Posts Tagged ‘current-events’


Siblings kept dead mother, claimed she was god
Via The West Australian
Three adult siblings have been arrested after police found they had kept their mother’s body in their house for three years after her death.

The Daily Mail website in Britain reports that the trio, aged in their 50s and 60s, had initially refused entry to police who wanted to check on the elderly mother because they believed she was being abused.

Instead, they found she had been dead for years. Police arrested them after finding the skeleton of an elderly woman at their home in Usa in the country’s south-west, according to Jiji Press.

The Daily Mail reports that the Japanese sisters and brother insist that they have done nothing wrong – and say the reason they wanted to stay with their parent was that she had become a god.

The 65-year-old man and two women aged 59 and 52 are accused of conspiring to abandon a body.

When officers visited the home in order to investigate the possibility that the elderly woman was being abused, the siblings tried to refuse them entry.

One of the sisters told police: ‘There’s no need to let you see her. Get off our property,’ according to Asahi News.

When they managed to enter the house, they found Mrs Ishigai’s body lying face up on a futon – which the siblings said was ‘for religious reasons’.


16 Amish men, women face unfamiliar life in federal prison for hate crimes
Prison sentences range from one to 15 years

CLEVELAND – Sixteen Amish men and women who have lived rural, self-sufficient lives surrounded by extended family and with little outside contact are facing regimented routines in a federal prison system where almost half of inmates are behind bars for drug offenses and modern conveniences such as television will be a constant temptation.

The defendants, all members of the same Amish sect, were convicted in September of hate crimes in 2011 attacks meant to shame fellow Amish they believed were straying from the strict religious interpretations espoused by the sect’s leader. Fifteen of them received sentences ranging from one to seven years; the ringleader, Samuel Mullet Sr., got 15 years.

Prison rules will allow the 10 men convicted in beard- and hair-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in eastern Ohio to keep their religiously important beards, but they must wear standard prison uniforms instead of the dark outfits they favor. Jumper dresses will be an option for the six Amish women, who will be barred from wearing their typical long, dark dresses and bonnets.

It’s unclear where the Amish will serve their sentences, but some of the nearest options include men’s prisons in Elkton, a 90-minute drive southeast of Cleveland, and in Loretto, Pa., and women’s prisons in Lexington, Ky., and Alderson, W.Va. The dates they have to report could come any day.

Visits from family members might be difficult since they don’t drive modern vehicles. During the trial, relatives hired van drivers to take them more than 100 miles to the trial in Cleveland, where they often filled most courtroom seats.

“Amish people grow up with very strong communal connections and large extended families and participating in community activities, so being suddenly severed from that and isolated would certainly be a major change,” said Donald Kraybill, a longtime Amish researcher and professor at Elizabethtown College in the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish country.

They all rejected plea deals that offered leniency, with some young mothers turning down possible chances for probation.

Amish communities have a highly insular, modest lifestyle, are deeply religious and believe in following the Bible, which they believe instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards and stop shaving once they marry.

Prosecutors say the 16 defendants targeted hair because it carries spiritual significance, hence the hate crime prosecution. The defendants had argued that the Amish are bound by different rules guided by their religion and that the government had no place getting involved in what amounted to a family or church dispute.

Most of the men were locked up, often in less strict local jails, after their arrests and will have some idea of what to expect in prison. The women remained free during the trial, and several have asked to stay out of prison during their appeals. The judge has rejected at least one such request, and more are pending.

The timing for moving those locked up to federal prisons and for those still at home to report to begin serving terms will be up to the prison system. When they report, they will be in the custody of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

The beard-cutting defendants aren’t likely to see many fellow Amish in prison. In the Amish region east of Cleveland where one of the attacks took place, Trumbull County Sheriff Thomas

Altiere has seen only one Amish inmate in his 20 years as sheriff, and Kraybill, the researcher, knows of just one current Amish inmate.

Attorney John Pyfer, who has represented hundreds of Amish in Pennsylvania in the past 40 years, said: “I just don’t think there’s a lot of Amish that go to prison, and certainly not federal prison.” The federal prisons bureau doesn’t keep figures of how many Amish inmates it has held over the years.

The federal system doesn’t prohibit locking up relatives in the same facility, so the defendants could wind up at some of the same locations. The defendants include Mullet Sr., four of his children, his son-in-law, three nephews and the spouses of a niece and nephews.

The response to the jailing of one beard-cutting defendant highlighted the closeness of Amish families, said Altiere, the sheriff. While two relatives visited the defendant, more than a dozen more prayed behind a glass partition.

Andy Hyde, a defense attorney for two decades in the Amish area around Holmes County south of Cleveland, has represented about 40 Amish defendants over the years and said how they handle lockup varies, much like non-Amish prisoners.

“They don’t all think alike,” he said. “They are as individual as we are, so it’s easy to lump them all together. There are bold, there are aggressive Amish. They are quiet; they are shy.”

Some low-key Amish won’t stand up when threatened in prison, Hyde said, but Mullet Sr. has encouraged a tough outlook.

“Grow up,” he said in a recorded phone call to a jailed son who was among the first arrested in the case. “You can take more than that. I know it’s rough.” Mullet

Sr. wasn’t as confident about his own ability to handle prison. “You’re in there like that — I can understand that real good,” he told his son. “I don’t know if I could handle it.”

The prison system allows an array of religion-dictated head coverings for inmates, including scarves for Jewish women and hijabs for Muslim women and, for men, turbans for Sikhs, headbands for Native Americans and yarmulkes for Jews. Baggy pants and full-length robes mandated by some faiths are prohibited.

Inmates can buy clothing items from a small selection, mostly white T-shirts and gray sweat suits, federal prison system spokesman Chris Burke said.

As for the beards, “That’s not an issue, as long as it doesn’t present some sort of security risk or security hazard, and I’m not aware of any case where that’s happened,” he said.

There’s also the danger of Amish being offended, or even damaged, by access to technology, though some Amish don’t eschew modern conveniences altogether, Kraybill noted. He wrote in his book “The Riddle of Amish Culture” that some Amish have selectively adopted technology, including generators to power farm equipment and refrigerated milk holding tanks.

Kraybill knows one Amish man whose prison job taught him to work with audio equipment. In 1999, four Amish serving time in Iowa for vandalizing a neighbor’s farm were released from jail early in part because officials worried they were being spoiled by television, electric lights and telephones.

Amish may have seen television at a neighbor’s home or in a public area like a restaurant, Kraybill said, “but to have it available constantly would create a whole new temptation for them.”


Jewish Theist Superstition Leads To Genital Mutilation, Lawsuit and Reconstructive Surgery

Bris Milah Circumcision Metzitzah B'peh closeup

Rabbi Mordechai Rachminov allegedly sliced off part of a baby boy’s corona glandis, the circumference of the base of the head of the penis in human males which forms a rounded projecting border, during the boy’s brit milah in the Bukharian Jewish Community Center in Forest Hills, Queens on October 16, 2011.

Bris Milah Circumcision Metzitzah B'peh closeup

A brit milah, circumcision – file photo

Botched Circumcision Leads To Lawsuit

Shmarya Rosenberg at FailedMessiah.com

Rabbi Mordechai Rachminov allegedly sliced off part of a baby boy’s corona glandis, the circumference of the base of the head of the penis in human males which forms a rounded projecting border, during the boy’s brit milah in the Bukharian Jewish Community Center in Forest Hills, Queens on October 16, 2011 DNAinfo reported.

When the baby’s father, Gavriel Barukh, questioned Rachminov about the damage to his son’s corona, Rachminov told Barukh that the circumcision was valid, and that he had done an acceptable job.
Rachminov claimed the brit milah was “performed appropriately and that his conduct was within the standard of care and skill required of Jewish mohelim and circumcisers,” the lawsuit against him reportedly states.

The suit also alleges that Rachminov told the baby’s father that it wasn’t necessary to call a doctor. Later, after it became clear that the circumcision had gone wrong, Rachminov and the community center staff still allegedly failed to call a doctor, the suit claims.

The baby required corrective surgery.

Barukh claims that the delay in getting medical treatment for his son resulted in greater permanent damage to his son’s penis than otherwise would have been the case. The boy had to undergo one corrective surgery under general anesthesia so far, and he may need even more surgical procedures as he grows older, the lawsuit says.

The Bukharian Jewish Community Center, which is also named in the lawsuit, claims Rachminov no longer works there.
It declined to comment on the lawsuit as did the father’s attorney. A woman at Rachminov’s home told DNAinfo that she had not heard about any of the allegations against Rachminov and the community center.

 


Derren Brown Exposing Theist Faith Healing Scams

Derren Brown recently did a show called “Miracles for Sale” where he debunks and exposes common faith healing tricks used to con believers into coughing up donations.  Scams like this run rampant in America and believers are too busy believing to stop and question anything.  Knowledge is power, but often times, it is also a vaccine.

This clip is protected by the educational exemption of the Fair Use clause within the Digital Millennium Copyright Agreement.

Look for Derren Brown’s ”Miracles for Sale”


Satanic Panic Reemerges In Jimmy Savile Scandal

By Keelan Balderson

A dubious psychotherapist who helped stoke the fire of “Satanic Panic” in the 90s, appears to have jumped on the bandwagon of the Jimmy Savile scandal in order to peddle her Christian-rooted paranoia.

Valerie Sinason, a Trustee of the Institute for Psychotherapy and Disability and former lecturer at the Tavistock Clinic, was uncritically quoted in last week’s Sunday Express, claiming two of her patients were victims of “Satanic Ritual Abuse” at the hands of the now deceased celebrity.

“She had been a patient at Stoke Mandeville in 1975 when Savile was a regular visitor,” Sinason told the Express about a girl who was allegedly 12 years old at the time.

“She recalled being led into a room that was filled with candles on the lowest level of the hospital, somewhere that was not regularly used by staff. Several adults were there, including Jimmy Savile who, like the others, was wearing a robe and a mask.

“She recognised him because of his distinctive voice and the fact that his blond hair was protruding from the side of the mask. He was not the leader but he was seen as important because of his fame.

“She was molested, raped and beaten and heard words that sounded like ‘Ave Satanas’, a Latin­ised version of ‘Hail Satan’, being chanted. There was no mention of any other child being there and she cannot remember how long the attack lasted but she was left extremely frightened and shaken.”

Dr. Sinason continues with another extraordinary allegation from a woman who was 21 years old during the alleged ordeal:

“A second victim approached me in 1993. She said she had been ‘lent out’ as a supposedly consenting prostituted woman at a party in a London house in 1980.

“The first part of the evening started off with an orgy but half-way through some of the participants left.

“Along with other young women, the victim was shepherded to wait in another room before being brought back to find Savile in a master of ceremonies kind of role with a group wearing robes and masks. She too heard Latin chanting and instantly recognised satanist regalia. Although the girl was a young adult, who was above the age of consent, she had suffered a history of sexual abuse and was extremely vulnerable.”

WideShut Analysis:

While the nature of the long overdue Jimmy Savile scandal invariably means that discovering tangible evidence is unlikely (this thanks to the culture of cover-up and inaction within some of Britain’s most respected institutions), it can also give rise to fabricated and distorted claims. At this point anyone could literally say anything about Savile for an infinite number of dubious or delusional reasons. The truth lies in the overall body of allegations, their consistency and their corroboration.

Because of this I for one am airing on the side of caution when it comes to sensational topics like “satanic ritual abuse”. Those who have made claims of its existence in the past (Dr. Sinason herself included) have never provided tangible proof. There are no hordes of dead bodies, despite claims of babies being secretly bread for ritual sacrifices. There are no credible former Satanists who have provided evidence against their so called brothers. Locations where these events are supposed to have taken place are either unknown or void of any physical evidence upon insepction. There is literally nothing empirical beyond accusations.

If Jimmy Savile was considered “important” in these rituals or even a “master of ceremonies” where are all the other victims that would have seen him? Where are all the witnesses that were wittingly or unwittingly involved? Where exactly are the locations where this abuse was supposed to have taken place and do they match the allegations? And what exactly is “satanist regalia” that can be easily recognizable?

We definitely know that Savile is guilty of abuse and used his high position in society to gain access to the most vulnerable. We know this because hundreds of alleged victims and witnesses have come forward, each with similar stories. Out of these hundreds the only sign of “satanic ritual abuse” comes from Dr. Sinason, and she has not provided any evidence for the allegations. Instead they boil down to two stories her patients told her during psychotherapy sessions. Assuming these patients even exist (we’ve heard nothing directly from them), just because somebody supposedly said something in a therapy session does not make it true. Yet sectors of the media have swallowed Sinason’s account hook line and sinker.

Satanic Panic:

Stories of horrific rituals and sacrifices at the hands of so called Satanists are nothing new. They’ve been so common at certain periods in history that the term “Satanic Panic” was coined to explain the phenomenon. The last time this panic set in was during the 90s, primarily among Christians in America, although Dr. Sinason and others also promoted the idea in the UK.

An example of the absurdity of this time was a TV special hosted by Fox News reporter Geraldo Rivera. Exposing Satan’s Underground which can be viewed on Youtube features ambiguous and outright sensational documentary footage, spliced with a live studio audience, as the mustachioed hack went on the hunt for the Devil. Looking back at it now I’m just as bewildered as poor Ozzy Osbourne, who was paraded out to answer for his evil song lyrics.

The problem with the type of allegations that involve “satanists” is that they are often presented from an ignorant, religious or sensationalist perspective, with all the themes and theatrics of a Horror movie. They rarely acknowledge what Satanism actually is.

According to believers of “satanic ritual abuse” Satanism is when scary people dress in robes, chant Latin, drink blood and play with pentagrams. Unfortunately in reality such a concept lives only in the minds of those making the claims.

While there have been lone-nut “satanists” or “pseudo-satanists” in the past who have acted on imagery from religion and pop culture as part of their deranged crimes, or ridiculous ceremonies such as the Cremation of Care annually partaken by some of America’s corporate and political elite, you’d be hard pressed to find an organization, group or “ring” of satanists that actually dress in robes, chant for Satan of the bible and commit real sacrifices. In my opinion Satanism in this context is a paranoid projection of Christianity, an entertaining theme of Hollywood, and the goofing off of powerful people, who are probably quite thankful that the sensationalism of their yearly past-time obscures their corrupt closed-door dealings.


Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, of which I’m obviously a big fan.

Most Satanists don’t actually believe in Satan or God, they adopt Satan as a symbol for human nature, freedom, and to rebel against dogmas like that of the Church. Even Theistic Satanists, who revere Satan as an actual Deity/God, do not worship evil, they worship knowledge and self improvement. They believe that the Serpent in the Bible set man free from a God who was pulling the wool over their eyes.

It is of course theoretically possible that a group of sick criminals and child abusers have chosen to adopt a mish-mash of sensationalized pseudo-satanic themes and the garb of aristocratic Masquerade parties, as part of their criminal activity, but to call that Satanic would be unfair to Satanists. And if this is supposed to be taking place, victims and believers perhaps need to start gathering evidence, or at least offer coherent and corroborative allegations that can be taken seriously.

The Hollie Greig Hoax:

A lesser known story that fizzled out just prior to the Jimmy Savile scandal was the Hollie Greig Case. The plight of a Downs Syndrome girl said to have been raped by a gang of paedophiles, reaching the top levels of the Scottish establishment captured the hearts of many. Well-meaning internet activists launched the “Google Hollie Greig” campaign and some even took to the streets to protest the stomach churning crimes of the elite.

The story, which is all it seems to have turned out to be, morphed in to whatever the current alternative media celebrity wanted it to. Satanists, Freemasons, or in the case of David Icke, Satanic-Freemasons controlled by Reptilian entities outside our visible spectrum of light.

Wading through the nonsense to find the original allegation, it turns out that even some of the named members of this paedophile ring that had supposedly operated for over a decade in Aberdeen, Scotland, have left no record of even existing! Other alleged victims unashamedly named by Hollie’s mother Anne and her Spokespeople Robert Green and UK Column chief Brian Gerrish, were either not yet born or were adults before they even met Hollie, publicly denying they were harmed in any way!

In spite of claims about documentation and medical reports, when these were made available to the public they revealed that there were “no signs of inappropriate sexual experiences,” and certainly nothing to suggest a 22 strong gang of abusers had damaged Hollie for years on end. If an isolated incident of abuse had taken place at some point, the rabble that ran with the story have well and truly buried it deep beneath a mound of complete hogwash.

Hollie was found to be an unreliable source of information by the Police Complaints Commissioner and after questioning the accused, investigators found nothing to substantiate the allegations.

I interviewed a group of disaffected members of the campaign and two of the alleged abusers on the WideShut Webcast:

TheHollieGreigCoverUp.net thoroughly documents the rise and fall of this terrible hoax, or perhaps more accurately mass delusion.

Dr. Valerie Sinason and Satan’s Psychotherapists:

Valerie Sinason the “doctor” peddling the Savile Satanic stories, is part of a grouping of Christians, politicians and psychotherapists (the Committee on Ritual Abuse) that actively promote the idea of “satanic ritual abuse”, although they have yet to substantiate this beyond claims from the shrink couch. In 1994, as “Satanic Panic” was on the upswing in the United States, Sinason edited a collection of essays entitled Treating Survivors of Satanist Abuse which claimed she had unearthed a pattern of similar abuse in her patients in Britain.


Dr. Sinason.

Due to Sinason’s and similar claims a three-year Department of Health inquiry was undertaken by the anthropologist Prof Jean La Fontaine. 84 alleged cases of ritual abuse were examined, and not one turned out to be anything of concern.

Regardless of the inquiry and similar conclusions in the US, by 2002 the panic created by the CRA had infected elements of Westminster. A private meeting chaired by Lord Alton and evangelical Christian Wilfred Wong, promoted the idea that “ritual abuse” should be enshrined in law so that “hundreds, if not thousands” of crimes could be brought to justice. Of course if real abuse had taken place in any of these instances current laws were quite capable of serving justice if the evidence was brought forward.

According to research by TheHollieGreigCoverUp.net, in 2011 Sinason, Wong, MP Russell Brown and other members of the CRA invited Robert Green, the mouthpiece for the Hollie Grieg fantasy, to one of their meetings at the Houses of Parliament. In subsequent alternative media coverage Green then began to promote a ritual abuse element to the Hollie Greig story, a sort of satanic “sexing up” of the original allegations. Perhaps Green thought if he won the support of the looney pyschobabble Christian lobby (CRA) the case would get more publicity. Fortunately the only people left clinging on to the tale are the pseudo-celebrities of the online conspiracy theory community, such as the UK Column and Belinda McKenzie, the former landlady of ex-MI5 agents Annie Machon and David Shayler. Even David Icke, who includes “satanic ritual abuse” as one of the central themes in his books has stopped publishing stories about the…story.

Prof La Fontaine’s verdict on Valerie Sinason and co goes to the heart of the problem, writes the author of a 2002 Telegraph article.

“It’s depressing to find someone who has a position at leading London hospitals who is so cut off from what research methodology is, and what rational evidence is,” she says.

The article continues: When Miss Sinason announces that she has “clinical evidence” of infanticide and cannibalism, she means that her patients have told her stories about them. The implication is that, because the suffering of these people is real, their “memories” must be accurate.

Naturally this has given rise to the idea that some psychoanalysts, rather than uncovering cases of satanic abuse, are actually implanting the idea in to their patients minds, or at least nurturing and encouraging them during sessions. Rather than helping vulnerable people to work through their psychosis, the likes of Sinason might be making the situation worse.

The tragic case of Carol Myers may be an example of this. Myers, a 41 year old former patient of Sinason was found dead in 2005, leaving behind a statement saying she had suffered Satantic child abuse at the hands of her parents. It was discovered that she had spent years in and out of psychiatric hospitals and private clinics after she’d estranged herself from her family in her 20s. Upon hearing about her death the family felt shattered about the claims she’d made in her life assessment – and confused reports a 2011 Guardian article.

She said she’d been abused [by her parents], who were the high priest and priestess of a satanic cult, and that during her teens she’d had six children – some fathered by Joseph [her father] – that she’d been forced to kill. She also said she had an implant in her eye that would explode if she spoke of the satanists, and that a friend she’d confided in was murdered in front of her.

Just like the Hollie Greig story, Carole’s charges were easily proven to be false, continues the report. The sister, whose murder she’d apparently witnessed, actually died of heart problems two years before Carole was born. The house fire, too, predated Carole’s birth….It seemed the mental-health professionals rarely challenged these impossible horrors. Worse, they’d concluded that Carole’s psychological problems came as a result of this fictitious abuse.

Though it’s not clear the methodology used by Sinason on her patients, if such abuse was regularly taking place, one would assume a large cross-section of therapists would have had similar cases. The fact that only Sinason and a handful of others have unearthed allegations of satanic abuse, suggests they are in some way creating them.

Today the Satanic hysteria of the 80s and 90s is considered a moral panic [1], and the majority of mental health experts and accredited psychotherapists dismiss these early and subsequently discredited claims of “ritual satanic abuse”. Various methods originating in the United States for dealing with (or some might say implanting) satanic allegations, which were often practiced and expanded by amateurs such as preacher and conspiracy theorist Fritz Springmeier, are rejected by experts.


Fritz Springmeier, author of The Illuminati Formula Used to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Controlled Slave.

Recovered-memory therapy, a lose term that refers to unproven methods of recovering alleged buried memories, has been explored in many successful lawsuits against therapists who encouraged false allegations in their patients.

As the Savile scandal races forward, it is important to address each claim on its own merit and apply it to the overall body of allegations. Uncritically promoting the currently baseless allegations of “satanic ritual abuse” gives undue legitimacy to its proponents and may end up discrediting legitimate allegations by association.


Satanic Ritual Abuse
Sacrifice of a Christian Child

Sacrifice of a Christian Child (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sacrifice of a Christian Child (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

The flyers were all over the psychology building. Dr. Richard Ofshe, a renowned professor at the University of California at Berkeley who had won a Pulitzer years earlier, was delivering a lecture on the use of recovered memories in psychotherapy. It was the mid-1990s, and I was in graduate school at the time. I knew that Ofshe had become a controversial figure due to his evidence-based criticism of attempts by therapists to recover client’s memories of childhood sexual abuse during therapy. I rearranged my schedule so I could attend his lecture. I had no idea just how controversial it was going to be.

I assume that my readers are generally familiar with the term moral panic. Notorious examples of moral panics in the U.S. include the Red Scare, Salem witch trials, and the so-called “Satanic panic” that emerged during the 1980s over fears of Satanic ritual abuse. The idea that there were Satanic cults operating in nearly every town throughout the U.S. caught on in a big way and would not really begin to fade away until the late 1990s. It was a fascinating period to have lived through, and I sometimes have a difficult time believing that it happened at all.

The connection between fears of Satanic ritual abuse and efforts by therapists to recover repressed memories of child sexual abuse was critical to understanding the phenomena. Some of the key developments included the following:

  • The publication of self-help books that told readers “If you ever suspect that you might have been abused as a child, you were abused as a child.” The most notorious example of such a book and one with which I am unfortunately quite familiar was The Courage to Heal.
  • The reliance on outdated, unsupported, and even thoroughly discredited theories of human memory by many therapist-training programs.
  • Widespread use of hypnosis and other methods known to distort memory and even create false memories among suggestible individuals by poorly trained therapists.

Efforts by well-intentioned but misguided therapists during this time ruined many families, sent innocent people to prison, and fueled the panic over Satanic ritual abuse. Dr. Ofshe was one of the leading skeptics in psychology, and his research helped to end some of the worst abuses by therapists. His influential book at the time, and one still occupying a place on my bookshelf, was Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, And Sexual Hysteria.

Dr. Ofshe’s lecture was held in one of the larger rooms on campus, but it was overflowing with attendees. The campus community was well-represented, but there seemed to be even more people there from the surrounding community. Clearly, someone had done an excellent job of publicizing the event. I listened eagerly to one of the most interesting presentations I had heard in some time.

Nothing could have prepared me for the hecklers. Person after person in the audience stood up and angrily yelled at Dr. Ofshe. Many identified themselves as therapists from the community, people who were still using some of the methods he was advising against. But the most heartbreaking part of the spectacle were those who were in therapy at the time or who had already been convinced by their therapists that they had been sexually abused. They screamed, they cried, and they called Dr. Ofshe every name in the book. How he remained so composed is beyond me.

Critics of recovered memory therapy and Satanic ritual abuse never claim that child sexual abuse is not real. It is very real, and part of the problem with the recovered memory stuff is that it ends up harming those who were really abused by convincing countless more who were never abused that they were abused. Scariest of all, the memories created in the process are indistinguishable from the real thing.

When I think of Dr. Ofshe and those like him who have had the courage to use science and skepticism to take on some of the “sacred cows” of the psychotherapy profession and a destructive moral panic, I am deeply grateful for their presence. They have saved many people from unimaginable harm, and they should be celebrated.


Horrible Woman Too Horrible To Attend Conference Of Horrible People

by Jesse Berney

Muslim Slayer

If you’ve noticed the acrid smell of gelled hair burning today, that’s the scent of the conservative world en fuego. The battle for the hearts and minds of the worst Americans is on, and it pits the terrible against the even more terrible. At the center of the fight is Pamela Geller, who can most charitably be described as an anti-Islam activist and can most accurately be described as a racist shitbag who thinks Muslims cause cavities. As a looney-tunes piece of human garbage who wants Muslims exterminated, Geller has been one of the perennial stars of the Conservative Political Action Conference, the annual gathering of horrible human beings and future Republican presidential candidates. (Yes, we’re aware the circles intersect in that Venn diagram.)

But Geller won’t be attending CPAC in 2013. It isn’t because she doesn’t want to go. She filled out an application and everything. But — and even your Wonkette has to admit this is pretty mean — they ignored her. Completely. Didn’t even send her a letter telling her she wasn’t invited, although her previous events had been standing room only (according to noted Pamela Geller expert Pamela Geller).

Why did they spurn Geller? What could make her too conservative for CPAC, the conference that turned away noted union-puncher Chris Christie for getting within 20 feet of Obama and not spitting in his face?

Gellar committed the cardinal sin of conservative Republicans: she criticized Grover Norquist.

Norquist, of course, is the bearded anti-tax zealot who wants to drown your government in the bathtub (which is a lot of murder). He’s also enormously powerful; virtually every Republican elected to federal office has signed his nonsensical pledge never to raise taxes under any circumstances. And while he ranks high on the list of terrible people, he has provided a small voice of reason in the conservative community when it comes to Muslims, i.e., he doesn’t think that all of them (including his wife) should be put to death.

Geller has criticized Norquist for this record, claiming he has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood because why else wouldn’t he be willing to call for the destruction of an entire people? First she was fired from her column at Newsmax for daring to call out a fellow columnist, and now the good (no wait, terrible) people at CPAC have denied her a speaking slot.

At least now she’ll have more free time, which she’ll presumably spend running subway ads so racist even Fox News calls her out on them, accusing President Obama of ordering the military not to kill Osama bin Laden, or accusing President Obama of being Malcolm X’s secret love child.

[Salon.com]

 


Cover Image: August 2010 Scientific American Magazine
Faith and Foolishness: When Religious Beliefs Become Dangerous

Religious leaders should be held accountable when their irrational ideas turn harmful

By Lawrence M. Krauss

A church tower in Budva, Montenegro.

Image: iStockphoto

Every two years the National Science Foundation produces a report, Science and Engineering Indicators, designed to probe the public’s understanding of science concepts. And every two years we relearn the sad fact that U.S. adults are less willing to accept evolution and the big bang as factual than adults in other industrial countries.

Except for this time. Was there suddenly a quantum leap in U.S. science literacy? Sadly, no. Rather the National Science Board, which oversees the foundation, chose to leave the section that discussed these issues out of the 2010 edition, claiming the questions were “flawed indicators of scientific knowledge because responses conflated knowledge and beliefs.” In short, if their religious beliefs require respondents to discard scientific facts, the board doesn’t think it appropriate to expose that truth.

The section does exist, however, and Science magazine obtained it. When presented with the statement “human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals,” just 45 percent of respondents indicated “true.” Compare this figure with the affirmative percentages in Japan (78), Europe (70), China (69) and South Korea (64). Only 33 percent of Americans agreed that “the universe began with a big explosion.”

Consider the results of a 2009 Pew Survey: 31 percent of U.S. adults believe “humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time.” (So much for dogs, horses or H1N1 flu.) The survey’s most enlightening aspect was its categorization of responses by levels of religious activity, which suggests that the most devout are on average least willing to accept the evidence of reality. White evangelical Protestants have the highest denial rate (55 percent), closely followed by the group across all religions who attend services on average at least once a week (49 percent).

I don’t know which is more dangerous, that religious beliefs force some people to choose between knowledge and myth or that pointing out how religion can purvey ignorance is taboo. To do so risks being branded as intolerant of religion. The kindly Dalai Lama, in a recent New York Times editorial, juxtaposed the statement that “radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who hold religious beliefs” with his censure of the extremist intolerance, murderous actions and religious hatred in the Middle East. Aside from the distinction between questioning beliefs and beheading or bombing people, the “radical atheists” in question rarely condemn individuals but rather actions and ideas that deserve to be challenged.

Surprisingly, the strongest reticence to speak out often comes from those who should be most worried about silence. Last May I attended a conference on science and public policy at which a representative of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences gave a keynote address. When I questioned how he reconciled his own reasonable views about science with the sometimes absurd and unjust activities of the Church—from false claims about condoms and AIDS in Africa to pedophilia among the clergy—I was denounced by one speaker after another for my intolerance.

Religious leaders need to be held accountable for their ideas. In my state of Arizona, Sister Margaret McBride, a senior administrator at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, recently authorized a legal abortion to save the life of a 27-year-old mother of four who was 11 weeks pregnant and suffering from severe complications of pulmonary hypertension; she made that decision after consultation with the mother’s family, her doctors and the local ethics committee. Yet the bishop of Phoenix, Thomas Olm­sted, immediately excommunicated Sister Margaret, saying, “The mother’s life cannot be preferred over the child’s.” Ordinarily, a man who would callously let a woman die and orphan her children would be called a monster; this should not change just because he is a cleric.

In the race for Alabama governor, an advertisement bankrolled by the state teachers’ union attacked candidate Bradley Byrne because he supposedly supported teaching evolution. Byrne, worried about his political future, felt it necessary to deny the charge.

Keeping religion immune from criticism is both unwarranted and dangerous. Unless we are willing to expose religious irrationality whenever it arises, we will encourage irrational public policy and promote ignorance over education for our children.

This article was originally published with the title Faith and Foolishness.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist and science commentator, is Foundation Professor and director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University (www.krauss.faculty.asu.edu).


Non-theistic State Senator Says the Mafia Has Higher Standards Than the Catholic Church
By Hemant Mehta
Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers is one unique politician. After being the longest-serving senator in the state’s history (serving for 38 years, starting in 1970), he was term-limited out and left office in 2008. This past November, he was eligible to run for office again and took advantage of that opportunity, winning his race fairly comfortably.

Chambers 

Chambers is one of the few non-theistic, high-ranking politicians in the country. He’s also African-American and a powerhouse legislator.

He’s making headlines again for filibustering a bill that would “expand a prison work program.”

How is that news? Well, his filibuster included lots of unrelated remarks about religion:

 

Then, while burning up time trying to talk [Sen. Mark] Christensen’s bill to death, Chambers talked about attending a fundamentalist church where, as a child, he claimed children were terrorized and made to feel they were headed for Hell. He called Bible stories “fairy tales” that he outgrew.

Chambers sounded more like a preacher — albeit an unconventional and blasphemous one — than a senator, but he blamed the Legislature for that, too, noting that the body “invites religion into the chamber every morning” with a prayer. He said preachers who enter the legislative chambers are entering “my territory” to “do their damage.” He accused senators of not heeding those preachers’ calls to “do the right thing,” which he said “brings condemnation on you.”

While on the subject of Christianity, Chambers noted that Jesus “looked more like me than you all.” Despite his claims he doesn’t believe in God (though he sued God once), Chambers demonstrated that he knows the Bible (which he derisively calls the “Holly Bibel”) well, telling his fellow senators that you can judge a society by how it treats its children, elderly and enemies.

Finally, Chambers said the Mafia has higher standards than the Catholic Church hierarchy because if their members were “raping children, they’d off them.”

After three hours of talking on Wednesday, the Legislature closed up shop for the day. But Chambers is expected to continue where he left off this Monday.


Rand Paul on Glenn Beck Show: “Something Really Depraved Is Rising in the Country”
Fear-mongering Right Wing Nuts!

“I think that our country needs a spiritual cleansing. I really think we need a revival in this country — and I do need your prayers and I do need the strength to go on with this, because this isn’t always easy.

[…]

I think our country’s problems are deeper than political — that we need spiritual leaders to come forward. We need something beyond just the politics of the day and, you know, I see it everywhere — something really depraved is rising in the country.”


The Pope, Pregnant Children, and Violence Against Girls and Women
Soraya Chemaly

by Soraya Chemaly

Pope Benedict XVI.
Pope Benedict XVI. (Vibe)

I find it strange that Pope Benedict XVI chose a week that will culminate in a global strike to protest violence against women toretire. And for health reasons no less. Orange smoke and irony and all that. On Thursday of this week, all over the globe, people will gather and dance for One Billion Rising, a day dedicated to striking against violence against women. As Eve Ensler, the founder of  V-Day which has organized the strike knows better than most, “violence against women is a global, patriarchal epidemic.

Part of that epidemic is compulsory pregnancy. The Pope’s rationale is that his “age means he lacks strength to do job.” You could use the exact words to describe the nine-year old girl  whose family the Pope excommunicated for having a life-saving abortion after being raped and impregnated, with twins. It seems to me that her age meant she lacked strength to do the job, too. Actually, the job would have killed her.  These things happen. She and 16 million other pregnant adolescent girls a year, two million of whom are under age 15, strike me as 16 million good reasons to rise.

As does this girl: last Thursday a friend posted a story on Facebook, ”Dafne, 9-Year-Old Girl, Gives Birth To Baby Girl In Mexico.” Millions read and shared it over the weekend.  The link appeared with this caption: “The girl reportedly delivered a 5.7 pound baby by Caesarian section on January 27. She was 8-years old when she became pregnant.” Picky, picky feminist wordsmithy me thinks the caption should read, “The girl underwent a dangerous Caesarian surgery to delivery a 5.7 pound baby on January 27. She was 8-years old when a 17-year old boy forcibly inseminated her.”  Eight-year olds cannot consent to sex. They also cannot consent to having contraceptives implanted in their arms, but that’s now happened too. Just in case she gets ideas. On the same day, by coincidence, a 12-year old in Argentina gave birth to twins after she “fell pregnant.” Like she tripped by accident.

While nine is very young, girls this age having babies is not as rare as we’d like to think. The United States has more “teen” births than any industrialized nation, including girls as young as 10,  and our rates have been climbing.  However, 95 percent of teen births take place in poorer countries. According to W.H.O., “Half of all adolescent births occur in just seven countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria and the United States.” Many girls die because they do not have control over their bodies and their own reproduction.

Last year, after a 10-year old in Columbia gave birth, experts blithely explained that “a C-section delivery for such a young mother is not unusual.” Given global trends (researchers, armed with competing theories, have noted that the average age of the onset of menstruation for girls has been steadily declining for decades) we can reasonably expect to see instances involving younger and younger girls. Little girls, and women who find themselves raped and pregnant often “want to die.” It’s only one reason why raped people shouldn’t be forced to carry pregnancies to term. Guess what else, besides the Papacy, of course, is a “job or life with no retirement age?” Whereas the Pope is retiring to “go back to his priesthood,” girls who are raped, pregnant and give birth or die cannot go back to their childhoods.

This was the conclusion reached by a doctor last year in the case a mentally-disabled girl, 10-years old, in Kansas, who had to have an abortion after becoming pregnant as a result of rape.  The Kansas medical review board that revoked the girl’s doctor’s license.

In Mexico, authorities “don’t know if [the girl] is being entirely truthful.” Mainly because of her age, but interesting choice of words. Is she saying she was raped? Or is she saying she wasn’t? The article linked to doesn’t say which. Turns out she’s saying that the boy was her “boyfriend.” As one commenter speculated, the child “may have even had feelings for” her rapist.  Authorities, in a perverse game of “he said/she said,” acknowledge that they are looking for the missing father, a 17-year old boy, “to acquire his own account of what occurred between the two.” In case he reveals that she was wrong in her assessment and wants to make it clear that he raped her?

Besides, it’s probably her parents fault, not his. “The new mother is one of 11 children… and her parents were unable to watch her while they worked.”  It wouldn’t have mattered, as her mother explained that her daughter had sex willingly and she “didn’t report it because she was not aware” it was a crime.

“Who has 11 children, anyway?” many people wondered. This is perhaps the most important question because another way of asking it is, “Who insists on compulsory pregnancy that impoverishes millions?” Globally, historically, that has been been the Catholic Church, which continues to put girls and women at risk worldwide through bullying policies that ensure that they will be poor and unhealthy as the result of unregulated childbearing and rearing.  This is the same Church that excommunicated a mother and doctors for saving a 9-year old victim’s life by when they ended her pregnancy with twins. Guess who the Church didn’t excommunicate? That’s right,her rapist stepfather.

Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, the retiring Pope of the Catholic Church, should be tried in the International Criminal Court of law for human rights abuses, not only for being head of an organization that has shielded and enabled child rapists, but for the deadly and systematic global obstruction of girls’ and women’s rights to life and health.

In the hospital where Dafne gave birth, 25 percent of the births are to teenage girls.  She lived, but pregnancy is THE leading cause of death for girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide.  A thoroughlyunholy international alliance between American evangelicals and the Vatican has resulted in the death of millions. While President Obama quickly repealed the “global gag rule” put into place by George Bush, which prohibited even the mention of abortion where US funds were being used for women’s health care abroad, the Helms Amendment, which restricts the use of US aid for the purposes of providing abortions, even in conflict zones where rape is endemic, still stands. It is in no small measure the result of this policy and the influence of the Catholic church that 150 million women cannot get the birth control they need or safe abortions that would save their lives.  We know how to stem these deaths— family planning, including both.

Meanwhile, here in the US, where Catholic Bishops and friends refuse to comply with the law and religiously-inspired Republican legislators spew venomous mythologies about rape, race, poverty, and women, the rate of maternal mortality has DOUBLED in 25 years. We now rank 50thin the world for pregnancy related morbidity.  In New York City, black girls and women, are eight times more likely than white ones to die from pregnancy related causes. The girls and women dying globally often our poorest, darkest, young girls, regardless of what country they live in.

“Someone’s 10 years old, and they were raped by their uncle and they understand that they’ve got a baby growing in their stomach and they don’t want that,” explains the doctor in the Kansas case, Dr. Ann Neuhaus. Here, we don’t excommunicate people, we harass them and terrorize them, in some cases, we kill them. Have you seen The Assassination of Dr. Tiller?  Abortion clinic violence wrought by anti-abortion groups is constant and debilitating to those who do this work. In what can only be described as an archaic witch hunt, Kansas revoked Neuhaus’ medical license last year.  They had to take a break from praying that the Violence Against Women Act won’t pass to do it.

When these religious beliefs conspire with political ambition, it’s girls and women who pay the highest price.  Consider the eight men who all voted to block passage of the Violence Against Women Act on Monday. Every woman in the Senate with the exception of Sen. Deb Fisher (R-NE) co-sponsored the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which is now being held up byconcerns  that largely hinge on the color of the people involved in cases of abuse and the color of the authorities with jurisdiction over them.  Which is interesting, because in the case of the young girl who gave birth last week, many people think it’s a “Mexican” problem. Hmm.

“What kind of person would sleep with an 8-year old?” (No one was sleeping.)  The kind that has created what Mia Fontaine recently called, “America’s Incest Problem.”  Fontaine rightfully and cogently suggests how it is possible that our institutional rape tolerances have their roots in family and household rape tolerances.  No one wants to model our government more on an abusive, father-knows-best, privacy of the family, patriarchal unit than conservative Republicans using proxies like “states rights” and “lying bitches.” It’s not a random coincidence that people who obstruct the reauthorization of VAWA are those who object to family planning and women’s abilities to control their own bodies and fates.

Just a little more than a month after Governor Rick Scott of Florida held a lovely party at the Governor’s Mansion celebrating the passage of four new abortion restriction laws in that state (a state dedicated to faith-based abstinence programs), a 14-year old girl stuffed a towel into her own mouth, gave birth in her bathroom, feared her parent’s reaction, strangled her newborn, hid it in a shoe box, was discovered and charged with murder as an adult. She faces life imprisonment. She apparently didn’t know she was pregnant when she went into labor.  Before you laugh and think that’s impossible, one study found that in one out of every 7,225 pregnanciesa woman is in this situation until the moment of birth.  There are many reasons a woman might be in “pregnancy denial.”

As in Mexico, no one knows where the boy or man involved is either. He does not face murder, nor do the parents, teachers, state legislators or others who failed her.  The girl may, like many kids in abstinence-only situations, not even have known how she got pregnant.  Even if she did she may have taken this to heart:  As one abstinence teacher put it in a Texas classroom, “Go ahead and use a condom. You’ll still be known as a slut.”  If her tragic case isn’t a clear enough example of girl hatred, degradation and misogynistic abuse wrought by a system of oppression, I don’t know what is. And she’s white. And in a wealthy country.

For girls and women, the Pope represents an inconvenient morality.


The Tea Party and the John Birch Society: Two peas in a pod?

Even JFK was branded as being a Communist sympathizer and a traitor or America by the John Birch Society

In the days and hours prior to his assassination in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was the subject of an extremely vitriolic hate campaign organized by the Dallas based American Fact Finding Committee. That group, an extremist right wing outfit with ties to the John Birch Society, even went so far as to sponsor a full page ad entitled “Welcome Mr. President” in the Morning News (Dallas paper) on the day of his assassination. The ad expressed hostility to Kennedy and his administration’s policies. Also distributed during that time were pamphlets and posters designed to resemble FBI wanted posters, with Kennedy displayed as the criminal in question.
The portrait of Kennedy is above the red printed wordsWanted For Treason.” Below that are listed Kennedy’s seven treasonous ”crimes” against the people of United States. The reverse features the same exact photos of Kennedy and is printed in Spanish. The poster displays normal folds, minor toning, a few staple holes and some tape reinforcement on the reverse (Spanish side) fold lines.
John F. Kennedy Wanted for Treason Poster From The Day He Was Assassinated

The image the JBS would like to project to the unknowing

The image the JBS would like to project to the unknowing

The "Children of Corn" - How the JBS and the Tea Partiers have morphed into one body

The “Children of Corn” – How the JBS and the Tea Partiers have morphed into one body

A Supreme Court Justice was attacked by the JBS for ruling for the Civil Rights amendment

A Supreme Court Justice was attacked by the JBS for ruling for the Civil Rights amendment

Martin Luther King Jr. was branded as being a Communist by the John Birch Society

Martin Luther King Jr. was branded as being a Communist by the John Birch Society

The oh so obvious contradictions of the Tea Party.  Selective Memory?

The oh so obvious contradictions of the Tea Party. Selective Memory?

The Tea Party fringe groups who aren't fearful of a violent confrontation with the government

The Tea Party fringe groups who aren’t fearful of a violent confrontation with the government

Sarah Palin: Queen of the Tea Partiers?

Sarah Palin: Queen of the Tea Partiers?

The Tea Party doing what they do best...which is what again?  Oh...spreading fear

The Tea Party doing what they do best…which is what again? Oh…spreading fear


Red Brain, Blue Brain: Republicans and Democrats Process Risk Differently, Research Finds

A team of political scientists and neuroscientists has shown that liberals and conservatives use different parts of the brain when they make risky decisions, and these regions can be used to predict which political party a person prefers. The new study suggests that while genetics or parental influence may play a significant role, being a Republican or Democrat changes how the brain functions.

Republicans and Democrats differ in the neural mechanisms activated while performing a risk-taking task. Republicans more strongly activate their right amygdala, associated with orienting attention to external cues. Democrats have higher activity in their left posterior insula, associated with perceptions of internal physiological states. This activation also borders the temporal-parietal junction, and therefore may reflect a difference in internal physiological drive as well as the perception of the internal state and drive of others. (Credit: From: Darren Schreiber, Greg Fonzo, Alan N. Simmons, Christopher T. Dawes, Taru Flagan, James H. Fowler, Martin P. Paulus. Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (2): e52970 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0052970)

Dr. Darren Schreiber, a researcher in neuropolitics at the University of Exeter, has been working in collaboration with colleagues at the University of California, San Diego on research that explores the differences in the way the brain functions in American liberals and conservatives. The findings are published Feb. 13 in the journalPLOS ONE.

In a prior experiment, participants had their brain activity measured as they played a simple gambling game. Dr. Schreiber and his UC San Diego collaborators were able to look up the political party registration of the participants in public records. Using this new analysis of 82 people who performed the gambling task, the academics showed that Republicans and Democrats do not differ in the risks they take. However, there were striking differences in the participants’ brain activity during the risk-taking task.

Democrats showed significantly greater activity in the left insula, a region associated with social and self-awareness. Meanwhile Republicans showed significantly greater activity in the right amygdala, a region involved in the body’s fight-or-flight system. These results suggest that liberals and conservatives engage different cognitive processes when they think about risk.

In fact, brain activity in these two regions alone can be used to predict whether a person is a Democrat or Republican with 82.9% accuracy. By comparison, the longstanding traditional model in political science, which uses the party affiliation of a person’s mother and father to predict the child’s affiliation, is only accurate about 69.5% of the time. And another model based on the differences in brain structure distinguishes liberals from conservatives with only 71.6% accuracy.

The model also outperforms models based on differences in genes. Dr. Schreiber said: “Although genetics have been shown to contribute to differences in political ideology and strength of party politics, the portion of variation in political affiliation explained by activity in the amygdala and insula is significantly larger, suggesting that affiliating with a political party and engaging in a partisan environment may alter the brain, above and beyond the effect of heredity.”

These results may pave the way for new research on voter behaviour, yielding better understanding of the differences in how liberals and conservatives think. According to Dr. Schreiber: “The ability to accurately predict party politics using only brain activity while gambling suggests that investigating basic neural differences between voters may provide us with more powerful insights than the traditional tools of political science.”


Iowa Anti-Choicers Admit They Want to Imprison Women for Abortion
Amanda Marcotte

by Amanda Marcotte

Rep. Rob Bacon of IowaRep. Rob Bacon of Iowa

A little over a month into 2013, and one thing is absolutely certain: Anti-choice legislators aren’t going to let the damage that their war on women did to their fellow conservative politicians’ electoral prospects slow them down from competing with each other to show who can concoct the most vile schemes to undermine women’s rights. Now Iowa Republicans are flexing their muscles, trying to show that they hate the ladies even more than the forced-transvaginal-ultrasound folks in Michigan, Texas, and Virginia, or the women-can’t-think-on-weekends-and-holidays nuts in South Dakota.

Nine state representatives in Iowa have introduced a bill that would define killing a fertilized egg as “murder”.

707.1 Murder defined.

1. A person who kills another person with malice aforethought either express or implied commits murder.

2. “Person”, when referring to the victim of a murder, means an individual human being, without regard to age of development, from the moment of conception, when a zygote is formed, until natural death.

Murder includes killing another person through any means that terminates the life of the other person including but not limited to the use of abortion-inducing drugs. For the purposes of this section, “abortion-inducing drug” means a medicine, drug, or any other substance prescribed or dispensed with the intent of terminating the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman, with knowledge that the drug will with reasonable likelihood cause the termination of the pregnancy. “Abortion-inducing drug” includes the off-label use of drugs known to have abortion-inducing properties, which are prescribed specifically with the intent of causing an abortion, but does not include drugs that may be known to cause an abortion, but which are prescribed for other medical indications.

The point of this bill is, simply put, to throw women in jail for “murder” for deliberately ending pregnancies—and quite possibly for trying to prevent them, as many anti-choicers continue to insist, despite the evidence against them, that the pill and emergency contraception work by “killing” fertilized eggs. (They work by suppressing ovulation and preventing fertilization.) The language of this is quite expansive. They’re not only counting women who reach out to legal providers for abortion as “murderers,” but also women who go online and buy drugs for this purpose. The broadness of this suggests that they may even try to snag women for “murder” for taking common rue, a herbal medication women use to kick start their period (and potentially end an unwanted pregnancy) if they’re late.

This is a dramatic shift in the traditional anti-choice approach to discussing the issue of how to handle women who seek abortion. While I personally have no doubt that many to most anti-choicers fully intend and have always intended to get to a place where women are being jailed for abortion, the official stance of anti-choice legislators and activists is generally to deny believing that nearly a third of American women should go to jail for “murder.” Maintaining the illusion of disinterest in punishing women for abortion with jail is so important that after Rep. Cathrynn Brown of New Mexico was caught proposing jail for rape victims who get abortion, she rewrote the bill specifically to avoid the accusation.

Claiming they don’t believe that women who get abortions are murderers even while calling abortion “murder” has been a huge part of the anti-choice movement for years. (See discussions about it from 2006, 2007, and 2010, for instance. There’s also this fun video that makes the rounds periodically that demonstrates how inane this little dance really is.) This giant failure of logic stems from a couple of things, but mainly because it’s well-understood that anti-choicers don’t actually think abortion is murder, and just want to punish women for sex. And jail time for sex is just going to strike most people as inhumane in the extreme. So they’ve split the difference and said they intend to jail doctors but not women—a position, that while illogical in its rationale at least made them seem slightly less malevolent towards women.

So what’s changed that some anti-choicers, in Iowa at least, are coming out and not only admitting they want a third of women to go to jail for abortion, but are aggressively pushing for it? A huge chunk of it is the result of the overall shift rightward amongst conservatives in the past few years, a shift that is increasing extremism on many fronts, such as more overt racism and, as we’ve seen in recent weeks, an absolutist stance against gun control that resists even the most common sense measures.

But it’s probably also partially a reaction to the changing landscape of abortion. The growing popularity of medication abortion plus an abundance of illegal pharmacies selling all manner of drugs online and the increasing restrictions on legal abortion have created a situation where everyone believes—even though hard evidence is elusive—that more women are taking matters into their own hands when it comes to abortion. As Ada Calhoun of the New Republic explained:

Online, however, these drugs are readily available, often via suspicious-sounding sites that make claims like: “The Affordable Abortion Pill Will Safely, Quickly Terminate Your Undeveloped Fetus In The Privacy Of Your Home, Save You Time And Hundreds Of Dollars. It Is 100% Clinically Safe, Very Effective And The Most Affordable Abortion Pill You Will Get Your Hands On For Now!!!”

Determining how many American women have had home abortions is exceedingly difficult: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not track illegal abortions. There is no blood test for drugs like Cytotec, and so such an abortion is indistinguishable from a natural miscarriage, even to a doctor. However, the proliferation of online dispensers suggests a rising demand. There are thousands of websites selling Cytotec for as little as $45 to $75 (compared with $300 to $800 for a legal medicated abortion in a clinic). Some claim to offer the harder-to-come-by Mifeprex, but may in fact be peddling Cytotec, or aspirin, or nothing at all. (Possible sources for the drugs include Mexico, where Cytotec is available over the counter, or even the United States, since it’s also prescribed here as an ulcer medication.)

The traditional anti-choice stance of blaming the provider while pretending the patient is a mindless baby machine and not a choice-making person is harder to maintain in the face of women acting as their own providers. It’s common for anti-choicers to paint an image of an abortion patient as a woman who simply hasn’t thought about it—this also helps justify waiting periods to “think” it over—and who is a victim of greedy doctors and evil feminists who are somehow tricking women (who they clearly imagine are very, very stupid) into getting abortions. But even anti-choicers with the most active imaginations have to struggle with explaining how a woman can fire up a computer, search around for black market abortion-inducing drugs, and order them without being capable of making a decision and therefore being held accountable to the laws regarding that decision.

So this is where we’re at: Iowan anti-choicers admitting they want to throw women in jail for abortion. It’s an unpopular stance precisely because it lays bare the misogyny of the anti-choice movement. Instead of dithering around with more waiting periods and humiliating mandatory ultrasounds, I sort of hope more anti-choicers start demanding jail time for a third of American women. That sort of thing can offer clarity for people who had any doubt left that the anti-choice movement is, indeed, nothing but a war on women.


Urban Legends vs. The Pill: How the Christian Right Uses Propaganda Against Reproductive Rights
Author image

by Amanda Marcotte

Conservative fundamentalist Christian culture has always had a tradition of showing one face to the outside world and one face to each other, and negotiating how much of the latter can inform the former has always been a complex task. It’s only grown more confusing in the age of the internet. On one hand, the internet makes it very easy for people to create their own media bubble, which means conservative Christians can and often do only consume media made with them specifically in mind. On the other hand, the internet means that it’s easier than ever for outsiders to have access to media materials that are intended for Christian right insiders only, which is the bread and butter for websites such as Right Wing Watch.

The result is becoming a problem for the Christian right. Their insular culture encourages ever more bizarre flights of fancy, competitive demonstrations of misogyny, and making up of their own facts—and then all that is transmitted in a way where outsiders can tune in and expose the inner workings of the Christian right to the outside world. Kevin Swanson of Generations Radio is simply the latest person to fall into the trap of speaking to insiders where outsiders can hear. And outsiders are astounded at what Christian right culture looks like on the inside.

Right Wing Watch has started monitoring Swanson, who used to broadcast in multiple radio stations in Colorado but now prefers to reach out over the internet. They claim to have over a million downloads of their program. And while the official outward face of the Christian right claims to oppose reproductive rights because of “life,” the glimpse that Swanson gives of the internal Christian right culture makes it extremely clear that the objection has much more to do with the belief that women should be uneducated, dependent on men, and servile.

Now Swanson’s show got another round of media coverage for his claim that the birth control pill turns a woman’s uterus into a “graveyard” full of “dead babies”.

I’m beginning to get some evidence from certain doctors and certain scientists that have done research on women’s wombs after they’ve gone through the surgery, and they’ve compared the wombs of women who were on the birth control pill to those who were not on the birth control pill. And they have found that with women who are on the birth control pill, there are these little tiny fetuses, these little babies, that are embedded into the womb. They’re just like dead babies. They’re on the inside of the womb. And these wombs of women who have been on the birth control pill effectively have become graveyards for lots and lots of little babies.

As our own Robin Marty noted, this is the sort of thing that doesn’t really need comment to refute. Still, as she points out, this is ignorance of biology on the level of believing women don’t poop or something: “[E]ven if somehow there were tiny mini babies stuck in your uterus, they would come out when you menstruate since THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT OF MENSTRUATION.” Swanson is married to a bona fide uterus-haver, who, having only had five children, clearly did not spend her entire reproductive life pregnant. Which, in turn, means some kind of menstrual product probably came into his home at some point. So I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I think Swanson isn’t actually ignorant of menstruation and probably not ignorant of the fact that zygotes aren’t actually miniature babies.

That’s because what Swanson is doing here is something that’s very typical to intra-Christian right culture, which using a lurid urban legend as the basis of a political argument. All cultures have urban legends, butthe Christian right does tend to traffic in more lurid and more political ones. (Think: Satanic messages in rock songs.) Fred Clark claims, in fact, that Christian right culture is rife with propagandistic urban legends.

These other kinds of urban legends can’t really be considered fiction — they’re more like simple lies. Such stories are not told in the hopes of eliciting delight, but usually in order to create or to foster a sense of aggrieved victimhood and resentment.

Such stories, in other words, are propaganda. They are about sowing division, heightening the antipathy between groups or factions. They are about creating and enforcing and sustaining tribal conflict.

Swanson is clearly doing this: Telling an urban legend of vague “doctors” and “scientists” finding teeny-weeny “dead babies” in the uteruses of women that they’re opening up for some unknown reason. The anti-choice movement basically lives off these urban legends, telling themselves lurid, propagandistic stories about everything from what’s supposedly going on in abortion clinics to a laundry list of claims of all the ills that will befall you if you defy the patriarchal God’s orders and use contraception. This “dead babies” thing is a classic example of this.

Of course, nowadays a lot of these urban legends are being passed off in the mainstream as if they were the same thing as arguments, instead of weird stories that Christian conservatives tell to titillate each other. The “dead babies” weirdness stems from an equally absurd anti-choice urban legend that claims that the birth control pill and emergency contraception work by “killing” fertilized eggs; in reality, they work by suppressing ovulation. This propagandistic urban legend—or what Fred Clark would call a “simple lie”—is used to make their opposition to female-controlled birth control sound less misogynist than it is. This bit of nonsense has, sadly, become part of the basis for attacks on insurance coverage of contraception, even though it makes about as much sense as arguing that there are teeny-weeny baby skeletons lurking in the uteruses of women who’ve used the birth control pill.


Terrified Glenn Beck:  Technology Leads To ‘Transhumanism’ And Nazi Atrocities (Video)
Glenn Beck Idiot AATTP

 Glenn Beck is the king of fear-mongering and he routinely instills irrational and paranoid delusions and fears into his listeners as well. Of course, he does this because his idiot disciples will buy gold, and seeds and other snake oil garbage from his worthless website. He’s a charlatan, a fraud. A freak.

So what is terrifying Beck now? Something called “Transhumanism” brought on by a technological singularity. The “Singularity” is the moment when the exponential growth of technology intersects and surpasses the processing of the human brain. This is an idea conceived by Ray Kurzweil and others.

Transhumanism, abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. SOUNDS TERRIFYING!!!! We think the reason Beck is so scared is that he counts on his audience NOT using their brains.

Here are the psychotic ramblings of Glenn Beck on the subject.

 


Granddaughter Of Westboro Baptist Church Founder Defects From Hate-Cult To Speak Out (VIDEO)
Posted by Lorraine Devon Wilke

Libby Phelps Alvarez, before and after; photo courtesy of Capital Bay

Libby Phelps Alvarez, before and after; photos courtesy of Capital Bay

A cult has a way of ensnaring its members with promises of spiritual freedom, the seductions of power and charisma, and in some cases, just the sheer influence gained by tapping into the fears, biases and bigotry of potential recruits. Scientology has used those many tools in attracting followers, as has every cult from Jim Jones with his People’s Temple mass suicide tragedy in Jonestown, Guyana; David Koresh and the Branch Davidians of Waco notoriety, Warren Jeffs of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints and its polygamous sexual abuses; right up to the Westboro Baptist Church and their pervasive and media-savvy mission statement of hate and bigotry.

While it’s one thing for adults to be ensnared, willingly or otherwise, it’s another for the children of cult members to be held captive simply for being unfortunate enough to be raised by a cult member. Such was the case with Libby Phelps Alvarez, the granddaughter of Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps, whose particularly toxic view of gays and Jews–and anyone who supports either–is well-known and much vilified (you have to see Brit comedian, Russell Brand, take on a few of his henchmen!).

Libby had no choice but to tag along with her family of religious zealots when their “life’s work” demanded that they express hate in the “name of God” by protesting funerals and screaming vile insults at grieving families. Now, after having ultimately escaped the clutches of her nefarious family, she is publicly speaking out about their malignant world view and its impact on her while growing up.

In an interview with Andrea Canning from the Today Show:

She said she first began to question church activities after a friend’s husband died while serving in the military. Her family picketed the funeral. She stayed behind.

“There was a point when we started praying for people to die,” she said. “I didn’t actually do that, but I was around when they did it.”

In addition to disrupting military funerals, Westboro church members also are known for extreme anti-gay and anti-Semitic rhetoric, targeting both groups in their protests. But they shocked the nation when they announced plans to protest the funerals of the children killed in the Newtown, Conn., mass shooting.

“Westboro will picket Sandy Hook Elementary School to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment,” the church announced in a tweet.

“They think that they are the only ones who are going to heaven and if you don’t go to that church you’re going to hell,” Alvarez said.

Religious narcissism is not new and certainly not specific to this controversial branch of the “Christian” faith. Most of the more fundamentalist religions believe their way is the only way to get to Heaven, making that promise–and threat–a significant part of their pitch. It’s the depths to which the Westboro group takes this philosophy that separates them from the more benign interpreters of that zeal, however. There is a sociopathic thread that weaves through their hate-based doctrine that goes far beyond the standard “we’re the only way you can get to Heaven” message, as demonstrated by their “God hates fags” signs and comments, and their suggestion that everyone should “sing praise” in response to the Sandy Hook massacre.

Given the sheer saturation and public demonstration of that level of hate, it’s not hard to extrapolate that some of those raised in the church–ones who may have had the good fortune of holding on to their individual thought processes and seeing the malevolence being sold–would find themselves repulsed by the group’s principles. Alvarez was one of the lucky ones in that regard.

She decided to leave the church four years ago, slipping away while her parents attended a protest.

“I was terrified I was never going to see my family again,” she said, still tearful at the memory.

Alvarez still aches to see her parents, but “my aunt emailed me and said that nobody wants to talk to me anymore.” [Source]

wed_phelps_alvarez_t640

Still, the pain of leaving her family, who, despite the toxicity of their faith, remain her family, was sharp. She remains close by: only 30 miles from the church. While she has sorrow for any hurt she may have caused them on a personal level, she’s firm in her own decision to leave, and even hopeful that her courageous move will encourage and inspire others to do the same.

“I would tell them I love them and that people aren’t evil like we were taught,” she said. “And even though I am crying right now, life isn’t full of sadness and sorrow and disease and heartache like they told us. You can lead a happy and good life.” [Source]

Like many “apostates” who managed to find their way out of other cults to reach back to help others do the same, here’s hoping Libby is successful in her goal. Thinning the ranks of the Westboro Baptist Church can only be a good thing for everyone.

See video of Today Show interview:

 


The ‘Obama Faked Newtown to Take Our Guns’ Theory
Cover of

Cover via Amazon

Cover via Amazon
One of the points Charles Pierce made in his excellent book, Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free, was that we in the U.S. love our conspiracy theories. He traced several such theories over the course of our nation’s history, and I suspect we can all think of a few in our present and recent past. One of the newest and most disturbing concerns the mass murder that took place in Newtown, CT, late last year. Evidently, some on the right are now pushing the theory that President Obama faked the entire thing, hiring actors to make it look convincing. And why would he do such a thing? To provide false justification for taking our guns, of course.

This particular theory, like so many others on the right, starts with the conviction that black helicopters filled with ATF agents are going to show up on our property any day now in order to disarm us. “It will be like Waco but on a larger scale!” Sure it will. From the belief that this outcome is inevitable, they work backwards to provide a way in which it could come about. And somehow the UN will be involved. They always are.

When I first saw bits and pieces of this theory emerging on Twitter and assorted websites, I was disgusted. That initial reaction has largely passed and been replaced by one of disappointment. You see, it occurs to me that this is precisely the sort of thing our reality-based community ought to love smacking down. With our professed love of skepticism, critical thinking, reason, debunking myths, and the like, this sort of garbage should be drawing us together. We could be the ones taking the lead on providing reasonable voices to counter this stuff.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that we all support gun control or that we should do so. I’m rather conflicted on that subject myself. I just wish I believed that we are all capable of setting aside our petty squabbles for awhile to focus on dismantling this theory and those like it before they do additional harm. If the atheist community is not going to be at the forefront of debunking this sort of delusion with the same vehemence with which we approach religion, disappointment seems to be the appropriate reaction.


This Bitch Again: Donald Trump Sues Bill Maher For $5 Million
Posted by: Michael K

When the talking fart bubble out of Jabba the Hutt’s ass known as Donald Trump publicly told President Obama that he’d give $5 million to the president’s charity of choice if the president produced his college records and shit, Bill Maher jokingly threw a proposition at Trump. On The Tonight Show last month, Bill Maher said that he’d give $5 million to Trump’s charity of choice if Trump proved that his mother didn’t make him by screwing an orangutan bareback-style. Bill Maher basically said that Trump’s hair looks like an orangutan’s dirty ass, so he wouldn’t be surprised if his biological father was an ape. Makes sense to me!

Donald Trump says that he has coughed up a copy of his birth certificatethat says he is the father of Fred Trump, a human person, and Bill Maher hasn’t paid up. So Trump filed a lawsuit in L.A. today to get that $5 million. Trump queefed out this statement to Politco:

“I don’t know whether this case will be won or lost, but I felt a major obligation to bring it on behalf of the charities. Bill Maher made an unconditional offer while offer while on The Jay Leno Show and I, without hesitation, accepted his offer and provided him with the appropriate documentation. Prior demands for payment went ignored by Mr. Maher despite the fact that the beneficiaries of this suit will ultimately be the charities […] who would share equally the $5 million — something I am certain they can desperately use.”

Trump wants to donate the money to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, Hurricane Sandy Victims, March of Dimes and the Police Athletic League. Trump also said on Fox & Friends this morning that he doesn’t think Bill Maher was joking when he made the bet. Trump’s lawyers couldn’t be reached for comment, because their mouths were otherwise occupied with the act of laughing at how he keeps throwing stupid money at them.

In related news, orangutans everywhere have filed a class action lawsuit against Bill Maher for defamation for saying that Donald Trump is part their species. Gloria Allred is representing them and they will win.


NONBELIEVERS SECOND LARGEST ‘DENOMINATION’ IN AMERICA

“Nones” climb to 19%

America’s “Nones” — the nonreligious — are at an all-time high, now comprising nearly one in five Americans (19%), according to a new study by the Pew Center for the People and the Press. The 19% count is based on aggregated surveys of 19,377 people conducted by the Pew Research Center throughout 2011 and reported by USA Today.

“This means great news for progress, for reasoned debate, for the status of nonbelievers in our nation,” said FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. “The freethought movement and FFRF are growing rapidly. There is an explosion of local and campus freethought groups, activities and conferences.”

“Nones” were already the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, according to the definitive American Religious Identification Survey, whose 2008 study showed adult Nones up to 15% from 6% in 1990. ARIS, released in 2009, actually estimated “Nones” at 20% if responses to broader questions about religious practices were included.

Freethinkers have been highly marginalized, in part for being perceived as making up a small segment of the U.S. population. Actually, there have always been many more nonreligious than Jews, Muslims, Mormons or Eastern religions’ adherents, currently respectively at 1.2%, 0.6%, 1.4% and 0.9% of the U.S. population, according to ARIS. “Most minority religions, however tiny in numbers, are treated with respect, inclusion and sometimes deference. It’s time public officials and the American public wake up to the changing demographics and stop treating atheists and agnostics as outsiders,” added Annie Laurie Gaylor, who co-directs FFRF with Barker.

“With nonbelievers at about 20% of the population, there is no longer any excuse for leaving us out of the equation. Public officials cannot continue to assume ‘all Americans’ believe in a deity, or continue to offend 20% of the population by imposing prayer at governmental meetings or government-hosted events. These surveys now show that ‘In God We Trust’ is a provenly inaccurate motto. Nonbelievers should not be treated as political pariahs,” Gaylor said.

“ ‘Nones’ in fact were at the time of the last ARIS survey, the second-largest ‘denomination’ in the nation,” Barker said, “following Catholics at 25% and tied with Baptists at 15%. According to the new PEW study, nonbelievers now outrank Baptists.”

  The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational charity, is the nation’s largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics), and has been working since 1978 to keep religion and government separate.