http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100908/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_fidel_castro

HAVANA – 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.

He said Castro made the comment casually over lunch following a long talk about the Middle East, and did not elaborate. The Cuban government had no immediate comment on Goldberg's account.

Since stepping down from power in 2006, the ex-president has focused almost entirely on international affairs and said very little about Cuba and its politics, perhaps to limit the perception he is stepping on his brother's toes.

Goldberg, who traveled to Cuba at Castro's invitation last week to discuss a recent Atlantic article he wrote about Iran's nuclear program, also reported on Tuesday that Castro questioned his own actions during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, including his recommendation to Soviet leaders that they use nuclear weapons against the United States.

Even after the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba has clung to its communist system.

The state controls well over 90 percent of the economy, paying workers salaries of about $20 a month in return for free health care and education, and nearly free transportation and housing. At least a portion of every citizen's food needs are sold to them through ration books at heavily subsidized prices.

President Raul Castro and others have instituted a series of limited economic reforms, and have warned Cubans that they need to start working harder and expecting less from the government. But the president has also made it clear he has no desire to depart from Cuba's socialist system or embrace capitalism.

Fidel Castro stepped down temporarily in July 2006 due to a serious illness that nearly killed him.

He resigned permanently two years later, but remains head of the Communist Party. After staying almost entirely out of the spotlight for four years, he re-emerged in July and now speaks frequently about international affairs. He has been warning for weeks of the threat of a nuclear war over Iran.

Castro's interview with Goldberg is the only one he has given to an American journalist since he left office.

Yeah, no shit.

I picture several million 'progressives' in this country sticking their fingers in their ears.

Plus Yep.

 

Need to tell that to Maxine Waters.

Yup.



Didn't the Soviet Union already prove this?



 

Oh hey, thanks.  I mean, you only ruined the lives of three generations of Cubans, but eh, better late than never, right?

Too bad obama didn't get that memo.

Hmmm, it "failed" as soon as Mother Russia quit sending goods and funds to prop it up artificially. Go figure.

Well at least the body count was only in the 5 digit range. The USSR had a lot steeper learning curve.

Methinks Castro knows he doesn't have much time left, and is trying to set his "legacy".
Never mind that when he does kick the bucket, the party in Miami will be worth going to.



 

And in other news, water is wet.

He didn't say they were going to stop ruining them. The article doesn't even smell of regret or remorse.

This will not affect the progressives, they don't have logic in their brains.

Let check, I must have stepped through a flaw in the fabric of the universe into a parrallel reality, because Castro one of the last commies just admitted Communism doesn't work and hell isn't freezing over.

There weren't as many people to kill in Cuba.

Death solves all problems.
No man, no problem.
- ––JOSEF STALIN

Paging Barry Soetoro.

Of course it doesn't work.  The US is the only country who restricts trade with the tiny island nation.  Every other nation in the world is free to trade with Cuba.  Many spend billions per year in Cuba in both trade and tourism.   If that nation is cash strapped and poor, perhaps it is because Comrade Fidel and his cohorts have siphoned billions of dollars from the economy before letting any $$ trickle down to the Cuban people.  

But why let the facts ruin a good story right?

Don't forget the commies he installed in Zimbabwe, the gift that keeps on giving.

Fidel is paving the way for brother Raul to open the system a little bit, to stave off collapse for a few more years as long as he can....


Steve

Just an old man, hoping to die before his legacy does...

He's a slow learner I guess.

How long before we bail out Cuba?

it froze over in jan 09

[Michael Moore]To their credit though, they do have the best health care in the world.

I've seen the hospitals that normal citizens like high ranking government officals go to and they are impressive.  (They assured me that all of them are like that.) [\Michael Moore]