asombra

As already posted here recently, deeply disgusting, I mean very striking, photographic evidence has emerged of one of the “conquests” of Diego Maradona while he was in Cuba, reportedly for treatment of his drug addiction. The girl in question, Mavys Álvarez, was 16 at the time, though technically she did not qualify as a minor according to Cuban law. In any case, the relationship was fully known and evidently approved by Maradona’s delighted and exceedingly accommodating host, a man publicly described as “the father of all Cubans” by his brother and successor as dictator, I mean president. Such paternal, uh, concern is indeed extraordinary, but hardly surprising (just ask Elián González).

Here are some more pictures of the love birds (plus a certain bird of prey):

The images speak for themselves, so commentary is hardly needed (don’t miss the Che tattoo). However, it seems apt to quote a very well known Latin leftist, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, who was also a big soccer fan and wrote a book about his impressions of the game and its players:

Diego Armando Maradona fue adorado no solo por sus prodigiosos malabarismos sino también porque era un dios sucio, pecador, el más humano de los dioses. Cualquiera podía reconocer en él una síntesis ambulante de las debilidades humanas, o al menos masculinas: mujeriego, tragón, borrachín, tramposo, mentiroso, fanfarrón, irresponsable.

Translation: “Diego Armando Maradona was worshiped not only for his prodigious soccer feats but also because he was a dirty, sinful god, the most human of gods. Anyone could recognize in him a walking synthesis of human weaknesses, or at least male ones: womanizer, glutton, drunkard, cheater, liar, boastful, irresponsible.”

Such a jewel. Just the man you’d want shacking up with, I mean dating, your very young daughter. Really, Cuba was not worthy — but the Procurer, I mean Facilitator-in-Chief, certainly was.

This was a recurring and long- familiar scenario: the “normalization” of Cuba’s totalitarian dystopia by the international community and the collusion with it by “Latin” leftists. All those responsible are discredited and disreputable, not to mention contemptible, but some are more egregiously indecent than others given their position and pretensions. The latter include the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, although the UN is ultimately responsible for whatever she does or fails to do in her official role. 

On September 13, two months after the 11J popular uprising in Cuba and the heavily repressive state response, which flagrantly violated civil rights, Bachelet presented a formal report on worldwide human rights abuses at the opening of the 48^th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. She talked about Venezuela, Afghanistan, China, Belarus, Cambodia, Congo, Ethiopia, Georgia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Palestine, Philippines, Sudan, Syria and Ukraine…but not Cuba. Not a word. Nada. As if Cuba were a Caribbean Switzerland.

It’s not as if anyone should have had to ask her beforehand to do her duty, but there were calls to that effect from the San Isidro Movement, Cuban Prisoners Defenders and José Miguel Vivanco, director for the Americas of Human Rights Watch–all focused on her then forthcoming report in Geneva. Evidently, they went unheeded. It is a safe bet that she was also lobbied by Castro, Inc., which definitely has her number and can get her attention far more readily than those who want Cuba free rather than “revolutionary.”

This had nothing to do with ignorance of Cuba’s dreadful reality, not just now but for over 60 years. Bachelet is not uninformed or stupid. This was no oversight but a deliberate choice to overlook the painfully obvious—painful to the victims, that is. She is, of course, a lifelong leftist who has expressed admiration for Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the Cuban “revolution,” which she has not publicly called a dictatorship to my knowledge. Predictably, she subscribes to the view that Cuba has been victimized by the US “blockade,” and has attributed the 11J protests to its effects. 

Soon after 11J, Bachelet called for freeing of Cubans imprisoned for exercising their basic rights and asked for restored internet and social media access, but she never took the bull by the horns; she didn’t confront Cuba’s dictatorship as she surely would have a Pinochet-type regime. It’s as if, two months later, she’d decided all was in order and there was nothing to discuss or condemn in terms of human rights in Cuba. Again, she is neither ignorant nor obtuse but clearly compromised. This reflects the whole UN, now headed by a Portuguese socialist, which has not even temporarily suspended Cuba’s bogus membership in its Human Rights Council. Yet again, the rights and welfare of the Cuban people have been subordinated to the “revolutionary” fantasies and sympathies of foreigners.

I know nobody here needs to be told any of this, given how typical it is, but it needs to be called out and set down for the record. It should be beyond clear what and who is what, and Michelle Bachelet, who probably aspires to be UN Secretary General, is neither what nor where she should be. Alas, there are only too many like her, and worse.

P.S. Upon Fidel Castro’s death in 2016, Bachelet, as President of Chile, said via Twitter “My condolences to President Raúl Castro for the death of Fidel, a leader for dignity and social justice in Cuba and Latin America.” Even assuming she genuinely believed that, evidently “dignity” and “social justice” do not mean what she thinks they mean.

What follows is my translation of a substantial post by Cuban writer and academic Enrique Del Risco from his blog Enrisco. He is a published author of both non-fiction and fiction in Spanish, with a penchant for relatively subtle irony or sarcasm, and a challenge to translate. I chose to tackle it because the piece should be available in English, and I can think of no better forum for it than ours.

A reactionary country

The title refers to Cuba, of course. Not for the obvious reason that the island is ruled by a bunch of slogans from six decades ago and by a ghost trapped in a boulder as if from a story in A Thousand and One Nights. (Did I say obvious? Not so much when many persist in calling it “revolution,” as if any abrupt change had taken place in that land during the last half century. As if the speed of changes in Cuba were not more reminiscent of geology than of history). It so happens that the forces fighting for change and the demands of a considerable part of the society don’t seem to be the latest thing in political theory, either. Nor the next to the latest. In Havana or in Palma Soriano [a small city in eastern Cuba] people have cried “Liberty” with a freshness and an innocence unheard of for decades. Even the cry of “Down with communism” comes 30 years late, when the fall of the Soviet empire allowed the worn Western democracies to experience a second honeymoon with themselves. The Cuban protests, unusual as they are, have left that contraption called “international public opinion” more or less cold. In a world shaken every minute by the latest digital disturbance, the extremely rare spectacle of a real revolt in a totalitarian state doesn’t appear to be especially noteworthy. Or only in an equivocal way. The protesters say one thing and foreign journalists say something very different. It would seem they do not speak the same language.

If anything was noteworthy about the protests in July, besides their massive nature, an attribute until then monopolized by the state, that was their civility, their pacifism. In a planet in which any popular revolt entails at a minimum neighborhoods ravaged by fire and looting, attacks on subway stations and the odd lynching, the Cuban ones reached an almost Gandhian condition. Just some stones thrown, a few overturned police cars, some government enforcer roughed up was all the violence committed by protesters, who generally limited themselves to marching and yelling. (Someone will say that the prior destruction of the country dissuaded them from contributing to the work of the government they were repudiating. That someone would have a point). The communal spirit, the restraint, the clarity and simplicity of the demands and the intense use of social media which allowed the fulminant spread of the protests could have made them a universal model for revolt, and yet something failed in the transmission of their message. Where it seemed very easy to see a combination of being fed up with a failed system and a sudden loss of fear which permitted expressing that, foreign correspondents and later the experts all agreed that the protesters spoke out on account of the American embargo and the Chinese pandemic.

One must also recognize that, in their lack of understanding of the phenomenon, the journalists were impartial: they didn’t believe apprentice tyrant Miguel Díaz-Canel, either. They didn’t believe his claim that the protesters were mercenaries in the service of imperialism—which makes sense, given how difficult it would be for imperialism to distribute money to so many people all over the island—but they also didn’t believe the statement of the regime’s spokesman that the popular protest was against the regime. It is not so much a matter of ignorance or malice on the part of journalists or academics—though in certain cases it is impossible to rule out such reasons—as it is a matter of understanding very clearly the needs of their target audience. For too long already, that part of humanity whose opinion counts for something has experienced the advantages and disadvantages of democracy and freedom of expression, association and congregation. And it doesn’t find it too exciting that people take to the streets demanding things which ceased to be attractive long ago. Humanity trusts less and less in what it can do by itself with freedom and democracy, and it is tempted to turn itself over to strong men and extreme ideologies. To that public opinion, a revolt like the Cuban one must appear suspicious. And as anachronistic as a demand to abolish slavery.

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A recent article by Roberto Álvarez Quiñones got my attention, and I drew from it for those who cannot read Spanish (though this is not a translation). The article does not reveal anything new, but it quantifies the matter so that it is clearer in terms of magnitude and significance. This concerns a major issue crying out to be addressed.

In 1980, Fidel Castro brushed off the Mariel exodus (of some 135,000 Cubans) with the phrase “Let them leave; we don’t want them; we don’t need them.” No doubt he would have said that about any Cubans who fled his would-be utopia. However, in 1980 his regime was living off the USSR, which ended with the latter’s fall and led to the miserable “special period” of the 1990s. A key reason Castro, Inc. survived till it latched on to Hugo Chávez was aid from the formerly scorned exile community, which filled the gap between the Soviet sugar daddy and the Venezuelan one. But, the regime knew a good thing when it saw one, and they had no intention of dispensing with a revenue stream from Cubans abroad, especially as Venezuela tanked. Castro, Inc. is a parasite–it will suck from any teat it can.

It’s a great racket. The state is dysfunctional, unproductive and indolent. It neither can nor cares to fill the needs or wants of ordinary Cubans, who know its promises never pan out. Cubans with relatives abroad willing to help materially are induced to resort to a far better prospect than the state. After all, their relatives want to help them, not just with necessities but everything imaginable. The driving dynamic is not just love and altruism but also emotional blackmail, like paying ransom for hostages. The regime, of course, is happy to encourage and “facilitate” such dependence because it invariably profits from it, directly or indirectly, in exchange for nothing. The game, so to speak, is thoroughly rigged. Even on a non-financial level, the state can shift the responsibility and obligation of providing for ordinary Cubans to those abroad, so that natives expect precious little from it and simply look to an external provider.

The totalitarian dictatorship also evades responsibility by blaming its dismal failure on the US “blockade,” which is cynical BS but has long been accepted by the international community, including the Vatican. Still, deflecting blame does not pay the bills, and Castro, Inc. has to finance its massive and all-important security and repression apparatus, which is a FAR higher priority than “the people.” The regime’s prime directive is not about ordinary Cubans but about keeping its power and privileges indefinitely. So, how big a racket is exploiting the “diaspora”?

Over the last 10 years, Cubans in the US have pumped over 57 billion dollars into Cuba in remittances of cash and goods, according to a study by the Havana Consulting Group. That’s three times the revenue Cuba made from commercial exports during that period. Think about that. The regime cannot survive without the revenue it rakes in from people it pushed to leave the island–and it absolutely depends on that income to stay in power.

Naturally, when conditions worsen in Cuba, external aid goes into overdrive, so Castro, Inc. profits even from a crisis. The subliminal message is “Things are terrible here. Nothing runs properly and there are shortages of everything, so send all you can or your loved ones will suffer or even die.” And yes, it works like a charm, and the dictatorship knows it and banks on it. Parasites have no shame or scruples; they must live off others. So what can be done? Those being milked should see they are enabling and helping perpetuate the root problem, however unwillingly. They cannot be expected to deny their loved ones indispensable aid, but a good deal of what is being put in regime hands is not necessary, certainly not essential, and that should be cut out. This includes trips to and from the island, too often and by too many, even kids, not to mention using Cuba as a vacation resort (which is unacceptable even for foreigners). Is this realistic? Well, it is doable. The guiding principle should be to do all one can to end the asphyxiating nightmare.

For context, the US Marshall Plan to help Western Europe recover from WWII gave 16 countries 13 billion dollars over four years, the equivalent of 114 billion now. That was for a far greater population than Cuba, which has received half that amount the past decade–not from the world’s most powerful and richest country, but fro individuals who fled a failed “revolution.” Even the Soviet subsidy to Cuba was less generous, not least because it was never a humanitarian gift. So where are the results of such extraordinary largess from Cubans abroad? Why is Cuba still so poor, backward and stagnant? Simple: because Castro, Inc., like a leech, sucked up so much of those billions for itself.

At an absolutely terrible time for ordinary Cubans, in the middle of a very serious and complex crisis in which all efforts and resources should be directed at helping the people, the ruling dictatorship has other priorities. Despite economic meltdown, a raging pandemic, shortages of everything from medical personnel and supplies to food, electricity and water, and unprecedented popular discontent met with massive repression and abuses of all sorts, Cuba’s totalitarian regime has opted to roll out an elaborate series of measures and events to celebrate the anniversary of Fidel Castro’s birth, 95 years ago today. Black Friday indeed.

Numerous state entities are being engaged in all sorts of activities whose theme is “We learned to see you as eternal.” They include but are not limited to events with official cultural and political figures (such as notorious spy and accessory to murder Gerardo Hernández, freed by Obama), “volunteer” work, visits to historic sites, contests on social media, an apparent composition contest titled “Fidel in my heart,” sale of books, recordings and other products in honor of the late dictator, special TV programming, conferences, photography exhibits and even a gastronomic fair.

No, I am not making this up. Evidently, the brutal irony and obscene impropriety of all this costly and useless hoopla escape or do not concern the powers that be. Words pretty much fail in the face of such overwhelming disconnect from both Cuba’s awful reality and its obvious relationship to the man being celebrated. Talk about hubris, not to mention complete disrespect and utter indecency. But there’s no cult of personality or anything, as we have always been told. This is just, you know, a reflection of the people’s abiding devotion to Dear Leader. Beyond grotesque.

I’m reminded of Nero playing the lyre while Rome burned. The Castro people are so entrenched in their sense of power and entitlement that apparently they cannot see straight. This celebration is insane right now. The damn anniversary should have been handled discreetly or ignored–if only for the sake of prudence. The last thing ordinary Cubans could possibly be interested in at the moment is eulogizing Fidel, which does them absolutely no good in their dire circumstances. It defies belief that the regime could be so stupid, but maybe it’s so desperate that it’s resorting to magical thinking, as if invoking Fidel’s memory will ward off the threats to its survival, like some incantation.

And to think Marie Antoinette is still getting grief over something she never actually said, but Castro, Inc. can essentially say If the people have no bread, let them eat dead dictator. And the band plays on as it has for decades, while the world dispenses lip service and largely empty gestures, and the Cuban people get a celebration of the man who destroyed their country and made their lives a hellish, never-ending ordeal.

Gracias, Fidel.

A new petition by S.O.S. Cuba has been posted online for signatures, addressed to the director of the leftist newspaper El País, Spain’s version of the New York Times (with all that implies). My translation follows:   

With embarrassment and frustration, we have seen the shameful way your paper has covered the popular protests of this past July 11-12 in Cuba and the subsequent brutal repression against the participants. Despite massive manifestations throughout the island led by cries of “Liberty” and “Down with the dictatorship,” most reporters and commentators in your paper have striven to present them as a circumstantial reaction to economic difficulties imposed by the embargo and restrictions due to COVID-19. The yearning for freedom of so many Cubans, after suffering the deprivation of their most basic rights for over 62 years, has been reduced by your paper to mere physiology. It is even more shameful that a paper which had such a prominent role in the Spanish transition [to democracy] would be so set on denying Cubans’ desire for freedom.

This offends, but it does not surprise. For years, El País has persisted in keeping as its main source on Cuban matters a poorly disguised apologist for the Cuban regime, Mauricio Vicent. He has spent decades reporting nonexistent virtues of the regime and announcing reforms that never happen and changes that never arrive. Now that Cubans have gotten fed up with the Cuban government’s disdain for their rights and needs, Vicent insists on attributing their unrest to the embargo, in ignoring the situation of hundreds of Cubans in prison following last month’s protests, and in giving voice to the Cuban regime’s officious spokespersons. El País, the same as Vicent, instead of trying to understand what is really happening on the island and giving voice to the young people persecuted by the regime, insists on finding ways to disguise reality, just as the New York Times and its reporter Walter Duranty did with the worst years of the Soviet Union under Stalin. For you, more than a petition we have a question: Is this how you want your newspaper to go down in the history of Cuba? Like a make-up artist for the most extensive dictatorship in the hemisphere?

This will not, of course, get El País to change its ways. Like the NYT, it will never do that of its own accord, because it neither wants to nor thinks it needs to. Hubris thrives on feeling untouchable, like crime thrives on impunity. As for Vicent, no matter how compromised or despicable, he is not the problem. The problem is the employer who pays him to be that way. Obviously, if he’s kept his Cuba job so long, it must be because El País is fine with his performance.

This is a reflection of a very significant proportion of Spaniards, as is Spain’s socialist government, which will not even call Cuba a dictatorship. I again recall seeing, on the pages of El País, staff opinions like “Spain cannot lose Cuba a second time,” expressed without self-consciousness or ambiguity, as if it were both reasonable and unobjectionable. We are not dealing with empathy or solidarity; for that we’d have to look elsewhere — like Lithuania. Lord have mercy.

You can sign the petition HERE.

The photo above is as obscenely perverted as if the child were being used for kiddie porn. It is deeply disturbing, as it illustrates institutionalized child abuse, which has been “normal” in Cuba for decades while the “good” world looked on without batting an eye. We are talking about poisoning innocent minds with an evil ideology to control and use them as adults–just like a twisted religious cult. The girl is holding an image of the cult’s gods, not even in their prime but in decrepitude, whom she is taught to revere as heroic redeemers. The fact they are lying, vulgar tyrants who brought ruin, suffering and oppression to Cuba is never explained to her. She is simply fed a pack of falsehoods known as the “revolution,” and taught to believe in it and defend it so the cult leaders can keep power indefinitely.

My mother nearly went mad desperately trying to get her children beyond the Castro cult’s reach before it was too late, before the cult got into their heads and turned them into what Elián González became from his “education.” She succeeded, thank God, but my parents paid a heavy price, which no one should have had to pay–yet countless Cubans did. Those responsible never apologized nor repented, and they are still in power.

We are talking about a crime against humanity, an abomination. And yet, the world remains impassive, indifferent and complicit, even overtly approving. I repeat, the “good” world, which claims to be all about truth, justice and human rights. Said world eagerly praises such “education” because it is “free.” It is NOT and never was, since nothing can be free if it costs people their freedom, self-determination and basic rights. The world knows that, but just ignores the elephant in the room. It has ignored it over 60 years, despite the incessant cries of the victims, at least the ones who escaped the horror. There are all sorts of motives and rationalizations involved in such denial, but they boil down to miseria humana, which does not mean human misery but human miserableness.

Well, at last, Cubans seem on the way to freeing themselves from the Castro cult’s grip. The world could still help them– better late than never–but I wouldn’t count on it. It is still in thrall to the myths and fantasy of the “revolution,” that stale and utterly discredited euphemism for totalitarian dystopia. Still, it wouldn’t hurt Cubans to learn, once and for all, to depend on themselves, not on the kindness of strangers. We’ve had long enough to figure that out.

He’s not worthy of a post, but this is not about him. He’s just a functionary, la ficha de turno. This is about his employer–yes, Mommy Dearest, exposing herself again, like an old whore set in her ways with whom familiarity has definitely bred contempt. Perhaps the optics would be less crass or more filtered if the Spanish did not see Cubans as inferior beings, but they always have, even when Cuba had a higher standard of living than Spain.

The ambassador, Ángel Martín Peccis, is not a career diplomat, and his appointment is considered a political one. Obviously, he represents the socialist government of Pedro Sánchez, which has pointedly refused to call the Castro regime a dictatorship, and which routinely uses Castrospeak like “blockade” for the US trade embargo. These are known as big clues, not that anybody’s being especially subtle, but who cares? Hell, even “His Holiness” hasn’t bothered to fake it much Cuba-wise, despite having far more exalted pretensions than secular politicians. 

In an interview with a Spanish newspaper, Peccis attributes the July 11 protests and subsequent unrest to lack of food and meds due to the pandemic, the US “blockade” (which even Aznar’s government opposed) and of course Trump. That’s it. There’s no mention of anything else that could possibly drive Cubans to risk beatings, imprisonment and even death. There’s also no mention of the repression and abuses with which the military regime has responded, let alone any criticism of it. The ambassador is all for good relations with Cuba (read Castro, Inc.) and says protests will subside when the island’s economy “reactivates,” as if it had ever been other than highly dysfunctional.

He goes on to mention new Spanish projects in the tourism sector ready to begin when COVID subsides, and he paints a generally rosy picture of Cuba’s economic future. Spain is Cuba’s third largest trading partner, and some 275 Spanish firms operate on the island. When asked about the political situation in Cuba, Peccis evaded answering. His basic position was that the crisis will blow over and things will improve—as in back to business as usual, only more of it. But, when people rabidly fixated on Franco will not call Cuba a dictatorship, what can one expect? 

A most telling part of the article (which appeared in an Aragonese paper, since Peccis is from Aragón), came from the director of international relations for the Aragón Business Confederation, which represents all businesses in the region. Alluding to Cuba, he said that many Spanish firms operate in “countries which are not perfect democracies, like Morocco and China.” Fascinating perspective on China, no? He added that “something” will change in Cuba sooner or later, and that businesses already positioned there will have a significant competitive advantage–which is no doubt the prevailing philosophy among Spanish enablers, I mean commercial partners, of Castro, Inc. 

So there you have it. Nothing personal, apparently, just business. But don’t fret, because the ambassador threw in something about “the historical ties that unite us.” See? Mommy loves us, after all (though not as much as when she owned Cuba and could exploit it at will). Still, Mommy does what she can under the circumstances, and she’ll be damned if she plays into the hands of those Americans who deprived her of her Caribbean jewel.

If nothing else, all Cubans need to finally wake up and smell the putrid paella.

The following declaration was promulgated in Spanish this July 24th from Union City, NJ. My translation is below:

The Academy of the History of Cuba in Exile has noted with surprise and disgust how in recent weeks, institutions of Latin American studies have put aside any academic or ethic scruple to come out in defense of the Castro government, at a time when the latter brutally represses the Cuban people’s yearning for justice and freedom. This past May 29th, the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) issued a “Statement on the protection of human rights in Cuba” which, in fact, was less concerned with the objective proclaimed in its title than with portraying as a victim of the US embargo the regime violating the rights which the statement supposedly defended. On July 12, the day after massive protests broke out throughout Cuba against its totalitarian regime, the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) rushed to put out a “Pronouncement in view of the campaign of manipulation against Cuba,” which painted said protests as “acts of vandalism and terrorism” encouraged by the US, while it insisted on referring to the longest-lasting dictatorship on the continent as the “Cuban Revolution.”

Although it is not the custom of our Academy to issue political statements, we feel it is pertinent to express our rejection of the use of academic institutions as platforms for propaganda and support for repressive regimes, regardless of their professed ideology. We do not think it superfluous to remind the aforementioned institutions that falsifying reality in a way that transforms victimizers into victims goes against the fundamental principle of any academic body, which is to seek the truth. Or to point out that, in the specific case of CLACSO, its shameful declaration goes against the “strengthening of human rights and democratic participation” on the continent, which is expressly an objective of said institution. The elementary and Manichean vision projected by the declarations of both institutions appears less based on profound study of Cuba’s reality than on ideological agendas, which seek to mold reality to fit their interests more than to understand it fully.  

Recent posts on this blog have treated in some depth the public statements of both LASA and CLACSO. However, a response from Cuban academics is entirely appropriate and justified. As I have noted before, no matter how little influence or traction we Cubans may have, and no matter how powerful the forces stacked against us, it is always right to speak the truth, refute lies, denounce perversity and condemn evil — if only for the sake of dignity and honor.

Now that we can see light at the end of the tunnel, we must do all we can against the totalitarian darkness in Cuba and its enablers, especially those who cloak themselves in ostentatious but hollow righteousness.

Another alternative viewpoint from Cuban exile writer Juan Abreu about the current Cuba situation, posted on his blog Emanaciones (my translation):

President Biden has imposed some little sanctions on the Cuban dictatorship. He should stop fooling around and impose sanctions that hurt the dictatorship. For example. Shut off the flow of what sustains it. That is to say, absolutely prohibit the remittances sent by Cuban immigrants (there are almost no exiles by now) from the US. Zero remittances from the USA. To say one must maintain that obscene traffic for humanitarian reasons is not only hypocritical but selfish. Most Cubans don’t have anyone to send them money from the US. Let my relatives live a little better, at least have food, and to hell with the rest, and let all Cubans, including my relatives, remain under the debasing dictatorship for however long it may be. Sixty years more! In any case, the ones who are going to take to the streets are those on the bottom, the rabble, the chusma who don’t receive remittances; they’re the ones who’ll get beaten up and the ones who’ll get killed, and if by chance they succeed someday, freedom would then be for all Cubans, wouldn’t it?

I think it’s time to reconsider that “humanitarian” financing. How can it be humanitarian to finance an anti-human regime? 

Whether one agrees with Abreu or not, Biden certainly will not do what he suggests, and if somebody did it, the usual suspects would scream bloody murder–which of course they have not done regarding the oppression and repression of the Cuban people by the dictatorship. A relatively more realistic proposal is for Cubans living abroad to send only indispensable aid and stop all trips to and from the island unless absolutely critical–in other words, reduce the flow of revenue to Castro, Inc. as much as possible. Alas, that’s probably not going to happen, either. 

Lord have mercy.