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Cuba Getting Internet Upstream Via Venezuela
An anonymous reader writes "Seems like Cuba is working around the US internet embargo by teaming up with Venezuela: A confidential contract released yesterday on Wikileaks reveals Cuba's plan to receive internet upstream via an undersea cable to Venezuela, thus circumventing the enduring embargo of the US, denying Cuba access to nearby American undersea cables and overcoming the current limits of satellite-only connectivity. The connection, to be delivered by CVG Telecom of Venezuela, is to be completed by 2010 and will provide data, video as well as voice service for both the public and governmental services."
No kidding. It is only a couple hundred miles of submarine cable. The only reason that I can think that it wasn't done sooner might be because Cuba's credit is so bad (due to refusal to pay contracts) that nobody was willing to do the job without cash upfront.
Looks like one of our favorite sayings is evolving. The internet recognizes a problem and routes around it. Now also available in undersea cables rather than just software packets. Admittedly, that places US policy as the problem...
> Can anyone tell me why we still have an embargo
> with Cuba?
From what I understand the only people who care about this issue are the former cubans living in South Florida.
Polls show them all strongly in favor of the embargo... since this is a vital voting demographic for most politicians... very few people mess with the embargo.
Did I mention that the main people who break the embargo are those very same former cubans?
Funny, that.
I touch computers in naughty places
My wife and I went to a resort in Cuba back in 2003. They did have (albeit slow) internet at the resort.
Some things about Cuba - the locals we met were some of the nicest people we've met anywhere in the world. Everyone in the country gets (at the time) the equivalent of $13 US per *month* to live, and that's it. Still, nobody ever asked anything from us (unlike Jamaica) and they would bend over backwards to do anything to help you. It was more likely for them to give *us* things, like on our first day there, one gentleman was making a grass hopper out of palm leaves on his break, and when his break was over he gave it to my wife and was offended when I reached for my wallet (I was used to the people who approach you in other places, like Peru, France, Mexico, even on our visit to New Orleans in '02, and I suppose in most major cities, doing some kind of performance to try and get some money out of you).
One of the most poignant moments was a long discussion we had with one woman who worked on the resort. She was asking us about some of the places we'd been able to travel (mostly Europe at the time), and she was telling us about her eventual goal to travel the world. It's not particularly easy for Cubans to travel. They have to get a travel permit from the government. It's quite expensive, and I believe it has to be for an officially sanctioned reason. Still she was determined to go, and I hope she eventually gets her wish.
But we were struck by how tragic it was that all these amazing people are practically being held hostage in their own country, cut off from the rest of the world. As far as I'm concerned, the more we can engage the common people in Cuba, through the internet, travel, trade, etc., the less time it will take for their country to reform, and for them to catch up with the rest of the western world. I really think the US embargo is completely counter-productive.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Okay. Depending on who you ask, there were at least 4 distinct waves of migration. Each of these waves was a different generation or a different class.
The article is in pretty sad shape, but here's a wikipedia article.
The generation/class with the greatest support of the embargo is the first, the middle and upper classes (also white, mainly). Understandably so, as this was the generation who had their power and belongings taken from them and had the most to lose.
Later migrations, like the Marielitos, balseros and "dusty feet", came from different classes and generations and have different opinions.
The generation that constituted the first wave is slowly dying off, and opinion in favor of the embargo is eroding in relation to the change.
Disclaimer: I'm anglo. Apologies to any cubanos if I screwed something up.
I'm not trying to endorse either the Cuban lifestyle or Michael Moore here, but that is actually partially true. The Cuban healthcare system runs far more efficiently than the one in the US, at least as far as the numbers are concerned.
For example, the average life expectancy of a Cuban (77.23 years) is roughly on par with the average life expectancy of an American (78.1 years), but the Cuban government spends ~US$5/year/person on healthcare. In comparison, the amount spent in the US on healthcare (by individuals, government, businesses, etc..) is ~US$7200/year/person.
Given that they have embargoes on American medical technology, doctors, etc.. they must be doing something right.
Disclaimer: I'm from a country which has a nationally supported healthcare system alongside a private system, and they seem to work equally well together. I also don't understand why so many Americans hate Cuba so much..
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
Yeah. That might work. Just because Cubans are clever enough to set up and run samizdat thumb drive networks doesn't mean that they'll find out about the onion net.
And cesnsorship and state control of media worked pretty much flawlessly in the old Soviet bloc. I mean everybody there was pretty well convinced that Soviet communism was the greatest thing ever, Moscow was the center of the universe, and that they had absolutely the highest living standard on earth. That's why it was such a shock to everyone in 1989 when Reagan singlehandedly punched through Berlin Wall and gave everyone a case of Coke and a two-year subscription to Playboy.
We all know how solid China's great firewall is. No way around that puppy, you'd better believe it.
And of course the real goal of the US isn't to prevent companies from doing business in Cuba in contravention of the law (however stupid you think that law may be), but to actually prevent Cubans from getting any information at all. That's probably why there are honking big transmitters in Florida broadcasting news 24-7 towards Cuba.
Castro's done a great job of blocking all that information. Nobody in Cuba has ever heard of El Duque, for example, or Alexei Ramirez. Both of their families still believe the official explanation that they accidentally drowned themselves while shaving.
Indeed we all know that controlling information is much like building a dam: It's very cheap and easy to do, it takes hardly any effort to maintain, and it's virtually indestructible. And the best way to control the flow of water through a dam, much like controlling the flow of information, is to drill a very small hole and use a finger to carefully control how much gets through. Information, like water, tends to stay put and hates to travel.
I cannot possibly see any problems with your plans for CubaNet. Sure, the richest and most ruthless software company on the planet has spent 10 years and billions of dollars trying and utterly failing to come up with something "that look[s] like Google and act[s] like Google". But with a decent project manager Cuba should have the whole thing up and running within about six weeks or so. That'll show those yanqui bastards what's what.
I'm not trying to endorse either the Cuban lifestyle or Michael Moore here, but that is actually partially true. The Cuban healthcare system runs far more efficiently than the one in the US, at least as far as the numbers are concerned.
For example, the average life expectancy of a Cuban (77.23 years) is roughly on par with the average life expectancy of an American (78.1 years), but the Cuban government spends ~US$5/year/person on healthcare. In comparison, the amount spent in the US on healthcare (by individuals, government, businesses, etc..) is ~US$7200/year/person.
Given that they have embargoes on American medical technology, doctors, etc.. they must be doing something right.
Disclaimer: I'm from a country which has a nationally supported healthcare system alongside a private system, and they seem to work equally well together. I also don't understand why so many Americans hate Cuba so much..
Neither do I support the embargo. It was a bad idea that has demonstrated itself as a failure. And I'm not sure that (educated & intelligent) Americans really have a problem with Cuba (they're cool by me) - That doesn't necessarily include our legislators. But, my life expectancy would go up if I could afford neither steak nor beer. Instead, I'm sitting here well-fed, half-drunk, and on an uncensored internet connection (at least as uncensored as most of the world - and I have no objection to most of what people are being arrested for).
I'd still rather pay less for my medical insurance - Especially since the patents I'm paying for are being ignored on both my Canadian and Mexican borders. But socialism and capitalism are both nice ideas in theory. I just think that the US & Cuba are bad examples on either side. I'd love to find a country that's figured out how they should be balanced and needs a MSEE grad with PM experience that can look past a late-night semi-inebriated /. post...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Considering the Bay of Pigs, the attempts to assassinate Castro, and all the other plots, maybe it's time for the US to formally renounce such stupid behaviour.
You got that right.
Whenever I hear or read about the Cuba embargo, I am instantly reminded of a story Pierre Salinger (Press Secretary to John F Kennedy) used to tell:
One day, Salinger is summoned to the Oval Office, where JFK tells him "Pierre, I want you to go out and buy as many Petite Upmanns as you can" - "Yes, Mr President".
Next day, Salinger goes back into the Oval Office. "Well, Pierre?" JFK asked. "We rounded up (several hundred, can't remember the exact number) through our contacts all over the country, Mr President".
JFK let out a reluctant sigh, opened the top drawer of his desk, pulled out the Cuban embargo document, and signed it right there and then.
That's the executive branch in action for you, hoarding the last legal stash before making it a crime to buy it. And that's how much they believe in the laws they enact in our name.
My guess is that the embargo still exists if only to politically pacify the noisy Batista Cubans that make up a large chunk of the Florida electorate. Remember the Elian Gonzalez incident? I'm pretty damn sure that incident cost Gore the election, made the margin narrow enough to allow Jeb Bush to steal the election. We've all heard about thousands of African-Americans purged from the voting lists. How many Cuban-Americans were? I'd guess the number is disproportionately low.
As for the effectiveness of the embargo where cigars are concerned, I live in Mexico, where tourists from north of the border puff away at heart's content. Then buy them to take home, change the paper rings and boxes, and presto!, a Cuban Cohiba has been transformed into a Mexican Te Amo.
There's a cartoon that made the rounds a few years ago, with Bush Jr jumping up and down in the tip of Florida, yelling "I'm going to bury you, Fidel!" Meanwhile, Fidel quietly stands on Cuban ground, beside a blackboard with a bunch of crossed out names: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr and Clinton.
Inter-generational, institutionalized stupidity is what I call it.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
You probably haven't noticed all the restrictions in place to travel to Cuba, have you?
There's a bit of wisdom that's been passed around, all over Latin America, for the last thirty years: Visit Cuba before the North Americans can get back in, 'cause they're gonna drag along McDonald's, Hard Rock Hotel & Casinos, Starbucks and shopping malls.
Can you imagine a fucking Cinnabon in Havana? You have no idea just how many people, non-US citizens by and large, consider that image to represent a Faustian Pact, because it represents Washington's economic doctrine of neo-liberalism that's screwed over every other country in the continent, as well as Africa, over the last several decades.
You can pontificate about how Cuba's living standards are lower than so-and-so, but just compare to El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay, etc, all of whom toed the Washington (which is to say, Exxon and DuPont) line, and whose dictators were mostly alumni of the US-sponsored School Of The Americas.
Furthermore, if Cuba had not been embargoed, it would be quite prosperous today. Within the limited means that the embargo created, the Cuban population is managing better than most countries victimized by Washington's neo-liberalism.
So yes, visit Cuba before it's too late, while the population is still relatively innocent, crime levels are extraordinarily low, and an extended vacation can be had for a song (or two).
No offense intended, just food for thought about an absurd situation: Curious that the only people restricted from traveling to Cuba are the citizens of The Land Of The Free. So how Free (as in speech, not beer) are you, really? Think about it, I believe it's really an important question.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
I'd still rather pay less for my medical insurance - Especially since the patents I'm paying for are being ignored on both my Canadian and Mexican borders. But socialism and capitalism are both nice ideas in theory. I just think that the US & Cuba are bad examples on either side. I'd love to find a country that's figured out how they should be balanced and needs a MSEE grad with PM experience that can look past a late-night semi-inebriated /. post...
Sitting in a Social Democratic nation in the north of Europe, I can say this: Cuba is going in the right direction at the moment, mostly thanks to Raul it seems. US on the other hands is standing still, it has distanced it self from it allies after selecting conservatives** a few years back. Even though the economic race in Kina and India has made us (Europe) less dependent on US economy, it still has a large impact on our lives and culture, and thats why we like to have an opinion on what you select for government.
Some of the flaws in US government, from an outside perspective:
* The patent system (Select someone for office that is less conservative and cooperate founded and a change might happen..)
* The health care system (Again, select someone a tad more social, and they'll do something about it long term)
* The war on everyone, to either "crush" taliban or more preferably invade and give Iraqi oil to one of my friends oil companies (Select someone less aggressive towards the world around you, and the world will most likely be less aggressive back)
* Intelligent design (Select someone that doesn't mix religion with politics that much, and you might get out of the dark ages too(again)..)
* Environment cowards (Select someone that doesn't found scientist to come up with objections to global warming to keep their corporate friends safe from having to do something about their unfiltered pollution)
** this is a bit ironic with all the public spending (war), budget deficit problems and restriction on peoples freedom.
This is a signature..
Time and time again we've seen this happen. Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam was a nationalist. He refashioned his politics in terms favored the only backers available to him and became "communist" when it was clear the US would continue supporting it's puppets in the south, for example.
A large part of the rebel movements that started spouting communist slogans etc. over the last few decades did so first when that was how they got support because the Soviet Union and others saw it as an opportunity. Many of them would have preferred or were open to support from the West, but were ignored or branded terrorists because the dictators they went up against were supported by the West, and turned to whomever were willing to fund them or provide weapons.
You are of course ignoring the fact that Cuba wanted to launch missiles tipped with nuclear warheads at the U.S. during Kennedy's presidency.
Maybe the U.S. has had good reason to act the way it has.
I am sure that nobody actually wanted to launch them. The fact that the USSR had submarine-launched nukes slightly after that and never gave any indication that it wanted to unilaterally strike the USA proves that.
In fact for a long time the USSR had a "no first nuclear strike" policy when NATO did not.
I think it was the psychological bargaining power of having missiles so close to the USA that they wanted.
One of the things that seems to have plaid a key role in causing Khrushchev to decide to go ahead with the deployment of missiles to Cuba was a visit to the Black Sea where a Soviet general pointed out to just how close to the Soviet border the USA had stationed it's nuclear missiles in Turkey. It must have seemed to him that if the USA felt able to put nuclear missiles into the USSR's back yard then surely the US would react fairly calmly to the USSR doing the exact same thing. After all it would have been in the best traditions of the MAD arrangement to keep the capability balance in tact. I don't think that Khrushchev fully appreciated the force of the reaction he was going to get. I watched a documentary on the Cuban missile crisis recently and I found it interesting was that one of the American ex-government types they interviewed very candidly admitted that the USA has an incredible inability to realize just how provocative it's actions can potentially be to the opposition. You don't get that kind of an admission very often from politicians. The USA felt terribly provoked by missiles in Cuba and Americans remember that provocation to this day. But that begs the question exactly what was the USA thinking when they deployed those missiles to Turkey so close to the Soviet border? Did they really think the Soviets wouldn't react? A similar thing is currently happening on a smaller scale with GWB's missile shield program. The Bush regime either seem to be oblivious to what effect this missile shield is having in Moscow or they just plain don't care if it sets off another nuclear arms race. Similarly some of the US tactics during the Cuban blockade were also incredibly incautious. Take the low level overflights the Americans did over Cuba. To the Americans they may have been just recce flights born out of an honest need to obtain hard reconnaissance. Nobody seemed to consider how low level flights over Soviet nuclear sites by RF-8 recce aircraft which were essentially indistinguishable from F-8 fighter bombers would look to the Russians and the Cubans. Did Soviet tactical recon aircraft regularly buzz American nuclear weapons installations in Turkey at ultra low level? No they didn't. What would the Americans have done if they had? To this day some of the Cuban and Soviet personnel stationed on Cuba at the time are convinced that those low level flights were a deliberate attempt to provoke a war. That of course wasn't the American's intention but unfortunately real intentions matter a lot less than perceived intentions do in a tense situation like the Cuba crisis was.
Just my two cents...
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
We (the U.S.) screwed up the same way in Iran.
We did the same in Vietnam. There was a study done in the 50s after the Vietnamese had managed to drive the French out of the country. It suggested that we could pull Ho Chi Minn into our orbit if we had been inclined to engage him instead of isolating him. We opted to let our paranoia rule the day (remember the Reds are coming...) and look what happened -- we wound up fighting a decades long war with a movement that quoted our own Declaration of Independence (while trying to free themselves from French colonial rule) and which had actually been on our side against the Japanese in WW2.
I love my country dearly but it's amazing how many decisions we've allowed ourselves to make out of fear. Fear of Communism. Fear of Socialism. Fear of Terrorism. How did we go from "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" to being afraid of "isms"? I can at least understand it in the context of the 50s and early 60s -- when it appeared the that Soviet Union was beating us in science and space exploration and the memory of Pearl Harbor was still fresh. What the hell is our excuse now?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.