cubaninsider: The Media: Cuba vs. USA

cubaninsider: The Media: Cuba vs. USA: Note : The essay below was first published on   Cubaninsider  on October 12, 2018, but on one day in February-2021 it received thousands of...

Cuba Battles COVID & USA

 And Cuba Plans To Survive Both Drastic Perils!!

    The world's best source for news, London's BBC, thankfully has a truly great journalist stationed in Cuba. Will Grant therefore is an antidote for the weakened U. S. mainstream media that has evolved into vast propaganda outlets for well-funded special groups, including those with a special interest since 1959 in recapturing Cuba for the latest generation of Little Havana-based Batistianos. This week the BBC's Will Grant provides another important report from Havana that propagandized Americans need to study...because it reveals how Cuba is trying to survive both the perils the Cuban people know as the genocidal nature of the U. S. Blockade and the pandemic scourge of COVID-19.

      Even in the last few days of the Little Havana-aligned Trump presidency, the U. S. was adding more genocidal policies to harm masses of Cuban families, shamefully taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to further turn the screws against Cuban families. But the headline above and the above excerpts from Will Grant's latest BBC article from Havana speaks of "Optimism as Cuba is set to test its own Covid vaccine." As he points out, Cuba's reputation in the past "30 years of experience in biotechnology and immunology" is cause for hope for the Cuban people.

      The director of Cuba's renowned Finlay Institute, Dr. Vincente Verez Bencomo, told the BBC's Will Grant, "Our plan is to, of course, first immunize our population. Moving to commercial production of Soberana 2 is our plan because we must provide totally free education and healthcare for our people. We plan to have 100 million does during 2021."

      The Pan American Health Organization's representative in Cuba, Dr. Jose Moya, told the BBC's Will Grant, "We are very optimistic that Cuba's vaccine will soon help the Cuban people and also help others get past the pandemic."

     Because of the Pandemic Cuba was forced to close its airports back in March and, believing it had a handle on COVID-19, the island reopened its airports to international visitors on November 15th, 2020. Since then the cases and deaths from the virus have surged drastically.

      Cubans depend on their television anchors to keep them updated on COVID-19 and, as you can see above by the photo and graphic, news anchor Rosy Amaro had the sad duty today -- Feb. 17-2021 -- to report that three more Cubans had died in the past 24 hours from COVID-19 with 824 more positive cases detected and 608 patients released from hospitals.

      Meanwhile, the Soberana vaccine painstakingly being groomed and tested in Havana by the Finlay Institute will hopefully soon help Cubans on the island survive the two perils that the BBC's great journalist in Cuba, Will Grant, wrote about this week in a major international article. The immediate peril is COVID-19. The ongoing, everlasting, and long-term peril is the genocidal U. S. Blockade. Since March of 2020 COVID-19 has threatened Cuban families. Since January of 1962 the U. S. Blockade has threatened Cuban families while also highlighting a massive shame it is inflicting on America and its Democracy. Of course, any day now the embargo-blockade might help another generation of Batistiano Cubans in Little Havana to finally recapture the island!!!

*&***********************&*

Biden Changes Trump's Cuba Policy

                                    At Least A Beginning Is Happening!!

        In the last few days of the Trump presidency, the last of an horrendous array of genocidal policies against Cuban families were implemented on behalf of the Counter Revolutionary Cuban extremists in Little Havana and Washington. That included putting Cuba on the short list of Sponsors of Terrorism and cutting off over 400 Western Union offices in Cuba that handled cash remittances from the U. S. that Cuban families sorely needed. While such things as removing Cuba from the dastardly Terrorism List will take more time, today -- Feb. 15, 2021 -- the new U. S. President Joe Biden began starting to show some compassion for Cuban families on the island. Here is what the Cuban media today told the Cuban people what Biden did today.

     As told to the Cuban people today, the Biden administration in Washington will end at least some of the Trump presidency's stoppage of the Western Union remittances to Cuban families on the island, and also ease some of Trump's blockage of business and travel relations with the island. The Cuban people are also being told that President Biden still "faces strong resistance in Congress from members who oppose détente with Cuba and that Trump left numerous obstacles, such as formally declaring the island as a state sponsor of terrorism, which takes time and a lot of bureaucratic red tape, to reverse."

     But still controversial and deeply entrenched U. S. Senators...one from Newark and the other from Miami, the two strongest Counter Revolutionary Cuban enclaves...can dictate Cuban policies to not only to all Republican presidents but also, at times, to even Democratic Presidents like Joe Biden. Bob Menendez, the vicious Cuban-American U. S. Senator from New Jersey, is a Democrat and Marco Rubio, the Republican U. S. Senator from Florida, are both mired with major controversies from their home bases but they also are entrenched in their Congressional jobs for as long as they choose. For example, the U. S. government spent countless months and countless dollars investigating Menendez for multiple crimes involving Miami and the Dominican Republic and then charged him with those crimes in a Newark federal courtroom, but Menendez was acquitted by a hung jury verdict. Federal authorities decided the charges were so serious that they said they would take the time and expense to hold a second trial, but later decided not to do so because they expected another very expensive hung jury result. After his acquittal, Menendez, of course, quickly was reelected to another 6-year term in the U. S. Senate and today Menendez is the ultra-powerful Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- which, of course, puts him in charge of many issues regarding Cuba, a sovereign and foreign country. Even beyond Menendez's controversial background, Senator Rubio from Little Havana/Miami has been described, by well-respected investigative journalist Ken Silverstein, as the most corrupt politician in Washington: "When it comes to sheer brazen corruption, chicanery and dishonesty there is one candidate who stands head and shoulders above everyone else and that is the right-wing Cuban-American and the darling Senator Marco Rubio of -- naturally -- the great state of Florida. Mr. Rubio's entire public image is less tethered to reality than The Wizard of Oz." In other words, as long as Newark and Miami have Counter Revolutionary Cubans such as Menendez & Rubio in positions of power within the bowels of the U. S. government, the families of Cubans on the island will always be in dire straits, even with a Democrat like Joe Biden as the President and Commander-in-Chief.

       Of course, the scathing federal trial involving Senator Bob Menendez and the scathing Ken Silverstein bio that included many minutely detailed facts about Senator Marco Rubio in no way hampered the work of the U. S. Congress's most powerful and most vicious Cuban Counter Revolutionary perpetrators and benefactors within the bowels of the United States government. You see, when it comes to making political and economic hay from cultivating and fleecing America's vast CUBAN COTTAGE INDUSTRY, the schemes and shenanigans are now so engrained in the U. S. culture and psyche that it is now a totally legal absorption of morality.

*&***********************&*

CNN Spotlights Cuba In Busy Week

 Precursor of Biden Cuban Overtures?

       Even this week -- this second week of Feb.-2021 -- as CNN is obsessed with the 2nd Congressional Impeachment trial of former President Trump -- CNN has provided major airtime for its excellent correspondent based in Havana, Patrick Oppmann. 

      Patrick Oppmann opines, in the last sentence depicted above, that "Cuba's endlessly inventive and long suffering entrepreneurs will be watching to see what happens." Unfortunately, of course, so will some powerful people, even in President Biden's own Democratic Party, who profit from being {or answering to} Counter Cuban Revolutionary forces in the United States.

     In his CNN report from Havana Patrick Oppmann mentioned that long-time {since 1975} Senator Patrick Leahy has co-sponsored yet another bill in the U. S. Senate designed to finally overthrow the U. S. Embargo/Blockade against Cuba. But, yet again, the cruelty and insanity of the Embargo/Blockade within the bowels of the U. S. democracy has for decades been fueled by the greed or revenge that a few powerful Cuban-Americans and their sycophants derive from maintaining it.

   While CNN's Havana-based journalist Patrick Oppmann provides fair reports from Cuba on U.S.-Cuban affairs, so does the BBC's excellent journalist Will Grant. Below the gist of Will Grant's article this week is all about Cuba's effort to energize its economy during the Age of COVID-19 that has been coupled with the Trump administration's dire efforts in the past four years to totally wipe it out. Those twin perils in the past year have reduced the overall Cuban economy by another 11%. Below read what the BBC's Will Grant says the island is trying to do about it.

     The BBC's Will Grant, as well as Patrick Oppmann of CNN, this week reported fairly on what the Cuban government is implementing to help entrepreneurs revive the economy, and as well as reporting on how the Cuban people are reacting to the changes.

      Another good source for fair journalism regarding US-Cuban relations is Reuters's Marc Frank, a great journalist who has been based in Cuba for decades. This week his latest article reported on significant efforts by the Cuban government to help small business entrepreneurs.

     In his great book CUBAN REVELATIONS, Marc Frank discussed many of the revelations he gained from actually living for many years among the Cuban people on the island, such as these succinct words:

     Patrick Oppmann, Will Grant, and Marc Frank are...for sure...three fair-minded journalists who report real news from Cuba. Of course, most U. S. sources...such as The Miami Herald, Miami's Radio-TV Marti, The Washington Post, etc., are dispensers of only anti-Cuban propaganda...which makes real journalists such as Oppmann, Grant, and Frank all that much more important for finding the truth about U.S.-Cuban relations.

     Actually, most of the 11.2 million Cubans on the island are now geared to ubiquitous Internet social media platforms to discuss their lives and opinions, including complaints about the government if they feel like it. And most of the 11.2 million Cubans depend on and have learned to accept as true and viable the news and its efficacy that they get from state radio, television, and newspaper sources. TV anchors such as Rosy Amaro shown above are well educated and talented journalists who live with the people and understand that if their newscasts and reporters are not honest with the people that their listeners, viewers, and readers will know...and let them know about it. Rosy Amaro, for example, is a star on Cubavision International News but on both social media and on the airways she has criticized the government when she feels everyday Cubans are treated unfairly.

    Now entrepreneurs in Cuba, such as these farmers in Vinales Valley, are getting more support from the government to expand their businesses and profit more from their efforts.

     In the United States no one has worked more tirelessly than powerful Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont to bring sanity to the insane and self-serving U. S. policies regarding Cuba that, for all these decades, have been crafted to enrich and empower a minority of rather unholy and greedy individuals. As noted by fair journalists, such as those mentioned above, Senator Leahy this week noted the entrepreneurial changes taking place in Cuba and said again: "This is long overdue and it's welcome news, and the United States should finally affirm that the Embargo, from 1962, was never intended to last forever and to forever penalize private families and private enterprise in Cuba. In this year of 2021 if we cannot fairly and honestly deal with that it says more about us than it says about Cuba. Or we, permit me to say, too mired in having created too many generations of people who have profited immensely from such insanity and cruelty."

      Cubans on the island, such as the ones shown above arriving in Havana on a train, have been pawns for centuries...for sure since the 1898 Spanish-American War that transferred dominance of the island from Spain to the United States from 1898 to 1959. In 1903 the U. S. exercised its prerogative and stole the plush Guantanamo Bay, where to this day the U. S. has an unwanted military base there along with an infamous prison. And in 1952 why and how did the U. S. democracy team with the highest echelon Mafia leaders to support the brutal Batista dictatorship. {And why hasn't the U. S. democracy never had to really explain such things??}. Of course, since 1959 Revolutionary Cuba has dominated the island but, for sure, almost seven decades of trying to recapture the island while destroying or  punishing the people who live on the island has created a vastly lucrative Cottage Industry in the United States even though somehow the pugnacious island has held off the world's Superpower FOR ALL THESE DECADES. Of course, in the U. S. only the few prime benefactors are generally allowed opinions about that dichotomous dilemma but, if truth be known, in the Internet Age we can now assume, for example, that the young man in the red shirt and wearing the COVID mask above has a Smart Phone and knows not only what his own government is doing to affect his life but also he knows what the U. S. government is doing to affect his life. The point I make is this: That young man shown above has opinions, and his opinions are IMPORTANT too. And, in fact, his parents and grandparents also have opinions that self-serving Americans don't think they should be allowed to have!!!

*&***********************&*

Little Havana Fights Biden's Havana Overture

 As Biden Appoints A Key ENGAGE-Cuba Person!!!

     As the Democrat Joe Biden has replaced the Republican Donald Trump as the U. S. President, the rich and politically powerful faction that rules Little Havana in Miami wants to remain in control of the USA's lucrative CUBAN POLICIES. That includes the Miami Herald's Editorial Editor Fabiola Santiago. She was born in Matanzas, Cuba, but arrived in Miami on one of the "Freedom Flights" in 1969. That meant her privileges came gushing in from three powerful sources -- Cuban exiles, the Catholic Church, and the United States government. By 1980 the young Fabiola Santiago had a nice job at the Miami Herald and was primed to write Counter Revolutionary books that major publishers such as Simon & Schuster were eager to unleash on the world. Now as the long-time Editorialist at the Miami Herald she still relishes being a rich and powerful Cuban-American in Miami but she still appears to promote the notion that Cubans on the island should continue to be exploited, starved, and made miserable so Congress and all Republican administrations can continue to enrich and empower Little Havana. In that vein during this first weekend of February-2021, below is the powerful headline from Fabiola Santiago's latest Editorial in the Miami Herald.

     In studying that headline above, I realize that, once again, Fabiola Santiago is promoting the lucrative notion that the USA's Cuban policies should be dictated by Little Havana without any regard for how the 11.2 million Cubans on the island feel about it. As you see below, Ms. Santiago is suggesting...warning?...that President Biden, like Trump, should permit Little Havana to dictate the USA's Cuban policies.

     In the portion of the Editorial above Fabiola Santiago pinpoints why the ultra-rich and ultra-powerful Cubans in Little Havana should dictate the USA's Cuban policies. "Biden needs us and our expertise," she wrote. "Cubans in Cuba need us to advocate for them." Those two sanctimonious sentences ignore the fact that 11.2 million Cubans in Cuba should not be allowed to think for themselves about what they want. In other words, Ms. Santiago implies that most Cubans on the island grave a return of the Batistiano-Mafiosi dictatorship that preceded the 1959 victory of the Cuban Revolution. Those of us who have been to Cuba, and those who take time to read the now ubiquitous comments of Cubans on Social Media platforms, have and can detect that most Cubans on the island actually prefer Revolutionary Cuba to what they know of or remember about the Batista-Mafia rule of Cuba. As Ms. Santiago knows, Trump for the past four years gave 100% control of the USA's Cuban policies to only the most self-serving Little Havana Counter Revolutionary zealots such as Rubio, Claver-Carone, and Diaz-Balart. But the new Biden presidency has, at least, just named a life-long advocate of U.S.-Cuban decency and engagement to a significant position in the U. S. State Department. Thus, Emily Mendrala will have decent input from her post as Deputy Secretary in the State Department regarding Cuba and the Western Hemisphere. Of course, Ms. Santiago is not a fan of Emily Mendrala...as you can see below in the aforementioned Santiago Editorial.

       But on its official website the U. S. State Department, as shown below, described Emily Mendrala.   

     And the U. S. State Department used the photo, as shown below, of Emily Mendrala and provided this synopsis of her career. It includes the last four when she was the Executive Director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas where her primary focus was always on promoting decent engagement between the United States and Cuba.

     Of course, decent engagement with Cuba by the United States, as promoted by Emily Mendrala, would ease the cruel and genocidal targeting of Cubans on the island by self-serving Cubans in Little Havana.

      This photo of the Miami Herald's powerful Editorial Writer Fabiola Santiago is courtesy of her powerful publisher, Simon & Shuster.

     This photo of Emily Mendrala is the one used on the U. S. State Department's website. It showed Emily during her 4-year term as the leader of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas where she steadfastly exhibited  her fervent desire to bring sanity and decency to U.S.-Cuban relations. Now as a pertinent member of President Biden's State Department, she hopefully can continue those endeavors.

    Emily Mendrala's mentor was/is Sarah Stephens, who founded the Center for Democracy in the Americas in 2006 and led it till Emily took over in 2017. From its beginning, the Center for Democracy in the Americas had a prime focus -- normalizing relations between the U. S. and Cuba. But, of course, brilliant and decent Americans like Sarah and Emily have always faced powerful obstacles because...Batista's Cuba in Havana back in the 1950's and Batistiano's Cuba in Little Havana from 1959 till February of 2021 has been and CONTINUES to be a vast piggybank and power base for too many Cubans and too many Americans.

        In other words, the superbly talented and decent Emily Mendrala -- and fair-minded Americans like her -- have always faced massive obstacles when it comes to bringing decency and sanity to the USA's relations with Cuba, the Caribbean's largest and most luscious island nation. That is NOT LIKELY to change in the foreseeable future, even with a Democrat {Biden} replacing the latest Republican {Trump} in Washington's White House. And if you disagree with that analysis, study the five photos directly below. {You don't have to agree or disagree with them, but at least study them for a few seconds}.

*&***********************&*