This blog is a random collection of information, partly in support of my quotations web site. Other topics include wine, military news, economics, history, libertarianism, and other random things which happen to strike my fancy. Backup site is at http://quotulatiousness.blogspot.com/ (if there are no posts showing, hit the backup blog for explanation). Comments have been turned off, as the spam was getting too much to handle. Comments can be emailed to me for posting.

August 17, 2006

QotD: Fidel Worship

It has been a while since Western intellectuals made a habit of masturbating in public to comic-book fantasies of physically indomitable, universally erudite Communist revolutionaries. But then, an intellectual is someone who makes at least a modest effort to keep pace with the emergence of the historical record. Anyone who describes Fidel Castro as devoted to "peace" cannot be familiar with his strategic posture during the Cuban Missile Crisis; anyone who associates him with the quest for justice must not have heard about the abundantly documented "acts of repudiation" organized by the Cuban security police to terrorize peaceful dissidents in their homes; anyone who deems him a paragon of "rationality" can certainly never have imagined being thrown into a filthy jail cell with a violent rapist, or locked up and tortured in a psychiatric hospital, for such fearful crimes as "clandestine printing" or "dangerousness." Sacha Trudeau hints that Cuban friends have tried to explain life under dictatorship to him, but he reinterprets their suffering as mild psychological "suffocation" — not so much at the hands of a totalitarian state as by Fidel's personal example of "machismo and rigour." Somewhere, Alexander Solzhenitsyn is vomiting.

Colby Cosh, "And I said I do, I do", ColbyCosh.com, 2006-08-14

Posted by Nicholas at August 17, 2006 08:03 AM
Comments
Who created the alternate reality wherein Sacha Trudeau was equated with intellectualism of the west, east or the moon? Ahhh, the people who want to slander intellectualism...I see your point now. Posted by: Alan at August 17, 2006 10:34 AM
But, but, but . . . he's a TRUDEAU. Of course he's an intellectual. It's genetic. The Trudeau family are our only native national source of intellectualism, y'know. Posted by: Nicholas at August 17, 2006 11:46 AM
Jon sent along this link: http://www.di2.nu/200608/16.htm, saying "Told you that someone would Fisk this. Posted by: Nicholas at August 17, 2006 11:49 AM
I prefer Ben Mulroney as an example of next gen leadership. He commands the stage. Posted by: Alan at August 17, 2006 12:08 PM
If you want an example of next-next gen leadership, I've had extensive contact with the sons of the current federal Finance Minister. You know that old meme about "be afraid, be very afraid"? Rather pithy advice, in foresight. Posted by: Nicholas at August 18, 2006 08:24 AM
Come to think of it, a pal of mine worked with the off-spring of the last PM and commented on how he had never met a thicker person. Ben is still #1 in these rankings. Posted by: Alan at August 18, 2006 02:48 PM


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