The Footy – The Hungover Pundit

Three Arrows

Four days ago, shortly after I published my previous blog post, we got word that a political event of considerable importance — and one which is dear to my heart — occurred. No, not that one, but rather that Major League Soccer had lifted the ban on the emblem of the Iron Front.

Look, the President getting impeached is important. I get that. But a ban on whether you can publicly display anti-fascist symbols? That hits me very close to home. And somewhat to my surprise I’ve become a rabid Timbers and Thorns fan and, over the course of the summer, have genuinely come to care about the struggle against creeping fascism in a city in another country on the other side of the continent which I have never visited. Perhaps it’s because I recognize and can sympathize with the challenges they face.

Community and Betrayal

I’ve always been interested in how communities work. Like, in the sociological sense: people coming together, more or less spontaneously, to do stuff and support causes and just generally be together. You know, basic human interaction stuff.

I think part of my interest stems from the experience of being very much on the outside during high school. Some kids were popular, some weren’t, and I was very emphatically on the “not popular” side of that line. Like many smart but awkward teenager males, I therefore tried to cultivate an air of dispassion and sneering superiority at the horrible microcosm of society which is the standard high school environment… in short, I was a snotty teenage douchebag. (No wonder I didn’t get invited to parties.) Thankfully, I mostly grew out of it.

But one of the residual effects has always been this interest in how and why people interact the way they do. I find it fascinating, even when I’m one of the people doing the interacting. Or perhaps especially. In any case, the way people self-organize into communities, their contributions to and the demands they make on them, are just plain fascinating — especially when those communities face challenges, doubly so when those challenges come from within, and triply (is that a word?) so when they come from the nominal authorities within the community.

Activism, Tactics and… Football?

Rather than go down to Hamilton’s City Hall this past weekend, my spouse and I took the weekend off. At a certain point you’ve got to take a breath and get some self care in… and it’s peach season here in the Niagara. There’s a narrow window when the peaches are perfect and I’ll be goddamned if Justin Long and his little coterie of fascist dipshits costs me a years’ worth of my spouse’s famous spiced peach jam.

As it turns out it, it was just as well that we didn’t go down to City Hall because the Yellow Vests weren’t there. On the advice of Duke Willis, white nationalist vlogger, they’ve apparently decided to start a series of protests around the city rather than staying at City Hall, trying to avoid the counter-protesters who by now are consistently outnumbering them. This week’s “demonstration” was at the corner of Ottawa St N and Cannon Street E, just outside the Ottawa Street Farmers’ Market.