> I wondered " does draw off some of the inspiration masses get from mass
> meetings that might be directed into mass political action ?" The masses
> are
> spectators in sports, watching, passive; they are "objects", not
> "subjects".
> But I don't really think now that a radical program would want to include
> discouragement of spectator sports events. It might want to promote more
> amateur participation in physical activity of sports by sports fans, i.e.
> fanatical spectators. Workers especially need to use their bodies for fun,
> active leisure.
========================
Actually, while I'm confident that sports has replaced religion as the most
widespread contemporary means of personal escape and of identifying with the
community, I'm less certain that it can be blamed for distracting people
from politics.
It seems to me to be just another of many symptoms of political malaise in the culture, not a cause of it. The causes are ultimately structural and historical, rooted in material conditions.
But saying that mass interest in sports is independent of politics is quite apart from asserting - as Jerry and I think you do - that it generally promotes reactionary politics. The Washington National fans I alluded to earlier who would have booed Bush last month were hailing him four years earlier, but this has has nothing to do with baseball and everything to do with changing public attitudes to American domestic and foreign policy.
You'll recall the CP publications, at their zenith, had lively sports sections. They quite properly saw nothing wrong with covering the commercial leagues, though of course they encouraged their readers - as a healthy society would do - to get out and play rather than just watch. I think that was the right attitude to have.