17.1.15

Cuba and the U. S. Media

Democracy Deserves Better
Monday, January 19th, 2015
     This AP photo shows U. S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont arriving in Havana Saturday. He led a U. S. delegation that met with Cuban officials last weekend to discuss President Obama's plans to normalize relations with Cuba. Senator Leahy told the BBC, "We have all been to Cuba before and we all support the President's new directions for our policy toward Cuba." Such support for President Obama is crucial.
      Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, on behalf of his state's businesses and farmers, told his staff Friday to prepare for him to lead a trade delegation to Cuba in the very near future. Powerful Democrats, such as Senator Leahy and Governor Cuomo, are eager to take advantage of the momentum generated back on December 17th when President Obama announced his plans to break a long cycle of enmity towards the island by normalizing, as best he can, relations between the two neighboring countries. However, this weekend's encouraging efforts by Senator Leahy, Governor Cuomo and others will be met by continuing hostility from a second generation of Cuban exiles and their right-wing Republican associates who have benefited -- politically, economically, revengefully, etc. -- from antagonistic relations between the United States and Cuba. 
     This photo courtesy of the White House shows President Barack Obama making a brave and historic phone call to Cuban President Raul Castro on December 17th, 2014. Since 1959, when the Cuban Revolution overturned the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship, there have been eleven American Presidents, seven of whom served more than one 4-year term. But except for now, in the second half of President Obama's second term in the White House, no U. S. president has had the courage and the will to seriously begin the sane and decent process of normalizing relations with Cuba. Other democratic Presidents -- Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton -- tried but were easily quashed by a few Cuban exiles and their easily acquired sycophants. Republican Presidents since 1959 -- Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush-#1, and Bush-#2 -- have been totally aligned with the most extremist Cuban exiles and their acolytes in the U. S. Congress to fashion a Cuban policy designed solely to benefit them at the expense of hurting everyone else, especially totally innocent Cubans on the island. A prime reason this has been allowed to happen is the increasingly incompetent, intimidated, biased, and commercialized U. S. media, which the Founding Fathers in their wisdom envisioned as their democracy's prime protector. On Friday, January 15th, 2015, many of President Obama's plans to begin the normalization process with Cuba were implemented, including making it much easier for Americans to have the freedom to travel to Cuba and even to engage in limited commerce with Cubans. That alone is light years removed from the five-plus decades of Cuban dictates devised by zealots in Miami and Washington to keep Americans from judging for themselves issues related to the nearby island. Freedom to judge would have mitigated against being told what to think when it came to Cuba. Complicit in this denial of freedom has been that intimidated, incompetent, biased, and commercialized media that has found it safer and more rewarding to bend to the dictates of a self-serving few.
For example............................................
     ............as far as the mainstream media in the U. S. is concerned, Americans are supposed to get their Cuban information from the likes of Alan Gomez. He is the Miami-based "Cuban expert" for USA Today, America's largest newspaper and one that I have subscribed to since 1982, the year the visionary Allen Neuharth founded it. On January 15th, the day after the world was informed of President Obama's vast new and specific plans to normalize relations with Cuba, Mr. Gomez used a vast amount of USA Today's ink and space to impart such sensational news as: "When Castro dies, Cuba natives who have been waiting so long for the day will rejoice. Some will uncork decades-old bottles of champagne they've been saving for the occasion. Governments in South Florida have plans in place for dealing with the spontaneous street parades expected throughout the region." Wow! On a day when less biased, real journalists were discussing the first major changes in U.S.-Cuban relations in over five decades, Mr. Gomez was reminding Americans of these "facts": Every Cuban on the island longs for the day when the 88-year-old Fidel Castro dies; and every Cuban-American longs for the day when the descendants of Fulgencio Batista, Rafael Diaz-Balart, Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, Santo Traficantte Jr., etc., will regain control of Cuba so the people on the island can once again be treated like sweet Mother Teresa would have treated them! For over five decades, as the U. S. media spiraled downward, that is the type vitriol and distortions Americans have been repeatedly spoon-fed by an industry the Founding Fathers long ago believed was crucial to the defense of the American democracy. And nothing has exploited that American weakness more than the island just 90 miles south of Key West, Florida. As anointed by USA Today, America's largest newspaper, Alan Gomez is a "Cuban expert," so you, like a lapdog, are supposed to believe everything he writes.
      When it comes to Cuba, the electronic media in the U. S. is even worse than the printed media, starting with such well-known right-wing propaganda machines as Fox News. As the above promo illustrates, Jose Diaz-Balart has had his own one-hour "news" program on MSNBC since July 14th, 2014. Prior to that he was a fixture on NBC, the celebrated anchor on Telemundo, and a ubiquitous anti-Castro speaker across the United States. The 54-year-old Jose Diaz-Balart got his journalistic start at WTVJ-TV in Miami and his statue escalated as the mainstream U. S. media gradually turned over its Cuban narrative to anti-Castro zealots. Jose Diaz-Balart's father Rafael was a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship in Cuba before emerging as one of the richest and most powerful Cuban exiles. Two of Jose's brothers -- Lincoln and Mario -- have been elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami; another brother, Rafael Jr., is a wealthy banker. Jose's Aunt Mirta was Fidel Castro's first wife; Jose's uncle is the 88-year-old Fidel Castro himself. But the Diaz-Balarts -- in Miami, in the U. S. Congress, and in the U. S. media -- remain virtually unchallenged in their vapid anti-Castro zealotry.
  Anti-Castro zealots, including blood relatives such as Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart from Miami, are ubiquitous on America's T-V screens whenever a Cuban issue arises. In the image on the left, Mario Diaz-Balart is telling the world what an awful "appeaser-in-chief" President Obama is for daring to attempt to bring a measure of sanity and decency to America's Cuban policy. The Castro obsession by one-trick ponies voted into the U. S. Congress from Miami obscure the fact that there are many other non-Cuban issues in this nation's corral. And the flagrancy of the problem lies in the fact that, as far as the mainstream U. S. media is concerned, only the minority views such as those espoused by the Diaz-Balarts deserve to see the light of day while the U. S. media generally dodges anything resembling a balanced approach to the Cuban equation, which creates even more negative connotations.
     Marco Rubio, the U. S. Senator from Miami, repeatedly shows disrespect for President Obama and for the office of President as he tries to ride his one-trick pony named "Cuba" all the way to the White House after a brief stint in the Senate. Rubio is so infatuated with television cameras that he holds the record for appearing on all six network Sunday morning news programs in one morning! His unending vitriol-saturation regarding President Obama's "Cuba policy shift" included braggadocios about his becoming the new Chairman of the Senate's Western Hemisphere Committee, from which he promised to block President Obama's "Cuba policy shifts." Incredibly, Rubio has long been labeled one of the Republican Party's "most serious" presidential candidates in 2016. After the obvious disrespect he displayed towards President Obama and the office, it is apparent calmer, more mature people advised him to back off on Cuba...at least a bit. Then Rubio actually relented...well, uh, as Chairman I, uh, will listen to, uh, both sides. Rubio rode his pony "Cuba" all the way to the Senate from Miami with his bio claiming his parents escaped the tyranny of Castro's Cuba for the freedom of Miami. It was later pointed out that his parents had, uh, escaped the Batista tyranny in Cuba. No, Rubio will not carry through with his plans to run for President in 2016 because it would jeopardize his entrenched seat in the Senate. But, guess what? He's being advised to put his pony "Cuba" out to pasture and learn to ride some bigger horses -- such as "Economy," "Jobs," "Health Care," etc. In the meanwhile, the U. S. media will continue to make sure that, with few exceptions, only self-serving zealots such as Rubio and the Diaz-Balarts get to express their opinions regarding Cuban issues.
   Sarah Stephens is the Founder and Executive Director of the Washington-based Center For Democracy in the Americas. A great proponent of decency and democracy, she is also the greatest, most unbiased, and most tireless American expert on U.S.-Cuban relations. That's why you seldom see her opinions expressed on television or in newspapers, not even to balance out the ubiquitous, self-serving views of Alan Gomez, the Diaz-Balarts, Marco Rubio, etc. Each Friday Ms. Stephens writes the "Cuba Central - The Blog" segment. On Friday, January 16th, she wrote: "What Obama has done -- while his predecessors didn't and somehow couldn't -- is to open a considerable amount of political space for actors other than government officials and public servants to do the hard but necessary work of bringing Cuba and the United States closer together. Many Cuban Americans have labored bravely for decades in a hostile environment in which the expression of moderate views was met with disapproval -- and in some cases with force -- from bullies and extremists. The hands are now stronger in the effort to change the conversation in their community because they now have the President leading the charge as well as lots and lots of allies. By changing the policy and setting a new tone at the top, the President has encouraged a more diverse, democratic, and decent debate." For six decades, America's Cuban policy has been indecent and undemocratic. Ms. Stephens wants to change that.
      This photo shows U. S. Senators Marco Rubio of Miami and Bob Menendez of Union City meeting with famed Cuban dissidents, including the most famous of all, Yoani Sanchez, who can now fly to Miami, Washington, and back to Havana. Some people believe that sessions such as this should dictate America's Cuban policy. But some people -- including, I believe, President Obama and Sarah Stephens -- believe it is time that the majority of Americans, Cubans, and Cuban-Americans are also included in the multi-dimensional Cuban conundrum. It is also time the U. S. media had the gumption to present a balanced Cuban narrative.
      In the aforementioned quotation, Sarah Stephens lamented the fact that, "Many Cuban-Americans have labored bravely for decades in a hostile environment in which the expressions of moderate views was met with disapproval -- and in some cases with force -- from bullies and extremists." Ms. Stephens could have been referencing Emilio Milian. Emilio, a Cuban-American, was the News Director at WQBA Radio in Miami. He bravely maintained that Cubans in Miami should cease their terrorist acts against innocent Cubans or Americans. He was car-bombed. The democracy-loving Sarah Stephens obviously believes that such "bullies and extremists" who silenced Emilio Milian should not forever dictate America's Cuban policy. At last, the United States has a President who apparently agrees with her.
Against imposing opposition, he at least is trying to help both Cubans and Americans.
May his legacy be sure to register that salient fact.
****************************** 

16.1.15

Today Is A New Day For Cuba

As U. S. Tries A Fresh Approach
      A new day dawned today -- January 16, 2015 -- for the United States and Cuba. For the first time in over half a century, a brave new attempt initiated by President Barack Obama, and encouraged by Cuban President Raul Castro and Pope Francis, has drastically changed relations between the two neighboring nations. Beginning today, some of the initiatives come to fruition and begin taking effect. Yes, they include the world's most famed cigars, which Americans can now purchase on the island and bring up to $100 of them home. That's significant because in 1962 President John Kennedy told Press Secretary Pierre Salinger not to announce the strict embargo against Cuba till he, the President, had received one thousand of the Cohiba cigars.
       Only after he received the 1,000 Cuban cigars did President Kennedy officially sign into effect an embargo against Cuba in 1962 that, according to de-classified U. S. documents, was intended to starve and deprive Cubans on the island to rise and overthrow Cuba's revolutionary government, which the U.S.-Cuban exile attack at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 had failed to do as have terrorist acts such as bombing Cubana Flight 455 and many failed attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. Since 1962, the year President Kennedy got his cigars, the embargo against Cuba has been greatly enhanced, especially since the 1980s when the Bush dynasty began to empower and advise Cuban-exile zealots how to take control of the U. S. Congress in order to dictate America's Cuban policy. {Julia E. Sweig on Pages 101-102 of the Second Edition of her seminal book "What Everyone Needs to Know About Cuba" explains how Miami's most zealous Cuban exiles, with help from the Bush dynasty, slyly pulled off that still-mitigating caper}. But now back to those cigars, the ones President Kennedy enjoyed in 1962 and the celebratory one the young lady is enjoying today.
      Last month, on Dec. 17-2014, President Barack Obama quite bravely announced his intentions to normalize relations with Cuba although he well knows, to this very day, a handful of Cuban-Americans maintain a tight grip on the U. S. Congress on all matters related to Cuba. But as President he has executive powers and a veto privilege that, combined with a dose of courage, can at long last bring a measure of decency and sanity to U.S.-Cuban relations. Thus, beginning today there are a dozen new avenues for Americans to travel to Cuba. Airlines and travel agents will be able to provide services to Cuba without a specific license. U. S. travelers to Cuba will be able to use credit cards and spend more money while on the island. U. S. tourists can bring back up to $100 in alcohol and tobacco products. Americans will be able to send $2,000 every three months to the island instead of the current $500 limit. And, starting today, Americans can bring back $400 worth of souvenirs from the island.
   To be sure, the Herculean efforts of President Obama -- including and beyond what he authorized and put into effect beginning today -- will face omnipotent opposition from a second generation of Cuban exiles and their sycophants who have -- revengefully, economically, and politically -- gained mightily from the embargo and other massive hostilities that have embroiled U.S.-Cuban relations since 1959, when the Cuban Revolution overthrew the not-too-saintly Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the island, only to see the leadership flee and resurface, more powerful than ever, on U. S. soil. For sure, in a U. S. Congress in which both components -- the Senate and the House -- are now dominated by Republicans, a handful of Cuban-American politicians have huge advantages over a Democratic President such as Mr. Obama when he tries to promote democratic principles. But with the actions implemented today, President Obama has far exceeded the decent but easily crushed efforts of Presidents like Kennedy in 1963, Carter in the 1970s, and Clinton in the 1990s. Therefore, President Obama proved today that the United States democracy has not yet totally evolved into a Banana Republic that blissfully ignores what the majority of its citizens desire and deserve.
            This photo was taken by Andrea Bruce for the New York Times. It shows a young Cuban playing baseball on a street in Santiago de Cuba, the former capital and second largest city located on the island's eastern tip. It was one of several photos that illustrated an insightful article written by William Neuman and entitled: "On the Open Road, Signs of a Changing Cuba." Cuba has indeed changed merely by surviving, evolving, and learning to exist in a world in which its neighbor, the strongest nation in the world, has tried, for 56 years, to regain control of it, reminiscent of the 1950s when the U. S., the world's most famed democracy, teamed with the Mafia to support the vile Batista dictatorship. Cuba's survival has included the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack, numerous assassination attempts, the 1976 bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455, and a cruel embargo that now is closing in on six decades -- all to appease a handful of two generations of the most extremists Cuban-exile benefactors. The young baseball player above, like most of the adults on the island, have been punished all their lives because of a gigantic, imperialist mistake that had its origin way back in 1952 when a few right-wingers high up in the U. S. government, such as the Dulles brothers, decided to align with the Mafia to support a Cuban dictatorship that, with kick-backs, allowed U. S. businesses, such as the Dulles-related United Fruit Company, to rob the island blind. The fact that the U. S. democracy, in all the decades since 1952, has been unable to correct this injustice to this day baffles America's best democracy-loving friends around the world. The photo above of the young Cuban baseball player, taken in the first week of January-2015, reflects hope that this young boy will grow up in a sovereign nation, hopefully a democratic one, that is not plagued by the avaricious designs of revengeful usurpers in a foreign nation nor oppressive forces on the island. The hope evolves around the Dec. 17th-2014 announcement that President Obama plans to normalize relations with Cuba. Sadly, despite the strides implemented today, those plans will likely fail -- just as President Kennedy's in 1963 and President Clinton's in 1996 failed. Like in 1952, 1963, and 1996, in 2015 America's Cuban policy is dictated by a U. S. Congress that continues to view the lush island of Cuba as a piggy-bank, a cash cow, and a punching bag. This young baseball player merely represents a third generation of Cubans being used as pawns in a grossly flawed, undemocratic Cuban policy that, in 2015, is far more harmful to America's image than it is to Cuba's.
        This photo was taken a few days ago by Andrea Bruce for the New York Times. It shows a Cuban grandmother {on the second floor} and mother {on the first floorcarefully watching their grandchild as the girl leaves for school. The little girl is very clean and neatly dressed. She is also being well-educated totally free and has excellent health care totally free. And Cuban children like her are among the safest on the planet, well protected by their families and also watched over by the block-by-block Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. But this little girl and her mother have been punished all their lives by an American Cuban policy dictated for decades by two generations of revengeful, greedy, and power-hungry Cuban exiles and their easily acquired acolytes who partake of the homogenized spoils. Since 1959 the revolutionary Cuban government has made many mistakes, especially from an economic standpoint, but excruciating threats and pressure from nearby foreign soil provides much of the deprivation for this beautiful little Cuban girl. Some may think that mansions and other gluttonous possessions in Miami or exultant political power in Washington is worth persecuting this little girl in future decades just as her mother has been persecuted in past decades. But there are some, such as President Obama, who disagree. This little girl is worth more than those mansions in Miami and all that power in Washington.
      Enrique Krauze is surely one of the world's greatest democracy-loving Cuban and Latin American experts. As a New York Times editorialist, Mr. Krauze has a powerful forum to inform the world how harmful to America and to democracy the U. S. policy regarding Cuba really is. Yet, in propagandized America, a Fox News connoisseur with a 5th grade education and no knowledge of the Cuban conundrum is more significant when it comes to Cuban issues than the brilliant, well-educated, and well-informed Mr. Krauze. In the first week of January-2015 Mr. Krauze wrote the New York Times' editorial entitled "End of Anti-Americanism?" The question mark was his, not mine. He wrote: "Cuba has been the epicenter of anti-Americanism in modern America. As a political ideology it was born during the Spanish-American War of 1898, the Cuban Revolution in 1959, and may now, through a singularly courageous move by President Obama, have begun its final decline. The agreement to re-establish diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba will face serious problems..." Mr. Krauze, of course, was aware of the "serious problems" a handful of self-serving pro-embargo zealots and benefactors can exact on a democracy in which money, intimidation, and propaganda can out-weigh even a significant majority of people. He then detailed a few historic facts that Americans are not supposed to consider: "The Spanish-American War of 1898 united the countries of Hispanic America against the United States and basically reconciled them with Spain...the United States continued to support authoritarian dictatorships like the Somoza family business in Nicaragua. America's claim to be a fountain of democratic values lost its credibility. In 1947 Mexican historian Daniel Casio Villegas predicted: 'Latin America will seethe with unrest...capable of anything.' The Cuban Revolution fulfilled that prophecy. The American boycott of Cuba has remained as an outmoded and divisive force. In reestablishing relations with Cuba, the United States renounces its 'imperial destiny' and recovers much of its moral legitimacy needed to uphold its democratic values." In other words, an intelligent, informed person, such as Enrique Krauze, is 100% correct in pointing out how America's Cuban policy, decade after decade, has so greatly harmed the United States and democracy merely to appease a few self-serving American right-wingers and a few self-serving Cuban-Americans. The fact that most Cuban-Americans and the entire world desire more normal relations with Cuba matters little. Thus, the words by Mr. Krauze will be out-gunned because the mainstream media has primarily evolved into an incompetent, intimidated instrument susceptible to promoting a propagandistic web of lies. The dominant factor, and what has extended America's dismal Cuban policy for decades, is a proselytized America that accepts an extremist stranglehold on its democracy.
******************************

13.1.15

A New Chance For Cuban Sanity

Like A Phoenix Rising From the Ashes
Thursday, January 15th, 2015
      This Bloomberg News photo shows two huge cargo cranes at Cuba's refurbished Mariel Port 28 miles southwest of Havana and due south of Key West, Florida. The newly deepened port is now a Caribbean jewel. The photo was used yesterday -- January 14th -- to illustrate a major article in The Wall Street Journal written by William Mauldin. He wrote: "U. S. businesses are pressing the Obama administration to offer wider access to Cuba's markets...fearing they could lag behind overseas competitors as the island nation takes steps toward opening up its economy." The long and insightful article reinforced the consensus opinion that normalizing relations with Cuba, as President Obama is bravely trying to do, would benefit most Cubans, most Americans, most Caribbeans, most Latin Americans, and most of America's best friends around the world. Yet, in all likelihood, America's failed, flawed, archaic, indecent, undemocratic, avaricious, and cruel Cuban policy will continue to be dictated by a handful of Cuban-Americans at the expense of everyone else. 
     For example, if normalizing relations between the U. S. and Cuba benefited everyone in the world, but was opposed by a couple of entrenched Cuban-American members of the U. S. Congress from Union City and Miami, it would be the 7.2 billion people in the world who would end up as the losers. It has been that way since 1959 when the triumph of the Cuban Revolution chased the leaders of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship back to U. S. soil, from which, remarkably, they have been unable to regain control of the pugnacious island. While President Obama has certain executive powers, Cuban-American extremists have control of the U. S. Congress. Thus, no matter what brilliant business writers such as William Mauldin opine, they always omit the most salient fact, which is: The Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba both say a helluva lot more about the United States than they say about Cuba.
This map shows the location of the Mariel Port 28 miles southwest of Havana. 
    
         This 21-year-old right-handed pitcher, Yoan Lopez, didn't have a bank account in Cuba but he now has one in America. Yoan has just gotten an $8.5 million bonus from the Arizona Diamondbacks in America's National League. He turned down a larger $9 million bonus offer from another team because he preferred playing in Arizona, which has a climate not so unlike Cuba's. Yoan pitched for three years in Cuba's top league for Isla de la Juvetud on the island just south of the main island. Because Cuba, per capita, produces far more baseball talent than the U. S., Yoan could have signed with other Major League teams, most of whom already have Cuban superstars. But Yoan preferred sunny Arizona where he joins his best Cuban buddy, Yasmany Tomas.
      This is Yasmany Tomas. He is a 24-year-old outfielder.       Yasmany recently signed a $68.5 million guaranteed contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Yoan Lopez's new team.
     This is 20-year-old infielder Roberto Baldoquin shown on one of his last days on a Cuban baseball field. Last week the Los Angeles Dodgers gave Roberto an $8 million signing bonus. The 30 U. S. Major League teams can risk guaranteeing such money to prospects because of enormous television revenue for sports teams in baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. While Cuba, per capita, produces far more baseball talent than the U. S., the U. S. has far more money -- per capita and, uh, otherwise.
           This is Andy Ibanez, a 21-year-old, 5-foot-10-inch, 183-pound second baseman. Andy recently left Cuba and is now in the Dominican Republic as his high-profile agents and advisers sift through a bevy of offers from Major League teams in the U. S. The Perfect Storm continues: Cuba's gold-mine of baseball talent is endless and pro baseball teams in the U. S. have bottomless pits of television money. Andy, 20-year-old pitcher Norge Ruiz, 18-year-old slugger Vladimir Gutierrez, etc., will soon join a long list of Cuban multi-millionaires playing baseball in the nearby United States.
       This Ramon Espinosa/AP photo shows two Cubans among a crew of workers renovating Cuba's capital dome in Havana. The Cuban government decided to go ahead with the project after the December 17th announcement that the United States and Cuba were trying to normalize relations, a plan that outrages a few powerful Cuban-Americans who believe they alone should dictate America's Cuban policy.
       Cuba's capital building is one of the architectural wonders of the Western World. But like many private and public structures on the island, it is badly in need of restoration. The U. S. embargo against Cuba, in place since 1962, has not only harmed the island's economic viability but it has also prevented badly needed U. S. supplies and construction equipment and material from reaching the island. Such renovation projects in Cuba would not only put many Cubans and Americans to work, they would also benefit both countries economically, architecturally, and in many other ways.
       This is the U. S. Interests Section Building in Havana. Up to 300 Americans and Cubans work on the six main floors. The building was constructed in the 1950s and it is badly in need of repairs, especially the roof that leaks. President Obama, as part of his plans to normalize relations with Cuba, plans to renovate this building in preparation for a U. S. Embassy in Havana. But all those plans, which would help so many Americans and Cubans, are, not unexpectedly, strongly opposed by a small but powerful segment of Cuban-Americans who vow to block any funds needed to open the proposed new U. S. Embassy in Cuba and to block any Ambassador to Cuba that President Obama will name. Odds are, the minority exile forces on American soil who have dictated America's Cuban policies for over five decades will continue to do so in a democracy that, more and more, is susceptible to special interest money.
        Sunday on the CBS program "Face the NationSenator Lindsey Graham said, "If you are being offered the ambassador to Cuba job, turn it down because you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting confirmed." As a democracy-loving conservative Republican, I have come to firmly believe that entrenched right-wing Republican thugs in the U. S. Congress, as epitomized by Senator Graham, represent the biggest threat to the democracy envisioned by the Founding Fathers. Graham has been in the U. S. Congress since 1995. As an almost-impossible-to-dislodge incumbent from one nondescript area of South Carolina, Graham can make asinine decisions in the U. S. Senate that adversely affect 300 million Americans, 11 million Cubans, and innocent people worldwide. Additionally he can block decisions that would benefit 300 million Americans, 11 million Cubans, and world citizens. But those 300 million Americans and 11 million Cubans are pawns that must live with the likes of a Senator Graham because of a flawed system that allows for such incumbency -- decade after decade. Senator Graham should be a dog-catcher in the tiny town of Central located in the northwest corner of South Carolina, not a tax-paid, PAC-enriched eternal member of the U. S. Congress spewing his onerous right-wing ideology. 
Phoenix, in Greek mythology, was a beautiful bird that rose from the ashes.
Cuba, in Caribbean reality, is trying to rise from the ashes.
This recent AP/Desmond Boylan photo shows two classic cars at Cuba's Malecon seawall.
******************************  

5.1.15

Very Sad Days For Cuba

And for The United States of America
Friday, January 9th, 2015
      Jose Ramon Cabanas, the chief of Cuba's Interests Section in Washington, is Cuba's top diplomat in the United States. This week he got a special invitation from Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and then enjoyed some very productive meetings in the capital city of Richmond. After a private session with Governor McAuliffe, Dr. Cabanas met with officials of the Virginia Farm Bureau and the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce as well as with leaders at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Business. Virginia is now the third largest U. S. trade partner with Cuba, right behind Louisiana and Georgia. As Republicans in the U. S. Congress are working hard to thwart every aspect of President Obama's plans to normalize relations with Cuba, states with large ports, like Virginia, are keenly interested in increasing trade with the neighboring island. "Friendship," Dr. Cabanas said, "will help Cubans and Americans." 
     The mainstream U. S. media generally refrains from publishing anything positive related to Cuba but this week The Washington Post departed from that axiom. The Post actually featured an article written by Joshua Partlow and Nick Miroff entitled "In Fight Against Drugs, Cuba And U. S. On Same Page." After reading the article, my first impression was that the major port city of Miami should also get on that page. The photo above is a recurring event in Miami. It depicts the U. S. Coast Guard displaying $37 million worth of confiscated cocaine. Television channels in Miami, such as CBS4, regularly -- almost nightly -- show such scenes of cocaine stashes worth up to $100 million. The aforementioned Washington Post article this week stated: "The river of illegal drugs rushing north through Central America and the Caribbean tends to avoid one conspicuous hook-shaped obstacle -- Cuba. Cuba is surrounded by countries that are used as cartel way-stations. But Cuba has distinguished itself as a tough place to traffic drugs." Beyond that, the article explained that Cuba is America's best partner, by far, in the war against drugs while stating that Mexico, Jamaica, Guatemala, etc., are "major transit and source countries for illicit drugs destined for America. Cuba helps the U. S. keep a Coast Guard attache, a drug interdiction specialist, at the U. S. Interests Section in Havana." Cuba, to keep illegal drugs off the island, tightly monitors its vast coastlines and the multitude of small islands off its main island. In doing so, Cuba often captures and turns over to the U. S. drug smugglers the U. S. had been trying to capture. Cuba also regularly informs the U. S. of suspected drug-transporting ships, boats, and planes operating on the periphery of its territorial waters. The Post article also referenced Vicki Huddleston, former head of the U. S. Interests Section in Havana, to point out the incredible absurdness of America's Cuban policy that blocks positives and stresses negatives.
      Vicki Huddleston is a retired American diplomat. She was the top U. S. official at the U. S. Interests Section in Havana from June of 2009 through December of 2011. As a recent insider, she is abundantly aware of the cruelty and insanity that rules America's Cuban policy. This week she told the Washington Post an example of that undeniable fact. While she led the U. S. Section in Havana, Cuba's Coast Guard would continually alert her office about narcotic speedboats approaching or trying to circumvent U. S. Coast Guard ships, which the U. S. considered pertinent and prized information. But Ms. Huddleston told the Post that, incredibly, her office was not allowed to acknowledge receiving the data. She said: "Cuba would send radio messages about passing narcotic speedboats, but the U. S. was not allowed to answer. We were prohibited from saying in return, 'Thank you, we've got it.' So they just kept repeating it." If that sounds like a Three Stooges or Marx Brothers comedy or satire making fun of Cuba, I believe we all should agree with the informed Vicki Huddleston that, in reality, it makes fun of the United States of America and its democracy for allowing a few self-serving politicos to maintain firm grips on an American Cuban policy that adversely affects many things, including drug-trafficking pipelines that easily reach American shores. 
      The above CBS4 video shows another of the recently confiscated cocaine stashes being displayed in Miami. This week's Washington Post article pointed out that the Havana-to-Miami drug route proliferated during the Batista/Mafia dictatorship until it was totally stopped on January 1, 1959 with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. According to these CBS4 photos and this week's Post article, Miami still has a problem with drugs while Havana is not only still drug-free but also is America's "best partner" in the War on Drugs.
CBS4 in Miami shows $26 million in drug contraband found on one boat.
       Vickie Huddleston's revelation about Cuba trying so hard to help the U. S. in the War on Drugs is a reminder of how mightily Cuba tried to help the U. S. in August of 2005 when everyone knew Hurricane Katrina was about to demolish New Orleans. It is also well known, by the U. S. Coast Guard and everyone else, that Cuba has the world's best 1500-member medical/rescue team designed to minimize hurricane damage. As Katrina bore down on New Orleans, Cuba had that team at Jose Marti Airport in Havana while it begged the George W. Bush administration to let them fly to New Orleans. That request was denied. The world watched as well-known American television anchors -- especially Anderson Cooper of CNN and Shepherd Smith of Fox News -- shouted for the U. S. government to "For God's sake! Do something to help the people that are still living!" Live video showed the world bodies floating in water while the world's most skilled Hurricane Medical/Rescue Team waited in vain in Havana. Hurricane Katrina killed 1,833 Americans. How many of those lives could have been saved? How many votes did it cost the Bush dynasty? The answers are probably: "some" and "none." A Cuban policy that hurts many to appease a few is still ongoing.
     Diana DeGette is an anomaly in the U. S. Congress where she has represented Colorado's 1st District since 1997. She has both the courage and the integrity to point out how the U. S. embargo against Cuba, designed since 1962 to appease a handful of hard-line anti-Castro zealots, harms everyone else. Concerned with the millions of Coloradans and Americans who have acute diabetes that threatens them with leg amputations, Congresswoman DeGette went to Cuba to investigate the world's most promising drug, invented by Cuba's highly regarded medical scientists, that has been shown to prevent diabetic amputations. She determined that the U. S. embargo against Cuba was preventing that help and hope from reaching diabetic patients in Colorado and America, help and hope they needed and deserved. She now stands up and says so. That makes her a rarity in the U. S. Congress, someone who will actually point out at least one of the many fallacies of an American Cuban policy crafted tightly to benefit a few and harm the many -- in Colorado and around the world.
******************** 
        The New York Times this week used this Adria Fruitos graphic to illustrate a major editorial entitled: "The Path To Closing Guantanamo: Three Misconceptions Are Holding Up The End Of This Stain On America." With all due respect to that insightful editorial, I believe just one sentence is needed to explain why Gitmo, the "Gulag of our time" according to Amnesty International, is allowed, year after year, to imprint "a stain on America." That one sentence is: A handful of self-serving Cuban-Americans and their sycophants who control America's Cuban policy could not care less about the indelible stains they leave on America.
     Cliff Sloan authored the aforementioned editorial in the New York Times. He is the Harvard-educated lawyer who was the U. S. State Department's Special Envoy in charge of reviewing the blight Guantanamo has had on the U. S. image since its dismal, idiosyncratic, mind-boggling prison was created by the Bush-Cheney administration in January of 2002. Mr. Sloan resigned that State Department post last month, apparently out of frustration that the world-famed Gitmo prison continues to exist. In his editorial, Mr. Sloan wrote: "The greatest single action the United States can take to fight terrorism is to close Guantanamo." He stressed that the reasons for closing Gitmo "are more compelling than ever." He lamented the "eye-popping cost that is draining vital resources." Mr. Sloan pointed out that it costs U. S. taxpayers $3 million per year per prisoner at Gitmo while the cost would be $75,000 per year per prisoner at the most secure federal prison in the U. S., yet right-wingers in the U. S. Congress believe it is better if such a bad thing is kept on Cuban, not American, soil. Also, as Mr. Sloan and all unbiased Guantanamo experts well know, every Caribbean and Latin American nation wants the lush Guantanamo Bay returned to its rightful owner -- Cuba. Yet, despite the multiplicity of reasons to close Gitmo, and return Guantanamo to Cuba, such things cannot be accomplished because a handful of benefactors -- motivated by revenge against Cuba as well as economic and political reasons in the U. S. -- continue to dictate America's Cuban policy. Mr. Sloan used a major swath in the New York Times to remind Americans of the "stain" that this puts "on America." But who cares? Surely not the benefactors, and apparently not enough democracy-loving Americans. But thanks anyway, Mr. Sloan, for the reminder.
************    
      If you study and comprehend this Reuters photo, you will begin to understand why today -- Tuesday, January 6th, 2015 -- will be a very sad day for Cuba and for the United States of America. The 535-member U. S. Congress has two branches -- A Senate and a House of Representatives. Beginning today right-wing Republicans will have control of both those branches of Congress, which already had an approval rating in the single digits because most Americans realize that vast amounts of special interest money have created a bought-and-paid-for Congress that answers only to an elitist few. Therefore, incumbency, nepotism, and other undemocratic evils infuse what the Founding Fathers intended as an essential body that would represent the interests of most of America's citizens. America's disastrous and undemocratic Cuban policy, dating back to the 1950s, epitomizes why a U. S. government dominated or greatly influenced by extremists -- right-wingers or left-wingers -- is not what the Founding Fathers envisioned. In 1952 the U. S. government teamed with the Mafia to support the brutal Batista dictatorship in Cuba. When the Cuban Revolution astoundingly overthrew the Batista dictatorship on Jan.1-1959, the Batistianos merely resurfaced on U. S. soil, turning Miami into Little Havana on the way to reshaping the U. S. Congress. Aligning with right-wing American politicos -- the Dulles brothers, the Bush dynasty, Jesse Helms, Robert Torricelli, etc. -- Cuban exile extremists have had no problem dictating America's Cuban policy since 1959. Vast amounts of money extracted from Cuba in the 1950s overwhelmed Miami and Union City in the 1960s and 1970s. By the 1980s, when the Bush dynasty designated Jorge Mas Canosa as the leader of the Cuban exiles and advised him to study and then replicate Israel's lobbying arm AIPAC, a handful of powerful Cuban exiles, after creating the Cuban lobbying arm CANF, had full control of America's Cuban policy, as reflected by the Torricelli Bill and the Helms-Burton Act that to this day greatly benefit a few Cuban-Americans and their sycophants while harming everyone else. The photo at the top of this essay shows two entrenched members of the U. S. Congress from Miami -- Representative Mario Diaz-Balart and Senator Marco Rubio. Mario's father Rafael was a key Minister in Cuba's Batista dictatorship and Rafael was one of the super-rich Cuban exiles; Marco, after aligning with the Bush dynasty, made it all the way to the U. S. Senate with his bio conveniently maintaining that his parents escaped the Castro tyranny in Cuba for the freedom of Miami, till it was saliently pointed out that his parents escaped the Batista tyranny for the freedom of Miami. This Reuters photo was taken on December 18th, the day after President Obama announced his plans to normalize relations with Cuba. Mr. Diaz-Balart and Mr. Rubio, after corralling every network camera they could find, hastened to Miami to hold this news conference. They vowed to team with other entrenched Cuban-Americans in Congress -- Bob Menendez of Union City, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami, etc. -- to block every effort by President Obama to normalize relations with Cuba. A U. S. ambassador to Cuba? Diaz-Balart, Rubio, etc., vowed to easily block that nomination. A U. S. embassy in Havana? Diaz-Balart, Rubio, etc., vowed to make sure there was not a penny to fund it {although, of course, they would make sure that the endless stream of tax dollars flowing to special projects in Miami and special projects to hurt Cuba would continued unabated}. Since the 1950s the Cuban Revolution has said a lot more about the United States than if has said about Cuba. One thing it says is that a handful of Cuban-Americans in Miami and Union City should not be permitted to dictate America's Cuban policy -- a policy that includes such democratic disasters as the Bay of Pigs attack, the bombing of Cubana Flight 455, and, of course, the Helms-Burton Act.
********* 
         This Ramon Espinosa/AP photo highlighted a USA Today front-page article on January 4th. It shows a fruit vendor in Havana counting his profits from selling oranges. The article was written from Havana by USA Today's Miami-based journalist Alan Gomez. The headline was: "Thawing U. S. Relations Could Give Private Workers A Boost" and the sub-headline was "Self-Employed Cubans See Hope In Renewed Relations With The U. S." For 56 years since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, hard-line anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami, Union City, and Washington have used the unmatched power and wealth of the U. S. government to regain control of Cuba, as in the Batista-Mafia era, but, failing that, have severely punished Cubans on the island in efforts to entice them to rise up and overthrow revolutionary rule on the island. That situation has drastically hurt Cubans on the island as well as America's reputation around the world, especially in its backyard -- the Caribbean and Latin America. The Presidential and Papal announcements on December 17th outlining U.S.-Cuban plans to normalize relations will continue to make headlines but don't expect major changes. Hard-liners in Miami and Union City, increasingly a minority, still have total control of all Cuban issues within the confines of the U. S. Congress, which is ruled by lobbyist-wielded special interest money. Thus, the vast majority of people, although aligned with a decent President, remain stark underdogs when it comes to bringing sanity and decency to America's flawed Cuban policy.
        Todd Haymore is Virginia's Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry. Each of the past eight years he has been to Cuba trying to legally help Virginia farmers and entrepreneurs sell their products. Within the limitations imposed by the U. S. embargo, he has been as successful as possible. Virginia is third, behind only Georgia and Louisiana, when it comes to exporting goods to Cuba. He told the Martinsville Bulletin that President Obama's penultimate efforts to normalize relations with the island will benefit Virginia and other states, especially those that have major ports not far from the island. Mr. Haymore said soybeans, poultry, and apples are prime Virginia products that needy Cubans need to be shipped from nearby ports.
       Henry Chiles owns 1,000 prime acres in Virginia's Albemarle and Nelson counties and his Crown Orchard produces some of the most delicious apples on the planet. He has sold apples to Cuba for the past decade despite a stifling amount of bureaucratic handicaps. He told the Martinsville Bulletin that the U. S. produces more apples than Americans can consume and that "Cubans love American apples."  
      Rajiv Shah, the Director of USAID, is resigning. He announced: "With mixed emotions I informed President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry that I will resign in the middle of February 2015." That resignation figures to save the U. S. taxpayers some money by at least reducing the recent series of well-funded and highly questionable USAID campaigns to undermine the Cuban government. Two U. S. Senators -- Patrick Leahy and Jeff Flake -- described Mr. Shah's USAID projects in Cuba as "irresponsible and stupid." Fernando Ravsberg, a respected Cuban expert, wrote: "Few will miss Mr. Shaw; he defrauded some for his lack of ethics and others for his clumsiness." Unfortunately, irresponsible, stupid, lack of ethics, and clumsiness are terms that aptly describe America's Cuban policy since at least the irresponsible, stupid, unethical, and clumsy Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba in April of 1961. Mr. Shah's resignation at USAID improves that situation but one thing is certain: Even if President Obama, miraculously, makes significant headway in his plans to normalize relations with Cuba in the final two years of his two-term presidency, rest assured that forces -- in politics and in the media -- will do everything in their considerable power to thwart, over-rule, and blunt any such sane ideas. There has been, since the 1950s, too much money and too much power derived from a Batista/Mafia-like U. S. policy related to Cuba to think that it will end just because a decent President, a concerned Pope, and most people in the region and the world want it to finally end. Cuba is and Cuba will remain a prime example that dictates this fact of life: Greed can overwhelm even the world's greatest democracy. President Obama's normalization plans and Mr. Shah's resignation are ephemeral little slivers of light that sometimes flicker into the darkness of America's Cuban policy, only to sadly fade away.   
        Cuba is generally portrayed by the U. S. media as a fenced-in/fenced-out island that tightly controls how it is depicted by foreign journalists. Like many other aspects of Cuban life, that is not true. Alan Gomez is USA Today's Miami-based, anti-Castro reporter/columnist. He's in Havana this week. Cuba didn't mind his visit although it was well known his next column in America's top newspaper would be viscerally anti-Castro. It was. His December 29th headline covered the whole top of a page: "Cubans Find Their Voices Of Discontent." Both the blaring headline and the only photo accompanying the column was intended to tell Americans that every Cuban on the island stringently opposes the now combined efforts of Cuba and the United States to normalize relations. Other less biased journalists have reported that, shortly after noon on December 17th when they learned of the normalization efforts, bells were ringing as Cubans rejoiced in the streets and out their windows. The mainstream largely obsequious U. S. media is generally incapable of providing balanced coverage of Cuba, either because it is intimidated, incompetent, or simply trying to be politically or socially correct. Having Alan Gomez based in Miami as their prime journalist on all things Cuban is a strong indication that USA Today is not really interested in unbiased Cuban coverage.
     Yoani Sanchez is the most famed and most powerful anti-Castro zealot on the island. Cuba allows her to fly around the world telling the planet what horrible men the Castro brothers are. In the photo at the right she is broadcasting in Miami at the state-of-the-art Radio-TV Marti boondoggle that has put a huge dent in the U. S. treasury since the 1980s although it is nothing more and nothing less than an anti-Castro propaganda machine, as all 535 members of the U. S. Congress fully realize even as they keep the cash pipeline flowing to Miami.
    Of course, as a world-traveler, Yoani Sanchez didn't pass up being fawned over in Washington by visceral anti-Castro Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez. When she arrived back in Havana, she announced she had the resources to begin her own anti-Castro digital newspaper to complement her internationally acclaimed anti-Castro blog. The mainstream U. S. media that lavishly covered Ms. Sanchez's trip to America failed to mention that, by way of contrast, everyday Americans are not allowed to visit Cuba...apparently because, if so, they might be able to form their own opinions.
    CNN's coverage of Cuban issues is a biased, pusillanimous joke. Ana Navarro is CNN's primary Cuban analyst-commentator-pundit. A University of Miami graduate, she is viscerally anti-Cuban striving to promote her Miami heroes, especially Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush. CNN allows Ms. Navarro to endlessly assault Cuba without balancing out her venom with less biased opinions. Also, for every minute Ms. Navarro is on CNN promoting the presidential candidacies of Rubio and Bush, the network should provide equally free political commercials for Democratic candidates.
     Academic Director Gregory Fairchild is a Professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, one of the world's leading business schools. Mr. Fairchild is taking 28 of his top students to Cuba. He wants them to study the economic and entrepreneurial changes currently taking place on the island. If the students discover a positive, perhaps the mainstream U. S. media, even CNN and USA Today, might report it...you know, before calling on Alan Gomez and Ana Navarro to propagandize it.
********
        Headlines such as this one -- "Cuba: We're Open to Every Part of Obama's Detente" -- have circled the globe since December 17-2014 when President Obama, President Castro, and intermediary Pope Francis all agreed on a concerted effort to normalize relations between the U. S. and Cuba. The above AP article featured quotes from Josefina Vidal, Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs, expressing the island's sincere desire to continue the diplomatic negotiations "until full relations are established." However, Ms. Vidal is a tough cookie. She is not a neophyte. She is well aware that, for decades, a handful of the retrenched remnants from the ousted Batista-Mafia regime in Cuba have dictated, with the help of self-serving sycophants such as the Bush dynasty, America's Cuban policy. In that undeniable process, much of the U. S. treasury, courtesy of mostly unwitting tax-payers, has been showered on such projects as the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba, an incredible number of assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, and a myriad of other well-funded schemes to overthrow Revolutionary Cuba, which, against all odds, has survived since January of 1959. Additionally, for five decades unceasing buckets of tax dollars have filled the pipeline from Washington to Miami to boost the coffers and bank accounts of anti-Castro zealots. That spigot has not and will not be cut off, despite such recent headlines as the one above. Ms. Vidal understands that and her sincere efforts must navigate around them, probably unsuccessfully. The U. S. government -- including the military, the CIA, USAID, etc. -- have untold billions of tax dollars to hire private contractors. The recent U. S. Senate report, for example, revealed that two men considered "torture experts" were paid many millions of dollars to devise torture methods that, once revealed, caused the Senate and the world to cringe. In the never-ended and ongoing tax-funded efforts to undermine or overthrow the Cuban government, the recently freed Alan Gross was paid handsomely for breaking Cuban laws and then he got a $3.4 million U. S. check after his December-2014 return to the U. S. In recent months, tax-funded USAID projects in Cuba have included a myriad of efforts to support and/or create dissidents on the island -- such as hiring young Latin Americans to go to Cuba and inspire dissent, hiring computer experts to develop a weird Twitter-like campaign to discombobulate, destabilize, or otherwise create a Caribbean Spring to doom the Cuban government, etc. Cuba has a rather skilled intelligence apparatus that counters such things, including easily blocking the anti-Castro Radio-TV Marti broadcasts from state-of-the-art studios in Miami that have, since the 1980s, siphoned off billions of U. S. tax dollars. So today, if you are a private contractor having trouble becoming a millionaire, you might want to develop a thirst to overthrow or at least undermine the Cuban government. A lot of tax dollars will be available to sate that thirst, just as they have been available for five decades to people who hold up their hands and say, "Hey! I'll help you overthrow Castro! How much money do I get?" Well, a lot. Tracey Eaton, the excellent investigative reporter and Cuban expect {Along the Malecon} has published documents in which the U. S. government -- between now and February 5th, 2015 -- is accepting bids from private contractors who desire millions of dollar for performing some more, uh, intelligence work in Cuba. It's an open bid, so Josefina Vidal and Cuba presumably will be prepared to welcome those highly paid contractors to the island. But the bundles of tax dollars are quite spendable and, as with Mr. Gross, if you get caught in Cuba you can always sue the U. S. government for sending you on such a dangerous and dumb mission.
         Josefina Vidal, who is primarily tasked with defending the island against the unending plethora of well-funded schemes to overthrow the Cuban government, had much rather spend her time finalizing President Obama's plans to normalize relations between the two countries. But she is not a patsy. She insists that Cuba be dealt with as a sovereign nation and "not as a colony, not as a piggy-bank, and not as a punching-bag." President Obama, Pope Francis, the majority of Americans, the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami, and the entire world in near unanimity agree with those Vidal-delineated parameters. But she is abundantly aware that a handful of Cuban-American zealots control America's Cuban policy much like one would expect from a Banana Republic but certainly not from the world's superpower democracy. Being anti-Castro in the U. S. since 1959 has been a very lucrative enterprise and you, too, can become very rich if you get your bid in to the U. S. government between now and Feb. 5-2015 offering to take part in a series of anti-Castro grants ranging from $500,000 to $2 million according to the recent documents unveiled by Tracey Eaton. Ms. Vidal, who works for a modest salary, stands between all of those highly paid agents as she tries to sustain the island's sovereignty. She has been doing that for years and usually she wins. But so do many of those private contractors. It's the U. S. taxpayers, and the American image, that lose.
       Being anti-Castro in Cuba, while not being overly effective, can make you a debonair superstar off the island. Anti-Castro blogger Yoani Sanchez in Havana is the world's most famed Cuban dissident.
       While most Americans to this very day are not allowed by the U. S. government to visit Cuba, the Cuban government allows even Yoani Sanchez, the anti-Castro zealot, to travel freely around the world and then return to resume her dissidence on the island. As the above photo indicates, at stops around the world, Ms. Sanchez is treated like a rock star -- even before she gratuitously arrived in Miami and Washington!
          In Washington, Yoani Sanchez was wined, dined, and wooed by anti-Castro zealots in the U. S. Congress. The photo above shows her and associates having a private meeting with Senator Bob Menendez, the anti-Castro zealot from Union City, and Senator Marco Rubio, the anti-Castro zealot from Miami. As a democracy-lover, I have no problem whatsoever with American lawmakers meeting privately with dissidents from any country in the world. However, I believe lawmakers such as Mr. Menendez and Mr. Rubio should be reminded that America is a democracy, not a Banana Republic, and as such -- even when it comes to Cuba -- major laws and decisions should receive input from the majority of Americans.
        This photo shows Yoani Sanchez flanked by her dear friends -- Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Bob Menendez. When she returned to Cuba in 2013 after her apparently very resourceful visits to Miami, Washington, etc., Ms. Sanchez announced that she had enough resources to begin her own slick and well-funded digital newspaper, which she did. I did not read her newspaper coverage of the December 17th announcements by President Obama, President Castro, and Pope Francis that Cuba and the U. S. would begin to normalize relations. However, I assume Ms. Sanchez's newspaper didn't exactly agree with that plan and I imagine she probably spent more time reporting on the instant, horrified reactions of Senators Rubio and Menendez. The two Senators vowed to used their supreme power in the U. S. Congress to thwart any normalization of relations with Cuba. Rubio bragged that he is about to take over as Chairman of the Senate's Western Hemisphere Committee; Menendez reminded the world that he was currently the Chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee. Cuba, of course, is in the Western Hemisphere. And Cuba is still a foreign country. Rubio and Menendez claim they can block any funds the President would need to open his planned Embassy in Washington. And they claim they can block the appointment of anyone the President names as the U. S. Ambassador to Cuba. Maybe they can do all that, and more. After all, a handful of Cuban exiles have dictated America's Cuban policy for almost six decades, so why stop now? The first issue of Time Magazine after President Obama unveiled his plans to normalize relations with Cuba included a major article written by Bryan Walsh entitled "Cuba Libre: After More Than 50 Years, The U. S. Looks To A Future 90 Miles Away." The article featured several photos, including a Cuban family clapping and cheering as they watched the televised announcement on December 17th. The Time article stated: "A 2014 Florida International University poll of Cuban Americans in the Miami area found that 68% were open to the possibility of restoring diplomatic relations between the two countries -- a figure that grows to 88% among those younger than 30." And that's in Miami. The 3-page Time article ended with this sentence: "On Dec. 17, the U. S. and Cuba made history by finally looking to the future." But, not unexpectedly, a few who still seek revenge against the Cuban Revolution and/or a few who benefit economically or politically from the continuing U. S. hostility toward Cuba believe they can keep the President, the Pope, and almost all of the rest of the world from "looking to the future" in regards to U.S.-Cuban relations. That's because, for a powerful few, the insanely cruel relationship of the past five decades has so mightily served their purposes even as it has harmed everyone else. And so, in regards to Cuba, the dominant U. S. plan is to keep a Banana Republic government in Miami, Union City, and Washington and let Senators Rubio and Menendez team with Yoani Sanchez and a few others to dictate America's Cuban laws and policies.
******************************  



cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story)

cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story) : Note : This particular essay on  Ana Margarita Martinez  was first ...