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Culture Wars Displace Athletic Integrity

USA! USA! USA! Chants Accompany Militaristic Visuals On Fox Media

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows. ~~~ Leonard Cohen

I love the game of soccer. I played as a youth and was the starting varsity goalie for 3 years in High School. I later played in adult men’s leagues.

My daughter played on elite youth travel teams. In high school, she was a 4 year varsity starter at one of the top High school programs in NJ. She earned Mercer County and All State team recognition and was a D1 recruit.

Sad to say, but my daughter had more “fire in the belly”, integrity, discipline, and emotional maturity than many on this US Women’s 2023 World Cup team.

And I’m not referring to their refusal to sing the national anthem or their protests of police violence or advocacy for equal pay. I support all that.

I’ve watched the US Women’s team compete in Wold Cup and Olympic Games for decades. I was not motivated by patriotism, nationalism, chauvinism, dance routines, “branding” opportunities, individual post goal scoring and post game celebrations, or any form of identity or cultural politics.

I watched because I loved the game and especially the way the US teams played it and competed with “fire in the belly” and integrity.

Luckily, I always watched those games from bars. No sound on the TeeVees! That allowed me to avoid all the commercials, the arrogant and jingoistic USA! USA! USA! chanting, the embarrassing know nothing fan interviews, the vapid player profiles, and the hollow pre-game show that focused on drama, not field tactics.

That absurd TV display was magnified greatly this year in Australia by disgusting visual propaganda by the US Navy.

The Fox TV producers constantly allowed US Navy sailors to form flag waving visual background props and featured Navy sailors in sound bite interviews. This transparent military propaganda comes at a time when the US is waging a losing proxy war in Ukraine and seeking new military alliances with Australia for purposes of, at best, a Cold War with China.

So, the whole world is watching and the whole world sees what the US Empire is doing in the world.

I was disgusted by all this, because this year I was forced to watch the game on my laptop, because the bars in town were not open for the 12 am (PST) start time. I was forced to watch and listen to all the pre-game crap too. It was, to put it mildly, ugly.

Worse, the team’s on field performance was a disgrace.

But that poor performance has been overshadowed by outrage over the dancing and smiling selfies taken after the game. This follows criticism of the national anthem and other prior culture war issues by right wingers and cultural conservatives.

Fox analyst and former teammate and star Carli Lloyd’s critical comments captured the essence and have magnified the outrage. I too was appalled by the dancing, smiling, and selfies after such a disgraceful performance.

From the left, my favorite sports writer Dave Zirin at The Nation defended this garbage, framing the issue as a personal attack by Lloyd and another battle in the culture war. Zirin described the post game display as an attempt at “connecting with fans”.

Give me a fucking break.

This display had very little to do with the fans and everything to do with the self absorbed “culture” that Carli Lloyd critiqued. (And no one has even mentioned the pre-game costumes and dancing on the field, which was almost as bad).

Carli Lloyd is exactly right. And her valid criticisms have nothing to do with patriotic or right wing politics or personal attacks, Mr. Zirin!.

The “cultural” shift she correctly criticizes is how arrogant representatives of declining and decadent empires behave on a world stage – along with their deluded, arrogant, jingoistic and clueless fans: USA! USA! USA!

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knows