The Media Might Do It!!
Hey, stay tuned. You're at the right place. This is Cubaninsider, not American-insider. The confusion, though, is understandable because they are so intertwined and interchangeable. Therefore the Trump vs. Clinton presidential race in the U. S. means as much to Cubans as it does to Americans, maybe more. You see, a Republican in the White House aligned with a Republican Congress might mean war for Cuba or at least starvation. That's serious stuff, even more serious perhaps than what the various parameters will mean for Americans depending on whether the unpopular Mr. Trump or unpopular Mrs. Clinton wins.
No, Trump vs. Clinton is not exactly a "Celebrity Death-match.
But it's surely not a Dream Match either.
And Trump vs. Clinton is not nearly as civil or democratic as this pastoral montage on Fox News would have you believe. They are vicious, cut-throat opponents with no-holds barred, to say the very least.
Donald {The Billionaire Boss} or Hillary {For Prison} Clinton is certainly not what the Founding Fathers had in mind for the great American democracy they so skillfully crafted. They never envisioned their two-party system presenting U. S. voters with a lessor-of-two-evils proposition. Both Trump and Clinton have loud disapproval ratings. If Americans are beside themselves as they ponder the diabolical development, just think how the Cubans must feel. War, you see, from the shores of a nearby superpower is not a pretty prospect for an island. And neither is starvation that might yet embroil the island thanks to the Republican/Cuban exile embargo that continues to this very day and was first enacted in 1962 for the stated purpose, according to declassified U. S. documents, of starving and depriving Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow Fidel Castro. That policy has starved and deprived the U. S. democracy but not the now 90-year-old Castro. Nor has it starved the Cuban people, but it has deprived them as well as the vastly weakened U. S. democracy, which is seemingly incapable of correcting the self-mutilating humiliation and may yet starve the Cuban people with the continuation of what already is the longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak one.
President Obama deserves a third term in office based on the unique courage, guts and skill he has displayed in at least trying to bring a modicum of democracy and decency to America's Cuban policy, which for over half-a-century has greatly enhanced little Cuba's standing on the world stage while vastly diminishing the images of both America and democracy. The chest-pumping propagandists will tell you that is not so but they have also told you that the Oct.-1976 terrorist bombing of the child-laden Cuban civilian airplane was "the biggest blow yet against Castro" and they have told you that the 191-to-2 yearly pro-Cuba/anti-U. S. vote in the UN each October is "a huge positive for America and democracy." And you are supposed to believe such lies because those chest-pumpers believe you are either stupid or scared. In a rarity for two-term and grossly-targeted Presidents, Obama is finishing up with a positive approval rating. As the graphic above indicates, Hillary Clinton -- in Obama's shadow -- is trying to essentially provide the 3rd term to his legacy. Cuba would like that but, even though her opponent is the unqualified Mr. Trump, Cuba is likely to be disappointed, meaning it might have to prepare yet again for...war or starvation.
Even after Donald Trump eliminated 16 contenders and captured the Republican nomination for President at the convention in Cleveland, no one actually thought he could possibly beat his highly financed, politically established Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Yet, in these waning days of September it appears he might well become the leader of the free world. Understand, I am not an expert on U. S. politics, but I am also not a propagandist. I'm just an everyday American...and voter. I don't think Donald Trump is qualified to be President of the United States. But I will vote for him despite concern for Cuba. An extremely biased and self-serving U. S. media -- the highly financed broadcast, print and online industries -- have combined to make my decision for me, and I believe millions of others agree with me.
Study this photo montage: Donald Trump on the left, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough on his right. Mika and Joe host the "Morning Joe" program on MSNBC each weekday morning 6 to 8 A. M. It is strictly a politically oriented program that is watched by diehard political aficionados. With all of its other extreme left-wing "news" programs, MSNBC and its billionaire NBC owners apparently insist that "Morning Joe" be nothing more and nothing less than an anti-Trump propaganda machine. Mika was born in New York City 49 years ago. Her dad, 88-year-old Zbigniew Brzezinski, served the Johnson and Carter administrations well and, as a political scientist, still serves democracy well. Joe is a former Republican U. S. Congressman from Florida. Each morning...hour after hour, day after day...on what is supposed to be a news program they excoriate Trump, like all the other MSNBC anchors do. In doing so, Mika particularly is hilarious -- spitting out endless streams of anti-Trump vitriol literally with fire and sometimes with tears in her eyes. When I watch the odd spectacle, it's for show or general observation and certainly not for its political news content.
In the early going, as this graphic indicates, Donald Trump regularly phoned in to "Morning Joe" and both Mika and Joe seemed to relish the fact that the calls increased their ratings. During this period, Mika and Joe even seemed to forget their mission, which is to destroy Trump politically. Even if I agreed philosophically with them, as a democracy-lover I do not think the media should be a propaganda machine.
Being media-savvy, Trump early-on used Mika and Joe as unwitting tools to get free publicity via his phone calls to "Morning Joe." But otherwise their anti-trump vitriol and shenanigans soured him and he not only ceased the call-ins but punched back...viciously and effectively. Mika and Joe, like much of the mainstream media, actually seem to think that the mainstream media is highly regarded by Americans. Trump takes advantage of the fact that it is lightly regarded with approval ratings in the single digits.
Trump is also a natural-born heavyweight counter-puncher. As this graphic notes, after taking a barrage of assaults each morning from Mika and Joe, Trump used the Trump-friendly media to punch back, along with his favorite tool or weapon -- Twitter. Trump can identify left-wing, right-wing, middle-of-the-road, extreme or moderate media. He thus knows which to ride and which one to jump off. For sure, Trump jumped off Mika & Joe on MSNBC but not without looking around carefully to find better horses to ride.
Trump then jumped on the biggest and fastest horse -- at least as far as influential, passionate network news operations are concerned -- and that meant Fox News. With rare exceptions, Fox is now the only network you will see Trump personally visit, as above on the set with Trump-supporter Sean Hannity.
Sean Hannity is so unabashedly for Trump he campaigns for him -- on his Fox prime-time program and his much-listened-to nationally syndicated radio program. In the above poster you can see that Hannity hosted Trump at an extravaganza in Las Vegas. Hannity is also one of America's richest broadcasters. He has used and paid for expensive jets to fly Trump surrogates to functions around the nation. Sure, Hannity is not from the Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow School of Broadcast Journalism, but as a propaganda machine he epitomizes exactly what broadcast journalism has evolved into. While neither Trump nor the Republican Party will match Clinton and the Democrats by spending up to a billion dollars in expensive and strategic ads, Trump's better comprehension of the media offsets that financial disadvantage. Also, the Mika-like anti-Trump propaganda tirades benefit Trump while the Hannity-like pro-Trump crusades at least appear more sincere and more transparent. Mika's obfuscation in dispensing left-wing propaganda is more offensive than Sean Hannity's unhidden, obvious right-wing propaganda.
So, that brings us to this image from CNN, which -- as you can see -- juxtaposes a photo of Fox's Sean Hannity with Donald Trump above the glaring critique: "HANNITY DIDN'T QUESTION TRUMP'S 'RIGGED' CLAIM." What have we here? Well, it's typical...really. An anti-Trump propaganda network criticizing a pro-Trump propaganda network. If I want left-wing propaganda, I go to MSNBC. If I want right-wing propaganda, I go to Fox. If I just want politically and socially correct middle-of-the-road propaganda, I go to CNN.
If I want BREAKING NEWS apart from propaganda or politics, I go to CNN. In its regular news coverage, even CNN is fixated on propaganda dispensed ad nauseam via one obnoxious Talking Head pundit after the other, exactly what its visionary founder Ted Turner detested. At the same time, CNN possesses the best worldwide connections and broadcast journalists. Amazingly, that is most apparent only on BREAKING NEWS and in the wee hours...like 4:00 A. M. Eastern...when it utilizes truly great journalists such as Arwa Damon, Atika Shubert, Zain Asher, Max Foster, Matthew Chance, Jim Bittermann, etc., on non-breaking but vitally important stories. Any of those great and true broadcast journalists are worth more than the total of all of television's Talking Head pundits and propagandists. News should be news, not propaganda.
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And guess what??
As a newshound and night-owl, I checked CNN at my favorite time, 4:00 A. M., this very morning as I was finishing this essay about how a propaganda-fueled, money-crazed, and Talking Head-saturated broadcast media might make Donald Trump the next President of the United States because many Americans see through self-serving, distorted mazes. I used the slants of "Morning Joe's" insipid and persistent anti-Trump rants to illustrate my point. Then I was hit with the above CNN photos of Joe Scarborough and Donald Trump illustrating a report by Dylan Byers entitled: "Scarborough, Trump Look to Repair Relations" with the sub-title: "Joe Scarborough Wants to Make Nice with Donald Trump." Does that surprise me? Not in the least. Joe wants the ratings and Donald wants the publicity. That defines "news" in 2016.
And remember when America's brave and decent President, Mr. Obama, earlier this year became the first sitting U. S. President to visit Cuba since Herbert Hoover arrived on a warship in 1928?? While in Cuba President Obama felt it was necessary to assure the Cuban people that: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." But Obama is a Democrat and at the time he believed that another Democrat, Hillary Clinton, would succeed him as President and as Commander-in-Chief. Would Obama have made that statement in Cuba if he felt a Republican would succeed him? I don't think so. And now, perhaps, understand why I said that my Cubaninsider.com essays would be the same if they were Americaninsider.com essays. Cuba, you see, says more about the United States than it says about Cuba.
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