So, in the spirit of Code Duello, trial by combat, Might Makes Right and all that stupid crap, what happens when Texas Christian U., Southern Methodist University, Brigham Young and Notre Dame square off in a four way winner take all?
Will GOD Almighty choose the leaders of His Creation from a trial by combat amongst colleges representing the seminaries of American Christendom? Would He toss in a “ringer” like the New Orleans Saints? What if He uses the hole in the roof of the Cowboys Stadium to barf on “His” Team?
Sound ridiculous? How much more so the notion that He really cares who wins a football game?
Or that a victory on the battlefield of Real War means that your own country is far more righteous and beloved than The Other Side?
Tag Archives: Real War
White Flight from football to assault rifle
Ryan dons the rest of his gear in the car. Pads, armor, helmet, even mouth guard. I adjust the rearview mirror downward until I see his small frame in the backseat. We’re only halfway to practice and he’s already biting down, breathing through his nose, focused straight ahead. It’s the same routine for football, except today he’s got a lacrosse stick across his knees. In his grip, I should say. When we pull the car to the edge of the parking lot, he jumps and literally hits the ground running. From my height he gives me the sense I’m a helicopter pilot who’s dropped soldier reinforcements to join the team on the pitch. There’s a steep hillock between Ryan and the field, but his charge never slows, he ascends like a Cavalry of One, his stick brandished like an assault rifle.
Would an M16 be held any different? The difference between football and lacrosse is that your little assault squad is armed.
In 1763 a band of Chippewa Indians seized Fort Michilimackinac by feigning a game of baggataway, the Native American origin of lacrosse. The Indians pretended that an over-spirited drive led players over the fortifications and within minutes they’d stormed the ramparts.
In a spirit of honoring American Indian tradition, like the harvest celebration of Thanksgiving, American dads are pushing a new sport unto the youth athletic season. Because the first early adopters where also the first white men to hit the New World, the sport now has a Mayflower WASP identity too.
Lacrosse has an exotic appeal in spite of its New England tradition. It’s sort of field hockey gone aerial, full court jai alai with armor, East Coast blue blood rooted with the authentic red bloods, the original old money land owners.
Is that what’s behind the lacrosse resurgence? As Ryan’s team wrapped up the other day, they passed baseball diamonds and could not hold back from chanting “lacrosse, lacrosse” toward the children playing baseball, as if to instigate a cross-sport rivalry. Lacrosse teams are still relatively scarce. On weekends they have to cross neighboring metropolitan regions to play each other.
How many sports programs do you need to round out your kids? Boys have baseball, football and basketball, among the big team sports. Neither of which are the biggest sports internationally. Soccer and handball. Curiously both those require little equipment. They are perfect for the Third World, but imperfect for consumer cultures which have wheels of commerce to drive, especially in recreational pursuits.
Which could explain why Lacrosse teams have to traverse great distances to encounter adversaries. The usual cross town rivals can’t pony up the money for this game.
Lacrosse is White Flight from football. Most schools have barely enough money to keep their athletes in football gear, let alone a completely redundant lacrosse kit. And so the only kids playing lacrosse are from families who can afford the hundreds extra for the specialized equipment. Added bonus, there are no players bringing a black athletic advantage to the game. Like the other equipment intensive sports of the northern climes, lacrosse is a venue where white boys can dominate, and give their accustomed advantage some elbow room.
I remember a fencing instructor encouraging prospective young pupils at a toney gym, about a peripheral advantage to the sport. Ivy League schools offered fencing scholarships, and prospects outside the usual New England states would be at an advantage for consideration. It was the first glimpse I had of counter-insurgency strategies in America’s race war.
Lacrosse may be the arena where prosperous families can let their white boys roughhouse with supremacy, but the joke’s definitely on them. It’s a sport for social climbers, and this ladder is definitely pointed elsewhere. Is your Playstation 3 teaching options trading or first person combat? Lacrosse is real world preschool basic training.
What does lacrosse impart that Football doesn’t? The teamwork is the same, the size differentials are still key. In both games there is only one ball, but in lacrosse, regardless who has the ball, everyone has a stick. If ever there was a sport which prepared athlete soldiers, lacrosse is it.
The sport of real blue bloods was always Rugby. In England, where commoners play rugby, you can always tell the rugby veterans by their broken noses and missing teeth. In America it’s the preference of the prep schools and private colleges, where offspring of the affluent can acquire scars without fear that it will hinder their job prospects because their futures are secure.
America’s white settlers weren’t blue bloods, they were the ground troops dispatched to seize the continent. It looks to me, the same American Dreamers are being tweaked again into service of the empire. The poor bigoted middle class is turning their boys out for real war.
Time-line of the IDF assault on Gaza.
OK, this isn’t going to be precise.
Gaza was under attack from the IDF through “The Fence” and the Starvation Sanctions imposed by Israel long before the rocket attacks.
Because Hamas had been ELECTED as representatives.
That makes the Sanctions an unlawful act of war in and of themselves.
It also leaves open the notion, which IDF doesn’t disprove in any way, that the rocket attacks were actually staged.
That and the known FACT that they weren’t actually hitting real targets in Israel.
As quickly acknowledged by the IDF spokesfreaks before quickly moving on to More “Kill all Arabs” hate speech.
Depriving people in a Nation that Does Not Fall Under Your Jurisprudence of food and medicines and other necessities of life under the excuse that you don’t like the people they elected as a Government?
That’s hubris of a high order.
Welcome BACK, “Melissa Cook”
Your IP address is exactly the same one as Ali Duran.
Didn’t even bother switching to a masquerade server.
Unless you’re sitting on Its lap you must be the same Anonymous Entity which is Afraid to Reveal Its Name.
When you stole the name “Melissa” out of the phone book, perhaps it just shows your general lack of education, but Melissa means (Roughly) “sweet” in Latin.
Mel being “honey”.
Such a Sweet Name for such a Bitter Troll.
Does your Hatred burn, like the fires of Hell?
What, were you rejected by the American Army?
or was it their puppets in IDF?
Trust me you’re not missing much by not being in the military.
Unless you feel a life totally dedicated to Obedience to other people is some kind of beneficial lifestyle.
so giyus recruited you.
“Here is Your Chance, oh Keyboard Warrior!
Your Only Chance to be a Hero in a Real War instead of those online fantasy games you wrap yourself up in! Be a Soldier For Israel, even though we don’t represent all of Israel even, and certainly not all Jews!Be a Soldier for us
even though you get no compensation other than being able to call yourself,
privately so you don’t embarrass us,
A Genuine Israeli War Hero!”
Maybe if you could get over your internal confusion and decide once and for all whether you’re a girl or a boy the Real Military might accept you.
What in the HELL is wrong with the Palin Disciples?
Do Right Wingers take daily Stupid Pills or something? The man’s Grandma died and they’re saying it’s a conspiracy te bury their bogus claims about his citizenship, and an attempt to gain a “sympathy vote” WTF?
Some Stupid Palin Prick got on my case Saturday because I used bad language to describe their Decadent Warmongering Bitch of a VP candidate and their War Criminal Candidate for president.
But they get to use abusive language like that to describe Obama’s grief, to attack a man when a close member of his family DIED.
I just know Hannity and Rush are going to be spouting off with their BULLSHIT first thing in the morning. And Local Assholes like “Gunny Bob” will happily chirp right along with the Demented Chorus coming from the Right Hand Side of the Orchestra. McCain is supposedly going to be in town as well, with that stupid Prick Not-Joe the Not-really-a-Plumber.
Maybe McCain will be a little bit decent about it, not dance on Grandma’s grave… But you can bet the Local Asshole Squad are going to be doing it, probably at his mini-rally, and he, Strong Leader that he pretends to be, will let them.
The McCain Palin people who were out Saturday with their kids along, Waving the flag in people’s faces and gloating over having gotten 4200 American Soldiers killed for their oil companies, and of course the Iraqi victims of their Pillage,…
Had signs saying “Drill, baby Drill” but the war they support…
Any of you ChickenHawk Republicans reading this, A more HONEST sign would have been Kill BABIES, Kill!
Rather than teach your kids that it’s ok to go over and KILL little kids just like them, why don’t you Bastards for once in your Literally God-Damned lives gain enough Moral Courage to sit them down and show them pictures of Dead Babies and Dead Soldiers.
Tell them that’s the REAL War.
Instead of telling them it’s some Great Adventure, a Noble Deed that God commanded you to do?
YOUR coward little president said Jesus leads him in the war on so-called terror.
YOUR psychotic Bitch VP-Candidate says the same thing.
But, hey, go ahead and LIE to your kids and to yourselves, but mostly to your KIDS, tell them that Mommy and Daddy are real Christians and Righteous People who deserve to take the Oil from those godless heathen Enemies like the little kids you killed with your support for Mr Bush’s War…
Go ahead and tell them that it’s Good and Righteous to send other people’s kids off to kill and die for their Tank of Gas.
You have Blood on YOUR hands for supporting that.
Bet you don’t actually have the courage to tell your kids the TRUTH.
Murderers, liars and thieves, the whole lot of you.
You chickenshit chickenhawk pricks want to get on MY case for using Naughty Words after what you did?
Well Fuck You with a brillo-pad, punk-ass bitches.
How the US and Georgia violated the South Ossetia peace plan
The Russians have issued a peace plan for Georgia and the US to accept, and SURPRISE!
It’s the same peace plan that was in place before, which the US and Georgia violated by entering and attacking South Ossetia. The peace plan calls for non- aggression in South Ossetia to be monitored by peacekeeping troops. FACTBOX-Peace plan for Georgia: what is it? This peace plan is essentially the same one that the European Union has already proposed and that was already once in place.
However, it is obvious to all that the US and Georgian governments do not feel in the least obligated to abide by this plan since they have already violated it once by unilatrally sending troops into South Ossetia. Further the official US government propaganda mills in the US (the New York Times, Washington Post, George Dubya Bush, Rice, etc.) have made it clear with their continued belligerency that this attack on South Ossetia was only the beginning of the continued US government plan to now constantly attack Russia. They have no desire at all to retreat despite the human suffering their war plans are causing. They want to control the natural resources of Asia for US corporate interests and that is all that counts for them.
It seems clear that this is the new Republican plan to try to advance John McCain’s chances for entering into the White House, too, and since the Democrats share the same foreign policy goals of the Republicans they will not be able to counter the Republican offensive but will instead echo everything the Bush Administration does. The Republican plan is to simply reignite Cold War rhetoric against the nationalist capitalist regime of the country today named Russia, and to attack the Democratic Party for being supposedly weak in this campaign.
Liberal pacifists and academic Left Libertarians in the Peace Movement are also not prepared to do anything against this new neocon propaganda offensive against Russia. They also tag along with the Republicans spewing out constant anti- Chinese and anti- Russia vitriol all on their own. Their mantra has always been merely a call to equally and incessantly blame victims of US aggression alongside the blame they toss out against the US government for causing the chaos and conflict in the world today.
But how can a US Antiwar Movement be built on such a foundation like that? In fact, you hardly see these people active even going through the motions of organizing a US Antiwar Movement. It is all talk and writing for the liberal community that they are engaged in and propagandizing for, and nothing of real organizing an Antiwar Movement. By equalizing responsibility as they do, in fact they expose themselves as being US nationalists themselves despite their criticisms of the US corporate government, simply because who is to blame is not equal at all in the least.
Russia and China are now engaged by the US government in a very real war of worldwide proportions, and yet the public in the US is not even vaguely aware in the least of what their own corporate dictatorship government has planned for us all. Where will the next new fighting be started by the militarists in the White House? How can they be stopped without total disaster occurring? The future indeed does look grim.
One aspect of interest is how the US government used Georgia to muscle out the interests of all the Western European countries besides the United Kingdom This fighting has been a US power government play to mold NATO as it wants it to be molded, the Europeans be damned. See the Wall Street Journal commentary… Splits Emerge Within EU
Russia should not take any US talk of peace seriously, since the US government’s actions since the fall of the exSoviet Union have made it already clear that the US corporations merely want to beat down Russia with a big stick.
This September 11 in Colorado Springs
All THEIR plans for continued warfare are predicated on the US as being some sort of grand victim in the world, but it is not. Once the Christian Right Wing claimed that their persecution of Jewish people around the globe was based on their perception that Jews had killed Christ. Now, they substitute Muslims for Jews, and claim that persecution of Muslims is due to Muslims having attacked the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001.
Iraq is a Muslim country, therefore ‘Christian’ America attacked and continues to occupy it. Payback for September 11 many Americans still continue to think. In reality, the ‘Christian’ warfare is far more due to the ‘Christian’ corporations worshiping their stock portfolios more than they do God. It’s the dollar that counts, but they combine it with God as cover. They combine it with their supposed patriotism, too. But they are not patriots, these ‘Christian’ corporations. They are money makers for the super-rich, and job givers to those who have few real Christian scruples.
This September 11 in Colorado Springs, peace activists will be going out to where these ‘Christian’ corporations congregate in their profit making/ war making. In Colorado Springs, that site is the corner of Fountain and South Academy Blvd. There, one can find Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, Northrup Grumman, and a host of other lesser known corporations, but war making/ blood sucking/ profit making vampire corporations none the less. They have non-descriptive names like GTEC, Alliant (largest maker of depleted uranium munitions in the world), Intecom, BAE Systems, etc. These are all concentrated in 2 buildings at this single intersection in our city.
Many people go by, yet simply do not notice the presence of these war profiteers! This September 11 we plan to change that, and will vigil at this intersection from 10AM in the morning to 4PM in the afternoon. Our signs will concentrate on three points.
Here are the Merchants of Death…
Kids, Not Bombs!
Disarm Lockheed’s WOMD Now!
We hope you participate and have your participation help keep you from becoming depressed later about the propaganda you are likely to see and hear through the US corporate media on 9/11. It’s your chance to tell the public passing by on this busy intersection, just who you think are the real war mongers out there in our world. It is truly the American corporations that make a killing with their constant killing that fits the bill as for who is being the bloodiest war mongers these days. They are All American, but you will be more so, simply if you protest the bloodshed that they are causing.
See you there on 9/11! Be there and send a message that you don’t want more war against other countries. Enough is enough!
The real war on Christmas
A rabbi in Seattle wanted to put a menorah in the municipal train station to accompany a display of Christmas trees. Was he thinking the trees were another faith’s religious symbols? Did he mean to ask to juxtapose a dreidel instead?
The train station administrators backed down and removed the trees altogether, a concession I’d argue they needn’t have made, but certainly one that fueled the Christian backlash. A now knee-jerk indignation about a supposed war on Christmas!
I’ve got news for the Christians, there is a war on Christmas, you’re fighting it, amongst yourselves. You fundamentalists are wanting Christmas to mean something religious again, but the materialists among you, by my count, every last one of you minus Jesus, already ceded the holiday to commerce long ago.
“Happy Holidays” is neither religious nor irreligious. “Merry Christmas” does not belie a believer or non-believer. The international holiday as demarcated by what’s believed to have been Jesus of Nazareth’s birthday and New Year’s (for non-Chinese), is called Christmas. It represents a huge surge in retail sales, for some merchants up to 90% of their yearly gross. Retailers of every denomination celebrate Christmas.
Put a menorah next to a manger if you must, but neither of them belong at the North Pole with Santa, Rudolf and Ol’ Tannenbaum. Joyeux Noel, Gud Yule, and Boldog Karácsony everyone!
Navy Seals virtual unreality
You hear soldiers in today’s documentaries make the crack all the time: “[Iraq] isn’t a computer game.” In war you get injured, you die, and it’s all for keeps. Yet the military still uses virtual combat games to interest recruits. In the Navy Seals game, you get to fight side by side as part of a team. And sacrificing individual for the good of the team hints at what real military service requires. First Person Shooters differ from real war zone experience in that very fundamental manner.
In a video game, because you’re your own center of the universe, you decide what action to take. You move forward or don’t. You decide how to do it and when. In real war, you are following orders. You may be taking fire, you may see a better action than the one you are ordered to do, you don’t get to do it. You are subjected to the violence, not raining it upon someone else.
In a video game, after each successful run, you advance to another level, you are rewarded for your talent, your sense of initiative is offered a greater challenge and the promise of more after that. In real war, you return to base and start again at the same task. Each exposure increasing your chance of getting hurt or killed. There are no saves, there are no energy-replentishing packs, there is no instant healing. Your injuries accrue, your load becomes more difficult to bear as the mission goes on, you run low and run out. And if you succeed, you are expected to succeed again.
In real war, you are a checker piece which is never kinged. You do not ascend to the next terrain, earn extra weapons for your at-hand inventory, find and don protective cloaks. You are a pawn ever expendable. You incur injury, and injured enough, you die, then you’re out.
In real war, you’re like set of brake pads on a car, you serve a purpose. Not a glorious one, not one over which you have any control, but an important task to be sure. You take the heat, you wear out, that’s all. When you’re worn through, you are discarded for another set. How long you lasted is to the credit of your commanding officer in the driver’s seat. Your score adds to his. The end.