Stan Kroenke’s recent verbal abuse of St. Louis may, at long last, have awakened this town to the sick relationship it has had with the NFL and Kroenke, the owner of the St. Louis Rams football team.

The verbal abuse came in Kroenke’s application to the NFL to relocate the team to Los Angeles.In an attempt to justify moving the team, Kroenke said:

St. Louis lags, and will continue to lag, far behind in the economic drivers that are necessary for sustained success of an NFL franchise…

Any NFL Club that signs on to this proposal in St. Louis will be well on the road to financial ruin, and the League will be harmed…

St. Louis is not capable of supporting three major sports teams. No other NFL franchise would be interested in the current proposed riverfront stadium…and it doesn’t make economic sense to be in the city.

That hurt. And this cruel assault on St. Louis’ self-esteem is typical of abusive behavior. [Interestingly, the harsh criticisms in Kroenke’s letter to the NFL came after years of zero communication from Kroenke, who St. Louis pundits have dubbed “Silent Stan.” The silent treatment is yet another symptom of abuse.]

But until the Rams—curiously—made Kroenke’s letter public, St. Louis football fans and civic “leaders” desperately wanted to keep the Rams in town. So desperate, in fact, that city leaders were willing to spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars to build a new $1 billion football stadium to regain Kroenke’s love, and that of the NFL, too.

Now, the anger aroused by the otherwise silent Stan’s criticisms of St. Louis may be raising awareness of just how unhealthy this town’s relationship with Kroenke and the league has been.

Abuse

What’s an emotionally abusive relationship? The Center for Relationship Abuse Awareness defines abuse as

…a pattern of abusive and coercive behaviors used to maintain power and control…. Abuse can be emotional, financial, sexual or physical and can include threats, isolation, and intimidation. Abuse tends to escalate over time.

An abuser is a grand manipulator and will sulk, threaten to leave, and emotionally punish you for not following their idea of how things should be. An abuser will try to make you feel guilty any time you exert your will and assert what is right for you.

In the St.Louis/NFL case, the abuse began years ago, in 1995, when the city built a domed stadium as a way of enticing an NFL lover, er, team to town. Then, city leaders agreed to lease out the newly constructed dome to the Rams under a rather strange contingency forced on them by the NFL: The Rams’ lease required [St. Louis] to provide an updated “first-tier” stadium for the Rams — in the top eight of 32 National Football League teams — first by 2005, and again by 2015.

In other words, the stadium had to stay pretty to keep the love. Then, in 2013, the Rams complained that the dome had let itself go, was soft in the middle, and needed $700 million in cosmetic surgery and body work. And when the city said no, the Rams threatened to walk away.

More recently, less than a week after Kroenke submitted his St.-Louis-hating proposal, the NFL piled on. Preparing for the long-awaited owners’ meeting, at which the fate of three teams [St. Louis, San Diego and Oakland] could be decided, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell dissed St. Louis’ proposal for a new stadium, calling the plan “inadequate and unsatisfactory.”

An emotional abuser goes through life feeling entitled to be treated like royalty, and wants you to be a willing servant. He or she expects you to do everything and will not help at all.

Rams owner Stan Kroenke got rich by marrying a Wal-Mart heiress and by developing Wal-Mart anchored shopping complexes all over the US. He wants out of St. Louis, and he apparently feels entitled to get his way, even if he violates NFL rules. He has already purchased hundreds of acres of land in Inglewood California, where he intends to build a sports-stadium, entertainment and shopping mega-complex—with his own money.

He has offered zero dollars to help build a new stadium in St. Louis.

Victims’ reactions to abuse

The Advocacy Center says

When an abuser calls their partner names, puts them down and plays mind games it can make the victim feel bad about themselves. Many times victims believe that the abuse is their fault or that they deserve the abuse.

Over the past few years, as Kroenke and the NFL escalated the threat to leave St. Louis without a football team, fans responded as abuse victims often do: They begged and protested their undying love.

A facebook page launched in 2014 by Rams fans said: “Our mission at Keep the Rams in St. Louis is continue to build our tradition in St. Louis, with our passion and commitment. Let’s show the world that we LOVE and support the Rams; and we want them to stay in St. Louis.” The group said it hoped to show Los Angeles and the rest of the country that St. Louis loves its football team and that team should stay right where it is.

There are probably even some St. Louis football fans who actually do blame this whole mess on themselves and on the city’s political leaders, for not attending games, for not supporting the stadium tax giveaway, and for not being the razzle-dazzle city that would make the NFL and Kroenke love us more.

Breaking away?

Kroenke’s gratuitous comments to the NFL have sparked an angry backlash from his victims. They’re calling his criticisms “preposterous pot shots.” Missouri’s governor zinged back, saying, “Our fans support their professional and amateur teams—Especially ones that win.” St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay shifted the blame back to Kroenke, saying “If the Rams leave, it will not be for something the region failed to do. Or the fans.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a half-page dartboard, with Kroenke’s image in the bullseye, and the best of #kroenkecomplaints around the perimeter.

But is any of this enough? Vicitms can cry, hurl zingers, self-justify, or throw the blame back to the abuser, but will it make a difference? Kroenke and the NFL still have the power to decide. The only power citizens, policymakers, and the little people have is to walk away—not just physically, but emotionally, too– from the madness. Some suggest that victimized cities band together and form a coalition–perhaps even a collective-bargaining organization–that would refuse to be blackmailed, extorted and pitted against each other by professional sports leagues and teams.

This is not just about St. Louis. I’m looking at you, too, Oakland and San Diego, and all of the other cities who have  been–and will be in the future–bullied and abused by NFL owners and the league.

So, instead of continuously trying to placate these abusers, maybe NFL cities should be going to court to petition for orders of protection.

The post The NFL’s abusive relationship with cities and fans: St. Louis edition appeared first on Occasional Planet.

With the rash of unjust police shootings, all eyes are on the home front, so to speak: Americans are talking about racial inequality and other pressing domestic issues.This is to be applauded, as its hard to get folks to focus on tough domestic issues like race and inequality.

Still, my inner International Relations major won’t be satisfied until another pressing story is brought to light from outside the USA. Just such an issue fell into my lap recently, and it is a hell of a story, combining sports, politics, and social justice.

For the past few months I’ve been intern for an organization called EG Justice, a US-based human rights group aimed at bringing democracy and accountability to Equatorial Guinea. Equatorial Guinea is a very small country of 700,000 consisting of a couple islands off the western coast of Africa and a sliver on the African mainland.[Not to be confused with Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Papua New Guinea, or New Guinea.]

President Teodoro Obiang, in power since 1987, is among the worst of the post-colonial African autocrats. For this reason Equatorial Guinea routinely ranks among the least free places in the world. Despite the oil boom of the 1990s, which brought in millions and millions in revenue, the average citizen still lives on about $1 a day.

And yet, Equatorial Guinea will host the African Cup of Nations (AFCON 2015) in January and February, a prestigious soccer tournament followed by millions.

How did this happen? Morocco, the original proposed site, was scrapped over Ebola concerns. With very little time to find a new spot, President Obiang volunteered his country. This produced a glowing response from CAF head Issa Hayatou as a generous and humanitarian gesture, but is problematic for multiple reasons:

Equatorial Guinea’s hosting of AFCON is irresponsible. The government already ignores everyday people, despite the country’s considerable oil wealth. To spend lavishly on a hastily-organized AFCON is a slap in the face to the small African nation’s majority.

AFCON 2015 also serves as a distraction from more pressing problems. Equatorial Guinea is a land of extrajudicial killings, torture, and other forms of political violence. AFCON represents represents an attempt to distract from these urgent issues and for the elite to line their pockets. It is no coincidence that the Deputy Minister of Sports, Ruslan Obiang, or Ms. Francisca Obiang, President of the Office of National Projects, are President Obiang’s children.

In short, we are about to watch the AFCON games play out against the backdrop of oppression and inequality. For those interested in athletics and/or current events, this is one story you won’t want to miss. To find out more and learn how to help, head to http://www.egjustice.org/.

The post AFCON 2015: A thrilling story of sports, corruption, and resistance appeared first on Occasional Planet.

What makes a Republican? We have some clues but it’s still largely a mystery.

I recently saw a story on the CBS Evening News that may offer a significant hint as to what makes a progressive. It was a segment of Steve Hartman’s “On the Road” series. For those old enough to remember, this feature on CBS is a follow-up to Charles Kuralt’s series from 1967 to 1992.

This segment features a middle school football team in the town of Olivet, Michigan. The clip is three minutes and 42 seconds long. The moment when we see the early development of a possible progressive occurs at the three minute mark. Please excuse the thirty-second ad in advance of the clip.

The final words from wide receiver Justice Miller are, “He’s [Keith] has never been cool or popular, and he went from being nobody to making everyone’s day.…..I kind of went from being somebody who mostly cares about myself and my friends and went to caring about everyone and trying to make everyone’s day in everyone’s life.”

What happened to Justice Miller was the beginning of what could be a profound new perspective in life. He is now able to look beyond himself and his friends and include in his thinking the wider world. The evolution was enough to bring him to tears.

In the empathetic wing of the Democratic Party, when people are questioned about what are the important characteristics of being a progressive, with few exceptions the answer is: empathy. We are talking about the ability to look beyond one’s needs and to look at the world as if you were in the shoes of someone less fortunate.

It is important to clarify that there are several ways that  empathy is expressed in a global sense by Americans. One is through charity – giving to causes and other people by choice, because one sees them having an important need. The up-side of this is that it’s often personal, and it directs resources to where Americans feel the most need is. The downside is that it provides less than ten percent of what is needed to address our problems of poverty, health care, education, environmental clean-up, etc. Only the federal government can provide the resources that are needed for a large-scale effort to empathetically address key problems. Charity is no match for that.

The second point is that making a commitment to being part of a society that is firmly committed to eradicating as many economic and social maladies as possible is an act of justice. It can be a societal norm rather than an individual act as with charity. Progressives can be charitable, but their primary goal is to expand justice. Who can better inform us of this than a young man named Justice.

The post The making of a progressive appeared first on Occasional Planet.