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Full Engagement is Enough
Oct. 20th, 2009
07:46 am - Honest, Smart, Christian: Pick any Two
Hey, guess what? Christians are killing witches in the global south where they can get away with it. Not just any Christians, but ones supported by the rich colonizer countries like the U.S.
At first glance, there's nothing unusual about the laughing, grubby kids playing hopscotch or reading from a tattered Dick and Jane book by the graffiti-scrawled cinderblock house. But this is where children like Abigail end up after being labeled witches by churches and abandoned or tortured by their families.
There's a scar above Jane's shy smile: her mother tried to saw off the top of her skull after a pastor denounced her and repeated exorcisms costing a total of $60 didn't cure her of witchcraft. Mary, 15, is just beginning to think about boys and how they will look at the scar tissue on her face caused when her mother doused her in caustic soda. Twelve-year-old Rachel dreamed of being a banker but instead was chained up by her pastor, starved and beaten with sticks repeatedly; her uncle paid him $60 for the exorcism.
here
I'm tired of giving radical Christians a pass. The Catholic Workers who own nothing but the shirts on their backs are clearly committed, but good Christians are like good cops: they provide cover for the bad cops. Until I see "Christians against Colonialism" I will assume that good Christians are knowingly protecting cultural genocide.
We should kidnap Christian children, beat them into submission, and raise them as dance-naked-around-bonfires raving pagans. It would be nothing less than what fundamentalist fanatics and their moderate enablers have done all over the world, every chance they get.
Oct. 4th, 2009
07:47 pm - Unearthed Arcana of Social Science
(10/04/2009 12:30:14 PM) Marco: gotta be careful with the diaspora class though, the prof wrote some of the articles.
(10/04/2009 12:30:50 PM) moi: oh, no. i find teachers who do that are usually intellectual narcissists. chances are good you'll only get a good grade if you write about how right she is.
(10/04/2009 12:32:47 PM) moi: but then you know how burnt out i am on grad school.
(10/04/2009 12:33:37 PM) Marco: he. and yeah he comes off as a bit arrogant.
(10/04/2009 12:34:59 PM) moi: those are in the academic rogue class. careful, they have a high backstab.
(10/04/2009 12:35:36 PM) Marco: lol
12:23 pm - This is What Denial Looks Like
Re: Roman Polanski
In truth, the Julian Schnabels and the Monica Belluccis who signed the Liberate Polanski petitions were only under the same spell that most of us were under. We'd all simply forgotten. Now that forgetting has become impossible, it will be fascinating to see if Roman Polanski will be able to find as many, or indeed any, useful allies.
here
The spell always falls upon horrible things, in one way or another. This is why there wasn't serious talk about the Holocaust for a good decade after it happened. This is why there are still AIDS denialists and 9-11 "truthers." This why Bill O'Reilly is still loved in spite and because of the fact that he said Shawn Hornbeck would rather stay with his rapist than run. And this is why evil usually triumphs: nobody wants to see it.
And when we do see it, insanity ensues. Traumatic memories are disorganized, and trauma isn't limited to survivors. Witnesses and perpetrators are traumatized, too (which doesn't let the perps off the hook.) When we start talking about it, we don't just talk, we act it out. Now the survivors get to be the perpetrators, or the witnesses, or the rescuers, real or fantasized. These feelings, images, and thoughts are too much and too chaotic for words so they spill out into our actions, and as if we were hypnotized we come up with perfectly logical explanations for why we are playing out what was done to us, or what we did, or what we witnessed and did nothing about.
Group processing of traumatic events is what so many of those confusing rituals from indigenous societies are about. And until we find an equivalent for the industrial world, the most technologically powerful societies in the world will continue to be the most insane, to an extent that is actually on its way to rendering the planet uninhabitable.
Sep. 29th, 2009
06:21 am
A simple google search with the words “Palestinian violence” yields over 86,000 pages, while a search with the words “Palestinian civil disobedience” generates only 47 pages - this despite the fact that for several years now Palestinians have been carrying out daily acts of civil disobedience against the Israeli occupation.
here
Sep. 10th, 2009
05:12 pm - Here's Your Change
Obama says single payer health care is "too radical."
What most other industrial nations do is too radical for the US.
He's gotten where he is by playing the model minority. He's not going to do anything threatening, which means he's not going to do anything.
I'm a total geek about these things and I can boil it all down very simply: when the rich and powerful look out of their windows and see torches and pitchforks, things get better. When they don't, things get worse. Like playground bullies, like slave-owners, like domestic abusers, like anyone with easy access to force, they only change when they suffer consequences.
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