SuperBowl

Today is SuperBowl Sunday XL, I am told by the brainwashing corporate media. I watch mass behavior change on the streets of my city. A whole society becomes paced to this event. Why? I doubt there is any scientific explanation which would get funded by the powers that are invested in this behavior of the masses. Have we come very far from the bread and circus of ancient Rome? As I see it, the SuperBowl ethic is based in an allowance for brutish male behavior, enhanced by the consumption of alcohol, other mind-altering drugs and fast food. I can hear a resounding "lighten up" coming my way. But isn't that the issue? Aren't we living in times in America where people lighten up all too frequently about all too many serious issues and social problems? People have lightened up over the coup by which our government was kidnapped by the radical Right in 2000. People have lightened up over a dishonest invasion of another country and a massacre of innocents there. People have lightened up over gang violence on our streets and buy music which glorifies that violent subculture. People have lightened up over a President who illegally spies on free American citizens. People have lightened up over the illegal immigrants who are enslaved in substandard employment and undercut the very fiber of a lawful society. I will not be watching the gladiators between the seductive flash of Madison Avenue propaganda, aimed at bilking the middle class even further. I will be practicing a quiet and solitary protest against lightening up to the point of mindlessness.