Sports owners often make or break a professional teams success, and unfortunately a lot of the time owners know a lot about money, and not a lot about sports. Jerry Jones put together a billion dollar stadium for the Dallas Cowboys in 2008, including the worlds largest televsion jumbotron. Before Jones, the Cowboys were a great dynasty winning multiple super bowls with players such as Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, and Emmitt Smith. However over the past 14 years, the Cowboys have won one measly playoff game and a lot of fans blame Jones for the teams struggles. In fact, fans made a petition to president Barack Obama in an attempt to get Jones fired.
Many may argue that trying to get the President of the United States involved with the Dallas Cowboys business decisions is kind of ridiculous, and it probably is. But there are different perspectives that need to be considered in something like this. Is Jerry Jones responsible for deceiving people's hard earned money for his own personal income? With a payroll like the Dallas Cowboys and the amount of effort he put forth his billion dollar stadium it's fairly conclusive that Jerry Jones likes his money.
Jones of course wants the Cowboys to win, seeing as it benefits him, the fans, and maybe even the NFL from an economic standpoint considering the high amount of payroll Dallas gets. As a result of the dynasty I previously mentioned, and the impressive history of Dallas involving hall of famer and football pioneer Tom Landry, there are numerous Cowboys fans from all over the country. I know from experience, whenever the Cowboys are on the road, there are still numerous fans rooting them on wherever they go.
The point is Jerry Jones is probably not a good dude. Over the years Jones has argued that he does not support the concept of revenue sharing in the NFL. A concept that ex-Giants owner Wellington Mara founded for the good of the league, so football would be able to spread and grow as time went on. Jones may have an arguable point that an individual team should have the rights to their own payroll, but he definitely supports it for the good of the Cowboys, and not of the NFL.
Another example of irrational owners is that of the Miami Marlins Jeffrey Loria. Loria recently traded away five of his teams best players for a 160 million dollar salary dump. What makes matters worse, is the the Miami Marlins had just funded a brand new 515 million dollar stadium that was largely funded through the taxes of Florida citizens. For the team to struggle at base of the owner should be an outrage, especially when fans hard earned money is practically being stolen.
Jerry Jones and Jeffrey Loria are both hated by the fans of their teams, not only for the team struggles, but from the failure to capitalize with the fans hard earned money at stake. Media activist Dave Zirin went as far as to say that Loria should be arrested for his recent abominations. This may be a bit much, but it's perfectly logical to say that changes should be made when people are blatantly being ripped off.
This is an example of some of the things we talked about in Chomsky's Occupy, and some of the concepts we discussed in class. These owners are taking advantage of middle class citizens hard earned money for their own personal benefits. People may not take it as seriously due to the fact that this is about something like sports, but it's certainly something worth thinking about when people are trying to get a petition to the president of the United States. In this country, a huge majority of people are passionate about their sports, and frankly don't deserve to be taken advantage of in the way that too many fans know all too well.
I've learned that sports are more political then people would like to admit. Sports are an important tradition in this country, and the world for that matter, to billions of people. I believe that these controversies with struggling owners should be taken more seriously. These wealthy owners have too much power and don't suffer the consequences as much as the fans do when teams struggle. The irony is, the fans are the reason these owners are so wealthy in the first place.
This is a concept that Occupy Wall Street protesters know all too well.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
My Opinion on the Bradley Manning Controversy
After the class reading on Wikileaks, and after my Media Activism class on Tuesday, I learned more about a very touchy subject. The internet is powerful, it is the easiest way to spread any kind of media throughout the world, and pretty much anyone has access to it. But in class we learned about Bradley Manning and the controversial story of how he's suspected to have sent restricted files on US army based business to Wikileaks. In my opinion there are two aspects of this story that strike me. The power of the internet and how easy it is to spread information, and how sometimes freedom of speech truly is limited, especially in the media world.
Learning about Bradley Manning is where the controversy begins. As a homosexual in the army, he immediately doesn't fit in to the stereotypical "good American soldier." It's conclusive from the video we saw in class on Bradley Manning's story that he was unhappy in the army and was not treated well.
That's an important distinction on where the controversy lies. There's evidence to suggest that Bradley Manning would have intentions of getting back at the army, or doing something to put it down. Bradley sent loads of confidential documents to an internet hacker in a chatroom. Many of these documents ended up on Wikileaks, and revealed horrifying truths about the US army killing innocent citizens in Iraq.
Bradley Manning was sentenced to 9 months in prison and in fact very recently it was announced that his case will head back to court. But the real question still stands since the beginning and that is, does Bradley Manning have the right to spread such controversial information to the world? From an army perspective no he does not. As a member of the army it is clear that something like this is not allowed and Manning has every right to be punished significantly.
But there are other details that make this worth questioning. One, was Bradley Manning rightfully treated in his time at the army? Other army members that knew Manning claimed he was picked on more than everybody else, and evidently in this article, he was even harassed. My personal opinion is he was likely mistreated compared to other soldiers due to his sexual orientation and open flamboyance. It shouldn't have a separate impact on his punishment from the army, but it's possible that it does. Regardless if that's true or not it simply has to be included in the topic of conversation.
Bradley Manning broke several army rules by spreading this information. To me it's mind blowing how easy it was for him to accomplish this, but the real question is should it be right for him to be punished this way? In my opinion, if you're a member of the army the freedom of speech concept is diminished. As a soldier, you do what you're told and that's a well known fact. Speaking up as an individual is not encouraged, I don't think that can be questioned. So Bradley Manning posting something as confidential as this is interpretted as an absurdly bad thing to do as a member of the US Army. And as far as the laws that he broke, it's justifiable that he is punished.
But the details of those files are extremely heated, with clear documented evidence that US Army soldiers were killing innocent Iraqis. Lets face it, in any war innocent people are going to die, and that's an upsetting truth. But this information was especially disheartening, and it's something that nobody would ever see in mainstream media.
Was it wrong for Bradley Manning to do what he did? In my opinion from a member of the US Armies standpoint it is, but as a moral member of society it might not be. I think there's no way around his punishment due to the many laws he broke, but he certainly raised awareness to something that United States citizens otherwise would have never seen.
The internet is powerful, and this is an extroadinary controversy. It will be intersting to see how this unfolds...
Learning about Bradley Manning is where the controversy begins. As a homosexual in the army, he immediately doesn't fit in to the stereotypical "good American soldier." It's conclusive from the video we saw in class on Bradley Manning's story that he was unhappy in the army and was not treated well.
That's an important distinction on where the controversy lies. There's evidence to suggest that Bradley Manning would have intentions of getting back at the army, or doing something to put it down. Bradley sent loads of confidential documents to an internet hacker in a chatroom. Many of these documents ended up on Wikileaks, and revealed horrifying truths about the US army killing innocent citizens in Iraq.
Bradley Manning was sentenced to 9 months in prison and in fact very recently it was announced that his case will head back to court. But the real question still stands since the beginning and that is, does Bradley Manning have the right to spread such controversial information to the world? From an army perspective no he does not. As a member of the army it is clear that something like this is not allowed and Manning has every right to be punished significantly.
But there are other details that make this worth questioning. One, was Bradley Manning rightfully treated in his time at the army? Other army members that knew Manning claimed he was picked on more than everybody else, and evidently in this article, he was even harassed. My personal opinion is he was likely mistreated compared to other soldiers due to his sexual orientation and open flamboyance. It shouldn't have a separate impact on his punishment from the army, but it's possible that it does. Regardless if that's true or not it simply has to be included in the topic of conversation.
Bradley Manning broke several army rules by spreading this information. To me it's mind blowing how easy it was for him to accomplish this, but the real question is should it be right for him to be punished this way? In my opinion, if you're a member of the army the freedom of speech concept is diminished. As a soldier, you do what you're told and that's a well known fact. Speaking up as an individual is not encouraged, I don't think that can be questioned. So Bradley Manning posting something as confidential as this is interpretted as an absurdly bad thing to do as a member of the US Army. And as far as the laws that he broke, it's justifiable that he is punished.
But the details of those files are extremely heated, with clear documented evidence that US Army soldiers were killing innocent Iraqis. Lets face it, in any war innocent people are going to die, and that's an upsetting truth. But this information was especially disheartening, and it's something that nobody would ever see in mainstream media.
Was it wrong for Bradley Manning to do what he did? In my opinion from a member of the US Armies standpoint it is, but as a moral member of society it might not be. I think there's no way around his punishment due to the many laws he broke, but he certainly raised awareness to something that United States citizens otherwise would have never seen.
The internet is powerful, and this is an extroadinary controversy. It will be intersting to see how this unfolds...
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