People-to-People charade very quietly smothered by Washington bureaucracy
Whoa. %$#@!^! Great news! It seems that the People-to-People tourist junkets to Castrolandia are in deep trouble. The application process has suddenly become much more complex, and the licensing of these shameful tours seems to be in limbo. Read all about it here. But why hasn't this story received more attention?
As you read, you will notice that the author of this piece, Ellen Craeger, thinks that this turn of events is awful, and that she really believes that tourists were having "meaningful" exchanges with the slaves on the Castro plantation. She also tries to pin the blame for this refreshing turn of events on " undue influence from the small but mighty faction of anti-Cuba types in congress." Yes, brothers and sisters, those of us who long for a free Cuba are referred to as "anti-Cuba." This racist neocolonialist oaf who bemoans the closing of the gates to Dr. Castro's human zoo obviously needs to hear from someone other than the Castroite tourist agents that she has been dealing with. She can be contacted at: ecreager@freepress.com or 313-222-6498.
Is the door slamming shut for travel from U.S. to Cuba?
by Ellen Creager, Detroit Free Press Travel Editor
Why it is happening, nobody is sure. But the Cuba "People to People" travel program touted so highly by President Obama in 2011 is coming to a screeching halt, drowning in paperwork and non-renewed licenses for travel organizations.
Almost no organizations that got licenses from the U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) last year to sponsor trips to Cuba have received renewals. Trips that were advertised have been scrapped. Organizations are left to wait without any updates or information.
“We work with about 30 different non-profit organizations that have programs to Cuba in next 12 months, and 100% of them have not received renewals of licenses,” said Jim Friedlander, president of Academic Arrangements Abroad in New York, a travel service provider, late Tuesday.
He said that the practical effect of OFAC’s lack of activity is that it disrupts the entire People to People program.
To me, this is contrary to the whole purpose of the president's 2011 loosening of travel for Americans to Cuba.
Because of the outdated U.S. embargo against Cuba that makes it illegal for Americans to travel there, most Americans have never been to Cuba unless on a family or religious visa. The People to People cultural travel program finally allowed thousands of regular travelers to visit last year and early this year, interacting with Cubans in a meaningful way.
But in May, the OFAC application for a license to operate trips to Cuba under People to People grew from 6 pages to essentially hundreds of pages. Organizations seeking renewal had to document every minute of every day for every single trip they had done in the past year to prove that they were doing “People to People” activities and not tourism.
Continue reading here. There are plenty of Castroite nuggets to find in the rest of this piece.
How can one person be so gobstoppingly foolish, I ask you?!?!
Wait, reading further...oh my...it seems she is a professional journalist. I see. Say no more.
Very simple: she's a TRAVEL editor. That's all you need to know.
Dear Ms.Creager,
I read your article and I want to ask you where you sympathy is with the American’s who’s properties were stolen over 50 years ago? I know a college student that went to Cuba with his professor and when I asked him why he was going, he stated that he did not know. I told him that he was supposed to have an educational purpose or reason to go, and he said he was not aware of that. So again, some American’s have figured out how to sell vacation trips to Cuba and make money, yet those who were devastated by their loses sit waiting for some recognition. Poor people that can’t go see Cuba? What about the poor people that lost everything, and some having even losing their lives. What is sinister about this is that you are sticking up for a government that has enslaved it’s people, yet your concern that some American’s can’t vacation on the beach? Really? You are clueless!
Carolyn Chester Lamb
U.S. Certified Claimant
I wrote the following email and below is her response:
Dear Ms. Creager,
I for one am happy that the so-called "people-to-people" trips to Cuba are screeching to a halt. Far from being democratizing endeavors, these organized trips ended up being people-to-government bureacrat trips with witless Americans meeting carefully selected and screened Cuban officials, or with junkets ending up in Varadero Beach or at some discoteque for tourists. Senator Rubio of Florida read the intineary before Congress for some of those so-call respected groups heading to Cuba and they sounded more like all inclusive vacations under the beach and sun than meaningful and educational excursions. It's shameful. Cuba is after all a totalitarian country with an ossified and cruel regime.
The U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) did good in buckling down.
Her reply:
Hello thanks for your comments. However, the Americans on people to people trips are not "selected' by the Cuban government or going to discos, Plus, the travelers can see very well for themselves when in Cuba the downside of communism, just as travelers to China and North Korea can see that communism doesn't work too well there, either. travelers have eyes. they are not pawns or witless as you suggest.
Ellen Creager
Travel Writer
Detroit Free Press
600 W. Fort Street
Detroit, MI 482226
313-222-6498
ecreager@freepress.com
Rayarena: One wonders if she is acquainted with the undeniable historical phenomenon of foolish tourists taking Potemkin-village tours of Communist nations, as opposed to her barmy conception of how such things operate.
Is it asking too much for her to pick up a book and find out more? Perhaps it is. Her specialty is words, and thus brings to mind Bob Knight's remark regarding journalists -- that most people learn to write in the second grade, but go on to better things later.
Verifiable reality? Who has time for that?
Matt,
You are right. She is obviously not familiar with the phenomenon of Potemkin Villages, but, also, she misinterpreted what I wrote. I never said that visiting Americans are selected, I said that the people that they meet in Cuba, the Cubans are selected. Americans aren't meeting with random Cubans.
People, again, the woman is a TRAVEL editor, and business is business. Don't waste your time. This is a pearls before swine scenario. Shit happens. A lot.