"There's no real objection to escapism, in the right places... We all want to escape occasionally. But science fiction is often very far from escapism, in fact you might say that science fiction is escape into reality... It's a fiction which does concern itself with real issues: the origin of man; our future. In fact I can't think of any form of literature which is more concerned with real issues, reality."       

- Arthur C Clarke

It’s no secret that I am not a big fan of sports, especially ones in the USA. I mean, FOOTBALL? No one hardly touches the weird shaped object with their feet. And its all talk, with 15 sec of play every 5 min! But, to each their own, right? 

Then I hear about the Stanley Cup riots in Vancouver, BC. People are comparing them to football (real football mind you) riots in the UK and Ireland, etc. But the more and more I view sports from an outsiders’ perspective, the more I come to realize that sports today are just as distractive, if not more so, than in ancient Rome. As long as people are entertained and fed, they wont care about politics. I learned that in English class. So we have rioters over who won Stanley's cup, but not over the cuts in the medical system there? How about here? Where are the people cheering on their representative in congress like they would at the Super Bowl? Oh, thats right. We DO have that here. Its all over the media. 

In the US, and probably Canada too (but I cant vouch for that), politics is paraded as a game. Lets see who’s side will loose on this issue! We have to beat the other side so we can look good! Have you WATCHED MSNBC, CNN, etc and compared it to sports commentary? Its DISGUSTING! Im waiting for C-SPAN to do play by plays on the Senate floor or something. People who DO pay attention to politics can EASLY be corralled into that “fight fight fight” spirit, but at the end of the day, its treated as a sporting event. Actually, I would argue that it is treated like a KIDS sporting event: one that matters less than the pro games. And I think, if Marx were alive today, that he might change his famously misquoted text: “ SPORTS [are] the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” 

Now, Im not bashing religion OR sports. I tend to like martial arts, and have attended my share of services. But in THAT CONTEXT, it is appropriate to say that sports have become an ESCAPE as Marx had said religion was. Add that to the fact that people don't skip the sunday game to go to church, and the fact that people who DO follow sports are so immersed by it that they think they are part of the team (ever heard the term “my team” or someone say “I HAVE to watch or they wont do well”?) and RIOT when their team doesn't win a GAME? 

Of course, we know that the rioting, in any form, is aggression and frustration of the conditions of the working class (did YOU see any billionaires in that riot?) but why not FOCUS that into something more productive? Not that I am advocating violence, but a riot on Capitol Hill over spending cuts to health care, social security, etc would make a heck of a lot more sense than HOCKEY, foosball, curling, basketballs, or whatever CORPORATE-OWNED, CORPORATE-RUN DISTRACTION! 

As a party, we need to be pushing more people in THAT direction. You sports fans need to be on your Final Fantasy Sports forums (lolz) and hinting at that. Until everyone in the world is working a living wage and is not starving, there are WAY more important things to riot over. And Im not saying nerds are BETTER about stupid arguments (if you don't know what I mean, ask a friend or google search Star Trek vs Star Wars, or what a Parsec is and why Han Solo got it wrong) but you don't see us rioting the Skywalker Ranch because JarJar Binks was in the Star Wars universe. 

Enjoy your sports, but keep reality in mind too. And Survivor doesn’t count.

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