Stasis and Super Bowl LII

"The Schiff memo released Saturday is in every respect a right-wing document. It graphically illustrates the fact that the Democratic Party has shifted so far to the right that it has become the most subservient defender of the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI and the entire repressive apparatus of the American capitalist state." 

Barry Grey, "Democratic memo defends FBI’s illegal spying on Trump campaign"

"Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are also back, after a weeklong recess. They face intense pressure to act on gun control, but, as our reporters note, 'If the past is prologue, Congress will do nothing.' "

Chris Stanford, "Xi Jinping, Winter Olympics, Weinstein Company: Your Monday Briefing"

Stasis is stagnation. It is usually called "gridlock." One of the first great works of Western literature, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, was devoted to it. A society will collapse if stasis goes on for too long.

That's where we are now. We are in our fourth decade of neoliberalism. It is well past time for a change, but the rich don't want to change, don't even want modest reforms. So we're headed for, are actively experiencing, a crackup.

It has been three weeks since Super Bowl LII, a wonderful game that had a wonderful outcome. The match-up featured the stalwarts of the corporate ruling class, the very white New England Patriots, versus the upstart, and very black Philadelphia Eagles.

The Eagles ran on the field Super Bowl Sunday to Meek Mill's "Dreams and Nightmares." "Dreams and Nightmares" is the number one track off the album of the same name released in 2012. New England ran on the field to that hoary headbanger classic "Crazy Train." The Patriots have been making their field entrance to Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train" for years. "Crazy Train" is a single off Osbourne's debut solo album, Blizzard of Ozz, recorded and released in 1980.

It would have been as if one of the teams at the first Super Bowl in 1967 ran on the field to a song by Rudy Vallee and his Connecticut Yankees, while the other entered to the sounds of "Good Day Sunshine" by the Beatles.

It said everything about the stasis gripping our society. The corporate exemplars clutching their totem from the outset of the age of neoliberalism; the upstarts, a hip hop anthem of the underclass.

What is truly noteworthy about Super Bowl LII is that the suits of the National Football League got it. They understood the dynamic at play. For all the scapegoating of Colin Kaepernick, they are aware that the ratings drop that has plagued the league the last two seasons is a problem of their own making.

So what did they do? They actively came down on the side of the Eagles. There were two booth reviews of touchdowns during the game that would have gone against the Eagles during the regular season but instead they were upheld. In other words, if Super Bowl LII would have been officiated like any regular season game, the Patriots would have won.

Prior to the game wherever I went whomever I spoke with wanted Philadelphia to win. I must have talked to 20 people. The league no doubt was receiving the same message.

Nonetheless ratings for the game were still down. But at least the league made a correction. There is no evidence that the political system is capable of such a move.

As I was telling a coworker last week, the Parkland massacre is a basic test whether we have a functioning democracy. We have a single issue that everyone understands, and a simple legislative fix that was recently on the books that everyone understands. If we cannot ban assault weapons, then we have concrete proof that we don't live in an open society.

There is an argument that congress will ban bump stocks and strengthen background checks, both of which were promised after the Las Vegas massacre, as a sop to the high school kids; that way leadership in the House and Senate can pretend to be responsive to the popular will.

On the other hand, why change anything when you control everything? That's the sentiment on high.

Under neoliberalism it appears that we have more power as consumers than citizens. Political reform appears impossible in the current dispensation. We know from Thucydides where this leads. And it is not pretty nor is it pleasant. A collapse is coming.