This is a time of regrets for Castro. Not the regrets that one might expect him to have after a lifetime of being the scourge of other men. That would require a conscience and that is something which psychopaths are unburdened by. His regrets are not for the crimes he has committed or the lives that he has crushed and eviscerated. His regrets are for the quarry that got away. His "Reflection" on the Cuban baseball players who defected in Canada reads like an ad for runaway slaves. These were common in Southern newspaper of the antebellum era. The only difference is that Castro does not actually offer a reward. I suppose because he is unwilling to buy back what cost him nothing in the first place. Although he did not actually buy his slaves on the auction block, Castro is no less attached to them than Southerners whose fortunes were invested in them. They are also, ultimately, the source of his wealth and social standing. His name is writ large in the annals of history with the blood and sweat of his people.
Of all his slaves Castro feels a particular attachment to Cuba's athletes. First, because they realize his vicarious ambitions; but also because they represent his only success in biological engineering. He was able to produce only one champion bovine of legendary (and perhaps mythical) accomplishments while cattle in Cuba became virtually extinct. Now he has a chicken that can lay an egg as big as an ostrich's but the other chickens, cowered perhaps by her achievement, have stopped laying eggs. Bigger and better, for Castro, has always meant a fetish with the abnormal over the common and ordinary. The statue of his beloved Ubre Blanca, world's champion milk producer, cannot be milked. Cuban children, despite of Ubre Blanca or more likely because of her, have their milk ration cut off at age 7.
It is different with Cuba's athletes. Their achievements can be shared by all even if the credit accrues only to him. They are Castro's ambassadors of sport in a literal sense, more so even than Hitler's Olympians. Their profession is the most politicized in Cuba and the athletes themselves are treated like state property. Of course this can be said about all Cubans but in their case the State has a most active interest in them which never lets up for a second while they are still in their prime. Then they are "shielded" at all times by several layers of "security," Castro's version of overseers. Their natural talents are not so much cultivated as circumscribed by regime. In its service, they are allowed to exercise those talents on a world stage but must renounce the rewards that accompany athletic excellence everywhere else. Perpetual amateurism in sports is no less desirable than in any other profession. It is an apprenticeship that never ends, or, rather, ends in frustration and superannuation. Every Cuban athlete's career is stunted if not destroyed unless he manages to escape Castro's plantation. Success or failure is contingent upon it.
Castro's indignation at the fact that his Fugitive Slave Law is not respected in all countries, his denunciation of Canadians for not enforcing it against the Cuban baseball players who recently defected there as the Brazilians did against the Cuban boxers last year, should merit the world's repudiation except that his pretensions are taken seriously even in countries that decline to serve as his bloodhounds.
Three and possibly five Cuban baseball players have defected in Edmonton, Canada during this year's Junior Baseball Tournament there. Castro has called Edmonton a "dumping grounds" and questioned its desirability as a site for future athletic events. One would think that the citizens of that city would be offended. That Fidel, who has singlehandedly turned Havana and all of Cuba into a dump, should so characterize their city would be sufficient cause to take umbrage for not only Edmontonians but Albertans, and, indeed, all Canadians. Instead, the mayor of Edmonton, Stephen Mandel, has extended an intivation to Fidel to visit his city as its guest. Yes, an all-expenses paid vacation so that Fidel can see that Edmonton, Alberta is not as bad as he thinks. If he had called it a "hellhole" perhaps a delegation from Edmonton would have delivered the invitation personally to him.
I wonder what Edmonton will do for the three (and possibly 5) 18-year old kids who defected there? Well, not rounding them up and turning them over to Castro's goons is at least something. But since they want to regale Castro as a "guest of honor" in their city what are they prepared to do for the teenagers who defied him and are now branded by him as "despicable traitors?" Their presence in Edmonton is more honorable to its citizens than would be that of this hemisphere's last slaveholder.
Should We Cheer for Cuban Athletes At International Competitions? Only If We Revel in their Degradation
Words of Reassurance to the Cuban Boxers from Fidel and of Thanks to Brazil
MaT, good post. Obviously the topic of Cuban athletes is close to my heart, and their condition is something I understand too well. It continues to beguile me, however, when the countries to which Cuban athletes and others of prominence defect act as thugs on behalf of the totalitarian castro regime and either forcibly return the defecting athletes to Cuba, or otherwise attempt to prevent their attainment of asylum and freedom through bureaucratic machinations. And no one should think that the material "benefits" one receives at the hands of castro for suffering as an athlete in his world are significant. Simply view these pictures posted on my blog for a clear comparison between worlds...
ReplyDeletehttp://joepapp.blogspot.com/2008/08/cuban-athletes.html
And just as an aside, I want to reiterate the fact that the Cuban government is one of the most evil plagues to ever have been wrought upon a country. Anyone supporting said regime or otherwise arguing that it is somehow "not as bad as people say" should be compelled to live like a state-supported athlete in Cuba for a month. Even the much-vaunted Cuban baseball players still experience conditions during their training, recovery and competition phases that aren't fit for ANIMALS!
ReplyDeleteAnyone trying to place blame for the suffering of the Cuban people on the United States instead of on the Castro regime should be compelled to do graduate research in Cuba on ... oh, I don't know, some facet of the relationship between Cuba's intake of foreign exchange and it's expenditures on domestic infrastructure development. Of course this research would never happen because someone foolish enough to blame anyone other than Castro&Co. for the suffering of the Cuban people would obviously be so stupid and mentally defective as to most likely never have graduated from high school, let alone college.
The only blame that can be assigned to the United States for the state of affairs in Cuba is for our not having overthrown the illegitimate Castro regime via military intervention when the moment was right, and then for completely losing OUR b*lls and moral legitimacy (reference Val’s attempted emasculation of Cuban men) by allowing Castro to hold power thanks to our practice of benign neglect (as opposed to actively fighting against totalitarianism in our hemisphere as we once fought communism in Eastern Europe).
Can you imagine tossing an East Berliner BACK over the last wall segment of the Berlin Wall and into an anti-vehicle trench so that he could be slaughtered by East German guards? Granted, the West allowed Peter Fechter to bleed out and die after his unsuccessful escape attempt, but for the most part we ("The West") didn't do the GDR's dirty work for them and kill those who succeeded in making in past the Iron Curtain.
But now we do Castro's dirty work by mopping up those few brave souls who do - against all odds - escape that island prison.
So to all members of the Cuban state security apparatus who are reading my comments and planning to use them as justification for continuing to persecute my family - f'ck you. If I can't get my hands on you and the Cuban people can't string you up from a lamppost in this lifetime - in some other existence what is left of your spirit will not be renewed and you will rot in a hell of your own making. Hijos de putas.
Bravo Joe well said!
ReplyDeleteSo Edmonton is offering a full paid vacation to a mummy who shits itself, always kissing up to Castro, one has to wonder why? for what has Castro to offer the Canadians, surely he owes them money from loans he never repays.
ReplyDeleteHope they don't send the athletes back to the wonderfull hell that Cuba has become.
"At the end of the year Spain will grant citizenship to all Cubans with Spanish ancestry. Fidel and Zapatero will be rewarded with more than a million applicants"
ReplyDeleteFantomas August 3, 2008
Beijing Olympic Baseball Bold Prediction
ReplyDeleteCuba Will NOT WIN GOLD
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteand to think the world still doesn't get it. How can people still praise the Cuban revolution and kow tow to these subhumans like Castro and Che...
ReplyDeleteHopefully these young men are heading for the US-Canada frontier right now.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnyone trying to place blame for the suffering of the Cuban people on the United States...
ReplyDeleteI know I'm using words from joep's great post out of context (and I do apologize), but perhaps MAT could launch into a reflexive diatribe?
I was also going to observe that fidel must bat 3rd in the order...
ReplyDeleteHe needs someone else to hit cleanup... Pow!
Thank you, thank you very much. I'll show myself out now.
nonee:
ReplyDeleteWhat Joe means is quite clear. One cannot blame Castro's actions on the United States. For example, it is wrong to say that this country drove Castro into the arms of Communism, or that the U.S. trade embargo is responsible for the misery that Castro himself has inflicted on the Cuban people.
The historic role of the U.S. in assuring the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, installing Castro in power and maintaining him there for 50 years, is another matter.
MaT wrote:
ReplyDeleteWhat Joe means is quite clear. One cannot blame Castro's actions on the United States. For example, it is wrong to say that this country drove Castro into the arms of Communism, or that the U.S. trade embargo is responsible for the misery that Castro himself has inflicted on the Cuban people.
The historic role of the U.S. in assuring the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, installing Castro in power and maintaining him there for 50 years, is another matter.
Precisely. The US gov't at any point could have acted to forcibly remove Castro from power, but then again, so could have any other democratic state. But our not having done so never gave Castro a free pass to destroy Cuba and enslave her people. Nor does it absolve him - as he hoped history would - from the tortures, the murders, the enslavement, the forced migrations, the raping and pillaging of a country and her people - that Castro carried out once he was confident that the US would leave him be... God will judge that motherf**ker though, and His wrath is *real*.