Misogyny and racism - Richard Dawkins and the «new atheism»

  There is little doubt about it: one arm or rather a branch of atheism exemplified by Richard Dawkins is clearly steeped in racism and misogyny and clearly a tool for Western imperialism. Those swearing to that faction are used by the Christians and western governments in order to demonize Islam. There is a lot of talk about child Marriage in Muslim countries, but none about the numerous in the US, more than 200000 in the last fifteen years, or the fact that it is legal in forty-one states.

  When I tell people that, many of them have no idea what I’m talking about. They are totally uninformed, ignorant of the current world and how it works.

  They hide behind «Islam is not a race» in order to justify their racism, try out any attempt at justification, like racists always do.

  It’s also a matter of selection and proportions. Islam horrors are totally overrepresented in the media. Where are the mass rapes of Catholic choir boys and the child victims in numerous Christian groups? Where is the ongoing horror of «the American Taliban», the vastly powerful and destructive Christian right?

  I wouldn’t claim to practice the best kind of atheism, but mine is better by far than this… travesty of it.

  It’s a matter of context.

  I see little or no attacks on Christianity in your timeline, Richard, no mention of the Catholic mass rape of children, for instance. I see no mention of the ongoing Israeli massacres and abuse of children, done with active support of western countries, the United States in particular and the drone killings by the US army. No mention of the countless children living in poverty forced into prostitution in the west. The ongoing Christian crusade by US/NATO military forces and Christian missionaries.

  It’s a matter of context. You can’t, for instance ignore that children marriage/brides and abuse are common in United States and several western countries, including in the Catholic Church and in the upper classes in the UK. By singling out Islam, you show yourself to be horribly and dangerously biased, nothing but one more despicable racist, xenophobe.

I would rather be dead than come out of the closet, some gays say, but I don’t

   I and my sister heard that a lot in the Christian group and the small community in western Norway we grew up. We also witnessed how several people acted on it. We suffered under the yoke, until we practically ran away to the nearest big city in our late teens, and could finally be ourselves.

  Bergen, the big city measured by Norwegian standards was, is more open, but we keep facing the same prejudice we did in the small community. It’s more concealed, but very much present.

  We were told by our father, the priest that there were two inferior people in the eyes of God. One was women. The other was people performing «beastly acts». We didn’t know what he meant during most of our childhood, but, as stated we found out. He was talking about homosexuals.

  We discovered that the prejudice wasn’t limited to Christians either. We encountered many other seemingly free-spirited people with the same hateful, practically pathological bias. When looking at the current western society, it’s not really strange, I guess, since we still live in a basically patriarchal society, where some both males and females insist that victims of rape share the blame. And don’t even mention transgenders that are really getting trashed lately, also by professed feminists. JK Rowling has led on in that crusade, and she is a hero to many, people not questioning her warped views at all.

  There is something profoundly sick about modern human society. Some of it is remains from less enlightened times and oppressive communities, but there is something more that isn’t necessarily a result of that, but of a general, ongoing, persistent intolerance. People insist, for instance that women and men are equal, now, that there is no more need of feminism, and they’re not kind about it.

  What they’re really saying when they say that is that there was never a need for feminism. Feminism is even blamed for many of the wrongs. We meet such people on the Web often. It’s hilarious every time the perpetrators of rape and prejudice and vicious misogynist acts play the victim, but also very sinister, since many people keep supporting that twisted opinion.

  And there’s something even deeper and twisted, a message repeating itself endlessly in almost all communities: Don’t stand out. If you do, prepare to be taken to the court of public opinion or worse.

  Every time you encounter a male supremacist, a lover of rape, you look incredulous at him, because such crappy human beings exist. But they do. There are loads of them.

 

Pieces of nothing

  Women today are a pair of eyes, a nose and a mouth… and hardly anything else.

  At least if you look at the faces covered by makeup and retouched on magazine covers so common today and of everybody attempting to emulate that.

  We are supposed to be pleasing and willing and present a smiling surface. From birth through adolescence, school and advertising that’s the message we are told and sold.

  In a society where even some professed feminists refuse to acknowledge the damaging effect of wearing high heels, it’s easy to see we still have a long way to go until true equality is ours to enjoy.

  Oppression of women has never stopped. It has taken on a few new aspects and also kept the old. The rights to free abortion are constantly questioned and attacked. The rape culture is running rampant. The war on women is ongoing. Many women, unable to liberate themselves from their upbringing are even actively participating in the subjugation of both themselves and others.

  The last case going public was that of Jada, a sixteen year old girl being drugged and violated, and then «shamed» (the rapist and supporters shamed themselves) when the image of her drugged and still body was put on the Internet and went viral. Many people didn't support her, but sided with the violator and enjoyed a good laughter at Jada’s expense.

  In Steubenville a major part of the local community supported the football player rapists and not the rape victim.

  In Maryville, Missouri a rape victim and her family had to leave town due to harassment after the case was known. The rapist, yet another football player wasn't even charged with rape and got off with a misdemeanor plea.

  These are cases in the United States, classic, typical cases, excellent illustrations, but this is a world-wide «phenomenon».

  The sympathy is often given to the perpetrator, not the victim. People complain that a given football player’s career is ruined and so on. Their lack of true empathy is staggering.

  These are just a few cases illustrating what keeps happening, and it’s all due to lack of true respect for women. Part of that is we are seen as frail creatures, hardly deserving of proper treatment. My take on that is this:

  We are not made of china. We don’t need special protection, only equal to that of everybody else.

  Another is religion. Religion, among other things is also an attempt at control, also men’s control of women.

  In a culture, segmented over centuries, where males are seen as superior it is evidently easier to excuse brutality against women. That is just more twisted logic, of course, but that’s clearly how many people see it. Some men actually feel entitled to sex, both in a given situation and in general. To them and their apologists it matters little whether or not the girl consents. They have other concerns than the well being of a given girl or woman.

  If you begin researching this subject further, like I did, you will find lots of surprising and shocking facts. The end conclusion becomes inevitable.

Ever After by Kim Harrison, my thoughts

  «There's no witch in Cincinnati tougher, sexier, or more screwed up than bounty hunter Rachel Morgan». From Every which way but dead (book 3 of the Hollow series).

  Aside from having a «tendency» (pun intended) to name the books in her Hollow series of novels after Clint Eastwood films, Kim Harrison is quite the competent writer. I have to think so, right, since I've read every book in the series so far.

  I love the quote above. It more than suggests, in spite of the flaws that there is something more than the ordinary to these books, something confirmed at least to a point when you read them.

  Kim has set up a very elaborate universe of vampires, witches, demons and elves with more than one original twist. There have been ups and downs in my reading of the series, but I do come back for more. I don’t quite understand why, but I do.

  I like the fact that Rachel was revealed to be a demon and also accepted it without too much fuss. Most other writers in the genre of urban fantasy wouldn't have dared to do that, wouldn't have dared pushing even those minor boundaries.

  Ever After is the eleventh novel in the series. And even though Rachel has fucked up again and needs to fix it, she has reached a modicum of calm at her center, isn't the neurotic wreck she was in the first books. Even Rachel’s relationship with Ivy the vampire isn't that unlikely and filled with silliness anymore. As Kim has done earlier she continues building on themes introduced in previous books. There is a progression here that is kind of effective. She is fairly good at characterization, at least with some secondary characters for some reason.

  And I do want to know what comes next, even though I see, or at least initially saw Rachel, the main protagonist as a ridiculous, implausible character.

  One thing in particular is bad about this book. A very important event happens off camera, which can never be good. I could attribute this to the I-form Harrison use to tell her stories, but the event would be easy to work into even that, so it has to be a deliberate choice of the writer and one I can’t say I like very much.

  The stories remain a fashion show of sorts, a choice I don’t care for either.

  And my foremost criticism: These books are advertised as books for adults, but I think they are much more for young adults and hardly even that. The way sex and violence and general interaction is described (or not) is almost approaching that of a children fairy tale, not really for truly mature readers at all.

  I wish writers would stop being so cautious. I guess it has something to do with the fact that the books are published by established publishers. They don’t make waves and don’t want their writers to do so either, and that makes almost all their publications potentially very, very boring.

  As I said, I keep reading these books, but they don’t excite me and certainly not like they could have, if they hadn't insulted the reader’s intelligence.

  My conclusion, I guess, is that in spite of some positive elements in the stories, the negative outmatches them. The potential is far from being actualized. The setup is great, the execution isn't.

The sorry current state of mankind

  Most people clearly prefer the choice on the right, since that is by far the most common these days and has been for a long time.
  It says a lot about the sorry current state of mankind.

Think again

  I used to be the typical bimbo when it came to women’s rights: I didn't give it much thought, taking for granted what I had and hadn't really considered the injustice still very much present in today’s local, domestic and global society.

  But as I was more or less shaken out of my daze I learned more, about both the present and the past, and a possibly terrifying future.

  In Margaret Atwood’s novel A Handmaid’s Tale we see what will happen if the religious right gain the upper hand.

  The rights women have today, still modest compared to men in general have been fought for for centuries, through often hard-won battles.

  Everybody doubting that should read the history of that struggle. It isn't exactly peanuts. A film about it I recommend wholeheartedly is Iron Jawed Angels, an American TV-movie from 2004. Though not completely historically accurate the events described is more than close enough. And what it lacks in accuracy, it gains in passion, in the cruel and intense description of what Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, among others had to endure in the United States in 1917 for women to win the right to vote. It didn't happen by itself. Like sisters in each and every country Paul and Burns and the rest won through great personal sacrifice and with their very lives and health at stake.

  The world is still far from true equality, but it would be far worse if not for those giants that fought for us and won for us.

  If you think, as I did that there is nothing more to fight for, think again.

  A married woman was hardly considered a legal person anywhere 150 years ago. Today, in many places, all over the world, also in western countries, they will force us or are forcing us to carry to term a rapist’s baby, for instance. Rape culture is still very much present many places and even gaining popularity among a particular brand of western males. There are many other similar horrors waiting for us, if we aren't vigilant.

  Many of the same arguments used then, in order to keep women from gaining the right to vote are used today, when keeping us from enjoying equal pay for equal work, abortion issues and more.

  If we don’t fight we will not win and as we've seen recently: we may lose many of those hard-won rights. If the world has improved on these issues, it isn't by much. It remains a long-term uphill struggle.

  The War on Women is intensifying, not waning.

«Life», existence in the twenty-first century

  «When you grow up, your heart dies» - Ally Sheedy, The Breakfast Club.

  I've mentioned earlier the survey where children using the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking were shown to become less creative the older they get. I can attest to that and more.

  My childhood is very clear to me. I can easily recall events and see patterns of development.

  My friends then were pretty okay for a long time, but then, as they became adolescents and adults I noticed distinct changes. It wasn't just that they became less imaginative, but also that they were less prone to be critical and open, and less the great, exciting creatures they once had been. And they turned less friendly towards those breaking free from the mold. Modern existence… got to them. It got to me, too, I know that, but not to the same extent. We drifted apart, and I have hardly any contact at all with them anymore, and worse: every time I meet them, they look at me as if I am a leper or something, as if there is something wrong with me. I've learned well to recognize that look behind the polite exterior. There is nothing there anymore, no spark, only the force-fed information, the propaganda of that before mentioned modern society.

  Like most people they have become functions of expediency and practicality and hardly anything more. I shudder in horror.

  No horror film has ever scared me much and the reason is clear: we exist in one, one much scarier than any fiction.

  Something needs fixing and it is not children.

  «Dreams can’t die, but they belong to the night» - Amos Keppler, Dreams Belong to the Night.

The dismal quality of the Young Adult genre

  I don’t enjoy any genre as a rule, but Young Adult is truly raising my ire.

  Mixed with Romance, as it often is (the two are joined at the hip) it becomes an absolutely horrible experience.

  How anyone can enjoy this crap is beyond me.

  It is teenager’s life diluted, clouded by a thousands filters of censorship and misdirection, totally empty of reason and passion both.

  There is no sex, no violence, except off camera and nothing even resembling real life.

  I read LJ Smith when I was ten and couldn't (still can’t) believe the genre she practically started has become so popular. I must «confess» I've never more than browsed Stephanie Meyer’s books, but I read more than enough to form an opinion and it’s worse than its reputation. I forced myself to read Dark Flame by Alyson Noel, just to see if it ever amounted to anything.

  It never did.

  That was supposed to be her darkest story? Ridiculous! If she wrote for Christian grandmothers perhaps (perhaps she does).

  To my fellow young adults enjoying or pretending to enjoy this shit I have only one thing to say: up yours!

  In a world where stale and unexciting storytelling is dominant, this genre is truly the bottom of the barrel.

  I want to read and enjoy completely different stories. This quote from a review I agree wholeheartedly with:

  "ShadowWalk is a powerful tale of magick and empowerment which manages not to sound like a mind-body-spirit-self-obsessed-hippie book. This is full-on reality. Blood and sweat and shit - nothing's toned down or dulled. The intensity of life comes through strong and meaty. Real life bursting off the pages".

  Review in Green Anarchist (the original and best) No. 68/69 Summer 2003.

  This is a story about teenagers, but it is so far removed from the YA-genre it is possible to come. The quote says it all, really. ShadowWalk operates on a completely different level compared to the mainstream shit we are fed continuously today.

Beyond greedy corporations

Apparently, the latest Harry Potter DVD was manufactured under a low transfer quality so people would decide to upgrade to bluray. I haven't received my pre-ordered DVD in the mail yet so I can't say for certain, but the folks at the DH pt2 board who do have the DVD have all said the same thing. They purposely made it sub-standard quality so people would go out and purchase bluray players and the blurays themselves if they want to experience the full quality.

I of course posted a lengthy post regarding how bullcrap this is, how some people can't afford to buy blurays, the players, or even HDTV's (I still have a 27" CRT). WB is cheating the good DVD buying consumers out of quality product in order to get people to upgrade and I am outraged.

Wet facts a day in March

Women earn, on average a lot less than men. We may do exactly the same job, and even do it better, but still be paid less. Many fantastic explanations are given for this, even for why it should be like this, but none of them should be taken seriously.

«The market sets the salary».

«The boss has the right to give his employees the salary he thinks the employees deserve».

This is what I have to look forward to as a female employee the next fifty years, if I’m lucky. And it doesn’t necessarily take a turn for the better, but for the worse.

We’re discriminated against solely because of our sex, among other reasons because of religious dogmatism, institutionalized through centuries. In many places and areas we’re forced to be our own warden. We’re even enraged when people dare to imply we’re being oppressed.

Burn a bible today, you, too.

Many women, among them Sarah Palin works hard to make it even harder for us, both as employees and in society in general.

We’re still seen as objects of men’s desire, as an extension of men, fifty years after we burned bras and skirts. Most women still accept society’s dogmatic views. The fact that we accept being given our male partner’s name in marriage is merely one of those. Many even kneel before the altar and repeat religious declarations of submission. Sometimes I am tempted, sorely tempted into believing that people aren’t thinking at all.

Lots of men also feel that this is a bad thing, actually. They want, as incredible as it may sound women able and willing to think and act independently, and not be men’s parrot, his doormat.

In my eyes current society is hostile to all humans, to both men and women, but that women have it slightly worse is beyond doubt.

The book of books

I want to write a book, non-fiction or a film, a documentary, describing in detail, from the ground up the building blocks of the current society, how everything, every single detail is flawed, is fundamentally wrong.

The wrongness reveals itself to me piece by piece, blocks by blocks, like a slow-marching band. I want to reveal it all, from the ground up. It’s easy, really, since you notice it everywhere. The book or the film becomes a matter of logistics, not fact-finding. Those with open eyes have no trouble finding facts.

I want to interview people all over the world, both «experts» and people, about both the decline in the environment and in human society as a whole. There is no lack of illustrations looking at it from either angle. Food, health, green areas and life itself are fading away, slowly, quick as lightning, like the dew before the sun in the morning. There are those claiming the current human society, civilization itself has become a ravenous machine gobbling up everything of true value, leaving nothing but destruction, disintegration in its wake. That’s a more than a true observation.

From the smallest of truths to the big issue we know the truth.

Money can buy happiness

They can’t guarantee it, but may, for several reasons help you pretty far along. You can’t get everything for money, but you can get quite a lot, also, indirectly devotion and commitment from another human being. Most ladies or gentlemen taken for a ride in a luxurious boat or private airplane will usually be in a very good mood after a while.

Lise, as the very creative person she is, is imagining the following scenario: your new boyfriend picks you up in his limo. His private chauffeur opens the door for you. The boyfriend takes you on a daytrip to Amsterdam, where the two of you dine in a restaurant where the steak has been flown straight from Argentine. There are candles on the table. The two of you sip bubbled water. Two hours later you are fucking your brains out in the enormous suite at the hotel. Well into the next morning he proposes and gives you a giant diamond ring. You say yes with an excited howl and in wild joy.

Young and cynical and realistic Lise strikes again.