A Hypocritical Foray!
In the last two days, these images were shown worldwide in both video-audio-and-photo fashion Online and on Television. It is a reminder that those who live in expensive glass houses should not throw rocks at their neighbor's poorer home. The montage above registered a now-famous event that occurred in the USA This week -- April 10, 2017 -- on America's most-famed airline -- United. The fully loaded airplane was about to take off when United realized it was over-booked and it needed four of the seats for United personnel to fly to another destination. When it couldn't clear those four seats, three security agents boarded the plane and randomly ordered the passenger depicted above to leave the plane and take a later flight. He refused. When pressured, he shouted, "I'm a doctor! I must get to Louisville for my patients!" When he was being forced from his seat he continued to scream and tried desperately to grab on to anything that would prevent his removal from the seat he had paid for. He was eventually pulled from the seat, screaming and moaning, and pulled forcefully down the aisle in view of the other passengers. The two photos above on the right side were taken after the doctor in total shock somehow returned to the plane and raced up and down the aisle incoherently but very clearly shouting, "I gotta go home...I gotta go home...they gonna kill me...they gonna kill me!" As he zombie-like ran up and down the aisle, the doctor's pants were low and exposed some of his lower body. His wife was one of the alarmed passengers.
In this Smart Phone era, the incident on the United plane was recorded by outraged passengers, including the lady above. It was not only taped for posterity and world-wide exposure, but onlookers like this dumb-founded woman shouted their outrage at the agents.
United Airlines' CEO Oscar Munoz exacerbated the issue and further infuriated people around the world when his first official statement blamed, at least partially, the bloody and mauled victim.
In this Twitter-era, tweets like the one above became ubiquitous within the first hour after images like the ones above were flashed around the world -- complete with video, screaming audio and...blood.
And speaking of throwing stones at vulnerable targets from glass houses, U. S. taxpayers since the early 1980s have lavishly funded...literally with hundreds of millions of dollars...Radio-TV Marti in Miami. The radio unit started in 1983, the TV united in 1990. It is nothing more and nothing less than an anti-Castro, counter-revolutionary propaganda outfit aimed at Cuba but mostly it simply preaches, at massive expense decade after decade, to the choir in South Florida. That fact is well known and was revealed many years ago by ABC-TV News with a still-famous report entitled "The Broadcast to Nowhere" because it is easily blocked or jammed by Cuba. Since then, as your Google search would validate, other reputable articles have noted the laughable quality of the broadcasts because many of the participants are not broadcasters although some of the salaries would indicate they are top-of-the-line journalists. Respected and unbiased Cuban expert Tracey Eaton, now also a Professor in Florida, documented on his Along the Malecon blog the actual salaries and payments to vendors and others that might anger even the most timid U. S. taxpayer, with many of the payments listing the amounts but not who got them. While Radio-TV Marti throws a continuous barrage of stones at any-and-everything attached to Revolutionary Cuba, don't expect to ever hear it broadcast a criticism of Cuba's Batista-Mafia dictatorship or, since 1959, of the remnants of the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship that regrouped in South Florida. And don't expect American taxpayers to have the courage to complain about the hundreds of millions of their dollars devoted to Radio-TV Marti and, of course, the mainstream U. S. media for the most part does not have the courage or integrity to even report the debacle. But England's BBC and other braver sources do. In fact, the BBC also broadcast internationally a report that the George W. Bush presidency was paying tax dollars to journalists at so-called reputable media such as the Miami Herald to produce and publish anti-Cuban articles. That BBC report, in case you'd like to check, was broadcast on Sept. 8-2006 and entitled "U. S. Paid Anti-Cuba Journalists." Even the U. S. media, including the Miami Herald, was forced to react to that farce, which was more a slap at democracy than Cuba. Yet, if the subject is Cuba, Americans are not supposed to complain...not even when their tax dollars go to lavishly fund Radio-TV Marti or to pay-off so-called legitimate journalists to throw stones at Cuba as if NO ONE in Miami or Washington lives in a glass house.
And speaking of Radio-TV Marti, at one point Marti, backed by massive tax dollars, funded an expensive airplane to fly around Cuba to beam its propaganda signals at the island in an attempt to defeat Cuba's success in rather easily blocking the broadcasts. A few of Washington's braver and more decent officials, feeling sorry for the taxpayers and for America's mounting reputation as a propaganda-dispenser, explained -- to no avail -- that even if a broadcast or two got through to the people on the island, they would be too smart to believe what Miami said as opposed to what they were seeing daily in Cuba.
Cuba provides passports for Yoani Sanchez, the island's most famed anti-Castro and counter-revolutionary dissident, to fly around the world and then return to Cuba. Sanchez, as shown above, stopped off in Miami to utilize Radio-TV Marti to broadcast her anti-Castro vibes...at least to the choir.
And of course, as Cuba's most famed anti-Castro/counter revolutionary zealot, Yoani Sanchez was sure to be wined, dined and whatever at the Batistiano-dominated U. S. Congress. She is shown above being flanked by Cuban-American U. S. Senators Marco Rubio and Robert Menendez. By the time she arrived in Miami and Washington, Sanchez was already the world's most famous anti-Cuban blogger. Upon her return to Cuba, she also announced that she had the wherewithal to hire additional workers and start her own well-funded digital newspaper online, which she did.
The founder of Radio-TV Marti, America's most powerful anti-Castro media outlet, and the founder of the Cuban American National Foundation, America's most powerful anti-Castro political organization, was Jorge Mas Canosa. He is shown above in his 2nd Lt.'s uniform after being sent to Fort Benning in Georgia, along with dozens of other anti-Castro Cubans, right after they fled the victorious Cuban Revolution at the start of 1959. Fort Benning was where the then-secretive Army of the Americas trained soldiers from U.S.-friendly dictatorships -- Batista's in Cuba, Somoza's in Nicaragua, Trujillo's in the Dominican Republic, etc. -- and then sent them back to defend those dictatorships. Beginning in 1959 anti-Castro Cubans were sent to Fort Benning to train in what the above caption calls the "Special Brigade 2506" to prepare to attack and recapture Cuba. That air, land, and sea attack -- known to history as the Bay of Pigs -- occurred in April of 1961 but for a second time Fidel Castro's rebels shocked the world with a startling victory, again humiliating the U. S. and further enhancing Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution in the annals of history.
After the Bay of Pigs victory solidified Fidel Castro's revolutionary rule in Cuba, it also entrenched the most anti-Castro Cuban zealots in South Florida where, essentially, their new capital became and remains to this day the Little Havana section of Miami. Probably the three most famous-infamous of the Miami Cubans were Jorge Mas Canosa, Luis Posada Carriles, and Orlando Bosch. You are welcome to Google their bios. The photo above, as well as the caption with it, is courtesy of www.LatinAmericanStudies.org and it shows Mas Canosa in 1978 with his .357 magnum pistol.
After surviving what history records as 634 or so assassination attempts, Fidel Castro died of natural causes at age 90 in Havana on Nov. 25th, 2016. It's rather unlikely that 634 number will ever be broken.
After Fidel Castro raced to the front-lines to lead the victory at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, the CIA employed many of the most zealous anti-Castro Cubans as well as anti-Castro Mafia hit-man in repeated attempts to kill him. Reputable documentaries as well as The Guinness Book of World Records list the failed assassination attempts against Castro as "634." While CIA operatives such as Posada were unsuccessful in killing Castro, they were successful in massive and repeated terrorist acts against innocent Cubans and against foreign tourists in terror-targeted Cuban hotels.
Posada and Bosch reign as the two most famed Cuban terrorists and both men bragged openly about such exploits for many decades. Bosch received a highly controversial pardon after it was requested by Jeb Bush and granted by his father President George H. W. Bush, and Bosch lived out his long life as a celebrated free man in Miami. Posada, after alleged and publicized help from Miami members of the U. S. Congress, was freed from a Panamanian prison after he had been sentenced for an assassination plot against Castro in that country. Today Posada is still a celebrated citizen of Miami. The graphic above depicts the terrorist bombing of the child-laden Cuban civilian airplane -- Cubana Flight 455 -- on Oct. 6, 1976 that killed all 76 on board. Although declassified U. S. documents reveal the names of the Cubans involved, such things have gone unpunished even as...people in glass houses throw stones at Cuba.
The victims of Cubana Flight 455 are to this day honored with memorials such as the one above not only in Cuba but elsewhere across the Caribbean and Latin America.
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And to this day, countries in the Caribbean and Latin American -- such as Guyana above -- still call "for justice" concerning Cubana Flight 455.
Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles.
The whole dynamic of U.S.-Cuban relations changed drastically when Ronald Reagan was elected U. S. President in 1980. The Reagan-Bush administration quickly anointed Jorge Mas Canosa leader of the Cubans-in-Exile because he was judged to be the most fervent and smartest of the anti-Castro Cubans who already enjoyed vast and well-funded anti-Castro advantages. But -- as detailed by the well-respected Julia E. Sweig in her unchallenged and brilliant book "What Everyone Needs to Know About Cuba" -- Mas Canosa was advised, apparently by his long-time Bush allies, to study AIPAC -- the ultra-powerful Israeli political superpower in the U. S. -- and then replicate it on behalf of the Cuban exiles. Mas Canosa followed that sage advice and created the Cuban American National Foundation. What followed were anti-Castro/pro Cuban-exile laws easily enacted in the U. S. Congress -- such as the Torricelli Bill, Helms-Burton Act, Wet Foot-Dry Foot, Radio-TV Marti, etc., etc., etc. Not surprisingly, Mas Canosa became a billionaire with his massive Mastec company in Miami and the United States of America was/is saddled with a Cuban policy that currently has an astounding 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations.
The wealthy Bush political dynasty, since the 1950s when declassified U. S. documents confirm George H. W. Bush's CIA connections to anti-Cuban projects, has been primary supporters of anti-Castro zealots like Jorge Mas Canosa. That alliance crystallized in 1976 when GHW Bush was CIA Director and became more indelible during his two terms as Vice-President under Reagan, his one-term as President, his son George W. Bush's two terms as President and his youngest son Jeb Bush's two terms as Governor of Florida. Mas Canosa died in 1997 at age 58 of lung cancer and other illnesses but there are many major edifices in Miami that honor him today and he has never been challenged, thanks partly to his Bush connections, as the all-time most powerful Cuban in the United States.
While all Republicans in Congress and in the White House bowed to Jorge Mas Canosa, even Democrat presidents such as Bill Clinton were also no match for Mas Canosa when it came to shaping America's Cuban policy.
At the start of 1996 U. S. President Bill Clinton became the second Democrat U. S. president to famously announce to his staff that he was going to normalize relations with Cuba. The first was President John Kennedy in November of 1963 just days before Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22-1963. President Clinton had the same idea in 1996, believing he had the power to do so. But the photo above shows President Clinton on March 12, 1996 very reluctantly signing the Helms Burton Act into law. Helms Burton to this very day is intended to "eviscerate" Cuba because it was written -- supposedly by high-powered lawyers funded by Mas Canosa and his associates -- in such a manner that only Congress can change it, meaning that even the very decent Democrat President, Barack Obama, while he could write positive Executive Orders related to Cuba, could not change Helms-Burton. In the photo above, the big man standing just to the right of President Clinton is Cuban-American anti-Castro zealot Robert Menendez, the U. S. Senator from New Jersey. The lady in red looking over President Clinton's shoulder is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who is an anti-Castro extremist born in Havana but has represented Miami in the U. S. Congress since 1989 when Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager as a stepping stone to his becoming Florida's two-term anti-Castro governor.
Please study the photo and the caption above. Yes, the Helms-Burton Act from 1996 till today was/is intended to "asphyxiate" Cuba just like a vast array of other U. S. laws as well as assassination attempts, military attacks, terrorist acts, etc., have tried to do. Have you studied the above photo? Look at President Clinton's expression right after he very reluctantly signed Helms-Burton into law. President Clinton is glancing up at Robert Menendez, the ultra-powerful and entrenched anti-Castro Cuban-American U. S. Senator from New Jersey. A few days ago -- in this year of 2017 --the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that a very serious corruption case against Senator Menendez and his close friend, a well-known millionaire in Miami, can go forward.
But remember...
..........this particular essay is about people living in glass houses {or mansions} and throwing stones at poor little, supposedly helpless Cuba. So, I'll use Cristina Escobar as the coda to this story. Cristina is Cuba's bold, beautiful and brilliant broadcast journalist. She anchors news programs in Cuba in Spanish and also anchors a regional program in English. Did I say she's brilliant? Oh, yes, and she is. She did her University of Havana thesis on predicting...quite accurately...what the Obama effect would be on Cuba. She is still in her 20s -- very Cuban and quite opinionated in her expert analysis of U.S.-Cuban history and current relations. She says: "Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the United States than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba." She means it and...she really is brilliant.
As a Cuban journalist, Cristina Escobar has made trips to California, Washington, Alabama, etc. The photo above captured her when she made history as the first Cuban journalist to ask questions at a White House news conference, and she asked President Obama's chief spokesman Josh Earnest six quite pertinent questions, such as, "Will Cuban regime-change programs continue even amidst Obama's detente?" When I learned respected journalist Tracey Eaton was going to Cuba to get video interviews, I advised him to be sure to interview the brilliant, out-spoken and most influential Cuban broadcast journalist. He did and two of those videos are on YouTube, one in Spanish but one with English translations on the screen. She says interesting things such as, "I don't want the U. S. to bring me democracy. That is a project for Cubans on the island." She also on those videos talks about undemocratic atrocities aimed at her island, such as "Helms-Burton."
This photo shows Cristina Escobar interviewing Ricardo Alarcon, the famed Cuban revolutionary, diplomat, politician, and historian. The photo was used by the University of Alabama newspaper -- The Crimson Tide -- to promote Cristina's speaking engagement on the Tuscaloosa campus. During both serious and jovial intervals, she was...that adjective again...BRILLIANT. Robert Olin, the Dean of the University of Alabama's Arts and Sciences Department, said, "Cristina is essentially the Katie Couric of Cuba." In other words, Robert Olin at the University of Alabama thinks Katie Couric is brilliant too.
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