Other than Halloween stuff being put up since the first of August, which was 3 months before Halloween.. Way to go, and I’m sure I should send Halloween greeting cards to all my family and friends. Just peachy. But there’s the commercial for a pet supplies store who are marketing NFL licensed gear for DOGS. One commercial (God, couldn’t they just stop at one, and then take that out and bury it?) has two dogs preparing for game day festivities wearing jerseys from the teams which I suppose every dog is an ardent follower Fanatic for a football team. And has rivalries based entirely on which other pooch likes which other team. Which they don’t. Dogs are smarter than humans in this respect. Let me iterate and possibly re-iterate something really basic. Professional (and that includes Grade School, High School and College players) Football is a GAME. Children play it for fun. Millionaires prance around on grass fields at the expense of every other taxpayer in the city unfortunate enough to host it. Whether the taxpayer actually wants to see a bunch of overly privileged dudes slapping each other with their entire body. We all get to pay for NFL. And all other sports. Because each and every professional and even grade school game, for a start, get traffic control at no expense to the team. That’s just a start. Schools, even “private” schools, get subsidies from the Taxpayers.
Which is a good thing in which to invest. Tarrant County, Texas… wherein lies Arlington, home of the Cowboys, has a 50% rate of functional literacy. That means half the adults there is NOT functionally literate. Which would explain the tendency for Tarrant County consistently voting for Wing Nuts. But, without school funding, think how much worse it could possibly get. shudder…
There’s a book, “Hitler Speaks” with the quotation from Uncle Adolph : “universal public education is the most corrosive toxin Liberalism can inflict upon itself, it makes the masses discontented with their state. All that is needed is sufficient education to make them efficient coolies for our industries and effective soldiers for our army” and that’s the abridged version. It’s been an integral part of education in America for centuries now. The real difference between national governments is mostly How Much Shit Did The Leaders Get Away With Doing before the societies collapsed.
The Romans used spectacle to entertain the masses because it was simpler and cheaper in the short cycle than actually bettering society.
The Roman citizens thought of themselves as Free too.
The Mafia and Wall Street have a common philosophy, which they got directly from Rome. The Ponzi/Pyramid scheme known as Capitalism. The ones who profess pure Market Driven Capital are by a bizarre coincidence the ones who harvest the most Government Spending. Which gets accelerated in a war. In the words of Naval Flight Lieutenant Joseph “Country Joe” McDonald: Now come on, Wall Street, don’t be slow, man it’s war a go-go. Plenty good money to be made, supplyin’ the army with the tools of the trade…”
And the amount of publicly subsidized Bread and Circus spectacle increases more rapidly relative the un winnable nature of any war.
The farther away from any victory or just an end to the murder spree, the more Bread and Circus. and the cheaper the beer gets.
In case you want to know a couple methods to determine just exactly screwed we are, those are a couple of really good indicators.
How good, you ask? Well, it’s on the level of going out in your backyard and seeing a lot of bear tracks in the dirt, and bear droppings all over the place, you could safely assume that a bear has been in your backyard. The likelihood of it being a cougar or wolf putting down fake tracks and droppings could be taken into account, but it ain’t bloody likely.
Other indicators include if the children are encouraged to wear uniforms and act in coordinated violent teamwork. Like hitting each other with their uniformed bodies. And now, they are. It’s the most subsidized part of any school district funding. Cheerleading, which is putting on uniforms and then chanting in unison, is part of the deal. Religious Leaders preaching support for the war AND preaching organized activities done by uniformed children, that’s another one.
There was a Texas preacher who ran a Boy’s Ranch. Several such “reform” schools in fact. Lester Roloff. A major portion of his curriculum and agenda was Football. He even had very kind words for Billy Sunday, Who preached racism. Funny how that part doesn’t count. Roloff was what’s called a “spit and image” short for Spirit and Image. How much departure does their doctrine, which unfortunately didn’t die with them, have from say, The Denver Donkos or the Cowboys? Not much actually. And mostly it would be the level of subsidies. Taxpayer funded subsidies. The Donkos and the Cowboys, aside from having their host cities building the stadiums their modern Roman Gladiators use, get even more subsidies in the way of Tax Breaks. City, County, State, Federal. They’re shameless whores. If you accept that, you might as well hire prostitutes for other people. There’s simply not much difference.
And there are many preachers who tell us that God has ordained the local sports franchise to be worshiped by the people.
If that sounds creepy and crazy, it’s because the notion of making Football or other sports to be the religion of America is in fact crazy and creepy. And the people who advocate it. Myself, no. I don’t advocate it. I merely report it and give a few out of multitude really good reasons not to do it. And don’t put a uniform on your dog. It’s more than a little bit demonic.
And in other news, I started getting Christmas Spam. yum yum. A reminder that it’s 13 weeks away. That’s poor usage of the English language and really says : more than 3 months. The Book said nothing about flying reindeer, morbidly obese elf-changelings, living snowmen or trees. I say that every year. Get used to it. The Book also said He got sold for 30 silver shekels. Wall Street and WalMart sell Him for billions every year.