14 thoughts on “Oppression Tourism”

  1. We’ve been imposing sanctions on Cuba since 1960. They don’t seem to be working. Perhaps if we actually want Communism in Cuba to go away, we should do what we did in Eastern Europe, and allow as much free trade as possible.

    Sanctions in general have multiple bad side effects, namely:
    1) They piss off the locals.
    2) They give the elite a perfect excuse for everything that’s bad under their rule.
    3) By denying economic opportunity, they make the locals more dependent on the elite / government for survival.

    We’re seeing all of that in Cuba. After a while (and 50+ years certainly counts as “a while”) sanctions become an enabler of dictators, not a punishment.

          1. Since when do alumni association trips routinely get audiences with heads of state?

            Your point about immorality goes back to my point, which is that denying economic opportunities to Cuba has not produced the desired results. In fact, if anything that policy has strengthened the Castro Brothers.

          2. The US is the only country (AFAIK) that has an embargo against trade with Cuba. Every other country in the world is free to do business with the place as it sees fit, and they do. Also, as we can see from this and other trips to Cuba by Americans, there are ways around the travel ban as well. If you ask me the embargo by this time is a pretty flimsy excuse to hold up as an example of the mean old USA being the problem. If the money flowing into the place from the whole rest of the world isn’t enough to act as a magical commie-dissolving solution, then maybe lack of “free trade” isn’t the problem. Maybe, just maybe, there isn’t enough opposition to Castro where it counts — in his own government. Because that’s what actually brought the USSR down: forces in its own government. Sure, the photos of people tearing down the Berlin Wall were inspiring, but all it would have taken to put a halt to that would have been a word from the Politburo. But the willpower to make threats and then carry them out had gone, for a number of reasons but I’ll bet economics was not as big a one as everyone thinks. I do know it wouldn’t have happened in 1968.

    2. The locals are pissed off, they just don’t have guns. Free trade probably wouldn’t include guns like it does with Mexico IYKWIMAITYD.

  2. Marxism is a disease in this country we need to eradicate.

    I say we let them go to Cuba… permanently and revoke citizenship.

    This ideology will destroy this country if it hasn’t already.

  3. I wonder if they’ll plan a trip to North Korea next. After all, in a few months it will be springtime for Kim Jong Un.

  4. If they are going to see how “the masses” live, as a friend of mine recently did, it would shake them to their core. However, if they go on a state-sponsored propaganda tour, it’ll probably convince them of the wonders of Communism. Sorta like the Red Cross was convinced that Auschwitz was a Club Med…

  5. These tours might be justified in social cost/benefit terms if they were promoted as a way to learn about totalitarian dictatorship up close. But that’s not how they are marketed. The tours are always sold as bargain vacations to this colorful country with its warm and friendly people, charming antique cars and unspoiled scenery. Never mind the gulag, the murders of dissidents, the forced poverty, the awful medical system for ordinary people, the populace driven into various kinds of prostitution, the industries built on stolen property, the fact that most of every dollar you spend there goes to the gangster monarchy that runs the place.

    The US embargo is a red herring since most other countries trade with Cuba. The US isn’t denying anybody opportunity in Cuba and has no responsibility for its terrible situation.

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