Cuba in the Winter of 2021-22

 

    This interesting photo this week, courtesy of Sulema LG, shows Cuba, Florida, and much of the United States FROM  SPACE at nighttime. The much-smaller but better-lit country in the lower-right below Cuba is Jamaica. Cuba, of course, is the largest nation in the Caribbean, and arguably its most beautiful and, potentially, its richest. But its close proximity to Florida, and especially to Little Havana in Miami, precludes Cuba from realizing its vast potential. The U. S. captured control of the always coveted Cuba from Spain after the 1898 Spanish-American War. By 1952 the U. S. thought it was a wonderful idea to share the luscious island with the Mafia during the second dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Extreme brutality and thievery by Batista, the Mafia, and powerful U. S. businessmen spawned the Cuban Revolution that on Jan. 1-1959 stunned Batista, the Mafia, the U. S. AND the world with its Guerrilla War VICTORY. Since 1959 the U. S. and Little Havana/Miami have staunchly tried to regain control of Cuba...to no avail. Among other things, that effort included terror attacks to dissuade tourism to Cuba. Revolutionary Cuba also stunned the world again in April-1961 by defeating the U.S.-Little Havana military attack at the Bay of Pigs...and since 1962 the U. S., the strongest nation in the world, has imposed history's all-time longest and cruelest Embargo/Blockade of Cuba that any much-stronger nation has ever imposed against any much-smaller nation. So...study this nighttime view this week of Cuba from space; it still is not as well lit as Jamaica, Florida, etc., but it still holds firm to its revolutionary fervor. Meanwhile, Cuba remains, on the eve of 2022, the only nation having to try to curb a historic Pandemic as well as history's longest and cruelest Embargo/Blockade.

     Above are top U. S. headlines about Cuba heading into 2022. As usual the Miami/Little Havana media dominate the U. S. headlines, all of it...with rare exceptions...damning Revolutionary Cuba while always implying that what preceded it -- the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia dictators -- was the best and kindest government in the Caribbean.

  Like the Miami Herald, the rest of the mainstream U. S. media are also socially, politically, and otherwise obliged to defame Revolutionary Cuba. But a vast plethora of vicious anti-Cuba outlets have emerged since 1959, led by Radio-TV-Marti in Little Havana/Miami. For over three decades, U. S. tax dollars have lavishly funded Radio-TV Marti.

    And for over three decades Radio-TV Marti in Miami has, in the eyes and ears of many, engaged in tax-paid propaganda against Revolutionary Cuba.

    As you can see via the Google search above, even the Miami Herald has called Radio-TV Marti purely a dispenser of "bad journalism" and "ineffective propaganda." Yet...for over three decades tons of tax dollars have been regularly pipelined from Washington to Miami to fund Radio-TV Marti. Not only it is "bad journalism" and "ineffective propaganda," it is well known that the prime purpose of Radio-TV Marti is to provide a Cash Cow for politically correct Cubans in Little Havana-Miami.

    The great journalist and renowned Cuban expert Tracey Eaton has two blogs that regularly report on the pros & cons of Cuba, including the renowned and lavishly funded Cuban propaganda organ Radio-TV Marti. Now a beloved Professor at Flagler College in Florida, Eaton was back in Cuba this last week of 2021. His two blogs -- Along the Malecon and Cuba Money Project, as shown above, typically detail minutely how many tax-dollars daily fund Radio-TV Marti, and he gets the vast numbers and the names via the Freedom of Information U. S. Law. The figures and names are stunning...yet they have continued daily for the past 31 years and they continue into 2022 because no one can end it.

    For sure, Jeffrey Kofman is one of the USA's all-time greatest investigative journalists, including at the CBS and ABC television networks. At ABC his report entitled "Newscast to Nowhere" remains the definitive depiction of what Radio-TV Marti is.

    As shown above, the seminal "Broadcast to Nowhere" report by Jeffrey Kofman explains that the real purpose of Radio-TV Marti was not just Cuban propaganda but that the real purpose was/is to provide bundles of tax dollars to politically favored Cubans in Little Havana/Miami. Kofman points out, as you can see above, that Cubans on the island...the supposed prime target...don't hear or see it nor would it be effective if they did. But, of course, for the past 3+ decades the tax-dollars still flow unimpeded...even though for the past three decades powerful members of Congress...such as "Jeff Flake" as quoted above...have been trying without any success to save U. S. taxpayers and the U. S. Democracy such a humiliating ripoff.

         And meanwhile, only occasionally in the USA will the mainstream U. S. media report either positively or fairly about Cuba. BUT GUESS WHAT? One of the world's greatest Travel Writers, Laurie Werner, has just returned from crisscrossing Cuba and she has penned a huge, long article about Cuba that is fantastically positive and fair about Cuba this last week of 2021. And moreover, one of America's most powerful mainstream media sources, Forbes, was brave enough to not only publish Laurie Werner's revelations about Cuba but Forbes widely publicized it.

 World-renowned Travel Writer Laurie Werner strongly suggests that Americans and other tourists visit Cuba, saying they would savor the "warmth of the island and its people."

       As shown above, the Forbes article lavishly lauded Cuba's "medical structure" that has developed successful homegrown vaccines against COVID-19. And the Forbes article this week says Cuba is "well positioned to welcome travelers back just as winter sets in...and the warmth of the weather would be matched by the warmth of the people, expressed in a palpable joy to see American travelers visit as they did in the first wave in 2015." In 2015 Barack Obama became the only U. S. President to ease the U.S. Embargo/Blockade that began in 1962 and intends to destroy Revolutionary Cuba by, among other things, trying to block Tourism to the island. But in 2016 Obama was replaced by President Trump who quickly expanded the Embargo/blockade more genocidal than ever, and starting in 2020 the current President Biden has continued Trump's genocide against Cubans on the island to appease a handful of rich and powerful Cubans in Little Havana/Miami.

     And as shown above, this week the Forbes article was brave enough to point out that the "veritable avalanche" of tourism to Cuba in 2015 thanks to President Obama contradicted Little Havana's plan to starve Cubans in Cuba into submission, so starting in 2016 both Presidents Trump & Biden have cowardly and politically resumed the dictates of Little Havana's dictates...with another generation of cowardly Americans too afraid to do anything to ease a shame that shames America & Democracy more than it shames Cuba.

    Beyond question, except for Florida's dictation of the USA's Cuban policies, Cuba would be...per capita...one of the region's richest nations, and that would also benefit many Americans. Cuba's beauty and strategic location exceeds Florida's, and Cuban beaches are more beautiful than Florida's.

    Due south of Florida, Cuba's Varadero Beach has been listed as the #One Beach In The World and in 2021 TripAdvisor, a key worldwide tourist advisor, lists Cuba's Cayo Santa Maria as the Second Best Beach in the Whole World.

   This week the great journalist and Florida professor Tracey Eaton visited Cuba and posted dozens of Havana photos on Facebook, such as the one above. This photo shows a big building going up and it provoked surprise as well as discussions on Facebook. It seems that many people can't believe Cuba is involved in such things during the tightened U. S. Blockade and COVID-19, the twin perils that were supposed to have doomed Cuba.

   Indeed, many of Tracey Eaton's Facebook photos from Havana this week showed many decaying buildings but across the city many residential and government buildings have been sharply renovated, and that work is continuing despite the Blockade & the Pandemic. This Eaton photo this week shows a snapshot of Havana tourism as it begins to revive; an entrepreneur taxi driver has stepped out of his vintage 1950s convertible to snap a photo of his two paying tourists. Revolutionary Havana is not as rich as Havana was in the 1950s when the U. S. and the Mafia supported Batista, but heading into 2022 Havana still has the unique charm and allure that Cuba's capital city is famed for.

      Meanwhile, the endless 6-decade-old U.S./Little Havana Embargo of Cuba remains firm heading into 2022!!! Its demise, apparently, will be postponed as long as Little Havana wants it to exist.

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Christmas Day-2021 in Cuba

 

     On Christmas Day-2021 the USS Milwaukee, a powerful warship, is docked at Guantanamo Bay. The U. S. Navy says the combat ship "is sitting tight in Cuba because a portion of the crew is testing positive for COVID-19. The Milwaukee deployed to 4th Fleet Waters on Dec. 15 and is at Gitmo for a scheduled visit." After the U. S. victory over Spain in the 1898 Spanish-American War the U. S. gained possession of Guantanamo Bay in 1903. It remains a military base known for its infamous prison and it includes major U. S. restaurants and other amenities...and it has existed since 1959 despite the adamant disapproval of Revolutionary Cuba, which would love to have Guantanamo Bay back!!

 Strategically located and awesomely beautiful, Guantanamo Bay belongs to Cuba but the USA has dictated ownership of it since 1903.

This is an Amnesty International photo.

     The great photographer Yamil Lage, who works for the powerful Paris-based AFP News Agency, took this photo of a couple walking past a home in Havana that is gaily decorated for Christmas-2021.

      On Christmas Day-2021 President Biden has tightened the Embargo/Blockade of Cuba that his  predecessor President Trump had already extremely tightened. It has existed since 1962.

    Meanwhile, on Christmas Day-2021 this is probably the HAPPIEST little girl in Havana and in all of the Caribbean. Mariana's dream was to have her own little puppy on Christmas and she got to select this one. She named it "Fanny." Mariana is much-loved and well-protected but, unlike all other nations in the Caribbean, only little girls in Cuba have to be protected from both the U. S. Blockade and from the COVID-19 PANDEMIC.

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Scientists Praise Cuba's COVID Vaccines

 

    Yesterday, Dr. William Moss -- the renowned Professor at Johns Hopkins University -- told Reuters how "remarkable" Cuba's homegrown COVID-19 vaccines are considering the island's "size and the U. S. Embargo." Today -- December 23rd-2021 -- the latest international organization to express laudable praise to Cuba for its successful vaccines, such as Abdala, is the influential NewScience.

     Cubans on the island for weeks have been ecstatic about the effectiveness of their COVID-19 vaccines. Now they are finding out that the experts at Johns Hopkins University, NewScientist, etc., are beginning to take notice.

     Far beyond Cuba and far before COVID-19, Dr. Vicente Verez Bencomo's famed Finlay Vaccine Institute has developed some of the world's most efficacious vaccines. From its beginning in the 1980s, the Finlay Vaccine Institute has done its important work under the boot of the U. S. Embargo/Blockade that rich Cubans in Miami and in Washington, without opposition from the U. S. Democracy, easily continue to expand. But still, great scientists like Dr. Vicente Verez Bencomo at the Finlay Vaccine Institute continue to persevere...and victims of COVID-19 are thankful.

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Cuba Leads in World's COVID Fight!!!

!! 

    In the United States the Media as well as the  Ultra-Lucrative Anti-Cuba Cabal that formed in 1959 in Miami remains obsessed with damning Revolutionary Cuba while implying, of course, that the Batista-Mafia regime that preceded it was one of the world's greatest and sweetest Democracies. So...in December-2021...Americans are deprived from such Headlines as the one depicted above. It shows the world's top News Agency -- London-based Reuters -- informing the world that Little Cuba, despite the genocidal U. S. Blockade of the island, has managed to take a leading role in the World's Battle to Combat  the COVID-19 Virus.

    If there happens to big, important, and positive news from Cuba, the U. S. media and the Counter Revolutionary Cubans in Miami and in Congress make sure it is ignored as much as possible by Americans who are programmed to financially and politically support Miami Cubans who are already wealthy and to support the Trump & Biden administrations as they continue to tighten the USA's genocidal Embargo/Blockade against Cuba that began in 1962 for the purpose of starving Cubans in Cuba to induce them to rise up and overthrow their Revolutionary government...supposedly to return the U.S.-backed Batistianos & Mafiosi to the island. Above, the London-based Reuters, as an unbiased News Agency, is able to report to the world this week that Little Blockaded Cuba is remarkably a leader in fighting the deadly Pandemic..."...according to official statistics compiled by 'Our World in Data.'"

    Not dictated to by Cubans in Miami and in Congress, Reuters is able to report to the world what it calls "Cuba's Secret" regarding the island's renowned success in the fight against COVID-19. {See the two sentences above}.

     While the U. S. Media seems able to only quote extreme anti-Cuban counter revolutionary benefactors in the USA, please read what Reuters this week reported to the world from London: "It is a truly remarkable accomplishment, given the size of Cuba, and also the U. S. embargo, that restricts their ability to import." That unbiased sentence described what Cuba has accomplished against COVID-19 with its own homegrown vaccines "despite its size and the U. S. Embargo." And the Quotation was told to Reuters by one of America's greatest experts.

     One day, I hope, the U. S. media will be able to quote a great American Professor and Expert -- such as Dr. William Moss of Johns Hopkins University -- even if he says something positive about Cuba. And YES, Dr. Moss loudly praised and lauded little Cuba for its wildly successful homegrown COVID-19 vaccines that the island has developed what Dr. William Moss explained was accomplished "DESPITE the United States EMBARGO." When and if anyone in the mainstream U. S. media would publish such a comment from a notable American about Cuba, the United States Democracy would, I believe, regain some of its legitimacy since it supported the Batista-Mafia regime in Cuba back in the 1950s.

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To Leave OR Stay in Cuba

 

     As this blazing headline heading up to Christmas-2021 attests, Patrick Oppmann at CNN, like other mainstream journalists assigned to report on Cuba, are always obliged to only tell negative stories about the island...and only stories that appear to be first approved by Little Havana Cubans who rule Miami. In this huge report Oppmann reminds us that all of the 11.2 million Cubans on the island yearn to bolt across the Florida Straits to partake in the ultra-Wealth and the other ultra-Democratic rewards endemic to Miami. Indeed, many get-rich Cubans in Cuba want to get to Miami-USA -- as do a billion+ other get-rich citizens of other nations. Also, propagandist-styled U. S. journalists such as Patrick Oppmann could report on the many young, well-educated, ambitious Cubans that are leaving the island for myriad reasons, especially to Spain these days. So, if Oppmann is not allowed to discuss that phenomenon, permit me to discuss it.

  For example, this is Liliana Guerra Abad preparing to celebrate Navidad/Christmas-2021 in Vigo, Spain. Liliana graduated from the Journalism School at the University of Camaguey in Cuba. All Cubans...at least since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959...are provided totally free educations through college. In areas such as Journalism and Medicine, Cuba thus is overrun with a plethora of well-educated Journalists, Doctors, etc. Starting in her early 20s, Liliana was a talented reporter/anchor on television news programs in Cuba. Now she does the same job in Spain...but she still loves Cuba.

    After graduating from the School of Journalism at the University of Havana, Armando Cala quickly became a talented reporter/anchor on television news programs in Cuba. Now Armando is one of the most ubiquitous celebrities in Madrid, Spain, as a journalist, as a business student seeking his Masters Degree, and as a male model of expensive clothing. And, yes, Armando still loves Cuba...and he epitomizes why many Cubans leave Cuba, which are often reasons other than hating the Revolution.

    The tumultuous relationship between Cuba and the United States from 1492, 1776, 1898, 1952, and 1959 especially includes things such as the Mariel Boat Lift. Several times Revolutionary leader Fidel Castro helped Cubans who wanted to leave for Miami leave FOR MIAMI. Fidel Castro especially suggested that any Cuba being paid by the U. S. or just "lovers" of the U. S. should go to the U. S. with Fidel's help. And OH YES, Fidel made sure that he could empty his prisons and jails by sending his known criminals to Miami!! One of those times was from April 15th till April 30th in 1980 when Castro told Cubans who wanted to leave for Miami to go to the Mariel Port that is 28 miles southwest of Havana. During that time some 125,000 Cubans and about 25,000 Haitians took Castro's advice. Of course, Americans since 1980 have basically not been told the true history of the Mariel Boat Lift. But, perhaps, the great Hollywood producer/screen writer Oliver Stone remembered the truth of the Mariel Boat Lift in his famed movie "Scarface."

    All-time Hollywood greats such as producer Martin Bregman, director Brian De Palma, and screenwriter Oliver Stone were responsible for "Scarface" and it is still popular in 2021. The movie begins with a real black-&-white video of Cubans that Fidel didn't want arriving in Miami as a part of the Mariel Boat Lift in April of 1980. The movie then zeroes in on Tony Montana as the fictional Cuban who ravaged Miami as the USA's vicious Drug Kingpin.

    In the legendary movie Scarface, actor Al Pacino played Tony Montana as the Cuban who took over the deadly drug trade in Miami. Above is how Wikipedia's long depiction of Tony Montana's character ravaged Miami but...as also explained in the famed and great documentary "Cocaine Cowboys"...the drug trade in Miami WAS VERY INSTRUMENTAL IN "CREATING MIAMI'S LUSCIOUS, MAGNIFICENT SKYLINE."

     And one more comment about the April-1980 Mariel Boat Lift. Yes, Fidel Castro considered that he had succeeded in his quest to largely empty his prisons and jails by helping many of his expensive criminals get to Miami-USA.

    Indeed, in 1959 Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution drastically changed Cuba forever. But, it also drastically and uniquely changed the United States of America forever!!

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Is Cuba A Threat to the U.S.??

 Or Is Cuba Just A Potential U.S. Gravy Train?

(Like It Was Prior to the Revolution!!}

    In December of 2021 -- the United States has important problems domestically -- COVID, Inflation, a dangerous open southern border, surging crime in major cities, etc. -- and internationally -- trying to avoid wars it can't win against China over Taiwan and/or with Russia over Ukraine, etc. Yet, indications in December-2021 make it seem that the Biden government in Washington remains obsessed with claiming that Cuba is the USA's biggest threat as it continues the previous Trump administration's obsession of projecting little, Blockaded Cuba as a threat surpassing or on par with many of the real upfront threats the United States is facing. 

    The FBI notice {above} flashed the notice that "Cuba ransomware delivered via Hancitor" is even becoming a big threat to "Cybersecurity and Infrastructure" via "ransom payments," etc. 

     Cuba's veteran Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said, "It is, unfortunately, endemic to the U. S. narrative to sanitize aspects of violations made by U.S.-friendly nations while piling on even outrageous accusations against Cuba, one after the other. Back in the 1960s and 1970s the U. S. not only tolerated but supported the brutal crimes of regimes by the U.S.-backed murderous dictatorships of Batista in Cuba, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Somoza in Nicaragua, Pinochet in Chile, and so on and so on. It was and is all about rich Americans donating some of their loot to politicians in effort to have the support of the U. S. government. Students of history, and even anyone with a Google computer, can easily learn why Nixon and Kissinger backed the bloody coup that caused the death of the extremely decent and popular Democratically elected and Cuba-loving President of Chile, Salvador Allende, to install the extremely murderous 17-year reign of General Augustus Pinochet, a brutal murderous but...more importantly...U.S.-friendly dictator. If the Revolution that has governed Cuba since 1959 turned its potentially lucrative island over to U. S. businessmen and the Mafiosi, we would be caving into a U.S.-friendly posture. We choose not to do that based on the extreme brutality that the U.S.-backed Batista killers employed  -- coupled with no education and no healthcare at all for everyday Cubans -- that spawned the Revolution. Lying about that in 2021 plays well with the American people but not with this latest generation of Cubans on the island. Of course, by lying to the American people, the U. S. government and the U. S. media are not letting the American people understand why the strongest nation in the world, almost within sight of our shores, has been unable to regain dominance of this island. Maybe, around Christmastime of 2021, it is time that the American people finally asked why Revolutionary Cuba evolved in 1952 and 1953...and why it has survived for all these decades since 1959. My generation and the other generations in Cuba today remember the extreme thievery and brutality coupled with the no-education and no-healthcare for the everyday Cubans during the 1950s in the U.S.-friendly and U.S.-promoted Batista dictatorship. That answers, if the Americans should ask, why the Revolution started and why it endures today."

Everyday Cubans in Batista's Cuba!!

    Brave Cuban mothers like these took to the streets during the Revolution to protest the Batista use of assassins who murdered the children of these mothers as a warning and to try to dissuade them from objecting to what was happening to their families. Marches like these helped to galvanize the non-Batista Cubans and the non-Mafia Cubans on the island to give the support the Revolution needed to do the impossible, which was to defeat the U.S.-backed Batista-Mafia rule of the island. The Batista-Mafia memories of the 1950s have since 1959 helped sustain the Revolution.

    And photos like this one remind many Cubans in the closing days of 2021 of why they need to protect the Revolution. This sister and mother had been waiting at the airport in Havana for the arrival of their brother and son to return, along with two dozen other teenage athletes, with their Gold Medals after winning a Central American Championship in Caracas. But when this photo was taken...and it was taken on October 6th-1976...this sister and mother had just learned that Cubana Flight 455 had crashed into the ocean and there were no survivors among the 72 passengers. And this was a particularly bad year...1976...for extreme terrorism against totally innocent Cubans that, to this day, many Cubans in Cuba blame on the Bush dynasty, Miami Cubans, and the United States...the same government that puts Revolutionary Cuba on the USA's SPONSORS OF TERRORISM list.

Yes, there was terror in Batista's Cuba.

    And yes...there has been continued terror against Revolutionary Cuba that Cubans in Cuba blame on Miami Cubans paid for and tolerated by the U. S. government. Of course, in Miami courtrooms in which Cuba was not represented, many millions of dollars been awarded. Of course, a family in Cuba is not allowed the same such lawsuits...even if DECLASSIFIED U. S. documents {as shown above} would tend to support their cases.

LASTLY:

     The photo above shows a crowded Mafia-owned casino in Batista's Havana in 1957. Because rich U. S. companies were also partaking in the fleecing of Cuba, the U. S. government roundly encouraged tourism to Cuba...well knowing that the Batistianos and the Mafiosi were also making gigantic hauls of those U. S. dollars via gambling, prostitution, drugs, etc., etc.

    Back in the U.S.-backed Batista rule of Cuba in the 1950s, the top-line U. S. entertainers such as Frank Sinatra lured tons of U. S. tourists to Cuba...making ultra-rich benefactors out of the Batista and Mafia dictators but also making millions of dollars for rich U. S. businessmen.

    But since the Cuban Revolution took over Cuba at 3:00 A. M. on the morning of January 1, 1959, the U. S. has tried to destroy and starve Cuba via the 1961 Bay of Pigs military attack;  the 1961-till-today Embargo/Blockade; etc., etc. One means of trying to starve Revolutionary Cuba is to try to keep tourism off the island, a tourist-loving island that...unlike in Batista's Cuba!!!...pays for guarantees of free education through college and free healthcare for life for all Cubans!!! Meanwhile, study the map above and please note that the U. S. government today massively promotes tourist dollars to the rest of the Caribbean...especially the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic. Even during these Winter Days of 2021 everyone of the 30 Major League Baseball teams have built and operate year-around state-of-the-art baseball stadiums and practice facilities in the Dominican Republic, bringing billions of tourist dollars to the DR; and in the last weeks of 2021 the Bahamas has raked in billions of tourist dollars from hosting huge U. S. golf tournaments, important college basketball tournaments, business meetings, etc., etc. In other words, if Cuba was remotely treated like the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic, and the other Caribbean nations, I assume Cuba would be the richest nation in the Caribbean, wouldn't you?

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