Bread, circuses, and a little dough.

Of late, I've been reading in the newspaper how the CBC has been "excited" with the ditties its boardrooms have been tinkering with to replace the "Hockey Night In Canada" theme. In turn, I've been reading how Canadians across the country are heartbroken at the thought that this televised tune of 40+ years is going to be removed from hockey broadcasts. It seems that, in Canada, "the hockey song" is virtually a second national anthem, and some news reports have also cited how Canadians abroad would identify one another during spontaneous outbursts of singing it.

I think this demonstrates, once again, something tragic and important about the society we find ourselves in: that property-consciousness, corporate interests, ownership are more important than culture and what makes people happy. Further, despite clear displeasure, people are so constrained by the corporate hegemony that they (we) accept the change as a given, and so someone somwhere will likely be happy to accept the CBC's "bribe" of $100,000 to the person who submits the "best new hockey song." After all, if you're going to take something that someone loves away, once you give them money, everything is fine, right?

The socialists of old would say that this accepting public has succumbed to "commodity fetishism." I wonder if, on a cultural scale, we've just become too lazy, too bludgeoned, too punch-drunk, too tired of being hurt and seeing what we love packaged and sold as someone's else's property to really care about anything relevant to our happiness anymore. Perhaps this is why insulating entertainments like iPods and Wii become increasingly more popular, and fewer kids are playing hockey in the streets.

That is, if the municipalaties were permitting them to now. Insurance issues and safety, you know.