From: kurt@eskimo.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum)
Subject: CACM's Cuba hatchet job, Nov. `92 (was Re: Cuban refugees)
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Summary: More on Cuba: I do a hatchet job on the hatchet job : )
Keywords: Cuba,CACM,propaganda techniques,US embargo against Cuba,
	disinformation
Cc: kurt,local-computer-activists@cs.washington.edu,
	cpsr-seattle@csli.stanford.edu,goodman@mis.arizona.edu
Organization: >>> Eskimo North (206)-FOR-EVER <<<
	<MS-C.720410727.1103527590.mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU>,
	<1992Nov7.090357.16588@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 04:08:23 GMT

[ Note follow-ups line.  It does not appear that this posting made it out
 the first time around to alt.activism or seattle.general, nor did it get
 Cc:'ed as required.  Apologies if you've seen this before; it did make it
 out as misc.activism.progressive <1992Nov7.090357.16588@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
 (Sat, 7 Nov 1992 09:03:57 GMT).  The Cuba thread originated in
 seattle.general .
 --kurt ]

In article <987@nazgul.UUCP> bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes:
>In article <MS-C.720410727.1103527590.mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU> mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes:
>/In 1991, the number of Cubans rescued at sea after fleeing Cuba was
>/2,203.
>
>I wonder how many Americans fled to the Workers' Paradise in Cuba during
>the same period.

3 answers here -- take your pick :)
1)	23,795 -- and they *all* had a pirated copy of Zortech C++! :)
	[FYI late-comers, Walter works for Zortech -- kurt]
2)	42 (this answer works everywhere!  but, like Godel's Theorem, any
	system strong enough to prove it can also disprove it :)
3)	Probably not many -- personally, I wouldn't care to be mistaken for a
	returning gusano.  But maybe refraining from wearing fatigues and
	shades suffices here.  Birkenstocks probably work better :) .  Many
	Americans did just that in the early 70's onwards.

BTW, anybody see the hatchet job on Cuba in the Nov. `92 CACM?

It looks like 5 of Mark's cantankerous AIs got loose and were pressed
into service by the USIA.  A by-blow of the brief collaboration appears as

	G. M. Mesher, R. O. Briggs, S. E. Goodman, L. I. Press, and J. M. Snyder
	Cuba, Communism, and Computing
	Communications of the ACM 35(Nov. 92)11:27ff

The article takes the form of a heavily ideologically biased "economic
intelligence report" (i. e. "executive report") that presumes to examine
the computing situation in Cuba.  The authors visited Cuba presumably
to attend Informatica `92, a trade show in Havana.  However, hardly anything
is said about what the authors saw at the trade show.  Personally, I would
have found it interesting to see some pictures.  The article also mentioned
nothing about whatever might exist in Cuba in the way of professional
computing associations, or what, if any, were the directions of Cuban
informatic research.  Actually, the article's a negative puff piece that
dwells on the economic problems that Cuba faces as its old trading partners
fade away and new ones stay away, intimidated by the US's remaining economic
clout.  Only a brief mention is made of the continuing US embargo.

The front-page illo shows Castro's head peering in dismay out of a terminal
as a hand holding a pair of scissors snips the cable leading to the terminal.
But get this: on the cuff of the hand is a *red* *star*, not an American flag!
Nevertheless, towards the end of the article, the authors describe how
the existing primitive facilities in Cuba (and the ailing international lines
that serve them) worked to connect them to their home base in Arizona from
Cuba.  Wouldn't surprise me if the article was typed on an author's laptop
in Havana telnetted to his home base, the author cussing and swearing at the
creaky 1200-baud link, as a fan overhead turned lazily and somewhere, a fly
droned in the sultry Havana night... :) .

The history of Cuban computing is "once-over-lightly"ed (one line
for each "era"), and segues
into an analysis of the hardware industry, and the Cuban's efforts to
find a sustainable solution to their own economic problems, some of which
are doubtless due to difficulties associated with centralized economic
planning, but most of which are deliberately orchestrated by the US and it's
"allies" [IMO].  Cuba's tentative attempts to try out capitalist ideas are
ridiculed, deprecated and minimized by labelling them "nouvelle communism",
an offensively flippant neologism, IMO.  I would expect that this would
warrant applause, but it would appear that this is not in accordance with
the Master Plan for Cuba, as defined by the US and their Miami Minions
(the latter, also known as "gusanos", get a brief bow; the authors describe
them as "a sizeable and fairly well-to-do (and sometimes resented) expatriate
community 90 miles away").

The authors cite as one example of evidence that work is inadequately
rewarded, that the author of a successful software program would not
receive an increase in his salary as a result.  Are we to believe that
there are no rewards *whatever* given for superior performance?  Is this
the general practice or was it just true where the question was asked?
Now it really may be true that in Cuba workers receive *no* extra perks,
bennies, vacation, or other compensation whatever in exchange for superior
performance (other than salary).  But from the article, I can't tell if such
a question was ever asked.  Indeed, a candid answer wouldn't have served the
purposes of the article, that much is clear.

Now I don't know all that much of Cuba, but I do know that most of what
we *do* "know" is disinformation, and the CACM article does little to
dispel that notion.  Many of the facts reported may actually be true.
However, there's a sneering, hectoring, downright catty tone to the article
-- the sort of snotty condescension that I might have expected to find in a
*Dartmouth* *Review* rant about shantytowns on campus.

Here's a particularly juicy quote where the Cubans are accused of *theft*
of software [last 2 paragraphs of pg. 29]:

  The Cuban government's ideological opposition to capitalism creates
 another obstacle to the development of a software export industry by
 not recognizing software copyrights.  Cuba maintains a National Software
 Interchange Center [NSIC -- kurt], where copies of all kinds of foreign
 software are made
 available to any Cuban citizen free of charge.  Ignoring foreign copyrights
 solves the immediate problem of meeting software needs under conditions of
 capital scarcity.  But it will make it more difficult for Cuba to export
 software products into markets which depend on the respect of those same
 intellectual property rights.
  Beyond the piracy issue, by not directly recognizing the intrinsic value
 of software, an important feedback link is removed from a system which is
 supposed to produce high-quality products capable of competing on the
 international market...

Of course, in the course of the accusation, our intrepid agents [oops --
I meant authors -- kurt] failed to note how they arrived at that conclusion,
possibly concluding that our imaginations would serve us a lot better than
any dry and boring description of actual events or observations.
Of course, the obstacles *our* gov't (BTW, the same one accused of *stealing*
Inslaw's software) causes by prohibiting *imports* from Cuba are *nothing*
compared to the Cuban's self-destructive disdain for intellectual property
laws!  I'll bet they even ignore the Refac X-or cursor patent, the fiends!
Typical buncha commies...

Notice their mention of the NSIC.  How is it different from any BBS or
similar software repository in the US?  The authors don't tell us.
Again, they prefer to let our imaginations replay gory details supplied to
us originally by their colleagues during the Cold War.
Instead, the next paragraph, by starting off "Beyond the piracy issue..."
[an extraordinarily subtle application of the "Big Lie" technique IMO --
I have to hand it to you psy-ops guys -- that's what I call technical
excellence! -- kurt] implants the idea thoroughly in the readers mind that
the data held by the NSIC was acquired dishonestly.  I would have preferred
that the ACM devote a whole issue to Cuba (the way they did, in a relatively
friendly fashion, to the old USSR a number of years back), where they could
discuss the NSIC in depth (among other things), in a way more interesting to
concerned programmers, rather than the way a bunch of Tom Tomorrow-style TV
pundits would do it.  I hope that they print rebuttals to the article in
future issues.  If this slides by American programmers, then perhaps it is
they who are unfit to compete internationally!

Cuba is pinning its hopes on software (as are a lot of other 3rd world
countries -- but note -- this is also what the first-world countries are
doing.  I think this has them worried).  It has a high literacy rate
and hopes to develop a pool of software-knowledgable workers that
can serve as temporary workers on foreign projects.  What I want to know
is how it serves American programmers to print articles knocking the
software establishment of the COE (Current Official Enemy).
I already know how it serves America's masters, so we needn't reiterate on
that.
-- 
kurt@grogatch.celestial.com (Kurt Cockrum)
Subvert the Anti-Gands!		F-IW	MYOB
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