Aslaug's Axe Shed

Time for another one of my rants. It happens, you all know it…so bear with me for it. Or skip it if you don’t feel like reading this.

 First of all, let me say what this is about, where I stand on the matter and why I choose to write this.

 I am concerned about two trends that have become increasingly commonplace in recent years, regarding debates about damned near anything and everything. The first trend I see mostly amongst conservatives or other right-wing supporters. The other one I see almost exclusively amongst left-wingers. Let it be said right away that this is not a generalization and that fortunately, it I am talking about minorities…but that these are minorities that concern me.

 As for where I stand, I’ve never made it a secret that I am a red-blooded socialist. However, I do not believe in totalitarian rule, I do not believe in one-party states, I do not believe in the loss of personal liberties or rights. What I do believe in is the obligation and responsibility of any state to care for it’s citizens. Not just the privileged two percent with all the money, but every citizen. Particularly those who, for some reason, are incapable of caring for themselves. Old people, the mentally infirm, those with serious physical handicaps and so on. I believe any civilized nation has a duty and an obligation to provide good, fulfilling lives to it’s citizens, when they are unable to do so themselves.

 Please make a note that I said unable, not unwilling.

I believe that taxation gives me more than I could buy myself. I live in the second most taxed country in the world. Those who pay the most tax in Denmark pay over sixty percent of their income in taxes. Even a student like me, poor as I am in financial terms, pays 41 percent taxes.

I do so gladly, because in return I get free education and state funding for my time in school. I get a schoolsystem that ensures that everyone has a RIGHT to an education…and the means to do so. I get public healthcare that means that even if I needed a quadrouple bypass operation, I wouldn’t have to pay anything. I didn’t pay for the extensive, four year therapy-process that I underwent, nor for the massive surgery involved in repairing my…physical condition. Because it is medically acknowledged that it was a matter of life and death. That it wasn’t simply some ‘fanciful idea’, but that it was either a matter of me getting through surgery, or me going irrevocably insane…or ending up taking my own life.

When I get old, gray and infirm…I’ll be taken care of as well, and before I get that far, should I be assaulted while walking down the street, I can rest assured that apart from our Swedish neighbors, no country in the world has a less corrupt police-force than us to take care of it.

 This is my stance. However, as a democratic person I fully acknowledge the right of others to disagree. One political opinion I have held for as long as I have had the right to vote, is that a country…a nation…which has the same government for too long, will suffer as a result. Any nation will benefit from occasionally having a change of system, because it keeps politicians from taking their power for granted, and from getting jaded.

 Let me make a concrete example, however, of the problem I started out talking about, coming from the right side of the political spectrum. Today, I read a newspaper article posted on the site of a Norwegian newspaper, dealing with the 19 South-Koreans who until yesterday were hostages of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The article was quite short, basically stating that they were back in South Korea, and that they were asking their nation for forgiveness for having caused so many problems.

 Following this short article, there was a string of commentaries by readers, longer than the tail of Halley’s comet. I kid you not…it was absolutely ridiculous. Amongst these many…often very volatile comments…I saw one which stated (somewhat abbreviated, admittedly)

 ”Now the Taliban has another 20 million $ with which to make suicide bombs. This is the work of socialists and left-wingers. Socialists and left-wingers all support terrorism.”

 It is easy to disregard that kind of nonsense. Socialists and left-wingers didn’t pay 20 million dollars for these hostages to be set free. IF it even happened, it was done by the South-Korean government (which denies having done so, may I add). The government of South-Korea at this time is headed by President Roh Moo-hyun, a reforming liberal. Liberal, however, only means ‘left wing’ in the United States and it only means ‘left wing’ there because the United States never HAD a left wing in politics. Liberalism is, by definition, a right wing political movement, stressing the values of the individual over the value of society as a whole.

 Nonetheless, the poster of this message decided that this was another opportunity for him to say that all evils in the world came from the fact that some people don’t vote for right-wing parties.

 The same types have, in the past, been known to sprout such infinite wisdom (insert thick irony here, folks) as ‘Oh so you are against the war in Iraq? Saddam-lover!’ or one of my favorites ‘it should be made a crime to be a social-democrat again, like it was in the olden days. That’s the only way to preserve democracy!’

 I’d like to leave that last one standing for people to contemplate a moment. Let’s ban political parties in order to preserve democracy, everyone.

 Yessir…

 Very effective. Let’s make sure that everyone who thinks differently than we do are put behind bars as dangers to democracy. Ohhh yeah.

 Very intelligent. I could name a few dozen political dictators who share that opinion…Fascist AND Stalinist, both.

 However, this is only trend numero uno, and while I can thankfully say that I have yet to come across more than one or two left-wing supporters who simply reversed this nonsensical argument, the political left has decided to flog another horse so badly there is now less meat on it than on a Chicken McGoldenwings…

“THE UNITED STATES IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL!”

 Sound familiar? Good Gods…am I getting fed up with this line of arguments too. Look, the United States has screwed up on a number of occasions. I think quite a lot of Americans by now acknowledge this fact. Of course no country is perfect. The mere notion that one country is incapable of making mistakes shakes the heavens by its sheer, unadulterated stupidity. But to lay all blame for all bad things happening in the world on the shoulders of the US of A is no less idiotic, and frankly it is hypocritical. It is running from responsibility. It’s finding a convenient scapegoat, painting a big, nasty image of it as horrible and morally corrupt and then forgetting one’s own responsibility in the process.

 I am against the way the war in Iraq was started, for example. I was not against finding a legitimate reason to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The man was an insane, massmurdering, vile, evil and tyranical piece of *insert colorful expletive here*. I am one of those people who have had the doubtful pleasure of seeing the physical results of what took place in the man’s prisons on the scarred bodies of human beings in Red Cross centers. I KNOW how vile he was.

 I was against starting the war on a lie, however. For a whole, complicated number of reasons, some of which I have already explained on my forum elsewhere.

 So…now the United States is embroilled in a war in Iraq which it may or may not be able to win, militarily but which has long since been lost on a human level.

 And of course…THIS IS ALL THE FAULT OF THE UNITED STATES…isn’t it? This is, after all, what a lot of people on my side of the political picket-fence claims.

 No it’s not.

 There’s no doubt that the United States must take a sigificant part of the blame for having started a war on a lie. But the government of my country chose to take part in this war. A government voted into power by direct elections. Meaning that each and every single person who voted for them holds a part of the responsibility.

 Even I do, despite having voted for a party who stood against this war. Because I didn’t help convince people to vote differently. I am guilty by inaction and apathy.

 Alright, my guilt is insignificant, seen individually. But my point in all of this is that it is too easy to simply stick up our noses and say ‘look it’s all the United States’ fault. Every time. Moneygrubbing, capitalistic imperialist gits, the whole barmy lot’o them!’. It’s too easy and it’s completely unreasonable.

 I may be a hopeless idealist, but I doubt I will ever stop hoping for the day where people are able to have a civilized political debate, without throwing mudcakes around. Without trying to disassociate themselves from blame and guilt, while painting the opposition as the evilest, most depraved human beings to walk this Earth since the dawn of time.

 Voltaire has often been quoted for saying ”I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

 Allegedly, it was said to have been a response to Jean-Jacque Rousseau, his most ardent philosophical rival.

 Problem is, he almost certainly never said it.

 Nonetheless, I believe that in order for the supporters of both the left and right wing to grow up and start acting like mature adults, they must first learn to truly appreciate, understand and value the absolutely fundamental democratic principle inherent in this quote, whoever originally said it.

 Otherwise, we will end up with a situation like the one I saw in that string of arguments, following an article about nineteen freed hostages. A string of arguments which included one man saying:

 ”Come what may, I wouldn’t lift a finger to defend Norway anyway. Why should I defend a Socialist state?”

 The poster had a Norwegian name.

 Think about that for a while…

 

 

 

 

Bastion is not home. He’s on vacation…which I believe is well earned. He’s therefore not able to post this week. He did send me an email with a piece of code to include in a message which would create the link to the chapters. Apparently, he already posted them, but the link isn’t there. I tried for over an hour yesterday to get it to work, but sadly, it just didn’t. So…it has to wait until he comes home from vacation, at which time I’ll ask him to post for the missing weeks too. I apologize for the wait.

First of all, let me thank Fikrann for the work she’s done over these last many months for me. It has been considerable and don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m not grateful for it. I most certainly am. However, as Fikrann said…it’s time she and I parted ways, professionally (although I hope she will still enjoy reading the stories). She’s been under an unbelievable amount of pressure real life for a long time, and it’s not looking like it’s going to ease up anytime soon. The result has been problems keeping deadlines and it’s meant that there have been weeks where I’ve spent more time asking her to update than I’ve spent writing a chapter.

 I don’t blame her. As I said, Real Life is the big sinner here…not Fikrann. Not in any way.

However, true to good form, Fikrann has offered to sign over Aslaug.eu to me, which I hope we can somehow figure out how to do. The direct result of that is that I will continue posting to this site. Or rather, my new web-administrator will. A good, real life friend of mine (who has also read all I’ve written and regularly made good natured complaints that my chapters are too short) has offered to take over. Naturally, it will take a little while to get accustomed to the code and maybe redesign a bit and so on, BUT … the site stays. At least it seems so.

IF…If if if if if…I have to move sites again, Fikrann has offered to make a redirect from this one to the new one. I know I’ve moved around a lot this last year. I can only hope and pray you’ll all bear with me a while yet.

In the meantime, feel free to drop by my forum at planetfurry.

Yours truly

 

Aslaug

…and by making that statement, I have probably set myself apart from roughly nine out of ten Danes. Even most danes who claim not to like soccer still feel a thrill when the national squad wins a match.

However, there are a few of us who honestly do not like the sport. Some claim not to like it on the basis of a very old and by now rather tired reason, namely that a match lasting 90 minutes, where 22 adult men run around trying to catch a small, round, leather orb…only to kick it away again as soon as they’ve caught it, is stupid.

It’s no more stupid than most other sports. And I for one don’t think most sport is stupid. For one thing, a certain amount of thought has gone into making the rules. However, I have my reasons for disliking soccer, and they are different than the reason mentioned above.

The primary, overriding reason for me is money.

I have a severe, powerful loathing of a sport where a seventeen year old boy can be bought and sold on some kind of market, for prices running up to eighty or ninety million dollars in the most extreme cases. First of all, no one is going to make me believe that if a kid that age has that much money waved under his nose, that he won’t agree to more or less anything. I’ve heard people tell me ‘It’s not as if it’s a slave-trade. He’s free to leave if he wants’. In truth, that’s not the case. There have been a number of cases in the last few years where a player in some European league has been seriously disgruntled with his club, and the club wouldn’t sell him. Either because they believe he’ll come around or simply to keep other clubs from controlling that player. If he simply stops playing he’ll be sued for breach of contractual obligations. Ergo, the kid can either hang up his cleats permanently, wait until his contract runs out (and some of them are careless enough to sign seven or eight year contracts), or suck it up and play. The argument in those cases tend to be ‘but with as much money as they earn, they don’t really have the right to complain’. Wrong. Everyone does.

But that’s not the main problem. The main problem is the actual amount paid. Let’s take one example (and I would like to point out that this is merely one example out of many). Let’s look at England and their main soccer-league. Two teams are in complete control of it, and compete for the title year in and year out. These two clubs are Manchester United and Chelsea. Behind them come a number of clubs with good, talented squads but who are not QUITE up to the level of the aforementioned two clubs. These include clubs like Liverpool and Arsenal. Behind them come a vast array of secondary clubs who may, on paper, play in the finest league but who’s only purpose is to satisfy their own fans by winning pointless games since they have no realistic chance of winning the championship within the next 25 years, or to create the odd and very rare upset result which can change the course of the championship for the clubs with a real chance of winning.

Chelsea and Manchester United are both owned by insanely wealthy men. Men who treat these soccer-clubs as their own personal source of income (in the case of Manchester) or as their own plaything (in the case of Chelsea). As a result, obscene sums are tossed at the squads every year, enabling them to point at very nearly any given player, anywhere in the world, and get him. They can simply offer enough money to always buy the absolute best squads.

Behind them come clubs like Arsenal and Liverpool, as mentioned. Clubs with long and illustrious histories, but without the same amount of financial backing. They can get good players and once in a while they do manage to get a diamond in the rough, who they then mold into a real star. But by and large, they have to face, year in and year out, that while they are vastly better than say…Aston Villa (another very old and highly tradition-rich club) or West Ham (a very old club, as well), they still fall three or four steps short of keeping up with the two big clubs, who run their own little show at the very top of the league. The only real excitement at the start of any given season is ‘will it be Man U. or Chelsea this year?’. In the nineties, before either of these two clubs were bought by big business, Arsenal won several championships. So did Blackburn. Back in the eighties, Liverpool had a frighteningly talented squad and won a number of championships as well. But nowadays, only the most diehard fans of these clubs would say they had any chance whatsoever.

Now, get me right. England is not the worst example by any length, it’s simply one of the best known. In Scotland, either the Rangers or Celtic have won, I believe, eighteen out of the last twenty seasons between them. In Spain, Barcelona and Real Madrid take turns to rule a decade. In Germany, if anyone manages to beat Bayern M??nchen, it’s a national shock (amazingly, they didn’t win the championship this year, so I guess there are a few exceptions to the rule).

The reason in these cases are all the same. These clubs are so extremely rich that they can simply outbuy any opposition when it comes to talent. It kills excitement and it makes for a sport where money is 90 percent of any victory.

The solution is very simple, but we will never see it put into effect. The solution would be to introduce a salary-cap like it is seen in for instance the National Football League in the United States. In America, major sports leagues regulate the total amount of money a club can spend on player salaries in any given season. If they want to buy a star, costing them obscene sums, they’ll have to let someone else go to make room in their budgets. They still have to present a full roster, and so it becomes impossible for one player to say ‘I want as much money as the rest of the team put together, because I’m that big a star’. I doubt any American with even the vaguest interest in American Football could disagree that Peyton Manning is the biggest star in the sport today. Whether one likes the Indianapolis Colts or not, the man is the face of the franchise which won the last Superbowl. Despite this, he can’t make the club pay him three times what he gets now, because it wouldn’t be possible within the framework that the league has laid down, when it comes to salary-caps.

Something like that will never be seen in European soccer.

A man like Lance Briggs, weakside linebacker for the Chicago Bears, demands to be paid more than any of the other stars on his team this year, and since the team can’t and won’t do that without busting it’s budget, it’s looking like Mr. Briggs is going to spend an entire year not playing unless he accepts their suggestion. It should be said that he’s due 7.5 million dollars per year for a contract extension. It’s a -huge- amount of money. But it’s not enough for him, so he won’t play. If a soccer star of comparable skill and ability demanded 3.5 million pounds (roughly 7.5 million dollars) a year, the clubs would be falling over themselves to give him that because it’d be a ridiculously low sum for someone that good, in that sport.

Again…it all ends up being about money…money…money. But at least in American sports, the stars are limited in the excesses they can demand from the clubs. If they want more money (most of them do…there’s no such thing as ‘enough money’ I suppose), they will have to earn it on the side by endorsing products, making speeches, hosting various events, doing walk-on rolls in bad movies and the likes. The clubs can’t simply up their salaries.

Tonight, I read in the newspaper how Denmark and Sweden were facing each other in an ‘important’ national soccer match. If the Danes wanted to keep their hopes alive of going to the European championships next summer, they had to at least get a draw, preferably a win. The Swedes were in a better position and could have taken a defeat without losing their shot at the championship tournament. The Swedes started the match very well and went up by 3 to nil halfway through the first half. As anyone who’s got any knowledge of Soccer whatsoever will know, 3-0 is a very, very solid lead and in international matches it is almost impossible to catch that kind of lead. Still, the Danes fought back and to everyone’s surprise, achieved a ‘miraculous comeback’ as the newspapers were already writing. Then in the 89th minute (a match lasts 90 minutes), the Swedes were awarded a penalty-kick because one of the Danish players lost his head and punched a Swede in the stomach in the penalty area.

A Danish supporter lost his cool, scaled the fence surrounding the playing field, rushed the referee and punched him in the face. A Danish player tried to get between the two and stopped the supporter from further assaulting the referee who had awarded the penalty kick (an almost certain goal) and sent off the offending Danish player.

The referee very wisely chose to call the match off then and there, and the Swedes were summarily awarded a 3-0 victory by the United European Football Association (UEFA).

This effectively ended Denmark’s hopes of going to the European Championships next year, and I admit I felt a great sense of relief.

Football isn’t any more stupid than any other team sport. But a culture has grown up around the clubs where money buys championships, where fanbased racism is exploding all over Europe, where hate-crimes comitted by soccer-fans has gone from the extremely rare and horrifying occurrence to so commonplace in certain countries that it barely gets into the newspaper anymore except in a footnote on page eight. Maybe. Right wing extremism is on the rise in hardcore soccer-fan circles as well. Certain players, like a former Italian national openly declares for facism, and even in ‘peaceful little Denmark’, many of the clubs have neo-nazi supporter-factions who go to matches with no intent except to stir up fights.

Europeans are usually quick to condemn Americans for all manner of things. But at least in the case of professional sports…we could learn a lot from them.

End rant.