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Freedom of Speech vs. the NBA
The CCP has raged and seethed, oh joy!
Daryl Morey was not playing coy,
He spoke the truth, a gun then to his head:
“Fawn now! Or else your hoop dreams are all dead!”
Even Ted Cruz and AOC allied;
When evil rises, we stand side by side,
Express our rage at those who lack a spine:
“The NBA won’t abnegate dear China!”
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Poet’s Note: On the 4th of October 2019, after seeing the brutality of the CCP’s (Chinese Community Party’s) crackdown on Hong Kong protestors protesting the CCP’s control over the previously democratic region of Hong Kong, Daryl Morey, then General Manager of the NBA team, the Houston Rockets, tweeted an image which said, “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” The media tempest that ensued forced Morey and the NBA to both issue groveling apologies to the CCP. This led to Ted Cruz, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other bipartisan lawmakers to issue a letter critcising the NBA’s handling of the situation. Daryl Morey should have been able to double down on his tweet and face no repercussions as free speech allows, but with the NBA being in bed with the CCP, that didn’t happen.
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Drilon Bajrami is a nascent poet who lives in the United Kingdom and is currently finishing up a dystopian novel he has been working on for a few years.
Drilon, you express this very well and very directly, a shocking story of a big, self-important institution grovelling to the Chinese Communist Party.
It’s the same with the English Premier League. With all their billions and with their fingers in more pies than a sorority house gone wild party, they still just want more, even if that means moral degradation.
A similar situation happened with Gary Lineker and the BBC and I commend Mr. Lineker for standing his ground and willing to lose millions for his morals. He might already be a multimillionaire but I think 99% of multimillionaires in his position would have degraded themselves for the cheque.
There are some brain-dead types in the poetry world who think that the SCP is being bankrolled by the CCP and the Red Chinese government. Imagine that — we support Falung Gong, we are strongly anti-Communist, and we publish poems defending Daryl Morey’s protest against China’s brutal suppression of pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong. But when one’s head is filled with guano, one can think that we are a CCP front.
Too right, Joe. I’ve not heard a positive word on the CCP from any SCP poet whether in poetry or even in these comments. I guess the detractors are just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Doesn’t make them look very wise or competent though.
The SCP even sponsored a Falun Gong poetry competition, this year. Talk is cheap — Evan puts the SCP’s money where his mouth is.
One of the best poems written on here is Evan’s “The CCP Song”.
This case is proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
Nice work, Drilon. Your unusual word “abnegate” says from its Latin roots, “deny” and “depart from,” precisely what you mean.
Thank you, Margaret. I always try to use the best word possible, taking into account all the nuance and the context and as you said, this was a perfect use case. It also helps when it perfectly fits the metre too, naturally.
I think I originally learned the word when I was 14-15 and my English teacher from “The Plagiarising Poet”, enjoined me to expand my vocabulary and trying to learn the daily word on dictionary.com became a goal of mine. This was one of the words I saw and never forgot. It’s served me well.
Words serve us all well when we take the care to learn and apply them well, as you have. Earlier poets in English had a concept of our “word horde,” and I have sometimes said it’s good to bring out the gold rather than keep it in the bank.
It would be quite something to learn the true share of the NBA that the CCP owns either directly or through proxy. Maybe they all need to be arrested and held in an overseas prison for a bit to recognize what they have hear.