We didn't become fervently anti-Castro until a bit after the revolution. At first, Washington felt they might be able to work with the guy.

Most people supported Castro early on.

It's there if you look for it.

Bernie continued to praise Castro after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I don't know who felt that way, except the Mob.

..and a sense of humor.

If the republicans wasted their money on that stuff from the 1960's, Bernie would be a shoe for election.

Who is that crap going to turn against Bernie? No one but right wing fanatics. That red baiting stuff doesn't fly anymore except on the far right and they aren't voting Democratic come hell or high water.

Hillary is the one who can't win the election. She's toast. The emails and the FBI are going to blow her out of the water.

The most reliable group of voters are those over 60.

I guarantee you this: They remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. And Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas. And the Cold War that lasted through the 1980s.

There are hundreds of thousands of Cubans in Florida whose grandparents fled the Castro regime in boats that fled to Key West.

There are many who did not make it. Some tried to swim to Key West. All swimmers died.

Those grandparents have told their children and grandchildren about the Castro dictatorship and why they fled and those friends and relatives who died trying to escape Castro's brutality.

All the Republicans have to do is run TV ads in southern Florida showing Bernie praising Fidel Castro. He will lose a significant percentage of the southern Florida vote.

Red baiting? Tell that to those Cuban families.

Castro is a hero in Latin America

Read 'Open veins of Latin America'

Something that happened 50 years ago gives you pause but a very critical and eye opening IG report and an active FBI investigation today means nothing. Got it.

And the role that Castro, Bernie's hero, played in it?

And the thousands who died under Castro's brutality?

Are you serious?

lol Is he influential or a nobody from Vermont?

why did Cuba wind up in the Soviet sphere? Simple really -sugar- which was Cuba's main export -the US offered to buy for a price-the Russians offered more-simple as that really

Castro partnered with Khrushchev because he needed $$$ to stabilize and rule Cuba. K needed C because he wanted land 90 miles from the shore of America. His motives were obvious.

What does sugar have to do with it?

Castro sold sugar to the USSR rather than the US because they were willing to pay more-

Tell that to the Cubans who died fleeing in boats for Key West to escape Castro's brutality. And those who swam in desperation, and died.

Denial in the face of facts does no one any good.

Read about the Doctor's Plot.

My maternal grandparents left Russia in 1908, one step ahead of the latest pogrom. My maternal grand uncle did well in America becoming rich making children's clothing, returned to Russia after the 1918 Revolution on a visit, gave sewing machines to some of his family members left behind, and the government confiscated them.

As an aside we are discussing America's relationship with Cuba during the Cold War, not communism in general or religion...

answer.

No, really.

JFK, AFTER the Cuban Missile crisis.

From James Douglass' great book, "JFK and the Unspeakable", 4 days before JFK's death:

Thus the stage was being set, four days before Dallas, for the beginning of a Kennedy-Castro dialogue on U.S.-Cuban relations… As carefully as porcupines making love, they were preparing to engage in a dialogue on the strange proposition that the United States and Cuba might actually be able to live together in peace.

I believe that there is no country in the world… including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime… I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.

But I feel that he inherited a difficult situation; I don’t think a President of the United States is ever really free, and I believe Kennedy is at present feeling the impact of this lack of freedom. I also believe he now understands the extent to which he has been misled, especially, for example, on Cuban reaction at the time of the attempted Bay of Pigs invasion…

Suddenly a President arrives on the scene who tries to support the interests of another class (which has no access to any of the levers of power) to give the various Latin American countries the impression that the United States no longer stands behind the dictators… What happens then? The trusts see that their interests are being a little compromised; the Pentagon thinks their strategic bases are in danger; the powerful oligarchies in all the Latin American countries alert their American friends; they sabotage the new policy; and in short, Kennedy has everyone against him…

I cannot help hoping that a leader will come to the fore in North America, who will be willing to brave unpopularity, fight the trusts, tell the truth and, most important, let the various nations act as they see fit. Kennedy could still be this man. He still has the possibility of becoming, in the eyes of history, the greatest President of the United States, the leader who may at last understand that there can be coexistence between capitalists and socialists, even in the Americas. He would then be an even greater President than Lincoln.

when they hear Bernie talking up Fidel Castro? That alone is enough to sink his candidacy in a GE. And he has said and written much, much worse. It's time for Bernie to be vetted.

He is the best candidate for President we have had for decades. Don't underestimate him.

Sam

I dont think "zomg he made nice with Castro" means a whole hell of a lot to the generation that thinks the Red Hot Chili Peppers are "your dad's music"

but that's exactly right. My daughter fits that demographic, and I can even vouch for the Red Hot Chili Peppers thing.

P.S.

She has a degree in political science, and just now shrugged and rolled her eyes at the OP.

It would come up during a debate, Bernie would explain it, and that would be the end of it.

So why all this demand for vetting? I am so confused by Hillary supporters who do this dance of thinking that Bernie's action in the 60s means something but Hillary being a republican back then means nothing!

They only care about the future -- climate change, social issues, jobs, education.

...is that you?

Ri-fucking-diculous.