Even at the Rio Olympics!!
To be perfectly honest, considering all that is happening that does not concern Cuba -- wars, terrorism, the U. S. presidential election, the Rio Olympics, etc. -- I have been surprised that the right-wing media in the U. S. has spent so much time in the past few days attacking Cuba, senselessly and unfairly and as always cruelly. The powerful Breitbart News, for example, used the above AP photo to illustrate a long, long article that was written by Frances Martel and entitled: "SOUR GRAPES IN HAVANA AS EXILES OUTSHINE CUBA'S OLYMPIC TEAM." It endlessly harped on this theme: "As the Olympics fortnight comes to a close, Cuba government to cope with the outstanding success of Cuban exile athletes under another flag..." The article tried to inform the entire world that Cuba's "prime-time television smears" a Cuban exile athlete in Rio "as less worthy of ethnic identity," with the point being that Cuba is insanely jealous of defectors.
I don't know why Breitbart's Frances Martel was watching the Cuban coverage of the Rio Olympics instead of NBC's coverage. But I do know this: It remains a daily, common practice for the right-wing U. S. news media, as well as the politically correct mainstream U. S. news media, to devote an extraordinary amount of time attacking little Cuba -- now that the Bay of Pigs military attack, assassination attempts, terrorist assaults such as the bombing of the civilian Cubana Flight 455, history's all-time longest and cruelest embargo, etc., etc., have not provided U. S. right-wingers and Batista-Mafia exiles the wherewithal to recapture the pugnacious island since the sensational victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
The aforementioned Breitbart "News" article excoriated the Cuban news anchor by name, which happens to be Randy Alonso Falcon. Randy Alonso is a very popular anchor on Cuba's most popular nightly news program -- The Round Table or Mesa Redonta. The Breitbart smear assailed Randy Alonso for calling one of the medal winners in Rio "an ex-Cuban." Well, he was...no harm intended. With Breitbart and other U. S. right-wingers watching him, Randy also could have complained...but didn't...about all the U.S. regime-change programs that entice Cubans and only Cubans with a very special emphasis on Cuba's wealth of athletes, doctors and artists {such as world-class ballet performers}. But Randy didn't do that. He merely and correctly said one of the medal winners in Rio was "an ex-Cuban," which happened to be a correct statement. The misstatements when it comes to Cuba are usually from right-wingers like Breitbart "News". The Breitbart article assailed Randy Alonso for saying "cases of athletes have added to the controversy" at the Rio Olympics. And he was assailed by Breitbart for mentioning "the growing influence of money" in the centuries-old Olympic competition. Actually, Randy Alonso on Cuban television should have expounded more on those two key topics, excessive money and scandals, both of which concern many people.
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A gigantic scandal in Rio involving Cuban-American swimmer Ryan Lochte dominated sports and news headlines for days. Yes, note that I said "Cuban-American Swimmer Ryan Lochte." Because he is Cuban-American, Randy Alonso, the Cuban broadcaster, could have and probably should have made more than an offhand mention of the Lochte Scandal because, for sure, television networks in the U. S. and around the world have covered it minutely and extensively. But Breitbart "News" assaulted Randy Alonso for merely mentioning that Lochte "added to the controversy" at Rio and that Lochte is an example of "the growing influence of money" in the Olympics. That, too, is a stunning fact. For example, in 1936 at the Berlin Olympics U. S. sprinter Jesse Owens embarrassed Adolf Hitler by sweeping the running events. Owens then and later was a student-athlete at Ohio State paying his way by pumping gas at a filling station. Now U. S. athletes like Lochte are provided money and state-of-the-art training facilities, and then if they win Olympic medals they are given more U. S. money. But far, far above that, millionaire athletes like Lochte are lavished with billions of dollars in untaxed corporate endorsement money. Indeed, for centuries amateur athletes were the stars in the Olympics but now ego-maniacal multi-millionaires and even budding billionaires, such as pro basketball players and golf professionals, compete in the Olympics for money and mostly for huge stacks of endorsement money. Contrast that with Jesse Owens pumping filling station gas before and after his Berlin Olympics. And indeed, as you well know, a major story around the Lochte Scandal concerns how much endorsement money it will cost the rich Lochte in his future endorsements.
Yes, Ryan Lochte is Cuban-American. His mother, born in Havana, is Cuban. Her name is Ileana, a fine woman. She came to Miami when she was seven. Ryan was born when she lived in New York. But they moved back to Florida and he is a University of Florida product. So, instead of just mentioning the Lochte Scandal in Rio, Cuban broadcaster Randy Alonso could have/should have devoted a whole segment to it.
Actually, POOR LITTLE CUBA had some shining moments in Rio -- especially in boxing where Cuba won three of its five Gold medals. In the photo above, that is Cuba's Robeisy Ramirez on the left in blue pounding out a victory over America's Shakur Stevenson in the red. There is a bit of a contrast here, too. Stevenson represented the U. S. backed by U. S. dollars and training facilities. Stevenson is also a protege of and backed by Floyd Mayweather, the famed U. S. boxer who is said to be worth about a half-a-billion dollars. Robeisy won his Gold medal over Stevenson although back in Cuba Robeisy is lacking in both money and state-of-the-art training facilities, which is partly if not largely due to the U. S. embargo against Cuba since 1962 that is the longest and cruelest ever imposed by a powerful country against a weak one.
Floyd "Money" Mayweather and Shakur Stevenson.
Robeisy should be so lucky, but Robeisy has the Gold medal.
So I believe that Robeisy Ramirez, shown here in this Reuters photo with his Gold medal in Rio, should be proud of what he and Cuba's other ten medal winners did in the Olympics. They should not be mocked by the thuggish right-wing U. S. media because they won those medals for Cuba, not the United States. And neither should Cuban broadcaster Randy Alonso be mocked in the U. S. media for reporting fairly about the Rio Olympics -- including the Cuban wins, the Lochte Scandal and his mention that "the growing influence of money" is changing the most glorious aspects...remember Jesse Owens?...of the Olympic games. Sure, the U. S. and China won tons more medals in Rio than Cuba did. But the U. S. has 320 million people, including many of the best athletes recruited from other countries; and the U. S. is the richest nation in world history. China has 1.2 billion people and is the second richest nation in the history of the world. And little Cuba? Well, uh...Cuba is a small island shackled by history's all-time cruelest and longest economic embargo.
Which reminds me of this Reuters photo. It shows the Cuban Robeisy Ramirez in blue beating the American Shakur Stevenson in red in their Gold Medal title bout in Rio. Notice that the "A" in "CUBA" has fallen off Robeisy's not-very-expensive shirt. Unlike the United States and other rich nations, Cuba has trouble scrapping up enough money to train athletes like Robeisy and then send them to international competitions. Also unlike the United States and other rich nations, Cuban athletes are not blessed with free loads of state-of-the-art clothes and equipment from sponsors like Nike, which also shovels out billions of tax-free dollars in endorsements to already filthy rich athletes. Now the premise is...if and when Robeisy defects to the U. S., Nike will also shower him with loads of clothes, including state-of-the-art shirts, and -- because he's a Gold Medal winner -- with tons of endorsement money. {Now please understand that I, too, think capitalism is wonderful, even heaven-sent! But I think multi-billionaire Mr. Phil Knight at Nike doesn't deserve all those tax breaks on celebrity endorsements as opposed to donating money to more worthy projects, like St. Jude's Children's Hospital in Memphis. Of course, I also think that Mr. Knight should donate a nice shirt to Robeisy Ramirez even though he hasn't defected to the U. S. yet}.
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