Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the United States of causing the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti, which killed possibly 200,000 people. Chavez believes the U.S. was testing a tectonic weapon to produce eco-type devastations.
Blimey. One wonders how this revelation will go down among the Great Man’s admirers here in the UK.
But I’m confused. I thought only “The Jews” had such diabolical technology. As revealed in December 2007 when Hamas MP Ahmad Abu Halabiya informed Al-Aqsa TV that,
It is not impossible for the Jews to generate an artificial earthquake… in order to accomplish their goal of destroying the foundations of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Needless to say, The Guild of Evil™ has been conducting research of its own with this mobile apparatus.
Darleen Click has compiled reactions to Avatar by self-appointed representatives of Designated Victim Groups. Needless to say, the levels of unrealism and doctrinal turgidity are quite hazardous.
There’s a bit of this:
This synopsis contains profoundly ableist language in the way it describes the protagonist Jake as “confined to a wheelchair.” I don’t use a wheelchair; nevertheless, I was very offended when I read that. We’ve been trying to eradicate terms like “confined to a wheelchair” for a while now, and to see this demonstration of ignorance on such a large scale, since it is mainstream, is distressing. […] It’s a long-held stereotype (and still exists today) that disability is unnatural in people and so must be fixed or cured.
And this, from a breezy sermon titled Gender Normativity and Imperial Domination in Avatar:
I’d like to explain that I do not believe that binary gender is natural or fundamental to our biological existence as humans, or even as animals. […] I have too many female friends with penises to put all my faith in biological determinism, no matter what planet I’m on.
Update, via the comments:
Self-preoccupation is essential to the kind of tribalism seen above, along with an urge to pathologise the prosaic. If the prosaic can be made to sound oppressive or inauthentic, it makes those who announce themselves as nonconformist sound much braver and more interesting than they actually are (if only to themselves and those similarly disposed). For instance, the clownish Amanda Marcotte rails against any number of “normativities,” all of which she seeks to pathologise. It isn’t enough that she doesn’t feel an urge to become a parent. She has to claim that those who do wish to become parents don’t know their own minds and are dupes of some hegemonic power. In much the same way, the preference for an intact and functional body is depicted as both a parochial social construct and a moral failing. And likewise, the belief that “binary gender” is not “natural or fundamental to our biological existence as humans” is based on an occasional malfunction of the very biological processes that are imagined not to exist.
But this is what gorging on identity politics does – it fosters unrealism and makes dishonesty routine. Often there’s a creep of small dishonesties. For instance, the disabled feminists article grumbles about the Avatar synopsis, which refers to the film’s protagonist as “confined to a wheelchair.” The author complains, “Non-disabled people may think… referring to someone who uses a wheelchair as ‘confined to a wheelchair’ is okay – but of course, it’s really not — ‘wheelchair user,’ for instance, is more acceptable.” However, this means avoiding a perfectly legitimate and accurate term – Jake is confined to a wheelchair; that’s sort of the point, dramatically. But fluffier, more sensitive terms are apparently now required. “Wheelchair user” could of course mean that Jake only uses a wheelchair occasionally – say, when walking leaves him fatigued. Which is deliberately imprecise and hardly the stuff of interplanetary drama.
Sentiments of this kind may be dishonest – indeed bizarre – but they are surprisingly common. Not long ago on Radio 4, a legless and rather prickly “activist” insisted that it was “oppressive” to view the loss of a person’s legs as in any way regrettable. Regarding this loss as something negative was apparently “ableist,” “ignorant” and offensive. This claim was repeated several times, emphatically. At one point the activist declared that given a chance to walk again he would refuse, such was his “pride” in having lost a third of his body. Anger had been displaced from the obvious grievance – the traumatic loss of one’s legs – to the supposed “injustice” of regarding limb loss as a dismaying or terrifying state of affairs. As a coping mechanism, it wasn’t entirely honest. Or, it seems, successful.
Bearing in mind the recent seasonal gorging, here’s another Classic Sentence from the Guardian. This time courtesy of Neel Mukherjee and his deep ruminations on vegetarianism.
It slowly dawned on me that there were no rational, intellectual or moral arguments to be made for carnivorousness.
Heavens, he’s bold. There simply isn’t a good reason to partake of the flesh. None whatsoever. I do hope there’s a devastating argument to support such a claim.
The meat-eaters had always already lost. This is not the place to rehearse all those arguments.
Ah. Not the place. Isn’t it wonderful when arguments can be won entirely in your own head, with none of that messy business with evidence, logic and stuff you hadn’t thought of? Mr Mukherjee does, however, indulge us with one attempt at reasoning:
Far more convincing for me than all kinds of shocking exposés of the meat industry and the way a piece of steak makes it way on to our plates… was the unimpeachable moral argument against speciesism: because we are the most powerful animals in the animal kingdom, because all animals are at our mercy and we can choose to do whatever we want with them, it is our moral duty not to decimate, factory farm and eat them. It is an argument of such majesty and generosity that its force is almost emotional.
Note the invention of an entirely new prejudice for those so inclined to feel guilty about – speciesism. Note too the sly conflation of meat eating with factory farming and decimation. This “unimpeachable moral argument” could of course be expressed a little less tendentiously,
Because we can eat animals it’s our duty not to.
But then – amazingly – it loses much of its persuasive force. To say nothing of its majesty.
Rita Marcalo’s controversial attempt to have an epileptic fit on stage at Bradford Playhouse ended in failure. The Portuguese dancer, who has epilepsy, was attempting to induce a seizure during a 24-hour arts performance. By the 1pm finish she had not managed to do so – despite exposing herself to strobe lights and depriving herself of sleep and food. Playhouse director Eleanor Barrett described the performance as “emotionally demanding” to watch.
Readers saddened to have missed Ms Marcalo’s adventure in self-preoccupation should, however, take comfort. Clearly determined to justify the £14,000 of Arts Council funding, Marcalo promises a second, no less challenging, instalment.
The second part, featuring footageof Miss Marcalotrying to induce a seizure, will be at Bradford’s Theatre in the Mill in January.
You have 15 seconds to put at least $9,000 in $100s & $50s in front of me. Alarms, dye packs, bait money, tracking devices, or follow me out, will equal death. My briefcase will inflict a deadly wrath on all of you in this bank if you follow me. Time starts now!
This example, written by Mr Kevin Pinto, may seem unremarkable,
This is a holdup. Give me 100s, 50s, 20s. Hurry up.
However, the “hurry up” has an almost comedic aspect given that Mr Pinto, who robbed ten banks over a period of six years, committed each robbery during his lunch break. Pinto was employed as a financial compliance officer by the investment firm Paradigm Capital. He was sentenced to six years in prison.
A dance artist with epilepsy is to try to induce a seizure on stage. Rita Marcalo has stopped taking her medication ahead of the event at The Bradford Playhouse. Arts Council England, which is funding the performance, said it aimed to raise awareness about the condition. Ms Marcalo, the artistic director of Leeds-based dance company, Instant Dissidence, plans to induce a seizure as part of the 24-hour Involuntary Dances event on 11 December, which will also include dance and poetry readings.
Ah, dance, poetry and epileptic fitting. A fine night out by anyone’s standards. But how will this gesture – sorry, seizure – be achieved? Isn’t it all rather messy and difficult to predict?
During the 24 hours Marcalo will be engaging in a series of epilepsy inducing acts: from ingesting legal brain stimulants (alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, dark chocolate), to stimulating the brain through strobe lights and specially designed computer programmes, to raising her bodily temperature, to fasting, to trying out methods utilised to induce seizures in animal testing, to sleep deprivation.
Chocolate, booze and fasting?
If she has a seizure, an alarm will sound and the audience will be invited to film on their mobile phones.
[Margaret Thatcher] was the closest thing Britain has ever had to Stalin and Pol Pot.
And,
It is not at all dumb to suggest that Thatcher was the closest thing we have had to Stalin and Pol Pot. That does not imply she was genocidal – merely that of British Prime Ministers it is difficult to think of another who pursued class war and year zero policies as enthusiastically as she did.
Yes, I know. You want another of those Classic Sentences from the Guardian. Oh, look. Two stuck together:
Paul McCartney once said: “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we’d all be vegetarians.” Well, if people could see the state of war-torn Iraq, we’d all be cyclists.
That’s one of the profound ruminations of Mr Mark Boyle (pictured below), a “social homeopath,” “pro-activist” and advocate of moneyless living.
Those unfamiliar with Mr Boyle and his intensely radical brain can savour not one but twoGuardian profiles, in which we follow our hero’s philosophy and everyday travails:
To be the change I wanted to see in the world, it unfortunately meant I was going to have to give up cash, which I initially decided to do for a year. I got myself a caravan, parked it up on an organic farm where I was volunteering and kitted it out to be off-grid. Cooking would now be outside – rain or shine – on a rocket stove; mobile and laptop would be run off solar; I’d use wood I either coppiced or scavenged to heat my humble abode, and a compost loo for humanure.
If the term “humanure” is new to some readers, the fascinating details of hands-on sewerless composting toilets can be found here. It’s a world of romantic pre-industrial charm.
Time for another selection of Classic Sentences from the Guardian. Or rather the Guardian’s Sunday sister paper, the Observer. Until recently, I had thought the Observer’s commentary wasn’t quite as obnoxiously self-loathing as the material that swillsallbutdaily through the piping of the Guardian. Sadly, it seems I was mistaken:
Fewer British babies would mean a fairer planet.
So barks the headline of AlexRenton’s latest exercise in ecological hair-tearing. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. It’s just another overexcited sub-editor and not representative of an otherwise measured and sober article. However, the first line reads,
The worst thing that you or I can do for the planet is to have children.
And besides,
One less British child would permit some 30 women in sub-Saharan Africa to have a baby and still leave the planet a cleaner place.
It continues,
Why not start cutting population everywhere? Are condoms not the greenest technology of all?
Inevitably, we veer tantalisingly close to China’s state reproduction policy:
It was certainly the most successful governmental attempt to preserve the world’s resources so far.
And there’s this little gem.
A cull of Australians or Americans would be at least 60 times as productive as one of Bangladeshis.
So several candidates there – from, lest we forget, a progressive and liberal newspaper.
Deciding not to have a child because of their estimated annual CO2 production is a particularly wretched parental calculus and suggests either pathological self-disgust or pretensions thereof. I suspect Alex Renton measures his moral and intellectual sophistication by the extent to which he loathes his own culture, and by extension himself. That, or he pretends such for the benefit of other, likeminded souls. Happily, he’s found a cause well suited to the cultivation of such feelings. Less happily, he presumes to share his leanings with others, coercively if necessary:
Could children perhaps become part of an adult’s personal carbon allowance? Could you offer rewards: have one child only and you may fly to Florida once a year?
Readers may feel inclined to assist Mr Renton in his totalitarian urges by gnawing off his testicles and tossing them on a fire. And then doing the same to any male children he may recklessly have sired. For Gaia, of course.
A while ago, on the subject of identity politics and competitive victimhood, I wrote:
Any claim to moral agency is surrendered to those members of a favoured group who happen to be shouting loudest. Thus, injustice is defined, unilaterally, by feelings, or claims of feelings – and by the leverage they provide.
Phobias, prejudice and oppression become whatever the Designated Victim Group or its representative says they are. And the basis for apology, compensation and flattery becomes whatever the Designated Victim Group says it is. The practical result of this is egomaniacal license and the politics of role-play.
As if to illustrate this point, the Observer’s Andrew Anthony profiles Jane Elliott, a “diversity training” pioneer and Witchfinder General for the modern age:
Elliott is keen on verbal watchfulness. She believes that racism is in the eye of the beholder and therefore one needs to be ever-sensitive to the possibility of giving offence. “Perception is everything,” she says. “If someone perceives something as racist then I am responsible for not saying that thing.”
Note Elliott’s disregard for context, motive or objective criteria. “Perception is everything,” says she. By which she means the perception, or misperception, of one party only. This is the premise of Elliott’s crusade – to provide moral correction for all pale-skinned people. The particulars of an exchange and who did what to whom are all but immaterial; what matters is which party belongs to the Designated Victim Group, as defined by Jane Elliott and others in the trade. Clearly, moral logic isn’t Elliott’s strong suit; hers is the realm of pantomime and emotional bullying.
As Elliott’s own publicity material makes clear, she “does not intellectualise… she uses participants’ own emotions to make them feel discomfort, guilt, shame, embarrassment and humiliation.” And there’s the rub. Once rendered suitably emotional and distressed, her subjects can be re-educated so much more easily. Want to see how? Elliott’s 1996 workshop documentary Blue Eyed can be viewed here. The fun starts around the 2:00 mark with the guy and his name tag. And pay close attention to the exchange around 5:40, before the “exercise” begins.
We’ve seen this unhinged and pernicious nonsense before of course, not least from Peggy McIntosh and her “invisible knapsacks of privilege,” and Shakti Butler, who tells unsuspecting students that, “the term [racist] applies to all white people living in the United States.” Like McIntosh and Butler, Elliott’s formulation of guilt is presumptive, unilateral and based on a conviction that “white ignorance is the problem.” (A problem that “we white folks have now managed to export… all over the world.”) Thus, guilt is framed as a collective phenomenon and effectively a function of a person’s pigmentation. So no racism there, clearly.
Bearing in mind how “perception is everything” and what that entails, it seems unlikely that realistic argument will be encouraged or looked on kindly. And those who happen to have pale skin and are unfortunate enough to fall within Elliott’s influence may not wish to be held hostage by every passing opportunist or liar with a grudge.
Sceptical readers may wonder if Elliott reveals more than she intends when telling her captive audiences that “a new reality is going to be created,” that they have “no power, absolutely no power,” and that her title, “bitch,” stands for “Being In Total Control, Honey.” And some readers may question the credibility and motives of an “educator” who tells students that, “white people invented racism.” Transcending such vices is of course impossible, except through Ms Elliott and her tender ministrations. Being as she is the self-appointed gatekeeper of redemption through guilt.
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