Cuba, An Oxymoron?

Well, not exactly!
{Thursday, March 31st, 2016}

Oxymoron: noun -- A figure of speech that juxtaposes elements that appear to be contradictory. Tourists visiting Cuba are discovering that the island is not an Oxymoron, at least...not anymore!

      
         Matt Kwong is an excellent photo-journalist based in Washington for Canada's CBC News Network. Being Canadian, Matt has a bit more freedom to report on what's happening in Cuba than his American counterparts. He just returned from the island and this week, March 29th, he wrote a major CBC article entitled: "Cuban Capitalism An Oxymoron No More." He prefaced his essay with this new-found fact: "Cuban capitalism, once an oxymoron, now represents a softer kind of a revolution -- one that looks after the scrappy, new-and-ready spirit of a people who have lived through more than 50 years of austerity brought on by a U. S. trade embargo." The following seven photos were taken by Matt Kwong for CBC.

      Nayvis Diaz Labout, in the middle above, is shown with two of her mechanics at her successful bicycle repair shop in Havana. Nayvis epitomizes the "scrappy, new-and-ready spirit" that Matt Kwong wrote about.

  Robin Perdaja owns the digital arts magazine Vistar.

Monica works full-time at Vista Magazine.

Idania del Rio, left, and and Leire Fernandez own this thriving Design Workshop.

      24-year-old Eloy Jazos Casa has a full-time job working at Havana's very first drive-through restaurant. It's not McDonald's, really, but it is very Cuban. The convenient food is good and it's already profitable.

         This is the bar area of a very popular, Russian-themed restaurant in a private home in Havana. They are called paladares. Many paladares in Cuba have been started with money from relatives in the U. S.

Gregory Biniowsky, a lawyer from Canada, owns the aforementioned paladar. 

       When Barack Obama succeeded George W. Bush as the U. S. President almost eight years ago, he was faced with the indignity of marching to the vile dictates of the U. S. trade embargo against Cuba. It was imposed in 1962 after the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack had failed miserably, as had numerous assassination attempts against Fidel Castro. Decades after the embargo was put in place, declassified U. S. documents revealed that its purpose was to starve and deprive Cubans on the island for the purpose of inducing them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. Although the embargo remains in place to this day, thanks to a Batistiano-directed U. S. Congress, it has failed to dislodge either Fidel Castro or the Cuban government. And while it has not starved the Cuban people, it has indeed deprived them, much to the chagrin of the entire world, as indicated yearly by the 191-to-2 vote in the United Nations against the embargo. As indicated by yesterday's update from Cuba by Matt Kwong of CBC News, President Obama's brave and Herculean efforts to normalize relations with Cuba have finally begun to ease some of the decades-long deprivations heaped upon innocent Cubans on the island to sate the revenge, economic, and political motives of a few Cuban-Americans and their easily acquired sycophants in the U. S. Congress.

        This AP photo shows President Obama at La Cerveceria in Havana on Monday, March 21, 2016. With American journalist Soledad O'Brien as the moderator, this is where he assured young entrepreneurs in Cuba that he wanted them to "have every opportunity to succeed and become prosperous with America's help, not America's hindrance." Merely for going to Cuba and saying things like that, right-wing thugs in the U. S. -- like pundit Ava Navarro, columnist Cal Thomas and presidential contender Ted Cruz -- excoriated President Obama, and...sadly...many Americans, as usual, let them get away with such vile thuggery.

       At that entrepreneurial session in Havana on March 21st, this AP photo shows Miami multi-billionaire condo king Jorge Perez congratulating President Obama for his efforts to normalize relations with Cuba.

       This AP photo shows Carlos Gutierrez being allowed to address the March 21st entrepreneurial meeting that featured President Obama in Havana. Gutierrez was born 62-years-ago in Havana and he is one of many extremely rich Cuban-Americans who now support President Obama's kind overtures to Cuba.

      Yes, that kind Carlos Gutierrez in Havana last week was the same Carlos Gutierrez who was extremely cruel to Cuba when he was U. S. Secretary of Commerce in President George W. Bush's administration.

        This interesting AP photo shows President Obama front-and-center at the State Dinner he was accorded at Cuba's Palace of the Revolution Monday night, March 21st. Seated right behind Mr. Obama is Cuban President Raul Castro. Just to Raul Castro's left is America's First Lady Michelle Obama and to her left is the white-haired Miguel Diaz-Canel, the next Cuban President after Raul Castro retires in 2018.

        This AP/Fernando Medina photo shows a Cuban Honor Guard proudly clutching both Cuban and U. S. flags during Obama's visit. Thanks to Obama, the American flag is now ubiquitous and honored in Cuba.

       This AP/Rebecca Blackwell photo shows President Obama in Cuba last week pointing the way to a better future for the Cuban people. Not surprisingly, a gutless editorial in the Washington Post was entitled "President Obama's Visit Won't Benefit The Cuban People." Such right-wing propaganda stresses that the brutal-thieving Batista-Mafia dictatorship benefited the Cuban people as did, of course, such Batistiano-dictated laws as the embargo and post-Batista terrorism as the bombing of the child-laden Cubana Flight 455. In contrast to the right-wing garbage in the U. S. media, the aforementioned CBC News report in Canada revealed how Mr. Obama's presidency and his visit have benefited the deserving Cuban people.

President Obama applauding his Cuban policy.

And so should Americans.

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