Dominance feels good, doesn’t it?
It’s easy to love the Redeem Team. Four years ago, US Men's Basketball was a joke. Today we’re back on top. If nothing else, Coach K and Co. made patriotism hip again, much to the delight of anyone who can still remember the way things used to be.
They came; they saw; they conquered.
And they left no doubt as to just how keen we are to pound the tar out of the rest of the planet.
The defeatists groused that it couldn’t be done—that the American Empire was in decline, on the hardwood and everywhere else. So much for that. After Beijing, the Red, White, and Blue has its swagger back. Whether that swagger is warranted is utterly beside the point.
Beauty only matters in the eye of the beholder.
Humility only counts in the heart of the humbled.
- B/R Ticket Guide
The American Century may be over, but someone forgot to tell the Americans.
Exceptionalism always dies hard. Forget the credit crunch and the energy crisis. We’re just as mighty as we’ve ever been—or at least we are in our own skulls, which is the only place that’s really real. If you bury your head deep enough in the sands of history, even a has-been can come out looking like a superpower.
City on a hill?
Did it.
Manifest Destiny?
Ditto.
Making peace with the inherently limited scope of our power in an era of multipolar postnational geopolitics?
Well—the boys sure did look good against the Spaniards, didn’t they?
Everybody wants to rule the world. It’s not a neoconservative thing—it’s a human thing, a product of that longing which no man-made border has ever managed to contain. The problem with the US Men's Basketball gold is that it panders too pointedly to our most unfulfillable desires. When you’ve got nowhere to go but down, the last thing you need is a fleeting reminder of how sweet it is to be on top.
There’s no escaping those self-evident truths, Bubba:
That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—and that Happiness is a whole helluva lot more enjoyable when it comes at the expense of some poor foreigner.
Because there's no hubris quite like jingoistic hubris.
And anyone who tells you the American people are ready to embrace the alternative has made the fatal mistake of only just saying, is all...
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2 months ago
wow that told me a lot about team USA
from 2 months ago
Agree Kevin.
2 months ago
I agree. Let's scrap sports all together and put our collective effort into ridding the world of poverty, child slavery, oppression in all its forms.
Dude, if you think the game of basketball is standing in the way of humanity's advancement, if you think the celebration of a team working together, talent as it inherently may be, must be couched as demeaning to others, then you better buy some Rolaids because you, my friend, have a lot of fretting to do.
Maybe someone who blindly rooted for Team USA in every event may need to do some reflection. But The vast majority of spectators around the globe, I'd wager, who saw the Chinese divers were probably blown away, who saw Bolt on the track were astounded. Pointedly or not, winning by its very act places one person or group above others. What makes it acceptable is the equality of competition.
Less you forget, until that last game, Men's Basketball had some room to rise. It wasn't number one, but earned it, as a team -- no matter what Kobe freaks tell you.
Sometimes you can find cause to celebrate in the lyricism of the human machine performing exquisitely under incredible circumstance and leave it at that. The problems and foibles of human nature will be there afterward. Sometimes all of us just need a moment's rest and see what's good in us before we rise to face them again. As Thurgood Marshall said, "I read the front page of the paper to see the worst in mankind. I read the sports section to see the best," or there abouts.
All this said, it was a travesty that China with its pathetic record of how it treats its citizens hosted the games.
from 2 months ago
tone, your a good fucking writer. I enjoyed that
2 months ago
Hey Ryan,
Thought provoking stuff. My hat is off to Coach K and the Redeem Team for getting the job done without the histrionics so often seen in the NBA. Sure they demolished each and every opponent. But I didn't get the sense that they were out to make "in-your-face" plays every time they had the ball.
Yes, the men's Olympic basketball team returned to the USA Olympic team, rather than something separate and distinct from the rest of America's best. If that's retro, give me more retro.
As for a political perspective on the Olympic Games in Beijing, not only was the whole world watching, China was looking at the rest of the world. That's all I'll say about that...
Lew
2 months ago
O.....kay....
2 months ago
huh, very thought provoking. well written.
2 months ago
Now I know why you are not only the best editor on this site but also the best writer too...kudos and salut
2 months ago
Wow, a whole lot of words and you really didn't say anything.
The so-called 'problem' with the U.S. men's basketball team, could be applied to literally every situation in life.
I play tennis with people in my neighborhood, and when we play competitively, I want to beat them by as many points as possible.
Will I ever become beat Rafael Nadal? Of course not. Will I ever even be known by anyone outside of my neighborhood for winning a few sets? No.
Games are games. No one likes to lose, but it's the nature of competition. There's nothing deeper or more profound to it than that. We just watch hoping the team with the jerseys we like gets more points than the other.
I don't think it says anything about America's place in the world, or any other geopolitical entity that we won the gold in a convincing fashion.
2 months ago
Hi Ryan - with college football starting, I thought I'd check back and see if you were still skeptically peeing on everything in the world of sports. Good show, brother Alberti, good show.
from 2 months ago
I prefer "pensively urinating" to "skeptically peeing"...but maybe that's just me splitting hairs. Apropos of nothing, I'd be lying if I said the return of JC Hagan didn't make my afternoon.
2 months ago
Ryan,
I think you took a look at my USA Basketball article, in which I suggested we give it back to the college kids for every other Games. I was pretty much ripped, because we want to be the best at everything. We especially want to be the best at hoops, because the game was invented here.
A bit of stream-of-consciousness there, as if you were channeling Denis Leary, but good stuff.
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