Castro's Cuba sells Medicine to the third world 75% cheaper than USA

Cuba would be the reining king of the hemisphere in the field,but thanks to the embargo they are stunted. But They hae my respect over the profit driven american companies. What pisses me off is that so many ignore it. Cuba is saving lives. Sure they rip of the patents of american companies but i support that. After all we have done to cuba, and continue to do , because the system would prove effective, stealing our drugs is nothing.

Believe it or not some people (on this board even) whine about it. Here is a whiner, heartless fuck.

http://www.worldtechtribune.com/worldtechtribune/asparticles/buzz/bz07092002.asp

that American tax payers fund most of the research for drugs through the NIH and then virtually give the patents to the pharmaceutical companies to rip off Americans and others? The biggest outlay by pharmaceuticals is not for reseach but for advertising/propaganda.

Are they pretty socialist?

Is this the reason the US gov doesn't like them, and therefore has embargos?

I've always had a somewhat negative impression of Castro, is this because he's really an OK guy and our media/gov spin it otherwise.

Thanks.

Edit to add:

I'm all for the cheapest drugs possible, even if it means ignoring patents as well. Medicine should not be profit driven IMO.

Castro kicked out the US corporations that were exploiting Cuba after the Revolution, and nationalized many industries. Castro first turned to the US for support, but the gov't was so in the pocket of the corporations they said no, and then Fidel went to the Soviets.

I'll be the first to admit Castro is a dictator (albeit a rather benevolent one), and the first to admit that Cuba's is a bastardized form of socialism. However, I also believe they are better off than before the revolution and probably better off than most Latin American/Carribean nations. They'd be even better off w/o the US embargo.

I wish I had some links handy to feed your curiosity, but I don't. Hopefully others will. Check out the thread re Castro and Homosexuals. Interesting stuff there.

Universal education and health care systems there are unrivaled in the Hemisphere (except by maybe Canada).

1. Yes they are socialist, but have not achieved communism yet. They could transition if they were allowed to trade with the us.

2. This link will answer your question
http://www.dsp.org.au/dsp/Cuba_alt/

Cuba was basically an american controlled state, we even had legislation saying we could intervene whenever we wanted to preserve liberty. Before the revolution. A quarter of the land was american controlled.


3. He has been lax in the last 10 years or so. But if you had the usa breathing down your neck, you would be a little on edge too. He's not perfect, but he is not as bad as the media would have you believe, in fact olver stone, harry bellfonte, the naacp, danny glover, jimmy carter all like him. He kicked all american business out, and we tried to do him like we did iran.

Cuba could achieve Communism if the US just lifted the embargo, do you? No one has achieved it yet. Not to say it's impossible, but I don't think Cuba's any better positioned to do it than China, USSR et al.

I'm a hardcore admirer of Cuba and Castro, but it's definetely not about achieving communism now - it's about defending what Cuba has already reached under difficult circumstances. In a way, it's just a miracle that Cuba still exists and that they somehow manage to survive.
The health-care system under the given circumstances is something to admire, but even in Cuba they have problems getting medicine that is needed desperately in Cuba.
At least this is what a friend of mine told me, who was just coming back from his third travel to Cuba.
And he's an open minded leftist just like me...

And in case all these moderate defenders of Bush's freedom corpse don't listen:
Comrades, there's no need to tell lies about Cuba or paint it white. It's just admirable enough the way it is...

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

socialist, the ussr and china betrayed the revolutions instantly. In fact the week of, lenin absolved unions. Cuba actually is a third world socialist country, but marx himself said the transition would have to be from capitalism. With the effectiveness cuba is having with so so so little, if the people traded, prosperity could insue. It would take years before they could officially reach it, but they are on the road ahead of sweeden and denmark et al. Stalin resembled a republican more than anything and mao was a fucking idiot. Here are some points by communists at a conference

http://www.lueneburg.net/privatseiten/Eggers_Wolfgang/eng/ludomarten.htm

1. Fought the most effective resistance against Nazis in all of Occupied Europe

2. Held together warring ethnic factions with iron first and charismatic personality.

3. Cool guy. Ties Castro in this respect. Wore pinky rings. Many mistresses.

4. System he set up involved more workers control of industry than any other "socialist" system. Factory commitees of workers managed production.

5. Same name as lesser-known member of Jackson musical family.

you're tough.
To a certain extent, I agree with you.
What's somehow absurd:
We grew up, being told that evil communist dictators all over the world were oppressing people, who were longing for democrazy, freedom, human rights etc. ppp.

Now it seems somehow, those "evil communist dictators" tried to force the people to accept more democrazy, human rights and less nationalism and patriotism than they were willing to accept.

Kind of what the "bourgoise" political science is describing as a "managed democrazy", but from a communist perspective.

It's a bit of topic, but if you look at Yugoslavia now...
And yes, the way the Yugoslavians - not just Tito and more than others the Serbs- did fight against my fucking grandfathers - o.k. I just had one fucking Nazi grandfather in my family - is something I will never forget.
Dirk

most of the Croatians were Ustasha (even the SS was horrified at their brutality). I think this is more testament as to how cool of a guy Tito was. Don't get me wrong, I'm opposed to all dictators, but when I think of the term "benevolent dictator" three names come to mind-- Tito, Castro and Napoleon.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1931-tpv/index.htm

I when I was a member of the Y.F.I.S I gave a talk on that one... Ties in with the trade factor a lot.

of mandatory milltary service and continuous revolution. I'm currently reading another biography on him. Called Trotsky: The eternal revolutionary. I still can't believe the acrimony that wen't on between the swp and cpusa, the latter being stalinist. Stalin was no marxist. Kind of makes me wonder what would have been with leon in power.(or lev)

Had some really good stuff down pat, and a fair amount of other junk I don't agree with. However, I agree with the theory of permanent revolution in that it's quite possibly the only way to keep things from getting out of hand. Intellectual and social revolution that is, not necessarily violent revolution.
Trotsky in power would have been VERY interesting.

Impressive story.

Batistiano Cubans who will do anything to keep Americans out of Cuba. They live to hate Castro and make Cuba look like the worst place in the world!

If we Americans were free to travel there, we would love the island and the people there, Cuba would improve economically, and the Miami propaganda would be shown to be the shit that it is!!

So, with the help of pandering US politicians and the media which does nothing to expose the truth, Cuba is the only country in the world where Americans cannot legally travel. So on your next vacation, enjoy your trip to China or Vietnam or Libya or Iran, but don't even think about going to Cuba!!!

or SWP shill? Just kidding.

Just may day weekend gets my blood boiling. The Swp are still trotskyists, and the wwp is still re organizing. I am an independant, but i'm liking the DSA

their politics reprhensible. You were talking about libertarian socialism on another thread. Have you checked out the IWW? www.iww.org They're anarcho-syndicalist union-- libertarian socialist orientation. You might want to consider hooking up with them, especially if you don't already belong to a union. You can be a member and stay independent-- no "party line"

....can you imagine that?! American citizens having to buy medicine from Cuba. lol

So, I would imagine that to other parts of the world, "ignoring" a medical patent doesn't stress their sense of integrity too much.

What's important is that people *have* the medicines they need, not that some company gets $$$ for it.

Kanary