Baggies

I am the lunatic malcontent, and I am a West Bromwich Albion fan.

It’s a rollercoaster ride at best. At worst, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

I’ve lost count of the times we’ve lost games against teams we should have beaten. Every time I think we’re going to have a good run, I’m disappointed.

Being a Baggies fan is like being a bad gambler.

But I love it. I love being a Baggies fan. I’ve been one all my life; through the good times and the bad (admittedly, there have been more bad than good).

There’s a kind of bond between West Bromwich Albion fans. We’re like disaster survivors, or battered wives, coming together to share our pain. We support each other almost as much as we support the team. We share a unique kind of facial expression that says, “Disappointed again when we should have won”.

West Bromwich Albion was one of the founder members of the Football League. There was a time when we were one of the big boys; when other teams looked upon fixtures against us with dread. We’ve won the FA Cup; we’ve won the League Cup; we’ve won the league – back in the days before it was the Premiership. We’ve won 5 FA Cup Finals.

Unfortunately, most of these things happened before I was born.

I was too young to witness the genius and majesty of Jeff Astle, one of the greatest forwards ever, at first hand. I was only a baby when “Captain Marvel” Bryan Robson strutted his stuff at the Hawthorns.

My earliest football memory was an FA Cup semi-final match against Ipswich at Highbury in 1978. John Wile, our captain, suffered a head injury and played a lot of the game with blood pouring down his face. Of course, that wouldn’t happen these days. Back then, football players were real men, who weren’t afraid of being tackled, and who only went down if you shot them. Unfortunately, we lost that game 3-1, but it’s one that I will never forget.

We actually won the FA Cup ten years earlier, in 1968. We beat Everton 1-0 at Wembley. Our goal was scored by the one and only Jeff Astle in extra time, completing a record of him scoring in every round of the competition. I would give anything to have been able to watch that match live. It must have been amazing. Just as an aside, it was the first FA Cup Final to have been televised live in colour.

Yes, it’s a hard life, being a modern-day West Brom fan. You have to be thick-skinned; durable; you have to be able to endure a lot of rough to enjoy the smooth. You have to have an almost stupid optimism that things will get better and that next season we’ll be challenging for a European place.

If you have all of these things, then you can count yourself a member of the world’s greatest family.

Could 9/11 Ever Happen Again?

Back in June, General Keith Alexander attended a House Intelligence Committee hearing about the NSA’s bulk collection of US phone records “to prevent a future 9/11”. He said, ‘Let me start by saying that I would much rather be here today debating this point than trying to explain how we failed to prevent another 9/11.’

But could they really prevent it ever happening again? The official story tells us that the attacks were made possible by catastrophic failings within the US’s intelligence network. This happened before with Pearl Harbour. Obviously, the lessons were not learned, so what’s to say it can’t happen again?

If history has taught us anything, it’s that a determined group of terrorists will always succeed eventually. All you can do is hope they don’t strike at a valuable target and that nobody gets hurt.

The whole world, it seems, is on terrorist watch right now. But just in the last few days there have been bombings in Russia, Somalia and Lebanon. Barely a day goes by that we don’t read about an explosion somewhere or other. And there haven’t only been bombings since 9/11. We’ve had shootings, including one at an army base in the heart of the US.

Can the NSA keep America safe? Can MI6 keep the UK safe? Can the FSB keep Russia safe?

I wonder.

The world is on the brink of all-out war, and terrorism is just one facet of that. There are tensions on every continent, and all it needs is one slip of a finger on a trigger and we’ll be plunged into World War 3.

The next world war really will be the one to end all others. Even if by some minute chance it doesn’t go nuclear, the modern world’s armies have such destructive power they can level each other with comparative ease. By the time they’ve finished there’ll be nothing left. We literally won’t have the capability to wage war anymore.

That will be the new 9/11. So, yes – it could happen again.

As for who will carry out this abomination, that’s not the point. The point is the only way to prevent another 9/11 is to stop killing each other.

Who are the terrorists anyway? Who will be the terrorists when the world starts destroying itself?

The simple answer is “THEM”. THEY are the terrorists; the others.

To us in the UK, the terrorists are Islamic fundamentalists. To Islamic fundamentalists it is us. In Israel, the Palestinians are the terrorists. In Palestine, the terrorists are Israel.

Terrorists are always those who oppose us. So, the whole nightmare will never end until we all get together and get along. If not, then another 9/11 will only be a matter of time.

Japan - The Fourth Reich

What a surprise.

The imperialist, “we’re so much better than you”, Japanese are looking to amend their constitution to allow them to wage war again. This comes despite the fact that they renounced such a thing “forever”.

They blame the Chinese, and the changing times in the region, as well as the need to protect national territories. In reality, six decades have passed, and Japan – cowed by the events of World War 2 – has regained its national arrogance and is ready to have another go.

Japan has never truly been a pacifist nation. It just said what it needed to say and projected the right image to make people think it had learned its lesson from the war. However, in the background, it was gradually rebuilding its army under the guise of a “self-defence force”. It sucked America’s dick and became its bitch in return for protection, while it built its economy and technology.

Now it’s ready to show its true colours again.

It’s like history repeating itself as Japan echoes what Germany did in the 1930s. It claims it needs to build an army for its own protection, just as the Nazis did. It intends to disregard treaties, just as the Nazis did. Japan is a country that thinks it is better than everyone else – often suggested as the reason their soldiers acted like such animals during the war, because they saw everyone else as a lower life form than they. Japan shows no respect for the laws or rights of other nations and individuals. Japan is, always has been, and always will be, an imperialist nation, intent on world domination through a combination of a strong economy and military might. But now, China has overtaken them as the world’s second biggest economy. This means Japan loses some of its financial clout, and can’t use as much economic bribery to persuade other governments to look the other way when it thumbs its nose at their citizens’ rights and their authorities requests for cooperation in prosecuting Japanese criminals.

So, when the economy starts to fall, Japan brings the military to bear. When the economy starts to fall, Japan is suddenly no longer a pacifist nation – not that it ever was.

Shinzo Abe is the new Adolf Hitler. He is fiercely nationalist, and it is no coincidence that he has come to power at this time.

Forget the Korean peninsula being the flashpoint in south-east Asia. It’s Japan. And with America behind it now instead of opposing it, Japan is like that div kid at school who’s acting hard because his big brother is standing nearby. You could equate Japan with King Joffrey in the Game of Thrones series. It is a cruel, nasty, heartless thing enabled by the threat of military action. It cares not a jot for anyone’s rights or feelings.

Japan is a nasty, vicious dog. It’s dangerous; and needs someone with a rolled-up newspaper to come along and smack its nose again.