From 1492 Till 2020!!!
Back on October 12th, 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered Cuba and claimed the New World for Spain. With his three ships -- La Pinta, La Nina, and La Santa Maria behind him, in his diary that day Columbus wrote that "this is the most beautiful land these eyes have ever seen." Although the world today is drastically different from it was in 1492, basically from 1492 till these last days of 2020, Cuba's awesome beauty and geographical location have predicated that every prime imperialist nation in the world, especially Spain and the United States, after tried mightily to capture, own, and dominate the Caribbean's largest island. In 1898 the United States finally concocted a pretext for an easy war against a weakened Spain to gain the luminous and luscious island. The easy Spanish-American War, fought on Cuban soil, made the USA a major imperialist power because it also included other prime Spanish holdings. The pretext for going to war against Spain was Cuba and the excuse was the explosion of the warship USS Maine in Havana harbor that killed 253 U. S. sailors, an event that was caused by the United States or by Spain or by an accident.
In the centuries since Christopher Columbus discovered Cuba in Oct.-1492, the CUBA HISTORY.ORG has chronicled trials and tribulations of historic people who tried to fight for Cuban independence, with the two Castro brother Fidel & Raul being the most successful because their Cuban Revolution in January of 1959 defeated the U.S.-backed and Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship...for better and for worse. The Cuban Revolutionary rule of Cuba from 1959 until today has been even more astounding than its initial victory because, every day since January-1959, the Batistianos and the United States, the world's economic and military Superpower, have tried desperately to recapture the pugnacious island.
All that history and topicality about Cuba today -- Dec. 11, 2020 -- reminds me of this image of journalist Nancy Scola.
One of the most important journalists in Washington, Nancy Scola had a major article today about Cuba for Politico, one of the most powerful media sources in the USA's capital city. The reason that interests me is because rarely does the U. S. mainstream media devote any space to Cuba despite the fact that the nearby Caribbean island probably has defined the United States since 1898 more than any other news item, perhaps more than major items such as 1940's World War II.
And so...above is the headline and sub-headline sent out of Washington and around the world today online by Politico and its important journalist Nancy Scoba. Remember that the primary news items today -- Dec. 11, 2020 -- concern...the COVID-19 vaccine, the Trump-to-Biden presidential transaction, a merging scandal involving the Biden family's ties to Chinese financial transactions, etc., etc., etc. Yet, the prime article today by Politico and Nancy Scoba was, INCREDIBLY, about Cuba!!!!! Just for the record, below are the first four paragraphs of this AMAZING article:
"On Inauguration Day, President-elect Joe Biden will inherit the United States' fraught relations with Cuba, one with technology at the center of it.
"And whatever Biden does next vis-a-vis Cuba -- he said in September he'd try to 'reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families' -- has big implications not only for that island nation's 11 million people but all the U. S. tech industry.
"Cuba, though, didn't exactly spend the Trump era waiting on the U. S. Pushed in part by its younger generations' hunger to get connected, the country has made a giant leap in recent years when it comes to getting wired. It has rolled out 3G access and hundreds of Wi-Fi hotspots. Internet access in Cuba was near the single digits when Obama took office. Now, per the World Bank, it's in the neighborhood of 60 percent -- still low for the region, but far beyond where it once was.
"Also not waiting to see how U.S. policy to Cuba played out: China. Beijing has jumped into the market with both feet, saturating the island with low-cost telecommunications equipment."
I suggest you dial up the rest of that long and AMAZING article today. I find it not only interesting but truly AMAZING because rarely does the mainstream U. S. media even mention Cuba, surely not on a hot news Friday in Washington. That's because in the United States since 1959 the only voices regarding the recapture of Cuba that are generally allowed are those of only the fiercest Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Miami's Little Havana sector and in the U. S. Congress. In other words, as far as the U. S. government and the mainstream U. S. media are concerned, Cubans in Cuba have absolutely no OPINIONS about whether or not hostile and greedy foreign entities should control them and their island nation.
But, yes, Cubans in Cuba in December of 2020 not only have opinions but they also have their own Smart Phones or access to the them, meaning they are now ubiquitous users of Social Media and the rest of the Internet to express their opinions.
Well-educated and well-informed Cubans on the island now ubiquitously use their Smart Phones to interact on Social Media and to search the Internet to learn about what is happening in the world. And their opinions matter, contrary to what the U. S. government and the U. S. mainstream media want everyone to believe.
It's only in the United States, the world's richest and strongest Democracy, that only the leaders of Little Havana rule the roost when it comes to the Cuban narrative. That's why, I believe, that the victorious Cuban Revolution since 1959 has said more about the superpower United States than it has said about the island of Cuba itself.
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