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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsClass is class - Jimmy Carter remembers Fidel Castro fondly
http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2016/11/26/jimmy-carter-remembers-fidel-castro-fondly/<snip>
Former President Jimmy Carter had kind words for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who died Friday, saying in a statement he and his wife remember fondly our visits with him in Cuba and his love of his country.
Castro, who was 90, was long a scourge of the U.S. who brought the Cold War to Americas doorstep. But he and Carter, a Georgia native, had warmer relations.
Carter took a step to normalize relations between the two nations during his presidency, and the two shared several visits, including a 2011 journey where Castro called Carter a friend.
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I loved Fidel and love Jimmy Carter
malaise
(269,054 posts)<snip>
To his critics, the late Fidel Castro was a totalitarian despot, an opponent of free speech and a man determined to preserve his hard-won revolution whatever the cost.
But to his defenders and admirers, he was a leader whose enlightened and practical approach to social care provided Cuba with enviable health and education systems.
Figures from the UN childrens agency, Unicef, show that Cubas youth literacy rate stands at 100%, as does its adult literacy rate. In Mexico, youth literacy is around 98.5%, while adult literacy is at 93.5%. In the Dominican Republic, meanwhile, youth literacy is at 98.1% for females aged 15-24, 96.1% for males of the same age, and adult literacy is at 90%.
Many of the educational gains were made in the early years of the revolution, not least during the 1961 literacy campaign that saw hundreds of thousands of Cubans, including schoolchildren, mobilising to educate their compatriots.
Don't you love the silence here
oberliner
(58,724 posts)When you can just shut down the opposition and send any dissenters to prison.
tenderfoot
(8,437 posts)eom
oberliner
(58,724 posts)That's the difference.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)Okay, he made a good health care system from a very educated pool of people on the island. And it cost everyone in Cuba their democratic rights and human rights.
Many countries have good health care systems without giving up their rights. Castro was a tyrant, as the 1.5 million who fled the country can attest.
I just lost all respect for Carter.
Judi Lynn
(160,545 posts)cwydro
(51,308 posts)He's a decent and honorable man who contributes more to this world in a week than most will do in a lifetime.
ericson00
(2,707 posts)no one who is labeled a Democrat should be supporting the most undemocratic and tyrannical regime in this hemisphere.
malaise
(269,054 posts)by US interests.
ericson00
(2,707 posts)and they didn't linger forever either.
malaise
(269,054 posts)I'm trying to process how folks claim to support democracy when it applies to their country but imperialists for others. That thinking partly explains why liberal democratic parties are in such trouble these days.
ericson00
(2,707 posts)like Russia (see the USSR's record), Germany, Japan, or even the British and French empires.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)If you're going to sit here and try to re-write history, at least provide some citations.
ericson00
(2,707 posts)the USSR's many colonies across Europe, it's brutal crushing of nationalist movements of Soviet Republics during and after the Bolshevik Revolution, ...
rug
(82,333 posts)malaise
(269,054 posts)AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,545 posts)He was bumped out of office, in the end, but in his 35 years, he massacred indigenous people, genocide, he moved survivors into servitude, he gave have to the world's notorious Angel of Death from Auschwitz concentration camp, a man who tortured and terrorized Jewish prisoners, Dr. Josef Menegele.
He was ALWAYS A-OK with the US government, and our corporate media NEVER uttered a squeak of gossip about that monster, no propaganda flying out to the idiot class of US Americans to spread hatred and viciousness about him. Why is that?
burrowowl
(17,641 posts)200,000 to 250,000 Guatemalan Indigenous people massacred under Reagan-Bush by U$ backed dictator through Iran-Contra.
brooklynite
(94,598 posts)How many people were posting anti-Castro comments in Cuba?