What have Robert Mugabe and Richard Scudamore in common?
They are both prone to manipulate realities for personal gratification.
The outrageously racist coverage in the northern hemispheric media regarding the situation in Zimbabwe stands in marked contrast to a dissimilar lack of coverage for the grotesque corruption underpinning the world of English football.
Okay so, Mugabe has lost the plot and needs to stand aside. But let us not forget that the man was a liberation hero and let us also not forget the fact that Rhodesia was a vicious fascistic racist monstrosity - a fact conveniently forgotten both in the current mainstream media coverage as well as in the press focus around the time of independence in 1980. Modern day Mugabe merely represents your average "absolute power corrupts absolutely" template of political psychopathy - a bit like Dick Cheney or Silvio Berlusconi, only Black. The Zimbabwean president's manipulation of the electoral results is his attempt to establish a fake reality loosely based on that other fake reality known as democracy.
Richard Scudamore is also autocratic. He is omnipotent within the Premier League and, as such, he is directly responsible for everything which occurs on his watch. And that would necessarily include corruption.
Integrity is crossed out in crayon in the Scudamore family dictionary whereas profit is underlined several times together with an adjacent asterisk.
Football is not supposed to be a handicap sport. Unlike horseracing, where talented creatures are provided with equalising weights for the benefit of the bookmaking industry, football is supposed to be about level playing fields and fair play and meritocratic glory. Of course, it has never been that thing but, historically, it always, at least, had tentacles that reached back to a purer form of the game - a recreation. Recreation, the very name, to re-create - football was a celebration, a joyous freedom from the yoke of wage slavery.
Posh people possess neither soul nor culture. To offset this palpable vacuum of an existence, they establish fake cultures that are always based on one basic premise, namely, that the culture must be entirely opaque to all "lesser" beings - think Wagner, polo, amateur dramatics, croquet, hunting or whatever.
The original takeover of football was also simply posh people buying playthings. But, what Scudamore is presiding over is the complete demolition of football as a sport and the reconstruction of the Illusion of football as a gambling and media medium. This Illusion represents a fetishistic version of the game which bears no relation to the Reality of the original sport. Lets look at a few examples which demonstrate the conveyor belt of corruption which has produced this Illusion.
Steaua Bucureşti represent the oldskool. At the mid-season break, the army team trailed league leaders CFR Cluj by 10 points. This situation was anathema to controversial weirdo, Gigi Becali, the fundamentalist orthodox christian head-the-ball who corrupts both Romanian football and wider society. He made the Divizia A title race into a matter of god and nationalism - Cluj are soft western christians run by Transylvanian Hungarians, you see, and, consequently, they must not be allowed to win the league. These two factors provide the "just" foundation for gross corruption. Becali buys games. He buys referees, assistant referees, the opponents of CFR Cluj, the opponents of Steaua - all in the name of national and religious pride. Oh, and profit... The refereeing in favour of Steaua has been astonishing by its lack of any attempt to conceal the machinations being perpetrated in their favour. Just one example was the key Bucureşti derby versus Rapid (the team of the Roma community and the railway workers and, by some distance, the only one of the Big 3 who a person of sound mind might support). Steaua trailed 1-0 with time running out when the referee, Alexandru Deaconu, imitated Hugh Dallas' headbutting the queen incident, only with a cigarette lighter. The game was abandoned and Steaua were given a 3-0 win proving, once and for all, that god does indeed move in mysterious ways. The fact that Deaconu and his assistants were photographed secretly meeting in a petrol station three days prior to the derby obviously has absolutely no significance here!
Romanian Federation Director, Ionut Lupescu, stated: "We can't tolerate it anymore as refereeing has fallen under the control of a group of club owners and presidents - an efficient way to rig matches".
Can it be long before we get to see the image of Howard Webb and his assistants hanging around the car park at Knutsford Services waiting for the man? We don't think so - although it will probably be a golf clubhouse or a masonic hall, away from prying eyes...
Which brings us to the second type of corruption, the type that represents the complete breaking of the link between the Reality and the Illusion of football. For, although Steaua's title is flawed and invalid, it is simply the standard example of club institutional power. What we have in the Premiership is a very different beast.
Lets focus on those lovable rogues at Chelsea for this one.
We have a suggestion before we start. Branding being everything in football nowadays, the Chelsea brand is dated in many inappropriate ways by the nickname, The Pensioners. The other option, The Blues, similarly shows a typical prawn-sandwich-munching lack of ingenuity. In deference to post-match events at the weekend, we would like to suggest "The Fucking Immigrants" - this is meant, of course, as a reclamation of an abusive term in the same way that it is cool to use nigger, paddy or queer when appropriate.
Anyway, The Fucking Immigrants are the Illusion. Not content with the buying of Premiership matches à la Steaua, Chelsea are also working very closely alongside the Premier League, the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) and Sky Television to achieve this Illusion.
The media, the advertisers but, far more influentially, the bookmakers and the Premier League all required one thing - the creation of a Premiership conclusion that is fundamentally spectaclist. More people buy the papers as the cliffhanger develops, more beer is drunk as conversations focus on the fake excitement, more people watch the games on tv giving joy to the odious and invalid world of advertising, more bums sit on Oven Chip Stadium seats, more global territories buy the visuals of the manipulated encore of a conclusion, more fortunes are made by bookmakers and their accomplices via the rigging of match outcomes. What could be finer?
It is not only match outcomes that are fixed. The Premier League and Sky have fine tuned the fixture list manipulations to maximise the possibility of the farce going down to the very last game, the very last injury time minute of the very last game if feasible. Or, perhaps, if United and The Fucking Immigrants are only separated by goal difference, we could have a global series of head-to-heads to determine the "actual" winners of the Illusion 2007/08. Why hasn't Scudie come up with that one yet?
Towards the conclusion of any competition where integrity has not yet turned her head and ran, the issue of fair play and equality of opportunity is everything. The coincidence of kick off times for the last rounds of games is seen as the basic condition of late season fairness around Europe - in the relatively uncorrupt Bundesliga, the last two rounds of games are concurrent while in Serie A, which is slightly more dodgy, the last four rounds all start at the same time. In the English Premiership, by some distance the MOST corrupt of these three territories, only the last round of matches are concurrent. And, even then, advantage through kick off delay is the norm.
The final league table which results from this criminality is the conclusion to this Illusion. And it is false, doubly falsified by further falsification of an earlier fallacy.
The Premiership is not the only English league to demonstrate this imbalance as the decision to allow West Bromwich Albion and Southampton, the latter the most powerful of the relegation threatened teams, to play last Monday night when all the other results were known clearly demonstrates.
Of course, the Scottish Premier League simply extends the season to reach a suitable accommodation of the Illusion. It is worthy of note, here, that FC United of Manchester had to play their last 11 games in a 26 day period and still finished runners up in the UniBond 1st Division North although this, of course, ignores the fact that the SPL and Rangers don't do second.
Another example of postmodernist reality is provided by Portsmouth who, on top of all other illegality and criminality, have been allowed to reach Wembley for the season's culinary finale. The FA are clearly in a love triangle with the Premier League and Pompey as the south coast outfit have been buying matches for internal gambles throughout the season in both league and cup. The rewards for such criminalised machinations and the atmospheric calm-before-the-storm of Redknapp's legal travails is not only an FA Cup Final place but also a listing for Fratton Park on the roster of venues for the Über-Illusion of the 2018 World Cup bid.
How many more spectacular images of a consumerist society are to be laid at the doors of Gaydamak and Redknapp?
Our final port of call, on this voyage around footballing antisocials, is Eastlands. We posted on Sunday that Thaksin had spat out his dummy due to his prime ministerial proxy exhibiting freedom of association. A cat had to be kicked and that feline was Swedish Forest Cat, Sven Goran Eriksson. I am grateful to the citeh-citeh blog (www.citeh-citeh.blogspot.com) for pointing out to us that: "Not content with his photo on the front cover of the Fulham matchday programme, Thaksin then ordered his editors to insert a further six photos in not one, but two self-flattering articles. If this wasn't enough, he then took to the field before and after the game".
Then he lost the plot Bangkok style and sacked his one real competitive advantage. Who else is going to go to the City of Manchester under the latter day Far East version of Mussolini?
Noel Gallagher sums it right regarding Shinawatra: "He seems like a bit of a nutcase". And if Noel met Sven: "I'd give him a big kiss and tell him 'you know what, take him to the cleaners'".
Still, can't wait for the Champions League Final between Manchester's München Memories Brand and either The Fucking Immigrants (would they become The Fucking Emigrants for the Final?) or The Fucking Scousers (joke). Whichever "English" teams participate in the Champions League Final, the match will undoubtedly be ruined by the impact of Power and Illusion. There is a solution.
UEFA should select an upwardly mobile and talented young referee and three assistants from a random country and secrete them away for three weeks until the day of the event. As the teams line up on the pitch, the match officials will enter via helicopter. At half time, a platoon of Ghurkas will accompany the officials to and from the changing rooms. Additionally, all key match decisions will be determined utilising video replays. Lets see Roman or Tom buy that one!
Feuerbach: "But for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, appearance to essence... truth is considered profane, and only illusion is sacred. Sacredness is in fact held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness".
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Sunday, 27 April 2008
Arsenal To Secure Premiership On Mega Monday.
The Premiership title will be heading down to The Emirates if Wenger's team can defeat already relegated Derby in Setanta's Monday night mismatch.
Three points clear of Manchester United with a game in hand and only two more matches remaining, one of which is an "internally controlled but systemically neutral" event in the Gunners favour, Wenger's team deserve their triumph after a season of Total Football showed the benefits of remaining a team of integrity in a very murky Premier League World.
Parallel realities, multiple equilibria, phases of the image, quantum states, multiverses - when different levels of "existence" are the focus, choice of reality is not always an option. Just as the dichotomous heroine in Marge Piercy's "Woman On The Edge Of Time" oscillates between the 'illusory' inner world and the harsh 'reality' of a neoreality, we are able to do the equivalent when we choose to view the Hyperreality of the English Premiership.
Over the last few weeks, there has been a concerted effort by the Powers-That-Be to ensure that the Premiership Illusion has The Perfect Climax. Everything must go down to the wire. The title, fifth place, relegation - "Who holds all the aces? Its time for Chelsea to gamble" screamed the Sky mosiac before the Farce Football at Stamford Bridge yesterday. We initially misjudged the degree to which the Powers-That-Be were willing to go to ensure a fabricated and illusory white knuckle rollercoaster ride to a reality. If the season had ground to a halt tomorrow night at Pride Park, there would have been a negatively charged Treble Whammy awaiting the Powers-That-Be.
Firstly, the Premiership title would have been deservedly won by one of the few leading English teams not internally corrupted by association with the global betting markets. Secondly, the turnover on betting would have plummeted as ever in late season non-events whereas the bookies have now built themselves a bonanza. Which is just as well really as betting turnover will also be thin on the ground for the British and Gibraltar firms due to the Engerlandless Euro 2008 - the third part of the whammy.
It is a matter of some annoyance to the layers that the xenophobia which serves their interests so well when they exert a negative impact on England international games, turns against their interests when, as a result of such deliberate underperformances, the Three Lions fail to qualify for the Finals. Nationalists don't bet on Switzerland versus Turkey.
So lets get this in some perspective. The bookmakers, not content with destroying the dreams of the supporters of the national team, then have the temerity to destroy the Reality, or what limited amount of Reality still remained, of the Premiership. They developed both these "strategies" to maximise their profits. Being collectively buffoonish, they fucked up big style on the first play when they rubbed up against Roman's fat wallet but the second hand is turning out rather more to their liking. The table is winning, as Sky would no doubt say.
Of course, in the meantime, the British bookmakers have also entirely demolished the efficacy of a great sport.
Apart from taking on the position of an interested observer, looking for traces of The Perfect Crime, what is the point in taking any of these nonsenses seriously? There is no campaign. There is nothing to save. To try and decelerate the process will merely create the momentum for further corrupt machinations.
The English game, at its highest levels, is lost.
The Reality looks much more interesting, however! How should our title and relegation issues really appear this Sunday morning? Check it out...
TOP
1. Arsenal 35-82
2. Man Utd 36-79
3. Liverpool 36-64
4. Chelsea 36-63
--------------------
5. Everton 35-61
BOTTOM
17. Reading 36-36
--------------------
18. Bolton 36-35
19. Birmingham 36-34
20. Derby 35- 9
Why does Reality matter if the Hyped-Up-Hyperreality provides spectacle? Chelsea versus Manchester United was certainly a spectacle. It held the attention. Presumably hangings and guillotinings used to be similarly marketed - "Come And See A Travesty Of Justice" - but we would always opt for integrity and justice rather than a scammed up societal spectacular. It might have flashing lights and knobs on but it ain't Reality. It ain't footie. In fact, its nearer the FTSE than to footie...
So, having robbed our game from us while we were otherwise engaged coming to terms with the ravages of a free market economy, the culmination of a decade and a half of antisocial behaviour by the Powers-That-Be have provided us with a title race where the Real Winner is not even in the frame. Not at the races. Arsenal will lose players as well as the title because of this massive corruption.
The Hyperreality is self-sustaining in its Psychopathy.
If Fulham stay up, Roy Hodgson should be made Manager of the Year. Fulham should be 11 points clear of Bolton, challenging for a Top Ten finish but, most importantly, safe. Instead, they MUST win their last two games just to have a chance of survival. Certainty or 7% probability - thats the cost of the Diana Inquest in the Hyperreality.
Chelsea are the equivalent of Everton if one removes the impacts of corruption from the game. 18 points. Thats how many extra points the Russian/Israeli outfit have been provided courtesy of the PGMOB match officials in the current season. The Hyperreality offers Chelsea the Illusory Possibility of The Title rather than the Certain Reality of a battle for the fourth Champions League spot.
As the Fundamental Lunacy of Belief precludes any response other than Cynical Realism, the Hyperreal state of football makes up for its Reality Deficit on the pitch by providing us with Illusory spectacles off it. In cumulation, these neorealities offer us a shadow of what the sport used to be. Still, it keeps us amused...
This week, it came to our attention that:
* Berlusconi does want Milan to play provincial teams anymore. The head of the Caste announced this just days after declaring that he was stepping down from his post of Godfather of AC Milan to concentrate, once again, on ruining the country instead. This G14(18)-esque illusory dissolution manoeuvre is becoming a more popular strategem in the Illusion.
* The Financial Times stated that Mike Ashley's Sports Direct have shown an "unwillingness to follow normal corporate governance practices" which makes him the ideal person to run a Premiership football team on behalf of the bookmakers then. The FT did not state whether this "unwillingness" was a good thing or a bad thing - a difficult call for a shareholder capitalist media organ.
* His Excellency The Last King Of Thailand had a very bad week. Firstly, his supposed proxy, Samak Sundaravej, sacked the national police chief, Sereepisut Taemeeyaves, for alleged corruption. This is not a good thing for Shinawatra as his main power base is the police and, furthermore, Mr Samak is cosying up to the military who overthrew God when he was last in power. This, obviously, has all the hallmarks of a power struggle which ain't a great position to be with a couple of legal matters hanging around. The Little Dictator took out his frustrations on Sven as "The Champions League You're Having A Laugh" City gave Fulham their first consecutive away wins since Gladstone was in power.
* Elsewhere, Rio "Pini" Ferdinand kicked a female steward; Drogba and Ballack played out the Chelsea Black v white chasm on the pitch in front of a billion delusionals; the self same Ballack was booked for revealing his shirt to show a message "Pat Lampard RIP" as the Illusion demands that moments of ecstasy must promote shirt sponsors rather than societal emotions; gangland activity erupted on the pitch post-match as some Chelsea muppets got a battering from some United players; David Sullivan turned up for his teams home match with Liverpool still wearing sado-masochistic gear; the Scottish Premier League have insisted the the league season will continue for as long as it takes for Rangers to be ahead after they have played the same number of games as Celtic.
Amartya Sen, an idiot economist, once stated: "Famines do not happen in democracies". Leaving aside the point that there is no such thing as a democracy, the Imperialist New World Order manages to ghettoise, and hence make invisible, the famine at home while busily exporting the remainder of the famine inherent in the capitalist system far and wide to The Poor.
When there are currently food riots in virtually all of the forty poorest Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), and when such riots are even hitting the likes of Egypt and Mexico, to take even the remotest interest in the Hyperreality of the Premiership might seem somewhat Misdirected Action rather than Direct Action. Not so.
An identical psychopathic template perfectly fits all hyperrealities - Fixed Football = Food Famine.
Just because the First World insists on driving cars, the whole planet now exists within the first of a whole chain of Neoreal Bubbles that will be seen to represent our systemic future. The Illusion of Davos has effectively declared, by allowing food crops to be replaced by biofuel ones, that The Vehicle is mightier than The Poor. Of course, The Poor should not have expected any different as they have been disposable slave labour with a built-in obsolescence since it was decreed that we should all live in a lawless environment governed by capital.
The Hyperreality ignores the Reality.
Barclays Spaces For Sport sponsors all weather football pitches in South Africa while Barclays ZW exploit the most exploited in Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya, Botswana, Ghana and Zambia. But strangely enough, not South Africa where they were formerly so closely linked to the apartheid government.
Still. A nice touch - "we understand that we financially enabled a vicious racist autocracy on behalf of the British government for many years, but have a five-a-side pitch and a BBC Match Of The Day photo opportunity in return".
Forget History! Brand the Hyperreality instead!
"Everybody wants clarity. We haven't got it" - Alan Hansen.
Everybody wants Reality. We haven't got it.
Watergate, Enron, Calciopoli, the Hoyzer Affair, the Bungs Inquiry, the Mandaric money laundering trial - these are not scandals.
These are the norm.
There is no Bad Apple Template.
The shareholder capitalist system is the Bad Apple.
The system in its entirety is a scandal.
And, within this system, the English Premiership is a scandalous Hyperreality.
Don't buy it. It only encourages them.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Three points clear of Manchester United with a game in hand and only two more matches remaining, one of which is an "internally controlled but systemically neutral" event in the Gunners favour, Wenger's team deserve their triumph after a season of Total Football showed the benefits of remaining a team of integrity in a very murky Premier League World.
Parallel realities, multiple equilibria, phases of the image, quantum states, multiverses - when different levels of "existence" are the focus, choice of reality is not always an option. Just as the dichotomous heroine in Marge Piercy's "Woman On The Edge Of Time" oscillates between the 'illusory' inner world and the harsh 'reality' of a neoreality, we are able to do the equivalent when we choose to view the Hyperreality of the English Premiership.
Over the last few weeks, there has been a concerted effort by the Powers-That-Be to ensure that the Premiership Illusion has The Perfect Climax. Everything must go down to the wire. The title, fifth place, relegation - "Who holds all the aces? Its time for Chelsea to gamble" screamed the Sky mosiac before the Farce Football at Stamford Bridge yesterday. We initially misjudged the degree to which the Powers-That-Be were willing to go to ensure a fabricated and illusory white knuckle rollercoaster ride to a reality. If the season had ground to a halt tomorrow night at Pride Park, there would have been a negatively charged Treble Whammy awaiting the Powers-That-Be.
Firstly, the Premiership title would have been deservedly won by one of the few leading English teams not internally corrupted by association with the global betting markets. Secondly, the turnover on betting would have plummeted as ever in late season non-events whereas the bookies have now built themselves a bonanza. Which is just as well really as betting turnover will also be thin on the ground for the British and Gibraltar firms due to the Engerlandless Euro 2008 - the third part of the whammy.
It is a matter of some annoyance to the layers that the xenophobia which serves their interests so well when they exert a negative impact on England international games, turns against their interests when, as a result of such deliberate underperformances, the Three Lions fail to qualify for the Finals. Nationalists don't bet on Switzerland versus Turkey.
So lets get this in some perspective. The bookmakers, not content with destroying the dreams of the supporters of the national team, then have the temerity to destroy the Reality, or what limited amount of Reality still remained, of the Premiership. They developed both these "strategies" to maximise their profits. Being collectively buffoonish, they fucked up big style on the first play when they rubbed up against Roman's fat wallet but the second hand is turning out rather more to their liking. The table is winning, as Sky would no doubt say.
Of course, in the meantime, the British bookmakers have also entirely demolished the efficacy of a great sport.
Apart from taking on the position of an interested observer, looking for traces of The Perfect Crime, what is the point in taking any of these nonsenses seriously? There is no campaign. There is nothing to save. To try and decelerate the process will merely create the momentum for further corrupt machinations.
The English game, at its highest levels, is lost.
The Reality looks much more interesting, however! How should our title and relegation issues really appear this Sunday morning? Check it out...
TOP
1. Arsenal 35-82
2. Man Utd 36-79
3. Liverpool 36-64
4. Chelsea 36-63
--------------------
5. Everton 35-61
BOTTOM
17. Reading 36-36
--------------------
18. Bolton 36-35
19. Birmingham 36-34
20. Derby 35- 9
Why does Reality matter if the Hyped-Up-Hyperreality provides spectacle? Chelsea versus Manchester United was certainly a spectacle. It held the attention. Presumably hangings and guillotinings used to be similarly marketed - "Come And See A Travesty Of Justice" - but we would always opt for integrity and justice rather than a scammed up societal spectacular. It might have flashing lights and knobs on but it ain't Reality. It ain't footie. In fact, its nearer the FTSE than to footie...
So, having robbed our game from us while we were otherwise engaged coming to terms with the ravages of a free market economy, the culmination of a decade and a half of antisocial behaviour by the Powers-That-Be have provided us with a title race where the Real Winner is not even in the frame. Not at the races. Arsenal will lose players as well as the title because of this massive corruption.
The Hyperreality is self-sustaining in its Psychopathy.
If Fulham stay up, Roy Hodgson should be made Manager of the Year. Fulham should be 11 points clear of Bolton, challenging for a Top Ten finish but, most importantly, safe. Instead, they MUST win their last two games just to have a chance of survival. Certainty or 7% probability - thats the cost of the Diana Inquest in the Hyperreality.
Chelsea are the equivalent of Everton if one removes the impacts of corruption from the game. 18 points. Thats how many extra points the Russian/Israeli outfit have been provided courtesy of the PGMOB match officials in the current season. The Hyperreality offers Chelsea the Illusory Possibility of The Title rather than the Certain Reality of a battle for the fourth Champions League spot.
As the Fundamental Lunacy of Belief precludes any response other than Cynical Realism, the Hyperreal state of football makes up for its Reality Deficit on the pitch by providing us with Illusory spectacles off it. In cumulation, these neorealities offer us a shadow of what the sport used to be. Still, it keeps us amused...
This week, it came to our attention that:
* Berlusconi does want Milan to play provincial teams anymore. The head of the Caste announced this just days after declaring that he was stepping down from his post of Godfather of AC Milan to concentrate, once again, on ruining the country instead. This G14(18)-esque illusory dissolution manoeuvre is becoming a more popular strategem in the Illusion.
* The Financial Times stated that Mike Ashley's Sports Direct have shown an "unwillingness to follow normal corporate governance practices" which makes him the ideal person to run a Premiership football team on behalf of the bookmakers then. The FT did not state whether this "unwillingness" was a good thing or a bad thing - a difficult call for a shareholder capitalist media organ.
* His Excellency The Last King Of Thailand had a very bad week. Firstly, his supposed proxy, Samak Sundaravej, sacked the national police chief, Sereepisut Taemeeyaves, for alleged corruption. This is not a good thing for Shinawatra as his main power base is the police and, furthermore, Mr Samak is cosying up to the military who overthrew God when he was last in power. This, obviously, has all the hallmarks of a power struggle which ain't a great position to be with a couple of legal matters hanging around. The Little Dictator took out his frustrations on Sven as "The Champions League You're Having A Laugh" City gave Fulham their first consecutive away wins since Gladstone was in power.
* Elsewhere, Rio "Pini" Ferdinand kicked a female steward; Drogba and Ballack played out the Chelsea Black v white chasm on the pitch in front of a billion delusionals; the self same Ballack was booked for revealing his shirt to show a message "Pat Lampard RIP" as the Illusion demands that moments of ecstasy must promote shirt sponsors rather than societal emotions; gangland activity erupted on the pitch post-match as some Chelsea muppets got a battering from some United players; David Sullivan turned up for his teams home match with Liverpool still wearing sado-masochistic gear; the Scottish Premier League have insisted the the league season will continue for as long as it takes for Rangers to be ahead after they have played the same number of games as Celtic.
Amartya Sen, an idiot economist, once stated: "Famines do not happen in democracies". Leaving aside the point that there is no such thing as a democracy, the Imperialist New World Order manages to ghettoise, and hence make invisible, the famine at home while busily exporting the remainder of the famine inherent in the capitalist system far and wide to The Poor.
When there are currently food riots in virtually all of the forty poorest Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs), and when such riots are even hitting the likes of Egypt and Mexico, to take even the remotest interest in the Hyperreality of the Premiership might seem somewhat Misdirected Action rather than Direct Action. Not so.
An identical psychopathic template perfectly fits all hyperrealities - Fixed Football = Food Famine.
Just because the First World insists on driving cars, the whole planet now exists within the first of a whole chain of Neoreal Bubbles that will be seen to represent our systemic future. The Illusion of Davos has effectively declared, by allowing food crops to be replaced by biofuel ones, that The Vehicle is mightier than The Poor. Of course, The Poor should not have expected any different as they have been disposable slave labour with a built-in obsolescence since it was decreed that we should all live in a lawless environment governed by capital.
The Hyperreality ignores the Reality.
Barclays Spaces For Sport sponsors all weather football pitches in South Africa while Barclays ZW exploit the most exploited in Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya, Botswana, Ghana and Zambia. But strangely enough, not South Africa where they were formerly so closely linked to the apartheid government.
Still. A nice touch - "we understand that we financially enabled a vicious racist autocracy on behalf of the British government for many years, but have a five-a-side pitch and a BBC Match Of The Day photo opportunity in return".
Forget History! Brand the Hyperreality instead!
"Everybody wants clarity. We haven't got it" - Alan Hansen.
Everybody wants Reality. We haven't got it.
Watergate, Enron, Calciopoli, the Hoyzer Affair, the Bungs Inquiry, the Mandaric money laundering trial - these are not scandals.
These are the norm.
There is no Bad Apple Template.
The shareholder capitalist system is the Bad Apple.
The system in its entirety is a scandal.
And, within this system, the English Premiership is a scandalous Hyperreality.
Don't buy it. It only encourages them.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Cellular Nomads In A Web, Hacking Away
"Invention is always born of dissension" - Jean-François Lyotard.
Innovation and creativity are everything to Dietrological. You might expect us to live in lateral-thinking-territory with respect to our analyses of the financial markets but our experimentation also leads us to develop unusual business structures and enhanced business models. Our lifestyles are a bit of a grin too.
We reckon that 50% of our level of performance is dependent on these fuzzier inputs. Listen up.
The Dietrological team were doing tri-centre existence when others were outsourcing. Our Edge.
We progressed onto bi-centrality with a virtual and nomadic tertiary office allowing us to trade from the Carpathian mountains in Romania via a mobile and a laptop, for example, when others were going mental about Blackberry's. Our Edge.
Dietrological now link both to one another and to our colleagues globally via an intricate Cell And Web infrastructure which enhances all of our operations while others are selecting an intranet as their informational security barrier of choice. Our Edge.
Continuous Experimentation and Life Hacking are core competencies within Dietrological as innovation and efficiencies are highly prized while the competition prefer continuity - more of the same please, no new challenges. Our Edge.
We are proactive and embrace change. Others react and plagiarise. Our Edge.
We are Open Source within the limits imposed by our Isolationism whereas our competitors are fearful and paranoid in their jealous control of their patch of corruption. Our Edge.
We are Holistic. Our competitors are not focused on the Reality. Our Edge.
Most Management Theory is bobbins. And then there is Peter Drucker. Forget the rest, just read a bit of Drucker, plug in your common sense, chill and create for yourself and/or your company a more rational, efficient, optimised and innovative work/life balance.
All such real time infrastructural enhancements to one's realities are, of course, dependent on the state of technological advancement and such atmospheric analysis ensures that all scenarios are projected realistically when consideration is being given to the Management of New Change.
There are Good Things and there are Bad Things, and some of the Bad Things can be made into Good Things. I'm far too busy to think of an entertaining angle on this so here's a list of how we choose to surround ourselves with some Good Things while having a Good Time.
* Living and working in, at least, two different locations with vastly different cultures. Continually readdress geographical preferences and proactively move. Preferably, independent travel arrangements should exist between the centres.
* Take all aspects of isolationism and selected invisibility seriously. For example, always rent property (in somebody else's name) or purchase outright for cash. Leave as few traces as possible.
* Await technological "advancements". For instance, mobiles are currently virtually useless - give us a mobile that provides broadband internet access at the peak of Helvellyn and we might be interested.
* Micromanagement of daily, weekly and monthly work structures enables innovative and creative juxtapositions and coincidences between various different aspects of the work/life balance.
* Dovetailing of activities to produce exotic dishes - imaginative brain cooking.
* Experimentation on both the foundations of the business project and on oneself. Two examples: We constantly reengineer processes and adjust strategies to maintain our competitive advantage both generally and specifically. We are currently working with some Neurologists at MIT to utilise fMRI to monitor neural activity during different aspects of the trading process.
* Face-to-face meetings are totally inefficient and should form the exception rather than the rule. We use pagers primarily, email secondarily and phone as rarely as possible. Effective liaison across territories and time zones is paramount.
* Avoid consumerist trends and hysterias - hysterical behaviour being only rarely acceptable - the mad stampede towards the Virtual Office being just one such example which we will look at further below when we attempt to address the societal impacts of the New Slavery.
* Approach all potential external contracts on a 50/50 basis prior to any tilting relevant to input. No hierarchy internally - everybody earns equally with respect to input. All input is valuable. All decisions to be unanimous otherwise individual members of our team may take on proprietary projects themselves away from the Dietrological entity. We never aim to gain an edge on the financial aspects of a negotiation but we never accept less than our fair share.
* We are very, very, very fussy who we choose to work alongside. Grow imaginatively and organically. You do not need anybody else's cash - never relinquish your shared internal control. Short-term fast growth isn't sustainable and most certainly isn't strategic.
* Meditation/Retreats. Most of our Traders use Qi Gong or Tai Chi for, at least, a part of the trading window. We all also utilise self-imposed periods of retreat where we locate in the middle of the outbacks of Kerkyra or elsewhere, individually or collectively, to undertake 24/7 brainstorming on major infrastructural issues. The culture and the environment are catalysts for enhanced visualisation, lateral thinking and the targeting of just reward without deferred gratification.
* Trust is everything. I implicitly trust the three other people in my Team. It is critical to develop cooperative rules of engagement prior to the project beginning and the business structure produces a major dynamic towards each of us possessing a self-motivated and conscientious approach.
* Have an end goal. Have an exit route from individual sub-projects. Have a life plan.
* Be self-sufficient. Don't trust your financial, health or any other aspect of your future to anyone else whatsoever. No stocks, no shares, no bonds, no insurance, no pensions, no nuffin. There is no other way under the yoke of psychopathic capitalism.
* Downsize, energise, improvise. Target niche superiority.
* We do not need to expand to be successful. Growth is an option not a command. Indeed, we will be deliberately reducing growth in one of our business areas over the summer when the Dietrological Football Information Provision Service is repriced and remarketed as a Service for leisure punters rather than industry professionals. We will lose money through this process of self-induced negative growth. It is our belief, however, that this new profile will dovetail more suitably with other areas of our operation. Choose the Informal Economy and not globalisation.
* Spend as little of your life as is humanly possible in contact with the body-neurotic that is the world of venture capitalists, business angels, lawyers, accountants, consultants, bankers, government, civil servants, brokers, market makers, public relations androids and all middle people and analysts.
* All of our office space is highly functional. No meeting space - we meet imaginatively. Each space is a fully equipped trading room with spidered access to the pricing systems relevant to our businesses and access to the visual images of the corruption being perpetrated. These are our invisible CCTV systems against the Spectacular Simulacrum - a sousveillance system seeking traces of evidence of the Perfect Crime.
* Undertake external consultancies, albeit selectively. Only 7% of the negotiations commenced by members of our Trading Team result in contracted projects. We terminate over 90% of these discarded ideas ourselves. Be able to step into different worlds and coolly assess the environment. Be equally able to step out again. Psychological profiling must form a part of a watertight negotiation agenda. Play with their psychologies. What are they feeling? Do they possess the capacity to be able to feel?
* Minimise tax - as minimal taxation must surely go with minimal representation. Maximise bottom-up philanthropy and donations.
* Continual investment of time in Life Hacking agendas. Continually improve efficiency, performativity, operativity and processes to enhance the competitive advantage.
We could go on and on with our pithy and, probably, largely irrelevant homespun philosophy (we have hundreds of irritating little truisms like those outlined above) but we'll move onto two aspects of the modern work environment that are worthy of particular attention. The obsession with IT and the societal impacts of the economic system now known as the Imperial New World Order.
Sloterdijk: "Deprived of destiny, the modern individual replaces it by a fateful experimentation on himself".
In both the spheres of IT and wider society, this has become disturbingly true. Undoubtedly, IT offers some valuable tools - the internet is a major communications breakpoint, well designed databases are able to limit tedious processing work, for example - but it has reached the point, in most areas of knowledge, where these machines are being utilised as a replacement for the thinking process - "indulging more in the spectacle of thought than in thought itself" as Baudrillard opined. We have built our Unified Trading Model virtually entirely without the use of sophisticated computer software, some Neural Net stuff aside. This was a deliberate strategy when the project began in 1992 - the guesstimation was made that a more holistic big picture overview of the macro and micro worlds would be achieved with a more hands on approach. Use the pen and calculator as your prime tools just as our ancestors, and my Greek neighbours, use(d) the scythe and the seasons.
Baudrillard: "Leaving intelligence to machines is, in the end, relinquishing the responsibility of knowing, just as leaving it to politicians to govern us relieves us of the responsibility of power".
IT has two other major flaws. Firstly, the use of computers "modifies the types of phenomena susceptible to being processed" to the inevitable detriment of our species and the rest of the planet. Knowledge is "advanced" only in cul-de-sac's that fit into the IT "map of development". Evidently, this produces a vast area of knowledge that is peripheralised and unfunded as it bears no fruit for the performativity of the IT based economic system. Secondly, the computer redefines the natural, the Real, in the same manner that Illusory society eradicates the Real, while offering us the pretence that it is, in fact, that self same Real. Digitally remastered or the original analogue recording? Drum machine or a drum kit? Virtual Reality or The Reality? Holographic form or three-dimensional Reality? Additionally, pattern recognition software, used so extensively in the field of financial market analysis, fails utterly and completely in its attempt to link cause and effect - witness the ongoing subprime scandal and credit squeeze as all taxpayers shell out for the lack of regulatory oversight of the quantitative analytical ruses perpetrated by these allegedly whizz kid programmers. Neural Nets or Market Memory? Code or Intuition? Hindsight Analysis or Scenario Analyses?
Baudrillard: "The secret weapon of the human is the weapon of intuition, emotion, the strategem, playing a 'double game'".
More information does not necessarily lead to better decisions.
Something else does.
Creativity is more than mashing-up snippets.
The New Work Environment of the Imperial New World Order is not so new really. A battery farm office space under strip lights and a false ceiling is not life in the same way as most post-Industrial Revolution work realities are not life. These lives possess a frivilous and futile circularity - you are helping to build something-of-no-consequence economically while, concurrently, being rewarded by being able to purchase consumerist images of no consequence in return for your endeavours. We initially needed masters and overlords to impose discipline and "order" in this farcical and fractal system. No longer. "People feel inadequate compared with the enormous opportunities they have" according to James Katz of Rutgers University. Worse, these "opportunities" are Illusory, at least taken on a probabilistic basis. It is statistically highly unlikely that you will be the next David Beckham, for instance. The Industrial Revolution (sic) was built on enslavement and fear while modern day shareholder capitalism is based on a self-induced micro-enslavement within a societally disguised macro one. Enslavement and fear again. We fear our competitors, we fear poverty. We compete to our detriment, we burnout. Baudy says: "What becomes of a master without a slave? He ends up terrorising himself. And of a slave without a master? He ends up exploiting himself". This voluntary servitude is hidden behind an array of spectacular society masks.
Initially, the masters couldn't trust us so we were required to be tied to the land or enslaved in the workhouses of the Industrial Revolution. Fast forward to the cubicle in the call centre and monitoring is still a fact of life in a hierarchical and abusive non-unionised environment. The Virtual Office is a different entity altogether. Neoconservatives could only advance their strategy to this new level once they were convinced that the Pavlovian masses would behave accordingly when an illusory aspect of freedom was introduced to the Illusion. Having already overseen the destruction of society, as Thatcher proudly boasted (can't be that long now, surely), the neocons are now enabling the destruction of the workplace. Workers may now be trusted to self-motivate, self-manage and become self-sufficient. Workers are able to delude themselves that these "advancements" represent new freedoms when they evidently merely represent reconstructed chains. And, as we are all more than aware, you don't feel the chains until you try to move.
With the quantumisation of society into niches of ever smaller magnitude - community, single interest groups, extended family, family, partner/children, self - we are being moulded into perfectly efficient economic units, whether as "creative" producers or "programmed" consumers. Or both. James Katz bemoans the disappearance of the village blacksmith from the community - the disappearance of an informal economy serving a societal need, run from within one's own living space and within the community that one is sharing. This life still exists in Kerkyra and stands in marked contrast to the pseudoreality of the Illusion in the UKKK (a derivative joke, I know, but one that needed to be made anyway).
To counteract this atomisation of the individual - we would go further and call it the particlisation of the individual into her/his fundamental state - we are being provided with an array of Third Places. Neither home, nor office, these locations are the Illusion's answer to the disappearance of community life. You troop into Starbucks, order some liquid amphetamine, sit somewhere suitably individualised to mould into the form of your body and your life, energise the laptop or the Blackberry, pretend to be doing something of vital importance which might suggest to the other "villagers" that you are a person of some consequence. You provide some extra layers of illusion to the Illusion. This Illusion is not Virtual in its impact, however. In East Africa, nothing less than the rights to starvation are dependent, effectively, on the whims of a nonsense. This abusive structure which forces the coffee growers to accept un-premium but unitary agreements based on fear, also enables an illusory market entity to market an illusory product to an illusory grouping at the core of the Illusion. Voila!
Of course, the unwritten rule in such Third Places is that, under no circumstance, must one enter into a discussion with anybody else from outside your Ideal Clique unless it is to be served with more black amphetamine 50-percented with a milk that represents the basic food source of now-dead-calves. The new village life with just shadows of a reflection to an older Reality where the cows and calves would be in the field next to the blacksmith's workroom instead of being factory farmed out of any existence whatsoever. Sound familiar?
Talking of Third Places and the Virtual Office, Katz writes: "These places are physically inhabited but psychologically evacuated". You undertake more and more networking in parallel with a grouping of individuals remarkably similar to yourself. Such imbreeding of thought and human interactions can only produce backwards intellectual offerings and offspring.
They have destroyed community, society, the interactiviveness of our species. They have broken our links with nature and the environment - we no longer have any idea of how to remember who we really are. We live in an Illusory Simulacrum which offers no wormhole back to Reality. Having destroyed Reality, the Illusion must respond by creating a new fake pseudoreality, a new hyperreality, in an attempt to obscure the fact that a Perfect Crime has been perpetrated. Virtual World, Virtual Reality, the Virtual Firm, the Virtual Office... Why Virtual and not Real? Why Second Life when the First Life is more than adequate?
Unless, of course, First Life has been Illusioned out of Existence?
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Innovation and creativity are everything to Dietrological. You might expect us to live in lateral-thinking-territory with respect to our analyses of the financial markets but our experimentation also leads us to develop unusual business structures and enhanced business models. Our lifestyles are a bit of a grin too.
We reckon that 50% of our level of performance is dependent on these fuzzier inputs. Listen up.
The Dietrological team were doing tri-centre existence when others were outsourcing. Our Edge.
We progressed onto bi-centrality with a virtual and nomadic tertiary office allowing us to trade from the Carpathian mountains in Romania via a mobile and a laptop, for example, when others were going mental about Blackberry's. Our Edge.
Dietrological now link both to one another and to our colleagues globally via an intricate Cell And Web infrastructure which enhances all of our operations while others are selecting an intranet as their informational security barrier of choice. Our Edge.
Continuous Experimentation and Life Hacking are core competencies within Dietrological as innovation and efficiencies are highly prized while the competition prefer continuity - more of the same please, no new challenges. Our Edge.
We are proactive and embrace change. Others react and plagiarise. Our Edge.
We are Open Source within the limits imposed by our Isolationism whereas our competitors are fearful and paranoid in their jealous control of their patch of corruption. Our Edge.
We are Holistic. Our competitors are not focused on the Reality. Our Edge.
Most Management Theory is bobbins. And then there is Peter Drucker. Forget the rest, just read a bit of Drucker, plug in your common sense, chill and create for yourself and/or your company a more rational, efficient, optimised and innovative work/life balance.
All such real time infrastructural enhancements to one's realities are, of course, dependent on the state of technological advancement and such atmospheric analysis ensures that all scenarios are projected realistically when consideration is being given to the Management of New Change.
There are Good Things and there are Bad Things, and some of the Bad Things can be made into Good Things. I'm far too busy to think of an entertaining angle on this so here's a list of how we choose to surround ourselves with some Good Things while having a Good Time.
* Living and working in, at least, two different locations with vastly different cultures. Continually readdress geographical preferences and proactively move. Preferably, independent travel arrangements should exist between the centres.
* Take all aspects of isolationism and selected invisibility seriously. For example, always rent property (in somebody else's name) or purchase outright for cash. Leave as few traces as possible.
* Await technological "advancements". For instance, mobiles are currently virtually useless - give us a mobile that provides broadband internet access at the peak of Helvellyn and we might be interested.
* Micromanagement of daily, weekly and monthly work structures enables innovative and creative juxtapositions and coincidences between various different aspects of the work/life balance.
* Dovetailing of activities to produce exotic dishes - imaginative brain cooking.
* Experimentation on both the foundations of the business project and on oneself. Two examples: We constantly reengineer processes and adjust strategies to maintain our competitive advantage both generally and specifically. We are currently working with some Neurologists at MIT to utilise fMRI to monitor neural activity during different aspects of the trading process.
* Face-to-face meetings are totally inefficient and should form the exception rather than the rule. We use pagers primarily, email secondarily and phone as rarely as possible. Effective liaison across territories and time zones is paramount.
* Avoid consumerist trends and hysterias - hysterical behaviour being only rarely acceptable - the mad stampede towards the Virtual Office being just one such example which we will look at further below when we attempt to address the societal impacts of the New Slavery.
* Approach all potential external contracts on a 50/50 basis prior to any tilting relevant to input. No hierarchy internally - everybody earns equally with respect to input. All input is valuable. All decisions to be unanimous otherwise individual members of our team may take on proprietary projects themselves away from the Dietrological entity. We never aim to gain an edge on the financial aspects of a negotiation but we never accept less than our fair share.
* We are very, very, very fussy who we choose to work alongside. Grow imaginatively and organically. You do not need anybody else's cash - never relinquish your shared internal control. Short-term fast growth isn't sustainable and most certainly isn't strategic.
* Meditation/Retreats. Most of our Traders use Qi Gong or Tai Chi for, at least, a part of the trading window. We all also utilise self-imposed periods of retreat where we locate in the middle of the outbacks of Kerkyra or elsewhere, individually or collectively, to undertake 24/7 brainstorming on major infrastructural issues. The culture and the environment are catalysts for enhanced visualisation, lateral thinking and the targeting of just reward without deferred gratification.
* Trust is everything. I implicitly trust the three other people in my Team. It is critical to develop cooperative rules of engagement prior to the project beginning and the business structure produces a major dynamic towards each of us possessing a self-motivated and conscientious approach.
* Have an end goal. Have an exit route from individual sub-projects. Have a life plan.
* Be self-sufficient. Don't trust your financial, health or any other aspect of your future to anyone else whatsoever. No stocks, no shares, no bonds, no insurance, no pensions, no nuffin. There is no other way under the yoke of psychopathic capitalism.
* Downsize, energise, improvise. Target niche superiority.
* We do not need to expand to be successful. Growth is an option not a command. Indeed, we will be deliberately reducing growth in one of our business areas over the summer when the Dietrological Football Information Provision Service is repriced and remarketed as a Service for leisure punters rather than industry professionals. We will lose money through this process of self-induced negative growth. It is our belief, however, that this new profile will dovetail more suitably with other areas of our operation. Choose the Informal Economy and not globalisation.
* Spend as little of your life as is humanly possible in contact with the body-neurotic that is the world of venture capitalists, business angels, lawyers, accountants, consultants, bankers, government, civil servants, brokers, market makers, public relations androids and all middle people and analysts.
* All of our office space is highly functional. No meeting space - we meet imaginatively. Each space is a fully equipped trading room with spidered access to the pricing systems relevant to our businesses and access to the visual images of the corruption being perpetrated. These are our invisible CCTV systems against the Spectacular Simulacrum - a sousveillance system seeking traces of evidence of the Perfect Crime.
* Undertake external consultancies, albeit selectively. Only 7% of the negotiations commenced by members of our Trading Team result in contracted projects. We terminate over 90% of these discarded ideas ourselves. Be able to step into different worlds and coolly assess the environment. Be equally able to step out again. Psychological profiling must form a part of a watertight negotiation agenda. Play with their psychologies. What are they feeling? Do they possess the capacity to be able to feel?
* Minimise tax - as minimal taxation must surely go with minimal representation. Maximise bottom-up philanthropy and donations.
* Continual investment of time in Life Hacking agendas. Continually improve efficiency, performativity, operativity and processes to enhance the competitive advantage.
We could go on and on with our pithy and, probably, largely irrelevant homespun philosophy (we have hundreds of irritating little truisms like those outlined above) but we'll move onto two aspects of the modern work environment that are worthy of particular attention. The obsession with IT and the societal impacts of the economic system now known as the Imperial New World Order.
Sloterdijk: "Deprived of destiny, the modern individual replaces it by a fateful experimentation on himself".
In both the spheres of IT and wider society, this has become disturbingly true. Undoubtedly, IT offers some valuable tools - the internet is a major communications breakpoint, well designed databases are able to limit tedious processing work, for example - but it has reached the point, in most areas of knowledge, where these machines are being utilised as a replacement for the thinking process - "indulging more in the spectacle of thought than in thought itself" as Baudrillard opined. We have built our Unified Trading Model virtually entirely without the use of sophisticated computer software, some Neural Net stuff aside. This was a deliberate strategy when the project began in 1992 - the guesstimation was made that a more holistic big picture overview of the macro and micro worlds would be achieved with a more hands on approach. Use the pen and calculator as your prime tools just as our ancestors, and my Greek neighbours, use(d) the scythe and the seasons.
Baudrillard: "Leaving intelligence to machines is, in the end, relinquishing the responsibility of knowing, just as leaving it to politicians to govern us relieves us of the responsibility of power".
IT has two other major flaws. Firstly, the use of computers "modifies the types of phenomena susceptible to being processed" to the inevitable detriment of our species and the rest of the planet. Knowledge is "advanced" only in cul-de-sac's that fit into the IT "map of development". Evidently, this produces a vast area of knowledge that is peripheralised and unfunded as it bears no fruit for the performativity of the IT based economic system. Secondly, the computer redefines the natural, the Real, in the same manner that Illusory society eradicates the Real, while offering us the pretence that it is, in fact, that self same Real. Digitally remastered or the original analogue recording? Drum machine or a drum kit? Virtual Reality or The Reality? Holographic form or three-dimensional Reality? Additionally, pattern recognition software, used so extensively in the field of financial market analysis, fails utterly and completely in its attempt to link cause and effect - witness the ongoing subprime scandal and credit squeeze as all taxpayers shell out for the lack of regulatory oversight of the quantitative analytical ruses perpetrated by these allegedly whizz kid programmers. Neural Nets or Market Memory? Code or Intuition? Hindsight Analysis or Scenario Analyses?
Baudrillard: "The secret weapon of the human is the weapon of intuition, emotion, the strategem, playing a 'double game'".
More information does not necessarily lead to better decisions.
Something else does.
Creativity is more than mashing-up snippets.
The New Work Environment of the Imperial New World Order is not so new really. A battery farm office space under strip lights and a false ceiling is not life in the same way as most post-Industrial Revolution work realities are not life. These lives possess a frivilous and futile circularity - you are helping to build something-of-no-consequence economically while, concurrently, being rewarded by being able to purchase consumerist images of no consequence in return for your endeavours. We initially needed masters and overlords to impose discipline and "order" in this farcical and fractal system. No longer. "People feel inadequate compared with the enormous opportunities they have" according to James Katz of Rutgers University. Worse, these "opportunities" are Illusory, at least taken on a probabilistic basis. It is statistically highly unlikely that you will be the next David Beckham, for instance. The Industrial Revolution (sic) was built on enslavement and fear while modern day shareholder capitalism is based on a self-induced micro-enslavement within a societally disguised macro one. Enslavement and fear again. We fear our competitors, we fear poverty. We compete to our detriment, we burnout. Baudy says: "What becomes of a master without a slave? He ends up terrorising himself. And of a slave without a master? He ends up exploiting himself". This voluntary servitude is hidden behind an array of spectacular society masks.
Initially, the masters couldn't trust us so we were required to be tied to the land or enslaved in the workhouses of the Industrial Revolution. Fast forward to the cubicle in the call centre and monitoring is still a fact of life in a hierarchical and abusive non-unionised environment. The Virtual Office is a different entity altogether. Neoconservatives could only advance their strategy to this new level once they were convinced that the Pavlovian masses would behave accordingly when an illusory aspect of freedom was introduced to the Illusion. Having already overseen the destruction of society, as Thatcher proudly boasted (can't be that long now, surely), the neocons are now enabling the destruction of the workplace. Workers may now be trusted to self-motivate, self-manage and become self-sufficient. Workers are able to delude themselves that these "advancements" represent new freedoms when they evidently merely represent reconstructed chains. And, as we are all more than aware, you don't feel the chains until you try to move.
With the quantumisation of society into niches of ever smaller magnitude - community, single interest groups, extended family, family, partner/children, self - we are being moulded into perfectly efficient economic units, whether as "creative" producers or "programmed" consumers. Or both. James Katz bemoans the disappearance of the village blacksmith from the community - the disappearance of an informal economy serving a societal need, run from within one's own living space and within the community that one is sharing. This life still exists in Kerkyra and stands in marked contrast to the pseudoreality of the Illusion in the UKKK (a derivative joke, I know, but one that needed to be made anyway).
To counteract this atomisation of the individual - we would go further and call it the particlisation of the individual into her/his fundamental state - we are being provided with an array of Third Places. Neither home, nor office, these locations are the Illusion's answer to the disappearance of community life. You troop into Starbucks, order some liquid amphetamine, sit somewhere suitably individualised to mould into the form of your body and your life, energise the laptop or the Blackberry, pretend to be doing something of vital importance which might suggest to the other "villagers" that you are a person of some consequence. You provide some extra layers of illusion to the Illusion. This Illusion is not Virtual in its impact, however. In East Africa, nothing less than the rights to starvation are dependent, effectively, on the whims of a nonsense. This abusive structure which forces the coffee growers to accept un-premium but unitary agreements based on fear, also enables an illusory market entity to market an illusory product to an illusory grouping at the core of the Illusion. Voila!
Of course, the unwritten rule in such Third Places is that, under no circumstance, must one enter into a discussion with anybody else from outside your Ideal Clique unless it is to be served with more black amphetamine 50-percented with a milk that represents the basic food source of now-dead-calves. The new village life with just shadows of a reflection to an older Reality where the cows and calves would be in the field next to the blacksmith's workroom instead of being factory farmed out of any existence whatsoever. Sound familiar?
Talking of Third Places and the Virtual Office, Katz writes: "These places are physically inhabited but psychologically evacuated". You undertake more and more networking in parallel with a grouping of individuals remarkably similar to yourself. Such imbreeding of thought and human interactions can only produce backwards intellectual offerings and offspring.
They have destroyed community, society, the interactiviveness of our species. They have broken our links with nature and the environment - we no longer have any idea of how to remember who we really are. We live in an Illusory Simulacrum which offers no wormhole back to Reality. Having destroyed Reality, the Illusion must respond by creating a new fake pseudoreality, a new hyperreality, in an attempt to obscure the fact that a Perfect Crime has been perpetrated. Virtual World, Virtual Reality, the Virtual Firm, the Virtual Office... Why Virtual and not Real? Why Second Life when the First Life is more than adequate?
Unless, of course, First Life has been Illusioned out of Existence?
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Monday, 21 April 2008
Will Father Timothy Flotsky Marry Corinne Tate?
70's pseudo-soap, Soap, provided warped twists to reality while also treating the downright improbable as a standard daily occurrence.
In its own way, Soap was a postmodern entity in that the show paraded the interaction between two dysfunctional extended American families as a series of images precessing through the phases to a total simulation of a family's Real purpose, if any such purpose exists.
Marital infidelity has never been so enjoyable.
The media output, news, stories, economies of truth, propaganda and disinformation of the last week in the world of Premiership football brought Soap back to mind, for that is what the beautiful game has become.
Firstly, Premiership football morphed into something that looked a little bit like football but somehow wasn't. Then Premiership football spent its time hiding the fact that it was, in fact, not really much to do with 23 men on a pitch with a ball at all anymore. Now Premiership football is entering the territory of the Hyperreal - Total Simulation.
Check out the crescendo of hype being decibelled up as we approach the solution to this year's version of the Crime.
A focus on the critical importance of maintaining an hysterical level of interest to the termination of this Crime is shared in a range of boardrooms - Sky, Setanta, the Premier League, the press, advertisers, the bookmakers and the clubs themselves (financially, at least).
Because we are also conditioned to spectacular climaxes, our whole lives having become just one long series of super-spectacles of dubious Reality, we too demand that the climax is orgasmic. The sense of deflation that would result if a Premiership premature ejaculation was the final scene would stop some viewers switching back on for the next series of the soap - Season 2008/2009.
To the plot so far...
"This is a story about two oligarchs, Roman Abramovich and Thaksin Shinawatra. This is Chelsea. And this is Manchester City, and this is SOAP.
"Chelsea are run by an oligarch, Roman, with close links to both Gazprom and the Kremlin.
"Arsenal are being slowly taken over by an oligarch, Alisher, who also has close links to both Gazprom and the Kremlin. Alisher has allegedly made money from the drug trade and is close to people who think that boiling babies is a bit of a hoot.
"Roman has upset Boris, another oligarch, who does not get on with Gazprom or the Kremlin at all but who gets on very well indeed with Alisher. Boris says Roman used 'threats and intimidation' to get his financial wont.
"Nikolai is a friend of Boris who was in jail in Russia. But Roman could get him out of jail. Boris now wants £2 billion off Roman. Meanwhile, an editor at Alisher's newspaper 'falls' to his death from a hotel window in Moscow.
"Roman's empire is managed by holocaust survivor, Avram, who is married to an Israeli tv presenter and who is very very upset with the press. In a bizarre press conference he told the journalists: 'You can write whatever you want and I can answer what I want'. Of course, the press absolutely do write whatever they want.
"'Chelsea cheat. That is how they win. Arsenal prefer integrity. That is why they lose'. These are not sentiments that might find a place in the mainstream media.
"Arsenal are managed by Arsène. He is angry with the Premier League, the referees and the media. After his team had suffered an outrageous, and highly predictable run of corruption against their interests, Arsène complained: 'This team has been punished in the last seven weeks more so than any team I have seen'.
"Arsenal are not helped by the fact that Jens hates Manuel - 'I know he hates me' - and Nicklas hates one of the Emmanuel's' too. Fans have now stopped going to watch Arsenal as the modern day fan demands spectacular prizes as a reward for spectacular corruption. Arsenal are thinking of suing the Premier League for corruption against their interests and the financial losses accruing thereof.
"Chelsea are fighting against Manchester United for the Crime's Big Prize. Or, rather, Chelsea Reserves are fighting Man Utd Reserves for the 2nd Biggest Prize. Manchester have already won but the scammers require our mock climax. Following Chelsea's failure to beat Wigan in an allegedly fixed match, it was necessary to prevent Manchester winning in Lancashire. No problem. Rob earned some more decking and garden furniture courtesy of Roman after denying the Reds two obvious penalties.
"The BBC remains the prime media for Premiership football - propaganda for the elite, as ever. Lawro works for the Premier League. Lawro reckoned that the two incorrect penalty decisions 'didn't spoil the game', presumably meaning that is suitably spoiled already. Ian and Lee work for bookmakers. Ian has left the BBC complaining that he is only allowed to tell jokes containing an innuendo about lines of coke when really he has been sacked. Meanwhile, Lee just keeps on lying but always looks guilty when he is doing it.
"The only competition that is real (in the Illusory sense) is the Champions League which, this year, sees one national champion out of the last four teams. Roman will surely attempt to buy a place in the Final in Moscow having already bought Russia a place in the Euro 2008 Finals which follow. Opponents, Liverpool, are allegedly in crisis with Tom not talking to George or Rafa, Rafa not too happy with Rick but moderately keen on George while David's moustache gets more luxuriant.
"Rafa is consulting his lawyers after Neil, from a crystal palace, suggested: 'Integrity, doing what is right for the game, comes way down Rafa's list of priorities'. Rafa continues to cultivate the inappropriate goatie.
"Birmingham, Newcastle and Portsmouth are currently under investigation by the City of London police for financial shenanigans like false accounting and money laundering. The Birmingham owners were questioned by police last week and had 'happily done so' while the Portsmouth manager, 'Arry, has launched a counterclaim against the police after he originally judged that the police had to arrest you in order to ask you questions in the first place. 'Arry remains on bail while Birmingham are being bought by a billionaire gambling tycoon who was but a barber as recently as 10 years ago.
"This background of financial impropriety has not stopped Portsmouth reaching the FA Cup Final with the considerable aid of the referees. Portsmouth are effectively owned by an arms dealer with outstanding arrest warrants in France for illegal traffiking. Portsmouth are also closely linked to bookmakers in Moscow.
"This year's FA Cup Final will be refereed by randomiser-in-chief, Mike Dean - just a couple of years after he was banned from officiating for two months for being closely linked to an online tipster service, Arbitros Racing. Thoroughly deserved then...
"Another Roman runs Hearts and Roman of Hearts reckons that Scottish football is a fix which, of course, it is and always has been. Witness Rangers, also under City of London police investigation, and their assisted passage to the Cup Final against a Queen from the South (who will the 'Gers fans support?) and their presentation with the League title by the whistles of officialdom.
"The Premiership referees made 19 incorrect major calls between them over this last window of 10 games. 4 match outcomes were affected. Martin refereed two of these 10 games (at Everton on Thursday and Fulham on Saturday) before being the 4th official at Aston Villa on Sunday. On the internal PGMOB website, a FIFA accredited match official moaned: 'Why, oh why, has Martin got 3 games in 4 days when there are 10 or 11 other officials who would have been more suitable?'. We wonder why...
"Oligarchical Roman employs Frank. Frank employs 50 scouts globally searching for grassroots talent or enacting a modern day version of the slave trade, depending upon your point of view. Frank got Roman to employ Henk to undermine Avram, just as he had previously successfully poloniumated the atmosphere between Roman and José, a Special One. Frank's slaves assembled at a cost of over £6 million reached the Final of the Youth Cup but were beaten by a team largely comprising of inner city Mancunian youth which only went to show that those fifty scouts had been looking in the wrong locations all along.
"Manchester City, the winners of this Youth Reality, are owned by Thaksin. Thaksin doesn't like anyone very much although he is rather partial to the offshore baht and power. Policeman - prime minister - oligarch - robber - murderer - thief - political 'refugee' - black marketeer - football club owner. An unusual CV. Thaksin also believes himself to be the Last King of Thailand and refers to himself as 'His Excellency'. His excellency also hates human rights in a trigger happy sort of way. Thaksin doesn't like Sven either because Sven has failed in his task of special adviser to the king. The Reality of Manchester City Youth is one of the last of its type. Thaksin is busy importing substandard Thai youngsters, for political currency, and seeking highly marketable but overpriced prima donnas whose best days are surely behind them. The new players WILL, however, look rather Thai-chic descending down the airplane steps accompanying his excellency back into his empire.
"Thaksin is inappropriately close to Richard who runs the Hyperreality of Premiership football as a personal fiefdom on behalf of the bookmakers and Rupert's hyper-organisation. Thaksin helps Richard get what Richard wants and Richard helps Thaksin get what Thaksin wants. Rupert is omnipresent but not yet omnipotent".
"Will the Premiership title and relegation races go down to the wire? Does anyone really care? Will Pompey criminalise the FA Cup Final? Will 'Arry go to jail or will the police go to jail? Will the gambler buyout the pornographer and his moll at Birmingham? Will Dubai buy the Texas Reds? Is Thaksin going to jail or will he get his hands on the illicit treasure? Will Thaksin leave Richard? Will the French police catch Arkadi? Will he be linked to the killing of Savimbi by Mossad? Will the Kremlin get Arsenal? Are more babies to be boiled? Will the Kremlin get Euro 2008? Does the Kremlin intend increasing its portfolio of London soccer franchises further? Will we ever get used to autocratic power winning everything?"
"Confused? You soon will be. But all will be revealed in the next exciting episode of SOAP".
A Coda:
BBC: "A real pivotal week for you after so much work this season".
Wenger: "Yes, but I cannot blame the players because in both games [against Liverpool and United] we turned up, we played at our level but every single thing has turned against us since March. We have got a clear, clear message as well on many decisions which went against us. We understand it. We are not stupid".
BBC: "What do you mean by that?"
Wenger: "Nothing" [awkward silence for 10 seconds].
BBC: "Indeed. Well, let other people read into that comment shall we?"
Wenger: "You do what you want".
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
In its own way, Soap was a postmodern entity in that the show paraded the interaction between two dysfunctional extended American families as a series of images precessing through the phases to a total simulation of a family's Real purpose, if any such purpose exists.
Marital infidelity has never been so enjoyable.
The media output, news, stories, economies of truth, propaganda and disinformation of the last week in the world of Premiership football brought Soap back to mind, for that is what the beautiful game has become.
Firstly, Premiership football morphed into something that looked a little bit like football but somehow wasn't. Then Premiership football spent its time hiding the fact that it was, in fact, not really much to do with 23 men on a pitch with a ball at all anymore. Now Premiership football is entering the territory of the Hyperreal - Total Simulation.
Check out the crescendo of hype being decibelled up as we approach the solution to this year's version of the Crime.
A focus on the critical importance of maintaining an hysterical level of interest to the termination of this Crime is shared in a range of boardrooms - Sky, Setanta, the Premier League, the press, advertisers, the bookmakers and the clubs themselves (financially, at least).
Because we are also conditioned to spectacular climaxes, our whole lives having become just one long series of super-spectacles of dubious Reality, we too demand that the climax is orgasmic. The sense of deflation that would result if a Premiership premature ejaculation was the final scene would stop some viewers switching back on for the next series of the soap - Season 2008/2009.
To the plot so far...
"This is a story about two oligarchs, Roman Abramovich and Thaksin Shinawatra. This is Chelsea. And this is Manchester City, and this is SOAP.
"Chelsea are run by an oligarch, Roman, with close links to both Gazprom and the Kremlin.
"Arsenal are being slowly taken over by an oligarch, Alisher, who also has close links to both Gazprom and the Kremlin. Alisher has allegedly made money from the drug trade and is close to people who think that boiling babies is a bit of a hoot.
"Roman has upset Boris, another oligarch, who does not get on with Gazprom or the Kremlin at all but who gets on very well indeed with Alisher. Boris says Roman used 'threats and intimidation' to get his financial wont.
"Nikolai is a friend of Boris who was in jail in Russia. But Roman could get him out of jail. Boris now wants £2 billion off Roman. Meanwhile, an editor at Alisher's newspaper 'falls' to his death from a hotel window in Moscow.
"Roman's empire is managed by holocaust survivor, Avram, who is married to an Israeli tv presenter and who is very very upset with the press. In a bizarre press conference he told the journalists: 'You can write whatever you want and I can answer what I want'. Of course, the press absolutely do write whatever they want.
"'Chelsea cheat. That is how they win. Arsenal prefer integrity. That is why they lose'. These are not sentiments that might find a place in the mainstream media.
"Arsenal are managed by Arsène. He is angry with the Premier League, the referees and the media. After his team had suffered an outrageous, and highly predictable run of corruption against their interests, Arsène complained: 'This team has been punished in the last seven weeks more so than any team I have seen'.
"Arsenal are not helped by the fact that Jens hates Manuel - 'I know he hates me' - and Nicklas hates one of the Emmanuel's' too. Fans have now stopped going to watch Arsenal as the modern day fan demands spectacular prizes as a reward for spectacular corruption. Arsenal are thinking of suing the Premier League for corruption against their interests and the financial losses accruing thereof.
"Chelsea are fighting against Manchester United for the Crime's Big Prize. Or, rather, Chelsea Reserves are fighting Man Utd Reserves for the 2nd Biggest Prize. Manchester have already won but the scammers require our mock climax. Following Chelsea's failure to beat Wigan in an allegedly fixed match, it was necessary to prevent Manchester winning in Lancashire. No problem. Rob earned some more decking and garden furniture courtesy of Roman after denying the Reds two obvious penalties.
"The BBC remains the prime media for Premiership football - propaganda for the elite, as ever. Lawro works for the Premier League. Lawro reckoned that the two incorrect penalty decisions 'didn't spoil the game', presumably meaning that is suitably spoiled already. Ian and Lee work for bookmakers. Ian has left the BBC complaining that he is only allowed to tell jokes containing an innuendo about lines of coke when really he has been sacked. Meanwhile, Lee just keeps on lying but always looks guilty when he is doing it.
"The only competition that is real (in the Illusory sense) is the Champions League which, this year, sees one national champion out of the last four teams. Roman will surely attempt to buy a place in the Final in Moscow having already bought Russia a place in the Euro 2008 Finals which follow. Opponents, Liverpool, are allegedly in crisis with Tom not talking to George or Rafa, Rafa not too happy with Rick but moderately keen on George while David's moustache gets more luxuriant.
"Rafa is consulting his lawyers after Neil, from a crystal palace, suggested: 'Integrity, doing what is right for the game, comes way down Rafa's list of priorities'. Rafa continues to cultivate the inappropriate goatie.
"Birmingham, Newcastle and Portsmouth are currently under investigation by the City of London police for financial shenanigans like false accounting and money laundering. The Birmingham owners were questioned by police last week and had 'happily done so' while the Portsmouth manager, 'Arry, has launched a counterclaim against the police after he originally judged that the police had to arrest you in order to ask you questions in the first place. 'Arry remains on bail while Birmingham are being bought by a billionaire gambling tycoon who was but a barber as recently as 10 years ago.
"This background of financial impropriety has not stopped Portsmouth reaching the FA Cup Final with the considerable aid of the referees. Portsmouth are effectively owned by an arms dealer with outstanding arrest warrants in France for illegal traffiking. Portsmouth are also closely linked to bookmakers in Moscow.
"This year's FA Cup Final will be refereed by randomiser-in-chief, Mike Dean - just a couple of years after he was banned from officiating for two months for being closely linked to an online tipster service, Arbitros Racing. Thoroughly deserved then...
"Another Roman runs Hearts and Roman of Hearts reckons that Scottish football is a fix which, of course, it is and always has been. Witness Rangers, also under City of London police investigation, and their assisted passage to the Cup Final against a Queen from the South (who will the 'Gers fans support?) and their presentation with the League title by the whistles of officialdom.
"The Premiership referees made 19 incorrect major calls between them over this last window of 10 games. 4 match outcomes were affected. Martin refereed two of these 10 games (at Everton on Thursday and Fulham on Saturday) before being the 4th official at Aston Villa on Sunday. On the internal PGMOB website, a FIFA accredited match official moaned: 'Why, oh why, has Martin got 3 games in 4 days when there are 10 or 11 other officials who would have been more suitable?'. We wonder why...
"Oligarchical Roman employs Frank. Frank employs 50 scouts globally searching for grassroots talent or enacting a modern day version of the slave trade, depending upon your point of view. Frank got Roman to employ Henk to undermine Avram, just as he had previously successfully poloniumated the atmosphere between Roman and José, a Special One. Frank's slaves assembled at a cost of over £6 million reached the Final of the Youth Cup but were beaten by a team largely comprising of inner city Mancunian youth which only went to show that those fifty scouts had been looking in the wrong locations all along.
"Manchester City, the winners of this Youth Reality, are owned by Thaksin. Thaksin doesn't like anyone very much although he is rather partial to the offshore baht and power. Policeman - prime minister - oligarch - robber - murderer - thief - political 'refugee' - black marketeer - football club owner. An unusual CV. Thaksin also believes himself to be the Last King of Thailand and refers to himself as 'His Excellency'. His excellency also hates human rights in a trigger happy sort of way. Thaksin doesn't like Sven either because Sven has failed in his task of special adviser to the king. The Reality of Manchester City Youth is one of the last of its type. Thaksin is busy importing substandard Thai youngsters, for political currency, and seeking highly marketable but overpriced prima donnas whose best days are surely behind them. The new players WILL, however, look rather Thai-chic descending down the airplane steps accompanying his excellency back into his empire.
"Thaksin is inappropriately close to Richard who runs the Hyperreality of Premiership football as a personal fiefdom on behalf of the bookmakers and Rupert's hyper-organisation. Thaksin helps Richard get what Richard wants and Richard helps Thaksin get what Thaksin wants. Rupert is omnipresent but not yet omnipotent".
"Will the Premiership title and relegation races go down to the wire? Does anyone really care? Will Pompey criminalise the FA Cup Final? Will 'Arry go to jail or will the police go to jail? Will the gambler buyout the pornographer and his moll at Birmingham? Will Dubai buy the Texas Reds? Is Thaksin going to jail or will he get his hands on the illicit treasure? Will Thaksin leave Richard? Will the French police catch Arkadi? Will he be linked to the killing of Savimbi by Mossad? Will the Kremlin get Arsenal? Are more babies to be boiled? Will the Kremlin get Euro 2008? Does the Kremlin intend increasing its portfolio of London soccer franchises further? Will we ever get used to autocratic power winning everything?"
"Confused? You soon will be. But all will be revealed in the next exciting episode of SOAP".
A Coda:
BBC: "A real pivotal week for you after so much work this season".
Wenger: "Yes, but I cannot blame the players because in both games [against Liverpool and United] we turned up, we played at our level but every single thing has turned against us since March. We have got a clear, clear message as well on many decisions which went against us. We understand it. We are not stupid".
BBC: "What do you mean by that?"
Wenger: "Nothing" [awkward silence for 10 seconds].
BBC: "Indeed. Well, let other people read into that comment shall we?"
Wenger: "You do what you want".
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Hallucinatory Holographic Hyperrealities
"Postmodernism is incredulity towards meta-narrative" - Lyotard.
At all societal levels, the illusions warrant our attention, from the doublespeak of democracy to the figment-of-imagination that is football.
"Can we sell you a fated event, pal?".
"No, we are postdelusional, thank you".
Berlusconi wins the Italian elections and the far-right Northern League significantly increases its vote. Berlusconi is Italy's Murdoch in his monopolisation of media. The illusory democracy of Italy produced an election which was decided on the mountains of rubbish in the streets of Napoli and the potential selling off of Alitalia to any willing overseas buyer. Now, if one chooses to change governments annually, such micro-hyperrealities might be worthy of a weighting in a voter's decision making process, but Berlusconi is back in power SOLELY via a spectral media campaign against the unions (rubbish in mafia territory) and an appeal to xenophobia (loss of a flagship carrier). If the media are to define elections, this is the Illusory Democracy that results - and another country falls (yet again in Italy's case) under the yoke of a libertarian fascist monopolist psychopathic oligarch with mafia links.
It also means Milan will win Serie A next season - you heard it here first...
This freebie piece of information neatly and altruistically brings us to the New Premiership Order (NPO), a sub-operation of the New European Order, which is itself but a mere sub-division of the New World Order.
The Premiership is fighting to save its brand. Like the League Cup and the FA Cup before it, the Premiership is becoming an irrelevance to the Big 4 teams. Benitez has always put Liverpool's Champions League interests first and, last night, Chelsea rested or "rested" Drogba, Carvalho, Makalele, Lampard, Wright-Phillips and the two Coles, while also choosing to utilise the match as a psychological training session for serial self-harmer Petr Čech. Just as there was no focus by Chelsea on the FA Cup tie at Barnsley, there is similarly no intent to put that much effort into maintaining the pseudo-excitement of a Title Race. Roman wants glory in Moscow - the Premiership is an irritation.
The bookmakers and the mainstream media are not happy about this.
The Premier League are furious. It is difficult enough to hold aloft the brand when clubs are run by a collection of undesirables tainted by corruption and worse, when the match and tournament outcomes are linked to the gambling markets, when the majority of games require full volume on the Sky mixing desk to make it sound like there is a knowledgable and cacophonous multitude enjoying the Spectacle. Having been globally rebuffed in the imperialist concept of the 39th Game, Richard Scudamore now sees the inevitability of the European Super League (ESL) all the more clearly in his rear view mirror.
And it is looming up.
The G14(18) conveniently comprises 18 clubs - a ready made ESL. Once the Big 4 have made their getaway to private equity pastures new, the Premier League will become a simulacrum virtually immediately. Take away the top four and Derby County and there is not that much to choose between the Premiership outfits - particularly when the "leading" teams ie Spurs, Man City, Everton etc will be distracted by a targeting of the ESL2. Suddenly, Reading v Bolton and Boro v Ipswich is a Grand Slam Sunday. And Sky will still possess the audacity to call it that!
Once a sporting competition enters the mature phase of its market development in relation to the links with the gambling sector, there is no point of return. The "sport" will have become a total simulacrum.
Horseracing is a total simulacrum. Having started out in the Realities of hunting and breeding, only the very tip of the sport holds any claim on a current Reality. In mature markets, corruption is king. The corruption may take on a variety of forms and may even quantum between different forms just to make it more profitable and to make our lives more interesting. Reality does not exist. Horseracing results, for example, have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with form. Really. Nothing at all. Horseracing is an Illusion, a Hyperreality that bears no trace of a connection to the Reality where the journey began. It still involves small people and horses and, sometimes, there are fences to be jumped but substitute any other three objects and the Hyperreality would remain intact - think stuffed rabbits on rails, dogs and, sometimes, there are obstacles to be jumped. This is because both instances are governed by gambling money. As we have stated before, the power of incentives demands that a £3K prize is irrelevant in a £3 million betting market.
Similarly, once the ESL becomes our new Reality, a Premiership football match will morph into a structure where form will no longer matter. By form, we mean quality of players, management, morale, motivation etc etc - all the basic factors that both the rational and the irrational take into account before considering a bet. The necessities and requirements of the betting markets, the insider traders, the privileged with access to psychopathic power positions will demand that outcomes will maximise profits. Of course, media commentators will still verbally pollute with views on the (dis)advantages of zonal marking but the match outcomes will be determined not in the penalty area but in the trading rooms. In 5 years, Premiership = horseracing = total simulacra.
The major turnover, mega-marketed, Super Sat/Sunday, Grand Slam brands are already Total Illusion in that the match results bear no links to the Reality of the football game taking place - if, indeed, the said match is Real as there are some of these mega-brands that are anything but Real, being simply real.
Super Sundays are Simulacra!
Baudrillard: "...there is suspense, but no destiny. The fateful against the fractal, change against becoming".
Liverpool v Chelsea, Man Utd v Chelsea, Arsenal v Liverpool, Chelsea v Arsenal, Man Utd v Liverpool, Man Utd v Arsenal, Arsenal v Man Utd, Chelsea v Liverpool and Arsenal v Chelsea - all of these events were ruined and/or randomised due to the inputs of a whole collection of power bases competing in the fragmented cartel which represents merely a stage in the precession of simulacra.
Football used to be underpinned by Rules. Aside from defining the sport, concepts like fair play were built into the fabric of the game. In 2008, football is no longer built on Rules, it is governed by Laws. A Frenchman once said: "No-one is equal before the law whereas all are equal before the rule, since it is arbitrary". True. The offside law is indeed arbitrary but it is written down and, if correctly implemented, it works. It is also understood - the current demands for clarity refer to the implementation rather than to the underlying rule itself.
Contrarily, The Laws that now govern the game are not written down in any public place.
The Rules are of no importance when they share space with The Laws, and The Rules will always bend to The Laws.
The Institutional Reality that was founded on The Rules is now asset-stripped, stripped bare and destroyed by The Laws.
The Laws determine the form of Hyperreality to which the sport evolves.
We all have a right before The Rules to know why a decision is made in a football match.
We all have no right whatsoever before The Laws.
We might wish for an invasive intervention by the state but The Laws and the state share strategic objectives and, anyway, a "Socialist" who repeals the 10% tax-rate for low earners is hardly likely to separate The Laws from the game.
The Laws are implemented.
Falsely.
The match outcomes are fated.
Our outcomes become a Random Walk With Destiny, which, of course, doesn't exist.
No Reality.
No Destiny.
Why do we bother with this charade?
In China, the English Premiership is observed as a strange Hyperreal Entity. It is absolutely not a sport. Nobody watched it even before it was moved to a Pay-TV channel for the 2007/2008 season. And now, even less than nobody watches it.
And yet, hundreds of millions of pounds, largely illegally and underground, are bet on the Premiership events across the Far East. These pounds and dollars generally link to Honk Kong and China for, at least, part of their journey of speculative capital flow. China has not only created the most dynamic and liquid global betting markets for a sport from an entirely different culture but they have turned this sport into a Total Illusion.
In China, The Rules are not generally understood but The Laws are and the football events are seen as abstract exercises in lateral thinking, contrariness, double bluff and treble bluff.
Which, evidently, is exactly what they are...
Consequently, the Asian market makers continue to run rings around the European operators in the big scheme of things. Strategy always slaughters short-termism in the end...
Brains and Brawn or Brawn is a No-Brainer.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
At all societal levels, the illusions warrant our attention, from the doublespeak of democracy to the figment-of-imagination that is football.
"Can we sell you a fated event, pal?".
"No, we are postdelusional, thank you".
Berlusconi wins the Italian elections and the far-right Northern League significantly increases its vote. Berlusconi is Italy's Murdoch in his monopolisation of media. The illusory democracy of Italy produced an election which was decided on the mountains of rubbish in the streets of Napoli and the potential selling off of Alitalia to any willing overseas buyer. Now, if one chooses to change governments annually, such micro-hyperrealities might be worthy of a weighting in a voter's decision making process, but Berlusconi is back in power SOLELY via a spectral media campaign against the unions (rubbish in mafia territory) and an appeal to xenophobia (loss of a flagship carrier). If the media are to define elections, this is the Illusory Democracy that results - and another country falls (yet again in Italy's case) under the yoke of a libertarian fascist monopolist psychopathic oligarch with mafia links.
It also means Milan will win Serie A next season - you heard it here first...
This freebie piece of information neatly and altruistically brings us to the New Premiership Order (NPO), a sub-operation of the New European Order, which is itself but a mere sub-division of the New World Order.
The Premiership is fighting to save its brand. Like the League Cup and the FA Cup before it, the Premiership is becoming an irrelevance to the Big 4 teams. Benitez has always put Liverpool's Champions League interests first and, last night, Chelsea rested or "rested" Drogba, Carvalho, Makalele, Lampard, Wright-Phillips and the two Coles, while also choosing to utilise the match as a psychological training session for serial self-harmer Petr Čech. Just as there was no focus by Chelsea on the FA Cup tie at Barnsley, there is similarly no intent to put that much effort into maintaining the pseudo-excitement of a Title Race. Roman wants glory in Moscow - the Premiership is an irritation.
The bookmakers and the mainstream media are not happy about this.
The Premier League are furious. It is difficult enough to hold aloft the brand when clubs are run by a collection of undesirables tainted by corruption and worse, when the match and tournament outcomes are linked to the gambling markets, when the majority of games require full volume on the Sky mixing desk to make it sound like there is a knowledgable and cacophonous multitude enjoying the Spectacle. Having been globally rebuffed in the imperialist concept of the 39th Game, Richard Scudamore now sees the inevitability of the European Super League (ESL) all the more clearly in his rear view mirror.
And it is looming up.
The G14(18) conveniently comprises 18 clubs - a ready made ESL. Once the Big 4 have made their getaway to private equity pastures new, the Premier League will become a simulacrum virtually immediately. Take away the top four and Derby County and there is not that much to choose between the Premiership outfits - particularly when the "leading" teams ie Spurs, Man City, Everton etc will be distracted by a targeting of the ESL2. Suddenly, Reading v Bolton and Boro v Ipswich is a Grand Slam Sunday. And Sky will still possess the audacity to call it that!
Once a sporting competition enters the mature phase of its market development in relation to the links with the gambling sector, there is no point of return. The "sport" will have become a total simulacrum.
Horseracing is a total simulacrum. Having started out in the Realities of hunting and breeding, only the very tip of the sport holds any claim on a current Reality. In mature markets, corruption is king. The corruption may take on a variety of forms and may even quantum between different forms just to make it more profitable and to make our lives more interesting. Reality does not exist. Horseracing results, for example, have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with form. Really. Nothing at all. Horseracing is an Illusion, a Hyperreality that bears no trace of a connection to the Reality where the journey began. It still involves small people and horses and, sometimes, there are fences to be jumped but substitute any other three objects and the Hyperreality would remain intact - think stuffed rabbits on rails, dogs and, sometimes, there are obstacles to be jumped. This is because both instances are governed by gambling money. As we have stated before, the power of incentives demands that a £3K prize is irrelevant in a £3 million betting market.
Similarly, once the ESL becomes our new Reality, a Premiership football match will morph into a structure where form will no longer matter. By form, we mean quality of players, management, morale, motivation etc etc - all the basic factors that both the rational and the irrational take into account before considering a bet. The necessities and requirements of the betting markets, the insider traders, the privileged with access to psychopathic power positions will demand that outcomes will maximise profits. Of course, media commentators will still verbally pollute with views on the (dis)advantages of zonal marking but the match outcomes will be determined not in the penalty area but in the trading rooms. In 5 years, Premiership = horseracing = total simulacra.
The major turnover, mega-marketed, Super Sat/Sunday, Grand Slam brands are already Total Illusion in that the match results bear no links to the Reality of the football game taking place - if, indeed, the said match is Real as there are some of these mega-brands that are anything but Real, being simply real.
Super Sundays are Simulacra!
Baudrillard: "...there is suspense, but no destiny. The fateful against the fractal, change against becoming".
Liverpool v Chelsea, Man Utd v Chelsea, Arsenal v Liverpool, Chelsea v Arsenal, Man Utd v Liverpool, Man Utd v Arsenal, Arsenal v Man Utd, Chelsea v Liverpool and Arsenal v Chelsea - all of these events were ruined and/or randomised due to the inputs of a whole collection of power bases competing in the fragmented cartel which represents merely a stage in the precession of simulacra.
Football used to be underpinned by Rules. Aside from defining the sport, concepts like fair play were built into the fabric of the game. In 2008, football is no longer built on Rules, it is governed by Laws. A Frenchman once said: "No-one is equal before the law whereas all are equal before the rule, since it is arbitrary". True. The offside law is indeed arbitrary but it is written down and, if correctly implemented, it works. It is also understood - the current demands for clarity refer to the implementation rather than to the underlying rule itself.
Contrarily, The Laws that now govern the game are not written down in any public place.
The Rules are of no importance when they share space with The Laws, and The Rules will always bend to The Laws.
The Institutional Reality that was founded on The Rules is now asset-stripped, stripped bare and destroyed by The Laws.
The Laws determine the form of Hyperreality to which the sport evolves.
We all have a right before The Rules to know why a decision is made in a football match.
We all have no right whatsoever before The Laws.
We might wish for an invasive intervention by the state but The Laws and the state share strategic objectives and, anyway, a "Socialist" who repeals the 10% tax-rate for low earners is hardly likely to separate The Laws from the game.
The Laws are implemented.
Falsely.
The match outcomes are fated.
Our outcomes become a Random Walk With Destiny, which, of course, doesn't exist.
No Reality.
No Destiny.
Why do we bother with this charade?
In China, the English Premiership is observed as a strange Hyperreal Entity. It is absolutely not a sport. Nobody watched it even before it was moved to a Pay-TV channel for the 2007/2008 season. And now, even less than nobody watches it.
And yet, hundreds of millions of pounds, largely illegally and underground, are bet on the Premiership events across the Far East. These pounds and dollars generally link to Honk Kong and China for, at least, part of their journey of speculative capital flow. China has not only created the most dynamic and liquid global betting markets for a sport from an entirely different culture but they have turned this sport into a Total Illusion.
In China, The Rules are not generally understood but The Laws are and the football events are seen as abstract exercises in lateral thinking, contrariness, double bluff and treble bluff.
Which, evidently, is exactly what they are...
Consequently, the Asian market makers continue to run rings around the European operators in the big scheme of things. Strategy always slaughters short-termism in the end...
Brains and Brawn or Brawn is a No-Brainer.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Friday, 11 April 2008
Imagine There's No Heaven
Imagine, for one moment, that Richard's Scudamore and Keys never existed, that the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOB) was never concocted, that hyper-owners were not buying the outcomes of football matches, that European bookmakers were not behaving similarly. No hidden agendas and no corrupted matches - proper football without the odious influence of psychopathic power.
As season 2007/2008 has been, by a considerable distance, the most criminalised version of the Premiership brand yet modelled, we have been thinking these very things.
What would a truly meritocratic Premiership League Table appear like on this, the eve of another of Sky's marketed extravaganzas? Check it out.
1. Arsenal: 33 - 79
2. Man Utd: 33 - 72
3. Everton: 33 - 61
4. Chelsea: 33 - 58
-----------------------
5. Liverpool: 33 - 57
-----------------------
6. Portsmouth: 33 - 51
7. Tottenham: 33 - 50
8. Blackburn: 33 - 50
9. Man City: 33 - 49
10. Aston V: 33 - 48
11. Fulham: 33 - 42
12. Sunderland: 33 - 42
13. Wigan Ath: 33 - 40
14. West Ham: 33 - 39
15. Middlesbro: 33 - 39
16. Reading: 33 - 35
17. Newcastle: 33 - 35
-----------------------
18. Bolton: 33 - 31
19. Birmingham: 33 - 30
20. Derby: 33 - 9
Before we pull a few figures out of this Real Table to compare with the Illusory Table that appears in all other locations, we would just wish to address a few issues on how this Real hierarchy was compiled. Every Premiership match has been assessed for the impact of the PGMOB officials and Real outcomes estimated from a combination of the match data, our proprietary databases and the efficacy of the key match decisions. We make no claim that such a clunky analysis is significant in its levels of robustness, but that isn't the point. Teams that have a major points differential between their Real and their Illusory totalisations is what we are after. And, sure enough, that is what we have got.
* Arsenal approach Super Sunday's match against Man Utd six points adrift and, with Webb getting his 18th live game of the season (no other official has refereed more than 10), hope is not currently a common commodity at The Emirates. Without the machinations of the PGMOB, Arsenal would, in fact, be 7 points ahead of United and the balance of power would be very different indeed - particularly with the Gunners having been relieved of Champions League participation for the run-in. Proper Football would have produced the title for the only team capable of playing Total Football. This outcome would have been good for the game but the manipulated outcome is good for the power brokers, and the game itself is always to be found despairing in this deepening shadow nowadays.
* Chelsea enter the weekend merely three points behind United and most definitely in the race for the Illusory Title - they could theoretically be joint leaders by Monday evening. Reality would, in truth-fact, place the highly unpleasant west London operation fully 21 points adrift of the Real leaders, Arsenal. 21 points?! Instead of being involved in a three-way battle with the Merseyside pair over the Champions League 3rd/4th slots and the European Club Forum 5th position, Abramovich has bought a tilt at the Illusory title.
* In a similar manner to the targeting of Arsenal, it will annoy Gunners fans to realise that, if anything, Tottenham have been even more badly treated by match officialdom in 07/08. It would be our assertion that the link between Spurs and Mansion88 bookmakers is the problem area here. But, do not, for one minute, think that an ethical backlash is being perpetrated by the Premier League. This is not an attempt to kick high stakes gambling out of football but rather an attempt to kick particular sorts of high stakes gambling from the game. Makati City is not as welcome in Gloucester Place as certain autocrats from Bangkok and Manchester City.
* Forget Arsenal, forget Chelsea, forget Tottenham, the London club who have been most horribly abused by the establishment this season is Fulham. In 15 years of observation and data, not one team comes anywhere near Fulham's negative points adjustment of -18. Hodgson's men should be safe; instead, they are virtually relegated after the crown decided that they could put up with the third-in-line-to-the-throne effectively being a ginger-gened commoner but were not willing to extend this generosity of spirit to allowing the potential fourth-in-line to be a mixed race Egyptian.
* Corrupt refereeing is not merely an English disease. L'Equipe last week revealed that poor match decisions had altered the outcomes in 85 Le Championnat games to date this season; the Bundesliga had Hoyzer and the Croat link; Serie A created a Berlusconian calciopoli; the regional agendas of match officials in Spain require a study of the discontents of Iberian history prior to assessing match outcomes etc etc. The fact that other territories are focusing on the non-meritocratic impact of referees is twisted by the British mainstream media to be suggestive of a supremacy of the PGMOB officials. "We must be the best because nobody has caught us with our fingers in the till. So give us Respect". Nonsense. By some distance, England is the most criminalised of the major European territories when it comes to match corruption perpetrated by match officials. And worse, there is a sophisticated coordination to these machinations. The selection of match officials needs not only to be entirely randomised but also the pool of available officials is required to be doubled to around forty. Otherwise we will continue to get the sorts of triad twists where the referees for last weekend's four live matches (extra betting turnover making these major focus events) were Webb, Wiley, Dowd and Riley while, for the current weekend's tv matches, the PGMOB have given us Webb, Wiley, Dowd and Marriner.
* With the exception of Arsenal, Everton and Tottenham, all the power teams are able to purchase a points premium over the season. Some, like Chelsea and Portsmouth, are psychopathic in their ventures, others less so. But the big picture impact of this season's machinations is to produce a Premiership version of increasing income inequality leading to increasing points inequality. As with the capitalist version of this template, the increase in rewards (points or power) bear no positive correlation to individual input or to a meritocracy. Current projections suggest that the average points total of the Big 3 will be higher than in any season since the Murdochracy was moulded; in comparison, the bottom 3 teams will have the lowest average points since M-Day. The short-term impact is to make the tournament less competitive while, in the medium term, such increase in Illusory Inequalities will hasten the formation of the European Super League
Once a sporting event is targeted by the money markets, the event no longer exists as sport. The winners and losers will be falsely credited in the history books; the hierarchy between the top and the bottom will be "randomised" by power, which, of course, is not really randomisation at all. New infrastructures will develop based on the fallacious foundations already concreted for perpetuity. The sport will move through the four stages of the image until it is a purely hyperreal illusion, bearing no similarity to the Reality where the journey began. After a decade and a half where Sky have massively destabilised the sport of English football, we are almost at the stage of this simulacrum, this hyperreality.
We still remember what Reality looks like but the waves of disinformation and the doctoring of the illusion constantly force us to look away from where we KNOW we should still be looking.
To finish, lets do a trivial exposé of controlled media disinformation. Last week, Avram Grant, when not, at the prompting of his new PR team, tying us emotionally to the holocaust experience (all Black players should equally be given the air time to share their feelings about imperialism and slavery), the Chelsea manager was kicking up a proper fuss about Sky bringing forward the Everton league game to next Thursday for live tv coverage. Cue much hand-wringing and bleating about the unfair advantage given to Man Utd in the title race etc etc. This is a chutzpah overload. The arrangement (and it was a private arrangement) between Sky and Chelsea was to bring the game forward for the advantage of both parties. Chelsea will have a two day advantage over Liverpool for the major focus Champions League Semi Final in the following week together with a day's extra rest than Man Utd after the European game before the two meet on the following weekend. Meanwhile Sky are given an extra live game to compensate for the seemingly increasingly common tactic of pulling potential live matches when either the betting markets don't suit or Chelsea make a request for a later start - witness Arsenal v Villa or Man City v Chelsea. The illusory nature of Grant's media onslaught was pure neoreality. Unfair advantages are THE core competency at Stamford Bridge and the new date for the Everton match is related not to the league game but to Abramovich's determination that his motley crew will be in Moscow in May when this year's major sporting reward for global oligarchs will be decided.
The key point here isn't that Chelsea are tilting the playing field. Nothing new there. It is that the mainstream media slavishly reported this illusory deception like it was Real.
Its easy if you try.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
As season 2007/2008 has been, by a considerable distance, the most criminalised version of the Premiership brand yet modelled, we have been thinking these very things.
What would a truly meritocratic Premiership League Table appear like on this, the eve of another of Sky's marketed extravaganzas? Check it out.
1. Arsenal: 33 - 79
2. Man Utd: 33 - 72
3. Everton: 33 - 61
4. Chelsea: 33 - 58
-----------------------
5. Liverpool: 33 - 57
-----------------------
6. Portsmouth: 33 - 51
7. Tottenham: 33 - 50
8. Blackburn: 33 - 50
9. Man City: 33 - 49
10. Aston V: 33 - 48
11. Fulham: 33 - 42
12. Sunderland: 33 - 42
13. Wigan Ath: 33 - 40
14. West Ham: 33 - 39
15. Middlesbro: 33 - 39
16. Reading: 33 - 35
17. Newcastle: 33 - 35
-----------------------
18. Bolton: 33 - 31
19. Birmingham: 33 - 30
20. Derby: 33 - 9
Before we pull a few figures out of this Real Table to compare with the Illusory Table that appears in all other locations, we would just wish to address a few issues on how this Real hierarchy was compiled. Every Premiership match has been assessed for the impact of the PGMOB officials and Real outcomes estimated from a combination of the match data, our proprietary databases and the efficacy of the key match decisions. We make no claim that such a clunky analysis is significant in its levels of robustness, but that isn't the point. Teams that have a major points differential between their Real and their Illusory totalisations is what we are after. And, sure enough, that is what we have got.
* Arsenal approach Super Sunday's match against Man Utd six points adrift and, with Webb getting his 18th live game of the season (no other official has refereed more than 10), hope is not currently a common commodity at The Emirates. Without the machinations of the PGMOB, Arsenal would, in fact, be 7 points ahead of United and the balance of power would be very different indeed - particularly with the Gunners having been relieved of Champions League participation for the run-in. Proper Football would have produced the title for the only team capable of playing Total Football. This outcome would have been good for the game but the manipulated outcome is good for the power brokers, and the game itself is always to be found despairing in this deepening shadow nowadays.
* Chelsea enter the weekend merely three points behind United and most definitely in the race for the Illusory Title - they could theoretically be joint leaders by Monday evening. Reality would, in truth-fact, place the highly unpleasant west London operation fully 21 points adrift of the Real leaders, Arsenal. 21 points?! Instead of being involved in a three-way battle with the Merseyside pair over the Champions League 3rd/4th slots and the European Club Forum 5th position, Abramovich has bought a tilt at the Illusory title.
* In a similar manner to the targeting of Arsenal, it will annoy Gunners fans to realise that, if anything, Tottenham have been even more badly treated by match officialdom in 07/08. It would be our assertion that the link between Spurs and Mansion88 bookmakers is the problem area here. But, do not, for one minute, think that an ethical backlash is being perpetrated by the Premier League. This is not an attempt to kick high stakes gambling out of football but rather an attempt to kick particular sorts of high stakes gambling from the game. Makati City is not as welcome in Gloucester Place as certain autocrats from Bangkok and Manchester City.
* Forget Arsenal, forget Chelsea, forget Tottenham, the London club who have been most horribly abused by the establishment this season is Fulham. In 15 years of observation and data, not one team comes anywhere near Fulham's negative points adjustment of -18. Hodgson's men should be safe; instead, they are virtually relegated after the crown decided that they could put up with the third-in-line-to-the-throne effectively being a ginger-gened commoner but were not willing to extend this generosity of spirit to allowing the potential fourth-in-line to be a mixed race Egyptian.
* Corrupt refereeing is not merely an English disease. L'Equipe last week revealed that poor match decisions had altered the outcomes in 85 Le Championnat games to date this season; the Bundesliga had Hoyzer and the Croat link; Serie A created a Berlusconian calciopoli; the regional agendas of match officials in Spain require a study of the discontents of Iberian history prior to assessing match outcomes etc etc. The fact that other territories are focusing on the non-meritocratic impact of referees is twisted by the British mainstream media to be suggestive of a supremacy of the PGMOB officials. "We must be the best because nobody has caught us with our fingers in the till. So give us Respect". Nonsense. By some distance, England is the most criminalised of the major European territories when it comes to match corruption perpetrated by match officials. And worse, there is a sophisticated coordination to these machinations. The selection of match officials needs not only to be entirely randomised but also the pool of available officials is required to be doubled to around forty. Otherwise we will continue to get the sorts of triad twists where the referees for last weekend's four live matches (extra betting turnover making these major focus events) were Webb, Wiley, Dowd and Riley while, for the current weekend's tv matches, the PGMOB have given us Webb, Wiley, Dowd and Marriner.
* With the exception of Arsenal, Everton and Tottenham, all the power teams are able to purchase a points premium over the season. Some, like Chelsea and Portsmouth, are psychopathic in their ventures, others less so. But the big picture impact of this season's machinations is to produce a Premiership version of increasing income inequality leading to increasing points inequality. As with the capitalist version of this template, the increase in rewards (points or power) bear no positive correlation to individual input or to a meritocracy. Current projections suggest that the average points total of the Big 3 will be higher than in any season since the Murdochracy was moulded; in comparison, the bottom 3 teams will have the lowest average points since M-Day. The short-term impact is to make the tournament less competitive while, in the medium term, such increase in Illusory Inequalities will hasten the formation of the European Super League
Once a sporting event is targeted by the money markets, the event no longer exists as sport. The winners and losers will be falsely credited in the history books; the hierarchy between the top and the bottom will be "randomised" by power, which, of course, is not really randomisation at all. New infrastructures will develop based on the fallacious foundations already concreted for perpetuity. The sport will move through the four stages of the image until it is a purely hyperreal illusion, bearing no similarity to the Reality where the journey began. After a decade and a half where Sky have massively destabilised the sport of English football, we are almost at the stage of this simulacrum, this hyperreality.
We still remember what Reality looks like but the waves of disinformation and the doctoring of the illusion constantly force us to look away from where we KNOW we should still be looking.
To finish, lets do a trivial exposé of controlled media disinformation. Last week, Avram Grant, when not, at the prompting of his new PR team, tying us emotionally to the holocaust experience (all Black players should equally be given the air time to share their feelings about imperialism and slavery), the Chelsea manager was kicking up a proper fuss about Sky bringing forward the Everton league game to next Thursday for live tv coverage. Cue much hand-wringing and bleating about the unfair advantage given to Man Utd in the title race etc etc. This is a chutzpah overload. The arrangement (and it was a private arrangement) between Sky and Chelsea was to bring the game forward for the advantage of both parties. Chelsea will have a two day advantage over Liverpool for the major focus Champions League Semi Final in the following week together with a day's extra rest than Man Utd after the European game before the two meet on the following weekend. Meanwhile Sky are given an extra live game to compensate for the seemingly increasingly common tactic of pulling potential live matches when either the betting markets don't suit or Chelsea make a request for a later start - witness Arsenal v Villa or Man City v Chelsea. The illusory nature of Grant's media onslaught was pure neoreality. Unfair advantages are THE core competency at Stamford Bridge and the new date for the Everton match is related not to the league game but to Abramovich's determination that his motley crew will be in Moscow in May when this year's major sporting reward for global oligarchs will be decided.
The key point here isn't that Chelsea are tilting the playing field. Nothing new there. It is that the mainstream media slavishly reported this illusory deception like it was Real.
Its easy if you try.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Wednesday, 9 April 2008
"Perfectly Undeserved, Sacrificial Death"
Wow! How emotional was that?
"There is something stronger than sex or happiness: the passion for illusion" - Jean Baudrillard.
Illusions are Emotional. They are also Efficient.
"The decision makers allocate our lives for the growth of power. In matters of social justice and of scientific truth alike, the legitimation of that power is based on optimising the systems performance - efficiency" - Jean-François Lyotard.
It should come as no surprise to discover that Emotional and Efficient Illusions have defined our week in the linked neorealities of football and monarchy.
For 84 minutes, Liverpool and Arsenal served up the beautiful game. Proper football. Minimal corruption. Shades of '66 then kicked in as Liverpool were presented with a fake goal before rushing down the pitch to add an impudent fourth.
They think its all over.
The penalty, like its parallel hyperreality at the Emirates where a far more deserving spot kick was denied to the Gooners, had nothing to do with the laws of the game, the angle of vision of the match officials or enhancing the integrity of the competition. The penalty was given for the offence of: "Being a G14(18) Third Tier Club playing a G14(18) First Tier Club in the latter stages of the Champions (sic) League". Arsenal were, in fact, robbed by penalty decisions in all three acts of the theatre against Liverpool as the Premier League did not wish to be left out of the destruction of the nearest thing England has to total football. Total football played with integrity? Not when there's proper profit to be made, pal - although as we cannot imagine that Richard Scudamore uses the word "pal", you might wish to substitute "chappy" or "chum" instead?
Efficiency was the second reason that this hyperreality must occur. It optimises the performativity of a corrupt system for the prizes to be shared around the fragmented cartel while the serious, and sometimes not-so-serious, competition is undermined by all means, fair or foul. Although foul is preferable, obviously. Hicks and Gillett might do the mutual-gut-hating-thing but their passion for dollars trumps any tendency to self-destruct financially. A powerful team with powerful betting money supporting them on the pitch and two referees who, obviously unwittingly, undertook the desired hidden agenda of the G14(18), the sleeper organisation that has supplanted UEFA at the head of the European game. Beat that, Arsenal...
Every game has its story and when emotion is part of that story, we are drawn to an acceptance of the appearances presented to us by the Illusion. "A dodgy decision". "All the big decisions went against us". "We have to live with decisions like that but, for seven or eight weeks now, we have had to swallow things you would rather not swallow". Wenger's continuing eureka moment with regards to the negative correlatory link between the goals of corruption and the goals of Arsenal Football Club are becoming an island of Reality in the sea of Illusion. Of course, Benitez took on the position of any senior management figure within a power operation when he completely sidelined any questions relating to the injustices that might obscure the hyperreality of the Texan Reds Illusory triumph.
We are robbed too. The game could have been remembered as an amazing football match decided by Theo Walcott's astonishing slalom run. Instead it is remembered as a football match culminating in an audacious boiler room scam - the match evolved into an artifice.
Fröjdfeldt's phantasmagoric imagery defined this nebulous reality and the G14(18), now allegedly morphed into their new form as the European Club Forum, have achieved their optimised Champions League Semi Finals from a marketing perspective - Schalke 04 or Fenerbahçe are minimal brands in the Illusory World of European Football.
Charlemagne, in The Economist: "A political union hatched together by a fractious elite, and answerable only to itself, is not a model for anybody to follow". With the exception of Platini and his personal brand of realpolitik, Charlemagne's comments would depict the G14(18)/UEFA perfectly. Invalid.
The caste cast the cast, as they might say in Italy, in Italian... Horseracing is already total simulation and, unless concerted efforts are made to pull football back from the brink which Alisher Usmanov represents, football too will make the leap from Illusion to Simulation. It will be very very profitable though, in the short-term, for some people. So, presumably, we have to accept that "thats alright then"?
Emotions and Efficiency in Sport are only interesting because the hyperreality of football demands inappropriate coverage in a world that should be defined by Real issues. We cannot imagine that there was too much interest in Waziristan as to whether the destruction of the tower of Babel warranted a penalty, for example.
Some things are more important than football, although, incidentally, very few things are as important as developments in Waziristan.
Craven Cottage has also been an Emotional place this week. A double whammy of corruption covering murder and football, timed to perfection by the deep state, a Reality so Real that it could not be reported as News by the mainstream media, becoming merely news instead. For standing up for his murdered son, Mohamed al-Fayed has been given a decade of bad press before a split decision, based on the evidence presented to the court and most definitely not on any withheld evidence, cleared the deep state, and Nick The Corfiot in particular, of any cause and effect linkages to the murder in Paris. Of course, it was unfortunate that MI6 had undertaken blue sky scenario planning on taking out Milosevic in a similar hit in a tunnel and that some of the images from the tunnel were also rather awkward (and expensive to secrete) with regard to this particular Illusion. Justice was sidelined. Just a standard British Diplock court ruling, nothing unusual in that...
The judicial clearing of the deep state and the associated relegation of Fulham Football Club from the Premiership occurring in conjunction is a nice touch, however - the perpetration of an Illusion often takes on maximal impact when combined with a related Illusion.
Gordon Brown and The Two Prince's have said they want this matter to go no further. We would assume that Nick The Corfiot would think likewise. With dignity, the Fulham owner is accommodating the deep state in their wishes and the Real Irony of this Illusion is that, by allowing the Sacrifice of Dodi and Diana by the Establishment to remain a Matter Of Some Uncertainty, al-Fayed will, perhaps, be allowed to achieve his lifelong aim of a British passport. For services rendered, one assumes...
So now that we are all able to rest at night reassured in the knowledge that The Princess and The Son were murdered by Objects - motorbikes, seatbelts, alcohol. We should take a moment to consider the real Real reasons why this murder was committed.
"Behind the paparazzi there are the media, behind the media, us, all of us: we whose desires shape the media; we who are the medium, the network and the conducting current. There are no longer either actors or spectators; all are immersed in the same reality, in the same revolving responsibility, in a single impersonal destiny which is merely the fulfillment of a collective desire" - Baudrillard.
'Nuff said.
Back to the Really Important World of Football and Richard Williams in The Guardian: "More than naked financial greed and the wretched excesses it provokes, the creeping desire to manipulate the truth is what threatens to destroy the appeal of sport in the modern world".
Football Is Fixed: "More than naked financial greed and the wretched excesses it provokes, the rampant desire to manipulate the truth is what threatens to destroy the planet in the postmodern world".
Baudrillard's "perfectly undeserved, sacrificial death" applied to Diana. In our current phase of hyperrealities, football has proved Shankley right by becoming more important than a matter of life and death. By making this dangerous liaison, football is also creating the momentum towards its very own and entirely unique "perfectly undeserved, sacrificial death".
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
"There is something stronger than sex or happiness: the passion for illusion" - Jean Baudrillard.
Illusions are Emotional. They are also Efficient.
"The decision makers allocate our lives for the growth of power. In matters of social justice and of scientific truth alike, the legitimation of that power is based on optimising the systems performance - efficiency" - Jean-François Lyotard.
It should come as no surprise to discover that Emotional and Efficient Illusions have defined our week in the linked neorealities of football and monarchy.
For 84 minutes, Liverpool and Arsenal served up the beautiful game. Proper football. Minimal corruption. Shades of '66 then kicked in as Liverpool were presented with a fake goal before rushing down the pitch to add an impudent fourth.
They think its all over.
The penalty, like its parallel hyperreality at the Emirates where a far more deserving spot kick was denied to the Gooners, had nothing to do with the laws of the game, the angle of vision of the match officials or enhancing the integrity of the competition. The penalty was given for the offence of: "Being a G14(18) Third Tier Club playing a G14(18) First Tier Club in the latter stages of the Champions (sic) League". Arsenal were, in fact, robbed by penalty decisions in all three acts of the theatre against Liverpool as the Premier League did not wish to be left out of the destruction of the nearest thing England has to total football. Total football played with integrity? Not when there's proper profit to be made, pal - although as we cannot imagine that Richard Scudamore uses the word "pal", you might wish to substitute "chappy" or "chum" instead?
Efficiency was the second reason that this hyperreality must occur. It optimises the performativity of a corrupt system for the prizes to be shared around the fragmented cartel while the serious, and sometimes not-so-serious, competition is undermined by all means, fair or foul. Although foul is preferable, obviously. Hicks and Gillett might do the mutual-gut-hating-thing but their passion for dollars trumps any tendency to self-destruct financially. A powerful team with powerful betting money supporting them on the pitch and two referees who, obviously unwittingly, undertook the desired hidden agenda of the G14(18), the sleeper organisation that has supplanted UEFA at the head of the European game. Beat that, Arsenal...
Every game has its story and when emotion is part of that story, we are drawn to an acceptance of the appearances presented to us by the Illusion. "A dodgy decision". "All the big decisions went against us". "We have to live with decisions like that but, for seven or eight weeks now, we have had to swallow things you would rather not swallow". Wenger's continuing eureka moment with regards to the negative correlatory link between the goals of corruption and the goals of Arsenal Football Club are becoming an island of Reality in the sea of Illusion. Of course, Benitez took on the position of any senior management figure within a power operation when he completely sidelined any questions relating to the injustices that might obscure the hyperreality of the Texan Reds Illusory triumph.
We are robbed too. The game could have been remembered as an amazing football match decided by Theo Walcott's astonishing slalom run. Instead it is remembered as a football match culminating in an audacious boiler room scam - the match evolved into an artifice.
Fröjdfeldt's phantasmagoric imagery defined this nebulous reality and the G14(18), now allegedly morphed into their new form as the European Club Forum, have achieved their optimised Champions League Semi Finals from a marketing perspective - Schalke 04 or Fenerbahçe are minimal brands in the Illusory World of European Football.
Charlemagne, in The Economist: "A political union hatched together by a fractious elite, and answerable only to itself, is not a model for anybody to follow". With the exception of Platini and his personal brand of realpolitik, Charlemagne's comments would depict the G14(18)/UEFA perfectly. Invalid.
The caste cast the cast, as they might say in Italy, in Italian... Horseracing is already total simulation and, unless concerted efforts are made to pull football back from the brink which Alisher Usmanov represents, football too will make the leap from Illusion to Simulation. It will be very very profitable though, in the short-term, for some people. So, presumably, we have to accept that "thats alright then"?
Emotions and Efficiency in Sport are only interesting because the hyperreality of football demands inappropriate coverage in a world that should be defined by Real issues. We cannot imagine that there was too much interest in Waziristan as to whether the destruction of the tower of Babel warranted a penalty, for example.
Some things are more important than football, although, incidentally, very few things are as important as developments in Waziristan.
Craven Cottage has also been an Emotional place this week. A double whammy of corruption covering murder and football, timed to perfection by the deep state, a Reality so Real that it could not be reported as News by the mainstream media, becoming merely news instead. For standing up for his murdered son, Mohamed al-Fayed has been given a decade of bad press before a split decision, based on the evidence presented to the court and most definitely not on any withheld evidence, cleared the deep state, and Nick The Corfiot in particular, of any cause and effect linkages to the murder in Paris. Of course, it was unfortunate that MI6 had undertaken blue sky scenario planning on taking out Milosevic in a similar hit in a tunnel and that some of the images from the tunnel were also rather awkward (and expensive to secrete) with regard to this particular Illusion. Justice was sidelined. Just a standard British Diplock court ruling, nothing unusual in that...
The judicial clearing of the deep state and the associated relegation of Fulham Football Club from the Premiership occurring in conjunction is a nice touch, however - the perpetration of an Illusion often takes on maximal impact when combined with a related Illusion.
Gordon Brown and The Two Prince's have said they want this matter to go no further. We would assume that Nick The Corfiot would think likewise. With dignity, the Fulham owner is accommodating the deep state in their wishes and the Real Irony of this Illusion is that, by allowing the Sacrifice of Dodi and Diana by the Establishment to remain a Matter Of Some Uncertainty, al-Fayed will, perhaps, be allowed to achieve his lifelong aim of a British passport. For services rendered, one assumes...
So now that we are all able to rest at night reassured in the knowledge that The Princess and The Son were murdered by Objects - motorbikes, seatbelts, alcohol. We should take a moment to consider the real Real reasons why this murder was committed.
"Behind the paparazzi there are the media, behind the media, us, all of us: we whose desires shape the media; we who are the medium, the network and the conducting current. There are no longer either actors or spectators; all are immersed in the same reality, in the same revolving responsibility, in a single impersonal destiny which is merely the fulfillment of a collective desire" - Baudrillard.
'Nuff said.
Back to the Really Important World of Football and Richard Williams in The Guardian: "More than naked financial greed and the wretched excesses it provokes, the creeping desire to manipulate the truth is what threatens to destroy the appeal of sport in the modern world".
Football Is Fixed: "More than naked financial greed and the wretched excesses it provokes, the rampant desire to manipulate the truth is what threatens to destroy the planet in the postmodern world".
Baudrillard's "perfectly undeserved, sacrificial death" applied to Diana. In our current phase of hyperrealities, football has proved Shankley right by becoming more important than a matter of life and death. By making this dangerous liaison, football is also creating the momentum towards its very own and entirely unique "perfectly undeserved, sacrificial death".
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Monday, 7 April 2008
The Exoticism Of We Ourselves
"If we are going to end up being exotics of our own lives (as we all are), we may as well cultivate radical exoticism" - Baudrillard.
By some considerable distance, the most tedious blog posts are the ones where we promote the various Services which enable our Trading Team to keep our collective heads above the choppy financial waters of 2008. As recession bites and deepens towards the oncoming Depression (The Sequel), it is a constant imperative to remould the business model innovatively in real time. New sector and sub-sectoral infrastructures offer new opportunities as we attempt to portfolio our business operations in a suitably correlative manner.
Recent developments have persuaded us, as an organisation, that we MUST maintain our highly creative work/life balances. Our career options are plentiful, we are fortunate in this fact at least, but work only works if we maintain our respective equilibria of inputs. The short-termism of workaholics is self-defeating as the lifestyle is simply not sustainable. In the juggling of an array of plates, the Clarice Cliff ones are the ones that one needs to be focusing upon. In order to create as exotic and unique a structure as possible within Dietrological, we are both expanding and contracting our range of business projects and services for the season 2008/09. Because we can feel your waves of anticipation, we will move on to describe these changes without further ado.
DIETROLOGICAL - Our Football Information Provision Service will continue as previous until the summer and then we are making significant changes to the structure of this area of our business operation. We are forming a separate trading entity with our Dietrological Platinum client to target the Asian betting markets on a more liquid level. This is a completely proprietary project. All other Dietrological clients will receive information on the current basis. There is one available slot for the Dietrological Gold/Silver Service (100% winners since Chinese New Year window, 90% on the season) and two available slots for the Dietrological Bronze Service (only 8% losers since Chinese New Year break, 80% winners on the season).
HOLISTIC SABERMETRICS - We are in the developmental (beta) phase of a new implementation of our Unified Trading Model (UTM) - the project aims to improve the efficiency of the player transfer market. The transfer market is a young market and the degree of inefficiency in the marketplace is startling. Good. This means profit. Player evaluation is currently a rather haphazard affair which fails to take into account the "real" parameters which should be the foundation of a true price. By including such major impacts as institutional corruption, betting market machinations/ activities and other laterally thought configurative parameters and sub-models, Holistic Sabermetrics will transform the marketplace. We intend to provide this Service both to individual agents and to the clubs themselves. Holistic Sabermetrics will be launched in time for the summer transfer windows across Europe and a promotional campaign is even now being pipelined.
FOOTBALL IS FIXED - Radical Direct Action will become increasingly Vital. A Practical Observation on Critical Theory. Improving, not inadvertently but with a creative reciprocal usage of disinformation, the performativity of the corruption template. A provocative QED. Applying Baudrillard to the Global Betting Markets. Libertarian Socialism from the perspective of a Market Analyst. Exotic. No advertisements or other marketing processes of consumerism. Guerrilla Graffiti with Some Big Words. Contrarian and Counter-Intuitive. DeFragging The Cartel. Multi-libellous output. No more twittering. The grammar will continue to be poor if, at least, reliably poor and the sentence structures will snake ever onwards in an obfuscatory and obscurantist manner to disguise meaning and intent to all readers apart from myself. There will continue to be no marketing, no promotion, no hyping, no scamming - our expansion relies on word-of-mouth. Anonymous Guest Blog Posts from Anonymous Guest Blog Posters. Strictly isolationist and increasingly impersonal. Deleuze: "What do you know about me, given that I believe in secrecy? ... if I stick where I am, if I don't travel around, like anyone else I make my own inner journeys that I can only measure by my emotions, and express very obliquely and circuitously in what I write... Arguments from ones own privileged experiences are bad and reactionary arguments". Not quite as nihilist (nor paranoid!) as Deleuze but you catch the drift? The Illusion demands a Perfect Crime but no such Crime exists - Traces are left. Forensic Analysis and Psychology allows a Reconstruction of the Template of the Hyperreality representing this Crime. This is News, but not the sort of "news" found in the mainstream media. Football Is Fixed will combine some News, some isolationism and some analysis together with some narrative about how we made money on the markets last year.
TRADE HYPERREALITIES - Progressing further in our creative branding in a Post-Modern and Cynical Realist era, our Consultancy Projects will now be collectively rebranded and accounted for as Trade Hyperrealities. As the market infrastructures provide widespread examples of inappropriately constructed market formats, our Trading Team are able to combine multidisciplinarily to address some micro-niches that quantum in-and-out of existence in the warped world of shareholder capitalism. Once we are aware of a distinct and robust model structure, we approach a few carefully selected potential clients for collaboration in expanding the project to its full capacity. Currently gliding along the conveyor belt of reactionary contrarianism is the following project, provisionally entitled "Wenger" in commemoration of the Arsenal manager turning down our offer of a Consultancy last season. "Wenger" would have improved Arsenal's position in the Premiership hyperreality by a minimum of 5 points this season - he should have listened to us. What is "Wenger"? - Modelling the Negative Impact of the Global Betting Markets on Certain Clubs. How to be both proactive and reactive in addressing the corruption on a structural and an individual basis. The creative use of the (dis)information with respect to market dynamics and the psychological assessment of key outcome determinants eg referees. Incorporating an analysis of externalised corruption into the strategy eg with regard to Performance Enhancing Substances by opponents. Brand it. Flog it.
The Projects are Fourfold - Dietrological, Football Is Fixed, Holistic Sabermetrics and Trade Hyperrealities - the Trading Team continues as Four in a Cell. We are Open Source, suitably Time-Lagged away from the News. Straight from the fridge...
Just as there are hundreds of billions of dollars in the shadow banking system, there are tens of billions of dollars in the shadow football betting markets.
Just as Hank Paulson wishes to exterminate the regulatory bodies that hinder unfettered fascism in the marketplace, there are those in football actively undermining the integrity of the game both internally and on a more externalised level by by-passing or devaluing the rules and regulations.
Which is more illusory?
The top tier of the G14(18) provides three of the Champions League Semi-Finalists. This is still a powerful grouping of clubs.
OR, the G14(18) has been disbanded.
The FA Cup Final features the Moscow/Tel Aviv Blues - a team backed by an arms dealer, a team whose manager and former owner are on bail regarding various financial shenanigans including, in the latter case, money laundering - and Cardiff City Chapter 11 under the autocracy of Robber Ridsdale.
OR, its great to see 'Arry and Jammo at the Food Mall in the final of the world's greatest competition.
They are selling you an Illusion. The Illusion will either become Real as the Reality Deficit becomes the New Reality or the Illusion will become Perfectly Hyperreal as Total Simulation becomes the New "Reality".
We are living in Serious Times and our peculiar fate of fortune in matters of timing are something we must use to maximum effect.
Baudrillard: "Just because a tile falls off a roof, there is not necessarily someone underneath it at the right moment, that would be too good to be true".
It is too good to be true.
It is true.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
By some considerable distance, the most tedious blog posts are the ones where we promote the various Services which enable our Trading Team to keep our collective heads above the choppy financial waters of 2008. As recession bites and deepens towards the oncoming Depression (The Sequel), it is a constant imperative to remould the business model innovatively in real time. New sector and sub-sectoral infrastructures offer new opportunities as we attempt to portfolio our business operations in a suitably correlative manner.
Recent developments have persuaded us, as an organisation, that we MUST maintain our highly creative work/life balances. Our career options are plentiful, we are fortunate in this fact at least, but work only works if we maintain our respective equilibria of inputs. The short-termism of workaholics is self-defeating as the lifestyle is simply not sustainable. In the juggling of an array of plates, the Clarice Cliff ones are the ones that one needs to be focusing upon. In order to create as exotic and unique a structure as possible within Dietrological, we are both expanding and contracting our range of business projects and services for the season 2008/09. Because we can feel your waves of anticipation, we will move on to describe these changes without further ado.
DIETROLOGICAL - Our Football Information Provision Service will continue as previous until the summer and then we are making significant changes to the structure of this area of our business operation. We are forming a separate trading entity with our Dietrological Platinum client to target the Asian betting markets on a more liquid level. This is a completely proprietary project. All other Dietrological clients will receive information on the current basis. There is one available slot for the Dietrological Gold/Silver Service (100% winners since Chinese New Year window, 90% on the season) and two available slots for the Dietrological Bronze Service (only 8% losers since Chinese New Year break, 80% winners on the season).
HOLISTIC SABERMETRICS - We are in the developmental (beta) phase of a new implementation of our Unified Trading Model (UTM) - the project aims to improve the efficiency of the player transfer market. The transfer market is a young market and the degree of inefficiency in the marketplace is startling. Good. This means profit. Player evaluation is currently a rather haphazard affair which fails to take into account the "real" parameters which should be the foundation of a true price. By including such major impacts as institutional corruption, betting market machinations/ activities and other laterally thought configurative parameters and sub-models, Holistic Sabermetrics will transform the marketplace. We intend to provide this Service both to individual agents and to the clubs themselves. Holistic Sabermetrics will be launched in time for the summer transfer windows across Europe and a promotional campaign is even now being pipelined.
FOOTBALL IS FIXED - Radical Direct Action will become increasingly Vital. A Practical Observation on Critical Theory. Improving, not inadvertently but with a creative reciprocal usage of disinformation, the performativity of the corruption template. A provocative QED. Applying Baudrillard to the Global Betting Markets. Libertarian Socialism from the perspective of a Market Analyst. Exotic. No advertisements or other marketing processes of consumerism. Guerrilla Graffiti with Some Big Words. Contrarian and Counter-Intuitive. DeFragging The Cartel. Multi-libellous output. No more twittering. The grammar will continue to be poor if, at least, reliably poor and the sentence structures will snake ever onwards in an obfuscatory and obscurantist manner to disguise meaning and intent to all readers apart from myself. There will continue to be no marketing, no promotion, no hyping, no scamming - our expansion relies on word-of-mouth. Anonymous Guest Blog Posts from Anonymous Guest Blog Posters. Strictly isolationist and increasingly impersonal. Deleuze: "What do you know about me, given that I believe in secrecy? ... if I stick where I am, if I don't travel around, like anyone else I make my own inner journeys that I can only measure by my emotions, and express very obliquely and circuitously in what I write... Arguments from ones own privileged experiences are bad and reactionary arguments". Not quite as nihilist (nor paranoid!) as Deleuze but you catch the drift? The Illusion demands a Perfect Crime but no such Crime exists - Traces are left. Forensic Analysis and Psychology allows a Reconstruction of the Template of the Hyperreality representing this Crime. This is News, but not the sort of "news" found in the mainstream media. Football Is Fixed will combine some News, some isolationism and some analysis together with some narrative about how we made money on the markets last year.
TRADE HYPERREALITIES - Progressing further in our creative branding in a Post-Modern and Cynical Realist era, our Consultancy Projects will now be collectively rebranded and accounted for as Trade Hyperrealities. As the market infrastructures provide widespread examples of inappropriately constructed market formats, our Trading Team are able to combine multidisciplinarily to address some micro-niches that quantum in-and-out of existence in the warped world of shareholder capitalism. Once we are aware of a distinct and robust model structure, we approach a few carefully selected potential clients for collaboration in expanding the project to its full capacity. Currently gliding along the conveyor belt of reactionary contrarianism is the following project, provisionally entitled "Wenger" in commemoration of the Arsenal manager turning down our offer of a Consultancy last season. "Wenger" would have improved Arsenal's position in the Premiership hyperreality by a minimum of 5 points this season - he should have listened to us. What is "Wenger"? - Modelling the Negative Impact of the Global Betting Markets on Certain Clubs. How to be both proactive and reactive in addressing the corruption on a structural and an individual basis. The creative use of the (dis)information with respect to market dynamics and the psychological assessment of key outcome determinants eg referees. Incorporating an analysis of externalised corruption into the strategy eg with regard to Performance Enhancing Substances by opponents. Brand it. Flog it.
The Projects are Fourfold - Dietrological, Football Is Fixed, Holistic Sabermetrics and Trade Hyperrealities - the Trading Team continues as Four in a Cell. We are Open Source, suitably Time-Lagged away from the News. Straight from the fridge...
Just as there are hundreds of billions of dollars in the shadow banking system, there are tens of billions of dollars in the shadow football betting markets.
Just as Hank Paulson wishes to exterminate the regulatory bodies that hinder unfettered fascism in the marketplace, there are those in football actively undermining the integrity of the game both internally and on a more externalised level by by-passing or devaluing the rules and regulations.
Which is more illusory?
The top tier of the G14(18) provides three of the Champions League Semi-Finalists. This is still a powerful grouping of clubs.
OR, the G14(18) has been disbanded.
The FA Cup Final features the Moscow/Tel Aviv Blues - a team backed by an arms dealer, a team whose manager and former owner are on bail regarding various financial shenanigans including, in the latter case, money laundering - and Cardiff City Chapter 11 under the autocracy of Robber Ridsdale.
OR, its great to see 'Arry and Jammo at the Food Mall in the final of the world's greatest competition.
They are selling you an Illusion. The Illusion will either become Real as the Reality Deficit becomes the New Reality or the Illusion will become Perfectly Hyperreal as Total Simulation becomes the New "Reality".
We are living in Serious Times and our peculiar fate of fortune in matters of timing are something we must use to maximum effect.
Baudrillard: "Just because a tile falls off a roof, there is not necessarily someone underneath it at the right moment, that would be too good to be true".
It is too good to be true.
It is true.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Saturday, 5 April 2008
Is All Of Life A Tepid Housewarming?
"The whole system of information and the media is a gigantic machine for producing the event as sign... - in short, for producing non-events" - Jean Baudrillard.
And what could be a bigger non-event than a former Premiership footballer paying off some gambling debts by doing an inside job for a bookmaker? The player in question earned £50K, the amount he was indebted to the layers, for getting himself sent off and persuading three of his colleagues to get booked in a match. And this is news? From the periphery of an essence of a hyperreality, the media have dragged up this inconsequentiality of an event. Inconsequential to all but the player concerned, that would be...
And where should the hyperreal finger of blame be pointing? At the bookmakers who acted on this "inside information" or on the player who activated the scam in desperation? Well, Arsène Wenger hyperventilated at his Friday news conference before stealing the weekly prize for reactionary thought by declaring that the player "should be banned for life with no hearing". Surprisingly, considering the machinations undertaken against his Arsenal team, Wenger still seems to hover in a state of semi-denial as to the hyperreal state of the illusion known as the Premiership. Wenger's mutterings could have been recorded on a psychotherapist's couch - disjointed musings as flashes of the hyperreality impacted on his subconscious: "...match fixing is horrible. I never could believe that it could happen here... You want justice to be done. If you want to win the game and you know that the matches are fixed, the sport has no chance... At the moment the gambling exists and it is difficult to stop it... Until now I never had a feeling it was not fair". Presumably, Wenger is fusing two separate neorealities here - the peripheral one regarding Mr 50K and the rather more serious one relating to the corruption in the Premiership. Mr 50K does not provide an iota of proof as to the true levels of corruption underpinning the betting markets which, in turn, undermine the integrity of the game. Mr 50K does provide a media window - a small opportunity to move the illusion towards reality for as long as the media allow the story to run. In the world of the illusion, that is all he is.
The player at the eye of this media storm is said to be "ashamed and full of remorse". What about the bookmakers? Any indication of shame or remorse there? And this is peripheral nonsense in the big scheme of things. A Premiership player, or anyone else for that matter, is able to place bets of £2.5 million in the Far East on the day of a Premiership match without any issues. £50K... News?...
The FA, apparently, have strict rules against anyone "betting on matches or competitions in which they are involved or have influence over". Laughable - the FA is managing to myopically avoid an awful lot of liquidity out there. As usual in the world of regulation and oversight, incompetent or corrupt are the choice of calls here.
Dietmar Kamper: "When the horizon disappears, what then appears is the horizon of disappearance". And so with our chain of hyperrealities relating to the grey area where Premiership Football meets the Global Betting Markets. Mr 50K represents a new horizon, but a fake horizon. Or at least, it is fake until we consent to it as a piece of societal illusion. According to Lyotard: "Consensus is the ultimate form of totalitarianism" and we must withhold our consent to these entirely fallacious hyperrealities.
The player is "recuperating" at the Sporting Chance clinic in Hampshire. Undoubtedly named by Orwell, this ruse of privatisation charges players for being victims in a corrupt system and, for marketing purposes, allows snippets of privacy to leak into the media for the purposes of guerrilla promotion dressed up as illusory realities. The man chased his losses to the bookies and is now chasing his losses to the labyrinthine world of private medicine. Pity the man, don't blame him. Blame the unregulated system for allowing the football and gambling sectors to cosy up so inappropriately closely. Pity the people betting the opposite way on this inside job. At the very least, one would like to think that the guilty bookmaker would return its winnings on this boiler room scam. We will dream on...
The scam is simple. Players help to rig matches. Forwards and goalkeepers are particularly high risk positions. Whether coerced or willingly involved, the player offers a prime route to control of match outcome. Bookmakers trade inside control of games against their competitors. This is called proprietary trading and, surprisingly, is not called insider trading, for that is what it undoubtedly is. Possession of the corruption is regarded as competitive advantage - that competitive advantage is the control of the outcome of that football match you have just remortgaged the extension to attend with your family. Comprendez?
Burnley Hillbilly, Happy Hillman, was the first player to have the rulebook thrown at him for insider goings-on and that was about 120 years ago. There has not been much regulatory activity since. While in the meantime, unfortunately, the wisdom of the early guardians of the game who kept football and gambling strictly apart, and that is properly "strict" not like the FA's version of "strict", has been superceded by the creation of edifices that fully define the sport of football as, primarily, a gambling medium.
The Grand National - a hyperreality loosely based on horse cruelty.
The English Premiership - a hyperreality loosely based on fan cruelty.
Baudrillard: "Illusion is the fundamental rule... Either the world is wholly real, or it is wholly illusion. Any compromise between the two is weak thinking... Given the mass of evidence, there is no plausible hypothesis but reality. Given the mass of evidence to the contrary, there is no solution but illusion".
The interest no longer lies in the intricacies of the matrix that is the Premiership tournament. Medals and demotions, like the hierarchical prize money, are the signs of reward and authenticity. Yet they are, at best, valueless and, at worst, devaluing. The "real" interest lies in observing the body of the hyperreality itself. Macro rather than solely micro. How will this corruption unwind? Which hyperrealities await on the journey to football's termination?
Baudrillard concludes: "The only suspense that remains is that of knowing how far the world can de-realise itself before succumbing to its reality deficit or, conversely, how far it can hyperrealise itself before succumbing to an excess of reality (the point when, having become perfectly real, truer than true, it will fall into the clutches of total simulation)".
Whether one chooses to address climate change, the linkage between football and gambling, the oil industry, the war of terror, the privatisation of utilities, "free" trade, the financial sector etc etc, pseudorealities are at the focus of the marketing paradigm as the overlords of the systemic corruption optimise their short-term objectives to everybody's long-term distress.
Propaganda and lies...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
And what could be a bigger non-event than a former Premiership footballer paying off some gambling debts by doing an inside job for a bookmaker? The player in question earned £50K, the amount he was indebted to the layers, for getting himself sent off and persuading three of his colleagues to get booked in a match. And this is news? From the periphery of an essence of a hyperreality, the media have dragged up this inconsequentiality of an event. Inconsequential to all but the player concerned, that would be...
And where should the hyperreal finger of blame be pointing? At the bookmakers who acted on this "inside information" or on the player who activated the scam in desperation? Well, Arsène Wenger hyperventilated at his Friday news conference before stealing the weekly prize for reactionary thought by declaring that the player "should be banned for life with no hearing". Surprisingly, considering the machinations undertaken against his Arsenal team, Wenger still seems to hover in a state of semi-denial as to the hyperreal state of the illusion known as the Premiership. Wenger's mutterings could have been recorded on a psychotherapist's couch - disjointed musings as flashes of the hyperreality impacted on his subconscious: "...match fixing is horrible. I never could believe that it could happen here... You want justice to be done. If you want to win the game and you know that the matches are fixed, the sport has no chance... At the moment the gambling exists and it is difficult to stop it... Until now I never had a feeling it was not fair". Presumably, Wenger is fusing two separate neorealities here - the peripheral one regarding Mr 50K and the rather more serious one relating to the corruption in the Premiership. Mr 50K does not provide an iota of proof as to the true levels of corruption underpinning the betting markets which, in turn, undermine the integrity of the game. Mr 50K does provide a media window - a small opportunity to move the illusion towards reality for as long as the media allow the story to run. In the world of the illusion, that is all he is.
The player at the eye of this media storm is said to be "ashamed and full of remorse". What about the bookmakers? Any indication of shame or remorse there? And this is peripheral nonsense in the big scheme of things. A Premiership player, or anyone else for that matter, is able to place bets of £2.5 million in the Far East on the day of a Premiership match without any issues. £50K... News?...
The FA, apparently, have strict rules against anyone "betting on matches or competitions in which they are involved or have influence over". Laughable - the FA is managing to myopically avoid an awful lot of liquidity out there. As usual in the world of regulation and oversight, incompetent or corrupt are the choice of calls here.
Dietmar Kamper: "When the horizon disappears, what then appears is the horizon of disappearance". And so with our chain of hyperrealities relating to the grey area where Premiership Football meets the Global Betting Markets. Mr 50K represents a new horizon, but a fake horizon. Or at least, it is fake until we consent to it as a piece of societal illusion. According to Lyotard: "Consensus is the ultimate form of totalitarianism" and we must withhold our consent to these entirely fallacious hyperrealities.
The player is "recuperating" at the Sporting Chance clinic in Hampshire. Undoubtedly named by Orwell, this ruse of privatisation charges players for being victims in a corrupt system and, for marketing purposes, allows snippets of privacy to leak into the media for the purposes of guerrilla promotion dressed up as illusory realities. The man chased his losses to the bookies and is now chasing his losses to the labyrinthine world of private medicine. Pity the man, don't blame him. Blame the unregulated system for allowing the football and gambling sectors to cosy up so inappropriately closely. Pity the people betting the opposite way on this inside job. At the very least, one would like to think that the guilty bookmaker would return its winnings on this boiler room scam. We will dream on...
The scam is simple. Players help to rig matches. Forwards and goalkeepers are particularly high risk positions. Whether coerced or willingly involved, the player offers a prime route to control of match outcome. Bookmakers trade inside control of games against their competitors. This is called proprietary trading and, surprisingly, is not called insider trading, for that is what it undoubtedly is. Possession of the corruption is regarded as competitive advantage - that competitive advantage is the control of the outcome of that football match you have just remortgaged the extension to attend with your family. Comprendez?
Burnley Hillbilly, Happy Hillman, was the first player to have the rulebook thrown at him for insider goings-on and that was about 120 years ago. There has not been much regulatory activity since. While in the meantime, unfortunately, the wisdom of the early guardians of the game who kept football and gambling strictly apart, and that is properly "strict" not like the FA's version of "strict", has been superceded by the creation of edifices that fully define the sport of football as, primarily, a gambling medium.
The Grand National - a hyperreality loosely based on horse cruelty.
The English Premiership - a hyperreality loosely based on fan cruelty.
Baudrillard: "Illusion is the fundamental rule... Either the world is wholly real, or it is wholly illusion. Any compromise between the two is weak thinking... Given the mass of evidence, there is no plausible hypothesis but reality. Given the mass of evidence to the contrary, there is no solution but illusion".
The interest no longer lies in the intricacies of the matrix that is the Premiership tournament. Medals and demotions, like the hierarchical prize money, are the signs of reward and authenticity. Yet they are, at best, valueless and, at worst, devaluing. The "real" interest lies in observing the body of the hyperreality itself. Macro rather than solely micro. How will this corruption unwind? Which hyperrealities await on the journey to football's termination?
Baudrillard concludes: "The only suspense that remains is that of knowing how far the world can de-realise itself before succumbing to its reality deficit or, conversely, how far it can hyperrealise itself before succumbing to an excess of reality (the point when, having become perfectly real, truer than true, it will fall into the clutches of total simulation)".
Whether one chooses to address climate change, the linkage between football and gambling, the oil industry, the war of terror, the privatisation of utilities, "free" trade, the financial sector etc etc, pseudorealities are at the focus of the marketing paradigm as the overlords of the systemic corruption optimise their short-term objectives to everybody's long-term distress.
Propaganda and lies...
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
Thursday, 3 April 2008
Malleus Maleficarum
What do Michael Owen and Jérôme Kerviel have in common?
What's the difference between a whistleblower and a whistle blower?
Why is there nothing, rather than something?
The answer to each of these questions lie in this post although they are secreted, providing merely an essence of the linkage of neorealities.
Shareholder capitalism is assured of spontaneous combustion as, by its very nature, it encourages and handsomely rewards psychopathic short-termism at the expense of the rationality of a sustainable strategy. On a super-systemic level, this results in super-issues like climate change whereas on a systemic level, it is in the process of creating the biggest recession since 1929.
Quoting Jack Rasmus: "History will show a remarkable congruence between the conditions, events, and policies of the decade of the 1920s, on the one hand, and the events and policies of the past decade. The 1920s were characterised by:
* an over-extended housing and construction boom in mid-decade that imploded
* a slowdown in investment in the productive economy as speculative investment steadily crowded out real investment
* a Federal Reserve System that pumped up the money supply without concern for its eventual speculative impact
* an increasing imbalance in world trade and currency instability
* the near destruction of labour unions
The progressive destruction of unions over the course of the 1920s, when combined with the radical restructuring of the tax system that provided massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, resulted in a dramatic shift in income distribution toward wealthy investors and corporations from the rest of the working population... Perhaps more than any single contributory factor, the rapid and extreme growth of income inequality during the decade was eventually responsible for the ultimate financial implosion of 1929 and the consequent depression. The massive shift in incomes that fed the speculation in turn resulted in a further income shift, as super-profits were realised by the wealthy from the speculative investment frenzy. More concentration of income in turn provoked a dizzy spiral of asset price inflation, speculative profits, and a euphoric expectation the process would continue without limit".
The Federal Reserve is currently supporting the entire US shareholder capitalist edifice by becoming the ultimate lender of the last resort in the same manner as the British government is "stabilising" Northern Rock. Free markets are not supposed to be reliant on government and/or central bank largesse to function the performativities desired in the warped world of the monetarists. Of course, Bear Stearns or the British bank could not be allowed to go under as, particularly in the former case, the tentacles of risk diversion would have impacted upon the cash flows of other leading global financial institutions. So, when the guardians of the financial system mess up, it has to be the taxpayers that scaffold together the financial infrastructure.
When Hank Paulson took over as Bush's economic maestro, he basically brought the boardroom of Goldman Sachs into the White House. The dichotomous relevance of possibilities afforded to the top investment bank via having their hands on some very serious levers of financial power evidently proved just a little too tempting as the investment bank cashed in on their inappropriate access to both inside information and policy directives ahead of the marketplace. Cue the sub-prime fiasco. Nobody knows who the patsy is so nobody trusts anybody and the banking system seizes up while the public dig deep to pay the bonuses of the financial sector in a downturn. An impartial observer might feel that some heavy duty restrictive regulation would be the order of the day and such an observer would be surprised by the chutzpah exhibited by the man-with-his-hands-on-the-levers, Hank Paulson: "... more regulation is not the answer to the current crisis" claimed the architect of the recession before arguing in favour of a more streamlined system with fewer regulators.
The man is taking the piss. This libertarian fascist approach to the financial world is the standard Anglo/US template. And we are entering that other warped world here - the one of incentives and gaming the regulation, of moral hazard and psychopathic financial edifices. Libertarian fascism demands a free-for-all marketplace with limited and loopholed regulation. This demand is based on the fallacy that such an environment is necessary for the maximised input-output ratio of the economic and financial system. The abusive and autocratic power hierarchy created undoubtedly enables oligarchical treasuries to be established by the most psychopathic in the shareholder capitalist grand prix - a race to the bottom of a very murky barrel. The winners, being suitably well rewarded, then purchase the media to inform us of the hyperrealities that are suitable for our digestion.
Short term greed, unfortunately for us, destabilises the financial system and, consequently, less regulation is the very last thing that we need. They love lumping moral hazard, inversed incentives and a fear template on the rest of us but such restrictions are not for the likes of financiers. If central banks and governments are supporting the financial system AND if the system is further deregulated THEN moral hazard dictates that psychopathic traders (and their string-pulling and yet "invisible" bosses) will engender further antisocial strategies that knock the system out of any semblance of equilibrium over and over again. Of course, volatile marketplaces are among the most cherished for market analysts with arbitrage opportunities galore and insider information taking on the aspect of gold dust, but, for the rest of the planet, insecurity and uncertainty without the provision by the state of any of the basic societal safety nets ain't much fun.
Privatisation is not a comfort. In Britain, the National Health Service doesn't function for either state or private patients as the very structure is illogical and unsustainable. Pensions? Forget it. Banks? Your risk. Airports have simply become shopping malls where, occasionally, one is also allowed to travel, at a time of the BAA's choosing, to a choice of destinations in the secure knowledge that your belongings will be performing an entirely different random walk of selected global airport terminals. The Private Finance Initiative will continue to undermine future cashflows as Brown's fiscal sleight of hand provides further momentum to the oncoming recession. We can't even trust their consumer objects. We don't make purchases, we rent objects with a built-in obsolescence - a kettle for life or an annual kettle, which might become an object of conversation year after year as different forms, colours and styles are introduced to the series?
We should expect that excessive control will be given to the owners of the core information. The rest of us will be reduced to cloned holistics from observations of the hyperreality. This is not a valid social system.
Regulators are able to earn 4/5 times their wages if they leap into the private sector. Unsurprisingly, this leads to a paucity of nous in the regulatory sector - incentives again. Repeatedly, wherever you research in the global financial system, you discover a system and a template seemingly primed for corruption by insiders.
Minimal and corrupt, or inept, regulation, opportunities for insider corruption, pliable markets, no media focus on the systemic corruption, the utilisation of hyperrealities that bear no resemblance to any reality whatsoever...
The financial and economic systemic template shares structural equivalences with the sub-systemic template represented by the football sector. There are some macro/micro differentials and, obviously, the fundamentals are sector specific but the infrastructures of the corrupt constructs share many similarities. Both have rogue traders. Both require corrupt regulation and policing in order to function. Both thrive on insider trading. Both are hyperrealities - Paulson skews realities; Scudamore skews realities. In the financial sector, all analysts await the release of key reports which detail the proprietary trading of industry insiders in their own companies; in the football sector, our Trading Team await the release of market information which detail the proprietary trading of a Premiership referee on a match in which he is to officiate.
Jean Baudrillard:
"The Gulf War did not take place".
"...an atrocity masquerading as a war".
The 2007/08 Premiership did not take place.
... a corruption masquerading as a tournament.
Egyptian footballer, Mohamed Aboutrika, removes his shirt after scoring at the African Cup of Nations to reveal the message "Sympathize With Gaza". He was booked and disciplined by the Confederation of African Football. Aboutrika committed a crime against the hyperreality, the system demands that he be punished. The scoring of a goal is the ultimate moment in a football match, whether real or hyperreal. Brand association with feelgood, success, joy, hysteria, is what they are paying for. Forget Gaza, think AIG. Think fear. Think insurance. "Great goal but I should perhaps be considering a key person insurance policy...". Thanks AIG.
The hyperreal world offers you the Quattro Titanium and the Nascar Cool Orange 500, Showdown Saturdays and Grand Slam Sundays. We prefer Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton. We prefer reality.
Socialisme ou barbarie.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
What's the difference between a whistleblower and a whistle blower?
Why is there nothing, rather than something?
The answer to each of these questions lie in this post although they are secreted, providing merely an essence of the linkage of neorealities.
Shareholder capitalism is assured of spontaneous combustion as, by its very nature, it encourages and handsomely rewards psychopathic short-termism at the expense of the rationality of a sustainable strategy. On a super-systemic level, this results in super-issues like climate change whereas on a systemic level, it is in the process of creating the biggest recession since 1929.
Quoting Jack Rasmus: "History will show a remarkable congruence between the conditions, events, and policies of the decade of the 1920s, on the one hand, and the events and policies of the past decade. The 1920s were characterised by:
* an over-extended housing and construction boom in mid-decade that imploded
* a slowdown in investment in the productive economy as speculative investment steadily crowded out real investment
* a Federal Reserve System that pumped up the money supply without concern for its eventual speculative impact
* an increasing imbalance in world trade and currency instability
* the near destruction of labour unions
The progressive destruction of unions over the course of the 1920s, when combined with the radical restructuring of the tax system that provided massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, resulted in a dramatic shift in income distribution toward wealthy investors and corporations from the rest of the working population... Perhaps more than any single contributory factor, the rapid and extreme growth of income inequality during the decade was eventually responsible for the ultimate financial implosion of 1929 and the consequent depression. The massive shift in incomes that fed the speculation in turn resulted in a further income shift, as super-profits were realised by the wealthy from the speculative investment frenzy. More concentration of income in turn provoked a dizzy spiral of asset price inflation, speculative profits, and a euphoric expectation the process would continue without limit".
The Federal Reserve is currently supporting the entire US shareholder capitalist edifice by becoming the ultimate lender of the last resort in the same manner as the British government is "stabilising" Northern Rock. Free markets are not supposed to be reliant on government and/or central bank largesse to function the performativities desired in the warped world of the monetarists. Of course, Bear Stearns or the British bank could not be allowed to go under as, particularly in the former case, the tentacles of risk diversion would have impacted upon the cash flows of other leading global financial institutions. So, when the guardians of the financial system mess up, it has to be the taxpayers that scaffold together the financial infrastructure.
When Hank Paulson took over as Bush's economic maestro, he basically brought the boardroom of Goldman Sachs into the White House. The dichotomous relevance of possibilities afforded to the top investment bank via having their hands on some very serious levers of financial power evidently proved just a little too tempting as the investment bank cashed in on their inappropriate access to both inside information and policy directives ahead of the marketplace. Cue the sub-prime fiasco. Nobody knows who the patsy is so nobody trusts anybody and the banking system seizes up while the public dig deep to pay the bonuses of the financial sector in a downturn. An impartial observer might feel that some heavy duty restrictive regulation would be the order of the day and such an observer would be surprised by the chutzpah exhibited by the man-with-his-hands-on-the-levers, Hank Paulson: "... more regulation is not the answer to the current crisis" claimed the architect of the recession before arguing in favour of a more streamlined system with fewer regulators.
The man is taking the piss. This libertarian fascist approach to the financial world is the standard Anglo/US template. And we are entering that other warped world here - the one of incentives and gaming the regulation, of moral hazard and psychopathic financial edifices. Libertarian fascism demands a free-for-all marketplace with limited and loopholed regulation. This demand is based on the fallacy that such an environment is necessary for the maximised input-output ratio of the economic and financial system. The abusive and autocratic power hierarchy created undoubtedly enables oligarchical treasuries to be established by the most psychopathic in the shareholder capitalist grand prix - a race to the bottom of a very murky barrel. The winners, being suitably well rewarded, then purchase the media to inform us of the hyperrealities that are suitable for our digestion.
Short term greed, unfortunately for us, destabilises the financial system and, consequently, less regulation is the very last thing that we need. They love lumping moral hazard, inversed incentives and a fear template on the rest of us but such restrictions are not for the likes of financiers. If central banks and governments are supporting the financial system AND if the system is further deregulated THEN moral hazard dictates that psychopathic traders (and their string-pulling and yet "invisible" bosses) will engender further antisocial strategies that knock the system out of any semblance of equilibrium over and over again. Of course, volatile marketplaces are among the most cherished for market analysts with arbitrage opportunities galore and insider information taking on the aspect of gold dust, but, for the rest of the planet, insecurity and uncertainty without the provision by the state of any of the basic societal safety nets ain't much fun.
Privatisation is not a comfort. In Britain, the National Health Service doesn't function for either state or private patients as the very structure is illogical and unsustainable. Pensions? Forget it. Banks? Your risk. Airports have simply become shopping malls where, occasionally, one is also allowed to travel, at a time of the BAA's choosing, to a choice of destinations in the secure knowledge that your belongings will be performing an entirely different random walk of selected global airport terminals. The Private Finance Initiative will continue to undermine future cashflows as Brown's fiscal sleight of hand provides further momentum to the oncoming recession. We can't even trust their consumer objects. We don't make purchases, we rent objects with a built-in obsolescence - a kettle for life or an annual kettle, which might become an object of conversation year after year as different forms, colours and styles are introduced to the series?
We should expect that excessive control will be given to the owners of the core information. The rest of us will be reduced to cloned holistics from observations of the hyperreality. This is not a valid social system.
Regulators are able to earn 4/5 times their wages if they leap into the private sector. Unsurprisingly, this leads to a paucity of nous in the regulatory sector - incentives again. Repeatedly, wherever you research in the global financial system, you discover a system and a template seemingly primed for corruption by insiders.
Minimal and corrupt, or inept, regulation, opportunities for insider corruption, pliable markets, no media focus on the systemic corruption, the utilisation of hyperrealities that bear no resemblance to any reality whatsoever...
The financial and economic systemic template shares structural equivalences with the sub-systemic template represented by the football sector. There are some macro/micro differentials and, obviously, the fundamentals are sector specific but the infrastructures of the corrupt constructs share many similarities. Both have rogue traders. Both require corrupt regulation and policing in order to function. Both thrive on insider trading. Both are hyperrealities - Paulson skews realities; Scudamore skews realities. In the financial sector, all analysts await the release of key reports which detail the proprietary trading of industry insiders in their own companies; in the football sector, our Trading Team await the release of market information which detail the proprietary trading of a Premiership referee on a match in which he is to officiate.
Jean Baudrillard:
"The Gulf War did not take place".
"...an atrocity masquerading as a war".
The 2007/08 Premiership did not take place.
... a corruption masquerading as a tournament.
Egyptian footballer, Mohamed Aboutrika, removes his shirt after scoring at the African Cup of Nations to reveal the message "Sympathize With Gaza". He was booked and disciplined by the Confederation of African Football. Aboutrika committed a crime against the hyperreality, the system demands that he be punished. The scoring of a goal is the ultimate moment in a football match, whether real or hyperreal. Brand association with feelgood, success, joy, hysteria, is what they are paying for. Forget Gaza, think AIG. Think fear. Think insurance. "Great goal but I should perhaps be considering a key person insurance policy...". Thanks AIG.
The hyperreal world offers you the Quattro Titanium and the Nascar Cool Orange 500, Showdown Saturdays and Grand Slam Sundays. We prefer Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton. We prefer reality.
Socialisme ou barbarie.
© Football Is Fixed/Dietrological
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