Posted on 02/24/2020 11:09:18 PM PST by knighthawk
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., doubled down on his remarks praising former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro during a televised town hall on Monday night after he raised eyebrows for complimenting the brutal leader's education reforms.
"When Fidel Castro first came into power ... you know what he did? He initiated a major literacy program. It was a lot of folks in Cuba at that point who were illiterate and he formed the Literacy Brigade ... and they went out and they helped people learn to read and write You know what? I think teaching people to read and write is a good thing," Sanders said in response to criticism.
He continued, "I have been extremely consistent and critical of all authoritarian regimes all over the world including Cuba, including Nicaragua, including Saudi Arabia, including China, including Russia. I happen to believe in democracy, not authoritarianism. ... China is an authoritarian country ... but can anyone deny, I mean the facts are clear, that they have taken more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history. Why you criticize when I say that -- that's the truth. So that is the fact. End of discussion."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Hey Bernie!? How do you pick up a turd by the clean end?
Alrighty then. At least the people can read the execution order, when they are lined up against the wall, and shot.
“...know what? I think teaching people to read and write is a good thing,” Sanders said in response to criticism.”
Idiot moron thinks only communists teach children to read.
What an idiot!
But what did Castro allow them to read and write, Bernie? How many were arrested, tortured, killed for writing something he didn’t like?
Castro taught them propaganda and indoctrination.
I heard an ex-Cuban on the radio today. Yeah, they could read and write their names. But they couldn’t write what they really thought or read what non-Castro people thought.
Yeah, if you read the wrong book or write the wrong essay, then you get put in prison or get shot.
Bernie just showed the huge generation gap between himself and the youth voters today in that excuse.....you can bet even his student supporters are scratching their heads on that one......
Bernies Communist colors are bleeding through his statements.
They better read and write of they don’t get their one chicken a year.
Reading and writing about the marvels of the Communist Movement.
Bernie, sit down and smell the stink-weed.
Castro instituted a literacy campaign so people could read the confessions that were written for them before they were executed.
Sure. And they do that only in Cuba?! Last time I checked literacy is not one of our top ten or even top twenty problems. He is such an ass. Please nominate him. If we can destroy him electorally maybe we can put this discussion to bed for twenty years.
What good is learning to read and write if what you read and write is fully controlled by a government of leftwing loons?
Cuba is also known for forcibly giving nonconformist poets “socialist lobotomies.”
Long before Castro appeared, Cuban factory workers bored by monotonous work would pitch in a few coins each to hire lectors [readers] to read news and literature and even to act out parts to them as they worked. The communists ruined the concept though, and introduced socialist bullshit and union labor diatribes which were anything but entertaining, to agitate the employees against the employers, and to pit one group of employees against another.
The Cuban people were thus not really illiterate when Castro showed up. Some were just misinformed enough to join him.
As anyone who has read Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea” could attest, the “old man”, Santiago, and his protege, “the boy”, Manolin, could read the newspaper. The old man read the newspaper and was able to relay to the boy how the Yankees of New York, led by the great Dimaggio, had fared on any given day.
In the story, these were LESS than common people, and they could read and discuss the meaning of what they’d read.
By which I meant, Cubans, even the least of them, were widely literate BEFORE Castrato. And this novella was set in the early 1950s — BEFORE any communists had taken over the island and its culture.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.