I don’t care much about pro football, but I care about American values, and this afternoon American values are under attack as never in the last, um, few days or something.

The Steelers are what made America great, a profit-making company that sells TV eyeballs to advertisers and fan chotchkes to all and sundry.  Their logo celebrates a smokestack industry that used to be pretty important in the US, though it’s now mostly scrap recycling (and whose departure from Pittsburgh turned the city from a toxic mess of smokestacks and black snow into a pretty nice town) .  The minute they get a better stadium and tax giveback offer from another city, profit maximization dictates that they load up the trucks to become the Las Vegas Chips or Spokane Chainsaws or whatever.

The Packers, in contrast, are a commie non-profit [think about that word; evil spelled sideways!], collective that’s nailed its feet to the ground for the pleasure and pride of a little town.  In a reasonable-sized market, this franchise could coin real money, so it’s fair to call it job-killing to boot, not to mention the skybox delights rich people in any of several cities are being deprived of.  Their stadium could have the name of a big important company on it, but instead it’s wasted commemorating a beloved team founding father who isn’t spinning off a nickel in franchise payments.

The Packers, in short, are an assault on everything that really matters, and if they win today, as they have rudely done many times in contravention of all theory and theological principles, it will be one more blatant invitation to smite America with an earthquake, or boils, or even a Palin presidency.   Kickoff in about an hour; you know whom to root for.