This week's made up controversy involves Ozzie Guillen, the manager of the Miama Marlins. He made some remarks about Fidel Castro last week in an interview with Time Magazine: "I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that fucker is still there."
That's the most complete statement I can find. I don't follow baseball and I only heard about this today, but people have apparently been raising a huge shit fit about it. I can't find any context in which that was said, and I can't find the actual interview. It's all just coverage of the reaction, and manufactured opinions.
This isn't the first time Guillen made remarks like this about Castro. Five years ago, when asked to name the toughest man he knew, he replied, "Fidel Castro. He’s a bull—- dictator and everybody’s against him, and he still survives, has power. Still has a country behind him. Everywhere he goes, they roll out the red carpet. I don’t admire his philosophy; I admire him."
Before I start, let me just get it out of the way that I may advocate socialism a lot in this blog, but I have no love for Fidel Castro. The cult surrounding Che Guevara is way overblown, but I do hold some amount of respect for him, at least for the things he stood for. And he would likely be appalled at what Castro turned Cuba into. Human Rights Watch:
Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent. The government enforces political conformity using harassment, invasive surveillance, threats of imprisonment, and travel restrictions.
In 2011, the Castro government released the remaining political prisoners from the “group of 75”—human rights defenders, journalists, and other dissidents who were sentenced in 2003 in summary trials for exercising their basic rights—forcing most into exile. Since then, the government has increasingly relied on the unlawful use of force, arbitrary arrests, and short-term detentions to restrict its critics’ rights, including the freedom of assembly and expression.
I personally find it very hypocritical for Americans still living in the Cold War era to denounce Castro. Castro should be denounced. But they are entirely ignoring what the United States did to that country, what drove people like Castro and Guevara into revolution in the first place. Nearly everything Cuba has been turned into was done in response to American transgressions in that country. The press is restricted because the CIA establishes fake Cuban newspaper companies to spread propaganda. We've committed terrorist attacks on their soil. We planted bombs in their factories, killing hundreds of innocent workers just trying to make it day by day. George W. Bush pardoned U.S.-backed terrorists who bombed a Cuban commercial airliner in 1976, killing 73 men, women, and children. The United States has attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro no less than 638 times. Kennedy rounded up Batista sympathizers who had fled to Florida and had them invade Cuba on America's behalf. The Cubans celebrated after the American defeat at the Bay of Pigs, because they legitimately preferred their new government over an American puppet one.
Which is why the reaction to Guillen's remarks confuse me so much. The guy was suspended for five games. For a little perspective, NFL star Ben Roethlisberger was suspended for six games. For rape. Dan LeBatard told ESPN that Fidel Castro is "our Hitler." This is ignoring Fulgencio Batista, the U.S.-backed dictator Castro overthrew, who turned Cuba into giant whorehouse for rich Americans, and propped it up by widespread torture and public executions, and who ultimately killed up to 20,000 people. Oh, also, the presidents who resided over the Vietnam war are responsible for 2 million deaths. The United States prosecutes whistleblowers, keeps political prisoners, assassinates politics dissidents, tortures people, and protects torturers. Heck, Castro's probably even a little better than the dictators the U.S. supports in countries like Egypt Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain. But Castro's different. HE'S THE HITLER.
What Guillen said was pretty stupid, and he should've kept his mouth shut. I just hope I'm not the only one who finds it ironic that the media is condemning an oppressive government that silences opposition, while at the same time, seeing no problem at all with a baseball manager nearly losing his job for saying a harmless comment.
And the funny thing is, most Cubans who actually live in Cuba would probably agree with Guillen. They have no great love for Castro, but it's a much better situation than what they had under American rule. And after Castro stepped down a few years ago, there's been signs of more democratization opening up. But for some reason, we still have them under embargo, and put them on the list of governments that supports terrorism. There is absolutely no evidence for that.
Here's the story of how the United States established a dictatorship in Cuba. This is why terrible people like Fidel Castro emerge. Similarly, our regime in Iran is also what sparked the Iranian revolution, and subsequently, the current dictatorship there.
The euphoria among Cubans during the last days of 1898 was almost beyond imagination. Their country had been struggling to overthrow the Spanish for 30 years, the last few filled with terrible suffering. As their uprising reached its climax in the summer of 1898, American troops arrived to help deliver the death blow that ended 300 years of Spanish rule. The Cubans and their American comrades were preparing for the biggest celebration in the island's history. A full week of festivities was planned. There would be fireworks, boat races, public speeches, and parades of soldiers to be cheered in the streets.
Just as the celebrations were about to kick off, the newly named American military governor, General John Brooke, suddenly and shockingly forbade the entire event. Not only would there be no parades of soldiers, but any who attempted to enter Havana would be turned back. The United States announced that it did not recognize the rebel army, and demanded that it be disbanded.
This was a complete 180 of what the United States had been proclaiming loudly to Cubans, and to its own citizens, during the entire buildup for the Spanish-American War. This was a war for democracy, you know. We were liberating Cuba.
The Cubans were extremely skeptical of the U.S. butting into their revolution. The rebels' legal counsel in New York, Horatio Ruben, warned that American intervention would be taken as "nothing less than a declaration of war by the United States against the Cuban revolution" and vowed that Cubans would resist the Americans "with force of arms, as bitterly and tenaciously as we have fought the armies of Spain."
Luckily for the Cubans, the United States made a promise. To secure Congressional support for American intervention in Cuba, President McKinley agreed to the Teller Amendment. It began: "the people of the island of Cuba are, and of right ought to be, free and independent" and ended with the solemn pledge: "The United States hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said island except for the pacification thereof, and asserts its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave the government and control of the island to its people." The Teller Amendment passed the Senate unanimously.
This calmed the rebels' fears. So when the Americans backtracked on this promise, the Cubans began to realize that they had simply exchanged one regime for another. Rebel general Calixto García wrote to American general William Shafter:
I have not been honored with a single word from yourself informing me about the negotiations for peace or the terms of the capitulation by the Spaniards.
. . . when the question arises of appointing authorities in Santiago de Cuba . . . I cannot see but with the deepest regret that such authorities are not elected by the Cuban people, but are the same ones selected by the Queen of Spain. . . .
A rumor too absurd to be believed, General, describes the reason of your measures and of the orders forbidding my army to enter Santiago for fear of massacres and revenge against the Spaniards. Allow me, sir, to protest against even the shadow of such an idea. We are not savages ignoring the rules of civilized warfare. We are a poor, ragged army, as ragged and poor as was the army of your forefathers in their noble war for independence. . .
Whitelaw Reid of the New York Tribune proclaimed the "absolute necessity of controlling Cuba for our own defense," and rejected the Teller Amendment as "a self-denying ordinance possible only in a moment of national hysteria." The New York Times claimed that the United States must become "permanent possessors of Cuba if the Cubans prove to be altogether incapable of self-government." Senator Beveridge said the Teller Amendment was not binding because Congress had approved it "in a moment of impulsive but mistaken generosity." Americans were claiming that their own laws didn't count when they went temporarily insane, and in the next breath, claimed that it was the Cubans were "incapable of self-government."
The American propaganda system was quick to defend these moves. Before the Americans arrived to save the day, the Cuban army was "in desperate straits," "threatened with collapse," "bogged down in a bitter stalemate." In fact, the rebels had control of most of the island by the time the Americans arrived, and had forced the starved Spanish forces into guarded enclaves. The rebels were on the brink of victory. The press ignored the rebel leadership, which was highly educated and experienced, and instead portrayed them largely as "negroes" barely removed from savagery. Once the Americans had accepted all of these lies, it was easy for them to conclude that such backwards savages could never govern themselves. Within days of Spanish surrender, McKinley declared that the United States would rule Cuba under "the law of belligerent right over conquered territory." Surprise, fuckbags!
The Cuban people weren't as outraged as they were desperately confused. General Maximo Gomez wrote:
"None of us thought that [American intervention] would be followed by military occupation of the country by our allies, who treat us as a people incapable of acting for ourselves, and who have reduced us to obedience, to submission, and to a tutelage imposed by force of circumstances. This cannot be our fate after years of struggle."
The Americans were shocked and angry that the Cubans weren't more thankful. News correspondents reported that instead of embracing American soldiers, the Cubans seemed "sour," "sullen," "conceited," "vain and jealous." They took this resentment as further proof of their ignorance and immaturity. Iraq, anyone?
When General Wood called for an national election for delegates for a Cuban constutional convention, less than a third of voters turned out. And even they refused to support many of the American-sponsored candidates. Woods described the thirty-one delegates as "about ten absolutely first class men and about fifteen men of doubtful qualifications and character, and about six of the worst rascals and fakirs in Cuba."
The law that Senator Orville Platte wrote that autumn would go down as one of the most important documents in American history. The Platt Amendment, as it came to be known, gave the United States a way to control Cuba without running it directly, by maintaining a submissive local regime. It became the blueprint for many of our regimes throughout the Caribbean and Central America, where to this day it is infamously known as plattismo.
All across Cuba, the Platt Amendment sparked national protests and promises to go to war again. The Cuban Congress was deadlocked. After receiving threats that further restrictions would be imposed if it didn't pass, the Cuban delegates finally agreed by a vote of fifteen to fourteen. We often forget what we have done to Latin America. They remember.
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