More Than Just “Occupy” Wall Street!

Protesting the fact that Banks are abusing the current social-economic system is absolutely necessary, and I’m glad it’s happening. But the only thing that really scares the shit out of bank CEOs and managers is when their profits are under threat.
Of course, threatening banker profits is not an easy thing to do, but one thing every single one of us is capable of is to vote with our feet and take our savings to businesses with less of a cut-throat attitude. What I am talking about are Ethical Banks. While still being privately run businesses, these banks are above all distinguished by being transparent and selective about the projects they finance. They will happily invest in projects that have social and/or environmental aims, but shun companies who pollute or exploit. In essence, they sacrifice profit margins for a secure and fond clientele that doesn’t hate them.

The arrival of Ethical Banks threatens to change the game. If they can become major players they might outstrip traditional banks – because just as people are willing to pay more for milk from happy cows, many are happy also accept marginally lower interest on their savings in exchange for the knowledge that those savings will not be used to steer global economy further into a huge ocean of shit.

So, here is what I suggest we do: Let’s take our money out of the savings accounts, and move it to one of the ethical or green banks.

Granted, ethical banks are still banks. I do not kidd myself into believing that they are responsible because their CEOs are such good-hearted people – But responsibility has become a product, and the demand is growing rapidly. The laws of their own game will force them to stay transparent and responsible in order to stay in play. It is in our power is to change the market. If we succeed, we will simply force conventional, irresponsible take-no-hostages-bankers out of business.

Personally I do not think that this is the cure to our problems; but it sure is exchanging the disease for a more benign one, giving us some air to look for alternatives.

So, go to wikipedia and take a look at its small but growing List of Ethical Banks. Perhaps join the Bank Transfer Day on facebook. Take your money out of irresponsible and greedy hands, and trust your savings to (however slightly) more responsible people. If possible, do it on november 5th, because the more people do it on the same day, the bigger is the chance of wide-spread media reports.

Don’t tell yourself that it won’t make any difference. I can guarantee it won’t do any harm. So, if nothing else, just humour us. There is a lot to gain, and nothing to lose by trying.

Pope Speaks, Germany Protests

After some struggle and public controversy, the pope was allowed to speak at the Bundestag in Berlin. It was a small victory for him though, as over one hundred delegates chose not to appear as a gesture of protest.
I feel with them: For anyone with modern values it must be painful to watch Europe’s last absolute monarch speak at the very heart of our democracy – The pope is the head of the only western state that has yet to ratify the international Bill of Human Rights.

Anyhow, the ruling conservative politicians just couldn’t have that. And so they chose to initiate what I view as one of the most pathetic moments in Germnan politics of (at least) the last two decades: They filled the empty seats with extras.

Which, by the way, I think ought to have consequences. The absent delegates in this case perfectly fulfilled their function of representing the German public. Masking this fact to the media (as well as to the pope!) is to lie to the people they are supposed to represent, in order to make a guest feel welcome who is unwelcome to half of the people here.

Anyhow. Meanwhile, more than 20.000 people went to the streets, making their anger at this blatant disregard of our constitution known. Among the many groups reporting the protest were, among others, several Human Rights organizations, the “Black Block” of the left-extremist AntiFa (anti-fascist initiative) and of course numerous feminist and gay groups. Here’s some pictures:

The Pope’s reaction to the protests, of course, was consistently in line with his churches’ policy: He ignored them.

Ethical Journalism: You’re Doing It Wrong

CNN - Doing Breivik's bidding.

I’d like you to pay attention to the caption beneath the picture at the top of the screenshot. Here’s what it says:

Anders Breivik’s purported manifesto says he planned every detail of his rampage, down to this photo being released to media. [Emphasis added]

It appears that somebody waltzed into CNN.com’s editor’s office, said something along the lines of ‎”Hey look, there’s this guy who’s just murdered almost 100 people. And here’s some pictures he’d like us to publish. I’ve got a great idea: Let’s publish them, along with a deep, insightful and understanding story on what motivated him, telling the world exactly all those things he wants us to tell the world. Let’s regurgitate his propaganda, word by word. Let’s quote him a lot. Don’t you think that’d make a great story?” – and was applauded all around.

There’s a German word for this: Leichenfledderjournalismus. It’s a compound word that translates to corpse-stripper journalism, describing the kind of journalism that will report anything that sells, completely free of ethical considerations and without any concern or sense of responsibility for the consequences. It’s usually reserved for those selling stories by using unnecessary close-ups of starving children, mortal wounds or giant puddles of blood, but I think it’s quite fitting here.
It’s sickening beyond words to see the world’s big Media outlets being tossed a manifesto explaining in detail how the mass-murderer wants them to behave, just to follow his instructions word-by-word. They publish his pictures, they propagate his views. Anything the star of the hour wishes.

Breivik was to appear in a hearing this monday, the 25th, to “explain” his motives. The residing judge (who apparently has no name) ordered the proceeding “closed for security reasons”, disabling that sicko from propagating his views further. I applaud him. It’s merely a gesture as the mainstream media are doing a better job of spreading Breivik’s propaganda than he could possibly have hoped for, but it’s a gesture of common sense and decency.

PS: I’ve deliberately cut off the picture in question, and just as deliberately I’ve failed to provide a link to the source of both the screenshot and my anger. I do not doubt anybody willing to view the picture won’t have any trouble finding it, but at least they’ll have to do so without my help.

So Osama is Dead. Happy Now?

Suddenly there’s an entire nation celebrating. And not only america is stoked: the heads of other nations are already sending their congratulations. It’s a celebration of a victory that doesn’t exist, of the murder of yet another human being. The death of Osama bin Laden will not change a thing. The situation in Iraq will not improve, the soldiers won’t be in any less danger, none of the 9/11 victims will come back to life. NOTHING has been accomplished here.
All it is is a disgusting display of people’s primitive lust for vengeance, and it makes me sick to my stomach.
Seriously. It’s been a few thousand years since we thought that tit-for-tat made for actual justice. One should think that now that we’ve been to the moon, we might have left this preposterous primitivism behind and developed more sophisticated ways of dealing with wrongdoings.

“Osama plotted the killing of a few thousand americans, let’s kill him 3000 times to get even…” What a load brainless shit. Again, what has been accomplished here? Terrorism is just a symptom, not the disease. The diseases that cause it are called “poverty”, “bad government” and “desperation”… Those are the problems that need to be dealt with. The only way to win the “war on terrorism” (oh how fucking ridiculous that term is!!!) is by eleminating the need for it: By improving the living conditions of the people within the “rogue states”, by tracking down the sources that furnish organizations like Al Quaida with money and weaponry, by helping the people to establish a fair and stable government. Only desperate people support fundamentalists – Terrorist would not find much support among a nation of educated and well-fed citizens.
I realize how high those goals are, but please don’t tell me that there is no way of accomplishing them given the incredible amount of money and resources that we choose to spent on expensive toys for our generals to play with instead.

A Ban On Atheist Advertisement?

I’m all for it. In fact, ban all  public advertisement. I want the right to walk out the door and not being told by giant billboards everywhere what I have to buy, whom I have to vote for, and what I have to think.

It is one thing to be offering “product information” on the airwaves, where it is my free decision to access or ignore it. Nobody is forcing me to watch TV – and if I do, I’ll accept the commercials as a collateral, knowing stations have to finance their programme somehow.

It is a different matter altogether to shove your ads in my fucking face, every single day, on my way to work.

Much Ado About Nothing

My local catholics are playing dress-up again, walking the streets chanting and carrying candles. I left my window open for just a minute too long, and now my whole fucking room stinks of fucking incense. I am seething. Just what gives them the right to rub their silly rituals in my face like that?
If I’d run through public streets at this hour being as loud and producing as much smell, I’d be arrested within minutes. From noise pollution to disturbance of public peace, scandalization and what-not, I’d be charged with a variety of stuff and it’d end up being a very expensive prank. Plus, if I was wearing as silly a costume and a funny hat while annoying the shit out of people for no reason, I’d probably be put straight into the mental ward. And rightfully so, because that is where people who engage in this kind of activity belong.

On ‘Darwinism’

I am not a ‘Darwinist’, and you aren’t, either. Period. First of all, the fact of Evolution by Natural Selection ought not to get too tied up to the person of Charles Darwin. Calling yourself a Darwinist implies a reverence of the person, rather than acknowledgement of the hard evidence in support of his theory. As much as Darwin is rightfully admired for one of the most important discoveries in the history of science, his person as such is completely irrelevant for the validity of the theory.

More important though is the use of the suffix -ism: It is nothing but creationist propaganda. -isms are worldviews, matters of opinion. Evolution by Natural Selection is not. Creationists started to call scientists who dared to point out the silliness of their beliefs ‘Darwinists’, in order to imply that they were a bunch of people sharing a common belief (as opposed to a bunch of people acknowledging the facts), people who have an agenda, people who probably have a evil conspiracy running to rid the schools of god. Because they hate god, those Darwinist do. Or so organizations like the Discovery Institute keep telling me.
It goes without saying that the same holds true for ‘Evolutionism’. You wouldn’t call yourself a ‘Newtonist’ or a ‘Gravitist’ just because you acknowledge the general explanation for why things are falling down. Even if Intelligent Falling were a serious movement rather than a (brilliant) parody, calling yourself a ‘Newtonist’ to show your opposition to it is destructive to your cause. Falsely calling scientific facts -isms is useless at best, but passing fact for opinion and acknowledging a controversy where there really is none at worst. Please don’t do that.

The ID-crowd should be viewed as the bunch of loonies they are, and safely be ignored. If you must address the ‘controversy’ at all, please don’t use terms that they made up. Taking them seriously can only leave the impression that their views actually have substance, which is simply not the case.

Nazis Got Bitchslapped

It’s the most uplifting news-story I’ve read in a while. The magazine Focus online reports that the German town of Riese, Saxony, changed the name of one of its streets. Allow me to explain why this event bears any significance at all: They changed it from “Mannheimer Straße” to “Geschwister Scholl Straße” (engl.: Siblings Scholl Street). For those who are not familiar with the latter name: Sophie and Hans Scholl were famous figures of the resistance-group Weiße Rose (White Rose) during the 1940ies and were executed in 1943 by the Nazi regime.
You’re probably still wondering. Some germans changed the name of a street to honour some prominent figures of the Resistance… so what?
And here comes the punchline: Housed in that street is the publishing house Verlag Deutsche Stimme (engl.: German Voice Publishing) and a good few other right-wing-extremist addresses such as the local quarters of the German Nationalist Party, NPD. All of them will have to print the names of some of the most well-known resistance-fighters onto their cards and letter-heads from now on. The only two who voted against the change of name were the two delegates from the NPD.

Fucking Priceless.

Denver: Highway-Memorials Ruled Unconstitutional

The Deseret News has an article on an interesting case this week: An Atheist group in Denver filed a lawsuit to remove memorial-crosses from the highway, and they won.

DENVER — The white, roadside crosses that currently memorialize the deaths of 14 Utah Highway Patrol troopers are unconstitutional, government endorsements of religion on public lands, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

“We hold that these memorials have the impermissible effect of conveying to the reasonable observer the message that the state prefers or otherwise endorses a certain religion,” the court wrote in siding with the Texas-based American Atheists, Inc.

In 2005, the atheist group sued the Utah Highway Patrol and the Utah Highway Patrol Association, a private entity aimed at supporting troopers and their families, to get the crosses taken off state lands.

On Wednesday, 10th Circuit judges David M. Ebel, Harris L. Hartz and Deanell Reece Tacha ruled the white crosses violate the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.

Iran: Over 70 People Executed in Mashad

The following report was published yesterday, August 15th 2010, by the Human Rights House Of Iran, RAHANA.

RAHANA – It has been reported that some of these individuals arrested in relation to drug trafficking, had been handed down sentences that did NOT include the death penalty and had only been fined. Despite these sentences, they were executed suddenly and without prior notice based on a judicial order.

Archive picture

According to reports by Iran Green Voice, the reason behind this sudden decision to execute has not been provided by the judiciary, however, there is speculation that the order was executed by Intelligence and Security Institutions. Previously, based on a similar case in the city of Mashhad at the start of the 1st term of Ahmadinejad’s presidency when ties between high-ranking security officials and a drug trafficking group were exposed, more than 60 people (mainly citizens of Torbat-e Jam and Taibad) associated with that case file were also suddenly executed. At that time, a number of the relatives of the security forces in question were also executed.

It is worth mentioning that based on received reports, this last round of executions included names of individuals under the age of 18.

Ahmad Eghbal, political activist arrested on December 21st, 2009 and released after 170 days in prison on June 10th, 2010, on approximately 48,000 USD bail made the following statement in court during his defense: “During my three-month incarceration at ward 6/1 at Vakil Abad prison, based on confirmed information I heard from the prison officials and crew, more than 50 individuals were transferred to ward 6/1 and later executed. However, at one point when 31 individuals were executed, the Justice Department and Information Ministry in Khorasan informed a news paper in Khorasan that only 5 international drug traffickers had been executed.”

The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to execute its citizens despite international protests against such actions. The reported number of executions in prisons across Iran is still extremely high.

via freedomessenger.com

It is not even an exceptional story. The Iranian regime does stuff like this on a daily basis – just go to freedomessenger.com or the Rahana homepage to get a taste. And do keep in mind that these are only the fraction of the stories that the agencies and activists of Iran judge newsworthy enough to be translated into english. These are only the spectacular cases. What absolutely astonishes me is the utter disregard the regime shows for its international reputation. They just do not seem to care at all. The only thing that astonishes me even more it the complete lack of action from the west. There is not even a word of condemnation, and Iran’s seat in the UN Human Rights Council remains unchallenged.

Stories like this one do not even make the news over here. There we have a regime that didn’t even bother trying to cover up the rigging of its election, which is bad enough in itself, and a few days ago they executed over 70 people – few of them under the age of 18, most of them without even a justification, all of them without proper trial – and the rest of the world just looks on and does nothing.
And no, I’m not one of those calling for an invasion. But I do ask that we display the minimum of concern and put some political pressure on the regime. We cannot let them go on spitting in the face of the very idea of Human Rights like that. Condemn the actions that are taking place, ask for justification, acknowledge the reports of human rights organizations. I urge everyone to raise awareness of the situation. Spread the word, write to your political representative and news stations and ask them to take a stand.