Cuba's Little Country/Big Country Woes

 

   Today -- on October 19th-2023 -- and every day since 1962 Cuba has tried mightily to attract tourists to the island but the drastic U. S. economic Embargo/Blockade for over six decades has mostly blocked that effort because the U. S. effort to starve the Cuban economy is much stronger than anything little Cuba is able to muster.

    This street in Havana today reflects the fact that Cuba projects this street as a lure for tourists, the kind of tourism that the U. S. prevents Cuba from having.

     But this street in Havana also today reflects decaying buildings that Cuba is not able to maintain properly, and some of them still have homes where Cubans live. Sometimes, as happened again a week ago, collapsing buildings can be deadly.

         Above today are the Top Cuban Headlines flashing around the U. S. and the world on October 19th-2023. As usual, the Miami Herald article dominates Cuban headlines from the U. S. as written by anti-Cuban zealot Nora Gamez Torres. The dominance of Cuban news in the U. S., led by such Miami/Little Havana sources, remain a reason that the cruel Embargo/Blockade of Cuba has existed for over six decades -- and counting. As long as the Embargo/Blockade pleases or enriches rich and politically powerful Cubans in Miami/Little Havana, it might exist for another six decades.

This world-wide image doesn't deter the Embargo supporters.

    Just a few miles south of Key West & Miami, Cuba's northern coast has the world's best beaches, such as Varadero. But, of course, the U. S. doesn't want Cuban beaches to compete with Florida's tourist-obsessed attractions.

     But, of course, back in the 1950s {above} when the Batistianos, the Mafia, and major U. S. companies were making tons of money off tourist lures in Cuba such as gambling, drugs, prostituion, and world-famed beaches, the United States media and the United States wildly promoted tourism to dictator Batista's Cuba!!

    And, meanwhile, the five images/photos above are never mentioned by the U. S. media that promotes the U. S. Embargo of Cuba. As noted above, two of the world's most famed Hotel & Resort operations -- Iberostar and Melia, both headquartered in Spain -- have over forty gorgeous 4-star & 5-star Hotels in Cuba. But, of course, to make sure the Embargo continues to starve Cuba's economy, Americans are not allowed to stay in such hotels...and the Embargo also tries to dissuade citizens from other nations to also avoid spending any money in Cuba. For example, if a cruise ship docks in Cuba it can't then go and dock in a U. S. port.

       And, of course, for over six decades Americans have been programmed to believe that this seminal international image doesn't reflect badly on the United States and that -- HEY!! -- the wonderful Embargo starves only the mean leaders of Cuba, not Cuban children and their mothers, of course.

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Cuba Tries to Feed Its People

     For many years Cubans believed Miguel Diaz-Canel when he was their Education Minister and now, in the closing days of October of 2023, he is asking them to trust him as the President of Cuba, the role he has had for the past five years. An excellent communicator, President Diaz-Canel often walks the streets in Cuban cities speaking to the Cuban people and, as shown above today, he also makes strong use of Cuba's excellent line-up of nationwide television stations. Above this week in late October of 2023 he is shown using that effective medium to tell the Cuban people, "For over six decades the U. S. blockade has targeted us to starve and torment us, with the effort stronger than ever this year, by attacking our economy in the hope the food shortages and the electric blackouts will  encourage the overthrow of our revolution, which triumphed in January-1959 a few months before I was born. The terror, blackouts, and the food shortages test us daily but we will survive and then thrive. We are lessening the terror attacks and we are making strides in improving the electric grid, and -- as a top priority -- we are trying desperately to produce more food from our own soil. Revolutionary promises guaranteed such things as free educations through college and free food, if needed. The blockade, for example, made us buy things such as milk powder from New Zealand and when travel problems blocked those purchases I cringed seeing our babies suffer from losses of some of their milk rations. That convinced me anew that we must produce our products, despite the blockade, and that means having farm machinery to till our soil and our own milk cows. As this news station reported as I visited such fields to analyze the progress we are making, the people are seeing for themselves that, despite the blockade, we are making strides to alleviate the food shortages, which is the place that I believe we should start in our efforts to survive the blockade." As President Diaz-Canel said, it is important that the Cuban people themselves see the progress the island is making in its all-out efforts to produce more-and-more food. One of the world's greatest News Agencies -- the Paris-based Agence France-Presse -- has a great journalist-photographer named Yamil Lage posted in Cuba. Today the seven photos shown below reveal that Yamil Lage is reporting that Cuba, indeed, is making major strikes in trying to produce more food on the island.

     For sure -- as reported above this week by Yamil Lage/Agence France-Presse -- Cuba is trying to alleviate its food shortages. 

      In addition to producing more-and-more of its own food, Cuba also has massively encouraged more-and-more private entrepreneurs to open their own businesses. Above...a new entrepreneur named Maduro has opened his own market to sell food products produced by an influx of Cuban farmers.

     Also today President Diaz-Canel told his nationwide television audience: "We have to be able to produce and distribute the little we have with the greatest concept of equity and social justice." This exact quote from the Cuban president is also shown on several Social Media forums today. 

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Targeting Cuba Makes For Rich Celebrities

 

     These images of Cuba on Social Media platforms in Mid-October of 2023 reflect the fact that Cubans on the embargoed/blockaded island actually think about things other than their devastated economy, which shows no signs of lessening as their Superpower neighbor continues to create a litany of rich celebrities who profit from it.

      And so, on October 14th-2023 -- as the world is forced to embrace bloody Wars in multiple regions -- above are the TOP Headlines related to Cuba. On the top-left there is a Florida-Cuba headline, of course; on the top-right there is a headline about nations being pressured to stop dealing or trading with Cuba while the U. S. Embargo is designed to starve the Cuban economy; in the lower-right there is a headline about many starving young people in Cuba being forced to "exit" the island; and in the lower-left there is the headline about "Tania Bruguera"; and in the very bottom of the TOP Headlines you are reminded that the Miami Herald on a daily basis promotes the need for Embargo/Blockade because of the terrible "Castro regime/President Miguel Diaz-Canel" revolutionary rule that replaced the nice and wonderful U.S./Mafia/Batista dictatorship that ruled Cuba so wonderfully in the 1950s prior to the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1st of 1959. But here let's focus on today's topical TOP Headlines on October 14th of 2023, especially the wonderful headline about anti-Cuban zealot Tania Bruguera.

      As you can see above, the TOP headline about Tania Bruguera taking her anti-Cuba crusade to Chile flashed around the world on October 13th & 14th in 2023, celebrating her as the "Cuban artist and Harvard lecturer." WONDERFUL!! The article is a reminder that...if you are an anti-Cuban zealot you can easily get rich and famous in the U. S. by becoming a Harvard lecturer, a Yale professor/author, the top Editorial Writer at the Miami Herald, one of the many Little Havana/Miami members of the U. S. Congress, etc.

It's wonderful...to be rich & famous.

It's not wonderful to be embargoed.

And it's not wonderful to be blockaded.

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Cuba and US Relations in October-2023

 

    Today is October 12th-2023 and, as indicated above, Revolutionary Cuba since January of 1959 is still obsessed with its three most memorable heroes -- Che Guevara, Jose Marti, and, especially, Fidel Castro. But the images below reveal the basic fact that, in October-2023, Revolutionary Cuba is also primarily obsessed with its relations with its northern neighbor, the superpower United States...especially the economic Embargo that the United States has imposed on the island for the past six decades.

    Revolutionary Cuba in October of 2023 is most frustrated that the U. S. has maintained the Embargo/Blockade of Cuba for six decades despite the fact that most of the rest of the world strongly comdemns it.

    Also in October of 2023 Cubans in Revolutionary Cuba are frustrated that the two last U. S. administrations -- Trump's and Biden's -- have tightened the Embargo/Blockade against the island by putting Cuba on the very short U. S. List of Nations That Sponsor Terror. Meanwhile, Cubans in Revolutionary Cuba in October of 2023 don't believe that Cuba is a terrorist nation but they well remember being victims of numerous terrorist actions, such as the downing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455 in October of 1976 that killed all on board.

     And, meanwhile, in October of 2023 Cubans in Revolutionary Cuba are being reminded daily that their government is trying desperately to obtain foreign help in trying to survive the ongoing economic crisis that they believe is mostly caused by the endless U. S. Embargo/Blockade of the island. The photo above shows Cuba's longtime Trade Minister Ricardo Cabrisas on a 4-day visit to Saudi Arabia in October of 2023 seeking trade and/or financial help from that faraway but ultra-rich nation.

    But in October of 2023 Cubans in Revolutionary Cuba also study maps such as the one above and wonder why they are the only ones in the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean Sea that are being starved by the United States, a process that has existed for the past six decades.

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