Originally posted by
[email protected] 26 2005, 08:16 AM
Come on, guy, you're not even trying to be serious here. The internet is not a big capital-intensive project...it's something that could easily be done in every school in Cuba that has telephone service.
Oh for crying out loud. Yes, in fact Cuban schools do have computers and except in the most remote areas they have internet access. But that's a long way from the widespread and easy internet access that lets us in the imperialist countries loaf around posting on message boards. Which is basically a form of recreation, let's be honest and not get swelled heads about our own importance.
A few facts on internet and phone service worldwide:
Internet access is very far from being a benefit to the great majorities: 90% of the world's population has no access to the Internet. Over 70% of those connected to it live in developed countries. In Africa, less than 1% of the population has access to the Internet. More than half of those with connection are from South Africa. The shortage of telephone lines is compounded by the lack of electricity. In Ghana, only 20% of homes has electric power; in Namibia, 5%; in Senegal, 2.3%; in
Mozambique, 0.4%, according to figures of the ITU. In Central America, Internet access is a luxury. In Guatemala, 0.6% of the population has access; in El Salvador, the rate is 0.7%; in Nicaragua, 0.04% and in Honduras, 0.03%. Even in large and populated nations of the Third World, there are very few citizens with Internet access: in Mexico, 4.6% of the population; in India, 1.6%; in Indonesia, 1.8%. In Russia, a former power, only 4.2% of citizens have access to the Internet.
Spreading access to information worldwide is a tremendous economic development challenge. Billions don't even have literacy and electricity, never mind telephones, forget about internet access. Equalizing that gap - cultural, not just economic - is a tremendous part of the challenge of building socialism...or as Lenin once put it, "Soviet power plus electrification equals socialism."
For Redstar to cavalierly dismiss these difficulties as "not a big capital-intensive project" is at best willful blindness about the condition in most of the world; the less charitable interpretation is a complete indifference to the great majority of humanity.
Now Cuba: electricity is almost universally available - the most thorough rural electrification in the world. That's a great information technology advance, BTW: radio, TV, and most of all being able to read after dark! Not to mention knowing how to read, and the availability of books.
Telephones not so great:
All across the country, we have 6.37 telephone sets per every 100 inhabitants, with an uneven distribution....This situation is further compounded by the fact that even the most developed telephone networks are very outdated, even those in the capital. These are copper lines whose old technical status cannot be modified as quickly as a telephone exchange center is installed....
Which of course makes Net development harder. In contrast to the U.S., which has a huge surplus of installed but unused fiber-optic cable, thanks to the dot-com bubble. Besides which:
The blockade makes everything extraordinarily difficult. The US owns the highest technology and produces very efficient, modern equipment. It also owns the software industry to some extent and its transnational corporations are even the proprietors in many other countries..... The equipment is more expensive and on many occasions it must be brought in from far-flung places. Luckily, we have important cooperation schemes with countries whose technological development is significant, like China (supplier of the digital exchange centers in Guantanamo, Sancti Spi*ritus and Isla de la Juventud).
....
The access by the Cubans to US sites on the Internet was blocked (by the U.S. - S) (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_8/williamson/) until May 1994....Each time Cuba tries to add a new channel to the Internet, the US counterpart must procure the appropriate license from the US Treasury Department.
Likewise, if an American company wants to open a new channel for Cuba or decides
to upgrade the connection speed, a license must be issued. Cuba's current connection to the so-called Infobahn does not offer the appropriate bandwidth to meet the country's requirements. The blockade compels Cuba to use an expensive and slow satellite-related bandwidth and connection. The problem could be solved with the connection of a fiber-optic cable between Cuba and the Florida Straits, but the US has not allowed so.
Despite which:
In our summary meeting of the results of 2003 and the discussion of
the main tasks for 2004, we explained that the country now has an estimated 270
000 PCs, 65% of which are networked; that there are 1 100 .cu domains; more
than 750 Internet sites and more than 480 000 e-mail accounts.
Which sounds like a larger percentage with internet access than a lot of countries.
We have privileged the use of the Net in the social field, in public health, education, science and technology, the national and local TV networks, culture, the banking system, the most important branches of the economy and, much more recently, in the services for the population.
source (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/message/22994)
Clearly anti-democratic; Havana should have realized that these economic, educational, and medical purposes are far less important than getting Cubans to this board so Redstar has the opportunity to lecture them. Well, it's not surprising Redstar thinks so anyway.
I was speaking of the fact that Cuban workers and students cannot even access this board.
Source for this "fact"? Somebody else has posted that someone from Cuba did in fact access this board at one time.
And the sources I've found say Cuba is not real big on "filtering" out undesirable sites:
CNN (http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/04/11/cuba.online.idg/)
"But once it's [internet access - S] granted, the government does not censor, filter or -- it appears -- survey traffic."
some Carnegie endowment paper (http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_8/kalathil/#k2)
"Although the government itself appears to block few (if any) Web sites at the central level, institutions often limit Internet access to sites they consider relevant to the task at hand." Which sounds like a good idea if you want people to get any work done.
Both these sources are of course strongly hostile to the revolutionary government.
As for your comments on the Cuban media: do you read it? It's true that the revolution's central leaders are not in the habit of debating each other in it - they seem to think that would be a mistake, 90 miles from Miami - but there are political differences between the newspapers...Juventud Rebelde and Trabajadores are more revolutionary than Granma; the international edition of Granma is most hidebound of all.
You dismissal of worker involvement in factory management is superficial. As this NLG delegation of labor lawyers and trade unionists says, (http://www.nlg.org/programs/l_ec/cuba_report_2002.pdf):"In contrast to the U.S. system, which delineates permissive subjects of bargaining at the “core of entrepreneurial control” over which enterprise managements may not be required to negotiate with their workers’ representatives, the CTC maintains that there is no aspect of enterprise or political decision making in Cuba in which the unions do not participate. The observations of our delegation do not contradict this assertion."
Incidentally, those visitors also observed:"plant managers may make a basic salary of 400 pesos per month, about $20, with low end workers making 300 pesos per month, about $15.16". Remarkably little bureaucratic privilege.
But in fact worker assemblies do discuss national policy issues. For example, in 1994 the National Assembly (parliament) considered a proposal for an income tax, to include workers wages. At workplace assemblies held nationwide, the reaction of workers to this was strongly negative. The National Assembly passed the tax - without including wages. Only the self-employed, farmers, and foreign capitalists in joint ventures.
The 1996 CTC Congress considered a proposal on expanded maternity/paternity leave, which was modified by delegates, adopted...and IIRC later became law.
Because it's the working class which rules in Cuba.