C'mon. Don't be sore losers. I checked on Cuba's progress last year, from my days there during the revolution. Living standards had raised relatively far beyond US and Canada best efforts over 50 years. Look it up.
And the US could have kept Cuba under its control with its sanctioned dictatorships and the Mafia at Bay of Pigs---if only the USN with aircraft carrier and jets hadn't arrived an hour late. It didn't set its watches to the correct time zone.
A reasonable person comparing pre-Castro conditions and what's there now couldn't imagine a country needing a revolution more. The Vatican position is if the Church waits 100 years for the revolution to become a Christian one, it's worth waiting for.
The Church had done nothing to lift the misery the preceding 400 years. I heard Castro tell the Church it had two options: it could continue to promote the faith but if it didn't work for the people he would send all of its priests back to Spain.
It wasn't a benign dictatorship at any time. It was regressive in protecting its revolutionary ideals, surrounded by adversaries, including the world's most powerful country, pledged to bring it down.
Canada supported it from the beginning, refused to cut it off. Fidel and our prime minister's father Pierre were friends. Cuba today has better or comparative education and health standards than in many regions of the US.
I couldn't rejoice in anyone's death and, remembering in the blind this morning where Cuba was and is today, I couldn't think of a single living leader who had done more than Fidel for the men and women and children of their country.
Fire away!
