What the Cuban literacy program Bernie Sanders praised was actually about

[ehrnst]

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

[dlk]

1. Putin has a stealth indoctrination program in our country

It’s permeated our internet & social media.

[Cha]

2. How convenient.. why doesn't BS know this?

"FYI- Castro's "literacy program" was an ideological indoctrination ploy"

[brutus smith]

4. That's the only thing you got out of that?

[Cha]

5. Why doesn't he?

[OliverQ]

24. Um..

Link to tweet

?s=20

[denem]

3. isn't "emphasizing the duties and rights of each citizen

to his society and the (Republic)" something every education system does?

I'm not fan of Castro, (to put it mildly) but that quote is not a smoking gun.

[oasis]

6. Fidel Castro's "educational" program was designed to spoon feed communist

propaganda down the throats of generations of Cuba's young people.

That was a "good thing" in the minds of some folks here in the U.S..

[Cha]

7. BS should mention that when he's praising

Castro's literacy program.

"FYI- Castro's "literacy program" was an ideological indoctrination ploy"

[oasis]

10. Trump's people will fill in the blanks should Bernie become our nominee.

You can count on it.

[Cha]

11. Yeah.. that's why that can't happen.

[DanTex]

8. The one Obama praised also...

[ehrnst]

12. False.

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.

You're welcome!

[Cha]

14. It's weird how so many are pushing that.. did sirota come up

with that misinformation to bail out BS.. when it's not helping in Florida or anywhere?

[ehrnst]

15. Desperation?

[Cha]

16. Beyond.

[Gothmog]

29. Two things happened today including Cuba endorsing sanders

Link to tweet

[Just_Vote_Dem]

9. And the proof of this is

Many people there still live in poverty, and try to escape the island.

[mcar]

13. This is what Bernie is praising?

[Midnightwalk]

17. Is it legal

To like the literacy rate and still not like Castro? Can I like the result even if there were ulterior motives?

Can I also not like Bautista or the other dictators the us backed? Can I also dislike some of the despots who replaced them even if the us backing made the revolutions necessary or inevitable?

Sorry for being snarky. I’m seeing a lot of lines drawn that I don’t agree with. There are also points about the complexity of history which I appreciate.

[ehrnst]

18. No lines being drawn, in fact, it's complexity being clarified where it wasn't before.

No one here is espousing an "all or nothing" "black and white" POV.

I am promoting that there can be grey areas, a more nuanced view supported by facts, instead of seeing everything as false dilemmas and false equivalencies.
.
This is why I don't support candidates known for casting suspicion on anyone expressing the least disagreement or dissent with them on anything whatsoever, and accusing anyone who does as being "extreme."


See also: "Obama said "the very same thing," so you are hypocritical if you didn't blast Obama and you think Bernie made a mistake in his statements about Castro.

[Midnightwalk]

23. Agree

I could have been clearer I was reacting to a number of threads and replies.

I was just trying to make a point about the need for nuance in the face of complexity too. Sometime I feel the need to state the obvious.

[TCJ70]

19. I'm still not going to be upset about increases in literacy rates. n/t

[ehrnst]

20. Well, no one said that you needed to be.

That's some straw man there.





It's not the people who disagree with Sanders who are calling everyone else extreme or demanding that one take an extreme, all or nothing position.

[TCJ70]

21. Then why are people upset about Sanders comment? He said things weren't great...

...regarding the authoritarian aspects of Castro's time but also said it was good that there was a literacy program. Sounds like nothing to be upset by to me.

[ehrnst]

22. Why are people upset with discussing the details Sanders omitted about the program he talked about?

That's what I'm doing.

Are you talking about the people in Florida? Go ask them why they're upset. I don't live there.



Personally, I think that he could have handled it much better, and talked about it differently, but i'm only speaking for myself.

[Gothmog]

25. Why Bernie Sanders's repeating Cuban propaganda rankles so many Latinos

sanders praise of Cuba is pissing off an important segment of voters https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/25/why-bernie-sanderss-repeating-cuban-propaganda-rankles-so-many-latinos/

The first thing to grasp is that Cuba’s global reputation for having an excellent education system isn’t a result of the quality of its education system. As scholars have long known, Cuba’s overall educational performance is middling for the region: roughly similar to that of many other Latin American countries that brought their literacy rates from round-about 75 percent in the 1950s to not-far-from 100 percent today.

Yes, Cuba made education available free to everyone through the university level. But so did countries such as Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay and Mexico. There was never any need to build a police state to bring people to school — an insight so obvious, it’s ludicrous to even have to write it.

In reality, Cuba’s reputation for educational prowess is mostly a product of a relentless, multi-decade propaganda campaign. Virtually every speech by every Cuban diplomat and regime admirer for the past seven decades has made a point of praising Cuba’s supposed literacy miracle. Cubans who have left know the propaganda only too well, and understand why a government desperate to establish its legitimacy in the face of the mass impoverishment of its population would turn to it again and again.

To Cubans and Venezuelans — who have witnessed much the same kind of propaganda — talk of Cuban educational prowess grates not because it’s wrong, exactly, but because it serves as a simple way to identify who’s ready to be duped by regime apologists. We know propaganda doesn’t need to be entirely false to be profoundly damaging. So we despair when we hear it parroted by those who ought to know better.

The bottom line is that when you associate yourself with an ideology whose past contains some of history’s worst crimes, you take on a special duty to denounce. When those denunciations come hedged with qualifiers that rest on propaganda lines, they ring entirely hollow.

[ehrnst]

26. This should be an OP.

[Gothmog]

27. Okay

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287586146

[Gothmog]

28. Havana gives front-page coverage to Bernie Sanders for praising Fidel Castro Read more here: https:

Link to tweet

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders views on the Cuban revolution have earned him a storm of criticism in the U.S. But there’s one place where his comments have received glowing, front-page reviews: Cuba.

Granma, the Communist Party newspaper, prominently displayed a report about Sanders and his praise of “some of the social programs implemented by the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro.”

“U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, today one of the strongest candidates for the nomination of the Democratic Party to the November presidential elections, recognized Cuba’s role in sending doctors worldwide,” Granma said.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article240626672.html#storylink=cpy