It's almost over. Our autumnal orgy of orchestrated injury, our paean to triumph at any cost, the pageant of American Darwinism. Football season. Football is part of the pornography of violence and, if we accept the liberal sociologists' view of such matters, it is perhaps wisest to let the Battle of America be won on the playing fields of RFK Stadium.

I say perhaps. The evidence is cloudy. We managed to engage in the most stupid war of our history while at the peak of arousal over professional football. And we are regressing into the state-contrived violence of capital punishment, SWAT squads, and massive subsidization of foreign and domestic police state activities apparently unappeased by the bruises of the NFL.

Football also not only involves an unreasonable number of individual injuries but a progressive deterioration of the physical health of nearly all players. The spectator is not viewing an occasional accident, but the pandemic maiming of most of those on the field. This problem is most severe in pro ball, but is a characteristic of the game all the way down to the little leagues. Football is actually an anti-athletic endeavor since its main physiological effect is to hurt bodies rather than to make them stronger.

The obsession with football interrupts many other facets of life, not the least being sports itself. One example; A few weeks ago 1,500 persons started in the Marine Marathon here. More than a thousand finished. Based on participation it was probably the largest sporting event ever held in the area. As far as the local media was concerned, though, it was a sidelight. It rated a couple of photos and cut lines. Not stats, no detail, no real coverage. The press was following the money, not the athletes and so once again devoted its space to football.

For me, that's enough reasons to long for a new year, for a temporary end of Super Bowls, wild cards and draft choices. For me there's enough greed and brutality in the real world. A good sport takes us away from the avarices and perversions of the mind and lets us discover skill, speed, strength, grace and surprise that lie beneath the shoulders. A good sport is fun. It's play. Football is neither. It is hard, mean, power-grubbing, hurtful work because instead of releasing us from the less admirable aspects of our world, it emulates and encourages them.

 

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Derp

As our country has become more stable we have looked to the sports arenas for an outlet for satisfying our need of violence. Baseball was big because it was a leisurely retreat from an otherwise violent society. After the world wars, the quelling of the acceptance of racism, and the stabilizing of our labor system Americans needed an outlet for their need of violence, this was found in the new wave of American sports. This new wave of sports is also a sign of both a lack of progress and a probable peaking of our society. Whether we go forward or back from here is not only up to us but also perhaps up to our inner demons that subconsciously keep us longing for the next battle.

 

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We have an all volunteer army. Americans at large don't need an outlet for violence when barely any of them are actually participating in the fighting. You can't compare what is going on to Vietnam where we had a draft and nearly every male under 25 years old was thrown into the fray.

Herp.

 

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ya know, im tired. i will read all that in the morning. let me know if you said something that needs modding, okies? thanks.

 

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Nice try, but I'm not biting on this cut n paste job.

 

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I like turtles.

 

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Stopped reading at paean.

 

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