A Cuban Reflection

Exposing Batistiano Lies!!

      The lady above embracing a statue of Ernest Hemingway in Havana is Ellen Sabina, a travel writer for IndependentTraveler.com. Before U. S. President Barack Obama began his brave and Herculean efforts to wrest at least some of America's atrocious Cuban policy from the cruel, self-serving, and almost ironclad grip of a few Cuban-American Batistiano remnants in Miami and Washington, Ellen Sabina flew to Cuba and penned an article entitled "Cuba Reflections." You can, and should, dial it up online and read it. That's because, via intimidation and unchecked propaganda, the transplanted Batista exiles who fled the victorious Cuban Revolution  way back on Jan. 1-1959 don't want Americans to get first-hand views of Cuba, which is one reason they have teamed with a few right-wing rouges in the U. S. Congress to pass a law that, for a half-century, has left everyday Americans as the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. That makes it much easier for the Batistianos to tell self-serving lies and get Congress to pass self-serving laws, don't you think? Visits by everyday Americans, or articles by perceptive travel writers, would be the antidote to usually uncontested Batistiano lies about Cuba. Ellen Sabina began her article with these words: "One of the major aspects of this trip was the logistics of getting to Cuba. When you leave Miami and fly to Cuba via Toronto, the first odd thing you notice is that the plane starts its descent over the Everglades. The old platitude 'so close and yet so far' never seemed more apt." 

  The "Cuba Reflections" article by Ellen Sabina for "IndependentTraveler.com used the above photo to point out that in Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 three generations of Cuban females have been well taken care of -- free health care for life, free education through college, free food and shelter if needed, etc. After freely investigating on the island for herself, Ellen Sabina concluded that there were no traces of hunger problems in Cuba and that the women and children across the island reflected the benefits of decent support. The ousted Batistianos since 1959 have dictated the Cuban narrative in the U. S., thus insisting that women and children on the island were lovingly taken care of prior to the Revolution by the brutal, thieving Batista-Mafia dictatorship and that the opposite is true in Revolutionary Cuba. Ellen Sabina used the above photo to illustrate her point about women and children in Revolutionary Cuba. In sharp contrast, there are a plethora of photos from Batista's Cuba in the 1950s that discount the U. S. Batistiano lies.

Routine poverty in Batista's gluttonous Cuba in the 1950s.

      Visitors to Cuba are particularly concerned with observing how -- or if -- modern Cuba prioritizes its children. Ellen Sabina's insightful article used the above photo in explaining that Cuban children are now prioritized -- well taken care of, well educated, etc. She wrote: "The children of Cuba looked cheerful and well taken care of. I love watching the school children in their uniforms walking hand-in-hand along the streets. Kids played on the Prado. There didn't seem to be distinctions based on color. nor malnutrition of any kind." 

    Ellen Sabina's article mentioned her first-hand observations of Cuba's "school children" and "Prado." That reminded me of this Havana Times.org photo of the Cuban schoolgirl sitting atop the ubiquitous lion in the Prado neighborhood of Havana. Like Ellen Sabina, most visitors to Cuba are direly interested in the island's school children and fascinated by observing and photographing them. They are gorgeous, healthy, loved, and well educated children. U. S. Senator Marco Rubio and his ilk do not want Americans to know that and that's why everyday Americans for a half-century are the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba to observe it for themselves, which would mitigate against all of those Batistiano lies and all of those Cuban laws in the U. S. Congress that enrich and empower the likes of Rubio but harm Cubans on the island like the little girl sitting on the lion in Havana's Prado section.

      Ellen Sabina noted that Cuban children today don't have much in the way of material things, and that is to be expected in a small country that is still coping with the longest and cruelest Economic Embargo {since 1962} ever imposed by a powerful country against a weak country. But Ellen Sabina pointed out that Cuban children today in Revolutionary Cuba are healthy, well educated, live in safe environs, and have loving parents and neighbors who look after them. As this photo indicates, they also have each other. These three girls live in the Regla neighborhood of Havana. The photo is courtesy of Amberly Alene Ellis and #CubaEsNuestra -- #Cuba Is Ours. It's apparent the U. S. Congress doesn't gave a damn about these three precious Cuban girls, but there are a lot of Americans & Cuban-Americans who do CARE ABOUT THEM.

      Forever allowing a few self-serving, revengeful, and very rich Cuban-Americans -- like the three Miami-based U. S. Congress incumbents above -- to dictate America's Cuban policy shames America, democracy and America's best friends around the world. On Oct. 26-2016 in the United Nations that exact assessment received a unanimous worldwide 191-to-0 vote. But these members of Congress can easily get away with insisting that, when it comes to Cuba, zero is a much larger number than 191. And oh yes, too many Americans for over half-a-century have been too afraid, too ignorant or too unpatriotic to even weigh in on the ignominious, undemocratic Cuban policy that most Americans, most Cuban-Americans and all nations of the world want changed. The little girl sitting on the lion in the Prado section of Havana is not America's enemy, as the Ellen Sabina article makes clear. And a handful of rich and powerful Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress should not be allowed to endlessly punish that little girl with atrocities such as the embargo...as her mother and grandmother have been punished for over half-a-century by self-serving and very well-to-do elements residing largely unchallenged in a nearby, much stronger foreign country.

     The child-loving Dr. Carissa F. Etienne is the Director of the Pan-American Health Organization. She says, "Despite over a half-century of an anti-child United States embargo against Cuba, Cuban children on the island today are better cared-for healthwise than the majority of children in the United States and certainly throughout the Pan-American region, an area including Cuba I know so well and an area I love so much."  

       The child-loving Dr. Margaret Chan is the Director-General of the World Health Organization. She says, "For many decades the embargo against Cuba has been a major hindrance, and yet the children on the island have better, and totally free, healthcare than most children in the United States, the richest country in history. Cuba should be the world model for healthcare, especially its emphasis on preventative medical care and its numerous and very accessible polyclinics. Regarding healthcare, the world should follow Cuba's example." 

Note: Americans are supposed to believe that Dr. Chan and Dr. Etienne -- brilliant, loving doctors -- are liars and that Marco Rubio, the U. S. Senator and presidential wannabee, would never, ever lie to them about Cuba for his own self-serving reasons.

     This AP photo was taken on Sept. 15-2016 and it shows U. S. Senator Marco Rubio using and abusing Congress to make one of his typical anti-Cuban rants. That particular Rubio tirade got wide-spread coverage in the mainstream media -- including a J. J. Gallagher report on ABC's Good Morning America and on Yahoo News. The mainstream U. S. media, of course, wouldn't dare balance its distorted Rubio coverage with the unbiased opinions of...say...Dr. Chan or Dr. Etienne. Thus, unchallenged in the mainstream U. S. media are incessant Rubio rants and tirades such as: We must not only keep the embargo against Cuba intact but we must enhance it to make sure Fidel Castro doesn't pocket every dollar that gets to the island; we must block and turn back every one of Obama's initiatives regarding Cuba; we must...!"   

Note #2: There is nothing Rubio can say or do about Cuba that the mainstream U. S. media will ever challenge, especially the pundit-driven and propaganda-driven broadcast media. But for the sake of America and for the sake of democracy, not to mention the totally innocent little Cuban girl sitting on the lion, I believe democracy-loving Americans should challenge him.      

  BREAKING NEWS, AMERICA! Marco Rubio has some more anti-Cuban propaganda everyone needs to hear and fully accept!!

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