Cuba's Legendary La Paloma

She STILL Defines Cuba!!
{Updated: Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017}

This graphic is courtesy of Cafe y Mate.

      The island of Cuba still dominates the Caribbean and since 1959 it has been defined by an incomparable heroine nicknamed La Paloma, The Dove. Against overwhelming odds, it is not defined, except to propagandized Americans, by a handful of viciously revengeful Cubans in Miami and in the U. S. Congress. Perhaps it is time that Americans had the courage and freedom to distinguish between La Paloma and, say, Batista wannabes like Miami Congressmen such as self-serving but normally unchallenged Mario Diaz-Balart and Marco Rubio.

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        Before I update you on Cuba's La Paloma, permit me to explain this AP photo, which is used courtesy of the VOA/Voice of America website. It shows a recent Capital Hill news conference featuring three counter-revolutionary Cuban-American extremists. They are entrenched members of the U. S. Congress from Miami and are, from left to right: Mario Diaz-Balart, Marco Rubio, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Their news conference, not surprisingly, evoked some reminders. First off, polls show that most Cuban-Americans in Miami strongly favor normalizing relations with Cuba. Yet, it seems that ONLY visceral counter-revolutionaries are eligible to be elected to Congress from Miami. Being staunchly pro-democracy, that in itself is cause for concern, I believe. Also, every member of Congress from Miami, and almost every top politician in the Miami area, all seem to come from one small but powerful alliance -- the Bush dynasty. Ros-Lehtinen, for example, has been in the U. S. Congress since 1989 when the self-serving Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager. She was born in Havana and like her husband and other close associates, her fortunes and power all seem to relate to her fierce anti-Castro endeavors that have had the unchecked backing of the U. S. government and, perhaps unwittingly, of the U. S. taxpayers. The same can be said for Diaz-Balart and Rubio. Diaz-Balart's father Rafael was a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship, so Mario comes by his counter-revolutionary extremism quite naturally. Rubio made it all the way to the U. S. Senate still claiming his parents escaped the Castro tyranny in Cuba. Then it was proved that they actually escaped the Batista tyranny in Cuba long before Americans had ever heard of Fidel Castro. But, as Rubio well knows, I believe, any distortion related to Cuba in the United States since 1959 is both politically correct and generally unchallenged. Also, when I see counter-revolutionary news conferences like this one on Capital Hill in Washington or the frequent ones in the Little Havana section of Miami, they always spawn this thought: Diaz-Balart, Rubio, and Ros-Lehtinen are in the United States Congress, not the Cuban National Assembly. And the United States has a few problems that need attention from members of Congress, problems that should not involve another embarrassing half-century of trying to recapture Cuba by employing military attacks, terrorist attacks and endlessly pouring additional pipelines of tax dollars on such nefarious schemes as the historically long and cruel Blockade-Embargo against Cuba's civilians.       

      Billboards like the one above remind Cubans, and tourists who venture to the island, of the U. S. "Blockade" otherwise known as the longest {since 1962} and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation, in this case the superpower United States, against a small nation, in this case the island of Cuba. 

         The blockade-embargo is condemned by a current 191-to-0 unanimity in the United Nations, yet the United States democracy is not strong enough to end it because a handful of counter-revolutionaries still dictate America's Cuban policies in the U. S. Congress and in all Republican White Houses. As with the billboard above, the Cuban government maintains that the blockade-embargo is "genocide" against everyday Cubans on the island...merely to sate the revengeful appetites of a handful of Cuban-American extremists even when all polls show that MOST CUBAN-AMERICANS EVEN IN MIAMI FAVOR NORMAL RELATIONS WITH CUBA.

          While the Cuban narrative in the United States since 1959 has been dictated by Cuban-exile extremists, Americans, of course, are not supposed to know about such things as the billboard above or the fact that most people around the world, as indicated by that United Nations vote, agree with what it says {"genocide"}.

           Also, Americans are not supposed to know that the above billboard was one of Fidel Castro's last tributes to Celia Sanchez. Everyone knows about Fidel Castro who died at age 90 on November 25th, 2016, but Americans are not supposed to know about Celia Sanchez. However, historians and Cubans know all about her. Celia Sanchez died of cancer at age 59 on January 11, 1980. Fidel considered her, not himself, as the most important figure in both the Cuban Revolution and in Revolutionary Cuba. But because she was a 99-pound, child-loving doctor's daughter, the U. S. Cuban exiles in charge of the U. S. Cuban narrative don't want Americans to know about her  -- not because of their natural machismo instincts but because they can't vilify history's all-time greatest revolutionary heroine. But Celia Sanchez was the one, beginning in 1959, who stamped this mantra on her Revolutionary Cuba: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." AND, OH YES!! Let's not forget that Celia Sanchez quite often vilified the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and the U. S. businessmen she booted off the island. For example, study the historic Celia Sanchez quotation below:

       Yes, Celia vilified her enemies with the quotation above documented by The Woman Project.org: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots."

     Now study another great quotation as depicted above by the Cuban Revolution's incomparable La Paloma, Celia Sanchez. Astutely understanding the power and influence of the United States and the transplanted Batistianos, she was well aware that the victorious Cuban Revolutionary rebels would not "get to write it." That being a very true statement, the Cuban-exile extremists in the United States from 1959 till today have tried mightily to "write" her out of both the Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba, replacing her Mother Teresa-like truths with their blatant Mafiosi-like lies. 

       The woman who "was" Celia Sanchez -- to quote Canada's Celia Sanchez expert Rosa Jordan -- is a woman Americans in the year 2017 have a right to know.

     The photo on the left above shows a tired Celia Sanchez in 1979 when she was by far the top decision-maker in Cuba with Fidel Castro's total concurrence, a fact well known by all Cuban insiders as well as America's best Castro biographer Georgie Anne Geyer. The photo on the right above shows Celia as the top decision-maker during the Revolutionary War, again with Fidel Castro's total blessing. If, for example, she and Che Guevara disagreed on a tactic, Fidel always sided with Celia Sanchez.  

      A fearless and nonpareil guerrilla fighter, Celia Sanchez was the La Paloma legend based on her early recruitment of the rebels and supplies that made her revolution viable. She worked even in Batista-controlled areas with the skill and grace of a casual dove, thus her nickname. Cuban historian Pedro Alvarez Tabio best chronicled those crucial early days and then concluded: "If Batista had managed to kill Celia Sanchez anytime between 1953 and 1957, there would have been no viable Cuban Revolution and no revolution for Fidel and Che to join." Other historians now agree.

      This is Pedro Alvarez Tabio, Cuba's highly respected historian. His quotation regarding Celia Sanchez, as noted above, is unchallenged...except, of course, by the counter-revolutionary zealots in Miami and Congress who had rather that Americans didn't know about the petite doctor's daughter who chased the Batistianos and Mafiosi off her island...all the way to Miami, as it turned out...way back in January of 1959.

      A young school teacher named Frank Pais and the doctor's daughter Celia Sanchez were the two primary recruiters of anti-Batista rebels and supplies in the crucial formative years of 1952 and 1953. Batista put huge bounties on their heads. Frank was captured and brutally murdered, as was his 17-year-old brother Jesus. After those murders, Batista doubled Celia's bounty. But the Batista-Mafia thugs never captured Celia and that is why they were defeated by her Cuban Revolution. 

      The London-based BBC says that this photo shows the day in late December of 1956 when Fidel Castro first met Celia Sanchez after she had arranged for him and 81 other rebels to join her revolution in the Sierra Maestro Mountains and foothills upon their ill-fated journey from Mexico on the leaky and ambushed yacht Granma, an epic event that saw only 17 of the 82 rebels live long enough to become revolutionary icons. In the photo above Fidel is examining a telescopic rifle Celia gave him.

     But from that first meeting till forever, Celia and Fidel would be legendary soulmates -- side-by-side fighting, sleeping and ruling. The photo above shows them in a cabin high up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains during the height of the Revolutionary War. Celia was holding a candle to read by even as they were wary of giving away their location as Batista's U.S.-provided bombers often flew over the area on reconnaissance missions trying to locate the camouflaged rebel campsites.

       This is a modern photo of the exact bed and the exact cabin where Celia was holding that candle so she and Fidel could see to read high up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains during the Revolutionary War. The Cabin and bed are preserved today as a tourist attraction with a clearly marked trail leading from a far-off highway. But only the healthiest and most curious get to see it because the terrain leading to it is extremely arduous and difficult to navigate even on foot by healthy people. It is known to history as Comandancia because for a crucial period of the war that cabin was Command Headquarters where Celia & Fidel finalized anti-Batista war plans.

     Today hearty individuals able to make it to the Comandancia Cabin are fascinated by the feature depicted above. The cabin was built at the top of a cliff overlooking a stream. It had/has the trap-door as shown here. That was in case the site was over-run by Batista's soldiers. If so, Celia & Fidel could escape down into the creek.

      During a crucial stage in the Revolutionary War, Bohemia Magazine featured the above photo and caption, which defined Celia and the war at that point. She had decided in early 1958 that the rebels could begin "capturing cities between Santiago and Santa Clara, and holding the cities we capture." Then, after capturing Santa Clara, it was her plan to have the rebel army led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos to go on and capture Havana. Throughout the rest of 1958, those plans were carried out to perfection except, as the rebel army raced from rebel-held Santa Clara to Havana on the last day of 1958, Batista and his richest cronies had begun fleeing in their already prepared getaway planes, ships and boats. As she formulated those decisions, the photo and caption above document Celia Sanchez getting an update from rebels about the whereabouts and strengths of nearby Batista armies. The caption also documents another key faction of the Celia-directed war -- the female messengers that Celia later called, "The bravest of all the brave rebels." They were the female messenger-carriers who took vital messages to Celia, including those from Fidel when he was in prison. Every messenger knew if they were captured they would be unmercifully tortured to death. That fate, soon after this photo was taken, befell several of Celia's dearest friends, including Clodimira Acosta. That's Clodimira on the left in the above photo on a day Clodimira had brought a key message to Celia, who is shown standing in the doorway getting the verbal reports from her rebels. As noted in the caption, the lady standing next to Celia is Pilar Fernandez, a school teacher who risked her life at the start of the war by helping Celia recruit rebels and supplies in and around her hometown of Manzanillo in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra Mountains. Historian Pedro Alvarez Tabio wrote a famous essay about Cilia and Pilar that includes this sentence: "Time and again they barely escaped Batista's soldiers that were solely tasked with capturing and murdering them, the two bravest Cuban women  -- Celia and Pilar -- that angered Batista the most in the early days of the rebel movement." It was indeed a female-powered revolution. 

     From January of 1959 till her death from throat cancer in January of 1980, Celia was by far the top decision-maker in Cuba, always with Fidel Castro's full blessing. Even when he disagreed with her, he accepted her decisions. For example, in April of 1959 -- a mere three months after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution -- Celia insisted on taking Fidel on a 12-day good-will trip to the United States. He didn't want to go but he went to appease her fervent desire to have the U. S. as Cuba's "friend and most important trading partner." Right-wing miscreants in the Eisenhower White House -- Vice President Nixon and the even more powerful Dulles brothers -- sabotaged that otherwise very successful 12-day visit, but at least Celia had tried to soothe relations with America, which had supported the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in the 1950s and since 1959 has still supported the Batistianos' efforts to regain control of Cuba.

       This Pinterest photo illustrates that the American people were big fans of Cuba's rebel hero Fidel Castro throughout his 12-day, Celia Sanchez-orchestrated visit to the United States in April of 1959. Even American children donned fake beards to show Fidel how much they admired him, as did adults in New York, Washington, etc.

     But during that 1959 visit the right-wing thugs in the Eisenhower administration, the ones who had sicced the Mafia on Cuba in 1952, caught Fidel off guard when Vice President Richard Nixon told him that the U.S. and the Cuban exiles would quickly recapture Cuba. The photo above, I think, chronicles Fidel's incredulity as he stared at Nixon, the crook who would later become America's disastrous President. Beginning in the 1950s, U. S. citizens showed no respect for their democracy as they sat on their behinds and let right-wing thugs run rampant over weaker foreign nations. The victorious Cuban Revolution in 1959 remains to this day the best example highlighting that basic fact, and it inspired Latin America victims to also try to get rid of fiendish U.S.-backed and/or U.S.-installed dictators like...Batista, Trujillo, Somoza, Videla, Pinochet, etc., etc. And such facts anger right-wing thugs to this very day.

       By the way, on the flight back to Cuba from the U. S. in April of 1959, Fidel Castro very intently was engrossed in reading a book Celia had given him...about America's greatest revolutionary superstar. The book -- "Mount Vernon" -- was named for George Washington's Virginia estate. As he leisurely read the book, Fidel was content to leave the Cuban reaction to the overly ambitious 12-day trip up to Celia, a trip that saw him get very positive receptions from the American people but that very negative reaction from the U. S. government. And her reaction strongly craved out a do-or-die defensive posture for Revolutionary Cuba's nascent government.

       In his twilight years decades after the death of his soulmate Celia Sanchez and after his near-fatal intestinal illness in 2006, Fidel continued to read books about American leaders, such as the Barack Obama book he was reading in this photo.   

      Back on Cuban soil after the failure of her 12-day Good-Will trip to the U. S. in April of 1959, Celia was first and Fidel was second in Cuba's decision-making hierarchy. All Cuban insiders knew that. Their long-time photographer-historian Roberto Salas, for example, wrote in his book: "Celia made all the decisions for Cuba, the big ones and the small ones. When she died of cancer in 1980, we all knew no one could ever replace her." And after the rebuke by right-wingers in the Eisenhower administration in April of 1959, it was Celia who laid down Revolutionary Cuba's prime doctrine: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." She died in 1980; he died in 2016. But her words still have resonance in 2017.

      NO ONE in this big, round world knows as much about Celia Sanchez & Fidel Castro as a beautiful lady named Marta Rojas. She was born in 1928 in Santiago de Cuba and, as a young journalist trusted by Batista in the early 1950s, she worked intimately with both Celia & Fidel, even interviewing Fidel when he was imprisoned from July-1953 till May-1955. She took Fidel-written notes out of the prison in her bra and put them in the urban underground to get them to Celia in the Sierra Maestra foothills, and in the same manner she took Celia notes to Fidel into his Isle of Pines prison cell. After the Revolutionary triumph on January 1st of 1959, it was Marta Rojas in December of 1959 who introduced Fidel before his first television address.

Fidel introduced by Marta Dec.-1959.

       This is Marta Rojas as a high-profile young journalist in Batista's Cuba in the 1950s. Unknown to Dictator Batista, Marta's revolutionary heart was with Celia & Fidel. I credit Marta, via those urban underground notes, for creating the Celia-Fidel nexus long before they ever laid eyes on each other, a nexus that changed Cuba forever. 

       In 2004 I flew from Wyoming to Cuba, with the hard-earned blessing of the anti-Cuban George W. Bush administration, to research Celia Sanchez. Marta -- an internationally renowned journalist, author and historian -- was kind to me. In discussing Celia's relationship with Fidel, Marta told me in a precious email from Havana in 2005: "Since Celia died of cancer in 1980, Fidel has ruled Cuba only precisely as he believes Celia would want him to rule it." I believe that is the definitive quote about the Celia-Fidel nexus and it is from the great Cuban, Marta, who knew Celia & Fidel the best. I have documented that quote and it has been used by many sources interested in fully comprehending what Celia meant to Fidel and to Cuba.  

      To comprehend the dynamic Celia-Fidel relationship, one must understand the above Imgur photo that was taken on an early morning in March, 1964. Celia was a workaholic, which was fitting because she was Cuba's prime decision-maker. Note her diligent early-morning work while she was also noticeably separated a workable ways from Fidel. While she was studying and decision-making, he was relaxing in a rocking chair with his slippers off and obviously unmindful of influencing her work. But whatever decisions she formulated he would support 100%, regardless of anyone else's opinion. As their longtime highly respected associate Roberto Salas said, "Celia made all the decisions for Cuba, the big ones and the small ones." Many of those decisions, after April-1959, centered around preventing the U.S.-backed Batistianos-Mafiosi from recapturing Cuba. It appears, all these decades later, that her judgments were sound...much to the chagrin of present-day counter-revolutionaries like the 3 -- Diaz-Balart, Rubio, and Ros-Lehtinen -- pictured at the top of this essay.

     The photo above shows Roberto Salas holding one of his famous photos. He or his father Osvaldo took most of the most famous photos related to the Cuban Revolution. Roberto was born in New York City in 1940 when his father Osvaldo was one of New York's highest-paid photographers. The father and son moved permanently to Cuba after the overthrow of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship...and became the island's most famous photographers with intimate knowledge of its history. So Roberto's quote about Celia in his book is worth repeating: "Celia made all the decisions for Cuba, the big ones and the small ones. When she died of cancer in 1980, we all knew no one could ever replace her." The highly respected Roberto Salas knew and worked with Celia; he registers the historic truth about her but wild distortions, rampant in the U. S., come from Cubans who would much prefer Batista's Cuba to Celia's Cuba.

Photo of Celia by Roberto Salas.

  Another photo of Celia by Roberto Salas. 

          This photo of Celia Sanchez was taken shortly before she died of cancer. By then, her indelible stamp had been engraved forever on Cuba's revolutionary heart.

  History's greatest revolutionary heroine.

How she is remembered today: 

She was the daughter of a country doctor in Media Luna, Cuba.

       After winning her Revolutionary War, she made sure that Cuba's children -- so maligned or totally forgotten during the Batista-Mafia rule of the island -- were afforded free educations through college and free healthcare for life. To this day, come hell or high water, those two Celia Sanchez doctrines remain priorities on the island in spite of such obstacles as the Batistiano-directed United States blockade-embargo of Cuba from 1962 till the present day. She was a guerrilla fighter and Cuba's Mother Teresa.

       Celia especially adored a little peasant girl named Maria Ochoa. At age 10 in 1952 Maria was kidnapped and raped to death in a hotel room in Havana. Celia determined Maria was the victim of a newly enacted scheme on the island: Cuban girls, especially in rural areas, were being kidnapped and used as lures to attract rich pedophiles to gamble in the Mafia-run casinos that were prime features of all the major hotels in Dictator Fulgencio Batista's Cuba. The fate of little Maria Ochoa immediately transformed Celia Sanchez from an angelic, 99-pound doctor's daughter into history's all-time greatest female guerrilla fighter and revolutionary leader. She blamed Batista, the Mafia, and the United States for the gruesome murder of Maria Ochoa and she vowed to "make them pay." That, of course, was a tall order. Batista was a powerful dictator; the Mafia was the strongest criminal organization in the world; and the United States had emerged from World War II as the world's economic and military superpower. Her task was impossible. But she kept her promise and made "them pay." Thus the fate of a little peasant girl named Maria Ochoa still looms as perhaps the biggest mistake Batista, the Mafia, and the United States ever made on the island of Cuba.

      Americans are not supposed to know who Celia Sanchez was so they would not be expected to understand this prominent statue of Cuba's greatest heroine sitting cross-legged in Havana today.

         From 1962 until this very day in August of 2017, without special permission Americans are not allowed to travel to Cuba although all other citizens in the world have the freedom to do so. But if they could, and if they ventured to Celia Sanchez's hometown of Media Luna, Americans surely wouldn't understand the scene depicted in the above photo taken by Luis Palacios Leyva. It shows Cubans sitting around discussing the incomparable life of Celia Sanchez, the doctor's daughter who died decades earlier -- on January 11, 1980, at age 59. All Americans have heard of Fidel Castro. Most Americans have heard of Raul Castro and Che Guevara. And some Americans have even heard of Jose Marti and Antonio Maceo, renowned independence fighters who died on Cuban soil fighting imperial Spain's soldiers in the 1890s. But most Americans have never heard of Celia Sanchez, the greatest of Cuba's independence fighters. That's because two generations of revengeful Cuban-Americans cannot vilify the child-loving doctor's daughter who earned the nickname La Paloma -- The Dove -- for the courageously stealthy manner in which she recruited rebels and supplies beginning in 1952-1953 that ended up defeating the Batista-Mafia dictatorship on January 1, 1959. Batista's biggest bounty was placed on her head even before Fidel Castro had ever laid eyes on her. The fact that the bounty was never collected ended the Mafiosi rule of Cuba.

      In San Leandro, California, there is a lady named Melanie Cervantes who remembers Cuba's unforgettable La Paloma, The Dove. Just this year of 2017 Melanie created the awesomely beautiful handmade screen-print water color portrait depicted above as a stirring tribute to Celia Sanchez. It is now available online. Melanie's image of Celia Sanchez highlighted by the white dove is utterly fantastic!!

 An enduring celestial image of La Paloma.

         In a similar vein, an American tourist happening upon this scene in Cuba simply would not comprehend it. This photo shows an elderly, well-dressed Cuban woman very emotionally placing a flower over the crypt that holds the remains of Celia Sanchez. Americans are not supposed to comprehend the tears this woman is shedding. That's because those tears were for Cuba's La Paloma, Celia Sanchez.

The Legend of La Paloma.

Celia Sanchez!!!!!

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A Profile of Cuba

From Real Cubans!!
{Updated: Friday, August 18th, 2017} 

      This profile of a beautiful but worried Cuban, I think, is also a profile of today's Cuba. It captures the essence of the island this week as we navigate in the second half of August, 2017. So what is she worried about? The American President and Commander-in-Chief Trump attacking Cuba? Marco Rubio and other Miami counter-revolutionaries in the U. S. Congress recapturing her island after all these decades? Uh, no...nothing like that. This young Cuban was photographed at a moment when she was worried because her favorite team, the Industrialistas, was losing. This fleeting moment-in-time was chronicled by photo-journalist Jennifer Romero Andreu.

      This photo at the same game was taken by Cuban journalist-blogger Ismael Francisco Gonzalez Arceo. On the left is the outstanding young Cuban television anchor Rosy Amaro Perez and with her is photo-journalist Jennifer Romero Andreu. They were covering the game for the Cuban media and as interested spectators.

      I judge the rhythm, pulses, and nuances of Cuba by the perpetual smiles of Rosy Amaro Perez, a skilled broadcast journalist and a respected leader of Cuba's very vital young-adult generation. And as long as Rosy keeps smiling, I believe Cuba will survive Trump, Rubio, and even the less devious natural and domestic hurricanes.

And Rosy is still smiling.

Thus, Cuba is still surviving.

     This gorgeous photo is courtesy of Ismael Francisco. It also is a profile of today's Cuba. As you can see, the twins are healthy, happy and well-cared-for. That's Ambar on the left and Geradito beside him. Revolutionary Cuba has one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates and one of the world's best, and totally free, health and educational systems. Americans are not supposed to comprehend any of the ten up-to-date color photos shown above. That's why a mere handful of counter-revolutionary Cuban-Americans have mandated for decades that Americans are the only people in the world without the freedom to travel to Cuba...LEST THEY JUDGE IT FOR THEMSELVES?

      By the same token and for the same reasons, Americans are not supposed to comprehend the black-and-white photo above. It shows a typical everyday Cuban family in the pre-Revolutionary Batista-Mafia era from 1952 till 1959. These seven children and their female care-taker, and others like them, were non-entities health-wise, education-wise and otherwise. But Americans to this day are told that Batista's pre-Revolutionary Cuba was "the richest nation per capita in Latin America." Indeed, the Batista, Mafia and American elites were extremely wealthy but that is never factored into the per capita lies. But the seven children and that Cuban woman depicted above didn't have any say in Batista's Cuba and this black-and-white photo is not supposed to have any relevance or resonance today in the United States.

Now another color profile-photo:

       Cubans all this week are celebrating what would have been on August 13th the 91st birthday of revolutionary icon Fidel Castro, who died on Nov. 25-2016. Paying tribute above is First Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel. He is due to become the next President of Cuba when 86-year-old Raul Castro steps down in February of 2018. Standing just to Diaz-Canel's left is Ena Elsa Velazquez, Cuba's Minister of Education.

      Since January 1, 1959, Cuban women from incomparable revolutionary heroine Celia Sanchez to today's Ena Elsa Velasquez have held extraordinary power in Revolutionary Cuba, over and above anyone named Castro when it came to or comes to everyday domestic decisions. If you are told differently, you are being lied to.

          The above tribute to Fidel Castro this week on what would have been his 91st birthday is courtesy of Mariela Castro Espin, the notable daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro and his late wife, the superstar revolutionary heroine Vilma Espin.

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THE NEXT REVOLUTION

Cuba? Venequela? No, America!

      The photo above is courtesy of the Boston Globe. You probably don't know this beautiful American woman. And you're not supposed to. But her name is Omarosa Manigault-Newman. She is a catalyst...a reason...for my belief that the next headline-grabbing Revolution in the Americas will be in America, not in Cuba or even Venezuela. Permit me to explain and remember that I don't say what I just said lightly, fondly, or gratuitously. I am a lifelong democracy-loving American whose hometown is Charlottsville, Virginia, which is now grabbing international headlines and gruesome videos for its deadly racial clashes that began August 12th, 2017, and will continue. In a long life, everyone who knows me knows I have never violated a law, not even a traffic ticket, and all my life I have fought against racism aimed at black Americans. That fight has taken me many times across the famed Edmund Pettus bridge into Selma, Alabama...the renowned cradle of the Civil Rights movement and a city where I stubbornly roomed with a black cameraman co-worker at the Montgomery television station where we both worked. Now, with that candid and honest backdrop, I'll explain why I think the next Revolution or Civil War in the Americas will take place in the United States and not in the besieged nations of Cuba or Venezuela. Yes, what is happening in my hometown of Charlottesville bolstered my concerns for America but so did what happened to Omarosa Manigault-Newman.

       Earlier this year, Omarosa Manigault married an Africa-American pastor named John Allen Newman. The marriage took place in Washington in the Trump International Hotel to honor their dear friend, the President of the United States.

     United States President Donald Trump is Omarosa Manigault-Newman's dear friend...and boss. She works for him. Those two basic facts make her a pariah to the mainstream U. S. media, which is trying desperately to impeach Trump, and to the anti-white African-American extremists who believe firmly that decent Americans like Omarosa do not have the right or the freedom to express their opinions. {I am not a Trump supporter and, in fact, do not think he was qualified to be President of the United States. But I support the Office of President and the Electoral Process that put him in the White House, two things his coup-mongering enemies do not support. And, of course, I support Omarosa's rights to freely express her opinions without being grossly targeted by left-wing extremists who also happen to be African-Americans}.

   Very innocently this week Omarosa Manigault-Newman attended a Convention of Black Journalists because she was invited to attend. But IT WAS A TRAP. She was allowed to speak, during which she explained that her success as a black journalist happened despite such handicaps as her race and the fact that both her father and her brother had been murder victims in crime-ridden America. The moderator of the event was Ed Gordon, a well-known African-American activist, extremist, or...whatever. Now study very carefully the shameful photo above that was spread all over the Twitter-Facebook universe complete with vicious verbal assaults against Omarosa such as, "You have my permission to slap her, Ed;" "Token house-n*****;" and right beside the photo of a black female lawyer were/are these words, "I will handle your criminal defense for free, Ed." Such open displays and promotions of violence by anti-white African-American extremists are commonplace because they are supported by the mainstream U. S. media and generally unchallenged by intimidated and/or politically correct Americans. Therefore, as depicted by the photo above, Ed Gordon was ready to spring the trap on the unsuspecting Omarosa. He left the podium and confronted her face-to-face, berating her audacity for apparently...accepting the invitation to attend the event and then expressing her sincere and honest views. He then turned to the audience-choir and continued to mock and berate a decent African-American -- Omarosa Manigault-Newman. Study the photo above taken in New Orleans on Aug. 13, 2017. It explains why I think America is teetering on the precipice of a Revolution or Civil War. And either could be bloody.

     Left-wing whites and African-American extremists who assault decent African-Americans like Omarosa Manigault-Newman have unfettered free-reign in the U. S. media and in the politically correct environs of America's political arenas. Such undemocratic indecency, in fact, now elevates such nefarious behavior economically, politically and even judicially in the United States. BUT it also produces enough reactions from totally fed-up non-extremists Americans to put a Donald Trump in the White House as opposed to the usual trends that strongly favor bought-and-paid-for "establishment" candidates from endless streams of Bush dynasty/Clinton dynasty-type big-money Washington incumbents. At the moment in America, Omarosa's enemies are democracy's enemies and they are, I believe, far more a threat to the U. S. democracy than a Donald Trump presidency is. That's because they unlike Trump can get away with assaulting decent Americans like Omarosa and shamefully denying them the right to speak, the right to vote for or work for the politician of their choice, and the right to oppose the extreme viewpoints of either the right-wing or left-wing fringes that dominate the U. S. media, especially the pundit-driven, propaganda-obsessed television networks owned by biased billionaires.

      I firmly believe that Pastor John Allen Newman and his beautiful wife Omarosa Manigault should have the exact same right to express their opinions in the United States, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, as extreme right-wing and extreme left-wing thugs have. But because those caught in the middle of those two fringes -- like John and Omarosa -- don't have such rights, at least not without being grotesquely mocked or assaulted, I will repeat what Omarosa discovered when she was ambushed at that Convention for Black Journalists on Aug. 13th in New Orleans. The mainstream U. S. media will loudly broadcast what certainly appears to be extreme anti-white racism by African-Americans such as that espoused by black activists such as moderator Ed Gordon, CNN's Van Jones, Charlottesville's Wes Bellamy, etc., but wouldn't dare touch the far more sane and decent viewpoints of African-Americans like John Allen Newman and Omarosa Manigault-Newman. This past Saturday a white right-wing racist from Ohio murdered a decent and totally innocent young white woman named Heather amid the abominable and out-of-control racial turmoil in my hometown of Charlottesville. The same weekend the left-wing fringe ambushed and verbally assaulted a decent and totally innocent young black woman named Omarosa. The events in Charlottesville are being used as fodder for America's left-wing fringes, including the mainstream media; but such episodes as the one involving Omarosa are not factored into the equation. Thus, the fringes in America are allowed to use black racism to allegedly fight white racism to further their extremist views and goals. Right-wing racism and extremism has bred left-wing racism and extremism in America and vice-versa. Neither the American democracy nor the U. S. media seem capable of preventing those two extremely fringe elements from catapulting the United States of America into another Revolution or another Civil War. If you doubt that possibility, you don't know Omarosa Manigault-Newman.

In other words:

     I believe an intelligent, decent and successful American, Omarosa Manigualt-Newman, has a right to speak in America. When she spoke {photo above}, she was ambushed and assaulted by fellow black journalists. It happened on August 13th, the day after the deadly racial turmoil in Charlottesville. She had been invited to speak in New Orleans at a Convention of Black Journalists. The invitation apparently was a trap. When she spoke, above, she was jeered, mocked and ambushed, apparently by other black journalists who loudly proclaim to be non-racist and pro-democracy.

      The moderator in New Orleans, Ed Gordon, berated, mocked and verbally assaulted Omarosa as she sat helplessly and innocently staring up at him, as shown by the ABC photo depicted above. I believe that was an affront to Omarosa and to America's democracy. The fact that the mainstream U. S. media ignores such undemocratic insults and cancers greatly exacerbates the festering problem even as a Revolution or Civil War looms on America's once-exalted and brilliant horizon.

       I did not vote for nor do I support President Donald Trump. But I support Omarosa's right and freedom to vote for him, to support him and to work for him.

         I believe those who assault Omarosa's right to support and work for President Trump are anti-democracy rogues who believe they are above the U. S. democracy.

       I believe that CNN, instead of covering the news, is engaged in a conspiracy-coup to impeach President Trump along with its other mainstream media allies such as MSNBC, NBC, New York Times and Washington Post. For example, study the above photo that features the CNN microphone. Whatever Trump was saying was sure to be distorted by the CNN anchors and pundits for the next 12 hours or more. The big news in the photo above was Darrell Scott, the influential black pastor from Ohio, shown standing next to Trump. With strong support from people like Scott in modestly populated but troubled states like Ohio, Trump shocked the world by winning the presidency. But when such things as the Scott and Trump nexus are dissected by staunchly anti-white high-profile racist pundits like Van Jones, Ana Navarro, etc., CNN viewers are supposed to conclude that Trump is the biggest threat to democracy, to America and to the world and that his only support comes from ignorant, uneducated white racists. I do not support President Trump but I now believe that the biased U. S. media happens to be the biggest threat to democracy, America and, because of America's impact, to the world. And, oh yes, America! There are decent, educated blacks like Darrell Scott who strongly support Donald Trump!

A fighter for Trump, Dr. Darrell Scott.

There are many black Trump supporters.

     In addition to black journalists like Omarosa Manigault, black preachers like Darrell Scott, etc., there are powerful black Talk Show Hosts like the very influential Larry Elder who strongly support President Trump and just as strongly denounce both left-and-right-wing extremism in the African-American community. Elder, a radio giant, also went on conservative television networks to strongly support President Trump's reaction to the racial turmoil in Charlottesville, pointing out that even the wildly left-wing ACLU "also" blamed white supremacists, neo-Nazis, AND extremists left-wing groups such as Black Lives Matter for provoking the Charlottesville strife to further their own nefarious goals. But the mainstream U. S. media totally ignored respected black Americans like Larry Elder and even the left-leaning ACLU in their typical urgency to blame only Trump and his supporters for the Charlottesville racial riots.

         But most of all, Omarosa Manigault-Newman reminds me that the United States of America -- not Cuba, not Venezuela, etc. -- is more ripe for another Revolution or another Civil War than other nations in the Americas. When left-wing fringe elements battling right-wing fringe elements in America are sucking up America's democratic oxygen with the help of a politically correct government and a very vividly biased mainstream media, decent Americans like Omarosa are caught in the vile cross-hairs of insanity. As a democracy lover, I believe Omarosa has a right to vote, to speak and to work for the democratically elected President of the United States. Of course, the left-wing fringe elements and the mainstream U. S. media will blame such an impending Revolution or Civil War on Trump and his supporters...including Omarosa.

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A Sunset in Cuba

As the Sun Sets in Charlottesville!
{Charlottesville is my hometown}

     The beautiful, peaceful sunset above is courtesy of Rosy Amaro Perez. It depicted the start of a typically calm Saturday night in Cuba on August 12th, 2017.

       This photo is courtesy of the New York Times. It was taken just prior to sunset on August 12th in Charlottesville, Virginia, the site of a violent racist white-vs.-black extremism that resulted in many injuries and three deaths. I am a native of Charlottesville and I wish the sunset today over Charlottesville was as peaceful as the sunset in Havana. Charlottesville is a very rich city of 47,000 people and where Thomas Jefferson's Monticello home and his University of Virginia is located.

      The violent turmoil in my hometown of Charlottesville-USA today was the top international news story on August 12th, 2017. As noted above, some of the worldwide coverage actually chose to warn its viewers of the "graphic content."

      After sunset on Saturday, August 12th, 2017 in Cuba, this was a typical street on the island. It is politically incorrect in the USA to say so, but Revolutionary Cuba just happens to be one of the safest nations in the world. In the USA many big cities like Chicago and, yes, even little cities like my Charlottesville are prone to violence.

A Cuban street Saturday, Aug. 12-2017.

     All of these updated Cuban photos are courtesy of Rosy Amaro Perez. That's her with the usual smile as she shares a moment with a friend. As long as Rosy keeps smiling, I believe, Revolutionary Cuba will survive its many problems -- both domestic and foreign. She is a highly respected leader of the young-adult generation of Cubans that fervently support the island's sovereignty and independence.

In the middle, Rosy with friends.

     Rosy is a skilled broadcast journalist.

On a Cuban street, Rosy at work.

       As a high-profile and influential young Cuban, Rosy Amaro Perez is quite active online in social circles, especially Facebook. For example, on April 16th when U. S. President Donald Trump savaged Cuba to the cheers of counter-revolutionary Cubans in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, Rosy watched Trump's speech live on Cuban television. She then said on her Facebook page: "The Cuba that Trump described is not the Cuba I know, and I've lived here all my life." The mainstream U. S. media ubiquitously allows, without daring to question, counter-revolutionary zealots like profiteering U. S. Senator Marco Rubio from Miami to savage Revolutionary Cuba to their heart's content. Rubio has never been to Cuba. But Rosy Amaro Perez lives there. And she has opinions too. So, there are two sides to the U.S.-Cuban equation.

A Cuban sunset courtesy of Flickr.

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Cuban Hardliners Rejoice

About Pretexts to Attack Cuba!

         This AP photo shows the daughter of an American diplomat looking out the window of the U. S. Embassy in Havana. This embassy in Havana and the Cuban embassy in Washington are products of former President Barack Obama having the courage and decency to try to take America's Cuban policy out of the brutal and revengeful hands of two generations of Miami and Congressional Cubans. Obama reversed a half-century of Batistiano-dictated assaults on Revolutionary Cuba by, among other things, reopening the Havana and Washington embassies. When the Democrat Obama was replaced on Jan. 20-2017 by the Republican Trump, the Cuban hardliners in the U. S. not only envisioned reversing the Obama overtures to Cuba but also, at long last, they saw an opportunity to regain control of Cuba as in the U.S.-backed halcyon days of the Batista-Mafia rule of Cuba from 1952 till 1959. Since the astounding triumph of the Cuban Revolution on Jan. 1-1959, the Miami Cuban Mafia has insisted on dictating America's Cuban policy and, prior to Obama, that was amazingly easy thanks to its alliances with the Bush dynasty and a handful of Bob Torricelli/Jesse Helms-type right-wingers in the U. S. Congress. Obama at least for a time made it a bit tougher but now with the Republican control of the White House and both Houses of Congress, the Counter-Revolutionary Cuban zealots are prancing in high clover once again. So, the little American girl staring so innocently out the window of the Obama-orchestrated U. S. Embassy in Havana portends many covert and overt things in the intricate and tumultuous conundrums that herald U.S.-Cuban relations.

        The Miami Cuban Mafia since January of 1959 has, incredibly, been unable to regain control of Cuba despite an arsenal that includes backing from the CIA, the U. S. military, and the United States Congress.

       At age 70, James Bamford is enshrined as America's greatest Emmy-winning investigative journalist. His books such as Body of Secrets, A Pretext for War, and The Shadow Factory are considered classics and must-reads for anyone interested in knowing the true documented facts about important issues long-declassified {hidden} by the U. S. government to protect right-wing thugs from being criminally liable for dastardly anti-democratic deeds committed against innocent individuals or nations. James Bamford, for example, was the great U. S. journalist who unveiled, once and for all, criminal and long-declassified U. S. government enterprises such as Northwoods, Mongoose, etc. designed to recapture Cuba for the Batista-Mafia exiles shortly after the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution. Bamford's diligent, brave and indisputable revelations revealed massive schemes by the U. S. government to provide Pretexts for an all-out military attack on Cuba. The schemes included an incredible and startling series of murderous attacks against innocent Americans that would be blamed on Cuba, with the bloody results being presented to the American people to justify a massive military attack on Cuba. Bamford's vital investigative and unchallenged findings regarding Northwoods, Mongoose and the vast array of Batistiano-Mafiosi-American criminal contortions aimed at Revolutionary Cuba remain significant to historians and many democracy-loving Americans although the Batistiano dominance of America's Cuban policies and narratives since 1959 has resulted in most Americans being unconcerned with how much America's Cuban policies have demeaned America and Democracy -- resulting, for example, in the current 191-to-0 condemnation in the UN of America's embargo against Cuba.

     In this second week of August-2017, reminders of the documented Northwoods-Mongoose revelations by the great James Bamford were revived by CBS News reporter Julianna Goldman. Even with the mainstream U. S. media mostly engaged with making sure President Trump is impeached in short order, and even with the world concerned about a threatened U.S.-North Korean nuclear war, Ms. Goldman and the rest of the mainstream U. S. media also included a news item about Cuba, which concerned a strange mystery illness suffered by several Americans at the U. S. embassy in Cuba. I hereby feature Ms. Goldman of CBS News because her reports have been among the fairest in the U. S. media, which is important regarding Cuba because mostly the intimidated or politically correct mainstream U. S. media mentions only the anti-Cuban portion of two-sided issues and, of course, the right-wing media and blogs are always searching for northwoods/Mongoose-type excuses to launch all-out military attacks on Cuba. Slightly countering the hysteria about Cuba deliberately trying to poison or cyber-blast innocent Americans at the U. S. embassy in Havana, Ms. Goldman at CBS News at least reported that Cuba has not only denied any knowledge of what happened but that Cuba is also trying to desperately "investigate" the matter. From James Bamford to Julianna Goldman at CBS News, it is well known that Cuba is always on guard against such tactics as Northwoods-Mongoose from the past and more recent Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue-type provocations trying to concoct pretexts for the U. S. to attack Cuba. But, of course, if some respected U. S. journalist such as Ms. Goldman ends up actually reporting that, "Hey!! Cuba DID try to poison those Americans at the U. S. embassy in Havana!!", I'll weigh such revelations as forcefully as I judge Bamford's undeniable investigative journalism about criminally-manufactured pretexts against Cuba or Julianna Goldman's balanced report this week about the latest "Cuban mystery."

And by the way:

       U. S. President Donald Trump does not own any property in Cuba, at least not yet. But he, of course, does own some magnificent Caribbean real estate such as the St. Martins' beachfront jewel shown above that he purchased in 2013 for $20 million.

The Caribbean Journal Trump-estate photo.

  A pool at Trump's St. Martins estate.

One of Trump's 11 St. Martins bedrooms.

 Ostentatious Trump-St. Martins stairwell.

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