A quick response to "Fucktard Slanders Michael Jordan":

It’ll come as no surprise to anyone (except the fans of this and similarly degrading websites) to learn how out of step its administrators are with the world beyond U.S. borders—with its very big guns, its captive population, and its bunker-mentality.

But is this also true of the Chicago Sun-Times’s sports columnist, Jay Mariotti?[1]

It wouldn’t surprise me. Let's see.

As the November 3 London Guardian reported,[2] an opinion survey just conducted in Canada, Mexico, Israel, and the U.K. “exposes high levels of distrust” towards the Americans. Outside the United States and similar cultural backwaters, it seems that the majority of the world’s population fears Kim Jong-il less than it fears George Bush and the rest of the Gomers in Washington. And if the rest of the world weren’t bombarded by U.S. cultural products daily, incessantly promoting the American logo, and peddling the latest American lie, the results of opinion surveys such as this one would be far more in favor of just about anyone but the Americans.

“In Britain,” The Guardian continued, “69% of those questioned say they believe US policy has made the world less safe since 2001….The finding is mirrored in America's immediate northern and southern neighbours, Canada and Mexico, with 62% of Canadians and 57% of Mexicans saying the world has become more dangerous because of US policy. Even in Israel, which has long looked to America to guarantee national security, support for the US has slipped. Only one in four Israeli voters say that Mr Bush has made the world safer, outweighed by the number who think he has added to the risk of international conflict, 36% to 25%.”

Given these expressions of fear and concern, an intelligent questioner might inquire as to which regime poses the greater threat to international peace and security: The one in Pyongyang? Or the one in Washington? And why? Crucially, according to what kind of evidence should we base our answer to a question such as this?

(Short answer: Simply take a look at which of these two states possesses the greater resources for violence and destruction at its command.[3] As always in American propaganda, the alleged threat to international peace and security is said to be posed by the state then targeted for demonization and worse. (Recall the kind of propaganda in circulation about Iraq four years ago.[4]) While in the real world, the actual threat to international peace and security is posed by whatever military actions the Americans might undertake against the targeted state.)

But it never dawns on you Weird Internet Creatures to laugh at Jay Mariotti over his quite ignorant reference to the leader of North Korea, whose “weapons of mass destruction,” Mariotti appears to believe, are a threat to the world.

Now. An intelligent critic would have noticed this howler above all. Instead, you Weird Internet Creatures joined Mariotti in swallowing the Kim Jong-il Kool-Aid. While you took him to task over nothing (i.e., he “slanders Michael Jordan”).[5] Oh, my.

It seems that the Sun-Times’s sports columnist isn’t the only person holed up in a bunker.

By now, it must be getting pretty stuffy down there.


David Peterson
Chicago, USA


[1] “MJ’s latest ‘job’ another bad fit,” Jay Mariotti, Chicago Sun-Times, November 2, 2006.

[2] “British believe Bush is more dangerous than Kim Jong-il,” Julian Glover, The Guardian, November 3, 2006. By the way, I say this survey’s findings are true of the majority of the world outside the United States, reasoning that if in the United Kingdom and Canada, the Bush regime is regarded as a greater threat to peace and security than either Kim Jong-il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then it’s a safe bet that a majority of the world’s population feels this way, too. The British and the Canadians being very close allies of the United States. So if the Bush regime can't hang onto them, it's lost just about everybody.—For the archives of one very fine opinion research organization, see the Program on International Policy Attitudes. The real world is nothing like the world inhabited by the Weird Internet Creatures.

[3] For some help in answering this question, consider the data maintained jointly by the very good people at the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: "Global Nuclear Stockpiles, 1945 - 2006," Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August, 2006. Of course, North Korea’s small (“subkiloton”) nuclear weapon test last month means that now, North Korea must be moved from one column of the ledger to another. But that is all. Otherwise, North Korea is a pipsqueak on the world stage. Being a member of the original "Axis of Evil" meaning only that North Korea ranks as one from among many targets the Americans have selected.

[4] As the American President said before the UN General Assembly in September, 2002: "We know that Saddam Hussein pursued weapons of mass murder even when inspectors were in his country. Are we to assume that he stopped when they left? The history, the logic, and the facts lead to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger. To suggest otherwise is to hope against the evidence. To assume this regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And this is a risk we must not take. Delegates to the General Assembly, we have been more than patient. We've tried sanctions. We've tried the carrot of oil for food, and the stick of coalition military strikes. But Saddam Hussein has defied all these efforts and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. The first time we may be completely certain he has a -- nuclear weapons is when, God forbids, he uses one." ("President's Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly," September 12, 2002.) Of course, we ought always to pay very close attention to history, logic, and facts, and to base our concluions on what they reveal. In September, 2002, what they revealed was that the regime in Baghdad was a grave and gathering danger to no one; and that for the Americans to have stated otherwise was to lie, and to lie on a monumental scale. For two partial summaries of the record in reference to these monmumental lies, see "'Intelligence' and the Invasion of Iraq," ZNet, April 1, 2005; and "The Downing Street Memos," ZNet, June 15, 2005. And though rendered somewhat outdated by subsequent releases of documents (i.e., the so-called "Downing Street" documents of 2005), also see Hoodwinked: The Documents that Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War, John Prados (New Press, 2004).

[5] For the record, the single greatest insult ever directed toward Michael Jordan (‘slander’ being a ridiculous word) came from the mouth of his then-employer, Jerry Reinsdorf. According to Jordan’s 1998 book, For the Love of the Game (Crown), before Jordan left the room after signing what would be his last contract with the Bulls to play in the 1997 – 1998 season, “Jerry [Reinsdorf] said something I'll never forget. It changed my opinion of him. We shook hands and he said, ‘At some point in time, I know I'm going to regret what we just did’. After all these years, after all these championships, after all I had tried to do for the Bulls' organization, after all those years of being underpaid and you regret paying me market value? It was like a punch in the heart. His greed was deeper than his respect for me."

The same story was first reported in a long profile of Jordan written by Henry Louis Gates Jr. for the New Yorker (June 1, 1998), which came out shortly before the Bulls’ sixth championship was in the books. (Sadly, I don't believe that an online copy of Gates's profile is available.)

Here was how Jay Mariotti handled Jordan's allegation at the time (“Order is restored to Bulls' chaotic world,” Chicago Sun-Times, May 28, 1998):


Those blindly convinced that Jordan will return [for the 1998 – 1999 season] should locate the latest edition of The New Yorker, of all mags, where Jordan blisters Reinsdorf with some of his nastiest missiles yet. They also should listen to Reinsdorf's response: Jordan, in relating a damning story about Reinsdorf, wasn't telling the truth. Is Uncle Jerry accusing Michael of lying?

This could become very ugly, the pin being pulled from the grenade.

When you're done reading everything, it's hard to believe Jordan would want to come back. It's also hard to believe Reinsdorf will want him back. Know how he gushes about his "wonderful" relationship with Mike? Forget it. Jordan thinks Reinsdorf is as small as the rest of us do. He has ripped his boss before, but never with the personal hurt and disgust conveyed when recalling what should have been a happy time in his career, the signing of his first $ 30 million-plus deal two summers ago.

Said Jordan: "We shook hands, but one comment stuck with me when we left, and I lost total respect for him when he said it: 'At some point in time I know I'm going to regret what we just did.'

"And I'm saying, all these years where you knew I was underpaid and you have been making money and your organization's moved from a $15 million business when you bought it to a $200 million business -- all those years have just gone down the drain because you have for once paid me my value. And you regretted that! That hit me so deep inside -- that sense of greed, of disrespect for me."

Some gratitude, huh? The gall of Reinsdorf. When he should be kissing Jordan's shoes, thanking him for the wealth and prestige and success he has brought to his life, Reinsdorf says he's going to regret paying Jordan what he deserved? Is there a one-way train station around? For years, Jordan had been woefully underpaid but refrained from balking, even after Reinsdorf refused to grant him a balloon payment when such gifts were permissible in collective bargaining. Certainly, Jordan deserves these blockbuster one-year wages. And to think Reinsdorf, at the time, told us how happy he was to give Jordan his just rewards.

What a joke.