Rug Burn Junky on 1/4/2007 at 23:49
Quote Posted by *Zaccheus*
You do realise that I'm not talking about the actual game but about the whole event ?
Yes, and the "whole event" amounts to, as others have pointed out, a big fat cynical empty gesture, precisely because the actual game is meaningless, and nobody
would watch it but for the fact that it's a token "Civil Rights Game."did watch it.
They send out a press release, a couple of retards in the media get to go on breathlessly about "how far we've come" and the city of Memphis gets a couple of bucks for hosting a game which otherwise would have just been played in front of a couple of hundred tourists in Florida. That's it. That's all this means. Next year, there won't even be a press release, and the PR stunt will have faded into obscurity, and nobody will give a shit.
Shouldn't, however, be surprising that you would fall for this as a PR stunt, as your usual trite, clichéd, meaningless political observations are right in line with this sort of thing.
Hell, we've got four Americans in this thread (including myself, being a DIE HARD baseball fan who just spent $1400, and the past 7 hours in a fantasy baseball league draft), and every one of us is telling you that it's a meaningless gimmick.
Are you really stupid enough to argue with that?
Aerothorn on 2/4/2007 at 00:48
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
It's like the recent events to celebrate the bicentennial of the (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_Trade_Act) slave trade act, which is all somewhat obscene when there are more slaves in the world today than there were back then.
And there are a lot more people in the world today than there were back then. Therefore, more slaves. Or is a greater percent of the US population enslaved? Because, yes, we ARE talking about the USA here. This is not the Fijian Civil Rights Movement.
SD on 2/4/2007 at 01:10
I'm pretty sure acts passed by the British parliament in 1807 only applied to the British Empire :rolleyes:
And while it sure is great that the US is slave-free these days, there are still 30 million + people in slavery around the world, so I don't think it's quite JOB DONE yet.
*Zaccheus* on 2/4/2007 at 07:48
Quote Posted by Rug Burn Junky
Hell, we've got four Americans in this thread (including myself, being a DIE HARD baseball fan who just spent $1400, and the past 7 hours in a fantasy baseball league draft), and every one of us is telling you that it's a meaningless gimmick.
Are you really stupid enough to argue with that?
What did you spend $1400 on ?
Quote Posted by demagogue
One reason that I can give it some credit is that I went to one of those WWII veteran's gatherings in D.C. A black former ship gunner was talking, and he said when he was on his ship, fighting along side whites, he was still very prejudiced, and even risking his life wasn't enough to get any respect. Then one day there was a radio news report, and everyone on the ship heard that a team had signed up a black player to play professional baseball. He said it was the first time in his life that whites looked at him with respect, and to those that didn't he said he felt like for the first time he didn't have to give a shit: a black man was playing professional baseball. And all these decades later, he still got choked up, and said that was probably one of the most important days of his life.
That's a great story.
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
I'm pretty sure acts passed by the British parliament in 1807 only applied to the British Empire :rolleyes:
And while it sure is great that the US is slave-free these days, there are still 30 million + people in slavery around the world, so I don't think it's quite JOB DONE yet.
Nobody is saying job done.
Convict on 2/4/2007 at 10:14
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
I'm pretty sure acts passed by the British parliament in 1807 only applied to the British Empire :rolleyes:
And while it sure is great that the US is slave-free these days, there are still 30 million + people in slavery around the world, so I don't think it's quite JOB DONE yet.
Pardon me but where are these slaves? I think India has some due to the caste system and people being sold into servitude or prostitution but 30 million seems rather large.
SD on 2/4/2007 at 10:43
Quote Posted by Convict
Pardon me but where are these slaves?
I swear you do this just to waste my time. Would it really be impossible for you to use an (
http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/) Internet search engine at all? Never mind. Some stats (
http://www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/slavery3.htm) here. Geography of modern slavery (
http://www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/toc.htm) here.
Of course, it all depends on how strictly one defines slavery. If we use the strictest traditional definition, there's 3 million or so. If you expand it to include forced labour, it's ten times that. If you include all trafficked people (as I probably ought to have done) you're looking at 100 million or more.
Quote:
I think India has some due to the caste system and people being sold into servitude or prostitution but 30 million seems rather large.
30 million is a conservative estimate, as you can see.
Convict on 2/4/2007 at 11:05
No I do it because you're fat and I'm hoping the work will make you shed some weight.
Rug Burn Junky on 2/4/2007 at 14:34
Quote Posted by *Zaccheus*
What did you spend $1400 on ?
$1400 is chump change compared to the $15k I'll take home when I win the league.
And why can I afford to risk it? Because there are few things in this world that I know more about than baseball.
*Zaccheus* on 2/4/2007 at 15:06
How many games do you go to in a season ?
Rug Burn Junky on 2/4/2007 at 15:26
Now? About ten.
At my peak, when I had season tickets for the Yanks in law school? About 40.
Your point, or do you even have one?
