Some days ago the reporter Lara Logan, whose interview with Jon Stewart I seem to remember posting somewhere, was beaten in a sexual assault while working in Egypt. She was rescued by some women and elements of the Egyptian army.
On reading about that I felt a bit sick and went about my day. Then the irrational Right started popping up like noxious weeds with opinions about it all.
I thought "What? It's a sickening act of violence perpetrated against someone who was doing her job - what other possible view could there be?"
But they seem to have been titillated into a piranha-like frenzy about it all.
Let's start with Jim Hoft:
CBS Reporter Logan Learns That Political Correctness Is a Killer. Lara Logan is lucky she's alive. Her liberal belief system almost got her killed on Friday. This talented reporter will never be the same.
Won't she Jim? Did you personally talk to her? You have an exact idea of her state of mind, do you? And I wasn't aware that professional journalism was a "liberal belief system"... though I guess it is when considering that crass and baseless pseudo-journalism is usually the province of the Right.
Why did this attractive blonde female reporter wander into Tahrir Square last Friday? Why would she think this was a good idea?
Oh... it's her fault is it? My... and when have we ever heard THAT before when talking about rape?
Another question... what exactly does "attractive blonde" have to do with anything?
Robert Stacy McCain - of "You buy the ticket. You take the ride" fame - shot his mouth off about it:
Please tell me what I am permitted to say when a gang of Egyptian men celebrates the end of the Mubarak regime by sexually assaulting an American TV news reporter.
I see... you're the victim here are you Robert? Should have known I guess - the loopy Right is always the victim as far as they're concerned. I'll let you know the next time I spill my coffee, because you'll surely be the victim then too.
By the way, Robert, I think Logan is South African.
Pamela Geller:
Lara Logan was repeatedly sexually assaulted by thugs yelling, "Jew! Jew!"...
Ah... now we come to the pseudo-journalism... and it gets worse
Worse still, CBS tried to keep the whole thing quiet and was forced to get in front of the story only when it became widely known that other media outlets were on to it. Who are they covering for?
Oh I don't know... maybe they are being sensitive to the needs of an employee who has been raped? No?
And why? Because the false narrative the media is painting of what is going on in Egypt is patently false, and this brutal sex attack points to something else entirely... Obama should make a statement addressing this horror and condemning the vile Islamic anti-semitism at the heart of Islam.
Because they wouldn't be rapists if only they weren't so horribly anti-semitic?
You're a total moron, Pam.
Nir Rosen apologized and lost his job, though he never blamed Logan for what happened to her. And mainstream media were content to focus on him... for some reason... and not so much on people like...
Debbie Schlussel, who FOX News use as their expert on Islam apparently because she's a film-critic - gee who could knock qualifications like that?
Schlussel is probably the worst of the bunch here. Read what she wrote and I won't have to tell you why:
As I’ve noted before, it bothers me not a lick when mainstream media reporters who keep telling us Muslims and Islam are peaceful get a taste of how "peaceful" Muslims and Islam really are. In fact, it kinda warms my heart. Still, it’s also a great reminder of just how "civilized" these "people" (or, as I like to call them in Arabic, "Bahai'm (Animals) are...
...Now you know what it’s like, Lara....
"There will be no further comment from CBS News and Correspondent Logan and her family respectfully request privacy at this time."
I just love it when the people of the profession of “the public’s right to know” suddenly want “privacy.” Tell it to your next interview subject, Lara. Of course CBS has no further comment. Wouldn’t wanna impugn the “peacefulness” of “Religion of Peace” animals, would we? Now, if they were Christians or Jews, well, then there would be comments galore.
So sad, too bad, Lara. No one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows. Or so we’d hope. But in the case of the media vis-a-vis Islam, that’s a hope that’s generally unanswered.
This never happened to her or any other mainstream media reporter when Mubarak was allowed to treat his country of savages in the only way they can be controlled.
Now that’s all gone. How fitting that Lara Logan was “liberated” by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the “liberation.”
Hope you’re enjoying the revolution, Lara! Alhamdilllullah (oraise Allah)
The Internet... isn't quite big enough... for me to write about everything that is hideous in that tirade.
Showing posts with label Right-wing extremism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Right-wing extremism. Show all posts
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Where's Sarah?
Normally I don't put unpleasant pictures up on my blog... but sometimes you have to show it, so people know what you're talking about....
If this has been around before and has nauseated everyone already, sorry to subject you to it again, but I hadn't seen it:
On THE SAME PAGE that proudly presented this I found the following crap:
"I just do not understand why the Germans(Nazi's ) are hated so much. Really what did Hitler do that was so wrong, other than being a damn Catlik? So they started a war with half the world. First it was the Pollocks and Checks, well know bastions of retards and gypsies. The French, who cares, same goes for Norwegians, Swedes, Hollanders, and the British, all are strong holds of Joo's. The only bad thing that the Nazi's did was pick the Japs and Dago's to be friends with."
"I'd vote for a make-believe SS officer in a heartbeat over a real Communist Muslim homosexual black militant drug addict."
THESE are the thoughts of people who LIKE and ADMIRE Sarah Palin - and believe it or not are off a "Christian Forum" - and is the cesspool that would be thrilled to see her get somewhere...
If this has been around before and has nauseated everyone already, sorry to subject you to it again, but I hadn't seen it:
On THE SAME PAGE that proudly presented this I found the following crap:
"I just do not understand why the Germans(Nazi's ) are hated so much. Really what did Hitler do that was so wrong, other than being a damn Catlik? So they started a war with half the world. First it was the Pollocks and Checks, well know bastions of retards and gypsies. The French, who cares, same goes for Norwegians, Swedes, Hollanders, and the British, all are strong holds of Joo's. The only bad thing that the Nazi's did was pick the Japs and Dago's to be friends with."
"I'd vote for a make-believe SS officer in a heartbeat over a real Communist Muslim homosexual black militant drug addict."
THESE are the thoughts of people who LIKE and ADMIRE Sarah Palin - and believe it or not are off a "Christian Forum" - and is the cesspool that would be thrilled to see her get somewhere...
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Context for Tucson
"Gabrielle Giffords was targeted by the Tea Party Right on the basis that she supported the Obama health care plan – a plan that Beck and others like him have regularly explained to millions of Americans as representing totalitarian communism. Indeed, Sarah Palin’s notorious gun site map was only part of the eliminationist rhetoric unleashed against Giffords. For instance, her local Republican opponents held a fundraising event for his campaign that included the following message: ‘Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.’"
Follow the below links to two articles, one post-Tucson recent, and one from August 2009, by Jeff Sparrow, an Australian Left-wing writer:
Have We Got A Show For You!
The Social Significance of the Arizona massacre.
There's a lot to read.
If you believe gun culture is healthy and the Tea Party are just nice people... you will blow a gasket.
"The toxic milieu of the Patriots spawned Timothy McVeigh — and a wave of other domestic terrorists responsible for over 40 violent incidents between 1995 and 2000.
The militias faded after the Clinton years, partly because of the economic recovery, partly because the far right felt less visceral antipathy to George W Bush and partly, perhaps, because the "war on terror" provided an external focus for internal rage. Yet, all through the Bush administration, the conservative infrastructure pushed the same populist message: the president was a swaggering Texan man of the people; his enemies, effete and treacherous intellectuals.
That strategy reached its nadir at the last election with the McCain/Palin ticket. Sarah Palin campaigned on almost nothing other than her anti-elitism: for her supporters, Palin was an ordinary hockey mom coming to clean up Washington, her very inexperience proof of virtue. In that respect, Obama’s victory — the defeat of the oxymoronic "Team Maverick" by a black liberal — was seen as the end of the so-called "Southern strategy", with the Republicans’ preferred talking points decisively rejected by an increasingly young and increasingly multicultural electorate.
In the wake of the Obama landslide, many Republican strategists recognised a need to change course but the populist forces they unleashed now possess their own momentum..."
Follow the below links to two articles, one post-Tucson recent, and one from August 2009, by Jeff Sparrow, an Australian Left-wing writer:
Have We Got A Show For You!
The Social Significance of the Arizona massacre.
There's a lot to read.
If you believe gun culture is healthy and the Tea Party are just nice people... you will blow a gasket.
"The toxic milieu of the Patriots spawned Timothy McVeigh — and a wave of other domestic terrorists responsible for over 40 violent incidents between 1995 and 2000.
The militias faded after the Clinton years, partly because of the economic recovery, partly because the far right felt less visceral antipathy to George W Bush and partly, perhaps, because the "war on terror" provided an external focus for internal rage. Yet, all through the Bush administration, the conservative infrastructure pushed the same populist message: the president was a swaggering Texan man of the people; his enemies, effete and treacherous intellectuals.
That strategy reached its nadir at the last election with the McCain/Palin ticket. Sarah Palin campaigned on almost nothing other than her anti-elitism: for her supporters, Palin was an ordinary hockey mom coming to clean up Washington, her very inexperience proof of virtue. In that respect, Obama’s victory — the defeat of the oxymoronic "Team Maverick" by a black liberal — was seen as the end of the so-called "Southern strategy", with the Republicans’ preferred talking points decisively rejected by an increasingly young and increasingly multicultural electorate.
In the wake of the Obama landslide, many Republican strategists recognised a need to change course but the populist forces they unleashed now possess their own momentum..."
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
A pig is a pig - but gun sights are butterflies
"Rebecca Mansour, an aide to Palin, said the images were never meant to evoke violence. Mansour, who has been tweeting in defence of her boss since Saturday's massacre, said the cross-hairs were never intended to be gun sights. "We never ever, ever intended it to be gun sights," she said. "It was simply cross-hairs like you'd see on maps". "
Oh... like cherubs blowing from the corners and little sea serpents swimming around in unknown oceans. Of course.
Funny thing is I've NEVER seen cross-hairs on maps.
Not on ones that aren't hare-brained anyway.
"She added that "it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent" "
No. You don't see guns as objects of violence...
That and you're fucking stupid, lying, or both.
"Following initial controversy over the target map last year, Palin - who is known for her use of violent language and hunting lexicon - responded with her rallying cry: "Don't retreat. RELOAD." "
Yeah he tried to.
Oh... like cherubs blowing from the corners and little sea serpents swimming around in unknown oceans. Of course.
Funny thing is I've NEVER seen cross-hairs on maps.
Not on ones that aren't hare-brained anyway.
"She added that "it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent" "
No. You don't see guns as objects of violence...
That and you're fucking stupid, lying, or both.
"Following initial controversy over the target map last year, Palin - who is known for her use of violent language and hunting lexicon - responded with her rallying cry: "Don't retreat. RELOAD." "
Yeah he tried to.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The toxic Glenn Beck
Christopher Hitchens on something very nasty and tragic unfolding in the United States today:
Beck’s “9/12 Project” is canalizing old racist and clerical toxic-waste material that a healthy society had mostly flushed out of its system more than a generation ago, and injecting it right back in again. Things that had hidden under stones are being dug up and re-released. And why? So as to teach us anew about the dangers of “spending and deficits”? It’s enough to make a cat laugh. No, a whole new audience has been created, including many impressionable young people, for ideas that are viciously anti-democratic and ahistorical. The full effect of this will be felt farther down the road, where we will need it even less.
Read the whole thing here. Few can say it better.
I have to quote you this bit, however...
Glenn Beck has not even been encouraging his audiences to reread Robert Welch. No, he has been inciting them to read the work of W. Cleon Skousen, a man more insane and nasty than Welch and a figure so extreme that ultimately even the Birch-supporting leadership of the Mormon Church had to distance itself from him. It’s from Skousen’s demented screed The Five Thousand Year Leap (to a new edition of which Beck wrote a foreword, and which he shoved to the position of No. 1 on Amazon) that he takes all his fantasies about a divinely written Constitution, a conspiratorial secret government, and a future apocalypse. To give you a further idea of the man: Skousen’s posthumously published book on the “end times” and the coming day of rapture was charmingly called The Cleansing of America. A book of his with a less repulsive title, The Making of America, turned out to justify slavery and to refer to slave children as “pickaninnies.” And, writing at a time when the Mormon Church was under attack for denying full membership to black people, Skousen defended it from what he described as this “Communist” assault.
Look upon the far Right... and be horrified.
They are slime under the rock of human enlightenment.
Beck’s “9/12 Project” is canalizing old racist and clerical toxic-waste material that a healthy society had mostly flushed out of its system more than a generation ago, and injecting it right back in again. Things that had hidden under stones are being dug up and re-released. And why? So as to teach us anew about the dangers of “spending and deficits”? It’s enough to make a cat laugh. No, a whole new audience has been created, including many impressionable young people, for ideas that are viciously anti-democratic and ahistorical. The full effect of this will be felt farther down the road, where we will need it even less.
Read the whole thing here. Few can say it better.
I have to quote you this bit, however...
Glenn Beck has not even been encouraging his audiences to reread Robert Welch. No, he has been inciting them to read the work of W. Cleon Skousen, a man more insane and nasty than Welch and a figure so extreme that ultimately even the Birch-supporting leadership of the Mormon Church had to distance itself from him. It’s from Skousen’s demented screed The Five Thousand Year Leap (to a new edition of which Beck wrote a foreword, and which he shoved to the position of No. 1 on Amazon) that he takes all his fantasies about a divinely written Constitution, a conspiratorial secret government, and a future apocalypse. To give you a further idea of the man: Skousen’s posthumously published book on the “end times” and the coming day of rapture was charmingly called The Cleansing of America. A book of his with a less repulsive title, The Making of America, turned out to justify slavery and to refer to slave children as “pickaninnies.” And, writing at a time when the Mormon Church was under attack for denying full membership to black people, Skousen defended it from what he described as this “Communist” assault.
Look upon the far Right... and be horrified.
They are slime under the rock of human enlightenment.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Who's a threat again?
I happened to be doing a Google search on a British singer and somehow found myself looking at a forum of one of the most infamous white supremacist sites on the net, who were in a flap about the ancestry of said singer, and other well known performers.
One commenter was describing his "heartbreak" that Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is 1/8th Chinese...
Among the vile comments that flowed from this:
"Its disgusting to see a White Male with an Asian Female and the monstrosities they create"
...Lots of bizarre remarks about Jews of course. Endless pseudo-scientific dribble. Frothing rubbish about the white people being at threat...
Now here's an observation:
If these people were embarrassing diplomats with the facts of what they actually said - instead of stirring up genocidal rants - the authorities would have launched cyber attacks on their site, leaned on every associated commercial institution to dump them, Fox News would be calling for their assassination, and various appendages of the US government would be looking for some law somewhere to say the First Amendment doesn't apply.
But they're 'just' Nazis, so why bother huh?
One commenter was describing his "heartbreak" that Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is 1/8th Chinese...
Among the vile comments that flowed from this:
"Its disgusting to see a White Male with an Asian Female and the monstrosities they create"
...Lots of bizarre remarks about Jews of course. Endless pseudo-scientific dribble. Frothing rubbish about the white people being at threat...
Now here's an observation:
If these people were embarrassing diplomats with the facts of what they actually said - instead of stirring up genocidal rants - the authorities would have launched cyber attacks on their site, leaned on every associated commercial institution to dump them, Fox News would be calling for their assassination, and various appendages of the US government would be looking for some law somewhere to say the First Amendment doesn't apply.
But they're 'just' Nazis, so why bother huh?
Saturday, December 18, 2010
White Supremacists hate Thor
Apparently a superhero film has attracted Right-wing outrage...
Yeah.... makes you want to put your head in your hands and groan, doesn't it?
This is the story:
Marvel Comics have a character called Thor, who along with his dad and a few friends are aliens from another dimension who are so advanced that their science looks like magic even to them. Oh and they look just like the Norse pantheon because of contact they may have had with us Earthlings far in the past.
Pretty cool character actually, he was always one of my favourite superheroes as a kid.
Anyway... one of the supporting characters in the new film adaptation is played by a black actor.
Now... I get that Thor is based (very loosely) on Norse mythology but...
This is a comic book.
By way of comparison, Spartans did not look or act like they do in the film 300 - also based on a comic book (oh excuse me... I mean "graphic novel") and they were actually real. Somehow I don't remember the far Right getting in a stew about all that.
Provided Thor himself, and perhaps Odin too, looks like he does in the comic book... I don't give a damn about the rest as look as it all looks cool, and the bad guys get shit beaten out of them.
Anyway... leading the charge against this apparent comic book heresy is a bunch of losers called the Council of Conservative Citizens.
I went and checked them out. This is their "statement of principles", with commentary by me:
"(1) We believe the United States is a Christian country."
Yeah and I believe Natalie Portman looks hot in this new movie.
"(2) We believe the United States is a European country and that Americans are part of the European people."
Great. Just watch the rest of far Right get excited about "European Socialism"
"(3) The United States is a sovereign and independent nation."
Astounding... I actually have to agree with this point. I didn't turn into a Right-wing moron while I was asleep last night, did I?
"(4) The United States is a constitutional republic."
My penis is big.
"(5) We believe in States’ Rights, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the Bill of Rights."
All of which just means you don't like paying taxes and you have a gun fetish.
"(6) The traditional family is the basic unit of human society."
Surprisingly we Lefties love our wives and children too. I know, you don't believe me.
"(7) Private property and free enterprise are the foundations of our economy."
Sorry jerks but.... is this leading anywhere...?
"(8) Cultural, national, and racial integrity."
Ah now we get to it... you hate people who aren't white. Plus a lot who are.
"(9) A Strong National Defense."
You've never done a day's military service in your life have you? (The Council of Conservative Citizens not only oppose gays in the military, but women too)
"(10) America First Foreign Policy."
No foreign aid.
"(11) America First Trade Policy."
Full advantage to be taken of those countries you do not aid.
"(12) Traditional Education under Local Control."
You want to beat your children half to death if they read Harry Potter.
"(13) Strong and Just Law Enforcement."
Because we Lefties like being murdered and having things stolen from us.
"(14) Protection of the Environment and Natural Heritage."
Oh God... if only you meant that.
At time of writing the Council of Conservative Cretins have written 4 articles about Thor.
One is titled "Marvel has a history of publishing extremist "Black Power" comics"...
What? Like Spiderman? Like Captain America? Like the Fantastic Four?
Another is titled "Marvel Declares War on Norse Mythology".
In that fillip of garbage they write "It seems that Marvel Studios believes that white people should have nothing that is unique to themselves."
IT"S AN AMERICAN COMIC !!! NOT HITLER'S FUCKING DINNER PARTY.
You don't want to see this film? FINE
I'd rather see films with intelligent audiences anyway.
One of the characters in Asgard is played by a Japanese actor.... Oops... You didn't spot that in your race-hate rage did you?
Oh and... by the way jerks.... Thor is played by an Australian actor. We can't rely on Julian Assange to annoy you ALL the time
Here's the trailer:
Update:
Here is a related link:
I don't want to make too much about this because the CCofC are clearly stupid people... but it's in these moments that we see the emotional and moral incapacity of the far Right in all its pathetic inglory.
Yeah.... makes you want to put your head in your hands and groan, doesn't it?
This is the story:
Marvel Comics have a character called Thor, who along with his dad and a few friends are aliens from another dimension who are so advanced that their science looks like magic even to them. Oh and they look just like the Norse pantheon because of contact they may have had with us Earthlings far in the past.
Pretty cool character actually, he was always one of my favourite superheroes as a kid.
Anyway... one of the supporting characters in the new film adaptation is played by a black actor.
Now... I get that Thor is based (very loosely) on Norse mythology but...
This is a comic book.
By way of comparison, Spartans did not look or act like they do in the film 300 - also based on a comic book (oh excuse me... I mean "graphic novel") and they were actually real. Somehow I don't remember the far Right getting in a stew about all that.
Provided Thor himself, and perhaps Odin too, looks like he does in the comic book... I don't give a damn about the rest as look as it all looks cool, and the bad guys get shit beaten out of them.
Anyway... leading the charge against this apparent comic book heresy is a bunch of losers called the Council of Conservative Citizens.
I went and checked them out. This is their "statement of principles", with commentary by me:
"(1) We believe the United States is a Christian country."
Yeah and I believe Natalie Portman looks hot in this new movie.
"(2) We believe the United States is a European country and that Americans are part of the European people."
Great. Just watch the rest of far Right get excited about "European Socialism"
"(3) The United States is a sovereign and independent nation."
Astounding... I actually have to agree with this point. I didn't turn into a Right-wing moron while I was asleep last night, did I?
"(4) The United States is a constitutional republic."
My penis is big.
"(5) We believe in States’ Rights, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and the Bill of Rights."
All of which just means you don't like paying taxes and you have a gun fetish.
"(6) The traditional family is the basic unit of human society."
Surprisingly we Lefties love our wives and children too. I know, you don't believe me.
"(7) Private property and free enterprise are the foundations of our economy."
Sorry jerks but.... is this leading anywhere...?
"(8) Cultural, national, and racial integrity."
Ah now we get to it... you hate people who aren't white. Plus a lot who are.
"(9) A Strong National Defense."
You've never done a day's military service in your life have you? (The Council of Conservative Citizens not only oppose gays in the military, but women too)
"(10) America First Foreign Policy."
No foreign aid.
"(11) America First Trade Policy."
Full advantage to be taken of those countries you do not aid.
"(12) Traditional Education under Local Control."
You want to beat your children half to death if they read Harry Potter.
"(13) Strong and Just Law Enforcement."
Because we Lefties like being murdered and having things stolen from us.
"(14) Protection of the Environment and Natural Heritage."
Oh God... if only you meant that.
At time of writing the Council of Conservative Cretins have written 4 articles about Thor.
One is titled "Marvel has a history of publishing extremist "Black Power" comics"...
What? Like Spiderman? Like Captain America? Like the Fantastic Four?
Another is titled "Marvel Declares War on Norse Mythology".
In that fillip of garbage they write "It seems that Marvel Studios believes that white people should have nothing that is unique to themselves."
IT"S AN AMERICAN COMIC !!! NOT HITLER'S FUCKING DINNER PARTY.
You don't want to see this film? FINE
I'd rather see films with intelligent audiences anyway.
One of the characters in Asgard is played by a Japanese actor.... Oops... You didn't spot that in your race-hate rage did you?
Oh and... by the way jerks.... Thor is played by an Australian actor. We can't rely on Julian Assange to annoy you ALL the time
Here's the trailer:
Update:
Here is a related link:
I don't want to make too much about this because the CCofC are clearly stupid people... but it's in these moments that we see the emotional and moral incapacity of the far Right in all its pathetic inglory.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Plutocratic Fascism?
I was idly poking around the net and found some interesting quotes by people who are extremely concerned about the future of their country. I don't know who wrote them.
Nearly 10 years old, but it hits the mark:
" I'm afraid your suspicions regarding the rise of plutocratic fascism are correct. Southern Conservative Christians are peripheral to the ultimate purpose of this coup, but are essential to provide popular support. The truth is that really big money has coalesced for the purpose of turning back the tide of economic leveling that was quickly destroying the basis of the relative power upon which plutocrats rely. "
this dated to 6 months before 9/11 (and no I'm not one who thinks it was an inside job):
" Republican representatives are almost openly advocating a state religion. A destruction of welfare and social security. A militarized USA and the creation of foreign provocation to set off the need of military action which will facilitate internal police control of dissent. "
and...
" We fear the term fascism because it exists very close to the surface of America's skin. Corporatism, or corporate fascism, is the American form of this disease. It has thrived here unchallenged for several decades. And it has rewritten our language of social discourse at the same time it has taken half the wealth of this nation and concentrated it in the hands of a few. "
Nearly 10 years old, but it hits the mark:
" I'm afraid your suspicions regarding the rise of plutocratic fascism are correct. Southern Conservative Christians are peripheral to the ultimate purpose of this coup, but are essential to provide popular support. The truth is that really big money has coalesced for the purpose of turning back the tide of economic leveling that was quickly destroying the basis of the relative power upon which plutocrats rely. "
this dated to 6 months before 9/11 (and no I'm not one who thinks it was an inside job):
" Republican representatives are almost openly advocating a state religion. A destruction of welfare and social security. A militarized USA and the creation of foreign provocation to set off the need of military action which will facilitate internal police control of dissent. "
and...
" We fear the term fascism because it exists very close to the surface of America's skin. Corporatism, or corporate fascism, is the American form of this disease. It has thrived here unchallenged for several decades. And it has rewritten our language of social discourse at the same time it has taken half the wealth of this nation and concentrated it in the hands of a few. "
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Anti-Gypsy rhetoric on the rise
The far-Right party in the Hungarian parliament has called for camps detaining Gypsies, "if necessary for life".
This is in the midst of a Europe-wide backlash against Gypsies following population movements, particularly to Italy and France, after Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia joined the European Union.
According to the Telegraph:
" Jobbik party, the third largest in Parliament, proposed that Gypsies considered a threat to public order should be transferred to secure camps outside cities, warning that "civil war" could erupt unless the issue was tackled.
The governing Fidesz party branded the idea "outrageous", saying the solution was "not to set up ghettos, but to have strict laws and a strong police force".
A spokesman for the Hungarian Socialist Party said the call for camps was "reminiscent of the Nazi agenda for concentration camps 65 years ago". "
The latter are referencing ‘Gypsy Clean-up Week’ which took place throughout Germany in June 1938, in which Roma and Sinti men, women and children were targeted for persecution, hatred and imprisonment. The Sinti are another Romani people. Django Reinhardt, the great Jazz guitarist, was Sinti.
As to this case... how like the far-Right to be the ones to set expectations of violence - salivating at the prospect that some thugs will do their thing so they can say "You see? You see? I told ya so... The Gypsies and our opponents only have themselves to blame!".
They're so predictable.
Jobbik means "better and Right", and they describe themselves as a "radically patriotic Christian party" (oh great...) who were founded in 2002 as "the Right-Wing Youth Association", and gained support partly because there was another Right wing mob who are even worse: Magyar Igazság és Élet Pártja (MIEP) - Hungarian Justice and Life Party, who are racial Nationalists.
Jobbik's 2009 election slogan was “Hungary belongs to the Hungarians”. They have had co-operative talks with the British National Front.
This is in the midst of a Europe-wide backlash against Gypsies following population movements, particularly to Italy and France, after Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia joined the European Union.
According to the Telegraph:
" Jobbik party, the third largest in Parliament, proposed that Gypsies considered a threat to public order should be transferred to secure camps outside cities, warning that "civil war" could erupt unless the issue was tackled.
The governing Fidesz party branded the idea "outrageous", saying the solution was "not to set up ghettos, but to have strict laws and a strong police force".
A spokesman for the Hungarian Socialist Party said the call for camps was "reminiscent of the Nazi agenda for concentration camps 65 years ago". "
The latter are referencing ‘Gypsy Clean-up Week’ which took place throughout Germany in June 1938, in which Roma and Sinti men, women and children were targeted for persecution, hatred and imprisonment. The Sinti are another Romani people. Django Reinhardt, the great Jazz guitarist, was Sinti.
As to this case... how like the far-Right to be the ones to set expectations of violence - salivating at the prospect that some thugs will do their thing so they can say "You see? You see? I told ya so... The Gypsies and our opponents only have themselves to blame!".
They're so predictable.
Jobbik means "better and Right", and they describe themselves as a "radically patriotic Christian party" (oh great...) who were founded in 2002 as "the Right-Wing Youth Association", and gained support partly because there was another Right wing mob who are even worse: Magyar Igazság és Élet Pártja (MIEP) - Hungarian Justice and Life Party, who are racial Nationalists.
Jobbik's 2009 election slogan was “Hungary belongs to the Hungarians”. They have had co-operative talks with the British National Front.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Just a comment on Melanie Phillips
Melanie Phillips is the author of 'The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle Over God, Truth and Power', yet another book that seeks to say there is something fundamentally wrong with the world and - you guessed it - it's all the fault of Obama, gay people (about whose rights she has used the word "toxic"), Muslims, the theory of evolution, and people concerned about climate change.
Yawning already?
Oh and all centres around the eternal plot to destroy Israel, naturally...
Political commentator Matthew Norman writes:
" On her Spectator-hosted blog, Melanie Phillips disabuses readers of the suspicion that she can be vulnerable to the lure of hysteria. Responding to Joe Biden’s criticism of Israel for building more homes in east Jerusalem, she disputes his assertion that the Palestinians deserve a state of their own.
“To put it another way,” she writes, nimbly twisting the VP’s point in vintage Mad Mel style, “why does Joe Biden think that Israel “deserves” to surrender? And why, once again, is a final solution being imposed by America on democratic and besieged Israel ? ?” Is it me being fanciful here, or might MM be using that “final solution” subtly to compare Barack Obama with Hitler ? a tactic previously reserved for the more ostentatiously in-bred extremity of the Tea Party spectrum? "
guffaw snort..
Now let's be clear... you cannot reasonably use the phrase "final solution" when talking about Israel and mean anything other than a direct comparison to Nazi evil.
Phillips is deliberately inferring Obama is a Nazi just as she explicitly says he's a revolutionary Marxist and secretly a Muslim.
Phillips... One more bigmouth who has decided HER heritage and HER faith are the gold standard by which everything can be measured for virtue and justice, and anything outside of that experience is to be despised or devalued. All the world must fight HER fight. All the world is topsy turvy and only SHE can explain it.
piss off Melanie
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Extremism in America
This is one for those who have their eye on the far Right around the anniversary of the Oklahoma bombing... published in The Age yesterday (as I post this just past midnight):
"...at its core, the Tea Party is essentially a movement of disaffected, white, middle-class Republicans re-energised by the Democrats' control of Congress and the White House, and who can be expected to influence the choice of Republican candidates in the lead-up to November's mid-term Congressional elections.
Yet the Tea Party's public dissent has resonated with a more extreme fringe - racist and white supremacist groups, anarchists and the like - eager to foment rebellion, and with their number rising across the landscape.
According to the non-profit civil rights organisation Southern Poverty Law Centre, 360 new "patriot" groups emerged in 2009, taking the total beyond 500, including 127 militias."
The rest of it is here.
disturbing stuff
"...at its core, the Tea Party is essentially a movement of disaffected, white, middle-class Republicans re-energised by the Democrats' control of Congress and the White House, and who can be expected to influence the choice of Republican candidates in the lead-up to November's mid-term Congressional elections.
Yet the Tea Party's public dissent has resonated with a more extreme fringe - racist and white supremacist groups, anarchists and the like - eager to foment rebellion, and with their number rising across the landscape.
According to the non-profit civil rights organisation Southern Poverty Law Centre, 360 new "patriot" groups emerged in 2009, taking the total beyond 500, including 127 militias."
The rest of it is here.
disturbing stuff
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The BNP and the anti-immigrant who is emigrating
This is from a few days back...
The British National Party - the ultra-Right party with a pathological hatred of immigrants - has been forced by law to scrap its whites-only membership laws. Members voted to change the party's constitution so that black and Asian people can join - if you can imagine that they would want to.
The leader Nick Griffin - a Holocaust denier - said on Sunday anyone can join if they agree that the country should stay "fundamentally British"... thereby being suitably vague while ensuring that everyone knows exactly what he means.
A funny sequel to this is their extension of an offer of membership to none other than Australia's own Pauline Hanson, who after years of banshee-like wailing on the fringes of Australian politics has decided that, for all her oft-professed patriotism, she will say goodbye to Australia "forever" and emigrate to Britain.
Griffin said she would not be regarded as an ''immigrant sponger'' .
What charm.
Pauline Hanson is a sort of Australian Palin except without Palin's physical appeal and a voice that is actually more grating on the ear, if you can believe that. She opposed non-white immigration and generally had well-deserved pariah status among the major parties.
Goodbye Pauline. Good riddance and don't come crawling back when you discover the weather is not as nice as it is in Queensland.
The British National Party - the ultra-Right party with a pathological hatred of immigrants - has been forced by law to scrap its whites-only membership laws. Members voted to change the party's constitution so that black and Asian people can join - if you can imagine that they would want to.
The leader Nick Griffin - a Holocaust denier - said on Sunday anyone can join if they agree that the country should stay "fundamentally British"... thereby being suitably vague while ensuring that everyone knows exactly what he means.
A funny sequel to this is their extension of an offer of membership to none other than Australia's own Pauline Hanson, who after years of banshee-like wailing on the fringes of Australian politics has decided that, for all her oft-professed patriotism, she will say goodbye to Australia "forever" and emigrate to Britain.
Griffin said she would not be regarded as an ''immigrant sponger'' .
What charm.
Pauline Hanson is a sort of Australian Palin except without Palin's physical appeal and a voice that is actually more grating on the ear, if you can believe that. She opposed non-white immigration and generally had well-deserved pariah status among the major parties.
Goodbye Pauline. Good riddance and don't come crawling back when you discover the weather is not as nice as it is in Queensland.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Blogger-nut sighted
In the US, a female teacher, Amy Bishop, shot three people dead Friday, and wounded three others, after learning she had been denied tenure at an Alabama university. Tragic incident. She can't have been okay in the head.
Implications for gun control? Well... none it seems.
Now... some people who fly in the same blog stream as magpie will know of a certain neocon loon. I was willing to bet HE had it all worked out, and I was not disappointed:
"Amy Bishop, Detained in Huntsville University Faculty Murders, is Harvard-Trained Left-Wing Professor." says he.
Right. She was Left-wing and went to Harvard. Ergo it was obvious she was going to kill someone. Genius. Perhaps everyone who ever went to Harvard and doesn't believe in American hegemony through force of arms should be pre-emptively jailed. Dunno.
Perhaps someone should take HIM away in a straitjacket before he goes on a rampage after hearing an academic sneer at Sarah Palin (He's real tough though...shows pictures of male models to a blogger he doesn't like and swears he had abs like that 20 years ago).
Appropriating a tragic and violent crime to serve one's personal political paranoia is loathsome and without merit. It's not the first time this blogger has done this. And if she was a life-long Republican and an avowed neoconservative, it still wouldn't mean jack shit as far as the case goes.
No coverage I have seen indicates her political leaning - whatever it actually is - had anything to do with the crime. Unless Bishop was a member of a radical organisation the remainder of which is an immediate threat to public safety, there is absolutely no reason to even hypothesize what her political leanings are.
Implications for gun control? Well... none it seems.
Now... some people who fly in the same blog stream as magpie will know of a certain neocon loon. I was willing to bet HE had it all worked out, and I was not disappointed:
"Amy Bishop, Detained in Huntsville University Faculty Murders, is Harvard-Trained Left-Wing Professor." says he.
Right. She was Left-wing and went to Harvard. Ergo it was obvious she was going to kill someone. Genius. Perhaps everyone who ever went to Harvard and doesn't believe in American hegemony through force of arms should be pre-emptively jailed. Dunno.
Perhaps someone should take HIM away in a straitjacket before he goes on a rampage after hearing an academic sneer at Sarah Palin (He's real tough though...shows pictures of male models to a blogger he doesn't like and swears he had abs like that 20 years ago).
Appropriating a tragic and violent crime to serve one's personal political paranoia is loathsome and without merit. It's not the first time this blogger has done this. And if she was a life-long Republican and an avowed neoconservative, it still wouldn't mean jack shit as far as the case goes.
No coverage I have seen indicates her political leaning - whatever it actually is - had anything to do with the crime. Unless Bishop was a member of a radical organisation the remainder of which is an immediate threat to public safety, there is absolutely no reason to even hypothesize what her political leanings are.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Fringe extremism in Australia
Okay after a couple of nice non-political posts, I come back to hate-based fringe groups and the question of how far free speech should extend...
A New South Wales (that's an Australian state) radio station presenter has been revealed to be the administrator of racist, anti-immigration groups on Facebook, according to this linked article from The Age newspaper. These groups are called "Fuck Off, We're Full", "Stop the Islamisation of Australia while we still can", "Australian Conservative United Party", the "Australian Protectionist Party" and "Australians against Multiculturalism".
The article says "she ridiculed foreigners who did not have a good grasp of English, claimed the Islamic faith was destroying the Australian way of life and said that attacked Indian students should go back home to study." (Indian students have been targeted in recent acts of street violence)
Management of the station are planning to discipline the presenter, whatever that means.
The article concludes with "In April, a contractor for one of Australia's largest Defence Department-linked companies was suspended after she was alleged to have been involved as an administrator of the neo-Nazi web forum "Blood & Honour"." I emphasise here that this was a separate and unrelated case and there is no Right-wing conspiracy being illuminated here.
The radio station in question is noted for multicultural programming. The presenter says in her defence that it is "unfortunate" that patriotism was now regarded as racism, and "This country is beautiful the way it is, and like most average citizens, [I] do not want our society to change to suit others' needs."
I'll take that apart and retort thus...
1/ I am of the opinion that most educated Australians would regard it as unfortunate instead that racism can get ennobled as patriotism. We KNOW what patriotism is and is not, Miss Presenter.
2/ I too do not want our society changed to suit others' needs. Specifically YOUR needs, which apparently are to give yourself a national identity based on vilifying Australians from other cultures - and foreigners - and condoning acts of violence against foreign students, in 'our' name.
Free speech...? No. She is condoning and perhaps inciting acts of violence based on race and linguistic disposition.
Private vs public life? No. Both are in the public domain and there is clear conflict of interest with the policies of her employer.
Sad? Yes.
We should be better than this.
A New South Wales (that's an Australian state) radio station presenter has been revealed to be the administrator of racist, anti-immigration groups on Facebook, according to this linked article from The Age newspaper. These groups are called "Fuck Off, We're Full", "Stop the Islamisation of Australia while we still can", "Australian Conservative United Party", the "Australian Protectionist Party" and "Australians against Multiculturalism".
The article says "she ridiculed foreigners who did not have a good grasp of English, claimed the Islamic faith was destroying the Australian way of life and said that attacked Indian students should go back home to study." (Indian students have been targeted in recent acts of street violence)
Management of the station are planning to discipline the presenter, whatever that means.
The article concludes with "In April, a contractor for one of Australia's largest Defence Department-linked companies was suspended after she was alleged to have been involved as an administrator of the neo-Nazi web forum "Blood & Honour"." I emphasise here that this was a separate and unrelated case and there is no Right-wing conspiracy being illuminated here.
The radio station in question is noted for multicultural programming. The presenter says in her defence that it is "unfortunate" that patriotism was now regarded as racism, and "This country is beautiful the way it is, and like most average citizens, [I] do not want our society to change to suit others' needs."
I'll take that apart and retort thus...
1/ I am of the opinion that most educated Australians would regard it as unfortunate instead that racism can get ennobled as patriotism. We KNOW what patriotism is and is not, Miss Presenter.
2/ I too do not want our society changed to suit others' needs. Specifically YOUR needs, which apparently are to give yourself a national identity based on vilifying Australians from other cultures - and foreigners - and condoning acts of violence against foreign students, in 'our' name.
Free speech...? No. She is condoning and perhaps inciting acts of violence based on race and linguistic disposition.
Private vs public life? No. Both are in the public domain and there is clear conflict of interest with the policies of her employer.
Sad? Yes.
We should be better than this.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Von Brunn's far flung audience
Von Brunn may have been the only one who pulled the trigger, but the well of his nauseating hate contains the droplets of many others, some not so far away...
The Age Newspaper reports:
"A white supremacist accused of gunning down a black security guard in Washington targeted Australia in hate writings and had links with an Adelaide-based group that denies the Holocaust. James von Brunn has been charged with murder after allegedly walking into the Holocaust museum in Washington DC on Wednesday and shooting dead the security guard.... The 88-year-old war veteran once wrote in a book he penned that Australia had been "over-run by hordes of non-Whites and mongrels". Von Brunn also had links to the Adelaide Institute formed by Holocaust denier Frederick Toben, once convicted and jailed in Germany under the country's Holocaust laws for "defaming the dead".... In his book, Kill the Best Gentiles!, von Brunn wrote: "Europe, former fortress of the West, is now overrun by hordes of non-Whites and mongrels. The same is true of Australia and Canada."... Toben, the Adelaide Institute's founder, is currently appealing a three-month jail sentence for contempt of court. He was sentenced in the Federal Court in Adelaide last month for refusing to remove Holocaust revisionary material from the group's website."
Toben (a former teacher) actually refutes that he is a holocaust denier, but even a cursory look at his position makes that refutation untenable. If he is claiming that six million Jews were not in fact murdered by the Nazis, then by definition he is in the business of denial. The Adelaide Institute describes Von Brunn's actions as "unfortunate".
Make of that what you will.
Von Brunn's own son states "For the extremists who believe my father is a hero: it is imperative you understand what he did was an act of cowardice...To physically force your beliefs onto others with violence is not brave, but bullying. Doing so only serves to prove how weak those beliefs are. It is simply desperation, reminiscent of a temper tantrum when a child cannot get his way"
Would that the father had heeded the son.
The Age Newspaper reports:
"A white supremacist accused of gunning down a black security guard in Washington targeted Australia in hate writings and had links with an Adelaide-based group that denies the Holocaust. James von Brunn has been charged with murder after allegedly walking into the Holocaust museum in Washington DC on Wednesday and shooting dead the security guard.... The 88-year-old war veteran once wrote in a book he penned that Australia had been "over-run by hordes of non-Whites and mongrels". Von Brunn also had links to the Adelaide Institute formed by Holocaust denier Frederick Toben, once convicted and jailed in Germany under the country's Holocaust laws for "defaming the dead".... In his book, Kill the Best Gentiles!, von Brunn wrote: "Europe, former fortress of the West, is now overrun by hordes of non-Whites and mongrels. The same is true of Australia and Canada."... Toben, the Adelaide Institute's founder, is currently appealing a three-month jail sentence for contempt of court. He was sentenced in the Federal Court in Adelaide last month for refusing to remove Holocaust revisionary material from the group's website."
Toben (a former teacher) actually refutes that he is a holocaust denier, but even a cursory look at his position makes that refutation untenable. If he is claiming that six million Jews were not in fact murdered by the Nazis, then by definition he is in the business of denial. The Adelaide Institute describes Von Brunn's actions as "unfortunate".
Make of that what you will.
Von Brunn's own son states "For the extremists who believe my father is a hero: it is imperative you understand what he did was an act of cowardice...To physically force your beliefs onto others with violence is not brave, but bullying. Doing so only serves to prove how weak those beliefs are. It is simply desperation, reminiscent of a temper tantrum when a child cannot get his way"
Would that the father had heeded the son.
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