[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
BTW, why do you think the regime would want to restrict most of its citizens from traveling overseas?
[/quote]
Because Cuba is so awesome that people should not know too much about so, because then they would all want to be there?
It is the only possible explanation.
A bit of time spent here: http://therealcuba.com/index.htm …is enlightening. Reading through the links makes you just a bit sick, especially after seeing the pictures and videos w/r/t the health care. There’s also an interesting piece on Cuban “slave doctors”. Quite a contrast to what some of the members on this board would like you to believe about Cuba.
But you have no reason to think the root information is incorrect, other than that it chafes you due to your preconceived notions about how it “ought” to be. It’s not as if the UN and other organizations are preparing their reports by peering over a wall with binoculars. These teams have a presence on the island, and witness conditions on the ground. The “veil of secrecy” that idiotic right wing conspiracy theories depend upon does not exist, and you have done nothing with this post to explain the gaping holes in your “theory” (being generous). What exactly are all those doctors, that we know they have, doing all day if not treating patients?
While I am not trying make excuses for these types of restrictive policies (which, by the way, have been largely done away with in recent years), there is a very real history of the US attempting to sabotage Cuban affairs. It really does make sense for them to regulate travel on and off the island to some extent.
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
A bit of time spent here: http://therealcuba.com/index.htm …is enlightening. Reading through the links makes you just a bit sick, especially after seeing the pictures and videos w/r/t the health care. There’s also an interesting piece on Cuban “slave doctors”. Quite a contrast to what some of the members on this board would like you to believe about Cuba. [/quote]
“Like to believe.” That’s the key phrase right there. Some of us post multiple links to impartial sources to document our claims, and some of us post links to obviously biased websites with no supporting documentation.
Here’s an article that says something significantly different than your website.
You wouldn’t believe this one, of course, but the only difference is statistics support this article.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
A bit of time spent here: http://therealcuba.com/index.htm …is enlightening. Reading through the links makes you just a bit sick, especially after seeing the pictures and videos w/r/t the health care. There’s also an interesting piece on Cuban “slave doctors”. Quite a contrast to what some of the members on this board would like you to believe about Cuba. [/quote]
“Like to believe.” That’s the key phrase right there. Some of us post multiple links to impartial sources to document our claims, and some of us post links to obviously biased websites with no supporting documentation.[/quote]
Go ahead and refute them then…
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]bigflamer wrote:
A bit of time spent here: http://therealcuba.com/index.htm …is enlightening. Reading through the links makes you just a bit sick, especially after seeing the pictures and videos w/r/t the health care. There’s also an interesting piece on Cuban “slave doctors”. Quite a contrast to what some of the members on this board would like you to believe about Cuba. [/quote]
“Like to believe.” That’s the key phrase right there. Some of us post multiple links to impartial sources to document our claims, and some of us post links to obviously biased websites with no supporting documentation.[/quote]
Go ahead and refute them then…
[/quote]
Oh, I suppose you weren’t paying attention, then. I already have. That laughable website is directly contradicted by data from UNICEF, the WHO, and the CIA, as I have already illustrated. Furthermore, given the unquestionable facts we know about Cuba, including the number and skill of their doctors, and their biotech accomplishments, your propaganda website’s claims don’t even make sense.
The ONLY reason to completely disregard, not only common sense conclusions in light of known facts, but also information endorsed by the independent organizations listed above, in favor of one single unabashed propaganda website, is that you are a complete ideologue. Don’t even try to deny this. While I really don’t care what you think, since you’ve made it obvious that you choose ideology over facts (no matter how irrefutable), I just want to make it clear to others what a huge leap you’re making based on scant evidence.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Oh, I suppose you weren’t paying attention, then. I already have. That laughable website is directly contradicted by data from UNICEF, the WHO, and the CIA, as I have already illustrated. Furthermore, given the unquestionable facts we know about Cuba, including the number and skill of their doctors, and their biotech accomplishments, your propaganda website’s claims don’t even make sense.
The ONLY reason to completely disregard, not only common sense conclusions in light of known facts, but also information endorsed by the independent organizations listed above, in favor of an unabashed propaganda website, is that you are a complete ideologue. Don’t even try to deny this. While I really don’t care what you think, since you’ve made it obvious that you choose ideology over facts (no matter how irrefutable), I just want to make it clear to others what a huge leap you’re making based on scant evidence.[/quote]
Oh, I won’t deny the fact that Cuba trains very good doctors, from what I’ve read, the medical school in Cuba is top notch. It also seems as though Castro is more interested in pimping his doctors worldwide.
CUBA’S DOCTOR ABUSE
[i]Remember Cuba’s vaunted medical missionaries – those who treated the poor abroad for nothing, supposedly out of selfless motives? A lawsuit shows they were nothing but a communist slave racket. It ought to bear a few lessons for our own country as the role of doctors in the health care debate drags on, says Investor’s Business Daily (IBD)…
…But in 2003, Castro went big, and shipped 20,000 doctors and nurses to Venezuela’s jungles and slums to treat the poor, doing the work “selfish” private-sector doctors wouldn’t. Hugo Chavez touted this line and the mainstream media followed. Now the ugly facts are getting out about what that really meant – indentured servitude to pay off the debts of a bankrupt regime, says IBD:
* This week, seven escaped doctors and a nurse filed a 139-page complaint in Miami under the RICO and Alien Tort acts describing just how Cuba's oil-for-doctors deal came to mean slavery.
* The Cuban medics were forced to work seven days a week, under 60-patient daily quotas, in crime-riddled places with no freedom of movement.
* Cuban military guards known as "Committees of Health" acted as slave catchers to ensure they didn't flee.
* Doctors earned about $180 a month, a salary so low many had to beg for food and water from Venezuelans until they could escape.
What they endured wasn’t just bad conditions common inside Cuba. The doctors were instruments of a money-making racket to benefit the very Castro regime that has ruined Cuba’s economy, says IBD. That’s because their labor was tied to an exchange:
* Castro took 100,000 barrels of oil each day from Venezuela's state oil company in exchange for uncompensated Cuban labor.
* Most of the oil was then sold for hard currency, bringing in cash.
* Cuba also charged Venezuela $30 per patient visit, meaning a $1,000 daily haul per doctor, but the doctors never saw any of it. [/i]
Big Pimpin…
Cuba’s Cash for Doctors
Published: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 7:00 am
[i]For decades, Cuba has “exported” doctors, nurses and health technicians to earn diplomatic influence in poor countries and hard cash for its floundering economy. According to Cuba’s official media, an estimated 38,544 Cuban health professionals were serving abroad in 2008, 17,697 of them doctors. (Cuba reports having 70,000 doctors in all.)
These “missionaries of the revolution” are well-received in host countries from Algeria to South Africa to Venezuela. Yet those who hail Cuba’s generosity overlook the uglier aspects of Cuba’s health diplomacy.
The regime stands accused of violating various international agreements such as the Trafficking in Persons Protocol and ILO Convention on the Protection of Wages because of the way these health-care providers are treated. In February, for example, seven Cuban doctors who formerly served in Venezuela and later defected filed a lawsuit in Florida federal court against Cuba, Venezuela and the Venezuelan state oil company for holding them in conditions akin to “modern slavery.”
They claim the Cuban regime held the funds Venezuela remitted for their services and then paid themâ??an arrangement they say is a form of “debt bondage.” They also say they were forced to work extremely long hours in dangerous areas, including urban zones with high crime rates and the jungle. (The Venezuelan government and its oil company are challenging the court’s jurisdiction to hear the case; Cuba hasn’t responded.)…
…Cuba’s profitable global business has ramifications for its own health-care system. It’s been extensively reported, by Cuba’s independent journalists as well as by the occasional Westerner who ends up in a hospital for the common people, that Cubans face a chronic shortage of doctors and dilapidated health facilities. Patients or their families must even bring their own food and linens to the hospital.
Meanwhile, the mass production of Cuban doctors for export has led medical associations in host countries such as Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Portugal to question their experience and credentials. Some Venezuelan doctors have complained of being fired and replaced by Cuban missionary physicians. And a few years ago the Bolivian press reported that the country’s medical association was complaining about thousands of unemployed health professionals who were earning considerably less than what Mr. ChÃ?¡vez was paying for Cubans.
Humanitarianism cannot be selective. Cuba’s health workers deserve full protection of local and international laws, its citizens deserve access to adequate health care, and patients everywhere deserve accountability from their health-care providers.
Ms. Werlau is executive director of nonprofit Cuba Archive, a human rights organization.[/i]
Ahhh, the high life…
http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagjr002.php
THE STANDARD OF LIVING IN CUBA
By Jos�© R. Alvarez
[i]After 40 years, the economic Standard of Living in Cuba is less than 1% of what it was in the decade of the 50’s.
As a Cuban who has lived during the last forty years in the ‘North’, working among ‘Americans’, I have run into many situations where friends and acquaintances, once they get to know I was born and raised in Cuba, ask me about ‘how things are in Cuba’, a theme that seems to have universal interest. Many seem to want to confirm reports that appear sporadically in the press and television, and which for whatever reasons have captured their attention. Those who are up in years still remember the October 1962 episode, some have heard about the Bay of Pigs, and considerably fewer know about the ‘balseros’. Many have had great interest in the Elian Gonzalez case.
Depending on the kind of questions, my answers have focused on the issues around the tyrannical repression and on the monumental economic failure of communism, particularly as it relates to the daily procurement of food. That is, the use of rationing cards, etc. As I go into details, many become somewhat incredulous, since it is nearly impossible for them to understand circumstances so far and foreign from their daily lives existing a mere 90 miles from the richest and most powerful nation on the world. [/i]
I’ll post more later, I’m headed out with the family to our favorite capitalist restaurant for dinner. I do enjoy our little conversations, comrade.
Incidentally, restaurants are a good example of an industry that does not need to be nationalized.
But to get your post, I’m not going to argue about the low pay and sometimes less-than-optimal conditions than some Cuba doctors work under, but let me make a couple of observations:
1.Since the majority of your material, including this latest, comes from explicitly anti-Castro sources (which very frequently distort facts when they do not invent them wholesale), I have my doubts that conditions are really universally as bad as your document describes. Because if they were, word would eventually get out (you found this on the Internet, so the information is obviously already known), and you’d likely see less people becoming doctors if it was really such a bad deal, yet this doesn’t appear to be a problem. Moreover, I can invoke the same argument that history-deficient Libertarians use to argue that the Industrial Revolution was a really a big cookie-bake: the fact that people are willing to endure this treatment means that whatever they’re coming from is worse, so they’re still better off.
This is primarily an aside.
- Disregarding the question of accuracy, it’s not really fair to call these conditions slavery. Despite relatively low pay (although many times, prices in other countries are lower than in the US), these doctors graduate with a grand total $0.00 of student debt. To be fair, you might as well say that American doctors are “slaves” for the first several years of their careers, as well, since they graduate, usually, with several hundred thousand dollars of student debt.
Edit: Upon looking a little further into your link, the sodahead.com article links to a letter signed by 18 Cuban doctors who “released a statement this week condemning recent efforts to hold the U.S. embargo of Cuba responsible for reportedly declining Cuban health standards.” In addition to making suspect claims such as:
“We remain mystified as to why people of ordinarily good will and faith would seek to find fault with the United States for the disastrous situation inside Cuba, while failing to direct the blame squarely where it belongs - at the feet of Fidel Castro, who continues to rule our country with an iron fist after 38 years in power.”
that display a lack of understanding of the situation (as I earlier showed, many studies have been done that clearly illustrate the deleterious effect of the embargo on Cuba health care, so the claim above, while it may or may not be genuinely believed, is demonstrably incorrect) seemingly inconsistent with their status as Cuban doctors (who should know about the state of Cuban health care), also has this line at the bottom:
“Note: This statement was received and translated by the Cuban American National Foundation.”
which is the same Miami-based (note: that is where all the losers in the Cuban Revolution went, so they’re all anti-Castro) organization in your second link. While I’m not going so far as to say this is completely false, it certainly is curious that all your links come from a limited body of material supplied by the defeated supporters of an ousted dictator. What you’re doing is like like asking a Confederate soldier in 1865 for an account of the Union forces.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
Incidentally, restaurants are a good example of an industry that does not need to be nationalized.[/quote]
Actually, I was thinking about the many conversations we’ve had about economics, and wondered how a pro football player would fit into marxism. They, along with the owners, make a shit ton of cash as everyone knows, and their defense is that their worth is determined by the market. It was the coverage of the labor talks between the players union and the owners that had me thinking of that.
Anyways, sorry for the hijack.
[quote] But to get to your post, I’m not going to argue about the low pay and sometimes less-than-optimal conditions than some Cuba doctors work under, but let me make a couple of observations:
1.Since the majority of your material, including this latest, comes from explicitly anti-Castro sources (which very frequently distort facts when they do not invent them wholesale), I have my doubts that conditions are really universally as bad as your document describes. Because if they were, word would eventually get out (you found this on the Internet, so the information is obviously already known), and you’d likely see less people becoming doctors if it was really such a bad deal, yet this doesn’t appear to be a problem. Moreover, I can invoke the same argument that history-deficient Libertarians use to argue that the Industrial Revolution was a really a big cookie-bake: the fact that people are willing to endure this treatment means that whatever they’re coming from is worse, so they’re still better off.[/quote]
Would you expect me to find evidence of the dreadful conditions that these doctors are forced to work under, with PRO Castro sources? I think I can understand your unwillingness to accept the claims, but I’d like you to tell me how it is you think that the site’s many claims are wrong. There’s a helluvalot of information on there, which documents in detail the hellish conditions not only for the doctors, but for the Cubans themselves. Did you read through the website? Or did you simply pass it off as propaganda?
Castro’s millions…
CIMEX
[i]When Forbes published that Castro’s fortune was estimated at 900 million dollars, it mentioned a list of companies that are under his control and from where he is able to skim profits that go directly to his many bank accounts all over the world.
Among the companies mentioned is the retail conglomerate known as CIMEX. In an article dated December of 2001, Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba, reported that CIMEX had sales of 950 million dollars. According to Granma, CIMEX owned “dozens of many large and small stores, 119 gasoline stations, 117 cafeterias, 47 photo services (digital and color), the tour operator HAVANATUR, finance and banking facilities, and real estate and duty-free zones businesses.”
Recent defectors have said that since that article was published, CIMEX has grown quite a bit more. Here are some of the products and services that are displayed in CIMEX’s web page. You won’t see any embargo here because these products and services are only available to foreigners living in Cuba, tourists or for export. For comparison purposes, we have added a couple of photos showing the differences between the products and services offered by CIMEX and those available to regular Cubans.
Cubans will continue suffering Castro’s internal embargo because they do not have the hard currency that the dictator requires to buy in his shops. And they will never have access to hard currency because Castro is the only employer in the island and he pays his slaves in worthless pesos.[/i]
[quote]This is primarily an aside.
- Disregarding the question of accuracy, it’s not really fair to call these conditions slavery. Despite relatively low pay (although many times, prices in other countries are lower than in the US), these doctors graduate with a grand total $0.00 of student debt. To be fair, you might as well say that American doctors are “slaves” for the first several years of their careers, as well, since they graduate, usually, with several hundred thousand dollars of student debt.[/quote]
You really want to write off the conditions that these doctors have to work under as simply a matter of “low pay” and “less than optimal working conditions”? Wow. The difference is, that while the American students are in debt with their lenders, they will go on to careers of their choosing, have careers where they choose, be smart with their money (hopefully) in the years directly following college, and pay their lenders back. All of this is done under the direction of their choosing; no slave catchers to round them back up, no hellish working conditions, no government using them in a money making scheme, and not considered property of the state. Basically, they are free from the oppression of the state.
Of course, this case was listed in my other link, but I thought I’d reference it from another source. This link goes into detail about the travel restrictions that Cuba imposes on it’s citizens. It’s pretty fucked up when the state doesn’t allow one of it’s citizens to leave the country with his/her own children.
[i]Dr. Hilda Molina was once a leading figure in the development of Cuba’s state-run health care system. Hailed in the official press as a “great scientist,” photographed repeatedly with Fidel Castro, and elected to the national Congress, Dr. Molina, a neurologist, founded the International Center for Neurological Restoration (Centro Internacional de Restauración Neurológico, CIREN) in 1988 to coordinate Cuba’s neuroscientific work.[16] But when she sought permission to visit her son and grandchildren in Argentina, she was told she could not leave the island because her own brain was “the property of the government of Cuba.”…
…Cuba routinely denies exit visas to several categories of applicants, including health care professionals and young men who havenâ??t completed their mandatory military service. Cuba also frequently refuses to allow citizens engaged in authorized travel to bring their children with them overseas. In some cases, it denies visas to the relatives of people who have left the country without permission or refused to return at the end of an authorized trip. It further punishes these “deserters” by denying them permission to return to Cuba.[/i]
http://www.babalublog.com/archives/007284.html
[i]“The Government of Cuba, through its ambassador in Timor-East and, what is worse, now through Ramos Horta, is trying not to show the world the disagreement and disapproval that many Cubans feel for living in a country where liberty, democracy and human rights do not exist by labeling the motives of the four doctors as ‘economic reasons,’” affirmed Alexis.
I have the utmost respect for Alexis and his courage to speak up against the Cuban regime. If you speak Spanish, do yourself a favor and check out his blog. It is an amazing account of what it’s really like to be one of Cuba’s slave doctors. The regime makes them lie and claim to be specialists when they have just graduated from medical school and have barely practiced before. The government also makes them meet a quota of patients “seen.” Often, Alexis and others create patients on their list (e.g. Alicia Alonso, Juan Luis Guerra). It’s a horrible life that is naively and continuously lauded by castro sympathizers.[/i] His blog is located here:http://oriolcuba.blogspot.com/ however, it is in spanish.
[quote]Edit: Upon looking a little further into your link, the sodahead.com article links to a letter signed by 18 Cuban doctors who “released a statement this week condemning recent efforts to hold the U.S. embargo of Cuba responsible for reportedly declining Cuban health standards.” In addition to making suspect claims such as:
“We remain mystified as to why people of ordinarily good will and faith would seek to find fault with the United States for the disastrous situation inside Cuba, while failing to direct the blame squarely where it belongs - at the feet of Fidel Castro, who continues to rule our country with an iron fist after 38 years in power.”
that display a lack of understanding of the situation (as I earlier showed, many studies have been done that clearly illustrate the deleterious effect of the embargo on Cuba health care, so the claim above, while it may or may not be genuinely believed, is demonstrably incorrect) seemingly inconsistent with their status as Cuban doctors (who should know about the state of Cuban health care), also has this line at the bottom:
“Note: This statement was received and translated by the Cuban American National Foundation.”
which is the same Miami-based (note: that is where all the losers in the Cuban Revolution went, so they’re all anti-Castro) organization in your second link. While I’m not going so far as to say this is completely false, it certainly is curious that all your links come from a limited body of material supplied by the defeated supporters of an ousted dictator. What you’re doing is like like asking a Confederate soldier in 1865 for an account of the Union forces.[/quote]
Obviously you think that the doctors are biased against Castro, so would I if I was treated as they were. But what is your opinion of the content in the article? Do you think it’s simply anti castro propaganda? Did you see the videos that Orion posted? Or the many videos on the realcuba.com link that I posted? Are they simply propaganda too? It seems as though you’re attacking the messenger and not the message.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
But you have no reason to think the root information is incorrect, other than that it chafes you due to your preconceived notions about how it “ought” to be. It’s not as if the UN and other organizations are preparing their reports by peering over a wall with binoculars. These teams have a presence on the island, and witness conditions on the ground. The “veil of secrecy” that idiotic right wing conspiracy theories depend upon does exist, and you have done nothing with this post to explain the gaping holes in your “theory” (being generous). What exactly are all those doctors, that we know they have, doing all day if not treating patients? [/quote]
No, the reasons I have for thinking they are incorrect are the numerous anecdotal reports coming from defectors. While I realize that data is not the plural of anecdote, when you are dealing with a closed system that has no free press and suppresses the ability of its people to leave and thus communicate with the outside world, you need to weigh the credibility of the various sources (not just the other organizations who have used the data - again, it’s the only source, so if they want to publish reports they use it (and can rationalize its use because governments are the source of all the other stats they use - far be it from them to politically discriminate…). And I’m not surprised the anecdotes are not in the official statistics. Most, if not all, of the agencies you site are basing their information on the official Cuban government statistics published in The Anuario EstadÃ?¡stico de Salud (Annual Health Statistics) series by the DirecciÃ?³n Nacional de EstadÃ?¡stica del Ministerio de Salud Publica de Cuba.
I’m not too impressed by the NGO presence on the ground. It’s controlled access - “Potemkin villages”, if you will. Totalitarian regimes are masters of propaganda, and they control the flow of information to the outside via controlled access, via disallowing their citizens to travel abroad and via control of the press.
One of the pieces of information from bigflamer’s articles you have chosen not to address is the contention that there are multiple healthcare systems in Cuba. One for medical tourists, one for the connected, and one for everyone else. The first two are supposed to be quite excellent; the last, not so much. That trifurcation of the system would explain your apparent paradoxes of biotechnology, doctors, etc.
Now, what might be interesting - and what I don’t have the time or inclination to do at present - would be to find a study evaluating the medical conditions and making conclusions about the quality of health-care received by escaped refugees (and I’m not talking about the doctors or the athletes, but rather the people who float in on boats).
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
While I am not trying make excuses for these types of restrictive policies (which, by the way, have been largely done away with in recent years), there is a very real history of the US attempting to sabotage Cuban affairs. It really does make sense for them to regulate travel on and off the island to some extent.
[/quote]
That would explain limiting U.S. access on to the island more than it would explain keeping Cubans on the island.
This is a good series of posts on Cuban healthcare, and the Cuban government, too: The Volokh Conspiracy -
I wanted to highlight this quote on U.N. statistics from an update to the initial post, making the same point I made:
I am aware that some of the data on Cuban health care comes from the United Nations and other international organizations. However, the UN and the others depend on information provided by the Cuban government. You can’t do independent data collection in a totalitarian dictatorship. Thus, the UN numbers are derivative of Cuban official statistics.
And BB shows up outta the blue after at least a couple years. You won’t be too shocked to learn that no minds have changed since you last graced us with your presence. I see you’ve met RPM.
Ya… I meant to mention that too…
welcome back BostonBarister.
don’t be a stranger.
and the info you reference is very much in line with what I know from friends and family that have lived in Cuba.
Especially the 3 tiered system… go back to one of my first posts in this thread about my uncle who told me about “secret phone numbers” the connected communist elite had to get various services and goods (like medicine and healthcare) that the average Cuban had NO access to.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
This is a good series of posts on Cuban healthcare, and the Cuban government, too: The Volokh Conspiracy -
I wanted to highlight this quote on U.N. statistics from an update to the initial post, making the same point I made:
I am aware that some of the data on Cuban health care comes from the United Nations and other international organizations. However, the UN and the others depend on information provided by the Cuban government. You can’t do independent data collection in a totalitarian dictatorship. Thus, the UN numbers are derivative of Cuban official statistics.[/quote]
Nice find. This stuff is self evident but some refuse to think. When it explained in detail by those in the know they will refuse to believe.
It’s not that I am unwilling to accept the claims. I think I have have established on this forum that I accept facts. How do you think I ever became a socialist? I grew up in the American south, subject to all the same propaganda and fed all the same opinions that you were.
About that site, a few things: I have seen it before, and it is obvious you need to be wary of its claims the moment the front page loads. With barbed-wire and forbidding images on the main page, it’s blatantly obvious it is a purely partisan site. That’s OK, it doesn’t necessarily means it’s wrong, but it does mean their purpose is to persuade you, not necessarily to present a balanced view of the situation.
In the healthcare section, we see many awful pictures, but there’s no proof that these pictures were really taken in the locations they claim. Even if they were, again, remember that this is an advocacy website, and they probably aren’t representative. These pictures directly contradict the wide consensus that Cuba has an effective health care system, and so in my mind, these pictures by themselves are not nearly enough to doubt all the statistics available on Cuban healthcare.
The section Castro the Millionaire does not document any of its claims, except to say that they got their estimate from Forbes, and American publications rarely give an accurate depiction of Cuba. Furthermore, the language in the section is pure propaganda. “Castro stole all the property on the island.” This type of juvenile language is almost enough to make me quit reading, not to mention the fact that the claim is highly misleading, at best.
The sections on repression are unbelievable–the United States is the only country in the world that accuses Cuba of human rights violations. And even if they are guilty, what right do we have to complain?
I have no opinion on the matter. I will not argue with you, because if it is true, then it truly is a shame. However, please understand my reluctance to simply accept the allegations at face value, as most allegations of this type leveled at Cuba turn out to be false. You might remember the Cuba blogger, Yoani Sanchez (I think that’s her name), who got so much sympathy after she was beaten by Cuban secret police, yet when she was interviewed a few days later, had no visible injuries whatever. Just like we have a right wing here that has no qualms about outright lying to further their agenda, so Cuba has a right wing that will stoop to almost any level to discredit and harass the Cuban government.
I do not wish to get into the rest of your post, as it is beginning to digress from the topic of the thread.
I am not attacking you, only pointing out the very suspect source of your information, as others have attempted to do with me.
I will only say this: I trust you can see that sorting out fact from fiction with regard to Cuba is a very time-consuming and difficult process. I am not saying necessarily that it is propaganda, because I don’t know if it is or not. But there is a lot of anti-Castro propaganda out there. Do we doubt this? The revolution cost a lot of people a lot of money, and there’s also the ideological element.
It does seem suspect to me that we have these videos that claim to show the “real” Cuba, but every official source of information contradicts these shock videos. Also considering the fact that fabricated shock videos (such as the ones being used against Planned Parenthood right now) are a popular propaganda method.
I suppose I’m saying we need to be very careful when evaluating information and try to use the most reliable, official information available.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:No, the reasons I have for thinking they are incorrect are the numerous anecdotal reports coming from defectors. While I realize that data is not the plural of anecdote, when you are dealing with a closed system that has no free press and suppresses the ability of its people to leave and thus communicate with the outside world, you need to weigh the credibility of the various sources (not just the other organizations who have used the data - again, it’s the only source, so if they want to publish reports they use it (and can rationalize its use because governments are the source of all the other stats they use - far be it from them to politically discriminate…). And I’m not surprised the anecdotes are not in the official statistics. Most, if not all, of the agencies you site are basing their information on the official Cuban government statistics published in The Anuario EstadÃ??Ã?¡stico de Salud (Annual Health Statistics) series by the DirecciÃ??Ã?³n Nacional de EstadÃ??Ã?¡stica del Ministerio de Salud Publica de Cuba.
I’m not too impressed by the NGO presence on the ground. It’s controlled access - “Potemkin villages”, if you will. Totalitarian regimes are masters of propaganda, and they control the flow of information to the outside via controlled access, via disallowing their citizens to travel abroad and via control of the press.[/quote]
Fine. Nothing you write here is flat out unreasonable, but it does demand that you make the least favorable interpretation of every unknown. Again, while this is not necessarily incorrect, it is no more inherently valid than trusting official statistics. It would also demand a pretty large conspiracy, for little purpose. It also ignores the documented effects of the embargo on Cuba health care.
I am not very impressed with these allegations because we have a similar setup here. While it is not something to brag about, we have our own problems with citizens being denied care, and so since this is obviously not a failing unique to Cuba, I find it not very relevant.
Uh-oh! We wouldn’t want a system where the elites get special treatment!
Note to free marketers: please do not make this complaint when this is the exact system that you advocate for this country.
ryan…I am a healthcare veteran who has worked nearly 20 years in this system.
I KNOW how many problems our system has. I have forgotten more about this system than you will ever know.
Our system is broken, and is failing, and trust me…the worst is yet to come.
I am simply disputing the glorious and idealistic view of the Cuban system Michael Moore portrayed in his movie, with what I know to be true.
[quote]heavythrower wrote:
ryan…I am a healthcare veteran who has worked nearly 20 years in this system.
I KNOW how many problems our system has. I have forgotten more about this system than you will ever know.
Our system is broken, and is failing, and trust me…the worst is yet to come.
I am simply disputing the glorious and idealistic view of the Cuban system Michael Moore portrayed in his movie, with what I know to be true.
[/quote]
Nope, nope, nope.
Your 20 years served IN THE FIELD doesn’t hold a candle to Ryan’s journals and studies. How dare you compare and contrast what reports might say versus what you have actually seen and dealt with hands on.
We shall not have any of that comprehensive debate around here Mr. Thrower.