When it comes to reporting protests in Cuba, United States sources are generally unreliable.

From the U.S. government, the capitalist/corporate media, to the hardline, right-wing Cuban exiles in Miami, Cuba is singled out as a living hell, although other nations in Latin America and the Caribbean are worse off; Haiti being one example where destructive, neoliberal austerity measures have been imposed by the U.S., the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (INF) that have made Haiti the poorest nation in the region.

After Donald Trump and his ilk further fueled hostile intentions against Cuba–compared to the Obama administration which previously moved to reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba–U.S. president Joe Biden is doing nothing so far to change Trump's policies. In fact, he spouted the same old imperial rhetoric that past U.S. presidents have used as the protests went on: "We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom and relief from the tragic grip of the pandemic and from decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba's authoritarian regime."

First of all, Cuba has developed vaccines that have been highly effective in clinical trials to combat the covid virus. Second, the recent protests are not something new. Cubans have protested in the past but not necessarily to overthrow the government, although a small number, usually bought and paid for by the U.S., do want that. Third, Biden mentioning Cuba's economic suffering is blatantly hypocritical since it's the U.S.'s almost 60 year old economic blockade that has been a major cause of the suffering.

Did the recent protests represent the whole of the Cuban people? Writing in Counterpunch (07/14/2021), Peter Bolton put it this way: "First of all, it is important to put these protests into perspective. Biden talks as if the protesters are representative of the entire Cuban people when there is no evidence to support this insinuation. Cuba is an island of 11 million people who hold diverse views about the [1959] revolution and all manner of other matters. There is zero evidence that the majority of the Cuban people want to reverse the major social gains of the revolution."

Regarding the blockade, Bolton wrote, "That the embargo has been a major cause of hardship in Cuba has been recognized by major regional institutions such as the Inter-American Human Rights Commission and mainstream human rights organizations such as Amnesty International. Yet corporate-owned media reports proceed as if the blockade didn't even exist. The Associated Press, for instance, attributed the outbreak of protests directly to 'food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus crisis.' These are exactly the kind of problems that are attributable to the blockade."

But what about the Cuban government? Bolton: "This latest round of protests in Cuba exposes another major contradiction in the entire regime change narrative. Because according to supporters of the blockade, the Cuban people live under such crushing authoritarianism that they wouldn't express any grievance against the government lest they fall afoul of its repressive state security forces. Of course, the reality is that Cubans frequently protest against their government over all manner of issues. And the very fact that they can and do so demolishes the argument that its government is unusually authoritarian when compared to other countries in Latin America."

Does that mean that the Cuban government is totally innocent? No. Besides the blockade, there have been the internal problems. But U.S. sources try to put the blame on the Cuban government for everything that is wrong in Cuba.

In a special address to the nation, Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel stated: "If they [U.S. leaders] want to make a gesture toward Cuba, if they are really concerned about the people, if they want to solve Cuba's problems: lift the blockade and see how we do, why won't they do that? Why don't they have the courage to lift the blockade, what legal and moral basis allows a foreign government to implement such a policy against a small country, and in the midst of such adverse conditions? Isn't this genocide?"

It's time to lift the blockade against Cuba. The United Nations General Assembly has voted repeatedly since 1992 to lift it. The latest vote was 184 voting yes and 2 voting no. Basically, the only nations opposing this are the United States and its client state Israel. Unfortunately, the U.S. has veto power in the U.N. and has used it to defy the will of the international community.

So I wouldn't put too much trust in U.S. sources when it comes to Cuba and protests there. Generally, the propaganda is B/W. In Cuba, like anywhere else, there's B/W and shades of gray.