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Today's
Stories
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The Coming Elections and the Future
of American Global Power
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
March 9, 2004
Greg Weiher
The
Zarqawi Gambit, Part 2
Ben Tripp
Word Up! Let's Have a Conversation
Tom Barry
Neo-Cons Target Syria
Sharon Smith
The Hypocrites in the Catholic Church
Robert Fisk
The Same Old Iraq
Doug Giebel
The Bush Strategy: Laughing All the Way
Ralph Nader
Pension Rights, the Trail of Broken Promises
Daniel Estulin
In Memory of Ricardo Ortega: a Great Journalist, Killed in Haiti
Dave Lindorff
Martha Stewart's Cloudy Day
Saul Landau
Will the Filthy Rich Dump Bush?
Website of the Day
Imperial Armies in the Garden
March 8, 2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Aristide
Eric Ruder
An Interview
with Robert Fatton on the Coup in Haiti
Robert Jensen
The Presidential Library Terrorist
Connection
Mike Whitney
Expel the US from the Security Council
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Helped Cover Up Pakistan's
Nuclear Proliferation
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Why is Apartheid Touted as a Solution?
Kevin Alexander Gray
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond
Derek Seidman
Radical Continuity: an Interview with Paul Buhle
Steve Perry
Kerry Fiddles While He Could be Burning Bush
Website of the Day
Patriot
Act Game
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
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
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.
|
Weekend
Edition
March 12 / 14, 2004
She Turned Her Back
on the War
An
Interview with Toni Smith
By DAVE ZIRIN
One year ago, Toni Smith was just another Division
III athlete grinding through her senior year as Captain of the
Women's basketball team at Manhattanville College. Yet her decision
to protest on the court at the start of the US War vs. Iraq and
turn her back on the American Flag during the national anthem,
sparked debate throughout the sports and political world. Today
Toni Smith is living in New York City, working for a young people's
mentoring program called New York Youth at Risk (www.nyyouthatrisk.org).
One year later Toni Smith speaks to Dave Zirin, News Editor of
the Prince George's Post, looking back on the events of the last
year.
Dave Zirin: It's been almost a year
since you took your demonstration to the court. When did you
first see the need to make a stand and why did you feel it was
so important to take the actions that you did?
Toni Smith: I'm from a mixed racial and
ethnic background. My mom is Jewish, and my dad is Black, white
and Cherokee. I was learning about the prison industrial complex
and the wars against Native Americans. It made me very angry
but I never paid attention to how this history played out on
the [basketball] court. I never thought about the National Anthem
because I went to alternative schools. I never had to say the
pledge. I never had to stand and salute anything before class.
On the court I would just stand and let the time go by. So last
year I was talking with my boyfriend. His family's very politically
active also. They don't ever stand for the National Anthem, and
they're very clear on their position. We were talking about all
the policies we dislike, and he said "why do you stand for
the anthem at your games?" And I said, "Well I never
really thought about it. I'm the captain of the team, and I have
to be a team leader and a good role model." He said "but
that has nothing to do with who you are. This is not what you
believe in. You just told me how much you dislike this flag and
what it stands for." He's part Black and part Cherokee also
and he said to me "This flag represents the slaughter of
our ancestors", and I said 'you're absolutely right.' We
had a game a few days later, and as we stood up to sing the National
Anthem I said no.
DZ: When was this?
TS: This was probably the first week
in December [2002]. It was at NYU. I thought, "No, this
is not more important than my beliefs. This [ritual] has nothing
to do with who I am." I didn't tell anyone. I didn't really
think of it as something that should be made public. It went
unnoticed even by my teammates and family. Then one day the president
of the school came up to me and said "if anyone gives you
any trouble, send them to me." I said "alright, but
it's not an issue." And then he told me that there was this
huge uproar that there were several parents of the team who were
furious and were threatening to go to the NCAA.
DZ: How did the uproar then unfold?
TS: A few of the parents went to the
president of the school. The next thing that happened was one
of my teammates called my dorm room and said, "you have
to look on instant messenger. You have to see what our team mates
are writing about you." There was this back and forth I.M.
battle saying, "I can't believe Toni's doing this, what
kind of a team captain is she?" All of this was done behind
my back. No one asked me why, no one confronted me about it.
The next day in the locker room I confronted the girl who began
the I.M. discussion and that turned into an explosion within
the team.
DZ: Every news story said that you
were protesting the war on Iraq in particular. Was that in fact
the case?
TS: Iraq was the icing on the cake. The
war took me from angry at the general direction of the US to
"are you kidding!?!" But it wasn't just the war. It
was everything before that. It was everything that the flag is
built on, every thing that is continuing to happen and things
that haven't even happened yet.
DZ: Why do you think your actions
touched such a nerve?
TS: The debate around the war, no question.
We were playing a game at St. Joseph's. Their assistant coach
had just been sent over to serve. They were angry. Nothing really
came about it at that game, but the next team we were scheduled
to play was the Merchant Marine Academy. People at St. Joseph's
called and warned them about me. In addition to that a news reporter
got a hold of it. The Merchant Marine Academy was the worst team
in the league. They' were something like 0 and 25. They don't
have any fans, and let me tell you, this gym was packed. You
can't even imagine what it was like. They had cadets lined up
on the sidelines, each with their own flag that was about seven
feet tall. Every single person in the stand was in uniform,
with their own flag. They were shouting things at me - obscenities,
curses, you name it. It was unbelievable. It was so bad that
even the teammates who hated what I was doing had to put themselves
in my place and defend my position. It came down to "you're
not going to disrespect my team." That news reporter captured
how angry everyone was at that game, and at the next game the
AP was there and the story took off.
DZ: Out of teammates, coaches, administration,
school president, who was supportive and who wasn't?
TS: Half of my teammates were completely
against me. Completely against everything I was doing. There
were four girls who were very against me and tried to make my
life a living hell. The one who started the instant messenger
drama sent a petition around the school, saying, "Sign this
to demand that Toni Smith return all her financial aid, because
she is disrespecting our school." What's the point in that?
We were teammates in the middle of the season, one of the best
seasons our school has ever had, and it just didn't make any
sense. They talked to reporters when we were asked not to by
the coach and by the president. When I finally decided to talk
to the press it was because my teammates were speaking out without
permission. It got to the point where either they're going to
have lies out there or I speak up.
DZ: Did any teammates back you up?
TS: Two of my teammates always stood
next to me during the National Anthem, one in front of me, one
behind me, holding my hands - Melissa Solano and Dionne Walker.
They were absolutely and completely supportive one hundred percent,
and would have taken a bullet for me. I couldn't hang out with
anyone else on the team. Then there were four or so girls who
were in between. It was "I don't agree with your position
but respect your right to do it, but I wish you weren't doing
it because it's making life hell for the team." I can respect
that. They tried to stay neutral because we were friends. And
they were torn kind of between me and what their parents thought
and the season was difficult for them.
DZ: What about your coach, Shawn Lincoln?
TS: I have to give it to him. He took
a lot of slack for not punishing me. I think it was very important
for Manhattanville, promoting itself as a liberal arts college
who promotes socially and ethically aware graduates that he was
so supportive. He made it a point not to include what his personal
views were, and I still don't know what he thought, but he definitely
supported my right to protest, whether he would rather I did
it or not. I really commend him for that, because he didn't have
to. Not just that, but he reprimanded those players who were
deliberately going against what his orders for the team [about
talking to the press]. They were eventually held in check.
DZ. In the Merchant Marines story,
you painted a picture of a team that was despite its differences
able to pull together. Was that something that was just a one
game thing?
TS: There was tension throughout the
season. It got to a point towards the end where we had to agree
to disagree. It took a lot more energy for them to trash me and
for me to hate them than to just play together. I think our team
had so much potential to be a great team and that overpowered
everything else that was going on. And I think everyone realized
the potential that we had to have a really great season and to
break records that our school, our team has never broken, and
I think that was more important. We ended up with the third
best record in the history of Manhattanville. We all should take
credit for that. For certain games I don't know how we pulled
it off. I don't know how we just played together and did it,
but we did. And we played very well as a team.
DZ: If someone were to come up to
you and ask, "Protests were happening through the spring.
Why demonstrate on the basketball court? Why you're your stand
there?" What would you say?
TS: I would say that it wasn't really
a stand. It was just, "I'm here to play basketball and I
have to salute the flag? I don't want to." Manhattanville
is a small Division III school. Our fans consisted of close friends,
family, and a few girls. Not more than sixty people would be
at the games. So it would not be the best place to get a message
out.
DZ: What do you say to people who
counter, "Sports is no place for a political acts"?
TS: I say that during World War II, when
America decided that we needed to show our superiority to other
countries, they implemented the National Anthem before sporting
events and when they did that they put politics in the middle
of sports. The question is not why did I choose to turn my back
on the flag. It's why do we have to do this at basketball games?
If they don't want politics in sports then they need to take
the National Anthem out because that is inherently political.
DZ: We just passed the 35th anniversary
of the Tommie Smith and John Carlos's medal stand Olympic protests.
When you were doing this, were you conscious that you were part
of a tradition of sports and politics?
TS: I was aware of Muhammad Ali, and
I was aware of Tommy Smith and John Carlos. But I didn't connect
myself to them. I saw one article that had my picture right next
to theirs, and I was completely blown away. That was the first
time I connected the two. I didn't feel in any way like it was
on the same scale. I will say that like [Smith and Carlos] the
point was not to put myself forward but to get people to talk
about these issues. Last year people didn't want to acknowledge
that we were going to war. They wanted to hide it. It can become
really easy to not acknowledge the fact that we are killing people
in other countries because it's not here. A big issue I had with
September 11th was that was the first event since Pearl Harbor
where there was an attack of such magnitude on this country.
And you could see this all over the place, people going "never
forget, never forget 9/11." 9/11 was terrible, but that
level of destruction is every single day for other people in
other countries. I think that it is unbelievably arrogant to
say [in the aftermath of 9/11]"now we can do whatever we
want." It has sent the message that "we are better
than you. We are superior human beings to everyone else in the
world." It's really appalling.
DZ: Were you asked about speaking
at any anti-war demonstrations?
TS: After the season, I was asked once
or twice to come and speak, and I declined. I felt like if I
was going to attend demonstrations, I was going to attend then
as a regular person, not a person of importance. If it ever got
to the point where I was speaking at a rally it would be because
I had done the work, I had paid the dues, and I didn't feel like
I deserved that.
DZ: Did you ever feel physically threatened
during this whole process?
TS: The guy who walked onto the court
with the flag; I actually didn't feel threatened by him. I think
we were all in too much shock- as to how he got onto the court
and why he was interrupting our game to do this- to even be scared
about it. It wasn't until afterwards, when my family and a few
of my friends were really outraged. 'How could this school let
him get on the campus? What if he had a weapon? You're not safe.'
Then I got a bit concerned; but I still wasn't scared. I got
one letter in the mail that was a death threat. It said, "I've
seen you, I've been close enough to touch you, I'm a disabled
veteran, I'll find you again, you won't be able to disrespect
my country anymore, I'll make sure that it's an end for you."
That scared me. I was a little bit frightened after that, and
I was more cautious about where I went for a little while.
DZ: Did you feel like any of the coverage
was skewed because of sexism?
TS: I didn't think it at first. Someone
brought it to my attention. They said, "You're threatening.
You are saying things that no one is saying right now. You're
protesting things that people are too afraid to protest, and
you're a woman." And they said that even though Muhammad
Ali and Tommie Smith and John Carlos protested and were reprimanded,
they were men. That puts you in an entirely different category
and people don't know how to deal with it. That really got me
thinking after that. I still don't know what conclusions I've
come to because of it, but I definitely feel like it is a story
of its own because people don't expect women to be bold and speak
out. I think when women do then that puts you in another category,
which is "you must be a lesbian, you must be mean, you're
not a lady." It brings up hundreds of other stories. We've
seen that happen with other female athletes; ones who don't pose
for magazines, ones who come out and say they're lesbians. It
completely discredits you as an athlete, as a person. People
don't want to hear your story after that. Even in a lot of the
letters I got, it went back to my looks. It all went back to
my physical appearance. : I got a lot of "you're a rich
white girl who doesn't know anything." I want to know where
they got that information. I'm definitely not rich, I'm not all
white, and the white part of me is Jewish so you're really off
on that.
DZ: It's been a year. How has the
stand you took changed your life?
TS: I definitely have grown mentally.
Part of that is due to the stand I took. Part of that is just
the course that the world is taking and seeing it through my
own eyes without the restraints of college, without the restraints
of parents. I work for an organization where we deal with teenagers
I'm a lot more conscious of the development of teenagers and
young people and their mindset.
DZ: What about the actual events in
the world the last year? Do feel like the course of events in
Iraq has validated the stand that you took?
TS: It was always validated to me, and
nothing anyone ever said invalidated or made me question what
I did. The only thing I ever questioned was my safety and the
safety of my family and friends. But the way I felt at the time
was that there were many protests during the Vietnam War that
outraged people. Then when circumstances came to light about
how illegal the war was and how many killed and died senselessly,
people said, "Oh, now I get it." I think that's what's
happening now. There are stories now that have been done about
me- because it's the end of the year and people are recapping-
and the tone is more supportive. There are a lot of people who
were angry at the time, saying, "How dare you not support
my son, he's going off to war." And now either their son
has died or their son is still over there, and they realize that
this war is bogus and. they don't have any health insurance or
have to wait on line for food. Now they say, "oh, I get
it. Now I get what you were trying to say. And now my son is
over there, my daughter's over there and I can't help when I
could have helped before." So I think a lot of what has
come to light, as we knew it would- because they couldn't keep
it hidden forever. If that validates it for other people then
I'm glad. They don't have to agree with me but at least they
can understand why.
DZ: Do you have any regrets?
TS: None. I'm really big on not living
with regrets. There are always things in your life you're not
going to be happy with, choices you've made that you're not pleased
with, but every choice you make you make it for a reason and
you might not know that that reason is until later, and it might
hurt you at the time, but eventually it pans out and it shapes
who you are as a person. Anything that I would have done differently
would have altered who I am now.
DZ: Do have any last comments
TS: Yes. I was one of those kids who
went to overcrowded schools with no books and we had to recycle
Xerox copies. That was a choice that I made, and that my mother
made, and I've never regretted it. When I got to college, and
I told my stories of high school- how we didn't have a gym, how
we played in a junior high school across the street- they said
"oh my god! I can't believe you had to do this, I can't
believe you didn't have this, you didn't have books!" And
then we were assigned to write ten-page research papers, and
none of them knew how to do it. I was in a higher writing class
than any of my friends and they were complaining, "How can
I write a three page paper? What's an introduction? How do I
end it?" They didn't know one thing from another. It is
unfair that there is such unequal funding between school districts,
but there is something to gain from every situation. Examine
where you feel overlooked, uncounted, deemed unimportant, and
use it to build yourself up. I would not trade the education
I received for an education at a private school. It's all about
what you take from life, not what you feel life is or is not
giving you. The script is unwritten until we write our own stories.
Dave Zirin
is the Editor of the Prince George's Post in Prince George's
County Maryland. He can be reached at editor@pgpost.com.
His sports writing can be read at www.edgeofsports.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
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