Not Michael Moore’s Cuba

...some of Cuba’s shortcomings may actually improve its health profile. “Because they don’t have up-to-date cars, they tend to have to exercise more by walking,” he said. “And they may not have a surfeit of food, which keeps them from problems like obesity, but they’re not starving, either.”

Cuban Dr. Leonel Cordova notes that by 1992, equipment and drugs were already becoming scarce, and that

Cuba has two [systems]: one is for party officials and foreigners like those Mr. Moore brought to Havana. “It is as good as this one here, with all the resources, the best doctors, the best medicines, and nobody pays a cent,” he said.

But for the 11 million ordinary Cubans, hospitals are often ill equipped and patients “have to bring their own food, soap, sheets — they have to bring everything.” And up to 20,000 Cuban doctors may be working in Venezuela, creating a shortage in Cuba.

Political rights you can't exercise anyway

One sometimes reads about people convicted of crimes in China who have been deprived of their political rights. In Chinese criminal law, deprivation of political rights (剥夺政治权利终身 bōduó zhèngzhì quánlì zhōngshēn) refers to deprivation of the following rights:

(1) the right to vote and to stand for election;

(2) the rights of freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration;

(3) the right to hold a position in a State organ; and

(4) the right to hold a leading position in any State-owned company, enterprise, institution or people's organization.

Yep, "the right to vote and to stand for election" and "the rights of freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration", all guaranteed under Chinese law, except even ordinary citizens not convicted of any crime can't exercise them most of the time.

Calling Noam Chomsky

Alexa Olesen writes,

Only authorized dramas are allowed on Chinese prime-time television, customs inspectors are seizing books on Mao Zedong at China's borders and newspapers are prohibited from running stories on the Communist Party's misdeeds.

In the midst of a sensitive political season, China's machinery of state control is gearing up to make sure that nothing goes astray, including people's thinking.

To that end, internal security agents and media censors are clamping down on political dissidents - who are warned to keep a low profile and in some cases kept under house arrest - and making sure that books that cross the party line do not reach the public.

"The party doesn't believe public opinion is organic or spontaneous. They believe it's created," said Zheng Yongnian, an expert on Chinese politics at Britain's University of Nottingham....

"The party doesn't believe public opinion is organic or spontaneous. They believe it's created."That's what one could call "Manufacturing Dissent", eh?

Communism is idiocy

According to Mark Twain,

Communism is idiocy. They want to divide up the property. Suppose they did it. It requires brains to keep money as well as make it. In a precious little while the money would be back in the former owner's hands and the communist would be poor again. The division would have to be remade every three years or it would do the communist no good.

Apparently he wrote this while staying in Paris.