7.9.18

WHY Cuba Fears Trump

With Obvious Reasons!!
{Updated: Sunday, September 9th, 2018}
     This week -- on Sept. 5th, 2018 -- Politico, arguably the most influential media source in Washington because of the extreme left-wing tilt of the once-pertinent Washington Post -- used the AP photo above to headline a massively long article written by Thomas Wright. It's this week's best and most important review of the Trump White House and all Americans should skip the left-wing/right-wing propaganda that saturates America's television "news" coverage and read this article. It expertly explains why the Trump presidency is a dire military threat -- not to big boys like Russia or China, but to smaller more vulnerable nations, like Cuba. The incisive Politico article started with the above photo of John Bolton, a right-winger well-known for his war-mongered views. The Trump administration is now awash with right-wingers from the Bush dynasty. President George W. Bush once shocked America's allies by naming Bolton the U. S. Ambassador to the UN. Of course, it was a brief recess appointment that was withdrawn before it came up for confirmation by the Senate. But President Trump didn't have to consult the Senate when he shocked America's allies by naming Bolton America's TOP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER. The U. S., trying to wiggle out of its trillion-dollar, 17-year war in Afghanistan, certainly doesn't deserve John Boldon as its National Security Adviser because many sane people fear Bolton will ADVISE Trump to settle disagreements -- not with Russia or China, of course -- but with littler nations like Cuba that might later involve cataclysmic regional consequences or even attract participants like Russia or perhaps China.
    With National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, President Trump's two most powerful advisers on Foreign Relations comprise a duo that Americans have a right to consider extremely dangerous, especially Americans who would like to avoid wars and who cringe at hundreds of billions of dollars in new weapons sales to nations like Saudi Arabia to benefit America's vast Military Industrial Complex. {Remember Eisenhower's famed warning? If not, you should dial it up online}. Bolton's war-mongering ideals have been prominent in all recent Republican administrations and, when Democrats control the White House, his war-mongering lucratively pinpoints right-wing Think Tanks and "news" programs. Bolton is fiercely opposed to Revolutionary Cuba. Pompeo, when in Congress, supported or proposed every anti-Cuban measure in Washington.
     America's President Donald Trump -- as of September 7th, 2018 -- has spent 586 days in the White House. Everyone of those days, the mainstream left-wing news media has pushed aside the coverage of news and almost totally concentrated on a coup to overthrow Trump instead of waiting for the 2020 election when the majority of Americans should make that decision. The coup is enormous and probably Trump will indeed succumb to it sometime in 2019, his third year as President. Indeed, the coup-mongers have many billions of dollars and a huge slice of the U. S. media to overwhelm Trump because his fierce enemies include the owners of...the NY Times, Washington Post, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, and CBS. It also seems that America's most powerful conservative voices, such as Russ Limbaugh, are now resigned to Trump in 2019 falling victim to the left-wing media coup that might evolve into volatile chaos. And Limbaugh is correct when he says that former President Obama is the elephantine shadow that will assure the success of the coup that will prevent Trump from finishing his 4-year Presidential term. Study the above Limbaugh graphic.
   In America's two-party system, Barack Obama is still the leader of the Democratic Party whose left-wing tilt put the improbable Trump in the White House in the first place. In the last two years, the Dems have swung even further to the extreme left, with Obama still the leader. In two terms as President prior to Trump, Obama proved to be the bravest, most decent, and most intelligent United States president when it came to trying to correct America's ageless extreme cruelty and utter stupidity regarding its quest to first dominate and then exploit Cuba, a process that began in earnest in 1898 with the Spanish-American War. Obama was the first U. S. President to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge arrived in a warship in 1928. And Obama's visit was to show respect for the Cuban people. Obama accomplished many positive things, such as reopening embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1961, but since the 1980s a handful of Batistiano exiles from Little Havana in Miami have dictated Cuban policies in the U. S. Congress and, of course, in all Republican White Houses. So indeed, Cuba would be better off and so would America's worldwide reputation if Obama's Democratic Party replaces the Republican President Trump in the next few months or at least in 2020's election.
    President Trump simply does not have the moral authority or the political expertise of former President Barack Obama.
Also, there is something else in play that the mainstream media does not have the guts to admit, and that is this: There will never be a U. S. president, especially Trump or anyone aligned with the Bush dynasty, that will ever approach Fidel Castro's enduring popularity on the island of Cuba. Castro died at age 90 on Nov. 25-2016 and Cuba's new President is a non-Castro and a non-revolutionary, Miguel Diaz-Canel. But it is still Fidel's Cuba and there remain on the island millions of Fidel idolaters who would fight to the death to defend his revolution. If Americans don't understand that fact it is because they have been lied to, and to support such lies the Batistianos and their sycophants try massively hard to make it "illegal" for Americans to visit the island lest they {HEAVENS FORBID} judge it for themselves.
     One of Fidel's most ardent idolaters is Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, the former Education Minister.
    But Cuba is only an island and the nearby United States is the world's economic and military Superpower. And that's why the image above -- with President Trump pointing at Mauricio Claver-Carone -- symbolizes the distinct possibility that while Trump is President military action, prompted by some concocted PRETEXT, might well occur to at long last overthrow the pugnacious Cuban Revolution. If, indeed, that is Claver-Carone's plan he would hope to take advantage of Trump's obsession with avoiding impeachment and with the fact that even a threat of nuking Cuba would not make much of a ripple in the mainstream media. Every single major Trump adviser -- such as the aforementioned John Bolton and Mike Pompeo -- are fierce anti-Cuban war-hawks. And every single key appointment by Trump that directly affects Cuba is a fierce and self-serving Counter Revolutionary -- led by Mauricio Claver-Carone. Foreshadowing a drastic attempt to overthrow the Cuban government while Trump is President is the glaring fact that Claver-Carone is taking over as America's top man regarding Western Hemisphere Affairs. That means that Cuba and all nations friendly to Cuba in the Western Hemisphere will soon feel the wrath of Mauricio Claver-Carone now that he has the Trump-provided backing of the world's strongest military and the world's largest economy. And greatly exacerbating that basic fact are two things: {1} The mainstream U. S. media doesn't have the guts to tell the U. S. people the significance of Trump pointing to Claver-Carone; and {2} this generation of propagandized and intimidated Americans has neither the courage nor the patriotism to speak-out about whatever Claver-Carone, backed by Commander-in-Chief Trump, has in store for the vulnerable island of Cuba.
Also, 5 updated or pertinent photos:
     This REUTERS photo shows a security guard on the phone outside the U. S. Embassy building in Havana. Former President Obama opened embassies in Havana and Washington for the first time since 1962, but with Republican Trump now the U. S. President, the two embassies are now essentially gutted.
     This Tampa Bay Times photo shows a cruise ship in the far corner preparing to  dock at Havana Harbor.
     This Roberto Garaycoa Martinez photo shows two lovers silhouetted against the well-lit Havana skyline at night.
      This Tubal Palez Hernandez photo shows the late Revolutionary icon Fidel Castrolower-right, making a speech on Sept. 8-2000 at the Riverside Harlem Church in New York City.
    This Yo Soy Fidel {"I Am Fidel"} photo is an accurate illustration that in September of 2018 Fidel Castro, who died at age 90 on Nov. 25-2016, remains the dominant force in Cuba.
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5.9.18

America's Continuing Cuban Shame

As Cuba "Tantalizes"Counter Revolutionaries!
    The image above, I believe, chronicles why America's Batistiano/Mafiosi-dictated Cuban policies defame America and Democracy more than any other issue since the United States became the USA in 1776. The three dates that crystallize that belief are: {1} 1898 when the U. S. used the bloody explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor as the pretext for the Spanish-American War, which was successfully concocted to finally give the U. S., not Spain, the sole dominance over Cuba; {2} 1952 when right-wing thugs in he Eisenhower administration sicced the top echelons of the Mafia on Cuba so rich Americans could partake in the rape and robbery of the island; and {3} 1959 when the victorious Cuban Revolution chased the Batista-Mafia leaders back to U. S. soil where Little Havana in Miami became their new capital and headquarters in the decades-old quest to recapture Cuba while hiding behind the skirts of two omnipotent powers -- the USA & Democracy.
           And so, you ask, "How in the hell does the image at the top of this essay remind us of how Mauricio Claver-Carone epitomizes why and how America's Cuban policies since 1898-1952-1959...take your pick of the starting point...have done more harm to America's image and Democracy's image than any other single issue since 1776?" Good question; glad you asked. First off, the depiction above of Claver-Carone as a "Democracy Advocate" is a cruel joke, the type of propaganda that has been thrust down the throats of Americans since 1959. Every day of Claver-Carone's adult life on U. S. soil has been spent as the most visceral, most successful, and most unchallenged advocate for overthrowing Revolutionary Cuba...at least since the Bush dynasty back in the 1980s assigned that chore to emerging billionaire Jorge Mas Canosa, one of the Cuban graduates from the Brigade 2506 class at Fort Benning that was trained to make the infamously disastrous attack on Cuba in April of 1961 that is known as the Bay of Pigs.
    All his adult life Mauricio Claver-Carone has been obsessed with regime change in Cuba. Always de-emphasizing the extreme brutality and thievery of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship from 1952 till 1959, Claver-Carone is now the most prominent of the Counter Revolutionary extremists who have, for decades, gained enormous personal wealth and power in the USA even though their extreme efforts to regain control of Cuba have summarily failed and those efforts have harmed totally innocent everyday Cubans so much that the rest of the world voted 191-to-0 to grossly condemn the USA's Cuban policies in the UN in 2016, a condemnation that the decent USA President Barack Obama, in the last year of his two-term presidency, agreed with. But Obama has been replaced as President by Donald Trump, the 6th Republican U. S. President since the 1950s to be tightly aligned with the Batistiaano-Mafiosi gangs that direly, now into a third generation, still want to rule Cuba. And of those six Republican presidents since the 1950s, the unpredictable and unqualified Trump is the most dangerous when it comes to potentially using drastic military means to execute an overthrow of Revolutionary Cuba. President Trump, as expected, has turned America's Cuban policy, in the post-Obama era, back over to only the most extreme and self-serving Counter Revolutionaries. His most glaring move, which will not register with thoroughly propagandized Americans, is Trump's appointing Mauricio Claver-Carone to dictate America's Western Hemisphere Affairs. Cuba, of course, is in the Western Hemisphere and is a Foreign Country -- and those two Committees in the U. S. Congress are what Cuban-American extremists like Rubio, Diaz-Balart, Ros-Lehtinen, etc., always crave and then use to assail Cuba -- "legally," of course. But putting Claver-Carone in charge of America's Western Hemisphere Affairs while President Trump is distracted by trying desperately not to be impeached is the closest step since 1961, I believe, to the U. S. seriously considering a military strike against Cuba. Such a calamity, if it happens, would, of course, follow some appropriately concocted excuse -- which would be called "a pretext" -- perhaps not unlike the "still mysterious" explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor that was used as the pretext to justify the Spanish-American War in 1898 that, at least till the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, gave Cuba to the United States and its puppets.
    The current weakness of the United States democracy is personified by the above photo. When President Donald Trump can go to Little Havana in Miami and stand before a huge Bay of Pigs Brigade 2506 Assault Banner and proclaim that he is reversing all of former President Obama's sane and decent advances toward Cuba, it was up to both the U. S. citizens and the U. S. media to at least show a degree of patriotism and decency by weighing in on Trump's brazen capitulation to a handful of Counter Revolutionary extremists. But, of course, this generation of American citizens and the current American media have neither the guts nor the patriotism to question Trump on one particular topic -- Cuba. And that sadly includes the extreme left-wing media -- the NY Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, and ABC -- that are engaged in a fierce media conspiracy and coup designed to overturn the 2016 election and remove Donald Trump from the White House.
    But this, I believe, is the photo that represents the biggest threat to not only Cuba but to America itself. President Trump's anointment of Senator Marco Rubio as America's new Cuban dictator will not be challenged by either this unpatriotic generation of Americans or by the current incompetent and dysfunctional left wing/right wing tilts of the present status of the media. Thus, while Trump tries desperately to avoid impeachment and depends on Miami's Little Havana extremists, Rubio is free to dictate Cuban policy for the U. S. government. Just in recent days Rubio has positioned a cadre of the most visceral and most self-serving Counter Revolutionaries in the most powerful positions to overthrow Revolutionary Cuba. And neither the American people nor the U. S. media, by and large, have either the guts or the patriotism to care.
   Beyond Russia or any other topic confronting America, the prime reason President Trump should be impeached is his Cuban policy that now, for example, includes putting the extremely dangerous Counter Revolutionary extremist Mauricio Claver-Carone in charge of America's Western Hemisphere Affairs, which primarily means Cuba and ALL COUNTRIES IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE that might be supportive of Cuba. Of course, any Western Hemisphere country that will support Claver-Carone's anti-Cuban extremism can now expect lush rewards...courtesy of United States taxpayers.
Meanwhile:
     The Washington Post -- now owned by Cuban-American Jeff Bezos,  the world's richest man -- used the above Abel Padron photo to illustrate a major Editorial about Cuba's new Constitution that was recently drafted by its parliament. The Post, supposedly representing left-wing U. S. propaganda, defined the new Cuban Constitution as "Tantalizing." Wow!! I guess the reference was to the drastic changes Cuba's new Constitution proposes now that Cuba has a new non-Castro, non-Revolutionary President named Rafael Diaz-Canel.
    The Cuban National Assembly with its newly proposed Constitution mandated that...criminal defendants are innocent until proven guilty, that marriage is between two individuals that are not necessarily a man and a woman, that private enterprises and foreign investments will constitute the hallmarks and cornerstones for improving the economy to better counteract the U. S. embargo that has existed since 1962, etc., etc. Those drafts will now be debated and then likely ratified via a referendum vote at 35,000 polling place across the island early in 2019.
      Cuba's President as of April 19th, 2018, is Miguel Diaz-Canel, shown above in the lower-left at that "tantalizing" National Assembly session. Born in 1960 after the triumph of the Revolution, Diaz-Canel has elevated Homero Acosta Alvarez {center, front row} to be Secretary of the National Assembly and Salvador Valdes Mesa {right, front row} as the new First Vice President, which was Diaz-Canel's former position. Before that, Diaz-Canel was Cuba's Education Minister.
    Now Cuba's Minister of Education is Ena Elsa Velazquez Cobiella, which means she is one of the most powerful Cubans. She is also beloved on the island although, with Counter Revolutionaries in control of the Cuban narrative in the U. S., Americans are told that the likes of Rubio and Claver-Carone are more interested in helping Cuba's children than Ena Velazquez is and that, of course, is typical of the damn lies that shame America far more than they shame Ena Valazquez's Cuba.
      With a new President and a new Constitution, Revolutionary Cuba is quite aware that U. S. President Donald Trump has turned America's Cuban policies over to only the most extreme Counter Revolutionary extremists like Marco Rubio and Mauricio Claver-Carone. One of the responses across the island has been a plethora of large posters proclaiming "Cuba es Nuestra" -- "Cuba is Ours." And that means CUBA BELONGS TO CUBANS ON THE ISLAND, not a few self-serving Cubans in Miami and in the U. S. Congress who are newly emboldened by yet another Republican President {Trump} tightly tied to the Cuban extremists, and that is an American shame whether or not Americans have the guts or the patriotism to admit it.
      Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel seems to be very popular with everyday Cubans and with long-time Cuban officials. He is shown above on July 19th honoring Josefina Vidal, the island's former top diplomat regarding all U. S. issues. Vidal is now Cuba's Ambassador to Canada.
 Vidal & Diaz-Canel.
    Well-known as the island's former Education Minister, President Miguel Diaz-Canel, as mentioned, is also very popular with everyday Cubans. He believes the two priorities they are demanding he concentrate on are: {1} To follow the revolutionary ideals of Fidel Castro in defending Cuban independence; and {2} to improve the decimated economy that has been harmed by the endless U. S. embargo and by what he admits are Cuba's own bureaucratic internal mistakes.
      Even prior to becoming President on April 19th, Diaz-Canel had chaired meetings in which he insisted that "we need to stop wasting our time hoping the U. S. will have another president as decent as Obama and start using that wasted time to concentrate on dealing with friendly nations, including old and current friends but also the cultivation of new friends."
      As the first non-Castro leader of Cuba since 1959, President Miguel Diaz-Canel will rule the island as he believes his revolutionary idol, Fidel Castro, would want him to rule it. However, Diaz-Canel, shown above paying homage at Fidel's tomb in Santiago, is aware that Cuba "must adjust to modernity, to a new digital world and continue to resist to the death the old, illegal blockade administered by the nearby world superpower. Such realistic problems, as well as ongoing nuanced ambiguities, will challenge us as before but also anew. But for the revolution's sake and for sovereignty's sake, we must be willing to perish in order to keep alive our basic ideals...namely the revolution and the independence it achieved. A return to Mafia rule...American rule...is out of the question for us, now and forever."
   With a distracted, unstable, malleable, and unpredictable President Trump as Commander-in-Chief, a Marco Rubio left unchecked by the American people and by the American media as he points menacingly, cruelly, and self-servingly from Little Havana across the Florida Straits to Havana is an insult not only to innocent Cubans but especially to the United States and to Democracy. Cuba doesn't need another foreign American dictator and America doesn't need propped-up and ill-intentioned Rubio-types posing as rich choirboys as they dictate Cuban policies no democracy-loving American should tolerate or accept.
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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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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 ...