An Antidote to Cuban-exile Extremists

A True Defender of Democracy
{Friday, February 21st, 2014}

     Kathy Castor should be elected President of the United States in 2016. It won't happen, of course, because it now takes upwards of a billion dollars to be a serious candidate. Aspiring contenders such as Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Marco Rubio will readily sell their political souls to special interests such as the billionaire Koch brothers or the billionaire Fanjul brothers. But Kathy Castor's politics are not for sale, so she'll continue as a very decent and brilliant member of the U. S. Congress from Tampa, Florida -- and an antidote to anti-democracy cretins.

     Kathy Castor is quite unique among the 535 members of the U. S. Congress. She actually believes her job is to represent the best interests of her constituents in the cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg as well as the counties of Hillsborough and Pinellas while also steadfastly defending the constitutional rights of all U. S. citizens. She does that on a daily basis in a Congress that, according to polls, about 90% of Americans disapprove of and that's quite understandable because the majority of politicians are money-crazed stooges for Special Interests. Such basic facts and realism make Kathy Castor that much more precious.

     In the U. S. Congress Kathy Castor represents the Tampa area that for decades, before and after the Cuban Revolution, was dominated by the Mafia monarchy of Santo Trafficante Sr. and Jr. During the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba in the 1950s, Trafficante Jr. moved to Havana to oversee a considerable portion of the blatant rape and robbery of the island. Then in January of 1959, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the Batista and Mafia thugs, including Trafficante Jr., fled back to their sanctuaries in South Florida. Thus the Trafficante monarchy in Tampa simply resumed operations, this time with the added bonus of millions of dollars siphoned from Cuba during the Batista-Mafia reign. Then, beginning in 1959, Trafficante Jr. and a host of other exiled benefactors concentrated not just on fleecing South Florida but also on using their economic and political muscle to buy up congressional support for the purpose of once again re-capturing Cuba and re-making it their piggy-bank. In stark contrast to all that, Kathy Castor stands out like a lighthouse beacon as a prime architect of restoring democracy to an area long controlled by Batistiano-Mafia thugs and usurpers like the Trafficante monarchy.

    The Center for Democracy in the Americas recently pointed out what Kathy Castor is up against in South Florida as she doggedly tries to represent her constituents and not just a few Special Interest elites. Everyone except uninformed or intimidated Americans understands that Special Interest piggy-bank pipelines such as Radio-TV Marti are designed primarily to siphon bushels of tax dollars from Washington to Miami. Funded since the 1980s by hundreds of millions of tax dollars, Radio-TV Marti supposedly will eliminate Fidel Castro any day now by targeting the island with anti-Castro propaganda from Miami. Congresswoman Kathy Castor believes such tax dollars should be used for decent, sensible projects that benefit everyday Americans, including Cuban-Americans. Such democracy-promoting ideas, of course, makes Kathy Castor a prime target of the rich and powerful Cuban-exile elite. The Center for Democracy in the Americas, stated: "A report broadcast by taxpayer-funded TV and Radio Marti criticized Representative Kathy Castor after she attended a recent Tampa Chamber of Commerce meeting, along with Jose R. Cabanas Rodriguez, Chief of Mission of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. In the segment, Ralph Fernandez, a Tampa attorney, suggests without evidence the visit had an ulterior motive, and the TV Marti reporter, Jorge Riopedre, directly states that the meeting was a 'continuation' of Castor's relationship with the Cuban government." Everyone aware of and concerned about Radio TV-Marti, including America's best foreign friends, are embarrassed that a great democracy can so easily be ripped off, decade after decade, by such contrived, self-serving schemes. So is the Center for Democracy in the Americas. So is Tampa's Congresswoman Kathy Castor. The sheer anti-Castor rhetoric and venom directed at the courageous Congresswoman from Tampa by Cuban-exile extremists testify to her extraordinary zealotry for democracy.

       To understand how badly the U. S. democracy needs democracy-loving politicians like Tampa's Kathy Castor, Americans should study and then comprehend the above photo, which I use courtesy of www.tampabay.com. The photo shows Tampa's Mafia kingpin Santo Trafficante Jr. gaily being led onto a Tampa street by his lawyer Frank Ragano, the one with the big satchel. It was Ragano's job to make sure that rich and powerful Mafia thugs like prime Cuban thieves Trafficante Jr. and Carlos Marcello, the Mafia master of Dallas and New Orleans, never spent a day in a U. S. prison. And Ragano earned every Mafia dime he was paid. Trafficante Jr. -- along with America's top two mobsters Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky -- directed the Mafia's criminal enterprises in Cuba during the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship from 1952 till 1959. After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, all the Batista-Mafia leaders fled the island for safer havens, making sure that their get-away planes, boats, and ships had the last of the loot stolen from Cuba. {Most of the Cuban loot had already been sent to banks in Miami, Union City, and Switzerland} But Trafficante Jr. stayed in Havana after the overthrow of Batista. He believed he could keep the Mafia in Cuba by offering Fidel Castro larger financial kick-backs than they had been paying Batista. Fidel, however, had Trafficante Jr. arrested. But Trafficante Jr. -- like Luciano and Lansky -- had important friends in Washington. Against the advice of Celia Sanchez, whom Fidel almost never talked out of anything, Fidel decided after a couple of weeks to free Trafficante Jr., who then quickly returned as the Mafia kingpin in Tampa. Fidel's rationale in freeing Trafficante Jr. was based on his belief that Revolutionary Cuba needed good relations with the U. S. and freeing Trafficante Jr. was one of several olive branches he, unfortunately and uselessly, extended to Trafficante's friends in Washington.

        Like his father Santo Trafficante Sr., Santo Trafficante Jr. never had to worry about imprisonment in the U. S.; thus Trafficante Jr., like Trafficante Sr., died a very free and very rich man on March 17, 1987.

      Frank Ragano is famed as the brilliant "Mob Lawyer" for Trafficante Sr., Trafficante Jr., Carlos Marcello, and Jimmy Hoffa. Ragano was born in Tampa to Sicilian parents. The Trafficantes, Marcello and Hoffa had all died by the time Ragano died in 1998 at age 75. Before dying, Ragano -- in official statements and in books like the one above -- revealed and documented major criminal acts and intentions by his primary Mafia clients. Those revelations included how much money and effort Trafficante Jr., Marcello, and Hoffa devoted to assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, President John Kennedy, and Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. According to Ragano, a man who would know, his clients either participated in the actual assassinations of the Kennedy brothers or someone beat them to it. As for the Mafia, Cuban exiles, and the CIA individually and collectively being "unable to kill Castro," Frank Ragano stated, "Castro's out-living all those world-class assassins...not to mention their lawyers like me...boggles my mind to this day. Millions of Mob and CIA dollars to finance the best assassins in the world and Castro was the one man we couldn't kill. Amazing! People like Hoffa kept sending me $50,000 in cash to help kill Castro. But it didn't help!"

The history of Tampa includes the decades when it was dominated by the Trafficante-led Mafia. 

     But today the Mafia does not control Tampa. It is a flourishing city in which Congresswoman Kathy Castor is a gigantic heroine trying really hard to successfully combat a still-powerful second generation of exiles from the long-ago Batista-Mafia reign in Cuba. Of course, she needs and deserves help.

      The tiny Little Havana section of Miami still dominates America's anti-Cuban, anti-American, and anti-democracy Cuban policy. This is an area in need of democracy-loving politicians like Tampa's Kathy Castor. 

This map shows Tampa on Florida's southwest coast and Miami on its southeast coast.  

      

        The Batista dictatorship in Cuba from 1952 till 1959 was led by Fulgencio Batista {upper right} and his two primary pals -- #1 Mafia kingpin Lucky Luciano {upper left} and #2 Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky {center}. Batista, from his earlier Cuban dictatorship, had fleeced enough money from the island to buy up much of South Florida and Lansky, as Luciano's top aide, had squired away enough mob money to retire comfortably in South Florida and still contribute to his pet projects such as Israel. But Lansky told his Florida friend Batista that his final wish as a legendary Mafia figure was "for the mob to own its own country." Batista obliged, opting for his second Cuban dictatorship, which was much more brutal than the first.

 Luciano, Lansky, and Batista were surprised in Cuba to have the backing of the U. S. government.

But foreshadowing all that, the U. S. government freed Luciano from a 55-year prison sentence.

That was after authorities in New York thought they had imprisoned Luciano for good!

By 1946 Luciano had secretly moved to Cuba. This was his headquarters in Cuba.

This was Lucky Luciano relaxing in 1948 -- the world's greatest criminal mastermind.

And the U. S. government's favorite Mafia kingpin!

Luciano died of a heart attack on Jan. 26-1962 at the airport in Naples, Italy.

He was at the airport discussing a movie about his life with producer Martin Gosch.

Needless to say, America's love affair with the Mafia has impacted Cuba harshly.

Batista, Luciano, and the U. S. allowed Meyer Lansky to dictate the Batistisano rule of Cuba.

{But, tuh, hush! Americans are not supposed to know such things about Cuba. It's a secret.}

      It spawned Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution. But he was faced with the task of overthrowing the powerful Batista dictatorship that was supported by the strongest nation in the world, the United States, and by the strongest criminal organization in the world, the Mafia. Yet, he managed to accomplish the feat by taking full advantage of what he perceived as their biggest mistake -- the gross treatment of the female half of the island's population. To defeat his omnipotent enemies, Fidel simply had to out-smart them. 

     Meanwhile, beginning in 1952 during the Eisenhower administration, Batista, a military thug, wore white suits when he was wined and dined at the White House. This was in keeping with right-wingers in Washington desiring to partake in the rape and robbery of Cuba. Thus, Batista was backed with tax dollars as well as military equipment for accepting kick-backs so U. S. businesses could own most of the island while the Mafia, also with kickbacks, controlled the lucrative gambling, prostitution, and drug operations. Additionally, the U. S. government at Fort Benning in Georgia meticulously trained selected Batista and Mafia goons who were then dispatched back to the island to protect the Batista-Mafia dictatorship.

The Batistianos didn't bother to even toss bread crumbs to the majority on the island of Cuba.

That was a mistake, but not Batista's biggest mistake.

      The unconscionable mistreatment of Cuba's women spelled Batista's downfall. The female half of the Cuban population began bravely taking to the streets to protest what turned out to be Batista's biggest mistake -- the "asesinatos" or murders of Cuban children apparently as a means of warning against dissent.

     These marches were photographed and publicized by leading Latin America newspapers and magazines as well as the New York Times whose top correspondent, Herbert L. Mathews, made it a point to tell Americans about atrocities on the island. But Batista and the Mafia were not concerned. And neither was the U. S. government nor U. S. citizens. After all, no dictatorship backed by the U. S. had to worry about popular dissent in little foreign countries, did it? But a young anti-Batista lawyer named Fidel Castro was much more impressed with those marches than Batista, the Mafia or their supporters in Washington. The audacious young Castro believed he could make history if he could harness the outrage being manifested by the female half of the island -- the mothers who objected to the murders of their children! The gruesome murders of four schoolboys inspired one of the mothers -- William Soler's mother -- famously and repeatedly to lead very brave anti-Batista marches in Havana and Santiago de Cuba.

Today this is the William Soler Pediatric Hospital, one of the best hospitals in Cuba.

 These three children received liver transplants by these doctors at William Soler Hospital.

    Cuban women like -- left to right -- Vilma Espin, Celia Sanchez, and Haydee Santamaria -- predicated the outcome of the Cuban Revolution. They were inspired by what happened to children like William Soler. The legend attached to Fidel Castro is legitimate but it is based on his simply out-smarting the Batistianos, the Mafia, and the U. S. by {1} recognizing the outrage of the Cuban women; and {2} breaking free of the machismo mold to comprehend the awesome power, courage, and motivation of the female half of the island's population. It should also be noted that neither Fidel nor these three most important revolutionary women were ever peasants. They were all from well-to-do Cuban families but they rebelled against the dastardly manner in which the gluttonous Batista dictatorship treated the island's majority poor. The mansions left behind by the fleeing Batistianos and Mafiosi were turned over to multiple peasant families and, despite their control of the island, the most influential rebels lived modestly in Revolutionary Cuba. Of course, the fleeing Batistianos and Mafiosi through two generations have told the American people that Castro's thirst for wealth is why they were chased off the island. While painting Castro as the villain, the Batista-Mafia exiles portrayed themselves as Mother Teresa-types. That's an insult to women like Vilma, Celia, and Haydee who were primarily responsible for booting the Batistianos and Mafiosi off the island.

This photo in January of 1959 shows a Cuban girl thanking a Cuban rebel for overthrowing Batista.

This photo in 1976 shows a Cuban girl and her mother distraught at Havana's airport.

They had waited for their brother/son to return on Cubana Flight 455 from Venezuela.

They had just learned a bomb had blown Cubana Flight 455 into the ocean.

And they had just been told that all 73 people aboard Cubana Flight 455 were dead.

Throughout the Caribbean and Latin America the victims of Cubana Flight 455 are still mourned.

In 2014 very few Americans have ever heard of little William Soler or...of Cubana Flight 455.

And that's because the Cuban narrative since the 1950s has been controlled by Cuban exiles.

Emilio Milian was the top Cuban-American newscaster in Miami in the 1970s.

Emilio was silenced by a car-bomb. He had voiced shame at "Cubans killing innocent Cubans."

Jim DeFede was the best and the most courageous columnist at the Miami Herald.

Realizing it would cost him his job, Jim wrote a column denouncing Miami-based Cuban terrorism.

He excoriated Miami's members of the U. S. Congress for supporting/protecting Miami terrorists.

He asked Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers to respond to his column.

The Diaz-Balart brothers and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen didn't answer Jim DeFede's questions on terrorism.

Yet, they remain prime reasons Cuba today is listed by the U. S. as a "Sponsor of Terrorism."

And they flock to the mainstream media to denounce superb politicians like Kathy Castor.

All Miami members of the U. S. Congress are tightly aligned with the Bush dynasty.

Many believe that alignment benefits them at the expense of everyone else.

      Key members of the Batista dictatorship, such as the three men above, quickly became powerful anti-Castro zealots in South Florida after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. In this 1958 photo, that's Batista minister Rafael Diaz-Balart in the center flanked by the infamous Masferrer brothers, renowned as brutal Batista enforcers. After fleeing the Cuban Revolution, Rafael Diaz-Balart became a very rich man and so are four of his sons, two of whom have been elected to the United States Congress from Miami.

Rafael Diaz-Balart's beautiful sister, Mirta, was married to Fidel Castro from 1948 till 1955.

Fidel and Mirta honeymooned in Miami and New York City.

Back in Havana they welcomed a baby boy, Fidelito, into their family.

But Fidel was imprisoned after the failed attack on Batista's Moncada garrison on July 26, 1953.

Fidel got out of prison in 1955. In prison he had learned the Diaz-Balarts worked for Batista.

While in Mexico Fidel divorced Mirta and won custody of Fidelito.

Then he returned to Cuba at the end of 1956 and hooked up with Celia Sanchez's guerrilla army.

Fidel Castro and Celia Sanchez celebrating the victorious Cuban Revolution.

As you can see, Celia, history's greatest female revolutionary, was very tired.

Female guerrilla fighters like Haydee Santamaria and Celia Sanchez led the rebel fighting.

During and after the Revolutionary War, Celia and Haydee were Fidel's primary supporters.

To this day both Fidelito and Mirta are very fond of and loyal to Fidel Castro.

At age 87, Fidel has wondered for years how much time he has left. 

But he has survived an amazing array of adversaries, including Mirta's four nephews.

In Cuba he beat the unbeatable U.S./Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship.

For 54 years he has survived U.S./Mafia/Batistiano attempts to kill and/or overthrow him.

But the Batistianos and Mafiosi are far richer in the U. S. than they ever were in Cuba. 

Now it's up to the U. S. democracy to survive the challenge presented by Cuban-exile extremists.

Electing Kathy Castor as President of the United States in 2016 would be a good start.

This photo was taken in Fidel Castro's Havana home Sunday, February 16, 2014.

The visitor is Brazilian theologian, philosopher and author Frei Betta.

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