Half of Cuba's field hockey team defects during Pan Am games

[Marksman_91]

Source: Yahoo News

Toronto (Canada) (AFP) - Half of the Cuban men's field hockey team at the Pan American Games in Toronto defected to the United States, a player and sources close to the Cuban delegation said.

The sources said eight of the 16 Cuban players had deserted, while team member Roger Aguilera put the number at seven, just the latest in a rash of Cuban defections across several sports.

"Everyone knows what happened to our team, we have seven of them in the United States," said Aguilera, after the decimated Cubans were hammered 13-0 by Trinidad and Tobago.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/half-cuba-mens-hockey-team-defects-080115006.html

Toronto (Canada) (AFP) - Half of the Cuban men's field hockey team at the Pan American Games in Toronto defected to the United States, a player and sources close to the Cuban delegation said. The sources said eight of the 16 Cuban players had deserted, while team member Roger Aguilera put the number at seven, just the latest in a rash of Cuban defections across several sports. "Everyone knows what happened to our team, we have seven of them in the United States," said Aguilera, after the decimated Cubans were hammered 13-0 by Trinidad and Tobago.

---

So besides these guys, there's also another couple of rowers who defected. Wonder what's making them want to leave the Castros' supposed paradise...

[7962]

1. I guess they were tired of waiting for change.

I've heard N korea holds the families of any teams that travel outside the country; I guess Cuba doesnt.

[EL34x4]

44. Certain occupations in North Korea, only men with families are given.

Offshore fishing, for example. You have to have loved ones you want to come home to.

Single, unmarried men aren't allowed to work these jobs. They have no incentive to keep from defecting.

[7962]

58. Amazing how that never even enters our minds here. Its just so odd!

[fasttense]

66. I guess over 200 US citizens who sought asylum in Cuba

Got tired of waiting for change too.

Guess how many people immigrated from Mexico to the US in 2013? ZERO.

Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and sometimes not so I much.

[7962]

68. Thats ridiculous.

You have GOT to be shitting me.
You dont think ANY Mexicans came to the US in 2013? Why, because some went back? OR are you not counting illegal immigration?
And those who went to Cuba? What, over the last 20 years? Were they Cubans going back to family? And how many were fugitives?

[AngryAmish]

2. Wet foot, dry foot is ending

Getting while getting is good.

[Marksman_91]

3. Yes, but why would they want to leave Cuba, though?

From what many DUers here tell me, it's supposed to be some kind of socialist paradise where its citizens live very happy fulfilling lives, at least when compared to the U.S.

[7962]

59. Dont forget spotless hospitals too with no waiting nt

[LanternWaste]

79. No doubt, you'll link to the post describing in en toto as a socialist paradise, yes?

No doubt, you'll link to the post describing in en toto as a socialist paradise, yes? Or (and I find this much more likely) are we rather to conclude that yours is simply melodrama in place of a valid point...?

[Scurrilous]

31. Exactly. n/t

[Fred Sanders]

4. Someone bitter over Cuba/America relationships improving? Capitalist paradise or socialist

paradise, it is always a tough call which one to chose.

[Marksman_91]

6. I'm actually quite happy about the improving relations :)

Last edited Sun Jul 26, 2015, 11:54 AM - Edit history (1)

It only means that the Castros have lost faith in Maduro to keep maintaining their regime, and are more than willing to negotiate with their supposed sworn enemy to find other sources of income. And at the same time, the US friendliness and influence will gradually promote true democracy to come to the island country.

Without any sarcasm, though, I assume there are more stories of Cubans defecting because they probably think they will lose their privilege soon with the improving relations with the U.S. I think the moment that Raul passes away, the wet foot, dry foot policy will be taken away, which will probably happen in only a few years from now.

[Fred Sanders]

10. Cubans have been defecting for 50 years, as economic interests can overwhelm all else.

America is not exactly a workers' paradise either, but America provides a lot of opportunity that a country not under an economic embargo might be able to.

Can you imagine what Cuba would be like today economically if 100 times larger Big Brother America did not have it's cowboy boot on Cuba's throat for 50 years....all because the workers dared to say no to capitalist slavery some long time ago?

A time ago when Americans defected to Canada in droves.

[Marksman_91]

14. Still blaming the U.S. embargo for Cuba's economic woes?

Not buying it.

I do think it would've been better if the US hadn't done it, though. Maybe democracy would've arrived to Cuba sooner if American influence had been there since the beginning of the Revolution.

[Igel]

43. Often there's one answer for every question.

Venezuela's bad economy? The US.

The USSR's bad economy? The US.

Puerto Rico's in the dumpster? The US.

Haiti's a mess? The US.

Africa's not 1st world? The US.

Gaza conflict? The US.

People going all 'splody and making Charlie into flaked tuna? The US.

Overfishing? The US.

Kenya has terrorism, drought, and is anti-gay? The US.

Greece is a mess? The US ... okay, neocons, okay, the EU. (But the US is lurking in the background.)



But what's really important is to avoid the intellectual state of American exceptionalism and ethnocentrism, because, really, the US is just another country.

And have you heard? As far as Iran is concerned, we're still the (a?) Great Satan.

[Marksman_91]

45. Funny how leftist governments tend to blame every single one of their problems on US imperialism

Especially the ones that are worse off, like Maduro's administration. They simply cannot take responsibility for their actions and decide to blatantly lie instead, trying to shift the blame on whomever they can but themselves for the catastrophic condition of their country, even when they themselves control all institutions and more means of production and distribution than any other entity in the nation.

[fasttense]

65. Puerto Rico? Really? Puertu Rico is a part of the US

That like saying Alabama blames the US for its economic problems.

[7962]

69. And Irans leader tweeting an image of Pres Obama with a gun to his head

Thats our fault too.
I like the cut of your jib, Igel. I bet you've been beaten over the head here for that opinion in the past, too!

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

67. Sugar...

... the embargo against Cuba had many reasons, one of which is sugar. A couple of rich families in Florida have a monopoly on the sugar industry here in the U.S. of A. Also, it gave them a reason to foist HFC upon us to keep the sugar prices stable, among other reasons, real or nefarious (people got to die, somehow, in some people's books).

[killbotfactory]

71. The biggest problem was the fall of the soviet union.

No country, especially a small country, can lose that kind of trading partner and walk away unscathed.

The embargo certainly hasn't helped them recover.

[Bacchus4.0]

15. Something like Venezuela I would imagine nt

[EX500rider]

19. "economic embargo" Not...

....you mean they can't trade with one country out of 200+ countries in the world.

[Fred Sanders]

20. Fact denial is a terrible thing....Canada does 70% of its trade with this country...a nearby one.

[Bacchus4.0]

22. the US is Venezuela's largest trading partner and look at the mess they are in

and Venezuela has oil. What does Cuba have to trade? Cigars, mangoes, and rum?

[Zen Democrat]

28. Sugar is King in Cuba! Maybe we can end the substitute High Fructose Corn Syrup?

[cstanleytech]

37. I was checking that out earlier when I was reading up on Cuba it looks like they are having trouble

with their sugar or something because they have had a number of closures of their sugar mills.
That could explain part of the resistance to removing the US trade embargo with Cuba though over the years because with it in place Cuba could not export its sugar to the US and that kept sugar prices higher than they should have been thereby protecting the companies that produce HFCS from potentially losing billions.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

75. The Cuban town Mr. Hershey built

The Cuban town Mr. Hershey built

The Americas

By Nick Miroff May 5

HERSHEY, Cuba — Along the coastal highway 30?miles east of Havana, the road signs point to a turnoff for Camilo Cienfuegos City. It doesn’t exist. At least not by that name. ... “AIR-shee” is what everyone still calls it. Hershey. That much remains.

Most of the rest of the model town founded by U.S. chocolate tycoon Milton S. Hershey in 1916 is in a state of heartbreaking ruin. The looming sugar mill, once among the world’s most advanced, is a gutted, ghostly hulk. Its rusting machinery spills from the wreckage as if blasted by a bomb or kicked apart by a giant.

Up and down Hershey’s grid of neatly laid residential streets, many of the original company-built houses remain, with clapboard siding and some of the only screened-in front porches anywhere in Cuba. The old company hotel and several of the bigger, stately flagstone homes, where the American supervisors lived, have caved in.

Gone, too, is the Hershey Social Club, the golf course and other traces of the American experiment that flourished here until it was obliterated by a revolution that did not share the northern ideals of private industry and social progress held dear by “Mister Hershey.”

“Everything has been destroyed,” said Amparo DeJongh, 92, the first person born in the town and one of the few who stayed to see it fall apart. ... “It’s horrible what they have done,” she said.

[7962]

61. I think that qualifies as a "BOOM!"

[EX500rider]

23. Not surprising, we share the longest border in the world.

The Canada–United States border, officially known as the International Boundary, is the longest international border in the world, shared between Canada and the United States of America, the second and fourth largest countries by area respectively. The terrestrial boundary (including small portions of maritime boundaries on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic coasts, as well as the Great Lakes) is 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi).

We share no border with Cuba, everything leaves by ship or plane and can go anywhere. Unfortunately communist command/central planning economies/countries rarely have anything anyone wants besides agriculture.

[Fred Sanders]

24. There is water between Cuba and America and none with Canada? Good point! Now if we could just

come up with a way to transport folks and goods across water.......

[Marksman_91]

26. What are you implying? That trade by sea can be as easy as by land?

Because... well, it's not, and never will be.

[Fred Sanders]

27. Of course, we should both ask China and Japan about the water transport trade problem before drawing any rash conclusions?

[7962]

60. Yes! Which is exactly why the embargo isnt the cause of Cuba's pains.

So few people realize this "embargo" is only with the US.
Cuba's own restrictions on private business ownership is a much bigger "boot on the neck" of the country

[heaven05]

29. "true democracy"

right......

[Marksman_91]

34. Still better than a one-party rule, in my opinion n/t

[heaven05]

46. you're entitled

[Marksman_91]

49. What alternative do you suggest then?

Are you a supporter of a one-party system? Because that sure as hell isn't a democratic model.

[Fred Sanders]

38. Those that dwell in American houses of "true democracy" should not..... something, something.

[PatrickforO]

30. Wow. US 'friendliness and influence will gradually promote true democracy?'

You haven't been reading your Chomsky.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

32. "True Democracy to come back"

You mean like under Batista?

[Marksman_91]

33. True. Corrected it.

"Democracy to come to the island" is what I should've said

[roody]

42. When has US infuence promoted

true democracy?

[EX500rider]

52. Post war Japan? S Korea? W. Germany? Iraq? Afghanistan?

[Marksman_91]

55. Well, I can't say it worked out too well in Afghanistan and Iraq

And the intentions behind the latter are even more questionable. And there have certainly been cases where they instigated regime change for undemocratic reasons (such as Iran,) but as far as it goes with Cuba, it's certainly better than the current status quo, which is simply a one-party system favoring only an elite few, kinda like what the PSUV wants to do in Venezuela

[EX500rider]

63. Intentions may be questionable but the fact remains..

.....that they transitioned from single party states (Taliban/Ba'athism) to democracies.

[7962]

62. Post WW2 Europe? nt

[Bacchus4.0]

5. interesting, thanks nt

[bluedigger]

7. People relocate all the time for better opportunities.

Maybe we should just send them all back?

[oberliner]

13. Equating defection with "relocating for better opportunities" is a little bizarre.

Relocating is not the same as permanently abandoning allegiance to your country of birth.

[Fred Sanders]

17. Equating "defection", definition pending, with abandoning forever allegiance to your nation, is a bit bizarre as well.

[oberliner]

25. Huh?

The definition of defection isn't "pending".

It means abandoning one's allegiance to something (in this case, a nation).

[christx30]

39. Not everyone feels as strongly

about your nation as you. If they feel their nation is run by idiots, evil or corrupt people, they'll leave, and never come back.
Every person has a line that their leadership could not cross. Crossing the line would result in that person hopping on the Hell No train to Fuckitville. For me, it's a republican president either starting a war with some 3rd world hellhole and reinstating the draft, or making church attendance mandatory.
I'm sure even you have a line, even if you don't admit it. Something a president or congress could do that would make life for you and your family unbareable, and you'd split. And that's a good thing. Even if someone reaches that line before you do. Every government operates on the consent of the governed, even if they don't know it yet.

[Fred Sanders]

40. Cuba has a 400 person delegation in Toronto. Why are 400 not "defecting" to capitalist paradise?

As an aside, the Pan-Am Games in Toronto are thrilling - too bad the sports media in America is as trollish as the news media.

The Games are a ton of fun to watch. Like a mini-Olympics for the Western Hemisphere.

[Marksman_91]

41. Why aren't people from other countries defecting to Cuba? N/t

[Schema Thing]

51. He makes a great point

you should take said point.


Also, how are other Caribbean Islands doing?

[christx30]

54. Those 400 people haven't reached their

line. They are probably happy, feel they are taken care of. But somewhere within them, there is that line. They may never cross it, but it's there.
Bet you if President Trump were to do XYZ, you'd be on that train. And I'd be sitting right beside you.
I just don't believe in using loaded words like "defector". Everyone has the right to do what's best for themselves and their families.

[carla]

8. I

wonder how much it has to do with the mistaken impression that the USA offers what Cuba doesn't have...in some cases that is true, but I recall a documentary about "balseros" who went to the USA and decided to return to Cuba because the States did not end up being what they were told it was. These "sports figures" are also looking to cash in on ridiculous sports salaries they think they will be paid. I assume as well that it has gotten tedious palying the cop inside their own heads and are hoping to find liberty ion the US. I wonder how many of them are black and how long before they realize it ain't all wine and roses in the land of the not what it was when I was a kid growing up there.

[Bacchus4.0]

11. I doubt a career in field hockey would be lucrative for them nt

[EX500rider]

53. "USA offers what Cuba doesn't have."

Maybe they don't want to live in a one party police state?

[Judi Lynn]

56. It was great seeing your reference to "balseros" who return to their homeland.

There's an excellent definition written in a book by Ann Louise Bardach, former New York Times journalist, and prolific author on US/Cuba/Miami matters.

In Cuba, one used to be either a revolucionario or a contrarevolucionario, while those who decided to leave were gusanos (worms) or escoria (scum). In Miami, the rhetoric has also been harsh. Exiles who do not endorse a confrontational policy with Cuba, seeking instead a negotiated settlement, have often been excoriated as traidores (traitors) and sometimes espías (spies). Cubans, notably cultural stars, who visit Miami but choose to return to their homeland have been routinely denounced. One either defects or is repudiated.

But there has been a slow but steady shift in the last decade-a nod to the clear majority of Cubans en exilio and on the island who crave family reunification. Since 1978, more than one million airline tickets have been sold for flights from Miami to Havana. Faced with the brisk and continuous traffic between Miami and Havana, hard-liners on both sides have opted to deny the new reality. Anomalies such as the phenomenon of reverse balseros, Cubans who, unable to adapt to the pressures and bustle of entrepreneurial Miami, return to the island, or gusañeros, expatriots who send a portion of their earnings home in exchange for unfettered travel back and forth to Cuba (the term is a curious Cuban hybrid of gusano and compañero, or comrade), are unacknowledged by both sides, as are those who live in semi-exilio, returning home to Cuba for long holidays.

Page XVIII
Preface
Cuba Confidential
Love and Vengeance
In Miami and Havana

Copyright© 2002 by
Ann Louise Bardach

Bardach's the N. Y. Times writer who did the series in that paper on former CIA, airline bomber, mass murderer Luis Posada Carriles' interview with her and Larry Rohter. She also covered the Elián Gonzalez story in her Cuba Confidential book after many trips back and forth to speak with everyone involved.

[Marksman_91]

64. That "gusanos" term has sure been a favorite of many fervent castristas in this site

And they even use it to refer to any Latino living in Miami, not just Cubans. Not denying that there aren't anti-Castro radicals living in the city, but to lump everybody with them is kind of a really bad and insulting generalization. I hate Maduro and what the Castros have done to turn the Venezuelan government into their lapdog, but I very much welcome the new friendship developing between Havana and Washington. Sure as hell has been quite a bitch slap against Maduro and many chavistas in Venezuela. One need only to take a look at Aporrea.org to see just how more and more pissed chavistas are at the fact that their socialist idols in Cuba are consorting more every day with the "imperialist" powers.

[Judi Lynn]

73. Conspicuous whopper. I have NEVER seen any DU'er use "gusano" to refer to non-Cuban exiles, not once

Everyone knows it refers specifically to right-wing Cuban "exiles" and their spawn, no one else.

It has no impact in any other application.

[Bacchus4.0]

74. Los Gusanos are a rock band in Venezuela, also means worm

there are plenty of applications of the word. Chavez is gusano food. See?

[Fred Sanders]

12. Good point. Folks are folks and make individual folks choices. Reading more into it is silly.

[EX500rider]

16. Hid out in Canada to avoid the draft isn't really "defecting"

[Fred Sanders]

18. Like I said above, definition pending.

[EX500rider]

21. definition no longer pending:

de·fect
dəˈfekt/
verb
gerund or present participle: defecting
abandon one's country or cause in favor of an opposing one.

The US and Canada are allies, not opposing enemies.

[KamaAina]

35. Scott Boras must be salivating

[Marksman_91]

36. Isn't he in baseball, though? N/t

[KamaAina]

57. He's been looking to break in to the lucrative field hockey market for a while, though.

[daleo]

47. Wait until they find out what their job prospects are

They might be surprised how things turn out.

[randome]

77. Wait until they see Huckabee or Trump or Cruz.

Assuming they haven't, already.

Wait until they hear a Palin "speech".
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

[Sunlei]

48. with Cuba open now, both Govs will probaby change the 'cubans get guaranteed resident cards' laws...

soon. So get out of Cuba now and touch our countries dry land if you want to reside forever in America (or Canada?) legally. Cubans could always fly to Canada and get over that open border to enter America.

Direct flights from Mexico to Canada also.

[MADem]

50. And there it is!!! If they want their dry feet green cards, they've gotta get 'em now.

Otherwise, they'll have to wait in line. Normalization means "You'll need to apply if you want to stay--and we might say no."

[harun]

70. No one is saying Cuba is a paradise.

[jmowreader]

72. Just half?

[eissa]

78. My heart breaks for Cuban leftists

Those who supported the Revolution only to see one dictatorship replaced with another. And then witness leftists everywhere defend a regime they would never tolerate living under themselves. No doubt, education and health care in Cuba are leaps and bounds above many others. But tyranny is still tyranny, even if it's on our side. I hope the defectors find what they're looking for.