The Arrogance of
America
For a
country that is (self-styled) the Greatest on God’s Earth, the United States of
America is a bit of mess. It has been
for years.
Despite the
admittedly great advances made over the past thirty or forty years, it’s still
an inherently racist place. Huge numbers
of non-white Americans remain in low paid jobs and housing, without health care
(at least until the introduction of Obamacare – of which more in a moment). Sure, there are millions of whites in the
same situation, but the numbers of non-whites in the position is
disproportionately large. The problem is
not restricted to Negros – Hispanics are particularly vulnerable in many
southern states, and across the country minorities suffer, especially the new
global threat, Muslims. And this is
without the continued bias against Native Americans. In fairness, this is not a uniquely American
things – minorities are vulnerable everywhere: look at the Roma in France,
Muslims in the UK and elsewhere, Sunni in parts of Iraq, Shia in other parts of
Iraq.
What makes
it worse in America is that it continues to badge itself the Land of the Free,
the Land of Hope and Opportunity.
Millions of struggling immigrants would dispute this sales pitch I’m
sure – just as many more, successfully integrated, would strenuously agree with
it.
This is an indication
of the mess that American politics is in.
America is a democracy, and the vote is there for men and women alike, as
it is in the majority of the world.
Americans, especially American politicians, insist that their form of
democracy is the best in the world, a model for ex-dictatorships to follow as
they gain their “freedom from years of oppression”. But the way their democracy operates, with a
House of Representatives and a Congress designed to act as checks and balances
to each other and keep everything nice and friendly and fair in formulating new
legislation, stopped doing that years ago.
Now it’s possible for a relatively small number of law makers with
“extremist” views to make the whole thing grind to a halt.
This
happened as recently as last month, when a handful of Tea Party Republicans
prevented a Democrat Budget from being passed because they demanded extensive
changes to Obamacare – a measure that was written into law a couple of years
ago, and was even then being implemented.
The result was a partial shutdown of the government and hours of CNN
coverage and debate, and almost led to the country defaulting on its financial
obligations – which would undoubtedly have led to a global financial
meltdown. At the eleventh hour a
compromise was reached that avoided this, but seems to have merely pushed the
problem back into the New Year – no doubt we’ll go through ti all again in
2014.
A guy
interviewed on CNN at a protest march in Washington at the time – just an
ordinary Joe Public, trying to earn a living – made the very pertinent
observation that the American political system is broken, and was broken when
career politicians, in it for the power and prestige and (of course) money,
gained the ascendancy over people who genuinely sought election to represent
the people in their town, city, county or state. But in a system where, nowadays, gaining
political office, especially the Presidency, costs millions of dollars, money
counts more than ideas, cash is more important than empathy with the needs of
Joe Public and his family, and sound bites are more critical than decency, the
situation is unlikely to improve any time soon.
This is because “special interest
groups”, like our old friends the National Rifle Association, are happy to pay those
millions of dollars to buy influence, and keep their favoured (that is to say
sympathetic) politicians in place and thus able to protect their “special
interests”.
Dare I
suggest that the American political system is not just broken, it is
corrupt? Sure, why not. It is.
Finally,
America is undoubtedly a powerful military state. It has poured trillions of dollars into the
development of an armoury that could win any conflict it chooses to participate
in. Used for good, this is fine. But America sits on the sidelines while its
client state, Israel, continues its Palestinian Genocide, using American
manufactured weapons, doing nothing. It
storms into countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, toppling (admittedly evil)
rulers but without a Plan B to control the power vacuum left over provokes
decade’s long civil war and slaughter.
It uses drones to take out tribal leaders in the hinterland between
Afghanistan and Pakistan, both nations notionally friends and allies, who are
suspected of being terrorists – and takes out innocent women and children while
so doing. It does this time and again,
the latest attack being on the eve of peace talks between the Pakistan
government and Pakistan Taliban leaders aimed at resolving local difficulties
that have no direct impact on America but could bring about a better life for
both ordinary Pakistanis and Afghans. It
does so with no apology, and with no care about the effects on these already
poverty stricken people.
This has
come to light courtesy of a vast collection of documents liberated by one
Edward Snowden, a contractor - in other words, an IT temp - working at the NSA
who found it a little upsetting that this level of surveillance was going on
and questioned its legality. He did a
runner to Hong Kong, and dumped the whole story on a couple of newspapers,
notably the Guardian. Then when the shit
hit the fan, he wisely scarpered again, this time to Russia, where he now works
for a local website while on a one year temporary residence visa. The American government, predictably, is
outraged, demanding his return to the US to face justice (for which read life
in a high security facility for spying and crimes against the American
government and its people). The people,
by contrast, generally applaud the bloke for bringing to their notice a whole
raft of stuff, much of it barely legal, being done in their name but which they
do not accept as being in any way justifiable. Especially when it’s being done
to them without their knowledge.
With all
this, Americans seem to be genuinely mystified why they are not flavor of the
month. It seems to be beyond them that
playground bullies – which is what the American politicians have turned their
country into – are generally unpopular.
They seem incapable of realizing that killing innocent people is not a
very nice thing to do, whether it’s in the hall of a kindergarten in some
Midwest town or some flea bitten hovel in a desperately poor mountain valley
thousands of miles away. They seem
unable to realize that their version of democracy does not suit everyone, and
that they do not have the right to force it upon everyone. The usual defence that they are acting only
to protect their own citizens, in this post 9/11 world, from terrorists who
would not hesitate to maim and kill them just doesn’t wash…….because they are
not the only nation to have been the victims of similar attacks – ask the
citizens of Madrid and London, to name but two – without resorting to the
duplicitous and murderous tactics that America employs. Violence simply leads to more violence, but
the cowboy mentality of America fails to realize or accept this.
There is a
word in the dictionary that seems to have eluded them. The word is “humility”
America
should learn what it means. Then
practice it.
The world may be a better place were they to do so.
Hugo Lloris – brave or barmy?
Last weekend, Tottenham’s French international goalkeeper was wiped out
(accidentally it has to be said) by Everton’s man-mountain striker Romelu
Lukaku. There was the best part of ten
minutes stoppage while the Spurs medical team patched him up, before he played
out the final 15 minutes or so, during which he made a brilliant match-winning
save. So all in a day’s work for the
bloke.
But there has been uproar in the press and elsewhere over the
incident. Why? Because for a short time, Lloris was
unconscious, due to the whack on the head.
When he woke up, slightly woozy of course, there were conversations with
him and his manager and the referee, as a result of which he insisted on
continuing and his manager let him do so.
Both Lloris and the club and officials have been roundly condemned for
allowing this to happen, citing that the risk of concussion or even – horrors!
– death, should have meant he was withdrawn from play immediately. But after the match, he underwent a CAT scan
that proved there was not a trace of brain injury, concussion or anything else
likely to affect his health, either short or long term. So all the calls for action and rule changes
by various head trauma charities, doctors (who weren’t present at the time and
hence are in no real position to judge) and trade unions are, quite simply, a
gross over reaction.
Lloris and Andre Villas–Boas (his club manager) are mystified at all the
attention. Both are of the opinion he
did nothing particularly brave or outstanding.
Just doing his job. This I fully
agree with – the man is a very good goalkeeper, captain of his country, and
earns a significant amount of money for doing exactly the sort of things he did
against Everton. Indeed, it’s good to
see there are ‘keepers out there still prepared to take the inevitable knocks
without making an issue of it or screaming foul play.
As an ageing ‘keeper myself, it depresses me to see the way the game has
gone nowadays. Goalkeepers are
overprotected – breathe on them and you’re likely to give away a free
kick. I could always expect to be
knocked out in exactly the same way as Lloris at least three times over the
course of a season, and often it was a deliberate assault rather than an
accidental collision, and anyone playing at the time would expect the
same. You just got on with it – a bucket
of cold water over the head to wake you up, a whiff of smelling salts (my eyes
are watering now at the memory) to clear your head, and away you go. The only time it happened to me and I didn’t
carry on was when some pillock of a centre forward relocated my nose somewhere
around my left ear. Happy days.
No, Lloris is neither brave nor barmy.
He’s a goalkeeper. ‘Nuff said.
Time for Change at
FIFA.
I’ve said
it here before, but old Teflon Sepp Blatter really should step aside from his
day job of running FIFA, and while he’s about it take with him the ageing
bureaucrats who work for him. For a
multi-billion dollar organization charged with running the most popular sport
on the planet, they really do make some funny decisions. Maybe all those rumours of brown envelopes
stuffed with dosh being handed around behind the scenes are true after all,
despite the organization’s strenuous denials.
Just consider their choices for hosting the next three World Cups.
Next year
it’s Brazil’s turn. That could be very
good – the country over the years has turned out some of the best teams and
individual players ever to grace the game, and they’re always good to
watch. The country, too, is turning into
an economic powerhouse, the B in the BRICs emerging market group (the others
being Russia, India and China). The
weather’s nice too. But right now, the
place is riven by civil unrest, as the average Brazilian takes to the streets
complaining about the billions of dollars being spent re-building football
stadia, putting up new hotels, developing new airports and roads to ferry teams
and fans around that vast country, and tearing down the favelas, the slums many
of the population still call home, instead of building badly needed new schools
and hospitals and other basic amenities.
This week the annual Soccerex beano was due to be held in Rio, but was
called off at the last minute because the local government decided it couldn’t
spare the manpower to police the event.
Fifa and the World Cup organizing committee insist everything will be
alright on the night and the tournament will go off without a hitch, but given
that a lot of the projects are running late I wouldn’t bet on it.
Next up is
Russia, in 2018. BRICs again,
notice. No longer Communist, of course,
a fledgling democracy and wealthy as Croesus, so worthy of a World Cup in Sepp’s
tunnel vision. Well, yes. It’s a democracy of sorts, but for pretty
much all of this century run by Vladimir Putin, officially a President (and
sometime Prime Minister) but in reality not much more than a dictator. Anyone who dares to speak out against him and
the way he runs the place is more or less guaranteed ten years in the
gulag. “Opposition” is not a word in his
vocabulary. The country is deeply homophobic. It has passed laws that discriminate against
homosexuals, and gay activists have been beaten and banged up. It’s considered an illness, a sickness,
rather than a way of life, something that should be cured by beatings or hidden
away by imprisonment. Lovely – I’m sure
gay football supporters will have a blast there. It’s also inherently racist. Black players – and there are a number of
them playing in the Russian league – are continually abused by their own fans,
subjected to monkey noises and banana throwing the same as players in Britain
were back in the 70s and early 80s. One
club has even written a statute into its rule book, at the insistence of its
supporters, stipulating that the team remains 100% white – no blacks
allowed. CSKA Moscow have just had a
partial ground closure applied after Manchester City star Yaya Toure (from
Ivory Coast, currently the best African player in the world) suffered this kind
of crap in a Champions League match. So
African teams and supporters will have a good time too.
Finally, we
have Qatar in 2022. I blogged about this
one a couple of weeks ago, and previously way back in 2010 when they were
awarded the tournament. Now there is no
absolute proof that the voting process that awarded them the tournament wasn’t
all above board with no brown envelopes, but still – let’s say it was. It’s still an odd decision, given the size of
the place and its summer climate. It may
be the wealthiest country in the world, and it may still deliver a terrific
tournament, but again, I have my doubts.
But all
these examples – and there are many others – demonstrate that FIFA needs to
change, before it loses all credibility.
It’s close to that already, and Sepp’s latest announcement (that
qualification play-offs should be scrapped because the losers “might be upset”)
doesn’t help.
Can someone please
explain Twitter?
Facebook, when it launched its IPO a couple of
years, got the price wrong and bombed.
Twitter has launched today, at an opening price of $26 that is expected
to climb to above $40 by close of business – time will tell. But I can’t get my head around how a company
that has never turned a profit, and is losing a hundred odd million a year, can
have a stock market valuation of $18billion.
I don’t
even understand the product. OK,
Facebook I can get. I use it as a tool
to see what my friends and relations back in the UK and elsewhere are doing, I
can use it to post pictures of my kids and my trips so that they in turn can see
what I’m up to. I advertise when I’m
adding a new blog post like this one. I
can see how Facebook uses adverts to make money, and how Likes can generate
income by driving the ad process. There
are things about it I hate – the flood of posts that end up on my Wall (or
whatever you call it) inviting me to play games in which I have no interest and
that regular participation in can cost money.
The depressing and frankly Little Englander and racist, anti-everything
sloganeering from some of the most disgusting websites in existence. The posts that encourage you to Like
something or post it on your Wall or you are the lowest of the low for not supporting
that charity or this organization. But
weighing it all up, I can live with it because of that family element.
But
Twitter? Why?? What???
How???? From what little I have
seen, mostly from articles or blogs in newspapers and websites, or posted on my
bloody Wall, it seems no more than a way for publicity seeking “celebrities” or
footballers to tell the world how wonderful they are, or what they ate for
lunch, or something equally trivial. Or
to complain about something - #Sack Mourinho, for instance, after Chelsea had
the temerity to lose a match.
How is that
worth $18, let alone $18billion?
Sebastian Vettel –
genius or lucky?
I’ve
followed F1 since the good old days of James Hunt and Nikki Lauda back in the
70s, Hill and Senna and Prost in 80s and 90s.
Schumacher of course. But I can’t
say I’m that interested nowadays, mainly due to the processional nature of the
races these days, where I think technology – whether it be the car or the tyre
– is more important than driving ability.
The dominance of young Sebastian Vettel over the past few years hasn’t
helped either.
The guy is
26. He’s won the last 4 drivers’
championships in a Red Bull. To date, he
has 37 wins in a total of 118 races. 43
pole positions. He’s won 11 races this
season, including the last 7. Most of
these wins have been by wide margins – half a minute at the last race, which is
nearly half a lap.
He has a
simple tactic. Get on the front row
(first or second seems to be immaterial).
Get a good start. Take the lead
through the first corner. Then toe down
and disappear into the distance. Build
up a good lead, then change tyres, and let the car do the rest. Very rarely does he drop down the field and
have to race, to overtake people, and for this there are observers who doubt
his abilities – but when he’s had to do it, he has, and very well too.
So
personally, I think he is a superb driver, even though I don’t particularly
like the boy – that one finger salute when he either gets pole or wins a race
drives me up the wall. But I have to say
he delivers.
But how
much of this is down to his abilities, and how much to luck – specifically, the
luck in driving what has clearly been the best car for the last few years - as
many believe? Luck plays a part, in F1
more than perhaps any “sport” of course.
He is lucky to be driving an Adrian Newey car, certainly, but I think he
has used his natural ability to make the most of that luck. Mark Webber, a fine driver in his own right,
has the same machinery by the same designer but, particularly the last couple
of years, has been blown away. Webber’s
car breaks down more than Vettel’s – luck?
Team orders (even if no-one admits it) tend to favour Vettel – luck or
(more likely) design? Initially, I think
it was luck, and Vettel had the breaks more often than Webber, but more
recently I think it’s been a case of the team making the car just a little bit
more suitable for Vettel – as he’s amassed points and wins and championships
the team has been more and more built around him. I can’t see anyone stopping him.
But Newey
is the key. The man is a genius at
designing racing cars. He’s done it for
McLaren and Williams too, and won championships for both of them in the
past. Ask any driver, past or present,
and they will all say they would love to drive one of his designs. Those who have, invariably say it’s the best
car they’ve ever driven. So for Red Bull
it’s been lucky that the right driver has come along at the right time to get
the best out of the right car. And
dominate the sport. And they’ll keep
doing that until something changes.
Vettel is going nowhere – why should he?
He won’t get a better position.
But Adrian
Newey might. I saw an interview on BBC’s
HARDtalk program last week with Sir Ben Ainslie, the bloke who’s won loads of
Olympic sailing gold medals and this year led the US America’s Cup team to a
9-8 series win (after being 1-8 down).
He’s trying to raise funding to put together a British team to compete
next time. Interestingly, he let slip
that he’s had some conversations with Adrian Newey, who is apparently also a keen
sailor and has in the past expressed an ambition to do something different one
day and design a racing yacht……. When
pressed, Ainslie looked sheepish, I thought, and insisted they were just chats
over a glass of wine. The probably were
– but if he gets the funding together, and a team together, would it not be the
perfect opportunity for Newey to realise his ambitions? And where will that leave Red Bull? And Vettel…
…
Watch this
space, I think.
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