Conditioning, communism, America and sports propaganda

Are we being preconditioned?

Laurence M. Vance, a favorite writer of mine, has written much about the recent influx of “patriotism,” flags, war anthems and saluting of the troops during sport events. Because of this, I won’t beat a dead horse. But I think all of this is interesting and definitely by design.

Maybe now I’m paying more attention but I don’t ever recall military/nation worshiping like this. Before the game, halftime, crowd participating, red and white blue synchronization, troops on the field, their families, commentators…everyone joins in on this stuff. What happen to the day (was there ever?) where one could just watch a sports event without being bombarded with politics?

Everything is connected. Subconsciously, a stream of consciousness for a viewer or participant could go as this. Football is a masculine sports,  so is the military. Football is an American sport. Support football, support the troops. Without the heroic troops, who protect America, no football. Join along, everyone is doing it. Even if you hate the troops, participating won’t hurt much.

Are sport events a large scale exhibit of group-think?

Even the commentators and retired athletes are promoting this stuff, truisms, not to be questioned or thought about.

Lin Yang, student writer who grew up in China, wrote a really good paper titled Politics of the Sporting Body: A study of sport as a political tool under Communism, explaining how communist ideology added “new dimensions to traditional power relations between the state and society through the effective utilization of a centralized sports program,” and how Russian communist leaders used “sports in their bid to accomplish political objectives.”

Simple minded readers will dismiss this and label it a hit piece, claiming I am calling America communist. That is for another discussion. But all countries, regardless of the political and social leanings, strive for nationalism, that is, the social conditioning and personal behaviors that supports a state’s decisions or actions (Rothi, Lyons, Chryssochoou) and aim to inject it into several aspects of life.

I think it is preconditioning. Something horrible is soon to come and the State needs mass support for its (and the military by extension) actions.

Or am I paranoid?

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