Today, people of Philadelphia consider themselves winners. Nineteen times families, friends and lonely men in bars have congregated in front of TV screens to cheer on the 53 grown men who wear the Eagles logo play a game that most neuroscientists agree causes severe brain damage. Today the city will be filled with gleeful jubilation and drunken madness. Cars will be flipped and burned, a shop or two might be looted, people will be injured and a few might die, soon they will have a parade, and then it’s over and people return to their normal lives as if nothing happened. The supporters of the team that won do not get a special prize, if they want a t-shirt to mark the occasion, they will have to pay a premium price, the people in uniform who sacrificed their bodies for the game might join a different team next year, the fans who may consider this as among the greatest moments of their lives, will probably see next year’s season of games end in bitter disappointment, and many people will let their frustration boil over into their family life.
This is happening now a few hundred miles away in Boston. Cops will be called to settle domestic violence, and some might even justify the man’s role in creating the conflict because of “the game.” Heavy objects will be throw in disgust. Furniture, maybe even a television will be broken. Going back to work on the bus, someone will flip out on some innocent party for no reason. If he is forced, he will apologize and cite “the game” as the reason for his outburst. Some people in Boston will ache with a pain closely related to a friend or pet dying. The feeling of inadequacy will be hang over the city like the clouds of winter. The feeling they had a year ago when they were in Philadelphia’s position seems as distant as the feeling of leaving the house and not feeling cold.
Across the country, well paid journalists are attempting to iterate how this year was in some way different from every other year. They will call the game unbelievable, they will say history has been made, they will pontificate on who was the most valuable player, who “stepped up” in the crucial moments, and soon they will start talking about next year. Millions of people will read and watch their content published by outlets that will generate millions of dollars in advertising revenue from covering the event.
Behind brightly lit high rise windows in the centers of major cities, math buffs will calculate how much money was taken from the fans. They will report their findings to billionaires who will toast champagne with other billionaires in their gated property on the outskirts of major cities, and pat each other on the back like the uniformed men who just won a championship, though the billionaires do so with less enthusiasm. They will talk smugly about their triumph, and condescendingly about those whose backs they rode to success. They will lament the rioting going on, and use this behavior to justify the continued attempts to be architects of society, “because masses who behave in this way must be governed.” Secretly they might wish to leave their smug companions for the jubilant crowds, but they won’t admit it. They know they can’t go back to a life without a private airplane, unlimited buying power, and high-class prostitutes. Many among this small class of people will simply tolerate this kind of engagement for business purposes, while wishing they were with their high-class prostitutes.
When the feeling of normalcy returns in Boston and Philadelphia, the workers trapped in suffering 40-hours a week will dream the dream of someday being the ones to toast champagne with their own high-class prostitute to get them through to another weekend, since they don’t have a game to look forward for half a year. They will sacrifice their minds, bodies and spirits to keep their shelter stocked with food and heat, dreaming of ways they won’t have to do it anymore. But they will never make it past the dreaming phase. They will never build the will-power to make it happen. It’s hard to build momentum in a day after 8 straight hours of drudgery. They would rather tune into a different game, and take their mind off it all. They won’t even question the system that allows their efforts to be so futilely wasted. They can name 75 % of their team’s roster, the stats of their handful of team leaders, the ones on the team who have been arrested and what they have been arrested for, the coaches wardrobe choices, and teams jersey sponsor, but they won’t be able to name the new person nominated today to a position called Chair of the Federal Reserve although the entity is closely linked to their position of constant struggle with little relief. They just know that their pay doesn’t get them as much as it used to, and that’s a shame. They probably have a scapegoat in their mind for whose fault it is. Their scapegoat is probably not the billionaire who owns the team they cheer for, and made the city pay for the stadium with taxes which they will generate tax-free income from. That billionaire is sure to be aware that the new fed chair is named Jerome Powell. Powell knows he got to his position as a millionaire, by working for the billionaires. He will do the bidding of the billionaires even if it puts people out of their houses, takes food off their table, and poisons their water. His salary is paid for by the people he impoverishes, but he does not work for them. His job is to appease to the architects of society, and pretend he is working for the people. He knows he is an actor at best or a liar, cheater and hyprocrite at worst. If he starts feeling excessively guilty, he will call up his high-class prostitute to help him take his mind off it all.