13.1.20

US As Defined By Cuba

A Very Divided America!!
     A new FRONTLINE documentary {PBS image aboveexplores the vast divide between America's two-party/left-wing Democratic Party as represented by former President Barack Obama and the right-wing Republican Party led by Obama's current predecessor President Donald Trump. The left-wing/right-wing fringes comprise about 20% of the US's 330 million Americans while the remaining 80% or so are simply mostly out in the cold because they are basically moderates in what now is a frayed, grossly splintered, and dangerously explosive political system. That predicament is now exacerbated by what has evolved into a propaganda-obsessed mainstream U. S. media that is now largely unconcerned with gathering and dispensing news via utilizing real journalists but merely devoted to hiring or creating biased pundit-propagandists. That political-media nexus might well result in a revolutionary uproar depending on the outcome of this year's presidential election in November that will re-elect Trump or likely replace him with a left-wing Democratic extremist that might well be more dangerous even than Trump. In that milieu, the FRONTLINE documentary is worth watching as long as it doesn't further proselytize America's overly propagandized 80% of the citizenry that does not exist on either OF the left-wing/right-wing fringes. As a member of that moderate, non-elitist 80%, I don't need a FRONTLINE documentary to tell me what best defines America's great, dangerous, and undemocratic schism being greedily propagated by the 10% left-wingers and the 10% right-wingers who fuel the propaganda-obsessed U. S. media as well as both of the paranoid and money-inflated political parties. FRONTLINE should be admired for concocting an expensive documentary focusing on America's revolution/civil-war-inspiring "divide" that is reminiscent of colonial times and civil war times in the USA's past. But FRONTLINE should have shortened its documentary by focusing on the best definition of America's "divide" that might spawn into an explosive revolution or civil war in the last two months of 2020. If you study the Obama-Trump montage above, the "divide" they now represent within the nefarious political-media bowels of the U. S. is BEST DEFINED by the following definition that a moderate, non-elitist American like me comprehends but the elitist, propaganda-obsessed mainstream media will not dare divulge to their viewers or readers:
           During his 8 years as President Obama did his best to normalize relations with Cuba, and largely and very BRAVELY succeeded. But he was followed by the last three years in which Trump has tried {and is trying} his best to use genocide against the masses of Cubans on the island to bring about the long-desired overthrow and re-capture of Revolutionary Cuba's government, which overthrew the brutal U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship way back on January 1, 1959, and incredibly resisted being re-captured by powerful Batistianos still backed by the USA, the world's economic and military power. The sharp Obama-Trump dichotomy today relating to Cuba is the best representation of the salient "divide" in the United States now, and that is true although the mainstream U. S. media does not have either the integrity or the courage to report such a fact. All the while, the mainstream U. S. media has spent most of its time and energy in the last three years trying to find or fabricate something that will destroy Trump's presidency, finally finding and distorting a nebulous pro quid quo Trump phone call to the President of Ukraine but Trump will not be destroyed by that poorly produced and projected lie and, in fact, it might help get him re-elected in November. But the PRO QUID QUO that should be actually used to remove Trump involves him giving Counter Revolutionary Cuban extremists the power to use the U. S. government to commit genocide against innocent Cubans on the island, all because Trump believes his quid pro quo payoff will be Florida's crucial 29 Electoral Votes that he needs for his re-election on November, 2020.
Not with Ukraine -- NO!!
But with Cuba -- YES!!
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10.1.20

Cuba In The Age of Trump

As Genocide Replaces Cruelty!!
      Since overthrowing the brutal, thieving, U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship on January 1, 1959, the Caribbean's largest and most beautiful island, for its sake, has hoped that it would have normal relations with its superpower and nearby neighbor, the United States. It still does has that hope in this first month of 2020, as a powerful Cuban leader Lina Pedraza Rodriguez clearly states above. Yet, because two generations of the rich and powerful Batistiano leaders from January of 1959 till January of 2020 have maintained an unchecked new capital of Little Havana on U. S. soil in the heart of Miami, Revolutionary Cuba has had to survive...history's all-time longest and cruelest economic blockade/embargo ever imposed by a strong nation against a much-weaker nation; an air-sea-and-air military attack known as the Bay of Pigs; well known and continuous unchecked terrorist attacks including the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 that included all on aboard, including two dozen Cuban teenage athletes; the Trump administration's 2019 activation of Title 3 of Helms-Burton that is designed to make rich Batistianos even richer while also targeting everyday Cubans on the island with genocide, just so Trump's 2020 re-election campaign will gain Florida's crucial 29 Electoral Votes; etc., etc. Not only does Lina Pedraza Rodriguez, who experiences such facts from Cuba's perspective, know all about such things, but do decent and brave Cuban experts and observers in the United States. Yet, neither the intimidated U. S. media nor the Batistiano-aligned U. S. government has the decency nor the courage to reign-in the Little Havana extremists who are raping and robbing America even more than the U.S.-aligned Batista-Mafia dictatorship rape and robbed Cuba in the 1950's.
     Just back from Cuba to observe how the Trump-sanctioned genocide against everyday Cubans is impacting the island, John McAuliff and two other U. S. professors who are also renowned Cuban experts have penned an article about what they have just detected on the Caribbean's largest island. The U. S. government hopes, as always, that Americans don't go Online to read and study the article that John McAuliff and the two other professors wrote about their latest trip to Cuba. John McAuliff, on his Facebook page and elsewhere, has stated that the extreme cruelty he is now observing on the island against totally innocent Cubans is directly due to President Trump turning over the U.S.'s Cuban policy ONLY to extremely self-serving and lifelong Counter Revolutionary zealots such as..."Claver-Carone," as John McAuliff so correctly states.
     From Miami to Washington, Mauricio Claver-Carone has spent his adult life vehemently and lucratively trying to overthrow Revolutionary Cuba. Now President Trump believes his 2020 re-election absolutely needs Florida's crucial 29 Electoral Votes, Claver-Carone since August of 2018 has been in charge of the U. S. State Department's powerful Western Hemisphere Affairs division. Cuba, of course, is in the Western Hemisphere, and not only Cuba but all of Cuba's top allies in the Western Hemisphere -- Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, etc., etc. -- are now feeling the extreme wrath of America's incomparable economic and military power, thanks to unchecked decisions made daily by Claver-Carone.
    Most Americans have never heard of Mauricio Claver-Carone and, of course, he has never held an elected position. And, of course, most Americans are not supposed to be aware that, on their behalf, that Claver-Carone now is making daily Western Hemisphere decisions to whet his long-standing very extremist views against Cuba and everyday Cubans.
      Shown here in the red tie, Mauricio Claver-Carone has long been one of Washington's most powerful lobbyists while gratuitously soliciting money and congressional support for his torrid anti-Cuban views. During the eight years that the decent President Barack Obama was trying so hard to normalize U.S.-Cuban relations for the benefit of most Cubans, most Cuban-Americans, and most Americans, Claver-Carone was out of the spotlight but still raising massive anti-Cuban dollars while using all means...such as the airways, the Internet, interviews, speeches, etc...propagandizing against Revolutionary Cuba while implying that the brutal-thieving U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship  that preceded it provided a sweet Mother Teresa-like treatment for everyday Cubans on the island and for rich U. S. businessmen.
     Empowered by the Little Havana-aligned Bush dynasty, extreme Counter Revolutionary zealots such as Mauricio Claver-Carone, Otto Reich, Roger Noriega, etc. have thrived openly without restrictions in all Republican administrations in Washington. But like Claver-Carone they also prosper during Democratic administrations such as Obama's by being propped up by congressional Republicans and by many of Washington's well-funded right-wing "Foundations" or "Think Tanks" as well as extreme and well-funded right-wing media sources such as Breitbart, Townhall, etc., etc. In that milieu, the likes of Claver-Carone, Reich, Noriega, etc. await Republican presidents to take over the White House. With Trump turning out to be their greatest jewel -- even  more tasty than during the one Bush CIA directorship, the two Bush Vice Presidencies, and the three Bush presidencies -- has been the current Trump presidency. Not even President George W. Bush was so cruel as too activate Title 3 of the infamous Batistiano-written Helms-Burton Act but President Trump in 2019 activated Title 3 and that has enabled the U. S. economic embargo/blockade of Cuba, in place since 1962, to be expanded to genocide against the Cuban people while also, of course, creating vast new pipelines of tax dollars flowing and gushing from Washington to Miami. With the unchecked Claver-Carone as America's Western Hemisphere Affairs dictator, the genocide against Cubans on the island and the increased money for selected Cubans in Miami has evolved into the stratosphere -- even as the mainstream U. S. media and even as the majority of propagandized and scared Americans are supposed not to care.
     While Helms-Burton TITLE III is a Godsend for the likes of Claver-Carone, Reich, Noriega, Rubio, the Diaz-Balart brothers and their ilk, its genocide aimed at everyday Cubans on the island from U. S. soil is apparent to decent Americans such as John McAuliff who just reported on his personal latest observations on what Title III is doing to everyday Cubans. Of course, in America's Batistiano-weakened Democracy Americans are not supposed to know what decent, well-informed experts like John McAuliff say about U.S.-Cuban relations.
            A genocidal blockade against innocent everyday Cubans on the island, greatly exacerbated by the recent activation of Title 3/Helms-Burton to appease a handful of Little Havana miscreants, is a gigantic lie rammed down the throats of Americans as supposedly targeting "a few mean elitist Cubans" is well-known by those who visit the island as really targeting everyday totally innocent Cubans...including children and the elderly. When the world's strongest nation allows extremely biased zealots such as Claver-Carone to dictate genocidal measures against innocent people in a much weaker nation, the tenets of Democracy become unhinged. If drastic sanctions and embargoes are indeed necessary, they at least should be made and carried out by unbiased, decent people.
     A Superpower country trying powerfully to deprive and starve innocent children and elderly women {such as the two above} is being conducted today by the United States against Cubans because this generation of Americans lacks the guts to intervene to stop something that shames both America and Democracy. Former U. S. President Barack Obama AND THE WHOLE WORLD WITH STARTLING UNANIMITY expressed that EXACT OPINION with a 191-to-0 vote at the United Nations.
      But in January of 2017 Donald Trump replaced Barack Obama as President of the United States. Obama had tried bravely and decently to normalize relations with Cuba; Trump has cowardly, self-servingly, and indecently permitted Counter Revolutionary Cubans to impose genocide against innocent Cubans on the island...as a payoff for what Trump believes will provide him Florida's crucial 29 Electoral Votes needed to re-elect him in November of 2020.
     In my opinion, America's powerful mainstream left-wing media that doesn't have the courage or integrity to ask people like Mauricio Claver-Carone about genocide against innocent Cubans is even more of a threat to America and Democracy than Russia, China, Iran, North Korea AND Donald Trump will ever be.
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8.1.20

Cuba and Miami Courts

Where Cuban Lawyers Reign!!
      Both history and topical headlines register the fact that on January of 1959 the Cuban Revolution reshaped Cuba and the United States by chasing the leaders of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship from Havana to Little Havana, which is a salient bailiwick in nearby Miami, USA. The plan in Little Havana has been to recapture the Caribbean's largest and most beautiful island "any day now." But, over six decades later, the process is ongoing...even after unchecked terrorist assaults, assassinations, the military Bay of Pigs attacks, a cruel economic embargo/blockade that has existed since 1962, lucrative lawsuits in Little Havana-favorable state and federal courtrooms, ETC., ETC. Since the 1950s in the USA's two-party political system, all Republican Party presidents -- from Eisenhower to Trump -- and all Republican-controlled congressional sessions have permitted a handful of Little Havana's most extremist leaders to dictate America's Cuban policies. And still, except for atrocious cruelty imposed on everyday Cubans on the island and for creating a lot of politically-connected millionaires and billionaires in Little Havana, the ultra-rich and ultra-powerful denizens in Little Havana HAVE YET to regain control of Havana. In fact, even in a Miami federal courtroom this week in these early days of 2020, Little Havana even lost a massive lawsuit against Cuba.
     This week in the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, a Little Havana-designed lawsuit to garner multi-millions-of-dollars was dismissed. While revenge against Cuba and punishing Cubans on the island have been primary and unending motivations in Little Havana, money remains  the uppermost objective. MSC Cruise Lines, headquartered in Italy for over 300 years under generations of the Aponte family, has been an international power in commerce. Abiding to dictates from Little Havana, President Trump has blocked all cruise ships from visiting Cuba and he has done the same with most air traffic, including flights to nine major Cuban cities in recent days even though those flights were very important to most Cuban-Americans in Miami. But like other rich U. S. and international companies who can hire their own lawyers, MSC decided to fight Little Havana even in a federal courtroom in Miami. And Little Havana's massive lawsuit against MSC has now been dismissed.
    The U. S. federal judge who dismissed the Little Havana lawsuit against MSC Cruise Lines in the Southern District of Florida courtroom was the brave Beth Bloom. For four major reasons, including that the Little Havana claim "violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment", Judge Bloom dismissed all the claims. It will, of course, be appealed and Little Havana have dozens other lawsuits pending against just about any company that has had any dealings with Cuba since 1959, and that includes other powerful cruise lines such as Norwegian Cruise Lines, Royal Caribbean, etc. And, of course, some major companies such as Expedia have chosen to pay-up settlements as opposed to paying lawyers to fight endless claims against them in Little Havana-friendly courtrooms.
     The current bevy of Little Havana lawsuits, as well as what many believe to be unconscionable genocide aimed at everyday Cubans on the island, has resulted from the Trump administration's activation in 2019 of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act. Since 1996, Helms-Burton has been a legal Little Havana congressional law that has grossly enriched selected Cuban exiles while also reaping and then rendering untold hardships against innocent Cubans on the island and against Cubans in the USA who disapprove of how their friends and relatives in Cuba are treated. But the U. S. democracy, even during the decent pre-Trump/two-term Democratic administration of President Barack Obama, has not simply been strong enough to erase Helms-Burton. Not even the Republican administration of the Little Havana-aligned George W. Bush presidency activated Helms-Burton's atrociously cruel Title III clause. But in 2019 President Trump, totally capitutating to Little Havana because he believes it will help him get Florida's crucial 29 Electoral votes needed for his 2020 re-election, did activate Title III of Helms-Burton. In addition to providing a vast array of lucrative Little Havana lawsuits, Title III also legalizes what many decent people believe to be genocide in the form of food shortages, power blackouts, and other deprivations against everyday Cubans on the island. 
       While Helms-Burton has long represented a piggy-bank effect for Little Havana Cubans, the activation in 2019 by President Trump of Helms-Burton's Title III clause created the genocidal tag against Cuba as shown above.
         The mainstream left-wing U. S. media has primarily focused on impeaching President Trump since his inauguration in January of 2017, but the left-wing media is too afraid of Little Havana to tell the American people THE PRIME REASON TRUMP SHOULD BE IMPEACHED, which is Trump's activation of the genocidal Title III against innocent Cubans. An internationally respected media source, the London-based The Guardian, used the photo above to illustrate an honest article entitled: "QUIET DOCKS, EMPTY STREETS...Cubans Count the Cost as Tourists Stay Away." The Guardian in London has the freedom to tell the world the real reason Trump should be impeached -- Title III's genocide against Cuba -- but the U. S. media is too afraid of Little Havana to tell the truth about things as devastating as Title III.
      The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives recently impeached President Trump but next the Republican-controlled U. S. Senate will UN-impeach him. That means, at least until the next presidential election in November-2020, Little Havana's genocide against Cubans on the island as well as those lawsuits in Miami's federal U. S. Southern District Court will continue.
     Prior to Little Havana's firm grip around President Trump's neck and around Helms-Burton, the only U. S. President that has had the guts to challenge Little Havana's dictation of America's Cuban policy was President Barack Obama, as mentioned in the graphic above. But Trump has erased all of Obama's decent and sane positives and replaced them with the genocidal Title III provisions.
      Believing that both his 2016 election and his 2020 re-election needed-needs support from Little Havana, President Trump went to Little Havana and shamefully turned America's Cuban policy totally over to Little Havana extremists as he stood before the 1961 Bay of Pigs Brigade 2506 battle flag. That flag to this day in Little Havana celebrates the humiliating {for the USA} defeat of the April-1961 military attack on Revolutionary Cuba, but it remains to this day something that all Republican presidents, such as President Trump, must bow to and genuflect before.
      In other words, the "genocidal blockade" against Cuba remains the longest and cruelest economic embargo "in history" that has ever been imposed by a powerful nation against a smaller nation.
      But the U. S. democracy has proved unable to "End The U. S. Blockade Of Cuba" even though the decent President Obama ALONG WITH the whole world voted to end it in 2016 via a unanimous 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations.
     Yes, most Cuban-Americans support Obama-like normal relations with Cuba, not Trump-like genocide against innocent Cubans on the island. But organizations such as CUBAN AMERICANS for ENGAGEMENT have no voice within the U. S. government nor the U. S. media when it comes to Little Havana's dictation of America's Cuban policies.
 A CUBA SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN is ignored!!
     And what results decade AFTER decade from Little Havana being allowed to dictate America's Cuban policy is this international image of the United States and Democracy.
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6.1.20

USA's Cuban Government

America's Sub-Government!!
       In this second week of the new decade 2020 the photo above from Japan is circulating around the sports world and it also says a lot about an American secret, which relates to the sub-Cuban government in the United States that operates unimpeded within the bowels of the prime U. S. government that rules from the capital of Washington. The Cuban government in the USA has involved since January of 1959 when the Cuban Revolution chased the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship from Havana to its new capital in Little Havana in Miami. Neither the mainstream U. S. media nor the U. S. government admits that fact, but nevertheless it is true -- as the photo above illustrates. Above in Japan's powerful pro-baseball league, the left-handed batter is about to hit against a young left-handed pitcher from Cuba named Oscar Colas. Now that you understand the image above, you should comprehend how it relates to the reality that Little Havana is the capital of America's Cuban government-in-exile that exists as a self-sustaining sub/second USA government.
      In the top photo Oscar Colas was shown displaying a devastating fastball as a left-handed Cuba pitcher in Japan. In the photo directly above, Oscar is shown as a powerful left-handed hitter in the Japanese Major Leagues for the Soft Bank Hawks. Since he was 17, Oscar had been a star in Cuba before he proved in Japan that he had superstar Major League talent as both a lefty pitcher and lefty-hitting slugger. America's 30 Major League teams now routinely have superstars making $40 million a year on long-term, guaranteed contracts. And the U. S. Major League teams also routinely covet players from both Cuba and Japan, both hotbeds for baseball talent. 
     Now in this first week of 2020 all 30 U. S. Major League teams are salivating about signing Oscar Colas as either a pitcher or a hitter or both. He is 21-years-old and he is considered many times more talented than young Cubans who have been signed to massive guaranteed U. S. contracts after defecting from Cuba. Well, Oscar Colas this week has defected from Cuba and between now and July all of the Major League teams in the U. S. are competing to sign him. The Chicago White Sox, for example, already are led by three Cuban superstars -- Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada, and Luis Robert -- and the White Sox have already compiled a hefty multi-million-dollar proposal to entice Oscar, but so have all the other 29 U. S. Major League teams. That explains how and why America's sub-Cuban government in the capital of Little Havana is so unique within the bowels of the U. S. government that resides in the capital of Washington. Permit me to explain.
      Because Little Havana constitutes a government unto itself on U. S. soil, Cuban baseball players are the only ones in the whole world who have to defect in order to quickly become multi-millionaires in the USA. That has created unsavory human traffickers who try to partake in such instant wealth. In 2019 Major League Baseball in the USA tried to restrict the human traffickers by signing a deal with Cuba that would make Cuban prospects treated in the same fashion as talent from other nations. After that sane and decent deal was signed, a few Counter Revolutionary extremists in Little Havana -- Rubio, the Diaz-Balart brothers, etc. -- easily canceled the deal, using their power as America's sub-government. To put that in proper perspective, the Boston Red Sox paid $72 million upfront to sign a little outfielder who turned out to be not a Major Leaguer but all the $72 million was guaranteed. That same prospect would have commanded no more than $3 or $4 million had he not been a Caban that all 30 Major League teams could bid for, while all other similar prospects would be restricted to being signed by just one team, the only team that could bid for them. Little Havana, which feels empowered to order Washington's government to block anything that might allow Cuba, a sovereign nation since 1959, to acquire money, which is supposedly to make the pugnacious island totally vulnerable to recapture by Little Havana Batistiano exiles. Of course, only Cuba is strangled by such genocidal tactics from the soil of the world's superpower nation. For example, another Caribbean nation -- the Dominican Republic -- arguably now is producing more USA baseball superstars than the USA itself produces. But all of the USA's 30 Major League teams have state-of-the-art facilities and stadiums staffed year-around in the Dominican Republic, which not only produces an incredible number of Major League-caliber players but also sends a year-around supply of commerce and dollars to the Dominican Republic. By contrast, unlike in the Dominican Republic and all countries except Cuba, Little Havana's U. S. government is allowed, decade after decade, to use Washington's government to essentially commit genocide against 11 million everyday Cubans on the nearby island while colluding with human traffickers and other unsavory characters and while making Little Havana's leading politicians and sycophants incredibly rich and powerful.
      And so, the unfolding saga of Oscar Colas, Cuba's latest baseball phenom coveted by all 30 of America's Major League teams, reveals a secret that America's democracy-loving citizens are supposed to be too stupid and too afraid  to comprehend in this new decade of 2020.
        Also, the Little Havana portion of the U. S. government this week, in its unchecked and gutless assaults and discriminations against baseball-loving everyday Cubans, booted Cuba out of the Caribbean Baseball Series that will be played next month -- February 1-7, 2020 -- in the U. S. Territory of Puerto Rico. When a handful of Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Little Havana can do things that out of sheer spite to hurt the bulk of Cubans, Cuban-Americans, and everyone else, it continually proves that the once-proud U. S. democracy is simply not strong enough to rein-in the worst of its Cuban exiles.
      For many years Cuban teams dominated regional and international events such as the Caribbean Baseball Series. When Rubio, the Diaz-Balart brothers, and a few other denizens in Little Havana can on a whim rule Cuba out of next month's Caribbean Baseball Series in San Juan, neither the scared mainstream U. S. media nor the afraid U. S. citizens will have any brave backlash in defense of neither democracy nor 11.4 million Cubans on the island. It's been that way in America virtually since Little Havana emerged as the capital of the Cuban government-in-exile, giving the United States at least the appearance of a TWO-GOVERNMENT nation. Of course, Washington remains the recognized capital of the United States but, if another democracy-loving generation of Americans doesn't soon appear, Little Havana and Washington may one day be co-equals, at least...and then beyond that Little Havana might well supersede Washington as the USA's capital.
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2.1.20

US Sanctions More Cubans

A Daily US Cuban Obsession!!
      U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's latest squeeze against Cuba, a daily occurrence regardless of what else is happening it seems, concerns slapping sanctions on the island's Defense Minister General Leopoldo Cintra Frias. The General's two children -- Deborah Cintra Gonzalez and Leopoldo Cintra Gonzalez -- were also blacklisted, according to Pompeo's announcement. The three are now on the growing list of Cubans who, among other things, are listed as "unfit to visit the United States."
       Born on July 17th in 1941 in Yara, Cuba, General Cintra is 78-years-old. He joined Fidel Castro's guerrilla unit in 1957 and quickly rose in the ranks as the Cuban Revolution defeated the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship on January 1, 1959. In Revolutionary Cuba General Cintra has long been honored with his rank of General and is now Cuba's Minister of Defense.
AND BY THE WAY:
     Like Defense Minister Leopoldo Cintra Frias, another General in the Cuban Army who was born in Yara is General Tete Puebla. Now 79, General Puebla was born on December 9th, 1940. While still a teenager Tete Puebla had a bounty on her head because of her fame as a guerrilla fighter against dictator Batista's soldiers.
     This book told the amazing story of "Tete Puebla & the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon In Cuba's Revolutionary War 1956-58." In this gripping book Tete Puebla explained that her furious reputation in the revolutionary war was immediately and everlastingly inspired when Batista's infamous Masferrer Tigers {a 300-man army famed as Batista's brutal enforcers} raided and encircled Tete's hometown of Yara and randomly chose young Cubans and set them fatally afire as a warning for the rest of the town not to resist. General Puebla and General Cintra were among the citizens of Yara who failed to heed that warning and were instead inspired to become guerrilla fighters in the revolutionary war against Batista's U.S.-armed soldiers.
      The above photo and the AP caption, which is owned by Tete Puebla, shows the day Tete Puebla, on the far left, arrived TRIUMPHANTLY in Havana along with other front-line fighters in the Mariana Grajales Women's Platoon who helped win the Cuban Revolution in the early hours of January, 1959. Study the faces of Tete and the other female fighters on that happy day. When asked why they were not gloriously happy, Tete famously replied, "Because we were hoping the Batista and Mafia leaders had stayed in Havana to fight us, but by the time we got there to reclaim our capital city they had taken their plane-and-ship loads of loot and returned to Miami, we were told." At age 79 today, General Tete Puebla remains a fighter protecting Revolutionary Cuba.
      This photo shows General Tete Puebla right before she was about to be interviewed by journalist Arleen Rodriguez on Cuba's powerful news program Mesa Redonda, which means "Round Table" in English. Arleen was holding a copy of Tete's "Mariana Grajales" biography. The book can be purchased on Amazon.
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cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story)

cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story) : Note : This particular essay on  Ana Margarita Martinez  was first ...