[Marxism] Re.: Last Call for Cuba? (NYT).

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

First of all, that article appeared in the NEW YORK Times TRAVEL
SECTION.  So, just what do you expect?  Who and what are its targets?
This is totally bourgeois stuff:  the author?s point of view, the nature
of the tourist expenditure, the article?s purpose, where it appears, the
subjects covered, etc.  The author, Mary Tannen, even noted that on this
trip ?the subtext was always politics.?

Consider her statement:
?Our group collected art feverishly wherever we went; quality was high
and prices low.?
This manic fixation with bargain-basement aesthetics presents the skewed
values of the middle crass.  It is typical of tourist exploitation, as
well.

Considering the context, the article could be turned into a positive by
interrogating the assumptions of the piece.  Por ejemplo, Mary Tannen
remarked that Cuban institutional food was bland, but paladares food was
better.  Did she voice any concern about whether ordinary Cubans get
enough of the proper nutrition?  Why not?  Would that be the sort of
concern expressed by the average bourgeois tourist?  Why not?

Also, she had a good time dancing in a club, but was chagrined to learn
it was owned by the state.  Does she know anything about socialism?
Would a socialist state be against fun?  The club was for members only.
Who were the members?  Workers groups?  The JJCC (young communists)?
Dues-paying members of the elite and/or friends of Saddam?  Does her
readership know anything about socialism?

She mentions prostitution but the problem is being addressed in Cuba by
the Revolution.  It is not something to be ignored.  What are the
circumstances?  How do young, inexperienced humans behave when offered
great material rewards in exchange for what could be considered a
relatively insignificant effort?  Whenever I hear tsk-tsk from the US
bourgeois peanut gallery over prostitution in Cuba, I think of the
tenderloin districts of major cities I have visited in North America.
Where there is a great difference in wealth, as is the essence of
capitalism, prostitution becomes essentially a bourgeois problem?whether
it?s along Eighth Avenue or the Malecon, it?s caused by bourgeois social
relations.  (Was there such a great problem with traffic in females out
of Eastern Europe during the time of the USSR?  But that would take this
into a different subject, right?)

This ?essay? as it is called in the NYT, must be supplemented with
photos if it was in the TRAVEL SECTION.  I went to the web page to see
the pictures.  I saw happy Cubans dancing.  ?What a hell hole those poor
people suffer!?  --was NOT the impression I got from seeing those snaps.

BTW, here is the URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/14/travel/14bpcuba.html
I have suggested that contributors provide the URLs of articles sent to
this list, if at all possible, because it increases the utility of the
piece, but, whatever.  By supplying one?s analysis without what has been
requested may give us the implication that one provides only what one
wants us to get, and nothing else?  I know that is not the case with
Walter, though.

Tannen closed on a reflective note that could be interpreted in various
ways.  And you are going to find more of this ambivalence as we proceed
deeper into the time of the Patriot Act vs. the Act of
Terror/Treachery.  As Andy Rooney said tonight on 60 Minutes, many
Americans are afraid they may seem unpatriotic if they express any hint
of a doubt about the Patriot Act, thus his concluding remarks shifted in
at least a couple of directions.  I seem to recall the term
Double-Think, but I am of two minds about that?   There is still an
opening when there is an expressed ambivalence.  Seize the positive
valence.  Tannan noted the overwhelming influence of the US over Cuba.
That applies to everything she mentioned in the article, and includes
the foto of the smiling cute little girl.  Implicit is the notion that
the embargo is the act of a bully.



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