Of course they protest – they are the main perps

Queue a parent who’s sole point was basically, this shouldn’t be given to the under 10s (the booklet is written for the 9-11 age group). But her point was that parents should be given the right to choose about whether and how this information is distributed. Which is laudable in most families. But not in others – in some families leaving it to the parents simply won’t work because it is parents who are abusers or parents who are protecting abusers. To claim, as she implicitly does, that parents can’t be part of the problem is naive and blinkered. Lets run that again – this is a booklet on child abuse, most physical abuse is committed by parents or caregivers, neglect and emotional abuse is committed by parents or caregivers, sexual abuse can be committed by parents or caregivers. Prioritising the parent in this discussion misunderstands the intention – to inform children that their rights are not reliant on their parents allowing them access to them.

Of course the Parents are going to protest – as parents are abusers more or less by definition, from the child’s point of view. Naturally they won’t want their source of drug/fix let go or be informed of its rights.

I’d report the parent that objected to the police as a suspected sexual abuser or protector of an abuser.

SoB

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I got It! I got IT!

About a month ago I found a bookstore on the Net – Adlibris.com – that will ship my orders in the mail and let me pay the purchase in the post-office when I pick up the parcel. And they keep basically the same stock-pile as Amazon.com!

I started a wish-list and decided that I would buy the books on that wish-list one or two books at a time. The very first book I ordered was “Heavenly Torah” by Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Today I got it:

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Now I only need to read it 😀

Blame the Jews – Part Umpteenth

Provocations as Pretexts for Imperial War: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11

I have no problem agreeing with the author about his points about the Provocations as Pretext for attacking other nations, which it is obvious and clear from history that the US has been engaged in since its inception.

But when he starts claiming that “the Zionists” (Zionists is just a code word for Jews) planned and executed 9/11 he passes the line between reality and antisemitic bull-shit.

Like most Antisemites/AntiZionists he fails to make the distinction between Jews and Zionists (to be distinguished from zionists who support Israel’s right to exist) and Jews and Israel as a nation.

Conspiracy Theories are very nice in that they provide explanations to life’s hardships that provide the Conspiracy Theorists with a sense of control (“I know why this is happening to me”.)

Unfortunately for the Conspiracy Theorists all CTs at one point or other leave the realm of the plausible and enter the realm of implausible – which only leaves the CTists vulnerable to exposure as frauds and charlatans, which in the end are only serving themselves.

Israel, as the only Democracy in the Middle East, has a very precarious position (regardless of their relations to the Palestinians) because it is surrounded by nations that has only one wish and one goal for her in the end – total annihilation.

Claming, as the author does, that Israel is engaged in a war on Iran and Syria (and not the other way around) is ludicrous – especially since Israel has not threatened either Iran or Syria with “wiping them of the face of the earth”. If Israel and/or the Zionists had truly been behind the War on Terror, the US would not have attacked Afghanistan and Iraq – they would have gone after Iran and Syria. They didn’t.

Neither Iran, nor Syria care about the Palestinians enough NOT to make good their threats to nuke Israel.

It must be nice to live in a world where any evil in the world can be attributed to ONE source, instead of having to sort through the political and personal diversities that is a natural part of being human.

The Solution?

How do we, the People, do something about the abuse and exploitation of children being committed by UN Personnel around the world?

One thing we can do is petition the UN to put some safety-guards into their recruiting process, take some legal action and give their personnel “safe sex”

Here are 7 points that I would put in a petition:

1. Make UN Personnel accountable to the International War crimes Tribunal in Hague.

2. Make Superior officers accountable for the conduct of their Troops on pain of loosing their commission and being dishonorable discharged.

3. Create a screening process that all UN Personnel going into the Field has to undergo, to determine their suitability for the work, with focus on their attitudes towards children.

4. Allow independent NGO’s such as Save the Children, The Red Cross, Doctors without Borders to conduct yearly investigations.

5. Make it mandatory for Superior officers to investigate rumors and reports from the locals of this kind of abuse, and don’t just trust their sense of honor to do this.

6. Exclude from deployment troops from countries where sex with children is part of the culture – such as Thailand, Indonesia etc.

This last point is controversial – but it addresses part of the reason why this happens.

7. Provide UN personnel with “safe sex” through the creation of UN supervised and UN controlled brothels in direct connection to UN Deployments. There’s nothing wrong with prostitution as long as we are talking about consenting adults, and those consenting adults are given health-care and decent (and controlled) pay for the services rendered.

—

Some may balk at the last one – especially those feminists that consider any kind of sex-work to be abuse of women.

However, not all prostitution is bad or demeaning to women. In fact many sex-workers will tell you that to them it’s like any other work, and they will also tell you that if there were Unions for sex-workers they would join.

Others may think that excluding people from some countries is discriminatory, and it might be, but Thailand and Indonesia are well known for a big child-prostitution sector that the government is not doing much about, so it’s safe to say that there is a culture of acceptance towards sex with children.

Yet other may feel that it’s a bad idea to make UN Personnel accountable to the War Crimes Tribunal – but if you think about it, it’s logical.

UN Peacekeepers serve the International Community, it is only fitting that should they commit crimes they should answer for those crimes in front of an International Court.

There have always been a tradition that the Superior Officers are responsible for the conduct of the troops under their command – so making the Superior Officers face real consequences if their troops misbehave, should make them a little more likely to protect civilians.

How DARE they!?

Save the Children – UK News

World (tags: Children, Save the Children UK, UN Peacekeepers, Abuse, exploitation )
Despite recent political commitments by governments and international organisations to tackle this problem, the report exposes the chronic under-reporting of such abuse, which leaves many children around the world suffering in silence.

Aid Workers Sexually Abusing Children in War Zones and Disaster Areas

World (tags: sexual, sexually, abuse, abusing, aid, workers, children, child, welfare, war, disaster, sudan, ivory coast, save the children, organization, charity )

Many aid workers are sexually abusing children they have been sent to help, a leading charity claims today. One aid worker on the Ivory Coast told Save The Children: ‘Many agencies working here feel they are beyond reproach.’

Companion Articles:

BBC NEWS | Americas | UN troops face child abuse claims

BBC NEWS | Americas | UN to discuss child abuse claims

The U.N. Sex Scandal

UN to hold inquiry into Sudan child abuse – Telegraph

I read the above and I am speechless with anger – How dare they!? How dare they put on that Blue Beret and do THAT to children?

The UN represent all that is good, decent and hope inspiring in the world, and they dare defile this with their perverted, cruel, sadistic and inhumane practices…!

Those children…That Blue Beret stands for the help those kids have a right to expect from its bearers, and they have their trust crushed by vile desires and unbridled immorality. Those children, the weakest of the weak, the smallest of the small, with the inborn right to protection and support that the Blue Beret guarantees, are being abused and exploited – in MY name, in my father’s name, in the name of the world…of all the vile things humans can do, THAT is the vilest.

My father was a UN Peacekeeper and those vile humans desecrate his memory, his good heart and his willingness to serve humanity in that Blue Beret.

This is one of those instances when I believe a good Company Punishment would be just fine.

Let the perpetrators run a gauntlet among their peers, put them in jail and throw away the key. They are not only a disgrace to every decent soldier in the world, they are a disgrace to the entire human race. Break their sabers and exile them from humanity for the remainder of their lives.

May G-d have Mercy on their souls, because they are going to need it.

Australian, 12, Cleared for Sex Change

Australian, 12, Cleared for Sex Change 11:53 AM

Australian, 12, Cleared for Sex Change: Report – Yahoo! News Health & Wellness (tags: Transgender, FtM ) Henric C – 13 seconds ago – news.yahoo.com The judge said that while the initial treatment was reversible, it needed to be seen as the first step in a process which, if continued, would allow the child to live as a male.

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SYDNEY (AFP) – A 12-year-old Australian girl has been allowed to begin the first phase of a sex change after a judge decided it was in the best interests of the child, reports said Sunday.

The unnamed girl has begun hormone treatment to block puberty after the family court judge accepted an application from her mother for her to begin to reassign her gender, the Sunday Herald-Sun reported.

The judge said that while the initial treatment was reversible, it needed to be seen as the first step in a process which, if continued, would allow the child to live as a male.

“In my view, and on all the evidence, the treatment is in his (the child’s) best interests,” the judgement said.

During a hearing in December, the court heard that the 12-year-old had thought of herself as a boy since the age of four.

Several medical experts, including a psychiatrist, backed the sex-change application, as did an independent lawyer for the child and a family counsellor.

However, the child’s father could not accept that the girl had always seen herself as a boy and opposed the sex-change decision in part because of her young age, the court was told.

But the court said it needed to act quickly to prevent the onset of puberty as the girl dreaded the prospect of menstruation and developing breasts, the Sunday Herald-Sun said.

Further court applications must be made at a later stage if the child wants to take the process further and deepen her voice or develop facial hair.

Surgery to remove the womb and ovaries or build a penis cannot be done before the age of 18.

The court ruled that the 12-year-old can now apply for a new birth certificate and passport in a boy’s name.

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A huge ethical row has erupted over a judge’s decision to allow a 12- year-old girl to have a sex change that will turn her into a teenage boy.

The child’s father, who is separated from her mother, is outraged at the prospect but despite his objections the taxpayer-funded sex swap has already got under way.

His daughter, who cannot be named because of her age, is already having hormone treatment in Australia in what is one of the first such cases involving a child so young.

The girl has also been given permission to apply for a new birth certificate, passport and medical card in a boy’s name.

Last night, a relative of the child claimed the girl had been ‘vindictively brainwashed’ by her mother into making the decision to have the change.

A cousin who stayed with the girl’s family for two and a half years said yesterday that after a bitter break-up the mother had used the child to ‘get back’ at the father.

‘She’s been brainwashed from an early age,’ said the cousin, who has to remain anonymous to protect the Victorian girl’s identity.

‘The mother drilled into the girl from an early age that she would have preferred a boy.’

Now the father, who considers his daughter is far too young to make a decision on her gender, is appealing to Melbourne’s legal fraternity for help in fighting the case after he ran out of money to afford representation in opposing the sex swap request.

The Victorian Family Court was told that the girl had always considered herself a boy and was at risk of self harm if she continued to develop into a woman. Hormones now being implanted under the 12-year-old’s skin every three months will stop her from developing from a child into a woman, including preventing her hips and breasts from growing.

A further court application must be lodged in coming years for testosterone treatment to deepen the girl’s voice and promote growth of facial hair and muscles. Surgery to remove her womb or ovaries or build an artificial male sex organ must wait until she is at least 18.

The court was told that the hormone therapy was reversible and would give the family ‘breathing time’ with progressive sex change treatments and operations requiring further court orders.

‘I question how reversible the treatment is,’ said the cousin. ‘There will be psychological consequences that are not reversible. ‘I don’t think the side effects have been adequately considered. How people treat her will have an effect. ‘She will never have this time in her life again.’ News of the judge’s decision to grant the sex-change treatment has sparked furious debate.

Medical ethicist Dr Nicholas Tonti-Filippini described the ruling as ‘astounding’. He added: ‘I fail to see how it can be in the interests of a young girl to undergo treatment that will change her for the rest of her life.

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This is a great story!

It is good to see that there are people in the world who realize that being transsexual/transgendered is not a choice, a disease or a mental illness, but a matter of IDENTITY and of life and death.

Too many TS/TG kids have killed themselves at the onset of puberty, because they had no other way of coping with their bodies betraying them.

I wish this little brother of mine all the love, acceptance and blessings he can pick up along his journey. And big kudos to his mother for listening and standing by her son.

the searches get sillier and sillier

I just have to share this entry from another of my blogs – I know it’s a repeat post, but it’s good:

search: bondage ants..
search: libanon gay bears gay…
search: arab bears gay
search: leviticus silly
search: silly history facts
search: porn cruel israel
search: silly math problem

The most puzzling of those search terms is the combination in the first… “bondage ants”. Ants that are into bondage – why on earth would one do a search on that, unless of course the searcher is looking for some rather kinky animal pornography…and have a special fetish for ants…

Perhaps it was made by the same person who made a search on “ass-humping dog” and ended up being pissed at me in another Blog of mine, because he didn’t find what he was searching for? He then went on to rag about my presumed hatred for the US and it’s imperialistic use of the term “Americans” as a designation for US citizens only…

The second most puzzling search term combination is “porn cruel israel” – unless you are of the belief that Israelis somehow use pornography as a means to violate Palestinian human rights, it is really hard to imagine just how someone came up with that idea, but then I guess the Radical Far Left will believe anything their mentally deprived brains can concoct.

There is of course always the possibility that the search was made by a bunch of Palestinians looking for an Israeli Dominatrix…just too bad the IDF uniform is not the least sexy…and a Nazi Uniform just doesn’t work on brunettes…

What’s next?

Oh, yes, the Gay Arab Bears…what were they thinking? Bears humping each other in Arab garb? Bears humping Arabs? Gay Arabs humping Bears? Some how those images doesn’t work as well as the Dragon Fighting Bear

What’s with this obsession with sexually loaded search terms to find my Blog? Are people afraid to put the terms “Silly Old Bear’s Grins and Grumps” together in one line?

Do people really believe I spend a large chunk of my time writing about sexually loaded matters involving Arabs, Israelis, Lebanese Ants and Bears? Apparently.

But then, we all know that those search terms are silly little codes for “Silly Old Bear’s Grins and Grumps Blog”, a web place you (and you all know who you are :-p) really don’t want to admit that you are looking for, not even to yourselves.

If I wanted to include Lebanon (not Libanon) in my Blog, I wouldn’t be writing about Lebanese Gay Bears, Gay Rights in Lebanon perhaps, but not Gay Bears. Gay Bears are just fine where ever they are, whatever ethnicity their Bear Passports sport.

Keep them silly searches coming – you are cracking me up

I still don’t get what’s with the enslaved ants though…

The 9/11-Industry

“Will people view the date “May 3rd” the way they do “September 11th”?
The current death toll estimate from the Cyclone in Myanmar (Burma) is 100,000.

100,000 humans dead, 42,000 missing and who knows how many displaced. The death toll will probably climb in the aftermath and it will depend on how much assistance is given by how many and when.

The death toll from 9/11 was 2,998 not including the hijackers.

Will we in North America be participating in massive public displays of mourning every May3rd with pictures of giant bald eagles with the Burmese flag painted over its left eye flying over a depiction of rescue workers covering the land that was destroyed or will this whole incident fade from public memory within the next three months because, quite frankly, those people were poor and brown-skinned, and not quite as important as us?” (Christian Bobak, Toronto, Canada)

The sad answer to those questions is NO. This entire posts (in Care2) made me write some things.

One poster came in and said:

Myanmar is like comparing apples and oranges, but because of his hate-america syndrome C can’t or won’t figure out the difference.

A comparable event would be the Madrid Bombings or the London Bombings – and I bet neither of the North Americans here can even put those two events in the right month, much less pin-point the day.

The original poster continues:

I’m not downplaying the tragedy of 9/11, merely pointing out that there have been far worse tragedies and always will be, yet no one in this part of the world seems to realize that. Instead, they focus on 9/11 repeatedly, year after year as if it was the worst thing that ever happened in the history of the world. To this day, I still get NMs and forwards about 9/11 and why I should “never forget”. Well, why shouldn’t we “never forget” May 3rd?

He is making an extremely good point.

Considering the lack of NMs on the matter of the Cyclone in Myanmar, people might actually not be aware that it happened or the scope of it.

Just another foot-note.

I also have to agree with Kevin. If 9/11 had happened somewhere else that too would have been merely foot-notes in the margins of the consciousness of NA (or, I am going to narrow it down to the US). The reason it’s not, is because of the political value of it. After all, terror attacks have happened all over the world in modern times, and they haven’t gotten a GLOBAL impact zone, the way 9/11 has, despite the fact that they have definitely impacted countless lives.

To which another poster threw in this inane comment:

Pure, unadulterated bull droppings.

It became clear that the longer the discussion went on the USonians saw any attempt to discuss the lack of interest in the Myanmar Disaster was going to be met by defensive attempts to throw red herrings and derail the focus on the USonian obsession with 9/11 and their dismissal of that which does not touch the US.

I continued:

Myanmar is not big business, Myanmar is not on the North American map, Myanmar doesn’t impact an entire world through its foreign policies, so it’s “uninteresting”.

Someone once said something about humans killed in terms of 1 = murder 100 = massacre and 1000 = statistics.

I think that’s true – it’s difficult to fathom the scope of 100.000 dead/missing/injured. It is hard to see the HUMANS in such numbers.

Why is 9/11 sacrosanct to a point where an entire world is forced to commemorate something that actually only impacted the US?
Why not the same turn-out of NMs, emails, blog-entries and whatnot over 11/3 and 7/7 or 5/3?
How about commemorating 22/2? Not only were a lot of people injured and had their lives impacted by what happened that day – one of the world’s most beautiful ANCIENT buildings was lost forever…

The entire world is reluctantly involved in some way in a “war on terror” that has nothing to do with any other nation than the US and its obsession with 9/11.

Until 9/11 2001 terror happened frequently all over the world, based in various ideologies, and each nation that was struck picked up the pieces and went on with their lives.
Then the US was struck, and citizens in Sweden have their salaries and assets frozen for YEARS simply because they wanted to help their relatives abroad.

Every 9/11 since 2001 – 6 years – re-runs of footage is aired on International Media Channels across the globe – demanding that we “never forget”. The world would have to black-out the International Media (read Fox News and CNN) for a week around 9/11 to avoid the force-feeding of an Usonian national tragedy.

9/11 has become the choke-collar by which the US is holding the world hostage – “you are either with us or you are with the terrorists…”

I don’t think 9/11 is any more important than any other act of terrorism throughout history – I don’t think American lives are any more important than Burmese lives, or Iraqi Lives, or Swedish lives or Danish lives. And I refuse to be emotionally blackmailed into thinking there is a difference.

Of course it’s an important date to those who live in the U.S.?  If only because it exhibited to Americans how easily our national security can be shattered.  Why shouldn’t it be?

I don’t think anyone here said that it shouldn’t be remembered by USonians. Go ahead, remember, but don’t make the rest of the world part of the “commemoration”.

But you don’t see the British do re-runs on footage from 7/7, not even on BBC World, year after year. You don’t get NMs and emails from Spaniards demanding that we never forget 11/3 or hear either of those governments demand that anyone out-side Britain or Spain, who send money to destitute relatives have their salaries frozen or their savings impounded because they used the “wrong” channels to deliver the money – nor did you hear the British PM or the Spanish President say on International TV that “you are either with us or you are with the terrorists”.

What you saw the British and the Spanish do was cover it on National TV for as long as there was an investigation, and then they moved on, got on with their lives  and accepted the fact that it happened. I don’t get NMs about 7/7 from my British friends every year, nor from my Spanish friends about 11/3. But I do get those NMs and emails from my American friends about 9/11 EVERY year, in droves, piles and packs. And forwards.

Who the hell forces you or anyone else to commemorate 9/11? We are not required to observe it even in the US. That statement is asinine, but typical SOB. As I said to C, 9/11 is not your concern.

No, 9/11 SHOULDN’T be of any concern to any other nation than the US. But it has been made the concern of the rest of the world by the US, through an illegal war, through a yearly flooding of NMs, emails and American Media Coverage broadcast to the entire world, through political and emotional blackmail, that makes it virtually impossible to avoid being aware of, unless one chooses to move out into the middle of nowhere and get ear-plugs and blinders.

You yourself actually made my point by responding to C with “but because of his hate-america syndrome” – i.e because he has the guts to bring up the issue of why 9/11 is more important than 5/3 you label him an America hater.

The US made 9/11 my problem by involving the entire world in a national trauma and demanding that the rest of the world cow-tow to US policies in the aftermath of that national trauma.
It might not be our concern/problem, but the US is certainly shoving it down the Collective International throats through how it has handled what should really have stayed within US National Borders.

The British have suffered Terror from the IRA since the 1920’s, yet they don’t broadcast this fact through International Media, nor do they blackmail the rest of the world politically and/or emotionally into detaining every Irish person or freeze their assets or intimidate the world to attack the US (has the biggest Irish Population out-side Great Britain and Ireland) because there might very possibly be Irish people there that have IRA sympathies…(we know there are, because they frequently flee there from British Justice…)

No one has said that the US has forced the world PRIOR to 9/11, and if you read that from my posts, you are way dumber than I thought your were.

I am strictly speaking about post-9/11.

Up until 9/11 2001 terror attacks have always been considered the internal affair of the country hit by it – but just as in the past, as soon as the US is hit, it becomes a Global Affair. WWI – the US didn’t join the war until Lusitania was hit. WWII, the US didn’t enter the war until Pearl Harbor. Those are historical facts, K, and they are giving empirical evidence that “The War on Terror” didn’t exist until the US was hit, and then THAT war became a Global Affair.

London 7/7 and Madrid 11/3 would not have happened if it had not been for the US making 9/11 a global affair.

Don’t you try and make this about people blaming the US for things they had nothing to with – that’s just idiotic red herrings, K – you G-damn know better than that.

Say one syllable about the US that might be interpreted in a negative manner, and the majority of USonians have knee-jerk hissy-fit reactions – not on what is being said, but what they think is being said.
I am Danish, I live in Sweden, and I have the guts, balls and ding-dings to admit that when it comes to how both nations have stood up to the US “you are either with us or you are with the terrorists” bully tactics, I am embarrassed beyond belief.
However, as both C and Kevin have pointed out, this thread is not about Denmark or Sweden or even about the US, but about how 9/11 is being given more significance and importance than f.i May 3rd or July 7 or March 11 or for that matter February 22nd, and how the entire world is being taught, by the USA, that 2998 dead and 9/11 is somehow special, while 100.000 dead and 5/3 is not, or will not be in a few weeks.

The fact that the majority of Americans in this thread cannot see how 9/11 is being used again and again, and again to garner all sorts of sympathy, military assistance, illegal surveillance and apprehension of non-Americans out-side the US without warrants and even a shred of evidence that they have done anything illegal, as well as to justify torture, black ops and political blackmail, is staggering, and when it comes to some here, the imbecile pig-headedness on this particular issue, the knee-jerk reaction and the throwing about of red herrings, blue herrings and even white herrings is rapidly reducing their credibility as discerning, logical, level headed and educated people to 0 on the Respect-Scale.

I repeat: London 7/7 and Madrid 11/3 would not have happened if it had not been for the US making 9/11 a global affair.

The US is like a testosterone crazed spoiled teenager on acid – he scrapes his knee, another kid punches him on the nose and he is ready to go have a chainsaw-massacre, not just on the specific kid who punched him, but that kid’s entire neighborhood. On the way there he threatens everyone else with torching their house unless they put a band-aid on his nose and swear to join his chainsaw-massacre on the other kid’s neighborhood. In addition to this he also hires people to drive around the City with bullhorns on the anniversary of that nose-punch, blasting every corner of the Municipality with the message about how hurt he was and how many liters of blood he lost when that other kid punched him.

Get your heads out of your asses and try and see just how things look from the out-side – for just 5 minutes – you might actually be enlightened and become better people for it. On the other hand, you might get embarrassed over how self-centered and self-absorbed you are.

The most “funny” comment was this:

Or get real issues to talk about.

Oh, I see, the US running around like a drunk three-year-old with a gun shouting “Bang-Bang, your dead!” when the rest of the world doesn’t do what the US wants it to, is a non-issue now?
Tell that to the Swedish Citizens who had their salaries and their savings frozen for three years, because they used the halawa system to send money to their destitute relatives in Somalia, and the US screamed “Terrorists” without a shred of evidence…and yes, Sweden didn’t say anything – but I guess that is a non-issue too.
I am beginning to see what Norman Finkelstein means when he speaks about the Holocaust-Industry –  only when it comes to the US it’s the “9/11-Industry”.

Then someone asked me about the news…

Then why don’t you take your beef about what they feed you on the newsreels to the International News Media? 

Usually BBC, isn’t it?  Hello?

No, it’s not BBC – they didn’t even cover London 7/7 much beyond the few facts of the investigation, and then they only returned to the issue whenever there was a news-worthy update in the investigation and apprehension of some of the involved. They didn’t cover 9/11 beyond the 1 anniversary.

I am speaking about CNN International and Fox News – and as far as I am aware they are US Media-outlets. I could of course write a mail and complain, but I doubt they would listen.

Besides, nowadays with the Patriot Act in place of the Constitution, they only broadcast what the US Government considers kosher.

The comment made by this person only shows how extremely uneducated and ignorant about what “International News” is to the rest of the world the Americans are.

She continued:

It’s like this for me … when I see sh1t on the telly that I don’t want to watch, I switch the channel or get off my butt and do something else.

Yes, of course, why didn’t I think of that? THAT attitude is the reason so many Americans are ignorant and complacent – if they don’t like what they see, they bury their heads up their arses and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Almost every month, maybe more, brings massive natural disasters. What, must we officially commemorate Days of Remembrance for them all?

I don’t think anyone here is calling for that. I know I am not.

In Denmark April 9 and May 5 are days all Danes know what they signify, and most, at least in my and my parents generations do commemorate them, at least mentally – there used to be specific rituals as well, but I doubt anyone does those anymore. Of course we should all remember such dates as are important to us, individually and nationally. That is my point in this – besides agreeing with C – 9/11 is a US national tragedy, but because of what happened in the WORLD thanks to the action of the US AFTER 9/11, that date has been made an International Affair.

If the US had not decided to go to war on terror and invade two countries, against the wishes of the International Community, and if the US had not started all kinds of illicit and covert operations OUT-SIDE the US to intimidate and interrogate non-US citizens, 9/11 would have remained a national US affair, but because the US did all of the above, 9/11 has taken on ridiculous proportions, both in the way it’s commemorated and in the way it’s immortalized as The Event.

US was hit, like nations has been hit before her, and the entire world suffer as a result. That is MY point here. That and the fact that 6 years later the entire world is still aware of what happened in New York September 11, 2001 – while the death of 100.000 people in Myanmar will be forgotten in three months by the entire world except Myanmar and those non-Myanmarans who were directly impacted.

The TV woman comes back:

Then, knowing this, why do you watch those broadcasts if they are so irksome?

Why do I watch International News? Because the rest of the world interests me – but let’s agree that 9/11 2001 stopped being News 10/11 2001. Re-runs on news channels aren’t news, especially not when the news is 6 years old…

And I do try to avoid watching that which I do not like, but it’s really hard, because there’s a World War going on out there because of 9/11, and every now and then the American News Out-lets here will start reminiscing or think that the world has forgotten why there’s a World War going on out there.

We have three International News Channels here – CNN International, Fox News and BBC World – I usually go through all of them in the course of a day – for the variety of angles on the main stories.

With a World War out there directly based in 9/11, any story that covers the War will also cover, from time to time, references to 9/11 – also BBC World, though they are not as hysterical about it as Fox or CNN. To me the alternative is not watching the news at all, other than Swedish National News Channels, and that doesn’t cover issues I am interested in.

That is MY point here. That and the fact that 6 years later the entire world is still aware of what happened in New York September 11, 2001″

So what? Maybe they are aware it could happen to them?

The thing is it happened in the US because “America’s chicken has come home to roost!” – there is no reason the rest of the world should have to pay for what the US has done to itself. Madrid 11/3 and London 7/7 happened as a direct result of 9/11.

It could happen in Madrid and in London, not because of anything Britain or Spain had done, but because of what US has done, and is still doing.

Europeans have always been aware that something like NY 9/11 could happen to them even before 9/11 – you are forgetting that Spain has been living with ETA and Britain has been living with IRA since before WWII – that’s why you don’t see the British or the Spanish making a big number of 7/7 and 11/3. They have been there and done that for decades.

The Americans weren’t aware it could happen to them, despite Oklahoma City and the Atlanta Olympics… Europeans have been plenty aware. In fact many Europeans weren’t especially surprised.

The US has made an Political industry out of 9/11 2001, and they are not going to stop capitalizing on it until the rest of the world as ONE refuses to play in their little melodrama.

Memorial Day Lie 2

I post things like:

The Memorial Day Lie

and people call me America-hater. I think they over-dramatize. I think they have irrational knee-jerk reactions born out of a misguided patriotism that unfortunately for the world in general means that we cannot count on the American public to correctly understand the impact US Politics have on the world.

They don’t realize that as the US IS the largest political force on the International Arena, who is in power in the US is of concern to the entire world – free or otherwise. The will of the American People expressed through Elections has consequences throughout the entire world.

When the United States of North America violates Human Rights and International Laws through their Troops deployed out-side US proper this impacts not only the countries the US attacks and their citizens, but also the citizens in countries where Human Rights and International Laws are already being violated.

China, Sudan, North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Burma and others can leisurely go about violating Human Rights and International Laws, because “if the US can, so can we…”

When the US refuses to ratify and comply with International Accords like the Kyoto Accord, because it might mean they cannot use fossil fuels as much as their economy would like, or that they would actually have to go after big business for their violations of Environmentally sound legislation, it gives less economically stable countries carte blanche on how to deal or not deal with f.i their part of global warming.

If you want to be the Biggest and the Best – as Americans so want to keep telling the world that the US is, then you have to live with the responsibility of being just that – and that means the rest of us have a right to criticize to our hearts content.

The question is – do I hate Americans? No I don’t. I never did. But just as I can criticize my own country of origin (Denmark) and the country I live in (Sweden) for its vices and failures on the national and international level without this in anyway being a sign of hatred, I can likewise criticize the United States of America.

Unfortunately for many Americans they live in a country that has a record of war of aggression that supercede every other nation in the world, a nation whose soldiers are known and feared all over the world for their war crimes, arrogance and violence against civilians. A country that not only condones torture, capital punishment and general humiliation of other nationalities out-side its borders, but actively practice those based on suspicion rather than proof and due judicial process (as if torture and humiliation can ever be acceptable methods of punishment!?). I do hold the American General Public responsible for the current state of affairs.

“But I am not a Republican, I didn’t vote for Bush in the last election…” True, but you didn’t vote for the Democratic Candidate with the biggest chance of throwing Bu$hco of the White House either, now did you? No, you didn’t, you voted for some independent to satisfy your own political self-interest, instead of thinking about what’s best for the US, and as the US is as it is, what is best for the entire world. So every soldier deployed out-side the US after the 2004 election is an American responsibility – regardless of political affiliation. Truly. If you did not vote for John Kerry in 2004, you are responsible.

The day after the election there should have been a Revolutionary Committee formed, so that Bu$hco could have been ousted. There should have been protests and demonstrations throughout the US, lead by the parties that “lost”. Demonstrations, riots and rallies – but were there? No. Why? Because most Americans are complacent and politically lazy.

Instead of eulogizing, immortalizing and canonizing American Soldiers this Memorial Day – spend some time practicing remorse and study up on how to get the civil courage to get a peaceful revolution going – a revolution to have the Constitution repealed and re-written to include a prohibition against sending US troops out-side the US without direct request from the International Community.

From On Memorial Day:

“current Memorial Days are not celebrations. We are grieving for the lost, lives lost for no good reason. Savagery and butchery with no ennobling purpose. The sacrifice of blood and treasure for the benefit of politicians, oil company executives and foreign oligarchs.

So despite the parades, picnics and baseball games, despite the unveiling of statues and monuments, despite the plaques freshly dedicated with the new names of “those who made the ultimate sacrifice”, I still feel that the only legitimate celebration of Memorial Day in 2008 is to find some posturing blow hard politician and kick him right in the nuts.”

Go ahead, mourn your dead – but also remember that it is your responsibility to make sure there are no more dead of any nationality anywhere.

The Memorial Day Lie

If you are reading this message, thank a soldier. Let us not forget that every right that you still have was paid for with a soldiers blood, sweat and tears.

None of the Human Rights that are in the Constitutional Laws of either the US or any other country has been paid for by soldiers.

That is the First Lie of misguided Patriotism. It is especially not true about a country like the US, which has not had foreign troops in-side its borders since 1776. (No, the attack on Pearl Harbor didn’t land any foreign troops in the US…) Any American Troops being immortalized during Memorial Day this year was in-side other countries when they died – more often than not as the invaders and the attackers, violators and criminals against International Laws. They weren’t protecting the US – they were attacking someone else.

Never has the US taken military action out-side the US without there being a monetary, political or ideological self-interest involved – not even in the two Great Wars (WWI and WWII). The US joined both only after US interests had been attacked.

Today, US Troops litter the globe like hungry locusts, eating, burning, violating and bragging their way through area after area, claiming they are defending American freedoms. That might be, but they are doing so at the expense of the people and countries they violate and demean with their presence.

Yes, each soldier has a mother/father, a wife/husband a daughter/son – and they grieve when that soldier dies away from home playing at war and chauvinism in foreign lands – I acknowledge that. However I also ask those parents, spouses and children to dare to hold the Government, who sent them out to pillage the world in their name, responsible for those crimes against humanity, and use this Memorial Day to protest and to refuse to celebrate US violations of other peoples rights in the name of the American Constitution.

These people have the US soldiers to thank for nothing – and ultimately – is what you saw in those videos the price YOU want to pay for your freedom – regardless of whether it is being threatened or not?