>Also, the article discusses the racial makeup of fans and players. I remember reading an economics article explaining how teams like Salt Lake City, located in predominantly white areas, pay more for white bench sitters to not alienate fans by making basketball a black sport. Detroit was used, if I remember correctly, as a benchmark for having a greater black fan base.<
Waistline: Comment Without question there is an underlying theme of ugliness - white chauvinism, involved, but something else that is deeper, almost undefinable is in progress. Detroit really means the Detroit Metropolitan area which is much larger than the city of Detroit. A couple of days ago an article ran on Pen-L about Detroit being one of the hardest cities to get a good night sleep in. This meant metro Detroit. The NBA fight indicates to me the deepening of a down turn in the industrial sector and housing. Really. ^^^^^ CB: Yes, when I saw it, I intuited that it was related to crisis tension. The war and aggressiveness and fighting also came to my mind. With all the political attention to other moral issues, there are still all these headlines about mass layoffs and dead American soldiers around here. As far as housing, I know from work that the number of foreclosures is up. Through most of the twentieth century , the American bourgeoisie by and large avoided coincidence of war and depression, I think. They juggled the Dems ( war ) and Reps ( depression) Presidents on this score. ^^^^^^ Clip- At first I laughed about the fight night event and this whole territorial thing and the striving to achieve celebrity status by punching a celebrity and the idea of the bar room brawl and throwing chairs on mutherfuckers. ^^^^ CB: I might be wicked , but I got to admit I was laughing when I first saw the clip :>). It's still funny to me when I think about it. OK suspend me. ^^^^^^ I am convinced that an outright fascist take over in America would be extremely unstable, momentary and push roughly 60-70 million people into motion, that would as an impulse momentarily turn inward and then the outward social explosion. Seems to me that a lot of people want to get in the game of every level - throw their blows and express contempt at "what exists" and "to hell with the consequence." The "left" has to figure out what people are trying to express so that the language of this expression can emerge. Or rather the new social movement is slowly finding its legs and what we have called the left in the past is not going to accurately describe the new social movement. After you combine together on the basis of being a "pissed off voter," what do you do next . . . Turn over election machines? Then there was the case in Wisconsin the other day about a hunter killing five other hunter arguing over a spot to shot from - and wounding several other people. People pissed off and I do not believe society has to be reduced to the level of the India peasant of 100 years ago to rebel. HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMM MelvinP.