Thursday, Feb. 10, 2011
The Super Bowl of Socialism
The Super Bowl has become a true televisual non
sequitur—a bizarre "Rocky"-style montage mashing together as many
divergent strands of American culture as possible.
This year's blockbuster was no exception. There was former President George W. Bush sitting next to coach John Madden, who was obsessively texting. There was actress Cameron Diaz feeding popcorn to baseball bad boy Alex Rodriguez. There was Christina Aguilera belting out a "Naked Gun"-worthy version of the national anthem. There was even a melding of hip-hop, hair metal and sci-fi, as the Black Eyed Peas joined Slash for a rendition of "Sweet Child o' Mine"—all in front of neon "Tron" dancers.
This was a bewildering assault on the senses, to say the least—and nothing was more singularly mind-blowing than the NFL using a Ronald Reagan eulogy to kick off a sports-themed tribute to socialism.
Reagan, of course, made his political name regularly invoking the "s" word to demonize government. For such bombast, he gained many followers, most of whom nonetheless cherished the doctrinaire socialism that undergirded their communities in the form of public infrastructure and services.
This Reagan-inspired paradox of cheering anti-socialist platitudes while supporting socialism in practice was the tale of Super Bowl XLV. The game began with a jubilant Reagan biopic that approvingly flaunted his red-baiting past, including his 1964 warning about America "tak(ing) the first step into a thousand years of darkness." The game ended with victory for professional sports' only publicly owned nonprofit organization, the Green Bay Packers—a team whose quasi-socialist structure allows Wisconsin's proletariat to own the means of football production.
Green Bay's win, though, doesn't tell the Super Bowl's entire socialist tale. The game was held in one of the NFL's government-funded stadiums. Additionally, training for many Super Bowl players was subsidized by taxpayers when those players honed their skills at public high schools and universities. Meanwhile, fans arrived at the event on public roads, the contest was broadcast on public airwaves, and the Navy spent $450,000 of public monies flying jets over the game in order to stage a momentary TV image.
Except for The Nation magazine's Dave Zirin, none of the major media examined any of this. The Super Bowl was presented as a seamless jaunt from Reagan hagiography to trophy ceremony with no mention of the socialist context. Why?
Some would argue that the sports commentariat was laser-focused on the game itself. Others might say that in trying to break the players' union, NFL management intentionally trumpeted an anti-union president—and the management-worshiping media avoided highlighting the Reagan celebration's underlying hypocrisy in order to avoid humiliating the owners.
Both theories are likely rooted in truth, but there was something reflexive at work, too—a deliberate self-censoring.
Yes, even though we clearly embrace socialism in everything from professional sports to telecommunications, the politicians and corporations who frame our public dialogue have long stifled honest discussions of our socialist reality because they know such discussions would show that America primarily champions a particular form of socialism—a corporate socialism leveraging public resources for private profit.
Like the few municipal services that still remain in today's era of Reaganomics, the publicly owned Green Bay Packers are a rare exception to this norm. That's why the story of the team's organizational structure is suppressed—because it shows the most important question facing our nation isn't about accepting or rejecting socialism. We've already accepted it. Instead, the real question is about what specific type of socialism we want: the current kind that works only for those in the luxury box, or the kind that starts working for the rest of us?
David Sirota is a best-selling author whose upcoming book "Back to Our Future" will be released in March of 2011. He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.
This year's blockbuster was no exception. There was former President George W. Bush sitting next to coach John Madden, who was obsessively texting. There was actress Cameron Diaz feeding popcorn to baseball bad boy Alex Rodriguez. There was Christina Aguilera belting out a "Naked Gun"-worthy version of the national anthem. There was even a melding of hip-hop, hair metal and sci-fi, as the Black Eyed Peas joined Slash for a rendition of "Sweet Child o' Mine"—all in front of neon "Tron" dancers.
This was a bewildering assault on the senses, to say the least—and nothing was more singularly mind-blowing than the NFL using a Ronald Reagan eulogy to kick off a sports-themed tribute to socialism.
Reagan, of course, made his political name regularly invoking the "s" word to demonize government. For such bombast, he gained many followers, most of whom nonetheless cherished the doctrinaire socialism that undergirded their communities in the form of public infrastructure and services.
This Reagan-inspired paradox of cheering anti-socialist platitudes while supporting socialism in practice was the tale of Super Bowl XLV. The game began with a jubilant Reagan biopic that approvingly flaunted his red-baiting past, including his 1964 warning about America "tak(ing) the first step into a thousand years of darkness." The game ended with victory for professional sports' only publicly owned nonprofit organization, the Green Bay Packers—a team whose quasi-socialist structure allows Wisconsin's proletariat to own the means of football production.
Green Bay's win, though, doesn't tell the Super Bowl's entire socialist tale. The game was held in one of the NFL's government-funded stadiums. Additionally, training for many Super Bowl players was subsidized by taxpayers when those players honed their skills at public high schools and universities. Meanwhile, fans arrived at the event on public roads, the contest was broadcast on public airwaves, and the Navy spent $450,000 of public monies flying jets over the game in order to stage a momentary TV image.
Except for The Nation magazine's Dave Zirin, none of the major media examined any of this. The Super Bowl was presented as a seamless jaunt from Reagan hagiography to trophy ceremony with no mention of the socialist context. Why?
Some would argue that the sports commentariat was laser-focused on the game itself. Others might say that in trying to break the players' union, NFL management intentionally trumpeted an anti-union president—and the management-worshiping media avoided highlighting the Reagan celebration's underlying hypocrisy in order to avoid humiliating the owners.
Both theories are likely rooted in truth, but there was something reflexive at work, too—a deliberate self-censoring.
Yes, even though we clearly embrace socialism in everything from professional sports to telecommunications, the politicians and corporations who frame our public dialogue have long stifled honest discussions of our socialist reality because they know such discussions would show that America primarily champions a particular form of socialism—a corporate socialism leveraging public resources for private profit.
Like the few municipal services that still remain in today's era of Reaganomics, the publicly owned Green Bay Packers are a rare exception to this norm. That's why the story of the team's organizational structure is suppressed—because it shows the most important question facing our nation isn't about accepting or rejecting socialism. We've already accepted it. Instead, the real question is about what specific type of socialism we want: the current kind that works only for those in the luxury box, or the kind that starts working for the rest of us?
David Sirota is a best-selling author whose upcoming book "Back to Our Future" will be released in March of 2011. He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.
© 2011 CREATORS.COM
Bill Maher just did a whole Socialism vs Capitalism segment on his show a couple weeks ago in which he compared the NFL to MLB.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Paf9h3F25s
And "real" people think the "privatization" of public/government services is the only thing that works...
The little guy always wants a voice, wants a piece of the pie. Simple fact of the matter is that no CEO-led, stockholder-owned corporation is a democracy. Only the stockholders (business owners) have any say in control of that organization, the employees and customers have no vote! Furthermore, the strength of that stockholder's vote is calculated from how many shares held. It's "One share, one vote" as opposed to "one man, one vote."
It would be stupid for a holder of two shares to vote differently on those two shares, so the smart shareholder votes the same on all shares held. The case where a few own the majority of shares is effectively making it "minority rule", like South Africa once had.
In the case of the Green Bay Packers, instead of traditional corporations where a few hold the majority of the votes, the Packers seems like these shares, aka votes, are spread out over a larger number of people, I mean voters.
Suppose a whole region, like Milwaukee, like SE Wisconsin, like the whole state of Wisconsin, banded together and ran their region like a corporation. Working together as a team trying to win the economic SuperBowl, acknowledging their own "special teams", their own second string sitting on the bench and not playing (working) at this very moment. Taking care of the whole team, taking care of their playing field, keeping it clean and unpolluted, keeping it well-maintained. Also providing training (education) to keep the players in top quality.
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Near as I can tell, the primary reason that most people think that privatization will work is based on their visits to the DMV, the Post Office, their local courthouse. - But, when they go to Wal-Mart, Target, McDonalds, their local bar, look at how those service workers hustle! Not only do they hustle (to prevent being fired), they even treat the lowliest of customers with respect!
State Workers, the ones complaining about Scott Walker and his Republican majority taking away their union rights to bargain pension and health, YOU CAN FIX THE PROBLEM! -- When you go to work Monday, remember to hustle like your paycheck depends on it! Remember to treat the "low-life" citizen that comes before you with respect! That does not mean you are "Burger King" and that the customer is always right. None of those places let customers get away without paying, but they still stay in good graces with their customers.
You obviously completely missed the entire point of this article. The Green Bay Packers are the only non-profit community owned professional sports franchise in the US. Not a corporation.
To call the Green Bay Packers "non-profit" is simply a use of the legal term applied to the corporate structure (yes, it is a corporation). There is incredible profit involved in running the Packers, and the "shareholders" do not share in the profits- they are shareholders on a piece of paper only.
You can say the same about Aurora Healthcare- which is a "Not-for-Profit" corporation. Does anyone think there is a lack of profit motive in the healthcare industry? Lots of profit to be had in the not-for-profit industries.
And really, let's boil this article down to its essence- to compare a "publicly owned" sports franchise which does not share profits with the public owners to the socialist system as a whole is beyond absurd. If this is the best argument for socialism that the author can come up with, capitalists win this particular argument in a big way.
By the way, the author references a "government-funded stadium". That is such horrible spin that the whole article should be discredited. Lambeau was funded, in part, by a sales and use tax levied in Brown County. Anyone who is honest about this issue must admit that those sales tax revenues exist only because for-profit corporations and medium and small for-profit businesses exist.Â
Not-for-profits are exempt from paying sales taxes in most cases. Yes, the taxes are paid by consumers, but if there are no businesses, the taxes are not collected, period. Not to mention the fact that most of the consumers paying the taxes also work for corporations and medium and small for-profit businesses. There is no such thing as "government-funding". All of the government's revenue comes from business.