Cuba Friends, Cuba Enemies

They Abound and They Change!!
{Monday, November 26th, 2018}

     With Donald Trump midway through his first 4-year term as President of the United States and Jair Bolsonaro just starting his first term as Brazilian President, in the USA the remnants of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba think they have a golden chance to regain control of the island after 6+ very determined decades of trying. In the United States Trump has turned America's Cuban policies totally over to the Little Havana extremists in Miami and in the U. S. Congress while Bolsonaro, an extreme right-winger, has done the same in Brazil.

     Prior to the startling election of President Trump in 2016, the more decent U. S. President Barack Obama had bravely and astutely done all he could to normalize relations with Cuba. As shown above, he went to Cuba and assured the Cuban people, "Cuba does not need to fear a threat from the United States." But now, in the closing days of 2018, 11.4 million Cubans on the island are well aware that they face a dire threat from Trump's United States of America, the world's Superpower, and now from Brazil, Latin America's Superpower.

    When Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro can stand side-by-side with thumbs-up gestures, the Little Havana U. S. Cubans, at long last, assume Havana will soon be theirs again, and it well may happen.

   The photo above shows Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff in 2013 with some of the Cuban doctors she sent to the poorest areas of Brazil where there had never been doctors. When Brazil goes from a Rousseff to a Bolsanaro and the U. S. goes from a Obama to a Trump, Cuba is in deep trouble...but so too may be Brazil and the U. S.

     The Eraldo Peres/Associated Press photo above shows two Cuban doctors holding Brazilian and Cuban flags at the airport in Sao Paulo on their way back to Havana. It is featured in an informative AP article written by Evan Marshall. Shortly after 2013, in a deal negotiated with Cuba by Brazil's left-wing President Dilma Rousseff and the Pan American Health Association, about 14,000 well-trained and dedicated Cuban health professionals were employed in the poorest areas of Brazil where previously there were no doctors or nurses. Even though Rousseff was forced out by what she calls a left-wing coup before she finished her second democratically elected term, there were 8,300 Cuban health officials in Brazil when extreme right-winger Jair Bolsonaro was amazingly elected president. Even with Cuban-friendly left-wingers in charge of the Brazilian government for almost four complete presidential terms, the U. S. along with Brazilian left-wingers had bribed Cuban medical personnel  to defect, and some did. Now with both extreme anti-Cuban Presidents in Washington and Brasilia, President Bolsonaro has invited the Cubans to defect to Brazil. Meanwhile, the poor Brazilians loved and appreciated the medical care provided by the now-departed Cubans, but Bolsonaro said they will be replaced.

     The AFP photo above shows the first group of Cuban doctors that have returned to Havana after being booted out of Brazil by that country's new right-wing, anti-Cuban President Jair Bolsonaro.

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      Above is a very important photo taken in Havana on Friday, November 23rd, 2018. It shows Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel and his wife strolling the streets of Havana and greeting everyday Cubans. The significant man just to the left of Diaz-Canel is the Prime Minister and leader of Spain Pedro Sanchez, who arrived on the island Thursday.

Credit: BALLESTEROS/EFE.

    Thursday -- Nov. 22, 2018 -- Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez arrived in Havana for an important two-day stay. Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel had enjoyed a nice meeting with Sanchez back in September in New York City. It is the first time in 32 years that a Spanish Prime Minister has visited Cuba, reflecting a long Spanish-Cuban chasm but now finally challenging and changing three decades of capitulations to the USA's economic Embargo-Blockade of Cuba. Sanchez also confirmed that Spain's King and other members of its Royal Family will be in Cuba in 2019 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Spanish explorer Diego Velaquez de Cuellar's arrival on the island. But mostly Sanchez announced on his arrival in Havana yesterday that, "My visit to Cuba is to normalize, stabilize, and deepen bilateral ties with this island nation." And then Sanchez opened a business forum in Havana's 5-star Grand Packard Hotel that is operated by Spain's huge Iberostar hotel chain that appreciates a lack of competition on the island from U. S. companies. Three leading dissident groups on the island -- Elizardo Sanchez, Guillermo Farinas, and Damas de Blanco {Ladies in White} pressured Sanchez to meet with them, but Sanchez resisted that pressure. Meanwhile, Sanchez on Friday, Nov. 23rd, 2018, attended a business forum in Havana that included Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Borrell, Industry Minister Reyes Maroto, and Treasury Secretary-General Carlos San Basilio as well as dozens of Spanish business executives.

     This is the newly opened 5-star Iberostar Grand Hotel Packard in Havana. Despite the Trump administration's tightening of the U. S. embargo-blockade against Cuba, a record 4,750,000 tourists have visited the island this year. Spain's Iberostar hotel chain, even prior to the Packard, already had 27 hotels with 7,881 rooms on the island. Uh, did I say that Iberostar loves the fact that it doesn't face any Cuban competition from USA's hotel chains. Yet, while Spain is displaying some brave independence in resisting the long-standing U. S. belligerency towards Cuba, other nations -- most notably Brazil -- are suddenly buying into President Trump's current effort to recapture Cuba by at last starving or overthrowing the Cuban Revolution, as indicated below.

     This photo was taken by Eraldo Peres for the Associated Press. It shows a Cuban doctor taking a selfie of herself this week as she prepared to board a plane in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia to return to Havana. She is one of thousands of Cuban doctors booted out of Brazil by Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's newly elected but extremely controversial right-wing President. Thousands of Cuban doctors had been working diligently in Brazil's most remote and poorest areas, many that never before even had a single doctor. The Pan American Health Association as well as the United Nations and other international organizations have supported the projects, as have the prior left-wing Lula-Rousseff Brazilian governments. But things have changed drastically in Latin America's largest, most populated, and richest nation -- and not just the change from prime Cuban supporters to a prime Cuban enemy but also now, with an extreme right-wing President in Brazil aligned with USA President Trump, the chance of right-wingers destroying Revolutionary Cuba have sky-rocketed. Even during the 4 democratically elected terms when Cuban-protectors Lula and Rousseff ran the Brazilian government, the USA had mounted massive and expensive projects to get Cuban medical personnel in Brazil to defect, which in many cases were successful. But now that Brazil has elected an extreme right-wing President, the USA no longer has to bribe Cuban doctors to defect to the USA from Brazil, like the Cuban doctor shown above flying back to Havana from Brasilia this week, while making sure of taking a selfie with the Cuban flag next to her face.

       The ultra-powerful Batistiano/Mafiosi-fueled Cuban Counter Revolutionaries in the United States have tried desperately to regain control of Cuba for over six decades -- every day since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959. The best chances came during the 12 years of the three Bush presidencies but many of the Batistiano-Mafiosi leaders in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood believed the incredible election of Donald Trump as U. S. President in 2016 affords them the best-ever chance to recapture Cuba. But now, with the equally incredible election of right-wing extremist Jair Bolsonaro as President of Brazil in 2018, the zealots in Little Havana and in the U. S. Congress are doing celebratory hand-stands, and well they should. The USA, the world's economic and military Superpower, is now aligned with Brazil, Latin America'a economic and military Superpower, in agreement that Cuba's revolutionary government must be overthrown so rich Americans and rich Brazilians can exploit the Caribbean's largest and most coveted island the way rich Americans exploited it from 1952 till 1959 during the brutal Batista-Mafia dictatorship. And now, as you study the Jair Bolsonaro image above, consider this: Prior to Trump's 2016 election in the USA, President Obama for the previous 8 years had been America's all-time most-friendly U. S. president regarding Cuba; and prior to Bolsonaro's 2018 election in Brazil, the almost 4 terms of the Lulu-Rousseff presidencies in Brazil had been the all-time most-friendly Brazilian presidents regarding Cuba. So considering that the USA is the world Superpower and Brazil is the Latin American Superpower, please consider what those  recent incredible elections in the USA and in Brazil mean for the vulnerable island of Cuba.

  Internationally known as a Superstar journalist, Anthony Boadle has headed bureaus for London-based Reuters in both Cuba and Brazil and he is a highly respected Latin American expert. And Mr. Boadle now openly feels sorry for poor Brazilian children who no longer have their skilled and dedicated Cuban doctors to take care of them. Boadle headlined: "Cuban Doctors Head Home, Leaving Poor Towns With No Health Care."

     On Nov. 22nd-2018 Anthony Boadle used the above photo on both Reuters and his Twitter page. The photo shows two young Cuban doctors, holding Cuban and Brazilian flags, booted out of Brazil by staunch right-wingers and flying back to Havana. Boadle described the photo this way: "The first of 8,500 Cuban doctors returning home, some happy to see their families and arrive back with a 49-inch TV, others sad to leave their work in poor and remote parts of Brazil, and the affection of Brazilian patients who were sad to see them go." In other words, in Brazil now the rich supporters of their new right-wing President will get much richer while the poorest Brazilians will get poorer, and millions of them are once again without any medical care.

     Probably still the most popular politician in Brazil, and the champion of poor Brazilians, is Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a left-winger who worshiped Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. Lulu was twice democratically elected President of Brazil as was his protege Dilma Rousseff who was also a worshiper of Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution. But, accused of corruption, right-wingers forced Rousseff out of office before her second term was completed...and Lulu? Well...Lulu is in prison. Lulu and Dilma...and millions of their poor supporters like the ones above...claim the right-wingers framed them with corruption charges because Lulu and Dilma were spending huge amounts of Brazil's wealth on the long-neglected poorest Brazilians, and that included the expenditures for the Cuban doctors that all unbiased sources acknowledged were performing excellent and extremely necessary work in Brazil.

     For the most part, Americans get their Cuba-related news spoon-fed to them from Counter Revolutionary propagandists or from extreme right-wing rags like Brietbart that are lushly funded and promoted by extreme right-wing billionaire dollars. But Americans seeking the truth on Cuba-related news should depend on sources like Anthony Boadle of Reuters, which is the world's best news agency and, thankfully, has wide worldwide reach including the USA. Otherwise, the mainstream U. S. media is simply too afraid or too politically correct to anger Counter Revolutionary Cuban extremists in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. One way, in addition to Reuters, to get important and accurate Cuba-related news is to also follow the social media pages of Anthony Boadle, especially on Facebook and Twitter.

       For example, yesterday -- on Nov. 22nd, 2018 -- Anthony Boadle used the photo above on Twitter to preview an important Reuters article. Mr. Boadle explained that: "Brazil is hosting air combat exercises for 14 air forces including the United States Air Force." And, of course, as Anthony Boadle well knows...and as Cubans and Americans should know...both Brazil and the United States are awash with sophisticated air power that could easily do to countries like Cuba what the ultra-modern Saudi Air Force, purchased from arms sellers like the US and UK, is doing to Yemen. And, of course, the current Commanders-in-Chiefs of Brazil and the United States are two anti-Cuban zealots -- Jair Bosolnaro and Donald Trump. Thus, these war exercises in Brazil surely don't appear to be defensive in nature because neither Russia nor China has any interest in attacking Brazil; so they are, instead, offensively minded...it seems.

    And meanwhile, as he hosts Spain's friendly Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez this week in Havana, Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel is trying to adjust to the new USA-Brazil axis that is poised to starve-out or to simply just recapture his island. Diaz-Canel back in September in New York City and at the UN tried to enlist new friends and also reinforce old friendships. Then after John Bolton, America's newly appointed extreme right-wing National Security Adviser, essentially declared war on Cuba during a speech in Miami, Diaz-Canel this month made a whirlwind trip that took him to France, England, Russia, China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Laos. Now back on the island Diaz-Canel is trying to solicit investments from friendly nations even as he spends much of his time promoting the island's New Constitution that is being discussed at 24,000 forums across the island and will then be voted on in early 2019, changing Cuba's Constitution for the first time since the 1970s. Also, Diaz-Canel, Cuba's former {and very popular} Education Minister, is trying to prioritize the Revolution's two proudest achievements -- free educations through college and free healthcare for life. In his Tweet above this week, Diaz-Canel was offering "Felicitaciones" -- "Congratulations" -- to "Mariam Nicado." Diaz-Canel, Cuba's former Education Minister, had just named her the first female Rector at the University of Havana in the school's "290 years" of existence.

  Mariam Nicado, the University of Havana leader.

       This photo of a precious little Cuban girl was taken Nov. 22-2018 by Roberto Garaycoa Martinez, one of Cuba's most notable professional photographers.

      This was extreme right-winger John Bolton, speaking on behalf of United States President Donald Trump. Bolton is shown here adjusting his classes in Miami as he declared war on Cuba, at least that remains the significant interpretation by Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

    Declaring war on Cuba, of course, is also declaring war on the little Cuban girl that Roberto Garaycoa Martinez photographed this week. Like all Cuban children born on the island since 1962, this little girl has been severely targeted by the U. S. economic embargo that, according to DE-classified U. S. documents, was in 1962 as it is still today intended to starve, deprive, and make miserable the lives of everyday Cubans on the island to induce them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. Somehow, remarkably, little girls like this...through three generations now...have survived the embargo, rather beautifully as you can see. Hopefully, little girls like this will also survive the war that, apparently, the Trump-Bolsonaro forces are preparing to unleash on their island.

      Perhaps the cruelest cut of all...even above such atrocities as the unending embargo and the impending war...is the fact that vicious and self-serving Counter-Revolutionary U. S. Cubans -- like Mario Diaz-Balart and Marco Rubio -- can get away with repeatedly proclaiming that, "WE ARE TRYING TO HELP THE CUBANS ON THE ISLAND." That is a bald-faced lie.

     And as a democracy-loving American, I sincerely believe that the parents and the grandparents of this little Cuban girl know very well that Mario Diaz-Balart, Marco Rubio, and their USA enablers are, indeed, bald-faced liars. The people who really care about little Cuban girls like this one are the people on the island, certainly not people like Mario & Marco who are feasting on their bald-faced lies in both Miami and in the U. S. Congress.

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Trump's Cuban War Excuse

PERHAPS Americans Should Know!!

Photo credit: REUTERS/Carlos Garcia.

    It is apparent to unbiased and unafraid observers that the Trump administration in Washington is gearing up for an overthrow of Cuba's revolutionary government, with the spring of 2019 being the outside timetable for the denouement. While this is actually the most diabolical scheme being currently hatched-up by the Trump White House, it is interesting to note, I believe, that even the left-wing U. S. media that is primarily devoted to overthrowing the Trump presidency is too afraid to report this not-so-secretive development, and that includes CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. But a far better and much braver news agency, the London-based Reuters, as usual is journalistic enough and brave enough to report fairly on U.S.-Cuban affairs. Yesterday -- Nov. 21-2018 -- Reuters used the above photo to illustrate an article that, essentially, informs the world about the Trump administration's pretext, or excuse, for its planned "regime change" in Cuba. For American taxpayers about to pay for that war, yesterday's informative Reuters update is entitled: "Exclusive: U. S. Weighs Sanctions On Cuban Officials Over Role In Venezuela Crackdown." The verb "Weights" to describe new "Sanctions" against Cuba is not newly as significant as the last two words in that headline: "Venezuela Crackdown." You see, the highly respected Reuters News Agency is brave enough to do something that the mainstream U. S. media is far too cowardly to report, and that is: The drastic turmoil in oil-rich Venezuela has been chosen by extreme right-wing Cuban-Americans as the excuse to overthrow the Cuban government and, MOREOVER, that pretext has been SUCCESSFULLY transmitted to Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump. And also please note that this Reuters article on Nov. 21-2018 correctly identifies the person who has successfully convinced President Trump that "VENEZUELA" is the excuse that the America people will accept as the reason it is NECESSARY to execute even a bloody overthrow of the Cuban government. And without pussy-footing or tip-toeing gently around the issue, let's discuss the man Reuters identifies as the war-monger who has, it seems, already convinced President Trump of a second U. S. war in Cuba {after the 1898 Spanish-American War} and the need for a second military attack in Cuba {after the embarrassing failure of the 1961 Bay of Pigs attack}.

    It is apparent that Mauricio Claver-Carone is the man President Donald Trump has pointed at to become the director of the impending overthrow of Cuba's Revolutionary government. The aforementioned Reuters article that correctly pinpointed the turmoil in Venezuela as the pretext...the excuse...for Trump's Cuban war, also correctly stated, "Trump's top Latin American adviser, Mauricio Claver-Carone..." For sure, Claver-Carone is an obvious choice for that delicate Cuban assignment now being finalized in the White House.

    All his adult life Mauricio Claver-Carone has worked tirelessly for the overthrow of Revolutionary Cuba. It seems that every major anti-Cuban tactic in the past two decades has Claver-Carone's foot-prints and finger-prints all over them. That includes his own anti-Cuban propaganda on his own as well as other radio & television programs, his anti-Cuban writings in major publications, his vicious Capital Hill Cubans blog, and...MOST OF ALL...his massive anti-Cuban fund-raising and anti-Cuban lobbying both inside Washington's Capital Hill and elsewhere...or anywhere he could hurt Cuba.

     So, Mauricio Claver-Carone was the logical choice to be Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump's mastermind involving the upcoming regime-change in Cuba, which Claver-Carone fervently champions and finally, with Trump, appears capable of achieving.

     In the Cuban endeavor, President Trump is flanked by his two most powerful Foreign Policy advisers -- the mustachioed National Security Adviser John Bolton and the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Both Bolton and Pompeo have long lobbied for the overthrow of Revolutionary Cuba but, unlike Claver-Carone, they also have other priorities such as loving Saudi Arabia's oil money and the sophisticated U. S. weapons the Saudis can buy, tolerating Russia's ultra-powerful nuclear arsenal, trying not to make mighty China too mad, encouraging nuclear-armed North Korea to be nice, and...so forth. Therefore, the Trump-Bolton-Pompeo troika needed someone who could concentrate fully on the Cuban overthrow and their choice is anti-Cuban extremist Mauricio Claver-Carone.

      The two prime puppeteers pulling President Trump's Cuban strings, of course, are Mario Diaz-Balart and Marco Rubio, two incumbents in the U. S. Congress and lifelong products of the vicious Counter Revolutionary Cuban-American contingent in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. Mario's father Rafael was a key Minister in Cuba's Batista dictatorship and, after 1959, one of the all-time richest and most powerful Counter Revolutionaries on U. S. soil. Marco, Trump's dire enemy during the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, actually is being allowed by Trump to oversee all Cuban projects and that is a gift Trump hopes will help secure him Little Havana's political and financial support as well as Florida's truck-load of the often decisive electoral votes heading into the 2020 presidential race. And Marco has used his designation as essentially America's and Trump's Cuban dictator to inject only viciously anti-Cuban operatives into the most advantageous positions capable of influencing the actual overthrow of Revolutionary Cuba's government...and that includes the positions now occupied by the likes of Claver-Carone, Bolton, and Pompeo on Trump's National Security, State Department, and Western Hemisphere teams. While there are at least twenty anti-Cuban extremists atop Trump's Cuban cabal, the Big Five are clearly, in this order: Rubio, Claver-Carone, Diaz-Balart, Bolton, and Pompeo.

    Probably the best journalism about how only the most extreme Cuban-American Counter Revolutionaries took over the Cuban portion of the Trump presidency is an article written by highly respected investigative reporter Andy Kroll. I believe every American, so as not to be surprised about what is in store for Cuba by the spring of 2019, should read Kroll's informative article, so I'll give you its title: "How A Crew of Hardliners Hijacked Donald Trump's Cuba Policy." That's the exact title and Andy Kroll is a great journalist. If more Americans got their Cuban news from great journalists like Andy Kroll, and not from Cuban-American propaganda pros or intimidated mainstream journalists, I don't believe my America would have been in the unenviable position of getting condemned by President Obama and the entire world 191-to-0 in the UN the last year America had a decent President, which was 2016...which was the year the extreme left-wing tilt of the Democracy Party put the Republican Party's Donald Trump in the White House. And since then, Andy Kroll has done the best job of explaining how a mere handful of Counter Revolutionary Cuban-American extremists "hijacked" Trump's Cuban policies and then made plans for a relatively brief  and unannounced, unnamed war whose aftermath will be extremely volatile, consequential, and long-lasting.

     But when all is said and done about what is planned for Cuba by the spring of 2019, I sincerely do not believe that the primary culprit is President Donald Trump nor do I believe that the primary culprits are the Miami hardliners depicted above -- Rubio, the Diaz-Balart brothers, and Ros-Lehtinen. The primary culprits, I believe, are the many millions of gutless Americans who have neither the courage nor the patriotism to even weigh in on the mendacious Cuban policies that, at the very least, make the United States of America resemble a Batistiano/Mafiosi-like Banana Republic.

     Yes, America...President Trump's Assault Brigade 2507, or whatever it euphemistically will be called, plans in the spring of 2019 to avenge the humiliating defeat of Assault Brigade 2506 at Cuba's Bay of Pigs in the spring of 1961. And, yes, America...Trump has the power to accomplish that goal, goaded along by Miami's Little Havana sector and massively aided by a cowardly generation of apathetic Americans. But after 2507 avenges 2506, two things are assured: {1} More Cuba-related shame and humiliation for the United States and for Democracy; and {2} the immediate start of another do-or-die Cuban Revolution that will try to overthrow another foreign domination.

     And what about Mr. John Bolton and his ilk? Well, for example... after his stint as President Trump's top National Security Adviser, Mr. John Bolton will doubtlessly return seamlessly to his old job, which is his Political Action Committee that will resume raising tons of extreme right-wing dollars to fund the campaigns of more extreme right-wing thugs...like the ones planning to aim Assault Brigade 2507 at Cuba. And so, the money-crazed right-wing/left-wing cycles will continue in an America that deserves a return to both Democracy and Decency.

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Rubio's Shameful FREE RIDE

From Right-Wing & Left-Wing Media!!
{Wednesday, November 21st, 2018}

     This week -- Nov. 19th, 2018 -- one of the largest banks in France, Societe Generale, agreed to pay $1.3 billion for violating U. S. trade sanctions against Cuba. Since 1962 -- after such things as the 1961 Bay of Pigs military attack and a record number of assassination and terrorist attempts failed to recapture Cuba -- the U. S. imposed  its economic embargo-blockade on Cuba, easily the longest and cruelest such action ever taken by a powerful nation against a much smaller and weaker nation. Thus, for six decades, the ongoing sanctions against Cuba can demand huge payments from companies in friendly, democratic countries that remotely do business with Cuba, and those companies pay-up because of the USA's incomparable influence on international finances. The $1.3 billion Societe Generale payment is another reminder that the mere survival of Revolutionary Cuba for all these decades, as opposed to starvation or capitulation, is one of history's greatest phenomenons, just as the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution over the vile U.S.-backed and Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship still resonates as a unique phenomenon. When a handful of vicious Counter Revolutionaries, including powerful remnants of the Batista regime, can mandate such self-serving and personally lucrative Cuban policies decade-after-decade, its nefarious impact on America's democracy is almost unfathomable...especially during Republican administrations in Washington, which is currently the case. The Societe Generale penalty is merely an example that adds to the wonderment about how Cuba has survived for all these decades faced with an unchecked and endless effort by the world's Superpower to starve the nearby island into submission...AND FOR WHAT PURPOSE -- a return of the Batistianos, the Mafiosi, and the rich and greedy U. S. businessmen?? Sadly, that still appears to be the agenda!! And for political reasons since 1959, there have always been rich and politically powerful Cubans leading the charge from U. S. soil to recapture Cuba. During the height of the Bush dynasty's power, that Cuban was Jorge Mas Canosa, who became a billionaire Counter Revolutionary in Miami. Currently during the Trump era Miami's Marco Rubio holds that designation as politically influential Cubans can soak U. S. taxpayers for tons of dollars for anti-Cuban projects that, as it seems to always turn out, primarily just punishes innocent Cubans on the island while enriching Counter Revolutionaries in Miami. Also, as an additional bonus for the Counter Revolutionaries...oh, YES!!...legal U. S. laws can punish foreign companies and nations if they dare to do business with Cuba. With such laws and now with Trump as Commander-in-Chief, it might be reasonable to expect Rubio to recapture Cuba in...ohhhh...about two weeks.

   The "TRUMP-I-FI-CA-TION" of Little Havana's U. S. Senator Marco Rubio probably says more than anything else about the current state of America's politics {totally sick} and America's media {even sicker}. 

    First off, as you study the above very accurate graphic that is courtesy of Miami's Progreso Weekly and Alvaro Fernandez, I would like to suggest that the most egregious thing President Trump has done in the past two years occurred when he anointed Marco Rubio America's new Cuban dictator. It was a backdoor Republican political buy-off by Trump who happens to hate Rubio and the feeling is mutual. But Trump, because of Florida's weird and over-sized political significance, needs every Little Havana Republican he can purchase...and Rubio has a well-earned reputation as the most "for sale" politician on the planet.

       Still studying the above graphic?? Good. Of course, the Miami Herald's editorial leader, Cuba-born Fabiola Santiago, seems to agree with Miami's Alvaro Fernandez depiction of Rubio. As Trump's Cuban dictator, Rubio has helped maneuver two famed anti-Cuban zealots -- John Bolton and Mike Pompeo -- into America's two most important Foreign Policy positions. And Rubio has been directly responsible for literally saturating the State Department's Western Hemisphere Affairs department, as well as all other key government agencies that could possibly help eviscerate Cuba, with a litany of the most famed Counter Revolutionary zealots -- from Rubio's old Little Havana mentor Tomas Regalado to Mauricio Claver-Carone to...well, suffice to say that Rubio has either added or seems to be adding to the U. S. government's eternally bloated anti-Cuban payroll just about every well-known and still alive Cuban Counter Revolutionary since 1959.

       Still studying the above graphic?? Great. The point it makes, I believe, is this: While major media outlets in Rubio's hometown of Miami have enough courage and integrity to hold him accountable for his self-serving and anti-democratic Cuban policies, the mainstream U. S. media promotes Rubio as a choirboy. Thus, the right-wing media, led by Fox News, would likely support Rubio if, backed by his Commander-in-Chief, he nuked all men, women and children on the island of Cuba, using typical propaganda such as...Rubio just saved America because we all knew that those Cubans, including the children, were about to attack the United States. Well, such right-wing propaganda is par for the course. But the graphic above reminds us of a Rubio irony. If Rubio evicerated 11.4 million Cubans on the island, the left-wing U. S. media wouldn't have either the guts or the integrity to question him. And amazingly, that includes the left-wing media furiously engaged in impeaching Trump, including CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.

  Still studying the above graphic?? Wonderful. In other words, the Trump-Rubio alliance reveals two rather disturbing aspects concerning the severely challenged U. S. democracy: {1} America's two-party political system needs at least one non-corrupt and non-extremist political party; and {2} America needs a mainstream media that features real electronic and print journalists as opposed to the current overwhelming make-up of left-wing or right-wing propagandists and pundits. That situation may appeal to the trained seals as well as the left-wing/right-wing extremists, but it leaves out the 80%-or-so of Americans who could be described as moderate, free-thinking lovers of the democracy America once had.

Regalado, mentor; Rubio, student.

Rubio-Trump; an unholy alliance??

      A U. S. political system and a mainstream U. S media that doesn't challenge a Marco Rubio as the Cuban dictator on U. S. soil is, I think, equivalent to a U. S. political system and a mainstream U. S. media that are the exact opposite of what the Founding Fathers envisioned for America in 1776.

     Yes. The Trumpified Marco Rubio is using language of democracy to subvert democracy. And sadly, both the right-wing and left-wing U. S. media are his puppeteers and stooges.

     This is not to suggest that Americans should care about Cuba. But I would like to suggest that Americans should care about America.

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Cuba's INCREDIBLE Survival

Why Can't America Recapture Cuba?
{Monday, November 19th, 2018}

       The Naphtai Junior photo above headlined a major story in the Sunday, Nov. 18-2018 Jamaica Observer. It sort of makes one wonder why all the nations in the Caribbean, with the exception of Cuba, are not extremely wealthy and prosperous. On the left above is Oscar Derby enjoying a joyous handshake with Barrington Miller, two of Jamaica's leading businessmen. They are dynamos in a project called JISCO Special Economic Zone that will break ground next month thanks to a $2.5 billion investment from JISCO, a Chinese company. The project is on the Jamaican soil where an old World War II airbase once existed. The article suggested that eventually JISCO might inject a million new well-paying jobs into the Jamaican economy. Mr. Miller said, "It's a game-changer for Jamaica."

      As the above map indicates, Jamaica is due south of Cuba in the Caribbean. Cuba is the largest, most coveted, and {arguably} the most beautiful Caribbean island nation. January of 1959 was the historic month the Cuban Revolution shocked the world by overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship. From that day till this day -- January-1959 till November-2018 -- an unchecked effort by the nearby United States, aligned with two rich and powerful generations of transplanted Batistianos-Mafiosi, has tried but, incredibly, failed to recapture the island. For all those 6+ decades the United States has been the world's economic and military Superpower. Additionally, that incomparable economic and military power, for that entire period, has been able to greatly influence all other nations...in the region and around the world...in various degrees to accept and/or not interfere in the USA's reconfigured designs on the Caribbean's largest and most coveted island nation. On the other hand, all other Caribbean nations, such as Jamaica, can benefit from the economic and military competition between the world Superpowers -- such as the USA and China, the world's two most prolific economic powers -- buying up influence in Jamaica and other Caribbean nations. Yet, the USA's influence countering even China has blunted Chinese and all other investments in Cuba, partly because the USA's economy is tightly tied to that of Communist China. And that's why the Jamaica Observer article on Nov. 18-2018 creates fresh wonder about how and why, incredibly, Cuba's government has survived since 1959 and how and why all the other Caribbean nations aren't particularly rich and prosperous.

    The Jamaica Observer is an excellent Caribbean newspaper and its daily political cartoons are world-class. The one above published on Nov. 18-2018 helps explain that the insatiable power of the U. S. dollar can purchase a whole lot of anti-Cuban collaborators, even in the Caribbean.

     If you study this Latin America map, you will detect that Brazil is by far the largest Latin American nation...as well as its richest and most populated. Just a few years ago Brazil had a left-wing Dilma Rousseff-led government that was a powerful supporter of and investor in Revolutionary Cuba...as were the leaders of the three important nations due southeast of Brazil -- Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile...not to mention oil-rich Venezuela on Brazil's northern border. But things have drastically changed in Latin America, most notably in mighty Brazil and struggling Venezuela.

    Latin American Superpower Brazil now has a new President, former military officer and military-lover Jair Bolsonaro. Now 63-years-old, Bolsonaro had always been considered far too much of an avowed right-wing extremist to be remotely considered as presidential material, but that changed drastically in 2018 just as the United States changed drastically in 2016 when the also very improbable Donald Trump got elected President of the United States. Now instead of Cuba-friendly Obama as the U. S. President and the Cuba-friendly Rousseff as the Brazilian President, the world Superpower United States and the Latin American Superpower Brazil have two Presidents -- Bolsonaro and Trump -- determined to starve and overthrow Revolutionary Cuba.

     And so, with President Donald Trump in the United States and President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, there appears to be a concerted effort...unlike all previous efforts since 1959...to finally overthrow Cuba's revolutionary government. Cuban intelligence, considered among the most acute and astute in the world, believes that the Trump-Bolsonaro timetable for the demise of Revolutionary Cuba is the early spring of 2019.

    Cuba's new President Miguel Diaz-Canel, on his recent 5-day visit to the New York City that included two UN speeches, let it be known...publicly and privately...that he is very aware of the Trump administration's conspiring with other right-wing forces, most notably the startling rise of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, to set the spring timetable for Cuba's demise.

     Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has just returned to Havana after a whirlwind trip that took him to France, China, Russia, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, and England. And then -- at 2:29 P. M. on Nov. 14, 2018 -- President Diaz-Canel posted the above statement on his Twitter account. Note his use of the words "los colaboradores Cubanos han prestado un valioso servicio al pueblo de Brazil." {"Cuban collaborators have rendered a valuable service to the people of Brazil."}. He was referencing the harsh words against Cuba that Brazil's new President Bolsonaro unfurled when he ended a program started by the Rousseff presidency in 2013 whereby thousands of Cuban doctors worked in the poorest rural areas of Brazil. To President Diaz-Canel, President Bolsonaro's bitter anti-Cuban words signaled Brazil's start of a vicious assault on Cuba in collaboration with President Trump and the United States.

    Cuba's first conclusion that President Trump intended for a spring timetable to essentially return Cuba to the Counter Revolutionaries headquartered in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood was derived from U. S. media coverage of the above speech. That occurred when Trump, early-on in his presidency, went to Little Havana and, while standing before a Bay of Pigs military assault banner, promised an extremist Counter Revolutionary choir that he, as U. S. President, would finally avenge their humiliating Bay of Pigs defeat during the April-1961 air-land-and-sea military attack on Cuba.

     Images like the Miami Herald photo above have refurbished Cuba's assessment of the Trump administration's spring-2019 timetable for the demise of revolutionary rule on the island.  For decades the three Counter Revolutionary extremists depicted above -- all products of the self-serving Bush dynasty -- have led unrelenting efforts in Miami, in the U. S. Congress, and in all Republican White Houses to regain control of Cuba. Left to right are: Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Mario Diaz-Balart. At least one or, at the same time, all three have represented Miami's Little Havana in the U. S. Congress. The Havana-born Ros-Lehtinen, who is finally retiring from her seat, has been in Congress since 1989 when the ambitious Jeb Bush was her Campaign Manager; the Havana-born Lincoln Diaz-Balart quickly followed Ros-Lehtinen to Congress but retired his safe seat to concentrate his Counter Revolutionary political and economic efforts back in Miami; and Mario Diaz-Balart who remains a safe and re-elected incumbent in the U. S. Congress. Ros-Lentinen is from a famously anti-Revolutionary Cuban family. And the father of the Diaz-Balart brothers, Rafael Diaz-Balart, was a key Minister in the overthrown Batista dictatorship who, after 1959, became one of the richest and most powerful all-time Counter Revolutionaries on U. S. soil. Although there are well over two million moderate Cuban-Americans who desire saner relations with Cuba, including top Cuban-American businessmen in Miami, only Counter Revolutionary extremists, for the most part, have been allowed, since 1959, serious input into U.S.-Cuban relations...with extreme wealth and, if necessary, dynamic force, predicating the extreme viewpoints. To this day, even the left-wing U. S. news media that is fervently trying to impeach Trump will not dare question any extremely cruel Trump-authorized cruelty against totally innocent Cubans on the island. Thus, the distorted viewpoints espoused by Counter Revolutionary extremists like Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers continues to present the notion that Cubans on the island long for a return of the Batistianos-Mafiosi and fervently oppose their revolutionary government. That simply is not so but even the furiously left-wing/anti-Trump news media in the United States does not have the guts to mention that very salient fact, revealing anew the cancerous effect the Batista-Mafia rule in Cuba and the Counter Revolutionary forces in the U. S. have had on both America and Democracy ever since the 1950s.

  Every non-idiotic news source in Washington knows all about John Bolton, and what they know is this: Bolton, an infamous war-mongering product of the Bush presidencies, is totally unfit to be America's top National Security Adviser, but he IS President Trump's National Security Adviser, one who has long advocated the overthrow of Cuba's revolutionary government. The graphic above, compiled by Russia's RT news agency, references Bolton's alleged trip to Moscow to get President Putin's assurance, among other things, that mighty Russia will not interfere with Bolton's and Trump's designs on Cuba, which Cuba believes is an overthrow of Cuba by the Spring of 2019.

    It appears that John Bolton's recent trip to Miami, as chronicled by the above photo, had two distinct purposes: {1} To officially declare the Trump administration's war on Cuba; and{2} to ascertain whether the gutless mainstream U. S. news media would react negatively to that declaration of war...or even react at all. Well, Bolton got what he expected, which is: Because Cuba was the target of Bolton's Declaration of War, the gutless mainstream U. S. news media didn't have the guts to question the mendacity Bolton intends for 11.4 million totally innocent Cubans, and that shamefully includes the left-wing news media trying desperately to eliminate Trump, including CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, New York Times and Washington Post.

     Therefore, without a decent news media to rely on, Americans...at least those who haven't personally visited the island...are supposed to meekly accept the lie that most Cubans on the island LONG FOR A RETURN OF THE U.S.-BACKED HAVANA MOB THAT RULED CUBA UP UNTIL 3:00 A. M. ON JANUARY 1, 1959...AT WHICH TIME THE FAMOUS THUGS FLED TO SAFER HAVENS, NAMELY MIAMI, NEWARK, AND OTHER U. S. SANCTUARIES.

    I agree with The Woman Project.org that the all-time greatest female guerrilla fighter and revolutionary leader, Celia Sanchez, had the definitive quotation related to the Cuban Revolution that would not have been won without her. As you can see above, that quotation 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." And you know what? That quotation also probably explains another incredible phenomenon -- which is how and why Celia's pugnacious Cuban Revolution has managed to rule Cuba from 1959 till today...and PROBABLY WILL CONTINUE TO RULE CUBA AT LEAST TILL THE SPRING OF 2019.

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