Castro was Cuba and Cuba was Castro

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-10744408

As Batista continued to crack down on his opponents, Castro fled to Mexico to avoid being arrested. There he met a young revolutionary named Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

In November 1956 Castro returned to Cuba with 81 armed companions on board a leaking cabin cruiser designed to carry just 12 people.

The end of an era!

One of your Idols scat?

Maybe Cuba might be a better country without him around. I don't know much about Cuba or Castro, but he wasn't a nice man by all accounts.

Lefties love him... although he was a brutal dictator who tortured and imprisoned and executed those who were opposed to him as well as Christians and homosexuals.


In recent years there have been hundreds of thousands of public sector workers laid off and public sector privatisation too...

Tommy Monk wrote:Lefties love him... although he was a brutal dictator who tortured and imprisoned and executed those who were opposed to him as well as Christians and homosexuals.


In recent years there have been hundreds of thousands of public sector workers laid off and public sector privatisation too...

Ahh ok I didn't know. He took the country in a Revolution and teemed up with Russia, that much I did know. I wonder what will happen there now.

nicko wrote:One of your Idols scat?

Nelson Mandela holds top spot, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara responded to capitalism in their own way.

I hope Cuba moves on to greater things, although I fear it might become another cog in the machine.

Say what you like about Fidel Castro, he was his own person and he bowed to no one. He refused to play second fiddle to the big boys.


It was said he was dictatorial and crushed his political enemies. Well most regimes crush their enemies too. Not in a blatant way, but they find all sorts of ways and means.

His country had a reasonable standard of health care and the level of literacy was good too. He is fondly remembered by many of his subjects.

RIP old bean.

        CASTRO was able to lead a revolution because Cuba had at that time a corrupt and greedy, and ruthlessly dictatorial, government in control...

Even though Castro and his cronies led a hard line dictatorial regime, friendly to communists, they were nowhere near as bad as Tommy falsely claims...

Tommy is full of shit and lies..  Listen to him at your own risk..


Those Cubans who fled to Florida were largely right wing extremists, drug dealers, smugglers, and assorted scum.   The very kind of people that Tommy and Major regularly praise on here, day-in and day-out  !!!

Just consider some of Castro's positive achievements :      

Universal health care;
Universal free education;
The illiteracy rate was lowered from over 50% to less than 5%;
Cuba has had one of the lowest unemployment figures in the Americas over the past 60 years (the very opposite of Tommy's outright lies..);
Cuba's national debt, expressed as a % of GDP,  is less than half that of the UK  !


There really are some relatively 'benign benevolent (snigger) dictators'' in this world  --  the real reason that the USA hates Cuba so much --  Castro toppled a US-puppet government, traded with America's enemies, and thumbed their nose at successive guvm'nts and the CIA over the next half century..    

magica wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:
Lefties love him... although he was a brutal dictator who tortured and imprisoned and executed those who were opposed to him as well as Christians and homosexuals.

In recent years there have been hundreds of thousands of public sector workers laid off and public sector privatisation too...

Ahh ok I didn't know.  He took the country in a Revolution and teemed up with Russia, that much I did know.  I wonder what will happen there now.

Fidel Castro stood down as el Presidente in 2008...

To be replaced by his younger brother Raoul..

Cuba is governed by a leftist military regime; not by any single person.

the general consensus seems to be for all Castro's faults he was better than Batista, the previous US installed Dictator.

Another way to look at it is
it is the sane version of North Korea

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:         CASTRO was able to lead a revolution because Cuba had at that time a corrupt and greedy, and ruthlessly dictatorial, government in control...

Even though Castro and his cronies led a hard line dictatorial regime, friendly to communists, they were nowhere near as bad as Tommy falsely claims...

Tommy is full of shit and lies..  Listen to him at your own risk..


Those Cubans who fled to Florida were largely right wing extremists, drug dealers, smugglers, and assorted scum.   The very kind of people that Tommy and Major regularly praise on here, day-in and day-out  !!!

Just consider some of Castro's positive achievements :      

Universal health care;
Universal free education;
The illiteracy rate was lowered from over 50% to less than 5%;
Cuba has had one of the lowest unemployment figures in the Americas over the past 60 years (the very opposite of Tommy's outright lies..);
Cuba's national debt, expressed as a % of GDP,  is less than half that of the UK  !


There really are some relatively 'benign benevolent (snigger) dictators'' in this world  --  the real reason that the USA hates Cuba so much --  Castro toppled a US-puppet government, traded with America's enemies, and thumbed their nose at successive guvm'nts and the CIA over the next half century..    

Waffle of course...


Here are some facts... including the truth about Cuba's health care system...


http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-fidel-castro-myth-debunked-the-death-of-a-tyrant-not-a-hero/


And on the laying off of public sector workers...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11291267


Look up his murderous regime for yourself

Tommy Monk wrote:

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:         CASTRO was able to lead a revolution because Cuba had at that time a corrupt and greedy, and ruthlessly dictatorial, government in control...

Even though Castro and his cronies led a hard line dictatorial regime, friendly to communists, they were nowhere near as bad as Tommy falsely claims...

Tommy is full of shit and lies..  Listen to him at your own risk..


Those Cubans who fled to Florida were largely right wing extremists, drug dealers, smugglers, and assorted scum.   The very kind of people that Tommy and Major regularly praise on here, day-in and day-out  !!!

Just consider some of Castro's positive achievements :      

Universal health care;
Universal free education;
The illiteracy rate was lowered from over 50% to less than 5%;
Cuba has had one of the lowest unemployment figures in the Americas over the past 60 years (the very opposite of Tommy's outright lies..);
Cuba's national debt, expressed as a % of GDP,  is less than half that of the UK  !


There really are some relatively 'benign benevolent (snigger) dictators'' in this world  --  the real reason that the USA hates Cuba so much --  Castro toppled a US-puppet government, traded with America's enemies, and thumbed their nose at successive guvm'nts and the CIA over the next half century..    

Waffle of course...


Here are some facts... including the truth about Cuba's health care system...


http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-fidel-castro-myth-debunked-the-death-of-a-tyrant-not-a-hero/


And on the laying off of public sector workers...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11291267


Look up his murderous regime for yourself

Neither of those links (a far right investor outlet and a BBC article from 2010) back up the rubbish you spout.

Try reading them... there are plenty more...

Whatever you read about Castro is going to be biased towards one way or the other.

Some loved him, some hated him, end of story really.

He murdered thousands upon thousands. The late R.J. Rummel, a University of Hawaii professor who tracked mass-killings by governments around the world, estimated as many as 141,000 people were murdered by the Castro regime. And that was just through 1987. Since then, of course, thousands more have been killed.

Genocide Watch says it "holds the Castro regime responsible for the death of thousands of people (executed and died trying to flee the regime)." Both Belgium and Castro's homeland, Spain, have leveled genocide charges against the Jefe Maximo.

Sadly, Castro's Cuba isn't at all unusual for Communist regimes, as noted by Rummel. "Clearly, of all regimes, communist ones have been by far the greatest killer," he said.

What's especially galling is the suggestion -- present in almost every story on Castro's demise -- that he took an impoverished, oppressed nation and turned it into a kind of socialist paradise, with education, social services and health care for all.

This is an utter and complete lie. But don't take our word for it.

"One feature of the Cuban social structure is a large middle class," the Geneva-based International Labor Organization said in a 1957 report. "Cuban workers are more unionized (proportional to the population) than U.S. workers. The average wage for an 8 hour day in Cuba in 1957 is higher than for workers in Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany. Cuban labor receives 66.6%. In the U.S. the figure is 70%, in Switzerland 64%. 44% of Cubans are covered by Social legislation, a higher percentage than in the U.S."

Remember, this is before the revolution.

Numbers taken from the most comprehensive global data base available — created by the late economist Angus Maddison — show that in 1958, real GDP per person was $2,406. At the time, that was second highest in Latin America. But by 2008, that had risen to just $3,764 a person, a mere 1.2% annual growth rate. Cuba has the worst economy in Latin America, outside Haiti and Nicaragua.

And much of that "growth" was due to massive subsidies from the former Soviet Union, which traded badly needed oil to Cuba for sugar at highly favorable exchange rates. Cuba's growth was a mirage, although in recent years modest market based reforms have helped increase incomes for some Cubans.

Before the revolution, Cuba had the 13th-lowest infant mortality rate in the world. It was lower than France, Belgium and West Germany. Today, it ranks about 40th. That still looks respectable, until you consider how it was accomplished: Cuba has one of the highest abortion rates in the world. At the first sign of any trouble when a woman is carrying a baby, it is aborted -- regardless of the parents' wishes.

That's why their infant mortality rate isn't even worse.

But surely health care for all is a major accomplishment, right?

No. As has been noted in many other places, Cuba has three separate health care systems. One for paying customers from places like the U.S., who go to Cuba for discount treatments of cosmetic surgery and the like.

There's another for Cuba's ruling Communist elite, also a good system. This is the health care system visiting journalists are taken to see, and that they later glowingly report on.

But there's still another system for the rest — the average Cubans. It is abysmal, and even that might understate how bad it is.

"Cubans are not even allowed to visit those (elite) facilities," according to the Web site The Real Cuba. "Cubans who require medical attention must go to other hospitals, that lack the most minimum requirements needed to take care of their patients."

It goes on: "In addition, most of these facilities are filthy and patients have to bring their own towels, bed sheets, pillows, or they would have to lay down on dirty bare mattresses stained with blood and other body fluids."

They have a lower infant mortality rate than the US and a life expectancy very similar.

This is why.

In the early stages emphasis was placed on basic public health improvements, such as sanitation and immunization, and medical care was extended to the rural areas.20 A system of regional polyclinics and hospitals subsequently evolved, complemented in the 1980s by a reorientation of the entire system toward primary care and the education of large numbers of family doctors. By the 1990s the strategic goal was reached whereby a team of a family physician and a nurse lived on every block and provided care for 120–160 families.19,20 At present there are 31 000 family physicians, with a total doctor:population ratio of 1 : 170.22

I'm sure you won't bother to read this research Tommy since it won't fit your agenda but here is the link anyway.

http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/4/817.full

Maternal and child health

Established in 1970, the centralized Maternal–Child Programme (Programa Nacional de Atencion Materno-Infantil—PAMI) has the main responsibility for assuring the health of women of child-bearing age and their children. With PAMI's leadership, governmental sectors as well as community organizations work collaboratively to provide a supportive network of community-oriented services. The success of this approach can be evaluated against a series of key indicators. Cuba's statistical time series for infant mortality documents one of the most rapid declines ever recorded (Figure 2). Since 2002 Cuba has had the second lowest infant mortality in the Americas, 20% below the US rate for all ethnic groups and just below the rate for US whites (Figure 2; Table 2).22,32,33 The prevalence of low birth weight was 5.5% in 2004.22 Thirty-five per cent of the Cuban population is black or mulatto, yet the infant mortality rate is less than half of what is observed in US blacks (Table 2). National data are not systematically analysed by race; however, in a study from the province of Cienfuegos no differences in pre-term birth or mean birth weight were noted between blacks and whites.33

The resilience of Cuba's child health programmes was tested in 1991–94 when the collapse of the trading partnership with the Soviet Union and the tightening of the US embargo provoked the unprecedented economic crisis known as the ‘special period’.41⇓⇓–44 The economy contracted by 30% and access to foreign commodities—including everything from oil to pharmaceuticals and agricultural inputs—was virtually cut-off. An epidemic of optical and peripheral neuropathy, subsequently traced to a sharp decline in protein, vitamins, and some other micronutrients, afflicted 50 000 Cubans.42 During this period a modest increase in mortality from infectious diseases, particularly tuberculosis, was also observed.22 A variety of internally generated initiatives, like small-scale organic farming and return to the use of draft animals, allowed the society to regain food security and redirect the economy.45

As would be anticipated in a period of severe food shortage, the incidence of low birth weight increased, accompanied by a modest rise in infant mortality (Figure 3). While average calorie intake was reduced from 3000 to 1800 kcal/day,42,45 supplemental food for pregnant women was available through cafeterias in work places and ‘maternity houses’. Within 2 years, well before the economy overall had recovered, the health of child-bearing age women and infants had experienced ‘catch-up’ and the trajectory of the decline in infant mortality was regained. Maintaining social cohesion and high public health standards while simultaneously undertaking a coordinated economic reorganization of that magnitude posed enormous technical and social challenges.

The combination of high levels of community participation, access to primary care and an aggressive public health approach has made the Cuban campaign against epidemic infectious diseases particularly successful.58⇓–60 A number of common illnesses have been eliminated altogether, often for the first time in any country [poliomyelitis (1962), neonatal tetanus (1972), diphtheria (1979), measles (1993), pertussis (1994), rubella and mumps (1995)]. In 1962, against the advice of external health officials, ‘vaccination days’ were established with the goal of reaching the entire population. When this method quickly proved to be effective in eliminating polio it was subsequently adopted elsewhere as the primary strategy.58 After dengue was introduced in 1981 Cuba adopted a campaign of community mobilization, focusing on elimination of mosquito breeding sites, which lead to prompt control.20,58,59

Out of 225 countries Cuba is number 181 on the list, equal to Poland and New Zealand in the infant mortality list.

Monaco is at number 225 with 1.8 with Afghanistan at number 1 with 112.8 (DEATHS/1,000 LIVE BIRTHS)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html

The mortality rate wasn't really what I was posting about if you read my earlier posts...

Tommy Monk wrote:The mortality rate wasn't really what I was posting about if you read my earlier posts...

Maybe not, but for a country with crushing poverty due in the main to the embargoes on it, to have an infant mortality rate lower than the US and not much lower than our own it goes to show that the free healthcare and the policies implemented during pregnancy and in the post natal period do work.

Also your claim about Cuba only being at number 40 in the infant mortality list is very wrong which tends to put the seeds of doubt about the rest of what you copied and pasted in my mind.

Both Belgium and Castro's homeland, Spain,

Castro was born in Cuba, therefore Cuba was his homeland, not Spain.

At the first sign of any trouble when a woman is carrying a baby, it is aborted -- regardless of the parents' wishes.

If this were true then how do you explain that there absolutely are babies born with disabilities of varying degrees in Cuba?

Was from the link... take it up with them...

Tommy Monk wrote:
Was from the link... take it up with them...

It does not appear in the article.  Why would you say that?  Writ large, it's a tacit admission that conservatives lie.  (See my book, Why Elephants Lie.)  

When you know your argument is built on untruth, you know your reasoning is wrong.

Original Quill wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:
Was from the link... take it up with them...

It does not appear in the article.  Why would you say that?  Writ large, it's a tacit admission that conservatives lie.  (See my book, Why Elephants Lie.)

When you know your argument is built on untruth, you know your reasoning is wrong.

Was from this link article I posted earlier...

http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-fidel-castro-myth-debunked-the-death-of-a-tyrant-not-a-hero/


Why are you trying to claim otherwise...?

You got that passage from Wintry Knight...an irrational Christian faith rag.  The article is "COMMUNIST CUBA’S VIOLENT SUPPRESSION OF DISSENTERS UNDER FIDEL CASTRO."  It is a passage lifted from Investor's Daily on 'Fidel Castro...a Tyrant, Not a Hero'.  It provides no substantiation, proving how the RW just invents facts, and passes on each other's quotes without verifying them.

Why am I exposing your fraud?  It's in the public interest.

Tommy Monk wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

It does not appear in the article.  Why would you say that?  Writ large, it's a tacit admission that conservatives lie.  (See my book, Why Elephants Lie.)

When you know your argument is built on untruth, you know your reasoning is wrong.

Was from this link article I posted earlier...

http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-fidel-castro-myth-debunked-the-death-of-a-tyrant-not-a-hero/


Why are you trying to claim otherwise...?

Was from this link I posted earlier.


So I don't know what you are waffling about Quill... I posted this link earlier today with a bbc link...


There is plenty of evidence of Castro's and his regimes brutality during his time as dictator.

Tommy Monk wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:

Was from this link article I posted earlier...

http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-fidel-castro-myth-debunked-the-death-of-a-tyrant-not-a-hero/

Why are you trying to claim otherwise...?

Was from this link I posted earlier.

So I don't know what you are waffling about Quill... I posted this link earlier today with a bbc link...

There is plenty of evidence of Castro's and his regimes brutality during his time as dictator.

Tommy I already called you out on your sources.  The point, which you still fail to understand, is that substantiation is not merely linking to other, worse RW sites than you already have.  The point of substantiation is to provide the facts, statistics, or whatever kind of argument you are making.  It's called 'sub-stan-tia-tion' and it is aimed at getting at the substance of your claim.  Your take-home lesson for today is that a loose link or two does not make an argument.

You've got to understand what's going on here.  You are "proving" your claim, not showing that other idiots can parrot the same words.

Now, try again, let's see how you substantiate your claim about forced abortions in Cuba. If there "is plenty of evidence of Castro's and his regimes brutality" there should be no difficulty in you presenting it to us.

ONCE AGAIN Tommy simply keeps on regurgitating outright bullshit from extremist/fascist propaganda sites,  totally unwilling to check the facts for himself...

Even the CIA's own information contradicts Tommy's rubbish claims..

The only thing that Tommy is a "genius" at, is lying through his teeth.  And his keyboard..


Ask yourselves why Tommy would prefer a country to have higher poverty, higher mortality rates, poor education, no proper healthcare, less rhan half the population able to read, and greater social divisions  -- the kind of conditions that were facing Cuba under a 'US_puppet' gov't in the 1950s, and set them up for a revolution...

Tommyrot, by name,  tommyrot by nature..        

Tommy Monk wrote:Lefties love him... although he was a brutal dictator who tortured and imprisoned and executed those who were opposed to him as well as Christians and homosexuals.


In recent years there have been hundreds of thousands of public sector workers laid off and public sector privatisation too...

This was the post I made on this thread with MY claims.


Which bit of the above are you saying is untrue...?

Tommy Monk wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:Lefties love him... although he was a brutal dictator who tortured and imprisoned and executed those who were opposed to him as well as Christians and homosexuals.


In recent years there have been hundreds of thousands of public sector workers laid off and public sector privatisation too...

This was the post I made on this thread with MY claims.


Which bit of the above are you saying is untrue...?

You do know that homosexuality was decriminalised in 1979 don't you, Tommy?

If the people that left Cuba on boats bound for Florida had directed their travel towards the UK coast how many on here would have welcomed them and gave them shelter?

Splutter lol lol lol

Castro kicked ot a RW dictatorship who had turned his country into a playground for the rich and wealthy and the mobsters and the crime syndicates from the US who ran the joint. And it was all taking place whilst to Cuban people were suffering through extreme poverty. The sugar cutters had work for around 3-4 months and after that they were left to fend for themselves.
Whatever happened during his term in power he left Cuba in a better state than he found it - warts and all.

And my original wquestion still stands...

Who on here would welcome Cubans arriving here off the coast of the UK? And would they call for them to be deported staright back to Cuba?

Created a playground and torture chamber for himself and his ruling buddies...

Tommy Monk wrote:Created a playground and torture chamber for himself and his ruling buddies...

Are you for sending them back to that then, Tommy, or welcoming them to the UK and giving them shelter?

TOMMY clearly prefers that a country suffers under his preferred RW dictator exploiters --  with all of the accompanying poverty, unemployment, standover tactics, lack of education, poor health services, homelessness, kidnapping and torture, that those RW/fascist/despot systems entail --  rather than seeing those tyrants deposed by socialist-leaning, or even worse in the Tommy/Major punyverse, a Marxist-inclined team of revolutionaries...

Tommy's true feelings, and his obvious adoration for the previous Batista tyranny, shines through in the outright lies and embellishments he brings to this discussion..

Tommy has mademit quite clear that he would prefer a fascist dictatorship over a socialist state, any day.        

Socialist prefer to spend money-----unless it's their own.

nicko wrote:Socialist prefer to spend money-----unless it's their own.

What, like bankers?

Don't you mean wankers?

Irn Bru wrote:If the people that left Cuba on boats bound for Florida had directed their travel towards the UK coast how many on here would have welcomed them and gave them shelter?

Brilliant post, bang on the button!

I thought that the "boat people" were the criminals and scum that Castro was going to exterminate [shades of Dr who] when he got to power !

nicko wrote:
Socialist prefer to spend money-----unless it's their own.

GEORGE BUSH and his mob lead the biggest spending government in US history --  mostly thrown away on war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan... --  resulting in one of the biggest transfers of "public funds into private companies" in world history.  And the coservatives and their financiers cheered him on..

Thatcher didn't mind re-directing public monies into private pockets, either..

John Howard was the most wasteful PM in Australia's history.


Conservatives, one and all..

What ever.

nicko wrote:
What ever.