PJ Media

@ Bruno

guess nobody remembers the awful Batista dictatorship Castro liberated Cuba from in 59

On the contrary, those who have the most knowledge about Cuba before 1959 have the most negative view of Caudillo Fidel. Certainly Cuba and the world were glad to be rid of Batista’s dictatorship. Unfortunately, what followed was worse than Batista. Contrary to the picture that Caudillo Fidel and his band of useful idiots paint, Cuba before Caudillo Fidel was one of the best-off countries in Latin America, a country that Caudillo Fidel has run into the ground.

In 1957, Cuba had ~ 1000 inhabitants per MD, comparable to the US and Western European countries, better than many countries in Europe and all the “Third World” countries with the exception of Argentina, Uruguay, and Hong Kong.(UN, World Health Organization yearbook) While Caudillo Fidel may have contended that he inherited a banana republic, those bananas were pretty good.

Perhaps one way of looking at Cuba under Caudillo Fidel is to look at how Cuba kept up with technological progress. Back in the 1950s, TV was the next big thing. In 1957, Cuba’s number of TVs per 1,000 inhabitants was first in Latin America and fifth in the world (see previous link). We fast-forward a half century, where Internet access is now the next big thing. For 2004, Cuba was last in Latin America and 171st out of 211 countries in Internet access per 1,000. (World Bank Development Indicators)

Another good statistical source on pre-1959 Cuba is Carlos Montaner’s Secret Report on the Cuban Revolution.

I for one have no hopes that a government the US approves of would in the end solve the extreme poverty problems of Cuba.

I thought Caudillo Fidel had had long solved the problem of extreme poverty in Cuba. After all, that is what Caudillo Fidel and his band of useful idiots have been shouting for a half-century.