Mainstream western media roll over for bloodthirsty foreign dictator

Posted on December 15, 2016 by Sabina Becker

Note that this is NOT the Onion. And neither is it Russia Today, reporting on Bashar al-Assad. This is the CBC, reporting on the so-called president of the Philippines:

Yes, that’s Rodrigo Fucking Duterte, cheerfully admitting that he’s a bloodthirsty butcher who actually went around looking for confrontations just so he had an excuse to kill someone. And who instructed police to do the same.

Now for the truly surreal bit: Did you catch that bit of commentary at the end, between CBC anchor Ian Hanomansing (at right) and the reporter? They’re actually asking “how seriously we should take” what he says.

Are these guys shittin’ me?

By the CBC’s own reporting, there are over 2,000 Filipinos dead since this fascist bastard took office. And they’re debating “how seriously” we should take his claim to personally butchering people just for the hell of it, just to show his bullyboys how it’s done? I guess neither of these guys ever learned the old saying: When someone tells you who they really are, believe them.

And no, I don’t believe that PR person from the Philippine justice department, running out to cover the boss’s ass. I believe Duterte when he says he’s a butcher. I may not believe another word out of that ugly mouth of his, but that he’s a cold-blooded killer who personally thrives on murder and mayhem, I do believe. An ever-growing pile of corpses doesn’t lie.

But if the CBC is to be believed, ah-ha-ha, oh that Roddy, what a kidder. He’s just exaggerating his penis size!

Well, at least the Young Turks (who are NOT a mainstream media outlet) got it right:

…aside from a few too-nice things to say about the IMF (dirty MF) and World Bank, that is. But that’s grist for another entry.

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Posted in Bullies, Drrrrruuuugs, Fascism Without Swastikas, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Newspeak is Nospeak, Not So Compassionate Conservatism | Comments Off on Mainstream western media roll over for bloodthirsty foreign dictator

Drumpf supporters get Berned

Posted on December 14, 2016 by Sabina Becker

Watch how, in less than five minutes, Bernie Sanders reaches a voter who was duped by Drumpf:

How I wish he’d done this before the election. For that matter, how I wish he’d done this as the Democratic candidate, which is what he should have been.

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Posted in Der Drumpf, Economics for Dummies, The "Well, DUH!" Files, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off on Drumpf supporters get Berned

Colombian currency mafias in Venezuela: How they operate

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Sabina Becker

A Colombian currency smuggler arrested by Venezuelan federal police. Stacks of 100-bolivar notes can be seen on the truck bed behind him.

Further to my earlier piece today, here’s a little information on what the Venezuelan government is tackling with its efforts to counter the smuggling of 100-bolivar notes out of country:

Since 2013, Venezuela has been confronting a national and international right-wing attack on all fronts. A fierce economic war is part of the strategies used to batter the Bolivarian homeland. Among its tactics is an attack on the nation’s currency.

This crime — forbidden under the Organic Law Against Organized Crime and Financing for Terrorism — was denounced by president Nicolás Maduro, who announced that the operation is directed by mafias from Colombia.

The president indicated on Sunday that in Colombian cities such as Cúcuta, Maicao, Cartagena and Bucaramanga, they are warehousing Venezuelan banknotes, especially the 100-bolivar denomination, which will be out of circulation this week as a measure against those mafias.

Once the paper money is extracted from Venezuela, the mafias use various options to exchange the bolivars according to their whims. The trade in bolivars is legal in Colombia since the year 2000, when the the Bank of the Republic of Colombia, which functions as a central bank, announced Resolution 8, which authorizes direct monetary exchanges with neighboring countries, without converting to US dollars first.

This established a double foreign currency exchange rate in Colombia: one official, established by the Bank of the Republic, and another special one, applied only at the borders.

This dual rate, supported by Resolution 8, facilitates irregular use of bolivars. For example, on Sunday, the Bank of the Republic of Colombia, located in Bogotá, fixed the exchange rate of the bolivar at 300.58 pesos, while the exchanges in Cúcuta (on the Colombian/Venezuelan border) impoverish the bolivar with a price of 2.45 pesos.

That is, while a 100-bolivar note has an official value at the Colombian central bank of 30,058 pesos, at the border, an exchange house will pay just 245 pesos for the same bill.

Later, that quantity is exchanged in Colombia for US dollars. Sunday’s exchange rate was 3,002.80 pesos to the dollar. 100 bolivars would buy 10 US dollars.

Later, those 10 dollars would be exchanged for bolivars in Venezuela, using the “parallel dollar” rate, with which the would obtain, at today’s rate, a gain of more than 42,540 bolivars, used later to buy subsidized products in Venezuela and resell them on Colombian soil.

“It’s been calculated that more than 300 billion bolivars are in the hands of international mafias directed from Colombia, part of the economic coup,” announced the Venezuelan president.

In 2015, socialist leader Diosdado Cabello denounced three ways the Colombian mafias use the bolivar note. At that time, Cabello warned of the “three-legged operation”, which consists of the purchase of three 100-bolivar notes for 250 bolivars apiece, for a total of 750 bolivars in all.

The first note would be hoarded by US and Colombian groups, who would keep it for four or five months in an effort to force the Venezuelan government to print more money in an effort to deal with the scarcity of the currency.

The second note would be passed to exchange houses in Bogotá, where its value is 50 times higher than in Cúcuta, in order to be brought later to the border region to acquire Venezuelan products which are sold as contraband.

And the third note would return to Venezuela in order to buy gasoline, food and subsidized products, and smuggle them to Colombia.

Translation mine.

And Colombian mafias aren’t the only ones in on this business. According to the Venezuelan justice minister, the US government is also part of the scheme, via some of its usual suspects:

Venezuelan justice minister Major-General Néstor Reverol Torres informed that the US government is contracting non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to extract Venezuelan paper money from the country.

An investigation into the flight of large sums of cash money, which have rocked the land, determined that this is part of a plan to “end the circulation of money and asphyxiate the national financial system”, according to the Venezuelan National Anti-Drug Office (ONA).

The minister explained that the NGOs contract organized crime groups to extract the money in the form of 100-bolivar notes, the largest denomination in Venezuelan territory, via Colombia, and move it to Asia and Europe. “These operations are being done to leave our country without economic liquidity, as part of the economic war [on Venezuela]”, said Reverol.

Reverol detailed how 300 billion bolivars have been deposited in warehouses in Switzerland, Poland, Ukraine, Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic. “This is part of a financial coup,” he said.

Reverol also revealed how these actions have occurred in other countries, such as Libya and Iraq, “to bring down governments via a non-conventional war. They call it ‘Operation Redemption’. Those countries are their objectives, where they are looking to strangle the financial system.”

Reverol showed the media the front page of a European newspaper, where he showed a photo, with a current date, which reveals evidence of the existence of money in foreign warehouses. He also showed videos and other recordings revealing the same.

The Venezuelan authorities are conducting an investigation to determine how these large sums of money left the country.

Reverol denounced the existence of a pact on the part of the NGOs: that once the Venezuelan government falls, the money will be repatriated “at the rate of $30.80 US per 100 bolivars”. For that reason, he says, the president has decided that this money will never return to the country.

[…]

Reverol Torres announced that security forces, along with the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB), would implement all actions to establish strict vigilance over land, sea and air, in order to prevent this money from clandestinely re-entering the Venezuelan banking system.

Translation, again, mine.

So we can see that the smugglers now have egg all over their faces, as well as a whole slew of useless 100-bolivar notes rotting in their warehouses. No word on the identity of the NGOs supposedly acting on behalf of the US government, but don’t be too surprised if we hear in days to come that they are tied to the laughably-misnamed “National Endowment for Democracy” and its two partisan arms, as Eva Golinger has found in years gone by. After all, the economic coups against Venezuela have remained constant no matter which party was currently occupying the White House.

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Posted in All the Tea in China, Banksters, Confessions of a Bad German, Deepest Darkest Africa, Economics for Dummies, Fascism Without Swastikas, Filthy Stinking Rich, Free Trade, My Ass!, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't That Illegal?, Mobsters, Schadenfreude, Teh Russkies, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off on Colombian currency mafias in Venezuela: How they operate

Venezuela takes drastic new measures against currency trafficking

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Sabina Becker

Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro took to the TV to announce something stunning recently: the removal of an entire denomination of Venezuelan currency from circulation. Here’s the story, via Aporrea:

Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro informed on his VTV show, Contacto con Maduro, that in the next three days, all 100-bolivar notes will be removed from circulation, with the intent of dismantling the trade, by international mafias, of taking Venezuelan banknotes out of the land. They have removed more than 300 billion bolivars using currency of this denomination. Those who have 100-bolivar notes in their possession must declare them at the Central Bank of Venezuela in the days to come, said the chief of state.

According to Maduro, in the Colombian cities of Cúcuta and Maicao there are permanent centres of attack against Venezuelan currency and the currency-trading system, using the extraction of banknotes as one form of action.

Maduro explained that the removal of Venezuelan banknotes, and the 100-bolivar note in particular, is being done to destabilize the Venezuelan economy and society. Which has already been tried in other countries, although fortunately, the high level of Venezuelan banking, by way of cash cards, electronic banking and transfers, has prevented worse consequences.

The president denounced that, according to informants, these mafias have gigantic hoards of 100-bolivar notes.

“I’ve given the order to General Vladimir Padrino López (the minister of defence) and to Major-General Néstor Reverol Torres (minister of Interior Relations) to immediately close all terrestrial, aerial and maritime routes so that none of those banknotes they took out can return, and they keep this swindle out of the country!”

Maduro announced also that large stockpiles of 100-bolivar notes have been detected in foreign countries such as Germany, Ukraine and the Czech Republic. By coincidence, videos have been circulating in social media since April, of persons of different nationalities with immense quantities of 100-bolivar notes in their possession.

[…]

“There will be a 10-day period so that the Central Bank, with the SEBIN [Bolivarian Intelligence Service] present, making all exchanges for those who wish to exchange [100-bolivar notes for other denominations]. Those who owe nothing, need fear nothing!” said Maduro.

On Monday, Interior Minister Néstor Reverol will meet with the Banking Association over the removal of the 100-bolivar note, Maduro announced. They will be taking advantage of Monday’s bank holiday to better organize the proceedings.

“Working people, shop owners, transportation workers, common people…all will have our complete support” for the hand-over and exchange of 100-bolivar notes.

Maduro announced that for months, the Venezuelan government has been demanding of the government of Colombia, by the diplomatic route, the elimination of Resolution 8, of the Colombian Central Bank, “which created this money-laundering operation, since the bolivar has one price in Bogotá, at the Central Bank, and another price among the mafias of Cúcuta. It is a merciless attack upon the Venezuelan economy.”

Maduro also indicated that there are national banks involved, and that an NGO contracted by the US Treasury Department has been the operator directing the whole operation against Venezuelan paper money. According tot he Organic Law Against Organized Crime, Article 51, the crimes all carry prison sentences of 12 to 18 years. “I ask for the maximum sentence for all those responsible who turn up in this investigation,” Maduro said.

This decision takes place just days after the announcement that new banknotes, of denominations of 500 to 20,000 bolivars, as well as 10-, 50-, and 100-bolivar coins, will begin to circulate as of December 15.

Translation mine.

BTW, Madurito isn’t kidding about the foreigners with stacks of 100-bolivar bills stowed away. Here’s some incriminating video:

This guy is Chinese. What on Earth is he up to with all those Venezuelan notes? Nothing good, by the looks of it. He sure seems to be busy with it, though.

And he’s not the only one. Remember, Madurito mentioned Germans, Czechs and Ukrainians all stockpiling the money in their respective countries. And of course, Colombians are in it up to their eyeballs. What are THEY doing with all that money? And what are their political affiliations?

As yet, I don’t know. But I have my suspicions. Fascism is on the rise globally, and it’s got to fund itself somehow. Of course they would do it by robbing the Venezuelan economy of a commonly-used and therefore much-sought denomination! Venezuela is a country where socialism still prevails, much to the far right’s chagrin. And to their even greater chagrin, they’ve still failed to dislodge a socialist president who works as hard as his beloved predecessor to combat all forms of fascism. Up to, including, and especially the fiscal.

And it should escape no one’s notice that a fascist is about to take the reins of the US presidency, too. One whose greed knows no bounds. And whose impulse control is nil, and whose self-serving tendencies mean he has no qualms about trampling any and all laws.

Joke’s on them, though: The paper money they stole is now officially worthless. What will circulate in its place will be coins, and higher-denomination bills. Things that are less likely to be carried out of country on the one hand, and more likely not to escape official notice on the other.

It’s a drastic step, but these ugly times call for drastic measures.

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Posted in All the Tea in China, Confessions of a Bad German, Czech This Out, Der Drumpf, Economics for Dummies, Fascism Without Swastikas, Filthy Stinking Rich, Free Trade, My Ass!, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't That Illegal?, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off on Venezuela takes drastic new measures against currency trafficking

Music for a Sunday: What do those eyes mean?

Posted on December 11, 2016 by Sabina Becker

Somebody got the cool idea of setting this underrated Parachute Club song (which never had a video before) to footage of beautiful, spooky sea critters from Monterey Bay. Here’s another in the same vein, which also has no video but which I think deserves one:

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Music for a Sunday | Comments Off on Music for a Sunday: What do those eyes mean?

Wankers of the Week: Cursin’ of the Year

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Sabina Becker

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Crappy weekend, everyone! Well, the verdict is in, and guess who TIME Magazine’s person of the year is? Yeah…Adolf Hitler all over again. Only this time without the tailored uniforms and the shiny boots. But everything else is the same, including the rallies of slack-jawed yokels with ugly haircuts, crooked teeth, and mean little piggy eyes. It’s enough to make a saint swear. And here’s who the saints are cussing out this week, in no particular order:

1. Joe Fucking Lieberman. Well, hello, Joe, whaddya know? Still not bloody much, by the sounds of it. This sleeping turtle has come out of his slumber just long enough to give the Dems the worst advice ever. The same gutless shit that helped him lose the 2000 election and roll over for Dubya thereafter. He’s been silent since Obama ate his lunch in the 2008 primaries (after which he fucked off in a snit as an “independent”), and one wishes he’d remained so. Go left, Dems, and keep going that way if you actually WANT to win. Because that’s where all the voters-who-never-voted are.

2. Fran Fucking Tarkenton. And speaking of old know-nothings we haven’t heard from in a dog’s age, how about HIM? And how deep IS his anus if he seriously thinks nobody’s boycotted Obama for the last eight years? Because that’s where he’s had his head all this time. But of course, he’s a Drumpfite, so fuckheaded ignorance is kind of a given there.

3. Eric Fucking Drumpf. If you’re so serious about saving children’s lives, and think it takes precedence over the rescue of democracy from a megalomaniac who would only take all that money and squander it on gold-plating the White House, Eric…how about selling all your 24-karat tchotchkes, paying your family’s taxes, and actually providing socialized medicine to all those kids, and their parents and grandparents too?

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4. Chris Fucking Alexander. So, Alberta’s “hurting”? And just how is misogyny (and fascist copycatting) toward a popular, progressive premier supposed to ease the pain? Especially since your Conservative party is the actual AUTHOR of all that suffering, with all its decades of shitty, oil-dependent policymaking? (And, seriously: Do you think that showing up to one of Ezra Fucking Levant’s crapaganda rallies is a good look for a leadership candidate? The Doughy Pantload is the Breitbart of the North, you moron. Yes, you SHOULD be mortified.)

5. Nancy Fucking Pelosi. And here, like #1, is another useless idiot who will do everything in her power to ensure…that her party keeps on losing. Moving to the right won’t win you votes; there are left-leaning votes going begging, and those people didn’t vote. Why? Because they saw the Dems as nothing but Repugs Lite. And they weren’t wrong! And as long as Nancy’s around trying to claim the mushy middle ground or pick off loose right-wingers in typical out-of-touch elitist fashion, don’t expect those actual working-class voters to come lining up, either. PS: See why nobody thinks you’re effective? Ha, ha.

6. Andrew Fucking Anglin. Oh dear, someone hasn’t learned history’s lessons. One of these days, Andy-boy, you’re gonna find yourself hanging by your heels from a gas-station roof, just like another of your historic idols. Because that’s what fate has in store for those who don’t have the ‘nads to follow their leader and blow their brains out in a bunker like a good little Nazi coward. Ha, ha, just kidding, satire, Freeze Peach!

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7. Anish Fucking Patel. How kind and generous of him to offer to drive people who don’t like Christmas to the airport, especially during this busy holiday travel season! And of course, there’s been no shortage of takers for that kind and generous offer. Happy Holidays, motherfucker. Ha, ha.

8. Milo Fucking Yiannopoulos. And speaking of early holiday gifts, how about them frozen peaches? Guess they don’t like ‘em in Iowa. Ha, ha. And of course, Widdle Milo has been reduced to whining about “slippery censorship tactics” because nobody wants to subsidize his hate-mongering. Gee, Milo, maybe if you dug into all that money you embezzled from your gullible supporters, or begged some off your Big Daddy Drumpf, you could pay for your own damn security and show some courage of your convictions, eh?

9. Brad Fucking Trost. It’s a day ending in “day”, and Bad Idea Brad has once again opened up with an idiotic opinion. And this time, it’s to support #4 in HIS wankery, and add that he would have chanted “Lock her up”, too. Keep scraping the bottom of that barrel, Brad…one day, you may just find yourself in China.

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10. Neal Fucking Hancock. Meanwhile, another of Ezzy the Pantload’s little Con-stooges was calling for hacking and cyber-terrorism and sabotage. Uh, not-Bernard the non-Roughneck? You know all that’s ILLEGAL, right???

11. Nora Fucking Roth. Look, I know this has been a year of shit and hell, but an apocalypse? And on Jeebus’s birthday? How stupid do you think we all are? Unless all the Drumpfites, rapturists and other assorted wingnuts are going to be wiped out and the rest left alone, there will never be a single day of righteousness, much less a thousand years.

12. James Fucking Lyons. The way to “win hearts and minds” in the Middle East is to “kill them into submission”? Gramps, what do you think has been going on for the past several decades? And just look how well that’s worked out for you. How about just leaving them in peace and leaving their oil in the ground? No? Too obvious? Thought so.

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13. Kellie Fucking Leitch. Oh dear. Someone is determined to learn absolutely nothing from what’s going on south of our border…except, of course, how to emulate the worst bits. Yeah, that fascism is gonna bite her on the ass. And I hope it does so sooner rather than later.

14. Brian Fucking Mulroney. And speaking of learning absolutely nothing from the BS going on to the south of us, how about HIM? Yeah, Lyin’ Brian decided to pull a Drumpf and glorify himself while making it look like he was doing others a charitable favor. There’s a reason we don’t care for personality cults here in Canada, and this is why: IT’S FUCKING NAUSEATING.

15. Emily Fucking Youcis. Because you’re never too young to be a loud ’n’ proud Nazi princess, you’re also never too young to be wanklisted for it here. Good luck finding a new job, sweetie. Your reputation as an asshole is preceding you all the way.

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16. Carol Fucking Fraley. Meanwhile, on the other end of the age scale, here’s proof that the passage of time doesn’t make everyone wiser. She claims she voted for Drumpf because Obama disappointed her by not getting rid of racism and poverty…so, presumably in protest, she voted for the biggest racist and poverty-pimp to run for office since George Lincoln Rockwell? Yeah, that’ll fix everything — and that’ll show all the hopey-changey people who’s boss!

17. Michael Fucking Flynn. If you thought his dad was bat-guano, wait’ll you see Junior. Yup, he’s a true believer in the whole bullshit that is PizzaGate…and he’s not backing down even though there’s all kinds of evidence to prove him wrong, starting with the fact that the picked-on pizza parlor doesn’t even have a basement, much less a dungeon full of child sex slaves down in it. Meanwhile, all the PizzaGits are blithely ignoring the very real child-sex-abuse scandal involving their own golden boy, Donnie, who actually threatened a 13-year-old victim with being “disappeared” like another one, who was only 12.

18. Newt Fucking Gingrich. Oh boy, a tweet that will live in infamy! Pro tip: If you want to know how NOT to commemorate the bombing of Pearl Harbor, just look at Newty and learn, kiddies.

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9. Rick Fucking Santorum. It’s been a while since he was last listed here, but isn’t it nice to know that Icky Ricky Buttsploodge hasn’t lost his knack for alienating and disgustipating just about everyone — even fellow Republicans?

20. Kelly Fucking Osbourne. And speaking of alienating and disgustipating: No, LGBT people do NOT have to give Der Drumpf a chance. A chance to do what — ruin their lives completely, and everyone else’s too? Because, need I remind you, his VP pick alone is a guy who thinks that you can have Teh Ghey electroshocked out of you, and what’s more, that you should.

21. Alex Fucking Jones. Uh, stupid? You ARE aware, I hope, that what you’re doing there is slander? Because you have absolutely NO proof that Hillary Clinton has personally murdered, raped or cut up a single child, much less “children”, plural. And if you can’t prove that she did it, you really shouldn’t be saying that she did. Because it’s bullshit. And bullshit is not defensible in a court of law, and at the rate you’re going, you’re gonna get your hysterical ass sued right out from under you.

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22. Kevin Fucking Campbell. What diploma mill graduated THIS so-called “doctor”? Because Drumpf isn’t going to make anyone but the worst and richest bastards “feel good”. Everyone else will be sick as dogs before long, unless he’s impeached and Mike Pence is arrested. Suicide is going to go UP, not down. And if you think opioid addiction is a problem now, it’s only going to get worse…unless, of course, the previously stated conditions are met.

23. Jim Fucking Buchy. Yes, this one’s a couple of years old. But I think his wank bears repeating because Ohio just got that “heartbeat” anti-choice bill that he and his fellow head-up-ass types have been lobbying for, for years. Here’s a fat clue-by-four for you, fellas: If you don’t have a uterus yourselves, you don’t get to make decisions that invade the uteri of others. See how that works?

24. Mike Fucking Cernovich. What do you get when you cross The Secret with a PUA manual, grind it all up, and then mix it with a toxic stew of racism? You get crap everywhere, especially inside your own unkempt head. In short, you get JuiceBro’s “Gorilla Mindset”, which all real gorillas would only shake their shaggy heads at.

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25. Susan Fucking Olsen. Wow, little Cindy Brady sure grew up to be homophobic. And mean. And dumb. And grammar-challenged. And UGLY. PS: Aaand she’s out. GOOD.

26. Geert Fucking Wilders. Well, blondie, how do you like your Freeze Peach now? Aren’t you a fine one to whine about “haters”. Project much? And how’s it feel to get your big, twisted mouth slapped shut by a judge? Ha, ha.

27. Andy Fucking Puzder. And meanwhile, back in Drumpfolandia, Drumpfy’s new labor secretary likes him some women eating burgers in bikinis. Never mind that the women in the ads probably got those “bikini bodies” by throwing up every bite they take in. Or that women who work other jobs are being paid shit for doing things way more important to keeping the country running. As long as the Carl’s Jr. Burger models look like something you’d find draped around a brass pole in a seedy bar, all’s good, right?

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28. Daniel Fucking Conversano. Punched out on national TV (in France!) for being a whiny white nationalist asshole? Sic semper imbecilis, inbred mofo. And now you know how popular your viewpoints REALLY are.

29. Mark Fucking Roberts. “I’m rubber, you’re glue, blah blah, bloo bloo.” Is that conduct becoming an officer? Guess the Bradenton Police Department didn’t think so. Ha, ha.

30. Sean Fucking Duffy. Madison, Wisconsin, is a communist city? Since when? And how? Oh, I see…you’re a Repug. And you can’t stand to see democracy working. And you’re also an idiot. But I repeat myself. And I repeat myself. Ha, ha.

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And finally, to Nigel Fucking Farage. Hey UKIP voters and Brexit supporters, don’t you feel stupid now, knowing that your Dear Leader considers you “low-grade” and his fat salary as a come-down compared to what his rich bankster friends are making? He’s whining about all the luxuries he isn’t enjoying, thanks to having to lead a stupid fucking movement. Yeah, that’s right, you idiots got played. You really have nothing to feel smug about; you’re as racist and stupid as your Amurrican cousins who voted for Drumpf. After all, you voted for the equivalent on your side of the pond. PS: Ha, ha, looks good on ya, Nige.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | 2 Comments

Fuck John Galt. Go Johan Galtung!

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Sabina Becker

Who’s John Galt? A bad fictional character, and pretty much the complete opposite of everything we know about real live capitalists. He’s also pretty much the opposite of this guy, who has his finger firmly on the pulse of a lot of global issues:

Who is this wizard? No, he’s not a psychic; he’s a sociologist. His name is Johan Galtung, and he’s from Norway. BTW, the above video is five years old, and mercifully, he was wrong about one thing, namely “not underestimating” Sarah Palin (who cannot be underestimated enough!). He’s quite right, though, about everything else, particularly the saving value of giving decent-paying jobs to the people. Here’s something more recent he has said:

Johan Galtung, a Nobel Peace Prize-nominated sociologist who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, warned that US global power will collapse under the Donald Trump administration.

The Norwegian professor at the University of Hawaii and Transcend Peace University is recognized as the ‘founding father’ of peace and conflict studies as a scientific discipline. He has made numerous accurate predictions of major world events, most notably the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

Galtung has also accurately predicted the 1978 Iranian revolution; the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989 in China; the economic crises of 1987, 2008 and 2011; and even the 9/11 attacks—among other events, according to the late Dietrich Fischer, academic director of the European University Center for Peace Studies.

Back in 2000, Galtung first set out his prediction that the “US empire” would collapse within 25 years. After the election of President Bush, though, he revised that forecast five years forward because, he argued, Bush’s policies of extreme militarism would be an accelerant.

Quite the track record, and I wouldn’t argue with any of it. So. What does this impressive predictor have to say about Der Drumpf?

He argued that American fascism would come from a capacity for tremendous global violence; a vision of American exceptionalism as the “fittest nation”; a belief in a coming final war between good and evil; a cult of the strong state leading the fight of good against evil; and a cult of the “strong leader”.

All of which, Galtung said, surfaced during the Bush era, and which now appear to have come to fruition through Trump. Such fascism, he told Motherboard, is a symptom of the decline—lashing out in disbelief at the loss of power.

Among the 15 structural contradictions his model identifies as driving the decline, are:

*economic contradictions such as ‘overproduction relative to demand’, unemployment and the increasing costs of climate change;
*military contradictions including rising tensions between the US, NATO, and its military allies, along with the increasing economic unsustainability of war;
*political contradictions including the conflicting roles of the US, UN and EU;
*cultural contradictions including tensions between US Judeo-Christianity, Islam, and other minorities;
*and social contradictions encompassing the increasing gulf between the so-called ‘American Dream’, the belief that everyone can prosper in America through hard work, and the reality of American life (the fact that more and more people can’t).

Galtung’s book explores how the structural inability to resolve such contradictions will lead to the unravelling of US political power, both globally, and potentially even domestically.

Trump has made clear that he thinks US troops are still needed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even proposed sending more troops to Iraq. He also said that we should have ‘grabbed’ the country’s oil. But he has also heavily (and incoherently) criticized US military policies.

That, right there, is a pretty big internal contradiction for a man who led everyone to believe he was an isolationist. Nonsense! Drumpf seems to be obsessed with power and the exercise of it in any way he can wangle. Remember, he was nonplussed by the fact that the US has nukes and won’t use them! Deterrence is not even a concept for him. He can’t be trusted to keep his itchy fingers off the trigger and to himself.

And yes, there is fascism afoot within the US right now, and the likelihood is great that it will cause a collapse within the land, and soon. Barring some miracle, such as the Electoral College voting en masse against him, Der Drumpf will be the ruin of the US of A.

Forget “going Galt”, I’m going Galtung. You probably should, too.

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Posted in Der Drumpf, El Predicto Speaks..., Fascism Without Swastikas, The United States of Amnesia, The War on Terra | Comments Off on Fuck John Galt. Go Johan Galtung!

Remembering Viola Desmond

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Sabina Becker

Viola Desmond, a Canadian civil-rights hero, was honored today with the announcement that her face would appear on the $10 bill. She beat Rosa Parks to the punch by nine years, in 1946, when she insisted on sitting in the “white” area of a Nova Scotia movie theatre (i.e. the better, pricier seats down on the main floor, instead of the balcony, where black moviegoers were supposed to sit). The difference in ticket prices? A whopping one cent. She got dragged out by violent police officers, and tried, and fined for “defrauding the government”. She paid her $20 fine promptly, thus proving that the whole nasty episode wasn’t about the difference in ticket prices at all. You’d have to be blind not to see the racism there, eh? Viola certainly could, and that’s why she fought back. Her court challenge resulted in the dismantling of racial-segregation laws all over Canada.

But even before she challenged the segregation of movie theatres, Viola was already a fighter against racism. As the report shows, she had to cross the color line in order to be able to open her own beauty salon; most hairdressing schools at the time barred all black trainees. Viola saw an unfilled niche in the field, and became a teacher of other black beauticians, and eventually the owner of a hairdressing school, as well as a cosmetics manufacturer specializing in products for black clients. So it hardly comes as a surprise that she had the spirit to fight for her rights rather than just quietly let racial segregation pass unchallenged. After all, Canada had just fought and won a war against fascism overseas. Why let it go on happening at home?

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Fascism Without Swastikas, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Racist?, Law-Law Land, Uppity Wimmin | Comments Off on Remembering Viola Desmond

Nazi brothels: The hidden horror of the concentration camps

Posted on December 7, 2016 by Sabina Becker

A concentration camp identification card from a female prisoner of Ravensbrück, who was sent to work in another camp as a prostitute. The word “Bordellfrau” should escape no one’s notice. Yes, it’s true: There really was nothing beneath the Nazis. For all their obsession with “purity” and “virtue”, they were in fact a band of pimps. And the head pimp-daddy of them all was a name that should be familiar to everyone who knows even a little of their history. Here’s my translation of an article that lays it all bare, with commentary in between:

Whatever is contemptible, gets concealed — even in the top-secret messages of mass murderers. Even internally, the SS avoided concrete references to the millionfold murder of Jews, and wrote, instead, of their “special treatment”. Just as shady, apparently, was another set-up in Heinrich Himmler’s apparatus. How else could one explain that the concentration-camp brothels, which as of 1942 were set up in all the major KZs, were shamefully called “special buildings”?

Today, it’s well known that the concentration camps were huge hells on Earth. But who also knows that among the miserable “living” conditions, sadistic tortures and total absence of rights for the inmates, all the way up to “annihilation through work”, we can now add sexual exploitation?

The pedantic Himmler, of all people, was the biggest pimp in German criminal history, if the number of “his” slave-prostitutes was anything to go by. This chapter of history has been opened by a traveling exhibition by the KZ-Ravensbrück memorial site, which can currently be seen in Weimar.

Yes, that’s right, folks…this guy here was the biggest pimp in Germany at the time, although I suspect that the megabrothel owners of today probably outrank him in terms of numbers of women prostituted, as well as earnings:

Doesn’t look like a pimp, does he? Well, wait for it. What he wrote reveals just what kind of dirty mind was at work in that prissy little man’s head:

In the concentration-camp system, the sexes were supposed to be strictly segregated. Women, as well as men, were quickly taken into so-called “protective custody” soon after the Nazi takeover. At first they were imprisoned in normal jails, but by the end of 1933, the first KZ, Moringen* in Niedersachsen, was converted into an all-female concentration camp. After an interim repurposing of the former male KZ Lichtenburg*, in Sachsen-Anhalt, from 1937 to 1939, the all-female KZ Ravensbrück*, in the Uckermark, was opened just a few months before the outbreak of World War II. Only in rare exceptions, such as Auschwitz, were male and female barracks located next to one another.

At the height of the war, as the numbers of KZ prison-laborers grew in importance, Himmler sent out an order on March 23, 1942: “I consider it of utmost importance that in the freest form, the hard-working female prisoners be brought into bordellos”. Also, a “certain small piecework rate” would be paid, the “Reichsführer SS” told the head of the newly-founded “business management head office”, Oswald Pohl*, who was responsible for the running of all the KZs. The reason Himmler gave: “When these two conditions are met, the work capacity [of the male prisoners] will rise enormously.”

So we can see that Himmler, like so many “men’s rights” assholes today, thought that men would be more productive and efficient if their sexual “needs” were taken care of by women specially enslaved for the purpose, and that outside of this context, the genders were to be severely segregated. And he even knew how to twist such words as “free”, same as menzers and “alt-right” fascists today!

So. How did these “free” KZ-brothels function, and how were they set up?

About two months later, the first camp brothel went into business on a trial basis, in the KZ Mauthausen in Upper Austria. The women, either under false pretences or under duress, were recruited in Ravensbrück. According to Nazi criteria, they had to be “Aryan” and healthy, with no sexually-transmitted diseases. The brothel was housed in Barrack 1, right beside the camp’s parade ground. There, 24 women from Ravensbrück had to service exclusively selected KZ prisoners, typically prisoner-overseers or odd-job men. They were paid with “certificates” that the Lager-SS distributed at will to “helpful” or particularly “performance-minded” prisoners.

It was characteristic of the KZ system that control and repression were extensively performed by prisoners. High in the prison hierarchy in most camps were those in “BV” (“Befristete Vorbeugehaft”, i.e. temporary preventive custody), which in prison-camp reality was typically replaced with “Berufsverbrecher” (career criminals). Out of this group, the SS selected most of its functionary prisoners, such as “trusties”. In many camps, these prisoners sacrificed other inmates to their interests, preferably captives out of “low” categories such as homosexuals and Jews.

To utilize this heedless confrontation even better in the SS fashion, prison brothels were set up. Until early 1945, in ten of the larger KZs, “special buildings” were set up, among them in Auschwitz I and III, Dachau, Flossenbürg, and Sachsenhausen. Nearly all the women came from KZ Ravensbrück; if they remained healthy and kept to the strict rules, they “worked” on average six to twelve months in the camp brothel, and then were sent back to the women’s KZ.

So we can see that the prissy Himmlerian habit of segregation and controlled interaction fits right into a larger pattern within the KZs: namely, that of pitting prisoners against one another. Gentiles against Jews, straights against LGBTs, men against women, hardened criminals against the innocent. But at least one group of prisoners wasn’t falling into the trap…and yes, it WAS a trap:

Soon after 1945, the first reports of the camp brothel at Buchenwald became public. Carl Gärtig, who had been imprisoned at Buchenwald since 1938 and had worked in its mess hall during the final years of the war, told his impressions in late April of 1945, just two weeks after the camp’s liberation by the US Army: “The ‘special building’ was a swamp-flower of the worst corruption and other horrors, a truly Nazi model business.” Gärtig, like many “political” prisoners, refused the “offer” categorically: “Visiting the brothel signified a recognition of Nazi tactics, of playing prisoners off against each other.” Even so, there was much “demand”, and only partly in the frame of the SS’s rules: “One night, there was even a big brawl between the camp guards and the criminals, because the criminals had broken into the brothel that night and drunkenly menaced the women. The camp guards, however, quickly and thoroughly cleaned out the pigsty.”

In Buchenwald, a group of predominantly political prisoners dominated the “self-government” of the camp; that distinguished this KZ from most of the others, in which the BVs dispensed death. According to Buchenwald survivor Eugen Kogon, the camp directorate tried to alter this (for them) unsatisfactory situation with the camp brothel: “On the SS side, the purpose of the exercise was to corrupt the political prisoners who had access [to the brothel], spy on them, and distract them from politics.” For that reason, in Buchenwald, “internal advice went around not to use the facility”.

What do you bet that the political prisoners who refused to use the brothel were either devout Christian antifascists…or just straight-up leftists? Carl Gärtig, for instance, was a Communist. Eugen Kogon, on the other hand, was a Catholic, born out of wedlock to a Jewish mother, who landed in a prison camp because of his religious opposition to Nazism. That’s the kind of social conscience it takes to staunchly turn one’s back on the blandishments of fascism, up to and including the sexually exploitative ones. If you’re willing to face prison for your religious beliefs and/or political convictions, it’s not that hard to dispense with the dubious joys of sex capitalism. On the contrary, it makes a lot of sense, especially in terms of being the change you want to see in the world.

Meanwhile, as to those who DID use the facility…well, here are the joys of sexy, sexy “sex work” for you, in all their Nazi-KZ glory:

The inmates, there or in other KZs, who sought out the brothel, usually had two Reichsmarks or a certificate of the same value to pay, had to visit the camp hospital for examination beforehand, got to visit one of the women for 20 minutes, and afterwards had be “sanitized”, that is, disinfected. So wrote Eugen Kogon in the best-selling classic, “The SS-State”*.

Two measly Reichsmarks for 20 minutes of loveless ceiling-staring and waiting for the poor slob to finish so he could go off and be “sanitized” of all your nasty-wasty woman-germs? Sure sounds like liberation to me. And if the pattern of classic pimps holds true here, then Himmler’s goons probably kept all or most of that money for themselves anyway, adding insult to injury for the enslaved women, who were “paid” in scrip like turn-of-the-century coal miners, and exploited down to their last orifices in ways that even the lowest laborers were not. Such sexy fun!

So, why haven’t you heard much about this until now? Well, maybe because there was only so much horror the post-war German mind could take. And only so much shame that could bear to be revealed to the foreign occupation forces. But it was never really a sworn secret; like so much else, it was just something no one wanted to talk about…

Though the existence of camp brothels was never a secret after 1945, the suffering of the inmates was still kept pretty quiet. Only in Mauthausen and Gusen* were the barracks in which the women were made to prostitute preserved. In the memorial works, the topic has for decades been very much subordinated, often even totally unmentioned.

Only with the rise of gender studies did that change. From the 1990s onward, detailed studies of individual camp brothels emerged, roughly contemporaneous with the first serious examinations of the Wehrmacht brothels in the occupied lands. Since 2009 there is a compilation available: “The KZ-brothel; Forced Sexual Labor in Nazi Concentration Camps. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2009. 445 pp, 38 euros.” For it, historian Robert Sommer had to use literally the last opportunity to query women and some individual brothel visitors. Thus the horrifying history of sex in hell became comprehensively recognizable, almost seven decades after the building of the camp brothels.

…until almost no one was left to talk about it at all.

*Denotes links added by me. Unstarred link as in the original.

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Posted in Confessions of a Bad German, Do As I Say..., Human Rights FAIL, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Men Who Just Don't Get It, Not So Compassionate Conservatism | Comments Off on Nazi brothels: The hidden horror of the concentration camps

#NoDAPL is not over, people!

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Sabina Becker

This battle has just begun. And no, what the US Army Corps of Engineers did yesterday, though it was the right thing to do, is NOT the end of the pipeline. The Sioux people of Standing Rock are not done fighting yet, because the pipeline company is determined to push that filthy project through, and this is just a minor setback for them. Vetoing the pipeline altogether is the only real way to stop it, and that hasn’t happened yet. And all the other polluting industry projects, from the contamination of Flint’s water, to fracking, to old oil pipelines leaking under people’s houses? Yeah. It’s time to join the fight to stop ALL that. NOW.

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Posted in Barreling Right Along, Environmentally Ill, If You REALLY Care, Teh Injunz, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off on #NoDAPL is not over, people!