Dissident Veteran For Peace

For the first time in 30 years the US men's soccer team has failed to qualify for the World Cup tournament and NPR, which I listen to daily, naturally took advantage of the team's loss to advance their agenda of racial division and, once more, showcase their 'liberal' disdain for White people.

US Men's National Team Starting Lineup, 10 Oct 2017

Below is a partial transcript from Saturday's edition of All Things Considered (emphases added). Panelist Les Carpenter is, naturally, a self-hating White guy. Commentator Gustavo Arellano is a US citizen, a son of Mexican immigrant parents, he was born and educated in the US state of California.

[HOST MICHEL] MARTIN: So, Les, you wrote - you've gotten a lot of attention for a story that you wrote last year on American soccer's diversity problem. I mean, your piece argued that soccer in the U.S., unlike the rest of the world, is kind of a white upper-class-suburban sport. And that kind of hurts the - it just hurts the sort of the pool of players, the talent that would be available. You want to talk a little bit more about that?

CARPENTER: Well, it not only hurts the pool of players, it also hurts the idea of a culture, which is what I think U.S. Soccer really needs to be looking at right now ... It's a matter of, what kind of style does the U.S. play? Who is [the U.S.] trying to be? ... But what happens to all these people that have come from Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, where the kids, you know, from those families are playing just on the streets? They don't have access to the system, and yet, their style is so free, and it's what's played around the rest of the world. The U.S. is very robotic. And I feel like what we see now, the culture and the style and the U.S. is Americanized ...

MARTIN: Gustavo, what do you think?

ARELLANO: First and foremost, respect to all the Trinnies (ph) out there for their amazing victory over the U.S.

MARTIN: True that.

ARELLANO: I had a huge bowl of callaloo in their honor, so God bless them for that. I agreed with everything that Les said. I mean, this is what it boils down to. Why should - I mean, we have immigrant populations who are crazy about soccer ... They are playing in their own leagues that are way cheaper than whatever leagues you need to get into U.S. soccer. So the parents are going to say, well, why should my kids play in the expensive leagues when you could just play at the Saturday leagues? More importantly though, a lot of - and this is a big problem that I think U.S. Soccer still has to solve and they can't - a lot of these players, if they could get dual citizenship, if you ask your typical Mexican-American kid right now, if you want to be a great soccer player, would you play for the Mexican squad, El Tri, or are you going to play for the United States? Ninety percent of them would go to El Tri, not just out of loyalty but also because, frankly, El Tri's going to be a better team than the U.S. But then, you know, and I also have to say, Mexicans are so happy that the United States is not going into the World Top That said, us Mexicans, we have our own problems as well so we could be happy about that, but whatever. We're going to flame out in the second round like we do every year or every Cup, I mean.

MARTIN: (Laughter) All right. Well, you know, let me just point out - AJ, let me go back to you on this - a lot of people were quick to point out that one American soccer team still has a shot to make their World Cup. The women's team went undefeated in 2015 and won the World Cup. So, AJ, is there something that the men can learn from the women, or is the same problem going to catch up with them? Because it has not escaped, I think, anybody's attention who's paying attention that the women's team isn't particularly diverse either.

Some thoughts: I have little doubt that Les Carpenter was hand-picked for this segment precisely because of his anti-White perspective. Indeed, a search of NPR's web site suggests this may have been first appearance on NPR ever or in many years.

When you hear someone on the mainstream media talking about a "diversity problem" it's usually code for "I don't like how many White people are on this team, in this city, company, organization, etc." It doesn't even have to be an exclusively White group (see team photo above).

Furthermore, you almost never hear people complain about a lack of diversity, for example, when they talk about the NBA or the NFL, which are predominantly Black. In fact, if anyone but White people were the butt of this conversation then there would be justified outrage over the racism exhibited.

Carpenter chalks up the US men's national soccer team's loss to Trinidad and Tobago to the team's overly (to his mind) White makeup and to the resultant "robotic" style of play and "Americanized" culture. No one on the panel challenges this.

On the contrary, Gustavo Arellano seconds Carpenter's racist analysis and unashamedly flaunts his disloyalty to the U.S.—the country where he was born, nurtured, educated, and elevated to the national punditry. Arellano identifies here foremost as a Mexican.

Martin gets a little credit for bringing up the US women's soccer team which has fared markedly better in international competition than the men's team. NPR has carped at least twice, in 2016 and 2017, about the women's team asking "Why is women's soccer so white?" Tellingly, the panel lets Martin's point about the success of the women's team slide undoubtedly because it undermines their narrative of attributing the men's team's recent loss to it's "diversity problem".

Tellingly, they also ignore the fact that the day before the US' loss Iceland's men's team qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. This year, they've defeated other teams, such as China, whose "style is so free" because, per Carpenter's thesis, "it's what's played around the rest of the world." A glance at Iceland's team photo below shows they're even more 'burdened' by Whiteness than Team USA, which contra Carpenter defeated Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, and Panama earlier this year.

Iceland's Men's 2018 FIFA World Cup Qualifying Team

To be clear, I have no objection to having the US men's national soccer team reflect the makeup of the country. What I object is how much of the mainstream media and academia is seemingly hell-bent on dishonestly fomenting dissension and dividing Americans on the basis of race, among other things.

Labels: media, National Public Radio, race, sport, United States, White folks

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"Why, of course, the people don’t want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

Source: David Mikkelson, "Hermann Goering: War Games," Snopes.com, citing Gustave Gilbert quoting Nazi Luftwaffe commander Hermann Goering in Gilbert's The Nuremberg Diary (1947). It's worth pointing out that the US Congress has not issued a declaration of war since World War II.


Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground . . .

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

Source: Former US Army Ranger Kevin Tillman, "After Pat's Birthday," Truthdig.com, Sep. 16, 2016 (first published Oct. 19, 2006).


War is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians.

Source: Chris Hedges, "A Culture of Atrocity," Truthdig.com, Jun. 18, 2007.

Labels: Chris Hedges, politics, quotations, United States, War