Good Fruits; Evil Seeds

Sometimes good things can come from bad people. Sometimes.

Michael Shifter writes in yesterday's Washington Post about the good impulses that have come from two of Latin America's worst leaders: Cuba's Fidel Castro and Chile's Augusto Pinochet, who died yesterday. Shifter notes that Castro helped spur interest in uplifting the poor through social programs and Pinochet helped orient the region towards a more market-based economy. Shifter doesn't ignore the enourmous human rights abuses that took place under Castro and Pinochet's regimes and he isn't saying countries should follow their leadership examples. He simply says that the impulses of social progress and market-based economies found in the region today flowed from these two leaders.

I agree with Shifter, but it would have been nice if Latin America had two better examples than these two specimens of humanity.