Cuba Aims to Survive Trump

Minus A Military Intervention!
{This post updated for Friday, January 13th, 2017}

      This week -- Jan. 10th-2017 -- a great American, Barack Obama, flew to his home turf in Chicago to make his FAREWELL SPEECH as America's greatest and bravest two-term President {FDR served 4 terms}. The speech was brilliant and important.

      The speech President Obama delivered in Chicago was magnificently crafted, heartfelt, and emotional...and one he wrote himself. When listing his achievements, he made it a point to include "opening up a new chapter with the Cuban people." By doing that, President Obama displayed more guts, more intelligence and more patriotism than any U. S. president since the 1950s. And by doing it, he had to confront a dangerous and deeply-embedded-in-the-U. S. Congress Castro Cottage Industry that for going on six decades has enriched and empowered a handful of greedy and revengeful miscreants who have primarily punished two generations of children on the island of Cuba while also direly harming the images of America and democracy worldwide, a fact evidenced by the current 191-to-0 vote in the UN denouncing America's vile Cuban policy.

       President Obama's 8 years in the Oval Office as U. S. President have been tough, really tough. A small but powerful right-wing cabal in the opposition Republican party has, as expected, dogged every sane and decent policy that Mr. Obama has attempted to execute, primarily using his Executive Powers to circumvent a dysfunctional, right-wing and mostly bought-and-paid-for Congress. {Disclosure: I was a lifelong conservative Republican until I became aware of the systemic harm the Bush dynasty was inflicting, in my opinion, on America and on democracy dating all the way back to the 1950s and even to the 1930s and 1940s with Prescott Bush}. Amazingly for a two-term President, Mr. Obama will leave office with an approval rating well above 50%. His extraordinary efforts to normalize relations with Cuba are supported by most Americans, most Cuban-Americans and, in unanimity, by all the nations in the world. He faced a Cuban-policy dictated for decades by a handful of right-wing extremists who can easily dictate to the 535-member U. S. Congress and to every Republican president. Unfortunately, the decent Mr. Obama will be replaced in the Oval Office by a Republican president in just a few days -- on Jan. 20th, 2017.

      Also this week -- on the morning of January 11th-2017, a few hours after President Obama's Farewell Speech in Chicago -- Rex Tillerson faced the U. S. Senate regarding his nomination to be President-elect Trump's Secretary of State. Even in his written opening remarks, prior to the grilling from Senators, Mr. Tillerson -- the head man at oil-giant Exxon-Mobil -- grossly assailed President Obama's sanity and decency regarding innocent Cubans on the island. Rex Tillerson's exact words were: "Their leaders have received a lot, while the people have received little. This does not serve the interests of Cubans or U.S. citizens." That, of course, is a lie. All unbiased sources agree that President Obama has paved the way for thousands of everyday Cubans to become entrepreneurs and for hundreds of American workers and businesses to already begin profiting from Obama's Cuban openings. Mr. Tillerson's disgraceful and cowardly comment merely reflects the fact that President-elect Trump's upcoming Cuban policy will totally march in tune with the vile goals of a few right-wing Republicans who have saddled America and democracy with a 191-to-zero disapproval rating worldwide for punishing innocent Cuban children, not the Castro-ruled government, decade after decade after decade.

       As expected, Rex Tillerson was grilled longest and hardest at his Senate hearing because of his close ties with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, a man who has more nuclear warheads, about 7200 to 6800, than the U. S. has and a man not exactly fond of either the United States of America or democracy.

       In the 100-member United States Senate, Republicans hold only a margin of one over the Democrats but most observers believe all of President-elect Trump's anti-Cuban zealots will get confirmed, including Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State to replace President Obama's John Kerry, a long-time advocate of a sane Cuban policy. In fact, all of Trump's appointments- nominations are anti-Cuban zealots designed to replace Obama's far more pro-democracy advocates -- such as Nikki Haley replacing Samantha Power as the U. S. Representative at the United Nations; Mauricio Claver-Carone replacing Ben Rhodes and Susan Rice as key advisors regarding Cuba, etc. But the most dangerous Trump clump is Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State to replace the very decent John Kerry. So the cruel, dangerous and perhaps bloody dismantling of President Obama's sane and decent Cuban openings will begin on January 20th, 2017 even as more high-profile relations -- such as with Russia, China, Iran and North Korea -- will grab most of the big headlines.

      This updated photo taken by Casey Strong reminds me of why a Republican Congress and a Republican White House, so easily dictated to by a handful of Cuban-American extremists, are consistently injurious to America's and democracy's worldwide reputations, as confirmed by that 191-to-zero UN vote. This photo shows a young Cuban mother feeding pigeons while her precious little girl, neatly attired in an orange outfit, poses beautifully and happily for Casey Strong's camera. All her life that mother has been punished by Fat Cats in a foreign country, the U. S., in the guise of "hurting Castro." And all her life that little girl is scheduled to be punished by Fat Cats in a foreign country, the U. S., in the guise of "hurting Castro." In reality, as Mr. Obama realizes, such greed and cruelty has helped sustain the Castros for over half a century even as the two oldest Castro brothers -- Ramon and Fidel -- died in 2016 in their 90s and the remaining brother, Raul, is an old and very tired 85.

       This photo reveals how typically Cuba's majority peasant children were treated in Batista's Cuba in the 1950s -- no education, no health care, etc.

      This typical photo shows Cuban mothers marching to protest the murders of their children in Batista's Cuba, "asesinatos" apparently designed to quell dissent. Instead, brave mothers like these spawned the revolution that, in 1959, defeated Batista but, in essence, created a revengeful Cuban government-in-exile with Miami's Little Havana as its capital from 1959 till the present day.

      This updated photo shows the drastic difference in how children in Revolutionary Cuba are treated today as compared to the children in Batista's Cuba in the 1950s. For all its faults, Revolutionary Cuba has lived up to its promise to prioritize mothers and children, and has done so even in spite of the U. S. economic embargo that is the longest and cruelest ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation. Batistiano-dictated U. S. laws and the Batistiano controlled Cuban narrative in the U. S. would have you believe that the schoolgirls depicted above are being forced to become world-class actors to look so happy and well-cared-for in Cuba. The Batistiano-fueled Congressional law that for decades has ruled that everyday Americans are the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba is designed to perpetuate such lies because, after all, judging Cuba for oneself would not compute with the very effective and usually unchallenged Batistiano propaganda. Children like these in Revolutionary Cuba are guaranteed free and excellent health care for life, free and excellent educations through college, etc., and FOUR keen international observers -- UNESCO, the World Health Organization, the Pan Am Health Organization and the World Bank -- have all either praised Revolutionary Cuba for its prioritizing children or singled out Cuba as a "role model" in its treatment of mother-child preventative health issues, such as praising Cuba for its extremely low infant mortality rate, for Cuba being "the first nation" to totally eradicate the transmission of AIDs from mother to child, etc. Those who profit from denying the color photo above and the two black-and-white photos that preceded it are, in my opinion, why the nations of the world vote 191-to-zero against America's Cuban policy THAT THE DECENT PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS TRIED SO VERY HARD TO CORRECT.    

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           Cuba's reluctant President Raul Castro turns 86 in June. He is tired. A year from now he plans to turn the leadership of Cuba over to a non-Castro, 56-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel. This month of January-2017 marks the first year of his life that Raul must live without his more famous brother Fidel who died at age 90 back on November 25th. Aware that Cubans are concerned about the imminent departure of America's Cuba-friendly President Barack Obama, Raul Castro "fully expects" incoming U. S. President Donald Trump to be like "the Bush presidents," which to him means "war-like." The above photo taken by Yamil Lage shows one of the newly posted billboards in which Raul Castro tries to assure the Cuban people that the island's sovereignty will survive Trump. Above his name are his own words: "We must look at the socialist and prosperous future of the country." After Raul's imminent departure, left to their own devices, it is likely that Cuba's well-educated and impatient young-adult generation -- led by two brilliant Cuba-loving women in their twenties, Cristina Escobar and Jennifer Bello Martinez -- will chart the island's future. Ever mindful of what the U. S. sicced on Cuba in 1952 -- Batista and the Mafia -- both Cristina and Jennifer have profoundly stated: "We don't want the U. S. to bring us democracy. That is a project for Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington."  Both Cristina and Jennifer are true, sovereignty-loving Cubans.

     Cristina Escobar above & Jennifer Bello Martinez below, a rather formidable modern-day Cuban duo.

           Cristina Escobar & Jennifer Bello Martinez remind some of Cuba's two greatest and most determined anti-Batista guerrilla fighters -- the legendary Celia Sanchez & Haydee Santamaria.

     This week Alaska Airlines made more history as a part of outgoing President Obama's herculean efforts to normalize relations with Cuba before incoming President Trump takes over the White House on January 20th. An Alaska Airlines flight originated in Seattle, had a stopover in Los Angeles and then continued on its pleasant journey to Havana. It marked the first time since 1961 that a commercial U. S. flight from the West Coast had been allowed to fly to Cuba. Alaska Airlines said the advance bookings for such flights "are strong but not sold out," pointing out that the Congress-mandated embargo against Cuba still prevents most Americans from having the freedom to visit Cuba, making Americans since 1962 the only people in the world without that freedom, a fact that pusillanimous Americans accept because, apparently, they fear the power and threats from America's vast and lucrative Castro Cottage Industry, which -- as expected -- has even out-lived Fidel Castro. Eight other major U. S. airlines from cities east of the Mississippi River already had permission to fly to Cuba, so competition for the Cuban business plus the embargo are factors.

      Cuba has decided to take incoming U. S. President Donald Trump's dire threats at face value after minutely studying Trump's condescending promises made to Brigade 2506 veterans in the above speech in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. Brigade 2506 is the unit that attacked Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961, a drastic U. S. failure that mightily strengthened Fidel Castro's power in Cuba and around the world. A distinct offshoot of the Bay of Pigs was a new tactic in 1962 -- the embargo designed to starve & deprive Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow Castro. The starve & deprive aspect of the embargo continues and, of course, has been augmented by such things as the infamous Cuban Adjustment Act and such discriminatory laws as Wet Foot/Dry Foot designed to favor, enrich and empower Cubans whose feet HAVE OR WILL touch U. S. soil, privileges not available to any non-Cubans. To at last add democratic aspects to America's Cuban policy, outgoing U. S. President Obama has very bravely and decently used Executive Powers in a valiant attempt to normalize relations with Cuba, infuriating the benefactors of America's vast and lucrative Castro Cottage Industry that easily dictates to the U. S. Congress and to Republican presidents. So, Cuba expects the erratic Trump and the refurbished Brigade 2506 to reverse Obama's sane Cuban advances as well as reverse the Batistiano and American disaster at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961. Moreover, Cuba fully realizes that Trump, using Executive Powers as the President and military powers as Commander-in-Chief, will soon have the capacity to assault Cuba.

       Eric Schmidt, the Chairman and CEO of internet Super-Giant Google, flew to Havana to sign an important intercommunication deal with Cuba. It was in keeping with President Obama's plans, during his final days in office, to make his Cuban policies as irreversible as possible for the Trump administration.

       Scott Gilbert, American lawyer and entrepreneur, a few days ago signed another historic deal, this time to export Cuban charcoal to the U. S. with the first 40 metric tons arriving on January 18th, two days before Trump replaces Obama in the White House. The embargo for decades prevented such deals.

        Cuba hails its sweet-smelling, long-burning charcoal as the world's best. It is made from the invasive and woody Marabu weeds that have long plagued Cuban farmers, at least till the charcoal became a saleable product for the farmers to cultivate as they clear their land. While Cuba wants input from U. S. companies like airlines, cruise ships and Google, and wants to sell items like charcoal to the U. S. market, because of Trump Cuba is shifting to non-American options AND BACK TO A COLD WAR-TYPE POSTURE.

And did you know?

       The smallest bird in the world is the Bee Hummingbird and it is only found in Cuba, and birdwatchers know where to look. On my first day in Cuba, I mentioned to Vivian, the manager of the Victoria Hotel, "This is not why I'm here but where do I go to see the Bee Hummingbird and the Cuban Tody." She reached under the desk and fetched me a plainly marked map, adding, "The Bee is mainly in the area marked in yellow and the Tody is almost exclusively in the area marked in red. At both places there are bird experts to help you."  

       Scientists have minutely studied Cuba's Bee Hummingbird. Totally unique, it a friendly and beautiful little bird. For their nectar meals, they only visit ten flowers and nine of those flowers are unique to Cuba.

The actual size of Cuba's Bee Hummingbird.

The also tiny Cuban Tody is Cuba's national bird.

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Twin Perils: Cuba, Puerto Rico

Financial Problems Galore!!

       This week -- on January 9th, 2017 -- the United Nations held dire hearings concerning Puerto Rico's massive economic crisis. The UN's top expert on Debt and Human Rights, Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky, dominated the session. He said, "Austere measures to correct Puerto Rico's economy could trigger even more poverty for most Puerto Ricans. It will aggravate the already intolerant levels of poverty in the country and threaten human rights." Puerto Ricans are U. S. citizens and the U. S. Congress has constructed a Supervision and Financial Administration to solve the nation's financial doldrums. But Mr. Bohoslavsky seemed to suggest that the U. S. Congress was more concerned with helping Puerto Rico's millionaires and America's hedge fund billionaires who epitomize the vast disparity between the rich and poor in Puerto Rico. Indeed, "austere measures" that Mr. Bohoslavsky referenced have closed schools and health clinics in Puerto Rico even as a recent documentary showed a hedge fund billionaire showing off a new "6-star hotel" and the Caribbean's "largest display of yachts in one place." Mr. Bohoslavsky stressed that "The first guarantees should be the protections of the rights of health, food, education, housing and social security for the majority poor." The age-old and ever-expanding disparity between the rich and poor is playing out around the world, including Puerto Rico in the Caribbean, more so today than ever before in history.

An ever-expanding human disgrace.

The U. S. & worldwide mantra: "Greed is Good." 

       Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean, and Puerto Rico, a much smaller island, both came under U. S. dominance after the Spanish-American War in 1898. The infamous Platt Amendment quickly gave the U. S. military control of Cuba, U. S. military occupation of Cuba's Guantanamo Bay "in perpetuity," etc. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico emerged as a U. S. Territory that includes U. S. citizenship for Puerto Ricans, quite a divergence from Cuba's fate. Cuba in the late 1800s had fought two brave but ill-fated wars trying desperately to gain independence from Spain but finally, in 1959, the Cuban Revolution's victory over the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship provided Cuba its first taste of sovereignty, which Revolutionary Cuba famously defended with its dynamic Bay of Pigs victory over the attacking U.S.-Cuban exile forces in April of 1961. Since then, the U. S. has employed a massive economic embargo-blockade against Cuba, which somehow has managed to hang on, if barely, for all these embargoed decades. MEANWHILE, at the UN the worldwide condemnation of the U. S. embargo against Cuba currently has a resounding unanimity vote of 191-to-0, which confirms that all of America's best international friends oppose it...but to no avail because a few hardline Cuban-Americans can dictate to the Republican-dominated Congress and to Republican presidents. AND MEANWHILE, this second week of January-2017 finds the UN as direly concerned about the massive poverty in Puerto Rico as it is about the U. S. embargo of Cuba that impacts so severely on Cuba's majority poor. AND MEANWHILE, U. S. laws for decades have massively encouraged and rewarded Cubans who defect to the U. S. but in January-2017 more Puerto Ricans, already armed with U. S. citizenship passports, are flocking to Florida than instantly rewarded Cubans. Is the Cuban-Puerto Rican conundrum an offshoot of a bought-and-paid-for contingent in the U. S. Congress? Uh, just asking, and please note that the previous sentence was a question, not a statement. THANK YOU for the indulgence.

      Cuba's Interior Minister, Garlos Fernandez Gondin, has died at age 78. He was one of the youngest rebels in both the Revolution and the Bay of Pigs. But he was also a top General in Angola where Cuban forces played a controversial but pivotal role in the defeat of Africa's long-dreaded apartheid affliction.

       South Africa's international Civil Rights icon, Nelson Mandela, always gave Cuba's revolutionary icon, Fidel Castro, the most credit "for providing Africans whatever measures of independence and sovereignty we finally attained after centuries of being African slaves and pawns at the behest of foreign oppression." Mandela spent 27 years in an apartheid prison with a bucket for a toilet before gaining his freedom and becoming South Africa's democratically elected President. "Democratic elections that finally emerged in waves across Africa and Latin America owe Fidel and the Cuban Revolution the most," Mandela said. Such an analysis made Mandela a pariah in certain circles, such as when he was rudely treated on a visit to Miami.

 Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro remained the best of friends for the last four decades of their long lives. They even co-authored the book "HOW FAR WE SLAVES HAVE COME." Mandela died at age 95 in Johannesburg on December 5, 2013. Castro died at age 90 in Havana on November 25, 2016. Reviled by many and beloved by many, both men are enshrined as giants in the pantheon of history as legends of survivability.

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Cuba's Coda Near at Hand

The Last Act May be Ugly!

     An article this week in the Miami Herald foreshadowed, I think, the imminent demise of Revolutionary Cuba's enigmatic 58-year rule of the enchanting Caribbean island. The article was written by Fabiola Santiago who left Cuba in 1969 and has been one of the fiercest anti-Castro zealots at the Miami Herald since 1980, now as a top editor at a major newspaper that seems only to allow anti-Castro zealots to report on Cuban-related issues. The latest article by Ms. Santiago weirdly found it "weird" that Cuban soldiers, marching to celebrate the 58th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution's victory over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship, chanted pro-Cuban and not pro-American or pro-Miami slogans. Beyond that weird way to assail Cuba, Ms. Santiago did offer one ominously significant paragraph that she began with her repetitious ranting about President Obama not consulting with Miami's anti-Castro zealots before he embarked on his efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Study that paragraph carefully: "The hardline exiles, including members of Congress from Miami sidelined as Obama crafted his friendly Cuba policy without them, are back in charge and already pushing hard. In a letter to Donald Trump, five former diplomats asked him to undo most of Obama's policy within the first 100 days of his presidency and block the confirmation of a U. S. ambassador to Cuba." Since 1980 at the Miami Herald Ms. Santiago has learned and exploited one valuable lesson: Within the bowels of the U. S. democracy, a mere handful of the most zealous Cuban-Americans can easily use the U. S. Congress and any Republican administration to dictate any revengeful or otherwise self-serving laws or policies to sate whatever anti-Castro, pro-Batistiano whims they may have. The Miami Herald's transformation from a respected U. S. newspaper to an anti-Castro propaganda tool used by extremists means it never has to address the other side of the two-sided U.S.-Cuban conundrum, namely why only extremist hardliners -- Ros-Lehtinen, the Diaz-Balarts, Rubio, Curbelo, DeSantis, etc. -- can get elected to Congress from South Florida -- even thought most Cuban-Americans even in Miami are moderates who favor Obama's Cuban policies, not theirs. And, of course, none of these rich and powerful hardline extremists seem to care a whit about how much their assaults on Cuba so drastically harms America's international image in the eyes of the entire world, as evidenced by such pertinent things as the 191-to-0 worldwide condemnation at the United Nations of America's Batistiano-driven Cuban policy.

      In her article, of course, Fabiola Santiago bragged loudly about how incoming President Donald Trump will quickly put the Miami extremists "back in charge" and wipe out all the positive and decent advances President Obama has made regarding Cuba. She and all the anti-revolutionary zealots who rule Little Havana are still raving about Trump's cowardly promises made to the Brigade 2506 remnants in which he promised the still-heralded survivors of the failed Bay of Pigs attack way back in April of 1961 that he, President Trump, would reverse Obama's advances and fulfill their decades-old desires to finally regain control of Cuba ala the halcyon Batista-Mafia days of the 1950s. Not even three Bush administrations could accomplish that trick but Fabiola Santiago and other Miami hardliners firmly believe Trump can and will do it. Sadly for Cubans, Americans and democracy, she might be right.

       Trump sharply buttressed his pledges to Brigade 2506 by quickly naming Bush-era career anti-Castro zealots like Mauricio Claver-Carone as his primary Cuban advisors, purposely excluding all others. One of the typical followups was a Miami Herald article entitled: "Former Diplomats Urge Trump to Undo 'Unlawful' Obama Cuba Policy." If you check that article, you will discover those five "diplomats" are:

Otto Reich

Jim Cason

Jose Sorzano

Elliott Abrams

Everett Briggs

         I enlarged and underlined the names of those five "diplomats" in the hope it might encourage you to Google their names. The recent presidential election that is sending the unqualified Mr. Trump to the White House left an indelible and undeniable reminder that the last thing the vast majority of Americans wanted was a continuation of a bought-and-paid-for, meal-ticket, establishment, and continually recycled "rigged" government in Washington. That view clearly is what got the totally unqualified and very unpopular Mr. Trump elected President because the only other alternative was an establishment candidate who called Trump supporters "a basket of deplorables" while most of them were just desperately seeking new people, not recycled and self-serving failures, in their government. From Claver-Carone to John Bolton to Roger Noriega to the five names listed above that you need to Google, President-elect Trump has recycled from the Bush dynasty precisely what the vast majority of Americans did not want, which in Cuba's case is a refurbishing of the most anti-Cuban, pro-Batistiano extremists from the Republican administrations that preceded Obama's two-terms in the White House. In between Republican administrations, what do appointed anti-Cuban extremists do? Answer: They generally bide their time making tons of money as anti-Cuban consultants, TV & radio pundits, anti-Cuban propagandists/lobbyists or as high-paid administrators of anti-Cuban Think-Tanks. Then in Republican administrations they are snatched back up as appointees to assault Cubans on the island, just as the five above-named stalwarts were doing with that lascivious "reminder" letter to Trump. The Trump election reflects the fact that unaccountable appointees slightly below the radar will continue to make decisions that benefit them revengefully and economically in America's name but shame democracy with little or no accountability.

       Back in March, 2016, when President Obama made his historic trip to Cuba, he promised the Cuban people in the above speech carried live across the island on state television that: "Cuba Does Not Need To Fear A Threat From the United States." Those kind, democratic words were spoken by a decent and brave U. S. president who did not suspect, less than a year later, his successor would be a Republican president named Donald Trump who indeed is "a threat" to the long-maligned Cuban people. Trying desperately to make his monumental overtures to Cuba as irreversible as possible, Obama has bravely defied the Batistiano fixtures in Miami and Congress by using his Executive Privileges to create massive advances in his efforts to normalize Cuban relations. He has opened embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961; established commercial airplane and cruise ship traffic from the U. S. to Cuba for the first time since 1962; enabled major U. S. companies such as Google and Marriott Hotels to sign important deals with Cuba, etc. And, to his everlasting credit, we now discover that President Obama is working diligently behind-the-scenes right up until January 20th to create more positives for Cubans and Americans that Trump and his Batistiano pals will try their damnedest to tear down in defiance of democracy-lovers.

      On January 18th, two days before Trump takes office as President of the United States, forty tons of charcoal will be exported by Cuba to the United States. It will be the first product that Cuba has been allowed to export to the United States in more than 50 years!! That ban, an anathema to Mr. Obama, was in abiding by the Batistiano-fueled U. S. law designed in 1962 and then maintained for many cruel decades to starve and deprive Cubans like the hard-working man above to induce them to rise up against Castro. 

      This photo taken by Ladyrene Perez for Cubadebate shows the contracts being signed in Havana that paved the way for the historic January 18th delivery of that charcoal from Cuba to America.  The man on the left is Scott Gilbert, the President of the U. S. company Coabana Trading LLC. The lady on the right is Isabel O'Reilly, the Director of Cuba Export. If Mr. Gilbert looks familiar, that's because he was the lawyer that negotiated the release of U. S. agent Alan Gross from a Cuban prison. As for Ms. O'Reilly, she's not at all unusual; women have always been at the forefront of both the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba.

Notice that 5 of the 6 people standing behind the table are women.

     This photo shows Isabel O'Reilly reminding Scott Gilbert that Cuban charcoal is the best in the world, sweet-smelling and long-burning because it is made from the island's famed and unique Marabu. Ms. O'Reilly's official statement: "This is a first contract, but we hope to continue our relationship for many years and not just with charcoal, but with other products that we have ready to export like honey and coffee." Mr. Gilbert's official statement: "This agreement on charcoal means another plank in the construction of the bridge between the United States and Cuba." Decent Cubans like Ms. O'Reilly and decent Americans like Mr. Gilbert working together to the benefit of most Cubans and most Americans alarms a rich and powerful minority of Cuban-Americans who selfishly wish to punish most Cubans and most Americans forever.

      This recent photo also alarms the self-serving promoters of America's lucrative economic and political Castro Cottage Industry because the image depicted above is another Obama-orchestrated slice into their piggy-banks and punching bags. The image above shows Eric Schmidt, the Chairman and CEO of media giant Google, signing a hugely important telecommunication deal with Mayra Arevich, the President of Cuba's telecommunication agency, Etecsa. Mr. Schmidt said, "Engagement is best for Cubans and Americans, replacing ancient hostility." Ms. Arevich said, "This contract with Google will help Cubans connect with Gmail, YouTube, and other cyber outlets. We do not want our highly educated citizens to be isolated from world access. We want them to have what others have. This contract will also help Cuban-Americans who visit Cuba and it will help regular Americans if the embargo allows them to visit us as all other people can do." 

      Google is a very big deal in the world, now including Cuba.

      Cubans like these appreciate better access to the internet and they, of course, deserve it. The Google contract quickly reduced prices and Cuba, with help from Google, is increasing home access. A handful of self-serving Cuban-Americans in Miami and Congress that benefit from punishing Cubans like these in the guise of punishing Castro is a cruel, undemocratic policy that the rest of the world deplores.

     The head of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americans, Sarah Stephens, has for ten years used her organization to fight desperately to normalize relations between Cuba and the United States. On her website, eyeing the threat from Trump's January 20th advancement to the White House, she wrote, "It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness." President Obama has listened to Ms. Stephens. But the U. S. media and Republican presidents like Trump, apparently, would need permission from Rubio, Cruz, Menendez, the Diaz-Balarts, Ros-Lehtinen, Claver-Carone, Curbelo, and DeSantis to get input from democracy-lovers like Ms. Stephens, a fact that shames America a lot more than it shames little Cuba.

    Cubans now wonder about the historic arrivals of commercial cruise ships and commercial airplanes once Obama leaves the White House in a few days and they wonder if Cubans on the island will again be unmercifully targeted by Cubans in Miami and Congress tightly aligned with a Republican Congress and soon with another Republican White House. The U. S. Cuban policy dictated by a few Miami and Congressional benefactors wants to continue restricting everyday Americans from visiting Cuba, lest they counter the undemocratic dictations of a harsh minority intent on maintaining full control of the Cuban narrative, a narrative that all other citizens of the world have the freedom to judge for themselves.  

      Thanks to Obama, Cuban tourism topped a record 4 million in the past year. But thanks to a few miscreants in Congress, everyday Americans remain the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba where they could judge it for themselves. A few days ago democracy-lovers in America closed their eyes in shame when the very first thing the newly convened Republican-dominated Congress did was to stupidly and shamefully try to GUT THE POWER OF ITS OWN ETHICS COMMITTEE. Unethical Cuban practices, to be sure, are not the only reason Republicans in Congress do not want their actions to be scrutinized but, rest assured, the unethical and Congressionally mandated Cuban laws are a reason. 

      With acute Havana-connected biases and omnipotent Bush-connected tentacles that extend uncontrollably from Miami to Congress, Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers apparently have more say-so about Cuban policies than the rest of America's 320 million citizens combined, a fact that concerns America's very best democracy-loving friends around the world and should deeply concern Americans.

         As this graphic illustrates, it seems that the rest of world wonders why the U. S. democracy eternally allows a mere handful of famously biased benefactors to maintain a Cuban policy that the majority of Americans and Cuban-Americans as well as the entire world considers to be abhorrent and undemocratic.

        Yet, these are typically happy Cuban children in today's Revolutionary Cuba -- well-educated, well-cared-for healthwise, well-groomed and deeply loved and protected. {Do you think those smiles above are insincere or forced by government-minders?}. Cuban children are the favorite subjects of photo-happy tourists. Many Cubans on the island speak English but, encouraged by President Obama's decency, Cuba in 2015 began stressing English classes even for elementary students in the belief that, for the first time since 1962, even everyday Americans would be allowed to visit the island. But that decision regarding English classes was made prior to Trump's vicious anti-Cuban speech in Miami made in front of the huge Brigade 2506 banner. At least two elementary schools have since phased out those English classes. In any case, these Spanish-speaking Cuban children do not deserve to be punished all their precious lives by Congressionally mandated laws from a foreign country, especially the world's #ONE superpower.  

Foreign FAT CATS punishing Cuban children is not humorous.
And by the way:

       An award-winning Ethiopian journalist and photographer, Aida Muluneh, heard about a good deed Cuba did involving Ethiopian children years ago and she went to Cuba to follow up on the story. Cuba had rescued 2,400 children aged 7 to 14 caught up in the violent Ethio-Somali War in 1979. They were flown to the small, picturesque Cuban island of Isla de la Juventud, the Isle of Youth. There they were safe and provided all essentials, plus free educations through college and free health care for life. As adults some went back to Ethiopia and some stayed in Cuba. Aida chronicled her report, complete with photographs, for Tadias Magazine and online it is entitled "The Untold Story of Ethiopians in Cuba." She made this conclusion: "The Cubans have gone above and beyond in providing support to Ethiopians to this day." 

       Because Aida Muluneh is an Ethiopian journalist, I guess she did not have to ask the Cuban-Americans in the United States Congress if she could research and write a positive magazine article about Cuba. Someday, perhaps, we democracy-lovers may be able to say the same thing about American journalists.

      I mentioned Cuba's Isla de la Juventud, the picturesque island where the Ethiopian children were cared for. You can see its exact location on the above map. Batista's Cuba called it the Isle of Pines because of its abundance of pine trees. It was where Fidel Castro was imprisoned from 1953 till 1955. After Fidel's revolutionary victory in 1959, he later changed the name to Isle of Youth and today it's a tourist attraction and the home of one of the island's major baseball teams. About 90,000 Cubans live on the island, with about 60,000 of them in the capital city of Nueva Gerona, which is on the northern coast directly southwest of Havana. While Cuba is the largest Caribbean island, Isla de la Juventud is its 7th largest island.

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