Sorry,
but to say that
>Cuba is clearly ahead. Cubans have open elections for their National Assembly (as well as their provincial and local assemblies); this assembly then elects the ministers, including a president of the Council of Ministers.

is a total crap.

I have lived in a communist country for many years and I know what a b-s are elections there.
I am not an enthusiast of Bush's government actions, and indeed his actions are prostituting democracy.

But you would need more systemic approach to compare, than just pick several aspects that make Cuba look good.

It would not be difficult to do the same for the USSR; many intlectuals fell into this trap.

Paul

Good article. Last I heard, Cuba has one of the best public health care services in the world, as opposed to the US, which is just appauling. The best you can do there, if you don't have much money, is try really hard to not get sick.

It's not exactly great here either - I haven't been to the dentist since primary school. Can't afford it. Apparently the mouth part of your body doesn't count - that stuff you gotta pay for. What nonsense.

I've always maintained that a functioning democracy cannot exist without entirely free public education and healthcare. Anything less is not a level playing field.

Brave article Tim. The US may be a democracy but as with many democracies there are provisos.

Paul of Melbourne, you might recognise that arguments either way are written by intellectuals. Debating the merits of any system of government is academic. No-one claims Singapore isn't a democracy but I wouldn't live there either. In any case Cuba sure gets the rough end of the pineappple in the MSM.

The way I see it, the main difference between Cuba & the US is that Cuba isn't hypocritical about itself, nor does it assume the rest of the planet is as dumb as its own citizens are. While Bush prances about south America wondering out loud why people don't love him as much as they do Chavez, for example, Chavez has contributed more to the well-being of Cuba and its own citizens than the US ever has.

Hmmmm? To Paul of Melb - Saying something is crap is not an argument - and living in a communist country does qualify any one to comment on life in Cuba - at least the author went to the trouble to analyse a few things

Tim Anderson has made a fool of himself. As an antidote to his disgraceful defence of a wicked regime, may I offer my own recent article, "Mass-murderer Fidel Castro to die unpunished" <www.newsweekly.com.au/articles/2007feb03_c.html>

Castro's dictatorship is notorious for having ruled by terror and for having tortured, maimed and killed political opponents.

Communist Cuba also exported violent revolution around the world and aided and abetted terror and genocide in Africa.

Historian Hugh Thomas has described Castro's dictatorship as "more than anything the first Fascist Left regime -- by which I mean it is a regime with totalitarian left-wing goals established and sustained by methods of fascism".

If you want to know the real story about Castro's supposedly enviable health system, look up <www.therealcuba.com>.

Tim Anderson's nonsensical ramblings on Cuba are reminiscent of the rubbish written by Western admirers of 20th-century butcher-laureates, Stalin and Mao, and copiously documented in Paul Hollander's classic study, Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China and Cuba (Oxford University Press, 1981)

This is absolute garbage from a foreigner who has never lived in Cuba as an ordinary Cuban; who had never been beaten and jailed for expressing his opinion; who has never had a brother, son or father executed for opposing that brutal regime.
If you want to know if Cuba is a democracy or not, I suggest that you visit www.therealcuba.com
These photos contradict everything that this guy is saying,
And make sure that you visit the page about Cuba's famous health services.Robert W.