Donald Trump Hates Cuba

At least when he's in Miami!!

      The Getty Images photo above was used by Politico to show Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump making a speech in Miami this hot mid-September weekend. The Politico article was written by Marc Caputo and featured this headline: "In Miami, Trump Morphs Back Into A Cuban Hardliner." Considering the alarming depths that define the current status of U. S politics, the cowardly morphing by Mr. Trump in Miami is no surprise. Earlier he had bravely said that he was "fine" with President Obama's historic and decent efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Mr. Trump, away from Miami, famously maintained, "Fifty years of a failed policy is enough." Then this weekend in Florida his two-faced cowardice surfaced when he lambasted Cuba and Obama with words designed to appease only the anti-Castro zealots in Miami.

          The aforementioned article was written by Marc Caputo who recently left the Miami Herald to join Politico. In reporting how Trump morphed his Cuban position to win the applause and hopefully the votes and donations of Miami's Cuban hardliners, Caputo pointed out how politically correct but also how cowardly that reversal of his Cuban position was. Also, it pointed out that politicians like Trump routinely court special interest money while ignoring majority opinion, which used to account for something in the U. S. democracy. Caputo explained that the majority of Cuban-Americans even in Miami-Dade County support Obama's Cuban policy, not that of the Cuban hardliners. And Caputo wrote about: "Miami-Dade County's changing Cuban-American community...where 54 percent now favor lifting the sanctions in a new poll." 

        A democracy-loving Cuban-American businessman in Miami, Hugo Cancio, is fed-up with what he calls "the lack of democracy in Miami and Washington political circles, where it seems only money and power rules." He says, "Romney, the Bush people, now Trump...they all flock to Miami to say only what the Cuban hardliners want to hear and totally ignore what the majority of Cuban-Americans, moderates like me, think. To a growing number of Americans and Cuban-Americans, we think that it's time for democracy to be applied to America's Cuban policy. In near-unanimity next month in the United Nations, the entire world will say the same thing, yet again. I'm Cuban but American. I'm tired of the fact that the mere mention of 'Cuba' around the world demeans America and democracy, not because of Castro but because of U. S. politics." In other words, ponder who had the most guts in defense of democracy in Miami this weekend, Donald Trump or Hugo Cancio?

        Hugo Cancio, by the way, is an interesting, gutsy fellow. He was born in Havana 52-years-ago and his mom brought him to Miami during the famed 1980 Mariel Boatlift. He has a myriad of businesses in Miami and Cuba, with offices in both places, and divides his time between his two beloved countries. A Reuters article written by David Adams said, "Passionate about his homeland, Cancio has had a rocky relationship with the Cuban government and with other exiles in Miami." He was once banned from Cuba when he criticized a crackdown on dissidents, but his business ties, which include music promotions and publishing, are substantial in both Miami and Havana. He promoted Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez's sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall and Cuban singer Pablo Milanes' successful and highly publicized but protested concert in Miami. The moderate Cuban-Americans in Miami, now in the majority, strongly support Cancio, as do U. S. companies needing his unique insight regarding business prospects in Cuba. When American television host Conan O'Brien, for example, aired his show from Cuba, Cancio helped.

       Hugo Cancio publishes OnCuba magazine in both Miami and Havana. This and the next two photos were taken by Yuris Norido for OnCuba from the window of a train that was passing through rural Cuba.

A young Cuban man outside the passing train's window.

A young Cuban girl outside the passing train's window.

Miami {"Little Havana"} still lurks northeast of Havana.
Hugo Cancio has very close ties to both cities.

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The Ranting Senator Rubio

Why Not President Rubio?

Or King Rubio?
{Updated: Saturday, September 17th, 2016}

       The image above shows Senator Marco Rubio ranting and raving on the Senate floor this week -- on Sept. 15, 2016 -- in a puerile, revengeful and stupidly misguided tirade against President Obama and, of course, Cuba. This photo was used in a report by J. J. Gallagher that was aired on ABC's Good Morning America and its sister tie-in Yahoo News. Mr. Gallagher began his report with these words: "Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida excoriated the TSA and the Obama administration on the Senate floor yesterday." BEAUTIFUL! Rubio's excoriation was because he blames the Transportation Security Administration and President Obama for the fact that, for the first time since 1961, commercial airplane flights from the U. S. to Cuba resumed on August 31st, 2016. The commercial flight by jetBlue represented one more slice that the brave and decent President Obama has taken out of a devastating {for innocent Cubans and innocent Americans} U. S. Cuban policy dictated by remnants of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship that was overthrown on Jan. 1-1959 with much of that leadership quickly and, it seems, permanently regrouping on U. S. soil, mainly Rubio's Miami environs. For over half-a-century -- during unending but unsuccessful efforts to regain control of Cuba -- Rubio and his ilk are not accustomed to being challenged by the American people, the media or surely not a President with the skill, decency and bravery of Mr. Obama.

      Marco Rubio is finishing his first 6-year term in the U. S. Senate. Being an anti-Castro Cuban-American zealot from Miami -- along with the obligatory connections with the Bush dynasty and the Tea Party -- constituted his prime credentials. He hit the Senate floor running for President and had the worst voting record among all the Senators because of his torrid presidential ambitions and fund-raising. Asked about his uniquely infrequent votes, he slammed Congress for not getting anything done. Rubio's one signature bill, related to immigration, was a laughable joke. His other headlines, apart from his presidential aspirations, concerned his rants and raves about shutting down the government and, the day he became President, to begin turning back all of President Obama's positive overtures to Cuba. The fact that polls show that most Cuban-Americans, even in Miami, favor Obama's Cuban policy over his was/is, of course, inconsequential. Since when do everyday Americans or everyday Cuban-Americans have a voice in politics? In the Republican presidential primary Rubio was flush with money and backed by a fawning media but got wiped out by Chris Christie in the debates and by Donald Trump in his own home-state primary in Florida, after which Rubio quit the presidential race. He announced to the world that he would then not seek reelection to the Senate. That soon turned into another Rubio distortion because, apparently, he belatedly realized he needed the Senate exposure to seek the 2020 Republican presidential nomination.

          While Rubio's lavishly funded and media-propelled presidential bid unceremoniously petered out in 2016, there is no doubt he will have plenty of money and ample fawning media exposure to make another White House bid in 2020 and certainly more-than-enough money to retain his Florida Senate seat.

      Rubio's taste for money-burgers is legendary among America's most famed conservative and right-wing multi-multi-multi billionaires who, to the chagrin of most democracy-loving Americans, appear to have an easy path to purchasing the basic fabrics of the U. S. government, especially since an incredible 2010 Supreme Court ruling that permits unlimited political donations. Uniquely in America, presidential and even key Senatorial races become billion-dollar money-grabs, with the whims of a few billionaires seeming to circumvent and take precedence over the collective votes of millions of not-so-rich individuals. The multi-multi-multi billionaire on the right in the above montage, Mr. Koch, has made sure that one of his political PAC machines has sent tens of millions of dollars to Florida to back Rubio's reelection to the Senate. So really, who do you think is going to win that money-crazed Senate race in Florida? 

       Patrick Murphy is the Democrat running a losing campaign against incumbent Republican Marco Rubio in the current race to represent Florida in the U. S. Senate. Murphy was a Republican himself till he felt it was taken over by the Tea Party, then he became a Democrat. Murphy's family is very, very, very rich but he's a pauper compared to Rubio's prime financial supporters.

    A major article available online and written by notable investigative journalist Ken Silverstein is entitled: "I Am For Sale******Call Marco Rubio." In the long essay Silverstein uses well-known names, places, and little-known Rubio associations that are chilling and, it would seem, devastating to a political career.  But we have entered into a period in American history in which most Americans agree that money talks...and votes! If that were not so, America's two-party political system would not presently have a presidential race in which both candidates have extremely high unfavorable ratings and a Senate race in Florida wouldn't have millions of dollars flooding in from out-of-state billionaires. So...let's see?..."who do we vote for, Martha? The lesser of two evils...or not at all...or...why don't we just go on a long cruise. Martha, uh, you always wanted to take a cruise..." 

       This photo is a personification of Marco Rubio's first six years in the Senate and, most likely, is a harbinger of his next six-year term...uh, 4 years because of the 2020 presidential race, which also probably means he'll set another record for not even being on hand in the Senate to vote but often on hand to "excoriate" anyone who tries to challenge his dire plans for Cuba. The lady in the orange jacket casting an evil eye and sarcastic grin at Rubio as she judiciously walks by is Roberta Jacobson. She is an absolutely brilliant U. S. diplomat. She represented President Obama and the U. S. in all four of the diplomatic sessions with her Cuban counterpart Josefina Vidal. When she skillfully finished that task, Mr. Obama nominated her to the vital post as U. S. Ambassador to Mexico, a vacant and badly needed position that everyone it seems felt she was the most qualified to fill. Everyone except Rubio and a few other anti-Castro zealots who sought revenge against Ms. Jacobson and the U. S. for her diplomatic achievements related to Cuba. Week-after-week-after-week Rubio used his Senatorial power and his petty whims to block Ms. Jacobson's badly needed Ambassadorship to Mexico. If Rubio has a single political achievement {other than being a mega-fundraiser} to balance out his self-serving pettiness, I'm trying to find out what that achievement might be. 

 And by the way: 

         Just in the last few days I have read four major articles, including two in USA Today, about the U. S. television networks massively fighting the surge of Ad Blockers. Then the Associated Press had a major article entitled: "Facebook Blocks Users From Blocking Ads." Those four articles resonated with me because of another article about a caring mother in Minnesota who didn't use an Ad Blocker on her television but, because she had two sub-teen daughters, she always made sure she kept the remote handy so she could instantly hit the mute button or change channels when the commercials came on. But one night when the two girls were in the living room watching television...they weren't allowed to have televisions in their rooms...the mother had misplaced the remote. Thus the commercial depicted above popped on the screen...the commercial she had come to fear the most. The mother scrambled frantically to find the remote...in the couch, on the floor...but to no avail. The entire 30-second commercial screamed across the room. It salaciously highlighted celebrity-comedian Neil Patrick Harris repetitiously shouting the phase "flipping another man's meat" in the ad for Heineken beer. The frantic mother heard the audio as, on her hands and knees, she finally found the remote...but too late. As she cut off the television entirely, she stared in horror at her 11-year-old daughter whose facial expression and gestures revealed she was stunned by the ad, which the mother correctly labeled "pornographic filth." She chastised herself for not being able, that one time, to protect her pre-teen daughter...in her own home...from that assault from pornographic filth being the prime feature of a primetime ad that eluded the mother's defenses.

        The gripping article about the Minnesota mother who tried so hard to protect her daughters from the Heineken beer ad, also referenced the same celebrity-comedian salesman being almost naked while hosting the prime-time 2015 Academy Awards. I believe that Minnesota mother, and millions of others, would also call this "pornographic filth." MY POINT IS THIS...and I am not a prude: If the television networks and online billionaire profiteers want to scream about doing away with Ad Blockers, I believe they should first do away with the pornographic filth they insist on saturating American homes with, such as that mother's living room in Minnesota. Billions of dollars, political power and monopolistic privileges do not make unwanted assaults from pornographic filth right. That mother in Minnesota, and millions like her, are right. They need and deserve Ad Blockers in case their remotes are not always at their fingertips.

       In past decades in America, pornographic ads like this one sold a passel of Kent Cigarettes and other harmful products, not so unlike the Neil Patrick Harris ad sells Heineken beer now.

      This ad seems to be selling pizza, pornography and Heineken beer. The pornographic cigarette ads ended, I assume, because of the proven health risks from smoking cigarettes, not from the fact that the tobacco companies ran out of money or the ad agencies or celebrity endorsers suddenly developed a flair for decency or respect for others. There are, for sure, a plethora of readily available pornographic avenues but that unfortunate fact-of-life should not include direct paths right into the unsuspecting or helpless living rooms of decent, innocent people like that mother in Minnesota who deserves the right to protect her pre-teen daughters as she sees fit and also to partake of primetime entertainment if she so chooses. In other words, that mother in Minnesota deserves an Ad Blocker to assist her remote control even if the billionaires who own the networks, the online behemoths, and the politicians want to assault her.

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NO U. S. Problems

Except Cuba, of course!!

          John Katko is a fierce anti-Cuban zealot from New York. Unfortunately he is in the U. S. Congress. Yesterday -- Sept. 14-2016, as shown in this C-Span image -- Mr. Katko spent an inordinate amount of America's valuable congressional time berating and bullying the over-matched Huban Gowadia, the Deputy Administrator of the Transportation Security Administration. Mr. Katko was and is outraged that back on August 31st jetBlue made the first commercial flight to Cuba since 1961. Still fuming about that historic breakthrough, Mr. Katko excoriated Mr. Gowadia because the TWA didn't have nearly enough {or any} armed Air Marshals on the flight to the forbidden Caribbean island. Mr. Katko bellowed, "You misled the American public when you issued that press release saying it was going to be on select Cuban flights! Not having Air Marshals on Cuban flights is not a good idea! We need collaboration instead of obfuscation!!"    

    What "we DO need" is collaboration to expose the congressional obfuscation related to the endless decades of punishing innocent Cubans on the island in the guise of "hurting CASTRO" or in the even more transparent guises of enriching and empowering anti-Castro zealots in the United States. As far as a small but definitive and usually unchallenged band in the U. S. Congress is concerned, Cuba is by far America's biggest problem, far ahead of the combined threats posed by ISIS, Zika, natural disasters, crime-ridden U. S. cities, a dilapidated infrastructure, the heroin epidemic, the current 8-day military exercises teaming Russia with China in the volatile South China Sea, the vast disparity between the rich and poor in the U. S., North Korea's increasing nuclear threat, etc., etc. "Let's forget all these minor problems and concentrate our time, resources, and energy on recapturing Cuba!!" Mr. Katko is one reason Congress has an approval rating in the single digits, according to a recent poll, but it seems irredeemable because Americans across 50 states, including most of New York, can't vote to boot the likes of Mr. John Katko off the public payrolls...as least far enough away from Washington so Congress can at least get a double-digit approval rating. 

And by the way:

       This is the best comment I've seen on the sex scandal that is roiling the Fox News Network. The talented artist is Marc Murphy, the truly great Editorial Cartoonist for The Louisville Courier-Journal.

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STILL Overthrowing Castro

With Unlimited Tax Dollars!!

       If you are an anti-Castro zealot in Miami, like Carmen Sesin, and also happen to be a free-lance broadcast journalist, the politically correct and extremely biased U. S. propaganda networks will make you very rich, very quick. Yesterday -- Sept. 13-2016 -- NBC-TV blared a massive report by Ms. Sesin entitled: "Conference Pushes for Cuba to Move Forward, Expand Internet Freedom." This was her introductory first paragraph: "Cuba must enter the 21st century: that is the message at the first Cuba Internet Freedom Conference held Monday and Tuesday in Miami by the U.S.-funded Office of Cuba Broadcasting {OCB}." 

     Carmen Sesin used NBC-TV and images like this to illustrate her latest Let's Overthrow Fidel Castro Tactic. Such tactics, of course, have been a daily occurrence -- at extreme expense to U. S. taxpayers -- since 1959, the year the Cuban Revolution booted the Batista-Mafia dictatorship off the island -- mostly to nearby Miami. The latest anti-Castro extravaganza in Miami, as Ms. Sesin pointed out, was organized and sponsored by The Office of Cuba Broadcast, also known as Radio-TV Marti. It operates from plush, state-of-the-art studios in Miami. Most informed, unbiased and un-intimidated observers consider it nothing more, nothing less than an anti-Castro propaganda machine. Moreover, it is also known as The Broadcast to Nowhere because Cuba easily blocks it and everyday Cubans, who have lived all their lives on the island with the now 90-year-old Castro, would pay little, if any, attention to it anyway. So why does it exist? It provides a financial pipeline from Washington to Miami. That's a start. Almost two decades ago, ABC-TV News famously broadcast a report entitled "Broadcast to Nowhere" about Cuba easily blocking the propaganda from Miami but also documenting that unwitting tax-payers were paying hundreds of millions of dollars to fund Radio-Marti. That was almost two decades ago. Now consider the additional hundreds of millions of tax dollars still flowing in that wide-open Washington-to-Miami pipeline for Radio-TV Marti. Is it really to send anti-Castro propaganda or is it just an excuse to send more money to anti-Castro zealots? 

       The latest anti-Castro extravaganza in Miami -- as reported yesterday by NBC News/Carmen Sesin -- was yet another tax-sapping enterprise conducted by the lavish Radio-TV Marti operation. Apparently taking a cue from the success social media had in the Arab Spring uprisings, the extreme Miami focus relating to expanding the social media in Cuba seems to be saying: "Hey, folks, LISTEN UP. For over half-a-century we've had the backing of the U. S. Treasury, the U. S. CIA, the U. S. Government, the U. S. Military, the U. S. Mafia AND the apathy of the American people AND GUESS WHAT? We still haven't been able since 1959 to overthrow one man on one nearby island. But Fidel is now 90-years-old and supposedly REAL SICK so if we can actually get our tax-funded propaganda machines on the island itself instead of just in Miami...HELL, we can overthrow Fidel within two or three weeks!! So that's why we're gathered here today. And thanks for coming."

      This scene -- earlier highlighted by NBC News & Carmen Sesin -- was in front of the iconic Versailles Restaurant in the heart of Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. It was a fierce demonstration against President Obama, denouncing his peaceful overtures to Cuba and calling America's decent two-term President a "COWARD" while one demonstrator, as you can see, waves a Cuban flag across the street.

        It makes me wonder if NBC or Carmen Sesin would ever give any coverage to, say, Hugo Cancio. Hugo is a prominent Cuban-American businessman in Miami. He frequently visits the island. He complains that the anti-Obama demonstrators, Miami's elected officials, Miami's elected representatives to the U. S. Congress, etc., "do not represent the majority of moderate Cuban-Americans like me." So why can't moderates like Hugo Cancio in Miami get elected or at least get covered by the mainstream media?   

       Americans unfamiliar with top, unbiased Cuban experts, like Julia Sweig, do not have a clue when it comes to answering or deciphering questions related to Cuba. That's because the Cuban narrative in the United States, beginning in 1952, has been dictated by Batista supporters in Washington and Miami.

       In her seminal book -- "CUBA: What Everyone Needs To Know" -- Julia Sweig did the best job of documenting how the most visceral anti-Castro Cuban-Americans gained absolute control of America's Cuban policy. She explained that back in the 1980s the Reagan-Bush administration anointed Jorge Mas Canosa the leader of the Cubans-in-exile. And, quite significantly, she documented that Mas Canosa was advised to study AIPAC and then replicate it. AIPAC is the ultra-powerful Israeli lobby that politicians oppose only at their peril. Mas Canosa followed that sage advice and created CANF, the Cuban lobby. He then founded such lavishly funded enterprises as the aforementioned Radio-TV Marti and powerfully initiated or backed such incredibly powerful anti-Castro/pro-Cuban exile laws as Torricelli, Helms-Burton, the Cuban-Adjustment Act, Wet Foot/Dry Foot, etc., etc. etc. That's why to this day pipelines of tax dollars flow to Miami and to lavishly support a myriad of Cuban regime-change laws; why everyday Americans are the only people in the world without the freedom to go to Cuba; why Cubans are the only people in the world with discriminatory U. S. laws that provide them special financial, residence and citizenship privileges the second they touch U. S. soil, etc. The AIPAC-CANF nexus, as expertly documented in the above Julia Sweig book, explains all that, facts that American tax-payers and citizens apparently should not know.

Mas Canosa informing President Ronald Reagan. 

But the Mas Canosa nexus to the Bush dynasty was the key.

Mas Canosa {black suit} awaits his souvenir pen from Bush #1.

Mas Canosa also easily controlled Democratic Presidents.

President Clinton reluctantly signed Helms-Burton into law.
To this day, it codifies America's anti-Castro vengeance.

       Shortly after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, the most visceral anti-Castro zealots -- including Jorge Mas Canosa {above}, Luis Posada Carriles, Felix Rodriguez, etc. -- were sent to the then-secretive Army of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia to train -- at great expense to tax-payers and democracy -- for the recapture of Cuba. As noted above, it was at Fort Benning that Brigade 2506, which attacked Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961, was formed. From Fort Benning and the Bush nexus, Mas Canosa emerged as a billionaire and as easily the all-time most powerful Cuban-American.

        Fidel Castro is now 90-years-old. Neither he nor Revolutionary Cuba are likely to be overthrown...at least not in the next few weeks. That's amazing. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. In 1959 the lushly funded, and secretive, Army of the Americas at Fort Benning launched operations to quickly assassinate or overthrow Castro. When all that failed, the CIA, the U. S. Treasury, the U. S. military, and the Mafia all in concert tried to do the job. All that failed too. So did the embargo that began in 1962 and exists to this day, an embargo that surely would have long-ago doomed almost all much-larger nations. And perhaps most incredibly of all, an unending stream of anti-Castro laws easily enacted by the U. S. Congress without a whit of hindrance from the U. S. citizens {regardless of how undemocratic or discriminatory they are} have enriched and empowered a lot of Cuban-Americans but failed in supposedly their first objective -- which was and is to eliminate Fidel Castro. AMAZING. Yet, as mentioned at the top of this essay, down in Miami the rich and powerful anti-Castro zealots this week launched yet another "Let's overthrow Fidel" enterprise, one that soaks the already soaked U. S. tax-payers who appear either too stupid or too intimidated to object.

ALL OF WHICH REMINDS ME:

       Cuba's petite doctor's daughter, Celia Sanchez, deserves most of the credit for kicking the Batistianos off the island, all the way to Miami, AND for keeping them off for all these many decades. She even crafted the best quotation related to how she did it: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots." CELIA, WHAT A WOMAN!!

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Cuba Plans to Survive

Here's How!!

MEO Australia in a major company in a great country Down Under. It is very anxious to do business in Cuba; and the island, looking to remain sovereign in a post-Castro future, is quite susceptible to such overtures. It is a fact that Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 has pugnaciously done many things right, otherwise it would still be an imperative pawn to a foreign power. But it has also made some major mistakes, which required extra degrees of pugnaciousness merely to survive. For example, in April of 1959 -- a mere three months after the triumph of the Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship -- the prime rebel decision-maker and guerrilla fighter, Celia Sanchez, personally took her upfront rebel hero, Fidel Castro, to the U. S. on a 12-day mission to reach friendly terms with the United States. Celia had been promised -- by both the State Department and the Society of Newspaper Editors -- that Fidel, also then wildly heralded as a hero in the U. S. -- could meet with President Eisenhower and agree on such things as a democratic election in Cuba that fall in which the U. S. could closely monitor to assure its accuracy. However, the right-wingers in the Eisenhower administration -- VP Nixon and the ultra-powerful Dulles brothers -- who in 1952 had tied the U. S. democracy to the Mafia in support of Batista -- turned the April-1959 promises to Celia into a blatant and long-lasting lie. Nixon met with Fidel Castro and boasted that the U. S. and the Batistianos would recapture Cuba within a matter of months "if not weeks." Celia, infuriated, went home and crafted the most important mantra in Revolutionary Cuba's history: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." In support of that doctrine, Celia and her idolater, Fidel, made mistakes. They placed too many, practically all, of their eggs in one big basket -- the Soviet Union's because at the time it was the only superpower remotely competitive with America. When the Soviet Union collapsed entering the 1990s, Cuba almost did the same. Then it placed most of its eggs, practically all of them, in oil-rich Venezuela's basket. But in 2016 Venezuela is about to collapse, at least the pro-Cuban part of it. Now, Cuba is trying to benefit from what it learned in dealing with both the Soviet Union and Venezuela. It's current dealings with MEO Australia points that out.

    

     Peter Strickland is the Chief Executive of MEO Australia. In a major article yesterday -- Sept. 12-2016 -- in The Sydney Morning Herald and carried internationally by UPI -- Mr. Strickland said he is selling certain assets of his company to be able to better concentrate on "Cuban opportunities." He said, "Doing so would not only secure an existing drilling opportunity for MEO shareholders, but enable MEO to focus its resources on its Cuban opportunities, especially Cuba's oil and gas industry." Mr. Strickland added, "Cuba is the company's highest priority and we are drilling a number of wells already in the so-called Black 9 region on Cuba's northern shore." He is aware that the U. S. embargo of Cuba "will not be totally erased by Obama and that affords non-American companies advantages with Cuba that we should not pass up." 

    On the graphic above depicted in yellow you can see MEO Australia's Block 9 as referenced by Peter Strickland on Cuba's northeastern coastal region. The gratuitous and fortuitous oil deal Cuba has had for years with Venezuela is now, to say the least, less dependable. Cuba produces and refines oil of its own and, in fact, sells some of the excess Venezuelan oil. Also, Sherritt International of Canada currently produces about 80,000 barrels of Cuban oil at operating expenses of only around $7 per barrel. MEO Australia and others now want to take advantage of the U. S. embargo as well as Cuba's desire to diversify its fragile economy with a bevy of foreign countries not restricted by the U. S. embargo.

      This photo was used by The Sydney Morning Herald to illustrate Cuba's pristine beauty and untapped promise since the 1950s. Many American moguls, though severely handicapped by the embargo, agree.

Photo courtesy: Michael Nagel/Bloomberg/Getty Images. 

       Hank Greenberg is a legendary U. S. billionaire and sagacious insurance mogul. Mr. Greenberg this week told Fortune, "Cuba is also very interesting. I've been there recently and I plan on doing business there." That comment...study the quote...indicates that Cuba might survive even a post-Castro, post-Obama world.

       The 91-year-old Hank Greenberg...he's been married to Corinne Zuckerman since 1950...told Fortune this week that he and other international billionaires will be flying to Buenos Aires next week. That's to presumably take advantage of Argentina's new U.S.-friendly President {Macri} that recently replaced the pro-Cuban President Cristina Fernandez who finished out her two elected terms and couldn't get her favorite to succeed her. Mr. Greenberg mentioned something that surprised me: "At one point, before World War II, Argentina had the 2nd largest economy in the world." He believes that, like the pro-U.S. Macri replacing the pro-Castro Fernandez in Argentina, the same thing will happen EVENTUALLY IN CUBA and much sooner in Venezuela, Brazil and even more staple Chile or even Nicaragua and Bolivia -- pro-U.S. leaders replacing pro-Castro leaders. Mr. Greenberg told Fortune that the collapse of President Maduro's staunchly pro-Castro government is imminent in Venezuela and that Cuba is preparing. He said, "Venezuela is about to happen soon. It's only a matter of time." He was asked about Cuba and he said, "Change will happen down there. It's only a matter of time." But remember, he also said, "Cuba is also very interesting. I've been there recently and I plan on doing business there." 

                              The 3 Castro brothers: Raul, Fidel and Ramon.

                         Ramon, the non-rebel, died earlier this year at age 91.

 Fidel is now 90 and Raul is now 85.

      As Hank Greenberg said this week, "Cuba is also very interesting. I've been there recently and I plan on doing business there. Change will happen down there. It's only a matter of time." The comment referenced the age of the two remaining Castro brothers, not an imminent coup. Predictions beyond mortality are a dime-a-dozen these days but post-Castro Cuba is a bit more dicey. The only substantial Cuban prediction, after all these decades, remains the one Celia Sanchez first laid down in 1959: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." She died of cancer in 1980; he still lives. Beyond him, who knows?

By the way:

Celia Sanchez: It was actually her Revolution.

It was thus appropriate in 1959 that she best defined it: 

"The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba

as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives."

Lina Ruz and her rich husband Angel Castro, Fidel's parents.

     This photo was taken on April 16, 1959. It shows the new rebel hero Fidel Castro at Clayton High School in Washington, D. C., but soon these students were told that there were words other than "hero" to best describe the bearded rebel form Cuba.

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