(Ken Kendricks, third from left, and friends at a recent JFA reunion show)
Without even considering the political leanings of the Arizona Diamondbacks’ ownership, I have no trouble rooting against them. For one, their ballpark naming rights are held by a predatory lender, for another, I had the worst stadium nachos in my entire adult life while watching Pedro Martinez subdue the hosts during a visit to Phoenix in 2006. Congressman Raul Grijalva would just as soon advise tourists like me to stay home, however, calling for a national boycott of the state of Arizona over the passage of the “Support Our Law Enforcement & Safe Neighborhoods Act”. As Edge Of Sports’ Dave Zirin explains over at The Progressive (link courtesy Jason Cohen), said legislation “has brought echoes of apartheid to Arizona.” And a boycott of the state need not be restricted to tourism, as Zirin advocates ignoring the NL West’s D-Backs entirely. Thankfully, Howe Gelb‘s vast catalog is unaffected.
As the official Arizona Diamondbacks boycott call states, œIn 2010, the National Republican Senatorial Committee™s third highest Contributor was the [executives of the] Arizona Diamondbacks, who gave $121,600; furthermore, they also contributed $129,500, which ranked as the eighteenth highest contribution to the Republican Party Committee. The team™s big boss, Ken Kendrick, and his family members, E. G. Kendrick Sr. and Randy Kendrick, made contributions to the Republicans totaling a staggering $1,023,527. The Kendricks follow in the footsteps of team founder and former owner Jerry Colangelo. Colangelo, along with other baseball executives and ex-players, launched a group called Battin™ 1000: a national campaign that uses baseball memorabilia to raise funds for a Campus for Life, the largest anti-choice student network in the country. Colangelo was also deputy chair of Bush/Cheney 2004 in Arizona, and his deep pockets created what was called the Presidential Prayer Team”a private evangelical group that claims to have signed up more than 1 million people to drop to their knees and pray daily for Bush.
The Diamondbacks™ owners have every right to their politics, and if we policed the political proclivities of every owner™s box there might not be anyone left to root for (except for the Green Bay Packers, who don™t have an owner™s box). But this is different. The law is an open invitation to racial profiling and harassment. The boycott call is coming from inside the state.
If the owners of the Diamondbacks want to underwrite an ugly edge of bigotry, we should raise our collective sporting fists against them. A boycott is also an expression of solidarity with Diamondback players such as Juan Guitterez, Gerardo Parra, and Rodrigo Lopez. They shouldn™t be put in a position where they™re cheered on the playing field and then asked for their papers when the uniform comes off.
Couldn’t have said it better. A shameful conceit to think the Arizona Governor can in any way justify this bigotry. Let’s hope the federal court will re-address any state practice that condones racial profiling.
Arizona can pass race base laws, pass Birthers laws and the state can continue to boycott Martin Luther King Day, well the rest of the Country can boycott the state of Arizona and spank them where it hurts them the most their pocket book. Their phony patriotism is sickening, they are just racists going by another name. We all know you are just itching to put a sheet on their head? Let’s face it the Republicans had eight years to deal with health care, immigration, climate change and financial oversight and governance and they failed. It appears that the Republican Party is only good at starting wars (two in eight years, with fat War profiteering contracts to friends of Cheney/Bush) but not at winning wars as seen by the continuing line of body bags that keep coming home. The Republicans party will continue turned inward to their old fashion obstructionist party (and their Confederacy appreciation roots) because they continue to allow a small portions (but very loud portion) of their party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards†to rule their party. I will admit that this fringe is very good at playing “Follow the Leader†by listening to their dullard leaders, Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush, Savage, Sarah Bailin, Orly Taitz, Victoria Jackson, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the Blowhards and acting as ill programmed robots (they have already acted against doctors that perform abortions). The Birthers and the Tea party crowd think they can scare, intimidate and force others to go along with them by comments like “This time we came unarmedâ€, let me tell you something not all ex-military join the fringe militia crazies who don’t pay taxes and run around with face paint in the parks playing commando, the majority are mature and understand that the world is more complicated and grey than the black and white that these simpleton make it out to be and that my friend is the point. The world is complicated and people like Hamilton, Lincoln, and Roosevelt believed that we should use government a little to increase social mobility, now it’s about dancing around the claim of government is the problem. The sainted Reagan passed the biggest tax increase in American history and as a result federal employment increased, but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition. For a party that gave us Abraham Lincoln, it is tragic that the ranks are filled with too many empty suits and the crazy Birthers who have not learned that the way our courts work is that you get a competent lawyer, verifiable facts and present them to a judge, if the facts are real and not half baked internet lies, then, and only then, do you proceed to trial. The Birthers seem to be having a problem with their so called “factsâ€. Let’s face it no one will take the Birthers seriously until they win a case, but until then, you will continue to appear dumb, crazy or racist, or maybe all three. I heard that Orly Taitz now wants to investigate the “Republican 2009 Summer of Love†list: Assemblyman, Michael D. Duvall (CA), Senator John Ensign (NV), Senator Paul Stanley (TN), Governor Mark Stanford (SC), Board of Ed Chair, and Kristin Maguire AKA Bridget Keeney (SC), she wants to re-establish a family values party, that’s like saying that the Catholic Church cares about the welling being of children in their care, too late for that.
I don’t see anyone willing to give a hand out to Arizona to help with the immense costs that illegal aliens have accrued in the state. The federal government has never manned up to put a stop to the onslaught of newcomers across our borders. In fact, they have done everything but handcuff our border patrol to the steering wheels of their patrol vehicles and created a big neon sign that says “Open For Business”. Also, I find it hilarious and sad that if you give money to an organization that helps mothers “choose” an alternative to abortion through adoption you are called anti-choice. So, we should call people who insist on abortion as “anti-common sense birth control practices and baby killers” instead? Yeah, that would sound good on Planned Parenthood’s sign board. Great idea!!
Aaron,
“Open For Business” indeed. If a tour of restaurant kitchens in Chicago or Los Angeles is any indication, the price of nearly every good and service you pay for in Arizona – just like in the abovementioned towns, only probably moreso – is riding on the relationship between your state’s business owners and their supply of inexpensive undocumented labor. See, there is no illegal employee without an illegal employer. So have you picketed any of those lately? Probably not. I’ll bet you line up at the cash register and go on your merry way instead, just itching for a chance to “get tough” on the browner parts of the problem as you remain ignorant of your role in the real causes.
Business owners avoiding fair and legal labor practices aren’t even the only way the US is responsible for the situation. Undocumenteds can’t farm in Mexico any more, because we subsidize our own corn farmers by the hundreds of billions and that corn is dumped in markets south of the border. Yet, I don’t see any Arizona laws enabling cops to pull over people on suspicion of being ADM or ConAgra executives. I do see a bunch of white douchebags eagerly embracing gestapo tactics worthy of…well, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuela etc. So thanks a lot for that, genius.
Ditto Montana.. Very well said. Come down here to Arizona and run for Governor please!
Check out this article that was in Salon today:
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/04/27/arizona_immigration_law_mlb/index.html
I saw Jay Leno at Correspondent Dinner his best line was; “That was my favorite story (this year) Republicans and a Lesbian bondage club. It’s ironic, Republicans don’t want lesbian getting married but they do like watching them “tie the knotâ€. So I thought that was interesting.â€
You can say the same about Tea Party (the hatters nor debaters or as others have dubbed them screamer not dreamers), they say they respect the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence but they do not mind passing laws, through weak Governors who only care about getting reelected on the backs of undocumented workers, that will not pass Constitution muster, just like Arizona’s House Bill 2779 from two years ago, keep passing them Arizona and the rest of us will continue to challenged them and you will fail in a court of law.