cubaninsider: Cuba's Transition Takes Hold

USA and Florida Adjust!!
{Wednesday, May 9th, 2018}

Yesterday -- Tuesday, May 8th, 2018 -- Financial Times reported that, "If Cuba is on your travel bucket list, you'll soon have more options..." It's update said, "JetBlue announced Tuesday that it will begin the first nonstop service to Jose Marti International Airport from Boston in November."

Although Counter Revolutionary extremists/Batistianos dictate America's Cuban policies whenever Republicans control Congress and/or the White House {which is the case now}, Americans still have slivers of hope if they desire the freedom to visit the nearby island so they can judge it for themselves.

At 4:00 P. M. Monday -- May 7th, 2018 -- the Norwegian Sun made some more U.S.-Cuban history when it left Port Canaveral in Florida bound for Havana, Cuba. The 2,036-passenger ship then docked snuglyly in Havana while its passengers enjoyed what the new issue of Smithsonian Magazine calls one of the world's greatest tourist attractions in an 18-page article entitled "The Man Who Saved Havana." Actually since President Obama opened up commercial lanes to Cuba, now six cruise lines from the USA are making trips to Cuba despite efforts by the Trump presidency to reinforce and strengthened the U. S. Embargo against the island, which has been congressionally mandated since 1962. All the while Americans are supposed to be unaware that declassified U. S. documents state that the purpose of the embargo was/is to starve, deprive and make miserable the lives of Cubans on the island for the purpose of causing them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. Perhaps that hasn't happened in six decades because there remain, lingering in the minds of enough Cubans, memories of the sheer brutality and thievery of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship that spawned the Cuban Revolution.

Meanwhile, JetBlue Airlines continues to make regular flights to Cuba from Orlando International Airport while other USA airlines are both engaging with Cuba now and dialing for new routes to the island. As the Miami Herald has repeatedly pointed out, the Miami hardliners in the U. S. Congress -- led by choirboy Marco Rubio -- are successfully encouraging the Trump administration to "starve" Cubans on the island while even in Rubio's hometown of Miami the majority of Cuban-Americans are being harmed the most by such tactics as shutting down the U. S. embassy in Havana that Obama had opened for the first time since 1961. While hardline Cubans in Congress -- including Rubio, Diaz-Balart, Ros-Lehtinen, and Curbelo from Miami alone -- grossly exceed the overall Cuban-American population, it seems only hardline Cubans are eligible to get elected to Congress even though, within the bowels of the U. S. democracy, they don't represent the pro-Cuban views of most Cuban-Americans.

The prolific Cuban-born Fabiola Santiago since 1980 has been a top writer for the Miami Herald and is now its top Editorial Writer. She is notable for being a staunch Counter Revolutionary but she has repeatedly assailed the hometown choirboy Marco Rubio for putting his own personal ambitions -- both politically and economically -- ahead of what the majority of Cuban-Americans desire in relations with Cuba.

This "Shame on you Rubio" banner flew over Senator Marco Rubio's home turf in South Florida when it was revealed he had taken $3.3 million from the NRA.

Even fellow Republican Donald Trump accused Rubio of being owned by controversial Jewish billionaires like Sheldon Adelson, and thus Trump is not the only American who sorta thinks that's why Rubio puts Israel far ahead of America.

In the Florida Republican presidential race, Trump wiped out Rubio on his home turf and Rubio then declared he would not run for a second term in the Senate, which he said couldn't get "anything done" and that was the excuse he used to explain why he missed so many votes in the Senate, except, of course, when hurting Cuba or aiding Israel. Despite low poll numbers, Rubio ran and was reelected to the Senate because it's his platform for another presidential bid and, of course, it again raised the specter that only Counter Revolutionary extremists can get elected in Miami although polls show most Cuban-Americans in Miami favor Obama-like decency towards Cuba.

Meanwhile, Rubio, shown peering over Trump's right shoulder as the new President signed harsh anti-Cuban executive orders in front of the choir in Little Havana, Miami, USA. Although Rubio is a dire threat to both Trump's presidency and his leadership of the Republican Party, Trump tossed Rubio a bone by anointing him as America's new Cuban dictator. With Trump & Rubio, America, on a much larger scale, might be in more trouble than little Cuba where new President Miguel Diaz-Canel must confront such threats as the U. S. embargo and, of course, Rubio.

Meanwhile, Cuba's new President {as of April 19th}, Miguel Diaz-Canel, is firmly in place as the first non-Castro and the first non-revolutionary leader since 1959.

But make no mistake, President Miguel Diaz-Canel's #1 idol is Cuba's #1 revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, who died at age 90 on Nov. 25, 2016. The photo above was taken in Santa Clara when a young Diaz-Canel was a popular educator on his way to becoming Education Minister and, for the previous five years, First Vice President. Insiders in Cuba know Diaz-Canel as being less inclined than former President Raul Castro to trust "United States capitalism", as Raul did when he negotiated with former President Obama to normalize relations between the two neighboring nations.

With Miguel Diaz-Canel as Cuba's new leader, look for the island to concentrate on forging stronger ties with friendly and powerful nations like China as a counter-balance to the anti-Cuban Republican control of the White House and Congress.

But this Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images photo reflects the fact that Cuba's new President knows he must concentrate less on Washington and more on what's happening in Havana. The Cubans shown above watching their island's transition -- Raul Castro to Miguel Diaz-Canel -- will expect their new leader to improve the Cuban economy despite obstacles such as the Embargo and what Diaz-Canel openly considers "a Batistiano-and-Mafiosi-loving Republican cabal in Washington." He expects to wait-out the Trump administration and he assumes "something more sane might transpire in 2020 or before then, as most of the world is hoping for."

In stark contrast to his predecessor Obama, U. S. President Trump quickly went to Little Havana in Miami and turned America's Cuban policies back over to the few remaining survivors of the humiliating 1961 U.S.-Cuban exile defeat of Brigada Asalto 2506's disastrous {for Miami and for the United States} attack at the Bay of Pigs.

In very significant contrast to Trump's highlighting the Brigade 2506 Cuban-exile attackers at the Bay of Pigs, Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel has emphasized photos like the one above, which highlights Cubans that rallied behind Fidel Castro's defense of the Revolution at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961. "Marvel at Cuba's love of independence, Cuba's love of the Revolution!!" President Diaz-Canel told Bolivia's President Evo Morales on April 20th as he stressed this photo. "THAT brightly shown through in April of 1961 and it will shine through as we go forward today."