All,
The following is the first installment of a multi-part series of essays titled “The Ugly America.”
America is an Ugly place. I realize that many of you may hate me for saying that, but it’s true. You can sing “America the Beautiful” all day and all night until you start to foam at the mouth and collapse in a spasmodic heap of hyper-patriotic anguish, but your sacrifice won’t change the brutal fact that America is quickly becoming a very, very ugly place.
Make no mistake, America, just like the rest of the world, still offers some great vistas for the occasional tourist, but when you scratch beneath the surface of the Grand Tetons, the Oregon Coast (that’s for you, John), the tall grass prairies of the central continent, and several other breath-gasping visual stimuli, you must arrive at the culture that runs through the veins of the people that inhabit the place. This is where the ugliness of America pushes the small places of God’s beautiful planet we have allowed to survive to the side. The ugly takes the spotlight of center stage, and the beautiful planet we should serve is barely even a backdrop.
Sports
Professional sports in america is, by any measure, little more than two very basic things. First, it is a simulation and glorification of war, and second, it is a set of rituals which function very simply and directly as empire worship. Sport in america is part and parcel of the ugly, out of control patriotism that now defiles our culture at every turn.
First, in the most popular venue of american professional sports, american football, we see represented in a perfect mirror the horror of war transferred to a more palatable format. American football serves as the most grotesque example of the war-lust that is so deeply engrained in the american psyche. The very format and rules are designed to simulate set-piece military combat. One side is on the offensive, trying to occupy the territory of their opponent and the other side is defending their territory against the interloping invader. If the invasion is halted, the counter-offensive is certain to come. If the offensive is successful, the counteroffensive will come after a brief peace (and a word from our corporate sponsors).
The generals and their immediate subordinates, or coaches as they are called, pace the sidelines barking orders as if they were at the front lines of a military battle. The little women, whom the team is sworn to protect, dance and jiggle their appreciation deeper behind the lines. The injured soldiers lie in heaps as the medics scramble to stop the pain of injury so the player can get back out there and kill. The highest ranking players gather their platoons and squads and urge them to fight on until death (or until the clock runs out).
I understand that the vast majority of mass-consumption sports possess this offense <–> defense dialectic, but no other sport is set out to represent the horrors of war more than american football. The soldiers, invincible in their 23rd century interplanetary battle dress confront each other with faces painted to look like demonic warriors of the inferno. In spasmodic episodes lasting between five and fifteen seconds they exert all of their energy in an effort to do the opponent harm and conquer him; it is as if they are in their own “Operation Autumn Fog” (don’t raise your eyebrow, google it!). If players of either side are carried off on a stretcher, then so be it; that’s the price of war, fame…and a fifteen million dollar a year contract.
Basketball may be seen as an even more disturbing example of the american need for war-like blood in their sport. According to the rules, basketball is a non-contact sport. It is designed to be a test of play and skill by hastily constructing functioning offense while avoiding the other team’s hastily constructed defense in order to have the opportunity to throw a ball through a horizontal hoop set ten feet above the ground. Each team must alternately pass the ball between five players in an effort to gain a high-probability shot at the hoop. The defense may do whatever they can to stop their opponent from throwing the ball through the hoop, but they are not allowed to touch them in the process. Likewise, the offense is not allowed to merely proceed with the ball in their hands. The must bounce the ball on the floor as they move, and, if stationary, they must pivot on one foot.
That is basketball ‘by the rule book.’ How many of you truly think that anyone would attend a game of the National Basketball Association if the referees enforced such fairie-ass bullshit? Not many. You may ask; “What drives this push toward violence? Two things: American need for violence in their sport combined with the commercial need for high television ratings This is why basketball has become the violent sport it was never meant to be.
This is also one reason why football will never be the success in america that it is in the rest of the world. The laws of the game determine that it too, is, except for one very small circumstance, a non-contact sport. Two players may engage each other ‘shoulder to shoulder’ within playing distance of the ball. The referees appreciate this non-contact basis for the game and enforce it with zeal. There is, of course, growing pressure to allow more violence in football, but we can only hope that all referees, the USSF, and FIFA resist this pressure.
That is, in brief the two most popular sports in america in terms of how they satisfy the masses’ need for violence during play. Now I want to look at the empire worship of american mass consumption sport in the form of the ‘pre-game.’ My God, I cannot even bear to watch this!
In american football the corporate owners of these teams roll gigantic american flags onto the field, held aloft either by a darling, tear-jerking menagerie of multi-ethnic children (all christian, or at least no muslims), or soldiers of the american imperial death machine. Then, as the field lies blanketed in the stars and stripes, the air force flies overhead with read, white, and blue smoke trailing from the asses of their fighter jets. What greater spectacle of patriotic empire worship could there be???!!! [outside of a baptist church service]. The masses of blood-thirsty worker bees are stirred by this show into an ever more feverish frenzy as the chants of “USA, USA, USA!!!!” fill the stadium.
Insert: Please note that employees of the diplomatic corps are not invited to such ceremonies. The bees are taught: “Hell, those ‘all talk’ fags couldn’t hold up that flag, anyway! We need to keep meals-on-wheels and get rid of the State Department! Diplomacy can be done at the end of the barrel of a gun for a lot less money! ‘We’re america! You fucking do as we say, or we’ll blow your fucking heads off!’ That’s foreign-fucking-policy, right there! Every once in a while you have to fuck ’em just to see the look on their face!” None of that is very grown-up, but what can you say? I mean, after all, america is growing into a very ugly place.
Meanwhile the corporate sponsors of the state and their top 5% allies sit in their fully staffed, climate-controlled sky-boxes, detached from the filth sitting out in the elements below them. They drink martinis and make their multi-million dollar deals; turning their attention to the war below only every so often.
Insert: If you find it difficult to internalize and understand why these oligarchs would rarely turn their attention to the ‘game,’ then allow me to explain. The owners of these professional teams realize that as long at the united states is at war somewhere in the world (it doesn’t matter where), then their stocks in Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, L3 Communications, and host of other corporations who’s business is war, earn them incredibly rich dividends. Hell, the US doesn’t even have to be winning, all that matters is that the war is happening, and the orders for for more materiel keep coming. These sports teams, on the other hand, are really more trouble than they’re worth. If the team loses more than it wins, then the investment quickly turns into a liability.
But let us return to the sports channel!
Once in a while the oligarchs laugh at how easy it is to convince the workers below them to vote for the interests of the 5%. Allow me to remind you that to these people there is no america, there is no ‘west,’ there is only the flow of capital around the planet and between each of them. Patriotism and nationalism are mere commodities sold to the masses for their internationalist-globalization benefit, and nothing more.
We cannot discuss the pre-game ceremony without returning to the National Basketball Association. Although the venues are all indoors and necessarily smaller in scale, the hyper-patriotic empire worship is no less intense. Its purpose is to prepare the masses for the imperial violence of blood-sport soon to come. The music (different for each player during their introductions), the lights, the build-up to the appearance of the mega-stars; it’s a show, it’s pure entertainment bathed in red, white, and blue.
I can hear the argument from some of you that it’s supposed to be entertainment. This is true, but my point is the over-the-top, imperial extravagance of it all. Each of you should compare the imperial display that accompanies the ‘regular season’ games and the championships of the american NFL and NBA leagues with that of a true world championship set of games; The World Cup finals of football.
The final matches of this tournament occur only once every four years, and qualification for a place in the final tournament of thirty-two teams is a two-year process in which the national teams of virtually every country on this planet participate. Once you reach the final tournament of thirty-two, each match begins with the two teams walking onto the pitch side-by-side preceded by the referee team. This would be impossible in the NBA and the NFL; each game would begin in an all out brawl, but as I stated earlier, if players of either side are carried off on a stretcher, then so be it; that’s the price of war, fame…and a fifteen million dollar a year contract.
Prior to even the championship match of the World Cup Finals, the entertainment is, compared to american imperial sport pre-season games, subdued, and once the two teams are on the pitch, the ceremony entails the national anthem of each participant; after that, the match begins.
Insert: “Holy crap, are you serious? That’s nothing but a bunch of fairie-ass United Nations bullshit. Damn, that’s it, I just figured it out! Soccer is just a front for the the devil’s liberal ‘one world government’ scheme! Fucking un-american, if you ask me.”
Lastly, allow me to venture into the realm of “two men enter, one man leave;” the precursor to the thunderdome, the revival of the Roman gladiator games: the UFC. This, this, thing (I will not call it a sport) which is now disguised under the name ‘mixed martial arts’ marks the debasement of humanity to its most basic instincts. I realize that this diversion originated in Japan, but it did so because the originators were not certain if the american market was ready for such violence. Really?
It did not take long, after slowly releasing fights here and there into the american cable market, that the owners of the UFC realized that there was never any need to hide in Japan; america had been thirsting for and lusting after bloody person-to-person combat like this for a long, long time. Soon thereafter, the league moved to the United States. Granted, the absolute ‘no holds barred’ rules that were part and parcel of the league while it rested in Japan were exchanged for a few rules: one could no longer bite the other glatiator’s balls off during a stipulated fight…makes sense to me.
This phenomenon gave rise to the ritual of the back yard fight; arenas in which two tough guys stepped up and fought it out any way they could until one of them surrendered. The back yard fights even gave rise to their own set of celebrities; does Kimbro Slice ring a bell? If it doesn’t, don’t worry, in fact, be thankful. The point is that we now have the people who flocked to the false competition of ‘professional wrestling’ finding true gratification and the satiation of their blood-lust through the UFC and its octagon. The violence of this endeavor knows no bounds, and I suppose it is only a matter of time before biting off balls is sanctioned by the competitions committee.
What then do I think that God makes of all of this? I truly believe that God appreciates intelligent, friendly, and mutually beneficial competition among us. These activities build our character and, in the end, lead us to appreciate the help of others. It shows us that no person is an island and can make a successful life in His eyes by themselves. We depend on each other, on our community, on those with whom we have formed bonds of kinship in order to fulfill the lives God wants for us; in order to love each other as He loved us.
This is type of competition not only builds bonds between one and their team-mates, but also with those against whom they compete. This is healthy and beautiful. However, when we take our desire to compete against each other into the realm of violence, gluttony, and worship of the earthly imperial powers that stand against God and His kingdom, then He cannot smile upon that. The one who does smile upon it is that which is our enemy. The one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. The violent extremes to which our sporting interests have gone breeds only enemies and enemy hatred. It is sickening and ugly.
Sport in america, my friends, is very often a very ugly thing. However, what can anybody expect from the culture of a country that has been in existence for 239 years and has been involved in war for 222 of those years. The ugly america is all around us, but it does not need to be the end of our cultural stagger though history. Each of us holds the power to make amercian culture a beautiful thing. It will not be easy, because in order to do so we will need to seek beautiful culture in all we do, and part of this will be do demand an end to the ‘ultra-violence’ of our sporting entertainment.
Peace and Love to all,
Niemand