Go see CHE

Tonight I finally had a chance (thanks to Jason Nelson) to see Part 1 & 2 of Steven Soderbergh’s amazing film CHE, depicting the life of Che Guevara, starring (and produced by) Benicio Del Toro.

It’s an amazing film that, predictably, did very poorly at the US box office. I believe it opened in cinemas in Australia just recently so go see it if you can. If you can’t, try to pick it up when it comes out on DVD. The depiction of Che in these films is the most honest ever put into a major movie. It puts lie to the propaganda and lies told about Che by Americans for the last 50 years.

Jean-Paul Satre called Che "not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age" and the "era’s most perfect man."

Listen to the full 1964 radio interview with Che which appears, in part, in the first film.

They Aren’t Paedophiles – They Just Like Having Sex With Boys

The Vatican was kind enough this week to give yet another excuse to SHUT THEM DOWN PERMANENTLY.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN, made a statement assuring the UN human rights council that Catholic priests involved in having sex with young boys aren’t really engaged in paedophilia, it would "be more correct" to speak of ephebophilia, a homosexual attraction to adolescent males.

"Of all priests involved in the abuses, 80 to 90% belong to this sexual orientation minority which is sexually engaged with adolescent boys between the ages of 11 and 17."

Ohhh that’s okay then…. you stupid fucking asshole.

Apparently Archibishop Clueless made this statement after an international representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, Keith Porteous Wood, accused it of covering up child abuse and being in breach of several articles under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Archbishop Clueless also accused other churches of having an equally bad track record of child abuse, something that Irwin Zalkin refuted when I interviewed him earlier this year.

Clueless went on to say that “available research” showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse. As The Daily Irrelevant noted:

Only???

And that’s your defense of what happened? Really?

The USA has easily the largest percentage of their population incarcerated or on probation of all countries in the world.
There are 1 in 32 people in the US either behind bars or on Probation, and that’s for ALL convictions combined.

That’s less than 3%. And the vatican has the fucking nerve to say it’s “only” 5%.

Folks, I ask again – when are we going to shut the Catholic Church down? It’s a disgrace. At the very least, in Australia, we should be having a Royal Commission into the levels child abuse perpetrated by the Catholic clergy in Australia over the last 70 years, like the one they recently concluded in Ireland.

When I interviewed Dr Wayne Chamley from Broken Rites a few months ago, he suggested that if we had a Royal Commission into Catholic child abuse in this country we would discover TENS OF THOUSANDS of victims.

Let’s do something about it. If we don’t, history will judge us as a bunch of spineless, assholes with no integrity.

Oh sure, everyone seems more than happy to throw the book at Polanksi, but go after the Catholic Church? Oh no, we couldn’t do that.

(link to the story via The Daily Irrelevant – thanks Russell)

Your Credit Card Has Been Compromised

It’s time for all of us to get rid of our credit cards, once and for all.

As if the "Global Financial Crisis" (or, as I like to call it, the "Greedy Fuckers Crisis") hasn’t already taught us that we need to wean ourselves off of this credit-based culture we’ve built for ourselves, then this story should. According to News.com.au, "one in five Australians is a victim of credit card fraud or computer hackers."

More quotes:

"Credit card crime is by far the biggest single fraud issue, with almost 10 per cent of those surveyed falling victim to card theft or skimming."

"The news will be an embarrassment to the banks, who repeatedly claim that their systems are secure."

The banks make BILLIONS and BILLIONS of profits every year and they STILL can’t stop credit card fraud. Why? Because they don’t care. It would cost more to fix it than it does to pay out the claims. It’s the same reason they can’t develop an e-banking system that doesn’t look like it was made my monkeys in 1993. THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU. They care about profits, not people, not customers – PROFIT. That’s why their customer satisfaction scores are in the toilet.

Credit cards are just another way that the banks, corporations and the government manages to keep us up to our eyeballs in debt. They know that human nature means that if you CAN spend it, you WILL – eventually. And then they have you by the balls. And if you’re living on debt, you’re easy to manipulate. You can’t afford to quit your job – so they can screw you down a little bit more. You can’t afford to lose your job – so you put "the economy" ahead of other issues, like "the survival of the species" when you vote in elections. You dance to their tune.

Let’s get a campaign going to get a million people to cut up their credit cards this year. Along with my other campaign to get a million people to walk away from the "big four" banks and take their banking to a smaller, member-owned credit union.

Let’s take control of our destiny people.

UPDATE: Check out @mrshlee! He already decided to cut his up! (video)