Why do sportscasters and commentators wear suits?

Why are coaches always “right” until the day before they are fired?

Why are we still being subjected to “Judge Judy”?

And WTF with this song “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”

Think about it: What sense does it make for people at a sporting event (such as football or basketball) to wear suits? Yet, when you watch games on TV, the announcers and commentators almost always wear them. The answer must be that this is meant to convey “authority”—particularly the “authority” of the kind of people who wear suits—which obviously has implications beyond sports itself, in terms of what kind of people (suits wearing people) should be respected as “authority.”

The same kind of thing must be behind the fact that sports commentators, writers, etc., while they are comfortable criticizing players, much more rarely criticize coaches. For example, when a basketball team messes up a play, you will often hear TV announcers and commentators say things like: “I don’t think coach so-and-so can be very happy with what they did there.” But you far more rarely hear them say: “The coach is really doing a poor job...the whole approach of the coach is really wrong”...and so on. You rarely hear that...until the “higher ups” move to fire the coach—and then you are more likely to hear criticism of the coach.

Once again, this clearly seems to be a matter of “authority”—as represented by the coach—and not criticizing that authority very much...unless and until a “higher authority” moves to get rid of the coach.

All this reminds me of some of my favorite lines from the Free Speech Movement (FSM) at UC Berkeley in the 1960s—mocking the attitude of the university administration (and the powers behind it), with their assertion of arbitrary, unjust authority: “Civil rights, politics, just gets in the way/questioning authority when you should obey.” (This was part of lines from songs with the tunes of traditional Christmas carols—in this case, “Jingle Bells”—but with very different words, which people in the FSM creatively came up with, to ridicule the UC Administration for its opposition to, and attempts to suppress, the movement.)

Then, there is Judge Judy. She was an actual judge who had a TV program for a long time, where she ruled on disputes among people. Now, after going to streaming, she is coming back to broadcast television. What do I have against her? Well, she represents the fact that, in the courtrooms of the supposed “justice” system—and in society in general—the “presumption of innocence” is a joke, especially for people without wealth and power.

This was expressed in the fact that, some years ago now, in an appearance on late night TV, “Judge Judy” told a joke whose punch-line and point was precisely that people on trial are guilty from the start. (Here’s the joke: A teacher brings her class to court to witness a trial, where the defendant is being charged with murder, and the judge points to the defendant and says to the class: “There’s the murderer.” When the defendant’s lawyer objects, the judge responds: “And that’s the murderer’s lawyer.”)

Just a joke? Well, many jokes have significant social and political content, and once again the content of this one is that people who are charged with a crime are automatically guilty—and the judge should act accordingly—which, again, represents a very serious problem: in an overall sense, and especially for people without wealth and power, the “presumption of innocence” is a joke under this system.

That “Judge Judy” thinks this is funny (and something she wants to propagate by telling this “joke” to a mass audience), says a great deal about her—but not only her: the even more serious problem is that this orientation of hers is a reflection of how the so-called “justice system” actually works.

Finally, how can people who are supposedly supporters of civil rights, like Joan Baez, get into singing that terrible song “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”?! That is a song expressing sadness about the defeat of the slave-owning Confederacy (“Old Dixie”) in the Civil War. Anybody who cares about the emancipation of Black people, and an end to horrific oppression, should be thrilled that “Old Dixie” got driven down!

And now, for the complete emancipation of Black people, and all people, everywhere, who are oppressed and exploited, it is time to drive down this whole system of capitalism-imperialism, which built up a big part of its wealth and power on the backs of slaves, and which today murderously oppresses masses of people in this country and literally billions of people around the world, including more than 150 million children cruelly exploited in mines, sweatshops and farms.