News of the Restless

Festive Left Friday Blogging: Evo, just being his awesome self

Posted on May 27, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Evo paid tribute to Bolivian mothers at the palace today, and this nice shot was the result of that. But check out what other awesomeness he’s up to. How about that challenge to the asshole next door in Chile?

The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, asked today of Chilean president Sebastián Piñera that he present a “concrete proposal” to resolve his country’s request for sea access in accordance with the recommendations of the Organization of American States (OAS).

“If they talk so much about ‘dialogue’, let Chile present a concrete proposal, so we can formally begin a process of negotiation for Bolivia to gain sovereign access to the Pacific,” said President Morales, during an appearance with the armed forces of his country.

The General Assembly of the OAS, which will meet again in Bolivia next year, reached a resolution in 1979 in La Paz, which established that the Bolivian demand had continental importance, and insisted on dialogue between the parties to resolve the conflict.

Morales replied in this form to assertions made a few days ago by Piñera, to the effect that Bolivia could not ask for revision of the treaty of 1904, which redrew the borders between the two countries after the War of the Pacific (1879-1883).

“We understand that Bolivia has an aspiration, but we cannot try to revise treaties that have been in full effect for more than a hundred years,” said the Chilean President last Monday.

The Bolivian leader replied today that international law “is based in principles of justice, equality and harmonious relations, not like this in hegemony, militarism, unilateral imposition or conditions,” which, according to him, is what took place in 1904.

That treaty, said Morales, “brought no peace or friendship”, because Chile has not responded to this day to the Bolivian maritime demand and, on the contrary, “has dedicated itself to military armamentism in the South American region.”

“If the Treaty of 1904 brought peace, as our brother president of Chile says, why the constant escalation of armamentism? We ask ourselves that, and so will the people of Chile,” said Morales in a speech before the Bolivian military.

Morales assured that he was not bothered or offended by the statements of Piñera, but they “oblige [us] to demonstrate that Bolivia is in the right, despite some distortions over international law.”

Morales said that his country would lay suit against Chile in international tribunals, but “without abandoning dialogue”, even though the Chilean government has said that the two options are incompatible.

Bilateral relations between Bolivia and Chile, which have seen some rapprochement in the last five years, have taken a turn since Morales announced in March that Bolivia would take its demand for sea access to the international courts.

The conflict has strained ties between the two countries, who have not had diplomatic relations at the ambassadorial level since 1962, with a brief break between 1975 and 1978.

A survey published last Sunday in a national newspaper showed that only 40% of Bolivians approved the new maritime strategy of Morales, although 73% said that Bolivia must never renounce its claim to a sea exit.

Translation mine.

They don’t say which newspaper it was (my guess is it’s an oppositionist one, and that they surveyed mostly rich white folks from the lowland regions; hence the strange dissonant results.) But the fact is, Evo’s challenge to the Pinochetist next door is just in line with a long, long dispute, one that’s been raging since the War of the Pacific ended. In fact, the ruling in Bolivia’s favor came long before Evo got anywhere near to elected office, as you can see.

And for a while there, things looked good: the progressive Michelle Bachelet was in office, and bilateral relations were excellent. And then along came Piñera, and of course, he just HAD to be a prick about it all.

But I’ve a hunch that this is going to end before Evo hands his sash over to his VP, Alvaro García Linera. And if I know Evo, I’m betting he’s gonna win this one, too. He’s never lost a fight yet.

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Short ‘n’ Stubby: Ms. Manx swats DSK and the IMF around some more

Posted on May 25, 2011 by Sabina Becker

You know how crazy some kitties are when it comes to tinfoil balls? They become obsessed with batting them around, and will chase them all over the house? Well, that’s how Ms. Manx is with this whole Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair. She’s found some more linkage, and she wants us to follow that bouncing, ricocheting, spherical shiny metallic object wherever she chases it. So, let’s do it:

First up, at Truthout, Mark Weisbrot (who is one of the Stumpy Cat’s favorite global-affairs analysts) takes a look at precisely what, if anything, has changed at the IMF during DSK’s tenure in that not-so-august loansharkery. He notes that DSK came to the IMF just as its influence was waning in the very parts of the world where it stood to make the biggest killing just a few short years before. (Latin America, in particular, comes to Ms. Manx’s mind, as does Chavecito, who helped Argentina get the IMF off her neck. Venezuela is a special target of Washington’s ire this week, and you can be sure that the bogus charges of having sold uranium to Iran aren’t the real reason for this at all.) Weisbrot also notes that the IMF’s policies were poison to the economic growth of all countries where they were implemented (big surprise there, says the Manx!), and that the countries who’ve shed the IMF’s influence have not rushed back to the fold during the global recession of 2007 onwards, mainly because they were busy implementing their own, successful homegrown solutions (eg. Bolivia renationalizing its natural-gas reserves, etc.). It’s no surprise that the countries that got out from under Bretton Woods are the ones who’ve emerged first and fastest from the recession; some, like Venezuela (there’s that evil Chavecito again!) were barely touched by it at all. (Ms. Manx would like to let you know that the Venezuelan economy grew by 4.5% in the first trimester of this year alone, and that even the rabid oppo newspapers were reporting the fact, albeit below the fold and in small headers, on their front pages. A fact which makes the Manx smirk.) Oh yeah, and as for those radical, humanizing changes to IMF policy DSK supposedly made? Weisbrot says they’re not all that. Surprise!

Next, on to another of Ms. Manx’s favorite economic analysts: Greg Palast! The Stumpy Cat loves him for saying that “the grandee of the IMF has molested Africans for years” . What? says the Manx. You mean that Guinean widow whom he jumped at the Sofitel wasn’t the only one? Nope. Not by a long shot, she wasn’t. Just the one he most literally tried to screw. And in fact, the reason that poor woman was working as a chambermaid — a job where rape is a constant occupational hazard — in New York is because the IMF has repeatedly raped her resource-rich, cash-poor homeland. Talk about your vicious cycles!

Yes, let’s talk about vicious cycles, says the Manx. Dean Baker, writing at the UK Guardian, certainly does. He makes the point that without a strong hotel workers’ union backing her, that unlucky woman would most likely have done what so many other powerless women have done: declined to press charges against her assailant. This is a vicious cycle of another kind, but certainly parallel to the economic one of Guinea’s ruin. Silence, after all, enables the privileged and the powerful to perpetuate their abuses. And whether that abuse is literal and physical, or metaphorical and economic in nature, it all boils down to the same things: poverty, suffering, oppression and misery, in an endless self-perpetuating cycle that it’s almost impossible to break out of on one’s own. (Ms. Manx bids me add that she loves the use of the Woody Guthrie song, “Union Maid”, performed by Woody’s son Arlo and the great Pete Seeger. Wonderful illustration of why unions matter, and how they can help.)

Meanwhile, on the subject of physical rape, Naomi Wolf weighs in, and notes that this case is being handled in a way very uncharacteristic of rape cases on the whole. For once, it appears that the system is working well, and this is strange, considering that most New York rape cases are not handled with nearly so much panache. Wolf writes: “In 23 years of covering sex crime — and in a city where domestic workers are raped by the score every month, often by powerful men — I have never seen the New York Police Department snap into action like this on any victim’s behalf.” She then goes on to say: “We now live in a world in which men like former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who was investigating financial wrongdoing by the insurance giant AIG, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Strauss-Kahn — whose efforts to reform the IMF gained him powerful opponents — can be, and are, kept under constant surveillance. Indeed, Strauss-Kahn, who had been the odds-on favorite to defeat Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s French presidential election, probably interested more than one intelligence service. This does not mean that Strauss-Kahn is innocent or that he is guilty. It means that policy outcomes can be advanced nowadays, in a surveillance society, by exploiting or manipulating sex-crime charges, whether real or inflated.” An angle worth considering, although as noted earlier, DSK did very little to change the way the IMF was working, and indeed, according to Mark Weisbrot and Greg Palast both, he made it more profitable than ever. And this during a recession. If this really was a “surveillance society” attempt to return the IMF to its previous (and disastrous) hard-line stance, we will probably see the charges against DSK dropped eventually, even with a preponderance of evidence pointing to his guilt (unlike, say, Julian Assange, against whom there is only hearsay evidence at best. BTW, the Manx is certain that Julian Assange will never go to trial; not for rape, anyway. She’s sure that the real charges they’re dying to lay against him will be of espionage, and they will be laid not in Sweden, but in the United States. The flimsy rape charge is a cynical holding strategy, and one that will ultimately benefit women not at all.)

Meanwhile, at Michael Moore’s website, Rebecca Solnit recapitulates the rape/rape analogy. Ms. Manx is haunted by this passage in particular:

Two days before Strauss-Kahn allegedly emerged from that hotel bathroom naked, there was a big demonstration in New York City. “Make Wall Street Pay” was the theme and union workers, radicals, the unemployed, and more — 20,000 people — gathered to protest the economic assault in this country that is creating such suffering and deprivation for the many — and obscene wealth for the few.

I attended. On the crowded subway car back to Brooklyn afterwards, the youngest of my three female companions had her bottom groped by a man about Strauss-Kahn’s age. At first, she thought he had simply bumped into her. That was before she felt her buttock being cupped and said something to me, as young women often do, tentatively, quietly, as though it were perhaps not happening or perhaps not quite a problem.

Finally, she glared at him and told him to stop. I was reminded of a moment when I was an impoverished seventeen-year-old living in Paris and some geezer grabbed my ass. It was perhaps my most American moment in France, then the land of a thousand disdainful gropers; American because I was carrying three grapefruits, a precious purchase from my small collection of funds, and I threw those grapefruits, one after another, like baseballs at the creep and had the satisfaction of watching him scuttle into the night.

His action, like so much sexual violence against women, was undoubtedly meant to be a reminder that this world was not mine, that my rights — my liberté, egalité, sororité, if you will — didn’t matter. Except that I had sent him running in a barrage of fruit. And Dominique Strauss-Kahn got pulled off a plane to answer to justice. Still, that a friend of mine got groped on her way back from a march about justice makes it clear how much there still is to be done.

And on a similar note, at Information Clearing House, James Petras examines the colonial legacy of the global south, with its “social psychology of rape”. Ms. Manx senses a theme developing: “The absolute power of the colonial administrators allows them to secure total submission from those who are powerless – the single African women isolated from family, friends – before the Courts of Justice and denied equality. The latter is subject to firing, blacklisting, unemployment, intimidation, humiliation and insults for daring to denounce their colonial superiors.” This is right in line with the theme of Ms. Manx’s last post, in which she batted about the servility of the French press and clawed open its propensity, much like the laws of the state, to protect the propertied and powerful while leaving the rest with little recourse. And this, mark you, is just in France; in the lands France used to colonize, it’s even worse. Which stands to reason, since it’s not just France holding the reins at the IMF, but a consortium of the most powerful people of the most powerful countries in the world. Given these conditions, it’s remarkable that one humble chambermaid from Guinea dared to stand up at all — and a testament to the need for solidarity and strong unions to help the powerless and unpropertied people of the world do just that, again and again and again.

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Posted in All About Evo, Don't Cry For Argentina, Economics for Dummies, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't That Illegal?, Law-Law Land, Short 'n' Stubby, Uppity Wimmin | Comments Off

Church of Scotland gets fabulous

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Och aye, ’tis a bonny day for equal rights!

Scotland’s largest protestant church has swept away centuries of tradition and voted to allow gay men and lesbians to become ministers, opening up the prospect of the church allowing civil partnerships for same-sex couples.

The Church of Scotland imposed a temporary moratorium in 2009 on admitting gay and lesbian ministers after Scott Rennie became the first openly gay clergyman in a homosexual partnership to be officially appointed as a minister in the church.

The church’s general assembly, its law-making body, voted on Monday to lift that moratorium, officially officially allowing gay ministers to take on parishes for the first time since its formation 450 years ago.

The general assembly also allowed serving gay and lesbian ministers who have kept their sexuality private to openly declare their sexuality – a proposal bitterly resisted by evangelical and conservative ministers.

In one of the final votes, the general assembly chose by a small majority to lift a parallel ban on ordaining and training people who are in same-sex relationships, and gay and lesbians in civil partnerships. It called for a new report by 2013 on both proposals and on allowing ministers to bless gay and lesbian relationships.

The vote followed official warnings that allowing gay clergy could split the church, forcing traditionalists to resign and join more conservative churches formed after the last great schism, when 474 ministers resigned in 1843.

Well, sez I, if the conservatards want to leave, be off wi’ ’em. They can take the low road; the rest will take the high road. Same thing happened with the Anglicans, and what was the outcome? The conservatives ended up isolating themselves into irrelevance while the mainstream rolled with the changes and wound up the better for it. The world turns, bless it, and those who turn with the world are also blessed.

Amen.

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Posted in Karma 1, Dogma 0, Pissing Jesus Off, Teh Ghey | 2 Comments

Young feminist calls out Beyoncé (and other assorted BS)

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Thanks to Roger Ebert for bringing this to our collective attention. About the only thing I disagree with here is all the bleeping; I think she could have left those words unbleeped. But that’s just me; I don’t bleep anything, as you well know.

PS: As this post seems to be attracting some clueless commenters, I’m going to close comments on it early. Sorry, folks, but I have no appetite for food-fights lately. If you want to fight with the woman who made the video (and that ain’t me), double-click on the YouTube and take it up with the video’s originator. I only posted it here for interest’s sake, not to attract flies.

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Posted in Uppity Wimmin | 12 Comments

Short ‘n’ Stubby: Ms. Manx gets her claws into DSK and the IMF

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Happy Victoria Day Monday, everyone! Hope you’re all enjoying your May Two-Four weekend. The Manx is meowing, and you know what that means: She’s got linkage for us. Lead on, ManxDuff…

First up, the Daily Mail, and how the obsequious French press has egg all over its face for covering up the skanky shenanigans of Dominique Strauss-Kahn for lo these many years. The cowardice is especially apparent in the Tristane Banon incident, which took place on a talk show that bleeped out the guilty party’s name. Months later, he won his IMF posting, and access to more unwilling females within the company. (Ms. Manx especially likes the photo of a dishevelled DSK, and says it shows him in his true colors.) Scroll further down, though, and you get to a passage that sounds like a scene ripped directly from the film Eyes Wide Shut. And then comes the Sarko connection, which may be the most explosive detail of all. Ms. Manx cattily wonders if Mme. Strauss-Kahn’s legendary loyalty could withstand a dose of that.

Meanwhile, across the language barrier, Le Monde calls the case “a lesson of democracy”. Ms. Manx has asked me to translate a couple of key passages for you:

But the first injustice of the American judiciary system doesn’t reside in this treatment, which is totally ordinary in the United States. What appears brutal, seen from France, is nothing but the absence of taking into account, in this foreign country, the social consideration in the means of treating the suspect. What looks violent to the French public is nothing but the absence of the due regard, so-called, to the “social caste” of the one concerned.

[…]

What ultimately shocks, in France, is this American culture of counter-power. Among us, historically, justice has been constructed to protect properties and persons, and not to raise itself into a veritable pillar of democracy, above the political and economic powers.

Ah, there’s the rub. Yankee justice that (at least on the surface), serves the interests of democracy, and doesn’t discriminate between the rich and the poor? A France that plumes itself on its republicanism, but in which remarkably little has changed, judicially speaking, since the monarchist epoch of Les Misérables, when Jean Valjean did 18 years’ hard labor just for stealing one loaf of bread to help his sister and her starving children? Ms. Manx is choquée, choquée! (Um, not really. Actually, she’s relieved that the US justice system may at least still be seen to be working, whatever the outcome. That’s the whole point of the “barbaric” perp-walk, after all: Even if it’s only for the cameras, it’s to show justice being done. An ugly custom, perhaps, but it serves a somewhat noble purpose. Ultimately, the greater legal barbarism resides in France, where the rich enjoy far more legal and press protection than the rest, and for far less reason. A loaf of bread stolen to feed hungry children vs. robbing half the world blind — and the press, which leaps sensationalistically all over the crimes of the poor, still isn’t allowed to show the rich robber’s face? There is no comparison.)

Meanwhile, Reuters and the Guardian both report one sector of French society that isn’t standing by its inordinately rich and privileged man: Les féministes françaises, naturellement! They are livid at the blatant sexism that this case has brought bubbling to the surface, and are using the opportunity to show how this sexism is a regular, mundane thing in France — something that, like the biased justice system and the press, favors the already very privileged and leaves victims of injustice without redress. And who can blame them? One gets the impression that if the revolutionary goddess Marianne were an actual Frenchwoman, there would be no respect for the breasts she bares iconically as a display of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity; there would be nothing but men’s hands grabbing at them, right and left. And this makes a mockery of the whole French Revolution, this still-rampant inequality not only of the classes, but the sexes. It seems that only one thing is really equal there, and that is the “right” of men, whatever their class, to take advantage of any female they see, and pay very little if any consequence. After all, the victim of this assault is only a chambermaid. Droit du seigneur isn’t law, it’s only custom — but it’s an old, entrenched custom, one that allows for the rape of domestic workers without redress, and demands the turning of all sorts of blind eyes. And that’s something even the ravenous US media have seen fit to pooh-pooh and downplay; after all, a blatant feudal class inequality cannot be examined for what it really is by the cold light of day.

Ms. Manx, like la reine Victoria, is not amused.

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Posted in Morticia! You Spoke French!, Short 'n' Stubby, Uppity Wimmin | Comments Off

Music for a Sunday: Even the score with your eyes

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Sabina Becker

“The dark cloud of fear is blowing away…”

Well, no wonder. The rapture didn’t happen. And since we’re here to stay…lovely to see YOU again, my friends!

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Posted in Music for a Sunday | Comments Off

Valley of the Wolves: Palestine

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Sabina Becker

A Turkish action film with English subtitles. According to the description on the We Are All Vittorio Arrigoni Facebook page, it is “about a Turkish commando team which goes to Palestine to track down the Israeli military commander responsible for the Gaza flotilla raid”. Harsh justice in a harsh world, and a film that the Israelis actively tried to prevent from being made.

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Posted in Artsy-Fartsy Culture Stuff, Gazing on Gaza, Law-Law Land, The Bold and the Badass | 2 Comments

Wankers of the Week: End of the World edition

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Oh holy fucking shit, here comes Jeebus to kill us all!!!!1111onethousandeleventyone!!!!

Hey, wait a minute…if I was able to post this, and you are able to read it, I guess we’ve just had ourselves yet another false alarm and Great Disappointment. Which means I won’t be punished by God for listing wankers yet again this week, cussing up a blue storm as usual. The world is still turning, and we’re still with it. Hallelujah! We are SAVED! So here we go again, in no particular order:

1. Ariel Fucking Torres Fucking Ortega. Why the double Fucking? Because that’s how badly you’d have to get it in the head to call gay people “worthy [of] death”. Look…I don’t care if there’s a goddamned “Reverend” in front of your name. Anyone who calls for death to anyone else is full of holy shit, and is only speaking for the devil.

2. Ron Fucking Paul. Hey, don’t look to those you elected to help you, good people along the mighty Mississippi, no matter how much you pay them in taxes and are entitled to get back out of your contributions. Ron Fucking Paul says you should kiss that money goodbye, not trust the government, and just build your own damn levees like good Amurrican patriots. Which begs the question: Why the fuck does the United States even still HAVE a government, and why the hell is HE still in it?

3. Jeffrey Fucking Wiesenfeld. Apparently, anyone who thinks Palestinians deserve to have their basic human rights respected is a “deeply unhappy person” who needs medicating to make them happy-happy-happy again. CUNY may be asking itself right now why this nasty (and obviously much more unhappy) little man is still sitting on their board of trustees; if not, something is wrong with THEM.

4. Tim Fucking Hudak. It really will be the end of the world as we know it in Ontario if this Harrisite Parasite of a SupposiTory ever makes it to the Premier’s chair in the Ontario Legislature. He is so rabidly, ideologically anti-environmentalist that he will even throw his party’s own star local candidates under the gas-guzzling bus. Voters, remember: ABC — ANYTHING BUT CONSERVATIVE!

5. Donald Fucking Trump. Oh noes, the Man With No Forehead has called off his fake run for president! Now who will the Repugs field? Between him and Mike Fucking Huckabee’s fuckup of last week (and cosmic proportions), the slate of joke candidates is starting to get awfully thin, and the comedians are crying in their soup. Well, thank God, then, for Newty and his Stepford Wife. Who don’t have a snowball’s chance at the White House either, to tell you the gods’ honest truth. But they WILL be good for shits ‘n’ giggles in the meantime.

6. And hey, speaking of shits ‘n’ giggles, how about that Newt Fucking Gingrich? Yeah, that rehash of the racist Reaganite schtick, the big black Welfare Queen in her Cadillac (bought with food stamps, no less), will never get old. And, oh yeah: Fancy him calling Obama the “food stamp president” when he has such huge unpaid bills at Tiffany’s, of all places? I think I hear the comedians putting their hankies away already.

7. Arnold Fucking Schwarzenegger. Der Gropenführer has a “love” child? Heh…more like a “schtupping the help” child. It’s kind of hard to imagine what passes between an underling and a boss as being love, you see; unequal footings are so unromantic. Especially if the boss is known for his propensity to grab and grope any female within reach. But, to be honest, this wouldn’t be a cause for public outcry if he weren’t also so fucking hypocritical about single mothers, seeing as he made one himself right around the time he spouted off about the purported evils of single-parent families (and probably cutting their welfare benefits as well). PS: Oh, Ahnie. You shouldn’t have said those other things, either. Really!

8. Bernard-Henri Fucking Lévy. My gosh. He actually took time out from his exhausting schedule of defending Israeli war criminals to defend his buddy, Dominique Strauss-Kahn…an accused sex criminal. It would be rather touching if it weren’t so fucking sickening and grotesque.

9. James Fucking Frey. This pathological liar and bogus memoirist has had his fifteen minutes. Oprah doesn’t owe him anything more, except a high-heeled shoeprint on his ass.

10. Scott Fucking Walker. Somehow, it doesn’t surprise me to learn that among all the other horrible things this teabagging wanker is, he is also a heavy-handed homophobe who can’t let compassion filter in through even the tiniest little crack. The sooner the people of Wisconsin vote to recall him, the better. After all, one Wisconsinite in every ten is gay, and those queer folks would appreciate the right to visit their partner in hospital, the same as the other nine out of ten.

11. Rubén Fucking Díaz. I don’t know what you’d call somebody who’d deny equal rights to his own granddaughter, but I’d call him fucked in the head. If your granddaughter is gay and you “hate” that because it’s a “sin”, you do NOT “love the sinner”. Nor do you love or believe in the God who made her gay. You’re just a professional hatemonger whose lack of human compassion for those nearest to him is gonna come back to bite him. As it did when Rubén’s granddaughter Erica appeared at a counterdemo against him.

12. Bernard Fucking Coulombe. Riddle me this: Whose fault is it if an asbestos-industry exec doesn’t recognize the name of Jon Stewart, who is only the most famous comedian on TV nowadays? And whose schtick is fake news reporting that’s honester, funnier and better than the “real” thing? Oh yeah, that’s right…it’s the comedian’s fault! Of course. Just as it’s the comedian’s fault that the asbestos-monger doesn’t have a fucking sense of humor.

13. Dom inique Fucking Strauss-Kahn. Yes, again. Proof positive that even raving paranoia is no match for Teh Stoopid. Let’s face it, if he really smelled a honey trap, wouldn’t you think he’d learn to keep his fucking paws out of the bee tree? But noooooo, he just had to go there and jump into it with all fours. And yes, sometimes an alleged sexual assault really is that, and not a set-up OR a “seduction”…especially if you’re a schmuck with a long history of trying to rip unwilling women’s clothes off. I’d say that all this talk of honey traps is actually his lame way of covering up the scandals he knew were going to come back to haunt him once he declared his candidacy.

14. John Fucking Cummins. First he makes a flagrantly homophobic remark, then he makes a non-apology apology in which he accuses those who got angry at him of “misreading” what he said, which was, and I quote: “I’m not a scientist but some of the research tells me that there’s more of an indication that that’s a choice issue.” I don’t know what “research” he’s referring to, but it’s safe to say it’s NOT scientific. All the actual scientific research out there on sexual orientation says it is not a “choice issue” at all; you are born with it. And to have a sexual orientation that is inborn but much discriminated against NOT protected by our human rights code is like giving the green light to murder.

15. Erik Fucking Prince. Thanks to him, Dubai (a.k.a. the world’s fanciest open sewer) is gonna have its own French Foreign Legion. Only it won’t be French, and it will be all mercenaries, death squads, and repressors, accountable to no one. And hugely, obscenely expensive, too. Yay!!!

16. Stephen Fucking Harper. Yes, he’s at it again, folks — packing the Senate with Tories whom no one would elect. Three in just this past week. Look for more wanks like this the closer he gets to needing legislation passed that meets with massive public disapproval. This is what tyranny looks like. And that’s not all: Harpo is so flagrantly hateful of the environment and human health, he’ll even make an MP from the riding housing Canada’s only remaining asbestos mine into his industry minister. Asbestos is unpopular here and around the world, but Harpo would rather pander to that industry than heed the voices of the people. Hang your heads, my fellow Canadians, and get used to it — cringing shame will be our go-to posture for the next four fucking years.

17. Harold Fucking Camping. Riddle me this: If gays are to blame for the end of the world, why are we all still here? (And no, “miscalculation” is not the correct answer.) I fully expect that we will next hear that he has been caught trawling the Castro District of San Francisco, in a state of Great Disappointment.

18. Ben Fucking Stein. Oh great, another fucking Strauss-Kahn apologist. Why am I not fucking surprised? Oh, and he hates hotel maids. That explains everything. And his idea that economists never commit violent crimes? Full of shit. But then, the IMF itself is a knee-capping, labor-whacking mafia, and some of us knew that. Ben Fucking Stein, obviously, did not.

19. John Fucking Bolton. Guess who’s still thinking of maybe running for prez of the US next year? Or, in other words: Guess who’s still definitely gonna lose to that black dude from Hawaii?

20. Geoffrey Fucking Alderman. Anyone who takes pleasure in an innocent person’s death is a hideous beast in human clothing. Anyone who takes pleasure in the death of a peaceful activist like Vittorio Arrigoni (who was certainly NOT a “consummate Jew-hater”), or says it gave him even more pleasure than the assassination of Osama bin Laden, should be stripped of his job, which happens to be writing drivel and dreck for that horrid right-wing rag, the Jewish Chronicle. Lucky for him, then, that he’s got another monster in the form of Stephen Fucking Pollard to defend his drivel and dreck. Because if I’d my druthers, he’d never write another word. Vittorio Arrigoni’s motto was “Stay Human”. And by taking pleasure in his death, Alderman has just shown the entire world that he is a consummate human-hater.

21. Rob Fucking Ford. Yeah, he went ahead and privatized garbage collection in Toronto. Don’t anyone kid themselves that saving money had fuck-all to do with it, though; this is about public-sector decimation and union busting, and will ultimately save nothing. Next chapter in the saga: Hefty sack of shit otherwise known as the mayor gets kicked to the curb.

22. Neil Fucking Macdonald. How the hell does he know that Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been “ruined”? Considering how much support, justified or not, he’s getting from across the pond as well as over here, I’d say his reputation is far from tattered. For all we know, he might well be acquitted, and go on to even higher offices. It is the luck of the rich and powerful to fall up more often than not, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this happened to DSK, too. To claim so prematurely that he has suffered a “great injustice” is as silly as stating that he has already been found not guilty on all charges. It also makes anyone who claims it look like a rape apologist, as well as one who unduly favors the privileged. Grouping him with an innocent but not prominent man whose reputation was ruined by a false rape charge isn’t exactly helpful, either; I suspect we are dealing with two very different creatures here.

23. Ted Fucking Nugent. If you’re really cool with gays, then “man on man sex” shouldn’t bother you either. And if it does, the solution to your problem is very simple: DON’T DO IT, AND DON’T WATCH ANYONE ELSE DOING IT, EITHER! And above all, don’t go babbling bullshit about it on national TV. The overwhelming majority of us are repulsed by that, especially coming from a warmonger who sat in his own shit for over a month to dodge the draft. Nugent’s opinions hold about as much water as a rusty sieve, and of the two, I’d trust the sieve more.

24. Lars Von Fucking Trier. Look, I’m German too…but you will NEVER hear me speaking with pride of the Nazi era. That was the most barbaric chapter in our history, even including the Fucking Holy Roman Empire and all those fucking witch-persecutions. He claims it was a joke, but for it to be that, it would have had to be funny. It wasn’t. It was horrifying. Kirsten Dunst looked like she wanted to kill him, and who could blame her? I’d be shoving my shoes in his mouth just to stop the nonsensical fucking babbling.

25. Satoshi Fucking Kanazawa. While we’re on the subject of nonsensical fucking Nazi babbling, how about this one? First, he uses evolutionary psychology as a platform for his own flagrant sexism, and to attack feminism; now, he uses it as a “scientific” platform for his own flagrant racism, and to attack black women in particular. Someone who should have been out of a job long ago may finally end up on the unemployment line now. Sign the petition to make sure he lands there, ‘kay?

26. Riccardo Fucking Seppia. Yay, another kiddie-diddling priest. This one, just to spice things up, procured the kids through his ex-seminarian boyfriend…and fed them cocaine for their favors. Lovely!

27. Kerry Fucking Campbell. Or Sheena Fucking Upton. Or whatever her fucking name is. You know, that mom who claimed to be injecting her daughter regularly with illicitly-obtained Botox so little Brittany (if indeed that’s her name) could look wrinkle-free for beauty pageants? That story keeps mutating almost as fast as the death of Osama bin Laden. Any way you slice it, though, she sounds to me like one hell of an unfit mother. And that little girl, if she’s real, is lucky to be out of her hands; her face could’ve ended up a molten mess before she even turned 18. (Her mind, sadly, likewise.)

28. Rick Fucking Perry. Thanks, Gubnor Goodhair, for signing the Anti-Choice Re-Rape Bill into law. Now women can get violated twice: Once during the sexual assault proper, and again during the Fucking Government of Texas’s mawkish attempt to dissuade them from evicting its unwanted results from their bodies. Because that’s what happens when you get a first trimester sonogram as part of the requirements of “informed consent” on abortion: You get an ultrasound wand stuffed up your vagina so that you’ll be moved to tears (and a change of mind) by the sight of the “baby”. And if you refuse to comply, you’ll get branded a criminal and a murderer, whether you are the doctor or the patient. Isn’t that just so fucking special?

29. Bradlee Fucking Dean. Excuse me, but who is a hate-mongering death-metal preacher to decide who gets to be a Christian and who doesn’t? This one embarrassed the state legislature of Minnesota really fucking badly by giving an abominable opening prayer. He can get raptured, for all I care, but not by Jesus. We’re talking Evil Cousin Lucy material here, folks. And in the meantime, the best way to get right with God is to get religion…out of the halls of government.

30. Karlton Fucking Johnson. Repeat after me, kiddies: It is not a principal’s job to inform the parents of students that their children are gay. The kids can do that themselves. Let’s hear it now…very good. Now, a bit louder, so Mr. Johnson can hear it. This is a lesson they didn’t teach HIM at school.

And finally, to all those stupid, stupid fucking fools who really believed all this rapturist crap. (Let’s just call them the Fucking Crapturists.) WHAT THE HOLY FUCKING FUCKITY FUCK WERE YOU PEOPLE THINKING? And don’t you feel foolish now that it’s all over, and you’re still all alive and well, and nobody’s been fucking raptured? What does it take to get it through your skulls, anyway, that neither God nor the Universe works this way? That it’s impossible, and that that’s a good thing? Why is it so hard to accept that life goes on, and that your real duty here on Earth isn’t to preach but to practice? Jesus, please, if you are real, I only ask one thing of you: Save me from these fucking nerds in your fan club.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | 4 Comments

Happy End of the World!

Posted on May 21, 2011 by Sabina Becker

According to the fundie nutcases, we should all be dead by now. On the off chance that you’re not, click the play button on this and join me in a beer, eh?

A little backgrounder: This was a carnival song in 1954. The group is called Die Lustigen Jungs (The Jolly Lads) and the lyrics go like this:

CHORUS:

On May 30 the world is going to end

We won’t live much longer

We won’t live much longer

On May 30 the world is going to end

We won’t live, we won’t live much longer

But no one knows in which year [it will happen]

And that is wonderful!

We could be here for a long time

And that’s what we’re drinking to!

How lovely is life on this colorful world —

We can raise a glass

As often as we want!

We have fun with that —

Bartender, another glass!

(CHORUS)

The sweet, lovely ladies —

We’ll never forget them!

When we look into the glass,

We only think of them!

So put your trust in us —

To your health, dear ladies!

(CHORUS)

Your health too, my friends. Good that we’re all still here, eh?

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Posted in Confessions of a Bad German, Karma 1, Dogma 0, Pissing Jesus Off, The WTF? Files | Comments Off

Festive Left Friday Blogging: A big victory for Ecuador

Posted on May 20, 2011 by Sabina Becker

Because there’s no such thing as too much Ecuadorability, this week goes to Rafael Correa, again. And I’m sure that when you read this, you’ll agree that Ecuador deserves a high-five:

On Friday, the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, celebrated the decision of the Supreme Court of Colombia to declare “without juridical validity” the data from the computer alleged to have belonged to the deceased guerrilla leader, Raúl Reyes.

The president stated that the ruling demonstrates that all the documents extracted were a “tall tale”.

“I’m not surprised by the decision of the Supreme Court. Moreover, I recognize the quality of justice in Colombia, because despite the political pressures that had to come to bear (on the members of the judiciary in this instance), they acted rightly and what they are saying is what we have always known,” said Correa.

[…]

The president had been accused a few days ago by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) of having asked for and received financing from the FARC for his political campaign of 2006.

Correa emphasized that only the corrupt media outlets gave echo to those accusations, along with “the planetary powers who try to damage every progressive government.”

He underlined that the archives were allegedly extracted from the computers confiscated by the Colombian army, during an illegal raid on Ecuadorian territory (in the Colombia-Ecuador border region) on March 1, 2008, in which the #2 FARC leader, Raúl Reyes, was killed.

The event generated tensions between the governments of Ecuador and Colombia.

This week, the president of the Supreme Court of Colombia, Camilo Tarquino, declared that the evidence derived from those archives was “null and illegal due to having been gathered with neither authorization nor participation of the authorities” of Ecuador.

As well, they were in document format, and were not taken from an e-mail address that might demonstrate that they had been sent and received, Tarquino added.

Translation mine.

BTW, the IISS is about as smelly a source as you can get for allegedly incriminating information about a foreign leader. Venezuelanalysis notes that they were also the source of the “dodgy dossier” that was sexed-up to incriminate Saddam Hussein. That dossier provided a pretext for the Coalition of the Killing to declare war on Iraq…illegally, as it turns out. And since they’re agitating for war on Ecuador and Venezuela (Ecuador partly for refusing to keep the Manta base open to the gringos, and partly for refusing to let ChevronToxico off the hook, Venezuela for a multitude of reasons, all stemming from her popular democratic leader), I think we can spot a dirty agenda at work here.

Happily, Colombia is no longer playing along the way it once was (rather surprisingly, considering that its current president was El Narco’s defence minister at the time the Raúl Reyes raid went down). Juan Manuel Santos is being remarkably decent to his neighbors, which must have the whole region breathing a quiet but definite sigh of relief. Ecuador has dodged a bullet here, and Venezuela no doubt will be the next country exonerated. That, surely, is worth celebrating this Festive Left Friday, no?

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