The Ugliness of the Beautiful Game.

The cult of football is alive as ever, especially in Britain where the English pride themselves as the inventors of the beautiful game. It is unclear, at least to me, what is so beautiful about the sight of over twenty millionaires chasing a bladder around a field. Chomsky would remind us of the role sports play in training us to be submissive to authority as well as the tides of irrational jingoism. This shouldn't be taken lightly as it was George Orwell who noted "The nationalist does not only not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." The rampant flag-waving and patriotic chanting emanates from the delusion that the England team embodies the spirit of the nation. Indeed many are left intoxicated by the ecstasy of these non-events. The power of the mass event should not be understated. It's forgotten that the concerts and music festivals we enjoy today come from the same model of the mass rally which Hitler used in the 1930s.

Peter Hitchens has compared it to Pagan cults, and for good reason, but we shouldn't take football as a Pagan exploit entirely as it is essentially prolefeed. And the aristocratic fans of Paganism are too often forgotten. It used to be that Christianity was for the poor while the ruling-class remained largely Pagan until the 19th Century in Britain. The aristocratic radical Nietzsche wanted to undo Christian values in order to return to the life-affirming polytheism of Ancient Greece. If anything football is not elitist even if it is particularist rather than universalist, it is open to all and for all. And it is the particularism of football - the preference for us over them - that holds a great link with Paganism. The loyalty to the team matters most, it can get you beaten up in some places. The worship of heroes, special clothing, the celebration of "seasons" and singing are all symptomatic; another particularist deed is racism. It isn't a coincidence that the neo-völkisch movements of Scandinavia are Pagan and call for white supremacy and a return to Odin worship in the same breathe.

The emergence of football hooliganism is not a coincidence, the fact that these hooligan elements are typically racists and right-wing extremists is also not a coincidence. The primary base of recruitment into the EDL were these thugs, the ex-BNP leadership itself comes out of hooliganism. This isn't to say that the sport of football is inherently fascistic. For 20 years Kick It Out has campaigned against racism in British football now, which is something that Eastern Europe and a lot of other places lack. But it is the case that there are a great many people who were whinging that the England manager Fabio Capello at the time was not English. There is plenty of talk about the high presence of foreign players in our teams. There is undeniably an element of nationalism that has been harnessed as part of the base of support for football teams. The shirt you were aligns you with a specific team in the same way that the flag links you with a nation, the glory of which reflects back on you.

The race relations of football have been on blunt display recently. Hodgson thought it appropriate to leave Rio Ferdinand out of the Euro 2012 Squad for "footballing reasons" and include John Terry. Even though it was John Terry who called Anton Ferdinand a "fucking black cunt" and will soon be in court for doing so. Kick It Out might condemn Hodgson's handling of Rio Ferdinand. There was the time when Ron Atkinson described a player as a "lazy thick nigger" with Jimmy Hill coming to his defense on the grounds that the comment is just harmless fun in the football culture. We don't like to remember the days when fans lobbed bananas at black footballers. Today in Poland the fans can be seen waving banners with such slogans as "Death to Hook Noses!" For many it matters that England is finally managed by an Englishman. No doubt some will think that the English team will finally be victorious after 46 years, even though we didn't actually win in 1966 - an unacceptable fact to be uttered in the pubs of our weary little island.

Roy Hodgson played for Berea Park FC as part of a white-only league in the years before Apartheid was brought down in South Africa. Of course, Hodgson has since "come out" as an admirer of Nelson Mendela in the years since the end of Apartheid. He states that he played in South Africa for footballing reasons rather than political reasons. This isn't inconsistent as the sport is an institution of continuity around which the masses can huddle while the establishment remains largely the same. It is a part of society's wallpaper, an investment for the business class and a source of national pride for the masses. The managerial function in society to regulate the passions of the masses. The need for an identity marker to derive a higher meaning had to be sated to dull the rages of class instinct. It is no coincidence that the counter-revolution has come to Egypt around the same time that there was an explosion of ultra-violence at a football match. Similarly as social democracy began to be torn apart in Britain in the 1970s and 80s there was a great wave of football violence.

As Terry Eagleton observes "If every rightwing thinktank came up with a scheme to distract the populace from political injustice and compensate them for lives of hard labour, the solution in each case would be the same: football." The game provides mediocre forms of solidarity for the masses who gather around particular teams. This can't be said for high culture, the prolefeed excludes no one in its particularity. The teamwork can be seen as selfless for the most part, though this is undermined by the celebration of the obscene wealth accumulated by the likes of David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo. The sport combines intimacy with Otherness in celebrity form, the hero we worship is just like us really and so we could be him one day. The game may have a place carved out for "experts" but it transforms its viewers into experts too. This is why my understanding of the subject is limited to the political and the theoretical. Eagleton goes on to add "Football offers its followers beauty, drama, conflict, liturgy, carnival and the odd spot of tragedy".

Bastards in Bahrain.

Well the Grand Prix maintained its record of holding races in horrible regimes. The little island of Bahrain is just the most recent example, but there were the races in Apartheid South Africa and Fascist Spain of yesteryear. It was good to find updates in the mainstream, just a glimpse at the courageous pro-democracy movement: particularly the ongoing hunger strike by Abdulhadi al-Khawaja. The most recent protests and deaths at the hands of the police forces have received much more attention than they would have otherwise. The repression in Bahrain now has John Yates, once a candidate for the top job in the Met, to defend the House of Khalifa. Well, you've got to pay the mortgage somehow! On top of this, King Hamad has been invited to dine at the celebrations of the Queen's Jubilee. All of this comes over a year since the Saudi intervention in Bahrain was waged. The intervention embodied the West's anxiety at the prospect of democracy in the Middle East.

First it was Bahrain, then it was Libya. By then, Ben Ali and Mubarak had been swept away by the revolutionary contagion spreading rapidly from country to country. You can say it was oil in Libya, but you can't simply say that about Bahrain. The island isn't simply a major oil-producer unlike it's neighbours. There is a reason that the US Fifth Fleet is stationed in Bahrain, it is well situated to defend the status quo. In the West the fear was that the uprising would establish a Shi'ite dominated state in the Gulf. This would go far to undermine the Arab facade of US client-states which keep a friendly hand on the oil spigot. It could mean a new ally for Iran, not to mention give ideas to the Shi'ite dominated eastern province of Saudi Arabia. This is at a time when the Iraqi government is looking to avoid another war with Iran and instead wants stable relations. Meanwhile a civil war rages in Syria with the Ba'ath Party just about clinging to power, its talons bloody as ever.

As with the violent repressions in Syria and Libya, the reason given in Bahrain was to defend the nation from 'foreign interference'. Similarly, in Egypt, Mubarak had anti-Semitic propaganda distributed as he called on Bibi Netanyahu to send the IDF into Tahrir Square. By then it was too late to save the tyrant, the military shunted Mubarak out of office hoping to buy-off the opposition. Meanwhile the Israeli political class watched with great unease as the US gave up on blocking elections in Egypt after it became impossible to save the dictator. And for good reason, Egypt has been a vital US proxy since Sadat dragged the country into a tacit alliance with Israel in the 1970s. By then Sadat had already imposed market reforms which destroyed the country's middle-class and opened the door to corruption. After the rebellions of 2011 suppressed, the serious question for the House of Khalifa is how to reformulate the old order.

Ironically, it was in eastern Arabia that a esoteric Ismaili sect set out to build a society based on reason and equality. By 899 the Qarmatians had established a utopian republic in what is now Bahrain. Its system of governance consisted of a council of six with a chief who was the first among equals. Out of a millenarian fervour the Qarmatians sacked Mecca in 930, stealing the Black Stone and dumping dead pilgrims in the Well of Zamzam. The Qarmatians may have first attempted to redirect the pilgrimage away from Mecca before holding it for ransom. Whatever the case, over 20 years later, the Black Stone was left shattered in the Great Mosque of Kufa in Iraq. The opportunity to seize control had come for the Qarmatians from the aftermath of the slave rebellion in Basra, which raged from 869 to 883 and had left Baghdad diminished in power. Hundreds of thousands of slaves participated as the rebels held that the most qualified man should reign - even if he is a black slave.

Even in recent history, Bahrain has seen uprisings and significant protest over the last 20 years for democracy with the state managing to fend-off each successive wave of opposition. Given that Bahrain is an important artery to the heart of capitalism in the Middle East, it may mean that the GCC itself has to been shaken up sufficiently to bring about democratic change. This would mean serious change in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and the UAE.  Notice there has been no regime change and no reform in any of these states. The repression was swift to prevent any serious opposition from even appearing on the streets. This is where most of the power in the region is concentrated, the epicentre of capital accumulation from an unsustainable energy trade. The Arab Spring has shaken a rotten status quo in the region to its core, but has yet to fundamentally change the Middle East. This isn't to say that it has been a failure, far from it, it means that it has to go further.

The Media Diagnoses of the Riots.

The commentariat have peddled a variety of theories around the recent riots we have seen in Britain. The common characteristic across the mainstream media, with a few exceptions here and there, specifically The Guardian and The Independent, is that there are no excuses for the violence. Inequality and police brutality are not excuses for this kind of behaviour. But generally the media have been scrambling around in search of answers for the explosion of rage onto the streets of Britain. These are just some of the bizarre theories that the press are running to prop up the easy answers of the political class, as well as some of the views popular on the internet these days about every issue and this issue is no different.

Living on Benefits, Why not loot JD Sports? A culture of dependency and entitlement has been engineered to secure votes for the Labour Party. The end result has led to a significant number of the British population scrounging and lying idle with impunity. Then these pampered scum decide to get up off of the sofa and raid JD Sports even though they're loaded from all the generous benefits they've been showered with for years and years. Why shop at Ted Baker when you've been thousands of pounds to piss away in tax-payer's money? Why not trash JD Sports even though you can afford better? Perhaps these people would grow better values rather than ganja if we cut off all state-benefits. While we're at it we might as well sell-off the schools and the NHS for these ungrateful yobs.

It's all them Bloody Foreigners! The riots are the result of uncontrolled mass-immigration and the state-doctrine of multiculturalism. The participants are black and this is not just a coincidence. It has gone on for long enough, the problem is "feral black gangstas and Islamist fast-breeding sex pests are the problem." Multiculturalism has failed, we need to return to British values and start with shooting rubber bullets and firing water cannons at the mob just as we have done in Northern Ireland for so long - and with sexy results! The time has come to send these people back and sort our country out! Because isn't that what we really defeated Hitler for? If only it wasn't for the international left-wing conspiracy to subdue the unremitting greatness of the White Man by telling not to use the n-word and reminding him about the suffering of black people.

It's not Blacks, it's Black Culture. On Newsnight Gavin Esler turned the debate about causes to the "black culture" of short hair, bling, guns, drugs, gangs, bitches and Rap music. So these young people have been riled up by the sounds and sights of "black culture", Paul Routledge identified rap music as "the pernicious culture of hatred around rap music, which glorifies violence and loathing of authority." These youths have been watching far too much MTV which has led them to leave bookshops intact only to steal immodium on mass from Boots. We better tell 50 Cent to tone down the violent anti-police and pro-crack rhetoric because it's gone too far. Better yet for the country, shoot rubber bullets at anyone who can say "innit" and bring back Showaddywaddy!

It's the Blairite Bullshit! The Labour Party has been soft on crime for years but never so much as it was when Tony Blair led it in government from 1997 to 2007. David Hughes informs us in a minuscule article, almost as minuscule as his Johnson, that it is Tony Blair who led Britain down the road towards bleeding-heart liberalism. "A year before he became Prime Minister he delivered a speech on law and order that came close to condoning shop theft. Blair said that "hard-pressed" single mothers or pensioners pocketing "treats" were not a serious concern. He told a meeting of retailers that the real threat came from organised gangs." Before you could say tiny Johnson the Labourites were giving jacuzzis and X-Box 360s to hard-core criminals.

There's just too much Fucking! The breakdown of family values, which in turn led to the collapse of moral values, was inevitable as the liberal elite has instigated a cultural revolution of permissiveness. The "chickens have well and truly come home to roost" for the liberal experiment of letting people fuck around led to the shameful rise of the Single Mum! No wonder the kids of today are running amok in the street and burning cars, if only their parents had sexual ethics then they wouldn't have even been born! Melanie Phillips claims the Labourites introduced "the sexual free-for-all of ‘lifestyle choice’" and "told girls that they could, and should, go it alone as mothers." The rest is history, from single-parent family to stealing a carpet.

Bring Back Sir Paul and I don't mean McCartney! At The Daily Mail James Slack (an appropriate name for such a fopdoodle) wondered if the departure of Sir Paul Stephenson from the Met over the phone hacking scandal contributed to the riots in any way. After all the "vast experience" of Sir Paul could have come in handy against these bastards. The carnage had to be stopped and only Sir Paul could help them, he was a 'good copper' with an "iron will" by all accounts but then the political class ripped him from the heart of the Met in a fit of "lust for media blood" in the midst of the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed The News of the World along with the whole of News International, the Conservatives and the Met. The left-wing establishment is determined to undermine the police and let off these rent-a-mob rioters.

This is Generation GTA! An unnamed police officer, speaking to The Evening Standard, blamed the riots on the ultra-violent game series Grand Theft Auto in which players are encouraged to commit mass-murder. The officer told the paper that these "Kids out of control. When I was young it was all Pacman and board games. Now they're playing Grand Theft Auto and want to live it for themselves." The entire GTA series has taught the adults of tomorrow that it is proper to go for a good looting just for fun, even if it means shooting innocent bystanders and killing hookers after you've banged them in your Volkswagen GTI. It has turned them into philistines! Where's the decency of Pacman gone? Shoot the Houser brothers! Life would be so much simpler if we were all colourful round objects bouncing around in a maze...

These people are lacking in... intelligence, aspiration and responsibility. This is what led to the looting of stores! It is what has made them unemployable, so they languish on the dole or get involved in dealing drugs. A "stunted feral view of the world" is behind the violence and looting, which was nurtured by a rampant entitlement culture that rewards the undeserving "vermin" that make up the under-class in Britain. There was no police to stop it, so the irresponsibility and stupidity of these people was allowed to run amok. The lowest of the low do not deserve the houses they've been given by the state and we should seize them back. That's the way to combat homelessness before the Olympics! The rights of these fucking muppets outweigh the responsibilities they endure and the only way to deal with these animals is to restore consequences to their actions. There are literally thousands of undeserving pricks in our society and we shouldn't tolerate them stepping out of line.

I blame Wayne Rooney. The former editor of The Telegraph Max Hastings blamed the poor role-model that Wayne Rooney has been for kids today and wrote in The Daily Heil, he said: "How do you inculcate values in a child whose only role model is footballer Wayne Rooney -- a man who is bereft of the most meagre human graces?" Sure they can learn a good ork impression, master the language of the Scouser and maybe kick a few through a window or two... but where are the morals going to come from?! The "wild beasts" in the streets are no better than the polar bear that had the audacity to eat an Etonian called Horatio, it was only the natural instincts that were being followed and no one will shoot them for it "unlike the bear". Oh if only Diana were here!