Baseball in DC
A gift from the poor and disenfranchised residents of the capital city to the billionaire owners and players of major league baseball. Dave Zirin explains.
BTW, RFK Stadium, where the pitiful Senators played until 1970 when they moved to Texas (where aWol eventually gave them a new stadium courtesy of the taxpayers of Arlington), is still sitting there in east Washington a few miles from the Capitol. It is still used by the DC United soccer team. It could easily be used to house baseball once again, except that it doesn't have all of the luxury boxes and other amenities that the filthy rich demand for their stadiums. So major league baseball, with the help of its cheerleaders at the Washington Post and the mayor, has extorted DC into paying $440 million for a new stadium.
In Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," there is a shadowy "reverse Robinhood" character who steals from the poor and gives to the rich. Rand, of course, thought this was a good thing, but I think most of us have some serious difficulties with that. But that's basically what our world "leaders" are: reverse Robinhoods. The interlocking "free-trade" globalization and military-industrial complexes are their two grandest and most profitable (and destructive) schemes. But professional sports seems to be a profitable hobby for these crooks as well, with the same effects. Billionaires connive to get the poor to build stadiums where millionaires get paid for playing kids' games.
BTW, RFK Stadium, where the pitiful Senators played until 1970 when they moved to Texas (where aWol eventually gave them a new stadium courtesy of the taxpayers of Arlington), is still sitting there in east Washington a few miles from the Capitol. It is still used by the DC United soccer team. It could easily be used to house baseball once again, except that it doesn't have all of the luxury boxes and other amenities that the filthy rich demand for their stadiums. So major league baseball, with the help of its cheerleaders at the Washington Post and the mayor, has extorted DC into paying $440 million for a new stadium.
In Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," there is a shadowy "reverse Robinhood" character who steals from the poor and gives to the rich. Rand, of course, thought this was a good thing, but I think most of us have some serious difficulties with that. But that's basically what our world "leaders" are: reverse Robinhoods. The interlocking "free-trade" globalization and military-industrial complexes are their two grandest and most profitable (and destructive) schemes. But professional sports seems to be a profitable hobby for these crooks as well, with the same effects. Billionaires connive to get the poor to build stadiums where millionaires get paid for playing kids' games.
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