By Thomas Lifson
No, apparently this is not a spoof. The scion of the man who was responsible for the Cuban blockade is full of awe for the Cuban dictatorship. Sure, it’s a dictatorship, but other than that, it’s just ducky, apparently. Writing for the South American news agency MercoPress, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. avers, after admitting the dictatorship and lack of a free press, that:
... [d]espite its poverty, Cuba has managed some impressive accomplishments. Cuba’s government boasts the highest literacy rates for its population of any nation in the hemisphere. Cuba claims its citizens enjoy universal access to health care and more doctors per capita than any other nation in the Americas. Cuba’s doctors, reportedly, have high quality medical training.
Notice that he is hedging with words like “government boasts” and “Cuba claims,” just in case the claims are untrue.
Unlike other Caribbean islands where poverty means starvation, all Cubans receive a monthly food ration book that provides for their basic necessities.
Cubans today suffer under greater poverty today than they did under the Batista dictatorship. Yes, there is less inequality (although the ruling elite doesn’t suffer), but there is also more poverty.
RFK Jr. also admits that Marxism causes inefficiencies, but he blames the embargo for Cuba’s woes:
The embargo impedes economic development by making virtually every commodity and every species of equipment both astronomically expensive and difficult to obtain.
Now, the odd thing is that leftists claim that Yankee imperialism impoverishes Latin America through trade. The so-called Dependencia theorists have it that trade is bad (so do the critics of “globalization”) because it concentrates wealth in American hands. But the Cubans and Kennedy claim that trade with America would enrich Cuba.
I wonder if his father is rolling over in his grave?
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