News of the Restless

Music for a Sunday: Guess who’s in control

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Sabina Becker

In honor of Rafael Correa’s foregone conclusion. At something like 61% of the vote, it was indeed a landslide, although a few points shy of the two-thirds majority he predicted last Friday. Still, loud brassy music is in order. This one was not even remotely close. ¡Viva Correa, carajo!

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Posted in Ecuadorable As Can Be, Music for a Sunday | Comments Off

Wankers of the Week: Papal Bulldozer

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! Well, how about that papal abdication? Even God Herself never saw THAT one coming. But Karma could yet have its way with His Former Holiness; once he retires, he may face a lawsuit by victims of priestly sexual molestation. After all, he’s the one who knows where all the bodies are buried, so to speak; he’s the one in charge of sweeping it all under the rug, and has been since he was John Paul II’s head inquisitor. No wonder the old boy’s tired, that’s a lot of sins to have to answer for. I wouldn’t want to be standing in HIS ruby slippers before the judgment seat, that’s for sure. Meanwhile, here are the rest of this week’s unregenerate sinners, in no particular order:

1. Diana Fucking Medley. Thanks to her and other bigots like her in Sullivan, Indiana, the word “traditional” has been redefined. It now means “bigots only”. It is now “traditional” to believe that “gays choose to be that way”, and that “they have no purpose in life”. Kind of like this so-called special ed teacher, who I imagine is going to have a much harder time teaching queer kids to hate themselves, and organizing ostracisms — er, sorry, “traditional proms” — in the very near future. PS: Sign, sign, sign if you haven’t already.

2. Ezra Fucking Levant. Gotta hand it to the Putz, he sure is a persistent little bigot. Not daunted by the cancellations of his previous conserva-cruises (for lack of attendance!), this year he’s trying it again. And he has a secret weapon, which is sure to draw massive crowds: Pamela Fucking Geller!

3. Annette Fucking Schavan. Is there anything more deliciously ironic than an education minister who plagiarized her doctoral dissertation…and is, therefore, NOT all that educated? Maybe, somewhere in the world…but in Germany, this is IT, kiddies. (And, on the bright side, she’s got a new job all lined up…alongside Margaret Fucking Wente at the Grope & Flail.)

4. Steve Fucking Stockman. Oh joy, oh bliss. He’s invited Ted Fucking Nugent along as his date for the State of the Union address. I bet the Noodge shat his pants just for the occasion.

5. Joshu Fucking Sasaki. Just to show that Christians don’t have anything like a monopoly on priestly sexual molestations, how about this old Zen Buddhist leader? Apparently, being groped by a centenarian is some kind of road to Enlightenment. Or so it is to hear HIM tell it. What was that New Age book about meeting the Buddha on the road called, again?

6. Rush Fucking Limbaugh. The Pigman has been his usual KKKlassy self this week, speculating that the SOTU speech would include snippets of a now deceased cop-killer’s “manifesto”. I’m sure he must be very disappointed that it didn’t.

7. Joe Fucking Walsh. Aww. Da poor widdle teabag sez he can’t make his child support payments? I have zero sympathy. He should have kept it in his pants, like he and his ilk are always telling women to do.

8. Julian Fucking Fantino. You can take him out of the cop shop, but apparently you can’t take the business of persecuting LGBT people out of him. Not only did he okay a CIDA grant to a disgusting anti-gay church that supports Uganda’s “kill the queers” law, he’s actually DEFENDING said shitty decision this week. Meanwhile, liberal churches can go hang. On a cross. With Jesus. Of course.

9. Ted Fucking Nugent. He shat his pants to avoid the draft, and he still has the nerve to talk about “demilitarizing” for the SOTU? Yup. This is the brand of bravery that’s upholding the Second Amendment, folks. Never forget! PS: Trololololo! He sure looked about to shit his pants when they sat him next to that gay guy. Ha, ha. PPS: Oh look, look who has no idea what an assault weapon is. Nobody tell the Stooge that the “modern sporting rifle” industry actually coined that term when it started marketing shit like the Bushmaster ASSAULT rifle, eh?

10. Jonah Fucking Lehrer. He lies, he plagiarizes, he fabricates, he self-plagiarizes…and gets paid in the quintuple digits to masturbate on stage about it all. Nice work if you can get it. Now, who do you have to blow?

11. Marco Fucking Rubio. He may be very pretty (in a face-you-want-to-put-your-motherfucking-fist-through sort of way), but he is certifiably bat-guano. Where did the teabaggers dig him up? In a filth-caked cave under a sinkhole. That is to say, in Miami. PS: Ha, ha. PPS: Ha, ha, ha! PPPS: Bwahahahahaha!

12. Steve Fucking Crowder. Uh oh, was that a rattling I heard at the closet door? Macho Man likes him some Greco-Roman wrestling. While I’m all for keeping the classical sport in the Summer Olympics (mixed martial arts, to bring in more dollars? Urrrrrgh…), it seems to me that this clown is overplaying the straight-man routine just a little. Between the “Oh look, I discovered married HETEROsex, wuh-huh!” and the “Boy, I sure showed that union thug”, this third strike, well, it just strikes me as a little ol’ bit of BITCH, PLEASE! Also: He’s CANADIAN? The US can have him. Srsly. If he ever came back up here, he’d probably end up wanting a divorce, so he can gay-marry someone else, and the gay guys up here are all barfing their guts out at the prospect of a right-wing hypocrite hitting on them. Also, that blatant nose job and those suspiciously inflated Popeye arms are, er, simply FABULOUS (she said, dripping schnark all down her cleavage).

13. Stephen Fucking Harper. And speaking of guys named Steve who are not wanted in Canada, get a load of our lovely so-called prime minister and his contempt for aboriginal women. Their lives don’t matter. All that matters, obviously, is ramming that motherfucking pipeline through miles of pristine wilderness on native soil. And for that, those dang Injuns only get in the way.

14. Ron Fucking Paul. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Isn’t that what all the flibbertigibbertarians always say? Why yes, it is. So, then, riddle me this: Why are they always robbing the public purse for lunch money?

15. Rick Fucking Bratton. And while we’re on the subject of riddles, here’s another: Why are all the proponents of “intelligent design” so goddamned STUPID?

16. John Fucking Hickenlooper. No, fracking fluid is not really drinkable, any more than plutonium pellets are breakfast cereal. But hey! If you’re gonna drink the shit ritualistically, how about using the real thing, in tap water? For true ritualistic flair, you could even set it on fire. Eau flambé, anyone?

17. David Fucking Jones. Gay couples can’t raise children, huh? Tell that to my best friend and his spouse, who’ve been together for close to 25 years now, and are raising two adopted sons. Oh wait, they can do that because gay marriage and adoption are legal in Canada, and a growing number of US states, too! (And, BTW, I know of few places warmer and safer than my friends’ home.)

18. Pat Fucking Robertson. Please, Cthulhu, call Patwa home already. I can’t stand his shit for much longer. His brand of so-called Christianity is not a real religion. It’s demonic, and you and I both know it.

19. Joe Rickey Fucking Hundley. Yeah, racism on a flight is just totally kosher. Especially when it’s directed at a baby who’s crying because of an abrupt change in altitude. And doubly so when you’re stinkingly drunk, with a prior record for assault with a motherfucking corkscrew.

20. Michael Fucking Martelli. No, your “sources” are NOT confidential and anonymous. They are VULTURES. They stole a deceased abortion patient’s private and confidential medical records. They are criminals. And so are you, for profiteering off the woman’s death, AND for covering their criminal ass. You should be arrested, you anti-choice bastard. And I hope you are…SOON.

21. John Fucking Baird. Oh look, Squealer the Election Stealer has gone to Cuba and Venezuela. No doubt to lecture them on democracy…quite unaware that both countries have it, and theirs is actually better than ours right now.

22. John Fucking Duncan. So, the minister for aboriginal affairs is out. Too bad it’s not for how he mishandled Attawapiskat. Nope, it’s just an unsexy, inappropriate letter to the Tax Court. Oh well…don’t let the door hit ya. No, wait…please do!

23. Bradlee Fucking Dean. Speaking of people whom the door should hit…too bad, so sad, bwahahahaha.

24, 25 and 26. Brian Fucking Kilmeade, Martha Fucking McCallum, and Bill Fucking Hemmer. Because you just KNOW that if the 102-year-old woman who’d endured a three-hour wait to cast her vote had been white and Republican, they’d have been huffing and puffing about the outrage, and clutching each other’s pearls over it.

27. Bibi Fucking Netanyahu. I scream, you scream, but nobody screams louder than Bibi. Trust me on that one.

28. Rayne Fucking Brown. Nothing is more threatening to the status quo than women’s equality…and nothing more threateningly emblematic than boobs bared in protest, apparently. Never mind that North Carolina has plenty of pudgy guys whose bitch-tits rival those of the average woman. Nope, it’s only the women who will be expected to cover theirs, and duct-tape their nipples. To protect the virgin eyes of all those around them, natch.\

29. Tim Fucking Moore. Speaking of boobs and duct tape, how about some for his mouth? It won’t prevent public indecency, but it will at least keep him from constantly shoving his feet in it.

30. John Fucking Ragan. You can’t say gay in Tenessee…but you can, and SHOULD, say motherfucking idiot, because that’s what this one is. And speaking of mentally unhealthy, that’s precisely how I (and any responsible psychologist) would characterize such a raging case of homophobic douchebaggery.

31. Tim Fucking Tebow. I know this may come as a shock to precisely two of you, but it seems that St. Timmeh of God’s Gift to the Anti-Choice Racket has been signed to speak at a nasty-ass church in Dallas that hates both Jews and gays. In light of the fact that he did some charity work helping out with circumcisions a few years back, I foresee a tee-tiny bit of homoerotically homophobic awkwardness coming.

32. James Fucking Wagner. No, the three-fifths compromise was NOT a great pragmatic anything. It was more than three-fifths stupid…and if you don’t believe me, try to put yourself in the shoes of only three-fifths of a person.

33. The fucking anti-vaccine movement. Thanks to them, whooping cough is now on the rise after decades of decline, and there are outbreaks happening all over the fucking place. And for those of you screaming “BUT NATURAL IMMUNITY!!! 1111ELEVENTYHUNDREDELEVEN!1111”, you don’t have that. There is simply no such thing. Unless, of course, you’ve been exposed to Bordetella pertussis and survived. Otherwise, the only preventive measure that works is a vaccine made from the killed bacterium, which accomplishes the same task but without making you sick. That’s how vaccines work, you fools. My only consolation, in the midst of all this head-smacking fucking stupidity, is that I’ve recently had my adult booster as a result of news like this. But then, unlike antivaxxers, I’m not selfish and dumb enough to rely on other people’s herd immunity. Can’t wait to see how they’ll react when polio makes a surprise comeback. Have fun raising your precious offspring in iron lungs, you guys.

34. Azealia Fucking Banks. No, dear, “faggot” does NOT mean what you think it means. It means a bundle of sticks, used as kindling. And during the Middle Ages, it meant gay men, accused of heresy and burned at the stake like witches. No, I’m NOT kidding. So knock it off with the sloppy language, already. You don’t get to make up new meanings for insults with close to a thousand years of history behind them.

35. Vladimir Fucking Zhirinovsky. Gotta love the most fascist politician in Russia. He doesn’t understand how meteors work, so he blames the old Cold War enemy. Only problem is, if it were a real weapon, there would have been a much bigger explosion (there’s supposed to be an Earth-shattering KABOOM!), and people would have gotten killed. But whatever. I’m just waiting for all the other paranoiacs to chime in about super-thermite or some other Twoofer hocus-pocus. Because astronomy is so haaaaaard!

And finally, to the anglo whore media. One would think they’d have the decency to blush after being not once, but TWICE taken for a ride by false news about the president of Venezuela. But today, not one of them issued even the tiniest of mea culpas. They just finally, reluctantly, grudgingly printed the truth that I got to a full day ahead of them. Namely, that Chavecito is nowhere near dead, that he’s off respirator and looking plump and hearty, and that it’s indisputably him smiling in the pics with his daughters, reading Thursday’s edition of Granma. I suppose I should be used to this sort of thing by now, but it still never fails to amaze me how badly they fail to inform the public of what the fuck is really going on. I simply have no choice but to conclude that they are colluding against democracy, and trying to create the appropriate psychological climate for another putsch. Just like so many honest analysts, in Venezuela and elsewhere, keep saying.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | 6 Comments

Festive Left Friday Blogging Too: Chavecito in hospital…for reals!

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Sabina Becker

chavecito-daughters

Well, well, what have we here? Looks like the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez…and his daughters, María Gabriela and Rosa Virginia. Reading a Cuban newspaper. And resting comfortably, but not hooked up to life support or anything like that. He’s sure looking well, too. Remember how I promised to rub the crapagandarati’s noses in it a few days ago? Well, folkies, this is it. This photo was taken yesterday, in Havana. And, as you can see, Chavecito isn’t on his deathbed. They wouldn’t allow him to be photographed if THAT were the case. He wouldn’t look this good.

Long story short, the lying liars have lied to you again. Shame on you if you believed them; good on you if you remained a skeptic. If you want the real news on Latin America, don’t look to your corporate outlets. Remember, they have corporate interests to pander to, and they don’t give a damn about the truth…or YOUR right to be properly informed.

Oh yeah, and one more thing: ¡VIVA CHAVECITO, CARAJO!

PS: More at Aporrea.

The Venezuelan minister of communications and information, Ernesto Villegas, showed the first pictures of president Hugo Chávez in his recovery process after the operation he received in Havana, Cuba, last December 11, to remove cancerous cells detected in his pelvic region.

The pictures show the president accompanied by two of his daughters.

The president’s fight against cancer started in June 2011, when he had two urgent operations after a pelvic abscess was discovered, and subsequently, a cancerous lesion.

On June 30, Chávez addressed the nation to inform them, from Havana and in mid-recovery, of “the existence of an abscessed tumor (in the pelvic region), with cancer cells present.”

On October 20, after returning from one of his trips to Cuba, the president announced that he had undergone new medical tests and that they did not detect “active malignant cells” in his body.

In February 2012, Chávez revealed the return of a lesion in the same area where the June tumor had been found, and immediately underwent a third operation. Weeks later, on March 4, he informed that there had been “a recurrence of cancer”.

Between March and May of last year, Chávez made weekly trips to Havana, to receive five courses of radiotherapy. He later stated that his condition had stabilized.

Months later, after winning the election on October 7, Chávez went back to Cuba in November and upon his return, on December 8, announed the appearance of “malignant cells” in the same region of the earlier lesion, which forced him to be treated for the fourth time in less than two years.

The operation took place on December 11, and during the days following, the president recovered well, presenting a “progressive and favorable recuperation of normal vital signs.”

Vice-president Nicolás Maduro announced on Wednesday that the president continues to fight for his recovery, and that he is receiving a new phase of medical treatment in Havana.

“We passed some very complex days in December. In January, the post-operative cycle ended. Today, he [Chávez] is receiving complementary treatments, as we have said, treatments which are extremely complex and difficult,” Maduro said.

Maduro added that the president is “moving forward, improving, as he would say, ‘in a spirit of battle'”.

During his most recent visit to Havana, Maduro met with Chávez’s family and medical team, relaying a message of solidarity in name of the Venezuelan people, to keep the president company “24 hours a day”.

Translation mine. Here’s some video, for those into that sort of thing:

It’s Ernesto Villegas, the information minister (and a former VTV journalist himself), convening a nationwide simultaneous broadcast to announce the news. So you KNOW it’s a biggie. BTW, he addresses the “lost voice” the way I predicted earlier, as a temporary side effect of having been intubated for breathing problems while fighting off a lung infection.

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Posted in Crapagandarati, Cuba, Libre (de los Yanquis), Festive Left Friday Blogging, Heroes for Today, She Blinded Me With Science | 2 Comments

Festive Left Friday Blogging: Campaign’s over in Ecuador…

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Sabina Becker

…and the world’s most crushed-on head of state was looking mighty fine, even if his voice was a wee bit rough:

Oh, you want the story? All right, here it is…

The presidential candidate for the Alianza País party, Rafael Correa, said on Thursday that the great crowd gathered to witness the close of his campaign is “the response to all the media manipulation” that tried to minimize the impact of the Citizen Revolution.

During his final speech, Correa looked forward to the general elections next Sunday, saying that he had “never seen such enthusiasm, so much support and so much hope” regarding the electoral process.

“This is the best response to media manipulation. [They say] it’s been an apathetic campaign, that it’s been a campaign without interest, one that hasn’t presented any proposals. Apathetic for their candidates, without interest in their partidocracy, without proposals and without plans for their government,” Correa said.

Correa also expressed his confidence in the election results, and said that “We will win with no less than 65 percent of the votes.”

William Parra, the Telesur correspondent in Ecuador, reported that along the Avenida Michelena in Quito, there was a festive atmosphere, full of joy and a huge “green wave” of supporters.

The official news agency of Ecuador, ANDES, reported that at 3 p.m. on Thursday, despite the bright sun and the heat, there was already a great mass of supporters for Correa, who arrived at 7:45 p.m., following campaign stops in the coastal province of Los Ríos.

Correa stated that in Sunday’s elections, they would bury the “partidocracy” of the opposition, and said that “it is forbidden to forget their black-armband marches, those responsible for the bank closures, now [we’ll have] no more of those irresponsible populists, rock-throwers, demagogues, and those who buy votes.”

He also said that “the vote is not for a man, but for a political project called the Citizen Revolution, which is already legendary”, and saluted acting president Lenin Moreno, who had accompanied him that night to the campaign-closing ceremony.

“I ask the people not to look back, and on Sunday, vote for List 35,” said the candidate.

Telesur’s special correspondent in Quito, Paula Mónaco Felipe, reported that five of the eight candidates are closing their campaigns in Guayaquil, where 34 percent of eligible voters live. She added that the electoral process has been accompanied by more than 300 correspondents from various countries, all of whom have presented it in a good light.

Translation mine.

Guayaquil, for those wondering, is considered an opposition stronghold; it’s the only major city in Ecuador where right-wing parties still have any credibility. But even so, it represents only a third of eligible voters, and not all of them will be voting for the opposition. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Correa not only meets his prediction of 65% of the vote, but surpasses it.

Gonna be watching this vote closely on Sunday, kiddies. May even live-tweet it, if I can. Meanwhile, watch this space for the result.

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Posted in Ecuadorable As Can Be, Festive Left Friday Blogging | 2 Comments

The elephant in the burned cabin

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Today, a friend posted this article from Jacobin on his Facebook wall. It’s an analysis of the Christopher Dorner case that the media have been screaming about all week. I wanted to like it; it was well and gracefully written, and makes a number of good points. The essayist in me admired it. But there was something missing in it, or rather, something present in it that was going unaddressed, like the elephant in the proverbial living room.

No one seems to have seriously considered giving in to Dorner’s one demand: that the record be set straight by releasing all of the documents related to his disciplinary hearings, and clearing his name from the prior disciplinary actions against him. He pledged to end his warfare if the LAPD would do so. Considering his apparent death last night, one wonders if that life could have been saved at the price of the department’s momentary embarrassment. “A man is nothing without his name,” repeats Dorner.

Dorner’s reaction is partly rooted in a corrosive version of American masculinity — his response to institutional corruption is uniquely Jack Bauer and John Wayne. Gratuitous violence included. Dorner is a wholesale product of a society gone mad on racism and war, of a state that aggressively punishes dissent, of an intellectual milieu where telling the truth has become a dangerous act. There was no internal institutional outlet for him to address injustices against him: the blue line prevented that.

So I set off to ponder it — or rather, I futzed around and stewed. And while I was futzing around, I found this other article on Counterpunch that came a little closer to the elephant. But it, too, disappointed me. And I couldn’t figure out why.

In the years between the murder of Oscar Grant and Dorner’s last stand, March of 2009 to be specific, we were among those observing the case of Lovelle Mixon in Oakland, a parolee who decided he was not going to return to prison, opening fire on police at a traffic stop, killing two. Police went in to execute Mixon, not expecting that he would be holding an SKS. Two more cops died as a result. The logic of Dorner’s desperation, and the chain of events that led to his ultimate death, parallels Mixon’s; proud men without hope, cornered, deciding to go out fighting.

Neither man was a self-understood revolutionary and it would be inaccurate (or perhaps too accurate a reflection of the dearth of revolutionary activity in contemporary society) to try and declare otherwise. However, the material conditions that produced Dorner, as with Mixon, are not uncommon. The meaning and the effects of their actions speak volumes about the depth of racialization, criminalization and hopelessness in Obama’s supposed “post-racial” America.

It isn’t unique to the United States; Canada and the UK have had their share of such killers too, albeit fewer in proportion to the general population. It isn’t limited to whites; the Virginia Tech murders proved that much. Asian men are less likely to do it, but they are every bit as capable of “snapping” when societal prejudices and their own personal problems overwhelm them. The same is true of black men, like Christopher Dorner. The color lines are there, and they matter. They are not an insignificant factor in the social injustices that drive some men to become spree shooters, before committing suicide (or suicide by cop, as the case may be.) But the racial prejudice against non-whites was not the only factor.

And yeah, the cop shop is a brutally authoritarian place. Same old story just about everywhere. The nail that sticks up will get hammered down by a fist of blue. That, too, is significant, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Conformity, especially in uniform, is a major problem of the so-called police state. But that, too, is not the thing that stood out for me.

Finally, it hit me: This rampage-killing thing is a man’s game. That’s the elephant. How many female spree killers have you heard of? Offhand, I only know of one, and her own father (who sexually abused her) gave her the gun that she used to take pot-shots at the school across the street. So the exception still proves the rule: Brenda Ann Spencer, though female (and gay), was very much the product of a male-dominated culture. Her father had no son, and undoubtedly saw his daughter as a weak vessel, a sex object by dint of merely owning a vagina, and so fair game for abuse. But at the same time, in his sick way, he tried to turn her into the son he did not have, so as to fulfill his masculine duty. And his way of doing so was to give her the phallic weapon, the ersatz penis, that the far right always simplistically holds up as the “great equalizer” of the sexes, not to mention of races, and of social classes: He gave her a gun.

And if you think I’m out of line bringing gender into the narrative, I’ll just leave this here:

bushmaster-man-card

I don’t think the gender connection could be any more explicit than that.

Now, back to the passages I excerpted from the two articles. I chose them so you could see the elephant, and how it was simultaneously hinted at and erased from the picture. The use of the words man, men, and masculinity should be the tip-off. Gun violence is a man’s game. To go out with a bang — or in the case of Christopher Dorner, a conflagration started by projectiles fired from a special gun — is a masculist death if ever there was one. Few women dream of going out in a blaze of “glory”, much less set out to actually accomplish it. (And those few who do, often end badly; think of Nancy Lanza, shot to death with her own gun, by her own son. Whom she had taught to shoot, perhaps in an effort to instill some semblance of socially acceptable masculinity into the slender, autistic young man.)

Little wonder, then, that the totality of the anti-authoritarian “Go Dorner” memes clogging my own Facebook feed were from male friends. And not just from any male friends, but specifically from those with left-libertarian/anarchist tendencies. My liberal, socialist and communist friends, male and female alike, refrained from posting such memes. None of them saw the sense in glorifying a troubled man, much less one who, to paraphrase Audre Lorde, reached for the master’s tools to destroy the master’s house and ironically ended up being burned to death in it himself. Interestingly, both of the articles I cited mentioned fire in the final line. The Jacobin article ends thus:

In Dorner’s case, the allegory of life to a furnace takes literal weight — he has died, consumed by fire. The police will celebrate, the chorus will quiet, the lives of his victims mourned. It is unlikely that the fire that burned away Dorner will burn away any illusion: this is unfortunate, and disturbing. His allegations will be dismissed as the rantings of a lunatic, things will return to normal. Until the fire, next time.

And the Counterpunch one, thus:

Dorner was not a radical, but his short war was not simply the story of broken man or of individualistic vengeance. The issues of brutality and racism perpetually covered up by a corrupt police department created the insurgent Dorner and resonated with many people who endure the reality of urban policing on a daily basis. The sympathy and the support Dorner received is a clear indicator of the very real and deep structural inequalities that helped forge the path of Dorner’s life and his fiery death. The great radical historian Mike Davis concluded a recent article on Dorner with a peculiar question: “Does anyone cheer Dorner?” What is peculiar is that, for better or worse, there’s no denying that the answer is “yes.”

There’s no telling what sort of a fire they could start tomorrow.

Interesting use of imagery, no? And that brings me to another aspect of the elephant.

There is a very specific kind of man who just wants to see the state burn. He isn’t confined to the right, although he’s easier to spot over there. He tends to look like a nutcase, talk like a nutcase, and act like one over there. He styles himself as a survivalist, a doomsday cultist, a “prepper”. To him, Waco and Ruby Ridge represent the ultimate evil of the democratic state. And if he’s a US-American, he talks a great deal about the Second Amendment and how it is the “solution” to that “socialist” black man in charge. Never mind that Barack Obama is obviously no socialist; whatever he actually stands for or does not, he represents all that is alien and threatening to the right-wing white man who thinks the world is his by right. The misapplied term is shorthand for anything and everything the right wing opposes. It is as laughably divorced from meaning as the right-winger is from reality.

But in the anarchist quadrant of the leftist spectrum, the “smash the state” guy looks a bit different. He’s generally more thoughtful than his right-wing nutjob cousin, and thus less apt to tote a gun, but he still has a taste for the Molotov cocktail. He’s cerebral, rather than overtly phallic-obsessive. And he can be just as much of a male chauvinist, too, in his own right. He’s a great one for theory, this guy. He reads voraciously; it’s not ironic, in his eyes, to decry the recent firebombing of an anarchist bookstore in London. If he’s conspiracy-minded (and a great many left-anarchists are), he may even see in that the effort of the all-powerful and all-evil state to smash the “little man”. (I use the term advisedly, as you may have guessed.) To him, the burning of Freedom Books has its obvious parallel to the incineration of Chris Dorner. Never mind the irony that the police and fire department were the ones to help salvage the burned bookstore.

But the state is not the real problem. It is not some ahuman, alien entity that will invariably crush the Little Man’s balls, regardless of how much the left-anarchist bomb-thrower may sing from the same facile hymnal as the right-libertarian gun nut on the issue.

All the state is, in the final analysis, is the sum of the people who comprise it. It is up to the people to decide how it operates, and what they will and will not allow it to do on their behalf. And while corruption goes with power-over, mere overthrow of those in charge will not result in freedom overnight. Did the recent uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa not prove as much? The same Egyptians who demonstrated agaist Mubarak are now mobilizing once more against Morsi. They do not want NO government; they want a democratic government that upholds human rights, equality and dignity for all.

If the arc of history is long, and bends toward justice, it stands to reason that a quick, violent revolution, resulting in a leaderless and stateless world, is not the answer to the current global malaise. The just society, in the end, looks much like the democratic socialist vision, in which women are equal to men, and color and nationality are not the caste-marks of an unwritten hierarchy either. The state’s job is to protect the just society. As long as that much is clear, and remembered, the rest will flow from it.

Here in Canada, we have our Charter of Rights and Freedoms; an organ of the state, yes, and one that enables women to agitate successfully for reproductive rights and pay equity, First Nations for the protection of their lands, gays for the right to marry and adopt children, and minorities to take racists before human-rights tribunals. All progressive movements here are grounded in it in one way or another, even if they don’t know it. While it takes a regular beating at the hands of election-stealing wingnuts, it’s still there, and it forms the basis of our laws, even though the right-wing gun nuts and “libertarians” here may gnash their teeth over how it keeps them from ruling the country in their own phallocentric, white, Christian male image. Their “freedom” is the privilege to oppress anyone they regard as inferior; our freedom (note the absence of quotes) is the constitutional right to throw off their hegemony.

And while racism and police brutality are the privileges of a few, gender oppression is the reality of half the human race. To erase it from analysis, to dismiss it as unimportant, to sneer at feminist analysis, is to alienate half of the potential revolutionary force that will remake society peacefully and progressively. That is the elephant in the burning cabin. One can be blind to all but the ear, or the trunk, or the tail that is in one’s immediate grasp, but if we are to confront the elephant properly, we have to take it all of a piece or not at all.

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Posted in Angry Pacifist Speaks Her Mind, Canadian Counterpunch, Cops Behaving Badly, Environmentally Ill, Fascism Without Swastikas, Guns, Guns, Guns, If You REALLY Care, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Racist?, Law-Law Land, Men Who Just Don't Get It, Merry Old England, Socialism is Good for Capitalism!, The United States of Amnesia, Uppity Wimmin | 5 Comments

How Mario Vargas Llosa fictionalized a massacre

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Sabina Becker

uchuraccay-massacre

Bodies of the victims of the massacre of Uchuraccay, Peru. Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel prizewinner, failed presidential candidate, and all-around pompous twit, didn’t kill them, but he has a lot to answer for. After all, it is he who helped to sweep the truth about their deaths under a very large rug:

On January 26, 1983, eight journalists and an Andean guide were brutally massacred. This crime was perpetrated in the community of Uchuraccay (Ayacucho), by campesinos directed by the Peruvian Navy. With this crime, the government and the Armed Forces gave evidence of the use of peasant bands in the couterinsurgency war against the Maoist guerrillas of the Shining Path. With this crime, the government inaugurated the “strategic villages” against subversion. It all took place during the reign of Fernando Belaúnde Terry (1980-85) of the right-wing Popular Action party (AP), which collaborated during the 1990s with the government of Alberto Fujimori.

The journalists had arrived in the area to investigate the killings of several presumed members of the Communist Party of Peru, among them some minors, by members of the neighboring community of Huaychao. The armed forces had begun to use the tactic of organizing peasant communities against the guerrillas, much like the United States in Vietnam, and later in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Colombia.

The journalists were bludgeoned to death with sticks, stones and hatchets. After the massacre, an investigative commission was created, with (now) Nobel prize-winning writer Mario Vargas Llosa presiding. The investigative commission determined that the locals of Uchuraccay had believed the journalists to be members of the Shining Path, confusing their cameras with rifles. The commission concluded that the massacre was a product of the existence of “cultural differences between the Quechua-speaking peasants and the urban journalists”, and that “the Armed Forces had no responsibility in the incident”.

“We are all culpable,” said Vargas Llosa in his final conclusion.

These conclusions contradict all the evidence. During that time, the Armed Forces held military control of the region. Uchuraccay was controlled by the Navy. The militaries attempted to organize peasant communities against the Shining Path, and were in direct contact with the peasants, controlling them and organizing them for anti-guerrilla warfare. The official version said that the peasants of Uchuraccay had confused the journalists’ photographic cameras with weapons. But it was known that many local peasants had done obligatory military service, and could not have confused a rifle with a camera.

In this way, Vargas Llosa’s commission absolved the politicians of the systematic violation of human rights as a pillar of the Peruvian state’s counterinsurgency strategy, and exculpated military murderers, covered up a massacre, and, in this way, many others, and legitimized the militarization of the Peruvian countryside.

In exculpating the military, Vargas Llosa became an accomplice in the massacre of Uchuraccay.

To cover up the crime, the Peruvian author tried to give the massacre a literary tone. In an interview later on, Vargas Llosa claimed that the massacre had been a product of the existence of “two Perus”, one composed of those who lived in the twentieth century, and another, such as the people of Uchuraccay, who lived in the nineteenth or even the eighteenth century.

The facts later confirmed suspicions as to the responsibility of the Armed Forces. 135 of the villagers of Uchuraccay died in the years after that, most of them “disappeared” by soldiers who intended to dispose of all vestiges of responsibility in the massacre of the journalists. The families of the victims had repeatedly complained that they had been threatened and pressured not to make any denunciations toward clearing up the massacre.

In spite of this, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, created to investigate crimes committed during the civil war between 1980 and 2000, upheld the thesis of the Vargas Llosa commission, and exculpated the Armed Forces. It is one of the clearest cases of how the Truth Commission has served to write an Official History of the civil war, absolving the military, police or paramilitaries, or to minimize their responsibility in the murders, massacres, disappearances and tortures of Peruvian citizens.

Later investigations shed new lights and demonstrated the co-responsibility of the Armed Forces in the massacre. Fernando Fuchs Valdez investigated the case and revealed details of the military’s part. According to his investigations, the military not only encouraged the massacre, but also set the trap for the journalists and their guide. The region was full of intelligence agents who informed the peasants of Uchuraccay of the arrival of the journalists and gave them the orders to kill them. Those responsible for the massacre were President Fernando Belaúnde as commander in chief of the Armed Forces; General Clemente Noel, chief of the Military Command of Huamanga, capital of Ayacucho; naval officer Duffo, military commander of the province of Huanta, and his lieutenant, Artaza Adrianzén. The Vargas Llosa commission and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission are responsible for covering up the massacre.

In 2010, the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, with head office in San José, Costa Rica, declared admissible the suit filed by the families of the massacre victims. This so that the Peruvian government would finally act to correct the irregularities in the judicial investigations into the massacre at Uchuraccay.

It has now been 30 years of lies and systematic terrorization of the victims’ families in an effort to conceal those truly responsible, and selective assassination of witnesses. This infamous history began with the report of the Vargas Llosa commission, which distorts and conceals information, silences the families, exonerates the military, and absolves the Belaúnde government of all blame. On January 26, the anniversary of the massacre of Uchuraccay, there remain bloodstains on the biography of Mario Vargas Llosa, whose pen and fame have served to cover up for the military assassins.

Translation mine.

You may recall that Vargas Llosa, on numerous occasions, saw fit to bow and scrape to other fascist criminals than Fernando Belaúnde Terry. He’s also attempted to interfere in Venezuelan politics, repeatedly and hypocritically denouncing the supposed offences of Hugo Chávez against democracy. And for whom did he do this? A bunch of putrid old putschists with direct ties to the various governments of the Fourth Republic and their massacres, which look a lot like what happened in Peru at Uchuraccay.

Back in the 1960s, the Venezuelan government, nominally democratic but in fact a puppet régime controlled by the CIA and the foreign oil barons, was under siege by various bands of leftist hill-guerrillas. The guerrillas knew the real nature of the government, and they had considerable popular support. They were angry that the same two parties alongside whom they had fought for democracy had effectively marginalized and excluded them once the last official Venezuelan dictator, Marcos Pérez Jiménez, was out of the way. They were determined to do away with the false democracy of the pact of Punto Fijo and the Fourth Republic, and usher in a Fifth Republic, in which true democracy would hold sway, and the oil barons and the CIA would be sent packing.

The government of Hugo Chávez is the first of that Fifth Republic. In fact, it was born under the name of the “Fifth Republic Movement” (MVR, to use its Spanish acronym), a small progressive party that merged with several others to form the PSUV, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. It has been praised by no less than Jimmy Carter as a strong democracy with the cleanest and most transparent elections in the world.

But Chávez was not a guerrilla. In fact, he got HIS military start in the 1970s as commanding officer of an army outpost near the Colombian border, a region supposedly riddled with guerrillas who had spilled in from the civil war in the neighboring country. But the guerrilla insurgency he had been sent to combat, he soon learned, was nonexistent. In fact, the leftist guerrilla movements of the previous decade had been largely suppressed and disbanded years before. The victims of the military raids in the border region turned out to be nothing but Venezuelan peasants. The Venezuelan military was killing its own.

The realization that he was serving a corrupt, murderous government made an indelible impression on the young Chávez. But he was in no position to do anything about it yet. Instead of immediately launching an uprising, he started a Bolivarian movement with his fellow officers, adding like-minded soldiers as they came. In this way, he managed to gradually build up support for a rebellion even as he and his colleagues rose through the army ranks. By the time of the Caracazo, in late February and early March of 1989, the Bolivarian movement in the military had branched out to include civilians and ex-guerrillas as well, but still not enough of either.

The Caracazo took them all by surprise. It would have been a golden opportunity for Chávez and his confederates to step in and take a lead, but the spontaneous protests were too sudden and chaotic for that. Worse, the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez ordered the military to join the police in repressing the demonstrations. More than a thousand Venezuelans lost their lives and were hastily buried in mass graves. (The effort to identify these victims and tally the full death count is still ongoing.)

But the Caracazo served as a catalyst. The Bolivarian movement grew even more in its wake as disgruntled soldiers, hearing rumors of a group of officers plotting an overthrow, approached Chávez. Many of them were in tears over having had to fire on their own people, poor displaced ex-campesinos many of them, from the hillside barrios surrounding Caracas. By the time February 4, 1992 rolled around, there appeared to be enough support for Chávez to judge that it was time to make his move. The tanks began to roll in the wee hours of the morning; news footage from the time shows one of them driving up the steps of the government palace, Miraflores, banging its cannon on the doors like a battering-ram. The intention was clear: to get rid of CAP by any means necessary.

The rebellion failed to dislodge CAP; Chávez and company went to jail. The following year, CAP was impeached for embezzlement of government funds, and sent packing. By the time he got out of prison in 1994, Chávez had become a bona fide national hero. The Bolivarian movement had matured during his imprisonment.

The rest is democratic history. Venezuela is the great success story among South American nations seeking mass-movement democracy. In 1999, its very constitution was rewritten by popular mandate, and voted and ratified by the people. Moreover, the Chávez government has spearheaded the campaign to uncover the massacres of the Fourth Republic — not only the Caracazo, but Yumare and Cantaura, as well. You can’t get much more democratic than that.

Meanwhile, Peru is still struggling for its own democracy. The guerrilla wars from the 1960s to the present have borne no fruit there. A series of repressive, militarized governments have corrupted and co-opted the peasants so that they could never become part of a leftist movement. It appears that appeasing foreign corporations and their rapacious hunger for resources is more important to the Peruvian government than the well-being of its own people, regardless of who is elected president. Even Ollanta Humala, for a time the best hope of the left, has fallen victim to the syndrome.

And of course, there’s that failed former candidate, Mario Vargas Llosa…whose thwarted presidential bid irked him so much that he fucked off for Spain shortly after his defeat. Perhaps he considered his oh-so-poetic “we are all criminals” cover-up job a thankless task? If so, I’d say he got precisely the thanks he deserved. Peru’s democracy may be weak and shaky and all too prone to “market” forces, but the people were at least smart enough to vote against a slick weasel who, it turns out, elided a very dark and dirty chapter in their nation’s history. By the time the last chapter of Vargas Llosa’s life is written, he will go down not as an impeccable Nobel laureate so much as a clay-footed idol who crumbled hideously under pressure.

Now, the truth is finally coming out, but the popular rage has yet to come to a head. What future government will do for Peru what Chávez is doing for Venezuela?

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Posted in Barreling Right Along, Crapagandarati, Economics for Dummies, Fascism Without Swastikas, Huguito Chavecito, Inca Dink-a-Doo, Isn't That Illegal?, Karma 1, Dogma 0, Spooks, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Spanish paper speculates, anglo whore media runs with it.

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Sabina Becker

abc-chavez

“Doctors have already told the Chávez family that he will not recover. Venezuelan government to announce in the next few days the incapacity of the president, who has lost his voice.”

O RLY? Film at 11…

The Spanish newspaper ABC claims to be certain of the deteriorating health of Bolivarian leader Hugo Chávez, and affirms that he is no longer in any fit condition to govern. The latest article, called an “exclusive” by the paper, attempts to reawaken controversy over the future of Chávez.

According to ABC, the Venezuelan leader has lost his voice, and will not recover; the Government of Venezuela could make the announcement of the president’s incapacity in the coming days.

This information comes just as the president marks three months since his departure for Cuba, where he is receiving treatment for cancer.

Chávez’s health has spawned other so-called “exclusives”, even though the information published has all turned out to be false.

Near the end of January, another Spanish daily, El País, published a photo, claiming it was a picture of Chávez intubated on a hospital bed.

However, it was actually a capture from a video on medical practices published on YouTube in 2008, showing a patient physically resembling the Venezuelan head of state.

Venezuelan authorities termed that action a “transnational media power offensive against the Bolivarian Revolution and Comandante Chávez, a campaign using the press as spearhead.”

According to numerous experts, this type of media attack against the Venezuelan president will not cease until Hugo Chávez reappears in public.

In the opinion of political analyst Basem Tajeldine, the major international media are “experts in manipulation, entrapment, and lies.” Tajeldine adds that “we have already seen in the past how they have taken a line of action in demonizing the Bolivarian Revolution.”

Translation mine.

Meanwhile, what arrives in my inbox today but this, this and this…all, basically, just anglo media douchebags, pimping the hell out of the bogus “exclusive”. Haven’t they learned anything from the disgrace of El País?

Nope…apparently not.

So why are they making asses of themselves yet again? Well, it’s all in an effort to sow confusion and doubt, and maybe build support for a US-led “democracy promotion” effort that could only result in another fascist coup, like the one in Honduras in ’09. (Or the failed one in Venezuela, in ’02. The one that turned around in less than 48 hours. How soon they forget!)

But really, what they’re doing is just a vast waste of money, time and effort. If they were smart, they’d cut it the fuck out and just stick to plain old reporting. But that would mean reporting that Venezuela is now long accustomed to REAL democracy and independence, rather than banana republicanism and oil-state client status. The people have spoken; Chávez or no Chávez, the revolution is going to go on, and the Bolivarian constitution is not about to be circumvented by any opposition calls for new elections. Even if he doesn’t make it back, his vice-president is still legally authorized to govern in his place…and if he becomes unable to carry out his duties, the president of the National Assembly will take over, per the constitution. Like it or not, Venezuela will never again be ruled by a US-friendly puppet dictator (masquerading as a “democrat”!) from the oligarchy.

And the Venezuelan people will not be swayed by Operation Mockingbird, either; they are so onto the CIA and its media gambits that it’s downright hilarious to see shit like this still going on at this late stage of the game (and in the age of Wikileaks, too!)

I would also like to point out here that Chávez has just recovered from a respiratory infection, and that his much-trumpeted loss of voice is actually just a temporary result of having been intubated for a longer period of time. When he had the infection, the crapagandists were already writing his obituary, prematurely. If he were really going to die, I expect that a respiratory infection would have been enough to do it. Pneumonia, when fatal, is a rapid killer; it takes most of its victims within hours or days, not weeks…or two fucking months. That’s the amount of time it takes to clear in someone whose immune system is compromised, eg. a cancer patient. (Like, oh, say, Chavecito.)

I have to say this: As much as I despise all these corporate presstitutes and their crapaganda, I hope none of them ever have to go through a long, difficult and involved cancer treatment themselves. But I’m sorely tempted to wish it on them…because if they did, they might finally gain some scientific insight into the condition, and maybe (mirabile dictu!) some empathy for a man about whom they obviously know nothing, but just love to hate. (Yeah, I know…I’m dreaming. They’ll probably just die unregenerate. And stupid.)

Meanwhile, Chavecito’s recovery continues. Call me a crazy Canuck, call me a Chavista, hell — you could even call me Shirley, but I’m gonna take the word of his government deputies over some crappy Spanish gossip rag that probably never got any of its hacks within a mile of the Cuban coastline. He’s gonna make it.*

And oh boy, am I ever gonna rub these Koch-suckers’ noses in it when the ‘Cito returns to his presidential desk in Caracas safe and sound, and vocal as ever.

*And if you doubt me, read this. (You’re welcome!)

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Posted in Barreling Right Along, Crapagandarati, Cuba, Libre (de los Yanquis), El Predicto Speaks..., Fascism Without Swastikas, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic?, Not Hiding in Honduras, Schadenfreude, She Blinded Me With Science, The United States of Amnesia, Under the Name of Spain | 3 Comments

Music for a Sunday: Gong hey fat choy

Posted on February 10, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Happy Year of the Snake.

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Posted in All the Tea in China, Music for a Sunday | Comments Off

Wankers of the Week: The Big Dig

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! (And Happy Birthday, P!) So, how’s everyone doing? Did you survive Snowmageddon? Did you find Nemo? Actually, Nemo found me, and dumped a crapload of snow all over everything. Don’t worry, I’m all dug out now; all that shovelling I did in the garden paid off in spades (ha, ha. I slay me.) And now that I’m done shovelling the snow, I’m gonna start in on the shit. And here it comes, in no particular order:

1. Rick Fucking Santorum. Wow, ever since WingNut Daily hired him, Icky Ricky’s been just rubbing ’em out nonstop. And in the case of gay boy scouts, it looks like the phrase “rub one out” may take on a very sinister meaning indeed. Meanwhile, for those of us out here in the reality-based world, it’s a given that there are already gay boy scouts, and some of them have made Eagle Scout as well. And has the organization fallen apart? Only in Buttsploodge’s overly fertile (and MORBID) imagination.

2. David Fucking Keene. Only a complete wackaloon would insist that the AR-15 is anything like a musket. And yet, that’s what this self-styled firearms expert at the Fucking NRA has done. Yeah, the AR-15 only fires one hand-poured lead ball at a time, and you need black powder and wadding to work it. Bang…(long pause)…bang…(long pause)…bang. Just like that.

3. Jonathan Fucking Kay. Just because there are no laws against abortion in Canada, doesn’t mean that wanton jezebels are aborting on a whim right up till the day before they’re due. Nine out of ten women who abort do so before they’re twelve weeks gone, and the rest before 24 weeks, mainly for health reasons. After that, no doctor will remove a fetus from a womb unless it’s a life or death emergency, and no woman would ask for that, unless…well, you get the picture. But try telling that to Jon-Boy, who’s as scientifically illiterate as he is legally stupid. Carolyn Bennett tried, and do you know what he did? He wanked all over her nice, clean, medically experienced counter-argument. Which is just the kind of fanatically idiotic thing I’ve come to expect of him, anyway.

4. Todd Fucking Kincannon. Why?

That’s why. PS: Ha, ha, PEEN. I’m sorry, Todd, what was it you were saying again? PPS: Dude, that wasn’t satire. The dead kid was not there to defend himself against your unfunny racist homophobic drivel. Now shut the fuck UP!

5. Jeff Fucking Allen. Speaking of peen, remember Jeffy the pickup “artist” from last week? Well, he likes waving his (very uninteresting) one in the faces of unfortunate dates. Who, it transpires, have a way of walking out on him shortly thereafter, if they haven’t twigged to his widdle “game” long before that. Oh, and he’s a racist, too. Yeah, I bet you’re just as shocked as I am.

6. Jim Fucking Tracy. So it’s not enough that women seeking abortions have to be raped with ultrasound wands — this dickhead also wants them to be forced to either look at the screen or be forced to hear a live narration of what the technician sees? I have a better idea. How about, every time a male (for it’s invariably a male) lawmaker proposes something as humiliating and shitty as this, he should be subjected immediately to a long and very invasive manual prostate exam, by a female urologist, with the results described live before the entire legislature?

7. Norm Fucking Hughes. Charter schools are already a bad (and money-wasting) proposition for anyone with kids to educate. But what the hell is this “ethnically-challenged” shit? Why not just come out and say those kids ain’t white? Oh yeah…I forgot. Norm’s a teabagger, and don’t you dare call THEM racist!

8. Richard Fucking Hodo. Gay, KKK — well, at least it rhymes. But that’s about all they have in common. Find a better analogy to describe your bigotry…or better still, lose it. It’s about to cost you a boatload of business.

9. Aaron Fucking Chase. Why so fucking serious? Oh, I see…your desire to see the world burn got thwarted. Poor baby!

10. Michael Fucking Brown. Yay, finally Drownie Brownie paid some attention to shit going on in the New Orleans Superdome. Heckuva job!

11. Aaron Fucking Klein. Last week he got listed for refusing to sell a same-sex couple a wedding cake. This week, we learn that his bigotry doesn’t stop there. He’s a racist and a misogynist, too! Well, how nice to know he’s an equal-opportunity HATER, at least. Good luck getting any more customers with THAT, eh?

12. Sheikh Abdullah Fucking Daoud. Burqas for babies? BABIES? Look, I know that some guys have really dirty minds, but actually, shouldn’t the onus be on THEM to JUST NOT LOOK? Otherwise, you’ll get baby girls literally smothered to death in their own “virtue”…a situation as tragic and ridiculous as being locked and left to die inside a burning school because girls aren’t allowed to run out without veils and abayas.

13. John Fucking McCain. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is no choice of mine. That said, I don’t think anyone is justified in calling him a “monkey”, either. But I do think that anyone who calls John McCain a dick is very justified indeed.

14. Wayne La Fucking Pierre. When even a FUX Snoozer is telling you you’re full of shit, you know it’s time to take the Ex-Lax and go home.

15. Paul Fucking Singer. Uh oh, somebody doesn’t understand the meaning of sovereign debt default. Look, dude…Argentina made it quite clear 12 years ago that they couldn’t pay you a pound of flesh. Cut your motherfucking losses, don’t be a dick, give back their boat, and move ON. You already got all you were entitled to; be glad it’s anything at all.

16 and 17. Matthew Fucking Harrison and Rob Fucking Morris. Dudes, look up the meaning of interfaith. I think it means “never having to say you’re sorry for praying alongside people of other religions”.

18. Ronnie Fucking Campbell. Dude, look up the meaning of fetish. It’s not exactly hard to find in the dictionary.

19. Patrick Fucking Brazeau. Something tells me this Harpo token Injun won’t be remaining a senator for very long, under any partisan banner. Could it be the spousal assault? The tax cheating? The paranoia? The insults aimed at a reporter just doing his job? The general assholishness? Oh gee, it’s hard to nail down just one reason. And it’s very hard not to feel the Schadenfreude. After all, this is the wanker who held himself up as some kind of role model for Native kids.

20. Mike Fucking Duffy. Puffy, Puffy, Puffy…tsk, tsk, tsk. An honest man has nothing to hide. And no reason to duck out the back door of a restaurant kitchen like a bloated rat, either.

21 and 22. Joe Fucking Arpaio and Steven Fucking Seagal. Yes, the unholiest bromance in the west is still raging. And the luvvers are holding each other’s dongs while pissing all over the graves of the children of Newtown, too.

23. Shadrack Fucking McGill. And while we’re on the subject of unholy, any lawmaker who bases his bills on the bible deserves to be smacked the fuck upside the head with it.

24. Vincenzo Fucking Paglia. And further to the theme of unholiness, the Vatican has apparently decided to cast same-sex marriage as “sick”. This has to be taken with a truckload of road salt, seeing as it comes from closeted old pedophiles who wear long dresses to work.

25. Dov Fucking Hikind. You know you’ve taken your Zionism too far when even Mike Bloomberg is comparing you to Kim Jong-un. And in any case, it’s not a mayor’s job to censure, or CENSOR, a university’s political-science department just because it’s hosting a panel you don’t like.

26. Robert Fucking Spencer. Is anyone else struck, as I am, by the irony of a Roman Catholic theocrat (and leading inspiration of Christian terrorists) hollering about Sharia? PS: Sign the petition.

27. Pamela Fucking Geller. Given her general incoherence and obtusity, I’m beginning to wonder if she is not in fact illiterate. Or if her not-so-unique brand of hysterical paranoid fascism isn’t eating holes in what’s left of her brain.

28. Hisham Fucking Qandil. “Unclean” breasts don’t cause diarrhea, bacteria and viruses do. And you’re likely to have both, no matter how often you wash, if water sanitation is crappy and poverty rates are high.

29. Suzanne Fucking Venker. How sweetly fitting that the picture used to illustrate her latest pile of heterosexist puke…is of a lesbian couple, kissing at their legal same-sex wedding. I just hope the women in the picture aren’t insulted that their happy moment was used to illustrate a bunch of utter drivel about the nonexistent “need” for sexual fascism that would, of course, banish couples like them from the world altogether.

30. Robert Fucking Zimmerman. Only in the fever swamp of a racist’s mind would a black president’s sympathetic comment on a murdered black boy be construable as “bullying”…and so it is with the racist brother of the racist who killed Trayvon Martin and called him a “fucking coon”. But I guess it really must feel like the whole world is out to get you when you know you’re in the wrong, but are still banking on an inherently racist “justice” system to give you “due process” that results the same way it did with every lyncher…namely, in getting even the most blatantly guilty off the hook.

31. Ann Fucking Coulter. Let her eat cake! It would be a welcome break from the blood of virgins, I’m sure. No, wait…that’s not Marie Antoinette, that’s Elizabeth Báthory.

32. Rand Fucking Paul. Look out below! Aqua Buddha has gone rogue, and he’s about to start dropping rotting teabags all over everything!

33. Sarah Fucking Palin. Speaking of rotting teabags, ha, ha. And buh-bye!

34. Glenn Fucking Beck. In explaining how crazy conspiracy kooks work, he inadvertently gave his own game away to the three people who still listen to his shit. Oops!

35. Joe Fucking Walsh. Hey asshole, if you’re gonna rip Michelle Obama on her “selective” attendance of gunshot victims’ funerals, how’s about you start attending them yourself? Then you can start explaining to all those mourners how your gun-crazy NRA shill’s vision of “Walsh freedom” didn’t kill those victims, but…oops, it totally did. Yeah, I can see why you’re in no hurry to stop preaching and start putting your money where your foot is.

36. Shirley Phelps-Roper. Lest you remain in any doubt about the family values of the Westboro Bastards, let me dispel it forthwith. Looks like sanctimony has won out over motherhood. Just as I thought it would.

37. Bill Fucking Stevens. I guess it’s easy to be pro-gun after Sandy Hook if your daughter’s not actually a student at that school. It’s kind of hard to “defend” a kid at school with a gun if you have to WORK, too. Of course, you know what that makes you now, right? PS: And all you rightards who crowed about this, please enjoy your complimentary serving of crow.

38. John Fucking Goedde. How ironic is it that he’s using the coercion of the state to get kids to read a trashy, long-winded crapaganda novel whose express purpose is the downfall of “statism”? Yeah, using the public school system to turn impressionable children into Randroid wingnuts is not a bit ironic. Not. A. BIT.

39. Glenn Fucking Stanton. Marriage equality has nothing to do with Satan. But telling people that it does, is lying. And Jesus HATES that.

40. Ron Fucking Paul. Guffaw. Looks like the anti-government kook (who draws his paycheque from government) now thinks that the UN is some kind of Internet registry service, with the power to “confiscate”. Please, nobody tell him that it doesn’t work that way. It’s too much fun to watch him making an ass of himself this way.

And finally, to Stephen Fucking Harper. First he appoints Patrick Fucking Brazeau to the Senate. And then, when the shitpile around the latter gets too deep, he just disowns the motherfucker and starts retreating to what he thinks will resonate with the voters. Who the fuck does he think he’s fooling? We all know he stole the last election, what with robocalls and Pierre Poutine and all. And we know that his own political henchmen are behind it all, too. And we even know that none of them dare to so much as fart without his permission. It’s only a matter of time before his large and lumpish head winds up on a pikestaff, and I’m half hoping that won’t be a mere figure of speech. He’s fucked this country in so many ways, I’d get repetitive strain injuries in my hands and wrists from trying to type them all. I’ll be more than happy to see him politically DOA, forever.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Festive Left Friday Blogging: Le Spider-Man in Havana

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Sabina Becker

You don’t see something like this every day…even in Cuba:

French “Spider-Man” Alain Robert on Monday scaled the facade of the iconic Hotel Havana Libre in the Cuban capital, in what he said was a show of support for revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.

“Climbing is a way to discover a country, a culture,” the French daredevil said before completing the feat, his first in Cuba. “This is a strong sign of support for Fidel Castro.”

When asked if he would meet Castro while in Havana, Robert said: “I don’t know if he’ll be calling me this afternoon.”

[…]

The hotel, which first opened in 1958 under a different name, served as a temporary headquarters for Castro after his triumphant march into the capital.

Robert started his climb from the fourth floor of the hotel, located in the heart of Havana, and reached the 26th floor just 28 minutes later. The building is 70 meters (230 feet) high.

Police stopped traffic while Robert completed the feat. The roughly 2,000 spectators applauded each time he reached a higher floor.

And some people say Cuba is repressive and closed? Listen, Alain Robert has been arrested in so-called “free” countries for attempting similar feats. Like Australia. And the United States. But in Cuba, all the cops did was cordon off the street for his safety and that of the onlookers. That’s freedom for real.

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