BUT Rubio Wants It!
{UPDATED: Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019}
{UPDATED: Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019}
The most-read and most-influential journalist at the mighty New York Times is Nicholas Kristof. Totally unafraid of Marco Rubio's insanely cruel dictation of America's Cuban policies, Mr. Kristof's huge New York Times' article last weekend was entitled: "Why Infants May Be More Likely To Die In America Than Cuba." The sub-title to Mr. Kristof's brave article is: "Many Americans Would Welcome Some Traits of the Island's Free, Universal Healthcare." When America's bravest and most influential journalist can write those words and have them published in the mighty New York Times, it's not likely it will inspire this generation of pusillanimous Americans to challenge the self-serving dictation of America's Cuban policy by the likes of Rubio, but at least IT MIGHT embarrass intimidated Americans who allow it to happen decade-after-decade-after-decade.
Last weekend's Nicholas Kristof article was illustrated by the photo above taken by the New York Times' great photographer Lisette Poole. It shows 31-year-old Adalys Navarro, who is four-months pregnant, getting a routine examination at one of Cuba's ubiquitous health clinics. From the start-to-finish of such pregnancies in Cuba, the care and monitoring is meticulous...and that is the case for all expectant mothers in Cuba WHERE HEATH-CARE FOR ALL IS TOTALLY FREE. In the USA, by far the richest nation in world history, health-care is world-class FOR RICH AMERICANS but often TOO EXPENSIVE for non-rich Americans. In other words, the pregnant Adalys Navarro, who is not rich, can expect better and free health-care in Cuba than a similarly non-rich pregnant woman can expect to get in the United States. That is what Nicholas Kristof's article and Lisette Poole's photo in the New York Times this weekend TRIED to tell the American people. Of course, with Marco Rubio currently dictating BOTH America's Cuban policies AND America's Cuban narratives, Americans are programmed to believe that Nicholas Kristof and Lisette Poole are liars while the self-ordained choirboy from Little Havana in Miami is a saint.
But, of course, Americans like cancer-patient Mick Phillips and top cancer-expert Dr. Candace Johnson believe Marco Rubio is the self-serving liar. I'll explain why I agree with Mr. Phillips and Dr. Johnson.
When he was dying of lung cancer, Mick Phillips in Wisconsin was told by his doctors that Cuba had the best lung cancer drug in the world but the U. S. embargo {1} prevented Americans from having access to it; and {2} individual Americans were the only people in the world without the freedom to freely travel to Cuba. But Mick Phillips has a strong will to live. Thus, risking jail time back in the United States because of draconian laws written by and enforced by the likes of Marco Rubio since 1962, Mick Phillips regularly travels to Canada and flies to Cuba to get treated by the lung cancer drug that his doctors recommended. Other Americans suffering from lung cancer or threatened with foot amputations due to diabetes are, like Mick Phillips, risking jail time in the United States when they take their doctors' advice by flying to Cuba to receive what apparently is the world's best treatment for lung cancer and for serious diabetic problems.
The head of the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York, is Dr. Candace Johnson. She has been to Cuba to study the island's unique lung cancer drug and Dr. Johnson desperately wants it for her American patients. But, of course, there is a problem in America with such a decent hope from a decent American.
And that problem is...........
.....the TRUMPIFIED Marco Rubio.
In January of 2019, as has been the case since the brutal-thieving Batista-Mafia dictatorship was chased out of Havana in January of 1959, a few self-serving Cubans/Cuban-Americans like Marco Rubio, tightly aligned with a few right-wing Americans like John Bolton, have been allowed to dictate America's Cuban policies and America's Cuban narratives. Three generations of cowardly Americans have allowed this to happen in the world's richest and strongest democracy. That diabolical situation whets the revenge, economic, and political whims of a few, such as Rubio and Bolton, but it harms the VAST MAJORITY of Americans, Cuban-Americans, and Cubans on the island.
This Cuban grandmother...her name is Carmen...and her granddaughter...her name is Mariana...have been unmercifully targeted all their lives by miscreants in a foreign country like Marco Rubio and John Bolton. And, unfortunately, the U. S. democracy since 1959 has been unable to correct that insanely cruel situation.
Yet, somehow, Cuban children on the island seem to be happier and better-cared-for than non-rich children in the United States. Unlike non-rich children in the USA, these two Cuban children are guaranteed totally free and excellent health-care all their lives and totally free and excellent educations through college. Also, unlike non-rich people in the USA, these two Cuban children's parents are not worried about crime-riddled or drug-related threats to children like these two. Americans who are programmed by the likes of Rubio and Bolton to disbelieve that should at least summon-up the courage and patriotism to insist on visiting Cuba to make personal judgments as opposed to letting Rubio/Bolton-types tell you what and how to think.
These two amigas...Cuban girls...are fiercely protected on their island as their parents try to protect them from the likes of Rubio and Bolton, their enemies operating in a foreign country. Decent people, I believe, have a problem with that. Thus...decent people, I believe, are rooting for these two little Cuban girls...and for Mick Phillips, Dr. Candace Johnson, etc...and not for the likes of Rubio and Bolton.