Why it is time to nationalise the Premier League.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

It was odd being a foreign socialist living in America during the recent sports draft season. Every night the TV news produced more evidence that the Republicans have completely lost it, milling around in Fox News herded fake mobs, wearing Dick Turpin hats, waving tea bags and making insane claims that Obama has turned America into the Soviet Archipelago with strip malls .

And then you changed channels to watch, say, the NFL draft, where the crappest teams gets first pick of the best players part of a system designed to make sure that all the assets don't end up in the hands of a greedy few. And you realise there's a name for such a system: socialism.

The fact is that teabaggers and the rest of the crazy (and getting ever crazier ) right wing Obamaphobic freakshow are an isolated rump. Obama is more popular than cake. He could, if he wanted, introduce legislation to nationalise the NFL, and maybe even get that legislation passed. But then again, why would he want to? Given that, as …