things you didn't know re: Cuba that will surprise the heck out of you

[ensho]

http://counterpunch.com/valdes09252009.html


What the BBC Missed
Cuba, Hurricanes and the Internet


Fernando Ravsberg of the BBC reports that Cubans now are permitted to have access to the Internet via the Cuban Post Office. <1> Such a decision has been characterized as "free access" to the Internet. Actually, the service is not free because the Cubans will have to pay per minute of use. In fact, the BBC notes that the service is "expensive." Thus, free apparently does not refer to how much it costs but to the fact that anyone who has money can have access to it. You know, freedom is a function of capacity to purchase.

In the 1950s it used to be called "people's capitalism." Strangely, the BBC did not discover that Cubans invented, over 15 years ago, a service by which access to email is free via the Joven Clubs and the Viejo Clubs within each municipality. In the last 5 years more of those neighborhood clubs offer connectivity to the Internet at no cost to the user. Granted, the service is similar to taking a book out of the library. You have to sign in so that you are allocated time of access on a particular day and time. But, the BBC really meant "free" from government interference, if you can pay. This raises another point, as Saul Landau has noted, "People who criticize socialism love to attack Cuba for anything 'capitalist' that it does -- like charge for Internet use, like Starbucks." <2>

The source for the BBC story, we are told, was the Gaceta Nacional de Cuba, the Cuban version of the US Federal Register. That issue, apparently, is not yet online. Unable to find that item, I opted to read at the most recent issue of the legal compilation from August 19, 2009. That particular issue of the Gaceta contains a number of other laws and regulations. Oddly enough, neither the BBC nor anyone else seem to pay attention to the Gaceta, although one can assume that the BBC reporter reads it. One piece of legislation caught my eye. It dealt with the aftermath of hurricanes in Cuba.

Robert Sandels has noted, "Cuba has an unmatched record of saving lives and property during hurricanes. Cuba does not wait until the damage is done and then CNN rushes to report the dollar amount of damage. Cuba prevents most of the damage by preventive measures such as mandatory evacuations, including pets and household goods." <3>

Resolución No. 90/2009 covered Work and Social Security. <4> Apparently this item is not as important to the BBC as getting connected to the Internet. Yet, the Cuban legislation states that when workers are unable to go to work because of a natural disaster, they will continue to receive pay. What an outrageous idea!. Moreover, during or after a natural disaster, if a male or female worker has to take care of a child because a child care center cannot open, the worker will continue to receive his/her basic salary. How come the BBC did not report on that? Seemingly, connectivity is the key in this age, not salary security.

Also if a worker's home has been destroyed or partially destroyed, the work place will release the person or persons from regular employment so that he or she can work on rebuilding or fixing his/her home. During the period of absence from regular work , the worker or workers will be paid the basic wage. How much time a worker will be granted to labor at the home outside the workplace will be agreed by contract with the employer. Those darned Cubans think that a home is more important than Internet.

Even more disconcerting, the workplace is to help the worker find construction materials for the home. If the worker does not have construction materials available, and the employer cannot find such materials, then the worker would be expected to return to work until the materials are found and then he or she will be released from his/her regular job responsibility until the home reconstruction is terminated.

The worker will be allowed to stay away from work up to a year if he or she can demonstrate that the absence was necessary for home reconstruction. The worker will continue to receive a salary.
-snip-
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our Barons better not read this - they will have strokes and or nervous breakdowns.

and demand that Cuba be bombed immediately.

[Billy Burnett]

1. Here's a great thread by DUser Mika - Cuba: Before and After the 1959 Revolution

Lots of great information in this thread that most Americans have no idea about ...

Cuba: Before and After the 1959 Revolution
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4653650

[justinaforjustice]

2. Thanks for Interesting Post on Cuba and the Link.

The majority of "information" Americans receive about Cuba is written by our big corporation owned media, who have a serious interest in defaming all things Cuban and socialist. Thus, there is little really factual news about Cuba, so this post is very welcome.

As an American living in Venezuela, I've had the opportunity to be treated by some of the Cuban doctors who have come here to staff many of Venezuela's new government provided neighborhood clinics. Their services have been excellent, providing care to millions of Venezuelans who, prior to President Chavez's election, were unable to afford the high cost of private doctors -- if they could even find them near their poor neighborhoods. Now, there is a free doctor down the block. Venezuela, in payment for the Cuban medical personnel, has given Cuba free oil. This is but one example of how Venezuela is using its oil to improve conditions for its own citizens while also improving life for Cubans, a win-win model for true "Free Trade".

Chavez's Venezuela has also relied on the literacy programs developed by Cuba to vastly increase the literacy rate here. According to the great article the poster referenced by DU's Mika, Cuba had an illiteracy rate of 40% before the 1959 revolution, its illiteracy rate is now zero! Venezuela has a national program, called Mission Ribas, which sends teachers throughout the country to teach reading and writing. In ten years, they have halved their illiteracy rate following Cuba's example.

I was shocked to learn recently that in the United States, 40 million people are illiterate, while an additional 40 millions don't comprehend what they read well enough to understand an average newspaper. That is an uneducated population of 80 million in a country with approximately 300 million people, more than 25% of the people in the "wealthiest country in the world". (According to a recent Michael Moore interview, the wealthiest 1% of our population own more than 95% of the rest of us. Clearly American's wealth is not going to education, just as it is not going to provide health care to the majority of our population.)

Just as the American media has demonized Castro and Cuba for the last 50 years, so it is now demonizing President Chavez and Venezuela -- because Cuba and Venezuela have instituted social programs which help their people. Big private corporations don't want to give up any of their profits to taxes to pay for health care and education, so they have bought all the media companies to be able to tell Americans how awful "socialism" is.

We need to wake up to the fact that we have been fed false information about socialism for years. We should be demanding government provided health care and education to the university level too.

The wealth of the big corporations comes from the labor that has been stolen from the workers who produced it. We must demand that the big corporations give back at least some of the wealth they have stolen. They must be forced to pay sufficient taxes to fund the basic services -- health care, education, food and housing -- that every human being deserves.

[Hannah Bell]

3. "40 million people are illiterate, while an additional 40 millions"

us population = 300 million.

i doubt your statistic. do you really believe about 1 out of 2-3 adults can't read?

[SOS]

4. Link:

http://education-portal.com/articles/Illiteracy:_The_Downfall_of_American_Society.html

[Hannah Bell]

5. i don't care if you have a link for a statistic that's bullshit on its face.

either they're defining "illiterate" very differently from most people, or they invented the number.

[Cerridwen]

6. You're right, of course. It's actually 42 million when defined as

"below basic prose literacy." It's only 36 million when defined as "below basic document literacy" and it's 66 million when defined as "below basic quantitative literacy."

From: this .pdf link from
U.S. Department of Education
Institute of Education Sciences
National Assessment of Adult Literacy

Unlike indirect measures of
literacy, which rely on self reports
of literacy skills or
educational attainment, the
assessment measures literacy by
asking respondents to demonstrate
that they understand the
meaning of information found
in texts they are asked to read.

The literacy tasks in the assessment
were drawn from actual
texts and documents, which
were either used in their original
format or reproduced in
the assessment booklets. Each
question appeared before the
materials needed to answer it,
thus encouraging respondents
to read with purpose.

Respondents could correctly
answer many assessment questions
by skimming the text or
document for the information
necessary to perform a
given literacy task. All tasks
were open-ended.

Literacy defined

Prose Literacy

The knowledge and skills
needed to perform prose
tasks (i.e., to search, comprehend,
and use information
from continuous texts).

Document Literacy

The knowledge and skills
needed to perform document
tasks (i.e., to search, comprehend,
and use information
from noncontinuous texts in
various formats).

Quantitative Literacy

The knowledge and skills
required to perform quantitative
tasks (i.e., to identify and
perform computations, either
alone or sequentially, using
numbers embedded in printed
materials).

[Hannah Bell]

8. what 'texts'? what level of "texts"? you can get any bullshit number you want with this.

Prose Literacy

The knowledge and skills
needed to perform prose
tasks (i.e., to search, comprehend,
and use information
from continuous texts).

[Cerridwen]

9. It's all the link. Including samples of each. n/t

[Alameda]

10. Is there any reason to be so aggressive and hostile?

lowering standards to the usage of simplistic and vulgar words does nothing but to add the veracity of the allegations. Given what I see, it probably is accurate.

[Hannah Bell]

11. the stat is useless bullshit. that's not hostility, but fact. calling it "illiteracy" when, in

common usage, "illiteracy" = "inability to read," is deceptive.

given what *i* see, the statistic is bullshit.

[justinaforjustice]

7. U.S. Department of Education Survey Confirms 40 Million Figure.

A report based on a national survey by the Center for National Center for Education Statistics Report "Adult literacy in the United States" in April of 2002, published by the U.S. Department of Education, basically confirms the 40 million figure:

http://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93275.pdf.

Looking for more recent figures, I discovered that the United States failed to report literacy figures to the 2006 United Nations (UNESCO) review of literacy percentages around the world. The study did not state why the United States had failed to supply figures. (Perhaps it was embarrassment!).

[Judi Lynn]

12. Very, VERY interesting. It's good to know. Not surprised they didn't report in 2006! Thanks. n/t