EXCLUSIVE: Getting Biden* To Condemn Communism Is ‘Like Extracting Teeth,’ Cuban Immigrant Says

U.S. Boaters Who Help Cubans Face Prison, While Border Crossers Face Few Penalties

Quote:The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is threatening to arrest, incarcerate, impose excessive fines, and even take the vessels of boaters who help U.S.-bound Cubans flee the repression and economic suffering at the hands of the island nation’s communist regime.

On Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), a component of DHS, issued an advisory to boaters who help Cubans reach the United States, saying it is illegal for vessels to travel to Cuba for any purpose without a permit.

The advisory warned:

Vessels and persons illegally entering Cuban territorial waters or getting underway or departing from U.S. territorial waters with the intention of entering Cuban TTW without the required permit may be subject to seizure of their vessel, civil and criminal penalties up to $25,000 per day, and 10 years in prison.

People who violate U.S. immigration laws and illegally bring foreign nationals into the country or who attempt to do so may be subject to arrest, vessel forfeiture, civil and criminal fines up to $250,000 per day, and five years in prison.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has relaxed security at the U.S.-Mexico border — revoking most of his predecessor’s measures — which Republicans and other critics blame for the record surge of migrants reaching the United States from the south in recent months.

President Joe Biden kept the Trump-era pandemic control protocol (Title 42) that allows border authorities to quickly deport any migrant to stem the spread of the Chinese coronavirus.

However, his administration has watered it down, allowing exemptions to many migrants.

Moreover, migrants removed under Title 42 are not subject to traditional penalties for reentry, such as felony charges and jail time, allowing them to make as many crossing attempts as it takes to enter the U.S.

The Biden administration has made it easier for deported migrants from outside Mexico to keep trying by no longer flying them to their home countries thousands of miles away from the border.

In Cuba, forces loyal to the authoritarian regime are cracking down on historic anti-communism protests triggered by the poor economic conditions in the country.

On Tuesday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas acknowledged the development would likely lead to increases in maritime migration by Cubans seeking to flee their country by any means, including on unauthorized vessels coming from Florida.

Nevertheless, he indicated that Cubans who try to enter the U.S. illegally by sea would not be allowed to stay.

In prepared remarks delivered during a press briefing Tuesday, Mayorkas declared:

The time is never right to attempt migration by sea. To those who risk their lives doing so, this risk is not worth taking. Allow me to be clear: if you take to the Sea, you will not come to the United States. … I repeat: do not risk your life attempting to enter the United States illegally. You will not come to the United States.

In 2017, the Obama-Biden administration ended the decades-old Cuban refugee, dubbed “Wet Foot, Dry Foot.” It allowed Cubans who reach U.S. soil to stay and become voting citizens.

Many Cubans in the United States have strongly identified with or leaned toward the Republican Party for decades.

Two of the top 2016 Republican presidential candidates — Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas — are Cuban-Americans.

Now, most Cubans have to sneak across the U.S. border or claim asylum once they reach an official port of entry like many other Latin Americans.

(07-14-2021 08:45 AM)Niner National Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 06:05 AM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 05:59 AM)Bear Catlett Wrote:  

(07-13-2021 06:49 PM)Mr_XcentricK Wrote:  Where was all this concern for Cuba a year ago?

Where is yours now?

Never mind that a year ago Cubans by the thousands weren't risking their safety and lives to protest against an evil dictatorship. This could be a seminal moment for freedom for our southern neighbors. It may not happen today but the fires have been lit.

I’m cheering for the Cuban people, but if we are being honest they’ll just end up a poor democracy instead of a poor dictatorship. Life there will still suck for the masses. Guess it’s still better to be poor without the fear of your government executing you for critiquing them though.

Or maybe capitalism can lift them up as it does everywhere it's used.

Cubans Used Homemade Radios to Avoid the Internet Shutdown. Now They Are Being Jammed Too

Quote:Communist Cuba has engaged in a massive campaign of radio jamming this week in response to protesting Cuban citizens taking to the airwaves – often with homemade radios – to get news in and out of the country after the regime turned off the internet.

Cuba’s state-run telecommunications firm severely constricted the access of ordinary citizens to swathes of the internet in recent days, with social media and messaging apps all impacted. As Breitbart News reported this week, the anti-information move comes amid a rising tide of anti-government protests on the island, which are being violently repressed by the regime.

Resourceful Cubans were able to sidestep the government’s attempt to crack down on the flow of information on and off the island, however, by using Cuba’s proximity to Florida and the availability of hobbyist amateur radio operators to keep talking. Relatively simple, low-power, homemade radios allow voice communication on common civilian frequencies between Cuba and the Southern United States now, as it did decades ago in the pre-internet age.

The Cuban government soon got wise to this, however, and rapidly started using extremely high-power jamming equipment to render the useful parts of the radio spectrum unusable. At the time of publication, that jamming was still ongoing, Floridian radio amateurs said

Cuban exile and licensed U.S. amateur radio station operator Alex Valladares spoke to Breitbart London from Florida and explained how, after the internet went down in Cuba, he felt he had a duty to let Cubans know they weren’t alone and to help convey information in and out of the country.

Valladares said: “if they are protesting in Cuba and I’m a free man, I think the best thing that I could do is pass them the welfare information, the emergency communication. They don’t have the internet now, the government don’t want them to know the truth, they don’t want them to know they are organised, that they are all out on the streets.”

He said he started talking to Cubans on shortwave on the frequencies he knew most Cubans would be able to receive and transmit on, with the rudimentary equipment they had. But he soon found the frequency he was using became completely flooded with high-power noise, so Valladares switched to a new one, and the same soon followed.

In fact, he said, wherever Cubans were trying to talk to exiles in Florida on amateur radio, massive jamming knocking stations off the air quickly followed.

“[The interference] is following me and following the Cuban people when they have their daily nets. They don’t want the people to communicate in Cuba, that’s why they cut off the internet and all sorts of media is blocked … They tried to block any signal there because they don’t want the Cuban people – many who have homemade radios – they don’t want them to listen to the exiles in Miami like me, and many others around Florida delivering the world to them,” Valladares said.

This was possible, he said, because the Cuban government has a large amount of decades-old jamming equipment dating back to the Cold War, when the regime would try to block broadcasts of U.S. government anti-Communist stations like Radio Martí from reaching Cuban ears.

Valladares is now concerned for the wellbeing of radio operators on the island, given the degree to which speaking to the outside world is an act of defiance to a murderous regime. While he encourages his listeners not to reply vocally to his messages and to make non-verbal sounds instead to let him know they are out there while avoiding identification, it remains the case private radio operation in Cuba requires a government license, meaning the regime has a list of radio owners and their addresses.

“I always look for the best empty frequency, and I talk at 1.2kw, I know they are listening to me because I have had feedback from Cuba and they say they are listening to me,” Valladares explained. “There are a couple of Cubans I talked to on Sunday and Monday, but I couldn’t talk to them yesterday and I’m a little bit concerned about their lives, maybe the government went for them, you know?”

“They are going after these protesters, they are looking at the [viral protest] videos and they are going after them, to their houses, they take them out at night, and they kill them. With no justification,” he added.

As Breitbart has reported this week, the Communist regime has indeed been absolutely brutal in its repression of protests, including firing into crowds, public beatings, and visiting suspected protesters at their homes and shooting them in front of their families.

As for what comes next, Valladares said he would keep broadcasting and trying to find a way around the jamming. He said that, while he recognized many Americans would normally be rightly against the government getting involved in a foreign civil war, such a thing generally involves two armed sides fighting, which he said wasn’t representative of the situation in Cuba. With the population totally disarmed, the protests were characterized by citizens with stones against soldiers with guns, he said, and the Cuban people needed help.

He called for aid from the United States and NATO, saying: “The government of Cuba is massacring the people who do not have weapons. Nobody in Cuba has weapons. Fidel Castro took the weapons in 1961. Anyone with a weapon has been put in jail.”

“In Cuba, the only people who have weapons are the government and they are massacring the people, and that has to be stopped … SOS Cuba, Freedom to Cuba. The Cuban people need freedom,” Valladares told Breitbart News.

Breitbart approached the Federal Communications Commission, Radio Marti, and the American Radio Relay League for comment on the massive interference on the 40-meter band presently being experienced in the vicinity of Cuba but they all had failed, at the time of publication, to respond.

Link

Cuba Protesters Warn Americans Who Like Che Guevara: ‘He Was a F*cking Terrorist’

Quote:Protesters gathered outside of the White House on Thursday evening to urge President Joe Biden to act in support of the protests ongoing in Cuba this week told Breitbart News the mainstreaming of Castro regime mass murder Ernesto “Che” Guevara in America undermines the suffering of those he killed.

Guevara, a wealthy Irish-Argentine communist who participated in Fidel Castro’s seizure of the island nation in 1959, presided over the organization of firing squads to eliminate people who disagreed with Castro and pioneered the use of concentration camps in Cuba. He wrote openly that he “really loved to kill” and particularly enjoyed killing religious people and suspected LGBT Cubans, but his legacy in the United States has somehow morphed into that of a “revolutionary” representing the downtrodden. A famous portrait of the killer has become a popular t-shirt in America and the West generally.

A man identifying himself as Gianni, a Cuban protester at the White House, waved a Cuban flag emblazoned with an image rejecting Guevara. He told Breitbart News that those who admire Guevara have “the wrong information” and urged them to become better acquainted with his true legacy.

“People think he was great and a revolutionary. What no one tells you is that he used to kill gays in Cuba. His great idea was concentration camps for gays,” Gianni explained. “He used to kill Christians. He used to kill people that didn’t agree with him just because they wanted freedom and they didn’t want to be communist.”

Guevara was responsible for helping Fidel Castro implement what were known as “Military Units to Aid Production” (UMAP), concentration camps nominally used for agricultural labor to enrich the country – already Latin America’s wealthiest in the immediate period prior to 1959 – but in reality used to kill and repress “undesirable” Cubans. Anyone suspected of homosexuality, known to belong to Christian groups like the Seventh-Day Adventists or Jehovah’s Witnesses, dissident writers, journalists, and others seen as a threat to communism found themselves toiling in the UMAP. Reports indicate that overwork and intentionally dangerous situations created on the ground at the UMAPs were intended to kill their inmates.

“**** Che Guevara, he was a ******* terrorist,” another man attending Thursday’s protest who did not identify himself told Breitbart News. “That man killed a lot of people, you know what I’m saying? He killed a lot of motherfucking people. People in the world have a wrong impression of Che Guevara … He was in charge of killing people in Cuba.”

A third protester who identified himself as Amilkal told Breitbart News of Guevara, “He said ‘we are going to kill people and we will continue to kill people if we need it. People against the revolution, we’re going to kill them.'”

Amilkal appeared to be referencing a famous speech Guevara delivered before the United Nations General Assembly in 1964.

“We have to say here what is a well-known truth, that we have always expressed before the world: firing squad executions, yes, we have executed,” Guevara told the world on that occasion. “We execute and we will keep executing so long as it is necessary. Our struggle is a struggle to the death.”

“We know what the result of a lost battle would be and the maggots [anti-communists] must also know what the result of their lost battle is today in Cuba,” Guevara continued.

The United Nations cultural agency UNESCO celebrated Guevara’s birthday – and this particular speech – with a public statement last month.

The protesters organized outside of the White House on Thursday did so in solidarity with Cubans on the island who took the streets in dozens of cities across the county on Sunday and, reports indicate, continue to openly protest for freedom. The protests followed months of swelling unrest against communism, largely fueled by the discontent of young Cubans who have never known any other political system.

The Castro regime responded to the protests by issuing an “order of combat” demanding that civilians take the streets and violently attack the protesters, despite the overwhelmingly peaceful nature of the protests on Sunday. The regime also shut down the internet, making it more difficult for protesters to share videos of either protests or of the subsequent repression and making reports of ongoing manifestations difficult to confirm from abroad.

The White House protesters told Breitbart News repeatedly that the Biden administration should prioritize helping restore internet access for the average Cuban person and allowing Cubans in America to return to the island and help fight the regime.

“We’re going to do it. If you don’t want to do it, no military intervention, we’re going to do it,” one protester told Breitbart News.

The protesters also expressed panic regarding reports of police engaging in door-to-door raids, shooting and possibly killing unarmed protesters in their homes, in front of their families. At least one video smuggled out of the country this week showed police opening fire on a protester in his living room, in front of his toddler children and his wife. The man’s health condition remains unknown at press time.

(07-17-2021 12:28 PM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 08:45 AM)Niner National Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 06:05 AM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 05:59 AM)Bear Catlett Wrote:  

(07-13-2021 06:49 PM)Mr_XcentricK Wrote:  Where was all this concern for Cuba a year ago?

Where is yours now?

Never mind that a year ago Cubans by the thousands weren't risking their safety and lives to protest against an evil dictatorship. This could be a seminal moment for freedom for our southern neighbors. It may not happen today but the fires have been lit.

I’m cheering for the Cuban people, but if we are being honest they’ll just end up a poor democracy instead of a poor dictatorship. Life there will still suck for the masses. Guess it’s still better to be poor without the fear of your government executing you for critiquing them though.

Or maybe capitalism can lift them up as it does everywhere it's used.

As said earlier the people of Cuba have to be responsible for their own revolution. Yes we cant help them. But we have to be careful because Trump’s friend’s, Russia and China have already threatened us if we intervene.

How did free market capitalism work out in Russia?

(07-18-2021 05:27 PM)Mr_XcentricK Wrote:  Trump’s friend’s, Russia and China

????

The "Russia Russia Russia" stuff remains unproved wild allegations.

And the guy who is clearly in China's pocket is Biden.

D.C. Officials Who Authorized BLM Street Sign Order Removal of ‘Cuba Libre’ Words Outside Communist Country’s Embassy

Quote:Cuban Americans protesting in support of the Cubans calling for an end of communism painted ‘Cuba Libre’ on the street outside of the Cuban Embassy in Washington, DC, on Friday.

But the same D.C. officials who not only left the identical kind of street signage for Black Lives Matter in place and, in fact, enshrined it permanently by sealing off the area and naming it Black Lives Matter Plaza, ordered the “unauthorized” Cuba sign removed.

On the same day, the Department of Public Works erased it, according to the Washington Post:

In a Friday statement to the Washington Post, embassy officials wrote: “Despite the systematic policy of confrontation and aggression of the United States government against Cuba, the American diplomats who work in the US Embassy in Havana have always been safe and have never been the object of attacks, or other manifestations of hatred. The Cuban Government expects the same behavior on the US side.”

President [Joe] Biden has voiced support for the demonstrators and called on the “Cuban regime to hear their people and serve their needs at this vital moment rather than enriching themselves.”

The letters “VZLA” also appeared in the street painting, an apparent reference to Venezuela. Carlos Vecchio, the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States for opposition leader Juan Guaidó, tweeted a photo of the messaging outside the embassy on Friday.

Vecchio’s tweet, written in Spanish, said: “In front of the Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C. it reads: Cuba Libre. We stand with our Cuban brothers fighting for their liberty. We share the same fight: Liberty.”

Meanwhile, conservative members of Congress have come out in support of Cuban protesters and have chided Democrats for supporting the same kind of oppressive socialism and communism that has caused the suffering of the Cuban people for decades and caused millions to flee to the United States in search of freedom.

As Breitbart News reported, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday announced he is launching an advisory team on Cuba to advise House Republicans on the “ongoing freedom protests and government atrocities in Cuba.”

According to a press release, the team “will help develop policies to guarantee the United States ‘stands in solidarity with the Cuban freedom movement, and educate the American people on the tyranny of the communist regime in Havana.’”

Misleading title much? Stress from Covid, stress from a bad healthcare response by the government, stress from a life of embargo. Very little mentioned about the whole healthcare system though.

I hope they can get what they want however.

(07-18-2021 05:27 PM)Mr_XcentricK Wrote:  

(07-17-2021 12:28 PM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 08:45 AM)Niner National Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 06:05 AM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 05:59 AM)Bear Catlett Wrote:  Where is yours now?

Never mind that a year ago Cubans by the thousands weren't risking their safety and lives to protest against an evil dictatorship. This could be a seminal moment for freedom for our southern neighbors. It may not happen today but the fires have been lit.

I’m cheering for the Cuban people, but if we are being honest they’ll just end up a poor democracy instead of a poor dictatorship. Life there will still suck for the masses. Guess it’s still better to be poor without the fear of your government executing you for critiquing them though.

Or maybe capitalism can lift them up as it does everywhere it's used.

As said earlier the people of Cuba have to be responsible for their own revolution. Yes we cant help them. But we have to be careful because Trump’s friend’s, Russia and China have already threatened us if we intervene.

How did free market capitalism work out in Russia?

Trumps' friends? You're a ******* idiot.

(07-19-2021 05:40 AM)appst89 Wrote:  

(07-18-2021 05:27 PM)Mr_XcentricK Wrote:  

(07-17-2021 12:28 PM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 08:45 AM)Niner National Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 06:05 AM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  Never mind that a year ago Cubans by the thousands weren't risking their safety and lives to protest against an evil dictatorship. This could be a seminal moment for freedom for our southern neighbors. It may not happen today but the fires have been lit.

I’m cheering for the Cuban people, but if we are being honest they’ll just end up a poor democracy instead of a poor dictatorship. Life there will still suck for the masses. Guess it’s still better to be poor without the fear of your government executing you for critiquing them though.

Or maybe capitalism can lift them up as it does everywhere it's used.

As said earlier the people of Cuba have to be responsible for their own revolution. Yes we cant help them. But we have to be careful because Trump’s friend’s, Russia and China have already threatened us if we intervene.

How did free market capitalism work out in Russia?

Trumps' friends? You're a ******* idiot.

nah, it's just how they operate. Accuse your opponent of that which you yourself are guilty.

Cruz: Sanders, Warren, Ocasio-Cortez Should Get On A Raft, Sail To Cuba

Quote:Speaking at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit on Sunday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) ripped Democrats in Congress who have championed leftist policies, saying bitingly they should try life in Cuba as he snapped, “Just once I want to see some left-wing socialist — I want to see Bernie Sanders, I want to see Elizabeth Warren, I want to see AOC go down to Key West, get on a raft, and sail 90 miles south to the socialist paradise.”

“Ronald Reagan said years ago the thing the Left never seems to understand is the Berlin Wall that divided East Germany from West Germany, the Berlin Wall, the machine guns all point in one direction,” Cruz recalled. “The analogy I’m fond of using as a Cuban-Americans is the thing that liberals never seem to understand if you go down to Key West, is the rafts are only going one direction. Just once I want to see some left-wing socialist — I want to see Bernie Sanders, I want to see Elizabeth Warren, I want to see AOC go down to Key West, get on a raft, and sail 90 miles south to the socialist paradise.”

“Their ideas don’t work; tyranny doesn’t work; freedom is powerful,” he continued.

In 2016, in an interview with Univision, Sanders was asked: “I am sure that you know about this topic: various leftist governments, especially the populists, are in serious trouble in Latin America. The socialist model in Venezuela has the country near collapse. Argentina, also Brazil, how do you explain that failure?”

Sanders dodged by saying his focus was on running for president of the United States of America. Sanders added, “Of course I have an opinion, but as I said, I’m focused on my campaign.”

Also in 2016, Sanders said, “Do I support the economic policies or their political policies? Of course, I don’t. But you know what else? Cuba produces a lot of physicians… They go to poor countries around the world doing a lot of good … By and large, Cuba’s educational system, for a poor country, is pretty good. When Castro came to power, they did a lot to eliminate illiteracy in that country.”

In October 2020, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden said of Sanders, “Look, I’m the guy that ran against a socialist.”

Ocasio-Cortez said in March 2019 at the South by Southwest festival, “To me, capitalism is irredeemable.”

Daniel Henninger wrote in March 2019 in The Wall Street Journal of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez:

The reality is that Bernie Sanders of Vermont and now a first-term House Member from New York City have pushed the Democratic Party through an already open door into an infatuation with democratic socialism. This means the next Democratic administration, and that would include a Biden administration, will sit to the left of the Obama presidency … The blueprint isn’t AOC’s cooking videos. It’s the proposal Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced on these pages last August—the Accountable Capitalism Act, requiring that large firms obtain a federally approved charter and let employees elect 40% of company directors.

WATCH: Washington Post Reporter Says Democrats Won’t ‘Go Hard’ On Cuba Because They Agree With The Regime

Quote:A Washington Post reporter acknowledged that many Democrats do not want to “go hard” on the Cuban government because they agree with many of its policies.

Toluse Olorunnipa — who reports for The Washington Post primarily on racial justice issues and serves as a CNN contributor — noted that progressives are fond of socialist policies favored by Cuba’s communist regime.

[twitteer]https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1416748187755352064[/twitter]

“They are really being led by the progressive wing of their party, and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party does not want to go hard against Cuba, against some of the things that the Castro regime may have been a part of,” remarked Olorunnipa on CNN’s “Inside Politics” Sunday.

“In part, because there are some Democrats, there are some progressives who agree with some of those things,” he added. “They agree with universal health care, they agree with some of the programs that were in place in a more socialist kind of society.”

“The far left is driving the Democrat Party’s agenda, and they want to enact many of Cuba’s dangerous policies here in the U.S.,” responded GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on social media.

“Radical Democrats have been trying to push socialism in America for years,” said GOP National Spokesman Paris Dennard. “Liberals have been pushing an anti patriotism… narrative. Is anyone surprised that many Democrats and the Biden White House aren’t stronger in denouncing communism & socialism?”

As The Daily Wire reported, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — a leading progressive — emphasized the purported role of the American embargo in worsening Cuba’s conditions in her statement about the protests.

“We are seeing Cubans rise up and protest for their rights like never before,” she remarked. “We stand in solidarity with them, and we condemn the anti-democratic actions led by President Diaz-Canel. The suppression of the media, speech, and protest are all gross violations of civil rights.”

“We also must name the U.S. contribution to Cuban suffering: our sixty-year-old embargo,” she continued. “Last month, once again, the U.N. voted overwhelmingly to call on the United States to lift its embargo on Cuba. The embargo is absurdly cruel and, like too many other U.S. policies targeting Latin Americans, the cruelty is the point. I outright reject the Biden administration’s defense of the embargo. It is never acceptable for us to use cruelty as a point of leverage against everyday people.”

For the past several decades, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has been apologetic toward the Castro regime.

“But I remember for some reason rather being very excited when Fidel Castro made the revolution in Cuba, and it just seemed right and appropriate that poor people were rising up against rather ugly rich people,” Sanders said of his teenage years. “And I remember watching the Nixon-Kennedy debates and I was very excited and impressed about the Cuban revolution… And Kennedy was saying that Nixon was too soft on communism… I actually got up from the room and almost left to puke.”

Speaking at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) declared that socialist-leaning Democrats ought to move to Cuba: “Just once I want to see some left-wing socialist — I want to see Bernie Sanders, I want to see Elizabeth Warren, I want to see AOC go down to Key West, get on a raft, and sail 90 miles south to the socialist paradise.”

“Ronald Reagan said years ago the thing the Left never seems to understand is the Berlin Wall that divided East Germany from West Germany, the Berlin Wall, the machine guns all point in one direction,” Cruz noted. “The analogy I’m fond of using as a Cuban-Americans is the thing that liberals never seem to understand if you go down to Key West, is the rafts are only going one direction.”

Link

Cuba Protesters at White House: Joe Biden ‘Has the Power to Stop This in One Day’

Quote:A group of protesters urging American action to protect the lives of thousands of Cubans who began protesting peacefully against the regime this week across the island told Breitbart News on Thursday that the communist regime has launched a “civil war” and “genocide” against those seeking freedom.

While Cuba has seen a growing number of peaceful assemblies against the ruling Castro regime in the past decade, the scale of the protests that began on Sunday – spanning over 60 municipalities from one tip of the island to the other – is a dramatic escalation from what the country has experienced in recent memory. The scale of the repression on the part of the regime has also grown. President Miguel Díaz-Canel, the figurehead of the ruling Castro dynasty, issued an “order of combat” on Sunday demanding that civilian “revolutionaries” take the streets and violently assault anyone suspected of protesting against the regime. The regime shut down most access to the internet, but videos smuggled out of the country later this week show buses full of armed civilians driving into some of the cities with the largest presence of dissidents, apparently on orders to attack protesters.

Members of the Cuban exile community organized a protest in front of the White House on Thursday both to demand that President Joe Biden act to save lives in the country and to raise awareness for the scope of the violence their brethren in the country are facing at the hands of their state. The protesters were adamant that reports in left-wing establishment media outlets attributing the protests to a rise in Chinese coronavirus cases were deliberately obscuring the true demands of those taking the streets.

“They are not asking for food – that they need it – they are not asking for medicine – that they need it, too – they are not even asking for medical attention, that they need it. They are asking for freedom,” one woman at the event told Breitbart News.

“People in Cuba are tired of being repressed by the regime, the government. It’s 62 years of repression, people going to jail just for saying ‘freedom of speech,'” another protester said. “In Cuba there is no freedom of speech. … They don’t need food – well, they need it, but they’re not fighting for that.”

Both protesters emphasized the many reports that the Castro regime is forcing civilians, including minors, to violently assault fellow citizens – and the fact that protesters cannot defend themselves because Cubans do not have the right to bear arms under the Communist Party.

The attacks, the female protester said, are “against people without any weapons because we have no weapons over there – it’s not like here where you can go and buy a gun or whatever you want.”

“Over there, there’s no weapons. And these people are shooting our people, our mothers, our brothers, our children. They’re killing kids,” she lamented.

The man accompanying her at the protest noted reports that the regime is sending police “inside people’s homes and taking kids, underaged, and mak[ing] them go fight against their own people.” The protester demanded not military intervention by the Untied States, but a decree by President Biden that would allow Cubans in the United States to travel to the island and defend the protesters.

“We’re going to do it. If you don’t want to do it, no military intervention, we’re going to do it,” he asserted.

“He [Biden] has the power to stop this in one day,” the female protester said. “We are asking for humanitarian intervention. If he doesn’t want to do it or can’t do it, at least let us go inside and help our people over there.”

A third protester noted unconfirmed reports that some of the uniformed officers attacking protesters appeared to clearly possess accents that were not Cuban, potentially indicating the importing of Venezuelan troops to repress Cuban people. Late dictator Hugo Chávez and successor Nicolás Maduro orchestrated the colonization of the oil-rich country under the Castro regime; as of 2017, reports indicated that nearly 100,000 Cuban government agents were in Venezuela helping repress protesters and run the socialist regime. Maduro offered the Cuban regime “all the support” possible in public remarks on Monday.

“We are here because we know America doesn’t really know what is going on with our people,” one of the protesters explained. “America needs to know that 90 miles from the United States, there is a genocide … this administration has the power to stop a genocide right now and they are not doing nothing [sic], just talking and talking.”

“They’re pulling the teenagers and bringing them to the street to fight people that are still on the street,” she explained. “It’s not two or three against them – it’s like maybe ten people inside your house getting your husband and killing him in front of your children … this is a genocide.”

The protesters repeatedly referenced a video surfacing from Cárdenas, northwestern Cuba, this week of a home invasion by Cuban “black berets,” or police special forces. The video appears to show an officer break into the home with an attack dog and shoot a man in his living room, in front of his wife – who can be heard screaming in the video – and their twin two-year-old sons. Reporters later identified the man as Daniel Cárdenas Díaz. His wife, Marbely Vásquez, told Miami’s El Nuevo Herald that her husband marched peacefully on Sunday, which apparently prompted a mob of plain-clothed police and armed civilians to beat him in his own home, causing most of the large pool of blood seen in the video. The officer then came in and shot him, taking him away to a police station. Cárdenas’ health status is unknown at press time.

‘They Need Our Support’: Gloria Estefan Pleads with Biden Administration to Condemn Cuba’s Communist Government

Quote:Gloria Estefan is calling directly on the U.S. to support Cuba’s pro-democracy protesters.

In recent days, the singer has signaled her support for those demonstrating against the communist Cuban government with social media posts. But over the weekend, Estefan took her pleas to traditional media, frankly asking world leaders, and specifically the U.S., to intervene.

On Friday, the Cuban-born lead singer of Miami Sound Machine posted an impassioned statement on Instagram asking the U.N. and the American government to come to the aid of the Cuban people.

“My heart hurts for the Cuban people on the island & what they’ve already gone through for over 62 years,” she said, adding “But now they are saying ENOUGH despite the beatings, the murders & incarcerations, the abuses of power, the starvation & the attempted destruction of their spirits! They need our support & that of the democratic & free countries of the world. The United Nations &, very especially, the United States, must strongly condemn the repressive & violent measures being taken by the Cuban government against their own people! Spread the images, spread the word!”

That same day, Estefan, who immigrated from Cuba when she was two years old, told Reuters, “I call on the United Nations to condemn the Cuban government and their tactics against their own people, that they’re using violence, that people are disappearing, that they’ve killed people.”

Then, in an interview with CBS’s Miami affiliate, WFOR-TV, on Monday morning, Estefan outlined the situation in Cuba, pointing out that, contra statements from Black Lives Matter and other left-wing political groups in the U.S., the Cuban people see nothing noble about their communist government.

“The young people of Cuba have had it now,” the 63-year-old said. “They don’t have any romantic ties to the revolution, or anything that may have happened 62 years ago. They’re hungry, they feel hopeless, they’re being jailed. They’re being tortured and it’s being hidden. People are dying in the streets and in the hospitals. It’s dire and things are not going to go backwards. If the government of Cuba thinks that this is gonna go away, they’re sadly mistaken.”

Estefan went on to argue that free artistic expression has led to the current uprising, saying, “It was started by directors, actors, musicians on the island as usual. Artists are the ones at the forefront of pushing the envelope with things. And even though they’ve been censored for years and weren’t allowed to press what they wanted to do because they will be jailed, they’ve had enough.”

The star added:

“There was an envoy ordered to look at human rights abuses in Cuba. They did not allow them in. They don’t allow the Red Cross and they don’t accept help whenever there’s been a hurricane that the United States and other countries have sent or wanted to send, they refuse to take it.

I would like to see a peaceful transition. I would love to see that government realize that their days are numbered because, just as the music industry was forever changed with the advent of the internet and social media, Cuba is down that same course.”

OPINION: Anti-Trump Evangelicals Are Now Silent On Biden’s Cuba Policy

Quote:In 2018, a host of Evangelical luminaries were busy building public profiles outside the usual churchy circles with frequent condemnation of the Trump administration. Foremost among them: Beth Moore.

A best-selling women’s Bible teacher with nearly a million Twitter followers, Moore became something of a media darling during the Trump years with extensive, sometimes front-page coverage in The Washington Post, USA Today, and The New York Times.

The Atlantic even dubbed her an “Evangelical Superstar” in a multi-page spread.

What Moore was most famous for in these secular press circles, however, wasn’t her commentary on the New Testament but her scathing criticism of the 45th President, especially his immigration policies.

The author was so committed to seeing Trump’s border plans reversed she put her name to a full-page ad in The Washington Post calling on the former President and Vice President to “help vulnerable immigrants.” “We are troubled,” she said along with her fellow signatories, “by the dramatic reduction in arrivals of refugees to the United States … Jesus makes it clear that our ‘neighbor’ includes the stranger and anyone fleeing persecution and violence, regardless of their faith or country.”
Given Moore’s public outcry over asylum seekers during the previous administration, you might assume she showed similar distress when Biden’s Department of Homeland Security secretary, Ali Mayorkas, said last week that Cubans trying to flee to the U.S. to escape persecution or torture are not welcome.

You would be wrong.

Moore, whose social media posts and activism regarding border security were widely covered between 2016 and 2020, has said nothing about the hunger, sickness, and general deprivation unfolding in the island nation. She has made no objection to Biden keeping the doors of our country tight shut to Cubans despite the fact that the government there is reportedly beating, arresting, and detaining Christian pastors. She hasn’t even mentioned Biden’s overall policy of keeping refugee admissions historically low, the point that so distressed her during the Trump years. Not one word.

It must be acknowledged, though, that Moore is hardly alone in her unwillingness to hold the new administration to the same standards it demanded of the last one. Before he resigned in May amid a flurry of fawning media profiles, former head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), Russell Moore (no relation) was known for his CNN interviews and New York Times op-eds in which he took his fellow Evangelicals to task for their Trump support. The former President’s border policies featured prominently in this criticism.

Under Russell Moore’s leadership, the ERLC issued an open letter asking Congress to provide a “legal remedy for the subset of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children by their parents.” At the height of the media storm surrounding Trump’s plans for building the wall, Moore tweeted, “Immigrants, & those fleeing from persecution, are not political ideas. They bear the image of a God …”

Yet now, as the totalitarian Cuban regime cuts off social media from its people and scores of protestors go missing only 90 miles from U.S. shores, as women cry in the streets about their children dying of hunger, how many op-eds has the prolific media commentator written about Biden’s lack of response? How many interviews has he given? How many tweets?

If you guessed “zero,” you would be correct.

The hypocrisy of the two Moores would be easy to dismiss if they were outliers. But the list of Evangelical authors and mega-pastors who have lectured rank-and-file parishioners that social justice issues are Gospel issues and lent their names to campaigns explicitly and implicitly condemning Trump immigration policies is a staggeringly long and elite one.

Quoting Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE), mega-church pastor and recent president of the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., J.D. Greear, called Trump’s border policies “wicked” and said “Americans (should be) better than this.”

He appeared on PBS’s Firing Line, arguing that any believers who voted for Trump must speak about the “dignity of … immigrants and our responsibility to the refugee” lest they damage their Christian witness. Further, Greear contended that these remarks needed to be precise. “We can’t let political strategy cause us to pull back and not speak with clarity on the issues,” he said.

Yet where is Greear’s clarity today? Though he was happy to sign and promote Russell Moore’s ERLC statement, he too, has uttered not a single word about the crisis in Cuba or the Biden administration’s ghastly bungling of immigration in general.

Neither has Evangelical author, editor, and former ERLC staffer, Trillia Newbell.

During the national debate over the migrant caravans arriving in Mexico, Newbell, another CNN interviewee, offered statements for pro-immigration press releases and shared a New York Times article titled, “You Can’t Be Pro-Life and Against Immigrant Children.” The essay argued, “Because of their support of the president and general silence on his administration’s actions the major players in the pro-life movement are now tethered to his horrific border policies.”

“Yes,” Newbell tweeted in response. “What a tragic moment we are in. God have mercy.”

But what of the Cuban children suffering from a lack of food and medicine? Is their oppression less tragic? Is Heaven’s mercy less needed? Judging by Newbell’s silence when it comes to the Biden administration’s promise to turn back refugees of that nation, you’d have to assume so.

And the list goes on and on.

An earlier Washington Post ad, which ran in 2017 making similar immigration demands as the second, read like a who’s who of the Evangelical world. The signers included bestselling authors Max Lucado and Ann Voskamp, influential mega-church pastors Tim Keller and Matt Chandler, and seminary president Daniel Akin.

Once again, not one of them, though they claimed they were duty-bound by their Christian platforms to speak truth to Trump, has publicly commented on Biden’s response to Cuba or even offered general support for welcoming Cubans fleeing the threat of torture.

Republicans in Congress have offered direct resolutions to support the Cuban people as they protest brutal communist oppression. No Democrats have backed it. Neither have any of the above-mentioned religious leaders.

While it might be possible to believe that one or two of these leading Christian lights simply hasn’t yet had the time to address the issue, the fact that none of them has, despite their very active social media accounts, suggests something else is going on.

It’s important to note that the comments from these leaders during Trump’s tenure were far from ambiguous and went well beyond general biblical principle. The letters, essays, ads, tweets, and interviews took an explicitly activist tone, demanding action on specific policies from specific political actors.

What can their disinterest now suggest but all that effort on behalf of “welcoming the stranger” was less about Christian conviction and more about political posturing designed to win the affection of the progressive media and other left-leaning demographics?

Scripture has much to say about leaders who strive to appear righteous before men and show partiality to those whose favor they would like to have. It has much to say on those who use unequal weights and measures. None of it befits those who claim the title pastor or Bible teacher.

Christianity Today editor Ed Stetzer has at least mentioned Cuba since the freedom marches began, saying, “Cubans are protesting against their tyrannical government … Communism always leads to great suffering… Pray for Cuba.”

What Stetzer didn’t mention in his brief tweet — the Biden administration or any of its policies regarding Cuba. Nor did he condemn the Department of Homeland Security’s announcement that any Cubans who try to reach the U.S. by sea will be turned back. Indeed, Stetzer has so far failed to criticize Biden’s approach to refugees at all, whether directly or obliquely, in his terse acknowledgment of the protests.

What a stark contrast his short, general post is to a lengthy 2017 0p-ed he wrote for the Washington Post in which he addressed called out President Trump by name, lamenting, “As an American citizen, I cannot change the Executive Order. But as a Christian and kingdom citizen, I cannot cheer for it, and I cannot stay silent. It is time to pray for those who are hurting, and to plead with our leaders to change course.”

Its also a far cry from a 2018 essay he wrote for Vox in which he claimed, “President Donald Trump is trying to fool evangelicals like me” and insisted “far too many white evangelicals are motivated by racial anxiety and xenophobia.”

Stetzer finished that piece by asking, “How could we have seen the suffering, heard the cries of anguish, and done so little?”

Apparently, that’s only a question for Republican administrations.

UFC’s Jorge Masvidal Slams ‘Coward’ Colin Kaepernick for Wearing Fidel Castro T-Shirt

Quote:UFC fighter Jorge Masvidal took a swing at former NFL player and anthem protester Colin Kaepernick for parading around in a Fidel Castro t-shirt while claiming to protest oppression.

In a July 12 tweet, the Cuban-American UFC fighter slammed Kaepernick for his hypocrisy even as protests rise against the communist regime in Cuba.

“My father escaped Cuba when he was 14 years old,” Masvidal said in the video attached to his tweet. “And I’ve only heard the horror stories since I could process thoughts of how ****** this communist regime, killing machine is. So, I just want to shed some light on Cuba — big SOS signal for them.”

“This oppression has been going on for 61 years,” Masvidal continued. “This is not just because of the pandemic, or it’s not just because they ran out of medicine — they’ve been out of medicine and they’ve been out of resources and food because of the corrupt government and the extreme corruption over there where only a few at the top eat and everyone has to suffer. Those days have to end.”

Later, in an Instagram post, Madvidal recalled how Colin Kaepernick wore a t-shirt praising Cuba’s communist dictator, Fidel Castro, and added that “cowards” like Kaepernick should be sent to live in Cuba so they can experience real oppression.



Masvidal is, of course, referring to the time in 2016 when Kaepernick wore a t-shirt praising Castro at a San Francisco 49ers press conference:

At the time, Kaepernick praised Cuba for its education and health care systems and even claimed that the island nation’s educational system was so good because Castro spent more money on schools than on prisons.

Kaepernick’s claim that Castro did not imprison his people rings hollow, though. One report in 2012 found that Cuba had the sixth-highest rate of imprisoning its people per capita in the world, and many of those behind bars were political prisoners placed there for openly defying the communist regime.

Back in 2016, Kaepernick also showed that he was not just protesting the few police misbehaving when he wore socks that portrayed all police officers as pigs. Kaepernick also said that the U.S. was never great, noting that he was standing up against the whole country in general, not just supporting “social justice” with his anthem protests.

(07-18-2021 05:27 PM)Mr_XcentricK Wrote:  

(07-17-2021 12:28 PM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 08:45 AM)Niner National Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 06:05 AM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 05:59 AM)Bear Catlett Wrote:  Where is yours now?

Never mind that a year ago Cubans by the thousands weren't risking their safety and lives to protest against an evil dictatorship. This could be a seminal moment for freedom for our southern neighbors. It may not happen today but the fires have been lit.

I’m cheering for the Cuban people, but if we are being honest they’ll just end up a poor democracy instead of a poor dictatorship. Life there will still suck for the masses. Guess it’s still better to be poor without the fear of your government executing you for critiquing them though.

Or maybe capitalism can lift them up as it does everywhere it's used.

As said earlier the people of Cuba have to be responsible for their own revolution. Yes we cant help them. But we have to be careful because Trump’s friend’s, Russia and China have already threatened us if we intervene.

How did free market capitalism work out in Russia?

Free market capitalism never actually happened in Russia.

Russia never successfully set up the institutions necessary to allow free market capitalism.

Russia hired the Harvard Institute for International Development to try set up those institutions (such as the SEC, credit ratings agencies, stock markets, and a liberal court system). Instead of helping, Russian-born Harvard professor Andrei Shleifer used his position to manipulate fledgling Russian stock markets and make hundreds of millions of dollars. This destroyed public confidence in the Russian stock market regulators, leading directly to the 1998 Russian financial crisis.

Russia actually sued Harvard in US courts and settled out of court for $31 million.

I've spoken with Russians who blame Harvard for never throttling their attempt to set up a capitalist economy.

How Harvard Lost Russia

Che Guevara’s Daughter Calls for More Repression Against ‘Low Class’ Cuba Protesters

Quote:Aleida Guevara March, daughter of communist mass murderer Ernesto “Che” Guevara, has urged the Cuban Communist Party to enact more violent repressive measures against the thousands of “low-class people” protesting on the island, AmericaTeVe reported on Tuesday.

Guevara, an Argentine-Irish communist who joined Fidel Castro’s small group of violent Marxists in the takeover of the country in 1959, served as economics minister in the early days of the Cuban Revolution. He spearheaded programs to build concentration camps for suspected homosexual Cubans and Christian groups, organized firing squads against political dissidents, and openly boasted to the United Nations that the Revolution intended to kill large numbers of Cuban people.

Che Guevara also wrote somewhat extensively of his racism against black-skinned people around the world and his hatred of LGBT people, considering them unsuitable for molding into the “New Soviet Man,” as communists had vowed to do with populations under their control.

Despite all this, Guevara received – and continues to receive – outsized respect in the international community. Then-President Barack Obama posed with the portrait of Guevara in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution during his 2016 visit there. UNESCO, the United Nations world heritage agency, celebrated Guevara’s birthday in June, sharing selectively edited video of his speech to the U.N. General Assembly in 1964. Omitted from the excerpt published by UNESCO: “Firing squad executions, yes, we have executed. We execute and we will keep executing so long as it is necessary. Our struggle is a struggle to the death.”

In other writings, Guevara stated that he “really loved to kill” and upheld hatred as the paramount virtue of socialism.

Guevara remains so popular on the international left that the Cuban exile community often denounces his image in protests against the currently standing regime, urging Americans not to sport his image on t-shirts or other paraphernalia given his history as an executioner of foreign peoples (Guevara notably did not conduct any “revolutionary” activities in Argentina and never opposed Argentine leader Juan Perón).

Guevara March made her remarks in support of communist violence throughout the past week during an interview with the far-left Radio Rebelde in Argentina, AmericaTeVe reported. The station allegedly broadcast the interview in Buenos Aires on Thursday, but it began circulating heavily in Cuban diaspora media on Tuesday.

“There are things happening manipulated by the United States,” Guevara March said of the protests in Cuba, “truly low-class people, people without scruples have taken to the streets and so some fools follow. … The people have reacted very well and the situation is getting under control,” she claimed.

Guevara March added that “we,” without specifying who she meant, were demanding greater violent force from police and that authorities “act and defend what is ours.”

Like most Castro regime supporters, Guevara March also attacked the United States for its alleged “embargo” on the Cuban economy, which bans large businesses from working with the Castro regime but does not prevent shipments of any humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, and largely allows travel between the two states. Guevara March claimed that, while the Communist Party alleges to have developed its own vaccine against Chinese coronavirus, it lacks syringes due to the embargo. Guevara March offered no explanation for how this is possible given that the world’s largest manufacturer of syringes, China, is a close ally of the regime. Along with China, India produces more syringes than any other nation according to Reuters, and it, too, has no reason not to sell them to Cuba.

An estimated thousands of protesters took the streets in dozens of Cuban cities on July 11 demanding an end to communism, the vast majority of them engaging in peaceful marches to the centers of their communities. Videos of that day show the crowds to be diverse but leaning on the young side and unarmed; Cubans do not enjoy a legal right to bear arms. In response to the protests, the largest in the country in years, the Communist Party shut down the internet and encouraged communist civilians to violently assault suspected dissidents in the streets. The Party also began hosting “acts of revolutionary affirmation” – mandatory rallies – in an attempted display of support for the 62-year-old regime.

While footage of protests after July 11 has become difficult to access due to the internet shutdown, witnesses inside Cuba have testified to ongoing marches, as well as mass arrests and disappearances of participants. Human rights groups have confirmed over 500 forced disappearances or arrests of protests, a number considered low given how many people without direct ties to dissident organizations participated in the protests and how many remote communities nationwide documented the phenomenon. Many of those confirmed missing or in police custody are internationally renowned dissident leaders. Among them are the head of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), José Daniel Ferrer, and of the San Isidro Movement of artists, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara.

In response to the disappearances, the mothers of the missing have called for another wave of nationwide marches on Wednesday.

(07-20-2021 09:32 PM)CrimsonPhantom Wrote:  Che Guevara’s Daughter Calls for More Repression Against ‘Low Class’ Cuba Protesters

Quote:Aleida Guevara March, daughter of communist mass murderer Ernesto “Che” Guevara, has urged the Cuban Communist Party to enact more violent repressive measures against the thousands of “low-class people” protesting on the island, AmericaTeVe reported on Tuesday.

Guevara, an Argentine-Irish communist who joined Fidel Castro’s small group of violent Marxists in the takeover of the country in 1959, served as economics minister in the early days of the Cuban Revolution. He spearheaded programs to build concentration camps for suspected homosexual Cubans and Christian groups, organized firing squads against political dissidents, and openly boasted to the United Nations that the Revolution intended to kill large numbers of Cuban people.

Che Guevara also wrote somewhat extensively of his racism against black-skinned people around the world and his hatred of LGBT people, considering them unsuitable for molding into the “New Soviet Man,” as communists had vowed to do with populations under their control.

Despite all this, Guevara received – and continues to receive – outsized respect in the international community. Then-President Barack Obama posed with the portrait of Guevara in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution during his 2016 visit there. UNESCO, the United Nations world heritage agency, celebrated Guevara’s birthday in June, sharing selectively edited video of his speech to the U.N. General Assembly in 1964. Omitted from the excerpt published by UNESCO: “Firing squad executions, yes, we have executed. We execute and we will keep executing so long as it is necessary. Our struggle is a struggle to the death.”

In other writings, Guevara stated that he “really loved to kill” and upheld hatred as the paramount virtue of socialism.

Guevara remains so popular on the international left that the Cuban exile community often denounces his image in protests against the currently standing regime, urging Americans not to sport his image on t-shirts or other paraphernalia given his history as an executioner of foreign peoples (Guevara notably did not conduct any “revolutionary” activities in Argentina and never opposed Argentine leader Juan Perón).

Guevara March made her remarks in support of communist violence throughout the past week during an interview with the far-left Radio Rebelde in Argentina, AmericaTeVe reported. The station allegedly broadcast the interview in Buenos Aires on Thursday, but it began circulating heavily in Cuban diaspora media on Tuesday.

“There are things happening manipulated by the United States,” Guevara March said of the protests in Cuba, “truly low-class people, people without scruples have taken to the streets and so some fools follow. … The people have reacted very well and the situation is getting under control,” she claimed.

Guevara March added that “we,” without specifying who she meant, were demanding greater violent force from police and that authorities “act and defend what is ours.”

Like most Castro regime supporters, Guevara March also attacked the United States for its alleged “embargo” on the Cuban economy, which bans large businesses from working with the Castro regime but does not prevent shipments of any humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, and largely allows travel between the two states. Guevara March claimed that, while the Communist Party alleges to have developed its own vaccine against Chinese coronavirus, it lacks syringes due to the embargo. Guevara March offered no explanation for how this is possible given that the world’s largest manufacturer of syringes, China, is a close ally of the regime. Along with China, India produces more syringes than any other nation according to Reuters, and it, too, has no reason not to sell them to Cuba.

An estimated thousands of protesters took the streets in dozens of Cuban cities on July 11 demanding an end to communism, the vast majority of them engaging in peaceful marches to the centers of their communities. Videos of that day show the crowds to be diverse but leaning on the young side and unarmed; Cubans do not enjoy a legal right to bear arms. In response to the protests, the largest in the country in years, the Communist Party shut down the internet and encouraged communist civilians to violently assault suspected dissidents in the streets. The Party also began hosting “acts of revolutionary affirmation” – mandatory rallies – in an attempted display of support for the 62-year-old regime.

While footage of protests after July 11 has become difficult to access due to the internet shutdown, witnesses inside Cuba have testified to ongoing marches, as well as mass arrests and disappearances of participants. Human rights groups have confirmed over 500 forced disappearances or arrests of protests, a number considered low given how many people without direct ties to dissident organizations participated in the protests and how many remote communities nationwide documented the phenomenon. Many of those confirmed missing or in police custody are internationally renowned dissident leaders. Among them are the head of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), José Daniel Ferrer, and of the San Isidro Movement of artists, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara.

In response to the disappearances, the mothers of the missing have called for another wave of nationwide marches on Wednesday.

Can someone please explain why this clown even went to Cuba? To watch baseball should not by your answer

(07-18-2021 05:27 PM)Mr_XcentricK Wrote:  

(07-17-2021 12:28 PM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 08:45 AM)Niner National Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 06:05 AM)TigerBlue4Ever Wrote:  

(07-14-2021 05:59 AM)Bear Catlett Wrote:  Where is yours now?

Never mind that a year ago Cubans by the thousands weren't risking their safety and lives to protest against an evil dictatorship. This could be a seminal moment for freedom for our southern neighbors. It may not happen today but the fires have been lit.

I’m cheering for the Cuban people, but if we are being honest they’ll just end up a poor democracy instead of a poor dictatorship. Life there will still suck for the masses. Guess it’s still better to be poor without the fear of your government executing you for critiquing them though.

Or maybe capitalism can lift them up as it does everywhere it's used.

As said earlier the people of Cuba have to be responsible for their own revolution. Yes we cant help them. But we have to be careful because Trump’s friend’s, Russia and China have already threatened us if we intervene.

How did free market capitalism work out in Russia?

Are you serious? You can't be serious.