Underestimating Cuba

Ignores Island's Resiliency!!
{Updated: Thursday, July 20th, 2017}

       A highly respected History Professor at the University of California has just returned from a visit to Cuba. Those two reasons -- a history expert and a person who judges Cuba after actually visiting the island -- gives him insight Americans are not supposed to have. That's because, since 1962, America's Batistiano-directed Cuban laws have made everyday Americans the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba, lest they might judge it for themselves apart from the daily anti-Cuban propaganda they have been exposed to since the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba was chased to U. S. soil on Jan. 1-1959. That Professor just back from Cuba is Mark Levine. That's him delivering a lecture. This week he wrote a long article available via major online venues. It's entitled: "WHY CUBA'S FUTURE COULD BE MORE PROMISING THAN THE U. S." As you digest that title, you should study the entire article to understand that Mark Levine didn't mean that the island of Cuba will soon exceed the wealth and power of the nearby world economic and military superpower. But he supports that title with logic that tells him -- an American historian just back from Cuba -- that the immense but always shackled potential of Cuba COULD POSSIBLY, if left to its own devices, soon be emphatically released.

         The photo above is courtesy of Ramon Espinoso/AP and it was used to illustrate the aforementioned article by Mark Levine. It shows medical graduates proudly displaying their diplomas, illustrating what Mr. Levine noticed first-hand: Cuba is flush with a well-educated young-adult generation ready and anxious to blossom. Using the above photo as a focal point, here are some of the points Mr. Levine stressed:
                         "If Trump does not spoil Cuba's transition, it could develop into a model welfare democracy. Cubans rightfully boast of their country's impressive level of human development and low levels of inequality and crime compared with so many other countries in the region.
                            "Cuba's 11 million population and relatively good natural resource base, along with its highly educated citizens and significant room for growth in almost every economic sector, have the potential to generate a transformation towards a form of social welfare democracy.
                       "Foreign investment in Cuba's innovative pharmaceutical, tourism and other industries continue to grow. Meanwhile, the U. S. under Trump is likely headed down a dark hole of plutocracy and racial, ethnic and class conflict on an unprecedented scale."
             With personal observations and quotes, Mark Levine was not predicting a particular cataclysm or an overall apocalyptic future for the U. S. but pointing out that the U. S., which has supported hard-line Cuban exiles for six decades in trying to destroy revolutionary Cuba, will have to concentrate on more urgent items such as a myriad of foreign problems as well as frightening domestic issues such as inequality, crime, and an increasingly alarming polarization of its weakening two-party system as well as ethnic disparities that highlight the dangerous and widening chasm separating the extremely rich from the extremely poor. With the U. S. under the divisive Trump having its own urgent foreign and domestic problems, Cuba is finally more able to deal with ALL THE OTHER NATIONS WHO ARE WILLING TO HELP CUBA ADVANCE as opposed to being punished by the U. S. in the past for even dealing commercially with Cuba.

           For example, study this Getty Images photo of a rejuvenated section of Old Havana. Right behind the newly excited AND EMPLOYED Cuban bedecked in a U. S. flag is a spanking new 5-Star hotel -- The Hotel Kempinski. It's a luxury Swiss hotel that's helping to hopefully revitalize Cuba and its famed capital city.

        President Obama's impact on Cuba, which includes his historic visit to the island in March of 2016, carved a niche in positive U.S.-Cuban relations that even President Trump, the Republican-dominated Congress, and normally unchecked counter-revolutionary Cubans will not be able to fully overturn. While Miami -- un-democratically it seems -- continues to send only counter-revolutionary zealots to Washington, MOST CUBAN-AMERICANS EVEN IN MIAMI STRONGLY FAVOR NORMAL RELATIONS WITH CUBA. So do most Americans. AND SO DOES THE ENTIRE WORLD, as evidenced by the current 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations that condemns America's Cuban policy EVEN AFTER MR. OBAMA SOFTENED THE VILEST ASPECTS.

         On April 16th of this year in Miami's Little Havana in the Artime Building named after a "hero" of the April-1961 failed Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba, the photo above shows President Trump holding up his newly signed memorandum that he claimed "wiped out" Obama's positive overtures to Cuba. Inside that building were only fierce counter-revolutionary Cubans and politicians, all of whom wildly cheered both Trump's speech and his memorandum. But outside on the streets Cuban-Americans demonstrated against Trump and his counter-revolutionaries, which included Miami members of the U. S. Congress. As with other Batistiano-related problems with the American democracy, when...if...the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami are able to send a moderate to Congress, it might well indicate that the U. S. is finally trying to come to grips with a cruel Cuban policy that rightfully has that 191-to-0 denunciation in the UN.

            Cuba - - like all nations including those not targeted and embargoed for over half-a-century by the world's superpower - - has its share of problems. But as Professor Mark Levine observed on his recent visit to the island, Cuba is not the collapsing basket-case that Americans are repeatedly told about by a handful of vicious, self-serving counter-revolutionaries who believe they have the sole right to dictate America's Cuban narrative and America's Cuban policy. The photo above shows two of the typically "highly educated" young Cubans that Professor Levine knows about because he managed to visit Cuba and judge it for himself as opposed to the Batistiano-dictated U. S. law that for decades has made everyday Americans the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba, and that un-democratic insanity exists to this day despite the Herculean efforts of President Obama to lessen its effects. For example, the two highly educated and very talented Cuban broadcast journalists depicted above are Rosy Amaro Perez and Daily Sanchez Lemus. They monitor coverage of Cuba in the U. S. media and they often point out, publicly and privately, how unfair that coverage is. Obama's entire speech when he was in Cuba and Trump's entire speech in Little Havana were both carried live on Cuban television. After watching Trump's speech, Rosy wrote on her influential Facebook page, "I've lived all my life in Cuba and the Cuba that Trump spoke of is not the Cuba that I know." Nor is it the Cuba that other Cuba-loving Cubans have known all their lives.

      Cuba's young superstar broadcast journalist Cristina Escobar tagged Rosy Amaro Perez's Facebook comment about Trump's Miami speech with this terse sentence: "Can I quote you?" Her way of totally agreeing with Rosy. And speaking, as Professor Mark Levine did, about talented, well-educated young-adult Cubans, Cristina Escobar is quite possibly the most talented broadcast journalist in the Americas. Fluent in English, she has made her mark both in Cuba and in Washington covering Cuban news -- including a ubiquitous domination of a White House news conference -- and while on U. S. soil she has made journalism speeches and held Q & A sessions at Universities in both California and Alabama.

       Because of her well-earned reputation, Cristina Escobar is often interviewed from Havana in international hook-ups related to Cuban and U.S.-Cuban issues. On venues such as YouTube and the Pulitzer Center website, an Escobar interview conducted in Cuba by respected American journalist Tracey Eaton perhaps best revealed her fierce love of Cuba and her admirable dedication to the field of broadcast journalism. If you check those sources you can see and hear Escobar statements such as: "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 "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington."

         The awesomely talented and respected Cristina Escobar, Cuba's wildly popular television anchor, is shown above delivering an "INTERNATIONAL COMMENTARY" critiquing President Trump's April 16th anti-Cuban speech in Miami's Little Havana Bay of Pigs building. It is the critique Cubans on the island strongly agreed with and, truth be known, probably the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami also agreed with.

       Since 1959, most of America's news and views about Cuba have emanated from Little Havana in Miami or from counter-revolutionary Cuban-Americans in Congress, the only types capable of being elected although the majority of Cuban-Americans even in Miami agree with President Obama regarding Cuba.

Professor Mark Levine observed Cristina Escobar's Cuba.

"Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island..."
And by the way:

         The cheerful photo above shows Yodeni Maso Aquila this week giving a Thumbs Up for fellow journalist Rosy Amaro Perez. Cuban camaraderie on the island is both authentic and legendary.

          Three cheerful young Cuban broadcast journalists on their set yesterday: Rosy Amaro Perez, Yodeni Maso Aquila, and Yanet Perez Moya. They are concerned but unperturbed about Miami's antagonism.

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