And Why It Matters!!
{Updated: Tuesday, September 26th, 2017}
{Updated: Tuesday, September 26th, 2017}
Relations between the United States and Cuba have been significant to the entire world almost as far back as 1492, and that was the year Columbus discovered both nations. That's a truly amazing fact, especially in modern times, because the U. S. is the world's economic and military superpower while Cuba is merely a nearby island in the Caribbean. But that conclusion is a fact nevertheless because the superpower since the 18th century has lavishly and often salaciously coveted the lush island.
But incredibly, the unending David vs. Goliath tug-of-war between little Cuba and mighty America has, through the centuries, been an incredibly even tussle.
Especially since 1959, the seminal year the Cuban Revolution shocked the entire world by becoming the first nation to overthrow a U.S.-backed dictatorship, the U.S.-Cuban Tango has had world-wide repercussions...starting with the realization that if little Cuba could shed a brutally corrupt U.S.-backed dictatorship, perhaps so could they. That unique fact became even more indelible in far-flung places like Africa and Iran but, more pointedly, throughout Latin America when little Cuba's reputation permeated and even dominated nations like Nicaragua, Chile, and Brazil. The AFP graphic above is highly important because it chronicles the U.S.-Cuban Tango from 1959 till today with little Cuba, amazingly, still a sovereign nation although the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba from 1959 till today has been retrenched in the U. S. fervently trying to use the readily available economic and military might of the United States to recapture the island. Since 1959, as the above graphic indicates, Barack Obama has been the only U. S. President with the guts and patriotism to seriously challenge the Batistiano-Mafiosi dictation of America's Cuban policies...and, when he was President, Obama not only visited the island to show respect for the targeted Cuban people but he also inflamed the dangerously biased Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders when he had friendly telephone and face-to-face talks with Cuban President Raul Castro, promising Cubans they did not need "to fear" America.
In that milieu, President Barack Obama defied the Batistiano-controlled U. S. Congress by bravely using Executive Powers from 2014 through 2016 to alter, change or end grossly undemocratic anti-Cuban laws mandated by Congress for decades. Obama reopened embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961; he eased the restriction whereby Americans had long been the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba; he allowed U. S. businesses to do commerce with Cuba; he allowed U. S. travelers to Cuba to return with some Cuban products, including cigars and rum; and he ended some U. S. laws, such as the infamous Wet Foot/Dry Foot boondoggle, that grossly discriminated against everyone else while being designed to enrich and empower selected Cubans in the United States.
America's Cuban policies have been selfishly dictated since 1959 by typical Mafiosi tactics -- such as terrorist hotel, airplane and car bombings that, for example, killed an Italian tourist that dared to visit Revolutionary Cuba; blew a child-laden Cuban civilian airplane into the ocean, murdering all on board; and silenced the top Cuban-American newsman in Miami after he had openly objected to such unchecked terrorism. While such things also to this day have kept the mainstream U. S. media from criticizing such terrorism, the brave President Obama, as the Steve Sack-Minneapolis Star Tribune Editorial Cartoon above aptly describes, looked aghast at the age-old half-century of mayhem in the name of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!
And that brief capsule of U.S.-Cuban relations brings us around to today's U.S.-Cuban Tango that features such things as CNN vs. Donald Trump. Yes, the Obama presidency by law could only last two terms covering 8 years. Obama was a decent, patriotic and brave President, a Democrat in a two-party system. It so happens that Obama was replaced by a Republican President, Donald Trump. It is universally agreed that the 70-year-old Trump, a multi-billionaire businessman and reality TV star, was not qualified to be President of the United States. Yet, enough Americans were so tired of what they considered an entrenched, bought-and-paid-for political establishment in Washington that they voted for Trump-the outsider non-politician as opposed to the only other choice, the Democrat's long-established and openly perceived bought-and-paid for candidate Mrs. Clinton, whose husband had been perceived as, among other things, bought-and-paid-for for two previous presidential terms. And so, with the unqualified President Trump in the White House, CNN and the rest of the left-wing U. S. media, instead of blaming themselves for making Trump the President and instead of waiting till the 2020 election to unseat him via the election process, have mounted an undisguised and relentless media coup to overturn the 2016 election of Trump. That conspiratorial coup also includes multi-billionaire giants such as MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, the New York Times and the Washington Post. In other words, it might succeed. In the meantime those media giants 24-hours a day -- in print, online and on the air -- use undisguised propaganda to paint Trump as, among other things, the meanest American in history and the biggest single threat to America, Democracy, and the entire World. I too oppose Trump but unlike his media enemies I respect America, Democracy, and the Office of President. Therefore, while Trump might well be the biggest current threat to Cuba, I don't think Trump is the biggest threat to America, Democracy, and the World. I think Jeff Zucker is.
For example, as of Monday, Sept. 25th, 2017, President Trump is losing a battle against the NFL, the pro football league worth many more billions than Trump is and more powerful than the U. S. government is. This is because Jeff Zucker and the other left-wing extremists who control the mainstream U. S. media are proving what a fantastic propaganda machine the media has become. If any of the first 44 U. S. presidents -- from Washington through Obama -- had criticized anyone or any entity for defaming or disrespecting the U. S. flag or the U. S. national anthem, both the U. S. media and the U. S. public would have applauded that President. But not today and not Donald Trump.
Wealthy pro football players began kneeling during the playing of the United States national anthem showing utter disrespect for the country that make them rich and famous. It has now -- even at an NFL game played in London on September 24th-2017 -- become a nationwide politically correct phenomenon loudly spurred on by the mainstream media, especially when it's a firestorm denouncing President Trump.
A sports anchor on ESPN, taking full advantage of her politically correct status, made widely heralded non-sports headlines by proclaiming Trump a "white racist," implying -- again socially and politically correctly -- that only white men are racist.
A soon-to-be NBA billionaire who was born rich in the USA {because his dad was an NBA star} gets plaudits from the media for disrespecting President Donald Trump, the office of President, and the U. S. capitalist democracy that made him, from birth, super rich. Prior to unrelenting media-saturated propaganda orchestrated and promulgated by left-wing extremists like Jeff Zucker, disrespecting the flag, the national anthem and the office of President would surely not have been in vogue.
In 2017, the first year of his presidency, Time Magazine named Trump its Person of the Year. But Time, like Jeff Zucker's CNN, is owned by the ultra-liberal Time-Warner. Being a liberal, I get Time delivered to my home each week. But, like Zucker's CNN, Time is an integral part of the media conspiracy to now oust Trump, which I believe should be left to democracy. The Time I received today -- dated "October 2, 2017" -- as always is strewn with anti-Trump and left-wing extremist articles. For example, on Page 21 a major article written by Belinda Luscombe has a large photo of a 45-year-old black woman. In bold lettering the sub-title is: "The University-bound Mother Who Killed Her Child Deserves Forgiveness." The mother had killed her 4-year-old son; she got out of prison two days before she began her quest for a Ph.D at New York University. It seems that "folks at Harvard" and other extreme left-wing entities had smoothed many paths for her. Any white mother who had beaten her 4-year-old son to death and buried him "in the woods" would not have been treated that way. But because such racism is now routine, extremists making up for gross pass injustices to one race by grossly discriminating against another race...as the Time-Warner empire that includes Jeff Zucker is doing...may well be paving the way in the USA for a second Civil War or a second Revolution.
In glorious years past, Donald Trump and Jeff Zucker were bosom buddies in the rarefied atmosphere of the rich, the famous, and the ultra-powerful in America.
But it so happens that Donald Trump became President of the United States and Jeff Zucker became President of CNN with total say-so regarding CNN's news coverage and news personnel. Zucker is now the leader of the vast media conspiracy-coup designed to dethrone Trump long before his first four-year term is completed. While such a coup would probably help the Trump-targeted island of Cuba, I think it would have disastrous effects on America, Democracy, and the World. Therefore, without reservations and bowing to the enormity and ubiquity of the mainstream media as a propaganda force, I think at the moment Jeff Zucker, not Donald Trump, is the biggest threat to America, Democracy and the World.
Even ultra-liberal and left-wing Harvard University, as with the graphic above, admits that the ultra-biased coverage by the mainstream United States media of the Trump presidency is grossly out-of-whack. The Harvard survey above indicates only the right-wing Fox Network has balanced coverage of Trump. In any such survey, even from extreme liberals, CNN would be the most biased or just tied with NBC.
With NBC anchors like Rachel Maddow, that network is even more laughable than CNN, which indeed in its international coverage still has actual journalists. Maddow has the prime night-time hour on MSNBC and for well over a year she doesn't even pretend to cover the news. All she does, clearly with management's approval, is rant anti-Trump propaganda. and Maddow is clearly the smartest and most talented of all the NBC-MSNBC anchors, making anchors like the Mika-Joe "Morning Joe" duo resemble anti-Trump clowns as opposed to being broadcast journalists. Maddow, for all her talent, had miserable ratings until recently reaching up to 4 million regular viewers who are obviously all aboard the anti-Trump caravan or clown-show.
As the highest profile anti-Trump anchor on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow also feels free to mock journalism, America and Democracy by using social media, as shown above, to even call for what appears to be the assassination of President Trump.
The brilliant 2017 Editorial Cartoon in the Augusta Chronicle shown above flashed around the world because it accurately portrayed the extreme depths to which broadcast journalism in the United States has sunk. Note that Rachel Maddow on MSNBC's prime-time "news" program is blaring out and shamefully propagandizing about President Trump. Instead of covering news, even news involving the Most Powerful Man in the World, Maddow is depicted disrespecting America, journalism and her audience by raving about alleged Trump peccadilloes from long ago, including "Trump's overdue library books" and a classic Maddow "exclusive" about "Trump leaves his toilet seat up." THIS WOULD ALL BE LAUGHABLE EXCEPT FOR ONE THING: It reflects the depths to which broadcast journalism in America has sunk and in the modern age broadcast journalism can be an awesome propaganda tool. That combination is dangerous.
Here's an actual photo, not an Editorial Cartoon. It shows Cuba's top Broadcast Journalist anchoring a news program on the island. Her name: Cristina Escobar. She is perhaps the most talented broadcast journalist in the Americas, which includes America and North America. She is bilingual, highly intelligent, and well educated. She is also an expert on U.S.-Cuban relations; her college thesis eerily predicted how U. S. president Obama would impact Cuba. AND she has famously and emphatically stated: "Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba." I understand that Americans are programmed to dismiss that assertion just because it came from a Cuban on the island. But she firmly believes it and she has had the courage to state it in the U. S. capital of Washington, at two university speaking engagements in Alabama, and at a journalism seminar in California. In other words, she means it...in Cuba or the U. S.
As an anchor or as a panelist, Cristina Escobar's sheer independence puts her a notch or two above America's one-trick-ponies such as...Rachel, Mika, Poppy, etc.
And as shown above, Cristina Escobar has made history on U. S. soil. She is the only Cuban journalist that has ever been allowed to ask questions at a White House News Conference. And in flawless English, she asked six excellent questions.
The photo above was taken from a video interview of Cristina Escobar in Havana conducted by respected U. S. journalist Tracey Eaton. The video is available for viewing on YouTube and the Pulitzer website. Her most quoted comment in this video is: "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island." The significance of that quote is two-fold: {1} She is a highly respected leader of the young-adult generation in Cuba that is determined to predicate the island's future; and {2} she has no intention of leaving the island...even for lucrative broadcast offers from both Miami and New York City.
And so:
USA's face of journalism.
Cuba's face of journalism.
They epitomize the U.S.-Cuban Tango.
