The Super Bowl of Socialism

The Super Bowl has become a true televisual non sequitur"a bizarre "Rocky"-style montage mashing together as many divergent strands of American culture as possible. This year's blockbuster was no exception. There was former President George W. Bush sitting next to coach John Madden, who was obsessively texting. There was actress Cameron Diaz feeding popcorn to baseball bad boy Alex Rodriguez. There was Christina Aguilera belting out a "Naked Gun"-worthy version of the national anthem. There was even a melding of hip-hop, hair metal and sci-fi, as the Black Eyed Peas joined Slash for a rendition of "Sweet Child o' Mine""all in front of neon "Tron" dancers. This was a bewildering assault on the senses, to say the least"and nothing was more singularly mind-blowing than the NFL using a Ronald Reagan eulogy to kick off a sports-themed tribute to socialism. This Reagan-inspired paradox of cheering anti-socialist platitudes while supporting socialism in practice was the tale of Super Bowl XLV. The game began with a jubilant Reagan biopic that approvingly flaunted his red-baiting past, including his 1964 warning about America taking "the first step into a thousand years of darkness." The game ended with victory for professional sports' only publicly owned nonprofit organization, the Green Bay Packers"a team whose quasi-socialist structure allows Wisconsin's proletariat to own the means of football production.