A Fair Comparison!
Ladies and gentlemen, the tweet above from America's Tweeter-in-Chief is totally dominating the news in the United States, illustrating the extreme depths to which journalism has sunk -- from news operations to propaganda machines.
The "Crazy Mika" and "Psycho Joe" that President Trump tweeted about are the soon-to-be husband-and-wife team Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough. They have teamed up the past few years as the co-hosts on the MSNBC Morning Joe program, which masquerades as a "news" operation but in reality is nothing more and nothing less than a propaganda machine. They once were social and media friends with Donald Trump, then something happened. Now every single morning, day after day and month after month, they fill their airtime with anti-Trump rants and name-calling as leading proponents of the mainstream media's unabashed coup designed to topple the Trump presidency -- which I too don't support but at least I have respect for the Office of President and the electoral process that elected him in my United States.
Like ALL THE ANCHORS on MSNBC and CNN, Mika Bryezinski is totally unconcerned with presenting Trump news or other news but totally interested in demeaning Trump and thus also demeaning the exalted Office he holds and the precious democracy that amazingly put him in office largely because many Americans have long-since tired of the established media and the established incumbents in Washington. The uncouth and sometimes unwise President has thus occasionally, as with the above tweet, blistered Mika with vile adjectives and descriptions, BUT NOT NEARLY AS VILE AS THE ADJECTIVES AND DESCRIPTIONS Mika has used EVERY MORNING to demean Trump, with the real news be-damned. In the brouhaha over Trump's fired-back tweet yesterday, the left-wing U. S. media is tripping over itself to project Mika as a saintly lady and superb journalist while the Trump choir will always staunchly support him -- and that includes Fox News and a solid core of about 38% of Americans that his enemies call "an irredeemable basket of white racist deplorables." In that milieu, perhaps more so than any time since the 1860s, a civil war or a revolution or at least recurring violent acts and demonstrations are looming as dire possibilities. If so, the sharp decline of the U. S. broadcast media will have played a huge role even as it surely will try, at least initially, to sanctimoniously cover the upcoming smoky and fiery streets and battlefields...WHILE ALWAYS POINTING THE BLAME ELSEWHERE.
MEANWHILE, the decrepit U. S. broadcast media will cast aspersions at everything related to Cuba in its role as a United States propaganda conduit for the anti-Cuban counter-revolutionary Cuban-American propaganda zealots in Miami and the U. S. Congress. Therefore, based on what I've seen and observed in Cuba and what the superb U. S. broadcast journalist Andrea Mitchell has seen and observed in Cuba, I'll hereby review today's Cuban broadcast media as fairly, honestly, and judiciously as I possibly can.
Americans are not supposed to know it but Cuba has a vibrant and influential television news apparatus with perhaps North America's best and most dedicated and best-trained young broadcast journalists. such as Cristina Escobar and Rosy Amaro Perez. That's Rosy above interviewing 87-year-old Roberto Fernandez Retamar this week. He is a respected historian with intimate and still vivid knowledge of Batista's Cuba and Revolutionary Cuba. Thus, this interview was not only scintillating but also very topical as Revolutionary Cuba adjusts to the stark transition in the U. S. from Obama to Trump.
Within in a few months -- on or before February-2018 -- a very tired 86-year-old Raul Castro, the last of the three Castro brothers -- will step down as President of Cuba, relinquishing the position to a much younger non-revolutionary and non-Castro. Cuban insiders on the island fully comprehend that Cuba's future will soon cease to revolve around neither the elderly still-living revolutionary icons on the island nor the elderly still-living Bay of Pigs counter-revolutionaries in Miami's ubiquitous Little Havana neighborhood. It is thus already evident in Cuba that the healthy, well-educated young adult generation of Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington, will predicate Cuba's future. I am talking about Cubans like the four young Cuban-loving Cubans depicted above. That's why Americans should know old Cubans on the island like Mr. Fernandez, the 87-year-old historian, and talented young Cubans on the island like, from left to right, those shown above: Antonio Guzman Morales, Rosy Amaro Perez, Yanet Perez Moya, and Ramadan Arcos. If Americans knew that old Cuban historian they would know why, AGAINST ALL ODDS, Revolutionary Cuba evolved and why, against all odds, it has survived the last six decades. And if Americans get to know these four young Cubans, they might understand how and why Revolutionary Cuba might survive many more decades. And, yes, that knowledge is important considering how much America's worldwide image is tied to a Cuban policy that gets a 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations.
In the U. S., broadcast journalism is also ubiquitous and influential but both polls and unbiased personal observations show that media influence and respect in America is not as substantial as its counterpart in Cuba. In the Trump era it is apparent that all the mainstream U. S. networks except Fox are primarily concerned with dispensing anti-Trump propaganda as opposed to covering Trump news or other news...and that includes NBC-CBS-ABC-MSNBC-and-CNN. However, as in most things, there are exceptions to the rule and one exception at NBC particularly stands out regarding both Donald Trump and Cuba.
The Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent for NBC News is Andrea Mitchell, a true broadcast journalist as opposed to the vastly over-abundant propaganda-pundits that occupy almost all of the airtime on the American networks. As the most glaring exception to that disconcerting and embarrassing industry-wide rule, Andrea Mitchell actually reports knowledgeably and fairly on topics that include Trump and Cuba. I thus find her extremely refreshing because, while I am not a Trump supporter, I strongly support the Office of President and the electoral process that put him in office. And, of course, I believe firmly that America's Cuban policy -- maliciously directed since the 1950s by right-wing thugs and pro-Batistiano miscreants -- does more on a daily basis than anything else to demean American and democracy in the eyes of the world. The mainstream U. S. media is also a culprit in that regard with its cowardly or politically correct lies and distortions about U.S.-Cuban relations. That's why, to me, Andrea Mitchell stands out so preeminently in the U. S. mainstream media. Shown above standing on a street in Havana, she has taken time to know U.S.-Cuban relations and, just as significantly, she reports that understanding fairly. To know Cuba, for example, is equivalent to visiting Cuba...and Andrea Mitchell does that. To not know is to not visit Cuba.
When in Cuba, Andrea Mitchell, as above, interviews Cubans who understand the pulses and rhythms of the island's everyday people, an often misunderstood and misreported aspect of U.S.-Cuban issues.
United States journalists are typically programmed and intimidated into seeking and reporting only anti-Cuban "news" but the veteran NBC superstar, Andrea Mitchell, is gutsy enough to also seek out Cuban positives, as above. Cuba's advanced medical research has produced effective cancer and diabetic treatments, for example, that have proven very successful on the island and in many other countries, so Andrea Mitchell has the unique courage and the integrity to question why counter-revolutionaries in Miami and in the United States Congress can get away with denying such treatments to needy American patients, some of whom are having to break U. S. laws to go to Cuba and obtain the treatments first-hand.
On a trip to Cuba this month of June-2017, Andrea Mitchell revealed how the Batistiano-pressured Trump administration seems willing to sacrifice United States security by rolling back Obama-inspired cooperation with Cuba, which happens to have one of the region's best cyber monitoring systems and it readily shares such badly needed data with the United States. In the photo above, Andrea is interviewing Lt. Col. Miguel Guitierrez, the Cuban that heads that highly respected intelligence-gathering system and, for both America's and Cuba's security, he wants to continue sharing his information with the U. S.
The above photo shows Andrea Mitchell in Cuba this month interviewing Lt. Col. Yohanka Rodriguez, the co-head of Cuba's intelligence-gathering cyber institution that is considered, by the United States and Cuba, to be vital to the security of both nations. Yohanka Rodriguez told Andrea Mitchell that "We have recently turned over 17 findings related to the U. S. that the Americans needed to know and that the Americans deeply appreciated getting." Her personal visit this month to the building where Cuba obtains such information and shares it with the U. S. is something Andrea Mitchell does that lesser U. S. journalist would not dare do. Andrea Mitchell also questions why counter-revolutionaries in the United States can get away with preventing needy Americans from benefiting from Cuba's medical advancements or get away with trying to prevent the U. S. government from benefiting from Cuba's vital cooperation in combating drug and human trafficking in the Caribbean and also in the Florida Straits between the United States and Cuba.
This photo shows a California family -- husband, wife and daughter -- in Cuba knowingly breaking the obscene Batistiano-driven United States law that, for many decades, has made everyday Americans the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. Judy Engels, in the middle and strongly supported by her husband and daughter, goes to Cuba to benefit from Cuba's treatment of advanced lung cancer, and her American doctors, unlike the counter-revolutionaries in Miami and in the U. S. Congress, approved of her breaking the Batistiano-embargoed law concerning Americans being the only people in the world denied the freedom to visit Cuba, apparently so the counter-revolutionaries can continue to dictate the Cuban narrative and the Cuban laws in the United States. America's Cuban policy, wildly denounced by that 191-to-0 vote in the UN, is designed to appease a handful of counter-revolutionaries while harming the freedoms and the lives of everyone else, including Judy Engels. If Andrea Mitchell is the only mainstream U. S. journalist to report on such things, perhaps the media should re-examine itself.
The photo above shows the U. S. Coast Guard making a huge drug seizure in the Florida Straits between Florida and Cuba. The U. S. State Department in the Obama administration went to great lengths to designate Cuba as America's prime "cooperative asset" in combating both drug and human trafficking in the region. Of course, most of the mainstream U. S. media doesn't report such vital U.S.-Cuban cooperation because it might displease a handful of counter-revolutionaries in Miami and in Congress. And that's why the U. S. media's exception to that rule, Andrea Mitchell, is significant and glaring when it comes to pointing out that positive U.S.-Cuban relations benefit everyone and negative U.S.-Cuban relations only benefit the insatiable greed and revenge of a few counter-revolutionaries in Miami and in the U. S. Congress.
This month of June-2017 Andrea Mitchell's NBC reporting from Cuba explained how counter-revolutionary Cuban-Americans in Congress from Miami like Marco Rubio, who has never been to Cuba, pads his political and economic bases by hurting totally innocent everyday Cubans like Julia de la Rosa. The worried expression on Julia's face relates to President Trump, pressured by the likes of Marco Rubio, turning back President Obama-orchestrated actions that enabled Julia to create a ten-bed Bed-and-Breakfast business that flourished and enabled her to hire 17 Cubans to work for her -- thanks to Obama. Over 8,000 privately owned Bed-and-Breadfast businesses in Cuba have teamed with the U.S.-based Airbnb, which says that "Cuba is our fastest growing market." But all that is threatened by self-serving non-Cuban Cuban-Americans like Rubio having undue and obscene influence on President Trump's Cuban policy. With tears in her eyes, Julia de la Rosa, the totally innocent Cuban lady shown above, told Andrea Mitchell, "With what Trump and Rubio, unlike Obama, are doing, I am afraid. I don't want to think about it. I worry about my family but I also worry about the 17 families on my payroll who need the money I pay them."
This photo shows President Trump flashing his newly signed anti-Obama, anti-Cuban, and anti-American Cuban policy on June 16, 2017 in Miami's Little Havana anti-Cuban bastion where he was surrounded and wildly applauded by only the usual passel of self-serving counter-revolutionary zealots. Of course, the strong majority of Cuban-Americans IN MIAMI favor Obama's decent policies regarding Cuba, not Rubio's and not Trump's. And yet, Americans are not supposed to be brave enough or intelligent enough to question why only counter-revolutionary Cuban-Americans can get elected to Congress from Miami...or why only laws benefiting just a handful of extreme counter-revolutionaries can get passed in a democratic Congress.
Neither Donald Trump nor Marco Rubio have ever been to Cuba and they are not likely to ever see the island unless they finally team with the CIA and the omnipotent United States military to recapture Cuba for the Little Havana-based Batistianos. In the meantime, neither Trump nor Rubio seem to care about the vast majority of innocent and decent Americans, like cancer-stricken Judy Engels in California, or the vast majority of innocent and decent Cubans, like bed-and-breakfast entrepreneur Julia de la Rosa in Havana.
But while the vast majority of the mainstream U. S. media remains too intimidated or too incompetent to report fairly on Cuba, a topic that shames America in the eyes of the entire world, NBC's Andrea Mitchell has both the guts and the integrity to report fairly about Cuba from Cuba. On the Havana street above as well as at Cuban government institutions such as the Cyber Security Center, Andrea Mitchell is able to detect and sense the pulses and rhythms of the Cubans while also gaining intimate knowledge of why positive U.S.-Cuban relations are so badly needed by both countries. In her last report for NBC from Cuba this month, Andrea Mitchell said, "The problem is that a crackdown by President Trump would hurt the small business owners in Cuba, the very people Trump and Rubio say they want to help..." She added, "But if the Obama gains are stopped, Vladimir Putin and others are ready to step in." And so, for what it's worth, Andrea Mitchell tells the American people about the cruelty and dangers of allowing counter-revolutionary Cuban-Americans like Rubio and sycophants like Trump roll-back America's Cuban policies to the Dark Ages of the Cold War, ignoring Cuban victims like Julia de la Rosa and American victims like Judy Engels.
And that brings us back around to Cuba's Rosy Amaro Perez.
On the island of Cuba, Rosy is not only an excellent and influential broadcast journalist, she is also a wife and a mother who happens to believe strongly and proudly in Cuba's future and in the preservation of the island's sovereignty. But across the Florida Straits in Miami as well as in the U. S. White House and in the U. S. Congress, counter-revolutionaries like Trump and Rubio oppose Rosy and have at least a billion-to-one advantage over her when it comes to power and wealth. YET, she doesn't consider that a hopeless situation. Remember the photo at the top of this essay that shows Rosy this week interviewing the 87-year-old historian Roberto Fernandez Retamar? He was telling Rosy that revolutionary heroines like Celia Sanchez and Haydee Santamaria back in the 1950s were also at least billion-to-one underdogs against the combined might of Batista, the Mafia and America, but "their superior will-to-win somehow won." And that's the history lesson that Rosy Amaro Perez and a strong contingent of her young-adult acolytes on the island are depending on to maintain Cuba as a proud and independent nation despite its proximity to Miami and Washington in the age of the unworthy billion-to-one favorites like President Trump and Senator Rubio.
