Sunday, February 5, 2017

Not A Fan

Photo by DAVID ILIFF
It's the holiest of holy days, here in America. Super Bowl Sunday.
Bread and circuses, wings and beer. I never really got it. I don't like football.
I was a soccer player in high school and on the track team. There wasn't any football girls could play any way, except backyard games with my brothers.
 It seems like a lot of money is spent on the Super Bowl. $14.1 billion. Everyone at work will be talking about the Super Bowl commercials. $5 million for a 30 second spot. It blows my mind.
Some people have way more time for football than I do. Even if I had the time, it wouldn't be for a football game. People are way more invested in the Super Bowl, than politics or Donald Trump. I've seen way more dudes rattle off obscure stats about all the players, but can't tell me any thing about Trumps cabinet picks or the last book they read.
Thankfully, I keep my expectations lowered.
Most Super Bowl watchers don't vote, I don't blame them.
It costs over $4000 for Super Bowl tickets. The Super Bowl is for rich people, let them eat balls.
Like everything in this country it's been co-opted and corporatized.
The NFL get's billions from taxpayers subsidies, priorities much?
Local governments give all kinds of subsidies away for stadiums, they get discounts on
 utilities, breaks on their property taxes. The NFL is a non-profit, yeahhh, ok. Not a fan of that. They make over $1 billion in profits a year, actually it's $7.25 billion.
Someone tell me how that's non-profit?
To put this in perspective, it would cost $1.5 billion to clean the water in Flint, Michigan.
We have a huge homeless problem in this country, we currently spend $4.5 billion on.
We have a huge student debt problem, because we'd rather subsidize football teams than the future for our young people.
We need to rethink these ridiculous "non-profit" profitable corporations in everything but name only.
When it get's to the point that over half the country is living in poverty and churches, football leagues and other nonsensical schemes don't pay taxes on their "donations" and everyday people are struggling with three jobs, somethings very wrong. I seriously doubt anyone watching the Super Bowl game today is thinking about that. That's just the point. They don't care, They are too exhausted or too hypnotized by the Super Bowl circus and all the marketing for products they want you to buy with what little money you have left after you pay your property taxes, you don't get subsidies for.
I guess people think it's ok to be funding the NFL. they probably would rather pay for that, than a veteran out on the street. We wonder why the suicide rate for veterans is so high?
I'm kind of surprised they don't just put these military gladiators in the stadiums and feed them to the lions. Maybe that would get someone's attention. No one seems to care what happens to them.
There is an interesting story going back to Roman times. There was a guy named Gaius Marius. He was living during a time of Roman oligarchy. This guy Marius, tried to make reforms for the military. Afraid of a barbarian invasion, He used the promise of property to get more people from the lower classes motivated to join the military. There was a very large unemployment problem then. (sound familiar?)
Marius gave the military a retirement in the form of land grants & pension, anyone who fought with the army could become Roman citizens..It seems like veterans got a better deal in Roman times, (I wonder what the suicide rate was?)
This caused men to become more loyal to their generals than the Roman State, causing the destruction of Roman Republic and the onset of The Emporer.
In the end Marius, who once had sided with his army, co-opted himself with the oligarchy Senate and put down a rebellion of "radicals" to establish public order. After this Marius was exiled, but then returned. A few years later, Rome passed a decree, expelling all residents who were not Roman Citizens. A social and Civil war erupted, It would be the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire.
It seems to me America long ago crossed the Rubicon of Republic into Empire.We have a similar breakdown occurring now, there's much we can learn from ancient Rome, but I am sure everyone would rather think about what Lady Gaga is going to wear for the half-time show than contemplate exactly where America is headed.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_reforms  for more detail.


8 comments:

  1. Sports teams really do hold cities hostage. We here in Cleveland got the Browns back, but had to pay a price. Literally, as taxpayers, had to pay a price, and continue to pay a price as we have to pay for the upkeep of a stadium. Meanwhile, the owner gets the profits while fielding a rather crummy team. All this bothers me, I think it's wrong, yet still get why our civic leaders would take such a raw deal. We're a Rust Belt city with a losing population, and that's a difficult problem for politicians on the municipal or county level to solve, so they opt for the feel-good feeling a sport team can give, even, strangely, a sports team that loses. I'm not saying I agree with these civic leaders, only that I can see where may feel they have no other choice.

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    1. Unless you would have an option arena sized art center for visual and other art forms and stop watching dudes getting severe head trauma from a violent sport. But no, footballs way more interesting.

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  2. Good Morning Patricia! Well, I'm a big fan of football by most peoples definition, and I was with buddies following the Super Bowl play by play, I didnt eat any wings or junk like they did, they are younger than me, I'm 61 years old and watch my diet a little more ... so for me, it was bottled water, fruit and nuts basically. But yeah ... I liked football, cars, and playing music since I was a kid. But I know in my heart that everything you said is absolutely true, I was with some buddies watching a game 30+ years ago, one dude said ... "wow, how cool is this, being in a stadium with a beer name on it (Busch)" ... I told him "You wouldnt think it's so cool if all the stadiums have corporate names on them" ... geeeezz ... look what we have today. I really am disgusted by the corporatization of it, and their projected revenue figures in the NFL are 3x times your figures over the next few years actually, and the business it generates is enormous. I just done a posting on NFL cheerleaders suing the NFL, which I am all for, I have worked with a Cowboys cheerleader for a year and a half, and can tell you, she worked her ass off for that position and the pay was almost nothing, everyone else in the NFL gets paid decent. Even what Kirk is saying above is so true, cities are held hostage, and the Olympics is another one, that does the same, too long story though to get into here.

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    1. OMG, cheerleaders. Probably responsible for some of the most epic, mean girl bullying I have ever seen. Work your ass off for peanuts. It's just funny, since I know highly trained artists, teachers, nurses, etc. getting paid crap wages that contribute more to culture and society. Yay football! Lol, glad you had fun watching it, but man, I am glad I don't anymore.

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  4. I deleted comment, cause it printed twice

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