Postoak, there's more than one way to look at a fundamental right, in my view. I don't think of the poor and miserable as free peoples--anywhere. Cuba may have higher international recognition than Canada, with a third of our population and only twice the size of my province of Nova Scotia. It is a "poor" country compared to ours.

Cuba is repressive on legal rights---expression, protest but easing 19 months under Raul Castro--- but a giant on the social side of rights: low unemployment, universal healthcare, best in the developing world, lower infant mortality than US, free education, 30,000 doctors working in 72 countries around the world.

Are 47 million Americans denied a fundamental right? That's for you to choose. Are having a job, access to healthcare and education integral to the human imbodiment of freedom? Cuba thought so. A papal annuncio told my father if it takes 100 years to make Cuba's revolution Christian, it will be worth it. For 400 years his church provided little to the Cuban people. The Pope and Castro had something going.

My brother last year went to his new doctor in the fishing village where we grew up. When it came time to fill out a prescription for his debilitating chronic disease, the Cuban doctor asked if he wanted his usual pills from a well-known pharmaceutical company or a generic of the same. Difference: $500 to $33. There may be a lesson there from Cuba's healthcare model.

Last edited by King Brown; 02/20/08 10:57 AM.