by Matt Barr

Sports is icky

This Nation piece (found via Arts & Letters Daily) is just a treasure. Here it turns out sports are a management trick to keep the workers down, which grew during times where we were too fraught with war to be vigilant, and now "have become an effective means for the political and financial elite to package their values and ideas" -- and in case you wonder whether those are good values and ideas or bad values and ideas, wonder no more when you're informed football games include "a military drum line to midfield. Then a standing sing-along to 'I'm Proud to Be an American (Where At Least I know I'm Free)' by Lee Greenwood. And then comes the 'Star Spangled Banner.' [!!! - ed.] You are certainly 'free' to not stand, as long as you know that the guy behind you will feel 'free' to pour beer on your head." Ruffians!

I don't like pro sports, but it's not my problem, it's yours; or, as the author puts it, "Many throughout the US are repelled by pro sports today for a laundry list of reasons." He continues, after getting us that list he was talking about: "The way that the games have been shaped by profit and patriotism has quite understandably led many people to conclude that sports are little more than a brutal reflection of the savage inequalities of our world. As even Noam Chomsky has written:"

Oh, be quiet.

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