Cuba's Future Post-Trump & COVID

  But 2021 Will Be A Struggle!!

    In this first week of January of 2021 both the Cuban government and most of the 11.2 million Cubans on the island are using banners like the one above to celebrate: "HAPPY 2021: The 62nd Anniversary of the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution. CUBA LIVES!!!" Of course, since January 1-1959 after the Cuban Revolution chased the leaders of the U.S.-backed/Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship to their new sanctuary in Little Havana in the heart of Miami the Cuban Counter Revolutionaries and the U. S. government then proclaimed that recapturing Cuba would take only a few weeks, or a few months at the most. But as pugnacious and shocking as the Revolutionary triumph over the powerful Batista dictators...who were supported by the strongest nation in the world and by the strongest criminal organization in the world...was...let it be known that that the 62-year-old longevity of the Cuban Revolution is even more pugnacious and shocking than was the original triumph 62 YEARS AGO!!!

     The eTurbo News photo above this week shows two Cuban women walking in Havana. Unlike the overthrown Batista dictatorship, Revolutionary Cuba since 1959 has mandated free healthcare for life and free education through college for every Cuban on the island. So, while wearing COVID-19 masks, these two Cuban women are smart, well educated, and healthy. They also have opinions about their revolution and their lives...and about the lives of their children. Like most Cubans on the island, these two women support the Revolution and they resent the Little Havana and United States genocide aimed at them and their families. Moreover, they resent the fact that the superpower U. S. government and the superpower U. S. media formulate lies about them while refusing to permit their OPINIONS to be heard. But on the island, now that most Cubans have access to Smart Phones and the Internet and Social Media outlets, Cubans like these two women can voice their hopes, dreams, and desires openly and freely. Using that Online power, Cubans in Cuba have discovered that they can openly and strongly criticize their government...as long as the government believes they are not influenced by funds from Little Havana and from the United States government. For example, in this first week of 2021 Cubans in Cuba are adjusting to totally new currency and many have openly complained about it directly to the government as well as to the Cuban media and via their ubiquitous Social Media forums. They know they can strongly complain...except if their complaints are believed to be or discovered to be funded by dollars from Little Havana and the United States.

     This Ramon Espinosa/AP photo above depicts how Cuba, starting this first week of January-2021, has ended its dual currency system and devalued the peso.

      This Lisette Poole/Bloomberg photo was used to illustrate an article to help explain how the changed currency system will effect and alter the lives of the Cuban people {a lot}. Many think it will add to inflation and make products priced higher, but the government is willing to risk dealing with that eventuality.

      This Ramon Espinosa/AP photo shows how a Cuban is trying to adjust to the new single-currency system on the island.

      The two articles above from two major U. S. news sources, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News, accurately reveal the drastic effects for Cubans regarding the new currency changes.

        The article above by David Urra reveals one way that Cuba is trying to indicate that it hopes to improve its dismal economy in 2021. Cuba is 9th in the world in the production of Nickel, an important mineral used in the manufacture of things such as Smart Phones, electric cars, etc. Cuba has plans for its Cuban/Canadian plants in Holguin Province to increase its production of Nickel in the New Year of 2021. The Cuban government admits that its already fragile economy lost 11% of its value in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And President Trump's Little Havana-directed genocide exacerbated the economic hardship when Trump permitted Counter Revolutionary zealots to tighten the EMBARGO, which was instituted way back in 1962 for the purpose of "starving, depriving, and making miserable" the Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their own Revolutionary government. For sure, the Embargo has severely hurt generations of innocent Cuba, but it hasn't induced them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government because most Cubans remember the extreme thievery and brutality of the U.S.-backed Batista rule. And neither have such things as the US-Little Havana Bay of Pigs military attack in April-1961, many drastic terrorist attacks {such as killing all 72 innocent people aboard Cubana Flight 455 in 1976}, etc., etc. Meanwhile, Cuba in the first days of 2021 hopes that...getting a handle on the Pandemic, and getting shed of the Trump administration, and hoping the new currency system will prove successful, and hoping it can revive its tourist industry, and increasing things such as Nickel production will improve things for the Cuban people on the island.

      Also, facing the decades-long Embargo-Blockade from the superpower United States, Cuba has been forced to purchase about $2 billion dollars of imported food each year. But now it is strongly trying to grow more of its own food even in the midst of the continuing Embargo-Blockade. As reflected by the three photos above, Cuba is trying to persuade and fund Cuban farmers to begin to grow more food for the Cubans on the island and for tourists who are anticipated to continue to return despite COVID precautions and the U. S. Embargo/Blockade. Meanwhile, as the Year-2021 has dawned in the Caribbean, for seven decades Americans have been told that the nice Batista-Mafia leaders were chased out of Havana in 1959 by the bad Castro-led Rebels. Thus the programmed American citizens, at least till the Good Guys in Little Havana recapture Cuba, the American people should continue to pump money and material and political favors to Little Havana  to the good Cubans. In the U. S., the history of the Cuban revolution and the ongoing efforts of the rich and powerful Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Little Havana has always been terribly slanted in favor of Little Havana, and grossly slanted against Havana. But a few facts creep out.

     And through it all, the Caribbean island of Cuba has done some historic and incredible things: It defeated a brutal dictatorship supported by the world's strongest nation and by the world's strongest criminal organization; and it has somehow survived for 62 years the ultra-powerful forces that have combined to try to recapture its vulnerable island.

     And through it all, the two photos directly above taken this first week of 2021 by Havana photographer Wendy Oliva Gonzalez, shows that Cuban mothers in January of 2021 are miraculously protecting their children in the Age of COVID, in the Age of Trump, and in an Age when the United States has expanded the cruel 6-decades-old Embargo into what appears to be intended as a Genocidal Blockade.

      And way back in 1953 (above}, it should be remembered, another generation of Cuban Mothers began the brave street marches that spawned the Cuban Revolution, which in January of 1959 captured Havana and thus spawned Little Havana in Miami. And, considering that Cuba is an island nation and the United States is the world's strongest and richest nation, that is why I believe the Cuban Revolution has changed the United States even more than it has changed Cuba.

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Trump Begins 2021 Still Terrorizing Cuba

 During His Last Days as President!!

     Taking advantage of Donald Trump's final couple of weeks as President, it appears that the prime Counter Revolutionary Cubans who have directed President Trump's genocidal campaigns against Cuba -- such as Marco Rubio, Mauricio Claver-Carone, and Mario Diaz-Balart -- plan to order Trump "to designate" Cuba as a SPONSOR OF TERRORISM. While that is not quite as bad as persuading Trump to nuke Cuba, it is almost as bad.

     While most of the two-million+ Cuban-Americans desire to treat Cubans on the island decently, and want to be able to freely visit them and send money and gifts to help them, every Republican administration since 1959 has only permitted only extreme Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans to dictate the USA's Cuban policies. Under the Republican presidency led by Trump during the past four years, only extreme and self-serving Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans led by Mauricio Claver-Carone, Marco Rubio, and Mario Diaz-Balart have had input with Trump regarding his genocidal decisions aimed at Cubans on the island. And, as has been the case since the 1950's, three generations of cowardly Americans have not had the courage to inject themselves into this Mafiosi-like assault on the American democracy, not to mention on innocent Cuban citizens on the island.

     The two all-time top Mafia kingpins in American history were Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. In 1952 the United States government teamed with Luciano & Lansky to support the thieving and brutal Batista dictatorship in Cuba. With barely a whimper from either the U. S. media or the U. S. citizens, the rape and robbery in Cuba by the Mafia and America was all about MONEY!!!!!!!

     Since the 1950's when the U. S. has badly needed honest and brave journalists and authors, only a few have had the courage and decency to tell the true facts about America's Mafiosi-like love of Cuba. Perhaps the great T. J. English did the best job of telling that important story in his incomparable book: "Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba...and Then Lost It to the Revolution."

     Even the famed Smithsonian Institute in Washington, as shown above, credits the great T. J. English for his honest and brave insights into how the Mafia, supported by the United States, plundered Cuba during the brutal and thieving Batista dictatorship from 1952 till 1959 till the Cuban Revolution chased the miscreants from Havana but they {and their loot} quickly created Little Havana on nearby U. S. soil in the heart of Miami. In the photo and caption above the renowned Smithsonian Institute explains that the Mafia and the U. S. government encouraged American tourists to flock to Havana in the 1950's to indulge in the prime Mafia sins of gambling, drugs, and prostitution. Yes, and from 1952 until Jan. 1-1959 top U. S. companies swamped Cuba so they could partake of the sweet, luscious pickings. In the above photo, the Smithsonian Institute shows that a Meyer Lansky casino in the Hotel Nacional was flush with eager tourists in 1957, and the caption says, "Meyer Lansky, who led the U. S. mob's exploitations of Cuba in the 1950s, set up a famous meeting of crime bosses at the hotel in 1946." Meyer Lansky was all-time top Mafia leader Lucky Luciano's top henchman. Americans, of course, are not even supposed to ask why the world's strongest democracy chose partners like Luciano and Lansky to join in the robbery of Cuba. After all, starting in 1903, the year the U. S. alone stole the lush Guantanamo Port from Cuba and put a powerful military base on it, the U. S. didn't need the Mafia to help it squander the island's natural resources.

     Also take a moment to study the Smithsonian statement above after it talked with the great T. J. English, who explained how, for example, "Frank Sinatra became a draw for mob casinos in Havana, how the Castro-led revolution in Cuba and its subsequent diaspora had a protracted, corrosive effect on American politics, and how the ghosts of the 1950s still haunt the streets of Havana." Of course, since the 1950s Americans have been told what a wonderful thing it was for the U. S. democracy to align itself with the Mafia in the 1950s in Cuba, and that Fidel Castro, Celia Sanchez and all the rebels who chased them out of Cuba were Satan-like villain's while all those Republican politicians and all those rich U. S. companies were heroes for helping the Mafia expand its piggybank in Cuba while raping and robbing the island at will...while being supported by the world's most powerful nation and by the world's most powerful criminal organization.

    This photo shows Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner in Havana on their honeymoon in 1951. Sinatra began his love affair with the Mafia kingpins as a young man in New Jersey. Many Hollywood stars and many Mafia kingpins loved and frolicked in Havana starting in the 1920's and the 1930's but it was in 1952 that Meyer Lansky, as mentioned famously in the famed "Godfather" movie, told his buddy Fulgencio Batista when they both had mansions in Florida, "You know, Fulgie, I've always wanted for the Mob to own its own country." Then, from 1952 till Jan. 1-1959, that is what happened, with the cooperation of the United States.

     Incredibly, while raping and robbing Cuba at will, the Batista dictatorship didn't think it was necessary to even toss a few crumbs to the non-Batista and non-Mafiosi peasants, not even to feed them, educate them, or provide them health support. That ignorance and brutality spawned the Mother Marches as shown above, which then spawned the Revolution. But neither Batista, the Mafia, nor the United States thought a little Revolution could defeat a powerful dictatorship supported by the world's most powerful criminal organization and by the world's financial and military superpower. But during the last two days of 1958 a rebel army led by Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos captured Santa Clara, the last major city leading to Havana itself. On January 1st, 1959, Batista was at a lavish New Eve's Party but he kept in touch by phone and radio with what was happening in Santa Clara. Shortly after midnight, he got the news that "Che Guevara has captured Santa Clara and will in Havana by daylight." Just in case, get-away boats, ships, and airplanes had already been stuffed with loot, including gold bars, and they began vacating Havana by 3:00 A. M. on January 1, 1959. Most of the Mafiosi headed for Miami and Batista's plane landed first in the Dominican Republic where the brutal anti-Castro/pro-U. S. Trujillo was the dictator. Other get-away vessels headed for Mafia strongholds in New Orleans, Tampa, Newark, and Nicaragua where the brutal anti-Castro/pro-U. S. Somoza was the dictator.

     This is the actual photo that shows Che Guevara after his rebels had just derailed an entire Batista train loaded with soldiers, weapons, and ammunition intended to defend Santa Clara. Then Guevara's rebels captured the city of Santa Clara. The definitive Bohemia Magazine then said Guevara told his top commander Camilo Cienfuegos, "Now we will just leave enough rebels to secure Santa Clara, and Fidel and Celia are making sure Santiago is secured. So now you, me and the rest of the us who just captured Santa Carla are going to race to Havana and hope those thieves and baby-killers will have the gumption to stand and fight us. Let's pray for that."

     The storekeeper-turned-rebel Camilo Cienfuegos replied to Che Guevara's order with these words: "Hell, yes!! Santa Clara was the last stepping stone to Havana. Let's hurry. Che, you think Batista's mafia soldiers will stay around to fight us now that they know what has happened in Santa Clara? God to mighty, do I hope so." The Che & Camilo quotes in Bohemia Magazine, which had a reporter with the column that captured Santa Clara, are considered authentic. Camilo Cienfuegos is still revered in Cuba as the commander who won such Battles as Yaguajay and Santa Clara on the path to Havana. Unfortunately, he died at the tender age of 27 in the crash of a small plane during a coastal storm on October 28, 1959 in the first year after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. To this day on each October 28th Cuban schoolchildren go to that beach to toss flowers in the sea and chant, "In our hearts, thanks always to our Camilo."

     This map shows the crucial rebel victories in the Battle of Yaguajay and then the Battle of Santa Clara on the road to Havana for the rebels. It was in 1957 that Celia Sanchez and Fidel Castro decided the rebels were strong enough, and that they had the support of the citizens, that they could begin to capture and then hold all the main cities between SANTIAGO, the former capital in the southeastern tip, and the current capital of HAVANA on the northwestern end of the island. And from the Sierra Maestra Mountains and Santiago, that is exactly what began to happen!!!

     And, yes, America...such decisions like when to begin capturing Batista-held cities and then holding them were made by Celia Sanchez and then always supported by Fidel Castro. This actual historic photo shows Celia holding a generator-fueled candle light while she plans a battle plan while Fidel reads. This photo was taken in 1957 in their famed cabin high up in the Sierra Maestra Mountains in the base-camp that Batista's U.S.-supplied war planes regularly flew missions to try to pinpoint, locate, and bomb. So, campfires and lights at night were carefully restricted by the rebels. This magnificent photo is an example of Celia Sanchez's prime decision-making prowess during the Cuban Revolutionary War.

    And this historic photo is one that you should surely also remember. It is an example of the basic fact that Celia Sanchez was still the prime decision-maker in Cuba after the war...right till the day she died at age 59 of lung cancer on January 11, 1980. Fidel Castro, shown in the rocking chair resting while Celia was writing down a decision that Fidel would later fully support, always said till the day he died at age 90 in 2016 that Celia was the "most important person during the war and in Cuba after the war." Fidel, of course, was correct about that but, of course, in the United States since the 1950s it is not healthy to say anything true about either Celia Sanchez or Fidel Castro. For example, the photo above...and the photo of Celia holding the candle in their base-camp bed...are both true and historical...so, uh, I guess you are not supposed to see them or study them.

   Yes, Celia Sanchez, as shown directly above, was a fearless Guerrilla Fighter. But she was much more. In Crucial stages of the war in early 1953 she was the most vital recruiter of rebels, weapons, ammunition, and other supplies needed to fight Batista. The first day Fidel Castro ever laid eyes on Celia, she gave him the telescopic rifle you can see above. But Fidel worshipped Celia long before he ever joined her rebels in the Sierra Maestra. That's because while Fidel was in a Batista prison from July-1953 until May-1955, he had heard all about what she was doing in the Sierra Maestra Mountains and its foothills. And till she died in 1980 of cancer and till he died of old age in 2016, Fidel continued to worship Celia and the Cuban ground she walked on.

       While most of the U. S. media is too afraid, too indecent or too incompetent to tell the truth about the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro was truthful when he maintained that the petite doctor's daughter, Celia Sanchez, was "the most important rebel" for her role as a recruiter of rebels and supplies, as a guerrilla fighter, and as a decision-maker. From 1953 until she died from cancer at age 59 in 1980 in Revolutionary Cuba, Celia Sanchez had been the prime decision-maker in Cuba during the Revolution and in Revolutionary Cuba, ALWAYS with Fidel's 100% support whether or not he agreed with her decisions. So...take a moment to study the photo above that shows Celia writing down a decision while Fidel is resting in his rocking chair...and whatever this Celia decision was it would later be made official law in Revolutionary Cuba by Fidel...the, uh, dictator but, uh, not the main decision-maker!!!!

      And therefore, Celia Sanchez is the prime person who saved Havana from the Mafia and she is also the person mainly responsible for the creation of Little Havana on U. S. soil in Miami. And therefore you should also know that she was the most honest and most insightful chronicler of the Cuban Revolution. So perhaps you  should study her quotations, such as the one listed above: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots."

     Please study all these Celia Sanchez quotations because she knew more about the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba than anyone else, including Fidel Castro...and she clearly knew more than the Counter Revolutionary Cubans she chased to Little Havana.

    Not only did Fidel Castro believe the Celia Sanchez quotes, but today most Cubans in Cuba believe them. And as you can see above, that includes today's Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel who was born after the triumph of Celia Sanchez's Cuban Revolution. And like President Diaz-Canel, you might recognize the poignancy and truth of Celia Sanchez's pertinent claim that: "Tired old rebels like me, I reckon, are still out-gunned and out-numbered. We can make history but we still don't get to write it." For sure, rebels like Celia Sanchez made history but the U. S. democracy has simply not been strong enough or decent enough to allow the real history-makers to tell their stories. But, of course, in America...even in the beginning of the year 2021...the Republicans and the Mafiosi can say or do anything they choose about either the Cuban Revolution or Revolutionary Cuba and the lies are readily shoved down the throats of Americans as pure gospel. And that is precisely why I say that the Cuban Revolution says more about the United States than it says about the island of Cuba!!!!!!!!!!!!

   The President of Cuba, the former Minister of Education Miguel Diaz-Canel, is strongly liked by a majority of Cubans on the island...and he was born after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. By contrast, in the U. S. neither the current President Trump nor the President-elect Biden can barely muster support from half the American voters who, in a money-crazed two-party system, often have to choose between the proverbial "lesser of two evils." And, uh, to some it appears that Little Havana as we enter the New Year of 2021 is looking more-and-more like Havana was in the pre-revolutionary 1950's.

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Cuba Shuts Down U.S. Flights

 To Reduce Visitors Spreading Virus!!

      Starting back in March Cuba closed its borders to tourism and shutdown its airports due to the dire threats from the COVID-19 pandemic. But last month, believing it had a handle on the virus, Cuba reopened its airports and its most popular beaches, especially admitting the return of Canadian tourists. But, after its health officials noted an influx of positive COVID cases caused by visitors, Cuba this week again began restricting flights from the United States, Mexico, Panama, the Bahamas, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. The Trump administration, in its efforts to totally strangle the Cuban economy, had already blocked all U. S. flights to Cuba except for the airport in Havana...and during this last week of December-2020 Cuba has basically shutdown even those flights from the United States too. Monday Cuba had a new record of 224 cases and attributed 65% of those to visitors. One COVID death today -- Dec. 29th -- made a total of 142 deaths since the pandemic began. Cuba's total of 11,424 cases are also among the lowest in the world.

   All of Canada's major airlines...including its newest OWG and its biggest Air Canada, can continue their flights to Cuba under the careful new COVID guidelines allowed since the resumption of tourism to the island since last month.

     A new surge of COVID cases in Panama has prompted that nation to again call on Cuba for help. This photo shows some of the 220 Cuban doctors that arrived in Panama City this week to help that country battle the pandemic. Panama requested the total of 220 Cubans and then quickly announced it has divided them into "ten brigades" to help in its hardest hit areas.

     Back in October of 2018 Russia signed an agreement to help modernize the Cuban railroad system with Russia financing the much-needed $2.314 billion project. But this week Russia announced it is stopping the project because "of the COVID-19 economic difficulties and quarantine restrictions on the island. But we hope that the works resume after the situation has stabilized."

    But just last week Cuba's Minister of Transportation, Eduardo Rodriguez, welcomed the delivery of seven Russian locomotives in Havana Harbor. Rodriguez said the $2.314 billion agreement included the delivery of 75 locomotives and that 60 of them have now arrived in Cuba. And Rodriguez said, "And most of the 60 delivered locomotives are already participating in the main traffic of rail transport in Cuba, as are the modern air-conditioned passenger cars from China."

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