We saw a lot of what I call "False Flag" propaganda during the recent political campaigns: innocously-named groups with innocuously named web sites whose real agenda diverged sharply from their nominal agenda. The National Organization for Marriage, for example, is against marriage equality.
This type of propaganda has (not too shockingly) oozed out of the fantasy world of politics into the real world. Even the National Football League is using False Flag techniques. The NFL just put up a website called NFLLabor.com to smear the players union in advance of an expected work stoppage in 2011.
NFLlabor.com sounds like the name of a players union website but is in fact paid for by the NFL. It is a blatantly anti-labor site, operating under a superficially pro-labor title.
I first learned of this website from Twitter: I saw a tweet which said:
@NFLLabor Union deepens ties to AFL-CIO http://tinyurl.com/...
The NFL players are paid huge sums of money, and they are mostly black and/or from working-class and lower-middle-class backgrounds. Sure there are many white suburbanites like Tom Brady in the NFL, but for the most part NFL players do not come from Sarah Palin's "real" "pro-American" America. It is clear that the outrage from the 2011 work stoppage (which will inevitably be described as a "strike" even if it turns out to be a lockout) will be directed not just at the players but at labor in general.
Even though the players have big egos and big salaries, they literally put their lives on the line when they entertain us every fall weekend. The rate of significant injury in the NFL is literally 100%. At the end of the season, every player is banged up, and some are crippled. Even though only two players have been killed outright during a game, there are many ex-players who die young as a direct result of the damage done to their bodies during their careers. The owners on the other hand run no risks at all: even the financial risk is minimal. The Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones will make just as much money this year (when his team is the worst team in the league) as he did last year (when they were a title contender.)