🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <47cqu7$9kb@zeus.pechan.com>,  <mcline@crosslink.net> wrote:
>jdean@PostOffice.chv.va.us (John Dean) wrote:
>>At the end of January, 1996, an organization called Pastors for Peace
>>will be delivering computers to INFOMED, a project of the National
>>Center for Medical Science Information in Cuba.  
>
>Why aren't they donating the computers to needy Americans????
>Or if they feel a compelling reason to go beyond our borders to a more
>needy contry, why not Haiti, the Dominican Republic, or Trinadad.  Why
>give support to a government which by policy, suppresses it's people,
>and holds them in virtual bondage?

Define "needy Americans."  If you're suggesting giving
computers to those who can barely afford the electricity to run
them...

Also, Cuba as a nation is computationally poor... poorer per
capita than just about any other North or South American
nation.  Yet it's relatively industrialized.  If free trade to
Cuba opened up, computer makers would be almost the first ones
in.

>The United
>>Nations provided the servers for this project, but end-user terminals
>>are scarce in Cuba, and any old PC, XT or AT machine will do the job.
>
>So in other words, send them your junk.  Who cares if the 10 MB hard
>drive has only 4.5 mb of readable sectors, the fan squeeels and the
>monitor is dim.

Sure.  The old adage "One man's garbage is another man's gold"
applies here, I think.  And that's 4.5 Mb of hard drive space
that Cuba didn't have before.

>>  Unfortunately, the US actively
>>works to keep the Cuban people from acquiring needed resources.  The
>>embargo of trade and travel to Cuba has been extended, in recent years,
>>to attempt to prevent other countries from trading with that nation, as
>>well.  This aggressive stance by the United States has so far been
>>unsuccessful in toppling the present government, but it has had the
>>effect of keeping us as US citizens from knowing very much about our
>>neighbor to the south.  The US embargo is universally condemned by the
>>international community.
>
>Does this make it wrong.  Just because an idea isn't popular with the
>"world", is it a bad idea?  The US position is one of morality, based
>on the tenants which we (most of any way) hold so dear... liberty,
>freedom, self determination.  

But is it succeeding in its objective, namely, toppling
Castro's regime.  Obviously not.  Free trade is the best weapon
against Communism and other dictatorships.
-- 
Joe Thompson, Personal Computing Wizard | GraphFunction 3.5
Fluent in HyperCard, C++, BASIC, Scheme | (c) October 12, 1993
Freelance PC troubleshooter/HTML writer | UVa Astrophysics
http://darwin.clas.virginia.edu/~jgt7c/ | kensey@virginia.edu