(11-28-2016, 10:48 AM)David Horn Wrote:(11-28-2016, 06:52 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: For the record, I'm not mourning Castro.
In my exchanges with Kinser during his Marxist phase, I repeated often my feeling that the followers of Marx replace one group of ruling elites with no check on their power with another. Castro would be no exception. At least, I envision Castro as the typical communist leader riding in fancy cars, not going hungry, and having access to good medical care, while his people are treated less well.
Trump? He rides in fancy cars and planes, doesn't go hungry and has good access to medical care too. How proactively will he take health care away from the poor? How active will he be in further increasing the division of wealth? While I'm dubious that another round of borrow and spend trickle down will have a different long term result than Bush 43's, I don't think Trump will produce an economy as bad as Cuba's under Castro. Pushing Trump = Castro is a bit much for me, but I'm not expecting a vegetarian tiger either.
There is no other example of a small weak nation standing up to the world's hegemon -- up close and personal. Leave this one to the historians with no built-in biases or axes to grind. I'm sure the final story will be a lot different than any of the current variants.
Finland vs. the Soviet Union during World War II... impressive territory, but a small population.
"Oh, so many Russians? Where will we bury them all?"
...The Finns are estimated to have had a 30-1 kill-to-loss rate.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.