Dems in CHAOS as GOP Support On the RISE!!

Muslim CALLED OUT ALL Christians...THEN Sam Shamoun SHOWED UP | Islam De...

Hidden WOKE AGENDA in AI Development REVEALED!!!

Lefties Throw A Fit, Then THIS Happens!

We finally have a president that takes antisemitism seriously: Rep. Mike...

TRUMP HAD HER DRAGGED OUT OF HER OFFICE!

EVERYBODY KNOWS NOW! - THERE'S NO GOING BACK

🚨BREAKING: "I'm Nobody's Puppet" - Tulsi's Explosive Opening Statement S...

🚨BREAKING: Watch Democrat Senator Melt Down Over Patel's Memes During Hi...

Crazy Shootout Between Homeowner & Burglar

🚨BREAKING: Sanctuary Cities Go Silent as ICE Raids Send Shockwaves Throu...

Greg Kelly explains how DEI ruined the country

Nancy Pelosi desk guy explained how J6 'woke up America' from 'corruption'

African Leader DROPS BRUTAL REALITY CHECK On Other Leaders PANICKING Ove...

🚨MUST SEE! Kash Patel Goes BEAST MODE on Democrats in Confirmation Heari...

Media Goes Nuts After Trump Says DEI Caused DC Plane Crash

Trans Community MELTS DOWN Over Two Genders On Passports!

Bernie Sanders' Career is OVER! RFK Jr. TORCHES Him in Confirmation Hear...

He TRIED TO CONVERT Sam Shamoun To Islam...Then GETS BURIED | Muslim Debate

Trump Builds New MEGA PRISON as He Unleashes on Laken Riley's Killer!!!

WOKE Chicago Mayor LASHES OUT Over Reparations & Slavery As He Is Confro...

Dems FREAK OUT over SHOCKING New POLL as Trump Poised to FIRE All Federa...

Pete Hegseth: We are actively investigating to find out what happened an...

Trump LIVE | Donald Trump Big Action On Hamas | Trump Latest News Live |...

🚨BREAKING: Alex Jones Is Going To The White House And You Won't Believe ...

AI Robot Tries to Escape Streamer Kai Cenat's House After Being Bullied

Gutfeld! 1/29/25 Greg Gutfeld FULL END SHOW | BREAKING NEWS TODAY Januar...

🚨BREAKING: Trump Just Turned GITMO Into Something The Deep State Never S...

Greg Kelly shuts down RFK Jr. naysayers

Liberals FREAK OUT Over Trump Ordering Illegal Immigrant Criminals Be DE...

Live With Douglas & Marilyn

New York Magazine LIES About Trump Party Being All White?

🚨BREAKING: LIFELONG Democrats ABANDON Party After RFK Jr.’s Treatment in...

Singer Avery Says Ozempic Gave Her Bone-Thinning Disease Osteoporosis

Muslim MANIFESTS FACE-TO-FACE VS Sam Shamoun | Islam Debate

IT'S ACTUALLY HAPPENING... Trump Just CONFIRMED Democrats Worst Nightmare!

🚨INSANE BRAWL: Mayor Tiffany Henyard & Boyfriend TAKE ON Activist at Tow...

Border Crossings DROP 93 PERCENT as Mass Deportations SURGE!!!

Youngest Press Secretary in History SCHOOLS Mainstream Media

SUPER Mayor Tiffany Henyard JUMPS INTO BRAWL With Boyfriend After Gettin...

Trump Proposes End of Federal Income Tax; Freezes $3 Trillion In Federal...

LIVE: The Gerry Callahan Show (01/29/2025) | NEWSMAX Podcasts

🚨BREAKING: Trump Just Exposed The Truth About Those Mystery Drones And T...

Week Two of Trump's Return Bringing More Epic Changes To America - And M...

Democrat depravity revealed: Chris Salcedo

🚨BREAKING: Trump's New Press Sec Just Ended Fake News Forever And The Fo...

Lefties Flip as News Anchor Eats Taco On Air While Covering Deportations

Whole Room Left SPEECHLESS as Pam Bondi Delivers EPIC Speech to Congress

Jim Acosta is OUT at CNN! Trump's LEGENDARY Response! America is WINNING...

WOKE Chicago Mayor CRIES Civil War Over Ice Raids As DEPORTED Migrants B...

The Douglas Ducote Show

'No place for you': Habba details firing of anti-Trump bureaucrats in D....

🚨BREAKING: Trump's Wild Plan To Make Every Greenlander A Millionaire Has...

Our New White House Press Secretary ROCKED Her First Briefing Today

He CALLED OUT Sam Shamoun...THEN INSTANTLY Regrets It | Islam Debate

CNN Anchor Jim Acosta QUITS Live On Air... FINALLY!

🚨WATCH LIVE: FIRST White House NEWS Briefing with Trump's NEW Press Secr...

SHE DEFINITELY DIDN'T SEE THIS COMING FROM TOM HOMAN!

HILARIOUS Conservative Comedian ROASTS Lefties | Proof FUNNY Women Exist!

Trump Approval Rating EXPLODES to All-Time HIGH as Democrat Party SHATTE...

Liberal Meltdown Over Trump’s Mass Deportations

CNN Panel EXPLODES Over Republican Telling RAGING Woman To LAWYER UP For...

Trump Effect Sees Huge Shift Toward the Right

LIVE: The Gerry Callahan Show (01/28/2025) | NEWSMAX Podcasts

The Nazis tried to rob Irene and Steven of their humanity. They did not ...

IT HAPPENED AGAIN!

Illegal Aliens are Making TikToks Daring Trump to Deport Them

🚨BREAKING: This Genius Move By Trump Has Everyone Freaking Out And The D...

🚨BREAKING: Watch Pritzker Get Fed A Slice Of Justice As ICE Raids Leave ...

Kick Their Ass Tom, You Make Us Proud Sir!

Vivek Ramaswamy SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT On Elon Musk After Leaving DOGE...

Giuliani on Biden family: Biggest bribery, corruption, sale of America c...

🚨Fani Willis HIT ROCK BOTTOM! Trump Has Reduced her to BEGGING for Money

THE TEARS ARE FLOWING OVER DEPORTATIONS - AND THEY'RE JUST GETTING STARTED!

They Won't Talk About Stories Like This...

"I Don't Really Care, Margaret" | JD Vance DESTROYS Reporter

Woke Protester CRUMBLES and THROWS an American Flag

Dr. Phil and Tom Homan just ARRESTED a Criminal Illegal in Chicago

Dr. Phil and Tom Homan just ARRESTED a Criminal Illegal in Chicago

Trump STRIKES FEAR into Bill Gates & He Confesses About Epstein!

Target ELIMINATES DEI Programs, Causing Outrage And PROTESTS!

LIVE: Leftist Media LOSES IT As Trump Deportations SWEEP Nation! + MORE ...

The Limits of Political Language

the AZEL PERSPECTIVE Commentary on Cuba's Future, U.S. Foreign Policy & Individual Freedoms - Issue 393 B

José Azel's latest books "On Freedom" and "Sobre La Libertad" are now available on Amazon.  The Limits of Political Language (Previously published) Share Tweet Forward

When or why, we began to speak remains unknown. The origin of language has been the subject of speculation for several centuries and scientists have developed several hypotheses about how, why, when, and where we began to speak. For example, some theories consider language mostly as a genetically encoded innate faculty. Other theories regard language as culturally learned by interaction. Because of the lack of any direct evidence, some scholars consider this one of the hardest problems in science.  Recent language studies show that as much as 60 percent of our conversations are dedicated to gossip. Apparently, gossip is something that comes very naturally to us, and we spend about 52 minutes a day gossiping. As the saying goes, “we do not like gossip, but we are entertained by it.”  Gossiping, which usually involves an exchange of social information about acquaintances, has a somewhat undeserved bad reputation. Scientists tell us that 70-90 percent of office gossip is usually true, and that 75 percent of gossiping is non-evaluative, or neutral in nature. Only 15 percent of gossip is negative, and 10 percent is positive.  Today, our political discourse resembles gossiping. George Orwell, in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language, wrote that political language “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” But the language of political speak was not always as banal and devoid of substance.  For instance, in 1858 a series of seven debates took place between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate for Illinois, and the incumbent Democratic Party candidate Senator Stephen Douglas. These Lincoln-Douglas debates, also known as The Great Debates of 1858, dealt extensively with slavery, particularly its future expansion into new territories. These were not inconsequential political debates.  Compare the quality, substance and format of the Lincoln-Douglas debates to our modern-day equivalent. Keep in mind that this was a senatorial race and not presidential debates. The format for the debates was that one candidate spoke for 60 minutes, then the other candidate spoke for 90 minutes, and then the first candidate was allowed a 30-minute rejoinder. Thus, each debate lasted 3 hours – so much for our attention span.  When Lincoln and Douglas debated the slavery extension issue, they were addressing an issue that had divided the nation. More critically, the issue threatened the continued existence of the Union. The major newspapers covered the debates intensely and reprinted the complete texts of each debate.  Yet, in what could be called the institutional gossip of that time, the newspapers that supported Douglas edited his speeches to remove and correct any errors, but left Lincoln’s speeches in the coarse form in which they had been transcribed. Similarly, the pro-Lincoln newspapers revised Lincoln speeches, but left Douglas’s text unedited.  In the end, Douglas defeated Lincoln and retained his seat in the Senate. At that time the legislature elected U.S. Senators, and it elected Douglas by a vote of 54 to 46. Lincoln lost the election, but he won recognition as a powerful and moving spokesperson for the anti-slavery Republican cause. Lincoln and Douglas would meet again in the presidential election of 1860 and their debates, this time edited by Lincoln, were printed as a book and used as an important campaign document. Such is the political power of language.  Language is perhaps the most important method of human interaction. Our lives are limited by what we can explain through language. Language imposes a limit to thought. Unfortunately, too much of our present day personal and political use of language is not of the quality of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and is mostly dedicated to gossip and trivialities.  In the early 20th century, the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) became a key figure of a philosophical movement which had language as its subject of study. Wittgenstein held that if we cannot describe something in words, then it does not exist. As he exquisitely phrased it, “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”  Please let us know if you  this article. We welcome your feedback. Abrazos, Lily & José (click on the name to email Lily or Jose) José Azel, Ph.D. José Azel left Cuba in 1961 as a 13 year-old political exile in what has been dubbed Operation Pedro Pan - the largest unaccompanied child refugee movement in the history of the Western Hemisphere.   He is currently dedicated to the in-depth analyses of Cuba's economic, social and political state, with a keen interest in post-Castro-Cuba strategies. Dr. Azel was a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) at the University of Miami, Jose Azel has published extensively on Cuba related topics. In 2012 and 2015, Dr. Azel testified in the U.S. Congress on U.S.-Cuba Policy, and U.S. National Security.  He is a frequent speaker and commentator on these and related topics on local, national and international media.  He holds undergraduate and masters degrees in business administration and a Ph.D. in International Affairs from the University of Miami. José along with his wife Lily are avid skiers and adventure travelers.  In recent years they have climbed Grand Teton in Wyoming, trekked Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Machu Pichu in Peru.  They have also hiked in Tibet and in the Himalayas to Mt. Everest Base Camp. They cycled St. James Way (El Camino de Santiago de Compostela) and cycled alongside the Danube from Germany to Hungary and throughout southern France.  They have scuba dived in the Bay Islands off the Honduran coast and in the Galapagos Islands. Most recently, they rafted for 17 days 220 miles in the Grand Canyon.  Their adventurers are normally dedicated to raise funds for causes that are dear to them.  Watch Joe & Lily summit Kilimanjaro. Books by Dr. José Azel José Azel’s writings are touched with the wisdom of a master, and the charm of an excellent communicator. Anyone who wishes to understand why countries do, or do not, progress will find in this book the best explanations. And, from these readings emerge numerous inferences: How and why do the good intentions of leftist collectivism lead countries to hell? Why is liberty not a sub product of prosperity, but rather one of its causes? If it was in my power, this work would be required reading for all college and university students, and I would also recommend its reading to all politicians, journalists, and policymakers. With his writings Azel accomplishes what was achieved in France by Frédéric Bastiat, and in the United States by Henry Hazlitt: Azel brings together common sense with intelligent observation, and academic substance. Stupendous, Carlos Alberto Montaner                                                                    BUY NOW Los escritos de José Azel están tocados por la sabiduría de un maestro y la amenidad de un excelente comunicador. Cualquiera que desee entender por qué los países progresan, o no, encontrará en este libro las mejores explicaciones. De estas lecturas surgen numerosas inferencias: ¿Cómo y por qué las buenas intenciones del colectivismo de izquierda llevan a los países al infierno? ¿Por qué la libertad no es un subproducto de la prosperidad, sino una de sus causas? Si estuviera en mis manos, esta obra sería de obligada lectura de todos los estudiantes universitarios, pero además, le recomendaría su lectura a todos los políticos, periodistas y policy makers. Con sus escritos Azel logra lo que Frédéric Bastiat consiguiera en Francia y Henry Hazlitt en Estados Unidos: aunar el sentido común, la observación inteligente y la enjundia académica. Estupendo. Carlos Alberto Montaner                                                            Compre Aqui "Liberty for beginners is much more than what the title promises. It is eighty themes touched with the wisdom of a master, and the charm of an excellent communicator. Anyone that wishes to understand why countries do, or do not progress, will find in this book the best explanations. Stupendous" Carlos Alberto Montaner Buy Now "Libertad para novatos es mucho más de lo que promete el título. Son ochenta temas tocados con la sabiduría de un maestro y la amenidad de un excelente comunicador. Cualquier adulto que desee saber por qué progresan o se estancan los pueblos aquí encontrará las mejores explicaciones. Estupendo." Carlos Alberto Montaner Compre Aqui In Reflections on Freedom, José Azel brings together a collection of his columns published in prestigious newspapers.  Each article reveals his heartfelt and personal awareness of the importance of freedom in our lives.  They are his reflections after nearly sixty years of living and learning as a Cuban outside Cuba. In what has become his stylistic trademark, Professor Azel brilliantly introduces complex topics in brief journalistic articles. Buy Now En Reflexiones sobre la libertad José Azel reúne una colección de sus columnas publicadas en prestigiosos periódicos. Cada artículo revela su percepción sincera y personal de la importancia de la libertad en nuestras vidas. Son sus reflexiones después de casi sesenta años viviendo y aprendiendo como cubano fuera de Cuba.  En lo que ha resultado ser característica distintiva de sus artículos, el Profesor Azel introduce con brillantez complejos temas en  breves artículos de carácter periodístico. Compre Aqui Mañana in Cuba is a comprehensive analysis of contemporary Cuba with an incisive perspective of the Cuban frame of mind and its relevancy for Cuba's future. Buy now Pedazos y Vacíos is a collection of poems written in by Dr. Azel in his youth. Poems are in Spanish.

These Far-Left Loonies Went to New York to Protest Trump...

Illegal Immigrants PANIC INTO HIDING As CHICAGO Turns Into GHOST TOWN Du...

Why Trump Had to LOSE to WIN

Rand Paul GOES OFF on Biden Official Over Transgenders Ruining Girls Sport

US Freezes Most Foreign Aid, Ends Mass Migration Agreement

LIVE: The Gerry Callahan Show (01/27/2025) | NEWSMAX Podcasts

We're Gonna Have To Stop This Too

Dumb TikTokers Are Pleading For Assassin To Kill Trump

Woke Federal Employees PANIC Over Trump Forcing Them To Move Back For Wo...

IT'S HAPPENING!! TRUMP SAYS Get Ready for NO INCOME TAXES at Las Vegas R...

🚨Columbia Just MESSED UP! Trump Responds BIG!

They Have Been Doing The Unthinkable

Al Sharpton STAGES Costco DEI 'BUY IN' As Black Celebrities PANIC Over H...

RFK Jr. Leads CHARGE Against Corrupt Health Elites!!

How the DOJ Became FULLY CORRUPTED by 'Deep State' Snakes

WE CAN'T STOP WINNING!

Illegal Alien's Epic Meltdown Over Deportations is Hilarious

🚨Trump's First RALLY after Becoming President! Live from Las Vegas!

🚨MYTHICAL! Trump DEMOLISHED Karen Bass & Incinerated the ENTIRE CA Burea...

LIVE: President Donald Trump Economic Speech in Las Vegas | NEWSMAX2

Watch Trump DESTROY Karen Bass to HER FACE

Trump Called Out Woke LA Mayor To Her Face | FEMA May Also Be Abolished!

They Try To Stop Pete Hegseth, Then THIS Happens!

MSNBC Airs FALSE STORY About ICE Raid On Chicago Elementary School!

Illegals Telling People on TikTok to Spit & Urinate on ICE Agents’ Food

Woke Leftist Bishop Budde FORCED TO STEP DOWN After She THREATENED Trump...

Trump DESTROYS WOKE Los Angeles Mayor & TO HER FACE During Wild Fire Cri...

Gutfeld! 1/24/25 Greg Gutfeld FULL END SHOW | ᗷᖇEᗩKIᑎG ᑎEᗯS Tᖇᑌᗰᑭ Januar...

Pete Hegseth DEFEATS Mitch McConnell To Become Defense Secretary After J...

Left Wing Media TURNS On Self Following Trump's HISTORIC Win!

Spirit Airlines Introduces A DRESS CODE... Finally!

Want Your Soul to Sing Today? WATCH the Trump Saves America TOUR!

Gavin Newsom Being SERVED With Recall Papers as Trump Heads to California

The View COPES Over Democrats IMPLODING From INFIGHTING As Trump Approva...

Trump cuts off security detail for Dr. Anthony Fauci

The Muslim call to prayer doesn't belong in a cathedral

I'M CONVINCED After Watching THIS Obama & Jennifer Aniston Rumors are JU...

He's Already Hard At Work

Watch Amazing Mother REUNITE With Family After Trump Pardon

MASSIVE LINES at Southern Border as Illegal Migrants SELF-DEPORT!!!

Media Freakout: Liberals in Panic Mode!

Woke Leftist 'Bishop' Gets Brutal News After Lecturing President Trump

HE DID IT!

Local Community Loots Antifa's Bags After They Flee From Police

BREAKING: Speaker Mike Johnson signs the Laken Riley Act

Illegal Immigrant Gang Member RAGES At Trump As ICE Sweeps Sanctuary Cit...

WEF Admits DEFEAT as MAGA CONQUERS The WORLD!!!

No Mercy! Trump Delivers Another DEVASTATING Blow To Illegals

ICE Teams RAID Sanctuary Cities as THOUSANDS of Troops Headed to Souther...

DARK MAGA RISES - IT'S HAPPENING!

Woman Cop Accidentally Shoots Man During Traffic Stop

Steve Baker Celebrates His J6 Pardon, CALLS OUT Mark Milley & Harry Dunn

U.S. Energy Industry BOOMING in New Trump Era!

Even Trump CAN'T believe what she just said... Reaction!

🚨NEW! Woke Bishop DOUBLES DOWN & President Trump RESPONDS!

Israel versus Iran: what’s next? – Jerusalem Studio 912

Woke Bishop Who Confronted Trump Has INTERESTING History!

Trump PARDONS Bitcoin ICON as MASS DEPORTATIONS Officially BEGIN!!!

WOKE BLM Bishop RUNS To The View Over BACKLASH As Trump DEMANDS Apology ...

AOC LOSES HER MIND Over Elon Musk's 'Roman Salute' As ADL Defends Him Ag...

THEY'RE NOT TAKING IT VERY WELL 😂

Trump Dancing with a Sword Was Not Something I Expected to See

🚨President Trump Just Made America Wealthy Again

Democrat FUMES Over Trump FIRING WOKE FAILING Female Leader Of Major Mil...

Tom Homan explains how he's sending illegal immigrants back home

Deportations Have Begun And Liberals Are Already Crying About It

Trump’s Return – An ENERGY REVOLUTION Is HERE!!

🚨BREAKING: Woke Bishop SCOLDS Trump at National Prayer Service TODAY! (M...

I would agree with this woke Bishop if she, out of her own pocket; feed, house them in her home or church, the millions of illegals, including terrorist,; but most likely she won't, because she does not represent God, but her own leftist agenda, which have destroyed the lives of people living a communist nightmare; struggling to get, at least, a slice of bread once a day... E.E.R.C.

WAIT FOR IT… Delusional Woke Lefties MELTDOWN Over Trump & Elon

‘Utter shambles’: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris booed at Trump’s inauguration

LIBERALS UTTERLY SHOCKED BY TRUMP 2.0 - UNPRECEDENTED CHANGES ON DAY ONE...

Barron Trump Sends Final Message To Joe Biden

'It's happening': Greg Kelly reacts to Trump's pardon of J6 defendants

Trump Officially DESTROYS the Legacy Media!!!

🚨CNN IMMEDIATELY Tries to SABOTAGE Trump on Inauguration Day! (MUST SHARE!)

He Made Her Go Silent Live On Air

'That wall will go up so fast': President Donald Trump

The Entire Room ERUPTS After Trump Drops CHILLING Announcements

They Sound Alike, but They Are Not the Same

the AZEL PERSPECTIVE Commentary on Cuba's Future, U.S. Foreign Policy & Individual Freedoms - Issue 392 B

José Azel's latest books "On Freedom" and "Sobre La Libertad" are now available on Amazon.  They Sound Alike, but They Are Not the Same (Previously published) Share Tweet Forward

Americans use the terms democratic socialism and social democracy interchangeably. But in Europe, and elsewhere, these terms can have very different meanings. I was recently reminded of the distinctions by linguistics professor Richard Teschner, University of Texas at El Paso. The distinctions are important because these terms have now entered our political discourse with politicians, such as Bernie Sanders, branding themselves as democratic socialists.  Democratic socialism is defined as a political philosophy maintaining political democracy within a socialist owned economy. Democratic socialists argue that capitalism is inherently incompatible with the values of equality. Thus, democratic socialism entails a democratic political system with a socialist economy in which the means of production are collectively owned.  Democratic socialists are committed to replacing the capitalist mode of production with socialism by replacing private ownership with collective ownership of the means of production. In theory, democratic socialism is distinguishable from autocratic and undemocratic Marxism- Leninism.  Typically, democratic socialism advocates for a limit on the accumulation of property and governmental regulation of the economy. It also seeks to provide extensive publicly financed assistance and pension programs. Currently, countries that may be said to be governed by a democratic socialist party are Armenia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Iceland, Nicaragua, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Serbia, and Venezuela.  On the other hand, social democracy is usually defined as a political regime advocating economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and a capitalist-oriented mixed economy. Social democrats propose measures such as income redistribution, social-welfare provisions, and regulation of the economy.  Social democracy seeks to humanize capitalism by creating conditions for greater egalitarian outcomes. The long-term goal of social democracy is socialism thru an evolutionary change from capitalism to socialism using established political processes.  There is a great deal of overlap on policy positions between social democracy and democratic socialism. Political scientists use the social democratic label for center-left political positions,  and the democratic socialist label for the more left-wing positions. Interestingly, Marx and Engels referred to socialism and communism interchangeably. I, having lived under communist rule, remain unconvinced by the definitional differences between democratic socialism and social democracy. They both encroach on our personal freedoms.  There is no sensible way of definitively ranking countries as social democracies. Currently, nations such as Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, as well as some Eastern European countries have adopted their own system of capitalism where socialist welfare policies are made to fit within a capitalist framework. Japan and Canada have also implemented policies that could be considered to fall within a reasonable definition of social democracy. I will borrow a sentence from Dinesh D’Souza that these countries are “capitalist in wealth creation and socialist in wealth distribution.”  For example, in the United States the top combined tax rate of 46 percent kicks in at $400,000, which is more than 8 times the average income. In Denmark, the top tax rate of 60 percent kicks in at $60,000 which is only 1.2 times the average income. Similar rules apply in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. That is, the United States imposes a high tax rate on the rich, whereas the Scandinavian norm is to tax heavily vast segments of the population.  Moreover, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, also collect a value-added tax of 25 percent on most consumer items. American politicians consider value-added taxes regressive in that they disproportionately penalize the lower income population that must spend a higher proportion of their income on consumer goods. In the Scandinavian countries, when the value-added taxes are considered the math shows that the middle classes pay taxes that are the same as, or higher than the rich.  This is telling because American politicians that label themselves as democratic socialists point to the Nordic countries as examples to follow. We are left to wonder if they are fundamentally ignorant or just deceitful.  Please let us know if you  this article. We welcome your feedback. Abrazos, Lily & José (click on the name to email Lily or Jose) José Azel, Ph.D. José Azel left Cuba in 1961 as a 13 year-old political exile in what has been dubbed Operation Pedro Pan - the largest unaccompanied child refugee movement in the history of the Western Hemisphere.   He is currently dedicated to the in-depth analyses of Cuba's economic, social and political state, with a keen interest in post-Castro-Cuba strategies. Dr. Azel was a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) at the University of Miami, Jose Azel has published extensively on Cuba related topics. In 2012 and 2015, Dr. Azel testified in the U.S. Congress on U.S.-Cuba Policy, and U.S. National Security.  He is a frequent speaker and commentator on these and related topics on local, national and international media.  He holds undergraduate and masters degrees in business administration and a Ph.D. in International Affairs from the University of Miami. José along with his wife Lily are avid skiers and adventure travelers.  In recent years they have climbed Grand Teton in Wyoming, trekked Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Machu Pichu in Peru.  They have also hiked in Tibet and in the Himalayas to Mt. Everest Base Camp. They cycled St. James Way (El Camino de Santiago de Compostela) and cycled alongside the Danube from Germany to Hungary and throughout southern France.  They have scuba dived in the Bay Islands off the Honduran coast and in the Galapagos Islands. Most recently, they rafted for 17 days 220 miles in the Grand Canyon.  Their adventurers are normally dedicated to raise funds for causes that are dear to them.  Watch Joe & Lily summit Kilimanjaro. Books by Dr. José Azel José Azel’s writings are touched with the wisdom of a master, and the charm of an excellent communicator. Anyone who wishes to understand why countries do, or do not, progress will find in this book the best explanations. And, from these readings emerge numerous inferences: How and why do the good intentions of leftist collectivism lead countries to hell? Why is liberty not a sub product of prosperity, but rather one of its causes? If it was in my power, this work would be required reading for all college and university students, and I would also recommend its reading to all politicians, journalists, and policymakers. With his writings Azel accomplishes what was achieved in France by Frédéric Bastiat, and in the United States by Henry Hazlitt: Azel brings together common sense with intelligent observation, and academic substance. Stupendous, Carlos Alberto Montaner                                                                    BUY NOW Los escritos de José Azel están tocados por la sabiduría de un maestro y la amenidad de un excelente comunicador. Cualquiera que desee entender por qué los países progresan, o no, encontrará en este libro las mejores explicaciones. De estas lecturas surgen numerosas inferencias: ¿Cómo y por qué las buenas intenciones del colectivismo de izquierda llevan a los países al infierno? ¿Por qué la libertad no es un subproducto de la prosperidad, sino una de sus causas? Si estuviera en mis manos, esta obra sería de obligada lectura de todos los estudiantes universitarios, pero además, le recomendaría su lectura a todos los políticos, periodistas y policy makers. Con sus escritos Azel logra lo que Frédéric Bastiat consiguiera en Francia y Henry Hazlitt en Estados Unidos: aunar el sentido común, la observación inteligente y la enjundia académica. Estupendo. Carlos Alberto Montaner                                                            Compre Aqui "Liberty for beginners is much more than what the title promises. It is eighty themes touched with the wisdom of a master, and the charm of an excellent communicator. Anyone that wishes to understand why countries do, or do not progress, will find in this book the best explanations. Stupendous" Carlos Alberto Montaner Buy Now "Libertad para novatos es mucho más de lo que promete el título. Son ochenta temas tocados con la sabiduría de un maestro y la amenidad de un excelente comunicador. Cualquier adulto que desee saber por qué progresan o se estancan los pueblos aquí encontrará las mejores explicaciones. Estupendo." Carlos Alberto Montaner Compre Aqui In Reflections on Freedom, José Azel brings together a collection of his columns published in prestigious newspapers.  Each article reveals his heartfelt and personal awareness of the importance of freedom in our lives.  They are his reflections after nearly sixty years of living and learning as a Cuban outside Cuba. In what has become his stylistic trademark, Professor Azel brilliantly introduces complex topics in brief journalistic articles. Buy Now En Reflexiones sobre la libertad José Azel reúne una colección de sus columnas publicadas en prestigiosos periódicos. Cada artículo revela su percepción sincera y personal de la importancia de la libertad en nuestras vidas. Son sus reflexiones después de casi sesenta años viviendo y aprendiendo como cubano fuera de Cuba.  En lo que ha resultado ser característica distintiva de sus artículos, el Profesor Azel introduce con brillantez complejos temas en  breves artículos de carácter periodístico. Compre Aqui Mañana in Cuba is a comprehensive analysis of contemporary Cuba with an incisive perspective of the Cuban frame of mind and its relevancy for Cuba's future. Buy now Pedazos y Vacíos is a collection of poems written in by Dr. Azel in his youth. Poems are in Spanish.