Ozzie Guillen, manager of the Florida Marlin's and from Venezuela, who calls it like he thinks it is, was suspended for 5-days by the idiots that own the team. How do I know they are idiots? Because the last time I looked, this was still America, not fucking Cuba and we can say anything we please, within bounds of physically harming others. I can yell out "I Love Trump" (I never would, believe me) and not get slugged if I want to. What in the hell happened to Free Speech? I Like Obama. You like Mitt. He Likes Castro, big fuckin' deal. This is wrong in so many ways!
Don't get me wrong. I have no love lost for Castro, but really, the man has one foot in the grave and the other foot on a banana peel. The powers that be, who have all the fucking money can't wait for him to die and watch the people over-throw Raoul so they can buy the beach-front land and build monstrous gambling casino's and hotel's and make billions off of it. Saying you like Castro is like yelling "I hate Ben Franklin" in a bank. This is from the owners of the Marlins.
“There is nothing to respect about Fidel Castro. He is a brutal dictator who has caused unthinkable pain for more than 50 years. We live in a community [Miami, FL] filled with victims of this dictatorship, and the people in Cuba continue to suffer today.
This is from Ozzie:
“I will apologize if I hurt somebody’s feelings, or I hurt somebody’s thought. I want them to know I’m against everything 100%. I repeat it again, the way this man [has been] treating people for the past 60 years.”
But, they can't let it go at that. The money-men have been waiting for years for Castro to die and I would bet money they have plans already drawn of who gets what and who bribes who. These pricks really kill me, they aren't rich enough ripping off the Indians by turning their reservation into gambling Mecca's and allowing a small part of the Indians that were left after we committed genocide against them, to live high on the hog. But there are many reservations who can't even get the money the government owes them and have an alcoholic problem that is epidemic. Where are their mansions?
So, Ozzie Guillen says, drunk in a bar mind you, "I love Castro" and some asshole takes offense and the owners fine him and suspend him for five days. Florida is a mecca for Cubans who came here and got rich and the politicians love to pander to them. Yeah, give them what they want, if they can pull in the votes. No matter that many people love Castro in Miami. Many don't. But you don't go fining people for their fucking beliefs. Who knows his back-story, plus he apolozied. I say Fuck-em' and boycott the games and then see how they like freedom of expression. Assholes~
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
M. C. S.
Yagoda- Yezhov
Steve Kenny
Lyle Elmgren
sandra wyllie
Kenneth Sibbett
Salon.com
Comments
That's the answer to your headline question.
But - remember, Ozzie is not there because he is a great manager. Ozzie is there to put Hispanic fannies in the seats. If he alienates them, there is a problem. There's a new ballpark and new players to be paid for.
Just read about this on CNN. jmac is correct, "Little Havana" in Miami were ready to riot over the remark. The first amendment gives you the right to express your opinion, but as everyone at OS knows, there are consequences when you express an upopular opinion, people will stomp on you. Better to lose five games than beaten by canes!
One of my favorite moments of all time was when Hugo Chavez followed Bush on the stage of some international whatever the fuck meeting, and wafted away the smell with his hands, saying it was like burning sulfur (ala da devil). Go ahead, suspend me for five days for saying it!
But that might be like saying something positive about Obama at a "Tea Party" meeting.
Guillen's always been a mercurial free-spirit. Kind of a Venezuelan Billy Martin. He lays it all out there. But, as a guy who has spent way too much time with one or both of my feet in my mouth, you would like that he would have figured out that there are some places where people might be a bit sensitive to his message about Castro--you know, a place like Miami.
But there are other parts to this story.
Ozzie said the same thing to beat writer Rick Telander 8 years ago. This isn't new.
He trotted it out again this week and got a zillion dollars of free pub for Loria and the Marlins.
Ozzie is a publicity machine. That's what he does. You and me might be thinking about free speech. But Ozzie and Loria are totally on the same page---getting the pub to generate cash.
Net result---is there a free speech issue when the guy is a total publicity machine? Can there be a free speech issue when nothing the guy says MEANS anything?
A 5 day suspension is meaningless. Ozzie and Loria are playing all of us.
but I do in this case. Canada has anti hate speech laws for a reason. Wish we had them. Can you imagine the fall out of some major player saying "I love Hitler" or "Zimmerman is my hero"? When stuff like that is said, the flip side of I love is I hate...
that's when things die.
But blaming old bitter Cubans is ignoring the many Anglos who hate Castro - all the old CIA types, the Kennedy and Ike-Republican ones involved in the Bay of Pigs, plus the immense humiliation of the Missile Crisis.
I'm certain that to a lot of Latinos - that is, the ones from Central and South America who have no emotional investment in hating Castro - Cuba and Castro are kind of heroic. He outlived about eight American Presidents and kept his country alive. And alive long after Russia stopped providing Cuba aid. Those people south of the border don't want to live in Cuba either, but it must be fun for them to see the stuck-up Yanqui Presidents tripping over their own feet about Castro.
........(¯`v´¯) (¯`v´¯)
☼•*¨`*•.¸.(ˆ◡ˆ).¸.•*
............... *•.¸.•* ♥⋆★•❥ Thanx & Smiles (ツ) & ♥ L☼√Ξ ☼ ♥
⋆───★•❥ ☼ .¸¸.•*`*•.♥ (ˆ◡ˆ) ♥⋯ ❤ ⋯ ★(ˆ◡ˆ) ♥⋯ ❤ ⋯ ★
I'm not saying that Castro is an angel, but he certainly is no worse than was Batista, and the right-wing, pro-plutocratic Cuban Americans' main problem with Castro isn't his tactics, but his politics. Whatever Castro has done would have been perfectly OK with them -- if it had supported the 1 percent instead of the many.
We got behind the idea that no one could "deny" the holocaust without penalty without realizing that we had started down a slippery slope. Every time we support taking away some butt-head's right to speak his jerk-ass opinion, we lose the right to speak our own. Freedom of speech only for those who agree with us isn't freedom of speech for any.
Freedom of speech should most strongly be upheld when the speaker is saying something we hate most of all. Only then does it have a true value. Nobody needs freedom of speech to parrot the same old tired blather that most agree with.
Good on you scanner! I share your indignation over this sort of thing. Someone once said, "I'll disagree to the death with what you say but I'll give my life in defence of your right to say it."
R+++++++++++++++++
.
It is not a democracy when a person is punished for expressing a political opinion. This is chilling.
And yes, it's similar to a black kid wearing a hoodie in the Klan-friendly community of Sanford, Florida. You can exercise your freedom, but you'd better think about where and when you exercise it.
Look to the future. When Castro is gone, the real estate czars will make a bee-line for Havana and turn it into the Casino-Royal it was when Hemmingway liked to hang out there.
And we all know what happened to Hemmingway. He got shock treatments for telling his wife the FBI had wired tapped the phone and was following him.
After Hoover died, sure enough, records came up they were monitoring Hemmingway thinking he had "pro-Cuban" sympathies. No wonder he ate his shotgun for breakfast!
r.
Remember the people who refused to accept Bush's "weapons of mass destruction"? The whole country of France was looked down on by Bush's followers because its leader questioned the justification for the US to attack, invade and occupy Iraq. Ppeople tried to supress their opinions, and then it turned out they were right after all!
Democracy does not judge whether anyone's political opinion is "correct". After all, most situations are too complicated and abstract to ever figure that out anyway. And who has the right to be the judge? The point of democracy is to allow everyone to get their ideas out in the open, let the people use all available information to make informed decisions and then vote on action. The best decisions are based on facts rather than fear of repercussions.
It is such an amazing place, free of pollution, and the people are so friendly. Along with that are the 'episodes' that make up Fidel's career. He isn't any one man for very long. I recommend a hilarious essay by the late Arthur Miller on being followed around by Castro--he was with his wife Inge a famed photographer and the William Styrons and they went on retreat only to have FC talk them almost to death wherever they went. I don't think he made up his mind either except to say that Fidel or Castro --take yr pick--would have been great in acting, in Hollywood.
I have friends who moved there. It is a confusing story and yes none of this is to your point about free speech, but I usually have a clear opinion and with this man it ain't easy... he is no hitler etc. As i suspect you agree? Would love others' takes about the revolution, wish my ex were still alive, Cuba was his beat and I never got his take either and he lived through the revolution as a journalist and went back there yearly. So-- anyone else? About free speech of course as old left wing said. preaching to this wonderful choir on that point.. R
http://open.salon.com/blog/baltimore_aureole/2012/04/10/gay_bashing_is_a-ok_but_a_castro_shout_out_is_bad
Look at the Cuban exiles in Miami, they don't care about the people of Cuba. They just want to go back to Cuba and get all there stuff. Fuck them. They harbor terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles responsible for blowing up a passenger airline and other crimes while backed by the CIA.
The US has tried to assassinate Castro 638 times and failed. Viva Cuba! Viva Castro!