Yesterday -- Monday, July 4th, 2022 -- Democracy-lovers like me celebrated the 246th year of the United States democracy. Billions of people around the world...whether or not they were allowed to admit it...probably agree that it has been the greatest government in the entire history of the world.
In the past two-and-a-half centuries the fifty states that comprise the United States had long-ago enjoyed a democracy that emerged as the richest and strongest nation in the history of the world. Incredibly, the richest and strongest nation in the world was also considered the best and most decent nation in the world.
But in July of 2022 question marks emerge.
In the United States in July of 2022 there are a multitude of mammoth problems...a huge number of unpopular politicians safely control high offices only because the U. S. political system revolves around mass amounts of political donation money; overwhelming chaos on the southern border with Mexico runs rampant; overwhelming and seemingly uncontrollable crime inundates and roils U. S. cities; the U. S. seems to have evolved into a political and media situation that serves the 10% of extreme left-wingers and the 10% of extreme right-wingers while ignoring the needs and opinions of the 80% of more decent middle-of-the-road Americans; dangerous and uncontrollable divisions pitting the extreme left-wingers vs. the extreme right-wingers while the rest of the majority population of 330 million citizens seem to be entirely left out in the cold; etc., etc., etc.
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In 1492 Spanish explorer Columbus discovered both Cuba and the United States...and virtually since then the U. S. relations with Cuba have done, perhaps, more than anything else to shape and color images of the U. S. democracy. Thomas Jefferson and other U. S. leaders dating back to the 1700s craved U. S. domination of Cuba. But Spain was the imperative power that most dominated the island until 1898 when the U. S. used the bombing of the US Maine warship in Havana Harbor to launch the easy Spanish-American War in Cuba, drastically changing who dominated Cuba. After 1898 those who anticipated a GREAT DEMOCRACY in Cuba have been rudely surprised. By 1903 the U. S. had ruled Cuba militarily and, uh, took perpetual control of the lush Guantanamo Bay that to this day is home to an unwanted and controversial U. S. military base and prison. But, incredibly, 1952 turned out to be, perhaps, the all-time most undemocratic year involving the U. S. domination of Cuba: IN 1952 THE U. S. TEAMED WITH THE MAFIA TO SUPPORT THE BRUTAL AND THIEVING BATISTA DICTATORSHIP SO RICH U. S. BUSINESSMEN COULD PARTAKE IN THE WHOLESALE RAPE AND ROBBERY OF CUBA, the Caribbean's largest and most beautiful island nation!!
On January 1st, 1959 the Cuban Revolution shocked the world {and history} by overthrowing the powerful Batista dictatorship that had been supported by the Mafia, the most powerful criminal organization in the world; and by the United States, the most powerful nation in the world. Since January 1, 1959...incredibly...massive measures and attempts to destroy Revolutionary Cuba and regain control of the pugnacious island have yet to be consummated!! Yet, in the past 60+ years politically correct U. S. Cubans have grown ultra-rich and ultra-powerful...mostly the ones in Miami and Newark. Meanwhile, since January 1 of 1959 Americans have been successively told that all the good Cubans were in the U. S. while all the bad Cubans were still on the island, justifying U. S. efforts to starve Cubans in Cuba to induce them to overthrow their Revolutionary government! In a Caribbean nutshell, that is where U.S.-Cuban Relations are in July of 2022.
In this first full week of July-2022, the headline shown above helps explain, perhaps, the major weakness of the U. S. democracy...namely, the U. S. media. The massive article headlined above comes on a day this first week in July-2022 when there are a plethora of non-Cuba stories that direly concern the daily issues that Americans are facing. But, of course...as usual...the U. S. media devotes abundant space in shaming and defaming Cubans in Cuba. Above, as you can see, the first paragraph says: "'When we go to sleep, it is with the fear of not waking up again,' says Elisa Bacyan, a resident in one of about 700 apartment buildings deemed unsafe in the Cuban capital, where collapses are frequent." As this headline/article reveals, the U. S. media loves to report drastic problems for Cubans in Cuba BUT IT FAILS TO REPORT THAT A SIX-DECADE GENOCIDAL U. S. EMBARGO/BLOCKADE OF THE ISLAND IS LARGELY TO BLAME. For example, if the superpower U. S. had treated Canada and Mexico -- the massive U. S. trading partners -- the way it has treated Cuba for more than six decades -- there would also be frequent collapsing buildings in Canadian and Mexican cities too!!
For sure...tropical rains, storms, hurricanes, and other calamities often assault Cuba's capital city of Havana -- not to mention disasters such as the COVID-19 Pandemic!!!! But in July of 2022 most of the everyday Cubans most dread the U. S. blockade of the island. And if the U. S. media was an unbiased source...as it once was...honest reports regarding Cuba would again be welcomed by America's democracy-lovers. Cuba is America's neighbor but, unwittingly, it also says much more about the United States than it should say. Mostly, Cuba and the United should be NEIGHBORS.
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