Five Cubans Leave Basketball Team in PR
HAVANA TIMES — Five members of Cuba’s national basketball team deserted the squad early Tuesday morning during a tournament in Puerto Rico, reported the local newspaper El Nuevo Dia.
“We didn’t expect this kind of situation. The Cuban women’s team was here playing in the Centrobasket and nothing happened,” said the head of the International Basketball Federation, Anibal Garcia, who confirmed the news.
The athletes (John Carlo Pineiro, Ismael Romero Fernandez, Leonel Agüero Batista, Yudniel Perez Arango and Enrique Ramos Abad) are currently obtaining the documentation necessary for their visas, according to the president of the Cuban Federation of Basketball, Ruperto Herrera.
The Cuban team intends to continue with seven players in the Centrobasket tournament, which will be held until Sunday and will give four team seats to the upcoming FIBA Americas Championship.
Huckster? Me? Okay, if you say so. What was most interesting for me is what you wrote about what takes place within capitalism “…dollars spent to convince you that you can’t live without it, that your life will be paradise once you have it. Consumers here become somewhat desensitised to the pitches, but not entirely and they buy inappropriately”, fully applies to socialist propaganda as well. While we may not agree on which system better serves humanity, would you be willing to agree that Fidel’s version of socialism and US-style capitalism propagandize in equal measure?
There’s another perspective on what ‘Moses’ wrote. I agree, the athletes are likely to have fallen out of the privileged class – no more overseas trips for them – but how could they know what they traded off? It’s the same with anything you buy, sight unseen, based on advertising propaganda. And that’s the glimpses of the outside world that Cubans get. ‘Moses’, of course, is part of that propaganda.
In Cuba, I welcomed the absence of advertising propaganda that bombards you every minute of every waking day in capitalist countries to get you to buy something – billions of dollars spent to convince you that you can’t live without it, that your life will be paradise once you have it. Consumers here become somewhat desensitised to the pitches, but not entirely and they buy inappropriately. If we cannot resist the propaganda, how can we expect Cubans to when they are inexperienced with having to ward off propaganda from those who would convince you they offer paradise – not because they care anything for you but for their own gain?
Does anyone here feel ‘Moses’ cares for Cubans? Or is he just another huckster servicing his own interests?
None of these players are NBA level talents. They have no real hope of pro careers in the US. Nonetheless, despite the fact that as iathletes they were allowed to travel outside of Cuba, and they were among the priviledged class afforded better access to food, creature comforts including possibly permission to purchase newer cars, they still believed that life outside of Cuba will be better for them. Vive la Revolucion!
Well with the Cuban adjustment act, and the bad economy in Cuba, the right decision, 5 mouths less to feed and those big guys eat a lot. Wish them to make a career in US B-Ball.