Tim's Favorite Blogs
Media Matters
Blog Directories
Sunday, August 5. 2007
Blood and Sports
Where to start – As you may have heard Barry Bonds hit #755, tying Hank Aaron for the all-time home run record. It says a lot that Hammerin’ Hank wasn’t in the ball park this afternoon in Sunny Sandy Eggo when Bonds made his mark in history. Some want to claim Aaron isn’t disavowing Bonds’ record, he – Aaron – doesn’t want to get involved in the controversy. I disagree; Aaron isn’t there because he doesn’t think Barry Bonds is a legitimate record holder. If he felt otherwise, he would have been in Petco Park Saturday.Alex Rodriguez – A-Rod – hit his 500th career home run and if all goes well in his career, he should easily beat whatever record Bonds creates. Sports are going through yet another turbulent time in the world. David Beckham is getting paid hundreds of millions to play for the L.A. Galaxy
My only question: Will he call it “soccer” or “football”?
So many road bicyclists were suspended from the sport many of the top names in cycling weren’t present in Paris for the end of the Tour de France. Michael Vick will never play pro — NFL — football again because of his “alleged” involvement in a dog fighting enterprise. Not to mention the number of NFL players who have faced less sensational charges; basketball players accused of serious crimes and an NBA ref facing charges of consorting with the mob to bet on and fix games.
In the movie, A Bronx Tale, starring Robert DeNiro and Chazz Palminteri, the neighborhood boss tells his young protégé, played by Francis Capra and Lillo Brancato (two different ages), a big New York Yankees fan, that sports are for suckers and watching the Yankees is a big waste of time. Right about now, we could easily agree with the mobster, especially in this era when so many, like A-Rod and Beckham, make more money in one season than most Americans make in a life time.
Not only do we support the billion dollar sports industry—let’s not forget the team owners who make at least as much as their highest paid players—but we acquiesce to the behavior of the most villainous among them, simply because they can hit the longball or put more balls through the hoops, or the fights they start in hockey always result in great injuries or they have most sensational arm in football. I love football, been a Packer fan all my life, but can’t watch a game with the Baltimore Ravens because of Ray Lewis. Just what exactly was his involvement in the murders of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar? We don’t really know. Lewis took a plea deal, reducing his charges from murder to misdemeanor obstructing justice in return for testimony against his two associates on that Super Bowl night in January 2000, Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting. Both of them were acquitted of all charges.
What we do know is that al three were out partying in a limo rented by Lewis on the night of the murders and the police and prosecutors firmly believe at least Sweeting and Oakley are guilty of the crimes. Interestingly enough, Lewis settled a wrongful death suit with the daughter of one of the victims, which, technically doesn’t admit guilt, but at the very least makes one wonder, if he was innocent, why didn’t he fight it in court?Regardless, I want to believe sports will recover, as baseball did after the 1919 World Series scandal when eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of fixing the Series for a mobster.
But these aren’t even the big stories of the day, not really. They’re just distractions from the real news: our government is waiting until September to make any decisions about Iraq — when General David Petreaus makes his report — while the reality of the failure — the quagmire that is Iraq — plays out in the news. Just read this a few hours ago: Iraq’s power grid is on the verge of collapsing. I though we were paying Halliburton (through its subsidiaries) billions to rebuild that country’s infrastructure.
From the Associated Press: “We no longer need television documentaries about the Stone Age. We are actually living in it. We are in constant danger because of the filthy water and rotten food we are having.” Said Hazim Obeid, who sells clothing at a stall in the Karbala market.
That city, one of the holiest for Shi’ites, has been without power for three days, resulting in empty water reservoirs. The tragedy of Iraq — perpetrated by our president and his neocon puppet masters — is horrifying for our troops, but it is way beyond horror for the millions of Iraqis who have to call Iraq home — and we as a nation are responsible for it. Every Iraqi who has died, or been maimed, we are responsible for it. Responsible for the destruction of the infrastructure, responsible for the collapse of the social order; responsible for all of it. As bad as Saddam Hussein was, are the Iraqis better off now? How can anyone argue that opinion any more?
In his nearly 30 years of rule, Hussein had over 300,000 of his citizens murdered, not to mention the thousands killed in his eight year war with Iran — which we as a nation had a hand in extending. In December, 1983, Donald Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad to deliver President Reagan’s promise to assist Iraq in that war; we turned a blind eye at that time to Hussein’s murderous ways and his use of chemical weapons all because Hussein was the enemy of our enemy and the height of this whole farce is the unabashed hypocrisy we now see exhibited—by the very people who pushed to support Hussein in the 1980’s—every time they use his wars of aggression, there have been only two: Iran and Kuwait, and Hussein’s use of chemical weapons as justification for removing Saddam Hussein from power.
The number of Iraqis killed during Hussein’s rule pales next to the number who have perished since March, 2003. And two million more have left, many of whom are (were) Iraq’s best and brightest. People who could actually work on Iraq’s infrastructure, work in the hospitals and schools, provide support for the necessary government services a nation’s citizens need to live a life free from thirst, hunger, illiteracy and wanton indiscriminate killing.
Our responsibility for this tragedy goes back much further than March 2003 and our government is quibbling over when to start making decisions about what to do in Iraq. Many “leaders” in our government, like Senator John McCain, discourage any thoughts about investigating how this all happened and why, with the lame explanation that we have to concentrate on what to do in the future. The truth is, once we start cleaning all the skeletons out of the closets, the whole picture of our nation’s inept and club-handed foreign policy for the last 30-40 years will be laid open for examination and more than likely, we Americans are not going to like what we see.
And one final note: the Pentagon has just released a report telling us that 30% of the weapons given to Iraqi forces are now listed as missing, unaccounted for. In other words, some of the armament being used against our troops was manufactured in the good ole U.S. of A. That’s cheery news.Bob Gates was on Meet the Press yesterday, trying to put a positive spin on Bush’s war in Iraq. When asked if progress was being made, after being reminded he (Gates) told us six months ago we would know by summer if the “surge” was successful, Gates obfuscated his answer, claiming military success. Tim Russert then reminded him that success, as defined by Gates and the Defense Department, was a political solution. At that point, Gates had to admit—at least partially—the truth: Success hasn’t been achieved. And with the Iraqi government on vacation this month, it’s not likely to be achieved anytime soon.
The Democrats need to find their courage and press on these investigations — and more importantly, they need to find the courage to accept everything the investigations will uncover, including their hand in all these foreign policy tragedies. Remember, when we supported Hussein in his war with Iran, a Republican was president, but a Democratically-controlled Congress authorized him to do it. Neither political party has a clean conscious on this one.
*******************************************Just a bright note for this blog: My friend Nikki posted some great new photos on her MySpace Page. She is one of my favorite models/friends!
Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry
No Trackbacks
Calendar
|
February '12 |
|
||||
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | ||||
Quicksearch
Categories
AD Links
Referrals
Syndicate This Blog
Blog Administration
Powered by
TheForkesReport