Jackson Jambalaya

They produce nice cars there. Would love to tour the factory that makes the 56 Ford or 52 Chevy. Fidel was the bomb. Loved by all the American Che'-type fans.

But the Kenyan loves the Castro Bros.

Many people hate Castro. Most do not know why they do. It is just something they have been programed to do. Sort of funny that the politicians we elect have done more damage to our country than he did but we keep re-electing them to office.

I doubt anyone on this board can articulate a clear rationale for why they disliked Castro. Other than "because my government told me to hate him..."

Quick people, go to Google and wikipedia and do some quick research. I await your replies.

Because he wouldn't let Americans come in and exploit his country for our own wealth, that's why we're supposed to hate him? Or because a bunch of South Florida Cubans lost their near slave labor plantations, that's why we're supposed to hate Castro?

11:21 has a point. Before he signed up with the Soviets, he was looking for alternatives. Paraphrasing him, he said that with Communism, the people would have food, but they would not be free. With capitalism, the people would be free, but many would starve. Some people (as Trump would say) think that we did not give him a chance at some middle way, which in hindsight would be a lot like what we now have in the U. S.--soft socialism. But then, and for many of us now, "socialism" was indistinguishable from "communism." The rest is modern Cuban history, for which Castro is in large part irredeemable. He started believing his own mythology. It could happen here, folks. Authoritarianism is always close by.

I don't know why I hate him other than he had facial hair. Yuck. The smell of the last meal and stuff stuck in it. Add cigar smell to that and we'll I wouldn't have done him!

Well there was that whole take over the country thing put together by the CIA led by Kennedy the left's most celebrated hero. Then Kennedy left the folks trained in guerilla warfare to be slaughtered. That whole fiasco. Cuban missile crisis. Castro had to say yeah we'll let you set those up here.
Basically every policy where a person can be imprisoned with no trial or due process. You know human rights the thing the left is so adamant about yet somehow has a backwards ideology for forced toleration of intolerance.

An example of this would be Islam; why am I being forced to tolerate a religion that throws gays off the tallest building. Or lashes women for cursing on the internet, or beheading for apostasy. Crucifixion in the streets. Not one person on the left has an explanation for this. Their simplest explanation is not all Muslims are Radical, yet the punishments I just mentioned are common practice in Iran and Saudi Arabia.

So to get back on point liberty and freedom are basic unalienable rights to all people. Castro and company have taken rights away from folks orchestrated by the Russians, Russia has sent tons of weapons to Cuba. I think that is my issue. Is that enough?

Yeah I want someone to explain to me just exactly what Castro did to harm the U.S.

1:28 pm

We don't tolerate a religion that allows people to kill others.

Take gay marriage...note that it's legal now....despite Christians beliefs.

Muslims here who try to harm anyone for any reason will go to jail.....just like a Jew or a whatever.

Now as a Christian you feel the impulse to invade and stop Muslims from harming gays there? But you bash them here?

Spare us all your crocodile tears....it's painfully obvious you just enjoy hate.

If Castro rots in hell he'll have a lot of company with stooges the U.S. has put in power to exploit their own people for interests other than their own. Fidel and his ilk are inevitable products of relentless exploitation of so-called 3rd world countries by the "world powers" including the U.S. We had no interest in his country if we could not exploit and degrade his people so we should not sit in smug judgment when their efforts at independence are less than perfect. Go ahead throw the first stone...

He killed innocent people....oh wait...Hillary did too. Remember Benghazi

Pitt, maybe because he stole my grandfather's property and a business he had built his whole life , tortured one of my great uncles to death and killed another in a firing squad. I was lucky, when I was an infant my great aunt arranged for me and my sister to come to America to escape what most certainly would have been a miserable life. Since then, I have faithfully served my country in the armed forces, built a successful engineering and architectural practice and have a nice life.

And 1:35, Cuba was just recently removed from the list of state sponsors of terror (for what reason we really don't know), the Cuban government has been placing spies and intelligence assets in the United States for over 40 years and has been hiding international terrorists from the Spanish terrorist group ETA, members of FARC from Columbia and domestic terrorists wanted in the US as well such as Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur) who murdered New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster (sp?).

Please take your moral equivalency argument elsewhere.

He can't be too bad. Just look at how many times the CIA tried to assassinate him. Don't know if that was because he was smart or because the CIA were bungling fools. I really think people hated him most because he didn't die like the U.S. wanted.

Putin doesn't care, he's going to have his puppet in the Whitehouse, who needs Cuba?

@ 3:23,

Cool story. So now that he's gone, I assume that you will be going back home then, correct?

Wonder why Fidel hated us so much? Platt Amendment. That will tell you just what your good ole U. S. of A. thought of Cuba.

Was this meeting of the JJ Holocaust Deniers Club announced in advance? The turnout is great.

Fidel would have loved to have the ability to unilaterally kill by drone like Barry Soetero.

Socialism is always doomed to failure. I remember Castro on the Johnny Carson show. No one quite knew what to make of him in New York. This was probably 1960. He was rough but at that time, he was still talking freedom for his people and that he had freed them from the evil rule of the rich Batistas. Soon stories started leaking that religious leaders had been arrested and held in terrible conditions as were many others. People were willing to die trying to cross in leaky boats and on rafts to freedom in the USA. Then the Bay of Pigs and Reader's Digest stories of horror in Cuba. Many older people spoke of how beautiful Cuba had been prior to Castro and of the vacations they had taken there. I have never read or heard of anything good happening in Cuba under Castro's rule. Socialism will always fail because the human soul longs for freedom.

So many birthers on here. Same people probably post all the racist anti jackson comments. Yes any anti castro, anti obama, and anti jackson post is racist.

November 26, 2016 at 2:50 PM

Hillary didn't kill anyone; she followed up the Obama administrations explaination's death of at least 12 brave Americans with what is presumed to be a lie. That is wrong, President Obama should have said "the buck stops here". I defend neither of them, however to compare this wrong to the thousands or more deaths perpetrated or Ordered by Castro is rediculously absurd.
You might however compare Castro's atrocities to those in Asia during the Vietnam "not war", perpetrated by the administration's of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. The total number of deaths between 1954 and 1975 is in excess of 1,400,000 in that confrontation which we, by the way, failed miserably and unfortunately.

November 26, 2016 at 2:50 PM

Hillary didn't kill anyone; she followed up the Obama administrations explaination's death of at least 12 brave Americans with what is presumed to be a lie. That is wrong, President Obama should have said "the buck stops here". I defend neither of them, however to compare this wrong to the thousands or more deaths perpetrated or Ordered by Castro is rediculously absurd.
You might however compare Castro's atrocities to those in Asia during the Vietnam "not war", perpetrated by the administration's of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. The total number of deaths between 1954 and 1975 is in excess of 1,400,000 in that confrontation which we, by the way, failed miserably and unfortunately.

3:23 makes a mistake common to intelligent people, he uses primary sources. PittPanther correctly understands that primary sources are a hindrance when re-writing history to shape current policy. If 3:23 would simply become amoral, he wouldn't make such mistakes.

Wait a minute. I'm supposed to believe that 3:23 is of actual Cuban descent, on a small board based in Mississippi?

Yeah, ok.

But let's go with it. You're complaining that Castro stole your grandfather's business. I feel as much sympathy for the abusers who flourished under Batista as I do for those who flourished under South African apartheid and those who flourished under USA chattel slavery. Which is absolute zero. To hell with that blood money.

Castro was a mad man. If you question it and don't have much time, please take a very brief
break and hit Google for a starter.

At 4:59
I believe most certainly that 3:23 is HOME. I do not know him but am happy to call him an American.
By the way, what have you accomplished, if anything?

Pitt, each time that we begin to give you credit, your stupidity overwhelms us all.

There's no such thing as 'soft socialism'. That would be like 'mild diarrhea' or a 'slow and uneventful bleed-out'. But I guess, for people like Burke, it sorta sounds quaint, if not attractively benign.

And as for the suggestion that some think socialism is the same as communism, I don't know anybody who thinks that, so why suggest it? Although one typically leads to the other and you geniuses can guess which comes first.

When Batista and his thugs were selling the Cuban people into virtual enslavement, the average American could not give a shit about the freedom or dignity of the Cuban peasant. After Castro we bemoan the atrocities of this socialist devil. Maybe now we can respect Cuba as a nation of human beings. That's one good thing.

Pitt, this is 3:23, if KF hadn't censored my earlier post you'd know that I have no designs on going back to Cuba, I have no memory of it and consider myself an American. I've fought in 2 wars for my country and have lived in and out of Mississippi for the past several years and follow the local news, however idiotic or frustrating it may be. I'd love to invite you to our home for a real conversation with my surviving family members about how they were treated by the Castro regime, but I'm not sure you'd consider it a safe space and would be too intimidated by the truth.

You can leave the US out of it and Castro is still a bloodthirsty tyrant who murdered multitudes of his own people. Thousands of dissidents were locked up and murdered over the years. That includes priests, women, and children. Women are routinely locked up and tortured. Thousands disappear. It is over 50 years since the revolution. The supporters of the previous regime were chased out or butchered decades ago. Castro would've brutalized his own people even if there was no America. I suspect many of you defending Castro would spit on Franco yet Castro was much worse.

Castro was also a state sponsor of terrorism and provided support to the terrorist movement. He tried to export his revolution to other countries as the blood of Cuban communist victims was not enough for him. He tried exported it to Africa and Latin America. His people tried to take over Grenada until Reagan stopped him. Remember, Castro's people in Grenada murdered the leader of the country.

Castro was anything but a leader who wanted to be left alone by the U.S. A bloody tyrant is what he was yet the same people who see a Nazi under every white sheet at Walmart defend him to the hilt. The reason is deep down inside, they agree with his ideals and he used methods to carry out those ideals that they would never have the backbone to use so they applaud him.

They are in the same league as Holocaust deniers or defenders of Stalin. The New York Times carried the water for Stalin and his genocides. George Bernard Shaw advocated concentration camps for people with whom he disagreed. They rarely said a thing about the Killing Fields in Cambodia. However, Castro was their hero.

They have to bash the U.S. because they know what Castro is and they have to find someway to justify his reign, not to mention his brutal rule of Cuba.

The only difference in Castro and leaders of other countries is Castro was more open and honest with his dealings. Look at all of the other countries who have leaders that have done and are still doing the same things Castro did.
Take a good look at our leaders. The same leaders who participated in the embargo against Cuba for the Russian armament were willing to give trillions of $ to another country that needs the money to develop weapons to destroy the U.S. The same leaders who complain about Castro's treatment of the people of Africa and Latin America are doing the same thing in other countries. Look at how many countries the U.S. has military located in. Look at the number of leaders of other countries that have been killed by the U.S. Look at the number of countries we have invaded because they do not do as we say.

Castro may be a bad person. There are people just like him in other countries, even here in the U.S.

"On May 27, [1966,] 166 Cubans -- civilians and members of the military -- were executed and submitted to medical procedures of blood extraction of an average of seven pints per person. This blood is sold to Communist Vietnam at a rate of $50 per pint with the dual purpose of obtaining hard currency and contributing to the Vietcong Communist aggression.

"A pint of blood is equivalent to half a liter. Extracting this amount of blood from a person sentenced to death produces cerebral anemia and a state of unconsciousness and paralysis. Once the blood is extracted, the person is taken by two militiamen on a stretcher to the location where the execution takes place."

-- InterAmerican Human Rights Commission, April 7, 1967

Hatred for Casro points mainly to his embracing of Communism. Basically equates to, if you are the ruler, there are no laws except for those who are not the ruler. The government owns everything and shares it"equally"as it sees fit.

Trump loves Putin who loved Castro......

So if you love Trump...you love Castro.

And get ready for more Putin love...and lawsuits against Trump for $$ intermingling.

Pitt, you are an irrational guy. That is a nice way of saying, in your rude way, that you are an idiot. Furthermore, why is that you so often question the positive results of the adversity people overcome. It appears to be common in your posts; maybe it is just those who post on this "blog" who you "doubt" or quite apparently do not "believe". For example, see two of your several posts herein at 11:58 AM, and 10:06 PM, Nov. 26, 2016.

@ PittPanther:

I'm certain there's at least one person of Cuban extraction who reads this blog. It does not surprise me in the least there would be more. Then again, what do I know?

PittPanther and Kapernick (misspelled on purpose) can join the multitudes of people making homemade rafts and setting to sea to escape to Cuba.

Wait, no one has even done that. It is time for PittPanther and Kapernich to start a trend.

November 26, 2016 at 6:40 PM "...So many birthers on here. Same people probably post all the racist anti jackson comments. Yes any anti castro, anti obama, and anti jackson post is racist."

You're the racist here. America has rebuffed your mantra... PC is a dying art form.

You need to give it up and assimilate.

Batista? Shit...he was in power during the second world war. And you goobs are comparing him to what?

11:30, check into the laws the elected ruling party right here in the U.S. are subject to. Compare them to the laws the people have to obey. You will find there is quite a bit of difference. Even with many of the similar laws the elected officials will not be charged while the common people will be sent to prison.
Here in the U.S. the government does own everything also. Try not paying your taxes on your home that you own free and clear and see what happens.

I am very encouraged by Leftist readers showing up here in greater numbers.

I pray their continued beliefs (dominated by limp minded, history deprived foresight driven by minority interests - not minority=race BTW) will evolve to understand the true reality surrounding them by spending their time here offering up laughable examples of the very privilege they despise.

It is appalling to see celebration of a Dictator in any way, shape, or form. There is nothing Democratic about Dictatorships, especially those engaged in murderous brutality to maintain their power.

Everyone is saying Cuba/U.S. relations are going to change unless Cuba makes more concessions....just wait and next thing you know, their will be a Trump hotel and casino in Havana. That will be the extent of the concessions. Of course as all of you go blind you will not see anything wrong. You and the Cuban community will just have to suck it up.

Well said Kapt!!

KK, you sir are correct, although many of those posting are neither left or "right" only ignorant or plain stupid. IMHO.

Trump is starting out just like Castro, the majority didn't want him either.

In some countries a dictatorship works, some prefer a republic, some a democracy, some prefer a socialist, and some a mixture of all. One country should not get to choose the form of government for another country. One country should not be able to force a type of government on another country.
For some reason which ever type of government a country chooses they think all others should do the same. They will go as far as destroying the other country if it does not agree.
Sort of sounds stupid to me.

Bill Clinton only got 43% of the vote. Guess he was like Fidel.

Some of you are ignoring Castro and pointing out alleged wrongs by the U.S. I guess according to your logic, Hitler was an ok guy because he stood up to the U.S. as well.

Haha Kingfish the Clintons are old news...I am going to be watching while you go blind..
This is really going to be fun.

Cuba's economy in 1959 was agriculture and hospitality. All of the major franchises for farming equipment were owned by a Hattiesburg family.

Hey KF I would never say that Castro was a saint or even a benevolent dictator. I choose to learn from Castro rather than piss on his grave. I say that he is no different from thousands of charismatic assholes, including the one we have elected President, who never get their chance but sometime present themselves just when the people are "ready for a change". The people of Cuba were ready for anyone promising freedom including a dictator after being exploited and screwed by a U.S. backed dictators and their brand of thuggery. If the U.S. had treated the Cuban common people with decency and not like mangy dogs Castro could never have held his 50 year foothold. They couldn't stand Castro but they hated the U.S. more. The U.S. response was kiss our butts or eat dirt. That's some choice. Castro saw the situation and took advantage. Every effort to subjugate and exploit a group of people ultimately creates a void in leadership. Hopefully that void MIGHT be filled by someone who won't take liberties with his own people. The lesson of Castro: Don't create that void.

I think I am going to read "1984" again...

Clintons are old news? Um, Hillary was on the ballot just a few weeks ago. I knew millenials suffered from ADD but damn, that is pretty bad.

Yeah didn't you here she lost KF, and Obama is going to be out in less than 60 days, you guys got the Trump world you wanted now deal with it. I know you like to cherry pick the national/world events yout address.... I respect that it's your Blog. But don't expect me to follow you hook line and sinker. You guys need to face the facts, Castro has as much revlance today as Nixon does. Meantime we are talking about Haley being UN Ambassador. Of course in Mississippi a Sheriff deputy and a Bank Teller can become DGovernor. It's OK for a Bookeeper to be our envoy at the UN....a chick who never went to Public School at Education... Didnt Phil try to do that too.Flynn as a National Security Advisor. Can we pay him more than the Russians? The Blind Boys of Mississippi are not going have a problem forming a Choir. You need to apply for the Director's job.

As some one who was a young Black man when Fidel took over Cuba I was very much in support of him. He abolished the segregation of black Cubans that his predecessor had rigidly enforced, the same type of segregation that was in force in Mississippi at that time. Black people in Cuba have not forgot what he did for them. As I watched the people in Miami celebrating Fidel's death I could not help but notice there were no black Cubans there. When CNN went to Havana there were black Cubans expressing sorrow over his passing. I spent a week in Cuba ten months ago and found it a beautiful country. There was great poverty there but the people I met were friendly and happy. There was no black or white there. Just friendly people trying to make it, something sadly missing in Mississippi and much of the United States. There is no disputing that Fidel was a dictator but there is also no disputing that he removed the shackles of segregation from black Cubans. For that reason I, as a black man, can not condemn him the way many people are doing.

I've no admiration for Castro, but it wasn't just Batista. You might want to remember that the Mafia was entrenched in Cuba as well. We chose to side with Batista and the mob rather than the rebels. Then we chose not to try to help Castro who was not prepared to govern. The Bay of Pigs invasion didn't help. Again, we expected the Cuban people to take up arms and join the invaders.

Some of you might want to read the Congressional hearings on Benghazi rather than go to a movie by a convicted felon from Mumbai who came here as an exchange student and stayed .

You might as well blame Bush and Powell for all the troops killed in Iraq because they were given bad information as well.

And, while I am very saddened whenever innocent people lose what they have built for a lifetime, when you have a civil war because the government is corrupt , that is what happens. And, you can end up with a dictator of a different kind.

When you solve one set of problems, you are merely replacing that set with a new set of problems that may or may not be easier to solve.

Life has never been fair or simple or problem free. There is no glorious, problem free past...only old people who wax nostalgic about what they lost and what might have been if given more time and " do overs".

We cannot even have an honest election here in the U.S. and people are complaining about another country. We need to take care of our own country first before complaining on how another country has been run.

11:44-Honest election? Any proof the election was not honest? You sound like Jill Stein.

@3:00 the dear leader says their was voter fraud, he said so on Twitter. Twitter is where he's getting his National Security briefings also.

3:00, All of the people running for president said the election was not honest. Winner and losers. How much more proof do you want? Even the loser that tried to tell everyone the elections were honest has changed her mind since she lost.