An old "war" in the old world of "Old Europe" is coming to a climax. The World Cup that pits teams from nation states against one another will soon be over, lawd, with one winner emerging as best footballers in the world, for this year at least. Hail and farewell. On to the next spectacle!

These televised combats and upsets have consumed us as millions wear their national colors to cheer on "their" team, their country, and their flag in an exuberant orgy of competing nationalisms.

The Cup brings with it its own consciousness with talk of the men with quick feet as role models and cultural icons. Duleep Allirajah writes in England's Spiked-On Line:

"The role model debate perfectly illustrates football's mutation from leisure pursuit into the sporting wing of government social policy. Football - which, let's not forget, is a fairly simple game in which 22 men try to kick a ball into a net - is now regarded as a means of solving all kinds of social problems. Football clubs are expected to play their part in crusading against such social and medical ills as racism, homophobia, testicular cancer, truancy, and childhood obesity. "But the problem is wider than sport's co-option as an instrument for social engineering. Football has come to fill a gap in our lives where once there was engagement with the public sphere. The Fall of Public Man has been offset by the Rise of Soccer Bloke. The contemporary appeal of football is that it generates a sense of belonging, collectivity and identity that moribund institutions such as political parties, trade unions or churches no longer provide. If England do well in the World Cup you will see an outpouring of flag-waving euphoria that more traditional vehicles for nationalistic sentiment, such as military interventions, are simply incapable of creating."

He concludes wisely: "Football is still only a game; a temporary respite from the trials and tribulations of daily life but never a substitute for having a life."

These popular contests also mask a deeper change in the world and substitute for the more intractable conflicts underway and out of sight, at least on TV. Just as the World Cup comes to a close, so is the era of the nation state. Look around: the real battles in the world are not between nations but within them. Look at our own fractured and divided country, the elections in Mexico, the fighting in Iraq, or the battles in Gaza.

The real battleground is beneath the surface where they have always been-between giant corporate interests, battling brands, warring intelligence agencies, and competing clans and tribes often expressed as racial and gender conflicts.

The identities offered by national entities are barely skin deep and mostly used to manipulate patriotism and pander to flag-waving. No wonder governments love them.

How would you design a Climate Change Cup to get those engaged in destroying the planet "playing" against those trying to save it? Al Gore et.al may be on one team but who would be on the other-the forest destroyers, the oil companies, the auto manufacturers, the military industrial complex? Would they wear their true colors?

Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but those doing the fiddling today are far less visible. In fact, some of them sponsor athletic competitions. Didn't Enron have a stadium named after it?

Its time for a new World Reality Cup, and I keep thinking of the song that might be played to kick it off, every much like the national anthem echoing daily in every baseball stadium in America.

Remember this prophetic tune by Barry McGuire from the early 60's?

The eastern world, it is exploding Violence flarin', bullets loadin' You're old enough to kill, but not for votin' You don't believe in war, but what's that gun you're totin' And even the Jordan River has bodies floatin'

But you tell me Over and over and over again, my friend Ah, you don't believe We're on the eve of destruction.

Don't you understand what I'm tryin' to say Can't you feel the fears I'm feelin' today?

We are feeling new fears today that are just as apocalyptic as the old nuclear terrors. Barry understood that:

Yeah, my blood's so mad feels like coagulatin' I'm sitting here just contemplatin' I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation. Handful of senators don't pass legislation And marches alone can't bring integration When human respect is disintegratin' This whole crazy world is just too frustratin'

"It's just too frustrating.!" Yes it is. Perhaps that's why some are looking into the past or into the stars to see the future.

My penpal Wendi Meremark dips into astrology to warn us:

"July 6 is Bush's birthday, in 1946, an hour after sunrise in Connecticut. The sun then was in Cancer, the moon in Libra, and rising in the east was Leo's sign. Cancer the Crab symbolizes spirit confined in a shell, which molts whole and entirely at a time, disclosing a vulnerable weak surface until a new shell reconfigures. Libra stands for equanimity and balance, or when afflicted, as in this case, the irresolve of such (impertinence and monomania) especially. Leo shows in dressing leathery.

"This 3-part personal nature then meets with changing circumstances of the worldof its time, sometimes well, sometimes ill. Following this sixtieth birthday the omens seem ill.

"Overarching is Tecumseh's Curse, a circumstantial Sword of Damocles above the seat of power now, not seen in its planet pattern since 1960, nor again for centuries. The last comes before the days end"

Recall that Sword. The Wikipedia does:

"The Sword of Damocles is a frequently used allusion., epitomizing the insecurity of those with great power due to the possibility of that power being taken away suddenly, or, more generally, any feeling of impending doom."

"Impending Doom!" That feeling will stay with us no matter who wins the World Cup.

News Dissector Danny Schechter is the blogger-in-chief of Mediachannel.org, His latest film is "In Debt We Trust" (See Indebtwetrust.com). Email to: Dissector@mediachannel.org

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