American Artists Urge Obama to Renew Cultural Ties with Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

Source: ACN

American Artists Urge Obama to Renew Cultural Ties with Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba, March 5 (acn) A US national network of artists urged President Barack Obama to renew cultural ties with Cuba and to eliminate existing restrictions that prevent Cuban artists from traveling to the United States.

According to Prensa Latina news agency, the US-Cuba Cultural Exchange (USCCE) organization sent a letter to President Obama also asking for the elimination of the Cuba travel ban that prevents American citizens from visiting the Caribbean archipelago and urging him to develop normal and respectful relations with Havana.

Thus far, the letter has been signed by more than 1,100 personalities including Carlos Santana, Herbie Hancock, Harry Belafonte, Bonnie Raitt, Eddie Palmieri, Danny Glover and Laura Bickford, among many others.

The letter from the USCCE, an organization founded in 2005, adds that this campaign will continue until the US policy towards Cuba changes and until there is a free exchange of artistic ideas and expressions between both nations.

Read more: http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2009/0305artistas_usa.htm

[maxsolomon]

1. we should renew every tie we can with cuba

this pointless shit has gone on long enough. time to grow up.

[Vogon_Glory]

2. Cuba and the USA We Are Neighbors, After All

Cuba and the USA are neighbors after all. I'd like to see the US export something better than the pirated movies visitors pack in their luggage. I think it's absurd to restrict the flow of art and ideas between our two cultures on our part because emigre hard-liners still think that they can bring the island republic to heel.

The Iron Curtain persisted because the old Soviet bloc wanted to restrict the flow of people and ideas between free and Stalinist Europe. For the USA to reclaim its position as a leader of democratic nations again, we should flatten the curtain the hard-liners and their allies have established on this side of the Florida Strait.

:dem:

:patriot:

[midnight]

3. Why not?