YES, Cuba Has A New President

But be real quiet Because....

Americans Are Not Supposed to Know!
{UPDATED: Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018}

    In a major Miami Herald article yesterday {Oct. 2-2018} written by Nora Gamez Torres, Miami readers, including those in Little Havana, were told that Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel was treated like a Superstar during his week in New York City at and all around the United Nations. He was hosted and wined & dined by Harlem's Riverside Church, by many Cuba-friendly U. S. politicians including Miami-born Kathy Castor who has represented Tampa in the U. S. Congress since 2007, by top U. S. executives including Google's Top Boss Eric Schmidt, by A-list Hollywood celebrities including Robert De Niro, AND by an enthusiastic throng of well-known Cuban-Americans that included Saul Berenthal, Isabel Alfonso, and Hugo Cancio...with some of them singing the Revolution's famed July 26th theme song. Cancio, a notable Cuban-American businessman in Miami, was quoted by the Miami Herald as saying, "To attend an event with the President of your country is more than an opportunity. It is a duty. Those of us who were there had something in common, our love of Cuba. I was moved by Diaz-Canel..."

     It was President Diaz-Canel's first time on U. S. soil but he mingled well with famed U. S. admirers like Robert De Niro.

    Some celebrities who met President Diaz-Canel, such as Robert De Niro above, took to social media to advocate for normal U.S.-Cuba relations, excoriating U. S. belligerence.

     The generational exiles in the United States who fled the Cuban Revolution in 1959 have been permitted to dictate the Cuban narrative in the USA for all these decades, while also dictating most of the USA's egregious Cuban laws. While still failing to recapture Cuba, the USA Castro Cottage Industry has been so incredibly rewarding, economically and politically, that it is very hard for rich and powerful Batistianos to let go of their Gold Mine. Therefore, Americans are not supposed to know...or at least acknowledge...that Cuba has a new leader who is not a Castro, not a revolutionary icon, and in fact is the island's former Education Minister, not a guerrilla fighter. Always clean-shaven, President Miguel Diaz-Canel spent this past week making a great impression around New York City...at the UN, at Google headquarters where he met with top U. S. executives, at famed Riverside Church in Harlem where the parishioners still remember and still love Fidel Castro, at the famed Dakota Apartments where John Lennon was slain and where Diaz-Canel was wined and dined by Hollywood elites, at a session where he was feted by Cuba-friendly politicians such as Miami-born Kathy Castor who represents Tampa-Florida in the U. S. Congress, at a session where he was hosted by significant Cuba-friendly Cuban-Americans like Arturo Lopez-Levy, etc.! AND, OH YES: Diaz-Canel, as indicated by the above photo, joined a notable Cuban band and enthusiastically displayed his skill as a drummer. The video of his lively performance as a talented drummer, by the way, has gone viral on the Internet.

     So, yes, America!! Cuba has a new President. His name is Miguel Diaz-Canel, the drummer shown above. And Perhaps...the U. S. government should be democratic enough to acknowledge that basic fact and it would also be nice if the mainstream U. S. media had the guts to admit it -- even if it might harm the economic and political might of the Castro Cottage Industry in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

     {P.S.: Cubans on the island love their new President but Batistianos in the United States hate him, perhaps because they haven't created a Diaz-Canel Cottage Industry yet}.

And by the way:

     One of the world's top providers of energy information -- S & P Global Platts -- reports that Cuba is investing $100 million and Russia is investing $165 million to upgrade Cuba's steel industry. The island's two steel companies are Antillla de Acero and Acinox.

     Cuba's Energy Minister Raul Garcia Barreiro spent this week in India and then announced yesterday -- on October 2nd, 2018  -- that India will help the island build two badly needed bio-electric plants. They will take advantage of two great Cuban resources that are both abundant and renewable -- SUN & WIND.

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Cuba and the Propaganda Media

Masquerating as Real Journalists!!

     Although the mainstream U. S. media is too afraid, too politically correct, or too incompetent to report fairly on issues involving Cuba, the island's new President, former Education Minister Miguel Diaz-Canel, had a successful week on his first trip to the United States. The prime lure to New York City was and then were the two major speeches he delivered flawlessly at the United Nations but his ancillary sessions were just about as significant. Google's Top Boss, Eric Schmidt, hosted Diaz-Canel at a meeting that included many other top U. S. business executives. Actor Robert De Niro hosted Diaz-Canel at a session that involved other Hollywood heavyweights. In addition to Latin American Presidents that included the tightly U.S.-aligned leader of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, Diaz-Canel had key meetings with Cuba-friendly politicians such as...the Miami-born Kathy Castor who represents Tampa-Florida in the U. S. Congress; European Union leader Federica Mogherini, etc. And, equally important, the photo above shows Diaz-Canel, on the right, meeting with important Cuban-Americans such as Arturo Lopez-Levy. Most Cuban-Americans oppose the extreme U. S. belligerence against Cubans on the island but most Americans, thanks to an incompetent or intimidated media, don't comprehend that. And, influenced by the U. S. media and political correctness, the conservative and right-wing British media often relishes hurling vindictive propaganda at Cubans on the island.

    This photo, courtesy of Twitter, shows Poppy McKenzie Smith. She is, in my estimation, a liar and a hypocrite but pretends to be a legitimate journalist at the London Telegraph, which has the 8th largest newspaper circulation in the UK plus a strong tabloid-fueled impact on the Internet. In picking on innocent Cubans far from England, Poppy's Sept. 29-2018 article was entitled: "Cuba's Classic Cars Aren't Cuba -- They're An Enduring Symbol of Deprivation." That cowardly headline is typical of right-wing propaganda rags masquerading as informative media. In other words, if Poppy masqueraded in the USA she could be working for anti-Cuban right-wing propaganda machines like Breitbart News, the Babalu blog, etc.

   The aforementioned article by Poppy McKenzie Smith featured the above photo with this gutless caption: "Unsafe, unclean and unfit for purpose, Cuba's aging fleet is not something to celebrate." That's a lie from a cowardly, lying hypocrite.

    The Mashable.com photo above shows a skilled, innovative, and dedicated Cuban mechanic preparing to get a 1950s automobile running smoothly. Embargoed by the world superpower since 1962 {all this mechanic's entire life and then some}, this Cuban is denied normal spare parts for this car, so he has to invent suitable substitutions. But Cubans like him have been doing that since 1959 and especially since 1962 when the embargo was emphatically imposed by American and Cuban right-wingers intent on regaining control of the island in short order. But going on 7 decades later, it's turned into a long order.

    This Anywhere.com photo shows a decent, enterprising Cuban mechanic-taxi driver making a living for his family using his restored 1950s classic American convertible, the kind tourists like to be chauffeured in. This is the Cuba I saw when I visited the island. And that is why I call Poppy McKenzie Smith a liar and a hypocrite when she calls Cubans like this vile names for having overcome massive obstacles thrust upon them by a few sanctimonious hypocrites in a rich foreign country.

     In ridiculing and making fun of Cubans and their classic cars, Poppy McKenzie Smith and her ilk don't have the guts to mention the U. S. embargo that has purposely tormented totally innocent Cubans on the island since 1962 to merely appease the revenge, economic, and political motives of a handful of miscreants, many of them remnants from the 1950s Batista-Mafia dictatorship in Cuba that the Cuban Revolution chased to the USA in 1959. It is, beyond question, history's longest and cruelest embargo ever imposed by a powerful nation against a smaller, much weaker nation. Somehow Cubans like those innovative mechanics have survived that ordeal but also consider this fact: The United States, the architect of the embargo against Cuba, is the world's economic and military Superpower. Its economic and military influence can make huge, powerful nations like China, Russia, and Iran tremble if the U. S. imposes financial sanctions or boycotts or tariffs on them EVEN FOR A FEW WEEKS. But similar actions against Cuba have lasted for 6+ DECADES!!

        Therefore: if you are not a liar or a hypocrite, study this Carlos LaTuff image AGAIN and then try to explain how little Cuba is probably the only nation in the world that could have possibly survived such an embargo imposed on it for 6+ decades by the strongest nation in the world. And then, if you are not a liar or a hypocrite, I'd surely like to hear your explanation.

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Cuba vs. USA at the UN

Still David vs. Goliath!!

{And still, Incredibly, A Stand-off}
{Sunday, September 30th, 2018}

    The photo above fronted an insightful Reuters article recapping Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, being introduced to the world this week in New York City, including two major speeches, as shown above, at the United Nations. Reuters is the international news agency based in London, so unlike the mainstream U. S. media, the article had the journalistic freedom and integrity to report fairly about the significant first touch-down on U. S. soil of Cuba's only non-Castro and only non-Revolutionary leader since 1959. The Reuters article stressed the fact that Diaz-Canel, first and foremost, is every bit as fervent a defender of Revolutionary Cuba as the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raul, were. That basic fact, highlighted all this week by former Education Minister Diaz-Canel, pitted little Cuba firmly against President Donald Trump's USA once again in front of the eyes of the world on an international stage. But, of course, Diaz-Canel's most demanding job is to continue to defend Cuba against the latest generation of Cuban-American extremists, always hiding behind the might of the USA government, to regain control of Cuba after all these decades. And that's a tall task for Diaz-Canel considering that Trump represents the 6th Republican administration since the 1950s fully aligned with the Batistiano-Mafiosi extremists who ruled the island brutally and lucratively in the 1950s and critically desire to do so again. Diaz-Canel is quite aware that Republican rule in Washington desires Batista/Mafia-like rule in Cuba and, even in New York City this week, Diaz-Canel was not afraid or reluctant to explain why: "If the Miami-Cuban Mafia regains control of Cuba, rich U. S. politicians and businessmen will again fully participate in the rape-and-robbery spoils just like they did three generations ago prior to the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution. In Fidel's era, Cuba resolutely opposed that foreign assault in a life-or-death manner. My post-Fidel generation will do the same."

    Fidel Castro died at age 90 on Nov. 25-2016. Although his tomb is on the end of the long, alligator-shaped island hundreds of miles from Havana, President Miguel Diaz-Canel, as shown above, often visits the shrine to pay tribute to his idol.

     Although Americans are programmed not to believe it, there have always been enough do-or-die Fidel supporters to help him win his Revolution and then to help him defend it against supposedly overwhelming forces fueled by Cuban-exile extremists backed by the financial and military might of the world's superpower, the nearby United States of America. For example, back in the 1950s Fidel's most fervent do-or-die supporters were young and legendary female guerrilla fighters like Celia Sanchez, Haydee Santamaria, Vilma Espin, Tete Puebla, etc., etc. Today the most fervent do-or-die defenders of Fidel Castro's legacy are young, highly educated females...like the one shown above paying tribute at Fidel's tomb. Her name is...Rosy Amaro Perez.

    It so happens that Rosy Amaro Perez is a brilliant young news anchor on one of Cuba's state-owned television networks, which are both sophisticated and influential. And guess what? Rosy is not adverse to criticizing U. S. Counter Revolutionaries like Marco Rubio from Miami because she is a fiery defender of Revolutionary Cuba. Yet, she is just as apt to criticize The President of Cuba if she thinks some government policy is harming her beloved fellow Cubans. For example, recently Rosy blasted the government when it deleted from voting ballots the names of two candidates she thought were well qualified to be elected to the island's National Parliament. Earlier this month she blasted the government when she learned that a young female gymnast who had qualified for an event in faraway Doha was not being allowed to go, at least till Rosy intervened. And in this last week of September-2018 Rosy criticized the management at the famed state-owned Hotel Nacional for charging a Cuban worker five pesos when he wanted to just have a family visit to the hotel's beautiful gardens. Rosy's criticism got a strong...and positive...response from the government. On Friday, Sept. 28-2018 she got a long letter that began: "Dear journalist Rosy Amaro Perez: We have read your dissatisfaction expressed in social media where you explain that a worker had to pay five CUC to enter the Nacional Hotel of Cuba and see the gardens." Then the long, LONG letter went into great detail to address Rosy's defense of the Cuban worker. The letter was signed: "Atentamente, Antonio Martinez Rodriguez, Gerente General, Hotel Nacional de Cuba." {"Sincerely, Antonio Martinez Rodriguez, General Manager, National Hotel of Cuba."}

     I point out this accurate and typical snapshot of Cuba as related to Rosy Amaro Perez, the high-profile and highly influential young broadcast journalist on Cuba's state-owned television network Cubavision International. A passionate defender of the Revolution and everyday Cubans, she is as likely to berate Cuba's President Diaz-Canel as the USA's President Donald Trump if she feels they are responsible for harming any of her beloved fellow Cubans. With Counter Revolutionaries dictating America's Cuban narrative since 1959, Americans are convinced that someone like Rosy would quickly be reprimanded...or worse...for publicly criticizing the Cuban government. But Rosy's intention is solely to help Cubans on the island, not undermine or overthrow the government. Thus, inevitably, Rosy's critiques result in positive reactions from the government...which is rather well-known for not being reluctant to defend itself against anyone trying attempting to undermine or overthrow the revolutionary government. FOR AMERICANS NOT TO KNOW THAT CUBA HAS PRODUCED REMARKABLE YOUNG WOMEN LIKE THE INCOMPARABLE CELIA SANCHEZ IN THE 1950S AND LIKE ROSY AMARO PEREZ IN TODAY'S CUBA EXPLAINS WHY AMERICANS TO THIS DAY DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW THE CUBAN REVOLUTION TRIUMPHED IN 1959 AND -- EVEN MORE REMARKABLY  -- HOW IT HAS DEFENDED ITSELF FOR ALL THESE DECADES SINCE 1959. Not to know Rosy Amaro Perez in 2018 is akin to not knowing Celia Sanchez way back in 1953.

The great Celia Sanchez, early 1950s.

      Celia Sanchez in her Cuba made the two greatest and most definitive quotations related to her Revolution. The one I think is best is this: "The Batistianos will never regain control of Cuba as long as I live or as long as Fidel lives." Celia died of cancer at age 59 on Jan. 11-1980; Fidel died of natural causes at age 90 on Nov. 25-2016. Her proclamation was fulfilled and it continues beyond her death and Fidel's. But Celia's quotation that THE WOMAN PROJECT.ORG thinks is best is: "We rebels...get far too much credit for winning the Revolution. Our enemies deserve most of the credit, for being greedy cowards and idiots." Celia was a mild-mannered, 99-pound doctor's daughter in 1953 when she decided, at all costs, the murderous, thieving, and U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship had to be overthrown. Her decision was critical. Fidel Castro all his adult life believed she had "the most" to do with the triumph and the longevity of the Cuban Revolution.

AND THE POINT I MAKE IS THIS:

      Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution succeeded and then survived because he and it had the do-or-die support of Cuban women like Celia Sanchez.

     Now in the closing months of 2018, two years after Fidel Castro's death, Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, has a chance to succeed and for his Revolutionary Cuba to survive because he and it have the do-or-die support of Cuban women like Rosy Amaro Perez. Americans, I believe, have no clue as to how and why the Cuban Revolution succeeded nor how and why Revolutionary Cuba has survived for all these decades, confounding the most powerful odds any small nation has ever confounded. And that's because, I believe, Americans don't have a clue about the significance of incredible Cuban women -- such as Celia Sanchez decades ago and Rosy Amaro Perez in today's Cuba. Without such women there would be no Revolutionary Cuba.

      So, who is Rosy Amaro Perez, the young woman who epitomizes why President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Revolutionary Cuba might survive the omnipotent Trump/Rubio-led Counter Revolutionary forces in today's USA? Well...let's see. Rosy almost a decade ago graduated from the University of Havana's School of Journalism. She is one of a plethora of young, influential female journalists on the island. She is the doting mother of a gorgeous and precocious daughter that turns 5 in October. As a high-profile television news anchor and very active on social media, Rosy, as noted, will assail President Diaz-Canel as scathingly as she attacks President Trump if she feels they might be responsible for harming everyday Cubans on the island. Rosy has visited the major capitals in Europe; she has close relatives that live in Florida, Virginia, Arizona, etc.; and she has been offered jobs by U.S.-based companies. But she loves Cuba and, like Celia Sanchez, she will defend it at all costs.

     This photo...Rosy Amaro Perez at Fidel Castro's tomb...explains why Fidel's legacy still dominates Cuba and why Cuba's first non-Castro leader since 1959, President Miguel Diaz-Canel, might survive the Trump presidency in the U. S...and beyond. Americans are not supposed to know that...and that's because they are not supposed to know the impact of Cuban women like the long-ago heroine Celia Sanchez and like the present-day journalist Rosy Amaro Perez. Americans, including the CIA, not knowing Cuba, you see, has always aided the Revolution. For example, the CIA-directed Bay of Pigs air-land-and-sea attack on Cuba in April of 1961 was historically reported as being based largely on two famed assurances the CIA gave neophyte President John Kennedy: {1} Don't worry, Mr. President, the moment Fidel hears the bombs dropping on Camp Colombia on the edge of Havana he will bolt for his getaway airplane; and {2} once the Cuban people realize Castro is being attacked by U. S. warplanes, they'll turn against him themselves. Well, uh...Fidel never had a getaway airplane and when he heard the U. S. warplanes, he raced to the front-lines at the Bay of Pigs to lead the famed defense of the island; and when the Cubans realized their Revolution was being attacked, not a single one turned against Castro but 400,000 in the next 48 hours rushed to support him, and that was far more than he needed. Therefore, after all these decades, Americans not knowing Celia, or Fidel, or Rosy has worked out well for Cuba. And Americans today, not knowing the meaning of the photo above showing Rosy at Fidel's tomb, is also already working out well for Miguel Diaz-Canel's Cuba.

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Diaz-Canel Stays Firm in New York

Stresses Friends, Not Foes!

  The photo above shows Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel joyfully addressing the friendly audience at Harlem's famed Riverside Church in New York City yesterday -- Sept. 27th, 2018. The three topics that garnered him the biggest applause were: the Embargo ["Blockade"], Trump, and Imperialism. His closing words were: "Hasta la victoria, siempre. Muchos gracias." ["Until victory, always. Thank you very much."].

     The Miami Herald's key reporter on Cuban issues, Nora Gamez Torres, used President Diaz-Canel's appearance at Riverside Church in Cuba-friendly Harlem to slam Cuba. She stressed that Cuban officials barred or booted out "accredited press from the U. S. and Europe" including journalists from the Miami Herald, el Nuevo Herald, New York Times, EFE, Telemundo, and OnCuba. The surprise appearance of Venezuela's embattled President Nicolas Maduro apparently persuaded both Diaz-Canel and Diaz-Canel's U. S. Secret Service guards to keep antagonistic journalists from inside the church. Prior to Maduro's official appearance, some of those reporters were inside the church but then escorted outside. One female member of Cuba's security team said, "Safety trumps everything else." She then smiled, remembering the verb she had used, and grinned shyly as she said, "No, I was not thinking of the noun Trump! Just the verb."

    Since Sunday, the Cuban plane at John F. Kennedy Airport and President Miguel Diaz-Canel's first trip to U. S. soil in New York City have been safe...and even productive and successful.

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The Biggest Threat to USA?

Bob Dickey, NOT Donald Trump!!

    Yes, President Donald Trump and what he represents to right-wing extremists in the USA is a threat to the United States democracy as we have known it since 1776. But I firmly believe that Bob Dickey and what he represents to the left-wing fringe in the USA is actually a far bigger threat to the USA democracy than Donald Trump and his ilk will ever be. That's because Bob Dickey and left-wing extremists like him have far more wealth and power than the right-wing fringe has. The left-wingers also have a more obscenely funded choir representing about 10% of the U. S. population while the right-wing fringe, which also has about a 10% choir, cannot bellow quite so loudly as the left-wing extremists. Those two very dangerous fringes leave about 80% of the moderate, democracy-loving Americans out in the cold without a legitimate voice. And that's why I believe Bob Dickey represents a far bigger threat to the USA than...Donald Trump, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, or Global Warming. Now allow me to attempt to prove my point.

     Bob Dickey is the President and CEO of Gannett Corporation, which owns a vast and ungodly array of American newspapers, including the USA's largest -- USA Today. While most Americans want to get rid of the Trump presidency, the 80% of decent Americans want that done via the democratic electoral process, meaning The Vote that might create a qualified electable President in January of 2020. But Bob Dickey's Gannett-USA Today media monopoly is aligned in a vast media coup to dethrone President Trump far outside democracy's cherished electoral process. Aligned solidly with Dickey's Gannett-USA Today coup are other media monopolies owned by multi-billionaire individuals and corporations such as the richest man in the world {left-wing Cuban-American Jeff Bezos} and many of the richest corporations in the world {such as Disney, Comcast, etc.}. Thus, conspiring with Bob Dickey's Gannett-USA Today dire urgency to dethrone Trump are: The NY Times, Bezos' Washington Post, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, and ABC.

    So, I'll return to the Gannett-USA Today boss Bob Dickey to make my point. While Dickey's empire is engage is a sustained media coup to eliminate President Trump apart from letting the voters do it, Dickey also epitomizes the fact that the mainstream media in the USA, in addition to forsaking journalistic integrity standards, also lacks guts. Yesterday {Sept. 26-2018}, for example, a lying USA Today headline screamed: "Cuba's New President Sticks to Old Script at United Nations." Quite cowardly, while unabashedly lying to the USA's citizens, that article didn't have either the guts or the integrity to point out that Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, is forced to stick to Cuba's "old script" because the United States since 1959, on behalf of the Counter Revolutionary Cuban extremists, have STUCK to the same SCRIPT for over six decades!! In that regard, as an unimportant and non-extremist member of the voiceless 80% of decent democracy-loving Americans, I would like to ask Bob Dickey two questions:

           {1} "I am aware, sir, that the top Cuban-American newsman in Miami, Emilio Milian, was car-bombed when he denounced such Counter Revolutionary tactics as the airplane-bombing of a child-laden Cuban civilian plane. Are such warnings your excuse for lying and distorting Cuba issues?"

           {2} "Mr. Dickey, Thomas Jefferson was among the Founding Fathers who believed that a free and viable press was even more important to the U. S. democracy than the U. S. government itself. If we discount your 10% left-wing fringe and the 10% right-wing fringe, most of us in the 80% moderate majority seem to wholeheartedly agree that the mainstream media in the USA today, like your USA Today, is nothing more and nothing less than a huge propaganda machine dictating the views of the left-wing and right-wing extremists while ignoring the 80% that can be considered democracy-lovers. If that is not so, Mr. Dickey, why is your media empire engaged in a vast media coup to overturn the 2016 presidential election...and why does your media empire not have either the guts or the integrity to report fairly on Cuban issues, a topic that got the USA condemned by both President Obama AND the entire world via the 191-to-0 vote in the UN in 2016?"

Meanwhile:

     This was Cuba's new President, Miguel Diaz-Canel, making an important speech at the United Nations in New York yesterday -- Sept. 26-2018. This was the speech that USA Today and the rest of the mainstream U. S. media typically lied about. But for the record, directly replying to President Trump's earlier Cuban lies at the UN, Diaz-Canel significantly said: "Inequality and poverty around the world are not the result of socialism, as the President of the United States claimed yesterday before this assembly. They are the consequences of capitalism, especially imperialism and neoliberalism." Now on Cubaninsider I am not debating whether Trump or Diaz-Canel is correct regarding whether socialism or capitalism is the primary cause of "inequality and poverty around the world." BUT WHAT I AM DEBATING, with Bob Dickey and the rest of the media elite, is this: There are two sides to the socialism-capitalism debate and two sides to the U.S.-Cuba debate and two sides to the Trump/Diaz-Canel debate. And with that being said, the USA...of all nations...drastically needs a mainstream U. S. media with both the guts and integrity to provide both sides of two-sided issues. Instead, the USA today has a mainstream media that is nothing more and nothing less than a vast propaganda machine. And that, to my mind, makes Bob Dickey and his ilk more of a threat to the U. S. democracy than Donald Trump and his ilk.

    The image above depicts the Cuban channel Dominio Cuba providing live television coverage back to Cuba of this week's United Nations session. Primarily, of course, it focused on President Miguel Diaz-Canel's two prime speeches at the UN but also his meetings with many top U. S. business leaders, such as Eric Schmidt of Google; Cuba-friendly politicians like Congresswoman Kathy Castor from Tampa, European Union leader Federica Mogherini, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio; and the leaders of many countries even including Argentina's new USA-backed President Mauricio Macri who supposedly will now support the Trump/Rubio-led assaults on Cuba. Well-educated journalists in Cuba, especially now that Diaz-Canel is President, have outlets such as Dominio Cuba, Cubavision International, etc., that are more-and-more provided the wherewithal to make live televised presentations to the Cuban people even from many foreign nations.

    As with the live coverage of President Miguel Diaz-Canel's UN appearances this week being beamed back to Cuba, the island's new leader loves the medium of television. He has told his Ministers: "I want each of you to present yourselves for television news reports in which you tell the people exactly what you are doing to solve their problems, and if you are doing nothing, tell them that too. I want the people to judge if we are dealing with the issues that directly concern them, and television news reports are the means to do that because we are blessed with excellent broadcast journalists."

    The most notable broadcast journalist in Cuba is Cristina Escobar, shown here in a photo this week taken by photo-journalist Roberto Garaycoa Martinez. So how good is Cristina? As a television news anchor and interviewer, either in Spanish or English, Cristina is probably the best all-around broadcast journalist in the Western Hemisphere. At least, that reputation has made Cristina a regular source of information on U.S.-Cuban relations to media giants like the BBC and has earned Cristina speaking engagements at U. S. universities on the topics of Cuba and journalism. AND OH YES!! Cristina is the only Cuban journalist to ever ask questions at a White House news conference...so she made history on U. S. soil.

     Andrea Mitchell, the long-time top Foreign Correspondent at NBC, as well as former President Barack Obama are among the Americans who admire Cristina Escobar's skills as a broadcaster. That's why she was invited to ask questions at a White House news conference, as shown above. She thoroughly dominated the session, asking four questions plus two follow-ups. One of her questions revealed that President Obama intended to become the first sitting U. S. President since 1928 to visit Cuba.

    The White House news conference resulted in Cristina Escobar being interviewed by U. S. journalists. From those interviews came two pertinent quotations from Cristina that, perhaps, Americans should ponder from a Cuban broadcaster that is a star in Cuba and, if she chose, could be a star in America. She said: {1} "Cuba's fate should be decided by Cubans on the island, not Cubans in Miami or in the U. S. Congress;" and {2} "Cuban journalists have more freedom to tell the truth about the U. S. than U. S. journalists have to tell the truth about Cuba."

      I am not suggesting that Americans should agree totally with the above two quotations made on U. S. soil by Cuba's brilliant broadcast journalist Cristina Escobar. But what I am suggesting is this: {1} She believes what she said and she knows enough about Cuba and the U. S. to have formed those opinions; and {2} I believe Americans owe it to America to show some open-minded guts and patriotism when it comes to U.S.-Cuban issues, as opposed to being like clapping trained seals who accept and applaud everything Counter Revolutionaries and the U. S. media say about the topic, Cuba, that probably demeans the U. S. more than any other topic.

For example:

     While being interviewed live from Havana on an international TV hook-up, Cristina Escobar wondered out loud: "Why is it...you tell me...that Americans are not embarrassed when a UN vote of the world's nations condemns America's Cuban policy by a 191-to-0 vote, and President Obama agreed with that unanimous condemnation?" And to be perfectly honest, as a democracy-loving American, I have wondered the very same thing. Indeed, do the last couple of generations of Americans lack the intelligence, the courage and the patriotism to be "embarrassed" about that vote and about the sheer fact that a small cabal of right-wing thugs have dictated America's Cuban policies since 1952 -- first from Havana and then, since 1959, from Little Havana in Miami and in Republican-controlled Congresses and White Houses? Cristina Escobar, Cuba's well-versed journalist, has the courage to express opinions about the subject, something Americans seem incapable of doing.

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