Screwing Cuba Screws the U.S. in Latin America

Updated: Friday, August 23, 2013

        ABC News {abcnews.go.com} on August 7th, 2013 used the above photo of Cuban right-hander Vladimir Garcia to illustrate an investigative report entitled: "U. S. Screws Cuba's International Baseball Plans." It is one of the almost-daily major headlines that demonstrates to the world America's unending self-inflicted wound for doggedly, since 1959, following a cruel and asinine policy that greatly harms millions of innocent Cubans on the island, ALL IN THE GUISE OF HURTING THE NOW 87-YEAR-OLD FIDEL CASTRO WHOM THE U. S. HAS SIMPLY BEEN UNABLE TO ASSASSINATE OR OVERTHREW DESPITE NUMEROUS ATTEMPTS FOR GOING ON SIX DECADES NOW. Programmed, propagandized Americans are supposed to accept this, and largely they have. But the rest of the world, especially the Caribbean and Latin America, is not so gullible, ignorant, or intimidated. Thus the rest of the world views the U. S. vendetta against Castro in this light: The U.S. BULLYING CUBA TO APPEASE REVENGEFUL CUBAN EXILES. 

The ABC News report is an illustration:

        ABC News reported that Kim Ng {above} is among the latest to join the mammoth cottage industry nefariously benefiting from America's bullying Cuban policy. She graduated from the University of Chicago and joined the front office of the Chicago White Sox. In 1997 the Yankees hired her as their Assistant General Manager. In 2001 she became the Assistant General Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The ambitious Ng interviewed for vacant General Manager positions with the Dodgers, Mariners, and Padres but failed to be hired for the jobs. She thus left Los Angeles for New York in 2010 to take her current position as Major Leauge Baseball's Vice President for Operations.

         Although Major League baseball has a myriad of problems, such as illegal drugs, VP Kim Ng seems more concerned with using her position to safely and conveniently hurt Cuba. Thus she was the focus of the ABC News report about "screwing Cuba's international baseball plans." You see, back in 1949 baseball-mad Cuba founded the Caribbean Series, an annual competition between the league champions in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela. Cuba won 7 of the first 12 events but in 1961 Cuba ceased participation because Fidel Castro despised Rafael Trujillo, the murderous U. S. - backed dictator of the Dominican Republic. However, the other members in the Caribbean Series recently persuaded Cuba to resume its participation and then exuberantly announced that Cuba's acceptance was "a truly historic moment!" That's when Kim Ng stepped in. She fired off a callous letter to Juan Puello, the head of "La Serie del Caribe" as it is known in Spanish, warning him to remove Cuba from the 2014 Caribbean Series. She said if he did not do so the U. S. would prevent its multitude of Latin players from participating, thus negating fan interest in the event. In 2013 Major League baseball has under lucrative contracts more Latin superstars than American superstars, so Kim Ng holds a strong, if cowardly, hand.

The Caribbean Baseball Series currently consists of four strong teams from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. The addition of Cuba, of course, would broaden and improve the competition. However, the U. S., to punish Cuba, also routinely bullies and punishes other nations that interact positively with Cuba. The Caribbean Series is an example of hurting everyone else to appease a few self-serving, tendentious Cuban exiles. It's been America's policy since 1959!

        Thus Juan Puello {above} joins a long list of innocent people indulging in innocent pursuits who are forced to suffer because of a U. S. Cuban policy designed solely to sate the profitable and revengeful appetites of a handful of Cuban exiles. Juan was told by Kim Ng of MLB that his invitation for Cuba to return to the Caribbean Series that Cuba founded must be rescinded or else the U. S. will not permit its many American-contracted players to participate. Americans, unconcerned with how this makes the U. S. appear to the world and unmindful of how many innocent people suffer, also profess to be unaware of how the world, especially Latin America, views its self-inflicted wound also known as the U. S. Cuban policy.

       Speaking of baseball, this photo circled around the globe multiple times on August 20th, 2013. Chris Lane -- from Melbourne, Australia -- received a baseball scholarship to attend East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. He and his American girlfriend recently returned from visiting his parents in Melbourne. Yesterday he was with his girlfriend in Duncan, Oklahoma -- 85 miles from Ada. Then he went jogging. 

Now the world knows that Chris Lane didn't survive that jog. He was shot in the back and died.

      Two Duncan teenagers were arrested and charged with the murder of Chris Lane. The police say one of the teens said they were "bored" and shot Chris Lane in the back "for the fun of it." A Facebook video is going viral around the world; it depicts one of the teens flashing gang signs and curse words as well as, most poignantly, a telescopic rifle. The murder is an image of America that is all too common.

Chris Lane and his girlfriend Sarah Harper had just returned to Oklahoma after visiting Australia.

Sarah told London's The Guardian, "Chris's loss is unbearable."

Chris Lane's parents, and the Australian continent, will forever mourn their baseball star.

      This is one of the remembrances of Chris Lane. A leading Australian politician as well as at least two Australian newspapers are asking for a boycott of U. S. tourism because "of rampant crime in gun-happy America." Perhaps America should address that problem, using some of the time and resources it devotes to, as ABC News referenced, "screwing" Cuba, which happens to have a reputation as a safe country.

Chris Lane. R.I.P. 

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Innocent Cubans Suffer from Miami's Hypocrisy and Crime

{Updated for Sunday, August 11th, 2013}

     The above AP/Ramon Espinosa photo was taken Friday, August 9th, 2013. It shows 43-year-old New Yorker Conner Gorry, a U. S. citizen, in Havana enjoying a cigar as she promotes Cuba Libro, an English-language bookstore-cafe that she co-owns. Ms. Gorry is a journalist who has lived in Cuba since 2002 and, uh, she sorta likes the island and its people. This photo, I believe, reveals an image of Cuba that Americans are not supposed to see, partly illustrating why a few Cuban-exile extremists continually mandate that Cuba is the one place in the world that Americans cannot freely visit. That makes it easier for them to self-servingly dictate Cuba's image to Americans. This has been going on since 1959 for sordid economic, political, and revengeful reasons. 

      Thursday night {August 8-2013} CNN {photo: image.com} had an in-depth report on two Miami families mourning the police-induced deaths of two young men. A tazed, subdued skate-boarding teenager was killed as police officers reportedly indulged in celebratory dancing. Another young man died in his car after Miami police fired more than 100 shots at it as it was apparently stopped harmlessly in a busy Miami street.

       If anything remotely resembling what CNN said happened in Miami ever happened in Havana, the anti-Castro Cuban-American zealots in the U. S. Congress probably would have flown Cuban dissident Yoani Sanchez back to Washington so she could enlighten Americans about what a terrible place CUBA is! Meanwhile, don't expect them to comment on problems in places like Miami (Florida) or Union City (NJ)!

        Of course, Senator Rubio from Miami and Senator Menendez from Union City appear to be a lot more concerned with fomenting Cuban-exile problems in Cuba than in trying to solve the myriad of problems in their American cities or in America as a whole. That's just one tangible aftermath of the Cuban Revolution.

       The Cuban Revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista/Mafia dictatorship in Cuba in January of 1959 changed Cuba forever. It changed America even more. In particular it reshaped the U. S. democracy.

Yet, since January of 1959 Havana has steadfastly remained the capital of Cuba.

      But in the 1950s incredible amounts of ill-gotten money left the Batista-Mafia dictatorship. No less than three Latin American magazines in the mid-1950s reported that the top 21 people in Batista's Cuba had EACH stashed in excess of $1 million in Swiss banks. The leading Mafia thugs in Cuba maintained residences and business connections in Miami, Tampa, and Union City, NJ. Thus, it is presumed more loot was sent from Cuba to banks in those cities than to banks in Switzerland. Life Magazine in 1958 said in the above photo Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky was leaving one of his giddy gambling casino/hotels in Havana with a satchel containing one night's take from one casino -- approximately $200,000 in 1950s dollars!

For decades such loot has overwhelmed Miami and Washington!

 So...since 1959...welcome to the capital of Miami:

It's officially known as Little Havana, USA, in Miami.

       In addition to the two police-induced killings highlighted this week by CNN, the FBI this week arrested two Miami area mayors; Major League Baseball was forced to suspend 14 players this week because all 14 were tied to illegal drugs obtained from an infamous clinic in Miami; the University of Miami is reeling from a scandal involving alleged payments to athletes; USA Today has used countless pages explaining how Miami is at the "epi-center" for the illegal distribution of prescription drugs; USA Today has used many other pages to detail how Miami leads the world in Medicare fraud; the Miami Herald and other newspapers in Miami had to fire some of its journalists when it was revealed that the George W. Bush administration was paying them tax-dollars to write anti-Castro articles; the most respected man on the Miami-Dade County School Board voted to ban a little children's book about Cuba and just before he died revealed he had shamefully done so only because he feared he or his family would have been bombed if he had not done so; one of the Miami area's most respected business-women had her business recently bombed out of existence apparently because she very legally booked flights to Cuba and she is still waiting for someone to seriously investigate the crime; today the most infamous anti-Castro zealot who admitted bombing hotels in Havana and is allegedly the catalyst in the bombing of a Cuban civilian plane killing 73 on board is a heralded citizen of Little Havana; the Cuban-American who was the top newsman in Miami criticized terrorist acts against innocent Cubans and then he was car-bombed; the Cuban-American who was a threat to lead the exiles in Miami died in a car-bomb blast at his home; etc., etc., etc. And this has been going on since 1959 almost unabated with amazingly little criticism in a democracy. Once Vice President George H. W. Bush -- closely tied throughout the years to Miami's most infamous anti-Castro extremists -- was dispatched to Miami by President Reagan to try to lessen the outrageous impact of Miami's rampant cocaine wars, a gruesome episode depicted in the documentary "Cocaine Cowboys."

President Reagan reportedly told VP Bush, "My wife keeps me awake at night raging about Miami!"

      Carl Hiassen was born in Florida in 1953. He attended the University of Florida. He became a journalist for the Miami Herald at age 23. Today he is a very popular columnist at the Herald and one of America's top authors with myriad best-sellers under his belt. Renowned for his humor, Hiassen has also made a nice living -- via his columns and books -- writing about Miami's uniqueness when it comes to corruption.

        Edna Buchanan is in her 70s now and still perhaps America's best crime novelist. Her book "Miami, It's Murder" won the Edgar Award in 1995 and back in 1986 she won the Puliltzer Prize because of her continuous coverage of Miami's crime and corruption. Ms. Buchanan initially gained national acclaim with her Miami Herald and Associated Press articles about Miami's seemingly endless string of murders and terrorist activities, many featuring bomb attacks by Cuban exiles trained in such tactics at the infamous School of the Americas located at Fort Benning, Georgia, where the U. S. for decades had secretly trained and then armed selected militants who then returned to their native countries, like Batista's Cuba, to support U.-S.-backed dictatorships. Ms. Buchanan in the "Cocaine Cowboys" documentary pointed back at the Miami skyline and explained that much of it resulted from drug money. The documentary "DECLASSIFIED: The Godfathers of Havana" showed black-and-white video of (1) huge ships docked in Havana and loaded with drugs in Batista's Cuba destined for Miami; and (2) leaders of the Batista dictatorship heading to their getaway airplanes and ships in the wee hours of January 1, 1959, to escape the victorious Cuban Revolution. As Carl Hiassen and Edna Buchanan, along with many others, have documented, the leaders and loot from 1950s Cuba found a home in Miami first and Washington later, changing and overwhelming the nearby island, Florida, and the United States forever and ever. Amen.

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The Tax-Dollar Pipeline to Cuban Exiles

Invented by the Bush Dynasty But it Still Churns

This very expensive anti-Castro-propaganda airplane flies around Cuba every day!!

Fidel Castro knows all about it.

Perhaps U. S. taxpayers should too.

   Jeffrey Kofman {above} is the top investigative reporter for ABC-TV. His Twitter @JeffreyKofman account describes him as: "ABC News Correspondent based in London and roaming the world." One of his roams took him to Miami where his award-winning report entitled "Newscast to Nowhere" on June 11, 2003, should have been read by every tax-paying American. If you missed it, you can google it at "ABC-TV's Newscast to Nowhere" and then read it as you weep about the Bush-designed bundles of dollars that have flowed since the 1980s to the Bush-aligned Cuban exile zealots. The opening words of Kofman's report are: "It's the newscast to nowhere, courtesy of the U. S. taxpayers. Fifty-five reporters, editors and producers -- all U. S. government employers -- work seven days a week in a television newsroom in Miami. Each day they earnestly assemble, record and broadcast 4 1/2 hours of news and information programming in Spanish. And no one sees it. The intended audience is the people of Cuba." Kofman described a microcosm of a flawed Cuban policy.

        Jeffrey Kofman was merely informing the American people of the "hundreds of millions" of dollars flowing from the U. S. Treasury to the infamous anti-Castro propaganda operation in Miami known as Radio-TV Marti. Many tenacious journalists have repeatedly pointed out that the broadcasts are easily blocked by the Cuban government and, even if they got through to the island, they would be ignored or laughed at as poorly produced, utterly biased anti-Cuban propaganda...like profligacy yielding to self-ordained piety.

      Radio Marti went on the air in 1983 when the Reagan-Bush administration anointed Jorge Mas Canosa as the leader of the most vehement anti-Castro exiles. TV Marti was added in 1990 during the Bush administration. Not surprisingly, the Miami Herald began writing about "self-made Cuban exiles on the way to becoming multi-millionaires!" Did "self-made" include money from Batista's Cuba and Bush's Washington?

         With friends like CIA Director-then-Vice President-and-then-President George H. W. Bush, the wonder is that many more Cuban exiles didn't become "multi-millionaires" or billionaires. Self-made, of course!

         When the Bush dynasty went on to include two-term President George W. Bush and two-term Florida governor Jeb Bush, the Washington-to-Miami pipeline of tax dollars continued and even expanded!

     Marie Cocco is surely one of America's all-time best and most respected nationally syndicated columnists. One of her most famous columns was entitled "Take It Anyway." Perhaps you should google it and read it as you weep. Ms. Cocco explained that President George W. Bush called Cuban exiles in Miami to advise them of another pipeline of tax dollars headed their way. Perhaps because they were still dissecting the previous bundle, they told the President to hold off...that they didn't need or want the tax dollars right then. President Bush, according to Marie Cocco, replied, "Take it anyway." It gave Ms. Cocco her headline for the column but although it was nationally syndicated and otherwise garnered considerable exposure it didn't impact with the U. S. taxpayers. After all, Americans have been programmed since 1959 not to question any absurdity when it comes to Cuba. "Take it anyway." WHY NOT? It wasn't money from the Bush fortune; it was just money from the taxpayers that, possibly, could have been pipe-lined to more deserving and more worthy causes -- like, food stamps. {Marie Cocco's column is syndicated two times each week by the Washington Post Writers Group; her email is mariecocco@washpost.com. If you care where your tax dollars go, you might want to grasp her columns}

Now back to that airplane {above} flying uselessly around Cuba each day gobbling up YOUR tax dollars!

         On July 28th, 2013, Foreign Policy Magazine and the major www.foreignpolicy.com Website used the above airplane-Castro photo to lead into a huge article by John Hudson pointing out the incredible waste of tax dollars on counter-productive programs merely to appease the most visceral Cuban-exile hardliners such as Havana-born U. S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and U. S. Senator Robert Menendez. Sunday's encapsulating John Hudson article begins with these words: "It's difficult to find a more wasteful government program. For the last six years, the U. S. government has spent more than $24 million to fly a plane around Cuba and beam American-sponsored TV programming to the island's inhabitants. But every day the plane flies, the government in Havana jams its broadcast signal. Few, if any, Cubans can see the programs. The {TV Marti} program is run by the U. S. Broadcasting Board of Governors and for the last two years it has asked Congress to scrap the program citing its exorbitant expense and dubious cost-effectiveness. 'The signal is heavily jammed by the Cuban government, significantly limiting this platform's reach and impact on the island,' reads the administration's fiscal year 2014 budget request. But each year hard-line anti-Castro members of Congress have rejected the recommendation and renewed funding the program." 

      Sunday's perceptive John Hudson article specifically mentioned Havana-born Representative Ros-Lehtinen {safely entrenched in the U. S. Congress from Miami since 1989 when Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager} and Senator Menendez {safely entrenched in the U. S. Senate from Union City, NJ} -- both anti-Castro zealots -- as the "staunchest supporters" of the expensive-but-useless airplane-flying-around-Cuba debacle, with Senator Marco Rubio -- yet another U. S. Senator, Bush-anointed anti-Castro prodigy from Miami -- backing them up. In other words, instead of recusing themselves when it comes to Cuban decisions in which they may be biased or otherwise conflicted, since their many ordainments from the Bush dynasty only a handful of the most visceral anti-Castro Cuban exiles have been allowed to make the self-serving U. S. decisions/laws regarding Cuba. The non-conflicted majority is left out of the process.

Here are details of that very expensive Marti airplane.

It uselessly gobbles up your tax dollars daily!

Just to appease revenge and economic motives of Cuban exiles!!

      John Hudson's Sunday article quoted Arizona's U. S. Senator Jeff Flake {above} as saying: "It's hard to believe we are still wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on beaming a jammed signal." But Senator Flake, a Republican, well knows that nothing is hard to believe when it comes to a U. S. Cuban policy controlled by a handful of only the most zealous anti-Castro Cuban exiles. Presumably, if Senator Flake and others like him had a serious conflict of interest on a given issue they would...uh...recuse themselves from voting or participating in decisions relating to such issues. But such sensible governmental rules have not applied to Cuban exiles still chafing over the ouster {Havana to Miami and then Washington} of the Batista/Mafia dictatorship in Cuba way, way back in 1959. It appears Senator Flake and all other non-benefactors agree with that assessment but since 1959 the majority in the U. S. democracy have been excluded when it comes to the plethora of lucrative, revengeful policies that epitomize America's Cuban quagmire. 

    And with a citizenry not too concerned with either its democracy or how its tax dollars are spent, the American policy regarding Cuba will continue to be dictated by a few revengeful anti-Castro Cuban-Americans born in or descended from...Havana! Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the U. S. democracy, when it comes to Cuba, has pretended that the world "recuse" does not exist. But it should!

recuse: verb -- to excuse oneself  because of a conflict of interest or lack of impartiality.
That used to be a rule in the U. S. Congress...till it got over-ruled by Cuban-exile sycophants!

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Week-end Photos of Fidel Castro at Home

These photos were taken Saturday, July 27th, 2013.

This one shows Fidel Castro in his home discussing photos with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

       This photo shows Fidel checking out a book that President Maduro gave him. Fidel is standing but note that he appears to be gripping Maduro's right arm for support. He appears to be very tired and weak.

This photo shows Fidel admiring a painting that President Maduro had given him.

In this photo Fidel is reading the newspaper as President Maduro watches and listens.
Fidel Castro turns 87-years-old on August 13th.

      This photo -- taken by Marco Ugarte for the Associated Press on Saturday, July 27th, 2013 -- shows pro-Castro Mexicans protesting at the U. S. embassy in Mexico City as they celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Moncada attack against the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba. Presumably, poor Latin Americans will remember Fidel Castro for decades to come when his legacy might prompt even more protests.

This REUTERS/Desmond Boyland photo captures the Cuban sunset on July 28th, 2013.

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Fidel Castro's 35-Minute Audio Interview in 1959

      In 1959, shortly after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Clark Galloway conducted the above 35-minute audio interview with Fidel Castro for U.S. News & World Report. Galloway's grand-daughter recently discovered the audio tape. It makes for an incredibly insightful peek into Fidel's thinking at that crucial time, revealing his anti-Communists views, his desire for friendly trade with the U. S., his acceptance of the U. S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, his extreme hatred of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, etc. You can hear excerpts from that interview but the complete transcript in English and Spanish is even more titillating. 

The audio excerpts and the complete transcript can be accessed at:

http://blankonblank.org/we-content/uploads/2013/07/clark-galloway-interviewing-Fidel-Castro.
{Or just google: "Fidel Castro talks about Cuban Revolution in Lost Interview}

       Clark Galloway's grand-daughter Laura found the audio tape in a box marked "Galloway/Castro." The exquisitely fascinating 35-minute interview captured Fidel Castro expressing his feelings and plans just days after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. Galloway had a distinguished career as a Colonel in the U. S. Army and then he became a Latin American expert as a star journalist for the Associated Press and U. S. News & World Report. The tape was the first time Laura had ever heard her grand-dad's voice. He died at age 63 on January 1, 1961. He solicited from Fidel such comments as: "If this revolution falls, what we will have here in Cuba is a hell. Hell itself!" But the young rebel's comments expressing his expectations of a friendly relationship with the United States, I believe, highlighted the long interview, which preceded a cascade of assassination attempts, terrorist attacks, and the April-1961 military assault at the Bay of Pigs -- all of which soon sharply and permanently altered Fidel's U. S. thoughts.

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An Emotional Day for Fidel Castro

The 26th of July was a very meaningful day in Cuba.

         And Friday, July 26th, 2013 was an exceedingly emotional day for Fidel Castro. It's the 60th anniversary of the audacious attack on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba. The ill-fated operation was easily defeated by the much stronger forces of dictator Fulgencio Batista but the effort and the date resulted in the name Fidel attached to his revolution that over-threw the Batista regime five-and-one-half years later. To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the attack, at least eight Presidents of Latin American and Caribbean countries visited Havana to reminisce with Fidel.

     An old warrior named Jose Mujica particularly made Moncada's 60th anniversary very emotional for Fidel. The 78-year-old Mujica has been the democratically elected President of Uruguay since 2010. As a rebel and as a politician -- not unlike current democratically elected Presidents in Brazil, Panama, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, etc. -- Mujica's inspiration was spawned by the Cuban Revolution. With Fidel Castro his idol, Mujica joined the Tupamaros movement in 1960 to try to overthrow a foreign-backed military dictatorship in Uruguay. He was captured four times, once after being shot six times. He had served 14 years in a military prison when he was released in 1985 when Uruguay got a constitutional democracy. Jose's political career then took off thanks to his insatiable support of poor people. Today President Mujica gets a salary of $12,000 a month but he has famously always given at least 90% of his income to the poorest people in Uruguay. He and his wife Lucia...she, too, was a guerrilla fighter who still worships Fidel Castro...own an austere little farm on the outskirts of Montevideo where they raise and sell flowers, an income they also give away to poor people. Their only vehicle is a 15-year-old Volkswagen Beetle. He famously proclaims: "All elected officials should be poor like me, not rich parasites."

In Havana President Jose Mujica of Uruguay this week toasted the Cuban people.

And President Mujica placed flowers at the Jose Marti Memorial.

But President Mujica made it known that his trip was primarily to visit his idol, Fidel Castro.

       President Mujica said he was "delighted to find my dearest friend in such good health after all he has endured." He said, "I found an elderly man who continues to be brilliant, always a promoter of ideas that benefit poor people." He revealed that he and Fidel discussed "wide-ranging topics, everything." President Mujica congratulated Fidel on the 60th anniversary of the Moncada attack and wished him "a happy 87th birthday." As they parted, he said, "I am the elected President of Uruguay because of you and you should know there will be others like me. Poor people needed you and they surely need people like me that you inspired."

       Lucia Topolansky, the wife of Jose Mujica and the First Lady of Uruguay, accompanied her husband on the trip to Cuba and also met her idol Fidel Castro. Lucia, like Mujica, was a guerrilla fighter inspired by the Cuban Revolution back in the 1960s and 1970s. And like Mujica, she still shuns opulence and gives almost all of her worldly possessions to poor people. "That's how we honor Fidel in Uruguay," she said proudly.

Fidel Castro turns 87-years-old in a few days, on August 13th.

Unabashedly and unapologetically he has defied more odds than perhaps any other historic figure.
The perception that he championed poor people has inspired others.
Including...Jose Mujica and Lucia Topolansky.
And Speaking of July 26th.......

      Celia Sanchez, Fidel's all-time most important ally, would be proud he is still around to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Moncada attack. It was Celia Sanchez who proclaimed way back in 1959: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." She died of cancer at age 59 on January 11, 1980. But...he still lives. And therefore, against all odds, so does her proclamation.

Celia Sanchez kept the revolution alive the two years Fidel was imprisoned after the Moncada attack.

      And beginning in December of 1956 when he joined her fight in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, Fidel was smart enough to let Celia Sanchez be the prime decision-maker for the rest of the revolutionary war and then in Revolutionary Cuba. That's why renowned Cuban historian Pedro Alvarez Tabio was correct when he concluded: "If Batista had managed to kill Celia Sanchez anytime between 1953 and 1957, there would have been no viable Cuban Revolution, and no revolution for Fidel and Che to join." And Cuban photographer/author Roberto Salas was correct when he concluded: "Celia made all the decisions for Cuba, the big ones and the small ones. When she died of cancer in 1980, we all knew no one could ever replace her." 

Fidel Castro agrees with both conclusions.

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