For the Love of God

Posted on May 20, 2009

Now obviously the Roman church has done this sort of thing all over the world, but there have been very few places in the modern world (other then perhaps Franco’s Spain) where the Catholic church has had more power then in Ireland.  I’d go on and rant about the hypocrisy and horror of religion and of the catholic church in particular, but I’ve said it before and I’ve got to run out the door this morning so I don’t really have time.  Instead, I’ll just let this new article from the AP do the talking.

Thousands beaten, raped in Irish reform schools

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090520/ap_on_re_eu/eu_ireland_catholic_abuse

DUBLIN – A fiercely debated, long-delayed investigation into Ireland’s Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades — and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

Nine years in the making, Wednesday’s 2,600-page report sides almost completely with the horrific reports of abuse from former students sent to more than 250 church-run, mostly residential institutions.

It concluded that church officials always shielded their orders’ pedophiles from arrest to protect their own reputations and, according to documents uncovered in the Vatican, knew that many pedophiles were serial attackers.

The commission said overwhelming, consistent testimony from still-traumatized men and women, now in their 50s to 80s, had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential.

“A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from,” the final report of Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse concluded.

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The Police State strikes again.

Posted on May 18, 2009

Just in case anyone who reads my blog still has illusions about the federal government respecting our fundamental human right to free speach, free assembly, and protest (rights recognized by, but not in any way originating with the first amendment of the bill of rights); here’s yet another wakeup call.  This one from the DesMoines Register, a mainstream publication not known for their radical sympathies.

FBI infiltrated Iowa anti-war group before GOP convention

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090517/NEWS/905170341

By WILLIAM PETROSKI
© 2009, Des Moines Register and Tribune Company
May 17, 2009

An FBI informant and an undercover Minnesota sheriff’s deputy spied on political activists in Iowa City last year before the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Confidential FBI documents obtained by The Des Moines Register show an FBI informant was planted among a group described as an “anarchist collective” that met regularly last year in Iowa City. One of the group’s goals was to organize street blockades to disrupt the Republican convention, held Sept. 1-4, 2008, where U.S. Sen. John McCain was nominated for president.

The undercover Minnesota deputy who traveled to Iowa City was from the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department, which infiltrated a group known as the “RNC Welcoming Committee” that was coordinating convention protest activities in St. Paul.

The undercover officer accompanied two activists from the Twin Cities who attended the University of Iowa in April 2008 for a Midwest campus anti-war conference.

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Mayday in Linz

Posted on May 3, 2009

I just got this from a friend in Austria and wanted to post it up for ya’ll.

I live in a rather very small city in Austria. The only reason people from outside the country might know of it is because we are currently the cultural capitol of Europe according to the EU. It’s not a particularly good reason, but it’s a reason. In any case ever since 1991 a coalition of communists, anarchists and generally anti-fascists has organized an alternative mayday demonstration in Linz. Up until this year it was just a quiet, peaceful demonstration with no particular incidents. This year however it wasn’t as quiet. This is the article from indymedia.at that I translated into English, I thought you should know this so that news may spread further, maybe, in any case.

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Tea Parties

Posted on April 15, 2009

So it’s Tax Day, once again, the annual deadline for Americans to pay Uncle Sam his Protection Money to keep him from sending his goons to break our kneecaps or reposess our homes.  This year I’m glad to report that my official legal income was small enough that I had no tax liability, one of the few advantages of being a starving artist I suppose.

What makes this particular tax day interesting is that, thanks at least in part to the urging of Fox News and corporate-sponsored Astroturf (fake grassroots) organizing, there are “tea parties” happening in hundreds of cities all over America to protest Obama’s bailout and the absurd amounts of debt that the Dems are adding onto the already absurd deficits left by Bush.   Apparently it wasn’t enough for the ruling class to run up trillions of dollars in deficit spending to pay for 2 wars over the last 8 years, now that they’ve got a brand new puppet in place our corporate overlords have decided to keep right on spending our money to enrich themselves!  I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’d be lying.

And, when people get outraged – as they should – the corporations set up a fake movement.  Unlike in France and the UK where working class rage at being robbed by the government to finance corporate bailouts has erupted into serious militant and autonomous protests, all America can manage is a made-for-tv series of staged event sponsored by the same corporate elites that got us into this mess.  Just another in an endless string of puppet shows, to let everyone who’s pissed at how we’ve been robbed rant and rave as much as they like without actually changing or challenging anything.  And then, through the magic of Spin, the corporate media will portray that outrage as a Conservative backlash.  Ha!  As though conservatives were the only ones objecting.  Just about every genuine leftist I know (and no, democrats aren’t leftists) is pissed at the bailout.  Ya’ll may remember that I even wrote and recorded a song about it a few months back.  And I’m hardly the only one who’s been speaking out on this issue.

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In Defense of Stupid People

Posted on March 27, 2009

I was talking to a friend today and heard myself make a offhand comment about ’stupid people’, something in reference to our society  being typically shortsighted and destructive in its consumption of precious resources and production of waste.   As I said it something struck me – the problem isn’t stupid people and blaming society’s ills on ’stupid people’ is really just a cop out and a way to avoid looking at the real issues.  There are plenty of folks who just plain aren’t that bright who have enough common sense to know you shouldn’t shit where you sleep, a lesson that millions of folks who can boast at least an average IQ score still haven’t learned, as evidenced by their willingness to drive giant cars that polute the air they breathe and purchase products whose production poisons the biosphere we all depend on to survive.  People who lack intelligence aren’t our problem, smart people who refuse to put down their illusions and look at the world the way it really is are the problem.

To clarify, I don’t mean ’stupid’ like people who vote Republican because they want to be safe from terrorism or Democrat because they think doing so will result in significant concession to Labor or environmental stewardship – that sort of deliberate self-deception goes in a category all its own;  I mean folks who just plain aren’t particularly bright because they were born with any of a range of disabilities that interfere with the development of normal cognitive function but don’t make them any less human or in any way diminish their ability to feel pain from the scorn heaped on them by society .   Think about it – why is it ok to discriminate against people with less then average intelligence?  This is a serious question and it deserves serious examination.

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