We spoke to those who lived under Fidel Castro's rule. Here's what we learned.
You're probably familiar with Cracked.com, the epic listicle site that was popular a decade ago and now mainly exists to promote paid content. In their heyday, they made many of the standard "lol look at how evil North Korea is" articles, but what stood out more to me was this article, 6 Ugly Facts Of Life In Communist Cuba, which wasw ritten with input from some gusanos and reads like US state department propaganda.
Most of the article is literally anecdotes from these people, which are the standard "Castro bad" crap, but one is notably ridiculous:
One day, my sister came home and exclaimed, 'Fidel is better than Jesus!' In school they had asked the kindergartners to close their eyes and pray to Jesus for ice cream. When they opened their eyes -- nothing. Then they closed their eyes again and prayed to Fidel for ice cream, and ... surprise! Ice cream cups on their desks!
Wow, such a plausible story! How could Fidel deceive the children like this?
The few sections that are actually sourced aren't any better:
It's hard to say how many people Castro's new regime gunned down (evil dictators being notoriously spotty record-keepers), but the butcher's bill was probably around 30,000.
This links to the 1995-ass website of some rando Italian-American writer called Piero Scaruffi, who cites The Black Book of Communism among others. A very credible source, I'm sure.
He got lucky: Thanks to Operation Pedro Pan, a joint venture between the Swiss embassy and the Catholic Church to spirit children to America, he secured permission to leave ... alone. "So I came to the U.S. without my parents and lived in a refugee camp in Florida."
No criticism of Operation Pedro Pan? At all? Alright!
Tbf, those children would not have had ice cream without Fidel. Particularly free ice cream. Getting ice cream to happen for everybody in Cuba was a huge endeavour for Castro, as he believed every person in Cuba deserved at least that luxury.
I think ice cream is just the nice little treat on top of something much more important. Making it accessible means widespread electrification and refrigeration. Two things absolutely critical for a modern society.