Preying on Innocent Cubans

The USA's Unending Cuban Shame!!
{Updated: Sunday, June 3rd, 2018}

     As a democracy-loving American...self-proclaimed but also quite true...I subscribe to Smithsonian Magazine, which is a product of the Smithsonian Institution that is a classic symbol of Americana's unique greatness. But my last two editions -- the ones dated May-2018 and now June-2018 -- have reminded me of what I consider the TWO greatest blemishes on America and its cherished Democracy. Those two greatest blemishes are:

    {1} Allowing right-wing thugs in the Eisenhower administration to team the United States government with the highest echelons of the Mafia to support the brutal, thieving Batista dictatorship on the island of Cuba in 1952.

And

        {2} Allowing the overthrown U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba to quickly reconstitute its dictatorship on U. S. soil in January of 1959 with its new capital being Little Havana in the heart of Miami, Florida.

      I am, of course, abundantly aware that it is both politically incorrect and quite unhealthy to make those two aforementioned points, just as it was unhealthy in Miami when the decent Cuban-American newsman Emilio Milian complained about unchecked and rampant terrorist attacks on totally innocent Cubans, such as deadly hotel bombings to discourage tourism on  the island and such as the bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455 child-laden plane that killed all 73 on board and then was celebrated in the Miami media as "The biggest blow yet against Castro!!!" Opposing such things in Miami in 1976 got Emilio Milian car-bombed and, quite successfully, such things sent the clear message that Americans and Cuban-Americans should not oppose the reaffirmation of the ousted Batista-Mafia dictatorship on U. S. soil, first in South Florida and later in Washington, namely in the U. S. Congress and in all six Republican White Houses since 1959.

        And now, permit me to explain how the last two issues of Smithsonian Magazine are graphic reminders of how firmly established the Batistiano-Mafisoi dictatorship has been in the USA from January of 1959 until this day more than six decades after it was overthrown in Cuba.

Emilio Milian

Car-bombed in Miami in 1976.

 Eusebio Leal

Assaulted for being a great Cuban in 2018.

     In its May-2018 issue, Smithsonian Magazine featured an excellent 18-page article entitled The Man Who Saved Havana. In one of its summary sentences, Smithsonian stated: "As its greatest old buildings were falling down, a fearless historian named Eusebio Leal remade the city into a stunning world destination." That great man is the now 75-year-old Eusebio Leal, the internationally respected Havana Historian. Of course, as revealed by the new June-2018 issue of Smithsonian Magazine, the Counter Revolutionary Batistiano minority, which still insists on dictating America's Cuban policies and America's Cuban narrative, went ballistic just because a major U. S. magazine very correctly paid tribute to a Cuban in Cuba who has done remarkably good things for Cubans on the island...as opposed to Cubans in Miami who routinely for over six decades have done dastardly things to Cubans on the island. SO WHAT, as expertly documented by the May-2018 issue of Smithsonian Magazine, has a great man, Eusebio Leal, done to make things better for the Miami-maligned Cubans in Havana?

       The 18-page article in the May-2018 edition of Smithsonian Magazine that painted a positive image of Cuba was written by renowned travel writer Tony Perrottet and featured photos, like the one above, by Nestor Marti. Somehow the article escaped the purview of the Miami Batistianos who, since 1959, have vehemently demanded that only they can dictate America's Cuban narrative. But after the publication, of course, they unleashed their vitriol and demeaned everything associated with an update on Cuba that Americans simply are not surpposed to be exposed to. The photo above shows the magnificent 5-star Hotel Manzana Kempinski in Havana. It is one of many formerly dilapidated, rundown buildings that, in the past three decades, Eusebio Leal has restored to a grandeur far exceeding its original structure or intent.

       The 18-page Smithsonian article used this map to delineate 15 of the buildings in OLD HAVANA that Leal has remade into magnificent jewels, with the Hotel Manzana Kempinski pinpointed in the left-central  portion of the map just northeast of Leal's beautifully refurbished Capital Building. The article minutely details how, incredibly, Leal has managed to secure the financial wherewithal to carry out the startling refurbishing of so many formerly rundown buildings. Everyone of the pages and photos in the long article infuriated the Miami extremists who apparently believe Smithsonian should praise the terrorist bombers of Cuban hotels, airplanes, coastal fishing cabins, etc., but not the re-builder Leal. For example, the June-2018 edition of Smithsonian Magazine that arrived in my mailbox this week included this denunciation of the May-2018 article:

"HAVANA HERO?

In 'The Man Who Saved Havana' you do not take into consideration the reason Havana had fallen into disrepair. Fidel Castro came to power in January 1959. At that time, the city was considered the "Pearl of the Antilles." Yet by the mid-1970s it was a slum. The work of Eusebio Leal was the product of a Communist regime. As a Cuban-born American citizen, I am saddened that this man today is considered a hero.

MARIA MATILDE MENOCAL/Miami, Florida"

      Because exiles from the Batista-Mafia dictatorship have dictated the Cuban narrative in the United States since 1959, Americans are not supposed to comprehend the extreme poverty among the majority and everyday Cubans from 1952 till 1959. But that fact is well documented, including by a plethora of photos like the one above. All the while poverty like this was being ignored by Batista and the U. S. government, extreme wealth was being extracted from Cuba by the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and leading U. S. companies. In other words, as the Cuban-born Miami citizen who assailed the Smithsonian article pointed out, Americans are supposed to "take into consideration" only what they are told by a handful of extremists exiles to CONSIDER!!

      Americans are also not supposed to comprehend the plethora of photos from Batista's Cuba like the ones above. They reveal the primary cause of the Cuban Revolution and it wasn't the aforementioned poverty. It was, incredibly, the murders of Cuban children apparently intended to discourage dissent. Well, the childhood murders encouraged the start of the Revolution that chased the rich Batistianos & Mafiosi to regroup their dictatorship on U. S. soil.

    And from U. S. {Miami} soil, starting in January of 1959, Cuban exile-terrorists, many in the employ of the CIA and the U. S. military, committed horrendous terrorist acts against innocent Cubans. Perhaps the most famous -- although Americans are not supposed to consider it -- was the terrorist bomb that blew the child-laden civilian Cubana Flight 455 into the ocean on October 6, 1976, killing all 73 on board.

       To this day, in Cuba and elsewhere in the Caribbean, there are memorials honoring the victims of Cubana Flight 455. But Americans are not supposed to consider them -- not even when the famed longtime CIA/Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles died a few days ago -- on May 23rd, 2018 -- at age 90 in Miami.

      And so, when a great American magazine, Smithsonian, spends 18 pages in May of 2018 to document what a truly great man 75-year-old Eusebio Leal is, the U. S. democracy is typically soiled by Cuban-American extremists who defame the article because Mr. Leal is a Cuban in Havana, not a Cuban in Miami's Little Havana. Purblind, propagandized, and intimidated Americans and Cuban-Americans, for over six decades, have been programmed to ignore everything about Cuba except what a handful of Counter Revolutionary extremists TELL THEM to think.

     The Smithsonian photo above shows today the once-dilapidated Hotel Ambos Mundos after Eusebio Leal oversaw its refurbishment. Back in the 1930s Ernest Hemingway wrote "For Whom the Bell Tolls" in a room at the Hotel Ambos that he rented for $1.50 a day. Leal, the famed Havana Historian, is directly responsible for the way Hotel Ambos and dozens of other historic buildings look so beautifully today in Old Havana as opposed to the way the miscreant perpetrators of terrorist attacks and the U. S. embargo against Cuba want them to look. A hero like Eusebio Leal who can achieve so much while being opposed every step of the way by vicious Counter Revolutionaries hiding behind the skirts of the nearby world superpower IS A HERO.

   This beautifully Leal-rebuilt building spotlighted by Smithsonian is the Palacio del Segundo Cabo and it is now the center for Cuban-European Union relations. The 28-nation EU has emerged as Cuba's main trading partner. The Smithsonian Magazine article and photos highlighting why Eusebio Leal is "The Man Who Saved Havana" helps explain why the Counter Revolutionary zealots in Miami and in the U. S. Congress so adamantly demand that Americans are the only people in the world who do not deserve the freedom to visit Cuba, lest they judge it for themselves.

       As both America and Cuba try to survive the post-Obama Trump-era in the United States, arguably the most important friend Cuba has in the world is Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the 28-nation European Union. In the photo above taken earlier this year, Cuba's hero Eusebio Leal is pointing out to Mogherini one of his newly refurbished buildings in Old Havana.

      The EU's powerful executive Federica Mogherini is shown here chatting with Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. Because of her abiding interest in Cuba and her fierce condemnation of America's Batistiano-directed Cuban policies, Mogherini and Rodriguez have met this year in three different capital cities -- Havana, Brussels, and Geneva. She calls the U. S. embargo of Cuba "cruel, insane, and illegal." That, of course, is an apt description of the embargo that the U. S. has shamefully imposed on the Cuban people since 1962. Decent people the world over, including former U S. President Obama, totally agree with Mogherini's depiction, as registered by the 191-to-0 UN condemnation when Obama himself condemned it. Yet, a Batistiano-controlled U. S. Congress is allowed to dictate, decade after decade, a Cuban policy that shames America and belittles Democracy. Because of Federica Mogherini, the European  Union has recently signed economic deals with Cuba designed to help the island survive Trump and the Embargo....but, as always, it's an uphill struggle for the vulnerable nation that lies just across the Florida Straits from vile, unchecked enemies who hide behind the skirts of the world's superpower. 

      Like a majority of Cubans on the island, the EU's Federica Mogherini is a strong supporter of Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel. Since taking over as the island's leader on April 19th, Diaz-Canel has had to deal not only with the Miami-Washington belligerence of the Batistiano-dictated Trump administration but just in the past two weeks a plane crash on the edge of Havana killed 101 Cubans and just in the last few days at least four Cubans have died from the continuing devastation of Hurricane Alberto, which has destroyed over 100 homes in Diaz-Canel's hometown Villa Clara region while also destroying or severely damaging homes, bridges, etc., in key cities such as Havana, Trinidad, Cienfuegos, Matanzas, etc. International friends like Mogherini help Cuba as best they can during such tragedies but Mogherini is not afraid to tell the world, "When Cubans on the island are hurting the most, it seems that's when the American-based enemies of the Cuban people, with Washington's acquiescence and assistance, try their hardest to strangle these beautiful people on this beautiful island."

      And so, while 75-year-old Eusebio Leal is considered a hero by the Cuban people, by decent people like Federica Mogherini, by the brave people at Smithsonian Magazine, etc., he's considered a pariah by the handful of USA Counter Revolutionaries in Miami and Washington.

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Cuba-USA in 2018

Updating the Clashes!!

     This week -- on May 28th, 2018 -- Memorial Day was celebrated in the USA. In hundreds of ceremonies and in thousands of other ways, Americans paid tribute to America's fallen military heroes and heroines. But throughout the day CNN repeated an excellent documentary entitled "1968" that graphically and correctly pointed out that warmongering U. S. military leaders in the 1960s did more to defame America than the heroes, the common soldiers, did to preserve and protect the USA's precious freedoms and the USA's pristine reputation that the Founding Fathers had envisioned and forged. The documentary suggested that 1968 was the pivotal year and the 1960s was the pivotal decade in America's modern history. The 1960s started with outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower, the Super World War II General, delivering on national television his famed "Military Industrial Complex" warning. Ike, after 8 years in the White House, realized that the biggest threat to the U. S. was internal, not external, and that threat came from warmongers who were able to start and profit from wars. Thus wars and the threat of wars fueled a military industrial complex that demanded vast expenditures on and mass profits from the manufacture and spread of weapons. The "1968" documentary recounted that year's murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy but stressed the bloody war-mongered Vietnam War, a lost cause and unmitigated disaster that resonates to this day after many thousands of young Americans were killed and many more thousands eternally maimed physically and mentally. But the lies and sordid pretexts that spawned and sustained the Vietnam War did, in fact, create the desired wealth for the warmongers who successfully sent young, innocent Americans to Southeast Asia to fight it...and to DISASTROUSLY lose it. And so, as far as the "1968" documentary was concerned on Memorial Day 2018, American citizens within the bowels of the U. S. democracy have grossly shamed the Founding Fathers who bequeathed to them what was the world's greatest and most respected form of government. Yet, as I take note of the Google animation of the twin U. S. flags depicted above, I am reminded that the Cuban Revolution and its aftermaths as constituted from 1952 till today, I sincerely believe, says even more about the United States than the Vietnam War or any other comparable event says.

     In 1952 -- the year the U. S. was fighting the bloody, unwinnable, and war-mongered Korean War -- right-wing thugs embedded in the Eisenhower administration teamed the U. S. democracy with the highest echelons of the Mafia to create and support the brutal, thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba. After that generation of U. S. citizens allowed that to happen, it has left an eternal and deleterious imprint on America.

     The Batista thugs, to stamp out dissent, engaged in the murders of children to serve as warnings. But brave Cuban mothers took to the streets in protests against Batista and in support of the nascent Cuban Revolution. The Mother Marches were pivotal.

      The extreme thievery and rampant murders carried out by the Batista-Mafia dictatorship spawned the first threat to a U.S.-backed dictatorship. The vicious poverty of the majority peasants contrasted with the wholesale rape and robbery of the island by the Batista and Mafia thugs in conjunction with wealth extracted by reputedly legitimate U. S. businesses. The poverty and mayhem were instrumental but the primary force and impetus for the revolution remained the murders of Cuban children. In the upper photo above, the mother in the center wearing the white jacket was the mother of little Willie Soler who was murdered, along with three of his peers, with their mutilated bodies left in an abandoned warehouse as a warning. Today a major children's hospital in Cuba is named for William Soler, a key revolutionary martyr.

      The Cuban Revolution shocked the world by overthrowing the Batista dictatorship on January 1, 1959. And its survival today is equally as shocking to the entire world.

 

      The exposed humiliation of losing the Cuban Revolution was eternally exacerbated for the United States when the leaders of the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship were allowed to reconstitute their rule on United States soil with their new capital becoming known as Little Havana in nearby MIAMI, FLORIDA.

     The thieving warmongers in the Eisenhower administration who had sicced the Mafia on Cuba in 1952 were, for the most part, still around in 1959 and still powerful enough to orchestrate that their overthrown Batista-Mafia allies in Cuba could set up shop on U. S. soil still fully backed by the U. S. government. The plan was to quickly recapture Cuba. Six decades later that plan is still in effect with humiliating failures that have included massive assassination attempts, the land-sea-air Bay of Pigs military attack in April of 1961, unchecked terrorist attacks including deadly hotel bombings to dissuade tourism and the bombing of the civilian and child-laden Cubana Flight 455 in 1976 killing all 73 on board, the car-bombing of the Miami Cuban-American newsman Emilio Milian who complained about such things, etc., etc., etc. And in 1962 the U. S. established what has become history's all-time longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a strong nation against a weak nation. That embargo exists to this day and neither the U. S. government nor the mainstream U. S. media want American citizens to know the reason the embargo was created in 1962 and maintained to this day in 2018. But, for the record, according to declassified U. S. documents the purpose for the embargo was and is to starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. It hasn't happened because three generations of Cubans on the island remember or have been told about the atrocities of the Batista dictatorship and they are well aware of the unchecked atrocities committed by the "refugees" from the Batista-Mafia dictatorship who, as noted above, "set sail across ninety miles of ocean and sought asylum in the United States." In addition to six decades of failed but bloody attempts to recapture Cuba for the U.S.-backed extremists, the refugees from the Batista-Mafia regime had enough wealth and enough U.S. government connections to totally and eternally overwhelm first Miami and then Washington politics, especially the U. S. Congress and all six Republican administrations in the White House since 1959.

       And that historic and topical backdrop takes us to the up-to-date Getty Images photo depicted above. It shows tourists in Havana and was used this week to illustrate an article in the Miami Herald entitled: "IF YOU HAD A GOOD TIME, THEN YOU REALLY DIDN'T SEE CUBA." It's a long article that you can dial up and every word is a vicious propaganda distortion that, shamefully, is typical of the U. S. media's capitulation to the Miami Cuban Mafia's dictation of America's Cuban narrative. A typical line states: "The caged people of a desperate nation seem to be crying out for salvation." Those of us who have been to Cuba and freely interacted with everyday Cubans are well aware that every word in such articles are self-serving, unmitigated lies...and that is precisely why there have been constant efforts and LEGAL LAWS to make it hard or impossible for Americans to visit one place on this planet -- CUBA. Such undemocratic laws, you see, make it much easier for the lucrative Castro Cottage Industry in the United States to say and do anything they please in regards to Cuba.

   The "journalist" who wrote the aforementioned article in the Miami Herald this week is Alex Lyda. He is described at the end of the article as "a freelance writer who frequently travels to Cuba." That was the Miami Herald's attempt to legitimize the slanderous article, which that so-called mainstream and unbiased newspaper in Miami paid for. But such routine and utter disregard for the truth and for the U. S. democracy is absolutely typical of what a mere handful of hard-line Cuban extremists have been permitted, by both the U. S. media and the U. S. government, to perpetrate on America -- essentially a rape and robbery similar to what the Batista-Mafia mob did in Cuba from 1952 till 1959. Alex Lyda is a joke as a journalist and the Miami Herald, quite typically, is utterly irresponsible for repeatedly printing such trash. Meanwhile, again illustrating an affront to democracy, the majority of the two million+ Cuban-Americans in the Miami area are decent, democracy-loving citizens who favor decent Obama-style relations with Cuba. Yet, Miami is incapable of sending a moderate Cuban-American to the U. S. Congress, a development that equates post-1959 Miami with what Havana was like from 1952 till 1959. America's best democracy-loving friends around the world are saddened and surprised that the U. S. democracy has, after all these decades, been unable to correct 1952's and 1959's assaults on America's democracy by the Batistianos and Mafiosi. This week's Miami Herald propaganda piece by that "freelance writer who frequently travels to Cuba" is a typical insult to America and to Democracy but, unfortunately, it typifies the overall harm orchestrated by right-wing thugs in Washington perpetually allied with the Cuban Mafia from 1952 till today & beyond.

Meanwhile:

     Many Americans, many Cubans, and many people around the world have suffered since January 17, 1961, which was the day outgoing U. S. President Dwight Eisenhower warned that the biggest threat to America was its own Military Industrial Complex. Pretexts to start wars or to kindle the prospects of wars were designed to enrich warmongers, as Eisenhower realized.

    Incredibly, Cuba's sovereign Revolutionary flag still waves in the Caribbean breezes. That is so even though the vulnerable island of Cuba has been the target of more USA PRETEXTS for war and other mayhem than any nation in the whole wide world.

     The man who actually invented the "A Pretext for War" term was the great author-investigative journalist James Bamford. In 2000 the now 71-year-old Bamford revealed that President Kennedy had inherited "Operation Northfields" and "Operation Mongoose" from the Eisenhower administration. The latter began the record number of assassination attempts against Fidel Castro and the former, unanimously proposed by the 7-member Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for such mayhem as the murder of innocent Americans so it could then be blamed on Cuba to serve as the PRETEXT for an all-out military attack on Cuba.

      In other words, Americans are not supposed to know about or worry about the next "Pretext for War" but, of course, they are expected to pay for it. World War II's 5-star General and two-term President Dwight Eisenhower understood war and the Pretexts  for war, as did truly great journalists like James Bamford.

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A 90th Birthday for Marta Rojas

    A great Cuban has celebrated a great birthday on the island. Marta Rojas turned 90-years-old a few days ago. She was born on May 17th, 1928, in Santiago de Cuba. As a revolutionary, a journalist, and an author, she is nonpareil as a Cuban treasure.

      The photo above shows Marta Rojas with Fidel Castro in the very early days of Revolutionary Cuba. Note her smile and his expression on that happy Cuban day.

          In December of 1959 it was Marta Rojas, as shown above, who introduced Fidel Castro for his very first television address to the Cuban people as their new leader.

    When I was in Cuba in 2004, with permission from the fiercely counter-revolutionary George W. Bush administration, to research Cuba's incomparable revolutionary heroine Celia Sanchez, the notable journalist Tracey Eaton told me that Marta Rojas knew more about Celia Sanchez, Fidel Castro, and the Cuban Revolution than any person on the planet. He also told me she was "one of the sweetest humans on the planet." Through Tracey I got to know Marta and all of Tracey's glowing introductory remarks were true. Graciously, she helped me with my biography of Celia Sanchez via email exchanges after I returned to Wyoming. As the planet's greatest expert on Celia Sanchez, Fidel Castro, and their remarkable Revolution, Marta told me in a 2005 email, "Since Celia died of cancer in 1980, Fidel has ruled Cuba only as he precisely believes she would want him to rule it." To this day, in my firm opinion, that is the most definitive sentence that has ever described the historic relationship between two of history's greatest revolutionary figures.

     The photo above shows Marta Rojas at age three on a hot day in Santiago de Cuba in 1931. The umbrella protected her from the tropical sun. Of all the people still alive today, no one worked more closely with Celia Sanchez and Fidel Castro as Marta did, and no living soul knows as much about Celia and Fidel as Marta does.

       As indicated above, two generations of Cubans have very wisely listened to Marta Rojas on issues related to either the Cuban Revolution or Revolutionary Cuba.

     Now at age 90, Marta Rojas, shown here on the right holding the microphone, still knows much more about the Revolution and today's Cuba than anyone else.

      And speaking of definitive quotations, The Woman Project.org believes that Celia Sanchez herself best defined the Cuban Revolution: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winnng the revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots." Of course, since 1959 the Cuban narrative in the United States compels Americans to disagree with Celia Sanchez but, from its start in 1952 until whenever it might end, history's greatest female guerrilla fighter and revolutionary leader knew far more about that unique event than all of America's counter-revolutionaries -- Celia's "enemies" -- ever thought about knowing. And that's why Celia Sanchez won and that's why her imprint to this day helps explain the startling longevity, against overwhelming odds, of history's most redoubtable revolution.

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Airplane Tragedy in Cuba

112 On Board Perished!
{Updated: Monday, May 28th, 2018}

      On May 18th a Cubana Airlines airplane that took off from Jose Marti Airport in Havana crashed on the edge of the capital city. There were 113 people on board and as of May 28th only one, 19-year-old Mailen Diaz, survived. The plane was a 39-year-old Boeing 737 leased from a small Mexican airline. The head of Cubana Aviation said that the 6-decade-old U. S. embargo, which restricts how Cuba deals with other nations and their companies, forces him to lease older planes as opposed to being able to purchase newer ones. The mainstream U. S. media, typically, has treated this enormous tragedy unfairly or mostly just ignored it. Perhaps the unkindest cut of all came from the New York Times when it quoted Radio-TV Marti, the vast tax-funded Counter Revolutionary anti-Cuban propaganda machine that has been based in Miami since the 1980s at grave expense to United States taxpayers and to America's prestige.

      Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, immediately went to the scene of the tragedy as shown above. On the media, he was the first to confirm to the Cuban people regarding the high death toll. After reaching the scene, he started by saying, "It's not promising." It was due to be a 435-mile Havana-to-Holguin flight.

      Of the 112 who tragically perished, 68 were from Holguin. That included Dr. Monica Leyva Garcia and her daughter Alexia who turned 15-months-old that day. Monica's husband and Alexia's father is a doctor at the Holguin hospital.

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Cuba's New Leader

Some Subtle Changes Already!!

     This interesting May 17-2018 photo reflects both monumental and subtle changes on the still-evolving island of Cuba. It shows the island's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel being warmly greeted by Cubans, the vast majority of whom genuinely like and support the former Education Minister's presidency. That's monumental. One of the early subtle changes on the island in the nascent Diaz-Canel era reflects his emphasis on stressing the importance of the Cuban media. He says, "Across the island our universities have contributed excellent journalists that serve the island. Our people are too smart and too well educated to be misled or lied to. Our media, both in print and in broadcasting, will be boosted to better inform our people and others with the truth, be it good or bad, about Cuba."

    This May 17th photo shows Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel getting support from everyday Cubans. The mainstream U. S. media -- and, of course, the most vicious and well-funded anti-Cuban blogs -- routinely claim that the Cubans are forced to fawn over their new leader. The primary people off the island spreading such distortions are the Cubans and their sycophants in the U. S. Congress who work so hard to keep Americans from visiting the island where they could judge it for themselves.

     In mid-May of 2018 in Diaz-Canel's Cuba a brand-new television station, Dominio Cuba, has debuted. Its first broadcasts, as shown above, featured reports and interviews conducted by Cuba's superstar broadcast journalist Cristina Escobar in Geneva, Switzerland. This one was on May 17th.

  This photo shows Cristina Escobar conducting an interview this week for Dominio Cuba on a street in Geneva, Switzerland. The report not only went back to Cuba but Dominio Cuba is designed to have a strong digital presence on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. 
   Cristina Escobar, considered by many to be the best Spanish-speaking and English-speaking broadcast journalist in the Western Hemisphere, is a huge supporter of President Diaz-Canel and, with her mentor Rosa Miriam Elizaldo, is also a major media official on the island as well as a special on-air talent.

  From Switzerland this week, Cristina Escobar explained what Cuba's highly ambitious new television channel, Dominio Cuba, is all about: "We live in a world where truth is built by the media, and those with the most power respond to groups that want to dominate political narratives. We seek to make visible the reality of different countries, like ours."

    The Cristina Escobar reporting this week from Geneva in both Spanish and English is so well-respected as a broadcast journalist that, during the Obama era in the U. S., she made history {above} by being the only Cuban journalist to ever ask questions at a White House news conference. After making such an impression in Washington and elsewhere, Escobar made further headlines with comments such as: "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington," and, "Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba." Now on Cuban television and also on leading Internet forums, Cristina Escobar has a new vehicle, Dominio Cuba, to try to tell Revolutionary Cuba's still-evolving story.

     It is clear that Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, has given the island's media leader, Rosa Miriam Elizaldo, the wherewithal to expand Cuba's image via Rosa's ambitious Dominio Cuba channel. Its Internet exposure has already provided dividends. And Rosa expertly emphasizes the island's talented array of young journalists, especially Cristina Escobar. Recently, Rosa has supervised Cristina and a strong technical crew on live reports from Lima, Peru, and Geneva, Switzerland.

The thoughtful Cristina Escobar.

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Cuba Adjusts to Trump-Rubio

And to Its Post-Castro Future!!
{Thursday, May 17th, 2018}

     The photo above and the following two, all taken by Louise Morgan, helped illustrate a major article written by Laurel Ives that originated on the Wallpaper.com Website this week -- on May 15th. It's entitled: "Cuba Revolution: A New Cuisine is Hot on the Heels of Its Latin American Counterparts." The excellent article reflects on the new Cuba led by new President Miguel Diaz-Canel. It's an example of insightful tidbits from the island that the mainstream U. S. media is simply not capable of presenting to the American people in a fair and unbiased manner.

      The aforementioned article reviews a new book published by Phaidon and entitled: CUBA: The Cookbook. Journalist Laurel Ives begins with these words: "Cuba has been known for many things over the years {cigars, mojitos, bright colours}, but not its culinary offerings. However, food on the tropical island has been undergoing something of a renaissance lately, with the arrival of new paladares {private restaurants in people's homes}, farmers' markets, and street food stalls. Imogene Tondre, co-author of a new book, CUBA: The Cookbook, says, 'There's a huge increase in restaurants and paladares, and they're innovating with creative takes on traditional dishes using local ingredients.'" That, simply speaking, is powerful news for an island nation severely targeted for over six decades by the nearby world Superpower.

      Both the informative article and book feature this Louise Morgan photo to illustrate newly innovative and creative cuisine now showing up in Cuba at public restaurants and paladares {which are wildly popular restaurants in private homes} that cater to the public. It may not sound like earth-shattering renovations but, in essence, it is. It is indicative of how emerging entrepreneurs on the island are reshaping Cuba, including the cuisine. But most of all, it reflects the fact that significant but subtle cultural and economic changes in Cuba can be sincerely reported by unbiased journalists and authors while the mainstream U. S. media is relegated to propagandizing only a negative Cuban narrative as dictated by extremists Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans based in Miami or entrenched in the U. S. Congress.

     That insult to the U. S. democracy, pervasive since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the Batista-Mafia dictatorship way back in 1959, is particularly prevalent when Republican administrations routinely designate extremist Counter Revolutionaries, such as Marco Rubio, as America's Cuban dictators. That trend has been continuous in six Republican administrations since 1959 with Trump's being #6. 

     Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, is perhaps more anti-Capitalism and anti-USA than were his predecessors, the iconic revolutionary Castro brothers. Faced with the U. S. embargo that has existed since 1962 and recently been reinforced by the efforts of Trump & Rubio to recapture Cuba for a few rich and powerful Batistianos, Diaz-Canel is supported by most Cubans on the island but he also knows he is expected to improve the island's economy that needs internal reforms, such as a one {and not a two} peso system...while also, of course, trying to cope with Counter Revolutionary Republicans in control of both the U. S. Congress and the White House.

    This photo -- taken this week in Geneva, Switzerland -- is also reflective of a new Cuba under a new leader, President Miguel Diaz-Canel. The image above shows Cuba's superstar journalist Cristina Escobar preparing to broadcast a live television report back to Cuba from Geneva on a brand-new television channel -- Dominio Cuba -- that debuted just a few days ago -- on May 13th, 2018. But Cristina had already earned her stripes as perhaps the best broadcast journalist in the Western Hemisphere, a reputation that apparently such notables as President Obama and NBC's Andrea Mitchell agree with. That's why Cristina made history as the only Cuban to ever ask questions at a White House news conference, which she dominated with 4 pertinent questions plus two follow-ups. As an anchor, reporter, and interviewer, she's nonpareil...and also a typical leader of the restive young-adult generation of Cubans who are determined to predicate the island's future.

     My friend Tracey Eaton, a highly respected journalist who was stationed in Cuba and now is a Professor at Flagler College in Florida, still does major interviews and articles from Cuba for such outlets as the Pulitzer Center, USA Today, etc. After he had interviewed a couple of Cuban dissidents, I suggested to him that he should interview Cristina Escobar on his next trip to Cuba, which he did and acknowledged my suggestion in the major article that followed. The image above is taken from Tracey Eaton's interview of Cristina and two videos from it are still posted on YouTube and on the Pulitzer Center website. After she made headlines at the White House news conference, Cristina, who is fluent in English, has spoken at American universities and has become a go-to Cuban for live interviews by international Spanish-and-English-speaking networks interested in U.S.-Cuban relations. Along the way, as on the video above, she has made additional headlines with two particular quotes: {1} "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington;" and {2} "Cuba journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about Cuba than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba." While Americans are severely programmed to not believe either of those statements by Cristina Escobar, unbiased and unintimidated journalists who actually report from Cuba tend to believe her and thus understand that the strengths of those beliefs, and resolves, is one reason the vulnerable island with the viciously determined northern Superpower neighbor has survived with its revolutionary rule for all these decades.

   This is a snapshot of the calm, brilliant Cristina Escobar making history at that White House news conference. As a journalist and as a visitor, Cristina is quite familiar with Washington, Miami, Alabama, California, etc. If Cristina would, by chance, defect to Miami, Rubio's quest to finally subdue Revolutionary Cuba would likely be realized in short order. But those chances of her defecting are more none than slim. Cristina Escobar is a Cuban who staunchly believes that "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington." That's the opposite of what Rubio believes as he ominously hides behind the skirts of America's economic and military might as well as the apathy of another generation of propagandized Americans.

     This photo was taken this week in Geneva, Switzerland, where Cristina Escobar is enjoying the scenery and the people while also sending excellent television reports, some in Spanish and some in English, back to Cuba {and her reports are available online via Facebook and other outlets} concerning important United Nations sessions taking place in Geneva. If revolutionary rule in Cuba continues to defy overwhelming odds and survive, it will be because the island's young-adult generation, as epitomized by Cristina, prefers Revolutionary-style sovereignty to anything resembling a foreign-dominated Batista, Mafia, or, yes, Rubio-style government. Of course, Rubio has about a billion-to-one advantage but well...it's been that way since 1959 and the island that produced legendary rebels like Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, Vilma Espin, Tete Puebla, etc., to fight the unbeatable Batista in the 1950s can still produce the likes of Cristina Escobar, still a rising star in 2018.

        Cristina Escobar: "Cuba's fate is up to Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami and Washington."

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