Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The Malay Malaise

I just don't get the Malay people sometimes. They often behave more uncivilized than the Africans who live in jungles. Racist comment or pure fact? That is the question. Of course, in my opinion, its a pure fact. Last year, we all saw them torture and abuse human rights when they manhandled and tormented thousands of Indians who took to the streets to protest the "apartheid" in Malaysia.

Today however, the world saw another protest in Penang, a state that wants to remove this "apartheid" that has engulfed the country. This protest was carried led and carried out by UMNO, the ruling Malay party in Malaysia who didn't accept the removal of the extra rights the Malay people have been receiving all this while, in what the government run media calls a "peaceful demonstration". Peaceful my balls! Some shops had to be shutdown in order to maintain stability and to avoid these Malay people from behaving even more uncivilized that they already are.

Whatever it is, the moral of the story here is that UMNO should live up to its own words. UMNO has said repeatedly in the past and in present, that street protests are illegal, especially after the elections and people who cannot obey these orders, shall face the full brunt of the law. What makes them think that the law does not apply to them? It looks to me like this double standards in Malaysian law will continue to exist for a very long time, and the world's top governing bodies should put pressure on Malaysia to remove its own form of "apartheid" against the Chinese and Indians. I'm in no mood to go on about this as the world already knows what goes on in this country. To all Malays who support this "apartheid", just remember, your days of illegal and "haram" activities are numbered!

press release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts
Madeleine Dash, Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK), 877-776-2004 x 2 swank@riseup.net

Audacia Ray, 718.554.1714
Sarah Bleviss, Sex Workers Outreach Project NYC (SWOP-NYC), swop.nyc@gmail.com http://www.swopeast.org/
Prostitutes of New York (PONY), pony@panix.com
Desiree Alliance, http://www.BoundNotGagged.com; http://www.desireealliance.org

Sex Workers Blow Spitzer a Farewell Kiss

New York, NY - In the wake of former Governor Spitzer's resignation, sex workers and human rights advocates remain concerned about the representation and future of "Kristen" and other sex workers, who do not have the legal and social privileges that will be afforded to Mr. Spitzer. The identity of the sex worker implicated in this case has already been made public, a situation mirroring many a sex worker's worst nightmare. "Kristen's" exposure may entail not only bring her legal repercussions, but invasion of privacy, financial hardship and social opprobrium.

Rather than continuing to sensationalize Spitzer's actions and those directly involved, we urge the press and the public to shift their focus to the legal climate under which sex workers operate, while respecting "Kristen's" agency to have chosen sex work as a viable source of income. "Everyone wants to know how high her rates were, all the salacious details, but the real issue at stake here is that the hypocrisy of criminalizing sex work has been exposed! It's a part of our society, of every society, and we need to take this opportunity to stop with the value judgments and start coming up with policies that respect the human dignity of all people, sex workers and all workers. " says Dylan Wolfe of SWANK (Sex Workers Action New York).

Former Governor Spitzer took a lead role in developing the NY State Anti-Trafficking Law as well as other initiatives that stigmatize sex workers and their clients. It is the stigma of sex work that leads many individuals like "Kristen" to keep their occupations a secret, creating further isolation and opportunities for exploitation. This same stigma compromises the safety and well-being of people like "Kristen" when their private lives become public knowledge. Sex workers are then forced to work further underground, rendering them more vulnerable to abuse, while denying them access to the basic civic participation, health and social services available to other people. "Hopefully Mr. Spitzer's unfortunate public decline will send a message to all like him who pass laws that endanger the safety of sex workers while indulging in the service themselves," Sarah Bleviss of SWOP said, "Sex workers clearly provide them a very valuable service; it's time for lawmakers to return the favor." Too little attention has been paid to what the repercussions of this case will be for those most directly concerned, sex workers, and more generally to the impact of laws and attitudes that marginalize them. It is time for a change.

Spitzer pushed through penalty enhancements against clients of all sex workers. Sex worker advocates fought against such provisions because these policies drive people who need help further underground. Often prostitution is wrongly conflated with trafficking and vice-versa. People are trafficked for many kinds of work, be it domestic labor, farm work or other jobs, and this kind of exploitation undoubtedly needs to be addressed. The majority of men, women and transgendered people working in sex work, however, are 'normal' members of society who have used their own intellectual agency to decide to make a living in a sexually-oriented way. Laws, like the Mann Act (against inter-state transportation for the purposes of commercial sex), are too often used for punishing sex workers and their clients rather than those who profit from their exploitation.

Sex workers make a living in an industry with the potential for high risks and little by way of protection from abuse. The stigma surrounding our work can be lethal at its most extreme: we are often the targets of notorious serial killers, like the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway who targeted prostitutes because he thought he "could kill as many of them as [he] wanted without getting caught." If sex work were decriminalized and legitimized as a form of paid labor like any other, or seen simply as an intimate exchange between consenting adults, the associated harms would be greatly diminished. Furthermore, sex workers could access their basic human rights and social services without fear of legal reprisal or personal upheaval. "Eliot Spitzer has represented himself to the public as a law and order man, and ironically, has been in the vanguard of further criminalizing sex workers and clients. . . However, it's a shame that so much time, energy, and tax payer resources are being spent to criminalize consensual sex between adults. It's time to decriminalize prostitution." says Sarah Blake of Prostitutes of New York (PONY).

Incoming Governor Paterson and other law-makers need to create policies that actually reflect the realities of their own lives and those of their constituents, including sex workers, rather than the harmful legislation of morality, whereby private matters become public scandals.

What Constitution?


If you haven't heard already, Washington D.C. is aiming to violate not just the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) with its draconian laws and attitudes towards its citizens, but also the Amendments supporting an American's right to privacy. Though there is no explicitly stated 'right to privacy' in the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court has ruled there is an implication of such a right resident in the First (privacy of belief), Third (private property, or privacy of home), Fourth (as the Third), Fifth (privacy of one's affairs), Ninth (privacy as a right not specifically enumerated by the Bill of Rights), and Fourteenth (due process) Amendments; the D.C. Mayor and Police Chief seek to violate these as well.

While they're at it they may as well declare martial law.

What I'm talking about is the "Safe Homes Initiative" (read about it here and here); a program announced by D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fentry and Police Chief Lanier yesterday (March 13, 2008). In another example of liberal Orwellianism, the program actually renders a home less safe.

"Safe Homes" allows police to search private residences door-to-door for handguns and drugs. That's right – D.C. is going to send police officers door-to-door to search a for guns and drugs. Without probable cause to search or a warrant signed by a judge. That flickering flame you hear in the background is the U.S. Constitution being consumed by fire.

Sure, officers are supposed to ask for permission to search the premises; liberal thugs and socialist apologists can cite that as a loophole for the program to pass Constitutional muster. But what happens when the officers are not given permission? Am I to expect they would simply walk away without further incident? Clear thinking folk are suspicious of such a tactic; what happens when you're stopped at a sobriety checkpoint and refuse the officer? It's not very pretty after that, is it?

Too, there is the sham of amnesty. The plan is touted with an amnesty clause similar to the gun buy-backs wherein if a handgun is found, the officers won't arrest the property owner (in D.C. it is illegal to even own a handgun – a blatant Second Amendment infringement). The police will investigate the origins, and to the extent possible, the use of the confiscated handgun; if it is found to have been used in a crime, charges will be filed. So the program isn't really offering amnesty, is it? Oh, and never mind the trivial infringement of the Fifth Amendment with such a plan.

The Fifth Amendment protects an American from self-incrimination. How is filing charges against the property owner not an infringement of this right? Sure, if the property owner wasn't the one committing the crime, he or she still abetted the criminal by stashing the handgun, right? So the amnesty provision of the program is a lie of omission; we are told that folk who turn over the handguns are immune to prosecution, but not that the immunity covers only the possession of the handgun; it appears the authorities are free to charge whomever they can relative to the firearm's illegal use.

What isn't mentioned is one of the other facets of the D.C. gun ban; long gun storage. In D.C., residents who own long guns (rifles and shotguns) are compelled by law to lock the weapon with a trigger lock or in a safe; in either case the weapon is to be unloaded. The "Safe Homes" program doesn't specify what protections are afforded a citizen should an officer happen to find an unlocked or loaded long gun. In the absence of such direction, I imagine the homeowner will be charged and the firearm confiscated.

This program is vulnerable to the dreaded "racial profiling" argument that is preventing us from safely securing our airports and airlines. D.C. could have an ugly lawsuit on its hands from such a profiling practice. Though in this case it's not racial profiling, it's class; only those sections of D.C. where there are a higher proportion of lower class citizens will be searched. The neighborhoods of rich and affluent (such as the neighborhoods where the city council members live?) won't be searched. So the program is not really about keeping homes safe, it's about taking away handguns from the folks who need it most for personal and home defense.

Adding to this stinking pile of fascism is the fact that this program begins March 24th, just after the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in D.C. v. Heller. D.C. has tried to legislate handguns out of the hands of private citizens for over thirty years; now that it looks like the legislation will be struck down as un-Constitutional, the mayor and police chief want to physically remove them, forgetting their civics lessons about inalienable human rights.

Let me touch on something less high minded and more insidious; one of the program's goals seeks to undermine parental authority in addition to the annulment of private property rights. Lanier has the notion parents are not in charge of their own children and cannot control them.

Lanier says, "It [the program] focuses on parents or legal guardians who think their children have a gun in the house and are uncomfortable with searching for it themselves."

The way I read that statement means that Fentry and Lanier do not believe a parent is capable of running his or her own home or rearing his or her own children in D.C. In a fine example of nanny-state interference, Lanier admits she feels like the state can do a better job. Were I a parent, I'd be insulted on so many different levels by her arrogance.

Keep in mind it's not just D.C., my friends; Boston is conducting a similar program this month and Philadelphia is considering it. Nothing spreads so fast as fascism, eh?

Liberal thought and action in this country stopped surprising me some time ago; I've come to expect the most socialist thought and position from our folk on the left and have not been disappointed. It's been something of a sport for me to watch them twist themselves around questions of personal responsibility, liberty, and freedom in order to explain to Americans how socialism is really just an advanced and more compassionate form of capitalism. But this – this surprised me. Even in my most gloom-and-doom scenarios I never envisioned 2008 as the year openly socialist forces in this country turned openly fascist. I guess we can add the names Fentry and Lanier to those of Clinton, Obama, FDR, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler in the annals of history.

To circle this tractor-trailer completely, let me opine a bit further. We must carefully weigh our options for Congress and President this coming election in November 2008. With this program in D.C., Boston, and perhaps Philadelphia it is becoming clear this ballot is not about the economy, the Iraq War, or some ubiquities and unexplained change. This election is about direction, about fundamentals, about the essence of what it is to be an American; do we want to lose our republic to the tyranny threatening at our door, or do we want to keep it?

We can only keep it if we throw off such programs as "Safe Homes", fire public administrators like Lanier, vote out or impeach public officers like Fentry, reject the notion that socialism is matured capitalism, and demand with the authority of our Founding Fathers that our rights be respected.

I, for one, want to keep it.

american non-election pre-election election

There are only really two ways in which you might not be aware of America's pre-election non-election election during which candidates who will be standing for president, um, stand to stand for president ... of course even if they lose the non-election pre-election election they can still stand anyway, presumably as a rank outside independent with close affiliations to their party.

  1. The first way would require being deceased, which to be honest isn't great;
  2. Be in a coma, not great either;
  3. I suppose you might be in some sort of prison camp outside of international law, but then that would be three so scrub that.

To be honest I get election fatigue just thinking about it!  Although I'm not actually in America, American, or even have any desire to be either, so what would I care?

I care because if you listen to the BBC you would think that this was the 51st State, they're giving this non-election pre-election election so much coverage you'd think that we needed to be seriously informed about the candidates, their policies, their financial clout and their preference of bloody tampon ... apologies that was vulgar and unnecessary, but honestly, we really really really don't need to know.  It's not like we can influence the outcome of this or the election proper.

Despite a couple of e-mails to which they responded:

Its certainly a story that we know most viewers expect us to cover but we accept that deciding the level and detail of coverage is subjective and far from an exact science. As a result we do appreciate your feedback and will bear it in mind as the election progresses.

It was clear from the e-mail that they've received a lot of complaints.

Of course they're still bloody at it though ... bringing us all the 'high drama' as they no doubt see it, leading the news with it in fact.  For example, on the day of the vote in the house of commons on the so-called Lisbon Treaty (AKA EU Treaty / EU Constitution) it was the American political story that led the news, not the highly controversial and malignant treaty.

Today we're hearing about some lassie that's had to resign because she said something to the effect that Obama what's-his-name has attracted a lot of support because he's black.  Probably not the brightest thing for someone in politics to say, but no-less true for it.  Of course the same could be said for Hilary "I married a top bloke who likes to sleep around, bu'hey you know my judgement's just fine ... now where's that nuclear button?" Clinton in so-far as she will have people supporting her just because she's a man woman.

I think somebody needs to get them there priorities sorted out.  I may not believe in the UK, but I know we're not part of America. 

Honestly though, it's driving me mad!