How's this, for the latest from Miami. Ours is the Magic City. It is where taxpayer fairness and protections of the public commons disappear faster than rum on hot sand.
Now the Growth Machine -- aka Latin Builders Association -- is ranting against the company renovating the Cuban port of Mariel. Meanwhile its members and families pile cash into Cuba, through investments under the table via relatives in Cuba.
It's the latest in the Book of Tirades, by the same development interests who organized to convert Miami-Dade wetlands and farmland into endless platted subdivisions, shifting the costs of growth or sweeping them under the rung while wrecking our quality of life and imposing massive liabilities on ordinary taxpayers. That's the real magic trick of the Magic City.
OK, for the Growth Machine to enforce the politics of the embargo against Cuba, while boosting the fortunes of relations in Cuba under the table. Who do you think is behind the rapid inflation of property values in Havana?
OK, for the LBA to condemn foreign-owned companies that do business in Cuba, like Odebrecht. Also OK, for LBA members to send cash to help relations make money in Havana. What do you think is in all those shrink wrapped bags at MIA, going to Havana? Plantain chips?
In the Miami Herald, the LBA president Bernie Navarro was clear to differentiate the company, Odebrecht, from its USA president who Navarro called a "class act". To remind readers, Odebrecht has been a main supplier of "contributions" to the LBA's former enforcer, Natacha Seijas, and the YMCA, the charity that employed her. Read about it, here.
This magic trick of Rabelaisian proportions goes under another name: hypocrisy.
Eyeonmiami noted, not so long ago, that the right wing through the blog, Capitol Hill Cubans, beat up on the former MIA director Jose Abreu who was, at the time, under consideration for the top transportation post in the Obama administration. It was interesting to witness LBA allies attacking one of their own. Abreu was the first honest broker to tackle the corrupt pools of special interests, ponding around Miami International Airport contracts, lobbying and Miami-Dade politics.
In my commentary, "When it comes to Cuba and the right wing, nothing is ever as it seems", we noted:
"What matters is that the Cuban American right-wing... is determined to maintain control of foreign policy in DC and "money" outcomes in future US trade with Havana. The attack against Miami airport director Abreu is a veiled signal, directly mainly within the ranks of right-wing conservatives. The Capitol Hill Cubans nominally address the Miami-Dade County Commission; but this signal is not about local government contracts. It is about the fierce efforts to protect prerogatives. Who exactly is the veil protecting?"
Cuban blogger Yaoni Sanchez would have to read Eye On Miami to understand. In the Herald she reportedly said excitedly yesterday, "“I am really very happy,’’ she said when she arrived in Miami Thursday. “I feel in the air and in the people a lot of respect and freedom. I feel like I’m in Cuba but free. This is like Cuba but with democracy."
Careful, Yaoni. The Miami Growth Machine wants to control Cuba and its economy. US foreign policy to Cuba, dictating from Miami, is the flip side of the pancake that imposed enormous pain on the Cuban people. With its sprawl axis cracked in South Florida, the Growth Machines gazes longingly across the Florida Straits for new economic opportunities to control -- irritated that Oderbrecht and other foreign corporations are planting their roots there, first.
Hypocrisy wasn't invented in Miami, but it thrives here.
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