A Castro Of Millions

Cuban dictator emeritus (you don't see a whole lot of those actually) Fidel Castro figures with the whole normalizing relations with America thing and befriending the Pope that he's going to go out on the best note a dictator like himself can, I guess.

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro delivered a valedictory speech Tuesday to the Communist Party that he put in power a half-century ago, telling party members he will soon die and exhorting them to help his ideas survive.

"I'll be 90 years old soon," Castro said in his most extensive public appearance in years. "Soon I'll be like all the others. The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain as proof on this planet that if they are worked at with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need, and we need to fight without a truce to obtain them."

Castro spoke as the government announced that his brother Raul will retain the Cuban Communist Party's highest post alongside his hardline second-in-command. That announcement and FidelCastro's speech together delivered a resounding message that the island's revolutionary generation will remain in control even as its members age and die, relations with the U.S. are normalized, and popular dissatisfaction grows over the country's economic performance.

Is it too much to hope for that his passing will clear the way for actual democracy and progress in Cuba?  Well, that is unless we get Trump, in case Cuba might actually end up ahead of us on the whole progress thing...