Cuba's revolution at 50: gains fade, despair endures

[Zorro]

<snip>

Fifty years ago, an attorney turned bearded guerrilla marched triumphantly into Havana and declared victory over a departing dictator. Then he became a despot himself.

Fidel Castro forever changed the landscape of both Cuba and Miami. He jailed or executed his enemies, seized private property, divided families, and drove nearly two million Cubans into exile. His nation became a Cold War pawn.

At the same time, Castro launched a massive literacy campaign. The island churned out armies of new doctors. Cuba became an international player, inspiring guerrilla movements and supplying soldiers for ''anti-imperialist'' wars around the globe. Castro's refusal to kowtow to the United States won him praise.

As the Jan. 1 anniversary of the revolution's triumph approaches, many of the social welfare achievements that were the trophies of the communist regime have rusted. Years of failed economic policy, waves of mass exodus, and Cuba's inability to recover from the collapse of its patron, the Soviet Union, have dulled Castro's touted crown jewels -- the advances in health and education.

<snip>

More at: http://www.miamiherald.com/581/story/811777.html

[anigbrowl]

1. Yeah, it's a pity.

The basics of life are better attended to in Cuba than many other places, but the dignity accorded by education and medical treatment are offset by the indignity of not being able to make the most simple economic choices. I don't think Castro is a fundamentally bad person, but in his zeal to prove a point he stuck himself and his country into a self-limiting timewarp.

[Better Believe It]

2. We have been reading yearly reports on Cuba's economic collapse for five decades now.

Every year things are supposedly getting worse for the average working class Cuban. And yet the Cuban revolution has not been overthrown!

Perhaps those mass media reports are wrong.

Could they even be disinformation and misleading propaganda?

Of course not, not in the good old U. S. of A.

[Zhade]

3. More propaganda from the rag that is the miami herald?

Fuck that piece of shit "news"paper.

[Billy Burnett]

4. According to Miami Herald logic Bush and the repukes aren't despots ...

Quite the opposite of the Cuban Revolution, they've destroyed health care and education.

The Miami Herald isn't worth wrapping fish with.

[western mass]

5. Thanks for the comedy!

Printing something from the Miami Herald, in the heart of Right-Wing-Cuban-Exile-Land, about Cuba is supposed to be a joke, right?

[Zorro]

6. Bump

To allow the Fidelistas to continue fulminating over the Miami Herald without actually responding to any of the issues raised in the article.

[Billy Burnett]

7. So, to agree that the Miami Herald panders to RW exiles makes one a "Fidelista"?

What utter nonsense, intended to be a puerile attack on other well informed DUers imo.

Here's a response to the Herald fabrications - posted by a DUer who has spent some time in Cuba, and has relatives there (with some contributions from other DUers) ...

Cuba: Before and After the 1959 Revolution
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4653650

Since when does admiring how much Cubans have done with so little make one a "Fidelista"? What a pathetic anti pedagogical comment.

[Zorro]

8. You might be a Fidelista

If you always have a dismissive knee-jerk response to a Miami Herald article, instead of addressing any inaccuracies in the article's content.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AlphaCentauri]

10. Cuba's green productivity

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba planted thousands of urban cooperative gardens to offset reduced rations of imported food.

Now, in the wake of three hurricanes that wiped out 30 percent of Cuba's farm crops, the communist country is again turning to its urban gardens to keep its people properly fed.

"Our capacity for response is immediate because this is a cooperative," said Miguel Salcines, walking among rows of lettuce in the garden he heads in the Alamar suburb on the outskirts of Havana.

Salcines says he is hardly sleeping as his 160-member cooperative rushes to plant and harvest a variety of beets that takes just 25 days to grow, among other crops.

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE4BF01H20081216

[Billy Burnett]

11. Only a gusano would rec this crappy thread.

Adulterated swill.

IMO.

[deaniac21]

12. Cuba is the ultimate paradise of the world. Nowhere on earth

will you find this level of free speech.