Category: History

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AFTER INDIANA: THE ELECTION SO FAR

As of May 4, 2016, 28 states have held popular-vote primaries; nine states and one territory have conducted caucus contests, where both parties participated. Two states held mixed elections, where one party conducted a popular vote; the other a caucus. Thus far, the Democrats have participated in 12 caucus contests; the Republicans, 10. 

To summarize: A total of 39 states and one territory have completed their 2016 primary process.

After the Indiana primary, the popular vote totals in the 28 voting primaries are:

Clinton    12,242,884       14 wins / 7 seconds

Trump       10,329,397           6 wins / 11 seconds

Sanders       8,955,271          6 wins / 6 seconds          

Cruz            6,673,520          1 win / 4 seconds

Kasich         3,649,845          1 win / 0 seconds

Rubio           3,168,147          0 wins / 0 seconds

Caucus state elections work differently than simple popular vote elections, which makes comparing the performance of GOP vs. Democrats in caucus states a little like comparing apples to oranges; the comparisons are not very useful and can be misleading.

For what it’s worth, Bernie Sanders has won 9 Democratic caucus states; Hillary Clinton, 3.  On the GOP side, Ted Cruz has won 6 caucus states; Donald Trump, 3; Marco Rubio, 1.

John Kasich
As I suspend my campaign today, I have renewed faith, deeper faith, that the Lord will show me the way forward and fulfill the purpose of my life. John Kasich, May 4, 2016

After the Indiana primary yesterday, Ted Cruz and John Kasich dropped out of the race to make Donald Trump the lone candidate for the GOP nomination. Barring an unusual event, Trump will be the GOP candidate in November. He said today that he will pick a Washington insider with close ties to Congress for VP; he says he wants to be able to move legislation through Congress.

Hillary Clinton has not said who she will choose for VP. It is known that she likes Elizabeth Warren, who our Editorial Board has advocated for and endorsed.

Is Trump going to be president of the United States in January? The results so far say no, because Hillary Clinton has demonstrated that she can outperform Trump with those sectors of the electorate essential to victory in past elections.

Some people on the left hope that Bernie Sanders will overtake Clinton and become the nominee, but his numbers show that the electorate is not ready to elect a socialist over a business leader; he can’t win a general election against Donald Trump, not in the United States.

This liability is one reason why 522 of the 561 party-appointed delegates support Clinton. Another, perhaps more important reason, is that Bernie Sanders is a junior senator from a small state (Vermont) who didn’t join the Democratic Party until 2015; he was an independent in Congress, though he tended to vote with Democrats on most issues.

Some party leaders believe he joined the Party for the simple reason that he wanted to run for president; it may have been more personal ambition than love of Party that motivated him. Who knows? He may decide to run as a third party candidate to help Trump defeat Hillary, if he gets angry enough. Then again, he might think he can win a three-way race against the two of them. Stranger things have happened in politics.

Donald and wife Ivana Trump
Donald Trump married Melania Knaus of communist Yugoslavia, now called Slovenia, in 2005. They have one son. Trump has two previous marriages; one with Marla Maples of Dalton, Georgia, who he married after fathering a child out of wedlock; his first wife was Ivana Zelnickova of Communist Czechoslovakia. the marriage lasted 15 years; she bore him three children.

Anyway, Donald Trump is an extremely attractive candidate for an electorate that worships celebrity. He is like the poison apple in the garden of Eden. Many Americans—like Eve—may be unable to stop themselves from taking their first bite. As the story in Genesis reveals, that first bite can start a cascade of events, which could ruin America.

Billionaires, like the Bush family, already have too much influence; worse, they live in a bubble, which renders their decision-making into a game by blind-fools. The Bush family, for sure, loves America, but they nearly destroyed it; they certainly unraveled the Middle East and precipitated the financial collapse of 2008.

Trump is surrounded by yes-people; let’s admit the obvious; he doesn’t tolerate dissenting voices very well. When Trump starts making foolish decisions—as he most certainly will—he will have to suppress dissent to carry his asinine visions to fruition. It won’t be a good time for people who think for themselves; it won’t be a good time for diversity. Donald Trump strongly advocates the use of harsh techniques against enemies. Should he turn his contempt on free-speaking Americans who oppose him, we could be in for a rough ride.

If history serves as a reliable guide, one component of the electorate Donald Trump can count on will be the evangelicals. Since they became an organized voting block in the 1970s, right-wing evangelical voters seem to have voted against self-identified Christian candidates more times than not. They opposed Jimmy Carter; they united against Barack Obama; and they are fighting against Hillary Clinton, who stood by her husband after he betrayed her; she continued to love him—something Jesus admonished Christians to do.

Jerry Falwell Jr.
Jerry Falwell Jr. is leading the evangelical movement to elect Donald Trump. He is president of Liberty University and the son of the late Jerry Falwell Sr.

Some evangelical voters tend to be legalists; many care nothing about love, forgiveness, charity, or non-violence. They pay lip-service to those qualities, but only when it serves their legalistic views; some could care less. And they will be voting for Trump in droves. Trump says he is honored by the evangelical support he is getting.

From where I’m sitting, Donald Trump seems to represent the New Confederacy. Some of his supporters who I’ve met paste Confederate flags on the back of their trucks and display Old Dixie in their living rooms. I can foresee a time under a Trump presidency (I would say it’s already started) when Americans aren’t going to see black faces on television anymore. We won’t be watching street demonstrations or riots or anything else that might threaten the social fabric on television, either. The technology of suppression is simply too advanced. Trump won’t hesitate to use it.

For people who aren’t directly involved; who watch television and live inside their own bubbles of safety, the world is going to seem like a pretty good place, at first, under a Trump presidency. The droning insects of right-wing media will stop flapping their angry wings; optimism will be projected from every billionaire-controlled media outlet; sighs of relief will be heard throughout the land; and once again the exhilarating drums of war will beat hypnotically as we take on the stragglers around the world who refuse to follow our vision; who refuse to dance in lock-step to our new tune.

It will be an exciting time to be alive, especially for those billionaires who own defense-industry businesses; for those who have a talent for building walls; for those who enjoy controlling and manipulating large groups of (sometimes non-cooperative) people. But will anyone permit me to interrupt this wonderful dream for a reality check?

Bad things happened under similar presidents, like Reagan and the Bushes. Reagan entrenched the power of billionaire families by changing the tax codes; he allowed the wealthy to earn unlimited incomes for the first time; the middle class hasn’t had a raise in pay since, because the wealthy keep the excess profits for themselves.

The wealthy have no tax write-off advantages or other financial incentives to encourage them to invest in their workers; in fact, it’s the opposite. Since the rich are no longer taxed at 92% on the unreasonable part of their unreasonably high incomes, they set aside their windfalls for their own families instead of upgrading their company infrastructures and raising the standard of living for their work-forces; neither do they pay the taxes that would solve so many of our internal problems—like the deterioration of our roads and bridges, our power grids, and the quality of education.

The Bush family took us into wars, which history shows were completely avoidable. The First Gulf War was a living nightmare, in case anyone has forgot. Remember the oil-well fires? They were terrifying. Remember our troops donning gas masks and hazmat suits during the Second Gulf War?

The wealthy refused to pay for these insane escapades, which is why our country can’t shake off its huge debt. We got into these predicaments, because our wealthy folks seem to be out of touch, arrogant, and financially tied to companies who do business with the military. It’s pretty simple, when anyone takes the time to think about it.

Donald Trump has devoted his life to building safe spaces where the wealthy can live large, play hard, gamble, and entertain their friends; nothing is so terribly wrong or unusual about that. But he lives in a part of America that 99.9% of Americans know little or nothing about. He isn’t one of us. He never will be.

Hillary Clinton 6
Hillary Clinton is arguably the most qualified candidate to make the run for president, ever. A successful attorney, she married “Bill” who became Governor of Arkansas and a two-term president; she served two terms in the United States Senate for the state of New York. President Obama appointed her to lead the State Department as his Secretary of State.

We are a freedom loving people who can take care of ourselves. We don’t need billionaire baby-sitters to tell us where to sit and when to use the bathroom. We can fix our country by ourselves, thank you, and we have Mama Clinton to help us do it. She is one of us. She was raised poor and will never be a billionaire.

A billion is one-thousand millions, for anyone not good at math. It is a ridiculous amount of money. Were it a felony to possess a billion dollars, many of the problems caused by greed in this world would disappear over-night. Think about it.

I’m praying that the Good Lord will keep Hillary Clinton safe. I pray for all the candidates; that they and their families will be protected from all harm. It is a courageous act to run for president. Every single candidate has been threatened at one time or another.

Most qualified people won’t run for president. It’s good that a few capable people dare to step up to lead the fight for freedom and fairness. Hillary Clinton is one of those heroic people. She isn’t just another pretty face.

Billy Lee 

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ARMAGEDDON

 

harriet_tubman twenty dollar bill
It’s a national disgrace that the ”fine-looking” Christian activist, ”Minty” Ross Harriet Tubman will not appear on the $20 bill until 2026 at the earliest. Some say it could be as late as 2030. The cynical say it will never happen.   
Harriet_Tubman_Reward_Notice_1849
It’s certain that Minty was beautiful, because ”fine-looking” is how her owners described her on a Wanted Poster after she escaped at age twenty-seven.

Unfortunately, no pictures of Minty as a young woman have been found. She lived on to become a prominent administrator of the Underground Railroad; a friend of abolitionists Frederick Douglass and John Brown; a Civil War soldier and spy for the Union Army; and much, much more.

The Mint people say it takes a long time to retool the currency. In the case of Minty Ross, it will take at least ten years; maybe fifteen. I’m not sure I believe them.

With Ms. Tubman, it seems like one injustice followed another; she suffered abuse like no other heroine I’ve read about. A slave-owner crushed her skull with a hunk of iron he threw at another slave she was trying to protect. While traveling on a train, passengers broke her arms when she refused to move to another car. All her suffering came from haters, pure and simple. She will never get the credit she deserves.

Panarin regional division of America.bmp
Russian Professor, Igor Panarin, says the USA will look like this map, someday.  Some folks think it already does.

Does anyone really think the USA will be around ten or fifteen years from now? It is likely to be divided into four countries, presumably under the control of the Russians or an international coalition of foreign powers, if leaked Russian intelligence assessments can be believed.

Sorry, but that’s what seems to be coming, according to Russian analysts. The world has had its fill; the earth’s power brokers are planning to take us down; they seem to be gathering the family of nations to make a grand, international intervention on our behalf — for our own good and for the well-being of the planet and its impoverished peoples.

russian drone submarine 2
Russia is deploying Nuclear Drone Submarines (NUDS) to overwhelm our defenses.

The Russian military is filling the oceans with drone subs armed with nuclear material; possibly missiles. Some sit in the sand at the bottom of the oceans on both coasts of the USA.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians live on the island of Cuba. They have submarine and air bases on the island.

The Chinese are building artificial islands in the Pacific and constructing military bases. During the past twenty years the Chinese have built the most modern Navy the world has ever seen.

The Koreans and several other hostile countries are building first strike nuclear capabilities. It’s not that they dislike the United States. It’s a matter of trust. They think our leaders are crazy, selfish, arrogant, and too powerful. It’s not good for other countries when one becomes disproportionately powerful.

It’s not enough for the USA to stop doing bad things. It must do good things. We don’t seem able to save ourselves, because the USA has a legacy of a country that has hated too many people; it has hurt and killed too many people.  

The USA has burned alive millions of people with diabolical weapons like napalm, Hellfire missiles, and atomic bombs. Most of the world outside the United States believes we dropped anthrax bombs on Chinese troops in North Korea in 1954. We placed a ”hospital” ship off the peninsula from which we spread a virulent strain of typhus that killed hundreds of thousands of North Koreans. We drew up plans to drop atomic munitions until a cessation of hostilities took hold and calmer heads prevailed.

The USA has inflicted too much injustice; ignored the cries of too many disadvantaged people; humiliated the weak and impoverished; and, since the end of WWII, has waged war against a quarter of all the countries on the earth.

We have crossed moral boundaries into the dark space of torture and drone-kills. A country that tortures and assassinates thousands of people by remote control is not worth defending or protecting, some say.

Chinese stealth destroyer
Modern Chinese Stealth Destroyer

The billionaires are having their parties; for them the world has never been better. In fact, many Americans, rich and poor, are ingesting daily cocktails of drugs, legal and illegal, to keep going; they are oblivious, uninformed, and asleep.

In our drug-induced stupor we are about to elect a mega-billionaire and his cronies to administer what is arguably the most militarized and corrupt nation on Earth. Like everything else we’ve done lately, it won’t go over well. The nations of the world are already preparing for this catastrophe; the outcome isn’t going to be good for any of us; no way.

The refusal of our military officers, our intelligence administrators, foreign service officials, and especially our elected political leaders to follow with enthusiasm the vision of our current president has not been lost on other nations.

Joe Wilson shouts you lie at Obama during state of the union address
South Carolina Republican Congressman, Joe Wilson, twice yelled You Lie! at President Obama during his speech before a joint session of Congress in 2009. Disrespect for the president is universal, open, and virulent among GOP congressmen, who make up the majority of our elected officials. The GOP’s unreasonable hatred for well-intentioned people is the main reason the community of nations fears the changes that will come with the election of a Republican president in 2016.

Our president’s capitulation to the world view of our bureaucratic cartels; his inability to get the simplest things done (like closing the Guantanamo torture chambers and returning the military base in Cuba to its rightful owner); his surrender to Wall Street thugs with Ivy League educations; his quiet suffering of disrespect by media and petty demagogues has convinced the powerful people abroad who both do and don’t like us that the United States won’t change; indeed, it cannot change.

Meanwhile, our citizens are tired of war. They don’t acknowledge basic facts; the Chinese Navy is the best in the world. Russian drone technology is the world’s best in the air, beneath the seas, and on land. And so on and on.

Yes, our government is spending two trillion dollars to upgrade our nuclear first-strike capabilities. We are spending our national treasure on a doomsday matrix designed to destroy planet Earth, should we get backed into a corner and face certain defeat.

We are so blind. The irony is that we are always looking deep into the heavens searching for advanced civilizations. We believe millions of hi-tech worlds are “out there”. Yet, we have found not a single one. Maybe the story of civilization is familiar; maybe it plays out across the universe on every inhabited planet in the same tragic way.

In every corner of our Milky Way galaxy, and in the trillion or more other galaxies that populate our unimaginably huge universe, intelligent life-forms fight to survive and prevail. They unlock the secrets of nature.

Somehow the technology gets control of them. The unnatural plutonium they create and store, even when it is not strewn in a fit of suicidal anger, leaches into their soils and poisons their planets, irreversibly.

Syrian chemical munitions weapons stockpile
Workers inspect chemical weapons barrels for leaks at a warehouse in Gorny, Syria. Stockpiles like this one exist in countries all over the world.

A slow death by poisoning might well be the future of every planet that has buried beneath its surface tens-of-thousands of thermo-nuclear bombs as well as biological and chemical weapons in every shade of depravity that super-intelligent life-forms can dream-up and build.

These weapons cannot be maintained forever. How many thousands of years can we go on pouring our treasure into poisons, until we have no more treasure, and the bombs begin to rot; the toxins soak into soil like turpentine into a sponge; the viruses and bacteria escape to breed and blow in the wind like dust and fall to the ground like drops of rain?

Armageddon is on its way. It may come fast; it may go slow. What every informed person knows is that Harriet Tubman’s face will never grace our currency. Time is too short, and making things right is not our nation’s highest priority. Not even close.

I believe, like my dad before me, that right makes might. Civilizations who dare to reverse the order — who  use might to force others to believe that their abusers are right — play a fool’s game.

Harriet Tubman posed for this pic after the Civil War. She was 47.  

One important thing we can do as a country right now is to place Harriet Tubman’s portrait (and other freedom fighters like her) on our  money, sooner rather than later. The plan, incredibly, is to put a slave-owner’s picture (Andrew Jackson, of all people) on the reverse side of the twenty-dollar bill opposite Ms. Tubman — to kind of balance out the message, I suppose.

No. That’s wrong. No way. Andrew Jackson owned the Hermitage Plantation of Tennessee and another plantation in Mississippi where, during his tenure, 150 slaves produced the cotton that made him wealthy. 

As a General in the US army, Jackson fought genocidal wars against the Shawnee and Creek Indians of Georgia and Alabama; he warred against the Seminole Tribes of Florida. He had a reputation for ruthlessness. Native Americans referred to him as ”Sharp Knife.”

Death of Custer by actors Pawnee_bill_wild_west_show_c1905
This 1905 photo of actors in Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show portrays the killing of Custer by Sitting Bull. The Battle of Little Bighorn was unusual, because the native Americans actually won the battle. Some would argue that America’s war against its indigenous and kidnapped peoples has never really ended; apologies, forgiveness, and reparations are long overdue.

No slave holder, no human being who forced other human beings to work long hours for no pay under the threat of lash and beating; under the threat of death and loss of family should ever again have their likeness placed on any financial instrument, coin, or bill of the United States of America. What kind of people are we, anyway?

We are a people who stand for freedom and equality before the law, our schools teach us. Let’s behave like we believe it’s true. Crimes against people affect the generations of children who come after. Genocides against African slaves and native Americans can traumatize for centuries; ask any descendant of a victim of Hitler’s holocaust, if there is anyone who doesn’t believe it. The USA has not even begun to make things right, some argue.

Actions speak louder than words. The world watches, much of it in disgust and horror as we venerate the wicked and suppress our saints, like Araminta Ross Tubman. Time is running out. We have to make that change, as Michael Jackson once sung; sooner rather than later.

Loving others is a way to save our beloved America. Love will rescue us. Love is important; it’s powerful. It can sustain our civilization; it can preserve our freedoms; it can extinguish Armageddon.

Billy Lee

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ELEPHANT ON THE ISLAND

When President Barack Obama visited Cuba in March 2016, the USA-imposed blockade or embargo or quarantine or whatever-else one wants to call it was the elephant on the island. It was the elephant in the room at every meeting between our officials (who numbered close to twelve-hundred) and theirs. We owe Cuba a huge apology. Of course, we didn’t offer one. 

This billboard can be found in various places on the island of Cuba. In English it might be interpreted this way: The USA-organized embargo is the longest-lived genocide in world history. They intended to lynch us, but look; the noose is empty; Cuba swims free, beyond the yank of their rope.

Yes, Cubans once-upon-a-time tried to protect themselves from our overwhelming military power; our subversion; our unrelenting sabotage; our many plots to undermine and demoralize the Cuban revolutionary movement, which had overturned the Batista cartel and drove its Mafia friends off the island way back in 1959, a long time ago. We didn’t like it when the Cubans turned to the Soviet Union for help to defend themselves.

Let’s face some facts: It was 6 million of them against 220 million of us. It wasn’t going to be a fair fight. The Cubans were going to lose, and they knew it. 

El Encanto in 1955 Cuba
Terrorists fire-bombed El Encanto (a Havana department store) in 1961, just four days before the CIA-organized (and financed) Bay of Pigs invasion. This pic is from 1955.

Fifteen months after the revolution, in March 1960, someone blew-up a French ship in the Havana Harbor, which killed and wounded hundreds of civilians. Cuban police arrested a suspect who, it turned out, was an American with ties to organized-crime and CIA operatives; his team managed to infiltrate harbor-security, police said. 

Strange people started flying airplanes over the island on a daily basis to bomb sugar refineries and drop napalm on sugar cane fields. The Cubans managed to shoot down one aircraft and rescue the pilot. He turned out to be an American. Authorities blamed the CIA.

Then, just a few days before the Bay of Pigs invasion, terrorists bombed and burnt to the ground El Encanto, one of Havana’s upscale department stores.    

El Encanto department store after fire Cuba
The destruction of El Encanto was part of an extensive campaign to destabilize the island of Cuba. A few days after the terrorist attack, the Bay of Pigs invasion began. The USA public would learn years later that the invasion force had been organized, trained, and paid for by the CIA. The invaders killed and wounded 5,000 Cuban citizens before they exhausted their ammunition and surrendered to Fidel Castro, who led the island’s defenders.

Cubans had no clear idea, even as late as April 1961, that the USA was systematically destabilizing the island and had already finalized plans to invade Cuba and assassinate its leaders. 

A few days after the El Encanto firebombing, the invasion-force launched its assault — on Monday, April 17. It included close air-support, a squadron of B-26 bombers, and ships standing off-shore. The assault would come to be called the Bay of Pigs fiasco, mostly because the invaders ran out of ammunition and were forced to surrender.

Fidel himself led the island’s defense; Soviet intelligence informed him a few days in advance of the exact time and place; by some miracle related to our own incompetence, Fidel and his Cuban fighters repulsed the invasion. 

Castro’s Cubans managed to capture 1,200 invaders, mostly CIA-trained expatriates, who they later traded for medicine. Afterwards, they begged the Soviet Union to get more involved, because they believed the USA would attack again. Maybe the next time the USA would send more ammo and a bigger air-force, and Cuban defenses wouldn’t hold up.

Our government wasn’t too happy about the deal Cuba made with the USSR. The Soviets took advantage of Cuba’s weakness, Che Guevara would later claim. Che told Fidel and the Soviets that the deal was one-sided and not good for Cuba.

The alliance between Cuba and the Russians almost started a nuclear war, because the Soviets insisted on putting nuclear missiles on the island and basing nuclear-tipped submarines in Cuba’s harbors.

The Russians believed that the island could not be successfully defended against a full-on USA invasion using conventional weapons alone. Had a nuclear-missile exchange occurred, neither Florida nor Cuba would be habitable places even today, fifty-four years later. Millions of Cubans and Americans would have died.

Fortunately, deals were made and tensions de-escalated. The Soviets loaded up their weapons and took them home.

For the United States the fight was just beginning. Although the USA promised the Soviet Union that it would not militarily invade Cuba again (rendering nuclear defense unnecessary), it did not promise anything about an embargo. The United States talked and threatened every country in the Western Hemisphere into imposing one. The only country that refused was Mexico.

Cuba frozen in time
The USA-led embargo has turned Cuba into a land frozen in time; a time-capsule from the 1950s, which has transformed the island into one of the world’s most sought after tourist destinations. Travel restrictions by the USA make visits by Americans difficult, but not impossible. 

The embargo has never ended. It has lasted fifty-four years and turned Cuba into a time-capsule from the 1950s, which in one of the great ironies of world history has propelled Cuba into an elite group of the most-in-demand tourist attractions of modern times.

The Cubans have complained vociferously about the embargo at the United Nations, but they have never fought back in kind; even after we poisoned their sugar; even after we sunk the ships of their trading partners; even after the Bay of Pigs invasion, when we killed and wounded five-thousand Cuban citizens; all they asked was to be left alone.

Che Guevara resigned his Cuban citizenship in October 1965 and left the island never to return. He hoped to inspire revolutions closer to Argentina, his native country, but he also may have believed that his departure would help to take USA pressure off the Cuban people. It didn’t work.

A fifteen-hundred man force trained by the CIA in Guatemala hunted down the beloved hero of the Cuban revolution, shot him in the legs a few times just to hurt him, then they executed him. They cut off his hands and sent them to Fidel Castro. A CIA agent who witnessed the murder has been quoted as saying that Che never cried out in pain before he died. He died as brave as he lived, without fear, the agent said. 

Cuba refused to even consider assassinating our leaders, even as we worked overtime in every depraved way we could think of to assassinate theirs; the assassination plots against Fidel Castro are in the public record and make a wicked read, if anyone wants to look them up. 

People who visit Cuba will tell anyone who will listen that the Cubans are a friendly, peace-loving people who were brutalized by a ruthless cartel in alliance with powerful crime syndicates; crime syndicates which would years later come to be called the Mafia.

Everyone on the island (90%, anyway) joined in the effort to get rid of the thugs who were abusing the population on a daily basis. People who fought the Batista family and his cartel and were unlucky enough to be captured were routinely tortured, some to their deaths.

Soroa waterfall, Pinar del Rio, Cuba 2
The island of Cuba is a kind of unspoiled paradise. May God bless and protect Cuba as the haters try to keep our fight with them going and going and going.

What kind of country keeps an embargo going for 54 years against another country that is no longer a threat?

The only threat Cuba poses to our billionaires is the example it has set; the lessons it has taught the world that it really is possible to create wealth cooperatively and share it; it really is possible to survive an assault by the most militarized and corrupt nation on planet Earth; it really is possible to choose a different path — a path that doesn’t involve capitulation to cartels and billionaires.

Is Cuba perfect? No; not even close. Of course they aren’t perfect. No nation, no individual, no organization that is shunned and impoverished for fifty-four years by a country as powerful and connected as the United States has any chance at all. How would anyone of us in the USA turn out if the full power the United States turned against us?

I will tell you. If you are lucky enough to survive, as Cuba has, you could turn old and sad. Maybe bitter. We have hurt the Cubans far more than they ever hurt us.

It’s time for this fight to be over. It’s time to make amends. Dispatching on Good Friday four men in their seventies to belch out songs about sex with girls before a modestly attended concert crowd isn’t a good way to start.

It’s time for us to say we are sorry, and mean it. It’s time to be friends. It’s clear to visitors that the Cuban people have in their hearts the desire to forgive us.

I believe that many Cubans want to forge their own path without their vision being twisted by the fear of subversion by U.S. spies and agents. They want to have fun and to be our friends; someday — hopefully sooner rather than later — they will.

Billy Lee

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TWITTER - MY FIRST THIRTY DAYS

In the first 30 days, my follower base grew from zero to 100. It made such an impression on me that I continued to tweet for 3 years. ....>>

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