Game ON! -OR- Schlepping Into Darkness

Whether being played up by one side or played down by the other, you're still being played. Regardless the issue, it seems, the game is the thing.
One might wish and hope for better, given the stakes, but what chance is there of that happening? The game's the same, the pitch is the same, not level, but the same playing field, the errors, both forced and unforced, the same. Oh what I wouldn't give for some evidence of performance enhancing drugs. Scrums are fun, but at some point somebody has to move the ball. Isn't that the point of the game? You might like to think so, eh?

The Jumbotron display with awesome graphics, dizzying effects and fireworks must tell us the score, right? Despite being filled, edge to edge, with
"information", it's mostly trivia, ephemera or blatant advertisements or product placement. It's still a zero-sum game on the field. The real deal,
is unwatchable. Sportsmanship? Gamesmanship? Statesmanship? Hooey!

Public spending in the aggregate, snowballs on with its winners and losers. Public policy, foreign and domestic, remains relatively static; fixed, while the potential for game change is lukewarmly debated. In the perpetual gloaming of perpetuating the game that we all find objectionable, the only game I see is a half-assed facsimile of Whack-A-Mole. Purposefully pointless. An endless indigestible series of maneuvers whose only comparable move in "sports" is the "referee-administered five count" of Professional Wrestling. All show; no go. Gouging, punching, foreign objects, chairs, tables? Okay, but when I count five you have to stop! Unless I get distracted and lose count, then I will begin again. You can stop and immediately begin again which will trigger another 5-count!

It's silly. The ref knows it, the participants know it and the audience roaring its approval knows it too. That's entertainment. Little to no public funding is involved. Politics, OTOH, is all about the movement of public funds. Or rather, the conversion of public funds into private hands, ostensibly in return for services, to provide services and somewhere down the pipeline to receive services. Yeah, over there where the kleig lights and spotlights are providing a light show. Where craft services is providing coffee and food for the repress corps (one of those fees for service ya know). Where security badges are issued, then checked and recorded for the record. Where the ringmasters, minus the top hat and whistle, carry on.
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages... Hey Look! Doh Nuts!



Play on.