America is a culture of celebrity, not morality. Although it pales in comparison to the Olympics (3 billion viewers), a World Cup Final (1.5 billion), or some cricket tournaments (1 billion), the National Football League (NFL) and US Military’s annual Super Bowl, typically draws an audience of over 150 million people worldwide. Countless Americans will party, gamble, and celebrate today’s sporting event, despite most knowing to some extent (whether they admit it or not), that both the United States and Israel are committing a GENOCIDE in Gaza, that has now killed over 35,096 Palestinians, including 13,642 CHILDREN! Did you know that on average, over the last 3.5 months, more than 10 Palestinian kids PER DAY have had to have at least one arm or leg amputated without anesthesia? Can you imagine how any American Mom would react if it was her child being MURDERED, or having to have his or her limbs AMPUTATED without anesthesia? The complete disconnect, and unconscionability of so many Americans regarding the ongoing MASSACRE of tens of thousands of Palestinians, and their CHILDREN, is nothing short of mind-blowing. Especially if you believe, like I do, that we are all Brothers and Sisters, and All CHILDREN are Our CHILDREN.
Here are Ten Reasons why I will likely never watch an NFL Super Bowl game again:
1. The United States and the US War Machine are by far, the biggest threat to the survival of our species. The United States is complicit in GENOCIDE (in real time), and yet the US Military’s nauseating presence will be applauded, and felt everywhere in today’s Super Bowl telecast.
2. The National Football League (NFL) is an appendage of the US Military. One recent NFL program was broadcast from a US Navy base with all of the NFL announcers dressed in camouflage military gear.
Click here to learn more about the power and politics of the NFL.
3. The NFL is also a huge propaganda arm for the US Military. It seems as though you can’t watch an NFL game without a pre-game military flyover, which costs about $4 million per contest. Can you imagine what the 1 in 5 US households that are FOOD INSECURE could do with $4 million? Or the 550,000 Americans who recently lost their homes due to medical debt? Or the 62% of Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck, and are one emergency away from financial ruin? Or the 70,000 Americans who die each year because the United States doesn’t have universal healthcare? Well, you get the idea.
4. Did you know that the US military has an advertising budget of over $600 million each year? And that the NFL is a major contributor to the predatory recruiting practices of the US War Machine? The US Military sanitizes, and then glorifies WAR with the promise of FREE college tuition for each recruit! I know a decent young man in his 20s, who recently broke his fiancee’s heart (and mine) by agreeing to join the US military. I wonder how many of the 150 million viewers of this year’s Super Bowl will be “Wowed” children, who will soon join the US military as well, to kill or be killed. Wealthy American families don’t give a sh*t because they can afford their kid’s college tuition, but what about the poorer families who have no options?
5. There are 32 NFL franchises, and except for the Jacksonville Jaguars, they are all owned by white billionaires, who are overwhelmingly conservative & racist. Unfortunately, we live in a bigoted society, where most Americans worship extreme wealth, and celebrities. As a result, billionaires are never held accountable for anything (again, if you are wealthy and powerful in the US, you are above the law). Did you know that according to the RAND Corporation, there has been a $50 trillion transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% of Americans to the wealthiest 1% over the last 40 years? And that according to Oxfam, the world will have its first TRILLIONAIRE in less than 10 years? The levels of inequality and injustice at home, and abroad are staggering. Let’s not forget too that over 828 MILLION people worldwide go to bed HUNGRY every night!
Click here to learn more about the Villains who make Billions.
Click here to learn more about how the NFL has failed its Black players.
6. The NFL has shown complete disregard, and even contempt for players’ safety for years as well (see the NFL’s unconscionable concussion protocols). Clearly, the NFL also stands for corporate greed, crony capitalism, and an unjust status quo.
Click here for PBS’s League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis.
7. The Super Bowl also provides a financial bonanza for the wealthiest corporations and individuals who sell animal, human-health, and Earth harming foods and products. Unfortunately, most children are taught to look up to the celebrity athletes who excitedly endorse these poisonous, and animal abusing foods and commodities (meat, dairy, and egg products present enormous health hazards for people of all ages, as well as unimaginable suffering for billions of animals).
8. The US corporate, or “state” media, functions as a propaganda arm for the US government. Most executives and on-air personalities make obscene amounts of money from ongoing wars, disinformation campaigns, and events like the Super Bowl (corporate executives, team owners, and senior officials, often make millions of dollars from this single event). Billionaires and “war profiteers” act with impunity because they know that they are above the law, and that most Americans approve.
Click here to learn more from Northwestern University on how billionaires control public policy.
9. Internet Gambling. As per Professor John Warren Kindt, “According to a report from the the International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and High-Risk Behaviors, between 60-80 percent of high schoolers say they’ve gambled for money in the past year, and up to 6 percent are addicted to gambling. Gambling addiction is comparable to cocaine addiction, according to the American Psychiatric Association..”
10. Overall, the United States has now lost the remainder of its SOUL, and I am not sure if it will ever recover.
From a ruthless oppressor’s view, any form of distraction suffices, just as long as indignation over a GENOCIDE, and the unimaginable carnage that continues to be wrought in Gaza by both Israel and the United States is avoided.
Keep sleepwalking America, and enjoy your “No Soul” Super Bowl.
Until next time…
*Update from this year’s “No Soul” Super Bowl:
While over 100 million Americans watched the 2024 Super Bowl, Israel murdered at least 67 more Palestinians, in what is being called the Super Bowl Massacre (and this after the International Court of Justice concluded that it is “plausible” that Israel is committing a Genocide in Gaza).
I grew up following American sports to some extent, and rooting for the NFL’s New England Patriots (it was one of the few topics that my father and I could discuss peacefully). The NFL is now an appendage of the US War Machine, and the New England Patriots’ owner, Robert Kraft, has proven to be just another racist billionaire, who supports Israel’s GENOCIDE in Gaza.
Here are excerpts from Dave Zirin’s excellent piece on Israel’s “Super Bowl Massacre”:
“During the year’s biggest television event in the US, Israel launched an attack on Rafah, hoping Americans wouldn’t notice. Now, the strikes are part of NFL history. As of now, the Gaza Health Ministry estimates that Israel killed at least 67 Palestinians in the Super Bowl attacks. That doesn’t account for the number injured or the attendant trauma. Ghada al-Kurd, who was sheltering in Rafah, told The New York Times, “I swear to God it was an indescribable night.… The bombing was everywhere—we were convinced that the Israeli army was invading Rafah.” The Israeli government is crowing of victory after freeing two hostages. And much of the US media is following suit, relegating the deaths of Gaza civilians to a footnote.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft also spent $7 million on an ad from his organization Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism. It features Clarence Jones, a 93-year-old former speech writer for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Kraft and other pro-war billionaires use the memory of King so much, they should be paying his family indulgences for slandering his name. The ad failed to mention that Kraft has given $1 million to pro-war AIPAC and donated $1 million in 2016 to Donald Trump’s inauguration…
Kraft and Israel want the same thing: a blank check to uproot Palestinians from Gaza and build settlements. One can also only imagine if a peace organization tried to buy an ad asking Israel and the United States the question: “How many dead children will be enough?” I suspect it would be denied faster than a public-service announcement about concussions…The Super Bowl has been used as a driver of war in the past, most famously when Whitney Houston sang the national anthem in 1991 as war planes flew overhead in the lead-up to Operation Desert Storm and when U2 and Bono fanned the flames of post-9/11 America in 2002. Now we have “the Super Bowl massacre,” which was designed to make us not notice the war crimes that American taxpayers are funding…”
And more on the awfulness of billionaire Robert Kraft and the NFL from journalist Alan Macleod:
“In the wake of the historic wave of protests across the U.S. calling for a ceasefire in the Middle East, he (Kraft) appeared on MSNBC to denounce those taking part as supporters of terrorism. “It’s horrible to me that a group like Hamas can be respected and people in the United States of America can be carrying flags or supporting them,” he said, clearly equating supporting Palestinian rights with terrorism…
Perhaps unsurprisingly, he also opposes the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement – a grassroots campaign to peacefully bring economic pressure on the state of Israel to stop its oppression and occupation of its neighbors. Kraft sees BDS as a form of anti-Jewish racism, lumping it in with attacks on synagogues or the growing threat from the far-right.
“My vision is to work to end the violence against Jewish communities. To counter the normalization of anti-Semitic narratives that question Israel’s right to exist, disguised as part of legitimate debate on campuses and in the media,” he said, thereby hinting that the FCAS will attempt to insert themselves into college campuses nationwide and pressure the media to take (even) more pro-Israel stances…
Through his organization, Touchdown in Israel, Kraft regularly organizes propaganda trips to Israel for former NFL players, no doubt hoping they will become advocates of the Jewish state. Arguably the most influential way in which Kraft influences American public life, however, is his consistent funding of right-wing Democrats standing against progressives and advocates for justice in Palestine…
Kraft is one of the Israel lobby’s chief benefactors, donating millions of dollars to various groups throughout his life. In 2022, for example, he gave $1 million to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) super PAC. AIPAC works to push pro-Israel policies across the U.S. and insert pro-Israel language into as many pieces of legislation as possible. He also funds the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces – a group that raises money to help Israeli soldiers, even as they carry out war crimes in Palestine, Syria and beyond…”
*Spending time with friends and family can provide enormous health benefits. If you are looking for another reason to party on a Super Bowl Sunday, look no further than celebrating the Chinese New Year through a local venue. I always have a good time. 🙂
*Note: Much of the information provided above was pulled from a piece that I shared last year titled, “Losing Friends, and the Super Crud of the Super Bowl”.
Click here for the original post.
Main Image: Palestinian woman and children reacting to the Israeli bombing of a hospital.
Sources:
Click here to learn more from Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
Click here to learn more from Mondoweiss.
Click here to learn more from Jewish Voice for Peace.
Click here to learn more from CODEPINK.
Click here to learn more about Internet Gambling from the Ralph Nader Radio Hour.
