Ahem. Time to paraphrase my favorite movie.
There is no reason to plan for a future without Fidel. Fidel is immortal. He has existed from the morning of the world and he will exist until the last start falls from the night sky. Although he has adopted the form of Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, he is all men as he is no man and is thus a God.
I, at least, will mourn him when he dies, if only as the last survivor of a different time.
That he is . . . Kim Jong-un is no Fidel . . .
Are there any notable leftist revolutionaries in the world any more? I mean, “revolutionaries” who are not already in charge?
I think you’re more likely to see them model themselves after Costa Rica then China.
Frankly, the dropping of the economic sanctions and allowing them to start selling sugar and cigars to the US would be a massive boon to their economy.
How so?
But Florida’s sugar lobby will never allow it. Well-organized, they are. In 1996 they defeated a proposed penny-a-pound sugar tax to fund restoration of the Everglades. And they’re still going strong. And they have a PAC in Washington.
Okay, I’m going to play devil’s advocate.
How about a U.S. invasion to totally destroy any chance of a communist regime continuing in Cuba? A democratic government could be put in place with far more ease than, shall I say, Iraq.
And it would make the spirits of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Reagan very happy. GHW Bush would probably leap from his wheelchair in glee, too. I could see only President Carter as critical. (I’m not sure what President Clinton would think and I don’t care about GW Bush’s opinion - sorry.)
What would be the real world and political outcomes if we invaded?
I’m not advocating this. I’m just saying “what if…”
P.S. I’m well aware that most of the world - except perhaps the U.K. government - would not support such a move.
That is the one thing that would make young Cubans decide they like Communism.
We’d turn a enemy in name only into an actual, implacable enemy. A democratic nation by nature would be our enemy after we invaded them without provocation, slaughtered their people right and left, and purged them of “communist influences”. Which by nature would mean killing off a substantial portion of the population. The survivors would hate us for centuries.
I strongly recommend against this action, Captain. It would not be logical.
So you’re “just asking questions”?
Because culturally it’s far more similar culturally and has been a successful democracy for well over a hundred years and seems economically a better model than China, where something like 60% of the population lives without electricity and illiteracy is rampant.
No, I mean, what is the economic model of Costa Rica, and how does it differ from, say, El Salvador’s or Guatemala’s or Mexico’s?
Why the UK government? Is neocon influence still hanging on there?
For starters, Costa Rica has no army, so no waste of money on a big military force that is just itching for a coup. And I will assume here, but I think eco tourism could be a benefit to Cuba as it is in Costa Rica.
I think Cuba’s future lies more in another form of tourism prefaced by a three-letter word.
The UK government seems to do what it’s told to do by the US government.
What, still?!
Didn’t JFK promise this would never happen to get the Soviets to pull the missles out of Cuba?
No Administration is bound by a previous one’s promises unless they were embodied in a treaty.
Agreed. Roughly 10% of the country is set aside as national parks and they have one of the highest standard of livings if not the highest in Latin America as well as having a huge literacy rate.
One of my favorite stories about Costa Rica was how under Oscar Arias,* they decided to get the police/national guard new uniforms that looked less military so they let the children vote and the children selected light blue shirts and blue pants like the school uniforms.
Frankly, considering it’s size and it’s history of tourism, I think Cuba could do quite well.
Similarly, Cuba has a vastly more homogenous population than China.
Linguistically, perhaps; but it comes in more colors. A fact which has caused racial strife in Cuban society in the past. The Castro regime is generally agreed to have improved things significantly in that regard, but also to have some racism-problems of its own.