Cuba's Female Martyrs

Revolutionary Heroines Remembered!!

     To a very large extent, as Fidel Castro often stressed, the Cuban Revolution was a female-powered revolution that began in earnest in 1953 when extremely brave mothers took to the streets with huge placards accusing the Batista-Mafia dictatorship of murdering their children as warnings not to dissent. From the outset of the guerrilla war to overthrow the U.S.-and-Mafia-backed Batista, omnipotent Cuban women were on the front-lines of the war as fighters, recruiters of rebels and supplies, and as decision-makers. Those famed women included...Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, Vilma Espin, Tete Puebla, and thousands like them. Although she died of cancer at age 59 on Jan. 11, 1980, there remain in Cuba today many statues of Celia Sanchez but none of Fidel Castro, who wanted it that way.

      With that being said, this week in September-2018 there were special ceremonies honoring the lives of two of the Revolution's greatest heroines -- Lidia Doce and Clodomira Acosta. Their images, courtesy of Radio Rebelde, are depicted above.

             Lidia and Clodomira were Mountain Messengers during the war. They took vital messages from battlefield to battlefield and from rebel strongholds to the Commanders, working directly under and reporting to Celia Sanchez, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, and Che Guevara. Their work was considered the most dangerous because they had to constantly maneuver between Batista check-points and, yes, Batista's bounties for their capture were huge and paid in cash. Batista's goons wanted the Mountain Messengers captured, not killed, because they wanted to unmercifully torture them as long as possible before they died from the extreme torture. Such was the historic fate of Lidia and Clodomira.

   Lidia was 20 years older than Clodomira, who was mentored by Lidia. Lidia was born on August 27, 1916, in Vetazco in Holguin territory; Clodomira was born on February 1, 1936, in Manzanillo, the city on the southeastern tip of the island where the doctor's daughter, Celia Sanchez, began the war's most vital early recruitments of rebels and supplies. Two of Celia's most important recruits turned out to be Lidia and Clodomira.

         In 1958, as the war began to heat up and -- incredibly -- turn in favor of the rebels, Batista's huge bounties on the heads of the Mountain Messengers were paying off, and the two largest bounties were for the capture of Lidia and Clodomira. The two precious women, so vital to the war effort, were in a safe-house coordinating their missions with four young male rebels. They were betrayed and Batista's soldiers surrounded the house, capturing the six rebels. The young men were tortured and then quickly murdered and they were: Alberto Alvarez, 21; Leonardo Valdes, 23; Anelio Dampier, 22; and Reinaldo Cruz, 20.

     The four young rebels after they were executed the day Lidia Doce and Clodomira Acosta were also captured.

      Lidia and Clodomira were spared only so, as the most famed Mountain Messengers, they could be tortured as long as possible before they died.

     By 1958 Batista's most infamous murderers included Esteban Ventura. He was in charge of torturing Lidia and Clodomira. 

    The details of  how Lidia and Clodomira died are known because of the accounts of their heartless captors. For days they were tortured as punishment but also to induce them to reveal vital information about the rebel offensive that Batista and Ventura knew they possessed.
    But to the consternation and amazement of Ventura, based on data his aides reported directly to Batista, never -- NOT ONCE -- did either Lidia or Clodomira utter a single word to their torturers, NOT to plea for mercy and NOT to reveal a single word about the vital information that knew would harm the war efforts of Celia Sanchez, the Castro brothers, and Che Guevara.
     Based on the Batista-Ventura records, it is believed that Lidia died  just a few agonizing minutes before Clodomira succumbed to the relentless torture. Clodomira's very last smile in Cuba was when she at last knew that her beloved friend and mentor Lidia had finally died and could be punished no more.
     It is believed, based on Ventura accounts, that their deaths occurred on September 17, 1958. Thus, on that date each year -- INCLUDING THIS WEEK IN THE YEAR 2018 -- ceremonies honoring two of the all-time greatest rebels are commemorated. NO ONE DESERVES IT MORE.
      After they were tortured to death, Batista ordered that their bodies be thrown into the sea, and they were never recovered.

Clodomira Acosta and Lidia Doce.

Batista's Colonel Esteban Ventura.

     The Cuban Revolution's incomparable Celia Sanchez in 1965, almost seven years after overthrowing Batista, told Bohemia Magazine:

     "In September of 1958 we began winning the war...capturing cities and holding them as our forward units, led by Che and Camilo, were on a direct path to Havana, hoping to get there before the Batistianos fled. But I remember in the Sierra it was on September 24 when we got confirmation that four of our young rebels had been executed at the home where Lidia and Clodomira had been captured. I've never been a crier but after hearing that I cried for two whole days and nights. Then we learned Lidia and Clodomira were being kept alive so they could be tortured as long as possible. Finally, in the end two reliable sources informed us that Clodomira, just before she died, managed a smile because she had learned that Lidia had died and could no longer be tortured. I'm trying to say, despite all of the tragedies of the war and the tragedies that caused the war, most of the tears from my eyes were for Lidia and Clodomira. And I will never apologize for that...NEVER. They meant that much to me and to the war."

     The photo above was taken in August of 1958 by Celia Sanchez herself. The lady in the middle in the white shirt is Lidia Doce about a month before she was murdered. The lady next to Lidia is Grizelda Sanchez, Celia's lookalike sister. And, of course, at Lidia's left shoulder is Fidel Castro. Lidia had just turned to Fidel and happily said, "Estamos ganando ahora, verdad?" {"We're winning now, aren't we?"}. The Commander on the left is Juan Almeida, who also reviewed Lidia's latest messages.

Lidia Doce.

This is believed to be.......

....the last photo ever taken of.....

22-year-old Clodomira Acosta.
***************

*&***********************&*

Cuba President to Visit U.S.

Diaz-Canel's First U. S. Trip!!
{Updated: Monday, September 17th, 2018}

    Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, will make his first-ever trip to the USA later this month of September, 2018. He's coming to New York to represent Cuba at the United Nations. But he's set one day aside --  September 28th -- to also meet with friendly Cuban-Americans as well as U. S. business leaders interested in possibly investing in Miguel Diaz-Canel's Cuba.

     Since Miguel Diaz-Canel took over as Cuba's President on April 19th, the Cuban parliament, including the Council of Ministers, has been sharply revamped with Diaz-Canel's stamp.

     The Cuban parliament has devised a new Constitution to replace the one that has prevailed since 1976. President Diaz-Canel sees the urgent need to improve the island's economy by seeking foreign investment but also by allowing for more private enterprise and also stressing agricultural production because Cuba purchases most of the food consumed on the island, which Diaz-Canel thinks should be produced by Cubans. The new constitution has already been ratified by the parliament and currently is being publicly debated nationwide before it will surely be passed into law by a referendum vote early in 2019.

    Since the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution, women -- such as heroines Celia Sanchez, Vilma Espin, and Haydee Santamaria as well as modern leaders like Josefina Vidal -- have held powerful positions in the Revolutionary Government. But President Diaz-Canel has elevated many current women to strong positions, such as Johana Tablada, who has served as Cuba's Ambassador to Portugal. But this past week the photo above shows Tablada at the podium in Washington as she led a strong Cuban delegation that not only debunked but ridiculed the Trump administration's claim that Cuba -- or some ally like Russia or China -- is responsible for so-called sonic-or-health attacks on U. S. diplomats in Havana. She, for example, asked the U. S. to reveal how many of the "26 injured diplomats were CIA agents."

    As reported in major articles by NBC, ABC, the NY Times, the Washington Post, etc., in Washington this week the feisty Johana Tablaba accused the U. S. of "fabricating or withholding vital information about the alleged attacks" that she maintained were intended solely to be used as an excuse to reverse President Obama's positive overtures to Cuba. She claimed that the "the Cubans in Congress and in the Trump White House" want Americans to believe that Cuba, not the anti-Cubans in the U. S., wanted to destroy Cuba's vital tourism industry and she said, "that's ridiculous but I guess those who control the narrative or the intimidation factors can get away with it if the world's most powerful nation allows it to happen."

     Cuba's frustrations with America regarding the "health attacks" that Cuba has begged the U. S. to investigate fairly since 2016 were left this week in the hands of Johana Tablada and the Cuban experts she brought with her to Washington. "To claim we would hurt ourselves in such a manner doesn't meet the smell test, and the United States knows it," Tablada said, adding, "so why not come clean. Start with admitting who's being hurt and who is benefiting from the attacks."

     After her important mission in Washington, Johana Tablada took the above photo as her airplane returned her to her beloved Cuba. She posted the photo on her Facebook page with this caption: "La mas bella que ojos humanos han vista" {"The most beautiful human eyes have seen." Johana's sentence replicated the words Columbus put in his diary in October of 1492 when he described Cuba's la tierra {"the land"} the most beautiful his eyes had ever seen. [NOTE: I've been to Cuba and I happen to agree with both Johana and Columbus regarding Cuba's beauty].

Johana's airplane photo.

 Cuba's Johana Tablada believes that self-serving Counter Revolutionaries led by Senator Marco Rubio from Miami's Little Havana brigade are taking advantage of President Trump's many other distractions as well as Trump's need for the political support provided by Little Havana to "devise a Cuban policy in Washington designed to destroy Cuba but one that also harms most Cuban-Americans and Americans of all stripes too." And Johana Tablada this week, allowed to speak in Washington with major U. S. news organizations on hand, seemed to drown out Rubio who is more accustomed to speaking before the choir in Little Havana, as shown above, or to his equally self-serving and sycophantic members of the United States Congress.

     It is well known that Johana Tablada in Cuba studied some of Fabiola Santiago's recent columns in Rubio's hometown Miami Herald that scathingly denounced Rubio's self-serving actions regarding Cuba. Santiago was born in Cuba and since 1980 has been one of the Miami Herald's most anti-Castro journalists. She is now that newspaper's top Editor and Columnist regarding all things, not just Cuba. She recently assailed President Trump for putting Rubio in charge of America's Cuban policies, pointing out that Rubio is so self-centered that he ignores the best interests of everyone but himself and his billionaire political donors, disrespecting the majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami. And, yes, Johana Tablada, representing Cuba in Washington this week, had read what Miami's top journalist, Fabiola Santiago, has said about Marco Rubio, the man Tablada for sure and Santiago seemingly believe is most responsible for pressuring the unpredictable President Trump with excuses to annihilate Revolutionary Cuba -- as if the city of Miami, the state of Florida, and the United States of America don't have enough problems already, such as...gun epidemics, drug epidemics, and epidemics of unpopular but entrenched politicians getting elected in a money-crazed/two-party political system in which both parties can be purchased by the highest bidders. 

*&***********************&*

U.S. Hides "Mystery" Facts

Says A  Respected Neuroscientist!!

     The highly respected leader of Cuba's Neuroscience Center, Dr. Mitchell Valdes, was in Washington yesterday -- Sept. 13th, 2018 -- at the head of a large team of Cuban medical and scientific experts who met with their American counterparts. They were discussing the alleged sonic attacks on 26 U. S. diplomats in Cuba, allegations that have been used as the pretext for the Trump administration to reverse the decent and peaceful Obama overtures to Cuba. The mainstream U. S. media normally doesn't consider it necessary, or healthy, to treat Cuban issues fairly but Dr. Valdes' position regarding the contentious sonic topic has been treated fairly by NBC News in a major interview conducted September 13th by NBC's top Foreign Correspondent Andrea Mitchell. The report, which can be dialed up easily online, is entitled: "Cuban Doctor Says There's No Proof Any Attacks On U. S. Diplomats Ever Happened." If you bother to listen, you'll hear Dr. Valdes explain that Cuba has not only cooperated fully with the U. S. regarding the attacks but begged for far more cooperation than the U. S. has been willing to provide. He believes that's because Cuba is the nation that is being drastically hurt by the claims while anti-Cuban extremists in the U. S. are the prime beneficiaries.  He told Andrea Mitchell, "Their is no evidence of brain damage. The idea there is brain damage in a large group of subjects and that the brain damage occurred in Havana is not demonstrated. The explanation of data has not occurred. Any of the hypotheses that have been proposed simply violate the laws of physics. We in Cuba hope that this would be the beginning of a collaborative and detailed exchange of data so we can establish what happened." Dr. Valdes, who is respected by his American counterparts, challenged the U. S. to cooperate with Cuban experts and admit that the situation hurts Cuba and helps anti-Cuban elements. Dr. Valdes told NBC News this basic fact: "In Cuba everyone was happy with the advance under President Obama when Cuba and the U. S. were cooperating on important medical issues that benefited everyone."

    For anyone who missed Andrea Mitchell's September 13-2018 fair-minded NBC News update on the "Cuba Mystery" that anti-Cuban extremists in the U. S. are using to target Cuba, it is still posted all over the Internet, including YouTube. Of course, Senator Rubio and the other Cuban-American extremists who benefit so much from assaulting Cuba much prefer that all Americans listen only to their one-sided propaganda.

     And so, Americans...for the most part...will continue to meekly get their definitive Cuban propaganda from three prime sources -- Rubio, Rubio, and Rubio. That, of course, is not the way it's supposed to work in a Democracy but no one can pinpoint any period since 1898 when the United States applied Democratic principles to its conquests or attempted conquests of Cuba. But, of course, one man -- former President Obama -- did his best to correct that long-standing abomination.

   As President of the United States, Obama had the guts and the decency to go to Cuba and personally tell the Cuban people: "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." President Obama meant those words but a few months later he didn't expect Donald Trump, of all people, to be elected President. That put another Republican in the White House and history reveals that all six Republican presidents since the 1950s have been tightly aligned to the Batistiano-Mafiosi extremists who have either ruled Cuba {1952-1959} or tried desperately to recapture Cuba {1959 till today} while hiding behind the skirts of the world's nearby economic and military superpower. Little Havana's Senator Rubio, of course, can't deny such facts but he can bask in the knowledge that an ever-weakening U. S. democracy is not in a position to reign in whatever plans {diabolical or just cunning} that he concocts to regain control of Cuba. "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." Those twelve words meant something when the USA had a decent President, but they mean very little now.

*&***********************&*

Has Trump's War Against Cuba Started?

The NY Times Thinks So!!
{Updated: Friday, September 14th, 2018}

Photo courtesy: Michelle Eve Sandberg/Corbis/Getty Images.

    A lot of headline-grabbing things are happening in the USA right now but the majestic New York Times yesterday -- Sept. 12, 2018 -- used a massive article to explain that the Trump administration's impending war against Cuba is getting underway and perhaps that deserves a headline too. The above photo illustrated that article, depicting a street in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood where a boisterous protest against the U. S. opening an embassy in Havana occurred during the Obama administration in 2015. Now the NY Times seems to think that the Trump administration's war to both overturn Obama's overtures to Cuba AND overthrow Cuba's government is now underway.

     The huge NY Times article on Sept. 12-2020 highlighted the above photo, which is courtesy of Raul E. Diego/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images. It shows President Trump in Miami's Little Havana assuring the Counter Revolutionary Cuban extremists that he will reverse Obama's Cuban overtures as well as their {and America's} humiliating defeat at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961. The Trump speech was in Little Havana's lavish Manuel Artime Theater, named for a leader who led the Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba. The NY Times now believes alarming new developments in Little Havana portend Trump's war on Cuba to appease the Little Havana extremists that he deems necessary to again secure Florida's massive array of Electoral Votes he would need for a 2020 re-election {if he survives a first-term impeachment, which now may be about a 50-50 proposition}.

    The gripping Sept. 12th-2018 article was written by Frances Robles, the NY Times' greatest expert on events in Little Havana. For years, Ms. Robles covered Little Havana for the Miami Herald. Her insightful and scary article is entitled: "The FBI Is Quietly Contacting Cubans in Florida, Raising Old Alarm Bells." NO KIDDING!! Among her scary revelations was: "At least five Cuban-Americans have been surprised by FBI agents" because they  support Obama's overtures to Cuba, NOT TRUMP'S??

     When the New York Times' greatest expert on Little Havana, Frances Robles, believes fresh incidents in Miami may be a preclude to President Trump keeping his promises to the Counter Revolutionary extremists, Americans should, but probably won't, take notice. Extreme intimidation and almost total control of the Cuban narrative in the U. S. by Cuban extremists has, since 1959, sufficiently scared and programmed Americans not to even weigh in on the U.S.-Cuban conundrum, as Frances Robles and other Cuban experts seem to understand and, as brave journalists, have the integrity to report. In yesterday's article, Frances Robles details the ongoing FBI harassment of Cubans in Miami who support Obama-like decency towards Cubans on the island. And if the FBI is overtly doing that, what in the hell is the CIA, which orchestrated the Bay of Pigs and many other attacks on Cuba, doing covertly??

   The Frances Robles-NY Times article should rekindle memories of Emilio Milian this week. Like most Cuban-Americans in Miami, Emilio strongly opposed deadly terrorist attacks by Miami's extremist Cubans against totally innocent Cubans on the island and Cubans in Miami. Emilio was the top Cuban-American newsman in Miami and he bravely voiced those opinions on his news programs in 1976 when he starkly denounced such horrendous events as the terrorist bombing that killed all aboard the civilian, child-laden Cubana Flight 455 aircraft. Then Emilio was silenced by a typical Counter Revolutionary weapon in Miami, a car-bomb. Most significantly is the fact that the intended message, sent to the U. S. media and to the U. S. citizens, has largely been heeded since 1976's typical example involving Emilio. To this day, the vast majority of Americans, even in the digital age, are too afraid to Google such things as Cubana Flight 455 or Emilio Milian or yesterday's Frances Robles article lest they upset the Counter Revolutionary extremists in Little Havana, in the U. S. Congress, and, of course, in all Republican White Houses.

     And that's why this week's use of the above photo by Frances Robles and the New York Times is so significant to the United States democracy that a mere handful of Counter Revolutionary Cuban extremists have been allowed to demean since 1959 when they fled the Cuban Revolution for their Little Havana sanctuary in Miami and later in the U. S. Congress. Of all the anti-democratic things President Trump has done since January 20th of 2017, the above speech to the Counter Revolution choir in Little Havana was/is probably the MOST anti-democratic Trump endeavor. Yet, the programmed and intimidated U. S. citizens and U. S. media -- including those who are fiercely advocating Trump's impeachment -- can once again be expected to be too afraid, too stupid, or too unpatriotic to question Trump even as he appears, as Frances Robles suggests this week, to be creeping closer to his war on Cuba to appease a handful of Little Havana extremists he deems necessary to his political survival. Would such an unwinnable war...even if he nukes Cuba...create an endless conflagration throughout the region? Yes, most likely. But who cares? After all, THE TOPIC IS CUBA and the Cuban Revolution MUST BE DESTROYED even if the effort finishes destroying the America we once proudly knew.

*&***********************&* 

U.S. Blames Russia for Cuban "Attacks"

But It's Still "Inconclusive"!!

Photo courtesy: Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters.

   The photo above shows a Russian Lada passing by the Russian embassy in Havana. It was used to illustrate a major article/report by NBC News today entitled: "U. S. Officials Suspect Russia In 'Attacks' Mystery On Diplomats In Cuba, China." It said, "The evidence is not yet conclusive." The attacks started "in late 2016," which was the last year of the Cuba-friendly Obama administration that had greatly helped Cuban tourism and other aspects of its economy. The attacks have thus hurt Cuba drastically and greatly pleased the vast Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Miami and in the U. S. Congress. NBC said "26 U. S. government workers were injured in the still unexplained attacks" but added that "the victims included multiple CIA officers" and NBC also used the word "spies" to describe many of the "U. S. workers" affected. Spies or not, the blaming of Cuba has hurt Cuba and greatly pleased Cuba's legendary enemies in Miami and in the U. S. Congress, and that aspect of the investigation is rarely mentioned in the U. S. media or by the U. S. government. NBC mentioned that "Russia and China" have spies in Cuba but probably not as many as the United States.

      The photo above -- courtesy of Desmond Boylan/Associated Press -- was also used to illustrate the exhaustive NBC article. It is well worth reading for an update on the "mystery attacks" in Havana that have supposedly been going on and massively investigated since 2016, Obama's final year as President. As long as the investigations and the updates continue, they will continue to be used by the vast Counter Revolutionary forces in Miami and in the U. S. Congress to massively hurt Cuba. For the sake of fairness, that equation should be mentioned in evaluating the "mystery" but NBC News today at least stressed that "the victims included multiple CIA officers" as opposed to regular U. S. embassy workers in Havana, and that is an interesting revelation to ponder.

*&***********************&*

Old Friend Returns to Cuba

and he is still.................

.......Saddened by the Embargo!!
{Updated: Tuesday, Sept. 11th, 2018}

Photo courtesy: Steve Lundy/Associated Press.

      84-year-old George Ryan and twenty other avid anti-Embargo Americans arrived in Havana Monday -- Sept. 10th, 2018 -- on a mission to blunt the Trump administration's tightening of the Embargo against Cuba that has existed since 1962 to appease Counter Revolutionary Cuban-American extremists and their Republican sycophants. Ryan, the former Governor of Illinois, visited Fidel Castro in Havana in 1999 on the same mission. Till Castro died in 2016, each year he had sent a box of Cuban cigars to celebrate Ryan's birthdays. As a jab at the Trump administration, the Ryan group of twenty-one is staying at the Hotel Capri, one of the alleged places the Trump White House has labeled off-limits because it is where some of the alleged sonic-attacks against American diplomats have taken place, the excuse the Trump administration has used to curtail Cuban tourism that had reached new heights during the Cuba-friendly Obama presidency that preceded Trump's new assaults.

     The famed 82-year-old Chicago billionaire Jerry Reinsdorf is also on the George Ryan-led mission to Cuba this week that will extend from Monday through Thursday. For the past 25 years Reinsdorf has been the owner of Major League baseball's Chicago White Sox and the National Basketball Association's Chicago Bulls.

**************************

Photo courtesy: Jorge Ray/Associated Press.

   Back in October of 1999 George Ryan visited Cuba at the invitation of his friend Fidel Castro. At the time George Ryan was the Governor of Illinois and he was one of the many Americans ashamed of the U. S. embargo against Cuba that has existed since 1962 at the behest of a handful of Counter Revolutionary extremists and their easily purchased sycophants in the U. S. Congress and in all Republican White Houses. At about the time of this visit, de-classified U. S. documents revealed that the purpose of the Embargo in 1962 was to starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of ordinary Cubans to induce them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. From cowardly generation-to-cowardly-generation since 1962, that remains the primary intention of the embargo after all other means to recapture Cuba have failed --including a world-record number of assassination attempts, the 1961 Bay of Pigs air-land-and-sea military attack, an endless litany of Congressional "legals" laws designed to destroy Cuba, and an astonishing series of murderous terrorist attacks against innocent Cubans in airplanes, on ships, in cars, and against pedestrians on foot. Such things, of course, embarrassed America's democracy-lovers, AND THEY STILL DO.

   The photo above was taken by T. J. Salsman for the Illinois Journal-Register. It shows Governor George Ryan on his October-1999 visit to Cuba. He was surrounded by students from Havana's Abraham Lincoln Primary School. Today -- Monday, Sept. 10-2018 -- Mr. Ryan arrives back in Havana. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, he said: "I can't go back as a tourist. This is not a client trip or a humanitarian trip. Hell, I'm 84 years old. I'm just really looking forward to going back to rekindle memories of old times and dreams we had back in 1999 for my first trip to Cuba in hopes of getting the embargo lifted."

    Of course, the Embargo from 1962 till today still hasn't been lifted, despite the herculean efforts of democracy-loving Americans like George Ryan and President Barack Obama. As a decent and brave two-term President that preceded the Republican Donald Trump, Obama did everything in his power to normalize relations with Cuba and end the Embargo but he failed because Batistiano-written laws in the U. S. Congress mandate that only Congress can end it. Thus, the U. S. democracy is not strong enough to end it, despite the efforts of Ryan, Obama, and millions of other decent Americans and despite the unanimity of world opinion as chronicled by the 191-to-0 vote condemning the Embargo in the UN in 2016, the last year the U. S. had a President who was not aligned as a political beneficiary of the Little Havana extremists in Miami.

     Cuba has changed drastically since 2016, the year that Fidel Castro died at age 90 and the year a weird and troubling U. S. election made Obama's successor as President the improbable Trump. That election, that transition, reveals how troubled the U. S. democracy is, and not just because it returns to the White House another Republican President tightly tied to the Cuban Counter Revolutionary extremists in Miami. The U. S. democracy, with a money-crazed and mostly bought-and-paid-for federal government, has many more serious problems than just Cuba. But it is a Democracy now in a downward spiral in which it is almost impossible to get decent democracy-lovers elected to Congress or to the Presidency. So, we are in a period when polls show that both Congress and the current President are extremely unpopular with American voters who often have to choose between the lesser-of-two-evils when they vote. Meanwhile in Cuba, it was the island's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, who extended that invitation for a friendly American, George Ryan, to re-visit Cuba today. Diaz-Canel, a former Education Minister who is a non-Castro and a non-revolutionary, now leads Cuba while across the Florida Straits in the USA another handful of Counter Revolutionary Cuban-Americans have tight grips on a U. S. government still determined to regain control of Cuba.

    But does Cuba deserve for the U.S.-backed Batistianos-Mafiosi to regain control of the island that has been a sovereign nation since 1959? History, including the graphic above that tells of the Mafia-led plundering of Cuba from 1952 till 1959, says, "No. Cubans on the island, not foreign-backed plunderers, should determine the island's fate."

     From 1952 till 1959 Batistiano and Mafia thugs as well as rich U. S. businessmen wallowed in wealth on the island but the everyday Cubans, as shown above, lived in abject poverty with no hope of educational or health benefits and little hope of food.

    Yes, before Americans ever heard of Fidel Castro, photos like the ones above and articles in the New York Times by the great Herbert L. Matthews informed U. S. citizens that the Batista thugs were murdering Cuban children as warnings against resisting the brutal dictatorship. It was brave marches by Cuban mothers, like the ones depicted above, that fueled the revolution and inspired rebels like Celia Sanchez and Fidel Castro to attempt what was considered impossible but vital -- the first overthrow of a U.S.-backed dictatorship.

     By not even bothering to throw crumbs at the Cuban peasants and even brutally murdering children as a warning to potential resisters, Batista's dictatorship gave birth to Fidel Castro and to an historic event known as the Cuban Revolution.

    Even when the right-wing rulers in Havana and Washington didn't consider the little rebellion in Cuba a threat, Batista's thugs routinely gunned down expected rebels, with famed murders including University of Havana students like Jose Antonio Echeverria, 23-year-old teacher Frank Pais and his teenage brother Jesus, etc., etc. Study the graphic above from 1953 just as the Revolution was getting started in the Sierra Maestra Mountains on the far southeastern tip of the island.

     The historic AP/NY Times photo above was taken in 1956. It shows Batista soldiers lavishly supported by American trainers getting ready to board airplanes to fly to the Sierra Maestra foothills and put down the rebellion. Such efforts cost many millions of U. S. tax dollars and wasn't challenged by propagandized United States citizens, but it failed miserably because the Cuban rebels were far more motivated.

     This photo reveals a basic fact about U.S.-Cuban relations. Fictionalized Hollywood movies have revealed more truths about U.S.-Cuban relations than either the U. S. government or the mainstream U. S. media has provided. The scene above is from one of the famed "Godfather" movies. It depicts famed Mafia thugs conducting a famed meeting atop the famed Hotel National in Havana. As a semi-truth, this scene is far more truthful than anything U. S. citizens will get from the U. S. government or the U. S. media regarding U.S.-Cuban relations.

     A mere handful of Counter Revolutionary extremists from Miami and in the U. S. Congress have been allowed to dictate America's Cuban narrative and American's Cuban laws since 1959. Therefore, Americans are programmed to believe that the Batista dictatorship in Cuba in the 1950s was a Mother Teresa-like angelic government and that the return of such an angelic foreign domination of Cuba is something the American people must accept and support -- OR ELSE!!

    And so, George Ryan, now 84 and the former controversial Republican Governor of Illinois, today -- Sept. 10th-2018 -- arrives in Cuba at the invitation of the island's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel. Ryan had visited the island in 1999 after being invited by the late Fidel Castro.

     Although a Republican himself, George Ryan seemed to conclude, as indicated by his quote above, that America's democracy had ceased to be the best government in the world. {"I don't know that we do......." He seems to have based that conclusion on his inside knowledge of the renowned corruption of politics in his Mafia-plagued state of Illinois AND on his knowledge of how easily the Bush dynasty profited from questionable economic and political alliances, especially with the Counter Revolutionary Cubans.

     This image chronicles the role Cuba...or the Cuban Revolutionary losers who regrouped in Miami in 1959 and later in the U. S. Congress...had in the precipitous decline of the U. S. democracy. In 2000 the Democrat Al Gore got the most votes nationwide but Florida's enormous pile of Electoral Votes handed the presidency to the Republican George W. Bush, whose qualification was the fact his father was also a former President also tightly aligned with Miami's Counter Revolutionary Cubans. Gore, unlike Bush, never got the chance to change America's cruel Cuban policies, never got the chance to prevent some questionable wars Bush desired, and never got the chance to make lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court and to the hundreds of federal judgeships below that.

    If anyone dared to write the history of how remnants of the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Miami beginning in 1959 and by the 1980s in the U. S. Congress colluded with all Republican White Houses since 1959 to alter the U. S. government, the photo above would have to be seared into that devastating bit of American history. As the world watched on television FOR EXCRUCIATING DAYS, vote-counters like those above tried to count the famed "hanging chad Florida votes" that decided the 2000 presidential election and put another Bush, not the more capable Gore who got the most nationwide votes, in the White House. Therefore, no one should wonder that every Republican presidential candidate traipses to Little Havana in Miami to bow down to the Counter Revolutionary extremists who control all those often-pivotal Florida presidential Electoral Votes.

    Thus, no one should have been surprised when the first thing Donald Trump did as President of the United States was to fly Air Force One to Miami so he could thank the Cuban Counter Revolutionary extremists for his 2016 election AND remind them of the upcoming 2020 election. Trump's brazenness in standing before huge Bay of Pigs Brigade 2506 Assault Banners merely reflects his belief that propagandized and intimidated U. S. citizens have neither the courage nor the intelligence nor the patriotism to challenge such things.

     The humiliating U. S. defeat at Cuba's Bay of Pigs in April of 1961 somehow even today remains the theme in Miami's Little Havana that every U. S. Republican president, such as Donald Trump, must not only capitulate to but also support wholeheartedly with U. S. tax dollars, U. S. might, and U. S. prestige. And somehow in September of 2018 that seems to be an insult to the U. S. democracy. It also continues to enhance the belief that perhaps the defense of the Cuban Revolution at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, and subsequently, was/is apparently the honorable thing to do in a small, besieged island nation.

*&***********************&*