How can we protect ourselves from Oligarchy when every institution has been perverted to serve only their interests?

As both a liberal and a sports fanatic, I jumped at the chance to host today’s salon with Dave Zirin to talk about his new book “Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love.” Dave’s book is a very smart, witty and hard-hitting look at how jerkbag sports owners have transformed their stadiums from blue-collar and middle-class entertainment venues into massive profit-making behemoths tailored more toward corporate America than Joe Six Pack. Average families have found themselves priced out of going to games, since owners have cordoned off entire sections of ballparks for luxury boxes and club seats. And to make matters worse, these same owners have grown ever-more-fond of shaking down taxpayers for cash to build their multiplexes despite the fact that many of these taxpayers will never be able to afford to attend a game. This heinous practice is particularly glaring in Washington, DC where the city forked over hundreds of millions of dollars to build a new ballpark for the perpetually terrible Washington Nationals, despite the fact that the city at the time was planning to shut down a whopping 24 public schools.

The housing crisis isn’t going away. The economy is.