Deciphering Them in 2017!
This is the Tampa Bay Times building. It's a very important building in Florida because it is actually an anomaly in the United States of America because it is the place where the TRUTH about Cuba is actually published. I know of no other mainstream American newspaper that has both the guts and the integrity to do that. Also, it's a great newspaper that has recently won twelve Pulitzer Prizes for its excellence.
A great writer-editor at the Tampa Bay Times is Ron Brackett. While the Miami Herald and most of the rest of the mainstream American newspapers merely act as conduits for anti-Cuban propaganda, the Times and Ron Brackett dismiss the lies and actually tell the truth about Cuban issues, whether the truth is pro-Cuban, anti-Cuban or something in between. Ron Brackett's first major article this month -- on June 1, 2017 -- was entitled: "Trump's Cuba Plans Would Reward Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz-Balart." Any journalist, especially in Florida, who has the guts and the integrity to point out that President Trump's upcoming gutless capitulation to Marco Rubio and Mario Diaz-Balart in reversing President Obama's decent and sane overtures to Cuba is not only a great journalist but also a truly great, democracy-loving American.
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In stark contrast to the guts and integrity of the Tampa Bay News in reporting the gutlessness of allowing self-serving counter-revolutionary zealots like Congressmen Mario Diaz-Balart and Marco Rubio from Little Havana in Miami and from the U. S. Congress to dictate America's Cuban policy, consider such anti-Cuban propaganda conduits as the Naples {Fla.} Daily News and USA Today. Those latter two newspapers combined, these first two days of June-2017, to publish such propaganda articles as: "Trump's Cuba Policy Likely to be 'Drastically Different' Lawmaker Says." Of course, that "Lawmaker" is Mario Diaz-Balart. The U. S. media, with the Tampa Bay Times being the rare exception, doesn't have the guts to explain that Mario's father Rafael was a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship in Cuba and then, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, one of the richest and most powerful counter-revolutionaries in Florida. That article heralding Mario also, of course, liberally quote Marco and pretended his extreme belligerence directed at Cuba is not intended to sate Marco's nefarious goals but to show respect and concern for everyday Cubans on the island, which I believe is a purposeful and cowardly lie. While the mainstream U. S. media makes Marco out to be a choirboy, a highly respected veteran journalist named Ken Silverstein penned a long, deeply researched article depicting Marco as quite possibly the most corrupt and "for sale" politician ever to make it to the U. S. Congress or to run for President. Marco also got all the way to the U. S. Congress from Miami claiming his parents escaped the Castro tyranny in Cuba...till it was pointed out that his parents escaped the Batista tyranny long before Americans ever heard of Castro.
Americans...via cowardice, stupidity or a sheer lack of patriotism...have allowed since 1959 a handful of self-serving counter-revolutionary Cuban-Americans in Miami, and eventually the U. S. Congress, to largely dictate an American Cuban policy that currently has earned a resounding 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations. In the above photo that is Rubio assaulting the bank of microphones. The man on the left is the Havana-born former U. S. congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart. The man on the right is current Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart. The lady on the lower-right is the Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who has been entrenched in the U. S. Congress since 1989 when her Campaign Manager was Jeb Bush of the counter-revolutionary Bush dynasty. The politicos above are all from the Miami area, an area in which MOST Cuban-Americans want normal relations with Cuba, not wicked anti-Cuban laws or cruel anti-Cuban acts paid for by both America's reputation and by American tax dollars. But as far as I can tell, moderate Cuban-Americans cannot be elected to the U. S. Congress from the Miami area. If that is a problem for Cuba, I believe it is much more of a problem for the United States of America and its democracy.
This 1989 photo indicates how Jeb Bush and the Bush dynasty have for many decades ingratiated themselves to the most extreme Cuban-Americans in Miami, including greasing the skids to put Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the United States Congress from 1989 till today.
If you pretend to care about the U. S. democracy, you might want to Google this: "Ken Silverstein Article About Marco Rubio's Corruption." It's a long article because Ken Silverstein says the corruption has been extensive. And, oh yes, also Google "Ken Silverstein" to ascertain his journalistic credentials.
The above photo reflects the shameless propaganda aspect of the mainstream U. S. media, certainly when it comes to anything related to falsely vilifying Revolutionary Cuba while, of course, also supporting the counter-revolutionaies. For example, the Morning Joe co-hosts -- soon-to-be wife and husband Mika and Joe -- are shown above on MSNBC white-washing corruption charges against their choirboy, Marco Rubio. On one such program Joe and the Diaz-Balart brothers waxed endlessly about Fidel Castro being a murderous thug while the Batista-Mafia thugs that preceded Castro were depicted as being Mother Teresa-type sweethearts. Such mainstream propagandists in the U. S. actually posture themselves as being real broadcast journalists in the fashion of real broadcast journalists such as Walter Cronkite.
A great journalist and renowned Latin American expert, Penelope Purdy, I believe, has coined the best quotation ever applied to America's Cuban policy. I also believe any American who loves the U. S. democracy should know and memorize that quotation. It is: "The U. S. Cuban policy has been conducted all these decades with the IQ of a salamander." If Rubio, Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balarts have their way, that "policy" will be "conducted" for many "decades" to come, something that would displease Ms. Purdy.
The photo above shows a contemplating Cristina Escobar awaiting the signal from the camera's red light to inform her it's time to start her main job, which is to anchor Cuba's most popular television news program. By the time she graduated from the University of Havana she had written a thesis eerily predicting almost precisely what President Obama's effect on Cuba would be. By the time she was in her mid-20s she was already perhaps the best broadcast journalist in North America. In Spanish or in English, on Cuban soil and on American soil, Cristina Escobar has made these quotations: "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington;" "Journalists in Cuba have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba;" and "Americans who have not been allowed to visit Cuba have a distorted opinion of Cuba and Cubans. Drinking rum, hopping into 1950s-era convertibles and being unhappy with our lot in life is not who we are. We are well-educated, opinionated, and we love Cuba -- especially our hard-earned sovereignty and independence. The Cubans I know and respect the most are the Cubans who would die fighting to maintain our independence while also working to make the revolutionary gains even more emphatic and less influenced by foreign obstacles." In Washington while covering the last of the four Vidal-Jacobson diplomatic sessions; in California at a journalism seminar; in Alabama in speeches before students at two universities; and on YouTube and Pulitzer Center videos, Cristina Escobar has made such comments. And as long as Cuba has Cubans like Cristina Escobar, the counter-revolutionaries in the U. S. may continue to have trouble in their quest to recapture the island.
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