Bernie Sanders defends the gains of the Cuban Revolution

[G4b3n]

First, Bernie is a liberal so lets not get into that argument. But he has some radical qualities that haven't been seen in a mainstream American candidate in U.S history. That is just a fact, whether it matters is something else.

So, I was shocked to see a mainstream candidate on a national debate stage in America defending the gains made in healthcare and education under the leadership of the Castro regime.

Now, granted, he said this in the 1980s when he was a bit more radical than he is now but he did not back down from his comments he made 30 years ago like I believe any sane candidate who made those comments would have.

Thoughts?

[Chomskyan]

The fact remains that Cuba´s health care system and education system eclipses the United States´.

That´s a fact, whether or not it´s popular.

[Stirnerian]

I feel pretty good about Bernie. I don't think he can win the nomination, but just the fact that he's addressing this in a public sphere matters.

[RedSonRising]

I was impressed. It took serious courage to not back down from that clip, which by the way must be the most damning attempt to discredit a candidate by a media network hosting a debate. Instead of backpedaling and saying back then I was younger, things were different, he reiterated the same sentiments despite the boos and gasps; he called for a more democratic Cuba but said that their healthcare system which sends doctors all over the world and their education was commendable. And even more importantly he centered his response on imperialism and regime change, denouncing the invasions of Cuba and Guatemala, and mentioning that he actually visited those countries.

A mainstream candidate said this, in a live primary debate, in Florida.

Bernie may not be a revolutionary socialist but if a US reformist ever deserved the respect of the left, it's got to be him.

[PikSmeet]

Yet the Cuban working class don't run the health system on their behalf, good as it is, it's similar to the NHS & welfare state we have in the UK. Originally devised by German conservatives and British liberals. It is there to bolster the capitalist system and to make it more competitive in the international market. Thanks to the Cuban healthcare system it ensures the working class are more economically efficient and can produce better goods and services for the ruling elite to enjoy.

[hexaune]

Yet the Cuban working class don't run the health system on their behalf, good as it is, it's similar to the NHS & welfare state we have in the UK. Originally devised by German conservatives and British liberals. It is there to bolster the capitalist system and to make it more competitive in the international market. Thanks to the Cuban healthcare system it ensures the working class are more economically efficient and can produce better goods and services for the ruling elite to enjoy.

You really do keep missing the point in a way that's verging on trolling. Not one person on this forum has claimed that is worker managed or anything to do with socialism. It is however a fact that it is an exponentially better healthcare system than in the US which is to the benefit of their working classes.

Isn't it better for the working classes to be able to afford to get any illness treated without either going bankrupt or missing out essential healthcare? I you seriously arguing that its better for the working classes to not have their healthcare needs met as it will be them less efficient and therfore damage capitalism? Because that is the end result of your argument and it fucking stinks and seems to indicate a complete lack of any understanding of the plight of being poor.

[bricolage]

The international must arm comrade sanders now!!!

[Chomskyan]

The international must arm comrade sanders now!!!

Comrade Sanders is going to bring us a proletarian revolution!

ZWyzGtv5jSQ

[Tim Cornelis]

The fact remains that Cuba´s health care system and education system eclipses the United States´.

That´s a fact, whether or not it´s popular.

A fact according to whom? Not according to the World Health Organisation, I think. It ranks Cuba two places lower than the USA, iirc, in terms of health care quality and access.

[Chomskyan]

A fact according to whom? Not according to the World Health Organisation, I think. It ranks Cuba two places lower than the USA, iirc, in terms of health care quality and access.

Huh, well I recall hearing Cuba´s health system was ranked greater than the US. If I am wrong, then I am wrong I guess.

I don´t know by what measure they are using here. As far as I am concerned millions without health insurance is a worse than a government which provides it to all of it´s people.

So, maybe I´m biased.

[hexaune]

Huh, well I recall hearing Cuba´s health system was ranked greater than the US. If I am wrong, then I am wrong I guess.

I don´t know by what measure they are using here. As far as I am concerned millions without health insurance is a worse than a government which provides it to all of it´s people.

So, maybe I´m biased.

iirc it depends on how you compare things but:
from wiki:

the U.S. spends the most on health care on a relative cost basis with the worst outcome"[4] and notes Cubans live longer than Americans, but Americans pay more than fourteen times as much for less effective health care.

Also I'm pretty sure Cuba does significantly better than the US when it comes to childbirth mortality.

[RedSonRising]

From memory Cuba's healthcare has always lagged just under the US in overall ranking. At least for the last few decades. But as was mentioned, infant mortality and life expectancy is higher. The US has access to technology and certain medicines Cuba does not, and the US also has some of if not the best specialist care in the world iirc.

I'll also push back a bit on the idea Cuba's healthcare has nothing at all to do with socialism, because it's clearly not an investment in a workforce that produces profit for a ruling class. It's enshrined in their constitution, and while participation in planning overall is spotty and limited, there is a community based focus in much of Cuba's preventative care.

http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/5/08-030508/en/


Yet the Cuban working class don't run the health system on their behalf, good as it is, it's similar to the NHS & welfare state we have in the UK. Originally devised by German conservatives and British liberals. It is there to bolster the capitalist system and to make it more competitive in the international market. Thanks to the Cuban healthcare system it ensures the working class are more economically efficient and can produce better goods and services for the ruling elite to enjoy.

Oh yeah Cuba's been just killing it on the world market for the past 50 years with all those hot commodities they produce with their industrial manufacturing base :laugh:

[Futility Personified]

"It is there to bolster the capitalist system and to make it more competitive in the international market. Thanks to the Cuban healthcare system it ensures the working class are more economically efficient and can produce better goods and services for the ruling elite to enjoy."
As opposed to a socialist healthcare system which will make us all chronically ill so we can consider overthrowing whoever we don't happen to like at the time. Socialized medicine is a concession seized by the (organized) working class. Please tell me how things like the NHS are extremely competitive in the marketplace with citations please.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Yet the Cuban working class don't run the health system on their behalf, good as it is, it's similar to the NHS & welfare state we have in the UK. Originally devised by German conservatives and British liberals. It is there to bolster the capitalist system and to make it more competitive in the international market. Thanks to the Cuban healthcare system it ensures the working class are more economically efficient and can produce better goods and services for the ruling elite to enjoy.

The NHS was created after WW2 as part of a package to solve to problems: individualism and unemployment.

Individualism because there was a feeling amongst many in Britain that WW2 had been by necessity a 'team effort' just to survive. In addition, the better healthcare that was given particularly to soldiers (in the form of the mass production of peniciillin for example) was something that people did not want to be lost in peacetime.

Secondly, the 1930s was a time of horrific unemployment in the UK, and saw the crumbling of National Insurance (where people pay in money when working so that they can take out unemployment benefits when they are unemployed). The Beveridge Report of 1942 advocated widening National Insurance, and the setting up of the NHS, to principally cure the problem of unemployment, which had also been linked to poverty and thus poor health (Booth and Rowntree's studies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for example).

In reality it's not factually accurate to portray the NHS as a system to keep capitalism competitive; it's one of the rare occasions where bottom-up pressure has led to a (major) social concession.

[Luís Henrique]

A fact according to whom? Not according to the World Health Organisation, I think. It ranks Cuba two places lower than the USA, iirc, in terms of health care quality and access.

Cuba certainly ranks first if you take into acount GNP. All countries with GNPs comparable with Cuba have much worse health care systems than Cuba.

That is a fact. It maybe not justify other, less agreeable aspects of the Cuban regime. It does make it look very good for poor people in other third world countries.

Luís Henrique

[hexaune]

Cuba certainly ranks first if you take into acount GNP. All countries with GNPs comparable with Cuba have much worse health care systems than Cuba.

That is a fact. It maybe not justify other, less agreeable aspects of the Cuban regime. It does make it look very good for poor people in other third world countries.

Luís Henrique

As well as poor people in many first world countries.

[The Intransigent Faction]

I don't understand how the pro-embargo position has dominated the Republican discussion so completely. Even think-tanks like the CATO institute have criticized the embargo as a policy doomed to fail, on the grounds that normalized trade relations are more likely to motivate the sorts of political change that American capital wants to see in Cuba. If the neoliberals and those who push free-trade agreements in North and Central America are today's enlightened "progressives", then Bernie Sanders's position really is an outlier.
Trump has said the "concept of opening with Cuba is fine," but also said he would close the embassy, pending a "better deal."