Hi Friends,

"Marta Jiménez, a hairdresser in Cuba’s eastern city of Holguín, covered her face with her hands and broke down crying when I asked her about Trump’s blockade of the island—especially now that the U.S. is choking off oil shipments," begins an article by Medea Benjamin at Progressive Hub. 

Here's what Marta told Medea: "You can’t imagine how it touches every part of our lives. It’s a vicious, all-encompassing spiral downward. With no gasoline, buses don’t run, so we can’t get to work. We have electricity only three to six hours a day. There’s no gas for cooking, so we’re burning wood and charcoal in our apartments. It’s like going back 100 years. The blockade is suffocating us—especially single mothers, and no one is stopping these demons: Trump and Marco Rubio."

Click here to tell Congress to stop them!

As Medea Benjamin reported from Cuba, "Production across the economy is grinding to a halt. Factories can’t function without electricity, and many skilled workers have given up their state jobs because wages are so low. Jorge, whom I met selling bologna in the market, used to be an engineer at a state enterprise. Verónica, once a teacher, now sells sweets she bakes at home—when the power is on. Ironically, while Marco Rubio claims he wants to bring capitalism to Cuba, U.S. sanctions are crushing the very private sector that most Cubans now depend on to survive."

Let's try a different approach of open relations with Cuba.

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In Solidarity,
The RootsAction Team

Background:

>> Progressive Hub: "Suffocating an Island: What the U.S. Blockade Is Doing to Cuba"

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