Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

The following article is from author Naomi Wolf and was originally posted in the Guardian Unlimited on Tuesday April 24, 2007. I am using it here verbatim because I really believe she has a point with this article when she compares the steps taken by fascist regimes in order to set the stage for a totalitarian regime with the steps that George Bush has been taking in America. It is quite unsettling to read and see the parallels. Her about this subject, The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, came out in September this year.

I always like to say: "History doesn't repeat itself; people do". And as Wolf describes it, Bush is definitely working on repeating some of the ten steps she talks about.

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

Continue reading "Fascist America, in 10 easy ... »

I wrote earlier about Micheal Moore's latest documentary SiCKO. The story Below comes from The Washington Post and shows how the US Governement (i.e. Bush) treats its own people, in this case veterans from the Iraq/Afghanistan war. Did I hear anyone say "Vietnam?" It is really another example of how the "richest country in the world" just seems to give up on their own citizens. The sad thing is that I see the same trend in my own country.

SOLDIER WHO CAPTURED SADDAM IS SICK, BUT LEFT TO ROT BY VA

Army Spec. Jeans Cruz helped capture Saddam Hussein. When he came home to the Bronx, important people called him a war hero and promised to help him start a new life. The mayor of New York, officials of his parents’ home town in Puerto Rico, the borough president and other local dignitaries honored him with plaques and silk parade sashes. They handed him their business cards and urged him to phone.

But a “black shadow” had followed Cruz home from Iraq, he confided to an Army counselor. He was hounded by recurring images of how war really was for him: not the triumphant scene of Hussein in handcuffs, but visions of dead Iraqi children.

In public, the former Army scout stood tall for the cameras and marched in the parades. In private, he slashed his forearms to provoke the pain and adrenaline of combat. He heard voices and smelled stale blood. Soon the offers of help evaporated and he found himself estranged and alone, struggling with financial collapse and a darkening depression.

Continue reading "Bush' politics of war: just ... »

Oh man, this really makes my day: Michael Moore's newest documentary "SiCKO" ("If people ask, we tell them SiCKO is a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on Earth.") got 'pirated' and is now out on the web via newsgroups and several torrent sites like The Pirate Bay before it will be released in the US on June 29th. So what's good about that? you might ask.
Well, the US government has been trying to come down on Moore and his producer the Weinstein Company and is attempting to impound the negative. If the film were impounded, there might be attempts to cut some footage, in particular the last 20 minutes, which related to a trip to Cuba. Moore travelled to the Caribbean island in March with a group of emergency workers from New York's Ground Zero to see whether they would receive better care under the Castro regime than they had under George Bush. He had applied for permission to travel in October 2006 and received no reply. In a letter dated May 2, the treasury department notified Moore that it was investigating him for unlicensed travel to Cuba, or, as the missive put it, engaging in "travel-related transactions involving Cuba."

On May 19th SiCKO already featured at the Cannes Film Festival; and producer Harvey Weinstein told the press about the situation with the US Treasury department:

"We had to fly the movie to another country. Let the secret service find that out - though this is the same country that thought there were weapons of mass destruction (in Iraq - edit), so they'll never find it."

Moore's underlying thesis in Sicko relates to the structure of American society. "It's important to have a safety net and free universal health care. In America, unfortunately, we're more focused on what's in it for me. It's every man for himself. If you're sick and have lost a job, it's not my problem. Don't bother me." The insurance companies are a negative force, he believes. "They get in the way of taking care of those who are ill. They make it worse. We don't need them," he said.

As usual Moore's documentary has some examples that blow your mind:

After an attempt to obtain treatment at Guantanamo Bay detention facility - which Moore described as the only place on U.S. soil where there is "socialised medicine" - they seek out a hospital in Havana. All are checked and treated free of charge. One woman discovers that an inhaler for her respiratory problems costs approximately five cents in Cuba compared to 120 dollars in the U.S.

Off course piracy normally hurts studio's and in particular small, independent movie makers - like Michael Moore. But in this case I think it is a good thing that this happened before some three-letter agency impounds the movie. It's out there and there is nothing Bush can do about it.

Seriously: Michael you're my hero!

Michael Moore on David Letterman


P.s.: do visit Michael Moore's official Website as well!

Today it is exactly five years agot that our country changed for the worse. Politician and would-be president Pim Fortuyn got murdered by activist Volkert van de Graaf - or as the press still refer to him: Volkert van der G. To set the record straight: I never was a fan of Fortuyn, nor did I believe he would be the capable politician to lead our country forward. Having said that, Fortuyn was undeniably the one man that shook the foundations of our whole political system loose and single handedly created a revolution. I'm sure his murder will be placed by historians in a post 9/11 political era; after 9/11 the world has changed - and so did Holland. And it wasn't for the better.

The eerie thing was that Fortuyn more or less foresaw his own murder and he even talked about it on a Dutch talkshow a couple of months before it happened:

Fortuyn on "Jensen!" (subtitled)


I believe that after the assassination of Fortuyn our country never recovered. Especially after yet another blow was dealt to our society on November 2nd 2004 when filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered.

In Dutch history there are now three days in May marked on the calendar for the next generations to come: May 4th is our Memorial Day in which we remember all the people killed in WW2 and all wars after that, May 5th is national Liberation Day and May 6th will mark the day of change in Dutch politics.

Some rather unusual news this week in Holland: Dutch public prosecutors are investigating if, and how, they can prosecute people having virtual sex with virtual characters in the virtual world of Second Life. So what is the problem? you might ask. Well, in the virtual world of Second Life, a player can pretend to be an animal, an alien and about anything else he or she imagines. Second Life is a world of role-playing. There are no set goals or "quests" like with traditional games like World of Warcraft. Second Life is just a digital facsimile of the real world.

This virtual or rather digital representation of a player (also known as Avatar), can also look like a child. This is called: "age play." Age-based role-playing can take on various forms: people just acting out a (virtual) family dynamic, or even two adults engaging in sexual role playing (with one - or both - of the avatars looking like a child). In other words: we are talking about a virtual form of child pornography: and that's where the discussion starts.

For instance: are there any legal grounds to prosecute adults that are acting out such behavior in a virtual environment? After all: there are no real children involved, so there is no real crime? One could argue that if people that have virtual sex (in this case virtual pedophilia) are being prosecuted, then also people that commit virtual crimes like murder or theft (think about games like Grand Theft Auto) should be?

As far as I know it is not a crime in any country on this earth to fantasize about illegal things. Virtual reality on the Internet and also in games allows people to act out any fantasy without actually doing anything illegal. There are several games that cater to this. So what about this virtual pedophilia then? It is illegal to possess any form of child pornography. But in this case there is no child pornography: it is all digital.

Some people argue that people that act out such (to them) sick fantasies, will eventually also commit sex crimes. However this is a highly speculative theory. It is the same theory that says that violence on TV leads to real violence just like violent video games do. The same goes for drugs: people argue that someone that smokes pot, might eventually try other drugs and wind up a heroine addict. However, studies have been inconclusive about this.

It is a well known fact that a lot of women (and men for that part) that have rape fantasies; in fact It is estimated that 24% of men and 36% of women have had a rape fantasy, and 10% of women report this is their favorite type of fantasy. But that does not mean that they act on it. In fact most don't. However, there is and always will be a small percentage that actually does; those are the stories of real serial rapists, mass murders and pedophiles you read about.

Off course: from a moral point of view it is highly unacceptable that people fantasize about things like this. But let's not forget: we are talking about two (or more) adults engaging in a role-play. I mean: if it is someone's sexual fantasy to have sex with a child (no matter how sick that is to us), wouldn't you rather have them act on it in a virtual world then in real life?

In other words: yes this kind of behavior is very disturbing. But I would argue that trying to prosecute people for this kind of virtual behavior would mean we are stepping onto very slippery sliding scale; next we could prosecute people that act out other virtual crimes or that behave in a anarchistic way because they like to play that they are some Taliban terrorist or even a virtual Nazi.

Instead I would not try to prosecute those individuals, but would like to have their (digital) behavior monitored closely and - even more important - try to find out why they would even like to fantasize about things like this in the first place.

But let's not get a thought police yet. 1984 is years behind us.