Because This Is Why Cubans Want to Get Online

Always on the cutting edge of technology trends, the Cuban dictatorship today launched EcuRed, it's homegrown and government-run version of Wikipedia (as of yet no word on the development of Wikileaks.cu, I'm afraid). According to authorities, readers can append and edit articles, pending the approval of a government administrator and provided the user can find a way to get online. Reuters has all the gory details:

EcuRed contains an extensive biography of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, including his role after the illness that made him cede power to brother Raul Castro in 2006.

"Today he writes and participates in the struggle of ideas at a global level. For his moral authority, he influences important and strategic decisions of the Revolution," it said.

There is also an article about Raul Castro, who officially replaced his brother as president in 2008 and is described as a "revolutionary combatant, political leader, statesman and military chief."

"He has contributed relevant support to the struggles of the Cuban people in defense of their sovereignty and independence," said the entry.

At $1.50 an hour for Internet access, it would cost about a month's salary to clean up that passage.

The Daily Caller translates some of EcuRed (and we have to take their word for it, because the site is intermittently accessible). My favorite, from the entry on George W. Bush: "In the presidential election campaign of 2000, Bush declared himself a 'compassionate conservative,' but he did not know how to stay quiet and keep to himself his past as a drug addict." Yeah, a free press makes information suppression rather difficult.

Comments

[hmm]

In more awesome news, guy with CP owns BBC anchor and makes him his bitch. (Nevermind the fact the handicapped guys politics are bullshit, his ownage of the news douche is awesome.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXNJ3MZ-AUo

[Rather]

McIntyre gave an excellent interview and does represent the fear that education will be limited to the wealthy. The government pledged not to raise tuition but they are tripling rates in a third of the universities

[hmm]

subsidizing education has never gone wrong...

that was sarcasm

[EJM]

I hate to say it, but Mr. Walker beat you to it.

[Old Mexican]

According to authorities, readers can append and edit articles, pending the approval of a government administrator and provided the user can find a way to get online.

Which they should have, as Cuba enjoys Net Neutrality....

[BakedPenguin]

In the "no fuckin' way" category of book titles, our winner is Fidel Castro.

In the "you bet yer ass" category, we have this book, by one of his antecedents.

[BakedPenguin]

Goddammit. It worked in preview.

No fuckin' way, Se?or Castro.

His more accurate predecessor.

[prolefeed]

At $1.50 an hour for Internet access, it would cost about a month's salary to clean up that passage.

Nah, a dime would suffice:

EcuRed contains an extensive biography of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, including his role after the illness that made him cede power to brother Raul Castro in 2006.

"Today he writes and participates in the struggle of ideas at a global level. For his moral authority, he influences important and strategic decisions of the Revolution," it said.

"His days of inflicting tyranny and misery over, Fidel now just proposes idiocies like making a Cuban Wikipedia, moderated by the government, where no one in their right mind would ever alter a single entry for fear of retribution."

There is also an article about Raul Castro, who officially replaced his brother as president in 2008 and is described as a

"revolutionary combatant, political leader, statesman and military chief."

"He has contributed relevant support to the struggles of the Cuban people in defense of their sovereignty and independence," said the entry.

"Raul is a tyrannical sociopath who continues his brother's legacy of oppressing the Cuban people."

[sevo]

And if you were Cuban, writing that means you could kiss your ration cards and your job goodbye, unless they just tossed you in the slammer.

[prolefeed]

I'm pretty sure a Cuban making that comment about their Dear Leaders would at best get them tossed in jail, and at worst executed.

[flye]

This article has been flagged for administrative review.

[John C. Randolph]

We could have gotten rid of those assholes decades ago if we'd dropped the stupid embargo. The more Cubans see fat American tourists, the less they'll believe what their local kleptocrats tell them.

-jcr

[Joe_D]

Yeah, if you see a fat American spend more in a day than you make in a year... you ask him what he does... "I'm a garbage man" or "I paint houses" or "Damn, an hour working at Burger King can get me 5 prostitutes!"...

You might get pissed off enough at your workers' paradise to really start tearing it down.

[John C. Randolph]

I'm sure it would work in North Korea, too.

-jcr

[Michael Moore]

Why are you talking about me?

[Wind Rider]

This. Castro played the USG like a freakin fiddle over the issue, which has been one of the key elements he uses to justify staying in power (the threat of 'Yanqui Invasion!') by pretending there was basically a state of war (handed to him on a silver platter in the form of the botched invasion by an ill equipped ragtag bunch, that was greenlighted by the Navy Lieutenant who sunk his only command, and his brother, the lawyer who never tried a case, which they then pulled the rug out from under by canceling the air show portion).

Any time it looked like it might get lifted, all Fidel had to do was say something nasty about Jesse Helms, and it was on, all over again.

Fucking. Stupid.

[sevo]

"greenlighted by the Navy Lieutenant who sunk his only command, and his brother, the lawyer who never tried a case,..."
And then a relative let a date drown rather than endanger his feeding at the public trough?
I'm seeing "Kennedy".....

[C'mon man]

Sometimes, despite the retarded glazed over look of attendees at Our Leader's rallies, I fear that Obama will never reach the adoration and idolatry levels achieved by Castro. One can only dream.

[Michael Copps]

The idea of EcuRed makes me soooooooooooo wet...

[Robert Gibbs]

Sure would make MY job easier...

[Ed Schultz]

Mine, too!

[Sean W. Malone]

Making jokes about this really feels like cheating, doesn't it? It is instantaneous self-parody.

Fail.

[sevo]

"Making jokes about this really feels like cheating, doesn't it?"
The jokes write themselves....

[Cuban Secret Police]

In Cuba, the jokes write you!

[Mark Cuban]

I have my own wiki!!!!

[sevo]

From the DC translation/commnets:
"an entry entitled "Blockade," the U.S. blockade of Cuba is described as "the most heightened expression of a cruel and inhuman policy, void of legality and legitimacy and deliberately designed to provoke hunger, diseases, and desperation in the Cuban population."

This is sad and/or ironic on two counts:
1) The default lefty position is that international trade only exploits poor nations to the benefit of the rich trading partner, so Cuba should be quite wealthy as a result of the embargo.
2) It's a good thing it really isn't an embargo, since, like most brain-dead commy agrarian nations, they'd starve if it weren't for imported food. Last I looked, Cuba was importing something over 70% of its food, and quite a bit of that from the US.

[Nobody saw this coming]

"as of yet no word on the development of Wikileaks.cu, I'm afraid"

Yeah, no way would the thugs that own Cuba want to support an organization whose ultimate goal is to undermine every action the Western world takes to defend itself from those that wish to destroy it.