Cubans Appreciate Obama

And Take Advantage of His Courage

            Online and in print London's great newspaper The Guardian does the best job of letting the world know what is happening in Cuba. This past weekend it used this Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images photo to illustrate an article written by Tyler Wetherall. He wrote: "Tour operators around the world are reporting such high demand for travel to Cuba that hotel rooms in Havana are selling out months in advance, with some agencies unable to offer availability until April of 2016. With an estimated 10 million Americans a year expected to visit Cuba when the 54-year-old U. S. trade embargo is lifted, other nations are already heading there in droves. But is the country ready for the influx?" The answer is: Not quite. Cuba has upped its hotel prices while the government is spending money upgrading and increasing its hotel rooms. So are individual Cubans who rent out rooms in their homes, a process known as Casa Particulars {Particular homes}. A handful of visceral Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress can block the lifting of the embargo but in doing so they will increasingly draw the wrath of everyday Americans, who desire and deserve the freedom to travel to Cuba, and American businesses who are anxious to make money in Cuba.

        Thanks to caring Americans, especially President Barack Obama, and caring leaders around the world, especially Pope Francis, this is now a very common sight throughout the island of Cuba. {Photo above courtesy: Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images}. The caption read: "A few years ago, this would have been regarded as an act of treason in Cuba," meaning a U. S. flag flying beside a Cuban flag at a Cuban home.

         This photo is courtesy of Alamy and was used in the aforementioned article in The Guardian. It shows Nivia Melendez in her home in Santiago de Cuba preparing an excellent Cuban meal for her paying customers, tourists who covet and pay for such home-cooked meals. Restaurants in private Cuban homes are called Paladars. For many years experienced foreign visitors, including me, have frequented Paladars. There are now many more of them thanks to the Cuban government reacting to a thawing of U. S. relations by allowing for more-and-more entrepreneurs...like Nivia Melendez. Visceral Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress -- Rubio, Cruz, Ros-Lehtinen, Diaz-Balart, etc. -- want the embargo and other antagonisms against Cuba to continue for another 54 years. They assume the American people are stupid enough or coerced enough to believe that such cruel sanctions hurt the now 89-year-old Fidel Castro. Sane Americans, of course, agree with all the other countries around the world concerning the embargo: It hurts decent, innocent Cubans like Nivia Melendez who are trying to make decent, honest livings for their families. Restrictions from the Cuban government are not Nivia's biggest enemy but the cruel U. S. sanctions are. 

           The Cuban people still deeply appreciate this summer's visit of Pope Francis on the heels of his monumental influence in persuading Presidents Obama and Castro to become friendly neighbors.

 Mr. Obama is doing all he can do to help the Cuban people.

        The entire world, except for Israel, each year at the United Nations voices strong opposition to the continuation of the U. S. embargo against Cuba, a Cold War relic that shames the U. S. and democracy.

        Last week -- on October 27th, 2015 -- this was the final tally of the UN vote that vehemently opposed the U. S. embargo of Cuba -- 191-to-2 with no abstentions. The United States is unable to persuade even its best friends around the world to support its Cuban policy; the U. S. provides vast amounts of economic and military aid to a plethora of nations but only nuclear-powerful Israel, by far the biggest recipient of U. S. money and arms, can be enticed to support the U. S. embargo of Cuba. And...sane democracy-loving Americans should understand that a 191-to-2 majority opinion should be respected in a democracy.

        A handful of Cuban-American anti-Castro zealots in Miami -- such as Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart -- are able to dictate to the U. S. Congress a Cuban policy that most Americans, most Cuban-Americans, and the entire world opposes. The Diaz-Balart brothers have both been elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami as vicious anti-Castro zealots. Their father was a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship that was overthrown by the Cuban Revolution way back in 1959. Miami then became the new center for two generations of Cuban exiles, most of whom are now democracy-loving Americans but they, as well as America's Cuban policy, are dictated to by only a few very rich and very powerful anti-Castro zealots.

        This photo shows Fidel Castro welcoming Pope Francis to his modest home in Havana earlier this year. The photo was taken by Alex Castro, Fidel's son. Fidel is now 89-years-old -- unwell but also unbowed, except physically. Still keen of mind, he remains a voracious reader and avid newshound. But he is now only the eternal symbol of the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba that replaced, back in 1959, the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. That event shocked the world. But the longevity of Revolutionary Cuba, against imposing odds, has shocked the world even more. The two monumental events have thrust the island of Cuba onto the international stage far out of proportion to its size, population or wealth. As proven by last week's 191-to-2 vote in the UN, the rest of the world admires major aspects of Revolutionary Cuba, such as its resilience and tenacity. Fidel himself is now merely a spectator of the U.S.-Cuban relations that good people, like the Pope and President Obama, are trying to mend. But the vast and lucrative Fidel Castro Industry in the United States still benefits a handful of rich and powerful people, allowing a few extremists, through two generations now, to dictate a nefarious Cuban policy that {1} shames America's best friends around the world and {2}, as those friends pointed out during their vote in the UN last week, the U. S. Cuban policy is a violation of international laws that they, if not the U. S., respect. In 1976 Americans were successfully told to accept the terrorist bombing of a child-laden civilian Cuban airplane as "the biggest blow yet against Castro." In 2015 Americans are being told to disregard that 191-to-2 vote in the United Nations. Like in 1976, and all the years since 1959, this generation of Americans will passively and timidly accept the propaganda concerning the 2015 UN vote. Earlier this year, on his airplane flight from Cuba to the U. S., Pope Francis was asked what he told Fidel Castro. The Pope's face reportedly exuded emotion as he pondered the question. He cupped his hands together and looked downward as he tapped his knuckles against his chin for about a half minute. When he looked back up he said, "I told him I'm truly sorry, and that history will be much kinder to him than his enemies have been."

 President Obama treats President Raul Castro decently and cordially.

          The 89-year-old Fidel Castro has never met President Obama. Mr. Obama has never been to Cuba. However, he plans to visit the island in 2016, the last year of his 8-year, two-term presidency. If so, he will be warmly welcomed by Cubans who deeply appreciate what he has done on their behalf. In 2016 Fidel will turn 90. If he is still alive when President Obama visits Cuba, Fidel would welcome him into his home.

        As I said, Fidel is still keen of mind and a voracious reader. This photo shows him reading a biography of Barack Obama. Fidel has been told {by Josefina Vidal} that President Obama may not ask to see him in 2016 on his planned presidential visit to the island, but that Obama as a private citizen in 2017 would "most surely, if possible" like to meet Cuba's "greatest legend." Fidel's reply to Vidal was, "Then I'll try to make it a point to still be alive in 2017 because I think Cuba owes him a debt. He is brave and good."

           Back in 1973 Fidel Castro uttered the words quoted above. The U. S., remarkably, now has a black President, Mr. Obama, and Pope Francis, a native of Argentina, is, remarkably, the first Latin American Pope. In 2015 both the U. S., as represented by President Obama, and Pope Francis, the first Latin American Pope, have "come to talk to us." Only one human being on the planet, Fidel Castro, predicted those three things. Of course, many of America's best historians have concluded that, in Cuba's David vs. Goliath struggles against the United States since 1953, "Fidel Castro has out-smarted eleven consecutive U. S. presidents." Only the historians in Miami would disagree with that, and they may be a bit biased.

"The U. S. will come to talk to us...

when they have a black president....

and the world has a Latin American Pope."

{Fidel Castro, 1973}

Wow!!!!!!!!
No wonder the Batistianos are still in Miami, not Havana!!

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