Compared to Most Others!!
{Friday, August 4th, 2017}
{Friday, August 4th, 2017}
The leader at the huge Port of Houston in Texas, Ricky Kunz, this week signed a deal with Cuba, the first such transaction since President Trump took office. Mr. Kunz said, "This will facilitate and spur new business relationships with Cuba." He said agricultural products will ship from Houston to Cuba but he said it is "unfortunate" that the U. S. embargo against Cuba prevents the shipments of other products. Prior to President Trump, during the Obama presidency major ports in Virginia and Louisiana had signed similar deals with Cuba and every major port in Florida controlled by Cuban-Americans wanted to do the same but were threatened by Governor Scott and other counter-revolutionary stalwarts who warned the Florida ports that any relations with Cuba would cost them financial and other support from the state of Florida.
Cancun is a famous tourist attraction in Mexico and touted as a shining and prime contrast in a nation also famously beset with massive crime and enormous drug cartels. With a population of 725,000, Cancun hauls in $20 billion a year from tourism, a superb incentive for the Mexican government to make sure it is as crime-free as possible. But the top headline on Page One of USA Today this week -- Aug. 2-2017 -- was: "TOURISM RISKS LOSSES AS CRIME BESETS CANCUN: Cartel Conflicts Cast Shadow Over Tourist Mecca." The article explained: "Crime and violence between rival drug gangs has surged throughout Mexico, creeping into other popular destinations, such as Los Cabos on the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula. Homicides there are up 400% this year, underscored by the discovery of 14 bodies in a mass grave in June." Mexico in 2016 had 35 million foreign visitors compared to Cuba's 4 million.
Although the mainstream media in the United States wouldn't dare mention it, the Caribbean island of Cuba happens to be "just about the safest place in the Caribbean, the region and the planet for tourists to visit." And safety is, uh, rather important.
In addition to America's politically correct or intimidated mainstream media, radically biased but hugely funded anti-Cuban right-wing sources like Breitbart as well as vicious 24-hour full-time anti-Cuban blogs such as Babalu have convinced many Americans that, for example, the Cuban government each morning sets up machine-guns in its major cities and mows down scores of its citizens and tourists before breakfast. Such self-serving lies are far more degrading to the U. S. than to Cuba, but greatly harmful to Cuba nevertheless. Great international news sources such as the BBC and REUTERS, however, provide truthful updates on Cuba as do superb journalists on the island who have worked for organizations such as the BBC, including Fernando Ravsberg. His respected blog -- Letters from Cuba -- has reported fairly from Cuba for 2 decades. At times, including recently, Fernando has incurred the wrath of the Cuban government for his insightful reporting but it remains both respected and vital to understand the much misunderstood island. A recent Ravsberg article, for example, was entitled: "SAFETY DRAWS TOURISTS TO CUBA."
The Fernando Ravsberg article used the above photo, taken by Raquel Perez Diaz, to illustrate such points as: "Visiting Cuba gives travelers a feeling of peace and tranquility which is hard to find at other tourists destinations." Ravsberg wrote: "I have spoken to tourists who are typically surprised by the safety and freedom of movement they can enjoy in Cuba." While the United States media and the professional anti-Cuba blogs often insist that Cuban soldiers routinely mow down citizens and tourists, the less-biased journalist actually on the island, like Fernando Ravsberg, routinely point out that Cuban soldiers are the first to help and inform Cuba's inquisitive tourists.
The Ravsberg article used the above nighttime photo of Havana's famed Malecon Seawall to make this point: "Many visitors who come from countries with high violent crime rates fine it incredible that they can walk along the Malecon and other Cuban streets and boulevards at any time of day or night in total safety and have some drinks right there while talking to Cubans. Safety is one of Cuba's greatest tourist attractions, especially when we compare this to other countries in the region such as the Bahamas, Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, Suriname, etc." Of course, Americans are told just the opposite by both professional propagandists and by an intimidated or incompetent mainstream U. S. media. Embargoed, maligned, and targeted Cuba has some problems, but it also has some extreme positives -- such as, yes!, safety.
The white beaches of Cuba's Varadero, shown above, are considered by many tourists and travel agencies as more beautiful than the white beaches at Mexico's Cancun. And, as indicated by USA Today this week and earlier by Fernando Ravsberg, Cuba's Varadero is a lot safer than Mexico's Cancun and most other tourist spots.
While Fernando Ravsberg, a Uruguayan, is a long-time highly respected foreign journalist in Cuba, Cristina Escobar is the island's most respected Cuban broadcast journalist. Like Ravsberg, Ms. Escobar is not reluctant to critique Cuba if she feels it is warranted but she has also gotten a lot of traction with this comment: "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." Proselytized Americans are supposed to dismiss that comment without considering how their easy rationale or outright cowardice hurts the U. S. democracy, which has never been adverse to straying from its prized Founding Father-inspired principles. So, at least debating Ms. Escobar's conclusion -- which she has expressed on both Cuban and American soil -- would be supporting America's democracy, although in regards to Cuba that would certainly require courage and intelligence that has been sorely missing since the three most important and most intriguing dates -- 1898, 1952 and 1959 -- that chronicle U.S.-Cuban relations.
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