Embargo Against Cuba LOUDLY Condemned

Again...By The Entire World
Friday, October 31st, 2014

**The whole world opposes the United States treatment of Cuba.**
**The President of the United States is powerless to correct the insult to democracy.**

**The U. S. President is forced to enforce the U. S. embargo against Cuba.**
**While U. S. citizens lack the courage or patriotism to care.**

   This week, for the 23rd consecutive year, the entire world expressed its outrage over the U. S. embargo against Cuba. The Reuters photo above shows Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez addressing the United Nations in New York. He minutely described how the embargo is the longest and cruelest ever imposed by a powerful nation against a small nation. The innocent Cuban people, he said, are the primary sufferers and the embargo has cost the island economy well over $1 trillion. After other nations spoke in support of Cuba, the UN voted on the "Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo Imposed By the United States of America Against Cuba." The vote once again was 188-to-2. In all the world only Israel supported the United States and the rest of the world discounts that vote because of the billions of dollars in military and economic aid the U. S. Congress routinely gives Israel every year. For the same reason, three other tiny nations -- Palau, Marshall Islands, and Micronesia -- abstained from voting so as not to anger the U. S. But all the other sovereign nations in the world -- big and small, including America's very best friends -- condemned the embargo, and they did so very emphatically.

      U. S. envoy Ronald Godard this week had the unenviable task of defending the indefensible at the United Nations. The rest of the world, except for bought-and-paid-for Israel, ignored his embarrassing words before casting their votes.

     As illustrated once again this week, this is the image of the United States of America that permeates around the world because of the U. S. embargo against Cuba. It was first imposed in 1960 and then, after the failed Bay of Pigs attack on the island and numerous failed assassination attempts, it was strengthened in 1962, as registered by de-classified U. S. documents, to starve and deprive the Cuban people to entice them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. Two generations of U. S. citizens -- because of stupidity, cowardice, intimidation or a lack of concern for their democracy -- since the early 1960s have allowed the embargo to continue to besmirch the image of the United States just to appease a handful of zealous Cuban exiles motivated by a fusion of greed and revenge that has been allowed to trump the decency and principles of democracy. The image above, as well as the UN vote this week, also reminds the world that teaming with the Mafia back in the 1950s to support the brutal, thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba was not exactly a decent or principled act by the world's most powerful democracy; and neither was allowing the leaders of that overthrown dictatorship to establish an unchecked government-in-exile on U. S. soil. Americans are not supposed to comprehend those two points, but the rest of the world does...as revealed yet again by a pro-democracy vote in the United Nations. Propagandized, compliant, and pusillanimous Americans are supposed to ignore that UN statement, even as the rest of the world does not.

     The very hour that UN vote was taking place in New York soundly condemning the ageless and unjustifiable U. S. embargo against Cuba, this AP/Franklin Reyes photo was taken in Havana. It shows Juan Carlos Lazo at Cuba's famed Malecon Wall with his young child. The motorized bike in the foreground is how Juan makes a living selling donuts. For over five decades, Americans have been told that the embargo and other egregious acts against Cuba are designed to hurt Fidel Castro. The rest of the world readily comprehends that excuse is a blatant lie; the embargo hurts Juan, his child, and other innocent Cubans while it exists to sate the revenge and greed motives of a handful of self-serving Cuban exiles. That is the message this week's vote in the United Nations sent around the world for the 23rd consecutive year.

      This AP/Ramon Espinosa photo was taken on October 27, 2014. It shows three pregnant Cuban women taking an elevator to a special maternity ward in an Havana hospital. This week Cuba announced a litany of plans to encourage a much higher birth rate on the island. It is concerned with its aging population, the oldest in Latin America. More than ever, pregnant women will be rewarded and coddled.

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Great Journalists Are Targets

Gary Webb Remains A Prime Example
Monday, October 13th, 2014

      For the most part, since 1959 the Cuban narrative in the U. S. has been dictated by two generations of anti-Castro zealots. But not always. The above photo is courtesy of Ladyrene Perez/Cubadebate/AP and it was used this weekend to illustrate a major report by CNBC entitled: "Cuba Joins U.S. in Ebola Fight." This photo shows Cuban nurse Dalila Martinez practicing Ebola safety techniques in Cuba before she led a contingent of Cuban doctors and nurses to West Africa to fight the dreaded virus. CNBC said: "The tiny island has responded big time to the outbreak of Ebola, sending a disproportionately large number of medical workers to virus-stricken West Africa, in personnel contrast to the paltry participation from a number of large nations with major economic interests in the region." In recent days, the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC-TV and other major news outlets in the U. S. have uncharacteristically praised Cuba's "out-sized" contribution to the Ebola fight. Of course, for years Cuba has conducted an "out-sized" and "disproportionate" use of its medical expertise to help countless other nations in times of need. It is remembered that when Cuba and the U. S. knew that Hurricane Katrina was about to pulverize New Orleans, Cuba had 1500 of the world's best hurricane-disaster medics at Jose Marti Airport in Havana begging the U. S. for permission to fly to New Orleans. That permission was denied by the George W. Bush administration, which watched, along with the rest of the world, as New Orleans was unmercifully lambasted. So, it is surprising to see the U. S. media actually saluting Cuba during the Ebola crisis.

        Cuba, by the way, has the world's largest medical school. The photo above shows a classroom at the Latin American School of Medicine outside Havana. Cuba has awarded thousands of totally free, six-year scholarships to qualified students from the poorest areas of many countries, including the United States of America that, among other things, has imposed a cruel economic embargo against the island from 1962 to the present day because a few anti-Castro zealots tell the American people that any money that reaches Cuba goes into Castro's pockets or bank accounts. Of course, there are some doctors back home in ghettos in cities such as Philadelphia and Washington that would beg to disagree, doctors who have no student loans to pay back. For their free scholarships in Cuba, all they had to promise was that, at least for a time, they would return to their poor home areas to practice medicine. As a democracy-loving American, I think it is fine for the mainstream U. S. media to criticize Cuba when it is warranted, but all too often it lacks the courage and/or the integrity to praise. That reminds me that great American journalists have paid with their lives when they tried to tell the truth about Latin America and Cuba...journalists such as Lisa Howard in New York, Emilio Milian in Miami, Charles Horman in Chile and...Gary Webb in California.

       A major movie -- "Kill The Messenger" -- opened all around the United States Friday, October 10th. It stars Jeremy Renner as Gary Webb. Earlier this week Mr. Renner told USA Today that he was overburdened with so many major projects and he longed to spend more time with his one-year-old daughter Ava on the opposite coast. However, he said he could not pass up promoting "Kill The Messenger" because it was based on an incredibly true and intriguing story. If the movie stays loyal to that story, it too with be incredible and intriguing...and one democracy-lovers should watch and remember.

        As one of America's greatest investigative journalists, Gary Webb won more than 30 literary awards. But the articles that gained him both fame and infamy also resulted in either his assassination or his suicide. Gary was born on August 31, 1955 in Corona, California. He died on December 10, 2004 in the front door of his home in Carmichael, California. He was killed by two {2} gunshots to the head from a .38-caliber pistol. While bravely working for the San Jose Mercury, Gary wrote three startling articles known as the "Dark Alliance" series. He claimed that the CIA in the early and mid-1980s was intimately involved in the crack-cocaine epidemic that mauled U. S. cities, particularly Los Angeles. He purported to document the CIA role linked to procuring unsavory money to finance the CIA's right-wing Contra army that opposed the left-wing Sandinistas in Nicaragua, including Sandinista leader {now President} Danny Ortega. 

        In addition to the articles that originated in the San Jose Mercury, Gary Webb also made some powerful enemies when he published his book "Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion." The movie that opened Friday -- "Kill The Messenger" -- is based on Gary Webb's book and on the book "Kill The Messenger" written by Nick Schou. Regardless of how effective the movie turns out to be, it is sure to revive the speculation and the mystery surrounding Gary Webb's short life.

       This historic Wikipedia photo reflects the U.S./CIA involvement in Nicaragua that resulted in the malaise, the lies, and the confusion that made journalist Gary Webb an icon. This 1971 photo shows President Richard Nixon on the left hosting Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza at a state dinner in the White House. That's key Republican/Army General Alexander Haig on the right. The Somoza family ruled Nicaragua as brutal, thieving dictators for 44 years beginning in 1936. As with other Latin American dictatorships during this era -- from Cuba to Chile to Argentina to Brazil to Venezuela, etc. -- the Somoza family in Venezuela eagerly accepted the powerful support of the United States. Such dictatorial alliances with the U. S. continued from the 1950s into the 1980s. The U. S. citizens didn't utter a peep. U. S. leaders like Nixon, when they hosted fiendish dictators like Anastasia Somoza, would simply say, "We warmly welcome this visit to the White House by America's dear friend Anastasio Somoza, the President of Nicaragua." Unfortunately, the American people had neither the intelligence nor the patriotism to defend their democracy, so they meekly accepted such state visits that fawned over vile dictators such as Somoza, Batista, Pinochet, etc. But each of those U.S.-backed Latin American dictatorships spawned revolutions that tried to overturn them. Those revolutions gained sustenance and inspiration from the Cuban Revolution, which shocked the region and the world by overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba on January 1, 1959. In Somoza's Nicaragua, for example, a young rebel named Danny Ortega tried to replicate against Somoza what a young Fidel Castro had done against Batista in Cuba. The threat of Danny Ortega and the Sandinista rebels created a chillingly dark and eventually self-defeating reaction from the United States. The darkest aspects of that U. S. reaction resulted in the articles and book that Gary Webb called "Dark Alliance." To say the least, Gary Webb -- the award-winning journalist -- was branded a dire enemy of the U. S. and the CIA. The movie that opens Friday -- "Kill The Messenger" -- derived from Gary Webb's eternal fame as a very great and very brave investigative journalist.

       On July 17, 1979 the BBC used this AP photo to show Anastasio Somoza fleeing Nicaragua. The BBC headlined the report with these words: "The notorious US-trained National Guard crumbled and its surviving commanders are negotiating surrender. In the last six weeks Sandinista fighters have gained control of 27 cities around the capital as well as the southern part of Nicaragua that borders Costa Rica. President Anastasio Somoza -- the third member of the Somoza dynasty to rule Nicaragua since 1937 -- has fled to the United States." Anastasio Somoza lived in exile for just over a year. He was assassinated in Paraguay on September 17, 1980. He was 54-years-old and one of Latin America's last U.S.-backed dictators. In a reinvigorated, revolutionary-minded Latin America, waves of democracy began to replace military dictatorships, although persistent growing pains, not unexpectedly, remain to this very day.

          As a young Sandinista rebel in Nicaragua trying to overthrow the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship, young Danny Ortega's hero and mentor was Fidel Castro, the Cuban rebel that had earlier overthrown the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba. Danny Ortega, like Fidel Castro, surprisingly succeeded.

      In 2014 the now 68-year-old Danny Ortega frequently visits the now 88-year-old Fidel Castro, who remains Ortega's hero and mentor. This photo shows President Danny Ortega of Nicaragua visiting Fidel Castro in Havana this year as Fidel's wife Dalia Soto del Valle smiles her approval. After ousting the 44-year rule of the Somoza family dictatorship, Ortega led Nicaragua from 1979 till 1990 and has been his country's democratically elected President again since 2007. Today many key countries in Latin America -- from Nicaragua to Brazil to Chile to Venezuela to Bolivia to Argentina, etc. -- now have Castro-friendly democratically-elected Presidents where once U.S.-friendly dictators ruled supreme. Democracy-loving conservative Republicans, like me, believe that, at long last, right-wing Republicans in Washington -- Nixon, Reagan, Kissinger, Bush, etc. -- should be held accountable for creating and/or supporting foreign right-wing dictatorships that spawned rebels like Mr. Castro, Mr. Ortega, etc., but also spawned such positive offsprings as democratic elections throughout the region and great investigative journalists like...Gary Webb! Thus, it is presumed that Mr. Castro, Mr. Ortega, etc., will enjoy the new movie -- "Kill The Messenger" -- that most Americans are neither expected to enjoy or to understand. That's because Americans, since the 1950s, have meekly and compliantly accepted such self-aggrandizing explanations as the aforementioned one from Richard Nixon: "We warmly welcome this visit to the White House by America's dear friend Anastasio Somoza, the President of Nicaragua." Oh, yes! Fiendish dictators like Somoza, Batista, Pinochet, etc., were indeed "America's dear friends," but not for the reasons right-wingers like Nixon so easily convinced the not-too-concerned American people. Even in a democracy, killing the messengers -- like Gary Webb, Lisa Howard, Emilio Milian, etc. -- can have the effect of undermining or destroying some precious pillars of democracy while also building powerful political platforms for people like Richard Nixon, Jesse Helms, Dan Burton, Robert Torricelli, etc.

  Congratulations to 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai.  {Photo courtesy: www.mirror.co.uk} Malala is the youngest person to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor she very richly deserved. 

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Save the Children, Please

In Cuba, the U. S., and the World!!

       Melbourne, Australia {above} is one of the world's most beautiful and safest cities. With a population of just over four million, it is Australia's second largest city. The Liveability Unit, as registered by the Economic Intelligence Unit {EIU}, has rated Melbourne "the best city in the world to live" for the fourth consecutive year! Here is the Top Ten of the world's best cities to live in according to the EIU's 2014 poll:

#1: Melbourne, Australia

#2: Vienna, Austria

#3: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

#4: Toronto, Canada

#5: Adelaide, Australia

#6: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

#7: Sydney, Australia

#8: Helsinki, Finland

#9: Perth, Australia

#10: Auckland, New Zealand

       Obviously, there are no major American cities on the list of "best cities in the world to live." Two things -- huge crime rates and a huge disparity between the rich and the poor -- eliminate U. S. cities from consideration in such polls. We Americans should hail democracy and capitalism but also have enough insight and courage to admit that the rest of the civilized modern world is much better than we are when it comes to crime, income disparity, and greed -- three evils that are very closely related. 

The 85 richest people in the world have wealth equal to the poorest 3.5 billion people.

Day by day, those 85 get much richer and those 3.5 billion get much poorer.
And the 3.6 billion people caught in the middle also suffer.

        Melbourne is located on the southern tip of Australia, a huge country surrounded by the Indian and Pacific oceans as well as the Timor and Tasman seas. Just up the Pacific Coast is Canberra, the capital, and Sydney, the largest city. Notice the locations of the coastal cities of Adelaide and Perth, both of which are also in the Top Ten of "the best cities in the world to live." Australia has a population of only 23 million and is a very prosperous nation with a Gross National Product of $1.8 trillion, 12th best in the world. So why don't we Americans migrate to Australia? Well...Australia adequately polices its borders and also doesn't perpetuate a vast disparity between the haves and have-nots. Australia also does not endlessly engage in foreign wars although, since World War II in the 1940s, it has fought side-by-side with Americans in major conflicts. Below are the world's 12 wealthiest nations:

#1: United States -- $17.5 trillion

#2: China -- $10.0

#3: Japan -- $4.8

#4: Germany -- $3.9

#5: France -- $2.9

#6: United Kingdom -- $2.8

#7: Brazil -- $2.2

#8: Italy -- $2,2

#9: Russia -- $2.1

#10: India -- $2.0

#11: Canada -- $2.0

#12: Australia -- $1.8

#13: Spain -- $1.4

#14: Mexico -- $1.3

#15: South Korea -- $1.2

         Considering their meager populations, it is impressive that Australia and Canada can be listed among the Top 15 richest nations in the world. It is even more impressive, I believe, that Australia and Canada are both flush with cities listed in the Top 10 of "the best cities in the world to live." 

       Great and beautiful American cities -- such as Chicago, Detroit, etc. -- will never make the Top Ten of the "the best cities in the world to live" because of incredible rates of crime and the disparity between the rich and the poor. Chicago, with 2.7 million people, is the third most populace city in the U. S., behind New York City and Los Angeles. Such American cities are infamous for the number of citizens victimized by gunfire.

      Cuba's capital of Havana is one of the world's greatest and most beautiful cities. There is very little crime in Havana and the disparity between the rich and the poor is negligible. {Yes, Fidel Castro, now 88-years-old, was born rich but famously has never been interested in money, and he lives to this day in a very modest Havana home}. Yet, Havana, where two million of Cuba's 11.2 million people live, will never make the Top Ten of "the best cities in the world to live," at least as long as the island remains under the yoke of the hostile Cuban exile-dictated U. S. embargo, which has existed since 1962, shortly after the Cuban Revolution chased the Batista-Mafia dictatorship back to Southern Florida from whence it came.

       Declassified U. S. documents have revealed that the U. S. embargo was imposed in 1962 for the purpose of starving and depriving the Cubans on the island to encourage them to overthrow the Fidel Castro-led government. It didn't work. Neither had the 1961 air, land, and sea attack known as the Bay of Pigs. And neither have the Cuban exile-inspired Torricelli Bill and the Helms-Burton Act that have greatly expanded the embargo against both Cuba and against sovereign nations around the world that do business with Cuba. Deciphering such facts will be for historians to sort out -- beyond what great authors such as Julia Sweig and Ann Louise Bardach have already done -- but one thing is for certain: Most probably, Cuba is the only nation in world history that could have survived, decade after decade, under the yoke of the longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a small, weak one. No other nation remotely resembling Cuba's size and population has ever remotely achieved what the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba has done since 1959, and that is to merely survive. A "Save The Children" aspect has figured prominently in that equation. Australia, Canada and all of America's best friends around the world strongly denounce the U. S. embargo of Cuba, yet a handful of Cuban exiles and their sycophants have kept it firmly in place since 1962, defying, in the eyes of many, America's hallowed democratic and societal principles enshrined and envisioned by the Founding Fathers in 1776.

       The Cuban Revolution that startled the world by overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship was the first and only major revolution to be started and led by women, like these.

       Fidel Castro, shown above in February of 1959 -- one month after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution -- has always said it was the female-powered anti-Batista street marches that made him believe a successful revolution was possible even against a dictatorship supported by the U. S. and the Mafia. Many times in the last half century it has been written that Fidel Castro "has out-smarted a long line of U. S. presidents," now totaling eleven. When ABC-TV's Barbara Walters mentioned that revelation to Fidel, he laughed and said, "Now, Barbara, that only applies to one detail. When I realized that one-half of the Cuban population, the under-utilized female half, was outraged against Batista and the Mafiosi, I had a thought: no revolution has utilized that half of its population. I decided if I did I could do something about Batista and the Mafiosi, even if they had U.S. backing. So, I followed through on that thought. But other than that one detail...{he leaned forward and laughed}...I guess all those Yankee presidents have been much smarter than me. So, does that answer your question, Barbara? 'Cause, knowing you as I do, I know you have a lot more." 

Barbara Walters had two famous Castro interviews, this one in 1977.

He liked Barbara and personally drove her around Havana.

Now back to "Save the Children, Please":

      More than any other revolution, Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution gave full power to the female half of the Cuban population. For that reason, the most out-raged female in Cuba, Celia Sanchez {above}, evolved into by far the most important player in the Cuban Revolution and in Revolutionary Cuba, with the full support of Fidel Castro, who to this day idolizes the ground she walked on. As the image above indicates, Celia Sanchez, a rich doctor's daughter, passionately loved Cuba's children till the day she died of cancer at age 59 in 1980. In February of 1959 she had laid down a proclamation: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." In September of 2014 Fidel Castro is still alive and, therefore, so is Celia Sanchez's proclamation. Her decisive leadership in both the Cuban Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba was inspired by her fervent desire to "Save the Children" from the Batista-Mafia dictatorship and from a return of what she called "the Batistianos." Although Americans are not suppose to acknowledge her because to do so would cast less vilification upon Fidel Castro, Celia Sanchez's passion for Cuba's ninos, its children, should serve as an example around a troubled world today, a world that seems far more friendly to militant fiends than to precious children victimized by crime and militancy.

        This young lady's name is Iman Abu Aitah. The photo is courtesy of Sara Hassan/Aljazeera America. She is featured in this essay because, frankly, I am amazed she is still alive. You see, she is a Palestinian from the Jabaliya section of Gaza City, one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a child. But, somehow, she ended up in the United States as a college student. She is a rising junior at Columbia College in South Carolina where she is diligently pursuing a biology degree. This summer she frantically watched televised news reports about the latest Israeli-Gaza War, including a 24-hour cycle about Israel's devastating air, land, and sea attack on the Jabaliya section of Gaza City. Like 1.8 million other Gazans, Iman fully realized her family had no where to run because the tiny Gaza Strip has its borders tightly closed by Israel and Egypt. After seeing the utter devastation of Jabaliya, Iman got the news: She had become an orphan. Both of her parents had been killed. Two of her brothers had been killed. Her 4-year-old nephew had been killed. Later Iman would learn that U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry, as evidenced by his "open microphone" comment when he thought the mic was not on, was totally shocked at the sheer brutality of Israel's assault on Jabaliya. Later, international news reports would repeatedly confirm that hard-bitten American generals, in assessing the Jabaliya death toll, were also "totally shocked." The two top human rights officials at the United Nations -- Ban Ki-Moon and Navi Pillay -- labeled the attacks on Yabaliya as "war crimes." Yet, as a nuclear superpower with total support and funding from the U. S. Congress and always backed by the U. S. veto in the UN, Israel is far above recriminations from the UN or any other human rights organization. And none of that is news to Iman Abu Aitah, who is alive but now an orphan.

       This summer in the third Israel-Gaza War in the past six years...Israel calls it "mowing the lawn" every couple of years...about 2200 Gazans and 69 Israeli's were killed. Most of the dead Gazans were civilians, including about 500 children. Tens of thousands of Gazans were seriously injured. Much of Gaza was reduced to rubble and estimates are it will be twenty years before repairs could be made even if the billions of dollars that would require is provided. During the height of this summer's Israel-Gaza War, the U. S. Congress, not unexpectedly, quickly provided Israel $325 million to replace spent ammunition, on top of the billions the U. S. Congress yearly and readily provides Israel's unbeatable military machine. U. S. taxpayers don't object but, probably, they will object when the UN asks them to contribute to helping repair Gaza or assisting in caring for the tens of thousands of injured Gazans. But, of course, the unending Israeli-Palestinian conflict is just one of many around the world, all of which primarily devastate civilians, especially children. The Ukrainian-Russian War, the never-ending terrorist conflagrations in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, etc., etc., fill the void between the Israel-Gaza wars. As the grandmother in Roanoke, Virginia and the U. S. college student from Gaza well know, being a child in 2014 is not easy.

        CNN's Karl Penhall described blasts on Gaza City as: "It's not like shooting fish in a barrel but, in such a confined area, it is more like shooting sardines in a barrel." Unfortunately, in a modern world saturated with far more greed and weapons than benevolence and food, children are susceptible.  

         Some people -- such as the superb actress Susan Sarandon -- actually care about the plight of children in a greedy, violent, conflicted world. Ms. Sarandon is currently starring in a haunting ad for the Heifer International charity in which she reminds us that one child will die of hunger "every five seconds" and that "17,000 children will die today for the wrong reason," meaning they will starve to death. There are a lot of other things Susan Sarandon could be doing other than starring in ads for Heifer International. But at least it is comforting to know that somebody cares, and her concern should be commended and saluted.

         This haunting but popular billboard highlights a disturbing fact: One out of every five children in the United States of America has a hunger problem. Juxtapose that fact with this one: The United States of America is, by far, the richest nation in the history of the world. Or, in another vein, compare this little girl's hunger problem with this fact.............................................................................................................

         .......in today's out-of-whack world, one athlete earns enough money in a given year to virtually wipe out child hunger in the United States. Take, for example, #35 Kevin Durant. He is the 25-year-old star for the Oklahoma City Thunder of the NBA. In 2007, fresh out of high school, he signed a $60 million contract. He now earns far in excess of $20 million a year from his team. But that is a pittance to what he earns in endorsements courtesy of the ubiquitous ads that clutter up our T-V screens. This summer Under Armour, a company based in Baltimore, offered Durant $285 million on a ten-year-contract...$28.5 million a year from one sponsor! However, Durant already had a lucrative deal with Nike, which doles out billions of dollars in athletic endorsements. So, Durant stayed with Nike and it has been reported that new deal will be worth about $30 million a year in guarantees and royalties. Of course, Durant also has numerous other sponsors. Forget the measly $20 million or so he makes each year from his player-contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder. The much more and much easier money he makes from endorsements could alleviate much of the child hunger in America, with perhaps enough left over to help combat other persistent evils such as homelessness or joblessness, which especially plague African-American communities.

Note: The problem is not Kevin Durant; it's political and executive greed.

         Recent articles about Nike brushing aside Under Armour's $28.5 million-a-year endorsement deal for Kevin Durant stated that Nike still pays Michael Jordan about $130 million-a-year although Jordan hasn't played basketball for many years. It reminds some of a CNBC documentary that made many viewers actually cry as they were told and shown how those Nike products are made in sweatshops in Third World countries by grossly underpaid female workers in what could be described as slave-like conditions. It left some viewers cradling the suggestion that, perhaps, Nike should raise the wages of those poor foreign workers just a little bit instead of selling their products at very high prices and showering billions of dollars each year on already incredibly rich athletes. But, of course, that won't happen in a society that churns out billionaires like Nike chairman Phil Knight and top endorsers Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods while mostly ignoring the plight of foreign sweatshop workers, unemployed Americans, hungry children, and unsafe civilians in war-torn areas of a wicked world increasingly afflicted by heavily armed militant countries as well as powerful terrorist groups. In other words, as personified by Nike, the foreign workers, often young girls or women, making those expensive Air Jordan shoes should be paid a living wage in safe conditions. Or, perhaps, a bought-and-paid-for Congress should stop giving huge tax breaks to companies that close U. S. plants and then another huge tax break when those companies open factories in labor-cheap Third World countries. But, of course, when millionaires and billionaires are the ones who make those cash donations to politicians, Nike and other companies can essentially do as they please, an advantage that is not available to less wealthy people who can't purchase political votes. 

       Now deep into the fall of 2014, some astute prognosticators are predicting that the current bloody conflict between Russia and Ukraine could easily develop into World War Three. Russia's nuclear arsenal is second only to the United States. Ukraine is a major arms producer. Amazingly, as if to emphasize a money-crazed, power-hungry world gone mad, Ukraine is continuing to fulfill a lucrative arms contract with Russia, even as Russian arms are already opposing Ukrainian arms along the southern borders of both countries. This past summer, in the middle of nuclear-power Israel blasting densely populated Gaza City, killing about 500 children and maiming thousands more, the world is told that the U. S. Congress, not unexpectedly, sent Israel an additional $325 million to replenish its arsenal of weapons and ammunition. Many of us who hear about such things are shocked, at least initially. Then we realize the world is unfriendly to children who are no match for powerful armies, rampaging terrorists, or...greedy politicians.

        Saving children was what Cuba's revolutionary icon Celia Sanchez was all about. If Vice President Richard Nixon had not double-crossed her in April of 1959 when she took Fidel on a 12-day goodwill visit to the U. S., Cuba would have had a democracy long ago. If the U. S. had not allowed the most visceral anti-Castro Cubans, and their self-serving sycophants, to dictate America's Cuban policy since 1959, it is possible that Cuba's two largest cities -- Havana and Santiago de Cuba -- would today be listed among "the best cities in the world to live." And the reason Americans dismiss both of those points is because they have been proselytized and propagandized since the long-ago 1950s. More courageous and better informed Americans would be good for the world's children. That's because America is the richest and strongest nation in the history of the world, and history's greatest and most benevolent democracy. Beyond doubt, America remains today the nation that the most helpless people in the world continue to depend on to support their rights to live against those bent on destruction and genocide. Of all the historic people I have studied, I believe Celia Sanchez would be America's biggest cheerleader in that regard. In April of 1959, Celia Sanchez, Fidel Castro, and famed journalist Carlos Franqui were among the Cuban contingent that spent 12 days in the U. S. intending to tell President Eisenhower of Cuba's plans for a democratic election, till Vice President Nixon double-crossed both Celia and democracy. On that U. S. visit in April of 1959, Celia Sanchez, the day after Nixon's unexpected and unfortunate meeting with Fidel Castro, made this statement to Carlos Franqui: "My plans for Cuba were for a democracy that would necessarily be best friends with the United States, and that's why I'm on U.S., not Cuban, soil today. I have been double-crossed, Carlos, and it reflects my mistake in judgment. I won't misjudge the U. S. again." Back in Cuba, she reaffirmed her proclamation about the Batistianos never regaining control of Cuba as long as she or Fidel lived. And, back in Cuba, she realized that a much larger portion of the island's resources would have to go to defense as opposed to the areas she envisioned -- such as education, health, and shelter for Cuba's long-deprived citizens.

Yet, to this day Americans have no basic comprehension of this historic Castro-Nixon handshake from April of 1959. The reason: Since 1959 a handful of two generations of the most visceral Cuban exiles have dictated a self-serving U.S.-Cuban narrative. While the handshake was a photo op, Nixon's threat to Fidel predicated much of what has been hostile with U.S.-Cuban relations from April-1959 to September-2014.

     To comprehend U.S.-Cuban relations since the 1950s, Americans would also need to understand this photo that was taken by Andrew St. George and is owned by Yale University's Manuscripts & Archives department. It shows Celia Sanchez in the hallway of her U. S. hotel in April of 1959, less than four months after she had last worn her guerrilla uniform...and less than one day after Richard Nixon's double-cross. Americans not knowing Cuban history -- especially from Jose Marti to Fidel Castro to Celia Sanchez -- has harmed a lot of people for a lot of decades, including children. And that would disappoint the child-loving Celia Sanchez very, very much.

By the way..............

      I got an email today from Lisa R., a lady in Calgary. She wrote: "I was quite touched by your depiction of and explanation of Celia Sanchez's photo when she was in the U. S. less than four months after she had been the most prominent guerrilla fighter in over-throwing the Batista dictatorship. I will re-visit your latest blog tomorrow hoping you will add the photo of Celia's facial expression when she was a guerrilla fighter. That expression, and the one in the NY hotel hallway, define the Cuba that you write so emphatically about, I truly believe." In my return email I wrote: "In March of 2004 I was in Cuba, courtesy of the George W. Bush administration, to research the life of Celia Sanchez after an elderly black woman who I had come to worship startled me in the early 1980s. Nora, the black lady, told me, an anti-Castro hater at the time like most Americans, about Celia Sanchez. Nora in the 1940s and 1950s had volunteered at a Cuban hospital in Santiago de Cuba. There she met the doctor's daughter, Celia Sanchez. What Nora told me, authenticated by photos and letters Celia had written to Nora from 1959 till 1979, not only surprised me but inspired me to learn more about the Cuban woman that Nora insisted was history's all-time greatest female revolutionary. That turned out to be correct, I discovered. Also, as if it were yesterday, I remember a reminiscing Nora, the night I last visited her sick-bed, smiling sweetly as I told her how much I had begun to research Celia Sanchez. Nora, very pleased, said, "Celia's love of children inspired her. That was it. It is a fact that changed Cuba and America forever. Each hour of her life Celia's passion for Cuban children ruled her being." Remembering Nora's words, coupled with recent photos of imperiled children, inspired the title for this essay: "Save the Children, Please." And one more thing, Lisa. As I can document via well-known and highly respected Cubans who made it possible, I was shocked in 2004 when a female Cuban soldier, driving a Honda, picked me up at the Victoria Hotel in Havana and drove me to Fidel Castro's home, where three of his relatives waited in the driveway. I was later told that my session with Fidel Castro lasted "just shy of five minutes." I had taken original copies of Celia-to-Nora letters, courtesy of Nora's daughter, to Cuba with me to explain why I was there and to help make sure I could visit with three key people who intimately had known Celia -- Marta Rojas, Tete Puebla, and Roberto Salas. The Director of the Cuban Media Center, to my surprise, kept the letters. When they were returned 3 days later, worried about Nora's daughter, I minutely checked the letters. One was a copy, not the original. I assumed, and still believe, the original was kept by Fidel, perhaps because it contained a personal reference Celia had made in the letter about an incident between Celia and Fidel. Back in the U. S., I truthfully explained to Nora's daughter why one of the letters was a copy and not the original she had trusted me with. In any case, Lisa, the last sentence Fidel Castro spoke to me was: "Thank you for understanding her, and loving her." I will now attach the photo you asked for. And allow me to add this: 'Thank you for understanding her, and loving her.'"

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Latin America vs. USA

With Cuba Caught In The Middle
Wednesday, August 27, 2014

      This photo was taken by Enrique De La Osa and was used yesterday to illustrate an article by Reuters. It shows 8-year-old Marlon Mendez meeting his idol Fidel Castro, who turned 88-years-old earlier this month. Fidel had been told that Marlon worshiped the revolutionary leader and not only could recite his revolutionary exploits but has pictures and newspaper clippings on his bedroom walls and also often dresses like Fidel, minus a fake beard on orders from his mother.

      Fidel invited Marlon to his home and they had a long chat in the Castro living room. Impressed with Marlon's knowledge of the revolution, Fidel gifted him with the above book that featured a hand-written page dedicated to Marlon. The Reuters website includes a video that shows Marlon's bedroom and also includes the young Cuban discussing his meeting with Fidel. He said, "I felt a lot of emotion meeting Fidel. The whole family hugged him. My mother was shaking." The video also included Marlon's grand-mother who said she was amazed how healthy Fidel appeared. The grand-mother, on the Reuters video, added, "We want Fidel around for a long time."

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Note: The Reuters article about a young Cuban and his family worshiping Fidel Castro was most interesting because the grand-mother effusively updated Fidel's health, which is why the article made international headlines. By the way, Fidel watchers are studying his hand-writing above to judge his physical and mental state, both of which appear to be excellent, especially for a man who is 88-years-old. As you can see, he began his dedication to his fan Marlon with these words: "Para mi gran amigo Marlon..." {"For my great friend Marlon..."}. Of course, causal observers of Fidel Castro will consider the Mendez family, as worshipers of Fidel, to be unusual on the island of Cuba. However, if they were in the minority as opposed to the majority on the island of Cuba, Fidel would not be alive at age 88 and the Cuban Revolution would not be alive into its 55th year. That conclusion is not based on a pro-Castro prism but on a fact-based belief that, admittedly, differs sharply from that of the legions of anti-revolutionary Cubans.

       Costa Rica is an awesomely beautiful, thriving little country in Central America. Strategically located, Costa Rica is bordered by Nicaragua to the north and Panama to the south with the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east. It has a population of just over 4-and-a-half million people. Yet, in this summer's World Cup in Brazil, the Costa Rican soccer team went further than the heralded, lushly funded United States squad. Costa Rica proudly proclaims that "it has been without an army for over sixty years." It is also a very safe country for its citizens and for tourists or foreign investors. And this week feisty little Costa Rica poignantly reminded the U. S. that no longer do U.S.-backed dictators do America's bidding in the Americas.

     This is Mariano Figueres. He is Costa Rico's Director of Intelligence and Security. This week he told the United States to cease using Costa Rica as a part of its ongoing program to destabilize or overthrow the Cuban government. The Associated Press, in a Friday article from the Costa Rican capital of San Jose, wrote: "The Costa Rican government will investigate undercover U. S. programs operated from the Central American country and using its citizens in a ploy to destabilize the government in Cuba. USAID and one of its contractors, Creative Associates International, used the cover of health and civic programs, some operating out of Costa Rica, in hopes of provoking political change in Cuba. The AP found the program continued even as U. S. officials privately told contractors to consider suspending travel to Cuba after the arrest of Alan Gross, who remains imprisoned after smuggling in sensitive technology. Figueres said, 'It's a matter of sovereignty and respect and we're very alarmed that they used Costa Rican citizens and put them at risk.'" 

     Costa Rica this week pointed out that Latin America is no longer controlled or dominated by foreign governments who for decades used proxy, vile domestic dictatorships to rape and rob helpless indigenous populations. Costa Rica has worked hard for its well-earned sovereignty. It is a prosperous and safe nation that is home to some of the world's most gorgeous scenery and about 5% of the world's most diverse and amazing species, such as the red-eyed frog depicted above. Costa Rica has no army and no programs designed to harm any other country. And this week Costa Rica told the United States to stop using either Costa Rican soil or Costa Rican citizens in its unceasing efforts to harm the island of Cuba or Cuban citizens.

     Luis Somoza was the U.S.-backed dictator of Nicaragua when the Cuban Revolution overthrew the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba on January 1, 1959. In an effort to regain control of Cuba, the U.S. used its friendly dictators, like Somoza, to try to assassinate or overthrow Cuba's leader Fidel Castro. After multiple assassination attempts failed, the U. S. selected highly paid Cuban exiles to train in Nicaragua for an attack on Cuba. In April  of 1961 six U.S. warships left Puerto Cabezas on the Nicaraguan coast to attack Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Luis Somoza famously stood on the dock and loudly shouted to the departing ships: "Bring me back some hairs from Castro's beard." {If you Google that exact quote, you can learn more}

     As it turned out, Fidel Castro not only rushed to the front-lines to lead the successful defense of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, his exploits in Cuba inspired other rebels -- like the bespectacled young Nicaraguan Danny Ortega. The Somoza family dictatorship continued to control Nicaragua deep into the 1970s until the Sandinista Revolution, led by Danny Ortega, defeated the Contras who were backed by the U. S. {Oliver North, Cuban exiles, Iran-Contra scandal, etc.}. Since then, Danny Ortega has been elected and re-elected President of Nicaragua in a reconfigured Latin America.

       Thus, in 2014, President Danny Ortega of Nicaragua has joined a long line of democratically elected Latin American Presidents who regularly fly to Havana to pay homage to their idol Fidel Castro who turned 88-years-old this summer. Americans, who have been taught to vilify Castro since the 1950s, are now taught to vilify democratically elected Latin American Presidents who honor Castro. At the same time, Americans are taught to dis-remember the U.S.-backed dictators from Batista to Trujillo to Pinochet to Somoza that gave birth to young rebels like Fidel Castro who in turn spawned more young rebels like Danny Ortega. As a democracy-loving American, I remember those memorable dictators because I believe that never again should the American democracy create or support such dastardly dictators.

     This is a young John Kerry congratulating a young Danny Ortega. After a stellar career in the U. S. Senate, John Kerry today is the U. S. Secretary of State. Danny Ortega today is the President of Nicaragua. Oh, my, how things have changed!

     The rebuke this week of the United States by little Costa Rica is in stark contrast to the bygone era when murderous U.S.-backed dictators such as Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Pinochet in Chile, Somoza in Nicaragua, etc., saturated the Caribbean and all of Latin America. Rafael Trujillo, for example, was the dictator in the Dominican Republic from 1930 till 1961. Trujillo was so ruthless that historians are still amazed that he slaughtered as many as 20,000 Haitian laborers because he blamed them for a lower-than-expected sugar harvest. Georgie Anne Geyer, Fidel Castro's seminal biographer, graphically explained that Fidel, while he was still a college student, was so angered about Trujillo's treatment of the Haitian peasants that Fidel and a couple of college buddies used a speedboat to overtake Trujillo's yacht. They boarded it and searched in vain for the dictator who happened to be elsewhere that day. Later, it has been well documented that Trujillo worked hand-in-hand with the U. S. in efforts to assassinate Fidel and to overthrow Cuba's revolutionary government.

     The well-known slaughter of thousands of Haitians in the Dominican Republic did not lead to the demise of the Trujillo dictatorship. However, the murder in 1960 of the three beautiful Mirabal sisters did derail Trujillo's support from the United States and other benefactors. It has been widely reported that the U. S. even participated in the bloody assassination of Trujillo in 1961. The grisly murders of the Mirabal sisters still resonates across Latin America, as do the memories of vile dictators like Trujillo. One of the many outstanding books about the Mirabal sisters is Julia Alvarez's "In the Time of the Butterflies" and the 2001 movie that starred Salma Hayak vividly recounted the heroic but fateful resistance to Trujillo that cost the brave sisters their lives.

     This photo shows Richard Nixon with his friend Rafael Trujillo. American right-wingers, like Nixon, who supported murderous dictators, like Trujillo, have never, to this day, been held accountable by the American people for installing and/or supporting a myriad of vile Latin American dictatorships from the 1950s deep into the 1970s. But this week's rebuke of the United States by gritty little Costa Rica was a reminder that democratic sovereignty, not foreign-backed dictators, now rule Latin America. And it is a reminder that Americans should understand why, in the year 2014, many of the democratically elected Presidents across Latin America credit Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution with reminding them that their nations did not have to forever remain under the yoke of foreign domination. This is not to suggest that Americans should belatedly become fans of Fidel Castro. But it is to suggest that Americans should become bigger fans of their democracy. We can do so by researching some history of the U. S. involvement in the Caribbean and Latin America from the 1950s through the 1970s. That history would reveal why America's influence and reputation throughout its own region is not what we democracy-loving Americans would like it to be. In other words, I would prefer that today the democratically elected Presidents in Nicaragua, Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Argentina, etc. thought more of President Obama and the U. S. than they do about Fidel Castro and Cuba. One reason for that is this: Americans since World War II have simply not had the knowledge, the guts, or the patriotism to hold people like the two pictured above -- Richard Nixon and Rafael Trujillo -- accountable for their anti-democracy actions. Fidel Castro was born on August 13th, 1926 but Fidel Castro was created by the U. S. support of the vile Batista/Mafia dictatorship in Cuba. Americans too ignorant or to unpatriotic to comprehend Latin America's history also don't try to comprehend why Fidel Castro's influence in Latin America today, and the influence his legacy will have, in many areas supersedes and will continue to supersede that of the superpower United States. There is something today called the Google Search Engine. That's where Americans should get their Latin American, Fidel Castro, Fulgencio Batista, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Bush dynasty, and Rafael Trujillo data, not from two generations of the most zealous Cuban exiles. One place to start is by studying the above photo of the joyous embrace of Richard Nixon and Rafael Trujillo. To thousands of murdered Haitians, to the three murdered Mirabal sisters, and to the millions of innocent people who have suffered from such gratuitous, effulgent smiles, defenders of the U. S. democracy have been sorely lacking. And that besmirches America's reputation, which was by far the best in the world coming out of World War II. In 2014 once again the world looks to the U. S. to save it from the abominations of powerful terrorists groups. And that is the America we should be, not an America that conveniently forgets the decades of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s when the U. S. supported vile dictators like Trujillo, Batista, Pinochet, etc. while, to this day, the self-serving perpetrators are given free passes by suppliant U. S. citizens. The nexus of a Richard Nixon with a Rafael Trujillo belittles democracy. In a very troubled modern world, history -- Nixon, Trujillo, Batista, etc. -- should not be ignored.

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