Reddit reviews Health, Politics, and Revolution in Cuba Since 1898

> Right, because "poor people are just lazy". Hmm. I wonder where I've heard that one before.

Many are. Just like many rich people are. I'm thinking you heard that before as a straw man argument supporting class warfare.

>You're not really responding to my argument in any way other than vague slippery slope assertions

Much like the strawman above, dismissing the question "Where do you draw the line?" or "Who provides the organization or "governance" is not a "Slipery Slope" fallacy...

>This is what really gets at me -- the French aristocracy will exploit the French people for HUNDREDS of years, but when people rise up, overthrow them and start chopping off their heads, suddenly everyone starts complaining. The Russian Tsar will keep the vast majority of his population at the brink of starvation and on the precipice of utter destitution while enjoy a fancy life of tea and Faberge eggs in his St. Petersburg palace, and no one bats an eye -- yet when Lenin overthrows the lot of them, and then the Bolsheviks utilize bloody violence to ensure that those brutes never get back into power, everyone paints the Bolsheviks as devil incarnates and evil hobgoblins.

I'm not sure who you hang out with, but I've never been surrounded by people pining for the good old days of french monarchy or Bolsheviks leadership...

>Yes, there's going to be violence.

Well sure. If you preach class warfare, you are preaching war.

>The definition of communism is a stateless and classless society Please show me on this world map right here where such a society exists.

This argument, much like the argument on socialism throughout the thread, is the "There has never been a perfect __ Government... if everyone would just listen to me and do it this way we'd have world peace!"

I do agree - Neither Socialism nor Communism have created the perfect Utopia where everyone gets what they want, when they want it with no effort required.

>Here are some tales from a horrible terrible ruthlessly authoritarian regime by the name of Cuba.

I'm guessing your links are full of the firing squad executions, government confiscation of property by force, Dual monitary systems which create a government controlled class divide, and people so miserable they are willing to band together pool toys and try to cross 100 miles of shark infested water to get the fuck out of Cuba... no?

Or are you holding Cuba up as the model the entire world should emulate? As a perfect example of the way "The revolution" should be televised, so to speak?

>No, that's not why money is money. Money is a unit of account, medium of exchange, & store of value. Money came about as a means of credit, a step beyond bartering with the additional advantage that payment could be deferred and could accrue interest.

That just isn't true at all. Credit existed long before the coin. The concept of credit is a political concept, as much as an economic one... Much like Socialism. Money was created to allow people who barter horse shit to have something to trade with the dairy farmer who already has enough cow shit and doesn't need to buy horse shit. True, accruing interest for debt followed quickly - but the utilitarian need to have a universal bartering item is the source of money in all cultures.

> In Cuba, with such limited resources, on a moderately small island, and embargoed and bullied by the US - even from the base at Guantánamo, the people have decided to focus their limited resources on what the people need the most- healthcare, education, and development.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article1928212.html

>''Cuba is a very poor country, our embargo has made life very difficult for them, and yet in spite of that they are able to put together a healthcare system that guarantees they have a better life span than we do, a better infant mortality rate and more doctors per capita,'' Moore says in an interview. They've done quite well with what they have.''<br /> <br /> &amp;gt;''The treatment Moore and the rescue workers receive in the film was done specifically for them, because they knew it would make great propaganda,'' says Alfonso, a general practitioner in Little Havana.The medical centers in Cuba that treat tourists and government officials and VIPs are very different than the ones that treat the general population. If you're a Cuban citizen and need a prescription drug, most doctors either tell you to ask your relatives in the U.S. to ship it to you or recommend alternative herbal remedies. That's the degree of scarcity on the island.''

http://www.amazon.com/Health-Politics-Revolution-Cuba-Since/dp/1412808634

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jan/31/tom-harkin/sen-tom-harkin-says-cuba-has-lower-child-mortality/

>"Cuba does have a very low infant mortality rate, but pregnant women are treated with very authoritarian tactics to maintain these favorable statistics," said Tassie Katherine Hirschfeld, the chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma who spent nine months living in Cuba to study the nation's health system. "They are pressured to undergo abortions that they may not want if prenatal screening detects fetal abnormalities. If pregnant women develop complications, they are placed in ‘Casas de Maternidad’ for monitoring, even if they would prefer to be at home. Individual doctors are pressured by their superiors to reach certain statistical targets. If there is a spike in infant mortality in a certain district, doctors may be fired. There is pressure to falsify statistics."

>Transparency would help give the data more credibility, but the Cuban government doesn’t offer much, experts said.

>"I would take all Cuban health statistics with a grain of salt," Hirschfeld said. Organizations like the Pan-American Health Organization "rely on national self-reports for data, and Cuba does not allow independent verification of its health claims."

>Rodolfo J. Stusser -- a physician and former adviser to the Cuban Ministry of Public Health's Informatics and Tele-Health Division who left for Miami at age 64 -- is another skeptic. While Stusser acknowledges that Cuba has improved some of its health numbers since the revolution, the post-revolution data has been "overestimated," he said. "The showcasing of infant mortality and life expectancy at birth has been done for ideological reasons," he said.

I mean - I suppose we can just believe the two brothers who murdered their way to leadership and have controlled a small island with the threat of force for 55 years now wouldn't cook the books... but it seems a bit more likely that they do.