Castro: Cuban Model no longer works

[Tee Kay]

bernie14, you should go to Cuba. Castro's people would help improve your spelling.

 

[bernie14]

In before luiz.



Watch it there. There are and have been people who call themselves socialists and claim to be following socialism but really have very little in common with each other.

In that sense, "socialism" is no more a scam than your typical election "promise".



Freedom, debatable; education, no; economy, debatable, standard of living, no.

It was under Castro that mass literacy and health care campaigns brought literacy from 18% to 97% and life expectancy to First World level.

WRONG!!!! what u have been exposed to is pure BS propaganda...

.....Cuba's wages were among the world's highest.[75] According to International Labor Organization, the average industrial salary in Cuba was the world's 8th highest in 1958. The average agricultural wages were higher than in Denmark, West Germany, Belgium, or France.[75][76] Although a third of the population still lived in poverty, Cuba was one of the five most developed countries in Latin America.[77] Only 44% of the population was rural.[78]

Gross domestic product per capita was already about equal to Italy and significantly higher than that of countries such as Japan, although 1/6 of the US.[75][79] According to the United Nations at the time, "one feature of the Cuban social structure is a large middle class".[79] Eight-hour day had been established in 1933, long before other countries. Cuba had a months's paid holiday, nine days' sick leave with pay, six weeks' holiday before and after childbirth.[80]

Cuba had Latin America's highest per capita consumption rates of meat, vegetables, cereals, automobiles, telephones and radios.[76][80][81]:186 Televisions per capita was the fifth highest in the world. Despite small size, it had the world's 8th highest number of radio stations (160). According to the United Nations, Cubans read 58 daily newspapers during the late 1950s, only behind three much more populous countries: Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.[82] People migrated to Havana at fast pace. Havana was the world's fourth most expensive city.[70] Havana had more cinemas than New York.[77]

Cuba had one of the highest numbers of doctors per capita - more than in the United Kingdom. The mortality rate was the third lowest in the world. According to the World Health Organization, the island had the lowest infant mortality rate of Latin America and the 13th lowest in the world - better than in France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.[76][83][84] Cuba had the highest rates of education spending in Latin America.[76] Cuba had the 4th highest literacy in the region at almost 80% according to the United Nations, higher than in Spain.[82][83][84] Economy could not always keep up with demand. Cuba had already the highest telephone penetration in Latin America - but thousands were still waiting, which caused frustration.[78]

health care in cuba is delusional propaganda this is the TRUTH for the cuban people

 

[bernie14]

bernie14, you should go to Cuba. Castro's people would help improve your spelling.

for a dollar they will do much more than that....

EDIT: or i could have stayed there and learned to wittle, pimp out my sisters, or hopfully one day win the big LOTTERY and be allowed to leave!!!

 

[Alassius]

Why would they want the embargo to lift? You think any decent socialist wants to see McDonalds and The Gap let loose on another market? They would go right back to being the US economic poodle, the ending of which was the point of their revolution(s) in the first place.

Because being the US economic poodle allows for better life than what the revolution had offered after all?

 

[civver_764]

Why would they want the embargo to lift? You think any decent socialist wants to see McDonalds and The Gap let loose on another market? They would go right back to being the US economic poodle, the ending of which was the point of their revolution(s) in the first place.

Cuba can still restrict corporations from going into it's country without the embargo. Their fate will be in their own hands rather than America's. They're probably going to go the route of China though instead of actually achieving socialism so that's too bad.

@bernie:

Peasants joined Castro's rebel army in droves because they had nothing to lose:

• 75% of rural dwellings were huts made from palm trees.

• More than 50% had no toilets of any kind.

• 85% had no inside running water.

• 91% had no electricity.

• There was only 1 doctor per 2,000 people in rural areas.

• More than one-third of the rural population had intestinal parasites.

• Only 4% of Cuban peasants ate meat regularly; only 1% ate fish, less than 2% eggs, 3% bread, 11% milk; none ate green vegetables.

• The average annual income among peasants was $91 (1956), less than 1/3 of the national income per person.

• 45% of the rural population was illiterate; 44% had never attended a school.

Even for most city dwellers, life was not all that rosy.

• 25% of the labor force was chronically unemployed.

• 1 million people were illiterate ( in a population of about 5.5 million).

• 27% of urban children, not to speak of 61% of rural children, were not attending school.

• Racial discrimination was widespread.

• The public school system had deteriorated badly.

• Corruption was endemic; anyone could be bought, from a Supreme Court judge to a cop.

• Police brutality and torture were common.

http://www.thegully.com/essays/cuba/000305cubastats59.html

 

[SG-17]

Tourism is the key to improving the Cuban economy. Cuba is a beautiful place and its only 92 (?) miles from Florida. It would be rather cheap for Americans to vacation there compared to other Caribbean islands. You get thousands of tourists visiting a year, you get millions of dollars in revenue.

 

[Ayn Rand]

This absolutely contradicts what he was stating back in 2003-04, in several interviews. That reporter better have recorder the alleged statements...

Exactly what I thought.

 

[Tee Kay]

WRONG!!!! what u have been exposed to is pure BS propaganda...[...]

@bernie:

http://www.thegully.com/essays/cuba/000305cubastats59.html

I wonder who's more biased.

 

[shortguy]

It might be cool to link the original accounts in the OP:

Fidel to Ahmadinejad: 'Stop Slandering the Jews'

Fidel: 'Cuban Model Doesn't Even Work for Us Anymore

Here's an excerpt from the second one that's relevant to this thread:

I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting.

"The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore," he said.

This struck me as the mother of all Emily Litella moments. Did the leader of the Revolution just say, in essence, "Never mind"?

I asked Julia [Julia Sweig, a friend of the author's and Latin America scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations] to interpret this stunning statement for me. She said, "He wasn't rejecting the ideas of the Revolution. I took it to be an acknowledgment that under 'the Cuban model' the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country."

Julia pointed out that one effect of such a sentiment might be to create space for his brother, Raul, who is now president, to enact the necessary reforms in the face of what will surely be push-back from orthodox communists within the Party and the bureaucracy. Raul Castro is already loosening the state's hold on the economy. He recently announced, in fact, that small businesses can now operate and that foreign investors could now buy Cuban real estate.

I'm not really sure what to make of this stuff, but it's pretty interesting so I'd encourage you to read the original posts.

 

[Monsterzuma]

Castro: Cuban Model no longer works

Kickin' in an open door.

 

[amadeus]

It was under Castro that mass literacy and health care campaigns brought literacy from 18% to 97% and life expectancy to First World level.

According to the 1957 UN Statistical Yearbook, Cuba's literacy rate was 76%, not 18% and it was one of the highest in Latin America. Cuba had also already had the 13th lowest infant mortality rate of 32/1,000 and the average life expectancy was already 63 (compared to 52 for the rest of Latin America.)

Source

 

[W|M]

Meanwhile, poverty on the island was growing. In 1953, the average Cuban family had an income of $6.00 a week, 15 to 20 percent of the labor force was chronically unemployed, and only a third of the homes had running water.

This.

 

[Patroklos]

I think the "CUBA IS AWESOME" crowd just got their teeth kicked in, yet again.

I think its funny that it happened befoer luiz could even get a word in edge wise, it looks like the truth of the absulute failure that is Cuba, a fate that hunted down every nation that has turned to communism, is finally sinking in.

 

[MjM]

I think the "CUBA IS AWESOME" crowd just got their teeth kicked in, yet again.

I think its funny that it happened befoer luiz could even get a word in edge wise, it looks like the truth of the absulute failure that is Cuba, a fate that hunted down every nation that has turned to communism, is finally sinking in.

You mention luiz in a lot of threads.... You guys got a little bromance going on?

 

[tonberry]

If 1950's Cuba was so great, then Castro revolution wouldn't have worked. Che Guevara attempt in Bolivia failed exactly for that. In Bolivia at the time, they had freedom of the press so people were not willing to sacrifice their life to bring down the governement. Yet, in Cuba, Castro manage to raise much of them against Batista.

 

[Miles Teg]

If 1950's Cuba was so great, then Castro revolution wouldn't have worked. Che Guevara attempt in Bolivia failed exactly for that. In Bolivia at the time, they had freedom of the press so people were not willing to sacrifice their life to bring down the governement. Yet, in Cuba, Castro manage to raise much of them against Batista.

Nah, Che failed in Bolivia for the same reasons he failed in the Congo, which was manifestly worse off. He was an incompetent leader, and tended to alienate the people under him. He did pose for a pretty cool photo though.

Conditions in Cuba under Batista weren't ideal, but they were unusually tolerable, like some of the stabler African republics today (Rwanda comes to mind). That sort of situation is inherently unstable and easy to upset, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad. In cases like Cuba, quite the opposite

 

[Takhisis]

Wow, almost no one is discussing the OP. You've all turned into the regular 'Cuba suckz' v. 'Cuba rulez' argument

 

[Lord of Elves]

Wow, almost no one is discussing the OP. You've all turned into the regular 'Cuba suckz' v. 'Cuba rulez' argument

Lord of Elves' Strategy for Capitalism Victory for Great Justice in Cuba​

1. Do nothing

2. Say nothing

3. Send nothing

4. Fund nothing

Repeat as necessary​

 

[tonberry]

Nah, Che failed in Bolivia for the same reasons he failed in the Congo, which was manifestly worse off. He was an incompetent leader, and tended to alienate the people under him. He did pose for a pretty cool photo though.

Conditions in Cuba under Batista weren't ideal, but they were unusually tolerable, like some of the stabler African republics today (Rwanda comes to mind). That sort of situation is inherently unstable and easy to upset, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad. In cases like Cuba, quite the opposite

When Che was in Congo, he waited hours to met with the leader of the rebel (Che wasn't the leader there, he was just helping them). When the guy arrive, he was accompanied with 2 prostitutes. This is when Che realize that revolution was gonna fail: the man behind it was just as petty as the leaders of the country. Would he have succeed, the country wouldn't have change, a common trend in Africa.

When a journalist visited the camps of the different commandantes in Sierra Maestra, he pointed out that Guevara was much more organized than Castro. It's true he was strict but so were Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh. No one win a revolution or a civil war by being laid back. I'm sure Washington was just as much strict.

So your telling me that Cuba prior to Castro was "unusually tolerable"? Perhaps for the people living in Habana and working for rich american it was. Heck even in 1920's Germany, the Weimar republic didn't fall. Hitler's coup fail but the communist takeover of Bavaria didn't work either. Why? Because for all it's problem, post-WW1 Germany was not bad enough to make people want to die to change it. Yet, when a band of beared men arrive in Cuba, thousand of people quickly join their rank once they realize they had a chance to change their country.

 

[civver_764]

I think the "CUBA IS AWESOME" crowd just got their teeth kicked in, yet again.

I think its funny that it happened befoer luiz could even get a word in edge wise, it looks like the truth of the absulute failure that is Cuba, a fate that hunted down every nation that has turned to communism, is finally sinking in.

No one in this thread has said Cuba is awesome, but the ideas behind the revolution were completely admirable.