Cuba Remains A Treasure Trove for Baseball Talent

 

   Tonight in Seattle the Major League Baseball season has its mid-season All-Star Game. In an era when baseball stars are routinely signing long-term $40-million-dollar-a YEAR contracts, I believe two 25-year-old Center Fielders -- Luis Robert Jr. and Ronald Acuna Jr. are the two best baseball players on the planet. They are from two baseball meccas -- Cuba and Venezuela -- that are under dire and cruel economic sanctions from the United States. And Yet both Cuba and Venezuela continue to produce many of the top Superstars in the U. S. Major Leagues, such as Robert from Cuba and Acuna from Venezuela.

      Above you can see the starting Batting Order for the American League for tonight's All-Star Game in Seattle. Note that Luis Robert Jr. is not listed although he is the best player in the AL as a brilliant Center Fielder and Slugger {26 homers already this season} for the Chicago White Sox. Robert also played Center Field for Cuba in this year's World Baseball Classic played in Tokyo. But while Robert is not in the starting batting order shown above, Cuba still has three of the first six hitters for the American League -- with Arozarena hitting #3, Diaz #5, and Garcia, #6. This Batting Order attests to Cuba's love for baseball, and also for Cuban parents knowing that Major League Baseball stars in the U. S. now routinely can command long-term contracts paying over $40 million dollars a YEAR!!

      Born 26-years-ago in Las Tunas, Cuba, Yordan Alvarez is not in tonight's All-Star Game because he is currently sidelined with an injury but he is one of the best hitters in the Major Leagues, meaning the Houston Astros may have to really open their bank account when his current multi-million-dollar contract comes up again.

      This photo shows Yordan Alvarez's family watching him play for the Astros in Houston. Left to right is Yordan's father, mother, wife Monica, and his brother.

     From Cuba to the United States with lots of Love and lots of Wealth in Houston. This photo shows Yordan Alvarez with his wife and their two children.

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A 2023 Cuba-CHINA Missile Crisis???

 

   This historic photo was taken in October of 1962 and it showed "No War Over Cuba" protestors marching in front of the White House in Washington. They were protesting the fact that a Nuclear War between the U. S. and the Soviet Union over Russian nuclear missiles in Cuba seemed imminent and, indeed, to this day it is considered the closest the world has ever come to a nuclear War. And now fast-forward to this second week in JULY of 2023 and, incredibly, there are headlines similar to those that scared the whole world back in October of 1962.

     Above are the Main Cuban Headlines starting this second week of JULY-2023 in which "Protesters" in Little Havana/Miami, as reported in the top-left above by Channel 10 TV News in Miami, are among those protesting what some believe could be a nuclear war involving Cuba, China, and the United States. It seems that there are reports that Mighty China is planning a Spy Base or even a Military Base just below Florida on the island of Cuba!!!! Note that the glaring headline on the top-right above says: "Towards A Chinese Missile Crisis."

    After getting her journalism degree from Colombia University, Belen Fernandez has worked for the New York Times, Al Jazeera, etc., and now is the Managing Editor of Jacobin News. She wrote this week's article that headlined: "Towards A Chinese Missile Crisis."

    To illustrate her international article warning of a Chinese Missisle Crisis in Cuba in JULY of 2023, Belen Fernandez used the famous photo from October of 1962 when the whole world was direly afraid of a Russian Missisle Crisis in Cuba that many believed would provoke a nuclear World Three. Below are prime paragraphs from Belen Fernandez's JULY 7th-2023 article:

     As you can see above, Belen Fernandez started by disputing the claim by the Wall Street Journal about audacious plans of China supposedly erecting miliary components in Cuba. She said what China is supposedly planning in Cuba  is actually what the U. S. has already done elsewhere, including an unwanted U. S. Miliary Base since 1903 on plush Cuban soil at the important Guantanamo Port.

      Also, as you can see in the final four paragraphs of Belen Fernandez's article, she questions the "veracity" and the "hypocrisy" of all the headlines claiming that, in JULY of 2023, a "Chinese Missile Crisis" looms regarding China's current overtures to little Cuba.

    Meanwhile today -- on JULY 10th-2023 -- Cuba's veteran Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, whose opnions are usually ignored in the United States, was shown on nationwhile Cuban Television News programs today saying: "The U.S.-Chinese conundrum now only concerns Cuba from the standpoint that the U. S. has tried to starve Cuban families with its cruel Blockade for over six decades, since 1962, and recently China has sent cargo planes to Cuba located with food. And while the current Biden administration has kept in place the most stringent and most cruel aspects of the Blockade as put in place by the Trump administration, China has also helped Cuban families by modernizing our railway system. All the while the American people are told that Cuban families should prefer the efforts from the powerful nearby nation that is trying to starve Cuban familes to death as opposed to the powerful faraway nation that is trying to keep us from starving and being deprived of daily things that Cuban families need. In other words, the starvation and deprivation tactics of the U. S. against Cuba can only continue decade after decade because of a continiung stream of lies."

     Above, translated from Spanish to English, Cuban Television News Channels today -- JULY 10-2023 -- used captions while long-time Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez provided Cuba's official reaction to the latest headlines regarding the Chinese-United States-&-Cuban war-like developments.

      Meanwhile, the controversial U. S. Blockade of Cuba since 1962 and the controversial U. S. Military Base at Cuba's Guantanamo Port since 1903 are both more troubling realities today to most Cubans in Cuba than whatever military plans China has in Cuba in JULY of 2023.

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Storm Clouds & War Clouds Over Cuba!!!

 

     Today -- JULY 8th-2023 -- this Newscast in Cuba told its viewers that the very vulnerable Caribbean nation is yet again being surrounded by dangerous Storm Clouds!!!

    And, meanwhile, the U. S. media remains obsessed with destroying Revolutionary Cuba 64 YEARS after the Cuban Revolution shocked the world by overthrowing the U.S./Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship on January 1st of 1959. As shown above heading into the second week of JULY-2023, the U. S. media remains involved with reporting on or concocting excuses for the U. S. government to finally overthrow the damnable Revolutionary Cuba "that is so close to the coast of Florida." Above you can see that The Hill, one of Washington's most ubiquitous political media zealots, wants Americans to know that: "Instead of American Capitalism in Cuba, We Have the Chinese Military." The drastic Headline is illustrated by a drastic Photo that shows China's President Zi providing Cuba's President Diaz-Canel a massive Honor Guard greeting from a large contingent of Chinese soldiers. WOW!!! That implies, of course, that China -- which has the only economy or military that rivals those of the United States -- is wooing little Cuba as it ramps up its competition with Cuba's neighbor, the United States.

    Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution over Batista on January 1st of 1959, there have been a plethora of excuses for the United States to totally overthrow Revolutionary Cuba. Targeting Fidel Castro didn't work and neither have the Bay of Pigs military attack, the economic Embargo/Blockade that has existed from 1962 till July of 2023, etc., etc., etc.!!! But perhaps the photo shown above from Beijing will finally be the excuse that prompts the United States to finally overthrow Revolutionary Cuba....MAYBE???

     And, meanwhile, if you study the map shown above you can see that poor little Cuba is just a few miles below the Superpower United States and many thousands of miles from China. Reality as well as this MAP proves that Revolutionary Cuba had rather be close friends with the neighboring United States than with faraway China. But obviously that is not Revolutionary Cuba's choice to make, as Cuba's top diplomat regarding relations with the United States repeatedly points out.

   The top Cuban diplomat in the U. S. is now Lianys Torres Rivera. She earlier was Cuba's top diplomat during her very important post in Vietnam before becoming the Charge d' Affaires in Washington as Cuba's top diplomat in the United States. In Washington and when she is invited to speaking engagements elsewhere in the United States, Ms. Torres repeatedly says: "The United States is Cuba's closest and most important neighbor. For our sake we earnestly and eagerly want the United States to be our closest friend and our largest trading partner, for sure. When that day comes, it will greatly help both the United States and Cuba."

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A War In Cuba; A War On Cuba!!!

 Propelled by Yellow Journalism???

    The United States history with the nearby island-nation of Cuba includes A War IN Cuba in 1898 and since 1959 A War ON Cuba. In 1898 the U. S. launched the Spanish-American War in Cuba to easily gain control of Cuba from Spain. Since 1959 the U. S. has engaged in an Economic & MILITARY War on Cuba to starve and overthrow the Cuban Revolution that audaciously overthrew the U. S. & Mafia-backed Batista dictatorship. The 1898 victorious U. S. War in Cuba was swift but the not-victorious Economic+MILITARY War on Cuba since 1959 has existed for 64 Years and remains endless even though it shames the United States even more than it shames and starves Cuba.

     The opening paragrph above may not be politically or socially correct in the United States in July of 2023 but actually and factually it is correct. Further, I think I can prove what created and perpetrated both the U. S. War in Cuba in 1898 as well as the U. S. War on Cuba since 1959 is something correctly called Yellow Journalism, which occurs when scoundrels control the news gathering and news dispensing apparatuses, even in Democratic countries. Before you quickly deny the pernicious power of Yellow Journalism as it relates to these Two U. S. Wars on Cuba, permit me to explain the basic truth about how the U. S. media concocted Both Wars.

    In the 1890s, fueled by Yellow Journalism as correctly documented above, the United States government wanted to implement its well-crafted desires to gain dominance of Cuba from Spain. Joseph Pulitzer, owner of the New York World newspaper, and William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York Journal, had become the two most powerful publishers in the U. S. and the World. They were fierce competitors but both of them used extreme Yellow Journalism to stoke the flames urging the need for the United States to take over control of Cuba from Spain, and it was deemed quite easy to do because Spain's imperative forces in Cuba were finally stretched too thin and long-coveted Cuba was due South of the emerging military powerful and imperative anxious United States. All the U. S. needed was an excuse to attack Spain's forces in Cuba. WOW!!!! A U. S. warship, The U. S. Maine, was docked in Havana Bay and, quite conveniently, it exploded and killed 261 U. S. sailors!!!! That was all Pulitzer and Hearst needed to use its Yellow Journalism to create The Spanish-American War in 1898 in Cuba. It marked the News Media's first, but not its last, use of Yellow Journalism to promote and create other excuses to attack Cuba since 1898 -- such as the Bay of Pigs military attack in 1961, the Embargo/Economic attack since 1962 that still exists in July of 2023, and even terror attacks such as the infamous bombing of Cuban Flight 455 in 1976 that killed all on board the civilian flight!!!

    But let's go back to the extreme Pulitzer/Hearst-led extreme Yellow Journalism that used the loud "Remember The Maine!" headlines that led to the SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR fought in Cuba and which easily and quickly changed the dominance of Cuba from Spain to the United States.

"Remember The Maine!"

   The extreme Yellow Journalism of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the two most powerful publishers in New York and the World in 1898, led to the Spanish-American War as the U. S. dominance of Cuba began and it also began the U. S. emergence as a imperative power. Of course, such things are unaccountable for the rich people that profit from such things as the prime perpetrators...because they can easily cover up such misdeeds with Yellow Journalism.

     Both Pulitzer and Hearst wanted the easy victory in the Spanish-American War to project Teddy Roosevelt into becoming President of the United States -- which happened, of course. To cover Teddy's "heroic exploits' in Cuba, some of the top journalists in NY and the US at the time were sent to hype the Spanish-American War in Cuba, especially Teddy's Rough Riders and his, uh, charge up the hill in the "The Battle of San Juan Hill."

       The Yellow Journalism in 1898 surely led to the USA replacing Spain as the dominant foreign player in Cuba, and to be truthful it although led to...the U. S. Military Base in Guantanamo Bay-Cuba from 1903 till today, which led to two Batista dictatorships in Cuba, which led to the Mafia-directed terror that started in 1952, which led to the Fidel Castro-led Cuban Revolution from 1952 till it won in 1959, which led to Revolutionary Rule of Cuba from 1959 till JULY of 2023!!!

    And one more reminder about how Yellow Journalism has clouded US-Cuban Relations from 1898 till JULY of 2023: In all that time only one U. S. President has truly tried to normalize relations with Cuba and that was two-term President Barack Obama. He even flew to Cuba to personally tell the Cuban people, in person and on national television and radio, that they "no longer needed to fear the United States." Of course, very quickly and everlastingly that presidential promise by Obama to the Cuban people on the island was cruelly mocked and easily nullified by Yellow Journalism, which remains in effect in July of 2023.

     Despite the sincerity of his words in Cuba {"Cuba Does Not Need To Fear A Threat From The United States"}, back in the United States two-term U. S. President Barack Obama quickly learned that even he was forced to be rudely overruled by the power of Yellow Journalism regarding Cuba.

     The most notable American Founding Father was Thomas Jefferson, the man that wrote its Declaration of Independence. He was many things, including America's greatest visionary. He understood in 1816, for example, that "the end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when...." He feared the end could occur if and when the governemnt and institutions might fall into the hands of moneyed incorporations, which began to occur in 1898 and still exists in July of 2023 as far as the U. S. Media and its Yellow Journalism is concerned.

     And for sure Thomas Jefferson understood the importance and power of the news media and "newspapers," which he considered more important than government itself. And, for sure, Mr. Jefferson foresaw the threat of Yellow Journalism, which began to take over the U. S. government in 1898 when rich and powerful publishers in New York were the ones that decided the need for the SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR IN CUBA!!!

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Who Defines U. S. Policy Regarding Cuba?

A New York Times Editorial Nails It!!

     History registers the fact that the United States and Cuba have had relations since 1492, the year that Spanish explorer Columbus discovered both of the North American neighbors.

    Since 1492, for the most part, little Cuba and the mighty United States have had a tumulturous relationship, to put it mildly...although they are only 90 miles apart geographically. The relationship has been wrought by countless wrong and greedy decisions from Washington and Havana but the prime culprits have really never been held accountable for their sins or miscalculations, and obviously never will.

   The two images above reflect the two facts that the U. S. had friendly relations with dictator Batista's Cuba but since 1959 the U. S. has been in a tug-of-war with dictator Castro's revolutionary Cuba even after Castro himself died at age 90 in 2016.

That takes us to JULY 4th-2023!!

     Today -- on July 4th-2023 -- Americans, including Professor/Journalist Peter Beinart, are celebrating the Birthday of the United States, which became a nation in 1776 after winning the American Revolution against England. Even today, despite everything else that is happening in the U. S. and around the world, major U. S. News Headlines involve the superpower USA's relations with its little southern neighbor Cuba. Incredibly, that has been the case since 1898, the year the U. S. easily won the Spanish-American War in Cuba to replace Spain as the foreign power seeking to dominate the Caribbean's largest and most beautiful island. In 1903 the dominant U. S. put a still thriving and anti-Cuban U. S. Military Base on Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, then later supported the brutal and thieving Batista dictatorship in Cuba but could not stop the Cuban Revolution in 1959 from shocking the world by ousting Batista as well as kicking out countless top U. S. businesses. Since 1959 the U. S. has been trying to regain control of Cuba from the Revolution with such drastic things as the disastrous {for the U. S.} Bay of Pigs military attack in 1961 and with the equally disastrous {for Cuba} U.S. Embargo/Blockade that started in 1962 and continues 63 years later in 2023, etc., etc!!! During all those historic years...1492, 1898, 1959, 1961, 1962, etc...a weakness of the superpower U. S. in its relations with Cuba has been a U. S. media that has mostly failed to tell the truth about US-Cuban Relations. Yet...as the U. S. began to celebrate JULY 4th-2023 the New York Times published a HUGE Editorial that actually truthfully explains who and why so many disastrous decisions by the U. S. have been made regarding Cuba. The Editorial in the New York Times was written this week by Peter Beinart who is a Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the City University of New York. Below is some of it.

   Above are some excerpts from the New York Times editorial by Peter Beinart that was first published on June 3rd, 2023. I suggest you dial up the entire article that provides an honest appraisal of U.S.-Cuban Relations.

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