U.S.-Cuba Emergenies

A Domestic & Foreign Contrast!!
{Updated: Sunday, October 29th, 2017}

      This week -- October 26, 2017 -- the Voice of America informed the world that America has a "national emergency." On video and in print the VOA said: "America's current opioid overdose epidemic started in doctor's offices. The abuse of prescription opioids along with the use of heroin killed nearly 60,00 people last year. Those kinds of numbers prompted President Trump to declare a public health emergency today."

        The VOA this week reported that over a half-century ago the U. S. declared a war on drugs but now concludes that is today "The War America's Losing." Meanwhile, the U. S. currently is deeply involved in the 16-year-old Afghanistan War as well as a plethora of proxy wars not to mention the threat of wars against North Korea and Iran and even conflicting interests with Superpowers China and Russia that could evolve into future wars. But at the moment, the VOA declares the only "War" America is "losing" is the War on Drugs, a domestic issue solely inside its own borders.

      The island of Cuba also has an emergency but the roots are foreign, not domestic -- namely, the United States embargo that has been in effect since 1962, making it history's all-time longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a strong nation against a much weaker nation. The current international outcry condemning the embargo...with a 191-to-0 unanimity vote in the United Nations...cannot persuade the U. S. democracy to end it. Also, the U. S. democracy maintains the embargo even though most Americans and most Cuban-Americans also strongly oppose it.

     Cuba -- with strong unanimous support throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and the world -- calls the U. S. embargo a "genocidal blockade against the sovereign Cuban people." Cuban sovereignty was finally earned in January of 1959 with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship.

     But while the Cuban Revolution changed the island drastically, it actually, in many ways, altered South Florida and the United States democracy even more. By the end of January, 1959, remnants of the ousted Batista dictatorship had taken political-financial charge of South Florida with a new capital -- Little Havana in Miami -- and an out-sized influenced on America's Cuban policy, which has used such undemocratic things as a record number of assassination attempts in 1959 and 1960, the Bay of Pigs military attack in 1961, and the embargo that was legalized in 1962 for the precise purpose, as revealed by de-classified U. S. documents, of starving, depriving, and showering misery on the Cuban people to entice them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. Since 1959 only two-term President Barack Obama, from 2014 throughout 2016, possessed the combination of courage and patriotism to earnestly try to end the embargo. But that Herculean Obama effort resulted in such things as the anti-Obama march depicted above in the hallowed streets of Miami.

     The Cuban-exile political takeover of South Florida includes South Florida's biggest newspaper -- the Miami Herald -- and thus the Andres Oppenheimer headline depicted above that easily predicted "Trump Could Win Florida, Thanks to Cuban Americans." With Florida's crucial 29 electoral votes, Trump the Republican replaced Obama the Democrat in the White House with Trump owing extremists a debt.

     Subsequently, on two torrid visits to Little Havana, President Trump has rewarded South Florida's dominant counter-revolutionaries with volatile Cuban promises.

       At the behest of counter-revolutionaries, Trump's Cuba Crackdown involves reversing Obama-orchestrated peaceful overtures such as reopening embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961. Also, tightening the embargo to reverse the Obama-orchestrated sharp increase in tourism to Cuba is a Little Havana priority that Trump is obligated to reverse. In the past, such things as deadly terrorist bombings of Cuban hotels discouraged Cuban tourism, which is a lifeline for the island. These days, Trump's warning to Americans not to visit Cuba is based on deeply investigated but still mysterious sonic-wave attacks on Americans at the U. S. embassy in Havana and supposedly at two rooms in the Capri and Nacional hotels.

       Since 1962 the justification for the U. S. embargo against Cuba has been "to hurt the Castros." But as everyone knows, and as the 1962 de-classified U. S. documents confirm, the U. S. embargo, for all these decades, has mostly hurt only totally innocent, non-political everyday Cubans like Julia de la Rosa. With entrepreneurial openings provided by the cooperation of Presidents Obama and Raul Castro, Julia opened a Bed & Breakfast catering to American tourists that thrived with constant bookings via the U.S.-based AirB&B service. But after Trump's reversals on behalf of Little Havana extremists, Julia cried {above} when she told NBC's Andrea Mitchell that Trump and counter-revolutionaries were destroying her livelihood.
        Here is what Julia de la Rosa told NBC's Andrea Mitchell: "With what Rubio and Trump are doing to us, unlike the opportunity Obama gave us, I am afraid. I don't want to think about it. I worry about my family but I also worry about the 17 families on my payroll who need the money I pay them." While Marco Rubio is portrayed as a Mother Teresa-type choirboy by his Miami promoters and by the U. S. media, innocent Cubans on the island, like Julia de la Rosa, consider him a self-serving pariah.

   But the U. S. democracy today still seems incapable of reigning in counter-revolutionary benefactors like Little Havana's choirboy Marco Rubio. That, for sure, is a everlasting problem for Cuba but, in essence, it is a more dire disaster for America.

      Colin Laverty, one of the many decent Americans trying desperately to correct America's genocidal Cuban policies, used the above Rubio-Trump photo to point out on his Facebook page this week: "A powerful clip/video about how the Rubio/Trump policy of driving Cuban families apart causes great suffering." Yes, a powerful video.

       The Collin Laverty video features Cuban lawyer Irina Garcia explaining precisely how "The Rubio-Trump policy...causes great suffering" to totally innocent Cubans while Rubio builds his political and economic fortunes in the U. S. telling propagandized Americans that he is only hurting the Castros. All the while, I believe, Rubio and his ilk well know they are hurting millions of totally innocent Cubans.

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US Bullies Cuba, Bows to China

China Is Too Big To Bully!!
{Updated: Wednesday, October 25, 2017}

      The insightful Voice of America this week used the above photo-caption to illustrate an important VOA article, the type of news that Americans won't get from its mainstream media -- such as CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, The New York Times, and The Washington Post -- all of whom are obsessed, not with covering the news, but with engaging in a media coup against a sitting President, Trump, whom I also oppose but, unlike the extremely biased U. S. media, I respect the Office he holds and the Electoral Process that put him in the White House. Therefore, the mainstream U. S. media eschews news coverage and engages almost exclusively in anti-Trump propaganda. So, the two best places to get real and important news that direly impacts the U. S. are The BBC World News and Voice of America. The VOA this week, for example, explained the above photo-caption with this succinct paragraph:

                 "A road built on the world's highest mountain pass links China to Pakistan. The Friendship Highway, which cost China hundreds of billions of dollars, is a centerpiece of President Xi Jinping's ambitious plan to rejuvenate ancient Silk Road trade routes by linking China with Africa and Europe. However, since the road opened, Pakistani exports to China have dropped while imports from China increased, prompting concerns that Beijing's new Silk Road could become a one-way street."

           While China is spending "hundreds of billions of dollars" on things such as the Silk Road and on modernizing its already powerful nuclear-powered military, the U. S. is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on endless wars, such as the ongoing 16-year/trillion-dollar disaster in Afghanistan as well as the normal array of seemingly endless ongoing proxy wars, reminding some of President Eisenhower's warning that the "U. S. Military Industrial Complex" could be the biggest threat to America. The U. S. still has the world's biggest economy but that statistic is being overtaken by China, a fierce Communist nation that massive trade with the United States has helped create a projection that puts China in a position to have the world's #1 economy and quite possibly the #1 military in the not too distant future. Americans interested in such News should, I believe, rely on such sources as The BBC and The VOA.

    And once again -- on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2017 -- the Voice of America expressed its concern with China's expansion while the Batistianos in the U. S. Congress seem much more concerned with punishing Cubans on the island. The above photo-caption courtesy of the VOA today made this stringent point: "In Pakistan, China is spearheading construction of one of the world's biggest ports. Three of the most commercially important regions of the world -- the oil-rich Middle East, East Central Asia and South Asia -- converge at Pakistan's Gwadar Port. China's aim is to link Gwadar to landlocked Western China." Meanwhile, according to Marco Rubio, America shouldn't worry about China because we should concentrate on punishing Cubans on the island so they will rise up and overthrow their government... ANY DAY NOW!

America's Cuban dictator?
Batista to Rubio to...WHATEVER!

       While China's enormous trade with the United States is helping China become the world's #1 economic power, the United States since 1962 has embargoed trade with Cuba in an attempt to starve and bring misery to the Cuban people to induce them to rise up and overthrow their government, presumably so the U.S.-backed Batistiano-Mafiosi rule can return to the island. The ACN photo above shows that China loves America's genocidal Cuban policy and is enticing Cuba with important new trade offers. The Wall Street Journal headline updated that status: "A U.S.-Cuba Breach Presents an Opportunity for China." The article stated: "Beijing's trade with the island is growing fast. A reversal of President Barack Obama's outreach to Cuba would leave a bigger opening off the U. S. coast for another great military power. It likely wouldn't be Havana's traditional ally Russia, however, but China." Cuba is a U. S. gift to China.

      The United States, of course, has enough problems with mighty China in China's own backyard -- the strategically significant South China Sea where all of America's friends in the vital region are direly afraid of China. America's Cuban policy, designed merely to appease a handful of revengeful bad-losers dating back to 1959's Cuban Revolution, is a God-send for China in America's own backyard. BUT WHAT THE HELL!! No matter how much America's Cuban policy shames America and threatens its national security, we must leave Cuban policy in the hands of  Rubio, the Diaz-Balarts, etc., who...many moderate Cubans say...don't even represent the majority of Cubans in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, but dictate the U. S. Cuban policies.

   Some months ago the Voice of America used the above Reuters photo to illustrate an article the mainstream U. S. media is either too afraid, too biased, or too politically correct to mention. Hugo Cancio is a well known Cuban-American businessman in Miami. Like most Cuban-Americans even in Miami, Hugo, who travels often to Cuba, favors normalizing relations with the nearby island. And, yes, he complains openly that he and the majority of Cuban-Americans are not represented in the U. S. Congress because, he says, only extremists Cuban-American hardliners -- from Ros-Lehtinen to the Diaz-Balart brothers to Rubio to Curbelo to...etc. -- "are THE ONLY candidates to get elected FROM THE MIAMI AREA." In other words, Hugo represents the most significant portion of America's Cuban-American community that the mainstream U. S. media doesn't dare include in its biased pro-Batistiano reporting.
           Speaking fairly about U.S.-Cuban relations, something the mainstream U. S. media is too afraid to do, the Voice of America said: "Hugo Cancio's credibility with Cubans in Cuba stems in part from his outspoken opposition to the U. S. embargo imposed since 1962, as well as his deep Cuban roots. 'He stuck his neck out in Miami and that's why Cubans respect him,' said Ralph Patino, a Cuban-American lawyer who was a fund-raiser for Obama." The VOA often reports fairly on Cuban issues.

     But amazinly, the United States boosts China's economy by having a massive $239 billion trade deficit with the Asian giant this year. Meanwhile, the U. S. shames itself in the eyes of the world with a genocidal embargo against Cuba that dates back to 1962 when it was first imposed to create starvation and deprivations, according to declassified U. S. documents, that was intended and expected to induce the Cubans on the island to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. AND OH YES, America's competitors and enemies, including China, love to have the above image of the Cuban embargo to hang around America's neck like a debilitating albatross.

     Even when Trump's Wall on its Mexican border makes international headlines, the U. S. is mocked for its cowardly Cuban policy by such Editorials as the one shown above. This one makes fun of the Mexican border-wall for having an opening for "Anti-Cuba Terrorists Only" -- to appease a handful of Cuban-American miscreants still seeking revenge against Cuba for the Revolution that in 1959 overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. But for little Cuba -- the Embargo and Terror! And for big China -- a $239 billion trade deficit that favors China and is helping the Asian giant replace America as the richest nation in the world. Thus, being mocked by the "Homeland Security" Editorial exactly as depicted above is to be expected.

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Will Intimidating Cuba Work?

Probably Not!!

Photo courtesy of: WRTV in Indianapolis.

       Starting today -- Monday, Oct. 23rd, 2017 -- this group of about 120 Indiana National Guardsmen will begin preparation to deploy to the U. S. Military Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which, since 1903, Cuba considers an unlawful occupation of the island's territory. The National Guard unit today will leave for 25 days of special training at Fort Bliss, Texas, before heading to Cuba. Is this a gesture by the Trump administration to intimidate Cuba as a prelude to something more substantial?? Maybe, maybe not.

      The Cuban most attuned to intransigence or intimidation from the United States is, of course, Josefina Vidal. In that role for the past fifteen years, Vidal has never been intimidated. She merely sticks to her mantra: "Cuba will not renounce either the principles or ideas in which it has always believed." That's her mantra, and Cuba's.

Photo courtesy of: ACN.

      Perhaps not coincidentally, yesterday -- Sunday, Oct. 22nd, 2017 -- the huge Japanese Peace Boat docked in Havana Harbor, as shown above. It is the 17th time the Peace Boat has visited Cuba, more than any other country. Does this signal that Japan hears war drums beating in the Trump White House as a warning to Cuba?

    For sure, one important Cuban -- Josefina Vidal -- believes that President Trump has promised counter-revolutionary hardliners in Miami and in the U. S. Congress that "Cuba will be yours again." But that would not happen peacefully.

      And for sure, Vidal believes that the promise President Obama, Trump's predecessor, made directly to the Cuban people on his visit to the island is now just an historic memory: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States."

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Cuban-Americans Helping Cubans

From Florida to Cuba!!
{Updated: Sunday, October 22nd, 2017}

      One of the Florida-based organizations most dedicated to normalizing relations between Cuban-Americans and Cubans is Cuba One. Over one month after Hurricane Irma devastated parts of Cuba, Cuba One will take a large contingent of volunteers, mostly young Cuban-Americans, to Cuba to help with the clean-up and rebuilding. They will leave from Florida on October 25th and Cuba One has pinpointed Ciega de Avila, Santa Clara, Camaguey, and Remedios as Cuban areas most in dire need.

       The photo above courtesy of Alejandro Ernesto/EPA was taken in Remedios in central Cuba. It shows a woman holding her dog in front of her devastated home.

      The Miami Herald used the above photo this week -- Oct. 20th, 2017 -- to illustrate this headline: "U. S. Identifies Two More Victims of Mysterious Sonic Attacks in Havana." While some positive groups like CubaOne.org based in Florida try to help Cubans, the Miami Herald seems to support and promote things that harm Cubans on the island to the benefit of only a distinct minority of hard-line Cuban-Americans.

Photo courtesy: Ramon Espinosa/Associated Press.

     The magnificent statue above immortalizing Jose Marti was unveiled in Havana this week -- Friday, October 20th. It was donated to Cuba by the Bronx Museum of the Arts and it is a replica of a statue that has been in New York's Central Park since the 1950s. In this photo, Cuban school children and tourists are admiring the statue.

      Born in Havana in 1853, Jose Marti was a world-famed poet and one of Cuba's greatest independence fighters. He died on Cuban soil in 1895 fighting imperial Spain's soldiers three years prior to the U. S. victory in the Spanish-American War.

Meanwhile:

Surviving hurricanes & the embargo!!

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Moderate, Voiceless Cuban-Americans

Extremists Cuban-Americans Dictate!!

     For almost two decades, the best and most insightful journalism reaching the outside world from Cuba has been provided by Fernando Ravsberg. So, not surprisingly, his Cartas Desde Cuba/Letters From Cuba blog is also the best. Over the years even the fair-minded, London-based journalism giant The BBC has depended on Fernando's Cuban expertise and fairness to understand what's happening in Cuba and what the island's contentious relationship with the United States really entails.

      In being both precise and fair-minded in reporting from Cuba, Fernando Ravsberg has incurred the ire of the Cuban government and U.S.-based counter-revolutionaries in about equal doses, which indicates his journalistic qualifies are indeed top-notch. The best Cuban article this month -- October of 2017 -- is "The Target: Tourism in Cuba" by Fernando Ravsberg. He explains that the Trump administration's targeting of Cuban tourism is merely the latest attempt by Cuban-American extremists to starve and deprive Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their Revolutionary government. Ravsberg is referring to de-classified U. S. documents that confirm the U. S. embargo against Cuba was imposed way back in 1962 to starve and deprive Cubans on the island to do something the Batistiano-Mafiosi exiles had been unable to do even with the economic and military support of the United States. This was Ravsberg's first paragraph in that article:

              "In the 1960s the U. S. State Department produced a document that reflected the strategy to follow in Cuba. It said in a subtle way they should provoke hunger, misery and desperation among the people to push them to rebel and overthrow their government. That has been the guide to U. S. policy since Eisenhower to date."

            After that succinct preamble, Ravsberg explained the many embargoed tactics since 1962 the U. S. government, on behalf of the counter-revolutionary extremists, had carried out against Cuba to punish the totally innocent Cubans on the island to persuade them to overthrow their government. The cruel tactics have failed decade after decade but, as Ravsberg explains, President Trump's subtle warning this month to Americans to not visit Cuba merely continues a half-century of abject failures in cruelly punishing Cubans on the island to sate the revenge, economic and political motives of only the most extremists Cuban-American counter-revolutionaries.

     As shown above, Fernando Ravsberg has infuriated the Cuban government by reporting on Cuban dissidents, but he has been fair enough to also point out that some are genuine but many are funded and supported from the United States.

     The photo above was used by Ravsberg to illustrate his article updating the latest Trump administration ploy to starve and deprive Cubans on the island to induce them to overthrow their government so, presumably, the U.S.-based Batistiano-Mafiosi dictators can FINALLY RETURN. Like hotel bombings in Havana in the past were admittedly designed to discourage tourism, a Cuban lifeline, many believe the so-called "sonic wave attacks" now being blamed on Cuba are for the exact same reasons. Surely the hotel bombings and perhaps the "sonic-wave attacks" bespeak of U.S.-based corruption that reflect more poorly on America than on targeted Cuba.

Photo courtesy of Collin Laverty.

     And speaking of corruption, the photo above highlights the lies counter-revolutionaries like Senator Marco Rubio can spout-off in the U. S. media on a daily basis. Taking full advantage of a lapdog or intimidated U. S. media and a propagandized U. S. citizenry, Rubio and his ilk claim that maintaining or expanding the embargo and other cruel measures is absolutely necessary to keep every dollar that reaches Cuba from going into the Castro bank accounts. Well, Rubio and his kind haven't hurt the Castros but they have hurt many totally innocent Cubans like Carla Leon, shown above with her parents. Carla runs a Bed & Breakfast in Havana that was thriving with mostly American customers booked via the U.S. AirB&B network that evolved in Cuba thanks to the brave and decent overtures to the island rendered by former President Barack Obama. But Carla says she began getting many cancellations as soon as Trump, goaded by the likes of Rubio, "warned" Americans not to visit Cuba. In other words, as Fernando Ravsberg opined this month, America's Cuban policies "since the 1960s" have been predicated on lies and corruption, which seems to be hallmarks of a corrupt world in which anti-corruption crusaders are out-numbered as confirmed almost daily.

      This great lady is dead. Her name: Daphne Caruana Galizia. Thus, some corrupt politicians on the Mediterranean island of Malta are feeling safer. Daphne was Malta's greatest investigative journalist and a fearless anti-corruption crusader. Her popular blog scared every corrupt politician in Malta. From her home her very last blog comment was: "There are crook's everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate." She then got into her car to drive to work and exactly one-half hour after typing those two sentences, a remotely detonated bomb ended her precious life.

     The Prime Minister of Malta is Joseph Muscot. He is 43-years-old and has been in office since 2013. Daphne Caruana Galizia, the now-dead corruption-crusader, had targeted Muscot, who released all of the appropriate statements after her murder.

         The great corruption-crusader Daphne Caruana Galizia is shown above with her husband and their three sons. The sons have demanded that Joseph Muscat resign as Malta's Prime Minister. Copies of their long and heart-wrenching letter are now included at memorials for their mother all across the grieving island of Malta.

   The beautiful, lush Mediterranean island of Malta no longer has its great corruption crusader, but she will not be forgotten. Malta has about 440,000 citizens and they speak English and Maltese. The island is a major tourist attraction.

      This great lady is still alive. Therefore, Jamaica -- the Caribbean island just south of Cuba -- still has its greatest corruption-crusader. Her name: Paula Llewellyn. Addressing the top Jamaican politicians this week, Paula said, "Crime is doubling and tripling in many of our parishes. Successive Jamaican governments have not corrected the justice system. Part of the problem is the fact that the justice system has never been as sexy for you legislators as building highways and doling out public money." Paula's corruption crusade in Jamaica is helped by a newspaper, The Jamaica Observer, that is not reluctant to be a vessel for her crusades. The energetic Paula in Jamaica and the murdered Daphne in Malta should remind us, I think, that women, who are historically far less corrupt than men, should be the top politicians...not just the top corruption-crusaders...in a more civilized world.

     And speaking of corruption, USA Today yesterday -- Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017 -- had this across-the-page Page One headline and sub-headline: Taxpayers Left In Dark On Russia Costs; Inquiries' price tag in millions -- but that's all we know." The first paragraph said: "Congress spends millions of dollars on investigations of Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election, but it's impossible to tell from public records exactly how much the inquiries cost taxpayers -- and the committees running the investigations refuse to talk about it." OF COURSE NOT!! Surely democracy-loving American taxpayers who pay for all that secrecy have no business WHATSOEVER knowing where all their tax dollars are going!!

    On August 17, 2017, the top Editorial in USA Today screamed this headline: "STOP DRUG MAKERS FROM GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER." Then the Editorial, of course, lamented the fact that the obscenely rich Pharmaceutical Industry is a giant lobbying faction in a lobby-mad U. S. government, and pleading to "stop the drug makers from getting away with murder" will not happen in what many believe is a bought-and-paid-for Congress. Corruption in Malta? Corruption in Jamaica? Corruption in the USA?

      Perhaps not coincidentally, the biggest corruption trial in the United States of America for the past few months concerns the 18 federal corruption-bribery charges against entrenched and ultra-powerful Cuban-American U. S. Senator Robert Menendez. He has long been one of the most stringent counter-revolutionaries pounding Revolutionary Cuba. After weeks of testimony, the U. S. government rested its case; the high-priced Menendez defense attorneys then asked the judge to dismiss the charges but the request was denied regarding all 18 corruption charges.

       The Menendez corruption trial is taking place in his power-base -- Newark, New Jersey. Few observers expect any omnipotent Cuban-American politician to be convicted in Newark or Miami courtrooms but after years of expensive investigations, the United States government is trying real hard to make an exception regarding Robert Menendez. A torrid relationship with Miami millionaire Salomon Melgen has resulted in the Menendez trial resurrecting reminders of the long-established Florida-Cuban-Mafia triangle connecting Miami, Newark, and the Dominican Republic. When the Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the first day of 1959, Dictator Batista's getaway airplane first stopped in the Dominican Republic where another U.S.-backed vicious dictator, Rafael Trujillo, ruled. Most other key Batistianos, such as Rafael Diaz-Balart, fled to Miami with Newark as a secondary target. So, it is perhaps appropriate that the Menendez corruption trial stresses the age-old Miami-Newark-Dominican Republic nexus that has shamed America and targeted Cuba for many decades.

       The Miami Cuban Mafia, from January of 1959 till today -- October of 2017 -- has maintained a tight grip on America's Cuban policies, policies that many consider corrupt and that currently are condemned in the United Nations with a 191-to-0 unanimity, which Americans are programmed to ignore. This has persisted because corrupt right-wingers in the Eisenhower administration who sicced the Mafia on Cuba in 1952 were still around when the Batista-Mafia dictators were booted off the island -- all the way to Miami and Newark, as it turned out -- by the Cuban Revolution in 1959.

    The original right-wingers targeting Cuba as a piggy-bank in the Eisenhower administration were greatly boosted by two Vice Presidential terms and three Presidential terms of the Bush dynasty, which in turn begat a U. S. Congress that has, since the 1980s, been a virtual fiefdom for the hard-line Cuban-American counter-revolutionaries. This has resulted in Batistiano-favorable laws that only Congress can overturn, and that can't happen when a handful of vicious Cuban-Americans can so easily dictate Cuban policies to the 535-member U. S. Congress.

     To be sure, most Cuban-Americans since 1959 have been outstanding citizens like Emilio Milian and today most Cuban-Americans even in Miami favor normal relations with Cuba although, of course, only vicious counter-revolutionaries get elected to the U. S. Congress. Emilio Milian was the top Cuban-American newsman in Miami in 1976 when he bravely condemned a devastating spat of terrorist acts against innocent Cubans, such as the bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455 that killed all on board, including two dozen teenage athletes. But that bravery got Emilio Milian silenced by a car-bomb. Since 1989, after the Bush dynasty propelled Havana-born Miami counter-revolutionary Ileana Ros-Lehtenen to the U. S. Congress, where she remains to this day, it seems only extreme counter-revolutionary Miami Cubans are eligible for top elective positions -- such as members of Congress like Marco Rubio, Carlos Curbelo and the Diaz-Balart brothers whose father Rafael Diaz-Balart was a key Minister in Cuba's Batista dictatorship and then, after 1959, one of the richest and most fervent counter-revolutionaries in Miami. Such things as the Emilio Milian car-bombing in Miami have certainly also rendered the mainstream United States media a Batistiano lapdog as opposed to being fair-minded, critical journalists.

       In fact, Hollywood movies such as Scarface have been much better at telling the truth about the Miami Cuban Mafia than the intimidated or lapdog U. S. media.

      But truth be known, even before the U. S. sicced the Mafia on Cuba in 1952 at the start of the second Batista dictatorship, the Mafia had already had a firm grip on Cuba virtually since the U. S. gained dominance over the island via the easy victory in the 1898 Spanish-American War. The graphic above, for example, chronicles the famed Mafia summit in 1946 that featured the all-time most powerful Mafiosi leader, Lucky Luciano, who also, of course, was a Mafia dynamo with Batista from 1952 till the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Yet, the U. S. government and the U. S. media today will give Revolutionary Cuba no credit for being Mafia-free, something American cities such as Miami and Newark would have trouble claiming.

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