Depending on how you look at it, one of the beauties of the Super Bowl is that all of America gets to put aside their non-NFL differences, turn the brains off, and indulge in massive amounts of chicken wings and beer for the night. But a Conservative Christian group, The Resistance, has called for a boycott of the Super Bowl this year. They hope that people read a book on politics or history instead.
"Americans care more about sports and know more about sports than they do about issues that actually matter," said Mark Dice, founder of the group. "We're just trying to bring awareness to that fact, and get people to look at where their priorities are."
A press release for the group called sports "the opiate of the masses," and wondered what would happen if Americans brought the same emotion and vigor to politics as they do as sports.
But cable news hosts like Kieth Olbermann and Glenn Beck aren't exactly above drawing politics into opposing sides and attacking the other's star players with the strength of a linebacker. Sometimes their fans aren't that much more coherent than the drunkest football fan.
"I think that both Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann are partisan propagandists and gate keepers. They just blame all the problems on the opposing political party," said Dice, who identifies himself as an independent conservative. "I don't think people should look to them. Occasionally they'll blame their own party, but mostly they blame the other side."
Dice identifies himself as an independent conservative, and didn't support George Bush and his invasion of Iraq, and obviously doesn't support much of Obama's agenda. Though, quoting Karl Marx's "opiate of the masses" line and authoring a book called The Resistance Manifesto made us wonder if he perhaps he had some communist leanings. We asked if perhaps any of Marx's works should be on boycotter's Sunday reading list.
"Well, I'm not supporting Marx, but people should at least be aware of communism."
So what they should read?
Well, Dice has his own new book out, entitled The New World Order: Facts and Fiction, a follow up to The Illuminati: Facts and Fiction. Yeah, he's that kind of independent Conservative.
But Dice doesn't want to give the idea that the boycott is just about pimping out his paper backs. His main suggestion for Anti-Pig Skin reading: your child's civics or government book.
