I have few illusions about my own brand of politics, and whether they are shared by the majority of Americans; I know that I'm an outlier, that the USA has always suffered in the grip of the cult of anti-intellectualism, and that large swaths of the population really have no problem with "fuck you, I've got mine"....my optimism has always ever been based on observing that when average Joes and Janes are forced to confront such attitudes in public, sometimes they will consider carefully, and change their mind. So I don't expect that just because some raving lunatic like myself makes a set of points aimed right at the heart of the largest, most profitable marketing party in the country, with an expressly held desire to see it all come crumbling down in the most lurid and retributive fashion possible, that it will ever actually happen. But weirder things have, so against all hope, I hope! Here are the points:
ONE- the National Fascism League sucks money out of communities, in every way possible. From the large scale (convincing local legislature to use public funds to build stadii) to the small (prosecuting small-time vendors for copyright violations), it's a well-known fact that the profits dangled in front of politicians are illusory, even in the case of alleged "profit-sharing" deals such as Green Bay. Money flows in one direction only- to the pockets of the NFL, and the team owners. It's high time someone brought a class-action suit, as a counter to this race- and class-based economic warfare. "Local jobs" are a joke (just ask Oakland), and "trickle-down" or "trickle-to-the-side" money is as much a fantasy as when Reagan foisted it upon the nation as a whole. The NFL is engaged in straight-up robbery, and when communities wake up to that, there will be hell to pay.
TWO- professional football promulgates rape culture. No shit, right? But think of all the corollaries to that- the players themselves are "raped", right in the brain, to satiate the public's thirst for mayhem; the above-mentioned economic rape, the rape of the public intellect at the altar of Spectacle, the rape of whatever positive effects that sport has on the culture at large (Papa Freund might, at one time, have thought that sport was a sublimation of war; now what would he think? Carpet-bombing by other means?).
THREE- it's in poor taste. Example- fucking COLDPLAY is the halftime act this year, never was there a more corporate, bland, bullshit "rock" band, ghodDAMN they suck so bad. And even artists worthy of respect die a little, somehow, when they are convinced to take part in the rah-rah jock bullshit: when the Stones did it, or Kiss, or Janet Jackson, take your pick, we all knew that they had jumped the shark. See also the complete dearth of anything even remotely resembling "entertainment" at the ancillary "NFL Experience" bullshit outside the game, or in this case miles to the north, in the city.
FOUR- fake patriotism is the order of the day, thank you John McCain for finding a way to agree with me. That shit makes me sick, and the NFL has figured out a way to make it more grotesque every year. There were no public jack-offs of The Troops before 9/11, but now not a single game goes by, even during regular season, without a giant field-sized flag exhorting the drunk dumbass in the stands to ever greater apoplexy in the service of USA USA USA. This jingoistic, bellicose stupidity has erased the possibility of any real display of love of country. It should be prosecuted as sedition, for the effect it's had on any poor fuck unfortunate enough to actually feel pride for our grand community.
FIVE- our complicity in our own oppression has found its apotheosis in corporate football. Every year I hear the same damn thing: "security's gonna be tight this year!" Witness the poor dickhead cops, AR-15s a-danglin', there for "your protection"; the endless indignity of every entry and exit through the symbolic rape of bag check and metal detector; the breathless mindless newscasters hinting at the massive presence of federal resources to protect this corporate snoozefest; never mind the self-fulfilling prophecy of behaving like it's the biggest terrorist target in the world, thus ensuring that it is....
THEREFORE, be it resolved blah blah etc, that the best immediate course of action, for the good of all and necessary to reverse the pernicious and, dare I say it, evil influence of these practisants, raremice, and false prophets, is the jailing for life of all executives, shareholders, above-the-line employees and willing accomplices of the NFL.
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