Commandante
Don’t forget to watch Oliver Stone’s Castro documentary this sunday at 10pm on the CBC. It was funded by HBO, and then they backed out (apparently because he was too soft on Castro), and the only people who would take it were the CBC. Soft or not, it’s a motherfucking Ollie Stone film in which he interviews Fidel. That shit should be seen! (via LES)
How was it?
Good, although I can see why they called it soft. He asks hard questions, but then takes Castro’s answers without followup questions. And having been to Cuba just now, I’d have to say he needed to be harder. How much of a paradise can it be if citizens face brutal travel restrictions and can’t receive mail from the rest of the world?
Quite. I think Castro’s time has past. His initial decade in power, decreasing poverty and increasing literacy to levels unheard of in Latin America, was all to the good but what’s the point in having a literate population if all they can read is state-sponsored pap? And surely the boat loads of people wanting to get the hell out of the country are an indication that something is rotten in the state of Cuba.
Certainly the pointless embargo hasn’t helped Cuba much, and in fact drove them into the bosom of the Godless Soviet Menace back in the day. But be that as it may, closing your system off from the world doesn’t say much about your confidence in it.