cubaninsider: Cuba's New Year Is Already Old

But That's Just Being Cuba!!

This display of Cuban flags was in Santiago de Cuba yesterday -- January 1, 2016. The island celebrated the 57th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution's victory over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship on January 1, 1959. It was an interesting celebration, so let's take a peek at what transpired.

This photo shows Cuba's 84-year-old President Raul Castro speaking in Santiago de Cuba yesterday. The photo reflected the soon-to-be transition in Cuba in which the elderly revolutionary leaders like Raul will relinquish control to...well, somebody. The man in the white shirt just to Raul's left is Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, a powerful revolutionary icon who is also now deep into his 80s. Right behind Machado, and partially obscured by him, is Miguel Diaz-Canel, the 55-year-old from Santa Clara that Raul has named as his successor, probably sometime in 2017. So this is a transition photo taken in Santiago de Cuba on the first day of 2016. In his speech, Raul mentioned that UNESCO, the UN branch that monitors the care of children and women worldwide, saluted Cuba in 2015 for its literary rate of 99.8 percent and the fact that "Cuba devotes an extraordinarily high percentage of its Gross National Product, 13%, to the free education for its people." He also mentioned that the World Health Organization in 2015 praised Cuba for its "exceptionally high percentage of its income devoted to free health care on the island" and he pointed out that in 2015 "we agreed for the United States to send a delegation to Cuba to study our unique pre-natal practices for pregnant women, perhaps because -- despite the deprivations of the blockade -- our infant mortality rate is better than that in the United States." One of the other speakers also pointed out that "our extremely low crime rate is the envy of our Caribbean and Latin American neighbors, and unlike our northern neighbor our policeman don't gun down unarmed people on the streets of Cuba." Of course, the Cuban narrative in the U. S., and especially in Miami and the U. S. Congress, maintains that Cuba is an oppressive basket case and that the embargo/blockade, in place since 1962, and other anti-Cuban legislation is warranted because, of course, "any dollar or peso that reaches the island goes into Castro's Swiss bank account." Perhaps, of course, the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but don't expect it to surface in this long, lovely New Year of 2016.

Nick Miroff is a rare bird. He is a great American journalist and, uniquely, he is courageous enough to tell the truth about Cuba, be it good or bad or in between. He is the award-winning Latin American/Cuban expert for the Washington Post. His January 1-2016 article was entitled "Amid A Historic Wave of Immigration, Some Cubans are Returning Home." WHOA!! Right away it's clear Mr. Miroff didn't clear that article with the vast Castro Industry in the U. S., nor does he ever. That makes him a rare bird. Anyway, he explained why a Cuban named Mauricio Estrada left Cuba and returned, as thousands of Cubans, including Miami Cubans, have done. Americans are not supposed to know such things because the U. S. media normally prefers to remind Americans that all Cubans are anxious to risk everything to leave the decrepit, oppressive Cuban atmosphere. There are, of course, two sides to the Cuban conundrum. Nick Miroff reports on both sides. Did I say rare bird? Uh, I think I did.

Marco Rubio, the first-term Cuban-American U. S. Senator from Miami, is a top-tier Republican presidential candidate...already. Like Miami's three other contributions to the U. S. Congress, Rubio is vehemently opposed to {and has vowed to block} every positive overture President Obama has made in trying to normalize relations with Cuba. Yet, polls show that the majority of Cuban-Americans in Rubio's Little Havana section of Miami support Obama's, not Rubio's, Cuban policy. That's interesting considering that Miami, even though it is actually located in a non-Banana Republic democracy, is incapable of sending a moderate Cuban-American to the U. S. Congress. It is also interesting that Rubio opposes one of the many, many congressional laws that massively favor and enrich Cuban-Americans and entice Cubans, and only Cubans, to get to the U. S. as quickly as possible, where special laws and privileges await them, and only them, starting the moment their front foot hits U. S. soil. Many Cubans make a beeline for the U. S., get on the welfare rolls, and then return to Cuba but still get that special welfare courtesy of unwitting U. S. taxpayers. Now, Rubio is witty when it comes to Cuban laws. He doesn't like Cubans coming to the U. S. thanks to the infamous Wet Foot/Dry Foot law, in force since 1966, and THEN RETURNING TO CUBA WHERE THEY STILL RECEIVE THOSE WELFARE CHECKS. That mitigates against Rubio's oft-stated belief that if holes in the U. S. embargo of Cuba, in force since 1962, permits any cash to get to Cuba, it will all go in Fidel Castro's bulging but non-existent Swiss bank accounts. So, Rubio...believe it or not...opposes Wet Foot/Dry Foot, but for entirely different reasons than the rest of the world, which believes that Wet Foot/Dry Foot is grossly undemocratic and discriminatory against all non-Cubans. Of course, as Rubio knows, American voters don't give a damn. I mean...they didn't care about Cubana Flight 455 and other drastically undemocratic U.S.-Cuban relationships, so why would they care about...Wet Foot/Dry Foot for heaven's sake?? But Marco Rubio does care...because he cares a whole lot about {and apparently often ponders} Fidel Castro's non-existent Swiss bank accounts. It's the same Rubio, by the way, who got all the way to the U. S. Senate with his bio still claiming his parents escaped the tyranny of Castro's Cuba when, in fact, they escaped Batista's Cuba long before Americans ever heard of Castro. But, in a money-crazed and media-distorted election process, Rubio might waltz to victory in the 2016 Republican primary race, just as Cuba's astute Josefina Vidal expects. That's why she expects another Bay of Pigs event on January 20th, 2017.

Photo courtesy: Margo Roth/Miami Herald.

The photo above was used to illustrate a major article in the Miami Herald on the first day of the New Year -- Friday, January 1, 2016. Shown amidst the bushes are some of the 22 Cubans who touched U. S. soil at Key West, Florida yesterday. Just by touching U. S. soil, these Cubans instantly become legal residents of the United States and are instantly eligible for welfare payments courtesy of the U. S. taxpayers. The Miami Herald correctly stated that the vast increase of Cuban migrants is due to the "fear that the Cuban Adjustment Act is going to be abolished." And the Miami Herald explained that "the Wet Foot/Dry Foot policy is a result of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966." It surely is, but Wet Foot/Dry foot is fully protected by a U. S. Congress in 2016 that, like in 1966, will routinely legalize Cuban policies that are dictated by self-serving and hard-line anti-Castro zealots, two generations of whom now might realize how lucky they were when Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution chased them, or their parents, off the island...all the way to nearby Miami, Florida.

Wet Foot/Dry Foot since 1966 has been a legal U. S. law that entices Cubans to defect to the U. S. by awarding them, and only them, vast incentives to leave Revolutionary Cuba by whatever means necessary and then the moment they touch U. S. soil they are home-free...with welfare. The law grossly discriminates against all non-Cuban would-be immigrants and it is only one of a plethora of such laws easily mandated by the U. S. Congress at the behest of a handful of hard-line Cuban-Americans and a handful of easily acquired acolytes such as the Bush political dynasty and easily acquired congressional right-wingers such as Robert Torricelli, Jesse Helms, and Dan Burton -- the infamous namesakes of discriminatory U. S. laws known as "The Torricelli Bill" and "The Helms-Burton Act." Such anti-democratic U. S. laws are indelible, essentially permanent, because only the easily bought-and-paid-for U. S. Congress can change or alter them. For example, a decent President, like Barack Obama, cannot overcome such laws although, more than any President since the 1950s, Mr. Obama has chipped away at a Cuban policy essentially concocted by two generations of the most zealous of the anti-Castro zealots booted off the island on January 1, 1959 by the Cuban Revolution. But the U. S. Castro Industry -- which lucratively sates the revenge, economic, and political thirsts of hard-line Cuban-Americans and their self-serving allies -- can perpetrate decades into the future such laws as Wet Foot/Dry Foot, in place since 1966; the embargo, in place since 1962; and a vast array of cash pipelines from Washington-to-Miami such as the lush Radio-TV Marti anti-Castro propaganda machine that has, since the 1980s, sucked an unending torrent of cash from unwitting, pusillanimous taxpayers. The embargo, the cash pipelines, Wet Foot/Dry Foot, etc., are all possible and totally legal because a handful of Cuban hard-liners within the bowels of a 535-member U. S. Congress can legislate...in virtual perpetuity...such laws. Also, the brilliance of the Founding Fathers in creating the greatest form of government ever devised was not infallible, as proven by some nuances of the United States Congress.

The U. S. Congress is the bicameral legislative body of the U. S. government. It consists of two houses -- the 100-member Senate and the 435-member House of Representatives. Along with a Judiciary and an Executive Branch (the White House), the Founding Fathers envisioned Congress as the hallmark of their proud democracy. It still is. Yet, unforeseen nuances have left Congress very susceptible to unsavory aspects of American society. For example, democracy-lovers -- in the U. S. and around the world -- have applauded President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. He has even orchestrated the reopening of embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961, and he has greatly eased, to the best of his ability, extremely discriminatory and undemocratic laws such as those that deny everyday Americans the freedom to travel to Cuba, a privilege citizens of all other countries have. But, when it comes to Cuba, decent and democracy-loving Presidents can only go so far. President Obama, for example, also wanted to close the infamous Gitmo Prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and begin discussions with Cuba to return the plush land to its rightful owner, Cuba. However, another nuance that enables a few Cuban hard-liners to dictate Cuban laws in the U. S. Congress stands in the way of such sanity. In 2015 a so-called "must-pass" multi-billion-dollar transportation bill made its way through Congress. Fine, the nation's infrastructure badly needed those dollars. But slipped clandestinely into that bill by anti-Castro zealots was a law that prohibited the closing of the Gitmo Prison and any discussions with Cuba about the return of Guantanamo Bay to its rightful owner. President Obama's first thought was to veto the badly needed transportation bill because of that "slip-in" about Cuba. But he ended up signing the bill when he realized that Congress had enough votes to override his veto. In such manners, the vast Castro Industry in the U. S. can use Congress to enact just about any Cuban law it desires.

Democracy loving Americans like me have been taught all our lives to proudly revere everything the U. S. Congress stands for. But America's Cuban policy makes the all-encompassing adjective everything a highly debatable proposition. Take 1898, for example, when the USS Maine and dozens of young sailors were blown to bits in Havana Harbor and used as a pretext for the Spanish-American War. Or take 1903 when the U. S., the newly dominant imperialist power in Cuba, unabashedly claimed Cuba's prized Guantanamo Bay. Or take 1952 when the U. S. teamed with the Mafia, of all things, to support the brutal Batista dictatorship in Cuba. Or take 1959 when the U. S. allowed the overthrown Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders to reconstitute themselves on U. S. soil, mainly South Florida and New Jersey. Or take 1961 when the air, ground, and sea attack at the Bay of Pigs miserably failed to recapture Cuba. Or take 1962 when the Cuban Missile Crisis came the closest the world has ever come to a nuclear holocaust. Or take 1976 when Cuban-exile terrorists blew a child-laden Cuban civilian airplane out of the sky and then loudly proclaimed it "The biggest blow yet against Castro!" Or take, still in 1976, the car-bombing of the top Cuban-American newsman in Miami after he criticized terrorist attacks against innocent Cubans...and later the firing of a top journalist in Miami when he excoriated Miami members of the U. S. Congress for their support of the best-known Cuban-American terrorists...or the firing of the Miami Marlins baseball manager after he merely and innocently expressed admiration of Fidel Castro for surviving the world-record number of assassination attempts. 1976, the only year George H. W. Bush was CIA director, was the watershed year Miami Cubans took the firmest control of the U. S. Cuban policy. Within a few days of the terrorist bombing of Cubana Flight 455, a terrorist car-bombing within sound of the White House in Washington involved Cubans and DINA operatives from the murderous anti-Cuban, pro-U. S. Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. That terrorism killed the beautiful young American, Ronni Moffitt. On the heels of the very bloody year of 1976, the Bush-friendly Jorge Mas Canosa became the richest and most powerful anti-Castro Cuban in the U. S. and he was advised to study AIPAC, the ultra-powerful Israeli lobby, and replicate it. He did, creating the Cuban American National Foundation. From that day in the 1980s till this day in 2016, the hallowed halls of the U. S. Congress has been at the mercy of a few hard-line Cuban-Americans and a few easily acquired sycophants on matters related to Cuba. If you doubt that, there are 535 members of the U. S. Congress you can ask and, if so, I don't believe they can deny it...at least with a straight face. Uh...let's see. Wet Foot/Dry Foot. The embargo. The Washington-to-Miami cash pipeline. Americans being the only people in the world denied the freedom to visit Cuba because...Hey!...they might judge things for themselves. Yes, all such things are undemocratic, anti-American, and extremely discriminatory. But, uh, you see...the mean Fidel Castro kicked all those nice Mother Teresa-types out of Cuba in 1959 and in all the decades since then the U. S. haven't been able to eliminate him and return those Mother Teresa-types to that island. For those reasons, uh, you understand...Americans should meekly accept the dictates of a Congress that mandates whatever laws those nice Mother Teresa-types in Miami and New Jersey want it to enact. Don't you people in Congress, uh, understand what I'm saying...sir, madam?

"Well, no, Congressman or Congresswoman, I don't understand, with all due respect. I understand what you're saying about that mean Mr. Castro and all those Mother Teresa-types -- Batista, Luciano, Lansky, Diaz-Balart, etc. -- that he chased to Miami and New Jersey. But, with all due respect, sir...madam...I believe you are misleading me. I mean...the whole world thinks so too. Consider the UN vote -- 191-to-2. If the Cuban policy...sir, madam...dictated by the U. S. Congress angers the entire world, should you not take notice? I mean, the U. S. is the world's all-time economic and military superpower and can easily intimidate or buy-off a LOT OF NATIONS. Yet only one nation in the world supports the U. S. Cuban policy and that little nation is the only one that routinely gets congressional approval for BY FAR the most untold billions of dollars in economic and military aid EACH YEAR from the U. S. taxpayers. Surely, the U. S. Congress cannot get strong nations like England, France, Australia, Canada, Norway, etc., to support its Cuban policy but...sir, madam...can you explain why at least one other small, needy country won't kiss-up to the U. S. Congress and, uh, support your Cuban policy? I mean...sir, madam...the U. S. is still a democracy, right? A 191-to-2 vote SHOULD AT LEAST impress a democracy, don't you think? I kinda think Thomas Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers wouldn't ignore a 191-to-2 vote nor would they have been cowered by terrorists shouting 'The biggest blow yet against Castro.' I've noticed Congress has an approval rating in the single digits. I've noticed polls even in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood show strong support for Obama's plan to normalize relations with Cuba, yet all four Miami members of Congress -- Ros-Lehtinen, Rubio, Diaz-Balart, and Curbelo -- vehemently support any legislation that strangles Cubans on the island and also lures them with discriminatory incentives to defect or, prior to that, to engage in dissidence. I mean...sir, madam...why can't Miami send a moderate to Congress, one that represents the Cuban views of most citizens in Little Havana? The U. S. Congress justifies its Cuban laws and its apparent goals of returning those sweet Mother Teresa's, or at least their offspring, to the island any day now. But 'any day now' is six decades old! You have punished two generations of Cubans and Americans in the guise of 'punishing Castro.' Have you no mercy or decency...sir, madam...as you prepare to impose your extremes upon a third generation that will consist of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren? You ignored the world's 191-to-2 opinion again in 2015. Will you ignore 191-to-2 in 2016...and beyond? Uh, just wondering. Don't hold it against me. And thanks, sir...madam. I, uh, know ya'll mean well."