And Many Americans Don't Care!
Cubans on the island had something else to mourn this past weekend. The bus shown above {the photo is courtesy of the BBC and Reuters} crashed while carrying 40 passengers...18 Cubans and 22 tourists from the UK, US, Canada, France, Netherlands, and Spain. The dead included one German and one French tourist. Overall seven people died and the other 33 were injured in the tragic disaster.
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The bus crashed soon after leaving Baracoa in Guantanamo Province on its long trip back to Havana. Baracoa is the oldest city in Cuba. It was founded shortly after Columbus landed at that spot in 1492, declaring it in his diary as, "The most beautiful land these eyes have ever seen." Because of its history and its incomparable beauty, Baracoa is a favorite destination for tourists flying into Havana. But on an island that has been the victim of the vicious U. S. Batistiano Economic Boycott since 1962, the transportation system in Cuba is dangerous...and in Washington this past week two Cuban-American U. S. Senators seemed intent on trying to make the island's transportation system even more dangerous than it currently is for Cubans and visitors.
This past week Senator Bob Menendez, from the Batistiano-bastion of Newark, and Senator Marco Rubio, from the Batistiano-bastion of Miami, combined to introduce YET ANOTHER gutless bill in the Republican-controlled United States Senate designed to strengthen the six-decades-old gutless Embargo against Cuba. As I will discuss later, neither the mainstream United States media nor the majority of Americans have the guts to challenge the continuing and unchecked cruelty of self-serving miscreants like Bob Menendez & Marco Rubio.
Cuba as of April 19th-2018 has a new President. His name is Miguel Diaz-Canel. He was born after the January 1st-1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. It appears Diaz-Canel is determined to protect Cubans from Cuban-Americans like Menendez & Rubio who hide lavishly behind the skirts of the world's nearby Superpower. President Diaz-Canel mourned this past weekend with Cubans across the island after the deadly bus crash. The photo above was taken on May 18th-2018, exactly a month after Diaz-Canel became President of Cuba. That day he rushed to the site of a deadly plane-crash on the edge of Havana, a plane destined for Holguin, Cuba. The crash killed 112 on board with the lone survivor being a 19-year-old Cuban girl who is still recovering, under meticulous care, from her horrendous injuries. The plane crash and now the bus crash have reminded Diaz-Canel of his most urgent priority -- improving the safety of Cuba's highway, railway, and air transportation systems. To that end this week, just prior to the bus crash, Diaz-Canel demoted Cuba's elderly Transport Minister and replaced him with a much younger, more energetic, and hopefully more effective Transport Minister.
This photo also illustrates President Diaz-Canel's eagerness to solicit help from Cuba's friends to "construct and to help rebuild a transportation system that will be much safer for everyone, Cubans and visitors." On the left is Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez shown shaking hands with Diaz-Canel in Havana on March 22nd, 2018.
This photo shows the very moment Cuban President Diaz-Canel asked Spain's Prime Minister Sanchez if he would consider helping Cuba improve the island's transportation system, including the "roads, highways, bridges, railways, airways...any way you can?" To his credit and to his country's credit, Prime Minister Sanchez replied, "Mr. President, as long as I am the leader of Spain, I will do all in my power to help you with those enterprises." A kind reply from a very decent leader.
There was a time in the past seven decades when even the United States...for one brief, shining moment...had a leader that had similar decency and courage to match that of Spain's current leader Pedro Sanchez. That American leader, of course, was President Barack Obama. As America's leader, as shown above, Mr. Obama had the guts and decency to go to Cuba and speak directly to the Cuban people...on the streets, at a baseball game, and on state-wide television. He told them: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." He was not lying, he just did not anticipate that his administration would be replaced by another Batistiano-aligned Republican administration.
Thus, one of Donald Trump's first shameful acts as President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States was to go to Little Havana in Miami and vow to reverse all of President Obama's sanity and decency in regards to Cuba. He made that pledge, as shown above, while standing in front of a Brigade 2506 Assault Banner, which reflects the shame and humiliation the U. S. sustained way back in April of 1961 with its stupid and cowardly and LOSING air-land-and-sea BAY OF PIGS attack on Cuba. Such gutless Trump pandering in Little Havana to a handful of Counter Revolutionary Cubans proves two things about the Batistiano-propelled deterioration of the once-proud American democracy: {1} Even the mainstream left-wing U. S. media that is engaged in an all-out media conspiracy to dethrone Trump prior to the next election does not have the guts to criticize Trump for his most egregious acts that relate to Cuba; and {2} a third generation of Americans since the 1950s has neither the guts nor the patriotism to even weigh-in seriously on Cuban policies that shame America, Democracy, and Decency...yet this generation of Americans has been propagandized to sanctimoniously criticize a China or a Russia if such large nations remotely target innocent people in a much smaller nation for one day not to mention six+ decades when it's U.S. vs. Cuba.
Thus, for 6+ decades now, Counter Revolutionary extremists like Senators Menendez and Rubio have been permitted, within the bowels of the U. S. democracy, to whet their revenge, economic, and political appetites by trying to starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of everyday Cubans on the island...while using even the mainstream U. S. media to promote their repetitive refrains about...trying to help Cubans on the island. And such repetitive propaganda -- supported by left-wing, right-wing, and mainstream media sources -- is incredibly effective.
While trying to severely punish everyday Cubans on the island, Rubio & Menendez -- as shown above -- are quite willing to host in the hallowed offices and hallways of the U. S. Senate any well-known Cuban dissident strongly opposed to the Cuban government.
Even the world's most famed Cuban dissident, Yoani Sanchez, can fly from Cuba to Miami to the U. S. Congress...and then back to Cuba. Allegedly...please, PLEASE remember that I said "allegedly"...after such lucrative sessions with Senators Rubio & Menendez as shown above Yoani Sanchez returned to Cuba with enough money to powerfully staff and powerfully promote what remains today the most powerful digital dissident anti-Cuban blog-newspaper in the world. In other words, anyone who holds up their hands and vows to help overthrow Revolutionary Cuba's government can ALLEGEDLY expect bundles of tax dollars, especially as long as the likes of Rubio & Menendez are allowed to make such decisions with unlimited amounts of tax dollars.
The now 61-year-old Ken Silverstein is enshrined as one of America's all-time greatest investigative journalists and authors.
For decades Ken Silverstein has earned lofty journalistic credentials and accolades working for such respected organizations as...Harpers Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press. So, it's not surprising that Ken Silverstein has done the best investigative reporting on Senator Marco Rubio, whom the cowardly right-wing, left-wing, and mainstream U. S. media usually promotes as a choirboy from Little Havana in Miami. In an almost book-length essay on Rubio, Ken Silverstein calls Rubio "head and shoulders above everyone else in Washington when it comes to corruption and chicanery." In that exhaustive investigative report Ken Silverstein documents a plethora of names, dates, and incidents to prove his case. And as far as I know, no one has denied a single word nor has Ken Silverstein been sued by Rubio's well-heeled and well-funded publicity machine.
If you Google "Ken Silverstein and Marco Rubio" you will be put in touch with the above graphic that fronts the aforementioned Ken Silverstein article on Marco Rubio...who typically this past week teamed with the also very controversial BOB MENENDEZ to introduce YET ANOTHER "Let's Punish Cubans in Cuba" bill in the U. S. Senate.
United States Senator Bob Menendez is shown above on the Batistiano-friendly Fox News Network after he had barely escaped a long prison sentence. For years the U. S. government investigated Menendez on serious bribery and corruption charges related to shenanigans in Miami and the Dominican Republic. And then there was a long and expensive federal trial, which ended in a hung jury. The federal justice system, which had spent a ton of tax dollars already on first the investigations and then the trial, vowed to retry Menendez, but then changed its mind, apparently believing another expensive hung trial would result. Political incumbents and court trials in Newark or Miami, you see, tend to sort of favor Counter Revolutionary Cubans and disfavor those who might oppose them. Shortly after his emotional reaction depicted above, Menendez, of course, was re-elected to another 6-year term in the U. S. Senate. And, of course, because Cuba is a foreign country and in the Western Hemisphere, Congressional Counter Revolutionaries like Menendez and Rubio make bee-lines to become Chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations and Western Hemisphere Senate committees...all the better, of course, to punish innocent Cubans on the island!! A wonderful democratic system for the Newark/Miami-to-Washington/Congress pipeline? It kinda seems that way for Cuban-Americans like Rubio & Menendez, doesn't it?
Now allow me to ask a question. As a democracy-loving American, during the longest-ever government shutdown while millions of Americans are suffering from an amalgam of ills caused by a dysfunctional and money-crazed Congress, my question is: How in the hell can Senator Menendez and Senator Rubio be allowed to prioritize HURTING innocent Cubans on the island as opposed to HELPING Americans, including Cuban-Americans. I know, I KNOW...Menendez is from Newark and Rubio is from Little Havana, so they'll never be voted out of office. But that does not excuse the cowardice of the mainstream U. S. media and the gutlessness of most U. S. citizens for allowing...even this past week...Senators Menendez & Rubio to introduce YET ANOTHER "Let's Punish Cubans in Cuba" bill in the U. S. Senate. That latest Menendez-Rubio insult to democracy makes me wonder if Menendez and Rubio wouldn't be far better suited as Ministers in the long-ago Batista government than as Senators in today's USA.
Cuba...Cuba...Cuba!!!!!
{The only topic in the entire world that could possibly get the United States and Democracy unanimously condemned 191-to-0 in the United Nations. BUT...if you're an American...you're not supposed to have enough guts to even think about that, let alone mention it. And where we are today is precisely where we've been regarding Cuba for 7 decades.}
Yet, on the island of Cuba this past weekend...as Cubans mourned the bus crash and as Rubio & Menendez tried harder to use U. S. laws to punish Cubans in Cuba...pugnacious and resilient Cubans still found reasons to smile...perhaps because Rubio and Menendez weren't dictating their lives, at least not yet. That's Cuban journalist Rosy Amaro Perez above and her 5-year-old daughter Mariana. Professional photographers Norbel Lazcano and Adriana Robreno chronicled their mother-daughter outdoor togetherness around Havana on 01-13-2019.
Notice above:
Dressed identically, including the shoes.
In this photo Mariana is whispering, "Mama, por que nos estan tomando fotos?" {"Mama, why are they taking so many pictures of us?"}.
Like other little girls, Mariana looks up to her mother and likes to wear very smilar clothes. And Rosy tries to accommodate Mariana.
In Havana Saturday, Rosy & Mariana.
Best of friends, mother & daughter.
These six photos from Havana this past weekend remind me that Cubans on the island, like Rosy & Mariana, don't deserve to be targeted unfairly by anybody on their island. And MOST ESPECIALLY they don't deserve to be unfairly targeted by greedy, sanctimonious, and revengeful Cuban-Americans OFF the island, such as the rich, powerful, and unscrupulous United States Senators Rubio and Menendez.
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