bmck

works for me, makes everything to the good a bonus

i've just been called out gartnaval royal though, so it'll be later than lunchtime when i get back.

hey gazza. one another similar i done recently it was only around half an hour. ours is a little more complicated as we've got extra bits and bobs installed, but hopefully about half an hour unless something awful happens.

What happened to your column of the same name?

it died too much work and study. feel free to take up the mantle

welcome union_city_blue. i'm not quite as cynical as maineflyer, but for me the RST entirely lost its integrity in the way it dealt with the resignations last year. nothing subsequently has convinced me that anything has changed. that said, i believe in democratic supporter representation, and the more positive contributions on all fronts the better. best of luck!

lap it up lads, it's how you know they're hurting

i totally agree. the treatment table at ibrox seemed cursed or incompetently managed for such a long time. it seemed there were too many who never returned from it for it just to be bad luck. this is really encouraging to see.

i wonder if naismith will even get in the first 11 now with rothen coming in.

^ shit, we've both said the same thing. that's rehearsed - smacks of conspiracy

saying this he'll probably come along and contradict me, but i'm fairly sure frankie has nothing to do with the assembly's website or the assembly itself (other than through his previous work with the RST and current stuff with the STS meeting, and that he may know people from it). i wouldn't be suprised if they put it up because quite a lot of people will want to know exactly what the deal with it is because they miss TBB.

to me it's pretty clear. we got fined for descriminatory chants, TBB is is that chant. if they fined us once, there is some precedent and so they'll do it again; so whether it was either the club, the assembly or uefa, it makes no difference - the outcome is the same, uefa muscle means its best (in a having-to-be-pragmatic sort of way) that we don't sing it.

Sorry, I missed this bit first time around. You're missing the point a bit there, people refer to the political classes of the US as arrogant because they expect and oftentimes insist that everyone else dances to their tune.

why shouldn't they, other than that it will annoy the other nations? i guess we could start getting philosophical about natural rights, and such like, but i think in the world of nation states war is basic, because everyone wants their slice of the finite half-time pie. i think it would be great if america could be nice and charitable and russia would, in turn, do something nice and charitable and not take advantage of it. but i don't think that's the case. it's hard to know what's right, but america isn't saying "follow us or we'll slaughter you", they're saying "follow us, or the advantages you get from us will stop". we might not like it, but it's hardly arrogance to play to your strengths.

You might quite like their tune - it might be 'She's My Best Friend' by the Velvet Underground, say - but if someone else constantly tells you where and when to play it, it gets a bit annoying.

i'm not sure that particular song would get annoying even in those circumstances

im not saying america isn't annoying - it clearly is - but they're that kind of annoying the best-and-knows-it is.

I would agree the USA has a far greater sense of community and citizenship than we do; but in parallel to that it also has a far greater problem of underclass and exclusion than we do. In other words, they have more 'good' than we, but they pay for it with more 'bad.'

i think that's a necessary precondition of the possibility of greatness. where there's room (and affluence) to excel, someone's always losing. the egalitarian ideal promotes equality largerly by lobbing off the peaks and troughs. i'm not sure what is better, though i tend to think the former. anyway, my point was really just that it seems like common wisdom to think of america as some sort of great oppressor; as history's most powerful-nation-in-the-world-at-a-given-time goes, they're not too bad.

Maineflyer wrote earlier about the fell hand of The State crushing the spirit of the free man, by knowing better than said man. True enough and I would rather see personal freedom on almost every level. The trouble is, in Scotland they do know better...free choice, which we've 'enjoyed' for the last couple of generations, has hardly led to a blooming paradise where everyone can pursue their dreams, has it? In no way are we as bad as some countries but we're on the wrong road in so many areas (health for one) and if it needs someone to slap the slobs around untiil they 'get it', so be it.

you don't need to convince me. i think it's ironic that, in a democracy, we can think of the state and the spirit of the free man as independent. if our leaders are crap, visionless, and weak, then it's a reflection of the poverty of the soul of the free voters who voted for them. i prefer freedom to oppression, but excellence to freedom. freedom isn't an end; i think we think freedom is an end, when it should always be a means. freedom to do what? freedom to achieve what? who cares that we have more freedoms than iran? what do those freedoms allow us to do? that's what's important. i think that's what you're getting at - we've got tons of freedom here and we use it pettily.

Even the most fanatical Scots nationalist would have to admit we seem overly blessed with fuds around here.

most scots nationalists are fuds

anyway, tangent over, back to work

Of course, that statement is not to say I'd want to indulge in any of their mock-outragery.

 

The fact is though, that while they sing of killing British soldiers every week without "fear or favour" to quote Dr Reid, we have to watch what we say or sing precisely because of them. That surely, is a statement of fact.

i take your point, but remember it's not just because of them. if we'd had someone take a dr-reid-style strong stance, either in the media or at ibrox, we could've shrugged it off. i'm quite happy for celtic fans to have the right to sing their vile shit, even if it disgusts me. the last thing i want is more bourgeois-moralistic regulation of football.

Frankly Rangers fans can only dream of conducting a campaign like it.

it's more of a nightmare. it's pathetic beyond belief. i'd kill myself, or, at least, stop being a rangers fan if we started becoming so obssessed with celtic as to start this sort of nonsense. i find it hard to read an article about celtic, or anything celtic related, even if it's a wind-up one on a rangers site. they exist only as something to beat at football. if i could work up mock outrage as well as they could, i wouldn't waste it on their petty shennagins.

You're joking about the US surely. I've had a business there for a number of years and regularly travel widely in that country. I can tell you that, for all its faults and obvious diversity, I've usually found it to be a more civilised, caring and concerned society than this one. On many of the social issues you mention, the US was actually well ahead of us and hardly deserves the tabloid image so many here are keen to foster with words like greedy, arrogant and selfish. Of course you may know more than I do about it.

i agree. a large part of america understands, still, citizenry. calling them arrogant because they are the best at almost everything is just jealousy. i like america; i would rather they were the most powerful nation on earth than any of the other contenders.

It seems to me that jealousy is the biggest if not single argument.

don't be daft. privacy in non public-interest contracts is a pretty fundamental premise of law. people can be relaxed about it if they want, but it's their legal right not to be.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrC1pnHHtiw]YouTube - Rothen au PSG[/ame]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4wBmoF7XRE]YouTube - Rothen "brilliant passer"[/ame]

few videos.

absinthe rocks. wormwood is supposed to be slightly hallucinogenic. a favourite of rimbaud

famine's over is anti catholic now? thought it was racist?

dm's newspaper?

"Radical conservative"? What d'ya mean radical?

 

Conservative I've no problem with (God bless you Margaret) but radical?

it's all relative. love of maggie is relatively radical for our times. even the tories want to play it down besides, it's fun to be a radical :spl:

A book called " The Sun Wot Won It" [ 1992 ] describes how the newspaper ridiculed the Labour Party continually making them out to be idiots etc. The drip, drip effect was soon absorbed by the electorate and whenever anyone thought of the Labour party they thought of a bunch of idiots.

it's interesting that about ten years later a guy called fairclough released a book showing how new labour's use of collocational patterning (repeating the word 'new' in a million different contexts and combinations) in interviews and press releases totally manipulated the media into creating the impression that the labour government was all about the new, and change, and reform. it seems they learned their lesson, and perhaps we should too.

I think we have to bite back in a low key sort of way and choose our reactions carefully so as not to appear neurotic. We have to target who we complain to. For example, if the Retard prints something detrimental then we have to make our feelings known to the Sun. Let them slug it out while we keep a low profile.

a wise approach. i'm not sure why we can't just take the spanish approach and give up all pretense of objectivity. they have pro-madrid and anti-madrid papers, who are quite open about it, and don't bother masking their hate or love. i'd rather read someone who honestly hates rangers than one who disguises it behind nonsense, or fantasies of fighting sectarianism.

Actually I never read the newspapers now; there is much more erudition showed by gersnet contributors - though I don't like the bad language.

sorry i like swear words, i think they're descriptive, but i really should keep them for the pub and out of writing but i agree - i don't see the point in reading people who are paid to disguise their love or hate of our club and their opinions. the only difference between fans who write and journalists is first-hand access to news. i think this is one of the big reasons why the papers are quick to ridicule online fans as radicals so often - if i can read b_s, s_a, frankie, or cammy for free, why would i pay to read mcnee or one of his ilk?

And I too have started to feel like Norris that I'm not really interested in football, just Rangers. Why is that? Partly nostalgia I guess - memories of being lifted up by my uncle to watch Henderson, McMillan, Millar, Brand and Wilson. The 2-3-5, WM formation, if you like.

i'll only over get to have seen henderson on video memories like that are probably bigger than football as a whole, especially in it's modern state. there's too big a gap between players and fans now to produce those sort of memories, i tend to think.

It would be impossible to argue with the central tenet - that dignified silence ought to be balanced out with occassional bites to let them know RFC has teeth - and my only quibble would be that I think that's what we ARE doing.

i don't think that's what RFC are doing, though i do think it's increasingly what we are doing. the "rangers for me" boycott is a solid example, but i would imagine as many people failed to buy it because they couldn't endure spiersian anti-prose for more than a few paragraphs. to get loosely to the point, i think the best way to keep away from petty, reactionary, digs is to have strong leadership. for various reasons the RST, DM and the assembly don't have the clout or will to take a decorous but teethy stance on all this. i think that's a pitty, because strong leadership has unifying qualities, it provides a strong model that the lowest common denominator can aspire to. without this, i think most of our attempts will be dispirate and easily dismisable. spiersy probably got hit in the pocket a bit, but i'm quite sure the bbc organisations/petitions almost had a negative effect.

that said, my own personal point of view is yours. i would've been one of the ones in athens defending perciles, i imagine. i don't care what the BBC, or the media in general, say about rangers fans because it's impossible for me to feel marginalised or victimised or dishonoured by idiocy. i don't buy their papers, i don't pay a telly license. and i think, unlike pericles, you might be right that even just maintaining the high ground will win out in the end, even if we didn't hit back. the number one rebel rule: when you don't have any political or physical power or success, you adopt the moral high ground to win some back. i think there's a danger of us doing that which your stance avoids. celtic have been doing this for years, but now that they have the mighty pen, eventually all that "we're so hard done by, we're the victims of such abuse" is going to fall in on itself. rebellion is only romantic while you're oppressed; it's hard to play the rebel, or oppressed, when you're in fashion. eventually society'll see through it. that and the fact that europe's moved right a bit - the liberal-pluralism that hunts out oppressed people everywhere to love isn't as cool anymore. i think if we can maintain the high ground just a little bit longer it'll all fall in on itself.

anyway, enough amblings. i better get back to work.

I think that explains the situation rather well metaphorically speaking... :D

i'd expect your support, you get to be metaphorically right although shroomz'll hate you for being a neocon

I was reading Andy's responses in the 'feel ashamed about your support' thread, and it reminded me of Pericles in the Peloponnesian wars. I thought a bit more about it and there are a number of interesting parralels. So I thought I'd reconstruct that war for us gersnetters, with the dominant opinions getting to play leading roles. I'm not sure how many people know their classical military history, and about the Peloponnesian wars (the Athenian empire versus Sparta and her allies) but I've tried to pad it out enough to be a something worth reading even if you haven't heard anything about it. Anyway, here goes:

Andy’s approach to the media is like Pericles’ stance towards the Spartans in the Peloponnesian wars. Pericles persuaded the Rangers supp... sorry, Athenian people that there was no point in fighting the celtic-minded-Spartans. Although the Spartans had control of the media, sorry, land, with their vast, incomparable hoplite army, they could do no lasting damage to Athenian power because Athens was self sustaining. When the Spartans marched into the countryside in Attica, all the Athenians had to do was to retreat behind their walled city, with walled links to the harbour, and count on their incontestable domination of the seas to provide all they needed. The Spartans could huff and puff, and destroy the countryside all they liked, but in doing so they could win no lasting tactical advantage, and could not ultimately touch Athenian power. As evidence he pointed to the last all out battle with the Spartans – the Spartans won the battle, but ended with lots of dead Spartiates and no significant gain, as no-one in the ancient world could take a walled city. Likewise, Andy_Steel as Pericles, realises that all this huffing and puffing from salaried-dullards in the media might be aggravating, it doesn’t do any tangible harm. If you maintain a sense of self-sufficiency without provoking them further, they are going to realise eventually that all their vitriol and big words don’t make a blind bit of difference, and that life will go on irrespective of their petty little crusade. I think Andy represents the best version of this most moderate course – take it on the chin, because in the end it just doesn’t matter. I think he also represents the majority of Rangers supporters, even if they haven’t thought about it.

However, things didn’t turn out well for Pericles even though the principle ancient writers thought he was right. Eventually he was ousted by radical conservatives, played in our Gersnet reconstruction by maineflyer, and Norris Cole, and the Vanguard Bear sort. While the Spartans didn’t win any tactical advantage, they did win in other ways as they ravaged the Attic countryside. The Athenians had to look on as their honour was disparaged by mocking Spartans, and as it progressed on for years, Pericles found it harder and harder to suppress the radically conservative Athenians who were not willing to cower behind the walls and suffer dishonour. The backbone of Athens, and the life of the polis, was the hoplite landowners, who loved their land, and hated seeing it ravaged. They reasoned that the Athenian democracy was the greatest of the polis and it was unseemly for them to hide behind their walls. They pointed to Pericles’ policy and said it wasn’t working, as year on year, the Spartans came back and ravaged the countryside. The conservative element played this up and eventually the dominant opinion in Athens changed, no longer willing to stay Pericles’ course, and they went on the attack. They actually done well at first and gained a few significant victories, but their reactionary temperament, and fury, made them ill suited to preserving power. The confidence won by their victories kept them going on the attack in ill-considered regions (like Egypt) and they overstepped their bounds. I think any all out attack on the media from these more radically conservative elements, if their statements and their wording are anything to go by, will go on this way because, although their anger is justified, anger is rarely an astute place to wage war from. They eventually pissed off too many people, and all support for Athens crumbled and they lost the war.

So who’s right? Well, both are clearly partly right. Pericles was mostly correct in his assessment that the Spartans could not win the war if they pursued his course, and that Athenian power was untouched by their harsh words and farm-burning, just as Andy is right that Rangers wont be better or worse off for petty media attacks because ultimately we are self-sufficient. But Andy will find it harder and harder to encourage fellow Rangers fans to pursue this moderate course, not because he isn’t correct in his understanding, but because it’s hard to endure dishonour. The longer the media keeps provoking, the more likely they are to draw out the ultra-conservative element, and in doing so win the war. That said, the ultra-conservative element, when they went on the attack, looked like they could seriously win the war, and Athens regained a sense of its identity. If they hadn’t overstretched, they may very well have won the war. Likewise, if Rangers on mass started attacking the media, we would soon see its vulnerabilities (ie: its need to make money) and would probably see a change in attitude. This would be no tactical advantage, but it would be good for morale and identity, which, the conservatives know is important. So what’s the answer?

The final characters to be introduced are the Frankie/Bluedell contingent. They don’t get to be contemporaries of the Peloponnesian wars like Andy and Norris, but get to play Yale neoconservative scholar Donald Kagan. He agreed most fundamentally with Pericles, but his one criticism was that a purely defensive policy never works. Although he was intellectually right that just ignoring the Spartans attacks would mean they would lose nothing, he had no plan to actually win the war. With Athenian power at sea, he could’ve launched raids all over the Spartan territory, and made them think twice about ravaging the Attic countryside. But because he was interested in peace, and maintaining Athenian high-ground, and not giving the Spartans what they wanted, he essentially invited them on to keep making more and more attacks. If he had chosen, as a wise and moderate sort of first-among-equals to have an offensive policy that was fair, thought out, and, above all, not reactionary and angry, he might well have won the war without augmenting his fundamental principle that the Spartans, if ignored, couldn’t do anything to them. I think Frankie/Bluedell advocate this moderate approach to response – they agree with Andy that it doesn’t actually matter a fuck one way or the other what the media say, but, like Norris and the radical conservatives they realise that these sort of attacks, especially over sustained periods of time, have effects on solidarity, morale and confidence. If we had a, Murray-down policy of contesting only the grossest of mistruths, without becoming petted-lipped reactionaries towards anything bad said about us, we might remind them that we have a big stick too, and though we’re not interested in petty wars, and prefer a moderate approach, we do have some sort of response, and aren’t going to take shite.

So there we go.

i think (though i'm not sure) calscot's point is that the term self-loather assumes what it attempts to describe. it sounds like it's a word like 'tall' or 'fat' but it's more like 'bigot' or 'handwringer': it expresses the attitude of the person using it, rather than any actual state of affairs. a debate like that, as calscot and norris have just proven, could just go round in circles. calling a rangers supporter a self-loather's is just to insult them and assume, without actually saying clearly, what rangers really is and what rangers supporters really are.

anyway, all that shite aside - the point is not whether rangers supporters who get embarrassed about things like this are self-loathers, but whether there is any point in getting embarrased. i personally don't think so. humans are intolerant, beligerent, violent and contradictory; some football violence and bigotry is hardly the biggest problem facing the world at the moment. we have laws that take care of all this stuff; arrest the criminals, let the innocent people go, and we'll all be fine for not having made a big deal out of it.