Bad night for Castro followed up with an opportunity to debate tactics and strategy.
On Friday, October 11th the CONCACAF Nations League held a Team USA vs Team Cuba soccer match at the Audi Field in Washington, DC. Cuban diplomats attended the game and large Cuban flags were seen in the stadium. There was also a heavy showing of American flags, and fans dressed in Revolutionary era garb.
It was a bad night for the Castro regime. Team Cuba lost to Team USA by seven to zero, and before the game a Cuban player defected.
In the midst of all this ten of us stood together with a banner and flag from CubaDecide calling on Castro to leave power.
Four day later on October 15th Nizmy Liberty responded to the tweet raising a number of issues related to the protest and also to CubaDecide's position on the 2019 Constitutional referendum and the "No" campaign.
I responded, but twitter is a platform that does not allow much nuance, and decided to blog on the issues raised.
First, Nizmy is right. I have lived many years in the United States, and have also worked on political campaigns. However that "rule" was non-existent during much of my life here. We engaged in distributing political propaganda in both football games and baseball games in Iowa and Nebraska in the 1990s for state and federal races.
In the above tweet Nizmy makes reference to a law that bars "any kind of political propaganda in games." There is no law that I know of, but policies by sports leagues, and stadiums, but they are considered controversial. If there is such a law please share it.
Court decisions have been all over the place on this issue, especially with public stadiums on first amendment grounds. Private stadiums have more latitude on restricting free speech, but again their policies vary.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote a September 17, 2019 OpEd in The Guardian titled "Banning fans' free speech is not consistent with our vision of sport. Or democracy," in which he makes the case for defending the rights of fans to peacefully protest at sporting events.
The problems is that some of these policies do not ban all political speech, but leave it up to the discretion of the stadium owners, the league, or other entity.
For example, on August 1, 2019 four fans at the Baltimore Oriole's Camden Yards were booted out for unveiling a "Trump 2020" banner during the Orioles-Blue Jays game. According to a USA Today article the following day:
My response on twitter was inadequate due to space limitations, and focused more broadly on an approach that "ask for arms" which means a violent resistance and not an "electoral agenda" that falls within the category of nonviolence and responded as follows.
My argument with Venezuelans over a decade ago was that elections were an opportunity to challenge the legitimacy of the regime and to mobilize large numbers to assert political power, but it depended on challenging the results that had been rigged by the regime. A non-violent approach is much more than agreeing to the results of an election that falls far short of international standards and in which the vote has been rigged.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, over twitter on December 22, 2015 stated: "We knew that they were elections in a dictatorship; that is why we fought in the streets and tables. Today, it is the same dictatorship, defeated politically and electorally."
The opposition National Assembly was a battle won, but it was not a final victory over Maduro and his Cuban handlers. Nizmy's response in Spanish said: "Breifly. In a tweet I told you everything. You confuse "civil resistance" with "electoral path "under Communist tyranny to get it out. Do not support it for Venezuela but for #Cuba it is a double standard. I reminded you of that law from the stadium. Something else, I see you stopped following me."
My position with regards to Cuba is that dividing the opposition over a tactical issue was a mistake. In the debate over the “No” campaign in Cuba believed back then and still do today that either position was not going to end the dictatorship. The “electoral agenda” without placing it within a broader civic resistance strategy as described above would never succeed. The claim that this was a double standard, with one position for Cuba and another for Venezuela, is not true.
This is the reason that on February 24, 2019 when many were focused on the sham constitutional referendum in Cuba was with a group outside of the Cuban Embassy in a silent vigil demanding justice for the four victims of the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down.
Returning to the topic of protests, and new restrictions on free speech. This is not a law but an apartment in Washington DC decided to ban tenant's hanging political banners in 2017 from their own balconies due to political content.
Communist China is having an impact on free speech due to its economic might and has led to Tibetan flags and the defense of Hong Kong becoming controversial, and fans being expelled for their t-shirts, banners and flags. It is not a stretch to imagine that Cuban diplomats, who were attending the game, protested the presence of the banner.
On Friday, October 11th the CONCACAF Nations League held a Team USA vs Team Cuba soccer match at the Audi Field in Washington, DC. Cuban diplomats attended the game and large Cuban flags were seen in the stadium. There was also a heavy showing of American flags, and fans dressed in Revolutionary era garb.
It was a bad night for the Castro regime. Team Cuba lost to Team USA by seven to zero, and before the game a Cuban player defected.
In the midst of all this ten of us stood together with a banner and flag from CubaDecide calling on Castro to leave power.
Approximately a half hour into the game we were approached by stadium officials and told that political banners were prohibited and that we’d be asked to leave if we kept holding it up. At the time I posted what had taken place on twitter.Tonight @AudiField in Washington DC, despite being surrounded by Cuban & US flags at the Team Cuba Men 🇨🇺 v Team USA Men 🇺🇸 (@ussoccer/@USMNT) #USAvCUB game was told by security that political banners were prohibited & that we’d be asked to leave if we kept holding it up. pic.twitter.com/dXww74SzSU— John Suarez (@JohnSua13839884) October 12, 2019
Four day later on October 15th Nizmy Liberty responded to the tweet raising a number of issues related to the protest and also to CubaDecide's position on the 2019 Constitutional referendum and the "No" campaign.
I responded, but twitter is a platform that does not allow much nuance, and decided to blog on the issues raised.
First, Nizmy is right. I have lived many years in the United States, and have also worked on political campaigns. However that "rule" was non-existent during much of my life here. We engaged in distributing political propaganda in both football games and baseball games in Iowa and Nebraska in the 1990s for state and federal races.
In the above tweet Nizmy makes reference to a law that bars "any kind of political propaganda in games." There is no law that I know of, but policies by sports leagues, and stadiums, but they are considered controversial. If there is such a law please share it.
Court decisions have been all over the place on this issue, especially with public stadiums on first amendment grounds. Private stadiums have more latitude on restricting free speech, but again their policies vary.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote a September 17, 2019 OpEd in The Guardian titled "Banning fans' free speech is not consistent with our vision of sport. Or democracy," in which he makes the case for defending the rights of fans to peacefully protest at sporting events.
"What leagues can do is insist that expressions of political allegiance are maintained within consistent parameters that insure they don’t interfere with fans watching the event they paid to enjoy. By consistent, I mean that if a stadium allows American flags or team banners to be waved or displayed, then they should allow political flags and banners of the same size to be waved by fans, as long as they don’t promote symbols of hate and violence, such as swastikas.The rule banning political banners at Major League Soccer (MLS) is a relatively new policy, and has been controversial on first amendment grounds.
The problems is that some of these policies do not ban all political speech, but leave it up to the discretion of the stadium owners, the league, or other entity.
For example, on August 1, 2019 four fans at the Baltimore Oriole's Camden Yards were booted out for unveiling a "Trump 2020" banner during the Orioles-Blue Jays game. According to a USA Today article the following day:
Camden Yards' stadium policy states that no banners can be hung anywhere in a way that would obstruct other fans' views of the game, according to the Orioles' website. Based on the organization's policy, political banners are subject to confiscation and based on the "Orioles' discretion."In the same tweet Nizmy also argued that if one wanted to free Communist Cuba then one should "ask for arms", not for an "electoral" agenda that has proven a failure in Venezuela.
My response on twitter was inadequate due to space limitations, and focused more broadly on an approach that "ask for arms" which means a violent resistance and not an "electoral agenda" that falls within the category of nonviolence and responded as follows.
Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth in their 2008 study "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic on Nonviolent Conflict" compared the outcomes of 323 nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006. “They found that major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with just under half that at 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns.” Finally there study also suggests “that nonviolent campaigns are more likely than violent campaigns to succeed in the face of brutal repression.”Also added as a post script that I have not been a supporter of the “electoral agenda” in Venezuela and have called them fake elections for some time. This also holds true for Cuba. Now my definition of the "electoral agenda" as presented in Venezuela is one that viewed elections as the means to defeat Chavez and Maduro without doing anything else.
My argument with Venezuelans over a decade ago was that elections were an opportunity to challenge the legitimacy of the regime and to mobilize large numbers to assert political power, but it depended on challenging the results that had been rigged by the regime. A non-violent approach is much more than agreeing to the results of an election that falls far short of international standards and in which the vote has been rigged.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, over twitter on December 22, 2015 stated: "We knew that they were elections in a dictatorship; that is why we fought in the streets and tables. Today, it is the same dictatorship, defeated politically and electorally."
The opposition National Assembly was a battle won, but it was not a final victory over Maduro and his Cuban handlers. Nizmy's response in Spanish said: "Breifly. In a tweet I told you everything. You confuse "civil resistance" with "electoral path "under Communist tyranny to get it out. Do not support it for Venezuela but for #Cuba it is a double standard. I reminded you of that law from the stadium. Something else, I see you stopped following me."
My response to her was that I had not stopped following her and then went to the substance of the points she had raised.Brevedad, eso. En un tuit te dije todo. Confundes "resistencia civil" con "vía "electorera" bajo tiranía Comunista para sacarla. No apoyarlo para Vzla pero sí para #Cuba es doble estándar. Del stadium te recordé esa ley. Algo más, veo me dejaste de seguir. https://t.co/P4SwwyPS7o— ℕiʑmყ ℒiвεrɬყ (@nizmycuba) October 15, 2019
My position with regards to Cuba is that dividing the opposition over a tactical issue was a mistake. In the debate over the “No” campaign in Cuba believed back then and still do today that either position was not going to end the dictatorship. The “electoral agenda” without placing it within a broader civic resistance strategy as described above would never succeed. The claim that this was a double standard, with one position for Cuba and another for Venezuela, is not true.
This is the reason that on February 24, 2019 when many were focused on the sham constitutional referendum in Cuba was with a group outside of the Cuban Embassy in a silent vigil demanding justice for the four victims of the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down.
Returning to the topic of protests, and new restrictions on free speech. This is not a law but an apartment in Washington DC decided to ban tenant's hanging political banners in 2017 from their own balconies due to political content.
Communist China is having an impact on free speech due to its economic might and has led to Tibetan flags and the defense of Hong Kong becoming controversial, and fans being expelled for their t-shirts, banners and flags. It is not a stretch to imagine that Cuban diplomats, who were attending the game, protested the presence of the banner.
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Rick Scott sent a letter to the IOC (https://twitter.com/SenRickScott/status/1184920397726265344?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet) asking them to reconsider having China as the host for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The US remains concerned about the poor human rights record of China, and there is a visa lottery system that denies visas to artists who praise dictators. If Ted Cruz had been president, he would had the State Department deny visas to Cuban, Venezuelan, and Bolivian musicians and artists who praise Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. This is why no Cuban musicians who praise Fidel come to the US or Europe, and whatever Cuban musicians enter the US ought to perform apolitical rock music.
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