Suspense is building in the sports world, now that we're down to four teams in the football playoffs; except of course for a few soul-less philistines, anti-American Europhiles who prefer their version of "football", and millions of wives who prefer ice dancing at the Olympics to the NFL playoffs.
But the drama of athletic competition can be appreciated on another level: sometimes a sports championship captures the zeitgeist, the spirit of the Age. There was a classic and famous photograph of the Detroit Tigers winning the World Series circa 1984, as Detroit and the automobile industry were making a comeback from the most brutal recession in decades. More recently the New Orleans Saints starting playing well in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina's destruction of that city.
Besides being a battle between Good and Evil, the upcoming contest between the Green Bay Packers (the Good) and the Chicago Bears (the... well, you guess) symbolizes the contest between two political and economic philosophies. The recent election was historically important. As I argued earlier, the near future will highlight battlegrounds along the interstate 80 axis of decaying, industrial America. But the battleground takes in a wider area: the industrial Midwest, the Great Lakes states.
Who was the wit who first said that "reputation is a lagging indicator?" We still think of states like Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin as the "industrial" heartland, even though most of their industry has moved to Tennessee or Texas, if not overseas.
There are new GOP governors in Wisconsin and Indiana, who are getting a kick out of stealing businesses and jobs from Illinois, one of the poster boys of decaying, dysfunctional Blue Statism. This is particularly timely with the Democratic Chicago pols imposing tax increases on the rest of the state.
How fitting and proper it would be if the Pack crushed the Bears. It will be seen as one more illustration of Blue Statism being headed towards the ash heap of History.
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