How the state stays in the picture

The Christian Civic League finds underhandedness, if not actual footsie, in a photograph taken during Gov. John Baldacci’s recent trade trip to Cuba. The photo is of the governor standing with Cuban President Fidel Castro. A league announcement this week describes its efforts to obtain the photo, beginning with the come-on “League forces Governor out of closet,” evoking a neat commie-homo combo that was Roy Cohn’s stock-in-trade during the McCarthy era.

The photo shows the two leaders in the center of a group of 10 people, including some state legislators. Perhaps they are acting as chaperones. In the center is Castro who, predictably, went with the freshly pressed green fatigues and looks, if anything, astonished. Next to him, Baldacci is wearing a blue blazer, chinos and an open-collar shirt, a hint of wistfulness in his eye. Both of the governor’s hands are clearly visible in front of him so he couldn’t be responsible for Castro’s expression.

The league, which wants this print for reasons I care not to think about, says it has been trying to get one through a Freedom of Access request, but copies “may have been released to the media to pre-empt the league from being the first to obtain the photo.” Takes you back, doesn’t it? The threat of a photo, the Communist link, the out-of-the-closet fascination – you can almost hear Sen. McCarthy saying, “I have here, in my hand, pictures of John Elias Baldacci that will prove he’s a card-carrying …”

What sort of card would the governor carry now that he’s been outed for a trade mission everyone already knew about? Frequent Flier Club membership, maybe. This is the second year Maine has sold apples, seed potatoes, eggs, wood products, sardines and other goods to Cuba and follows, hold on to your State Department spy ring, a tripling of Maine trade with Communist China since 2001. Include Thursday’s foreign aid from Venezuela and you’ve got nothing to lose but your chains.

China, Cuba and Venezuela are very different nations, and I don’t mean to suggest equivalence by lumping them together, but I would say they are all reasons Maine should refine its bearings in the global economy. For instance, the advantage of going to Cuba is small – the $20 million in goods announced last month equals less than 1 percent of Maine’s annual exports – and the problems are significant. Human Rights Watch says the Castro regime “restricts nearly all avenues of political dissent, and uses police warnings, surveillance, short term-detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, criminal prosecutions and politically motivated dismissals from employment as methods of enforcing political conformity.” Less than a 1 percent gain to support a government responsible for the above looks like a poor deal.

China, obviously, is huge. As Dan Innis, dean of the UMaine Business College, said the other day, “China is such a gorilla in the market that we ignore at our peril.” And while basing trade on China’s treatment of its citizens still matters, as Congress once did through most-favored nation status, “it matters less now,” Innis said. “Trade is taking place regardless.”

The oil donation from Venezuela is a perfect example of the difficulty in sorting this out. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has called the United States the “world’s most evil regime” and President Bush “a crazy genocidal killer.” His government, according to Human Rights Watch, has amended Venezuela’s criminal code by broadening laws that allow the government to punish “disrespect” for government authorities. Not the best partner to help Maine’s poor receive lower-cost oil. But what’s the alternative, not that anyone else has offered assistance – Nigeria? Saudi Arabia? Venezuela is one of the largest suppliers of oil to the United States; for better or worse, the nation is hitched to the angry Bolivarian in Caracas.

The choice for Maine is not to retreat into the fearful politics of pictorial innuendo, but to engage. As it relies more on trading goods and services all over, the state has an obligation to build an ethics system to match. It is already doing this in another area, through a purchasing code of conduct, now being updated, that sets standards for state bids on apparel, footwear and textiles.

Maine could similarly join with other states to urge trading partners to demonstrate concern for working conditions and allow inspection of facilities. Programs that provide for shop-elected monitors to report on conditions would be a tremendous advance in many places.

A state that is vocal about working conditions and active in proposing improvements, even as it recognizes that trade is taking place regardless, as Innis points out, would benefit both itself and the people with which it trades. It could line up for pictures with hands that are not only where everyone can see them but that are unusually clean.

Todd Benoit is the editorial page editor of the Bangor Daily News.