dave zirin

"It's not about dollars and cents, it's about owners telling players who is boss," says Dave Zirin, sports columnist for The Nation, about the impending NFL lockout. Even Barack Obama has gotten into the act, though, writing off the labor dispute in professional football as "millionaires fighting billionaires" and ignoring the real factors in the fight, from the health risks and short careers the players face to the people who will be out of work if football doesn't go on--while the owners sign a TV contract that pays them even if there is no season. Dave joins us via Skype to give us the latest on why progressives should stand with the NFL players, and the connections to the labor struggles going on around the country right now. Sherry Johnson of Milwaukee, Wisconsin nearly lost her sight from glaucoma. When she had to miss work for surgery to save her eyes, she was fired from her position for taking the time off. She had also signed a petition for a union in her workplace just before her illness. In this clip from our friends at 1000 Voices, she explains why a union might have helped her keep her job. "Wikileaks is a symptom of a much larger change, an age when information can be moved into the public arena by all kinds of people," says Micah Sifry of the Personal Democracy Forum. Bradley Manning, the accused leaker of the "Collateral Murder" video aired on WikiLeaks, faces 22 new charges from the government, including "Aiding the Enemy." But which enemy is he aiding, Micah asks? Is it us? Micah is the author of a new book from OR Books (the publisher of At The Tea Party), WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency, and he joins Laura in studio for a conversation about the way transparency and freedom of information are changing our world, from military policy at home to revolution abroad. Finally, there's been a joke going around the labor protests. It goes something like this: A union member, a CEO and a Tea Party member are sitting at a table with 12 cookies. The CEO grabs 11, turns to the Tea Partier and says “The Union's out to take your cookie!� Laura's been thinking that the joke applies pretty well to another situation. For instance, the military. Distributed by Tubemogul.

"As long as you say there is no hope, then there will be no hope, but if you go down and take a stance, then there will be hope." ; Those are the words of Asmaa Mahfouz, one of the founders of the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, who took to the Internet to spread her message in the days leading up to the protests, which have spread across her country and led to President Mubarak announcing he will not run for reelection. As the protesters continue their fight to get Mubarak out sooner rather than later, we bring you Asmaa's words to remember how all of this got started."Just as we would argue about cinema or theater or dance, progressives sometimes only see the bad and not the good," in sports, says Nation sports columnist and Edge of Sports radio host Dave Zirin.

It’s past time that the storied Notre Dame football squad had its program suspended. In a season of heartbreak and horror under new coach Brian Kelly, the Fighting Irish have more than earned what's known as the NCAA's dreaded "death penalty." Historically, teams have received the "death penalty" for illegal recruiting or paying players under the table. The cynics—or perhaps the realists—will point out that most of the programs on the college football map are dirtier than a Vegas city council meeting. Why single out Notre Dame? Simply put, those running the football program in South Bend are guilty of something worse than the payoffs and kickbacks that pepper many of the top so-called amateur teams. Distributed by Tubemogul.

"Beck rejects soccer because his idealized “real America”—in all its monochromatic glory—rejects it as well." Dave Zirin, sports editor for The Nation, says that and a whole lot more in his commentary on why Glenn Beck--and the rest of the Right--hates World Cup soccer.