Is There Hope for Cuba?

At Least "A Glimmer" of Hope?

      A Cuban-American professor in the United States, Ninfa Floyd, penned a July 24th-2018 article that originated in the Lexington Herald Ledger. It's entitled: "Glimmer of Hope for Cuba's Future." Fidel Castro died at age 90 on Nov. 25-2016; Raul Castro, tired and frail at age 87, semi-retired on April 19th-2018; Barack Obama, the two-term Democratic Cuba-friendly U. S. President, left office on Jan. 20-2017; Donald Trump, the latest Republican U. S. President tightly aligned with Counter Revolutionary Cuban-American extremists, has been America's Commander-in-Chief for going on two years. And on April 19th-2018 a non-Castro born after the Revolution, Miguel Diaz-Canel, took over as President of Cuba. In that milieu -- similar to what has occurred in Miami's Little Havana since 1959 and in the U. S. Congress since the 1980s -- any "glimmer of hope" for Cuba has concerned surviving savage Republican-Batistiano-Mafia alliances since the 1950s. Perhaps the most damaging cancer the Cuban Revolution has embedded within the bowels of the U. S. democracy since 1959 has been the radical Batistiano dictation of the Cuban narrative in the United States. Therefore, feel free to dial-up Ninfa Floyd's "Glimmer of Hope" article. And then, to avoid being propagandized, totally ignore it.

      For the most part, the last top-notch journalist in the United States decent enough and brave enough to tell the truth about Counter Revolutionary Cubans was Emilio Millian. As the top Cuban-American newsman in Miami, Emilio railed against Counter Revolutionary terrorism against totally innocent Cubans on the island and in Miami...till he himself was car-bombed. That was back in 1976, the year extreme continuous terrorism included the bombing of the civilian Cuban airplane, Cubana Flight 455. And from 1976 till 2018 is a very long time for American and Cuban-American journalism to be without a replacement for someone of the caliber of Emilio Millian.

 Since 1959...and especially since 1976...Americans have been lectured daily by the likes of Humbeto Fontova about the sheer sweetness of Batista's Cuba and the blatant, evil depravity of revolutionary Cuba. Even the mainstream U. S. media, which has devolved into a Fake News/propaganda-spewing era -- is too afraid not to dispense Counter Revolutionary rhetoric. Beyond that, hugely financed right-wing/propaganda-fueled media sources have sprung up in Washington like mushrooms, becoming Godsends for high-profile Cuban Counter Revolutionaries. This week, for example, the rich and powerful Townhall.com site features a massive Fontova diatribe against Revolutionary Cuba and most particularly Fontova takes hilarious aim at a plethora of famous people who have strongly supported Revolutionary Cuba while bravely denouncing the Batista-Mafia regime that preceded it. Again, you are perfectly free to dial-up Fontova's Townhall spiel...or pay big bucks to attend one of his anti-Cuban lectures or buy one of his anti-Cuban books. But if you do so, hopefully you will have some comprehension of what's behind such lucrative and normally unchecked rhetoric and propaganda masquerading as journalistic and historic facts in the United States of America.

     I believe that cubamafia.com is an excellent site for valid information regarding the Cuban Mafia BECAUSE its data can be easily documented {via Google searching} by other credible sources...AND its data includes excellent photos and videos. Also, there is no obvious indication it is either pro-Revolution or anti-Revolution, which is always a good test. {DISCLOSURE: My passion for Cuba is based purely on my first two passions, which are America and Democracy. I therefore believe that my two prime passions have been drastically harmed by allowing right-wing miscreants to dictate America's Cuban policies, obviously since 1952 but, in reality, since the Spanish-American War in 1898. In other words, I think the Cuban Revolution says a lot more about the United States than it says about Cuba}.

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A New STILL PUGNACIOUS Cuba

Startling Constitutional Changes!!
{UPDATED: Saturday, July 28th, 2018}

     On July 22nd, 2018, the Cuban National Assembly completed the draft of a dramatically new Constitution, far more advanced and much more modern than the last major changes back in 1976. Now the drafts will be debated outside the parliament, among the people, from August 13th till November 15th and then they will be submitted to a nationwide referendum vote.

     The parliamentary changes to the new Cuban constitution are indeed drastic. Marriage in Cuba, for example, will now be defined as "a union between two people," meaning that people of the same sex can be wed on the island.

    While the mainstream media in the U. S. is accustomed to either ignoring Cuba altogether or adhering strictly to the dictates of Counter Revolutionary Cuban American extremists such as self-serving Miami Cuban-Americans in the U. S. Congress like Marco Rubio and Mario Diaz-Balart {Mario's extremely rich father was a former key minister in the Batista dictators}. BUT, incredibly, a major CNN article written by Andrea Diaz and posted online on July 26th used the photo above while accurately and fairly reporting on the vast Cuban changes, starting with the "union of two people" significance.

     Cuba's new Secretary of the National Assembly, Homero Acosta, was quoted in the CNN/Andrea Diaz article as saying: "We could not turn our backs on the marriage issue when preparing a new constitution. We studied international laws to have a better understanding of around 24 countries that have this concept incorporated. We will prevent any form of discrimination toward the Cuban people and whoever discriminates against them will be punished. The harassed, the less fortunate, the disabled...will be protected and respected as much as our strongest citizens." That comment from a newly elevated top Cuban official, Homero Acosta, was actually included in the CNN/Andrea Diaz article, which is astounding in the USA where the mainstream media usually confines its Cuban coverage to only to the anti-Cuban rhetoric of extreme benefactors like Rubio & Diaz-Balart.

  The two Cuban men shown above, Rainiel Torres and Dariel Hernandez, will soon be free to get married in Cuba.

 As gay men, new Cuban laws will protect Rainiel and Dariel from harassment and other forms of discrimination in Cuba.

   Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, became the island's first non-Castro and first non-revolutionary leader on April 19th. He was born in 1960, after the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. He had served the previous five years as President Raul Castro's First Vice President but earlier had attained nationwide popularity as Cuba's Education Minister. The new constitution bears his imprint. Previously since 1959, the Castro brothers -- Fidel and Raul -- had served as head of both the Council of State and the Council of Ministers. With the new constitution, Cuba for the first time will have a Prime Minister who will be head of the Council of Ministers. But as President of the Council of State, Miguel Diaz-Canel will retain the superior position on the island...apparently because that is what the Cubans...the ones in Cuba, not the ones in Miami's Little Havana and in the U. S. Congress...want and will vote on in November via a nationwide referendum.

    The new Cuban constitution, at the behest of President Diaz-Canel, will step-by-step mandate private enterprise and the ownership of property. In the aforementioned CNN/Andrea Diaz article, he was quoted as saying: "The new constitution will take into account all human issues and bring social justice to the forefront to build a better political system for our people, and strengthen the national unity." Significantly, the new constitution does not mention communism but instead stresses "Socialism." But make no mistake, President Diaz-Canel worships the Castro legacy and "everything that the Revolution entails, starting with the independence and sovereignty it bequeathed to me when I was a baby."

    This week -- July 26th, 2018 -- marked the 65th anniversary of what Fidel Castro mandated as the start of the Cuban Revolution. It began in earnest on July 26, 1953, with Fidel's ill-fated, out-gunned attack on Batista's Moncada army barracks on the edge of Santiago de Cuba. Few of Fidel's lightly armed associates survived the attack and he himself ended up in a Batista prison from July-1953 till May-1955. But even then and until the Revolutionary victory on January 1, 1959, the rebels wore the July 26th armbands in memory of the Moncada attack.

    The 65th anniversary of Fidel's Moncada attack was celebrated off the island this week...including Italy, for example {above}.

Moncada -- one piece of Fidel's legend.

     This week -- July 26, 2018 -- a tired, frail-looking Raul Castro made the above speech in Santiago to commemorate the Moncada attack 65 years ago. He stressed the threat of another Republican administration in Washington. "Once again," he said, "on the heels of the hope with had with Obama, the U. S. government is firmly aligned with the remnants of the Batista and Mafia factions we fought against at Moncada and throughout the Revolution.' "We few who remain from those necessary conflicts, and especially the new constitutional leaders who have recently emerged, must be as vigilant as ever to protect our nation against foreign aggression."

     The photo above was revised this week on the 65th anniversary of the Moncada attack to emphasize the fact that the 87-year-old Raul Castro is one of the "few who remain" from the legendary rebels who overthrew the Batista regime on the first day of 1959. For example, Juan Almeida Bosque, shown on the left above, was born on Feb. 17-1927 and died on Sept. 11-2009. As a guerrilla fighter and commander, Juan was the closest rebel to Raul throughout the war and till the day he died as a top leader in Revolutionary Cuba. And, of course, on Nov. 25-2016 Fidel Castro died at age 90 in Havana.

     Cuba's new president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, was right beside Raul Castro during the ceremonies in Santiago this week celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Moncada attack on July 26th, 1953. And President Diaz-Canel, as shown above, regularly pays homage at Fidel's tomb in Santiago.

    At his Moncada trial, surrounded by Batista soldiers, Fidel Castro, a lawyer, defended himself, famously concluding his soliloquy with the words, "History will absolve me." Atrocities, including vicious murders of children and University of Havana students by Batista's goons, forced the United States to insist that Fidel be released from prison in May of 1955 as a token of good-will to the Cuban people, who worshiped Fidel because of what they perceived as the only hope to escape the Batista-Mafia-U.S. stranglehold on their island. Prior to the release, other Moncada prisoners had been tortured to death but Fidel's fame and the watchful eye of New York Times reporter Herbert L. Matthews spared Fidel that fate. But with his U.S.-pressured release, Batista's plan was to murder Fidel beyond the prying eyes of Matthews and other U. S. journalists. But Fidel survived those assassination attemps and hundreds more...and the rest is indeed history, which will never "absolve" Fidel in the eyes of his enemies but millions of Cubans on the island have always cherished him...and now...cherish his legacy. If that were not so, there would never have been an incredible victory for the Cuban Revolution and...EVEN MORE INCREDIBLY...Revolutionary Cuba would not still be in power in the summer of 2018. Such basic facts, while politically and socially incorrect in the Batistiano-tainted USA, is nevertheless undeniably true.

    In a speech while still in his prime, Fidel Castro once said, "While some think of me as a tall rebel, I myself do not want to be remembered as tall an independence fighter as Jose Marti is remembered. Marti fought and died on Cuban soil in 1895 fighting Spanish domination. I fought and lived on Cuban soil fighting American and Mafiosi domination. As an independence fighter, he died for the most righteous cause. I have not yet died on a Cuban battlefield as an independence fighter. So, while I live, don't compare me to Marti." Also, just before he died at age 90 on Nov. 25-2016, Fidel Castro ordered that no statues should ever be built honoring him and no roads, buildings, etc., should ever be named for him. "A cult of personality," he said, "should never be built around my name. I didn't fight for that. I fought for an independent Cuba." On July 22nd of 2018, the draft of Cuba's new constitution officially acknowledged Fidel Castro's wishes and codified them into law.

    In 1953 the Federation of University Students {FEU} comprised Fidel Castro's most ardent supporters. That's why Batista's goons murdered many of them, including now famously martyred FEU leader Jose Antonio Echeverria, and shutdown the University of Havana. Today -- in the summer of 2018 -- the FEU remains the most ardent defender of Fidel Castro's revolution and his legacy.

    Today's inspirational leader of The Federation of University Students in Havana is Jennifer Bello Martinez, and she is cast in the mold of Jose Antonio Echeverria. Jennifer says, "If our enemies in Miami and Washington persuade the U. S. military to nuke this island, they had better get all of us. Because if they don't, those of us who are left have the revolutionary souls that Fidel would be proud of."

    Ubiquitous posters in Cuba proclaim: "Cuba es Nuestra" {"Cuba is Ours"}. Spain and other imperial powers who dominated Cuba for centuries, understand that poster in the configuration of the modern world. But ultra-rich, powerful, and revengeful forces in America, which dominated Cuba from 1898 {after the Spanish-American War} till January 1, 1959, don't. Thus, the world that was astounded by the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 is even more astounded today that Cuba remains, after all these decades, free of American, Batistiano, and Mafiosi domination. But, as the simply-stated poster above indicates, those factions have always underestimated how many people on the island firmly believe "Cuba is Ours" -- not Spain's, not America's, not Little Havana's, and not the Mafia's.

"This is Cuba"
"Esta es Cuba"

"This is Our People"
"Esta es Su Gente"

"This is Cuba"**"This is our People"

    In other words, it seems that a third generation of Cubans on the island subscribe to the slogan "YO SOY FIDEL" {"I AM FIDEL"}. And as long as that is so, short of getting some Republican U. S. president to nuke the island, Cubans ON the island...not Cubans in Miami and Washington...will continue to rule Cuba. Of course, merely surviving man-made and natural hurricanes as well as other such calamities like...embargoes, sanctions, other Batistiano-written congressional laws, Bay of Pigs assaults, terrorism, and whatever else nature and nearby humans have planned for them...remains a daunting task.

"Yo Soy Fidel"

    If Fidel's revolution is ever overthrown, university students and graduates...like the young woman above and like what happened in the early 1950s...will again be in the forefront on the vulnerable but pugnacious island. That, of course, would mean another long-shot, but viable, revolution. From his mansion in Florida and from his safe seat in Congress, Marco Rubio doesn't believe that. But on the island, Jennifer Bello Martinez does believe it.

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A Few Interesting Books

Discoverable, RE-readable Gems!!

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Trying to Starve Innocent Cubans

Why U. S. Citizens Are to Blame!!

     A news article this week about Panasonic Lithium-ion batteries explained why neither the mainstream U. S. media nor the sanctimonious U. S. citizens have either the guts or the decency to react to a LEGAL 6-decade-old effort by the Batistiano-riven U. S. Congress to starve totally innocent Cubans on the nearby island. The London-based international news agency Reuters, which is far better than any U.S. news outlet, explained this week that Panasonic has ceased buying cobalt from a Canadian company, Sherritt International, because some of its cobalt...not much BUT a little bit...might have been mined in Cuba and possibly ended up in the Panasonic Lithium-ion batteries. Most of the cobalt used anywhere in the world comes from one troubled African nation, the Congo, and Panasonic gets most of its cobalt from a company in the Philippines. But, of course, no dictatorship in either the Congo or the Philippines ever got overthrown by a popular revolution and then quickly and permanently resurrected its rule on U. S. soil within the bowels of the U. S. democracy. Although neither the mainstream U. S. media nor the U. S. citizens have the courage to admit it, that's what happened following the Cuban Revolution's overthrow of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba on January 1, 1959. Over six decades later, there are daily examples of why the Cuban Revolution says a lot more about the superpower United States than it says about little Cuba. The latest example this week {late July in 2018} is Panasonic's cowardly capitulation to the uncontested effort of the U. S. Congress, on behalf of a 3rd generation of rich and powerful Batistianos, to starve 11 million totally innocent Cubans on the nearby island. Sanctimonious Americans, always ready to condemn Russia or China of abusing innocent people in much weaker countries, are the prime reason the U. S. got condemned by a 191-to-ZERO vote in the United Nations for the U. S. embargo against Cuba, the longest, stupidest, and cruelest ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation.

    The brave and decent effort by Democratic President Barack Obama to end the embargo against Cuba has, as expected, fallen victim to his successor, Donald Trump, who is yet another Republican President of the United States routinely allied with and dictated to by rich Batistianos considered in control of Florida's often pivotal 29 electoral votes that can put Bush-like and Trump-like patsy-presidents in the White House.

     But it is the Batistiano dictation in the U. S. Congress that has fueled history's longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a strong nation against a weak nation. Of course, the purpose of the embargo, which has existed since 1962, was kept from the American people for decades by the easily employed method of classifying {hiding} U. S. documents "for national security reasons" when, quite often, the prime reasons are to protect miscreants within the U. S. government. And so...decades after 1962 we learned via DE-classified U. S. documents that the reason for the embargo was/is to starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of everyday Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. So, the embargo in 1962...and apparently to this day...was imposed after the 1961 military attack at the Bay of Pigs as well as numerous assassination attempts and terrorist acts had failed to recapture Cuba, probably because...to this day...a strong majority of Cubans on the pugnacious island prefer revolutionary rule to foreign domination from Spain, for centuries, and from America from 1898, following the Spanish-American War, till 1959 when the Cuban Revolution provided independence. Two revolutionary wars against Spain had failed in the 19th century but in January of 1959 the revolution against Batista, the Mafia, and the U. S. succeeded in shocking the world. In the many decades since, the aftermaths...such as the nefarious Embargo...have changed the USA even more than they have changed Cuba. After all, Cuba is a weak island nation and the USA is the world's economic and military Superpower. And after all, other than the U. S. Embargo against Cuba, there is probably no OTHER TOPIC in this diverse world that could POSSIBLY get a unanimous...191-to-0...condemnation by all the UN nations, which include all of America's best friends.

      Hey!!! Some of those Panasonic Lithium-ion batteries MIGHT have some Cuban cobalt in them??? Well now, the mighty United States of America can't allow that or else we might not be able to starve, deprive, and make miserable the Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government!!! SURELY THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, who have understood that brilliant and very effective reasoning for over six decades, WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO!!!

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Florida's Cuban Obsession

After SIX+ decades...

still punishing Cubans in Cuba...

while STILL...

trying to RE-capture the island...
while hiding behind the skirts...
of the world's Superpower!!

      I believe the man on the right in the above photo is the bravest man in the entire state of Florida. His name is David Richardson. A well-known Democrat in state political circles, he is now running to replace the extremist Cuban-born Counter Revolutionary Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who has represented Miami in the U. S. Congress since the Bush dynasty sent her to Washington way back in 1989, when Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager as his entree to being accepted as a Counter Revolutionary and thus a two-term Florida governor. This week David Richardson was in Havana as the first and only serious Miami political candidate to display such bravery since 1959, the year the Cuban Revolution chased the leaders of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship from Havana to their new capital, Little Havana in the heart of Miami, Florida...changing the USA forever.

     While in Havana this week, congressional candidate David Richardson, as shown above in the blue Nike shirt, met with ordinary Cuban entrepreneurs who benefited from the decent Obama overtures to Cuba but, as expected, have been severely harmed by the indecent Trump-Rubio assaults since the Democrat Obama was replaced by yet another Batistiano-aligned Republican White House, which is now led by President Trump. Both in Havana and in Miami, Richardson has had the guts to say that the U. S. embargo against Cuba, in effect since 1962, has greatly punished three generations of totally innocent Cubans on the island while {1} lying to the intimidated American people that it is "hurting Castro" and meant "to help" everyday Cubans; and {2} the military and terrorists attacks as well as the embargo, to whet the appetites of three generations of rich and power Cuban-American Counter Revolutionaries, empowered Fidel Castro while he lived and has empowered his legacy, both on the island and around the world, since he died at age 90 on Nov. 25, 2016. David Richardson since 1959 is the first serious Miami politician with the guts to take his campaign to Havana and he is the only one with the guts to leave the state legislature in the capital of Tallahassee to go to either Havana or Miami to speak the truth about the Counter Revolutionaries, well knowing that when Miami's top Cuban-American newsman Emilio Milian did so he was car-bombed and when Miami businesswoman Vivian Mannerud Verble had a small, legal, and tangential relationship with Cuba her business was fire-bombed out of existence. But such things have been par-for-the-course since 1959 in the Land of the Free & the Home of the Brave...changing the USA forever.

      The 61-year-old David Richardson is a highly respected member of Florida's state legislature now running to replace the retiring Havana-born Counter Revolutionary Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who has represented Miami in the U. S. Congress since 1989. Although only extreme Counter Revolutionaries such as Ros-Lehtinen, Rubio, Curbelo, and the Diaz-Balart brothers {whose father was a key Batista Minister} seem eligible to represent Miami in the U. S. Congress,  David Richardson is one of five candidates for the coveted seat and the other four -- front-runner Maria Elvira Salazar, Donna Shalala, Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, and Michael Hepburn -- are typical Little Havana political operatives.

   And so...the bravest man in the state of Florida, David Richardson, does not stand a chance to represent Miami in the U. S. Congress...although he may well also be the best politician in Florida. And that sheer fact is yet another reminder that the victory and longevity of the Cuban Revolution from way back in 1959 till this very day STILL says a lot more about the United States of America than it says about the island of Cuba.

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