Fidel Facts Filter Forth

Even in the United States!!

     This Getty Images photo was used yesterday -- Nov. 30-2016 -- to illustrate a major article in the New York Times written by Mac Maharaj. The article is, if you care to dial it up, entitled: "FIDEL CASTRO, A SOUTH AFRICAN HERO. It's the type of article that Americans are not supposed to pay attention to and, indeed, even the NY Times is very brave to publish it. When the top Cuban-American newsman in Miami, Emilio Milian, sharply criticized Cuban-exile terrorists for killing innocent Cubans, such as hotel and airplane bombings, Emilio was car-bombed; when Jim DeFede, the top columnist at the Miami Herald, excoriated Miami Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress for their flagrant support of the best-known Cuban-American terrorists in Miami, Jim DeFede was fired and the terrorists he alluded to by name were given, and still have, sanctuary and heralded citizenry in Miami. But the aforementioned NY Times article courageously stated that Fidel Castro "buried apartheid in Africa," ending on that continent one of the most vile forms of racism. As a dissident to white minority rule, Mandela was imprisoned for 28 years in a small room with only a bucket for a toilet. After Cuban soldiers sent to Angola by Castro won the historic Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, Mandela not only got his freedom but was elected President of South Africa. Later, as the world's most beloved Civil Rights figure, Mandela was honored World Wide...including the White House. BUT ON A TRIP TO MIAMI HE ENCOUNTERED ANTI-MANDELA DEMONSTRATIONS FROM THE TYPE OF CUBA-AMERICANS WHO HAVE BEEN BANGING POTS-AND-PANS AND DEMONSTRATING WILDLY TO CELEBRATE THE DEATH OF FIDEL CASTRO, A FRONT-LINE FIGHTER WHO CHASED THEM TO MIAMI TWO GENERATIONS AGO IN 1959 AND THEN WENT TO THE FRONT-LINES TO DEFEAT THEM IN 1961 AT THE BAY OF PIGS BATTLE. The NY Times article yesterday suggested Fidel's Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Africa was and is as impactful on history as his Bay of Pigs battle in Cuba.  Among the article's primary conclusions were these:

               "Fidel Castro lived his life on an impoverished island at the doorstep of the mighty United States yet left an imprint on the history of the world. The world will always know there was a man named Fidel Castro."  

      It is not likely that any of the Batista-Mafia figures that Fidel Castro kicked off the island, or any of the rich and powerful anti-Castro demonstrators in Miami this week, will ever be mentioned in any context of leaving a positive "imprint" on the world nor is it likely that "the world will always know" them. Yet, in the U. S. media...except for rare exceptions...such extremely biased Cuban-Americans as the Diaz-Balart brothers, whose father was a key Minister in the ousted Batista dictatorship, are allowed to saturate printed articles and the broadcast airways with unchallenged venom about Revolutionary Cuba and, by words or implication, unchallenged praise for the brutal and thieving Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba. 

 Aug. 13, 1926 -- Nov. 25, 2016 

      Therefore there are ample reasons that Fidel Castro {now his legacy} will always be passionately loved or passionately hated. But his most indelible imprint is not on Africa -- as the NY Times article suggested yesterday. It's also not on Fidel Castro's own beloved island of Cuba. It's the imprint he made and leaves on the United States of America. Prior to 1952 when thugs in the Eisenhower administration sicced Batistiano and Mafiosi thieves and killers on Cuba, the U. S. was deservedly the world's most beloved and respected nation and democracy. But not now, not after the ousted Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders were booted out of Cuba by Fidel Castro's revolution in 1959 and allowed to re-establish Little Havana in Miami as their new capital, with tentacles that soon extended to the U. S. Congress...and even the White House when allies like the Bush dynasty are in power. While Americans are propagandized to disbelieve those facts, they would have extreme trouble, for example, explaining why notorious and self-avowed anti-Castro terrorists have been and still are free and heralded citizens of Miami. And Americans, for example, are totally unable to explain away the 191-to-0 unanimous international condemnation of America's endlessly ongoing Cuban policy as registered by a UN vote on October 26, 2016. In other words, Fidel Castro says more about the United States, the world superpower, than he says about his island of Cuba. And, with all due respect to the NY Times, Fidel Castro's 90 years on this earth say more about the United States of America than they even say about the continent of Africa. If that doesn't mesh with U. S. history, it does with world history.

        The backing of the U. S. did not obscure the historic fact that the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba from 1952 till 1959 was a thieving-murderous bunch of world-renowned thugs running rampant over a helpless island, at least till it was chased to nearby Florida by the underestimated Cuban Revolution.

Batista vs. Fidel.

Who won and who lost? 

       But the victorious Cuban Revolution only resulted in two generations of anti-Castro zealots resurrecting the Batista scourge on U. S. soil and backed by the U. S. Congress as well as the White House when Bush-like allies occupy it. This photo of former Batista Minister Rafael Diaz-Balart and his four sons -- two of whom have been elected to Congress from Miami -- is used courtesy of the Washington Post.

       This photo is a reminder that Cuban women were prime guerrilla fighters in the revolutionary war that rid Cuba of the Batistianos. Take special note of Tete Puebla. That's her on the far left after she had gained fame as history's greatest teenage guerrilla fighter. The photo shows Tete the day she rode into Havana with female warriors only hours after the Batistiano leaders had fled. She later explained that the reason she looked "a bit glum" was because "we hoped the main killers would have stayed around and fought us." 

        Tete Puebla is today a General in the Cuban army. After her heroics as a female guerrilla fighter, she rose through the ranks of the regular Cuban army as a fervent defender of Fidel Castro. Presumably, she will just as fervently defend his legacy. But Americans are not supposed to know about Cubans like Tete Puebla because the mainstream U. S. media only tells them about vicious anti-Castro dissidents like...Berta Soler. Alan Gomez, for example, is an anti-Castro Cuban-American zealot based in Miami and that qualifies him to be the primary Cuban reporter at America's largest newspaper, USA Today. Cuba allows Gomez to fly regularly to the island, well knowing his articles will shortly be extremely biased against Cuba. This week on the first U. S. commercial plane to fly to Havana in over half-a-century, Gomez flew to Cuba and his article yesterday -- Nov. 30-2016 -- highlighted only Berta Soler complete with a gigantic color photo of her and quoting her thusly: "I don't celebrate the death of any human being, but the death of a dictator? Of a tyrant? Of course I would." Neither Alan Gomez nor USA Today have the guts to balance such garbage with, say, a comment from Tete Puebla who would still fight to the death to defend Fidel Castro's legacy.

        This is the photo that Alan Gomez and USA Today used yesterday -- Nov. 30-2016 -- showing extreme anti-Castro dissident Berta Soler celebrating the death of Fidel Castro. The article was intended to convey the message that Soler represents the majority opinion on the island and that is a typical lie from the mainstream U. S. media. Most everyday Cubans on the island oppose Soler and believe she is not only influenced but funded by U. S. elements. If Gomez would have gone out on the streets and randomly asked everyday Cubans, they would have told him that. But apparently Gomez was only instructed to visit the impressive home of Berta Soler, a home that irks less well-off Cubans. So much for U. S. journalism!   

       In 1959, the first year of Revolutionary Cuba, female guerrilla fighters like this one had become members of the block-by-block Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. That still viable and vital creation was the work of the three most important female revolutionaries -- Celia Sanchez, Vilma Espin and Haydee Santamaria. Thus, today -- all these decades after the triumph of the revolution -- the CDRs are credited with not only keeping remnants of the Batistianos off the island but also with making Cuba perhaps the most crime-free nation in the Western Hemisphere. But in 1959 while the rebel shown above was adapting to her new role, Rafael Diaz-Balart had created the very first anti-Castro paramilitary unit on U. S. soil and anti-Castro zealots like the infamous and still-living Luis Posada Carriles had already been sent to Fort Benning in Georgia to begin training as Brigade 2506, the CIA-directed unit that attacked Cuba in the Bay of Pigs disaster in April of 1961 only to enhance front-line fighter Fidel's worldwide legend.

       Back in October United States President-elect Donald Trump stood before a huge Brigade 2506 poster in Miami's Little Havana area and essentially promised the Cuban hardliners that he would re-capture Cuba for them. As Commander-in-Chief of the world's strongest military, and in an America facing a dearth of patriotic defenders and even democracy-lovers, he might do it. Then again, Trump as Goliath might not!! 

       Unchallenged propagandists in Miami, Washington, and the mainstream United States media have convinced many Americans that almost every one of the 11.2 million Cubans on the island hated Fidel Castro when he lived and will now hate his legacy even more while they yearn to take advantage of such discriminatory U. S. laws as Wet Foot-Dry Foot that entice Cubans, and only Cubans, with special rewards the instant their front foot touches U. S. soil. Therefore, Americans are not supposed to know about Cristina Escobar, a brilliant 28-year-old bilingual broadcast journalist cut from the Celia Sanchez-Tete Puebla mold. In Havana, in Washington, and on YouTube videos, in Spanish and English, Cristina Escobar has made this statement: "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington." 

      A stunning broadcast journalist on Cuban television, Cristina Escobar made history and headlines when she was in Washington to cover the last of the four diplomatic sessions conducted by Josefina Vidal and Roberto Jacobson. Cristina became the first Cuban ever to ask questions at a White House news conference and she ended up asking Josh Earnest six questions. Then in interviews and speeches around Washington she repeatedly made this point: "Journalists in Cuba have more freedom to tell the truth about the United States than journalists in the United States have to tell the truth about Cuba." That may or may not be true but she believes it and she indeed is an expert on U.S.-Cuban interactions. In fact, her University of Havana thesis was entitled: "How Obama Will Affect U.S.-Cuban relations" and her conclusions were eerily accurate. In any case, before Cristina left Washington and returned to her beloved Cuba -- ignoring for the second time all the instant rewards Wet Foot-Dry Foot would have given her -- she was congratulated by such veteran U. S. broadcast journalists as NBC's brave Andrea Mitchell.

Batista underestimated Celia.

America underestimated Fidel. 

Trump might underestimate Cristina. 

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Fidel's American Shadows

Why They'll be PERMANENT!!

       Before you dismiss the Title and Sub-title of this post, study this Getty Images photo that silently but eerily says a million words or more about the history of the never-ending U.S.-Cuban conundrum. The photo was taken in October of 1979 and it shows a demonstration on the streets of New York City protesting the arrival of Cuba's revolutionary icon Fidel Castro who was about to make a speech at the United Nations. The lady in the center of the photo is Juanita. Notice how tightly she is being held or led by two rather imposing...or scary...men -- Cuban-American CIA-types, for sure. Her right arm, in fact, is being squeezed by the strong right-hand of one man and the strong left-hand of the other. Notice? Juanita's last name is Castro. She is the younger sister of Fidel Castro. She defected to the Miami area in 1964, the fifth year of her brother's rule in Cuba. Since then, like thousands of other Cuban-Americans, Juanita has led a well-to-do lifestyle in a really nice home that is surrounded in the Miami-Coral Gables-Fort Lauderdale region by the mansions of many Cuban-American millionaires and billionaires. Juanita is now 83-years-old, still healthy. The longevity of her Castro genes seem to top off at around age 90. Her oldest brother, Ramon, died earlier this year in Cuba at age 91. Her next oldest brother, Fidel, died last week at age 90. Her only other brother, Raul, is now 85 so it figures that he has about five more years to live. The 83-year-old Juanita spoke this week to Frances Robles of the New York Times. She wasn't too saddened by Fidel's death but she was embarrassed by the wild demonstrations that included savage pot-banging that took place just outside her home and were conducted by Cuban-American hardliners celebrating Fidel's death. She said: "It's not necessary to do what the Cuban people have done here in the streets of Miami. I cannot accept this. It's not a good thing." Thanks, Juanita, for the remorse...at least over the Batistiano celebrations.

       If not a million, this photo says at least a thousand words about the never-ending U.S.-Cuban conundrum wrought wittingly and unwittingly by Fidel Castro's incomparable 90 years on this earth. This photo was taken in March of 2016 by Ivan Alvarado for London-based Reuters. It shows a Cuban-American named Henry Godinez in Havana back in March watching the visiting U. S. President Obama making a speech to the Cuban people live on Cuban television. The photo was used yesterday -- Nov. 29-2016 -- to illustrate a major article in the New York Times WRITTEN BY HENRY HIMSELF. It is entitled "The Dream of a Free Cuba." Henry divides his time now between Chicago and Havana. I found his opening words quite interesting: "In my dreams as a young boy, I was chosen by the C.I.A. to assassinate Fidel Castro. I would be a hero and set Cuba free. Like many Cuban-Americans, I was raised to believe it was my obligation to do just that. Now Castro has died. In fact, I have been going back to Cuba for years..." 

       Did you also find Henry's words interesting? I think you should. Notice he said that, as a young Cuban-American boy, he dreamed about killing Castro for the C.I.A. BECAUSE HE WAS PROGRAMMED BY THE C.I.A. TO CONVINCE HIM THAT IT WAS HIS "obligation to do just that." Prior to Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution that chased the Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders to U. S. soil, the United States -- the greatest democracy in history -- could very legitimately criticize nations like the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, etc., of using unchecked propaganda to soil the minds of masses of their own people. Since Castro chased the Batista-Mafia leaders to U. S. soil way back in 1959 -- mainly to Juanita Castro's Miami sanctuary -- the U. S. can no longer legitimately criticize other nations for their excessive use of propaganda, such as the U. S. has trouble criticising Russia for stealing Crimea when Russia can say the U. S. stole Guantanamo Bay from Cuba. Those sheer facts...which Americans are propagandized to ignore...helps account for the current 191-to-0 worldwide denunciation in the United Nations of America's Cuban policy, one dictated by two generations of Batistianos that Fidel Castro chased off Cuba only to create a vast and lucrative Batistiano enclave in the U. S. and in the U. S. Congress and, when a Republican is President, in the White House. ALSO, note that Henry as a Cuban-American has been going back and forth to Cuba all his adult life. As an American you are programmed via decades of propaganda not to understand that comment or to understand why you as an everyday American if you are not Cuban are the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. But just for the record, here's the understanding: The most hardline Cuban-Americans, the Batistianos, have been allowed by intimidated or apathetic Americans to write laws in the U. S. Congress that enrich and empower a selected minority of Cuban-Americans at the expense of everyone else -- Americans, democracy, Cuban-Americans and citizens of the world. This has especially been so since the 1980s when the most violent and richest Cuban exiles hooked up conveniently with the economic and political power of the Bush dynasty. All other nations in the world understand that, accounting for the unanimous pro-Cuba & anti-U. S. vote in the UN. Americans are not supposed to understand it because, like the Cuban-American Henry, Americans since 1959 have been programmed/propagandized with mind-numbing lies, the same lies that caused Henry as a boy living in the U. S. to "dream" of going to Cuba and killing Fidel Castro for the C.I.A., which targeted Fidel for six decades.

       This is a truly historic photo {above} that says at least a million words about the Cuban-Revolution, words that propagandized Americans need to know considering the profound, eternal and unique effect that Cuba's unique revolution has had on the United States since 1959...or really since 1952 when a few thugs in the Eisenhower administration sicced the Mafia and brutal dictator Fulgencio Batista on Cuba. Brave Cuban women, like the one courageously marching with the above placard, ignited and fueled the Cuban Revolution at a time when no one believed a U.S.-backed dictator could be overthrown -- not Batista in Cuba, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Somoza in Nicaragua, etc. But Batista in Cuba was overthrown by a popular, grounds-rooted revolution that owes its success to women like the one depicted above. The reason she was not mowed down, according to the acute analysis of the ever-watchful New York Times legend Herbert L. Matthews, was because there were too many unbiased and unafraid journalists like him and too many Cuban women like her. The routine murders of Cuban children in Batista's Cuba were obviously designed to quell resistance from peasant families. But they had the opposite effect. The female leaders of those families fought back...with street marches like this one AND by becoming the greatest female guerrilla fighters known to history...women such as the teenage legend Tete Puebla, today a General in the Cuban army, and Celia Sanchez, history's greatest female revolutionary. In fact, considering the footprints she left behind, maybe the greatest female or male.

        While women like Tete Puebla and Celia Sanchez were already fighting their long-shot guerrilla war in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra Mountains, Cuban women like these were marching in the major cities of Havana and Santiago de Cuba against, as the sign above says, Batista's murders of "nuestros nijos" -- "our children." And please note that it was signed "Madres Cubanas" -- "Cuban Mothers." While this photo also says a million words about the Cuban Revolution, propagandized Americans are not supposed to know a single word about it because the Batistianos chased off the island by the Cuban Revolution have controlled the Cuban narrative in the United States since 1959. When Americans this week watch unchallenged Cuban-American politicians and propagandists rave about Fidel Castro being a "mass murderer" or worse, Americans have a right to know that such accusations are often coming directly from first or second generation Cuban-Americans that were/are the dire enemies of the brave Cuban women depicted above -- enemies of these remarkable women in the 1950s and enemies of their legacy today! 

      This historic photo says at least a million words about BOTH the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba. The nine women dressed in black at the front of this march had all had children murdered by Batista's thugs, as the sign states. Now look at the woman in the front-middle wearing the light-colored jacket. She was the mother of Little Willie Soler. Willie and three other kids were murdered and their bodies left in a vacant warehouse as a warning for the community not to resist the Batista-Mafia thievery and brutality. So why does this long-ago photo say a million words about Revolutionary Cuba today? Permit me to answer that question: Today THE WILLIAM SOLER PEDIATRIC HOSPITAL is the largest children's hospital in Havana, one that was recently praised by both the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization for helping Cuba achieve the lowest infant mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere, a hemisphere that also includes...America! The U. S. media is not allowed to comment on such things because it might upset the Batistianos, but other media -- including the London-based BBC -- have explained that Cuba's free and excellent health and educational achievements have been accomplished despite facing the longest, since 1962, and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a strong nation against a weak one. The ultra-rich and ultra-powerful Diaz-Balart brothers, whose father Raphael was an ultra-rich and ultra-powerful Minister in Batista's Cuba and then in Miami, are literally saturating U. S. television networks this week ranting and raving, always unchallenged, about Fidel Castro being a "mass murderer" and then explaining why they, huge economic and political beneficiaries of "legal" laws mandated by Congress such as the embargo, should be allowed to continue for another six decades their truly gross Cuban policy even if the rest of the world opposes it by a 191-to-0 margin in the United Nations. The Diaz-Balart brothers, I don't think, will challenge any of these facts or the huge historical and topical significance of the photo shown above. And, sad to say, they don't have to challenge them because they control the Cuban narrative in the U. S. and Lincoln Diaz-Balart this week was actually praised at a celebratory Miami news conference for "writing" some of the still "legal" laws in the U. S. Congress that extremely benefit Cuban-Americans and extremely harm and discriminate against everyone else.

Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart.

      A 99-pound child-loving doctor's daughter named Celia Sanchez didn't march with those other Cuban women in the streets of Havana or Santiago de Cuba. But Celia emerged as the greatest player in both the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba, a fact never denied by Fidel Castro but a fact Americans to this day are not supposed to know. Celia is the greatest female revolutionary in history -- as a guerrilla fighter, for sure, but also as the prime recruiter of the rebels, the money, the weapons and the inspiration that defeated the supposed unbeatable Batista dictatorship that was supported by the strongest criminal organization in the world, the Mafia, and by the strongest nation in the world, the United States.

      In Cuba today, there are no statues of Fidel Castro and, by his own orders, there never will be. There are also no roads or streets or other edifices in Cuba today named for Fidel Castro. But there are many images and reminders, like the statue above, of Celia Sanchez that these tourists obviously admire.

This is Fidel Castro's favorite statue of Celia Sanchez.

      Other omnipotent Celia Sanchez contributions to the Cuban Revolution were the two quotations that best defined her revolution and the Revolutionary Cuba she left behind, the Cuba that the American Batistianos have been trying to re-capture every day since January of 1959. In March of 1959 and at least three times thereafter the bold and determined Celia Sanchez stated: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." Celia died of cancer at age 59 on Jan. 11-1980 and Fidel died of old age at age 90 on Nov. 25-2016. SO, no matter what happens now, her mantra -- the words quoted in brown above -- survived all these decades against overwhelming odds, just like her revolution. Celia, a very private person who tried to avoid the spotlight, was never shy about fighting Batista's U.S.-backed armies or about demeaning the Batistianos who fled to the United States to hide behind the skirts of the world superpower and hurl grenades back at her island. That's why, if you notice the graphic above, that THE WOMAN PROJECT.ORG believes Celia's all-time best quotation was: "We rebels get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots." INDEED, as pointed out by Fidel Castro's best U. S. biographer, Georgie Anne Geyer, and other historians, Celia was bitterly disappointed the Batistiano leaders didn't stand and fight in Havana before fleeing with tons of loot on their getaway ships and airplanes after the rebels captured Santa Clara and were charging towards Havana on the last day of 1958. Those greedy cowards and idiots have always been labeled "greedy cowards and idiots" by someone who would know, the great Celia Sanchez.

This was Celia's favorite photo of Fidel Castro.

This was Fidel's favorite photo of Celia Sanchez.

This was Celia and Fidel in 1960.

      This AP photo shows Cuban citizens mourning Fidel Castro's death as they watch a video about his life on a huge screen in Revolutionary Square. This Cubaninsider blog is not about Cuba, Fidel Castro, or Celia Sanchez. It's about my United States and how Cuba, Fidel Castro and Celia Sanchez have so massively reshaped it, creating the only totally unanimous vote -- 191-to-0 -- ever registered in the United Nations, a recent vote condemning America's Cuban policy. Five years ago when I sort of tentatively started this blog, I promised two relatives of Celia Sanchez -- one living in Cuba and one in the United States -- that I would continue this blog only as long as her soulmate, Fidel Castro, lived. Now that he has died at age 90, one of those relatives has asked me to continue it but...I have mixing, conflicting feelings about that. Just as his death was inevitable and actually anticipated every day since July 31, 2006 when he almost died of a massive and incurable intestinal problem, I also believe that it is now inevitable that the Batistiano element in the United States will finally "regain control of Cuba," the very thing that the incomparable Celia Sanchez promised 57 years ago, correctly, would never happen "as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." I am glad her promise was fulfilled and still viable at 10:29 P. M. Havana time on November 25, 2016. Both history and fate, I believe, owed her at least that much. And Americans need the freedom to fairly judge her. 

And by the way: 

       Toronto police say these two Canadian heroines have concluded an exhausting 3-year project that finished off a mammothly wicked child sex ring. They rescued 400 children and arrested 348 pedophiles. On the left is Detective Constable Lisa Belanger and on the right is Inspector Joanne Beaven-Desjardins.

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No Choice for Cuba Now

A Need to Shed U. S. Ties
A Key Cuban Leader Agrees

       The Tweet depicted above was sent around the world at 6:02 A. M. on Nov. 28-2016. Although it was penned by an American rogue, it instantly garnered international headlines because the rogue is Donald Trump, the President-elect of the United States of America. A little later in this essay I'll tell you how an important lady in Havana...the island's top Minister regarding U. S. affairs, in fact...reacted to Trump's insanely indecent but very serious threat. He is about to become, after all, the leader of the Free World and the world's most powerful Commander-in-Chief. But right now, as a democracy-loving American, I will make this suggestion to that lady in Havana: "Your nation is supported by a 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations with even the United States, as long as the decent President Obama is in the White House, refusing to sign on to what ALL the nations of the world consider America's Cuban policy -- at least the major part left uncorrected by Obama -- to be obscenely cruel and criminal, and directed by a Batistiano minority headquartered in Miami and the U. S. Congress. And starting on Jan. 20-2017 also headquartered in the White House. Therefore, despite the advances Obama has provided Cubans and Americans, you and Cuba have no choice now: You should cut all diplomatic ties with the United States and concentrate your time on dealing and negotiating with any and all of the rest of the nations in the world, the nations not dictated to by a handful of what now are second generational rich and powerful Batistiano  thugs. The nations of the world recently voted 191-to-0 to support  your Cuba and oppose America's Batistiano policy directed at Cuba. Americans have been taught by the U. S. media and by unchecked Batistiano propagandists to ignore the unanimity of that vote, but you shouldn't ignore it. The Trump threats are real; he just named to his Transition Team the top anti-Cuban zealot and fund-raising lobbyist in Washington. You are probably the best diplomatic negotiator in the Western Hemisphere, but negotiating with the Trump crowd would be a waste of time. Negotiating with the rest of the world, which supports Cuba, would not be wasting your time." 

      Almost the same instant that Donald Trump's Tweet was flashing around the world, so was this photo taken in Havana by Enrique De La Osa for Reuters. I've always believed that a photo is worth a thousand words...sometimes a million, it seems. This one shows two Cubans, who have lived all their lives on the island with Fidel Castro, sincerely mourning the 90-year-old revolutionary's death at 10:29 P. M. Friday, Nov. 25th. After media clowns Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski yesterday morning paraded an array of extremely biased Batistiano propagandists on MSNBC, they posted the extremely decent and intelligent quotes on the screen from American President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau...and then laughed at and mocked those quotes. Propagandized Americans, if they happened to have been watching, probably took it in stride because that is what they have come to expect from the U. S. media -- propaganda masquerading as news. Instead of seeking "news" from America's propaganda networks, Americans, I think, should switch to decent programming such as, say, the Smithsonian Channel that fills its airways with brilliantly produced documentaries that are both topical and historic. If Joe and Mika on MSNBC put the above photo on their screen, they would probably laugh at it and joke about it just as did with the decent and sincere quotes from President Obama and Prime Minister Trudeau.

     The U. S. media is neither decent enough nor competent enough to have earned the right to comment on this photo taken by Adalberto Roque for Agence France-Presse and distributed worldwide by Getty Images. It depicts Cuba in its 9-day mourning period for Fidel Castro. Cubans and the Cuban government itself have a right, should they so choose, to mourn the historic event in manners they choose.

       This Miami Herald photo this week also says a thousand words -- or maybe a million! In the middle...that's Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who has been entrenched in the U. S. Congress from Miami since 1989. Uh, do you detect the celebratory glow on her face because of the death of 90-year-old Fidel Castro. That's, uh, interesting because a once-great Miami Herald columnist, Jim DeFede, in his closing days at that Little Havana newspaper, excoriated Ros-Lehtinen and the two gentlemen she is with in the above photo for their incredible support of Miami's most famed and notorious anti-Castro terrorists -- including Miami's heralded anti-Castro citizen named Luis Posada Carriles. DeFede asked Ros-Lehtinen to comment on his excoriation, and she refused. But, as you well know, she is ubiquitous in rushing to microphones to depict Fidel Castro as the worst human that has ever lived while always, directly or by implication, touting the gracious kindness of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship he overthrew but only chased as far as Miami and the U. S. Congress. Ros-Lehtinen and the two gentlemen with her have extreme family ties dating back to the Batista rule in Havana and to the most hardline Cuban exiles in Miami. AND OF COURSE, they have extreme ties to the Bush dynasty. Ros-Lehtinen, for example, began the Little Havana parade to the U. S. Congress in 1989 when Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager. Although she backs Trump's cruel assaults on Cuba...verbal now and perhaps physical later...she didn't vote for him. She wrote in the name "Jeb Bush," her mentor. And oh, yes! I mentioned the two gentlemen with Ros-Lehtinen. That's, uh, Havana-born Lincoln Diaz-Balart on the left and his brother Mario on the right. Both have been elected from Little Havana to the U. S. Congress. They are the sons of the late Rafael Diaz-Balart who was a rich and powerful Minister in Batista's Cuban dictatorship and, like his sons, a rich and powerful anti-Castro zealot in Miami's Little Havana. At a news conference Nov. 26 celebrating Fidel Castro's death, Ros-Lehtinen at one point turned and congratulated Lincoln Diaz-Balart for writing in the U. S. Congress some of the most stringent anti-Cuba/pro-Batistiano legislation that to this day remains "legal" laws of the United States. She was apparently referencing the purely anti-democracy Helms-Burton Bill that the rest of the world opposes 191-to-0 but Americans are supposed to be too scared or to ignorant to oppose. Of course, all this week you will see Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers ranting and raving about the evils of Fidel Castro across the U. S. networks, networks that have neither the guts nor the integrity to inform their viewers why Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers are so biased against Fidel Castro while obviously having such fond memories of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship that roiled, robbed and ravaged Cuba from 1952 till the break of dawn on January 1, 1959. Hidden behind the protective wall of the U. S. media, are they roiling, robbing and ravaging America now?? A pertinent question; and one the media will ignore.

      In sharp contrast to the gutless Bush administration that preceded Obama's, and the gutless Trump administration that will soon succeed him, President Obama in the past 8 years has shown great respect and decency for 11 million innocent Cubans on the island and for the U. S. democracy. While Bush left office with an approval rating in the 20s and Trump will be very lucky to leave or be kicked out of office with a 5% approval rating, Mr. Omaha currently has an astonishing, for a two-term President, approval rating of 55%. One reason for that is his brave and decent Cuban policy that coincides with the 191-to-0 UN condemnation of the U. S. Cuban policy that Mr. Obama has tried so hard, against imposing odds -- a dysfunctional Congress and an incompetent media -- to correct. Study the image above, particularly the Obama quote: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." He made that statement back in March when he became the first sitting U. S. President to visit the island since 1928. But he made that statement when he assumed that neither a Bush or a Trump would succeed him in the White House. So as November turns to December and January of 2016 is right around the corner, Cubans on the island now have every reason TO FEAR A THREAT FROM THE UNITED STATES. Because Mr. Obama is a great and decent man and should also be respected for being a great and decent President, I remain incensed that two typical network anchors -- Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough -- mocked and laughed at Mr. Obama and his office while displaying his official quote about the death of Fidel Castro on their MSNBC screen and right after so lavishly agreeing with the ultra-biased comments of the Havana-born Lincoln Diaz-Balart, the visceral son of a former key Minister in the brutal Batista dictatorship. President Obama's official statement consisted of three long paragraphs that, without laughing or mocking him or his office, Americans should read in its entirety. Listed below are some of his key comments that show respect for the Cuban people and for America:

            IN PARAGRAPH ONE: "At this time of Fidel Castro's passing, we extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people." 

           IN PARAGRAPH TWO: "During my presidency, we have worked hard to put the past behind us, pursuing a future in which the relationship between our two countries is defined not by our differences but by the many things that we share as neighbors and friends -- bonds of culture, commerce and common humanity." 

         IN PARAGRAPH THREE: "Today, we offer condolences to Fidel Castro's family, and our thoughts and prayers are with the Cuban people. The Cuban people must know that they have friends and partners in the United States of America." 

           As President Obama well knows, former Presidents like John Kennedy and former Cuban-American newsmen like Emilio Milian in Miami have been unmercifully targeted for saying decent things about Cuba, but less decent than the words and actions of Mr. Obama. One reason for those targetings is the fact that, since 1959, transplants from the ousted Batista dictatorship have so successfully cultivated their venom using the U. S. media as a very useful propaganda pipeline and conduit.

For example, on Nov. 28-2016 -- the first Monday morning after the death of Fidel Castro -- MSNBC co-anchors Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough spent much of their two-hour broadcast lavishing praise on the outlandishly slanted comments of a host of extremely biased Cuban-Americans such as Havana-born Lincoln Diaz-Balart who was born when his father Rafael was a powerful Minister in Cuba's soon-to-be-ousted-and-chased-to-Miami Batista dictatorship. Then Mika and Joe followed up those outrageously biased on-air comments by posting on the screen President Obama's sane and decent comments. That's when Mika and Joe laughed at and mocked those words as well as President Obama and the office he holds. And in doing so, Mika and Joe were also laughing at and mocking decent Americans, decent Cubans, democracy, and the broadcasting industry. That morning, Mika and Joe were wearing expensive clothes similar to those shown above. THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN WEARING THEIR CRAZY CLOWN OUTFITS.

      The 44-year-old Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, was in Madagascar {above} on the morning of Nov. 26-2016 when he was awakened and told about the death of Fidel Castro. Trudeau has been a friend of Fidel Castro all his life, first meeting him as an infant because Pierre Trudeau, Justin's father and former Prime Minister of Canada, was one of Fidel Castro's all-time greatest friends, almost on a par with Nelson Mandela, the South African civil rights icon, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the Colombian generally considered the all-time greatest Latin American writer/author and famed as the hater of fiendish U.S.-backed dictators such as Batista in Cuba, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Pinochet in Chile, etc. While in Madagascar, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote and issued to the world an official statement about the death of Fidel Castro. The exact and complete words of that statement follow: 

                "It is with sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba's longest serving President. Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader and served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation.

        "While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro's supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a lasting affection for 'el Comandante.'

               "I know my father was very proud to call him a friend and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away. It was also a real honour to meet his sons and his brother Raul Castro on my recent visit to Cuba. On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends and many, many supporters of Mr. Castro. We join the people of Cuba today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader." 

             To repeat, those were the exact and complete words in Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's official statement about the death of Fidel Castro. Mika and Joe, right after posting President Obama's official words and then laughing and mocking them, also posted some of Mr. Trudeau's words...and also laughed and mocked them. WITHIN HOURS of releasing his official statement depicted above, Justin Trudeau received right-wing death threats warning him not to return to Cuba for any ceremonies related to Fidel Castro's death. The warnings were heeded and Mr. Trudeau's aides quickly announced that he would not do so. A biased or right-wing media contributes greatly to such threats and disruptions of the world order. The likes of Mika and Joe -- patriotic chest-pumpers -- don't think people like President Obama and Prime Minister Trudeau have the right to freely express opinions about a world landmark such as Fidel Castro, but they think Havana-born U. S. extremists like Lincoln Diaz-Balart should have all the airtime they request to vent their venomous, unchallenged views.

       This, by the way, is a photo of Justin Trudeau embracing Fidel Castro in 2000 in Montreal at the funeral of Pierre Trudeau, Justin's father and the former Prime Minister of Canada. Fidel was a pallbearer at Pierre's funeral. This week Justin, now the Prime Minister of Canada, has received death threats if he returns to Cuba for Fidel Castro's funeral. During the 9-day mourning period, there will be a funeral but Fidel's body was quickly cremated Saturday morning after his death late Friday night, Nov. 25, 2016. A few days before Fidel died, Justin was in Cuba but could not see him because Fidel's wife Dalia felt he was too ill. It is also believed that Justin Trudeau, because of the cremation, did not intend to return to Cuba.

      Remember the Donald Trump Tweet posted at the top of this essay, the tweet in which the President-elect threatened to quickly "terminate" President Obama's positive overtures to Cuba? Josefina Vidal remembers it. In the past 15 years as Cuba's Minister in charge of relations with the United States, it has been her responsibility to take note of such things and react to them. She has done so with absolute brilliance and, if that were not so, the viciously determined and Batistiano-powered Bush administration {that preceded Obama's decent administration} would have demolished Revolutionary Cuba's hard-earned sovereignty. Now Ms. Vidal has come to realize that the upcoming Batistiano-powered Trump administration is a replicate of past Bush administrations, only now, to quote Ms. Vidal, "There seems to be more of an urgency in Miami, Congress and soon the White House to reclaim Cuba." Just about the last straw for Ms. Vidal was that Nov. 28th "terminate" Tweet from Trump. Her reaction...study her expression above when she is irked or frustrated...was: "Does Trump mean he will terminate Obama's advances or does he mean he will terminate 11 million Cubans to make sure the old Miami Cubans reclaim Cuba before the last of them dies of old age?" Trump's use of the word "terminate" irked Ms. Vidal, as it should irk everyone.

       If you think Josefina Vidal has memorized every word of Donald Trump's Nov. 28th Tweet as President-elect, you might like to know that she has virtually memorized every word and gesture of Trump's pre-election speech back in October to the old Little Havana Cubans in Miami still very nostalgic about their Brigage 2506 attack on Cuba way back in April of 1961. That's why, in making "termination" promises to remaining Brigade 2506 veterans back in October, Trump stood before a huge Brigade 2506 banner.

       Now put Josefina Vidal's comment in perspective, the comment fueled by Trump's Nov. 28th "termination" Tweet that backed up his October "termination" speech to the surviving Brigade 2506 old-timers that still dominate the politics if not the majority opinions in Miami's Little Havana district. In case you have forgotten it already, here is Vidal's reaction, the one that counts the most right now in Cuba: "Does Trump mean he will terminate Obama's advances or does he mean he will terminate 11 million Cubans to make sure the old Miami Cubans reclaim Cuba before the last of them dies of old age." Trump will have about 4,000 nuclear weapons when he becomes Commander-in-Chief on Jan. 20, 2017. Just two of those weapons -- one landing south of Havana and the other north of Santiago de Cuba -- could "terminate" all 11.2 million Cubans on the island...if indeed that's what Trump meant. Josefina Vidal doesn't have any sophisticated weapons at her disposal. But she is a lot smarter than Trump...and a lot more decent than the current passel of Trump's Cuban advisers. With Trump's presidency on the horizon and visceral Miami Cubans dictating Cuban policy to both Congress and to the U. S. media, Vidal has just about concluded -- despite all the headway she brilliantly negotiated with Obama's team -- that she has no choice but to begin shedding all ties with the nearby United States of America and concentrate on the 191 nations that support Cuba, not the one that may want to "terminate" her very vulnerable but quite pugnacious island.

And by the way: 

    Alexa Rank is the top bean-counter of how many page-views significant blogs get each day, each month and all-time and it rates this one-trick-pony pretty highly. I was surprised to see that a Cubaninsider essay I posted back in August of 2013 has itself recently been getting over a thousand page-views a day. That essay is entitled "The Seven Best Books About Fidel Castro." So I googled it to ascertain why it was getting so many hits this week. The death of Fidel Castro is a primary reason, of course, but I also noticed it is still topical and I still stand by it. The seminal book depicted here -- "Guerrilla Prince: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro" -- makes the Top Seven list of best Fidel Castro books. Geyer is the long-time conservative U. S. columnist who is not a big fan of Fidel's but her intense research was outstanding and beautifully chronicled and sequenced. Geyer, I think, best captures the all-important relationship between Fidel and his soulmate Celia Sanchez, including the fact that Celia was the "only one that could over-rule him" and the additional fact that Fidel spent three days contemplating suicide after Celia died of cancer on Jan. 11, 1980. But Geyer's "Guerrilla Prince" only makes #4 on that Top 7 list, so the top three must be seriously great, right? They are, and so are the bottom four. You can check them out by just Googling "The Seven Best Books About Fidel Castro."

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