bjbj Announcer: Welcome back to The David Pakman Show. David: All right, welcome back
to the show. Dave Zirin is joining us on the phone, he's the best-selling author and "Nation"
Magazine's sports editor. We're here to talk about the movie where he lends his expertise,
"Not Just a Game: Power Politics in American Sports". There's a screening going on locally
here in Amherst, Massachusetts at Amherst Cinema on December 12th at 7:30 p.m., including
a Q&A with Dave Zirin. Hey, Dave, thanks for joining us. Dave Zirin: Hey, great to be here.
Thanks for having me. David: So whenever people say sports and politics don't mix, I always
think of Jackie Robinson, more significantly, as a sideshow distraction, I think of the
Tim Tebow anti-abortion thing last Superbowl, I think about the controversy in Arizona surrounding
SB-1070. I mean, sports in politics, to say that it is apolitical, the world of sports,
would just be flat wrong, would it not? Zirin: Oh, of course. I mean, you mentioned Jackie
Robinson, and we could also talk about Muhammad Ali in the 1960s, Billy Jean King. I mean,
there's a reason why these associations exist, it's because politics reflected into the world
of sports. But even if there had never been one activist athlete in history, even if we
didn't have any of these examples, there's the fact that sports is, in its most normal
times, is used as a platform for a certain kind of politics, like public funding for
stadiums is good, and fealty to the flag, and all those support the troops messages
at stadiums, like military appreciation night, which is a regular feature of stadium... of
going to the ballpark. I mean, David Patraeus flipped the coin at the Superbowl the year
before last, for goodness' sake. So there's always been politics at the park, agree with
those politics or disagree with them, and that is politics. That is politics. David:
That's right, I mean, one narrative is whether athletes specifically should or shouldn't
be political, and most choose not to be, some are, but the other issue that you bring up
is whether sports, the sports industry, the sports business, which is what it is in the
U.S., is inherently political, and the answer is yes. And I think that there is this, tell
me if you disagree, under a very thin guise of being non-political, sports in the U.S.
have kind of created this wholesale acceptance and embrace of a lot of conservative principals.
I mean, militarism, which you mentioned, corporatism, we have stadiums named after companies. Zirin:
Sure. David: The values and practices of those companies are barely ever mentioned, at least
when it refers to sports. And I would even argue homophobia and sexism are part of that
culture, too. Zirin: Sure. You know, all of these things have become very engrained in
the world of sports. I mean, I live in a town where people root for a team called the Redskins,
for goodness' sakes, and people here might not think that's political, but I'm sure in
many parts of the country, certainly including the Black Hills of the Dakotas and Arizona
and New Mexico, I'm sure it seems quite political that there's Redskins love here in Washington,
D.C. No, there's so much politics to sports, and there's so much, I think, political economies,
like the politics of economics, that run through sports, like this idea that says it's OK to
socialize debt and privatize profit, that people should give money for stadiums, and
that money automatically turns into private profit for owners. And this is what the film
"Not Just a Game" really attempts to look at critically, just the way, first of all,
it just seems to demolish this idea that sports aren't political. David: Right. Zirin: And
then it aims to take it to the next step, which says if sports are political, then we
should be claiming it and having out these political battles in the world of sports and
not just give up the game. David: But what if people just say you know what, I'm not
denying that these things exist, but I just like the team, I just pay attention to the
sports, I don't care nor want to know about any of the other stuff, and quite frankly,
I'm not influenced by it. I just follow the team. What would you say to that? Zirin: I'd
say to them well, you'd better turn on to the political part of sports or that political
part of sports is going to turn on you. I mean, you look at a situation like in Minneapolis,
St. Paul, where the Mississippi River Bridge collapsed the very week that they were going
to break ground on a new $300 million pubicly-funded stadium, or you look at Washington, D.C.,
where a billion-dollar baseball stadium, publicly funded, opened within a calendar year of the
Metro train going off the tracks, or you look at Hurricane Katrina and the way the Superdome
was really the homeless shelter of last resort and became utterly uninhabitable within, really,
within hours of people being herded in there. I would say like you need to pay attention
to this stuff, because it actually has a very, very intimate effect on all our lives. This
isn't about you volunteering your time to care about sports. I mean, this is about our
communities, our cities, our very lives. David: Let's talk a little bit specifically about
the military component. I mean, to me it seems hypocritical, and maybe that's not exactly
the right word, that while there is this idea that sports aren't political, the U.S. military
is basically promoted without any precondition or discussion or mitigation as patriotic,
and there's not even a question about the merits and what the military is doing. I mean,
it's not only with the flyovers and all of that, but as you mentioned, military appreciation,
and there's a lot of commercials that are specifically targeted at those who watch sports
by the military, are there not? Zirin: Yeah, I mean, we have a whole section of the film
specifically devoted to Pat Tillman, the U.S. Army Ranger, former NFL player who died, and
then the situation around his death was... his family was lied to on every which way
but loose. And we have that section in the film because it exposes it the most sharply,
everything you just described, because here you have Pat Tillman, here you have his family
that is just clamoring for truth and justice regarding the way that their son, their brother,
their husband died, and you have the NFL and Fox, and there's a scene in there of Fox Sports
like still just using the memory of Pat Tillman as this fallen soldier without even hinting
at the circumstances or controversies around his death. David: Right. Zirin: I mean, there's
a form of, just of vulgar historical sensorship when the Fox NFL pregame show takes place
from Bagram military base in Afghanistan and they show the new USO center at Bagram called
the Pat Tillman Center. David: Right. Zirin: And all the people that do the NFL show, like
Jimmy Johnson, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, they're all wearing fatigues. And you would
never know that Pat Tillman thought the war in Iraq was illegal, you would never know
that the circumstances around his death are fishier than the entire South Street Seaport,
you would never know any of this stuff. David: Right, well, originally... just to, I believe
that I'm right in saying originally it was reported that he died in some kind of heroic
circumstances. Zirin: Yes. David: We weren't given the exact details. It turned out it
was friendly fire. Does it make his death any less tragic? But it is not the... even
we could argue that after the media found out that that initial story wasn't accurate,
it was continually reported for some time, was it not? Zirin: Yeah, I mean, here's the
thing about it that was so terrible, is that his family was lied to, there was a nationally
televised funeral that was broadcast on ESPN, and that lies were told over his dead body.
And they painted a fake picture of what the truth was about this individual. And even
the idea that he died in friendly fire, I mean, there's still tons of questions about
it, because Pat Tillman was turning against the war, he was reading Noam Chomsky, he was
calling it illegal to whoever would listen, the fact that he'd done so many missions in
Iraq. And then this crazy firefight happens and he's the only one who dies with a three-bullet
cluster on his chest? I mean, it's... at the very least, it demands a serious investigation.
David: Absolutely. Zirin: And we haven't gotten anything, and his family just wants a measure
of truth. And then what's so terrible about it though for me in looking at it is that
you have to remember that the people who own NFL teams, I mean, these are billionaires,
they're some of the most influential people in the United States. They have not lifted
a finger, I've interviewed Pat's mother, have not lifted a finger to influence Washington,
D.C. to help her get at some of the closed records and redacted statements to find out
the truth of how her son died. David: Yeah, it's incredible. Zirin: So like I said, this
is why we took, I mean, and it was a very... it's a 58-minute film, and obviously some
tough decisions were made about what to do and what not to do in terms of what we wanted
to talk about with the whole panoply of politics and sports, but it seemed like the Tillman
story was absolutely essential. David: The film is, of course, "Not Just a Game: Power
Politics in American Sports". There's a screening this December 12th, 7:30 p.m., Dave Zirin
will be there, it's at Amherst Cinema in Amherst, Massachusetts. Thanks so much, Dave, for talking
to us today. Zirin: My privelege. Can't wait to be there. David: All right, so Louis, let's
take a break. We'll come back with more, and we will also announce the winners of our second-biggest
subscription state. There's a bunch of winners, you'll want to stay tuned and find out if
you are one of those. Announcer: The David Pakman Show
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