The Super Bowl: A Celebration of Consumption

The Super Bowl — the game that is to sports what the Mall of America is to shopping — is over. The contest between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots was admittedly more exciting than most, and Katy Perry’s halftime show was a spectacle of smoke and mirrors (literally) to be remembered. Of course, many people watching the extravaganza were as interested in the commercials as the game itself.

The championship game has really become the Corporate America Bowl, an electronic marketplace where Fortune 500 companies spend tens of millions of dollars on 30 and 60 second mini-movies, competing for the attention of a zillion prospective customers. Articles about who won the commercial wars during the event are as numerous as articles about the team that won the game.

Super Bowl Sunday is a celebration of consumption, a sacrifice of men’s bodies to the god of materialism and capitalism, a super shiny object drawing our attention from reality. It’s a violent contest continuously interrupted by companies hawking their wares. I wonder if between brawls to the death Ceasar allowed merchants to walk around the coliseum selling figs and sandals?

I know, it’s tedious and redundant to criticize the Super Bowl, but I had to get it out of my system. Can’t wait until next year.

Where’s the Super Bowl tribute to Pete Seeger?

I served in the United States Army for three years, from 1972 to 1975. When I was drafted, I didn’t know that I wouldn’t go to Vietnam, but at some point in basic training I learned that they were not sending any new American troops to the war zone. There were guys I was training with who were disappointed.

            Forty-two years later, I’m watching the Super Bowl. Honestly, I don’t care who wins, I just enjoy watching football from time to time. What I do find interesting and disturbing in the whole corporate extravaganza is the celebration and adoration of our military. FOX won’t let us forget about our men and women fighting for…who knows what…serving in foreign lands. Black, white and brown faces smile widely as they give a shout out to family and friends back home. Is that wrong, you ask? These people are serving our country, giving up the comforts of home and hearth to defend democracy. Yes, I know. I was there. Having to serve in uniform and leave my young family turned my private life upside down and it all ended badly.

            Let me ask you this. Where are the soldiers for peace? Where are the men and women who devote their lives to ending warfare and bloodshed? Where’s the tribute to Pete Seeger? Where’s the profile of Edward Snowden? What happened to the halftime show honoring Nelson Mandela? The ugly truth is we are an imperial nation with a lust for conquest and bloodshed. We need constant conflict, whether it’s the Indians or the Nazis or the communists or the terrorists, we need an enemy to distract the populace from the looting of their country by the capitalist elites. The Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Du Ponts, Bushs, Hiltons, Waltons, Coors and the Kochs all understood that their success depended on keeping us distracted and focused on the “other.” Class warfare happens in foreign countries, not here. We only fight when we have to. Peace is our main objective.

            We’ve been lied to for so long we can’t tell up from down, good from bad or truth from falsehood. We celebrate violence and ignore peace. Our heroes, whether real or fictional, succeed by killing and destroying. Our entertainment is dominated by those who win using force. People who work for peace are marginalized, ignored and scoffed at.

           This is the country I sacrificed three years of my life for. I’d like them back now, please.