Sports

     There is no denying the appeal of sports. In each match there is a beginning, action, with instant justice meted out, and a finish leaving a winner or loser. The team sport seems a poor man's ballet in black and white summing up in just a few hours a macroscopic battle between little giants.Some of the battles are remembered for their fierce competition or a great upset,, but most just pass into a record book.

       I read an article recently about turkish soccer which contained a quote by Umberto Eco about the nature of soccer which, it seems, could be applied to all sports:
     
     According to Talimciler, in Turkey soccer is the true opium of the people. In the years after the 1980 coup, when political gatherings were barred, the government “used soccer to fill the vacuum left by politics.” And yet Çarşi, which formed during this time, developed many of the external characteristics of a political party. The group’s stands on national issues are reported in newspapers. Its representatives are invited to parliament and to political rallies. One senior member confessed to me that he was never really that into soccer, and had been drawn to Çarşi by its leftist social programs. Çarşi makes an interesting case study for Umberto Eco’s theory of soccer fanaticism, which he views as a systematic, one-to-one parody of political consciousness: you critique the record of soccer players instead of the record of parliament, second-guess the coach rather than the minister of finance. Sports thus drains the same resources—“possibilities of judgment, verbal aggressiveness, political competitiveness”—that the citizen would otherwise use for political debate.

The Big Lie

"All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true within itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."   
  Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X              
                                 
 Ain't that the truth.                                        

                                                                                         

Yonder Stands Your Orphan With His Gun

     Amidst all the terror and the ensuing rampant imbecilic political rhetoric about Islam, so much of which is fanaticism, there is temptation,, to cave in and join the weak minded who consider all muslims terrorists. It is the vulgarians, "not high enough nor low enough", who have forgotten somewhat recent history and its accompanying values which shaped the U.S. unlike any other country on earth. The United States willingly opened its doors for more than a century and a half. You might even say, after kicking back a few, that this crazy idea works,,, somewhat. "With Silent Lips", wrote Emma Lazarus, a "New Colossus" and a new ideal for a nation was promenaded before the rest of the world, where the farmer and the mechanic, not the king ruled. De Toqueville's observation is oversimplified but there is a contempletive tone in that isolated provincial bell. Really lawyers substitute for royalty in the U.S.. No doubt long before Lazarus's poem gave form to the feeling there were corruptions. Indigenous genocide, slavery (by the way approximately 30 percent of Africans forced into slavery in the United States were Muslim) , prejudice, and aggression, have always nagged at the American Dream. The "impaired" model, with all its handicaps, still ambles, albeit with a limp. I have often said that western thought, apart from a myopic egoistic foreign policy, is such a beautiful body of work, always reaching into the dichotomous abyss to pluck out gems, forever contradicting itself in the most convoluted manner so that any serious student finds themselves on permanently spongey ground. Doubt is the mother of conscience. I just wish there were more serious doubters.
      Those who came to North America sought freedom from tyranny. Individualism, a strong suit in american thought, led to the largest bourgeoise class in the history of mankind, by and large guided by materialistic philosophy. It is chauvanistic, just a big fat cultural selfie. Unfortunately these are great tools in the hands of a politician. Three hundred years have come and gone and North America has racked up its own tyrannous past. 
     It is an election year and because there is political steak at stake, ideals, that should be givens, have been hastily cast by the wayside to make room for selfdom. First rapist drug addicted Mexicans were a convenient target. That couldn't last long because Mexicans do not display the characteristics of an evil empire. They fix your tile roof, dance really well, and their food has world cultural heritage status. The Islamic State, on the other hand, conforms to everyone's deepest fears. It has delivered the perfect sacrificial lamb served up hot on a platter, unfettered violence. Isis has designated itself the official islamic court painter drawing a beastly generic portrait,,,  a transparency in bloody ink that has been eagerly overlaid upon the entire muslim world by opportunists. All the patriotic king's men and women are lined up once again to eagerly excise vital parts of the American Constitution in order to garnish appeal from their carefully crafted audience.It is even worse than one can imagine if those that are so willing to dismember the most basic tenant of the constitution actually believe what they say.   
     From which head of the dreaded Hydra did Isis spring? There is a model for the present state of the world stage. Militant islam is a western creation. It was born out of loss. From the early 1800's to the present, once powerful Islam began to fall apart yielding to western advancement. By the end of World War I the Ottoman Empire had lost the Middle East, as France and England carved up the Muslim empire as spoils of war. This is the way the world works. Power rules and cares not a damn about your former grandiose history which also had its ruthless side. First muslims worldwide became impoverished, then radicalized by the Western structuring of the middleast, meant to protect the oil rich region in order to preserve the western world economy. It created a group of dictatorships, some secular and others religious, who accomplished their ends by any means necessary. 
      While many Muslims adapted to the fast-paced changes common to Western industrialization and modernization, some Muslims rejected them, seeing the world through Luddite eyes. They created a rigid ideology imbedded in the traditional values and laws of the Koran. This is the phenomenon known today as Islamic fundamentalism. Islamism became a struggle to return to the glorious days when Islam reigned supreme. Sounds like two World War II dictators who also wanted to return their respective countries to "The Glory Days" too. Muslims started purifying albeit their version of pure. The West, was the cause of all their problems. The West stole their former identity, their land, and their resources. The Western powers allowed the dream only if it conformed to their idea of stability. Now, it seems that stability has crumbled. The west shakes one muslim hand while it wages war with another. It's schizophrenic to be in bed with a regime like the Saudis who have exported terrorism and despise the child born of that relation.  
      Propaganda seems to have divided the world into the good and the evil. The good are Knights Templar, marching to Zion with oil stained hands, and the evil are,, well,, a bunch of young murderers. In the process of evangelizing the world, and creating the good, the bad, and the ugly, the west has had to carefully cultivate an enormous, compliant, and non-evaluative audience.The christian west has reared a population that automatically believes in "divine right" jingoism. Governments have authorized military campaigns and ask their citizens to participate in the othodoxy.The general population however rendered impotent by disinformation is incapable of critisizing esteemed beliefs. One either puts on a uniform and fights for what it deems "right" or cheers from its accepted place on the sidelines. Any serious criticism operates on the fringes.