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(no subject) [Nov. 10th, 2009|01:18 pm]
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In the UK we have a newspaper called "The Daily Mail". Most of us are pretty sure it's a long-running joke, and that someday soon the owner will stand up and go "HA! I WAS KIDDING! FOOLED YOU!" and we can all have a good laugh while beating him around the head with the nearest available heavy objects.

Recently it has crossed into territory more suited for The Onion spoof newspaper. One particularly bigoted piece caused over 22,000 complaints.

But today, oh. So special.

Basically, women should learn to be sweetly pretty, and get back in the kitchen.

We're used to stories from the Mail saying "gays are icky", "it's all immigrants' fault" and "everything gives you cancer". But this is quality stuff today from Quentin Letts. It starts with "why can't everyone stop being so common and be posh instead?"

I've linked the page above, but just to deny them some clicks, here's a summary:


- "(Women) have lost the centuries-old idea of being demure in public. The sort of slender-lipped, self-questioning, hesitant lover played by Celia Johnson in David Lean's 1945 film Brief Encounter is now found only in recently arrived immigrant families."

Given the Daily Mail's attitude to Muslims, perhaps he shouldn't be championing "centuries-old ideas of women being demure in public"? Citing a woman who would rather go through one of the most famous tragedies on film rather than speak out loud to the man she loves is presumably not meant as irony here.


- "a grottiness not seen on this crowded island since the early 1800s before Sir Robert Peel formed his police force to tame the grottier purlieux of London."

That's right, the police were formed to tidy up the common folk.


- "One consequence of (Germaine Greer's) convention-shattering ways was a destruction of modesty and decency."

If "modesty and decency" were broken by feminism, you may want to double-check that women wanted them in the first place.


- "The very notion of being a gent became redundant if men and women were the same."

Only if your idea of women is that they are delicate passive flowers who need to be especially looked after because they mustn't do anything for themselves. Otherwise human beings should be treated well regardless, unless you're an arse. Edit: In fact, this quote directly says he'd like women to not be treated equally to men in society. Nice.


- "And so the institution of marriage, which has done more than anything over the centuries to glue society together, is weakened."

Utter bullshit. It's not weakened, and society hasn't relied on it. It didn't even exist in the present form if you go back a few "centuries".


- "This suits the equality freaks. They hate marriage. All that 'love, honour and obey' stuff shivers their timbers."

Yes, why is 'obey' in there on only one side? You arguing FOR it?


- "Yet married couples stay together longer, produce stabler children and generally have a kinder, happier time than their cohabiting counterparts."

Not true. How do you measure a 'kinder, happier time'? And "married people stay together" is hardly surprising, that doesn't mean they SHOULD. Parents staying trapped in a marriage 'for the kids' have children who do worse in school and life than single mothers or anyone else.


- "How different things might have been if Germaine Greer had become a happily married mother."

Yes, he actually typed this.


Then Quentin finishes off having a go at people with short haircuts, because shaved heads on men suggest "oikishness" and no "sophistication".

This wasn't written 40 years ago (or 60). It's a (depressingly) well-read tabloid, and it's allowed to produce the kind of bile that used to be in comedy shows:



Fuck you, Quentin Letts. The Daily Mail's prejudice against the poor, immigrants and liberals is well-known, now they apparently hate women too. Well, any who do anything beyond blushing prettily and talking about kittens.
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Getting the shouty poppy arguments started early [Oct. 21st, 2009|05:51 pm]
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Crap. I'm going to give in and do something I said I never would: buy both a red and a white poppy for Remembrance Day.

Every year I take shit for being in favour of White poppies for peace. People complain that they take money away from ex-soldiers who need it, that they are a charity but we don't know precisely where the money will go, and the usual bollocks about not supporting the troops etc.

The aspect of red poppies which drives most people to find out about white as an alternative is the idea that they are used by the government to glorify and justify war. To lend it respect, and honour, and credibility. No-one can argue that those who fought in WWII were unjustified: we had an enemy that would have invaded us, wiped out our culture and replaced it with one which we find totally immoral and evil. Not only did the war have to be fought, but by freeing other countries from the Nazis our soldiers defended the helpless and safeguarded the future.

Since then...

Can we really say that the wars since then have been necessary? Economically and politically expedient maybe, but for suvival or genuine defense?

So I'll make the statement: "I don't support the troops".

Veterans from 50 years ago or more certainly, but not the current army. I know that it's the government which sends them to far-off lands based on lies in order to claim resources and not the troops themselves... but the soldiers sign up for it. They say "I will kill anyone you tell me to in future, without knowing who or why. I will be placed in mortal danger for this government."

They are not defending me. The UK has not been invaded. It is not honourable to unquestioningly kill whoever your leaders decide is an enemy this month. In 2002 I made statements about why the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could not be won, by definition. Every single part of that has come true - and I was no expert. Being part of the structure that enables conflicts with such massive civilian casualty rates is not moral or honourable. I do not care that the Army is often the only place that the poor or less educated can find work: a wage for a British soldier is not more important than the lives of multiple civilians. It does not matter which country those civilians are from.

Honour is not the same as duty, and duty is frequently not moral or justified. By following these orders, they are enabling the cynical oil grabs and weapons trades with tyrants to continue.

Edit: I'm not an absolute pacifist. I just don't believe that the UK army should be deployed outside UK borders for anything other than observation or to lend defense to weaker nations. And I'm not sure they're the right force to be doing the latter.

Despite this, and despite all that I have said above, "I do support the troops".

I want them to be returned alive and unharmed at the end of their tours. I want the risks they take to be fully justified, necessary and unavoidable. I want the government to have such a hard time selling a case for war that it will only happen when public sees a clear need for it. And I want the government to pay so highly for every army casualty that they do their utmost to prevent deaths. Soldiers need all our support, because they're not getting it from the government (example: a year ago an SAS chief quit over repeatedly not getting adequate equipment.)

There are good reasons to buy the Red poppies if you are anti-war. They only exist because those who have fought are not looked after adequately by the state, and extra charity was needed. They are essentially a slap in the face of the Government, a shout of "Why do we have to look after these people who gave everything for you?"

But we cannot escape the fact that red poppies are also propaganda for the current government. Tony Blair was allowed to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph, as opposed to being arrested or leapt upon by the crowd and punched repeatedly. The Cenotaph itself says "The Glorious Dead". They are not glorious, and neither is war. It is not glorious to die in battle. They are dead, and we should not forget the horrific events which made them so. Leaders use Remembrance Sunday to agree that violence is a terrible thing, but that it justifies never giving up in future. The gravitas and sorrow over past sacrifices mean we owe it to them not to stop now.

No, we owe it to them not to waste more lives.

How many of the wars since 1945 have met the criteria for a Just War? How many have even come close? How do we justify spending as much as we do on defence, when the huge amounts of money could be spent on social problems? France or Scandinavia are not going to invade the UK. We do not need a standing army. If it is judged that a situation (such as the genocide in Darfur) requires outside intervention on humanitarian grounds, then lets have an international force ready to do that. It could be argued that the UN in recent times hasn't had remotely enough power to take that role.

I want to buy a white poppy because the money goes to education initiatives to bring about Peace as a first intent, and we badly need that.

And I will grudgingly have to buy a red poppy, because there are still soldiers who need the money. But I will not wear it while Gordon Brown does, or Margaret Thatcher, or (if he dares show his face) Tony Blair. The statement I would be making has become too muddied, and the modern use of the army too misguided.

War is never the right answer. The white poppies contribute to spreading that message and it is the most important one for me. The red poppies should be seen to say it too, but the money from them does at least go to people who need it. Giving money to the Legion does not directly empower the government. So this year, I will buy both but only wear white.
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Rant and Randomness [Sep. 10th, 2009|11:31 am]
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Why do you do this every day?
by adotjdotsmith


The new Michael Moore film quotes a Citibank report which says "The US is now a plutonomy, the top 1% of the population control 95% of the wealth."

I'm fairly sure the UK won't be far behind those figures.

I'm playing some roleplaying games recently where characters have to be passionate about various environments. They have to look at the City and realise what achievements the concrete and steel are, how magnificent it is that we managed to impose our will on nature in this way – locking out the forests and vines, controlling the creeping growth to make clean and stable structures. That is a great achievement... but it makes us blind.

1% of the people have 95% of the wealth. That means no matter how hard the millions in our offices work, no matter how much they sacrifice of their lives to provide for their families, it's never outside the 5%.

The whole thing is a con game. Just like cities are.

No city can survive without the countryside providing food for it. The tarmac and smoke don't grow their own food, by definition. They just sit like sterile concrete ant nests, teeming with frantic life and overwhelming death.

I don't mean death in any symbolic way, such as compared to the amount of plant life outside them. No, cities are the places of death. There are far more people, far more crime, and a history of denser populations over time than in the countryside. If you map out where most people die in your country, it's in the cities.

But I don't hate urban areas, or think they don't have their own strong amount of life. They clearly do. Londinium has been a thriving (or at least crowded) metropolis since at least the time of the Romans. If a city could be said to have a spirit, London's would be very much alive. It would have years of poverty and suffering built into its very brickwork, but also a more consistent and varied fight for survival than many places on the globe. It has incredible beauty, and history, and colour. It also hosts the biggest con game in Europe, drawing refugees from far afield and promising a better life. This isn't a lie – you can have a better life in the UK than many places on this planet. It will just be within the 5%, and probably towards the bottom of it.

So the cities are furious hubs of activity in a game where the outcome is already known for virtually everyone. Social mobility was pathetic in 1997, and is worse under this government. (No, it won't be better under the Conservatives). And that's the other half of the lie.

Here's a statement: the Conservative party WILL win the next UK election. We don't know when it will be held, we don't know what their policies are, but it's already a guaranteed fact.

I don't think this means we're not a democracy. If it's the will of the people, I don't mind knowing the inevitable this far in advance. My problem is that the Tories will get practically 100% of the power, and anyone not voting for them is unrepresented in any meaningful way. Since no party since WWII has had more than 50% of the total vote, this by definition means at least 50% of the country is locked out.

A friend works in a theatre which is dependent on Arts Council funding. Their risk assessment for next year includes the condition “If the Tories get in”. I believe one of the powerpoint slides may have literally included the words “We're f***ed.” Anyone wanting funding from the government is trembling right now, because we can all see the inevitable. (Disclaimer: this does not include arms manufacturers. They will continue to be subsidised by the next government and do very nicely, thank you.)

The Lib Dem voice points out that if you're under 40 and live in the UK, there's a 50% chance your MP has *always* been of the same party. In other words, if your town had a Conservative MP when you were born, there's a 50% chance that didn't change at any election since 1970. We have a thing called “Safe seats”, which translates as “No matter who you vote for in your local area, this person is the one who will get in.”

What can we do about this? Well yes, you could move to a safe-seat area of the party you like. Also, we could get a more representative system (but no-one remembers how to have one of those which lets any party achieve anything). And you run straight into the problem the US is having, which is that it's full of hateful morons Republican voters. In the liberal fantasy of making this country a better place, you run smack into the reality wall that many people genuinely want the Conservative party in power. They might be amnesiacs, or fall under the umbrella of Steve's Republican Question (“Rep voters: Are they actively evil, or just really ignorant and stupid?”) Either way, England is a deeply conservative country and that means liberals will not have enough power to achieve big things anytime soon, under any system.

(I'll leave out how big business completely runs our politics anyway. It's been kinda known for at least 20 years.)

So we're left with the cities: crime hotspots and polluted prisons for the majority of people who work just to survive. In them, though, and in London particularly, we see the greatest hope as well (and no, not “from the proles”.) Very big cities are *LIBERAL*. They allow diversity, they encourage anonymity and individuality, they set trends and inspire, foster rebellion and make room for everything alternative. I remarked a while ago that I never see blue hair in Hertfordshire. In London, if a pretty girl walked down the street with neon blue hair, it was practically invisible. No-one stared (although appreciative looks were common). I saw a girl coming over the bridge in town here and assumed she had the same, but it turned out to be a blue hat. Of course it was a hat. We're not in London anymore.



Francis and Louis
by adotjdotsmith


So I'm not going to give up on cities, with their weight of dark concrete and glass, their heat retention and eternal background noise of people living their lives and dying by the thousands. There are wild spirits in the woods, a clearer sense of life and death on the farms, but the city is a howling spirit of destruction which has the best and most glorious shouts for life contained within it. It is the only place where we can push the boundaries enough to get out of this ridiculous social cage.

In paganism, you learn to bring in the more fulfilling parts of nature to your life – the fertility in the land, the new growth in spring, the sun returning after winter. You also value that Winter, and the necessary rest, and the beauty of its harshness. You respect it, because it could kill you. The city, though... that features far less. Any attempts to incorporate it into the worldview are often based on finding mythic or rural aspects within it. A much more difficult approach is to embrace the city for exactly what it is, and try to feel and live it to the same extent that we love the peaceful streams and forests. You move from tree and root magic to rat and pigeon magic amongst tarmac, glass, mp3 players, widescreen HD tv. The spirit of the place becomes more about people, not other life. The moon shines down upon it, but only where she can peep between buildings - not lighting the entire cloudy sky. Neon and streetlights shout upwards to replace her.

It's a scary thing to take your tools and walk into the teeming den, unsure of how they will work against these new Gods.


Tesco Bokeh
by adotjdotsmith

The photos are all by adotjdotsmith, taken from flickr. In the top one someone has written "Why do you do this every single day?" on the concrete pillar.

I'm going to make this type of post again, taking 3 photos I find randomly on flickr and seeing where it goes.
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(no subject) [Sep. 2nd, 2009|09:10 pm]
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Right, time for a rant.

Melanie McDonagh at the Telegraph thinks we need a middle-class baby boom, because despite a 1% rise in births (apparently due to the recession) it's not the right sort of people who are having babies. The following is from an actual British newspaper, not The Onion:

"In other words, it's not the mortgage-paying, marrying middle classes who are having the babies, at least not to the same extent as everyone else. Despite today's talk about changing their priorities, most middle-class girls tend not to have children in their twenties, which is probably when we should have them. If you're a girl graduate, you bide your time, get your career sorted, get a mortgage (myself excepted) and then you start thinking about marriage, about children. By the time you've managed to secure a flat with two bedrooms, it may be a bit late for much of a family.

That's why organisations such as the Optimum Population Trust seem so beside the point, proselytising about how we shouldn't have more than two children. The people most likely to take their views to heart are the agonised Anglo-Saxon liberals, for whom excess fecundity is never going to be much of a problem in the first place. They don't seem to cut much ice with the Somali mothers you see in West London."

Ah, where to start. The racism? The loaded use of "Anglo-Saxon", which in modern terms can only mean "white"? The line that your twenties is when you should be having children? The implication that only rich people are graduates, or that career vs family is the only choice and women shouldn't be picking 'career'?

There's also a story by Amanda Platell in the Daily mail, but I refuse to link to that kind of guaranteed bigoted bullshit. I'd safely assumed it was worse than the above, and more proudly racist/misogynist/stupid. This turned out to be true, which is more than can be said for her claims ("We are now the second most densely populated country in the world" - er, no. 52nd.)

I was going to write 2000 words on just what is wrong with this picture, but I've found Laurie Penny did it for me over on Lib Con. (Caution: lots of swearing. Justified, but lots of it.)

Britain does have a baby-boom problem. We need more kids now to pay for a growing elderly population, just like several other countries need currently. Using that to fearmonger racism, snobbery and immigration bollocks is not the answer.

[Edit: There is no answer. Society has changed, and the old numbers don't work. Of course, no-one is talking about finding a new way to do anything, but we can be certain that the current system isn't it. Trying to plug the leaks by getting your preferred type of women to breed more is perhaps not a realistic or remotely moral solution to this.]
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(no subject) [Jul. 13th, 2009|01:36 pm]
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I really dislike Satanists. I know this isn’t a very controversial stance to take – it’s on a par with hating people who think it’s okay to play loud music on trains, or that George Bush could have done a better job. But I still dislike them, for quite specific reasons.

This video (of sci-fi author Bruce Sterling ripping into the people he’s meant to be giving a closing speech to) has been doing the rounds. It is sheer brilliance, and you should all make time in your day to watch the whole thing.

At one point he says something which reminded me why I don’t like most Satanists.

The majority of Satanists are officially doing it wrong. They think they’re being rebellious and rejecting their parents' / society’s norms. They think they’re breaking free of the Christianity, but of course they’re not.

Satanism keeps everything about the religion: that the same God exists, that sin exists, the rather recent versions of Heaven and Hell are where it's at, that Christian events happened. It’s not outside the box, it’s just on the opposite side of the same box. If they were really radical, they’d be doing something actually different – a different religion entirely, new gods, a non-dualist good/evil outlook. But no, they tie themselves to the original paradigm by simply choosing to support the other player in it. THIS ISN’T RADICAL OR NEW.

Of course, not every Satanist does this. Some are metallers who kick over gravestones and do drugs because they don’t know any better (and yes, there are lots of these guys). Some of them view the Adversary as a liberating hero, who helped mankind so that they would “have knowledge of good and evil”, gain awareness of their true state and be “as the gods”. (This isn’t strictly right either, since the snake in Eden isn’t the Devil. But we’ll move on for now.) So they see Satanism as not a deliberately evil religion, but one that venerates a Prometheus figure, giving fire to humans so that they can realise their true potential and not remain being deliberately kept blind, ignorant and compliant by the Gods (plural, masculine and feminine, depending on which paragraph of Genesis it’s in). And that’s fine, I can understand the urge to do that too. There are lots more strands of it, mostly along similar lines.

But nearly all of the people I’ve met who claim to do it are blinkered, smug and egotistical, convinced that no-one else is as daring as they are. Well, I’ve got news buddy: hedonism isn’t challenging. Strictly doing the opposite of something which is already spelled out for you doesn’t take imagination. And keeping all the boundaries the same while moving a little to one side of the picture isn’t ‘change’.

Which brings us on to politics. My previous post asked for something to believe in, since everything is shit. Lots of the sentiment in Charlie Brooker’s piece echoes what Sterling says in the above video, about being in a transition to nowhere. Our politicians don’t have firm agendas, their agenda is to be popular at whatever comes up. And they won’t choose which way to go until they know what the public want, or until they can see that a particular choice will strengthen their hold on power (in which case to hell with the public). They’re in power only to stay in power, they have no real platform. And they’re all like this. Whoever you vote for won’t move you out of the box, just a bit to one side of the same box.

So that’s politics out. Religion isn’t doing so well these days. The media is a mess, most of the population are mouth-breathing peasants, and food is either bad for you or too expensive.

We need to break the box. We need a real alternative, one that actually changes things – not the other end of the same prison. Why do we need it? Aren’t we doing okay already? Er, no. Everything is shit, and in order for it to remain this shit, we have to stamp on poorer countries. Not good enough.

There’s plenty in life that I enjoy, and value, and see as beautiful. I'm grateful that I'm alive, not in prison, not crippled, not in pain, not in Africa, not indescribably hideous.

But that’s not the same as finding something to believe in. Ideals, and a movement which will make them reality. All I know is, it’s not in the current toybox.
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(no subject) [Jul. 1st, 2009|09:02 am]
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So I saw “The Legend of Chun Li”, the latest live-action Street Fighter 2 movie. (Medium spoilers ahead).

I know, I know, those words in that order should have warned me of the horror that was to come. But even I couldn’t have foreseen that they would dive into the first Hollywood Mistake so fully.

SF2 has many fans, who will want to watch this movie. They are fans of the game, and the characters in the game. The writers have it easy – all they have to do it put the characters onscreen and they’re most of the way home already. Why would they do their best to avoid this, then?

The only things we know about most of these characters are a) What they look like, and b) How they fight. Naturally, the movie ignores both.

Bison is a white Irishman. Balrog is Michael Clarke Duncan (good!) who throws maybe one punch, and spends the rest of the time twirling people over his head comedy-wrestler style. Chun Li is a vigilante not a police officer, and does not do her signature move once. Vega is oriental. Gen is about 30 years younger than in the game, and doesn’t do his styles at all. There’s a chance Chris Klein is meant to be Charlie, but he only fires guns. I could go on.

Then there’s the carnage. Not the beat-em-up punching the fans will be used to, but extreme, close-up gore. A girl has her father’s neck snapped in front of her. A character rips his baby from his wife’s womb, killing the wife with added gore. Two game characters get killed.

No idea why this seemed like a good idea to anyone. Just put the damn thing on the screen! It’s not hard! Use wires and CGI to give us Shoryuken, or Chun Li travelling over the ground with a spinning bird kick, and everyone would go home happy. Idiots.

(Is SF4 as good as it looks, by the way?)
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(no subject) [Apr. 28th, 2009|04:20 pm]
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Following up to my previous post on the new UK law regarding sex-ed and faith schools: let’s just take a step back and see exactly what has happened here.

The government has issued a law which says that schools must teach specific new info, because it’s important. It deliberately covers “sex, both homosexual and heterosexual relationships, and contraception” because teaching these in schools is the best way to reduce prejudice and inform teenagers who are going through it themselves.

The government then – in law – said that faith schools can preach against all these subjects during the same lesson if their “moral values” would conflict, and that parents can opt their children out completely if it disagrees with their religion.

This is unprecedented.

There are many issues to look more closely at, but the specific permission to preach against homosexuality is the most worrying. The kids will know their church’s stance on it already, and this new lesson was specifically supposed to help equality. School is the place to provide them with facts, not reinforce homophobia.

As for parents choosing to have their children remain entirely uneducated about sex… well, I have opinions on that too.

This is without bringing my *personal* feelings into it, which run along the lines that the Church’s view on sexuality, the body, sex, contraception and just about everything else are repellent, disgusting, backward, hugely damaging to society and individuals and tantamount to abuse. While I think it should be tolerated that people are allowed to hold those views without being locked away for the protection of others, much like racism and the right to vote for the BNP for example, that doesn’t mean the rest of us should be happy that this ignorant barbarism is allowed to be thrown onto impressionable children who don’t yet have the tools to decide for themselves. And it especially doesn’t mean the government should make specific guidelines in law to allow bias to the national curriculum or opting out entirely.

But that’s my view. Many parents want a religiously-themed education for their child. The line you shouldn’t cross is when that education is allowed to compromise the effectiveness of providing the facts alongside the views of right and wrong.

Update: Part 3 here.
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(no subject) [Jan. 26th, 2009|01:00 pm]
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Whiny, clueless self-important teenager oh god, she can't even blame it on being a teenager, writes a post for a national paper's blog about how sci-fi and fantasy are sexist. Basically taking it from Elizabeth Bear's much better post about writing The Other.

Teenager lists a whole load of sci-fi authors who immediately defeat her point, manages to not mention Ursula Le Guin once. Utter, utter fail.

Sure, historically sci-fi is a white man's genre. Historically. That stopped early on, even if you don't count Delany in '73. And it's been one of the greatest feminist genres ever created, able to take cultures past the sexist traps of the time and onto a blank canvas.

The list of examples to read to prove it is too long for LJ, see the authors mentioned in the post and go play. But especially Ursula Le Guin, just because she's so good in general.

(As something I'm reading recently, Karen Traviss' "City of Pearl" gets a mention for realistic female characters taking the lead.)
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An Open Letter to Christians, and the ‘Charter for Compassion’. [Nov. 24th, 2008|02:21 pm]
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So, once again some hopeless idealists are trying to point out where organised religion went wrong.

Karen Armstrong wrote an article on CiF a few days ago about A Charter for Compassion, which is a multi-faith project to remind people that all of the major faiths should be very firm on the principle of Not Being An Asshole. (Okay, I’m paraphrasing there.) I have no problem with this idea, and I actually agree with it – nearly every major religion has a line which says “But above all, don’t be a Dick”. (Sorry for the toilet language, but I can’t promise it’ll stop before this post is done). Armstrong called this The Golden Rule.

She said about the Charter: “During the next few days, millions of Jews, Christians and Muslims worldwide will be invited to comment, stage by stage, on a draft Charter on a multilingual website. Later, a council of inspirational thinkers representing the different faiths will examine their findings and write the final version.”

The Golden Rule is actually clearly stated in many faiths (some of the quotes next are from her article). Confucius said "Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you". He said that idea ran through all his teaching and should be practised "all day and every day". It’s easy to see in Buddhism, too, but is also there in the monotheisms: St Paul says that the strongest faith is worthless without charity, Rabbi Hillel said that the Golden Rule was ‘the essence of Torah’ and everything else was "only commentary". And of course you have Jesus saying that if you only do two things, worship God and love your neighbour as yourself, as well as “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.

Instead, as Armstrong also says, “religion is associated with violence, intolerance and seems more preoccupied by dogmatic or sexual orthodoxy (than compassion).”

All of which is true. It’s just that… well… she’s wrong.

See, this SHOULD be the guiding principle of those religions which choose it. It’s had a place in all of them – Christian monks performing good works with the poor and ill, Buddhists going out into the world to practice a perfect compassionate way of living, many people keeping to their religious laws because they believe that sin or breaking them results in harming others.

You’d think “thou shalt not kill” would be easy to understand, after all.

But historically, the big organisations which saw religion as a good way to political power (even if they genuinely thought they were saving us from ourselves) have ballsed it up quite spectacularly.

Of course a charter won’t make a difference. Of course those who feel justified in killing and discriminating in the name of their religion will continue doing it. And that’s fair, because the order to continue acting that way is written right on the page.

Which is why I think we need to go further than writing a Charter for Compassion. What we need to do is TEAR PAGES OUT OF THE HOLY BOOKS. Let me explain:

Steve’s Project to Rip Up The Bible.
I’m not going to involve Islam or Judaism here. I don’t know enough about either of them to comment properly, and it’s none of my business to tell others how to do their thing, so I won’t. But I put the years in for Christianity, and I know the texts. The contradictions between the Old and New Testaments are clearer, the case for compassion above other laws is more famously stated, and I feel I know the ground enough to be as truly offensive about it as I will need to.

If you decide you do have a right to challenge people to put compassion at the front of their religion, there is a step you can take which would actually do it. Christianity would become entirely separate to violence and bigotry, and the spirit of the words attributed to Jesus could be followed without contradiction.

You just need to Rip Bits Out Of The Bible. It’s a punchy phrase, which I’m sure will catch on. Here’s what you do:

You decide that Jesus (despite overturning the tables of the money-lenders in the Temple and claiming he came with a sword, and would divide families and all the rest) primarily wants non-violence and love for all people. There’s plenty to back this up in the books. You decide that when it says he brought a New Way which was different from the religious rules of the Old Testament, he meant to supercede those older rules if they led to violence and hatred. And you decide that the taboos against eating shellfish and wearing clothes of more than one type of cloth are historical relics which can be discarded without falling to sin. Basically, you put love, compassion and good intent at the front of everything, and refuse to allow anything which causes harm or generates hatred for other cultures into your practice.

Then you rip up the Bible. Specifically, you tear out every single passage which says it’s okay to kill people with sticks, stones, swords or anything else. You take out the parts where children who disobey their parents should be killed. Where people should exclude other cultures instead of acting like the Good Samaritan.

And you do this not because some ex-Christian hippy liberal like me is suggesting it, but because by keeping a book filled with this intolerance and hatred on your altar, you are blaspheming against your own God. You are claiming that the Bible is a Holy object, which by definition must contain a special truth, and that therefore Jesus must be fine with you doing all the worst things in it. You’re worshipping a God of perfect love with a book which says it’s okay to do everything he sent someone to tell you to stop.

If Christianity (and anyone else who wants to take up this challenge) is truly for Compassion instead of intolerance, Peace instead of violence, Love instead of hate, then it loses nothing by having these passages moved to a new Appendix which I think we should call:
“Historical bits we’re keeping for nostalgia value.”

I understand if you respect the Bible too much to permanently drop parts of it. They don’t have to go. They just need to be in a section marked “You can’t quote this to justify anything”.

If you think Jesus wanted love and non-violence, and you’re sick of bigots pointing to the page where it says beheading children and spitting down their neck is just fine if they sneezed on a Tuesday, then don’t start up a Charter for Compassion and try to remind priests to preach niceness – just TAKE IT OUT OF YOUR BOOK. Mark it “no longer applicable”. Make it absolutely clear that if you do any of these things, you are sinning and will go to hell. Or, if you don’t believe in that, that you are at least being a BAD follower of your religion.

Lots of Christians already understand this. People reading this comment will think “Yes, but we know that already”. If that’s true, then you lose absolutely nothing by Ripping Up The Bible. I know that plenty of Christians ignore passages which they feel go against the central message, and make Goodness the overriding aim in their lives. “Unchristian behaviour” is used to mean uncharitable, or unforgiving. But it’s also used to describe overly sexual, homosexual or any number of behaviours perceived as sinful.

So if we’re in a world where a Charter for Compassion is needed to remind us to concentrate on the nice side of what’s written in a book, let’s go one step further instead. Let’s decide that Love is the overriding priority, and a wide and contradictory collection of texts written by people who never knew the main character and collated by politicians 300 years later is not as important as the entire fucking point of the religion.

Or don’t. Come out and say that you absolutely believe the intolerance and sanctioned violence to be a part of your faith. Then we’ll know, and we can go home and leave you to it. Any credibility you had will be gone, and we can stop pretending that religions have this inherent claim to define compassion and moral behaviour more than atheists can.

The choice is simple. Rip Up The Bible, or else admit that your religion is murderous, bigoted and cares about details more than compassion. Any other choice is hypocritical, offensive to your God, and prevents you from being taken seriously in public debate.

But don't do it for me, do it because the Book on your altar deserves to reflect your Deity. And if you feel it currently doesn’t, which one of those two things should change?
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(no subject) [Oct. 15th, 2008|12:10 pm]
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More evidence for Jacqui Smith to get a special award for crapness today:

The UK government wants to build a giant database storing the content of every phone call, email and internet visit made by the British public.

Yes, you read that right. Every single email, text, phone call, and internet site. Stored by default. By the Government.

Problems with this:
(thanks to [info]clytemenstra for details)

1) The UK sends roughly 1 trillion emails, 60 billion texts, and the visits from 20 million broadband connections EVERY DAY.
2) This government is shit at data security.
3) Really shit.
4) They also can't build databases.
5) And they don't have the staff to review them, or the capacity to store them. A growing, stored daily copy of the entire UK internet?
6) And if they did review these emails and phone calls, 90% of the texts would be from teenage girls saying hi to each other, in txtspeak.
7) Good luck with that.
8) It works by having a black box on each provider, which reads and copies everything going through the provider. This just needs one hack.
9) It includes all emailed business information. Ahahaha. When this was pointed out, they clarified that 'of course business traffic would have to be given special treatment in order to maintain confidentiality'.
10) Oh, and there's the whole civil liberties thing about privacy, and such.

In short it's physically impossible, we don't have the manpower or the money, and it still won't stop terrorism. Again.

Jacqui Smith, we salute you. Keep pushing for it, and hopefully when the idea is shot down you will be too.*

*Not literally. Wishing that on Ms Smith would be... er... bad. And she'll probably be able to read this soon anyway. Oh well, at least I get a new tag.
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(no subject) [Mar. 14th, 2008|12:29 pm]
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Oh, they're just making my job easy now. (Warning, Iraq rant follows).

UK Teachers have been given info packs about the Iraq War that seriously re-write history, to the point that they're worried it would be illegal to teach such a misrepresentative version. Let's take a look at some of the unbelievable bullshit these scum-sucking reprobates are trying to get teachers to peddle to kids (all examples from the Independent newspaper today):

* "Iraq was invaded early 2003 by a United States coalition. Twenty-nine other countries, including the UK, also provided troops... Iraq had not abandoned its nuclear and chemical weapons development program". After the first Gulf War, "Iraq did not honour the cease-fire agreement by surrendering weapons of mass destruction..."

On the other hand... no WMDs. No enquiry then or now has ever found evidence of any, and there's lots of evidence of the US and UK lying about it deliberately.
29 countries... including Eritrea, El Salvador and Macedonia. "You forgot Poland". DEFINITELY not strongly supported by the international community.
Iraq didn't surrender the weapons because the weapons didn't exist.

* "The invasion was also necessary to allow the opportunity to remove Saddam, an oppressive dictator, from power, and bring democracy to Iraq".

That's illegal. Regime change not only wasn't mentioned at the time (because both the US and UK governments had been told it was illegal) but when he was doing all the bad things which we were giving him weapons for, we voted not to even discuss it in Parliament. Assuming we COULD topple dictators for being naughty, he wasn't the first place to start. The elections we apparently invaded to bring them were put off until America could secure rights to the oil, and they then promptly delivered an extremist Shia government. Everybody saw this coming, including me.

* "Over 7,000 British troops remain in Iraq... to contribute to reconstruction, training Iraqi security forces... They continue to fight against a strong militant Iraqi insurgency."

It's less than 5000, and they're hiding in Basra airport. Labelling those attacking the UK/US as "Insurgents" isn't very accurate either.

* "The cost of UK military operations in Iraq for 2005/06 was £958m."

There's a reason they're citing 2005/6. It got more expensive since. A billion a year doesn't sound bad until you start talking about America and using the word "Trillions".

* "Over 312,000 Iraqi security forces have been trained and equipped (Police, Army and Navy)."

Hahahaha. The problem with giving the Iraqi population guns and a uniform turned out to be that they promptly went off in death squads to shoot their enemies (mostly Sunnis). The police couldn't stop these squads, because the (newly armed and trained) police were the ones doing it. The UK even had to fight against the (Shia death squad) police, including a mission to rescue two special-forces soldiers being held hostage by them in a police station.

* "A total of 132 UK military personnel have been killed in Iraq."

Trying hard not to swear... the UK figure is 175. That makes the military deaths in Iraq sound low. Civilian casualties, US and Iraqi forces casualties aren't mentioned. Civilian deaths (who weren't even "previously civilians who picked up a gun after they were denied a vote for years and their family was killed", but actual unarmed civilians) number at around 85,000. All estimates from Iraq are too low, they're based on official figures where people the ground say a) they stopped counting, and b) the morgues have been full for years and your number is pathetically low.

* "From hospitals to schools to wastewater treatment plants, the presence of coalition troops is aiding the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq."

From the Indy: "The reality: Five years after "liberation", Baghdad still only has a few hours of intermittent power a day. Children are kidnapped from schools for ransom and families of patients undergoing surgery at hospitals are advised to buy and bring in blood from sellers who congregate outside."

You could say the presence of coalition troops is hindering the reconstruction, because it's fuelling the attacks.

All in all a magnificent whitewash that tells nothing of the real story, especially missing out the bits we've found out since: different departments of the US government sending troops against each other in order to "steal the oil/appease Saudi Arabia", the gross mismanagement, and the tearing up of the 1000-page post-war plan written by experts in favour of Dick Cheney's 101-page wonder which says "It's be quick and cheap and we'll get all the oil".

Let's hand out copies of "Armed Madhouse" to the kids instead, eh?
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(no subject) [Jul. 12th, 2007|12:48 pm]
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Today, Steve has a bit of a rant about Marriage.

( He’s fine with it, but not so happy with the recent Conservative proposals. )

This rant is largely repeated in today's [info]ukpolitics. (Just to repeat, before I get disembowelled by my girlfriend, I may still get married. I’m not against it. I’m just against morons trying to push it on people.)
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(no subject) [Oct. 27th, 2006|11:51 am]
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"Watching Ted Stevens spend half a trillion dollars is like watching a junkie pull a belt around his biceps with his teeth. You get the sense he could do it just as fast in the dark. When he finishes his summary - $436 billion in defense spending, including $70 billion for the Iraq "emergency" - he fucks off and leaves the hall."

That's how I want my politics reporting, yeah baby.

Frankly terrifying article from Rolling Stone magazine on how this US Congress is actually the worst in history. If you ever believed in 'Democracy', this will make you cry. The process where the biggest bills in the past 6 years are passed is entirely about bribes, cheating, submitting huge bills at midnight the day before with hidden clauses in them, and not letting the Dems vote on anything or even be in the room when it's decided. But then having the (already bought) votes be 'debated' on tv.

[The big debate on Iraq] "The hearing offered senators a rare opportunity to grill Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and top Pentagon officials on a wide variety of matters, including the fairly important question of whether they even had a fucking plan for the open-ended occupation of a gigantic hostile foreign population halfway around the planet. This was the biggest bite that Congress would have at the Iraq apple before the war, and given the gravity of the issue, it should have been a beast of a hearing.

But it wasn't to be. In a meeting that lasted two hours and fifty-three minutes, only one question was asked about the military's readiness on the eve of the invasion. Sen. John Warner, the committee's venerable and powerful chairman, asked Gen. Richard Myers if the U.S. was ready to fight simultaneously in both Iraq and North Korea, if necessary.

Myers answered, "Absolutely."
And that was it. The entire exchange lasted fifteen seconds."
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(no subject) [Oct. 15th, 2006|05:16 pm]
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Okay, here’s my post on the Muslim Veil issue. It’s opinionated, so please look away now if that's going to be a problem.

Question: Assuming it’s the woman's choice (and ignoring the pressures that would make her choose that way), let’s ask her: "Why do you wear the full veil?" I’ll base my answers off conversations I’ve had with women who defended it (even though none of them wear it anymore and most are actually against it). I've never had a conversation with a woman in full veil dress. I think that's the point.

The responses are mine.

Answer One: "I like to wear it."

What does it do? The entire outfit hides you. It makes you anonymous and (because you're complying with the rules) safe (from men). You might want to look into why you think that’s a good thing. It definitely doesn’t make you invisible in the West – quite the opposite.

Answer Two: "I do it as a religious observance".

Why does your religion like you to wear it? Because women may tempt men with their faces and hair. Because men are weak women are impure, and you are a dangerous sexual object that must be controlled. Women in niqāb or burqa are saying "I’m wearing this because of sex." It doesn’t reduce their sexuality, it makes a big black tent-like statement that here is a WOMAN who must be covered up to avoid being sinful.

How many stereotypes in the West have masked people with only an eyeslit visible as the good guys? This costume is big and obvious to westerners, and usually makes them react, at least to look hard or deliberately look away.

Women of all religions have a right to their beliefs. In this case, *I* find the spiritual beliefs repugnant and the psychology and social message behind the wearing of the full costume damaging and inappropriate for a classroom.

I was going to go on to the other three or four usual answers, but I can't be bothered. They made me wince the first time around, and I'll just get angrier.

Is this whole thing a Muslim/West cultural misunderstanding, and we should shut up because we’re getting all the wrong signals from it? Or would I, if I went to Japan for example, be required to be realistic about making an effort to fit in? Does penalising women in full burqa over here count as discrimination and prejudice, or realism? Do we have a right to tell other groups that they’re oppressing women, if they can claim we just don’t understand the culture?

I’m not saying "ban the veil". I’m saying I still haven’t heard a good reason I should be neutral about it and accept it because of religion or culture.
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Rant [Apr. 24th, 2006|06:30 pm]
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Apparently there is a "pernicious and even dangerous poison" spreading through the UK. That's right - Journalists.

"Some commentators routinely use language like 'police state', 'fascist', 'hijacking our democracy', 'creeping authoritarianism', 'destruction of the rule of law' (when talking about the UK and US since the anti-Terror measures were brought in)" says Charles Clarke, the UK Home Secretary.

Yeah, asshole, and it's your fucking fault. The House of Lords said all that too, when they threw your legislation out the window for being a massive invasion of civil liberties. If you're trying to tell us everything would be alright if the journalists would just let you push through your draconian, 'changing-800-years-of-UK-law' bollocks Terror Bills, you can fuck right off.

And when you come back, you can fuck off again.

Going on to whinge about the Independent and Guardian columnists who called you on your authoritarian bollocks would be great if your responses weren't utterly false.

To go into one example, the t-shirt slogan case was about the person arrested for wearing an anti-blair shirt to a protest outside the Labour conference in Brighton. The official police report said he'd been cautioned for (and I quote) "carrying plackard + T-shirt with anti-Blair info". (sic). That was under section 44 of the 2000 Terrorism Act - it made a few papers, Simon Carr wasn't making it up in The Independent. Your response that "There is no such provision in any Prevention of Terrorism Act" only shows how vague and easily abused your wide-ranging legislation has been, you unbelievable asshat.

Dear Charles Clarke,
Please shut the fuck up and spend your time writing better laws instead.

Dear Journalists,
Please ignore this loser and keep telling it like it is.
Thank you,
Steve.
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Right, that's it. [Feb. 9th, 2006|03:44 pm]
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Steve's politics update!

The issue:
I wasn't going to do this one. "Those Danish cartoons and Freedom of Speech". Don't run away yet, I'm as pissed off as you probably are by the whole boring mess.

My stance:
To the idiots on the internet who won't leave me alone: Shut the fuck up already. This was never for one second about "Freedom of Speech". The Muslims in various countries were reacting because:
a) There's a rule against visual representations of Mohammed, to prevent Idolatry. Nearly every quote from people protesting abroad was about this rule, not the specific things in the cartoon.
b) The governments were inciting violence through mobile phone texts and a tiny number of people on the ground. It was organised, saying things like "The Danish Government is going to burn the Koran in the town square". Most of the demonstrations were initially peaceful, and some protestors tried to stop those who were turning it into a fight.

Abu Hamza getting arrested (UK story) was also NOT about his freedom of speech, it was because he incited violence. Different law, stop saying we're curtailing his religious freedoms. You incite murder loudly and repeatedly in a public place while stockpiling weapons, you go to jail.

And there's the problem, because the Bible and the Koran specifically condone violence, but you're not allowed to criticise religion the same way as other beliefs people have. (If the UK law had passed, you'd literally not be allowed to criticise it).

Having anti-murder laws in your country DOES curtail people's right to religion. In Islam, there's the bit (as has been noted in recent newspapers) in the Hadith where Mohammed instructs Muslims to kill homosexuals, both the one "doing it and the one it is being done to". The bit in the Sura where Allah hated the Jews so much 'he turned them into Apes and Pigs, despised and rejected'. Lewd women should be "confined to their houses until death". Etc.

Everyone has a right to be part of a religion which preaches violence. Most religions do this at some point. The right to be a Fundamentalist - or a Nazi, or even the scumbag leader of the BNP who should be in jail - is part of Free Speech. The point is, *other* laws of the land say that you're not allowed to use those teachings as justification for real violence, or to encourage others to violence.

The Bible can tell you anything you want it to. On the points where it doesn't actively take both sides at different times, it's vague enough to be interpreted many ways. Most people read "Love thy neighbour" and keep that part, but leave "anyone eating shellfish should be stoned to death by the whole village" well alone. They do this, or they go to jail. Christianity is accepted because the official ruling is to ignore the violent bits that everyone knows are there, and concentrate on the 'be nice'. The vast majority of Muslims in the UK do this too. I work with some, I'm friends with some, they're reasonable, calm, good people who think their religion tells them to act peacefully. Now we get the pictures of placard waving Muslims calling for another 7/7. An official spokesman said "I condemn (the placard wavers) without reservation, these people are less representative of Muslims than the BNP are of the British people." Which is exactly right. In Britain.

Leaving aside the countries where killing people for crimes defined in the Koran has made it into national law, we still have the "idolatry" issue. Did the Danish newspaper have a right to free speech if it broke this sensitive religious rule?

Doesn't matter either way. And why? Because there is absolutely no chance that seeing that cartoon would lead a single person in Denmark into Idolatry. You could complain that the content should have been less rude about Mohammed, but Muslim Fundamentalists calling for respect towards other people's religious figures is a bit comedy. The rule is there to prevent the worship of pictures or statues as though they were the real Gods. That was not gonna happen, but that's what the riots are apparently about and it was the initial excuse used by the Goverments - before they started on the "They're burning the Koran!" untrue text messages. Where did the cartoon get reprinted (a long time after it initially came out)? France - yeah, no tensions with Muslims there. Clearly no ulterior motive from the editors.

This wasn't about "Whoops, did we break a rule? But we want the nice pictures and free speech!" It was a calculated re-hash of an issue that was meant to offend, and was publicised to do so.


Conclusion:
It's just another stupid manufactured scare-story like Bird Flu, which sounds as though it's the coming of the next Apocalypse but is actually completely irrelevant to 99.9999% of us. "It may mutate to humans". Newsflash, there's plenty of fatal airborne diseases in the world already. This time though, the stupid story has enough stupid people behind it to actually raise tensions. So don't help it - stop talking about the latest FEAR and start working out how your vote is actually going to count for anyting in the next elections, because if you're reading this the chances are you live in a country with a crappy electoral system.
If it's the UK, and you live where I do, it's known as a "Safe" seat for one of the parties. This translates as "THEY WILL WIN. YOU MAY AS WELL STAY AT HOME." That's an issue to get angry about. The DieBold voting machines in the US are an issue to get very angry about - not fucking manufactured religious tensions.

(This was more incomprehensible than usual. See comments for explanation of where I actually stand on some of the points).
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(no subject) [Dec. 19th, 2005|09:21 am]
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Oh, why not. Quick rant about George Bush's latest meaningless, factually incorrect, jingoistic pile of drivel speech.

He said Iraq's election was the start of constitutional democracy at the heart of the Middle East.
Until the Sunnis decide they don't like a decision made by the Shia majority, realise democracy has no recourse for coming second, and the resulting civil war.

"This vote, 6,000 miles away, in a vital region of the world, means that America has an ally of growing strength in the fight against terror".
Sorry, you still can't win a fight against a concept or emotion. Try again.

A US military pullout now, he said, would "hand Iraq over to enemies".
Yes. Because the murderously fanatical enemies from many countries, drawn to Iraq by the US presence, are there in huge numbers and will never be dissuaded, no matter how democratic the unarmed population of Iraq gets. A pullout at any time will result in violence.

Speaking from the Oval Office, Mr Bush appealed to Americans to ... not be swayed by "defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right".
Refuse to see anything you do is right? Or just refuse to agree with you, making them wrong? I think many people have an idea of what would be "right", that's why they're angry. They're not suffering from an inability to nominate something as 'right'. All in all, a particularly inept way to insinuate that everyone who disagrees with you is wrong. It's offensively obvious and insulting, and will therefore work very well on most of the people who voted for him. The Kerry voters and subsequently dissatisfied 10% of republicans won't change their mind, but he's never been too worried about that.

"I know that this war is controversial, yet being your president requires doing what I believe is right and accepting the consequences."
And that's why you shouldn't be allowed to wield any power over anything.
What YOU believe is right is appalling to most of the civilised world.

The latest scandal? Bush authorised illegal surveillance on American citizens after 9/11. Illegal even by NSA standards. But, as usual, anything in the 'fight against terror' must be justified, because he wanted it and we should all be afraid of all the Terror.
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(no subject) [Dec. 4th, 2005|03:01 pm]
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I've been relatively calm about politics recently. I thought hey! Maybe I'm losing my cynicism and bitterness about the whole thing at last!

Probably not. Here's my reply to someone on my flist who asked if someone could explain "how troops are dying in Iraq for (the poster's) Freedom?"

-----------

This is complicated, so listen carefully. Terrorists hate America because
they're religious fanatics
their relatives were killed by Coalition troops
they hate 'Freedom'.

If we don't "stop" the terrorists and "win", they will somehow blow-up all of America along with anyone who likes
a militarily-enforced global free market economy which benefits the very rich
'Democracy'.

Therefore by "winning" in
Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia
Iraq, and leaving it a stable... a stable dem... I can't even say it, leaving the various factions to descend into the civil war it has been shown time and again is inevitable without a ruthless dictator, Dick Cheney will have
taken the oil away from OPEC while making lots of money in reconstruction and arms sales
made America safe.

Remember, anyone who questions the government clearly wants the terrorists to win, and hates America.

-------

The official line from PNAC is:

Lower oil prices and more democracy in the whole of the Middle East (starting with Iraq and then somehow magically spreading to Saudi, etc) is 'Good for America'. We must do whatever is good for America and leads to low prices, and using military force to do so is completely acceptable. Anyone who gets in the way of making the most money possible is damaging America, and is therefore unpatriotic.

This definition is ON THEIR WEBSITE. I am not making it up.

The short answer to your question "how are the soldiers in Iraq dying for MY freedom?" is "Because your Government is full of scumbags."

-----------

This didn't seem to answer the original question, and they asked for clarification on how Iraq was making THEM safer, while they're in America?

-----------

It's because you should be afraid! Terrorists threaten your whole way of life, and must be defeated! By "winning" in Iraq (no, I don't know how you measure that. "Insurgents" just completely took over another city in the last few days, making it a no-go zone for US troops, and the generals have said that the longer the US action goes on, the more terrorists there will be) anyway, by Winning in Iraq you will reduce the amount of global terrorism as well as getting an oil supply that doesn't rely on Saudi/OPEC.

Since Iraq had everything to do with 9/11, you'll have stopped terrorist factions from hating America, and you personally will have been made safer.

And you WILL get oil. America has always planned to own the oil, that has never been up for negotiation with the Iraqi 'government', even though their population want it back. Also, US troops will be *permanently stationed there*, and were always going to be. PNAC want permanent military bases to start working on the rest of the Middle East.

----------

They were confused and a little concerned by this answer. I elaborated.

----------

You are correct, 9/11 was Bin Laden, and had nothing directly to do with Iraq. It's just that Cheney and Rumsfeld and half the government kept saying that it did, on record, until a large percentage (40%+) of the US population believed it. And still do.

Whether or not to pull out now is a big problem. It would stop Iraq being a focus for Anti-US troops from all over the world, but it would hand the country over to religious fanatics immediately. There IS no way to win, there never was, which is why the only good move was not to go in there like we did. Bush Snr knew this.

-----------

The American poster then continued the conversation onto the merits of pretending you're Canadian when visiting Europe.
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(no subject) [Nov. 18th, 2005|10:45 am]
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The US senate passed a bill last night that cuts Government spending. "Good!" I hear you cry, "They've got a stupidly big deficit because of Iraq, and should be saving money!" Unfortunately, the spending cuts were in areas such as 'benefits to the poor and unemployed, education funding', and everything else the Republicans don't like spending out on.

So far, so normal. Hey, it's their country, they got the majority vote, and at least they got blocked on drilling for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife preserve, so why should I care?

Here's why (and I'm still awaiting confirmation on this, but if it's true I'm going to scream):

"All during the debate tonight the democrats were quoting scriptures about feeding the poor and taking care of those less fortunate. My hero, Chariman Nussle, got up and read from Matthew and noted that the command was directed at INDIVIDUALS and nowhere did Jesus say, go form a federal bureaucracy to feed the hungry. Nope, he was speaking to individuals."

Forget the debate about whether wanting to pay less/no taxes and assuming individual charity will help people is actually evil or not, let's look at what (allegedly) happened here. Both sides of Government quoted Scripture in order to justify lawmaking, and the Republicans won because they gave better Bible.

If this is true, I will be a very angry Steve. I would have just assumed it was bullshit, but the poster's userinfo suggests she's serious.

Aaaargh!

"Name just one religion in the world that preaches the value of asking the most of those who have the least and asking nothing of those who have the most," said Chet Edwards, D-Texas. "Sadly, that is what this budget does."
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(no subject) [Nov. 4th, 2005|03:27 pm]
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The unpopular bill to make "Glorifying terrorism" illegal in the UK limps on by one vote. It is so vague, heavy-handed and generally crap that Dominic Grieve (the shadow Attorney General) thinks that "As things stand at the moment, it seems to me that the glorification of Robin Hood would be likely to be caught by the operation of this statute."

(That's me stuffed, then.)

Also, using violence to resist genocide from a larger official government, or supporting those who do, would be illegal (eg: the Bosnians resisting the Serbs during the Srebrenica massacre of 1995 that has since been categorised Genocide and led to trials for the Serb leaders as war criminals, or the MPs who supported the ANC before the lifting of Apartheid in S.Africa.)

Anmesty International called the bill "ill-conceived and dangerous", and said "if enacted it would lead to severe human rights violations".
The Government's own report says it contains "sweeping and vague provisions that undermine the rights to freedom of expression and association, the right to liberty, the prohibition of arbitrary detention, the rights to presumption of innocence and fair trial".

Amnesty on Mr Blair's 12-point anti-terror plan:
"Every element signalled further assaults on human rights, particularly for those identified as Muslims, foreign nationals and asylum seekers".

Meanwhile, the Law Lords have ruled that Charles Clarke's heavy-handed (again) policy on Asylum Seekers (that caused hundreds of them to have to permanently sleep rough unable to get any benefits) violated their human rights. There's a shock.


Less Big Brother laws please, we've read 1984! Holding people for 90 days without needing a charge or review of evidence is criminal, even if you do try to justify it with "but there's a war on! We need extra powers so we can fight evil!
And be unnaccountable for locking up anyone we like with no charge."
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