Attacking Cuba's Friends

The Purges Are Mounting

        These three women are, left to right, Dilma Rousseff, Michelle Bachelet and Cristina Fernandez. Each of them has been democratically elected and re-elected as Presidents of important Latin American countries -- Rousseff in Brazil, Bachelet in Chile, and Fernandez in Argentina. And all three have been staunch and very important supporters of Cuba. But a third significant thing they have in common is this: All three of them have come under massive assaults from what they believe are U.S.-friendly right-wing elements.

        As this montage indicates, the three Latin American female stalwarts till recently were among the most powerful women in the world...along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, lower-left, and America's Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, lower-right. Cristina Fernandez, upper-left, has finished her two-terms as Argentine President and was stopped by term-limits. She has been succeeded by the anti-Cuban and U.S.-friendly Mauricio Macri. Fernandez's last term in office was harassed by what she called two "parasitic U. S. factors, right-wingers and hedge fund creeps." Michelle Bachelet, lower-middle, is also under duress in her second term as Chili's President and also, "at least in part," she blames right-wing U. S. elements. That's extremely interesting and pertinent because Ms. Bachelet's father was one of the murder victims of the blood-thirsty Pinochet dictatorship. Pinochet ruled for 17 bloody years after U. S. right-wingers put him in power via the infamous coup in 1973 that resulted in the death of the very decent and democratically elected President Salvador Allende. There are even today trials in Chile, Argentina, and other Latin American nations to seek justice concerning such past atrocities. The historic background and topicality of Ms. Bachelet personifies past Nixon-Dulles-Kissinger-Bush imperialism in Latin America although Americans are supposed to ignore the everlasting effects. Dilma Rousseff, upper-right, is the most important of the much-maligned, Cuban-loving and harassed Latin American female Presidents.

       Assaults on Cristina Fernandez, Michelle Bachelet and, especially, on Dilma Rousseff are also, to a significant degree, assaults on Cuba, possibly originating or at least enhanced to combat President Obama's ongoing efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. While the three historic Latin American female Presidents are being attacked from the far-right, so are the Cuba-friendly male Presidents in the region -- Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Ollanta Humala in Peru, etc. But the assaults on Dilma Rousseff are the most significant, the most gutless and the most egregious.

      Dilma Rousseff has been suspended as President of Brazil as impeachment proceedings shame Latin America's most powerful nation just weeks before it plays host to the Rio Olympics. She correctly calls it "a coup." Most observers agree with Norm Chomsky who says, "She is being impeached by a gang of thieves." In fact, most of those in the Brazilian Congress who have led the impeachment against her are themselves charged with crimes. Dilma is not; she is basically being charged with spending too much of Brazil's economy on the poorest Brazilians, the people she fought so doggedly for as a guerrilla fighter in her youth and during her two-terms as President. Indeed, during this first full week of June-2016, two recorded phone calls from impeachment advocates prove that their assaults on Dilma were designed to protect them from criminal corruption charges by preventing President Rousseff from pursuing them.

         For many years Lucia Newman was the top broadcast journalist on Latin American issues for CNN and she is now the highly respected Latin American Editor for Aljazeera English. Ms. Newman yesterday conducted a 26-minute interview with Dilma Rousseff at Palacio da Alvorada, Brazil's official presidential palace where Dilma is confined while she mounts her impeachment defense. The entire interview is easily accessible online and, yes, you do need to access it to hear Dilma's words. She told Ms. Newman, "I am a victim of injustice. I believe that by defending democracy I will win back the trust of the Brazilian people."

        As she fights for her political life, Dilma Rousseff is supported by a determined team of lawyers, politicians, and many millions of poor people who believe...who know...she is indeed the victim of an injustice, a coup.

      Dilma Rousseff is now 68-years-old. She's been a fighter all her life against injustice and for poor, disenfranchised people. But the rich and powerful right-wingers she fought against as a youth are similar to the ones she is fighting against now. She's remains a warrior and vows to defend herself against impeachment. But the odds are stacked against her in what many consider a corrupt Congress.

President Rousseff's Vice President was Michel Temer.

       When her Vice President, Michel Temer, double-crossed her, Dilma Rousseff's days as the twice democratically elected President of Brazil were numbered. Temer, like many of the Congressmen opposing her, has been charged with corruption. But today Michel Temer sits in her presidential chair in Brazil.

Yes, President Dilma Rousseff...will be...impeached.

Brazil's poor people still love Dilma very much.

Dilma supporters at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

These Cannes movie stars know what a "coup" is.

       Pro-Dilma protesters in Brazil believe that U. S. billionaires -- like the Koch Brothers -- are trying to purchase the U. S. democracy and they are also trying to re-shape Brazil's democracy. In other words, Dilma is accused of "going overboard" in trying to help poor people, and greedy rich billionaires don't like that.

       This Wikipedia photo shows Dilma Rousseff with her well-to-do family. That's Dilma standing up in the middle. She, the future President of Brazil, was born on December 14, 1947 in Belo Horizonde, Brazil.

Dilma as a precious, precocious toddler in Brazil.

      As a very beautiful young girl, Dilma Rousseff was appalled at how a U.S.-backed military dictatorship was treating Brazilian peasants. Inspired by the success in 1959 of the Cuban Revolution against the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship, Dilma became a guerrilla fighter against that Brazilian dictatorship.

Dilma was captured, becoming prisoner #3023.

        This photo shows Dilma being sentenced to a brutal military prison where, for over two years, she was unmercifully tortured. Even today several Latin American nations are still holding investigations and trials of suspected perpetrators of those military dictatorships. The U. S. recently has reluctantly provided some information. And as the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff was asked to testify at the United Nations.

        This heart-wrenching Washington Post photo shows Dilma Rousseff fighting back tears in a speech at the United Nations when she was asked, as Brazil's President and as a victim, to testify before the UN Truth Commission about the unspeakable torture she endured during her imprisonment at the hands of the brutal military dictatorship. She complied, in detail. Later, more composed, she said "Such dark days of foreign imperialism and military dictatorships must not afflict modern generations in Latin America and the Caribbean. But those who know about such things are duty-bound, I believe, to tell that history, as painful as it is for me to do so here today. Victims or their families deserve justice, however belated. And the perpetrators still living deserve punishment and even the perpetrators now dead deserve to be scorned." If you ignore the other Dilma photos, please study this one as, at the United Nations, she was re-living being tortured.

Dilma when she scared corrupt right-wingers.

           Dilma is still powerful. Time Magazine in big red letters highlighted this quote from her: "I will struggle all my might until the coupmongers are defeated." Her struggle is both brave and honorable.

        This Reuters photo is modern, just days old. It shows Dilma wiping away a tear when she found out she was being suspended as the two-term democratically elected President of Brazil. The coup that will codify her impeachment awaits her. Just like when she was brutally imprisoned as a young woman, the rich and corrupt son-of-a-bitches have won. Dilma has lost. So have the poor people. And so has democracy.

Dilma Rousseff: Cuba's troubled friend.

Dilma Rousseff: Brazil's great lady.

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Pundits-Propagandists-Publicists

 A Nonsensical Trilogy 

       In this torturous and rapturous presidential election year, the most interesting and also the most beautiful player is Hope Hicks. Donald Trump has captured and enraptured the Republican nomination, partly because of her. If he captures the White House, it will also be partly because of her. As his spokesperson, you might call her a publicist but she is neither a pundit nor a propagandist, which is good. She is 27-years-old and so shy she seldom does interviews. From Greenwich, Connecticut, she starred for four years as a lacrosse player at SMU in Dallas, Texas. A stunning brunette, she is a Ralph Lauren model. In August of 2014, Donald Trump was enthralled with her, perhaps after one look in her direction or probably after hearing her speak. She told New Yorker Magazine, "Mr. Trump told me, 'I'm thinking of running for president, and you're going to be my press secretary,' and I haven't been home since Thanksgiving." 

          Hope Hicks presents a dauntingly emphatic presence merely by getting off Donald Trump's airplane. Every news anchor and newspaper columnist in America would love to interview her, but those chances are slim or none. She also refrains from social media, except for helping Trump with his prolific tweets.

        Standing next to Hope Hicks, as key Trump aide Daniel Scavino is uncomfortably doing in the above photo, is akin to being anonymous. All eyes and all ears always seem to naturally gravitate to Hope Hicks. 

         Damon White of the New York Times took this penetrating photo of Hope Hicks, Donald Trump's shy but photogenic and all-business Press Secretary. She routinely and keenly spots notable Trump-bashers.

A Washington Post photo of Hope Hicks.

Hope Hicks orchestrating a Trump venue.

        Hope Hicks is a brilliant and relentless publicist, but not infallible. She inadvertently made headlines herself when she typed a very private text message about Hillary Clinton that she intended for a Trump aide but mistakenly sent it to a Politico reporter who had almost exactly the same name and was a renowned anti-Trump basher. The media is still trying, without success, to pigeon-hole her about that. 

Donald Trump depends mightily on Hope Hicks. 

If he makes it to the White House, so will Hope Hicks.

      Hope Hicks, I believe, would be a welcome addition to the White House. She is a skilled publicist but she despises pundits, which she very correctly believes are a disgrace to both broadcast journalism and the political process. A publicist with such a comprehensive insight might put Trump in the White House and, considering the lesser-of-two-evils scenario, that might not be a bad thing for America's democracy.

       Interestingly enough, anti-Trump zealots like Maria Cardona might help Hope Hicks make Donald Trump President of the United States. Ms. Cardona was born 49 years ago in Bogota, Colombia, and graduated from Duke University. As a ubiquitous and typically obnoxious television pundit, Ms. Cardona is extremely biased against Trump and an extreme and exceedingly rich propagandist for his opponent, Hillary Clinton. She is, I believe, the personification of the two best words -- the noun nescience and the adjective truculent -- that define television pundits. But those two definitive words get her a lot of airtime as a pundit because networks pretend, despite polls that reveal the media's approval rating is incredibly dismal, that their propaganda will influence voters instead of, actually, mostly turning them off or, more probably, sending them frantically into an opposite direction. Because of that, Trump is a serious presidential contender and even Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders is strongly preferred, at least by the more enlightened and smarter young-adult voters, over established bought-and-paid-for candidates.

        The reason a proliferation and saturation of pundits like Maria Cardona may put Trump in the White House is that many Americans will go in the opposite directions that professional propagandists like her espouse and, posing as condescending savants, point them to go. If Trump becomes President, it will be because a vast majority of white males will be able to offset Clinton's dramatic edge with Hispanic, Black and women voters. And, yes, it could happen because the networks -- incompetent news sources but also ubiquitously strong -- continue to employ biased pundits as opposed to broadcast journalists who could actually cover the news. This week on CNN's prime time, Cardona's incessant anti-Trump rants, as usual, made the point that only white males, like Trump, are racists and that Hispanics, African-Americans and women are always 100% purists when it comes to being absolutely and eternally non-racists. That is a lie...and it's a lie that might, unfortunately, put an unqualified person, like Mr. Trump, in the White House. 

       Regardless of the continuous self-proclaimed racism and holier-than-thou vitriol from television pundits that will surely persist right up until the November presidential election, "Donald Trump's impact on the GOP {and the impact of Bernie Sanders} will not suddenly disappear and might well spill more bloodshed along the way as the greatest weakness of the U. S. democracy is unveiled for all the world to see. A great democracy...and America's democracy was indeed the greatest...needs a thriving, impartial news media, as the Founding Fathers stated repeatedly back in 1776. But, in their infinite wisdom, they did not envision television, the most powerful medium. With all network news operations in the U. S. now owned by greedy, self-serving billionaire individuals or corporations, "broadcast news" is strictly a giant propaganda machine that, with the use of pundits, repeatedly remind Americans how stupid they are if they don't support the punditry-beloved bought-and-paid-for candidates. Thus, as a reaction to such anti-democracy punditry, millions of Americans, in desperation, are seeking alternatives...such as Trump and Sanders. Of course, monied pundits like Ms. Cardona might yet win but, at least, their excesses have spawned an indelible resistance that might someday restore democratic principles to America's politics.

And, uh, speaking of politics:  

         This graphic is courtesy of Cosmopolitan Magazine and it depicts one of Chelsea Clinton's abodes in New York City. She is the daughter of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee. It is a reminder that only the rich need apply in our money-crazed political system that shamefully mocks the non-rich.

       This Cosmopolitan Magazine graphic depicts one of Ivanka Trump's abodes in New York City. She is the daughter of Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee. It's another reminder to voters that contenders for national office in the U. S. need to be billionaires or need to have sold their souls to billionaires.  In other words, democracy was a blessing and a priceless jewel until it was put up for sale.

And speaking of obnoxious pundits:

          Study this Harley Schwadron political cartoon. 

      And note this Lisa Donnelly political cartoon.

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Making Cuba More Modern

 Thanks, Mr. Obama!! 

         A quantity of high-quality photos this week courtesy of Designboom.com reveal how Cuba is trying to modernize after over a half-century of right-wing Americans and revengeful Cuban-Americans trying to pound it into oblivion. Reflecting positive results of President Obama's historic, decent and visionary attempts to normalize relations with Cuba, study the above photo on a street in Havana. The spanking new red auto on the right is an Audi Q2. The more typical, at least for Cuba, car on the left is a 1950s-era convertible, a product of Cuban ingenuity much admired around the world for keeping such dinosaurs functional after all these decades, even with the half-century American embargo that denies spare parts. 

       According to Designboom.com, the brand-new Audi Q2 is "the first new model car presented in Cuba in modern times." It perhaps is a harbinger of long-awaited better days ahead for Cubans on the island.

      A new car in Cuba has been an anomaly, till Obama! 

Tourists in a 1950s convertible eyeing the Audi Q2.

        President Obama has every right to applaud his brave and courageous overtures to the Cuban people. As the Designboom.com photos indicate, Obama's sane gestures toward Cuba improve the lives and hopes of Cubans while also enhancing the tarnished image of democracy and the United States.

      This modern and historic photo is courtesy of REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini. It shows Puerto Rican Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla in Havana this week. He is the first Puerto Rican governor in history to visit Cuba. Both Caribbean island nations were Spanish colonies until 1898 when the U. S. victory in the Spanish-American War put them under American dominance. Puerto Rico is now, of course, a U. S. Territory but Cuba has had its independence since the Cuban Revolution in 1959 ousted the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship. In Havana this week, Governor Garcia told Reuters journalist Marc Frank, "After meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro, I have begun the process of opening a commercial office in Cuba." As a U. S. Territory, of course, Puerto Rico would not be doing this and Governor Garcia would not have visited Cuba if it were not for President Obama's decent gestures toward the island. So, the positives still flow. 

But, so do some negatives:

         This Shutterstock.com graphic will float around the world today -- June 7th, 2016 -- and paint an unfavorable glow on both Cuba and President Obama's detente with Cuba. The image shows North Korean and Cuban butterflies commingling, an image neither Cuba nor Obama needs right now. The image is used to illustrate a major article by Samuel Ramani entitled: "The North Korea-Cuba Connection." Mr. Ramani stresses that "Havana's continued cooperation with Pyongyang is an alarming blow to the normalization process" and he also says it is "a highly pernicious blow to the prospects of U.S.-Cuban normalization." 

       

      Samuel Ramani is a respected journalist who gets wide coverage in print and online from venues such as The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, etc. He is a scholar at England's Oxford University and he is considered an international expert on post-1991 Russian foreign policy, with 1991 being the year that Cuba was drastically affected by the collapse of a key patron, the Soviet Union. Mr. Ramani is not considered anti-Cuban and he seems to support President Obama's attempts to normalize U.S.-Cuban relations. In the aforementioned article that will get wide-spread attention around the world starting today, Ramani suggests that President Obama and Cuba should be "embarrassed" by Cuba's seemingly warm ties to North Korea. I think it's a very fair-minded article and I agree with Ramani's conclusions.

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Cowardice Regarding Cuba

 A Lingering American Shame 

    Candace Johnson suffers because of America's Cuban policy.

        Candace Johnson is the President and CEO of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York. And yes, America's Cuban policy punishes her and millions of other Americans whose tax dollars pay for it.

       The Roswell Park Cancer Institute is the oldest cancer clinic in the United States, and certainly one of the most renowned. Its leader, Candace Johnson, is surely one of the world's greatest cancer experts. Roswell Park and Dr. Johnson were recently spotlighted in a Huffington Post article entitled: "Cuba Has A Vaccine for Lung Cancer and America Wants It." The vaccine has been proven in Cuba and many other countries to be successful, and Cuba provides it free to poor patients. The reason America doesn't have it, of course, is two-fold: {1} The U. S. embargo against Cuba that has been in place since 1962 to appease two generations of Cuban-exiles booted off the island by the Cuban Revolution in 1959; and {2} the cowardice of two generations of Americans who have lacked the guts and the intelligence to oppose the embargo. 

       Earlier this year, taking advantage of President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo {above} took a large delegation of prominent New Yorkers on a trade mission to Cuba. Dr. Candace Johnson, on behalf of Americans suffering from lung cancer, went along on that trip and, as shown above, she made a passionate speech on behalf of democracy, begging for the shameful U. S. embargo against Cuba to be relaxed at least enough to help American families being ravished by lung cancer. Of course, the brilliance and compassion of Dr. Johnson -- as well as the Cuban scientists who invented the cancer vaccine -- are over-matched by the pro-embargo crowd that successfully preaches this mantra: "Fidel Castro in 1959 chased Lucky Luciano and all the other nice people off the island. Even with the aid of the CIA, the Mafia, the U. S. military, and the U. S. Congress, we have been unable to kill or overthrow Castro, who is about to turn 90-years-old on August 13th after his brother Raul turned 85 on June 4th. The embargo we put in place in 1962 was designed to starve and deprive Cubans so they would rise up and overthrow Castro themselves, which they have not done. But we must keep the embargo in place because it at least punishes Castro and makes a lot of us in Miami very rich. So, if it hurts and shames America, I'm sure you Americans will understand." The majority of Americans, without a whimper, have meekly accepted such directives for over half-a-century as democracy-lovers cringe in disbelief.

     The few great Americans -- such as Candace Johnson and President Obama -- who have bravely resisted the embargo, and other imperialist terrorist acts against Cuba, are often thwarted by the cowardice of the American people. Of course, it is neither politically correct nor healthy to say that, but not to say it is perpetuating a lie that harms innocent Cubans and Americans as well as democratic principles and innocent people all around the world. By having enough control of a bought-and-paid-for Congress, a handful of people can use the embargo to punish innocent and sovereign nations around the world, including America's best friends, if they do business with Cuba. Little Jamaica, for example, was fined for sending a box of baby aspirin to Cuba. Since 2009...and you may Google these statistics...the U. S. government has fined companies doing business with Cuba $14.4 billion, and counting. A British firm, CGS Services, was recently fined $614,250 for "using spare parts and equipment of U. S. origin on oil and gas exploration vessels operating in Cuban territorial waters." Why, you ask, are such ridiculous fines paid? The U. S. is the world economic superpower and if you don't pay the Cuban fines you can forget participating in the international financial markets. Cuba, of course, also is denied those international economic niceties by the longest and cruelest embargo in history, one that long ago, in all likelihood, would have brought much larger and stronger nations to their knees. Yet, Cuba still tries to stand tall.

       As this Doing More With Less graphic indicates, the U. S. embargo hasn't destroyed Cuba and it hasn't starved the Cuban people on the island. But it has, since 1962, severely deprived them while also depriving Americans like Dr. Candace Johnson who would like to have Cuba's cancer drug for her lung cancer patients in the United States. Moreover, since 1962 the embargo has shamed the United States and its democracy in the eyes of the world...all for the purpose of sating the greed and revenge appetites of a few.

All the while....

       ...Americans are supposed to be too afraid, too stupid, and too unpatriotic to support great Americans like Dr. Candace Johnson. It seems Americans will sit back and allow Congress to keep the Cuban embargo in place for another half century.

        In unanimity, polls show that most Americans, most Cuban-Americans and almost all non-Americans in the entire world strongly object to America's Cuban policy. Yet, propagandized, proselytized, and pulverized Americans have been taught to ignore such reminders as...the yearly 191-to-2 vote in the UN that reveals {in all the world} only Israel supports America's Cuban policy, and Israel is the recipient of untold billions of dollars each year in American aid. 

      Fueling America's abominable Cuban policy for the past half-century has been the mainstream U. S. media that has evolved into a giant-sized propaganda machine, as indicated by the above graphic. Jose Diaz-Balart is a Miami-based news anchor for NBC and MSNBC. His father Rafael was a key minister in Cuba's Batista dictatorship that was overthrown in January of 1959 only to quickly rebound on U. S. soil. Two of Jose's brothers -- Lincoln and Mario -- have been elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami. Only viciously anti-Castro Cuban-Americans get elected to Congress and only viciously anti-Castro Cuban-Americans become anchors or pundits on the U. S. networks or columnists for mainstream newspapers, such as Miami-based Alan Gomez at USA Today. Therefore, as Jose Diaz-Balart is doing in the above graphic, only vicious anti-Castro zealots -- such as Miami's Havana-born U. S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen above -- are interviewed in the mainstream United States media. In that milieu, the only thing that separates the mainstream United States media from being anti-democratic propaganda machines are a myriad of great, Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonists.

       This political cartoon by the great Matt Wuerker is telling us that a mere handful of pro-embargo zealots have been able to defy American, Cuban and world opinions to keep the U. S. embargo in place for over half-a-century.

        This political cartoon by the great Steve Sack tells us that the entire world and Cuba, long punished by the outrageously cruel and right wing-beloved U. S. policy, welcome the efforts of Obama to normalize relations.

       This political cartoon by the great Paul Fell is telling us that the olive branch President Obama is trying to extend to Cuba still faces massive opposition from a minority of greedy, revengeful miscreants who have lavishly benefited from many, many decades of hostility towards the nearby island.

          This political cartoon by the great Talal Nayer is telling us that Barack Obama is the only U. S. president who has possessed the combination of guts and intelligence to offer Cuba a friendly hand instead of belligerent arrows but, not surprisingly, Cuba is not sure that the handshake gesture can be trusted.

       This political cartoon by the great Daryl Cagle is telling us that the bold and brash President Obama is lighting his Cuban cigar, and his Cuban detente, from the fiery flames being spewed out by a second generation of one-trick-pony Miami Cubans who are reluctant to let go of their lucrative political and financial piggy-banks and political power-bastions. Apart from superb political cartoonists, the mainstream United States media has neither the guts nor the integrity to tell such truths about U.S.-Cuban relations. 

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