The Chris Moeller Archives

The weekly round table

Naomi Klein gave you all the background information you need to have about recent political forces acting in Greece in her book The Shock Doctrine. Kudos to the people of Greece for rising up against austerity. But don't expect the United States Central Intelligence Agency to sit idly by. The self-governance of other countries is not something the agency easily tolerates.

---

The Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton at their own peril. (I'm envisioning a Scott Walker inauguration in 2017.) The Democrats will not retain the White House, in this climate of "unfelt" economic growth, unless they adopt an authentic message of economic populism, and Clinton, of course, is a poorly-camouflaged Wall Street thug.

---

Burning somebody alive is barbaric. It's a recently-documented tactic of the Islamic State. It's also one of the consequences when you drop drone bombs from the sky on human populations.

---

The movie American Sniper is tragic on many levels. One of those is the number of people who will be encouraged to enlist by a film that falsely and arrogantly claims to be apolitical. Plenty of young American men and women already have bleak futures due to the American version of austerity, and American Sniper sells a counterfeit future of patriotic significance for these disaffected youths. Yes, Chris Kyle, a psychopath, was himself a victim, and his conscience struggled, somewhat, at least, with the concept of taking human life, but his conscience was certainly also grappling with the fact that he knew he was acting as an agent of the oppressive country. It should have been no surprise to us that reality had left his brain when he started fabricating stories about post-Katrina New Orleans and confrontations with Jesse Ventura.

---

I don't envy sportswriters in St. Louis having to begin a full year of attempting to cover the Rams when the team's departure to Los Angeles early in 2016 is a 100% certainty. Dead team walking.

---

There was an interesting-- and under-reported-- angle to the Super Bowl that involved the Rams. I found the story on Slate. Patriots receiver Julian Edelman endured a crippling helmet-to-helmet hit from Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor early in the fourth quarter. According to the NFL's new policy on concussions, a team doctor is supposed to examine the player for signs of concussion, and that assessment is supposed to last 8 to 12 minutes, but Edelman never left the game. Edelman continued to make big catches as the clock wound down, finishing with 109 yards on 9 receptions, one of which was the game-winning touchdown after the Chancellor hit.

Now you're asking, what does this have to do with the Rams? Well, according to Slate's Jeremy Stahl, during the post-game media event, a presumably-still-shaken Edelman "reportedly referred to the team the Patriots were playing as 'St. Louis' before correcting himself."

So the Rams didn't make it to the Super Bowl. They finished their season 6 and 10. But one of the star players in the championship game may have thought he was playing the Rams due to his concussive fog, and metaphysically, that's almost the same thing as playing in the game.

posted by CM @ 12:01 PM