Left-Wing Magazine Plans Posh Trip To Castro’s Cuba

Left-Wing Magazine Plans Posh Trip To Castro's Cuba
BLAKE NEFF Reporter
11:24 AM 07/11/2015

The Nation, one of America's premier left-wing magazines, is advertising
a trip to Communist Cuba where it touts that visitors will be able to
meet spies who helped kill Americans.

An email sent out Friday invites loyal friends of The Nation to purchase
one of the limited spots on a guided tour of Havana and its environs
lasting from Sept. 26-Oct. 3.

Ordinarily, vacation travel to Cuba from the United States is illegal,
but this trip qualifies as an exception because it is considered a
people-to-people educational venture rather than a purely pleasurable
trip. Nevertheless, the letter practically gushes about the
luxuries travelers will get to experience in Fidel and Raul
Castro's island paradise:

Our week long itinerary will include museum tours with eminent art and
cultural historians; seminars and lectures featuring renowned Cuban
economists, government officials, community activists, physicians, and
urban planners… exclusive concerts with popular jazz artists,
troubadours, and folk musicians; performances by students of Cuba's
internationally acclaimed ballet institutes; visits to artist's colonies
and studios; guided tours of Old Havana, the Latin American Medical
School, and the University of Havana; and visits to many other inspiring
locales and events. The group will stay for six nights at the famed,
four-star NH Capri Hotel La Habana, located just minutes from Old Havana
and just a block from the the Malecón, a broad esplanade and seawall
which stretches five miles along the Cuban coast. We'll also travel to
the scenic Viñales Valley on the western end of the island where we will
spend one night with a Cuban host family at their "casa particulare"
(private home), which will offer an opportunity to closely interact with
residents of the town. While in Viñales, we will have lunch on an
organic farm, explore the region's limestone formations, and learn about
the tobacco fields in this province that produce the world's finest cigars.
Among the top experiences touted by The Nation for the trip? A meeting
with the Cuban Five, whom they note are "intelligence agents considered
national heroes after spending many years imprisoned in U.S. jails."

Well, that's one way of putting it. Others may remember the Cuban Five
for their efforts to infiltrate Cuban exile groups in Miami. One of
them, Gerardo Hernandez, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder
for helping Cuban intelligence shoot down two planes affiliated with the
exile group Brothers to the Rescue. Four U.S. citizens aboard the planes
were killed, though The Nation did not see fit to mention the incident
in its email.

Despite their espionage activities, two of the Cuban Five were deported
after a few years' detention, while the last three were released in 2014
as part of a prisoner swap engineered by President Barack Obama, with
the U.S. receiving intelligence officer Rolando Sarraff Trujillo and
contractor Alan Gross in return.

While they're happy to meet with the Cuban Five, government officials,
and the "renowned" economists who help manage the country's woeful
economy, The Nation makes no mention of meeting any dissident or
religious groups in the country.

The cost of this fine opportunity? $5,950 for a single-occupancy room,
just slightly less than what the typical Cuban earns in an entire year.


And what will the likely end be of all this traveling? If last year is
any indication, a gushy piece about how pleasant and sadly misunderstood
Cuba is. Anna Theofilopoulou, an independent political analyst and
writer, went on the first iteration of this trip last year and came back
ready to debunk various "worn-out fallacies" about the country. It was
hardly true, she said, that Cuba needed competitive multi-party
elections in order to be democratic. Rather, she happily wrote about how
one of her Cuban interlocutors "refuted" this myth by telling her "that
Cuba has democracy and freedom but they are defined differently."
Apparently, Cuba's different definition of freedom allows for
imprisoning peaceful political dissidents.

She also touted that Cubans are encouraged to participate in politics
and that "they are listened to," without addressing sticky matters like
Cuba's atrocious press freedom.

Source: Left-Wing Magazine Plans Posh Trip To Castro's Cuba | The Daily
Caller -
http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/11/left-wing-magazine-plans-posh-trip-to-castros-cuba/