Fidel Castro: Cuban model doesn't work
HAVANA (Yahoo! News) – Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba's communist economic model doesn't work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear of local issues since stepping down four years ago.
The fact that things are not working efficiently on this cash-strapped Caribbean island is hardly news. Fidel's brother Raul, the country's president, has said the same thing repeatedly. But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba's 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows.
Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore" Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.
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The fact that things are not working efficiently on this cash-strapped Caribbean island is hardly news. Fidel's brother Raul, the country's president, has said the same thing repeatedly. But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba's 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows.
Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore" Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.
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posted by BP News Bureau | 12:06 PM
1 Comments:
(Hot Air) - Insert the hacky “Cuban model”/Hopenchange joke of your choosing right here. A serious question, though: Elsewhere in this same interview, Castro railed against Iranian anti-semitism and explicitly told Goldberg he was saying it “so you can communicate it” to Ahmadinejad. I.e. he’s very consciously using this as an opportunity to send messages to world leaders. Presumably his point about the “Cuban model” is meant as a communique to American leaders that a little capitalist outreach right now might be received, if not warmly, at least not coldly. Obama’s too far left to get away with that politically but if he got some cover from the GOP — in particular, a Senator Rubio would be exceedingly helpful — it might give him space to reconsider the embargo. Ed [Morrissey] argued last year that it’s time to drop it, partly because the Castro boys have been reduced to decrepit old jokes internationally and partly because outreach might do more to earn concessions on democracy and human rights at this point than further isolation. Something to think about?
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