Quotable: Noam Chomsky on privatization

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Music for a Sunday: I can’t let go

A pretty, acoustic version of the ’80s-inflected tune. And now I can’t decide which I love more. What a great dilemma!

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Wankers of the Week: Labor Day Slackers

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Crappy weekend, everyone! Monday is Labor Day, so this week’s entry is dedicated formally to all the workers out there doing their jobs, and also to the organizers of history who lived and died fighting for workers’ rights. Thank you, workers! It is also dedicated, informally, to these lazy fucking slackers, in no particular order:

1. Kim Fucking Davis. Not only has she lost the federal case she made of her unwillingness to do her job, but with four marriages and three divorces under her belt, she’s also a confirmed adulteress. Guess some marital sins aren’t sinfuller than others after all, eh? PS: Aaaand she does the predictable “God said so!” wig-out. Off to jail you go, Kimmeh. Also, God called; says to leave him the hell out of it.

2. Jim Fucking Garrow. GASP! Ted Fucking Cruz is…an Obama plant? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??? Oh, and the reason Canadians don’t swear allegiance to the US constitution? WE’RE CANADIANS, YOU STUPID FUCK. Not our constitution, not our allegiance. Capisce?

3. Janet Fucking Porter. So, she claims it was her prayers that delivered the Florida vote to Dubya in 2000? That’s funny, I could have sworn it was Dubya’s brother, Jebby…and his caging-list henchwoman, Katherine Harris…and Dubya’s cousin John Ellis on FUX Snooze, calling the vote prematurely, accidentally-on-purpose…and… Does Jesus actually answer prayers with such perversity and crookedness? Little wonder so many people are losing their religion.

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4. Jesse Fucking Rau. Once more, with feeling: If your persistent God-bothering keeps you from doing your job properly, quit that damn job and let somebody else do it who is both willing and capable! Jeezus, people.

5. Casey Fucking Davis. Ahem. As I was saying: See #1 and #4. Or else stop using “religion” as an argument to get out of doing your job, and just do the damn job! But stop already with these “I will die in the name of…” histrionics. Jesus said NOTHING about dying to keep gay people from legally marrying, you idiotic fucking hypocrite.

6 and 7. Todd Fucking Courser and Cindy Fucking Gamrat. Want to have an affair? Don’t join Ashley Madison; just do your fooling around in the Michigan state legislature, instead of, you know, actually doing your jobs! And to throw ’em off the scent, plant fake rumors of gay prostitutes and other bizarro doings, so that when it all comes out that you’ve been having a completely boring, straight affair, no one will really care, and you’ll be off the hook again. Yeah, that’ll work.

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8. Pat Fucking Robertson. And into the whole Kentucky same-sex marriage fray jumps a mouthy old geezer whom nobody needed to hear from, because he makes all his money by bilking and conning poor gullible souls, and that ain’t workin’. Siddown and shuddup, Patwa.

9. Joe Fucking Davis. Oh joy! #1’s number 4 husband has piped up, saying he’ll shoot anyone who comes in and tries to hold the dear wifey to her oath to do her fucking job. That ain’t workin’ either.

10. Jeb Fucking Bush. Stop trying to lecture the Pope on how to do HIS job, Jebby. You haven’t exactly been doing yours all that well, either.

11. Elisabeth Fucking Hasselbeck. It being FUX Snooze and all, of course spouting blatant racism IS her job, and it is the whole of her job. But still. What the hell kind of person hires someone to do a job like that?

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12. Kristen Fucking Lindsey. What the hell kind of vet shoots a pet cat with a bow and arrow, then brags of killing a “feral” one? A vet who lost her job at the animal clinic and really deserves to lose her veterinary licence as well, that’s who. Cardinal rule of hunting: If you’re not going to eat it or wear it, don’t kill it. And if you’re a vet, you do everything you can to save the lives of cats, not TAKE them. That’s your fucking job, lady, and you suck at it.

13. Rick Fucking Perry. Jesus called; says you’re nothing like him. Also, as former governor of Texas, you did a shit job. Take a hard seat, Crotch.

14. Josh Fucking Duggar. As one of my friends pointed out, it looks like this one’s got commitment issues: He can’t commit to a recovery program. He’s gone missing, and no one knows where he’s at (although some have their suspicions). Also, sounds like he couldn’t even commit to something as basic as the use of condoms. Remind me again why he’s supposed to be some kind of moral authority on Family Values?

15. Chrissie Fucking Hynde. No, what you were wearing and what you had to drink that night were NOT responsible for all those bikers gang-raping you. What was responsible? Those fucking bikers who gang-raped you. I mean hell, Chrissie: You even said they were wearing badges and shit saying “I love rape”. They were advertising the fact that they are rapists, and you think women should blame themselves for THAT? Unfuck your head, already.

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16. Donald Fucking Trump. This is a pre-candidate for the presidency of the United States? This thin-skinned rage addict who gets on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s case for comparing him unfavorably to the only worthwhile pre-candidate of any party, namely Bernie Sanders? Anyone who would vote for him is a drooling slack-jawed goober. This is not even a political amateur; he’s the belligerent drunk whose uncouth ass is about to get bounced from the pub. And I believe the greater US public’s exact line would be “You’re FIRED!”

17. Tara Fucking Monroe. Driving a Barbie kiddie-car after your licence was suspended for refusing a breathalyzer, and not riding your bike like your own parents told you to? Incredibly immature. But really, what better can one expect from someone who went to a Waka Flocka concert, anyway?

18. Justin Fucking Trudeau. Whereas the NDP has more than 40% women on their slate, the Liberals…are one big sausagefest. Justin, get some female candidates, already!

19. Peter Fucking Bucklitsch. Why?

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That’s why. Calling a dead kid’s parents “greedy” and “queue jumpers”, just because these refugees weren’t walking skeletons in rags, is one helluva vile wank. And quite typical for the neo-Nazis of UKIP, too.

20. Jeffrey Fucking Atherton. Meanwhile, in Tennessee, a judge has decided that if gay people can get married, ain’t no one gonna get a divorce. Logic? Try and find it. Just more of those Repugnican Family Values™ in action, folks.

21, 22 and 23. Allan Fucking Candelore, Rich Fucking Allison, and Alfred Fucking Rava. Because why should women ever get a leg up in the tech industry as CEOs, as long as there are fucking Menz Rightzers to pull them right back down again, crying “discrimination” all the way because someone dared to host a women-only business conference for them. Yup, that’s right: The most unoppressed group in the history of ever is having another lovely hissyfit because an actual oppressed group made a bid for some small step towards parity. Let’s hope their suit gets laughed out of court. And that #23 — the shyster representing #21 and #22 — gets disbarred and stripped of his law licence for his frivolous, malicious conduct.

24. Roger Fucking Hunt. Never mind that no one plays sports with their crotch. This idiotic wank thinks that trans athletes need to submit to a pants check before being cleared to play. I suggest he get his head examined instead; it seems to me that he’s just a wee bit incompetent. (And possibly a pervert, too.)

25. Stephen Fucking Harper. Why?

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That’s why. Just one more reason to give him the heave-ho in October, eh?

26 and 27. Tim Fucking Kelly and Tara Fucking Mack. Once more, with feeling: Don’t join Ashley Madison; just get elected to your state legislature as a Repugnican. Then you get to exchange…uh…”documents”! In parked cars, out in the boonies! Yeah, that’s the ticket!

28. Daryush Fucking Valizadeh. Hey Roosh: That DDOS attack your site suffered? Was a wake-up call from Karma, telling you to cut the PUA shit and the “neomasculinity” crap, and GET A REAL FUCKING JOB, YOU WORTHLESS SHITSTAIN.

29. Nathan Fucking Davis. Nepotism, anyone? Why the hell was #1’s son allowed to work in the same office as his mother? Surely that constitutes some kind of infraction, does it not? At any rate, he’s the only one of six deputy clerks in that office to deny same-sex couples marriage licences. Which proves that the religious fanatics are in the minority there.

30. Matt Fucking Staver. And of course, it wouldn’t be a weekly wankapedia without some projection on the part of a religious persecutor, and a full fucking Godwin violation, to boot. No, Kim Fucking Davis is NOT a Jew being sent to the gas chambers; if anything, she’s more like the fucking Gestapo. But at least, in this case, there’s no real power to back her up; just a bunch of shysters who obviously got their law degrees from diploma mills. And their history lessons from a charlatan.

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And finally, to the biggest slackers of all: the 1%ers. Whose wealth, next year, is slated to surpass that of the remaining 99% of us. Did they work for it? NOPE. They threw people out of work, underpaid the rest who are now in fear for their jobs. Time to make them fear for THEIR cushy, unearned position in life, eh?

Good night, and get fucked!

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Chris Alexander, refugee killer

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Chris Alexander killed little Alan Kurdi.

Alan is the three-year-old Syrian boy whose drowned body, washed up on a Turkish beach, has been plastered all over the media, Facebook, Twitter, you name it. His mother, Reham, and older brother Galib, 5, also died trying to reach Greece in an overloaded rowboat. Only the boys’ father, Abdullah, survived the journey.

It was a journey they might never have had to make had they not been denied asylum here in Canada. Abdullah’s sister, already living here, was ready to vouch for them. But the Minister of Immigration, Chris Alexander, refused even to see their claim. So they were forced to take the most dangerous and desperate route: the waters of the Mediterranean, in a tiny and fragile boat not capable of withstanding the rough conditions of that sea, overcrowded with other desperate refugees. On that boat, they were 13 in all.

And three members of the family paid for that passage with their lives.

Alan’s small, pathetic body, still fully clothed and shod, made headlines as a Turkish policeman scooped him up and carried him out of the surf. And the damning pictures from that tragic moment have forced refugee-shy European countries to rethink their harsh immigration policies.

It’s all too little and too late for the thousands of families like the Kurdis, who have been streaming across the Mediterranean from the east and south in a desperate effort to escape various war zones and the dire poverty that stalks countries rich in resources, but made poor by colonialism and capitalism. The same global north, also known as “The West”, that has forced unwanted regime changes upon their lands and invaded them politically and economically in order for its corporations to scoop up all the resources they can, is unwilling to accept the consequences of its actions. Those consequences are human, they are hungry, and they are desperate enough to die trying to get away from what has been foisted upon them. And those who did the foisting are trying futilely to beat them back, any way they can.

In Hungary, trainloads of refugees have been held up for days, for no apparent reason. Hungary is in the grip of a far-right government with a fetish for control, but no clear notions of what to do about the influx of people who just want to get through Hungary and into some more hospitable final destination. It’s an awful irony when you consider that just a few short decades ago, Hungary was itself a civil war zone, and refugees were fleeing from there to other European lands, and across the ocean to Canada. (One of them, Stephen Vizinczey, even worked his refugee experiences into his acclaimed novel, In Praise of Older Women.)

But in a way, Hungary’s irony is emblematic of the shitheadedness that prevails more or less throughout Europe right now. Right-wing governments everywhere, and not one of them can work up a drop of empathy for refugees. German chancellor Angela Merkel was caught flatfooted when a Palestinian girl burst into tears before her upon learning that she was probably going to be deported. The incident was much mocked in the media, and caused a hasty backpedal on the part of the German government. Germany is now a much-sought destination for Syrian and other Middle Eastern and North African refugees. And the German people are clear on where they stand, even as their government waffles ineffectually away; whole cities and towns are stepping up to help the newcomers, and the German internet is buzzing with families opening their homes to refugees, giving them a place to stay until they can make a more permanent home somewhere.

I am a Canadian of German immigrant parentage. My mother, born to ethnic German parents in pre-World War II Yugoslavia, came “home” to Germany after some 200 years in the Balkans when war and the invasion of the Russian army drove them out in 1944. Her family were refugees. That makes me, in turn, the daughter of a refugee. And the descendant of other refugees, too: What was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire once took in Germans fleeing religious persecution back home. My mother’s ancestors, Lutheran protestants, fled a Catholic-ruled land. It was either convert to the local princeling’s religion, or else, back then. They chose “or else”. And that meant moving to the Balkans, where the Austrian queen, Maria Theresia, hoped to stave off the invasion of the Turks by populating the land with German-speaking Christians. It didn’t matter to her whether they were Catholic or Protestant, as long as they kept the Turks out. And then they were forced to flee, and my mother’s family became refugees once more…

And now, in an ironic twist of fate, the Turks are in Germany anyway, and the only parts where it’s truly gone to hell in a handbasket are the ones where local neo-Nazis have terrorized and murdered them. And after the Turks, the Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and other refugees have come. Germany hasn’t “gone Muslim” as PEGIDA and other right-wing fearmongers have claimed it would. Rather, the Christian spirit of charity and loving-thy-neighbor is making itself felt. German families are helping refugee families to acclimatize, to make a home, to learn whatever they need to learn, and to find their place in the world.

It wasn’t nearly so hospitable when my mom and her family arrived during the war, though; the refugees, though every bit as German as the locals, were looked down upon endlessly because they came from the Balkans. Whatever refugee-abuse wasn’t the result of Nazism, was down to plain old snobbery. And this went on for years after the war ended, too; the refugees were never fully accepted. My mother ended up going to work in New York for the local Daimler-Benz importer and his family as an au pair, and on a vacation to Canada, in northern Ontario, she met my dad, by then a landed immigrant himself. They married three months later.

I am proud of my ancestral people for having learned history’s lessons so well. And I am ashamed of my home and native land for having turned its back on Syrians, just as it did to Jews during World War II. Clearly, Chris Alexander hasn’t learned a thing from history.

And that is why I call him a murderer. He is just as responsible for the deaths of Alan, Galib and Reham Kurdi as if he had held their heads underwater himself. Because by cold-bloodedly refusing even to see the family’s refugee claim, that’s exactly what he did. By making the rules so that relatives could only sponsor one family member at a time, he ensured that Alan’s father did not even get a look-in. It’s the same, in effect, as denying outright the claim of Alan’s uncle, Mohammed, which he also did. Let’s dispense with inane technicalities here: The truth is that with the Harper government’s cruel changes to our immigration and refugee policy, the Kurdi family was doomed from the outset.

Cursed are those who refuse to learn from the past, because they will be doomed to repeat it.

PS: Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East has a petition up calling for Chris Alexander’s resignation. You can sign it no matter where in the world you are. Please do!

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Posted in Angry Pacifist Speaks Her Mind, Balkan Yogurt, Canadian Counterpunch, Confessions of a Bad German, Deepest Darkest Africa, EuroPeons, Fascism Without Swastikas, Filthy Stinking Rich, Greek Salad, Human Rights FAIL, Hungarian Goulash, If You REALLY Care, Isn't It Ironic?, Teh Russkies, Turkish Treats | Comments Off on Chris Alexander, refugee killer

Quotable: Oliver Sacks on his life and work

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Cancer may have claimed the man today, but the work lives on. Rest in power.

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Music for a Sunday: Tunes for Harpo to hate

So, it would appear Harpo really hates it when people sing about him and what he’s done to our fair land. And he’s slapped the censure on a scientist who did just that. Well, it looks like he’s gonna have a lot more protest-songs to hate, because Canadians of all stripes are now Idle No More. And they’re coming up with some good tunes, too.

First, there’s this one:

And then there’s its sequel, made with a little help from commenters on the first one who contributed their own additional verses:

Twelve-bar blues beat SupposiTory blues anytime. Especially with a native beat at the roots.

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Wankers of the Week: As(s)h(o)ley Madison

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Crappy weekend, everyone! Well, how about that Ashley Madison data dump? It truly is the gift that keeps on giving, because it’s flushing assholes out right and right-er. Strangely, I’m not finding any mentions of people from the left on it, probably because they tend to be cooler all around, and have the happier relationships to prove it. Mostly, it’s just purity culturists and hypocrites and crapitalists getting busted, and frankly, that’s fine with me. Because those people are assholes, and it’s only meet and right that the whole world know it. Know who else is getting outed as an asshole this week? These people, in no particular order:

1. Paul Fucking Elam. Bitter, Party of One? I’m guessing that Paulie’s having trouble with his live-in girlfriend, the one he mooches off of, and resents having to give her regular injections of (cough) “poon” in order to keep the goodies flowing. Why else would he be shitting all over Valentine’s Day six months later (or earlier, as the case may be)? PS: Yup, Paulie’s still bitter about last year’s big exposé of his little MRAsshat shindig in GQ, too. And still plotting his revenge against Jeff Sharlet, who wrote that piece. Give it the fuck UP, Paulie! You really don’t need to make a bigger loser of yourself than you already are.

2. Doug Fucking Ford. More bland nastiness in the federal Conservatives? Worse than Harpo, even? Don’t laugh. Dougie’s seriously considering it, and you wouldn’t want to see Tweedledee get mad. Frod Nation is considering going nationwide, never dreaming that Harpo has already ruined their dreams of “nationhood” forever, because the next PM of Canada won’t be a Harpocrite, or a Frod, or anyone in SupposiTory blue at all.

3. Jeb Fucking Bush. And speaking of bland nastiness, how about Dubya’s little brother? One of his showpiece laws for the state of Florida was a “Scarlet Letter” law requiring women who’d gotten pregnant out of wedlock to slut-shame themselves, since none of their friends, family or neighbors seem to be interested in doing so anymore. It worked about as well as such laws could be expected to do…that is, it backfired spectacularly. And then there’s the fact that Jebby has chosen to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina by marking it with the man responsible for FEMA’s worst fuckup ever, and over a thousand deaths. Oh, and just get a load of him courting the very worst ‘wingers of all — For the love of Bog, Jebby — pack it in, go back to Kennebunkport, and never darken the door of a political office again! PS: No, really, Jebby — SHUT UP. (Or, on second thought, debate that with #4, who is Asian. I’ve been dying to see a good food-fight.)

4. Piyush Fucking Jindal. Why?

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That’s why. He’s the ultimate anchor baby come to no good in Amurrica.

5. Jed Fucking Smock. Is it just me, or does this guy remind you, too, of this old Bloom County ‘toon? I guess we now know who the Snorklewacker really is.

6. Theodore Fucking Beale. First Rule of Pratfalls: When proven a prat, claim that was your whole whiny-ass point. And then flip over the chessboard, shit on everything, and strut away cawing. Then do it again. And again. And again. And AGAIN.

7 and 8. Chris Fucking Christie and Ted Fucking Cruz. Both of them decided to pile onto Jimmy Carter when he was down with cancer, just to score cheap points with redneck voters. They’re the Bobbsey Twins of Boordom, no doubt about it.

9. Josh Fucking Duggar. Sure must be awkward when your own brother-in-law thinks you’re scum, eh?

10 and 11. These two fucking morons right here:

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Between the theocratic pseudo-endorsement and the awfully premature election result call, this is so much stoopid that Jesus has just run out of face to palm.

12. Penelope Fucking Trunk. Don’t know who she is. Don’t read her. Don’t think I want to. The idea of a company “owning” a person to the point where their life and/or health suffers is not something to be encouraged or celebrated by any writer as a business practice. What’s next, a paean to slavery?

13 and 14. Andrew Fucking Auernheimer and Gavin Fucking McInnes. Ooooooo! Food fight on the “alt” right! What’s the “alt right”, you ask? Oh, just a bunch of racist, sexist, everything-phobic fucking hipsters bombed on “craft” wood alcohol who think Adolf Fucking Hitler was Adolf Fucking HIPSTER, because he was into mass genocide before it was cool. Watch these two wannabe machos going at it, slapping each other silly — or sillier, if that’s even possible — on the tweeter. It’s sheer comedy GOLD, I tellz ya.

15. Danny Fucking Dannels. He must make the (defective) nail polish! It is being demanded of him! It is his life’s work! He is an athlete, a scholar, a musician, an artist and a maker, a fighter…jeez, what is this guy not? Well, I notice that he didn’t say he was a properly trained cosmetic chemist. Which is kind of an important thing to be, if you make nail polish and want to keep your customers coming back for more — as opposed to, say, banning them for complaining about your shitty product. Because, funnily, it’s kind of important for them to have fingernails that don’t rot right off their hands, you know?

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16. John Fucking McAfee. The Ashley Madison hack was the work of a lone woman, claims the clown prince of drug-addled (and murderous) cyber-security experts. How does he know? Simple, he says — the hack manifesto contained “emotional language”! Oh, like men don’t get emotional? How then to explain the fact that most of the emo-kids on that sad-sack site for failed poonhounds were male, huh? And the fact that any female insider would have not only known that, but most likely been amused by the shortage of real female users, because she probably keyed in the fake female user data herself?

17. Daryush Fucking Valizadeh. D’oh! For a moment there, it looked like Roosh V had finally grown a smidgen of self-awareness. NOPE! Instead of realizing he can’t go on using his “forum” to breed misogynists, he simply tells his commentariat to tone down the use of animated .gifs in the event of a mass shooting by one of his shitbird followers, when the media will turn its harsh spotlights on his site. As though they’re only going to be looking for dancing doodles, and not, say, Roosh’s own justifications for the kind of violence he and his followers wreak on the regular.

18.Zach Fucking Farnam. Ever wonder why women don’t trust cops? Here’s a broad hint: When they can’t stop talking about your boobs on the job, and even leave you inadvertent voicemails to that effect, along with other uncomplimentary shit, well…would YOU trust them?

19. Chris Fucking Alexander. Hard questions about bad immigration policies? Bob, weave, dodge and leave. True SupposiTory transparency, QED.

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20. Owen Fucking Labrie, again. Not so much for getting off rather lightly with a misdemeanor sexual assault charge (as opposed to felony rape), but for the truly unbelievable excuse he made that got him off. “Divine inspiration”? Funnily, the victim didn’t see evidence of any such. As she tells it, he DID penetrate her, and did not leave the room without having done so. And the physical and DNA evidence show as much, too. Strangely, “divine inspiration” did not make her injuries OR his semen disappear.

21. Kim Fucking Davis. Yes, go right ahead and make an asshole of yourself. Make a federal case of your unwillingness to do your job. Just don’t be surprised when your case gets thrown out, because it fucking deserves to be. And so do you. If you can’t issue marriage licences impartially, you’re not fit to be issuing them at all. And your job deserves to go to someone who can and WILL do it. PS: Ha, ha.

22. Noel Fucking Biderman. Get out while the getting’s good, eh? And also before anybody has a chance to demand a refund on their Ashley Madison accounts, which obviously went nowhere AND weren’t being deleted when clients asked (and PAID) for them to be. If you ever needed any more proof that greed isn’t good, here’s one CEO who proved it with pretty much everything he’s done in his working life. PS: And if you wonder why I feel no pain at hearing the company’s in trouble, read this. The company is built on misogyny; it’s not a bug, it’s a fucking FEATURE.

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23. Fucking Subway. They knew about Jared Fucking Fogle’s kid-diddling predilections for YEARS and sat on them. Meanwhile, on their website, actual children played the (since removed) “Jared’s Pants” game, which was already creepy as hell. Especially considering that he was probably using his “foundation” not to promote healthy eating, as intended, but to lure underage girls into the spider’s web…all while disbursing next to NO actual money for charitable purposes. Dear Gods, there goes my appetite.

24. Jonathan Fucking Saenz. Anti-LGBT fanaticism just doesn’t get any meaner, pettier, uglier or more hyperbolic. Yeah, I can’t imagine why your wife left you for another woman, dude. Nice to see you’re not a bit bitter about it, either.

25. Josh Fucking Duggar. The more I hear about how his Quiverfull cult-family is “handling” his many and varied perversions, the more convinced I am that they are nothing more than enablers and abettors of it all. Because not only is his “rehab” program a sham, it’s actually a cover-up program…for high-profile bible-thumping cultists caught with their pants down. And the molesters are actually running that show, so it’s hardly surprising that it does nothing to actually rehabilitate anyone. Let’s hope it does nothing to rehabilitate their public image, either.

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And finally, to all the whiny fucking Red Pillocks who claim that the reason there were so few women on Ashley Madison is because all we have to do to cheat is “merely exist”. WRONG. There are fewer women on there because the site was aimed quite specifically at men, and its ads reflect its misogynist bias, as do its settings. And also because fewer women are actually inclined to cheat in the first place. Why is that, you ask? Because (duh), we are not taught to view men as our servitors or our sexual playthings. And we don’t have a madonna/whore complex when it comes to the menfolks, either. The opposite, in short, of how things are for the poor, beleaguered, self-centred idiots who signed up for that fucking site in the fist place. They may not have gotten any nookie out of it, but they sure as hell got what they had coming. And if they couldn’t see it coming, they have no one but themselves to blame. The whole FOMO about how “life is short” and one should therefore “have an affair” is kind of ridiculous when you consider how few people are actually doing so.
Good night, and get fucked*!
*or don’t, as the case may be. Ha, ha.

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Quotable: Buffy Sainte-Marie on violence against women

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Majority of Germans oppose prostitution

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FEMEN protesting Amnesty International (photo: EMMA). The feminist “sextremists” may not be so extreme after all; in Germany, it turns out, they speak for more people than one might think. A clear majority of Germans opposes pimping, and an additional one in five would like to see prostitution gone altogether. Here are some interesting facts and figures, courtesy of STERN:

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The blue bars represent the percentage of Germans who think that prostitution should be totally legal in all its forms; purple, those who think it should be legal for the prostituted, but not for pimps or traffickers; and pink, those who think it should be altogether illegal. As you can see, the greatest number, across all age groups and both sexes, think it should be legal for a woman to be a prostitute, but not for anyone else to sell her. The “totally legal” and “totally illegal” groups are much smaller, and even in the groups most likely to favor totally-legal prostitution — men, and those between the ages of 18 and 29 — most want to see the pimps and traffickers cut out of the business altogether.

It’s a slap back at Amnesty, which recently voted to support total legalization of “all aspects of sex work”, including pimping and brothel-keeping, and by extension, trafficking (because let’s face it, there’s no other way supply could keep up with demand). The mainstream of German society thinks that if a woman makes her living in prostitution, the police should not harass her, but rather protect her from abuse and exploitation.

STERN’s Werner Mathes claims that these figures “support the German model”, but the fact is that the “German model” of prostitution law is full of holes, and favors the pimps and traffickers heavily, while the general public doesn’t feel that this lobby should even get a look-in. EMMA’s analysis is clearer:

A Forsa survey for STERN magazine found that 78 percent of all Germans are against prostitution. 59 percent want pimps penalized, 19 percent a total ban. Nowhere is the opinion gap between people and politicians in Germany so great as in the area of sex-for-sale.

While the Great Coalition is trying, after 13 years of failed politics, to prepare a soft reform of the fatal prostitution law, which once again protects the interests of woman-traffickers, pimps and brothel owners, and sells women out to prostitution, the populace has long held a clear position.

According to a survey by the Forsa Institute for STERN, 59% of the 1005 persons surveyed want prostitution to remain unpunished for the prostituted — but not for Pimps & Co. Another 19 percent — that is, almost every fifth person — want to see prostitution forbidden altogether. So some 78 percent want punishment for pimps, who work hand in hand with also-to-be-prosecuted traffickers and exploitative bordello owners. Only 15 percent of Germans are against prosecuting the peddlers of woman as merchandise: 19 percent of men and 11 percent of women, that is, barely one man in five, and one woman in nine.

That is the expression of a radical change of heart and disdain for sex-buying, even in Germany — in the country that today, thanks to deregulation of the prostitution market in 2002, is known as “the hub of sex-trafficking in Europe”, and with its “wellness bordellos” and megabrothels, and their bargain-basement flat rates, has become a haven for sex tourists.

Translation mine.

Yes, EMMA is a radical feminist publication. But as prostitution has become more public in Germany, and its abuses more blatant, the outcry against it has grown. EMMA’s long-held position on prostitution is gradually going mainstream. Art students in Osnabrück recently protested the trafficking of Eastern European women and girls with a public installation of worn-out shoes with “price tags” offering sex-for-sale; men have protested sex-buying and trafficking by pushing women around in shopping carts bearing placards denouncing the practice. German trauma experts have turned out in force against prostitution, having found that the majority of prostitutes they see have PTSD as a direct result of their jobs. Photographer Bettina Flitner has won awards for her work, which often takes the viewer inside bordellos, and features empathetic, non-judgmental portraits of women in prostitution, as well as a sober confrontation with their johns. And the mainstream media keep reporting what women really face on the streets, as well as in brothels…and on the human trafficking that brought them there. It’s not a sexy picture, no matter what the brothel billboards might try to sell you.

Little by little, the German public is coming around to rejecting the idea of woman as sexual merchandise. For it is, after all, mainly women and girls who are bought and sold. And the buyers are almost exclusively male. It is such a heavily gendered industry, so heavily skewed in favor of men and against women, that the inequality can no longer be missed. Where, after all, are the bordellos dealing in men, marketed with gleeful abandon to an eager female customer base? There aren’t any! (That’s because a majority of women the world over can’t bring themselves to buy a man, even if they could afford one. We are not taught that men were put on this Earth to sexually service US, after all.)

Furthermore, it has proved impossible to provide sexual servicing at a price without the inevitable market forces bearing down and making it a race to the bottom. Megabrothels now outcompete each other at “flat-rate” prostitution: all-inclusive sex (minus condom, even!) at a low, fixed rate. And with a shortage of German women “volunteering” for that kind of service (would you?), trafficking of impoverished women (and increasingly, under-age girls) from Eastern Europe has become a “necessity” — as have raids on bordellos dealing in such persons. Of the nearly half-million prostituted women in Germany, a majority are not Germans, barely speak the language beyond what it takes to negotiate a “transaction”, and come from dire poverty — often in Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, etc. They are trucked in by mafiosi who confiscate their passports and papers, making it impossible for the women to escape or alert the authorities. And their health is at risk, too, because to cover the extortionate room rates and other fees charged by bordellos (which are NOT to be mistaken for women’s shelters!), they have to service three or four johns before they break even and start making any money of their own (assuming their pimps don’t take it all for themselves, of course).

A dozen johns a day and scarcely a condom in sight makes for a very bad health situation among prostitutes, and don’t think the average German has failed to notice! It’s bordering on a public health emergency, with STD rates up and little wonder. It’s a striking irony in the glitzy world of the “wellness” bordello, where the simple act of getting one’s rocks off is assumed to be the healthiest thing one can do…if one is a man, that is. The women who have to act as receptacles to all these men’s bodily fluids tell another story.

And it’s hard to imagine how Amnesty manages to square all this with their tone-deaf call for “sex workers’ rights”. Um, WHAT rights? When the women don’t even know that what they’re doing won’t get them arrested (and the traffickers tell them that they will, and make sure they do by leaving them without documents, thus rendering them illegal migrants), how on Earth are they supposed to assert even the most basic rights granted to them by the lax and putrid German prostitution law — which, by Amnesty’s lights, is A-okay?

The STERN survey is flawed, too, in that it does not ask what should be done about the johns. It tacitly seems to assume that they are doing no wrong. But without them, this industry would not even exist. Is it right to leave the driving economic force out of the equation?

It’s time for a new survey, this time one that asks Germans what they think of the Nordic Model, where johns are penalized along with traffickers and pimps. I’m guessing that the figures from such a survey would be even more interesting, and an even bigger slap in the face of Amnesty’s men’s-rightsy, pimp-lobby-financed resolution.

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Posted in Confessions of a Bad German, Filthy Stinking Rich, Free Trade, My Ass!, Human Rights FAIL, Isn't It Ironic?, Law-Law Land, Men Who Just Don't Get It, Scandinavian Smorgasbord, Sick Frickin' Bastards, Uppity Wimmin | Comments Off on Majority of Germans oppose prostitution

Venezuelan authorities raid Colombian paramilitary camp

Venezuelan authorities sift through the effects found in a Colombian paramilitary camp within Venezuelan territory. It’s yet more evidence of crimes that have been terrorizing Venezuelans from the border regions all the way to Caracas, and significant enough that a high-ranking member of the federal government showed up to clarify to the media exactly what it was all about:

Yesterday afternoon, the Venezuelan vice-president, Jorge Arreaza, toured the “La Invasión” zone near the Venezuela-Colombia border, where the Venezuelan federal criminal-investigative police, the CICPC, had found a brothel and a centre for extortion and kidnappings, used by paramilitary groups.

“Who knows what they did to young Venezuelan or Colombian women, to persons they kidnapped, how many families suffered with those paramilitary groups putting people in this cellar to make them suffer by way of extortion,” Arreaza said.

Arreaza also commented that in said house they had found photographs of various houses in the El Rosario sector of Colombia, as well as an agenda containing amounts, in [Venezuelan] bolivares, for “services” already paid.

He also announced the finding of a metal building which functioned as an explosives factory.

“We found a shack which was used as an explosives factory. Also, there were paramilitary elements such as balaclavas, masks, gloves, computers, cash money, petrochemical materials, and uniforms of groups called the Red Scorpions and Anti-Guerrillas, among other things.”

“These are aspects of the Colombian internal conflict, which have nothing to do with Venezuelan reality. They are Colombian gangs and problems which have been exported to Venezuela, a peaceful territory which should not have been the object of these menaces.”

Finally, Arreaza said that “paramilitarism will not be able to take place in Venezuelan territory, no matter how much the right-wing is against the decisions the government takes in favor of the people.”

Traslation mine.

So it would appear that Colombian paramilitaries are not only being used by the opposition to terrorize the people of Venezuela and artificially inflate the crime rates (no doubt in an effort to make the Bolivarian government look ineffective, which it certainly has NOT been); they’re also human traffickers and sex slavers, as the brothel would indicate. And they’ve been carting women from at least two countries there, as well as other kidnap-extortion victims.

And this is just one finding among several, all indicating that paramilitarism — product of one Álvaro Uribe Vélez, ex-president of Colombia and rabid fascist — has been playing an active role in propping up the increasingly farcical Venezuelan opposition. The finding of the facemasks, one might say, is more than a little symbolic, as the masks of the oppos keep falling off their faces at the most inopportune moments.

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Posted in El NarcoPresidente, Fascism Without Swastikas, Filthy Stinking Rich, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't That Illegal? | Comments Off on Venezuelan authorities raid Colombian paramilitary camp