. And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.”

[Bicycle Bill]

The Cuba Archive which documents deaths and disappearances resulting from Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution has documented 3,615 firing squad executions conducted by the Cuban state since Castro took over on January 1, 1959.

Meanwhile, in Chiraq alone, there have been 610 people killed by gun violence as of today — "firing squad executions", if you will, carried out by people exercising their right to bear arms under the 2nd Amendment — and last year there were over 500.  Imagine, over 1100 dead in less than two years in just one American city alone!

Compare that to 3615 'executions' in Castro's Cuba, over a FIFTY-FIVE YEAR PERIOD!!, and we see that el Supremo was a piker when it comes to extra-judicial murder.

And the beat goes on.

-"BB"-

[wesw]

don t leave it on me to rebut all the dishonest bullshit.

someone else should grow a set and call Bargain Bill on his crap.

[Bicycle Bill]

don t leave it on me to rebut all the dishonest bullshit.

someone else should grow a set and call Bargain Bill on his crap.

Well, I suppose comparing a few deaths over the weekend in Murderland Chicago to a 'firing squad execution' was a little over the top in that there was no one standing off to the side shouting "Listo ... Objetivo ... FUEGO!"   I'm sure that made all the difference to the victims.  However ....
● FACT:  There were over 500 murders by gun violence in Chicago, IL in calendar year 2015.
● FACT:  So far this year there have been another 610 ... with one month to go.
● FACT:  500 + 610 is more than 1100.
So if I accept the Cuba Archive's figures, as cited by liberty, as correct and compare my FACTUAL numbers to theirs, then tell me ...
What did I say that is patently incorrect?



That's the problem with being a Trump supporter. You can't handle the facts.

-"BB"-