STILL A Batista Dictatorship

But in Miami, not in Havana!!
{Updated: Saturday,  December 22nd, 2018}

   Even though the USA's Trump administration is taking its Cuban instructions strictly from visceral Counter Revolutionary benefactors such as Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Mauricio Claver-Carone, the graphic above illustrates that a decent and sane agreement concerning Cuba was reached on USA soil this week. The FCB -- the Federation of Cuban Baseball -- and Major League Baseball in the United States agreed to treat Cuban baseball players like potential MLB players from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, etc. As with players from other countries, the FCB will get a reasonable release fee when its players are made eligible to sign with any of the 30 MLB teams. Cuban players are no longer the ONLY PLAYERS IN THE WORLD who have to defect from their nation, often dangerously using human traffickers, in order to play baseball in the U. S., one of countless insanely cruel rules dictated in the U. S. by remnants of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba that was overthrown in 1959. And so, everybody except Batistianos in the USA and human trafficker-types benefit from this long-desired FCB-MLB agreement, and that includes the 11 million passionate baseball fans on the island of Cuba. But that last factor creates a problem. The handful of Cuban-Americans who insist on dictating the USA Cuban policies vehemently oppose anything that helps or pleases Cubans on the island, and thus those miscreants believe they can persuade President Trump to block the sane and decent FCB-MLB agreement.

    Despite the holiday season and all else that is happening, the FCB-MLB agreement, because it is sane and decent, garnered massive headlines in both Cuba and the USA. In huge USA Today articles for two days running, Mario Diaz-Balart, a product of Little Havana and the son of a former Top Minister in the long-ago Batista-Mafia dictatorship, was lavishly quoted as indicating he will make sure President Trump vetoes the baseball sanity. With gutless swiftness, Mario said, "Thankfully, Trump stands with the Cuban people in opposing a tyranny and would not endorse such a blatant exploitation that benefits a malevolent, anti-American dictatorship." Mario, of course, meant that Trump stands with the handful of powerful Counter Revolutionaries in Little Havana, and he called the agreement "shameful" and expressed his belief that Trump, like all Republican presidents, would not have the guts or decency to deny direct messages sent by the Little Havana Cubans. During the preceding decency of the Obama administration, Mario, of course, never bragged that he sends "messages to the White House all the time." He just meant messages that were always heeded by Republican presidents, and he expects Trump to heed his "messages" regarding the baseball agreement. This has been going on for decades from the likes of the Diaz-Balart clan that dates back to the vile Batistic-Mafia dictatorship that was chased to Little Havana in January, 1959. So Mario Diaz-Balart's "message" to Trump regarding the baseball sanity is typical of the anti-democratic bile that the likes of Mario have shamed American with for decades. The second paragraph of the USA Today article written by Jorge Ortiz and Alan Gomez states: "The deal facilitates Cuban players' entry into American professional baseball while avoiding the journeys and dealings with human smugglers that have marked many of their departures." In other words, what Mario and his ilk have dictated since 1959 harms the totally innocent and benefits the non-innocent. Yet, to this day the mainstream U. S. media is too afraid to question the motives of people like Mario...or question why someone like Mario can remain an incumbent in the U. S. Congress year-after-year even when most of the two million Cuban-Americans in South Florida favor decent treatment of Cubans on the island.

    The magic of television has elevated football, basketball and other sports to such levels that baseball may no long be America's National Pastime. But in Cuba, baseball is and will remain the uncontested National Pastime, bordering  on religious fervor. As this Cuban Pipeline graphic indicates, Cuba per capita produces far more baseball talent than the United States does. Baseball was introduced to Cuba in 1866 and has been played professionally on the island since 1878. The sport is ingrained deeply into the fabric of the island's culture. But ingrained deeply into the fabric of the U. S. democracy is the Batistiano plague manifested since 1959 by the likes of the Diaz-Balart clan, as I will discuss later during this update. Therefore, the three Cuban U. S. stars in the "Pipeline" graphic, like all the other many Major League stars of today, had to defect in order to play in the USA. That was a godsend for human traffickers and other criminals.

    For example, Yasiel Puig of the Los Angeles Dodgers, on his way to the Major Leagues, was kidnapped, tortured, threatened with murder of himself and his family, and robbed of millions by human traffickers. Yasiel returned for a visit to his beloved Cuba right after playing for the Dodgers in the World Series this year. He and other Cubans in the U. S. Major Leagues prayed for the sanity and decency that finally emerged in the Cuba-USA baseball agreement this week. And that, of course, is the sanity and decency that, as always, the likes of Little Havana's U. S. Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart opposes. 

     And so, instead of sending his "messages" to President Trump about squelching the baseball agreement, perhaps it would be best for Mario Diaz-Balart to stick those "messages" where the sun don't shine.

     Unfortunately, either Mario or Lincoln Diaz-Balart or both of them at the same time have represented Florida's Little Havana area in the U. S. Congress for the past two decades. Like their father Rafael, a former key Minister in the Batista dictatorship, Mario and Lincoln have been one-trick-pony Counter Revolutionary zealots, effectively securing tons of tax dollars, easily acquired sycophants, and legal congressional laws to enrich and empower their anti-Cuban endeavors. Lincoln was born in 1954 in Havana during the Batista regime while Mario was born in 1961 in Fort Lauderdale when their father Rafael was one of the richest and most powerful all-time Counter Revolutionary Cubans on U. S. soil.

      On January 1, 1959, the Cuban Revolution defeated the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship, which is also known to history as the Havana Mob. Teaming with the top echelon of the Mafia to support the Batista regime so rich Americans could partake in the fleecing of the island remains one massive black mark on U. S. history. But even more massive in the long-term has been the sheer fact that the Batista dictatorship, after being booted out of Cuba, has since January of 1959 feasted even more lucratively on U. S. soil.

     After the Cuban Revolution chased the Batista-Mafia dictatorship out of Havana, Little Havana in the heart of nearby Miami has essentially, since 1959, been the new capital for generations of rich and powerful Batistianos. Indeed, the money that was sent ahead to Miami banks and the money that arrived with the exodus of the fleeing Batistianos quickly and permanently overwhelmed both the economy and the politics of South Florida, providing their children advantages that others in South Florida did not have. That money also carved out political niches that extended from Miami to Washington and to other Batistiano-dominated cities like Newark, New Jersey.

     And through two generations, the U. S. democracy has permitted the most visceral elements with ties back to Cuba's Batista dictatorship to essentially dictate America's Cuban policies. That basic fact is illustrated by the photo above that shows five Miami politicos championing the Senate and Presidential ambitions of Little Havana's Marco Rubio. At the podium above is Lincoln Diaz-Balart and to his left is Mario Diaz-Balart. The Diaz-Balart brothers are the sons of Rafael Diaz-Balart, a key Minister in Cuba's 1950's Batista dictatorship. Since Little Havana in Miami became their new capital beginning in 1959, vicious Counter Revolutionaries like the Diaz-Balart brothers have not only dominated politics in Miami and Florida but also, thanks to self-serving sycophants like the Bush dynasty, that domination has extended seamlessly to the U. S. Congress and to all Republican controlled presidential administrations. For example, either one or both of the Diaz-Balart brothers have represented Little Havana in the U. S. Congress for the past two decades, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, shown on the right above, has been a Havana-born vicious Counter Revolutionary in the U. S. Congress for three decades, or since the self-serving Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager way back in 1989. Thus, since 1959 the virtually unchallenged pounding of Cubans on the island by rich and powerful Cuban Counter Revolutionaries from Little Havana has perhaps shamed America and Democracy more than any other issue in America's mostly cherished history.

      An America that for decades has allowed visceral Counter Revolutionary U. S. Cubans such as the Diaz-Balart brothers and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to fashion its cruel and failed Cuban policies is an America that is simply not as democratic or righteous as it was prior to 1959.

      
     Beginning in 1959, Rafael Diaz-Balart, fresh from the overthrown Batista dictatorship in Cuba, quickly became one of Miami's richest and most powerful all-time Counter Revolutionary Cubans on United States soil.

  The photo on the left shows Rafael Diaz-Balart when he was one of the most powerful Ministers in the Batista dictatorship in Cuba. Ironically, he had been not only a University of Havana Law School classmate of Fidel Castro but Rafael also was the sister of Mirta who married Fidel in 1948 and had his son.

     The photo above was taken in 1958 at a Batista political rally. In the center with the holstered pistol is Rafael Diaz-Balart. He is flanked my the infamous Masferrer brothers, Rodolfo and Rolando. If you Google the "Masferrer Tigers" or "Los Tigres de Masferrer" you will discover that the "Tigers" were the brutal army that viciously enforced rule on the island for the Batista dictatorship.

    The photo above shows Rafael Diaz-Balart flanked by his four sons, all of whom are rich and powerful -- a banker on the far left and Jose Diaz-Balart, second from the right who is now a news anchor at NBC News. Second from the left is Lincoln and on the far right is Mario, the two members of the U. S. Congress from Miami.

     Having mentioned the Masferrer Tigers, it is only fair to mention Tete Puebla. That's Tete sitting on the far left a bit unhappy on the back of a truck that entered Havana after the leaders of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship had fled to safer havens off the island. Tete, you see, had become a legendary guerrilla fighter against U.S.-backed Batista soldiers by the time she was 15-years-old. Tete's fierce motivation was provided when, as she said in her biography, the Masferrer Tigers surrounded her village and burned a relative alive as a warning not to resist. Tete and other young girls like her did not heed such warnings; they became teenage guerrilla fighters against Batista, and the most famed is Tete. So...you ask...why was Tete unhappy the day she rode into Havana after the triumph of the Revolution? She explained why this way: "I...all of us...hoped the Batistianos would be waiting for us in Havana to fight us. We were sad they did not. They ran."

    Today Tete Puebla is a General in the Cuban Army. She is 78-years-old, having been born on December 9th, 1940, in Yara, Cuba. As a teenager, she became a legendary guerrilla fighter. At age 21 in April of 1961 when Cuba was attacked at the Bay of Pigs, Tete Puebla was instrumental in scoring a massive defensive victory for Revolutionary Cuba over the Counter Revolutionary Cubans that had been massively and expensively backed and supported by the U. S. military on land, in the air, and at sea. And so...now that you know Tete Puebla, the incredibly brave Cuban patriot, permit me to ask a question: Is Tete the bad guy and the Diaz-Balart clan the good guys? And before you answer that question, show some respect for the U. S. democracy and do some Googling on your own, and then answer the question.

     The book "MARIANAS IN COMBAT: Tete Puebla and the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon in Cuba's Revolutionary War 1956-58" is the best Tete Puebla biography. Mariana Grajales was the Cuban mother of two great sons who died fighting courageously but unsuccessfully for independence in the 19th Century against Spanish soldiers.

    The 78-year-old General Tete Puebla today is a great source of information for Cuba's most famed female guerrilla fighter Celia Sanchez. Tete and Celia fought together against Batista soldiers and after winning their Revolutionary War Tete is a General today while Celia, who died of cancer at age 59 in 1980, was an ultra-powerful decision-maker in Revolutionary Cuba till the day she died. Tete, of course, agrees with Celia's historic quotation as depicted above by The Woman Project.org: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots." This week, as the baseball agreement between Cuba and the USA is garnering headlines in both nations, the Celia Sanchez quotation, I believe, deserves to be dusted off to counter the Mario Diaz-Balart "message" sent to President Trump instructing him to veto the baseball agreement that has thrilled 11 million baseball-loving Cubans on the island. For seven decades now generations of cowardly American citizens have allowed their democracy to harm totally innocent people in a much smaller island nation to appease the greed and revenge of a few rich and powerful Cuban-Americans. And during those seven decades sanctimonious Americans have been quick to condemn a China or a Russia if they remotely did the same dastardly things. Perhaps, Americans need a Tete Puebla or a Celia Sanchez to show them what guts and patriotism is all about. But at the moment, what America has is a Trump and a whole lot of Diaz-Balarts!!!

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Significant Cuban Changes

Facing New Realities!!
{Thursday, December 20th, 2018}

     Cuba has a new Twitter-friendly, television-friendly, non-Castro, and non-revolutionary President in former Education Minister Miguel Diaz-Canel. And early in 2019 Cuba will have its first new Constitution since the 1970s. The new Constitution omits the word Communism to stress a fresher Socialist-style Chinese and Vietnamese market-oriented economy. All this week President Diaz-Canel is feeling some heat from the Cuban parliament...its National Assembly...that appears more attuned to a population of 11.4 million Cubans who are impatient with the economy. Earlier this week Diaz-Canel predicted a 1% growth for 2018 and about the same for 2019, blaming the U. S. embargo for at least an additional "$4.3 billion" loss in revenue for 2018 because of added sanctions imposed by the USA Trump administration.

    All this week at the National Assembly session, President Diaz-Canel has been pressured about the economy by the parliament's Economic Affairs Committee. He replied, "We have our own structural and operational problems but those things, too, relate to the criminal blockade imposed by the United States that prohibits us from dealing with financial institutions and having access to material that we need, even from friendly nations that are afraid of U. S. power."

    When reminded by the dominant female members of the Economic Affairs Committee about the impatience of the Cuban people regarding improved housing, President Diaz-Canel said, "The fundamental issue is the local production of material, and I am already seeing that the problem is urgently addressed, even as I reach out to such friends as a powerful Vietnamese company that is now constructing a major facility in the Economic Zone at our ultra-modern and important Mariel Port."

     At center stage during this week's parliamentary session is Cuba's Secretary of the Council of State Homero Acosta. He reported on the island-wide discussions at 24,000 sites leading up to the final implementation of the new Constitution early in 2019. He said, "Between Aug. 15-Nov. 15 we had 133,681 discussions of the new Constitution. 8,945,521 Cubans participated. 2,125 proposals were considered. 3% of the proposals were opposed and have been omitted. 62% were favored and are included. The rest are still being debated across the island."

  As President Diaz-Canel listened, Homero Acosta explained that the new Constitution will guarantee sexual freedom for everyone, the right to legal assistance for all, the right to decent housing, increases in remuneration for workers, and more direct emphasis on direct elections.

     As Homero Acosta out-lined the tenets of the new Constitution, the National Assembly deputies, now younger and more female-oriented than in the past, followed along and often formulated questions.

     President Diaz-Canel not only accepts a more powerful role for the entire National Assembly in Cuba, he orchestrated such things as younger deputies, more black Cubans, and more females.

     The image above, taken at the National Assembly session on December 18-2018, also reflects another dictate of President Diaz-Canel. He has insisted that his Ministers explain themselves regularly in "our outstanding broadcast media." This photo shows Bruno Rodriguez, Cuba's Foreign Minister, being quizzed by Leticia Martinez Hernandez, one of the outstanding broadcast journalists on the island. She asked, "If the Trump administration has reversed all of the positive advantages we had with the Obama administration, how are you dealing with that situation?" Bruno replied, "I have told my counterpart in the United States, Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, that Cuba is willing and ready at anytime to sit down and discuss our differences and our cooperative measures. We only insist on being treated with respect and equally as a sovereign nation." Cuba also is trying harder to present its side of the U.S.-Cuban equation by, for example, putting videos this week on YouTube for all to see that includes the comments of Bruno Rodriguez, President Diaz-Canel, and Homero Acosta pertaining to this week's important parliamentary session in Havana.

    For example, on several YouTube videos emerging from this week's National Assembly session in Havana, Cuba is reminding the world to ask this question: "Is there any other small nation other than Cuba that could have survived the U. S. 'Criminal Blockade' since 1962? For example, what about Canada and what about Mexico. They are major allies and trade partners of the United States. But what if they had been the victims of the Blockade for six decades, the victim of military, terrorist, and assassination attacks for all those decades? If Canada and Mexico had been subjected to all those things for six decades, do you think their economies, and indeed their governments, would have survived all these years since 1959, which is the year our Revolution triumphed and the year the United States and the Counter Revolutionary factions began trying to regain control of our island? Answer that question and then let's have sane and honest discussions, because just pretending that the Superpower is always right and that Cuba is always wrong is merely a capitulation to the strength of the world Superpower." 

     Meanwhile, as of this week Cuba's FCB -- the Federation of Cuban Baseball -- has reached an important and sane agreement with Major League Baseball in the USA. Now all 30 MLB teams can sign Cuban players in the same manner players from Japan, Taiwan, etc., are signed. Also, like the pro leagues in Japan, Taiwan, etc., the FCB will now get the payment of a reasonable release fee. Prior to this agreement, much-coveted Cuban players were often victims of unsavory agents, human traffickers, etc., when they opted to play with MLB teams. So now, even in the age of Trump, this FCB-MLB agreement is both important and very sane, and something that the officials in baseball-mad Cuba have long sought to protect their players from both danger and discrimination. Also, baseball seasons in U. S. and Cuba are in different months, so, if overlapping contracts allow it, some MLB Cuban players may now also play some FCB games, something their adoring fans on the island would love to see and something they richly deserve.

     Los Angeles Dodgers' outfielder Yasiel Puig, like all of the many Cuban players now in the U. S. Major Leagues, had to defect from Cuba. He was kidnapped, held for millions of ransom dollars, tortured, and threatened with death. With the new FCB-MLB agreement, Cuban players would no longer have to defect and, for the first time, they would be treated like Major League prospects from all other countries. There is, however, one possible problem: President Trump can block it or sharply amend it. Puig, who was back home in Cuba this month, has loudly urged the U. S. Major Leagues to treat Cubans like all others.

    Baseball in Cuba, from Little League fields on up to the island's powerful professional teams, is played with a religious-like fervor.

  Cuban boys fiercely love baseball.

       One of Cuba's most popular television news anchors, Rosy Amaro Perez, is shown above being interviewed herself while she was on an important journalistic assignment in Nicaragua earlier this month.

    Being Cuban, Rosy Amaro Perez is passionate about baseball. Although very busy as a journalist in Nicaragua for a week this month, Rosy spent every possible night watching baseball {above} at Dennis Martinez Stadium, named for a Nicaraguan pitcher who spend 19 years in the U. S. Major Leagues. This week on Cuban television and on social media pages, Rosy has heralded the FCB-MLB agreement.

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Updating Cuba's Economy

This Time by Cuba Itself!!
{Tuesday, December 18th, 2018}

     Monday {Dec. 17th, 2018} Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel updated the island's parliament on the status of the economy. The photo above was taken Dec. 18th and shows Diaz-Canel explaining Monday's figures. He has asked to be critiqued and Tuesday he was. Then Diaz-Canel said, "The U. S. Sanctions in 2018 has cost Cuba $4.3 billion, not counting all  the blockage of potential investments. For a small nation that gives free education and free health care to all, that figure is horrendous. It's being imposed effectively by a super rich nation that doesn't provide such free access to its own citizens. We are the only nation in the world that is under such dire and continuous restraints to appease another generation of Counter Revolutionary benefactors."

    Most of the updates on Cuba's fragile economy come from sources off the island. But Monday -- December 17, 2018 -- Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, personally updated the island's economic condition at the above session that was broadcast to the people. He said:

         "As of the end of 2018, the Cuban economy will show growth slightly more than 1%. But that growth, although discreet and still without the impact we need for the population, is meritorious given the conditions in which it was achieved, without deficit in our running accounts, as a result of measures taken, especially in the second half of the year.

          "Nor can the impact of the blockade be underestimated and it has worsened under the Trump administration, especially financial persecution internationally. We have a plan for 2019 based on the income we can generate. It guarantees growth and ensures investments associated with priority programs."

     As President of Cuba since April 19th, 2018, Miguel Diaz-Canel is very popular with the Cuban people. Born after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Diaz-Canel is the island's first non-Castro leader since 1959. He served as Education Minister and made his political mark outside of Havana. That being said, the island is restive and the young-adult population is particularly impatient. So, improving Cuba's economic situation...against imposing odds imposed by the nearby USA superpower...will gauge how long Diaz-Canel's honeymoon-type popularity remains. But his year-end report on the economy, as depicted above, seems to be an earnest and  honest one. Also honest is his appraisal of the "Trump administration" tightening the embargo, which Diaz-Canel, of course, called "a blockade."

    While outside forces will, as usual, debunk President Diaz-Canel's update on the Cuban economy, his oft-repeated comments about the the U.S. Embargo-Blockade is 100% accurate, especially his reference above to the Trump administration's current effort to strangle Cuba's economy via "financial persecution internationally." For example, recently a French bank was fined $1.4 billion for doing a little business with Cuba; and recently the Secretary General at the United Nations condemned India's refusal to send needed medical material to Cuba because India was afraid of being punished by the mighty U. S. Embargo-Blockade against Cuba. The massive insult to democracy was first imposed back in 1962 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. Remembering the ruthless Batista-Mafia dictatorship that created the Revolution, Cubans haven't rebelled but they have been grossly harmed by an egregious decades-old policy that has also shamefully enriched and empowered two generations of Cuban-Americans who, along with self-serving sycophants, have imposed the grave injustice on both Cuba and the U. S. democracy. What, for example, would be the conditions of the Canadian and Mexican economies if those bordering nations, instead of being great trade partners and close allies, had been treated since 1959 by the SUPERPOWER USA as Cuba has been treated? Shamefully, since 1959, American citizens...for the most part...have lacked the guts, the decency, and the patriotism to even ask such pertinent questions.

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Understanding U.S.-Cuba Relations

It's Very Often Not Easy!!

     This week both the Miami Herald and the London-based Reuters news agency had interesting revelations about the above airplane. Gulfstream Air Charter is legally contracted in conjunction with Wow Air to fly planes like this one from Miami to Cuba. The popular and coveted flights, however, have been curtailed...not because of the U. S. embargo against Cuba but by Cuba because Cuba is denying permission for the planes to land. Gulfstream spokesman Ever Chang said, "Every day 300 people arrive who were going to travel to Cuba, and the only explanation we have to give to each client is that Cuba has not given authorization to land. About 1,000 passengers are left grounded." These are passengers the U. S. will allow to fly to Cuba, but Cuba won't. Cuba's reasoning is not clear because the island depends mightily on tourism and well knows that Americans are the biggest spenders on the island, once both nations allow them to visit.

     Back when U. S. President Obama was trying desperately to normalize relations between the USA and Cuba, JetBlue Airlines on August 31, 2016, made the first commercial {non-charter} flight from the U. S. to Cuba in over 50 years. That historic flight was from Fort Lauderdale in Florida to Santa Clara in Cuba. Since then, although the Cuba-friendly Obama presidency has been replaced by the Cuba-hating Trump administration, many of America's top airlines have continued service from many American cities to Cuban cities.

    And at any given time Cubans can stand on Cuban docks and welcome huge cruise ships bringing tourists to the island from the USA.

     Cubans, like the young girl above shown welcoming a cruise ship into Havana Harbor, are friends and admirers of Americans and the American flag. Despite the transition from the friendly Obama presidency to the unfriendly Trump presidency, Cuba is close to having five million tourists in 2018 and expects to far exceed that in 2019. And those figures don't includ the 500,000-or-so Cuban-Americans who regularly fly back-and-forth to the island, often bringing very nice gifts to their friends or relatives. Of course, both America and Cuba need more citizens like the friendly Cuban girl depicted above...and like the 2+ million Cuban-Americans who send about $5 billion each year to the island to help Cubans. By contrast, abiding by the shameful dictates of a few revengeful Cuban-Americans, American taxpayers each year spend billions of dollars trying to starve, deprive, and make miserable {according to de-classified U. S. documents} Cubans on the island to induced them to overthrow their government, which is NOT going to happen because of remembrances of the United States-backed Batista-Mafia regime that preceded it.

     What both Cuba and America needs less of is generation-after-generation of fiercely Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans dictating a cruel, revengeful, and failed Cuban policy while hiding behind the skirts of the world's economic and military Superpower.

     The U. S. embargo against Cuba has been in effect since 1962 to starve-deprive-make miserable Cubans on the island. And that explains why in 2016 during the decent Obama presidency the embargo was condemned by a worldwide unanimous 191-to-0 vote. Yet, to appease a few Cuban hardliners in Miami, Newark and the U. S. Congress, the embargo is allowed to shame America and Democracy generation after generation. Such cruelty is insane.

And through it all:

This Cuban girl demonstrates the right path.

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Cuban Insanity by Rubio-Bolton

War-Mongers Now In Charge!!
{Sunday, December 16th, 2018}

      Of the top twenty or so American experts on U.S.-Cuban relations, as far as I can detect EVERY SINGLE ONE is concerned that President Trump's turning over America's Cuban policies to Marco Rubio and John Bolton could result in dire consequences for the United States...maybe getting the U. S. entangled in a Latin American War or maybe just severely harming the U. S. economically or just giving the U. S. and Democracy another Black Eye, such as the 191-to-0 world-wide denunciation of the U. S. Cuban Policy in the United Nations vote.

          If you dismiss the above paragraph, it's probably because you get your Cuban information from Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans who generally have easy one-sided access to the mainstream U. S. media when it comes to Cuban issues. Therefore, Americans are programmed to believe that pounding Cubans on the island by a handful of Cuban extremists in the U. S. is the proper thing for the world's Superpower and Greatest Democracy to do...after all, ANY DAY NOW rich U. S. businessmen WILL ONCE AGAIN be allowed to partake in the rape-and-robbery of Cuba in another Batista/Mafia-like U.S. FRIENDLY regime on the nearby island. While all Republican administrations and an intimidated-incompetent U. S. media project such idiocy, all twenty-or-so of America's best Cuban experts agree little Cuba is capable of getting the mighty USA involved in a regional or international WAR and, YES, little Cuba is capable of drastically harming the USA economy and the USA image.

             And that takes us to one of those Top Twenty U. S. Cuban experts -- Phil Peters. Actually, Mr. Peters is considered one of the top two or three experts regarding economic issues related to U.S.-Cuban relations. He founded Cuba Standard.com that stresses Cuban Business and Economic News. As such, Phil Peters is attuned to all up-to-date topics involving Superpower USA and its neighbor,  little nearby Cuba.

     On Dec. 13, 2018, the Phil Peters-penned article that originated on his Cuba Standard.com is entitled: "Analysis: Activating Title III of Helms-Burton." Anyone interested in how the current Rubio-Bolton dictation of America's Cuban policy is sabotaging America even more than it is hurting Cuba should read and heed this article. Peters points out these facts:

                    "If you think that what U. S. foreign policy needs right now is a new trade dispute with our closest allies, national security adviser John Bolton has got you covered. The trigger, oddly enough, will be U. S. policy towards Cuba. In a swing through Miami, Bolton signaled that the Trump administration wants to raise the pressure on Havana, and the White House is now considering allowing Title III of the Helms-Burton law to go into effect. That law would unleash lawsuits in U. S. courts against companies doing business with Cuba. Title III has never gone into effect because ever since it was enacted, Presidents Trump, Obama, Bush, and Clinton suspended it every six months, citing the U. S. National Interest.

                   "Ostensibly, Title III aims to uphold property rights and, as Senator Marco Rubio puts it, to address an 'unjust' situation and 'punish companies benefiting from use of a property that was never paid for.'"

    Of course, there are a plethora of reasons, well remembered and documented across Latin America, that explain why not even the Bush presidencies would allow Title III to be enacted. That's because, in any courtroom outside of the Mafia-Batistiano bastions of Miami and Newark, Cuba could easily sue the USA for untold massive amounts of dollars for such things as...the theft of Guantanamo Bay, fatal hotel bombings in Havana bragged about in the New York Times by the best-known anti-Cuban CIA terrorist, fatal cannon-fire from speedboats on Cuban coastal fishing villages in which still-living Cubans remain maimed and which radio station audio tapes still recount the terrorists bragging about the attack upon their return to Miami docks, the terrorist bombing of the civilian and child-laden Cubana Flight 455 in which all 73 innocents on board were killed, etc., etc. etc. While suing for such things...say, at the World Court in the Hague...Cuba could also claim U. S. lawsuits for lost property in Cuba were bogus because proving such property was legally owned would be impossible. For example, Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky built the Riviera Hotel in Havana in 1957 and owned it till he fled the Cuban Revolution on Jan. 1, 1959. Today heirs of Meyer Lansky are trying to sue Cuba in Miami courts, but did the Mafia kingpin legally own such property or was the money he used to build it and operate it ill-gotten loot squandered from the Cuban people?

      But proving that a CIA operative, and thus the government of the United States of America, was responsible for the terrorist bombing of Cubana Flight 455 would figure to be relatively easy in any unbiased courtroom. The Cuban government, as its best evidence, would use de-classified U. S. government documents to make it cases.

Documents such as...this.

     In other words, even the Trump administration should have second thoughts about opening up, in unbiased courtrooms, lawsuits against or by Cuba. But for sure, President Trump's appointment of John Bolton as National Security Adviser is a disaster waiting to happen regarding America's national security, not to mention that of some small nations that the war-mongering Bolton has long targeted, ESPECIALLY CUBA.

          And MARCO RUBIO being allowed to install JOHN BOLTON and many other Cuban Counter Revolutionary extremists into power-positions in the Trump administration may well result in the United States getting entangled in a Caribbean-Latin American war that the American people and taxpayers do not need.

        Of course, as Phil Peters and all other Cuban experts realize, little Cuba is actually big Cuba when right-wing extremists are allowed to greedily covet it. The Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962 is to this day considered the closest the world has ever come to a nuclear holocaust, and re-studying U.S.-Cuban history is important JUST as studying updated articles by U.S.-Cuban experts such as Phil Peters is important. Ignorance and apathy on the part of U. S. citizens can be {and has been} used as fuel by war-mongers to get America involved in unnecessary and unholy wars and coups.

     Even anti-Cuban journalists in the U. S., such as Sara Egozi, clearly understand the stupidity and danger of allowing self-serving extremist like Rubio & Bolton to dictate America's Cuban policies. Egozi this week penned a long article in the Miami Herald that is entitled: "In United States vs. Cuba, Russia Is The Big Winner." She starts off her insightful article with these two sentences: "The U. S. government pulled out of Cuba in self-defense. Yet by ramping up sanctions on the island, Americans are forfeiting their shot at retribution. National Security Adviser Bolton recently pledged retaliation..." That stupid and dangerous "retaliation" envisioned by Bolton & Rubio, as Egozi points out, makes Russia "the big winner." Back in 1962 at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis Russia had enough nuclear weapons to make the U. S. and the whole world tremble in fear. WELL, today Russia has nuclear weapons a thousand times more powerful and more accurate than it had way back in 1962. Egozi seems to understand that, but Rubio & Bolton either don't care or are too stupid to consider that fact.

    Beyond any doubt, John McAulliff is one of America's greatest experts on anything related to Cuba. Mr. McAulliff followed the aforementioned Sara Egozi article in the Miami Herald with this incredibly sane comment: "Let's not forget the gross hypocrisy of Sen. Rubio." After that pertinent sentence, Mr. McAulliff in detail explained "THE GROSS HYPOCRISY OF SEN. RUBIO." Peace-loving and Democracy-loving Americans, like John McAulliff, are appalled that, AT THE MOMENT, "the gross hypocrisy of Sen. Rubio" is dictating America's Cuban policy, a policy that Russia and other dangerous U. S. competitors love but a policy that should make peace-loving and Democracy-loving Americans CRINGE. Ask the great John McAullifF if he's cringing. "The gross hypocrisy of Sen. Rubio."

    Allowing the likes of Marco Rubio & John Bolton to dictate America's Cuban policy is not only totally insane but also extremely dangerous. What exacerbates that situation is the fact that the mainstream U. S. media, including the powerful left-wingers intent on impeaching Trump, does not have either the guts or the competence to intelligently discuss the Rubio-Bolton dilemma. Thus, not just right-wing rags like Breitbart and right-wing blogs like Babalu, BUT THE MAINSTREAM U. S. WILL ALLOW RUBIO & BOLTON TO SAY WHATEVER THEY CHOOSE ABOUT CUBA BUT NEVER let the decent and brilliant John McAulliff counter the Rubio-Bolton Cuban extremism. And dusting off the cold ashes of the hot inferno being lit by Marco Rubio & John Bolton will, I believe, be too late not just for Cuba but also for America...and for other nations too.

      PERHAPS having intelligent people in Cuba and the United States negotiating a People to People Partnership might make a little more sense than leaving Cuba/US affairs in the hands of Rubio & Bolton.

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