21.11.16

Will Trump Target Cuba?

It Appears He Will!
Not as a Priority but as a Capitulation 
      The top Cuban writer for USA Today is Miami-based Alan Gomez. He has a major and surprisingly fair-minded Cuban article today entitled: "U. S. Businesses To Pressure Trump To Keep Ties To Cuba." 
     Appropriately, today's USA Today article by Alan Gomez features the above photo of President-elect Donald Trump. It was taken by the AP on Oct. 25-2016 when Trump took his campaign to Little Havana in Miami and stood before the "Brigade Asalto 2506" poster and promised Cuban hardliners that he would "reverse" President Obama's peaceful overtures to Cuba and revert back to the Bush-era Cold War cruelty and stupidity that the very next day -- Oct. 26-2016 -- a vote in the United Nations denounced unanimously with a resounding 191-to-0 vote. {Brigade 2506 was the CIA-funded unit that was beaten in its infamous Bay of Pigs attack on Revolutionary Cuba in April of 1961}. But before cowardly capitulating in Miami, Trump had said he was "fine" with Obama's decency towards Cuba and that "50 years of a failed policy is enough." So Alan Gomez of USA Today today is trying to fathom which Trump will emerge regarding Cuba -- the sane one or the cruel one. Gomez is aware that a large percentage of Miami Cubans of his generation favor Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba while only the aging hardliners oppose it. Gomez also understands that large, medium and small U. S. businesses strongly desire to benefit from closer ties to Cuba. Today Alan Gomez explains that U. S. businesses want Cuba's business:   
                  "That list includes most major airlines, which have started regularly scheduled commercial flights to Cuba, and Carnival Corporation. which is already running a regular Cuban cruise. It will include Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which is operating three Cuban hotels, and Airbnb, which is being used by 8,000 Cubans to rent their rooms to travelers. There are tech giants, like Google and Cisco, trying to develop Cuba's bare-bones telecommunications infrastructure, cellphone giants offering roaming services and banks starting to offer U.S.-issued credit and debit card services." 
       A top Cuban-American lawyer in Miami, Pedro Freyre, was quoted in today's USA Today article. His firm represents businesses operating in Cuba now and ones trying to get a future foot-hold. He said: "All of us who are stakeholders in Cuba are very active in lobbying. At this very moment, we are seeking an audience with the teams that will be part of the new Trump administration." But USA Today seemed to recognize that a mere handful of self-serving Cuban-American politicians can still thwart the hopes of most Cuban-Americans, most Americans and most people of the world who live in nations that vote in unanimity -- 191-to-0 -- against the imperialist evils of the U. S. embargo against Cuba. Today Alan Gomez pointed out: "On the other side, the long-standing political coalitions that oppose any opening with Cuba will be tugging at Trump's ear as well. That is led by a powerful bloc of Cuban-American members of Congress." 
     Allan Gomez's USA Today article today heralds Marco Rubio as the current leader of "the powerful bloc of Cuban-Amrican members of Congress" trying desperately to keep in place "the long-standing political coalition" that has -- since the 1950s -- benefited so revengefully, financially and politically from a Cuban policy that the world rightfully opposes by a 191-to-0 plurality. But majority opinions and democracy have consistently been primary victims -- along with millions of innocent Cubans on the island -- of the cruel Cold War Cuban policies that Rubio and his ilk cling to, backed by the equally self-serving entities such as the Bush dynasty, the Tea Party and other conservative and right-wing benefactors. Rubio this month has been re-elected from Miami to a second 6-year term in the U. S. Senate that, like his first term, will consist of begging billionaires for money to feather his 2020 presidential bid after his 2016 bid ended unceremoniously when Trump wiped him out in a primary in Rubio's home-state of Florida. Yet, in a grossly flawed political arena in which billionaires can make unlimited donations designed to purchase the U. S. democracy, Rubio's famous "for sale" status will make sure that he and 7 other Cuban-Americans in Congress will continue as primary dictators of America's Cuban policies. In today's USA Today Rubio makes this asinine quotation: "Rolling back President Obama's one-sided concessions to the Castro regime, a key campaign promise shared with President-elect Trump, will be a top priority for me next year." TOP PRIORITY? Cuba is not a priority with Trump but it is surely Rubio's TOP PRIORITY because it seems it butters his bread. That grossly punishes everyday Cubans on the island as Rubio preaches that it's only designed to hurt the elderly Castros, whose careers, final days and legacy depend on selfish stupidity such as that, which leaves Rubio at zero regarding Cuba while most Cuban-Americans in his Miami backyard are at 191 on Cuba's worldwide barometer scale. Punishing Cubans on the island to feather his nest may be personally profitable and beneficial, but Rubio perhaps should be concentrating on issues that citizens of Florida, Miami and America need ALL U. S. Senators to address. For example, my new special issue of Time Magazine -- dated "November 28-December 5, 2016" -- arrived today, Oct. 21-2016, and it states: "Cuts in health spending contributed to a 23% rise in people living with HIV in Miami since 2004. Miami has the fastest-growing rate of new infections in the U. S." Why not, Senator Rubio, devote your time to such issues in Miami...or to Miami's crime-rate that massively exceeds Havana or that Havana devotes a massively larger percentage of its wealth than Miami or the U. S. to such worthy endeavors as free education through college, free health care from birth to death, etc. Of course, Senator Rubio, if you don't have to prioritize worthy American projects we can expect you to repeat the cruel zero comment you made in USA Today today about "the top priority for me next year" will be your self-serving assaults on innocent Cubans.
       By telling USA Today "the top priority for me next year" is Cuba, Rubio means January-2017 when he begins another 6-year term as Little Havana's -- but it seems not America's -- representative in the U. S. Senate. His second Senate term will likely resemble his first when many feel he feasted on money-burgers paid for by billionaires who still would love to see Rubio replace Trump in the White House in 2020.
     The Alan Gomez article in USA Today is a fair-minded, balanced update on what Americans can expect from a Donald Trump presidency regarding Cuba during a period when Republican Trump's White House will also have both chambers of Congress dominated by Republicans, not all of whom are Cuban extremists like Rubio. But Congress has and deserves a very low approval rating because of its money, lobbying, and special interests stigmas -- "Hey, buddy, you support my Cuban bill and I'll support your Bridges to Nowhere for your top donors. Then we can both stay incumbents forever, get rich and then get richer by becoming lobbyists so we can continue selling pieces of our government." Alan Gomez and the rest of the mainstream U. S. media is usually one-sided in its anti-Cuban coverage but Gomez, on two recent C-SPAN appearances, discussed Cuba fairly and his major article in USA Today today is also a fair appraisal.
  &*************************&
                

No comments:

cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story)

cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story) : Note : This particular essay on  Ana Margarita Martinez  was first ...