>But partly because Trudeau Sr. was a communist-revolutionary apologist, in the French intellectual sense - and chilled with Fidel to boost is 'socialist hipster' cred and to thumb the eye of the Americans.
As opposed to a right-wing capitalist pig, like most other leaders?
The name-calling can go both ways.
Partly because we are not the US and did not have a direct confrontation.
But partly because Trudeau Sr. was a communist-revolutionary apologist, in the French intellectual sense - and chilled with Fidel to boost is 'socialist hipster' cred and to thumb the eye of the Americans.
As a young man, I found it admirable. Now that I know many ex-Cubans, I find it utterly repulsive and a stain on our history. It's one thing to have 'relations' or 'diplomacy' with another nation - it's altogether another to chum around with a thug. If it was in the name of getting Fidel to let his people off the island, or encourage democracy... sure ... but it was not that.