Posted on 10/09/2005 8:11:42 AM PDT by tgslTakoma
Friendship Delegation to Cuba
Join CODEPINK for New Year’s in Cuba
December 27-January 2, 2006
Cuba is one of the most beautiful and fascinating countries on Earth—and George Bush says you can’t go there. Well, we’re going anyway, and we invite you to join us!
This New Year’s CODEPINK will be organizing a large group of fun-loving and freedom-loving Americans to break George Bush’s ban on travel to Cuba. Join co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, together with Academy Award winning producer Paul Haggis, as we visit with farmers at their co-ops, doctors at their family clinics, dancers at the National Folklore Group, and young people at the ballpark. Don’t miss this historic chance to dance salsa, drink mojitos, and visit beautiful beaches—all while defending our constitutional rights!!!
The federal restrictions barring travel to Cuba are not only counterproductive and outmoded in this post-Cold War context, but also a violation of our constitutional freedom to travel.
The Bush administration says we can only travel to Cuba if we have immediate family there. Well, we do. Cubans ARE family—Somos Familia. And while we’re there, we’ll be holding a mutual adoption ceremony in order to demonstrate that family transcends political boundaries. In the ceremony, each participant will be paired with a Cuban brother or sister. After all, we are all part of one human family and there should be no artificial barriers dividing us.
This historic opportunity to visit Cuba will cost approximately $1,500 (to Cancun) or $1,800 (to Mexico City). Participants will fly out of three points of entry: San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. We will all meet in Mexico City, where we will then take a chartered flight to Havana. Our trip this New Years will truly be a family affair. Feel free to bring children, parents, partners, neighbors, and friends. It is a trip designed for all ages, interests, and backgrounds (family rates available).
After seven action-packed days on this wonderful island, we will re-enter the United States through these same three points of entry. This re-entry will be a powerful challenge to Bush’s restrictive policies that deny us our fundamental liberty to travel where we please. Though past high-profile “travel challenge” groups have experienced no adverse legal consequences to date, we will have our lawyers ready at each airport of entry to provide legal aid, if necessary.
Because we will be traveling to Cuba without government permission (i.e. a license from the US treasury), CODEPINK participants will be breaking the embargo and therefore subject to civil penalties. (For further questions on the legal implications of unauthorized travel to Cuba, check out www.nlg.org/cuba). With these risks in mind, your participation in our trip is a crucial protest in the growing movement to end the travel ban.
We expect a huge response to this trip, so get your applications in early. Also year–end travel gets booked up VERY early (especially the return flights after New Years), so make your plans early! We look forward to spending some marvelous days together, while pushing to overturn a policy that keeps us from building bonds of friendship with our neighbors.
If you are interested in participating in this trip, please contact Dana (at) codepinkalert.org and forms/applications will be sent out shortly. You can also reach Dana by calling the CODEPINK office at (310) 827-4320.
In peace,
Medea, Jodie, and the CODEPINK team
NOTE: Medea, Jodie, Gael and all their "peaceful followers" will be in Cuba to celebrate the 47th anniversary of the Communist takeover of the island nation of Cuba, and the enslavement of the Cuban people.
View the many horrors of Cuba at this web site, TheRealCuba, starting with the "racism" page:
http://www.therealcuba.com/Page21.htm
Code Pink chief founder Medea Benjamin, leader of this trip, is anti-Castro. At least, that's what she told DC Chapter members in person in spring of this year. See my post #58 above.
Is she lying to us by saying that she wants Castro out or is she lying to the Castro govt by, in one way or another, indicating loyalty to the ruthless dictator?
I don't think there's a dictator on earth these ugly hags could prop up...
Unfortunately they also declare their intent to return to this country. Too bad no one in Justice has the cajones to try them for treason in absentia, revoke their passports and then arrest them for illegal immigration when they attempt to return.
Well I can be optimistic and hope that going to Cuba will open these Pinkos' eyes to how bad communism is. How it leads to totalitarianism which destroys all the stupid "rights" they care about like gay marriage, drugs, quality health care, etc. And maybe even perhaps they will see that human suffering is caused by communism, not mitigated by it.
How do they explain Cubans risking their lives to come here to America, but not vice versa? Don't they understand people vote with their feet?
In any case, yes I agree with you, I wish our law enforcement would nail these guys. Would be nice to see.
Don't let them back.
By a subversive anti-Castro group, do you mean people using the Pinkos' to shield them while they spy on Castro? Like the same way our CIA infiltrated the "Human Shields" in order to get maximal information about which targets Saddam wanted to protect?
Yet at first, Cuba's comparative social equality "made it seem like I died and went to heaven." Then she bumped into the limitations of free speech while working at a Communist-run newspaper; she was deported after daring to write an anti-government article. She headed to San Francisco in 1983...
Castro threw Susie Benjamin out of Cuba because she wrote in her articles that it wasn't communist enough for her.
I'm sure Fidel will welcome her back, but I'll also bet that he has all their rooms bugged for sound and video. And if Fidel doesn't think to do it, I'll bet the anti-Castro Cubans will. Heck, maybe both will have the Code PinkOs rooms bugged.
I wonder if Hal is going to send a "friendly heads-up" message to Fidel before comrade Medea arrives?
I've been hearing similar rumblings. Might be fun to read the news from Cuba this winter.
It's a well known fact that Code Pink has been compromised where it counts.
No, you're not the only one who has been struck with our policy differences between Cuba and China. The real difference is one word: $$$.
Revoke their passports when they depart US Airspace..
You must buy round trip and have a return flight assigned when you enter.
The number of stay over nights must be predetermined and paid for in advance. They ranged from $54 to $199 per night per room. I only saw about 5 hotels listed and you had to pick which one.
Ground transportation was not included to/from hotels.
OK, so I stayed around and watched. I saw the ticket taker take the money and the luggage.
When the passengers were there (about 14) I saw the ticket taker take the luggage to the plane.
The passengers got on.
Get this........the ticket seller, the luggage handler, WAS THE PILOT. BTW, a great looking tall female redhead.
I was laughing so hard and loud my wife had to shut me up.
One more thing that you will not believe. The plane was a DC-8.
On Media and the group going to Cuba, I say let them go for it. Only good things can happen for us with this trip.
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