Photo courtesy: Noel Lopez Fernandez.
While the mainstream U. S. media is much too cowardly and far too obsessed with political propaganda to admit it, the Miami Herald again this week has published a major article that reveals why cooperation between Florida and Cuba, not more decades of hostility, may finally become the norm and not necessarily the exception. Written by Mimi Whitefield, the hugely important article is entitled: "U.S.-Cuban Marine Biologists Put An End To Academic Embargo." Florida's shoreline waters are so polluted that Governor Rick Scott recently called an "emergency" to deal with it. Meanwhile, nearby Cuba's shoreline waters are among the most pristine in the world...because Cuba has long maintained programs to protect its environment, including its territorial waters. The photo above showing sharks swimming just off the Cuban coast illustrates that fact. Thus, top marine scientists from the United States, including Florida, are flocking to Cuba to learn from the Cubans, such as at the very crowded and recent MarCuba Conference held in Havana.
The Mimi Whitefield/Miami Herald article also points out that, "Cuban coral may be more resilient to warming oceans." Miami and other coastal cities in Florida are particularly and direly threatened by Warming Oceans.
The Mimi Whitefield/Miami Herald article reveals that marine life, like the sea turtle above, flock to Cuba's pristine waters to escape Florida's polluted waters.
The Mimi Whitefield/Miami Herald article used photos like the one above to illustrate healthy marine life in Cuban waters in stark contrast to Florida's shoreline. Mimi Whitefield wrote: "The recent Cuban edition of the Bulletin of Marine Science was historic because for years the journal's editors believed the embargo prevented them from publishing the research papers of Cuban scientists. After the 1996 Helm-Burton Act strengthened the embargo..." OH YES, THE EMBARGO!!
On March 12, 1996, a very scared President Clinton was forced to sign the infamous Helms-Burton Act into law. This photo shows the very reluctant but obviously scared President Clinton {judge the photo for yourself} glancing up at fierce Counter Revolutionary Cuban-American Bob Menendez at that tragic signing. Right before the signing, Clinton had bravely vowed to normalize relations with Cuba. To this day, Menendez is still a scary force in the U. S. Senate, proving to many that a Cuban-American extremist from Newark or Miami will never be voted out of office. The FBI for years investigated Menendez on fraud and bribery charges related to a rich Miami benefactor and Menendez in 2017 survived a long and expensive federal trial only via a hung jury, but his reelection is, of course, assured. Meanwhile, Helms-Burton remains one of the blackest, most repressive, most cruel, and most Draconian blights on the formerly brave & strong U. S. democracy.
The Helms-Burton Act in 1996 tightened the U. S. embargo against Cuba by, for example, punishing nations that had the audacity to try to do business with Cuba. Imposed since 1962 to appease the revenge, economic, and political motives of a handful of two generations of Cuban-American extremists, DE-classified U. S. documents reveal that the purpose of the embargo is to starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of everyday Cubans to entice them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. While two generations of Americans have not had the guts to stand up to Helms-Burton, America's decent former President Barack Obama and the entire world, in 2016 as Obama was leaving office, voted 191-to-0 to CONDEMN the Helms-Burton-enhanced embargo. Yet, to this day in October-2018 the U. S. citizens in their weakened democracy do not have the guts to do something about Helms-Burton...or even to show embarrassment about the unanimity of its worldwide CONDEMNATION, probably the only topic in the entire world that could possibly attain such unanimity.
While two-term Democratic President Obama did all he could to correct the infamy of Helms-Burton, the U. S. has a two-party political system and all six Republican presidents since the 1950s have been aligned with the Batistiano-Mafiosi attempts to rape, rob and, if necessary, brutalize the island of Cuba. Thus, as shown above, Republican President Donald Trump quickly went to Little Havana in Miami and promised to reverse all of the positive Obama overtures to Cuba and, in fact, finally put the island back in the hands of the Counter Revolutionaries. In the photo above, take note of the two men in the red ties peering ominously down over Trump's Little Havana shoulders. Mario Diaz-Balart, the U. S. Congressman from Miami, is the son of Rafael Diaz-Balart, the former key Minister in the ousted Batista dictatorship and, of course, one of the richest and most vehement Counter Revolutionaries in Miami's history. Standing directly above Trump is Florida Governor Rick Scott, an example of powerful politicians in Florida who take their orders directly from the Counter Revolutionary Cubans. Closing out his term as Governor, Scott is currently in a heated race to join Counter Revolutionary Marco Rubio as Florida's other United States Senator. To get to the U. S. Congress from Florida, one has to sell-out to the Counter Revolutionaries...a democratic shame for the United States because, with New York and California both eternally aligned to left-wing extremism, Florida is by far the largest and most important so-called "swing state" in America's money-crazed political system.
The photo above is courtesy of Ashley Somwaru. It shows Dr. Patricia Gonzalez-Diaz, the University of Havana's renowned director at the Cuban Center for Marine Research. Dr. Gonzalez-Diaz was prominently highlighted in the aforementioned Mimi Whitefield/Miami Herald article that explained why Florida is begging Cuba for help in marine research. Dr. Gonzalez-Diaz is willing to help correct Florida's direly polluted coastal waters, and she is a prime reason that Cuba's coastal waters are so uniquely pristine. But if she is permitted to continue to help Florida, the Counter Revolutionary extremists who have dictated Florida's politics since 1959 must concede that it might be time to put the recapture of Cuba aside and consider what is in the best interest of most Floridians and most Cuban-Americans.
It is a geographical fact that Miami and Cuba are not only on the same planet, they are earthly but unfriendly NEIGHBORS.
Two sovereign nations need each other.
And by the way:
Baseball-loving Cubans now are forced to consider this latest Havana-to-Miami connection. The Mesa brothers -- 22-year-old Victor Mesa and 17-year-old Victor Mesa Jr. -- signed Monday, Oct. 22nd -- with the Miami Marlins. Major League Baseball in the USA rates Victor not only as Cuba's best player but the best International Player in the world. An outfielder like his older brother, Victor Jr. is a teenage switch-hitter rated almost as highly as his brother. The added pain for Cubans is the fact that the Mesa Brothers are the sons of Cuba's legendary player and manager Victor Mesa Sr.
Just a couple of years ago another set of Cuban brothers whose father was a legendary baseball icon on the island defected to the U. S. to become instant millionaire American baseball stars. Lourdes Gurriel in 2018 quickly became a Major League star with the Toronto Blue Jays and Yuri Gurriel as a Major League rookie in 2017 helped the Houston Astros win the World Series. In fact, last month -- September, 2018 -- Lourdes and Yuri became the first brothers IN MAJOR LEAGUE HISTORY to each hit two home runs on the very same night. Lourdes in his first two at bats for Toronto belted homers and Yuri on the same night on his first two at bats belted homers for the Houston Astros.
The Gurriel brothers are shown above with their father Lourdes Gurriel Sr. on the right. Yuli is shown holding the oldest of his two sons. The vast pipeline from Cuba to the USA is now massively absorbing the island's Treasure Trove of baseball talent, as personified by the Gurriel brothers quickly followed this week by the Mesa brothers. The fact that the two fathers -- Victor Mesa Sr. and Lourdes Gurriel Sr. -- are the two greatest baseball stars in Cuban history merely adds to the baseball gloom in Havana, which I know first-hand.
A great young television news anchor in Havana and a great person, Rosy Amaro Perez, happens to be my friend whom I communicate with to monitor the pulse and rhythms of the island. Rosy, like most Cubans, is a dedicated baseball fan. She cherishes the Havana Industriales. On her Facebook page Monday night Rosy posted a photo of the Mesa brothers in their new Miami Marlins uniforms. She wrote: "Los hijos de Victor Mesa ahora jugaran por los Marlins de Miami. Para Cuba, orgullo...orgullo o trisleza." {"Victor Mesa's children will now play for the Miami Marlins. For Cuba, pride...pride or sadness."}. Pride for Rosy in her appreciation of Cuba's baseball talent but sadness when the island's best young stars, one after the other, leave for the extreme wealth of the United States.
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