"We Are Not Denmark"

Uh, No...But We Should Be

           David Horsey is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, first with the Seattle Times and since December of 2011 with the Los Angeles Times. He is distributed nationally by Tribune Media Services. The above photo is courtesy of www.freerepublic.com. In today's money-crazed, talking-head pundits, wall-to-wall puerile commercials, and mostly incompetent cable "news" media world, editorial cartoons penned by truly great journalists like David Horsey are your best bet to get the pulse of what's really happening.

         A case in point is David Horsey's editorial cartoon he entitled "The Debate Summed Up..." Cable news outfits have spent untold hours hashing and rehashing this week's first Democratic presidential debate but it took Horsey to analyze it succinctly and correctly. The most important comment during the debate was uttered by Hillary Clinton: "We are NOT Denmark!" It was her retort to her top challenger, Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders, expressing admiration for Denmark's Democratic Socialism as opposed to America's capitalist system in which "one-tenth of one percent of Americans control 90% of America's wealth." Mrs. Clinton, who has ridden her politics to extreme personal wealth, strongly objects to Mr. Sanders, as do the rest of the one-tenth of one percent of Americans who dictate America's two-party political system. As Mr. Sanders pointed out in the debate, the decision of the Supreme Court in 2010 that allows unlimited political donations by billionaire individuals and corporations was the last hope of democracy-lovers who desire a decent and fair political system, not one legally bought-and-paid-for. Mr. Sanders harps on the fact that the U. S. has far more people in prisons than any other nation, per capita or otherwise, with poor people often unfairly targeted and sentenced in stark contrast to the one-percenters. Mr. Sanders, for example, takes exception to a single mother in West Virginia being sentenced to prison for shop-lifting two cans of Pork 'n Beans and one can of Vegetable Soup to feed her three hungry children while a Wall Street billionaire readily pays, say, a $10 billion fine after illegally acquiring, say, a $200 billion profit, leaving him and his cohorts a profit of $190 billion with no prospects of ever facing jail time. "Well, at least I don't want to turn America into Denmark." Of course not. The Wall Street billionaires have helped Mrs. Clinton become extremely wealthy and might put her, or someone like her, in the White House. After all, they have plenty of money to buy up a political system that even the U. S. Supreme Court says is up for sale to the highest bidder. That leaves out the shop-lifting mother who worries about her hungry children and, as Mrs. Clinton and the other politicos well know, doesn't have a dime to her name to contribute to greedy politicians. "We are not Denmark." Mrs. Clinton is right about that. And that is why she is wrong.

        The Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Capitalist Hillary Clinton mostly had a lovefest during the debate, as this Lucy Nicholson/Reuters photo illustrates. But Hillary loves bought-and-paid-for politics while Bernie thinks the U. S. democracy should be modeled after the five Nordic nations -- Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland -- because they govern at the behest of ALL their citizens.

           Denmark, with Copenhagen as its capital, has 5.6 healthy, happy, and well educated souls. It punches way above its weight in caring for its people. Scotland, for example, is contemplating leaving the UK so it can model itself after Denmark. Bernie Sanders, if he were in the White House, would try to do the same. Denmark, for example, tries to prevent alcohol abuse and imposes an extravagant tax that makes even beer almost prohibitive, and then uses such taxes to fund child care, college tuition, and health care. 

          Norway is a gorgeous Scandinavian country of 5.1 million hearty, healthy, and well educated souls. Oslo is its capital. There are international polls and surveys, many funded by the U. S. or the UN, to determine the world's Happiest, Healthiest, Best Educated, Most Equal, Safest, etc., people. Norway and Denmark often lead those rankings with other Nordic or Scandinavian nations rounding out the Top Five. 

       Time Magazine had a major article about Norway in which it was pointed out that young Norwegians, such as these two young women, can fluently speak about five foreign languages. And after graduating from universities, they don't owe a penny in student loans while young Americans are currently saddled with trying to repay about a trillion dollars in student loans. Norway spends less per student than the U. S. but Norway directs its money to actually educating its students while the U. S. capitalist system is more concerned with how much rich bankers and others can make off a politicized educational process. The Time article pointed out that Norway's oil wealth is equally distributed at the direct behest of the democratic voters and the nation has saved enough money that, if the oil spigots were closed today, it would have enough to care for its people in a like manner for the next 500 years. The Time article showed a farm family in Norway that was about to typically go on a 30-day worldwide vacation totally paid for by the state. Prior to their trip, they were told to advise the government what needed to be done to take care of their farm and home while they were away. That same day, the family had received a letter from the government asking when it would be convenient for a government worker to bring them a new-model flat-screen television...free of charge. All Norwegians, not just an elitist few, are treated in this manner.

         In Norway there is no need for a single mom to shoplift cans of Pork 'n Beans and Vegetable Soup to feed her hungry kids. And in Norway all children and citizens receive equal treatment in a political system that would not jail the harassed single mom while merely fining the corporations, not the individuals, of Wall Street billionaires who illegally make additional billions of dollars but are never subjected to prison time. That's all Bernie Sanders was pointing out during the Democratic debate when he contrasted Norway's democracy, which equally treats its citizens, with America's democracy, which so powerfully favors what Sanders calls the one-tenth of one percent richest Americans. Of course, with money being the prime determinant of American politics, someone like a Hillary Clinton or a Jeb Bush will surely end up in the White House. In Norway, a Clinton or a Bush wouldn't be elected dog-catcher or street-sweeper.

        This week -- on October 15th, 2015 -- the UN's Sustainable Development Solutions Network released its third World Happiness Report. Norway, of course, was in the Top Five as it is on all major Top Five positive surveys. The rest of the Top Five on the new Happiness Report are Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, and Canada. America's northern neighbor Canada is to be congratulated for joining the four Scandinavian stalwarts on a coveted Top Five list. There was a time long ago when America would have dominated such surveys. That was before America's two-party system was purchased by just one-tenth of one percent.

       Switzerland is a Central European nation of 8 million happy, healthy, and well-educated souls. In fact, this week the UN listed the citizens of Switzerland "the happiest people in the world." Also this week -- on October 15th -- America's largest newspaper, USA Today, had a major full-page article entitled: "Across Switzerland, People Power Rules: No Bill Can Become Law Until Approved In A Referendum." In Switzerland, all laws that affect people's lives are approved or disapproved by ubiquitous referendums voted on by the citizens. The article said: "The active role the Swiss play in enacting laws may seem strange in the United States...but not in Switzerland where a centuries-old tradition of direct democracy gives people -- rather than lawmakers -- the power to shape local and national policies." So, why does that "seem strange" to Americans? It's because Americans have come to accept the fact that bought-and-paid-for lawmakers, especially in the 535-member U. S. Congress, make the laws to mostly suit their primary big-money donors who put them in office and keep them in office. If you read the biggest article in the October 15th USA Today you will understand that the Swiss people who control their democracy via direct-vote referendums find it "strange" that Americans have allowed bought-and-paid-for lawmakers to make laws that most Americans do not agree with. If you love democracy but don't have time to read the long USA Today article about Switzerland's democracy, at least take time to read the 5th short paragraph: "No measure can become a law in Switzerland until citizens approve it. Any constitutional change proposed by the parliament, for instance, must be approved in a referendum." By contrast, in the U. S. Congress, or parliament, an anti-Castro zealot from Miami can easily mandate a Helms-Burton Act or a Torricelli Bill that benefits and enriches a few but harms the vast majority who end up paying for it, unwittingly and unwillingly. 

Hillary Clinton: "We are NOT Denmark."

Bernie Sanders: Maybe we SHOULD be Denmark."

Elizabeth Warren: "Or maybe we should be Norway or Switzerland." 

 

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"Congress Controls Cuba"

"Worse Than Apartheid"
Wednesday, October 14th, 2015

       An interesting new book -- "Churchill Comes of Age: Cuba 1895" -- reviews Winston Churchill's 18 days in Cuba in 1895 where he celebrated his 21st birthday on November 30th. It was during colonial times when Churchill's England and Spain were major players. Churchill arrived in Cuba on loan from the British army to observe Spain's army fighting Cuban independence fighters. Reportedly he was fired upon by a rebel army led by Antonio Maceo and Maximo Gomez, two of Cuba's greatest independence leaders. Churchill, one of history's most important figures, supposedly shaped his formative international ideas during his Cuban trip. Later -- on March 7, 1896 -- he wrote in the Saturday Review that he wasn't impressed with Cuba's independence fighters: "They cannot win a single battle or hold a single town. Their army consists to a large extent of coloured men in an undisciplined rabble." Antonio Maceo {a mulatto}, Jose Marti, and other famed Cuban independence rebels died fighting the Spanish army. By 1898 the United States had decided it wanted to also become a colonial power and a good place to start was Cuba, which the U. S. had long craved. A U. S. warship, the USS Maine, blew up mysteriously in Havana Harbor on February 15th, 1898, killing 266 crew members. It conveniently provided the U. S. with the pretext for the Spanish-American War. The easy victory over Spain in Cuba established the U. S. as an imperialist power. It's subsequent dominance over Cuba included the theft of Guantanamo Bay in 1903 but the biggest mistake the U. S. made in Cuba was teaming with the Mafia to support the brutal Batista dictatorship in 1952, creating a Cuban Revolution that stunned the world on January 1, 1959, by booting the Batistianos, Mafiosi, and U. S. businessmen off the island. If Winston Churchill came of age in Cuba in 1895, Cuba itself came of age in 1959 when it became a sovereign nation. For sure, on the eve of the Spanish-American War, American military and business leaders had studied the opinions of the young Winston Churchill regarding the strength of Spanish soldiers and Cuban rebels. The aforementioned book indicates that England as well as the U. S. in the 1890s had visions of capturing the lush island of Cuba from a weakened Spain. Interesting.

         And so, like Winston Churchill's 18-day visit to Cuba in 1895, the deadly explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, was an epic event in Cuban history. Indeed, "Remember the Maine!!" It spawned the Spanish-American War in 1898, which spawned the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s. In 2015, remember the Maine as you analyze President Barack Obama's influence on U.S.-Cuban relations. 

         Famed entertainer Mick Jagger is shown above enjoying the nightlife at the Shangri La Club in Havana. The 72-year-old leader of the Rolling Stones band is determined to arrange a concert...or two...at Havana's Latin American Baseball Stadium. The acclaimed Brit, like almost every notable individual around the world, is astounded that "the American people for all these decades allow a few individuals to commit apartheid, akin to genocide, against this smaller country." According to a Cuban that Jagger partied with, Jagger also commented, "The real criminals are two generations of Americans that have allowed this to persist." She also said that he said, "The U. S. Congress controls Cuba like a school bully controls the little kid who hands over his lunch money every morning, except this island has never run scared like that little kid."

        Mick Jagger's acute and aesthetic opinions regarding U.S.-Cuban relations are significant not because he is or has been a world-class entertainer for five decades. It's because his comments reflect the attitudes of the vast majority of people from nations that are America's best friends -- UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, etc. Jagger's alleged comments in Cuba also indicate that both his insight and courage are far superior to that of the "two generations of Americans" that "have allowed this to persist."

         President Barack Obama in the last two years of his two-term presidency has chipped away at the embargo against Cuba more than anyone thought he could, and far more than previous Democratic presidents Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton. The embargo was first imposed in 1962 for the purpose, according to declassified U. S. documents, of depriving and starving the Cuban people to pressure them to overthrow Fidel Castro, which the U. S. government had failed to do despite numerous assassination attempts beginning in 1959, the Bay of Pigs attack in April of 1961, and the murderous Operation 40 boondoggle. All Republican administrations since 1959 have aligned with Congress and the most visceral anti-Castro Cubans in the ongoing all-out effort to eliminate the now 89-year-old Fidel Castro and his now 84-year-old brother Raul. But the failed and flawed effort to regain control of Cuba has grossly harmed the image of the United States, as reflected by the graphic above, and also severely dented the U. S. Treasury because, it seems, any individual or group that proclaims itself anti-Castro can expect to receive a steady and enormous flow of tax-dollars in the Washington-to-Miami pipeline. Although the mainstream U. S. media does not have the courage or integrity to mention that fact, Tracey Eaton -- the highly respected investigative journalist and Cuban expert -- regularly lists on his Along the Malecon website exact dollar figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information law, that a vast army of benefactors receive via huge salaries in a vast array of regime change programs aimed at Cuba. American taxpayers are not supposed to be smart enough to figure out that the primary purpose of that Washington-to-Miami pipeline is to simply fatten the bank accounts of people favored by Cuban-Americans in Congress. For sure, even anti-Castro zealots such as the legendary Luis Posada Carriles in Miami have come to realize that recapturing Cuba or assassinating Fidel Castro are lost causes, but continuing to rake in astounding rewards from the lucrative Castro Industry in the U. S. is unending, presumably even after the old revolutionary dies of old age. Mick Jagger and most other interested and informed people around the world seem to fully understand U.S.-Cuban relations far better than Americans who have been successfully propagandized since the 1950s to accept without debate whatever the transplanted Batistianos and Mafiosi who fled the Cuban Revolution tell them to accept. {"It's the biggest blow yet against Castro!!" That's the mantra Americans were successfully told to accept when terrorists blew a civilian Cuban plane into the ocean killing all 73 on board. Accepting such things leaves Americans outside the Cuban equation.}.

         The image depicted in this graphic embarrasses America's two-term president, Barack Obama. It should also embarrass every American. It embarrasses Mick Jagger and America's best friends all around the world. Later this month, on October 27th, the United Nations will hold its yearly vote on the U. S. embargo against Cuba. In recent years the vote has been 188-to-2 with only Israel supporting the U. S. and the Israeli vote is considered purchased by billions of dollars each year in economic and military aid. At the moment, the Obama administration is planning to abstain when the vote comes up again on October 27th. {Presumably Israel would also abstain}. In other words, no nation in the entire world -- including the United States and Israel -- will likely vote in October of 2015 to support the decades-old embargo of Cuba. Yet, the embargo will continue because a handful of revengeful and greedy people who benefit immensely from the everlasting Castro Industry in the U. S. can easily dictate the embargo in the U. S. Congress, along with a myriad of other cruel abominations against the Cuban people. On October 27th, if the U. S. itself refuses to vote to support its own embargo against Cuba, it will merely confirm to Mick Jagger and the rest of the world that, amazingly, the U. S. democracy -- when it comes to Cuba -- is not strong enough to rein in the remnants of the ousted but relocated Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba in the 1950s. In other words, the obscene assaults on the island, on democracy, on the U. S. image, and the U. S. treasury will likely continue for another six decades or so. Mick Jagger blames an easily bought-and-paid-for U. S. Congress. He's probably right. At least he's astute enough and brave enough to have an opinion on the subject of Cuba.

        Katy Perry, the superstar American singer, enjoyed a lush dinner at Havana's El Cocinero Restaurant this past weekend. She is a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and had advised her Cuban contacts that she wanted to attend a live concert by Cuban singer Isaac Delgado. She saw two Delgado performances.

       This photo is courtesy of Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images. It shows U. S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker purchasing coffee in Havana last week. She was the first U. S. Secretary of Commerce to visit Cuba since way back in 1950. Ms. Pritzker is a billionaire and she is an American who is ashamed of the embargo against Cuba. She told Cubans that she believes the embargo will end "but it will take time." It's been in effect since 1962, a long, long time ago. It is presumed Ms. Pritzker is ashamed of the U. S. Congress.

            Dr. Eusebio Leal is renowned as the official Historian of Havana and he is also a member of the Cuban Parliament. He made an insightful speech at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. It reflects Obama-fueled progress in U.S.-Cuban relations. Prior to Obama, Americans and Floridians -- with few exceptions -- were subjected only to the Batistiano-Mafiosi side of the two-sided Cuban conundrum.

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Cuban Laws Mock Democracy

While Harming, Shaming America
Sunday, October 11th, 2015

              This week, October 8th, Fox Nation used this AP photo to illustrate an article written by Ben Shapiro/The Daily Wire. Any Fox reference to Cuba, of course, is a propaganda piece bashing the island's very existence but one of Shapiro's paragraphs was, nevertheless, interesting. He wrote:

           "Today, Democrats clearly believe America's allies are her enemies, and her enemies are her allies. How else to explain a new Morning Consult survey showing that Democrats now view communist Cuba more favorably than they do our democratic ally Israel." 
            I'm a lifelong conservative Republican, not a liberal Democrat and not a right-wing Republican in America's two-party political system. Mr. Shapiro's interesting paragraph, I believe, could have included this explanation: Billions upon billions of U. S. tax dollars each year are routinely given to Israel in economic and military support; millions and millions of U. S. tax dollars each year are swallowed up by unchallenged Cuban-American sources supposedly to bring about a long-long-awaited {since 1959} regime change on the island while subliminally creating a lot of very rich Cuban-Americans who seemingly only have to hold up their hands and say, "Hey! I'm anti-Castro. How much is that worth?" It is worth a lot. If you check Tracey Eaton's Along the Malecon blog, it might take you all day to read the actual names and actual salaries {from Freedom of Information statistics} of anti-Castro zealots getting very rich on, at last count, 32 regime change programs lushly funded by unwitting or uncaring tax payers. Eaton recently posted the exact and staggering salaries of the scores of "journalists" at the plush Radio-TV Marti operation in Miami. And later he posted a new Radio-TV Marti advertisement seeking highly paid workers who can produce programs/documentaries that will mock the Cuban government. In essence, it is U. S. taxpayers and democracy that are being mocked. Fidel Castro is now 89-years-old and unwell. But if his revolution survives beyond his lifetime, be assured that the lucrative Fidel Castro Industry in the United States will continue for another six decades or so. Regarding the poll that Fox Nation mocked yesterday because it had a positive notation about Cuba, perhaps it indicates that a majority of Democrats believe that some of the billions in tax dollars routinely given to help Israel and some of the millions routinely given to hurt Cuba {or enrich Cuban-Americans} could, perhaps, be spent on some needy and worthwhile U. S. projects. If that analysis is politically and socially incorrect, it is also, I believe, realistic. Ask the over-worked U. S. Coast Guard.   

         This photo is courtesy of the U. S. Coast Guard. This week spokesmen for the Coast Guard expressed dire concern about the uptick in Cubans making dangerous treks across the Florida Straits to reach the "freedom" or maybe the welfare and/or luxury of Miami. One of the reports showed a 14-year-old Cuban girl debarking from a flimsy craft and wading ashore with others to touch U. S. soil where she joined her father, who was shown on video with his arms around her leading her away. She said that human traffickers have spread the word that U. S. laws favoring Cubans might be changed. As the Coast Guard knows, U. S. laws designed to entice Cubans to Florida grossly discriminate against all non-Cubans because only Cubans are home free with benefits starting when their front foot touches down on U. S. soil. That's known as the Wet Foot/Dry Foot law and is one of countless U. S. laws designed to hurt Cuba while sating the revenge motives against Fidel Castro that still fester in a second generation of a few rich and powerful Cuban-Americans. Secondarily, the U. S. is grossly over-burdened by an endless plethora of laws designed to enhance the bank accounts and political ambitions of Cuban-Americans, and only Cuban-Americans. Cuba's Fidel Castro-led Revolution overturned the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the first day of January, 1959...with the Batistianos and Mafiosi fleeing to quickly restructure their economic and political empire in South Florida with Miami as their capital and where unchallenged paramilitary units were created to quickly recapture the island. As it turned out, they have...incredibly...been unable to recapture Cuba after all these many decades. But, by the 1980s they had captured the U. S. Congress, which permits them to dictate Cuban policy, which is enforced on their behalf by the financial and military superpower.
             {NOTE: If you doubt that calculated deduction, it probably means, among other things, that you are totally unfamiliar with two brilliant books -- Julie E. Sweig's "What Everyone Needs To Know About Cuba" and Ann Louise Bardach's "Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana."}.

       This photo is courtesy of Tracey Eaton. Tracey is a professor at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. I knew Tracey when he was the chief of the Dallas Morning News bureau in Havana. He remains the best investigative journalist, via his Along the Malecon blog, regarding U. S. laws related to Cuba. The above photo shows Alan Gomez making a speech this week at Flagler College. Gomez is the primary USA Today columnist on Cuban issues; he qualifies for that position on America's largest newspaper because he is an anti-Castro Cuban-American zealot. As with other mainstream U. S. media, an unbiased journalist would not be permitted to report on Cuban issues. It's been that way at least since 1976 when Emilio Milian, a Cuban-American journalist, complained about such things as the terrorist bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455, and then got car-bombed himself. That being said, Gomez this week focused his speech at Flagler College on the possibility, as remote as it is, that President Obama's efforts at normalizing relations with Cuba might...HEAVENS FORBID!!!...result in doing away with some of the most flagrant U. S. laws that empower and enrich Cuban exiles while grossly discriminating against everyone else -- laws such as Wet Foot/Dry Foot and the scores of tax-funded laws supposedly aimed at creating a "regime change" in Cuba but mostly designed to funnel an endless stream of tax dollars to Miami for such lucrative projects as Radio-TV Marti, the laughable anti-Castro propaganda machine that has sucked and pipe-lined enough money from Washington to Miami to fund an endless string of mansions from Miami to Coral Gables. Gomez, in that insightful speech at Flagler College this week, seemed mightily worried that the recent detente with Cuba might...HEAVENS FORBID!!!...mark the demise of U. S. laws that starkly benefit Cubans and grossly discriminate against everyone else. Speaking of the very infamous Cuban Adjustment Act, Gomez said, "I think it's absolutely going to end, but I think it's going to take a while. It's harder and harder to justify specialized treatment of Cuban migrants." WOW!!! Did he really say, "specialized treatment?"

        The mainstream U. S. media mocks democracy when the chief qualification to report on Cuban issues is to have a vendetta against Fidel Castro that fuels anti-Cuban zealotry that mitigates against innocent Cubans on the island while providing Cuban-Americans unfair advantages, codified by easily mandated Congressional laws that discriminate against anyone not a Cuban-American or Cuban-American sycophant. USA Today's Alan Gomez is a case in point. So was his speech at Flagler College.

          It was wrong in 1952 when the world's greatest democracy teamed with the Mafia to support a vile Banana Republic dictatorship on a nearby island for the purpose of raping and robbing the island at will.

         And, as Cuban-American Emilio Milian tried to explain before he was car-bombed, it was also wrong for the world's greatest democracy in 1959 to accept the immediate and eternal resurrection of that overthrown Banana Republic on U. S. soil. Two generations of pusillanimous Americans allowed those two things to happen way back in the 1950s. The U. S. democracy is still paying dearly for those two mistakes. Alan Gomez, USA Today's Miami-based expert on all things Cuban, didn't mention either Cuba's 1950s Banana Republic or America's ongoing Banana Republic in his speech this week at Flagler College.

Meanwhile...............

        ....................U. S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker has concluded her trip to Cuba this week. She is shown above being hosted by Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. Ms. Pritzker, on behalf of President Obama, spent two days trying to assure the Cuban people that the U. S. is sincerely trying to reverse its belligerence course towards the island. Upon her arrival back in the U. S., Ms. Pritzker said, "President Obama wants to see the embargo lifted but he realizes it will take time." That official statement is a reflection or recognition that a handful of Cuban-Americans in Congress can continue to dictate a Cuban policy that benefits them and harms everyone else. But Ms. Pritzker's trip was friendly and successful.

          These two members of the U. S. Congress from Illinois, Cherl Bustos and Rodney Davis, will arrive in Cuba on Sunday. They will be leading a huge agricultural trade mission seeking to increase commerce with the island. The Illinois Chamber of Commerce, the Illinois Farm Bureau, the Illinois Soybean Growers, and all other major farm enterprises in Illinois will be represented on the trip to Cuba Sunday. Cherl Bustos and Rodney Davis, on behalf of their constituents, are confronting a few powerful entities in the U. S. Congress that remain intent on perpetrating a Cuban policy that appeases a few and displeases everyone else.

          Tom Donahue, the President of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, strongly supports President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Mr. Donahue has made significant trips to Cuba, including a speech at the University of Havana in which he praised the renewed entrepreneurial spirit of Cubans.   

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Cuba, Obama, and Bush

The Dichotomy: Peace or War
Thursday, October 8th, 2015

          Penny Pritzker arrived in Cuba Tuesday, October 6, 2015, for a key two-day visit. It's a very important mission designed to greatly enhance President Barack Obama's ongoing attempts to normalize relations with the island. Ms. Pritzker is the U. S. Secretary of Commerce. On the eve of her trip, she released this statement: "My goal is to support the emerging private sector on the island, bringing us closer to achieving President Obama's historic policy goals. We seek to further ease restrictions on authorized travel, enhance the safety of Americans traveling to the country and allow more business opportunities for the nascent private sector."  Ms. Pritzker is the second top-tier member of President Obama's cabinet to visit the island; Secretary of State John Kerry was there on July 20th to officially open the U. S. embassy in Cuba for the first time since 1961. Like Mr. Kerry's visit, Ms. Pritzker's arrival on the island is peaceful, friendly, and shows great respect for the Cuban people, which is a very refreshing American attitude regarding Cuba.

          This photo shows Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker yesterday, Tuesday, at Cuba's Mariel Port Economic Zone. The New York Times quoted her as saying: "What we're trying to do is be as open as we can until the blockade is lifted." Her use of the word "blockade" is significant because it reflects what Cuba calls the U. S. embargo against the island. The NY Times reported that, at this briefing at the Mariel Port, Ms. Pritzker said, "We're leaning in -- the president is leaning in -- to this relationship. But we're limited in what we can do to help them. The signal, hopefully, that they'll understand is that we're trying to lean in as far as we can under the law." Sane words from a decent, fair-minded person. The trouble is...a handful of individuals with a tight grip on America's Cuban policy can laugh very loud at them. When Ms. Pritzker says "we're limited in what we can do to help them," she is referencing a dire weakness in the U. S. democracy that allows a few to perpetually harm the vast majority of Cubans and all others throughout the Western Hemisphere.  

       With the help of a billion-dollar upgrade largely funded by Brazil, the Mariel Port has been made into an Economic Zone that Cuba hopes will be the island's financial linchpin. It is very strategically located -- 28 miles southwest of Havana and about 100 miles due south of Key West, Florida. Because of the blockade, all other nations are far less restricted than the U. S. from investing at the impressive Mariel Port.

      In Cuba yesterday, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker graciously said the Obama administration is trying to do all it can "UNTIL THE BLOCKADE IS LIFTED." The sad reality is, that simply won't happen because of a dysfunctional...some say corrupt...U. S. Congress. The image above has shamed the United States and democracy for many decades, but a handful of rich and revengeful Cuban-Americans in Miami can easily secure enough right-wingers in Congress to maintain an embargo/blockade against Cuba that the rest of the world deplores and America's best friends around the world are grossly ashamed of. But the dastardly image of America that the embargo/blockade presents for all the world to observe has never been a concern to Cuban-American extremists and their right-wing sycophants, and that simply will not change.

           Penny Pritzker has been Secretary of State since 2013. She was born in Chicago 56 years ago and is eminently qualified. She was a major coup for President Obama when he finally persuaded her to join his cabinet. She is a non-politician who is not interested in using her government job to get rich or to become a lobbyist when she transitions back to the private sector. Ms. Pritzker is personally worth at least $2.4 billion...yes, billion with a B; she founded Pritzker Realty Group and chairs four other corporations. Moreover, in regards to Cuba, Penny Pritzker is not bought-and-paid-for by the powerful right-wing Castro Industry in the United States that, especially since the 1980s, has made economic and political fortunes by hiding behind the skirts of Republican administrations and a Batistiano-dominated U. S. Congress that primarily dictates America's U. S. Cuban policy. Ms. Pritzker and her boss Mr. Obama have no revenge motives regarding Cuba and they have the courage and patriotism to stand up to powerful forces that are perfectly willing to shame the U. S. and democracy while basking in the personal satisfaction of using a superpower government to punish 11 million people in a nearby country in the guise of assassinating or overthrowing the now 89-year-old Fidel Castro and his now 84-year-old brother Raul. But, by contrast, Penny Pritzker is a world-class philanthropist and a quintessentially decent person. She was/is excited about her trip to Cuba this week. She said, "The President wants to empower the Cuban people. So do I."

         Carlos Gutierrez was born 61 years ago in Havana. He is an exemplar of Cuban-Americans who have grown extremely rich and powerful via the lucrative Castro Industry in the United States. And like so many other anti-Castro zealots, Mr. Gutierrez's political ascendancy took flight when he latched parasitically onto the Bush dynasty as almost every extremely rich and powerful Cuban-American has done.

       The two-term George W. Bush presidency directly preceded the current two-term Obama presidency. Carlos Gutierrez was Bush's Secretary of Commerce. Especially when the Bush dynasty is concerned, the difference between a Republican presidency and a Democratic presidency, when it comes to Cuba, is virtually the difference between peace and war, insanity and sanity, decency and indecency...with the propagandized and intimidated American people unwilling or unable to factor into the equation. For example, when anti-Castro Cuban-American terrorists bombed a civilian Cuban airplane into the ocean, killing all 73 innocents on board, the mantra in Miami loudly proclaimed it "the biggest blow yet against Castro." Proselytized Americans accepted that with their usual meekness because the innocents were Cubans, including two dozen teenage athletes returning to Havana after winning a Central American title in Caracas. To grossly exacerbate the affront to the U. S. and democracy, the well-known terrorists received incredible support and protection from the U. S. government, especially members of Congress from Miami. When Cuban-American newsman Emilio Milian complained about such atrocities, he was car-bombed in Miami; when the Miami Herald's top columnist, Jim DeFede, complained, he was fired. The American people, for the most part, have had neither the courage nor the insight to complain about any atrocity regarding Cuba. Thus, don't expect Americans to contrast Obama's current Secretary of Commerce, Penny Pritzker, with Bush's Secretary of Commerce, Carlos Gutierrez. During Gutierrez's term, two back-to-back hurricanes devastated Cuba, destroying 200,000 homes. Many nations reacted with aid. Gutierrez repeatedly held news conferences stating that the U. S. had millions of dollars in aid, each time increasing the bogus amount, but he stipulated that it would not be handed over to the Cuban government. Cuba instantly realized that the Bush administration desired to use the hurricane devastation as yet another means to fund dissidents on the island. Every nation in the Caribbean, although quite aware that the U. S. Cuban policy was/is dictated by Cuban-American extremists, cringed at the Gutierrez news conferences that many felt were making fun of them as well as the everyday Cubans suffering from the natural disasters of the back-to-back hurricanes coupled with the unending man-made tsunamis aimed at the island from Miami and Washington since January of 1959. Therefore, the arrival of Obama's Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker in Cuba this week is a reminder of the stark contrast to Bush's Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez. The difference is peace and war, sanity and insanity. {Disclosure: I am a lifelong conservative Republican who is not a fan of the right-wing extremists who now control the Republican Party}.

A second generation Cuban-American Republican in Washington.

Already very rich and powerful.
And abundantly aware of the lucrative Castro Industry in the U. S.

         This is President Obama with his Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. Her arrival Tuesday on a decent mission to Cuba  is a reminder that Mr. Obama only has 15 months remaining in his two-term presidency. Cuba and the Western Hemisphere will miss him, especially if a Republican replaces him. The difference between someone like Penny Pritzker and someone like Carlos Gutierrez using the awesome power of Washington...for good or for bad...is striking, as Cuba and all of its other neighbors fully realize. Ms. Pritzker views Cuba as a potentially very valuable U. S. ally and a mutually beneficial commerce partner. Gutierrez, when he was in Pritzler's current position, appeared to view Cuba in terms of revenge against Castro and, probably, as a future Batista-like piggy-bank. The next Republican president will depend on a Bush-aligned Gutierrez, or a Otto Reich, or a Roger Noriega, etc., to carry out its Cuban policy. And the American people, by and large, won't give a damn. Meanwhile, Penny Pritzker in Cuba this week is trying her best to do some good for Cubans and Americans. And, at least, that's something...I guess.

And by the way............

         Famed entertainer Mick Jagger, the leader of the legendary Rolling Stones band, arrived in Cuba over the weekend. Since then he has toured Havana hot-spots, including a concert by the Cuban band Bomboleo. Jagger, long fascinated with Cuba, is planning a concert at Cuba's largest baseball stadium, Latin American Stadium, next month and/or next spring. Jagger, now 72, remains a worldwide phenomenon.

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Cuba Is A BIG Island

And A BIG Player On The World Stage

         It's becoming a habit. Like old...or at least new...friends, Cuban President Raul Castro and U. S. President Barack Obama had another friendly, private meeting Tuesday -- September 29th -- at the United Nations in New York. The photo above is courtesy of Doug Mills/New York Times. When this photo was snapped, Castro is telling Obama he is surprised "How tall you are," flummoxing Obama for a moment.

        In the last week of September, 2015, this and similar photos flashed around the world many times, and rightly so considering the dangers to humanity around the world. In recent days almost all of the world leaders -- from the Pope to Vladimir Putin to Raul Castro -- have converged on U. S. soil, especially the United Nations in New York. Among the vital issues discussed in UN speeches and in private meetings by American President Obama and Russian President Putin are cataclysmic military operations in nations such as Ukraine and Syria as well as the contaminant international threats from militarily powerful terrorist groups. The situation is becoming more and more reminiscent of World War II when great leaders -- Roosevelt in the U. S. and Churchill in England -- made the crucial decision to align with the Soviet Union's cruel dictator, Stalin, to save the world from the dire threat represented by the German-Japan-Italian alliance. The Soviet Union collapsed economically because of the post-World War II Cold War, but Russia remains a gigantic military nuclear power, one that President Obama may have to align with to confront what may be an even more dire threat than Hitler to Western civilization. In that milieu, President Obama had his hands and mind full of Putin and Russia this week, not to mention the 21-gun salute and the massively flattering White House dinner showered on Communist China's President Zi. But still President Obama took time to pay homage to Cuba, including in his major speech September 28th at the UN and in a private meeting at the UN with Cuban President Castro. Yes, Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, right next door to the U. S. But it is still just an island with a very small economy and a very weak military. So why in a big, wide, eclectic, and troubled world is Cuba such a big player on the international stage? The answer is a fait accompli that proselytized Americans are not supposed to have either the courage or the intelligence to consider, resembling a Batista/Mafia-style Banana Republic where overwhelmed citizens are told how, when and what to think.

         During his speech at the UN Monday, September 28th, President Obama had a lot on his plate -- Russia, China, Iran, powerful terrorist groups, etc. -- but he did not neglect Cuba as he tried to assure the world that his efforts to normalize relations with the nearby island is one of the good things the U. S. is trying to accomplish. He let the world know that the U. S. and Cuba have opened embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961, as the world has urged the U. S. to do. He also let the world know that he is trying to further appease the world by ending the embargo against Cuba that has hurt Cubans since 1962 and severely harmed the U. S. image around the world. In the above speech Monday, President Obama said: "I'm sure Congress will inevitably lift an embargo which should no longer be there." The whole world agrees with that sentiment but a handful of revengeful Miami members of the U. S. Congress, along with a handful of easily acquired sycophants, can continue to dictate America's Cuban policy, and President Obama, deep into his second term as President, probably knows that but just didn't want to share it.

        Cuban President Raul Castro this week made his first two speeches at the United Nations. He richly praised President Obama for the "positive progress" he has "bravely constructed" to improve U.S.-Cuban relations. But Raul Castro has also used the UN to point out "an apparently engraved" weakness in the U. S. democracy that permits "a few" to establish "legal legislation" that harms most Cubans, most Americans, most Cuban-Americans, and most citizens of the world because of America's "intra-international" role.

          This week at the UN President Obama requested and got yet another private meeting with Raul Castro. They had astonished the world by simply greeting each other at the Mandela Memorial in South Africa and then Obama followed that up by having very friendly public and private meetings with Raul Castro at the Summit of the Americas in Panana in April. Prior to Pope Francis' visits to Cuba and the U. S. this month, Obama telephoned Castro to let him know he was continuing to use his executive authority to chip away at the Congress-mandated embargo. For decades Raul Castro has often been simply labeled "Fidel's little brother" although since the 1950s they both have been larger-than-life revolutionary figures. Fidel is now 89-years-old and still recovering from an intestinal illness that almost killed him in July of 2006. The 84-year-old Raul has been Cuba's President since 2008 when Fidel realized he would never again be physically able to fulfill the job. Since then, Raul has not only worked with President Obama in trying to improve U.S.-Cuban relations, he has sought to inject Vietnamese/Chinese-style capitalism into an entrepreneur-focused Cuban economy. But his relationship with President Obama in recent months has done more than anything else to elevate the images of himself, the island, and the Cuban Revolution.

        In fact, one of the hot items at the United Nations in New York this week has been a new biography entitled: "RAUL CASTRO: A Man In Revolution." At age 84 the "little brother" is portrayed as a "big hombre."

         At recent international forums, including the United Nations this week, it seems that a lot of inquisitive people are interested in reading about how Raul Castro has emerged on the world stage.

        But having said all that, this is the profile of Cuba that is far more important than all others when it comes to Cuba's future, and that includes the ubiquitous profiles of the Castro brothers, President Obama, and Pope Francis. The profile above is gazing in wonderment out from Havana's famed Malecon seawall. She is wondering if, during her lifetime, Cubans on the island -- not in Miami and Washington -- will chart the course that her life will take. She knows what Batista, the Mafia, and U. S. businessmen did to the island in the 1950s; she knows the defensive posture Revolutionary Cuba has been forced to take since 1959. She knows that a few revengeful but now ultra-powerful Cuban-Americans can still punish innocent Cubans in the mostly unchallenged guise of hurting the sufficiently vilified Castro brothers, such as the wildly euphoric and unchallenged shouts in the Miami media -- "It's the biggest blow yet against Castro!" -- when the most celebrated and most protected Cuban-exile terrorists bombed the child-laden Cubana Flight 455 into the ocean on October 6, 1976. The profile above wonders if this current generation of Americans still considers Cubana Flight 455 "the biggest blow yet against Castro." And most of all, the profile above gazes across the Florida Straits and wonders whether a handful of benefactors in Miami will forever over-rule the majority of Americans and Cuban-Americans in setting a U. S. Cuban policy that the rest of the world, as epitomized by the unanimity in the United Nations, considers beneath the principles of a great democracy. The profile above has had a lifetime of foreign greed, revenge, and imperialism. She now wants a chance to have real input in her future, and her children's future. And she deserves that chance, over and above the dictates of a vicious minority in a dysfunctional U. S. Congress that she doesn't understand.

Causation:

 This, 

caused this,

which caused this,

which caused havoc like this.

          Americans who do not factor the fate as well as the aftermath of events such as Cubana Flight 455 into the U.S.-Cuban equation are totally disregarding why Cuba is a BIG island on the international stage. No, Cubana Flight 455 was not "the biggest blow yet against Castro," the mantra that pusillanimously unpatriotic Americans were told to accept. {"We, NOT CASTRO, are the good guys!"}. Cubana Flight 455 could better be depicted as "the biggest boost" of the Castro brothers and their revolution, which got its original "big boost" from the excessive greed and obsessive brutality of the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. To critique the Cuban Revolution, start by critiquing the above graphic. Either it was one of "the biggest blows" against Castro or it was one of "the biggest boosts" for Castro. Study its cause and its perpetrators, and the high-profile politicians -- including current presidential contenders -- who have defended it and them. Then factor it into such phenomenons as the longevity of the Cuban Revolution and why Cuba today is a BIG island. It takes many intricate pieces to make a challenging puzzle. And Cuba is a challenging puzzle with many intricate pieces, many of which are supposed to be unknown so as to make the vast Castro industry in the United States more and more lucrative and powerful, lucrative enough to make you a rich hombre in Miami and, maybe, a big hombre in the White House.

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