Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 11:34:17 -0500 From: james m blaut <70671.2032-AT-CompuServe.COM> Subject: Re: M-I: Re: Reply to the State Caps and the PCP Jorn: Those statistics are from the Radio Havana article reproduced on this list a few days ago. But they fit perfectly with what I know from the Demographic Yearbook of The UN which I haven't looked at for a year or so. Check it out. You'll find that Cuba has better health than any other Third World country. Of course there are shortages of som e foods. But not to the extent that the nutrition of Cubans is affected. This litany was heard about two years ago from the capitalist press. It wasn'ty true then and it is certainly not true today, when conditions are much improved. The only way you can explain the healthiness of the Cuban populatioin -- low infant mortality, long life, etc. -- in the context of the country's economic problems now and since the USSR collapsed -- is that there is a very fair sharing of wealth: food, medical facilities, education, etc. If Cuba, like neocolonial countries, had a superrich ruling class and a desperately poor working class, then the demographic statistics would be very different. In short: the best evidence that Cuba is a a socialist country is the statistics on health (and education, etc.). En lucha Jim Blaut --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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