A Sinking Ship: Top Ten Reasons Why America is History

Too many Americans still want the biggest slice of the planet's pleasure pie and don't care who gets mowed down in the process. They want their lives dripping with delectation at any cost. These Americans care more about pursuing pleasurable pastimes than they do about taking care of their own people, the folks suffering most in a sick and psychotic society where it's more hip than ever before to embrace a "get the hell out of my way, I'm more important than you" attitude in the razzle-dazzle ring of chic nabobs and social climbers.

America is filled with urban wastelands of the haves and have-nots. America is slitting its own throat and bleeding out from mortal, self-inflicted wounds of unparalleled greed and corruption. Yet many Americans, the ones privileged and fortunate enough to be the "haves" rather than the "have nots," don't care or want to know about the bottom feeders as long as they stay are at the top of the food chain. Far too many Americans are lost in material worlds of self-serving avarice.

What better salve for the sold-out soul then the great American opiates of opulence and overindulgence? Why worry when they can take their minds off the shit storm brewing in the good ol' USA by immersing themselves in the star-studded spectacles of professional sports and entertainment? Who cares about America's poor huddled masses and downtrodden deadbeats when the Super Bowl is coming and famous movie stars are getting roasted and toasted at the latest awards show?

Who cares about all the impoverished people living in cockroach motels and homeless shelters and cardboard boxes on the streets of America's bankrupted cities? Does anyone care about these poverty-stricken folks losing their jobs and living their lives in fear, with no health care and very little hope for the future? Who cares about the crumbling infrastructures and overcrowded inner-city schools and rampant police corruption and gridlocked traffic and violent crime? Who really cares in America?

The answer: hardly anyone at all.

An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools. - Ambrose Bierce

In the daily grind of American life the needy, the destitute, the down-and-out, the underprivileged souls living on the unlucky fringes of America's failed Christian society are getting ground to a bloody pulp. Those on the cushy side, those who whisper "there by the grace of god goes me" and then go their merry way, are sweeping the sight of their unfortunate fellows to the back of their minds and placating and anesthetizing themselves with daily doses of the sweet smack of sports and entertainment.

To spotlight America's appallingly popular addictions to the great societal ills of pro sports and entertainment (and the idols they create) here's my list of the top 10 most useless trivial pursuits in America today.

History consists of a series of accumulated imaginative inventions. - Voltaire

Professional Sports

Most pro athletes living in the upper crust of society could care less about fans or charities. Canned speeches and false modesty aside, what most of these overpaid and pampered grownups do care about is getting laid and making millions. Pro sports are an overindulgent abomination in a world where every day people are dying from disease and starvation. Rome built coliseums. America spends untold millions on arenas and stadiums to showcase their own sports gladiators. The spectacle of sport is an important part of human history. Now blown completely out of proportion, pro sports are a sad reflection of a society gone mad with the frivolous delusions of fame and fortune.

Pro Cheerleader Tryouts

This adolescent T&A display is the perfect media puff piece to take our minds off more important public-service matters like maintaining public libraries or building health clinics. Cheerleading is great for teenagers (and maybe even young adults at university) but not for grownups with serious problems to solve. This kind of performing art should be the last thing on the minds of the men in charge of city governments drowning in debt.

Celebrity Talk Shows

All it takes to get hooked on this kind of banal entertainment is a living room, a TV set, and a stale mind. Most of the stupid jokes on these shows are tired and worn-out. Talk shows are programmed for America's middle-class minds of mediocrity. Comedy is a wonderful thing, but not when it reinforces the commonalities of false hero worship and the dead-wrong pursuit of material wealth at any cost.

Prime-Time TV

What could be more comforting and mind-numbing for America's programmable robots than watching the hippest shows with the hottest stars? Only dumb, superficial people think that being proud, card-carrying members of the great consumer nation makes them special. Most of the shows on TV are nothing more than creative outlets for smart people getting rich in show business. Anyone who thinks TV shows are important artistic expressions needs to be locked in a padded cell. American prime-time TV shows are lame and serve only one purpose: to corrupt the callow and shallow minds of a youth-oriented society with subliminal messages from greedy corporate sponsors.

TV News

Why do Americans watch TV news? They have nothing better to do. People go to work, go home, and try to forget. What better way to forget their own problems than by watching the talking heads of TV spinning the latest newsy troubles of others? It's the ultimate in self-medication. Most news programs today are run by the same corporate head honchos who want you to buy their products. Because they're rich, they believe everything in America is hunky dory. It's the famous Wizard of Oz trick: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"

We can be almost certain of being wrong about the future, if we are wrong about the past. - C. K. Chesterton

TV News Shows

These darlings of cable TV are raking in millions of advertising revenues and making their egomaniacal hosts rich and powerful. In the American media wars (as in the history of all conquering nations), it always comes down to being rich and powerful. Any of the good intentions of these shows are outplayed and overshadowed by the intoxicating and corrupting power of the mighty dollar. American TV executives are the Roman senators of the 21st century, viewing the spectacle of human hardship and civil carnage from plush offices and private jets high above the mindless hippodromes of consumption.

TV Entertainment Shows

What a concept, an entertainment show about entertainment news. Americans are idolizing the wrong heroes, running worship flags up the wrong poles. The up-and-down shenanigans of actors, singers, and other show-biz types should be the last thing on the minds of a society going down in rapacious flames. The latest news and gossip in show business is trivial compared to the drastic social and political issues facing the world. What about genocide and global warming, starvation and deforestation? In today's glitzy media feeding frenzy, these are trivial matters compared to the latest movie buzz and celebrity gossip.

Evangelical TV

Some of the greatest showmen and salesmen on the planet are the religious crackpots preaching fire and brimstone sermons on late-night cable TV. These third-rate performers prey on the fears and weaknesses of their feeble-minded followers like sweet-talking con men at an evil convention. It's a feel-good Jesus-fest of tomfoolery. While books and movies like The God Delusion and Religulous are putting dents in the devastatingly detrimental nature of religion, putting a stop to the wealthy, forked-tongued fat cats of the Christian right is virtually impossible in a society in love with the indoctrinated illusion of immortality.

Pro Wrestling

Any man or woman who thinks this kind of fake and furious exhibition of abuse and violence is cool ought to do a little time down in Guantanamo Bay. The kingpins running this American sham must be laughing their way to the bank on a daily basis. The success of this sport is a travesty of the American way of life and a testament to the absolute idiocy and sheer gullibility of so many average, working-class American idiots.

Online Writing Sites

Sad but true, most writing websites on the Internet today are publishing homogeneous poop from the minds of brainwashed Americans who think everything is A-OK in the Land of Liberty. Think again. America is a stricken, sinking ship, and like the unsinkable Titanic, she will go down. Why? Because not enough citizens are paying attention to what's going on around them, to what's really important. They're too busy watching and writing and talking about their favorite pro sports teams and athletes and cheerleaders and TV stars and news anchors and show hosts and preachers and pro wrestlers.

Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times. - Gustave Flaubert

People who write about such nonsense are being rewarded for turning a blind eye to the truth while supporting and perpetuating the failure of America's great democracy at the hands of an evil and insatiable corporate regime. Like puppets in a play, they unwittingly become the blind eyes and deaf ears of the roaring, rapacious crowd. What absurd foolishness, the insane and idiotic American propensity to repeat human history!