Cubans and Cuban-Americans

Still Deeply Loving Cuba!
{Updated: Thursday, March 16th, 2016}

       The historic photo above says a lot about Cuba's ageless struggles against imperialist occupation extrapolated amidst the island's centuries-old battles for independence and sovereignty. In 1898 the Spanish-American War marked the transition of imperialist rule of Cuba from Spain to the United States. The above photo was noticed by a visitor this week at the Bacardi Museum in Santiago de Cuba. If you study the captions, you'll note that the photo was taken on May 20th, 1902 -- less than three years after the Spanish-American War. More significantly, notice that the U. S. flag is flying above and very much higher than the Cuban flag, clearly signifying that the United States secured Cuba from Spain, which was what the Spanish-American War was all about. The U. S. quickly drew up imperialist papers cementing its total dominance -- such as the Platt Amendment legalizing military occupation and, in 1903, papers that legalized the theft of Cuba's plush Guantanamo Port "in perpetuity." When the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the Spanish-American War, no Cuban was in attendance -- rather fittingly. To this day in the U. S., there are right-wing references claiming the U. S. used the Spanish-American War to "bring democracy to Cuba." Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. On January 1, 1959, the Cuban Revolution stunned the world by overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship, which quickly reconstituted itself on U. S. soil with continuous designs on recapturing the island. That hasn't happened...but neither has democracy. In the meantime, the modern-day struggles in mid-March of 2017 involve such nuances as Cubans vs. Cuban-Americans and nearby South Florida resembling a Batista/Mafia-like Banana Republic ON U. S. SOIL, which now gets a 191-to-0 UN condemnation. 

        The Teller Amendment lied to the out-of-the-loop American people prior to the 1898 Spanish-American War so the U. S. citizens wouldn't object to the desire of right-wing thugs in Washington and New York to capture Cuba.

       Right-wing thugs being allowed to capture Cuba in 1898 shames America and democracy to this day, as depicted by cartoons like the one above.

     But in was in the year 1950 that right-wing thugs in the United States government quantified the most nefarious American designs on Cuba as they conspired with the Mafia to use the power of the United States economy and military to support the brutal Batista dictatorship in Cuba, a murderous and thieving regime that existed from 1952 till the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, but then the miscreants resettled quickly in their new power-base, South Florida. Now such historic and topical facts after all these centuries and decades have grown very tiresome, especially for some rich and powerful Cuban-American businessmen based in South Florida, most of whom now want Cuba finally treated in 2017 as a sovereign nation and not as a targeted imperial pawn.

     While the ruling elite in South Florida last week talked...and laughed...about an "invasion of Cuba" now that Republicans are in charge of both the White House and the U. S. Congress, most of the 1.3 million Cuban-Americans even in South Florida support former President Obama's herculean efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. That is particularly true of almost all of the most powerful Cuban-American businessmen in South Florida, such as Frank del Rio, the Cuban-born head of the Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line. He still loves Cuba.

        This is one of Frank del Rio's ships taking 1,250 passengers to Havana back on March 9th, 2017. Frank has scheduled nine more cruises to Cuba, including to the ports of Cienfuegos and Santiago de Cuba. In June the cruise ship Carnival Paradise with a capacity for 2,052 passengers will sail from Tampa to Havana. In all, 12 cruise lines are currently traveling to Cuba thanks to President Obama's slicing into the long-standing ironclad, Congress-mandated embargo of Cuba, an embargo that still makes most Americans the only people in the world without the freedom to travel to Cuba. Yet, Obama-inspired U. S. tourism in 2016 helped Cuba set a record with 4 million visitors and by March 4-2017 the total had already passed a million this year, much earlier than the pivotal, record-setting year of 2016.

       But Frank del Rio's giant Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line remains a catalyst in formulating the historic first cruise ships from the U. S. to Cuba in over half-a-century. Powerful Cuban-American businessmen like Frank will be a mite angry if the Cuban hardliners persuade President Trump to reverse such commerce with Cuba. Frank was born in Cuba in 1954 during the Batista dictatorship and came to the U. S. at age 7 in 1960, soon after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Like most Cuban-Americans, Frank wants normal relations with Cuba and he agrees with the international 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations condemning America's Batistiano-driven Cuban policies such as the embargo, which has been in effect since 1962, as well as the easily mandated Congressional laws that strongly discriminate in favor of the Cuban elite and Cuban defectors while grossly discriminating against everyone else, including the taxpayers.

       From way back in the 1950s till this very day, most of the ultra-rich and powerful Cuban-American hardliners have risen with connections to the self-serving Bush dynasty. The photo above shows President George W. Bush with his Cuban-born Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez. In that role Gutierrez embarrassed America and democracy by punishing and mocking innocent Cubans on the island, such as when horrific back-to-back hurricanes destroyed over 200,000 Cuban homes. While other nations helped out, Gutierrez held news conferences saying the U. S. would contribute X-amount of dollars, BUT not to the Cuban government. Cuba reacted by saying that the U. S. was already contributing "tons of counter-revolutionary dollars to dissidents and was only using the disaster on the island "to contribute more." 

      Meanwhile, Carlos Gutierrez was explaining that he was "not a crook" and that his extreme wealth resulted from his being CEO-Chairman of Kellogg after starting with the company as a low-level worker in Mexico. Still, his Bush connections and his mocking Cubans on the island after the devastating hurricanes questioned his claim as far as Cuba was concerned then and now.

      After serving as President Bush's Secretary of Commerce, Carlos Gutierrez became an anti-Cuban lobbyist and an adviser or executive with Washington Think Tanks like the powerful Albright Stone Bridge Group.

BUT GUESS WHAT? By 2015 Carlos Gutierrez was back in his native Cuba {above} celebrating the Obama-orchestrated re-opening of the U. S. Embassy in Cuba for the first time since 1961. Moreover, Gutierrez now, like most Cuban-Americans, advocates ending the embargo and negotiating normal relations with Cuba. Recently, Gutierrez criticized the Trump administration for being over-loaded with anti-Cuban zealots such as Mauricio Claver-Carone. So, like Frank del Rio and most of the powerful Cuban-American businessmen in South Florida, Gutierrez -- in a remarkable about-face -- is using his lobbying power in Washington to now call for normalizing relations with Cuba. It seems that some rich and powerful Cuban-Americans like Gutierrez are disheartened by other nations taking advantage of the ongoing positive changes in Cuba.

       The Executive Vice President of Nestle, Laurent Freixe, believes in Cuba's economic potential. The Swiss giant will build a factory at Cuba's Mariel Economic Zone to produce coffee, cookies and other products. Mr. Freixe says that the factory will employ at least 300 Cubans by the second half of 2019.

         If Cuba can continue to attract major international firms like Nestle to its deep-water, refurbished Mariel Port 28 miles southwest of Havana, it'll be much less dependent on the vagaries of its contentious relationship with the neighboring United States. A Nestle factory producing its world-famed products in Cuba will be a huge boost for the long-embargoed island.

And by the way:

       A life-size bronze statue of Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been unveiled in Havana. The Colombia-born Nobel Laureate is often called the all-time greatest Latin American writer-author.

      With Eusebio Leal, the Havana City Historian, looking on, the Colombian Ambassador to Cuba, Gustavo Bell, dedicated the Garcia Marquez statue to the people of Cuba. Bell said, "We want to pay homage to Gabo...Gabriel Garcia Marquez's nickname...because he is so intimately linked to Havana and the Cuban people that he loved so deeply. This is also a tribute, a show of gratitude from the Colombian people to the Cuban people for accompanying us in the peace process." For four years Cuba hosted exhaustive talks between the government of Colombia and FARC rebels, a superb gesture that ended a bloody civil war that had roiled Colombia for half-a-century.

     During his long life, Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a dear friend of the Cuban people, especially his best friend for a half-century, Fidel Castro. But Garcia Marquez, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, mortally hated U.S.-backed Latin American dictators, especially Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Somoza in Nicaragua, Pinochet in Chile and, of course, Batista in Cuba. 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of one of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's most unforgettable books -- "100 Years of Solitude." 

Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his dearest friend Fidel Castro.

Latin America's most acclaimed author.

        The newly dedicated statue of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Havana was created by the great Cuban sculptor Jose Villa Soberon. His statues of John Lennon and others are tourist attractions around Havana.

A Soberon statue honoring American Earnest Hemingway.

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Miami Says "Let's Invade Cuba"

Mayors Talk, Then Laugh!

        The photo above is courtesy of Emily Michot/Miami Herald and it shows three South Florida mayors at a Miami-Dade business conference on Friday, March 10th, 2017. The mayors, left to right, are: Philip Levine of Miami Beach; J. C. Bermudez of Doral; and Jim Cason of Coral Gables. When this photo was taken, Levine had just made this statement: "Why aren't we discussing the invasion of Cuba." All three clowns laughed aloud; the audience was momentarily stunned; and Levine later claimed he was being "facetious." The Miami Herald headline related to the meeting was: "INVADE CUBA? ONLY IN SOUTH FLORIDA WOULD THAT COME UP IN A BUSINESS ETHICS MEETING." At least the Miami headline had some sanity attached to it because "only in South Florida" is such an insane and continuous lack of ethics commonplace from the often buffoonish counter-revolutionary benefactors who rule South Florida like a Banana Republic as they, decade after decade, hide behind the skirts of the United States government to grow rich and powerful while gleefully assaulting totally innocent Cubans on the island.

      Now 55-years-old, the man who proposed invading Cuba, Philip Levine, was elected Mayor of Miami Beach in 2013 and re-elected in 2015. Indications are that he will not seek another re-election because he is aiming to become Governor of Florida and then, maybe, President of the United States. If he makes his Governorship and Presidential dreams come true, Floridians and Americans will deserve it because of their acute lack of guts and patriotism that is so sorely needed to reign in South Florida's Banana Republic. Levine made most of his South Florida fortune in the cruise-ship business. While his comment about invading Cuba goes over big with the power elite in Florida, moderate and pro-Cuban Cuban-Americans, who constitute the majority, appear to be ineligible for election to public offices because of a veritable Banana Republic in the United States that remains conspicuously and ubiquitously on American soil.

      This Miami New Times photo shows the three South Florida mayors Levine-Bermudez-Cason at that business meeting, which reinforced South Florida's status as a Banana Republic, and not a very nice one.

       In his successful mayoral campaigns in Miami Beach, Philip Levine has stressed his "Mojo." I wonder, Mayor, if you have enough "Mojo" to back up your talk about invading Cuba by volunteering to devise and lead the attack?? Actually, sir, it wouldn't take much "Mojo" because Cuba is a poor island and you'd have the support of the power-elite in South Florida. Moreover, you'd be backed-up with Republicans now in control of the White House/Commander-in-Chief, both chambers of the U. S. Congress, and the CIA. So, your 2017 invasion of Cuba might succeed even if the April-1961 South Florida-propelled air, land and sea invasion of Cuba, known as the Bay of Pigs, only succeeded in boosting the regional and international statuses and legacies of both Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. But now an invasion leader with your "Mojo" and unmitigated intelligence, and with Fidel Castro's recent death at age 90, Mayor Levine knows Cuba might be ripe for another invasion. And guess what? The rest of the world would again gasp.

     AND that returns us to Friday's business meeting where 3 South Florida mayors were laughing hilariously over the proposal to invade Cuba, apparently to take advantage of a Batistiano-soiled U. S. Congress that in the post-Obama era coincides with a Republican Commander-in-Chief in the White House.

    Meanwhile...for what it's worth...it might be appropriate to remind pusillanimous Americans that every Cuban child on the island since 1962 has been severely punished by a gutless economic embargo-blockade imposed on them on behalf of uncaring Americans. According to de-classified U. S. documents, the embargo-blockade was imposed in 1962 for the express purpose of starving and depriving Cubans on the island for the purpose of causing them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government that had in 1959 overthrown the extremely brutal U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. The rest of the world...as indicated by the current 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations...believes that little Cuban girls on the island like the one shown above SHOULD NOT BE STARVED AND DEPRIVED TO WHET THE REVENGE AND ECONOMIC APPETITES OF A HANDFUL OF MISCREANTS IN MIAMI AND IN THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS. 

Of course, Americans are not supposed to care about such things.
But the little Cuban girl above is not America's enemy.

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Will Trump Hammer Cuba?

Or...Have You Checked

His Roster of Cuban Advisors??
{Updated: Saturday, March 11th, 2017}

      Without exception as far as I can detect, all of President Trump's White House advisors on Cuba are fierce, indissoluble anti-Cuban counter-revolutionary zealots, such as Helen Aguirre Ferre. This week in an interview with the Spanish news agency EFE she indicated that President Trump is about to drop the hammer on the nearby Caribbean island. The first sentence in the March 8-2017 article said, "President Donald Trump believes that Cuba has made no concession to the United States, while Washington has given much to Havana..." That ridiculous statement, of course, was not meant to convey that the U. S. in 1952 gave Cuba the thieving, brutal Batista-Mafia dictatorship and, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the U. S. and the Batistiano-Mafiosi exiles gave Cuba repeated assassination attempts beginning in 1959 and 1960, the Bay of Pigs attack in 1961, the embargo-blockade in 1962, repetitious terrorists acts such as the bombing of the child-laden civilian Cubana Flight 455 in 1976, and an unending series of well-funded congressionally mandated counter-revolutionary "legal" laws since the 1980s. In the meantime, Helen Aguirre Ferre indicated to EFE that poor little Cuba must now be severely punished because it has not given enough "concessions" to the Batistianos, the Mafiosi and the superpower USA. WOW! That philosophy, of course, is extreme imperialism. With a monopoly on the Cuban narrative in the U. S., as emphasized in 1976 by the car-bombing when Cuban-American newsman Emilio Milian criticized the anti-Cuban Miami zealots, such ridiculousness as spouted by Helen Aguirre Ferre to EFE this week is consistently driven down the throats of Americans who are not nearly as brave as Emilio Milian was. She told EFE that, "The President has been very clear that they are going to evaluate all the agreements that the prior administration made with Cuba." The prior President, Mr. Obama, went to Cuba and tried to assure the Cuban people that they had "nothing to fear" from the United States. Of course, at the time the very decent President Obama did not anticipate he would be succeeded by a Republican president/Commander in Chief surrounded by vicious Bush-era counter-revolutionary zealots such as...Helen Aguirre Ferre.

        
      Amazingly, President Trump not only has Helen Aguirre Ferre as a top adviser regarding Cuba, he has appointed her to a key White House title: Media Director. During the presidential campaign, Ferre mocked and belittled Trump unmercifully with some of the most vile accusations he has ever faced, which is saying something. Wikipedia and other sources report that she hastily deleted as much of those diatribes as she could from social media. Ferre's Miami roots are indelible and she shamed Trump during the campaign to support his formidable Rubio-Cruz-Bush opponents.

    Helen Aguirre Ferre and her father Horacio Aguirre.
His Miami newspaper is Diario las Americas.

        Born in Miami in 1957 to Nicaraguan parents, Helen Aguirre Ferre comes by her anti-Cuban zealotry quite naturally. Her father-in-law is the former six-term Miami mayor Maurice Ferre; and Jeb Bush, who rode his tightness to Cuban-American hardliners to personal wealth and two terms as Florida's governor, is among those who schooled her on how and why to vigorously oppose pugnacious Revolutionary Cuba. 

     As a long-shot Republican politician and being politically correct as well as extremely careful, Donald Trump sanctimoniously pitched himself to minority voters in Miami who are anti-Cuban zealots, such as the trio above with Helen Aguirre Ferre appropriately in the middle. It would, of course, require a very brave Mr. Trump to pitch himself to the majority in Miami...a majority that includes most Cuban-Americans who support the decency towards Cuba that President Obama had the courage and intelligence to craft.

    Trump "pitching" to Miami's ruling minority.

      The above early morning appearance on CNN by Helen Aguirre Ferre assaulted Obama for "thawing" relations with Cuba, an Obama-process that FINALLY mitigated against the revenge motives of the Cuban exiles as well as the undeserved economic and political rewards accruing to the vast Castro Cottage Industry in the United States. Intimidated and/or politically correct networks such as CNN wouldn't dare counter such Helen Aguirre Ferre diatribes with the viewpoints of moderate, unbiased Americans.

       In other words, neither President Trump nor the U. S. networks have the courage to counter the Cuban viewpoints of extremists like Helen Aguirre Ferre. Americans, who have been inundated with Batistiano-style anti-Cuban propaganda since 1959, cannot be expected to question the likes of Helen Aguirre Ferre. But the rest of the world, which has not been bombarded with unchallenged Batistiano propaganda since January of 1959, is not so susceptible to self-serving Cuban fibs. The proof of that is the 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations that unanimously condemns America's Cuban policy. Of course, Helen Aguirre Ferre and her ilk would have trouble convincing even propagandized Americans that zero is a bigger number than 191, so they pretend such international unanimity against their Cuban attitudes didn't occur at the UN.

        Above is the current 191-to-zero vote in the United Nations condemning America's Cuban policy, notably the economic embargo-blockade that has existed since 1962 and which stands very tall and ubiquitous as the longest and cruelest embargo-blockade ever imposed by a very powerful nation against a weak nation. In Oct.-2016, for the first time, not even the United States had the heart or the temerity to support its own embargo against Cuba. But the Obama presidency is over, and it will be sorely missed.

        The very decent President Barack Obama went to Cuba to tell the Cuban people: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States."  But in March of 2017, as the former President of the United States, Mr. Obama well knows that 11 million innocent Cubans do "need to fear a threat from the United States." 

And by the way:

       It is no secret that most of baseball-mad Cuba's veteran superstars are now multi-millionaires in the U. S. Major Leagues. MOST BUT NOT ALL! For over a decade, the now 30-year-old Alfredo Despaigne has been a superstar in Cuba's pro league. In the previous World Baseball Classic, back in 2013, Alfredo belted three homers for Cuba. On Friday -- March 10th-2017 -- Cuban time in Tokyo, Japan, Alfredo slugged a long Grand-Slam {4-run} homer and Cuba held on to beat Australia 4-to-3. It advances Cuba to the second round of Pool B along with Japan. On Saturday Cuba will play Israel and Japan will play the Netherlands.

          Alfredo Despaigne was born on June 17th, 1986 in Santiago de Cuba. He is the richest of the Cuban baseball players. While he repeatedly has refused to defect to the U. S. where multi-million-dollar bonuses and salaries awaited him, Alfredo has played the last three years in Japan where its powerful pro league does not conflict with Cuba's winter season, so he returns to play in his beloved Cuba. Alfredo has just signed a new 3-year contract with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Japan. Even though he is now a millionaire thanks to his stardom in Japan's rich pro league, Alfredo Despaigne is fiercely loyal to Cuba. 

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Cuba Impatient With Trump

As Trump Ignores Island!

Photo courtesy: David de la Paz/TNS.

        This week at the above forum in Venezuela, Cuban President Raul Castro lashed out at U. S. President Donald Trump, apparently reflecting Cuba's frustration that the much-harassed Trump has ignored the island by not, at least, "addressing the continuation of the Republican Party's regime-change efforts aimed at the Cuban people." The U. S. media stressed Castro's two adjectives that described Trump: "irrational" and "egotistical." The speech by Castro was carried live on state television back in Cuba and around the region by Telesur. International reporters from Reuters and the BBC followed-up by interviewing everyday Cubans and confirmed that the Cuban people agreed with the Castro speech. Those unbiased London-based media giants discovered that "Cubans are pleased with the country's Raul Castro-Barack Obama fast-moving progress such as new hotels that dot the main thoroughfare in Havana and Airbnb rentals in private homes now get a steady stream of business in cities and in outlying beach communities like Boca Ciega."  

  This map shows Boca Ciega just east of Havana.

        The aforementioned Raul Castro speech in Venezuela this week solicited an immediate and typically blistering article in the Miami Herald from that newspaper's anti-Cuban Revolution Cuban-American chief Editorialist Fabiola Santiago. She arrived in Miami in 1969 on one of the Freedom Flights in one of the biggest waves of exiles from Cuba to the U. S. Since 1980 as a reporter and Editorial Editor for the Miami Herald she has literally fired off hundreds of articles and editorials depicting Revolutionary Cuba as the worst dictatorship on the planet and, in turn, seeming to imply and sanitize the preceding Batista-Mafia dictatorship as a benevolent Mother Teresa-type enterprise. Ms. Santiago's huge and unusual headline following Raul Castro's Venezuelan speech was: "RAUL CASTRO SLAMS TRUMP AND I'M FORCED TO AGREE WITH THE DICTATOR. HOW SICK IS THAT?" After that headline, Ms. Santiago's first sentence stated that Castro had "no moral authority" to criticize Trump. Then her second sentence, totally typical of her 36-year imperial anti-Castro journalistic career, scalded Cuba with these words: "Not when the most distinguishing trait of his and his late brother's legacy is death, prison and exile for millions of his critics and opponents."  

         But IN CONTRAST, Kimberly Atkins is a journalist for the Boston Herald and not the Miami Herald. THUS, Ms. Atkins -- in Cuban articles -- does not have to say that Revolutionary Cuba is the worst dictatorship in history or that the preceding Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba was a benevolent Mother Teresa-like enterprise. In her article this week about Raul Castro's speech in Venezuela, Kimberly Atkins stuck to the sheer facts interspersed with researched and accurate observations. She, for example, wrote that Raul Castro's criticisms of U. S. President Donald Trump reflect the fact that Cubans on the island "fear President Trump could wipe out the island's gains" that were forged by agreements made between Raul Castro's government and former U. S. President Barack Obama's government. YOU SEE, there are talented and brave journalists in the United States -- such as Kimberly Atkins at the Boston Herald -- who are only interested in telling the truth about issues related to Cuba, be they pro-Cuban or anti-Cuban topics.

           In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, Kimberly Atkins with the Boston Herald is the exception and Fabiola Santiago with the Miami Herald is the rule when it comes to reporting fairly about Cuban topics as opposed to saturating the media with unabashed, self-serving propaganda. Thus, the usual journalistic rule in the U. S. concerning Cuba is unfortunate, more so for the United States than for Cuba as indicated by the current 191-to-0 condemnation in the UN of America's Cuban policy. Therefore when a skilled journalist like Kimberly Atkins writes a fair article in the United States about Cuba, it's surely unusual and not out of place to applaud her. So, yes, I salute Ms. Atkins -- her talent and her bravery. 

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Cuba and Fake News

Or...How the Incompetent or Biased U. S. News Media Hurts Both Democracy AND Cuba!!
{Wednesday, March 8th, 2017}

         The U. S. Coast Guard is besieged daily trying to desperately stop, contain or confiscate a renewed tsunami of illegal drugs bound for America's shores AND FOR its never-ending multitude of drug users and traffickers, as depicted by the above photo. Currently -- all across the U. S. -- big cities, little towns and even bucolic rural areas are being swamped by heroin and opioid overdoses.  SO GUESS WHAT NATION,  according to an updated report this month from the U. S. government...IS AMERICA'S BEST ALLY IN ITS NEVER-ENDING WAR ON DRUG? Shhhhhh, it's, uh, poor little Cuba. Uhhh...you didn't know that?? You're not supposed to know that but if the U. S. government had issued an updated report critical of Cuba, you would have heard and read all about it in both the mainstream U. S. media and in the most ubiquitous and best-funded myriad of anti-Cuban/pro-Batistiano blogs!! The weirdly biased and intimidated U. S. news media -- considered so vital to the preservation of Democracy by the Founding Fathers -- as well as the lushly funded anti-Cuban blogs -- not only lie about Cuba but a biased or incompetent media probably constitutes the greatest threat to America's democracy, and is also...coincidentally...a huge threat to poor little Cuba!! 

           Yet, even in the U. S. and even regarding Cuba, there are exceptions to the rule in the mainstream U. S. media and in blogs...such as, well, this one, the Center for Democracy in the Americas, Engage Cuba, Along the Malecon, etc. Such an exception in the mainstream U S. media concerns a major article in The Denver Post on the eve of this week's start of the World Baseball Classic. Please permit me to explain.

      The 4th World Baseball Classic, which is played every four years, got underway this week. It involves sixteen nations -- including Cuba, the island nation that in decades past dominated international baseball competitions such as the Pan Am Games, the Olympics and was the team to beat when the WBC was hatched by the U. S. Major Leagues sixteen years ago. Since 1959, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship, Revolutionary Cuba has survived CIA and Mafia-plotted assassination attempts, the April-1961 Bay of Pigs attack, the economic embargo-blockade that originated in 1962 and exists to this day, multitudes of unchecked terrorists acts such as the bombing of the Cuban civilian airliner in Oct.-1976, etc. But Cuba's renown as a producer of baseball talent and for its dominating national teams existed until the year 1998.

   

    On March 23, 1998 the New York Yankees, America's richest and most iconic baseball team, signed the best pitcher in Cuba -- Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez. He quickly became the Yankees' ace pitcher with a 12-4 record in 1998, a 17-9 record in 1999, etc. Cuba's other two best pitchers -- Orlando's half-brother Livan Hernandez and Jose Contreras -- also quickly defected and signed with U. S. Major League teams, also quickly becoming multi-millionaires and very successful Major League pitchers. So, the Yankees' signing of El Duque in 1998 ushered in an unending avalanche of defections by Cuba's baseball stars enticed by Major League teams, along with money-crazed human traffickers. Prior to 1998, much more quietly, Cubans like Minnie Minoso, Tony Oliva, Luis Tiant, Tony Perez, Jose Canseco, Rafael Palmeiro, etc., etc. had been Cuban superstars in the U. S.

   But "El Duque's" 1998 signing by the Yankees began the wholesale decimation of Cuba's baseball stars overwhelmed with lures to defect to the U. S. -- lures such as totally guaranteed upfront contracts, even to Cuban teenagers, that reached $80 million or more, the type of guaranteed money that, of course, to this day, captures the attention of unsavory human traffickers. El Duque, born in Cuba in 1965, was already past his prime in 1998 when the NY Yankees made him an instant multi-millionaire, but El Duque was still being paid $7 million a year by the NY Mets in 2008. Today the Mets' best Cuban player, Yoenis Cespedes, has a guaranteed $30 million-a-year deal, dwarfing El Duque's many $millions$.   

        In the World Baseball Classic starting this week, Cuba's best veteran star who, for some reason, hasn't yet defected to the U. S. is Alfredo Despaigne, this slugger. Alfredo belted three home runs in the last WBC back in 2013. This year his former superstar teammates in Cuba are now American Major Leaguers.
           Cuba's WBC opener was played Tuesday morning EST and broadcast before daylight on the MLB network from a wild, sold-out Tokyo Dome. Cuba lost 11-6 to the powerful Japanese team but Alfredo Despaigne went 2-for-4 with a home run for Cuba. Alfredo is a fan favorite in Japan because he plays there in its top professional league but, eschewing U. S. MLB offers, he returns to play as a rich man in Cuba.

        Another star for Cuba in the opening 11-6 loss at Japan Tuesday, March 7th was 19-year-old budding superstar Yoelqui Cespedes, the half-brother of New York Mets' superstar Yoenis Cespedes. Yoelqui is #16 above shown scoring a run against Japan. He went 3-for-4 with a double and made scouts drool.

      Early this Wednesday morning -- March 8th, 2017 -- in a game that finished at about 1:30 A. M. Cuban time Team Cuba easily beat China 6-0 in its second game in the World Baseball Classic in Tokyo, Japan.

#47, Yurisbel Gracial, led Cuba's offense vs. China.

Cuba out-hit China 14-to-1.

      In the win against China this morning Yoelqui Cespedes opened the scoring in the 5th inning with an RBI single after he had 3 hits in the tough 11-6 opening loss to host Japan. A speedy right-fielder, Yoelqui is just 19-years-old and the half-brother of the New York Mets' superstar Yoenis Cespedes. There are a lot of Major League scouts...and probably some human traffickers...watching Yoelqui very closely in Japan where Cuba's third game will be Friday morning. Baseball scouts from America and also from Japan salivate over Cuba's baseball talent and human traffickers love America's Batistiano-inspired Cuban laws. 

    

     Born in Newport Beach, California in 1991 and a star player at El Toro High School, Nolan Arenado is now a Super superstar at age 25 in the U. S. Major Leagues for the Colorado Rockies. How super? He already has four Gold Gloves as the best defensive third baseman in the National League. In 2015 he hit 42 home runs and had 130 runs-batted-in. In 2016 he hit 41 homers and had 133 RBI. Arenado has Cuban ancestry but he is among a vast array of Major League WBC superstars who will be playing elsewhere. 

Nolan Arenado on offense.

Nolan Arenado on defense.

      Back in November of 2016 this photo shows Nolan Arenado playing stick baseball on a street in Cuba with avid everyday Cubans. Nolan was, in fact, in Cuba the night Fidel Castro died at age 90 on Nov. 25th, 2016. Nolan's father Fernando, before defecting to the U. S., had served time in a Cuban prison as an anti-Castro dissident. {His mother is Puerto Rican}. Nolan, now the 25-year-old Major League superstar, longed to visit Cuba, a dream he finally fulfilled three months ago. A long and brilliant article in the The Denver Post on March 5th, 2017 written by Patrick Saunders told the emotional story of Nolan's visit to Cuba. Nolan is being paid $11,750,000.00 this year by the Colorado Rockies and he makes million more in endorsements. Next year Nolan's salary will be $17,500,000.00 and by 2020 when he is 28-years-old he becomes a free agent when all 30 Major League teams can bid for him and, thus, his salaries will likely exceed $30 million a year. That money made Nolan cry on his visit to Cuba where he realizes the average everyday salary on the island is about $30 a month. It's a vast disparity that touched Nolan's heart.

      On his visit to Cuba, Nolan Arenado took along 24 members of his family, 12 of whom are shown above on a Cuban beach. The three photos of Nolan and his family in Cuba are courtesy of the Arenado Family.

     This jolly photo shows members of the Arenado Family swimming in Cuba. They toured the island from Havana in the northwest to the city of Guantanamo in the southeast where the pre-revolutionary Arenado Family once ran a store, which remains as a dilapidated replica of the Batista-to-Castro transition. The journeys in a Chinese-made modern tour bus were all made during the daylight hours because the urban roads in Cuba were considered too rough and dangerous for nighttime travel although, otherwise, Cuba is one of the world's safest nations and is almost devoid of crime, gangs and illegal drugs, as the U. S. report stipulated. Nolan Arenado euphorically told the Denver Post how "wonderful" the Cuban people are. Nolan handed out a plethora of brand-new sports equipment. He recalled, amid unabashed tears back in Denver, how he handed a new soccer ball to a Cuban boy who "burst out just crying over his new possession."  

       A multi-millionaire SUPER superstar with the Colorado Rockies, the 25-year-old Nolan Arenado will be playing for the USA in the World Baseball Classic that started this week. If Nolan and the USA play the depleted Cuban team in the WBC, Nolan and the USA win will. But, more importantly, I wonder what Nolan will be thinking when and if he plays against the Cubans? He told The Denver Post he will be returning to Cuba to hand out more sports equipment to Cuban youngsters. You see, Nolan is both a compassionate young man and a very rich one. Moreover, he wants to make more Cubans "burst out crying." GOOD FOR HIM!! America needs men like Nolan Arenado in the United States Congress and...in the White House.

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