A Soccer (Futbol) Game As An Object Lesson

Those who regularly read my blog can tell the ways in which the dominant holders of power in the U.S. have influenced any patriotic spirit I may have had in my younger days.  To be quite blunt, that patriotic spirit has largely been rinsed out of me in the same way that new blue jeans lose their color after several minutes in a bleach bath.  In my case, it's taken years for the spirit of American patriotism to be leached out of me.  This country has done horrible things in its bid to enrich a small cadre of rich parasites at the expense of all the rest of us.

So I spent this most recent 4th of July in Canada - Vancouver, B.C. to be specific.  I slept well on the evening of the 4th, as there were no nutcases shooting off fireworks until all hours of the morning.  And the person who watched my cats while I was gone told me of at least two other people she knew who had made the same decision to spend the 4th in Canada.  Donald Trump's pre-4th speech was also sparsely attended.  And many millions of Americans decided not to celebrate the 4th this year.  I can definitely tell you that there were no flags flying at my house.

And now there is a very sweet icing on the cake of my antipathy toward the country of my birth.  The U.S. soccer (football for everyone else) team was eliminated from the 2026 World Cup, in spite of attempts by Donald Thump to interfere in the adjudication of the game between the U.S. and Belgium.  This makes last night's World Cup match into a very interesting illustration.  It shows how a group of people with guts, determination, and skill can prevail even in situations where powerful agents attempt to stack the deck against them.  Thus it should inspire those of us who have dedicated ourselves to the use of strategic nonviolent resistance to shatter the power of fascists like Trump.  (Or is it Chump?  Maybe Dump?)

P.S. I'm working on more posts on the subject of strategic nonviolent resistance, with a special focus on economic noncooperation and the building of parallel institutions.  Stay tuned.