> >Here is Chomsky on Sport:-
> >
> >Now there are other media too whose basic social role is quite
> >different: it's diversion. There's the real mass media-the kinds
> >that are aimed at, you know, Joe Six Pack -- that kind.
>
> I don't care at all about sports of any kind, but that's just me. But
> denouncing sports as a distraction, esp in the context of patronizing
> references to Joe Six Pack (and what's wrong with beer? like Tom T.
> Hall, I like beer), looks like another instance of left
> self-marginalization. It's raw material for critiques of the left as
> elitist and out of touch. Besides, I know quite a few serious
> radicals - union organizers, activists, intellectuals - who like
> sports.
Chomsky is a pretty big sports fan, too. He goes to a lot of Celtics games. He also has a pretty depthy knowledge of old-time baseball and college football. He also drinks beer. He was drinking a Sam Adams when I was with him at some hotel bar last year. I think his 'critique' of sports is more a critique of the blind cultishness of team loyalty.
Seth