The Antisocial Socialist

Have I mentioned lately that I love Skinny Puppy?

I mean, they are one of my favourite bands and have been since I was a wee thing of 13. Very psyched to see them play here on the 18th.

But it's always nice when one's musical tastes and political sensibilities dovetail. You might have heard that after the U.S. government used Puppy's music for torture at Guantanamo Bay, the band sent the Department of Defence an invoice of $666,000 for the use of its music.

Here's an interview with cEvin Key about it.

Virginia governor declares Confederate History Month. What? Really?

The Catholic Church knowingly dumped pedophile priests in remote native villages in Alaska, because, hey, who could stop them?

The Afghan torture hearings continue, but don't think that you get to hear about it.

Speaking of which, remember when we invaded Afghanistan to drive out the Taliban and bring in democracy? LOL.

The Ontario government continues not to do anything about the mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows, the result of the Dryden Pulp & Paper Co. dumping 9,000 kg of mercury into the Wabigoon River.

This is just chilling to listen to. Some radio asshats making jokes about starvation in Haïti.

The same high school that cancelled prom rather than let Constance McMillen bring her girlfriend did something even worse to another kid. 16-year-old Juin Baize was kicked out on his first day of class, and his family was eventually forced to relocate to Florida to protect his safety, just for being transgendered.

Cats at the Toronto Humane Society are in danger of being euthanized if homes are not found for them by April 12.

You know what? I take back what I said about Lady Gaga. This is the distillation of the zeitgeist.

Prediction: Torture will be commonplace on North American reality TV and game shows in the next few years. We won't even blink.

Via BoingBoing, every violent act in the Superbowl ads:


Most of that just comes off as slapstick, to be honest. None of it's as violent as the following ad, which also apparently aired during the Superbowl (via fengi):



I know, rationally, that most men I encounter don't think that way about women. I mean, they can't, right? You can't hide that kind of hatred.

Can you?

I saved the worse for last. This story comes to us via audrawilliams.

( cut because I don't want to even look at the link when I check my LJ )

You know, I think I'm just going to curl up under a pile of blankets with my cats for awhile. Wake me up when the world doesn't suck so much.

Between our pathetic environmental record (and the impressive trollage by the Yes Men at Copenhagen) and the Conservatives shutting down the committee probing Canadian links to the torture of Afghan detainees, this has been an exciting couple weeks for news in the Great White North. By which I mean I am thoroughly disgusted by our government in a way that is almost refreshing. I mean, I knew they were evil from the get-go, but Harper was at one point able to disguise his oozing corruption and malice from a large enough group of voters to get into power. It's kind of amazing that I can still be shocked by anything these bastards do.

I'd like to think that his latest demonstrations are enough that he will be relegated to the status of national embarrassment, a collective cringe akin to that which history now gives Mulroney, but I think Canadians are by and large dumb and hateful enough that none of this will affect the outcome of the next election. Also, Iggy would probably do the same.

In case you haven't seen it, here is a brief video showing Omar Khadr being interrogated by Canadian officials . The worst thing is because they were Canadian and from the government, he thought they were there to help him. They weren't.

Trigger warning. It's really horrible to watch. He was barely 16 when this video was taken.

This is the face of the War of Terror: a frightened child crying out for his mother.

---

Here's something small you can do: Go to the Toronto Star homepage, and where it asks if Canada should be doing more to bring Omar home, click "yes."

Click for video.

Proof that I'm not as good a person as people think I am is how much I enjoyed watching this. But I mean, come on. It's Hitchens, whose "sensible liberal" petitions and statements gave moral weight to the atrocities that America and the UK have visited on Iraq. So he kind of had it coming.

Hat tip: apperception.

The U.S. government's role in torture, and possible culpability for war crimes. It's a good read, but the most striking bit was this (regarding meetings at Gitmo about how best to torture people):

Ideas arose from other sources. The first year of Fox TV’s dramatic series 24 came to a conclusion in spring 2002, and the second year of the series began that fall. An inescapable message of the program is that torture works. “We saw it on cable,” Beaver recalled. “People had already seen the first series. It was hugely popular.” Jack Bauer had many friends at Guantánamo, Beaver added. “He gave people lots of ideas.”

The brainstorming meetings inspired animated discussion. “Who has the glassy eyes?,” Beaver asked herself as she surveyed the men around the room, 30 or more of them. She was invariably the only woman present—as she saw it, keeping control of the boys. The younger men would get particularly agitated, excited even. “You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas,” Beaver recalled, a wan smile flickering on her face. “And I said to myself, You know what? I don’t have a dick to get hard—I can stay detached.”

That's always what I've suspected about pro-torture types; they get hot thinking about it. There are safe and consensual outlets for those sorts of sexual predilections but people with those sorts of politics are generally too uptight to go looking for them.

Hat tip: king_felix.

If you need a palate-cleanser after that, check out the Westboro Baptist Church getting Rickroll'd.

[Error: unknown template 'video']

Hat tip: trollprincess.

I haven't really been able to follow the news, but I gather that in Gitmo, a guy confessed to a role in Sept. 11 and killing Daniel Pearl, and another guy confessed to bombing the USS Cole.

I guess waterboarding does work after all.

Via zingerella, the second-most disturbing news I've read this week: A 12-year-old boy died because his family didn't have dental insurance. It would have cost $80 to save his life. And we Canadians aren't in a position to be smug about it, either; with dental coverage excluded from provincial health care plans, this could have easily happened here.

This, dear readers, is why I get so incensed when I encounter people who are against universal health care. There still exists a pervasive myth, at least in North America, that the invisible hand of the free market will solve everything. As far as I can tell, the invisible hand of the free market exists only to give hand jobs to the rich and knock the teeth out of the poor.

The most disturbing news I've read this week comes via Lenin's Tomb, and it has to do with the revival of the use by the U.S. of the strappado, a medieval torture device. It's apparently also known by the Israelis as a "Palestinian hanging." Hey, remember when the Israeli government claimed that it banned torture and didn't torture people anymore? It's not like anyone believed them, but it was indicative of an idea that the general public considered torture distasteful, and something that should at the very least be kept under wraps. I guess we can forget about that.