3.9.18

U.S. Media Genuflects to Batistianos

Afraid or just Politically Correct?
{Updated: Tuesday, September 4th, 2018}
      Journalist Nora Gamez Torres is a top Cuban expert on Marco Rubio's hometown newspaper, the Miami Herald. This week the major article by Ms. Gamez is entitled: "New Report Finds Problems in How State Department Handled Alleged Health Attacks in Cuba." The headline references a report by the U. S. government's Accountability Review Board {ARB}. The Trump administration has used the alleged "Health Attacks" against U. S. "diplomats" in Havana as a pretext to reverse the positive steps former President Barack Obama made prior to President Trump's improbable election, making him the 6th Republican U. S. president since the 1950s totally aligned with the Batistiano-Mafiosi element that in 1959 was chased, by the Cuban Revolution, from Havana to its news headquarters in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. As this week's Nora Gamez Torres article in the Miami Herald indicates, even many segments of the U. S. government believe that the mysterious "Health Attacks" are merely the latest concocted pretext in the U.S.-Batistiano-Mafiosi 6-decade effort to recapture Cuba. However, outside of the increasingly brave Miami Herald, the mainstream U. S. media is too afraid or to bought-off or too politically correct to even remotely tell the truth about U.S.-Cuban relations.
    President Trump's anointed Cuban dictator, Little Havana's U. S. Senator Marco Rubio, was quoted in this week's Miami Herald article in which a U. S. government report debunked the Trump administration's "Health Attack" accusations against Cuba. Rubio, now in control of recapturing Cuba, used the accusations to try to starve Cuba by cutting off its tourism, which reached record highs during the decent Obama presidency. So, the alleged "Health Attacks" have greatly hurt Cuba but massively helped Rubio and his extremists anti-Cuban sycophants in Little Havana and in the U. S. Congress. And, of course, history is replete with many examples of right-wingers high-up in the U. S. government concocting famous pretects to accuse Cuba of things that hopefully would justify an all-out military attack on Cuba because, after all, trying to starve the island with such things as the 6-decades-old Embargo is taking too long to destroy the rather pugnacious Cuban Revolution. So, yes, this week's Miami Herald article quoted Rubio as debunking the U. S. government review that debunked the "Health Attack" accusations against Cuba. Rubio said: "But ultimately it's the Cuban regime that needs to be held accountable. Because either they carried out the attacks or they know who did and aren't telling us." Actually, it might be Rubio's Little Havana regime that should be held "accountable." I'll explain.
     President Trump has anointed Senator Rubio from Little Havana in Miami as America's post-Obama Cuban dictator. This is the Marco Rubio that the mainstream U. S. media promotes as a Mother Teresa-type choirboy and the savior of the Republican Party. But braver, renowned, and highly respected journalists like Ken Silverstein, in the easily dialed-up article depicted above, labeled Rubio "head and shoulders" above every other politician in Washington when it came to "corruption and chicanery." The long Silverstein article can't seriously be denied or questioned and Silverstein listed a plethora of names, dates, and other data to support his documented claims.
  President Trump himself wiped out Senator Rubio's presidential bid in 2016 by labeling Little Havana's choirboy "Little Marco" and by accusing him of begging every right-wing billionaire on the planet for money to boost his "political" career.
      Donald Trump himself pointed out that Rubio was/is owned by controversial right-wing billionaires such as the above referenced Las Vegas-Chinese mogul.
 Yet, as President of the United States, Trump anointed Rubio as America's latest Cuban dictator. Most scary of all, the mainstream U. S. media lacks the guts to question or mention that development even though, with Trump as Commander-in-Chief and with Rubio as America's Cuban dictator, some extremely diabolical scheme to concoct a PRETEXT for an all-out military attack on Cuba is now a possibility. And in an amazing paradox that Americans should consider: The mainstream U. S. media -- except for Fox News -- is currently in an all-out coup conspiracy to eliminate Trump as President and yet the U. S. media is too afraid to even mention the prime reason Trump SHOULD BE IMPEACHED and why Rubio's anointment as America's new Cuban dictator is the BIGGEST ONGOING insult and threat to the U. S. democracy that since the 1950s has been unable to correct the Batistiano-Mafia cancer that first afflicted the U. S. government in 1952 when Republican thugs sicced the Mafia and dictator Batista on Cuba. Rubio to this day remains the biggest back-stabbing threat to Trump's presidency but Trump needs Florida's huge political support that Trump believes is totally controlled by Rubio's rich Little Havana supporters.
    I am a lifelong Republican but I, of course, am not the only democracy-loving American who feels that the Trump-Rubio alliance is a huge threat not only to Cuba but to the United States. The Havana-born Fabiola Santiago since 1980 has been a fiercely anti-Castro journalist at the Miami Herald. She is now that newspaper's Editorial chief and best columnist. She has recently assailed hometown boy Rubio for acting against the best interests of America including the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami. And Fabiola Santiago has had the insight and intelligence to denounce Trump for turning over America's Cuban policies to Rubio. SO MY QUESTION IS: If the top journalist in Miami, Ms. Santiago, has the guts to state the truth about the Trump-Rubio alliance, why is the mainstream U. S. media too afraid or too incompetent to do so even as it mounts an all-out media coup against President Donald Trump??????
Photo courtesy: Adalberto Roque/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
     The venerable New York Times started off this month of September-2018 with a book-length article that led with the above photo of U. S. Marines guarding the Trump-gutted U. S. Embassy in Havana that the decent President Obama had reopened for the first time since 1961. The article is entitled: "Spooky Theory on Ills of U. S. Diplomats in Cuba." As a democracy-lover, I think the Spooky thing about the article is that the New York Times used so many pages on Sunday, Sept. 1-2018 cowardly genuflecting to the Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Miami's famed Little Havana neighborhood.


  The New York Times' "Spooky Theory" yesterday was written by William J. Broad. He is the long-time, 67-year-old Science Journalist for the NY Times. His book-length article, in attempting to assail Cuba for the alleged mysterious sonic-attacks on U. S. diplomats in Havana, alleges that "microwave strikes" injured the U. S. diplomats in Havana, implying that perhaps the Trump administration should retaliate by nuking the island...or maybe just some less-violent measure beyond what Trump is already assigning to the Little Havana extremists.


    In addition to being the New York Times' Science expert, William J. Broad is famous for books like "The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards." So, his September 1st-2018 assault on Cuba regarding the MYSTERIOUS "microwave strikes" against American diplomats in Havana is supposed to be taken as the gospel truth, as Little Havana extremists like Marco Rubio clap and smirk hilariously in the background.


   But mostly Mr. Broad's Sunday article in the New York Times was a slanted broadside attack on America's most decent, democracy-loving Cuban experts -- like Sarah Stephens. On her Facebook page after reading the aforementioned "Spooky Article" that dominated the NY Times' Sunday edition, Sarah Stephens asked the bravest and most pertinent question that the NY Times and the rest of the mainstream media does not have the guts to ask. But Sarah, displaying her usual decency and bravery, stated: "I say look at who's interest this served and start digging there." Yes, very bravely {for an American}, Sarah Stephens was pointing out that the so-called sonic attacks in Havana have been used to greatly hurt Cuba's vital tourism, and thereby greatly help a major goal of Rubio's Trump-anointed plans to hurt and starve Cubans on the island for the purpose of inducing them to rally against their revolutionary government, a stupid and failed ploy that has been applied by U. S. right-wing extremists since their stupid failures chronicled by such things as the Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba in April of 1961, a resounding Cuban victory that solidified the power of both the Revolution and the legacy of its prime architect Fidel Castro. Sarah Stephens, by the way, is shown above standing in front of one of Havana's newest 5-star hotels, and this one happens to be run by a, uh...well known American capitalist organization.
     Of course, Sarah Stephens is the type of democracy-loving Cuban expert that the NY Times and the rest of the mainstream U. S. media don't have the guts to consult on Cuban issues, lest it might upset the Little Havana extremists in Miami and in the U. S. Congress. But Sarah's credentials as a truly honest Cuban expert are impeccable. She founded the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas and brilliantly led it for a decade before turning it over to her democracy-loving protege and former U. S. government standout Emily Mendrala. Today Sarah, who still lives in Washington, leads the "Platform for Innovation and Dialogue with Cuba" because she believes, as many millions of other democracy-loving Americans and Cuban-Americans believe, that leaving America's Cuban policies strictly in the  hands of a few Cuban-American right-wing extremists does more harm to the reputations of America and Democracy than other thing has done in the past six decades. If that is not so, try to name one other topic in this extremely diverse world that could be condemned by a 191-to-0 UN vote, a condemnation that was supported by true democracy-lovers like President Barack Obama and...Sarah Stephens.
    Yet for 6+ decades America's Cuban policies have been dictated by, for example, extreme Little Havana/U.S. Congress remnants from the vile Batista-Mafia dictatorship that roiled Cuba from 1952 till it was booted to Miami by the Cuban Revolution in 1959, where it has since roiled America and Democracy. The photo above shows the two remnants designated by the latest Republican administration, Trump's, to dictate America's current Cuban policies. The remnant/Diaz-Balart on the left in the U. S. Congress is the son of a former key Minister in the Batista dictatorship; the remnant/Rubio on the right is strictly a self-serving product of the Little Havana extremists in Miami who have had the total backing of six Republican administrations since the 1950s in their omnipotent efforts to recapture Cuba and, presumably, return a Batistiano-Mafiosi rule to the island. As the democracy-loving Sarah Stephens bravely reminded us this week, Republican administrations being in bed with the Batistianos-Mafiosi is one thing but when the NY Times and the rest of the mainstream U. S. media is lying in the same bed that is a HUGE problem for both America's and Democracy's worldwide images today.
An American treasure, Sarah Stephens.
Anti-Cuban propagandist, Rubio.
An American treasure, Emily Mendrala.
     The New York Times and the rest of the mainstream U. S. media shun true, unbiased Cuban experts like Sarah Stephens and Emily Mendrala while lapping up the extremely biased and self-serving Counter Revolutionary politics and propaganda from the likes of Marco Rubio. In sharp contrast to the indecency of Rubio, Mendrala's vast Cuban honesty and expertise is beyond reproach. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the University of Virginia, Mendrala was a highly skilled and respected Director on the U. S. government's National Security Council till such Cuban experts were kicked out by another Republican administration. Now Mendrala is the Executive Director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas where she expertly counters every indecency towards totally innocent Cubans from the likes of otherwise mostly unchecked Counter Revolutionaries like Rubio So why, you ask, does the mainstream U. S. media genuflect like cowards to whatever Rubio does or says about Cuba while totally ignoring the sane, decent, expert Cuban opinions of people like Mendrala. It's not the only reason but, in my opinion, one reason relates to what happened to Emilio Milian way back in 1976 on U. S. soil -- Miami, Florida.
       In 1976, as any Googler can readily research, Emilio Milian was the top Cuban-American newsman in Miami. He strongly resented extreme terrorism by the Miami-based Counter Revolutionaries against totally innocent Cubans...such as the terrorist bomb that destroyed the child-laden civilian Cuban plane Cubana flight 455 killing all 73 on board and provoking loud jeers in the Miami media such as "It's the biggest blow yet against Castro!!" The decent Emilio Milian on his newscast railed against such things, and that decency in Miami resulted in Emilio getting car-bombed. Do such stark terrorist messages to this day predicate the mainstream U. S. media's intimidated coverage of Cuban issues, causing even the New York Times to stress Little Havana's Cuban propaganda while shunning Cuban experts like Emily Mendrala, Sarah Stephens, etc.? HEY!!! Don't ask me!!! Ask the New York Times.
    Latin American nations are still asking for justice regarding the terrorist bomb that downed Cubana Flight 455 way back on Oct. 6-1976. Should, at long last, the U. S. media and the U. S. government at least fairly address the historic issue??
     To this day, memorials like the one above are reminders all across Latin America of the 73 victims of the Cubana Flight 455 bombing, but Americans ignore it.
    Many photos like the one above still abound to remind us that totally innocent Cubans on the island have suffered far-too-many egregious assaults by Cuban policies dictated since the 1950s by right-wing political thugs in the U. S. and, since 1959, by mere handfuls of Counter Revolutionary extremists from the vile Batista-Mafia dictatorship. But, just for the historic record, the photo above shows a sister and a mother who were waiting at the Havana airport and had just gotten word that Cubana Flight 455 had crashed into the ocean and there were no survivors. On board were two dozen teenage athletes, including the 14-year-old brother and son of the devastated sister and mother. Americans are programmed not to consider such historic photos as the one above, lest their approval and their tax-dollars supporting such things might be adversely affected. But re-study the everlasting grief of the Cuban sister and mother above, the same grief an American sister and mother would have had if it had been a civilian U. S. plane downed by a terrorist bomb.
    Within hours of the terrorist bombing of Cubana Flight 455 on October 6-1976, both the Cuban government and the U. S. government {based on easily Googled de-classified U. S. documents} were well aware of the perpetrators. Yet such atrocities against totally innocent Cubans to this day are ignored by the mainstream United States media that readily promotes Cubans on the island as the only bad guys while promoting the handfuls of Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Miami and in the U. S. Congress as the only good guys in the bowels of the U.S.-Cuban conundrum. And that, I believe, says a lot more about the USA than it says about Cuba. And that equation points out that, when it comes to Cuba, the mainstream U. S. media consistently tells not only a litany of lies but actually bushels of intimidated and now politically correct DAMN LIES. For example, study the image above of the Cubana Flight 455 tire that was fished out of the ocean. If the mainstream U. S. media cannot tell you the truth about that tire and similarly historic truths, WHY should you pay attention to such things as the book-length New York Times article on Sept. 1-2018 that portrays Cubans on the island as the only bad guys and, of course, Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Miami and in the U. S. Congress as the only GOOD GUYS?
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30.8.18

Cuba TRUTH--Cuba LIES

See...The Truth...For Yourself!!
{Or Just Keep Listening to A Pack of Lies}
{Updated: Sunday, September 2nd, 2018}
    Desmond Boylan is one of the world's all-time greatest photo-journalists. If you've read news articles, you're familiar with his photos -- millions of which have been distributed worldwide by the Associated Press and other news agencies. Desmond's greatest love is...Cuba. He has an Instagram page with the title "desboylan" and it has this sub-title: "Photojournalist based in Havana, Cuba, the most beautiful land that human eyes have ever seen." The sub-title borrows from the description of Cuba that Christopher Columbus wrote in his dairy when he discovered the island in 1492 and was awed by it, just as Desmond Boylan has always been awed by it. On his Instagram page Desmond features 818 photos of Cuba.
    The photo above is one of the 818 images of Cuba that the great Desmond Boylan currently has posted on his Instagram page. This photo, and all the others, paint a true portrait of Cuba because Desmond Boylan allows the people of Cuba to tell the island's story...even if, at times, such truth-telling documents hard times, such as today's truly remarkable generation of Cubans, like the two previous ones, who have suffered from and are forced to cope with the unmerciful targeting of their lives by miscreants based in a nearby superpower nation. With extreme dignity and pugnaciousness, everyday Cubans, like the image Desmond Boylan's photo above is projecting, have dealt honorably with that cruel, and mostly unchecked, targeting by foreign miscreants for six decades...and counting. And that is a Desmond Boylan truth that three generations of Americans have NEVER been exposed to.
    In sharp contrast to Cuban truths revealed by thousands of Desmond Boylan photos of everyday life on the island, the photo above reveals precisely who has controlled the Cuban narrative...and most of the Cuban policies...in the United States of America since 1959, the year the Cuban Revolution chased the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship back to the U. S., mainly nearby South Florida, from whence they took over Cuba in 1952 with the assistance of a right-wing cabal in the Eisenhower adminstration. In the photo above, left to right, are Havana-born Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and South Florida-born Mario Diaz-Balart. All three are fierce Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans who have had far more to do with America's Cuban policies than the other 320 million-or-so propagandized and intimidated Americans combined. Ros-Lehtinen has represented Miami's Little Havana section in the United States Congress since 1989 when her self-serving Campaign Manager was Jeb Bush. Both of the Diaz-Balart brothers shown above have also been elected to the United States Congress as representatives of Miami, Little Havana, and their unchecked vindictiveness against Revolutionary Cuba. Americans are not supposed to realize or consider that the father of the Diaz-Balart brothers was a key Minister in the Batista dictatorship and, after 1959, one of the all-time richest and most powerful Counter Revolutionaries Miami and Little Havana have ever seen. Also, Americans are not supposed to realize or consider that a common thread empowering the likes of Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers on U. S. soil has been extreme mutually beneficial ties to powerful pro-Batistiano groups dating back to the 1950s, particularly the Bush dynasty that has reaped extreme political and economic benefits from the unholy alliance without ever having to be questioned about it by the American public.
   Thanks to the Bush dynasty, Havana-born Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has enjoyed a lucrative field day since 1989 crafting vicious anti-Cuban legislation in the 535-member mostly dysfunctional U. S. Congress. Now in 2018 she is joined by seven other unchecked Cubans dictating Cuban policies to the other 527 members of Congress. So the 8 unchecked Cubans currently in the 535-member U. S. Congress are:
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Mario Diaz-Balart
Carlos Curbelo
Alex Mooney
Albio Sires
Bob Menendez
Ted Cruz
Marco Rubio
    And so, 8 Cubans in a 535-member U. S. Congress are allowed to dictate a cruel Cuban policy that the rest of the world -- including America's last decent democracy-loving President, Barack Obama -- condemned 191-to-0 by a United Nations vote in 2016, the last year of the decent Obama presidency. Of course, in a money-crazed, easily bought-and-paid-for Congress, 8 vindictive Cubans can easily get the needed support from the likes of...Jesse Helms & Dan Burton {Helms-Burton Act}, Robert Torricelli {Torricelli Bill}, and Ron DeSantis, etc. {for whatever anti-Cuban act or self-enrichment bill the 8 Cubans want to push through the U. S. Congress}. Meanwhile, decent politicians, even President Barack Obama, were/are helpless to correct the injustices imposed on Cuba by a dysfunctional, bought-and-paid-for U. S. Congress.
     Therefore, with President Obama replaced by Trump, 8 vindictive Cubans in the 535-member U. S. Congress, hiding behind the skirts of the world Superpower, are able to expand the cruelty of America's "legal laws" that, since 1962, have already created history's ALL-TIME longest and cruelest economic embargo ever imposed by a strong nation against a much-weaker nation. The fact that 325 million Americans, backed by the UN-expressed unanimity of the world's nations, cannot correct that injustice highlights the fact that America's democracy has been hi-jacked by miscreants. The photo above was taken by Chip Somodevilla for Getty Images. This young Cuban, like his parents and grandparents before him, has been and is being massively harmed by vindictive, self-serving miscreants in America. All the while, Americans have been programmed to accept the injustice being done in their name and with their tax dollars while, of course, always sanctimoniously condemning Russia for harming innocent people in Ukraine or stealing Crimea, not at all unlike America's treatment of totally innocent Cubans or America's long-ago {1903} theft {"in perpetuity"} of Cuba's plush and ultra-valuable Guantanamo Bay.
     Which brings us back around to Desmond Boylan whose millions of photos from Cuba paint truthful portraits of everyday life on the island that both Desmond Boyland in 2018 and Christopher Columbus in 1492 called "the most beautiful land that human eyes have ever seen." That land for many centuries was under the yoke of Spanish domination. Then, after the 1898 Spanish-American War, it came under the yoke of the United States. And then in 1959 the Cuban Revolution finally made if a sovereign country, the largest and most beautiful island nation in the Caribbean. But since 1959 the element that the Cuban Revolution chased to Little Havana in Miami, in a decades-old effort to regain control of Cuba, has unmercifully and unconscionably targeted the Cubans on the island while also, within the bowels of the U. S. democracy, being allowed to dictate Cuban laws that the rest of the world unanimously condemned, via a 191-to-0 UN vote in 2016, and that loud unanimity was approved by the then decent U. S. President Barack Obama. Of Course, all such "legal" laws designed to destroy Revolutionary Cuba have an added caveat -- which is to enrich and empower the handful of Cubans who mastermind such things.
    But while many decent, democracy-loving Americans, like Obama, remain deeply ashamed and embarrassed by America's Cuban policies, those policies, for the most part, are still dictated by a few Counter Revolutionary Cubans entrenched in Miami's Little Havana and America's U. S. Congress. In that milieu, even millions of photos from the island by world-renowned photo-journalist Desmond Boylan fall victim in the United States where the Cuban narrative and Cuban laws are dictated almost exclusively by Counter Revolutionaries in Miami, Little Havana, and the U. S. Congress. The three generations of Americans who have accepted that, I believe, have earned their reputations as the three Worst Generations in American history.
   I heartily agree with what the great photo-journalist Desmond Boylan has been saying with his thousands of AP photos and his 818+ photos {like the one above} on his Instagram page. And all those photos say that the Cuban narrative should be told by unbiased experts on the island and not by a handful of extremely biased and self-serving Cubans in Little Havana, in the U. S. Congress , and in all Republican White Houses. Of course, I am aware it takes a modicum of courage for a democracy-loving American to make that statement in the America that has changed drastically since 1959. Study the Desmond Boylan photo above. It shows a young Cuban woman sitting in a rocking chair at her home as her little dog sleeps behind her. She was a random, everyday Cuban that Boylan happened upon that day. And whether this photo says more than a thousand words or more than a million words, it says a helluva lot more than all the words in all the lies in all the decades since 1959 that have been showered, usually unchallenged, upon Americans by extremists Counter Revolutionary Cubans and their self-serving sycophants. In other words, the reason Desmond Boylan is proud of this photo is because he believes that young woman's smile is genuine and thus it paints an accurate portrait of her Cuba in that moment-in-time on the island. But this photo also explains why Counter Revolutionary extremists are so intent on crafting laws that prevent or make it very hard for Americans...AND ONLY AMERICANS...to visit the island lest they judge it for themselves as opposed to being forced to accept the pack of lies that have saturated America since 1959. So...study the photo above, as well as Desmond Boylan's other 817 Cuban photos posted on Instagram, to get an honest portrait of Cuba.
     Of course, if you think it is a lot easier, and safer, to let the Diaz-Balart brothers and Ros-Lehtinen keep telling you what to think about Cuba, I'll understand but question your patriotism. 
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29.8.18

Havana Mafia to Miami Mafia

And Its Indelible Imprint on America!!!
      Even to this day, with 2018 winding down, neither the U. S. media nor the U. S. government -- for the most part -- has either the courage or the inclination to tell the truth about the everlasting impact of the American democracy's dalliance with the highest echelons of the Mafia in Cuba from 1952 till 1959 and then in the United States from 1959 till today after the Cuban Revolution chased the Mafiosi to Little Havana in Miami. Yes, the Mafia in Cuba beginning in 1952 was backed by the United States and since 1959 the fleeing or fled Batististiano/Mafiosi elements, in their quest to regain control of Cuba from the victorious Cuban Revolution, have also been backed by the United States, which remains, during all that time, the world's #1 Superpower. Fascinating stuff, I think you'll agree, but how Cuba has maintained its sovereignty since 1959 is just Part One of a multi-faceted odyssey. Vying for Part Two is the consummate truth embodied in "SCARFACE" that neither the U. S. government nor the U. S. media has bothered to admit after all these decades. Yes, "Scarface" is a Hollywood movie from 1983 that was directed by the great Brian DePalma, and written by the great Oliver Stone. It starred the A-list actor Al Pacino as Tony Montana, who today is a major American cult figure. The movie opens with actual film of Cuban exiles arriving on a dock in Miami. The arrivals, as written into the movie, included Tony Montana. Tony, to Oliver Stone's mind and pen, epitomized Havana's famed Mafia-drug empire actually leaving Revolutionary Cuba and setting up a far more lucrative...and murderous...drug haven in Miami. The Batistiano-Mafiosi had already totally overwhelmed South Florida politically and economically with their unmatched, ill-gotten wealth from Cuba. Tony Montana just took that to another level and stratosphere on U. S. soil. Before and after Tony's bloody demise, Miami's splendorous skyline exploded with cocaine wealth as vividly explained by famed journalists like Edna Buchanan, famed authors like Julia E. SweigAnn Louise Bardach, and T. J. English as well as famed Hollywood icons like Brian DePalma and Oliver Stone.
   While the brilliant historians-authors Julia E. Sweig and Ann Louise Bardach deftly document the Havana-to-Miami takeover of the Mafia, two great books by T. J. English chronicle the step-by-step evolution of that re-shaping of both Cuba and America because of the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution and, since then, the pugnaciousness of Revolution Cuba to fend off a re-capture of the island by the ultra-rich-and-powerful Batistiano-Mafiosi elements headquartered in both Miami and in the U. S. Congress...and all Republican White Houses. If you haven't read the T. J. English classic depicted above, the lies you've been told about the Mafia in Havana and the Mafia in Miami obviously grip your perceptions of U.S.-Cuban relations since the 1950s.
     This is the second T. J. English book that tells the true, fascinating, and important "Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld" that all 325 million Americans need to read. If you haven't read it, you're probably too afraid to question the Cuban-Mafia's grip on the politics and economies of Miami,  the state of Florida, and the USA capital of Washington, D. C. 
    While you can forget depending on the U. S. media or the U. S. government to spill the truthful beans about the Havana-Mafia becoming the Miami-Mafia after 1959's victory by the Cuban Revolution over the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship, excellent movies based on the truth and very truthful documentaries do provide the truth about this ongoing and indelible alternation of the Cuban and American landscape. Particularly potent with their truth-telling are the two "Cocaine Cowboys" documentaries. Study, for example, the poster above that proclaims the fact that a  "Godmother" in Miami -- in real life -- made "Tony Montana look like Mother Teresa."
     The real-life Griselda Blanco was known, among other things, as the "Cocaine Queen of Miami" as you can see above. Her Wikipedia bio claims her cocaine empire took in "$80 million a month" and during that time it was reported that all other drug kingpins, including Pablo Escobar, were afraid of Griselda Blanco. Notice her Miami-Dade mugshot above. When she was finally arrested, she continued to run her drug cartel from a Florida prison, till she was released and deported to Columbia, where she was born in 1943 in the city of Cartagena. Back in Colombia, at age 69 on Sept. 3-2012, Griselda Blanco was murdered by two motorcycle-riding gunmen believed to be working for a rival cartel.
    But in her heyday in the 1970s and 1980s Griselda Blanco took full advantage of the Havana-to-Miami transition of the Batista-Mafiosi enterprise that had ransacked Cuba from 1952 till 1959. Yes, Griselda Blanca by the 1970s had become the most feared drug deader not only in Miami but also NY, LA, and Colombia. She's a legend. In August-2018 the Discovery channels are showing an updated documentary about her that is chillingly narrated by her son Michael Carleone Blanco.
Griselda Blanca in her prime.
    Yes indeed, truth-tellers and Hollywood all love the "real-life story of Miami's most ruthless drug lord" -- Griselda Blanco -- even if the U. S. government, the intimidated U. S. media, and Miami's Little Havana politicos don't. I mean, AFTER ALL, the Batistianos-Mafiosi sincw 1959 have dictated the Cuban narrative in the United States and thus they are portrayed as Mother Teresa-type angels while the Cuban rebels who chased them to Florida are painted as the worst villains in the world. The poster above is for the Hollywood movie "Cocaine Godmother: The Griselda Blanco Story" that starred super actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, the wife of superstar Michael Douglas, as Griselda.
     And now we're told that superstar Jennifer Lopez will be the next Hollywood A-list actress to play Miami's all-time Cocaine Superstar Griselda Blanco. In other words, since the Cuban Revolution in 1959 spawned Little Havana in Miami, Tony Montana & Griselda Blanco have emerged as that drastically changed American city's two most famous and infamous celebrties, even ahead of such famed Cuban exiles as...Jorge Mas Canosa, Rafael Diaz-Balart, Orlando Bosch, Luis Posada Carriles, etc. -- historic names that can be easily Googled but who, so far at least, don't have Hollywood championing their notoriety in the U. S. city of Miami that the Cuban Revolution so drastically RE-SHAPED.
      Many Mafia kingpins, from Havana visitor and investor Al Capone to Havana legends and dictators Meyer Lansky and Fulgencio Batista owned homes and other property in South Florida prior to the 1950s. But Miami and the Mafia didn't become synonymous as the Miami Mafia {cigars & all} until the Cuban Revolution chased the leaders of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship from Havana to Miami in January of 1959, permanently re-defining both Cuba and the United States.
    The historic Havana Mafia to Miami Mafia transition was perhaps best defined by a famous quote by the Cuban Revolution's incomparable heroine Celia Sanchez: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots." And after that gem, Celia, who died of cancer in her re-shaped Cuba in 1980, also famously and prophetically stated: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." Fidel died at age 90 in 2016 in Revolutionary Havana. In other words, Celia Sanchez was undefeated as a guerrilla fighter, revolutionary decision-maker, and as the definitive chronicler of both the Revolution and Revolutionary Cuba.
   A petite doctor's daughter, Celia Sanchez was not greedy, not a coward, and not an idiot. That's probably why her revolution won and chased her enemies to Miami...because she had the 100% support of not only the well-to-do lawyer Fidel Castro but also the entire everyday Cuban population, the portion not-aligned with the Mafiosi.
    Most people are aware that the Al Pacino, Brian DePalma, and Oliver Stone Hollywood classic "Scarface" established Tony Montana as Miami's all-time most notable celebrity. But 'lo  & behold, a new slew of documentaries and movies are making a very salient point, dropping Tony down to #Two.
     YES INDEED: "The Godmother...Griselda Blanco..."makes Tony Montana look like Mother Teresa." And TRUTH be known both Tony & Griselda were gifts to Miami and the United States from the victorious and still viable Cuban Revolution.
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26.8.18

Russia Boosts Cuba to Anger U.S.

Countering the Trump-Miami Assaults!!
{Updated: Tuesday, August 28th, 2018}
    Unlike China, Russia is not overflowing in cash that could readily be used to counter the renewed anti-Cuban assaults from the U. S. Trump administration. Yet, like China, Russia views Cuba as a key to usurping the USA's declining influence in the Caribbean and Latin America. The Moscow Times used the photo above to illustrate this recent headline: "Russia Allocates $10 million to Restore Cuban Capital's Golden Dome." Cuba itself is completing an expensive 8-year restoration plan for the historic capital that is an important tourist attraction in Havana.
   Another headline in the Moscow Times heralded this surprising article: "Russia Eyeing $200 million Investment in Cuba Airport with UAE." Ummmm...............................................????????
       Oil-rich Russia's economy is many times smaller than that of the United States, but it's nuclear-powered military remains incredibly awesome, verily matching the USA's nuclear might and delivery systems. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shogu has gleefully said, "Our Tu-160 and Tu-22m3 hypersonic bombers are raising such hackles in the West, we are producing even more than we need." NATO's code-name for the Tu-160 {shown above} is "Blackjack" and it can cruise at enormous heights, protected by Tu-22m3 squadrons armed with nuclear missiles, while reportedly being capable of dropping nuclear weapons with pinpoint accuracy almost anywhere in the world. Russia military strength along with its size...it covers 11 time zones and is by far the largest nation in the world...can intimidate NATO and the USA but Russia's new investments in Cuba indicate a replicate of the old Soviet Union's strategic interest in the USA's backyard.
   Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, welcomes new investments from countries like Russia and the UAE, of course, but he would much rather have closer ties with his close superpower neighbor, the United States. But President Diaz-Canel, during a closed-door session with his Ministers that reportedly ended up being secretly audio-taped, has said privately and openly, "The Obama decency towards Cuba was an anomaly that we can't waste our time hoping occurs again. Little Havana's Miami control of the U. S. Congress and all Republican presidents negates our hoping for better sustained U. S. ties. Our time spent hoping for that should better be devoted to all the other nations instead of the one that habitually is trying to destroy us." Before and after Diaz-Canel took over on April 19th-2018 as Cuba's first non-Castro and non-revolutionary leader since 1959, he had actively lived up to those words depicting the U. S. as "the one habitually is trying to destroy us." So yes, President Diaz-Canel not only welcomes investments from Russia, China, Vietnam, etc., but he is actively soliciting such interest as a means of combating the endless U. S. embargo and the latest Republican administration, Donald Trump's.
    As Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel is tasked with two primary goals: {1} Maintaining Cuba's independence even with another Republican administration, Trump's, in Washington; and {2} improving Cuba's economy even deep into the 6th decade of the U. S. economic embargo that continues its goal of "starving" and thus destroying Revolutionary Cuba. President Diaz-Canel's plan is to ignore the omnipotent USA as much as possible while firmly embracing "the rest of the world that is not trying to annihilate us to appease a few remaining remnants from the long-ago Batista years." For example, Diaz-Canel wants to resume exploration of Cuba's promising oil reserves and he is making strides in that very significant endeavor with an Australian company brave enough to defy the U. S. embargo.
    Australia's Melbana Energy has an established imprint in Cuba and has now updated its estimate of oil in Block 9 on Cuba's northern coast to 15.7 billion barrels.
       The above map shows the location of Block 9 that Melbana Energy plans to develop.
    The CEO of Melbana Energy, Robert Zammit, says, "Melbana is seeking partners to drill two significant wells in Cuba's Block 9."
    Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, as reported by the UPI news agency, has informed Cuba's new parliament of his plan to emphasize relations with friendly nations like Australia while de-emphasizing relations with the unfriendly United States as much as possible. And the Financial Tribune followed up on Diaz-Canel's parliamentary address {depicted above} with this headline: "Cuba Reshaping Gov't,  Economy."
    With drastic economic and political problems in Venezuela, Cuba drastically needs to increase its domestic oil production and new President Diaz-Canel is emphasizing that fact with help from Melbana Energy of Australia.
    This is Melbana Energy's own graphic depicting its belief that Cuba oil, including Block 9 shown in the lower-right, holds promise for producing profits for both Cuba and Melbana.
Cuba's Block 9 oil field.
     It is meetings like the one above with friendly companies from friendly nations, such as Melbana Energy of Australia, that Cuba now wants to stress while, according to President Miguel Diaz-Canel, "We should stop wasting our time hoping for more Obama-like friendly relations with the United States."
    As Trump's USA has curtailed Cuba's record-setting tourism growth during the friendly Obama presidency, Cuba is still stressing mammoth hotel expansions with foreign companies in Spain and Switzerland. An example is the FIVE-STAR, 246-room Gran Hotel Manzana {above} built in the heart of Havana by Switzerland's Kempinski Hotels, which is headquartered in Geneva, while it tries to compete in Cuba with other hotel builders like Spain's potent Iberostar Hotels & Resorts.
   This is the brand-new 5-Star, 321-room Iberostar Grand Packard Hotel in Old Havana. Spain's Iberostar Hotels & Resorts already operates 20 hotels across the island and has 8 more now being built or planned in the near future. So, while one nation, the United States, tries to starve Cuba with an embargo that is condemned worldwide, there are other nations who treat the sovereign island as the independent nation it has been since 1959, the last year it was dominated by foreign, exploitative elements that included the Mafia and the U. S.
    Meanwhile, Havana's historic and domed capital building is completing an 8-year restoration project financed by Cuba and now aided by a fresh $10 million gift from, uh...Russia!.
    In OTHER WORDS, even with Little Havana's Marco Rubio having the full support of the Trump administration to lead the latest U.S./Miami effort to regain control of Cuba, the pugnacious island remains determined to protect the independence it finally gained in 1959 when the Cuban Revolution chased the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia leaders back to the United States.
     In the USA -- as widely reported by the Miami Herald, the Miami New Times, and other knowledgeable media sources -- the Trump administration has turned the recapturing of Cuba over to two particular Counter Revolutionary members of the U. S. Congress from Little Havana in Miami: Mario Diaz-Balart and Marco Rubio. Diaz-Balart is the son of a former Minister in the Batista dictatorship that quickly, after 1959, became one of the richest and most powerful Counter Revolutionaries in Miami. Rubio has long based his political and economic fortunes, which are considerable, on genuflecting ties to the Little Havana-Miami extremists along with, as widely reported even by his hometown Miami Herald, his extreme loyalties to billionaire donors in Miami, Las Vegas, Israel, the NRA, etc. The photo above shows Mario & Marco in dour, worried moods -- PERHAPS BECAUSE RECAPTURING CUBA, even with Trump as the USA's Commander-in-Chief, IS TAKING A LITTLE LONGER THAN EXPECTED -- seven decades LONGER!!!
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cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story)

cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story) : Note : This particular essay on  Ana Margarita Martinez  was first ...