Etan Thomas has guts

[Bluzmann57]

He is a professional basketball player for the Washington Wizards and he was up there at the Anti-war rally speaking out against the war and the illegal regime that started it. The reason I say he has guts is because the average career of a professional athlete is not a long one and Thomas is putting his basketball career and chance to make huge money on the line in my opinion. The Wizards, like any other pro sports team out there, really doesn't need a reason to cut him, all they need to say is that he just isn't good enough, even if he is. All team owners are wealthy and likely almost all of them are right wingers, if they are political at all. So I say three cheers for Etan Thomas. It's too bad more people in his position don't speak out. I believe it is fear which prevents some athletes from doing so. Fear of losing a potentially lucrative career doing something which they obviously love doing. One more thing, Thomas sounds like an educated, well spoken man. He took his college seriously I guess.

[babylonsister]

1. I'll add my three cheers and agree on the guts. If more 'personalities'

would speak out, this occupation might end faster.

[angstlessk]

2. Isn't he also a poet? I think he read a poem at the last rally???

He is a GREAT guy, and I would think so even if the did not play sports!

[babylonsister]

3. Here is the transcript of a speech he wrote for a DC anti-war demonstration:

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0927-20.htm

snip//

Here is the transcript. Read and pass it along – it has the power to topple tyrants.

“Giving all honor, thanks and praises to God for courage and wisdom, this is a very important rally. I'd like to thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts, feelings and concerns regarding a tremendous problem that we are currently facing. This problem is universal, transcending race, economic background, religion, and culture, and this problem is none other than the current administration which has set up shop in the White House.

In fact, I'd like to take some of these cats on a field trip. I want to get big yellow buses with no air conditioner and no seatbelts and round up Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Trent Lott, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Bush Jr. and Bush Sr., John Ashcroft, Giuliani, Ed Gillespie, Katherine Harris, that little bow-tied Tucker Carlson and any other right-wing conservative Republicans I can think of, and take them all on a trip to the ‘hood. Not to do no 30-minute documentary. I mean, I want to drop them off and leave them there, let them become one with the other side of the tracks, get them four mouths to feed and no welfare, have scare tactics run through them like a laxative, criticizing them for needing assistance.

I’d show them working families that make too much to receive welfare but not enough to make ends meet. I’d employ them with jobs with little security, let them know how it feels to be an employee at will, able to be fired at the drop of a hat. I’d take away their opportunities, then try their children as adults, sending their 13-year-old babies to life in prison. I’d sell them dreams of hopelessness while spoon-feeding their young with a daily dose of inferior education. I’d tell them no child shall be left behind, then take more money out of their schools, tell them to show and prove themselves on standardized exams testing their knowledge on things that they haven’t been taught, and then I’d call them inferior.

I’d soak into their interior notions of endless possibilities. I’d paint pictures of assisted productivity if they only agreed to be all they can be, dress them up with fatigues and boots with promises of pots of gold at the end of rainbows, free education to waste terrain on those who finish their bid. Then I’d close the lid on that barrel of fool’s gold by starting a war, sending their children into the midst of a hostile situation, and while they're worried about their babies being murdered and slain in foreign lands, I’d grace them with the pain of being sick and unable to get medicine.

Give them health benefits that barely cover the common cold. John Q. would become their reality as HMOs introduce them to the world of inferior care, filling their lungs with inadequate air, penny pinching at the expense of patients, doctors practicing medicine in an intricate web of rationing and regulations. Patients wander the maze of managed bureaucracy, costs rise and quality quickly deteriorates, but they say that managed care is cheaper. They’ll say that free choice in medicine will defeat the overall productivity, and as co-payments are steadily rising, I'll make their grandparents have to choose between buying their medicine and paying their rent.

Then I'd feed them hypocritical lines of being pro-life as the only Christian way to be. Then very contradictingly, I’d fight for the spread of the death penalty, as if thou shall not kill applies to babies but not to criminals.

Then I’d introduce them to those sworn to protect and serve, creating a curb in their trust in the law. I’d show them the nightsticks and plungers, the pepper spray and stun guns, the mace and magnums that they’d soon become acquainted with, the shakedowns and illegal search and seizures, the planted evidence, being stopped for no reason. Harassment ain’t even the half of it. Forty-one shots to two raised hands, cell phones and wallets that are confused with illegal contrabands. I’d introduce them to pigs who love making their guns click like wine glasses. Everlasting targets surrounded by bullets, making them a walking bull's eye, a living piñata, held at the mercy of police brutality, and then we’ll see if they finally weren’t aware of the truth, if their eyes weren’t finally open like a box of Pandora.

I’d show them how the other side of the tracks carries the weight of the world on our shoulders and how society seems to be holding us down with the force of a boulder. The bird of democracy flew the coop back in Florida. See, for some, and justice comes in packs like wolves in sheep's clothing. T.K.O.'d by the right hooks of life, many are left staggering under the weight of the day, leaning against the ropes of hope. When your dreams have fallen on barren ground, it becomes difficult to keep pushing yourself forward like a train, administering pain like a doctor with a needle, their sequels continue more lethal than injections.

They keep telling us all is equal. I’d tell them that instead of giving tax breaks to the rich, financing corporate mergers and leading us into unnecessary wars and under-table dealings with Enron and Halliburton, maybe they can work on making society more peaceful. Instead, they take more and more money out of inner city schools, give up on the idea of rehabilitation and build more prisons for poor people. With unemployment continuing to rise like a deficit, it's no wonder why so many think that crime pays.

Maybe this trip will make them see the error of their ways. Or maybe next time, we'll just all get out and vote. And as far as their stay in the White House, tell them that numbered are their days.”

[cali]

6. That's a great speech!

Three cheers for Thomas.

[bcoylepa]

4. He is an inspiration

check this article from the Nation

Thomas is walking in the footsteps of Muhammad Ali

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0924-12.htm

Thomas knows he may feel some heat for speaking out against Bush's war but feels an obligation to do so. "I have never had a problem standing up for what I believe in. I admire the athletes of the past, like Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, Kareem . Athletes that used their position as a platform to speak out on social issues and stand up for a cause. Basketball is not my life. To quote Bill Russell, 'You're not going to reduce me to an entertainer. I'm a man who stands up for what I believe in and you're going to respect me for it.' A quote I live by is, 'I speak my mind because biting my tongue would make my pride bleed.'"

[John Kerry VonErich]

5. Two Words: Mark Cuban

Owner of the Phoenix Suns, and Executive producer of that DePalma film I forgot the name of.

[Bluzmann57]

8. One: I said MOST owners

and two: I hope he owns my beloved Cubbies next year and for many years to come.
I like Cuban. He's more of a "normal" guy than most rich folks are. Or at least he acts like it.

[nuxvomica]

7. I was really impressed by his poem/speech at the rally

I was just watching it on C-Span. I didn't know who he was and I cringed a little at the thought of a pro athlete giving speech. Man, was I surprised! He got me out of my chair.