The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Jeffrey Goldberg has been writing about his recent visit with Fidel Castro for The Atlantic. His first installment made news as the kinder, gentler Fidel, among other things, expressed regret at his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Goldberg’s latest chapter is really bizarre, involving bread dipped in olive oil, Che Guevara’s daughter, the weight of the average dolphin, a nuclear physicist who was made Director of an aquarium, and—oh, yeah—the pronouncement from Castro that “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.” It also features a photo of Castro not only out of uniform, but dressed in a what appears to be a red-checkered flannel shirt, looking as if he were heading up to a mountain cabin for the weekend to see if the trout were biting.
In short, good old Fidel appears to have turned a bit loopy. Not enslaving-a-people-and-crushing-dissent loopy, but more like isn’t-uncle-Moe-acting-a-bit-strange loopy. It sounds weird, but Goldberg appeared to have a good time with the new Fidel, and I can understand why. He was fun. It was kind of encouraging to see that even a Third World Dictator can loosen up after a half-century and toss off wisecracks. It makes you wonder how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would look in red-checkered flannel.
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May '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Golly! I expect he'll soon be co-hosting a call-in show on cable news.
May '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Fun or not, the guy's a monster. I hope Goldberg put a "kick me" sign on the old fart's back.
Jun '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Goldberg: Ha Ha Ha! Fidel you slay me!
Fidel: That can be arranged. Let me tell you about the guy who gave me the the finger before we shot him. My good pal, Che, went up to him and shot his finger off before we blew him away. That Che, what a card.
Edited on Sep 8, 2010 at 6:44pmRe: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Forget the flannel. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in an orange jumpsuit would be a decent start.
Jun '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Mahmoud meet Bunky, your new roomy, ain't he cute?
Jul '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Some men just get sexier as they age.
Who's an adorable ol' daddy bear? You are. Yes you are!
I wonder if Goldberg asked him for a hug...
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
This one hits close to home, Pat--my wife is Cuban--so may I make, briefly, the obvious point? While Jeffrey Goldberg was having a good time with Fidel, a minimum of several hundred Cuban men and women were suffering in brutal, filthy prisons for having done nothing other than insist on human rights on their island--and this past winter, while Fidel was continuing his long recuperation, a 42-year old man, Orlando Zapata, an ordinary laborer, went on a hunger strike to protest conditions in Cuban jails, starving to death.
Jul '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Every American should read Armando Valladares' "Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life In Castro's Gulag".
We use the word "courageous" far too lightly these days.
Read Valladares and learn what true courage is.
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Peter: One of the great mysteries of life is how many on the Left have adopted this monstrous man as some sort of heroic figure. And now we have light-hearted romps with Uncle Fidel and American writers. Bizarre and sad.
Jun '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
What is beyond me, Peter, is how one side of the political spectrum can see the Orlando Zapata's starving while the other side of that same spectrum can be so blind to it. Yet, we are the ones labelled as hidebound and ignorant.
I would never sport with how a man might face death, but it's poetic justice that when the Bolivians dragged Che, the man who oversaw and ordered between 1,700 and 1,800 executions by firing squad, to his appointment with their firing squad, this hero of the revolution, this icon of misery and bad taste, begged, cried, and pleaded for his worthless life.
Jul '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Consider, Pat. Most guys on the left are skinny little metrosexual wusses.
They think they should be ruling the word, but meanwhile, even their daughters laugh every time they throw a ball like a sissy.
But if they squint real, real hard, they can picture themselves like Fidel, all butch in his crisp military drag, with that manly beard, holding the masses in thrall for hours...and...hours...and hours.
Man crush.
And the idea...oh the delicious idea...of clapping one's vile Right-wing opponents in irons...it just makes a little boy swoon.
Edited on Sep 8, 2010 at 8:16pmJul '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Cas Balicki: What is beyond me, Peter, is how one side of the political spectrum can see the Orlando Zapata's starving while the other side of that same spectrum can be so blind to it. Yet, we are the ones labelled as hidebound and ignorant.
I would never sport with how a man might face death, but it's poetic justice that when the Bolivians dragged Che, the man who oversaw and ordered between 1,700 and 1,800 executions by firing squad, to his appointment with their firing squad, this hero of the revolution, this icon of misery and bad taste, begged, cried, and pleaded for his worthless life. · Sep 8 at 8:08pm
Yeah. That Che story is one of my favorites, too.
"I'm Che Guevara!, " he pleaded, "I'm worth much more alive than dead!"
I swear, I spurt coffee out of my nose every time I read that.
Comedy gold.
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
I can understand it, Pat--almost. Even my in-laws, who lost everything to the Revolution, sometimes seem to admire Fidel for his sheer vitality. But--and this is the point, of course--they never doubt that he remains, to use your word, a "monster." In the Cold War research I've been doing, I've seen the same sort of thing again and again with Stalin. The range of figures who liked Stalin--just plain liked him--is astonishing. Churchill. Harriman. Truman. And, of course, FDR. But at least three of the four--the exception would be Roosevelt--never doubted that they were dealing with a murderer. (Pace Conrad Black, who reveres FDR, I can't escape the conclusion that FDR somehow romanticized Stalin. At the very least, it's odd that FDR liked Stalin but loathed de Gaulle.) As Shakespeare said somewhere--MacBeth?--"a man may smile, and smile, and be a villain."
Edited on Sep 8, 2010 at 8:39pmRe: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Kenneth
Every American should read Armando Valladares' "Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life In Castro's Gulag".
We use the word "courageous" far too lightly these days.
Read Valladares and learn what true courage is. · Sep 8 at 7:57pm
Exactly. I met Valladares back in the Eighties, not long after he published that brave, searing book. A softspoken, almost retiring man. And I've noticed that since then he has simply disappeared from the public debate, returning, completely, to the anonymity of private life. I respect him even more for that. He had no particular taste for polemics. He protested Fidel because he believed doing so was his duty, and then he published a prison memoir because he believed, again, that he had to tell the story. Valladares said what he had to say. And that was all.
Jun '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Peter, even monsters have a charisma that operates on a personal level. When I watched Downfall what struck me was how human Hitler seemed. Even his secretaries cried for him. I almost hate to write this, but that is a good thing, because none of us should ever think that these men are monsters and somehow different from us. Indeed, they are for the most part us in different circumstances. There but for the grace...
Jul '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Peter Robinson
I can understand it, Pat--almost. Even my in-laws, who lost everything to the Revolution, sometimes seem to admire Fidel for his sheer vitality. But--and this is the point, of course--they never doubt that he remains, to use your word, a "monster." In the Cold War research I've been doing, I've seen the same sort of thing again and again with Stalin. The range of figures who liked Stalin--just plain liked him--is astonishing. Churchill. Harriman. Truman. And, of course, FDR. But at least three of the four--the exception would be Roosevelt--never doubted that they were dealing with a murderer. As Shakespeare said somewhere--MacBeth?--"a man may smile, and smile, and be a villain." · Sep 8 at 8:29pm
Peter, I'm not sure that Churchill actually liked Stalin. My impression is that he pretended to, in order to placate Roosevelt. If you look at group photo's from Yalta, Churchill's body language is telling.
Edited on Sep 8, 2010 at 9:14pmJul '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Peter Robinson
Kenneth
Every American should read Armando Valladares' "Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life In Castro's Gulag".
We use the word "courageous" far too lightly these days.
Read Valladares and learn what true courage is. · Sep 8 at 7:57pm
Exactly. I met Valladares back in the Eighties, not long after he published that brave, searing book. A softspoken, almost retiring man. And I've noticed that since then he has simply disappeared from the public debate, returning, completely, to the anonymity of private life. I respect him even more for that. He had no particular taste for polemics. He protested Fidel because he believed doing so was his duty, and then he published a prison memoir because he believed, again, that he had to tell the story. Valladares said what he had to say. And that was all. · Sep 8 at 8:43pm
Beautifully said.
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Kenneth Peter, I'm not sure that Churchill actually liked Stalin. My impression is that he pretended to, in order to placate Roosevelt. If you look at group photo's from Yalta, Churchill's body language is telling. · Sep 8 at 9:11pm
Edited on Sep 08 at 09:14 pm
Would that it were so. But we have too much on record--see Jock Colville's wartime diaries--to doubt that Churchill felt a certain admiration for Stalin. Again, it's understandable--almost. Churchill's aim was to defeat Hitler--that always, that above all. And at Stalingrad, and then at Kursk, Stalin inflicted devastating defeats on the Wehrmacht, producing the signal turning point of the entire War.
Jul '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
More fodder for Hollywood.
May '10
Re: The New and Improved Fidel Castro
Fidel thinks the Cuban model no longer works? He will be denounced by Hugo Chavez in 3, 2, ...