Category Archives: violence

Snowden taking flight to Moscow

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Edward Teller at FDL has this up on Snowden leaving Hong Kong for Moscow and then on to…?

Someone put up this link in the comments.  They’re taking the technology and selling it to other countries….why isn’t that illegal?  And they’re worried about ordinary Americans disclosing secrets?? How is Snowden being charged with espionage while Booz is not?

Also in the comments is a link to Glenn Greenwald’s smackdown of psuedo journalist David Gregory.

In the comments, someone mentioned Naomi Wolf’s comments on Snowden…so naturally, I went in search of her article. She has it on…wait for it…f_cebook….of all places.  So, I went to gawker and found this.

I agree that her comments are bizarre.  They make no sense at all–because he’s articulate he should be considered a spy? Seriously?

…and he’s too organized.  Say what??  She infers that because he has a GED that he couldn’t possibly be that analytical.  Um…he does have expertise with sophisticated software, correct?

She questions why Hong Kong–Snowden answered that question–he stated that they were actually more open…than the U.S.

From the gawker:

This is why our surveillance apparatus operates using secret orders that are secretly overseen by a closed court, whose decisions are classified. This is why the technology and communications companies cooperating with the surveillance program are forbidden to acknowledge that the surveillance program exists. This is why the Director of National Intelligence lied to Congress about what the surveillance program collected. Because they all wanted you to know about it.

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Here’s another take on Wolf from Dave Lindorff at counterpunch.  He also notes the condescending attitude of Wolf’s disbelief that a person with a GED could make reasoned, intelligent arguments:

[quote] As a long-time investigative reporter, I also dispute Wolf’s self-serving claim that her own experience in dealing with whistleblowers shows them to be uniformly disorganized and inarticulate. In my experience, some are very disorganized and hard to follow because of their focus on the trees in their personal forest, but some whistleblowers are intensely organized and know exactly what they want to tell you as a journalist. They are also apt, organized or not, contrary to what Wolf says, to highlight the danger they are in, and that they may be putting the reporter in. Sometimes this may be simply to make sure you are interested and recognize the seriousness of what they have to say, and sometimes it is out of genuine fear for themselves and concern for the journalist’s safety, and perhaps also to make sure you fully understand what you’re getting into and that you will not cave and reveal their identity the moment you are put under pressure yourself.

Wolf, who always makes a point of mentioning she’s a Yale grad and a Rhodes Scholar who studied at Oxford, should take care in assuming that someone with only a high school diploma speaking in whole sentences or paragraphs is probably reciting “talking points” from a script. Her assumption reeks of class-based stereotyping. I have met car mechanics, who besides working miracles on my old cars, can speak in multiple paragraphs about politics, often with more wisdom and insight than most of the ivy-league pundits on the tube. [/quote]

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Love that he states that he’s not against outing fakes, but Wolf’s accusations are without hard evidence.  Not only that, but she is apparently ignorant that there would be hiding places for folks in Hong Kong.  On another site, Lindorff makes this statement in the comments section:

Reply to Rob Kall:   
No, it’s not the same at all Rob…

I was presenting pieces of evidence. Not rank speculation. As I demonstrate in this article, Naomi Wolf has not one shred of evidence to support her wild speculation, and she is even ignorant of such things as the easy ability to hide in Hong Kong, which is a teeming city of many small apartments, set in a large, mountainous jungle environment, with 8 million people, many of them hiding from authorities for one reason or other.

I have no objection to someone raising questions, but not something like: The US government lies and makes up stories, so maybe Ed Snowden is a fraud. Please. Not saying that whistleblowers are disorganized and incoherent, and Snowden is articulate and organized, so he must be reciting a script. That’s not journalism. That’s just stupid stereotyping.
Dave Lindorff

Submitted on Sunday, Jun 16, 2013 at 2:57:46 PM

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More on Hastings

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There are a few who don’t believe it was an accident and are not questioning whether it was the McChrystal incident, rather, they question the Clinton connection.

I found these here and here and here. 

I dunno, folks, Hastings does ask some pointed questions about what else the Clinton State Dept. left behind if they failed to pick up something as crucial as Stevens’ diary for evidence of what happened. ..

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With that, I’m off for a few days…I’m way more upset than I can adequately express here about the stuff I put up yesterday.  What the hell happened to my country?

Anyway, I’ll be back in a few.

 

Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines

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I heard about this song last month, and was shocked and disgusted by the lyrics.

“you know you want it”  (shows she’s resisting his advances)

“you’re an animal baby”  “let me liberate you”

“I’ll give you something big enough to tear your ass in two” (no explanation needed)

“Do it like it hurt”

“you’re a good girl” (but you want the “nasty”–he categorizes women into good and bad…bad being those that like sex and willingly come to bed with him….the good girls, however, he wants them — he alludes to wanting to break them–to make them into “bad girls” who like sex.  )

It’s just another reinforcement of domination instead of consensual sex.  He sees her and wants her and she has no say in the matter. He’ll be “pimping” her…

Also, there is a subtext of comparing her to the other women…she being the best looking “bitch” there and better than the “bitch” he had before….

Apparently, I’m not the only one objecting to this song and what it represents. (I would quibble at the “kind of rapey”–it IS about rape–very subtle, but it’s there.)

…and it doesn’t surprise me that NPR “thinks it’s fun”.  Good grief.

I haven’t seen the video, but by the description, all the men are clothed while the women are pseudo naked in skin colored thongs.  And this is not degrading them?

From the article:

Thicke has insisted, a bit guilelessly, that by having the women naked, he was pushing the boundaries. “We pretty much wanted to take all the taboos of what you’re not supposed to do—bestiality, you know, injecting a girl in her bum with a five-foot syringe—I just wanted to break every rule of things you’re not supposed to do and make people realize how silly some of these rules are.”

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Oh.My.God.  My head is spinning.  Injecting a girl in her bum with a five-foot syringe…yeah, that’s not rape.  It’s just sex with violence….

And finally, the “robin thicke has a big dick”.  Seriously?

Nigella Lawson

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To Love. Honor. Cherish–vows given when walking down the aisle.

It all seems surreal, for some, when reality sets in:

ABC News has this up on the choking incident with Nigella Lawson and her husband.  Her husband actually tried to dismiss what happened by saying it was a “playful tiff”.  Her face tells her anguish.

His dismissal is typical of abusers–they either dismiss their abuse as being “exaggerated” or they will say she deserved it.

I don’t care what she said that made him angry.  He has no right to put his hands on her. None. Nada. Zilch.  If he is that angry, he needs to stop himself and back away from the situation…put distance between him and her until he can calm down enough to have a rational discussion about the disagreement.  When a man feels he can put his hands on a woman, he fails to see her as a person in her own right with a right to her own opinion and a right to voice that opinion.  This goes along with rape, as well.  That’s why I say rape is a cultural problem–it’s the view that women are not equals, that they should be subservient to men.

It’s when I see stories like this that I am glad that I’m single.  If my man abused me, I could walk away.

Yeah, I’ll probably be single until I die.

Or until  our rape /domestic violence culture  changes

Not holding my breath on that one…

 

 

The rape culture pushback

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(getting a migraine…spoke to soon. Pfft.  I’ll be back when I’m back.)

Wanted to put this up before things go downhill:

A guy sends a shot of his nether regions to a woman, unsolicited.  He’s basically a stranger she met on a date site who plays the victim when she calls him on his bullsh*t…and sends it to his mother.

I really wish I had acted proactively as she has done with men who have harassed me.  Women are not taught to be proactive like this.    We are taught to be nice.  We are taught that we are uptight bitches when we tell a man our boundaries.

Links to the other articles mentioned:  Yes means Yes

and Salon.…

I may have more to say when I get back from the migraine…see you then…

Loretta Sanchez

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…was on CSPAN this morning….a member of Congress that actually has a brain. 🙂

She voted against the invasion in Iraq. Check.

She voted against the invasion of privacy and illegal wiretapping act, otherwise known as the Patriot Act. Check.

BUT she said during this morning’s interview that what has happened with the NSA’s overreaching power has been authorized by Congress through the Patriot Act….so technically, it is prosecutable.  I say prosecutable because they have given themselves legal power that is…illegal… by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

Congress violated the Constitution by allowing it.  AND they continually fund it without even knowing what they’re funding!!

Sanchez reported that although she is a member of the Intelligence sub-committee, she has to fight to get information that should be readily given to her.  She said that she must schedule a certain secure room with certain intelligence personnel.  She said that she must go through the repubs to get allotted time in the room, and then she must coordinate with the intelligence personnel, who may or may not have scheduling conflicts with that time.  Then when she wants questions answered, she doesn’t always get that.  And they will try to divert her attention away by bringing up other intelligence issues, if I’m understanding what she was saying.   And she is not allowed to take notes.  WTH?

Is it any wonder that the American people are kept in the dark about all that is going on??

As someone said (caller)  they forget who they’re working for–the American public.  But, yeah, we sorta already knew that.  Like I said in my previous post–the information gathering most likely will be sold to the highest bidder.  The NSA won’t be held accountable because Congress is just throwing money at them without accountability or restraint.

And with all this information gathering, did they stop the Boston bombing? No.

Did they stop Fort Hood? No.

Did they stop Sandy Hook? No.

Did they stop the theatre shooting in Colorado? No.

Who stopped the underwear bomber?  The public.

Who stopped the guy in New York City who had the bomb in the Jeep?  The public.

Security, my arse.

 

Growing unrest in Turkey

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Report here.

After the incident, a representative from Turkey’s Socialist Democracy Party (SDP) issued a statement confirming that the individuals seen throwing the Molotov cocktails were not affiliated with the party, despite photographs of them carrying SDP flags.

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This just sickens me…there is just too, too much going on in the Middle East with what seems to be conflicts between those who are more progressive in their thinking who are sick of the austerity/conservative /pro-war gov’ts.  That’s just my take on it, your mileage may vary…

…it’s just my experience that most of the public, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist,  or whatever, are for peace.  They just want to live their lives and be let alone…

I’m thinking it’s time for a worldwide political party:  the Leave Us the Hell Alone Party.  We don’t *stand* for anything–we just live our lives following the Golden Rule of Doing Unto Others as We Would Have Done Unto Us….”

God Bless Us everyone…

 

 

 

To Clarify

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To clarify what I mean with my last post–I don’t have a problem with wiretapping suspected terrorists per se, but I have a big problem with the illegal wiretapping of anyone.  That is, I expect the gov’t agency to go before a judge with evidence that this person is indeed up to no good.  It’s what our Constitution requires.  I expect those in the gov’t who swear to uphold the Constitution to do just that.

Daniel Ellsberg on Snowden

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Daniel Ellsberg was on CNN last night, commenting on the NSA and Edward Snowden.  He asked the question…”Can you charge someone with a crime whom  has exposed a crime?  What Snowden did was expose a violation of the Constitution. ”  (paraphrasing). 

“They illegally wiretapped suspected terrorists…but I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t a terrorist….

Now they’re illegally wiretapping me and there’s no one brave enough to speak up….”

 

From this poem.

Helping ourselves

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commondreams has this up.  Be sure to look at all the videos–well worth the time.

The idea is so simple it’s like “duh!”

I have a quibble, though, with Klein saying that it’s up to the Left to “seize the moment”.  There are those who are NOT in the Tea Party on the Right who also need and want to find a solution to the crashes around us.  I say this because the Left has not been of the same mind — I was shot down on a progressive website when I advocated buying American so we could put people back to work.  I knew that Washington wasn’t going to get off its collective duff and do anything about the job loss.  (NAFTA being a good example of monumental job loss.)

I just don’t think people have been given the skills or knowledge to feel confident enough to take over a business if the owners want to sell out.  I think it may be a case of learned helplessness?  Not believing in yourself can be such a huge obstacle that one stops before even getting started.

Perhaps the “teach-ins” of 2013 should be “Business 101:  how to own a business without going belly-up nor bankrupting the environment on your way to the bank…”

The Native Americans learned this a loooong time ago–nature was not a second thought.  They did not separate their actions from nature.

It’s still so incredibly stupid that business has ignored the laws of nature, as if we could exist without clean water, clean air and chemical free food…

Well…exist is probably a bad word choice…since we are existing right now…perhaps thriving  is the better word.  All one has to do is look at folks’ skin and see that we are not thriving, but existing.  The skin is such a barometer of what’s going on in the insides…not doing too well by that account.

Anyway, Washington isn’t going to help us…most likely profiting off of NAFTA…so, it’s up to us if we want to save ourselves.