OPEN LETTER TO CIGAR AFICIONADO

NOTE: The first draft of this letter was sent to the publisher and editor of Cigar Aficionado in response to the editorial in the December issue of the magazine, which is dedicated to the Communist paradise which can't find a way to feed its own people. The magazine published an edited version of the letter in its February, 2012 issue, followed by the usual self-serving response. The editorial itself is a typical fluff piece glorifying Cuba without mention of the brutal dictatorship which has brought the Cuban people over 50 years of misery and blames America for all of its problems. Of course, never far behind is the customary hack job on the U.S. Embargo which, they conveniently fail to mention, was imposed by President John F. Kennedy after Castro nationalized (stole) the land and property of all companies (including family-owned tobacco farms and cigar factories). We can understand why these patriots keep their mouths shut on their tobacco tours of Cubatraz. However, whether their motivation is future advertising dollars if the embargo is lifted or something else, their shilling for a bloody dictatorship that outlaws freedom of speech, press, association, and every other human right and tortures those who ask only for the freedoms that we enjoy in America is reprehensible. If you're a cigar maker or reader of this magazine, all I can ask is that you check the facts for yourself and decide what action to take on this. As for me, I prefer not to do business with the friends of tyranny.

Marvin and Gordon,

Your December, 2011 editorial, "Give Them a Break," is disgraceful. While you go out of your way to trash Cuban-Americans and American policy from the comfort of your armchair in the Land of Freedom, you don't say a peep about the totalitarian Cuban regime which outlaws free speech, imprisons those who try to exercise it, and tortures its political opponents. Of course, you already know this, including how Ernesto Padilla's father, poet Heberto Padilla, was tortured for having the courage to write a book of poetry critical of disctatorships. Apparently you prefer to turn a blind eye in order to pander to your "friendly Cubans" while turning your back on the real life and death struggle of the freedom-loving Cubans who have no voice, some of whom are rotting in prison, all in the name of a good Havana. By your logic the US should have done business with, and encouraged tourism to, Hitler's Germany so Americans could buy BMWs and Mercedes and "enlighten" Germans. In fact, the embargo is obviously not the reason Cuba is an economic basket case in spite of the gusher of free oil from Venezuela, since it is free to trade with virtually every nation except the US. Would you go hungry if you could shop at every supermarket in America except for Safeway? Like the food lines in Eastern Europe, which disappeared the day after the Berlin Wall was torn down, the lines in Cuba will disappear as soon as its Communist/Socialist regime is relegated to the ash heap of history.

Best Regards,

"How many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?"
Bob Dylan, Blowin' in the Wind