Cuba and US to normalize relations

[Borachio]

Cuba's education: "The Best in Latin America and the Carribean." (doesn't bode well)

The World Bank emphasizes "the poor quality of Latin American and the Caribbean teachers,"

And yet, let's be fair:

only Cuba, where education has been the top priority since 1959, has a truly efficient education system and high-quality teachers. In terms of education, this Caribbean country has no cause to be envious of even the most developed nations. The Caribbean island is also the nation in the world that allocates the highest share of its national budget, 13 percent, to education.

 

[Flying Pig]

The World Bank emphasizes "the poor quality of Latin American and the Caribbean teachers

According to the financial institution, with the notable exception of Cuba, "no teaching faculty in the region can be considered to be of high quality when compared to global parameters."

The World Bank also notes that "today, no Latin American school system, with the possible exception of that of Cuba, has the high standards, strong academic talent, high or at least adequate salaries and high degree of professional autonomy that characterizes the world's most effective educational systems, such as those of Finland, Singapore, Shanghai (China), the Republic of Korea, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada."

(emphasis FP's)

Cuba outperforms both Latin American and Caribbean as well as many other middle-income countries in the most important indices of education, public health and hygiene.

So 'possibly comparable with a developed country, if we err on the positive side'. Not quite the resounding 'best in the hemisphere' that you gave it.

 

[onejayhawk]

Cuba has a lot to offer USA. It has long been my opinion that the island or a Caribbean archipelago including Cuba would be the 51st state. this would have the beneficial side effect of making their old government illegal.

J

 

[ReindeerThistle]

The latest parliamentary election in Denmark had a 57% voter turnout, in case anyone's wondering.

WROOOOOOOOOOOONG! It was 87% for the Danish Parliament.

Voter turnout for Denmark's 13 seats on the European Parliament in 2014 was 56.4%.

 

[luiz]

WROOOOOOOOOOOONG! It was 87% for the Danish Parliament.

Voter turnout for Denmark's 13 seats on the European Parliament in 2014 was 56.4%.

You are right, I searched data for the latest elections and ended up citing the Danish Euro elections as opposed their own parliamentary ones. Researching on a cell phone does that.

Anyway, 87% is quite different from 97%, and one would expect a much higher turnout in Denmark, a multi-party democracy, than Cuba, a single party dictatorship where people can choose between voting for the communist party candidate or voting for the communist party candidte.

And regarding education in Cuba, it was already the best in Latin America, and one of the best in the world, prior to the revolution. Cuba also already had the highest life expectancy on the continent, and it also used to be higher than those of Italy and Japan. And Cuba also had the highest per capita income in Latin America, and now it's a joke.

So there.

 

[Zkribbler]

Isolation should only be rescinded if we are allowed a significant presence in order to determine if they are moving away from a dictatorship.

Cuba unilaterally ceased its terrorist and other aggressive foreign policies.
Cuba unilaterally opened up agriculture to private farmers.
Cuba unilaterally let small businesses open up.

It's moving away from its former Soviet positions. True, these changes have not effected their political dictatorship, buy IMHO, isolation strengthens not weakens a dictatorship.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

You are wrong about Cuba and Castro. Period. What is your source for pre-revolutionary per capita income? Besides, Cuba's literacy rate before the Triumph of the Revolution was less than the US. Now, Cuba is 100% literate.
(See Children of the Revolution by Jonathan Kozol.

Per Capita income is a BS stat because it deals with a mean average, assuming "everyone in America makes $36,000 a year" (or whatever) which is total BS... and everyone except FOX News thinks so.

I cited the data, I have first-hand accounts from friends who have visited there. Even the New York Times is publishing articles favorable to Cuba...

Castro-haters are so very alone... So very, very alone....

 

[Flying Pig]

Per capita income can be distorted up but not down. If it looks high, it might be because some people are rich and some are poor. But if it looks low, everyone's poor, or at least the vast majority of people are.

We had that option anytime from the Mexican American War up until WWI or so. We chose not to because of all the brown skinned Catholics there.

Also, Slave Power, at least for a while.

 

[Cutlass]

Cuba has a lot to offer USA. It has long been my opinion that the island or a Caribbean archipelago including Cuba would be the 51st state. this would have the beneficial side effect of making their old government illegal.

J

We had that option anytime from the Mexican American War up until WWI or so. We chose not to because of all the brown skinned Catholics there.

 

[Traitorfish]

Presumably Onejayhawk's scheme will be implemented after the United States invades Canada but before they annex the moon.

 

[gay_Aleks]

But by then, the nukes would start falling, so I guess we'd better get it on now, and snatch Puerto Rico while we're at it.

 

[onejayhawk]

We had that option anytime from the Mexican American War up until WWI or so. We chose not to because of all the brown skinned Catholics there.

This time they might ask nicely.

Besides, we have made progress on race relations since WW I, not that you could tell from news coverage.

J

 

[Zelig]

Presumably Onejayhawk's scheme will be implemented after the United States invades Canada but before they annex the moon.

Presumably annexing the moon should be pretty easy, just have congress pass a law saying "The moon is American now."

 

[onejayhawk]

Presumably annexing the moon should be pretty easy, just have congress pass a law saying "The moon is American now."

We already have a treaty. It goes back to the 1960s. Like Antarctica, the moon is commonly held by the UN nations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_Space_Treaty

There is one competing claim.
http://www.vice.com/read/ive-owned-the-moon-since-1980

J

 

[Borachio]

Anyway, 87% is quite different from 97%, and one would expect a much higher turnout in Denmark, a multi-party democracy, than Cuba, a single party dictatorship where people can choose between voting for the communist party candidate or voting for the communist party candidte.

Still, 87% is incredibly high! I bet the US would love to get voter participation like that.

I'd have expected much lower turnout in Denmark than Cuba, simply because in the latter participation is likely to be mandatory. And in liberal democracies populations are typically disengaged from politics.

 

[Flying Pig]

Scandinavia may be different given that their governments (both practically and ideologically) are very involved with the people - it's easier to feel strongly about the government when it affects your daily life a great deal.

 

[Borachio]

There's that word again: "involvement".

Yet in the UK, the government is steadily and deliberately shrinking. Meanwhile they (or some) continue to deplore lack of participation.

 

[Flying Pig]

We see the government as something external to us, I think - that wasn't always the case. British General Elections could expect turnout in the high seventies until 1997; it's only post-Blair (or perhaps post-Thatcher?) that we've been so disengaged. At the same time we've got a general decline in membership of political parties - you won't meet anybody now who's a member of a political party, except perhaps people who actively campaign for them. It seems more of a general sense of disconnection - we no longer believe that the people who govern us are, fundamentally, us.

 

[Tee Kay]

All that tells me is that people in the U.S. are exercising their right to ignore that crap-fest that is politics. 97/94% sounds a lot more like fantasy.

I'd be hard pressed to believe you can get 97% of the population of any country to actually do anything.

Australia has a high voter turnout rate but it's because we fine anyone who doesn't vote. (Unless you don't register in the first place, which is the case for a quarter of young people, boo)

Ignoring politics is a bad thing. When you go to vote you're literally deciding just about everything about how your country and therefore your life is run and seen for the next few years with longer term consequences. It's a big deal.

Far better than not voting is vote for a third-party candidate. At the very least it registers in Washington as a protest, as opposed to inaction.

 

[Borachio]

When you go to vote you're literally deciding just about everything about how your country

Can I let this one go by? No. I don't think I can.

When you go to vote, you're literally putting a cross next to someone's name, whose trustworthiness, and ability, to implement policies (you've only a vague sense of the real value of) is an unknown quantity. At the best.

But I do wish you were right.