Viva la revolucion! Cuba's 50th anniversary (cont'd.)

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You might suspect a story behind this respectability — and you are right. The regime is very keen on keeping infant mortality down, knowing that the world looks to this statistic as an indicator of the general health of a country. Cuban doctors are instructed to pay particular attention to prenatal and infant care. A woman’s pregnancy is closely monitored. (The regime manages to make the necessary equipment available.) And if there is any sign of abnormality, any reason for concern — the pregnancy is “interrupted.” That is the going euphemism for abortion. The abortion rate in Cuba is sky-high, perversely keeping the infant-mortality rate down.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba/health-myth.htm

Cuba’s low infant mortality rate is due to the high rate of abortions if there is indication there will be problems with the child. An infant dieing on their first day of life is counted as an abortion. Cuba has a high abortion rate.

Hey, Kindrid, are you the same "Kindrid" who found the [u][url=http://www.politicalstew.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1316233&sid=9d91749a8.... Army report[/url][/u] finding no evidence of torture or inhumane treatment at Guantanamo?

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I have never heard of forced abortion in Cuba, unlike China and some parts of India. So much the better if pregnancies are closely monitored and women can opt or abortions.

Abortions are not forced but encouraged if there is a problem with the pregnancy. You also miss the point that an infant that dies on their first day of life in Cuba is counted as an abortion. In the US such a case would be counted in the infant mortality statistics.

Sorry, but a medical system plagued with simple drug shortages does not pass the smell test with its claims of offering great health care to its people.

Except for Guantanamo, right, Kindrid? The one ray of hope in Cuba today.

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In Cuba there is a health program that concentrates on primary medical attention. Its protagonists, family doctors, are obligated to lie in many ways. Primarily at the time of filling out a death certificate.

http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y00/jun00/19e5.htm

A good article on one example of how Cuba fudges the health stats.

Cuba before the Revolution was on par with the Southern Cone in terms of economic development. Not those conditions were perfect but Cuba was positioned to become an economic success story.  The purpose of education in Cuba is indoctrination. The Cuban equivalent to the Secretary of Education stated this.  Files are kept on each student regarding political matters and children are encouraged to report statements made by their parents that are critical of the government. Books are banned and internet charges are so expensive that ordinary Cubans can’t afford access. Even if the Cuban acquires access to the net, the sites are monitored by the government.  While Chile does have a dark past, today it provides all of its people health care and education without resorting to a police state. So does Costa Rica and has no “dark past”.

Kindrid wrote:

So, police state is justified if it teaches reading and health care?  

 Not in U.S.-managed police states like Haiti and El Salvador, Colombia and Guatmala. They terrorize their own people while kids rummage around landfill sites for trinkets to sell to support their impoverished families instead of being in school where they are supposed to be.

CUBAN GLADIO TERRORISTAS AND GRINGO HYPOCRISY

So, the solution to poverty in developing nations is a police state?

Kindrid wrote:

So, the solution to poverty in developing nations is a police state?

That's called "begging the question".  

The CIA was not involved in drug running during the conflicts in Central America. That is a political myth that has been discredited by legitimate sources and investigations.

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What do you think people mean here when they talk about educating kids to be "good citizens" or "preparing them for employment" or to be "productive members of society"

In the West diversity of opinion is tolerated. That is not true in Cuba. The examples that you listed are uncontroversial generalities.

There is still a lot of poverty and homelessness in Chile. All is not well in Chile as their significantly poorer national health statistics show.  

A former student of Milton Friedman's talks about the free market reforms in Chile from 1973 to 1983 or so. And then the wheels fell off...        

Tinker Bell, Pinochet and The Fairy Tale Miracle of Chile

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There is still a lot of poverty and homelessness in Chile.

 In Cubal almost everyone is poor other than the elite. In Cuba you can’t be homeless if you even wanted to. You would be arrested.

[url=http://www.politicalstew.com/forum/profile.php?mode=viewprofile&u=191&si... close relative?[/u][/url]

EVerbody picks on the USSA. It's not fair. And we'd best be careful not to incur the wrath of the vicious empire. Because they could do some really nasty things otherwise. They're our friends now, but they dont need us all that much.

But I like fielding questions about favourite colour and quest from the small trolls. It's so much fun.

So he's a real Dr Evil knock off eh? The poor little bugger

This is a good site that lists the stats regarding Cuba. Cuba’s Revolutionary achievements are not very impressive. For example average calories per day have fallen since the days of Batista while the rest of Latin America has seen an increase. Greater increases in literacy have been achieved by other Latin American nations.

http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu/FACTS_Web/Cuba%20Facts%20Issue%2043%20December.htmConsidering the fact that Fidel’s Cuba was the ultimate parasite nation receiving billions in aid every year from the Soviet Union, the accomplishments of the Revolution are rather pathetic.

In fact, the free world owes Fidel a debt of gratitude by helping to bankrupt the former Soviet Union. When is Cuba going to pay back the 25 billion it owes Russia?

This is from William Blum's latest [I]Anti-Empire Report[/I]. He makes a nice comparison between the loyalists and Cuban exiles.  

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[B]On socialist Cuba's 50th anniversary, January 1, 2009: Notes on the beginning of its unforgivable revolution[/B].

The existence of a revolutionary socialist government with growing ties to the Soviet Union only 90 miles away, insisted the United States government, was a situation which no self-respecting superpower should tolerate, and in 1961 it undertook an invasion of Cuba.

But less than 50 miles from the Soviet Union sat Pakistan, a close ally of the United States, a member since 1955 of the South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), the US-created anti-communist alliance. On the very border of the Soviet Union was Iran, an even closer ally of the United States, with its relentless electronic listening posts, aerial surveillance, and infiltration into Russian territory by American agents. And alongside Iran, also bordering the Soviet Union, was Turkey, a member of the Russians' mortal enemy, NATO, since 1951.

In 1962 during the "Cuban Missile Crisis", Washington, seemingly in a state of near-panic, informed the world that the Russians were installing "offensive" missiles in Cuba. The US promptly instituted a "quarantine" of the island -- a powerful show of naval and marine forces in the Caribbean would stop and search all vessels heading towards Cuba; any found to contain military cargo would be forced to turn back.

The United States, however, had missiles and bomber bases already in place in Turkey and other missiles in Western Europe pointed toward the Soviet Union. Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev later wrote:
"The Americans had surrounded our country with military bases and threatened us with nuclear weapons, and now they would learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointing at you; we'd be doing nothing more than giving them a little of their own medicine. ... After all, the United States had no moral or legal quarrel with us. We hadn't given the Cubans anything more than the Americans were giving to their allies. We had the same rights and opportunities as the Americans. Our conduct in the international arena was governed by the same rules and limits as the Americans."[15]

Lest anyone misunderstand, as Khrushchev apparently did, the rules under which Washington was operating, Time magazine was quick to explain. "On the part of the Communists," the magazine declared, "this equating [referring to Khrushchev's offer to mutually remove missiles and bombers from Cuba and Turkey] had obvious tactical motives. On the part of neutralists and pacifists [who welcomed Khrushchev's offer] it betrayed intellectual and moral confusion." The confusion lay, it seems, in not seeing clearly who were the good guys and who were the bad guys, for "The purpose of the U.S. bases [in Turkey] was not to blackmail Russia but to strengthen the defense system of NATO, which had been created as a safeguard against Russian aggression. As a member of NATO, Turkey welcomed the bases as a contribution to her own defense." Cuba, which had been invaded only the year before, could have, it seems, no such concern. Time continued its sermon, which undoubtedly spoke for most Americans:

"Beyond these differences between the two cases, there is an enormous moral difference between U.S. and Russian objectives ... To equate U.S. and Russian bases is in effect to equate U.S. and Russian purposes ... The U.S. bases, such as those in Turkey, have helped keep the peace since World War II, while the Russian bases in Cuba threatened to upset the peace. The Russian bases were intended to further conquest and domination, while U.S. bases were erected to preserve freedom. The difference should have been obvious to all."[16]

Equally obvious was the right of the United States to maintain a military base on Cuban soil -- Guantanamo Naval Base by name, a vestige of colonialism staring down the throats of the Cuban people, which the US, to this day, refuses to vacate despite the vehement protest of the Castro government.

In the American lexicon, in addition to good and bad bases and missiles, there are good and bad revolutions. The American and French Revolutions were good. The Cuban Revolution is bad. It must be bad because so many people have left Cuba as a result of it.

But at least 100,000 people left the British colonies in America during and after the American Revolution. These Tories could not abide by the political and social changes, both actual and feared, particularly that change which attends all revolutions worthy of the name -- Those looked down upon as inferiors no longer know their place. (Or as the US Secretary of State put it after the Russian Revolution: The Bolsheviks sought "to make the ignorant and incapable mass of humanity dominant in the earth."[17])

The Tories fled to Nova Scotia and Britain carrying tales of the godless, dissolute, barbaric American revolutionaries. Those who remained and refused to take an oath of allegiance to the new state governments were denied virtually all civil liberties. Many were jailed, murdered, or forced into exile. After the American Civil War, thousands more fled to South America and other points, again disturbed by the social upheaval. How much more is such an exodus to be expected following the Cuban Revolution? -- a true social revolution, giving rise to changes much more profound than anything in the American experience. How many more would have left the United States if 90 miles away lay the world's wealthiest nation welcoming their residence and promising all manner of benefits and rewards?

Another one!

Ok, friends, waste your time answering this kindrid spirit.

Welcome to the New Elbbab!

I did not get this from Reader’s Digest it comes from Yoani Sánchez’s blog from Generation Y. She is a Cuban living in Cuba. The blog has received widespread praise. This is a link to a Time Magazine story on her. Her blog is great source to understand life in Cuba: 

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1733748_1733756_1735878,00.html 

Yoani’s blog in English:

 http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/ 

In Spanish: 

http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/ 

From her blog writing about her 13 year old son’s education:

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The ideological slant of Cuban education has reached an alarming point, even for those of us who were taught under the same methods.  Simply looking at a textbook or reviewing the system for assessing students, one can see doctrine gaining ground at the expense of knowledge.  In my son’s classroom, six photos of “Olive Green Leader” adorn the walls, while the report cards include grades for participation in political and patriotic activities.

It calls to mind my time as a Little Pioneer, reading a communique or shouting slogans, and I can’t get past feeling myself abused.  But the feeling is much stronger when I see that[b] Teo—at thirteen—has learned which opinions should not be expressed at school to avoid problems.[/b]

There you have it. Cuba’s educational system consists of nothing but constant forced propaganda and indoctrination. A system where children learn they better not say anything that deviates from the official party line or they will get their family in trouble.   

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Batista offered neither health care nor education to his country's people.  The bulk of the people lived in great poverty while Batista and his friends lived a wealthy lifestyle.

The Lord's Prayer According to former U.S. puppet in Haiti Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier

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"Our Doc, who art in the National Palace for life, hallowed by Thy name by present and future generations. They will be done in Port-au-Prince as it is in the provinces. Give us this day our new Haiti and forgive not the trespasses of those anti-patriots who daily spit upon our country..."

Catechism which was taught in the schools included such items as:

Q. Who are Dessalines, Toussaint, Christophe, Petion and Estime?

 

A. Dessalines, Toussaint, Christophe, Petion, and Estime are five distinct Chiefs of State who are substantiated in and form only one and the same President in the person of Francois Duvalier.

The bombing list

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 Korea and China 1950-53 (Korean War)

Guatemala 1954

Indonesia 1958

Cuba 1959-1961

Guatemala 1960

Congo 1964

Laos 1964-73

Vietnam 1961-73

Cambodia 1969-70

Guatemala 1967-69

Grenada 1983

Lebanon 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)

Libya 1986

El Salvador 1980s

Nicaragua 1980s

Iran 1987

Panama 1989

Iraq 1991 (Persian Gulf War)

Kuwait 1991

Somalia 1993

Bosnia 1994, 1995

Sudan 1998

Afghanistan 1998

Yugoslavia 1999

Yemen 2002

Iraq 1991-2003 (US/UK on regular basis)

Iraq 2003-05

Afghanistan 2001-05Plus Iran, April 2003 — hit by US missiles during bombing of Iraq, killing at least one persdon {2}

Pakistan, 2002-03 — bombed by US planes several times as part of combat against the Taliban and other opponents of the US occupation of Afghanistan {3}

China, 1999 — its heavily bombed embassy in Belgrade is legally Chinese territory, and it appears rather certain that the bombing was no accident (see chapter 25)

France, 1986 — After the French government refused the use of its air space to US warplanes headed for a bombing raid on Libya, the planes were forced to take another, longer route; when they reached Libya they bombed so close to the French embassy that the building was damaged and all communication links knocked out.{4}

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 13, 1985 — A bomb dropped by a police helicopter burned down an entire block, some 60 homes destroyed, 11 dead, including several small children. The police, the mayor’s office, and the FBI were all involved in this effort to evict a black organization called MOVE from the house they lived in.

Them other guys are really shocking “We should expect conflicts in which adversaries, because of cultural affinities different from our own, will resort to forms and levels of violence shocking to our sensibilities.” Department of Defense, 1999

The US military and its hired mercenaries have bombed, burned and destroyed schools and hospitals all over the world in the name of "freedom" And what wasnt destroyed by US bombs and missiles was laid waste to by neoliberal restructuring and Washington consensus forced on desperate countries.

</p> <p> <strong><a href="http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Latin_America/BePatriot_KillPriest_COTP.html">Be a U.S.-backed patriot(in El Salvador) and kill a priest</a></strong> </p> <p> [quote wrote:

Though less spectacular, government harassment of other priests and nuns was equally unpleasant. After the 1972 earthquake leveled Managua, a number of religious orders moved to the slums instead of rebuilding their schools for the rich, but even the well-to-do Catholic schools that remained placed increasing emphasis on the sort of "liberating education" that searches out the whys and wherefores of injustice and poverty. Since this went against the Somoza preference for "uneducated oxen," the government, in addition to banning courses in philosophy, logic, psychology, and sociology, burdened these Catholic institutions with endless red tape, arbitrary orders to dismiss teachers, and threats of closure

U.S.-backed Contra terrorists bombed schools, hospitals, and community centres in Nicaragua

CIA mind control experiments in over 200 medical schools, hospitals, Canada, and Western Europe

bombing schools and hospitals in Iraq 

NATO bombers target and destroy hundreds of schools and hospitals in Yugoslavia

CIA-funded colleges for producing religious robots in Central Asia

The world's foremost school for torture and terror

Click here just for the fun of it

Exterminating public schools in America

You're comparing apples and oranges, Sven. Where would you rather move to, anywhere mainland Canada or PEI, or even Newfoundland?

And I think it wouldnt matter to those emigres whether we have a colonial administrator at the helm in Ottawa and kow-towing to Crazy George or a real leader.

I think what else is missing from your good places to move to comparison is just how Washington consensus of the 1990's, IMF and WTO policies for globalization and deregulation have affected some of those thirdworld capitalist countries and their emigration patterns, US-led wars etc. Greenpeace estimates there will be 125 million climate refugees. Anti-globalization groups have said we can expect tens of millions of economic refugees to seek sanctuary in Australia and whichever countries will have them in the near future. 

You wont see many people emigrating to the US or Canada from countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, UK, Japan or even Germany or very many countries with socialized medicine and policies for equality. CCPA and other reports say there is a relationship between low voter participation and lower levels of economic equality in general.

For many years a large part of US immigration consisted mainly of economic and political refugees fleeing Latin America to the U.S. Throughout the cold war, there were US and international citrus and coffee trading companies paying what amounted to slave wages to Latinos for the fruits of their back-breaking work under oppressive social and political conditions. Europe and Nordic countries, and Canada, too, have some fairly restrictive immigration policies compared to the USA.

According to US economist Dean Baker, corporate America and the rich prefer to flood the US labour market with lowly skilled to semi-skilled labour in creating competition and driving down wages. But there isnt that same spirit of Darwinian global competition in America across the higher paid professions, and Baker says its purely for political reasons. And the NDP has pointed to similar job protectionism disguised as expensive red tape and bungling bureaucrats here and insulating our professionals from free market forces similarly. A Ryerson study of a year or so ago said Canada has actually experienced an exodus of several hundred thousand well-educated Asian emigres back to Asia and citing a general lack of opportunities in Canada and for a host of reasons without exactly forcing readers to conclude the obvious. Political conservatives never really believed in their own free trade ideals, Sven.

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That is the acid test...and it is the giant elephant in the room that those who laud centralized planning and control desperately try to avoid discussing.

Well said.

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You can now return to shifting everyone's attention away from that
elephant by talking about (1) capitalism's evils and (2) America's
evils.

I'm surprised that Fidel hasn't trotted out the old lie that Cuban Govt stooges like to parrot to naive tourists-'[i]People can't leave because they have to pay the Govt back for all the free education and medical care they've received[/i]'-in other words they can't leave because they owe Castro for being born.

The Walrus link has some moving images but none are as depressing as how people live in the countryside-animals on Canadian farms live better than many rural Cubans.

The image below is ironic-Colombia sells cement throughout the Caribbean and Central Americia cheap why doesn't Cuba do business with Colombia and save some money/help poor Cubans?

Cubans have apartheid-like beaches scattered along the coasts-not the cleanest or calmest but Castro knows best about where his people are allowed to enjoy themselves.

Kindrid wrote:

You can’t have it both ways.

But Cubans have what most all U.S. sponsored shitholes don't have, health care, education, something more than a corrugated tin shacks so typical of the poverty-stricken shitholes in Uncle Sam's backyard

The US Military and CIA have invaded Haiti about 25 times from last century to this decade in putting down peoples' revolts against intolerable and brutal US-backed dictatorships. And Ottawa helped out Uncle Sam's most recent CIA-military intervention in 2004. Washington described Haiti as the "freest trading nation in the Caribbean" But it's really just dehumanizing abject poverty in this particular U.S. client state.

 [img]http://www.wehaitians.com/flood_2.jpg[/img]

Freedom American style for Haitians

[img]http://www.wehaitians.com/flood_3.jpg[/img]

Seaside slums near Port Au Prince

[img]http://www.wehaitians.com/flood_6.jpg[/img]

Hardly a dent in Guatemalan poverty  another U.S.-sponsored shithole

U.S.-backed rightwing death squads still murdering El Salvadorans after all these years

[url=http://la.indymedia.org/news/2008/04/216560.php][IMG]http://img.photobuc...