Sanders' Paradise: Cuba

[Sparko]

Yeah, except no one, including Sanders, has praised Cuba as a socialist paradise. He praised their healthcare system. That's a distinction that you hardliners don't seem capable of understanding.

And what! We have good relations with N. Korea?

Yes Sanders has been praising Cuba. ("Bread lines are a good thing!") and praising Castro. For 40 years now.

And yes, we have much better relations with NK now than under Obama.

[Sparko]

The misplaced apostrophe in this thread title really bothers me. Sorry.

I have no idea what you are whining about.

[rogue06]

Yeah, except no one, including Sanders, has praised Cuba as a socialist paradise. He praised their healthcare system. That's a distinction that you hardliners don't seem capable of understanding.

I thought it was their literacy rate that he praised.

Of course, as as the explained a few years ago in the hardly right-wing Atlantic, literacy was never sought by the Cuban regime just for the sake of literacy, but as the "key to the revolution taking hold and creating a literate population loyal to the government."

And let's not forget that the fabulous education system taught that everyone's highest loyalty is to the State -- the Communist Party. Children were indoctrinated in work camps and kept separate from their families and taught to denounce their own parents to authorities for any and all counter-revolutionary tendencies. If the parents ever said something to their children that conflicted with communist ideology, they usually found themselves jailed for three years under the Code for Children, Youth and Family.

And btw, the massive success Castro's programs had is largely an overblown myth. According to the late historian Hugh Thomas, who's account of Spain’s civil war has been described as "the bible of the Spanish left" and later advised the British government during the Falklands War due to his widely regarded expertise on Latin America, back in 1958 the literacy rate in Cuba was already at 80%.

And today their literacy rate is pretty much the same as that found in Argentina, Chile and Costa Rica.

Moreover, without free speech and a free press, a high literacy rate is a cruel joke.

[JimL]

I thought it was their literacy rate that he praised.

Of course, as as the explained a few years ago in the hardly right-wing Atlantic, literacy was never sought by the Cuban regime just for the sake of literacy, but as the "key to the revolution taking hold and creating a literate population loyal to the government."

And let's not forget that the fabulous education system taught that everyone's highest loyalty is to the State -- the Communist Party. Children were indoctrinated in work camps and kept separate from their families and taught to denounce their own parents to authorities for any and all counter-revolutionary tendencies. If the parents ever said something to their children that conflicted with communist ideology, they usually found themselves jailed for three years under the Code for Children, Youth and Family.

And btw, the massive success Castro's programs had is largely an overblown myth. According to the late historian Hugh Thomas, who's account of Spain’s civil war has been described as "the bible of the Spanish left" and later advised the British government during the Falklands War due to his widely regarded expertise on Latin America, back in 1958 the literacy rate in Cuba was already at 80%.

And today their literacy rate is pretty much the same as that found in Argentina, Chile and Costa Rica.

Moreover, without free speech and a free press, a high literacy rate is a cruel joke.

Irrelevant rant. Sanders has always condemned authoritarianism, but to be against authoritarianism doesn't mean that you can't acknowledge when they do something right or good. You guys aren't stupid, you can understand that, but it would be out of character for you to acknowledge it.

[rogue06]

Irrelevant rant. Sanders has always condemned authoritarianism, but to be against authoritarianism doesn't mean that you can't acknowledge when they do something right or good. You guys aren't stupid, you can understand that, but it would be out of character for you to acknowledge it.

It looks like Sanders has in recent years used Cuba's literacy rate^[1] as an excuse for having praised Castro and communism.

A video of him speaking at the University of Vermont back in 1986 shows him excitedly talking about the Cuban revolution and why he was so happy when it took place. And why was that? Because "it just seemed right and appropriate that poor people were rising up against rather ugly rich people." Sanders also said he was sickened (almost had to "puke") when JFK spoke out against communism and pushed his political opponent at the time, Richard Nixon, to be tougher on Cuba.

So Sanders was already a giddy fanboi of Castro and has only later used the improvement in literacy rates there (which was also taking place throughout Latin America) as an excuse.

And while improving literacy is a laudable achievement it hardly excuses over half a century of totalitarian rule or Sanders effluent exhortations and making excuses for Castro (or the Sandinista government) long after their totalitarianistic ways were widely understood.





1. Given that Cuba already had a very high rate of literacy prior to Castro seizing control, and that it is really no better than that seen in several other countries in Latin America (and only marginally better than that in several others such as Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Paraguay) and that literacy rates in Latin America and the Caribbean amounting 94% (a good deal higher than the world average) giving Castro all the credit is a stretch

[JimL]

It looks like Sanders has in recent years used Cuba's literacy rate^[1] as an excuse for having praised Castro and communism.

A video of him speaking at the University of Vermont back in 1986 shows him excitedly talking about the Cuban revolution and why he was so happy when it took place. And why was that? Because "it just seemed right and appropriate that poor people were rising up against rather ugly rich people." Sanders also said he was sickened (almost had to "puke") when JFK spoke out against communism and pushed his political opponent at the time, Richard Nixon, to be tougher on Cuba.

So Sanders was already a giddy fanboi of Castro and has only later used the improvement in literacy rates there (which was also taking place throughout Latin America) as an excuse.

And while improving literacy is a laudable achievement it hardly excuses over half a century of totalitarian rule or Sanders effluent exhortations and making excuses for Castro (or the Sandinista government) long after their totalitarianistic ways were widely understood.





1. Given that Cuba already had a very high rate of literacy prior to Castro seizing control, and that it is really no better than that seen in several other countries in Latin America (and only marginally better than that in several others such as Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and Paraguay) and that literacy rates in Latin America and the Caribbean amounting 94% (a good deal higher than the world average) giving Castro all the credit is a stretch

Well like I said, it isn't in your character to be objective. Sanders has denounced authoritarianism time and time again, including the wannabe athoritarian in the White House that you support. Praising particular policies that have worked out well for the people, such as healthcare or education policy, under authoritarian regimes, is not the same thing as praising athoritarianism.

[Sparko]

Well like I said, it isn't in your character to be objective. Sanders has denounced authoritarianism time and time again, including the wannabe athoritarian in the White House that you support. Praising particular policies that have worked out well for the people, such as healthcare or education policy, under authoritarian regimes, is not the same thing as praising athoritarianism.

And yet he praised totalitarian dictators like Castro and Maduro. So if he denounces authoritarianism, he sucks at it.

[rogue06]

And yet he praised totalitarian dictators like Castro and Maduro. So if he denounces authoritarianism, he sucks at it.

Not just those two.

Source: Lovable Ol' Bernie?

Sanders' appeal, the experts explain, is founded on "authenticity." Is he humorless, repetitive, cloying and rigid? Sure. But these are signs that he really believes something! He's not a packaged, blow-dried (no argument there), insincere pol cooked up in a political laboratory. He's the real deal.

Let's concede that Sanders is sincere, and that he is, with some small hypocrisies — did you know he was a millionaire? — honest. But what people actually believe is kind of important, and Sanders professes and sells a series of prejudices that do him no credit.

Sanders claims to be a democratic socialist in the European mold, an admirer of Sweden and Denmark. Yet his career is pockmarked with praise for regimes considerably to the left of those Scandinavian models. He has praised Cuba for "making enormous progress in improving the lives of poor and working people."

In his memoir, he bragged about attending a 1985 parade celebrating the Sandinistas' seizure of power six years before. "Believe it or not," he wrote, "I was the highest ranking American official there." At the time, the Sandinista regime had already allied with Cuba and begun a large military buildup, courtesy of the Soviet Union.

The Sandinistas, Sanders had every reason to know, had censored independent news outlets, nationalized half of the nation's industry, forcibly displaced the Miskito Indians and formed "neighborhood watch" committees on the Cuban model.

Sandinista forces, like those in East Germany and other communist countries, regularly opened fire on those attempting to flee the country.

None of that appears to have dampened Sanders' enthusiasm. The then-mayor of Burlington, Vermont, gushed that under his leadership, "Vermont could set an example to the rest of the nation similar to the type of example Nicaragua is setting for the rest of Latin America."

Sanders was impatient with those who found fault with the Nicaraguan regime:

"Is (the Sandinistas') crime that they have built new health clinics, schools, and distributed land to the peasants? Is their crime that they have given equal rights to women? Or that they are moving forward to wipe out illiteracy? No, their crime in Mr. Reagan's eyes and the eyes of corporations and billionaires that determine American foreign policy is that they have refused to be a puppet and banana republic to American corporate interests."

Sanders now calls for a revolution in this country, and we're all expected to nod knowingly. Of course, he means a peaceful, democratic revolution. It would be outrageous to suggest anything else.

Well, it would not be possible for Sanders to usher in a revolution in the U.S., but his sympathy for the real thing is notable. As Michael Moynihan reported, in the case of the Sandinistas, he was willing to justify press censorship and even bread lines.

The regime's crackdown on the largest independent newspaper, La Prensa, "makes sense to me" Sanders explained, because the country was besieged by counterrevolutionary forces funded by the United States. As for bread lines, which soon appeared in Nicaragua, as they would decades later in Venezuela, Sanders scoffed: "It's funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is, that people are lining up for food. That is a good thing! In other countries people don't line up for food. The rich get the food and the poor starve to death."

Sanders' stopped learning about economics and politics about the age of 17. He still believes that corporate "greed" is responsible for human poverty, and that the world is a zero-sum pie. The more billionaires there are, the less there is for everyone else.

"I don't think billionaires should exist," he told The New York Times. So in the Bernie ideal world, we non-billionaires would be deprived of Amazon, personal computers, smartphones, fracking (which reduces greenhouse gases), Uber, Walmart, "Star Wars" movies and very possibly our jobs.

Millions of children would be deprived of school scholarships, while the arts, medical research and poverty programs would be that much poorer.

Billionaires are not heroes, but by making them boogeymen, Sanders betrays his economic infantilism along with a large dose of demagoguery.



Source

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Please note how he gushed that "Vermont could set an example to the rest of the nation similar to the type of example Nicaragua is setting for the rest of Latin America." His desire was to turn Vermont into the Nicaragua of the U.S.

A place where businesses are seized and taken over by the state.

A place where entire groups of people can be forcibly removed and relocated^[1].

A place where strict censorship is the rule and "neighborhood watches" established to ensure that nobody dare say anything against the government.

And a place where they will shoot and kill those who try to leave.

That is Sander's utopia. Nothing like Sweden and Denmark.

And don't forget, both friends and foes remark how consistent Sanders has been with his views. What he believed 20, 30, or 40 years ago, he still believes today.

So much for his being opposed to authoritarian much less totalitarian regimes.





1. There was a documentary in the mid 80s called "Nicaragua Was Our Home" which featured interviews with both Miskito Indians as well as non-Miskito clergy who lived among them where they recounted the bombing of villages, shootings, and forced removals by his beloved Sandinistas that he hoped to emulate. I believe that this is it, although its called "Miskitu Nation Lee Shapiro" (Shapiro produced NWOH shortly before his death).

[JimL]

And yet he praised totalitarian dictators like Castro and Maduro. So if he denounces authoritarianism, he sucks at it.

No, actually he denounces the dictators themselves, he simply gives credit to some of their social policy. Trump on the other hand, praises totalitarian dictators all the time, but somehow when it's Trump doing it, you find a way defend him.

[Sparko]

No, actually he denounces the dictators themselves, he simply gives credit to some of their social policy. Trump on the other hand, praises totalitarian dictators all the time, but somehow when it's Trump doing it, you find a way defend him.

Sure - give me some quotes from Sanders.

And their social policies, being that they are dictators, is repressing freedom and downtrodding their people into poverty.

[JimL]

Sure - give me some quotes from Sanders.

And their social policies, being that they are dictators, is repressing freedom and downtrodding their people into poverty.

Here's is an interview done with Sanders in Burlington VT. after his 1985 trip to Nicaragua.
http://www.cctv.org/watch-tv/program...trip-nicaragua

What an awful dictator loving communist, eh?

And btw, when you complain about the Sandinistas, that means you supported Somoza who was the brutal thieving dictator who the Sandinista's overthrew. So, apparently you are just as guilty as you claim that Sanders is, in that you support dictators.

[Sparko]

Here's is an interview done with Sanders in Burlington VT. after his 1985 trip to Nicaragua.
http://www.cctv.org/watch-tv/program...trip-nicaragua

What an awful dictator loving communist, eh?

You will have to do better than just link to a 24 minute video in which all I can find is him saying how great Nicaragua is.
Give me an actual quote, or at least a time in the video you are referring to.

And btw, when you complain about the Sandinistas, that means you supported Somoza who was the brutal thieving dictator who the Sandinista's overthrew. So, apparently you are just as guilty as you claim that Sanders is, in that you support dictators.

First, I didn't even mention the Sandinistas, but if you oppose one dictator, it doesn't mean you support the dictator he overthrew.