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Today's
Stories
August 30,
2004
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites of TheNaderbasher.com
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
Sex, Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
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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August
30, 2004
The
Team White America Loved to Hate
USA
Basketball in Black and White!
By
DAVE ZIRIN
How many times do we hear fans try to
assign wild-eyed political symbolism to sports teams? My friend
Zeke is convinced that "If the Yankees win that's good for
Bush!" I've also heard, "The Detroit Pistons beating
the LA Lakers will give confidence to blue collar workers around
the country." Or my favorite irrational analysis, "I
bet they fixed the Super Bowl so the 'Patriots' would win--you
know....because of the war."
But the Olympics are a different
beast. The US as the world's lone superpower lord over the Olympics
like Alexander the Great. Our defeats are celebrated as dents
in the armor. Rooting against the US outside this country becomes
as natural as cheering for Rocky Balboa.
But a new layer of people inside
the Unites States rooted against one US team in particular this
Olympics, and for all the wrong reasons. The bronze medal winning
US basketball squad became the team fans in the United States
loved to hate. According to a national poll, 54% of fans said
they wanted to see the team of NBA superstars lose--with another
20% reporting that they "kind of" wanted to see them
taken down.
Some of this animosity is more
racist than a Bob Jones University course syllabus.
As sports writer Jason Whitlock
wrote, it is as if White America got a memo that read, "[You]
do not have to support a group of black American millionaires
in any endeavor. Despite the hypocritical, rabid patriotism displayed
immediately after 9/11, it's perfectly suitable for Americans
to despise Team USA Basketball, Allen Iverson and all the other
tattooed NBA players representing our country. Yes, these athletes
are no more spoiled, whiny and rich than the golfers who fearlessly
represent us in the Ryder Cup, but at least Tiger Woods has the
good sense not to wear cornrows."
The confederate confines of
talk radio have been the breeding ground for this anger. On one
show, a caller who identified himself as a former member of the
American military, said he hates Team USA because they don't
"represent the America he fell in love with." When
asked to describe this America he fell in love with, he said,
"It was a country you could walk the streets without worrying
about being mugged.
Another ESPN morning radio
host--in an over-caffeinated frenzy--even called the players,
"uppity"--this being the classic slur for Black people
who "don't know their place."
Normally the code is subtler:
this team is "too hip hop". They "don't care"
or they have "too much attitude and swagger" are more
popularly used. But "uppity" is about as subtle as
a Bush campaign ad.
The racial slings and arrows
are easier for the sporting public than the uncomfortable truth.
The straight dope is that the US no longer owns a patent on the
game of basketball. Unlike 1992 when the first Dream Team of
Magic, Larry and Jordan posed for pictures and signed autographs
for opponents and then won by 40, the teams of Argentina, Italy,
Spain, Lithuania, and even Puerto Rico, now play an equal or
superior brand of basketball. They weave around the court like
it's the beautiful game of soccer, with back door cuts, infectious
flair, and libertine emotion. It's no coincidence Argentina won
the gold in both basketball and soccer. They play both sports
with a joy and teamwork that is a wonder to behold.
But instead of analyzing why
Argentina won, we get the gutter analysis of why the US lost.
Forgotten is that the US players are playing against international
teams that have been together for a dozen years. Forgotten is
the fact that these so called "lazy" players, agreed
to come while the top NBA stars refused to play. Forgotten is
that the NBA is now an international league with players from
Puerto Rico's Carlos Arroyo to Argentina's Manu Ginobli, to China's
Yao Ming. Most importantly, forgotten is that International Basketball
bears about as much resemblance to the NBA as Tai Chi does to
Judo.
International ball is a game
of constant passing, three point bombing, sharp shooting goliaths,
packed in Zone defenses and a paint that is shaped like a geometrists
nightmare--some sort of trapezoidal rhombus.
As former NBA coach Dr. Jack
Ramsey wrote, "It may be just about impossible to teach
the international game to a group of NBA players in the span
of a couple weeks. Coach Brown, and assistants Gregg Popovich
and Roy Williams, are among the top coaches in the game today.
[and] they haven't gotten the job done."
The US lost because USA Basketball--not
the players--were arrogant enough to think they could roll the
balls on the court and other teams would genuflect in front of
the NBA's marketing might.
Count me as someone who is
glad the US lost--it's always good to see William "Braveheart"
Wallace stick it to Longshanks--but the racist scapegoating reveals
all that is bankrupt about the so called Olympic spirit. Face
the facts: Argentina is on top of the basketball world because
they can pass, shoot, and run, better than anyone in the world.
They have taken down the master's house with the master's tools.
Dave Zirin has a book coming out this Spring
2005, "What's My Name Fool: Sports and Resistance in the
United States (Haymarket Books). He can be reached at: editor@pgpost.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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