As she prepares to battle Zhang for the 115-pound title at UFC 261 on April 24, Namajunas recently talked about her Lithuanian heritage and the country’s fight for freedom from the communist Soviet Union, which ended in 1990. Namajunas then related that to Zhang’s own home country of China, where the communist party remains in power today.
According to Namajunas, whose family hails from Lithuania, she’s found a new drive to beat Zhang after educating her teammates on Lithuania’s own history to rid the country of communism after living under Soviet rule following World War II.
“I don’t hate Weili or anything like that, but I do feel as though I have a lot to fight for in this fight and what she represents,” Namajunas said when speaking to Lithuanian outlet LRT ahead of UFC 261. “I was just, I was just trying to remind myself of my background and everywhere that I come from and my family and everything like that. And I kind of wanted to educate my training partner Chico Camus on the Lithuanian struggle and just the history of it all. So we watched ‘The Other Dream Team’ just to get like an overall sentiment of what we fight for. And so, just after watching that it’s just a huge reminder of yeah — better dead than red, you know?"
“I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Weili is red, you know, that’s what she represents. It’s nothing personal against her, but that’s a huge motivating factor of why I fight and I fight for freedom and I’ve got the Christ consciousness, I’ve got Lithuanian blood and I’ve got the American dream, and all of those things I’m taking with me into this fight.”
Wow, just need to point out here what real Liberals are.
"With little money allocated to send a team to the Olympics, the band The Grateful Dead funded the Lithuanian basketball team, and they went onto win a bronze medal that year."
The Grateful Dead were REAL liberals. (Not sure what the living members are doing these days, but 30 years ago they were sane Liberals.) Hell, they are pretty much the poster children of peaceful liberals who want more freedoms for everyone.
So, when Leftists try to pass themselves off as Liberals, don't fall for it. Modern leftists want more freedoms for themselves and less freedoms for others. Liberals want more freedom for everyone.
I considered myself a liberal for most of my life. I honestly haven't changed much, except on 2A (now own a couple guns, but not like I was exactly for all gun control measures). I don't see how anyone like me could be for communism. It is antithetical to everything I believe as a liberal. Donald Trump is more liberal than these people (and IMO the best president of my lifetime).
The funny thing is that Trump IS a Liberal. The Leftists have driven the Democrats so far Left at this point that they see Liberals as being conservative, and WE do too, as a general rule.
This lets Leftists falsely identify as Liberals because we allowed them to co-opt the word.
Yeah, I remember when that was happening. Conservatives didn't help, I remember constantly defending the term until eventually abandoning it. I just can't be associated with these fucking weirdos. I'm ashamed to even be the same species.
That was during the '96 Olympics in Atlanta. My aunt lived near there at the time and got me one of the team's practice shirts. It was a tye dye shirt in Lithuanian colors with a skeleton dunking through the U in Lithuania. I wore that shirt until the sleeve literally fell off.