“No revolution can ever succeed as a factor of liberation unless the means used to further it be identical in spirit and tendency with the purposes to be achieved. Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man’s inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality. It is the herald of new values, ushering in a transformation of the basic relations of man to man, and of man to society.” – Emma Goldman
By Thurman, on September 5th, 20102010-09-06T02:32:57ZF jS, Y%
Here’s a report from KFSN about a terrorist attack that happened in the town of Madera, California last week. I haven’t been watching the news too closely this weekend, but I suspect this is the first you’re hearing about it too. Last Thursday, someone threw a Molotov cocktail through the window of a local medical clinic.
“Upon arrival responding officers discovered that Planned Parenthood had been attacked by an unknown person with an incendiary device.” said Madera Police Chief Michael Kime.
Madera Police do not have anyone in custody but a spokesperson with Planned Parenthood says she has a good idea of who it might be.
“I believe it’s extremists who are, want to make a statement.” said public affairs director Pasty Montgomery.
The extremists in question were most likely fundamentalist Christianists, delivering a violent message of hate and intolerance to those who work in and who avail themselves of the legal services of the medical clinic, in operation for more than twenty years without prior incident. Continue reading All Terrorists Are Not Muslims
By Thurman, on August 27th, 20102010-08-28T02:59:07ZF jS, Y%
A few weeks ago my mother received the hateful little piece propaganda you’ll find at bottom of this post, in her email. I have reproduced it here verbatim, only reformatting the fonts for the sake of visual clarity, but first I have a few words for the hateful, ignorant morons in the world who keep spreading this manure.
I find it disturbing that so many otherwise decent people can so easily be duped into believing such nonsense and conned into participating in so much hate and bigotry. Yes, the 19 hijackers who flew planes into the Pentagon, World Trade Center, and who failed to reach their intended third target happened to all be Muslims. Fundamentalist Muslims under the influence of a charismatic sociopath named Osama bin Laden. Think of him as the Charlie Manson of the Middle East. They did not represent the vast majority of Muslims.
Tim McVeigh blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, Eric Rudolph blew up legal abortion clinics, gay bars, and the Atlanta Olympic Games, Scott Roeder gunned down a doctor, at church, on Sunday morning. As far as I know each of them claimed at one time or another to be a Christian of one denomination or another. Do those American terrorists and murderers reflect the beliefs and actions of all American Christians? I sure hope not, but that’s the intent of the anti-Islam propaganda many God-fearing people who claim to follow Jesus Christ seem determined to spread when they send out junk like what you’ll see below. Continue reading So Much Bullshit, So Little Time
By Thurman, on August 26th, 20102010-08-27T00:43:01ZF jS, Y%
Sometimes I get a bit discouraged by the dominant American attitude, especially in the business world, that we can’t take what we know to be the right action or make the right decision because to do so would be unprofitable.
I spent a good portion of this week at work making and carrying out decisions that ran the gamut from slightly discomforting to morally reprehensible. I have bills to pay and a family to care for, so my options in this sorry economic time we’re living in were limited to say the least.
After a week spent having my soul ripped from the body I’m still living in, it was encouraging to discover others in the world who understand that putting profits before people and our natural world is neither practical nor expedient. One such opinion was expressed by a blogger named Ian Welch, who posted a piece earlier today called The Right Thing To Do.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about foreign affairs, where the money used on Iraq and Afghanistan could have rebuilt America and made it more prosperous. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about health care, where everyone knew that the right thing to do was single payer or some other form of comprehensive healthcare, which would have reduced bankruptcies massively, saved 6% of GDP and massive numbers of lives. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about the financial crisis, where criminally prosecuting those who engaged in fraud (the entire executive class of virtually ever major financial firm) and nationalizing the major banks, wiping out the shareholders and making the bondholders eat their losses was the right thing to do, and didn’t happen. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about drug policy, where the “war on drugs” has accomplished nothing except destabilizing multiple countries and giving the US the largest prison population proportional to population in the entire world and where legalizing marijuana, soft opiates and coca leaves would save billions of dollars, reduce violence, help stabilize Mexico and would help tax receipts. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about food, where we subsidize the most unhealthy foods possible and engage in practices which have reduced the nutritional content of food by 40% in the last half century. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about environmental pollutants, which have contributed to a massive rise in chronic diseases so great it amounts to an epidemic.”
By Thurman, on August 22nd, 20102010-08-22T23:07:57ZF jS, Y%
I discovered this gem of a video earlier this afternoon while watching LinkTV. I’m glad to see that there are still people out there in the world – in the US no less – who are willing to stand up against the racial profiling, religious intolerance, and general culture of ignorance that seems to be so pervasive in my country today.
There is everything wrong with supporting and participating in terrorism, but there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim, an Arab, or any of the other labels we use to continually divide ourselves and maintain the ‘us and them’ mentality that causes so much strife and hurt in the world. If only we could learn to live with only one label: Human.
By Thurman, on August 21st, 20102010-08-21T16:09:52ZF jS, Y%
I’m accused of being a rather negative individual. It’s easy to see how my writing might convey that sense of despair, but often that’s the entire point. I believe so strongly in what I say that to express myself otherwise would be dishonest.
This morning I found a post at Plainly Pagan in which the author perfectly expressed my sentiments regarding this so-called negativity and the foul, depressed moods that precipitate such expressions.
“…my sadness is often counted as a spiritual failing or at least as a barrier to my ability to be joyful/rational/successful. It makes people very uncomfortable to see my sadness. It makes them more uncomfortable, I think, that I am not very interested in ridding myself of it. Alleviate it? Retreat from it? Take a break from it? Sure. But rid myself of it? No way. To quote from Star Trek’s boldest captain, “I need my pain!” It is the sensing device I use to recognize my call to service in a battered world. It does me no good to bend to the will of those who want me to medicate myself into complacency. My brain is different. It is not defective.” Continue reading Different Does Not Equal Defective
By Thurman, on August 10th, 20102010-08-10T16:51:09ZF jS, Y%
Kudos to Tom George of Warsaw, Ohio, owner of an adult entertainment venue and bar called The Foxhole seven miles up the road from New Beginnings Ministries, led by pastor Bill Dunfee.
According to Dunfee, “Tom George is a parasite.”
Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion regarding both flesh baring watering holes and narrow minded fundamentalist churches, but in these times of scarce job opportunities, I would think perhaps the real parasites here are pastor Dunfee and his flock of sheep.
Every weekend for the past four years, Dunfee and his flock of meddling do-gooders have done their damnedest to shut down Tom George’s legal, licensed, tax-paying, job providing business by taking up residence in the highway right of way with signs, video cameras and bullhorns. Dunfee and his congregation videotape license plates of bar patrons and then post them online in a misguided effort to force their beliefs onto those who disagree. Continue reading Freedom Fighter Of The Week
By Thurman, on August 7th, 20102010-08-07T14:45:22ZF jS, Y%
I originally posted this little piece of religious propaganda without comment, but the more I look at it the more I feel the need to pontificate.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that as far as mainstream monotheism and most other recognizable religious movements in the world are concerned I’m an atheist. I’ve also been pretty blatant in this space with my disgust for most facets of capitalism as practiced in it’s American form today. As far as I’m concerned, the profit motive is at the root of just about every ill in the world today, and those that don’t fit that model stem from religious zealotry.
I’ve been in a pretty foul mood lately. Work is turning into a living nightmare as I’m discovering that the noble entrepreneur I thought was my employer is just another hypocritical greedy bastard hiding behind the legal shield of his corporate status and his professed religious beliefs.
While my co-workers go without basic medical care and show up to work in worn out shoes and clothes full of holes, Mr. Big Bucks goes on back to back vacations in the Caribbean and buys himself and his wife ginormous high dollar SUV’s.
The guy claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ, yet when he goes on his regular biblical tirades in our company meetings, all I ever hear him spew is blood and guts stories from the Old Testament – never a peep of anything his lord and savior said. I grew up in a few different Christian churches, so I’m familiar with the message of love and compassion Jesus preached. My employer’s words and actions remind me of the male chauvinist attitudes and ignorant bigotry that was more common in my great-grandparent’s time than most people can stomach today. Continue reading No Wonder I’m So Grouchy
Freedom Fighter Of The Week
Kudos to Tom George of Warsaw, Ohio, owner of an adult entertainment venue and bar called The Foxhole seven miles up the road from New Beginnings Ministries, led by pastor Bill Dunfee.
According to Dunfee, “Tom George is a parasite.”
Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion regarding both flesh baring watering holes and narrow minded fundamentalist churches, but in these times of scarce job opportunities, I would think perhaps the real parasites here are pastor Dunfee and his flock of sheep.
Every weekend for the past four years, Dunfee and his flock of meddling do-gooders have done their damnedest to shut down Tom George’s legal, licensed, tax-paying, job providing business by taking up residence in the highway right of way with signs, video cameras and bullhorns. Dunfee and his congregation videotape license plates of bar patrons and then post them online in a misguided effort to force their beliefs onto those who disagree. Continue reading Freedom Fighter Of The Week