Fidel Castro on the World Stage
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-09-13/fidel-castro-world-stage
A U.S. journalist and an expert on Cuba describe their unusual meeting with Cuba's former leader in Havana at his invitation. What Fidel Castro said about Iran and anti-Semitism, his regrets about the Cuban Missile Crisis and desire to be a senior statesman.
Guests
Jeffrey Goldberg
national correspondent, The Atlantic and author of "Prisoners: A Story of friendship and Terror"
Julia Sweig
director for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know."
Comments
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I wish Fidel were well enough to visit the United States again as he did in the 50s. If he had a speaking tour I'd certainly go and see him, and listen intently. Now that he is out of office he has leeway to speak his mind. Castro knows so much about the United States of which our people are unaware, from watching so closely for half a century. And boy do we ever need a few hints!
Count me in and bring the Cuban sandwiches and plenty of Salsa music! I thought it funny that Goldberg's remarks about back peddling at the beginning of his interview with Fidel was in fact, what he ended up doing during most of the show, culminating in a total "moon walk" with his statement about preferring political freedom to free health care - "only one party."
With a recidivism rate of 95+% in the congress, with the Supreme Ct dictating who is a human being capable of campaign contributions, with the idea of a multi party democracy and proportional representation, nothng more then a dream for our citizens, Goldberg needs to go back to school and learn some real politik!
It was, I believe, in 1989. I was watching my favorite interviewer then, Ted Koppel, and a band of brilliant, influential guests on tv when, suddendly, Boris Yeltsin said "I believe the Soviet Union will become a confederacy of loosely bound states". I had the feeling, as everybody watching, that I was witnessing History being made. In reading Castro’s remarks I have the same feeling. For starters, nothing Castro can do, with his frail health and sharp mind, could wash away the horrors of over 50 years of wrongdoing. Nonetheless, most of the world is listening.
I believe most will welcome his remarks which just might give the world an easier rite-of-passage in the coming years.
Closer to his own, Fidel has provided a blessing to brother Raul to do what he must, and that is embrace change. On the Latin American stage, Castro will have ears, good will and influence in most countries, not just the few of today. His remarks might even discourage would be imitators, thinking that in today’s open world a system based on closed borders is doomed to fail. And the news are to be heard, for they are delivered by the closed-border-club President, just 90 miles south from the most powerful nation on earth. The ripple these remarks will create can wash ashore as far as North Korea, with the strength of a tsunami. Fukuyama’s End of History seems in sight as never before. In the world stage, the one to which Castro's remarks were intended to, his remarks create a wedge between the ignorance of a few cantankerous heads of state and the world’s dominant views. I feel the winner in this situation may be Israel, who needs to move fast and assess if Castro is real or this is another hoax. But if real, may well be the best (only?), free PR Israel ever had. Engage Castro now.
Is a shame that this show goes so low , Thousand of Cuban die under Castro's regimen only for saying that the system did no work. Shame on this Journalist who play, the same tango that Castro.