Photo courtesy: Bryan Anselm/New York Times.
The photo above was used by the The New York Times to illustrate a major article on Dec. 19-2015. It was entitled: "U. S. and Cuba At Odds Over Exodus of the Island's Doctors." The photo shows a 29-year-old Cuban, Dr. Jose Angel Sanchez, in his new hometown of Paterson, New Jersey. He is one of thousands of Cuban doctors, educated for free in Cuba, who have defected to the U. S. via one of the many regime-change programs funded and legalized with the help of the Bush dynasty. Specifically in Dr. Sanchez's case, the George W. Bush administration in 2006 devised a regime-change program entitled "The Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program." It uses tax dollars to entice Cuban doctors working in foreign countries to defect, with incentives, to the U. S. It was not a scheme to replenish a doctor shortage in the U. S., but rather yet another Bush-directed program to hurt Cuba. It has worked so well that, despite the many advances by President Obama to normalize relations with Cuba, such ongoing roadblocks will totally blunt and roll-back all of the Obama overtures. Americans, left out of the U.S.-Cuban loop by a mostly incompetent or intimidated media, are not supposed to comprehend such facts even as they hear about such things as the opening of embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961, the resumption of direct mail service and direct commercial airplane flights for the first time in over five decades, etc.
Robert Muse is a Washington-based lawyer and the world's top expert on U. S. laws relating to Cuba. Thus, Mr. Muse knows something that everyday Americans are not supposed to know. He knows that Bush-era laws, such as "The Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program," are undemocratic, discriminatory, and probably illegal. The aforementioned December 19th New York Times article quoted Mr. Muse as saying, "No country is going to welcome engineered defections of its nationals. The medical defection law is an exploding cigar left over by the Bush administration." Those two sentences from America's top expert on the legality of U. S. laws related to Cuba are, unfortunately, meaningless. That's because since 1959 the Cuban narrative in the U. S. has been dictated by extremist elements of the ousted Batista dictatorship and their self-serving sycophants, such as the Bush dynasty. As long as the American people in general do not react to such things as the terrorist bombing of a child-laden Cuban civilian airplane or the legalization of such laws as the medical parole program, the Cuban extremists and benefactors like the Bush dynasty will feel free to continue using an easily purchased Congress to enact laws, regulations, and actions supposedly designed "to hurt Castro" while, in fact, enriching and empowering a few at the expense of the many. The aftereffects, such as shaming America's democratic pillars, are of no apparent concern to those who benefit revengefully, economically or politically. All the while, as the Bush-era Cuban dictations remain in place, Americans are supposed to sense that...hey!...the U. S. is normalizing relations with Cuba. Good luck! Ask America's top legal expert, Robert Muse. Or, better yet, ask Cuba's top expert on such U.S.-Cuban matters.
Josefina Vidal, Cuba's Minister for North American Affairs, has brilliantly negotiated with the Obama administration a remarkable series of advancements in relations with the United States, most notably the re-opening of embassies for the first time since 1961. But she is abundantly aware, in the closing days of 2015 as Mr. Obama enters the final year of his two-term presidency, "We are, to be honest, at the mercy of an unmerciful group in the U. S. Congress that sets U. S. policy regarding Cuba." By "We" she apparently means herself and President Obama. And she is right. She believes the ignorance or apathy of the American people remains the primary strength of "the unmerciful group" that dictates America's Cuban policy. However, parameters to rein in the excesses don't exist.
This is the image of the United States that the rest of the world has regarding America's Cuban policy. That fact is headlined each October by a vote in the United Nations. It is also true that most Americans don't give a damn.
The sheer ease in which a handful of Cuban-Americans aligned with the Bush dynasty have set America's Cuban policy since the 1980s to benefit them revengefully, economically, and politically at everyone else's expense is, actually, quite simple. First off, not taking a chance on a decent Democratic President, such as Obama, having the Executive Power to change the policy, they codified the most severe Cuban laws in an easily controllable U. S. Congress. That took place in three steps, which are:
{1} The Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 {"Torricelli"}.
{2} The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996 {"Helms-Burton"}.
and {3} The Trade Sanctions and Reform Act of 2000 ("George W. Bush"}.
With the above three acts in the U. S. Congress, the Batistianos, aligned tightly with the Bush dynasty, had codified the severest Cuban policy, such as the embargo, solely in the hands of Congress, not taking a chance that a U. S. President would interfere with it. Getting a small but requisite amount of right-wing members of Congress -- Bob Torricelli, Jesse Helms, Dan Burton, etc. -- has never been a problem, a fact that shames democracy even more than it has punished two generations of innocent Cubans on the island, all in the guise of "hurting Fidel Castro," who is now 89-years-old and has only been "hurt" by old age and ill health.
As if making fun of the world's greatest democracy, the Cuban narrative or propaganda in the U. S. since 1959 has successfully caused the American people to ignore the 191-to-2 vote in the United Nations on October 28th that emphatically supported Cuba's plea to end the U. S. embargo. It has been in effect since 1962 as the longest and cruelest embargo, which Cuba calls a blockade, imposed by a huge, strong country against a much smaller and weaker country. In all the world, when the 193 member nations voted, the U. S., the world's most influential economic and military power, could only purchase or persuade one nation to support its Cuban embargo. And the world understands that Israel is dependent on billions of U. S. dollars yearly as by far the biggest recipient of U. S. foreign aid. But even so, a 191-to-2 worldwide vote should make an impact on anybody!! The fact that it doesn't reflects poorly on the intelligence and courage of the American people who were bequeathed the greatest government in history, which maybe we don't deserve.
It also reflects poorly on Israel, even in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood {above}.
This USA Today photo informed Americans on Nov. 17-2015 that Nicaraguan police and soldiers, at their border with Costa Rica, stopped hundreds of Cubans who were trying to make their way to the Mexican border. That was over a month ago. Now up to 6,000 Cubans are blocked on the Costa Rican side of the border, with Nicaragua being supported by Guatemala, Belize, and other Latin American nations. The Cubans, mistakenly worried that President Obama has the power to end Wet Foot/Dry Foot, have reportedly paid human traffickers up to $15,000 each to get them to the Mexican border. Once there when their front foot touches U. S. soil they are instantly home-free with instant benefits. Wet Foot/Dry Foot is one of many U. S. laws that powerfully favor Cubans and only Cubans. While it is abundantly clear that Americans will accept such Cuban laws forever, much of the rest of the world -- as indicated by the yearly and implacable UN vote and by the turmoil at the Nicaraguan-Costa Rican border -- is tired of it.
This Marco Ruiz/Miami Herald graphic was compiled over a month ago to illustrate an ongoing situation that is one of countless problems caused by a handful of Batistianos and their easily acquired sycophants in the U. S. Congress having the power to craft and maintain U. S. laws that favor a self-serving few while discriminating against everyone else. Human traffickers and other benefactors of the vast Castro Industry in the U. S. appear to love it.
From 2000 through 2008 the George W. Bush presidential administration was populated with dozens of Cuban-born, anti-Castro zealots, such as Mike Gonzalez who was born in Cuba and came to the U. S. in 1972 at age twelve. As the Obama two-term presidency replaced the last of the Bush presidencies on Jan. 20th, 2009, many of the dozens of Cuban-born, anti-Castro zealots went on to lucrative anti-Castro positions as lobbyists or with rich and powerful right-wing organizations, such as The Heritage Foundation. In 2009 Mike Gonzales became a Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation. On Dec. 21-2015 he wrote a well-funded international article entitled: "Proof That Obama Was Wrong About Cuba." Actually, in my opinion, Mike Gonzalez's article proves Obama was/is right about Cuba.
This handshake in 2015 spawned a vast resurgence of vitriol from the enormously lucrative Castro Industry in the United States. If sanity and peace between the U. S. and Cuba was allowed to take hold, it would mitigate against the powerful rewards a handful of benefactors have reaped via the U.S.-based Castro Industry since 1959. And that is precisely why the Castro Industry will trump democracy as people like Mr. Obama and Pope Francis wage a very commendable but futile effort to normalize relations between the two neighboring countries.
At 12:04 P. M. on the afternoon of Dec. 17-2014 President Obama told the American people of his plans to "normalize relations" between the U. S. and Cuba. In the year since, he has done all he can do to live up to that promise. The problem is...a right-wing element in the U. S. Congress can thwart the President's will as well as the hope of the rest of the world, including the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. It reveals, I think, a gnawing weakness of America's democracy created by a lack of true American patriotism and courage.
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