Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Academic Freedom

Yup, there goes another field trip to Cuba. When is a foray into the totalitarian state a true academic exercise and when is it an exercise in propaganda? I need to know nothing else about the trip but the bare bones. Let's see... a group of eight students from the Brooklyn College Graduate Center for Worker Education...mmm. Oh well, what are they going to study in Cuba? Ah, the health care and educational system, the twin false successes of the regime. You can bet it's not going to be the health care system that lacks the very basics or the educational system which resorts to putting 17 year olds in front of classrooms. Nope.

I'm afraid I'll have to agree with Rep. Vito Fosella from NY:

"This is going to be used as a propaganda tool for Fidel Castro," Rep. Vito Fossella said yesterday in an interview. "If anything is going to be accomplished of significance, the visitors should ask Fidel Castro when he is going to liberalize the economy, release political prisoners and dissidents, and hold fair elections."

For the story, here.

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