Public Editor: Cuba, Van Gogh and Wallis

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

By Mike Bressler

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-It was refreshing to read Benjamin Bombard’s piece on Wyoming’s congressional delegation co-sponsoring a bill ending the travel ban to Cuba. From GOP presidential candidates needing expatriate Cuban votes in the Florida primary to Democrats terrified of the label “soft on communism,” politicians upheld the ban for self-serving reasons, a ban which enhanced Cuban dictators’ images. Castro and Fulgencio Batista, the dictator Castro overthrew, were two sides of the same coin.

Batista pocketed millions from Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano’s casinos, took huge kickbacks from ITT and Standard Oil to name a few, murdered thousands of his countrymen, all with America’s blessing. Even John Kennedy, who approved the Bay of Pigs and later ordered a blockade on Cuba said, “I believe that there is no country in the world … where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime.”

America’s history in Cuba, rather than be hidden as Texas educators desire, should be studied  to learn from past errors and to make us think twice before supporting ruthless, corrupt governments for short-sighted political interests.

It’s good to see Aaron Wallis back in form in his piece “I touch my art” with its ridicule of “some museum guard with a ninth grade education.” Van Gogh and Charlemagne never graduated the ninth grade, but obviously they didn’t influence history like Wallis, who proved the adage “if you educate an ostentatious art critic, you end up with an educated, ostentatious art critic.” Aaron claims helping hang a Jackson Pollock painting was the most stimulating experience since losing his virginity. A good comparison as Pollock’s art is abstract, as I’m sure was Wallis’s romantic encounter, at least for the lady involved. JHW

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Public Editor: Cuba, Van Gogh and Wallis | Planet JH News Article: Editorial

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