Dawning of a New Cuba

But Havana vs. Miami Forever!!
{Saturday,, March 17th, 2018}

     Next month -- April, 2018 -- the Cuban parliament, its 605-member National Assembly -- will inaugurate the process of beginning the first non-Castro led government since 1959. Yet, the retiring 86-year-old President Raul and the iconic Fidel, who died on Nov. 25-2016 at age 90, will continue to cast vast shadows over the island's future, almost reminiscent to the heights of their on-hand leadership. The new Cuba -- after the promotion of current First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel -- will try to drift further-&-further from its geographical Superpower neighbor to more closely engage more friendly nations, such as the dozens of Italian entrepreneurs now showing acute interest in investing in business operations at Cuba's vital Mariel Port Economic Zone, which is ultra-modern and 28 miles southwest of Havana.

     Finishing up his 3-day visit to Cuba, the President of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, has met with Cuban President Raul Castro but his large contingent has included experts in health, tourism, sports, and other areas of mutual concern. The official Kenyan spokesperson Monica Juma issued this statement: "We are in Havana for the first State visit by President Kenyatta after his inauguration for the second term. This is very deliberate. Our inspiration in the early 1960s for independence and against apartheid was inspired by the 1959 victory of the Cuban Revolution. We are here to strengthen what are historic ties between Cuba and Kenya but also between Cuba and Africa." Kenya is particularly interested in Cuba's advanced vaccines and treatments for diseases such as cancer and malaria. In answer to a question, Monica Juma said, "When the big U. S. city of Chicago went past the famous embargo and summoned Cuban doctors to help lower Chicago's high infant mortality rate, we were impressed. If Cuba can do that in Chicago, they can do it in Nairobi, all of Kenya...and maybe all of Africa. But this trip was arranged before we read the Chicago story."

Chief Kenyan spokesperson, Monica Juma.

    One of America's top business experts, Roberta Matuson spent two recent weeks in Cuba. On March 14th, 2018 she penned a major article for Forbes entitled: "Business Lessons learned From Cuba." She noted the small incomes for everyday Cubans and then wrote: "You would think with those low wages, the services and quality of goods would be abysmal. Actually, I found the opposite to be true. Cuba is a beautiful country filled with warm people who have hopes and dreams like we do." Almost without fail, every single unbiased American who visits Cuba seems to return with the opinions expressed by Roberta Matuson, and I am one of those returnees. One reason, since the U. S. embargo of Cuba was first imposed in 1962, a handful of Counter Revolutionary Cuban exiles have insisted that Americans should be the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba is because those revengeful remnants from the overthrown Batista-Mafia dictatorship want to dictate the Cuban narrative in the U. S. and, sadly, for the most part they have. Thus, when Americans like Roberta Matuson visit Cuba, the false narratives spewed by a mere handful of vicious Counter Revolutionaries for six decades are exposed for the lies they are. Indeed, "Cuba is a beautiful country filled with warm people who have hopes and dreams like we do." {"...a beautiful country...warm people...hopes and dreams."}

Photo courtesy: Adalberta Roque/AFP/Getty Images.

  The photo above illustrated the aforementioned Forbes article written by Roberta Matuson. It shows a Cuban named Sady Guardiola. She makes her living as a Street Sweeper. Sady is one of Cuba's "warm people who have hopes and dreams like we do." Disputing the lies that have prevailed in the U. S. for six decades, the U. S. embargo and other assaults on Cuba have hurt everyday Cubans like Sady although to this day Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans like Senator Marco Rubio insist their only aim is to "hurt the Castros." That's a blatant lie. De-classified U. S. documents prove that the embargo against Cuba...from 1960 till today...was AND IS designed to starve, deprive and make miserable the lives of Cubans to induce them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. Rubio & his ilk know all that, I believe, but they have neither the guts nor the integrity to admit it. Yet, for six decades in the name of America and Democracy they have been allowed to starve, deprive and make miserable the lives of totally innocent Cubans like Sady Guardiola to sate their revenge and greed. And, as the decent former President Obama pointed out, the purpose of such cruelty has failed to induce the Cubans to rise up against their government because...PERHAPS...they remember the extreme brutality of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship THAT PRECEDED IT, and don't want its return.

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      On Sunday, March 11th, 2018, Cuba held ostensibly its all-time most important election encompassing 24,000 polling places all across the island. It chose the 605 members of the National Assembly that will, by April 19th, choose Cuba's next President, First Vice President, and five other Vice Presidents. The process will result next month in Cuba having its first non-Castro and first non-revolutionary leader since 1959. This week -- Tuesday, March 13, 2018 -- the Counter Revolutionary Miami Herald, in an article written by Nora Gamez Torres, continued to analyze Cuba's exhaustive election from America's enemy soil. The article is entitled: "Cuba Gets Lowest Voter Turnout in Socialist History as Raul Castro Prepares to Retire." Well, by late in the day Sunday some 7,399,891 Cubans had voted out of an overall population, including children, of 11.2 million. Also, the Nora Gamez Torres article highlighted the three best-known anti-revolutionary dissidents -- Jose Daniel Ferrer, Yoani Sanchez, and Rosa Maria Paya -- with their anti-Cuban takes on the election. Cuba allows Ferrer, Sanchez, and Paya to fly to Miami and to the U. S. Congress to gain anti-revolutionary sustenance and then fly back to Cuba to use it. All that being said, even Nora Gamez Torres and the Miami Herald will have trouble convincing unbiased, non-Miami, and non-propagandized Americans that Sunday's national election was unimportant.

A new Cuban leader IS important.

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Photo courtesy: Alejandro Ernesto/AFP/Getty Images.

    The photo above shows Miguel Diaz-Canel and his wife Lis preparing to vote Sunday in the central Cuban city of Santa Clara. Miguel is Cuba's Current First Vice President and on April 19th-2018 he will become the island's first non-Castro and first non-revolutionary leader since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. The 57-year-old Miguel and his wife Lis are both educators and both are popular on the island. The aforementioned Miami Herald article this wek reported that Miguel spoke to the media for ten minutes after he voted. He said: "We are building a government-people relationship. The government we're electing will be a government that will come from the people. The people are going to participate in the decisions taken by the government, and the people also can revoke anyone who does not carry out their responsibilities. We are defending a revolution that is still under attack, amid a complicated world and regional situation, and the updating of our economic model is paramount. This election should be seen as a commitment to the historic generation that forged the revolution, and it is a tribute to Fidel. I believe it's an endorsement of Raul, our President, who's the one leading the updating."

     The photo above shows Raul Castro preparing to vote in Segundo Frente, a mountainous municipality near the eastern city of Santiago that includes the mausoleum where his wife, the legendary revolutionary heroine Vilma Espin, is buried and where Raul one day will be buried beside her. As he prepares to retire as Cuba's President next month, the 86-year-old Raul will no longer live in the capital city of Havana on the island's northwestern tip. Both Raul and his late brother Fidel -- who died at age 90 on November 25th, 2016 -- always felt more at home around Santiago, the former capital on the southeastern tip of the island. In addition to Raul, only three other top revolutionary legends remain alive and they are Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, Ramiro Valdes, and Guillermo Garcia. Raul's retirement home is being completed in Santiago, not Havana, and his ongoing influence is unknown.

     This Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images photo shows an elderly Cuban woman voting Sunday in Santa Clara, Cuba. The majority of women on the island have always supported the revolution even if the Cuban narrative in the United States, dictated by revengeful exils since 1959, says otherwise. Of course, if the majority of women in Cuba since 1959 had NOT supported the revolution, the Batistiano-Mafiosi exiles from U. S. soil would have regained control of the island long ago!

      But the post-Castro key to Cuba's future rests in the hands of its young-adult generation -- like the 9 healthy, well-educated, and fiercely pro-revolutionary young women depicted above. Fourth from the right, in the white blouse and black skirt, is Rosy Amaro Perez. She is a popular and influential news anchor on the island.

     This photo shows Rosy Amaro Perez and her 4-year-old daughter Mariana casting their vote in Sunday's important election. As a news anchor and as a citizen, Rosy is not shy about criticizing the government but she fiercely supports the revolution that finally made Cuba a sovereign nation in 1959 after 500 years of foreign Spanish and American imperial domination. On April 16, 2017, Rosy watched on television as President Donald Trump made a speech in Miami's Little Havana section denouncing the Herculean efforts of his predecessor Barack Obama who had tried so hard to normalize relations with Cuba. Within a few minutes after President Trump's speech ended, Rosy wrote this salient sentence on her Facebook page: "The Cuba that President Trump just described is not the Cuba I know, and I've lived here all my life."

        The photo above shows Miguel Diaz-Canel and his wife Lis Cuesta Peraza waiting in line as they prepared to vote Sunday in Santa Clara, Cuba. Next month, Miguel will be the new leader of Cuba. As he stated Sunday in the quote used by the Miami Herald, he fully realizes that his leadership role can be "revoked" if he loses the support of the majority of Cubans, which he knows he now has. But he is determined that "foreign aspects" will not revoke him. Several weeks ago in Havana, while hosting a delegation of African leaders, Miguel made this equally significant statement: "My two main priorities will be to protect Cuba's sovereignty from U. S. forces and to modernize Cuba's economy by working more closely with all nations not under America's yoke and not at the mercy of the blockade." He admires the Vietnamese economy and he is very aware of China's economic and military might.

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Miami Cubans RE-Love Cuba

HOW ABOUT THAT!!

    The major article in the Miami Herald today -- Tuesday, March 13, 2018 -- was illustrated by the photo above. It shows Cubans preparing to fly from Miami to Havana...and not just to visit. Today's Miami Herald article is entitled: "Thousands of Cuban Exiles Are Exploring An Unusual Option: Returning to Cuba to Stay." It stated that "11,176" Cubans applied to return to Cuba "to stay" in 2017 and indicated the figure is much higher this year.

     It seems the Cuban flag waving in the tropical Caribbean breezes on Cuban soil is becoming more-and-more alluring.

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Cuba's Future IS NOW Underway

Marco Rubio vs. Rosy Amaro Perez!!

Bob Menendez vs. Miguel Diaz-Canel!!

{Permit Me to Explain}
{Tuesday, March 13th, 2018}

    The President of the powerful East African nation of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, arrives in Cuba today -- Tuesday, March 13-2018 -- on a key 3-day visit. The Kenyan government stated that it needs Cuba's "help and guidance in healthcare for our 50 million people." The statement added: "Cuba has a well-developed health sector which has achieved great milestones such as the discovery of the top vaccines against lung cancer and the eradication of malaria. Cuba also has a thriving pharmaceutical industry that we would like to emulate. The World Health Organization and the World Bank both marvel at Cuba's advances in preventative and vaccine-treated health, such as in gynecological care that renders a remarkably low infant mortality rate." Kenya's leading newspaper, The Daily Nation, stressed that President Kenyatta also wants to drastically improve ties with Cuba concerning trade, sports, and cultural relations while also "congratulating Cuba on the manner it is handling the post-Castro transition that began this past Sunday, March 11th, with the National Assembly elections."

     This was the scene today at the Nairobi Airport as the plane carrying Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta left for Havana. The Nairobi Capital News.com featured this statement from President Kenyatta's spokesman Manoah Esepisu: "Cuba is dear to Kenya's heart. African libration movements began in the 1960s because the Cuban Revolution in 1959 inspired us that colonialism and apartheid racism did not have to exist forever." NOTE: With such frank coverage of President Kenyatta's trip to Cuba today, it is apparent that neither the Nairobi Capital News nor The Kenyan Daily Nation were required to seek the permission of anti-Cuban Counter Revolutionaries.

     The news conference in Havana depicted above signifies perhaps the greatest transition in Cuba since January 1, 1959 -- the historically famous...some say infamous...day the victorious Cuban Revolutionary chased the key leaders of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship to U. S. soil, mostly nearby Miami. This photo shows three top Cuban election officials answering questions about the Sunday-March 11th-2018 election of 605 National Assembly members, the Cuban parliament that will choose or at least crown the first non-Castro and the first non-revolutionary Cuban leader since 1959. While Americans, via a Cuban narrative in the U. S. mostly dictated by Counter Revolutionary Cuban exiles since 1959, have been taught to scoff at Cuba's one-party elections, Cubans on the island put a lot of stock in local municipal elections and in the National Assembly elections. That's why the news conference above, with key Cuban officials discussing Sunday's 7,399,891 votes, was vastly important to {1} Cuba's future; and {2} to the Cuban-exiles in the U. S. who have tried so mightily for six decades to regain control of the pugnaciously determined island.

    Sunday, March 11-2018 was a crucial day for Cuba as most adults on the island voted to elect its National Assembly members who will then, next month, decide Cuba's first non-Castro-led government since 1959. Knowing how important it is, Rosy Amaro Perez posted the above photo and caption on her Facebook page  -- a photo that shows the Cuban flag with the notation "for Cuba." As a superb young news anchor on Cubavision International television, the beloved and high-profile Rosy, with the image above, is making a very important statement, which is: Talented, intelligent, and highly educated Cubans like her ON THE ISLAND should predicate Cuba's future and not have it dictated by foreign Counter Revolutionary benefactors like Marco Rubio & Bob Menendez in the United States. A vast majority of Cubans ON THE ISLAND and even a clear majority of Cubans in Miami -- where she has family & friends -- agree with Rosy. Yet, she is abundantly aware that the likes of Marco Rubio & Bob Menendez -- like their Counter Revolutionary predecessors SINCE 1959 -- have huge advantages as they hide behind the financial & military skirts of the nearby world Superpower. And, perhaps even more significantly, they can hide behind an intimidated or incompetent mainstream U. S. media, which is incapable of providing both sides of the two-sided U.S.-Cuba conundrum. Additionally, the last two generations of unpatriotic or thoroughly propagandized or pusillanimous Americans will continue to allow a handful of self-serving miscreants in a Superpower assault 11 million more decent people on a nearby island nation. Rosy typifies the young-adult segment of Cubans who are determined not to capitulate to foreigners who seek imperialism, not sovereignty, for the stubborn but eternally targeted island. Well educated, healthy, talented, and fiercely patriotic, Rosy has visited Italy, Spain, France, & Portugal and she has family and friends in Miami. But she is a Cuban in Cuba.

    The Reuters photo above shows a Cuban voter yesterday -- March 11, 2018 -- getting instructions about his ballot at a voting station in Santa Clara, Cuba. Americans have been programmed to laugh at this key election in Cuba but the 8 million eligible Cuban voters considered it extremely important. That dichotomy in U.S.-Cuban thinking is typical and it also helps explain why, for six decades, Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders backed by the superpower United States have not been able to regain control of the island. There are 8 million Cuban adults on the island who cherish the sovereignty delivered to them in 1959 by the Cuban Revolution.  

      One of the very first Cubans to vote in Sunday's National Assembly elections was Cristina Alonso. She is shown casting her ballot at exactly 7:02 A. M. Sunday.

      By 11:00 A. M. on Sunday, March 11th, election official Tomas Amaran reported that 3,977,551 adult Cubans -- 45.51% of eligible voters -- had already voted Sunday.

     The President of Cuba's Electoral Commission, Alina Balseiro, said she expected 8 million Cubans to vote at the 24,000 voting stations posted all across the island.

     The 87-year-old Jose Ramon Machado Ventura is shown as he voted Sunday in far eastern Guantanamo Province. He is currently one of the five Cuban Vice Presidents and he has always been in the very highest echelon of revolutionary icons.

     This photo shows Rosy Amaro Perez and her 4-year-old daughter Mariana voting Sunday. Rosy, a talented television news anchor and very influential among the key young-adults on the island, staunchly believes that Cubans on the island should decide Cuba's future, not foreigners like Marco Rubio, and it all starts with the crucial elections of 605 National Assembly members today. Rosy maintains that the vast majority of Cubans on the island want to keep the island's "humanistic" system and that they will continue to resist being dictated to by foreigners. She believes most Cubans on the island will support the impending presidency of Miguel Diaz-Canel.

    The photo above shows Miguel Diaz-Canel observing a recent municipal election in Cuba. After Sunday's March 11th-2018 national election at 24,000 polling places across the island, the newly elected 605-member National Assembly in Havana will select Cuba's next President, its next First Vice President, and its next five Vice Presidents. The current First Vice President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, is in line to take over as Cuba's next President next month -- April 19th, 2018. Miguel was born 57-years-ago, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. So Miguel is not only a non-revolutionary, he is also a non-Castro. He loves motorcycles and the Beatles, and is a highly regarded educator. Except for Republican politicians, he likes Americans.

Miguel Diaz-Canel is well-liked by Cubans.

      Some knowledgeable Cuban insiders believe Miguel Diaz-Canel is far less tolerant of U. S. interference than current President Raul Castro, who at least worked closely with friendly U. S. President Obama. Miguel was convinced that the normalization of relations with the United States, fostered by Obama and Raul Castro, would have "been virtually complete" by now if, as expected, another Democrat had followed Obama in the White House. It is also known on the island that "the last straw" for Miguel "came on April 16, 2017 in Miami's Little Havana." That was when and where President Trump, "as far as Diaz-Canel is concerned," turned the U. S. Cuban policy back over to a handful of hardline Cuban-American extremists "and benefactors." Since then, Diaz-Canel has vowed not to "waste our time" negotiating with the U. S. because "that time could better be spent dealing with our friends." Thus, Diaz-Canel plans to stress a Vietnamese-style market economy in Cuba and to "take more advantage of the two prime American competitors willing to help us to hurt the U. S. and to gain more of a foothold in the USA's own backyard." The astute Diaz-Canel considers China and Russia as the USA's "prime" economic and military competitors, or threats, "for years to come."

     If a majority of the 8 million adult voters in Cuba preferred another U.S.-backed dictator, or even a U.S.-backed President, Miguel Diaz-Canel would not be destined to be Cuba's first non-Castro and non-revolutionary President since 1959. But one thing should not be over-looked: The sovereignty-loving Miguel plans to continue the revolution, not replace it. The photo above is courtesy of Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images. It was taken the day Miguel publicly stated: "The triumphal march of the revolution will continue.There will be peace, liberty, and independence; and it is our task to make sure that the sovereignty of the people will endure. I don't trust imperialism, not even a tiny bit." Americans, programmed to believe that most Cubans on the island desire a return of Miami Counter Revolutionaries, need to realize that most Cubans on the island hate Marco Rubio but love Barack Obama and Miguel Diaz-Canel. If that were not so, a Rubio-type would have regained control of Cuba long ago.

     While Americans are programmed to mock elections in Cuba, the majority of Cubans on the island...from the municipal to national levels...put much stock in them. The last two generations of Cubans on the island, since 1959, know all about the necessity of the Cuban Revolution, meaning they know the difference between the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia rule and the Fidel Castro-dictated revolutionary rule. While Cubans, like other citizens, have revolutionary complaints, they also relish free and good educations through college and free and good health care for life, as well as other revolutionary innovations such as overall safety and a minimum of crime. All those features were the exact opposite of what everyday Cubans had during the Batista-Mafia reign. The Cuban narrative in the U. S., dictated by Batistiano-Mafiosi elements since 1959, has shamed the U. S. and Democracy even more than it has harmed Cuba. For example, the Trump administration, at the behest of Counter Revolutionary benefactors like Senator Marco Rubio from Little Havana in Miami, recently declared Cuba "unsafe" for American tourists, a scheme to curtail the record number of Obama-inspired U. S. tourists visiting the island. The same week that announcement began to indeed harm Cuban tourism, the highly respected International Tourism Fair in Madrid announced that "Cuba is the safest country in the world for tourists." And that same week Chris Baker, the Brit who is the world's top Travel Writer, agreed with the Madrid pronouncement. So, somebody is lying and, for sure, neither Madrid nor Chris Baker had any cause to lie about Cuban tourism.

      Yet, to America's democratic shame, for two generations America's Cuban policy and America's Cuban narrative have both been almost exclusively dictated by only a handful of self-serving Counter Revolutionary extremists like today's slanted iteration of Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Bob Menendez. Neither the mainstream U. S. media nor the U. S. citizens raised an eyebrow recently when Rubio was the Chair and Menendez was the Co-chair of a Senate session that stressed hurting everyday Cubans by rolling back Cuban positives that a braver and more decent President Obama had orchestrated. Such Rubio-Menendez mendacity against Cuba, decency, and democracy has been par-for-the-course since 1959 thanks to the cowardice or lack of patriotism on the part of two generations of American citizens.

   Pugnacious little Cuba has survived in revolutionary form since 1959. By doing so, it has done something far bigger nations -- such as Mexico or Canada -- could not have done facing the same unchecked obstacles from the nearby world Superpower.

      The U. S. embargo against Cuba was installed in 1962 after the Bay of Pigs military attack and dozens of assassination attempts against Fidel Castro in 1961, not to mention numerous and often deadly terrorist attacks from 1959 into 1962, had failed to quickly recapture the island for the Batistianos, Mafiosi, and rich American businessmen who had profited so majestically in Cuba from 1952 till 1959. The Carlos LaTuff image of the embargo as shown above still does not embarrass unpatriotic or propagandized Americans. And neither does the now declassified U. S. documents that prove the intention of the embargo from 1962 till today was: To starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their government. But like the Bay of Pigs attack; like the terrorism; and like countless assassination attempts, the Embargo has failed although indeed it has greatly harmed everyday Cubans on the island while also reminding them why they do not want a return of the U.S.-backed Batistianos and Mafiosi pillaging their island.

     And that's why on the eve of Sunday's important national elections on in Cuba Rosy Amaro Perez posted the photo above on social media so she could highlight the Cuban flag and the words "por Cuba," or "for Cuba." As a superb television news anchor, Rosy sometimes criticizes her revolutionary government on the air and in the social media but she, like most of the other young adults on the island, is a fierce defender of both the Revolution and the sovereignty it finally brought to the island on January 1, 1959...the same day that the Revolution also quite markedly changed America by chasing the rich and revengeful Batistianos-Mafiosi leaders to American soil from which most of them -- including Floridians Fulgencio Batista and Meyer Lansky -- had emerged in 1952 as the new and most devious U.S.-backed dictators of Cuba. Rosy has both family and friends in Miami who often visit her in Havana, but there is not enough money in rich Miami to persuade her to forsake the island...and, yes, the Revolution...that she so sincerely loves and cherishes.

       And so today -- March 12, 2018 -- there was a national election in Cuba to choose the National Assembly that will, next month, choose the island's first non-Castro leader since 1959. The 9 young Cuban women above...that's Rosy Amaro Perez 4th from the right...believe THEY should have more to say about Cuba's future than self-serving Counter Revolutionaries like MARCO RUBIO basking in a foreign country. In the last year of the Obama presidency -- in 2016 -- the nations of the world voted 191-to-0 in the United Nations to support Rosy's views, not Rubio's. In 2018 it's perhaps time all Americans agreed with 191, not zero, even if to do so took a little courage.

      After all, the Cuban flag waving in the Caribbean breeze today -- on March 12th, 2018 -- is a sovereign flag. The 500 years of imperial Spanish and American rule finally ended in 1959.

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A Pretext to Hurt Cuba

Hastily Devised In Trump White House!
{Updated: Saturday, March 10th, 2018}

     The image above, I believe, illustrates the greatest weakness of the United States democracy -- WHICH IS a propaganda-obsessed and pundit-driven mainstream U. S. media at a time when Americans are in desperate need of fair and unbiased journalism, not a preponderance of self-ordained journalists masquerading as propagandists. Peter Brown is the highly respected Commander of the United States Coast Guard Seventh District in Miami. He is among many of the very decent military and political U. S. officials who frequently point out how important it is for the United States and Cuba to work cohesively together for the mutual benefit of all Americans and Cubans. Such sanity, of course, would correct a half-century in which America's Cuban policy has been dictated by a small cabal of extremists from the Batista-Mafia dictatorship whose leaders were booted off the island in January of 1959 only to align with a handful of self-serving right-wing U. S. politicians. Peter Brown this week represented the U. S. Coast Guard in another productive meeting with top Cuban officials held in Fort Lauderdale. Another such session this week was held in Key West, Florida. The topics concerned bilateral cooperative work on preparing for oil spills and otherwise protecting the marine environment in the region vital to both nations. Also discussed were well-known U.S.-Cuban cooperation related to drug and human trafficking in the Florida Straits. Peter Brown then said, "The session was held in a professional and mutually respected ambiance. This reflects cooperation for the protection of the marine environment in a region of great importance for both countries. Of course, the mainstream American media has neither the guts nor the competence to report on the daily cooperation of U. S. and Cuban officials regarding mutually positive engagements, which continue even with Batistiano-aligned Republicans in charge of the White House and Congress.

     While not having the courage or integrity to mention such things as the comments from the United States Coast Guard's Peter Brown, the mainstream American media bursts out of its seams to herald any grossly pernicious anti-Cuban schemes or proclamations from career Counter Revolutionary benefactors such as United States Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez. In a recent shameful display of how anti-democratic the United States government can be regarding Cuba, Rubio was the Chair and Menendez was the Co-chair of a Senate Foreign Relations-Western Hemisphere assault on former President Obama's decent Cuban overtures. The sheer fact that the gutless American media and the unpatriotic American citizenry permit such tactics decade-after-decade shames both America and Democracy.  

     The moment the Republican Donald Trump replaced the Democrat Barack Obama as President of the United States, anyone with an IQ as high as 10 knew that Trump would return America's Cuban polities back over to a mere handful of vicious Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans in Miami and in the U. S. Congress.

     Totally disregarding the opinion of most Americans, most Cuban-Americans, and the 191-to-0 unanimity vote in the United Nations, the photo above shows the day -- June 16, 2017 -- when President Trump officially turned his Cuban policy over to Miami  extremists. Brazenly and cowardly, Trump made the proclamation before the choir in Miami's Little Havana in the plush Artime Theater named for a leader of the 1961 Bay of Pigs military attack on Cuba. But when it comes to Cuba since the 1950s, Trump realized the last two generations of Americans have been too afraid, too propagandized, or too unpatriotic to challenge any Cuban military, terrorist, or diplomatic act, even though such policies are condemned by America's democracy-lovers and by America's best friends worldwide. Of course, when you are Commander-in-Chief of the world's nuclear Superpower and also have a veto vote in the UN, you can easily revert back to the Cuban policies dictated since the 1950s by right-wing thugs aligned with two generations of Counter Revolutionary Cubans.

    But, of course, to implement his June 16-2017 assault on Obama's decent Cuban policies, President Trump's minions had to devise a pretext. And actually, not surprisingly, it was not exactly an intelligent or believable pretext. To curtail the vital increase in Cuban tourism that Obama had made possible, and to blunt the Washington and Havana embassies that Obama had reopened for the first time since 1961, the Trump geniuses claim that Cuba was purposely somehow using sonic waves to injure the hearing and other senses of U. S. diplomats. Most unbiased observers instantly realized the Cuban government would be the very last entity to do such a vicious and stupid thing because it would be shooting itself in the foot...or head...because tourism was the island's lifeblood. Of course, Trump's Counter Revolutionary friends in Miami and in Congress fully realized that. But, Trump's State Department "warned" Americans that Cuba was "unsafe" to visit. At almost the exact same time, the highly respected monitor of international tourism -- The International Tourist Fair in Madrid, Spain -- announced that "Cuba is the safest nation in the world for tourists." After that announcement, the world's most respected Travel Writer, Britain's famed Christopher P. Baker, confirmed the salient Madrid proclamation.

    The Counter Revolutionary right-wing Fox Network on March 7th-2018 used the above photo of Counter Revolutionary Marco Rubio to headline a new article entitled: "Faulty Bugging Devices May Have Caused Mysterious Diplomat Illness in Cuba." I provide that title IF you want to dial it up online and read it but I strongly suggest that anything either Fox or Rubio says about Cuba is not the real truth.

      On the other hand, in the U. S. there are truly great journalists-historians who are universally considered unbiased Cuban experts that Americans can depend on for brave and true facts regarding U.S.-Cuban relations. In the top echelon of that class, of course, is Peter Kornbluh, the top Cuban expert at the U. S. National Archives in Washington. Kornbluh this week -- March 7, 2018 -- not surprisingly penned the top article updating the Trump administration's sonic wave pretext to justify its unjustifiable assault on innocent, everyday Cubans. I suggest that anything Peter Kornbluh writes about Cuba is something Americans should know, for America's and democracy's sake. His article yesterday was entitled: "What the U. S. Government Is Not Telling You About Those 'Sonic Attacks' in Cuba." In this article, easily dialed up online, Peter Kornbluh suggests, as he has done before, that Republicans in Washington never have to worry about their Cuban lies because they have reason to believe that American citizens and the mainstream U. S. media are too intimidated or too propagandized to challenge them. But great U. S. journalists and authors like Peter Kornbluh, Julia E. Sweig, Ann Louise Bardach, etc. have challenged them.

     In this week's article, the great Peter Kornbluh lambasted the Trump administration for using the "sonic waves" as the pretext to "warn Americans not to visit unsafe Cuba." Here are some exact words written by Peter Kornbluh: "Predictably, these travel warnings have led to significant cancellations at the Capri and the Nacional, as well as a significant drop-off in overall U. S. visitors to the island. That might not have been the case if the Trump administration had been transparent and honest about what happened in Cuba, instead of exploiting the troubling situation to sabotage normalized relations." Also, Peter Kornbluh pointed out this fact: "The first four Americans to report being struck by the phenomenon were all CIA officers working under diplomatic cover, as were two others affected later on." In other words, as a truly, incontrovertible, and unbiased American expert like Peter Kornbluh would know, Counter Revolutionary forces in the U. S. since 1959 have readily concocted pretexts to justify self-serving anti-Cuban policies such as the Torricelli Bill, the Helms-Burton Act, etc., but ALSO terrorist attacks such as car-bombs in Miami, airplane bombs in the Caribbean, both boat-&-airplane strafings of Cuban coastline hotels, farms, fishing villages, etc. In a milieu in which such anti-Cuban tactics from U. S. soil have been accepted, there is no incentive at all for self-serving Republican administrations in Miami and in Washington to curtail drastic measures to regain control of Cuba. Peter Kornbluh, not Republicans in the White House or State Department, and certainly not the Counter Revolutionaries in Miami and in Congress, is the prime source for truth about United States-Cuba relations, truth not available in the mainstream media.

      It is interesting to note, I believe, that even many in the Trump administration have long ago determined that Cuba would not purposely hurt Cuba by stupidly harming U. S. diplomats or even CIA operatives in Cuba when Cuba urgently needs as many U. S. tourists as it can get, which was a record number till Trump replaced Obama. But as Kornbluh, Sweig, Bardach, and other true U. S. experts on Cuba realize, Counter Revolutionaries in the U. S. for decades have devised innumerable pretexts to justify their military, terrorist, and political assaults on Revolutionary Cuba.

     America's great democracy consists of a two-party system and neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have decent approval ratings with polls showing that most Americans would like at least a third alternative, not a lesser-of-two-evils choice. But only Republican administrations -- in both the White House and in Congress since the 1950s -- have turned America's Cuban policy over to only the most vicious and self-serving Counter Revolutionaries such as the three current Miami members of the U. S. Congress shown above -- Marco Rubio, Mario Diaz-Balart, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. But American citizens, out of cowardice or a lack of patriotism, who have allowed this to persist for well over half-a-century are as much to blame as the revengers and the benefactors. What America is therefore left with is a 191-to-0 condemnation of its Cuban policy in the United Nations. That does not only include every one of America's and Democracy's best friends in this world but it is also the ONLY TOPIC that could possibly get such unanimity in a very, very diverse world.

And by the way:

      This week celebrated Womens Day in many countries. The great Associated Press photographer in Cuba, Desmond Boylan, posted this image on his Facebook/Instagram pages. It shows Cuban female soldiers marching.

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