OMFG! Shoot me now

I agree with Babs Kay on the Genocide Awareness Project, the subject of the current kerfuffle at the University of Calgary.

The piece is a speech Babs gave to an anti-choice group. Before trying to ingratiate herself with the fetus fetishists, she critiques anti-choice propaganda campaigns.

Beginning with the worst, I cannot think of anything more damaging amongst educated observers to the pro-life cause than the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) campaign, which draws a moral equivalence between abortion and the Holocaust.

You cannot build an argument on an analogy alone. In any debate, emotional arousal must be subordinated to rational persuasion.

You have, or should have, the political right to turn people off through shocking images (for that is largely the effect of this campaign). But you don't have the ethical right to exploit for mere rhetorical advantage a human tragedy with no logical, moral or historical relevance to abortion.

The GAP campaign is intellectually flawed because it extrapolates one detail from the Holocaust -- numbers killed -- and on that basis alone proclaims a moral equivalence.

But the point of the Holocaust is not the number of lives extinguished. Genocides aren't about numbers. They are about ideology-based hatred -- unchecked hatred for an identifiable minority group that serves to unite the persecuting majority group, and paves the way for its horrible consequences.

Unborn children are not a minority identity group, nor are abortions performed by political fiat for the purpose of furthering solidarity amongst some dominant group. Every abortion is an individual choice made by an individual woman. None of these women "hates" the potential child she aborts; they hate their situation. Most women who have abortions in fact go on to have children that they love. Nazis did not kill some Jews, and cultivate friendships with others; they hated and considered subhuman all Jews.

Moreover, you are not only describing the action of abortion as evil in this comparison, you are implying that women who abort, like Nazis, are evil people. There is neither truth nor dignity in accusing women of such moral turpitude.

Choose any factual perspective, you won't find a single moral parallel between the situations. And that is why it is not in your interest to pursue the campaign. Or in our mutual interest, because it stands in the way of an alliance between us.

I wonder if those who think the GAP campaign is defensible have really assessed the damaging image it creates in intelligent observers' minds. It brands you as people who feel passionately, but who do not think clearly. High emotion and the absence of reason are the marks of extremists and conspiracy theorists.

Your cause deserves better than the GAP campaign. Because the result -- and I think this is a very grave consequence for any movement -- is that thoughtful, educated people do not take you seriously. They do not respect your strategies for persuasion. You must consider whether the emotional impact of your message is so important to you that it is worth burning the narrow but sturdy bridge you could be using to reach people like me.

Let's recap, shall we? 'Damaging amongst educated observers', 'intellectually flawed', '[not] a single moral parallel', 'neither truth nor dignity', 'not think[ing] clearly'. Yup, and yet that is what the fetus fetishists set up on a university campus. Then, when the university, consisting as it does of 'educated observers', objected, the FFs shrieeked 'free speech'.

Gimme a break.

BONUS: Here's JJ and Antonia on the topic.

The difference between propaganda and facts.

Lies-Site chose to play the persecution card. Tim Mak chose to use petulant and disingenous words. The McGill Tribune chose to present an editorial that contained facts and rational arguments. The commenters - all of them visibly anti-choice, one of whom spammed posted 5 times - chose to play the persecution card and use petulant and disingenous words as well.

From the McGill Tribune:

... a presentation by Jose Ruba, a co-founder of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform, titled "Echoes of the Holocaust." [...] will attempt to draw parallels between abortion and the Holocaust, by arguing that "dehumanization and denial of personhood has justified some of the greatest affronts to human dignity that the world has seen."

The presentation refers to abortion as a "mass human rights violation" and includes graphic imagery such as photos of dead bodies at concentration camps followed by photos of supposedly aborted foetuses.

... The comparison of abortion to the Holocaust is not only horribly offensive and inaccurate, it is deliberately designed to be inflammatory. This event is not intended to foster debate - it is designed to be provocative and to distract from meaningful discussion of abortive rights. Last October, when Choose Life was applying for interim club status, the Tribune editorialized that SSMU Council should approve their application.

We still stand behind that decision. Although many who opposed the club have adopted an "I told you so" attitude in light of Choose Life's recent actions, they miss the point of our original argument: you cannot preemptively censor a club based on what you believe they might do. Choose Life could have fulfilled their mandate by hosting informative events that presented the pro-life position without sensationalizing the issue or attempting to induce guilt among pro-choice believers.

A pro-life belief is not, in itself, oppressive. Even though Choose Life had the potential to behave inappropriately, it was necessary to give the club some rope, and see if they used it to hang themselves.

The Tribune believes that every woman deserves the right to safe and legal abortions. The legality of abortion is not something that we think should be up for debate - the decision to have an abortion is a personal one, and is not a decision that most women take lightly.

Once again, anti-choicers demonstrated their obsessive fixation with The Fetus©™, their inappropriate and arrogant exploitation of the Shoah, and their rage against women who have the power to choose to give life.

Pro-choicers demonstrated their support for a legal medical procedure, their anger with lying liars and their respect for women who have the power to choose to give life or not.

BREAKING: Two Shot at Holocaust Museum

Further madness in USA. From Washington, DC:

An elderly man walked into the Holocaust Museum, one of the capital’s most-visited sites, shortly after 1 p.m. Wednesday and opened fire with a shoulder weapon or pistol, wounding a security guard before being shot himself, officials said.

The gunman was identified by several news agencies as James W. von Brunn, a man in his late 80s. According to a Web site maintained by Mr. von Brunn, he embraces a far-reaching conspiracy theory involving Jews, blacks and other minority groups. Early reports indicated that he lives in eastern Maryland.

However, the Washington police chief, Cathy Lanier, said the identity of the gunman had not been confirmed.

The haters have been primed by the Tea Partiers, the Rethugnicans, and mostly by the far right wing media. And now they're going off.

ADDED: This looks pretty damned prescient now, doesn't it?

UPDATE: The guard has died.

REACTION: Does this sound familiar? What are white supremacists saying?

Compare and contrast: reason and zealotry.

It's not every day that you get a chance to observe up close the clumsy cogs of the fundamentalist religious zealot "thinking" grind and slip.

This offers an excellent opportunity to do so.

Blob Blogging Wingnut attempts to deconstruct and refute Jacob M. Appel's arguments. It would be comical, were it not more of the same-old same-old witless wombie zombie dissembling. Appel writes about Stephanie Gray - yes, that Canadian fetus fetishizing propaganda queen who claimed there there was an "open season on prolifers" shortly after an Operation Rescue acolyte publicly executed Dr Tiller in his church.

The reality is that few (if any) sane people, however strong their views regarding the morality of abortion, sincerely believe that abortion clinics are like death camps. They just say they are, because it's easier - and far more dramatic - than explaining what they really mean. I have witnessed surgical terminations. I have also seen the mounds of human hair and baby shoes at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. Most strikingly, I have heard first-hand horror narratives of deportation and starvation from elderly survivors, stories that my own relatives never survived to share. Any reasonable person who has any knowledge of the Nazi death machine should find the comparison of Planned Parenthood to Auschwitz-Birkenau an unacceptable affront to common decency. This is not to say that the legacy of the Holocaust needs to be preserved as "unique": To my thinking, those who try to finesse the argument that the slaughter of Europe's Jews was somehow morally distinct from the Cambodian or Armenian genocides, for example, have lost the forest for the trees. But that does not mean that any perceived moral wrong can reasonably be described in such terms. ...

I do not mean to suggest that abortion opponents have no legal right to use such incendiary analogies. But if these activists want to be taken seriously, and if they wish for a meaningful place in the public discourse, then they should eschew them. Ms. Gray has questioned why many reproductive rights supporters refuse to debate her. I assure her that it is not because we fear her ideas or public engagement -- but because some forms of argument are too repugnant to be indulged. Nobody questions Gray's entitlement to believe that abortion should be illegal or to further her case in the marketplace of ideas. As far as I'm concerned, she can believe that the earth is flat and roam the streets preaching platygaeanism. The hallmark of an enlightened society, after all, is agreeing to disagree.

Go read all of Appel's thoughtful, lucid, fact-based and empathetic opinion piece. It helped flush from my brain the ludicrous twists and snarls SHE posted.

Bait and Hate

On March 8 2015, International Women's Day, the Harper government's Minister for Defence and Multiculturalism tweeted this:

Journalist Glen McGregor caught the mendacious tweet and investigated whether the misleading images were duplicitously used.

An article in La Presse has an interview with a scholar based at l'UQUAM, regarding the authenticity and provenance of images used in Jason Kenney's tweet. He deplored the lack of rigour shown by this tweet as well as the misrepresentation of what the images actually portray: the dramatization of a religious historical event (much like Catholic Good Friday re-enactment) and the public recitation of Coranic verses.

The press secretary to Minister Kenney, who is also responsible for Multiculturalism in the Harper government, declined to respond directly to requests for clarification regarding the choice of photos.

"This type of question obscures the real issue: [Daesh/IS] is a threat to women and minorities; it is a genocidal terrorist organization, a threat to national and international security," wrote Lauren Armstrong in an email sent to The Canadian Press.

That photo in the upper right hand corner is a still shot from a short video that Karren Brown found:

Kenney's tweet implied that the tearful girl is a terrified child bride of a Wahhadi Daesh fighter.  She isn't.

Watch the video. The girl is competing in a contest of memorization of religious text.  Her head is not covered.  Her audience is composed of supportive community members who encourage her.

Though there are other religions who do justify potential endangerment and harm to children because ... their ideology rules. Three years ago we wrote about the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board and how it facilitated such activities.

Yes, it's April and those three boys are exposed to the elements.  The board has now removed the photos from its Brampton school's website (child pornography?) but Andrea Houston got a screen cap which she kindly provided.

Kenney is a fundamentalist Catholic. My co-blogger is very fond of this video of a young and rabidly zealous Jason.  He didn't complete his undergraduate program.  We suspect that the Jesuits were far too liberal for his proclivities.

Need we remind our readers, as well as befuddled Harper Cons, that the Catholic Church facilitated, tolerated and enabled mental, physical and sexual violence exerted against thousands and thousands of children for centuries.  In countries like Ireland, the Philippines and El Salvador, women are still struggling to cast off the oppressive control of the Vatican's misogynist ideology.  They have uncovered great injustices and loudly demanded accountability from the Church.

Nonetheless, Harper Cons are putting all their communication eggs into one basket: systematically deploying fear mongering tactics to incite hatred and fear of Muslims as they ramp up to a fall election campaign. Also: fundraising!!!

On Monday evening, the leader of the Liberal Party

[..]accused Harper's Conservative Party government of blurring the line "between a real security threat and simple prejudice." In particular, he criticized the decision of a judge in Quebec to refuse the case of a Muslim woman who wore a hijab to court, arguing that it was a "troubling trend that Mr. Harper seems keen to accelerate and exploit" and linking it to the Conservative government's proposed ban on the wearing of Islamic face veils during the oath of citizenship. 

Trudeau told his audience. "So we should all shudder to hear the same rhetoric that led to a 'none is too many' immigration policy toward Jews in the 30s and 40s, being used to raise fears against Muslims today."

On Tuesday Harper's dog-and-pony show continued in Parliament, as his Minister for Public Safety obliquely referenced Islam during his presentation on Bill C-51 in committee.  Blaney justified this, claiming that "hate speech" sows the seeds that culminate in horrific events like the Holocaust. He rambled on, even alluding to the mass slaughter of Tutsi by Hutu.

The minister compared jihadist declarations to Nazi propaganda, saying "the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers, it began with words." 

"Violence starts with words," the minister repeated. "Hate begins with words. I can talk to you about the genocide in Rwanda that began on the radio."

He was taken to task by NDP MP Randall Garrison who suggested Blaney was trivializing the Shoah. Later, the minister's office denied that he had paraphrased verses from the Qur'an. 

Since we're on the topic of hate speech, biblical text are still used to justify violence against women. The actions demanded in Deutoronomy 22:21 that Gary Pearson partly cited above may no longer prevail in law, but they persist in the stigma attached to sex work and in the shaming of women who refuse to let their sexuality be controlled by religious ideology.

"then they are to take her out to the entrance of her father's house, where the men of her city are to stone her to death. She has done a shameful thing among our people by having intercourse before she was married, while she was still living in her father's house. In this way you will get rid of this evil."

None of this is happenstance. Ordinary secular political parties are not seized by urgent, totalitarian needs to foment ethnic fear and religious hatred against muslims in order to stay in power.  But a party that is in thrall to Evangelical christian religious fundamentalism and bankrolled by foreign interests, as Harper's CPC is, certainly would be. 

The last words belong to Jed Bartlet, _The West Wing_ fictional president inspired by Jimmy Carter with some daubs of JFK.

Deploying religious text to expose the ugliness of religious fundamentalism.

Of interest to those with no particular religious adherence: the word TERROR entered the political vocabulary during the French revolution as these events unfolded. A demonstration that any ideology, even anti-religious, can be used to justify violent government repression.  

UPDATE: The hoax photos that Kenney deployed misrepresent their original use. Taken from an anti-Muslim hate-inciting site. Thoroughly deconstructed here.

Martyrgasm Times Two

First, Frank Chauvin finally got around to returning his Order of Canada that was so sullied -- in this angry old guy's view -- by the award made to Dr Morgentaler. JJ at Unrepentant Old Hippie lays on the snark and updates us with the actual count of honours returned -- six. Wow. Six of more than 6,000. That's a snowstorm of outrage, I tell ya.

Next up, those krazy kidz at the University of Calgary are at it again.

The University of Calgary is threatening to expel a group of students who refused to move a graphic anti-abortion display on campus.

The eight students, who took part in a Campus Pro-Life display, received letters from the school earlier this month advising that they had violated the non-academic misconduct policy.

The group made headlines in November 2008 for displaying posters of aborted fetuses. It had refused university administrators' requests to make the posters — which compared abortion to the Holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda — less visible, and also ignored a letter threatening legal action.

That would the the Genocide Awareness Project or GAP, which indeed demonstrates a gaping lack of intelligence.

But, hey, it revs up the ChristoTalibani fetus fetishists. This kid sounds quite biblical, don't you think?

"I was kind of like, well, this could be the end of university for me," said Cameron Wilson, 19, who is scheduled to appear at a university hearing on Friday, along with the seven other students.

Flanked by his supporters, Wilson was unapologetic about the anti-abortion display as he made a statement in front of media on Monday.

"Punish us however you wish. But our conviction shall not change and we shall not alter our actions based on intimidation," he said.

He cranks up the bible-talk for LieShite.

Eight pro-life students at the University of Calgary (UofC), faced with possible expulsion for their activism, gathered this morning to deliver a simple message to their university: “Do unto us whatever you desire, punish us however you wish; but our convictions shall not change, and we shall not alter our actions based on intimidation.”

They've lawyered up with the Canadian Constitution Foundation, defenders of free speech and would-be destroyers of medicare. Shona Holmes is also a client.

The university should deny these ijits their martyrgasms and leave it to the sensible students like these at the University of Ohio to just mock them.

Considerably smaller groups of around a dozen women and some men stood (and sat) in opposition with signs hand painted or made with marker on hardstock.

"Keep GAP off campus," read one of their signs. Another read, "Stop exploiting the Holocaust."

(snip)

"Spermicide is genocide!" caterwauled two students.

"I'm bored. I have a lot of pent up sexual frusturation," said one, giving his name as Kolonel Kolumbus and age as more than 400. The two stood on the curb next to the barricade. "I'm disturbed by the images," said his friend Yossarian, 21, declining to give his last name.

One student activist, Alex Altman, standing with the Vox activists similarly lampooned GAP's heavy-handed method. "My argument to them is 'Why nine months before birth?' I'll protect them nine months and a few days."

He had drawn a large sperm on posterboard, cut a hole in it for people to place their heads for a photo, and a speech bubble that said "Please don't kill me!"

Altman created his own groups with their own mandates, Citizens United against Masturbation, and Justice for Innocent Spermatozoa.

Well, they've had practice. This is the eleventh time GAP has been to this campus.

The Fetushizers Are Coming!

The fetushizers* are coming! The fetushizers are coming!

One of Canada’s leading pro-life organizations is stepping up its efforts with a campaign aimed at completely ending abortion in Canada within 20 years.

“We don’t exist merely to fight abortion, but to actually end the killing,” says Stephanie Gray, co-founder and executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform.

Last month, CCBR launched ‘EndtheKilling’, a vision for jump-starting pro-life activism across Canada through targeted educational campaigns and networking with pro-life groups throughout the country.

“We’re building an army, essentially, of foot soldiers,” explained Gray.

This is the gang behind the Fetus Mobile and the Holocaust = Abortion bullshit.

They are planning a MASSIVE new innovative campaign featuring -- wait for it -- Flyers! Signs! Dead fetus pr0n!

These wingnuts are going to double-down on poor Calgary and -- oooooo -- invade Toronto!

CCBR will focus its own efforts especially on Calgary, where they are currently based, and Toronto, where they plan to open a second office in the near future. They are counting on support from local pro-life groups to reach communities across the country.

By 2020, the organization aims to have every person in Calgary exposed to the graphic abortion images at least weekly, and the same for Toronto by 2030.

We're shaking in our boots here.

Nice of them though to give us warning. Time for clever and sane Torontonians to come up with some competition for this anti-fetus-fetishist campaign, or as it was sneakily disguised, Tubby Dogs' Hot Dog Eating Contest.



Methinks they got their work cut for them in Toronto, though. I regularly ride the streetcar that passes the Cabbagetown Women's Clinic. Over the last 40 Days of Harassment, I never saw more than two zygote zealots standing forlornly across the street holding their dopey signs.



*@Dr. Dawg: Sue me. ;-)

ADDED: Toronto has an idling bylaw. (Can't idle for more than 1 minute in 60 minutes.) Calgary seems to have only downloadable signs to remind drivers of the waste. When the Fetus Mobile comes to Toronto, perhaps vigilant citizens could keep an eye out for more than one-minute stops. Document with cell-phone photos and times and dates to be uploaded to a Fetus Mobile Watch site. After all, we don't want our air polluted any more than it is. Do we?

More from Bizarro World

Rightards are saying that the guy who shot up the Holocaust Museum is a lefty.

I thought that was terrifying and hilarious at the same time.

I just saw something funnier and Canadian to boot.

Over at Freak Dominion, someone put a link up to an article in the Notional Pest about the 'radical' (NattyPo's term) anti-abortion group, Signal Hill, formerly Pro-Life BC.

Some of the freaks are taking exception to the Signalers' 'new' approach -- stop trying to recriminalize abortion and work on 'hearts and minds' instead.

Here's what one genius said (I'll save you a click and quote it in its entirety):

These "pro-life" groups are leftist trojan horses. Prolifers who support their agenda are $&%(*# heads.

Maybe she or he was kidding. You think?

Nah, me either.

The Dog Ate My Personhood Initiative. . .

After getting their collective ass handed to them in Mississippi, those persistent personhood peeps aren't giving up. They've got a raft of similar abortion-killing, birth-control-banning, miscarriage-criminalizing dealies rarin' to go.

All over the blogosphere and Twitter, fetus fetishists are advancing whacky reasons why their supposed slam-dunk failed so miserably. Here's some interesting speculation on what happened between the opinion polls -- that indicated it would pass easily -- and the voting booth by Amanda Marcotte. (Hint: secret ballots are excellent things in conformist conservative jerkwater places like Mississippi.)

But my favourite load of BS is by SUZYALLCAPSLOCK. This is a link to the tweet linking to HER post. Two clicks but no juvenile redirect to fetus pr0n.

Commenter lastchancetosee sums up HER increasingly desperate explanations of the fiasco:

So to recap:
a) even Pro-Lifers opposed it, preferring to actively pursue a humiliating defeat by voting against it than succeeding in passing it and thus stopping the "abortion holocaust" at least temporarily, not to mention the PR advantages, and precedent etc.*
b) if the Catholic Church with its negligible following in Mississippi had recommended voting for it, hundreds of thousands of non-Catholic voters would have marched to the polls for this, when their own convictions and religious leaders weren't enough to do so.
c) due to unspecified "circumstances" people decided to kill an initiative they supported
d) this is actually a huge win for the pro-life cause because a vote that was expected to be a close thing was a very clear knock-down, and that is a good thing.
e) this result still has absolutely nothing to do with 60% of the people, including many pro-lifers, opposing this measure.

The nile is not just a river in egypt.

* you do know what the purpose of all these initiatives for amendments, laws etc. is, do you? To get as many as them passed as possible, so that they get challenged in the courts, until you find one case where a court sides with you, thereby creating precedent. The people who push these things KNOW that they will be challenged. They WANT them to be challenged. Why do you think it is that most of these things have so very obvious constitutional issues?
This being challenged in the Supreme Court is a BONUS, not a drawback. But sure, pro-lifers opposed it because they feared it might be overturned ….

h/t for cartoon to @IAmDrTiller.

Link to original cartoon.

ADDED: The liars at LifeShite speak truth for once:

As pro-life political scientist and abortion law researcher Michael New explains, if the amendment can’t win in Mississippi, it’s likely not going to win anywhere in the current political climate.

“It is difficult to see where Personhood proponents go from here. Tuesday’s election offered Personhood supporters their best opportunity for electoral success. They qualified a citizen initiative in Mississippi — among the most pro-life states in the country — during a low-turnout election in which Democrats fielded relatively weak statewide candidates,” he explains. “In spite of all this, the Mississippi Personhood Amendment still lost by a double-digit margin.”

Knowing that the personhood amendment lost by a landslide twice in a swing state and a lopsided 17-point margin in arguably the most pro-life state in the nation, there’s little realistic expectation that the personhood amendment will be approved anywhere in the country. As the amendment continues to rack up defeats, support from pro-fie advocates willing to invest in what will almost assuredly be a losing proposition will wane. Media reports will continue focusing on the pro-life movement losing at the polls and the pro-abortion side will continue gloating that they are in the majority despite clear polling data showing America is pro-life.

The damage to the pro-life movement from suffering defeat after defeat in the polls will become more and more palpable as the losses mount.

LifeShite's strategy is to get more misogynist Supreme Court justices.

Pronatalism in Israel?

From the Jerusalem Post, a straightforward account of falling abortion rates in Israel.

The rate of legal abortions in Israel – among the lowest when compared to the countries of Western Europe for both women under 20 and women over 35 – has declined since 2000 after being steady from 1995 until then.

This emerges from the abortion report issued by the Health Ministry for publication on Monday. The report does not explain the reasons for these trends.

Details of the numbers follow, then:

But when The Jerusalem Post suggested that it could be a result of the decline in aliya [immigration of Jews to Israel] and the aging of women who arrived from the former Soviet Union – where abortions were widely used instead of contraception – and the improved access to birth control among these immigrants – ministry official Dr. Yoram Lotan said it “sounded very logical.”

Now, another story on the same topic from a source I'd never seen before, Israel Today.

Israel Today has written several times before about how Israel has an abortion problem. Since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, more than one-and-a-half million babies have been aborted - more than the number of Jewish children killed in the Holocaust. Going by current birth rates, had those children been allowed a chance at life, there could be 5-10 million more Israelis today.

Alarm bells going off? Specifically the 'demographic winter' aka 'THEY-are-outbreeding-US!' SHRIEEEEK alarm?

Israel Today notes and dismisses the JPost's 'very logical' supposition for the causes of falling abortion rates and instead points to the work of 'a handful of pro-life organizations'.

One of those organizations is the Messianic-run Be'ad Chaim (Hebrew for "Pro Life"). With centers around the country, Be'ad Chaim is able to provide assistance and teaching to hundreds of women who may otherwise have aborted their children every year.

While the work of Be'ad Chaim and other such organizations may only be scratching the surface of Israel's abortion problem, it is making a difference. The latest Ministry of Health report revealed that women with a higher education or from better socioeconomic conditions are already far less likely to have an abortion today. Most abortions today are performed on mothers with low socioeconomic status, or, in other words, crisis pregnancies, the very ones being targeted by Be'ad Chaim and others.

Hoookay, crisis pregnancy centres in Israel.

So what is Be'ad Chaim?

Be’ad Chaim (Pro Life) is a registered Israeli non-profit
organization dedicated to the protection of mothers and unborn children. (Registered in 1989) We are a national organization with offices and Hotlines throughout Israel. All women are eligible for our assistance, regardless of nationality or religious beliefs.

We have no reason to doubt that last bit, but . . .

Next, what the heck is Messianic Judaism? (That link comes with a warning: 'Article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed.')

Messianic Judaism is a syncretic religious movement that arose in the 1960s and 70s.It blends evangelical Christian theology with elements of Jewish terminology and ritual.

Our next question is posed by Israel Today.

Israel Today: How many Messianic Jews are in Israel today?

Asher Intrater: When we speak of Messianic Jews in Israel, we are speaking of people who are Jewish and Israeli citizens and who believe in Yeshua as their messiah. This is the Messianic Remnant, and it numbers about 15,000. In addition, there are many Arabs who believe in Yeshua, and there are many international Christians who make their home here.

Are we creeped out yet?

I went looking for other Israeli anti-choice organizations and found EFRAT.

Efrat is an Israeli pro-life group which tries to convince Jewish women not to perform an abortion. To this end, the organization distributes explanatory materials and offers economic aid to pregnant women considering abortion.

Let's see what it has to say about itself.

Since 1977, EFRAT has saved over 34,000 children. Through a combination of education and economic assistance, EFRAT has helped establish a new generation of Jewish families.

Hm. Not quite so non-denominational. . . But to its credit, there's little of the USian-style lies and fear-mongering. No links between abortion and mental health and/or breast cancer, for example.

So, what the heck is going on here?

Last week, deBeauxOs blogged on the Israeli Ministry of Immigration Absorption's campaign to discourage Israelis from marrying or befriending American Jews for fear of losing their identity.

Taken together, it sure seems some Israelis are flirting with notions of nativism and pronatalism.

They really want to go there?

I'm definitely creeped out.

(Gee. Look where I found that image from 'Demographic Winter'. Yup, Big Nurse Jill Stanek's. Quelle surprise.)

Anti-Zionism and pro-semitism.

Anti-zionism - the expression of opposition to the Israeli government's genocidal actions that endanger Jewish residents, and that target Palestinians, Bedouins and others for elimination.

'Our lives became something we'd never dreamt': The former Israeli soldiers who have testified against army abuses have for the first time given up their anonymity, to make their voices all the harder to ignore. For anyone who has covered Israel, the West Bank and Gaza over the past few years, reading Occupation of the Territories, the new book from the Israeli ex-soldiers organisation Breaking the Silence, can be an eerily evocative experience.

From here.

Pro-semitism would be the opposite of anti-semitism.

Via Morton's Musings, this inspiring story about a very special photography exhibit.

An untold story of the Nazi Holocaust is on display at a Jewish temple in St. Louis, Missouri. It's a photography exhibit, featuring portraits of elderly Albanian Muslims - men and women who helped save nearly 2,000 Jews who fled to Albania during World War II. [...]

Basri Hasani sheltered his next-door neighbor and best friend, Moshe Rubenovic, who fought the Nazis throughout Albania and Kosovo. "I am a true Muslim," says Hasani. "My door is always open to anyone in need."

For the past six years, Gershman, a fine art photographer whose work is typically displayed in museums, traveled throughout Albania and Kosovo. He photographed most of his subjects in their homes, often with objects that were significant to the people they sheltered.

I hope that Gershman finds funding that will allow his photographs to travel across North America. This exhibit should tour as widely as possible, to counter the shrieeeking of islamophobes.

White Male Pro-Life Terrorism

Anybody who has watched a single episode of "Criminal Minds," or read a news story about serial killers knows the profile. White male between the ages of 18 and 55. Childhood bed-wetter. Criminal escalation through animal torture, arson, increasing violence against women. Then, murder.

Now a profile of the Prolife Terrorist is emerging.

White male between 18 and 55? Check.

Bed wetter? Jury's out.

Animal abuser? Check.

Violence against women? Check.

New wrinkle: Vandalism against abortion clinics? Check. Both Dr George Tiller's murderer, Scott Roeder, and the recent Colorado Planned Parenthood murderer, Robert Dear, glued locks shut on women's clinics.

Here's a thought-provoking article about "white male terrorism", which, while long on white entitlement and rage, is rather short on the "male" part.

Another based on court documents submitted by an ex-partner of Dear's is rather more forthcoming about the "male rage," misogyny, and religion parts.

By January 1993, she had had enough. In a sworn affidavit as part of her divorce case, Ms. Micheau [the ex] described Mr. Dear as a serial philanderer and a problem gambler, a man who kicked her, beat her head against the floor and fathered two children with other women while they were together. He found excuses for his transgressions, she said, in his idiosyncratic views on Christian eschatology and the nature of salvation.

“He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic, but does not follow the Bible in his actions,” Ms. Micheau said in the court document. “He says that as long as he believes he will be saved, he can do whatever he pleases. He is obsessed with the world coming to an end.”

In short, these are men motivated by rage and religion.

And oddly, or not, both the rage and the religion are focussed on women.

So, not surprisingly, but critically, they are finally mobilized by the relentless, violent, misogynist rhetoric from right-wing nutbars, who in the United States are terrifyingly mainstream, represented by Fox News and every Republican presidential candidate, perhaps most notably Carly Fiorina, who not only clings to her lies about the discredited Planned Parenthood videos, but who is now attacking the "left" for suggesting she played a role in the Colorado massacre.

Also among the terrorism enablers and mobilizers are every anti-choice individual and organization that repeats the hateful lies that demonize abortion providers and the people who need them.

And now this kind of terrorism has a name: stochastic terrorism*. (This piece is from 2011, but the term is cropping up again now in light of the most recent example in Colorado.)

Stochastic terrorism is the use of mass communications to incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable. In short, remote-control murder by lone wolf.

Here is Valerie Tarico on the Colorado murders.

The formula is perversely brilliant:
1. A public figure with access to the airwaves or pulpit demonizes a person or group of persons.
2. With repetition, the targeted person or group is gradually dehumanized, depicted as loathsome and dangerous— arousing a combustible combination of fear and moral disgust.
3. Violent images and metaphors, jokes about violence, analogies to past “purges” against reviled groups, use of righteous religious language — all of these typically stop just short of an explicit call to arms.
4. When violence erupts, the public figures who have incited the violence condemn it — claiming no one could possibly have foreseen the “tragedy.”

Use of terms like "Nazi," "genocide," "holocaust," and "slavery" abounds, in addition to the usual "killing," "murder," and "dismemberment."

Here's the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform's (yep, that's the name, though I call them the Fetal Gore Porn Gang) "Genocide Awareness Project", a gory duplicitous display trucked around to university and college campuses, as "a powerful way to compel thought and dialogue."

Its spokesthingy, Jonathan van Maren, wrote a beaut of a piece at LieShite, denying any responsibility on the "pro-life movement's" part, while simultaneously demonstrating how stochastic terrorism works.

Joyce Arthur, of Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, gives his brain-fart a thorough fisking here.

Sample:

“We will not allow Planned Parenthood and the abortion movement to climb atop a ‘moral high ground’ created from the chopped-up body parts of human beings they have dismembered…”

You’re inciting violence, right there. Also, please stop erasing women and the fact that they need abortion care, which is why abortion providers are there, to protect women’s lives.

I share this blogger's question: Why aren't the inciters of crime -- the radicalizing mobilizers -- prosecuted?

Or as is said in another context: Let's shut down their churches, dismantle their funding networks, block their websites, arrest the ringleaders, and discredit their parrots and followers.

White male prolife terrorism. It's real and way more likely -- seven times more likely -- to kill us than any other religious fundamentalist terrorism.

[Reality note: I said much of this about Bill O'Reilly after he successfully incited the assassination of Dr Tiller. So.]




* Of course, in Canada, we had another recent and vivid display of stochastic terrorism. The mindless, relentless repetition of "jihadi terrorists" hiding behind niqabs at citizenship ceremonies backfired spectacularly on the loathesome Conservatives, but resulted in some real violence and terror for Muslim Canadians.

Blob Blogging Wingnut is envious.

Over at The House of Perpetual Jeremiahs and Glossy Fetal Pix, also known as Blog Blogging Wingnut's site, SHE bemoans the fact that the PMO's bright shiny idea to use YouTube to create some sort of virtual flash mob has been

"hijacked by a bunch of pothead activists. And when I say "hijacked" I don't mean that they submitted a question that on an issue that many people don't care about. I mean that they've submitted dozens, if not hundreds, of questions on that issue, ruining through spamination an exercise that could have been a good step towards democracy. I don't object to the fact that 1500 people have voted in favour of asking a question regarding marijuana. I object to the top 3 questions all having to do with marijuana."

eh. SUZY ALL-CAPS is clearly envious that The Fetus©™ fetishists have not managed to MASSIVELY own the process like the potheads have successfully done. But for those 7 or 8 people that might be reading her blogsite, SHE counsels:

"And if you do submit a question, please don't submit a question that sounds like something that came out of question period. E.G. 'Your government is the most incomptent in history and has never cared about the true interests of Canadians, what are you prepared to do to fight poverty in this country.' That's just a repeat of QP. Please ask for specific details and not engage in ideological and partisan posturing."

Hear that? Do not engage in ideological and partisan posturing. I guess HER good friend John 'Sperm Holocaust' Pacheco didn't get that memo.

No sex please, we're Ottawans.

In the news today:

A museum sex exhibit designed to educate teenagers was just fine in Regina, but it's too hot for Ottawa.

The Canada Science and Technology Museum has raised the unaccompanied age of admission for Sex: A Tell-All Exhibition to 16 from 12. [...]

This change means the show will miss much of its target audience. Designed by the Montreal Science Centre, it is intended to introduce adolescents to the confusing world of sex.

That was supposed to include young adolescents who are just starting to experience physical and emotional changes of puberty. They will still be admitted, but only with an adult.

A museum spokesman said Wednesday there were "about 50" complaints about the show since publicity began last week. Some were phone calls, some were emails, and many of the emails had the same text copied and pasted.

The spokesman said no identifiable group was associated with the complaints.

I think members of Blob Blogging Wingnut and Tubesock Holocaust's special *Vatican Taliban* interest group - aka fundamentalist, anti-choice catholics - are responsible for the e-swarming.

Anything that might educate their children, encourage them to ask questions about sexuality and allow them to think for themselves is Verboten!

More on the War on Women and on sex that's not for breeding purposes.

I wonder if SUZYALLCAPS' zealot peer group will picket this film, à la Westboro Baptist Church, when it's screened at the ByTowne.

UPDATE by fh: Culture Min James Moore confirms his office bitched.

Added by dBO: shriEEEk!

"The purpose of the museum “is to foster scientific and technological literacy throughout Canada,” Moore’s office said in a statement.

“It is clear this exhibit does not fit within that mandate. This content cannot be defended, and is insulting to taxpayers."

From here.

Well I'm a taxpayer and I'm insulted that the Ministry for Heritage and Culture is controlled by sexphobic, religious fundamentalists and christofascists like Charles McVety.

Counter the RWNJ complaint letters with your own, and keep track.

Lying Liars Recant (Well, a little)

Well, looky here: It seems that First Place Pregnancy Centre has updated its controversial links page. And check out the date of the update.

Resource Disclaimer:
The list of referral agencies is intended solely for your convenience. None of these agencies are affiliated with First Place, and no express or implied warranty is made concerning the quality of services or goods offered by them. You are therefore cautioned to make your own determination as to the fitness of any such agency and of any services or goods offered by them.
We hope you'll find these links helpful.

Last Updated: 2007-12-03

What controversial links? you ask. The ones Heather Mallick went through with Senators Foundation president, Dave Ready.

We went through the First Place site links together. There's a standard disclaimer but First Place hopes we'll find them "helpful." I told Ready that some of the news headlines appeared to be libellous, particularly the ones linking corporations that make birth control drugs to the Jewish Holocaust and one drug itself to Nazi death camps. Others were grotesque: "One baby in 30 left alive after medical abortion" turns out to be an absurd, unsubstantiated anonymous "news story" in a British entertainment magazine.
You're also guided to a donation page for the American Life League, a hardline group based outside Washington. There's a shop, admittedly very funny, that sells "Abortion is mean" T-shirts for two-year-olds.
They offer booklets explaining that abortion is wrong even in the case of incest. They tell members to scare away raped children outside abortion clinics. They call RU-486 "the anti-human pesticide." They offer sample letters to the editor to send to outlets that employ, I imagine, columnists like me. One begins: "Planned Parenthood is not 'a good guy.'"
Ready gets more and more quiet as we track this. Soon he is desperate to get off the phone. He will not let me talk to a Better Half, who might well explain that she hadn't known that First Place is financed by the Bethel Pentecostal Church in Ottawa and its mission — declared on the Bethel website but nowhere on the First Place site — is not just anti-abortion but anti-birth control.

So, as we reported yesterday, while the Sens are still treating their fans as somnolent cash cows, there has been at least one good thing to come out of this PR fiasco -- a little less lying bullshit on the Interwebz.

UPDATE:
More bloggers weigh in: Feministing and Shameless.

(First published at Birth Pangs.)

Anti-Choice 'Sophisticated'? ROTFLMAO!

I realize that books have to be flogged, but lately these people, Paul Saurette and Kelly Gordon, have been all over Canadian media with a 'new' take on fetus fetishist strategy.

Actually, it ain't new at all, but hey, those women's studies MAs (pdf) don't write themselves, you know.

The thesis is that the anti-choice movement in Canada is getting 'sophisticated', co-opting pro-choice language, framing abortion as 'harming women', moving the *undebate* into a discussion of free speech and democracy, claiming that it's a 'youth movement', and playing the 'silenced' victim card.

The anti-abortion movement in Canada, while increasingly enlivened and sophisticated, remains a small minority. Clearly phrased polls show that Canadians do not want the issue re-politicized. This is precisely why Harper promised not to do so. He knows that it is a toxic issue for his goal of mainstreaming conservatism. The anti-abortion movement has also understood that the old arguments and positioning have not worked. They are therefore increasingly seeking to frame the issue in ways that piggyback on values, issues and rhetorical strategies traditionally used by progressive movements (and which have greater traction and resonance in Canadian society).

Veteran fetus fetishist watchers (ahem) recognize all these tactics. They've been trying them forever.

The 'abortion harms women (AHW)' meme originated over a decade ago with the 'Moses' of the 'post-abortion movement', quack David Reardon. They try, amusingly, to back this up with sciencey stuff that we here at DJ! love to debunk. That abortion causes breast cancer, insanity, substance abuse, etc etc.

Warawa's Wank, aka #M408, is a variant on AHW with the new twist that abortion harms 'preborn' women.

Co-opting language, been there, done that.



Free speech, democracy, and human rights? Yep. Comparisons of abortion to slavery, genocide, and the Holocaust abound.

Youth movement? Sure, especially since they're now admitting that Catholic schools pay to bus kids to events like March for Lies.

Hilariously, they've been trying to 'hip'-ify their activities for years too.

Martyrdom has always been big with them, recently celebrated with
Jubilee medals courtesy of the Canadian government.

Silencing? Old hat.




In trying to work up a new take on a dying movement, these new kids on the block give the fetus fetishists waaaay too much credit. It's the sameold sameold, no matter how many books they have to sell hard they try to spin it.

oh, Jesus!

As longtime and faithful (ahem) readers of DAMMIT JANET! know, I have a strange fascination with Mary, allegedly the mother of Jesus whilst still a Virgin. I've blogged The virgin, the angel and choice as well as The Incarnating Game in this regard.

My co-blogger has bestowed a most delightfully seasonal gift upon me: this.

The large poster outside St Matthew's in the City, a prominent Anglican church in Auckland, was designed by an advertising agency and depicts Mary in the style of a classical Renaissance painting.

A caption competition on the church's website has already drawn some questionable responses.

Suggestions include "Yay! I hope it's a girl," "Now, which way to the abortion clinic?" and "If I say I'm a virgin, mum and dad won't kill me."

A densely written comment that reads as though it was written by a kiwi John "Vatican Taliban & TubeSox Holocaust" Pacheco captures in a nutshell why fundamentalist right-wing religious zealots reject rationality and science.

UPDATE (fh): You knew this was going to happen. Nutbar attacks poster with scissors. Montreal Simon has the story.

Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, GOO-OODBYE!

The CBC is on it.

An Ottawa pregnancy centre has pulled links to controversial opinions and assertions about birth control and abortion from its website after media coverage about the funding it receives from Ottawa Senators hockey fans.

First Place Pregnancy Centre made the changes to its website after articles such as one by CBC.ca columnist Heather Mallick, who reported the links included a story comparing corporations that make birth control drugs to the Jewish Holocaust and a story by an anonymous author with the headline: "One baby in 30 left alive after medical abortion."

The centre, which describes itself as a "non-profit and non-political" agency that offers support to people facing unplanned pregnancy, is among three charities that will receive funds raised from raffle tickets sold at Ottawa Senators hockey games between Nov. 29 and Dec. 22.The fundraiser is put on by the Sens Better Halves, the hockey players' wives and girlfriends. The proceeds raised will be matched by the Ottawa Senators Foundation.

Both the centre and the Sens Better Halves declined to be interviewed by CBC News Wednesday.

As jj at Unrepentant Old Hippie said:

Sing it, pro-choice hockey fans: Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, GOO-OODBYE!

UPDATE: The story at that CBC link has been updated with even better news.

n Ottawa charity facing controversy over its anti-abortion philosophy says it does not want to hurt the positive image of the Ottawa Senators Foundation, and will therefore turn down funding raised at Ottawa Senators games.
First Place Pregnancy Centre said it recognizes "the incredible work and generosity" of the Sens Better Halves, the wives and girlfriends of the Ottawa Senators, who chose the centre as one of three charities they would support by selling raffle tickets at Senators home games between Nov. 29 and Dec. 22.

(First published at Birth Pangs.)

Spin Never Sleeps

JJ at unrepentant old hippie did a superb job of taking a couple of Stephanie Gray’s points, smacking the hypocrisy around and kicking it to the curb. But there is more, much more to Gray’s depraved, dissembling pronouncements.

As I wrote here, given the essentialist, women-despising ideology at the core of their abortion-criminalizing premise, zygote zealots try to elevate their discourse by using two tactics over and over.

1) They claim that abortion is the same, if not WORSE! than the Nazi-enforced Holocaust against European Jews, homosexuals, Roma and other target populations.

2) They say that their campaign to criminalize health care practitioners who terminate pregnancies and women who seek their services is the same, if not BETTER! than the US civil rights movement.

From Stephanie Gray's screed:

With Cosh's rhetoric, I am reminded of the clergymen who were critical of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s controversial approach. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail, King responded by saying, "In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? ...We must come to see that ... it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber."

This is rank opportunism and a putrid distortion of MLK's inspiring words. As I noted two years ago:

... those who would enforce compulsory pregnancy divert criticism away from their goal of controlling women’s reproductive capacity, by proclaiming they are as pure in their thoughts and actions as those white folks who championed civil rights. Fetus fetishizers are draping themselves in the flag of the modern martyr and demanding the same respect as white civil rights workers who were excoriated for the assistance they gave to Martin Luther King and to the descendants of enslaved Black people. Quite the sleight of hand, is it not? Those who supported the civil rights movement did not set off bombs nor assassinate anyone.

If you have a strong stomach, take a look at the KKK website and observe how the language of 'white racialism' ressembles the language of anti-abortion websites.

"Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber." The logical and correct analogy here, given the escalation in violent strategies and discourse used by a significant number of individuals in abortion-criminalizing organizations that are similar to that used by individuals and organizations opposed to civil rights, would be that “Abortion criminalizers are the 21st century’s Jim Crow segregationists”.

Edited to add: With regard to point 1), here's more from the Pro-Choice Action Network regarding Stephanie Gray's claims about what she calls "open season on pro-lifers". Open season = 3 pro-choice activists allegedly vandalized a G.A.P. display ... got hyperbole?

Green Fetuses and Spam

I thought I was losing my feel for the madness of fetus fetishists. I really thought this story would bust the Shrieeeeek-o-meter.

The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found.

Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning foetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.

Last night the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which health minister Dr Dan Poulter branded ‘totally unacceptable.’

While that piece garnered more than 1800 outraged comments, now closed, the story didn't seem to catch fire as I expected.

I guess what I failed to take into account is that it happened Elsewhere, i.e. in Britain, not the United States of Asshatitude.

They're on it now. And trotting out all the predictable comparisons.

From LifeShite:

While the pro-abortion movement frequently condemns pro-life advocates who draw comparisons between abortion and the Holocaust, the report of babies burned to heat UK hospitals is a shocking reminder of the callous way human life was treated by the Nazi regime. According to the report in the London Telegraph newspaper, the aborted babies were incinerated as “clinical waste” in “waste to energy” plans at British hospitals.

And from the WingNutDaily:

The UK is in an advanced stage of moral collapse as was seen in a shocking TV documentary aired this week exposing that foetal remains are being incinerated as ‘clinical waste’, many of which are burned in incinerators that produce energy to heat in at least one of the hospitals identified.
. . .
Since the program aired the morass of bureaucracy has shown itself to be thicker than the London Fog that hid Jack the Ripper, making it virtually impossible to ascertain which body is to be held ultimately responsible for regulating what should be clear moral guidance in handling the human remains of tiny babies.

Extra points for Jack the Ripper! Don't often run into a Jack the Ripper reference in the abortion wars.

Well, what the hell else is tissue removed by medical procedure but "clinical waste"?

And if it is to be incinerated, why not put the heat generated to a useful purpose?

I'd say the hospitals were being conscientious and environmentally responsible.

ADDED: Interesting comment by choice joyce moved up for the click-averse.

Someone in the UK who I know made the following astute remark about this 'scandal':

"It’s a very clever form of demonisation of hospitals who do abortions, with yet another non-reason to 'trash the National Health Service' thrown in for free. And of course it allows a Tory health minister to claim the moral high ground on yet another non-subject and give absurd orders that make him appear to be an authority. Sick-making."