FEEL THE BERN, Please

The U.S., Media, and Democracy
{Saturday, February 13th, 2016}

       This is Bernie Sanders. He was born with reddish hair 74 years ago in Brooklyn, New York. He is a Jew. He is also a socialist. And he hates America's money-crazed, bought-and-paid-for political system. He is also, as money-crazed Hillary Clinton now admits, a serious Presidential candidate. I mention him in these terms for this reason: Fox News, the right-wing propaganda machine that is working hard to elect Republican Marco Rubio, is apparently not familiar with Bernie, who this week won a smashing victory in New Hampshire's first presidential primary of 2016. Jimmy Fallon is the satirist and host of The Tonight Show on NBC-TV. Wednesday night this week Fallon showed videos of two high-profile Fox anchors who apparently are not familiar with Bernie. Megyn Kelly called him "Bernie Sandals." Bret Baier called him "Bernie Sandwiches." I kid you not! I assume Megyn Kelly, right after her huge new book deal, had just bought some expensive new footwear and Bret Baier probably was just hungry. Anyway, As Jimmy Fallon expected when he showed those videos, I and millions of others literally laughed out loud. But we sincerely hope Fox News will learn his last name by the time President Bernie Sanders takes over the White House. Propaganda machines or not, the precipitous descent of the U. S. media is no laughing matter, as this very endless presidential campaign so vividly reveals.

      Today -- Friday, February 12th -- this political cartoon is flashing around the U. S. in USA Today and hundreds of other newspapers. It originated in the Los Angeles Times via the Pulitzer Prize-winning pen of David Horsey. It points out that even young women, who would love to finally see a female American President, prefer the elderly male Bernie Sanders because...they believe he is not bought-and-paid-for.

       In the American political arena -- where billionaires, pundits, and propagandists rule -- there is no way that Bernie Sanders could possibly be a serious threat to become President of the United States, is there? Well, yes, there is. Two generations of Americans since the end of World War II in 1945 have allowed their democracy to become a bought-and-paid-for platform for corporate and individual billionaires. It appeared that a Supreme Court ruling in 2010, which permits unlimited political donations from shady billionaires, had put the final nail in democracy's coffin in the United States. But, lo 'n behold, along comes a young generation of Americans, both male and female, who apparently want to save America's democracy, which would entail reclaiming it from the clutches of the billionaire Hedge Fund and Wall Street usurpers who have purchased it. America's fed-up young-adult generation wants democracy back. And that's why Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump for that matter, have defied every prediction made by the pundits.

Bernie, nearing 75, is too old to be President of the United States.

Bernie is a Socialist, which disqualifies him from being a U. S. President.

Bernie...OMG!!...wants a "Political Revolution."

       Bernie believes that the nation that is #1 in billionaires should not also be #1 in childhood poverty and also should not be #1 in income and wealth inequality. The greedy billionaires who oppose Bernie and aim to keep the status quo, which also means expanding and exacerbating their extreme greed, supposedly had purchased the entire two-party political system in the United States after first easily purchasing the U. S. Congress. But Bernie, and the crude non-politician Trump, apparently don't know what "supposedly" means. Therefore, there appear to be enough democracy-lovers in the United States, especially Bernie's prime constituency of young-adults, who want to reclaim their democracy from cruel billionaires.

    Bernie's acceptance speech in New Hampshire Tuesday night.

          In New Hampshire Tuesday Bernie Sanders overwhelmed the presumed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton 60% to 38%. The voters clearly favored anti-billionaire Bernie over Clinton's rich connections.

       But the image of CNN pundits like Amanda Carpenter also reveals why so many American democracy-lovers are totally fed-up with a bought-and-paid-for political system. The biggest applause Bernie Sanders got in his acceptance speech Tuesday night was when he said that the results in New Hampshire "should send a message to the corporate media." Amanda Carpenter is typical of what the media -- television and print -- has evolved into, which is a vast propaganda machine funded by the corporate billionaires who own all the broadcast networks. CNN is a middle-of-the-road outfit, neither right-wing like Fox nor left-wing like MSNBC. But like the rest of the U. S. media, CNN is shaped by billionaire corporate owners who prefer, when it comes to news, propaganda machines. That's why CNN stresses biased pundits like...Amanda Carpenter. She began her punditry career with the right-wing Washington Times and then wrote an obligatory and self-proclaimed "Right-Wing Conspiracy..." book. She then became the Communicators Director for right-wing extremist Ted Cruz. So, as an insult to Americans and to democracy, CNN presents Amanda Carpenter and many like her as their "Political Analysts" that Americans are not supposed to believe are totally and self-servingly biased, in her case for Ted Cruz. That makes even middle-of -the-road CNN nothing more and nothing less than a propaganda machine. AND THAT'S WHY, IN HIS ACCEPTANCE SPEECH, BERNIE GOT THE LOUDEST APPLAUSE TUESDAY NIGHT WHEN HE ASSAILED "THE MEDIA." 

       While Amanda Carpenter is CNN's propagandist for Ted Cruz, Ana Navarro, also disguised as a political analyst, is CNN's propagandist for first Jeb Bush and secondly Marco Rubio, both of whom she has worked for from her base in Miami. Exposing the U. S. media as a propaganda machine is, perhaps, one of the greatest achievements of Bernie Sanders, probably ranking right below his exposure of billionaires as the biggest threat to the American democracy that he and his young-adult constituency are trying to reclaim.

       Bernie is still a long-shot in his bid to become the next U. S. President. But his eloquent wisdom and decency has revealed his abiding love for democracy and his visceral dislike for the self-serving billionaires who have purchased it and, with their unlimited Super Pacs, intend to maintain ownership of the precious gift that Americans were bequeathed by the Founding Fathers. Bernie Sanders, with the like-minded and brilliant democracy-lover Elizabeth Warren as his Vice President, could possibly become President even at his age and with a vast army of billionaires as his enemy. In his New Hampshire acceptance speech Bernie said, "We must save this nation and this democracy from right-wing Republicans." If he, followed by Elizabeth Warren, can do that, he will have made his mark on history...and in a good way.

In other words:

       If Bernie can keep Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush out of the White House in 2017, the right-wingers and their vast armies of billionaire donors will have felt the bern in defense of America's precious democracy, one that a handful of vile billionaires should be allowed to vote in but not purchase like its a prized mansion. The February 9th edition of USA Today featured a full-page "analysis" of the top 21 billionaires intent on putting the likes of a Cruz or a Rubio or a Bush in the White House in 2017, because it is well known that those three -- unlike Bernie Sanders and even the crude non-politician Trump -- are bought-and-paid-for. That huge USA Today article is entitled "Meet The Super Rich Driving Election," in case you want to see the 21 billionaires intent on purchasing the presidency instead of just being voters.

      Cuba is merely an island but right-wingers controlling America's Cuban policy since the 1950s have used Cuba to harm the worldwide image of the United States more than with any other single topic. A Bush or a Cruz or a Rubio in the White House in 2017 would not only continue that image but expand it, unmindful of anything except the handful of billionaires that bought-and-paid for them. These unseemly billionaires -- such as the 21 listed in Tuesday's USA Today -- unwittingly spawned the alternative candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. However, even after the messages sent this week by the voters in New Hampshire, don't underestimate the power or the determination of the right-wing billionaires who believe the U. S. should be an oligarchy owned by them, not a democracy that serves its decent people.

      While Cuba, indeed, is only an embargoed island -- and a very poor one -- it also has a vastly over-sized status on the world stage. That is because Cuba says more about the United States than it says about Cuba. And what it says is...the right-wingers who control America's Cuban policy don't give a damn what the rest of the world says about it. But they care a whole lot about the billionaires who bought-and-paid for them.

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"Cuba, What's That?"

"Well, uh, sir, it's...a country!"

        On Wednesday -- February 10th, 2016 -- the BBC used the above Reuters photo to illustrate a story about Cuba. The BBC and Reuters are two of the world's greatest media organizations. Because they are headquartered in the UK, they have the freedom to report freely on important Cuban stories, something the U. S. media -- especially cable "news" -- has neither the guts nor the integrity to do, unless it uncovers an anti-Cuban story. This photo updated a long-standing and important event in the annals of U.S.-Cuban relations. It shows some of the 113 Cuban migrants getting off an airplane in the Mexican town of Nuevo Laredo, right across the border from Laredo, Texas. The plane supposedly carried the most vulnerable 113 Cuban migrants -- pregnant women and sick children -- who have been stranded along with 8,000 others since mid-November in Costa Rica because Nicaragua closed its border to stop the influx of Cubans taking the long air and land route to the Mexican border, where they instantly obtain legal residence with financial benefits the moment their front foot touches U. S. soil. That extremely discriminatory U. S. law dates back to 1966 and is called Wet Foot/Dry Foot. It only favors Cuban migrants. Naturally, all other would-be migrants throughout Latin American strongly resent it, as indicated by the turmoil caused by a new wave of Cubans who fear President Obama's historic overtures to Cuba will put an end to Wet Foot/Dry Foot, which will not happen because the Cuban-American extremists dictate that and many other laws in the U. S. Congress favorable to them but injurious and discriminatory against everyone else. These Cuban migrants reportedly paid huge fees to human traffickers and others to get on this migratory route. At Laredo or any other border crossing, any non-Cuban, including pregnant mothers and children, trying to get to the U. S. would be instantly detained and very likely deported back to their country. So, the coverage of what's happening in Laredo today and on the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border since mid-November is a big story, but one the U. S. media tries real hard to avoid, leaving it up to great international media outlets, such as the BBC and Reuters, to inform Americans who, although propagandized about Cuba every day since 1959, only get biased coverage of all U.S.-Cuban relations in these 50 United States of America.

       This photo is courtesy of AP/Esteban Felix. It shows a Cuban wearing a U.S.-flag T-shirt. He is one of about 8,000 Cubans still stuck since mid-November in Costa Rica because Nicaragua closed its border to block the overland passage of Cubans flocking to the U.S.-Mexican border to take advantage of the U. S. Wet Foot/Dry Foot law, one of many that entices and favors Cubans while discriminating against all other would-be migrants, a fact highlighted by this young man. 

         The U. S. broadcast media has been obsessed for over a year with the 2015-2016 presidential campaigns that still have many months to drag on...and on...because it's a billion-dollar industry that continually enriches television stations, ad agencies, consultants, politicians, pundits, etc. -- and the sheer economics of these transgressions is far more important than electing a new President. Two prime Republican presidential candidates are the two first-term Cuban-American U. S. Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Easily proselytized Americans are not supposed to connect these two facts: {1} Two controversial Cuban-Americans are prime Republican presidential contenders in 2016; and {2} they very powerfully oppose President Obama's ongoing and historic efforts to normalize relations with Cuba.

          There have been 8 highly hyped Republican debates with television news journalists asking the questions. They have not had the courage or the integrity to ask a single question about Cuba DESPITE THE TWO AFOREMENTIONED VISCERAL POINTS. Here, for example, is a question those self-proclaimed TV journalists should have the guts and decency to ask:

              Q: "Mr. Rubio, Mr. Cruz...you are two first-term U. S. Senators who seem to be bored with the Senate because -- as products of the Bush dynasty, the Tea Party, and simply being Cuban-Americans -- both of you hit the Senate mainly running for President. Mr. Rubio, you and also Mr. Cruz rarely show up in the Senate...except to oppose everything President Obama tries to do and shut down the government if you don't get your way...and shamefully blocking such things as Roberta Jacobson's badly needed appointment as Ambassador to Mexico because she once was involved with Cuban diplomacy. Although the entire world, as indicated by the UN vote, and even Mr. Rubio's backyard in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood strongly favor ending the U. S. embargo of Cuba, both of you very strongly defy not only the President, the Pope, the world, and even Cuban-Americans who...after six decades...desire, for America's sake as well as 11 million innocent Cubans, an end to the embargo of Cuba. So first, Mr. Rubio, and then Mr. Cruz, will you explain to the American people watching this debate how you can justify the continuation of a Cold War approach to Cuba, dating back to 1962, that the rest of the world, including most Cuban-Americans, heartily disagree with. Mr. Rubio, you have stated that you didn't care if '99% of Americans' wanted the embargo to end, you would make sure, if elected President, that it continues. So, Mr. Rubio, explain your justification and then Mr. Cruz you can do the same."

         The point is: The gutlessness of the mainstream U. S. media in regards to Cuban issues harms the image of the United States far more than it harms Cuba, which, in fact, gains international sympathy for being subjected to it. Along the way, it greatly insults and harms democracy and Americans. What follows are examples: 

Example #One:

Example #Two:

Example #Three:

         The United States of America is the richest nation in the history of the world...by far. And in the United States of America...one out of every five children has hunger problems. The gutless U. S. media largely ignores that inexcusable abomination...just as it ignores -- decade after decade -- the unending streams of tax dollars devoted to anti-Cuban schemes and to enriching and empowering a select group of Cuban-Americans. Some...at least some...of those Cuban-related tax dollars, perhaps, COULD FIGHT CHILDHOOD HUNGER IN AMERICA. Consider, for example, the following excruciating facts in February of 2016:

        USAID is just one aspect of the U. S. government that continually uses tax dollars to hopefully bring about a regime-change in Cuba. Investigative journalist Tracey Eaton regularly, on his Along the Malecon blog, uses the Freedom of Information Act to re-publish, word-for-word, USAID and other solicitations offering millions of tax dollars to those who want to partake in anti-Cuban operations, the last such solicitation pointing out that it would not be responsible if such highly paid individuals were caught in Cuba, apparently referencing the fact that the jailed Alan Gross, after returning to his Maryland home, successfully sued unwitting taxpayers for millions of dollars because he was indeed caught in Cuba. But...as Mr. Eaton points out and hundreds of other mainstream journalists are aware of...such incredible streams of tax dollars regularly flow in steady pipelines out of Washington, propelled by whatever a few Cuban-American extremists want from the always cooperative U. S. Congress. AGAIN, THE POINT IS THIS: Perhaps some...at least some...of those tax dollars designed to hurt Cuba and to enrich a few Cuban-Americans should go to fighting childhood hunger in America. OR TO OTHER WORTHY CAUSES, such as:

     The startling and incredible amount of tax dollars the U. S. continues to use to bring about regime-change in Cuba reminds me of...Jean Casarez. Why, you ask? Ms. Casarez is an excellent investigative reporter for CNN. A few days ago she had a report about Spain Elementary-Middle School in Detroit. The school is so dilapidated that the students and their teachers are simply too afraid to learn or to teach. They are scared of...plaster falling from the ceilings, rats that might bite, ugly black and creeping mold, etc. The very day that I watched that report by Jean Casarez on CNN, I read about two more reports about how much money, tax dollars, the U. S. government is spending right now and planning to spend the rest of this year on over-throwing the elderly Castro brothers in Cuba where Raul is almost 85 and Fidel is almost 90. Jean Casarez's update on Spain Elementary-Middle School is just one of the millions of better reasons for U. S. tax dollars than continuing to shower millions upon millions of them on a regime-change in Cuba, although the primary reason in 2016 apparently is merely to continue the pipelines of cash to enrich selected people using Cuba as an excuse, an exceedingly poor excuse despite the endless propaganda that goes along with it. Meanwhile, what about more decent priorities...like dilapidated schoolrooms in the United States?

        Jean Casarez on her CNN report showed this girl's bathroom at Spain Elementary-Middle School, including the filth and mold and a stall without a door. At one point, while interviewing a concerned teacher, Jean said, "I have been in this building only about 40 minutes and now I'm hoarse. I wasn't hoarse when I came in." The teacher commiserated with Jean who, herself, was more worried about the children.

Jean Casarez with others concerned about conditions at the school.

         In addition to CNN's far-reach as an international network, Jean Casarez was so concerned about Spain Elementary-Middle School that she filed photos like this one on her Twitter page showing her stand-up outside the school. AGAIN, FOR WHAT'S IT'S WORTH, I ASK THIS QUESTION: Could U. S. tax dollars be better spent on upgrading projects like Spain Elementary-Middle School as opposed to continuing to shower, decade after decade, endless streams of tax dollars on already rich people who claim they can help the U. S. government bring about regime-change in Cuba even while President Obama is trying desperately to use this final year of his two terms in the White House to normalize relations with Cuba?? However, the American people since the 1950s haven't cared enough to weigh-in on a Cuban policy that shames both democracy and the United States of America. And that's why, in 2016, a handful of self-serving extremists in the U. S. Congress can continue to use Cuba to enrich and empower a selected few instead of, for example, using some tax dollars to make a classroom safe for its precious students.

       Television station WXYZ in Detroit also told its viewers about the "deplorable conditions" inside Spain Elementary-Middle School. Should such things in the United States of America be a priority for tax dollars at least remotely on a par with the endless stream of tax dollars continuing to fund senseless and unworkable regime-change programs in Cuba? Proselytized Americans are not supposed to ask that question, not since 1959 anyway. But in 2016, the year Fidel Castro turns 90-years-old, perhaps Americans should rise up out of their hiding places and at least say something, even if it's only, "I think maybe, uh, we should start using, uh, some of our tax money that is showered on anti-Castro zealots to, uh, kinda fix up some things that, uh, you know, need fixing." Even such a timid but intelligent sentence like that would be appreciated by millions of America's democracy-lovers...and the kids at Spain Elementary-Middle School.

          There are currently three Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Senate: Presidential candidate Ted Cruz from Texas; the powerfully entrenched Robert Menendez from New Jersey; and presidential candidate Marco Rubio from Miami, Florida. The United States of America, I believe, would be a better democracy if the U. S. media had the guts to ask these three Senators this question: "IN LIGHT OF THE FACT THAT ALL THREE OF YOU POWERFULLY SUPPORT THE STEADY STREAM OF HARD-EARNED TAX-DOLLARS THAT FLOW TO NUMEROUS ANTI-CUBAN AND PRO-CUBAN EXILE PROJECTS, DO YOU THINK THAT SOME OF THOSE TAX-DOLLARS SHOULD POSSIBLY BE DIVERTED TO FIGHTING CHILDHOOD HUNGER IN AMERICA?" I repeat: The day the U. S. media has the guts to ask such a question will be the very day the USA becomes better.

"Cuba, what's that?"

"Uh, sir, it's, uh...a country."

"See! See, sir! It's right there...in the Caribbean Sea!!"
{Note: It's been there a long time, before and after 1959}

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Goliath Beats David Again

U. S. Beats Cuba...Again
{Updated: Wednesday, February 10th, 2016}

    This lithograph is courtesy of Osmar Schindler/Wikipedia. It depicts the mythological battle between David and Goliath. Little David, the million-to-one underdog, by historic accounts, faced off against the awesomely armed Big Goliath. David was armed with just a sling-shot loaded with one small rock. A legend was created by the myth that David won, a victory that for centuries has thrilled and encouraged long-shots and underdogs. But reality is no myth. In the real world, David is no match against Goliath. And in the real world Cuba, in the role of David, is no match for the United States, in the role of Goliath. On Monday morning of this week, as on many previous Monday mornings, Cubans on the island were reminded of that fact yet again. By now, Cubans realize that, in truth, David cannot beat Goliath, except in a mythical sense.

    On Monday morning, February 8th, 2016, Cubans awoke to the news that their favorite baseball player, Yuliesky Gourriel, had defected along with his younger brother Lourdes. For the last twelve years, since he was a teenager, Yuliesky has been Cuba's most beloved player on the baseball-mad island. Year-after-year, Cuba's unmatched surfeit of baseball talent increasingly defected, lured by the incredible bonuses and salaries in the United States. But year-after-year, the now 31-year-old Yuliesky resisted that temptation, even after his performance in the 2006 World Baseball Classic resulted in U. S. scouts and General Managers salivating about luring Yuliesky off the island. More than one scout in 2006 rated Yuliesky better than Derek Jeter, who at the time was the superstar shortstop for the New York Yankees. U. S. teams were ready and eager to bless Yuliesky with a guaranteed $100 million-dollar deal...if he would defect. Yuliesky's fierce loyalty to Cuba caused him to refuse such blatant guarantees...until Monday!

     On Monday morning Yuliesky and his younger brother Lourdes, also a top prospect, put Cuba in their rear-view mirror when they eased out of their hotel room in the Dominican Republic during the Caribbean Baseball Tournament. Cuba for many years dominated all regional and international baseball competitions -- such as the Pan-American Games, the World Baseball Classic, and the Olympics. But no more, and never again. Per capita, Cuba produces more baseball talent than any nation in the world. But now the 30 U. S. Major League teams are routinely paying in excess of $30 million a year for baseball stars, including some who are far from being superstars. In addition, as with any huge money schemes, the enticement of Cuban players to defect has created a vast cottage industry of human traffickers, agents, and criminal activity that includes kidnappings and extortion rackets. The defections of Cuban baseball players also are impacted by U. S. laws that grossly pertain only to Cubans, laws intended to hurt Cuba's revolutionary government and to enrich and empower Cuban exiles and defectors. The infamous Wet Foot/Dry Foot U. S. law since 1966 has, for example, enticed everyday Cubans to defect with economic benefits -- totally unavailable to all non-Cubans -- that include instant financial rewards as well as unchallenged residence. An easily bought-and-paid for U. S. Congress readily passes such laws and decades of the dark alliance between the Bush dynasty and Cuban extremists has exacerbated much of what the world bemoans about one-sided U.S.-Cuban relations, a David vs. Goliath situation in which Goliath seeks to remake David into the Batista-Mafia regime that existed, with U. S. backing, from 1952 till the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. The Bush contribution to that debacle includes one of the last acts of the George W. Bush presidential administration prior to the current Barack Obama administration, and that was a shameful law that Obama inherited, along with countless others, that to this day provides huge financial incentives for Cuban doctors and nurses to defect to the U. S., along with everyday Cubans and...most especially...BASEBALL PLAYERS. YES, ESPECIALLY BASEBALL PLAYERS!!

   Yulieski Gourriel, at least until this Monday morning, was Fidel Castro's favorite baseball player in all the world. Yulieski's father, who never defected, had been Fidel's favorite player before Yuliesky. This photo shows Fidel with Yulieski in 2006, just days before Fidel was stricken with an intestinal disorder that almost killed him and from which, as he nears his 90th birthday, he is still trying to recuperate. In his youth, Fidel as Cuba's Athlete of the Year and as a baseball pitcher, was offered bonuses by both the Philadelphia Athletics and the Washington Senators. But history records the fact that he became a lawyer and a revolutionary. Yet, in February of 2016 he remains a huge baseball fan, albeit a sad one today. With Obama's two-term presidency having replaced the two-terms of George W. Bush, Cuba has tried to lessen the punitive aspects of the Bush-enhanced U. S. laws directed at the island. Cuba and Obama, in fact, are still trying to normalize relations, even reopening embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961, the year the U. S. and the Batistianos lost the Bay of Pigs attack that was intended to recapture the island. Cuba, with Obama in the White House, even tried desperately to stem its unique pools of talent from defecting -- including baseball players, doctors, nurses, ballet stars, etc. In 2013, for example, Yulieski made $1 million in Japan playing baseball for Yokohama, and then he returned to play in Cuba. It was hoped that such agreements could be worked out between Cuba and the U. S. Major League teams. But it is not to be. Anything that remotely appears to be a positive for Cuba is easily squashed...as will be the reopened embassies...by a vast cottage industry of benefactors in the U. S. who will not let go of the lucrative Castro Cottage Industry, which since the 1950s has created long lines of millionaires, billionaires, and political power-brokers. Obama has seriously dented the Castro Cottage Industry but, like a cancer that resists all treatments, it is still omnipotent and that all-powerful scourge will continue to kill many of the most important aspects of the world's greatest democracy, just like it is killing Cuban baseball.

       
    Since 1959, when the Cuban Revolution judiciously chased the Batistianos and Mafiosi off the island only to see them relocate to a new capital -- Miami, also now called Little Havana. In all the years since, the Cuban narrative in the U. S. has been dictated by the transplanted Batistianos and their sycophants, such as the Bush dynasty and the U. S. Congress. Therefore, propagandized Americans have timidly and insouciantly allowed Little Havana and the Castro Cottage Industry to use the CIA, the U. S. military, the U. S. treasury, the U. S. media and whatever else they needed to support their agenda, which involves revenge against Cuba and getting very rich and powerful in America. In that milieu, Americans don't have a clue about such things as...this week's defection of Fidel Castro's favorite baseball player Yulieski Gourriel. To understand it, Americans would need to understand this photo, which shows Jose Abreu playing first base for Cuba in the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Abreu barely was good enough to make that team and rarely played. He had some home-run power but was very slow afoot and weak defensively, rated far behind the Cuban first baseman at the time, Ariel Borrero.

    But after the 2009 World Baseball Classic, Jose Abreu had some good years as a slugger in Cuba's top professional baseball league. Despite the U. S. embargo of most things related to Cuba, the lush island's prime national treasures -- such as baseball players, doctors, and ballet performers -- are relentlessly scouted and offered huge financial incentives to defect to the United States, an ongoing process that is primarily designed to hurt Cuba and help the vast Castro Cottage Industry in the U. S., which benefits a few and harms everyone else.

        So, Abreu defected in 2013 and signed a 6-year, $68 million contract with the Chicago White Sox...with every penny guaranteed. But Abreu hit 66 homers in 2014 and 2015 with the White Sox, who now think they got a steal for a piddling 68 million dollars. In the last year of that contract in 2019 Abreu will be paid exactly $13,667,000.00. He turned 29 on January 29th and in 2020 he will be a free agent again. That's when his agent will command some REALLY BIG money, probably around $25 million a year. The 30 U. S. Major League teams -- with most of them owned by billionaires who often get huge tax benefits, tax-built stadiums, and billion-dollar television contracts -- now routinely pay $30 million per year to players who will never, like Abreu, hit 66 homers in a two-year span. Per capita, Cuba produces far more baseball talent than the United States...or the Dominican Republic. All 30 Major League teams now have year-around and state-of-the-art baseball complexes in the Dominican Republic, which unlike Cuba is not the victim of a decades-old embargo although when the ruthless U.S.-backed Batista ran Cuba the ruthless U.S.-backed Trujillo ran the Dominican Republic. State-of-the-Art baseball complexes in Cuba would increase the deluge of Cuban baseball talent but the revengeful Castro Cottage Industry in the U. S. frowns on anything that resembles a positive for Cuba. Even so, Cuban defectors routinely and easily become superstars in the United States Major Leagues -- such as Jose Abreu, Aroldis Chapman, Yasiel Puig, Yoenis Cespedes, etc., etc., etc., etc. Human traffickers and many others share mightily in such spoils. Therefore, although the U. S. media doesn't have the guts to admit it, Jose Abreu and all the other former Cuban baseball stars...now including Yulieski Gourriel...are products of the Castro Industry that dictates the gluttonous U. S. Cuban policy.

Photo courtesy: Roberto Morejon/AIN.
Former Cuban baseball stars Yulieski and Lourdes Gourriel.

      This photo shows Yulieski Gourriel in the all-blue uniform for the Japanese team he played for in Yokohama. He got paid $1 million dollars in Japan, accounting for his thumbs-up portrayal. Cuba approved his Japanese venture because the million dollars was taxed 10% and he was back in time to play during Cuba's baseball season. I'm happy for the money Yulieski made in Japan and for the many millions of dollars he will now make in America. But it makes me very sad for Cuba. Of all the Cuban baseball, ballet, and medical stars induced to defect to the United States for the prime purpose of hurting Cuba, for the last twelve years Yulieski seemed to stand tall, high above the fray, in his fiercely intense loyalty to Cuba. To many, he was like David vs. Goliath, using only a sling-shot and his stoic character, to fight and to resist the unbeatable foe. Most of us root for underdogs; that's why we are enmeshed with the myth of David. That's why we admired Yulieski so much. At least until Monday morning. That's when he destroyed the comfort of that myth, reminding us of harsh realities we try so hard to dismiss, such as....human gluttony!!

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And speaking of gluttony:

Meet Peyton Manning.

     Now almost 40-years-old, Peyton is an American sports icon. Since age 22 he has made millions upon millions of dollars playing quarterback in the multi-billion-dollar National Football League. But it is the monumental endorsement money lavishly paid out by corporations that makes billionaires out of sports heroes like Tiger Woods, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and...Peyton Manning. The gluttonous offering and receiving of such money is as endless and seamless as it is greedy and unseemly, in a nation in which billboards announce that one in five children have hunger problems. Sunday night, at the conclusion of Super Bowl 50, Peyton Manning in the interview depicted here revealed to the entire world the sheer obscenity of soon-to-be billionaire athletes shamelessly displaying momentous gluttony. He had that opportunity because the super-hyped Super Bowl each year is supposedly viewed by almost the entire world, including those who have no comprehension of football, capitalism or gluttony. As a quarterback the oft-injured Peyton is over-the-hill; he threw far more interceptions than touchdown passes this season. But his team, the Denver Broncos, won the Superbowl in spite of Peyton because of a powerful defense that overwhelmed the favored Carolina Panthers. But Peyton, being Peyton, commanded the bulk of the post-game interviews, including the one depicted above when...seemingly tossed in out of nowhere...he told the world he was now going to drink hundreds of Budweiser beers. The viewers, including his young daughters, were not supposed to understand that sly endorsement. But most of the world did anyway...immediately. Budweiser is one of Peyton's many corporate sponsors. In fact, as the world's dominant beer, a Budweiser distributorship is better than a gold mine for spewing out money. Peyton already is a co-owner of two Budweiser distributorships, with more on the way. In fact, he is also a co-owner of Papa John's Pizza distributorships because Papa John's is also one of Peyton's many sponsors! You see, if you're a superstar athlete like Tiger, Magic, Michael, Peyton, etc., you aren't just paid hundreds of millions of easy dollars, you are also made an owner. Basketball icon Michael Jordon has been retired for almost two decades but one of his sponsors, Nike, is still in 2016 paying him about $200 million a year while shamefully making the Jordan-named products in slave-like conditions overseas!! Now digest that, if you will, in a nation in which one in five children have a hunger problem, a hunger problem that $200 million paid yearly to Michael Jordan could help alleviate. But the latest reminder of obscene gluttony is Peyton Manning shamefully tossing in that ad for Budweiser at the end of the Super Bowl. The headline in the Denver Post Monday, the next day, was: "Peyton Manning's 'Budweiser' Mention Valued at $13.9 Million." That figure was calculated based on the price of the programmed Super Bowl ads, not the character-defining free ad Peyton stupidly gave Budweiser. But anyway you slice it, digest it, camouflage it, or try to justify it...Peyton Manning, Budweiser, and runaway capitalism are, in a word, gluttonous.

  And so, let's crack open a Bud and drink to the The Great America Lie, which is that American capitalism is not gluttonous but a glorious tribute to freedom and democracy. {Tell that to hungry children}. On second thought, let's don't drink to it. To do what Peyton Manning suggested about Budweiser beer at the end of the Supper Bowl is, I think, an insult to the one-in-five American children who have hunger problems. Also, come to think of it, it is an insult to me. I have lived a long life and never once have I ever tasted a drop of beer or whiskey. I'm no more saintly than others but I am not as easily proselytized, it seems. Budweiser doesn't have an ad budget large enough to entice me to drink or become addicted to its product, no matter how many Peyton Manning-like superstars try to propagandize me. But I admit: Billboards across America reminding me that one-in-five American children have hunger problems do impress me, especially when I'm also told that a long-retired former athlete is still being paid $200 million a year by just one of his many sponsors.

    In Havana Sunday night, Cristina Escobar probably did not watch the Super Bowl. I hope not anyway. Peyton Manning's gluttonous plug for Budweiser would perhaps have riled her so much that she might have mentioned it on her prime-time newscasts on Cuban television. But that's just a guess. Yet, Peyton and Budweiser are prime examples of what the feisty Ms. Escobar most dislikes about the United States and capitalism: GLUTTONY!! And her opinion, at least on the island, carries more weight than those of even Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. At age 28, she even influences more young Cubans than her U.S.-based adversaries such as Ted and Marco. If you haven't seen her on Cuban, regional or international news programs, check her out on YouTube, either in Spanish or English. In the Tracey Eaton interview on YouTube, she makes many salient points, such as, "I don't want the U. S. to bring me democracy." In other words, she is not a fan of gluttony. BUT, CHRISTINA! WHAT ABOUT DEMOCRACY WITHOUT GLUTTONY? Yes, she has been asked that exact question, to which she replied, "If the two can be separated, I'll surely listen." She then laughed, softly and cutely, before adding, "Are you trying to tell me you can work miracles?" Anyway...if you can, contact Cristina.

       Sunder Pichai was born 43 years ago in India. He graduated from the famed Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He began working for Google in 2004, meaning he is a very, very rich man. In August of 2015 he became Google's CEO. On one day this week, whether he needed it or not, he got very much richer -- $199 million dollars richer!! On Monday Mr. Pichai was awarded that bonus. In 2018 Mr. Pichai has another stock option worth $250 million dollars, but that doesn't mean he won't get more bonuses, in addition to his salary, in 2016 and 2017. In Cuba the perceptive non-capitalist Cristina Escobar takes note of such gluttony, one reason she staunchly told journalist Tracey Eaton, "I don't want the U. S. to bring me democracy." The vast U. S. disparity between the rich and poor helps shape her opinions.

And lastly, a very sad note: 

        This photo is courtesy of WLS-TV, the ABC affiliate in Chicago. The beautiful young lady's name was Aaren O'Connor, age 25. She recently moved from California to Chicago to take a new job and be near her boyfriend. Friday after work she was in her car when she was killed by a stray bullet to her head. Her father, David O'Connor, told WLS-TV, "I pleaded with her when she told me she was going to Chicago." His fear, unfortunately, was obvious. In the first 35 days of 2015, 35 people were killed by gunfire in Chicago. In the first 35 days of this year, 2016, that figure has doubled to 70. Aaren O'Connor...was one of the 70. 

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Anti-Democracy Billionaires

Meet the Poster Man

         Jeff Bezos is the Poster Man for the precipitous decline of the bought-and-paid-for U. S. media and the bought-and-paid-for U. S. democracy, both of which the proud Founding Fathers considered as key pillars of their seminal achievement -- the creation of the world's greatest form of government. All that is unraveling, with Bezos a prime example. He was born 52-years-ago in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1994 he founded Amazon. In January of 2015 Forbes listed his worth at $46.7 billion, more than the net worth of many countries. In January of 2016 Forbes listed his worth at $53.2 billion. With such incredible...actually obscene...wealth, Bezos could do wonders in the United States where we are repeatedly told via television ads and billboards that one in five children in the U. S. "have hunger problems;" where a cost-saving scheme in the mostly black city of Flint, Michigan has resulted in children being poisoned by unfit water; etc. Instead of helping alleviate such things, Bezos -- like about fifty of America's other anti-democracy billionaires -- is busy buying up and tearing down the fabrics of the world's greatest democracy.

        In 2013 Jeff Bezos bought the venerable Washington Post, which for many decades had been one of America's greatest newspapers and a keen watchdog when its democracy was threatened, such as when it exposed President Richard Nixon's right-wing Watergate shenanigans. But since 2013 the Post has become a cancerous scourge as far as democracy is concerned. Recently, a blistering series of right-wing Post editorials have unfairly and cowardly assailed President Obama's brave and decent efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, which reflects a brave and smart President's desperate attempt to correct an atrocious Cuban policy that dates back to 1952 when a few greedy right-wingers aligned the U. S. government with the Mafia to support the vile Batista dictatorship in Cuba. The Cuban Revolution overturned those brutal dictators in 1959 but the right-wingers in Washington made sure the Batistianos got reconstituted on U. S. soil, mainly nearby Miami. The Bezos-owned Post is obviously a great admirer of the Batistianos and imperialism but apparently totally unconcerned about the negative connotations America's Cuban policy has on the worldwide image of the U. S., as reflected by the 191-to-2 yearly vote in the United Nations. The recent Washington Post right-wing editorials have been entitled: "Failure in Cuba;" "Obama's Olive Branches Are Lifelines For Authoritarian Regimes;" "The One-Sided Relationship With Cuba;" "One Year After Rapprochement, Cuba Is Not Free;" and "Despite Mr. Obama's Engagement, Cuba Continues Its Repression."

     Jeff Bezos and far too many multi-billionaires like him don't seem to care about the one-in-five American children who have "hunger problems," but they appear to be determined to maintain an American Cuban policy, dating back to 1962, that strives to cause enough hunger problems for innocent Cubans that they will be induced to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. USA Today last week, in an article written by its anti-Castro, Miami-based Cuban-American journalist Alan Gomez, at least was honest enough to point out the U. S. embargo against Cuba was begun in 1962 to "cause hunger" in Cuba after the Bay of Pigs attack in 1961 had failed to recapture the island. Instead of having his Washington Post repeatedly firing off editorials advocating an endless continuation of the pro-hunger embargo of Cuba, perhaps Bezos could encourage his editorial writers to fight hunger in Cuba and the U. S.

      This is the Cuba that, it seems, the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wants President Obama to maintain. The fact that the rest of the world is shamed by this image, as yearly indicated by the UN vote, hasn't bothered self-serving right-wingers for the past six decades and also won't bother them for the next six decades either.

       Barack Obama, in the final year of his two-term presidency, is doing all he can to bring at least a modicum of decency and sanity to America's Cuban policy. He has done far more already than the previous ten U. S. presidents combined, and he has more to do in his final eleven months in office. But a Republican-dominated U. S. Congress  and a bevy of right-wing Batistiano-loving billionaires and editorial writers have, and will, battle him all the way...and a Republican-successor in the White House beginning in 2017 would seal the deal in reversing Obama's democracy-loving gains.

      President Obama has been decent enough, informed enough, and brave enough to cry in front of the entire world as his sincere emotions pour out when his America, the richest and strongest nation in the history of the world, fails in its obligations to care for its children. The right-wing billionaires who are his enemies seem far more concerned with buying up the U. S. media and the U. S. government to further their greedy agendas, which include purchasing U. S. politicians.

        This billboard brings tears to the eyes of President Obama as he tries his best to end the U. S. embargo of Cuba that began in 1962 for the stated purpose of causing hunger problems in Cuba for the purpose of inducing the people on the island to rise up against Fidel Castro. It should, I believe, bring tears to the eyes of America's self-serving billionaires and bought-and-paid-for politicians who spend tons of money designed to keep the embargo in place...for another six decades or so...as America's friends around the world grimace in shame. Such money could possibly be better spent on making sure little American girls, like the one on the above poster, do not go hungry. 

       The little American girl in this photo got fed when she got to school but she also should not suffer hunger pains at home. American billionaires who readily make millionaires out of politicians they purchase should, perhaps, help alleviate childhood hunger in the U. S. before they spend so much money trying to support an embargo designed to create childhood hunger in Cuba.

       President Obama is aware that the U. S. embargo, from 1962 till today, has existed to create hunger and deprivation on the island of Cuba, even as the proponents of the Cuban embargo ignore the childhood hunger problems in the United States -- not, of course, with their own children but with millions of other people's children. A nation overrun with billionaire executives and bought-and-paid-for millionaire politicians should not also be overrun with childhood hunger problems after decades of funding regime-change schemes in Cuba, with the most everlasting scheme, ironically, being to bring about hunger problems in Cuba. At least, that's the thinking of a special young Cuban woman who rather strenuously opposes foreign interference on her island.

    At age 28, Cristina Escobar is Cuba's top broadcast journalist and she is a major influence on the island's young-adult generation that aims to determine its post-Castro future. {Later this year Fidel turns 90 and Raul turns 85}. Escobar's brilliance as a journalist and as a staunch defender of Cuba's sovereignty is well known on the island and throughout the region, and became known in the U. S. when her journalism took her to California in 2014 and Washington in 2015. The Bezos-owned Washington Post wouldn't be interested in Escobar's opinions but those concerned about fair-and-honest appraisals of Cuba are very interested in what she has to say. Last month, as you can see and hear on YouTube, Escobar told respected journalist Tracey Eaton, "I don't want the U. S. to bring me democracy." What she least wants is for a foreign power, namely the U. S, to dictate Cuba's future, as it did from 1952 till 1959 when it teamed with the most vicious/thieving Mafia kingpins to support and prop-up the vicious/thieving Batista dictatorship, all the while claiming it was America's way of bringing democracy to the island. Very astutely, Escobar says: "From 1898, after the Spanish-American War, till 1959 the United States had every chance in the world to make Cuba a paragon of democracy. But it chose to make Cuba an oppressed and occupied colony to be used as a piggy-bank and a money spigot. Yet, today the very same types in Miami and in Washington try to convince yet another generation of Americans that now 'we really need democracy in Cuba and we'll starve or destroy the people there to make it happen.' This is after assassination attempts, military assaults, multiple terrorist acts against innocent Cubans, and the embargo failed to return Cuba to the U. S., which to me means returning it to the Batistianos and the Mafiosi. Perhaps Americans don't but the rest of the world seems to understand our pugnacious nature. I want a sovereign Cuba ruled by Cubans on the island, not foreign Cubans or foreign Mafia types. I don't want a Cuba that is once more an occupied piggy-bank for criminals that they will conveniently call a 'democracy.'" 

      Obviously, Cristina Escobar is well aware of the above photo while Americans then and now are supposed to pretend it didn't relate to the U.S.-backed rape and robbery of Cuba from 1952 till 1958. This photo was published in February of 1958 by American's top magazine at the time -- Life Magazine. It's caption said: "America's Jewish Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky leaving Riviera Hotel-Casino with $200,000 cash in the satchel." It so happens that, by February of 1958, Fidel Castro and the Cuban rebels had already begun their march to Havana from the Sierra Maestra foothills on the eastern end of the island. Ten months later the ultra-rich Lansky and other Mafia kingpins had been chased to their tax-free and jail-free safe havens, such as Lansky's mansion in South Florida. Remnants of the Lansky-directed terror in Cuba still control the Cuban narrative in the U. S., not to mention the unending congressionally funded regime-change schemes designed to return Lansky-types to the island against the stern wishes of...the very determined Cristina Escobar.  

      Either Cristina Escobar will remain the new face of Cuba or Jeff Bezos {or Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz} will become the new face of Cuba. That means she is a huge underdog, but not one to be underestimated. Bezos alone has, according to Forbes, 53.2 billion dollars plus the editorial pages of the Washington Post to make his case. Rubio and Cruz are supported by a vast and unseemly array of right-wing billionaires, plus a propagandized U. S. media and citizenry that has never and will never react to atrocities against the nearby island. Escobar wants democracy for Cuba if that is what Cubans on the island want. And she wishes the U. S. democracy wasn't so susceptible to being bought by anti-Cuban, right-wing billionaires. It is well known that, on her recent journalistic visit to Washington, she was offered $3 million plus a Miami mansion if she would defect. But she has a far different agenda -- Cuban sovereignty. She doesn't have billions of right-wing dollars but, as Cuba's top broadcaster, she does have the attention of the twenty-something generation of Cubans on the island to make her case. Apparently she is familiar with the Post editorials just as she keeps abreast of other foreign threats to her very vulnerable island. Therefore, while most Americans are uninterested in the politics of a Jeff Bezos or a Marco Rubio or a Ted Cruz, Cristina Escobar is very interested. Earlier this week she said, "I envy the Cuban patriots who fought and died for Cuban sovereignty...like Marti and Maceo...more than I'll ever envy the rich Cuban exiles and their supporters in the United States." She laughed and added, "I'm old-fashioned, but I sleep well."

       In February, 2016, the island of Cuba belongs more to Cristina Escobar than to Jeff Bezos or Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. That might change by this time next year, but don't hold your breath while you wait. As long as there are Cubans on the island like Cristina Escobar, Cuba might remain an island country and not an occupied piggy-bank.

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