The Stupor Bowl is the American version of the Nazi party rallies from the 1930s.

The first twenty minutes of the Stupor Bowl telecast this year was essentially a free commercial for the Pentagon; promoting war and militarism and a glorification of violence. We got to see lots of clean-cut American soldiers in uniforms smiling and saluting; a gigantic American flag draped across the field and of course the precisely timed fly-over by the jets.

The NFL has become a poster child for the American empire. Billionaires own the teams and run the business as a non-profit while providing violent, moronic entertainment for obese Americans sitting on the couch shoveling Doritos down their throats.

American football is a dangerous sport which many fans consider a microcosm of war and the closest thing we have to Roman gladiators of old fighting it out before a coliseum full of bloodthirsty spectators. Americans love violence and they love war, so what’s not to love about football? And since most players and fans tend to be pro-military, a conflation of football with the MIC seems only natural.

I’ve always enjoyed football for what I thought were the right reasons, but there don’t seem to be many right reasons left to derive any pleasure from watching it. The growing awareness of repeated concussions causing permanent brain damage and early death for many of the players is a major concern. So is the close bond the NFL has formed with the military and big business and the celebrity status of the coddled players with humongous egos making ridiculously large sums of money and contribute nothing in return – all these things have turned me off the sport.

The Stupor Bowl has become a uniquely repulsive spectacle; a huge circle-jerk for all things Military and Capitalistic.

Every year it gets worse: the glorification of the military, the over-the-top and often truly bizarre singing of the National Anthem and the obligatory gigantic flag draped over the field. It was just more of the same old homage to militaristic violence, tribalism and meaningless spectacle that we’ve come to expect year after year.

I wasn’t so much rooting for Carolina this year as I was rooting against Peyton Manning, if only because of his highly-paid association with Papa John’s Pizza and its worthless scumbag founder John Schnatter, whose pizzas keep getting cheaper because they’re made out of cardboard and because he pays his employees slave wages. He’s also an evangelical Christian, which invariably means “hypocrite,” and of course it goes without saying he hates Obama.

The NFL has always been closely allied with the military, since much of the NFL-loving demographic is fodder for the war machine. Next to Manning’s obnoxious ads for cardboard pizza and commercials for piss-water beer, the military recruiting commercials provide big advertising bucks for the NFL.

The tragedy is that they are celebrating a militaristic culture which does not keep Americans safe but instead makes the world a far more dangerous place. The NFL promotes a dangerous ideology of militarism and exceptionalism. When a society places itself morally and socially above the rest of the world – especially when it is anything BUT – the decline has already begun.

Watching any NFL game is akin to attending a modern-day Nuremberg ‘Nazi Pride’ rally. Either that or the equivalent of the Roman’s ‘bread and circuses’ – without the bread.

Besides, Australian Rules football is ten times better, and they don’t need no stinkin’ helmets or pads!!!