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Iceland Bans Strip Clubs
Julie Bindel
25 March 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/25/iceland-most-feminist-country
Iceland has just banned all strip clubs. Perhaps it's down to the lesbian prime minister, but this may just be the most female-friendly country on the planet Johanna Sigurdardottir, Prime Minister of Iceland.
Iceland is fast becoming a world-leader in feminism. A country with a tiny population of 320,000, it is on the brink of achieving what many considered to be impossible: closing down its sex industry. While activists in Britain battle on in an attempt to regulate lapdance clubs – the number of which has been growing at an alarming rate during the last decade – Iceland has passed a law that will result in every strip club in the country being shut down. And forget hiring a topless waitress in an attempt to get around the bar: the law, which was passed with no votes against and only two abstentions, will make it illegal for any business to profit from the nudity of its employees.
Even more impressive: the Nordic state is the first country in the world to ban stripping and lapdancing for feminist, rather than religious, reasons. Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, the politician who first proposed the ban, firmly told the national press on Wednesday: "It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold."
Greenconsciousness Notes: Compare that to the statements of women in the US Congress. Compare that to the word games and inaction of Hillary Clinton.
When I asked her if she thinks Iceland has become the greatest feminist country in the world, she replied: "It is certainly up there. Mainly as a result of the feminist groups putting pressure on parliamentarians. These women work 24 hours a day, seven days a week with their campaigns and it eventually filters down to all of society."
The news is a real boost to feminists around the world, showing us that when an entire country unites behind an idea anything can happen.
And it is bound to give a shot in the arm to the feminist campaign in the UK against an industry that is both a cause and a consequence of gaping inequality between men and women. According to Icelandic police, 100 foreign women travel to the country annually to work in strip clubs. It is unclear whether the women are trafficked, but feminists say it is telling that as the stripping industry has grown, the number of Icelandic women wishing to work in it has not.
Supporters of the bill say that some of the clubs are a front for prostitution – and that many of the women work there because of drug abuse and poverty rather than free choice. I have visited a strip club in Reykjavik and observed the women. None of them looked happy in their work.
So how has Iceland managed it? To start with, it has a strong women's movement and a high number of female politicans. Almost half the parliamentarians are female and it was ranked fourth out of 130 countries on the international gender gap index (behind Norway, Finland and Sweden).
All four of these Scandinavian countries have, to some degree, criminalised the purchase of sex (legislation that the UK will adopt on 1 April). "Once you break past the glass ceiling and have more than one third of female politicians," says Halldórsdóttir, "something changes. Feminist energy seems to permeate everything."Johanna Sigurðardottir is Iceland's first female and the world's first openly lesbian head of state.
Guðrún Jónsdóttir of Stígamót, an organisation based in Reykjavik that campaigns against sexual violence, says she has enjoyed the support of Sigurðardottir for their campaigns against rape and domestic violence: "Johanna is a great feminist in that she challenges the men in her party and refuses to let them oppress her." Then there is the fact that feminists in Iceland appear to be entirely united in opposition to prostitution, unlike the UK where heated debates rage over whether prostitution and lapdancing are empowering or degrading to women.
There is also public support: the ban on commercial sexual activity is not only supported by feminists but also much of the population. A 2007 poll found that 82% of women and 57% of men support the criminalisation of paying for sex – either in brothels or lapdance clubs – and fewer than 10% of Icelanders were opposed. Jónsdóttir says the ban could mean the death of the sex industry. "Last year we passed a law against the purchase of sex, recently introduced an action plan on trafficking of women, and now we have shut down the strip clubs.
The Nordic countries are leading the way on women's equality, recognising women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale."Strip club owners are, not surprisingly, furious about the new law. One gave an interview to a local newspaper in which he likened Iceland's approach to that of a country such as Saudi Arabia, where it is not permitted to see any part of a woman's body in public. "I have reached the age where I'm not sure whether I want to bother with this hassle any more," he said.
Janice Raymond, a director of Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, hopes that all sex industry profiteers feel the same way, and believes the new law will pave the way for governments in other countries to follow suit. "What a victory, not only for the Icelanders but for everyone worldwide who repudiates the sexual exploitation of women," she says.Jónsdóttir is confident that the law will create a change in attitudes towards women. "I guess the men of Iceland will just have to get used to the idea that women are not for sale."
25 March 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/25/iceland-most-feminist-country
Iceland has just banned all strip clubs. Perhaps it's down to the lesbian prime minister, but this may just be the most female-friendly country on the planet Johanna Sigurdardottir, Prime Minister of Iceland.
Iceland is fast becoming a world-leader in feminism. A country with a tiny population of 320,000, it is on the brink of achieving what many considered to be impossible: closing down its sex industry. While activists in Britain battle on in an attempt to regulate lapdance clubs – the number of which has been growing at an alarming rate during the last decade – Iceland has passed a law that will result in every strip club in the country being shut down. And forget hiring a topless waitress in an attempt to get around the bar: the law, which was passed with no votes against and only two abstentions, will make it illegal for any business to profit from the nudity of its employees.
Even more impressive: the Nordic state is the first country in the world to ban stripping and lapdancing for feminist, rather than religious, reasons. Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, the politician who first proposed the ban, firmly told the national press on Wednesday: "It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold."
Greenconsciousness Notes: Compare that to the statements of women in the US Congress. Compare that to the word games and inaction of Hillary Clinton.
When I asked her if she thinks Iceland has become the greatest feminist country in the world, she replied: "It is certainly up there. Mainly as a result of the feminist groups putting pressure on parliamentarians. These women work 24 hours a day, seven days a week with their campaigns and it eventually filters down to all of society."
The news is a real boost to feminists around the world, showing us that when an entire country unites behind an idea anything can happen.
And it is bound to give a shot in the arm to the feminist campaign in the UK against an industry that is both a cause and a consequence of gaping inequality between men and women. According to Icelandic police, 100 foreign women travel to the country annually to work in strip clubs. It is unclear whether the women are trafficked, but feminists say it is telling that as the stripping industry has grown, the number of Icelandic women wishing to work in it has not.
Supporters of the bill say that some of the clubs are a front for prostitution – and that many of the women work there because of drug abuse and poverty rather than free choice. I have visited a strip club in Reykjavik and observed the women. None of them looked happy in their work.
So how has Iceland managed it? To start with, it has a strong women's movement and a high number of female politicans. Almost half the parliamentarians are female and it was ranked fourth out of 130 countries on the international gender gap index (behind Norway, Finland and Sweden).
All four of these Scandinavian countries have, to some degree, criminalised the purchase of sex (legislation that the UK will adopt on 1 April). "Once you break past the glass ceiling and have more than one third of female politicians," says Halldórsdóttir, "something changes. Feminist energy seems to permeate everything."Johanna Sigurðardottir is Iceland's first female and the world's first openly lesbian head of state.
Guðrún Jónsdóttir of Stígamót, an organisation based in Reykjavik that campaigns against sexual violence, says she has enjoyed the support of Sigurðardottir for their campaigns against rape and domestic violence: "Johanna is a great feminist in that she challenges the men in her party and refuses to let them oppress her." Then there is the fact that feminists in Iceland appear to be entirely united in opposition to prostitution, unlike the UK where heated debates rage over whether prostitution and lapdancing are empowering or degrading to women.
There is also public support: the ban on commercial sexual activity is not only supported by feminists but also much of the population. A 2007 poll found that 82% of women and 57% of men support the criminalisation of paying for sex – either in brothels or lapdance clubs – and fewer than 10% of Icelanders were opposed. Jónsdóttir says the ban could mean the death of the sex industry. "Last year we passed a law against the purchase of sex, recently introduced an action plan on trafficking of women, and now we have shut down the strip clubs.
The Nordic countries are leading the way on women's equality, recognising women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale."Strip club owners are, not surprisingly, furious about the new law. One gave an interview to a local newspaper in which he likened Iceland's approach to that of a country such as Saudi Arabia, where it is not permitted to see any part of a woman's body in public. "I have reached the age where I'm not sure whether I want to bother with this hassle any more," he said.
Janice Raymond, a director of Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, hopes that all sex industry profiteers feel the same way, and believes the new law will pave the way for governments in other countries to follow suit. "What a victory, not only for the Icelanders but for everyone worldwide who repudiates the sexual exploitation of women," she says.Jónsdóttir is confident that the law will create a change in attitudes towards women. "I guess the men of Iceland will just have to get used to the idea that women are not for sale."
posted by Greenconsciousness
at 9:10 AM - Link
50 Comments:
well Iceland is also leading the way in refusing to bow to the control of the international banks, in spite of great hardship. Here is a little here with wiki references. http://savethepeopleoficeland.com/
here, this best explains what is occurring. I read the financial blog comments all the time following the money, not the show.
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article17568.html
Whoo Hoo - If I could speak the lanuage I would go there.
Save the People of Iceland - the Official PetitionTarget:Icelandic nationSponsored by: Save the people of IcelandWe did it - 93% of the Icelandic people who voted 6. march said NO to the bailout: NO to the socialization of private debt. Iceland still needs your support because this is far from over. So we have decided to keep the petition going until the Icesave dispute is over.
------------------------------------------------------------
Iceland may be the first Western democracy to be forced into South-American style debt-slavery. The IMF, in concert with the UK and the Netherlands, has attempted to strongarm the recently impoverished Island of 317,000 into paying over 3.6 billion pounds ($6.3bn) -- $86,000 per Icelandic family -- at 5.5% interest for the next generation. The money is not conventional government debt, but arises from the collapse of a private multi-national bank during the financial crisis.
The issue is so serious that the entire nation will vote on it March 6th 2010.
On December 30, 2009, after extraordinary diplomatic threats, Iceland's parliament passed narrowly a bill agreeing to pay the onerous terms. Only a few months earlier parliament had agreed to the full amount, but under more reasonable conditions.
The people of Iceland must be internationally supported, so they can feel safe in voting down debt-slavery. If Iceland falls, it won't be long before other countries suffer similar financial extortion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute
http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/UK%20must%20take%20some%20responsibility%20for%20Iceland%20crisis 5341.twl
We did it - 93% of the Icelandic people who voted 6. march said NO to the bailout: NO to the socialization of private debt. Iceland still needs your support because this is far from over. So we have decided to keep the petition going until the Icesave dispute is over.
------------------------------------------------------------
Iceland may be the first Western democracy to be forced into South-American style debt-slavery. The IMF, in concert with the UK and the Netherlands, has attempted to strongarm the recently impoverished Island of 317,000 into paying over 3.6 billion pounds ($6.3bn) -- $86,000 per Icelandic family -- at 5.5% interest for the next generation. The money is not conventional government debt, but arises from the collapse of a private multi-national bank during the financial crisis.
The issue is so serious that the entire nation will vote on it March 6th 2010.
On December 30, 2009, after extraordinary diplomatic threats, Iceland's parliament passed narrowly a bill agreeing to pay the onerous terms. Only a few months earlier parliament had agreed to the full amount, but under more reasonable conditions.
The people of Iceland must be internationally supported, so they can feel safe in voting down debt-slavery. If Iceland falls, it won't be long before other countries suffer similar financial extortion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute
http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/UK%20must%20take%20some%20responsibility%20for%20Iceland%20crisis 5341.twl
More here. They are fighting the underbelly of the beast. It all ties in together.
http://economicedge.blogspot.com/2010/03/most-important-chart-of-century.html
It doesn’t have to be like that, in fact it’s a ridiculous notion that the people of the United States, or any country, should pay private individuals for the use of their money system. Ridiculous!
It’s difficult to see this from inside the box, so let’s look at what happened to Iceland to illustrate. The central banks of the world created financial engineered products and brought them to the banks of Iceland. These products created a boom in the amount of credit. Prices of everything rose, and the people of Iceland then had no choice but to go along for the bubble ride. Then with incomes no longer able to service the bubble debt, the bubble collapsed.
To “save the day,” the IMF and central bankers around the world rushed in to “rescue” the people, banks, and government of Iceland. They did this by offering loans... documents that create money simply by signing a contract of debt servitude. That contract demanded ownership of Iceland’s infrastructure such as their geothermal electrical generating plants. It also demanded the future productivity of the people of Iceland in that they should work and pay high taxes for decades to pay back this “debt.” Debt that they did not create or agree to service in the first place!
There were some wise people who saw through this central banker game and started a movement. They DEMANDED that the President of Iceland put the debt servitude to a vote and the people wisely said, “Central Bankers Pound Sand!”
Thus they now control their own destiny, their future productive efforts still belong to them.
Song
That guy with the long left article on capitalism, whose link you left way up there says there is no terror and the war on terror is a front and a con --
I know there is terror and I know there is a war on it and I am a recruit...
Men - I rarely enjoy reading them because their reality is a hollow intellectual maze -- they are so puffed up with their own distinctions, never knowing reality -- just pedantic exercises which delight them.
Here is the interesting part:
If one studies the collapse of civilizations, one learns that failure-to-adapt is fatal. Continuing on the path of pursuing growth would be such a failure to adapt. And if one reads the financial pages these days, one finds that it is full of doomsayers. We read that the Eurozone is doomed, and Greece is just the first casualty. We read that stimulus packages are not working, unemployment is increasing, the dollar is in deep trouble, growth continues to stagnate, business real estate will be the next bubble to burst, etc. It is easy to get the impression that capitalism is failing to adapt, and that our societies are in danger of collapsing into chaos.
Such an impression would be partly right and partly wrong. In order to understand the real situation we need to make a clear distinction between the capitalist elite and capitalism itself. Capitalism is an economic system driven by growth; the capitalist elite are the folks who have managed to gain control of the Western world while capitalism has operated over the past two centuries. The capitalist system is past its sell-by date, the banking elite are well aware of that fact – and they are adapting.
Capitalism is a vehicle that helped bring the bankers to absolute power, but they have no more loyalty to that system than they have to place, or to anything or anyone else. As mentioned earlier, they think on a global scale, with nations and populations as pawns. They define what money is and they issue it, just like the banker in a game of Monopoly. They can also make up a new game with a new kind of money. They have long outgrown any need to rely on any particular economic system in order to maintain their power. Capitalism was handy in an era of rapid growth. For an era of non-growth, a different game is being prepared.
Thus, capitalism has not been allowed to die a natural death. First it was put on a life-support system, as mentioned above, with globalization, privatization, derivative markets, etc. Then it was injected with a euthanasia death-drug, in the form of toxic derivatives. And when the planned collapse occurred, rather than industrial capitalism being bailed out, the elite bankers were bailed out.
It's not that the banks were too big to fail, rather the bankers were too politically powerful to fail. They made governments an offer they couldn't refuse.
The outcome of the trillion-dollar bailouts was easily predictable, although you wouldn't know that from reading the financial pages. National budgets were already stretched, and they certainly did not have reserves available to service the bailouts. Thus the bailouts amounted to nothing more than the taking on of immense new debts by governments. In order to fulfill the bailout commitments, the money would need to be borrowed from the same financial institutions that were being bailed out.
With the bailouts, Western governments delivered their nations in hock to the bankers. The governments are now in perpetual debt bondage to the bankers. Rather than the banks going into receivership, governments are now in receivership. Obama's cabinet and advisors are nearly all from Wall Street; they are in the White House so they can keep close watch over their new acquisition, the once sovereign USA. Perhaps they will soon be presiding over its liquidation.
The bankers are now in control of national budgets. They say what can be funded and what can't. When it comes to financing their wars and weapons production, no limits are set. When it comes to public services, then we are told deficits must be held in check. The situation was expressed very well by Brian Cowan, Ireland's government chief. In the very same week that Ireland pledged 200 billion Euro to bailout the banks, he was being asked why he was cutting a few million Euro off of critical service budgets. He replied, "I'm sorry, but the funds just aren't there". Of course they're not there! The treasury was given away. The cupboard is bare.
As we might expect, the highest priority for budgets is servicing the debt to the banks. Just as most of the third world is in debt slavery to the IMF, so the whole West is now in debt slavery to its own central banks. Greece is the harbinger of what is to happen everywhere.
The carbon economy – controlling consumption
In a non-growth economy, the mechanisms of production will become relatively static. Instead of corporations competing to innovate, we'll have production bureaucracies. They'll be semi-state, semi-private bureaucracies, concerned about budgets and quotas rather than growth, somewhat along the lines of the Soviet model. Such an environment is not driven by a need for growth capital, and it does not enable a profitable game of Monopoly.
We can already see steps being taken to shift the corporate model towards the bureaucratic model, through increased government intervention in economic affairs. With the Wall Street bailouts, the forced restructuring of General Motors, the call for centralized micromanagement of banking and industry, and the mandating of health insurance coverage, the government is saying that the market is to superseded by government directives. Not that we should bemoan the demise of exploitive capitalism, but before celebrating we need to understand what it is being replaced with.
and right now in the US under the guise of gag Health Care Reform and double gag Immigration Reform, the social safety nets are being ravaged. Medicare and Medicaid raided for gifts to the insurance industry and the immigrants used to bust the unions and create more debt. Tools.. But this is the US and there will be violence here. Here it will not be as easy as it was for them in Europe.
We need to learn from Iceland... of course the bail outs surprised us here -- the first thing BO did -- Bush set it up a week before leaving office and BO smashed the ball into our faces. Iceland got to watch and learn from us.
And the media -- why are those people so uncivil -- pretending this is a honest human rights victory -- using the civil rights heroes -- actual vomit
I didn't put quotes around his stuff because i was just talking to you Song and I assumed you would know but for other readers, there are three posts there from the guy's article
Just got in:
I do not agree with him about terrorism, although certain false flag attacks seem to have been admitted to, but again, i can't say. I do believe however that generating fear is a big part of how people are controlled. Not all, of it by any means but some of it. That is a given.
Iceland, is thought of by some to be a test case for how to handle this country. I don't see that. Perhaps, I don't want to give the ptb, that much credit. It is not in the interests of corporations/capitalists/bankers/governments to fall apart, it is not something they do on purpose. The problem is the sense among all of them that the Titanic was built to be unsinkable, as it is taking on water. Although a lot of what we are seeing is written in the article, other variables are also in play. Capitalism has moved to India, China, Russia, etc. Those countries are very nationalistic and do not want to dissolve into the One World dream held by the patriarchalists. Most conspiracy theorists do not realize that there have been at least 7 other currencies that procured "globalism" for their empires, since before Byzantinium times. So we have seen this all before, historically.
In economic systems, truly nature always runs its course, and empires always collapse, and women, and children always pay the heavier price. I could write all night about it...geez.
So Iceland, is a very bright star, for many reasons. Too bad more Americans don't know what is going on.
Hi Green, it's Saturday night and I got home late. Won't be posting now for a few days, but will check in, and? Anyway I found this for your Sunday song
song!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAP9h5FlfwM
Here is another from ZeroHedge about Iceland. Some comments are interesting. Some? Not so much.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/93-icelanders-reject-icesave-bill-historic-referendum
Why not write about it in the sense of what could the US Center do about the trap we are in; that is, the financial elites creating unsustainable debt and depleting the social services to feed it?
Here in the US, the corps not only own the media and politicians but also the boards of our non-profits. In this country, we have already bailed them out and are told they have almost repaid the entire loan in a matter of months while paying enormous bonuses. I bet it would be hard to even get a list of what specific corporations got and how much is repaid.
Iceland may be in for a shock as their politicians may ignore the vote ultimately but with this president - maybe not.
If you have a strategy I would like to read it. I have thought that we in the US need binding referendum initiatives wherein the people could have a clear mechanism to submit legislative proposals to the voters on the ballots at the same time we vote for politicians. The process at this time is only viable in a few states and there is no federal initiative at all. Enormous education would have to take place before a movement would force the politicians to create such a system. The answer is not in a third party which simply rearranges the chairs and continues the corruption and imbalance of power. The check to achieve balance is in shifting power directly to the masses.
The answer is in a real shift in the balance of power from the politicians to the people. That power in our control is the only thing that will break the cynicism of hopelessness which is our reality.
well I put several answers to you over at my blog yesterday when I finally returned, but note you did not read them today. Your comment today? lol. So here is the answer to it.
Well, never thought of writing a children's book, but have been told to many times by people who know me, personally. Here is my personality type. So you know.
http://typelogic.com/infp.html
and here is your test for today.
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
On another note, I completed a Science Fiction novel which includes, of all things extraterrestrial hints about Sirius, so that is a sync you have put there.
well that was interesting.
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes3.asp
I will put a link to it on my site
Typically, I immediately did mine before I read yours throughly - now I go back to do that AND read the answers on your blog. I put the video on my animal cruelty post. about just sanctions.
my as yet unpublished scifi novel deals exclusively with shifting the paradigm, by the reinterpretation of mythos, legend, and woman's role on the earth. The reason it is scifi is because it allows space for believability, which to me is paramount, ethically.
as for the economic issues, I will answer you later this evening. As much as I want to linger here, there is work that I must get done.
I could get into a big, deep thing here about science books and children. Those who write science children's textbooks kill all the deep magic and connections and beauty of the DNA & basic mystery of the atoms. So children, especially working class children, never quicken to it. The children love the books like Harry Potter which are gendered and ultimately empty although they have a lot of frosting.
There is a need for children's books to quicken them to true natural magic. You do it all the time in your posts and art selections -- that is you effortlessly show the connections. Oh yeah, you should do more occasionally and then after a year gather it into a book for new mothers. Let this comment do your marketing.
crap now my test is gone so i can't read it - crap
i might do it again but that was long -- first I will go read yours
HA! from Song's profile:
Some INFPs have a gift for taking technical information and putting it into layman's terms. Brendan Kehoe's Zen and the Art of the Internet is one example of this "de-jargoning" talent in action.
Yes, I know about my profile green. :) What is yours?
well song I read yours with great interest and you are definitely a rare writer and seer. Mine came out much different. I have no idea if you can access this:
http://typelogic.com/infj.html
Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging
and when your book is published, I want to buy a copy so when you can leave the info
Thank god I saved it cause it is gone again
If any one else takes this test , save the explanation of the personality type because it disappears
INFJ! Ha! I knew it! A very rare combination just so you know. This material should interest you greatly. INFJ. you described yourself yesterday, actually, how your processed your trauma as a child.
Did you save the page so I can read it again.
As an aside, it was a friend of mine, a therapist who brought the brain mind material to me. Will be back. must do the dishes, and feed the birds.
The material interested me greatly. I have no idea how to get it to you - I saved it but it disappears on the web. DJF has my email address although I do not know how we got it to each other --- oh I know -- she moderates her blog so I could send her my email address without her publishing it so that every spammer could get it. If you cannot find the reading from the links I gave above -- give DJF your email address in a comment you tell her not to publish --- and tell her to send your email address it to me --- then I will send you a copy of the explanation of the personality --- or maybe your friend can access it..
OH I GOT IT --HERE IT IS:
http://typelogic.com/infj.html
OH YES:
http://typelogic.com/infj.html
I am glad Green that you find the material interesting. I was hoping I was correct and you were the rare combination INFJ. Obviously, not always the most easy person to communicate with because of that inner truth sensor and also, can be viewed at times as belligerent when they are actually only trying to understand a point. But you (meaning others) cannot run a number by an INFJ, because of the way they are built. Strong feelings, not emotion, really governs this group though they can appear aloof, and people misread them, and their expressions, also.
You would have been attracted to my psychological tessellation "theory" because something rang true to you, as it does to my other INFJ friend. I am a fortunate person to know 2 of you now. Ah well, being and INFP m'self, I know I at times appear to be a bit "out there" and my means of expression may not be as understandable as they could be.INFJ's always want to know how theory works "in the trenches."
btw, I also came from a working class family.
you need this material Green. There are many books about the MBTI and Jungian typology. It has been a long time since I read them so I can't recall them right off the top of my head.
There are forums, etc.
Yes, you are correct about me but there is also the ignoring of indicators because of the desire to believe in people and hope for the easy way.
And there can be belligerence in insisting on a point when I am certain beyond all doubt and the collective is not ready. I feel like John the Baptist or Joan de Arc bringing the first news of the changes to come to the crowd who will eventually accept it (I have seen this happen too many times to think it is just narcissism) but rejects the message here and now coming from me. Cassandra. I often feel I am preparing the way for those who will actually achieve the transforming.
And I can be hostile and lose the desire to persuade in anger that those who should know are not seeing the obvious -- I am thinking of global feminism here and the need for war to liberate female slavery under Islam. Some things are too urgent for dullness. Yet, I know impatience is not the way. This is why I loved the book Ariadne by June Brindel, 1980, St. Martin's Press, although others thought it was just a romance novel. June Brindel captured the theme of knowing and being faced with the mothers and sisters whose mantra in the face of gendercide was “peace”. Knowing and being impotent or without the necessary skill and/or energy.
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/ariadne.html
As for you, the way you are "out there" is a gift to others of art and beauty that you bring back from that place. The writing you are doing on your blog now is so beautiful and yet so clear. The short reference to Mary Daly fit in perfectly with the rest of the imagery – your words are not trite or sloppy sentimentalism but true wisdom, deep and penetrating yet without harshness or anger. You are the artist who gives the vision to be completed by the observer. You give colors from the real fairy land which is where the cells join and split, energies are generated, and where the spirit of the elements, plants, insect and bird spirits live and are called fairies by those who can see. .
BTW, you know I can never tell when you put something new on your blog because the notices do not work for me - don't ask me why --the link to subcribe does not work when they first send it and it wont even copy so I can paste it in the broswer. I told WP but to no avail but I check often so who cares.
browser
well Green there at at least 16 other identified temperaments, and each speak their own language, and perceive through their own personality types, so they are not going to understand always, because of the limits of language, their predominant modes of perception and again, their own personal experience and enculturation.
I do not believe that war with Islam will change Islam, as the new democracy shows in Iraq, that women have lost rather than gained their rights, and have taken many steps backward. these situations are always complex, and both sides can always come back with an answer. I tend to think that REAL economic sanctions have great merit.
we are not totally in Afghanistan for building a democracy, and/or looking for Bin Laden. that area, is in fact a passageway of potential pipelines of oil that won't make it's way from Iran to China, if we are able to control that area. So, it is about resources which is what war is always about. Then we have leaders such as President Bush, who was a good friend with the Saudi's, yet the Saudi's export the most fundamental type of the religion to other parts of the world. Most female Muslim scholars such as Helene-Lucas, believe the war is not with the religion but with the fundamental aspects of it, and this type of literalism and fundamentalism is in all of the patriarchal religions.
Also, much of the west has fomented rebellion is republics such as Georgia, so that the Tblisi pipeline could carry the oil from the Black Sea.
It is better if I don't say here what I think of any of the religions because they are all part of the same tree, and in each of them the androcentrism is a potent fruit.
Thank you for your kind words in regards to my writing.
Obviously Green, there is no Answer to any problem, because all answers create more problems; but i do think that a systemic approach to what ails us as a nation, will be the best of all options, such as Nathan's Economic Edge's
ideas in regards to bringing the banking system back to the people. It sounds like it has potential. I doubt that it has many women members. I have noted that very few women read economic blogs.
here; http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/
He started this site only a few weeks ago, and already has 700 members.
"It's not what backs our money, it's who controls the quantity."
Check it out. I am still pondering it m'self. But I make decisions very slowly. Unlike you.
Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving INFP
I put this here so I remember what you are when I am reading
oh god not you too -- it does not matter why WE meaning they -our president goes there or what he is doing there - it matters only that women are organized to take advantage of it -- there is no way without war those women will ever be free and they were not free under Saddam which is a lie just as oil for food was a lie. Some women of Saddam's tribe had privilege if he did not notice them and even that was before he became part of the brotherhood at the end -- for the rest there were the tape rooms and the meat grinders and the electric wires. All through this war things changed for women and Hillary Clinton and BO ended all that change. Only real feminism here working for women there in support of the war effort could have made a difference. Rice opened 8 regional women's centers, schools for girls, the soldiers built battered women's shelters and female soldiers ran them. Women were being trained to be police to guard the shelters. And their were economic projects. What did US "feminists" work for -- peace and BO. Well they can kiss that ass until there are no rights for woven left in the US because the status of women here is connected to the status of women every where. and because we abandoned them we will be abandoned and also oppressed. Wait and see.
And Osama Ben Ladin is dead and has been dead since the first week of the war.
I am too tired to write more tonight -- big day tomorrow but we will continue this at a better time
forgive all the language errors -- i am too tired
Ah well Green we do agree to disagree, don't we? If wars benefited woman the whole world would be a feminist paradise after last century would it not?
I do not support the wars, because they are not for democracy or to fight terrorism they are for resources. The cold hard fact. And no American soldier ought die so my fuel tank may be full
http://www.gilasvirsky.com/marieme.html
Article by Lucas.
You know a left cover group which called them self a women's group did a poll in Iraq and asked women mostly widows if they wanted the US to leave and if they resented the "invasion" thinking of course they would generate propaganda - they were federally funded and had to report the results. The women overwhelmingly supported the invasion. But it is true we abandoned those women and we will do it in Afghan also. I blame women who have a pretense of feminism and did nothing to support Condi Rice and her feminist programs. Worse they now flock like groupies to Clinton who destroyed those programs and does what she is told by the woman hater Obama.
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/2010/03/25/so-i-guess-this-is-what-a-feminist-looks-like/
What goes around comes around. Read Ariadne.
Rebellion in Georgia is US generated? Please. It is the brotherhood. Why not blame me or the moon and stars -- eventually if you go back far enough we could all be responsible for anything. The whole country is a thug patriarchy.
so in summary here is the deal -- you can sit back and embrace the conspiracy theory of the day or you can realize what it means to say everyone is a star or a god and accept the responsibility to make the thing what you will it to be.
That is the deal -- there are competing interests in the world and if we are passive the oil companies will direct outcomes. Here there is a golden opportunity for feminism to move into the Mideast and join with women who risk everything for freedom -- I know their names or we can say no because were really not there for that -- and it is the same with everything else -- environmentalism everything -- we act or we accept things they way the bosses say they shall be
When we started the first BW shelters, they said women like to be beaten - they go back -- it is private -- don't get involved -- same thing with rape -- they asked for it -- now we are told the women of the Mideast want to be slaves -- nothing we can do -- and its true, without the soldiers, no , nothing we can do but with the soldiers and a mass feminist movement -- there was plenty we could do to influence state dept policy and even without us --much has been done.
http://www.huntalternatives.org/pages/7689_security_sector.cfm
Oh Green you have strong convictions. My convenient politics is neither left nor right but born of standing by a flag draped coffin, listening to a 21 gun salute, watching my aunt's shoulder's jerk with each volley.
Semper Fi, Green.
Yes, and do you choose to see that life as wasted? Would the dead soldier say that? This is the way for soldiers and worse which is why I honor them. Which is why I want those benefits to keep right on rolling. I do not see the sacrifice as a waste even if the pukes who run them betray the troops and the mission. Which they always do. Because I can give you the links and show you the fine, beautiful good they have done and are still doing which is never told by our media. AND NOT RECOGNIZING THAT IS WHAT HURTS THEM, THE GOOD ONES. Semper Fi, Song. Blessings all over your Aunt. Blessings on her name.
My dead family member cannot speak Green. He will never have a family. He will never speak again.
My aunt was handed a flag.
Her life was destroyed. Her grief unbearable, for the rest of her days.
"not my boy, my beautiful boy." she wailed at the graveyard.
Many graves; much grief - there and here the women buried from violence every day. I remember a woman who was killed in a basement with a hatchet visiting a person she did not trust to see if his wife was OK. I honor their choices. I call them hero. I acknowledge the good they did. The liberation of a people the building of a medical clinic -- how many children got medical care -- how many girls went to school. No he cannot talk -- he did his talking when he signed up and I am sure in many letters home. Ask to see those letters. Adopt a soldier in his name - I have the links on the green col under Places - f
For Any Soldier. She did have a beautiful boy. Although I remain firm in the face of grief it does not mean I do not understand her inconsolable grief. Still, I will not dishonor his work. His work IS/WAS necessary regardless of the boss's corruption. He continues in a long line of the beautiful in spirit.
Adopt a soldier? I have family members in the Armed Services now.
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