Fred on Cuba

Fred's over at NRO again, picking up where he left off and targeting my favorite dictator (sorry, Mr. Poofy Hair), Cuba's cigar smoking, fatigue wearing, billionaire tyrant Fidel Castro, and the myth of the "free Cuban healthcare system", both barrels blazing, and it's not even next week yet.

"The truth is that Cuban medical care has never recovered from Castro’s takeover — when the country’s health care ranked among the world’s best. He won the support of the Cuban people by promising to replace Batista’s dictatorship with free elections, and to end corruption. Once in power, though, he made himself dictator and instituted Soviet-style Communism. Cubans not only failed to regain their democratic rights, their economy plunged into centrally planned poverty. As many as half of Cuba’s doctors fled almost immediately — and defections continue to this day. Castro won’t allow observers in to monitor his nation’s true state, but defectors tell us that many Cubans live with permanent malnutrition and long waits for even basic medical services."

Ouch, that has GOT to leave a mark. FT's also has an interesting take on the fawning Hollywood elite that so adore our friend Fidel, asking why they don't make any movies about the plight of pro-democracy activists. FT also begs to ask the question - if Cuba's medical care is so fantastic, why in the world would Fidel fly in a team of Spanish doctors and equipment for himself on a specially chartered jet when he was ailing?

Certainly, you don't want to ask those kinds of questions if you live in Cuba- these will get you detained, jailed and tortured in Cuban prisons, or better yet, allow you the privelige of experiencing the Cuban medical system for yourself, in a "mental health hosptial", the kind where you can regularly recieve the singular pleasure of free electroshock therapy, like Cuban painter and filmmaker Nicolás Guillén Landrián did after criticizing his good buddy Fidel.

Those types of "treatments" really leave a mark.