World Cup Thread

I enjoyed that conversation yesterday around the World Cup so let’s see what we can glean from the horrors of history for today’s matchups.

Argentina v. Egypt doesn’t exactly provide a lot of material since as far as I know, these two countries have no real history. You certainly can’t say anything positive about either government. Millei is an evil motherfucker. But el-Sisi is hardly any kind of peach. Argentina has been independent for 200 years and remains a massive paradox given that it’s a very pleasant place despite disastrous politics and economic policies. Meanwhile, Egypt had to deal with the legacy of colonialism and its key post-independence control of the Suez Canal so the context is a lot of different. Of course, liberals were really disappointed in the failure of the Arab Spring and that very much includes what happened in Egypt, but then Euro-American liberals have never done the work to understand about the politics and societies of the places they are talking about and that very much includes North Africa in 2010. That includes me really–I’ve never been to Africa at all, which given how much I travel is a sign of racism on my part. I should do something about that. So I guess I don’t care who wins. But you might as well root for Argentina since a) they are going to win and b) my good friend who comments here sometimes and is a huge England fan hates Messi with a passion and so trolling a friend is always good reason to make a choice on who to root for. Really, what is better about sports than shittalking your friends? It’s not like your team is going to win very often.

Now, on the face of it Colombia and Switzerland wouldn’t seem to have a lot of shared history either except that Switzerland has a shared history with everyone due to it being the unrepentant financier and money hider of every evil person in the world. And really, when you think about it, Switzerland is an awful place. It’s perfect that Switzerland is the birthplace of FIFA head Gianni Infantino because his entire ideology is basically the same amorality that the Swiss embody. So sure, lots of evil, horrible Colombians, from fascists to drug lords, have stuck their money in Swiss bank accounts. Poor Colombia has had (and now has again) horrible leaders, been torn apart by cocaine titans (who of course are supplying the noses of North Americans, Europeans, and back in the day, Diego Maradona), and has never ending cycles of violence. But I don’t blame the people of a poor nation for a situation around which they don’t have that much control. I mean, given that United Fruit, Coca-Cola, and other giant American companies have sanctioned mass violence against the poor over and over again through the last century plus, what can we expect? So go Colombia, just say no to the amoral money laundering state. Their cuckoo clocks be damned, even if Orson Welles was wrong about it being a peaceful state.