July 06, 2004
Pioneros Americanos
The following is an email I received yesterday that made my blood boil. It's from a Mr. Tom Herman from Interlocken.org promoting a program they have called CubaExchange.
I thought you'd be interested in our trip to Cuba. We have 25 American high school students going to cuba to live with Cuban students and learn about their culture, politics, and language. We have a great documentary video about the program too and we're still going this summer, despite Bush.-tj
Here is my response, "despite Bush":
Mr. Herman,
I commend you for your effort with teaching American high school students about other cultures, politics and languages through your exchange program. In an ideal world a program such as yours would prove to be an invaluable educational tool. The only true way to learn about and understand different cultures is to fully immerse oneself in them.
However, when it comes to Cuba, I feel you do your students a great disservice as we do not live in an ideal world. In an ideal world, while you send 25 high school students to live with Cuban families, a Cuban instructor very much like yourself would be able to send 25 of his students to live with American families. Thus, your currently mis-named program, CubaExchange, would depict a true exchange of values and ideals and students. Unfortunately, and despite President Bush, this is an impossibility. Under the current system of government in Cuba, there is no true free exchange of ideas and ideals.
After visiting your website I see no mention as to who decides which Cuban families will be honored with the presence of your students. Undoubtedly, these Cuban families will be chosen by the Ministry of Education and since, as in all aspects of Cuban life, this Ministry is but an arm of the ruling Communist party, your students will be privy to exactly what that party chooses to show them. I wonder if during their stay, your students will be taken to the fields for the compulsory agricultural labor that all Cuban children are subjected to. Perhaps they may even be allowed sit in on classes where they are taught the evils of capitalism and the imperialist United States of America.
You should encourage your students to each bring along a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States so that they may share these openly in a Cuban classroom. Cuban students should know about the freedoms afforded us in our First ammendment. I am sure that the faculty of the school as well as the Ministry officials will have absolutely no problem with this, yours is, after all, an exchange program, despite President Bush.
I also noticed that the tuition fee for your program is $4995. How much of that goes to the Ministry of Education? How much of it goes to travel expenses? Since you have been so kind as to email me because you thought Id be interested in your program, could you please be so kind as to offer a breakdown as to where these moneys go? Also, it would probably be a good idea to let the Cuban students and their families know exactly how much each American student paid for their exchange program, thus allowing for more openness between the two cultures. I wonder how a father of a Cuban student might feel knowing he is housing an American student whose two-week trip costs more than what the father has made in the past 5 years of hard labor.
You may want to take a day away from the classroom and beaches and picnics and visit a few of the prisons where Cuban dissidents and journalists and political prisoners are held. See firsthand the conditions they live under and why they are imprisoned. That particular day can be called "Prisoner of Conscience" day at Cubaexchnage. Make sure all your students bring their video cameras as the video for presentations taken that day will be of great value to your program and your website. Perhaps you can even sell those particular videos at $29.95 instead of $19.95.
Will there be time in your curriculum to visit with other Cuban teenagers? Teenagers forced into prostitution because, despite the fact that they have a 100% literacy rate and despite President Bush, they have no other recourse for survival but to sell their bodies to tourists?
I read in your website where there is an emphasis on Salsa dancing and cuban rythms. This is, as I see it, a very important and key part of your curriculum. This is where your American students will learn the most. They will, like you, know exactly how to dance around the true issues.
I would welcome any exchange with Cuba, as long as Cuba is able to share with us the true voice of her people and her culture, not the high-pitched ranting of one man and an ideology - which you seem fixated on promoting - based on oppression.
You state in your email that you are going to Cuba "despite Bush." I submit to you sir, that you are going to Cuba despite Castro. You are going to Cuba despite her people's lack of basic human rights and dignity. You are going to Cuba despite the tens of thousands of dead Cubans who died at the very hands of the government your money will be going to. You are going to Cuba despite the countless Cubans who died at sea in make shift rafts searching for the very freedom you have. You are going to Cuba despite what is right. You are going to Cuba despite the men and women who rot away in jails simply for expressing their opinions and thoughts.
You are going to Cuba despite any and all morality.
Sincerely,
Val Prieto
UPDATE: I received a response and will post the response to the response to the response in a new entry. Stayed tuned folks, it gets good.
Posted by Val Prieto at July 6, 2004 12:34 PM
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Comments
WOW!
I'd like to see what, and if, he writes back.
Posted by: Amanda at July 6, 2004 12:50 PM
Go gett'm Val...
Another half-wit.
Posted by: paul at July 6, 2004 12:54 PM
Wow. I bow before you.
Posted by: michele at July 6, 2004 01:11 PM
Let's face it. If you want to see Cuban culture, you have to go to Florida. What you see in Cuba is sick, twisted Communist culture.
Posted by: Steve H. at July 6, 2004 01:14 PM
HELL YEAH, VAL. Way to tell it like it is. I'm in awe of you right now.
If he writes back, please share his response.
Posted by: ib at July 6, 2004 01:20 PM
You are the man! Wow! and no obscenities either...
I would have lost it.
Posted by: Kevin P Menard at July 6, 2004 01:45 PM
Val, I salute you. Keep fighting the good fight, my friend, because you know that the opposition isn't going to quit fighting until they are dead.
Posted by: AWG at July 6, 2004 02:11 PM
Val: I am so PROUD of you. As I was reading I could almost hear in the background, "Al combate corred Bayameses, que la patria os contempla orgullosa...". You have an enviable gift for the written word.
Posted by: Mercedes at July 6, 2004 02:14 PM
Val,
What an amazing response. Thanks for spreading truth in a world full of the self-righteous and ignorant. But, sometime I would like to know how you really feel about the subject. *snicker*
-Super
Posted by: Superhero at July 6, 2004 02:17 PM
Way to go, Val!
I see these feel-ggod moves all the time, and I wish I had your gift to rebut them...
Posted by: mostly cajun at July 6, 2004 02:43 PM
Beautifully done, Val.
Posted by: zombyboy at July 6, 2004 02:47 PM
Nicely done, sir. Very nicely done.
Posted by: homebru at July 6, 2004 03:06 PM
5000 dollars for a 28 day stay in a third world country??
Looks like Mr. Herman and Fidel are making out like bandits here (oops, forgot, Castro is a bandit).
Posted by: mike at July 6, 2004 04:00 PM
Whoa! Well done... both barrels at 3 paces!
You must share any response you get.
Posted by: The Other Mike S. at July 6, 2004 04:03 PM
Truly awesome. It would take a heart (or head) of stone to resist or rebut this post. I betcha Mr. Herman has both, but that's still onehellova post.
Posted by: bkayel at July 6, 2004 04:04 PM
Huh. Back in 1994, I spent about that amount of money for a similar program for college students.... except I was staying in Japan for 6 weeks in the summer. This is including airfare.
I rather imagine it should be cheaper to fly to Cuba than to Japan -- that is, if prices were set by a market rate. I have no idea who flies to Cuba and how they price their routes.
What a crock. I've got family friends who fled Castro's Cuba. They know exactly what evil is involved in his communism. You'd think people would have learned from the abuses of the Soviets, but I guess not.
Posted by: meep at July 6, 2004 04:20 PM
Perhaps they may even be allowed sit in on classes where they are taught the evils of capitalism and the imperialist United States of America.
Why bother? Not like they can't get that back home.
Posted by: SpoogeDemon at July 6, 2004 04:44 PM
Mightily well done. I look forward to the reponse and your disemboweling of it.
PS: Kevin P Menard - fancy seeing you here. =)
Posted by: J at TAotB at July 6, 2004 05:13 PM
I heard someone whining on Radio Pacifica in regrads to this program. I wasn't paying much attention, because listening to Pacifica too long or too closely tends to have the same effect on your IQ as hitting yourself over the head with a brick, but apparently the Big Meanies in the Bush administration were discouraging the program through the embargo by invoking the provision that Americans were not allowed to recieve gifts from Cuba, and the reduced cost of the trip counted as such.
God, what a whiny little bitch this fellow was. The only things he could hang his hat on throughout the whole pathetic segment was how this action showed the "mean-spiritedness" of the Bush administration, because "who could possibly be against furthering cultural exhchange?!"
Of course, Val, you just gave a myriad of reasons why. Good show.
Posted by: Russell Wardlow at July 6, 2004 05:19 PM
I posted links to both articles: http://www.theartoftheblog.com/the_art_of_the_blog/archives/001212.php
(I entered this as a comment because my trackback pings aren't working.)
Posted by: J at TAotB at July 6, 2004 05:28 PM
As good as it gets. The indignation of the righteous.
Do well, Rod
Posted by: rod at July 6, 2004 06:33 PM
Communist-swooning hasn't changed appreciably in 50 years. It just gets harder to listen to as facts march on.
Well done sir.
Posted by: Dave in Texas at July 6, 2004 08:05 PM
Mr. Herman is an apologist, scumbag and vulture.
You put him in his tiny place rather well.
I had to post a link on my guest blog gig.
Posted by: steve s at July 6, 2004 11:33 PM
Val,
I left Cuba 43 years ago.when I was five years. As a result, I've never met much of my family. Nor will I; too many have since died.
Periodically I am asked whether I have ever gone back to Cuba. My reply is alawys the same: I will not play the tourist in a gulag.
Thank you for speaking the truth.
Posted by: David C. at July 7, 2004 12:49 PM
I wish I had he ability to write a letter like that.
Outstanding.
You are bookmarked and I will be visiting daily to see the response to this from the "exchange" organizers.
Posted by: Henry Blowfly at July 7, 2004 01:12 PM
This is why you're my favorite Cuban.
Posted by: Da Goddess at July 7, 2004 01:57 PM
Excellent post. If only you could find a way to get to those kids, and their parents!
Posted by: nueva at July 7, 2004 02:09 PM
Please. No more fighting the good fight. Kill the Sons O Bitches.
Your letter is a good start.
No more just "fighting the good fight".
Win.
Posted by: M. Simon at July 7, 2004 03:09 PM
Well I don't know. The evidence is right before our eyes. I mean, after all, thousands risk death every year illegally fleeing Florida in makeshift boats to get to Cuba.....oh wait.
Posted by: Dave E. at July 7, 2004 08:31 PM
