News of the Restless

It’s Holocaust Memorial Day. Do you know where YOUR Nazis are?

Posted on January 27, 2018 by Sabina Becker

In case you needed reminding, this is what they’re trying to deny, and hoping you’ve forgotten. Alain Resnais, however, made this ten years after the liberation of the death camps, and it puts the boot to all denials. And to all forgettance, too.

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Posted in Artsy-Fartsy Culture Stuff, Fascism WITH Swastikas, Isn't That Terrorism?, Morticia! You Spoke French!, Who Forgot Poland? | Comments Off

Wankers of the Week: Girth of a Nation

Posted on January 26, 2018 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! Well, it’s been just over a year now since Donnie took office like a kid with his fat little fingers in the candy jar, and the verdict is in: He can’t president for shit! He lies chronically and pathologically, he cheats, and before you know it, Robert Mueller will have all the hard evidence (required for impeachment) that he also steals. The government has shut down as I begin this list, and the women are uppity again. And that, I’m sure, was just the fun part. The not-so-fun part follows, in no particular order:

1. Mike Fucking Pence. Yeah, remember him? Donnie’s second-in-command? If you ever wanted to know just how good a Christian he is NOT, check out how he reacted when criticized (with every right) by a gay figure skater who hasn’t forgotten when Mikey used to be all about that anti-gay conversion “therapy” (note the quotes, there for a reason). And then remember how Mikey is also all about covering Donnie’s lying, cheating, thieving ass, RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. PS: And this isn’t helping, either. PPS: And neither is this.

2. Patrick Fucking Meehan. Remember when the Repugs were all about those good ol’ family values, personal responsibility, fiscal responsibility, etc.? Yeah, I’m sure HE does, too. Why else use taxpayer money to pay off a sexual harassment settlement, i.e. HUSH MONEY? PS: Ew, ew, EW.

3. Diane Fucking Black. Blame Obama for something that happened a year after he left office, and more to the point, was done by the same band of obstructionist jackasses (including YOURSELF) who made his eight years in office so hellish? At long last, “lady”, find a new refrain to sing.

4. John Fucking Gray. Single women are somehow lesser because of how we’re “walking”? Um, NO. How about teaching men to walk the husband walk, for a change, instead of the Perennial Bachelor Even When Married walk? (And no, Ciara, marrying is NOT “leveling up”. Because if, God forbid, your husband ever cheats on you…how is that “up”?)

5. Scott Fucking Simms. Once more, with feeling: CANADA IS NOT A THEOCRACY. YOU CAN HOLD ANY OPINION ON ABORTION YOU LIKE, BUT YOU DO NOT GET TAXPAYER FUNDING TO JAM YOUR OPINIONS DOWN OTHERS’ THROATS, OR FOR ANY SUMMER JOB WHERE YOU HAVE TO LIE TO OTHERS ABOUT A SAFE, LEGAL MEDICAL PROCEDURE. (Sorry for the ALL FUCKING CAPS SHOUTING, but some people really are hard of hearing.)

6. This fucking coward in the Pepe the Frog hoodie, who thought it was a cute idea to put up white-supremacist stickers during the Women’s March, but somehow his White Pride™ failed him when it came time to stand up and let his pudgy white face be identified. Sorry I couldn’t name him, but I can still shame him!

7. Ryan Fucking Zinke. Is it too soon to start calling him Crooked Ryan and chanting “Lock Him Up”? No? Oh good, because from now on, that’s what we all should do.

8. Elle Fucking Darby. Yes, I’m aware that it’s the Age of Influencers™, that PR is king, and that paying is for peons. Nevertheless, your social media reach (which is really below mediocre) isn’t going to be paying anyone’s bills, as the hotelier you tried to hit up pointed out rather eloquently (along with his own social media reach, which somehow outstrips yours). You’re not entitled to anything free, other than maybe a kick in the ass. And no one cares if you’re young and just wanna have fun at someone else’s expense before you get all old and boring like the rest of the universe. Your schtick’s old already. And you might want to do your homework before deciding that someone else “needs” you to promote their place on your insipid Instagram.

9. Sue Fucking Peterson. Excuse me, but what part of the First Amendment do you not understand? Start again with the part about Congress making no laws respecting religion, and work from there. You are an elected official, and you have no excuses.

10. Mark Fucking Neuhoff. Hey Virginia Tech, you gonna do something about this turd? Because he’s really starting to stink the joint up with his Nazified fumings. Flush the damn toilet already, and don’t forget to wash your hands! Nazism is not just gross, it’s fucking contagious.

11. Roger Fucking Wicker. The US gummint shutdown may be over now, but I bet the teenage girl pages of the House were not exactly happy to hear that news…not least of all because now they’d have to be dodging THIS guy all over again.

12. Kevin Fucking Swanson. If a fictional romance between a woman and a sea creature spells “the end of civilization as we know it”, your civilization is built upon SAND. Just sayin’.

13. Tom Fucking Kawczynski. “Pro-white” is not racist? Au contraire, mon frère, it has never been anything BUT racist. And if you’re against bringing in people from other cultures to the US of Amnesia, you might want to go the fuck back to Poland, where YOUR ancestors came from. I mean, if you’re gonna be insular, be really fucking insular. Go big AND go home. Capisce? PS: Aaaand buhbye! Ha, ha.

14. Tony Fucking Perkins. When the hell were you ever “kicked around” by Barack Obama and his so-called leftists? Other than at the ballot box, which is fair and square in a democracy? I think you’re giving Donnie a lot of leeway because he caters to all your bigotries, including the racist one that dares not squeak its name. Otherwise, why forgive him for fucking a porn star and paying her hush money?

15. Lamar Fucking Alexander. Throwing a talking stick across the Senate chamber because you don’t like being told to wait your turn? What are you in, kindergarten?

16. Terrie Fucking Butcher. Look, I get it…not everybody likes Tupac Shakur. I’m not a fan either. But I don’t whip out any racist slurs at him, or his music. Then again, I don’t live in Alabama, where shit like this is apparently still considered normal.

17. Sarah Fucking Huckabee Fucking Sanders. Why the double Fucking? Because that’s how awful you have to be to make Rosie O’Donnell’s list of the damned. Congrats, Sarah, and keep up the (cough) good work.

18. Natalia Fucking Martinez. Oh look, another cute little white girl saying “nigger-nigger-nigger” on her fake Instagram account. And she thought no one would find out, or exact any consequences, like, oh, say, ostracizing her at school. That’s so cute, Nat! You’re out, Nat! Don’t let the door hit your little white ass, Nat!

19. Credell Fucking Calhoun. And again, as with #9: What part of the First Amendment don’t you understand? Yeah, I know it’s Mississippi, and sometimes a black Democrat’s gotta go along to get along, but this is fucking ridiculous. And UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

20. Lara Fucking Drumpf. Honey, you’re a fine one to go calling other women dumb. You married a hideous idiot for his old man’s money. Don’t go throwing rocks at what you don’t understand. Remember, pussy grabs back. And you are just one small part of what they’re marching against.

21. Larry Fucking Nassar, AGAIN. No, dude, those young women who denounced you aren’t “scorned”. And they’re not after any “attention” OR “rewards”. They don’t want you, and they don’t care if you wanted them or not. All they care about is seeing your lying, molesting, rapey ass go to jail and stay there, where it fucking belongs. Capisce?

22. Jack Fucking Posobiec. Oh surprise, Nazi Jacky Boy is also looking to cheat on his wife! These far-right-wingers and their wholesome Family Values are, as always, the biggest hypocrites. As for what’s smallest about them, it’s a toss-up between their hearts, their brains, and in the case of the cis males, their gonads.

23. Trey Fucking Gowdy. Oh lord. Remember how, last week, I jokingly wondered what he was doing for an encore since “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi” is now over, over, OVER? Well, it appears we have an answer, and that answer is: He found a whole ’nother way to make an ass of himself. Figures, figures, FIGURES!

24. Michael Fucking Oren. You think Ahed Tamimi is an actress? And you think we’ll think she’s an actress, too? Oh dude, you’ve been eating Tide-pod sammitches, haven’t you?

25. Courtland Fucking Sykes. You want to come home to a home-cooked dinner every night, eh? Well, dude, instead of expecting women to do it for you, how’s about you learn to work a crockpot and a bread machine? That’s home cookin’ too. Oh, and do us all a favor while you’re at it, and DON’T FUCKING BREED. The last thing any girl child needs is an oaf like you for a father.

26. Ron Fucking Johnson. Sir, please put on this conical cap and go join #23 in Dumbass Corner. Thanks.

27. Jason Fucking Kenney. Oh, so you say you’ve learned from your mistakes as a member of Harpo’s government? Funny, but all those anti-choicers circling around your UCP table for scraps and bones would put the lie to THAT contention.

28. Patrick Fucking Brown. Meanwhile, in Ontario, THIS happened. And just think, he can’t even use the old “I was drunk and didn’t know what I was doing” excuse! Who says there’s no God?

29. Kent Fucking Hehr. And while we’re at it, score one more for #MeToo on a federal level…and strike one major douchebag from Cabinet. (Jesus, he even looks like the kind of guy who you’d most suspect WOULD do that.)

30. Gavin Fucking McInnes. Racist said a racist thing, referring to a racist book? And the conservative channel he said it on tried to cover it up for him because it would make THEM look bad, too? BUSTED! The Internets never forget. Ha, ha.

And finally, to dear ol’ Donnie himself. Does anyone seriously believe he’s all of six-three and only 239 pounds? Does anyone seriously believe he’s not a racist, not a Nazi, not stupid, or not a cheater, not a crook, or really not anything that he’s gone out of his way, time and again, to show that he is? If you believe a word that comes out of his mouth, you are complicit in what he’s doing. And there’s just one thing I have to say to you:

Good night, and get fucked!

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French “feminists” don’t get #MeToo, apparently.

Posted on January 25, 2018 by Sabina Becker

So it wasn’t bad enough, last week, that 100 prominent French women, some of them soi-disantes feminists, got their expensive lingerie in a bunch over the whole #MeToo movement and decided to write an atrocious letter about it. Now, we get another one, defending said letter. Yes, Agnès Poirier has taken it upon herself to school us impertinent foreigners about the ins and outs of French feminism, and why 100 French women (presumably, representatives of every femme in the land) have expressed (in language shocking even to one who can read French, as I can) their fear that calling out bad men in Hollywood and elsewhere is in danger of turning into a witch-hunt, while simultaneously ignoring the very real problems created by the sexism that they are defending as a “right to importune”.

But I’m getting just a soupçon ahead of myself here. Agnès, s’il vous plaît…take it away:

They spoke their mind in a Gallic manner: straightforwardly, to the point of appearing blunt. The letter was also strikingly badly edited, with clumsy chunks unworthy of their authors. But, in short, they think the campaign by the #MeToo movement to tackle sexual harassment represents a “puritanical … wave of purification”; that “rape is a crime, but trying to seduce someone, even persistently or cackhandedly, is not, nor is being gentlemanly a macho attack”.

They went on to proclaim that “what began as freeing women up to speak has today turned into the opposite – we intimidate people into speaking ‘correctly’, shout down those who don’t fall into line, and those women who refused to bend [to the new realities] are regarded as complicit and traitors”.

In other words, these 100 French women, representing many more in France, argue that this new puritanism reeks of Stalinism and its “thought police”, not of true democracy. What they refuse to countenance is an image of women “as poor little things, this Victorian idea that women are mere children who have to be protected”, the same one extolled by religious fundamentalists and reactionaries.

Oh, mon Dieu! So the famous letter was merely “strikingly badly edited”, now, and not just ill-thought-out and full of caca from start to finish? That women (outside of enlightened France, naturellement) are now being made out to be “poor little things” and “Victorian children” who have to be “protected” from evil men by “Stalinist puritans” and “thought police” who are long on political correctness and short on freedom of speech? Because from where I sit, here in North America, nothing of the sort that they describe has, in fact, happened. Writing for the selfsame Guardian that published this tas de merde, Van Badham offers a truly useful corrective:

These “things” reported by women and men across the world have included acts of sexual violence, abuse, assault, entrapment, harassment, coercion, blackmail, public sexual humiliation. The accusations include Louis CK masturbating in front of non-consenting women. Harvey Weinstein ejaculating on to a woman’s nightclothes after raping her. “Things” done by men who lied, insulted, threatened, cornered, touched up, fingered, groped, squeezed and penetrated those whose power and status were less than their own, as a reminder that it was. As a delectable indulgence not of sex, but of advantage.

Now Deneuve’s name is among 100 female signatories in a letter to Le Monde, protesting the campaigns with the spurious insistence that exposing abuse and naming abusers “helps the enemies of sexual liberty”. They claim men have been punished merely for “sending sexually charged messages to women who did not return their attentions”. “We are clear-eyed enough,” the group pronounces, “not to confuse an awkward attempt to pick someone up with a sexual attack.”

OMG, ladies: me, too! Me, and all the other women who have exposed the damaged tissues of the shame inflicted on us by our predators are quite “clear-eyed” on the distinction.

That’s why we are so angry – not because we are “puritanical”, as the letter claims, but because we are seeking joy from sexual contact on our own terms, not abuse or exploitation on someone else’s.

Oui! I, too, like my Australian comrade, would like to know just where the depredations of Louis CK, Harvey Weinstein, James Toback, et tous les autres fit into “cack-handed” seduction, or “awkward attempts to pick someone up”. Because from where I sit, being forced to watch someone else masturbate, or having my leg humped, is not exactly emblematic of my own sexual liberté. It is also not a bit seductive. I too am clear-eyed enough to know the difference between a nauseously blatant power-grab by way of the genitalia, versus an actual awkward approach to l’amour. Shit, even here, in the uncivilized wilds of North America, we’ve known the difference for years, and some men have even been addressing it for decades. Here, for example, is a handful of Berkeley Breathed’s ‘toons from the mid-1980s:

As you can see, Binkley’s whole interaction with Blondie is very “cack-handed”, but not once does he take his cack in hand and jack its contents into a potted plant. Vive la différence!

But back to the Mme. Poirier’s touching defence of the letter, which seems to be based on a number of thoughts lost in translation, somewhere over the Atlantic:

As women, we do not recognise ourselves in this feminism, which beyond denouncing the abuse of power takes on a hatred of men and of sexuality.”

This is an example of what has always distinguished French feminism from the American and British versions: the attitude towards sex and towards men.

Ah oui, le chauvinisme français. That charming Gallic trait that assumes a natural Gallic superiority over tout le monde, constantly and oh-so-charmingly forgetting that égalité and fraternité are also in the national motto, and for reasons good. I know it all too well, having seen examples of it (which I’ll get to in a bit). Continuez, s’il vous plaît…

Partly lost in translation, the letter was vilified on social networks, its authors accused by some of being “lobotomised” by their “internalised misogyny” (according to Asia Argento), and more generally for being “rape apologists”, “too old and decrepit to understand women’s issues today”, for being “over-privileged”, for being “stuck in the 1960s and 1970s”.

Deneuve and Catherine Millet, the art critic famous for The Sexual Life of Catherine M, suddenly became the faces of what was seen by many younger feminists in France and abroad as a retrograde bunch of over-privileged celebrities and intellectuals both totally unconcerned by the plight of all those anonymous victims of rape and sexual harassment and too preoccupied by their sexual freedom and defending the French way of gallivanting about.

The letter’s authors did not do themselves any favours by writing of men’s “right to pester” women. This clumsy and unacceptable line poured more oil on the fire and reinforced prejudices and cliches about French women. As Simone de Beauvoir wrote in 1947: “American women have only contempt for French women always too happy to please their men and too accepting of their whims.”

This is a real shame: the letter puts forward strong arguments. And it does so by being overtly French; in other words, by sounding authoritative – and rude. Heated debate is a passion, considered healthy in France. As the highly regarded 89-year-old French historian and feminist Michelle Perrot, partly critical of the Deneuve letter, wrote: “They are triumphant free women who show a certain lack of solidarity with the #MeToo victims … But they say what they think, and many people share their point of view. The debate is real and must be recognised.”

Duly noted, mesdames. And I’ll grant you this, the US-Americans ARE a puritanical lot; their first English-speaking settlers brought over some seriously backward notions about women and sex in general. We much more liberal, progressive Canadians are constantly rolling our eyes at them, believe me.

But this is not just some prudish younger Americans bashing their French elders for their retrograde attitudes; even in France, younger feminists have, as Mme. Poirier notes all too fleetingly, begun to criticize their compatriotes’ clinging to outmoded (and frankly, male-centred) notions of what constitutes sexual freedom. Somehow, though, the French equivalent of #MeToo, #BalanceTonPorc (“call out your pig”) was not deemed worth mentioning here. Even though it matters, and matters intensely, to a great many jeunes françaises… Inquiring minds are wondering pourquoi, Mme. Poirier…

In France today, different feminist groups coexist: the main one is a feminism following the steps of De Beauvoir, one that is not at war with men but rather with machismo culture, gender inequality and the inherent misogyny of religions.

And there is a rather recent American import of feminism, one that often comes across as opportunistic and “man-hating”, one that turns a blind eye to religious misogyny, for instance defending the wearing of the hijab. They present themselves as the new vanguard of French feminism, the new blood, except they can sound to some like Stalinist commissars, or Robespierre in culottes, passing edicts about what is acceptable conduct. We would be wrong, however, to think that the current debate shows a generational fight. Many millennials have signed the Deneuve letter. The divide is political, ideological even.

And again, le chauvinisme rears its head, and claims to be speaking for all the French féministes, including the much more critical-minded younger generations thereof. Worse, it taps into a false strain of “feminism” (note the quotes, there for a reason) that attacks the “religious misogyny” supposedly inherent in Islam, while doing no such thing about that of Roman Catholicism, France’s still-dominant main religion. Do I have to dredge up, once more, the hypocrisies of those who scream about the evils of the burkini and try to tear hijabs off French Muslim women’s heads, while leaving similarly-clad nuns to frolic unmolested in the same surf on the same beaches? Do I have to point out how very strange it is that those who purport to defend secularism keep turning a blind eye to their own favoritism when it comes to Catholicism? And do I have to point out, once again, how far from feminism it is to force women to (un-)dress in ways that make them feel uncomfortably exposed, just so they blend in with what is deemed chic and pleasing to the eyes of (some very chauvinistic) men?

But wait, we haven’t even gotten to the most ridiculous part yet. Don’t worry, we’re getting to it…

According to Perrot, “the authors of the letter fear that the #MeToo movement dents creative, artistic and sexual freedom, that a moralist backlash comes and destroys what libertarian thinking has fought hard to obtain, that women’s bodies and sex become again this forbidden territory and that a new moral order introduces a new censorship against the free movement of desire”, and concludes: “There is indeed reason to share their fear.”

Except that nothing exists to confirm that this fear is even remotely reasonable. So far, the perpetrators of the worst have merely been censured, and their works interrogated, but left untouched. Nobody has been jailed for life on the mere say-so of one outraged woman. Nor have their movies been pulled from circulation to face the censor’s scissors. What has happened is that women have finally felt free enough, despite American and all other puritanism, to come forward and talk about their abuse at the hands of men in power. Nothing more.

Meanwhile, though, we see just what a strange notion of “censorship” passes for definitive among certain soi-disantes féministes in France:

This is probably the most interesting and sharpest argument made in the Deneuve letter. As Sarah Chiche, a 41- year-old psychoanalyst and author who signed the Deneuve letter, explained: “The #MeToo victims’ personal stories have proved a powerful magnet and very popular with the public. It has almost become a new norm in public discourse. Unfortunately, this is becoming insidious: now books need to be rewritten, films reshot.”

Last week an opera director in Florence decided to change the end of Bizet’s Carmen so that Carmen now kills her murderer. Ridley Scott edited out Kevin Spacey from his latest film and reshot his scenes with Christopher Plummer in All the Money in the World. Art critics questioned on the BBC whether to boycott the Gauguin exhibition in London because the painter slept with under-age Tahitians. Others want to rewrite Sleeping Beauty so that the final kiss is a consented one.

Since Deneuve signed the letter, Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour has suddenly been described as a rape apologist film, to be banned from cinemas. “This new feminism is now serving the interests of cultural revisionism and doesn’t know when or where to stop,” says Chiche.

It is a French tradition to disturb, to question, to critique, to set ablaze the conflict between two freedoms, that which protects and that which disturbs. Sexuality has become the new battlefield. “Today, in 2018, Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses and Nabokov’s Lolita would never see daylight because of both reactionaries and self-proclaimed progressives who invoke the fate of real victims to shut us all up,” says Chiche.

Did you catch that? Sarah Chiche opposes “censorship”…by supporting actual censorship. And she maintains the French tradition of tearing things up…by opposing anyone trying to actually tear things up. What else can you call it when someone decries “cultural revisionism” by calling for the stifling of reimagined cultural icons before they can even be created?

Écoutez bien, mes soeurs: There is nothing wrong with rewriting old fairy tales with new endings. Popular stories are constantly being rewritten or recast from new angles, and have been since time immemorial. Shakespeare was a notable rewriter of Plutarch, for example. Even the the most “classic” of fairy tales is but a revision of some older story that has grown unpalatable to its current admirers. It’s only slightly newer to have them revised from the underside to show the point of view of those oppressed, but trust me, it’s been going on. Lolita, for instance, has been reimagined from the viewpoint of the sexually abused titular heroine. (And was unsuccessfully “defended” by a stab at censorship, too.)

It’s even happening in France. Kamel Daoud’s marvelous reimagination of Albert Camus, for example, in which he gives names and voices to the Algerian victims of the pieds-noirs Meursault’s murderous foray into forbidden freedoms. He didn’t insist on butchering Camus, he just wrote a whole new book to show what Camus left out of L’Étranger. Would you rather he be silenced in the name of preventing “cultural revisionism”?

Oh wait, I suppose you would. C’est typique…

For all the talk about Deneuve, little has been said of the initiator of this public letter. Her name is Abnousse Shalmani. She is a 41-year-old French-Iranian, born in Tehran. She grew up under Ayatollah Khomeini until her parents fled to Paris in 1985. In a book she published in 2014, Khomeini, Sade et Moi, she revealed that she was the victim of a rape, but also said French authors such as Colette, Victor Hugo and Marquis de Sade taught her how to be free, as a woman and a sexual being, far from the Islamic veil she was forced to wear as a girl in Tehran.

Perhaps we should listen to her when, amid the furore, she tried to make herself heard on French radio: “We do not dismiss the many women who had the courage to speak up against [Harvey] Weinstein. We do not dismiss either the legitimacy of their fight. We do, however, add our voice, a different voice, to the debate.”

One should always listen to the French difference.

Well, madame, consider the “difference” duly heard and noted, along with the above-mentioned chauvinism and hypocrisy that underpins it. (We’ll leave out just how far from libertarian the Mad Marquis was, eh?)

It’s clear that the French way is superior to that of les Américaines, and that’s why French women have a certain je ne sais quoi, and also why they never get fat. But I still think this embarrassing letter is unworthy of them. And even Catherine Deneuve has since apologized for it.

Funnily, though, I don’t hear anyone saying we should listen to that part of French feminism.

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Posted in Artsy-Fartsy Culture Stuff, Canadian Counterpunch, Deepest Darkest Africa, Do As I Say..., Fascism Without Swastikas, Freeze Peach!, Human Rights FAIL, If You REALLY Care, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Racist?, Morticia! You Spoke French!, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Saudi camels get WHAT???

Posted on January 25, 2018 by Sabina Becker

No, seriously…they get Botox. And that’s not all:

The annual contest has been moved from its previous venue in the desert to the outskirts of the capital Riyadh, where a jury rates tens of thousands of camels based on their appearance. The event is part of a big festival that celebrates the animal, which symbolizes Bedouin life in the desert.

“The camel is a symbol of Saudi Arabia,” the chief judge of the show, Fawzan al-Madi, said as news that twelve camels were kicked out of the competition broke, Reuters reported. “We used to preserve it out of necessity, now we preserve it as a pastime.”

With a prize money total of around $57 million, it is no surprise that around 30,000 camels have been entered in the show, but the month-long event has already run into controversy.

Mo’ money, mo’ problems, amirite?

But seriously: $57 million, US, in prizes. For CAMELS. The world has truly lost perspective. And in light of that, I guess camels with artificially big heads and botoxed, flubbery lips are just something to be expected.

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It was only a matter of time…

Posted on January 24, 2018 by Sabina Becker

…before THESE guys showed up:

Sic semper imbecilis!

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Posted in Artsy-Fartsy Culture Stuff, Cool Beans, Fascism WITH Swastikas, Isn't It Ironic?, Karma 1, Dogma 0, Schadenfreude, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Dafuq did I just see?

Posted on January 24, 2018 by Sabina Becker

I’m not at all sure what was going on here at the “Alt”-Right Night of the Walking Damned, but I have my theories…

…and my main theory (my conspiracy, allegedly) is that this is pretty much the worst stand-up comedy show EVER. Mind you, these guys ARE funny…but only by accident.

Also, dudes, the ’80s called, and said to stop butchering Rick Springfield. Especially since, back when “Jessie’s Girl” was on the charts, he was a total hottie who could have kicked sand in the face of any number of these wankstains. Meaning, that song was absolutely ironic, in ways that Gavin McNasty couldn’t even begin to fathom.

PS: Maybe they should have used this one of his instead.

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Posted in Crapagandarati, Der Drumpf, Drrrrruuuugs, Fascism WITH Swastikas, Fascism Without Swastikas, Fine Young Cannibals, Isn't It Ironic?, Men Who Just Don't Get It, Sick Frickin' Bastards, Teh Heterostoopid, The Hardcore Stupid, The United States of Amnesia, The WTF? Files | Comments Off

FUX Snooze fraudster complains about “servants” demanding better wages

Posted on January 23, 2018 by Sabina Becker

Donnie wants to make tip-stealing by employers legal, and this is who FUX Snooze digs up to defend his shitty policies? Listen to him. And to what the Turks dug up about his past as a “hard-working” credit card fraudster. Working people are being punished in Donnie’s “great again” US of Amnesia, while schmucks like this are being lionized on Donnie’s unofficial state crapaganda channel.

And he even whines about his “uneducated” customers, who are understandably upset that his cheap ass is passing the costs down to them, instead of taking a lower profit, like a decent owner would learn how to do. He’s a fine one to talk about lack of education; he can’t even talk grammatically. What do you bet that his steakhouses don’t pass a health inspection, either? (Mar-a-Lago certainly doesn’t. And yet somehow Donnie manages to find idiots willing to pay $100,000 and more to eat caviar served with plastic spoons. Maybe “Jack” there has a point about uneducated customers!)

Meanwhile, to cure that amnesia, we have a blast from the past up here in Ontario:

When the provincial government introduced hourly minimum-wage legislation in 1963, opponents of the move predicted doomsday scenarios. Diners going under. Staffing reductions. Costs passed on to consumers. Implementation of minimum tabs. And, worst of all, the demise of the 10-cent cup of coffee, a staple since the Second World War. “After all,” Dalton Waller, president of the Canadian Restaurant Association, observed in an interview with the Toronto Daily Star, “this is an industry that takes in many unskilled people, folks who don’t speak the Queen’s English or any English.” Waller also warned: “You start paying it to the fellow who does menial tasks and pretty soon everyone above him feels they ought to get more too.”

The previous year, the Star had investigated low wages in Ontario restaurants. Workers were generally paid between 55 and 73 cents an hour, but the newspaper reported that “a majority of restaurant owners say their employees aren’t even worth that.” The most exploited were male immigrants — the Star highlighted the example of one Hungarian cook in Toronto who earned $35 for a 91-hour week.

Organized labour, the media, and the opposition at Queen’s Park called on the Conservative government to implement an hourly minimum wage. While female workers (apart from domestics and farm labourers) had had a set weekly minimum since the early 1920s, males negotiated rates with employers via the Industrial Standards Act. Benefits such as paid vacations, 48-hour work weeks, and a framework for pay equity were added over time, but in the early 1960s, Ontario was one of only three provinces to lack a minimum wage for men.

Proponents of a minimum wage suggested a $1.25 hourly rate, which was based on what was being implemented across the United States. That rate was higher than those in other provinces, which in 1962 ranged from 50 cents in Newfoundland to 75 cents in British Columbia. The Canadian Labour Congress pointed to an American Senate committee’s view on the effects of failing to protect low-wage earners: “The burden falls on the community and its relief rolls, and the community also bears the incalculable cost of the waste of human resources, loss of human dignity and the intolerable social and economic evils that prey upon the underpaid worker, his family, his children and upon his neighbourhood.”

Imagine that! Once upon a time, the United States was leading the way in paying minimum wages, and Ontario workers, activists, and even the Conservative (!) provincial government of the way sat up and took notice! And even more important, they realized that underpaid workers were costing the government in terms of “relief rolls” — or what we would now call WELFARE. In other words, the government of the day was telling owners to pay up fair and square, because if they didn’t, it was going to come out of their taxes. Higher taxes or higher wages, fellas…pick one! (And read the rest of the article too, it’s a doozer.)

Of course, up here, we’re also seeing backlash to the raising of the minimum wage. And the fact that consumers (who are also employees, often paid minimum wage or little more themselves) are waking up to the power of taking their hard-earned dollars elsewhere.

Maybe “Uncle Jack” will sit up and take note himself when he suddenly finds himself with not only a shortage of good help — oh sorry, “SERVANTS” — but also a sudden lack “uneducated” customers who turn out to be too smart to eat at his steakhouse.

PS: Oh gawd, it gets worse. According to Sam Seder and friends, this bozo is going to come out with a blog that’s a “no-holds-barred” take on the restaurant industry?

In that case, he might want to take some advice from this crazy Canuck right here, whose family has been running hotels and restaurants for over 50 years: Cut back on what you pay yourself, and cut back on the alcohols you serve, because that shit guzzles money like mad. Unless, of course, you LIKE hemorrhaging employees (and customers, too). In which case, keep going on FUX Snooze in your goombah suit and play the big-shot victim. I’m sure that won’t come back to bite your ass at ALL!

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Posted in Bullies, Canadian Counterpunch, Crapagandarati, Der Drumpf, Fascism Without Swastikas, Filthy Stinking Rich, If You REALLY Care, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Law-Law Land, Not So Compassionate Conservatism, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Quotable: Lenin on “freedom” of the press

Posted on January 21, 2018 by Sabina Becker

Note the quotes, there for a reason:

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Posted in Crapagandarati, Fascism Without Swastikas, Filthy Stinking Rich, Freeze Peach!, Newspeak is Nospeak, Quotable Notables, Teh Russkies | Comments Off

Music for a Sunday: Come in, come out of the rain

Posted on January 21, 2018 by Sabina Becker

Since it’s kind of a damp, foggy, calm-before-the-ice-storm moment, ‘scuse me while I kick the sky:

Step on up.

And CRANK it.

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Posted in Music for a Sunday, True Scotsmen (and WOMEN!) | Comments Off

Wankers of the Week: Shithole Countries

Posted on January 19, 2018 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! And an especially crappy one to all the folks from what Donnie has characterized, in his quaint and charming, oh-so-refined colloquial way, as “shithole countries”. Coming from someone who heads up a country most famous, recently, for the number of its people heading to the emergency room after ingesting detergent on a dare, that’s downright rich, eh? And here’s who else is frothing at the mouth (no Tide Pods necessary) this week, in no particular order:

1. Trey Fucking Gowdy. Hey, remember him? The Dollar Store Draco Malfoy? Well, he finally quit yelling “Benghazi!” this week. Wonder what he’ll do for an encore…said no one ever.

2. Rachel Fucking Campos-Duffy. “Who among us hasn’t said an un-PC thing”, she asks? Well, given that it’s FUX Snooze, I’m guessing that if you limit it strictly to that channel and its imbecilic audience, the answer is NOBODY. But out here in the real world, you’d be surprised how…wait for it…OUTNUMBERED you racist fucking idiots actually are. And if you’re worried about someone making your country look bad, how about starting with yourselves and your presidunce, and stopping with the partisan finger-pointing?

3. Tom Fucking Cotton. He was there. He heard what Donnie said. But, like a good head-up-ass Repug, he denies it. Dude, that’s Donnie’s job. PS: So, writing and calling your office to get answers is now “harassment”? Oh, dude. You are so fucked!

4. Don Fucking Shooter. Nice fucking nopology you got there, dude. Oh wait, you think you did nothing wrong? Well, there’s a shocker. It’s like what other people do or don’t want doesn’t matter to you because they’re not the ones that really count, eh?

5. Timothy Fucking Brennan. Damn straight, those dickpix you snapchatted to a 14-year-old could ruin your marriage and your job. Have you ever thought of what they (and you) are doing to her life, you fucking pervert?

6. Joe Fucking Arpaio. Hawaii had a missile threat? SQUIRREL! And in this case, the squirrel was Barack Obama’s long-form birth certificate…which was released years ago, and which conclusively showed that he was born not in Kenya, but in Hawaii.

7. Peter Fucking Bone. He used to say that same-sex marriage would destroy the sanctity of marriage. But even though he left his wife for a much younger woman two years ago, he’s still referring to “Mrs. Bone” in his parliamentary speechifications. Next up: The Internet destroys the sanctity of marriage.

8. James Fucking Sears. Yes, Dimitri the Hater is at it again. And it seems he never learns. Even though nobody wants to read his shitty Nazi rag, he still insists on wasting time and money producing and distributing it…and even more on defending himself against the inevitable libel lawsuits it generates. I hope you go bankrupt, Dim.

9. Jo Fucking Marney. Hey racist, you forgot a word on your bio. And that word is SHITBAG. Honestly, the satire just writes itself with you people, doesn’t it?

10. David Fucking Perdue. He denied that Donnie said what he said, even though he was there to hear him say it…and Donnie later bragged about it to all his cronies. I guess he also denies having prayed for Barack Obama’s death, even though we all heard him say that?

11. Kevin Fucking McCarthy. Everybody sing! Who sucks up to Donnie/Nose all brown with poo/Butters up the POTUS with a Starburst fruity chew?/The Candy Man!/The Candy Man can!/The Candy Man can, because he hasn’t any shame, and makes the US look bad!

12. John Fucking Kelly. Bipartisanship? Who needs it? Not this guy, and apparently, not Donnie either, because both of them share a common agenda: Wrecking anything that might be even the least little bit constructive for anyone.

13. Stephen Fucking Moore. What black people has this clown talked to, ever? Other than to maybe yell a racial slur on the street at them, or slip them some cash for dope? Bull-fucking-SHIT they’re praising Donnie. Unless they’re being paid to, ain’t none of them got a good word to say about him. And rightly so.

14. Milo Fucking Yiannopoulos. I’m not a bit surprised to hear that he fell for a fake news story from a satire site and did an entire YouTube rant on it (here, if he hasn’t removed it yet — and yes, he looks and sounds as inebriated as you imagine he would). What does surprise me is that he’s not dead of alcohol poisoning yet. PS to YouTube: Why are you still allowing this prat to upload, anyway? Shouldn’t you be taking some cues from the tweeter, and cracking down on Nazis instead?

15. Casey Fucking Fisher. Ohhhh, so it was “a bad idea” to give women the right to vote, eh? Well, doggie. Guess who’s going to be losing his next election, on the backs of a lot of pissed-off women voters? Yeah…THIS guy. Special dishonorable mention to Teena Fucking Horlacher: Why are you still working for him? He just basically told you you don’t even deserve to vote because you’re female! And you’re all up in arms because he’s being “harassed”? He should be thankful nobody’s bludgeoned him with a rolling pin!

16. Carl Fucking Higbie. Imagine that! Saying a whole slew of bigoted, judgmental shit has actual, real-world repercussions! White supremacists, take note…the clock is now ticking on you.

17. Eric Fucking Drumpf. Daesh is a thing of the past? I’m sure that’s news to Iraq and Syria! And if indeed it’s true, rest assured that your pudgy old man had NOTHING to do with it. PS: And bull-fucking-SHIT that green, as in money, is the only color he sees, either.

18. Matt Fucking Gaetz. And here’s another Haiti-hatey kind of guy. Sucks to be you, Matty…and if I were you, I’d keep a close eye on my fingernail clippings and hair trimmings, if you know what I mean.

19. Sebastian Fucking Gorka. Not content to insult our prime minister over a matter that concerns him not in the least, Wile E. Pickle, Suuuuuper-Genius, doubled down on the dumbth this week by picking on Alyssa Milano…and scoring a whopping own goal. PS: Aaaand now we know why Gormless Gorka hasn’t gone back to Hungary yet. He’s wanted there on gun charges! Figures. He doesn’t look like he could punch his way out of a wet paper bag.

20. Harley Fucking Barber. Well, here’s a switch: A racist sorority sister in Alabama is getting kicked out…all the way back to Noo Joizey! Ha, ha.

21. Jeff Fucking Sessions. Illiterate immigrants are unfortunate souls indeed, but you know what’s truly tragic? A semiliterate, totally racist US attorney general opening his Kluker piehole to opine on the subject, and get Canada totally wrong in the process!

22. Kirstjen Fucking Nielsen. And speaking of semiliterates in public office who really should think twice before opening their mouths even once, how about HER? Yes, she’s so poorly informed that she doesn’t even know what color the vast majority of Norwegian citizens are! Somebody please send her some recent Norwegian census data, wouldja? Meanwhile, Norway’s offer of asylum to persons from a REAL shithole country still stands.

23. Bob Fucking Massi. Hey! Did you know that there’s a racism against ORANGE people? This dude claims that everyone opposing Donnie Drumpf has it. Orange Lives Matter!

24. Larry Fucking Nassar. Can’t handle four days of victim-impact statements? Gee, what a shocker. I’d have thought a gymnastics team doctor who sexually molested his under-age patients for years would be less of a fragile snowflake than THAT!

25. Scott Fucking Perry. Who’s got a cockamamie terrorist conspiracy theory? THIS guy. Because clearly, the idea that a home-grown, right-wing, white male mass shooter could actually exist is just too damn hard to believe. No, better just make up some shit about Daesh coming in through Mexico!

26. Matthew Fucking Heimbach. And speaking of home-grown, right-wing, white male terrorists…how about him? He and his “Traditionalist Workers Party” (a bullshit name if ever there was one) are planning to protest against the women’s march, and in favor of anti-choicers. Because nothing’s going to attract women to your nasty Nazi cause like just straight out saying that all you ever want them to be is your household slaves and your baby factories.

27. Jack Fucking Robison. What kind of judge makes a snap decision based on “God told me to”? A judge who shouldn’t be on the bench anymore listening to human trafficking stories and exonerating the traffickers. That’s who.

28. Michael Fucking Douglas. Am I a bit surprised that a man who was pretty much typecast as an arrogant, unlikable jerk all through the ‘80s and ‘90s turns out to be a wanker, quite literally, in real life? Why no, I’m not! I’m only surprised that this didn’t come out sooner, frankly.

29. Robert Fucking Litzinger. If anyone wonders what I have against purity culture and the “Christian premarital counseling” that goes with it, you can stop wondering any more. THIS GUY. This pervert and others like him are what I have against purity culture.

30. Mark Fucking Steyn. So, white supremacists are okay because they’re “American citizens”, but the people they persecute are “illegal”, so that makes all the cross-burnings and terrorist murders okay, does it, Shit-Steyn? Special dishonorable mention to Tucker Fucking Carlson, who also finally showed HIS true colors. Next time I see both of you together, I hope you two chickenshit racists just wear your hooded sheets and swastika armbands on the air, and let fly with the n-words like I know you’re both dying to do.

And finally, to Donnie Fucking Drumpf again. Everytime I think he can’t possibly outdo himself for shittiness, he does it. Unprotected sex with women not his wife (new baby in the house and all!), idiotic expectations of his wife post-pregnancy (!), even more idiotic pronouncements on pregnancy and abortion (at least that’s what it appears they are)…yeesh. He’s disintegrating before our very eyes. Would somebody, for the love of all that’s holy, PLEASE impeach the motherfucker and institutionalize him already? He’s clearly not fit to be in any office, including the ones at Drumpf Tower. And I’m seriously afraid for the safety of the entire world, what with his finger on the nuclear button and all.

Good night, and (please don’t let our whole entire planet) get fucked!

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | Comments Off

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