October 7, 2004
Flooding the zone on the Moonie stadium obsession
I fear some people think I'm heading out into tinfoil hat territory with all this stuff about the Moonie Times' desire to promote Boondoggle Park in Southeast and bash its enemies, but every day, it gets worse. Today's travesty:
"The victims who step inside the ballpark will do so willingly, in the spirit of a free-market economy. No one will be ordered at gunpoint to purchase a $100 T-shirt featuring the team's logo.Yet the ballpark bawlers somehow insist that a souvenir program fetching $40 from a willing victim would be best spent on public schools, housing and hospitals. This is a stretch that ignores the principle of the marketplace. A sports enterprise pursues the entertainment dollar. A dollar spent in a ballpark is not necessarily a dollar that materializes in the nest of a protest group."
Tom Knott, who wrote this garbage, knows full well that the opponents don't object to people spending money on baseball stuff, nor is anyone actually saying that the money fans spend on memorabilia comes straight out of the food pantries and libraries of the poor. The problem is the stadium itself -- the subsidized construction of a home for a multi-million dollar business. But Knott plays dumb and pretends to misunderstand the complaints.
And if that doesn't work, drag out the scary black people:
"One member of the New Black Panthers, new or not, dusted off some '60's-style rhetoric in opposing the mayor and the ballpark."We have to put fear into this bow-tie-wearing punk, Anthony Williams," the party member said. "Power to the people. Death to political, fascist pigs." Not to quibble too much on the merit of free speech, but wishing death on someone because of a ballpark is probably not the most effective way to win friends and influence people.
The anti-ballpark alliance is framed in the sensibility of Felix and Oscar."
And once again make no mention of the city councilmen and mainstream groups opposing this corporate welfare.
Some days, I don't know who's dumber: the people who read the Moonie Times or the people who write it.
Posted by rj3 at October 7, 2004 2:37 PM
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Comments
Is the Washington Times even profitable? Who reads this rag? I would think died-in-the-wool conservatives read Wall Street Journal and the Opinion section therein, so who's shelling out the dollars for WT?
I guess a better question is who are the advertisers! Having never seen it who does advertise in this!
Posted by: Anonymous at October 7, 2004 2:53 PM
Readers are dumber.
The writers at least are paid.
Subscribers? Dumbest.
Posted by: Michael at October 7, 2004 4:22 PM
Well, on occasion, the Unification Church runs advertisements quoting founding fathers and religous leaders as confirming that Moon is, in fact, the messiah.
Posted by: Chris at October 7, 2004 4:26 PM