On Sunday, MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry program previewed the upcoming Super Bowl with a panel of liberal commentators including notorious lefty Dave Zirin of the Nation magazine, to bash the sport of football.
Speaking during a panel discussion, Zirin blasted the NFL and insisted that “if we lived in a sane world this sport would not exist. This is brain damage for profit, that's what it is. Science is not this sport's friend.”
After Zirin blasted the NFL for supposedly profiting off of injuries, the Nation sports reporter complained that “the more we learn about it, the more we have to reckon with the fact that it is something dangerous.” The lefty writer proceeded to bemoan that despite his wish that football be banned, it will never happen in America:
We also have to reckon with the fact that we cannot wave a magic wand and make it go away. If you prohibited football in this country, I mean it would be like prohibition in the 20s times 100. Imagine it. There would be speakeasies in Texas of 10-year-old children playing football and you’d have to know the secret knock to see them play each other. It would be nuts if you tried to ban football.
Zirin’s over-the-top criticism of football is nothing new given his long history of using sports as a way of promoting his liberal agenda. During an appearance on MSNBC in 2012, Zirin viciously smeared Tim Tebow’s religious views and claimed that the NFL quarterback wanted to set gay back “30 or 40 years.”
In October of 2009, Zirin appeared on MSNBC to attack conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh following his efforts to purchase the NFL’s St. Louis Rams. The Nation reporter smeared Limbaugh and asserted that the issue is “about having somebody in an NFL owners box who [players] know views them with naked and open contempt because of the color of their skin.”
See relevant transcript below.
MSNBC’s Melissa Harry-Perry
February 1, 2015
MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY: So, Dave, I have to say I know what's going to happen this evening. We're all going to tune in. When we tune in to watch the game, we'll be watching, a lot of us also will be watching on social media. And for the first quarter or so, you will not so much be watching the game on social media, is that right?
DAVE ZIRIN: No, for the first 20 minutes I'll be live tweeting an episode of "The Facts of Life” we’re calling it the “Tootie Bowl.” It's my act of Twitter civil disobedience as everybody tunes in to social media to watch the Super Bowl. And it's also a way to kind of say as much as I am a fan of this game that if we lived in a sane world this sport would not exist. This is brain damage for profit, that's what it is. Science is not this sport's friend. And the more we learn about it, the more we have to reckon with the fact that it is something dangerous.
But at the same time, we also have to reckon with the fact that we cannot wave a magic wand and make it go away. If you prohibited football in this country, I mean it would be like prohibition in the 20s times 100. Imagine it. There would be speakeasies in Texas of 10-year-old children playing football and you’d have to know the secret knock to see them play each other. It would be nuts if you tried to ban football.
HARRIS-PERRY: And also if it would be like having breakfast without bacon, with all due respect to my vegetarian and vegan viewers, it might also be like less -- I mean that some things that are not safe in life are also worth being part of.
ZIRIN: Yeah, but it's worth it for us to watch as opposed to play. I was watching the game the other day. Every Sunday I practice what Homer Simpson calls the practice of ass horizontology on my couch watching this game. My daughter comes into the room, she’s ten years old, and she says to me “hey would you let Jacob play this?” that’s her little brother. And I said “no, Jacob is not playing football. And she said “well then how can you watch it?” and I’m like “you need to leave.”
