Cuban People Informed Via TV!!
Born after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictators on January 1, 1959, Miguel Diaz-Canel has been Cuba's President since April of 2018.
This CNN photo of President Miguel Diaz-Canel was taken a few days ago when the Cuban leader permitted international journalists from CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, etc. to travel with him as he traversed the island telling Cubans to continue resisting what he calls the Trump administration's "genocide against all of you who support this island's revolutionary-achieved sovereignty. But being recaptured by another generation of foreign criminals is not in my DNA, nor yours." Cuba's former Education Minister, Diaz-Canel has instructed his current Ministers to appear regularly on national television and radio programs "to tell the people what each of you are doing on their behalf, if anything. And remember, they are smart, well educated, and live on this island with us so don't lie to them. That's the stupidest thing we can do."
Cuba's Minister of Domestic Trade is Betsy Diaz and she appears regularly on national television and radio to update the Cuban people about what is adversely affecting their daily lives. She said during the above session: "As a sovereign small island nation, we are susceptible, as you all well know, to whether a Democrat or Republican administration rules Washington. The Democrat President Obama did his best to be our friend but he was followed by the Republican President Trump who wants to starve and destroy us, even restricting visits and financial support from U. S. Cubans. Since his applying of Helms-Burton Title 3 against us, Trump has blocked or erased all of Obama's positives, causing some energy blackouts as well as shortages of food and other products. I am aware of how this affects you and your children as well as me and my children. I want everyone of you to know that I and other Ministers that you depend on to help you are doing everything we can during this dire situation of foreign crimination aimed at us from Miami and Washington."
Like other Ministers, Betsy Diaz often speaks to the Cuban people to let them know what Havana is doing to cope with Trump. She uses the island's state-run sophisticated radio and television News and Cultural programs...such as Mesa Redonda.
Cuban television stations often show and interview Cuban customers trying to purchase things at U.S.-embargoed stores like the one above. Like the woman at the counter above, even when they have money to buy things, there are now shortages.
The nightly primetime Mesa Redonda {Round Table} program, hosted by Randy Alonso, is the Cuban government's main source for updating the people on developments from Havana, Miami, and Washington. As above, Alonso pointedly grills top Ministers, as President Diaz-Canel suggested.
A regular on Mesa Redonda is Iset Maritza. She is the head of CIMEX, Cuba's largest commercial corporation. The Trump administration has declared total war against CIMEX in an effort to eviscerate Cuba's economy but Iset Maritza plans to not only keep it viable or perhaps expand it even with Trump in power. In this appearance Ms. Maritza reported, "We have opened about 80 dollar stores and we will open more. We will do anything that we believe will help us survive Trump. We must stay sovereign."
According to Iset Maritza, "We must remember that Trump will be the U. S. President for the next nine months, and maybe for four years beyond that. Therefore we Ministers that you depend on to help all our people against Trump and the brutal Counter Revolutionaries that control him will also need the support of everyone's perseverance."
Cuba's Economy Minister Alejandro Gil is shown above appearing on Mesa Redonda. He said, "We must manipulate our regular pesos and collectible pesos with dollarizations that will create more purchasing power for our people. Bear with us on that. It's a work in progress. With your help it will work."
Cuba's Minister of Finance and Prices is Meisi Bolanos Weiss. On Mesa Redonda she said, "Beginning on February 24th we will begin to sell cars in tradable currencies rather in convertible Cuban pesos as we continue to dollarize swathes of our retail sector."
Cuba's Finance Minister Meisi Bolanos Weiss also sternly said, "With enough honest people in Washington and enough decent and brave Cuban-Americans in Miami, the Little Havana minority would not be allowed to try to destroy us and then again dominate the Caribbean's largest and most beautiful island. But we are a small nation and when criminals run the Superpower USA we must do what we can to survive. The USA's criminal support of Batista's Mafia thugs created the Revolution that at least chased the Mafia criminals to Miami in 1959. From there we did not realize they would criminalize Washington as well as Miami. We believed the U. S. democracy was at least strong enough to prevent that."
Finance Minister Meisi Bolanos Weiss and Transportation Minister Eduardo Rodriguez Davila regularly update Cubans on progress related to transportation around the island despite the awesome restrictions of "Trump's blockade."
Transportation Minister Eduardo Rodriguez often talks about "what friendly future Obama-like relations would mean to us in Cuba and to the Cuban business people and others in the United States who want so badly to do commerce with us. Russia, China, Vietnam, and Japan are helping us modernize are railway and bus highway transportation, for example. America was a false democracy when it allowed the Mafia to brutalize Cuba prior to the Revolution and it is a false democracy now that Trump replaced Obama in the White House. Our only alternative is to struggle and resist when criminals in Miami and in Washington target us. Waiting and hoping for decency from the Superpower that is so close to us is not something we can count on. But even with the U. S. has the economy and military power to block both our imports and exports, we still have to fight back to improve our lives, including our economy."
This Reuters photo shows vintage American cars, now due to be sold, lined up along Havana's famed Malecon Seawall. They are shown directly across from the 7-story U. S. Embassy that Obama reopened for the first time in six decades but that Trump has since totally gutted. Now Cuba's Ministers claim that the U. S. Embassy in Havana "only exists to fund and train dissidents to destroy honest and meaningful U.S.-Cuban relations."
Including the vintage, finely-tuned American cars from the 1950s, Cuba also now has many brand-new Russian-made Lada cars that can be hopefully sold beginning on February 24th, 2020, via a new currency revision.
But, as noted by the words of Cuban Ministers speaking on Mesa Redonda, Cubans on the island are abundantly aware of the "indecency" of President Trump that has followed the "decency" of President Obama. And to combat Trump, Cuba is trying to do all it can.
This photo reminds Cubans of the day in 2016, his last year in office, that President Obama flew on Air Force One to Havana's Jose Marti Airport. This was the U. S. limousine, bearing U. S. and Cuban flags, that took Obama to visit the Cuban people...the first U. S. President to do so since Herbert Hoover arrived on a warship in 1928 to remind Cubans that America was the dominant power on the island and had been the ruler since the 1898 Spanish-American War. And from 1898 till 1959 the U. S. had been able to do things such as...steal Guantanamo Bay from Cuba in 1903, team with the Mafia in 1952 to allow rich businessmen to better partake in plundering, brutalizing, and ransacking the island at will, etc., etc. -- at least till the Cuban Revolution intervened in January, 1959.
On Cuban television President Obama brought tears to the eyes of millions of Cubans when he said: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." But, of course, in 2016 neither President Obama nor the Cuban people thought that the next U. S. President in 2017 would be Donald Trump, another Republican totally aligned economically and politically with the Counter Revolutionary Cubans who have ruled Republican administrations in Washington since January of 1959, shattering America's once-renowned reputation for decency and democracy.
An America in 2020 that allows the likes of Marco Rubio, Mauricio Claver-Carone, and Mario Diaz-Balart to dictate America's Cuban policy is as shameful of America was in the 1950s when it allowed Mafia thugs like Fulgencio Batista, Lucky Luciano, and Meyer Lansky to dictate Cuban policy.
1950's Luciano, Lansky, & Batista.
Today's Claver-Carone, Rubio, & Diaz-Balart.
