Cuba's ONLY Chance

It's Young-Adult Generation!

       This is a young Cuban that Americans need to know, especially Americans who believe that the incoming administration of President Donald Trump, in short order, will wipe out Revolutionary Cuba and quickly re-install the American Batistianos to power. Her name is Jennifer Bello Martinez. She is the leader of Cuba's Federation of University Students, which was founded 94 years ago and has, every year since, played a vital part in Cuba's revolutionary fervor, especially with its early support of a young lawyer, Fidel Castro, when he first decided to risk everything in a long-shot effort to overthrow a U.S.-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Now fast-forward to January of 2017. The current leader of the Federation of University Students, Jennifer, says that she and "over a million young-adult Cubans like me are ready to fight to the death to defend the sovereignty and independence that Fidel bequeathed to us." Don't be mislead by her youth, her gender or her sweet smile. She means it. In fact, her resolve is why she is smiling. I'll explain.

       This first week of January, 2017 was mammothly celebrated in Havana's Revolutionary Square because the first week of January, 1959 marked the first week Cuba came under revolutionary control following the earth-shattering triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. The above photo shows four old...very old...revolutionary fighters on the grandstand viewing the proceedings, a photo that conjures up reminders that the eternal face of the revolution, Fidel Castro, died at age 90 back on November 25th. The photo is also a reminder that 2017 is presumably the last year of Castro rule on the island, whether or not mortality in the form of old age inevitably intervenes. Fidel's successor, his tired 85-year-old younger brother Raul, has vowed to step down after this year with a non-Castro, 56-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel, succeeding him. But as the two very best international journalists in Cuba -- Sarah Marsh and Marc Frank of Reuters -- pointed out in an insightful article this week -- it was not the Old Guard revolutionaries that led or dominated this week's anniversary celebrations of the Cuban Revolution.

      It is this New Guard of young-adult Cubans that will sustain the revolution or let it succumb to internal or foreign forces. Early indications, as illustrated by the photo above, reveal there is a powerful contingent of young adults on the island who appear ready to make any sacrifice, such as fight to the death, to preserve the sovereignty they feel the Cuban Revolution, for all its faults and shortcomings, bestowed upon them. FEU is the acronym for Federation of University Students. It wasn't the remaining Old Guard revolutionaries who inspired or dictated demonstrations at the University of Havana or who made the most fiery speech in Revolutionary Square aimed directly at what Cuba's young adults now consider their primary emerging threat -- another Republican, this time Donald Trump, as America's President and Commander-in-Chief. By far the most volatile speech and declaration made at the anniversary celebrations in Havana this week came from the heart and soul of Cuba's latest Celia Sanchez-like disciple. Her name is Jennifer Bello Martinez. Jennifer, who I introduced you to earlier, is the leader of the determined FEU.

      The focal point of all the celebrations this week surrounding the 58th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution was Fidel Castro. The student leader Jennifer Bello Martinez made that abundantly clear: "Fidel was the main reason we attained sovereignty and independence and our support of his memory will be the only way we can keep it! The other alternative is that we become destitute pawns and slaves of a cruel foreign power! We have two choices -- exist as slave-like pawns to foreigners or fight to the death to try to chart our own course and not have it dictated to us by foreigners who brutalized Cuba back in the 1950s!"  

        The word Fidel written in red on the faces of the students was, according to Jennifer Bello Martinez, "meant to signify the blood he was willing to shed to give us sovereignty and independence. If we are deserving of that precious gift, we must be willing to shed our blood to defend it." When reminded how small Cuba is compared to "the nuclear superpower that still supports the determined Cuban exiles," Jennifer Bello Martinez replied, "My generation on this island must be more determined than they are. They are fueled by greed and revenge. We are fueled by what Fidel gave us, sovereignty and independence. We will bleed for that. I don't think they will leave their mansions in America to bleed for their greed, but they may well...as before...get the CIA and the U. S. Treasury to fight for them. If so, we may die...but it will be a good death."  

      Many elderly Cubans this week, like the lady above, came out to emphasize their memories of Fidel Castro and to support the students who dominated the 58th anniversary of his victorious Revolution.

       Some of the elderly Fidel backers were as fiery and demonstrative as the young leader, Jennifer Bello Martinez. This nurse had cared for Fidel during the last decade of his life as he battled a long terminal illness. Holding his photo, she screamed, "If the bastards who tried to kill him for fifty years come back to these Cuban shores, we must destroy them or die trying!" She was crying when she added, "We owe him!"

       This elderly Cuban this anniversary week held up this newspaper to mock what he called "The Batista lie in America that most Cubans on the island hated Fidel and wanted a return of the Batista and Mafia thugs." Indeed, history registers the fact that the CIA convinced President Kennedy in April of 1961 to sign off on the Bay of Pigs attack by assuring him that, "Once the Cuban people realize that we are attacking Fidel, they will rise up against him." But when the bombs from U. S. warplanes began following on Cuba, the Cuban people en masse supported Fidel and made it easy for him to race to the Bay of Pigs and defend the island from the Cuban exiles and the world superpower, crowning both the Castro legend and the Cuban Revolution. To this day, with Cuban exiles still controlling the Cuban narrative in the U. S., many Americans are convinced that there are no Cubans on the island who revere Fidel and no Cubans who rate sovereignty above prosperity. In fact, to this day the Cuban exiles also dictate congressionals laws in the U. S., one of which for many decades has prevented everyday Americans from having the freedom to visit Cuba and judge it for themselves, a fact that makes lies about Cubans on the island all the more potent.

     This photo was staged not by the revolutionary Old Guard but by Jennifer Bello Martinez and the young-adult student leaders. It shows Cuban schoolchildren honoring a replica of Granma, the famed old leaky yacht that brought Fidel Castro and 81 other rebels back from Mexico to join Celia Sanchez's anti-Batista revolution in the Sierra Maestra foothills, although only 17 of the 82 rebels survived the ambush from shore by Batista soldiers. But 12 of the 17 survivors included the Castro brothers, Che Guevara, Camilo Cienfuegos and 8 others who contributed mightily to the revolutionary victory. Speaking of this photo, Jennifer Bello Martinez said, "Cuba will honor Fidel's request that no statues be constructed to honor him and no streets or buildings or anything like that be named for him. But he always was proud of the Granma as a symbol of the revolution and a symbol of independence. So we and the younger students should be also." 

        At this week's 58th anniversary celebrations remembering the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, this unit of female Cuban soldiers was front and center. Jennifer Bello Martinez said, "It was a female-powered Revolution from start to finish, and no one echoed that fact more than Fidel himself. No other revolution has ever been as female-powered as ours. We need to stress that to remind today's Cubans that the defense of the Revolution will also be female-powered, at least 50 percent or more. It has to be that way to honor Fidel."  

       Young Argentinians were on hand to help celebrate the 57th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution's victory this week. Jennifer Bello Martinez said, "No revolution in history has had as much residual and positive influence across Latin America as the Cuban Revolution, and that includes the American Revolution."  

       And this photo also was a part of the celebrations connected to the 57th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution's triumph. The three people above, shown holding their favorite photos of Fidel Castro, all received Medal of Friendship plagues for their support of the victorious Cuban Revolution. On the left is famed American actor Danny Glover. Mr. Glover, a frequent visitor to and intense admirer of Cuba, said, "I support all the values of the Cuban Revolution and admire Fidel Castro's devotion to the poor and downtrodden as opposed to the wealth to which he was born but didn't define him." The other two proud recipients are Estela and Ernesto Bravo, accomplished film-makers. They wanted nothing to do with the Batista rule of Cuba but returned to the island after the Revolution. One of their most notable documentaries is "Fidel: The Untold Story." Estala said, "I met Fidel often, believed in him and shared many happy moments with him." 

        Although it may come as a shock to Americans who generally are subjected only to the Batistiano-dictated Cuban narrative, the most ubiquitous signs in Cuba this week during the 57th anniversary celebration of Revolutionary Cuba were signs and placards that proclaimed "Yo soy Fidel", "I am Fidel." 

       Starting in a few days -- on Jan. 20th, 2017 -- Mauricio Claver-Carone will be President Donald Trump's primary advisor on all things related to Cuba. Claver-Carone happens to be the most visceral anti-Castro lobbyist on the planet and this will mark the first time that Claver-Carone will have an American Commander-in-Chief to shape-and-mold to fit his extreme and self-serving Cuban agendas, all of which concern wiping out the last vestiges of the Cuban Revolution while also continuing to empower and enrich hardline Cuban-Americans. That bodes ill-will for Jennifer Bello Martinez and the sovereignty-loving generation of young-adult Cubans on the island who responded so powerfully to her fiery leadership this week. If, in the months ahead, there emerges a clash between the ideals of Mauricio Claver-Carone in Washington and Jennifer Bello Martinez in Havana, there will be fireworks...and bloodshed. But, it's been heading inexorably in that direction for six decades, hasn't it? The denouement is now on the horizon.

      
     The emergence of Jennifer Bello Martinez as the leader of Cuba's sovereignty-loving young-adults coincides with the 94th anniversary of the founding of her Federation of University Students, the 58th anniversary this first week in Jan.-2017 of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, and the recent death at age 90 of Jennifer's idol, Fidel Castro. Her official statement, word for word, follows: "These anniversaries have a special connotation as the first without the presence of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, and we decided to dedicate them to this eternal youth because we will be the continuators of Fidel's legacy. He always placed his confidence in university students, always debated any ideas he had with university students, because he knew that this is where the reliable rearguard was, in revolutionary processes. We will either prolong the sovereignty he gave us or his enemies in Miami and Washington will have to kill us. And I smile happily and at peace with myself as I say that." 

    Meanwhile, this AP photo helps fuel the speculation that America's incoming President Donald Trump will be forced to put nearby Cuba and the Caribbean on his back-burner because of far more urgent threats and challenges from afar. The image above shows a Chinese warship on the left side-by-side with a Russian warship on the right as they rush to participate in a major joint military exercise in the increasingly volatile South China Sea. With nuclear powers like Russia, China and North Korea...coupled with Iran and ISIS...to worry about, the new U. S. Commander-in-Chief may just let super anti-Cuban lobbyist Mauricio Claver-Carone along with Cuba's perennial enemies in Congress work on recapturing poor little Cuba! 

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Does Cuba Have A Future?

If So, How Bright?

      Cuba's past and its future have always been tightly tied to its giant northern neighbor, which in 1776 became the United States of America, which exited World War II in 1945 as the world's economic and military superpower. But the Cuba-U.S. nexus dates back to 1492, the year both nations were discovered by Columbus. From 1776 till 1898 U. S. leaders -- particularly Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson -- made no secret that America would not be "whole" until it had possession of the magnificent Caribbean island. That finally occurred in 1898 when a couple of ultra-powerful newspaper publishers -- William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer -- teamed with a handful of unscrupulous politicians that wanted Teddy Roosevelt to be the next U. S. president. That's when the USS Maine warship conveniently blew up in Havana Harbor, killing 263 young American sailors. That was the pretext to declare war on the fading and over-extended imperialist power Spain. Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders then went to Cuba and predictably scored a sensational "Remember the Maine" victory, which indeed soon put Teddy in the White House. The prize that predicated the Spanish-American War was Cuba but it also resulted in the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam being extracted from Spain, the initial thrust that put the U. S. on a path to become a British-type imperialist power. But many believed the U. S., in order to project itself as the world's greatest and most beloved democracy, would transform Cuba into a prosperous, world-class democracy. Instead, in the years and decades to come, successive handfuls of rich American businessmen and crooked politicians in Washington made Cuba a piggy-bank and a punching bag. The tip-off came quick, with the U. S. theft of Cuba's Guantanamo Bay in 1903, which to this day remains a plush U. S. military base, an infamous prison, and a plush and idyllic playground for 10,000 or so Americans. In 1952 right-wing thugs in the Eisenhower administration mocked the U. S. democracy by teaming it with the Mafia to support the vile, thieving and murderous Batista-Mafia dictatorship. That quickly spawned the Cuban Revolution that shocked the world on the first day of 1959 by becoming the first and only little nation to overthrow a U.S.-backed dictatorship. The Revolution shocked the world further by brilliantly defending itself in April of 1961 when the U. S. and the most zealous exiles from the Batista-Mafia dictatorship attacked the island with a massive bombing raid followed up by a sea and ground assault known as the Bay of Pigs. As revenge for the Bay of Pigs defeat and unable to kill Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro with a record number of assassination attempts, Cuba, after teaming with the world's other nuclear superpower, the Soviet Union, created what history calls the "closest the world has ever come to a nuclear holocaust" via the famed Cuban Missile Crisis in Oct.-1962. Then in Dec.-1962 the U. S. imposed an economic embargo on Cuba that, according to declassified U. S. documents, was intended to starve and deprive the Cuban people to induce them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. It has never happened but six decades later the embargo is still in place, and still with that starve-and-deprive motive. The latest and greatest Cuban Revolutionary shock to the world has been the sheer fact that Cuba has remained a sovereign nation from January 1-1959 till this very day, even as the continuous assaults on the island have remained unabated from the U. S., the world's superpower, and the Batistianos, who quickly and permanently reconstructed their Banana Republic on U. S. soil, with Little Havana in Miami as their capital but soon, with the help of the Bush dynasty, the Banana Republic had a cancerous grip on the U. S. Congress and all Republican administrations. Therefore, since 1962 the U. S. has shamed itself by maintaining what history now records as the longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation. The U. S. democracy, greatly weakened by the cancerous Batistiano influence, has been unable to change a Cuban policy that now has unanimous worldwide condemnation, as evidenced by the current 191-to-0 vote in the United Nations. The foregoing capsule summary of the Past and Future of U.S.-Cuba Relations is indisputable, I think. Yet, it is not even necessary for a second generation of rich and powerful Batistianos on U. S. soil to dispute it. That's because...in what once was The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave...a mere handful of Batistianos easily dictate both the Cuban narrative in America and the despised Cuban policy in America. 

And that gets us to January of 2017:

   Whatever future Cuba has, it will be without Fidel Castro, its monumental revolutionary icon. He defied America and all logic for the last 7 decades of his 90 years on this earth, finally dying of old age on Nov. 25-2016 even though he fought from the frontlines during the revolution, at the Bay of Pigs and elsewhere, and survived what the Guinness Book of World Records documents as 638 assassination attempts, a fact made even more remarkable considering that the would-be assassins primarily comprised renowned elements of the Mafia, the Batistianos and the CIA. Sure, Cuba's future remains in the giant shadows left behind by Fidel Castro's legacy, but those powers who tried so hard to stamp out his life will now be engaged in trying to stamp out his legacy. One reason I believe they will succeed in that endeavor is because of an historic quotation, one uttered several times beginning in 1959 and written down at least once. The author of that quotation, which took me to Cuba in the first place and which caused me to start Cubaninsider five years ago, was a 99-pound doctor's daughter. Although Americans are not supposed to know it, she was #1 and Fidel Castro was #2 in the order and the pantheon of importance ascribed to the Cuban Revolution.

     The declaration first uttered and first written down by Celia Sanchez in 1959 has now been proven to have survived a monumental and totally implausible test of time: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." Celia Sanchez died of cancer on January 11, 1980 at age 59. Fidel Castro died of old age at age 90 on November 25th, 2016. There will never be another Fidel Castro and, more significantly, there will never be another Celia Sanchez. I believe that those two facts, coupled with other nuances such as Donald Trump's ascendancy to Commander-in-Chief of the United States, will mean that a second generation of Batistianos in the United States will finally regain control of Cuba. That process, and how it evolves, will cost Cuba its hard-earned sovereignty but, even more significantly, it will continue to allow the nearby Caribbean island to be the catalyst that erodes the once insurmountable worldwide prestige and respect that so many great Americans ascribed to the United States and to their beloved democracy.

    For anyone to understand today's U.S.-Cuban relations, it is necessary to comprehend this photo. It shows CIA Director-VP-President George H. W. Bush staring down at Jorge Mas Canosa.

          Canosa was born in 1939 in Santiago de Cuba. He was one of the first exiles from the overthrown Batista dictatorship in January of 1959 to be sent to the then secretive U. S. Army of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, which was where the U. S., unknown to Americans, trained people from U.S.-friendly dictatorships -- Batista in Cuba, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Somoza in Nicaragua, etc. -- so they could go back and protect those precious U.S.-friendly dictatorships. It was a right-wing ploy that worked to perfection, till the Cuban Revolution derailed it in 1959 to forever change the landscapes in Cuba, the United States, the Caribbean and Latin America.

    Jorge Mas Canosa graduated as a 2nd Lt. in Brigade 2506 at Fort Benning along with many other anti-Castro Cuban exiles such as Luis Posada Carriles, Felix Rodriguez, etc. Brigade 2506 was the CIA-backed unit that attacked Cuba in April of 1961 but suffered a humiliating defeat that only served to strengthen Fidel Castro's grip on the island for the next five decades but also indelibly embellished Little Havana, a section of Miami, as the center of the Batistiano resistance to Fidel Castro and as an increasingly powerful Cuban government-in-exile on rich democratic American soil.

   On his way to shocking the world by becoming America's next President and Commander-in-Chief, Donald Trump went to Miami and spoke in front of a Brigade 2506 banner and condescendingly promised the elderly remaining veterans of the Bay of Pigs that he will erase President Obama's friendly overtures to Cuba and be their very own Commander-in-Chief.

     But after being anointed by the Bush dynasty as the leader of the Cuban exiles, Jorge Mas Canosa essentially created a monolithic Cuban government on U. S. soil, one capable of making its own laws. That evolved when he was early-on advised to study Israel's AIPAC powerhouse and then replicate a similar lobbying giant. He did, creating the ultra-powerful Cuban American National Foundation. That mammoth addition to the U. S. democracy is explained in Julia E. Sweig's great and indisputable book "What Everyone Needs to Know About Cuba." After Canosa's Bush anointment, photos like this became regular fare in Washington. The photo shows Canosa in the black suit awaiting his souvenir pen just as soon as President George H. W. Bush hands one to Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. The Havana-born Ros-Lehtinen remains in Congress from Miami till this day after being elected in 1989 when Jeb Bush -- GHW Bush's son -- was her Campaign Manager, the role that later propelled him to a two-term stint as Governor of Florida. This photo also reflects how incredibly easy it was...and is...for a few anti-Castro zealots to get laws passed by the U. S. Congress, laws that massively hurt Cuba but also massively enrich and empower selected Cuban-Americans. The two best authors to study these U.S.-altering developments centered around Canosa, Ros-Lehtinen, etc., are Julia E. Sweig and Ann Louise Bardach.

      Even after the three presidential terms of George H. W. Bush and his son George W. Bush, the Jeb Bush continuation of the Bush dynasty was dominated by omnipotent Cuban-Americans as illustrated by this photo. It shows Jeb Bush listening obediently to the much more powerful Mel Martinez as the equally more powerful Diaz-Balart brothers -- Lincoln and Mario -- listen intently behind them. The Diaz-Balart brothers were elected...one after the other...to the U. S. Congress from Miami. Their father, Rafael, was a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship and then the richest and most powerful Cuban-exile in the U. S., second only to...Canosa.

    Since the Eisenhower administration in 1959, every Republican President -- Nixon, Ford, and the two Bushes -- have readily capitulated to and supported the Cuban-Americans in Miami and Congress when it comes to America's image-shattering Cuban policy. But this photo reveals a corollary fact of life, namely that even Democratic presidents like Carter and Clinton were very reluctantly forced to bend to whatever the richest and most powerful Cuban-Americans in Miami desired. This photo shows Jorge Mas Canosa looking up at and supposedly lecturing President Bill Clinton, the two-term Democratic President prior to Republican George W. Bush's two terms and Democrat Barack Obama's two terms. Significantly, President Clinton made a powerful effort to normalize relations with Cuba only to give berth to a Brothers to the Rescue reaction from Miami to Havana across the Florida Straits that reversed Clinton's plans 360 degrees. Again, the superb authors Sweig & Bardach along with informed and respected Americans like Peter Kornbluh and Wayne S. Smith best delineate how the Brothers provocation changed President Clinton's Cuban plans.

     Totally thwarted in his fervent desire to normalize relations with Cuba, President Bill Clinton on March 12, 1996 went totally in the opposite direction by signing the infamous Helms-Burton Bill into law. It drastically strengthened such anti-Cuba laws as the embargo and also drastically enriched and empowered first and second generations of hardline Cuban-Americans, as illustrated by Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, in the red outfit above as she looked over Clinton's shoulder, and Havana-born Lincoln Diaz-Balart, second from the right above. Third from the left upfront and eagerly watching Clinton's signature is New Jersey's Bob Menendez, an anti-Castro zealot and a fixture in the U. S. Senate to this day. The Cuban-American hardliners have never had any problem getting a requisite but small contingent in the 535-member U. S. Congress to craft anti-Cuba and pro-Cuban exile U. S. laws. Jesse Helms is an example of that fact. That's Jesse Helms on the far left in the above photo.

     But in the annals of U.S.-Cuban relations, the most powerful individual since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 is, without doubt, Jorge Mas Canosa. By the time he died in Coral Gables, Florida in 1997, Mr. Canosa was a billionaire and the unchallenged force behind the most powerful laws and policies in the United States related to targeting and/or regaining control of his native Cuba. To this day America's Cuban policy reflects his trademarks, a basic fact that President-elect Trump will not challenge. In addition to his extreme wealth and power carved out as a Bush and Brigade 2506 disciple, Mr. Canosa's imprints remain indelible in Congress and in his adopted area of South Florida where schools and other significant edifices are named in his honor. When President-elect Donald Trump made those pre-election promises to the Brigade 2506 veterans in Little Havana, he in effect was pledging allegiance to Jorge Mas Canosa's legacy. In the above photo, Canosa was himself paying allegiance to Jose Marti, the famed poet-revolutionary who died in 1895 fighting valiantly but in vain on Cuban soil for Cuban independence against Spanish soldiers. Since the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the fighting to regain control of Cuba by Cuban exiles such as Mr. Canosa has been directed and financed from U. S. soil with, essentially, American voters and taxpayers not having a clue as to why the Washington-to-Miami spigots remain wide open...decade after decade.

    

   Generally considered the best investigative reporter in South Florida, Tim Elfrink is the Managing Editor of the Miami New Times. He's won top journalistic honors, including the prestigious George Polk Award. Since 2008 he's written in-depth about police and political corruption all across South Florida. If you Google Miami New Times, "The Truth, at Last: Jorge Mas Canosa Sponsored Terrorism." Except for Jim DeFede at the Miami Herald and Cuban-American newsman Emilio Milian in MIami, few journalists in South Florida have dared to report on controversial Cuban-American activity, but Tim Elfrink is the current exception. As you can read in his aforementioned article, Mr. Elfrink wrote: "For years, the press quaked in fear of criticizing the most powerful exile in America...now courtesy of some vintage CIA reports declassified by the National Security Archive, it's clear that Canosa did a lot more than lobby against Fidel Castro. According to the papers, he gave $5,000 to famed terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to blow up..." 

  Great and brave journalists such as Tim Elfrink are, I think, very high on the pantheon of democracy's greatest assets. To inexorably, non-obsequiously, un-deferentially and courageously defy the odds by writing or broadcasting about Cuban-American excesses in Miami is rare indeed but merely Googling "Jorge Mas Canosa and Luis Posada Carriles" would quickly reveal that documentations of disturbing things that the mainstream media would not dare report on is, nevertheless, readily available and should not be ignored in a democracy.

And by the way: 

This photo was taken by Marie Read and is in Birds & Blooms.

 The beautiful bird is a Dark-eyed Junco.

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Cuba While You Can

Before Trump "Terminates" It!

      The website www.gettingstamped.com has an interesting article entitled "27 of the Best Things to do in Cuba." Cuban visitors must rent an old 1950s car and check out the island's uniquely beautiful beaches.

       Then, even if you are a non-smoker, you must taste Cuban delights and cultural phenomenons such as its famed, world-class cigars. And be sure to have a photo taken to prove to your friends that you did it!

But please understand that you have only a few weeks left to experience Cuba. If you disbelieve that, I invite you to Google the four names depicted in the photo line-up/montage above. They and four others like them are on President-elect Donald Trump's Transition Team that takes office in the White House on January 20th, 2017. Those eight, led by these four, comprise the most visceral anti-Castro lobbyists in the U. S....and all are determined to use the power of the President and the might of the most powerful Commander-in-Chief in the world to eviscerate the last vestiges of the Cuban Revolution, once and for all.

       Why are these five people smiling and chatting so vociferously? They are omnipotent anti-Castro zealots who didn't overwhelm Cuba's revolution during the Bush presidencies but they now will have Donald Trump as President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States. Their prayers have been answered. In the red tie above is the most visceral anti-Castro zealot on the planet. His name is Mauricio Claver-Carone. Mauricio Claver-Carone is Donald Trump's primary advisor regarding Cuba. And that's why I believe that Mr. Trump, the Twitter-in-Chief, used the word "terminate" when he Tweeted about Cuba.

       It will be incredibly easy for Mauricio Claver-Carone to convince President Donald Trump that Cuba is "unwilling" to acquiesce to the demands of the ultra-powerful Cuban-American anti-Castro zealots. Judge for yourself if that has already happened and then decide if that is why Trump's Tweet above used a rather definitive word -- "terminate" -- to presage his Cuban policy that will soon commence on January 20th.

        For Americans to sit back and leave its Cuban policy in the hands of only the most zealous and self-serving Cuban-Americans while ignoring the desires of most Cuban-Americans, most Americans and all the nations in the world is an abominable, cowardly and undemocratic commentary on the United States. That fact is reflected by the current 191-to-0 denunciation of America's Cuban policy in the United Nations, a bitter condemnation that intimidated and propagandized Americans have been proselytized to ignore.

      This collection of unique Cuban butterflies is now on display in Washington at the American Museum of Natural History's newly created Cuban exhibit, just one of the positive offshoots of President Obama's sane and decent overtures to Cuba. Does the Trump & Claver-Carone plan to eviscerate or terminate the Cuban Revolution also mean the elimination of basic principles of democracy that America's Founding Fathers tried so hard to instill in perpetuity into the basic fabric of America's beloved democracy? It appears so. That's why, as I suggested at the top of this article, if you want to experience Cuba, do so quickly. Shortly after Jan. 20-2017 it will cease to exist, except in the image of Mauricio Claver-Carone, a determined and, I believe, a dangerous man most Americans have never heard of. The Cuban Revolution, as epitomized by Mauricio Claver-Carone, says a lot more about the United States than it says about Cuba.

     The dynamo at the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas, Sarah Stephens, for the last ten years has been the greatest promoter of U. S. sanity and decency in regards to Cuba. At the start of the pivotal New Year of 2017, she says, "At CDA we support engagement and treating Cuba with respect. Until his inauguration on January 20th, we don't know whether President-elect Trump will continue, stall, or reverse all the good that the U. S. policy {Obama's} has done for the Cuban people, the American people, and our shared hope for the future." But as a superb expert on U.S-Cuban relations and as a fierce advocate of such sanity and decency in regards to Cuba, the U. S. media is generally too afraid of the Batistianos to air the democratic views of a truly great lady like Sarah Stephens. This generation of Americans, like the previous one, is not supposed to have the guts or patriotism to question that undemocratic way of life. And that's precisely why Americans, even timidly, should have the freedom to choose between a Sarah Stephens and a Mauricio Claver-Carone.

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Will Cuba Survive Trump?

Not Likely, Here's Why!!

      With just hours left in 2016, it has become clear that the American transition from President Obama to President-elect Trump will monumentally alter America's gigantic roles domestically and internationally. For the first time in its history, this transition is akin to switching from hot to cold, from sanity to insanity.

       President Obama invited President-elect Trump to the White House for a handshake and an exchange of decent words in an effort to facilitate the American tradition of a smooth democratic transition from one administration to another. But that gesture, this time, was doomed to fail. The final days of Mr. Obama's two-term presidency finds him, amazingly, leaving office with an approval rating above 50%, a rare occurrence. But the staged photo above could not conceal the power and resurgence of a right-wing minority that stridently opposes all of the positive things that the Obama administration has tried to achieve, and that includes the historic and brave efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Even as President Obama's right-hand reached out to grasp President-elect Trump's left hand, Mr. Obama was fully aware that Trump's danger to the U. S. and the world relies on the still out-sized power of such entities as fringes of the Bush political machine and the sanctimoniously pompous Tea Party. Moreover, Trump's scary ties to the powerful leaders of two increasingly anti-Obama nuclear powers -- Russia and Israel -- is not lost on Obama nor should it be minimized by patriotic Americans. The Obama administration is convinced that Russia played a huge role in the election of Trump, which stunned the world, and indeed in the last two days of Dec.-2016 President Obama has leveled strong sanctions to punish Russia for that vile anti-democracy assault. Additionally, the right-wing leader of Israel -- fully aware he has dominance over the Republican U. S. Congress and the incoming Republican President -- has lost no opportunity to shame Mr. Obama and the Office he holds, with 2016 coming to an end as both Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu fume and brag loudly about the demise of Obama and the advent of Trump -- hot to cold and sanity to insanity.

        Within seconds after that White House handshake, Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump more honestly seemed to separate themselves, physically and otherwise, as much as possible. Since 1776, no U. S. President -- not even Nixon or the three Bush administrations -- have legitimately been accused of putting the interests of foreign nations ahead and above that of America itself. But already, the incoming Trump presidency is fearfully being accused of, in many instances, favoring Russia and Israel over the United States. And that is a fact that deeply concerns a frustrated Mr. Obama the most, and it is indeed a worthwhile concern.

       As for U.S.-Cuba relations, President-elect Trump has gone face-to-face with the elderly survivors of  Brigade 2506 in Miami and promised them that, starting Jan. 20-2017, he will be their Commander-in-Chief. Brigade 2506 is the unit that, backed by the CIA and tons of tax dollars, infamously attacked Cuba in April of 1961 only to magnanimously lose, handing Fidel Castro his strongest hand yet as the Revolutionary leader of Cuba. Along with Miami's fiercely anti-Castro contributions to the current U. S. Congress -- Rubio, the Diaz-Balarts, Curbelo and the entrenched-since-1989 Bush disciple Ros-Lehtinen -- the remnants of Brigade 2506, after all these decades, have now been freshly refurbished by Trump.

       By way of contrasting Trump's sell-out to Brigade 2506 and Congress regarding Cuba, President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with the island will...at the least...always embellish his legacy.

       In addition to using his Executive Powers to slash deeply into cruel and anti-American congressionally mandated assaults on eleven million totally innocent Cubans, President Obama became the first sitting U. S. President to visit the island since 1928. In March of this year in Cuba he told the Cuban people, "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." Of course, at the time he had no expectation that a Donald Trump would soon succeed him as President and Commander-in-Chief of the United States.

     This AP photo is being used this week to highlight the anticipated difference between an Obama presidency and a Trump presidency.  The photo shows the tailend of a Sun Airlines Boeing 737 sitting on the tarmac. Sun a few weeks ago was rejoicing after it received permission to start regular commercial flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul in the U. S. to the Cuban cities of Matanzas and Santa Clara. Sun planned to start those flights in March but yesterday requested permission to postpone till...at the earliest...December of 2017. Sun cited "barriers from the embargo" but left unsaid were President-elect Trump's vow to "reverse" all of President Obama's positives related to Cuba. That vow is causing many U. S. businesses, including those already engaged in Obama-sanctioned Cuban contracts, to rethink their Cuban engagements. After all, they understand what reverse means and Trump starting January 20th also will have Executive Powers as well as a Batistiano-dominated Congress that will rubber-stamp any negative anti-Cuban suggestion, making it "legal" just like such abominations as the embargo are "legal."

     Since 1961 till President Obama changed things in 2016, U. S. commercial airplane flights from the U. S. to Cuba had been banned. It was reaffirmed in 1962 by a U. S. embargo of Cuba that was designed to starve and deprive Cubans on the island to induce them to overthrow Castro after assassination attempts and the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack failed to accomplish that on behalf of the ousted Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders who had regrouped quickly on U. S. soil after the 1959 victory of the Cuban Revolution. But earlier this year JetBlue Airlines made an historic commercial flight to Santa Clara, Cuba. Since then, ten U. S. airlines have relished permission to fly to ten Cuban cities. On Dec. 1st of this month Delta Airlines made the first U.S.-to-Havana commercial flight since 1961. But now, with Trump about to replace Obama in the White House, all the U. S. airlines are beginning to cut-back on their scheduled flights to Cuba, citing both the impending Trump presidency and the endless Congress-mandated embargo that to this day prevents most everyday Americans from visiting Cuba although all other citizens of the world have the freedom to do so. But, since 1959, in order to hurt Cuba and appease the Batistianos, the great U. S. democracy has sacrificed freedoms and principles that, prior to eternally bracing the Batistianos, were so very dear to it.

      Earlier this month -- December of 2016 -- in Brussels the 28-nation European Union and Cuba signed an historic Agreement to begin normalizing relations, with all the European countries reacting collectively to the positive overtures taken by U. S. President Obama. That Agreement led to the above handshake between the EU leader Federica Mogherini and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. All the European nations and all the nations of the world support Obama's Cuban policy and oppose the looming threats to Cuba posed by incoming President Trump. But a rogue minority in the 535-member U. S. Congress teamed with a rogue Republican as Commander-in-Chief in the White House can do whatever they desire to sate the insatiable Cuban appetites of a handful of roguish Cuban-Americans. And Cuba understands that.

      This photo as much as anything that has gone before it reflects the extreme divide and daunting chasm between those who support Obama's decent Cuban policy and those who await what they expect will be Trump's indecent Cuban policy. This photo shows Samantha Power, the U. S. Representative to the United Nations, making a long detailed speech on October 26, 2016. That day the nations of the world voted 191-to-0 to express their profound opposition to America's Cuban policy, specifically the embargo that -- from 1962 till today -- has now been labeled the longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a weak nation. The big headline out of that 191-to-0 vote that flashed around the world was the fact that Ms. Power abstained and refused to vote to support America's own Cuban policy. Then in the above speech the decent, bold and brilliant Ms. Power explained why she and her boss, President Obama, did not have the heart to support a Cuban policy that defied both logic and decency.

       And then last week Samantha Power at the United Nations abstained again, this time refusing to veto a 14-to-0 General Assembly vote that sharply opposed Israel for continuing to build settlements on occupied land that the world hopes one day will finally lead to a two-state solution to the age-old Israeli-Palestinian problem that, among other things, has so massively plagued the U. S. and its taxpayers. Always before, the U. S. veto in the UN has over-turned any votes to criticize Israel, a tiny country of 7 million people in which the U. S. -- and especially the Obama administration -- had made into one of the world's Top Four nuclear powers, made more powerful recently by another $38 billion package and the delivery to Israel of the first of 30 F-35 fighter planes that are certainly the most costly and supposedly the best ever built. Yet, Israel's right-wing leader and Trump's anti-American Tweets have unmercifully mocked and assailed both Ms. Power and Mr. Obama for strongly opposing the settlements that all previous U. S. presidents also opposed. But with a mighty nuclear arsenal and with far more influence in the U. S. Congress than American presidents, Israel can do whatever it chooses to do, especially with the support of Trump. 

      If you don't quite comprehend the difference between an Obama presidency and a Trump presidency, this photo should help. President-elect Trump has named Nikki Haley as the U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations to succeed Obama's Samantha Power, the antithesis to Haley, who has been the Governor of South Carolina since 2011. All the positive Samantha Power UN votes will be readily reversed by Nikki Haley.

       Nikki Haley is a product of the anti-Cuban Bush dynasty and she is also tightly tied to the anti-Cuban Tea Party and to the most vicious Cuban-American hardliners in Miami and in Congress. During the Republican presidential primary, Haley first supported anti-Castro zealot Senator Marco Rubio of Miami and when he was eliminated she strongly supported anti-Castro zealot Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. In the meantime, during the primary when she tried to put first Rubio and then Cruz in the White House, Haley repeatedly mocked Trump with countless vile and cruel denunciations. So, bent on putting foxes in his henhouse, Trump ends up appointing her his UN Ambassador, which she accepted apparently because of her own future White House ambitions. She has no diplomatic experience. The experienced Samantha Power, Obama's UN Representative, treated innocent Cubans on the island respectfully but Trump's UN Representative, Nikki Haley, will likely carry the Batistiano-Brigade 2506 banner in the UN. Did I mention...contrast? Obama to Trump; Power to Haley, etc. The contrasts will blow ill-winds toward Cuba.

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Cuba Worries About 2017

A Post-Fidel, Pre-Trump Cuba 
{Thursday, December 29th, 2016}

      Cuba's Economy Minister Ricardo Cabrisas yesterday held a news conference for the AP and other news agencies and painted a rather bleak picture for the island's immediate financial future. Mr. Cabrisas said, "Our economy shrank almost 1% this year, the first such shrinkage in a quarter century." The plunge in revenue, he said, came in spite of the surge in tourism set off by President Obama's USA detente, which was overwhelmed by the enormous political and economic problems in Venezuela. Mr. Cabrisas confirmed that some of the social contracts with Venezuela have not been paid and that oil shipments in subsidized payments had fallen from 115,000 barrels-a-day in 2008 to 90,000 in recent years and to 40,000 in recent months. Cuba had been able to sell some refined gasoline but low prices for oil, sugar and nickel had also hurt Cuba's economy. Prior to confirmation from Mr. Cabrisas, the London Globe and Mail, Forbes and other major news outlets this week also predicted dire economic problems for Cuba heading into 2017, with roadblocks represented by the transition from the Cuba-friendly Obama White House to the Bush-like Trump administration looming as what one of Mr. Cabrisas' top aides had called "maybe an obstacle that only a healthy Fidel could overcome." Asked if he approved that comment, Mr. Cabrisas said, "I approve what we are trying to do. We will always be challenged by powerful forces. We will remain forever resilient." 

      Meanwhile, 2017 will mark a Cuba that will be forced to cope with a post-Fidel and pre-Trump reality it has never faced before. This Instagram photo, as it flashes around the world, is provoking additional, but pertinent, conversations about the island's future. Thanks to Obama, Cuba's famed ingenuity related to its renowned old cars have even resulted in new paint jobs and actual, not just improvised, repairs. The Cuban leaning against the spanking old car represents the mounting impatience of the island's healthy, well-educated and ambitious young-adult generation that will...more and more...demand input into whatever the future holds for the gorgeous Caribbean nation that reeks of enormous potential IF domestic problems aligned with greedy and revengeful U. S. entities can be overcome or even merely blunted.

      Old Dominion University in Virginia is one of a growing number of American universities and businesses that desperately want to interact with the island of Cuba. Early in the New Year of 2017 both graduate students and undergraduates from ODU plan to spend time in Cuba intermingling with Cubans while also studying Cuba's unique culture, cuisine and farming methods, all of which have been severely affected since 1962 by the cruel U. S. embargo against the island, a travesty unanimously opposed, 191-to-0, by the nations of the world and an abomination that the U. S. democracy continues decade-after-decade to appease a few self-serving miscreants in Miami and in Congress. But now, even after its exciting Cuba announcement, ODU may have to rethink its trip to the island. Trump has already let it be known he will allow the likes of Bush-era zealots Mauricio Claver-Carone and John Bolton along with Miami hardliners in Congress to make his Cuban decisions, amounting to the continuation of a vicious, internationally scorned tragedy that targets millions of innocent Cubans as well as the once sacrosanct American democracy.  

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