US Women’s Soccer: How A Declining Empire Behaves On A World Stage
USA! USA! USA! Chants Accompany Militaristic Visuals On Fox Media
Culture Wars Displace Athletic Integrity
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 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 wars. 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
As with the first commenter, I also did not see the game/antics but have for a very long time felt exactly as you do with respect to the sport I have always been passionate about my whole life, and have played at a similarly high level... tennis. And I am convinced that the U.S. (and UK's and Australia's) establishment journalists and tennis commentators have purposely created a negative image of Novak Djokovic (now, the all-time leader of Grand Slam and major titles) because of his refusal to be administered the covid vaccine, and just what he represents... anyone who dares to question, or go against, various US policies.
The thing is, I was always more of an admirer of Federer's game (artistically-speaking), and because of that, I would "root" for his success UNTIL the US establishment started making sure that even the sport of tennis (a sport which was very popular, and growing, a couple decades ago, but now has only marginal interest... most likely because it can't be "profitized", and militarized, as easily as the team sports) MUST also be politicized in their ever-more desperate attempt to condition all of us to (falsely) feel, consciously/subliminally, that this country's particular perpetual-war, and profit-at-all-cost, society is working just fine for the average person, and is the only possible system for conducting our existences (so that we don't even bother to consider or think about any of the many ACTUALLY excellent possibilities/ways to organize societies to create far better percentages/opportunities for our species to progress forward (to wherever/whatever that might be)... so that we don't gradually, and then probably rapidly, become extinct... because if we did start to think this way, realize these things then… their wealth and power would be greatly affected... probably not even exist)... so, with all that being noted... I now root for Djokovic whenever the opportunity arises, or anyone in the game of tennis whom the US establishment dislikes, and who might piss off certain establishment entities with their successful results, and might, even in some small way, add to any detraction from the power structure's pristinely manufactured perception of this war society (a war society which, I am now convinced, has made all of us sick in the head, and by association, physically as well, gradually without us even realizing it, or even being able to admit it to ourselves, or understand it... sort of like slowly changing our bodies' wiring/DNA somehow... by the desensitization of this country's killing of other human beings all over the world).
So, I guess, just how the US establishment conditioning has managed to turn probably 95% of our population into "cheerleaders" for one of their same (with respect to the tier-1 issues, the really important issues that actually matter to our specie's existence... perhaps not the tier-2 or tier-3 issues which are used to distract us from the tier-1 issues) two corporate "parties", has also managed to snag/capture me as well into their game, by their politicizing of my favorite sport... except that my "cheerleading", in this case, is for an ideology, and not for one of their manufactured issues or personae.
At many international team or other sports fests substitute the US with Australia (Ozzie! Ozzie! Ozzzie! Oi! Oi! Oi!) and I feel likewise Bill - an over the top über-patriotism - ignorance of others - not usually from the players but from the fans/supporters - embarrassments! Well written... Jim