Be Careful Whom You Admire
by Norman HorowitzOzzie Guillen said something "politically incorrect." For his punishment, the Miami Marlins have suspended him for five games.In his "politically incorrect" remarks, Guillen expressed admiration for Fidel Castro. In response, the team apologized to "victims of [Castro's] dictatorship."It appears that it no longer matters that Fidel Castro led a movement that overthrew Fulgencio Batista:
[Batista] was the United States-aligned Cuban President dictator and military leader who served as the leader of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and from 1952 to 1959, before being overthrown as a result of the Cuban Revolution....Batista suspended the Constitution and revoked most political liberties, He aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations, and presided over a stagnating economy that widened the gap between rich and poor Cubans. Batista's increasingly corrupt and repressive regime then began to systematically profit from the exploitation of Cuba's commercial interests, by negotiating lucrative relationships with the American mafia, who controlled the drug, gambling, and prostitution businesses in Havana, and with large multinational American corporations that had invested considerable amounts of money in Cuba. To quell the growing discontent amongst the populace — which was subsequently displayed through frequent student riots and anti-Batista demonstrations — Batista established tighter censorship of the media, while also utilizing his anti-Communist secret police and U.S.-supplied weaponry to carry out wide-scale violence, torture and public executions; ultimately killing as many as 20,000 Cubans.
The victims of Batista's dictatorship never received an apology...from the Marlins or anyone else in this country.Moreover, the "Batista transgressions" were, to the best of my knowledge, unreported in our freedom-loving country by our freedom-loving mainstream media.To punish Ozzie Guillen for speaking of his admiration of Fidel Castro is about an un-American an act as I can remember anyone perpetrating in the game of baseball.At this very moment, representatives from the mainstream media outlets are visiting China, a horridly repressive country that does not honor copyrights, and they are honoring their repressive television service.So riddle me this: If it is a good thing to be nice to a repressive country and their media, why is it a bad thing to say something nice about Fidel Castro?Our hypocrisy is stunning and sad.