Cuba Is More Than Mojitos. It Is A Brutal Dictatorship!

Same could said if she were a Republican!


 Oh Lord!


 Kids looking for Easter Eggs, blocking traffic
 and kids selling Lemonade without government
certification! The little Capitalists!!!
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A response from a dear friend and fellow memo reader: " Your pal Ric is a liberal in false clothing. The positions he espouses are of the Demwits. Perhaps the land of fruits and nuts HAS gotten to him! D---" (See 1 below.)

and

Another response: "Dick ... I agree, and with all due respect, would go a step further.  I believe if I had enough time, I could re-write this article substituting "Democrat" every place he uses "Republican", but I could use logical arguments and data to substantiate the switch!  I think we all see things through tinted filters, but his lenses have really become clouded.  He says that GOP reality is rooted in "anger and mendacity", but without the real explanation for the anger and without one example of the lies!!  He uses ridiculous generalizations, or comes to false conclusions without data (I'm an engineer!) ... like his gun violence claim, unequal law enforcement against blacks, etc., etc.  What does he mean by "phony war on Obamacare when the GOP offered no alternatives" ... many alternatives have been offered.  The only thing I think I agree with him on ... is his assessment of Trump ... and part of what he says about Cruz!    J=="
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This from one of my dearest friends and fellow memo readers who escaped from Cuba and subsequently has made a great life for his family in the States.

An open letter to Tim Kurkjian, a CNN Reporter/Analyst! (See 2 below.)
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Tribalism in the Middle East Driver's Seat! (See 3 below.)
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Happiest of Easters!
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Dick
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1) Along comes Donald the Conqueror
By Gideon Kanner


Much has been said lately about Donald Trump's presidential campaign that is rolling on in spite of his aggressively crude, in-your-face political rhetoric. But from his point of view, he is only seizing an opportunity handed to him on a silver platter. You could say that after seething with anger at the excesses of the political establishment for years, and after being repeatedly lied to by politicians (e.g., "read my lips" and "you can keep your doctor"), the people are angered to a point where they no longer listen to the familiar political babble. America is still the place to live, but trouble is brewing. What is troubling the American people? Let us count the ways:

First, let's start with money. America is spending itself into insolvency, and the government seems to think that destruction of people's savings, which undermines the middle class, is a good thing. People are unable to save for their old age, while Social Security is about to run out of money. At the same time, big banks get interest free money from the Federal Reserve and charge double-digit interest rates on consumer credit card debt. As this goes on, Joe Six Pack is lucky to get 0.2 percent on his bank savings account on which he has to pay taxes at a rate that may be higher than his employer's. Factor in inflation and he loses money just by putting it in the bank. Good ole' Joe may be a patient man, but do you think he will stand still for that sort of thing indefinitely, or will he turn into an angry Archie Bunker somewhere along the way?

Second, in spite of rosy government statistics, American businesses are still laying off employees in order to replace them with cheaper foreign workers, or moving entire enterprises to other countries, thereby contributing to a gigantic and growing trade deficit. Trump has a point when he rails against the spectacle of foreign folks eating our lunch with impunity. Trade may be good, he says, but cheating at it is not.

Third, our Supreme Court justices, openly chosen for their partisan ideology, at times preempt the democratic process and impose outlandish notions ("emanational penumbras" anyone?) on a free country without any explicit constitutional basis, and without affording its people an opportunity to debate them to reach a consensus on whether they should be accepted as "the law of the land.

Fourth, we confront an odd situation where, for some reason, even as Socialism has been consistently a catastrophic failure all over the world, a significant part of the American population insists that we should embrace it. And so, an avowed septuagenarian Socialist from Brooklyn is piling up votes and has become a contender in a presidential election. Why? Because many people are so pissed off at traditional politicians that they would rather vote for him than for any traditional politicians who just aren't trusted.

Fifth, American educational institutions have declined to a point where they produce people who think that Winston Churchill was a Civil War general, and even at the college level believe that waving placards and loud repetition of fashionable slogans is tantamount to analysis. Thus, at the elite Yale University you can get into trouble if you want to wear a sombrero to a student party. For this, people have to pay tens of thousands of dollars per year and go into serious debt for life?

Sixth, how could we possibly drift into embracing a foreign policy that fails to differentiate between our friends and our enemies, wastes lives and resources on increasingly pointless wars that make things worse, and pretends that ungovernable tribal savages in remote corners of the world, who have been killing each other for centuries (with particular attention devoted lately to persecuting Christians), can be transformed into civil societies by an abrupt "regime change" brought to them at gun point by the U.S. Marines? "Shores of Tripoli" this isn't, and even if there are some surprising similarities, at least we didn't then try to convert the Barbary Pirates to American values; we just kicked ass, persevered and eventually got our hostages back.

Seventh, American press and broadcast media have become a cheering section, if not a propaganda arm, of the Democratic party, that often resorts to reader deception through omission and commission interwoven with the news. Understandably, they are in a state of decline.

Eighth, we have (a) abandoned the idea of sovereignty and cultural cohesion by disregarding our immigration laws and for base economic and political reasons encouraging a mass migratory invasion across our southern border by millions of foreigners, with whom we are increasingly unable to deal, (b) we are facilitating an inflow of people whose status as potential "sleeper" terrorists is de facto unascertainable, as the folks in San Bernardino learned the hard way, and (c) adding insult to injury, our government insists that people who use or support violence to suppress cultural, religious and ethnic minorities on their own turf, are practitioners of a "religion of peace" whose compatibility with American values we must not question, even as corpses are piling up.

Ninth, our tax laws have grown so complex and convoluted that no one - not even the IRS - can understand and interpret them consistently, with the popular perception of them being that they can be manipulated by clever practitioners to their clients' unfair advantage, while good ol' Joe Sixpack has to pay his taxes full-pop, sometimes at a rate higher than his employer.

And last but not least, how could the explicit constitutional mandate limiting takings of private property to "public use" been transmogrified into a process that routinely takes property from some private persons, often occupied by members of the working or middle classes, and in a display of reverse Robin Hoodery transfers it to more favored and certainly wealthier individuals, for the latter's private gain? The Kelo case has had an astonishing and unanticipated impact on Americans' understanding of how their government really operates - none of it for the good.

In the meantime, Congress is dysfunctional and operates as if its first duty were to compromise principle and common sense, and to transfer as much money as possible from the Treasury to the Congress' respective states and districts. Remember the $390 million appropriation for a Golden Gate sized "bridge to nowhere" on the godforsaken, sparsely populated Gravina Island in Alaska? But to accomplish that, the money first has to be transferred from the citizens' pockets to the Treasury. So is it any wonder that sophisticated corporations that are able to do so, leave this country for foreign tax havens by using "inversion" or just moving their money around.

Now along comes Donald Trump who takes it all in and concludes that the rising popular anger has reached a level where it can serve as accumulated political dynamite that he can set off, and use the released energy to propel himself into the White House. So as far as he is concerned, what's not to like? And if the country's political system, dysfunctional to begin with, is further damaged in the process, hey man, that's how the political cookie crumbles. The democratic form of government may be great stuff, but to be effective and successful, it requires a measure of judgment and the consent of the governed.

So when the ruling class and its media friends flim-flam the people for a long enough time, and impose major policy changes on them without their consent, you shouldn't be surprised when a "man on a white horse" rides out of nowhere and takes charge to the cheers of the multitudes. Just be glad that this time, it's only Donald Trump.


Gideon Kanner is professor of law emeritus at the Loyola Law School

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2) Cuba is not Mojitos,Old Cars and Cigars.Cuba is a brutal dictatorship

Subject: Fwd: Cuba is not Mojitos,Old Cars and Cigars.Cuba is a brutal dictatorship

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Subject: Re: Cuba is not Mojitos,Old Cars and Cigars.Cuba is a brutal dictatorship
To: mlbexecutiverelations@website.mlb.com, mlbnviewerfeedback@mlb.com, espnpr@espn.com, jim.acosta@turner.com

Tim Kurkjian

Mr.Tim Kurkjian espn network

Yesterday was very disturbing when I watched   the Mets game with the San Louis Cardinals and saw your picture in Cuba drinking a Daiquiri. 

Mr.Kurkjian, Cuba is not Daiquiri o Mojitos.Cuba is not Old Cars and Cigars CUBA IS A BRUTAL STALINIST COMMUNIST DICTATORSHIP. 

Mr.Kurkjian your grandparents settled in Massachusetts after the Armenian genocide.
Well Mr.Kurkjian WE CUBANS ALSO EXPERIENCED A GENOCIDE. 

The Castro brothers murdered thousands upon thousands of Cubans,probably more than in Armenia.

The Castro brothers imprisoned thousands upon thousands of Cubans in more than 57 years that these two brutal brothers are in power. 

Because of the Castro brothers millions of Cubans emigrated to the USA and others countries.

While you was drinking your Daiquiri, Castro security forces was beating women and men who their human rights. 

While you was drinking your Daiquiri, Cuban children can't drink milk and please don't blame the so call embargo for that. The Castro brothers and their generals don't suffer any embargo, they are all millionaires. 

I thought that you were a serious analyst of baseball butI was wrong You went to Cuba because you were told to do so and I understand that is your job 

But also Mr.Kurkjian in life we have values and you dont show any when you enjoy drinking a daiquiri in "CASTRO PARADISE" 

Next time you go to Cuba instead of drinking Daiquiri WHY DON'T YOU TAKE A RIDE AROUND HAVANA AND SEE WITH YOUR OWN EYES HOW PEOPLE LIVE ,AND IF SOMEBODY BLAMES THE SO CALL EMBARGO TAKE A RIDE WERE THE CASTRO FAMILY AND THE GENERALS LIVE.
                                                                                                                                         


     

This is Havana how people live,sometimes when rain building fall and people died

   This is one of the Castro family houses EMBARGO ?

Mr.Kurkjian From now on every time I see your face on ESPN I'm going to change the channel

Remember Armenia is not the only one people  who experienced genocide.

The Jewish people and those executed and murdered by Isis are not the only ones who expreienced a genocide

CUBANS HAVE EXPERIENCED GENOCIDE FOR MORE THAN 57 YEARS AND YOU DRINK A DAIQUIRI IN HAVANA

May be you don't know but you helped legitimize a brutal dictatorship in Cuba.

Don't forget those Castro brothers installed nuclear missiles pointed at the USA in 1962

Don't forget those Castro brothers financed and exported terrorism all over the world including the USA

Horacio Minguillon Alonso

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3)  Tribalism Drives Middle East Violence

by Philip Carl Salzman

^{Originally published under the title "He Say's There's One Thing That Drives Violence In The Middle East. But It's Not Islam..."}

The tribes of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

Take a look at recent news reports from around the Arab world and you'll notice an unusual commonality. Egypt's government "struggles to rally Sinai tribes," reads one Reuters headline, while the title of a Gulf News article recounts that former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh "fears tribes will shift allegiance" to his successor, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The Oxford Research reports on the "local, tribal and fragmented" nature of militia power in Libya. CNN covers a U.S. special forces mission to "accompany tribal, Arab and Kurdish forces" in Syria. From theBBC, "Iraqi tribes clash with jihadists in IS stronghold of Falluja." The UAE daily The National proudly notes the "tribal and military influences" in local designer Huda Al Nuaimi's spring/summer 2016 collection.

Ok, you get the idea – tribalism is big in the Arab world. And while it has grown more noticeable with the collapse and weakening of Arab governments in recent years, the trend is not new. The same north Arabian Bedouin tribes that accepted Islam and spread it by the sword also infused the region with a deeply tribal culture, impacting everything from family relations to governance and conflict.

The Arab world's deeply tribal culture impacts everything from family relations to governance and conflict.

Tribal affiliation is based on descent from a common male ancestor; all descendants are deemed to share common interests and to have obligations of solidarity with one another. Descendants of other ancestors are deemed to have different interests and are seen to be opponents, sometimes enemies.

The main principle of tribal life is absolute loyalty to one's lineage group vis-à-vis other groups of the same order and scope: clan vs. clan, tribe vs. tribe, confederation vs. confederation, sect vs. sect, Muslims vs. infidels. Middle Easterners believe that they can count only on their own group to protect their interests. They understand well the motto, "all for one, and one for all." This principle is so basic to tribal thinking that, for most people, it is an assumption about life that goes without saying.

Tribesmen are accorded honour based on fulfilling their obligations to the tribe. These tribal characteristics shape the basic assumptions and attitudes of Middle Easterners who inherited their cultural foundation from Bedouin. Islam, arising through the adoption by Bedouin, reflects the structures of tribal life, especially in the opposition between Muslims and infidels.

Middle Easterners looking at their increasingly chaotic world and deciding how they must respond think immediately of their kin group upon which they depend for all things, and other descent groups which are by their structural nature opponents and potential enemies, and from which they can expect nothing good. Opposition, rivalry, and conflict are thus seen to be in the nature of social life. Success, power, wealth, and, above all, honour derives from triumphing over opposition groups. Failure to triumph means the loss of power, wealth, and, above all, honour.

The Arab Middle East is missing the cultural tools for building inclusive, unified states.

The pervasive and continuous conflict in the Middle East–between clans, tribes, sects, and religions–is a manifestation of this culture. 

Middle Eastern history is largely a record of tribal conflicts and displacements, expansions and conquests, and invasions and dynastic replacements. "The Arabs are not in a wretched state – they are in a tribal state, and they are doing what they have been doing since time immemorial: conquering each other, demanding allegiance, and living in a state of perpetual war," writes analyst Hussain Abdul-Hussain. "The only difference now is that the Arabs are feuding in cities, and on TV and social media instead of in the desert."

The Arab Middle East is missing the cultural tools for building inclusive, unified states. The West saw violent upheaval for millennia before it began stabilizing with acceptance of modern organizing principles, such as constitutionalism and rule of law, in the past few hundred years. Unfortunately, there are few signs that the Middle East will follow suit anytime soon.

Philip Carl Salzman is a professor of anthropology at McGill University and a fellow at the Middle East Forum

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