Troops, Hoops and Antichoice Brutes

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on

USA Basketball is in a slump, suffering more losses in 2004 "than the team had in its entire Olympic history." To inspire the players, managing director Jerry Colangelo and coach Mike Krzyzewski turned to U.S. "soldiers maimed and crippled by the war in Iraq," arranging a televised meeting between the veterans and the athletes. Using soldiers wounded in "a deeply unpopular war from which, according to a recent Zogby poll, 72 percent of troops want to escape ... feels more like exploitation than motivation," writes Dave Zirin. Colangelo has a history of "using sports to project his politics." In 2003, he designated a Phoenix Suns game as "Arizona Right-to-Life Day." Colangelo also co-founded Battin' 1,000, "along with other baseball executives and ex-players." The campaign "uses baseball memorabilia to raise funds for Campus for Life, the largest antichoice student network." Battin' 1,000 opposes "all abortions, even in the case of incest or rape."

Main Source: 
The Nation (U.S.), August 28, 2006
Topics: 
Right Wing
Iraq
Women

Comments

Courtney Findlay replied on

so typical of men, I wonder how many of these men actually have custody of their children, have had unprotected sex with their baseball groupies and never kept in contact about any possible children, how many of these men need to be hauled into court to pay any financial support. If any of these men actually contributed to the non-stop 24 hour a day, 7 days a week child rearing, I may be interested in what they have to say. Until the day happens that men are completely and entirely responsible and self sacrificing like the women, they can keep their obviously uninformed opinions to themselves.

jupiter replied on

What a scam.

Here people are all ballistic about "abortionists" being here and there and everywhere, around every corner and under every rock.

Well maybe they are, since most people wouldn't talk about this aspect of their lives.

But this is what gets me:

There are people walking the earth who have NOTHING to do with this subject --- never have. And yet, if their belief system is not unambiguously "in lock step" (as someone once put it) with certain political guidelines, then guess what? THEY ARE THEN LABELED "AN ABORTIONIST!"

This reminds me of how the Bible says that when Jesus died (an analogy to having his honor and reputation marred among people), he was crucified with a thief next to him.

Okay I am not accusing women who have had abortions of being thieves or even "sinners" necessarily, and particularly because things like rape or incest might have been involved, or other circumstances that we might only know what we would really do if we were in those sorts of dire circumstances.

But having to have an abortion does indicate that something went wrong or awry --- that something started must for whatever reasons be stopped, or a likelihood that someone somewhere was not a perfect saint. Or at least according to my traditional belief system that is what it indicates. And it is easy to judge others from the outside looking in.

Anyway this is just absolutely absurd the way masses of people have been convinced that people are "abortionists" who have never even given the subject a whole lot of thought, BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOT HAD TO GIVE THE SUBJECT A WHOLE LOT OF THOUGHT and it is not a part of their lives. But for purposes of political convenience, they must be labeled "abortionists" since their beliefs are not unambiguously in lock step with some agenda someone somewhere wrote up, and got it preached in pulpits everywhere.

Now back in the olden days (like when I was growing up), they didn't have to invent psuedo sins like this. Every one pretty well knew what sin was, and it usually had to do with things like being socially irresponsible, or sociopathic, etc.

Now we have got this whole pardon the expression nuveau nigger thing going. (I mean I want to say, "I am a nuveau nigger" --- even though I am not black. Did someone once say "Ich bin ein nigger?") Okay JFK was not a Berliner, but he nevertheless said "Ich bin ein Berliner" to show that he emphasized with the Berliners in their predicament.

Today we have got the whole second-class citizen thing going on again --- whether or not a person is black. People think it is okay to treat other people LIKE SCUM if they are not in lock step with their own religious or political beliefs. It is towards everyone who is not in political lock-step with certain people who sit around and devise religious agendas, with which to entertain and spook the masses about psuedo sins and all, such as having an ambiguous or not fully developed opinion on a certain subject one has never had to think about, except perhaps just a bit in an ivory tower.

Life experience, and often hardship, is what brings about honed priorities, or even beliefs about life. But no --- we just get our beliefs spoon-fed to us from pulpits. As a society, we often have no respect for the shoulders on which we stand. We just want to plunder and commandeer and superimpose our own supposed "higher agenda" and use the new-found juicy plum to substantiate our youthful dream fantasies of what we think reality should be. While I don't want to presume to know about fate (especially when I am only like a microbe in comparison to the earth's diameter), sometimes it seems little wonder that fate would be offended.

These modern-day problems (or phenomena or dilemmas --- whatever your term of preference) are not things to point at other people and say gee I'm so glad it's you and not me. These are social problems and/or phenomena for which everyone bears the brunt. If a child is not properly raised because he or she only has one parent, and that child therefore has to learn to steal to survive or eat, and continues the habit(of stealing, like when under certain duresses) --- well then we all end up bearing the brunt of this. This second class citizen stuff is not going to fly. Not with me anyway. I am tired of religious snobbery. Some snobbery in life is inevitable, but this religious snobbery is starting to stink to high hell and so help me God I will not be a part of it.

jupiter replied on

Just want to point out --- in case there would be any confusion --- that my blather above (or below, as the case may be) was not directed towards the comment previous to it. It was directed at society in general.

jupiter replied on

A few more comments:

First, if there is anything that life has taught me, it is that very many of these religious people are very strongly steeped in what I can only call as "showmanship." (It is contrary to the ACTUAL teachings of Jesus, as Jesus taught to not do things to be seen of men, and also that others can be known "by their fruits." Unless we are talking about Fruit of the Loom, fruits are not labels.)

This "showmanship" that has become such a strong part of very many peoples' religion is nothing but a shell. I was going to say more about this but I forgot what it was. Oh well, that is the jist. In fact, it is really a con game and they don't even realize that is what they are doing. They themselves are conned that this is religion, or some kind of expectation of God himself.

Secondly, about a week or so ago I had a dream which I think pretty well sums up the condition of our world today, or at least our nation and particular society:

It was about a puppeteer and a puppet. The puppeteer was of course, more or less obscurred.

What I saw in this dream was first the puppeteer. There were no strings, but rather he had something like a cattle prod in his hand by which he wielded manipulation and a sort of "get-on-with-it" type of duress.

The puppeteer (in my dream) was a very skinny and smallish human-like creature dressed entirely in a black leotard, head to toe, to obscure his identity. He was black all over (presumably because of his leotard) and therefore looked somewhat like an ant, but his physique was otherwise human-like. (For whatever that means.) (Perhaps the puppeteer represents money, or money is part of what it symbolizes, since obviously we live in a "dollar dictatorship" today, the dollar forever being "the bottom line.")

His "puppet" had no strings attached, but was rather ruled by duress. He was a taller, plumpish older man with gray hair and he was being prodded onto an auditorium stage by the skinny little, black-dressed puppeteer. His white hair looked like it might very well be a wig, and not only that, it looked like it was made to look like the white-haired wig of a founding father of the nation. It was like he was dressed to imply he was of some traditional ilk, like a phoney antique or such.

Anyway all I saw in this brief momentary dream was the two characters, first the skinny, black-dressed human-like creature quickly weilding the black prod back and forth, then I saw that he was directing this other guy like a puppet onto an auditorium stage to speak to some mass of people. He was being directed and prodded by the obscurred skinny black-dressed thing, which people were not necessarily going to notice.

As an analogy, this is so very depictive and true of so very much of our world circumstance/s and condition today. It was only a brief momentary dream, but a picture paints a thousand words to anyone who is not blind.

Okay --- totally different subject but now I've gotta go and like take a moment to reflect on the life of Steve Irwin, dare-devil that he was, and yet I'd bet that from where ever he is now, he feels his life was worth it. Will he linger on earth to haunt the daylights out of falsehood? Or proceed immediately on to a better place? These are questions I cannot answer.