cubaninsider: Why Cuba Matters

7.9.16

Why Cuba Matters

Especially to Americans!!
{Updated: Thursday, Sept. 8th, 2016}

James Patterson was born in New York 69-years-ago.

James Patterson is the world's best-selling author.

One out of every 17 hardback novels sold in the United States is a James Patterson book. Not many weeks go by without James Patterson having America's top-selling novel. He has already passed $60 million in earnings this year. With that much money, power and intelligence, James Patterson -- unlike most Americans since 1959 -- even has the guts to speak the truth about Cuba, and that's quite refreshing.

This image shows James Patterson this week -- Sept. 6th, 2016 -- on the CBS This Morning program. He has given millions of dollars to support literacy and he was promoting a new documentary that he wrote and hosts. It is entitled "Murder of A Small Town." and it debuts September 9th. In the documentary Mr. Patterson exposes the extreme poverty, violent crime and lack of literacy that riddles two particular Florida towns -- Pahokee and Belle Glade. In the richest nation in the history of the world, the United States, he contrasts such extreme poverty, crime, and illiteracy with the extremely rich and affluent nearby areas, such as Palm Beach, Florida. AND, YES...HE CONTRASTS IT WITH POOR little CUBA -- today's Revolutionary Cuba, not Batista's Cuba back in the 1950s. Mr. Patterson Tuesday made this extremely brave comment, "In Cuba everybody gets fed, everybody gets health care, and everybody gets educated." And he wonders why everybody in U. S. towns like Pahokee and Belle Glade aren't afforded the same opportunities as the affluent people in Palm Beach OR EVEN THE POOR PEOPLE IN CUBA who, since 1962, have been maligned by a U. S. embargo designed to appease revengeful remnants of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship that fled the Cuban Revolution, mostly for the very affluent and always safe havens of Florida and New Jersey.

James Patterson repeated that comment about Cuba Tuesday in this interview on CBS This Morning with reporter Anthony Mason. Because it was a positive comment about Cuba, it made instant headlines and -- almost as instantly -- chest-pumping, self-anointed American patriots were, not unexpectedly, strongly suggesting that he leave the U. S. for good and take up residence in Cuba, which Mr. Patterson visited a few weeks ago. You see...in the U. S. since 1959 even rich, powerful, and informed Americans such as James Patterson are supposed to be too intimidated or just too stupid to say anything good about Revolutionary Cuba...or anything bad about the Batista-Mafia dictatorship that preceded it.

Quotes by Cuban-American U. S. Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey were quickly used by the right-wing, intimidated or politically correct U. S. media to counteract James Patterson's positive remarks about the island this week. Menendez quotes such as his boast that President Obama will "rue" his decisions to visit the island or to make friendly gestures to Cuba were juxtaposed against Patterson's comment: "In Cuba, everybody is fed, everybody gets health care, and everybody gets educated." Didn't Mr. Patterson know you are not supposed to say anything good about Cuba or anything bad about Batista? My!

On April 1, 2015, Senator Bob Menendez was indicted on multiple corruption charges by the United States District Court because of his connections to a Miami millionaire and the Dominican Republic.

The fact sheet on Sen. Bob Menendez includes the notation that he is one of three Cuban-American U. S. Senators, with the other two being Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas. They, like all of the Cuban-American members of the House of Representatives, are anti-Castro hard-liners. While most Cuban-Americans support President Obama's peaceful overtures to Cuba, it seems that moderate Cuban-Americans are not considered candidates for the 535-member U. S. Congress. That, and most other aspects of America's congressionally mandated Cuban policies, irks many democracy-lovers...like James Patterson.

The graphic above states basic facts that James Patterson referenced this week on CBS This Morning. These are, of course, facts that Americans are not supposed to consider...at least not freely or openly.

When the U. S. supported the vile Batista-Mafia dictatorship from 1952 till 1959, rich Americans like Edmund Chester, shown above with Fulgencio Batista, fared magnificently well, as did the most famed Italian and Jewish Mafia leaders from the United States like kingpins Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky.

In Batista's Cuba, there was no support for everyday Cubans.

This mother & these 7 children were of no concern to Batista.

The only thing that began to embarrass the United States government was when the famed New York Times reporter Herbert L. Matthews began highlighting the street marches of Cuban mothers outraged because of the "assassinations" in Batista's Cuba of "nuestros hijos" -- which is Spanish for "our children." The killings that spawned marches like these were apparently designed to merely quell dissent, but the brave mothers like these convinced Fidel Castro that maybe...just maybe...a revolution might succeed.

The basic facts posted above are correct, including the point that the U. S. government, with Castro's rebels marching relentlessly toward Havana, finally cut military support to Batista. By 3:00 A. M. on the very first day of 1959, after word reached Havana that the rebels had captured Santa Clara, the Batistiano and Mafiosi leaders bolted for their pre-prepared getaway airplanes, yachts and ships. Unfortunately, many of them quickly turned up in nearby Miami, Florida. A week ago, on Aug. 31-2016, the first commercial U. S. airplane flight to Cuba in 55 years landed in Santa Clara, Cuba -- marking a slice President Obama has cut out of the decades-old Batistiano dictation of a Cuban policy crafted to hurt Cuba and help Cuban exiles.

After ousting Batista, Cuba started a massive literacy campaign.

In 1961 Fidel Castro himself ordered that a large slice of Cuba's meager resources be devoted to educating the island's most illiterate citizens. This graphic shows it was a massively successful endeavor.

The United States has an excellent literacy rate.

But not as good as Cuba's.

Cuba's literacy rate leads the entire region.

And Cuba is the only nation embargoed by the U. S.

These typically happy seven elementary students in poor Cuba have free and excellent educations through college and free and excellent health care for life. These children also are guaranteed free food and shelter, if needed. Somebody deserves credit for this, especially considering that the U. S. has had Cuba -- since 1962 -- under history's all-time longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed on a weak country by a strong country. These Cuban children {as has been the lifelong case with their parents} do not deserve to be punished all their lives by greedy or revengeful elements in a nearby foreign superpower.

These three Cuban-American Senators -- Cruz, Menendez and Rubio -- are not accustomed to being challenged on anything related to the Cuban narrative or Cuban policy. Well, Senators, James Patterson challenged you this week -- Sept. 6, 2016 -- and Patterson's Sept. 9th documentary suggests that, instead of targeting Cuba with abuse, you perhaps should do your jobs in the Senate to help poverty stricken and crime-riddled areas that you purport to represent. Would that be asking too much of 3 highly over-paid Senators?