Cuba's Future IS NOW Underway

Marco Rubio vs. Rosy Amaro Perez!!

Bob Menendez vs. Miguel Diaz-Canel!!

{Permit Me to Explain}
{Tuesday, March 13th, 2018}

    The President of the powerful East African nation of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, arrives in Cuba today -- Tuesday, March 13-2018 -- on a key 3-day visit. The Kenyan government stated that it needs Cuba's "help and guidance in healthcare for our 50 million people." The statement added: "Cuba has a well-developed health sector which has achieved great milestones such as the discovery of the top vaccines against lung cancer and the eradication of malaria. Cuba also has a thriving pharmaceutical industry that we would like to emulate. The World Health Organization and the World Bank both marvel at Cuba's advances in preventative and vaccine-treated health, such as in gynecological care that renders a remarkably low infant mortality rate." Kenya's leading newspaper, The Daily Nation, stressed that President Kenyatta also wants to drastically improve ties with Cuba concerning trade, sports, and cultural relations while also "congratulating Cuba on the manner it is handling the post-Castro transition that began this past Sunday, March 11th, with the National Assembly elections."

     This was the scene today at the Nairobi Airport as the plane carrying Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta left for Havana. The Nairobi Capital News.com featured this statement from President Kenyatta's spokesman Manoah Esepisu: "Cuba is dear to Kenya's heart. African libration movements began in the 1960s because the Cuban Revolution in 1959 inspired us that colonialism and apartheid racism did not have to exist forever." NOTE: With such frank coverage of President Kenyatta's trip to Cuba today, it is apparent that neither the Nairobi Capital News nor The Kenyan Daily Nation were required to seek the permission of anti-Cuban Counter Revolutionaries.

     The news conference in Havana depicted above signifies perhaps the greatest transition in Cuba since January 1, 1959 -- the historically famous...some say infamous...day the victorious Cuban Revolutionary chased the key leaders of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship to U. S. soil, mostly nearby Miami. This photo shows three top Cuban election officials answering questions about the Sunday-March 11th-2018 election of 605 National Assembly members, the Cuban parliament that will choose or at least crown the first non-Castro and the first non-revolutionary Cuban leader since 1959. While Americans, via a Cuban narrative in the U. S. mostly dictated by Counter Revolutionary Cuban exiles since 1959, have been taught to scoff at Cuba's one-party elections, Cubans on the island put a lot of stock in local municipal elections and in the National Assembly elections. That's why the news conference above, with key Cuban officials discussing Sunday's 7,399,891 votes, was vastly important to {1} Cuba's future; and {2} to the Cuban-exiles in the U. S. who have tried so mightily for six decades to regain control of the pugnaciously determined island.

    Sunday, March 11-2018 was a crucial day for Cuba as most adults on the island voted to elect its National Assembly members who will then, next month, decide Cuba's first non-Castro-led government since 1959. Knowing how important it is, Rosy Amaro Perez posted the above photo and caption on her Facebook page  -- a photo that shows the Cuban flag with the notation "for Cuba." As a superb young news anchor on Cubavision International television, the beloved and high-profile Rosy, with the image above, is making a very important statement, which is: Talented, intelligent, and highly educated Cubans like her ON THE ISLAND should predicate Cuba's future and not have it dictated by foreign Counter Revolutionary benefactors like Marco Rubio & Bob Menendez in the United States. A vast majority of Cubans ON THE ISLAND and even a clear majority of Cubans in Miami -- where she has family & friends -- agree with Rosy. Yet, she is abundantly aware that the likes of Marco Rubio & Bob Menendez -- like their Counter Revolutionary predecessors SINCE 1959 -- have huge advantages as they hide behind the financial & military skirts of the nearby world Superpower. And, perhaps even more significantly, they can hide behind an intimidated or incompetent mainstream U. S. media, which is incapable of providing both sides of the two-sided U.S.-Cuba conundrum. Additionally, the last two generations of unpatriotic or thoroughly propagandized or pusillanimous Americans will continue to allow a handful of self-serving miscreants in a Superpower assault 11 million more decent people on a nearby island nation. Rosy typifies the young-adult segment of Cubans who are determined not to capitulate to foreigners who seek imperialism, not sovereignty, for the stubborn but eternally targeted island. Well educated, healthy, talented, and fiercely patriotic, Rosy has visited Italy, Spain, France, & Portugal and she has family and friends in Miami. But she is a Cuban in Cuba.

    The Reuters photo above shows a Cuban voter yesterday -- March 11, 2018 -- getting instructions about his ballot at a voting station in Santa Clara, Cuba. Americans have been programmed to laugh at this key election in Cuba but the 8 million eligible Cuban voters considered it extremely important. That dichotomy in U.S.-Cuban thinking is typical and it also helps explain why, for six decades, Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders backed by the superpower United States have not been able to regain control of the island. There are 8 million Cuban adults on the island who cherish the sovereignty delivered to them in 1959 by the Cuban Revolution.  

      One of the very first Cubans to vote in Sunday's National Assembly elections was Cristina Alonso. She is shown casting her ballot at exactly 7:02 A. M. Sunday.

      By 11:00 A. M. on Sunday, March 11th, election official Tomas Amaran reported that 3,977,551 adult Cubans -- 45.51% of eligible voters -- had already voted Sunday.

     The President of Cuba's Electoral Commission, Alina Balseiro, said she expected 8 million Cubans to vote at the 24,000 voting stations posted all across the island.

     The 87-year-old Jose Ramon Machado Ventura is shown as he voted Sunday in far eastern Guantanamo Province. He is currently one of the five Cuban Vice Presidents and he has always been in the very highest echelon of revolutionary icons.

     This photo shows Rosy Amaro Perez and her 4-year-old daughter Mariana voting Sunday. Rosy, a talented television news anchor and very influential among the key young-adults on the island, staunchly believes that Cubans on the island should decide Cuba's future, not foreigners like Marco Rubio, and it all starts with the crucial elections of 605 National Assembly members today. Rosy maintains that the vast majority of Cubans on the island want to keep the island's "humanistic" system and that they will continue to resist being dictated to by foreigners. She believes most Cubans on the island will support the impending presidency of Miguel Diaz-Canel.

    The photo above shows Miguel Diaz-Canel observing a recent municipal election in Cuba. After Sunday's March 11th-2018 national election at 24,000 polling places across the island, the newly elected 605-member National Assembly in Havana will select Cuba's next President, its next First Vice President, and its next five Vice Presidents. The current First Vice President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, is in line to take over as Cuba's next President next month -- April 19th, 2018. Miguel was born 57-years-ago, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. So Miguel is not only a non-revolutionary, he is also a non-Castro. He loves motorcycles and the Beatles, and is a highly regarded educator. Except for Republican politicians, he likes Americans.

Miguel Diaz-Canel is well-liked by Cubans.

      Some knowledgeable Cuban insiders believe Miguel Diaz-Canel is far less tolerant of U. S. interference than current President Raul Castro, who at least worked closely with friendly U. S. President Obama. Miguel was convinced that the normalization of relations with the United States, fostered by Obama and Raul Castro, would have "been virtually complete" by now if, as expected, another Democrat had followed Obama in the White House. It is also known on the island that "the last straw" for Miguel "came on April 16, 2017 in Miami's Little Havana." That was when and where President Trump, "as far as Diaz-Canel is concerned," turned the U. S. Cuban policy back over to a handful of hardline Cuban-American extremists "and benefactors." Since then, Diaz-Canel has vowed not to "waste our time" negotiating with the U. S. because "that time could better be spent dealing with our friends." Thus, Diaz-Canel plans to stress a Vietnamese-style market economy in Cuba and to "take more advantage of the two prime American competitors willing to help us to hurt the U. S. and to gain more of a foothold in the USA's own backyard." The astute Diaz-Canel considers China and Russia as the USA's "prime" economic and military competitors, or threats, "for years to come."

     If a majority of the 8 million adult voters in Cuba preferred another U.S.-backed dictator, or even a U.S.-backed President, Miguel Diaz-Canel would not be destined to be Cuba's first non-Castro and non-revolutionary President since 1959. But one thing should not be over-looked: The sovereignty-loving Miguel plans to continue the revolution, not replace it. The photo above is courtesy of Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images. It was taken the day Miguel publicly stated: "The triumphal march of the revolution will continue.There will be peace, liberty, and independence; and it is our task to make sure that the sovereignty of the people will endure. I don't trust imperialism, not even a tiny bit." Americans, programmed to believe that most Cubans on the island desire a return of Miami Counter Revolutionaries, need to realize that most Cubans on the island hate Marco Rubio but love Barack Obama and Miguel Diaz-Canel. If that were not so, a Rubio-type would have regained control of Cuba long ago.

     While Americans are programmed to mock elections in Cuba, the majority of Cubans on the island...from the municipal to national levels...put much stock in them. The last two generations of Cubans on the island, since 1959, know all about the necessity of the Cuban Revolution, meaning they know the difference between the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia rule and the Fidel Castro-dictated revolutionary rule. While Cubans, like other citizens, have revolutionary complaints, they also relish free and good educations through college and free and good health care for life, as well as other revolutionary innovations such as overall safety and a minimum of crime. All those features were the exact opposite of what everyday Cubans had during the Batista-Mafia reign. The Cuban narrative in the U. S., dictated by Batistiano-Mafiosi elements since 1959, has shamed the U. S. and Democracy even more than it has harmed Cuba. For example, the Trump administration, at the behest of Counter Revolutionary benefactors like Senator Marco Rubio from Little Havana in Miami, recently declared Cuba "unsafe" for American tourists, a scheme to curtail the record number of Obama-inspired U. S. tourists visiting the island. The same week that announcement began to indeed harm Cuban tourism, the highly respected International Tourism Fair in Madrid announced that "Cuba is the safest country in the world for tourists." And that same week Chris Baker, the Brit who is the world's top Travel Writer, agreed with the Madrid pronouncement. So, somebody is lying and, for sure, neither Madrid nor Chris Baker had any cause to lie about Cuban tourism.

      Yet, to America's democratic shame, for two generations America's Cuban policy and America's Cuban narrative have both been almost exclusively dictated by only a handful of self-serving Counter Revolutionary extremists like today's slanted iteration of Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Bob Menendez. Neither the mainstream U. S. media nor the U. S. citizens raised an eyebrow recently when Rubio was the Chair and Menendez was the Co-chair of a Senate session that stressed hurting everyday Cubans by rolling back Cuban positives that a braver and more decent President Obama had orchestrated. Such Rubio-Menendez mendacity against Cuba, decency, and democracy has been par-for-the-course since 1959 thanks to the cowardice or lack of patriotism on the part of two generations of American citizens.

   Pugnacious little Cuba has survived in revolutionary form since 1959. By doing so, it has done something far bigger nations -- such as Mexico or Canada -- could not have done facing the same unchecked obstacles from the nearby world Superpower.

      The U. S. embargo against Cuba was installed in 1962 after the Bay of Pigs military attack and dozens of assassination attempts against Fidel Castro in 1961, not to mention numerous and often deadly terrorist attacks from 1959 into 1962, had failed to quickly recapture the island for the Batistianos, Mafiosi, and rich American businessmen who had profited so majestically in Cuba from 1952 till 1959. The Carlos LaTuff image of the embargo as shown above still does not embarrass unpatriotic or propagandized Americans. And neither does the now declassified U. S. documents that prove the intention of the embargo from 1962 till today was: To starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their government. But like the Bay of Pigs attack; like the terrorism; and like countless assassination attempts, the Embargo has failed although indeed it has greatly harmed everyday Cubans on the island while also reminding them why they do not want a return of the U.S.-backed Batistianos and Mafiosi pillaging their island.

     And that's why on the eve of Sunday's important national elections on in Cuba Rosy Amaro Perez posted the photo above on social media so she could highlight the Cuban flag and the words "por Cuba," or "for Cuba." As a superb television news anchor, Rosy sometimes criticizes her revolutionary government on the air and in the social media but she, like most of the other young adults on the island, is a fierce defender of both the Revolution and the sovereignty it finally brought to the island on January 1, 1959...the same day that the Revolution also quite markedly changed America by chasing the rich and revengeful Batistianos-Mafiosi leaders to American soil from which most of them -- including Floridians Fulgencio Batista and Meyer Lansky -- had emerged in 1952 as the new and most devious U.S.-backed dictators of Cuba. Rosy has both family and friends in Miami who often visit her in Havana, but there is not enough money in rich Miami to persuade her to forsake the island...and, yes, the Revolution...that she so sincerely loves and cherishes.

       And so today -- March 12, 2018 -- there was a national election in Cuba to choose the National Assembly that will, next month, choose the island's first non-Castro leader since 1959. The 9 young Cuban women above...that's Rosy Amaro Perez 4th from the right...believe THEY should have more to say about Cuba's future than self-serving Counter Revolutionaries like MARCO RUBIO basking in a foreign country. In the last year of the Obama presidency -- in 2016 -- the nations of the world voted 191-to-0 in the United Nations to support Rosy's views, not Rubio's. In 2018 it's perhaps time all Americans agreed with 191, not zero, even if to do so took a little courage.

      After all, the Cuban flag waving in the Caribbean breeze today -- on March 12th, 2018 -- is a sovereign flag. The 500 years of imperial Spanish and American rule finally ended in 1959.

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A Pretext to Hurt Cuba

Hastily Devised In Trump White House!
{Updated: Saturday, March 10th, 2018}

     The image above, I believe, illustrates the greatest weakness of the United States democracy -- WHICH IS a propaganda-obsessed and pundit-driven mainstream U. S. media at a time when Americans are in desperate need of fair and unbiased journalism, not a preponderance of self-ordained journalists masquerading as propagandists. Peter Brown is the highly respected Commander of the United States Coast Guard Seventh District in Miami. He is among many of the very decent military and political U. S. officials who frequently point out how important it is for the United States and Cuba to work cohesively together for the mutual benefit of all Americans and Cubans. Such sanity, of course, would correct a half-century in which America's Cuban policy has been dictated by a small cabal of extremists from the Batista-Mafia dictatorship whose leaders were booted off the island in January of 1959 only to align with a handful of self-serving right-wing U. S. politicians. Peter Brown this week represented the U. S. Coast Guard in another productive meeting with top Cuban officials held in Fort Lauderdale. Another such session this week was held in Key West, Florida. The topics concerned bilateral cooperative work on preparing for oil spills and otherwise protecting the marine environment in the region vital to both nations. Also discussed were well-known U.S.-Cuban cooperation related to drug and human trafficking in the Florida Straits. Peter Brown then said, "The session was held in a professional and mutually respected ambiance. This reflects cooperation for the protection of the marine environment in a region of great importance for both countries. Of course, the mainstream American media has neither the guts nor the competence to report on the daily cooperation of U. S. and Cuban officials regarding mutually positive engagements, which continue even with Batistiano-aligned Republicans in charge of the White House and Congress.

     While not having the courage or integrity to mention such things as the comments from the United States Coast Guard's Peter Brown, the mainstream American media bursts out of its seams to herald any grossly pernicious anti-Cuban schemes or proclamations from career Counter Revolutionary benefactors such as United States Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez. In a recent shameful display of how anti-democratic the United States government can be regarding Cuba, Rubio was the Chair and Menendez was the Co-chair of a Senate Foreign Relations-Western Hemisphere assault on former President Obama's decent Cuban overtures. The sheer fact that the gutless American media and the unpatriotic American citizenry permit such tactics decade-after-decade shames both America and Democracy.  

     The moment the Republican Donald Trump replaced the Democrat Barack Obama as President of the United States, anyone with an IQ as high as 10 knew that Trump would return America's Cuban polities back over to a mere handful of vicious Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans in Miami and in the U. S. Congress.

     Totally disregarding the opinion of most Americans, most Cuban-Americans, and the 191-to-0 unanimity vote in the United Nations, the photo above shows the day -- June 16, 2017 -- when President Trump officially turned his Cuban policy over to Miami  extremists. Brazenly and cowardly, Trump made the proclamation before the choir in Miami's Little Havana in the plush Artime Theater named for a leader of the 1961 Bay of Pigs military attack on Cuba. But when it comes to Cuba since the 1950s, Trump realized the last two generations of Americans have been too afraid, too propagandized, or too unpatriotic to challenge any Cuban military, terrorist, or diplomatic act, even though such policies are condemned by America's democracy-lovers and by America's best friends worldwide. Of course, when you are Commander-in-Chief of the world's nuclear Superpower and also have a veto vote in the UN, you can easily revert back to the Cuban policies dictated since the 1950s by right-wing thugs aligned with two generations of Counter Revolutionary Cubans.

    But, of course, to implement his June 16-2017 assault on Obama's decent Cuban policies, President Trump's minions had to devise a pretext. And actually, not surprisingly, it was not exactly an intelligent or believable pretext. To curtail the vital increase in Cuban tourism that Obama had made possible, and to blunt the Washington and Havana embassies that Obama had reopened for the first time since 1961, the Trump geniuses claim that Cuba was purposely somehow using sonic waves to injure the hearing and other senses of U. S. diplomats. Most unbiased observers instantly realized the Cuban government would be the very last entity to do such a vicious and stupid thing because it would be shooting itself in the foot...or head...because tourism was the island's lifeblood. Of course, Trump's Counter Revolutionary friends in Miami and in Congress fully realized that. But, Trump's State Department "warned" Americans that Cuba was "unsafe" to visit. At almost the exact same time, the highly respected monitor of international tourism -- The International Tourist Fair in Madrid, Spain -- announced that "Cuba is the safest nation in the world for tourists." After that announcement, the world's most respected Travel Writer, Britain's famed Christopher P. Baker, confirmed the salient Madrid proclamation.

    The Counter Revolutionary right-wing Fox Network on March 7th-2018 used the above photo of Counter Revolutionary Marco Rubio to headline a new article entitled: "Faulty Bugging Devices May Have Caused Mysterious Diplomat Illness in Cuba." I provide that title IF you want to dial it up online and read it but I strongly suggest that anything either Fox or Rubio says about Cuba is not the real truth.

      On the other hand, in the U. S. there are truly great journalists-historians who are universally considered unbiased Cuban experts that Americans can depend on for brave and true facts regarding U.S.-Cuban relations. In the top echelon of that class, of course, is Peter Kornbluh, the top Cuban expert at the U. S. National Archives in Washington. Kornbluh this week -- March 7, 2018 -- not surprisingly penned the top article updating the Trump administration's sonic wave pretext to justify its unjustifiable assault on innocent, everyday Cubans. I suggest that anything Peter Kornbluh writes about Cuba is something Americans should know, for America's and democracy's sake. His article yesterday was entitled: "What the U. S. Government Is Not Telling You About Those 'Sonic Attacks' in Cuba." In this article, easily dialed up online, Peter Kornbluh suggests, as he has done before, that Republicans in Washington never have to worry about their Cuban lies because they have reason to believe that American citizens and the mainstream U. S. media are too intimidated or too propagandized to challenge them. But great U. S. journalists and authors like Peter Kornbluh, Julia E. Sweig, Ann Louise Bardach, etc. have challenged them.

     In this week's article, the great Peter Kornbluh lambasted the Trump administration for using the "sonic waves" as the pretext to "warn Americans not to visit unsafe Cuba." Here are some exact words written by Peter Kornbluh: "Predictably, these travel warnings have led to significant cancellations at the Capri and the Nacional, as well as a significant drop-off in overall U. S. visitors to the island. That might not have been the case if the Trump administration had been transparent and honest about what happened in Cuba, instead of exploiting the troubling situation to sabotage normalized relations." Also, Peter Kornbluh pointed out this fact: "The first four Americans to report being struck by the phenomenon were all CIA officers working under diplomatic cover, as were two others affected later on." In other words, as a truly, incontrovertible, and unbiased American expert like Peter Kornbluh would know, Counter Revolutionary forces in the U. S. since 1959 have readily concocted pretexts to justify self-serving anti-Cuban policies such as the Torricelli Bill, the Helms-Burton Act, etc., but ALSO terrorist attacks such as car-bombs in Miami, airplane bombs in the Caribbean, both boat-&-airplane strafings of Cuban coastline hotels, farms, fishing villages, etc. In a milieu in which such anti-Cuban tactics from U. S. soil have been accepted, there is no incentive at all for self-serving Republican administrations in Miami and in Washington to curtail drastic measures to regain control of Cuba. Peter Kornbluh, not Republicans in the White House or State Department, and certainly not the Counter Revolutionaries in Miami and in Congress, is the prime source for truth about United States-Cuba relations, truth not available in the mainstream media.

      It is interesting to note, I believe, that even many in the Trump administration have long ago determined that Cuba would not purposely hurt Cuba by stupidly harming U. S. diplomats or even CIA operatives in Cuba when Cuba urgently needs as many U. S. tourists as it can get, which was a record number till Trump replaced Obama. But as Kornbluh, Sweig, Bardach, and other true U. S. experts on Cuba realize, Counter Revolutionaries in the U. S. for decades have devised innumerable pretexts to justify their military, terrorist, and political assaults on Revolutionary Cuba.

     America's great democracy consists of a two-party system and neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have decent approval ratings with polls showing that most Americans would like at least a third alternative, not a lesser-of-two-evils choice. But only Republican administrations -- in both the White House and in Congress since the 1950s -- have turned America's Cuban policy over to only the most vicious and self-serving Counter Revolutionaries such as the three current Miami members of the U. S. Congress shown above -- Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. But American citizens, out of cowardice or a lack of patriotism, who have allowed this to persist for well over half-a-century are as much to blame as the revengers and the benefactors. What America is therefore left with is a 191-to-0 condemnation of its Cuban policy in the United Nations. That does not only include every one of America's and Democracy's best friends in this world but it is also the ONLY TOPIC that could possibly get such unanimity in a very, very diverse world.

And by the way:

      This week celebrated Womens Day in many countries. The great Associated Press photographer in Cuba, Desmond Boylan, posted this image on his Facebook/Instagram pages. It shows Cuban female soldiers marching.

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USA's Anti-Cuban Friends

Trump-Rubio Seeking More!
{Updated: Thursday, March 8th, 2018}

Photo credit: AP/Luis Soto.

     The photo above was featured in an article by the London Telegraph entitled: "Guatemalan Clown Who Went On To Become President." Indeed, Jimmy Morales was a famous comedian in Guatemala before he became President on January 14th, 2016. He is called "Guatemala's Donald Trump" and, for sure, there are many parallels, and not just the fact they were both television stars. Supported by the conservative Guatemalan military, Jimmy Morales had just one major opponent and that was former First Lady Sandra Torres. Crime-ridden Guatemala, however, wanted a non-establishment politician and that surely fit the Guatemala Clown's profile, so Jimmy Morales won the election with 72% of the vote about the same time the USA's former First Lady, the prototypical establishment politician Hillary Clinton, was gifting the U. S. Presidency to the long-shot Donald Trump. But beyond all that, the photo above of the 48-year-old Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, also known as Guatemala's Clown, reflects the shifting sands of political hierarchies in Latin America, sands that Trump and his prime anti-Cuban pal Marco Rubio are busy sifting to gather more-and-more anti-Cuban allies in the region. It seems to be working in Guatemala and elsewhere.

   Guatemala's President Jimmy Morales...the more presidential pose above is courtesy of Wikipedia...seems desperately to be courting the U. S. in an effort to dip more deeply into U. S. foreign aide tax dollars. That, like several other Latin American nations, means Guatemala might be willing to sell off Cuba to satisfy Trump and the Miami-Cuban hardliners in Washington. Morales, by the way, survived corruption charges in Guatemala on his way to becoming President. In fact, his older brother and key adviser, Sammy Morales, was arrested on corruption and money laundering charges. But, hey! That's no REAL problem.

     Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales is shown above being warmly greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Israel's AIPAC convention. AIPAC is by far the richest and most powerful lobbying source in American history, powerful enough to dominate U. S. politics. In fact, although it's not politically correct to say so, AIPAC is one reason that former President Obama had less power in the Republican-controlled U. S. Congress than Netanyahu had, a fact Obama learned when he TRIED to prevent Netanyahu addressing Congress at a crucial point leading up to the presidential election. That being said, note the Morales-Netanyahu handshake above after Morales was invited to the AIPAC USA convention. So now, Guess What? Guatemala's President, Jimmy Morales, has just announced at AIPAC that he is following Trump's and Netanyahu's very controversial decision to move Guatemala's Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

     This photo taken Sunday, March 4, 2018, is courtesy of Prime Minister Netanyahu's office and shows Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales speaking at the AIPAC convention. That speech bodes ill-will for Cuba because it shows that Morales will, like Netanyahu, also follow Trump's antipathy towards Cuba.

     This Jimmy Morales-Benjamin Netanyahu photo was taken in Washington Sunday, March 4th, 2018. It too bodes ill-will for Cuba. As mentioned, Morales survived corruption charges and being a comedian in Guatemala to become President when his rival was a former First Lady. Well, while he and AIPAC reign totally supreme and unchallenged in the U. S., back home in Israel Netanyahu is undergoing massive corruption charges, an ongoing news item the U. S. media, of course, ignores.

      And this photo too bodes ill-will for Cuba. It shows U. S. President Trump greeting Guatemalan President Morales as U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson looks on in the background. Cuba believes Tillerson himself recently flew to Jamaica, the island due south of Cuba, to line up regional support for the Trump administration's economic war on Cuba. The Trump-Morales handshake in Washington on March 4-2018 portents, it appears, that the Republican White House and the Republican Congress this first full week of March-2018 is bursting with anti-Cuban allies.

      Shortly, in April-2018, Raul Castro, tired and nearing his 87th birthday, will retire as Cuba's President and leave Havana for the other end of the island, near Santiago de Cuba, where he and his late brother Fidel always felt most comfortable. Raul, after taking over from the very ill Fidel in 2008 as Cuba's President, has surprised many people by grooming a non-revolutionary, Miguel Diaz-Balart, as his successor.

     As Cuba's President, Raul Castro also surprised many people by working very closely...on the phone mostly but also in person...with the United States President Barack Obama to normalize relations between the two nations.

     But all the heady normalization hopes for Cuba and for America died on June 16-2017 when the new U. S. President, Donald Trump, went to Little Havana in Miami and held court before the Counter Revolutionary choir in a building, the Manuel Artime Theater, named for a leader of the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba. In that setting, as shown above, President Trump signed an executive order reversing much of President Obama's Cuban advances. The Counter Revolutionary choir that cheered the reversal included two members of the U. S. Congress from Miami -- Mario Diaz-Balart, shown peering directly down over Trump's right shoulder, and Marco Rubio, standing third from the right. Mario's father was a powerful Minister in the Batista dictatorship and, after 1959, a rich and powerful Counter Revolutionary in South Florida. Marco reached the U. S. Senate still claiming his parents fled the Castro tyranny in Cuba when, in fact, they fled the Batista tyranny in Cuba long before the Revolutionary triumph chased the Batistianos to Miami. Today most of the 2+ million Cubans in the Miami area favor normalizing relations but it seems only vicious Counter Revolutionaries get elected to the U. S. Congress from Miami.

     Trump's June 16-2017 appearance at the Manuel Artime Theater in Miami's Counter Revolutionary Little Havana bastion was the last straw for Cuba's next President, Miguel Diaz-Canel. The photo above shows Diaz-Canel glancing around at Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. It is known that Diaz-Canel has informed Rodriguez about how he feels about Trump's mission to Little Havana.

     Meanwhile, poor little Cuba hopes its tiny, sovereign flag can continue to wave in the Caribbean breezes at least until next month when Miguel Diaz-Canel becomes the first non-Castro and the first non-revolutionary to be Cuba's leader since 1959.

     Future President Miguel Diaz-Canel is considered more anti-American than out-going Cuban President Raul Castro, who at least worked closely with former U. S. President Obama in trying to normalize relations between the two neighboring nations. But Diaz-Canel? He thinks Cuba working with Obama was "time wasted that we could have been spending with friendlier nations because the United States has only a billionaire-controlled two-party system and one of them is the Republican Party."

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The Transition in Cuba

For Better or Worse!!

     Probably the best journalist-photographer at the Miami Herald is Mimi Whitefield. Revolutionary Cuba, with ample reason, considers both the Miami Herald and Mimi Whitefield to be Counter-Revolutionaries. Yet, Revolutionary Cuba allows Mimi Whitefield to routinely visit the island on behalf of the Miami Herald and routinely interview everyday pro revolutionary Cubans as well as...and especially...anti-government dissidents. Yet, Mimi Whitefield and the Miami Herald routinely brand Revolutionary Cuba "a closed society." With the first post-Castro transition in six decades about to take place in Cuba, Mimi Whitefield was back on the island this week, primarily interviewing dissidents for an article entitled: "As the Selection of a New President Approaches, Cubans Say They Want Meaningful Change." As far as Mimi Whitefield and the Miami Herald are concerned, "Meaningful Change" means a return of Cuban-exile Miami extremists in the dominant leadership roles on the island.

      Mimi Whitefield's Counter-Revolutionary article this week in the Miami Herald  included many of her photos of dissidents, but as if as a token she included her photo above of three freshman pharmacy students at the University of Havana. Shown on the left, Laura de Leon had some mild pro-government comments, pure tokenism. But that's a bit refreshing because normally the Cuban narrative in the United States, especially from Miami, only presents the viewpoints of dissidents on the island and Counter-Revolutionary extremists in Miami and in the U. S. Congress. So, this week let it be registered that Mimi Whitefield and the Miami Herald included a pro-Cuban comment from student Laura de Leon, and a token is better than nothing.

     The Mimi Whitefield-Miami Herald article from Havana this week was topped by this Ramon Espinosa/AP photo. That's President Raul Castro in the middle checking his watch, a very apropos metaphor considering that time is running out for a Castro as the leader of Cuba. The iconic Fidel died at age 90 on Nov. 15-2016 and the tired 86-year-old Raul is retiring as President next month. Revolutionary icon Esteban Lazo Hernandez is shown on the far left but it is the non-revolutionary Miguel Diaz-Canel, at Raul's left-side in this photo, that will be Cuba's next President. The aforementioned Mimi Whitefield article pointed out, in somewhat of an understatement, that the Raul-to-Miguel transition takes Cuba "toward an uncertain future." Ms. Whitefield also wrote this interesting sentence: "Raul Castro, 86, plans to retire and apparently move to Santiago de Cuba, the cradle of the revolution, on the other end of the island."

    The photo above and the next two below are courtesy of www.cubatravel.cu/en. They reflect the fact that Cuba, left to its own devices in the post-Castro era, has vast potential...including in the economic sphere. Incoming President Miguel Diaz-Canel is determined to employ major elements of a Vietnamese-style market economy. He also plans to de-emphasize U. S. relations and re-emphasize engagements with friendlier nations, including the two major anti-U.S. competitors China and Russia. And, as the above photo indicates, there are many, many U. S. companies -- including cruise lines and airlines based in Florida -- eager to tap into Cuba's stifled economic potential.

    Not only is Cuba the largest Caribbean island, it is awesomely beautiful and arguably the most pristine and intriguing tourist attraction. For example, its crystal-clear waters are considered by USA experts as the most environmentally friendly shores and beaches in the region because the revolutionary government has maintained the area's most rigid environmental protections. And even the Counter-Revolutionary Trump administration continues to cooperate with Cuban experts in regards to the environment, the threat of oil spills, anti-drug trafficking, and human trafficking.

Cuba's uniquely clear waters.

     In other words, this week's Mimi Whitefield-Miami Herald article, which included one token pro-Cuban university student among a more volatile mishmash of the usual Havana suspects and dissidents, is a reminder of two basic Cuban facts: {1} The pugnacious island has been a rather formidable U. S. opponent since 1959; and {2} the imminent transition to a post-Castro rule could mean that Cuba might evolve into a very important U. S. friend and ally. Yet, right-wing Republican thugs in Miami and in Washington -- with little resistance from the U. S. media and its citizens -- will try for another 60 years to capture the whole map shown above, not just Guantanamo Bay!!

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Cuba's Impossible Journey

And A Unique Survival!!

     If you take time to study the above logo you may begin to comprehend the impossible...not just improbable...survival of Revolutionary Cuba since 1959. CARICOM since 1973 has been a mutually beneficial "community" of Caribbean nations. It currently consists of 15 Members, 5 Associate Members, and 8 Observer Members, with the latter 8 nations merely having some relationship with actual Caribbean nations. While CARICOM today embraces 28 nations, Cuba -- the largest Caribbean island -- is not one of them. That relates to the omnipotent economic & military power of the USA, which since 1959 has supported the most vicious vestiges of the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship in its never-ending goal of destroying and recapturing Cuba. The fact that hasn't happened in the past 6 decades reflects one of the world's most improbable and impossible phenomenons -- the mere survival of Revolutionary Cuba, the nearby island that so pugnaciously has defied the world's Superpower every day for six decades. To put that in perspective...it is highly unlikely that much larger nations -- including Canada and Mexico -- could have survived the economic, military, and terrorist assaults that Cuba has endured since 1959. And nations like Canada and Mexico, instead of being targeted by the U. S., have greatly benefited from being two vital U. S. trade partners.

       If you re-read the CARICOM logo, note that its theme is "A Community for All." Of course, all EXCEPT Cuba. The isolation of Cuba is because the 15 Members, 5 Associates, and 8 Observers meekly succumb to the threats of a few vicious anti-Cuban Batistianos-Mafiosi located in Miami and in the United States Congress.

     In other words, the incomparable power of the United States economically and militarily supports or tolerates all the CARICOM nations except Cuba, and since 1962 the United States officially -- based on de-classified U. S. documents -- has tried to starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of Cubans on the island to appease a handful of Cuban exiles and their easily acquired rogue sycophants within the bowels of the American government. It you study the 15-member Caribbean nations shown above, rest assured that none of them could have survived the antagonism from the nearby world Superpower that Cuba has alone survived for the past six decades.

      A few weeks ago -- on Feb. 7th, 2018 -- U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson flew to Jamaica, the island due southeast of Cuba. Both Cuba and the Jamaica Observer assumed that Tillerson's Jamaican trip was to use U. S. muscle to "firm-up regional partners" in  Rex Tillerson's effort to "strangle the Cuban ecnomony."

     The Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness, is Cuba's friend. But U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seems well aware that the U. S. economic power can purchase even Cuba-friendly leaders in the Caribbean in the latest U. S. effort to starve, deprive, and make miserable Cubans on the island. Tillerson, prior to becoming President Trump's anti-Cuban Secretary of State, was the Top Man at oil giant ExxonMobil. Thus, Tillerson as well as ExxonMobil appear aligned in the Miami-Congress-White House effort to reconquer Cuba. The Jamaica Observer, the best Caribbean newspaper, even hints that Tillerson on behalf of ExxonMobil discussed with Prime Minister Holness the OIL advantages for nations helping to hurt Cuba.

     For example, yesterday -- Wednesday, Feb. 28th, 2018 -- the Houston Chronicle used the photo above to illustrate EXXON-MOBIL's burgeoning oil interests in the Caribbean, which one day may include Cuba if Revolutionary Cuba is defeated. ExxonMobil yesterday heralded its "7th" major oil discovery in the waters of Guyana, which is a northeastern South American nation but if you re-visit the CARICOM map above you will see that Guyana is also one of the 15 CARICOM members. ExxonMobil has just discovered more oil in Guyana's Pacora Well after drilling down 18,363 feet in 6,781 feet of water, according to ExxonMobil's own figures. And yesterday ExxonMobil announced that Guyana's oil production now "exceeds 500,000 barrels daily." According to the Jamaica Observer, Secretary of State Tillerson's visit to Jamaica was to remind "regional United States partners" of the help they can receive if they help the United States starve, deprive, and make miserable Cubans in Cuba, a process that has existed officially from Washington since 1962, and a process that long ago would have doomed many nations much, much larger than Cuba.

 The Carlos Latuff graphic above accurately reflects how all the Caribbean nations...and all the nations of the world as reflected by the 191-to-0 UN vote...feel about the U. S. embargo of Cuba that was first imposed in 1962 to INDEED starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of Cubans in Cuba. In 2018 -- 6 decades AFTER the continuous Cuban embargo was first imposed -- U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's recent visit to Jamaica apparently was designed to tighten the USA's stranglehold on the island of Cuba even more. After all, Rex Tillerson surely realizes that the Batistiano-controlled Cuban narrative in the United States will assure that this generation of Americans is too ignorant, too timid, and too unpatriotic to give a damn about rich and revengeful thugs in a Superpower starving, depriving, and making miserable two generations of totally innocent people in a much weaker nation.

      For sure, Fidel Castro wasn't supposed to live to be 90-years-old, but he did. And his Cuban Revolution wasn't supposed to live for six decades and counting, but it has. The question for Democracy Lovers is this: How in the hell did it happen?? I believe the best answer was provided by the great revolutionary heroine, Celia Sanchez.

     To quote Celia Sanchez: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots." In other words, according to Celia Sanchez, the greatest architect/chronicler of the Cuban Revolution, she and the other rebels ran to the front-lines to fight while her enemies ran to Miami to hide behind the skirts of the world's mightiest Superpower.

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