Friday 29 April 2016

The Sun and the fox: Not just Hillsborough but a history of hate.


The Sun newspaper is struggling in the U.K right now, the reason for this is a history of corruption and lies, along with supporting false statements by corrupt police officers. While Newscorp carefully avoid the topic of this in Britain they successfully spread hate overseas.

Fox news opinion today was as interesting as ever: An insightful article in regard to transgender rights from Todd Sarnes ("a must read for Conservatives!") He mindlessly quotes that: " When I was growing up we just had boys and girls (him and her, not ze and zir). Our bathroom choices were limited to our God-given plumbing."

He advocates a boycott of Target for its policy on transgender toilet use, but most important is the link to the AFA. The Fox news website and The American family association are linked as associates anyway, but today the group were referenced as: "one of the most prominent and respected family advocacy groups in the nation,".

The AFA published an article on gay and transgender rights today too, try and read this just once:

"You see, the homosexual movement gained traction when it was able to get the psychological and academic communities to first reclassify homosexuality from a deviant behaviour to merely an orientation. The next push was to get medical data supporting the theory that one is born homosexual. Once that was accomplished (inconclusively so, not unlike evolution), the goal was to obtain minority status and claims for special status, as in a persecuted class of people deserving of special treatment, or “civil rights.” ".

"Not unlike evolution." The enlightened Lonnie Poindexter there writing for this "prominent and respected group." He goes on to add: "As an African-American male and a Christian, I am appalled and highly offended that my ethnicity is being lumped in with something that God’s Word says is wrong," Don't be, would be my advice, another group having civil rights doesn't make them black. That is the stupidest statement I have ever written and there really is some truly stiff competition.

I reiterate, both these articles are from today.

I digress, you have access to an Internet box: Fox news, which is the Sun, the Times, Sky, the Sunday Times and others is the largest advocate of anti LGTB rights operating in the United States today. You have the power to check this first hand.

I am not comparing this to the Hillsborough debacle, but illustrating that Newscorp is an international, old, and ongoing problem.

Rupert Murdoch, the grandfather of this nest of weasels, met with Thatcher eight times between 1988 and 89, the Hillsborough disaster was in April 1989. Rupert met Tony Blair 30 times in two years (97 - 99) and admitted bartering for buying out the UK media from David Cameron over dinner (BskyB bid, Leveson inquiry.) We should remember the present links of the prime minister to Newscorp, do me favour, Google it if you have forgotten.

I always wonder what the motivation was for the Sun headline so soon after the Hillsborough disaster, it really seems as though there was an emergency meeting to see how it could be gotten away with. And they did get away with it. The police, the politicians, the paper. People calm down a lot if you give them over two decades.

The Hillsborough argument has had time to come out in the wash, and we are truly blessed that the Internet exists at this point to remind ourselves what David Cameron and Boris Johnson had to say about it before it was brought into the light.

Context: when Rupert Murdoch was asked why he was opposed to leaving the EU: "Easy. When I go to Downing Street they do what I say, when I go to Brussels they take no notice."

I know the Daily Mail is owned by a viscount who doesn't pay any tax in the UK. I know the Express is owned by a barely sentient meat lump that donated a million pounds to UKIP, but you don't have to buy those either.

You don't need Sky TV, we have the Internet, and you certainly don't need the Sun and the Times. Until we don't buy anything under the Newscorp umbrella or vote for the half-arsed politicians it promotes we will be victims.

Epilogue.

I apologise for formatting and things: this is the first blog I have written on a tiny tablet, which I had to write in a bar in Jakarta so I had access to the Internet. Have a wonderful day.

Sunday 3 April 2016

Sexuality, Faith & pronouns: Doughnuts and diabetes.

I was in a cafe with a Christian couple and a Muslim, this is not a strange state of affairs in Jakarta nor had we just walked into a bar. I had been posed a question: "How can you agree with gay marriage?" I had laughed originally but the looks of intensity I had been given implied that I was supposed to answer.

"Right." My teacher arms did their thing subconsciously, indicating my torso and then swapping to indicate the listener as if throwing invisible information at them.

"If a man meets a woman, you don't know them." I gestured to an empty space in the room. "They're over there. They fall in love, get married and things. Has it got anything to do with you?"
"No." The Muslim confirmed, but he smiled as his brows furrowed with friendly suspicion.
"So if a man meets a man and you don't know them." I gestured to the same empty space in the room. "They get married. Has it got anything to do with you?" 
King Salman: Thinks the internet spreads
homosexuality, it doesn't.
"It is against my religion."

The Christian responded quickly with a quizzical face, the Muslim nodded and I took a deep breath.

"Do you eat pork?" I asked the Christian.
"Of course." I pointed at the Muslim.
"That is against his religion."
"That's his..."
"Yes. His, hers, theirs. Not yours."

I lit a cigarette as though smelling napalm in the morning.

No anger poured from either, a consensual nodding from the lady and thinking faces from the blokes. We are all still friends, we all had dinner and spoke about other stuff: Why I don't like football, favourite Indonesian and western foods, the myriad of reasons why I'm single, why I should be married and, well, stuff.

The Ancient Greeks: Used Tinder.
Religion seems to struggle with personal and possessive pronouns: His, hers, theirs and mine. If you feel that others should behave in accordance with your religion then surely you should behave in accordance with that of everyone else's: Don't work Saturday or Sunday because someone else doesn't. Don't eat pork, and moving outside the Abrahamic sphere, why not, don't eat beef either. You might suggest that this makes no sense and you'd be right.

Tolerate doesn't seem the verb for the job either, it seems rather presumptuous to assume that you are in the position to simply put up with the behaviour of another when it doesn't actually affect you in the slightest.

The seemingly consistent oversight in regard to gay marriage is that you don't have to join in; you can eat pork and you don't have to drive on a Saturday. Other people eating doughnuts does not affect your diabetes so please stop pretending that it does.