Soccer Evangelism

Much has been made over the past few weeks about soccer all over the MSM and the internet. To start with, there's the World Cup. But the real debate has been over whether soccer is an un-American sport, and whether it's worth wasting playing and viewing time on it at all. American liberals seem to love it, though European and non-USA Western Hemisphere players tend to make American football and basketball players look like true gentlemen.

Many American conservatives seem to see soccer as a "socialist sport" with strange rules, ever-moving "sides," and the only sport where the players are encouraged to hit the ball with their heads. They also question the adoption of a sport which takes time away from the "national sport" of baseball or the American original sport of basketball. Football (the American brand of football) is all about contact, where soccer is all about the appearance of avoiding bodily contact, but sneakily hamstringing your opponent if possible.

But everybody and his brother have already discussed this at length, so I'm going to turn my attention to one seemingly-odd facet of the game. The trend in Brazilian soccer has followed the general trend throughout Brazil. For some reason, still to be determined, Evangelical Christianity has taken root, grown and blossomed. Out of a total population of approximately 190 million people, 27 million identify themselves with the evangelical form of Protestant Christianity.

The ruffians who populate most of the world's teams ("civilized" Britain is notorious for its substitution of team membership for gang membership) are in far less prominence on the Brazilian team. Four of the eleven Brazilian national team are evangelicals. Their conversion to emotional Christianity has wrought amazing changes in the converted members, and a change in those who have not (yet) converted. Brazil's captain is named Lucio, and ten years ago he was noted for him viciousness and bad temper, including head-butting his own teammate in an Olympic semifinal.

Another notable convert is the renowned Kaka (OK, I'm not going anywhere with that name). Another former field tough guy, Kaka now wears an undershirt that says "I belong to Jesus," points to the sky after doing something noteworthy on the field, and is planning to become a pastor when his soccer career is over. Their former playboy lifestyles, along with those of many of their teammates, have altered radically. Where once there was individual show-off superstarism, there is now a discipline and team player mentality that results in scoring.

And what are professional sports without lots and lots of sex with the fans? That's not a question you ask the current team. Kaka even verbally attacked his own prior coach for allowing the players to have sex with women not their wives, and declared himself a virgin prior to his 2006 marriage. Now, instead of conjugal visits, the players spend their down time at Bible studies during practice.

Former superstar player for Brazil, Carlos Caetano Bledorn Verri, retired after the Brazilian World Cup competition in 1994, returned as coach of the Brazilian team. More popularly known as "Dunga," Verri had the same conversion, and brought his soccer skills and religious beliefs to the team upon his return as coach. There is a religious zeal for victory over the other team which is almost as if the boys were defeating evil rather than another soccer team. They might be right. As writer James Downie points out, "one could call it 'Calvinist' football--not the Brazil of the past, but maybe the Brazil of the future." And the boys on the team consider themselves Calvin's "elect."
[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Snookered--Again.

Earlier in the week, our brilliant president got one-upped by third world countries and the canny Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And in the process, we seem to have lost any influence we had with one of our former allies. Turkey is now spitting in America's face as part of a growing Islamic coalition, with the help of socialist Brazil. Well done, Mr. Obama.

The growing crisis of Iran and its influence with its neighbors requires the talents of true experts in diplomacy, particularly the iron fist in the velvet glove. Instead we have the most lily-livered president since Jimmy Carter and a diplomatic corps made of morons, cowards, liars, and an occasional America-hater. It has been reported by multiple sources that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had put her faith in the perfidious Lula da Silva of Brazil to mediate an effort to turn Iran away from further sanctions, and was caught "completely off-guard" when he failed utterly.

One of the weakest and most exploitable traits of this administration is its ridiculously high expectations in its own ability to influence, and its complete lack of backup plans when their expectations are not fulfilled. Not only should Clinton not ever have relied on da Silva to broker any kind of decent deal, but she should have been prepared to tell Iran that if this UN-backed effort failed, we would be forced to act independently in consultation with our NATO allies to force Iran to rid itself of fissionable material, nuclear bomb plans, and missile delivery systems purchases.

But given Obama's track record so far, that threat would have meant absolutely nothing. Obama's knees are weak, and he's well-known for avoiding personal failures by abandoning and humiliating former allies (personal and international). Ahmadinejad has exploited Obama's weaknesses at every turn. He knows that Obama's policy is to speak softly, and carry a nerf bat. The Three Stooges were more dangerous and more believable than anything that is coming out of this White House.

Of course that other canny tyrant, Vladimir Putin, pushed his puppet president Dmitri Medvedev into setting the stage for guaranteed failure by by having Medvedev announce that "Brazil's efforts were the last chance to avoid sanctions." That worked very nicely. And when may we expect those sanctions to go into effect, Mr. Medvedev? At the same time, China didn't even have to pretend it might support sanctions.

Meanwhile, back at the tent, former ally Turkey hopped into the game and announced that in the interests of world peace (God help us), Turkey would accept low-enriched uranium from Iran in exchange for selling Iran fuel-rods of uranium for use in (get this) a Tehran medical research research reactor. Ahmandinejad keeps upping the ante, and with each threat finds an even cleverer way to outmaneuver the wimpy and incompetent Obama State Department.

Obama, a devotee of the United Nations, is going to have a hard time knocking either Brazil or Turkey for stabbing America in the back. The two nations have alternating rotating seats on the UN Security Council, and have innate clout with Obama because of his UN worship. Once again, thanks to the amateur from the South Side of Chicago, America has painted itself into a corner. Even the pro-Obama Los Angeles Times recognizes what a foolish move has been made. Says the Times: America is now in the position of having to "face a choice of rejecting the deal and appearing intransigent, or accepting it, potentially allowing Iran to defuse mounting international pressures through an infinite delay."

Clinton, on the other hand, learned everything she knows from the former Philanderer in Chief, husband Bill Clinton. Thanks to similar diplomatic detours, North Korea today is not only armed with nukes and missile delivery systems, they also have an excellent computer network. A few more Democratic administrations like this, and America will be entirely without a nuclear arsenal to protect itself, and the penguins in Antarctica will be launching 100 megaton hydrogen bombs at us within a couple of decades.

An old and honored diplomatic rule is "never back your opponent into a corner from which he cannot retreat, and from which he cannot advance without all-out attack." Ahmadinejad knows that Obama will retreat all the way into that corner, cower for awhile, and then attack--verbally and verbosely. On the other hand, Clinton-style diplomacy leaves Iran half-way around the world from any corner, and Ahmadinejad would be more than willing to launch an all-out attack to bring on his Islamic version of Armageddon.
[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

The Meeting That Changed The World

When Obama was elected, one of the side-effects was supposed to be a return of American prestige. We were told the free world would rally behind Obama and we would enter a new age of international cooperation. Our enemies would stop their evil ways and our friends would join us in creating a brave new world. But our enemies saw Obama’s strategy of leadership through weakness as just plain weakness. And now it looks like our friends are abandoning us as well. . . for China.

Over the past year, we’ve seen a lot of hints about the erosion of American prestige among our friends. When the Honduras issue arose, “our friends” in South America didn’t turn to us to solve the crisis, they looked to Brazil. Our friends in South Africa have ignored our efforts to solve the man-made disaster (an appropriate use of the term) in Zimbabwe, and have actively embraced the creature that destroyed the country. Moreover, much of Africa now looks to China for leadership.

Turkey, long considered the most important Muslim country by America, turned away from us as well. They have become increasingly anti-American and anti-Israeli, and are actively looking for new friends in Iran, Syria and throughout the Middle East.

Europe spoke about a new era of cooperation with the United States and then promptly turned their back on us. Rather than embrace Obama’s new regime, they have increasingly looked to the influence of Putin’s Russia on the issue of energy and to China on the issue of economics.

India too seems to have laughed off American leadership. During the cold war, India was relatively neutral, with a slight bias toward the communists. When the cold war ended, India turned its attention to America and worked hard to become our friends. The high point of that relationship came near the end of the Bush administration, when Bush condoned India’s violation of the non-proliferation treaty. Under Obama, that relationship has all but collapsed into mockery.

Brazil, India, and South Africa are considered the most important democracies in the third world. They are the up and comers, the ones that many internationalists think will dominate the future. I don’t buy that, but it would be foolish to deny their significance.

And when Obama ran for office, he specifically mentioned these countries, among others, as candidates for what he saw as a “league of democracies,” a group of like-minded countries that could work together to make the world a better and more free place. Thus, it is quite a blow that these countries have turned away from American leadership. It is even more of a blow that they have chosen instead to look to totalitarian China for leadership.

There was a little-reported event at the Copenhagen summit that highlights exactly how much this relationship has changed. Get this. . .

When Obama arrived at Copenhagen, he tried to hold a meeting of 20 nations. But to his surprise, the Chinese sent vice foreign minister He Yafei instead of Premier Wen. This was an intentional snub.

In response, Obama demanded a private meeting with Wen and got it. But when he arranged a follow up meeting, they sent an even lower ranking envoy.

An upset Obama demanded another meeting with Wen, but was told that he was at the airport. At the same time, Obama tried to arrange a meeting with India, Brazil and South Africa. But. . . He was told that Indian Premier Manmohan Singh had already left Copenhagen. South African President Jacob Zuma at first agreed to the meeting, but then cancelled when he “learned” that India would not be there. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva refused to attend as well on the basis that India would not be there.

Eventually, the Chinese agreed to meet with Obama. Obama was told this would be a one-on-one meeting with Premier Wen. So imagine Obama’s surprise when he walked into the meeting and found a meeting already on-going. In attendance were China’s Wen, India’s Singh, South Africa’s Zuma, and Brazil’s Lula. There was no chair set out for Obama.

As White House aides scrambled to find Obama a chair, Obama apparently stated: “I’m going to sit by my friend Lula.” He then attended the rest of the meeting and “achieved” his non-agreement agreement, which he trumpeted as the agreement that saved the conference. . . a claim which official Chinese newspapers called “grandstanding” and which environmental groups call fraud.

There has been much debate outside of the MSM about what this event means. Team Obama has tried to downplay this as mere confusion and by claiming Obama didn’t crash the meeting because he was invited by the Chinese. But that’s all about saving face.

In reality, this is an ominous signal that these three “great democracies” no longer see American leadership as relevant. They now look to China for leadership. There simply is no other interpretation for these leaders lying to Obama about being in Copenhagen and then meeting secretly with China.

By the same token, the one thing most observers have missed is that the Chinese invite had to be intentional. So far, everyone who has discussed these events has attributed China’s inviting Obama either to confusion or to Obama crashing the meeting. But they’ve all missed the point. The reality, I’m afraid, is a bit more obvious -- China wanted Obama to arrive at this meeting and see them leading Obama’s “friends” by the nose. This was a set up to demonstrate China’s new influence to Obama in the most personal of ways.

While this is no doubt embarrassing to Obama, this should be of greater concern to all Americans. If we have lost our leadership role among the world’s democracies, then it’s going to be an ugly century. The Chinese way is mercantilism, not free trade; oppression, not freedom or human rights; and neocolonialism and client-states, not a world of colleagues.

This could get ugly.


[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...