One Year After the Protests in Cuba

    For decades the genius of Brazilian editorial cartoonist Carlos LaTuff has brilliantly informed the world that there are two sides to the ageless U. S. EMBARGO of Cuba.

    This is Carlos LaTuff telling the world that the U. S. Embargo, which was started in 1962, is still a two-sided affair in July of 2022. In other words, he disagrees with the Washington Post and the rest of the mainstream U. S. media that seems to maintain that the Embargo is a one-sided event and therefore starving, depriving, and making miserable the Cubans on the island is still justified. In other words, Americans are told that all the good Cubans are already in the U. S. or trying to get there, while all the bad Cubans are still in Cuba and planning to stay there...come hell or HIGH water.

     Today -- July 11th, 2022 -- is the first anniversary of the July 11th-2021 anti-government protests in Cuba that many hoped and believed would finally doom Cuba's revolutionary rule.

    The U. S., of course, is awash today with massive headlines rehashing last year's protests in Cuba. Not surprisingly the Washington Post led the anti-Cuba diatribes today...the Washington Post that is owned by the ultra-rich Jeff Bezos, the step-son of the Cuban-born Miguel Bezos.

   Today on July 11, 2022 the mammoth Washington Post headline shown above heralded the anniversary of last year's Cuban protests with the reminder that a year later  "NOW THEY'RE FLEEING THE ISLAND."  For sure, throughout this year Cuban migrants are among the millions of exiles flooding across the USA's southern border with Mexico.

    In contrast to what the U. S. media reports daily about the ongoing conundrum known as U.S.-Cuba Relations, there are unreported opinions from untold millions of people who strongly believe that the prime problems inside Cuba and within the USA Cuban policies is because that a minority of U.S. Cubans dictate the self-serving policies regarding Cuba -- thus enriching already rich U. S. Cubans while hurting Cuban families in Cuba. Such unreported opinions are shared by people such as...Mexican President Lopez Obrador and Cuban President Diaz-Canel.

    In fact, perhaps the most egregiously unreported fact by the U. S. media about U.S.-Cuban Relations is that most Cuban-Americans strongly resent what many believe are genocidal U. S. policies targeting Cuban families on the island. Carlos Lazo is a beloved professor in Seattle who is devoting his life to preventing innocent women and children in Cuba from succumbing to such drastic U. S. policies as the six-decade-old Embargo-Blockade against the nearby island nation. Although his efforts are massive and also ubiquitously chronicled on Social Media platforms, the U. S. media doesn't want the American people to know about Carlos while they massively promote any and all Counter Revolutionary Cubans. Unreported by the U. S. media, Carlos rode his bicycle {followed by some of his students} the 3,000 miles from Seattle to Washington to beg President Trump to end the Embargo against Cuba. Then Carlos {followed by some of his students} walked the 300 miles from Little Havana in Miami to Washington to beg President Biden to end to the Embargo against Cuba. NEEDLESS TO SAY, the U. S. media ignores people like Carlos Lazo while, of course, devoting countless pages and hours to anti-Cuban zealots.

     While neither the U. S. media nor Presidents Trump or Biden pay any attention to Carlos Lazo, his ferment pleas on behalf of innocent children and their families in Cuba are hourly heralded on Social Media and via his speeches and videos.

   Through his BRIDGES of LOVE foundation, Carlos Lazo frequently flies planeloads of food and medical supplies to Cuba...such as 5,000 cans of Tuna and other food on one recent flight and boxes of Pediatric Medicine and other necessities on another recent flight. The passionate belief that predicates the life of Carlos Lazo is this: "I sincerely believe that a few rich and powerful people in a superpower nation should not endlessly be allowed to benefit from starving and depriving innocent families that happen to live in a much smaller and vulnerable nation."

    Today -- on July 11, 2022 -- this photo was posted on Facebook and other Social Media platforms but you won't see it in the U. S. media that is too busy being saturated, as usual, with only anti-Cuban diatribes. But for the record, this is Carlos Lazo with some of his BRIDGES of LOVE boxes filled with Pediatric Medicine that will benefit children in Cuba, children in Cuba that he believes have been unfairly treated all their lives by the U. S. Embargo/Blockade of their island.

Is this a two-sided story or is it a one-sided story?

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Is Revolutionary Cuba Finally Ending?

The Cuban Revolution shocked the world in 1959.

     Even more shocking is the fact that Revolutionary Cuba, right below Miami, has existed for over six decades!! This photo was taken today -- July 9th, 2022 -- and it shows a peaceful, calm view of Havana's skyline and its famed Malecon Wall. But just across the Florida Straits in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood there appears to be more-and-more signs that the end of Revolutionary Cuba is near at hand, perhaps closer than it has ever been since 1959.

      Here are the Top Cuban Headlines for today -- July 9th, 2022. The top two headlines reveal that Little Havana and the United States government are celebrating the first anniversary of the protests that roiled Havana and other Cuban cities a year ago. Little Havana celebrates while Washington imposes sanctions "on 28 Cuban officials" including Cuban journalists. Meanwhile, the two bottom headlines today hint that, except for the U. S. embargo/blockade, Cuba would likely be the economic hub of the Caribbean the way it was in the 1950s when both the U. S. and the Mafia supported the Batista dictatorship and championed hordes of tourists to the island. The lower-right headline today -- from the NY-based Epoch Times -- is about the "Unexplained Deaths of 23 Senior Cuban Military Officers that Died Within 12 months, or since July of 2021." As usual, the daily congregations of Cuban headlines about Cuba reflect the fact that the island nation is saddled with always having to exist within the confines of its dangerous location that puts it due south of the superpower United States...which means:

    Such hostility from the world's superpower long ago would have likely caused much larger nations than Cuba to have capitulated, but Cuba somehow has managed to resist...decade after decade.

   Today's headline about Caribbean Airlines that "it is increasing its cargo network to and from Cuba" is merely one tiny hope in a gloomy sea of despair for Revolutionary Cuba.

      The headline today that stirred the ire of "Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez" concerned the latest of the USA's endless sanctions against Cuba and Cuban officials, this time  targeting Cuban journalists. As reported above by the powerful London-based REUTERS NEWS AGENCY, Bruno Rodriguez said, "In view of its failed attempt to provoke popular uprising in Cuba in 2021, the US government and its Secretary of State are seeking to discredit the Cuban people's victory over imperialist aggression." Of course, for many years Bruno Rodriguez...in speaking for Revolutionary Cuba...has loudly claimed that the United States, on behalf of Little Havana, has continually funded and encouraged terrorism against Cuba -- such as the deadly bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455 in 1976, while also funding and encouraging dissident protests on the island.

        In other words...the uneven David vs. Goliath fight that pits poor-and-blockaded Havana against ultra-rich Little Havana USA has, incredibly, existed since January of 1959. Will it FINALLY reach a coda in JULY of 2022? Maybe...maybe not!

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U.S. Media's One-Sided Cuban Diatribes

 

     Since the 1950s Americans have been spoon-fed distorted accolades -- "Sooo Beautiful"/"BRAVO" -- about how wonderful Cuba's Batista dictatorship was from 1952 till 1959 and then how terrible Revolutionary Cuba has been since 1959. 

      From 1952 until 1959, when he was overthrown by the Cuban Revolution, Fulgencio Batista was Cuba's brutal and thieving dictator. During that time the Caribbean's largest island nation was a mammoth Cash Cow for the Batistianos and for the Mafia and for rich U. S. businessmen who supported the dictator and were lushly rewarded in exchange for military and financial kickbacks. To this day in July of 2022, more than six decades after the overthrow of Batista, Americans are still being told that Batista's Cuba provided everyday Cubans one of Latin America's all-time best financial standards of living. That's like saying that a multi-billionaire and a penny-less person living under a bridge have similar financial standards. For sure in Batista's Cuba, the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and the U. S. businessmen amassed fortunes. Of course, that ignores the plights of everyday Cubans in Batista's Cuba...including the two main reasons -- extreme poverty and extreme brutality -- that spawned Latin America's most historic and longshot revolution.

    There are numerous black-and-white photos such as this that document the extreme poverty of everyday Cubans in Batista's Cuba from 1952 till 1959. The ultra-powerful Batista simply saw no need to toss a few crumbs to the peasants.

     Instead of tossing a few crumbs to the non-Batistiano Cubans...and even providing some decent healthcare and educational opportunities...Dictator Batista chose to quell dissent with extremely brutal tactics...tactics -- murdering children as warnings -- that outraged Cuban mothers who bravely took to the streets to tell the world, including the famed New York Times reporter Herbert L. Matthews, what Batista was doing to their children. Photos like the ones directly above explain what created the long-shot revolution that ended up overthrowing Batista...an event that changed Cuba and the United States forever.

    For over six decades Cuban exiles and the U. S. government have desperately tried to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. Incredibly, it hasn't happened although the super-powerful and super-rich U. S. has had its own controversial military base on Cuban soil at Guantanamo Bay since 1903. The endless attempts to overthrow the Cuban Revolution have comprised no-holds-barred strategies...such as bombing Cuba's vital sugar fields starting in January of 1960; the famed Bay of Pigs military attack in April of 1961; etc., etc., etc., etc.!!! After such drastic efforts failed, beginning in 1962 the U. S. began a massive economic Embargo-Blockade of Cuba designed to starve, deprive, and make miserable Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their Revolutionary government.

      The U. S. economic Embargo, which Cubans call a Blockade, has existed since 1962. For sure, it has starved, deprived, and made miserable generations of Cubans on the nearby island, but so far it hasn't accomplished it primary goal.

     Yet...from January of 1959 until July of 2022 the mainstream U. S. media has told Americans how wonderful and rich Cuba's Batista dictatorship was in the 1950s while how terrible and POOR Cuba has been since the wondrous and lucrative  1950s. An example is shown above today -- July 8th, 2022 -- when the John Suarez article in the Orange County Register refers to an Editorial in Jose Bezos' Washington Post that lavishly condones anything and everything that U. S. Cubans and the U. S. media say about U.S.-Cuban Relations. In other words, since the 1950s it doesn't matter what U.S.-Cuban relations are or have been. But...what does matter is who GETS to write about it.

    "Cuba vs. Blockade." Arianny Tellez Lamothe posted this photo on Facebook today -- July 8th, 2022. Arianny lives in Guantanamo, Cuba. She is a mother of two children, and she has opinions about things such as the U. S. Embargo/Blockade of her town. I believe that her opinions count too.

     These are Arianny Tellez Lamothe's two children in the town of Guantanamo, Cuba. I believe that children like these should be factored into the equation when rich people in a nearby powerful nation impose an economic blockade or other injustices that impact the precious lives of children such as these.

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Is Cuba STILL Beautiful????

YES! 

     This bashful little girl in Havana today...her name is Ambar Hernandez...epitomizes the fact that Cuba -- on July 7th, 2022 -- is still beautiful although it has gone through many iterations since 1492 when the Spanish explorer Columbus called it "the most beautiful land these eyes have ever seen."

     But the things that made Cuba unique -- its incomparable beauty, its pugnacious people, its strategic location, its shining luminosity as the largest island in the Caribbean, etc. -- also made it the most coveted prize for the world's greatest imperative powers, including most notably the nearby United States!! The great T. J. English best documented why and how the United States {as well as the Mafia} -- which dominated Cuba from 1898 till 1959 -- "Lost It to the Revolution."

     But if you fast-forward from Columbus's 1492 comment, written down in his historic diary, all the way to July 7th of 2022, you will be appalled at the blaring headlines about Cuba that daily and typically spew from the United States. Those July 7-2022 headlines {above} reflect that the superpower United States and the rich Cubans in nearby Miami are still mightily trying to regain control of Cuba since they lost it to the Cuban Revolution way back on January 1st, 1959!!

     This beautiful and bashful little Cuban girl in Havana, Ambar Hernandez, on July 7th-2022 perhaps says more about Cuba today than what the U. S. headlines say or even what T. J. English says.

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Ignore US Problems While Starving Cuba!!!

 

     Yesterday -- Monday, July 4th, 2022 -- Democracy-lovers like me celebrated the 246th year of the United States democracy. Billions of people around the world...whether or not they were allowed to admit it...probably agree that it has been the greatest government in the entire history of the world. 

     In the past two-and-a-half centuries the fifty states that comprise the United States had long-ago enjoyed a democracy that emerged as the richest and strongest nation in the history of the world. Incredibly, the richest and strongest nation in the world was also considered the best and most decent nation in the world.

But in July of 2022 question marks emerge.

      In the United States in July of 2022 there are a multitude of mammoth problems...a huge number of unpopular politicians safely control high offices only because the U. S. political system revolves around mass amounts of political donation money; overwhelming chaos on the southern border with Mexico runs rampant; overwhelming and seemingly uncontrollable crime inundates and roils U. S. cities; the U. S. seems to have evolved into a political and media situation that serves the 10% of extreme left-wingers and the 10% of extreme right-wingers while ignoring the needs and opinions of the 80% of more decent middle-of-the-road Americans; dangerous and uncontrollable divisions pitting the extreme left-wingers vs. the extreme right-wingers while the rest of the majority population of 330 million citizens seem to be entirely left out in the cold; etc., etc., etc.

    In 1492 Spanish explorer Columbus discovered both Cuba and the United States...and virtually since then the U. S. relations with Cuba have done, perhaps, more than anything else to shape and color images of the U. S. democracy. Thomas Jefferson and other U. S. leaders dating back to the 1700s craved U. S. domination of Cuba. But Spain was the imperative power that most dominated the island until 1898 when the U. S. used the bombing of the US Maine warship in Havana Harbor to launch the easy Spanish-American War in Cuba, drastically changing who dominated Cuba. After 1898 those who anticipated a GREAT DEMOCRACY in Cuba have been rudely surprised. By 1903 the U. S. had ruled Cuba militarily and, uh, took perpetual control of the lush Guantanamo Bay that to this day is home to an unwanted and controversial U. S. military base and prison. But, incredibly, 1952 turned out to be, perhaps, the all-time most undemocratic year involving the U. S. domination of Cuba: IN 1952 THE U. S. TEAMED WITH THE MAFIA TO SUPPORT THE BRUTAL AND THIEVING BATISTA DICTATORSHIP SO RICH U. S. BUSINESSMEN COULD PARTAKE IN THE WHOLESALE RAPE AND ROBBERY OF CUBA, the Caribbean's largest and most beautiful island nation!!

     On January 1st, 1959 the Cuban Revolution shocked the world {and history} by overthrowing the powerful Batista dictatorship that had been supported by the Mafia, the most powerful criminal organization in the world; and by the United States, the most powerful nation in the world. Since January 1, 1959...incredibly...massive measures and attempts to destroy Revolutionary Cuba and regain control of the pugnacious island have yet to be consummated!! Yet, in the past 60+ years politically correct U. S. Cubans have grown ultra-rich and ultra-powerful...mostly the ones in Miami and Newark. Meanwhile, since January 1 of 1959 Americans have been successively told that all the good Cubans were in the U. S. while all the bad Cubans were still on the island, justifying U. S. efforts to starve Cubans in Cuba to induce them to overthrow their Revolutionary government! In a Caribbean nutshell, that is where U.S.-Cuban Relations are in July of 2022.

     In this first full week of July-2022, the headline shown above helps explain, perhaps, the major weakness of the U. S. democracy...namely, the U. S. media. The massive article headlined above comes on a day this first week in July-2022 when there are a plethora of non-Cuba stories that direly concern the daily issues that Americans are facing. But, of course...as usual...the U. S. media devotes abundant space in shaming and defaming Cubans in Cuba. Above, as you can see, the first paragraph says: "'When we go to sleep, it is with the fear of not waking up again,' says Elisa Bacyan, a resident in one of about 700 apartment buildings deemed unsafe in the Cuban capital, where collapses are frequent." As this headline/article reveals, the U. S. media loves to report drastic problems for Cubans in Cuba BUT IT FAILS TO REPORT THAT A SIX-DECADE GENOCIDAL U. S. EMBARGO/BLOCKADE OF THE ISLAND IS LARGELY TO BLAME. For example, if the superpower U. S. had treated Canada and Mexico -- the massive U. S. trading partners -- the way it has treated Cuba for more than six decades -- there would also be frequent collapsing buildings in Canadian and Mexican cities too!!

      For sure...tropical rains, storms, hurricanes, and other calamities often assault Cuba's capital city of Havana -- not to mention disasters such as the COVID-19 Pandemic!!!! But in July of 2022 most of the everyday Cubans most dread the U. S. blockade of the island. And if the U. S. media was an unbiased source...as it once was...honest reports regarding Cuba would again be welcomed by America's democracy-lovers. Cuba is America's neighbor but, unwittingly, it also says much more about the United States than it should say. Mostly, Cuba and the United should be NEIGHBORS.

NEIGHBORS!!

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