Castro Well Enough to be a Candidate
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Steven Taylor | Wednesday, December 26, 2007 |
Via the BBC: Castro ‘well enough for election’
The health of Cuban President Fidel Castro is good enough for him to be a candidate in next month’s parliamentary elections, his brother Raul has said.
Which raises the question: apart from breathing, how healthy is “enough” to run, given that he won’t have to campaign or do much of anything else?
We often say that candidates “run” for office or “stand” for election. In Fidel’s case it may not necessarily be that either is the appropriate term (although Raul reports that Fidel is doing two hours of exercise a day, whatever that may mean).
About the Author: Steven is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Troy University in Alabama. He is the author of the book Voting Amid Violence: Electoral Democracy in Colombia, forthcoming from University of New England Press and the contributing editor on Colombia to the Library of Congress’s Handbook of Latin American Studies. He has his PhD from the University of Texas in Austin and a BA from the University of California at Irvine.
He does most of his blogging at PoliBlog, which he started in February 2003.
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although Raul reports that Fidel is doing two hours of exercise a day, whatever that may mean
My guess its breathing exercises that are being conducted. ;-)
I can only hope that Fidel is passing through the back door of his life as we anxiously await his ascension to that great commune in the sky.
Bon Voyage!
The hatred of Castro always fascinates me. In terms of modern rulers he is so far from the worst as to make the vitriol hurled at him an exercise in self beclowning.
The right's phobia towards communism is just wacky. Sure it's a bad system, no question. But then again it's not like Capitalism has been such a rousing success, now is it? So why the extremes of venom, especially at one tiny island nation, and the autocrat who runs it?
"The hatred of Castro always fascinates me."
I don't hate Castro, I think he is an entertaining and rather comical individual, if you are entertained and find comic relief at the point of a loaded gun.
"The right's phobia towards communism is just wacky."
That's right, they only killed tens of millions of people in the twentith century in Russia, China, and numerous third world countries. They just did not do it the right way, let us give them another chance.
"But then again it's not like Capitalism has been such a rousing success, now is it?"
Then gather yourself up a slate of communist to run at all levels of government and get them elected.
As I said. Fascinating.
That's right, they only killed tens of millions of people in the twentith century in Russia, China, and numerous third world countries. They just did not do it the right way, let us give them another chance.
By far the worst offenses in Russia were at the hands of Stalin who was in no way, shape, or form a communist. The Butcher's bill people try to hang on Mao is vastly inflated by blaming him for China's famine, a claim which is rather dubious. Yes he did institute the "Great Leap Forward" which was less than effective but China also suffering a numbr of natural calamities (floods, droughts, etc). The actual purges can certainly be laid on him but that cuts the death toll to way under ten million, unless you count the Revolution which was essentially a chinese civil war. I guess that make President Lincoln one of the greatest mass murderes of all time too.
Have communist regimes done bad things? Sure. Very bad. But to pretend like that's somehow peculiar to communism and not endemic of ALL states (inculding the good old USA) is ridiculous. Yes, the Rusians did horrible things in Chechnya, just as the Chinese did in Tibet, and the Germans did in Poland, and we did in Central America. Yes, the Russians and Chinese commited terrible offenses against their intelligentsia, as we have done to blacks and asians particularly.
Sausage, Politics, and Religion. Don't look too close if you're squeamish.
Tlaloc,
I won't be taking a dip in the sewage with you on trying to compare and equate Capitalism with Communism.
*shrug*
Can't say as I'm terribly surprised. I just wish I could understand the sort of mentality that freaks out about Castro but celebrates, say, Pinochet (as much of the right seems to).
Perhaps I'm overestimating just how much there is there to get.
