Hello Pot? You're black!

Jerusalem Post columnist Larry Derfner is laughable on so many levels that I've generally avoided mentioning him here... except to occasionally poke fun at his Groucho Marx-esque eyebrows (which look like they were drawn onto the stock photo that accompanies his columns with grease pencil).

Also... what kind of writer calls his column "Rattling the Cage"?  My guess is that it is the kind of arrogant writer who feels it is his duty to disabuse the readers of their dearly held, but terribly flawed beliefs.

Well, now it's my turn to share a few hard truths with Mr. Derfner.

This past week he wrote a piece entitled 'The 90 minute hate' about the Beitar Yeushalayim fan's less-than-PC behavior during the Rabin moment of silence... and the elegant solution he proposes for punishing those cheeky low-lifes.   In it he leads off with the following incredible two paragraphs:

"If I could, I would outlaw soccer, or at least limit it to pick-up games with no more than a half-dozen spectators. What happened this week on the anniversary of Rabin's assassination, when Betar Jerusalem fans booed during the minute of silence and sang songs of praise to Yigal Amir, was just another expression of the sort of thing that goes on all the time at soccer games not only in Israel, but all over the world.

It's called mob fascism. Nationalist, racist, violent human herds doing their thing. It's not clear why this is so, maybe because the game resembles primitive warfare, but soccer attracts these kinds of people and inspires this kind of activity like no other sport. I'm not saying that all soccer fans are fascist scum, of course, but I am saying that all fascist scum seem to be soccer fans."

No, um... actually Larry, your opening line "If I could, I would outlaw..." is more fascist than anything those beer sotted fans could have managed.  Classic fascism is exactly that nasty tendency you've demonstrated towards thought control, censorship and authoritarian quashing of anything that doesn't support the party line. 

Fascism fears freedom of speech/expression above all else and enjoys the notion that the government can forge a kind of national consensus through sheer force of will.  Clearly there is no national consensus about Rabin's beatification, so folks like Larry seem to feel that the great unwashed masses need to be taught a lesson!

Pay attention Larry... besides sounding suspiciously like a kid who never got picked for soccer at recess time, you also seem to have drunk deeply from the Kool Aid with the rest of the fascists in our leadership who just woke up and realized, "holy crap, you mean it isn't against the law to boo and heckle at a sporting event?  We need to do something about that... I want somebody punished!"

I'm sorely tempted to paste the whole article here... there's just so much to pick over and lampoon in what he's written.  But I won't.  Go read it... it's an eye opener.   He rants and raves for several paragraphs about how soccer is a global breeding ground for fascism and how soccer fans (who he tellingly refers to a "these kinds of people") are all animals. 

What he is really saying is that he doesn't much like the smell of the earthier fans who follow the sport.  It is a classist rant that reveals much about this so-called journalist's prejudices.  It shows how completely he has fallen into lockstep with the lily-white secular Ashkenazi leadership on the left... as if to say, "How dare those swarthy low class people boo our hero... they seem to have forgotten their place!"

The only saving grace to Derfner's piece is that in the heat of his condemnations, he openly and explicitly accuses Beitar owner Arkady Gaydamak of money laundering, illegal arms sales "and a slew of other big time felonies", apparently forgetting that:

a)  We live in a democracy where a journalist can't actually say someone committed a crime without using the word 'allegedly' until a trial has been held and a guilty verdict returned.

b)  No such trial or verdict has been held/returned for any of the crimes Mr. Gaydamak is alleged by Larry to have committed.

c)  Mr. Gaydamak has enough big time lawyers on retainer that the lawsuits are probably already piling up on the Jerusalem Post's doorstep like blue paper snow.

So besides sitting back and enjoying the spectacle of Larry Derfner being chased through the Israeli courts for the next few years (or until his money gives out, whichever comes first), I want to offer one parting gift to the man with the uni-brow... because I'm a giver: 

Fascism isn't about a bunch of working stiffs - a demographic that Americans affectionately refer to as 'Joe Six-Pack - yelling obscenities or acting in bad taste at a soccer match.  Fascism is "an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the interests of the state" *... a definition that not only fits the government's actions towards dissenting opinions, but also your own intolerance of anyone who doesn't share your tennis-ethic world-view.

Before I go, let me point you to a wonderful post by my good friend Ben Horin who, as usual, has condensed the pure essence of what I could only dream of writing on my most rational day... and then said it even better and more concisely.

* Source