Cuba's Precious Children

Speak Well of the Revolution!!

         The graphic above used Cuban schoolchildren in a poster denouncing the U. S. embargo against Cuba, an obscenity that has existed since 1962 much to the detriment of the United States worldwide image and, conversely, much to the enhancement of Cuba's worldwide image for merely being able to survive the longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a strong country against a weak country. But Revolutionary Cuba has done more than just survive; against all odds, it has somehow managed to provide a much safer and richer lifestyle for its children than existed during the vile U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship that ruled the island from 1952 till 1959. The photo used in the above graphic is merely one indication of that fact, especially when contrasted with Batista-era photos of Cuban children that will be included as documentations in this essay. But back on Oct. 26-2016 the overwhelmingly emphatic 191-to-0 vote in which the entire world unanimously condemned the U. S. embargo of Cuba stands, of course, as the most emphatic denunciation of the U. S. embargo of Cuba, an embargo maintained decade-after-decade by a mere handful of miscreants in the 535-member U. S. Congress. A powerful propaganda and intimidation campaign vilifying Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 while sanitizing the Batista rule of Cuba and the Batistiano dictation in the U. S. Congress is now bent on convincing sufficiently intimidated or supposedly ignorant Americans that the number zero is larger than the number 191. In Banana Republics, of course, sufficient propaganda and intimidation worked wonderfully. The 191-0 UN vote reflects the fact that the world is surprised it works today in the U. S.

      This photo was taken by Alexander Caronado and is used courtesy of Havana Times.org. It was one of hundreds of entries in that blog's just-concluded and very impressive 8th Photo Contest pertaining to life in Cuba. This photo shows children in Santiago de Cuba, the old capital city on the island's southeastern tip. As you can see, these children are hilariously happy. They don't have much in regards to material things, and the U. S. embargo has embedded that fact into their lives. But in Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 children are guaranteed good and totally free health care for life; good and totally free educations through college; food and shelter if needed; and...in stark contrast to Batista's Cuba...their island is remarkably safe when it comes to crime or even when devastating hurricanes hit the island 90 miles from Florida.

      This is another sweet photo provided by Havana Times.org editor Circles Robinson and used in his aforementioned Photo Contest. This shows a little Cuban girl making some important point to a little boy. Dany del Pino took this very beautiful photo that captures a private, unscripted Cuban moment.

       Also courtesy of Circles Robinson, I love this photo of a happy little Cuban girl sitting carefree and confident on the steps of her home. To protect Cuban children that they felt were not protected or prioritized during the Batistiano-Mafiosi rule, Revolutionary heroines Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin, starting in January of 1959, devised the block-by-block creation of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution composed of everyday Cubans on those particular blocks. It has worked amazingly well to protect and prioritize Cuban children like this little girl. Making a country safe for children is very important.

       This great photo was taken by Caridad, a photo-journalist for Havana Times.org. It shows another gorgeous and confident Cuban schoolgirl sitting on the back of the lion that is an indelible edifice in the Prado section of Havana. Cuban schoolchildren in their distinctive white-and-red uniforms are ubiquitous across the island and, not surprisingly, the favorite subjects of tourists with cameras. So, Cuban children...even ones as young as the girl sitting atop the lion...become quite accustomed to posing.

     A lucky artist might get a Cuban angel to pose for a portrait.

 A still-sleepy and closely watched Cuban schoolgirl.

        I mentioned that Cuba's great Revolutionary heroines Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution created the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution to protect Cuban children block-by-block. These two women also created several unique and still-powerful Committees empowering Cuban women, major changes that corrected the major victims of Batista's Cuba -- the women and the children. The great photo above shows Celia, the studious one, and Vilma, the carefree one, in 1957 when they were prime guerrilla fighters during the Revolutionary War but also major decision-makers during the war. This seminal photo, by the way, was taken by Dickey Chapelle, the greatest female war photographer who became very close friends of Celia and Vilma during Cuba's Revolutionary War.

       Dickey Chapelle also took this photo. It shows a youngish Fidel Castro spotting for one of his guerrilla fighters who is shouldering a bazooka that was getting ready to fire at an approaching Batista tank. 

 Dickey Chapelle, a war photographer for Look Magazine at age 23.

     The great photographer Dickey Chapelle was killed on a Vietnam battlefield on November 4, 1965. Deeply admired for her bravery and talent, she was loved by the soldiers and guerrilla fighters she photographed. The above AP photo shows American soldiers stunned by Dickey Chapelle's tragic death.

        I mentioned Vilma Espin and Celia Sanchez as two of Cuba's greatest guerrilla fighters during the Revolutionary War as shown when they were photographed by Dickey Chapelle. The photo above was taken in Revolutionary Cuba soon after the 1959 triumph over the Batista dictatorship. Vilma had just given birth to a baby and Celia was visiting them. Vilma had married Raul Castro within days after the Jan. 1-1959 revolutionary victory and she became the mother to all four of his children. Beginning in 1957 right after he joined her Revolutionary War in the Sierra Maestra foothills of eastern Cuba, Fidel Castro worshipped the ground Celia Sanchez worked on, and at age 90 he still worships that Cuban ground to this very day.

        In Revolutionary Cuba the four most powerful leaders were pictured above. Left to right they are Vilma Espin, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Celia Sanchez. Fidel Castro -- on the day this photo was taken and today at age 90 -- rated the power and importance of these four in this exact order: #1 Celia; #2 Fidel; #3 Vilma; and #4 Raul. Now please remember that Americans are not supposed to know such facts because -- since the Batistianos and Mafiosi fled Cuba in their getaway planes and ships in the wee hours of January 1, 1959 -- the Cuban narrative in the U. S. has been dictated by anti-Castro Cuban exiles, which is now deep into a second generation as Fidel has aged to 90 and Raul to 85. Celia died of cancer on January 11, 1980; Vilma died of cancer on June 18, 2008. While all Cuban insiders know the history, power and achievements of Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin, Americans are not supposed to know about them. That's so the lucrative vilifying of the macho Castro brothers can help sanitize what the Batista-Mafia dictatorship did in Cuba and what the Batistianos and Mafiosi have done since fleeing to U. S. soil, namely Miami. Of course, for machismo reasons...I reckon...it is better to maintain that burly macho men, certainly not beautiful women, were the prime reasons their greedy asses...pardon my language...got booted off the island.

        This photo shows a typical peasant family in Batista's Cuba during the years from 1952 till 1959 when the Batistianos, the Mafiosi and rich American businessmen were busy robbing the island blind. Families like this were not given a second thought, unless word of their treatment reached the United States where the tax dollars of U. S. citizens were supporting the army that supported the Batista-Mafia dictatorship.

      By 1953 a great New York Times reporter named Herbert L. Matthews was using America's most powerful newspaper to tell the U. S. people and the world what was happening in Cuba -- the extreme poverty among the peasants, the extreme thievery by the vile rulers and U. S. businessmen, and -- most shameful of all -- the murders of Cuban children, apparently as a warning to Cubans not to resist. The most famous of those murders involved little Willie Soler and his four schoolmates; their bodies were left in a vacant warehouse for their relatives to find. Today, if you manage to visit Cuba despite the U. S. embargo that still forbids such visits for everyday Americans, you can see a major children's hospital named for...William Soler. Herbert L. Matthews also chronicled for Americans street marches conducted by brave Cuban mothers, as shown above, about the murders of their children such as little Willie Soler. Contrast the previous two black-and-white photos with the earlier photos of modern-day Cuban children and you might comprehend the changes in Cuba wrought by heroic Cuban women like the mother shown marching above and, of course, like Celia Sanchez and Vilma Espin, the guerrilla fighters turned decision-makers.

       This is the front entrance to the William Soler Pediatrics Hospital in modern Havana. Now you know how and why this hospital got its name. For its entire existence, it has been hurt by the U. S. embargo that prevents it from getting some needed medical equipment and some medicines. A new poll shows that 63% of the Cuban-Americans even in Miami favor ending the embargo. Yet, the 8 Cuban-American anti-Castro zealots in the 535-member U. S. Congress -- especially Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Bob Menendez -- insist that the embargo remain in place. Amazingly, the U. S. democracy is not strong enough to over-rule them despite the U. S. government's agreement with the 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations denouncing the embargo. Meanwhile, Rubio, Cruz and Menendez -- fixtures in the U. S. Senate at least till they run for President -- never have to answer questions about the 191-to-0 UN vote, the 63% of Cuban-Americans who want the embargo ended, or about the fact that -- despite their self-serving belligerence -- poor little Cuba has one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates, lower than that in the United States and especially lower than that in Florida, New Jersey and Texas where Senators Rubio, Menendez and Cruz hail from.

         This photo shows a dedicated and highly trained doctor tending to a baby at the William Soler Pediatrics Hospital in Havana. This doctor and this precious Cuban baby are hurt by the U. S. embargo of Cuba...and the rich and powerful U. S. Senators Rubio, Menendez and Cruz don't seem to give a damn.

        This photo shows Samantha Power, the very decent United States Representative to the United Nations. She is shown here speaking at the UN back on Oct. 26-2016 explaining why she refused to vote to support the United States embargo of Cuba, and by abstaining she allowed the unanimous worldwide 191-to-0 denunciation of the embargo to go on the record. If you care enough about the embargo's affront to the United States and to democracy, go online and dial up Samantha Power's entire UN speech or read the transcript that is also available online and on the State Department's .gov website. Miss Power used one sentence to mention "the differences" the U. S. has with Cuba and she used many sentences to praise Cuba for what it does for women and children on the island and for what it does to help poor people like Africans when Ebola hit and Haitians when hurricanes hit. Of course, it seems that not enough Americans appear interested in what Samantha Power says but they listen to what Rubio, Menendez and Cruz say when they use the halls of Congress or the U. S. media to rant about how awful Revolutionary Cuba is while, of course, implying that Batista's Cuban hellhole was a Utopian paradise for the Cuban people.

U. S. Senators Cruz, Menendez & Rubio.

       I mentioned Herbert L. Matthews as the great New York Times reporter who had the guts to tell Americans about what was happening in Batista's Cuba. Other than that, Matthews -- who died at age 77 in 1977 -- is famed for a major historic episode during Cuba's Revolutionary War. In 1957 the vile U.S.-backed dictator Batista informed the Cuban people and his supporters in Washington that Fidel Castro had been killed by Cuban soldiers. It was a lie that Cubans and Washington believed but it didn't sit well with the most important Cuban rebel, Celia Sanchez. Celia had the biggest bounty on her head because Batista knew she was the main recruiter of rebels, weapons, money and supplies -- the necessary ingredients to sustain the revolution. Celia knew and cultivated the fact that Fidel was the hero to all the Cuban peasants, the people she depended on for support. She knew that if the peasants believed Fidel was dead, her war against Batista would be severely hurt. The brilliant and bold Celia thus devised a scheme. She knew she had many U. S. military and journalistic supporters, such as Matthews. So she bravely and astutely arranged to personally meet Matthews at a rail-head near the foothills of the Sierra Maestra Mountains. She then used a mule and horse to take Matthews across rocky streams and through dense foliage and dangerous swamps up into the mountains. That's where Fidel waited at a base-camp. Matthews had a camera, as Celia insisted. She used his camera to take a photo of Matthews interviewing a live Fidel. That photo and the front-page article by Matthews in the New York Times disproved Batista's lie about Fidel being dead, one of many instances in which Celia Sanchez simply out-smarted the Batistianos.

   This is the photo with Matthews that proved Fidel was alive. 
 Dead men don't light cigars.

Celia Sanchez Manduley.

         Yes, it was her Cuban Revolution. In fact, today it is still her Revolutionary Cuba. Study two of her most famous quotations and you might agree: {1} "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives;" and {2} "We rebels get too much credit for winning the revolution. Most of the credit should go to our enemies because of their greed, stupidity and cowardice." And while you study those two historic quotations, you might begin to understand why Senators Rubio, Cruz and Menendez hope that you have never heard of the petite doctor's daughter Celia Sanchez but they'll tell you all about how mean the macho 90-year-old Fidel Castro is...so, you'll know such self-serving facts as zero is a larger number than 191, "so forget the UN vote and leave our embargo alone when we are so close to recapturing Cuba."

Celia Sanchez loved Cuba's children.

What do Rubio, Cruz, & Menendez love?

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Cubans, Criminals and Congress

Unholy Alliances??

        The photo above and the one that follows are courtesy of Univision 23 and the Miami Herald. Four such photos were used to illustrate a major article in the Miami Herald this month of November, 2016. It was written by Nora Gamez Torres and Brenda Medina. The article is entitled: "Young Cuban Women Lured to Miami on Promise of Freedom, Forced Into Prostitution." It helps reveal, I believe, why the abominable U. S. embargo of Cuba has been in effect since 1962, along with an array of "legal," Congressionally mandated U. S. laws designed to benefit a few revengeful Cuban-Americans, a few self-serving members of Congress, and -- as this insightful Miami Herald article indicates -- more than a few criminals who revel in taking full advantages of a cruel, "legal" and undemocratic American Cuban policy that the entire world opposes, as registered recently by that 191-to-0 vote at the United Nations. The zero emerged when the United States itself at the UN no longer had the heart to support its own Cuban policy, which is forced upon America and the entire world by a mere handful of miscreants in the 535-member but easily malleable and chronically dysfunctional United States Congress.

       The aforementioned Miami Herald article, which also used the above illustrative photo, begins {You should dial it up} with these words: "As a means to flee Cuba, six young women agreed to work in Miami as exotic dancers. That was a deal to pay off a $20,000 smuggling fee from the island to Mexico and ultimately into the United States." Smugglers, human traffickers, and other criminals love the Congressionally mandated Wet Foot/Dry Foot law that allows Cubans and only Cubans home free with incentives and benefits beginning the second their toes touch U. S. soil. After that opening salvo, the article added: "But instead of simply stripping, they were forced into sex slavery in Miami. They were locked up, mistreated and forced into prostitution. Once the women arrived in the United States, they were forced into prostitution and their debt increased from $20,000 to $50,000." Amid other such detailed revelations, a caption to the above photo said: "A people smuggling network that operates between Cuba, Mexico and the United States." Remember please that this article was headlined this month -- November-2016 -- by top investigative reporters for the Miami Herald, of all newspapers. But it has been known since 1952 that America's Cuban policy has deviated sharply away from democracy to benefit a few rich and powerful criminals, politicians, and businessmen at the expense of everyone else as well as the precious U. S. democracy. You may recall that 1952 was the year the U. S. teamed with the Mafia to support the brutal, thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba. When the Cuban Revolution shocked the world by overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batistianos and Mafiosi in 1959, it unfortunately chased the leaders to U. S. soil, namely nearby Miami. So 1959 was, like 1952, a watershed year in U.S.-Cuban relations, a relationship that continues, in the closing days of 2016, to spawn criminal enterprises thanks to laws easily written and maintained in the U. S. Congress -- laws opposed by most Americans, most Cuban-Americans, and the entire world including the United States of America. Yet, massive propaganda and unchecked intimidation has resulted in most Americans being too proselytized, too scared or too ignorant to even weigh in on U.S.-Cuban relations. Thus, Americans have been programmed to not comprehend, when it comes to Cuba, that 191 is a larger number than zero and thus Americans are not supposed to be patriotic enough or intelligent enough or brave enough to object to anything miscreants get Congress to do regarding Cuba...such as Wet Foot-Dry Foot that is a Godsend for traffickers as the aforementioned Miami Herald article proves.

     The entire world -- by a United Nations vote of 191-to-0 -- mocks America's Batistiano-driven, undemocratic and extremely discriminatory Cuban laws such as the U. S. Congress's criminal-creating Wet Foot/Dry Foot abomination. 

Lucky Luciano would love Congress's Cuba-only laws.    

       Back in 1952 Charles "Lucky" Luciano -- the head of the U. S. Mafia and the world's most powerful criminal -- relished the U.S.-backed and Mafia-friendly Batista dictatorship in Cuba. Thus the Mafia quickly made Havana a world-famed crime capital...before the Cuban Revolution in 1959 chased those leaders to nearby Miami where -- in November of 2016 -- the four incumbent members of Congress connected to Miami's Little Havana neighborhood {Ros-Lehtinen, Rubio, Diaz-Balart and Curbelo} were all easily reelected as visceral anti-Cuban Revolutionary zealots although most Cuban-Americans even in Miami support normal relations with Cuba, certainly not a Congressionally mandated relationship that is designed to benefit criminals and then create even more criminals. In other words, the U. S. in 2016 should stop resembling the Banana Republic that Lucky Luciano and other criminals created in Cuba in the 1950s with the help of a few right-wing politicians in Washington, D. C.

       With zero concern for everyday Cubans -- who were routinely murdered if they were suspected of resisting -- Luciano, on the left above, and Batista, on the right, had their own country to plunder and terrorize from 1952 till 1959. Meyer Lansky, in the center, was the Mafia mastermind and Batista buddy in Florida who famously had said he dreamed of "the Mafia owning its own country." With the help of thugs in Washington, his dream came true -- at least from 1952 till the Caribbean break of dawn on January 1, 1959. Shortly thereafter Miami replaced Havana as the capital of the Luciano-Lansky-Batista Banana Republic and by the 1980s, with considerable assistance from the Bush dynasty, the Banana Republic tentacles had expanded to Washington, resulting in the Batistiano-loving Torricelli and Helms-Burton laws that left America and Democracy stuck with such things as Wet Foot/Dry Foot as well as pipelines of tax-dollars flowing form Congress to Miami to support terrorism and propaganda against Revolutionary Cuba while making sure to enrich and empower a selected group of already-rich Cubans. 

Lucky Luciano-types love Wet Foot/Dry Foot.

Democracy-loving worldwide citizens despise it.

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America's Weak Link: The Media

The Media Elected Trump!!
{Posted/Updated: Sunday, November 13th}

     My mailbox on consecutive days this week included not one but two complete editions of Time Magazine. The first arrived on election day -- November 8th -- before the final presidential election results. That one told me what the mainstream media had told me every day for the past year, which was that Hillary Clinton would be the 45th President because the sexiest, misogynist, and totally unqualified Donald Trump, her only opponent, didn't stand a chance to get elected. Then the next day -- November 9th, after the final results were in -- the above issue of Time Magazine arrived in my mailbox. As you can see above, the front-cover title -- amazingly small to be sure -- was: "DONALD TRUMP: President-Elect, Nov. 9, 2016." The mainstream media is now immersed, as it will be for days to come, with all of its star "journalists" trying to explain away how biased, stupid and off-base their reporting has consistently been during the exhaustive two years of the almost interminable billion-dollar-plus election cycle. If nothing else, the result of the Trump triumph -- the most shocking in America's history -- has proved how incredibly biased the propaganda-fueled mainstream media has become. The prime victims of the consequences, unfortunately, are {1} Democracy; and {2} the vast majority of the American people who -- unlike the billionaires who own all of the mainstream U. S. media -- DO NOT have the money to purchase their democracy. Those two reasons explain why Trump and not Clinton is the President-elect of the world's superpower, the deeply divided United States of America. If you agree that the mainstream media has lied to you for the past two years about the presidential election, please note that I am merely an ordinary, democracy-loving American far removed from the mainstream media. Therefore, if you read on you will get a non-biased perspective that is not bought-and-paid-for because this one-trick-pony blog has never...and never will...make a penny from any outside source, including ad dollars, although its Alexa Rank ranking causes me, its only contributor, to get laughable offers.    

       My first edition of Time Magazine this week was dated November 14th but it arrived in my mailbox on November 8th -- election day -- before the election results were known. The cover -- above -- depicted Bill and Hillary Clinton holding up a huge sign declaring that "The End Is Near." They were not forecasting that the end of civilization was near. They were predicting the EASY Nov. 8th election that would SURELY result in Hillary's first presidential term following Barack Obama's two terms, George W. Bush's two terms and Bill Clinton's two terms. I mean, it was an easy prediction that Hillary's Republican opponent, Donald Trump, was totally unqualified to be President and Commander-in-Chief not to mention that he was also a blatant racist and an even greater misogynist. At least, that's what the Democrats as well as many Republicans were preaching. But mostly the extremely biased and incompetent U. S. media -- both print and electronic -- harped on those propaganda themes day-after-day and night-after-night for two solid years. And so, it was a deteriorated U. S. media, more than anything else, that elected a man, Mr. Trump, that I agree at least starts off as totally unqualified to be President of the United States. The media used a whole year of incessant pundit-driven anti-Trump propaganda to make sure that Trump didn't win the White House, naively believing that most Americans still trusted the media that was so well trusted from Ben Franklin's day until the last of the respected broadcast journalists, Walter Cronkite, departed CBS.  

          The billionaires who now own the entire mainstream U. S. media, such as Time, were and are extremely biased against Trump because they are not sure they can control him as they now control other politicians in Congress or those who aspire to be in the White House. Such control is easily maintained in a system in which billionaires, thanks to a 2010 Supreme Court ruling, can make unlimited political donations to go along with the long-established fact that 30,000 or so well-heeled and very effective lobbyists in Washington do the bidding of wealthy special interests, both domestic and foreign. That leaves out everyday Americans who are struggling but forgotten by politicians who are generally fully bought-and-paid-for. Everyday Americans can't afford to purchase politicians and many have considerable trouble feeding, clothing, sheltering and educating their children. Those everyday Americans recognize that Mr. Trump is unqualified to be President but millions of them believed the alternative -- Mrs. Clinton -- was even worse because they believe she is bought-and-paid-for by rich Americans and foreigners. The night before the election she was on stage with entertainers Jay-Z, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Bruce Springsteen, etc., all of whom are worth in excess of $300 million. She would have been much better served if she had appeared with everyday Americans who are worried about adequately feeding the one-in-five American children who go to bed hungry at night. 

           My first edition of Time this week not only flashed the above cover at me but inside -- published right before the election results -- Time's first major article was/is entitled "How the Media Got Smarter About Calling Elections" to praise the incredible accuracy of all the polls and all the media that assured all of us that Hillary Clinton would be the next President and that Donald Trump didn't stand a chance to get elected. Deeper inside this Time edition that was published the day of the election was the typical propaganda article by typical propagandist Joe Klein whose column was entitled: "Closing Argument: Why Hillary Clinton Is The Only Choice To Keep America Great." What Joe Klein meant, of course, was keeping America great for the rich but ignoring everyday Americans -- whites, blacks and browns -- who are trying so hard to care for their children, such as the one-in-five children who go to bed hungry at night in the richest nation in the history of the world. While the elite media's quest to keep Trump out of the White House back-fired, it may yet spawn continuing violence, and maybe a revolution, in a deeply divided America that is not so unlike the one that confronted President Abe Lincoln back in 1861 on the eve of the Civil War.

So thanks, Joe Klein, for nothing.

         This child sleeps outside although it's hard to go to sleep on the ground when your stomach is hurting because you are hungry. There are 30,000 or so highly paid lobbyists in Washington paid by rich people...rich Americans and rich foreigners...to make sure that Congress and the White House do their bidding, unmindful of over 17 million American children who have hunger problems and millions more beset with other poverty-related ills. Many of those lobbyists are former members of Congress accustomed to selling pieces of the U. S. democracy to the highest bidder. Yes, Mr. Klein, Donald Trump is not qualified to be President of the United States but the voters who managed to squeeze him into the White House are not the "irredeemable basket of deplorables and stupid, uneducated whites who support Trump." Most of the Americans who voted for Mr. Trump, and most who didn't vote at all, were searching in desperation for a political system that didn't just care for the richest Americans but also had at least a modicum of concern for a child that has to try to sleep on the ground even though his or her stomach hurts from acute hunger. 

           And that's why Time Magazine and the rest of the elitist U. S. media has emerged as the weakest link in the United States democracy, even weaker than the 30,000 or so decrepit lobbyists in Washington.

 The media, lobbyists and politicians are this child's enemies. 

 The person who gave her this bowl of food is her friend. 
 {Even if that person voted for Donald Trump!} 

 A family in Cuba cares for this happy little girl. 
Her Cuban family doesn't deserve to be embargoed. 
But pay Congressmen and you can embargo Cuba forever.

       England's news agency, the BBC, used this photo to illustrate a report that said, "A child starves to death every 10 seconds in a world in which an elitist minority stays flush with enormous wealth." Meanwhile, the U. S. media is absorbed with rich celebrities and political propagandists-pundits as opposed to hiring and cultivating print reporters and broadcast journalists. And that's precisely why Americans don't understand how Mr. Trump got elected President or why the BBC -- which does have decent print reporters and unbiased broadcast journalists -- makes such statements as the one inside the quotation marks above. The grandmother shown here is cutting up wild plants or weeds to feed her grand-daughter. The child's mother had starved to death while using the last bit of her food to keep the precious little child alive.

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U.S.-Cuba Detente Ends

Up to Trump to Revive It!!

      Yesterday -- Nov. 10-2016 -- the Miami Herald used the above photo to highlight a major article heralding the startling election of Donald Trump as the next U. S. President, which Miami stalwarts believe will reverse all of President Obama's rapprochements with Cuba and resurrect the Cold War...or possibly a Hot War. The photo is courtesy of Ramon Espinosa/AP and the article was written by Nora Gamez Torres and fronted by the headline "Cloud of Uncertainty." The photo above, deemed appropriate, shows tourists at Revolutionary Square in Havana listening to a guide as they stand next to a Cold War anti-aircraft missile.

     The Miami Herald article stressed the comments of Mauricio Claver-Carone, one of Washington's most powerful and most visceral leaders of America's lucrative Anti-Castro Cottage Industry. Claver-Carone is the Director of the rich "U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC," has his own visceral anti-Castro nationally broadcast radio show, and his own visceral anti-Castro "Capital Hill Cubans" blog. He told the Miami Herald yesterday, "As for President-elect Trump, his Cuban-American supporters will surely hold him accountable to reverse Obama's executive orders." Claver-Carone used the Herald article and his other venues to celebrate the easy reelections Tuesday of Miami's four visceral anti-Castro members of the U. S. Congress -- Senator Marco Rubio and Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Curbelo. Claver-Carone, of course, never has to explain why Miami's political system only sends visceral anti-revolutionary Cuban-Americans to Congress even though most Cuban-Americans in Miami favor Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. And Claver-Carone never has to explain why he so viscerally promotes an American Cuban policy that the rest of the world so sanely disagrees with by a 191-to-0 plurality. Of course, as long as the Anti-Castro Cottage Industry remains so immensely lucrative and revengeful for powerful patrons like Claver-Carone, there will always be enough politicians either in Congress and/or the White House to support the dastardly Cuban policy he espouses but the entire world in unanimity opposes.

       While the Miami Herald will forever remain an integral part of the Anti-Castro Cottage Industry, the largest and best newspaper in Florida is the Tampa Bay Times. It is not a supporter of the anti-American Cold War attitudes regarding Cuba. A major editorial in the Tampa Bay Times yesterday blared this headline: "EDITORIAL: DON'T REVERSE COURSE ON CUBA." The Editorial cogently suggested: "The incoming Trump administration should send an early sign to Cuba that there is no interest in resurrecting the Cold War." Like the vast majority of democracy-lovers in the U. S. and around the world, the editorial writers at the Tampa Bay Times worry that the Republican President-elect Trump aligned with both chambers of Congress that are dominated by Republicans can...and might...defy the rest of the world and return America's Cuban policy to a Cold War or even a Hot War posture that Cuba would certainly lose but not without a fight.

      After the election of Donald Trump as the next U. S. President, Cuba's small and lightly armed military forces have been put on alert and are undergoing training exercises across the island. A determined decision by a Republican Commander-in-Chief in the U. S. White House could easily wipe out Cuba's army...but not without a revolutionary or Bay of Pigs-type resistance that would likely have world-wide moral support and likely require provoking Cuba into something that could be deemed a pretext -- such as the USS Maine blowing up in Havana Harbor to provide the pretext for the Spanish-American War in 1898 or the Brothers to the Rescue planes from Miami inducing a Cuban reaction that provided the pretext for the Helms-Burton Act that ended President Clinton's plans to normalize relations with Cuba and forced him to sign the bill that still direly harms Cubans on the island while massively enriching and empowering a special contingent of rich and powerful anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in the United States.

      This photo shows President Bill Clinton signing Helms-Burton into law on March 12, 1996, shortly after Cuba shot down two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes out of Miami that it says was taunting Cuba with overflights. Prior to that pretext, Clinton was striving to normalize relations with Cuba but till this day Helms-Burton codifies the most anti-Cuban aspects of America's Cuban policy, the precise policy that the nations of the world strongly oppose by a 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations. At this signing ceremony -- and waiting for their souvenir pens as they look over President Clinton's right shoulder -- are Cuban-American Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey and Havana-born Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen from Miami. Both Menendez and Ros-Lehtinen remain Helms-Burton stalwarts in the U. S. Congress today.

       The Bush dynasty, more so than such anti-Cuban measures as President Clinton in 1991 being induced to sign Helms-Burton, is responsible for a handful of anti-Castro zealots being able to dictate America's Cuban policy in the U. S. Congress regardless of whether there is a Republican or Democrat in the White House. The above photo shows President George H. W. Bush handing a souvenir pen to Miami's Havana-born U. S. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. She has been an unchallenged member of Congress since 1989 when Jeb Bush, on his way to two terms as Florida's governor, was her Campaign Manager.

        Born in Miami in 1966, Kathy Castor has represented Tampa Bay in the U. S. Congress since 2007. On behalf of democracy, the American people, the citizens and business people of Tampa Bay, and the majority of Cubans and Cuban-Americans, Congresswoman Kathy Castor has bravely and doggedly used her decade in the U. S. Congress trying to promote normal relations between America and the nearby island of Cuba.

       But the saneness of Kathy Castor's diligent work in the U. S. Congress to help Americans, Cubans, Cuban-Americans, and her Tampa Bay constituents has mostly been unfruitful. That's because America's Cuban policy, since 1898 and especially since 1952, has primarily been dictated not by democracy but by a few right-wing, self-serving thugs. And that dichotomy should shine even brighter spotlights on the sheer decency of democracy-loving people like Congresswoman Castor AND ON that 191-to-0 vote in the UN.

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Cuba Reacts to Trump

With Acute Uneasiness!!

          The election of Donald Trump as the next President of the United States has shocked the entire world, and that especially includes the island of Cuba. Trump is a Republican and he will have a Republican Congress to support many of his policies -- including Trump's vow, at least when he was campaigning in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, that he would "reverse" all of President Obama's historic overtures to Cuba and even put Cuba back on the debilitating Sponsors of Terrorism list. President Obama's many positives related to Cuba bypassed the Republican Congress and were simply executed via brave, astute and decent Executive Actions. The easiest thing for an incoming President, such as Mr. Trump, to do is to devise Executive Actions that would erase those of his predecessor. In regards to Cuba, that is what President Trump might do in keeping the promises he self-servingly made in Miami's Little Havana.

       Within minutes after the early Wednesday confirmation that Trump would be the next U. S. President, Cuba was writing an announcement in its state newspaper, Granma, that it was going on alert with military exercises across the island. Considering the meager strength of the Cuban military compared to superpower America's, many scoff at the announcement but not those who remember Cuba's do-or-die and victorious Revolutionary War in the 1950s or its do-or-die defense at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 or its pugnacious survival even against the U. S. embargo first imposed in 1962 and still existing to this day.

      The best and fairest international journalist reporting on Cuba is Sarah Marsh of London-based Reuters. Her article after the Trump victory revealed that everyday Cubans support the government taking a military tone in reaction to the impending Trump presidency. A 39-year-old Cuban engineer, Tomas Gonzalez, told Sarah Marsh: "We'll brace to what is coming. With Trump, I reckon we are headed back to the era of George Bush." Since 1952 everyday Cubans are well aware that every Republican administration in the U. S., especially the three Bush presidential terms and the Bush dynasty's anti-Cuban assaults dating all the way back to George H. W. Bush in the 1950s have forced Cuba into a "defensive posture." Sarah Marsh reveals that with the Republican Trump replacing Mr. Obama, Cuba is returning to a warlike footing.

       In an earlier recent Reuters article Sarah Marsh used the above photo to report that everyday Cubans, shown installing a Fidel Castro montage on his 90th birthday, will always support the Castro legacy because of his revolutionary fervor on behalf of a sovereign Cuba. Meanwhile, the U. S. media is obligated to inform the American people that all Cubans on the island hate Castro and agree with the Republicans, the CIA and the Cuban-exiles in Miami's Little Havana who have vowed to overthrow the revolution and tried a record number of times to assassinate Castro. While there are a small number of anti-Fidel dissidents on the island, and a larger number of U.S.-backed dissidents, the majority of Cubans support the revolution and very much fear a Republican President, like Donald Trump, in the United States.

      This is the Cuban embassy in Washington, newly opened for the first time since 1961 thanks to President Obama's Executive Orders, with the corresponding U. S. embassy in Havana reopening shortly after the historic ceremony in Washington made this building a busy embassy. Beyond officially establishing diplomatic relations, President Obama has greatly eased trade restrictions related to Cuba as well as making it easier for more Americans to actually visit the island, including U. S. traffic on the first cruise ships and commercial airplane flights allowed to dock or land in Cuba for the first time since 1962.

      A few days ago -- on Oct. 26-2016 -- Samantha Power, the U. S. Representative to the UN, made this speech explaining why, for the first time, the U. S. refused to support its own Congressionally mandated Cuban embargo, in effect since 1962. Ms. Power used one sentence to say that the U. S. "still had differences" with Cuba but she used many sentences to applaud Cuba, citing such examples as Cuba's emphasis on free and good educational and health opportunities for its people; Cuba's empowerment of women; Cuba's world-class low infant mortality rate; and Cuba's eagerness and willingness to rush to the aid of people threatened with disasters such as the Ebola crisis in Africa or natural calamities in Haiti. If interested, you can go online and study the entire transcript or video of Samantha Power's UN speech on Oct. 26th. When the U. S. refused to support its own embargo against Cuba, the international vote announced to the world was 191-to-0 against the embargo, the glaring worldwide unanimity that the U. S. Congress and a few hardliners in Miami's Little Havana insist that the U. S. democracy totally dismiss.  

       As a billionaire businessman Donald Trump opposed the embargo and other odious aspects of America's right-wing Cuban policy. But while seeking Florida's often pivotal 29 electoral votes, Trump went to Little Havana in Miami and promised to "reverse" President Obama's overtures to Cuba and to "return" Cuba to the debilitating Sponsors of Terrorism list. After his cowardly, condescending promises in Little Havana, the above photo showed some powerful pro-Trump supporters demonstrating on Little Havana's famed 8th Street, Calle Ocho. All that is interesting because the majority of Cuban-Americans even in Miami support Obama's efforts to normalize relations with the island. It is also interesting to note that Miami since 1989 only sends incumbents like Ros-Lehtinen, Diaz-Balart, Rubio, and Curbelo -- all anti-Castro zealots -- to the U.S. Congress -- apparently confirming that the majority of Cuban-Americans who happen to be moderates with concern for Cubans on the island and the 191-to-0 UN vote are not eligible or represented.

In March President Obama visited Cuba.

      On his historic trip to Cuba, as shown by this photo and quotation, President Obama went on national television in Cuba and told the Cuban people: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." UNFORTUNATELY, what the decent President Obama meant was that Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States UNLESS there is a Republican Commander-in-Chief and also a Republican-dominated Congress. AND UNFORTUNATELY, BEGINNING ON JANUARY 20-2017 THE UNITED STATES ONCE AGAIN WILL HAVE BOTH A REPUBLICAN COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF AND A REPUBLICAN-DOMINATED CONGRESS.

Therefore, within minutes of Wednesday morning's confirmation that Republican Donald Trump had been elected the next President of the United States, Cuba's state newspaper was preparing an announcement telling its people that the Cuban military was being put on alert and military exercises would commence.

Meanwhile, everyday Cubans cherish President Obama's efforts to normalize Cuban relations on friendly terms that would benefit Americans, Cubans, and the world. The above photo was taken by Ramon Espinosa for the Associated Press on Wednesday, Oct. 9th-2016, the morning Cubans learned Donald Trump had been elected President of the United States. The photo shows Cuban actor Armando Ricart fixing breakfast in his Havana home. Note the huge Cuban flag on the left and the equally huge American flag on the right. They reveal Armando's hope for friendly U. S. relations. With President Obama about to be replaced by a Republican Commander-in-Chief, Armando's hopes are not as realistic as they were prior to Wednesday.

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Cuba and PRESIDENT TRUMP

What It Means for Cuba?

Donald Trump: 45th U. S. President!!

       On this trip to Miami, long-shot presidential contender Donald Trump shamefully stood before a huge Brigade 2506 poster and promised anti-Castro zealots that, as President, he would turn back all of President Obama's positive efforts to normalize relations with Cuba and that he would put Cuba back on the Sponsors of Terrorism list, an act that alone would induce Cuba to not cooperate with any normalization process. Brigade 2506 was the CIA-backed Cuban-American unit that attacked Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961, solidifying the Castro legend because Fidel raced to the frontlines and led the startlingly successful defense. Did Trump actually mean what he said in Miami in front of that Brigade 2506 banner? Maybe.

        Prior to this capitulation to hardliners in Miami, Donald Trump the big businessman had said, "Fifty years of a failed policy regarding Cuba is fifty years too much." As President and as still an unabashed businessman, Trump might revert back to that saner position instead of the self-serving comments in Miami. He knows many, many U. S. businesses want to cut deals related to Cuba -- with U. S. cruise lines, airlines and others already involved. Also Trump as President will hopefully not ignore polls that show even most Cuban-Americans favor closer ties with Cuba and the recent UN vote reveals worldwide unanimity -- 191-to-0 -- against the U. S. embargo of Cuba that has sullied the images of the U. S. and democracy since 1962.

   Donald Trump's pro-Brigade 2506 speech in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami may or may not define his Cuban policy as the most improbable President in U. S. history. We'll have to wait and see, but Cubans on the island would have preferred a 3rd Obama-like term that Hillary Clinton would have represented. 

       More than any other person, Sean Hannity -- the Fox News anchor and the Radio Talk Show superstar -- has shocked the world by putting Donald Trump in the White House as of January 20, 2017. Neither I nor any other American, almost without exception, believed Hannity could do it. Tired of the extreme anti-Trump bias from all other U. S. broadcast networks and all major U. S. newspapers, for the last few weeks I have, for the first time, watched Hannity on Fox. I smiled...actually laughed...the other night when I watched Hannity insist that Trump would be "the next President of the United States and I will tell you why." He proceeded to tell us, as I continued to laugh. He said, "The extremely biased U. S. media...including CNN that I call the Clinton News Network...will end up putting Donald in the White House. Forget the pundits. Forget the polls. Forget all the talk about Hillary getting almost all the black votes, almost all the Latino votes, and almost all the female votes. When the biased media pilloried Trump supporters as being nothing but ignorant, uneducated, biased white men, I told Donald myself that 'I now know you will shock the world by getting elected President of the United States.' I started out as a construction worker but I have made millions on talk radio and as a top Fox anchor the last 21 years. I said, 'Mr. Trump, just save me a big role in your administration.'"

Yes!!!

I think Sean Hannity put Donald Trump in the White House.

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