Category: crapitalism

6 “Cultural Sensitivity” meets clear stupidity

January 27, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · crapitalism · cultural tolerance · forces of stupid · health

It’s been a while since I talked about one of my first pet topics, the burqa bans going on in various places in the world. The point I laboured to make in those early articles was that there may be some specific circumstances under which it is better for society to brook some contravention of its rules in the name of being tolerant of practices imported from other cultures. This is particularly true of Canada, with its wide variety of cultural groups. If we want Canada to remain a place where groups from all over the world can feel at home, then we have to occasionally put aside our discomfiture toward “the other”.

But other times, “the other” is stupid and there needn’t be any accommodation:

Plans for a hospice on the University of British Columbia campus have been put on hold after some neighbourhood residents said the proposed facility offended their cultural sensitivities around death and dying.

“It is all about cultural sensitivity,” said Ms. Fan, a Chinese-born immigrant who lives in a high-rise near the proposed hospice site. “We came here as new immigrants with our own belief system. And in our beliefs, it is impossible for us to have dying people in our backyard.”

The main gist of this argument is that many Chinese-born immigrants share a cultural taboo about death, feeling that it brings bad luck and will spoil marriages and businesses and all sorts of other pursuits. Building a hospice in a neighbourhood with many immigrants from this area lacks cultural sensitivity for such beliefs.

My response: fuck your superstition.

This proposed building is on the campus of the University of British Columbia. UBC has a right to build whatever legal structure they like on their grounds. UBC also has a hospital on its grounds. News flash: people die in hospitals every day. People also die in car accidents, stabbings, from heart attacks… the list goes on ad infinitum. Death is a part of life – in fact, death is the thing that makes life precious. If your beliefs are in conflict with biological fact, it is not the responsibility of the rest of the world to move in line with your beliefs; it’s your responsibility to figure out a way to deal with it.

I feel passionately about this issue, as someone who works in cancer research. The majority of people who pursue hospice care suffer from terminal cancer. At the end of the course of this disease, patients are often in near-constant pain that gets limited (or no) relief through the use of drugs and radiation. The idea behind hospice care is to allow the dying person to maintain a bit of dignity and comfort. It is the sign of a compassionate and caring people when the sick and dying are cared for. Adequate hospice care means that people are not languishing in long-term care facilities, at home, or worst of all in a hospital, unable to access sufficient relief from their symptoms as their bodies shut down.

A very good friend of mine worked in a hospice on a co-op term. She would be able to speak much more eloquently and passionately than I can about what a great job hospice care does of improving the quality of life of people who are lucky enough to have the opportunity to die there. I say ‘lucky’ in full awareness of the fact that it’s not exactly ‘lucky’ to get cancer, but since there are far fewer spaces than there is demand for those spaces, getting in is indeed a stroke of luck.

I hope nobody would accuse me of being a person who is not sensitive to the fact that not everyone sees the world the same way. I am aware that different groups have different ideas about life, and that some issues hit people more viscerally than others. However, in this case we’re talking about conflating superstition with the real suffering of real people. The proximity of death has zero effect on whether or not your business is lucky – the flourishing funeral home business is perhaps a counter-example. People who work in hospitals around dying people can maintain happy relationships, and in some cases the death of a close family member can bring people closer together. To suggest that dying people should put relief of their suffering on hold because you’re afraid of the dark is the height of childish arrogance.

We should make our decisions based on what is real, not what spares the delicate feelings of stupid people.

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2 It’s not her fault, but she’s still an idiot

January 18, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · conservativism · crapitalism · forces of stupid · politics · retractions

Last week I dashed off a quick response to the tragedy in Arizona, in which I said this:

Perhaps most damning (or at least getting the lion’s share of the attention) is the “targets” used in a Sarah Palin ad to describe how Tea Party voters should target vulnerable districts in the midterm election. My nemesis has (predictably) chosen to lobby on behalf of the forces of stupid. Depressingly, so has CLS.

I usually give myself a great deal of time to mull over the news stories that I comment on here. I think we are all best served when we get a chance to consider all facets of an argument before we state on opinion. This is particularly true for me, as I tend to find my own ideas so fascinating that they simply must be true. There are some times, however, when my passion gets ahead of my reason, and I opine before I give a topic due consideration. In those cases, in addition to being perhaps not at my rhetorical best, I tend to get things wrong.

And so, I must post this retraction (a real one this time) with apologies to the above authors who I have unfairly slandered. Scary, who I still do not fully agree with, said this:

But what’s all this about it being Sarah Palin’s fault? That was predictable. Following that reasoning, then Robert De Niro, Martin Scorcese, and Paul Schrader are all culpable of the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt. What’s more, the rest of Hollywood can be branded as incendiary hate-mongerers.

Insofar as anyone assigns sole or even primary responsibility to Sarah Palin, that is indeed a mistake. Sarah Palin did not, on her own, direct the hatred and violence that was involved in this attempted assassination. She is not the author, nor is she the leader, of the firestorm of hatred and demonization of the political left. Of course the reason I disagree with Scary here is, as in most things, because he is grossly oversimplifying the argument. Nobody has made the claim that Sarah Palin is entirely responsible for the assassination attempt, and anyone who tries to make that claim probably shouldn’t be allowed too far from the house. However, since he has built the straw man himself and then knocked it down so succinctly, he is technically correct.

I owe an apology free of snark to CLS though, who said this:

I also think it is pure rubbish to say that political language caused this event. No, insanity did. That the rather inane Sarah Palin wanted to “target” the district for a Republican win had nothing to do with the attack. I’ve seen similar language from people on the Left. It is a common phrase in the English language and only the truly insane take it seriously. If someone says, “I’ll kill if X happens,” it takes a deranged mind to assume the words are literally intended. And, I would hate to live in a society where acceptable language is determined by the most insane amongst us.

Once again, while I was disappointed by the statement that Sarah Palin’s ad had “nothing to do” with the attack – I think it’s an oversimplification to suggest that anyone is drawing a line between the shooting and the ad in question and saying “this thing is solely responsible”, and nobody is criticizing the idea of using the word “target”. The objection is to her repeated use of violent gun-based rhetoric in her political discourse, and her position as the center head of Conserberus, the three-headed dog that guards the gates of stupidity. However, I too find the repeated invocation of that particular ad to be a pretty severe strain on a credible argument, and in the context of the rest of the article I am happy to let this particular paragraph slide.

There is a constant refrain that is coming only from the right, which promotes the idea of violent overthrow of the government. When you tell people that a) the government is coming to steal your liberties, b) there is a shadowy cabal of leftist financiers who are plotting against you, and that c) you must arm yourself against the inevitable coming of the government thugs who are going to take over your life, it is entirely predictable that you’re going to see an increase in paranoid and violent intent toward government officials. While the words and symbols used in political discussion occur on both sides of the aisle (although more on the right than the left, as grassrute’s completely meaningless handful of semi-related links demonstrates – really, man? A plane crash is a call to violence against someone?), there is a consistent narrative of “you must protect yourself against the government, and the second amendment will help” that comes from the political right. It’s what’s winning them elections right now. But as Malcolm X so infamously said, you can’t cry when the chickens come home to roost.

And as far as dear Sarah is concerned, to go on an 8-minute whine about how you’re being targeted by the “lame stream media” again (which, by the way, you are a part of as a Fox News anchor you stupid stupid woman), and laying a giant egg of stupid by calling it “blood libel“, to say nothing of the fact that she states quite unabashedly that the responsibility of crime starts and ends with criminals (as though environmental factors play no role whatsoever – what a coincidence that the majority of criminals are poor people…) is right in line with her usual behaviour. I heard an interesting discussion on a talk show about the no-lose situation she’s built for herself, wherein if people cheer for her it means she’s right, and if they mock, boo, or in any way show their dissent from her opinion it means she’s right because her enemies disagree. While it’s a fun psychological trick, it does make her (and those like her) particularly insulated from any kind of self-critical appraisal.

I won’t be talking about this murder anymore, and I have already spent way more time discussing American politics than I really should. This is a Canadian blog about race, free speech and religion; not politics (except when they overlap with the aforementioned). For more commentary, I suggest you read the following articles that I found particularly interesting:

Arguing Tucson
The Insanity Defense
The Tea Party and the Tucson Tragedy

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7 Blasphemy – not a victimless crime

January 11, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · hate · news · politics · religion

I spoke in error this morning, and so it is time for me to post one of my rare but fun retractions.

In my discussion I made the claim that blasphemy is a crime that doesn’t hurt anyone. After all, while sticks and stones do what it is they do, criticizing or insulting someone, much less an idea, has never resulted in the injury or death of anyone, right?

Wrong:

The governor of Pakistan’s most populous and powerful province, Punjab, was assassinated Tuesday in the country’s capital, Islamabad. Salman Taseer was shot by a member of his personal security detail while in Kohsar Market, a posh area of the capital popular among foreigners, authorities say. “[His security guard] confessed that he killed the governor himself because he had called the blasphemy law a black law,” said Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

I guess we have to amend the saying to “sticks and stones may break my bones, but when my fuckhead Islamitard of a backstabbing coward bodyguard shoots me with a bullet, I die.”

Of course with the usual lack of awareness of irony that usually accompanies the religious, the bodyguard is probably willfully ignorant of the fact that his actions have brought greater insult and shame upon Islam than any words spoken by any blasphemer ever could. In a single act of cowardice and small-minded idiocy, clouded and draped in the faux righteousness that always accompanies violence done for religious purposes, this man has made a lie of the claims that Muslims follow a religion of peace, that Allah punishes infidels, and that Pakistan is anything other than a backwards, barbaric hellhole made so by the forces of religious piety.

“But Crommunist,” comes the predicable whine “this is not the true face of religion. Religion tells us to be good to one another and show respect for our fellow creatures. This man was clearly not acting as a true follower of YahwAlladdha!” I find this claim as tedious as I find it false. This was not a man who is conveniently using his religious beliefs as a shield for his homicidal tendencies – he believes just as fervently as missionaries feeding the hungry or charity groups teaching literacy in developing countries that what he is doing is the manifest will of a deity he has never seen and never will, because the deity doesn’t exist.

This is why I am unmoved by the whinging and wheedling voices of the accommodationists and religious moderates who clamor obsequiously for “tolerance” and “understanding”, meaning that I must not criticize religious beliefs out of deference for the hurt feelings of the faithful. If “tolerating” religion means that I have to make the same piss-poor excuses for acts of horror that very clearly have their genesis in theistic belief, I refuse. While I recognize your right to believe whatever nonsense you want in the privacy of your own head, I am not going to stop pointing out how dangerous your nonsense it. I am not going to pretend that there is a “real” version – a version that nobody seems to manage to actually put into practice, and in no way follows from your scripture – that is above criticism. I am not going to be nice and pretend that you’re “one of the good ones” just because you haven’t murdered anyone. The ideas are dangerous, and they deserve nothing but scorn and ridicule.

Tragically, Mr. Taseer learned the price of such a stance when taken in a place where religion is allowed free reign over reason. I am deeply saddened by this despicable act that brings shame on all Muslims everywhere, and all religious people by extension.

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0 Pakistan protests against being smart

January 11, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · free speech · religion

By now I’m sure you’ve heard this story, since it is now 2 weeks out of date:

A 24-hour strike organised by Sunni Muslim clerics is taking place across Pakistan to protest against possible changes to blasphemy laws [emphasis mine]. Rallies were staged in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta after Friday prayers. The government has distanced itself from a bill to change the law, which carries a mandatory death sentence for anyone who insults Islam.

At first when I read this story, I thought I was getting it wrong. Surely, these people were demonstrating for the changes. After all, what kind of society would tolerate the legalized oppression and execution of people simply for criticizing a religion. After all, don’t people in Pakistan read this blog? I’ve already explained why a separation between church and state is to the benefit of everyone, including the religious.

But of course Pakistan is a religious country, which means that logic and good sense can take a vacation, and we can blow the dust off our trusty psychology textbook (with the dog-eared chapter on Stockholm Syndrome). The people who are held captive by the brutal ideology of religious conservatism, in this case under the banner of Islam, are the ones who flock to save the very chains that keep them locked up.

I am not a proponent of the death penalty in general, mostly because it doesn’t seem to work to reduce rates of violent crime, all the while being a huge waste of money. However, even if I could be persuaded that there are some people whose crimes are so heinous that the world would be a better place if they were murdered (and I am not so liberal as to make such persuasion a total impossibility – my objections to the death penalty are chiefly practical ones rather than ideological), I cannot imagine any circumstance under which I could be convinced that blasphemy is a crime so dire that the maximum penalty is warranted.

As I’ve said before, and (hopefully) modeled regularly here, no idea is above criticism. There is no such thing as a ‘sacred’ idea or something that is not allowed to be discussed. To be sure, I find myself occasionally defending an idea with so much vigor that I have an emotional reaction to it. It is completely understandable, albeit regrettable, that someone would be offended if an idea they hold dear is held up to criticism. Ridicule is a close companion of criticism, and as such I have no difficulty imagining that someone may take personal offense to having their beliefs ridiculed. Since, to many, being ridiculed is tantamount to being called stupid (and nobody likes that), it can sting to be on the receiving end of a particularly sharp barb that pierces one or another closely-held idea.

However, at this point I am mindful of an old adage about sticks and stones. Blasphemy does not actually cause harm to anyone – it is essentially a victimless “crime”, which I put in quotations because it is only a de jure crime. I would argue that passing laws banning blasphemy are a greater de facto crime, since free speech is both an intrinsic human right and an essential component of building a society. If your religious sensibilities are so fragile that just speaking words can throw them into disrepute, then maybe you should be taking a closer look at how seriously you take your religion.

One Sunni cleric in Islamabad warned in his Friday sermon that any change to the blasphemy law would happen “over our dead bodies”.

You take it too seriously.

The perverse(r?) thing about this whole thing is that the proposed changes to the law wouldn’t even make blasphemy legal:

The strike was held to protest against a private member’s bill submitted to parliament. It seeks to amend the law by abolishing the death sentence and by strengthening clauses which prevent any chance of a miscarriage of justice.

That’s right, they’re protesting to protect their right to murder people for saying things that they don’t like about their religion, and to fix the legal process in favour of the religious establishment. More chains, please!

Of course once they’ve rounded up and murdered all of the people who genuinely criticized the religion, they’ll shift the goalposts and start going after people who are religiously heterodox, then after those who oppose a particular religious leader, and so on until there is nothing left but one angry man standing in a pool of the blood of his former brethren. Like the ouroboros, intolerance devours itself until there is nothing left.

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5 And sometimes racism isn’t subtle

December 29, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · critical thinking · race · racism

I have, on occasion, waxed on at great length about how most racism in society today operates behind the scenes. While we’ve pictured it in our minds as flaming crosses and jackbooted police officers beating up black men on the freeway, it usually tends to happen in much more insidious ways, percolating behind the veneer of our arch-liberal “treat everyone equal” mantras. Of course when the more “classic” examples of racism manifest themselves, it shocks everyone except those of us who have been paying attention.

But those of us who are not particularly sensitive to this new definition of racism can rest a bit easier knowing that the old type is still very much alive:

A sign excluding black people from a future Abbotsford, Wisconsin business is enraging some people in the small town. It’s a sign generations of people may have never seen, yet Mark Prior says it’s his right to discriminate. “If I’ve got a problem with you it’s going to be on the front of my store,” says Mark Prior. Prior posted his ‘No Negros Allowed’ sign after he says he had some problems with black people in the past and needed to make a policy against them.

Wait wait wait… did he actually post a sign that says ‘No Negroes Allowed’?

Yep. He did.

There is a particularly odious argument out in the ether that people should be allowed to serve whoever they want, regardless of what kind of systemic prejudices such a policy props up. On the surface of it, the argument appears to have some validity. After all, if you open up your own business, who is anyone to tell you that you must cater to people you don’t like? Your individual rights of autonomy are being violated, dammit!

“I’m going to stick to my guns because I think I have the right as a business owner to reject service to anyone. It’s not all the black people there are just a few bad ones,” Prior says of his problems in the past.

Of course this is an argument that, like many conservative calling cards, has its basis in the idea of “I got mine, Jack!” So what if the autonomy of others is violated? So what if that pattern of violation fertilizes a de facto second-class citizenship for people based on something completely trivial like skin colour, gender, sexual orientation, or religious belief? As long as I don’t get trampled on, the other stuff doesn’t really matter.

There’s another fun thing that happened in there. Did you catch it? “It’s not all black people, there are just a few bad ones.” Aaaaaand that’s why all of them are banned? It’s one of those cognitive dissonances that reveals the depth of Mr. Prior’s racism – the troublemakers are causing trouble because they’re black. It’s the colour of their skin that’s making them cause trouble, right? Otherwise why specify that it’s “Negroes” that aren’t allowed in? Of course the fact that the guys are causing trouble is not causally related to their ethnicity, but it sure is fun to stereotype.

I’m not a fan of strip clubs. I don’t think anyone should go to them, but people do, so whatever. I’m even less a fan, however, of telling a specific group of people “you’re not allowed in here because of what you are, nothing to do with anything you’ve done”. For nostalgia purposes, it’s nice that folks like Mr. Prior are still around to remind us all that we’re not done dealing with racism, no matter how much we might like to pretend we are.

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12 Awww… adorable!

December 28, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · forces of stupid · hate · racism

From time to time I like to post pictures of otters. There’s no good reason, I just think otters are cute. This is cuter:

Young Andrew Pendergraft is playing in the sprawling grounds of his family’s country home. Like any other active ten-year-old, he loves running through the fields and splashing about in the river. But later he will appear on internet TV and – clearly reading from a script – he will solemnly share his bigoted views on the supremacy of the white race with potentially thousands of other children online. Andrew may be only ten but he is the face of youth within America’s Ku Klux Klan, the most infamous hate organisation in the world.

Aww… look how cute that is! His parents taught him to hate black people and Jews! That’s just so cute I could spit.

Take a moment right now to grab a piece of paper and see how many of the items in the rest of the story you can predict without having to read another word. Just take some guesses as to how this kid’s life might be a little different from yours. While you wait, here is a video of some otters playing with a little girl:

I know, right? Adorable!

Okay, let’s see how you did…

He has been indoctrinated into the ways of the Klan – famed for its burning crosses, lynch mobs and attacks on black people – by his mum Rachel at their home in Harrison, Arkansas, deep in America’s Bible Belt.

If you said “lives in the American south”, then give yourself one point. That one was kind of obvious though: the Klan doesn’t really have much presence anywhere else.

We film White Pride TV on Sunday after church and I have my own spot, The Andrew Show.

If you said “religious upbringing”, give yourself one point.

“I thought the film Avatar showed white people as destroying the rainforest, which we don’t do, and I like to talk about that.”

Give yourself one point if you wrote down that the kid clearly has no grasp of what corporations are doing in the world, as well as a bonus point if you wrote that everything is about white people, even the stuff that isn’t (there were lots of black marines in Avatar, and also the protagonist is a white guy).

Robb’s extremism originated with his own parents. The 64-year-old – Rachel’s father – claims to have “become awakened” to many of his views from the age of 13.

Give yourself a point if you guessed that his parents aren’t exactly bastions of a multi-cultural liberal philosophy.

Although 40-year-old Rachel claims the Klan has changed since its violent heyday, she has home-schooled all three children at the family ranch to prevent them absorbing views from other children.

One point for home schooling (I can hear Scary Fundamentalist tut-tutting in the background).

Daughter Charity says: “What role did black people play in the history of America? I mean no offence, but none. None at all. They were here but they didn’t build the country. They didn’t sign any of the documents of the Declaration of Independence.”

One point for revisionist history.

“There is growing oppression against white people around the world. The greatest endangered species to fight for is the white race, and as a white person I don’t want to see the end of my people.”

One point for “growing oppression of white people” privilege statements. Thanks, Mr. Limbaugh, by the way.

And award yourself bonus points if you picked up the rhetorical tools in the comments (“it’s not technically ‘hate’ per se”, “it’s just one family”, “they should be allowed to teach their children what they want”).

How did you do?

Oh, and in case we forget, this is a ten year-old kid. I don’t have any particular animosity to Andrew, I rather pity him for having been born to such asshole parents. Then again, it’s hard not to laugh when he says shit like this:

Have you seen the new Disney Princess movie? It’s called The Princess And The Frog. The Princess is black, so that is good for all the black kids out there. But the Prince is white. Race-mixing is wrong. If all other people mix up there won’t be any more white kids. So don’t race-mix. There are lots of people against white people and Christians in the movie. The good guy is a voodoo witch doctor. He does spells and has magic potions. Voodoo doctors worship the Devil so it’s a pretty bad movie for kids, especially white kids. Voodoo is the religion that lots of blacks used to have but white people taught them about God. So don’t race-mix. Well, I’ll see you next week.

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4 Oklahoma does right thing for wrong reason

December 15, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · cultural tolerance · forces of stupid · hate · law · news · politics · religion

I can’t tell you how depressed I was after the last US mid-term elections. I likened it at the time to watching a good friend go back to her alcoholic, abusive ex-boyfriend because the new guy wasn’t enough of a “bad boy”. The Republican party in the United States has completely shed any air of credibility as a party interested in the long-term good of the United States. They’ve completely devolved into politicking, abrogating any responsibility they have to act as leaders, grabbing after power instead by ramping up the fear and hatred of an uneducated populace.

Rome is falling, my friends, and it is doing so to the clamoring approval of the mindless horde.

Luckily (or perhaps tragically, since it prolongs the fall) there is a system of checks and balances present in the United States that places limits on the ability of the people to be the authors of their own destruction:

A US federal judge has stopped Oklahoma putting into effect a constitutional amendment to bar courts from considering Islamic law in judgements. Judge Vicky Miles-Lagrange granted an injunction against the certification of the results of State Question 755.

To provide a bit of background, there was a ballot amendment during the midterm election that was passed, banning the recognition of Sharia law or any international law in Oklahoma courts. Of course there was nobody actually proposing that Sharia law be recognized, and the courts already ignore international law (on jurisdictional grounds), but if you whip people into a xenophobic frenzy, they’ll pass whatever law they want as long as it makes them feel safer.

But then… then the stupid sets in:

“Plaintiff has sufficiently set forth a personal stake in this action by alleging that he lives in Oklahoma, is a Muslim, that the amendment conveys an official government message of disapproval and hostility toward his religious beliefs, that sends a clear message he is an outsider, not a full member of the political community, thereby chilling his access to the government and forcing him to curtail his political and religious activities,” she explained.

That’s the shakiest possible grounds for a legal decision I’ve ever heard. Basically because the law would hurt people’s feelings, it’s therefore invalid? I’m not a soothsayer, but I can certainly see this ruling (if it isn’t kicked on appeal) being used as precedent to protect some crybaby Christian group saying that failing to teach Creationism in schools “conveys an official government message of disapproval and hostility” towards their belief in a 10,000 year-old planet.

The real reason this law should be off the books? Because it’s stupid. It’s an entirely redundant law that solves exactly zero problems. The inclusion of any religious law would violate the US Constitution (and likely the Oklahoma state constitution), and would not survive a court challenge. There is absolutely no need to pass a law specifically against Sharia law.

Seriously, America… dump the Republicans. They only end up hurting you in the end.

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6 Heh. Heheheh.

December 14, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · funny · race · racism · religion

The style of this blog is (what I hope is) high-minded polemic. I stake out a position, and explain why I hold it using news items, other blogs, and/or a painstaking step-by-step analysis of the logic behind the position. One of the techniques I most like to use is to state a counterargument to my position, and then explain why it is false. Regular readers of this site will probably know what I’m talking about – new people should probably just poke around the archives.

However, there has always been a soft spot in my heart for satire. I get a giddy thrill in my naughty parts whenever I see someone skillfully lampoon the folly of others by exaggerating the position and/or claims of those others. I have occasionally dabbled in satire, but I don’t really have a talent for it.

So when I find something like this, I have to share it:

Jesus was white. Yes, He was born in the Middle East, but His father was not Middle Eastern, He was God. God is NOT Middle Eastern. When was the last time you saw a painting of God with a Turban wrapped around His head? Never? Exactly.

Humans are visual creatures. Without a powerful sense of smell, touch, hearing or taste, we are reliant mostly on our eyes for information. As a result, we tend to give more credence to the appearance of visual stimuli than information from our other senses. In essence, the way things look is of primary importance to us when evaluating them.

There is a phenomenon known as the “halo effect” wherein we assume that good-looking people are more moral and deserving than ugly people. It explains why our television and movie stars are hotties, why the villains in books and movies are generally unattractive (unless they are temptresses or royalty), and why the pretty girls in high school are the popular ones (although that one is a bit more complicated than just appearance).

God is white. God has always been white. Every depiction, every description and every painting I have seen of God has been white. God impregnated Mary, NOT Joseph. Therefor (sic), Jesus is white. That is what drew people to Him in the first place. A white skinned man in the Middle East 2000 years ago was surely a miracle and Jesus was and is a miracle worker.

Europe was the seat of Christianity for centuries. The church controlled the vast majority of wealth during this time, and commissioned artists to create religious images (violating the second commandment, but whatever). During the classical period, it was common practice to depict famous figures with the faces of relatives or friends of the artist (sometimes enemies too). So of course, we end up with white Jesus, white Mary, white God, and so forth.

This wasn’t really a problem at the time. Art was not meant to depict reality – realism wasn’t to come into vogue for many years to come. However, it did leave us with a lasting impression that weds whiteness to godly virtue. Jesus, if he existed, didn’t look anything like the brown-haired bearded dude that is our popular depiction.

Of course while we can laugh at this all-too-accurate depiction of the inverted logic of the religious, it’s not a completely innocuous joke. It is in fact a manifestation of a real cognitive blindspot that we have simmering in the back of our minds – that white skin is associated with virtue, and all other skin colours are deviations thereof. Adam and Eve would have been black (of course they didn’t exist, but humanity is African), but they’re depicted white – the implication is that dark skin is a change from the “default” white, when the inverse is in fact true.

Okay, enough heavy-handedness… this shit is just funny:

Now look at Heaven. Heaven is mostly made of feathery white clouds with rays of light shooting through them, which according to most Christians I know, would make the inhabitants white. Also, white is amazingly proficient at reflecting light, which is very important when living in Heaven because it’s much closer to the sun than living on the Earth. This white skin prevents you from getting cancer in Heaven and I’m sure stops many other diseases in their tracks.

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11 Movie Friday: Wife-beating etiquette

December 10, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · crapitalism · ethics · funny · movie · religion

“Wow,” you’re probably thinking “where exactly is Crommunist going with this?”

Exactly where you think:

Yeah… that just happened.

Apparently, according to this man’s religious convictions, the way that Allah honors the wife is to prescribe the specific way in which her husband is allowed to “discipline” her through physical beatings. Allah also sets out the circumstance under which it’s permissible to do so: if she won’t sleep with him. Thus is the majesty and mercy of Allah displayed – a woman has a choice of whether to be raped or beaten. God surely is great!

I don’t think any of my readers here are Muslim, or if I do have any Muslim readers I doubt they’re particularly devout, so I don’t think there’s much to be gained by expressing my complete disgust for this particular religious tradition; however, there is a larger point to be made. I’m sure someone somewhere looks at this and says “this is how you know Christianity is true – Jesus would have never allowed this.” Despite the fact that Jesus doesn’t say a single word about whether or not it’s permissible to beat your wife (I’d imagine he wouldn’t be cool with it, but we don’t know that for sure – I guess it wasn’t a very important topic to him), this is a completely circular argument:

A. Beating your wife is bad
B. Christianity says that beating your wife is bad
C. Therefore, Christianity is true

Here’s the problem: A is assumed to be true completely independently of the other premises. I happen to agree with A, but that in no way says anything about C. If A is a true premise, there is a way of establishing its truth outside the framework of any religious tradition. The logical way to follow B is to say “C: therefore, Christianity is right about wife abuse.” If I start my own religion and say that it’s okay to murder penguins for lulz, but also say that the Earth orbits around the sun, does that make my religion true? Of course not – it just means that one specific claim that I have made is based on something we understood already.

Back to these two fucks in the video clip. The only words I can use to describe someone so debased, so twisted and depraved, so…

Y’know what? Let’s let Hollywood take care of the insults, shall we? (OMFG is this ever not safe for work)

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6 God Damn It (wording intentional)

December 9, 2010
by Crommunist
· blog · conservativism · crapitalism · hate · politics · sex

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

U.S. Senate Republicans have blocked legislation that would have repealed the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and allowed gay troops to be open about their sexual orientation. Democrats failed Thursday to cinch a procedural deal with Republicans in the waning days of the lame-duck session. The 57-40 test vote fell three votes short of the 60 needed to advance. The vote ends months of political wrangling about the bill and makes congressional action on the repeal provision unlikely any time soon. The 1993 law bans gay troops from publicly acknowledging their sexual orientation. A repeal provision was included in a broader defence policy bill and passed last spring in the House.

In what kind of fucking mathematical fucking system is forty larger than fifty-fucking-seven?

Fuck you, United States. Fuck you Senate. Fuck you Republican party. You deserve the shithole your country is becoming.

I will return to my usual level of language tomorrow.

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