Cuban Embargo and THE GUIDE

The Cuban Embargo & THE GUIDE
by James Carvin 1/5/09

On the eve of Barak Obama's inauguration we find ourselves on the verge of a newer nicer American statesmanship. Lifting the embargo against Cuba is not just Jimmy Carter's idea. It is the policy of the president elect. The former president has had some flattering things to say about Cuba, echoed by many Obama supporters after 50 years since the revolution and the pending death of Fidel.

I also support the lifting of the embargo - with conditions...

Free all political prisoners first. Give them free blogspace and time to write all about their opinions and experience. Allow them to leave Cuba if they choose.
Provide internet access and blog space for all Cuban citizens, including political candidates.
Did I say "political candidates?" Yes! Prior to the lifting of any embargo, require the holding of elections.

Barak should send them all free computers and internet access to make sure they have a voice. As long as he thinks the solution to everything is to print as much money as he needs, it’s a drop in the ocean of his trillion dollar bail outs.

Beyond this, the country is free to be as socialist as they want to be. I'm sure president-elect Obama will have no complaint. But can we at least require some form of democracy and free speech? The web could provide access to a plurality of opinions, making a fair election conceivable, even in Cuba.

The problem is, of course, searching for opinion. Sophisticated webmasters know how to stack searches so that everybody gravitates to the same sites no matter what words are searched. If that happens, then no matter what opinions are expressed by the people, (once they have no reason to fear expressing them), they won't be found because the Cuban government has the technical resources needed to stack elections in their own favor even with Internet free speech opened up. It may be more complex than cutting off all communication, which is their current approach, but it would still be done, if freedom went that far.

The solution is to require that a third party, such as THE GUIDE, provide the forum for ideas. If advertising dollars are available for such a project then search relevancy increases, guaranteeing the people a place to voice their opinion.

What, no guarantee? Well then, why are we talking about lifting an embargo? And by the way, whatever happened to THE GUIDE? And what is it anyway?

THE GUIDE is an acronym for "To Help Elelections Get United In Debate Electronically." It was originally conceived as a project to enhance local elections in a district by district basis in the United States. But there is no reason the same format and concept could not be applied to foreign countries. It simply allows those who wish to participate the chance to discuss political issues. Candidates who do not have election money have a free medium to express their ideas, make their proposals, list their credentials, and smear their opponents, if they can successfully do so. Their opponents, have an equal opportunity to rebut anything that is said about them and promote themselves as well. The forums are moderated for bad language and spam through bots, nothing more. They are otherwise uncensored. And they are not promoted through an organization that has any political aims of their own. They are free for all to use.

THE GUIDE was started in 2001 as a response to 9/11 by an American citizen who felt the need to serve his country. Unfortunately, THE GUIDE did not take root at that time. Most citizens remained concerned only with national, rather than local elections, so no grass roots financial and volunteer support happened at that time.

OK, let me just admit it. I started THE GUIDE and I stink at raising funds. I learned a lot from what I was attempting to do back then. I am going to attempt to reignite it over the next four years as I feel it was a very worthy project. I could use some help. I am going to reformat it using my new found knowledge of content management systems.

You see this page? This is made out of HTML. It was what I was programming with back in 2001. I didn't even use CSS back then. To "debate electronically" online requires use of Internet forums. To accomplish that I used third party forums supplied by phpbbnow and others and simply connected my static HTML pages to them. The forums required a registration and were a little confusing. With the CMS I plan on restarting THE GUIDE. In the new version there will be various user permission levels that will make using the site a lot easier. The software is made just for this kind of project.

The old THE GUIDE also required that a moderator set up a separate forum thread for each item on every ballot in every precinct. The work was far too tedious for a volunteer work force. The new THE GUIDE will allow members to become "precinct managers" and add ballot items themselves on an "as interested" basis. This will allow the system to grow itself on an interest first basis. So if the people continue to be interested only in national elections, we don't waste time setting up forum threads for local ballot issues that people will never be looking for anyway. But once the interest is established, the people can also do the work of setting up the threads.

The result is that THE GUIDE has the potential to become the definitive information source for elections anywhere on the planet.

Of course, it can also serve as news and opinion all year long, where the people, and not the established governments or big business get to continue ruling the information superhighway. To me, this is the essence of freedom (of expression anyway).

Seeing that THE GUIDE could be a solution to the people of Cuba, I am going to recommit some time this year to setting up the CMS for it. Once the project is set up, click here and you will find an active link to the new site. Whether or not it's there yet, feel free to offer your support. For the old THE GUIDE click here.