A Cuba In Limbo

Transitioning To Post-Castro Cuba
As U.S.-Cuban Relations Begin To Thaw

          Arnaldo Brown has been Jamaica's Foreign Minister and Trade Minister since January of 2012. Like other Cuban neighbors, Jamaica is very interested in U.S.-Cuban relations. Brown says, "Cuba is the Caribbean's largest and most dominant nation. When the regional superpower, the United States, hurts the Cuban people, all of us are hurt by a foreign nation that should be our friend and our best trading partner." Brown, a lawyer and former member of the Jamaican parliament, remembers when a Jamaican company "unfortunately 10% owned by an American company" was fined by the U. S. for shipping a box of baby aspirin to Cuba. Brown believes the people who should have been fined are "the ex-Cubans and their bought-and-paid-for associates who make such U. S. laws." On Sunday -- August 2nd -- the Jamaica Observer carried further stinging quotes from Mr. Brown. He called the U. S. embargo against Cuba "unjust" and "a yoke." He believes the embargo, imposed way back in 1962, has unjustly harmed the entire Caribbean and is a yoke around the neck of all Caribbeans. "Americans are not supposed to understand that," he says, "and if they do they are supposed to accept it as America's imperialist right." In yesterday's Jamaica Observer Mr. Brown said: "Long live Cuba! Long live Fidel Castro! Long live the Cuban Revolution!"

         Cuba dominates the Caribbean in America's backyard. That's the island of Jamaica directly south of Cuba's southeastern tip. All the Caribbean nations oppose the U. S. embargo against Cuba and oppose what Arnaldo Brown calls "decades of Miami-Washington intransigence against Cubans who remain on the island and decades of gifts for those enticed to defect or enticed to create dissident chaos on the island." Brown says, "Obama's friendly gestures toward Cuba will last only till the next Republican takes over the White House, if that long. Stealing Guantanamo Bay in 1903 and keeping it all these decades remains a crime, like a bully in grade school stealing a little kid's lunch money every morning...because he can."  

         Now that the United States and Cuba have opened embassies in their respective capital cities for the first time in 5-and-and-a-half decades, the Cuban focus shifts to the current presidential campaigns in the U. S. The two-term presidency of Barack Obama, which has a mere 17 months to go, has been even more vital to Cuba than it has been to the rest of the world. If Obama is succeeded by another Democrat -- Hillary Clinton or maybe Joe Biden -- Cuba expects to continue transitioning to a Vietnamese-style economy that will soon have the United States as a friend and a prime trading partner. But if Obama is replaced by a Republican -- namely another Bush -- Cuba, frankly, anticipates a military confrontation of some sort.

         This AP/Getty Images montage shows the two candidates -- Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton -- who will be the likely finalists in the presidential sweepstakes. That is not the way it should be but that is the way it is. Bush and Clinton, perpetuating political dynasties that would make America's Founding Fathers cringe, are the two presidential candidates with the billions of dollars needed to win in a money-crazed election process that stuns democracy lovers worldwide with its emphasis on bought-and-paid-for candidates as opposed to quality public servant-type candidates. Billionaire donors dominate national elections in the U. S. and, unfortunately, those billlionaires favor Bush and Clinton, with the Republican Cuban-Americans Rubio and Cruz the next most favored by the billionaires because, like Bush and Clinton, they can be bought. All the while, ad agencies, television stations, and lobbyists are wildly cheering the system as they rake in their share of those anti-democratic dollars. More and more Americans, most of whom haven't bothered to vote in recent national elections, agree with the foreign assessment of unlimited and often unaccounted money gone amok deep within the bowels of the U. S. democracy. As a nearby island, since 1492 Cuba has been tightly tied to whatever transpires in America, and that includes America's bought-and-paid-for political system. Even non-billionaires who give money to politicians are shaming democracy, mocking the intentions of our Founding Fathers who cherished the sacredness of one-person/one-vote.

           This is one of the most iconic photos of Cuba when the U. S. dominated the island in the period after the Spanish-American War in 1898 up until the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. In the 1930s a Cuban named Jose Garcia opened Sloppy Joe's Bar. It became a Cuban playpen for famous Americans.

        Famed author Earnest Hemingway was a regular at the Sloppy Joe's Bar. In this photo Hemingway was talking with actor Alex Guinness and entertainer Coel Howard. Other American celebrities who frequented Sloppy Joe's Bar were...Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Nat King Cole, Fred Astaire, and many, many others. But the Cuban Revolution was not too fond of sin...gambling, prostitution, drinking, etc. So for fifty years, Sloppy Joe's Bar was closed and, like many Mafia mansions, became houses for Cuban peasants.

      Sloppy Joe's reopened in 2013. This AP photo was taken on April 13, 2013. It shows Sloppy Joe's on one side of the street and on the other a Cuban woman is drying freshly washed clothes on her balcony.

And by the way..............

          ........................I subscribe to the theory that a photo is worth a thousand words. The above photo courtesy of REUTERS/Wojazer is a case in point. It was used to illustrate a long, long article about French President Francois Hollande welcoming Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to Elysee Palace in Paris. Now we all know that Mr. Hollande is a renowned skirt-chaser, which makes this photo both hilarious and worth about a million words. Study Hollande's smirky smile and his engaging stare. He is not paying any attention to President Nieto. His attention is clearly focused on Nieto's stunningly gorgeous and very distracting wife. Her name, by the way, is Angelica Rivera. By having Angelica at his side, I believe President Nieto was purposely trying to either tease or distract President Hollande. What do you think?

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