Cuba has managed some impressive accomplishments. Cuba’s government boasts the highest literacy rates for its population of any nation in the hemisphere. Cuba claims its citizens enjoy universal access to health care and more doctors per capita than any other nation in the Americas. Cuba’s doctors, reportedly, have high quality medical training.
Unlike other Caribbean islands where poverty means starvation, all Cubans receive a monthly food ration book that provides for their basic necessities.
Mr Kennedy, we do have places in America where the Government provides everybody with a daily food ration and state-provided health care, as well as guaranteed shelter, clothing, and literacy programs. They are called ‘prisons.’
Is there any point to having 100% literacy if the only thing you are allowed to read is Government propaganda? Is there any point to universal health care if you have no freedom to enjoy life? If the Government provides you a daily ration of food but provides you no freedom, then how is that any different than a rancher providing hay and grain to his cattle?
Update: The left’s vision for America: A giant, government-run Indian Reservation.
What good is high literacy race, if only the government can tell you what to rea?
What good is access to medical care, if the quality of care is third rate?
What good is a food ration, if you have no choice?
As a previous healthcare traveler I should point out that even hospitals with hookers on the streets outside make grandiose claims of their health system, even places where if I was shot in the parking lot I would ask to be taken to another hospital.
As far as literacy goes one name Otis Mathis stands out. He is the top educator in Detroit but had to sue a historically black college for discrimination to get his degree. The HBC would not give him his degree until he passed an English proficiency test and he failed 3x.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20100619/SCHOOLS/6190351
I am getting sick and tired of such privileged people such as Robert Kennedy, Jr., Michael Moore, Sean Penn, et al being so effusive in their admiration of dictators and life in communist countries as Cuba and Venezuela. This might sound cliche, but, why don’t they pack up and move lock, stock and barrel to either country. I would like to ask Kennedy and Moore, if Cubans get to keep their doctor. Sean Penn, with all his money in Caracas, won’t be able to much. The supermarket shelves are almost empty and even chicken is rationed, one piece per person in a family.
I believed that El Salvador would always have a conservative rightist government. I moved here in 2005. Boy did I get a shock in 2009 when the communist FMLN, won the presidency, and again this past year. So much is happening in Central and South America, later in the year I will begin blogging as The Gay Gringo, with a conservative’s view of the southern hemisphere.
Kennedy needs to pay attention to his party controlled media, which on numerous occasions, during whatever yearly documentary, specifies that the Cuban ration books provide only for half a month of basic needs then they’re left hanging in the wind.
There is no success when your culture is a patchwork quilt nightmare as if everyone permanently lives in a thrift store.
“even hospitals with hookers on the streets outside”
What hospitals station hookers on the street? /ducks
What hospitals station hookers on the street?
Bon Secours, Baltimore MD, Johns Hopkins Baltimore MD, Harrisburg Hospital PA, Provident Chicago, AlmostEvery Hospital in NYC DC Miami & Philly, & the down town San Antonio ones. Although bad hospitals pay travelers more.
If Cuba is so good about feeding its people, then why do so many people who come here from Cuba say they wondered where they were going to get food from the next day?
More to the point, who has determined the literacy rate, and are their findings to be trusted?
Cuban Missile Crisis? Bay of Pigs? The irony of a Kennedy praising the Castro regime is mind boggling.
Claims about literacy and health in Cuba rely entirely on the claims of the Cuban government.
And we all know that communist governments lie the way dogs lick themselves.
So why would journalists and politicians take such claims at face value? /rhetorical question, of course
As Cuba opens up we will see all of these claims – high literacy rate, excellent health care, et cetera – exposed for what they are.
“As Cuba opens up we will see all of these claims – high literacy rate, excellent health care, et cetera – exposed for what they are.”
Not that American leftists will ever apologize…or even admit that they were wrong. They will do all they can to sweep it under the rug.
Anyone do a double-take on the word “ration”? What about plain old cash? The dirty secret is that every dollar that goes into and through Cuba must pass through Castro’s hand. He then gives his people 5 to 10 CENTS of that dollar, apparently in the form of coupons. This is the same Castro Forbes lists as one of the world’s wealthiest. He also owns over 20 homes.