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On March 29 2016 02:15 Liquid`Drone wrote: Cuba has a lot of issues. Attacking them over health care or education is fucking mind boggling and not rooted in reality. Despite being a poor as hell country, their literacy rate is higher than that of the US. Their education level in general has been heads and shoulders above any country in the world with similar GDP. Health care as well, much better than every comparable country in terms of wealth. Their policy of mass educating doctors and sending them abroad to conflict zones is one of the most commendable policies of any country through the history of mankind- and this is something you attack?
Seriously, attack them for all their undemocratic elements as much as you want. Attack them for being a police state employing torture against dissidents, and you won't get a single complaint from any poster here. But you attack them for the two areas of policy where they outperform every comparable country in the world? Get real.
Huh no? The education system is specifically used to indoctrinate children to sustain the dictatorship. And cuban doctors are used to fund it.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/mary-ogrady-cubas-slave-trade-in-doctors-1415573715
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Any criticism of their health care and education as only being possible due to oppression comes off as disingenuous and an attempt to cover up for the US's own problems. It is fine to criticize things, but focus on areas where the US isn't horribly behind for no other reason than political dysfunction.
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On March 28 2016 23:50 ticklishmusic wrote: No, Sanders is losing that particular game fair and square. She's got 2.5m more in the popular vote, and no matter how you want to allocate superdelegates-- either proportional to the poplar vote or give them to the state winners she's still winning by a ton. It makes very little sense to say Clinton isn't hitting the magic number that was set based on the existence of an additional 700 superdelegates without a portion of the 700 superdelegates. Sure you can argue that Sanders has put up a good fight, but don't pretend that he isn't losing.
And citing national polls just makes you look stupid. Think for a moment what would happen to Sanders if the right began to redbait and air his other dirty laundry. His ridiculous policy prescriptions are a distant third on the list of things they'll bother attacking.
I figured this talking point would end after Saturday, seeing how it's disingenuous as all hell. How, you say? Well just tell me how many votes Sanders got on Saturday and you'll see.
EDIT: Hillary already redbaited going after the Cuba video, which is only damning for those too ignorant to bother to understand his point.
Maybe overall Sanders is still behind (as a result of the order of states) but these last 2 weeks there's no way you can paint them as Sanders losing. This is why Hillary&co pushed so hard for Sanders to get out earlier, her lead was the biggest it would get.
(Sanders was as low as 83% of his target)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/SxAiQV8.jpg)
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On March 29 2016 02:27 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2016 23:50 ticklishmusic wrote: No, Sanders is losing that particular game fair and square. She's got 2.5m more in the popular vote, and no matter how you want to allocate superdelegates-- either proportional to the poplar vote or give them to the state winners she's still winning by a ton. It makes very little sense to say Clinton isn't hitting the magic number that was set based on the existence of an additional 700 superdelegates without a portion of the 700 superdelegates. Sure you can argue that Sanders has put up a good fight, but don't pretend that he isn't losing.
And citing national polls just makes you look stupid. Think for a moment what would happen to Sanders if the right began to redbait and air his other dirty laundry. His ridiculous policy prescriptions are a distant third on the list of things they'll bother attacking. I figured this talking point would end after Saturday, seeing how it's disingenuous as all hell. How, you say? Well just tell me how many votes Sanders got on Saturday and you'll see.
Do whatever math you like, she's still up by a couple million or so. IIRC caucuses have ~20% of people who vote in the general while primaries have about 50%. You can nitpick however you like, but Clinton is leading in pretty much every overall metric. Interestingly, she might finish with less "won" contests if it goes all the way, though her wins will, on average, be for far larger ones.
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On March 29 2016 02:24 Plansix wrote: Any criticism of their health care and education as only being possible due to oppression comes off as disingenuous and an attempt to cover up for the US's own problems. It is fine to criticize things, but focus on areas where the US isn't horribly behind for no other reason than political dysfunction.
Did you even read the article?
I guess human trafficking used to fund dictatorships is fine when the left does it.
"Cuba is winning accolades for its international “doctor diplomacy,” in which it sends temporary medical professionals abroad—ostensibly to help poor countries battle disease and improve health care. But the doctors are not a gift from Cuba. Havana is paid for its medical missions by either the host country, in the case of Venezuela, or by donor countries that send funds to the World Health Organization. The money is supposed to go to Cuban workers’ salaries. But neither the WHO nor any host country pays Cuban workers directly. Instead the funds are credited to the account of the dictatorship, which by all accounts keeps the lion’s share of the payment and gives the worker a stipend to live on with a promise of a bit more upon return to Cuba.
It’s the perfect crime: By shipping its subjects abroad to help poor people, the regime earns the image of a selfless contributor to the global community even while it exploits workers and gets rich off their backs. According to DW, Germany’s international broadcaster, Havana earns some $7.6 billion annually from its export of health-care workers."
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On March 29 2016 02:22 GoTuNk! wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2016 02:15 Liquid`Drone wrote: Cuba has a lot of issues. Attacking them over health care or education is fucking mind boggling and not rooted in reality. Despite being a poor as hell country, their literacy rate is higher than that of the US. Their education level in general has been heads and shoulders above any country in the world with similar GDP. Health care as well, much better than every comparable country in terms of wealth. Their policy of mass educating doctors and sending them abroad to conflict zones is one of the most commendable policies of any country through the history of mankind- and this is something you attack?
Seriously, attack them for all their undemocratic elements as much as you want. Attack them for being a police state employing torture against dissidents, and you won't get a single complaint from any poster here. But you attack them for the two areas of policy where they outperform every comparable country in the world? Get real. Huh no? The education system is specifically used to indoctrinate children to sustain the dictatorship. And cuban doctors are used to fund it. http://www.wsj.com/articles/mary-ogrady-cubas-slave-trade-in-doctors-1415573715
I can't read that and I'm not subscribing to that.
Well, since you know "some" stuff, but not the whole picture. My cousin who is a dentist was sent to these poorer countries to help, she got paid to live in these countries for the time being. She went and returned to Cuba within 6 months, all she did was go to "work" and back to her "home". She was in Venezuela and Africa. Although they do teach in school to sustain the dictatorship, most people don't actually fall for that. Some do, but a lot don't and just "follow" orders. And if you talk to them, they all talk shit about the government. The country is full of people who start learning physics straight into high school, they're smarter than you think.
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Norway28563 Posts
On March 29 2016 02:17 ticklishmusic wrote: The problem is that the good stuff and the bad stuff all are rooted in the same base to some degree, and you have to disentangle all the pieces if it's even possible to do so. There are commendable things that Cuba does, but how much do they owe their existence to the same system that results in oppression of dissidents?
If you want to attack the socialist/communist rule in general and claim that Cuba is and has been worse off in general than comparable countries that took a capitalist turn, then okay, I'm not fully certain I agree (I would absolutely agree if you made the same argument for African countries though), but it's a fair argument and depends on which areas of society you find more important.
However, I really don't think there's any reason why universal literacy or health care is something that hinges on the oppression of dissidents? Like, where's the connection?
I've also been to Cuba, and I talked to many Cubans - who willingly criticized the regime quite openly. (I mean, at Cuba I was very easily identifiable as a tourist, so I don't know if they have the same attitudes towards other Cubans. ) I noticed first hand how Cubans me and my family started talking to would ask us for the remaining hotel soap, because they weren't able to get any of their own. I watched two private taxi drivers be absolutely terrified while being arrested for driving me, my mom and my brother home from the beach - it certainly did not look like the punishment fit the crime.
But I also remember how impressed I was with the general knowledge level of current world events, geography and history. I also remember the excellent (free) health care I got from a nurse while I suffered from constipation. And I remember experiencing Havana as completely safe - safer than any European city of similar size. I am not saying that these three positive traits cancel out the negative ones, and I am not defending the communist or socialist regime on Cuba in general, but there are things they have gotten wrong and things they have gotten right. Attacking them over health care or education completely misses the target and only showcases ones inability to fairly assess reality without ones vision being clouded by ideological glasses.
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On March 29 2016 02:30 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2016 02:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2016 23:50 ticklishmusic wrote: No, Sanders is losing that particular game fair and square. She's got 2.5m more in the popular vote, and no matter how you want to allocate superdelegates-- either proportional to the poplar vote or give them to the state winners she's still winning by a ton. It makes very little sense to say Clinton isn't hitting the magic number that was set based on the existence of an additional 700 superdelegates without a portion of the 700 superdelegates. Sure you can argue that Sanders has put up a good fight, but don't pretend that he isn't losing.
And citing national polls just makes you look stupid. Think for a moment what would happen to Sanders if the right began to redbait and air his other dirty laundry. His ridiculous policy prescriptions are a distant third on the list of things they'll bother attacking. I figured this talking point would end after Saturday, seeing how it's disingenuous as all hell. How, you say? Well just tell me how many votes Sanders got on Saturday and you'll see. Do whatever math you like, she's still up by a couple million or so. IIRC caucuses have ~20% of people who vote in the general while primaries have about 50%. You can nitpick however you like, but Clinton is leading in pretty much every overall metric. Interestingly, she might finish with less "won" contests if it goes all the way, though her wins will, on average, be for far larger ones.
So you have no idea how many votes she is actually up, correct? Your estimate included 0 votes from Saturday as well, correct?
How about Colorado, Utah, and Idaho? you counting them too or are the votes from 6 states Bernie won not being included?
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Drone, as a tourist in Cuba, you're #1. Tourists are #1 and the country is #2 and I pretty much agree with every other statement you provided. And as a male you're definitely safer, but if you were a lone female walking through Havana streets, you're asking for it.
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On March 29 2016 02:37 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2016 02:30 ticklishmusic wrote:On March 29 2016 02:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2016 23:50 ticklishmusic wrote: No, Sanders is losing that particular game fair and square. She's got 2.5m more in the popular vote, and no matter how you want to allocate superdelegates-- either proportional to the poplar vote or give them to the state winners she's still winning by a ton. It makes very little sense to say Clinton isn't hitting the magic number that was set based on the existence of an additional 700 superdelegates without a portion of the 700 superdelegates. Sure you can argue that Sanders has put up a good fight, but don't pretend that he isn't losing.
And citing national polls just makes you look stupid. Think for a moment what would happen to Sanders if the right began to redbait and air his other dirty laundry. His ridiculous policy prescriptions are a distant third on the list of things they'll bother attacking. I figured this talking point would end after Saturday, seeing how it's disingenuous as all hell. How, you say? Well just tell me how many votes Sanders got on Saturday and you'll see. Do whatever math you like, she's still up by a couple million or so. IIRC caucuses have ~20% of people who vote in the general while primaries have about 50%. You can nitpick however you like, but Clinton is leading in pretty much every overall metric. Interestingly, she might finish with less "won" contests if it goes all the way, though her wins will, on average, be for far larger ones. So you have no idea how many votes she is actually up correct? Your estimate included 0 votes from Saturday as well correct?
Sure. You can provide an estimated adjustment if you'd like instead of trying to piss in my cheerios.
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Yeah, the public indoctrination is in no any way worse than teaching Religion, or the likes in schools, and since we are on the US politics megathread, it is only laughable to speak about publich schools indoctrination (damn that smells like libertarian's propaganda) when they have schools that teach creationism for fucks sake.
About the doctors, GoTunk, they are workers, and they get paid a salary. As simple as that. I read the article and i had read others, and i actually know plenty of Cubans, some of them doctors, and none feel as goverment slaves. It may be truth that the goverment keeps most of the money for itself ? Surely, but that doesn't make them slaves, except if you think that every man working for someone else, getting paid lower than their fair share of the company's profits is a slave. Damn, now i don't know if you are a libertarian or a communist.
Anyways, yes, Cuba is corrupt as fuck, and i doubt anyone would put doubt into that, but their doctors had been essential in developing countries or disaster zones.
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Norway28563 Posts
Oh, that was definitely my impression as well, so I guess the safety comment might not hold true for the general public. But yeah, the whole 'private taxi drivers being arrested' story continued with the police officers asking to see our passports, before they called a government owned taxi to come pick us up - for us, breaking the law had the consequence of possibly getting us a legal taxi faster than we ourselves were capable of. ;p
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On March 29 2016 02:44 ticklishmusic wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2016 02:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2016 02:30 ticklishmusic wrote:On March 29 2016 02:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2016 23:50 ticklishmusic wrote: No, Sanders is losing that particular game fair and square. She's got 2.5m more in the popular vote, and no matter how you want to allocate superdelegates-- either proportional to the poplar vote or give them to the state winners she's still winning by a ton. It makes very little sense to say Clinton isn't hitting the magic number that was set based on the existence of an additional 700 superdelegates without a portion of the 700 superdelegates. Sure you can argue that Sanders has put up a good fight, but don't pretend that he isn't losing.
And citing national polls just makes you look stupid. Think for a moment what would happen to Sanders if the right began to redbait and air his other dirty laundry. His ridiculous policy prescriptions are a distant third on the list of things they'll bother attacking. I figured this talking point would end after Saturday, seeing how it's disingenuous as all hell. How, you say? Well just tell me how many votes Sanders got on Saturday and you'll see. Do whatever math you like, she's still up by a couple million or so. IIRC caucuses have ~20% of people who vote in the general while primaries have about 50%. You can nitpick however you like, but Clinton is leading in pretty much every overall metric. Interestingly, she might finish with less "won" contests if it goes all the way, though her wins will, on average, be for far larger ones. So you have no idea how many votes she is actually up correct? Your estimate included 0 votes from Saturday as well correct? Sure. You can provide an estimated adjustment if you'd like instead of trying to piss in my cheerios.
I don't need to in order to show that your estimate was not sincere, which was the point. You parroted a number when you knew it wasn't representative of the truth. The actual number is less important to my point than highlighting your deception.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
it is the height of naivete to equate indoctrination in commie achools with w/e is put or left out of u.s. textbooks
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On March 29 2016 02:32 GoTuNk! wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2016 02:24 Plansix wrote: Any criticism of their health care and education as only being possible due to oppression comes off as disingenuous and an attempt to cover up for the US's own problems. It is fine to criticize things, but focus on areas where the US isn't horribly behind for no other reason than political dysfunction. Did you even read the article? I guess human trafficking used to fund dictatorships is fine when the left does it. "Cuba is winning accolades for its international “doctor diplomacy,” in which it sends temporary medical professionals abroad—ostensibly to help poor countries battle disease and improve health care. But the doctors are not a gift from Cuba. Havana is paid for its medical missions by either the host country, in the case of Venezuela, or by donor countries that send funds to the World Health Organization. The money is supposed to go to Cuban workers’ salaries. But neither the WHO nor any host country pays Cuban workers directly. Instead the funds are credited to the account of the dictatorship, which by all accounts keeps the lion’s share of the payment and gives the worker a stipend to live on with a promise of a bit more upon return to Cuba. It’s the perfect crime: By shipping its subjects abroad to help poor people, the regime earns the image of a selfless contributor to the global community even while it exploits workers and gets rich off their backs. According to DW, Germany’s international broadcaster, Havana earns some $7.6 billion annually from its export of health-care workers." The pay walled article that you linked? Nope, as it is pay walled. And that is a serious problem. But our criticism of it is undercut by our lack luster healthcare system. Glass houses and all that. The EU can take Cuba to task on that subject, since they seem to have found a way to make a functional healthcare system that covers their citizens.
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On March 29 2016 02:46 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2016 02:44 ticklishmusic wrote:On March 29 2016 02:37 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 29 2016 02:30 ticklishmusic wrote:On March 29 2016 02:27 GreenHorizons wrote:On March 28 2016 23:50 ticklishmusic wrote: No, Sanders is losing that particular game fair and square. She's got 2.5m more in the popular vote, and no matter how you want to allocate superdelegates-- either proportional to the poplar vote or give them to the state winners she's still winning by a ton. It makes very little sense to say Clinton isn't hitting the magic number that was set based on the existence of an additional 700 superdelegates without a portion of the 700 superdelegates. Sure you can argue that Sanders has put up a good fight, but don't pretend that he isn't losing.
And citing national polls just makes you look stupid. Think for a moment what would happen to Sanders if the right began to redbait and air his other dirty laundry. His ridiculous policy prescriptions are a distant third on the list of things they'll bother attacking. I figured this talking point would end after Saturday, seeing how it's disingenuous as all hell. How, you say? Well just tell me how many votes Sanders got on Saturday and you'll see. Do whatever math you like, she's still up by a couple million or so. IIRC caucuses have ~20% of people who vote in the general while primaries have about 50%. You can nitpick however you like, but Clinton is leading in pretty much every overall metric. Interestingly, she might finish with less "won" contests if it goes all the way, though her wins will, on average, be for far larger ones. So you have no idea how many votes she is actually up correct? Your estimate included 0 votes from Saturday as well correct? Sure. You can provide an estimated adjustment if you'd like instead of trying to piss in my cheerios. I don't need to in order to show that your estimate was not sincere, which was the point. You parroted a number when you knew it wasn't representative of the truth. The actual number is less important to my point than highlighting your deception.
you sometimes have decent points but you present them in a way that turns off a lot of people. you've lost a huge amount of credibility here in the last few months as a result. quite frankly, some of your shit has pissed me off in the past though i've consciously chosen to care less now. have you considered trying to improve so people actually take you seriously? if your goal here is to shitpost and bern the place down, what you're doing is fine. if it's to actually try and have a discussion, get your act together.
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I for one cannot wait for Sanders to lose so GH will have something else to yell at people about.
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On March 29 2016 02:38 ShoCkeyy wrote: Drone, as a tourist in Cuba, you're #1. Tourists are #1 and the country is #2 and I pretty much agree with every other statement you provided. And as a male you're definitely safer, but if you were a lone female walking through Havana streets, you're asking for it. Not true either (not the second part, anyway). Women are perfectly okay in Havana Vieja, as are men. If you venture out of the safe tourist areas, things can get hairy, as they do in any big city suffering poverty anywhere in the world.
As a male walking the streets of Havana I was mugged (hit on the head with a brick). Of course, I was bloody stupid to be walking the streets of Centro alone at night. I spent half the rest of the night in hospitals and the other half in the police station, where I just wanted to leave because I had no clear picture of the perps or even where I was, and I knew the police would never catch them. However, a good thing came out of it in that the doctor who stitched up my head was a really nice guy and invited me over for a birthday party the next weekend to show me that most Cubans are really good people (the vibe I got from pretty much everything else on my holiday too). He was quite open about talking about the regime, as were his friends, and most other people I met, as long as they knew it was between them and some tourists. They were all very proud of the education system, but lamented the poverty and the unfairness. And one day I was walking on the street with that same doctor and police comes up to question us, and in particular why the doctor is walking around with a foreigner. It was very unpleasant.
As for the WSJ article (which I didn't manage to read, but I read the exerpt quoted in the thread): if a Cuban doctor at home earns 20 USD per month (in 2008 this was the standard government salary for everybody from street sweeper to neurosurgeon, although housing and food is separate), then it makes sense for that same doctor to earn 20 USD per month abroad (plus the extra costs of living abroad). Now we can argue that 20 USD per month is de facto slave labor, and we could say that everybody (the vast majority of Cubans are employed by the government in some form or another) in Cuba is effectively a slave laborer, but I disagree with the principle that because they are only paid the same amount they would get back home (plus a stipend to live on abroad) makes them slaves.
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On March 29 2016 02:50 oneofthem wrote: it is the height of naivete to equate indoctrination in commie achools with w/e is put or left out of u.s. textbooks No, the naivete is thinking it is any different. If anything, your answer is the proof that the only difference is that it's not as effective as western and religious indoctrination. Anyways, i think GoTunk comments goes more directed about public schools being a force of positivization of socialism general, rather than "follow your leader", which almost noone in Cuba buys anyways.
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I have to say I'm getting a good laugh watching Hillary's camp try to wriggle out of a NY debate. She thought she could get away with limiting the debates by having them scheduled later in the race... Nope.
Really makes all that stink Hillary's camp made about Bernie holding out on the Flint/NH debate (so that he could force these scheduled debates) look just as full of shit as ticklish's "She's winning by 2.5 million votes!"
On March 29 2016 02:53 Plansix wrote: I for one cannot wait for Sanders to lose so GH will have something else to yell at people about.
You're going to be waiting for a while. Bernie is only going to shrink her lead and prevent her winning outright on pledged delegates over the next few weeks.
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