Comparing Castro and Hitler?

[alp227]

Charles P. Garcia is the CEO of Garcia Trujillo consulting firm, author of Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows, and a 1988-89 White House Fellow under Ronald Reagan. He made these assertions in an article "Is Castro Cuban-Americans' Hitler?" he wrote for CNN.com in response to the controversy over Miami Marlins baseball team manager Ozzie Guillen making comments praising Fidel Castro "I love Fidel Castro...A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that mother------ is still there.":

...to dismiss Guillen's words as inconsequential, so absurd as to not warrant serious analysis, is to ignore the depth and passion of Cubans who live in this country not as immigrants but as exiles.

Cuban-Americans were kicked out of Cuba by a hateful despot. As such, their view of Castro is imbued by violent, tragic experience and memory, and by a profound appreciation for the freedoms they now enjoy in the United States. That a public figure in sports claimed respect -- even love -- for Castro is despicable.

Older Cubans still recount with great pain their memories of Castro's infamous "paredons," or firing squads, to which he summarily subjected thousands of his enemies at the beginning of his revolution. As Amnesty International's reports document, the terror, torture and repression that Cubans continue to experience under Castro's brutal regime seem boundless. Activists against the regime are held for days in detention centers subject to "interrogations, intimidation, and threats. Beatings during detention have also been reported."

Guillen's words were an insult to all freedom-loving Americans, not just Cuban-Americans.

However, the most popular comments (up-voting doesn't require an account, just an IP address) disagree:

"Cuban-Americans were kicked out of Cuba by a hateful despot."

Really? Or was he a revolutionary who kicked out all the wealthy Americans, their businesses, a puppet regime and it's loyalists in the context of The Cold War, at a time when countries around the world were shedding the vestiges of colonialism and imperialism that shaped previous centuries?

...or whatever. He's the Cuban Hitler. Oversimplifications are fun.

I lived in Miami for many years and most Cubans would never go back nor would they join the fight to oust Fidel. They are fake republicans who really don't understand the Constitution and their culture is at odds with the Bill of Rights. I have read letters to the editor of the Miami Herald where on one July 4th, a Miami Cuban wrote, "Americans are too free. They say bad things about Ronald Reagan. This should not be allowed". I'll never forget that letter or those words. And the only reason they are Republican is because they blame Kennedy for the failure of the Bay of Pigs so they became Republican while not really understanding the party. The party today uses them as a political block, not as an idea incubator.

Let's also not forget the 20,000+ victims of Fulgencio Batista, who Castro overthrew. Let's also not forget that Batista did this with the support of many leading Cuban families who now constitute Miami's Cuban-American elite, the folks who now drive US policy on Cuba.

[flamingdem]

1. The non-Cuban Americans in Miami

are tired of the schtick. They make too much noise for their numbers now and never show any ability to update their Cold War rhetoric.

[saras]

2. Godwin award, delivered by drone missile.

What a fuckwad.

"...to dismiss Guillen's words as inconsequential, so absurd as to not warrant serious analysis, is to ignore the depth and passion of Cubans who live in this country not as immigrants but as exiles."

No, it doesn't. At the time they were the most corrupt, the most allied with the gangsters that ran Cuba. Any sensible country, of any governance, would have jailed or exiled most of them given the chance.

And their "depth and passion" are in fact irrelevant, OR WORSE, if they are in reaction to lies.