Sports: Mind-Controlling Propaganda

Considering sports as an “important” part of American culture is the understatement of the year. Sports are a central part of people’s lives and they certainly influence culture. Athleticism, teamwork, competition, hard work and so on are staples of American ideals because of sports. We witness the crowds of everyday people losing their minds, temper and money as though it’s completely normal behavior. Allegiance to a sports team is basically the same as fidelity to your spouse. People get tattoos of their sports team, spend outrageous money to see them perform, paint themselves and riot all for the sake of their team. How has sports become such a monster capable of such mania?

The sociology of professional sports strikes an uncanny resemblance to American sociology in general. To understand a society, one must understand political economy- how money and power are intertwined and what their intentions are with such power. Conflict theory of sociology says that social order results from the rich and powerful using their privilege to maintain their advantage – sometimes by force but more often by control of the media, symbols, schools, and other institutions. American sports are undoubtedly dictated and shaped by the structure of the economy. Furthermore, sports are also socially constructed, but constructed by the powerful moneymakers. Dimensions to question: How athletes become alienated from their own bodies, sports and commercialism, sports as patriotic/nationalistic propaganda.

Sports are a business, an extremely profitable business. Millions and millions are spent publicizing sports and millions of dollars have also been spent watching them. American sports teams are designed to make rewards (usually monetary) for their business owners, and those affiliated become conditioned to only want money, power and prestige. The deviance in sports conduct emphasizes this- increased use of violence, breaking rules like holding and pushing, and the use of steroids as a performance enhancer. Athletes are doing this for the symbiotic relationship, not for individual betterment. In fact, when an individual becomes an athlete, they lose their identity and become a spokesperson for their economic suppliers, or sponsors. Personal beliefs, ethics and positions are replaced with those of the sponsor. Michael Jordan is a perfect example of an athlete exploiting himself to the desires of his many sponsors. On the other hand, Tommie Smith and John Carlos show what happens when you utilize fame to voice personal beliefs. The two athletes were condemned for demonstrating against the inequality in America after they won the gold and bronze medal, respectively.

The NFL also regularly acts as propaganda for the military. Militant advocacy is ubiquitous during games- frequent advertisements for US military, appearances of troops at games, segments of troops overseas during holiday games. The Super Bowl begins with the national anthem and then encouraging words from the president, followed by fighter jets flying above. Furthermore, the parallels between the two are unmistakable. Athletes, like soldiers, become numbered gladiators that sacrifice their health and identity to follow orders from a commander. They are submitted to a caste system; and exploited to never see the kind of money they’re actually generating. Their bodies become conditioned for violence to gain territory on the opposition. Even terms used in football come directly from military use: Blitz, line to gain, bomb, trench, and encroachment.

As a non-sports fan, I’ve always found the reaction from fans intriguing, or mind-boggling. It’s interesting that seemingly sound-minded people can fall in love with athletes from across America that play for the team they live in, while developing this irrational hatred for similar men that play for opposing teams. Reminiscent of flag-waving war supporters without a clue what we’re fighting for, much?

The sociology of sports reflects everything that is wrong with America. Sports naturalize extreme violence for the sake of winning, is run by commercialism, uses the subservience of athletes to back corporate wishes, and strips the individual of their voice to stay popular with the keepers of normality. Corporations use their power to hide this fascist agenda and mislead fans into believing there’s no political notion in sports. We have been manipulated into accepting irrational behavior, finding ourselves act the same as those who are heavily biased in politics or blind nationalism. Sports have become a diversion to the issues that matter, a distraction that pits our own human nature against ourselves.

George Bush Is Not Good At Public Speaking

Perhaps I’m just now mature enough to notice it, but have political figures always been so bewildering and irrational? Jumping from one irrelevant subject to the next to try and cover their incompetency? It feels like a perfect complement to the quality of overall broadcasting all together. Snookie on Jersey Shore is the new G dub.

George junior has stammered back into the public eye, ya know, to impart some insightful criticism or perhaps to offer some sort of explanation of his administration. Correction: There is a book, people. Now en route on the publicity circuit, we’re getting reacquainted with this spectacle of a man.

I was anticipating the interview with Matt Lauer because I noticed his public image was starting to catch favorable empathy as a direct result. There’s even a billboard on 35 shouting, “Miss me yet?” with his face conspicuously plastered. I was thinking, what could this guy possibly have said during this interview to make people forget? Nothing… actually, less than nothing.

Wouldn’t incumbents of the White House be able to afford decent publicity reps? Isn’t there someone that could manage this mess? Let’s start with not giving verbatim speeches and answers to every location. He’s had this chronic tendency throughout his public presence resulting in tumultuous reactions. How does someone ignore past consequences and continue to fail? He talks about his family, Laura, his mother and the fetus, and his dog. Bush makes sure to emphasize that even the former president picks up dog poop.

Bush’s apparent strategy is to babble about pointless things, draw unnecessary emotion during irrelevant topics, and project responsibility to anyone else possible. He never took blame unless it was worldly impossible otherwise, like the picture of him looking at New Orleans outside of his plane. He took blame for that, because Rumsfeld luckily wasn’t in the plane to take responsibility. He blamed the intelligence team, he blamed the local governments, and he blamed the media. This tactic might work for a one-time deal, but to relentlessly persist is insulting to viewers. Other things that would cause him to fail speech class:

- His body language is too strong, like he's above those he's speaking to

- He laughs at his own jokes

- Overuse of keywords, and talking in circles. ("The American people do not want terrorism. If they don't want terrorism, they have to give other things up so that they can have what they want. If not, they wouldn't want what they want.")

- He appears angry when asked questions ("Don't you want to get rid of terrorism?!")

He closed the interview assuring the public he doesn’t lose sleep over his popularity, or lack thereof. He doesn’t care if his decisions are unfavorable; he is here for America, not you. Someone should have told him not to go this route, to avoid those words. He was the representation of our opinion, of our agenda, yet someone who has no regard toward that aspect. He didn’t hide his intentions for money when he came to campus and spoke, and asked who would be surprised by that? People clapped and clamored and yelled “USA!” I suppose the average citizen wouldn’t be out of line to proceed with the incentive of money, but his entire legacy is built around his stride for monetary wealth, even if it means going to war. Professing this motive at this single time is a small window to his entire MO. I have hope that most of America hasn’t forgotten his corruption. Maybe it’s just my immediate surroundings that are reflective of optimistic hopes for Bush, and if that’s the case, I’m moving…ASAP.

Obama Drama

People are talking about Obama's decision to offer waivers to mega-corporations for the new healthcare legislation like gossip hour at a gay tea party. It's everywhere. And people can't make sense of it. PR to the rescue! Maybe.

The president has found himself in a PR pickle. It's fair to speculate this is one of the most hated presidents in office in some time. His decline of popularity during the first year in office was worse than any other president in recorded history, just under 50 percent. I guess this objective statistic would suggest we have a hideously incompetent monster leading us...if one actually rests faith on the judgment of our American people. As offensive, or insulting this may seem--I am not comforted by the flagrant display of ignorance I see every day....CBS News wrote a great article talking about the expectations and inevitable "failure" Obama was set up for since the beginning. I don't need to remind people what the 43rd administration left behind, insurmountable to tackle. So with the gumption to take on this preposterous task.... Obama’s options were....what??

His decision for mandatory healthcare was refuted by big corporations like McDonalds that proclaimed they would "re-evaluate their plans" regarding their employee health insurance if they did not get a waiver. Obama's choice was literally between raising healthcare costs, or no health insurance at all. So he offered exemptions that will allow 30 companies to pay below the minimum annual benefit in low-cost insurance plans.

There are two perspectives to this situation. McDonalds and the United Federation of Teachers represent a portion of the 1 million people, the very worthy and deserving people, which would lose their insurance. Small business owners are furious that they didn't get a healthcare waiver as opposed to mega-corporations. But it's not about them. It's about the little person, the worker, the one that's earning the business owner's profit for them. Secondly, the congressional election is approaching in early November, and with such steep popularity, there's a chance Obama will be politically overrun by Republicans. All effort is futile. Sigh....

His PR guy probably has more gray hair and frown lines than Obama. How do you deal with this? Infuriate 1 million people that lost their insurance they rightfully need, or continue to piss off all of the people that have always been blogging and tweeting "nobama" hate messages, while they sit on their golden toilet made of full-coverage PPO plans. There's no way around it, you're absolutely going to enrage legions of people. I congratulate his decision, sticking to the ideals and priorities he spoke about since running. I have the utmost respect for political PR reps.

We've Made a Fetish out of our 'Stuff'

So I read this book....and I want to talk about it. It's called The Code of Advertising: Fetishism and the Political Economy of Meaning in the Consumer Society, by Sut Jhally. It covers the basics of Marxism, and its relations to products, and the labor force.

Jhally makes it apparent we don't know about our products. Questions concerning the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of any goods today are frivolous in our climate of advanced capitalism. Who's hands touched this? What were the working conditions like? How much did he/she get paid for it? Was it a child? We are alienated from these worthy questions.

Indifference to the inherent foundation of our goods has led to a mind-blowing phenomenon called commodity fetishism. “Commodity fetishism is seen when an excessive proportion of individual activities are channeled through the market so that the commercialized sector of our lives is unduly large.”

I’ve never had to think twice about the concept of “surplus-value” or profit. Jhally explains there is an exchange of equals in the workforce, worker’s labor for worker’s wage. Although, with this basis, how is profit possible? The shocking, yet not so shocking, fact that workers are producing more value with their labor than their own labor is worth, has bled into the political economics of broadcast media.

Cable networks sell audience-viewing time to advertisers for more money than I can sit comfortably with. The cliffhanger rests in how much are we, as an audience, worth? Networks fill the empty time they own by buying the watching power of the audience, or the capacity to watch. Advertisers buy our watching power (consciousness) from networks for more than what was originally paid, thus valorizing (establish and maintain the price of a commodity by governmental action) our consciousness. We're actually working when we watch TV.

We are paying the networks through our own consciousness. That's irritating. Think you get out of it with new technology like TiVo and Fios? Nope. The cyclical motion of us working in a non-media environment to pay for those commodities validates us right back where we started. Our money, our time, and our mind is handed over to broadcasting networks whether we like it or not.

So why? Why do we even watch TV? Studies show it's addictive, that we don't even really like it, that we feel guilty when we admit just how much we actually watch. Interesting...

Now, I’ve never been convinced of anything extremely negative about the realm of advertising. Although, it only took the first few points of The Code of Advertising to significantly make me question my sense of security.

Jhally’s impressively unbiased view of his observations initially made me assume he was a critique of advertisement. His illustration of Marxism unveiled worker suffrage that seemingly has no signs of improvement. We’re under the mercy of advertisement. His comeback to the defense of advertisement was that it doesn’t offer a reality that isn’t there; rather it reflects aspects of our social life that can be taken interpretively. This isn’t an outlandish concept, although it’s not exactly....soothing. Perhaps it is not advertising I should scapegoat, instead, the industry is merely trying to survive in the world of capitalism. Ultimately, my scope has been broadly widened.