Gibson writes: "Roger Goodell succumbed to our outrage and finally stopped holding out on just 1 percent of the league's $9 billion pot. So if we want these worthless congressmen and senators gone, let's vote them out this November and tell their replacements to serve their voters or suffer the same fate."
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell poses with some replacement referees. (photo: Paul Sancya/AP)
27 September 12
n Monday, September 24, we saw what happens when under-qualified, bottom-dollar replacements are in charge of an NFL football game. And every day in Washington, we see what happens when they're in charge of providing education for our children, protection for our neighborhoods, and health care for the sick and elderly. Americans should be just as eager to see real congressmen and congress women in Washington serving the people as they are eager to see the real referees back on the field. Even anti-union governor Scott Walker wanted the union refs back.
Mitch McConnell and his fellow Senate Republicans filibustering the veterans jobs bill was just as painful to watch as two Lingerie Football League rejects looking at each other and making different calls on a play that decided a football game. Thanks to those sorry refs, the Green Bay Packers could miss the playoffs by one game this year. And thanks to do-nothing US Senators, thousands of unemployed Americans who risked their lives for their country will be struggling to keep food on their families' tables and clothes on their children's backs.
The good-for-nothing scab refs who let the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the St. Louis Rams descend into chaos in one of the nation's rowdiest stadiums were a disgrace. Just like every single member of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, are a disgrace for voting for the FY 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, which contains provisions allowing for the indefinite detainment of US citizens without due process rights. We deserve football games where both teams are kept in order just like we deserve the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty.
The officials who blew countless calls during the game between the Baltimore Ravens and the New England Patriots deserved to be fired after doing such a horrid job in throwing flags that penalized the wrong team. And every member of Congress who voted to make protesting near anyone with Secret Service protection a felony anywhere in the United States deserves to be canned this November. An offensive player victimized by pass interference shouldn't be penalized when the defense interferes with a pass. And the last time I checked, this was America, where neither free speech nor free assembly should be penalized, period.
It's now safe to say that in the fall of 2012, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell acted irresponsibly when he insisted that refs who know the rulebook and do their jobs would be locked out because they refused to allow their pension plans to be cheapened into 401(k) plans. It's also safe to say that American voters acted irresponsibly in the fall of 2010, when they allowed a group of proto-fascists to take over the House of Representatives and half of the US Senate because they naively believed them when they said they would work for us instead of their campaign donors. The scabs did nothing but undermine the credibility of the NFL. And Tea Party Republicans and corporate Democrats in the House and Senate have done nothing but attempt to redistribute wealth from the dwindling middle class to the top 1 percent since their first day in office.
Roger Goodell succumbed to our outrage and finally stopped holding out on just 1 percent of the league's $9 billion pot. So if we want these worthless congressmen and senators gone, let's vote them out this November and tell their replacements to serve their voters or suffer the same fate.
Carl Gibson, 25, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Manchester, New Hampshire. You can contact Carl at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and listen to his online radio talk show, Swag The Dog, at blogtalkradio.com/swag-the-dog.
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