organized crime<\/a>, and – most germane, here in Minnesota – making a huge industry out of jacking up states and cities for taxpayer-funded subsidies to support the one-percentiest people of all, professional football owners and players.<\/p>\nThe NFL have developed a routine; demand the public pay for stadiums (so they and their owners don’t have to). \u00a0When taxpayers and the lawmakers they elect balk, exploit “fan loyalty” (the greatest source of wasted energy in the universe) by threatening to move the team to some other city. \u00a0Play the local political parties against one another, like colonials playing tribes against each other, to browbeat the politicians into caving in.<\/p>\n
Naturally, Mark Dayton and the DFL, driven by pure cynicism as they are, have taken the bait. \u00a0“The GOP will let the Vikings leave!”, they whine. \u00a0“They’re part of our cultural legacy!”<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/thesportseconomist.com\/uploaded_images\/1a1rail1204-723083.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
And it’s true.<\/p>\n
They’re part of that rancid little corner of our “cultural legacy” that says “Give me something for nothing! \u00a0Take other peoples’ earnings to pay for my recreation! \u00a0My and my family’s obsession with a billionaire’s enterprise justifies taking money from you and your family, by force<\/em>. \u00a0Sk\u00e5l Vikings, suckers!”<\/p>\nSo yeah. \u00a0I’m anti-NFL. Zygi Wilf and Roger Goodell can, and should, pay for the stadium by themselves; he can dig it out of \u00a0his pocket, float a private bond paid for out of proceeds from Vikings enterprise revenue and tapping the vast amounts of private equity that’s been sitting on the sidelines for years. \u00a0Or offering stock in a Vikings Stadium enterprise, complete with shopping, parking rental and hospitality, that would be a license to print money. \u00a0Or from charging drifters for illicit services at bus stops, for all I care.<\/p>\n
But if you care about what’s right, and moral, and ethical? \u00a0Everyone <\/em>should be “Anti-NFL’.<\/p>\nThe NFL’s racket has to stop. \u00a0Someone has to stand on principle. \u00a0If not us, now, then who and when?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s been popping up on leftyblogs and leftytweets for the past couple of days – the Minnesota GOP is “Anti-NFL”. It’s odd that Democrats in Minnesota have picked National Football League to rally around, given their long history of union-busting, affiliations with organized crime, and – most germane, here in Minnesota – making a huge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,127,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minnesota-politics","category-the-incredible-shrinking-governor","category-the-rare-sports-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27709"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27712,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27709\/revisions\/27712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/4575208799_e7c6e34c94.jpg\" "\\"4575208799_e7c6e34c94\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n