In support of Dignified Silence

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

Those who want to keep politics out of football should recognise that whether we like it or not politics and football in Glasgow are now inseperable.

The RangersTaxCase blog was a perfect example of a co-ordinated attack from politically aware and motivated enemies of Rangers.

The days are long gone when our only concern was the performance of the team on the park. And it's naive, and dangerous, to think those days will return anytime soon.

The RangersTaxCase blog is exactly what we should have ignored and laughed at, and laughed loudly - we gave it creadence by biting!

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

Same old type of thread, just different words (in this case hundreds of the feckers!)

You lot suck

No you lot do

You lot suck more

No you lot do morer

You lot suck and are being loud mouthed bullies

No you lot are just preaching morals

That about covers it Danger Ranger.

Of course the solution could be for the dignified silence advocates to STFU about Dignified Silence and the more vociferous battle advocates to STFU about telling everyone we are getting annoyed and who we are gonna feck over next.

Or join the RST and then no more thinking required.....

That sucks!

[Malvern 11,329]

Fk I can quote (or at least paraphrase) Sun Tzu all day - try this one! Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting

BP9, I have just seen the psychic down the road, apparently she has been communicating with Sun Tzu and he says something along the lines of "tell that roaster to shut up and stop quoting me!"

[legalbeagle 3,734]

Whole lot of people just reacting to their view of the OP and not what he actually posted.

My view is that we do need to have a variety of communication channels to deal with comments about us, but to end up having to release an official statement because of the ramblings of a nutter was pretty disappointing.

[Adoniram 1,919]

Whoosh - how to deliberately miss the point!

Exactly what point have i missed. I read the article. I commend you for writing it but disagree with it completely.

There is no point in a dignified silence with people who don't play by the rules.

A point often overlooked by you and your ilk who think that the Marquess of Queensbery is still alive and presiding over this bout of jolly fisticuffs.

[Adoniram 1,919]

Whole lot of people just reacting to their view of the OP and not what he actually posted.

My view is that we do need to have a variety of communication channels to deal with comments about us, but to end up having to release an official statement because of the ramblings of a nutter was pretty disappointing.

The statement was weak and pathetic but the actions weren't.

This "nutter" spends his entire life trying to damage the "brand"

My opinion is we go for him with everything we have and silence him from ever talking about us in the manner he is doing.

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

BP9, I have just seen the psychic down the road, apparently she has been communicating with Sun Tzu and he says something along the lines of "tell that roaster to shut up and stop quoting me!"

.... or as Sun Tzu said to me in my dream .."You have to believe in yourself."

Oh and I would have prefered the Lottery numbers - so next time you speak to your psychic ........

[bawsburst 1,381]

At the end of the day The Rangers are the Establishment Club and adhere to the tenets of said Establishment and everything it stands for.

The Rangers is no haven for hand wringers, the great man certainly knew his audience when he spoke of a sacred trust.

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

Exactly what point have i missed. I read the article. I commend you for writing it but disagree with it completely.

There is no point in a dignified silence with people who don't play by the rules.

A point often overlooked by you and your ilk who think that the Marquess of Queensbery is still alive and presiding over this bout of jolly fisticuffs.

Rules exist - even in war - and even after war we all have to work out how to get along!

[ritchieshearercaldow 22,137]

Dignified Silence – it is a term bandied about, in a very derogatory way, on RM (and I suspect elsewhere) every time someone feels the club has not reacted when our club or support has in some way been attacked. Whether that attack is real or not, valid or not, or even truthful or not, if the club has not reacted within an hour or so we have poster after poster having a go at the club for not responding. And therein, for me, lies the problem. What should the club react to? When should the club react? How should the club react? And there are a few other questions as well that go hand in hand with these, Does the club act on behalf of the support? Does the Club act on behalf of the Shareholders? Or does the club provide leadership for both.

Now there is no point in me writing about what has happened to us, in some ways it matters not a jot how we got where we are, it has happened. What I believe we must do is take care of the future and to do that we need to set ourselves 2 strategic goals. I would be shocked if there is any Rangers fan who would disagree with me on either of these:

1. We must never again allow our club to be in the position where we have to suffer an insolvency event.
   
2. We must make sure the club returns to at least the position we were in prior to this mess, at the top of the Scottish football tree, or even better.
   

Now, before I move on let me deal with the subject of revenge.

Yes, I have stated, we are where we are. Having said that, I lay the BLAME for being where we are jointly with ‘Sir’ David Murray, who went from my hero to zero because of the way he dealt with our sale, and the charlatan Craig Whyte. For those two men I sure hope that Karma is the bitch she is meant to be. I believe the law will catch up with the charlatan but I suspect I will have to rely on Karma to deal with Murray.

Along side blame there were those that leapt on our weakness and kicked us, bludgeoned us, and besmirched us, on our way down. To me Football is a sport, but at the top level, many have lost sight of that. At the top level football is a business, and ‘Business is War’. Now I don’t BLAME those who tried to use our fall to strengthen their own position, but that does not mean I forgive them, nor have forgotten how we were treated by them. The full quote, attributed to Kevin O’Leary, but in homage to Sun Tzu, states “

Business is war. I go out there, I want to kill the competitors. I want to make their lives miserable. I want to steal their market share. I want them to fear me and I want everyone on my team thinking we're going to win.” I find little to disagree with in that quote, and yet here I am about to defend ‘Dignified Silence’

Ok, so we are in a war – but one does not go to war ‘Just because!’! One goes to war to achieve something. Now I could witter on all day with examples of war, and relate them to business, but I am going to distil that down to this “War is the projection and protection of power”.

In this Rangers ‘war’ we have taken a hell of a beating. We were badly led and let down by our (supposed) allies. We have had our Dunkirk and had to retreat, all the way to the bottom rung of the professional game. We have retrenched, went through the turmoil of looking for new leadership and now we are looking forward. Now we are looking how we win our war.

So, for those of you still reading, that brings me back to my goals, long term stability and returning to the top of the football tree and once more sitting at the top table.( At least we can do that in Scottish terms, business being business, getting to the top of the world tree, where we belong, will take some sort of shift at the top so we can access the power of TV cash, but before we look to take on those battles we need to first be the football power in Scotland.)

Now I need to digress once more to make sure I am very clear on a few points. To me Rangers are a Football Club. I fully understand that it operates as a Business and I fully understand that it needs to fight to get back to the top. I also embrace the desire for revenge and to hurt those that kicked us while we were forced to retreat. However, what I do not support, what I think will weaken our goals is that the CLUB should have any position, or take any stance on any political (unionist) or religious (protestant) basis. Our ‘war’ is purely in sporting/business terms as it relates to us as a football club nothing more, but nothing less.

To me winning the top league brings power back to the club, it brings revenge against our enemies and it gives us the platform to project our power. The reason we can fight back from our forced retreat is that we do have a huge fan base and it is the fan base that will allow us to project our power. Yes, we need the correct leadership to channel that power, we need to look after our resources and we need to channel our efforts into achieving our ‘victory’ but make no mistake it is our fan base that will make that happen so the club need to look after the fans and provide them with success and a leadership we deserve.

That brings me back to ‘Dignified Silence’ and the questions I posed earlier.

The goals of the club, shareholders and supporters at this point in time are aligned. The further up the tree we go the more valuable the club and to do that the club needs to deliver success, so supporters and shareholders are happy.

When should the club react, and what should the club react to? To me the club should only react to rumours, speculation and critique, whether valid or not, when it is in danger of affecting the clubs return to the top. The club should not be reacting to every blog on the internet, every false rumour, nor every lie in the press. The press would like nothing better than the club to react to every rumour and lie, it gives them more to write about and speculate about and helps them sell papers. If the club reacted to everything written then its message would be lost in the noise. Every utterance, claim and counter claim would just build up to a background of white noise where the actual message gets lost. That is not to say the club should never react, it should and it has when warranted. To me that is ‘Dignified Silence’ – only fighting the battles that need fought and won, and that is determined by your strategy and goals.

In fact this is something our support needs to learn as well. By reciting all the negative stories we often give those rumours and vitriol that is spat at us a platform that is ill deserved. To me it is far better to laugh at them or ignore them than react to them, but unfortunately we have gone from a support that had the ability to do just that to one where we have become as paranoid as those we used to laugh at for having that trait. (Can I also make the point here that if you exclude all external stimuli from your thinking and only get your information from like minded sources – it also becomes very difficult to distinguish the real stuff from the rumour. That is how cults work. So those that only read Rangers information from Rangers sources are someway down the road to becoming brainwashed)

In my opinion the club should only fight those battles that directly affect our return to the top or our long term viability. The club is not there to provide a religious or political platform, it is there to deliver shareholder value and that is achieved through sporting success. As we move back through the leagues so our power grows and our projection of power is consolidated. We should be and will be represented on SFA/SPFL top table and committees as our power grows. As our power grows, we should be looking for a seat at the top table in UEFA and looking to move and project our power beyond our borders.

Winning the top league provides us our revenge, everything else is an unneeded skirmish.

Winning the top league lets everyone know we are back in power, all the other stuff is just small shite. Me, I look forward to the day when I smell that sweetness of revenge. When Ally

delivers the SPFL Premier League trophy and the bears unite in one huge party, knowing that all around us, those that kicked at us, those that tried to see us off, that we know that in the pit of their stomachs they realise they had failed!

Is this available on the Kindle?

[Malvern 11,329]

Whole lot of people just reacting to their view of the OP and not what he actually posted.

My view is that we do need to have a variety of communication channels to deal with comments about us, but to end up having to release an official statement because of the ramblings of a nutter was pretty disappointing.

Or trying to please too many people at once, a weak (non-confrontational) statement but a statement none the less. Helped nobody really.

BP9: 5, 15, 19, 22, 36, 38

EDIT: Bonus Ball 10

[scarkev 3,540]

The RangersTaxCase blog is exactly what we should have ignored and laughed at, and laughed loudly - we gave it creadence by biting!

Erm I think the fact the blog won an award from a reputable committee speaks volumes for the cross over impact it had!

I actually agree with parts of your OP, we do need to pick and choose out battles and stop reacting to everything and anything however what you deem important or otherwise is where we are back to our usual polar opposites!

[legalbeagle 3,734]

The statement was weak and pathetic but the actions weren't.

This "nutter" spends his entire life trying to damage the "brand"

My opinion is we go for him with everything we have and silence him from ever talking about us in the manner he is doing.

I disagree, and the myth building up around how he somehow had some impact on us in the past is just feeding his fragile ego. Commenting only gives him credibility.

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

At the end of the day The Rangers are the Establishment Club and adhere to the tenets of said Establishment and everything it stands for.

The Rangers is no haven for hand wringers, the great man certainly knew his audience when he spoke of a sacred trust.

Take the football out of Rangers and NOTHING of the politically motivated or pseudo- religious would exist anymore - the support of the FOOTBALL is what fills (or almost fills) Ibrox - nothing else. Handwringing Rules! (all double entendre's meant!)

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

Or trying to please too many people at once, a weak (non-confrontational) statement but a statement none the less. Helped nobody really.

BP9: 5, 15, 19, 22, 36, 38

EDIT: Bonus Ball 10

BP9: 5, 15, 19, 22, 36, 38

EDIT: Bonus Ball 10

I'll be back in the morning to tell you if your psychc is any good or a charlatan - in fact if you dont hear from me tomorrow tell your psychic thanks!

[minstral 5,375]

The appeasers need to get off their knees.

[Adoniram 1,919]

Rules exist - even in war - and even after war we all have to work out how to get along!

And that's precisely why your dignified silence will never work.

There are no rules here. The bheast knows only one end game...no Rangers and no Protestants.

The last bastion of perceived Protestantism left in Scotland is Rangers...whether you like it or not or agree or not that is what we are seen as.

The Church of Scotland is neutered and an irrelevance these days

The Orange Order are lame and toothless.

Our entire club, our communities and our way of life are all under attack from people who don't play by any set of rules and who certainly don't want to work with us or get on with us after this is over.

To say you are grossly naive is an understatement...or perhaps you simply don't know enough to comment on it properly.

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

Erm I think the fact the blog won an award from a reputable committee speaks volumes for the cross over impact it had!

I actually agree with parts of your OP, we do need to pick and choose out battles and stop reacting to everything and anything however what you deem important or otherwise is where we are back to our usual polar opposites!

Well at least we agree on bits of it - its a start - I think we all have the same end goal and just differ on how too get there. I think that's where we look to leadership from the club as we dont get it from and fans organisations. SDM did deliver a long period of stanbilty and leadership and then BLEW it - makes us now all very wary - lets hope the club can step up and perhaps the 120 day plan will start to provide us with the leadership and plan we need to help us all move forward. (I would much just rather argue about football )

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

And that's precisely why your dignified silence will never work.

There are no rules here. The bheast knows only one end game...no Rangers and no Protestants.

The last bastion of perceived Protestantism left in Scotland is Rangers...whether you like it or not or agree or not that is what we are seen as.

The Church of Scotland is neutered and an irrelevance these days

The Orange Order are lame and toothless.

Our entire club, our communities and our way of life are all under attack from people who don't play by any set of rules and who certainly don't want to work with us or get on with us after this is over.

To say you are grossly naive is an understatement...or perhaps you simply don't know enough to comment on it properly.

See that is kinda is my point - IMHO attaching your hopes of protecting protestantism to supporting Rangers is wrong and doomed to failure. - yes that association is part of our past, but for the reasons you have given I don't see it as large part of our future. Rangers need to maintain a strong support base - how do they achieve that by being more attached to a religion that is dying out and dwindling I don't get.

[BLUEDIGNITY 33,647]

Waste of time reading it jist mere surrender monkey madness !

[Columbo 588]

Interesting post people calling you names and such should actually critique your points rather than write sarcastic unhelpful comments.

You're right to suggest we can't counter attack every lie or negative claim made against us but with serious people who are not objective and only intend to damage our football club we should be strong and firm.

I understand where you're coming from on the unionist / protestant thing but I don't see any need for us to distance ourselves from it. We should be proud of our roots.

Just because people use our roots to be bigoted and moronic doesn't mean we shouldn't be proud of our support for the armed forces and the royal family

[lutonblue 1,974]

Lost me at BluePeter9

[legalbeagle 3,734]

And that's precisely why your dignified silence will never work.

There are no rules here. The bheast knows only one end game...no Rangers and no Protestants.

The last bastion of perceived Protestantism left in Scotland is Rangers...whether you like it or not or agree or not that is what we are seen as.

The Church of Scotland is neutered and an irrelevance these days

The Orange Order are lame and toothless.

Our entire club, our communities and our way of life are all under attack from people who don't play by any set of rules and who certainly don't want to work with us or get on with us after this is over.

To say you are grossly naive is an understatement...or perhaps you simply don't know enough to comment on it properly.

We are not the place for that battle to be fought.

[Jimfanciesthedude 24,540]

Sum up in a few sentences please?

we should shut the fuck up, bend over and take it up the arse from whoever in scottish football fancies a shot of us

thats my guess tbh

[danger ranger 922]

See that is kinda is my point - IMHO attaching your hopes of protecting protestantism to supporting Rangers is wrong and doomed to failure. - yes that association is part of our past, but for the reasons you have given I don't see it as large part of our future. Rangers need to maintain a strong support base - how do they achieve that by being more attached to a religion that is dying out and dwindling I don't get.

Rangers have a strong support and a dying religion hasn't changed that fact.