Cuba Recovering from COVID

Cuba Hopes to Recover from Trump!!

     Today -- July 8th, 2020 -- the Daily Journal of the United States Government known as the Federal Register included a notice from the U. S. Department of Energy that said: "The current list of 'foreign adversaries' consist of China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela."

     As usual today -- July 8th, 2020 -- Cuba reported that it has no new deaths {"fallecidos"} from the Coronavirus pandemic and few new cases {"casos nuevos"}. Sarah Marsh, the excellent Reuters journalist in Havana, reports today on two drugs that helped quelled the COVID-19 virus in Cuba. And...uh...Sarah Marsh, working for the world-famed London-based News Agency, also had the freedom to explain that "Cuba's totally free universal healthcare available to all Cubans" was, also, a major factor.

   Someday, perhaps, American journalists...like the great Reuters journalist Sarah Marsh...will be again permitted to write fair articles related to Cuba.

      With its struggle with the Coronavirus pandemic cautiously under control, Cuba has begun to reopen its beaches to international tourists.

     The first tourist attractions that Cuba has opened to international tourists are the five mot popular keys just off the north-central coast of the main island -- just as Cayo Santa Maria that is circled above.

This is the beautiful Hotel Melia Cayo Santa Maria.

      Five of the Cuban keys have some of the most gorgeous and most pristine beaches in the world.

     Thanks to the herculean normalization efforts by former U. S. President Barack Obama, Cuba anticipated a record 5.3 international tourists in 2017. Entrepreneurs like the owner and driver of the convertible above rejoiced about the financial rewards of driving tourists around Havana and other prime locations. But, of course, 2017 was the year another Republican president, Trump, took office...returning the cruel and indecent Embargo-Blockade against the Caribbean's largest and, arguably, its most beautiful and most desirable island.

     Millions of Americans, including Hollywood's superstar Vin Diesel shown above driving gleefully along Havana's famed Malecon seawall, love the Cuban people and they showed their love for him.

     The uniquely beautiful and pristine beaches at the Cuban keys are again open but the Trump administration, which takes all of its Cuban measures only from a handful of zealous anti-Cuban Cuban-Americans in Miami and in the U. S. Congress, has instituted uniquely genocidal policies against Cuba that particularly try to blockade the island's crucial revenue derived from tourism and all other sources too. Of course, during the current pandemic, no other nation in the world has to endure such policies from the USA or any other Superpower.

     Meanwhile, this young Havana couple sits on the famed Malecon seawall and daydreams at sunset about how a handful of greedy and seedy individuals 90 miles away across the Caribbean Sea are allowed to reap rewards from punishing them.

       Of course, a handful of seedy and greedy individuals in the world's strongest democracy can dominate the USA's Cuban policies by dominating the Cuban narrative, which has been the case in the U. S. virtually since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. But that Cuban narrative in the U. S. includes concocted lies as it purports to speak for the Cubans on the island. Yet, like the Cuban above, they want to be able to speak for themselves about how much they love Cuba and hate Little Havana USA.

Little Havana, USA.

Havana, Cuba.

Havana Harbor.

     Cuba for four centuries fought wars trying to gain its independence from Spain and the United States, finally defeating its last foreign-backed dictatorship, the U.S.-backed Batista regime, on January 1, 1959. Except for the six-decades-old U. S. Embargo-Blockade, Cubans in July of 2020 believe they have had independence only since January 1, 1959...and enough of them still are willing to fight to retain it.

      This tree on the edge of the gorgeous south-central colonial city of Trinidad is off-limits only to Americans who would be breaking a U. S. law -- the Helms-Burton Act -- if they got to see this tree in person. All other citizens around the world have the freedom to see this tree in person, although many of them are persuaded from doing so by the USA, which is the economic and military world power. Meanwhile, Americans themselves are not supposed to ask why a mere handful of greedy and seedy people can write and maintain Helms-Burton decade after decade after decade.

     The Batistiano-written and Batistiano-maintained Helms-Burton Act is the Little Havana bible that grossly enriches  and empowers Cubans in Miami but starves and deprives Cubans on the island. It was the Trump administration that allowed Little Havana stalwarts to add the genocidal skull & X equation to the Helms-Burton Act.

     Still embracing its independence provided in 1959 by the Cuban Revolution, this 2017 photo...as far as Cubans on the island are concerned...means the difference between having a Republican U. S. president, Trump, replace a U. S. Democrat president, Obama. Trump promotes starvation and deprivation on the island while Obama until 2017 tried his best to normalize relations with Cuba that would allow Cubans on the island to have the wherewithal to have jobs via tourism and other ventures so they would have the financial opportunities to care for their families. While the resilience of the pugnacious Cubans on the island is legendary, their suffering administered by Republican presidents since the 1950's has been cruel and extremely anti-democratic.

     Americans since 2017 are not SUPPOSED to understand what this handshake meant to the advent of U. S. genocidal starvation policies aimed at Cubans on the island. It depicts President Trump turning the USA's Cuban policies to vicious, self-serving Little Havana members of the U. S. Congress -- Mario Diaz-Balart, the son of one of the Batista dictatorship's most powerful Ministers, and Mario Rubio, who still believes that his Little Havana credentials will soon put him in charge of both Washington and Havana.

      Meanwhile, in July of 2020 the independent Cuban flag still waves in the Caribbean breezes...even as the nearby United States, the strongest nation in the world, continues and expands what is history's all-time longest and cruelest economic Embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a much weaker and smaller nation. Of course, to this day Americans and Cuban-Americans are not SUPPOSED to be ashamed about the image above, which is the famous Carlos LaTuff graphic that personifies the Embargo to the rest of the world. It also confirms, I believe, that the Cuban Revolution to this day says even more about the United States than it says about Cuba.

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cubaninsider: The U.S. Plan to Starve Cubans

cubaninsider: The U.S. Plan to Starve Cubans: The   Befactactors  Rejoice !! Cubans   In Cuba  React !!!       The London-based  Reuters News Agency  has an excellent bureau ...

The U.S. Plan to Starve Cubans

The Befactactors Rejoice!!
Cubans In Cuba React!!!

      The London-based Reuters News Agency has an excellent bureau in Havana that includes Sarah Marsh. She actually roams the island and shares the positives and negatives, which now are led by a recovery phase to get past the Coronavisus pandemic that for months has shut off its vital tourism industry. But the major negative remains the genocidal Blockade that the Trump presidency has permitted a few greedy, obsessed Little Havana denizens in Miami and in Congress to impose on the island's 11.2 million people. As Sarah Marsh has experienced herself and then reported to the world, the U. S. and Little Havana have taken advantage of the COVID-19 virus to tighten the economic Blockade so, while Trump remains in office, it will starve masses of Cuba to induce them to do what Little Havana and the United States have been unable to do since 1959, which is to recapture Cuba to honor the Batista-Mafia regime that ruled with USA support till it was chased  by the Cuban Revolution from Havana to its new capital of Little Havana/Miami in January of 1959. Now this week -- the first week of July, 2020 -- Sarah Marsh's Reuters article is entitled: "Facing Crises, Cuba Calls On Citizens To Grow More Of Their Own Food." It's an important update that reflects two basis facts: {1} The Cuban people do not relish a return of the Batistiano-Mafiosi remnants in Little Havana; but {2} The Cuban people also do not want Little Havana to starve them to death. Thus, as Sarah Marsh reports, the Cuban people are reacting to their government's request to grow more of their own food.

     For example, the photo above courtesy of the Paris-based AFP News Agency shows a Cuban on the edge of Havana preparing lettuce on his plot of land that the Cuban government provided to him for the purpose of cultivating food for his family but also for him to sell in Havana.

     One of the high-ranked Cuban officials strongly promoting the island's own food production is Jose Ramon Machado Ventura. Now 89-years-old, he  is the most representative of the legacy revolutionaries. A medical doctor from the University of Havana, Ramon Machado was one of the first rebels who arrived in the Sierra Maestra Mountains determined to overthrow the Batista dictatorship. This week, regarding his quest for Cuba to grow more of its own food instead of having to pay several billions of dollars a year to buy about 70% of it abroad, Ramon Machado told Sarah Marsh, "Cuba can and must develop its own program of self-sustainability definitely and with urgency, in the face of the U. S. blockade and the food crisis COVID-19 will leave us."

     Meanwhile in the United States, the three U. S. Senators shown above -- Bob Menendez from New Jersey, Marco Rubio from Little Havana, and Rick Scott whose vicious anti-Cuba political career is completely controlled by Little Havana -- surely rejoice when Sarah Marsh at Reuters writes another article this week about the "urgent" food shortages evolving on the island as decent parents massively struggle to try to make sure their babies and children are fed. All the while, the children of rich and powerful miscreants such as Menendez, Rubio, and Scott bask in the laps of luxury in the nearby United States. {Check their Wikipedia bios and learn about their controversial paths to fame and fortune}. All the while, this Trio in the U. S. Senate does not have to answer to the U. S. media nor to the U. S. people for what many decent people consider their taking advantage of the Trump presidency and the Coronavirus pandemic to escalate their lucrative genocidal tactics against Cuban families on the island. In recent days, as Sarah Marsh tells the world about increasing food shortages in Cuba, this Trio is doing cruel things such as using U. S. Senate stationery to write warning letters to other nations about doing business with Cuba such as using Cuban doctors to fight COVID-19!!! If, by chance, some money seeps into the island despite the genocidal blockade This Trio continually is able to construct another executive order from Trump or create another bill in Congress to block it. Emphasizing how much America and its Democracy have been been impacted by Little Havana since 1959, it doesn't matter how controversial This Trio has been in using their anti-Cuban zealotry to feather their own economic and political nests...while STARVING Cubans on the island.

      Going on seven decades after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, today...in July of 2020...benefactors like these three can make enormous economic and/or political gains by starving and depriving totally innocent and non-controversial Cuban families on the nearby island. Of course, dictating the Cuban narrative in the U. S..."The good Cubans are in Miami, Newark, and the Congress while the bad Cubans are on the island"...shames America and Democracy far more than it shames Cuba.

      In the 1950's the U.S.-backed and Mafia-backed Fulgencio Batista dictatorship created a passel of millionaires among the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and U. S. businessmen.

     But neither Batista, nor Mafia kingpins like Lucky Luciano, nor the U. S. businessmen, nor their political supporters in Washington had enough intelligence to at least throw some crumbs at the majority Cuban peasants. They believed that children and mothers like the ones depicted above didn't matter nor could they ever threaten Batista's dictatorship.

      The Mafia in control of Cuba in the 1950's simply believed that their dictatorship in an island nation could not possibly be threatened. After all, it was supported by the strongest nation in the entire world and by the strongest criminal organization in the entire world.

     But the stupidest thing the Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders in Cuba in the 1950's did was to unmercifully brutalize the non-elitist Cubans, including unspeakable murders {"asesinators"} of children {"HIJOS"} to supposedly quell dissidents. But such unfathomable cruelty had the opposite effect, as displayed by the brave Cuban mothers shown above. Inflaming the passions of Cuban mothers {"MADRES CUBANAS"} was the inspiration that spawned a revolution that, indeed, could defeat a dictatorship in a small country supported by the strongest nation in the world and the strongest criminal organization in the world.

     However, the victory of the Cuban Revolution in January of 1959...while shocking the world...also had another resounding offshoot: It chased the Batistiano leaders all the way to nearby Miami, a phenomenon that means that the astounding Cuban Revolution has, in essence, changed America's landscape even more than it has changed Cuba's.

     Indeed, Little Havana, Miami in the past six+ decades has changed the U. S. even more than Havana itself has been changed on the island, which says right much. But because the United States, the world's richest nation, dwarfs Cuba when it comes to being a financial mecca, the Cuban Revolution unwittingly created Cuban billionaires in Little Havana while in Batista's Cuba in the 1950's only a few millionaires were created by Cuban loot.

     As the three images depicted directly above vividly reveal, the longevity of the Cuban Revolution has been even more shocking than the revolutionary triumph in January of 1959. The U.S.-Cuban exile air-land-and-sea military attack in April of 1961 known as the Bay of Pigs turned out to be a massive defensive victory for Fidel Castro and his rebels, solidifying the island's larger-than-ever impact on the international stage. Unable to recapture Cuba, the U. S. and the exiles by 1962 had initiated history's longest and cruelest Embargo-Blockade ever imposed by a strong nation against a small nation. And yet, incredibly, after all these decades Revolutionary Cuba has not been defeated nor has it succumbed to the cruel Embargo-Blockade.

    The photo above illustrates that, indeed, the U. S. has been changed more than Cuba by the pugnacious and indomitable Cuban Revolution. All Republican presidents since the 1950's have been directed and at the mercy of Little Havana. Above, President Trump...at the direction of Little Havana's Marco Rubio who is standing over ominously over Trump's right shoulder...is hosting in the White House remaining Bay of Pigs attackers from Miami that Americans are obliged to toast as American heroes. Apart from the Cuban equation, attackers from a powerful nation who attack a small nation, and lose, are not heralded as super heroes.

    As the above Celia Sanchez montage...followed by the revealing porch photo...reveal, neither the Revolutionary War nor Revolutionary Cuba would have been possible without the passionate leadership of the petite doctor's daughter. With Fidel Castro's full support during the war and afterward, Celia Sanchez was the heart and soul of Cuba. Thus, before she died of cancer on Jan. 11-1980 at age 59, I believe that Celia Sanchez is responsible for the two most definitive quotes related to her Revolution.

      "Tired old rebels like me, I reckon, are still out-gunned and out-numbered. We can make history but we don't get to write it."

    "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots."

Celia Sanchez

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Cuba Outshines Florida in Health

Not in MONEY But in SAVING LIVES!!

Photo courtesy: Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters.

     Today -- July 3rd, 2020 -- the major article in New Scientist Magazine and on New Scientist.com is entitled: "How Cuba and Uruguay Are Quashing Coronavirus As Neighbors Struggle." The London-based medical weekly has a world reputation but, of course, Americans are not supposed to read such articles...although the "neighbors" the article singles out as "struggling" with the Coronavirus are the United States and Brazil.

      The New Scientist report used the photo above to illustrate today's global health update. It shows a Cuban medical worker going door-to-door to check on Cubans during the pandemic. The article starts with this paragraph: "As Coronavirus cases soar in the US, Brazil and other countries in the Americas, some countries have found strategies to contain the virus and limit deaths."

    Then New Scientist explained why Cuba is outshining the United States in the important area of saving lives. It said: "What Cuba's health system lacks in materials it makes up for in workforce. It has the highest doctors per-patient ratio in the world -- 8.19 per 1,000. By comparison, Brazil has 2.15 and the United States has 2.6."

     The New Scientist article today lauds Cuba's totally free and universal healthcare for all of its "11.3 million citizens." It said: "Before the first case of COVID-19, Cuba's government dispatched teams of doctors, nurses and medical students door-to-door asking about respiratory symptoms and educating the public on the disease. It sent suspected Covid-19 cases to state-run isolation centers and traced all their recent contacts."

      One other thing that Cuba does is to used its state media, especially television, but also the Social Media to report to its citizens ubiquitous COVID-19 statistics and updates. This allows Cubans to analyze the statistics and, if they disagree with them or know anyone on their block that should be listed as a new case or a death, they can let the Cuban government know. At the top of the daily updates are statistics such as the ones listed today -- July 3rd, 2020 -- that list "8" new cases in the past 24 hours and "0" deaths. Weeks now go by without any deaths and the last was an 84-man in Havana weeks ago. So, now Cuba is in an official Recovery Phase and it is beginning to open some of the island's resorts to tourism after shutting down for over four months.

     So, today -- July 3rd, 2020 -- popular journalist Rosy Amaro both reported to Cubans and, while gazing out at the Caribbean Sea, experienced that the island has started its Recovery Phase concerning the dreadful Coronavirus pandemic. She said, "My Havana is alive."

          Meanwhile, these three anti-Cuban zealots who reside in the U. S. Senate -- Bob Menendez, Marco Rubio, and Rick Scott -- appear to spend most of their economic and political grip on the U. S. Congress and the U. S. Treasury to mostly make sure they can starve Cuban families into submission while their presidential patsy, Trump, remains in the White House. Menendez's New Jersey has been one of states most devastated by the pandemic while Rubio's and Scott's state of Florida as of today leads the United States and the region with the most new COVID-19 cases. So, instead of concentrating on helping the people in New Jersey and Florida, Menendez, Rubio, and Scott recently introduced yet another Let's Starve The Cubans On The Island Bill. It actually has this asinine title: "Cut Off Revenue To The Regime." Of course, the regime that Menendez, Rubio, and Scott seem to worship is the brutal-thieving Batista-Mafia dictatorship that the Cuban Revolution kicked to U. S. soil way back in January of 1959. Of course, the prime legacy of Cuba's long-ago Batista-Mafia regime is that, on U. S. soil, it has created two generations of rich and powerful politicians like Menendez, Rubio, and Scott whose "careers" -- unfortunately -- revolve around being allowed to promote legal genocide against innocent Cuban families on the island. "CUT OFF REVENUE TO THE REGIME." Why not a "HELP PEOPLE IN NEW JERSEY AND FLORIDA SURVIVE THE PANDEMIC BILL?" Or...is trying to starve Cuban families on the island more important than trying to help New Jersey and Florida families survive the pandemic?

       In other words, for over two generations a worshipful legacy from the Batista-Mafia regime in Cuba has shamed America and Democracy.

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cubaninsider: Cuba Battles Two Perils

cubaninsider: Cuba Battles Two Perils: The Blockade   &  the Coronavirus !!     Today -- June 30th, 2020 -- the update above indicates that Cuba believes it is winning i...