What did Bernie's comments on Cuba at the last #DemDebate mean? Here's where he (and Obama) stand

[Donkees]

Link to tweet

[booley]

1. Bernie's critics are trying to do a Hitler liked Sugar Fallacy

Cuba has done a number of good things considering the 60 years of embargo. They had a superpower doing everything they could topple to it.

AND Cuba is also an authoritarian country with human rights abuses.

Both things can be true at the same time. People can and do understand the difference.

This whole thing sounds like a Hitler liked Sugar fallacy.

Bernie liked what Cuba did with its literacy program
Cuba was a totalitarian regime
Therefore Bernie likes Totalitarian regimes.

[bucolic_frolic]

2. Pinko commies always reveal themselves

Fortunately none of those two are

[sweetloukillbot]

27. On the contrary, I had a Bernie supporter today unequivocably tell me that Bernie was a Marxist

And that it was a good thing.

[George II]

3. Sanders' comments were made in the 1980s when Castro was still running rampant....

....and murdering tens of thousands of his own citizens.

Obama's comments were made in the context of the President of the United States of America. His standing in the world AND his comments were completely different from Sanders'.

I don't see how anyone can logically compare the two.

PS - Obama was never "physically nauseated" by JFK, either.

[ancianita]

5. Link it. Prove it. Don't believe right wing official hype.

[George II]

6. Link what, prove what? We've all seen the comments of both and when they made them.

[ancianita]

12. What you claimed. Or take it back.

in the 1980s when Castro was still running rampant....

....and murdering tens of thousands of his own citizens.

[Fresh_Start]

26. estimates

DEATHS
The late and widely respected University of Hawaii historian R. J. Rummel, ..., reported in 1987 that credible estimates of the Castro regime’s death toll ran from 35,000 to 141,000, with a median of 73,000.

Yet the Cuba Archive, ... uses a much lower figure of 7,193...
“Those are the ones we’ve documented, using either information released by the government or the testimony of eyewitnesses, not hearsay or guesswork,” says Maria Werlau, the group’s president. “We know the numbers are much, much higher, but this is what we can actually document so far.”

... figuring out what deaths to include. The 5,000 or so executed in the immediate aftermath of Castro’s 1959 takeover — sometimes after kangaroo-court trials, sometimes without even that — are included in nearly everybody’s figures. (Figurative talk about a balance sheet for the human costs of the revolution turns quite literal when the executions are discussed; for a time during the 1960s, the Cuban government extracted most of the blood from the victims before they were shot, then sold it to other communist countries for $50 a pint.)

But what about the Cuban soldiers killed during Castro’s military adventures in Africa during the 1970s and 1980s? (The official death toll: 4,000. But a Cuban Air Force general who defected in 1987 put the number killed in Angola alone at 10,000.) And the county’s suicide rate has tripled under Castro. Should the 1,500 or so Cubans who kill themselves each year be included? If not all of them, how about the 10 a year who commit suicide — or die of medical neglect — in prison?

The largest number of deaths is believed to be those lost at sea trying to escape Cuba on makeshift rafts. For years, the Cuba Archive used an estimate worked up by Harvard-trained economist Armando Lago of about 77,000 rafter deaths by 2003.
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article118282148.html

[TwilightZone]

7. Understanding context seems to be a lost art.

I know some of it is intentional, but the posters claiming that they said, literally, the "exact same thing" in the same context can't possibly believe that.

[Cha]

11. President Obama is not going to save BS..

It's BS that Democratic Dems are running away from in Swing Districts.

BS was talking about what he thinks Castro's revolution brought to Cuba in 1959.

President Obama was talking about the post 2014 strides that Cuba had made as part of the negotiated
pre-conditions for normalizing US-Cuba relations. Cuba had to meet benchmarks during the gradual process of moving towards normalization.

President Obama made the remarks at a joint press conference in Cuba in March 2016.

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/1287576570

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

How funny they're trying to get President Obama to save BS.. who BS wanted to primary in 2012.

[Cha]

17. Quit Bashing our Democratic Candidates who won in Swing Districts

in 2018.. and got us a House Victory so they could Impeach the monster in the WH.

[Cha]

31. I meant what I said.. and Impeachment was

Exactly the right thing to do.. Thank you, Nancy Pelosi!

[George II]

19. More Democrats are women than men. They don't have "cahones" (cojones), they have persistence.

[ehrnst]

22. So I take it you don't think women have the ability to lead or be unified?

[ehrnst]

24. This was explained to you in this post

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287586676#post19

[Cha]

32. Excellent question!

Nancy Pelosi led the Impeachment charge which was exactly the right thing to do.

[ehrnst]

33. Interesting - the post I was responding to was self-deleted. Maybe they had

a change of heart?

[Cha]

38. Yeah, that's weird.. maybe thinks Nancy did the right

thing after all? 'Cause it the Democratic thing to do. Rule of Law and all that.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

28. So those things Obama was talking about happened AFTER the 80s

and there were none of those gains made before that time?

Gonna need some actual support for that analysis.

And as to him being SCOTUS, right is right. If Castro did those things, he did them.

[George II]

29. Please read up on Cuban history. Thanks.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

30. Nah, I think I'm good. You might want to let go of Cold War Propaganda, though.

But I do have one question, though.

Since you are saying that those things that Obama talked about that were done well by Cuba CLEARLY happened (according to you) AFTER 1980, how did Sanders know that those exact things would be good before they were? Or are you saying that is was just coincidence and Sanders got lucky when he complimented Cuba on the EXACT things that would get better after the 80s when Obama was OK to compliment them on those things?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[ehrnst]

34. And Bernie was talking about a program that was political indoctrination.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

35. Which magically became not political indoctrination

when Obama talked about it?

[ehrnst]

36. The program ended after 8 months...

Obama was talking about progress towards an agreement 50 some odd years later. But if a false equivalence makes people feel less anxious...

FYI:

Supporters of Castro's revolution say the eight-month long campaign helped hundreds of thousands of Cubans learn to read and write. However, government opponents say the 1961 literacy campaign was actually an indoctrination program that eased the way for Castro's complete takeover of Cuba.

Literacy and education had been pillars of Fidel Castro's agenda even before he swept Cuba's military dictatorship out of power in January 1959. In Castro's 1957 manifesto, he wrote about the need for an "intensive campaign against illiteracy, and civic education emphasizing the duties and rights of each citizen to his society and fatherland."

When Castro ousted the military dictator Fulgencio Batista, 23.6% of the population over the age of 10 were illiterate, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Many Cubans living in cities like the capital Havana were literate, while those from the countryside often lived in abject poverty with no access to education.

Castro set about improving literacy with a program that launched in April 1961 and ended about nine months later, according to Bill Leogrande, a professor of government at American University.

.....................................................................

According to Cuban government statistics, nearly 100% of the communist-run island is now literate and access to free education is one of the cornerstones of the Cuban revolution. The World Bank puts Cuban adult literacy rate at 99.8%.
But Leogrande adds that, "the program had as much a political purpose as it was educational."

For Castro it was a way to get young people "who hadn't participated in the revolution against the Batista Dictatorship to participate directly in this program by the revolutionary government and it really did change people's lives," Leogrande said.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/politics/sanders-cuba-literacy/index.html

You're welcome.

[Cha]

39. Thank you for the instructions, ehrnst! Booom.

[ehrnst]

37. Copying and pasting that numerous times doesn't change the facts.

It's still a false equivalence.

[ancianita]

4. Bernie and Barack know Cuba. What they say about it is the truth Americans need to hear.

THAT'S what it means.

[George II]

9. Yes they do, NOW. But Sanders' comments in the 1970s and 1980s show that at the time he did not....

...."know Cuba".

[ancianita]

13. Niggling. It's the double standard of "the perfect being the enemy of the good." Bernie and many

other Americans, unlike most on DU, knew a LOT more about Cuba than the propaganda about Castro and Cuba foisted upon Americans for the last 60 years.

That anybody had a chance to know the real Cuba back when Bernie commented on it would be a miracle given the wall of lies this government has told Americans for years.

Alice Walker, Katy Perry, Beyonce and Jay Z visited Cuba to celebrate their fifth anniversary; Bon Jovi, Rihanna, Oliver Stone, Harry Belafonte, Steven Spielberg are all pro-Cuba Americans who don't believe all this "taint by Cuba association" bullshit.

[George II]

21. Sanders was talking about Cuba in the '60s, '70s, into the '80s. Obama was talking about Cuba...

...in 2014, 30-40 years later.

"Lies this government has told Americans for years"? How about what Cuban refugees have told Americans for years? Did you ever hear of the Mariel boatlift? Almost 130,000 Cubans fled to the US in the course of a few months in 1980. That was almost 2% of Cuba's total population. There is a reason why they fled, and they didn't do that to go to South Beach or Disney World.

[Cal Carpenter]

8. The thing that irritates me most about this

is that sure, he is being called out for things he said. In 1985. But the way every article, cable news panel, interview, and debate is treating it makes it sound like Bernie is touting Cuban programs NOW as a solution to our problems or something. He has answered the question about his past remarks, for better or worse, and yet the near-singular focus on it continues. So the interviewer/questioner can move the timeline to "why did you say this yesterday?" as though HE is the one focused on it in the present day. He said it because he was asked about it, again. And again... and so it goes...

The 1985 video context of why this was even brought up in the first place has already been forgotten, and headlines scream about Bernie praising Castro because he is forced to answer these questions and he is honest and consistent in his answers. There is no way around it for him.

I'm tired of it, and I'm sure Bernie is, too.

[ehrnst]

25. How long ago was Bernie's "march with MLK?" A lot longer ago.

And he thinks that was a BIG there there....

[msongs]

10. it's non issue IMO nt

[ancianita]

14. THANK YOU! It should be!