Re: [Marxism] FIFA scandal
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 2015/05/30 12:55 PM, Ken Hiebert via Marxism wrote: I am not in a position to judge this scandal. I received an appeal from Avaaz to help oust Blatter. I note that not only Putin, but Third World countries in general are reported to support Blatter. Ken, would you accept a rudimentary comradely correction to the last sentence? If instead of Third World countries you say corrupt ruling elites running the Third World then yes, you're on target. Their local soccer mafias are tightly aligned to Blatter's Zurich hq. And then you'd join those of us in South Africa (2010) and Brazil (2014) - hopefully Russia (2018) soon too - who abolutely love soccer, who enjoy the World Bank, and who despise FIFA, especially under Blatter's imperialist rule. _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] FIFA scandal
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Yup... Typos happen, as I scribble during a Left Forum panel here, intently listening to comradely marxist critiques of Naomi Klein's /This Changes Everything. /Mustn't multitask! :-) On 2015/05/30 01:23 PM, MM wrote: On 30 May 2015, at 7:01 PM, Patrick Bond via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu mailto:marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: … who enjoy the World Bank... More than the World Cup? _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] FIFA scandal
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I am not in a position to judge this scandal. I received an appeal from Avaaz to help oust Blatter. I note that not only Putin, but Third World countries in general are reported to support Blatter. Can anyone add to our knowledge of this? ken h https://secure.avaaz.org/en/fifa_blattner_en_loc/?bcrOobbv=59462 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] FIFA scandal
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * On 30 May 2015, at 7:01 PM, Patrick Bond via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: … who enjoy the World Bank... More than the World Cup? _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] FIFA scandal
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * Blatter was already voted in for his fifth term as head of the FIFA criminal syndicate. Too bad this didn't come a bit earlier. As some of you may know FIFA officials have been arrested by U.S. authorities related to a slew of corruption charges. From a BBC article on the matter: Re-elected Fifa president Sepp Blatter has sought to downplay the US criminal proceedings launched against officials of world football's governing body. Seven officials and associates were arrested in Zurich earlier this week, as Fifa gathered for its congress. Mr Blatter, 79, described the issue as infractions involving a marketing company operating in the Americas. He is not named in the indictment http://www.justice.gov/usao/nye/pr/May15/2015-May-27.php, and denies having anything to do with an alleged $10m (£6.5m) bribe. Asked by a reporter at a news conference whether he authorised the payment allegedly relating to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, he said: Definitely, that's not me. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32941740 Russia and Qatar are certainly in the line of fire as countries hosting the worlds biggest mega-event, the world cup since suspicions over bribery claim continue as major issues come along with both choices. Russia has huge problems with racism http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31644075in football with supporters regularly making racist chants toward African players; many of these supporter clubs have ties to neo-nazi and ultra-nationalist politics. Qatar, other than the obvious problem of playing football in a summer tournament with temperatures over 100 degrees, has received attention for the inhumane labor practices that border on indentured servitude. I quick google search will come up with dozens of stories, like this on from the Wash Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/27/a-body-count-in-qatar-illustrates-the-consequences-of-fifa-corruption/ Blatter has been in the middle of every dirty piece of work FIFA has managed since he took over, but he is not really the problem FIFA as a governing body is as it sole reason is to raise immense profits from the world biggest sport. Football is a worth hundreds of billions of dollars of profit, so along with Cricket, Rugby, American sports, and many other national sports, not only is it a huge part of capitalist machine, it is very much the fabric of our lives. Not until radicals learn to reconcile how sport plays into the lives of the working class will we be successful in changing society. Soccer VS The State: Tackling Football and Radical Politics by Gabriel Kuhn, along with the academic work done on Hooliganism from Ian Taylor's Marxist view to the Leicester school's Eliasian approach to the post-modern denial of the hooligan are ways of thinking about sport that U.S. based activists often dismiss as a subject not worthy of discussion. Other than generalized condemnation of sport from some Frankfurt school that posits everyone who enjoys watching or playing sports as a cultural dupe, or the silence beget of the shame of the radical who watches or plays the wrong sports, the left in the U.S. gives up vital ideological terrain by not participating in making sport our own. On Sat, May 30, 2015 at 9:55 AM, Ken Hiebert via Marxism marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu wrote: POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * I am not in a position to judge this scandal. I received an appeal from Avaaz to help oust Blatter. I note that not only Putin, but Third World countries in general are reported to support Blatter. Can anyone add to our knowledge of this? ken h https://secure.avaaz.org/en/fifa_blattner_en_loc/?bcrOobbv=59462 _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/mediacrusher%40gmail.com -- J.A. Masko College of Communications Penn State University State College, Pa 16801 “There are deeper strata of truth in cinema, and there is such a thing as poetic, ecstatic truth. It is mysterious and elusive, and can be reached only through fabrication and imagination and stylization.” -Werner Herzog, “LESSONS OF DARKNESS” _ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options
Re: [Marxism] FIFA scandal
POSTING RULES NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. * http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/29/the_enron_of_sports_fifas_upheaval Well, Dave, you’ve been covering this for a long time. We were interviewing you in Brazil when the World Cup was there. Are you surprised? *DAVE ZIRIN:* Not surprised at all, about as surprised as I’d be if I fell in a pool and emerged wet. The only thing that is surprising here is that we’re now dealing with charges that have actual teeth. That’s the only surprise. I mean, we are talking about the Enron of sports and a hubris and arrogance that is bringing down a multibillion-dollar corporation. The only difference between FIFA and Enron is that FIFA has been designated a nonprofit by the Swiss government, which makes looking at its books and finding the extent of the corruption all the more difficult. Now, for *Democracy Now!* listeners and viewers, I could understand why people would look at the U.S. Justice Department and say, Why can’t they be this aggressive towards the Wall Street bankers? Why can’t they be this aggressive towards police brutality? And those viewers are absolutely correct. But people should also realize that this is a day that people should celebrate, because it is crippling one of the most corrupt multinationals that we have, sports or otherwise. *NERMEEN SHAIKH:* And, Dave, could you tell us a little bit about Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA? He wasn’t among those who was indicted, and today he’s running for president, for re-election for president of FIFA. *DAVE ZIRIN:* Yes, Sepp Blatter, as you said, he has been in charge of FIFA for 17 years. The thing about Sepp Blatter that distinguishes him from the people who were indicted is that Sepp Blatter uses his power and influence to attain more power. He’s less interested in personal enrichment than he is in influence, and this is what has allowed him to remain free of prison these last many years. Although Sepp Blatter is also—he will not get off a plane in the United States, for fear that he will be arrested. That is true. There are also people saying that he might not attend the Women’s World Cup in Canada, for fear that he might be arrested. So, you’re talking about somebody who is effectively a stateless actor, somebody who is under investigation, who will probably be re-elected for a fifth term to head FIFA . *AMY GOODMAN:* Are there any U.S. Justice Department Blatter leaks? What will happen to Blatter next, Dave? *DAVE ZIRIN:* That’s a terrific question. What is very clear is that Lorreta Lynch has Blatter in her sights. That’s why she said she wanted to uproot corruption going back 20 years. That’s Blatter’s term. And let’s be clear about this, too: The U.S. Justice Department is going after FIFA very simply because the U.S. was not awarded the 2022 World Cup. If they had been, I don’t think this investigation would be taking place. And also let’s keep in mind that the Justice Department has only gone after, at this point, a small part of the world—North America, Central America, these confederations. What it says to us is that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and if some of these FIFA vice presidents begin to talk, begin to flip, if you will, to use Mafia parlance, what we could be looking at is the bringing down of Sepp Blatter and perhaps the beginning of the end of FIFA itself. *AMY GOODMAN:* Could you talk about the revelations regarding the Clinton Foundation— *DAVE ZIRIN:* Yes. *AMY GOODMAN:* —having received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Qatari World Cup Committee— *DAVE ZIRIN:* Yes. *AMY GOODMAN:* —when Bill Clinton was serving as the U.S. World Cup delegate with the U.S. cup world delegation—the World Cup delegation? *DAVE ZIRIN:* Yes. Not only has the Clinton Foundation received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Qatar World Cup Committee, it has also received millions of dollars from the Qatari government over the last several years. And the Clintons are going to have to answer this question, because, as you said in the intro, the Qatari World Cup construction has an absolutely monstrous body count—1,200 deaths—slavery, and even the prevention of Nepalese migrant workers of going home to Nepal after the recent earthquake to go to funerals for members of their family. Now, there is this lore that’s out there in the media that Bill Clinton was so angry after the U.S. did not get the World Cup bid for 2022, he broke a mirror, and that signaled that the United States was going to get serious about corruption in the World Cup. This is mainstream media hooey. What you see much more clearly is a very bizarre, very unexplained connection between the Qatari royal family, the Qatari World Cup bid
