How the Reds Saved the Newspaper Business

Michael C. Moynihan | August 27, 2009

First, prevent citizens from buying computers with which they will access free (and hopelessly bourgeois) news. After lifting the ban, make sure your fellow comrades have no money with which to purchase out-of-date computers, probably running some commie version of OS/2 Warp. If they eventually cobble together enough cash from relatives abroad, be sure to limit Internet access to government approved websites—accessed from libraries and schools only, never the home—because the uncensored Internet "constitute[s] one of the tools for global extermination." It's also "bad for democracy," because people stop buying print copies of newspapers and, the next thing you know, your favorite columnist from Juventude Rebelde is contributing, pro bono, to the Huffington Post. Final step? Create a shortage of toilet paper:

Day-old copies of the Communist party's newspaper Granma, a traditional substitute [for toilet paper], are available for less than a U.S. penny. And that's six to eight full, if rough, pages per day. Cuban officials say the shortage is the result of the global financial crisis and three devastating hurricanes last summer, which forced cuts in imports as well as domestic production because of reductions in electricity and imports of raw materials. 

But CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria says that "at the bottom of this toilet paper shortage is Cuba's continuing commitment to its bizarro world of socialist economics."

"Cuba's disastrous economy would be a joke were it not for the poverty it has perpetuated among millions of Cubans,'' Zakaria said in a video commentary posted last week. "The whole country is stagnating. Fifty percent of its arable fields are going unfarmed. First and second year college students work one month out of the year in agriculture."

Whole article, from The Miami Herald. 

Comments

Shannon Love|8.27.09 @ 4:30PM|#

And yet they can still afford top of line free health care for everyone, especially visiting leftists.

Amazing!

|8.27.09 @ 5:01PM|#

Cuba's disastrous economy would be a joke were it not for the poverty it has perpetuated among millions of Cubans

QFMFT!

Joe M|8.27.09 @ 5:07PM|#

Poor Cuba. Such a beautiful country; such an ugly government.

|8.27.09 @ 5:09PM|#

Cuban officials say the shortage is the result of the global financial crisis and three devastating hurricanes last summer, which forced cuts in imports as well as domestic production because of reductions in electricity and imports of raw materials.

If the Castro brothers were in charge of the Sahara desert, they would soon experience a shortage of sand.

|8.27.09 @ 5:35PM|#

Day-old copies of the Communist party's newspaper Granma, a traditional substitute [for toilet paper], are available for less than a U.S. penny.

Allow me to savor the image of millions of Cubans wiping their ass with the official, er, organ of the Cuban Communist party.

And that's six to eight full, if rough, pages per day.

Personally, I don't mind if its a little abrasive. You know, for the scrubbing.

What, too much information?

|8.27.09 @ 5:39PM|#

I used OS/2 Warp. All the cool people were using it back then. Yes, they were definitely cool, it's just that my definition of "cool" might be different from the one used by others.

|8.27.09 @ 5:42PM|#

"Cuban officials say the shortage is the result of decades of economic madness, which forced cuts in imports as well as domestic production due to centralization of capital.


there, fixed it.

T|8.27.09 @ 5:47PM|#

because the uncensored Internet "constitute[s] one of the tools for global extermination."

For examples, just keep reading the comments here.

Spartacus|8.27.09 @ 6:17PM|#

You know, that sentence kind of makes my head hurt. Global extermination of what? Is this just a bad translation? Or do they think that the internet is going to cause a nucular winter or something?

I don't get it.

|8.27.09 @ 6:26PM|#

Cuban officials say the shortage is the result of decades of kleptocratic authoritarian rule, which forced cuts in imports as well as domestic production due to centralization of capital.

Now its fixed.

Paul|8.27.09 @ 6:28PM|#

First and second year college students work one month out of the year in agriculture."

It's like AmeriCorps, for Cubans! Non-specialized shared labor. It's the future. All the young people are doing it.

Initially I mistyped AmeriCorps as Americrops... I almost left it.

Grandpa Whithers|8.27.09 @ 6:32PM|#

"First and second year college students work one month out of the year in agriculture."

That's actually a good idea for this or any country. Probably more worthwhile than study abroad programs.

|8.27.09 @ 6:39PM|#

R C:


ok, but it was not broken before, just inadequate. and that's the first time i've ever felt that way...

|8.27.09 @ 7:14PM|#

Allow me to savor the image of millions of Cubans wiping their ass with the official, er, organ of the Cuban Communist party.

In Communist Cuba, toilet paper wipes you!

Paul|8.27.09 @ 7:25PM|#

In Communist Cuba, toilet paper wipes you!

All that and 100% access to healthcare!

The Libertarian Guy|8.27.09 @ 7:46PM|#

Gosh, go figure... a CNN talking-head, actually speaking ill of a communist country.




Oh, and... shut the fuck up, Tony.

Hugh Akston|8.27.09 @ 7:57PM|#

Paul beat me to it. But what the hell.

First and second year college students work one month out of the year in agriculture."

I think Obama promised this very thing during the campaign.

|8.27.09 @ 7:58PM|#

Probably more worthwhile than study abroad programs.

I'll not stand idly by and read you insulting study a broad programs.

Grandpa Whithers|8.27.09 @ 8:06PM|#

"I'll not stand idly by and read you insulting study a broad programs."

Personal experience in both venues.

John Berresford|8.28.09 @ 4:00AM|#

I traveled in the USSR in 1967. What little toilet paper there was was waxy and didn't work or satisfy. The main substitute you found in toilets was cut-up squares of recent copies of Pravda and Investia. BUT someone in the Ministry of Pravda Cutting was always careful to cut out pictures of Lenin before the squares were put in the toilets so that no one's hind-quarters would ever brush against the image of the Great Leader and Teacher.

Billy!|8.28.09 @ 9:02AM|#

"Cuban officials say the shortage is the result of the global financial crisis..."

Can a communist regime suffer form a global financial crisis? I thought they were supposed to be above all that bourgeois crap.

Michael|8.28.09 @ 11:09AM|#

This brings back some not-so-fond memories of my childhood spent in Poland. People regularly lined up for rations of brown, non-perforated, gritty rolls of toilet paper. For those of you that can't picture this, think of the low grade brown paper towels you see in public restrooms but slightly elastic.

David Pinto|8.28.09 @ 8:17PM|#

When I saw the headline I thought you meant the Cincinnati Reds!