HEY!! A Cruise Ship Slips Into Cuba!!!!!

 Bravely Defying U. S. Blockade!!

     In mid-December of 2023 it is important to carefully study the two images shown above. The bottom one dates from February of 1962 when the United States imposed a drastic EMBARGO against Cuba that was intended to starve, deprive, and make miserable Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. The top image above is an actual photo that was taken this weekend in mid-December of 2023 and it shows two popular Cuban TV journalists with smiles on their faces as they report on a HUGE CRUISE SHIP as it docks in Havana Harbor!! That is truly a huge news item because the U. S. EMBARGO SINCE 1962 has powerfully blocked tourism to Cuba because tourists visiting the island might spend money that might mitigate against the EMBARGO that is indeed supposed to starve, deprive, and make miserable Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and oeverthrow their revolutionary government. After six decades the lucrative overthrow attempts  still have not overthrown the Revolution...but indeed generations of Cuban families on the island have been starved, deprived, and made miserable since 1962 by the EMBARGO. 

    Here, then, is the explanation about the huge cruise ship that bravely docked in Havana Harbor this weekend -- in mid-December of 2023. The ship is named "Marella Explorer 2" and it is owned by a massive cruise line that is headquartered in both Britain and Germany. This massive ship, although owned by U. S. trade partners in the UK and Germany, will not be allowed to leave Havana and then sail to any U. S. port, but otherwise the MARELLA EXPLORER 2 is bravely defying the U. S. EMBARGO merely by having the audacity to stop off in Cuba!! 

 This ad in mid-December of 2023 is also interesting. TRIPADVISOR is one of the world's most famed Tourist Advisors. In defiance of the U. S. EMBARGO of Cuba, even TRIPADVISOR seems at the end of 2023 to be promoting "Cuba as a prime destination for tourists." 

    Now study the two images above. The top one shows that Miami and Havana, two major cities that have been warring against each since 1959, are geographically close, especially for planes and cruise ships. The bottom image explains {above} that Royal Caribbean International is headquartered in Miami. But so are the other best-known worldwide Cruise Lines such as Cardinal Cruise Lines, Norwegian Cruise Lines, etc.!! They are all headquartered in ultra-rich Miami, which is also home to Little Havana, the rich and politically powerful anti-revolutionary Cuban enclave that, of course, loves the EMBARGO and other anti-Cuba politicies.

    Nearby Miami/Little Havana not only has massive political power in Washsington, where the Cuban EMBARGO  is headquartered, but Miami is also the headquarters for the world's top Cruise Lines, including Norwegian Cruise Lines -- which was founded in Norway in 1966 but, alas!!, it is now headquartered in Miami, which is also home to Little Havana, which is just a few miles north of Cuba's real Havana.

    This Norwegian Cruise Ship -- and the massive Cardinal Cruise Lines, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, etc., are also headquartered in Miami. Since 1962 Miami has tried to block tourism to nearby Cuba..but back in the 1950s Miami wildly promoted tourism to Cuba back when tourism to Cuba was dictated by Batista, the Mafia, and rich U. S. businessmen.

      In sharp contrast to the 1950s when the U. S. government and the U. S. and top U. S. businesses wildly promoted tourism to Cuba, the two images above remind us that in 2023 that the endless U. S. EMBARGO wildly singles out Cuba as the spot where tourism is blocked.

      "Miami to Havana by Air & Sea" is what massive Tourism Ads {note above} touted to the money-crazed U. S. tourists flocking to Cuba back in the 1950s during the Batista-Mafia dictatorship.

   This historic photo shows a pertinent example of how much money Mafia Kingpins, the Batista Dictators, and Rich U. S. Businessmen were making in Cuba in the 1950s. Above you can see Mafia Kingpin Meyer Lansky leaving one of his famed casinos with a huge satchel filled with MONEY!! If you bother to ask questions about 1950s Cuba, you will discover interesting tidbits such as the fact that Lansky opened his own most lucrative tourist hotel in Havana in 1958 even as the anti-rebels in far eastern Cuba were beginning to capture and hold key towns and cities while Che Guevara's peasant Radio Station Rebelde was broadcasting messages from captured towns such as, "We rebels will now not stop until we reach Havana and yesterday Batista broadcast in Havana that 'the rebel uprising in the Sierra Maestra region is no longer a problem.' Uh, really, Fulgencio?" Yes, Lansky opened his new luxury hotel in 1958, but on January 1 of 1959 it was in the hands of...the Rebels.

    Yes, while he was leading a Rebel army toward Santa Clara and Havana, Che Guevara had also invented and daily broadcast from his Radio Rebelde, informing his rebel supporters and often taunting Dictator Batista.

     Incredibly, Che Guevara's Radio Rebelde radio station helped him win the Revolution because he used it to keep his vital peasant supporters believing that the rebels "could win and we are winning with your continued support!!!" Today in December of 2023 -- as shown above --  Radio Rebelde is still a powerful radio stadium in Cuba.

    Yes, as CNN reported above, the heirs of Meyer Lansky -- well aware that Miami/Little Havana leaders are massively supported by leaders in Washington -- sued to be paid for the loss of Lansky's magnificent Riviera Hotel that was "seized" by the Revolution on January 1 of 1959.

     The Havana Riviera Iberostar Hotel has been magnificently renovated and is now operated by the powerful Spanish Iberostar Hotel & Resorts chain based in Madrid. It is a 5-star jewel with 21 floors and 352 rooms. Despite the U. S. EMBARGO, both of the two Spanish Hotels & Resorts chains -- Iberostar and Melia -- have a total of 42 4-star and 5-star Hotels in Cuba. They, of course, are targeted by...the EMBARGO.

    This was Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky showing off his spanking new Riviera Hotel in Havana in 1958...even though by then anti-Batista Rebels were beginning to march successfully out of the foothills of the Sierra Mountains in far southeast Cuba bound FOR HAVANA. But in the last week of December in 1958, a Rebel Army led by Che Guevara captured Santa Clara, the last big city closest to Havana...and that was when Batista, LANSKY, etc., fled Havana but expected that the United States would quickly recapture Cuba.

     If you ask Google about the fascinating history of the Havana Riviera Hotel, you will find voluminous facts, such as above.

    And if you ask Google, What was glamorous about 1950s Cuba? the answers, as shown above, would include: "Cuba was associated with casinos, nightclubs, and tropical beaches. American money helped provide Havana with more Cadillacs per capital than city in the world during the 1950s." WONDERFUL!! Below you can see that Smithsonian's history of Cuba in the 1950s explains such wild hedonism but ends the first paragraph shown below with this sentence: "All the while, THOUGH, a revolution brewed." Also, below you can see that Smithsonian explains U. S. dominance of Batista's Cuba in the 1950s: "By the late '50s, U. S. financial interests included 90 percent of Cuban mines, 80 percent of its public utilities, 50 percent of its railways, 40 percent of the sugar production...!!!" In other words, if you know about how rich U. S. businesses dominated Cuba in the 1950s, you will know why, since 1959, Miami and the United States loved Batista so much and hates the Cuban Revolution so much. All that explains, for example, why the U. S. spent so much time and money on the 1961 Bay of Pigs military attack and since 1962 has blocked tourism to Cuba...and why in the 1950s Dictator Batista got massive kick-backs from rich U. S. companies -- including a famed GOLD TELEPHONE!!! Uh...you can Google about that if you want to research such things as Batista gold phone!!

    The ultra-fascinating history of why the Mafia-Batista-USA factions owned Cuba in the 1950s and then lost it to the Revolution is a fascinating part of the history of both Cuba and the United States. So Google your fingers a little raw in discovering about it. Mafia kingpin Meyer Lansky and his Riviera Hotel is merely one fascinating tidbit.

Of course, start with T. J. English's Havana Nocturne!!

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A U. S. Politician Not Afraid to Speak Truth About Cuba

 In fact, One U. S. Journalist Does Too!!

    Top respected U. S. polls, including the Gallup Poll, reveal that most Americans "don't trust" what the mainstream U. S. media tells them, and most Americans "don't trust" lawmakers in the U. S. Congress. As an 83-year-old Democracy-loving American, those revelations concern me deeply. In 2004 the anti-Cuba George W. Bush adminitration in Washington permitted me to go to Cuba for the purpose of investigating why the famed Cuban revolutionary icon Celia Sanchez remained, long after she died at age 59 in 1980 from cancer, so revered in Cuba. Making it a point to spend my time with everyday Cubans, including overnight stays with six very poor rural families, I indeed discovered their abiding love for Celia Sanchez, but it was not what my support of Republican administrations, such those of George W. Bush and his father George H. W. Bush, had educated me on regarding their disdain for Cuba since the 1959 Revolution. You see...the U. S. media and the U. S. government, I have discovered, have steadfastly replicated the Bush family's agenda regarding Cuba. I sincerely believe that policy has drastically hurt and harmed the U. S. as much, maybe more, than it has hurt and harmed Cuba. In that milieu, it is hard to find a prominent U. S. politician or a prominent U. S. journanist that has the courage to speak truthfully and correctly about U.S.-Cuba Relations. Yet, there are in December of 2023 two such brave and honest Americans!! As a long-time member of the U. S. Congress, Jim McGovern has long fought bravely for the U. S. to change its drastically harmful and cruel policies regarding Cuba. As a long-time Washington journalist, Ryan Grim has also consistently told the truth about the massive harm, to both the U. S. and to Cuba, that Washington's Cuban policies have done. The hugely important article shown below, first posted today on December 14th in December of 2023, is written by Ryan Grim about the views of Jim McGovern regarding the U. S. politices regarding Cuba. I believe Americans should read it:

    The massive Ryan Grim/Jim McGovern Headline and Article today -- on December 14th of 2023 -- very uniquely speaks the truth about U. S.-Cuba Relations. It starts with the fact that the Biden adminstration for the past three years has KEPT IN PLACE the Trump administration's decision to put Cuba on the USA's very short List of Nations that Sponsor Terrorism. That decision vastly hurts Cuban families in Cuba but also vastly enriches and empowers already rich and powerful Cuban counter revolutionaries in Miami and in Congress. One brave Washington politician, Jim McGovern, and one brave Washington journalist, Ryan Grim, have both the courage and the insight to explain why the current and ever-lasting U. S. policies regarding Cuba are drastic and harmful for both counties!!

     Today -- on December 14th in 2023 -- I would like to say this: I do not think a few rich people in a large rich nation should be allowed to Embargo poor families in a much-smaller nation. The greatest shame, I believe, is that the rich people in the large nation get away with merely saying, "Our Embargo is meant to starve only the mean leaders in Cuba and, of course, is meant to help the rest of the Cuban people." That lucrative lie has created a lot of rich Cubans and politicians in Miami but for six decades has starved, deprived, and made miserable Cuban families in Cuba. Therefore, I agree with great and honest Americans like Congressman Jim McGovern and Journalist Ryan Grim that the worldwide image shown above shames the United States even more than it starves Cubans in Cuba!!!

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The Endless Miami-Havana Wars Today!!

January of 1959 Till December 2023!! 

    At least since 1817 U. S. politicians and newspapers have loudlly clamored for the United States "to SIEZE" the nearby Caribbean island of Cuba. That fervent desire by the much-larger and much-more powerful nation to control the much-smaller and much-weaker nation has, not surprisingly, created havoc -- including the Spanish-American War, the Cuban Revolution, the Bay of Pigs War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc., etc. In fact...it seems the only time since 1492 -- when Cuba and the United States were discovered by Columbus -- that the two neighboring nations were friends and major trade partners was in the 1950s when the U.S./Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship unmercifully ruled Cuba, an alliance that spawned the Cuban Revolution, an event that the U. S. has desperately tried to reverse since 1959. And all that turmoil brings us to today, which is December 13th of 2023...with all the new havoc!! 

   Today -- on December 13th of 2023 -- the avalanche of U.S.-Cuba Headlines flashing around the world include those shown above. And please remember  that both the superpower U. S. and little Cuba on December 13th of 2023 are both being asked to take sides in two bloody Wars pitting Russian-Ukranian and Israeli-Hamas forces.

    For a perspective on what is happening regarding U.S.-Cuba Relations on December 13th of 2023, I believe it is necessary to study and understand the three historic images listed above. The Cuban Revolution in January of 1959 shocked the world by overthrowing the U.S./Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba; that spawned the ageless Little Havana community in nearby Miami; and it also meant that powerful counter revolutionary Cubans such as Rafael Diaz-Balart, a former Batista minister shown above in the center of the photo above flanked by his four sons, quickly emerged as extremely rich and politically powerful forces not only in Little Havana-Miami but also in Washington where Little Havana's wealth and political power for many decades has been undeniably potent.

    For example, for decades the U. S. Congress in Washington has included Mario Diaz-Balart and/or Lincoln Diaz-Balart and, along with other notable counter revolutionary Cubans in Congress, have been instrumental in legalizing prime Counter Revoluionay/Pro-Little Havana laws, such as the notorious Helms-Burton Act!!

    The photo directly above shows four of the totally unchecked Little Havana/Miami Cubans in the U. S. Congress -- Rubio in the center flanked by the Diaz-Balart brothers and, second from the right, Lleana Ros-Lehtinen, who for decades in Little Havana/Miami and in the U. S. Congress mentored the phalanx of Counter Revolutionary Cubans in both Miami and Washington.

    After mentoring powerful Miami Cubans such as Rubio, the Diaz-Balart brothers, etc., Ros-Lehtinen more recently helped Maria Salazar become one of the most fierce Counter Revolutionary Cubans in the U. S. Congress in Washington.

    Miami Cubans such as Salazar and Rubio, from their perches in Congress, are unchallenged in their domination of U. S. laws related to Cuba, and that is why the U. S. Economic Blockade of Cuba has existed since 1962!!! The rest of the world, as revealed each year at the United Nations, believes the Blockade is extremely cruel, even genocidal, and yet the world's opinion is not nearly as powerful as Little Havana's opinion, it seems.

     The U.S.-Cuban Headlines on December 13th of 2023, of course, don't include the opinions of people such as Ines Maria Chapman. In Cuba Ines is a mother and grandmother as well as being a powerful Minister and Vice President of Cuba. This week in mid-December of 2023 Ines saw articles in which Little Havana/Miami stalwarts Salazar and Rubio expressed their opinions about why the U. S. policies against Cuba should be maintained or expanded. Well, it seems that in Havana Ines had an opnion too: "I don't wonder much what men in Miami think, but sometimes I wonder if mothers in Miami who support the blockade ever stop to think how it impacts mothers in Cuba. Aside from the blockade, I have believed that mothers around the world cradled empathy for all children, and not just their own." 

   As I perused the top U.S.-Cuban Headlines today -- on December 13th of 2023 -- I noticed the Tourism Ad shown above. It seems to suggest that tourist flights or cruises from Miami to Key West to Havana to Varadero to Cayo Guillermo to Puerto Vita included prime Cuban Tourist Attractions. Yes, it was listed as a "sponsored" Ad on Social Media forums...and, at least FOR A MOMENT, I wondered if it meant the U. S. blockade of Cuba had ended or at least been dented a bit!!

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