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LeopoldBloom · M
Che was a raging homophobe.
Gloomy · F
@LeopoldBloom I expect better from you. There has been one homophobic quote in the Motorcycle Diaries and he even expressed sympathies for the man due to the way people treated him. After that nothing, no sources that he even thought about the topic or was a "raging" homophobe and the camps were established when he went away to Bolivia.
Castro apologized for the way he treated gay people which I think was a big step given western leaders rarely or only under pressure do that.
Also the time was horrible for queer people anyway.
Castro apologized for the way he treated gay people which I think was a big step given western leaders rarely or only under pressure do that.
Also the time was horrible for queer people anyway.
PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M
@Gloomy Well said and the outrage about things like homophobia seems to be extremely selective. These are often the same people who hold up Eric Blair aka George Orwell who according to his own writing ratted people out to MI5 as national security risks for being gay in particular and leftists. If you read his accounts of his own life it seems his only issue with colonialism is that it forced him to deal directly with non whites. And people who served with him in Spain describe his politics as more in line with Franco.
LeopoldBloom · M
@Gloomy Fair enough, most of that criticism comes from right-wingers who don't exactly have a great record in how they treat LGBT. My main beef with Cuba is the political repression, not that the Batista government was any better.
I consider people like Murray Bookchin and Abdullah Ocalan to be much better examples of socialism than Castro or Guevara, although it's much easier when you're a theorist and don't have to deal with the frustrations and setbacks of the real world. That being said, Rojava and Jineology might not have been possible in 1960.
"Presentism" came up in a recent discussion of James Webb, the NASA director they named the telescope after. He's been criticized for anti-LGBT policies that occurred under his direction of the agency. Some people pointed out that there's no record of Webb being homophobic himself, and in the environment back then, he should get credit for not actively persecuting LGBT employees. It's unrealistic to expect people back then to take a strong stand when that would have gotten them fired. Just letting people be amounted to taking a stand.
I consider people like Murray Bookchin and Abdullah Ocalan to be much better examples of socialism than Castro or Guevara, although it's much easier when you're a theorist and don't have to deal with the frustrations and setbacks of the real world. That being said, Rojava and Jineology might not have been possible in 1960.
"Presentism" came up in a recent discussion of James Webb, the NASA director they named the telescope after. He's been criticized for anti-LGBT policies that occurred under his direction of the agency. Some people pointed out that there's no record of Webb being homophobic himself, and in the environment back then, he should get credit for not actively persecuting LGBT employees. It's unrealistic to expect people back then to take a strong stand when that would have gotten them fired. Just letting people be amounted to taking a stand.