Thursday, March 31, 2005
Special post for Italian Administrative Elections (April 3-4)
Che poi i comunisti di cui parla esistano solo nella sua mente, e forse neppure lì, non tocca Silvio Berlusconi. Avvezzo al mondo della pubblicità, nel quale non contano la verità o le reali virtù di un prodotto, ma l'efficacia dell'imbonimento affiché la gente compri, Berlusconi non si fa troppi scrupoli nell'utilizzare l'arma anacronistica dell'anticomunismo pur di vendere il proprio prodotto, cercando di squalificare gli altri.
Forse che la gente compra il prodotto X, presentato come quello che "lava più bianco" dopo aver confrontato le reali qualità dei prodotti in commercio? No.
Quando si cerca di raccogliere il consenso politico usando malignità e mezzucci da spot pubblicitari per delegittimare gli altri, e si elude il confronto su dati oggettivi (e anche il confronto diretto con i leader dell'opposizione), non si è messi tanto bene.
La pubblicità televisiva, nel suo abietto martellare e ammiccare, non presuppone grande intelligenza e senso critico in chi compra. E' un dato di fatto. Confida nella scelta irriflessa, nella reazione di ritorno delle pulsioni inconsce vellicate.
Capiranno gli elettori come tale approccio, soprattutto se utilizzato in politica per avere il loro consenso, sia profondamente umiliante per la loro intelligenza?
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
[...]
“The links between poverty and poor sexual and reproductive health outcomes are clear and if we are to be successful in meeting the MDG [Millennium Development Goals] target of reducing world poverty by half by 2015 – then we have to get serious about ensuring universal access to reproductive health services.
“Not acknowledging people’s basic right of access to reproductive health services and information is to put at risk the health and wellbeing of millions of women around the world. I’m talking about the most basic of needs – like the right to obtain contraception or to get appropriate medical care when delivering a baby.
“It’s time to front up to this and make sure sexual and reproductive health and rights are included in the declaration of the 2005 conference to review the Millennium Development Goals. After all, many countries do believe in this because they did sign up to it at the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) 10 years ago.
“It’s wrong that this hard-fought right never made it into the MDGs.
Dr Sinding said it was important to stand firm against countries like the United States that continued to try and block moves to have sexual and reproductive health acknowledged in the MDGs.
Read the whole article here.
Dear Bush: Let's talk about sex
U.S. sex ed is the epitome of irony
Sunday, March 27, 2005
The Terri Schiavo's case shows a considerable amount of hypocrisy.
Let's consider some data:
45 million people are without health insurance in the US (read here)
11 million children are without health insurance in the US (read here).
5.2 million more people under 65 became uninsured since Bush took office in 2000 (read here)
Where are pro-life-army's indignated voices, raised high in Schiavo's case, for these 18,000 people who die every year? Where is the 'piety' and 'compassion' of George and Jeb and their mates?
Friday, March 25, 2005
The Adventures of Rev. Dick N. Butt
"The Joys of Christianity"
(c) Joe London
Saturday, March 19, 2005
"The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world." David E. Stannard
"By then [1891] the native population had been reduced to 2.5% of its original numbers and 97.5% of the aboriginal land base had been expropriated....Hundreds upon hundreds of native tribes with unique languages, learning, customs, and cultures had simply been erased from the face of the earth, most often without even the pretense of justice or law." Peter Montague
[...]
In the early 18th century, the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey promoted a genocide of their local Natives by imposing a "scalp bounty" on dead Indians. "In 1703, Massachusetts paid 12 pounds for an Indian scalp. By 1723 the price had soared to 100 pounds." Ward Churchill wrote: "Indeed, in many areas it [murdering Indians] became an outright business." This practice of paying a bounty for Indian scalps continued into the 19th century before the public put an end to the practice.
In the 18th century, George Washington compared them to wolves, "beasts of prey" and called for their total destruction. In 1814, Andrew Jackson "supervised the mutilation of 800 or more Creek Indian corpses" that his troops had killed.
Extermination of all of the surviving natives was urged by the Governor of California officially in 1851. An editorial from the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, CO in 1863; and from the Santa Fe New Mexican in 1863 expressed the same sentiment. In 1867, General William Tecumseh Sherman said, "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux [Lakotas] even to their extermination: men, women and children."
Read more here, including bibliography.
On the Justice of Roosting Chickens : Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality
by Ward Churchill
A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present
by Ward Churchill
Friday, March 18, 2005
Excerpt from here:
"There's no doubt that the best way to prevent sexually transmitted infections is to abstain from sexual activity, or to be in a monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner. But we have to face reality," says Walter E. Stamm, MD, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). "Most teenagers have sex before they graduate from high school. Millions of young people, as well as adults, are sexually active outside of monogamous relationships. We need to supply them with the tools to make wise choices."
"When spending taxpayer dollars, the federal government has an obligation to provide accurate information to sexually active people," adds Paul Volberding, MD, chair of the HIV Medicine Association Board of Directors. "The evidence shows using condoms reduces the risk of STIs. The evidence just doesn't support abstinence-only education."
From another article (read it here):
"Adolescents who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to substitute high-risk sexual behaviors that increase the likelihood of transmitting sexually transmitted diseases, according to researchers who studied the sex lives of about 12,000 teens.
The report by Yale and Columbia University researchers could help explain why a study by the same group last year found that despite having fewer sexual partners and getting married earlier, teens who pledge abstinence are just as likely to have STDs as their peers.
The latest study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that teens who pledge abstinence until marriage are more likely to have oral and anal sex than other teens who have not had intercourse."
More and more, evidence emerges that proves the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education on society's scale. Keeping young people ignorant on the way to protect themselves against undesired pregnancies and STDs, when they decide to become sexually active (the majority of teenagers become active before finishing high-school), is not the answer. Denying facts only to play the trumpet of ideology and religious fundamentalism. at the expense of young people's protection, is not only idiotic, but criminal.
Bible man I see you walking, Human monkey-like You walk, The halo of light You are saved: How not consider this, too, Millions of other saved All invariably, have saved [22.12.04]
graceful like a fille,
lost in your cloud of sanctity,
theatrical mime
of thousands of others
superheroes
of your favourite book,
the Bible that is,
better to you
than the adventures
of Spiderman.
mimicking is impressive!
But monkeys are not as smug
and yet perceived
with ridicule:
the logic of this escapes me.
with a hint of a smile
on your face, as you
anticipate and fondle
your afterlife reward.
For you are saved.
which you feel shrouded in
seems to mean to counteract
the law of gravity,
as if suggesting,
already, the grace
and the elation
at the sight of the Almighty,
whose mightiness
already rubs off on you.
lucky enough
to be born in some country
blessed by God,
not on account of chance,
but surely on account
of provident predestination.
a Sign?
ones have worn the same smile
as you, walking like luminous spectres
of sacred complacency on earth,
stern in the words
and in their condemnations,
claiming to love while despising,
the mix of which they called piety.
the life of myriad worms
and parasites which have dined
on the sumptuous shrine
of their supposed immortal soul.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
This seems to be a movie (a documentary) to be definitely watched.
From the official Web site:
In the wake of Argentina’s spectacular economic collapse in 2001, Latin America’s most prosperous middle class finds itself in a ghost town of abandoned factories and mass unemployment. In suburban Buenos Aires, thirty unemployed auto-parts workers walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act —the take —has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head.
Director/producer Avi Lewis (Counterspin) and writer/producer and renowned author Naomi Klein (No Logo) take viewers inside the lives of ordinary visionaries, as they reclaim their work, their dignity and their democracy.
Another interview of Naomi Klein on the Iraqi war here.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Against scientific data and even pure common sense, the Bush administration and Christian fundamentalists think that when it comes to sex education of teenagers, ignorance and silence, misleading and inaccurate messages, and scare tactics, are better than comprehensive information.
They are so entrapped in fanatic ideology, that they don't care if teenagers get pregnant or get STDs because of ignorance encouraged with the abstinence-only approach. They think it is enough to say "thou shall not" in order to have their conscience of educators clean. What will they say if a junior-high student tests HIV-positive? (read here). They would probably simply say: "it was his fault".
Truth is, abstinence-only education is not an effective approach on society's scale. Considering the number of teenagers who - comprehensibly - have sex despite any righteous and unrealistic hopes of parents and Church ministers, it is utterly irresponsible not to offer a comprehensive sex-education. Teeangers may decide to remain abstinent until marriage, but IF they don't they should already be provided with full information to protect themselves.
Education is not about silence, ignorance, and scare tactics, it is about providing full information on matters, and about creating responsible attitudes in people and the capacity to decide for one's own life.
Education is not the mere saying "thou shall not".
Compare the dogmatic, ideological, indoctrinating approach of the Bush's administration and of Christian fundamentalists with the approach of Pinch Me Films (read here) who has developed a TV series to encourage open discussion of sexuality amongst teenagers and awareness of issues involved.
Talking and providing full information on sexuality is the most mature, sensible, and effective approach to help teenagers, who are people, not barny-animal-like drones to be kept in ignorance and to be fed with ideology.
Abstinence-only education humiliates young people intelligence and dangerously hides information for protection against unintended pregnancies and STDs. The silencing (read this and this also) and taboo-isation of sex and sex information is not the answer.
And students too should affirm their rights to have full, non-biased and non-condescending information.
---
For further info on the inaccurate, ineffective, and expensive "abstinence-only" program, read this report (PDF format).
Saturday, March 12, 2005
Read here.
Check also: Upstairs, Downstairs: Did Jesus Want a Two-Class Church? by Herbert Haag
by William Blake
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And "Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore,
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
Friday, March 11, 2005
The totalitarian ideology of the Roman Catholic Church
Thursday, March 10, 2005
"We’re Committing Genocide in Iraq"
by Jeff Riedel
Former Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey, a 12-year Marine veteran, lives in Waynesville, North Carolina, a small town in the Smoky Mountains just outside of Ashville, where he spoke to the World Socialist Web Site. He is one of a growing number of American soldiers returning from Iraq who have become outspoken opponents of the war.
Massey entered Iraq as part of the initial US invasion in March 2003. He witnessed—and in some cases participated in—the killing of innocent civilians. During a single 48-hour period, he says, he saw as many as 30 civilians killed by US gunfire at highway checkpoints.
Massey said that the hostility of the Iraqi people to the presence of the US military grew exponentially over the time he was there in direct response to the brutal methods employed by American troops against the entire Iraqi population.
“As far as I’m concerned, the real war did not begin until they saw us murdering innocent civilians,” he said. “I mean, they were witnessing their loved ones being murdered by US Marines. It’s kind of hard to tell someone that they are being liberated when they just saw their child shot or lost their husband or grandmother.”
Read the whole article here.
The article is of particular relevance considering the repeated episodes of arbitrary violence or "friendly fire" by US soldiers, which have recently lead to the killing of Italian agent Nicola Calipari, the wounding of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and the killing of Bulgarian sergeant Gardi Gardev.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
With solemnity and compunction
as if torn between pity and a necessity
too high, of moral nature,
to afford its waiving,
you dispense what you, as well as
those before, were given:
fear, cowardice and malice,
a morality of servants by which
joy and love arouse suspicion
and guilt, while sacrifice and grief
are praised and flaunted
and worn with grimaces of virtue.
You carry through your duty well,
for unhappiness and despondence
oft arm malicious vengeance
disguised as morality or love,
and joy of others burn with envy
within the heart of those who never
knew it and ceased its pursuit.
Thus, how secretly delightful
it is for you to enforce your moral norms
through vexing words and spite,
and to watch how lightheartedness
and spontaneity can turn into
misery and grief, and pure souls
can writhe and suffer, become
void and hopeless, under the siege
of your claims of righteousness,
inborn in you, you would presume,
but blurred in the mind of others
deemed in need of clear
and distinct and condescending,
albeit unrequested, views.
What a pleasure it is for you
to see the efficacy of your morality
in creating alikes of gloom,
and what a sense of power,
sought as surrogate
for your hapless vacuous life.
Void of what gives life substance,
you turn against who holds it,
with acridness and deprecation,
and call shallowness, idiocy
or sin the joy you cannot live
or conceive, and claim to know,
claim to be the measure for all.
The only form of existence
being for you excrucio ergo sum!
This is the world that you create,
you, self-appointed keepers
of god's laws and truth,
slaves and perpetuators
of past barbarities and woes,
a world of arrogance and hate
where piety hides contempt,
and eyes of others are checked
for specks while heaps of beams
crowd your own, untouched.
Be warned, though deep inside
you already know:
clarity grows
inescapably.
The logic of insects driving your words,
churning in pretension,
the petty play of forces,
is now too plain
and obvious,
for long its weight has been exerted
and the edifice,
cracked
and fissured,
shall soon collapse.
Soon a great silence shall occur,
your voice will fail
in your throats
choked by falsity and bad faith
and ridicule no longer bearable.
Soon, it shall be soon.
Dismiss your vestments,
divest your unpersuading piety
and virtue. Soon you shall succumb.
Saturday, March 05, 2005
You're a U.S. citizen landing at a major airport from abroad. You're pulled out of line at customs, arrested, thrown in jail for a month and then spirited off to a military prison.
Nearly three years later, you're still there, never charged with any crime. The government claims it can hold you forever without answering to any judge or court.
The scenario is not fiction. It's happening now. Only a federal judge in South Carolina is standing in the way. At stake is the constitutional guarantee of every American to be free from arbitrary imprisonment.
Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen born in Brooklyn, N.Y., was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare Airport in May 2002. He's still being held. No charges have been filed.
Despite the clear language of the Constitution
that prohibits detention without trial, the Bush administration insists
that it can indefinitely hold Padilla — or anyone else it chooses — as
an "enemy combatant" without trial or even formal charges.
[...]
Read the whole article here.
