So now Castro controls my internet access?
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/21/cuba.internet.reut/index.html
Cuba tightens its control over Internet
http://havanajournal.com/culture/entry/internet-access-in-cuba-maybe-in-2010/
Last week, the Cuban government announced that ordinary Cubans will not be allowed to have Internet access in the short term, even though the government authorised ordinary citizens to buy computers and own mobile phones on 1 April 2008.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sfl-cuba-internet-cutoff-050709,0,4376220.story
May 7, 2009
HAVANA - Cuba is further limiting access to the World Wide Web for its citizens, in what many believe is an effort to rein in a small but increasingly popular group of bloggers who are critical of the government.
Only government employees, academics and researchers are allowed their own Internet accounts, which are provided by the state, but only have limited access to sites outside the island.
... snip ...
About 200,000 Cubans, or less than 2 percent of the population, have access to the World Wide Web.
The irony is that if you lived in Cuba, you probably wouldn't be chatting with us now. Or maybe you would be allowed to ... given how ideologically supportive you are of their institutions.
And I guess that the international committees Wiki refers to all have a leftist slant too.
As matter of fact, yes. You must think WHO, UN and NHS committees don't have such a slant.
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And it's funny how in it's comparison of life expectancy between Cuba and the US, that Wikipedia article failed to mention the difference in calorie intake between the two countries. If it truly was objective, I think that fact would have been mentioned since we know that a low calorie diet has a substantial positive impact on life expectancy. And the low calorie diet was a direct result of the economic system that Castro forced on the country.
So the Cubans not only have universal health care, they also eat a healthier diet instead of the slob that poor Americans are obliged to eat. Good for the Cubans.
I see you don't want to discuss the point I made. Your *objectivity* is showing. (sarcasm)
But now I'm curious. What's your average daily calorie intake? Hmmmmmm?
For many years, after their partners in the pact of socialist countries gave up on socialism
"partners"? "pact"? ROTFLOL! You've swallowed the Koolaid big time, haven't you?
In most other countries this would not be considered a contribution to longevity, by the way
Actually it would. At least to the calorie levels that Cubans were reduced to during all those years.
http://www.examiner.com/x-7396-SF-H...d-calories-contribute-to-health-and-longevity
Mounting evidence that reduced calories contribute to health and longevity
July 15, 2009
... snip ...
Cutting calories may delay the ageing process and reduce the risk of disease, a long-term study of monkeys suggests.
The benefits of calorie restriction are well documented in animals, but now the results have been replicated in a close relative of man over a lengthy period.
Over 20 years, monkeys whose diets were not restricted were nearly three times more likely to have died than those whose calories were counted.
Writing in Science, the US researchers hailed the "major effect" of the diet.
It involved reducing calorie intake by 30% while maintaining nutrition and appeared to impact upon many forms of age-related disease seen in monkeys, including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and brain atrophy.
And they exercised more than Americans! Good for the Cubans too!
Again, you are trying your best to simply avoid the point that is being made ... that life expectancy statistics are affected by factors that have nothing to do with the health care system.
Yes, indeed! What a success! In a few years the Cubans managed to completely turn around their whole infrastructure in order to feed themselves.
You call having more than a 20% of the adults working in agriculture, cultivating 30% of the country's land to provide just 20 percent of the food they eat, 30% of the calories they consume and generate only 10 percent of the GDP ... success?
(Those are Wikipedia statistics, by the way ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Cuba ... so they no doubt cast Cuba in a good light.)
Let's compare that to the US where 2% of the population cultivate just 14% of the land, and not only feed the US population but export $30 billion more than we import in agricultural products. And those 2% of the population generate about 8% of the GDP.
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And I also note that your article claims that no private hospital or clinics are permitted in Cuba ... but I think the first hand accounts in the links I provided suggest that's not exactly true.
You are thinking of the Cuban doctor, the pro-lifer, who didn’t approve of Cuban stemcell research and therefore pretends that she is concerned about the welfare of all Cubans?
No, actually I was thinking of the accounts in this:
http://www.therealcuba.com/Page10.htm
And I can add a few more:
http://www.finlay-online.com/tomasromay/darsi7.htm "Cuban Doctor Pays A High Price for Truth"
http://www.netforcuba.org/english/InfoCuba-EN/HealthCare/MedicalApartheid.htm
Cuba's "Medical Technology Fair" held April 21-25, 1997 presented a graphic display of this two-tier medical system. The fair displayed an array of both foreign and Cuban-manufactured medicines and high-tech medical equipment and services items not available to most Cubans. The fair showcased Cuban elite hospitals promoted by "health tourism" enterprises such as SERVIMED and MEDICUBA.
Members of the Cuban Communist Party elite and the military high-command are allowed to use these hospitals free of charge. Certain diplomatic missions in Havana have been informed that their local employees can be granted access privileges to these elite medical facilities--if they pay in dollars.
http://www.nowpublic.com/ouch_visiting_cuban_hospital "Ouch!!!! Visiting a Cuban Hospital"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25_RgM1jHeo "Cuba Healthcare, the Hospitals Michael Moore won't show 1"
Are you trying to imply that the infant mortality rate of Cuba isn’t low?
No, I'm saying that you don't seem to understand that the difference in infant mortality rate depends on what Cuba defines as a stillbirth compared to what the US defines as a stillbirth.
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Can you name an example where that has occurred in the US?
Not at the moment, no, but I’ll see if I can come up with an example.
I'm looking forward to that.
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Sorry ... but "their system" has resulted in a per capita GDP of $9500 ... a fraction of that in countries without their "system".
Yes that is what ”their system” has resulted in
Good, I'm glad we have that established.
Do you seriously want to compare the standards of living in a third-world country whose major historical events were the attempts of its population to liberate itself from the grasp of colonialist/imperialist nations like the USA or Denmark?
ROTFLOL! You do have the rhetoric down, don't you.
Let's look at Japan and Germany. These were countries whose infrastructure and economies were thoroughly destroyed in WW2, along with tens of millions of dead. They didn't become the economic powerhouses they are today by emulating the type of system that Castro forced on Cuba. Or look at Israel. Here's a country that started out as nothing but desert shortly after WW2. And today it's per capita GDP is three times that of Cuba. Economic systems like Cuba's have consequences.
I am a communist, nor a liberal.
You are not a liberal? Really? How would you describe yourself then?
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The accuracy of these claims is adequately debunked above.
The accuracy? You aren't seriously trying to imply that infant mortality in Cuba isn't low, are you?
No, I'm saying you don't seem to appreciate that infant mortality is measured differently in the US and Cuba. Hence, claims that Cuba's infant mortality is less than the US' are bogus.
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http://www.gallup.com/poll/25915/jus...-freedoms.aspx
So you couldn’t find anything useful about health care?
Actually, I've posted quite a bit of useful information on the actual health care situation in Cuba but you've chosen to ignore it. So I thought that pointing out how few Cubans are happy with their personal freedom might have more impact on you. Apparently not.
As for your gallup poll that indicates Cuban's are happy with their health care system, I can't help but wonder if there was a minder present during those 1000 in-person interviews on which the poll was based? Afterall, Human Rights Watch says that doctors are monitored by "minders" and minders do seem to show up when foreigners are present. Pollsters admit that the Cuban's fear the government and worry about monitors. For example,
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8009114/Another-“Special-Period”-in-Cuba-How-Citizens-View-Their
Citizens nonetheless remain fearful of retaliation against public expressions of opposition to the government. One woman warned that "if you walk outside with a sign against Fidel, you will never see the light of day again." The government's neighborhood watch organizations, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs), continue to have a stronghold on power at the local level.
... snip ...
Many Cubans are resigned to the current situation and continue to live day to day ... snip ... Two young students, when asked about life in Cuba, responded sarcastically, "We have to like it. It's our country and we can't leave."
And note this from the above survey's methodology section:
Sampling for the interviews was affected by the availability of respondents and locations conducive to private conversation. Cubans are aware that chivatos (informants) might report on anyone who is deemed counterrevolutionary, and as a result, they are unaccustomed to expressing their opinions in public.
So what was the methodology in selecting the 1000 people to interview in the survey you cited? How many other people refused to be interviewed and perhaps they refused because they feared government reprisal if they showed their discontent? How many didn't trust people claiming to be "pollsters"? That might skew the results, wouldn't it?
Just to show you how difficult it is to conduct reliable polls in Cuba given it's totalitarian government, look at what this organization had to do in conducting their polls:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-11-18-cubapoll_N.htm
The institute, which promotes democracy around the world and receives funding from Congress, employed pollsters who did not tell the nearly 600 Cubans they questioned that they were being polled. The pollsters engaged Cubans in conversation with a set list of topics and later recorded their answers.
Shawn Sullivan, IRI's program director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said the method allowed Cubans to speak freely. Conceding the method is unconventional, Sullivan said it was the best way to get accurate opinions in a dictatorship. "I think they're always concerned that whoever is asking the questions is working on behalf of the regime," he said.
So did the gallup organization do something similar? Apparently not. This is from the above link:
Cuba experts said that identifying oneself as a pollster would have yielded a false picture, given that the Communist Party has spies in all neighborhoods and criticizing the government can result in a long prison term.
"As soon as you identify yourself as a pollster, people try to hedge their answers and not be totally honest," said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami.
Suchlicki says that reticence is evident in a Gallup Poll done last year. Gallup questioners who identified themselves as pollsters reported that 39% of Cubans disapproved of Cuba's leadership. That number was 79% in the IRI poll.
Well well ... what do you know.
Furthermore, the interviews in your gallup poll were only conducted with people in the two largest cities. They did not interview in rural areas. Wonder if that might skew the results? After all, a quarter of the population lives in rural areas and as we know from other communist countries, there is often a big difference in the quality of medical services offered urban (especially people living in the nation's Capital) and rural areas. I wonder if the rural population is as enamored with the health care system? If not, then that might dramatically shift the results of the gallup survey. Right?
This is probably good news in your opinion,
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HAVANA — Raul Castro announced Saturday that Cuba will cut spending on education and health care
Now why would you engage in a untrue and personal attack like that? Of course I'm saddened that life is going to get even harder for Cuba's citizens. But then perhaps that's the result of living under communism ... and note that your article says Cuba's dictatorship has no plans to change that.
Here, some more information for our readers:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA557_Cuban_Health_Care.html
Are Cuba's health care woes the result of the longstanding U.S. economic embargo? Not a chance, according to a group of 18 exiled Cuban doctors. The doctors made their personal views clear in a joint letter in 1997:
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.
And by all means, I hope readers will read the entire link.
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