To Know Cuba, Visit Cuba

Or You Won't Know Cuba!!
{Saturday, April 1st, 2017}

       This photo shows Economics Professor Patrick Gourley and his students at the University of New Haven in Connecticut on their 8-day visit to Cuba this month of March, 2017. Educational tours are one legal means Americans can visit the island but for decades everyday Americans have been the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. That, of course, is to appease a handful of two generations of the most extreme counter-revolutionaries who reside in the U. S. after the Cuban Revolution in 1959 ousted the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. A few extremists easily mandating such laws in the U. S. Congress command a 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations but two generations of Americans meekly accept them, which results in meek acceptance of allowing a small but rich and powerful cabal of Cuban-American exiles to dictate the U. S. Cuban narrative and U. S. Cuban congressional laws.

         Thus, the opinions from Americans who actually visit Cuba are always pertinent. The New Haven Register in a long article written by Mark Zaretsky featured these reactions from Professor Gourley and his entourage after their eight days in Cuba:

             "I really just thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience;" "Cuba has changed more in the past two years than it did in the previous 50;" "For the first time people are allowed to open their own business;" "Hands-on experience reveals that;" "The people, they seemed very modern. They all had cellphones. But I think I saw only one iPhone;" "I was surprised by the number of private businesses that were there;" "I think financially they've very excited to see the trade embargo loosening;" "I met a woman who owned a farm and wished they had a Home Depot. She talked about how frustrated she was that she had a successful business and had money, but the things that they need weren't available in the country;" "The most amazing impression I got from the place was just how pure it was;" "You didn't expect the people to be so happy;" "You can get a free Ph.D. Education and health care are free and people are given vouchers good for food;" "Buildings...still had bullet holes from when they shot at Batista;" etc. {Very interesting, huh?}.

        Professor Patrick Gourley's last comment was: "The one thing for people to know is...just go to Cuba! It really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a country that's just dramatically shifting." Of course, for decades the Batistiano-Mafiosi hardliners booted out of Cuba by the revolution have their reasons for wanting to continue dictating the Cuban narrative and Cuban laws in the United States and I assume their three prime reasons are the same old standbys: revenge, money, and power.

       With America's mainstream media having evolved and dissolved into propaganda machines as opposed to news sources, it seems most Americans actually get their real news these days from Facebook. I'm not much for social media...except for posting baseball comments and beautiful bird photos. But in occasionally doing that, I noticed that a young Cuban woman named Rosy Amaro Perez is engaged in doing a lot of worthy projects on behalf of Cubans on the island who are so unfairly besieged by a handful of rich and powerful Cuban-Americans. I used one sentence to congratulate Rosy on one such project and within minutes her Facebook reply was: "Thanks. But my English is not too good." Her English is fine...and so are her projects on her embargoed island. 

     A typical young Cuban woman, Rosy Amaro Perez is beautiful, healthy and well educated. She is married and she and her husband have a gorgeous daughter. Rosy's enthusiasm for life and for doing worthwhile things is contagious, as reflected by her Facebook renderings. She has no animosity toward Americans and Americans should not allow a few others in a nearby foreign nation to endlessly punish Rosy and her young family. With a mainstream U. S. media that is nothing more or nothing less than anti-Cuban propaganda machines, the only way to know Cubans like Rosy is to visit Cuba, but a few Cuban exiles for decades have enacted U. S. laws that make everyday Americans the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. So, Facebook is the logical means to know Cuba by knowing decent, worthy, everyday Cubans like Rosy. With Batistiano extremists in the U. S. controlling the U. S. Cuban narrative and U. S. laws, Americans are not supposed to know Rosy or her young family or....the many decent and worthy projects she is involved in.

      The above map of Cuba was used March 30-2017 by the Mississippi Business Journal to illustrate an article about Mississippi business executives who have returned home after visiting the long-embargoed nearby island. All those executives as well as officials at both of the deep-water Mississippi ports -- Gulfport and Pascagoula -- are anxious to engage in commerce with Cuba...if and when America's Cuban policy is not dictated by a handful of very revengeful first-and-now-second-generational Batistianos.

        Gulf Coast Produce, a major Mississippi business, is owned by Cristi and Mike Alise. Just back from Cuba, Mike says, "Cuba is buying rice from Vietnam. It's incredible. Cubans like building relationships. I want to go back and get out to the farms and see what they're growing and do some fact-finding. I've done that for years with Panama and Colombia. Trade with Cuba is exciting for Mississippi." Yes, Mike. Many other business people in your state and other states feel the same way. But remember...Panama and Colombia never had Mafia-backed and U.S.-backed brutal dictatorships that were overthrown only to regroup first in Miami and then in Washington. Therefore, you and many other Americans like you are in the same undemocratic boat, which has been the case for six decades now...while the rest of the world, as indicated by the 191-to-0 vote in the UN condemning America's Cuban policy, wonders WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?

     History and even quick Google searches reveal that the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship HAPPENED on Cuban soil in 1952 and the U.S.-backed Batistiano-Mafiosi resettlement HAS HAPPENED on United States soil since January of 1959. Of course, if some serious, unbiased student of U.S.-Cuban history has a better explanation, be sure to let Mike and Christi Alise in Mississippi know.

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