Bernie Slammed for Saying Something Positive About Cuba. Now Cuban Doctors Are Going to Italy to Help With Coronavirus.
by John Lawrence
Something the main stream media won't report: Cuban doctors are being sent to Italy. Previously, they helped with the Ebola crisis in Africa. Regardless of their form of government, give credit where credit is due. Joe Biden and the media jumped all over Bernie for saying one good thing about Cuba. Biden sought to contrast Sanders’ comments with former President Barack Obama, noting that Obama “did not in any way suggest that there was anything positive about the Cuban government.” No, nothing positive? Not increased literacy? Not better health care outcomes than the US? The conventional wisdom about Cuba is bullshit, and you can't acknowledge that they have done one good thing without being slammed? Give me a break. Italy has no such compunctions about Cuba. They requested that the Cuban doctors come to Lombardy. That tells you something about what the rest of the world thinks about Cuba's proficiency in medical care. The rest of the world isn't as ignorant as US politicians and media stalwarts like Anderson Cooper. The US needs to wake up and realize that the meme that Cuba is all bad is outdated and factually incorrect. It is the meme of an ignorant electorate - Democrats included!
Reuters reported:
The Caribbean island has sent its “armies of white robes” to disaster sites around the world largely in poor countries since its 1959 revolution. Its doctors were in the front lines in the fight against cholera in Haiti and against ebola in West Africa in the 2010s.
Yet with the 52-strong brigade, this is the first time Cuba has sent an emergency contingent to Italy, one of the world’s richest countries, demonstrating the reach of its medical diplomacy.
This is the sixth medical brigade Cuba has sent in recent days to combat the spread of the new disease abroad. It has sent contingents to socialist allies Venezuela and Nicaragua as well as Jamaica, Suriname and Grenada.
“We are all afraid but we have a revolutionary duty to fulfill, so we take our fear and put it to one side,” Leonardo Fernandez, 68, an intensive care specialist, told Reuters late on Saturday shortly before his brigade’s departure.
Even staunch US ally, Britain, thanked Cuba for allowing a British cruise ship that had been turned away by several Caribbean ports to dock on the island and for enabling the evacuation of the more than 600 passengers onboard. Yet the US continues to sanction Cuba forcing it to forego much needed pharmaceuticals and medical supplies. Despite more than half a century of a US economic embargo, Cuba’s average life expectancy is greater than that in the US. As of 2015 Cuban life expectancies of 79.5 years and infant mortality rates of 4.3 per 1000 live births were better than rich nations like the US (78.7 years and 5.7 per 1, 000 live births) yet its per capita income of $7602. makes it one of the poorest economies in the hemisphere (World Development Indicators DataBank, 2017).
As for literacy, the rate was 77% in 1959 before the revolution. Two years after the revolution it was 100%.
Cuba has better health care outcomes than the US despite every attempt by the US from embargoes to sanctions to destroy their economy. Perhaps the American people should wake up and listen to Bernie Sanders for a change. He knows a helluva lot more about Cuba than the ignorant Joe Biden and the other Democrats who have attacked him about his remarks about Cuba and Latin America in general. At least admit the undeniable truth no matter how much you dislike their form of government.
