David vs. Goliath for 6 Decades!!
And COUNTING!!
{Updated: Wednesday, February 21st, 2018}
And COUNTING!!
{Updated: Wednesday, February 21st, 2018}
Cash-strapped Cuba may be catching a break. The Canadian company Sherritt International has a joint venture with Cuba in the production of two of the island's key minerals -- nickel and cobalt. The photo above shows Sherritt mining nickel and cobalt near Moa in the Cuban province of Holguin. Nickel prices have plummeted, hurting Cuba. But Cobalt prices are skyrocketing and Cuba is already 5th in the world in the production of cobalt behind the Congo, Russia, Australia, and Canada. Yesterday -- Feb. 20th, 2018 - - there were reports that Apple wants to buy huge amounts of cobalt directly from miners. The interest in electric cars has already made prices for cobalt skyrocket. Nickel and cobalt prices are vital to Cuba's economy.
Born 51-years-ago in Miami, Kathy Castor all of her adult life has fought bravely and tirelessly to bring a dose of democratic sanity and decency to an American Cuban policy that, since 1959, has been dictated out of Miami and Washington by a handful of the most vicious Cuban-American remnants of the vile and overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship. Since 2007 Kathy Castor has represented the Tampa area of Florida in the U. S. Congress, almost singularly at times battling self-serving Miami members of Congress on behalf of decent Cubans, decent Cuban-Americans, and democracy.
This photo of the democracy-loving Congresswoman Kathy Castor is courtesy of the PBS network. The mainstream U. S. networks are afraid to feature Kathy because they fear it might upset the anti-Cuban extremists in Miami and in Congress. It's appears to have been that way especially since 1976 when the top Cuban-American newsman in Miami, Emilio Milian, was car-bombed after he criticized extreme Cuban-American terrorism against totally innocent Cubans. While most of the U. S. media and most U. S. politicians are afraid to cross anti-Cuban extremists, Kathy Castor is not. Again this week she is leading a congressional delegation to Cuba to assess how much President Trump's designated Cuban dictator, Senator Marco Rubio of Miami, is reversing former President Obama's decent Cuban overtures that preceded Trump.
The photo above captured a huge banner that is being pulled by an airplane over and around Senator Marco Rubio's home-base of Miami and Miami Beach. After the horrendous school massacre at nearby Parkland High School, the NY Times reported that Rubio had received $3.3 million in donations from the National Rifle Association. School marches against politicians like Rubio with begin Saturday in Washington and elsewhere around the nation. Meanwhile, the banner denouncing Rubio is merely the latest example of people in Miami expressing displeasure with Rubio but it appears his bulging war-chest remains overwhelming and it also seems that only Counter Revolutionary extremists can get elected from the Miami area to the U. S. Congress although polls show even most Cuban-Americans in Miami favor normalizing relations with Cuba. So, now Rubio's vast publicity machine will have to get cranking again.
But the 18-year-old Emma Gonzalez in recent days has been more powerful than all 535 members of the U. S. Congress combined, especially in shaming and shaking Senator Marco Rubio for his receiving $3.3 million from the National Rifle Association. Emma, a senior, survived the latest mass school shooting-massacre at Parkland High School near Rubio's Miami base. Emma's heart-wrenching anti-NRA and anti-politician speech is still circulating around the world and has been shown repeatedly by the world's best news source, the London-based BBC. Now Emma Gonzalez and millions of students like her will lead marches in Washington and other U. S. cities on February 24th, 2018, and THEY will more effectively oppose gun-massacres in the U. S. than all the politicians, many of them bought-and-paid-for, have accomplished. Many Americans believe 18-year-olds like Emma should be elected to Congress, not bought-and-paid-for incumbents that can't be voted out of office.
But the mainstream United States media...and not just the right-wing Fox Network...regularly makes Senator Marco Rubio out to be a Miami choirboy, the very same Rubio that America's best investigative journalist, Ken Silverstein, calls "head and shoulders above everyone else when it comes to chicanery and corruption." After being anointed America's newest Cuban dictator by Trump, Rubio is shown above laying down his Cuban policy at a very appropriate place -- the Manuel Artime Theater in Miami that is named for a leader of the 1961 Bay of Pigs military attack on Cuba.
On June 16-2017 President Trump himself had ventured to Little Havana in Miami and gutlessly signed and smirkingly displayed newly signed Executive Orders reversing Obama-orchestrated sanity and decency towards Cuba. Of course, the usual Counter Revolutionary choir was in attendance, including the laughing Miami member of the U. S. Congress Mario Diaz-Balart who is directly over Trump's right shoulder. Typical of the endless stream of Miami members of Congress, Mario Diaz-Balart is the son of Rafael Diaz-Balart, a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship before becoming one of the very richest Counter Revolutionary zealots in South Florida.
While most Cuban-Americans even in Miami favor Obama's decent Cuban policies, President Trump's Cuban dictator Rubio is busy "rolling back" Obama's Cuban policies while he should, of course, be using his bought-and-paid-for Senate seat to help Americans instead of hurting totally decent Cubans on the island. Of course, Rubio's presidential bid in 2016 got derailed when Trump labeled him "Little Marco." But, of course, Little Marco is awash in money donated by self-serving right-wingers that will keep Rubio in the Senate and finance his next presidential bid.
Above is the graphic that fronted the Ken Silverstein article that labeled Rubio "head and shoulders above everyone else" for corruption in Washington, which is saying a lot considering that his fellow Cuban-American Counter Revolutionary zealot, U. S. Senator Robert Menendez, was recently bailed out only by a hung jury after the U. S. government had tried for five expensive investigating years and then an expensive 3-month trial in 2017 to convict Menendez of Miami-related corruption charges. This Ken Silverstein article took about ten long pages to document why it called the "For Sale" Rubio "head and shoulders above everyone else." This week, after the school shooting massacre in South Florida, Rubio has even been criticized in the mainstream media for taking what the New York Times says is $3.3 million in "For Sale" money from the National Rifle Association. Yet, the intimidated mainstream U. S. media and sufficiently propagandized U. S. citizens will not utter a whimper about Trump's anointment of Rubio as America's Cuban dictator.
Alex Leary, the brave Washington-based journalist for the brave Tampa Bay Times, is brave enough to tell us about Tampa's brave Congresswoman Kathy Castor returning to Cuba to assess the recent damage Trump & Rubio have done to innocent Cubans and to the U. S. democracy. Alex Leary explains that Ms. Castor will meet with "small business entrepreneurs" in Cuba who benefited greatly from Obama's overtures but have been devastated by Trump's. Also, Alex Leary wrote that Ms. Castor and her delegation will visit the Trump-gutted U. S. Embassy in Havana in hopes of trying to "restore full U. S. embassy services" so direly needed by her constituents in the Tampa area, both Americans and Cuban-Americans who have or seek relations with Cuba's Cubans.
Thanks to President Obama, Niuris Higueras, shown above with her daughter, opened a thriving business that markedly benefited her family. With the Trump election, Rubio is blamed by Ms. Higueras and other hard-working Cuban entrepreneurs for virtually destroying their livelihoods. And, yes, with the support and approval of the Cuban-American executives at the Miami Herald, Ms. Higueras and three other female Cuban entrepreneurs wrote a scathing article daring Rubio to just meet with them to hear their side of the imposing Cuban story.
The photo-graphic above shows Niuris Higueras and Yamina Vicenta, two totally decent Cuban entrepreneurs who benefited so greatly because of President Obama and who have been hurt so mightily by "Little Marco" -- Miami's U. S. Senator Marco Rubio. Niuris and Yamina teamed with Julia de la Rosa and Marla Recio, two other young female entrepreneurs in Cuba who co-wrote the scathing anti-Rubio article with the cooperation of the Miami Herald editors in Marco Rubio's own backyard.
And that's why the decent, democracy-loving, Miami-born member of the U. S. Congress from Tampa, Kathy Castor, is returning to Cuba trying desperately to help those Rubio-ravaged female entrepreneurs in Cuba...and try to help Kathy Castor's own Rubio-ravaged constituents, both Americans and Cuban-Americans.
But while the Miami-born Kathy Castor has been elected and re-elected and re-elected again to the U. S. Congress from Tampa since 2007, the photo above, I believe, reflects why the U. S. Cuban policy gets a 191-to-0 condemnation in the United Nations, probably the only topic that could get such unanimity in a very diverse world. Since 1989...three decades ago...when the Bush dynasty swept Havana-born Counter Revolutionary Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to the U. S. Congress, only other Counter Revolutionary zealots such as Mario Diaz-Balart and Marco Rubio have reached Congress from Miami. This is despite the fact that poll-after-poll reveals most Cuban-Americans even in Miami favor normalizing relations with Cuba. Does the above photo also reveal that two generations of Americans since 1959 have sat on their cushy asses and allowed their precious democracy to be torn asunder by a mere handful of people?? Just asking, of course, with 2 gentle & gigantic question marks.
Meanwhile, the above view of the Havana skyline bears the caption: "THIS IS CUBA" and "THIS IS OUR PEOPLE." There is a majority in Cuba, and a majority around the world, who believe Cubans on the island...not Cubans in Miami and Washington...should be allowed to predicate the future of the sovereign island nation.
After the death at age 90 of Fidel Castro on Nov. 25-2016 and after the retirement as President of the 86-year-old Raul Castro in April, the next leader of Cuba will be Miguel Diaz-Canel. He is a popular education-minded teacher who grew up loving the Beatles and motorcycles. He was born after the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution. But while Raul Castro worked closely with President Obama to normalize relations between the two nations, insiders in Cuba believe Miguel Diaz-Canel is so disgusted with Trump & Rubio that Cuba's soon-to-be-leader plans to de-emphasize the United States while re-emphasizing relations with "important friendly nations."
Miguel Diaz-Canel particularly considers the still-ascending superpower China a "very important friendly nation" that he plans "to Cultivate." In fact, he already has.
The American embargo, sharply tightened by Trump & Rubio, and dire political and economic problems in Venezuela have spurred Diaz-Canel into action already. He solicited wind-blown and solar-panel energy for Cuba, courtesy of the Chinese, as well as new oil deals with Russia, Nigeria, and Vietnam. "Wasting our time vacillating here-and-yonder on nearby hopeless causes," Diaz-Canel reportedly told Chinese President Zi, "is not nearly as fortuitous for us as dealing with China."
Diaz-Canel courting President Zi.
And Diaz-Canel is courting President Putin. While Diaz-Canel is said to strongly agree that friendly terms with the U. S. would be far more advantageous to Cuba than any alliances with faraway powers, he is reported to have given up on that hope.
The photo above illustrates how friendly relations between Cuba and the United States would greatly benefit both Cuba and the United States. Cubans on the island incredibly love America and Americans, if not the U. S. government. Cuba's baseball-mad people still love their all-time favorite player, Yuri Gurriel, although he is now the star First Baseman for the Houston Astros. And Yuri still loves Cuba most of all. When Yuri and the Astros won the World Series last fall, Yuri wrapped himself in the Cuban flag for two hours after the game was over, and at every television opportunity he euphorically said, "My people in Cuba. My title is for you."
Cuba's superstar broadcast journalist, Cristina Escobar, is the only Cuban to ever ask questions at a White House news conference. She has spoken at American universities and the foreign news media, as above, often interviews her in regards to "Cuba-U.S. Relations. She repeatedly talks about her love for America and Americans, adding, "Like many Cubans on the island I learned to speak English by watching U. S. movies and listening to U. S. music." But, despite offers to defect, she staunchly says, "Cuba's fate is up to us Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington." Americans may not know it, and the U. S. government may not admit it, but the vast majority of the 11.25 million Cubans on the island agree with Cristina. That's why the Cuban Revolution won against overwhelming odds.
And that's why the vastly over-matched but pugnacious Cuban flag still waves proudly in the very warm but ominous Caribbean breezes, despite Trump & Rubio.
No comments:
Post a Comment