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Today's
Stories
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
March 5, 2004
Chris Floyd
Uncle
Sugar: How the WMD Scam Put Money in Bush Family Pockets
Ron Jacobs
Chaos
Reigns: Haiti and Iraq
Lisa Viscidi
Guatemalan
Refugees: a Difficult Return
Yves Engler
Canada and the Coup in Haiti
Mike Legro
Those Bush Ads: Some Dead Bodies Are Worth More Than Others
Javier Armas
A Night of Inspiration: Oakland Benefit for Grocery Workers Strike
Bennett Hoffman
"Who Cares About Haiti, Anyway?"
Bill Christison
Faltering Neo-Cons Still Dangerous
Website of the Day
Haiti Support Group
March 4, 2004
Diane Christian
Sex
and Ideals
Sen. Robert Byrd
Stop the Stonewalling, Mr. President: Fairy Tales, Bush and the
9/11 Commission
Norman Solomon
Assuming the Right to Intervene: The US Press and Haiti
Jack Brown
A Fragrant Saga of Mexico's Greens
Hal Cranmer
The
John Kerry Experience
David Lindorff
Greenspan's Pension
Sam Smith
The Election is Over, We Lost
Christopher Brauchli
Goin'
to the Chapel: The Gay and the Dead
Brian D. Barry
The "Perfect" World of E-Voting: A Computer Scientist
Reports from the Polling Booth
Richard Oxman
Arsonists for Haiti?
Peter Phillips
Haitian
Fantasies: Mainstream Media Fails Itself, Again
Tariq Ali
Notes on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and
Palestine
Website of the Day
What If Boeing Ads Told the Truth?
March 3, 2004
Heather Williams / Karl
Laraque
Marines
Retake Haiti
Jack McCarthy
Guy's
Our Guy: "I am the Chief. My Hero is Pinochet."
Robert Sandels
The
Purloined Label: The Struggle Over the Havana Club Trademark
Juliana Fredman / James Davis
Israeli Organized Crime
JG
The Yuppie Silence on Haiti
Emilio Sardi
The
Colombia/US Free Trade Deal: It's About More Than Trade
Alan Farago
Swimming in Sewage
Mike Whitney
"Blood
Will Have Blood": 143 Murdered in Liberated Iraq
CounterPunch Wire
Nader's Legislative Record in the 1960s
Steve Perry
Kerry
Advisory: Remember Lena Guerrero
Nelson George/ Marcus Miller
Miles Davis & Hip Hop: a Conversation
Website of the Day
$10,000 Is Yours for the Taking: The USS Liberty Challenge
March 2, 2004
William Blum
If Kerry's
the Answer, What's the Question?
Conn Hallinan
Haiti:
the Dangerous Muddle
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Bravo
H-Bomb Test: One WMD They Couldn't Hide
Mike Whitney
Regime Change in Haiti: the Bush Dominos Keep Falling
Ra Ravishankar
Afghanistan, the Liberation That Isn't: an Interview with Mariam
from RAWA
Dan Bacher
Merle Haggard & the Politics of Salmon: "Clearcutting
is Rape"
Greg Moses
Oscar White
Brandy Baker
Mel Gibson's Minstrelsy Show
Little Tucker Carlson
What I Did on My Vacation
Robert Fisk
All This
Talk of Civil War, Now This
Merle Haggard
Kern River
Website of the Day
Rebel Edit
March 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Morris
Thanks War Criminal in Front of Billions
Richard Oxman
Oscar's
Obit: Thanking Bob McNamara
Elaine Cassel
Writing and Reading as "Terrorism"
Mickey Z
Thomas Friedman's Education
Mike Whitney
George Will and Anti-Semitism: a Cul-de-Sac of Prejudice
Heather Williams
Haiti
as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story
Cathy Crosson
Chanson d'amour haïtienne
Website of the Day
God Hates Shrimp
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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Weekend
Edtion
March 6 / 7, 2004
Politics and Baseball
It
Was About Something More Than Peanuts and Crackerjacks
By RON JACOBS
In today's world of millionaire professional ballplayers,
it's hard to remember that the player's union began for reasons
that were actually noble. It was (among other issues specific
to ballplayers) the combination of the need for a retired ballplayer's
pension fund and a desire to remove the so-called reserve clause
that inspired the founders of the Major League Ball Player's
Association (MLBPA). For those of you unfamiliar with the association's
history, this clause essentially bound a ballplayer to the owner
of the team that he was paid by. This meant he had no say over
his salary, traveling conditions, playing time, or many other
aspects of professional ball playing. Of course, one could argue
that today's market of free agents and arbitration is absurd
in the other extreme. Many ballplayers demand and get ridiculous
salaries and benefits while others take illegal performance enhancing
drugs in the hope that they too can get similar contracts. In
light of this (and before the 2004 season opens), now might be
a good time to review the game's history right before and immediately
after the beginning of free agency. That way, when you hear
of a ballplayer or a team owner complaining about money, at last
there will be a bit of context to place that whining in.
Baseball has been around as a professional
sport longer than any of America's professional team sports.
In fact its presence in American professional sports culture
is second only to boxing. It is, as the talking heads of the
sport like to say, "America's pastime." Its history
is both a reflection of this country's fears and ignorance, and
its hopes and promises. Like almost any other cultural phenomenon
of such prominence, it has served as solace and as a poke to
our conscience. Even casual observers of the game know that
the major leagues were all white until 1948. It took owner Branch
Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers to end this apartheid. He hired
Jackie Robinson, who faced hostile crowds, teammates, and managers
during the early part of his career, yet won the Rookie of the
Year award his first season. As other black players came into
the game, Robinson continued to excel at the sport.
By the 1960s, some of the major leagues'
biggest stars and best players were African-American. This didn't
mean that they were provided the same respect as white players,
either in their wallets or from the fans. As we well know, racism
and apartheid still reigned in America, especially in the south.
We also know that people were fighting and dying to end it,
including some athletes. Jackie Robinson put it this way when
he went south to speak to civil rights workers: I'm not as
bold as some of these little 4 and 10 year old kids in the south.
I don't like those big teeth I see on dogs. I don't like to
see the expressions of a policeman in Alabama and I don't like
to read about pregnant women being poked in the stomach by policemen
with nightsticks...(so) I believe I must go down there and say
to my people thank you for what you are doing not only for me
and my children, but for America...."
In 1960, the great Boston Red Sox hitter
Ted Williams retired by hitting a home run in his last at bat
and the Yankees, who were (and continue to be) the richest Major
League Baseball (MLB) franchise, lost the World Series to the
lowly Pittsburgh Pirates on a home run by Bill Mazeroski in the
bottom of the ninth in the seventh and last game of the series.
Meanwhile, under the direction of their owner Walter O'Malley,
the Brooklyn Dodgers moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. They
would eventually play in a stadium that had been built on land
stolen, bought and cajoled from its owners and tenants. This
land, known as Chavez Ravine, had housed thousands of Mexican-American
and Chicano poor and working class folks. The baseball that
my father knew was rapidly going the way of the family farm,
segregation and the "old America." Players were tired
of being controlled by the owners. Further disruption lay ahead.
In 1966 Dodgers' pitchers Don Drysdale
and Sandy Koufax refused to report for spring training, holding
out for more money and demanding that Dodger owner O'Malley negotiate
with their agent. O'Malley refused to do so. Eventually O'Malley
removed himself from the negotiations and the pitchers got 125,000
apiece for the year, more than any other players. Around the
same time, the very first attempts at organizing the players
began when lawyer and union organizer Marvin Miller set up his
office.
Right before opening day in April 1968,
Martin Luther King was murdered in Memphis. The commissioner
suggested that teams postpone their starts and some owners balked.
Although some feared a loss of revenues if they postponed the
start of the season, many others were driven solely by their
racist country club outlook on life. IN response, many of the
players-black, Latino and white--issued a statement saying that
they would not play until after King's funeral. The games were
postponed.
Between the 1968 and 1969 season, Cardinal outfielder Curt Flood
asked for a $30,000 raise from the Cardinals' owner Gussie Busch
of Budweiser fame. Busch was a notorious union buster and capitalist.
He refused Flood's request, despite Flood's role as an integral
part of the team's winning runs in 1967 and 1968.
The 1969 season began with the threat
of a strike, but started on time after the owners made some concessions.
They were still trying to avoid the formation of a players'
union, which was by now a foregone conclusion. Baseball was
starting to feel some pressure from the NFL--which garnered favor
with television and was willing to change its format to work
according to television's rules. The Super Bowl only began in
1967, but by 1969 it already meant big time advertising dollars.
On October 15, 1969, the first nationwide
moratorium against the Vietnam War took place. Even baseball
was politicized. In Queens, New York, the Mets were playing
the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. Mayor John Lindsay
had ordered all flags to fly at half-mast in support of the moratorium.
However, the Marines color guard threatened to not perform the
national anthem before the game unless the flag was raised to
full height. Despite opposition, the stadium management gave
in to the Marines. Antiwar fans distributed leaflets and buttons
in the parking lot. Pitcher Tom Seaver mentioned that he opposed
the war and was a champion to all antiwar baseball fans everywhere.
The Mets won the series!
Players in all sports were looking more
and more like the rest of the young people in America. Their
hair was getting longer. Instead of coat and ties, they were
wearing blue jeans and stylish clothing. As rumors of pot smoking
and other drug use grew, the owners, being old school, got more
upset. Eventually, the countercultural influences become flagrant,
with folks like Red Sox pitcher Bill Spaceman Lee joking to the
press in the mid-1970s that the reason he pitched so well was
because he sprinkled pot on his Wheaties on the days that he
was scheduled to pitch. Comments like this did not endear him
or his buddies to the old school Red Sox management, nor did
his political statements against the war and in favor of marijuana
legalization.
After the season ended, Curt Flood was
traded in a five-player deal to the Pirates. Now, the Pirates
were not only a lowly team, the city itself was known for it's
particularly its racist fans. Flood, a black man, refused the
trade. In his letter to MLB commissioner Bowie Kuhn stating
the reasons for his refusal, he wrote: "After 12 years in
the major leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of property
to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes." Flood
continued, asking Kuhn to abrogate the reserve clause-a clause
that gave owners complete power over players until they were
traded, whereupon the new owner then assumed the same power.
Kuhn refused to do so. Former Supreme Court Justice Arthur
Goldberg signed on as Flood's lawyer. They began a court challenge
to the reserve clause. Many players testified in Flood's behalf,
including Jackie Robinson. Flood lost in New York Federal court
and then in the US Supreme Court in 1972.
He wrote later:
I guess you have to understand who
that person, who that Curt Flood was. I'm a child of the sixties,
I'm a man of the sixties. During that period of time this country
was coming apart at the seams. We were in SE Asia...good men
were dying for America...In the southern part of the US we were
marching for civil rights and Dr. King had been assassinated,
and we lost the Kennedys. And to think that merely because I
was a professional ballplayer, I could ignore what was going
on outside Busch stadium was truly hypocrisy and now I found
that all those great rights Americans were dying for, I didn't
have in my own profession...
In 1972 the players voted 633-10 in favor
of a strike. The season started thirteen days late after owners
break ranks and gave in-the profits to be made were more important
than their capitalist principles. In 1975, the reserve clause
was finally overturned after two players challenged it in arbitration.
The arbitration panel turned over the clause and free agency
began. Since then, the game has increased in popularity, cost
to the fan, and individual performance. In addition, strikes
are a regular occurrence. Numbers, which are so important to
a certain breed of fan, are skewed by steroids taken by players
who want the big contracts and might not get said contracts without
the use of such drugs, since their natural talent would prevent
that from happening. For every wealthy player, though, there
is an even wealthier owner. Of course, many of those owners
still cry poverty from their yachts off the Gulf Coast. Like
virtually every other aspect of US culture, the desire for profit
runs roughshod over the game's pure beauty.
Ron Jacobs
is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground,
which is being republished by Verso.
He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
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