News of the Restless

Venezuela takes drastic new measures against currency trafficking

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Sabina Becker

Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro took to the TV to announce something stunning recently: the removal of an entire denomination of Venezuelan currency from circulation. Here’s the story, via Aporrea:

Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro informed on his VTV show, Contacto con Maduro, that in the next three days, all 100-bolivar notes will be removed from circulation, with the intent of dismantling the trade, by international mafias, of taking Venezuelan banknotes out of the land. They have removed more than 300 billion bolivars using currency of this denomination. Those who have 100-bolivar notes in their possession must declare them at the Central Bank of Venezuela in the days to come, said the chief of state.

According to Maduro, in the Colombian cities of Cúcuta and Maicao there are permanent centres of attack against Venezuelan currency and the currency-trading system, using the extraction of banknotes as one form of action.

Maduro explained that the removal of Venezuelan banknotes, and the 100-bolivar note in particular, is being done to destabilize the Venezuelan economy and society. Which has already been tried in other countries, although fortunately, the high level of Venezuelan banking, by way of cash cards, electronic banking and transfers, has prevented worse consequences.

The president denounced that, according to informants, these mafias have gigantic hoards of 100-bolivar notes.

“I’ve given the order to General Vladimir Padrino López (the minister of defence) and to Major-General Néstor Reverol Torres (minister of Interior Relations) to immediately close all terrestrial, aerial and maritime routes so that none of those banknotes they took out can return, and they keep this swindle out of the country!”

Maduro announced also that large stockpiles of 100-bolivar notes have been detected in foreign countries such as Germany, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. By coincidence, videos have been circulating in social media since April, of persons of different nationalities with immense quantities of 100-bolivar notes in their possession.

[…]

“There will be a 10-day period so that the Central Bank, with the SEBIN [Bolivarian Intelligence Service] present, making all exchanges for those who wish to exchange [100-bolivar notes for other denominations]. Those who owe nothing, need fear nothing!” said Maduro.

On Monday, Interior Minister Néstor Reverol will meet with the Banking Association over the removal of the 100-bolivar note, Maduro announced. They will be taking advantage of Monday’s bank holiday to better organize the proceedings.

“Working people, shop owners, transportation workers, common people…all will have our complete support” for the hand-over and exchange of 100-bolivar notes.

Maduro announced that for months, the Venezuelan government has been demanding of the government of Colombia, by the diplomatic route, the elimination of Resolution 8, of the Colombian Central Bank, “which created this money-laundering operation, since the bolivar has one price in Bogotá, at the Central Bank, and another price among the mafias of Cúcuta. It is a merciless attack upon the Venezuelan economy.”

Maduro also indicated that there are national banks involved, and that an NGO contracted by the US Treasury Department has been the operator directing the whole operation against Venezuelan paper money. According tot he Organic Law Against Organized Crime, Article 51, the crimes all carry prison sentences of 12 to 18 years. “I ask for the maximum sentence for all those responsible who turn up in this investigation,” Maduro said.

This decision takes place just days after the announcement that new banknotes, of denominations of 500 to 20,000 bolivars, as well as 10-, 50-, and 100-bolivar coins, will begin to circulate as of December 15.

Translation mine.

BTW, Madurito isn’t kidding about the foreigners with stacks of 100-bolivar bills stowed away. Here’s some incriminating video:

This guy is Chinese. What on Earth is he up to with all those Venezuelan notes? Nothing good, by the looks of it. He sure seems to be busy with it, though.

And he’s not the only one. Remember, Madurito mentioned Germans, Czechs and Ukrainians all stockpiling the money in their respective countries. And of course, Colombians are in it up to their eyeballs. What are THEY doing with all that money? And what are their political affiliations?

As yet, I don’t know. But I have my suspicions. Fascism is on the rise globally, and it’s got to fund itself somehow. Of course they would do it by robbing the Venezuelan economy of a commonly-used and therefore much-sought denomination! Venezuela is a country where socialism still prevails, much to the far right’s chagrin. And to their even greater chagrin, they’ve still failed to dislodge a socialist president who works as hard as his beloved predecessor to combat all forms of fascism. Up to, including, and especially the fiscal.

And it should escape no one’s notice that a fascist is about to take the reins of the US presidency, too. One whose greed knows no bounds. And whose impulse control is nil, and whose self-serving tendencies mean he has no qualms about trampling any and all laws.

Joke’s on them, though: The paper money they stole is now officially worthless. What will circulate in its place will be coins, and higher-denomination bills. Things that are less likely to be carried out of country on the one hand, and more likely not to escape official notice on the other.

It’s a drastic step, but these ugly times call for drastic measures.

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Posted in All the Tea in China, Confessions of a Bad German, Czech This Out, Der Drumpf, Economics for Dummies, Fascism Without Swastikas, Filthy Stinking Rich, Free Trade, My Ass!, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't That Illegal?, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Music for a Sunday: What do those eyes mean?

Posted on December 11, 2016 by Sabina Becker

Somebody got the cool idea of setting this underrated Parachute Club song (which never had a video before) to footage of beautiful, spooky sea critters from Monterey Bay. Here’s another in the same vein, which also has no video but which I think deserves one:

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Music for a Sunday | Comments Off

Wankers of the Week: Cursin’ of the Year

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! Well, the verdict is in, and guess who TIME Magazine’s person of the year is? Yeah…Adolf Hitler all over again. Only this time without the tailored uniforms and the shiny boots. But everything else is the same, including the rallies of slack-jawed yokels with ugly haircuts, crooked teeth, and mean little piggy eyes. It’s enough to make a saint swear. And here’s who the saints are cussing out this week, in no particular order:

1. Joe Fucking Lieberman. Well, hello, Joe, whaddya know? Still not bloody much, by the sounds of it. This sleeping turtle has come out of his slumber just long enough to give the Dems the worst advice ever. The same gutless shit that helped him lose the 2000 election and roll over for Dubya thereafter. He’s been silent since Obama ate his lunch in the 2008 primaries (after which he fucked off in a snit as an “independent”), and one wishes he’d remained so. Go left, Dems, and keep going that way if you actually WANT to win. Because that’s where all the voters-who-never-voted are.

2. Fran Fucking Tarkenton. And speaking of old know-nothings we haven’t heard from in a dog’s age, how about HIM? And how deep IS his anus if he seriously thinks nobody’s boycotted Obama for the last eight years? Because that’s where he’s had his head all this time. But of course, he’s a Drumpfite, so fuckheaded ignorance is kind of a given there.

3. Eric Fucking Drumpf. If you’re so serious about saving children’s lives, and think it takes precedence over the rescue of democracy from a megalomaniac who would only take all that money and squander it on gold-plating the White House, Eric…how about selling all your 24-karat tchotchkes, paying your family’s taxes, and actually providing socialized medicine to all those kids, and their parents and grandparents too?

4. Chris Fucking Alexander. So, Alberta’s “hurting”? And just how is misogyny (and fascist copycatting) toward a popular, progressive premier supposed to ease the pain? Especially since your Conservative party is the actual AUTHOR of all that suffering, with all its decades of shitty, oil-dependent policymaking? (And, seriously: Do you think that showing up to one of Ezra Fucking Levant’s crapaganda rallies is a good look for a leadership candidate? The Doughy Pantload is the Breitbart of the North, you moron. Yes, you SHOULD be mortified.)

5. Nancy Fucking Pelosi. And here, like #1, is another useless idiot who will do everything in her power to ensure…that her party keeps on losing. Moving to the right won’t win you votes; there are left-leaning votes going begging, and those people didn’t vote. Why? Because they saw the Dems as nothing but Repugs Lite. And they weren’t wrong! And as long as Nancy’s around trying to claim the mushy middle ground or pick off loose right-wingers in typical out-of-touch elitist fashion, don’t expect those actual working-class voters to come lining up, either. PS: See why nobody thinks you’re effective? Ha, ha.

6. Andrew Fucking Anglin. Oh dear, someone hasn’t learned history’s lessons. One of these days, Andy-boy, you’re gonna find yourself hanging by your heels from a gas-station roof, just like another of your historic idols. Because that’s what fate has in store for those who don’t have the ‘nads to follow their leader and blow their brains out in a bunker like a good little Nazi coward. Ha, ha, just kidding, satire, Freeze Peach!

7. Anish Fucking Patel. How kind and generous of him to offer to drive people who don’t like Christmas to the airport, especially during this busy holiday travel season! And of course, there’s been no shortage of takers for that kind and generous offer. Happy Holidays, motherfucker. Ha, ha.

8. Milo Fucking Yiannopoulos. And speaking of early holiday gifts, how about them frozen peaches? Guess they don’t like ‘em in Iowa. Ha, ha. And of course, Widdle Milo has been reduced to whining about “slippery censorship tactics” because nobody wants to subsidize his hate-mongering. Gee, Milo, maybe if you dug into all that money you embezzled from your gullible supporters, or begged some off your Big Daddy Drumpf, you could pay for your own damn security and show some courage of your convictions, eh?

9. Brad Fucking Trost. It’s a day ending in “day”, and Bad Idea Brad has once again opened up with an idiotic opinion. And this time, it’s to support #4 in HIS wankery, and add that he would have chanted “Lock her up”, too. Keep scraping the bottom of that barrel, Brad…one day, you may just find yourself in China.

10. Neal Fucking Hancock. Meanwhile, another of Ezzy the Pantload’s little Con-stooges was calling for hacking and cyber-terrorism and sabotage. Uh, not-Bernard the non-Roughneck? You know all that’s ILLEGAL, right???

11. Nora Fucking Roth. Look, I know this has been a year of shit and hell, but an apocalypse? And on Jeebus’s birthday? How stupid do you think we all are? Unless all the Drumpfites, rapturists and other assorted wingnuts are going to be wiped out and the rest left alone, there will never be a single day of righteousness, much less a thousand years.

12. James Fucking Lyons. The way to “win hearts and minds” in the Middle East is to “kill them into submission”? Gramps, what do you think has been going on for the past several decades? And just look how well that’s worked out for you. How about just leaving them in peace and leaving their oil in the ground? No? Too obvious? Thought so.

13. Kellie Fucking Leitch. Oh dear. Someone is determined to learn absolutely nothing from what’s going on south of our border…except, of course, how to emulate the worst bits. Yeah, that fascism is gonna bite her on the ass. And I hope it does so sooner rather than later.

14. Brian Fucking Mulroney. And speaking of learning absolutely nothing from the BS going on to the south of us, how about HIM? Yeah, Lyin’ Brian decided to pull a Drumpf and glorify himself while making it look like he was doing others a charitable favor. There’s a reason we don’t care for personality cults here in Canada, and this is why: IT’S FUCKING NAUSEATING.

15. Emily Fucking Youcis. Because you’re never too young to be a loud ’n’ proud Nazi princess, you’re also never too young to be wanklisted for it here. Good luck finding a new job, sweetie. Your reputation as an asshole is preceding you all the way.

16. Carol Fucking Fraley. Meanwhile, on the other end of the age scale, here’s proof that the passage of time doesn’t make everyone wiser. She claims she voted for Drumpf because Obama disappointed her by not getting rid of racism and poverty…so, presumably in protest, she voted for the biggest racist and poverty-pimp to run for office since George Lincoln Rockwell? Yeah, that’ll fix everything — and that’ll show all the hopey-changey people who’s boss!

17. Michael Fucking Flynn. If you thought his dad was bat-guano, wait’ll you see Junior. Yup, he’s a true believer in the whole bullshit that is PizzaGate…and he’s not backing down even though there’s all kinds of evidence to prove him wrong, starting with the fact that the picked-on pizza parlor doesn’t even have a basement, much less a dungeon full of child sex slaves down in it. Meanwhile, all the PizzaGits are blithely ignoring the very real child-sex-abuse scandal involving their own golden boy, Donnie, who actually threatened a 13-year-old victim with being “disappeared” like another one, who was only 12.

18. Newt Fucking Gingrich. Oh boy, a tweet that will live in infamy! Pro tip: If you want to know how NOT to commemorate the bombing of Pearl Harbor, just look at Newty and learn, kiddies.

9. Rick Fucking Santorum. It’s been a while since he was last listed here, but isn’t it nice to know that Icky Ricky Buttsploodge hasn’t lost his knack for alienating and disgustipating just about everyone — even fellow Republicans?

20. Kelly Fucking Osbourne. And speaking of alienating and disgustipating: No, LGBT people do NOT have to give Der Drumpf a chance. A chance to do what — ruin their lives completely, and everyone else’s too? Because, need I remind you, his VP pick alone is a guy who thinks that you can have Teh Ghey electroshocked out of you, and what’s more, that you should.

21. Alex Fucking Jones. Uh, stupid? You ARE aware, I hope, that what you’re doing there is slander? Because you have absolutely NO proof that Hillary Clinton has personally murdered, raped or cut up a single child, much less “children”, plural. And if you can’t prove that she did it, you really shouldn’t be saying that she did. Because it’s bullshit. And bullshit is not defensible in a court of law, and at the rate you’re going, you’re gonna get your hysterical ass sued right out from under you.

22. Kevin Fucking Campbell. What diploma mill graduated THIS so-called “doctor”? Because Drumpf isn’t going to make anyone but the worst and richest bastards “feel good”. Everyone else will be sick as dogs before long, unless he’s impeached and Mike Pence is arrested. Suicide is going to go UP, not down. And if you think opioid addiction is a problem now, it’s only going to get worse…unless, of course, the previously stated conditions are met.

23. Jim Fucking Buchy. Yes, this one’s a couple of years old. But I think his wank bears repeating because Ohio just got that “heartbeat” anti-choice bill that he and his fellow head-up-ass types have been lobbying for, for years. Here’s a fat clue-by-four for you, fellas: If you don’t have a uterus yourselves, you don’t get to make decisions that invade the uteri of others. See how that works?

24. Mike Fucking Cernovich. What do you get when you cross The Secret with a PUA manual, grind it all up, and then mix it with a toxic stew of racism? You get crap everywhere, especially inside your own unkempt head. In short, you get JuiceBro’s “Gorilla Mindset”, which all real gorillas would only shake their shaggy heads at.

25. Susan Fucking Olsen. Wow, little Cindy Brady sure grew up to be homophobic. And mean. And dumb. And grammar-challenged. And UGLY. PS: Aaand she’s out. GOOD.

26. Geert Fucking Wilders. Well, blondie, how do you like your Freeze Peach now? Aren’t you a fine one to whine about “haters”. Project much? And how’s it feel to get your big, twisted mouth slapped shut by a judge? Ha, ha.

27. Andy Fucking Puzder. And meanwhile, back in Drumpfolandia, Drumpfy’s new labor secretary likes him some women eating burgers in bikinis. Never mind that the women in the ads probably got those “bikini bodies” by throwing up every bite they take in. Or that women who work other jobs are being paid shit for doing things way more important to keeping the country running. As long as the Carl’s Jr. Burger models look like something you’d find draped around a brass pole in a seedy bar, all’s good, right?

28. Daniel Fucking Conversano. Punched out on national TV (in France!) for being a whiny white nationalist asshole? Sic semper imbecilis, inbred mofo. And now you know how popular your viewpoints REALLY are.

29. Mark Fucking Roberts. “I’m rubber, you’re glue, blah blah, bloo bloo.” Is that conduct becoming an officer? Guess the Bradenton Police Department didn’t think so. Ha, ha.

30. Sean Fucking Duffy. Madison, Wisconsin, is a communist city? Since when? And how? Oh, I see…you’re a Repug. And you can’t stand to see democracy working. And you’re also an idiot. But I repeat myself. And I repeat myself. Ha, ha.

And finally, to Nigel Fucking Farage. Hey UKIP voters and Brexit supporters, don’t you feel stupid now, knowing that your Dear Leader considers you “low-grade” and his fat salary as a come-down compared to what his rich bankster friends are making? He’s whining about all the luxuries he isn’t enjoying, thanks to having to lead a stupid fucking movement. Yeah, that’s right, you idiots got played. You really have nothing to feel smug about; you’re as racist and stupid as your Amurrican cousins who voted for Drumpf. After all, you voted for the equivalent on your side of the pond. PS: Ha, ha, looks good on ya, Nige.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | 2 Comments

Fuck John Galt. Go Johan Galtung!

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Sabina Becker

Who’s John Galt? A bad fictional character, and pretty much the complete opposite of everything we know about real live capitalists. He’s also pretty much the opposite of this guy, who has his finger firmly on the pulse of a lot of global issues:

Who is this wizard? No, he’s not a psychic; he’s a sociologist. His name is Johan Galtung, and he’s from Norway. BTW, the above video is five years old, and mercifully, he was wrong about one thing, namely “not underestimating” Sarah Palin (who cannot be underestimated enough!). He’s quite right, though, about everything else, particularly the saving value of giving decent-paying jobs to the people. Here’s something more recent he has said:

Johan Galtung, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated sociologist who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, warned that US global power will collapse under the Donald Trump administration.

The Norwegian professor at the University of Hawaii and Transcend Peace University is recognized as the ‘founding father’ of peace and conflict studies as a scientific discipline. He has made numerous accurate predictions of major world events, most notably the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

Galtung has also accurately predicted the 1978 Iranian revolution; the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989 in China; the economic crises of 1987, 2008 and 2011; and even the 9/11 attacks—among other events, according to the late Dietrich Fischer, academic director of the European University Center for Peace Studies.

Back in 2000, Galtung first set out his prediction that the “US empire” would collapse within 25 years. After the election of President Bush, though, he revised that forecast five years forward because, he argued, Bush’s policies of extreme militarism would be an accelerant.

Quite the track record, and I wouldn’t argue with any of it. So. What does this impressive predictor have to say about Der Drumpf?

He argued that American fascism would come from a capacity for tremendous global violence; a vision of American exceptionalism as the “fittest nation”; a belief in a coming final war between good and evil; a cult of the strong state leading the fight of good against evil; and a cult of the “strong leader”.

All of which, Galtung said, surfaced during the Bush era, and which now appear to have come to fruition through Trump. Such fascism, he told Motherboard, is a symptom of the decline—lashing out in disbelief at the loss of power.

Among the 15 structural contradictions his model identifies as driving the decline, are:

*economic contradictions such as ‘overproduction relative to demand’, unemployment and the increasing costs of climate change;
*military contradictions including rising tensions between the US, NATO, and its military allies, along with the increasing economic unsustainability of war;
*political contradictions including the conflicting roles of the US, UN and EU;
*cultural contradictions including tensions between US Judeo-Christianity, Islam, and other minorities;
*and social contradictions encompassing the increasing gulf between the so-called ‘American Dream’, the belief that everyone can prosper in America through hard work, and the reality of American life (the fact that more and more people can’t).

Galtung’s book explores how the structural inability to resolve such contradictions will lead to the unravelling of US political power, both globally, and potentially even domestically.

Trump has made clear that he thinks US troops are still needed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even proposed sending more troops to Iraq. He also said that we should have ‘grabbed’ the country’s oil. But he has also heavily (and incoherently) criticized US military policies.

That, right there, is a pretty big internal contradiction for a man who led everyone to believe he was an isolationist. Nonsense! Drumpf seems to be obsessed with power and the exercise of it in any way he can wangle. Remember, he was nonplussed by the fact that the US has nukes and won’t use them! Deterrence is not even a concept for him. He can’t be trusted to keep his itchy fingers off the trigger and to himself.

And yes, there is fascism afoot within the US right now, and the likelihood is great that it will cause a collapse within the land, and soon. Barring some miracle, such as the Electoral College voting en masse against him, Der Drumpf will be the ruin of the US of A.

Forget “going Galt”, I’m going Galtung. You probably should, too.

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Posted in Der Drumpf, El Predicto Speaks..., Fascism Without Swastikas, The United States of Amnesia, The War on Terra | Comments Off

Remembering Viola Desmond

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Sabina Becker

Viola Desmond, a Canadian civil-rights hero, was honored today with the announcement that her face would appear on the $10 bill. She beat Rosa Parks to the punch by nine years, in 1946, when she insisted on sitting in the “white” area of a Nova Scotia movie theatre (i.e. the better, pricier seats down on the main floor, instead of the balcony, where black moviegoers were supposed to sit). The difference in ticket prices? A whopping one cent. She got dragged out by violent police officers, and tried, and fined for “defrauding the government”. She paid her $20 fine promptly, thus proving that the whole nasty episode wasn’t about the difference in ticket prices at all. You’d have to be blind not to see the racism there, eh? Viola certainly could, and that’s why she fought back. Her court challenge resulted in the dismantling of racial-segregation laws all over Canada.

But even before she challenged the segregation of movie theatres, Viola was already a fighter against racism. As the report shows, she had to cross the color line in order to be able to open her own beauty salon; most hairdressing schools at the time barred all black trainees. Viola saw an unfilled niche in the field, and became a teacher of other black beauticians, and eventually the owner of a hairdressing school, as well as a cosmetics manufacturer specializing in products for black clients. So it hardly comes as a surprise that she had the spirit to fight for her rights rather than just quietly let racial segregation pass unchallenged. After all, Canada had just fought and won a war against fascism overseas. Why let it go on happening at home?

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Fascism Without Swastikas, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Racist?, Law-Law Land, Uppity Wimmin | Comments Off

Nazi brothels: The hidden horror of the concentration camps

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Sabina Becker

A concentration camp identification card from a female prisoner of Ravensbrück, who was sent to work in another camp as a prostitute. The word “Bordellfrau” should escape no one’s notice. Yes, it’s true: There really was nothing beneath the Nazis. For all their obsession with “purity” and “virtue”, they were in fact a band of pimps. And the head pimp-daddy of them all was a name that should be familiar to everyone who knows even a little of their history. Here’s my translation of an article that lays it all bare, with commentary in between:

Whatever is contemptible, gets concealed — even in the top-secret messages of mass murderers. Even internally, the SS avoided concrete references to the millionfold murder of Jews, and wrote, instead, of their “special treatment”. Just as shady, apparently, was another set-up in Heinrich Himmler’s apparatus. How else could one explain that the concentration-camp brothels, which as of 1942 were set up in all the major KZs, were shamefully called “special buildings”?

Today, it’s well known that the concentration camps were huge hells on Earth. But who also knows that among the miserable “living” conditions, sadistic tortures and total absence of rights for the inmates, all the way up to “annihilation through work”, we can now add sexual exploitation?

The pedantic Himmler, of all people, was the biggest pimp in German criminal history, if the number of “his” slave-prostitutes was anything to go by. This chapter of history has been opened by a traveling exhibition by the KZ-Ravensbrück memorial site, which can currently be seen in Weimar.

Yes, that’s right, folks…this guy here was the biggest pimp in Germany at the time, although I suspect that the megabrothel owners of today probably outrank him in terms of numbers of women prostituted, as well as earnings:

Doesn’t look like a pimp, does he? Well, wait for it. What he wrote reveals just what kind of dirty mind was at work in that prissy little man’s head:

In the concentration-camp system, the sexes were supposed to be strictly segregated. Women, as well as men, were quickly taken into so-called “protective custody” soon after the Nazi takeover. At first they were imprisoned in normal jails, but by the end of 1933, the first KZ, Moringen* in Niedersachsen, was converted into an all-female concentration camp. After an interim repurposing of the former male KZ Lichtenburg*, in Sachsen-Anhalt, from 1937 to 1939, the all-female KZ Ravensbrück*, in the Uckermark, was opened just a few months before the outbreak of World War II. Only in rare exceptions, such as Auschwitz, were male and female barracks located next to one another.

At the height of the war, as the numbers of KZ prison-laborers grew in importance, Himmler sent out an order on March 23, 1942: “I consider it of utmost importance that in the freest form, the hard-working female prisoners be brought into bordellos”. Also, a “certain small piecework rate” would be paid, the “Reichsführer SS” told the head of the newly-founded “business management head office”, Oswald Pohl*, who was responsible for the running of all the KZs. The reason Himmler gave: “When these two conditions are met, the work capacity [of the male prisoners] will rise enormously.”

So we can see that Himmler, like so many “men’s rights” assholes today, thought that men would be more productive and efficient if their sexual “needs” were taken care of by women specially enslaved for the purpose, and that outside of this context, the genders were to be severely segregated. And he even knew how to twist such words as “free”, same as menzers and “alt-right” fascists today!

So. How did these “free” KZ-brothels function, and how were they set up?

About two months later, the first camp brothel went into business on a trial basis, in the KZ Mauthausen in Upper Austria. The women, either under false pretences or under duress, were recruited in Ravensbrück. According to Nazi criteria, they had to be “Aryan” and healthy, with no sexually-transmitted diseases. The brothel was housed in Barrack 1, right beside the camp’s parade ground. There, 24 women from Ravensbrück had to service exclusively selected KZ prisoners, typically prisoner-overseers or odd-job men. They were paid with “certificates” that the Lager-SS distributed at will to “helpful” or particularly “performance-minded” prisoners.

It was characteristic of the KZ system that control and repression were extensively performed by prisoners. High in the prison hierarchy in most camps were those in “BV” (“Befristete Vorbeugehaft”, i.e. temporary preventive custody), which in prison-camp reality was typically replaced with “Berufsverbrecher” (career criminals). Out of this group, the SS selected most of its functionary prisoners, such as “trusties”. In many camps, these prisoners sacrificed other inmates to their interests, preferably captives out of “low” categories such as homosexuals and Jews.

To utilize this heedless confrontation even better in the SS fashion, prison brothels were set up. Until early 1945, in ten of the larger KZs, “special buildings” were set up, among them in Auschwitz I and III, Dachau, Flossenbürg, and Sachsenhausen. Nearly all the women came from KZ Ravensbrück; if they remained healthy and kept to the strict rules, they “worked” on average six to twelve months in the camp brothel, and then were sent back to the women’s KZ.

So we can see that the prissy Himmlerian habit of segregation and controlled interaction fits right into a larger pattern within the KZs: namely, that of pitting prisoners against one another. Gentiles against Jews, straights against LGBTs, men against women, hardened criminals against the innocent. But at least one group of prisoners wasn’t falling into the trap…and yes, it WAS a trap:

Soon after 1945, the first reports of the camp brothel at Buchenwald became public. Carl Gärtig, who had been imprisoned at Buchenwald since 1938 and had worked in its mess hall during the final years of the war, told his impressions in late April of 1945, just two weeks after the camp’s liberation by the US Army: “The ‘special building’ was a swamp-flower of the worst corruption and other horrors, a truly Nazi model business.” Gärtig, like many “political” prisoners, refused the “offer” categorically: “Visiting the brothel signified a recognition of Nazi tactics, of playing prisoners off against each other.” Even so, there was much “demand”, and only partly in the frame of the SS’s rules: “One night, there was even a big brawl between the camp guards and the criminals, because the criminals had broken into the brothel that night and drunkenly menaced the women. The camp guards, however, quickly and thoroughly cleaned out the pigsty.”

In Buchenwald, a group of predominantly political prisoners dominated the “self-government” of the camp; that distinguished this KZ from most of the others, in which the BVs dispensed death. According to Buchenwald survivor Eugen Kogon, the camp directorate tried to alter this (for them) unsatisfactory situation with the camp brothel: “On the SS side, the purpose of the exercise was to corrupt the political prisoners who had access [to the brothel], spy on them, and distract them from politics.” For that reason, in Buchenwald, “internal advice went around not to use the facility”.

What do you bet that the political prisoners who refused to use the brothel were either devout Christian antifascists…or just straight-up leftists? Carl Gärtig, for instance, was a Communist. Eugen Kogon, on the other hand, was a Catholic, born out of wedlock to a Jewish mother, who landed in a prison camp because of his religious opposition to Nazism. That’s the kind of social conscience it takes to staunchly turn one’s back on the blandishments of fascism, up to and including the sexually exploitative ones. If you’re willing to face prison for your religious beliefs and/or political convictions, it’s not that hard to dispense with the dubious joys of sex capitalism. On the contrary, it makes a lot of sense, especially in terms of being the change you want to see in the world.

Meanwhile, as to those who DID use the facility…well, here are the joys of sexy, sexy “sex work” for you, in all their Nazi-KZ glory:

The inmates, there or in other KZs, who sought out the brothel, usually had two Reichsmarks or a certificate of the same value to pay, had to visit the camp hospital for examination beforehand, got to visit one of the women for 20 minutes, and afterwards had be “sanitized”, that is, disinfected. So wrote Eugen Kogon in the best-selling classic, “The SS-State”*.

Two measly Reichsmarks for 20 minutes of loveless ceiling-staring and waiting for the poor slob to finish so he could go off and be “sanitized” of all your nasty-wasty woman-germs? Sure sounds like liberation to me. And if the pattern of classic pimps holds true here, then Himmler’s goons probably kept all or most of that money for themselves anyway, adding insult to injury for the enslaved women, who were “paid” in scrip like turn-of-the-century coal miners, and exploited down to their last orifices in ways that even the lowest laborers were not. Such sexy fun!

So, why haven’t you heard much about this until now? Well, maybe because there was only so much horror the post-war German mind could take. And only so much shame that could bear to be revealed to the foreign occupation forces. But it was never really a sworn secret; like so much else, it was just something no one wanted to talk about…

Though the existence of camp brothels was never a secret after 1945, the suffering of the inmates was still kept pretty quiet. Only in Mauthausen and Gusen* were the barracks in which the women were made to prostitute preserved. In the memorial works, the topic has for decades been very much subordinated, often even totally unmentioned.

Only with the rise of gender studies did that change. From the 1990s onward, detailed studies of individual camp brothels emerged, roughly contemporaneous with the first serious examinations of the Wehrmacht brothels in the occupied lands. Since 2009 there is a compilation available: “The KZ-brothel; Forced Sexual Labor in Nazi Concentration Camps. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2009. 445 pp, 38 euros.” For it, historian Robert Sommer had to use literally the last opportunity to query women and some individual brothel visitors. Thus the horrifying history of sex in hell became comprehensively recognizable, almost seven decades after the building of the camp brothels.

…until almost no one was left to talk about it at all.

*Denotes links added by me. Unstarred link as in the original.

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Posted in Confessions of a Bad German, Do As I Say..., Human Rights FAIL, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Men Who Just Don't Get It, Not So Compassionate Conservatism | Comments Off

#NoDAPL is not over, people!

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Sabina Becker

This battle has just begun. And no, what the US Army Corps of Engineers did yesterday, though it was the right thing to do, is NOT the end of the pipeline. The Sioux people of Standing Rock are not done fighting yet, because the pipeline company is determined to push that filthy project through, and this is just a minor setback for them. Vetoing the pipeline altogether is the only real way to stop it, and that hasn’t happened yet. And all the other polluting industry projects, from the contamination of Flint’s water, to fracking, to old oil pipelines leaking under people’s houses? Yeah. It’s time to join the fight to stop ALL that. NOW.

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Posted in Barreling Right Along, Environmentally Ill, If You REALLY Care, Teh Injunz, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Music for a Sunday: Pull till the rope breaks

Posted on December 4, 2016 by Sabina Becker

If you’ve ever seen The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, you’ve probably already heard this:

It was one of Chavecito’s favorite songs, and it comes courtesy of Venezuela’s greatest folk singer. Here’s a translation of the lyrics:

Pull till the rope breaks
and when someone hits you,
just make a note of it.

Pull, pull, pull, till the rope breaks
If you’re in the last quarter,
tomorrow there will be a new moon.

Pull so that the bad times soon pass
and just as in a game of dominoes,
the onlookers will be speechless.

Pull, pull, pull till the rope breaks
Our free country
will be a contented heifer

Pull, pull, pull till the rope breaks
ay, ay, ay, it breaks, it breaks

Pull so that the people are a dry hide
If you step on one side of it
the other will rise up
they have a skin blooming with hope
for something

Pull, pull, pull till the rope breaks
ay, ay, ay, it breaks, it breaks

The people are not to blame
if they are once decived, and say that the fawn
will die meekly in summer
when there’s not much water
and the mountaintop is naked
when there’s not much water
Ay, ay, ay, naked
naked, naked

If you take the venom away from the rattlesnake
even though it rattles
it stops being a rattlesnake

Pull, pull, pull till the rope breaks
ay, ay, ay, it breaks, it breaks

If you take the venom away from the rattlesnake
even though it rattles
it stops being a rattlesnake

Pull, pull, pull till the rope breaks
ay, ay, ay, it breaks, it breaks

Translation mine. (Hopefully it’s right; Alí Primera is a tricky wordsmith, as well as a master of odd rhythms.)

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Posted in Huguito Chavecito, Music for a Sunday | Comments Off

Undocumented Colombian Drumpf supporter gets deported?

Posted on December 3, 2016 by Sabina Becker

myriam-witcher

An interesting rumor has been making the rounds of the Spanish-speaking Internets of late. No word yet on whether it’s true, but this sure would be ironic if confirmed…¿no?

We all know that Donald Trump made fairly strong statements against Latin-American and immigrant people in the United States. Strangely and lamentably, in spite of his offensive, racist declarations, some Hispanic women supported the Republican candidate, but one woman working illegally in the United States went viral for supporting Trump even though he made very clear his intentions with respect to immigrants.

This woman rapidly became one of the most reviled in the Latin community, called a traitor, since most thought she would benefit for demonstrating her support for Trump upon shouting to thousands of people, “I am Latina and I’m going to vote for Donald Trump!”

However, various media have recently published an item over what happened to the woman, named Myriam, who has been deported for not having legal immigrant status. At the moment, this information has not been confirmed officially, despite its wide spread, for which reason it should be taken with a grain of salt.

It all seems to indicate that coming out publicly in the Trump campaign did nothing more than subject her to judgment, since going before the cameras and making known that she was an illegal Latin immigrant who supported the candidate caused the FBI to begin an investigation of her, in which it was determined that this woman was in the country illegally.

When the authorities interviewed Myriam about her status, they discovered that the documentation she showed them, her “green card” and social-security number, were all fake.

She never imagined that in exposing herself thus, supporting Donald Trump, would cost her so much; the state quickly discovered that she was undocumented, and she was returned to Colombia.

According to the media, Myriam said that she would ask Trump for help once he became president. Although nothing has happened yet, the most certain thing is that Myriam will not receive any kind of help from the president-elect.

Translation mine.

So, I googled for a Colombian named Myriam who supported Drumpf, and found out that the woman’s full name is Myriam Witcher. And that there’s been a bit of controversy swirling around her. Some claim she is actually Venezuelan, not Colombian. Some call her a “plant”. And right-wingers from all over Freeperville who normally line up to spit on Latin-Americans went out of their way to kiss her ass because she went out of her own way to kiss theirs, metaphorically speaking. Her tweeter account, dating back only to September 2015, is here, if you’re interested. (Spoiler: It’s predictably and nauseously full of Drumpf-ass-kissing and self-congratulation.) Also, she’s a “birther” who hates Ricky Martin, and that she claims to have seen Drumpf in her dreams. Some are even calling her a “superfan”.

But one thing I’ve seen no one calling her yet is “illegal”, that awful adjective that really shouldn’t be used as a noun. Only Spanish-language sites are reporting the rumor of her deportation. There are no news reports in English or official bulletins to indicate that she’s been kicked out of the country. Her tweeter itself is mum on the subject. And until confirmation comes out that she has indeed been deported for lack of proper puppy papers, I don’t think it will be wise to call her “illegal”, even though I think she deserves all the ridicule she would (and probably will) get. Certainly her cruelty and hypocrisy towards other Latin-American immigrants deserves some form of karma.

Most likely she’ll get it from the same place all the whitey-white Drumpf supporters will get it: in the form of deepening poverty, middle-class tax hikes, loss of medicare benefits and overtime pay, and all the other manifestations of “socialism” that they all claim to hate so very, very much because they benefit the “undeserving” poor…until those benefits also get yoinked away from them.

And if nothing else, she certainly deserves to be shunned by other Latin-Americans, whose lives she has helped to make utterly, abjectly miserable.

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Posted in Der Drumpf, Do As I Say..., Fascism Without Swastikas, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Not So Compassionate Conservatism, The Hardcore Stupid, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Wankers of the Week: Breakfast of Chumpions

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! And how about that cereal-killer boycott by the Drumpfniks? As you can see by the title and the memes this week, it’s backfiring on them beautifully. Guaranteed that no one’s going to miss Bitefart’s measly readership by this time next week. And you know who else would never be missed if they dropped off the face of the Earth? These moldy cornflakes…in no particular order:

1. Theodore Fucking Beale. Riddle me this: How the hell does one become an author when one has so little reading comprehension? Well, it helps that he’s a fantasy author. Unfortunately, the majority of the fairy tales he writes aren’t about elves and gnomes and swords and sorcery, but just stupid racist misinterpretations of a company trying to prevent package fraud in Germany. PS: Also, “equalitarian” isn’t a word. You’re thinking of egalitarian, Teddy bozo. And you might want to stop sneering when you say it, too.

2. John Fucking Kilpatrick. Arghle dee blooble dee blop! What did I just say? Well, that was Tongues for “Good Gawd, this preacher is one helluva fucking charlatan. Just like Der Drumpf.”

3. Nick Fucking Cannon. Sez Planned Parenthood is responsible for “real genocide” and “eugenics”, with zero proof. And in related news, Nick Fucking Cannon is a tool, and now we all know why Mariah Carey dumped his ass. And we also have an inkling that his mother made the wrong choice when she decided to carry said ass to term.

4. Kristina Fucking Arriaga. Newsflash, religious liberty dumbbell: Your country is not the world’s policeman, your surgeon-general is not a fucking coroner, and you have no business to demand Fidel Castro’s death certificate. Mind your own beeswax, already. And get off the fucking TV.

5. Daryush Fucking Valizadeh. Well, well. Look who fell out with the “alt-right”, or should we say NEO-FUCKING-NAZIS? Yeah…the one, the only, the quite-gross-enough-on-his-own Roosh V. Only, alas, it didn’t last. Roosh needs eyeballs for his shitty blog, so he’ll sidle up to anyone who looks like they might be receptive, and tongue their earholes. Now he’s sucking Richard Fucking Spencer’s cocktail wienie again. Roosh, make up your fucking mind already. Oh…I see. You’ve made up your mind to be repugnant and repulsive to anyone with an ounce of humanity, but especially women? All right, carry on, then. Nothing makes me happier than the thought of you moaning about how forever alone and unlaid you are.

6. Cassandra Fucking Elizabeth Fucking Sutton. Why the double Fucking? Because that’s how stupid you have to be to believe there’s any black people whom it’s okay to call the n-word. And also how racist you’d have to be to call any of them that in the first place. And also how blind you’d have to be not to see white guys committing crimes, whether it’s on your street or in the boardrooms and office towers of the world. Oh, and did I mention RACIST? Yeah. RACIST.

7. Jennifer Fucking Boyle. Lady, nobody gives a rat’s ass who you voted for. And it doesn’t matter if he won. Nobody is “discriminating” against your lily-white ass. You still have to pay in full for things, same as everyone else, and you still have to respect others — again, same as everyone else. His so-called “win” isn’t a licence for you to be an entitled, racist piece of shit.

8. David Fucking Petraeus. Well, well, look who’s blasted back from the past. General Betrayus is being tapped for secretary of state by Der Drumpf! Yes, that’s right…a man who couldn’t even be trusted to keep his dick out of a woman not his wife, much less treat state secrets prudently with said woman, is now being tapped by the Adulterer-in-Chief. Honor? What the fuck is THAT? This so-called future administration is going to be leaker than a worn-out sieve before it even gets up and running.

9. Jason Fucking Chaffetz. Toughness on future presidents’ conflicts of interest? Well, I guess it depends on who’s president…and what letter is after their name. If it’s an R, apparently a huge pile of ‘em doesn’t matter a heap of beans. Yeah, tell me this one’s not crooked as fuck himself…

10. Gregg Fucking Jarrett. “Get Out of Jail Free” cards are for Monopoly. Nobody handed Hillary Clinton one. And insinuating that she’s lucky not to be in jail yet, just for demanding a full democratic accounting? That’s fucking dictatorial.

11. Sam Fucking Oosterhoff. Barely off his by-election, and already Little Big Man not only wants to throw a rager to celebrate the dumbest victory ever, he’s also trying to boss the adults around when he’s not even sworn in as an MPP. Kid, you’re a rookie. You’re barely old enough to vote in an election, much less oppose your own party’s declared stance. Sit down and let the grown-ups talk. PS: And nooooo, of course you’re not a homophobe. You just happen to think that granting same-sex parents equal rights is a terrible idea. Nothing at all homophobic about that, that’s just bigoted and hateful, is all!

12. Rick Fucking Joyner. Der Drumpf, compassionate? Honest? A disciple of Jesus? Oh stop. My leg is hurting from all the pulling!

13. Jim Fucking Bakker. And speaking of Jesus-freakery: Buy Jimmeh’s buckets-o-crap! Yeah, they’re crap, and there’s no fucking way they have a shelf life of 20 years, but at least by selling these, he’s making a more honest living than he was when he was just selling prayers.

14. Alex Fucking Jones. And speaking of peddling buckets-o-crap: How about him? He’s the one responsible for Der Drumpf’s claims of ballot-stuffing. Meanwhile, actual ballot-stuffing HAS taken place…and it’s all on his side! Oops, so much for THAT conspiracy-theory smokescreen…

15. Mike Fucking Cernovich. And MOAR buckets-o-crap! Yes, that’s right, folks…it’s Juicebro! And this time, he’s made a documentary. Or something approximating one, anyhow. It’s even been reviewed by Milo Fucking Yeah-Nope, of all people. And his praise is so faint that it’s about to pass out.

16. Brad Fucking Trost. He doesn’t believe man-made global warming is real. He’s a fundie out the wazoo. And yet, he considers himself a “scientist”. Reminder: This moron is actually in the running for Conservative Party of Canada leader!

17. Caleb Joseph Fucking Illig. Because it wouldn’t be a wankapedia without at least one Florida Man. And he couldn’t be a wanker without a backwards baseball cap, xenophobic racism, and oh yeah, Drumpfism.

18. David Fucking Clarke. He wants to send a million people to Gitmo when people are dying inside his own county jails? Frankly, he shouldn’t be picked for dogcatcher, never mind head of Homeland Security (an office that should have been abolished when Dubya left office anyway). And oh yeah, Cuba? Now would be a good time to kick the gringos out of Guantánamo Bay for good, eh? PS: LGBT+ people also say fuck you. Fuck you very much. And take off that cowboy hat; you’re not from Texas, cheeseball.

19. Andrea Fucking Hardie. Newsflash: Nazis are antisemitic! ‘Nother newsflash: The so-called “alt-right” are Nazis! Also: Water is wet, the Pope is Catholic, and you’ll never guess what bears do in the woods. Goodness gracious me, this fucking fool is getting blinded by all these newsflashes! So much so that she can’t even tell if the hate is “justified”. Here’s a broad hint: If it’s directed at an entire group of people for no reason other than that Those People are not of your own group, it’s NEVER FUCKING JUSTIFIED. And if you have to go fishing for reasons why it might be “justified”, you just might be a Nazi yourself. And you can go fuck yourself for that.

20. Tim Fucking Wildmon. Remember that old saying about how you can’t serve both God and Mammon? Well, in case you hadn’t heard the news, the televangelical lobby threw down for the latter a long, LONG time ago. And they’re still doing it, and claiming to be “persecuted” because they’re “Christians”, too. (Note the quotes, there for a reason.)

21. Pat Fucking Robertson. And speaking of the televangelical lobby. Patwa badly needs a little sex-ed. Correction: He needs A LOT.

22. Alexander Fucking Marlow. Isn’t it rich all of a sudden to hear the far fascist right acting all concerned about female sexuality, and telling us to #BoycottKelloggs on the tweeter? Yeah. Almost as rich as hearing Bitefart’s current honcho claim that his company’s neo-Nazi horseshit is “mainstream American ideas”. Never mind that about a century ago, these flag-humping freaks would all have been fanatical adherents of John Harvey Kellogg and his erroneous notions about “passions”, which by the way also influenced the “thought” (and dietary fanaticism) of Adolf Hitler.

23. Scottie Fucking Nell Fucking Hughes. Why the double Fucking? Because that’s how stupid it is to say that something is “an idea of an opinion”. And also that there is “no such thing as facts”, and to assert that Der Drumpf’s bullshit tweets “are truth”. Idiocies like that are how you end up with a moron as your candidate…one who will sure and soon enough be impeached for conflict of interest, just as you will be laughed at for conflicting with facts.

24. Joseph Fucking Schmitz. Hey Nazi-apologist dumbass, did you sleep through history class in high school? Because if you hadn’t, you’d have learned that the ovens at Auschwitz were not used for killing, but for cremation. The gas chambers were for killing. As was the Nazi habit of working prisoners to death on meagre rations (also known as STARVATION), and contagious diseases such as typhus, and firing squads that buried their victims in mass graves out in the woods, and oh yeah, Dr. Mengele’s chamber of horrors, too. But of course, what can we expect when there’s no such thing as facts anymore, and opinions are all that exists in the world?

25. Chris Fucking Bosgraaf. How’s it feel to be roasted all over the Internet for your racism? Yeah, surprise…your boy may have gotten some states in the election, but it doesn’t mean you suddenly get away with saying all the racist shit you’ve been holding in for the last 8 years.

26. Tomi Fucking Lahren. If you have to go around constantly TELLING people that you’re not a racist, guess what? YOU ARE A RACIST. OWN IT. And then, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT — other than whining how totally-not-a-racist you are, natch.

27. Michelle Fucking Herren. And speaking of totally-not-a-racist: Yeah, here’s another one in denial. When you compare black women to monkeys, and describe their perfectly enunciated English as “poor ebonics”, YOU ARE TOTALLY A RACIST. Sure am glad that you were never a doctor of mine.

28. Cheryl Fucking Sullenger. Whatsamatter, TERRORIST, don’t you like being called a TERRORIST? Because plotting to bomb women’s health clinics makes you one, whether you shout your slogans in Arabic or not. Killing doctors and nurses is not “pro-life”, and under no circumstances does it “aid pregnant women” who want and/or need to terminate a pregnancy. It only scares the shit out of them, and you know that perfectly well. That’s what makes you a TERRORIST. And if you don’t like being called that, tough toenails…TERRORIST, TERRORIST, TER-ROR-IST!!!

29. James Fucking Delingpole. Well, well, look who writes for Bitefart. This fucking idiot, who’s been wrong ever since he first put pen to paper in grade school. And who just got dissed (albeit indirectly) by the Bern. Ha, ha.

30. Corey Fucking Lewandowski. Your fucking boss is no longer a “private citizen”, and hasn’t been since he declared his precandidacy as a Republican. He HAS to release his taxes, and if he won’t, someone else will do it for him. And that someone else MUST be the media, because that’s THEIR job. And you should be fired from yours. All of them, since you’re clearly too ignorant and incompetent to hold any.

And finally, to Donald Fucking Drumpf himself. Yes, the big DD has truly outdone himself this week by recognizing the Kuomintang government of Taiwan, which should make China so happy that they’ll quit manufacturing all his #MAGA kitsch. And by running a “victory lap” that was poorly attended in the Rust Belt, which supposedly gave him his “victory” in the first place…mainly by refusing to vote at all. At this rate, buyer’s remorse is not just an inevitability, it’s a fait accompli before he even gets within hollering distance of the Oval Office. Little wonder he’d rather hole up in his ugly tower and not have to deal with the nation’s business at all. Well, dude, you bought it, and you’ve already broken it. Might as well grab that broom and dustpan, that shit’s not going to sweep itself. Your trophy wife can’t do it because she’s too busy trying to track down someone tacky enough to dress her, and you’re deporting all the undocumented immigrants who used to do your dirtywork for you…remember?

Good night, and get fucked!

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | Comments Off

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