[Marxism] Ana Menendez "Act's real aim is to halt research about Cuba"

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(An important column by Ana Menendez, author of the amusingly
nostalgic collection of stories IN CUBA I WAS A GERMAN SHEPHERD
and who now has an opinion column in the MIAMI HERALD. She does
understand that the most important goal of this legislation, as
all of the others which aim at deterring contact between Cubans
on the island and the people of the United States is to prevent
people from the United States from seeing Cuba for themselves.

(Menendez got this job as a columnist when the Herald got rid of
Jim DeFede whose visits to Cuba, which included a sympathetic
interview with at least one of the dissidents - Paya, I think - 
were dangerous to the Herald because he also wrote sympathetically
about the Cuban Five and critically about the role of the extreme
right in Miami in blocking contact with Cuba. Since this column
appears in the HERALD, it has a special importance and should be
shared widely just because of that. She's not a hard-liner, but
she's not in any way sympathetic to Cuba, a fact which in this
essay she doesn't emphasize very heavily.)
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/14737864.htm

MIAMI HERALD
Posted on Sun, Jun. 04, 2006
In My Opinion
Act's real aim is to halt research about Cuba
By Ana Menendez
amenendez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Congratulations to state lawmakers for making it almost impossible
for Florida scholars to travel to Cuba and four other ``terrorist
states.''

Why stop there? Let's go after scholars wanting to travel to other
unsavory states such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Ohio,
where it recently took 1 ½ hours to execute an inmate who could be
heard moaning and making guttural noises as he died.

Only problem is that Saudi Arabia, home to 15 of the 19 Sept. 11
hijackers, is a friend. Pakistan, despite an appalling human-rights
record, is an ally. And Afghanistan may be on its way to becoming the
world's largest narco-state, but it's our narco-state.

And Ohio's exiled community has yet to become a force in local
politics.

Gov. Jeb Bush signed the Travel to Terrorist States Act on Tuesday,
proving once again that political leadership today has less to do
with moral courage than it does with creating the illusion of it.

The bill was sponsored by Miami Republican David Rivera, who did a
brilliant public relations job with it -- persuading people that it
was an innocuous little bill that merely prevented state funds from
being used for travel to Cuba.

THE FACT OF THE MATTER

In fact, state funds have never been used to finance travel to Cuba,
said Lisandro Perez, past director of the Cuban Research Institute at
Florida International University. The institute has never needed
state money, Perez added, having received more than $1 million from
private foundations since 1991.

But Rivera should know that. That's why, while publicly crowing about
''tax payer money,'' Rivera worded his bill to outlaw the use of
private foundation money as well.

So the Travel to Terrorist States Act is not really aimed at making
sure taxpayers don't fund travel to Havana, since that is not
happening anyway. It's also more than harmless pandering to that
ever-dwindling segment of the exile community that models its
political strategy on the ostrich.

In wording, timing and effect, the bill seems aimed at shutting down
FIU's Cuban Research Institute, whose activities depend on private
grant money. Its passage represents a serious interference with
academic freedom that should trouble those Florida residents who fled
just this kind of demagoguery.

Luckily we still live in an open society, and the bill will not avoid
legal scrutiny.

''A challenge in the courts is inevitable,'' said Howard Simon, the
executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

THE POLITICALLY SKILLED

The depressing thing is that such a seriously flawed bill could ever
pass. Its unanimous support is an example of how easy it has become
to play the Cuba card and how terrified lawmakers are of seeming soft
on Castro.

Rivera, who once tried to deny Medicaid to anyone traveling to Cuba,
is not the only politician skilled at using people's hopes and fears
to shore up his power base. Take School Board member Frank Bolaños,
who made a big fuss about the need to ban a children's picture book
on Cuba right before announcing a run for state office.

The Travel to Terrorist States Act is an assault on the pursuit of
knowledge that is a vital part of any thriving democracy. Far from
striking a blow against oppression, the bill would create the sort of
intellectually stunted environment it seeks to condemn.

A healthy society allows access to even those ideas it deems
threatening or offensive, whether they're found in Cuba, Saudi Arabia
or the Southern Ohio Correctional Institution. In an increasingly
complex world, the cause of freedom is served by more understanding,
not less.

''I think there's very little to be gained in a setting where you
have a totalitarian dictatorship that controls all sources of
information and determines what kind of research can be conducted in
those regimes,'' Rivera told me Friday.

On that point we both agree.


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