Fidel Castro, Internet News Junkie

pickens writes "The LA Times reports that 84-year-old Cuban ex-President Fidel Castro consumes 200 to 300 news items a day on the World Wide Web. In a recent interview he called Web communication 'the most powerful weapon that has existed' and extolled its power to break a stranglehold on the media by 'the empire' and 'ambitious private groups that have abused it' adding that the Internet 'has put an end to secrets.... We are seeing a high level of investigative journalism, as the New York Times calls it, that is within reach of the whole world.' Well, not the whole world. Cuba has the lowest level of Internet penetration in the Western Hemisphere (lower than Haiti), plus severe government restrictions and censorship affecting those who do have access. In addition Cuban law bans using the Internet to spread information that is against what the government considers to be the social interest, norms of good behavior, the integrity of the people or national security."

Comments

There are few things more annoying

[JoshuaZ]

There are few things more annoying than finding something impressive or good about someone I dislike and consider responsible for a lot of people suffering. I'd love to hear about how Castro hates the internet and considers it to be a series of tubes filled with lies. But using it to keep track of the news in detail across the globe? That's something that many people his age simply cannot or will not do. Stupid facts messing with my preconceptions again...

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Americium]

Maybe he just reads Alex Jones and Glenn Beck all day... probably a 911 truther too.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[j35ter]

Yeah, but this guy *reads*! Compare that to the last pres. the US had! Makes him kinda less evil :)

Re:There are few things more annoying

[odies]

Uh, first of all he is ex-president. What threats of his powers are you talking about? Secondly, the cuban laws are about spreading (ie. writing) information that harms the social norms or national security. Ah, national security. Isn't that why US also wants to take down Wikileaks?

Being a non-american and having lived in many different countries, it's sometimes really weird how US people so often think every other country is the root of evil and only US is good. You know, it's of course impossible that US government might want to paint a worse picture of their enemies than what they actually are! It's not even only Cuba.. It's China, Russia, North Korea, whatever country with different views, culture and society.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[CAIMLAS]

Castro is not an idiot or an ideologue. He is the classic opportunist - and an intelligent one, at that. Seeing the opportunity for power in a top-town socialist regime, he seized it.

Now, he sees the power that 'new media' presents - and refuses it to the residents of his country. Seeing the open horizon of new media and denying it from others are not incompatible for a mega-maniacal dictator.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[JoshuaZ]

Being a non-american and having lived in many different countries, it's sometimes really weird how US people so often think every other country is the root of evil and only US is good. You know, it's of course impossible that US government might want to paint a worse picture of their enemies than what they actually are! It's not even only Cuba.. It's China, Russia, North Korea, whatever country with different views, culture and society.

And being an American, it is sometimes really weird how non-Americans have this strange view of Americans that makes us into a monolithic hive mind with views that actual Americans generally don't have. Yes, most Americans probably consider the North Korean government to be evil. That's a government which systematically abuses and starves its residents. Most Europeans probably have similar attitudes about North Korea. And I'm pretty sure that most Americans don't see Russia or China as at all in the same category as North Korea. And the notion that Americans think that there's something deeply wrong with "whatever country with different views, culture and society." I doubt that Americans think that about most European countries or Japan or India or Brazil or many other places.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[isilrion]

while most people in his country aren't allowed to do so because it would threaten his power

Actually, the "official" reason is that the US limits who can we get bandwidth from (by owning or threatening those who own the fiber around the island), so we can only get it at ridiculously high prices. I think the total bandwidth for the whole country is about 230Mb/sec download, 100 upload.

I don't believe that is the only reason (clearly, censorship is a big one - I had to censor many things in the name of "lack of bandwithd" even after I proved that it would have a negligible effect). But the "official" reason, by itself, is enough to restrict nearly as much as Cuba does. It's also disgustingly hypocritical that the US gives the Cuban government such a perfect justification for their censorship.

Who knows, maybe with the cable to Venezuela the Cuban government will show the world (and the Cubans) that the US was the only responsible for the lack of internet access in Cuba. I would be very surprised if they did - but I doubt they'll be intelligent enough to see how it would benefit them.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[hey!]

Rope and tree? Hard to say. Maybe if the government is overthrown by Cuban expats living in the US, but not surprisingly these are the most extreme critics of Castro. Cuban residing in Cuba might be sick of the regime, but it is unlikely they hate it as much as US expats do. The proportion of people who have a positive view of Castro is bound to be higher in Cuba than in US, which is a haven for the regime's most bitter enemies.

In any case, you have to look at the specific nature of the overthrow. If it were a military coup, Castro's fate would depend on what is most useful to the junta: co-opting Castro or castigating him. If the government were to fall apart under popular unrest, chances are Castro would spend the balance of his retirement in Venezuela.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we be honest about something here?

Here's something I'd like to see some statistics on.

1. How many deaths is Fidel Castro responsible for?
2. How many deaths is George Bush responsible for? Or even, your average US president?

I have a feeling you're not going to like the answer. Why is it always that when some "other" guy (maybe someone who pissed off powerful American businessmen in the late 1950s) is a tyrant, a violent thug, and when we do it, we're heroes?

Re:There are few things more annoying

[carp3_noct3m]

Not a damn thing other than the fact you aren't supposed to have them. A classic case in the effects of prohibition of any item. (And yes I've had quite a few)

Re:There are few things more annoying

[FourthAge]

Uh, first of all he is ex-president. What threats of his powers are you talking about?

That doesn't always matter. Stalin was only General Secretary of the Party. On paper, he had no power at all. In reality...

Re:There are few things more annoying

[gtomorrow]

You'd be wrong. Think of the difference between Hershey's Special Dark chocolate and Lindt 72% (or higher) chocolate.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[_Sprocket_]

And the notion that Americans think that there's something deeply wrong with "whatever country with different views, culture and society." I doubt that Americans think that about most European countries or Japan or India or Brazil or many other places.

Cultural uniqueness is not an excuse for all behavior. If your culture has unique customs and traditions - please let me study them. If it has unique foods - please share some with me (I enjoy regional food even more). But if your culture is wrapped up in behavior that I find detestable, even within my own country, then I'm going to have a problem with it. And I'm entirely unapologetic for that.

I find one of Cuba's most influential political figures talking about how open the Internet is while having set up a system that limits access to that freedom to his own people entirely hypocritical. I have the same problem with that attitude in the US. A spade is a spade. But I didn't buy in to the "freedom fries" thing when France refused to help deal with Iraq - in fact, I was rather bemused by a lady at a local grocery store who noted that I shouldn't be buying French brei during the time (whether the French were motivated by a desire for peace or fear of losing their investment in arming Iraq is another conversation). If that makes me an Ugly American, then so be it. Although I would consider myself a different breed than those who would, say, demonize Japan because of their sushi or because they don't (as a nation) worship the right god.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[TheDarkNose]

Don't forget 1. How large is Cuba and how big is its population? 2. How large is the US and how big is its population? Oh yeah, and 3. How many ways can the US ruin lives compared to Cuba?

Re:There are few things more annoying

[guyminuslife]

So when you were surfing the 'Net in the United States, you went to "America Is Evil And the American Government Should Be Violently Overthrown" -dot-com, and you got a 404 error? Or are you equivocating here?

(I guess you *did* get a 404 error, that's a ridiculously long URL.)

Re:There are few things more annoying

[ultranova]

I'd love to hear about how Castro hates the internet and considers it to be a series of tubes filled with lies. But using it to keep track of the news in detail across the globe? That's something that many people his age simply cannot or will not do. Stupid facts messing with my preconceptions again...

If Castro was stupid or unable to adapt he'd never been able to take power, much less keep it against constant attempts of the US to oust him. Most people his age are not former victorious guerillas.

Your problem is confusing ability and character.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[VanGarrett]

Cubans used to grow very strong tobacco, and a great deal of their cigar rollers regarded themselves as artisans-- since they took a great deal of pride in their work, they produced very well-rolled cigars. Combine that with good tobacco with an unusually high nicotine content, and you get a cigar which is widely regarded as being among the best.

It is my understanding, however, that Cuban tobacco is not as strong, now. Also, a great deal of Cuba's foremost cigar-producing families fled Cuba, when Castro took over.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[DurendalMac]

Interesting. I'd think that the US would want Cuba to have plenty of bandwidth as it might help foster a revolt against the government. I guess some folks in the US are still hellbent on the whole embargo thing. However, even with a cable to Venezuela, I seriously doubt the Cuban government is going to make everything free and open. That just isn't in their nature. There will be more internet to go around, but it's still going to be the internet that the Party wants them to see.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

You might be surprised and depressed if you actually answer those questions...

Certainly, the US can ruin lives in more ways than Cuba.

Cuba's population is a little over 11 million. The US Population is a little over 300M. So the US is about 30 times bigger, by population.

The death rate in Cuba is 7.22/1000. It's 8.036/1000 in the US.

How many foreign deaths is Cuba responsible for? Zero in the last 10 years, as far as is known. The US is responsible for somewhere between 500,000 and one million, during the Iraq Invasion alone.

How many internal deaths is the US responsible for?

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Kifoth]

Read Castro's writings before you mod this comment down... Much of his ramblings sound like run of the mill Prison Planet paranoia.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct.

Cuba is cut-off from the Internet thanks to the US embargo. They cannot lay down fiber from Florida to Cuba. Currently only Satellite internet is available on the island. Internet is unavailable thanks to the bandwidth limits (hence unaffordable), not because "Cuba is evil". Cell phones were also banned in the past because there were not enough cell towers to provide coverage. Now, more cell towers built, cell prone available.

Anyway, high speed undersea fiber connection from Venezuela is in the works. Yeah, that's another "pinky regime". Funny how it takes socialists/communists to spread information while US can only transmit their propaganda via Radio Free America. Personally, I would have hoped that US would drop the embargo and allow companies to provide fiber internet access from Florida to Cuba. At least then Cuba would no longer be able to hide behind "it's US's fault via embargo" tag line.

Maybe US is still butt-hurt about Bay of Pigs fiasco and some rich dudes losing their playground with Batista. All the embargo is doing is strengthening Cuban resolve against US. But then what do I know.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[_Sprocket_]

There are few things more annoying than finding something impressive or good about someone I dislike and consider responsible for a lot of people suffering.

Really? I have no problem with it. Few people are one-dimensional. Look through the history of serial killers. You'll find a few in there that were very charismatic, engaging personalities who happened to be complete psychopaths. If these guys were one-dimensional representations of the horrors they enacted on others, they wouldn't be serial killers for long.

It's like the idolization of sports celebrities. I have no problem with people being impressed with someone's ability to play a sport; even want to be able to play as well as that individual. But being able to, say, kick a ball does not automatically make one a good person. I find it sad when some sports figure ends up having some screw up in their personal lives and out trots all the shock and horror at this individual not living up to being a role model for the kids. Idols shouldn't be worshiped for things that they don't do and not all sports figures are lifestyle role models.

I suppose discovering multiple dimensions to someone destroys one-dimensional images of demons and idols alike. But that doesn't necessarily eliminate what made the demon or idol in the first place.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[gandalfu]

Its very sad they have a valid official reason, adds to its credibility, but its a fake one.

At the prices they are charging for the dialup access (60 CUC/80hrs per month) (72USD per 80h per month) they can afford to resell satellite bandwidth no problem at all.

Ok, we dont have internet, what about investing in our local intranet, local websites, local ISPs, local IRC servers.... people are willing to pay, just look at what we pay for cell phones, and the demand is so high the network collapses every now an then.....

The cuban goverment is very clever (nothing original), always operating behind a cloak of technical reasons, the first step of all dictators in history is to size the mass media.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[I'm not evil. See]

I'd be willing to bet that those people we dislike most are often nowhere near as truly and completely evil as we imagine, and similarly those who we admire most are in truth quite likely to be far less angelic.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[isilrion]

Interesting. I'd think that the US would want Cuba to have plenty of bandwidth as it might help foster a revolt against the government. I guess some folks in the US are still hellbent on the whole embargo thing.

I agree. That shows that US intentions with Cuba aren't as... altruistic as they (government, so called "human rights groups", etc) claim.

However, even with a cable to Venezuela, I seriously doubt the Cuban government is going to make everything free and open. That just isn't in their nature. There will be more internet to go around, but it's still going to be the internet that the Party wants them to see.

I also agree. I would be very surprised if they just made internet access more affordable. They don't really have to wait for the US to show some advances (like, "we can't give you internet access because of the US, but here you have a good national network that you could use in the meantime"). But instead, we have 127/07 (here for those who read spanish).

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Sepultura]

Americans have been pumped full of negative propaganda about Castro (& Cuba) for as long as many of them have been alive. The fact is he's done some good, is loved in some parts of the world, and has done bad, and is hated in some places.

In that way he was like many other "leaders" in the world today.

However, he hasn't had to worry about getting votes, so when he made a decision he didn't have to give a shit what anyone thinks of it. That meant less manipulating the public to get their favor and improve his image.

That's where he differs from most leaders in our western, democratic world. Politicians here still do what's in their best interests but they bullshit the masses into believing they care about them more than themselves. You may argue democracy would be better for Cuba nut to argue Castro is more malevolent than the average sociopath that gets into politics is to ignore the facts.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[GeodesicGnome]

I agree with JoshuaZ. I'm an American who is glad there are other voices out there besides our own. America has a lot to offer, but could also learn a lot from other countries if we could just put aside this nutty idea of "American Exceptionalism". Seems like no politician can be elected in America these days who doesn't claim that America is better than everyone else and Americans are just the best of the best.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[isilrion]

Hey, I know you! Email works, btw :D

Its very sad they have a valid official reason, adds to its credibility, but its a fake one.

Fake it isn't. But, as everyone knows... not the only one.

At the prices they are charging for the dialup access (60 CUC/80hrs per month) (72USD per 80h per month) they can afford to resell satellite bandwidth no problem at all.

Oh, it is cheaper now? But only foreigners can buy it still? Anyway, there may be (if we believe the ministry of informatics, there are) restrictions about how much bandwidth they can buy. If that's true, it wouldn't be as easy as just resell it.

However... they actively look for and seize "illegal" satellite dishes that can be used to connect to the net (dishnetwork, directway, etc). While it may not be easy to just resell the bandwidth, if that were the only objection, they wouldn't penalize those networks. Hell, one of the directors of ETECSA (Cuban telecomunication company) once "explained" to me why connecting my two computers with a network cable/wireless was illegal.

Ok, we dont have internet, what about investing in our local intranet, local websites, local ISPs, local IRC servers.... people are willing to pay, just look at what we pay for cell phones, and the demand is so high the network collapses every now an then.....

The cuban goverment is very clever (nothing original), always operating behind a cloak of technical reasons, the first step of all dictators in history is to size the mass media.

Actually, in this case, they are being extremely stupid. A good way to control the people is to make them believe that they are not being controlled. By having that "national network", they could still control most of what you saw, while unequivocally shifting all the blame to the US. They are not clever - even when they have the perfect excuse, they make it obvious that they have other reasons.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[gilgongo]

"There are few things more annoying than finding something impressive or good about someone I dislike and consider responsible for a lot of people suffering."

On the other hand, there are also few things more annoying than somebody in power recognising that something is objectively good while denying that good to those whom they rule.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[_Sprocket_]

Dammit Fidel, don't you have some reading to catch up on?

Re:There are few things more annoying

[clarkkent09]

There is nothing impressive or good about a dictator enjoying something useful while denying it to the people he oppresses. Do you realize that in 2009 Cubans were allowed to own cell phones and personal computer (with a government permit) for the first time ever? Even so, the access to the Internet is practically non-existent except when it comes to senior party members. Having the power to keep 11 million people in darkness as a matter of policy is evil pure and simple, nothing good about it.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[davester666]

He doesn't read, he consumes. And once he consumes it, that piece of news is gone.

And the news he consumes: primarily missing persons reports for people in Cuba

It's how he keeps Amnesty International from finding out about them.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you give far too much credit to Bush. I parse your argument as saying: Yeah, but, he didn't mean to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. OK, there could be some debate about that, so maybe not, but he still did. And yes, he is directly responsible.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Pomslo]

Hey! Hes just a dictator that throwed everyone eho disagreed with him into jail(or killed them).How nice!

How good of him to be aging this well and to conserve such an agile mind for such an elderly brain.

I just cant be happier for him. /sarcasm

I mean, besides general oppression and murder what else did he do?

Ah! Yes! Massive censorship.

How can he praise the same freedom he constantly strangled when he was in charge? Does he find no hipocrisy on it?

Re:There are few things more annoying

[interkin3tic]

There's a reason he was the ruler for so long.

Anyway, take comfort in the fact that Bush still probably refuses to read the newspaper.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Pomslo]

I dont know your concept of banning something, but...

If there was a legitimate technical reason why ban it?

I smell bullshit on that "official" reasons.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[russotto]

Uh, first of all he is ex-president. What threats of his powers are you talking about? Secondly, the cuban laws are about spreading (ie. writing) information that harms the social norms or national security. Ah, national security. Isn't that why US also wants to take down Wikileaks?

The US has its flaws. Censorship of information harmful to national security really isn't one of them, no matter how much certain presidents and ex-presidents would like it to be. There is no equivalence between Cuba and the US on this front.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[russotto]

I don't believe that is the only reason (clearly, censorship is a big one - I had to censor many things in the name of "lack of bandwithd" even after I proved that it would have a negligible effect). But the "official" reason, by itself, is enough to restrict nearly as much as Cuba does. It's also disgustingly hypocritical that the US gives the Cuban government such a perfect justification for their censorship.

Castro blames all the ills of Cuba on the US embargo; that's probably one thing which has kept him (and his brother) in power this long. I don't know if it's really hypocritical that the US continues it, but it sure as hell is stupid. It's been decades since it became clear that it doesn't work, and it's long past time to give it up.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[sarhjinian]

It's not decades: the US still keeps it's boot on Cuba's proverbial neck.

Recall Helms-Burton, which was passed a little more than a decade ago. It's one of the reasons why Cuba cannot get so much as a leg up: the US will penalize, quite heavily, any company that does business in Cuba and makes use of pre-revolution assets.

Just for the record, this means just about anything in Cuba: agriculture, technology, people, anything. No corporation can do business in Cuba without risking serious penalties if they also wish to do business in the United States. This means that no one can open a mine, export sugar, fruit or tobacco, operate in a pre-1960 building, etc, etc.

It certainly means that American telcos can't run a pipe from Florida or Texas undersea. As a result, Cuban connectivity, post-Soviet, requires traffic to take backwater paths halfway around the planet via rinky-dink companies who are not and will never operate in the US.

So how, exactly, is Cuba ever supposed to do better if it can't sell so much as a sugar cube to the United States?

Interesting, isn't it, how the US will bend over backwards to do business in China or Russia, or with any number of right-wing despots all over the world, all of whom have far worse human rights records, claiming that "trade will set them free!" but get all "Think of the poor oppressed citizenry" when it comes to Cuba. You'd never think that Florida was a swing state and that both parties fall over themselves to cater to a bunch of noisy expats, the most powerful and noisy of whom were equally nasty people, but under Bautista instead.

Now, all this said, the Cuban government would probably filter and snoop on their citizen's internet traffic (they probably do now, and it's probably easy, considering the bandwidth to the whole country is exceeded by that offered to some condos in New York), but how is this different from bastions of western democracy like, oh, Australia or the UK. Or to use a less extreme example, China.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[CodeBuster]

Castro is not an idiot or an ideologue. He is the classic opportunist - and an intelligent one, at that.

Perhaps, but that does not excuse the immorality and injustice of his regime. Indeed, it is the height of hubris to hear one such as Castro, who knew exactly what he was really doing during all of those years of communist dictatorship, lecture the United States, as he likes to do from time to time, on morality and issues of social justice. It will be interesting to see whether or not the Cuban people maintain their facade of reverence for his person and policies in subsequent generations. Perhaps some will, but I think that most will not or at least their views will be tempered by their unfiltered knowledge of the regime's crimes against liberty and justice.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[CodeBuster]

I have no difficulty believing that Castro pulled the trigger, up close and personal, on more than one occasion and tried not to get blood on his shoes. Say what you want about Bush, but Castro is by far the worst for depriving millions of people of their liberty for more than half a century and for mentoring aspiring tyrants, notably Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, in other Latin American countries.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[selven]

Except Bush was a lot more powerful than Castro, so if the two were to be equally evil Bush would cause a few hundred times more deaths. I'm pretty sure that's not the case, so Castro is in fact worse.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Alioth]

China and Russia are strong, so the US respects them and won't mess with them too much.

Cuba is weak, so the US is free to bully the CUbans.
Same goes with Ukraine, remember the steel tarriffs that the US imposed on Ukraine, while China was getting "preferred trading partner" status? Ukraine is weak, China is strong.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Also, a great deal of Cuba's foremost cigar-producing families fled Cuba, when Castro took over.

That just doesn't make sense. Tobacco is planted by the working class, cigars are rolled by the working class just as they always have been. It's like saying the US couldn't produce cotton after the civil war because slave owners were shot during battle.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[GameboyRMH]

tl;dr. Quote us some good stuff.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[Dachannien]

This depends entirely on your definition of "responsible". For instance, was Lincoln responsible for the over 600k killed in the American Civil War? And who's responsible for the deaths caused in a suicide bombing in Iraq?

Re:There are few things more annoying

[ultranova]

Us Chavez a tyrant? From all I've heard, he's a populist, which is pretty much the antithesis of tyranny (ruling by getting popular support vs. ruling by crushing all opposition). Merely being socialist doesn't make him a tyrant, in fact socialism is a good thing that's practiced by most of Europe, for example.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[CodeBuster]

excuse me, but Chavez is now well into the transition from popular support (now in the declining phase) to crushing opposition. Notice how he has methodically shut down all media companies which criticize him or fail to tow his party line by revoking their licenses, expropriating their property, etc. Chavez has repeatedly threatened his political enemies and those who oppose him with violent repression (i.e. using the army and the police as his own party goon squad). Chavez is well on his way to becoming the archetypical tyrant, acquiring the trappings of a tyrant piece by piece. Just wait one decade more (or less), with Chavez still in power, the transformation will be complete. Even the left both here in the United States and in Europe, which initially supported some aspects of his government, have now distanced themselves (remember "Por que no te calles?"). He is ruining Venezuela and every thinking person who remains outside of his power should be able to see that.

Re:There are few things more annoying

[VanGarrett]

Obviously not all the families are gone, and Cuban cigars are still rather good. The Cuban cigar expertise is no longer unique to Cuba, however.

As for the quality of the tobacco, the change is the result of selective pollination. Older Cuban cigars tended to focus on darker leaves with bolder flavors, whereas the more recent trends have been on milder leaves. So you breed plants that produce more of the lighter-colored leaves near the top, than the darker-colored leaves near the bottom. The end result is that the tobacco doesn't have the same qualities as it did when Americans last enjoyed them freely.

Posting for Team Stupid

[damburger]

Is it possible that Fidel is simply not aware of the state of the country he used to run? Is it possible this has been the case for a long time - possibly even longer than he has been publicly seen to be an invalid?

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[DurendalMac]

Considering that Fidel was the one who implemented many iron-fisted policies, I find that to be incredibly unlikely. He's mentally well enough to crawl news articles all day and understand them, so I think he's mentally well enough to understand that Cuba doesn't get the same privileges that he does.

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you stupid? Of course he's aware of the state of the country he used to run. He's a fucking dictator. Do you think he actually gives a shit about the country he runs? Once a dictator gets into power he does and says what he needs to to stay in power. Period. Part of that is pretending he gives a shit about his citizens so that useful idiots in other countries will drink his KoolAid and support his "revolutionary ideals" even when all he's really doing is oppressing his own people and lining his pockets and those of his cronies with as much cash as possible.

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[reeley]

just a slight question. Have you actually been to Cuba, if so, did you go out of the tourist areas and talk to the locals? From your comment, I suspect that you did not. Yes, the country is quite closed and controlled, but it is no where near as bad for the people as outsiders like to make out. There are a great many have nots in the UK where the divide between what you have and what they don't is a great deal greater than it is in cuba. Not saying that everything they do is right, I am just commenting that not everything they do is wrong. Just as a small matter of historical interest, perhaps you could read up on the history of their revolution and how 10 American Billionaires managed 99.8% of the total GDP of cuba, and how the locals starved pre the revolution to line the bank rolls of those 10 Americans. Do you still want to drink Bacardi now?

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[damburger]

1. I don't drink Bacardi, not because of any Cuban politics, but because I'm not a 16-year-old chav girl in a miniskirt.

2. I know Batistas Cuba wasn't wonderful

3. No I have never been to Cuba.

I am willing to entertain the possibility that Castro might be right about the embargo making Internet access hard to come by in Cuba, and also appreciate that its easy for a regime to start assuming every anti-government blogger is on the CIA payroll when they've had so many genuine covert attacsk from the US government - that doesn't make this kind of social control right.

Who knows, maybe Raul will be able to set that right without giving away any of the gains of the revolution. I'm not holding my breath though; most likely outcome is that Cuba will just end up as the next Haiti.

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[damburger]

Nah, he just plays starcraft 2 on battle.net all day. I've seen him online as a matter of fact. He ragequit on me the other day when I medivac dropped his base and said 'lol bay of pigs gg'

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[phantomfive]

Oh yeah, jackpot, and it's golden. From the personal blog of Fidel Castro (here it is in the original Spanish). Not only is he talking about the Bilderbergs, he's explaining that The Beatles were a Bilderberg plot, used for social control. In fact, all of rock and roll is a plot for social control. It all started with the Nazis. No, I am not joking, he brings up the Nazis.

It's not surprising that Castro believes this stuff, because it's stuff he would do if he were capable. And in fact does do.

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[mangu]

Have you actually been to Cuba, if so, did you go out of the tourist areas and talk to the locals?

I have never been to Cuba, but I know that getting out of the tourist areas and talking to the locals is not as easy as you think.

A tourist agent once tried to sell me a trip to Cuba. Among several matters we discussed was transportation. He told me tourists are not allowed to drive cars in Cuba, the only way to rent a car is getting one with a Cuban driver.

There are a great many have nots in the UK where the divide between what you have and what they don't is a great deal greater than it is in Cuba

Citation needed, please. One big problem every time someone tries to paint that rosy picture of a nation with excellent education and health care system and excellent distribution of income is that all those statistics come from the Cuban government itself.

When a politician in the US starts bragging about how good the public schools in his district are, journalists are free to visit those schools and report their findings. That kind of criticism is impossible in a country where all the newspapers are published by the government.

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[TheDarkNose]

So he invented the Beatles. I always wondered...

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[mangu]

There was a Canadian who was recently in an accident in Cuba and was kept from leaving the country until the investigation was finished up.

<tinfoil hat>Maybe he was talking to the people, the accident was caused by a government agent, the investigation was about how much he had talked to whom.</tinfoil hat>

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[clarkkent09]

Maybe he reads left wing tabloids with plummeting circulation such as New York Times?

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[aoeuid]

I have never been to Cuba, but I know that getting out of the tourist areas and talking to the locals is not as easy as you think.

A tourist agent once tried to sell me a trip to Cuba. Among several matters we discussed was transportation. He told me tourists are not allowed to drive cars in Cuba, the only way to rent a car is getting one with a Cuban driver.

There is no problem with a foreign tourist renting a car in Cuba or driving around by themselves. The rental cars have a different coloured plate so the cops know you're tourists and will pretty much leave you alone. There are restrictions on the movement of Cubans throughout the country, I don't know what they are exactly, but white people in a rental car can pretty much pass freely through any checkpoint when crossing state lines or on the outskirts of the cities, usually without stopping. But if you're carrying any Cubans or other Latino people, they should probably duck.

Also, if you are a decent person and willing to stop, it is pretty hard not to have any contact with the locals since hitch-hiking is extremely common on the island, and the locals will not think twice about jumping in the car with you if you let them. Whether they actually talk to you or not depends on the person. My own experience is that soldiers and young women might not say a word to you, not that that stops them from jumping in your car to catch a ride, but guys and older people will talk to you if you engage them and let them know you're just normal people on vacation cruising around their island for fun and to get to know their culture and country. If you're nice and willing to finance it, you can even organize a pig roast or something and party with the villagers. But it helps, of course, if you speak decent Spanish. This is my experience as a Canadian, anyway (we are freely allowed to travel to Cuba). But, in honesty, I found it very hard to communicate in Spanish in the resort areas, where it seems like they have certain people fluent in English who are authorized to mingle with the tourists, and the others are probably under direction to not acknowledge any Spanish coming out of the mouth of a white person beyond the extreme basics, like "una cerveza, por favor!". I had a hard time being understood in the resort areas, but off resort, cruising around, picking up hitch-hikers, miraculously most people seemed to understand me just fine.

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[gssgss]

What was the last time Fidel appeared in public or talked about something new? I have seen him blog, appearing with other people in Cuba, in his sports clothing, in some recording with no audio,he doesn't attend international conferences,... In the meantime Cuba has now relationship with the Vatican and has lifted some restrictions with the US. Since 2 years or more I think we have no proof he is alive. /conspirationmode Please someone point me to some resource where he talks about the BP oil spill, or some sports competition, or where he is with a non Cuban leader.

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[robsku]

Umm, where does he say something like that about beatles? That seems pretty controversial with there being a statue of John Lennon in a public park in Cuba...

And sure, he talks about the Bilderbergs - and from what I read it made sense to me too... I didn't read about the nazis but there is a lot of cases where you can quite legitimately "bring them up", ie. US company providing essential "goods" to both sides of war.

Re:Posting for Team Stupid

[Paua Fritter]

There are actually many times more capitalist property owners in Cuba now than there were before the revolution.

Almost all of these private businesses are agricultural; in urban areas the state-owned sector is far more dominant. This is the result of the Agrarian Reform that was instigated at the very start of the revolution. Before the revolution, agricultural ownership was concentrated in very few hands. The Reform expropriated those holdings and transferred them to the farm workers themselves. It's true that they are rather constrained in how they can run their businesses, but they nevertheless do have the right to grow crops on their own land for sale direct to their Cuban consumers, so they are at least small capitalist enterprises.

Not surprising

[Bullfish]

Considering that he maintained power for years by strangling information, that he is a student of this kind of open information is not at all surprising. Know your enemy! He wants others to have it so it might destabilize them, but in Cuba. not so much

Re:Not surprising

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Sure but you know what, classical marxist communism came of age in a time when "the media" really was a capitalist enterprise entirely committed to its destruction and even today you could argue this. Who thinks the likes of Rupert Murdoch would give any regime that goes a different way from the US a fair shake ? Castro is really astute when he says that the internet, taken as a whole, isn't dominated by these traditional media empires which are owned by the capitalist class with a vested interest in the status quo. There's a lot of talk in the west of the "free press" but the fact is that for most of our history information has come from powerful information brokers aligned most of time with capital and the state. Just take a critical look at the history of the AP for example. That doesn't excuse the marxist stance on media freedom of course, but you do have to understand it is a cultural thing based on real blows dealt to popular movements in their formative years and not just "because they're evil."

5...4...3...

[DWMorse]

Countdown to another little nudge from Raul on the steps...

Just proving out the reality of Communism

[LynnwoodRooster]

All people are equal, just some are more equal than others!

Re:Just proving out the reality of Communism

[sznupi]

Only "communism"?

Re:Just proving out the reality of Communism

[MrCoke]

That goes for every political system.

Re:Just proving out the reality of Communism

[funkatron]

No it doesn't. Some systems don't even bother to pretend.

Re:Just proving out the reality of Communism

[LynnwoodRooster]

Only "communism"?

Capitalism makes no pretense about the equality of results, unlike Communism.

Re:Just proving out the reality of Communism

[ArcherB]

That goes for every political system.

Says the guy who is claiming his political system is the same as Cuba's while he freely criticizes it online without fear of retribution.

Stop bitching. It really only make you look like some kind of emo kid who complains about the misery in his life while he lives in an air conditioned home, has his own room and goes to bed with a full stomach every night. Unless you truly live under a repressive regime, STFU. In reading you post, I'm guess you don't.

Re:Just proving out the reality of Communism

[sznupi]

Of course it does - "the results depend on abilities / capital (also human one)"; which is similar BS in the end.

Re:Just proving out the reality of Communism

[sznupi]

How did you manage to suddenly jump to the s-word? So scary lately?

The idea with mature socialism is about a certain minimum (which is required for abilities & liberties to unfold BTW; it enhances indidvidual autonomy)

Re:Just proving out the reality of Communism

[clarkkent09]

Socialism is a word with a meaning which can be looked up easily, like all others. It is an economic system which as it's core feature involves collective (state) ownership of industry. There is no way around it, that's what it means, mature or not. It doesn't exist anywhere in the world anymore except in dictatorships like North Korea and Cuba and it is on the way out there as well. You need a different term for what you are talking about, and that term is "welfare state".

Re:Just proving out the reality of Communism

[sznupi]

Then look it up. In the context which you yourself used previously, the impact on individuals, even operating in "pure"/old terms, what you criticised is closest to communism ("From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"), not socialism ("To each according to his contribution")
Macroeconomic realities are another thing...and close ties (even if somewhat informal ones) between state/population & few industries don't exactly appear to be on the way out.

I'm surprised...

[HBI]

I'm totally surprised that they brought up the oppression of the people of Cuba in this article. Pleasantly so. If they'd have brought up the deaths and forced emigration that have been going on for even longer than Castro has been in power, then they'd really have something.

Regardless, Castro is a scumbag murderer. The sooner he and his family exit power, the better.

Re:I'm surprised...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I can't wait until we get another U.S.-approved dictator in power in Cuba. About the same percentage of the population will be oppressed, but we'll be able to vacation there and people will stop bitching about Castro.

Re:I'm surprised...

[damburger]

Cuba has many problems but malnutrition doesn't seem to be one of them. According the CIAs own statistics (in their world factbook) Cubans have a similar life expectancy to Americans; this couldn't possibly be true in a nation with system-wide poor nutrition.

Re:I'm surprised...

[MrHanky]

At least they're better off now than they were before communism, and no worse than most of their neighboring countries.

Re:I'm surprised...

[damburger]

Yup. People will be as free, wealthy and happy in Cuba as they now are in Haiti. Good times.

Re:I'm surprised...

[Anonymous Coward]

They actually have a longer life expectancy than Americans or Canadians now, and similar infant mortality rates to Canada (much lower than the US). They're also tied with Iceland as the only two countries in the world with a 100% literacy rate. While you're at it, check out Cuba's environmental record, which is stellar.

Cuba is an example of a revolution that went right. The only people who lost were Batista and his murderous thugs (who incidentally seized power in a coup in 1952, sparking MANY popular uprisings, including Castro's July 26 Movement) -- They fled the country with as much of the state's coffers as they could carry just before Che took Santa Clara. The only way that Cuba could have done better would have been if the Americans hadn't instituted a 50 year blockade.

Re:I'm surprised...

[pjt33]

The only way that Cuba could have done better would have been if the Americans hadn't instituted a 50 year blockade.

Or if the Soviet Union hadn't collapsed. For ideological reasons the USSR bought sugar from Cuba at well above the market price, and its fall had serious effects on the economy.

Re:I'm surprised...

[ArcherB]

Yup. People will be as free, wealthy and happy in Cuba as they now are in Haiti. Good times.

Haiti's problems are due to political corruption, much like Cuba's. But why bring up Haiti? Why not bring up the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, or Jamaica? Oh, that's right, none of those countries validate the point you are trying to make. As a matter of fact, any one of them will completely disprove your argument. Yeah, it's probably best to ignore them completely.

Re:I'm surprised...

[russotto]

Cuba is an example of a revolution that went right. The only people who lost were Batista and his murderous thugs (who incidentally seized power in a coup in 1952, sparking MANY popular uprisings, including Castro's July 26 Movement) -- They fled the country with as much of the state's coffers as they could carry just before Che took Santa Clara. The only way that Cuba could have done better would have been if the Americans hadn't instituted a 50 year blockade.

Fidel, stop reading Slashdot; you're not a nerd and despite the tagline, this really isn't a news site.

Re:I'm surprised...

[sarhjinian]

They, and Costa Rica, are two of the most socially and physically healthy societies in Central America.

Coincidentally, Cuba and Costa Rica are also the two countries that have suffered the least American meddling in the past half-century.

Re:I'm surprised...

[sarhjinian]

Actually, all of those countries do validate his point. As would Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama or Guatemala. Every single one of them has a lower standard of living than Cuba. Every. Single. One.

Hell, so do First Nations people in much of Canada. Or any number of American urban ghettoes.

Cuba isn't perfect by a long shot, but by Central American standards it's a fucking paradise for it's average citizenry.

Re:I'm surprised...

[Rayonic]

Boy, some people just buy the propaganda, hook, line, and sinker. The Cuban government has the motivation and the means to lie about those statistics. Do you believe everything that comes out of North Korea too?

Pro-tip: Many countries play fast and loose with infant mortality statistics. The US has the strictest standards when it comes to this - babies we try to save here would be written off as late-term miscarriages elsewhere.

Re:I'm surprised...

[Scrameustache]

Boy, some people just buy the propaganda, hook, line, and sinker. The Cuban government has the motivation and the means to lie about those statistics.

The Cuban government has the means to make the CIA website say what they want? Wooooooow...

Re:I'm surprised...

[ArcherB]

Actually, all of those countries do validate his point. As would Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama or Guatemala. Every single one of them has a lower standard of living than Cuba. Every. Single. One.

Hell, so do First Nations people in much of Canada. Or any number of American urban ghettoes.

Cuba isn't perfect by a long shot, but by Central American standards it's a fucking paradise for it's average citizenry.

Really? You are saying standard of living in Cuba is better than Canada? Seriously? Let's look at some facts about Cuba:
Average monthly salary: $18
"After 40 years, the economic Standard of Living in Cuba is less than 1% of what it was in the decade of the 50's."
"Before 1959, Cuba boasted as many cattle as people. Today meat is so scarce that it is a crime to kill and eat a cow without government permission.[33] Cuban people even suffered from starvation during the Special Period."
(from same Wiki article):"The famine in Cuba during the Special Period [1989-1993] was caused by political and economic factors similar to the ones that caused a famine in North Korea in the mid-1990s. Both countries were run by authoritarian regimes that denied ordinary people the food to which they were entitled when the public food distribution collapsed; priority was given to the elite classes and the military."

Need I go on? Now, I've only been to Canada a handful of times, about the same as I've been to Mexico, but I've never seen outright starvation in either country. In both countries, I was able to get my hands on beef, quite easily (I ordered the steak), as it was for the rest of the population in the areas I was in. Hell, for that matter, I've seen more homeless in Austin Tx and Lansing Mi than in Toronto, Tijuana or Matamoros.

Yes, Mexico has some poverty, but like I said, no one was arrested by the government for eating beef without permission.

I think you are looking at Cuban government docs or Michael Moore movies and taking them at face value. Maybe you are just not considering factors such as "has food to eat" as a viable indicator of quality of standard of living. Maybe your data is from a time before the fall of the Soviet empire.

Either way, I can't find a whole lot of data to back up your claim that the standard of living in Cuba is better than the standard of living in Canada. Sure, there may be some homeless guy freezing to death in Nova Scotia that would be better served starving on a warm beach near Havana, but comparing the absolute economic bottom of one society to the middle class of another isn't really fair. After all, the president of Haiti lives better than the homeless transvestite in Los Angeles, but I wouldn't exactly say that the standard of living in Haiti is better than that of the US.

Re:I'm surprised...

[dubsnipe]

Yup. People will be as free, wealthy and happy in Cuba as they now are in Haiti. Good times.

Ah... life is full of ironies, sir. Comparing Cuba and Ayiti is one of the most absurd things I've read today (but relax, it's not even 1am). Haiti has virtually zero professionals and doctors, whereas Cuba has not only several medical schools in the island, but regularly sends medical help to most countries in Latin America, including Haiti. I know so because I stuck a metal bar in my eye in Grand-Goâve and received help from a team of Bolivian doctors graduated from Cuba, and living in Ouest. These guys have a hard time in Port-au-Prince, perhaps because of the UN looking down on them, and the Marines bullying them. The same marines who have helped destroy Haiti since 1915. However, ironic as it may sound, Haiti is the happiest place I've seen in my life. Perhaps it's that I haven't traveled enough, but the most disgraceful conditions in the world may contain happier people than thou. Cuba, in the other hand, is a whole different story, though, being such a proud and nationalist country. They are happy with their politics and regime, just like the US are happy with their corporations and military, chanting "America fuck yeah" all around. Cuban people live as they do because they decided it. They had Fidel because they helped him get there, and he hasn't let them down. They may not be "free" from their strong political regime, but they may be freer from the meddling of the US in their business, contrary to Haiti which seems to hold the whole fleet of UN motor vehicles, and their development programs that consist of basically paying people to get a broom and sweep a 3m spot all day long. Finally, wealth is a relative term. Someone like you could never understand what it is to live as a Cuban. My brother used to trick Cubans into creating their own budget in a "free" country, and he found out they didn't usually count food and medicine as expenses, simply because "it's always there". Now compare it to poor Ayiti, which doesn't know what money or wealth is.

Re:I'm surprised...

[CharlyFoxtrot]

The US has the strictest standards when it comes to this - babies we try to save here would be written off as late-term miscarriages elsewhere.

Yeah the standards are so strict the US has been widely criticised for having the "second worst newborn death rate in modern world." Hey at least you beat Latvia. Worse still, U.S. childbirth deaths are still on the rise bucking a world wide trend. But don't worry, just turn on the TV and put on Glen Beck or some other US propagandist and he'll reassure you're The Greatest Nation On Earth(TM).

Re:I'm surprised...

[sarhjinian]

Did you purposefully ignore the "First Nations" part of my comment about Canada because it made it easier to ridicule me, or because it's convenient to ignore the state of the poor in the US or Canada when arguing against socialism.

I didn't say Cuba was any great shakes, but compared to the institutionalized poor here (I'm Canadian) they're doing very well.

Re:I'm surprised...

[ArcherB]

GDP Per capita:
Dominican Republic: $5,122
The Bahamas: $22,156
Puerto Rico: $17,691
Jamaica: $5,335
Haiti: $791
here and here

Cuban GDP per capita: $9,700
Actually, better than Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, which surprised me, but nowhere near Puerto Rico and The Bahamas.

Did you purposefully ignore the "First Nations" part of my comment about Canada because it made it easier to ridicule me, or because it's convenient to ignore the state of the poor in the US or Canada when arguing against socialism.

I think I covered that when I said:

Sure, there may be some homeless guy freezing to death in Nova Scotia that would be better served starving on a warm beach near Havana, but comparing the absolute economic bottom of one society to the middle class of another isn't really fair. After all, the president of Haiti lives better than the homeless transvestite in Los Angeles, but I wouldn't exactly say that the standard of living in Haiti is better than that of the US.

Did you ignore my "Cuban's are starving part"? I can't really find any particular number that will measure "standard of living", but being able to eat should figure pretty high in that formula. Sure, every country is going to have someone starving for whatever reason, but the problem is not universal to every citizen as it was in Cuba.

Re:I'm surprised...

[Just Another Poster]

The CIA unquestioningly accepts whatever improbable statistics Castro pulls out of his ass. For example, when Soviet aid ended, there was widespread hunger and malnutrition, causing the Cuban government to ease up on political control of food.

Re:I'm surprised...

[Just Another Poster]

Prior to Castro coming to power, Cuba had one of the highest standards of living in Latin America. Cubans lived better than Spaniards. Cuba is now a third-world nation. Ask yourself why that is.

Re:I'm surprised...

[Just Another Poster]

The Cuban government has the means to make the CIA website say what they want?

Or rather, the CIA unquestioningly reports whatever Castro, and other dictators pull out of their ass.

Re:I'm surprised...

[Just Another Poster]

One reason only... American trade embargo.

Cuba has the rest of the world to trade with, but they're still poor.

Besides, if America was allowed to trade with Cuba, the left would be screaming and hollering from the rooftops about "sweatshops" and Americans "exploiting" the Cuban population.

I call shenanigans

[Pomslo]

Well, even if he has somehow "healthy" internet habits he is still the old fart that causes suffering in the name of a decades ofd revolution.That, while alive in the poeple mind's is the complete opposite of the current situation.

He is the same old fart that, while praising the freedom that the flow of information the internet allows, keeps the citizens from that very same information with tight censorship and throwing anyone that slightly disagrees with his (self delusional) ways to prison.

He is the same old dictator that wilingly keeps his country adn citizens in a state of poverty by strict regulations,that while suposedly intetnded to bring communism, do instead fatten the pockets of a very select few.

So ,honestly, a retired ,(nearly senile?) dictator, who checks on nearly every way of opression you can put your people through, praising the freedom of the net?

I Call Bullshit

Wait until he gets his hands on WoW....

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait until he gets his hands on WoW....

So...

[hitmark]

how exactly do one "consume" news?

Re:So...

[PrimordialSoup]

I would assume that its similar to... how you consumer food when you are hungry,
when you are hungry for knowledge you consume books
when you are hungry for information you could consume the news ?
just a way of saying it in British English, I suppose

Re:So...

[Mashiki]

Through osmosis. I've had this power for years, all my professors said I was the best they'd ever seen at this system.

Re:So...

[Culture20]

how exactly do one "consume" news?

Via Powersauce Bars.
Get sauced with Powersauce!

He should get back to the core cigar compentcies

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Fidel Castro consumes 200 to 300 news items a day on the World Wide Web.

He was much cooler, when he was consuming 200 to 300 cigars a day.

The next report will be that he is living in his mom's basement . . .

meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[FuckingNickName]

In addition Cuban law bans using the Internet to spread information that is against what the government considers to be the social interest,

Swastikas.

norms of good behavior,

Porn.

the integrity of the people

Terrorism Act 2006.

or national security."

Assange.

Being rich in America is like being rich in Cuba: life's cool. Meanwhile, being poor in America is like being poor in Cuba: life sucks. In the latter case, what differs is the handout you get and who you can get away criticising sufficiently loudly.

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[petrus4]

Being rich in America is like being rich in Cuba: life's cool. Meanwhile, being poor in America is like being poor in Cuba: life sucks. In the latter case, what differs is the handout you get and who you can get away criticising sufficiently loudly.

Go to work, send your kids to school.
Follow fashion, act normal.
Walk on the pavements, watch T.V.
Save for your old age, obey the law.

Repeat after me: I am free.

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[Xarvh]

Uhm, no.
Being poor in Cuba you get healthcare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[scosco62]

Yes, which brings to mind what you are actually getting in terms of quality when you go in for, say...a CAT scan.

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[c6gunner]

Ohh, that looks fun! Let me try:

Swastikas

Bunnies.

Porn.

Rainbows!

Terrorism Act 2006.

Lollipops,

Assange.

Richard Simmons!

Wheee!

Just one question: other than the sheer fun of it, why are throwing around random words?

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[FuckingNickName]

Sometimes when you flick a switch near a door, the room gets brighter. What's up with that? Life's full of weird associations, I guess, and sometimes you have to think hard to work out what's going down.

Although my memory's fairly terrible, it's good enough to recall that you've made lots of authoritarian posts implying an affectionate-to-the-point-of-intercourse relationship with your country's government+military+all that stuff people like when they're scared to stand on their own two feet, so I'm going to guess that you're actually being sarcastic rather than dense. But you brought nothing new to the table.

Feel free to try again. Second submissions will have mark scaled to 90%, so you could still achieve a respectable pass. Second fail and you'll be seeing me after class, bring your own cane, you know you like discipline, etc. ;-)

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[phantomfive]

The difference is in America, and any true Democracy, if you don't like the government, any of the stuff that you listed, there are ways to change it without a violent revolution. In Cuba, there's no choice.

In Cuba you will get arrested for complaining about what the government does. If you can't see a difference in the personal freedoms of western democracies and Cuba, then you are blind.

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[FuckingNickName]

The difference is in America, and any true Democracy,

America's intentionally and overtly not a "true Democracy". This may not be a bad thing.

if you don't like the government, any of the stuff that you listed, there are ways to change it without a violent revolution.

I see. Which ways? Assume that I consider the Republican and Democratic governments to be effectively the same, and try not to give an answer which comes down to, "Persuade over 100,000,000 people."

In Cuba you will get arrested for complaining about what the government does.

Idle complaining is of no benefit, and Americans essentially get the privilege of time-wasting. Well, they do today, what with the lack of HUAC.

To make a difference, you need substance and medium to your complaints to get people to listen. The warrant for your arrest will be your reward.

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[c6gunner]

Sometimes when you flick a switch near a door, the room gets brighter

Sometimes when you flick a switch near a door, a person halfway around the world dies. Fools and lunatics insist on "finding" a connection - rational people do not.

Although my memory's fairly terrible

Apparently so. Allow me to refresh your memory: Swastikas and perfectly legal in all but one nation, Porn is completely legal in all first-world nations, the Terrorism Act of 2006 has nothing to do with the US, and assange - despite being an asshat whom I'd personally love to see in a pine box - is alive and well and not facing any sort of sanctions over his wiki-leak related actions.

Also, the sun rises in the east, water flows down-hill, and fire needs oxygen to burn. Hope that helps. Let me know if there's anything else you're confused about.

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[Scrameustache]

being poor in America is like being poor in Cuba: life sucks.

Free health care and education > no health care nor education; I think the poor in Cuba are skinnier, but with more teeth.

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[FuckingNickName]

Apparently so. Allow me to refresh your memory:

Your post confirmed my assertion.

Swastikas and perfectly legal in all but one nation,

Read. Read again. Read harder. You are wrong. While every single European country allows the swastika (or any Nazi propaganda) to be displayed for "educational" purposes by some definition or another, there are several countries which ban the swastika (or any Nazi propaganda) when there's the remotest possibility that it is being used to indicate the artist's/author's/speaker's support of Nazism.

Porn is completely legal in all first-world nations,

You have no idea what you're talking about. Ignoring child porn, there are many forms of consensual porn banned throughout the Western world. In the UK, the Criminal Justice Act 2008 bans all sorts of S&M. The Coroners and Justice Act 2009 makes it illegal to make a sexually explicit drawing (as opposed to a pseudo-photograph, which was already illegal) suggesting involvement of a human under 18.

the Terrorism Act of 2006 has nothing to do with the US,

I'm sorry, are we only allowed to talk about the US? There's so much coverage here of unreasonable laws passed by the US over the last decade I thought I'd pick somewhere else.

and assange - despite being an asshat whom I'd personally love to see in a pine box

Death as a punishment for speech? Are there any dictators you particularly admire, or do you go more on the uniform?

is alive and well and not facing any sort of sanctions

A country governed by rule of law rather than rule of men would have either shut up or issued a warrant detailing precisely what crimes it accuses Assange of. Instead it's issued warnings, threats, sabre-rattling and open "we're cowards, please share some of the burden of our unjustifiable action" letters to its allies to request cooperation on imposing criminal sanctions against Assange.

To round off, I hereby accuse Obama of raping me. What's that, all important news about Obama isn't being drowned out by my accusation?

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[FuckingNickName]

the only reason you have to persuade 100 million people is because states' rights are vanishing, federalism is dying, and regionalism has become a bad word [...] were Cuba a democracy (or similar) one would only need to persuade 5 million, so the GP's shock impact of 9 figures is really fraudulent.

So, were the USA to have a more reasonable system of government, or were the USA the size of Cuba, what I'd said about the USA would be fraudulent.

And phantomfive's point about only needing to reach out to the voting public betrays his naive cynicism. If I were to present a powerful platform offering an alternative to the government the US has enjoyed for the past 30 years, say, I'd be confronted with campaigns one hundred times as powerful to drown me out. The number of people who choose to vote would go right up.

if you can command enough people for a bloody rebellion to succeed, you can easily gain control with a fair election

This hypothesis has such far-reaching consequences that you're going to have to do more than just make the assertion.

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[FuckingNickName]

Oh, now you're talking like a crackpot. When was the last time anyone in the US was arrested for stating a political opinion? I'll tell you, the last time it happened in Cuba was this year.

I guess not everyone's native language here is English, so you may have skipped over a few words. To reiterate: "To make a difference, you need substance and medium." Merely stating a political opinion isn't having substance and medium. The US is sufficiently sophisticated to let any man waste time giving his opinion.

To make a difference, you first need substance to back up your message: something like video footage of abuses in war. Then you need a medium: something like a famous web site devoted to whistleblowing.

The US military, always with a sense of humour, charged for the former one day after Independence Day this year. As for dealing with the latter, see other post.

Re:meanwhile, in the free capitalist Europe/USA

[c6gunner]

You don't really deserve a response, but two points:

1. Your pedophilia will never be accepted, any more than we would turn a blind eye if you happened to be a murderer.

2. You really need to figure out which aspect of which nation you're complaining about, instead of lumping the entire world in together and comparing them en masse to Cuba. One second you're complaining about laws in Italy, the next you're bitching about the personal opinions of politicians in the US. You clearly have no actual point to make, which was your problem right from the start.

Here are some links

[arielCo]

He's already on the Internet.

Re:severe government restrictions and censorship?

[Gerald]

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
PART III Article 12 Paragraph 3.
The above-mentioned rights shall not be subject to any restrictions except those which are provided by law, are necessary to protect national security, public order (ordre public), public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others, and are consistent with the other rights recognized in the present Covenant.

If you don't like your HOA then don't buy in that neighborhood.

He's a Dictator, not President

[mangu]

first of all he is ex-president. What threats of his powers are you talking about?

Formal titles do not mean that much in Communist countries. Leonid Brezhnev, for instance, was "General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union", while Nikolai Podgorny was "Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR" until 1977, when a power struggle removed him from office.

What really matters is how much power each one holds. Fidel lost a lot of that power when he fell sick, but since he has been recovering some of his health his power seems to be increasing.

US government might want to paint a worse picture of their enemies than what they actually are! It's not even only Cuba.. It's China, Russia, North Korea, whatever country with different views, culture and society.

I have never seen the US government trying to paint a bad picture of any truly democratic country, meaning a country with freedom of expression, multiple party political system, and regularly scheduled elections with different parties alternating in power. However, when a country starts slipping from democracy, like Venezuela which is steadily drifting away from those three principles, then the US government starts having reservations about that country.

Disclaimer: I'm not an American but, as you mention that some of the countries the US government demonizes may not be as bad as they say, in the same way the US may not be as bad as you think.

Re:He's a Dictator, not President

[mspohr]

I have never seen the US government trying to paint a bad picture of any truly democratic country, meaning a country with freedom of expression, multiple party political system, and regularly scheduled elections with different parties alternating in power.

Do a little research on the US CIA backed military overthrow of democratically elected Allende in Chile (1973). Not only did the US "paint a bad picture" but they instigated (CIA) the overthrow of the government and installed a military dictatorship. This was not the first of the last time this happened but it is a good representative example.

Re:He's a Dictator, not President

[mangu]

different parties alternating in power

That's not a principal of democracy. It is up to the people to choose their leadership. And if they are happy with their leadership, they are free to choose it again.

When someone tried that in the US they changed the Constitution to prohibit it.

An incumbent president has too much power and it's too easy for him to hold to the office indefinitely.

Re:He's a Dictator, not President

[jbssm]

Has they did in Iran. Most Americans don't know, but the fact that Iran has this shitty regimen now is that USA and UK overthrown an democratic elected secular government in 1953 because the prime minister of Iran at the time nationalized the oil industry of the country.

Re:He's a Dictator, not President

[bussdriver]

FDR was the greatest and most popular president in USA history and setup more for the EU and Japan than any leader of the last century. He fought the banksters that we recently LOST against (we didn't really put up much of a fight.) The result of all the great things FDR accomplished is we got term limits so nobody as great will be able to do so much good for mankind. He was the opposite of a tyrant and the was very reason we didn't have term limits.

Re:He's a Dictator, not President

[alexmin]

Arguably, the overthrow of the socialist regime was the best thing that happened to Chile in recent history. Take a look how they do now comparing to their neighbors. Even recent economic crisis did not hurt them much.

Face it, most people are not that smart. US was founded a republic and not democracy for a reason.

Re:He's a Dictator, not President

[Scrameustache]

Although the CIA certainly was involved in both cases, it's not correct to say the US caused either of these coups. They did not cause the government to fall, it was already falling in both cases, all the CIA did was to make sure it fell in the direction they wanted.

You have it all wrong. First of all, go read about IRAN CONTRA, that will tell you that they did indeed, along with the brits, engineer that coup from A to Z. It's not a zany conspiracy theory, it's a well documented fact.
Secondly, you list the result of black ops (sabotaging production etc) as things the CIA isn't responsible for, which is just plain blind.

There isn't any proof that the CIA was involved in Chile, no smoking gun besides their exact modus operandi, but Iran was declassified, it's written down, you just have to go read it.

Re:He's a Dictator, not President

[Bing Tsher E]

Do a little research on the US CIA backed military overthrow of democratically elected Allende in Chile (1973).

Please do more than a little research. Don't just read the usual Trotskyite pamphlets, in other words.

Re:He's a Dictator, not President

[Bing Tsher E]

The result of all the great things FDR accomplished is we got term limits so nobody as great will be able to do so much good for mankind.

Term limits, to keep someone like Fidel Castro from being able to be president for life. Or FDR. Thank goodness not everybody puts FDR up on a pedestal like you do. The only thing that saved his legacy was WWII. He would have continued to ruin the US Economy otherwise.

Re:He's a Dictator, not President

[thijsh]

No, that simply isn't possible. Everyone knows that USA and UK only invade to bring Democracy! They would never overthrow democratically elected governments to install dictator regimes only for US economic gains!
I can know it because I saw it on TV, they even super-duper-swore it to be true on Fox.

Re:He's a Dictator, not President

[thijsh]

Why is that always the only response you see when someone points out these kind of covert operations perpetrated by the USA they immediately associate the person with being a communist? You probably didn't get the memo that this centuries FUD is supposed to be about terrorists... The cold war is over, so take your communist-FUD and stick in you own red star.

Re:He's a Dictator, not President

[Scrameustache]

Why is that always the only response you see when someone points out these kind of covert operations perpetrated by the USA they immediately associate the person with being a communist?

Pavlovian conditioning, I guess...

Fidel Castro consumes 200 to 300 news items a day

[John Hasler]

I've always thought there should be more real news. So that's where it's going.

Free WiFi at Havanna University.

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it kind of strange that so many claim not to have Internet Access in Cuba.

Last time I was there, I had my laptop with me. I sat outside the physics building at the University of Havanna, and used the free Wifi. No problems connecting to the internet. Tad annoying that everything had to go through proxy-servers, but with the extremely limited bandwidth, not very strange that they want caching.

Didn't find a single censored website. https worked wonderfully well too.

Re:Free WiFi at Havanna University.

[Pomslo]

Yup, university of havanna.

Try going out of the touristical/showoof-how-good-we-are-managing places.

You willf ind totally different situations.

So that means...

[CreamyG31337]

He's probably reading this?
Hi from Canada!
Send some cigars!

Re:So that means...

[tunapez]

Hola amigo! Que tal?

Espero usted surfe(?) todos articulos con RSS feeds, senor.

/spanglish

Anonymous Coward

[PPH]

Fidel. Is that you?

Internet penetration and the embargo

[ciguanabo]

I was always critical of the cuban government because of their internet censorship and regulation. However, in a recent interview Fidel Castro gives an explanation about why the restrictions are necessary. Basically, because of the US embargo, Cuba cannot buy the materials required for a broadband connection (any company that sells hardware to Cuba would be fined). The internet that is available at the moment has to go through a satellite instead of through a fibre optic backbone. This makes the connection much more expensive and slower. According to Castro, it is due to this technical restrictions that the government has to prioritise who can access the internet and who cannot.

I am not entirely convinced by this explanation, although maybe someone who knows more about the costs and speed of these types of connections can say whether it makes sense. Ideally, any connection that is available should be accessible to anyone at, for example, libraries. I'm not sure whether this is possible in Cuba right now (anyone that can describe the current situation in Cuba?).

The article also mentions that Cuba is building a submarine connection through Venezuela, which is aimed at solving the "internet shortage".

He does have a point, let's not ad-hominem it...

[KingAlanI]

Internet distribution *does* help punch through the dominant media organizations' control (whether news media or recorded-music media)

How free&happy&healthy is capitalist Europ

[Paul Fernhout]

At least everyone in Cuba have access to medical care.
    http://www.hr676.org/

On your points:

"Go to work,"
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html

"send your kids to school."
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
http://www.holtgws.com/

"Follow fashion,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-consumerism
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html

"act normal."
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

"Walk on the pavements,"
http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about (shows how unusual that is)

"watch T.V."
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/
http://www.tvturnoff.org/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

"Save for your old age,"
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-collapse-best-practices.html

"obey the law."
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

"Repeat after me: I am free."
http://www.amctv.com/videos/the-prisoner-1960s-video/
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Any more? :-)

What's his handle?

[Culture20]

But what's his /. handle? And more importantly, ASL?

Re:Revolution

[Phrogman]

Its funny but the cynical side of me can't actually visualize the US wanting the Cuban's to revolt and replace their government with a democracy friendly to the US and its interests. Instead what I see is a lot of corporations wanting to reassert control over Cuba so they can rape its resources and access a source of cheap labor. I no longer believe the US has any interest in promoting democracy I guess, recent decades of foreign policy under Bush I and II seem to have disabused me of that notion. Obama hasn't done much to fix the situation either, although I recognize it will likely take years to try to fix the US after the Republicans have had years to seriously screw it up and twist the US into something it wasn't intended to be by its founders.

I hope Cuba gets access to the Internet so we can see what effects it has on the country and its people. I don't think Communism works very well, but it might just be that it has served the interests of Cuba well enough. Capitalism sure wasn't working before the revolution, the country was being run by big US corporations, the Mafia, and corrupt government officials. I can understand why some people in Cuba might not want to see that return.

what a pile of lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Castro didn't start a a communist, is the only choice he had left thanks to the US Mafia that used to run the casinos in Batista era and thanks to the US politicians that treated Cuba as their own personal whorehouse

The situation Cuba and the Cubans are owns a lot to the US embargo

The US maintain a illegal occupation of legit Cuban territory (I know Guantanamo is a great place to torture murder and make people disappear outside US territory not questions asked)

If anything resembling justice was left in this world, many a US politicians, members of the great US families and all their mob friends would be rooting in prisons (midnight express stile prisons)

once upon a time used to be socialism, communism, capitalism, national socialism.

No one talks about national capitalism

Hail dollar, the mob =the new SS, Goebbels would have been be proud of American television, Hollywood and US news services

Haiti isn't free

[bussdriver]

Haiti is far from free- the USA and France have been screwing them since the beginning and I do not think it will end with reconstruction which they are using to continue to screw them. In many ways Haiti is the freemarket libertarian ideal world of the American "right wing" except most the Haitians don't want what they have and the Americans don't understand what they are professing to want for themselves.

Modern propaganda is so good it can make an informed intellectual question the effectiveness of democracies... can democracy survive the exploitation from the march of science? indefinitely?? think about it (go sci-fi if you must to think about the limitations.)

Re:He does have a point, let's not ad-hominem it..

[rcastro0]

He does have a point... a trivial one.

Big media used to be the 500 pound gorilla. These days it is more and more looking like Clint Eastwood in the movie "San Torino".

He seemed like a nice guy to me.

[gedw99]

I met him when i was there in 2000.
He flew down in his Helicopter into this village i was in; out of the blue and did a speech etc.
i was there with a Brit and a Yank and we asked if we could meet him and we did.
Mainly talk about Capitalism being evil etc etc.

small world eh ...

Re:He seemed like a nice guy to me.

[gedw99]

Viva la Libre !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvZdNqebCC4

Re:He seemed like a nice guy to me.

[gedw99]

"Trust me girlie. They are all rotten to the core.
I'm one of the good guys."

http://www.subvertednation.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/fidel-castro.jpg

Re:He seemed like a nice guy to me.

[CodeBuster]

I'm sure that under the right circumstances Joseph Stalin would have been a charming guest at a dinner party, but that didn't make him a nice guy or excuse his crimes.

Reminds me of old Soviet joke (sirca 1980)

[alexmin]

There used to be a widely used Soviet slogan. Here is rough translation to English: 'everything for person, everything is in name of person". Notice the lack of articles, there are none in Russian. So the joke read as "Everything for person, everything is in name of person. AND I even know the name of THAT PERSON."

Of course, we never heard of "Animal Farm", not before l1991. Well, Fidel always was a good student of Russians.

Re:[Citation Needed]

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Go to youtube, search for 'Noam Chomsky'.

Re:Revolution

[Rakshasa Taisab]

When did the US ever have any interest in promoting democracy? Considering all the democratically elected governments they have overthrown, vilified and/or marginalized it seems much to me that democracy is something they actively work against unless the results please them.

Re:Democratically Elected Governments

[Phrogman]

Yeah, it seems to me that whether or not a foreign government gets to stay in power or is overthrown depends primarily on whether or not its willing to allow Big US Corporations to sack the country of its resources in exchange for a few well placed bribes. If US business interests are threatened, in go the Marines (i.e. US Sugar in the Dominican Republic). It seems to me that the US military is frequently thrown into conflicts, not to defend US interests or foreign policies, but to defend US corporations and their profit margins. I have tremendous respect for those in uniform, but I hate to think of people dying or being injured in some foreign country so that the VP of Finance for Haliburton can record another record quarter. That's just criminal.

Of course, on the political spectrum worldwide, even the most left-wing leaning Democrats in the US would likely be considered Conservatives elsewhere. So if a left-leaning government comes into power it will look positively communist to many US politicians. I have been told that calling someone a "liberal" in the US is a pejorative, whereas here in Canada its just a political party (which is of course, extremely conservative and no longer liberal, as we are imitating the US up here north of the border these days). Even our New Democratic Party is pretty mainstream these days (and irrelevant mostly).

Re:Numbers...

[Phrogman]

Well, its very difficult to estimate numbers for this sort of thing without doing some in depth research, but from just a quick scan of the internet:

Iraq War:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
- 97,000 - 106,000 Civilian deaths

Afghanistan:
http://icasualties.org/oef/
- A few thousand military casualties on our side, didn't see civilian casualties or taliban ones.

Cuban Revolution:
http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/forum/dominicans-abroad/latin-america/2203/VICTIMS-OF-THE-CUBAN-REVOLUTION
- Call it 85,000 deaths for the listed items.

Re:[Citation Needed]

[alantus]

I'm not going to dispute the CIA involvement in overthrowing some presidents through the years, but that reference is as valid as my unborn child.

Re:Revolution

[the_womble]

Instead what I see is a lot of corporations wanting to reassert control over Cuba so they can rape its resources and access a source of cheap labor.

That is usual definition of "a democracy friendly to the US and its interests"

Republicans have had years to seriously screw it up and twist the US into something it wasn't intended to be by its founders.

US foreign policy has been much the same for a long time, under both Republican and Democrat governments.

I don't think Communism works very well, but it might just be that it has served the interests of Cuba well enough.

Communism works quite well in the third world because the economies are simpler (so central planning works better) and they often lack a lot of what is needed for capitalism to work (well-judged regulation to slap down monopolies, honest enough government to prevent interventions that distort markets, etc.)

Re:I'm surprised... CIA bullshit book

[akayani]

The CIA 'Fact' book have the life expectancy of people in Gaza set at longer than Australians who are the third top of the UN list. There are statistics, facts and the CIA Bullshit Book.

Castro on the internet...
"I wish I'd known that."
"When I told them that they didn't believe me."
"Should I tell them who killed Kennedy?"
"They think I don't read Slashdot!"

Re:[Citation Needed]

[Bing Tsher E]

Go to youtube, search for 'Noam Chomsky'.

I'm not interested in mid 1960's linguistics, and don't feel the need to prop up the alternative career of someone whose expertise in the field became obsolete, so he switched to being a star of the Alternative Press.

Dull. Chomsky is a rhetorician. He's good at it, mind you.

Does Fidel read conspiracy sites too?

[master_p]

I think Fidel reads conspiracy sites. His latest announcements about imminent nuclear war seem to be taken straight out of godlikeproductions.com.

Re:Does Fidel read conspiracy sites too?

[Kilobug]

Well, Israel has nukes. And it made it clear when US invaded Irak that it would answer with nukes to any attack from Saddam towards it. There is no reason to think they'll behave differently regarding Iran. But Iran, unlike Irak, does have weapons. So if either Israel or USA dares to attack Iran, Iran will launch missiles towards Israel, which, according to their own doctrine, could use their nuclear weapons against Iran. So yes, the risk is significant. That happens when you've two groups of religious/nationalist fanatics (current gov of both Iran and Israel) owning dangerous "toys"...

Mod up!

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Thank you, dear Cuban! I was gonna say pretty much the same: Castro is not particularly murderous, but he certainly does not believe that people should have the freedom to do or say whatever they want to (within the constraints of democratically founded laws).

G.W. Bush was quite murderous, and well - he did his best to be oppressive to those who stood in his way: The US Constitution, evil-doers and those who were not with him. Whoever disagreed with him were aiding terrorists and/or being unpatriotic. And his actions show he does not care about non-American civilian deaths - Blackwater/Xe were allowed to run amok and were not stopped until the Iraq gov't rebelled etc etc etc. He also had a bloody record when he was Guv'nor in Texas.

Re:Numbers... and statistics

[findoutmoretoday]

<quote><p>
- 97,000 - 106,000 Civilian deaths</p><p>Afghanistan:
</p></quote>

Maybe not:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq

1,360,000 death

Re:He should get back to the core cigar compentcie

[nem75]

The next report will be that he is living in his mom's basement . . .

Playing a Night Elf Communist?