Shakes Fist In Air, Screams “Caaaaaaastrooooooo”
That Fidel Castro. He might be 130 years old and in terrible health. But his power to destroy America remain unlimited. Just ask New Jersey Congressman Albio Sires, who blames recent allegations against Senator Robert Menendez on the nefarious island nation of Cuba:
“I won’t even be surprised if somehow the Cuban government is involved in this to try to damage Bob Menendez because he’s been so steadfast against the Castro government. He’s been a critic all his political life,” Sires said in a phone interview. “I would not be surprised if they are behind some of this stuff, some of these allegations. The Dominican Republic has a lot of relationships with Cuba.”
Sires, who like Menendez (D-N.J). is Cuban-American, succeeded him in the House when Menendez was elevated to the Senate.
Menendez has denied anonymous allegations that he had trysts with prostitutes, some of them underage, at a Dominican Republic condo owned by wealthy eye doctor and campaign donor Salomon Melgen. But Menendez’s office has said the senator reimbursed Melgen $58,500 for two round trip flights on his private jet on January 4 of this year—more than two years after the trips, and without disclosing them.
The Dominican Republic does share a lot in common with Cuba. Both have long histories of exploitation by Spain and then the United States. Both were sugar colonies where slaves were sent from Africa to be worked to death. And Fidel Castro was very good friends with psychopathic Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo… Wait, what? No, that was the U.S. who supported that murderer for decades. Oh right. Well then, the DR and Cuba are basically one and the same because they are both island nations and speak Spanish and also some other things that I’m sure I’ll think of at some point. I guess the real question is how Puerto Rico is involved. A Cuban 5th column under the American flag! What will Castro think of next?!
Seriously, is there anything Cuban-Americans won’t blame on Castro?
Castro was behind the Super Bowl power outage. He also cancelled Firefly.
If you tell me Castro is the reason why we never had a 4th season of Deadwood, I’m becoming a Republican.
Castro was the person responsible for Starbuck being an angel.
Castro ate my baby.
Rick Sanchez?
Rick Sanchez blames himself on Castro . . . wait, what?
Castro can never die, as he is Satan in human form. Ask any rightwinger.
Actually I think Castro is considerably more admirable than Che Guevara who could not even defeat the pitiful Bolivian army. Of all the actually existing examples of socialism I would say Cuba was probably the best model in that it accomplished a lot of the same economic and social improvements of the USSR without the terror of Stalin or even of Lenin. If most communist states had turned out like Cuba under Castro rather than the USSR under Stalin like they did I think there would have been a lot less reason to oppose communism. Among those states that copied the Soviet disasters of dekulakization followed by artificial famine as well as the mass use of political terror were China, North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Ethiopia. Or basically all of the socialist countries in the underdeveloped world except Cuba.
Or basically all of the socialist countries in the underdeveloped world except Cuba.
Scandinavia would like a word with you.
Scandinavia is underdeveloped? How did that happen? Did the French colonize Sweden and extract all its resources while I wasn’t looking?
Well, it was:
My namesake was himself part of an effort to promote Swedish autarky as a response to Sweden’s relative poverty.
Mal:
Underdeveloped is not a synonym for undeveloped. It has a specific technical meaning referring to the fact that a country is less developed than it would have been otherwise due to economic exploitation by imperial powers. Sweden in the 18th Century was not underdeveloped, just not very developed. For a good discussion of the term underdevelopment with reference to Africa see Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa 1973.
Mr. Pohl,
Your comments have substance.
And of course, they did bring in a Frenchman to found a new royal house . . .
Well, a Gascon. Not a real Frenchman, clearly.
Che benefits from the same thing that makes historians rank JFK as a top 10 president- good looks and an early death.
The CIA were able to track him by using satellite imagery to locate his fires from his camps. Che suffered from asthma, and he needed the fires in order to treat his condition.
OTOH, there are some revolutionaries whose names aren’t as well-known to the general public, but managed to pull off some Mad Scientist/Blofeld/Die Hard-style attacks:
http://www.cracked.com/article_20033_5-ridiculous-assassination-plots-that-actually-worked_p2.html#ixzz2K54Uv5Q4
Israel?
The massive expulsions of the Palestinians in 1947-1949 were in consciously modeled after Stalin’s deportation of the Volga Germans and Crimean Tatars. The forcibly deportation of 750,000 people into refugee camps would count as mass terror. Also as a settler colony Israel is not underdeveloped rather the Jewish colonists underdeveloped Palestine just as Afrikaners underdeveloped Blacks in South Africa.
Castro used to be Satan, but not so much any more.
I was listening to Boston’s wingnut radio today (over the internet, early morning hours there), and a caller suggested that Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are a trinity that is Satan. And he seemed quite sure of that. So, there.
That makes just as much sense as claiming Scandinavia is underdeveloped.
Hey, lighten up, brother.
Just have to adjust to the super-dry humor. I’m curious if there are jokes in J. Otto Pohl’s dissertation.
This theory is clearly flawed. It takes two more to form Satan Voltron.
I’m fairly certain that Satan is more of a “Captain Planet” kind of figure.
As Christianity took hold in Europe in the first millennium CE, the old pagan deities were first seen as demons, and then demoted to relatively harmless goblins, fairies, etc. Does that mean Castro is now on a par with Tinker Bell?
Living im Miami since before most of you were born, it never ceases to amaze me how much Cuban Americans fail to understand how little I give a fuck about Cuba or Castro.
Being in a Cuban-American family for almost a quarter century now, it never ceases to amaze me how much my relatives fail to understand the small percentage of a fuck I give about Cuba or Castro.
(I know I just ripped off your comment, but you basically stole what I was going to say.)
And it’s Castro’s fault he did :)
Seriously, is there anything Cuban-Americans won’t blame on Castro?
It’s been a winning strategy for half a century. Why change now?
“Castro you bearded fag! I’ll chase you through the streets of Havana in my fucking F-4!”
Robert Duvall in The Great Santini
Huh.
I’d honestly thought Castro had died.
Dude’s hanging in there.
You know, I think I’m gonna go play some Tropico.
Man, I absolutely love that series.
I was thinking about getting one of the series. Which one would you suggest?
Can’t you get them all in a combo pack for like 20 bucks?
Haven’t played them in ages, so I may be wrong…
You can, but it’s sort of pointless.
Get four, Major Kong. It’s basically one and three, but with the rough patches of both ironed out.
(Tropico 2 was some really weird pirate island thing.)
Thanks
Is Castro nearing death yet? I come from a Cuban family, grew up in Miami. I want to witness the shitshow firsthand. I wonder if it will rival the Elian stuff or if the people who still care are too old.
Hell, I imagine I’ll get invites to a huge family party.
There will be a huge party, with only a few people realizing near the end of it that the handover of power was years ago and it means absolutely nothing.
It still bugs me that JFK is so overrated. We don’t need soaring rhetoric. We need a Democrat with big brass balls, a legislative genius, an asshole liberal, not a nice guy. An LBJ minus the bombing of Southeast Asia.
Woah. Are you obliquely criticising LBJ’s foreign policy? I thought that never happened on LGM, and that everyone here viewed him through uncritical rose-tinted glasses.
Mind: blown.
I’m confident he is just adhering to LGM policy of adding a foreign policy disclaimer to all LBJ postings.
It’s in that rotating set of quotes at the top of the page. You just have to keep looking at it for a while*.
*I, as an anonymous internet person, promise this statement to be true.
Jesus H Tittyfucking Christ, all I’m saying is I want another Democrat with LBJ’s legislative talent and contrasting that with the sort of useless soaring JFK rhetoric. It’s not an original thought, I just wonder if a Democrat who can bend Congress to his will is even possible anymore. I’m not looking to write a fucking apologia of the Johnson Administration or Scott’s LBJ posts.
sibusosidan or however you spell that was referring to an earlier discussion about how no one on this site ever criticizes the Vietnam war at excruciating length, and therefore we’re all a bunch of partisan hacks. Or something. Sounds like you missed it, and how lucky you are.
Ah I found it. Yeesh. Yes I was never an LBJ fan until I read master of the senate. All I want is another master of the senate.
I can’t reply directly on my phone to comment 32 but yes. I dunno, commenters are individuals, not a hive mind. I’m not saying I want another LBJ, because there’s a lot of exceptions and qualifications I have to make to not endorse some pretty awful things. All I was trying to say was give me an asshole legislative genius over a charming, attractive man who just gave good speeches.
You’re not part of the Liberal Hivemind? Intruder! Intruder! Destroy!
You know who let him in here….
jerry seinfeld’s voice from that ee movie
Drudge is a Cuban fifth columnist? Wow! That explains a LOT.
Oh right. Well then, the DR and Cuba are basically one and the same because they are both island nations and speak Spanish and also some other things that I’m sure I’ll think of at some point.
Baseball.