March 8, 2012

In honor of International Women's Day I give you: Emma Goldman

http://judith-faucette.suite101.com/womens-rights-activist-anarchist-emma-goldman-a65719

In 1915 and 1916, Goldman became an advocate for women's rights to birth control, and ultimately, general reproductive choice. She smuggled birth control into the country and was arrested several times, though that campaign was cut short by World War I. Speaking out on conscientious objection, Goldman served a prison term and then was deported to the Soviet Union for her views.

During her time in the United States, Goldman focused not only on birth control, but on sexual freedom for women in general. The Jewish Women's Archive describes her radical views – she felt that the patriarchy was oppressive and restrained women, that marriage was legalized prostitution, and that requiring women to bear children limited them socially and economically. Interestingly, she was opposed to the suffrage movement because she felt that its approach was illusory and rooted in middle-class privilege, and that it would not bring any real improvement to women's inferior position.


Here's some great quotes:

To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.

EMMA GOLDMAN, Anarchism and Other Essays

Nowhere is woman treated according to the merit of her work, but rather as a sex. It is therefore almost inevitable that she should pay for her right to exist, to keep a position in whatever line, with sex favors. Thus it is merely a question of degree whether she sells herself to one man, in or out of marriage, or to many men!... The economic and social inferiority of woman is responsible for prostitution.

EMMA GOLDMAN, Feminism



Emma Goldman, my heroine...

March 8, 2012

Is advocating for the IWW considered advocating a third party?

Since they are, at their core (in their bylaws) non-partisan.

And in their history, have been defenders of the left.

I just want to know the rules, since I am finding them to be a downright GOOD thing.

Workers of the world unite!

One big union!

March 8, 2012

The 10 Words You Can't Say on DU

Here is a list, much like George Carlin (praise be unto him) gave us in the sixties.

These are words that you will get S-canned for, some for only refrerring to

Those words are:

1 - The C-word. You can't even joke about this word, or admit it even exists.

2 - The B-word. Same thing.

3 - The W-word. You say that word, and you end up locked out of DU.

4 - The N-word. Now this one has some logic behind it - except for the fact that African Americans can't use it either.

5 - The B and J-word. Mention this and you get a thread hidden, and locked out for the day.

6 - Naming any of the "other" forums. This is kinda crazy, but I don't make the rules.

7 - The P-word. You can't use this at all, or you're a serial misogynist.

8 - The D and A-word. Use this word, and you get s-canned.

9 - The other F-word (rhymes with 'maggot.'). Even if you are gay.

10 - Like Carlin's list, prick may be used as a verb, but not a noun.

Am I missing any?

Oh, and if you want to alert on this thread, why not try proving me wrong first? That whole backbone thing, ya know?

March 2, 2012

An oldie but goodie - Rush Limbaugh "sings" 'I'm a Nazi'

Sing along everyone!

March 2, 2012

Christianity is Stupid - Negativland

Enjoy!

February 26, 2012

The Secret Life of Morgan Davis

His wife is tired, she wants to sleep
But allnight morgan davis wants his cream of wheat
He waits and then she turns out the lights
He tip-toes to the doorway
As he slips to the night.

His boring life and he leads it by selling stocks
Makes him feel he's growing old and tired
There's no joy in strife just by passing time
On this boring life.
He wants the lights, the cash, a piece of ass
A toothless bitch to blow him for a vile of crack
He chokes his chunk in some Gatorade
And scores a bag of chronic on the eastern of a.

His secret life and he leads it by selling drugs he set up that night
He's selling hash to the trailer trash
His sister's ass
The boring life

" my friends are all salesman
My wife is a slut
There must be something bigger I can stick in my butt
The irs is auditing, my life is in a wreck "

And so he's fired his heat
He's blown his blow
It's coming up on sunrise and it's time to go
He smells like barf
" my head is a mess "
He wipes the coke and lipstick off his fat, hairy, chest

He doubles home from a rising show
He won't be at work in an hour or so
He crawls in bed with his sleeping wife
Just a night to break up his boring life

February 4, 2012

A friend of mine died yesterday

I just saw the obituary

He was the atheist's atheist

He is now dead. Remember that now.

He died "unexpectedly"

That means either (1) OD or (2) Suicide or (3) truly an unexpected event. Like heart attack, or stroke.

He was 43.

His parents were boomers.

WTF happened?

He had a mean streak, but he also had a kind streak...

Unlike you and I, his was either/or

WTF is up with that???

Life is life - and not fade away?

If you take a child under your wing, remember you are taking them under their (their BIO parents) DNA profile.

Be the best everything you can be.

Be their fathers, their mothers, their PARENTS.

They depend on you.

That doesn't mean suffer - that means show them what you enjoy about life - and at some time let them participate. And let them know when that is. Kids love working towards a goal.

February 1, 2012

Why do you think our flag is so great?

Serious question here. Try to check your patriotism at the door, and take a look at the US flag from someone else's perspective.

Let's say, the perspective of a villager in Afghanistan or Iraq. The US you know bombs your homes, your towns, your friends and family. Before 2001, you had no idea what America even was. Now you know them as the destroyers. The only Americans you ever met were armed to the teeth, and when driving tanks through your towns, they could not stop, even if a person got in their way. Sure, you might have seen that flag on bags of rice dropped from above, but this rice, as far as you can tell, is for the black markets. No one you know ever gets a hold of one of them. The landmines in your area all have "Made in the USA" on them. You have a few friends who lost limbs or lives because of this.

Now, is the US Flag still great? Is it still the beacon of freedom, the city shining on a hill?

January 28, 2012

Bulwer-Lytton Contest Winners 2011 - I can't believe I missed it this year!

Some highlights:

The victim was a short man, with a face full of contradictions: amalgam, composite, dental porcelain, with both precious and non-precious metals all competing for space in a mouth that was open, bloody, terrifying, gaping, exposing a clean set of asymptomatic impacted wisdom teeth, but clearly the object of some very comprehensive dental care, thought Dirk Graply, world-famous womanizer, tough guy, detective, and former dentist.

Basil McDonnell

Vancouver, B.C.

Within the smoking ruins of Keister Castle, Princess Gwendolyn stared in horror at the limp form of the loyal Centaur who died defending her very honor; “You may force me to wed,” she cried at the leering and victorious Goblin King, “but you’ll never be half the man he was.”

Terri Daniel

Seattle, WA

Napoleon’s ship tossed and turned as the emperor, listening while his generals squabbled as they always did, splashed the tepid waters in his bathtub.

John Doble

New York City

The Los Angeles morning was heavy with smog, the word being a portmanteau of smoke and fog, though in LA the pollutants are typically vehicular emissions as opposed to actual smoke and fog, unlike 19th-century London where the smoke from countless small coal fires often combined with fog off the Thames to produce true smog, though back then they were not clever enough to call it that.

Jack Barry

Shelby, NC

Maggie said they were birthmarks and they very well could be, but the three very small black moles in a horizontal line just above her right eyebrow looked like an ellipsis to some, but to others who did not know what an ellipsis was, they looked like three very small black moles in a horizontal line just above Maggie's right eyebrow.

Betty Jean Murray

Richland, TX

Wearily approaching the murder scene of Jeannie and Quentin Rose and needing to determine if this was the handiwork of the Scented Strangler--who had a twisted affinity for spraying his victims with his signature raspberry cologne--or that of a copycat, burnt-out insomniac detective Sonny Kirkland was sure of one thing: he’d have to stop and smell the Roses.

Mark Wisnewski
Flanders, NJ

As I stood among the ransacked ruin that had been my home, surveying the aftermath of the senseless horrors and atrocities that had been perpetrated on my family and everything I hold dear, I swore to myself that no matter where I had to go, no matter what I had to do or endure, I would find the man who did this . . . and when I did, when I did, oh, there would be words.

Rodney Reed
Ooltewah, TN

As the dark and mysterious stranger approached, Angela bit her lip anxiously, hoping with every nerve, cell, and fiber of her being that this would be the one man who would understand—who would take her away from all this—and who would not just squeeze her boob and make a loud honking noise, as all the others had.

Ali Kawashima

Greensboro, NC

Deanna waited for him in a deliberate pose on the sailor-striped chaise lounge of the newly-remodeled Ramada, her bustier revealing the tops of her white breasts like eggs--eggs of the slightly undercooked, hard-boiled variety, showing a nascent jiggle with her apprehensive breath, eggs that were then peeled ever-so-carefully so as not to pierce the jellied, opaque albumen and unleash the longing, viscous yolk within--yes, she lay there, oblong and waiting to be deviled.

Meredith K. Gray

Ithaca, NY


And the winner:

Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.

Sue Fondrie

Oshkosh, WI


http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2011.htm

January 26, 2012

Would the world be better with or without Christianity?

Thought Experiment:

Let's just say we could convince every Christian that Christianity is untrue, a myth, and convince them not to practice it. Similar to a question Prof. Dawkins once asked Christopher Hitchens. But let's postulate for a moment that this could be achieved. Would it do any good? Would it do any harm? Or would it do nothing?

I opt for the latter. In reference to Dawkins' quote that "for good men to do evil, it takes religion," I argue lots of things can trigger a good man to do evil. Psychoses, hallucinations, fear, and the influence of drugs can make a person commit evil. And when I mention fear, I am not referring to Xenophobic fear, but more the 'seeing a shape moving in the night, and you shoot at it first' type of fear.

Christianity, and all religions for that matter, are pretty much what the believer makes of them.

Yes, there are cultic tendencies, and these are never more apparent than in Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christianity. But in the end, these are more the fault of authoritarianism, of cult of personality or manipulation. The same thing happens at a Lyndon LaRouche movement, or a Maoist uprising, or in North Korea.

But many people choose religion for mundane reasons. The believer likes the congregation, or the church has a great youth program, or the believer really likes hymns. Or, as in many cases, the believer wants to change the world for the better.

Now, I am not advocating theism with this thread, but at the same time I am not viewing Christianity as all good or all bad. It is a tradition conceived at a time before germ theory, before genetics, before the theory of evolution - even before we knew the Earth was round. Like any tradition, it has changed with time, and has had reactions against those changes.

As any revolutionary will tell you, large sweeping changes usually don't occur during times of oppression, but during times when certain freedoms were extended, then taken away. Think the US after WWII, USSR after Glasnost, and a current example is Syria.

And of course, with every large sweeping change there is a backlash. But I digress.

Your thoughts?