Cuba: 2016 and Beyond

Survival Rate: About 50-50!?!
{For an island hanging on in a turbulent sea}

Photo courtesy: Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press.

       The photo above shows U. S. Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack on his recent four-day trip to Cuba. It reflects the historic and courageous efforts of President Barack Obama in 2015 as he tried to normalize relations with Cuba. After the visit by Mr. Vilsack, Florida Produce, a major exporting company in Tampa, Florida, said it will ask Cuba in late January, 2016, if it can open a warehouse operation in the Mariel Special Economic Zone. Mariel is the famous port 28 miles southwest of Havana and due south of Key West, Florida. A billion-dollar refurbishing and deepening of the port, largely funded by Brazil, has created a state-of-the-art area that is vital to Cuba's economic future, with foreign investments critical to its success. Anti-Castro hardliners continue to dictate Cuban policy in the U. S. Congress and may yet thwart or turn-back Mr. Obama's herculean efforts but, almost in unanimity, everyone from Mr. Vilsack to Pope Francis to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce to the United Nations enter the New Year of 2016 hoping that Mr. Obama's brave plans to normalize relations with Cuba reach fruition in a sane manner.

     If President Obama in 2016 can build on the progress with Cuba that he started in 2015, it will markedly benefit most Cubans and most Americans. {The graphic is courtesy of The Packer}. However, many hurdles remain even as U. S. and Cuban flags now fly at embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961, highlighting one of Mr. Obama's monumental successes in the past year. The vast Castro Industry in the U. S. -- fueled by revenge, greed, and hubris -- has largely dictated America's Cuban policy since 1959 and, thanks to its control of the U. S. Congress, that will likely continue in 2016, the final year of Mr. Obama's term.

    Yet, President Obama's Cuban policy is supported by most Americans, most Cubans, and most Cuban-Americans...not to mention almost every nation in the entire world as registered each October with a resounding vote in the United Nations. Of the last eleven U. S. Presidents, Barack Obama has displayed the most guts, the most decency, and the most patriotism in dealing with Cuba. It will likely crown his political legacy, but that is no assurance his efforts to normalize relations with Cuba will succeed. His sternly entrenched opponents deep within the bowels of America's Castro Industry, while clearly a minority, can easily continue their dictation of a Cuban policy that propagandized Americans have insouciantly permitted to exist since the 1950s.

      Mike Mauricio is a very brave man. He is the President and CEO of Florida Produce, the Tampa-based company that in this month of January-2016 will try to get permission from Cuba and the United States to open a major warehouse in the Mariel Port Economic Zone in Cuba. Mike says, "If we find success, we will help the Cuban people." WOW! He means the Cuban people ON THE ISLAND! The U. S. Congress, to appease Cuban hardliners, has passed and maintained an array of U. S. laws designed to help and enrich Cuban-Americans and entice Cubans in Cuba to defect. So, any American who seeks "to help the Cuban people" on the island is defying the U. S. Congress because helping Cubans on the island might...heavens forbid!!...persuade Cubans to remain in Cuba! So, yes, Mike Mauricio is a very brave man.

     
     And...Kathy Castor is a very brave woman. She was born 49 years ago in Miami, Florida! Since 2007 she has courageously represented the Tampa, Florida area in the U. S. Congress! She is the first Florida member of the U. S. Congress to call for an end to the U. S. embargo of Cuba, and she has made that call loudly and consistently in utter defiance of the four members of the U. S. Congress from her hometown of Miami! Congresswoman Kathy Castor should be elevated to the White House where her courage and decency could parallel and continue that of the brave Mr. Obama!!!

     David Seleski is a very, very, very, brave man. He is the President/CEO of Stonegate Bank in Pompano Beach, Florida, which is in shouting distance of Miami, which is the headquarters of America's ultra-powerful Castro Industry. But guess what David Seleski accomplished in 2015? David's Stonegate Bank made it possible for American visitors to Cuba to use Debit Cards on the island!! He said, "This is the first step in relieving the burden of U. S. travelers carrying cash when traveling to Cuba and it is another step in normalizing commercial relations between the two countries." WOW!! Some 10,000 Cuban hotels, restaurants, and other businesses are using Stonegate Bank debit cards and in 2016 Stonegate plans to make them usable in ATM machines in Cuba. Yes indeed. David Seleski is a brave man!!

        Saul Berenthal {on the left above} and Horace Clemmons are very brave Americans. They own Cleber LLC in Alabama and they are asking Cuba and the United States for permission to build a plant in the Mariel Economic Zone in Cuba to build small tractors, like the one they are displaying here. The U. S. embargo since 1962 has largely blocked the use of tractors on Cuban farms and thus those of us who have been to the island have seen oxen pulling plows. Small tractors actually built on the island would constitute a drastic bit of modernity for Cubans. Mr. Clemmons says, "I think we can pull it off, and it'll be good for everyone." He means, with President Obama's support, he can help Cubans and Americans in defiance of the hardliners in the U. S. Congress who are concerned only with helping the lucrative U. S. Castro Industry. Yes, Mr. Berenthal and Mr. Clemmons are very, very brave men in the state of Alabama. America needs many more just like them.

       And the question is, as 2016 replaces 2015, how many more brave Americans will step up to support President Obama's decent and courageous overtures to Cuba? {It's a very pertinent question considering the adverse image America's Cuban policy casts on both America and democracy in the eyes of the world}.

****************************************