“Football is clearly a communist conspiracy because study shows there is a serious decline in workers productivity during the Word Cup”!
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The following is a debate resulted from my status update on Facebook
“Football is clearly a communist conspiracy because study shows there is a serious decline in workers productivity during the Word Cup”!
Football is clearly not helpful to solving social issues, as it increases police and military presence, creates social divisions, and consolidates wealth to fewer people.
@Glen
“football is clearly not helpful to solving social issues”. Correct. It was never intended to nor claimed either.
“consolidates wealth to fewer people”. you could apply the same thing to Michael Moore’s movies. He just get richer after each release. Is he a capitalist because what he presents in his movies is to promote and secure capitalism?
As a general rule, anything popular would inevitably be a subject of capitalist roles and an object in the market to make money out of, doesn’t matter if it is about publishing Karl Marx Capital or it is about Hollywood crappy movies.
“creates social divisions”?! that I don’t understand. You might say that nationalism is promoted. Right. I’ll get back to this.
“it increases police and military presence”. You might say the rulers will take advantage of the situation to push around homeless and the poor from the city by the military forces. Considering its marginalized scale, it is hard to believe that a govt invest a few billion dollars to host WC to just do that.
Having said all the above, true that the price tag of all players in final cup has gone up already. That billions of dollars have exchanged just tonight in gambling. That world cup is a business, that hosting WC is a prestiges matter for govts. And hey, some mobs might have gotten busy ‘breaki’ some legs’ for their loss in the final match!!! And true that rulers shoved their national anthems and their flags in the throat of millions BUT
a) it doesn’t mean that the billions who follow football do it because of the above. Quite the contrary, it has become a business, marketable, mobs and hooligans are involved in it because people like the game.
Football is just a sport, played by billions, specially low incomes because all you need for it is a lousy 5 cents ball and 1 and half players. It is loved by so many because they are raised w/ it as THE only recreational activity they could have (while almost all other sports is expensive to play).
b) it doesn’t mean that we should treat the football the same way the rulers do. In principle, no type of art/sport/personal creativities should be an official state sport/art. That’s right out dangerous. If any state does it (which they do) that’s wrong. We shouldn’t follow that principle.
Treat football as it is to the eyes of billions, an entertaining event. Let’s not politicize something that is not. Rather than criticizing football, the rulers who attempt to abuse this activity must be exposed. As Maradona put it “the ball is innocent”.
you assertions that professional sports, including the world cup, are simply an entertainment event is fallacious. This IS the emperor distracting the citizens from their evil acts with gladiators. There is nothing beneficial from these events that would not have come were they not existing. If a fan were to have stepped away from the waste andarrogance of substance abuse and the pride of choosing a side, they might have taken the hour or two and been fit, spent time with their families, worked on a garden space, and this is only the hour or two from sitting and watching on TV this event, plus the hundreds of other hours and meningless dialogue involved in wtching these games.
Entertainment found solely through watching this orgy of extravagence is not in fact entertainment, but diversion… a dumbing down of the society which has chosen this to be their gladiators.
This is NOT the five cent footie played on the streets. It is instead the insertion of steroidal, ego-maniac role models into the minds of children and these children are constantly let down and worse, these role models are not responsible to their audience. They are instead responsible to the corporate entity that is professional football.
Hospitals and schools are closed as stadiums are built and rebuilt. It’s not just the money, but the resource management that is wronfg here.
Lastly I would like to point out to you as a marxist that the rulers are not the democratic bodies, they aren;t the kings and queens, though sometimes these roles are held by rulers. The rulers are the WEALTH. The money. And that is what this is.. It’s better to hold your team high than to be active in civic politics. How many of our youth waste their time being active for their teams as hooligans that would be better representing thier worth as social activists.
Keep em confused and separated.
First off, I glued two statements and made them my status because once put together I found it hilarious. Anyhow this part of status is fact: Study shows that workers productivity drops significantly because of the world cup. A dent in capitalism! Contradicts your first paragraph
Glen: “This is NOT the five cent footie played on the streets. It is instead the insertion of steroidal, ego-maniac role models into the minds of children and these children are constantly let down and worse, these role models are not responsible to their audience. They are instead responsible to the corporate entity that is professional football.”.
True. What do you want to do about it? advise your child not to watch, not to go to the theater, not to listen to music because no matter what, the performer is making money out of it and s/he reflects the capitalist culture, i.e a role model of it? How about schools? Don’t go to school either. Don’t work either.
Isn’t the schools where our children learn (or rather are poisoned) by the values of “possession”, “money”, “power”,”social structure”, “professionalism”, “obedience”, etc? Where did these sport/art role models learn their roles? Via sport or performing arts? I think not. The fundamental capitalist values are as a matter of fact passed on to our children via society’s core social element: family. Then it is educational system, then it is work.
What is social activities, if not schools, not work, not sport event, not music concert, not movie theaters, not playing chess over the net, not performing theater, not writing(books/articles), and alike? How about the ‘Emperor effects’ via TV or high-tech or newspapers? Should we also be against them?
If so we need to turn the clock back to the Middle Ages!! As a socialist, I don’t think so. Not only because it is it not up to me to decide but even if I could, I wouldn’t. I’m not in war with technology or sports/arts events. I am in war with the system that turns everything (incl arts/sports events) upside down.
To elaborate my conclusion. While I have no issue w/ criticizing the way everything works in society, we have to hit the heart of capitalism: power and hence politics.
Meanwhile let’s have a break now and then. There is no harm in watching the World Cup and “wasting time” to be entertained and hey in the process we are less productive for the capitalists.
The fmaily is being influenced by these mega-events and taught that supporting and striving to be part of this heirarchy of gladiators is something great and honorable. And all the while morality is not developed. So why would I possibly endorse this as a possible positive act on the failing family, when in fact it is fueling the degeneration.
The schools are influenced by these corporations and these high level events are a tool to make things worse. To distract and glorify the separation of family from power and morals.
We should be against the corporate implementatin of these events.
I’m not against people gathering in large numbers, but I’m against billions of dollars being spent and millions of people gathering and nothing positive coming of it. ANd if you want to make an argument for hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure, then so be it, but that has nothing to do with socialism.
In Africa, the police state mobilised, billions spent on useless infrastructure while there are millions without adequate shelter, food, health or education infrastructure, and what is there to show for it?? The rich are richer and there are stadiums built. It’s a farce.
I’m most certainly NOT against technology and community sports, but to fuel nationalsim and not try to mobilise people against corporatism seems to me to be counter-productive.
I posted a comment after the opening ceremony of the World Cup, the theme of which appeared to promote harmony, unity and hope. At the nucleus of the corporate spin and avarice and delusion of the masses, lies the fact that the impoverished of South Africa, (and other nations), will not benefit fiscally or otherwise from the event. Although I detest football, I watched a couple of matches, and observed the gladitorial ‘nationalism’ of the crowds, the reflected ‘glory’ of supporters, and wondered if any other pursuits/interests could generate such fervour, preferably interests that were of benefit to humanity in a long term, progressive way that encouraged autonomy and good health. I concluded, that my opinion on the subject of football and affiliated interests never changes, and that the human races default position is lemming like, complicit and neanderthal.
Gladiators? Some people don’t understand the complexity of futbol. I would suggest checking out Eduardo Galeanos’ writing on the subject as an antidote to the agitprop mechanistic thinking:
http://www.versobooks.com/verso_info/excerpts/galeano_excpt.shtml
Aside from that, there are plenty of futbol teams which have a left wing orientation among the fan base: St. Pauli, Livorno, Barcelona, Celtic, Argentinos Juniors, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Atletico Bilbao, are some of the most representative. There are others.
@Glen: “The 20,000 or more fans who attend these matches could wipe out all child poverty with their tickets prices alone”. There we go. Blaming the victims.
There is an underlying factor that unless dealt with we can’t find the common ground. In this view, “fight w/ corporations” is substitute w/ the fight w/ capitalism. The abolishment of commodity production is substitute w/ the denial of human need all together! (if soccer is organized by big corp, then soccer is bad).
Let’s go back to basics to deal w/ that underlying factor. Human being has needs and capitalism turns the need into commodity. Now, how it organizes the production of commodity has evolved from small business to multi-national corporations.
In the process, the small business who lost their businesses to big corporation, are against multi-national big businesses. Unfortunately, this petty-capitalist view found Lenin’s anti-Imperialism as a way to express itself against the MONOPOLY of big corporation while it has no problem w/ the production of commodity, eg capitalism.
This trend in politics typically ends up w/ boycott-ism solely based on the size of company that produces the commodity. “Don’t buy, Don’t wear, don’t eat, don’t travel, don’t watch” only because McDonald’s/Wall Mar/Costco produces/sells it. “if you do, you’re an evil corporate maniac”. The same crappy hamburger is fine if made by a small, “local”, “community” business even if the hamburger is still a commodity and taste even worse (not to mention the higher exploitation rate).
Now, football in and by itself is gladiatoric only because “big corporations” are behind its management. Not only that, the 2+ billion who watch it are some kinds savages who would rather pay the tickey/ TV-fees than out-rooting the child poverty.
If the very same gladiator team that plays in WC is “locally” managed by a small business (who hates corporations) and pays its players an starving wage+ the audience of its match have to pay twice as much in ticket price (well, to be able to manage the hight costs) “all of a sudden” life is beautiful!, football is great, visitors are angles.
I have never once said soccer is bad I said extreme perversion and nationalism, in addition to corporatism of the sport is bad. In fact my posts say that soccer is a fun and healthy pursuit.
However civic economics are a situation which we can monitor and directly influence.
There is no blaming the victim here. I have pointed out the flawed actions and unneeded honoring of these corporate teams, images and logos.
The exploitation that I have referenced to is obvious and features my opposition to the waste of resources which goes into these events and the resulting increases in the police state which they have come to cause.
Your leninist jargon is NOT applicable because the fact of the matter is that billions of dollars changed hands in South Africa and the poor classes will suffer more from it.
Plain and simple.
There is no denying that fact and there it is.
There is no doubt that the World Cup and other such international events such as the Olympics do much damage to the urban poor and working classes. I posted this article on the marxism list this morning:
The point is well-taken.
There is, however, something deeper going on. I would be curious what you think of these two pieces:
http://www.counterpunch.org/browne06172010.html
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/44596
In addition, it is not at all laughable that there are anti-racist, anti-fascist organized groupings among the fans of various club teams such as Aston Villa and St. Pauli, among others:
Aston Villa (England)
http://www.avfc.co.uk/page/Home
and St. Pauli (Germany)
both have anti-fascist support groups among their fans. In addition, Aston Villa follows in the footsteps of Barcelona by sporting non-commercial advertising on their jerseys. AV sports “Acorns”, a local orphanage which they back, while Barcelona advertises for UNICEF. AV plays a wonderful brand of counterattack futbol, not quite artistic, but pretty good as far as English futbol goes, which tends toward the
rugged and muscular athleticism. And Barcelona, well, they are the gods of futbol art, and the best team in the world, even though Inter-Milan beat them this year. Barca is also a publicly-owned cooperative. What’s not to like?
http://www.fashwatch.org/?p=85
http://stpaulifansuk.forumup.co.uk/about2971-stpaulifansuk.html
> http://fromaleftwing.blogspot.com/
> These are some of my favorite teams which could be said to have
> working class and/or left wing supporters. I’ve left out a few obvious
> notables, such as Liverpool for example.
>
> http://www.fcstpauli.com/index.php?lang=en
>
> http://www.celticfc.net/home.aspx
>
> http://www.fcbarcelona.com/web/english/
>
> http://www.athletic-club.net/web/main.asp?a=0&b=0&c=0&d=0&idi=2
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.S._Livorno_Calcio
