21.4.19

The GREATEST Cuba Story

And The Movie About It!!
{Monday, April 22nd, 2019}
    At age 63 Peter Kornbluh is the world renowned Cuban expert at the National Security Archive in Washington. He also knows more about Fidel Castro than any American has ever known. In the May/June edition of Politico Magazine his article entitled "My Dearest Fidel" consumed that whole magazine and EVERYONE who read it. Kornbluh detailed a scorchingly true Fidel Castro love affair with a gorgeous U. S. journalist that literally turned Cuban and American history upside-down...figuring prominently in such epic events as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963. One person who read that Peter Kornbluh article and was verily mesmerized by it turned out to be a powerful young Hollywood actress who quickly acquired powerful producers to turn "My Dearest Fidel" into what figures to be a blockbuster  Hollywood movie.
 This illustration by Christina Couceiro prefaced the Peter Kornbluh article in Politico Magazine that is now becoming a movie about one of history's most monumental and bittersweet love affairs -- the one between Fidel Castro and Lisa Howard.
     The powerful young actress still captivated by the Fidel Castro-Lisa Howard love affair is Gal Gadot. She is co-producing and starring in the movie. She is shown above with Sue Kroll who, along with her partner Jaron Varsano, have plenty of talent and enough money to make any movie they choose, and they too are mesmerized by the precise Peter Kornbluh documentation of the Fidel-Lisa nexus that changed history and surely galvanized a defining moment in U.S.-Cuban history that has reached heights far beyond any normal scope of an island nation. Gal Gadot, by the way, is the former Miss Israel and her Hollywood stardom includes the title role in the blockbuster Wonder Woman.
    The 1,000 Kennedy days in the White House and his assassination in Dallas at age 43 on Nov. 22, 1963, have been chronicled endlessly. That includes a vast myriad of conspiracy theories as well as great books such as this one by Pulitzer-prize winning author Anthony Summers.
  But no one has matched Peter Kornbluh's most pertinent details leading up to the murder of JFK in Dallas or the death...suicide or murder?...of Lisa Howard at age 39 on July 4th, 1965, in New York. Those intimate details documented by Peter Kornbluh in that Politico Magazine article is precisely the material that will make the upcoming movie not only unforgettable but also very important, I think.
  The beautiful and talented Lisa Howard starred in Hollywood movies and then had a leading continuous role on the popular television Soap Opera "The Edge of Night." But she wanted to be a news reporter and, starting on network radio, she became a good one. After gaining some national scoops she was hired by ABC-News in 1957 when, along with NBC and CBS they were the three networks in the USA. At ABC Lisa quickly gained more scoops, including a notable interview with Nikita Khrushchev, the dictator of the Soviet Union. As it turned out, Lisa -- the actress-turn-newscaster -- was mostly fascinated with the Cuban Revolution that had shocked the world on Jan. 1-1959 by overthrowing the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictatorship on the island of Cuba, and then backed it up by further shocking the world by defending off the U.S.-Batistiano-Mafiosi Bay of Pigs attack in April of 1961.
    But most of all, -- not unlike many Hollywood actresses including Rita Hayworth, Maureen O'Hara, etc. -- Lisa Howard became enchanted with the new world-renowned Cuban rebel Fidel Castro. Soon, his enchantment with her would be mutual and rock the world.
    After rising to become a star anchor at ABC News, Lisa Howard had her journalistic excuse to meet Fidel Castro on the exotic island that had become his. The journalism quickly turned into passion. Intimate Lisa-Fidel photos like the ones above were taken by the great photographer Elliott Erwitt/Magnum. Mr. Erwitt is now 90-years-old and lives in Paris, France.
   Thanks to Peter Kornbluh's diligence, we have access to both CIA documents and Lisa Howard's own written accounts of torrid journalistic meetings as well as hot private meetings between Lisa and Fidel. The document on the left above is one that the CIA marked as Read by POTUS, meaning President Kennedy, and dated May 1, 1963. The typed letters on the right above were the first two pages of a 4-page letter that Lisa wrote to "My Dearest Fidel." While having a torrid love affair with Fidel, Lisa also had two hugely popular ABC News interviews with the Cuban leader. But it is in her letters and notes  that she revealed intimate details: "We talked and lay on the bed...he kissed and caressed me, expertly with restrained passion..." "He talked about wanting to have me but would not undress or go all the way..." Later, in her own words, she said he did, and did so "expertly." In another letter uncovered by Kornbluh, Lisa wrote: "But we did get to bed and he made love to me quite expertly and it was, of course, thrilling and ecstatic...as much as anything I have ever experienced."
    In her ABC-TV interviews with Fidel, Lisa asked some tough questions but it was obvious that both of them were probing...testing the waters...to ascertain if it was possible to normalize relations with the U. S. even as Fidel tightened his relationship with the only other nuclear Superpower, the Soviet Union. So Lisa understood Fidel's herculean defense against the U. S. at the Bay of Pigs in April of 1961 and even tacitly comprehended the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. Lisa believed...that if the nearby nuclear Superpower wanted to annihilate Revolutionary Cuba, Fidel was at least somewhat justified in seeking help from the only other nuclear Superpower even if it was the faraway Soviet Union. In her nationally televised interviews with Fidel, and in writings, speeches, and interviews she gave apart from them, Lisa stressed that Fidel mostly wanted friendly trade relations with the United States. Many inside the U. S. government responded positively but it infuriated vicious Cuban exiles and their sycophants.
   Meanwhile, both as a star journalist and as a lover, Lisa and Fidel tried desperately to be together as privately as possible but found that almost impossible because of his fame and notoriety, not to mention the security that surrounded history's all-time greatest survivor BY FAR of assassination attempts by three very competent assassins -- the CIA, the Mafia, and the Cuban exiles.
   Even a semi-private stroll like this with Lisa frightened Fidel's security detail. In her now revealed writings, Lisa said Fidel longed for being able to "spend endless hours just talking with me." And she added these definitive and exact two sentences in a letter to him: "You are right, Fidel. Our intellectual relationship is the essential one. Though the other one is rather pleasant too, the frosting on the cake."
     Meanwhile, these two photos reveal...apart from loving both Fidel and the Cuban Revolution...Lisa had become a massively controversial celebrity for trying to broker normal relations between the U. S. and Cuba. She won over some very important Americans, notably President Kennedy that Lisa is shown with in the above photo on the left. And Lisa had the support of the legendary rebel Che Guevara who is shown above on the right in Lisa's Manhattan apartment where she also entertained powerful U. S. pro-Cuban politicians such as Eugene McCarthy. Of course, Lisa's mounting notoriety gained her massive enemies too...assassins included.
      But, of course, Lisa's attempts to be intimate with Fidel were often thwarted because of who he was, and that included desired rendezvous sessions in Cuba and in New York when he visited the UN. Even attired in a huge coat in a car or briefly on a street heading to a car, Fidel encountered hordes of fans or reporters, so even a somewhat private meeting with Lisa in a field next to a stockyard became a little success.
Almost alone in a crowd -- Fidel & Lisa.
Nearly alone in a corner -- Lisa & Fidel.
     The televised Lisa interviews with Fidel reportedly impressed President John Kennedy but Lisa kept getting insider tips that she was "grossly irking a powerful man" and that was Vice President Lyndon Johnson.
     Lisa Howard became very afraid of Vice President Lyndon Johnson, based on the insider tips. Lisa had developed a close relationship with President John Kennedy and she believed that the older LBJ, as well as some vicious people around him, craved the Presidency but was blocked for the next six years by the younger and popular JFK.
     Still, as this graphic indicates, Lisa had become the absolute intermediary between her lover Fidel Castro and U. S. President John Kennedy. In early November of 1963, directly as a result of the incredible work Lisa had done, President Kennedy told his closer friends and advisers -- Kenneth O'Donnell, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Ted Sorensen, and Pierre Salinger -- that as soon as he got back from a 3-city political trip, the last being to Dallas, they would all work to NORMALIZE relations with Cuba as their "top priority." Lisa, when she got that message, was elated, to put it mildly. However, there were some who took the exact opposite view.
    On Nov. 22nd, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Conspiracy theories abound to this day. Did his plan to normalize relations with Cuba predicate the murder? That is debatable but one thing is known: Regardless of who or what group finalized the assassination, Kennedy's normalization plans relating to Cuba emboldened assassination attempts against him.
    Two people distraught over the assassination of President Kennedy were Lisa Howard and Fidel Castro. Fidel had lost his chance to have much-needed normal trade relations with the United States. To her credit, Lisa continued valiantly to promote the normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States. But now the U. S. President was...Lyndon Johnson. It was LBJ who personally pressured ABC News to fire Lisa...and prevent her from getting another network job in television news.
    On July 4th, 1965, while vacationing in the Hamptons, the 39-year-old Lisa Howard's body was found beside a stream. It was ruled a suicide...an overdose. Whether it was suicide or murder, one thing is certain: Lisa Howard died because of the incomparable passion she had to normalize relations between Cuba and the United States, something she likely would have accomplished if President Kennedy had returned from Dallas alive on Nov. 22nd, 1963. IF his first term would have ended normally, his reelection was a given, giving him time to cement his normalization plans with Cuba.
    Of course, both Kennedy brothers were assassinated -- John in Dallas in 1963 while he was President and Robert in Los Angeles in 1968 while he was running for President. Early on, many blamed JFK's murder on Fidel Castro as retribution for the numerous assassination attempts on Fidel's life. But as the powerful Attorney General who would leave no stones unturned, Robert Kennedy had quickly absolved Fidel who also quickly provided pertinent information in Havana to U. S. investigators. Later, it is worth noting, both John F. Kennedy Jr. and Robert Kennedy Jr. made separate visits as adults to Havana to be cordially hosted by their friend, Fidel Castro himself.
    And that brings us back around to the Gal Gadot-Sue Kroll movie that is being made with the title "My Dearest Fidel." Based on the great Peter Kornbluh's meticulous research, the torrid, historic, and bittersweet love affair between Lisa Howard and Fidel Castro richly deserves an honest cinematic telling.
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18.4.19

A Testament to Greed

With A Dose Of Revenge!!
{The USA's Cuban Cocktail}
{Saturday, April 20th, 2019}
     This photo in Miami/Coral Gables {April 17th, 2019}, courtesy of Politico, is a testament to #1 greed and #2 revenge, two staples within the bowels of the U. S. democracy since 1952, when the USA partnered with the Mafia in Batista's Cuba, and since 1959 when the Cuban Revolution chased the Batistianos-Mafiosi to U. S. soil, with Little Havana their new capital in Miami. Above,  that's John Bolton speaking on behalf of the weakened U. S. democracy in front of the Brigada Asalto 2506 banner, the battle-flag for the CIA/Batistiano attackers that humiliated the USA and Democracy way back in mid-April of 1961. In mid-April of 2019, it still humiliates the USA and Democracy.
     When a John Bolton, speaking on behalf of the President of the United States...in this case Donald Trump...can continue to insult and punish innocent Cubans on their island as well as most Americans and most Cuban-Americans, then perhaps the USA is in more trouble than the Caribbean's largest island. Most Cuban-Americans are decent U. S. citizens and they are responsible for sending several billion dollars worth of help to Cubans on the island each year. But, with a renewed all-out effort to starve Cubans on the island, the war-mongered Bolton greatly assaulted even that remaining freedom for Cuban Americans. Back on Friday, Bolton had gleefully presaged his Miami speech with a Tweet that saluted "the Bay of Pigs survivors" in Miami as if there were thousands. There are merely a handful because the lamentable Bay of Pigs attack was six decades ago. But whatever words Republican officials parrot, Americans are commanded to accept them. One such pathetic line from Bolton was this one: "In no uncertain terms, the Obama administration's policies toward Cuba have enabled the Cuban colonization of Venezuela today." Americans are programmed to believe such absurdity when it relates to post-Batista Cuba. Cuba is a besieged island nation with 11 million targeted and embargoed souls. Venezuela is currently being contested by three huge nuclear Superpowers -- the U. S. with 326 million people against China and Russia with a total exceeding 1.5 billion people. While Bolton is very afraid of the soldiers and military equipment Russia and China now have in Venezuela, he has the temerity and the audacity to accuse Cuba, for the USA's and Little Havana's benefit, as being the COLONIAL POWER IN VENEZUELA. And you know what? The implication from Bolton for Americans and Cuban-Americans is this: YOU BELIEVE WHAT I SAY ABOUT CUBA...or else!!! And so, we either put our tales between our legs and sleek away or we stand and say, "OK, Mr. Bolton, sir...what else?"
      Prior to Bolton's embarrassing foray to Miami this week, America's Commander-in-Chief himself, President Trump, had geneflected the U. S. democracy to the denizens in Little Havana. In this photo they included Rick Scott who just completed his tenure as Florida's governor and then got elected to the U. S. Senate from Florida. Scott is an absurdly vicious anti-Cuban Counter Revolutionary and, typical of Jeb Bush, Scott arrived in Florida from a distant state well-knowing how to make it in Florida politics -- by casting his lot with the most extremists Cuban exiles. Also in the above photo looking directly down over Trump's head is Mario Diaz-Balart, the son of a former ultra-rich Batista Minister. Mario and/or his older Havana-born brother Lincoln Diaz-Balart have represented Little Havana in the U. S. Congress for two decades. Americans are not supposed to know little tidbits like that...or else they might realize how Congressional laws such as the Helms-Burton Act, the Torricelli Billetc., etc. so drastically enrich and empower certain Cuban-Americans while unmercifully punishing innocent Cubans.
      The New York Times had another Editorial this week about Cuba and it again revealed what everyone knows, which is that little Marco Rubio from Little Havana has been designated by President Trump as the USA's new Cuban dictator. This New York Times Editorial assaulted Rubio for dictating that the sane U.S.-Cuban baseball deal would be blocked, meaning it will now only benefit human traffickers and Little Havana extremists. A democracy that allows a lightweight like Rubio to dictate such things is not the democracy it was prior to 1959. In the photo above, Rubio is shown making a Counter Revolutionary Cuban speech at the plush Manuel Artime Theater in Little Havana. Manuel Artime was one of the leaders of the Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba in mid-April of 1961. To this day, in mid-April of 2019, Americans and their tax dollars are supposed to herald the historic Bay of Pigs attack as a monumental event in American history. And as long as a Republican president can anoint a Marco Rubio as America's Cuban dictator on U. S. soil, that's precisely the propaganda Americans will be forced to accept and to pay for.
     When Republican Donald Trump was incredibly elected President of the United States because the other political party, the Democrats, had tilted too far to the extreme left, Johana Tablada was serving as Cuba's Ambassador to Portugal. She was then called back to Havana to serve as Deputy Director of all things related to the United States because Cuba knew that Trump would reverse the positive normalization efforts of outgoing President Barack Obama. In official statements, at news conferences, on YouTube, and on social media, Johana Tablada is now an eloquent spokesperson for Cuba in either Spanish or English. On her Twitter page, as you can check, she expressed these exact words regarding John Bolton's assault on Cuba in his Miami speech yesterday: "Before they try to  euphorically ride a wave of wickedness and lies, they should themselves take a dose of reality. The world has told John Bolton and the U. S. government to eliminate the Helms-Burton Act and the criminal blockade of Cuba."
    Above, posted by Johana Tablada, is an official Cuban statement regarding John Bolton's unequivocal vows to eviscerate/own Cuba once and all. The statement, translated to English, says: "The United States establishes that all foreign territory is its own land, including that of its most unconditional allies, and it does so with a cocktail of lies, abuse of power, greed, and arrogance. For a change."
     On an NBC News and YouTube video Johana Tablada discussed President Trump and the grip that the Brigada Asalto 2506 Bay of Pigs Banner has had on all Republican administrations in the USA since mid-April of 1961. Ms. Tablada, in that discussion, was astute enough to equate that grip on Republicans as a "vice-like grip on its democracy." Americans, I believe, should be brave enough to at least offer opinions as to whether Johana Tablada is right or wrong.
This was Johana Tablada's opinion.

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17.4.19

USA's Miami Shame

Reaches NEW HEIGHTS Today!!
     Today is April 17, 2019. Arguably, America's all-time greatest historic shame revolves around allowing right-wing thugs to direct its Cuban policies from 1898 {The Spanish-American War} till today {mid-way of the Trump presidency}. And today that shame reaches a new height when extreme right-wing war-monger John Bolton, speaking in Miami on behalf of President Donald Trump, elevates America's right-wing gutless extremism even beyond 1898's Remember-the-Maine criminality, the 1903 theft of Guantanamo Bay, the 1952 nexus with the Mafia in the wholesale rape and robbery of Cuba, the mid-April of 1961 gutless and humiliating Bay of Pigs attack on Cuba, the 1962 Embargo that still reigns as the longest and cruelest in world history, and the 1996-till-today Helms-Burton Act that was entirely written by Cuban exile extremists led by Jorge Mas Canosa and Lincoln Diaz-Balart whose dad {before fleeing to Little Havana/Miami in 1959} was a key Minister in the Batista-Mafia dictatorship in CubaIf you question any of the foregoing I assume you are a propagandist for the Cuban-exile extremists in Little Havana/Miami that Bolton affectionately calls the "the Bay of Pigs survivors" -- the ones he joins in Little Havana today to promise them that the USA will return Cuba to them. Of course, THE BAY OF PIGS SURVIVORS were captured by Fidel Castro-led Cubans in April-1961 and THEN SOLD BACK TO THE U. S. FOR $53 MILLION, most of which was in the form of BAYER BABY ASPIRIN. And, of course, in April of 2019 very few of those BAY OF PIGS SURVIVORS are still living, but Bolton at Trump's behest today in Little Havana will insist that the USA IS WILLING TO HARM AND MOCK THE REST OF THE WORLD in order to revenge/avenge the cowardly and ill-planned BAY OF PIGS/CIA/USA DEFEAT IN APRIL-1961.
    Actually, this initial Life Magazine recap of the Bay of Pigs attack was euphemistically slanted toward the exiles and the CIA. President Kennedy, who had inherited the Little Havana dominance of the USA's Cuban policies, did in fact order massive bombing of all three Cuban airfields but with planes disguised as Cuban planes. Life's depiction as "humiliating the US" was correct in April of 1961 and it is still correct in April of 2019...even if the Cuban narrative in the U. S. since 1961 has been dictated from Little Havana in Miami, where the infamous anti-Cuban Counter Revolutionary John Bolton, speaking on behalf of the USA today, will promise "the Bay of Pigs survivors" {as he called them in his Tweet} that the U. S. will return Cuba to them.
      The USA's stupid and cruel Cuban policy is THE ONLY TOPIC THAT COULD GET THE U. S. or any other country CONDEMNED UNANIMOUSLY IN THE VERY DIVERSE UNITED NATIONS. But in 2016, with an ignominious unanimity that the then-decent President Obama agreed with, the USA's Cuban policy got America condemned 191-to-0 in the worldwide vote. As a Democracy-loving American, that embarrassed me but, obviously, the generations of Americans since the 1950s have simply not had enough Democracy-lovers. Since 1952, when right-wingers sicced the Mafia on Cuba, right-wing thugs in all six Republican administrations have been 100% aligned, not with the majority of Cuban-Americans, but with only a mere handful of extremist Cuban exiles. The latest Republican President, Trump...as shown in the photo above...QUICKLY lived up to that fact by going to Little Havana in Miami and, appearing before a huge BRIGADE ASSAULT 2506 BAY OF PIGS BANNER, he genuflected shamelessly before the Little Havana choir...THE VERY SAME THING THAT TRUMP'S MOST-FAMED WAR-MONGER JOHN BOLTON WILL DO TODAY.
    While Nixon as Vice-President in April of 1959 solely prevented Revolutionary Cuba and the USA from normalizing relations, and Reagan as President in the 1980's officially anointed only Cuban-exile extremists as the political power-brokers in Florida and Washington, it is the Bush dynasty, although never held accountable, that crowned Cuban-exile extremists as, essentially, a government within the bowels of the U. S. democracy. The mutually beneficial Bush nexus with Cuban-exiles actually began in the 1950s as revealed by declassified U. S. documents but reached alarming cresendoes by 1976, the only year George H. W. Bush was CIA Director, and then sharply accelerated during his 8 years as Reagan's Vice President. Then during George H. W. Bush's one presidential term and his son George W. Bush's two presidential terms, Cuban-exile extremists in Little Havana/Miami were in muddy HOG-heaven.
    In 1989 little Bush brother Jeb wanted to break into politics in a big way too and HE KNEW EXACTLY HOW TO DO IT. He moved to Miami and became Chairman of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen's campaign to represent Little Havana in the U. S. Congress. As shown above, backed by the Bush political and economic machine, Ros-Lehtinen won her congressional seat in 1989 as Jeb Bush mimicked a halo on her head. From 1989 till she retired this year, 2019, the Havana-born Ros-Lehtinen was, along with the Diaz-Balart brothers and Marco Rubio, the most vicious anti-Cuban members of the U. S. Congress from Little Havana in Miami. Jeb Bush wisely chose her as his stepping-stone in 1989 because he knew she was the young shining light among the most extremist Counter Revolutionaries in Miami. When she retired after 3 decades in the U. S. Congress earlier this year, Ros-Lehtinen, of course, cashed in on her congressional experience by, typically, signing on with a powerful firm that deals with Latin American issues.
      Of course, the Bush dynasty has never had to apologize for dealing handsomely with the most extremist Cuban-exiles such as the infamous and self-proclaimed anti-Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch, shown above at a cozy dinner with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
     Very seldom, of course, has the Bush dynasty had to feel embarrassed about its dire connections with the most extremist Cuban-exiles. But, uh...on his way to his two-terms as Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush's fervent desire to totally appease the Counter Revolutionary extremists included...uh...asking his father, then President George H. W. Bush, to PARDON Orlando Bosch. Of course, uh...that's what happened. As you can see above, it took a very brave journalist to ask Jeb about his intimate ties to Orlando Bosch. Surprised by the journalistic audacity, Jeb's expression and, uh...reply...well, you know...!!!
     The all-time most famous Cuban-exile terrorist, of course, was Bosch associate and CIA-aligned Luis Posada Carriles. As the photo on the left shows, Posada in 1959 along with many other Counter Revolutionary zealots, was sent to the then-secretive Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning in Georgia, where he graduated as a 2nd Lt. Unknown to Americans, the "Army School" was where the U. S. trained soldiers from U.S.-friendly dictatorships...Batista in Cuba, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Somozo in Nicaragua, etc...and then sent them back to those dictatorships to make sure they survived as U.S.-friendly dictators. So, that's where the most extreme post-Batista exiles were sent, like Posada, to train for BRIGADE 2506 that supposedly would quickly recapture Cuba for the Miami-based Batistianos. It didn't work out that way but what the "Army School" did was to train Posada as a renowned explosives expert, which he famously put to maximum use for decades as an unapologetic anti-Cuban/USA terrorist.
    Of course, both Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles lived out long lives...in their 80s and 90s...as heralded Freedom Fighter Heroes in Miami.
      Another of the 2nd Lt./Brigade 2506 graduates at Fort Benning's Army School of the Americas was Jorge Mas Canosa.
     Later -- as shown above with George H. W. Bush -- Jorge Mas Canosa was essentially anointed by the Bush dynasty as the USA's Cuban-exile leader. With that anointment, Mas Canosa emerged as what amounted to a Cuban dictator on U. S. soil. On the way to becoming Miami's first Cuban billionaire, Canosa not only dominated Florida politically but easily also dominated all Republican presidents and even the U. S. Congress. For example, Canosa founded the Cuban American National Foundation after he was advised to study and then copy the ultra-powerful AIPAC Israeli lobby. With that uncontested power, Canosa quickly created the Radio-TV Marti anti-Cuba propaganda machine that, since the 1980's, has DAILY pumped an obscene amount of tax dollars into a gushing pipeline from Washington to Miami. But, in addition to the countless major institutions in Miami named for him, Canosa's most endearing fame relates to his being the prime architect of 1996's Helms-Burton Act, which remains to this day the primary tool for punishing Cubans on the island and, some brave souls say, the primary mechanism for continuing to enrich and empower the Little Havana section of Miami, Florida.
     Prior to Canosa's empowerment, in 1962...after the Bay of Pigs attack in April of 1961 had failed to recapture Cuba...the U. S. imposed the economic EMBARGO, or blockade as Cuba calls it, on the vulnerable island. The famous Carlos Latuff image above is how the world views the U. S. embargo of Cuba but IT HAS EXISTED TO APPEASE RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS from 1962 till today, the longest and cruelest BY FAR economic embargo ever imposed by a strong nation against a much-weaker nation in world history. Canosa in 1996 greatly stiffened the embargo, even putting in a clause that prevented Democratic presidents, like the decent Obama, from putting an end to it. The 1996 Batistiano Helms-Burton monstrosity even included a Title 3 element that called for the wholesale punishing and suing of foreign companies that did business with Cuba. But EVEN the two GEORGE W. BUSH presidential terms, which were 100% aligned with the Little Havana extremists, refused to enact TITLE THREE of the Batistiano Helms-Burton disaster because to do so would anger America's best friends and, HOLY COW, might even leave the USA liable to be sued BY CUBA in WORLD COURTS. BUT GUESS WHAT? Today -- Wednesday, April 17th, 2019 -- with extreme stupidity the Trump White House will announce that it is enacting Helms-Burton Title 3 as a last-ditch and final effort to starve Cuba.
     Over the past five decades, the Bush dynasty has, as shown above with President George W. Bush, cultivated a Who's Who of Counter Revolutionary zealots against Cuba. That, of course, includes Bush-trained John Bolton.
      And that brings us to today -- April 17, 2019 -- when John Bolton, speaking for the otherwise ensnared President Trump, is back in Little Havana to assure Miami's "Bay of Pigs veterans" that they have waited long enough...SIX DECADES...for the U. S. to recapture Cuba for them. And John Bolton TODAY very stupidly will announce, as a bonus for Little Havana, that the U. S. IS ENACTING TITLE 3 OF HELMS-BURTON.
     Born 45-years-old ago in Rome, Federica Mogherini is a very powerful and decent lady. For the past five years she has been the High Representative of the 28-nation European Union in charge of its Foreign Affairs. She has been to Cuba many times and she dearly loves the Cuban people. She has repeatedly called the U. S. embargo "exceptionally cruel and exceedingly illegal." Back on April 10th, when she first heard that the USA was about to enact Title 3 of Helms-Burton, Federica Mogherini fired off a scathing letter to U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, another of Trump's anti-Cuban zealots, and warned him that she, and the EU, will sue the U. S. in an International Courtroom IF Title 3 is enacted. Outside of Batistiano-friendly state and federal courtrooms in Miami, Federica Mogherini has long insisted that the USA could and should be held accountable for its Cuban policies.
     Another ultra-powerful and decent woman is Cecilia Malmstrom who has been the top European Union Trade Commissioner for the past five years. Cecilia Malmstrom, along with Federica Mogherini, co-signed that scathing April 10th letter to Secretary of State Pompeo. They did it ON BEHALF of innocent Cubans and ON BEHALF of European Union countries that might want to trade with Cuba.
     A typical young Cuban mother on the island, Daily Perez Guillen is also a well-educated journalist that is fully up-to-date on what John Bolton will say in Miami today. Daily, the mother of a young son and young daughter, is also well aware that cruel post-Obama sanctions added by the Trump administration have created a food shortage on the island, especially chicken and eggs. Her expression above reflects her sadness as well as her determination to "survive both Trump and the lack of concern from Americans to what, in their name, his White House is doing to precious Cuban children."
    Unlike the anti-Cuban Batistiano zealots who populate all Republican White Houses in Washington, Daily Perez Gullen, in the middle of the above photo, is deeply in tune with Cubans on the island...especially everyday Cubans who are parents and grandparents. "President Obama came over here," Daily said, "and he faithfully assured us that we had nothing 'to fear' from the United States. But we fear for our children whenever a Republican is the U. S. president. We believe that children in a sovereign nation should not be threatened by people in a stronger foreign nation."
    Yesterday -- April 16th on the eve of John Bolton's gutless speech today in Miami -- the Cuban mother Daily Perez Guillen posted on social media this photo of her two beloved and fiercely protected children peacefully feeding pigeons on a street in Havana. Daily believes that children who are so well protected in Cuba have the right to not be continually threatened by an unchecked handful of miscreants outside of Cuba, especially those hiding behind the skirts of a nearby Superpower. Below are two more photos that Daily Perez Guillen posted on social media yesterday. It was her way of trying to soothe the pain of what she knew would be John Bolton's speech today in Miami.
Cuban children yesterday.
Cuban children yesterday.
    Today in Miami John Bolton, speaking on behalf of President Donald Trump and 326 million Americans, will enact something...it's called Title 3 of Helms-Burton...that even the Bush dynasty refused to enact because it is considered by many decent people to be the STRONGEST EFFORT the United States has imposed since 1959 to threaten the children on the vulnerable island of Cuba. And perhaps the biggest shame of all is that, once again, the American people will be propagandized into accepting what John Bolton says today.
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cubaninsider: "The Country That Raped Me" (A True Story)

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