Socialist Doctors

A local perspective:

How could state Rep. Joseph Miro, a native born citizen of Cuba, state in a News Journal article that he will be "joyous" if President Fidel Castro's illness removes him from office?

Fidel Castro chose the dangerous and heroic responsibility to oppose a ruthless, powerful and venal dictatorship in order to free his people from oppression and abject poverty. From my perspective as a physician, he should be rewarded for great achievements in health care and education -- the building blocks for any society.

Philip Pollner, M.D., Newark (Emphasis added)

The building blocks for any society are the family and the church, which is why the socialist strongman typically undermines the family by indoctrinating children and seeks to do away with the church through persecution. What special perspective on socialism do physicians have? It seems that doctors such as Howard Dean and this local ignoramus of the same ilk tend towards socialism because they know they will be the leaders and enforcers of the forms of scientism typical to it. For example, in the case of Cuba note the use of psychiatry:

This work, [The Politics of Psychiatry in Revolutionary Cuba] ...is the culmination of a two-year investigation into the psychiatric abuse of political dissidents in Castro’s Cuba. The authors gathered information on sixty-three cases of Cuban political prisoners who were transferred to psychiatric hospitals where they were tortured with electroshock treatment and psychotropic drugs. In the book, however, they analyze only thirty-one of these cases, concentrating on those individuals who subsequently moved to the United States. The veracity of the findings were verified with Amnesty International’s and America Watch’s files. New York’s Freedom House and Washington, D.C.’s Of Human Rights cosponsored the project.

According to Brown and Lago, of the thirty-one cases analyzed, eleven dissidents were forced to receive electroshock treatment (some of them going through as many as twenty-four sessions). Sixteen of the prisoners were forced to take high doses of psychotropic drugs, mainly chlorpromazine (in two of the cases for as long as five years). All individuals were incarcerated for political causes, ranging from failed attempts to illegally leave the country, to writing anti-Castro graffiti or distributing human rights leaflets. Some were serving prison sentences for contempt for the regime, refusal to serve in the armed forces, or alleged participation in plots to assassinate Castro.

The book begins with a general analysis on the foundation of psychological torture in Cuba. The authors describe that according to Cuban criminal theory, capitalism is the cause of most criminal behavior.

(Reviewed Work: The Politics of Psychiatry in Revolutionary Cuba by Charles J. Brown; Armando M. Lago
Reviewed by Jorge Carro
Human Rights Quarterly Vol. 15, No. 4 (Nov., 1993), :780)

Put simply, among socialist doctors the concept of "mental illness" is defined as disagreement with them or whatever tin-pot tyrant they're currently serving. (See also: The Nazi Doctors by Lifton)

Back to Pollner of Newark, M.D.:

Even during the days of economic despair, all medical facilities and schools flourished. Cuba's under-five mortality rate, the barometer used by the United Nations to measure national health status, has consistently reached that of industrialized nations, a marvel for a third world country, even withstanding an evil and immoral U.S. blockade.

... Cuba trains and exports thousands of doctors and nurses to serve in third world countries.

Schools flourish only to indoctrinate young students with the moral degeneracy typical to socialists, then the technically proficient barbarians are exported to other nations to spread the sort of poverty or disease that they feel they can cure.

Evil and immoral? If we become as illiterate as those indoctrinated into socialism or as ignorant as this little fellow it would seem that the illusion and misdirections typical to our moral judgments would matter little.

The final word in the case of Castro has already been written and verified on numerous occasions. One example:

...in spite of the substantial body of literature on the subject, one important aspect of Castro’s saga was neglected almost to oblivion during the first twenty-six years of his revolution: the true story of Castro’s repressive behavior and the horrifying accounts of the human rights violations of his regime. ...efforts, for one reason or another (limited circulation, limited scope, unavailability of translations, lack of sponsorship by prominent individuals or groups) never reached the dramatic impact of those influential works of the type of Zola’s I Accuse, Paton’s Cry The Beloved Country, or Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag. It was only in 1986 when Against All Hope: The Prison Memoirs of Armando Valladares was published that finally the world had access to the true story of Castro’s repression presented in a way that was difficult to ignore or set aside without indignation. Valladares’ accounts of the forced labor, beatings, tortures and cold-blooded assassinations perpetrated upon the largest population of political prisoners ever experienced in Latin American history, as well as the inhumane, barbaric living conditions prevailing in Castro’s infamous prisons, served to remove his mask of humanism by exposing him to the world court of public opinion as the ruthless, cruel dictator that he really is.
[...]
This narrative possesses the accuracy and veracity of a chronicle as well as the vigor and effectiveness of a manifesto, while at the same time carrying the dramatic impact of a literary work. In Valladares’ book the reader is exposed to the crudeness and repulsiveness of the experiences of Castro’s political prisoners with such graphic clarity that at times the reader cannot help but feel nauseated. But at the same time, here and there, throughout the book, the author’s prose is spiced with the fine, sensitive touch of an accomplished poet. All this, when added to the outstanding credentials of the writer, provide this work with the extraordinary dimension of an epic.
[...]
...the book moves into the account of Valladares’ life in prison. He starts with his days in La Cabana. Purposely, with the intent to terrorize the prison inmates, the executions by firing squad were carried out at night in the deep moats of the fortress. The comrades of those executed could hear, in the silence of the night, their last words, the order to the firing squad, the discharge of the carbines (all loaded with live ammunition), the coup de grace of the squad’s leader and even the hammering of the nails in the coffins. Valladares tells us of some of those horrifying experiences, like the case of a prisoner who received serious injuries during his arrest. While in prison he remained in a narrow cell without a bed. Unable to stand up, he had to drag himself along the filthy floor. As a consequence, his unattended wounds became infected and filled with maggots. They took him into the moat to the firing squad on a stretcher. His executioners could not even tie him to the post. According to Valladares this “was perhaps the only man ever executed, who was being devoured by worms even before he died.”

At times, the pace of the revàlutionary justice was so swift that prison officials did not even bother to notify families about the trial and tragic end of those executed. Rather, the families first heard the news many days after their deaths, when attempting to visit their loved ones in prison.’

Although the official executions ordered by the kangaroo courts not only constituted an aberration of justice but a barbaric and cruel process, those executed were not the only prisoners to die victims of Castro’s justice. There were others, many of them in fact, who were assassinated in cold blood or left to die for unattended injuries or diseases.

When Valladares was transferred to Isla de Pinos, the largest of Castro’s political prisons, he was greeted by the news that a prisoner named Monteiras had been kicked to death by his custodians.” This was only the tip of the iceberg, as throughout the book Valladares reports, sometimes with gory details, innumerable acts of assassinations performed on the inmates by prison personnel. Among those, the escorts of a cordon of prisoners opened fire and killed Edy Alvarez and Danny Crespo because they protested the brutal way they were treated. Julio Tan, in the forced labor site, was attacked by the squad leader with a bayonet.
[...]
[When] Castro embarked on the path of communism, Boitel raised his voice of condemnation. His position so irritated Castro that he was arrested, tried and sentenced without any concrete accusation. He was left to die without medical attention in El Principe (a prison for common criminals), where he was confined as punishment for his protests against the inhumane treatment of fellow prisoners. The details of his protracted agony are described in a way that brings tears to the readers’ eyes while at the same time boils the blood in their veins. Finally, Boitel found peace in his death which came on 24 May 1972, after fifty-three days on a hunger strike. Not one prison authority moved a finger to save Boitel, nor to alleviate his suffering.’ It had been said that Fidel Castro gave direct orders to get rid of Boitel at all costs.

Valladares also told stories of physical tortures: beatings, attacks with bayonets, forced labor in nauseating swamps, biological experimentation, rationing, and at times complete denial of food and water, all without the most basic elements of medical attention.

(Reviewed Work: Against All Hope: The Prison Memoirs of Armando Valladares by Andrew Hurley; Armando Valladares
Reviewed by Jorge L. Carro
Human Rights Quarterly Vol. 14, No. 4 (Nov., 1992), :591-600)

Pollner, M.D.
Cuba is now training American medical students who will return to the United States to practice in undeserved communities. Fidel Castro is a true Latin patriot and liberator who put his life at risk to ensure a better quality of life for his people.

As opposed to the evil and immoral American Empire, I suppose? Cuba is now training technically proficient barbarians to try to spread socialism and the misery that accompanies it around the world. Most likely they will come into alignment behind a representative of the Prince of this world, the metaphoric Strongman that seeks to govern it. If so, one would expect a pattern or "likeness" to emerge from them having to do with people of the Book, the Church, freedom of speech, etc. But it seems to me that one has to deal with the basic aspects of the abysmal ignorance typical to socialists before moving on to the craaazy visions typical to higher levels of pattern recognition. Besides, one wouldn't want any socialist doctor to come along and begin prescribing medical "treatments" based on how much they care for free healthcare for all and so on.

As for the quality of life of the Cuban people, I would like to know what contribution Mr. Miro had made on their behalf.

It seems that there are more important bits of knowledge for this little fellow to know than such irrelevant facts but I suspect that as long as he remains blinded by his own moral vanity he will continue to believe that the American Empire is generally a force for evil and Castro generally a force for good.