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Some things are too good (or bad, depending on which way you look at them), not to share. I came across this quote on a mega-conservative American blog. I'm not giving the link because I refuse to give you easy access to the thoughts of this truly frightening man but in the interests of citing my sources, the name of the blog is included at the end of this post.
Just to give you a little background on the writer of this blog- he thinks Bush is doing a pretty good job overall, he thinks the war in Iraq is going well, he thinks all liberals should be lined up and shot for their "crimes against humanity", he thinks Augusto Pinochet was the best thing that ever happened to Chile and America should be congratulated for putting him into power and he thinks all Muslims should be deported from all Western countries immediately.
But that's not what this quote is about. But it's gold nonetheless, so without further ado, I present you with my first ever, crazy conservative quote of the week:
Since I was a child I have heard, read, and seen reports about how much of the world's resources we few greedy Americans consume...So Average Joe American uses as much energy as 370 Ethiopians, so what? What the hell do Ethiopians contribute to the world? Nothing but more Ethiopians who consume the Earth's oxygen, beg us for money, food, and medicine and then bad mouth us for helping them.
We deserve to use more resources. It is Americans who have contributed the most in medicine, physics, and chemistry (38% of all Nobel Prizes); we are the most generous people on this planet; when there is a disaster somewhere the world expects us to help. We contribute more to the world than we get back; if the world was fair we'd be consuming 75% of the world's resources and no one dare complain. When the rest of the world bitches about it it's because they are ungrateful wretches - without America the world would still be living in 1910 (although it should be noted that Muslim countries still live in 632 A.D.).
What's you favourite part of this quote? Is it the sheer unadulterated ethnocentrism? Is it the racism? Is it the callous insensitivity toward the suffering of those millions living in poverty through no fault of their own? Is the disregard for the adverse effect that rampant American consumerism is having on our fragile planet? Or is it the dig that he has against Muslims even though they actually have nothing to do with the subject he is 'discussing'?
Ruby
Quotes from Planck's Constant. No link. Google it yourself if you really feel the need to read more.
Sixty years of Israel.
Sixty years of occupation.
Sixty years of oppression.
Sixty years of displacement.
Sixty years of refugee camps.
Sixty years of massacres.
Sixty years of war crimes.
Sixty years of ethnic cleansing.
Sixty years of international condemnation.
Sixty years of power cuts.
Sixty years of blockades.
Sixty years of curfews.
Sixty years of segregation.
Sixty years of degradation.
Sixty years of exploitation.
Sixty years of humiliation.
Sixty years of starvation.
Sixty years of checkpoints.
Sixty years of identity cards.
Sixty years of midnight raids.
Sixty years of hatred.
Sixty years of injustice.
Sixty years and still no Palestine...
Happy Birthday Israel.
Shalom.
Ruby
...when he's a human being
This is the face of Joseph Fritzl, currently the most hated man in Austria and the notorious incest cellar man who kept his own daughter locked up as a sex slave in the cellar of his house for 24 years.
From the age of 18 Elisabeth Fritzl existed for no other reason but to provide sexual favours to her father. She bore him seven children, three of whom lived in the cellar with her and until their release a few short weeks ago, had never seen daylight. The oldest one was 19 years old. 19 and had never meet a human being outside her immediate family, never seen the sun come up, never had a sleepover with her friends, never dipped her toes in the ocean, never been to the movies, never been kissed by a boy.
Understandably, in an attempt to comprehend the sheer magnitude of Josephs crimes, the world has dehumanised him. Monster, animal and devil, are some of the words being used to describe him. In her post Incest Monster Terrified Prostitutes, Anne on The Female View stated I will always think of him as a monster and not a man". Annes views mirror those of many others. I myself have previously referred to George Bush as 'a monster'. But why is it that we give people who commit such crimes these names in an effort to dehumanise them, when in fact, their actions are all too human?
The fact is the humans have a long and sordid history of murdering, torturing, raping, exploiting and generally fucking each other over. We have devised the most intricate methods of causing unimaginable and prolonged pain to each other. For an engrossing if truly disturbing read see Horrorphile Bryns post The Exquisite and Delicate Art of Torture. From the Brazen Bull of ancient Rome to the medieval garrotte favoured by the Inquisitors to the weatherboarding and sensory deprivation currently in use at Guantanamo Bay (and by a so-called civilised western democracy no less).
And then there are the state-run mass murders and acts of genocide. Over 9 million killed by the Holocaust. Concurrently, Stalins pogroms resulted in the death of 20 million of his fellow Russians. The Killing Fields of Cambodia, Americas 'Secret War' in Laos, the plight of the Kurds in Saddams Iraq, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, Kenya
on and on and on it goes.
It wasnt monsters or animals or the devil himself who killed those people. It was their fellow human beings. All in the name of power and hatred. As I write this the Burmese government is still refusing to allow aid into its cyclone ravaged state, preferring to allow its stricken population to die of starvation and disease then admit they need the help of foreigners. In Gaza, the humanitarian crisis continues, with the closure of a power plant forcing its 1.5 million inhabitants to live in the dark, even as its neighbour Israel celebrates her 60th anniversary in lavish style. The death toll in Iraq now exceeds 650 000 and then there are the tens of thousands maimed and the millions displaced.
All the victims of the actions of other human beings. I am always amused when I hear the phrases its inhumane and thats just not human! I happen to find such atrocities all too human actually. We live in a world where children are sold into sex slavery, where poor people are duped into risking their lives to act as international drug runners, where a woman is raped every two minutes in the United States alone (US Dept of Justice statistics), where 2% of the population control 98% of the wealth, where the rights of workers are being depleted rather than strengthened as time marches on. Whatever happened to every generation should live better than the last?
Human beings can be nasty creatures and no alien, no predator, no zombie, no werewolf can come even close to perpetrating the horrors and injustices that humans inflict on each other every minute of everyday of every year. One of the moments of my school experience that I remember most clearly was when my favourite teacher, Mr Pappasava (one of those rare and brilliant teachers who can simultaneously entertain and impart lasting knowledge on his pupils), told us that if you were look over the history of the human race since records began, the amount of time that there hasnt being a war raging somewhere in the world comes to less than two years. Less than 2 years out of over 6000.
The Fritzl story prompted me do some research on other people who had been held captive in similar circumstances and this is some of what my search yielded:
Natascha Kampusch: Austrian girl kidnapped off the street at the age of 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil and kept in a small (5sq. metres) cellar under his garage. Initially confined to this small space at all times, Kampusch was eventually allowed into other parts of the house and yard when her captor was not at work. Kampusch escaped when she was vacuuming Priklopils car in his yard and he took a phone call. She saw a small window of opportunity for freedom, left the vacuum cleaner on and ran for her life. Priklopil committed suicide upon her escape.
Maria K: Mentally challenged Austrian woman locked in a wooden chest by her parents for nine years.
The Linz sisters: Austrian (again!), girls locked in a cellar by their mentally impaired mother.
Carol Smith (not her real name): Also known as The Girl in the Box. 20-year-old hitchhiker picked up by Cameron Hooker and his wife Janice in Oregon in 1977. Carol was imprisoned as a sex slave for seven years and slept in a coffin underneath the couples bed.
Tanya Nicole Kach: American teenager abducted by Thomas John Hose, her schools security guard and kept locked up on the top floor of his house for ten years. Her captors parents lived on the bottom floor of the house and were unaware that their son had his very own sex slave living with him.
Steven Stayner: Seven-year-old boy kidnapped by serial paedophile Kenneth Parnell in 1972. Kept as a sex slave for seven years in a cabin near Yosemite National Park.
The gut wrenching truth of the matter is that right now, even as you read this, there are humans been held against their will, there are people been tortured and raped. There are people preparing to board aeroplanes with millions of dollars of heroine strapped to their bodies, there are people been exploited, there are children been molested, there are people been abused.
Perhaps the Fritzl case has captured the imagination of the public more than others due to the relationship of the victims and perpetrator. But we are kidding ourselves if we say this sort of thing doesnt happen very often. That humans dont usually treat each other in this way.
It happens all the time. The question is why? And how do we deal with it?
Ruby
References:
Sex Slaves: The crime library
American Rape Statistics
Yahoo Answers: Austrians locked in cellars
Lancet Study: Mortality after 2003 invasion of Iraq
In case you thought irony was dead, here is the reason that US Defense Secretary Robert Gates cites as to why the US has yet to deliver humanitarian aid to Burma/Myanmmar:
"I cannot image us going in without the permission of the Myanmar government," Gates said at a Pentagon press conference with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen.
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A humble toothpick? Or an instrument of the devil?
I really wish I was joking about this but I am not. A substitute teacher in Land OLakes Florida has been sacked after being accused of practising wizardry. Yes, you read right: wizardry. This is the year 2008. And this man has been accused of being a wizard
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This is my article on the Dutch anti-Islam film Fitna which was published in onlineopinion.com.au in early April. Yeah, it's a little long so you'll have to pay attention. I received quite a bit of hate mail after this was published with people accusing me of everything from being an 'Islamist" to vilifying Christianity to anti-Semitism. One person even threatened to sue me. Feedback welcome. Enjoy.
(By RubySoho
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Safer than Fort Knox...
Finally, common sense prevails- US Congress has announced it will review its funding of high school sex education programs which promote abstinence has the most viable method of birth control. This announcement comes hot on the heels of a report released by that countries leading health agency The Center For Disease Control and Prevention, which found that one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease
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Comment by RubySoho
on The Subway Soulja Girl: verbal abuse and lunacy on a train in the US
Thought Zone