With Cuban Migrants in Limbo!!
{Updated: Tuesday, August 1st, 2017}
{Updated: Tuesday, August 1st, 2017}
The photo above is courtesy of Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News. It shows Mexican soldiers talking with some of the 1,355 Cuban migrants being held in detention centers in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, right across the Rio Grande River from Laredo, Texas. For decades Cubans were granted special privileges under the Wet Foot-Dry Foot law that gave Cubans and only Cubans instant legal residence the moment their front-foot touched U. S. soil, and that major privilege for Cubans was quickly followed with special financial and citizenship rewards. But former President Obama halted Wet Foot-Dry Foot as one of his primary efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Many Cubans and Cuban-Americans expected current President Trump to reverse most of the Obama overtures -- especially Wet Foot-Dry Foot. But, at least till now, Trump has not done so. This means Cubans are basically being treated for the first time in decades like other migrants although, for sure, they still receive more benefits -- such as free legal representation and stronger support in the U. S. Congress -- than migrants from all other countries around the world.
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The powerful U. S. Congressman from Minnesota, Kieth Ellison, recently made a very brave comment. Now the Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee, he said: "Countries like Cuba or Canada or Russia or a lot of places in the world spend half of what we spend per capita and they get better health outcome than we do." The quotation came amidst the Congressional turmoil surrounding attempts to pass a health-care bill that will benefit beleaguered American citizens at affordable prices and not just enrich the already filthy rich pharmaceutical giants that can hire as many Washington lobbyists as they need to maintain the status quo. But by singling out "Cuba" first in such a positive light, Congressman Ellison NOT unexpectedly has been excoriated and lavishly berated by the powerful Cuban-American Counter-Revolutionary media and political stalwarts who are accustomed to never-EVER being challenged.
Born in Havana in 1954 during the Batista-Mafia dictatorship, Humberto Fontova has devoted countless adult hours in America as a prolific writer and orator fiercely denouncing anything remotely indicating a positive fact related to Revolutionary Cuba while implying that the overthrown-in-Cuba-&-resurrected-in-the-U.S Batistianos were Mother Teresa-like angels. Thus, Fontova was quick to assail Congressman Ellison's health-care comment in a scathing article July 29th on the Townhall website.
Since 1959 the unflappable legions of anti-Castro counter-revolutionary Cuban-Americans, such as Humberto Fontova, have generally had free-reign in political circles and in the media to denounce Revolutionary Cuba in any fashion they choose without any fear of being contradicted, regardless of how ridiculous. If, for example, you check Fontova's bio on Wikipedia, you'll note this documented quotation from Robert D. Chapman: "Fontova often presents pictures of Cuba that never happened." Robert D. Chapman, by the way, was the Cuban expert at the CIA when that ultra-powerful U. S. government entity was determined to execute a regime change in Cuba but apparently got tired of being misled by Fontova. As historians well know, the CIA and the Cuban-exiles assured President Kennedy prior to the Bay of Pigs attack that the Cuban people would turn against Castro once they knew the bombs from U. S. warplanes were falling on Cuba. But none did while over 400,000 just in and around Havana, far more than were needed, were eager to fight against a Batistiano return. To this day, Americans, including Presidents, are often misled about Revolutionary Cuba having little support from everyday Cubans.
Many Cuban-Americans like Humberto Fontova have profited immensely in the United States since 1959 with rants and raves against Revolutionary Cuba. But Fontova's July 29th Townhall tirade against Congressman Keith Ellison merely mentioning Cuba in a positive light also included other Cuban comments that Fontova needed to debunk, such as:
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA in March, 2016: "The United States recognizes the progress that Cuba has made as a nation, such as its enormous achievements in education and health care."
FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER in 2002: "Castro brought superb systems of heathcare and education to his people."
BARBARA WALTERS of ABC-News: "Castro has brought great healthcare to his country."
MORGAN NEIL of CNN: "Cuba could serve as a model for healthcare reform in the United States."
RAY SUAREZ of PBS: "One of Cuba's greatest prides is its healthcare system."
By about a 99-to-1 ratio it seems, the U. S. media since 1959 has saturated the airways and printed pages with counter-revolutionary vitriol from Cuban-American extremists and their sycophants as opposed to the viewpoints of most Cuban-Americans who actually favor normalizing relations with Revolutionary Cuba.
Revolutionary Cuba has existed since the January-1959 day depicted above. Considering its enemies -- the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, America, etc. -- it was not expected to exist very long.
But Revolutionary Cuba has survived against all odds.
The Carlos LaTuff Editorial Cartoon above heralds the fact that Revolutionary Cuba has survived the longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed...from 1962 till today...by a large country against a small country. LaTuff's prancing little Cuban girl has many friends.
UN nations oppose the Embargo 191-to-Zero.
One basic reason for the survival of Revolutionary Cuba against overwhelming odds is the sheer fact that its totally free and excellent educational and health systems -- from Day One -- replaced the Batista regime's total lack of concern for the welfare of the majority Cuban peasants.
Typical peasant children in Batista's Cuba.
Typical children in Revolutionary Cuba in 2017.
The most amazing thing about Revolutionary Cuba's survival is not such things as its historic defense against America's Bay of Pigs air-land-and-sea military attack in April of 1961. Instead, surviving the alliance...from 1959 till today...of the ultra-powerful Bush dynasty with the most vicious Cuban-born counter-revolutionary powerhouses constitutes the Revolution's most adroit Houdini act. That is particularly so because Bush-connected Cuban-Americans were actually able to dictate a myriad of laws and policies designed, one after the other, to destroy Revolutionary Cuba once and for all. That Bush-Cuban alliance tightly tied not only the CIA but the Pentagon, the White House, the U. S. Treasury, and the U. S. Congress into decades-long no-holds-barred efforts from the shores of the world's superpower in concerted schemes, legal and otherwise, to undermine, overturn and/or destroy Revolutionary Cuba.
But Cuba's superstar broadcast journalist Cristina Escobar very boldly says: "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington."
Its unique journey takes Revolutionary Cuba on July 31st of 2017 smack-dab into the jaws of an unlikely and unpredictable U. S. Commander-in-Chief the world is getting to know as President Trump. Cuba got to know him most poignantly when he went to Little Havana in Miami and stood gluttonously before a huge Brigade 2506 Assault banner and promised surviving Cuban Bay of Pigs militants that he would essentially reverse their disastrous CIA-planned and U.S.-backed attack on Revolutionary Cuba. More than six months into his first year as President and Commander-in-Chief, Mr. Trump hasn't expanded on that promise BUT Cuba fully realizes that it might be just ONE 6:00 A. M. TWEET from happening.
