STILL A Batista Dictatorship

But in Miami, not in Havana!!
{Updated: Saturday,  December 22nd, 2018}

   Even though the USA's Trump administration is taking its Cuban instructions strictly from visceral Counter Revolutionary benefactors such as Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Mauricio Claver-Carone, the graphic above illustrates that a decent and sane agreement concerning Cuba was reached on USA soil this week. The FCB -- the Federation of Cuban Baseball -- and Major League Baseball in the United States agreed to treat Cuban baseball players like potential MLB players from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, etc. As with players from other countries, the FCB will get a reasonable release fee when its players are made eligible to sign with any of the 30 MLB teams. Cuban players are no longer the ONLY PLAYERS IN THE WORLD who have to defect from their nation, often dangerously using human traffickers, in order to play baseball in the U. S., one of countless insanely cruel rules dictated in the U. S. by remnants of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba that was overthrown in 1959. And so, everybody except Batistianos in the USA and human trafficker-types benefit from this long-desired FCB-MLB agreement, and that includes the 11 million passionate baseball fans on the island of Cuba. But that last factor creates a problem. The handful of Cuban-Americans who insist on dictating the USA Cuban policies vehemently oppose anything that helps or pleases Cubans on the island, and thus those miscreants believe they can persuade President Trump to block the sane and decent FCB-MLB agreement.

    Despite the holiday season and all else that is happening, the FCB-MLB agreement, because it is sane and decent, garnered massive headlines in both Cuba and the USA. In huge USA Today articles for two days running, Mario Diaz-Balart, a product of Little Havana and the son of a former Top Minister in the long-ago Batista-Mafia dictatorship, was lavishly quoted as indicating he will make sure President Trump vetoes the baseball sanity. With gutless swiftness, Mario said, "Thankfully, Trump stands with the Cuban people in opposing a tyranny and would not endorse such a blatant exploitation that benefits a malevolent, anti-American dictatorship." Mario, of course, meant that Trump stands with the handful of powerful Counter Revolutionaries in Little Havana, and he called the agreement "shameful" and expressed his belief that Trump, like all Republican presidents, would not have the guts or decency to deny direct messages sent by the Little Havana Cubans. During the preceding decency of the Obama administration, Mario, of course, never bragged that he sends "messages to the White House all the time." He just meant messages that were always heeded by Republican presidents, and he expects Trump to heed his "messages" regarding the baseball agreement. This has been going on for decades from the likes of the Diaz-Balart clan that dates back to the vile Batistic-Mafia dictatorship that was chased to Little Havana in January, 1959. So Mario Diaz-Balart's "message" to Trump regarding the baseball sanity is typical of the anti-democratic bile that the likes of Mario have shamed American with for decades. The second paragraph of the USA Today article written by Jorge Ortiz and Alan Gomez states: "The deal facilitates Cuban players' entry into American professional baseball while avoiding the journeys and dealings with human smugglers that have marked many of their departures." In other words, what Mario and his ilk have dictated since 1959 harms the totally innocent and benefits the non-innocent. Yet, to this day the mainstream U. S. media is too afraid to question the motives of people like Mario...or question why someone like Mario can remain an incumbent in the U. S. Congress year-after-year even when most of the two million Cuban-Americans in South Florida favor decent treatment of Cubans on the island.

    The magic of television has elevated football, basketball and other sports to such levels that baseball may no long be America's National Pastime. But in Cuba, baseball is and will remain the uncontested National Pastime, bordering  on religious fervor. As this Cuban Pipeline graphic indicates, Cuba per capita produces far more baseball talent than the United States does. Baseball was introduced to Cuba in 1866 and has been played professionally on the island since 1878. The sport is ingrained deeply into the fabric of the island's culture. But ingrained deeply into the fabric of the U. S. democracy is the Batistiano plague manifested since 1959 by the likes of the Diaz-Balart clan, as I will discuss later during this update. Therefore, the three Cuban U. S. stars in the "Pipeline" graphic, like all the other many Major League stars of today, had to defect in order to play in the USA. That was a godsend for human traffickers and other criminals.

    For example, Yasiel Puig of the Los Angeles Dodgers, on his way to the Major Leagues, was kidnapped, tortured, threatened with murder of himself and his family, and robbed of millions by human traffickers. Yasiel returned for a visit to his beloved Cuba right after playing for the Dodgers in the World Series this year. He and other Cubans in the U. S. Major Leagues prayed for the sanity and decency that finally emerged in the Cuba-USA baseball agreement this week. And that, of course, is the sanity and decency that, as always, the likes of Little Havana's U. S. Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart opposes. 

     And so, instead of sending his "messages" to President Trump about squelching the baseball agreement, perhaps it would be best for Mario Diaz-Balart to stick those "messages" where the sun don't shine.

     Unfortunately, either Mario or Lincoln Diaz-Balart or both of them at the same time have represented Florida's Little Havana area in the U. S. Congress for the past two decades. Like their father Rafael, a former key Minister in the Batista dictatorship, Mario and Lincoln have been one-trick-pony Counter Revolutionary zealots, effectively securing tons of tax dollars, easily acquired sycophants, and legal congressional laws to enrich and empower their anti-Cuban endeavors. Lincoln was born in 1954 in Havana during the Batista regime while Mario was born in 1961 in Fort Lauderdale when their father Rafael was one of the richest and most powerful all-time Counter Revolutionary Cubans on U. S. soil.

      On January 1, 1959, the Cuban Revolution defeated the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship, which is also known to history as the Havana Mob. Teaming with the top echelon of the Mafia to support the Batista regime so rich Americans could partake in the fleecing of the island remains one massive black mark on U. S. history. But even more massive in the long-term has been the sheer fact that the Batista dictatorship, after being booted out of Cuba, has since January of 1959 feasted even more lucratively on U. S. soil.

     After the Cuban Revolution chased the Batista-Mafia dictatorship out of Havana, Little Havana in the heart of nearby Miami has essentially, since 1959, been the new capital for generations of rich and powerful Batistianos. Indeed, the money that was sent ahead to Miami banks and the money that arrived with the exodus of the fleeing Batistianos quickly and permanently overwhelmed both the economy and the politics of South Florida, providing their children advantages that others in South Florida did not have. That money also carved out political niches that extended from Miami to Washington and to other Batistiano-dominated cities like Newark, New Jersey.

     And through two generations, the U. S. democracy has permitted the most visceral elements with ties back to Cuba's Batista dictatorship to essentially dictate America's Cuban policies. That basic fact is illustrated by the photo above that shows five Miami politicos championing the Senate and Presidential ambitions of Little Havana's Marco Rubio. At the podium above is Lincoln Diaz-Balart and to his left is Mario Diaz-Balart. The Diaz-Balart brothers are the sons of Rafael Diaz-Balart, a key Minister in Cuba's 1950's Batista dictatorship. Since Little Havana in Miami became their new capital beginning in 1959, vicious Counter Revolutionaries like the Diaz-Balart brothers have not only dominated politics in Miami and Florida but also, thanks to self-serving sycophants like the Bush dynasty, that domination has extended seamlessly to the U. S. Congress and to all Republican controlled presidential administrations. For example, either one or both of the Diaz-Balart brothers have represented Little Havana in the U. S. Congress for the past two decades, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, shown on the right above, has been a Havana-born vicious Counter Revolutionary in the U. S. Congress for three decades, or since the self-serving Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager way back in 1989. Thus, since 1959 the virtually unchallenged pounding of Cubans on the island by rich and powerful Cuban Counter Revolutionaries from Little Havana has perhaps shamed America and Democracy more than any other issue in America's mostly cherished history.

      An America that for decades has allowed visceral Counter Revolutionary U. S. Cubans such as the Diaz-Balart brothers and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to fashion its cruel and failed Cuban policies is an America that is simply not as democratic or righteous as it was prior to 1959.

      
     Beginning in 1959, Rafael Diaz-Balart, fresh from the overthrown Batista dictatorship in Cuba, quickly became one of Miami's richest and most powerful all-time Counter Revolutionary Cubans on United States soil.

  The photo on the left shows Rafael Diaz-Balart when he was one of the most powerful Ministers in the Batista dictatorship in Cuba. Ironically, he had been not only a University of Havana Law School classmate of Fidel Castro but Rafael also was the sister of Mirta who married Fidel in 1948 and had his son.

     The photo above was taken in 1958 at a Batista political rally. In the center with the holstered pistol is Rafael Diaz-Balart. He is flanked my the infamous Masferrer brothers, Rodolfo and Rolando. If you Google the "Masferrer Tigers" or "Los Tigres de Masferrer" you will discover that the "Tigers" were the brutal army that viciously enforced rule on the island for the Batista dictatorship.

    The photo above shows Rafael Diaz-Balart flanked by his four sons, all of whom are rich and powerful -- a banker on the far left and Jose Diaz-Balart, second from the right who is now a news anchor at NBC News. Second from the left is Lincoln and on the far right is Mario, the two members of the U. S. Congress from Miami.

     Having mentioned the Masferrer Tigers, it is only fair to mention Tete Puebla. That's Tete sitting on the far left a bit unhappy on the back of a truck that entered Havana after the leaders of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship had fled to safer havens off the island. Tete, you see, had become a legendary guerrilla fighter against U.S.-backed Batista soldiers by the time she was 15-years-old. Tete's fierce motivation was provided when, as she said in her biography, the Masferrer Tigers surrounded her village and burned a relative alive as a warning not to resist. Tete and other young girls like her did not heed such warnings; they became teenage guerrilla fighters against Batista, and the most famed is Tete. So...you ask...why was Tete unhappy the day she rode into Havana after the triumph of the Revolution? She explained why this way: "I...all of us...hoped the Batistianos would be waiting for us in Havana to fight us. We were sad they did not. They ran."

    Today Tete Puebla is a General in the Cuban Army. She is 78-years-old, having been born on December 9th, 1940, in Yara, Cuba. As a teenager, she became a legendary guerrilla fighter. At age 21 in April of 1961 when Cuba was attacked at the Bay of Pigs, Tete Puebla was instrumental in scoring a massive defensive victory for Revolutionary Cuba over the Counter Revolutionary Cubans that had been massively and expensively backed and supported by the U. S. military on land, in the air, and at sea. And so...now that you know Tete Puebla, the incredibly brave Cuban patriot, permit me to ask a question: Is Tete the bad guy and the Diaz-Balart clan the good guys? And before you answer that question, show some respect for the U. S. democracy and do some Googling on your own, and then answer the question.

     The book "MARIANAS IN COMBAT: Tete Puebla and the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon in Cuba's Revolutionary War 1956-58" is the best Tete Puebla biography. Mariana Grajales was the Cuban mother of two great sons who died fighting courageously but unsuccessfully for independence in the 19th Century against Spanish soldiers.

    The 78-year-old General Tete Puebla today is a great source of information for Cuba's most famed female guerrilla fighter Celia Sanchez. Tete and Celia fought together against Batista soldiers and after winning their Revolutionary War Tete is a General today while Celia, who died of cancer at age 59 in 1980, was an ultra-powerful decision-maker in Revolutionary Cuba till the day she died. Tete, of course, agrees with Celia's historic quotation as depicted above by The Woman Project.org: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots." This week, as the baseball agreement between Cuba and the USA is garnering headlines in both nations, the Celia Sanchez quotation, I believe, deserves to be dusted off to counter the Mario Diaz-Balart "message" sent to President Trump instructing him to veto the baseball agreement that has thrilled 11 million baseball-loving Cubans on the island. For seven decades now generations of cowardly American citizens have allowed their democracy to harm totally innocent people in a much smaller island nation to appease the greed and revenge of a few rich and powerful Cuban-Americans. And during those seven decades sanctimonious Americans have been quick to condemn a China or a Russia if they remotely did the same dastardly things. Perhaps, Americans need a Tete Puebla or a Celia Sanchez to show them what guts and patriotism is all about. But at the moment, what America has is a Trump and a whole lot of Diaz-Balarts!!!

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