Superb US-Cuba Movie

 "Wasp Network" AIRING On Netflix!!

     Today is December 16th, 2020. It is the FOURTH BIRTHDAY in Havana for Gerardito and Ambar. The adorable twins are the children of Gerardo Hernandez and his wife Adriana. Because of their parents, Gerardito and Ambar are integral parts of the tumultuous historic and topical relations between Cuba and the United States.

        You see, the now 55-year-old Gerardo Hernandez is the most famous of the five Cubans who are known to history as the Cuba Five. The photo above takes us back to mid-December of 2016 when the twins, Gerardito and Ambar were born. The little girl in the middle above is Gemma, shown as she is trying to touch her newborn sister Ambar who was being held by Gerardo. Gemma was born in Havana on January 6, 2015 while Gerardo was serving a sentence of two life terms plus 15 years in a U. S. federal prison in California...while the other four members of the Cuba 5 were serving long sentences in four other separate U. S. federal prisons. In Havana Adriana knew that her husband Gerardo was destined to die in his California prison. But she desperately wanted to give birth to Gerardo's biological baby. Yet, the U. S. government refused Adriana's pleas to even visit California to merely see Gerardo and surely there was no chance of a conjugal union. But...two important Americans -- President Barack Obama and Senator Patrick Leahy -- did listen to Adriana's pleas. Obama & Leahy arranged for Gerardo's sperm to be flown to Havana from his prison cell in California. It was used to impregnate Adriana!!!!!! And on January 6, 2015 the little girl Gemma was born!!!!!!

      So these two men -- Senator Patrick Leahy and President Barack Obama -- have had the most guts and power to do the most decent input in the long history of U.S.-Cuba involvements. They are shown above aboard the presidential aircraft Air Force One on their flight to Havana in March of 2016, near the end of Obama's two-terms/8 years as President. In Havana Obama and Leahy reopened the U. S. Embassy in Havana for the first time since 1962 and did many other brave and decent efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Of course, one of the things these two men did was to arrange for Gerardo Hernandez's sperm to be flown from his California prison all the way to Havana to impregnate his wife Adriana whose baby turned out to be the now 5-year-old little girl named Gemma.

     On March 31th, 2020, Senator Leahy turned 80-years-old and his friend, former President Obama, was beside him to watch him cut his birthday cake. Born in 1940 in Montpelier, Vermont, Mr. Leahy has represented that state in the U. S. Senate for six 6-year terms, since 1974. During his political career, Senator Leahy has displayed more intelligence, more guts, and more decency related to U.S.-Cuba relations THAN ANY OTHER HUMAN BEING. A mother of three children in Havana named Adriana Hernandez is among the people what have been blessed by the decency and astuteness of Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

      A powerful movie named "WASP NETWORK" is now powerfully showing on the ultra-powerful Netflix network. It tells the gripping story of the Cuba 5. The superb cast includes Penelope Cruz. And Gael Garcia Bernal plays Gerardo Hernandez whose twins Gerardito and Ambar turned 4-years-old today {Dec. 16-2020} in Havana.

    Above is a You Tube video that discusses and shows some of the scintillating highlights from the movie "WASP NETWORK".

       In Little Havana, Miami, and in all Republican political circles, the Cuba Five remain pariah's of the HIGHEST ORDER.

        But in Havana and in all of the island of Cuba, the Cuba Five are heroes of the HIGHEST ORDER. Cubans honor them daily because they consider their bravery in going to Miami to observe groups and individuals was because they believed there were elements there planning to commit terrorist acts against innocent Cubans, and the Cuba Five then would inform the U. S. FBI about the information they discovered. After being arrested, the Cuba Five were sentenced in a Miami federal courtroom to exceedingly long prison sentences...only to finally being incredibly released and returned as super-heroes to Cuba thanks to the amazing efforts of President Obama and Senator Leahy.

      And so...that's why/how the most famous of the Cuba Five, Gerardo Hernandez, who served 16 years in a California federal prison, incredibly was released from his two life terms+ 15 years sentence thanks to the efforts of President Obama and Senator Leahy. This photo shows Gerardo and his wife Adriana in Havana with their three children -- 5-year-old Gemma and the twins Gerardito and Ambar. Today -- Dec. 16th, 2020 -- is the 4th birthday for the twins.

     This gorgeous photo shows Gerardito kissing his sister Ambar on their Fourth Birthday today -- Dec. 16, 2020.

     The truly amazing saga of how Gerardo Hernandez's three children got to be born in Havana surely constitutes one of the greatest episodes in the amazing history of U.S-Cuban Relations. And, incredibly, that story is brilliantly told in the movie depicted above -- "WASP NETWORK" now showing on Netflix.

       Above is a video Netflix preview of WASP NETWORK.

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USA's Makeover of Batista's Cuba

 How Havana Became Little Havana USA

       In the 1950's the world's strongest criminal organization, the Mafia, and the world's strongest nation, the United States, supported the brutal Luciano-Lansky-Batista dictatorship in Cuba, a mere 90 miles from Florida.

      On January 1, 1959 the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro shocked the world by defeating the U.S.-backed and Mafia-backed Luciano-Lansky-Batista dictatorship in Cuba.

     With massive amounts of money and plenty of firepower, plus the continued support of the U. S. government, beginning in January of 1959 the former leaders of Havana quickly overwhelmed nearby Miami and created Little Havana on U. S. soil. The expectation was that it would take a few weeks, or only a few months at least, to recapture Cuba. Almost seven decades later, that effort is ongoing...although generations of Little Havana leaders have amassed massive wealth and political power within the bowels of the U. S. government.

      From January of 1959 until today -- in December of 2020 -- Little Havana has dictated the political and social narratives regarding Cuba, including the island's historic and topical relations with the United States. As far as the USA is concerned, the mass of everyday Cubans in Cuba don't have a right to have a voice about their form of government, only self-serving people in the U. S. like Humberto, shown above, have that right.   In that vein, Americans have been told how wonderful it was that, in the 1950s, their U. S. Democracy linked up with the Mafia to support the brutal, thieving Luciano-Lansky-Batista dictatorship in Cuba so rich U. S. individuals and companies could partake in the rape and robbery of the Caribbean's largest and most beautiful island nation. Of course, since 1959 Americans have been told what a great government Cuba had prior to the Revolution and, of course, that Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 has been the worst, most brutal, and most corrupt "regime" in the world. FOR EXAMPLE, U. S. propaganda about Cuba rules the roost:

      This week -- on December 14th, 2020 -- the Financial Times blasted this typical anti-Cuban propaganda article in print and online. It was written by Michael Bustamante, who obviously...like many Little Havana zealots...is worried that the Trump-to-Biden presidential transition in January of 2021 will ease Trump's genocidal policies against Cubans on the island. So Bustamante's headline, as you can see above, says: "Cuba's dissident protest shows need for more US engagement." And Bustamante's sub-headline above says: "Barack Obama's détente, not hardline Trump sanctions, helped spawn the San Isidro movement." The San Isidro movement in Cuba is a dissident revolt in Cuba supposedly spawned by artists seeking more freedom but the Cuban government {as well as most everyday Cubans as expressed online via Social Media} believe it is yet another anti-Cuban dissident movement financed and promoted from the U. S.

    Of course, any Counter Revolutionary Cuban, or their sycophants, can use the Internet or the U. S. media to blare any lie  about Cuba that he/she chooses, and expect it to stick. Therefore President Obama's decency towards Cuba that was followed by Trump's genocide have constituted primary lies shoved down the throats of American citizens for the past sixteen years....and that has been typical of Little Havana's grip on the USA's Cuban narratives since 1959. In other words, Michael Bustamente's headline should have said: "Cuba's Dissident Protest Shows Need For Less US Engagement." And Michael Bustamente's sub-headline should have said: "As Honest, Respected Journalist Tracey Eaton Poignantly Proves, Massive U. S. Tax-Dollars Fuel The Dissident Movements in Cuba."

      In this month of December-2020, Tracey Eaton -- the USA's most respected journalist when it comes to honest and insightful journalism related to Cuba -- continues to publish the most factual and most important articles regarding Havana-Little Havana and Cuba-U.S. relations. For example, in the article above Tracey Eaton explains that the "The Democracy business in Cuba is bustling." {NO KIDDING!!!}. It has been that way for over six decades but especially in recent years, meaning that Americans and Cubans in the U. S. and Cuba are awash in tax U. S. dollars...supposedly to bring "DEMOCRACY" to Cuba. Of course, after the Spanish-American War in 1898 until the 1950s the U. S. dominated Cuba and had a chance to make sure the island had the greatest DEMOCRACY the Caribbean had ever seen. And, yes, I am talking about the United States that teamed with the Mafia in 1952 to support the brutal, thieving Batista dictatorship that was so extremely brutal that it spawned the victorious Cuban Revolution. Even though the great journalist Tracey Eaton is a beloved Journalism Professor at Flagler College in Florida, his CUBA MONEY PROJECT blog remains the best and only chronicler of the extreme amounts of U.S. tax dollars devoted to Counter Revolution dissidents in the United States and Cuba. Using precise numbers and names acquired via the Freedom of Information Act, Tracey Eaton regularly attaches the exact money down to the pennies that is routinely handed out UNCHECKED to dissidents and a plethora of known and unknown anti-Cuba projects...and, of course, often in front of the pennies there are literally millions of dollars.

     Of course, with Little Havana -- from 1959 throughout 2020 -- having control of the Cuban narratives in the United States, including the mainstream U. S. media, Americans are not supposed to consult Tracey Eaton's brilliant and important articles posted regularly by his CUBA MONEY PROJECT updates!!! But democracy lovers and U. S. taxpayers, I believe, should be allowed to know how many of their hard-earned tax dollars end up in the vast LET'S RECAPTURE CUBA piggybank. Long ago, it seems, recapturing Cuba became LESS IMPORTANT than making tons of U. S. dollars on just TRYING to recapture Cuba!!! I assume that the Little Havana and Washington politicians believe that the taxpayers or too stupid or too afraid to object, and any objecting, in any case, would not likely be worth trying.

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Cuban Children CAUSED the Revolution

And Are The Reason For Its Longevity?

  This week -- on Dec. 14th, 2020 -- notable Cuban photographer Roberto Suarez posted this photo on his Social Media pages. He used it to illustrate this update from UNICEF regarding how Cuba is taking care of its children during the U. S. Blockade and during COVID-19: "The Cuban state has shown strong political will to guarantee the adequate development and well being of its children. Different data and research shows the high level of protection and development that children and adolescents have on the island, especially in relation to educational coverage and care for maternal and child health."

     Of course, UNICEF is the United Nations' Children Fund that monitors the welfare of children worldwide. It regularly provides positive results regarding how Revolutionary Cuba treats the welfare of its children. Unfortunately, and in stark contrast...!!!

     Yes, unfortunately...the two photos depicted above were taken during the 1950s when the U.S.-backed and Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship ruled Cuba. While supported by the world's strongest nation and by the world's strongest criminal organization, it was almost impossible for a revolutionary revolt to overthrow Batista...but the impossible DID actually occur. While the extreme and unchecked rape and robbery of the island was taking place from 1952 till 1959, the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and American businessmen were amassing truckloads of wealth; but the everyday Cubans who were not connected to the dictatorship were not even tossed crumbs, and that left women like the ones shown above in dire straits trying to feed and clothe their children. But along with trying to feed and clothe their children, Cuban mothers during the Batista dictatorship had another even larger problem.

     The dire deprivations for the everyday Cubans during the Batista dictatorship in the 1950s were exacerbated to extreme levels when Cuban mothers took to the streets in the cities to protest. But as documented by the two photos depicted above, and by many others just like them, the Batista thugs responded with a most hideous tactic -- murdering children to serve as a warning to the Cuban mothers not to resist. But the hideous killings merely made the Cuban mothers...Cuban madres...more determined to resist and PROTEST. In the photo above, the woman in the white blouse and wearing the sunglasses was the mother of Willie Soler, a now famous little boy murdered by the Batista thugs. Because mothers like these lit the fuse that spawned the Cuban Revolution, which defeated Batista on Jan. 1-1959, today the major children's hospital in Havana today is named...William Soler Children's Hospital.

This is a modern UNICEF photo of two healthy girls.

      And this updated photo shows four Cuban girls in Havana, typical of the Cuban children that now UNICEF tells us that are being well cared for in Revolutionary Cuba today. Of course, in order to care for Cuban children like these, in December of 2020 Revolutionary Cuba must defend these children against both the COVID-19 PANDEMIC and against the equally cruel U. S. ECONOMIC EMBARGO that has existed since 1962 in various forms but which the Trump administration has been allowed to now expand into a genocidal U. S. ECONOMIC BLOCKADE. Of course, beyond the self-serving political gains for the Trump administration and the Little Havana Cubans in Miami, the biggest culprits are the everyday cowardly Americans who allow it to happen.

      While most politicians and journalists in the United States simply are not courageous enough to oppose the genocidal cruelty of the U. S. Economic EMBARGO-BLOCKADE against the children of Cuba, the truly brilliant Brazilian Editorial Cartoonist Carlos Latuff has brilliantly illustrated to the world images, such as the three above, that Americans are programmed not to be ashamed of. And by doing so, Carlos Latuff reminds Americans that Little Havana in Miami, almost 7 decades after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, continues to grow richer and stronger.

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Cuba Punching Above Its Size

 From 1492 Till 2020!!!

      Back on October 12th, 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered Cuba and claimed the New World for Spain. With his three ships -- La Pinta, La Nina, and La Santa Maria behind him, in his diary that day Columbus wrote that "this is the most beautiful land these eyes have ever seen." Although the world today is drastically different from it was in 1492, basically from 1492 till these last days of 2020, Cuba's awesome beauty and geographical location have predicated that every prime imperialist nation in the world, especially Spain and the United States, after tried mightily to capture, own, and dominate the Caribbean's largest island. In 1898 the United States finally concocted a pretext for an easy war against a weakened Spain to gain the luminous and luscious island. The easy Spanish-American War, fought on Cuban soil, made the USA a major imperialist power because it also included other prime Spanish holdings. The pretext for going to war against Spain was Cuba and the excuse was the explosion of the warship USS Maine in Havana harbor that killed 253 U. S. sailors, an event that was caused by the United States or by Spain or by an accident.

     In the centuries since Christopher Columbus discovered Cuba in Oct.-1492, the CUBA HISTORY.ORG has chronicled trials and tribulations of historic people who tried to fight for Cuban independence, with the two Castro brother Fidel & Raul being the most successful because their Cuban Revolution in January of 1959 defeated the U.S.-backed and Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship...for better and for worse. The Cuban Revolutionary rule of Cuba from 1959 until today has been even more astounding than its initial victory because, every day since January-1959, the Batistianos and the United States, the world's economic and military Superpower, have tried desperately to recapture the pugnacious island.

    All that history and topicality about Cuba today -- Dec. 11, 2020 -- reminds me of this image of journalist Nancy Scola.

     One of the most important journalists in Washington, Nancy Scola had a major article today about Cuba for Politico, one of the most powerful media sources in the USA's capital city. The reason that interests me is because rarely does the U. S. mainstream media devote any space to Cuba despite the fact that the nearby Caribbean island probably has defined the United States since 1898 more than any other news item, perhaps more than major items such as 1940's World War II.

        And so...above is the headline and sub-headline sent out of Washington and around the world today online by Politico and its important journalist Nancy Scoba. Remember that the primary news items today -- Dec. 11, 2020 -- concern...the COVID-19 vaccine, the Trump-to-Biden presidential transaction, a merging scandal involving the Biden family's ties to Chinese financial transactions, etc., etc., etc. Yet, the prime article today by Politico and Nancy Scoba was, INCREDIBLY, about Cuba!!!!! Just for the record, below are the first four paragraphs of this AMAZING article:

         "On Inauguration Day, President-elect Joe Biden will inherit the United States' fraught relations with Cuba, one with technology at the center of it.

       "And whatever Biden does next vis-a-vis Cuba -- he said in September he'd try to 'reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families' -- has big implications not only for that island nation's 11 million people but all the U. S. tech industry.

         "Cuba, though, didn't exactly spend the Trump era waiting on the U. S. Pushed in part by its younger generations' hunger to get connected, the country has made a giant leap in recent years when it comes to getting wired. It has rolled out 3G access and hundreds of Wi-Fi hotspots. Internet access in Cuba was near the single digits when Obama took office. Now, per the World Bank, it's in the neighborhood of 60 percent -- still low for the region, but far beyond where it once was.

         "Also not waiting to see how U.S. policy to Cuba played out: China. Beijing has jumped into the market with both feet, saturating the island with low-cost telecommunications equipment."

       I suggest you dial up the rest of that long and AMAZING article today. I find it not only interesting but truly AMAZING because rarely does the mainstream U. S. media even mention Cuba, surely not on a hot news Friday in Washington. That's because in the United States since 1959 the only voices regarding the recapture of Cuba that are generally allowed are those of only the fiercest Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Miami's Little Havana sector and in the U. S. Congress. In other words, as far as the U. S. government and the mainstream U. S. media are concerned, Cubans in Cuba have absolutely no OPINIONS about whether or not hostile and greedy foreign entities should control them and their island nation.

      But, yes, Cubans in Cuba in December of 2020 not only have opinions but they also have their own Smart Phones or access to the them, meaning they are now ubiquitous users of Social Media and the rest of the Internet to express their opinions.

     Well-educated and well-informed Cubans on the island now ubiquitously use their Smart Phones to interact on Social Media and to search the Internet to learn about what is happening in the world. And their opinions matter, contrary to what the U. S. government and the U. S. mainstream media want everyone to believe.

      It's only in the United States, the world's richest and strongest Democracy, that only the leaders of Little Havana rule the roost when it comes to the Cuban narrative. That's why, I believe, that the victorious Cuban Revolution since 1959 has said more about the superpower United States than it has said about the island of Cuba itself.

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A Little Girl is Born in Cuba!!

 Her Dad Is Very Famous!!!

     This beautiful and precious baby girl was born this week in Cuba. Her name is Eliz Gonzalez Escano.

     A very famous and popular Cuban, Elian Gonzalez, took this selfie of himself, his beautiful wife Iliana Escano, and their daughter Eliz. In high school in Cardenas, Cuba, Elian and Iliana had become sweethearts and vowed to have a family. Eliz was born on December 6, 2020...which was Elian's 27th birthday!!!!

     This photo was taken on April 22nd, 2000, and it is one of the most famous images in the annals of history. It won a Pulitzer Prize for Alan Diaz and the Associated Press. It shows the day heavily armed U. S. agents raided a home in Miami and rescued a terrified, six-year-old Elian Gonzalez and returned him over to his father Juan Gonzalez.

      As Elian Gonzalez emerged as the most famous child in the entire world, his father Juan Gonzalez returned his son to their home in Cardenas, Cuba.

      Educated as an engineer in Cuba, Elian Gonzalez and his father Juan were sheltered as much as possible but consented to a famous international interview when Elian turned 21-years-old.

     Throughout his ordeal, and right down to the very end regarding the US-Cuba tussle and battle over Elian's custody, the Cubans on the island fiercely welcomed Elian's return home -- especially Fidel Castro!!!

      Until the day when Fidel Castro died at age 90 -- on March 25, 2016 -- Elian Gonzalez idolized Cuba's revolutionary icon. On his 21st birthday six years ago, Elian said, "Fidel is like a father to me, just as he is to all of the Cubans who love him and cherish the independence he gave us."

   And so...let us note that during this second week in December of 2020 Elian Gonzalez is a happy and proud family man. On his 27th birthday on Dec. 6-2020 Elian's beloved wife Iliana Escano gave birth to their daughter Eliz. Yes, in 2020 the U.S.-Cuban conundrum includes a vicious U.S.-administrated genocidal economic Blockade as well as the pernicious COVID-19 pandemic. But Elian Gonzalez and his young family are fantastically supported by the Cubans on the Caribbean's largest island.

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