The Dawning Of A New Cuba

From Sunset to Sunrise
Updated: Wednesday, August 5th, 2015

  Cristina Escobar has some thoughts about what Cuba will look like "just five years from now." She says, "It's exciting. Transitions always are. I believe the twentysomethings on the island, not the forever pertinent Castro legacy and not selfish people in Miami and Washington, will determine what Cuba looks like in five years. That's not far off, I know. But acceleration has taken over the island. The next five years will be phenomenal...not easy, but phenomenal." Cristina's thoughts about Cuba's immediate future are important, probably more important than all the thoughts about the topic currently taking place in Miami and Washington. Cristina is 27-years-old. She is brilliant. She is 100% Cuban. All the twentysomethings on the island know her. They believe in her. She is their beacon, their shining light, and...their hope.

      Cristina Escobar is not too happy with the current state of U.S.-Cuban relations, even with the emerging detente that has resulted in the opening of embassies in the two capitals for the first time since 1961. She has closely followed those developments as Cuba's most ubiquitous broadcast journalist and anchor. She believes the upgrade from an Interests Section to a U. S. Embassy in Havana will afford the U. S. more of an opportunity to directly foment and finance dissent on the island. "I should be proud that the U. S. Embassy has opened here," she says, "but I am not. I should be cheering on August 14th when Secretary John Kerry comes here to officially raise the American flag on its new Cuban embassy, but I will not be cheering. I know decent Americans, and decent Cubans in America. I trust them. I just don't trust the Americans and the Cubans who make the laws and the decisions regarding Cuba."

      But Cristina Escobar's thoughts about ongoing and future U.S.-Cuban relations do not encompass all gloom and doom scenarios. "The enthusiasm of the Cubans on the island is palpable," she says. "I give our great Minister, Josefina Vidal, credit for that. And Mr. Obama, of course. The Cuban people deserve what Josefina and Mr. Obama have accomplished. I think there will be more positives. I think more Americans will visit the island and see for themselves how beautiful Cuba is, and how wonderful the Cubans who have stayed here truly are. I think what has prolonged the negativity between the U. S. and Cuba for all these decades is mostly a failure of the U. S. media to rise above obvious propaganda and present a true portrait of what post-revolutionary Cuba is. Yes, we who live here can see things to criticize and improve. But we are far better than the U. S. when it comes to equality. When it comes to safety. When it comes to free quality education. When it comes to free quality health care. When the World Bank praised Cuba for devoting such a huge portion of its economy to education, health, and shelter, U. S. media ignored it. When the World Health Organization praised Cuba for having a lower infant mortality rate than the U. S. and other much richer nations, the U. S. media ignored it. But the U. S. media, at least in Miami, wailed about the terrorist downing of a civilian airplane as being a huge blow against Castro while not mentioning all 73 innocents who died. Is an inept U. S. media Cuba's problem or is it America's problem? I believe you know how I would answer that question."

     Yes, we know how Cristina Escobar would answer questions about Cubana Flight 455; about Cuba's infant mortality rate; about Cuba's free educational, health, and shelter programs; and about how "the inept" or intimidated U. S. media portrays Cuba. We know because she blistered a lot of ears about her disdain for the U. S. media when she garnered headlines while in Washington covering the last Vidal-Jacobson diplomatic session. And we know how she feels, frankly, because she is opinionated and she has an effective forum -- on Cuban television but also on regional telecasts -- to air her views, as well as her extremely talented anchoring, probably the best on the North American continent. Her incisive interviews, in either Spanish or English, are nightly highlights on Cuban television but also readily available regionally on networks such as Telesur and internationally on venues such as YouTube.

  Uhhhhhhhh...did I tell you that Cristina Escobar has some thoughts about Guantanamo Bay too? She wants it back!! "It won't happen while I'm in my twenties," she says, "but it had better happen when I'm in my thirties, or there will be hell to pay." Ummmmm...? Cristina, as well as the rest of the world, is aware that Guantanamo Bay is one of the world's best and most beautiful ports, and that the U. S. simply "stole it" in 1903. She is aware that the U. S. has a major military base at Guantanamo Bay not to mention Starbucks, McDonalds, a beautiful golf course, luxury recreational and entertainment structures, and..."oh, yes!"...one of the world's most infamous prisons. It'll be hard for the U. S. to give it back and Cuba is not capable of getting it back militarily. "But," says Cristina as she mellows down a bit about the hot topic, "pressure and diplomacy should do the trick. For heavens sake, rational Americans must know how the theft of such a valuable portion of Cuban land and water is viewed by the rest of the world. Imperialism is no longer in vogue. Neither is terrorism. Neither is outright thievery, at least in civilized societies. I still believe that Americans, if they are told the truth about things such as their Mafia and imperialist heritage, they will act fairly and rationally towards Cuba. The Platt Amendment right after the Spanish-American War in 1898 and the Helms-Burton Act written by Miami extremists are viewed worldwide as undemocratic, criminal acts. If Americans don't know that, they should...especially if they care about their democracy." After a touch of calmness even about the hot topic of Guantanamo Bay, Cristina steamed up again. "Dammit!" she said, defiantly shaking a pencil at the camera, "they should! THEY SHOULD!"

         But, truth be known, Cristina Escobar doesn't trust either Miami or Washington "as far as I can throw them." Mulling her phraseology and a bit surprised by it, she laughs and adds, "And those are two biggggg cities. I've seen them. Most people, including Cubans in Miami, are nice people. Most people in Washington are nice people. I've told friends in both those cities that my problem with their democracy is...it's not really democratic. If it was, a few extremists in 1898 wouldn't have started the Spanish-American War to steal Cuba from Spain and, while they were at, 'why don't we take Puerto Rico and the Philippines too?' Would a true democracy then have stolen Guantanamo Bay in 1903 and supported a succession of puppet dictators, culminating in 1952 with a coup that put the cruelest dictatorship of all -- Batista and the Mafia -- in charge of Cuba? I say 'no' to those questions. Do you in your democracy have the freedom or the knowledge to say 'yes?' I don't think so. That's where we are today in the second half of 2015. I think, I hope, that this twentysomething generation of Cubans...Cubans on the island, my generation...will be the ones to decide Cuba's future. I believe we will. And I believe it will be a bright future. I believe we deserve it. So, there you have it. My biggest problem, my biggest regret, with the United States is that I don't believe it is a true democracy. If it is, if it were, there would have been no Spanish-American War, no Platt Amendment, no stealing of a big chunk of Cuban land, no terrorist bombings of Cuban hotels and cane fields and fishing cabins on our coasts and a Cuban civilian airplane, no unconscionable and long-term protection of the region's most notable terrorists, and so forth. Believe me, I want the United States, for Cuba's sake, to be Cuba's friend and its best trading partner. And that means I want the majority of America's people, not a few powerful and selfish criminals, making the basic decisions that will govern America's relations with Cuba. Is that too much to want? I mean...the majority of Americans still think of their country as a democracy, right? If they take pride in their democracy, I believe Cuba will have a brighter future. I believe those of us on this island deserve that. I believe, whatever the odds, we will fight for what a lot of great nations, large and small, including the United States of America, have fought for, and that is Sovereignty. So, that's where I'm coming from tonight. Now...let's get some other opinions."

     Ana Navarro is a Poster Lady for what Cristina Escobar considers an "America problem" that "hurts everyday Cubans on the island while promoting extremist Cubans in Miami and Washington." Navarro was born in Nicaragua but she is a pure anti-Cuban zealot in Miami. She graduated from the University of Miami in 1993 and she has made a fortune as a publicist for powerful anti-Cuban zealots such as Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. And that's what she is today...a prime propagandist for Jeb Bush #1 and Marco Rubio #2, both of whom are Republican presidential candidates. She is also a highly paid "CNN political commentator" whereby CNN affords her countless hours of free propaganda time promoting Bush as America's next President to be succeeded, eight years later, by President Marco Rubio. As Cuba's top broadcast journalist, young Cristina Escobar cites Ana Navarro as "a paradigm of the American media that is nothing more and nothing less than a giant, lucrative propaganda machine...left-wingers, right-wingers, and even middle-wingers like CNN, a network with an international reach that reaches Cuba too. As a journalist in Cuba, I sometimes watch CNN and cringe." This is what makes Cristina cringe: {"And now next on CNN we present our fair-and-balanced political commentator from Miami, Ana Navarro, and she will tell you again this hour why Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio should be America's next two Presidents and why they will overturn every major program President Obama has put forth. So now, Ana, tell America all about YOUR UNBIASED VIEWS."}} Americans, of all people, should be able to separate propaganda from truth. 

        When highly paid propagandist Ana Navarro is presented to the American public by CNN as a ubiquitous "political commentator" when any intelligent person should know that she is nothing but a publicist for Bush and Rubio, one would have to agree, I think, that Cristina Escobar is correct about the sorry state of the media in the United States. In Washington Cristina garnered headlines when she directly told the U. S. media about her "utter disdain" for the U. S. media because "it hurts everyday Cubans. It doesn't hurt me and it doesn't hurt Fidel but it hurts everyday Cubans. Lies and propaganda, especially when it is not balanced with truth and facts, hurts Americans too and makes fun of their democracy. My problem with that is how it hurts everyday Cubans. I don't hurt or criticize everyday Americans but as a broadcast journalist with respect for my profession, the U. S. media is shameful." {"AND NOW NEXT ON CNN WE PRESENT ANA NAVARRO.......!!!" "THANK YOU, ANDERSON. THIS IS MY 4TH APPEARANCE ON CNN TODAY. I JUST WANT TO REMIND AMERICANS THAT THE TWO GREATEST AMERICANS ARE #1 JEB BUSH AND #2 MARCO RUBIO, OUR NEXT TWO PRESIDENTS FOR THE THE 16 YEARS BEGINNING IN 2017. AND THE WORST PRESIDENT IN HISTORY IS OBAMA AND HIS WORST MISTAKE IS TRYING TO CHANGE THE WAY WE TREAT CUBANS ON THE ISLAND. ONLY THE CUBANS IN MIAMI SHOULD MAKE SUCH DECISIONS, ANDERSON. JEB AND MARCO WILL CORRECT ALL OF OBAMA'S EFFORTS....!"} Cristina Escobar thinks propagandists should be corrected.

Cristina Escobar

Leader of Cuba's twentysomethings
Is she more powerful than the rich Cubans in Miami and Washington??
Changing topics:

       This magnificent photo is courtesy of Richard Day/Daybreak Emagery/Birds & Blooms Magazine. Five American Goldfinches and one bluebird: Healthy, beautiful, peaceful, content and very well-fed. Just like the whole wide world should be.

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