News of the Restless

Wankers of the Week: Merde, alors.

Posted on November 20, 2015 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! Well, what a fucking week it’s been. So full of wanks that the ‘pedia is already full up on a Friday night. Which suits me fine; I don’t mind moving it up a day if you don’t mind me doing so either. So, let’s hop to it. In no particular order, we have:

1. Jeff Fucking Duncan. Uh, idiot? Those Syrian refugees aren’t about to turn into the very people they’re fleeing from. That would be you, Repugs I mean, and your constant obsession with demons. Thanks a lot for playing into Daesh’s hands, moron.

2. April Fucking Major. “Putting country first” = not doing eyelash extensions for “muslin” women? Allll righty then. Congrats, April, you’re a fucking wanker!

3. Brad Fucking Wall. No no no, he says, we can’t take Syrian refugees in yet! Even though we promised to. They’ll just have to stay in Europe, where nobody seems to want to let them pass through, and where PEGIDA and other assorted Nazi factions are not even waiting for them to make one false move before harassing, terrorizing and killing them. And this is supposed to protect Canada from terrorism HOW, again?

4. Kay Fucking Burley. Why?

That’s why. It’s like she’s never seen a dog before. They ALWAYS look sad! Especially if they think someone’s gonna throw them a doggie treat. And just think, this woman is purportedly a journalist. If all her reporting is of this calibre, it’s no wonder people are so monstrously ill-informed.

5. Stephen Fucking Anderson. No, gays and abortion did NOT cause the Paris attacks. Terrorists did. Terrorists who think a lot like you. Because you’re all fucking idiots with your heads so far up your own butts that you’re all running off your own shit-fumes.

6. Rupert Fucking Murdoch. Not content to fuck up National Geographic beyond all recognition, now Rupee’s meddling with the US immigration system, too. Hey, Rupee: Go back Down Under, ya fucking freak. PS: Ha, ha.

7. Candice Fucking Bergen. No, not the actress; the HarpoCon MP from Manitoba. Who is now an embarrassment to her constituents, her province, and indeed to all of Canada with her sore-loser, ultra-partisan, racist, bass-ackwards, anti-refugee stance. Shame on you, Candy — SHAME ON YOU.

8. Jason Fucking Kenney. And speaking of embarrassments, how about our former defence minister, who is so spectacularly dim that he doesn’t even know what “a majority” means? I am counting our blessings that he IS a “former” now, and hoping he’s not a “future” ANYTHING.

9. Robin Fucking Campbell. And while we’re on the subject of Cons, partisanship and embarrassments to Canada, how about the former Alberta minster of the environment? Now he’s sold his soul to Big Coal. If indeed it wasn’t in their pocket all along. But at least, now that he’s signed on as their lobbyist, they’ve made an honest man of him. Or at least, as honest as a man like him could ever get.

10 and 11. Stuart Fucking Varney and Mark Fucking Steyn. Yeah, I bet you two are just fapping your dicks off at the prospect of Bernie Sanders being beheaded by Daesh. Between the climate-change denialism, the militarism and the overall fucking stupidity and gross immaturity of these two middle-aged farts, I am rapidly running out of face to palm.

12. Tony Fucking Dale. And speaking of fucking stupidity and gross immaturity in men old enough to know better, how about this Texas state rep? Yup, put him down as one of those who cream their jeans for guns, but wet their pants over Daesh. How about just making guns harder to get all around? No, obviously that’s much too logical and straightforward a solution. It would never fly in Texas…

13. Martin Alan Fucking Schnitzler. Oh Florida Man, what would a wankapedia be without you, whipping it out so obligingly? Only — and this is embarrassing — local Muslims have absolutely nothing to do with what happened in Paris. In fact, no real Muslim does. Aren’t you embarrassed yet? You should be. Now put it back in your pants, do your zipper back up, and never speak of it again!

14 and 15. Elisabeth Fucking Hasselbeck and Joni Fucking Ernst. Oh boo hoo hoo, racist conservatives have their widdle feelings hurt. And all because sensible people are calling them by their right name: BIGOTS. If the shoe fits, wear it — and if it hurts, wear it anyway. High time you felt what it was like to be singled out, instead of doing it all the time yourself. And knock off all this idiotic talk of “pausing” — your “pauses” are costing actual people, INNOCENT people, their LIVES, you idiotesses.

16. John Fucking Kasich. Meanwhile, from the world of People Who Want To Be POTUS But Never Will, we get this guy. Who, apparently, thinks the failed efforts of Radio Martí are worth replicating, this time in the Arab world and with “Judeo-Christian” crapaganda, as opposed to anti-communist crapaganda aimed at Cuba. Good luck with that!

17. Jeb Fucking Bush. Yes, Jebby is still in the running too, as odd as that may sound. And he has similar ideas, too. Only take in Syrian refugees if they’re Christian and can be profen not to turn terrorist! Well, gee, that sounds doable. (And yes, that last was sarcasm, in case you needed to know.)

18. Ted Fucking Cruz. And then there’s THIS guy. Who has clearly never heard of Oklahoma City. Or clinic bombings. Or doctor shootings. Or the hundreds of thousands of domestic terror incidents that women in his own country face every day, from their own white, Christian men. Fuck this guy!

19. Charlie Fucking Sheen. Yay, he finally came clean about having HIV this week! Unfortunately, it was in response to a feared “shakedown” from all the women he might have infected through unprotected sex. And it comes following the expenditure of some $10 million in hush money alone. Also, he has the temerity to do it because he thinks these women — whom he despised and disparaged the whole time — are “taking money from his kids!” Never mind that he SPENT money on those women, paying them to put up with his sexual shit, that could have gone toward child support. (That, and drugs out the wazoo.) And now, nobody’s ever gonna want to sleep with him again. But hey! At least he’s got his “Adonis DNA” and “tiger blood” to keep him warm. Winning!

20. Kurt Fucking Schlichter. And while we’re on the subject of oversexed d-bags who deserve to die alone, how about this guy? He’s actually written some literal gore-porn featuring Daesh! And right-wing idiots massacring innocents in “gun-free” shopping malls, too! Amurrica, fuck yeah!

21. Tom Fucking Lukiwski. He calls his NDP opponent a whore, then denies it and claims he called her a “horde”. Since when does one single woman an entire horde make? Since Conservatives kept flunking grammar at school, no doubt. Stay classy, Tom, you witless motherfucker. PS: And fuck you double since you cost this brave journalist her job, asshole.

22. John Fucking Bradford. And speaking of classy: How about that resurrected Twinkie Defence? Yeah, sure, we’ll buy the idea that Jared Fucking Fogle didn’t go from “mild” pedophilia to full-on child-fucking until he went on the Subway diet and lost over 200 pounds. Who knew that veggie and turkey subs had the power to bring out the child molester in us all? (And by that token — why, after all those meatball footlongs on whole wheat I ate, have I not turned into a raving nymphomaniac?)

23. Donald Fucking Trump. Yup, he’s gone full Nazi. Or rather, he’s been one all along, and just chose to let that ol’ swastika fly this week. I’d invite him to bend over and kiss his chances goodbye, but his head is so far up is ass that his toupee is currently tickling his appendix.

24. David Fucking Bowers. And speaking of Nazis, how about this one? He thinks internment camps are a good idea. Yeah, ask the US Japanese how that worked out for them, you moron. Or just go learn some fucking history. PS: He wasn’t expecting it to go viral? Dude, learn what this here newfangled thing is. It’s called the Internet.

25. Chris Fucking Christie. Yes, bubba, you heard right. That Syrian passport is now a confirmed FAKE. And not a single refugee was involved in the Paris bombing, except perhaps on the victim side. Who the fuck shoots up Cambodian restaurants, anyway?

26. Tyrone Paul Fucking Ponthieux. Oooooooo, watch out, we got a badass over here! No, wait, false alarm. We just got ourselves an ass. A typical ammosexual who just had to tell the whole world how very small his genitalia actually are.

27. David Fucking Frum. Gawd, his mother must be doing somersaults in her grave right now, knowing that her son is handling Daesh’s propaganda. Almost as embarrassing as when he was doing the same job for Dubya, eh?

28. Kevin Fucking Swanson. And glory be! Here’s yet another self-righteous white guy doing Daesh’s propaganda for them. Man, that terror mafia has more fucking tentacles than I ever dreamed!

29. Ann Fucking Wagner. And yet another right-wing white person doing Daesh’s dirty work. Jeez, I’m sensing a trend here, or something.

30. James Fucking O’Keefe. Yet another fucking white guy, more Daesh crapaganda, yadda yadda yadda snzzzzz.

And finally, to all the fucking idiots from Canada’s Pants who are planning to move up here if your state decides to take in Syrian refugees. Uh, you DO realize that your states can’t legally do that, right? And that Canada is still planning to take at least 25,000 of those same refugees you don’t want, right? Right? RIGHT???

Good night, and get fucked!

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Algeria: The real, unmentionable key to the Paris attacks

Posted on November 18, 2015 by Sabina Becker

The Battle of Algiers, an award-winning film based on the true story of the struggle for Algerian independence. Saadi Yacef, who plays El-Hadi Jaffar, was an actual FLN guerrilla leader; the character Jaffar is basically himself a few years before the film was made. In part, the movie is his story, but in fact it’s the story of all Algeria at that tumultuous time, when the country was fighting to free itself from French colonial rule. At around the same time as the movie’s final scene plays out, this happened across the Mediterranean, in Paris:

Unarmed Algerian Muslims demonstrating in central Paris against a discriminatory curfew were beaten, shot, garotted and even drowned by police and special troops. Thousands were rounded up and taken to detention centers around the city and the prefecture of police, where there were more beatings and killings.

How many died? No one seems to know for sure, even now. Probably around 200.

It seems astonishing today, from this perspective, that such a thing could happen in the middle of a major Western capital closely covered by the international media. This was not Kabul, Beijing, Hebron or some Bosnian backwater, after all, but the City of Light – Paris.

But the Fifth Republic under President Charles de Gaulle was in trouble in October 1961. De Gaulle, who was primarily interested in establishing France’s pre-eminent position in Western Europe and the world, found himself presiding over domestic chaos. France was constantly disrupted by strikes and protests by farmers and workers, as well as by terrorism from opposing organizations: the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), representing the Algerian nationalist independence movement, and the Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS), a group of disaffected soldiers, politicians and others committed to keeping Algeria French. The OAS rightly perceived that de Gaulle was bound to free France from the burden of its last major colonial holding, so he could get on with the business of making France the economic and political power of his lofty ambition.

Of course, Algeria didn’t stay French; in 1962, independence finally arrived to stay.

But in France, something else had stuck around, something unwelcome and unmentionable: fascism, supposedly overcome at the end of World War II, but in fact simmering in the background not only in Algeria, but all over French Colonial Africa. And in 1961, it burst to the fore on French soil with the kind of violence that would a few years later characterize Pinochet’s Chile, or Argentina under the fascist military junta:

But the vicious war in Algeria, marked by bloody atrocities committed on all sides, had been grinding on for nearly seven years. Terrorist attacks in Paris and other French cities had claimed dozens of lives of police, provoking what Interior Minister Roger Frey called la juste colère – the just anger – of the police. They vented that anger on the evening of Oct. 17. About 30,000 Muslims – from among some 200,000 Algerians, ostensibly French citizens, living in and around Paris – descended upon the boulevards of central Paris from three different directions. The demonstration of men, women and children was called by the FLN to protest an 8:30 p.m. curfew imposed only on Muslims.

The demonstrators were met by about 7,000 police and members of special Republican Security companies, armed with heavy truncheons or guns. They let loose on the demonstrators in, among other places, Saint Germain-des-Prés, the Opéra, the Place de la Concorde, the Champs Elysée, around the Place de l’Étoile and, on the edges of the city, at the Rond Point de la Defense beyond Neuilly.

My news agency friend counted at least 30 corpses of demonstrators in several piles outside his office near the city center, into which he had pulled some Algerians to get them away from rampaging police. Another correspondent reported seeing police backing unarmed Algerians into corners on sidestreets and clubbing them at will. Later eyewitness reports recounted stranglings by police and the drowning of Algerians in the Seine, from which bodies would be recovered downstream for weeks to come.

Shades of the Argentine Junta, who were known for “disappearing” their victims, and who drowned the Río de la Plata with victims thrown drugged and still living from airplanes.

Just ten years ago, the world was shocked to hear that a pair of North African Muslim teenagers were electrocuted to death in a power substation to the north of Paris, in one of the infamous banlieues — essentially, Afro-Francophone ghettoes. They had been chased to their death by the police. A third boy escaped alive, but badly burned. The incident sparked riots that went on for two weeks.

Just the unruliness of the non-white colonials, revealing their good-for-nothing baser nature, in dire need of the French to secularize and civilize them? Hardly. Maurice Papon was then still alive, and so was the legacy of his particularly Nazified style of policing, which outlived him at his death two years later.

Those police tactics in the movie are well worth watching, too, since Paponism is embodied by the police inspector who sets a terrorist bomb in the Casbah of Algiers after curfew, killing the family of an innocent laborer scapegoated at random by the colonials. Torture figures highly as a means of getting Algerian guerrillas to talk and reveal the identities and whereabouts of their confederates to the paratroopers under command of Colonel Mathieu. The guillotine, long out of fashion in France, is still very much in use in its colonies; Ali La Pointe, the illiterate young man who becomes a key FLN figure, is radicalized in prison, upon witnessing the beheading of an Algerian nationalist being hauled to his death crying “Long Live Algeria” in Arabic.

The irony of Mathieu’s past as a Resistance hero, called upon to defend an indefensible colonialism that reeks of the Vichy era of Nazi occupation, should not be lost on anyone. His “scrupulous” integrity is much compromised, too, by his willingness to employ torture as an interrogation tactic. Yet he gives his word, when urging FLN leaders Murad and Ramel to give themselves up, that as prisoners they will not be harmed. He is that most French of contradictions: a man of honor, scrupulously following orders to do the most dishonorable things, much like Inspector Javert from Les Misérables. Strangest of all is the scene where he converses with the captured Jaffar on the way to headquarters, remarking that he feels a kind of kinship with the FLN leader, whose photograph he has studied for months, and that he is glad that Jaffar is alive and unhurt. One gets the impression that if it were not for their being on opposite sides of a struggle, the two would have been great friends. Mathieu is the embodiment of all of France’s own internal contradictions, as well as of blind loyalty to ideas he, like his homeland, does not enact at all well when it comes down to the crunch.

Jaffar is captured; Murad and Ramel blow themselves up (along with several paratroopers) rather than surrender; Ali La Pointe, Hassiba, Mahmud and Little Omar are killed by a bomb set by Mathieu’s own paratroops. It would appear that Mathiew’s offensive has paid off, and the French have won. But one battle, as Larbi Ben M’Hidi might have pointed out earlier on, is not the whole of the war. In the end it is not the blinkered faux-idealism of Mathieu that wins out; it is the impulse toward independence, however incoherent, on the part of all Algeria.

What began as a seemingly doomed guerrilla war became, over a period of years, a full popular uprising. And it was late in the game that Maurice Papon, back home in Paris, employed the dirty tricks he’d learned as a Vichy collaborator, and turned them on Algerian protesters there. And this is the final irony of the Battle of Algiers: right in the heart of France, it became all too evident why the Algerians wanted out of the empire. Little wonder, than, that the news of that massacre was heavily suppressed!

That lesson should not be lost on anyone today, especially in asking why so-called Islamists are rising up. Colonialism is far from dead in Africa today, and there are still over a dozen countries there paying colonial taxes to France…and chafing under that yoke. And there are plenty of refugees from those unstable, conflict-riven countries, too, being denied opportunities in a land that was presented to them as a benevolent overlord. One of the recent Paris attackers, for instance, was Algerian. Under those circumstances, uprisings are not just understandable, but well-nigh inevitable.

And it was only a matter of time before all those chickens came home to roost.

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Posted in Angry Pacifist Speaks Her Mind, Bullies, Chile Sin Queso, Cops Behaving Badly, Deepest Darkest Africa, Don't Cry For Argentina, Fascism Without Swastikas, If You REALLY Care, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Isn't That Racist?, Morticia! You Spoke French!, The War on Terra | 1 Comment

Let’s all bomb Belgium!

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Sabina Becker

No, seriously.

Let’s all bomb Belgium, because that’s where the terrorists who struck Paris got their orders from.

François Hollande called the attacks “an act of war”. Therefore, it stands to reason that one must declare war on the source of the attacks, no? And since that source is in Brussels, which is practically right next door, France ought to be sending the bomber jets to there, and not Syria.

So. Why is France bombing Syria, and not Belgium?

Clearly, this question is rhetorical. There is literally no answer for it, or at least no good one.

That alleged Syrian passport, found on the body of one of the suicide bombers at the Stade de France? It hasn’t even been confirmed as authentic yet. And it probably never will be; fake Syrian passports can be had for a mere 300 euros in the Balkans. How it even survived a bomb blast is beyond me. Are Syrian passports (even fake ones) bombproof? Then sign me up for Syrian citizenship, because I want one of those. It could come in awfully handy if anyone ever decided to try to blow me up.

Of the eight attackers, so far not one has been proven to be a Syrian, or a refugee. All of them, from what I’ve seen, are European-born. Some were born in France, others in Belgium. And the ringleader of the cell? A Belgian.

But Bina, I can hear some of you whine — they’re Muslims! And Muslims, as we all know, are fanatical, terroristic ideologues!

Oh, ye of little knowledge.

Read what was on Pepe Escobar’s Facebook page this morning. He’s lived in Paris and writes for the Asia Times, so he’s been up on all of this about as much as anyone can be who isn’t actively involved in the police investigation. And if the police confirmed that the Belgian ringleader of this “Muslim” cell is a drunk-ass brothel-crawler, then we can logically assume that he’s no real Muslim, either. Because Islam has declared both alcohol and prostitution to be haram — forbidden.

And you know what else is forbidden in Islam? Terrorism. Yes, that’s right. Middle East expert Juan Cole has a short list of Koranic injunctions against it listed at his site; I’m sure that if you asked nicely, he might even post more. That’s just a sampling of what the good book says about terror tactics…and in fact, the Prophet even warned of the dangers of “fanatics” doing exactly what these guys are doing now.

But Bina — you say — they called themselves the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria! What more proof do you need that we should be bombing Iraq — and Syria?

Yes, well, the Nazis called themselves the “National Socialist Party of Germany”. And yet they still held hands with Dubya’s banker grandfather, and were no more socialist, in fact, than that old capitalist was. Socialism holds that workers must control the means of production. Did the workers of Germany control the means of production? NO! The factories were owned by people who didn’t work there, and who merely extracted profits from them. And this is as true even of the death camps and crematoria as it is of every other industry in the land. The companies that manufactured that death equipment were not owned by workers, either; they were owned by capitalists. The Nazi government was not the builder of crematoria, but merely a client of companies that provided the equipment, and of bankers who financed that purchase. The German people owned nothing of this, and indeed most of them KNEW nothing of it, either. Merely sticking the word “Socialist” in the party name didn’t mean a thing there, did it?

So. Neither does it mean a thing that Daesh (their real name) should call themselves the Islamic State of Anywhere. They are not a state, and they are not Islamic. They’re just a bunch of power-mad bullies who happened to seize control of some turf and some key industries. And who finance their operations with the trafficking of women as sex slaves. Which, be it noted, is also haram. They are about as Muslim as I am, and I’m a Wiccan. (Actually, I’d make a better Muslim than any of them, because I at least don’t go around killing people. I respect other people’s rights and revere the ancient cultural heritage of Syria. They, Daesh, respect nothing and nobody.)

So. Should we be bombing Syria, just on account of a single passport, which could easily be fake and probably is? Because of what some group who aren’t Syrian or proper Muslims are calling themselves, should we be scared of Syrians, or Muslims in general? Or should we turn the bombers on course to intercept the actual ringleader of this criminal cell, who was last seen in Brussels?

I mean, he shouldn’t be too hard to spot. Just look at this fucking poseur:

pakol-poseur

What the hell is a “Syrian” doing wearing an Afghan pakol hat?

And why the hell is he praising a known crackhead, who was homeless and deranged, as a “martyr”? Clearly this fool isn’t fit to be leading or governing anyone if he doesn’t realize that Mike Bibeau was not a jihadi, but a mentally ill addict.

So. Are we gonna bomb Belgium now for harboring this terrorist, or not? And if not — why the hell bomb Syria, then? Because Syria is no more a state sponsor of terrorism than Belgium is. And if these terrorists have no state sponsors, then this is not an act of war. It is a crime, and should be treated as one by all the countries involved. It is a job for police, not armies and air forces. And any salivating war profiteers should keep their grubby fingers out of it.

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Posted in Angry Pacifist Speaks Her Mind, Balkan Yogurt, Belgian Waffles, Bullies, Confessions of a Bad German, Drrrrruuuugs, Economics for Dummies, Filthy Stinking Rich, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Law-Law Land, Morticia! You Spoke French!, The "Well, DUH!" Files, The War on Terra | 1 Comment

Quotable: George Orwell on war

Posted on November 17, 2015 by Sabina Becker

orwell-on-war

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More Music for a Sunday: No more war, no more war, no more war…

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Sabina Becker

Quite possibly the coolest protest song ever (and yes, there is an awful lot of competition for that status). Sade is as great in live performance as she is on the record. And she is note-perfect here.

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Music for a Sunday: This is the world we live in

Posted on November 15, 2015 by Sabina Becker

We got the funk, we got the funk:

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Wankers of the Week: Jesus Christ on a coffee cup

Posted on November 14, 2015 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! Yes, I know, it’s a little too early for holiday shit. Actually, it’s a LOT too early. But since it’s already happening, we may as well get this shit out of the way. And while we’re at it, let’s also get these shits out of the way, in no particular order:

1. Joshua Fucking Feuerstein. Yup, that’s right, the hate-preacher who started the whole non-issue about Starbucks and its minimalistic, non-Jesusy holiday coffee cups. He also thinks “Merry Christmas” is being censored (it’s not) and totes his gun where it doesn’t fucking belong (namely, EVERYWHERE). How does someone so obviously stupid get a million followers, anyway? The obvious answer, of course, is that there really are at least that many people stupider than him…and that’s really saying something. Next time he or one of his idiot followers asks the barista to write “Merry Christmas” on the cup as their name, I hope the barista adds “…you filthy animal”. And shouts it out loud like the gangster from the Home Alone movie, too. PS: Aaand looky here. He’s a fraud! A professional scam artist. How about that? PPS: And he doubled down — briefly — with a double-double-dumb video that he pulled later. Probably because it would have required him to admit that he, too, had partaken of Starbucks’ bitter, bitter “abortion coffee” when he pulled his idiotic “Merry Christmas” stunt. And paid them to donate to Planned Parenthood. Ha, ha.

2. Art Fucking Acevedo. Cops don’t deserve thanks or praise or awards for not raping people they stop on the street. In fact, they don’t deserve any special recognition for that at all. And it’s not particularly praiseworthy to just grab random women while they’re out jogging, either.

3. Scott Fucking Walker. Fiscal conservatism just ain’t all it’s cracked up to be…and Scotty is now finding it out the hard way. Ha, ha.

4. Ben Fucking Carson. And the wanks just keep coming! This week, ol’ Ben opined that addiction is down to a lack of “values and principles”. Maybe he’s onto something, because the next wanker on the list knows a thing or two about that.

5. Donald Fucking Trump. What’s his addiction, you ask? Money, trophy wives, and general boorishness. Values and principles: He no haz them.

6. Fievel Fucking Kan. And speaking of a lack of values and principles, how about this TO cop? He actually ticketed people for existing while mentally ill, homeless and vulnerable on the big city’s streets. Even worse, he did it all for points on his performance report. Too bad he compounded all the offences by not turning his dashcam on to prove that he was doing so justifiably, eh?

7. Matt Fucking Bevin. Fresh off a (probably stolen) election, and already he’s hit the ground wanking. Isn’t that just so like a teabagger? Yeah, he actually claimed that the Founding Fathers were into cockfighting and dogfighting. They were? News to me.

8. Michele Fucking Bachmann. And speaking of teabags, how about her? Nope, she hasn’t shuffled off into the sunset yet. No matter how many times the public gives her the hint, the Breeder just won’t take it. At this rate, nothing short of a lightning strike from God will do.

9. Kim Fucking Davis. And just to round out the unholy trinity of teabags, let’s pause now to reflect on this one…and thank her for pointing out, however obliquely, that religious exemptions from doing one’s job are just a really REALLY fucking bad idea. Her bullshit has now caused even conservatives to see the light. Hallelujah!

10. Adam Fucking McManus. Talk about your historical ignoranuses, how about him? The reason the Germans were silent about the Holocaust is because most of them had no fucking clue while it was going on! Yeah, that’s right, even those who lived just down the road from a death camp were told it was a sugar-beet syrup factory, and that that awful smell was the smell of cooking sugar-beet syrup. And yes, since they couldn’t see what was really going on in there, of course they had to take the lying bastards’ word for it. Is it really so shocking to find THAT out? Oh, and by the way, same-sex marriage is NOTHING like the Holocaust, either. Hitler hated gay people too, remember?

11. Kevin Fucking Swanson. And speaking of Nazis who hate LGBT folk: “Repent” of liking some movies based on fiction? Which even the smallest kids KNOW are fiction? Otherwise, God will have to “apologize for Sodom and Gomorrah”? Uh, preacher…aren’t you forgetting that those cities weren’t destroyed over homosexuality, but over their xenophobia and inhospitable behavior to strangers? Talk about not knowing your scriptures…

12. Tom Fucking Cotton. And again with the lack of values and principles! How the hell do people on old-age and disability pensions — which is what Social Security benefits are in the US — cause an upswing in heroin addiction? Hell if I know. But he seems to think they somehow do.

13. Rafael Fucking Cruz. Surprise! Ted Fucking Cruz’s wackaloon father wasn’t the great swashbuckling anti-Batista rebel he likes to claim he was. His own buddies from back in the day all describe him as a wannabe. Which, I guess, is a polite Cuban way of saying he’s a fucking liar.

14. Brandon Fucking Dorner. And speaking of wannabes, it was Amateur Night at LSU the other day. And this guy decided to teach the audience how to be a failed pickup artist. The fact that the audience was half female was apparently lost on him. Aaaaand that’s why he’s now a failed aspiring stand-up comedian, too.

15. Lori Fucking Sheppard. Surprise! The old wives’ tale about bourbon on a baby’s gums is a lie. So is the not-quite-so-old wives tale about bourbon in a baby’s bottle. Yup, Arkansas Woman is really giving Florida Man a run for his money! And her kid is lucky to have survived…and luckier still to be out of her house until further notice.

16. Richard Fucking Brittain. Oh no, him again? Oh yes. Him again. Last time we saw him, he was issuing an abject apology for stalking a woman who didn’t want to be in a relationship with him. And now, what’s he made the news for? Yup…stalking again. And this time, it wasn’t the object of his blighted affections, but a teenage critic of the awful-sounding fantasy novel he wrote about the object of his blighted affections. He travelled all the way to Scotland just to bottle the poor kid. I’m sensing a pattern here, how about you?

17. Rod Fucking Covlin. I’m kind of reluctant to list him as a wanker, as he is also quite likely a killer…but really, selling his (barely) teenage daughter as a mail-order bride in Mexico, just so he could “inherit” all of his estranged wife’s worldly wealth after he drowned her in a bathtub? This guy isn’t just a failed stockbroker, he’s also a failed criminal who’s failing at everything for a reason. Legal marriage age, in Mexico, is 18, as it is in most of the world; with parental consent, it’s still no less than 14. His daughter is, as of this writing, only 13. And in any case, she’d still inherit her mother’s estate, because marriage would not debar her from being an heir.

18. Bristol Fucking Palin. So, the whole kerfuffle over Starbucks cups was dreamt up by “liberals” to make fundies look like idiots? Huh. Last I looked, they didn’t need any help in that department.

19. Sarah Fucking Palin. Like daughter, like mother — the two Palinesses share the same stoopid. So cute that they’re a matching set! But really: “Protecting the Heart of Christmas”? Hey idiot — ur doin it rong.

20. Kurt Fucking Schaefer. Thou shalt not commit sociology, saith the bozo. Scientific studies violate the Sanctity of Life, don’tcha know?

21. John Fucking Key. Yup, nothing says “concern for the well-being of rape survivors” like having a bunch of them thrown out of your parliament — where they are MPs — for daring to bring up their own sexual assaults. Objectively pro-rape much, yourself?

22 and 23. Robert C. Fucking Doyle and Ronald Beasley Fucking Chaney III. Funny how all these representatives of the so-called Master Race all look like their family tree is missing several branches. Or like their gene pool got pooped in. Or like their mothers couldn’t outrun their brothers. Or like…well, nothing like the handsome Vikings of old, that’s for damn sure. Funnier still, their moronic looks don’t lie; their behavior is a perfect moronic match.

24. Fred Fucking Wortman. Dude goes to jail for trying to kill his wife (who’s trying to divorce him after finding out he cheated). What does he turn around and do? Try to hire a hitman, from inside the jailhouse, to kill her again! And just think, people, this one’s an attorney! He can’t even claim ignorance of the law as an excuse (although, it being Tennessee, it’s certainly possible that he’d try). And now he’s apologized for that, but who knows — he might try to kill her again when nobody’s looking. If only all those meddling kids wouldn’t keep foiling his fiendish plans…

25. Erick Fucking Erickson. I guess I could explain all the ways in which a trans woman is NOT a man, much less a “mentally ill pervert”, and how letting her use the washroom appropriate to her gender (female) isn’t a crime, and it isn’t an invitation to sexual assault, and how it would actually protect her from sexual assault by actual men, and all that. But it would be lost on him. As the old Sicilian saying goes, washing a jackass’s head is a waste of water.

26. David Fucking Welch. And once more, with feeling: Jackass, head, waste of water.

27. Jackie Fucking Burns. Well, well. Look who got caught short by Karma! See what happens when you vote to close public toilets to save money? You get arrested, and fined 40 quid for peeing in public. Congratulations, Mr. Burns, the world is now your loo! And if Karma is feeling truly generous, you might even get some on your shoe. Ha, ha.

28. Scott Fucking Johansen. Meanwhile, in Utah, someone isn’t up on the latest research. You know, the stuff that shows how children of same-sex couples are actually happy and well-adjusted, sometimes even more so than their opposite-sex-parented peers? Yeah, that stuff. Also, with same-sex marriage being legal now in all 50 states, Hizzoner has no legal legs left to stand on. Little wonder, then, that he chose to go with his own religious prejudices instead.

28 and 29. Hunter Fucking Park and Connor Fucking Stottlemyre. Yeah, surprise, guys: Anonymous threats over the Internet aren’t so anonymous after all. Why do you think IP addresses are logged, anyway? And congrats, both of you, on making white males in Missouri look like violent, racist fucking idiots. And also, unoriginal. Feel proud!

30. Moti Fucking Yogev. Oh, so the family members of Palestinian “terrorists” should be imprisoned to deter…what exactly? They already ARE imprisoned…in the world’s largest open-air prison camps in Gaza and the West Bank. How about we start imprisoning Israeli terrorists instead? It’s not like there’s any shortage of THEM running around loose, firing everything from live ammunition (especially good ol’ illegal Whisky Pete) to stinking raw sewage at Palestine…

31. Robin Fucking Camp. Funny how certain foreigners are bad (because not white) but this white south-African guy, though criminally incompetent, somehow got fast-tracked not only through immigration, but into an entire fucking career as a judge here in Canada. And what does he do with his grand and glorious achievement? Basically, tells women who got raped in bathrooms (by men who didn’t bother to dress up in drag) that they should have kept their knees together…among other grotesque inanities.

32. Jared Fucking Woodfill. Keep the transwomen out of public women’s washrooms, he said. So they won’t attack women, he said. Because they’re really men, he said. So what does he do when he’s not busy saying idiotic things about shit that hasn’t ever happened? He’s defending a man in court…for spying on women. In a bathroom.

33. Kevin Fucking Swanson. Well, I guess we know who’s still living like the Eighties never ended, eh? This guy! He still thinks AIDS only happens to gay people, and that it’s not controllable with drugs. Boy howdy, will he be in for a shock if this AIDS vaccine proves effective! And he says he’ll smear himself with shit if his son ever turns out to be gay? Newsflash, preacher…you’re already a big fat turd. Why be redundant?

34. David Fucking Vitter. Once more, Diapers proves that he’s not a kinkster, but a downright pervert. Why else would he constantly let his sexual fantasies leak out from under his Freudian slip?

35. Megyn Fucking Kelly. Accepting trans kids at school would cause “confusion”? Only in those who’ve never met one. And in chronic, pathological idiots who are easily confused, like FUX Snooze “journalists”, of course.

And finally, to all the monstrous, moronic fucking Conservatives who just couldn’t resist the opportunity to stir the shit that the Paris terror attacks presented. Good thing you’re all effectively neutered for the next five years. You can bark, but your yapping will have no bite behind it. We’re going to be taking in Syrian refugees (and being good neighbours!), and if the Trudizzle is as smart as he’s showing signs of, we’ll stay the hell out of this damn war that you, the Mossad, and Daesh are cooking up between your evil, EVIL selves.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | Comments Off

Berlin police conduct anti-racist raids

Posted on November 13, 2015 by Sabina Becker

nazi-history-banner

“If you want to know about the risks and side effects of Nazi uprisings, read a history book or ask your grandparents.”

A little good news out of Germany this morning:

Berlin state police executed ten judicial search warrants on Thursday morning. The action was particularly directed against right-wing hate propaganda on social networks.

The searches, which involved about 60 police officers, took place in homes and buildings in the Berlin districts of Buch, Niederschöneweide, Bohnsdorf, Marzahn, Hellersdorf, Hohenschönhausen, Kreuzberg, Reinickendof and Friedenau.

During the raids, police confiscated various Internet-capable devices, such as smartphones and computers. The investigation is still ongoing. The devices in question will be investigated thoroughly by the state prosecutor’s office.

According to police, the state authorities are dealing with persons who have made right-wing commentaries in social networks against refugees, asylum seekers or other minorities. Sentences will include fines and imprisonment.

Berlin senator Frank Henkel praised the police: “We won’t look away when there’s hate-mongering or racist propaganda on the Internet. Police and the state prosecutor’s office are dealing consequently against hate messages,” said the senator, according to the Berliner Tagesspiegel. But at the same time, the operators of social networks should act more decisively against anti-human propaganda.

Translation mine.

If you think a 60-officer raid on some mere “free speech” sounds heavy-handed, consider this: Germans know all too well what leaving racist and fascist hate unchecked can do to their country. Nearly 100 years ago, they failed to act on it in a timely manner. “Free speech” became the bellowings of one brain-addled man, thinking he was the entire German state. And once he’d whipped up a frenzy against the leftists, he turned his eye on the “foreigners” — and against any German who dissented. It took nothing less than a global war to stop him. And after the war, all the trappings of Nazism, right down to hateful speech, became illegal. For good reason.

Germany can’t afford to have one more Hitler, never mind bands of wannabes. Better police raids against neo-Nazis today than another Gestapo tomorrow.

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Posted in Confessions of a Bad German, Fascism Without Swastikas, Isn't That Illegal? | Comments Off

Technical difficulties? We haz them.

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Sabina Becker

test-pattern

Yup, we’re dealing with technical troubles again here. My brother yesterday informed me that the comments weren’t working, and that an error in the theme was the problem. My old theme hasn’t been updated in a while, and as it happens, there are no updates available for it. So I’ll be switching themes soon, and this place will have not only a new look, but (I hope) will also be glitch-free. Keep your fingers, toes, arms, legs, and eyes crossed for me, folks…

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Posted in Technical Notes | 2 Comments

Call it love, or call it reason

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Sabina Becker

It’s Remembrance Day again, and I’m not out there in the rain with the others, saluting at the cenotaph. I’m not out there listening to the Last Post, the moment of silence, and then the forlorn reveille. I’m not even hiding behind the screen of my computer, thanking veterans for their “service”. It isn’t my place to do so.

I guess, given my family history, that’s to be expected. I’m German, not Anglo. “My” side lost the last war it fought in. And the one before that, too. There is no proud military tradition in my family, and like most Germans, we scoff at the very notion. After all, ours is a history of conscription. “Tradition”? That might be for upper-class families, who could afford to send their sons into officer training, and so spare them the worst ravages of the battle front (officers invariably “lead” their troops from well behind the frontlines.) The rich and high-born can afford to prance about in gold-braided uniforms, and boast of their exploits. Common soldiers, which both my grandfathers were, could not. (Well, there was one great-grandfather, on my mother’s side, who was a hussar in the Austro-Hungarian army, and who prided himself and his mustache immensely on that, but that was before the turn of the last century. I don’t think it really counts for much. If he lived to brag about it, he probably didn’t see any heavy action. There were an awful lot of peacocks in that regiment.)

So there you have it. Nothing to boast of, no heroics to remember. What I do know of my family’s World War II history is either heavily ironic, or just plain sad. There aren’t many stories of my grandfathers’ glorious wartime adventures (because they didn’t have any), and most of what I know didn’t come from them. They didn’t like to talk about it; that, I found out, is a common thing for soldiers who’ve actually seen combat, or in the case of my paternal grandfather, fled it when it became obvious that their side was losing.

Opa was a teamster for the Kriegsmarine, driving horse-drawn supply wagons. He’d been conscripted while still in hospital for surgery on his foot (he’d had polio as a child, and the foot was deformed as a result). If he didn’t “volunteer” to go to the western front, he’d be sent to Siberia, so his “choice” was clear. He’d drive supply wagons for the German navy until there was no longer any point to his doing so…and by 1945, when that happened, there no longer was. When he heard that the British front was passing through, he let the horses run, and simply walked home. During one bombing raid, he hid in a manure pile on a farm. The farmer, who had seen him take refuge in the only place he could, gave him fresh civilian clothes when the raid was over, and he was off on his way. He saw truckloads of his former comrades go by, taken prisoner, while he, limping and in civvies, picked up cigarette butts from the roadside to stave off his ever-present nicotine demon. He was never caught, and the one time he was menaced by a group of Russian escapees, he managed to convince them he was not a soldier — by showing them his kaputt foot! And that was how he got home to his wife and four children: by deserting, ducking, dodging, lying…and occasionally, landing in deep shit.

So much for irony. Now for sadness:

My other grandfather arguably had it even worse. In 1944, the Russians overran Yugoslavia, where my mother’s family had lived for over 200 years. Suddenly, the whole family were refugees. “Fortunately” (and there’s an additional layer of irony for you), my mother’s father was conscripted into the SS, and the family got a small measure of support that way. (Conscripted, mind you, NOT volunteered.) He certainly wasn’t an “Aryan” type; he had black hair, brown eyes, and an almost-olive complexion that tanned if he only stuck his head out the window on a sunny day. He also wasn’t a Nazi, either as a member of the party or by conviction. But he was tall, had prior military experience (three years’ compulsory service in the Yugoslav army during his late teens and early twenties), and spoke three languages fluently: German, Hungarian, and Serbian. Just what was needed in a POW-camp guard, which is what he became. He never fired a shot; he never had the slightest animosity toward the prisoners he guarded. He wasn’t an antisemite, and it is unknown whether any of “his” prisoners were even Jews. They were all prisoners of war, and his sole duty was to see to it that none of them got away. One time, a Hungarian prisoner asked him in German for a cigarette. When thanked, he replied “Don’t mention it” — in Hungarian. That’s the sort of person he was: he did his duty, but never to the point of hurting anyone. And he held no animosities, either.

But if anyone thinks he had a choice in the matter, there’s the story of what happened to my mother’s baby sister. Gerda was 11 months old when she died of malnutrition and dysentery in a refugee camp in Silesia. My grandfather was not allowed to visit her while she was sick, and was only relieved of duty when she had died. And then, he was offered the “choice” between a Lutheran pastor, or the Nazi camp commandant, as officiant at the funeral. My mother’s baby sister, the aunt I never knew, was buried in a tiny casket under a swastika flag. The “choice” was strictly pro forma, and anyone who didn’t want to come under questioning by the Gestapo would have “chosen” the same.

It was an ignominious time, when you ducked your head and didn’t make waves. And when the war finally ended, and it was time to demobilize, there was nowhere to report. So Opa and his comrades turned themselves over to the Brits, hoping they would just give them the necessary papers and let them go. Not a chance. They wound up (and here, again, is irony) at a POW camp in Scotland for the next three years. The work was hard and the food was crappy, but they weren’t badly treated. And it was during that time that he saw a tailless cat for the first time — a Manx, most likely — and wondered if there might in fact be some truth to that old tale that the Scots cut their cats’ tails off to save on heating everytime the cat went in or out. That was about all he had to say about that experience. I didn’t get to ask him anything else; he died before I had a chance.

If you wonder why I don’t glorify war or wartime service like everyone else, you can stop wondering now. There’s just nothing there to salute. And I’m not one for pulling the idiot stunt that Ronald Reagan did at Bitburg, either. Honestly, the best way to honor the dead — and the veterans who survived — is to retell their stories with an emphasis on peace. Tell how people suffered and died for capitalism, for imperialism, and for fascism, and not for noble causes.

And if you must march anymore, do it for peace, and use your gift of free speech to make sure no one else gets sent to war and tortured and killed for a whole lot of nothing.

That’s all.

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