More Ideological Control of Cyberspace?
HAVANA TIMES — The Ideology Department of the Communist Party has set out to “regulate” cyberspace. “One of our main problems is that we’ve been developing projects with practically no regulations,” said Colonel Rolando Alfonso, head of the institution that controls the press and culture in Cuba.
At a meeting of the Cuban Journalists Association (UPEC), criticisms were leveled at “some colleagues who contribute journalistic pieces to foreign websites and publications whose financing comes from abroad,” as well as the lack of “moderation of comments on our web-sites.”
The “moderation” announced could mean greater political control over what Cubans write in blogs and websites.
We don’t all live in the US so the habit of emagicmtman of citing instances a variety of problems within his own country as if that excuses the activities of the Castro family regime in Cuba is put bluntly, fatuous. The anti-Cuban dinosaurs are those opposed to the freedom of that country and its people and the retention of “socialismo”. Only an old fogey would be able to list the sites given, I personally don’t know any of them. As for Zionists and Arab think tanks they are absolutely irrelevant to the subject under discussion – but I suppose the mind of the old fogey wanders.
Just to remind emagicmtman the subject matter is the Ideology Department of the Communist Party of Cuba setting out to regulate cyberspace. Is he in favour or against?
As usual, Carlyle MacDuff cherry picks his comments; there have been many instances of investigative reporters in the U.S. being fired and denied a livelihood in the so-called mainstream media because they accepted $$$ from Arab think tanks in doing research for their articles, especially when it concerns Zionist apartheid practices. In many cases, these articles were not even published in the mainstream media, rather only for scholarly journals or little radical rags. I think one case for Alex Cockburn when he wrote for the WSJ, but there were many others, too. Of course there were no such challenges to reporters who supported the official U.S. governement positions, or the pro-Israel lobby. As for unrully comments following articles, the expatriat woman who ran Cuba Green Screen had to shut it down, as the comments of the anti-Cuban dynosaurs became so vituperous and threatening. For the most part, if there is no moderation, then the dynosaurs just wind up talking to themselves, as is the case with comments following articles in the Drudge Report, FOX NEWS, NEWSMAX, Generacion Y, and a host of other sites which cater to the old fogeys. (Just look at who advertises at such sites on this side of the pond to get an idea of their audience!)
Please be good enough to provide firm information regarding the ‘protection racket’ you mention – unless it is a figment of your imagination.
Who controls this ‘protection racket’? How will it force Cuba to hand over its land and assets to the US?
There appears to be a misconception that the only alternative that Cubans have to the Castro family regime is to revert to having a US type of government system working in collaboration with the US Mafia and a puppet dictator. I too would be opposed to such a system.
Fortunately there are other alternatives.
In supporting greater internet access and greater dialogue within Cuba, you are wisely opposing the policies of the Castro family regime.
I wish to see the people of Cuba free from the one party system which serves the regime. I want to see my wife and her family and my God-daughter able to vote for a party of their choice and to be able to express their views openly without being reported by the CDR. I want to see a free media and I want to see communism in all its forms condemned to the garbage can of history.
Let me be clear about socialism. here in Canada we have a New Democratic Party which is both socialist and democratic. I don’t agree with many of their intended policies, but they are sincere, they support the multi-party system and I have friends who are members of the NDP and they properly have the right to vote for whom they choose. I see their socialism as different from the Castro family regime’s described “Socialismo”. In an article in Granma by Fidel Castro Ruz about three years ago when he was still in full possession of his marbles, he wrote that to him, communism and “socialism” were the same thing. That is why I refer to socialismo.
To me, the major contribution made by a socialist party was by the British Labour Party in 1948 when it introduced the first national health system in the world. Other countries and political parties recognised the idea and adopted it. Hence Canada which has never had a socialist government formed a national health system and so have the countries which constitute the EEC. The US is a standalone and in consequence has some 30 million people with no medical services and yet spends almost 18% of its GDP on health. (compared with Canada at 10.9%).
Being older has few advantages, but I am able to express my views about communism based on what I personally witnessed in Europe and in particular in Austria and Vienna. I have witnessed the behaviour of the Red Army as an occupation force. I remember the Hungarian uprising and the Russian tanks rolling into Budapest to suppress people seeking freedom. Similarly I remember the uprising in Czechoslovakia – which was opposed by one of Fidel Castro’s Ministers – who was dismissed for his view. I served in the British Army in Germany when we were still an occupying force and I was there when the great Konrad Adenaur put his first Bill in front of the German Bundestag, at that time in Bonn as Berlin was in the Russian zone. His first Bill which was adopted by the elected members of the Bundestag, was to eliminate the death penalty in Germany. I recall Adenaur saying – I translate from the German – “This is to ensure that my country can never kill a man again legally.” It was a magnificent gesture appreciated by thinking people across Western Europe.
Adenaur led his people into the free democratic world and they didn’t follow the US system being multi-party. Similarly, a free Cuba would have other and in my view better alternatives.
Au contraire. I support greater internet access and dialogue within Cuba. But I don’t support the protection racket to force Cuba to hand over its land and assets to the US.
Freedom of the individual.
Maybe the Ideology Department of the Communist Party of Cuba should meet with the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of Cuba and the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution with Alejandro Castro Espin as Chair to ensure a balanced approach to determining how to stifle any and all forms of individual expression.
One can only hope that those who talk of rapprochement and people like President Hollande who have been fooled into talk of a more liberated Cuba pursuing change, pay attention to this report upon this meeting of the so-called Cuban Journalists Association.
I look forward to Mr, Goodrich, Analyser, Dan, Dani et al now explaining further why they support the Castro family regime. Just imagine the howls that would emanate from those same people if the Government of the US were to make similar comment.
I say that in the expectancy of a retorts endeavoring to make such comparisons. Wilful blindness to the realities of Cuba and its Socialismo coupled with determination to attack the elected US Government and President exudes from all they write. All that I for one seek, is the freedom of the wonderful people of Cuba. Hands up those against freedom!
Rolando looks rather old to me. Part of the old communist guard still trying to control what Cubans think and say. I believe its too late for that.
I can’t wait for the usual suspects to chime in and let us know why this is needed.
You can’t make this stuff up and have people believe you. The question that never gets asked, let alone answered is why do this? What are the Castros afraid of?
As is so often the case the old fear mongers are at it again, thinking they can put the genie back in the bottle.