Talk:Fidel Castro

I am gonna ask the Fidelistas one thing

Please prove that the following groups/people do/did not follow a Marxist-Leninist ideology:

et. al.

Until then, please stop reverting this section. J. Parker Stone 05:45, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'll respond in the interest of reaching a compromise. I've mentioned before that a detailed descussion of Cuba's foreign policy belongs on the Foreign relations of Cuba page. You could cover the general support for third world liberation movements in the Fidel Castro article one sentence and include a link to the foreign policy page. Since the Castro article is already too long, this seems like an obvious place to cut back. DJ Silverfish 20:45, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cuban literacy

If Cuba has not "greatly" improved its literacy, I'd like to know what would qualify as greatly improving it. Almost all, if not all, young Cubans are literate. Nowhere else in the region and no other developing nation can come anywhere near matching literacy in Cuba. Grace Note 07:24, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cubans were 76% literate in 1958. That's not great, but relative to the region at that time, it wasn't bad. J. Parker Stone 07:27, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, 12 years old source (1992): [1]

Grenada and Jamaica: 98%

Uruguay: 96%

Suriname, Guyana, and Argentina: 95%

Cuba: 94%

Even by your very old source (kof, the CIA, kof -- very much not biased about Cuba, of course), you are suggesting a 20% improvement. Viva Fidel, I say. That's a huge improvement. Grace Note 07:34, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's fucking statistics, champ. And if the CIA World Factbook was so "biased" it could easily bump that 94% down to a 90 or 88.J. Parker Stone 07:36, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And I doubt the other countries were in the 90th percentile 35 years before 1992, either. J. Parker Stone 07:49, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Here you are, champ. Here's some fucking statistics that are a bit more up to date. Even the CIA thinks Castro's done a bang-up job in educating the proletariat. Grace Note 14:55, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like ol' Fidel's overhauled the capitalist running dogs in Jamaica and Suriname. Viva la revolucion, hey, Trey? Grace Note 15:03, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NationMaster.com provides some fair, unbiased statistics that display the "revolutionary" advances in literacy in Cuba are more a regional trend than some good government management of education (nonexistent in Cuba). Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Grace Note. Unless you're a rabid fidelista who claims a 4% difference over Venezuela, Colombia and Suriname is a "revolutionary" or "dramatic" difference, you gotta accept it's a moderate change and not a result of a successful government strategy. Kapil 20:10, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So what is causing this "regional" trend? Something in the water? Clearly Cuba made enormous strides in literacy. Even by Trey Stone's reckoning it overhauled nations in its region that were ahead of it. Perhaps your grasp of statistics isn't too good, Kapil, and you don't know that improving a figure that is close to a maximum is more difficult than improving one that is far from the maximum. If so, you've just added to your stock of knowledge and may thank me. Grace Note 02:10, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, not decisive enough. Rather, it would appear Cuba's "strides" have been mediocre and have allowed the rest of the non-communist countries to catch up to a once mighty nation. Kapil 02:59, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

All right, enuff useless bickering - would somebody just give us the facts, please? What was Cuba's literacy before the revolution, and whatsit now? And what are the before and after numbers for some comparative countries? Yes, I'm being too lazy to weed through the references that you're citing, but just summarize here.

I gotta disagree with Kapil on four points being minor - four points is a serious difference - if literacy were to drop by that much in the US, for instance, you'd have reason to think that American civilization was about to collapse. Plus, some of those countries were way more than four points below Cuba.

However, it's going to take a lot to convince me that we should use the word "greatly" unless Cuba's literacy improved greatly both with respect to pre-revolution numbers as well as the rate of change for other nations. Now then, let's have some cold, hard numbers, shall we? --Rroser167 04:18, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Trey Stone claims 76% in 1958 to current 97%. If that's not "greatly" improving literacy, I would like to see a suggestion of what is. To use Rroser167's smart comparison, imagine that my home nation, the UK, saw its literacy drop to 79%! Would anyone even begin to question a description of that as "greatly reduced" literacy"? Of course not. All Cubans aged 15 to 24 are now literate. Kapil's argument is the square root of bollocks, since there is no evidence to suggest that the noncommunist countries had lower literacy than Cuba in 1958 and now have higher. In any case, even if literacy had been greatly increased in some other place, that does not mean it wasn't also greatly increased in Cuba. Literacy increases because of government action, not because everyone in a region catches a vibe or something. Grace Note 04:58, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And that trend just doesn't seem to have spread to Nicaragua or Honduras. Good job we worked so hard to keep the commies out of those places, huh? But look, Costa Rica is doing well. That's pretty pink by the region's standards, no? The vast majority of the very highly literate places, a careful reader will have noted, were British or Dutch colonies, which we left fairly highly literate. Grace Note 05:05, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Literacy % increase by country from 1950-53 to 2000:

1) Haiti (mostly rightist dictatorship) (345.5%)

2) Guatemala (rightist) (130%)

3) Dominican Republic (rightist) (95.3%)

4) El Salvador (rightist, center-left, center-right) (88.1%)

5) Brazil (rightist) (73.5%)

6) Ecuador (que?) (64.3%)

7) Colombia (rightist) (48.4%)

8) Paraguay (rightist) (36.8%)

9) Cuba (Communist) (26.3%)

10) Costa Rica (center-left) (21.3%)

11) Chile (mix-and-match) (18.5%)

12) Argentina (etc.) (11.5%)

Countries with comparable before and afters from 1950-53 to 2000:

1) Ecuador (56-92%, +64.3%)

2) Colombia (62-92%, +48.4%)

3) Paraguay (68-93%, +36.8%)

4) Panama (72-92%, +27.8%)

5) Cuba (76-96%, +26.3%)

6) Chile (81-96%, +18.5%

Top five Latin American literacy rates in 1950-53:

1) Argentina (87%)

2) Chile (81%)

3) Costa Rica (79%)

4) Cuba (76%)

5) Panama (72%)

Top five Latin American literacy rates in 2000:

1) Argentina (97%)

2) Cuba, Chile, Costa Rica (96%)

3) Paraguay (93%)

4) Colombia, Panama, Ecuador (92%)

5) Brazil (85%)

In conclusion and in summary, I hereby decree that GN is a deluded Fidelista who should go hang out at the Isle of Pines. J. Parker Stone 20:09, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Grace Note, you succeed at irrelevance. Kapil 22:04, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

By Trey's own reckoning, Cuba went from 76% to 97% literate. How that squares with his percentage rise is a mystery only he can resolve. In any case, genius, 15->55 would be 300%+, and is a lot easier to achieve than 95%->100%, which is what, 5% or so increase. Why's that, statman? Because you can achieve the former by not enlisting all your nation's children in an ongoing civil war. Percentage increases from a low base are easier to achieve than they are from a high base. Three to 9 is a greater percentage increase than 16 to 22, and yet both involve the same number of things increased. Getting it?

The bottom two lists are quite interesting. Trey's "proof" that Cuba has not greatly increased its literacy is to show that it has risen up the league table, increasing its literacy in simple percentage terms by more than any of the other nations that were relatively highly literate.

In any case, here are two things you boys ignore: one, even if every other nation greatly increased its literacy in this period, it would still be true that Cuba had done so. Showing that some other countries also did so doesn't mean that Cuba did not! That's like saying that India's population didn't grow much in the twentieth century because, look, Nigeria's grew a lot and so did Indonesia's. The increase cannot be explained by outside influences (and certainly you don't suggest any). Two, there are no claims that Cuba didn't actually increase its literacy. There are plenty of revisionists who try to argue that it's no big deal to increase your literacy into the high 90s (although, as we've already noted, a similar move the other way would be taken to be a calamity) but none that you've been able to source suggesting that it had declined. Grace Note 03:59, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The point is that Paraguay, Costa Rica, and Chile had similar increases without any extensive literacy program. And yes, that does raise questions. Quit being so goddamned condescending. J. Parker Stone 04:02, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You think maybe there was a magic literacy cloud that rained the ability to read on the lower Americas? Grace Note 04:18, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You're not going anywhere. I don't know exactly how literacy improved as well as Cuba in the Southern Cone. I do know, however, that it was done without a mass govt.-sponsored literacy campaign.

And BTW I get your point about the upper list wiseass (though I do note that Haiti was not undergoing a civil war in the late '50s.) But the comparison to Paraguay, Costa Rica, and Chile stands. J. Parker Stone 04:23, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have to go anywhere, Trey. Your position is nonsense. Cuba had a massive literacy programme and its literacy greatly improved. End of story. Grace Note 23:50, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Because you can achieve the former by not enlisting all your nation's children in an ongoing civil war -> Entirely. Cuba should've declined support to guerrilla groups which enlisted a majority of the nation's fighting children (considering as how the government has nothing to do with enlisting children under 18 in the army, as it's highly illegal and we have such a thing as laws and a constitution, at least the areas where the guerrillas aren't destroying police stations and the judicial system). Stop being so left wing and accept a goddamn fact when it hits you in the face, Castro's achieved nothing and you're repugnant for saying otherwise, even when presented with facts (like the fact that Colombia's literacy was raised by almost double during the same period, having to fight at the same time against Cuban-sponsored and trained terrorist guerrillas that go around enlisting children and blowing up bridges and electricity pylons and such). Ah, and stop calling it a goddamned civil war, a junta of 500 people bullying 17,000 kids around into tending for their coca crops is not a civil war, it's a mafia and a narcoterrorist ring. Read up on the Colombian conflict before rearing your hideous left-wing 'intellect' into a rational conversation. Kapil 05:43, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Talk deletion

Whyja delete this page, Trey/J.? If this page is getting too long, it can be archived. If you did it because you're just embarrassed about all the times your ass got smacked in discussions, don't worry, you smacked almost as much ass in return. --Rroser167 14:23, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Article Introduction Debate

I find the recent actions of a few users extreme to be POV pushing and especially disgusting with regard to the opening paragraph.

points of contention:

1. Labeling Batista a dictator: it has been generally agreed that term "dictator" is to be steered clear from.
2. Removal of political repression from article lead: if Castro is know for the warm fuzzies of free health care and literacy in some circles, is most certainly notable in human rights circles as a brutal tyrant who squelches dissent at drop of a hat. If one is to be included, then the other most certainly can have a mention.
3. The removal of "forced" in describing the UMAP labor camps: factually accurate description of Castro's concentration camps for "queers" and other "deviants". The whole idea behind the camps was that hard labor would turn them into "real men".
4. Continual revisionism on human Rights section: once again, along with the shiny happy "social justice" programs, Castro is infamous for his human rights record. The bulk of this section is a half assed attempt to apologize for it, and attempts to correct this imbalance are stonewalled.

TDC 22:34, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

Has it? That's what he was though. Would you like sources for saying it?
Castro is accused of all sorts of things by American rightists. You can put in appropriately sourced material in the article. The intro is already appropriately balanced. Adding more of your POV would unbalance it at this point.
Source it.
Source it. Not to your friend's blog. Okay? Grace Note 00:10, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You officially suck, Grace Note. You're an inmensely, embarrasingly and repugnantly left-wing fidelista apologist and your "contributions" to this article are severely uninformed (or rather, uninforming), misleading, unenlightened and (above all), unwelcome. Kapil 01:04, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What is unwelcome at wikipedia is a personal attack like Kapil just made against Grace. Please keep your frustrations to yourself, concentrate on content, and do it in a friendly way. What you just said is plain rude, --SqueakBox 01:06, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

Rather, what is unwelcome is delinquent behaviour from users such as Grace Note and Comandante, who keep reverting to a misleading previous version when data and sources have been provided that prove otherwise (about the literacy thing). Kapil 01:08, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a good article about a mexican university professor personally telling us what the UMAPs are for, and how familiar they are to the russian gulags. I'm guessing you'll just dismiss it as "American rigthist" mis-information or whatever (if you actually understand the article, as I'm guessing most of the delinquent reversion going on is mostly done by champagne communists with funky sources), but it is a source. Kapil 01:12, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]