Egypt plans to make not believing in god a crime.

The Egyptian parliament’s committee on religion has announced plans to make disbelief in God a crime. Under the current law against “contempt of religions” atheists can be prosecuted for expressing their disbelief in public but the committee’s proposal would go further and criminalise disbelief itself.

I wonder how they plan to detect that crime, or collect evidence for it, or present the evidence in court.

They don’t really, I suppose, it’s just a fist under the nose. But there’s nothing quite like people trying to tell you what to believe to bring out the defiance in most of us.

Ah the British sense of humor.

Oh Elf, we know it’s nippy outside but not that kind of nippy! #ElfBehavingBad pic.twitter.com/kYMNruqLda

— Poundland (@Poundland) December 11, 2017

Rub-a-dub-dub, three in a tub. A night of 'selfies and chill.' #ElfBehavingBad pic.twitter.com/C5FrrUMdJF

— Poundland (@Poundland) December 12, 2017

That’s one way to scratch that itch. That’s not Santa’s toothbrush is it?! pic.twitter.com/bzgX3LFEDA

— Poundland (@Poundland) December 13, 2017

Don't tell Rudolph I've found a new piece of ass pic.twitter.com/UA4Ye2jh3R

— Poundland (@Poundland) December 16, 2017

First come, first served pic.twitter.com/JstSqtWOTh

— Poundland (@Poundland) December 19, 2017

Spot the difference… pic.twitter.com/hWV83m4EYE

— Poundland (@Poundland) December 21, 2017

Noel Coward eat your heart out.

Porn script or sexual assault?

That’s the question two filmmakers recently asked a group of men for a new video project titled “Be Frank.” Created by Dutch natives Damayanti Dipayana and Camilla Borel-Rinkes, “Be Frank” is a seven-minute film featuring men discussing the recent #MeToo movement and the role men can play in combating sexual violence.

…

In the above “Be Frank” clip, Dipayana and Borel-Rinkes asked men to read different storylines and then guess whether the situation was from a pornography script or a #MeToo story. The #MeToo campaign, originally created by activist Tarana Burke, has recently sparked a cultural reckoning with how we deal with sexual violence around the world.

Although it’s revealed at the end of the clip that all of the stories are porn scripts, many of the guys have trouble discerning which ones are porn and which ones are sexual assault.

Which tells you something about porn.

The last still in the clip features a statistic that sums up the issue well: “88.2 percent of porn scenes contain some form of physical aggression against women.”

Also in the Guardian, and not particularly significant but kind of amusing…why Carter Page had such a hard time defending his PhD thesis.

In emails seen by the Guardian, Page compares his decade-long struggle to get a postgraduate qualification to the ordeal suffered by Mikhail Khodorkovsy – the Russian oligarch sent to a Siberian prison by Vladimir Putin.

In one unhappy note to his examiners, he writes: “Your actions to date have been far more destructive than anything I have personally experienced in my 39 years on this planet.” The fate of Khodorkovsky, he adds, represents “the closest analogy in recent history to my trials”.

Well at least we can see he had a scholarly sense of proportion and fitness.

Page first submitted his thesis on central Asia’s transition from communism to capitalism in 2008. Two respected academics, Professor Gregory Andrusz, and Dr Peter Duncan, were asked to read his thesis and to examine him in a face-to-face interview known as a viva.

Andrusz said he had expected it would be “easy” to pass Page, a student at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas). He said it actually took “days and days” to wade through Page’s work. Page “knew next to nothing” about social science and seemed “unfamiliar with basic concepts like Marxism or state capitalism,” the professor said.

The viva, held at University College, London, went badly. “Page seemed to think that if he talked enough, people would think he was well-informed. In fact it was the reverse,” Andrusz said. He added that Page was “dumbfounded” when the examiners told him he had failed.

Doesn’t that sound exactly like his future boss? Who once told a journalist he’s the best expert on foreign affairs because he has a very good brain and he’s said a lot of things? Exact words.

Their subsequent report was withering. It said Page’s thesis was “characterised by considerable repetition, verbosity and vagueness of expression”, failed to meet the criteria required for a PhD, and needed “substantial revision”. He was given 18 months to produce another draft.

Also sounds like the boss, who babbles instead of saying anything of substance. Page tried again, failed again, pitched a fit, got new examiners, finally got his PhD.

Here’s where Trump said it, back in March 2016:

Donald Trump finally shared the name of someone he consults on foreign policy: himself.

Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” who he talks with consistently about foreign policy, Trump responded, “I’m speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things.”

Yep. The more things you say, the better expert you become.

Yet more shame and degradation on the world stage, this time involving the shiny new US ambassador to the Netherlands.

Trump’s new choice for ambassador, Pete Hoekstra, who was only sworn in by the vice president, Mike Pence, on 11 December, was being interviewed for current affairs programme Nieuwsuur by reporter Wouter Zwart.

Zwart says: “You mentioned in a debate that there are no-go zones in the Netherlands, and that cars and politicians are being set on fire in the Netherlands.”

Hoekstra replies: “I didn’t say that. This is actually an incorrect statement. We would call it fake news.”

Hoekstra is then shown clips of him saying: “The Islamic movement has now gotten to a point where they have put Europe into chaos. Chaos in the Netherlands, there are cars being burnt, there are politicians that are being burnt … and yes there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.”

Oops. So how did he respond? Did he say oh sorry my bad? Did he hell.

Challenged about having called this “fake news”, Hoekstra then went on to deny to Zwart that he had in fact used the phrase “fake news”.

“I didn’t call that fake news. I didn’t use the words today. I don’t think I did.”

Think again, sir.

These are the people who are ruling over us.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc0wnvLDR3u/

“Some good friends decided that while my birthday is not for 2 weeks that they would get me an early 40th birthday cake,” Trump Jr. explained on Instagram, beside a photo of himself gripping the cookie with both hands and what appears to be a grimace of pain.

Cruz stands next to him.

Newsweek wrote the senator “appeared unmoved by the cookie,” though Bill Kristol saw a “sickly smile” on his face — as though he had some foreboding of the storm to come.

The sickly smile on Ted Cruz's face suggests he knows that even many of his hard core supporters are going to think this a bit much…. https://t.co/VxUbVQ1LSt

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 18, 2017

These are the people ruling over us.

There’s a pattern.

On a summer afternoon in Southern California nine years ago, a commuter train blew through a stop signal and ran head-on into an oncoming freight train, killing 25 people.

After investigators determined that the crash could have been prevented by automatic-braking technology, Congress ordered all passenger railroads to install new systems by 2016. Since then, Congress has extended that deadline and trains have kept speeding into preventable disasters, including the Amtrak derailment that killed three people in Western Washington on Monday.

In Amtrak’s case, this is a recurring nightmare. The crash this week was eerily reminiscent of one just two years ago in Philadelphia, where an Amtrak train barreled into a sweeping curve at 106 miles an hour before jumping the tracks and rolling over. Eight people died.

That crash, too, could have been prevented by the technology, known as positive train control. But five months after it happened, Congress gave railroads at least three more years to install it.

Well, you have to look at it from their point of view. Installing it will take money and effort. Not installing it is more convenient and cheaper. Naturally Congress is going to say yes sure you can have more time, there’s no hurry.

“Here we are, almost 10 years later, and that deadline came and went,” said Kitty Higgins, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board. “The railroads have been slow-walking it and it still is not implemented. It’s absolutely outrageous.”

But it’s cheaper and less trouble to keep putting it off. That’s the important thing.

Railroads have cited the cost and complexity of adding the technology, which relies on satellites and radio signals to prevent trains from running out of control if an engineer has lost focus or fallen asleep while driving. Industry estimates of the total cost of installation exceed $10 billion.

See? Money and effort! Those don’t grow on trees you know.

Legislators settled for a new deadline of Dec. 31, 2018, with an additional, two-year extension possible on a case-by-case basis. President Barack Obama signed the extension into law in October 2015.

The two Republican lawmakers behind the deadline extension, Representative Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania and Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, were the top two recipients of political campaign contributions from the railroad industry in 2016, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Of course they were.

Last week in El Salvador:

An El Salvador court has rejected the appeal of a woman sentenced to 30 years in prison over what she says was a stillbirth.

Teodora del Carmen Vásquez, 37, said she was working in 2007 when she began to experience intense pain, then bleeding. She called for help before fainting. As she came round, police officers surrounded her and accused her of murdering her baby by inducing an abortion of her nearly full-term baby.

She was convicted of aggravated murder in 2008.

The non-profit Center for Reproductive Rights, which has been campaigning for the release of dozens of other women convicted of murder in El Salvador for obstetric emergencies, said the decision was “another slap in the face for Teodora, who never committed any crime”.

“The Salvadoran court is perpetuating the criminal prosecution of women who suffer pregnancy complications, denying women their dignity, freedom and rights,” said Nancy Northup, the centre’s president and CEO.

“El Salvador’s abortion law criminalises and wrongfully imprisons women. Today the Salvadoran court chose to deny Teodora her due process.”

That “savior” really hates women.

In 2014, a coalition of NGOs, led by Agrupación Ciudadana and the Center for Reproductive Rights, launched the “Las 17” online campaign to call for the release of women who had experienced obstetric emergencies and who were charged with having an illegal abortion and then convicted of murder. Three women have been released. But in July 19-year old Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez Cruz, who had been raped, was sentenced to 30 years for murder after she had a stillbirth.

What was that about witch hunts again?

Sweden too.

Cissi Wallin was inspired by the explosion of the Harvey Weinstein racket to name a name.

Ms. Wallin had filed a police report in 2011, a few years after she was sexually assaulted, only to see it dismissed within weeks. Now she decided to do something different: She put the name of a well-known columnist for Sweden’s largest left-wing tabloid newspaper on her Instagram page, alongside a statement saying he had drugged and violently raped her in Stockholm more than a decade ago.

Soon more people came forward about the man. I was a co-author of an investigation into his behavior.

And suddenly, just as in the United States, stories of other national figures in the arts and media began pouring forth. About men who had used their professional power and influence to harass or abuse younger, often subordinate women, often at work. About situations in which “everyone knew,” but men viewed as indispensable had been protected by management for years (sometimes the perpetrators were management). In contrast to the situation in the United States, however, the wave quickly grew beyond accusations against the famous and powerful: Tens of thousands of Swedish women have signed a series of appeals in the national press detailing incidents of brutal sexual assault and harassment in almost every professional field, from law, medicine and academia to politics and defense. Committed by Swedish men.

The libertarian crew will say oh no, that’s a witch hunt, that’s infantilizing women, that will never do; all those tens of thousands of women must deal with their own personal harasser or harassers and then Move On. But knowing it happens a lot lets women know they’re not alone in being harassed and they’re not alone in saying it should stop. It’s not weak or infantile to want to know what the truth is and to want fellow resisters in fighting back.

As someone who has lived and worked in both Sweden and the United States, I’ve seen sexual harassment in both places over decades. In my experience, the American workplace is more openly sexualized and flirtatious, a place where women are expected to be open and enthusiastic to advances by men, whether in the form of offers of mentorship that must happen over dinner or as more direct abuses of power.

Sweden, on the other hand, is more cold, correct and asexual on the surface. But give a Swedish man a drink or two after work, and you’ll be surprised how quickly many of them will take out their various frustrations in the form of lewd behavior against women, only to seamlessly go back to voicing egalitarian ideals the next day.

#ThemToo

Via Actual Feminist News:

Stop the Harassment and Threats
Against Radical Feminists

Ad in the December 2017 Issue of The Progressive

[Note from the editors: Below find the text of an ad that appears in the December issue of The Progressive. In our view the issue raised warrants a conversation on the revolutionary left. We are therefore reproducing the ad here as our way of helping to facilitate that discussion.]

As socialists and progressives we are committed to building a united movement of the left rich in our diversity capable of creating a just, democratic, and egalitarian society freed from all forms of oppression and discrimination. To build such a movement for fundamental change will require an atmosphere of mutual respect, and an ability to tolerate political differences among our movement sisters and brothers. It will also require a willingness to engage in open debate and discussion in order to find common ground and build solidarity among various oppressed groups with at times divergent interests.

Radical feminists have been an essential part of the broader progressive movement for social justice from the Second Wave of feminism in the 1960s through the present. Radical feminism puts front and center the question of female liberation, i.e., how to end female oppression and subordination by a patriarchal society, therefore raising important issues for the left.

We are therefore disturbed by recent demonization, intimidation, and threats of violence against radical and lesbian feminists by certain segments of the transgender community and their supporters who have attempted to silence feminist voices and have had a chilling effect on the ability to engage in open discussion and debate on complex issues of sex, gender, and sexuality, a debate that is sorely needed in order to build an effective and united movement.

These disturbing incidents include the following:

(1) Ann Menasche, a long time social justice activist, socialist, Green, and civil rights lawyer was cyberbullied on Facebook in March of 2017 by a group of trans-activists and their supporters. She was labeled a “TERF” (“Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist”), “Nazi,” “rapist,” “racist,” and a supporter of “genocide” who, like other “TERFs” are hateful bigots that deserve to die. Several people contacted her employer in an unsuccessful attempt to get her fired from her job. Her “crime” was to respond to a post by writing that persons born female are oppressed on the basis of sex (a position taken by many leftists since the time of Karl Marx), and that it was unfortunate that many males fail to recognize this fact.

(2) Feminists involved in the Vancouver Women’s Library faced similar threats and epithets by a group calling itself “Trans Communist Cadre” during its opening night event in February of 2017. Though the library welcomed transwomen to participate in the event and to join the library, more than two dozen protesters showed up, blocking and assaulting female patrons, tearing a poster from the wall, pouring red wine on the bookshelves and books, and tripping the fire alarm. They labelled library supporters “TERFS” and “fascists,” demanded that the library take “TERF” books off the shelves (authors such as Adrienne Rich and Mary Daly) and made groundless accusations of violence against library founders.

(3) In March of 2017, Tasha-Rose Hodges, a mother of six with children in the St Paul, Minnesota, school district, announced her candidacy for Board of Education. The focus of her campaign was to improve the quality of education in St. Paul and address problems like lead in the drinking water. She had also taken a strong stand against bullying of any kind in the schools, including on the basis of gender identity. However, because she had expressed gender-critical views, within 24 hours of announcing her candidacy, an on-line campaign began to bully her into dropping out of the race. They described Hodges as a “loathsome snake,” accusing her of spreading “venom” and “hate,” with one writer telling her crudely to essentially go home and masturbate. Another reminded readers “to punch your local TERF.” The harassment escalated to include death threats. Hodges ended up dropping out of the race because it was no longer possible for her to focus on the issues that had motivated her campaign to begin with.

(4) In January, 2017, the Working Class Movement Library in Salford England, a small volunteer-run library which archives stories of working class people’s lives and activism, announced that it would be hosting feminist journalist Julie Bindel as a speaker. Julie is a founder of Justice for Women, a movement for women who live with domestic violence. She was to speak on her experiences growing up as a working class lesbian. In response, hundreds of people began a petition campaign demanding that the library rescind the invitation, claiming that her work and her views on gender constituted bigotry. Julie was accused of “violence,” and was called a “fascist” and “Nazi.” The protesters even went so far as to go after the library’s funding. However, many women around the world voiced their support for her right to speak. Ultimately, the library did not cave into the pressure to no-platform her, and on February 4, 2017, Julie gave her talk.

(5) In January, 2017, Carey Callahan, a person who has detransitioned from a transman back to female (not herself a radical feminist), posted on her blog a link to screen shots of responses a friend of hers, also a de-transitioner, had received to a post the friend made on twitter. Her friend had tweeted that she believed there was a need for female-only space. Two transwomen responded by providing a detailed description of how they would rape her, sending her pictures of their genitals. Casey, who describes herself as “invested in the well-being of anyone with gender dysphoria, whether trans-identified or not,” declared that she was done with taking seriously people who use the word “TERF” because of the harassment and threats that go along with the word.

Tragically, both radical feminists and transgender persons experience oppression and violence (overwhelmingly at the hands of heterosexual males) as a result of the strict gender norms, sexism, and homophobia of our society. Women as a group are subjected to systemic physical and sexual violence. Moreover, many radical feminists are lesbians who remain a marginalized and stigmatized group because of their sexuality. Most lesbians are also gender nonconforming in other ways and many have themselves experienced “gender dysphoria.” To the extent that conflicting ideologies and interests have developed between activists from two oppressed groups—transwomen and radical feminists—we are challenged to find ways to enhance communication and debate and to ensure that all voices are heard.

We, the undersigned, as supporters of feminism and progressive politics believe that regardless of one’s views on gender, the tactics of name-calling, no-platforming, and threats to individual feminists’ jobs, livelihoods, and personal safety must be wholeheartedly rejected by progressives. Such tactics have no place on the left.

Signers:

Mick Allan—Author, British Labor Party & union mem-ber: UK • T. Grace Atkinson—Radical Feminist, author: New York • Jessica Barr—Lesbian Feminist: North Carolina • Tina Beacock—Lesbian, socialist, Chicago Teacher’s Union member: Illinois • Julia Beck Jean-Baptiste—Case manager, Dept. of Health; feminist activist: Maryland • Steve Bloom—New York City activist, poet, composer: New York • Michael Brackney—Green Party activist: California • Sandi Brockway—Founder, “Microcosm USA,” peace & justice activist: California • Ras-Iras Charles—Non-western progressive, writer on politics/economics: Dominica • Beth Chopp—Engineer, former union president: California • Paul Cocksholt—Socialist author, Scottish Republican activist, Member, Solidarity (Scotland): UK • Kim Cortez—Marxist feminist writer: Arizona • Max Dashu—Historian, educator & writer: California • Peter Dolack—Activist, author, writer of “Systemic Disorder” Blog: New York • Martin DuFresne—Translator, pro-feminist activist: Canada • Theresa El Amin—Founder & Regional Director, Southern Anti-Racism Network: Georgia • Marisa Figueiredo—Redstockings: Massa-chusetts • Mariana Firestone—20 something radical lesbian feminist & activist: New York • Laurie Fuchs— Founder & director, Ladyslipper Music: North Carolina • Rochelle Glickman—Feminist & Green Party member: California • Rick Greenblatt—Independent Socialist, Green Party activist: California • Shani Handel—Long-time activist: New Mexico • Carol Hanisch—Women’s Liberation; co-editor of Meeting Ground On-line: New York • Kim Harmon—Educator, feminist: Ohio • Chris Hedges—Author & social critic, “On Contact”: New Jersey • Pete Healey—Long-time activist: New York • Andrea Houtman—Long-time socialist & Green Party activist: California • Rya NT Jones—Trans YouTuber: Wisconsin • Morgan Laird—Writer, student, radical feminist activist: Texas • Traven Leyshon—Dual mem-ber Solidarity/Democratic Socialists of America, socialist labor activist: Vermont • Rachel (“Charlie Rae”) Lima—Writer, “The Fifth Column”: North Carolina • Merritt Linden—Lesbian Feminist activist: California • Karla Lindquist—Domestic violence counselor, reproductive rights and union activist: Oregon • Fran Luck—Host/Producer, “Joy of Resistance,” Multi-cultural feminist radio, WBAI: New York • Sherry Lypsky—Red-stockings: Pennsylvania • Matt Meyer—Int’l Peace Research Association: New York • Selene Michaels—Visual artist & feminist activist: New York • Blaine Mogel—College instructor, Sierra Club & Green Party: California • Nichole Montoya—Web developer, Housing & Green Party activist: California • David Morrison—Green Party Activist: California • Meghan Murphy—Founder & Editor, Feminist Current: Canada • Lisa Neuman—Translator, Radical Feminist: UK • Damien Oheix—Factory worker: France • Sarah Palmer—Marxist freelance writer: Massachusetts • Marge Piercy—Poet, novelist, memoirist: Massachusetts • Lynne Sandoval—Lesbian-feminist & Green Party activist: California • Kathie Sarachild—Redstockings: New York • Kathy Scarbrough—Women’s Liberation; co-editor of Meeting Ground On-line: New Jersey • Meg Starr—Resistance in Brooklyn: New York • Jean-Baptiste Studer—Polemicist; former local secretary, Movement des Jeunes Communistes de France: France • Linda Thompson—Past co-chair, Green Party of Connecticut: Connecticut • Emily Weir—Trade unionist, communist: UK • Parker Wolf—Radical feminist, Butch Lesbian blogger: Illinois • Miranda Yardley—Transexual blogger; editor, “Terrorizer” music magazine: UK

All organizational affiliations for identification purposes

For years, decades, workplace sexual harassment goes unreported and unprevented, then one big perp is outed and the dam breaks – so naturally the next step is the move to say repair that dam right now. Spiked came up with several women prepared to say this has gone much too far – not the routine harassment but the reporting of the routine harassment.

Lionel Shriver is one.

In the complicated dance of courtship, someone has to make a move, and the way one conventionally discovers if one’s attraction is returned is to brave some gentle physical contact and perhaps accept rebuff.

Actually it’s not. There are many other “moves” in that complicated dance; physical contact is not the first step. Also, the workplace is not a dating agency, and it’s a bad idea to treat it as one. The issue isn’t just groping in general, it’s mostly groping at work and how it can handicap women.

Julia Hartley-Brewer is one.

Women who put up with sexual harassment and keep quiet about it for years, protecting the perpetrators, are hailed as heroines and strong, powerful feminists. Yet, bizarrely, women who speak out and deal with sexual harassment forcefully at the time, and then happily move on with their lives as I and millions of other women have done over the years, are derided as ‘victim-blamers’ or even ‘rape apologists’. It’s almost as if a woman is only ‘the right kind of woman’ if she is willing to play the victim.

Horse shit. Women didn’t “put up with sexual harassment,” they had it forced on them and weren’t able to speak out and deal with it. Some did speak out but got nowhere; some did speak out and got fired or blacklisted. Apparently Hartley-Brewer had better luck, which is great for her, but it’s far from a reason for her to accuse women who had worse luck of “protecting” the perps. Situations differ; perps differ; outcomes differ.

This is not what feminism was supposed to be about. It was supposed to be about empowering women, not infantilising them.

The top fave libertarian trope – oppressed groups must never discuss their oppression, because that’s “playing the victim” and being “infantilized.” They have to suck it up and move on, take responsibility and tough it out, be empowered. There’s no such thing as structural oppression, it’s all just random incidents between Free Individuals, and the strong will survive.

Feminism was too so supposed to be about structural oppression. Hartley-Brewer is confusing feminism with the self-help movement.

She ends by saying with emphasis that it’s a witch hunt.

It’s all like that – typical libertarian talking points, Living Marxism morphed into Droning Randism.

Rebecca Solnit:

Oh look, it’s hate on women for not stopping men from doing horrible things to women, again? Street poster blaming Merle Streep for raper-dude, though she has said she didn’t know and made a strong statement for victims, against him (in comments below). Possibly connected to the Pentagon Papers movie she’s starring in, and the poster is by right-wing artist Sabo, who Mike Cernovich (Mr. Pizzagate if you’re not familiar with him) is urging people to donate to. The gist of these kind of attacks is so fundamentalist: men are women’s responsibility, not their own.

Sure, blame Meryl Streep for Harvey Weinstein; that makes all the sense in the world.

Solnit quotes herself from a couple of months ago:

Remember that every time a man commits a violent act it only takes one or two steps to figure out how it’s a woman’s fault, and that these dance steps are widely known and practiced and quite a bit of fun. There are things men do that are the fault of women who are too sexy, and other things men do that are the fault of women who are not sexy enough, but women only come in those two flavors: not enough, too much, and it is the fate of heterosexual men to endure this affliction. Wives are responsible for their husbands, especially if their husbands are supremely powerful and terrifying figures leading double lives and accountable to no one. But women are now also in the workforce, where they have so many opportunities to be responsible for other men as well.

She knew.

In case you need a moment of happy in your twitter feed pic.twitter.com/QKUo2OLXov

— Lisa Abeyta (@LisaAbeyta) December 17, 2017