Bread And Circuses

Berlin 1936, Mexico City 1968, Argentina 1978, USA 2026?

 Posted on Substack 4/22/25

I was still living in Los Angeles in 1984, when the city played host to the 1984 Olympics. This was peak Reagan era, “America is great again.” There were quibbles from the left-the city’s sweep of the homeless was the main source of outcry, if I rely only on my memory. It was a cringe moment, but soon forgotten due to the success of the games. Today, looking at the current political path the US is on, a cringe moment would be the least of our problems.

The parallels between today’s news and World Cup 1978, hosted by Argentina are scary. America today has its own desaparecidos. There are so many heartbreaking stories about the Dirty War, but one story made me wonder what type (if any)of protest we may see in 2026. Will the players or any FA have the courage to do anything like what the groundkeepers at the Estadio Monumental did, painting black armbands at the bottom of the goal posts?

And what of the black bands at the base of the posts? Ezequiel touched his bicep and at once I realised: “They were black armbands? They were a protest against the disappearances?” They were not a protest. Rather, they were a form of remembrance.


Considering the manner in which FIFA squashed the German armband protest in 2022, and the current bromance between Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino, it will take a large degree of courage to make even the slightest bit of noise; a mighty pair of cojones to do something on the level of Tommy Smith and John Carlos at Mexico City, 1968. One can only imagine the memes pro and con if Christian Pulisic dares to do the “Trump Dance” as part of a goal celebration again.

That the current USMNT coach is the Argentinian, Mauricio Pochettino is tinged with a sad irony; clearly he must see something eerily similar to the way Tufts student Rumeysa Öztürk was grabbed by ICE and his own country’s past. But Poch is in a tough spot vis-à-vis US Soccer’s expectations, and I don’t think he will be making any statements ala Steve Kerr or Greg Popovich. There will be immense pressure on the players to behave and toe the line.

With the pace of current events, this fear may be premature; June 11, 2026 is still a long ways away-which means the state events could be better. But today, America’s government is acting more like Chile, Argentina, or Brazil 1970-1983. Los Angeles in hosting the 2028 Olympics, is trying to redeem itself for the way it swept gangs and homeless off the streets in 1984. How America will redeem herself for its current state of affairs remains to be seen.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

That 70's Show

Image
Published 02/10/2026, Substack One of the benefits of age is there are moments when one can pull rank. “You had to have been there,” is the mantra. It is sometimes abused in a smug condescending way; other times it is a way to acknowledge that while you may have gotten the facts right, your account might be missing a few bits of flavor and context. This was the case listening to the   It Was What It Was  episodes about the North American Soccer League. The show (hosted by Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper) is a favorite of mine. And in these episodes they do an excellent jobs recounting the ups and down of the NASL. And yes, while they do make mention of the state professional sport in the US during the 1970’s, Wilson in particular seems to view the league and its failures too tightly through the prism of an English football historian.  Shambolic . Why didn’t they build the league bottom-up, why all the gimmicks, why the bucking of Fifa with regards to the laws of the game? ...
Read more

When We Look Away

Image
What Fallout tells us about today’s press and the war in Gaza Published 7/26/2025 on Substack One of the compelling reasons to read books is that they often take you to places you weren’t expected to be transported to. Sometimes there is a hint you may not totally see; sometimes it is a complete surprise. That was the case reading Fallout by Lesley M. M. Blume. To read this book in 2025, it seems incomprehensible that media behaved in the manner that it did in 1946. And the first thought that comes to mind is could the New Yorker pull this off in 2025? Is the standard set by John Hersey, Harold Ross, and William Shaw, too high? More than the subject matter (I had already read Hirsohima ) was how Blume details the meticulous manner in the way the story was vetted and edited. The way they kept the story secret to the entire staff-to the point of creating a “dummy edition” to fool the staff. This was a 30,000 word story, that was the sole story for that week’s edition. No cartoons, no “...
Read more