Do You Really Want a War with Russia? (Reposted/ Video & Text)

Another important dispatch from The Greanville Post. Be sure to share it widely.


A Walk Down Memory Lane:

Remember the Maine? No, I mean do you remember “Remember the Maine”?



[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he US, having genocided the Native Americans and stolen half of Mexico asserted that Mexico had attacked US troops along the US Mexico Border when in fact it was a fake provocation. Even Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain and Henry David Thoreau called that casus belli bullshit back in the day.

So in 1898, the Empire was on the prowl again. It coveted Cuba and the Philippines, which were owned by the Spanish Empire. The Empire needed another war. So William Randolph Hearst sent a photographer to Havana…..”You supply the photographs and I’ll supply to war”. He said that in response the photographer who reported there was no there there. Nothing to report.

Then what happened? Remember…”Remember the Maine”? A US ship blows up in Havana harbor. The US blames it on Spain, with false evidence of course. Works like a charm to mobilize the American dupes/public.

USS Maine

It’s been working like that since 1848, in Mexico, in 1898 in Cuba, and on to events like the sinking of the Lusitania, The Gulf of Tonkin, Saddam’s WMD….the 19 hijackers — six of whom showed up alive after 911….

So let’s take a look a slight alternative scenario. Let’s say that Spain, like Russia, was much weaker than the USA.

However, Spain had nuclear weapons…enough to blow the USA off the planet. After the US had initiated first strike which it is actively planning with our tax dollars…..

Things might have turned out differently back in 1898 if Spain had enough firepower to fight back against US propaganda.

Well, what we’re fed day in and day out is just more ‘Remember the Maine’, ‘The North Vietnamese attacked our ship’. ‘Saddam’s WMD’s will create a mushroom cloud over Washington, DC’ and on and on.

The difference is that Russia, which has been accused of a lot, but with as much smoking gun evidence as all the previous crap…..Remember good ole Joe McCarthy? “I have in my hand a list of 200 Soviet spies in Washington”(or words to that effect…..

The difference is that Russia, having been invaded 3 times in the last century either directly by the US as occurred in 1918, or by US corporate backed Nazis (using IBM info technology, General Motors and Ford automotive engines or parts, and Standard Oil oil) resulting in the death of 27 million Russians. And more recently by the US flagrantly stealing the 1994 election for Yeltsin, who had a 5% approval rating, (proudly flaunted on the cover of Time Magazine) is in no mood for more f*cking around with Russia.



Published on Nov 12, 2018

It has nukes, and it will use them —if attacked.

But the same people who brought you the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, WWI and WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the nuclear arms race in the 1980’s, the Gulf Wars, and all the other wars, are at it again targeting both Russia and China, both of whom could destroy the US — -if the crazies running this country are allowed to pursue their insane goal of world hegemony.

Get it?
—Eric Arnow


A comment that sums up our position:

"The American people need to grow a pair..."

RiffRaffRiffRaff 6 months ago (edited)

So they are saying they would use Nuclear weapons first if they feel like it. Is that not a terrifying threat to the whole world? Most people just want to live their life and look after their children but the Gov just take our money and then threaten us all with the weapons they build.?They should now be charged with Treason as they are threatening the destruction of the world and it's people, which includes the people of America, and that is Treason. The American people need to grow a pair and stand up to the threat of annihilation they have received from their government.


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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Go to the profile of Eric ArnowA Boston native, leftwing commentator Eric Arnow now lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

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FREEDOM 101 – Jason Hirthler and Jeff Brown share their stories of hope, on China Rising Radio Sinoland

The buck stops with YOU. If you don’t share this, who will?

Downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), as well as being syndicated on iTunes and Stitcher Radio(links below):


[dropcap]P[/dropcap]ictured above is Jason Hirthler on the left, in New York and myself on the right, in China. We are twelve time zones apart, geographically halfway around the planet from each other. Yet, we have both succeeded in coming out of the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist closet, continue to work at normal jobs and have friends and family who respect us. We empathize with you that it may seem like mission impossible. We too face the foghorn of withering Western propaganda, with its relentless societal pressure to conform and be a mindless Myrmidon in the mainstream matrix. But, it can be done.


 

That’s you on the left and the elites’ mainstream media on the right. There’s only one solution: quit watching, listening to and reading their brainwashing propaganda. It’s like a bad drug that makes you stupid and babble. I know, because I used to be a muttering idiot myself. Then, get smart and find your freedom elsewhere in the information world. Read on…

In today’s discussion, you can see by the long list of tag words that Jason and I covered a lot of fascinating and interesting territory. Listen to our stories about how we gained our freedom and dignity, so you too can find the will to liberate your innate intelligence and the courage to unshackle your powers of reason. Regardless of your age, it is never too late. Jason figured it out in his forties, me in my late fifties. Everyone has their own unique life experiences through which to take their journeys of discovery and enlightenment. And there is a critical bonus. It gives you the knowledge and satisfaction of not living the rest of your life as an imperial ventriloquist dummy. That in itself is priceless.


1950’s British ventriloquist Peter Bough on the right and his dummy Archie Andrews, on the left. They are playing the perfect allegory of the West’s deep state and its manipulated masses, respectively. That’s also me on the left, until I was about 58 years old, when I took my life-changing journey across China, in 44 Days (https://ganxy.com/i/88276/). You too can choose to not be Archie Andrews. Read on…

The French have a wonderful proverb, A clear conscience makes a soft pillow. Jason and I both took our separate paths to get there, but we can finally say we sleep soundly at night. You, us, we all deserve the sweet dreams of self-respect.

Jason’s résumé is impressive. He is a writer, media critic, and veteran of the digital communications industry. As a digital media strategist, he is familiar with the techniques and tactics commonly used by mainstream news media to shape narratives that disguise imperialism. He is interested in the false historical narratives that underpin the foreign policies of the United States and which ensure those policies are only feebly resisted. To that end, Hirthler has published more than 150 articles across a variety of progressive sites like CounterpunchDissident Voice, and The Greanville Post. He has also authored two collections of his political essays, The Sins of Empire, and most recently, Imperial Fictions. He lives in New York City and can be reached at jasonhirthler@gmail.com.

You can read Jason’s work here:

Counterpunchhttps://www.counterpunch.org/author/hav3h/

Dissident Voicehttps://dissidentvoice.org/search/?q=jason+hirthler&sa=Search

Greanville Posthttps://www.greanvillepost.com/?s=jason+hirthler

To start debrainwashing, may I suggest replacing your four favorite mainstream media bookmarks with the three aforementioned websites, along with www.chinarising.puntopress.com? I promise you that overnight, your IQ will go up ten points and your self-worth will suddenly find a noble purpose.

Jason and I talked about a few things to follow up with, on your journey to freedom and dignity:

You can read the prologue to Book #2 of The China Trilogy (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/05/19/the-china-trilogy/) here: http://chinarising.puntopress.com/china-rising-the-book/

Jason recommended Alex Carey’s book, Taking the Risk out of Democracyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Carey

He also likes reading Paul Street, David Harvey and Anthony De Mello: https://www.paulstreet.org/http://davidharvey.org/and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_de_Mello.

I mentioned Edward Bernays and his classic treatise, Propagandahttp://whale.to/b/bernays.pdf

I also talked about socialist Upton Sinclair and his history changing investigative book, The Junglehttps://www.gutenberg.org/files/140/140-h/140-h.htm

The book I mentioned about the US’s drive to become a global colonial power is: The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7323969-the-war-lovers

Friends and fans of China Rising Radio Sinoland, it’s time to get smart, and to gain your freedom and dignity from our parasitic elite owners. They may own the system, but they can’t control your brains, once you make the decision to cross the Rubicon and into the realm of clarity and truth.

So, just do itAnd when you are ready to celebrate leaving the matrix, send Jason and me an email (jasonhirthler@gmail.comand jeff@brownlanglois.com). We’d love to hear your stories of redemption and newfound liberty.

Finally, while you are attending your own Freedom 101 class, don’t forget to read Jason’s and my books. Sharing is caring. Keep posting our work on all your social media. Your contacts will be glad you did.

SOURCE: Freedom 101 – Jason Hirthler and Jeff J. Brown share their stories of hope, on China Rising Radio Sinoland 171126


Or better yet, buy one of Jeff’s books offered below. 
Lizard

Screen Shot 2015-08-05 at 6.19.17 PM

ABOUT JEFF BROWN

jeffBusyatDesktop

Punto Press released China Rising - Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and for Badak Merah, Jeff authored China Is Communist, Dammit! – Dawn of the Red Dynasty (2017). As well, he published a textbook, Doctor WriteRead’s Treasure Trove to Great English (2015). He is also currently penning an historical fiction, Red Letters – The Diaries of Xi Jinping, to be published in late 2018. Jeff is a Senior Editor & China Correspondent for The Greanville Post, where he keeps a column, Dispatch from Beijing. He also writes a column for The Saker, called the Moscow-Beijing Express. Jeff interviews and podcasts on his own program, China Rising Radio Sinoland, which is also available on SoundCloud, YouTube, Stitcher Radio and iTunes.

More details about Jeff Brown's background.
 In China, he has been a speaker at TEDx, the Bookworm and Capital M Literary Festivals, the Hutong, as well as being featured in an 18-part series of interviews on Radio Beijing AM774, with former BBC journalist, Bruce Connolly. He has guest lectured at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and various international schools and universities.

Jeff grew up in the heartland of the United States, Oklahoma, much of it on a family farm, and graduated from Oklahoma State University. He went to Brazil while in graduate school at Purdue University, to seek his fortune, which whetted his appetite for traveling the globe. This helped inspire him to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia in 1980 and he lived and worked in Africa, the Middle East, China and Europe for the next 21 years. All the while, he mastered Portuguese, Arabic, French and Mandarin, while traveling to over 85 countries. He then returned to America for nine years, whereupon he moved back to China in 2010. He lives in China with his wife. Jeff is a dual national French-American, being a member of the Communist Party of France (PCF) and the International Workers of the World (IWW).

Jason’s résumé is impressive. He is a writer, media critic, and veteran of the digital communications industry. As a digital media strategist, he is familiar with the techniques and tactics commonly used by mainstream news media to shape narratives that disguise imperialism. He is interested in the false historical narratives that underpin the foreign policies of the United States and which ensure those policies are only feebly resisted.

Jeff can be reached at China Rising, jeff@brownlanglois.com, Facebook, Twitter and Wechat/Whatsapp: +86-13823544196.


 
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Three Who Made A War

Paul Craig Roberts
SOURCE: Author’s Page

TR in the uniform that confirmed his political manhood.

TR in the uniform that confirmed his political manhood.

The Spanish-American War was caused by three people: Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and William Randolph Hearst. The war, which killed a number of Spaniards and Americans, including some prominent Harvard “Swells,” was based entirely on lies and machinations of these three men and served no purpose other than their personal needs. Princeton University historian Evan Thomas calls these three monsters The War Lovers.  
Hearst needed a war to build his newspaper circulation. Roosevelt needed a war to sate his blood-lust and desire for military glory. Lodge needed a war to reinvigorate American manhood and to enlist American manhood in his “Large Policy” of American Empire. Between them, thanks to the ignorance and stupidity of the American people, they pulled it off.

The editors say: Besides imperialist lust, Anglo-Saxon racism against the Spanish fueled the eagerness to punish what was seen as an “inferior” breed holding a disproportionate and therefore unjustified piece of the planetary pie. Same reasoning played a role later, in the wars against Mexico, also largely based on lies and provocations. 

Their adversary was Speaker of the House, Thomas Brackett Reed, “the Czar,” the most powerful politician in Washington. Reed, an honest and incorruptible politician, saw Lodge’s policy of “American exceptionalism” as naked imperialism that stood in total opposition and in great danger to American purposes. Reed saw Roosevelt’s war lust as a diversion of national purpose from the reconstruction of an economy that increasingly served a shrinking minority at the expense of the American people. But Hearst, Roosevelt, and Lodge made “peace” an epithet. The American people, whose gullibility is never-ending, were captivated by war-lust. Reed lost confidence in the American people whom he so well served. Reed could find no moral purpose in pushing the country toward war over nothing but fake news reports by “yellow journalism.”

Only a few years previously, Reed had had to halt the Cleveland administration from going to war with Great Britain over a British boundary dispute with Venezuela concerning mineral-rich land claimed by British Guyana. Somehow this boundary dispute, which had no more to do with US security than Honduras, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Georgia, Ukraine, and the South China Sea have today, was seen as a “threat to US national security.”

Roosevelt and Lodge were ecstatic over the possibility of War with Great Britain. War was its own goal. Roosevelt wrote to Lodge: “I don’t care whether our sea coast cities are bombarded or not; we would take Canada.” Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, hard facts prevailed over American war lust. The American navy had 3 battleships. The British had 50. If only Washington had gone to war with Great Britain over a British boundary dispute with Venezuela. The total destruction of the American navy and coastal cities might have taught Americans a lesson and made the population less lustful for war and more suspicious of Washington’s war lies: the Gulf of Tonkin, Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Iranian nukes, Assad’s use of chemical weapons, Russian invasion of Crimea, etc.

Roosevelt and Lodge searched for a weaker adversary than the British navy and settled on Spain.

But how to bring about a war with a declining and tired 400-year old empire far removed from American interests?

Hearst, desperate to sell newspapers, knew what to do. He hired the artist, Frederic Remington, a painter and sculptor much worshipped by American conservatives today. Remington provided a drawing, filling half of the front page of Hearst’s New York Journal, of a comely nude young woman surrounded by sinister Spaniards. Hearst alleged that three lady passengers on the US mail steamer Olivette were strip-searched in the Harbor of Havana, Cuba, by leering Spanish males.

America had a rare moment of rational thought and philosophical reflection during the brief period of its Founding Fathers. Ever since America has been a country of pulp romances and court histories written as “chivalric derring-do.” Hearst asked where were the knightly American males who would rescue womankind from these indignities at the hands of cruel, wanton, Spaniards.

Hearst repeated the story with Evangelina Cisneros, “a beautiful young woman from the gentlest of families.” In Hearst’s story Evangelina went to the Island of Pines to beg for her elderly father’s release from the cruel Spaniards. As she resisted the sexual advances of the leering Spanish prison commander, she was thrown into a squalid prison for prostitutes.

Having created his heroine, Hearst rushed to rescue her. Hearst hired the son of a Confederate cavalry colonel, Karl Decker, to rescue the fair lady. Thousands of words were printed to describe Decker’s daring rescue, but what really happened is that Hearst bribed the Spanish guards to let her go from her comfortable hotel room. Having freed “one Cuban girl,” Hearst wanted to know “when shall we free Cuba.”

Teddy Roosevelt wanted to be the star of the event. Senator Lodge and the American newsman Richard Harding Davis made it so. Teddy charging up the hill, leading the Rough Riders, not urging from behind, defeated the Spanish all by himself and won the war.

What did it mean for the Cubans, a mixed and varied peoples, who had been fighting the Spanish for independence for years before self-righteous, self-serving Americans saw the opportunity to advance their interests and careers?

For Cubans, it meant swapping one master for another.

General William Shafter, the American in charge of the invasion force, declared: “Why these people [Cubans] are no more fit for self-government than gunpowder is for hell!” Calixto Garcia, who had been fighting for thirty years for Cuba’s liberation from Spain, was not allowed to be present when Spain surrendered Cuba. It was purely an American show devoid of the revolutionaries in whose name the war had been fought.

Roosevelt wrote home that the Cubans had fought badly and were not responsible for their liberation from Spain. It was Teddy and his Rough Riders who brought freedom to Cuba. The Teller Amendment passed by Congress in 1898 guaranteeing independence to Cuba was superseded by the Platt Amendment of 1901. The Platt Amendment gave Washington the right to intervene in Cuba whenever Washington pleased.

It finally dawned on Cubans that “civilization,” a word used by Americans, meant “denying the darker races the power to govern.” In 1908 Cubans who had fought against Spain formed an independent political party. They were massacred by the thousands by the Cuban government now more sensitive to pleasing Washington than to the voice of its own people.

The story of American intervention is the same everywhere. American intervention has never benefited any peoples except those allied with Washington and American corporations.

Hearst’s rival in yellow journalism was Joseph Pulitzer, whose name ended up on a prestigious journalism award. Today the entire US print and TV media engage in the yellow journalism of the Hearst/Pulitzer era. Yellow journalism has helped to keep America in wars as nonsensical as the Spanish-American war ever since the 21st century began. The neoconservatives have resurrected Lodge’s “Large Policy” of American imperialism justified by the doctrine of American exceptionalism.

If Americans were to read three history books, they could free themselves from their self-righteous delusions that endanger all life on earth. Those books are: A People’s History of The United Statesby Howard Zinn, The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, andThe War Lovers by Evan Thomas.

No one who reads one of these books will ever again believe that the US government in Washington is the “light unto the world,” the “exceptional and indispensable” government that brings “freedom and democracy” to the conquered provinces of the American Empire.

Washington is the home of warmongering self-interested parties that have no concept of compassion or justice and serve only their own power and enrichment. Americans are as indifferent to the populations that their government bombs as Teddy Roosevelt was to the prospect of his own country’s coastal cities being bombarded. As Russia’s President Putin reminded the world on March 18, 2014, the US prefers the rule of the gun to international law.

About Dr. Paul Craig Roberts •••

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under (of all things!) Ronald Reagan, and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available. He has come a long way from his establishmentarian days. 



Gowans Report— Cuba Still Making It Tough To Screw Others

By Stephen Gowans (See article criticized at bottom, under “ADDENDUM”)

New York Times reporter Damien Cave has written an article about changes that will allow Cubans to buy and sell their homes. 

Cave seems to criticize the plans because they’ll likely outlaw real-estate-related social parasitism, limit “opportunities for profits and loans,” and prohibit foreign ownership.

 

Havana, 2011. Stephen Gowans.

“The plan outlined by the state media,” he writes, “would suppress the market by limiting Cubans to one home or apartment and requiring full-time residency.”

Gasp!

Cave seems ruefully pessimistic that budding entrepreneurs—both Cuban and foreign—will have much chance to get rich flipping Cuban properties. “Some Cubans expect rules forcing buyers to hold properties for five or 10 years,” he writes.

“Others say the government will make it hard to take profits off the island, through exorbitant taxes or limits on currency exchange.”

And Cave points to one Cuban who “cannot imagine a real open market,” anticipating, instead, that the government will set a per square foot price.

Finally, there’s a “thorny” issue that threatens to dampen the zeal of even the most ambitious social parasite: Evictions are outlawed.

How’s anyone to get rich on the backs of others under this plan?

ADDENDUM

August 2, 2011

Cubans Set for Big Change: Right to Buy Homes

By , The New York Times

The always helpful NYTimes, selling us the glories of capitalism. This is the original caption: "A crumbling building in Havana. Private property ownership would likely mean economic growth for the island. Profits from sales would encourage much-needed renovation, which would create jobs. Banking would expand because, under rules outlined this week, payments would have to come from buyers’ accounts. The government, meanwhile, would pull in taxes, impossible in the current swapping market where money passes under the table."

 

HAVANA — José is an eager almost-entrepreneur with big plans for Cuban real estate. Right now he works illegally on trades, linking up families who want to swap homes and pay a little extra for an upgrade.

But when Cuba legalizes buying and selling by the end of the year — as the government promised again this week — José and many others expect a cascade of changes: higher prices, mass relocation, property taxes and a flood of money from Cubans in the United States and around the world.

“There’s going to be huge demand,” said José, 36, who declined to give his last name, stepping away from the crowd and keeping an eye out for eavesdroppers. “It’s been prohibited for so long.”

Private property is the nucleus of capitalism, of course, so the plan to legitimize it here in a country of slogans like “socialism or death” strikes many Cubans as jaw-dropping. Indeed, most people expect onerous regulations and already, the plan outlined by the state media would suppress the market by limiting Cubans to one home or apartment and requiring full-time residency.

Yet even with some state control, experts say, property sales could transform Cuba more than any of the economic reforms announced by President Raúl Castro’s government, some of which were outlined in the National Assembly on Monday. Compared with the changes already passed (more self-employment and cell-phone ownership), or proposed (car sales and looser emigration rules), “nothing is as big as this,” said Philip Peters, an analyst with the Lexington Institute.

The opportunities for profits and loans would be far larger than what Cuba’s small businesses offer, experts say, potentially creating the disparities of wealth that have accompanied property ownership in places like Eastern Europe and China.

Havana in particular may be in for a move back in time, to when it was a more stratified city. “There will be a huge rearrangement,” said Mario Coyula, Havana’s director of urbanism and architecture in the 1970s and ’80s. “Gentrification will happen.”

Broader effects could follow. Sales would encourage much-needed renovation, creating jobs. Banking would expand because, under newly announced rules, payments would come from buyers’ accounts. Meanwhile, the government, which owns all property now, would hand over homes and apartments to their occupants in exchange for taxes on sales — impossible in the current swapping market where money passes under the table.

And then there is the role of Cuban emigrants. While the plan seems to prohibit foreign ownership, Cuban-Americans could take advantage of Obama administration rules letting them send as much money as they like to relatives on the island, fueling purchases and giving them a stake in Cuba’s economic success. “That is politically an extremely powerful development,” Mr. Peters said, arguing that it could spur policy changes by both nations.

The rate of change, however, will likely depend on complications peculiar to Cuba. The so-called Pearl of the Antilles struggled with poor housing even before the 1959 Revolution, but deterioration, rigid rules and creative work-arounds have created today’s warren of oddities.

There are no vacancies in Havana, Mr. Coyula pointed out. Every dwelling has someone living in it. Most Cubans are essentially stuck where they are.

On the waterfront of central Havana, children peek out from buildings that should be condemned, with a third of the facade missing.

Blocks inland, Cubans like Elena Acea, 40, have subdivided apartments to Alice in Wonderland proportions. Her two-bedroom is now a four-bedroom, with a plywood mezzanine where two stepsons live one atop the other, barely able to stand in their own rooms.

Like many Cubans, she hopes to move — to trade her apartment for three smaller places so the elder son, 29, can start his own family. “He’s getting married,” she said. “He has to move out.”

But despite reassurances — on Monday, Marino Murillo, a top official on economic policy, said selling would not need prior government approval — Ms. Acea and many neighbors seemed wary of the government’s promise to let go. Some Cubans expect rules forcing buyers to hold properties for five or 10 years. Others say the government will make it hard to take profits off the island, through exorbitant taxes or limits on currency exchange.

Still more, like Ernesto Benítez, 37, an artist, cannot imagine a real open market. “They’re going to set one price, per square foot, and that’s it,” he said.

Of course, he added, Cubans would respond by setting their own prices. And that might be enough to stimulate movement, he said.

He certainly hopes so. Mr. Benítez and the woman he has lived with for nearly a decade broke up 18 months ago. Each is now dating someone new and there are nights, they admit, that get a little awkward. Only a narrow bathroom separates their bedrooms.

Katia González, 48, whose parents gave her their apartment before they died (which Cuba allows) said she would consider selling for a fair price. What did she think her two-bedroom just blocks from the ocean, in Havana’s best neighborhood, could command? “Oh, $25,000,” she said. “A little more, maybe $30,000.”

In Miami, a similar apartment might cost nearly 10 times that — which is what many Cuban-Americans seem to be thinking. José and several other brokers in Havana said real estate transactions on the black market routinely involved money from Cubans overseas, especially Florida.

“There’s always money coming in from Miami,” said Gerardo, a broker who withheld his full name. “The Cuban in Miami buys a house for his cousin in Cuba and when he comes here in the summer for a couple of months, he stays in that house.”

Technically, this is a violation of the trade embargo that began under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. According to the United States Treasury Department, deals or investments with Cubans are prohibited. Receiving money or profit from Cuba is also illegal.

But the rules are muddy in practice. Family transactions — mainly involving recent emigrants — seem to be expanding with a wink from the White House. Supporting private business is now encouraged under the general license that lets Cuban-Americans visit relatives, and in 2009, President Obama established a new policy letting Cuban-Americans visit the island whenever they want, and send unlimited remittances to relatives.

Beyond that, enforcement against individuals, as opposed to businesses, is practically nonexistent: in the past 18 months, only one American was penalized for violating the sanctions, with a fine of $525, according to a Congressional report published last month.

Experts say the Cuban diaspora has already begun to create a tiered social system in Cuba. Cuban emigrants sent back about $1 billion in remittances last year, studies show, with an increasing proportion of that money financing budding capitalists in need of pizza ovens or other equipment to work privately. Homes would simply expand the bond, experts say, and offers are already arriving.

Ilda, 69, lives alone in a five-bedroom, ninth-floor apartment with views of the sea. A visiting Cuban-American couple — “chic, very well dressed,” she said — asked to buy her apartment for $150,000, with little care for any bans on foreign ownership.

“I told them I can’t,” Ilda said. “We’re waiting for the law.” Even when the law changes, she said she would prefer a “permuta,” a trade, because she would be guaranteed a place to live.

Her fear of having nowhere to go is common. One recent study, by Sergio Díaz-Briquets, a Washington-based demography expert, found that Cuba has a housing deficit of 1.6 million units. The government says the number is closer to 500,000, still a serious problem.

Mr. Coyula said money from sales might not be enough to fix it, since there is almost no construction industry, permitting process or materials to build with.

Other thorny issues might have to be revisited. “Evictions haven’t happened here since 1939,” he said. “There’s a law forbidding them.”

For now, though, Cubans are trying to grasp basic details. How will the mortgage system work? How high will taxes be? What’s a fair price?

There is even a question of how buyers and sellers will come together. Classified listings are illegal in Cuba, which explains why brokers like José, known as corredores, spend their days moving through open air bazaars with notebooks listing apartments offered or desired.

He already has two employees working for him and when the new law arrives, whether his services are legal or not, he expects to hire more. “We have to get coordinated,” he said. “It’s coming.”

Victoria Burnett contributed reporting.

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