Israel

Stormy Weather.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

I’m heavily overdue a political/philosophical rant… so here goes. I’m a profoundly contented man in many ways but some kinda blowout feels inevitable and necessary. The world – as well as being treble-fabulous – gets darker and dumber every day. Wilder.

Gaza is a cruel and obvious stain on all of us. We Brits are culpable, even in our powerlessness, for the appalling support successive governments have lent to the machinery of the Israeli state. For a Labour government to actively assist a world-level butcher and fiend like Netanyahu is acutely, enragingly, grievously painful for a feeble soft-leftie like myself to ‘deal with’. (Poor me). Expected (but was appalled) to see Sunak stand next to the man and say “We want you to win”… but not quite this. On the ground, the murder and spiteful subjugation of the Palestinians (by Israelis in and out of uniform) in plain sight, is an apocalypse for those on the receiving end and for the idea of international law. We shouldn’t need to say it but both matter, yes?

We’re in extremis, here. A patent genocide – the single-most troubling and serious violation of humanity within the lifespans of many of us – and Netanyahu gets feasted and trumpeted (sic) at the White House at New Year’s. Starmer selling weapons and facilitating by providing reconnaissance. Protestors, young and old, becoming terrorists under a *particularly selective* British law, driven-through by Labour. A ‘ceasefire’ that insults us all. Palestinian journalists wiped-out; media excluded from the scene so that killings and clearance can continue.

Now Venezuela. There’s a pattern of sorts, not just centring around a demented president: bigger even than his petty, mendacious lunacy. Around the degradation of international law itself.

Trump is central. He’s stupid and vile and corrupt and probably subject to blackmail or the threat of it from other world powers and by individuals. His gangsterism is almost endless because he sees no boundaries to what he (or those he approves of) can do. There is no law because he is it.

But of course this petulant but dangerous clown facilitates anarchy elsewhere. Probably negotiates towards it – certainly if the historic stories regarding a Venezuela/Ukraine swap-deal-thing with Putin are true, which seems likely. These guys think they can do anything. And in the States and in the UK not enough of us kick up enough of a fuss. ‘Twas always thus.

Okay. That may be more leftie self-pity. But the concern around there being no red lines should be and is cross-party – is beyond the realm of the politically-motivated. Or’nary People know that this is wrong. They know that Starmer and his ministers have embarrassed us all by not calling out the US ‘action’ in Venezuela.

Even Or’nary People recognise that a UK Prime Minister needs to take care around how he or she describes contentious American interventions. But this one is so patently transgressing of international law – and so obviously *all about resources* in any case – that some form of criticism is necessary and right. Take care with your language but draw the red lines. It *may be* that Starmer is discreetly expressing ver-ry different views to colleagues and partners in Europe… but these appearances matter: his; his ministers’. Repeatedly ‘refusing to be drawn’ on matters this evident and this fundamental to national conduct has further damaged his reputation – for lily-livered feebleness and poodledom.

You don’t need to be a top-of-the-range political analyst to see that failing to condemn gross acts of piracy emboldens pirates-in-waiting: in Moscow and Beijing, say. So gather and protest. In our case, gather with Europe, more quickly. Do it clandestinely if it helps. Trump has already effectively cut us loose. Prepare for the moment of No Return – could that be Greenland? Or whatever happens next in Ukraine? – by being profoundly of the European bloc. Do that now. Commit to that, even if it’s only ’til the Trump storm blows over.

pic from The Guardian.

Visceral.

~ bowlingatvincent ~ Leave a comment

McCoist was talking shamelessly tribal gibberish. The roof was off. The rain, having been appropriately biblical, was now an irrelevance. As was football. As was gravity, quality and Covid19. Everything old, new, bright, dim, dark or dead lived in the moment – in the roar.

Hampden. Hampden the protagonist. Football under those eyes, yes, but hardly, maybe? Or is that an insult to the selfless rage? A specialness that’s so deafening you don’t know how to rate it or see it through. And never mind thinking, how do you coordinate? And whose chest do you beat?

That sense of international-level football having been usurped… leaving us or leading us into what? Early-on, arm-wrestling; cheating, or simulation and sliding, by the looks. Fakery and thrust and the cusp of violence. Mainly a kind of mindlessness; a slipping away into the inevitable.

Bloody Scotland were bloody. And Scotland. Defending so badly at crucial moments it was almost unbelievable but cruelly, comically Scottish to those of a neutral bent – obvs. Surging manically and (hah! First half) launching those laughable long throws, so deeply did history and expectation (and the rain and the Lack of Quality and Lack of Options) conspire towards a kind of old-school physical intimidation of the Others. Israel in white: rolling about in sequence – so not entirely naively shell-shocked – but shamelessly (the sly wee devils) also looking to yaknow, play.

McGinn scores a fine goal and every now and again looks – god forbid – to pick up his head and thread something. Gilmore available but lost, too often, in the maelstrom; contribution mixed. Liverpool’s left back barely in the game, or certainly force-less, but Dykes running through the whole, soaking melodrama. Poor then heroic then shocking then at the bloody centre. (His feeble pen, his fortunate goal, allowed, post-VAR, by the ref, despite studs raised chest high). All extraordinary, all predictable.

(For that penalty I wonder if perhaps the official was so bored with Israeli histrionics he simply awarded against the visiting centre-back, who had fallen stricken, feeling the striker’s boot close against his face. There was no meaningful contact, and the centre-forward could not adjust himself to dive and head, but for me it was what we used to simply call ‘foot up’… and therefore dangerous – at least potentially. No goal but goal given. Naturally. This was almost entirely a visceral experience and the fact of slow-motion ree-plaaays and/or civilised consideration by a team of skilled officials was never going to re-educate that).

Scotland won an often enthralling, sometimes dispiritingly low-fi game, by out-gamboling, out-hearting, out-charging their opponents: 3-2, with McTominay chest-bumping in the winner. The lad went through the gears from embarrassment to Braveheart before quite knowing how to celebrate. Then he lapped-up the scrumptious, overwhelming barrage from the stands. The tall, resolute but notably one-paced midfielder knew full-well that he owed those supporters for an assist.

The match then, was a fierce throw-back, with the abundant brilliance McCoist and his fellow pundits apparently saw being surely essentially a brilliance of spirit. Scotland played, as they do – as they need to – with palpable spirit. This is a less patronising assessment than you might think. Some of this occasion was tremendous.