FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
FAR LEFT SUPER BOWL PREGAME

From Democracy Now:

Pro-Choice Advocates Criticize CBS for
Accepting Anti-Abortion Super Bowl Ad

With the Super Bowl just two days away, the game’s broadcaster CBS is coming under criticism for accepting an anti-abortion ad paid for by Focus on the Family. For years, CBS and other networks have rejected advocacy ads during the Super Bowl. We get reaction from Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood and sportswriter Dave Zirin, author of A People’s History of Sports in the United States.

Click here to watch or read or listen to the rest.

And again from Democracy Now:

Dave Zirin on Super Bowl Fever in New Orleans
and the Militarization of Sport’s Biggest Spectacle

Sportswriter Dave Zirin, author of A People’s History of Sports in the United States, says the New Orleans Saints’ Super Bowl appearance—at least for the moment—is boosting spirits in New Orleans on a level unseen since Hurricane Katrina. Zirin also discusses pro athletes who have stood up for gay rights and how the Super Bowl spectacle continues to be used to promote US militarization.

Click here to watch read or listen to the rest.

Well, not much commentary from me on this; just go watch the reports--they're quick. Well, okay, one brief bit of commentary: this pair of stories from Democracy Now is yet another reminder that a lot of things we think of as being completely apolitical are, in fact, extraordinarily political. I don't know that I would agree with Marx's assertion that everything is political, but I do strongly believe that almost everything has a political dimension to it, and that most certainly includes football. Especially football, what with it's military metaphors and hyper-masculinity.

Indeed, I would even go so far as to say that the most devastating aspect of the sophisticated and all-encompassing propaganda system used by the wealthy elites who own and run the country is that most people think that politics is something that only a relative few guys in suits do, in places far from where we are right now. In fact, politics is in your home, out in the streets, in shopping malls and grocery stores, in bars, in the schools, at church, and on television. And politics is something in which you are involved. Whether you know it or not. Whether you like it or not. That most people believe politics is something over there, done by people who aren't me or people I know, means that people tend to simply not think pay attention. And that's when it gets easy for the elites to pull some serious bullshit.

At any rate, GO SAINTS!!!

WHO DAT!!!

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