3/20/16 Anti-AIPAC DC March; US Pres visits Cuba, where labor prevails

March 20, 2016 will be remembered as a milestone in history for its massive protest of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at its annual conference in Washington DC which this year will be a presidential election rally for the twin parties of war and fascism, the Democrat-Republicans, both 100% pro-Israel at all levels of office with Democrat Clinton and Republican Trump scheduled to address this fascist, racist, anti-Communist, anti-Palestinian war-promoting gang. On the same day, Democrat, CIA-Family member lame-duck Pres Obama will be visiting Cuba, the first visit by a US president in office to Cuba since Calvin Coolidge did so in 1928. Cuba’s January 1, 1959 revolution has much to teach us.

Buses are being chartered from New York City, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus and Dearborn to Washington, DC. This protest marks the official beginning of a new era of struggle that was unthinkable a generation ago (30 years) and was just coming together 16 years ago. It is not to be missed by anyone who wants an end to the US-Israel worldwide war machine that exists to maximize the profits of the capitalist class, the greatest profits being in munitions and oil. Whether you can be there in person or assist in any way, you can help make history. The ANSWER Coalition (http://www.answercoalition.org) and Al-Awda, the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition (https://www.facebook.com/events/1647286998884566/) are among the organizers.

The Cuban Revolution has advanced the needs and interests of the workingclass so far ahead of the standard of living in the United States despite the US embargo, effectively a blockade commenced by the Democrat-Republicans in 1960, one year after the revolution, that the cries on the part of the Democrat-Republican Parties for more human rights in Cuba when the American human rights record would make Hitler proud, are despicable hypocrisy. A good article describing the highlights of Cuba’s advances, despite the blockade and the loss of the Soviet Union in 1991, is “Human Rights Hypocrisy: US Criticizes Cuba” by Marjorie Cohn, 3/18/16 at http://www.globalresearch.ca/human-rights-hypocrisy-us-criticizes-cuba/5515069. Cohn, a former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, has some very important comparisons that can only be achieved by a society that ELIMINATES the private profit system and ALWAYS puts butter before guns, UNLIKE SANDERS, CLINTON AND TRUMP, ALL OF WHOM ARE PRO-ISRAEL AND SUPPORT THE ENTIRE WAR MACHINE INCLUDING NAZI UKRAINE.

Marjorie Cohn states:

Healthcare
“Unlike in the United States, healthcare is considered a right in Cuba. Universal healthcare is free to all. Cuba has the highest ratio of doctors to patients in the world at 6.7 per 1,000 people. The 2014 infant mortality rate was 4.2 per 1,000 live births – one of the lowest in the world.”

“Healthcare in Cuba emphasizes prevention, rather than relying only on medicine, partly due to the limited access to medicines occasioned by the US blockade. In 2014, the Lancet Journal said, “If the accomplishments of Cuba could be reproduced across a broad range of poor and middle-income countries the health of the world’s population would be transformed.” Cuba has developed pioneering medicines to treat and prevent lung cancer, and prevent diabetic amputations. Because of the blockade, however, we in the United States cannot take advantage of them.”

Education
“Free education is a universal right up to and including higher education. Cuba spends a larger proportion of its GDP on education than any other country in the world. “Mobile teachers” are deployed to homes if children are unable to attend school. Many schools provide free morning and after-school care for working parents who have no extended family. It is free to train to be a doctor in Cuba. There are 22 medical schools in Cuba, up from only 3 in 1959 before the Cuban Revolution.”

Elections
“Elections to Cuba’s national parliament (the National Assembly) take place every five years and elections to regional Municipal Assemblies every 2.5 years. Delegates to the National Assembly then elect the Council of State, which in turn appoints the Council of Ministers from which the President is elected.”

“As of 2018 (the date of the next general election in Cuba), there will be a limit of no more than two five-year terms for all senior elected positions, including the President. Anyone can be nominated to be a candidate. It is not required that one be a member of the Communist Party (CP). No money can be spent promoting candidates and no political parties (including the CP) are permitted to campaign during elections. Military personnel are not on duty at polling stations; school children guard the ballot boxes.”

Labor Rights
“Cuban law guarantees the right to voluntarily form and join trade unions. Unions are legally independent and financially autonomous, independent of the CP and the state, funded by members’ subscriptions. Workers’ rights protected by unions include a written contract, a 40-44-hour week, and 30 days’ paid annual leave in the state sector.
Unions have the right to stop work they consider dangerous. They have the right to participate in company management, to receive management information, to office space and materials, and to facility time for representatives. Union agreement is required for lay-offs, changes in patterns of working hours, overtime, and the annual safety report. Unions also have a political role in Cuba and have a constitutional right to be consulted about employment law. They also have the right to propose new laws to the National Assembly.”

Women
“Women make up the majority of Cuban judges, attorneys, lawyers, scientists, technical workers, public health workers and professionals. Cuba is ranked first in Save the Children’s ‘Lesser Developed Countries’ Mother’s Index. With over 48% women MPs, Cuba has the third highest percentage of female parliamentarians in the world. Women receive 9 months of full salary during paid maternity leave, followed by 3 months at 75% of full salary. The government subsidizes abortion and family planning, places a high value on pre-natal care, and offers ‘maternity housing’ to women before giving birth.”

Life Expectancy
“In 2013, the World Health Organization listed life expectancy for women in Cuba at 80; the figure was 77 for men. The probability of dying between ages 15 and 60 years per 1,000 people in the population was 115 for men and 73 for women in Cuba.
During the same period, life expectancy for women in the United States was 81 for women and 76 for men. The probability of dying between 15 and 60 per 1,000 people was 128 for men and 76 for women in the United States.”

Death Penalty
“A study by Cornell Law School found no one under sentence of death in Cuba and no one on death row in October 2015. On December 28, 2010, Cuba’s Supreme Court commuted the death sentence of Cuba’s last remaining death row inmate, a Cuban-American convicted of a murder carried out during a 1994 terrorist invasion of the island. No new death sentences are known to have been imposed since that time.”

“By contrast, as of January 1, 2016, 2,949 people were on death row in state facilities in the United States. And 62 were on federal death row as of March 16, 2016, according to Death Penalty Information.”

Sustainable Development
“In 2016, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a leading global environmental organization, found that Cuba was the only country in the world to have achieved sustainable development. Jonathan Loh, one of the authors of the WWF report, said, “Cuba has reached a good level of development according to United Nations’ criteria, thanks to its high literacy level and a very high life expectancy, while the ecological footprint is not large since it is a country with low energy consumption.””
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In the US, there are 2.5 physicians per 1,000 people. The US infant mortality is 5.9 per 1,000 births. Life expectancy for black males is 72 and for black females is 78, which is generally true for the entire workingclass, the 80% of Americans who sell our labor for less than $80,000 a year because we have an insurance profiteering medical system instead of socialized medicine, guaranteeing free medical care to all from cradle to grave. In this respect with our high infant mortality and low expectancy and in regard to the lack of federally mandated paid vacations and maternity leave, and the continued existence of the death penalty, the United States is the most backward country in the industrialized world. Obamacare, passed by a Democratic-majority House and Senate and signed by a Democratic President, is Republican Romney’s insurance profiteering scheme gone national that has not improved healthcare, and the expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor that came with it could have passed independently and with Republican support, as it has in the past. As you can see by all the other advances Cuba has made, the United States, led by the Democrat-Republicans, is left in the dust.

The solution is to support the only parties are for socialized medicine, free education for all from pre-school through university, free child care, oppose the death penalty, support the Palestinian liberation struggle, and support applying all of the advances Cuba has made to US society, namely Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party. You cannot achieve anything by voting for pro-Israel, pro-Nazi Ukraine warmongers Sanders, Clinton and Trump. We cannot have guns and butter. Sanders is just a sheepdog for the Democrats to make sure you never vote Red (socialist) or Green which is why he claims to speak for the workingclass on domestic issues but his pro-war votes demonstrate that he puts guns before butter, the same as Clinton and Trump. Clinton’s sales pitch for her campaign is that she uses clean language, unlike Trump, to achieve the same fascist, warmongering goals to maximize the profits of the capitalist class. There can be no end to police killings or all the other grievances in this society until you decide to vote Peace & Freedom Party or Green Party and put the Democrat-Republican Parties in the dustbin of history, while there is still humanity and the earth to be saved.

You can register online at:
https://covr.sos.ca.gov/?language=en-US
For more information, see
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home
http://www.votepsl.org/ (Gloria LaRiva for President) (Be sure to read her serious socialist program.)
and
http://www.cagreens.org/
http://www.gp.org/
http://www.jill2016.com/ (Jill Stein for President)