Author: R J Adams

I’m no great sports fan. I’d never heard of Ozzie Guillen until today, and frankly, it doesn’t bother me if I never hear of him again. I understand he has a passion for bullfighting. Those who take pleasure from cruelty to animals deserve no respect from me.

Yet today, I found myself sympathizing with Ozzie Guillen. He’s been punished for speaking his mind. Here, in the America that boasts constantly of its freedoms, Ozzie Guillen has been punished for daring to say he admires Fidel Castro.

Why are Americans not roaring their disapproval and demanding his reinstatement? He wasn’t being racist. He wasn’t suppressing a minority. He merely said he admired Fidel Castro. As a result, he’s been suspended for five games.

Oh, did I forget to clarify? Ozzie Guillen is the new manager of the Miami Marlins. I believe they’re a baseball team in…guess where?

Florida – yet again! It all happens in Florida. I’m tired of writing about the place.

Apparently, in Florida, you have the legal right to shoot unarmed boys on their way home from the candy store, but you mustn’t announce publicly your admiration for a socialist dictator.

Florida is full of Cuban people who fled the regime of Fidel Castro. America welcomed them with open arms because America hates Castro. They’ve tried to assassinate him on numerous occasions. In America it’s okay to assassinate people the government doesn’t like. These days they’re murdering folks in the mountains of Pakistan by remote control .

In 1959, Castro toppled the previous dictator of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista

Batista was America’s boy. He loved capitalism. He aligned himself with all the wealthy sugar plantation owners on the island, while keeping the rest of the populace in near slavery. America helped him by supplying the weapons for his secret police to commit gross acts of violence, torture, and public executions. In total, America’s boy was responsible for the deaths of around 20,000 Cubans.

Why was America so keen on Fulgencio Batista? Here’s what John F Kennedy had to say on the subject:

At the beginning of 1959 United States companies owned about 40 percent of the Cuban sugar lands—almost all the cattle ranches—90 percent of the mines and mineral concessions—80 percent of the utilities—practically all the oil industry—and supplied two-thirds of Cuba’s imports.”

And Kennedy didn’t stop there:

“Fulgencio Batista murdered 20,000 Cubans in seven years … and he turned Democratic Cuba into a complete police state – destroying every individual liberty. Yet our aid to his regime, and the ineptness of our policies, enabled Batista to invoke the name of the United States in support of his reign of terror. Administration spokesmen publicly praised Batista – hailed him as a staunch ally and a good friend – at a time when Batista was murdering thousands, destroying the last vestiges of freedom, and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the Cuban people, and we failed to press for free elections.”

Despite these remarks, John F Kennedy still did his level best to have Castro assassinated. The notorious Bay of Pigs affair was probably his greatest blunder.

It was to topple Batista’s evil, US-backed, regime that Fidel Castro returned to Cuba from exile in 1956. It took three years, but eventually Batista was forced to flee the island and Castro took over control.

He nationalized the industries and threw out the US corporations. In retaliation, the US began an economic embargo of the island, which began in 1960 and continues to this day, devastating the Cuban economy and forcing many into poverty.

While it could be argued that Castro’s regime was far from perfect – tales of torture, executions, and political prisoners kept in appalling conditions, abound – there is no doubt that the American government has taken every opportunity to blacken Castro’s name.

During Eisenhower’s presidency the CIA even joined forces with the Mafia in an attempt to assassinate him. When a superpower stoops that low it should ring warning bells right around the globe.

So, today, I join with Ozzie Guillen in stating my admiration for Fidel Castro. He’s stood against the corrupt and arrogant superpower of the United States for over sixty years, and they haven’t got him yet.

Now that’s some achievement.

Twenty years ago it would only have been used for dog-food. Since the 1990s it’s been in 70% of all processed beef products on the store shelf. ‘Pink Slime’ is the one that leaped off the production belt of secrecy and out into the limelight of public knowledge, thanks in no small part to TV chef, Jamie Oliver, who ‘outed’ ‘Pink Slime’ on a 2011 TV show.

What disgusted consumers the most was Oliver sloshing household bleach all over the stuff.

They’d probably be even more horrified if they realized ammonia is used extensively in the meat industry. How do they think those ‘oven-ready’ chickens remain un-putrified until they finally reach the supermarket shelves?

The answer is they’re stored in huge caverns filled with ammonia gas. Back in the mid-seventies, while training with the British RSPCA, I visited a poultry processing and storage plant. It was one of the largest in the country. I won’t mention the company’s name, but can assure you the processing was definitely not as ‘bootiful’ as the owner described his product on television. British readers will, no doubt, remember the relevant advertisement.

‘Pink slime’ is supposedly safe. It meets federal food safety standards. It’s only fault is it’s bloody disgusting.

Desperate to save their profits, the meat industry is fighting back with a new slogan: “Dude – it’s beef”. Wow! They’ve also called on failed Republican presidential nominee, Rick Perry, for assistance. He happily sampled the product and appeared to enjoy it.

Pink Slime: it takes one to know one.

The meat marketing companies knew it was disgusting, so they came up with the name, ‘Lean Finely Textured Beef’. That makes it sound quite appealing, and while it isn’t a lie, there can be no doubt of the obvious deception to the consumer.

It may be perfectly acceptable to describe a tin of ‘Lassie’ as ‘lean, meaty, chunks in a rich, taste-laden, gravy’ when the reality is a load of offal processed into lumps of gristle, but dogs aren’t too bothered what they eat so long as it tastes okay.

To treat human consumers as though they are no better than animals is an extreme insult, and a certain marketing disaster once the ‘pink slime’ hits the fan.

It’s sad that 850 employees have to lose their jobs because yet another food marketing scandal has come to light. Some folk appear to blame Jamie Oliver, or the media, but it’s not their fault.

No, the blame lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the meat processing industry. Deception will out, eventually.

We’re not their pets, we’re their customers, and it’s time they remembered that.

Two weeks ago, a seventeen year old black youth, Shawn Tyson, was sent to prison for life, with no possibility of parole, for the brutal, cold-blooded, murder of two young men from the UK, James Cooper and James Kouzaris. Both men were in their mid-twenties.^[1]

^{The killer, Tyson, is on the left in this image}

The two men were on vacation in Florida and strayed into the rundown Newtown area of Sarasota late one night while looking for an all-night cafe. Tyson, released from prison only that day after a conviction for shooting at cars, gunned them down as they stood in the road, defenseless, pleading with him to spare their lives.

Just about the time Shawn Tyson was learning he’d spend the rest of his life behind bars, Florida neighborhood watch man, George Zimmerman, gunned down black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in an incident that sent the US media into a frenzy and provoked marches and protests throughout the state.^[2]

^{The killer, Zimmerman, is on the left in this image}

On March 6th this year, not long after the Trayvon Martin killing, a disgruntled ex-teacher at the Episcopal School of Jacksonville, in Florida, walked back into the school carrying an AK47 assault rifle and shot the head teacher, Dale Regan. Ms Regan had been at the school thirty-four years. The man, Shane Schumerth, a Spanish teacher at the school had been fired earlier that day. After shooting the principle, he killed himself.^[3]

James Cooper, James Kouzaris, Trayvon Martin and Dale Regan, were all in front of the bullet. They are dead. Shane Schumerth killed himself with his own gun. Shawn Tyson, George Zimmerman, may as well be dead. Their lives are over, destroyed by the same weapons used to inflict their deadly violence.

It may seem that Florida is especially gun-violent. It isn’t. Similar stories abound all over the United States. In every state similar incidents occur on an almost daily basis.

I received this document recently in the mail, together with an unsolicited membership form.

^{Click to enlarge}

It came from the National Rifle Association, based in Florida. I sent it back, unsigned.

^{Click to enlarge}

Guns kill – that’s all they do.

^{[1] “Shawn Tyson gets life sentence for murdering British tourists in Florida” Guardian, March 12th 2012}

^{[2] George Zimmerman Innocent Of Racist Hate Crime” Sparrow Chat, March 20th 2012}

^{[3] “Two dead in shooting at Florida high school” March 6th 2012}