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January 21, 2006
Baseball and Cuba
The Treasury Department reversed its earlier ruling and agreed to allow the Cuban baseball team come to the US to play in the first World Classic tournament (story in the LA Times). This is, of course, good for baseball--I'm thinking of The Game, not necessarily the American baseball industry. Pressure in the US often took the usual "active engagement" form: that by allowing more interchange we will allow the Cubans to see the advantages of our "democracy" and "freedom." These days I'm usually too cynical about the state of American democracy to see that we have much positive to teach anyone. But seriously, just what would the lesson from the US be for a country whose aspirations for freedom from US domination have been attacked, embargoed, contained and isolated by us from day one? I suspect the lesson most have in mind is the standard fantasy of consumer acquisition through market capitalism that we sell everywhere. The difference in average wealth Cubans already know all too well. What do we expect?: "Oh, I get it now; if we just overthrow Castro we'll all be comfortably middle class and be able to buy tickets to as many baseball games as we want, or at least a big television."
Posted by johnn at January 21, 2006 11:19 AM
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