Woods’ Woes

Worse than a cheat, a scab deserves no pity

By Malachy McCourt

The hoi polloi of America are apt to get their knickers in a knot when the known, the popular, the celebrity, the righteous and the religious indulge in a trifle of sexual hanky-panky. The latest laddie caught in the trap is none other than Tiger Woods, a golfer who apparently puts something other than balls in little holes. Whatever occurred twixt him and his Swedish beauty of a wife comes under the heading of Mind Your Own Business. And he is a businessman, who has accumulated many dollars, perhaps a billion of them, which someone told me would be enough $1,000 bills to reach to the top of the Washington Monument—a rather sharp phallic symbol.

Now tigers growl, run and leap on tigresses, and generally have more than one mate, so what is all the fuss about? His children get fed, he has a house full of help, fresh food and he gets to sleep with some female friends. Most guys do the opposite. They bed down the wife for duty’s sake and play golf for recreation.

With all that in mind, I say I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t frighten the horses—with one exception. I do care when fellow workers cross my union’s (Screen Actors Guild) picket line. A few years ago, the smiley Tiger Woods crossed that line when we were on strike for just compensation. Necrophilia is not half as disgusting and revolting as a billionaire scab crossing a workers’ picket line, breaking their strike because he says he has a contract. But no contract can take precedence over the moral contract the worker has with her fellow workers. Any worker who feels more loyalty to the profiteer is a scab—and there is nothing lower than a scab, not even the testicles of a rat.

Not only does Tiger Woods cross picket lines, but he makes deals with companies like Chevron, a world polluter of such magnitude it is hard to catalogue. He designed the golf course in Dubai, a place built by slave labor and a starting point for the world’s sex slave trade. It is well known what the children who have to work in those sneaker factories have to endure, and yet the Tiger never says a word—only signs another multi-million dollar contract.

Jack London wrote, “After God finished making the rattlesnake, the toad, the vampire, he had some awful substance left with which he made the scab… who carries a tumor of rotten principles…. When a scab comes down the street, men turn their backs and angels weep in heaven and the devil shuts the gates of hell to keep them out. A scab is a traitor to his God, his country, his wife, his children, and his fellow workers.”

Dave Zirin of The Nation recently wrote about the Chevron/Myanmar partnership in the $500 million Yadana pipeline, which was built by forced labor. Workers endured torture and rape, but never a word from the Tiger about his partner and the military dictatorship.

I am ashamed to say that Tiger Woods is a union member, not because of his sexual proclivities, but because of his lack of expressed human concern for his fellow workers. May all his golf sticks get woodworm.

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Check my website malachymccourt.com and read Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland.