Obama Wavers On Cuba

He Feels Pressure From Zealots
Sunday, September 6th, 2015

        On July 1st of this year President Barack Obama made the above statement at a news conference in Washington. It was a continuation of his breakthrough announcement on December 17, 2014, that he planned to normalize relations with Cuba. Since then, incredibly, the U. S. and Cuba have functioning embassies in their two capitals for the first time since 1961, the year of the Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba and the year an unending series of other attempts to regain control of Cuba commenced. In his historic efforts since December 17th, President Obama has shown more guts and more decency in regards to Cuba than was displayed by any of his ten presidential predecessors. Since 1963, or since the last days of the John F. Kennedy administration, all Democratic presidents -- Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama -- have tried to curb the animosity towards Cuba and get on the path to normalization with the neighboring island. But Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton...after making decisions toward normalization...were all blocked off or scared off by the visceral minority that, since the 1950s, has insisted on dictating an atrocious Cuban policy that, in the eyes of the world and especially North America, shames the U. S. and democracy. That is what Mr. Obama was alluding to in the above quotation about beginning "a new chapter with our neighbors in the Americas." You see, President Obama cares about America's image. However, a minority of Cuban-Americans and their self-serving sycophants, such as the endless Bush dynasty, could care less. And, unfortunately, it appears the same forces that scared off Presidents Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton are now beginning to have the same effect on the brave and decent President Obama. I'll explain.

        The U. S. has within its legislative arsenal something called "The Trading With The Enemy Act" that dates back to 1917 and then, in 1963, was expanded to more severely punish unfriendly nations by banning trade with them. By the 1980s the Bush dynasty had anointed anti-Castro zealot Jorge Mas Canosa as the leader of the most vicious wing of the Cuban exiles still seeking to counter the Cuban Revolution, which had chased most of them to Miami in 1959. Canosa was advised to replicate the omnipotent Israeli lobby, AIPAC. Thus, Canosa created The Cuban American National Foundation. It's omnipotence soon rivaled AIPAC, especially when it came to total dominance of the U. S. Congress on all things related to Cuba. Canosa found no problem securing whatever support he needed in Congress...from the likes of Robert Torricelli, Jesse Helms, Dan Burton, etc. What resulted was an incredible array of U. S. laws such as The Torricelli Bill, The Helms-Burton Act, Wet Foot/Dry Foot, The Cuban Democracy Act, The Cuban Adjustment Bill, etc. By whatever name, such laws were designed to drastically enrich and empower a few anti-Castro zealots while also supporting an endless array of regime-change programs, all of which were supported by tax-payers who were/are too ignorant, too intimidated, or two unpatriotic to object. Along the way, the anti-Castro zealots leaped on The Trading With The Enemy Act as an additional way to punish Cuba and empower themselves. To do that, it was a simple matter of putting and keeping Cuba on that designation along with putting and keeping Cuba on the State Department's Sponsors of Terrorism list. With exceptional bravery, President Obama removed Cuba from that Terrorism designation prior to the opening of embassies in Havana and Washington this summer. However, that only angered the anti-Castro zealots more than ever, making them determined that Obama, in the closing months of his two-term presidency, doesn't remove Cuba from The Trading With The Enemy list. Study the above graphic and the one below.

         The reason it is so important to the anti-Castro zealots to keep Cuba on the Trading With The Enemies list is obvious: That designation enables the U. S. to maintain its incredibly long list of sanctions against Cuba even as, for the first time since 1961, the two nations have reopened embassies in the two capital cities. On the above graphic, dated Jan. 10-2012, you can see Cuba listed along with Burma {which is now Myanmar}, Iran, Sudan, Syria, "etc." The "etc" is important because a fairly intelligent American might consider a long list of countries -- Russia, China, etc. -- as enemies, competitors, or threats. BUT NOT CUBA! Cuba is not an enemy, Cuba is not a competitor, and Cuba is not a threat to the United States! But Cuba's uniqueness since the 1950s is two-fold: {1} In 1959 it became the only nation in history to overthrow a U.S.-backed dictatorship; and {2} it marks the only time in U. S. history that an overthrown U.S.-backed dictatorship was allowed to reconstitute itself on U. S. soil complete with the support of the U. S. government in trying to regain control of the island. The fact that those attempts, now decades old, have failed does not diminish the fact that dozens of expensive regime-change programs remain active and dozens of U. S. laws, such as Trading With The Enemy, continue as tools designed to demolish Revolutionary Cuba so as to, presumably, at long last allow a handful of a second generation of anti-Castro zealots to regain control of the island, which, of course, would then once again be "U.S.-friendly," just as the brutal, thieving Batista-Mafia regime was.

        The Trading With The Enemy stumbling block appears to be the tool that anti-Castro zealots will use to trip up President Obama's much-heralded detente with Cuba. Even with the opening of embassies and other advancements toward normalization of relations, the U. S. law based on the Trading With The Enemy statue remains as the basis for the embargo and other domineering acts against Cuba. President Obama has just a few more days...till September 14th...to decide whether Cuba should remain on that list. Mr. Obama is a brave and decent man. He, unlike his enemies, is concerned about how, decade after decade, America's salacious Cuban policy has adversely affected the image of the U. S. and democracy in the eyes of the world. Yet, indications are that Mr. Obama has neither the courage nor the decency to remove Cuba from the Trading With The Enemy designation. If he fails to do so between now and September 14th, there are key people in Cuba who have worked positively with him in recent months who will begin to think less and less of the reopened embassies in Havana and Washington. September 14th is very important to them.

Obama at least tried to improve U.S.-Cuban relations.

But in the end, he too will fail.

A few anti-Castro zealots will prevail, as always.

When it comes to Cuba,

3 Miamians can easily over-rule 300 million Americans.

        President Obama, sandwiched helplessly between a rock {Ted Cruz} and a hard place {Marco Rubio}, deserves plaudits for trying to bring sanity and decency to America's Cuban policy. The fact that he will fail is not his fault. It is the fault of the American people who have neither the courage nor the patriotism to support a brave and decent approach to Cuba. So, as the montage above shows, Ted Cruz has reason to chortle and Marco Rubio has reason to smile. Their dictation of a failed and obscene U. S. Cuban policy will continue long after Obama leaves the Oval Office.

         Sarah Stephens is the Founder and Director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas based in Washington, D. C. She is, beyond doubt, one of the five greatest American experts on U.S.-Cuban relations...with the other four, in my opinion, being Wayne S. Smith, Julia E. Sweig, Anne Louise Bardach, and Peter Kornbluh. But because they are America's five best experts on Cuba, don't expect to see them on your favorite U. S. news programs, which cater only to visceral anti-Cuban propagandists such as Nick Castellanos, Ana Navarro, Alan Gomez, Jose Diaz-Balart, Jorge Ramos, etc. Sarah Stephens, on her CDA website, each Friday writes the Cuba Central segment, which is each week's best summation of U.S.-Cuban news. This past Friday, September 4th, one of her most pertinent sentences was: "U. S. policy toward Cuba is often used as a classic definition of insanity." No sane, unbiased person can dispute those words. But thanks, Sarah Stephens, for repeating them.

Photo of the week:

      On Saturday, September 5th, a young Syrian mother and her baby were all smiles in Salzburg, Austria. They were at a train station with permission to travel through Austria and Hungary to reach their destination, Germany. Earlier this week the photo of the 3-year-old Syrian boy whose body had washed ashore went viral around the world, touching hearts. This mother and baby received clothes, food, candy, and toys to make their journey from their war-torn homeland more palatable. Humanity in a war-crazed world is more important than ever. This young mother and her baby, and others like them, received some humanity this weekend. This Associated Press photo was taken by Kerstin Joensson. The baby's joyous smile is precious, heart-warming, and appreciated; and so is the prideful smile of the young mother.

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Businesses vs. Cuban Extremists

Capitalism May Save Cuba

        Akin Gump is America's largest lobby firm. America's capitalist engine, largely fueled by lobbyists, accounts for much of the nation's incomparable economic, military, and political power. Well, Akin Gump has opened a unit to advise companies looking to invest in or expand to Cuba. It reflects the fact that the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, most U. S. companies and businesses, and most Americans want President Obama's positive overtures to Cuba to be expanded to the U. S. Congress where the antagonistic U. S. policy regarding Cuba has been easily codified and dictated by a few Cuban-Americans and easily acquired sycophantic scoundrels. Akin Gump will begin to lobby Congress and seek to ease export restrictions tied to the U. S. embargo...such as telecommunications devices, freedom for all Americans to travel to Cuba, and freedom for ships to travel freely between the two countries.

       Akin Gump has just hired Anya Landau French as a key adviser in its new pro-Cuban unit. She has orchestrated dozens of research and business trips to the island.

     The latest Breaking News concerning Marco Rubio's anti-Cuban rants against anyone advocating sane relations with Cuba finds him in Puerto Rico today -- September 4th -- campaigning for money and support to enhance his presidential bid. Puerto Ricans are U. S. citizens but can't vote in presidential elections but the vast number of Puerto Ricans in two key states -- Florida and New York -- could be influenced by Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico. Rubio's anti-Cuban rants have actually cost him some support in his home area -- Miami's Little Havana. Rubio has spent most of his first-term in the U. S. Senate running for President and begging every right-wing and Jewish billionaire for donations; meanwhile, of the 100 Senators he is #100 for actually being on hand to vote. Mr. Rubio is a veritable money machine. 

       In Puerto Rico today for just $2,700 you can get a photo with Senator Rubio; for a mere $1,000 you can attend a luncheon. Puerto Rico is broke and begging for bankruptcy because it can't pay its debts or provide certain necessary services to its people. Yet...as always...a few rich people in the poorest of places can purchase political influence. That's why the minority rich get richer and the majority poor get poorer in a money-crazed system that Rubio excels in. Fund Raisers should not be more important than championing what's best for the majority of Americans, Cuban-Americans and Puerto Ricans. In the U. S. Congress, governing takes a backseat to constant campaigning for money, as epitomized by presidential aspirant Rubio. 

      Meanwhile, on the island of Cuba this week this Yamil Lage/Getty Images photo was used to illustrate a major article in Granma, Cuba's top newspaper. It shows a teacher working with her kindergarten class as she gets her students tuned to learning the English language. Cuba's prosperity, or at least its survival, is geared to more peaceful relations with the United States, a viewpoint that is a product of two recent developments: {1} President Obama's Herculean efforts to normalize relations with the island, and {2} deteriorating economic and political situations in key pro-Cuban Latin American nations -- including Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, and Argentina. Against all odds, Revolutionary Cuba has survived since January of 1959. It plans to survive a while longer. That's why this week an emphasis on teaching the English language in Cuba is pertinent. "Un buen movimiento?" "A good move?" "Si." "Yes!" 

    This Jamil Lage/Getty Images photo updates what's happening in Cuba. This lady had decorated her bus with an image that highlights the U.S.-Cuban handshake with a reminder, from the fist-waving bearded rebel, that Cuban sovereignty-independence will defiantly survive the emerging detente with its northern superpower neighbor. This lady is an entrepreneur, one of about 400,000 new ones on the island. The famous "$20 a month" dictum is a bit out-dated. Cubans, always resilient, are excited.

 Key West, USA, is ninety miles from Cuba.

 These flags now fly at newly opened embassies.

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Cruelty Of U.S. Cuban Policy

The Innocent Suffer
As The Perpetrators Cash In

        Arnold Diaz was born in 1949 in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Florida State University and then got his Masters in Journalism at Northwestern University. He is an award-winning investigative journalist now winning awards at WPIX-TV in New York City. This week -- on September 1, 2015 -- Mr. Diaz filed a report entitled: "Women Flagged By Treasury Department After Writing 'Cuba' On Check." You should use that data to google the video report. Why? Because it reveals how today and everyday since 1959 totally innocent Americans have suffered from a U. S. Cuban policy dictated by two generations of the remnants of the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship whose leaders, after being ousted by the Cuban Revolution, quickly restructured the dictatorship on U. S. soil in South Florida. The aforementioned report by Arnold Diaz, in addition to the excellent video on PIX11.com, features this exact print report:
            "With all the talk about the United States normalizing relations with Cuba, Claire Martin was excited to see an article in the New York Times Travel section about a Cuban cruise. A Canadian Company was offering Americans a week-long trip to Cuba. Claire, 89, from Riverdale, the Bronx, contacted her friend and traveling companion Nancy Edelstein, who was anxious to go with her on the cruise.
               Nancy sent in the $500 deposit for the two women.
            Claire, who banks electronically with Chase, sent a check to Nancy for half the deposit, $250 dollars. She filled in Nancy's name and address and wrote in 'Cuba' in the memo section as a reminder of what the check was for. She had no idea the problems it would cause.
            The day after sending the check, Claire got a call from Chase asking her why the word Cuba was on the check. Claire explained that it was reimbursement for a deposit on an upcoming trip. She was told that referencing Cuba might be associated with the Cuba Sanction and appears on a designated black list by the U. S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
              A Chase spokesman told Claire 'the funds are in a JP Morgan Chase blocked account and they can't release it because it's been impounded by the Federal Government.'
            Claire and Nancy have to apply for a Treasury Department license to prove they qualify for a Cuba trip. Even though the United States is loosening relations with Cuba, Americans cannot travel there unless they are part of one of 12 categories of authorized activities.
           Claire says she never expected to be put through such an ordeal just to qualify for the cruise to Cuba. She never thought writing the word 'Cuba' in a memo line on a check would trigger a red flag. 'I hate to use the reference big brother is watching,' she said. 'But I think it is very unfair.'"
                 Of course, everything about America's Cuban policy since 1959 has been "unfair" to millions of Americans. It is a policy dictated all these decades by the leading remnants of two generations of the deposed leaders of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba and it is a policy designed to get revenge on Revolutionary Cuba while also greatly enriching and empowering a handful of Cuban-American extremists at the expense of everyone else, including non-extremist Cuban Americans. 

          To read the exact words quoted above, check the WPIX website of New York City's Channel 11. It's where you can also view Arnold Diaz's video report in which the 89-year-old Claire Martin expresses her shock at being traumatized this week -- the first week of September, 2015 -- by a cruel and insane U. S. Cuban policy that dates back to January of 1959, the month the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba was overthrown by the Cuban Revolution, only to have the brutal, thieving Batistianos and Mafiosi flee to the U. S., primarily Miami, where, still with the support of the U. S. government, the equivalent of the Cuba-based Batista-Mafia dictatorship emerged on U. S. soil. Beginning in the early 1960s, efforts to recapture Cuba included numerous assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, the military attack at the Bay of Pigs, etc., etc. By the 1970s, like Havana in the 1950s, Miami had become the world's most violent drug-infested city. And throughout the 1970s an unending series of terrorist acts against innocent Cubans and innocent tourists in Cuban hotels roiled headlines, highlighted by the bombing of the child-laden civilian airplane Cubana Flight 455 in which 73 innocent souls were murdered. When a decent Cuban-American newsman, Emilio Milian, complained about such atrocities, he was car-bombed. By 1989, after tightening its already tight alignment with the Bush dynasty, Miami hardliners began to win seats in the U. S. Congress, soon resulting in vicious pro-Cuban exile and anti-Cuban laws such as The Torricelli Bill and the Helms-Burton Act. Such laws codified extreme discriminatory practices favoring Cuban exiles at the expense of everyone else. All the while, since the 1980s, the U. S. Congress has funded dozens and dozens of lucrative laws that to this day grossly enrich Cuban-Americans while, secondarily, assaulting the island of Cuba with an endless series of "democracy" and "regime change" programs. Along the way, when Jim DeFede, the top columnist at the Miami Herald, famously wrote a column excoriating Cuban-American members of Congress for their unconscionable support of the most well-known Cuban-American terrorists in Miami, DeFede was fired, affecting, like the Milian car-bombing, how intimidated journalists cover Cuban issues. One result is that even middle-of-the-road media outlets such as CNN and USA Today use only vicious anti-Castro "journalists" such as the Miami-based Alan Gomez and Ana Navarro and Havana-born revenge-and-money seekers such as Alex Castellanos as their so-called "Cuban experts," never utilizing the unbiased and far more expert opinions of, for example, the five U. S. journalists-authors -- Wayne S. Smith, Julia E. Sweig, Anne Louise Bardach, Peter Kornbluh, and Sarah Stephens -- who know the most about U.S.-Cuban relations. So, in this first week of September in the year 2015, a top New York City television station -- WPIX -- presented a scintillating report on a totally innocent, 89-year-old woman named Claire Martin being assaulted and traumatized by a U. S. Cuban policy that, since 1959, has been designed to enrich and empower a handful of two generations of Cuban-Americans while harming everyone else. Of course, the last two generations of Americans have not had the guts or the patriotism to complain about such things as the terrorist bombing of a child-laden Cuban airplane, so in September of 2015 don't expect this generation of Americans to complain about the typical mistreatment of Claire Martin this week. 

But........................

        ............Arnold Diaz should be applauded this week for having the integrity and the courage to report on the shame...Shame...SHAME of a shameful U. S. Cuban policy that showered opprobrium, vilification, obloquy, invective, ignominy and vituperation...everything except decency...on 89-year-old Claire Martin of Riverdale, New York. If there were more American journalists such as Emilio Milian, Jim DeFede, and Arnold Diaz, Americans today would not be cowered into refrains such as, "It's terrible when terrorists blow up a civilian airplane loaded with children, except...uh, of course...if its a Cuban plane." I've praised Milian and DeFede for having the guts and decency to report fairly and sanely even if the topic is Cuba. So, I would like to congratulate Arnold Diaz this week for emulating those two great journalists.

Arnold Diaz

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Vidal vs. The Bushes

Is It A Do-Or-Die Proposition?
Updated: Tuesday, September 2nd, 2015

       Because America is the world's undisputed economic and military superpower, the current presidential campaign in the United States concerns everyone. And no one more so than Josefina Vidal. She is Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs. That title aside, she is Cuba's most important person when it comes to Cuba's most important issue -- its relationship with the United States. Ms. Vidal is not only Cuba's prime diplomat on all things American, she is also the island's key decision-maker regarding the United States. Thus, her opinions and appraisals of the ongoing U. S. presidential sweepstakes have talismanic and cataclysmic ramifications, certainly for Cuba and perhaps even for the United States. If that strikes you as being an hyperbolic exaggeration, then I suggest you take time to study Josefina Vidal's astute evaluation of the U. S. presidential race: {1} If a Democrat wins the election, the Obama-directed thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations will continue on positive notes; and {2} if a Republican wins the election, Cuba will consider itself on a war-footing beginning in January of 2017. The vast disparity between those two extremes, the difference between war and peace, is not one that Vidal takes lightly and her views are not ones that should ever be discounted by Americans. A simple but highly significant fact is this: Vidal knows more about U.S.-Cuban relations than any living soul. If that were not so, U. S. and Cuban flags would not now be flying at newly opened embassies in Havana and Washington; and if that were not so, the Miami Cubans in the Little Havana neighborhood and the U. S. Congress would have certainly regained control of Cuba during the two-term George W. Bush presidency {2000-2008} that preceded Mr. Obama {2009-2017}.

       Vidal keeps a close eye on the polls that tally the shifting sands and attitudes related to the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns. She, like all foreign analysts, is astounded that presidential and congressional elections in the U. S. primarily involve so much special interest money that the so-called democratic process is bought-and-paid-for now and into the future by a handful of individuals and corporations. Further, she is astounded that even capitalism gets away with dictating that such campaigns drag on month after month after month, subjecting...actually punishing...Americans with endless streams of political ads and punditry, but Vidal has lived in Washington and realizes that ad agencies, television stations, and other self-serving entities have their paid lobbyists who make sure the money-making aspects of political campaigns are contiguous, with one beginning as soon as the other ends. Vidal also understands why less than half of the Americans eligible to vote actually vote in national elections: Everyone realizes that one vote/one person is becoming meaningless when a few billionaires can so easily predicate the outcome, perpetrating a process whereby the richest 1% overwhelms the 99% that includes the upper-class, the middle-class, and the poor. Having said that, Vidal is stunned by what she is seeing in the polls: At long, long last, it appears that this generation of Americans -- young adults and millennials  -- have finally grown tired of a bought-and-paid-for U. S. Congress and a bought-and-paid-for presidential process.

        Josefina Vidal, Cuba's expert on all things American, expected the 2016 presidential campaign in the U. S. to be a foregone conclusion -- the Democrat Hillary Clinton against the Republican Jeb Bush. That's because the money-crazed electoral process favors dynastic successions because, let's face it, such candidates have had more time to sell their services and policies to the highest bidder, including foreign interests utilizing obscene speaking and consultancy fees. With unlimited donations from Wall Street and other billionaires, Clinton and Bush had the money and the last names needed to wipe out all contenders, right? Well, maybe not. In this first week of September, 2015, polls show that maybe...just maybe...Americans are concerned enough to try to recapture their democracy from dynasties and special interest money. That surprises Americans who might now consider voting. It certainly surprises Josefina Vidal whose interest is even more of a life-and-death proposition: She things if Clinton or any Democrat wins, U.S.-Cuban relations will continue to improve; but if Bush or any Republican wins, she thinks little Cuba will end up in a David-vs.-Goliath war with big America. So, the election might well determine if Americans can reclaim the portions of their democracy stolen by dynasties and special interests. Moreover, it might well determine if the island of Cuba is forced to engage in a war it is not capable of winning. At least, that's the opinion of Josefina Vidal, the Cuban whose job it is to predict such things. Her island depends on her being right.

       One thing Josefina Vidal did not predict is that Donald Trump and Ben Carson, in this first week of September, would have strong leads in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls ahead of Jeb Bush and the other 15 Republican candidates. But the revelation pleases Vidal immensely. She believes the Trump and Carson bandwagons are flourishing because they are perceived as non-politicians, indicating that Americans have grown tired of bought-and-paid-for politicians who cater and answer only to the billionaires who buy them and keep them in office as entrenched incumbents, year after year and decade after decade. Trump is a billionaire businessman who supposedly doesn't need to sell out. Carson is a doctor and, to his advantage, a non-politician. Vidal's reaction to the August 31-Sept. 1 polls: "It's a long process but I hope I continue to be wrong. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the U. S. Declaration of Independence, said that a democracy needs a revolution every 20 years to correct or straighten out imperfections. Perhaps that is what I am seeing in the U. S. now, not a military revolution but an election-cycle revolution."

      To be honest, I thought Vidal was blowing smoke with that reference to Thomas Jefferson, and I was literally born within sight of Mr. Jefferson's Monticello home in Virginia. But, on second thought, I never knew Vidal to blow smoke before so I googled Thomas Jefferson quotes. Sure enough, Vidal was correct. Jefferson made the reference in a long letter to his friend William Stephens Smith dated "Nov.-13-1787."

            Meanwhile, as Josefina Vidal is verily surprised that non-politicians Trump and Carson are leading the polls in the Republican presidential sweepstakes, she is equally as surprised that an elderly socialist Independent Senator running as a Democrat, Bernie Sanders, 73, has mightily narrowed a 60-point deficit down to single digits in his contest against a slumping and equally surprised Hillary Clinton. Vidal gleefully detects "the same general reasons," meaning potential American voters may have finally grown to detest bought-and-paid-for politicians, especially ones of a dynastic nature. Bernie Sanders is an old renegade who has long believed that Wall Street crooks should be in prison "for legally stealing billions of dollars and routinely paying just a pittance in fines, which mocks our democracy each day of the year."

       Josefina Vidal, on her last diplomatic mission to Washington, admitted she was surprised that Elizabeth Warren was "not in the presidential race." So are millions of Americans who have signed petitions begging her to run. Presumably this summer Vidal read this Time Magazine that profoundly asked, "Who's Afraid Of Elizabeth Warren?" Well, all the presidential contenders are afraid of her and so are all of the billionaires, especially the denizens on Wall Street, who are busy buying them up. Warren, a first-term Senator from Massachusetts, turned 66 back in June and she's feisty and robust. Vidal now thinks Warren could win the Democratic bid for the presidency and then probably beat the Republican nominee in November, 2016.

        Elizabeth Warren is a dynamic speaker whose words resonate with the vast majority of Americans even as they blister the ears of the rich, greedy cretins she feels are unfairly afforded the opportunity to "buy democracy as easily as buying another yacht." Please, Ms. Warren! Will you reconsider not running?

        Through all the twists, turns, nuances, trials, tribulations, and machinations of America's convoluted and polluted political system, Cuba's keen observer, Vidal, believes a handful of elderly billionaires {Photo courtesy of The Washington Times} will get their wish and put a Republican in the White House in January, 2017. Shortly thereafter, Vidal expects that, amidst the cold ashes of President Obama's detente, Cuba will be obliged to defend itself. No, she doesn't expect to win such a scenario but "we are willing to be judged, as we have been judged for many decades, by how much we will sacrifice in defense of our sovereignty."

         Two first-term U. S. Senators -- Marco Rubio from Florida and Ted Cruz from Texas -- are prime threats to Jeb Bush's bid for the Republican presidential election. That's despite the fact that Rubio was a Jeb Bush protege in Florida and Cruz was a George W. Bush protege in Texas. Both Rubio and Cruz are darlings of the Tea Party, Fox News, and a significant array of right-wing and Jewish billionaires. And both Rubio and Cruz are Cuban-Americans will a visceral hatred of Fidel Castro and Revolutionary Cuba. To outsiders, it would appear that the last people Josefina Vidal would want as President are Rubio and Cruz. To insiders, however, it is known that the last thing Josefina Vidal wants is for another Bush in the White House. "Most...I said most, not all...of the pain and suffering of everyday Cubans," she says, "relates to the Bush dynasty, not just beginning with the CIA directorship in 1976 but beginning, as we know, in the 1950s."

          There are many people -- especially the very, very rich -- who prayerfully hope for a continuation of the Bush dynasty. There are also many people who dread such a domination of the American democracy.

       This photo dates back to October of 1992 when the Bush dynasty and a lot of sycophants in South Florida believed that Revolutionary Cuba was doomed with the demise of the Soviet Union. Cuba almost was doomed, but not quite. It's been that way for a long time...almost, but not quite. Polls show that most people in South Florida, even in Miami's Little Havana, favor ending the embargo and allowing Cubans on the island to breathe...and even to thrive. But not the Bush dynasty. For sure...no, not the Bush dynasty.

         This photo shows the latest Bush presidential candidate, Jeb, at a news conference with Mel Martinez, one of the long-time most ultra-powerful Bush-aligned Miami Cuban-born politicians. Right behind them are the Diaz-Balart brothers -- Havana-born Lincoln and Miami-born Mario. Both Diaz-Balart brothers made it to the U. S. Congress from Miami, largely because their father, Rafael Diaz-Balart, was a Minister in Cuba's overthrown Batista dictatorship and then became one of Miami's richest and most powerful anti-Castro Cuban exiles. It is interesting to note that Mel Martinez and the other most powerful Miami Cuban-Americans favor Jeb Bush over Marco Rubio, who is one of their own, in the current presidential campaign. That says something about the Bush ties to the most hard-line Cuban-Americans.

        In the many months leading up to Americans going to the polls in November of 2016 and voting for their next President, Jeb Bush will be interviewed hundreds of times on cable television. He will be asked a lot of softball questions because cable television needs a lot of talking-head politicians and tough questions would discourage their cooperation and appearances. So rest assured he will not be asked such pertinent questions as, "Jeb, could you explain to the American people your associations with Orlando Bosch? Specifically, did you ask your father, when he was President and you were cementing your political career in Florida, to pardon Mr. Bosch? And would you explain why, and have you regretted the pardon?"

        A lot of well-known and well-respected American journalists and authors, such as Russ Baker, have been dismayed over the secrecy attached to the Bush dynasty, which began in earnest in the 1930s with Prescott Bush and is expected to continue with George Prescott Bush, the son of Jeb Bush who recently got elected to the powerful position of Land Commissioner in Texas. A website connected to the "Family of Secrets" book by Russ Baker provides many documented facts that, perhaps, Americans should know.

        In any case...an interested Cuban named Josefina Vidal is quite aware that Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Jeb Bush are prime Republican candidates to be President of the United States. Rubio and Cruz are Cuban-American anti-Castro zealots but...the possibility she most dreads is....a President Jeb Bush!!

          Meanwhile, Josefina Vidal and most Cubans on the island -- along with most Americans, most Cuban-Americans, and most people around a war-torn and troubled world -- strongly desire a continuation of improved relations between Cuba and the United States. May sanity, after all these decades, finally prevail.

Vidal reminds me of Robert Frost:

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Why Cuba Won't Surrender

With Vidal Calling The Shots

       To comprehend the current state of U.S.-Cuban detente, you need to understand Josefina Vidal. This photo is courtesy of AP/Cliff Owen. It caught Ms. Vidal, Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs, making a definitive statement at a news conference on February 27, 2015, at the U. S. State Department in Washington. The heated words by Vidal are still deemed so important that on August 15th the Washington Times had the foresight to rehash them in a fiery article entitled: "Cuba Won't Move 'One Millimeter' To Please Enemies In The U. S." In replying to a pointed question, Vidal's exact reply, as she pointed her index finger sharply at the questioner, was: "Decisions on internal matters are not negotiable and will never be put on the negotiating agenda in conversations with the United States. Cuba will never do absolutely anything, NOT MOVE ONE MILLIMETER, to respond to foreign orders." The lady pointing that accusatory index finger at a hostile U. S. journalist on hostile U. S. territory is the primary defender of the island's sovereignty, which has a do-or-die meaning to her. Her brilliance in that regard has been on display since the start of this 21st Century when she headed the U. S. Interests Section in Washington. Now, as the prime Cuban decision-maker on all things American, forces bent on recapturing or subjugating Cuba will have to move over her.

          This New York Times photo shows that the U. S. journalist on U. S. soil pointed his index finger at Josefina Vidal while his question suggested that little Cuba was foolish to continue trying to resist visceral Miami Cubans backed by the military might of the United States and by the legislative might of the U. S. Congress. His index finger and his words were obviously meant to intimidate Ms. Vidal. That won't happen -- not on U. S. soil, not on Cuban soil, and not on diplomatic flights between the two countries. Instead of quivering, Vidal fired her index finger back at the would-be bully, along with the stinging words that were still ringing in the ears of the Washington Times seven months later on August 15th. Vidal lives modestly in Cuba. It is well known that in 2002 she was offered $3 million plus her choice of a home in South Florida if she would defect. This was after, at the invitation of Caroline Kennedy, she made a powerful speech that stunned a roomful of historians at the Kennedy Library in Boston. But money and a mansion in Florida does not mean as much to Josefina Vidal as Cuban sovereignty, which to her means independence from foreign control, which, she says, "Cuba has had far too much of." She has sternly reminded intimidating finger-pointers of this bit of Cuban history: "Jose Marti and Antonio Maceo, and others, died on Cuban battlefields in the 1890s fighting Spanish imperialism. Celia Sanchez, Fidel Castro, and others have been willing to do the same fighting American imperialism. And that's where we stand today, just defending our sovereignty." The finger-pointer above was reminded that Vidal, rather than flinching, was willing to replicate her favorite Cuban patriots...and not skedaddle to that mansion that probably still awaits her defection to Miami.

              But anyone who shows respect for Cuba as a sovereign nation will be gifted with Vidal's beautiful smile and sweet demeanor. Those two facets of her character -- toughness and sweetness -- have established her as the most important and the most effective diplomat on the North American continent.

        U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry knows all about Josefina Vidal's toughness and sweetness...and her unwavering defense of Cuba. This AP photo shows Mr. Kerry in Havana on August 14th pointing out to Vidal, "See, Josefina, I told you it would happen." What happened was the raising of the U. S. flag at its embassy in Havana for the first time since 1961. It also marked the first time a U. S. Secretary of State had visited Cuba since 1945. None of those things would have happened if it were not for Vidal's diplomatic skills in defending Cuba against a vast array of implacable and supposedly irresistible forces.

But with that being said........

       ........don't forget that Josefina Vidal is fully capable of putting that beautiful diplomatic smile and that sweet, sanguine demeanor aside if she feels Cuba is being treated unfairly. Tomorrow I will explain: {1} Why Vidal is so keenly interested in the U. S. presidential sweepstakes; {2} why she believes a Republican in the White House beginning in 2017 would put Cuba on a war-footing; and {3} why she would prefer either Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz over Jeb Bush as the next American president.

Tomorrow: "Vidal vs. The Bushes"

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