Journalism Inside and Outside Cuba

 An Honest Appraisal!!!

      There are many fair-minded and English-speaking journalists...as well as many Spanish-speaking journalists...that sincerely believe that the best and most honest journalist regarding U.S.-Cuban relations is a Cuban named Cristina Escobar. She is especially important considering that the omnipotent mainstream U. S. media appears too afraid or too incompetent to report insightfully or honestly about Cuba while on U. S. soil extreme anti-Cuban propaganda sources such as Radio-TV Marti in Miami, supported by billions of U. S. tax dollars for decades; Ciba Cuba; Babalu; etc., etc., etc. pump out self-serving fake Cuban "news" regarding U.S.-Cuba relations on a regular basis.

     In that milieu, it is refreshing to know that Cristina Escobar reporting from Havana remains the best and most honest journalist reporting on Cuba relations involving its superpower neighbor that happens to be just 90 miles across the Florida Straits. And from Havana she is considered honest and knowledgeable by everyday Cubans all over the island as well as unbiased outsiders...and she has reported brilliantly from London for BBC World News and now is a superb reporter for the multi-nation regional TeleSUR Network, and for the now influential Radio Havana Cuba international signal.

       Back in 2016 when U. S. President Barack Obama was trying to normalize relations between the U. S. and Cuba, President Obama knew that Cristina Escobar was the best and most honest journalist in the Western Hemisphere when it came to reporting on U.S.-Cuban relations. And that is how, as shown by the photo above, that Cristina Escobar became the first and only Cuban journalist to ask questions at a crowded White House News Conference in Washington. And that day Cristina Escobar, in perfect and poised English, dominated that News Conference by asking the four most pertinent questions, including a follow-up question about whether President Obama "will visit Cuba" while he was still President of the United States. Soon, Obama did that...becoming the first U. S. President to visit Cuba since Herbert Hoover arrived in 1928 in Havana on a U. S. warship.

      From her home in Havana, where she lives with her husband and their baby daughter, the photo above shows Cristina Escobar on a 15-minute broadcast on Christmas Eve -- Dec. 24-2020 -- on Radio Havana Cuba. It is, I sincerely believe, the best and most honest statement that any journalist today can make about the current status of U.S.-Cuban relations as, in these last days of 2020, the transition from the Trump presidency to the Biden presidency is about to take place in the United States. Cristina Escobar expertly discusses the past four years under President Trump, predicts the next four years under President Biden, discusses the genocide against Cuban families that Trump normalized when he insanely activated the "Title III" provision of the already cruel Helms-Burton Act, discusses how self-serving Miami Cubans in Congress like "Marco Rubio" can so easily orchestrate "Little Havana" legislation in Congress that enriches Miami Cubans but is meant to destroy Cuban families in Cuba, and she discusses how U. S. policies designed to hurt Cubans in Cuba also hurt "so many" of her Cuban friends and relatives in the United States, etc., etc., etc.

       In this last week of 2020, on venues such as "Escuchanos en VIVO" {"Listen to LIVE"} or "90 MILES PODCAST" you can hear the great Cristina Escobar's brilliant and honest updates on U.S.-Cuban relations heading into the New Year of 2021.

      Having lived and/or worked in cities such as London, Washington, and Miami, Cristina Escobar chooses to live in Havana with her husband and baby daughter while working for venues such as TeleSUR Television and Radio Havana International. As fluent in English as she is in her native Spanish, Cristina Escobar has unique expertise and inside knowledge of the contentious nature of U.S.-Cuban Relations at a critical juncture leading to the New Year of 2021. Cristina Escobar also is uniquely trusted by Cubans in Havana and 90 miles away across the Caribbean Sea in Little Havana...and, while deeply respected as a journalist by the Cuban government, Cristina Escobar is not adverse nor reluctant to criticize the Cuban government whenever she believes it is not prioritizing the needs and desires of everyday Cubans, including Cristina Escobar's only baby daughter. Therefore, the name to remember if you want true and honest insight into the intricate and updated rhythms of U.S.-Cuban Relations is Cristina Escobar. Otherwise you are probably getting your information about U.S.-Cuban Relations from the multitudes of biased, self-serving fake news sources.

Cristina Escobar pondering.

Cristina Escobar broadcasting.

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US Mainstream Media Is A Joke

 Its Propaganda Includes Cuba Too!!

     The biggest threat to the United States and its Democracy, I think, is not China, Pandemics, Russia, Iran, Global Warming, etc., or even a combination of those things. Instead it is the ultra-rich and thus ultra-powerful extreme left-wing media. Yes, as it strives to make the U. S. a one-Party system, it is more dangerous than the extreme right-wingers {as well as the threats mentioned above} because it has so much more MONEY behind it. In recent years, as individual multi-billionaires and corporate multi-billionaires are permitted to purchase the USA's most powerful media companies, such giants as the New York Times and the Washington Post have evolved from being much-needed dispensers of valuable news into flagrant dispensers of self-serving propaganda that reflects the extreme left-wing views of their owners. For example, the top owner of the NY Times is Carlos Slim, the richest man in the history of Mexico; and the Washington Post is totally owned by Jose Bezos, the richest man in the history of the United States and the world. Beyond that...ultra-rich and ultra-powerful media sources dispensing forth only extreme left-wing propaganda, as opposed to news, include...NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, Vanity Fair, the Wall Street Journal, etc., etc., etc. Those once dispensers of real news and accurate information are now dispensers of only extreme left-wing propaganda that represent the extreme left-wing beliefs of their corporate owners such as...Comcast, Disney, Time-Warner, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc., etc., etc. For example, take the Headline and the Sub-headline shown below that led-off the type propaganda that Americans are now being saturated with!!!

      The once respected and powerful Wall Street Journal now is nothing more and nothing less than a powerful propaganda machine that dispenses the extreme views of propagandists such as Mary Anastasia O'Grady. It is true that Mary O'Grady for many years has been obsessed with dispensing propaganda extolling the extreme "decency" of the 1950's U.S.-backed and Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba while also loudly being obsessed with propagandizing the "indecency" of Revolutionary Cuba that overthrew the Batista-Mafia dictatorship way back on January 1, 1959. And now, as a prime example of once-great news sources that have been bought-up and made into extreme propaganda dispensers, Mary O'Grady can weekly use the Editorial/Opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal to dispense her extreme love of Batista's Cuba in the 1950s while also dispensing her extreme hatred of Revolutionary Cuba as it has been ruled since 1959. Mary O'Grady, of course, seems obsessed with claiming that Revolutionary Cuba REPLACED the GREATEST DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT in the history of the world, and that is the basis for her obsession of vilifying masses of innocent Cubans on the island whom Mary O'Grady believes should have NO OPINIONS about either Batista's Cuba or Revolutionary Cuba.

      Thus, the Wall Street Journal has the wherewithal to promote Mary O'Grady as a high-profile and unbiased expert on Latin America. And of course, she makes full use of that exposure to promote her massive love of the long-ago Batista government in Cuba while also promoting her massive hatred of Cuba's revolutionary rule since 1959. As in this week's Opinion/Editorial article, Mary O'Grady makes Super Heroes out of anyone who wants to destroy Revolutionary Cuba while also implying that anyone who has ever supported or said anything nice about Revolutionary Cuba is a Super Villain. And the point I make is this: Mary O'Grady's personal obsessions and opinions about Batista's Cuba and Revolutionary Cuba are now typical of the extreme propaganda in the mainstream U. S. media that now has replaced News and Information regarding what is being dispensed to Americans who are overwhelmed by propaganda shoved down their throats by ultra-rich media sources.

       For example, as you can see starting in the very first sentence of this week's "Opinion" article in the Wall Street Journal, Mary O'Grady makes "Luis Manuel Otera Alcantara" out to be a Super Hero in Cuba so she can quote him about saying terrible things about her Super Villain, who happens to be the late Fidel Castro as well Cuba's current president Miguel Diaz-Canel {who was born after the triumph of Castro's revolution}. So Mary O'Grady pretends that "Alcantara" has the absolute typical opinion of Fidel Castro and Diaz-Canel although there is actual evidence in Cuba that most Cubans consider "Alcantara" -- who is one of the leaders of the current well-funded anti-Cuban San Isidro "Movement" in Cuba -- to be an anti-Cuba villain. 

      I don't claim to know whether Luis Manuel Otera Alcantara is a valiant Hero or a bad Villain in Cuba, or something in between. But I do know he is an avowed dissident against the Cuban government and that he is one of the avowed leaders of the anti-Cuban San Isidro Movement in Cuba that Mary O'Grady apparently believes will finally overthrow Revolutionary Cuba. But to most everyday Cubans, as judged by their now ubiquitous Social Media accounts, Alcantara and his cohorts are considered more Villains than Heroes...and if Mary O'Grady refuses to mention that part of the two-part story, she is espousing only vicious one-sided propaganda...again. And as she writes about the San Isidro Movement as a new excuse to disparage Cuba, Mary O'Grady continues her unending role of trying to dismiss and starve everyday Cubans on the island.

      In public and on television Cuba's President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, regularly speaks to the Cuban people and often mingles with them at meetings and on the streets, as he did when he was their Minister of Education. While neither the USA's current President Trump nor its next President Biden have trouble mustering 50% support from the American population, President Diaz-Canel is strongly supported by most Cubans on the island. Americans don't believe that, of course, because such facts don't compute with the U. S. media's abiding love of the wicked regime that preceded the Cuban Revolution.

     For sure, mainstream media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, owned by multi-billionaire individuals and/or corporations, still have the resources to be valuable journalistic enterprises for the United States and the world. But they also have the monopolistic-like power to make high-profile propagandists such as Mary Anastasia O'Grady seem to be "experts" on topics such as Latin America and Cuba.

     So this week -- on Dec. 20-2020 -- the Wall Street Journal started off with a prime propaganda piece about the SAN ISIDRO MOVEMENT written by anti-Cuban propagandist Mary O'Grady. It purported to proclaim that...FINALLY...this revolt will overthrow Revolutionary Cuba because the majority of Cuban people on the island support it. But the proof is it won't overthrow the Cuban Revolution because the majority of Cuban people on the island believe that the SAN ISIDRO MOVEMENT is funded and influenced by money and Counter Revolutionaries from the United States, and therefore...except for propagandists in the U. S...the San Isidro Movement, like many others that have failed, will not overthrow Cuba's revolutionary rule. Lies touted by high-profile propagandists like Mary O'Grady has caused Americans to wonder how in the heck Cuba has survived all these decades since 1959 as a revolutionary and sovereign nation. The answer has to do with the fact, I believe, that there have obviously always been enough Cubans on the island who prefer revolutionary rule to the U.S./Mafia-ruled government that controlled the island prior to the Revolution. Perhaps if Mary O'Grady took time to ascertain the opinions of everyday Cubans on the island she would comprehend that fact instead of pretending that the only ones who have opinions about such things are Counter Revolutionary Cubans supported by the U. S. media and by Yankee dollars.

     The CUBA MONEY PROJECT blog, which is actually written by a brilliant and respected journalist named Tracey Eaton, who is now also a beloved Journalism Professor in Florida, regularly reveals in excruciating detail the truly staggering amounts of tax dollars regularly dished out to anti-Cuban dissidents and anti-Cuban Movements. Instead of being bombarded by propaganda from the likes of Mary O'Grady, perhaps Americans need to regularly dial-up the precise and updated statistics revealed by the CUBA MONEY PROJECT, which indeed are shocking...not just in how massive are the dollars but also to who they are routinely being given to!!!!

      Of course, Americans are now programmed to believe well-funded propagandists posing as journalists such as Mary O'Grady instead of depending on real journalist such as Tracey Eaton. Thus the latest propagandist piece by Mary O'Grady in the Wall Street Journal unfortunately usually trumps great journalism by Tracey Eaton. But for what it's worth...I return you to this week's best example of mainstream propaganda:

"This time will be different"

{But...uh...just more propaganda}

{Or will Cuba finally be recaptured}

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Trump's War ON Cuba Will Endure

 Beyond Trump's Presidency!!!

      Today -- December 22nd, 2020 -- the above headline and sub-headline circulated around the world but won't get much traction in the United States. The American people have been programmed to ignore U. S. coups, sanctions, blockades, and other self-serving imperative involvements in Latin America, especially when it concerns the USA's favorite Piggybank -- Cuba!!! In the past four years during the presidency of Donald Trump, the most fierce and self-serving Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Little Havana/Miami and in the U. S. Congress have tried mightily to finally overthrow Revolutionary Cuba while also trying to overthrow Cuba's three closest friendly governments in Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. So, having no problem amassing untold tax dollars to engage such anti-Cuban endeavors, the most anti-Cuban extremists in Miami and Washington have managed to execute a coup in Bolivia that chased long-time Cuba-friendly President Evo Morales to first Mexico and then to Argentina for his safety. Then recently, when a somewhat democratic election was allowed in Bolivia, the Bolivian people voted to return Morales' political party to power over the U.S.-backed government that had just deposed Morales. As for trying desperately to overthrow Nicolas Maduro's Cuba-friendly government in Venezuela and Danny Ortega's Cuba-friendly government in Nicaragua, those two projects are still in progress and have been vibrant since President Trump four years ago turned over the USA's Cuban policies totally over to only the two most extreme Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans who are totally dictated to by Little Havana extremists.

     From Little Havana-Miami, Rubio can stay atop key Cuba-related committees in the U. S. Senate as long as he wants to be there but, always backed by billions of easy dollars, Rubio also again will try to become President of the United States via the 2024 election. Meanwhile the other Little Havana darling Claver-Carone, at Rubio's behest, was put in charge of the USA's Western Hemisphere Affairs department and then, incredibly, again at Rubio's insistence, Trump back on October 1st-2020 made Claver-Carone President of the powerful Washington-based Inter-American Bank that doles out millions of dollars to Latin American and Caribbean nations. Surely those additional dollars will now merge with millions of other U. S. dollars routinely devoted to trying to starve and overthrow Cuba while also being used to harm Cuba's allies and buying regional anti-Cuban friends for Little Havana. As intended, all previous Presidents of the Inter-American Bank were from Latin American nations but, from the U. S., Claver-Carone began his five-year term as President as a person with a well-earned reputation for a fierce lifetime devotion to recapturing Havana for Little Havana. Now, thanks to President Trump's past four years, Claver-Carone can continue his fervent anti-Cuban  quest even after the Democrat Joe Biden replaces the Republican Trump as President and Commander-in-Chief on January 20, 2021.

      In other words, with Rubio a fixture in the U. S. Congress as long as he desires and again backed by billions of dollars for his 2024 presidential bid, and with Claver-Carone in control of the Inter-Development Bank's domination of the region as depicted in the map above, Little Havana has more than just recapturing Cuba on its mind. Thanks to the legacy of the Trump presidency, Little Havana has Washington itself in its sights...now that Little Havana is the dominate factor in the region known as the Americas. If you doubt that, study more closely the two graphics shown directly above. THANK YOU!!!

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Cuba Longs for 2021!!!!

 Post-COVID & Post-TRUMP!!!

     The U. S. presidential election in November-2020 resulted in replacing Republican Donald Trump with Democrat Joe Biden in January of 2021. It was and is more important to Cubans in Cuba than Americans in America. That's because, perhaps, the survival of Cubans in Cuba is more than at stake regarding who is the the U. S. President. The Republicans are tightly tied to the most extremists counter revolutionary Cubans in Miami's powerful Little Havana community while the Democrats, the other half of the USA's two-party political system, are not -- at least not TOTALLY!!!

      As illustrated by this Vanity Fair photo, the two-term Barack Obama presidency that included Vice President Joe Biden for all 8 years DIRECTLY preceded the presidency of Donald Trump that arrived in January-2017. During the Obama-Biden presidency Obama, with Biden's help, bravely and uniquely normalized relations with Cuba, greatly helping all Cubans in Cuba and almost of the Cuban-Americans in the United States, but angering some powerful U. S. Cubans. So starting in January of 2017 the Trump presidency, at the behest of Little Havana, began reversing every one of the sane and positive Cuban policies enacted by the Obama-Biden presidency, and most unbiased Cuban experts believe that Trump has, in the past four years, enacted the most genocidal Cuban policies of all the Republican U. S. Presidents since the 1950's, including the 1952 Republican U. S. White House that, incredibly, teamed the U. S. democracy with the Mafia to support the brutal and thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba, which spawned the victorious Cuban Revolution that drastically changed both Cuba and the United States starting on January 1, 1959.

      For sure, Cubans in Cuba were glued to television and social media devices as that waited with abated breath hoping that Joe Biden would be elected President of the United States, and they rejoiced when it happened back in November. ANY Democrat replacing a Republican as U. S. President would have pleased Cubans in Cuba but replacing Trump was ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT to Cubans in Cuba. But will the election of Joe Biden end up as just another disappointment for the Cubans-in-Cuba, the only people in the world who are forced to face the COVID-19 pandemic while also facing the longest and cruelest EMBARGO/BLOCKADE ever posed by a powerful nation against the masses of people in a much smaller nation. In that milieu, I believe that America's best Cuban expert in Washington, Emily  Mendrala, is the best American to consult regarding that prediction/question about whether Biden in the White House will treat Cubans in Cuba better than Trump has.

     In the United States today Emily Mendrala is the best expert you can  depend on for the best updates on U.S.-Cuban Relations. Now a mother of two children in Washington, Mendrala graduated from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Virginia. During the Obama-Biden presidency she was a key National Security Advisor on International Matters and, most particularly, she was Special Advisor to President Obama and to Senator John Kerry on Cuban Affairs. And for sure, as December of 2020 is about to turn into January of 2021, Emily Mendrala knows more than anyone about what is now happening between Cuba and the U. S. and what is likely to happen in the forseeable future!!

     After being a key advisor to President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Senator Kerry regarding Cuba, Emily Mendrala is now the Executive Director of the Washington-based CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY IN THE AMERICAS.

     As the powerful and loving leader of the influential Center for Democracy in the Americas, the brilliant Emily Mendrala continues to strongly advocate for normalizing relations between the United States and Cuba. In fact, she has just made sure that President-elect Joe Biden has gotten A POWERFUL WRITTEN STATEMENT reminding the incoming U. S. President why the CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY IN THE AMERICAS believes it is vital to Democracy in America and in the Americas for the U. S. to normalize relations with Cuba. Please read Emily Mendrala's statement below. It was her prelude to an exceedingly long statement she sent to powerfully advise the upcoming Biden presidency to return the United States to Obama-type Cuban policies...for the sake of Cubans, Americans, and Democracy!!!!!

      In other words, thanks to the impetus from the brilliant and decent Emily Mendrala, the upcoming Biden administration has a brilliant and decent roadmap for U.S.-Cuban Relations that has been compiled by both the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas and the Washington Office on Latin America...two decent and insightful organizations that are not controlled by the dictates of Little Havana counter revolutionaries.

        Since 1492 when Columbus discovered first Cuba and then the United States, neither scholarly nor decent PERSPECTIVES have prevailed in U. S.-CUBAN RELATIONS. Both of those aspects have been regularly shoved aside and replaced by greed...and by revenge for the Cuban Revolution's victory in 1959, the loss at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961, and for all the other reasons for not recapturing Cuba in the last six+ decades. All that has also been coupled with other dastardly things involved in U.S.-Cuban relations since the 1898 Spanish-American War that was fought on Cuba soil so the U. S. could gain control of the Caribbean's largest island from Spain; and especially since 1952 when the U. S. teamed with the Mafia to support the brutal and thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba; and especially since 1959 when the Cuban Revolution shocked the world by overthrowing the Batista dictatorship and thus creating Little Havana in Miami on U. S. soil. And all the back to the birth of the United States in 1776 only one U. S. President, Obama, has treated Cuba with scholarly decency. Now on the eve of 2021 we must wait to see if Obama's Vice President Joe Biden will use the Biden presidency to add some scholarly decency to U.S.-Cuban Relations. This Biden Tweet indicates, probably Not!!!

       As you can see above, back on May 15-2020 at 5:12 PM while campaigning against Trump for the Presidency, Joe Biden spoke of Cuba like the Piggybank pawn like some Democratic presidents have often called the island when it is politically or economically expedient to do so. So slapping Cuba in the face because it was put on the UN Human Rights Council may or may not be what Biden really feels overall about Cuba.

     Then, as you can see above, at 4:05 PM on Nov. 16, 2019, Joe Biden had Tweeted his strong support for Jose Daniel Ferrer, who is a virulent dissident that Cuba claims is funded and supported by both Little Havana and by with tax dollars via the U. S. government. Most everyday Cubans have posted on Facebook and other Social Media outlets video they have taken showing a big black U.S.-owned SUV picking up and letting out Jose Daniel Ferrer at places in Havana while he was with the top diplomat at the Trump-curtailed U. S. Embassy building in Havana. Cuba claims, and the everyday Cubans seem to wholeheartedly agree, that Cuba allows dissidents to protest their govenment as long as they are not paid by "a foreign government," meaning the United States. There are indications Joe Biden, although being purely a product of the Cuba-friendly Obama presidency, can be easily persuaded to throw Cuba under the bus if it becomes politically expedient after his inauguration on January 20th, 2021. Judging by the two above Tweets, it appears that Joe Biden will take his Cuban directions and directives from high-profile and supposedly well-funded dissidents in Cuba and in Little Havana while ignoring the opinions or concerns of everyday Cubans on the island, even while Cubans in Cuba now ubiquitously use Smart Phones and Computers to speak-up freely, pro or con, on major Social Media internet forums. In other words, except for the Democrat Obama, every U. S. President has viewed Cuba as a political and economic tool to be exploited by rich Amerians.

      In March of 2016 President Obama became the first U. S. President to visit Cuba since President Herbert Hoover arrived in 1928 in a warship to bully Cuba. And in Cuba President Obama had the guts, the intelligence, and the decency to go live on national radio and television to tell the Cuban people: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." It was a sincere promise and the Cuban people believed him, and Obama at least tried to deliver on his promise.

But then in January of 2017...incoming President Donald Trump shook hands with outgoing President Barack Obama. That very month the Cuban families in Cuba began to again "fear" the United States. They knew the Republican Trump would turn over the USA's Cuban policies to the extremist Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Little Havana. But even in January of 2017 Cubans in Cuba did not believe that Trump would expand the cruel six-decade-old U. S. Embargo into a genocidal Blockade...but, without a whimper from either the American people or the mainstream U. S. media, that is precisely what Trump did when he activated Title III of the Little Havana-written Helms-Burton Act. Not even the two-term George W. Bush presidency, which was totally-aligned with Little Havana, would enact Title III because even Bush considered it too GENOCIDAL to impose on masses of TOTALLY INNOCENT Cuban families. BUT TRUMP ACTIVATED TITLE III!!!

     And so next month -- January of 2021 -- President Joe Biden will inherit both the infamous Little Havana-written Helms-Burton Act, which now includes the "X" for "Genocide" since Trump activated the provision, Title III, that even President Bush refused to activate because even Bush considered it to be too genocidal to impose on innocent Cuban families. Above you now see the "X" attached to Congress's legally mandated Helms-Burton Act. And also note that the illustration above shows that the Cubans in Cuba well know the meanings of Helms-Burton and Title III even as the United States, with the very long Pinocchio nose, lies to the world and to the American people about it.

      AND SO...................as Trump is replaced by Biden as President of the United States in less than a month from now, will America's Pinocchio nose regarding Cuba get shorter or stay about the same????? My guess is: I think it will get a little shorter, but not BY MUCH. That's because there is just too much money and too much political power to be gained by keeping the USA's monumental Pinocchio-nosed Cuban laws in place...even with a Democrat, Mr Biden, in charge of the White House beginning next month!!

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