EBPatton:

Perhaps it is up to you to explain to all of us why you believe the quote-unquote working class is so intrinsically stupid that a discussion about particular unrealities and the roles they play -- in the States especially, and in contrast to what just went down in France over its annual cycling Tour --should be read as an attack on members of said class?

"French turn off tour over endless cycle of scandal," Catherine Field, New Zealand Herald, July 25, 2007
French demand drastic action as outrage turns into disgust," Hugh Schofield, The Independent, July 26, 2007
"Is the Tour de France discredited beyond recovery by drugs scandals?" Simon O'Hagan, The Independent, July 27, 2007
"It may be wishful thinking but I prefer my cycling without drugs," Richard Williams, The Guardian, July 31, 2007

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

Arek:

If you and the person who used to post to the ZNet blogs as "Frederic Christie" are one and the same, your contributions have been sorely missed.

You mentioned that "innumerable technical problems with the new commenting system" have discouraged or prevented you from contributing.  This is a dirty shame.  At this stage, the ZNet blogs have suffered an accidental meltdown once (July 30 - 31, 2004), and a meltdown-by-design once (from late January 2006 on) -- and right now, the entire ZNet entity is months into a process of reconstruction.  What will come of it is entirely in the hands of people who I am confident will figure it out sooner or later.   But in the meantime, your input about these difficulties could only help.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

Postscript: As to the other matter:  My approach has always been about 98 percent consistent: If I don't assert something, I don't bother defending myself against the charge that I did.  It's way too crazy to work otherwise.

Paul:

Actually, I like parts of Zirin's work a lot.  But since this has never been my topic, I've never bothered with responding to charges to the contrary.

Here's one by Zirin that is outstanding:

"The Doming of America," Edge of Sports, July 9, 2007 

Notice what his topic is: The use of the sports ideology (esp. the bit about "our" teams and how "we" can't live without them) to rob public treasuries.  Are the New York Yankees and the Washington Nationals public goods?  Yes -- when it's time to pay their bills.  By this stage, the United States is tens-of-billions of dollars in the red on "investments" in new stadia, as the owners of these business associations in city after city have shifted the capital costs of staging the games onto taxpayers.  How's this for accumulation by dispossession? 

Then compare what happens to Zirin's work when he turns to another side of the sports ideology: The superstar athletes whose celebrity is every bit a part of the same complex, and which hooks the fans and keeps them coming back for more.  It's almost like a switch flips in Zirin's head.

Insofar as Major League Baseball's soon-to-be-new home run king hits his home runs on the inside of the aforementioned system of dispossession, should we be sorry over the fact that fans feel etrangement from this gentleman's exploits?

Not in my opinion.  On the contrary, the more doubts that spread about this whole, the better.      

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

  Is there anyone around here who is even reading this stuff? Is anyone even paying attention to any of this? Listen to what you're actually saying here!

Does everyone around here think the working class is a bunch of idiots? It sure seems that way.    

    Idiot, Listen carefully.  people commonly refer to groups monolithically without implying homogeneity.

Nobody , whether peterson or me, said working class is  either smart or stupid. But sometimes plenty of people belonging to a group  can behave idiotically or intelligently. And when they do  it is no blunder to criticize or praise  them without implying homogeneity.

   Your play act of getting angry over peterson's alleged hatred of working class is too pathetic.

 Now start getting outraged over this comment. Bye

 

I've been in and out of --- and associated with --- different social classes. I've run into total idiots and geniuses in the working-class. I've run into anti-imperialist workers and imperialist workers. Racist workers and anti-racist workers. Sexist workers and anti-sexist workers. Sports fan workers and non-sports fan workers. I like the anti-imperialist/ant-racist/anti-sexist ones and can't stand the imperialist/racist/sexist ones. Same for people from the middle and upper class, the coordinator and the owner classes, where of course vile sentiments and prejudices are very structurally empowered and therefore disproportionately harmful.

I want to get rid of the class (and racist and imperialist and sexist) system.

While I don't equate it with crimes like the occupation of Iraq, I'm a little disgusted that Bonds will likely (maybe today, don't know, I'm not really following it) tie and transcend (in the record books) one of my old boyhood heroes Hank Aaron (what I would do to be able to see him in County Stadium back in the 50s) with a huge assist/bump from juice. I have the same feeling about Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire's chemical-fueled assault on the single season Ruth/Maris record, which was supposed to have "saved" baseball.

But then I was pissed off in grade school when they lowered the pitching mounds and brought in fences after 1967 (the year Bob Gibson had an ERA of 1.16 and Yaz won the AL batting title with .301) to "save baseball" by encouraging more hitting and runs...what the Hell was wrong with a 1-0 pitching duel between Joel Horlen and Jim Kaat,decided by a suicide squeeze bunt in the bottom of the ninth? What was more thrilling to watch than Sandy Koufax? (and you didn't have to watch a game for five hours). The most exciting thing I ever witnessed in sports in person was R. Guidry coming within one out of a no-hitter in Yankee Stadium.

I do tend not to watch major sports all that much anymore because of stuff like this, though the fact that I can't afford ticket prices and cable is also part of it.  I suspect that some working-class and coordinator and even ownership class people feel the same way, though ticket prices are not a concern for the elite of course. I don't know if working-class sports fans/ex-fans are any more or less alienated from or attached to big-time sports than coordinator-class and bourgeois folks.

I like Zirin more than David does but less than Howard Zinn does. I think Zirin does too much jockriding and that his stuff on Bonds and other stars sometimes gets pretty ridiculous. I don't think the cover of his book What's My Name Fool does a very good job of advancing social justice...the implication being that I'm a racist if I don't want to look at an especially ugly image of a young M. Ali seeming ready to cave my face in any second. He should have used a more dignified shot: Curt Flood announcing his struggle for the reserve clause or even the raised black fists at 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

I think spats like the one Patton is trying to start emerge when there's no real Left around to express our shared hatred of the capitalist/class system, a cancerous regime that does not in fact produce an inherently virtuous class destined by history (in Marx's dialectical wet-dream) to serve as the gravedigger of class injustice.

I want to help bring a relevant Left back before its too late. The system just sucks everything dry in its endless and soullless pursuit of profit. It drowns everything good - including the American Pastime - in what Marx & Engels (1848) called "the icy waters of egotisitical calculation." It invades, rapes and kills everything, sports included.

However, it is worth noting that there is no prima facie reason to regard the quote-unquote working class as smart or stupid.

But if they watch sports, then they're stupid.

Can you imagine anything more ill-advised than this?

You're setting up a straw man, and you know it.

Such a long long lecture from EB Patton. Do you think anyone cares to read this from start to finish?

I don't know. You tell me.

The only thing you are saying is "Peterson hates working class". OK , But do you need to repeat it so often?

That was all I said? Really?

Is it a crime to say people (working class or otherwise) behave idiotically when they behave idiotically?

What, by watching sports? Is that how working people behave idiotically?

Is there anyone around here who is even reading this stuff? Is anyone even paying attention to any of this? Listen to what you're actually saying here!

Does everyone around here think the working class is a bunch of idiots? It sure seems that way.

What is everyone afraid of?

Ajit:

Evidently, ebpatton has a hard-on.  There is no point in dealing with him.

However, it is worth noting that there is no prima facie reason to regard the quote-unquote working class as smart or stupid. 

Can you imagine anything more ill-advised than this?

Though one truly creepy trait with which the humans appear to have been endowed is they they aren't smart enough -- whether it's a species-wide thing or, more likely, an historical and institutional ignorance -- to place the cork back into the bottle once it's been loosened and the genie is out. 

"It is time to allow doping at Tour de France," Julian Savulescu, Daily Telegraph, July 30, 2007

I think there are a lot of ants and bees and termites who have every right to look down their noses at the uprights.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA 

 

 Such a long long lecture from EB Patton. Do you think anyone cares to read this from start to finish?

    The only thing you are saying is "Peterson hates working class". OK , But do you need to repeat it so often?

   Is it a crime to say people (working class or otherwise) behave idiotically when they behave idiotically?

  You seem to think so.

 

In "Understanding EBPatton" (above), Peterson emulates his idol Alan Dershowitz, placing me in the role of Norman Finkelstein, by calling me an "Internet Troll" and saying that I'm "baiting." (Follow Peterson's posted hyperlinks.) Quoting Noam Chomsky now:

Dershowitz is intelligent enough to know that he can't respond, so he does what any tenth-rate lawyer does when you have a rotten case: you try to change the subject, maybe by vilifying opposing counsel. That changes the subject. Now we talk about whether, you know, opposing counsel did or did not commit this iniquity. And the tactic is a very good one, because you win, even if you lose. Suppose your charges against are all refuted. You've still won. You've changed the subject. The subject is no longer the real topic: the crucial facts about Israel, Dershowitz's vulgar apologetics for them, which sort of are reminiscent of the worst days of Stalinism. We've forgotten all of that. We're now talking about whether Finkelstein did this, that and the other thing. And even if the charges are false, the topic's been changed. That's the basis of it.

Peterson has a special hatred for Dave Zirin. As far as I can tell, Peterson has three ZNet sports-related original blog postings besides "When the Whole Really Is False" (viz., "An Open Letter to Baseball Fans," "Baseball & Steroids," and "Baseball and Steroids II").

In his "Open Letter" post, Peterson writes the following in a comment addressed to Marcus Denton:

But my basic point is that, vis-a-vis the Sportsworld, Zirin's work reminds me of those commentators in other areas who promote their work as Left, and then argue the necessity for American-led "humanitarian" wars.

Here, Peterson intimates that Zirin is a sort of Hitchens-like leftist who is advocating U.S. attacks on third-world countries. But no evidence is provided. Peterson is simply smearing Zirin by tacitly linking him with support for U.S. imperialism.

Peterson is highly critical of Zirin's defense of San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds -- with justification, I think. Zirin has repeatedly suggested that Bonds is the victim of intense racism -- a fact which is likely true. However, to suggest that race is the only factor at work in many fans' dislike of Bonds is not accurate.

For anyone who knows anything about baseball, suppose that, instead of Bonds chasing Hank Aaron's home run record, it were, say, Kirby Puckett or Ozzie Smith. Puckett and Smith, both black, were hugely beloved by fans. It is highly doubtful that were either Puckett or Smith to have been approaching Aaron's 755, fans would be so apoplectic. Even if either of those players were using steroids, and even if such a fact were known and admitted by Puckett or Smith (in this hypothetical example), my own belief is that fans would still be rallying in huge support. Puckett and Smith were that popular.

Still, Zirin's mindless defenses of Bonds are hardly justification for the types of statements Peterson makes about him:

It took Reinsdorf another 30 months to engineer the ouster of Vincent, to free the owners of the 1921 Major League Agreement, to replace the Office of the Commissioner with the “CEO of the owners”---and to inaugurate the Vince McMahon Era of Major League Baseball that fakers like Dave Zirin seem to like so well.

What makes Zirin a "faker?" Peterson doesn't say.

I regard "Hating Barry Bonds" as important in its own right. Particularly as a way of deflating a sense of the "great tradition." Though also as irrevant at best to helping people understand the Vince McMahon Era of Major League Baseball. And, more important, helping free them from it.

On the other hand, I find nothing redeeming in Zirin's work on this. (Unless there has been something new added recently.)

Okay, Zirin's work is lacking when it comes to Bonds. I'll happily concede this. But Zirin has written about other topics. Peterson seems to find no value in any of Zirin's work. In fairness to Peterson, though, this particular statement was solely about Zirin's Bonds writing. But notice that, here, Peterson says that people need "help" to be "freed" from the "Vince McMahon" [owner of the WWF] era of Major League Baseball. Frankly, such a statement is highly elitist, a clear suggesting of the stupidity of those who watch baseball (not to mention wrestling).

What lies at the core of Zirin's take on Baseball (replicated magnificently with respect to the World Cup in "Hey Guys, It's Just a Game," coauthored with John Cox), is this: Zirin simply cannot bear for the whole to be false. Instead, Zirin's stomach is only strong enough for parts of the whole to be false. In Baseball, the owners and whoever aligns with them---not its romanticized athletes, and absolutely not its "interglactic talent." In World Cup Soccer, the bad part is Team USA definitely; but not the athletes of the Ivory Coast's team, not the athletes of the Ghanaian team, and certainly not the World Cup, romanticized here as a force for international goodwill. Indeed. So far from being a leftist criticism of the Sportsworld, Zirin's work is very much a defense of the Sportsworld---minus what he doesn't like about it. Zirin would have absolutely no trouble peddling his work via ESPN.

It's ironic that Peterson would trash Zirin as a should-be ESPN lackey by mentioning an article of Zirin's (with Cox) where Zirin and Cox specifically write the following:

We watched the game in Washington, DC, at a neighborhood bar called the Ghana Café, where the cheers vibrated into the streets. A fan named Paul, who moved here from Ghana several years ago, told us, "The ESPN commentators said that 'African teams have brute strength, but don't play with finesse.' " Another young Ghanaian, March Dadzie, noted that one sportscaster ignorantly opined that any skills displayed by the Ghanaians result from their experience "outside of Ghana"--a k a Europe. Another fan added, "If that sportscaster had any sense, he would have known that most players grew up playing in the streets of Accra." Indeed, Ghana fields only one starter who plays for a European powerhouse; most take the field from teams in the Middle East and Africa.

So here, Zirin is taking a shot at ESPN, or at least allowing a Ghanan to do so. But Peterson can't see that; it's unlikely he even bothered to read Zirin's article. Besides, if Zirin could "peddle" his work to ESPN, why wouldn't he? He'd make more money there, and have far greater notoriety. So why does Zirin eschew ESPN to publish stuff in The Nation and on ZNet instead, where the financial rewards are much less? Peterson never says.

Referring one more time to the "intergalactic talent" paragraph of Peterson's quoted above, Peterson says that Zirin can't bear for the "whole" -- presumably of Peterson's favorite but never-defined concept "Sportsworld" -- to be false, but rather that Zirin can only handle "parts" of it to be false. Presumably, the rest of the paragraph is Peterson's explanation of what he means. But Peterson's next sentence after the "parts of the whole" sentence is actually a fragment that doesn't even have a verb, making it very difficult for one to assess what in the devil Peterson is even talking about.

Regardless, I actually don't care what Peterson's feelings about one writer (Zirin) are. I'm more interested in what Peterson thinks about sports fans and the working class more generally. I think Peterson believes that working people, and especially sports fans, are complete and utter morons. But Peterson never explicitly says this. He doesn't deny it, but he won't cop to it.

Instead, Peterson seems to at some deep level understand that expressing his true feelings about working people and sports fans would be a major left-wing faux pas. So he never gives you a stationary target. He keeps shifting and deflecting and never coming out and just saying what it is he actually thinks.

I think the closest Peterson comes might be when he writes in Baseball II that, coming out of the 60s

[C]riticism of sports and of the American Sportsworld really was, well, criticism. However inchoate.

Progressive and/or leftist thought was still possible. (Even for sports!) Nor taken up with placing patches over holes that leak a lot of hot air. And that a lot of people would be better off watching deflate. And be done with them. Once and for all.

Ignoring the reappearance of Peterson's never-defined "Sportsworld," his last paragraph here certainly seems to suggest he thinks the universe would be a better place if people would stop watching sports. But Peterson has this nasty habit of never coming out and simply saying what he means. It's always couched in double-speak, seemingly to keep from being pinned down to any position he might have to actually defend later.

In Baseball II, Peterson writes warmly of a book that he suggests offers a Marxist critique of sports. But in an article by Chris Bambery entitled "Marxism and Sport" from Issue 73 of International Socialism, the quarterly journal of the Socialist Workers Party of Britain, Bambery writes

Naturally socialists understand why people take part in or watch sport. It is an escape from the harsh world in which we live. That is why we do not ignore sport. Rather socialists campaign, for instance, against racism on the terraces and seek the support of sports men and women for such campaigns. Neither would socialists dream of banning or prohibiting participation in sports.

I don't think Peterson would agree with Bambery here, however. Peterson does not seem to understand why people watch sports. Peterson does not seem to understand why people do not ignore sports. Peterson seems to have an intense hatred of sports that working-class people watch, as well as a hatred of the watchers themselves. He seems to disdain their viewing habits, as when he writes (in a comment on this blog posting)

The WWE's fan-base is stable. Obdurate and adamantine, in fact.

And

Think about this, Arek. Personally speaking, I regard 90-some-percent of life in the States to be legitimation-crisis-ready. Yet, the millions of little buds never ripen.

Why not? What prevents it?

 

The clear suggestion being that it is precisely the stupidity of the WWF-viewing unwashed masses who are preventing it.

One other question. -- Which do you think is the phonier? The WWE? Or the November 2008 elections?

I say neither. I say a classist coordinator-class lefty is phonier.

People know that wrestling as well as elections are staged (even wrestling fans -- imagine that). But people around here can't see Peterson's deep-seated hatred of the working class. The reason is that Peterson is a good writer. He does have good things to say in criticism of U.S. foreign policy. Like Hitchens at one time, Peterson does have left-wing credentials.

But anyone who worked a full-time factory job for a living who managed to straggle in here and see Peterson's writing on sports would recognize Peterson's utter disdain of all things working-class. Peterson simply thinks working people are idiots, but he won't (can't) come out and say it. Maybe he can't even see it himself. Maybe he really believes he's some sort of working-class champion.

In reality, David Peterson and the elitism he exhibits is a working-class person's nightmare.

ebpatton

ebpatton

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

I regard mass disillusionment at this degree as a positive. As always, the point is to seize it and not let it slip away. My only disappointment is that more people don't suffer it more often and more deeply in their bones.

Yes, the world would be a better place if everyone were more miserable.

For example, in the month since the body of the American "wrestler" Chris Benoit was discovered in his Georgia home

Why is the word wrestler in quotes? Professional wrestling is a work (meaning it's staged). But the performers are still wrestlers. Unless you have absolutely no regard for either the performers or the people who watch.

For example, in the month since the body of the American "wrestler" Chris Benoit was discovered in his Georgia home, along with those of wife and son, both of whom Benoit had murdered prior to taking his own life, the popularity of World Wrestling Entertainment's television shows in the States has remained unchanged.

Translation: If people weren't so stupid, they'd quit watching. But they haven't. Because they are.

So here's a rule-of-thumb for American sports fans. It's real simple.

Translation: Sports fans are stupid.

Or, like "wrestling," never had any [integrity] to begin with. Whether or not you keep purchasing tickets to its events. Reading about it in the newspapers. And following it on TV.

Translation: You people who keep watching this shit are stupid. Did you notice the word wrestling in quotes again? Idiots.

Peterson has NEVER denied that he agrees with the statement "Sports fans are morons."

kayfabe

If you know that word, you know that much of what Benoit did -- minus the double murder -- tends to be the rule, not the exception in wrestling.

Curt Hennig, Sherri Martel, Road Warrior Hawk, Miss Elizabeth, Brian Pillman, Eddie Guerrero, Owen Hart (Owen's story is even more tragic than the rest), Bam Bam Bigelow, Terry Gordy, Mike Awesome, Davey Boy Smith, Chris Candido, Big Boss Man, Crash Holly, the entire Von Erich family (one by one), the Junkyard Dog, Ravishing Rick Rude, Buzz Sawyer, Big John Studd, Yokozuna, Louie Spiccoli, Eddie Gilbert, Bobby Duncum, Earthquake, Renegade ... all dead before they turned 50.

Wrestling is a shitty business. Fans know it. Wrestlers know it. Promoters know it. Yet people still watch, and others still want to wrestle. Now, either all these folks are complete morons, or they're doing what they do for some other reason.

Peterson simply thinks all concerned are morons, and washes his hands of it. If he knew the first thing about any of the names on the above list, he'd probably just think they got what their actions deserved (with the possible exception of Owen).

And what about the wrestlers who don't buy the farm? Wrestling marriages don't last. Abuse is certainly endemic. The Dynamite Kid, Superstar Billy Graham, and many others are now basically cripples. You have to do steroids to get pushed. Wrestlers are lonely. They're overworked. They do drugs and drink. They can't unionize because they'd have zero career, since the promoters control their pushes. You can't trust anyone, since everyone will stab you in the back. There are only so many slots available for pushes, so you'd better do whatever you have to in order to get one. Like the great Bret Hart once said, They treat you like cattle, and then when you're used up, they take you out back and shoot you. (If ever there were an industry in dire need of balanced job complexes and self-management, it's wrestling.)

How about Tammy Sytch, ten years ago versus now?

Capitalism sucks. People have to do shitty things to survive. But to Peterson, they're all just a bunch of fucking morons who get what they deserve.

This is so classist. Wrestles use steroids, and have for a long time. Wrestling fans know it, and have always known it. Wrestling is a work. Fans have always known that too.

And yet they still watch. So either they're morons -- which is Peterson's position -- or else they're watching for some other reason.

Why not? What prevents it [millions of little buds never ripening]?

Try starting with your classism for an answer. You make your living as a writer. You don't understand the working class, and you don't care. They're all just stupid to you. Petr Korda and Guillermo Coria dope up, but that's okay (presumably) since that's tennis. Golfers are probably doped up too (ask Gary Player), but that's probably okay too.

Now if it ever turns out that Walter Ray Williams or Pete Weber are doping, Peterson will have an article on that.

Sports is big business. Guys dope because they have to in order to make it, or they do it to make it even bigger. Owners know it's going on and they tacitly encourage it, because it makes them money. Everyone knows all this is going on. I assume Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are on something, and we just don't know it yet.

People know all this, or suspect it, or aren't surprised when they hear it. Yet they still watch. So either sports fans are all a bunch of fucking morons (Peterson's position -- which he has never denied), or else they are watching for some other reason. But Peterson isn't interested in finding out what any other reasons might be.

Peterson is the worst kind of classist. If he were a member of the John Birch society, it wouldn't matter. But he's blogging on ZNet, he's a good writer, has good things to say about U.S. foreign policy ... and then he starts with the "sports fans are morons" stuff.

If you want to talk about sexism and racism in sports, fine. Classism, authoritarianism in sports. Fine. They're all there. Of course they are -- they're everywhere in this society. You can also find them in the symphony or the Bridge club. But people who go to the symphony aren't morons. Yet people who watch wrestling or baseball are.

I can't imagine why working people wouldn't be attracted to a left with people like Peterson in it.

Arek:

Thanks for taking the time to make your case so carefully.

About your last point ("To be fair..."), you are right to emphasize that we don't know what the American "wrestler" Chris Benoit's case teaches us beyond the obvious.  I raised the Benoit case because, in the now roughly five weeks since it occurred, the Benoit case has been a point of entry for dissecting World Wrestling Entertainment with the kind of obsessive attention usually reserved for Hollywood celebrities who run afoul of the law.  The WWE might be the single most doped-up enterprise in the States.  So we've had five weeks of potential delegitimation of the WWE --but very little actual delegitimation.  In fact, the crisis of legitimacy which ought to accompany the whole of the WWE like its shadow never occurred.  The WWE's fan-base is stable.  Obdurate and adamantine, in fact.

Think about this, Arek.  Personally speaking, I regard 90-some-percent of life in the States to be legitimation-crisis-ready.  Yet, the millions of little buds never ripen. 

Why not?   What prevents it?

One other question. -- Which do you think is the phonier?  The WWE?  Or the November 2008 elections?

David Peterson
Chicago, USA 

   

Uffekaels:

Thanks for the corrections. -- I should have written withdrew rather than "kicked out" for what happened to whole racing teams, and Michael Rasmussen was kicked-out by his racing team, the Dutch Rabobank team, while wearing the yellow jersey (i.e., for the failure to report his whereabouts accurately during testing periods, leaving open suspiscions that something was amiss).  ("The top ten tour doping scandals," Associated Press, as posted to the Sydney Morning Herald, July 28, 2007. -- Though this list very well may need to be updated.  Plus, it suffers from one glaring omission: The seven-time Tour champion (1998-2005) -- and not coincidentally an American -- Lance Armstrong.)

Relative to what I see all around me in the States, I can't tell you how impressed I am to find people left in this world who take a sport seriously enough to take doping equally seriously.  In the States, it would be unthinkable for a Major League Baseball or a National Football League team to withdraw from a particular season because one or more of its superstar performers tested positive for doping.  The cheating -- the whole charlatan mentality -- is so widespread in the States that, as in the political sphere, there is little reason to expect the dominant trends to go anywhere but from bad to worse long-term. 

David Peterson
Chicago, USA   

 

"As yellow-jersey-bearers kept testing positive for unnatural levels of testosterone or somebody else's red blood cells, and whole racing teams were kicked-out of the race for guilt by association with mates who did test positive or couldn't even report their whereabouts accurately"

No yellow-jersey-bearer was tested positive for anything. No racing team was kicked-out of the race. Astana withdrew after Alexandre Vinokourov was tested positive for blood doping (probably riding on his father's blood!). Codifis also chose to leave the Tour when Christian Moreni was tested positive. Rabobank was expected to withdraw but didn't after they had fired their captain, yellow-jersey-bearer and likely winner Michael Rasmussen, for lying about his whereabouts.

I live in Denmark. Lots of hysteria here because of Danish Michael Rasmussen's exit. Therefore I know a little about it.

Well, I'll say this for you: You have balls. However, you still hate the working class, and you still think they're stupid. You have absolutely no idea why people watch sports. You have absolutely no idea what it's like to have to do shit work all week to feed your kids.

You think the fact that working people watch sports means they're idiots, because you think it means they don't realize guys are sticking needles in their asses, or that they don't realize pro athletes make a lot of money. You don't even have a fucking clue why people watch professional wrestling; you don't know the first thing about it. You probably think the people who watch it think it's "real."

God, did you get picked on by jocks when you were in school? Were you jealous because the girls you liked were interested in football players and not you? Did you not lose your virginity until you were 25 or something, and you're still mad about it?

You're such a classist.