Wars everywhere, massive and unfettered unconstitutional surveillance and data-mining programs, systemic government corruption, long-term structural unemployment, growing income inequality, global loss of prestige, crumbling infrastructure, the inability to compete in the global marketplace due to poor education, a huge for-profit prison system, paramilitary police goon squads, the death of the American dream, torture chambers at the US concentration camp at Gitmo, wanton criminality in every nook and cranny of the revolving door between Washington and Wall Street - No Problem at all! Forcing the Washington Redskins of the National Football League to change their name - Holy Shit! Scramble the crisis units and bring Senate business to a halt for this massive national emergency. Congress pulls this sort of crap all of the time, like dragging has been baseball players like Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and others into their ridiculous tribunals instead of practicing legitimate oversight on real problems and focusing on doing their damned jobs rather than showboating.
The latest farce involves a letter submitted to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell this week asking him to consider changing the team name. According to a story in Sports Illustrated which now so often forays into the realm of national politics and pimping the government line - such as with covering up the state of martial law declared last year in Beantown by promoting the feel good tales of Boston Strong - the letter was dated May 21, 2014 and as I excerpt:
“The N.F.L. can no longer ignore this and perpetuate the use of this name as anything but what it is: a racial slur. We urge the N.F.L. to formally support a name change for the Washington football team.”
“We urge you and the National Football League to send the same clear message as the N.B.A. did: that racism and bigotry have no place in professional sports.”
That the letter perfectly capitalizes on the time of the NBA's stripping of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for making racist comments that were secretly recorded and reek of a setup and that no Republicans were asked to sign it is just evidence that the entire thing is an election year charade. Not that the Republicans have the time to get onboard this ship of fools, they are too busy masturbating over the latest Benghazi dog and pony show.
Is it politically incorrect? Sure but only more so in an election year. Do the descendants of Native Americans have every right to be offended? I can't speak for them but I would think that having your ancestors fucking slaughtered by raving John Wayne hammerhead prototypes under the pretense of Manifest Destiny would be a far more serious grievance than what the hell some football team calls itself - and has called itself ever since the team relocated from Boston back in 1937. Jesus Christ - get a life people. The ginned up outrage is led by that sissified little twit Harry Reid, a wimp with an insatiable taste for the sand that has been kicked into his face like the weakling in that famous old advertisement cartoon for Charles Atlas. Go and sell that bullshit to the Fighting Irish in South Bend, Indiana Harry!
I would think that a larger problem is the National Football League's infatuation with militarism and the flag-sucking that is a part of every major broadcast - particularly in the current era of the endless wars after the day that changed everything. It is impossible to enjoy watching a game without being bludgeoned by the big red, white and blue club wielded by the networks and the league itself. Never is it more apparent than during the big nationally televised opener in September which always falls right around the anniversary of 9/11 and nationalism and war worship is crammed down spectator's throats from the pregame onward. There is always the obligatory military flyover, hope that the American taxpayers enjoy it because they are paying for it, the honor guard and on Thanksgiving day the nauseating tributes to our precious military.
If there was ever a sport that was made for America it is professional football, it is a 'sport' custom made for militarist American imperialism and the now fully mutated form of capitalism that a constant state of armed conflict needs to exist. Former NFL player Dave Meggyesy drew much criticism when he nailed it in a speech delivered at Syracuse University that “symbolically and metaphysically, big-time football represents our violent culture and the mode of authoritarianism. It has as its keynote competition and militaristic, organized violence.” This was in the seventies during the Vietnam war, a completely unnecessary and ruinous military misadventure in which over fifty thousand Americans and millions of Vietnamese were killed for nothing - besides the ability of greedy American corporations to now use the country as yet another one of their cheap labor havens to which well-paying jobs have been offshored by the millions since around the time that the twin towers fell.
No matter how much total horseshit that this name thing change is in the larger scheme of things, and again I do recognize that some of Native American descent are offended but if the Redskins do knuckle under and agree to renounce the nickname it will be far more out of the potential to make more money than any bowing to the political correctness Nazis. Just imagine how much coin can be made by selling all of that brand new, officially authorized NFL merchandise like shirts, jackets, dog sweaters and thousands of other items! It will be as if money rained down from the heavens on Roger Goodell and Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, a thoroughly slimy little prick who makes Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones look like the fucking Pope. The league itself will also shine in the same manner that it does when exploiting National Breast Cancer Awareness Month with special pink hued team apparel which the proceeds go to charity but the real prize - appealing to the female demographic is a matter of invaluable goodwill towards the NFL.
Perhaps a more appropriate team name would be the Washington Whores in honor of the pack of unprincipled and rapacious jackals who are our representatives.
(Image: Christian Science Monitor)
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