He is omnipotent after all...
It's a question that's come up from time to time, whenever I hear some Christian fundamentalist or some Islamic fundamentalist railing against homosexuality.
God good! Fags bad!
If we really believe in this "God" we profess to believe in, could not God sort it out?
It's not just Christians and Muslims who have an issue here; Judaism has its fundamentalists too...
Come to think of it, there's one thing fundamentalist Jews and fundamentalist Muslims and fundamentalist Christians have in common...
They all hate gays!
Friday, July 31, 2015
In wake of terror attack on Jerusalem Pride Parade, right-wing MK Itzik Shmuli comes out of the closet
And good on him!
It takes serious balls to come out as a gay man in Israeli politics.
I think he needs to be respected for that.
Let's see if his concern for those who are "different" extends to Palestinians, gay Palestinians, Ethiopians, gay Ethiopians, and Israeli Arabs, gay or not.
MK Shmuli is on a slippery slope here. If he truly embraces all those who are "different" he can't remain a right wing Zionist for much longer...
You've made a good start, Shmuli; run with it.
It takes serious balls to come out as a gay man in Israeli politics.
I think he needs to be respected for that.
Let's see if his concern for those who are "different" extends to Palestinians, gay Palestinians, Ethiopians, gay Ethiopians, and Israeli Arabs, gay or not.
MK Shmuli is on a slippery slope here. If he truly embraces all those who are "different" he can't remain a right wing Zionist for much longer...
You've made a good start, Shmuli; run with it.
An open letter to Renee Lovelace
Ms. Lovelace,
I read your heartbreaking story of wanting to return to Ghana at Counterpunch.
I don't know anything about you other than what I've read in that story, but I assume that you're at an age where you're giving some thought to where you want to die.
Renee, you were born in Detroit and live in Chicago. What do you know from Ghana?
If you have grown up in Detroit and live in Chicago and have had to cope with systemic racism all your life, I can see where "going back to Ghana" holds some appeal.
But hold on a minute.
You're not from Ghana. You're an American.
True, you have ancestors who came from Ghana in chains 150 or 200 years ago, but you are an American!
My ancestors schlepped around Europe since time immemorial, and were generally at the bottom of the barrel in terms of their social standing. My mother was born into what was essentially feudalism in a place called East Prussia, between the wars. Feudalism is a system wherein the Graff or Baron or whoever is calling the shots, essentially owns the serfs...
Sound familiar?
At some point after the WWII my family made it to the new world, and being white, I guess we had one advantage that you did not.
But here's why I don't want you to be a quitter. When I look at cities like Toronto or Miami today, I see a younger generation that's far more open to change than yours or mine was. I see cities where the racial divides are being dispatched into the dustbins of history by a new generation wherein the millennials who have the opportunity to mix with other races think nothing of doing exactly that.
Blacks and Whites and East Indians and West Indians and Mexicans date and intermarry and are producing a new generation of kids who couldn't care less.
That's where America is going, Renee, and I hope you stick around to see it through.
I read your heartbreaking story of wanting to return to Ghana at Counterpunch.
I don't know anything about you other than what I've read in that story, but I assume that you're at an age where you're giving some thought to where you want to die.
Renee, you were born in Detroit and live in Chicago. What do you know from Ghana?
If you have grown up in Detroit and live in Chicago and have had to cope with systemic racism all your life, I can see where "going back to Ghana" holds some appeal.
But hold on a minute.
You're not from Ghana. You're an American.
True, you have ancestors who came from Ghana in chains 150 or 200 years ago, but you are an American!
My ancestors schlepped around Europe since time immemorial, and were generally at the bottom of the barrel in terms of their social standing. My mother was born into what was essentially feudalism in a place called East Prussia, between the wars. Feudalism is a system wherein the Graff or Baron or whoever is calling the shots, essentially owns the serfs...
Sound familiar?
At some point after the WWII my family made it to the new world, and being white, I guess we had one advantage that you did not.
But here's why I don't want you to be a quitter. When I look at cities like Toronto or Miami today, I see a younger generation that's far more open to change than yours or mine was. I see cities where the racial divides are being dispatched into the dustbins of history by a new generation wherein the millennials who have the opportunity to mix with other races think nothing of doing exactly that.
Blacks and Whites and East Indians and West Indians and Mexicans date and intermarry and are producing a new generation of kids who couldn't care less.
That's where America is going, Renee, and I hope you stick around to see it through.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
TPP and the race to the bottom
My Globe and Mail this morning featured no less than four articles about the Trans Pacific Partnership "free trade" deal that is currently being hammered out in Hawaii.
Free trade agreements should at this point in time be understood as a mug's game, at least from the point of view of regular working folks. They help corporate profits and drag down the standard of living in high-wage countries.
I've been a keen observer of the free trade charade since before NAFTA, when Lyin' Brian Mulroney was campaigning on the merits of the pre-NAFTA Canada US Free Trade Agreement. Every time he saw a camera or a microphone he just kept repeating "jobs jobs jobs jobs..."
A lot of people believed him.
What we had to give up to get that deal was the Canada US Auto Pact that dated back to the early '60s, and which had created a thriving car manufacturing industry in Canada. The Auto Pact was the opposite of free trade; it was a focused trade deal that forced the automakers to build cars here if they wanted to sell them here. Auto manufacturing in Canada has been dying a slow death ever since.
Adding Mexico to the deal under NAFTA sped up the de-industrialization of the Canadian economy. I remember hearing the bullshit about how that one was going to lift all ships; the combination of Yankee ingenuity and capital, Canadian resources, and Mexican dollar-a-day labour were somehow going to combine in some magic formula to make North America an economic utopia.
And I guess it was for the corporate shitbags who closed down US and Canadian manufacturing, simultaneously creating America's rust belt and a manufacturing boom in Mexico.
So when we're told that TPP is far bigger and more important than NAFTA, I shudder with dread. The fact that these negotiations have been entirely shrouded in secrecy doesn't make me feel any better.
They've obviously got a lot to hide.
Free trade agreements should at this point in time be understood as a mug's game, at least from the point of view of regular working folks. They help corporate profits and drag down the standard of living in high-wage countries.
I've been a keen observer of the free trade charade since before NAFTA, when Lyin' Brian Mulroney was campaigning on the merits of the pre-NAFTA Canada US Free Trade Agreement. Every time he saw a camera or a microphone he just kept repeating "jobs jobs jobs jobs..."
A lot of people believed him.
What we had to give up to get that deal was the Canada US Auto Pact that dated back to the early '60s, and which had created a thriving car manufacturing industry in Canada. The Auto Pact was the opposite of free trade; it was a focused trade deal that forced the automakers to build cars here if they wanted to sell them here. Auto manufacturing in Canada has been dying a slow death ever since.
Adding Mexico to the deal under NAFTA sped up the de-industrialization of the Canadian economy. I remember hearing the bullshit about how that one was going to lift all ships; the combination of Yankee ingenuity and capital, Canadian resources, and Mexican dollar-a-day labour were somehow going to combine in some magic formula to make North America an economic utopia.
And I guess it was for the corporate shitbags who closed down US and Canadian manufacturing, simultaneously creating America's rust belt and a manufacturing boom in Mexico.
So when we're told that TPP is far bigger and more important than NAFTA, I shudder with dread. The fact that these negotiations have been entirely shrouded in secrecy doesn't make me feel any better.
They've obviously got a lot to hide.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Latest Ukraine scandal: patriots stymied by lack of approved underpants
No, I'm not making this up.
"Bureaucratic woes" indeed!
No less an authority than Prince Poroshenko himself has called out the Ukrainian bureaucracy for holding up the fight against Russian aggression with their nit-picky regulations on underpants.
Sounds kinda fucked up to me.
We normally think of Greece as the basket case of Europe...
Greece has a quarter the population of Ukraine, but twice the GDP, even in these dark times.
Is it any wonder why?
"Bureaucratic woes" indeed!
No less an authority than Prince Poroshenko himself has called out the Ukrainian bureaucracy for holding up the fight against Russian aggression with their nit-picky regulations on underpants.
Sounds kinda fucked up to me.
We normally think of Greece as the basket case of Europe...
Greece has a quarter the population of Ukraine, but twice the GDP, even in these dark times.
Is it any wonder why?
Police body-cams spell end of nigger-hunting
Just a couple of years ago, that police officer in Ohio would have got away unscathed.
But today, he's facing a murder rap, and it's all because of the camera.
Maybe the advances in technology are bringing us some good stuff after all?
But today, he's facing a murder rap, and it's all because of the camera.
Maybe the advances in technology are bringing us some good stuff after all?
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