Hermit wrote:Forty Two wrote:As if in Cuba everybody gets a decent education, health care, security and old age support...lol. The myth sold about the Cuban health care system was embarrassing. They have a three tiered system (a) cash paying foreigners (medical tourism) is the top, (b) elite Cubans and party members also very good, and (c) shit for everyone else - for the common Cuban hospitals and clinics are crumbling, conditions are unsanitary, and if people have to go to the hospital, they must often bring their own bedsheets, soap, towels, food, light bulbs — even toilet paper. And basic medications are scarce, finding an aspirin and antibiotics is difficult.
The ordinary Cuban survives on rations of rice and beans --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing_in_Cuba - that's the security and basic needs being met.
Over 65 years of United States embargoes do that to a country.
Bollocks. You mean, Cuba couldn't trade with the rest of the world? With US business and industry conveniently out of the way, there's 100 other countries with a wide-open market devoid of US competition.
Hermit wrote:
Forty Two wrote:LOL - "dictate to Cuba how they should govern themselves." What joke. Cubans don't govern themselves.
Of course not. That's what the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the Cuban Assets Control Regulations of 1963, the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, the Helms–Burton Act of 1996, and the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 are for.
Or, perhaps the Castro dictatorship? That might have something to do with it, I think. Jailing of political dissidents, assassinations, executions.....
The 1917 Trading With the Enemy Act is a problem? Funny, it's been British law for 100s of years that trading and commerce with enemies of the Crown are prohibited, unless permission is granted by the Crown government. It's, of course, only bad if the US does it. The US should allow trade with enemies.
The Cuban Democracy Act? You mean....sanctions on a dictatorship to try to effect change to a democratic society is bad? LOL.
The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961? That law reorganized the structure of then existing foreign aid, separating military from non-military aid. And, it created the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to administer non-military, economic assistance programs..... so, this is a problem, how? The US should not give aid? Should not have mechanisms to control who gets aid? We should give equal aid to all countries, even enemy countries? What's your issue here?
Cuban Asset Control Regulations? Those are the US Treasury regulations that control the embargo. Again, so what? This doesn't "govern" Cuba. These regulations did not compel Castro to set up a dictatorship, rule with an iron fist for 65 years, and starve his people.
It's funny -- the embargo caused cuba's problems? man -- what a compliment to the US! And, on topic after topic, we hear how the US is really so much worse than the other western countries. We make shit products. We grow shit food. We provide shit healthcare. We can't even take care of our own people in the states. But, if the US doesn't trade with Cuba, it can't survive. Nobody else in the world can trade with Cuba. All the better, more enlightened, civilized countries, where life is so much better than in the US, were utterly incapable (or unwilling?) to trade with Cuba.
“When I was in college, I took a terrorism class. ... The thing that was interesting in the class was every time the professor said ‘Al Qaeda’ his shoulders went up, But you know, it is that you don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity, you don’t say ‘England’ with the intensity. You don’t say ‘the army’ with the intensity,” she continued. “... But you say these names [Al Qaeda] because you want that word to carry weight. You want it to be something.” - Ilhan Omar
