World Cup
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Books are words written on paper and therefore contribute to the destruction of environment and people.(see AI above) Books tell us that workers are lazy and violent. They give a ruling class history. But more importantly books and Newspapers urge us to murder our fellow workers during war time.
Football does not do this. It is a game.
Perhaps we should oppose the written word as it is clearly more dangerous than football. A really silly illogical argument?
Both books and football have helped to connect workers and no doubt will continue into socialism free from ruling class control“But should I be offended that no one has picked me up and said anything scathing (nay personally insulting) on my comments in this debate?”
I think the problem is that you really need to stop providing balanced and well thought through comments, if you really want to get scathing remarks and personal insults.
Looking at things from different viewpoints and taking the views of others is not the way to enrage your fellow socialists. Please try to make outlandish claims and then take offence at the earliest possible moment. Dig your heels in, even if what you have said is unsupportable and whatever you don’t try and be reasonable.
I’m sure if you stick to these basic guidelines you will not only be able to glean unfavourable comment on this forum, if you put the hard yards in you will soon be able to upset close family members during social gatherings at the drop of a hat, be shunned by your work colleagues at staff nights out and generally considered as an all round grumpy old bastard. It worked for me, I’m sure it will work for you
“Squashing wasps?”
The type of people who would, just to frustrate someone trying to help the wasp.
Small, nasty minds. Pathetic people. People who think they are the end-all of evolution, and that the extermination of over two million kangaroos per year plus their young is nothing to think about if the shoes help to win a match.
‘I’m sure if you stick to these basic guidelines you will not only be able to glean unfavourable comment on this forum, if you put the hard yards in you will soon be able to upset close family members during social gatherings at the drop of a hat, be shunned by your work colleagues at staff nights out and generally considered as an all round grumpy old bastard. It worked for me, I’m sure it will work for you.’
I love it.
Going back to Page 2 of this thread:
– Bijou Drains
“Socialism wouldn’t entail common ownership of my vinyl collection.”
You’re confusing private property with personal property. It’s the old right‑wing argument: “socialists think everyone should own your toothbrush.”
Personal property refers to items you use yourself. Private property refers to resources that are used to generate wealth and should serve society as a whole — meaning they shouldn’t be owned by any one individual.
For example, my garden is my personal property. But if I owned 28,000 acres of farmland, that would be considered private property.
Does the World Cup (the trophy – not the tournament) count as private property or personal property?
BD & TM – You really are grasping at straws comparing boxing with football. The Bogie classic film you mention is a study in corruption, naivete and career desperation. The mob connection with boxing in the US is well known but what’s that got to do with English football? I notice you haven’t responded to my suggestion that you watch the documentaries entitled ‘The Real Football Factories’ (sorry if I missed it within one of your long rambling posts). If you have seen them do you recognize the ugly violent portrait that they paint, as did the original film. You’ve tried all of your familiar old tricks of insults and ridicule but you still will not admit the darkness that overwhelmed the game season after season, year after year and decade after decade in this country.
Moo, re reading what was written on page 2, there was a typo, my bad. I wrote “The abolition of private property does not mean the abolition of private property. Socialism wouldn’t entail common ownership of my vinyl collection.” I meant to write “The abolition of private property does not mean the abolition of personal property. Socialism wouldn’t entail common ownership of my vinyl collection.”
You have made exactly the point I meant to make. In a world of common ownership most trophies or awards, etc. would be personal property, therefore the comment you made, that trophies could not be in existence in a society of common ownership, is in my view wrong headed.
Going back to the trophy question, I would argue that my under 11s Northumberland area cubs football medal is personal property.
With regards to the “world cup” as it goes backwards and forwards between competitors, it would probably be best described as communally owned property that was temporarily in the safekeeping of whoever was the trophy holders.
If in a society of common ownership I can’t think of a reason why it would not be possible for the community in which that person to gave some kind of trophy or medal or certificate to a member of the community who rescued a child from drowning, or carried out some kind of especially kind act, et.
Wez, as I have said several times, you have accused me of whitewashing. The Cambridge Dictionary defines whitewashing as “an attempt to stop people finding out the true facts about a situation“. I have never in any of my postings attempted to stop people finding out the true facts of a situation. What I did was responded to the ridiculous hyperbole of your posting which stated that football is the “sickest, racist, atavistic and most violent” culture in the country. Rather than whitewashing football, I responded to you by pointing out some of the undoubtedly positive aspects of the sport (if you think that children enjoying football is a bad thing please explain why). I was in fact responding to your hugely overstated comment that the whole of football (you described it as football culture) is unremittingly bad. Introducing balance to an argument is not whitewashing
I challenged that by saying that this was a silly and unsupportable statement. As you used superlative adjectives in your denunciation of football, I have asked you to explain clearly
- why football is sicker, more racist more atavistic and violent than any other culture in England?
So if, as you say, football culture is the worst, please clearly explain why the following cultures are better than football? So:
Why is football culture worse than Nazism?
Why is football culture worse than Paedophilia?
Why is football culture worse than dog fighting?
Why is football culture worse than badger baiting?
Why is football culture worse than People trafficking?
Why is football culture worse than bare knuckle fighting?These by your definition are cultures. They are by your definition not as sick, racist, atavistic and violent as football.
If you don’t give precise reasons why these cultures are not as bad as football, I can safely assume it’s because you can’t.
Moving on, in terms of football you stated that football is the most violent sport in the country. Do you seriously think that the sport of boxing which revolves around people training, preparing and promoting people to continually punch each other in the face is less violent than football. A simple yes or no that one would suffice.
As to the real football factories and the similar stories of great bravado that ex football hooligans write about, I actually have watched bits of them and looked at odd articles that are of a similar vein. I have to say, as someone who went to club football matches all over England, home and away, in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s and encountered some of the knuckle dragging clowns who write these tall tales about their exploits, they are generally massive exaggerations to make money out of their experiences.
That is not to say that there weren’t some very bad things that happened and that disruption to normal life took place, people got hurt and some seriously, but all of the “our crew went down to their end and sorted them out and we did this and we did that” “we took the such and such crew and we hammered them etc.” is a huge load of baloney which attempt to make these nutters some kind of war hero. In the same way that war heroes try to claim that they were fighting for us, these morons weren’t fighting for anyone but themselves and were generally despised by the vast majority of football fans. The majority of those who attended matches in those days had nothing to do with the hooligans.
In reality most of the time these so called hooligan heroes ran around threatening each other and most of it ended up like a giant version of British Bulldog or as it was usually described by the majority who attended as “handbags at 10 paces”. As I have said most genuine football fans of that era despised the football gangs. Many of the hooligans often didn’t even bother to go to the match and would be found afterwards asking what the bloody result was. The majority of non hooligans fans were described mockingly by the hooligans as being “Shirts” (those who wore football tops), Scarfs (those who wore team coloured scarfs) or beer monsters (those who wanted to go to the pub, have a bit of crack with the opposition fans, have a laugh and a joke and drink beer). I was very much of the beer monster persuasion.
Even taking into account the stupidity and violence that football hooliganism used to bring, this was a minority within those who attended professional football, they account for 92 teams. England alone has over 40,000 teams organised through the FA and many thousands outside of the UK. Are you saying that all of those teams, all of those players, all of those volunteers, all of those supporters are sick, racist, atavistic and the most violent? Slandering the many because of the actions of a few is the cornerstone of prejudice and discrimination, are you happy to be party to that?
Apologies, then, if you think that this is long and rambling, I had always assumed that as a socialist you had a greater concentration span than the average goldfish.
BD – ‘tall tales about their exploits, they are generally massive exaggerations to make money out of their experiences.’
Your denial is at such a level that no evidence will change your mind. And as for your list – none of them entailed weekly mob violence so there is no comparison except, perhaps, Nazism. But, of course, in this country football culture has notoriously always been connected with right-wing politics and its racism. Are you comparing ‘the Battle of Cable Street’ with football hooliganism? Again with the snide insulting remark at the end of your post. What’s the point of me trawling through your endless excuses for the violence and criminality that scarred this country for decades? You keep repeating that it’s ‘only a minority’ that were responsible for this but, as I keep repeating, no other sport has generated such violence in the history of this country. The tribalism generated by the sport is at the heart of the connection – unless you have another explanation?Here’s an article I wrote on football for the Standard in 2008. (Don’t know why the bullet points are all numbered 13 by the way).
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2008/no-1246-june-2008/football-capital-idea/
Not much has changed since then really, apart from acceleration of the process where the top teams, and the whole circus that surrounds professional football, are increasingly commercialised and profit-driven.
I still enjoy watching it though.Wez, saying that the violent fools who were involved in football violence have over exaggerated their exploits to make them look like heroes for financial gain is not a denial that they were and still are violent, nasty arseholes. In saying that the plethora of “cowboys and Indians” films we all watched as kids exaggerated the exploits of the violent vicious gangsters to make them out to be heroes is not excusing the gangsters. Denial according to the Cambridge Dictionary means “an unwillingness to accept that something unpleasant is true”. I stated that “That is not to say that there weren’t some very bad things that happened and that disruption to normal life took place, people got hurt and some seriously,”. Does that sound like denial to you?
So football violence might “perhaps” be comparable (not worse) than Nazism, makes you look like an even bigger fool than you the posts you have made so far. Congratulations, I didn’t think was possible.
So I infer from that that you think that the whole of football culture (you stated football culture not football hooliganism) is sicker than Paedophilia, People Trafficking, etc. Your words not mine. If you agree that the culture of paedophilia is less worse than football culture, can you for the sake of clarity, acknowledge this?
You also by omission, have put forward the view that boxing, as sport that involves people punching each other in the face with the aim of knocking the opponent into a state of unconsciousness, whilst being cheered on by sometimes, hundreds, sometimes thousands and often tens of thousands others are cheering them on as they do it, is less violent than football. There were something like 6,200 boxing bouts held in England and Wales last year, last year there were 2,037 arrests in total across organised football matches across England and Wales of which 36% were for violence or threats of violence. You work out which sport was the more violent.
As I have said before, the entirety of football culture is a far great thing than football violence. You have tried consistently to conflate the two as being exactly the same thing, you have failed completely in this attempt.
As to trawling through “your endless apologies for the violence and criminality”, please trawl through them all again and clearly point out where I have apologised for violence and criminality. I think you will find there have been no apologies for any of it. What I have done is point out that whilst there has been a small sub culture of violence, which has grown smaller and smaller, there is a larger whole of football which if you wish to designate as being a “culture” has as many varieties as their are football fans and participants.
You have tried again and again to state that football violence and football culture are one and the same thing, I have clearly pointed out with explicit examples backed by facts and figures that this is not the case. As to snide comments, I read your comments and learned from the master.
Rodshaw “I still enjoy watching it though.” Careful mate, enjoying football and seeing some positive aspects in any part of the sport (including grass roots and local league football) will hinder your ability to form socialist consciousness. Wez reckons perhaps you’d possibly be less socially destructive if you became a Nazi.
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