Team President Sam Kennedy called the visit "a great opportunity for the players", but has said attendance is not mandatory. So far, nine players have indicated they will attend, and three have declined.
Manager Alex Cora is tentatively going ("Sometimes you've got to show your face"), but admitted that his decision could "change tomorrow".
Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, and Rafael Devers are not going. Betts backed out last month with the Bartlebian statement: "I decided not to." ... Bradley: "I don't get into politics." He later tweeted he "still wouldn't go if Hillary was in office". ... Devers said he "wasn't compelled to go".
Xander Bogaerts, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Eduardo Nunez are all undecided. EdRo is considering spending that off-day with his family. Rick Porcello said he would go along with whatever the team decides, but it was not clear if "the team" referred to management or his fellow players.
Chris Sale, Matt Barnes, Brock Holt, Sandy Leon, Mitch Moreland, Ryan Brasier, Heath Hembree, Blake Swihart, and Brian Johnson will attend.
Holt and Brasier are both "excited" to go. ... Hembree, who likes "everything" about Trump, said "Hell yeah". ... Holt cracked that he hopes Trump serves food from Chick-fil-A. ... Leon says going to the White House "would be an honor" since he supports Trump's position regarding his home country of Venezuela.
Re Venezuela: Trump's band of sociopaths are the most recent US officials working to overthrow Venezuela's elected government and install a friendly puppet. Questions: "Why Does the United States of America Want to Overthrow the Government of Venezuela?" and "Why Venezuela Reporting Is So Bad" (aka Why Does the US Media Consistently Portray Falsehoods as Facts?) ... After receiving a phone call last month from Vice President Mike Pence, Juan Guaidó (a man groomed and cultivated by the US to undermine Venezuela's socialist government) proclaimed himself president of the country. The US media played its part, parroting the proper propaganda. The Canadian government played a large part in organizing this coup against Venezuela, a country that possesses - could this be relevant? - the world's largest oil reserves.
6 comments:
Hey Alex Cora--one of the ideas the President's Sociopaths are floating is diverting emergency relief money from states and territories who will never vote Trump (California and Puerto Rico [PR can't vote for anyone in presidential elections, of course]) and using that money to build the Wall.
You've earned the applause of the crowds at Fenway. You deserve it. I wish you'd also earn boos from the red hat brigade by refusing to go to the White House and clearly telling the world why.
Days off for players are so precious that they're always part of CBA negotiations. That's why we have the start of the season in March (ridiculous). And partly why we have the equally ridiculous 4-day break in the middle of summer for the ASB. So why would a player want to waste one to go to the White House--regardless of who's President?
I wish you'd also earn boos from the red hat brigade by refusing to go to the White House and clearly telling the world why.
Amen.
And PS Leon: the Democrats would have done exactly the same thing. Doesn't matter who lives in the white house, US policy doesn't change.
From today's edition of 108 Stitches:
"SUNNY DAYS: Remember the parlor game of wondering when Manny Ramirez would show up? Larry Lucchino calling the Yankees "The Evil Empire"? Big Schill announcing he was here to break The Curse? Dan Shaughnessy misses the chaos, drama, and clown shows of the old days. He's been coming to Florida for spring training since 1976, and it was never this tranquil or buttoned-down ..."
Of course CHB pines for the olden days when the Red Sox were losers. He was a much happier man then. (FOUR championships is wonderful, but one bonus that cannot be (and must not be) ignored is how miserable all the winning has made CHB!) And now the only clown show is coming out of his keyboard.
Michael Welton, Counterpunch, re Stephen Kinzer's The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of the American Empire (2017): "The United States has become an "actively interventionist power. It has projected military or covert power into dozens of countries on every continent except Antarctica." George Frisbie Hoar was right, Kinzer points out, when he "warned that intervening in other lands would turn the United States into a 'vulgar, commonplace empire founded upon physical force'"."
Welton:
There are several lessons that Kinzer draws from American history of intervention that our worth careful reflection.
1) American imperialists (and many Americans) truly believe that they are superior and that the world would become a better place if nations submitted to their leadership. The United States would be better off, Kinzer says, if it became a learning nation and not a teaching one. ...
3) Americans have been said to be ignorant about the world. They are, says Kinzer, but so are other peoples. The difference is that American leaders, puffed with a sense of mission, acted on ignorance. American leaders see little reason to bother learning about the nations whose affairs they intrude. ...
5) Generations of American foreign policy makers have made decisions on three assumptions: the US is the indispensable nation that must lead the world; this leadership requires toughness; and toughness is best demonstrated by the threat or use of force. Thus: America is inherently righteous; its influence on rest of world always benign.
6) Most American interventions are not soberly conceived, with realistic goals and clear exit strategies. ...
7) The argument that the United States intervenes to defend "freedom" rarely matches facts on the ground. Many (most?) interventions prop up predatory regimes. The goal is simply to increase American power rather than to liberate the suffering. ...
8) The name "United States" is associated with bombing, invasion, occupation, night raids, covert action, torture, kidnapping, and secret prisons. Who wants to be saved by America? ...
Stephen Kinzer wrote the remarkable book "Overthrow", a history of US regime change from Hawaii to Iraq. Amazingly, it is not a 12-volume set. Very readable nonfiction.
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