Cuban Embargo Is Eternal

Like A Painful Albatross

         Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, tomorrow {Friday} in a speech at Florida International University in Miami, will call for an end to the embargo against Cuba. That's in the hometown of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. In fact, Rubio is a part-time teacher at Florida International, a part-time first-term Senator, and a full-time Republican presidential contender. Ms. Clinton's advocacy against the embargo is not meaningful. She is merely following the tea leaves. Three quarters of Americans, 60% of Cuban Americans, and even 59% of Republicans favor ending the embargo, which has harmed Cubans on the island and benefited a few Cubans in Miami and Union City since 1962. Clinton's speech tomorrow will merely highlight the fact that the U. S. democracy is a prisoner to the small but powerful pro-Batistiano faction, which includes Rubio and his mentor Jeb Bush. However, there are members of the U. S. Congress and other independently thinking politicians who admirably seek sane relations with Cuba for decent, humanitarian, and democratic reasons. Clinton is just a poll-watcher.

         This Republican member of the U. S. Congress did a brave and decent thing Tuesday, July 28th. Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota introduced a bill to eliminate the 55-year-old U. S. embargo against Cuba. The majority of Americans, Cuban-Americans, and citizens of the world agree with him. Yet, it won't get done. The uniqueness of America's relations with Cuba will prove, yet again, that the U. S. democracy, the strongest in the world, is not quite strong enough to overcome a vile Cuban policy that has been dictated since 1959 by the most extreme remnants of the long-ago U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia regime on the nearby island. Congressman Emmer, while his effort was laudable, will discover that basic fact.

       Tom Emmer narrowly lost a bid to become Governor of Minnesota in 2010. He has represented Minnestoa in the U. S. Congress only since January. He was born 54 years ago in South Bend, Indiana. His bid this week to end the embargo against Cuba is based on the fact that he believes...he knows...it would do two things: {1} Help farmers and businesses in Minnesota; and {2} he is ashamed of the image the embargo against Cuba presents to the rest of the world, especially the Caribbean and Latin America.

         Also yesterday -- on Tuesday, July 28th -- Kathy Castor, a Democrat from Tampa -- introduced a bill in the U. S. Congress to end the embargo against Cuba. To support her bill, Congresswoman Castor made an impassioned plea for the other 534 members of Congress to remove the shameful albatross around the necks of Americans and Cubans. In the middle of that plea, she said: "This important step forward will advance human rights and tilt the fortunes of families and entrepreneurs on both sides of the Florida Straits." Of course, there is not a single soul that can dispute those words. Yet there are not enough members of the U. S. Congress who have the guts to support Democrat Kathy Castor and Republican Tom Emmer.

        Kathy Castor was born 54 years ago in Miami, Florida. {Photo: Wikipedia}. She has represented Tampa in the U. S. Congress since 2007. With rare courage and decency for a politician, Ms. Castor has defied Florida extremists all her political life because she realizes that America's Cuban policy severely harms Americans, Cuban-Americans, and many innocent people throughout the Caribbean and Latin America.

         To improve the lives and welfare of everyday Cubans and to benefit businesses in Tampa and the rest of Florida, Congresswoman Kathy Castor has visited Cuba often. The bill she introduced yesterday to end the embargo is just the latest example of the Herculean work she has done all her political life to combat an American Cuban policy dictated for decades by Florida extremists and sycophants such as the parasitic Bush dynasty. A major article in the St. Petersburg Times yesterday revealed Ms. Castor powerfully assailing Jeb Bush's latest sell-out to ultra-rich billionaires. At a Koch brothers campaign event in New Hampshire, Jeb Bush said Congress should "phase out Medicare," condescendingly pleasing the billionaire Koch bothers and keeping in step with the Bush desire to help the very rich at the expense of everyone else. Kathy Castor's hometown newspaper in St. Petersburg/Tampa quoted her as saying that Jeb Bush's comment was "outrageous," the same description she has applied to longstanding anti-Cuban Bush policies that less brave members of the U. S. Congress and the U. S. media dare not challenge.

        As Kathy Castor well knows, democratic principles have never been applied to U.S.-Cuban relations -- especially since 1952, the year the U. S. teamed with the Mafia to support the vile Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba. Since 1959, the year the Cuban Revolution booted the Batistianos off the island, mostly back to their Miami and Union City havens, small conclaves like the one depicted above have dictated America's Cuban policy. In the photo above, on the right, are Cuban-American U. S. Senators Marco Rubio from Miami and Bob Menendez from Union City. They are shown hosting a confab of Cuban dissidents, including the famed Yoani Sanchez. Unfortunately...Sanchez, Rubio, and Menendez believe America's Cuban policy should be eternally left to tiny gatherings like this one. And unfortunately for democracy and people not named Bush, Sanchez, Rubio or Menendez, there are not enough patriots like Kathy Castor around to fight for democratic principles even when it involves the Caribbean island that is ninety miles from Miami. 

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A New Cuba Arising

And A Wonder To Behold

         A good way to get to know and understand the changes taking place in Cuba is to purchase this book: "PASSAGE TO CUBA: An Up-Close Look At The world's most Colorful Culture." It is a portrait of love by a great American photographer, Cynthia Carris Alonso. Since 1993, she has made many trips to the island, astutely capturing in unforgettable photos Cuba's people, their culture, and their hopes and dreams.

        This is Cynthia Carris Alonso. {Photo courtesy: Alicia Alonso} "Passage To Cuba" is her first book but her photography has earned her many awards and accolades. She has had a love affair with Cuba and its people for over two decades, as illustrated by photos and loving captions in this book. She told the The New York Daily News, "I am hopeful that political changes will bring economic benefits for the Cuban people as well as for foreign investors, while preserving the beautiful spirit and culture of the Cuban people."

                  This Cynthia Carris Alonso photo was taken in a sugar cane field in San Antonio de Los Banos. It is obvious she believes that the rhythms of Cuba flow the strongest in the veins of everyday Cubans.

          This, I believe, is one of most poignant photos in Cynthia Carris Alonso's book "Passage To Cuba." There are on the island of Cuba today Cubans who are old enough to personally remember the brutality and thievery of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship of the 1950s. Such Cubans tend to cherish Fidel Castro's revolution the most, a fact American's visiting the island might discover for the very first time.

            The uniqueness of the Cuban Revolution is defined by numerous black-and-white photos from the 1950s. Women like these with reasons like this began the downfall of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship. If Americans don't understand the revolution's origin, perhaps it relates to the fact that the Cuban narrative since 1959 has mostly been controlled by those who fled the first and finest female-powered revolt.

          Time Magazine has also published an excellent pictorial of a changing Cuba: "INSIDE THE NEW CUBA: Discovering The Charm of a Once-Forbidden Island -- The People, The Culture, The Paradise." Because of dictates by revengeful Cuban-Americans, everyday Americans for decades have been the only people in the world without the freedom to visit Cuba. That may change as Obama-led changes bring a degree of sanity and decency to U.S.-Cuban relations. Meanwhile, these two aforementioned books will provide you excellent portraits of a uniquely gorgeous island whose past, present, and future continues to fascinate.

       This January of 1959 edition of Time Magazine introduced 32-year-old Fidel Castro to the American people. Notice the "July 26th" banner. He named his Cuban Revolution after his ill-fated attack on Batista's Moncada Army Garrison on July 26th, 1953. July 26th in the year 2015 was on Saturday this past weekend. The anniversary was a really big deal in Cuba, with thousands turning out for major ceremonies.

Moncada's 62nd anniversary on Sunday, July 26th, 2015. {Photo: Yamil Lage/AFP}

        This past weekend in Santiago de Cuba at the 62nd anniversary celebrations of the Moncada attack, Cuban schoolchildren played the role of the attackers. Instead of guns as weapons, they are carrying giant pencils as their weapons of choice. Even though the real attackers were markedly out-gunned and it was a bloody disaster, Fidel Castro mandated that his revolution against Batista was "The July 26th Movement."

Celia Sanchez, the most important Cuban revolutionary, wore a "July 26th" armband.

          Largely because of Celia Sanchez, Cuban schoolchildren today are far healthier, much safer, and considerably better educated than pre-revolutionary Cuban children were during the Batista-Mafia rule. These young students are shown at a ceremony celebrating Celia Sanchez's birthday -- May 9th.

         This photo of 12-year-old Celia Sanchez is courtesy of Cuba's Oficina de Aseintos Historicos. It was taken in 1932 in the southeastern Cuban city of Manzanillo where Celia, by 1953, was orchestrating the most important and most dangerous anti-Batista urban guerrilla activity. Shortly thereafter she became the most important guerrilla leader and procurer of arms and supplies in the Sierra Maestra Mountains and its foothills. Celia was birthed on May 9th, 1920 by her father, Dr. Manuel Sanchez, in their home in the southeastern Cuban town of Media Luna, where her birthday is celebrated yearly by awed Cubans.

 Photo courtesy: Barry McColgan/Facebook.

Beautiful statues of Celia Sanchez are tourist attractions in Cuba today.

        After the ill-fated Moncada attack on July 26th, 1953, Fidel Castro spent almost two years in a Batista prison and then almost another two years recruiting in the U. S. and Mexico before finally hooking up with Celia Sanchez's revolution in the Sierra Maestra in December of 1956. The photo above shows Fidel examining his microscopic rifle, a gift from Celia. From that day till the day she died of cancer at age 59 on January 11, 1980, they were inseparable soul-mates. Till this day, he worships the ground she walked on.

This new Celia Sanchez montage is courtesy of Radio Coco.

Fidel Castro turns 89 next month {on August 13th}.

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Correcting Some Bush Arrogance

But Two Big Ones Remain

         As of today -- Monday, July 27th, 2015 -- the Cuban flag has been flying exactly one week over its embassy in Washington for the first time since 1961. That was made possible when the U. S. removed Cuba from its short list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Today...Wow!...the U. S. removed Cuba from its short list of nations that Fail To Combat Human Trafficking. Cuba had been on that list since 2003 as one of the endless methods the George W. Bush administration used to callously hurt Cuba and its people.

         Josefina Vidal, Cuba's Minister of North American Affairs, had a long reaction in Havana today that is both acute and astute, and therefore worth paraphrasing, summarizing and pondering: "OK, so we're off the Terrorism list. Now we're off the Human Trafficking list. Thanks a lot. We didn't deserve being on either. So, the U. S. -- for 18 more months -- happens to have a decent President with some executive privileges. But, mostly, the U. S. has a dysfunctional Congress that sells out to the highest bidder, which includes partisans in Miami. What we need...both countries...is decent input from American citizens who still, in their democracy, have some say -- not much, but some -- in the war-like, special interests actions of Congress. Terrorism and Human Trafficking, huh? What about removing Cuba from the sins of the embargo? What about returning Guantanamo Bay to its rightful owner? Congress still dictates those two things, which essentially means that a great democracy is trampled down by bought-and-paid-for dictators." Vidal will see the U. S. open its new embassy in Havana next week, and then she will attend the ceremony on August 14th when Secretary of State John Kerry shows up to officially raise the U. S. flag at its new embassy, which will be staffed with more "diplomats" than any U. S. embassy anywhere else in the world. The embargo and Guantanamo Bay still loom large in Vidal's mind. Thus, it wouldn't take much for her to agree to a dismantling of flags, detente, and other aspects of President Obama's thawing of Cold War-era cruelty.

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Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

A Huge Blot Against America
Updated: Monday, July 27th, 2015

           Lisa Monaco is an important lady. {Photo courtesy: Mandel Ngan/AP}. She is President Obama's Deputy Security Advisor. She made headlines last weekend with an important speech at the Aspen Security Conference in Colorado. She said that shortly she will present to the U. S. Congress a plan to close America's most infamous prison -- Gitmo, which Amnesty International calls "The gulag of our time." Gitmo is on U.S.-occupied territory at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Ms. Monaco said: "This doesn't mean just unlocking the door and have somebody go willy-nilly to another country. It means a painstaking establishment of security protocols that would govern the transfer of that individual. Let's look at this: Why hand over this albatross to the President's successor?" As usual, Ms. Monaco's words pertaining to Gitmo make total sense. But, as usual, what makes total sense to the rest of the world routinely faces strong opposition in the U. S. Congress. Ominously, Ms. Monaco said she will deliver her proposals for Gitmo to Senator John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. That, of course, is where many sane proposals go to die.

         Yet, it is Senator John McCain himself who defines the infamous prison at Guantanamo Bay as, "A blot on the image of the United States." Senator McCain turns 79-years-old next month. He was born on the Coco Solo U. S. Military Base in Panama. Both his father and grandfather were 4-star admirals. McCain himself is hailed as a war hero by almost everyone not in Vietnam or not named Donald Trump. He has been in the U. S. Congress since 1982 and in the Senate since 1986. As Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee he viciously opposes most of President Obama's peaceful diplomatic efforts around the world -- especially Cuba, including the famed Gitmo prison as well as the U. S. occupation of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

        Lisa Monaco, a Harvard grad who was born in Boston 47 years ago, this week will begin earnestly dealing with a Republican-dominated U. S. Congress in her quest to remove Gitmo first and Guantanamo Bay second as a Bush-Cheney-Congress blot on both democracy and the United States. Her first approach was to appeal to patriotism, namely the anti-American image that Gitmo and the Guantanamo Bay occupation presents to the world. That didn't work. Patriotism, it seems, is on Congress's back-burner these days. So now, in a new draft that she will shortly present to Senator McCain, Ms. Monaco stresses the economic factor. She points out that U. S. taxpayers are paying $3 million a year to imprison each of the hundreds of prisoners at Gitmo while it would cost only a fraction of that amount if they were transferred to U. S. soil and housed in Supermax prisons. Her data to Senator McCain will state that presently there are 116 prisoners at Gitmo, which is down from the 242 that President Obama inherited. Under the plan she will present to Senator McCain, Ms. Monaco suggests that 52 of the current prisoners should be released to other countries and the remaining 64, considered dangerous, would be transferred to U. S. soil.

          This White House photo shows Lisa Monaco, a very patriotic American, explaining her Gitmo/Guantanamo Bay plans to President Barack Obama. In 2008 he inherited a host of Bush-Cheney problems -- from Gitmo to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that spawned terrorist armies and not just terrorist cells or individuals. When he became President in 2008, President Obama vowed to close Gitmo and to use diplomacy, not war, as the fulcrum or cornerstone of America's foreign policy. He has had some remarkable successes, including some sanity finally imparted to U.S.-Cuban relations. But many of President Obama's most worthy projects have been thwarted by a war-like, belligerent U. S. Congress that caters mostly to the financial power of special interest groups, not excluding the Military Industrial Complex that a war-hating Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, warned Americans about back when he left office in 1960.

                 A powerful Cuban, Josefina Vidal -- reminiscent of Lisa Monaco -- has some pertinent thoughts in regards to Gitmo and Guantanamo Bay. She too wants Gitmo closed and she wants Guantanamo Bay returned to Cuba. As Cuba's ultra-important Minister of North American Affairs, Vidal realizes that the rest of the world, including the UN, agrees with her that Guantanamo Bay was stolen from Cuba shortly after the U. S. gained dominance over the island following the easy victory in the 1898 Spanish-American War. "I am surprised," she says, "that the American people care so little about their democracy that they are willing to accept the opprobrium the rest of the world, especially the Caribbean and Latin America, showers upon the U. S. concerning the imperialist theft of Guantanamo Bay. The military base and the God-awful prison merely exacerbates the image that shames America. A decent American President, Mr. Obama, has greatly improved relations with Cuba. But Guantanamo Bay is now a two-step process -- close the prison first and then return Guantanamo Bay to Cuba. The U. S. has hundreds of bases, many in Florida and on the East Coast within a few minutes airtime of Cuba. It has nuclear-armed submarines in our shared waters. Guantanamo Bay simply represents a means for extreme Cuban exiles and their Republican associates to hurt or embarrass Cuba as a part of their revenge for not being able to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. The harm it presents to America's image is of no concern to that faction. To the world Guantanamo Bay's continued occupation means that the U. S. is still living in the archaic imperialist stone-age that the Cuban Revolution rebelled against decades ago."

       The sheer brilliance and determination of Josefina Vidal is largely responsible for the improved relations between Cuba and the United States. She, more than anyone else including Obama himself, is the reason that, for the first time since 1961, the Cuban flag now waves over a Cuban embassy in Washington; and on August 14th Secretary of State John Kerry will be in Havana to raise the U. S. flag at its embassy in Havana. Josefina Vidal orchestrated that and much more, against implacable odds. She also did even more impossible things -- such as returning the imprisoned Alan Gross to Maryland when anti-Cuban zealots were gleefully using his imprisonment to harangue against Cuba. She also engineered the return of the famed Cuba 5 to Cuba, including the last one that had been sentenced in Miami to two life terms plus 15 years in a U. S. federal prison. And, perhaps most amazing of all, Josefina Vidal got Cuba removed from the U. S. State Department's debilitating Sponsors of Terrorism list, a listing that dated back to the 1980s and which allowed Miami courts to successfully sue unrepresented Cuba on a myriad of often innocuous charges. Now Josefina Vidal aims to have Guantanamo Bay returned to Cuba. Like some other diplomatic moves she has accomplished, Guantanamo Bay is considered an impossible task for her because ultra-powerful Cuban-Americans and members of Congress consider it the Crown Jewel of their revenge, economic, and political successes against Cuba. But underestimating Josefina Vidal has helped loosen the tight grip extremists have had on America's Cuban policy. The pertinent question now is this: As hard as she has worked to improve U.S.-Cuban relations, would Vidal be willing to sacrifice all of it if Guantanamo Bay is not returned to Cuba?? The answer is significant because the answer is: Yes.

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U. S. Cuban Laws

By Cubans Only For Cubans
Updated: Saturday, July 25th, 2015

      This is Fernando Ravsberg. He was born in 1957 in Uruguay but for years he has been considered by much of the world as the best and fairest journalist on all things Cuban. Fernando teaches at the University of Madrid and he has worked as a journalist for BBC, Telemundo and other networks.

        Fernando Ravsberg's blog -- "Cartas Desde Cuba"/"Letters From Cuba" -- is a must for anyone interested in Cuba. His articles are routinely picked up by international outlets. This week -- the week the U. S. and Cuba actually opened embassies in their respective capitals -- Ravsberg penned an article entitled: "U. S. Wants To Send 35,000 Criminals Back To Cuba." Here is how that article began: "While the Cuban flag is hoisted on the building of the new embassy in Washington, D. C., the U. S. Congress continues to put obstacles in the way of normalization of bilateral relations. Now they want to send 35,000 Cuban criminals back to the island. Since the initiative involves persons born in Cuba, Washington has the legal right to deport them. However, for many years the relations between the two countries are not based on law. The U. S. has a law that grants residency to any Cuba who touches U. S. soil, even if they are criminals, terrorists or murderers. Part of the 'Mariel" exodus of 1980 were criminals taken from Cuban jails to send north {to the United States}."

Fernando Ravsberg used this photo to illustrate his article.

         The 1983 "Scarface" movie remains popular. It was directed by Brian DePalma, written by Oliver Stone, and it starred Al Pacino as Tony Montana. It opens with actual black-and-white film of Cuban immigrants arriving in Miami on the Mariel Boatlift in which Fidel Castro emptied his jails and prisons and included them {along with thousands of law-abiding Cubans} among the 120,000 Cubans who settled in South Florida. Soon, exacerbating Miami's already extreme drug-fueled violence, Tony Montana became Miami's most violent drug kingpin. Castro's intent was two-fold. Obviously he wanted to spare Cuba the expense and other problems related to prisoners and, as a bonus, he wanted to transfer the expense and other problems to his main adversary, the United States. In July of 2015, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has referenced Castro's stratagem, equating it with modern-day Mexican immigrants. And the aforementioned article this week by Fernando Ravsberg indicates that anti-Castro zealots in the U. S. are intent on taking a page from the old revolutionary's book. However, while the almost 89-year-old Fidel this month has been more focused on 4-hour speeches at a cheese seminar outside Havana, it is not likely Cuba will accept 35,000 Cuban-born U. S. criminals. Cuba already has its hands full with U.S.-backed dissidents, as indicated by Tracey Eaton's very insightful article in USA Today this week, July 23rd.  

             Meanwhile, Americans must deal with a plethora of laws passed by a Batistiano-friendly U. S. Congress that, among other things, favors only Cubans and, as Ravberg indicates, continually encourages Cubans, including criminals, to relocate to the United States. The message on this T-shirt should make every democracy-lover in the United States cringe with either revulsion or embarrassment. If it doesn't, it's because Americans, since the Cuban Revolution ousted the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship in January of 1959, have been propagandized to fully and meekly accept a Cuban narrative tightly controlled by two generations of only the most extreme anti-Castro exiles from the Batista regime. But rest assured, America's best democracy-loving friends around the world, meaning those not bombarded with propaganda regarding Cuba, are ashamed and embarrassed by the message on this T-shirt. Even Peter Kornbluh, director at the U. S. National Security Archives in Washington, says such things make the U. S. appear to be "a Banana Republic." In decades past, Americans actually cared about their democracy.

          "Wet Foot/Dry Foot" is just one of many U. S. laws designed to benefit Cuban exiles at the expense of everyone else. To understand how such things embedded themselves into the fabric of the world's greatest democracy, I would suggest you read these two seminal books by renowned Cuban experts:

"Cuba Confidential"

by Ann Louise Bardach

and

"What Everyone Needs To Know About Cuba"

by Julia E. Sweig

            These two books minutely explain how, beginning in the 1980s, the Bush dynasty empowered Miami's most radical anti-Castro zealots who, shortly thereafter, were able to easily dictate such congressional laws as The Torricelli Bill and The Helms-Burton Act that clearly focused on sating the insatiable revenge, political, and economic appetites of a few Cuban-Americans while grossly infringing on the rights of all others. For example, everyday Americans are free to travel anywhere in the world...except Cuba. The freedom to travel to Cuba, a very safe country, is a privilege all people except Americans have. While crafting such laws to hurt Cuba, laws to enrich and empower select Cuban-Americans were not forgotten, as evidenced by the ongoing and unending number of tax-funded regime-change/get rich programs that blossom and flourish like swarms of locusts in Washington and Miami. But Wet Foot/Dry Foot is so fundamentally and immeasurably anti-democratic it shocks pro-American democracy-lovers the most. Wet Foot/Dry Foot emerged in the mid-1990s as an element tucked into the Cuban Adjustment Act, an act that seemed to say, "Hey, we can write all the U. S. laws relating to Cuba, so let's add this one!" And so they did, apparently assuming Americans didn't have the courage or intelligence to object. Wet Foot/Dry Foot crowns the U. S. Cuban policy that encourages Cubans -- baseball players, ballet performers, doctors, and even average Cubans -- to defect to the United States. Because of Wet Foot/Dry Foot, any Cuban -- including criminals as the Ravsberg article mentioned -- who touches U. S. soil is home free with instant benefits. All other would-be immigrants in the entire world -- including those with far better reasons to emigrate than Cubans -- are immediately subject to imprisonment or deportation. The Miami-Union City-Washington triangle controls the Cuban narrative in both the U. S. as a whole and the U. S. Congress in particular. Rubio, Menendez, Diaz-Balart, Ros-Lehtinen, etc. -- benefit from the fact that this generation of Americans is less concerned with protecting its democracy than previous American generations were.

      America's Founding Fathers never intended for their pristine democracy to begin supporting vile Banana Republic dictatorships in the Caribbean and Latin America. But that is exactly what happened beginning in the 1950s when the U. S. democracy got in bed with and toasted wine {above} with cruel dictators -- Batista in Cuba, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Somoza in Nicaragua, Pinochet in Chile, etc., etc. The justification was, in exchange for tax-funded military and economic support, those dictators would permit rich Americans {like the guy on the right in the above graphic} to also participate in the rape and robbery of those helpless nations. Waves of democracy, beginning in the 1970s, began to sweep over the Caribbean and Latin America...easing out in various forms the U.S.-backed dictators. However, the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in Cuba remains unique in all the annals of Latin American and American history, and not just because it was the only dictatorship propped up by an unlikely team -- the U. S. and the Mafia. The sheer uniqueness of Batista and Cuba lies in the fact that the Cuban Revolution in 1959 overthrew Batista but all the Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders fled to much safer havens, mostly Miami.

         "Banana Republic" is a pejorative that gets its moniker from the United Fruit Company, which was based in Boston. Beginning in the 1950s, throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, the United Fruit Company -- sometimes actually supported by U.S.-backed soldiers -- emerged as the company most hated and reviled by the maligned peasants of those unfortunate countries, including Batista's Cuba. A medical graduate named Che Guevara took a motorcycle ride down through Latin America on a vacation before returning to Argentina to start his career as a medical doctor. But on the trip he noticed that companies such as the United Fruit Company were indeed raping and robbing those helpless countries at will. In Mexico City, Guevara met Raul Castro and then Fidel Castro. They told him the United Fruit Company was doing the same in Cuba and they were going back to join a revolution to do something about it. Che Guevara, forever forsaking his career as a doctor, jumped at the chance to become a Cuban revolutionary.

This map depicts primary holdings of the United Fruit Company in the 1950s.

Only the Cuban Revolution began the demise of the United Fruit Company.

 The United Fruit Company became Chiquita!!
Chiquita today supplies most of the bananas Americans buy.

          In the 1950s as the United Fruit Company was helping create Banana Republics all over the Caribbean and Latin America, two of the most powerful men in the United States were the Dulles brothers. Allen Dulles, on the left above, was CIA Director. John Foster Dulles was the Secretary of State. The Dulles brothers, both with impeccably sanitized reputations then and now, were big supporters of Banana Republics. Decades after they had left office it was learned that they had, in the 1950s, financial ties to...The United Fruit Company. Then and now, classified documents protect such dubious reputations.

 Secrets and sanitized reputations mitigate against democratic transparency.

        This classified letter dated July 12-1956 was a sanitized secret till, decades later, it was de-classified. It was a sweet letter on official CIA stationery from CIA Director Allen W. Dulles to his dear friend, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Both men at the time were big fans of both the United Fruit Company and their Cuban Banana Republic, which reveled in making a few incredibly rich and the majority incredibly poor.

         Cuba's Banana Republic in the 1950s was dictated by Fulgencio Batista {upper-right} and his two best Mafia buddies -- Meyer Lansky {center} and Lucky Luciano {upper-left}. All had previous ties to Miami.

But...Haydee Santamaria and Celia Sanchez didn't like bananas. 

And the rest is history,

including Wet Foot/Dry Foot.

       This photo is courtesy of Yamil Lage/Getty Images. It shows tourists in Havana enjoying 1950-era American convertibles. Cuban ingenuity has many of them still running and still shining on the fast-changing island, still the Pearl of the Antilles.

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