Wednesday, September 08, 2010


Swedish Leftists want to stop women breastfeeding in the name of equality

Left Party leader Lars Ohly has been slammed by breastfeeding experts and Red-Green coalition colleagues for advising nursing mothers to pump milk out of their breast so that they can go back to work earlier.

The Left Party stands for a policy of dividing parental leave equally between parents - meaning around seven months of paid leave each. Currently couples have 60 allocated days each with the remaining 270 days divided freely.

The party has not managed to impose the requirement on its Red-Green coalition partners, the Social Democrats and Green Party - despite their respective party members also being in favour - as it was deemed to lack support among parents and the wider electorate.

But despite the fact that the centre-left trio's joint election manifesto does not include the demand, Ohly took the opportunity of Sunday evening's party leader cross-examination on Sveriges Television (SVT) to push the case for the introduction of legally stipulated quotas.

Ohly recommended the use of a breast milk pump to address any problems of the mother not having finished breastfeeding the child prior to handing over the parental ropes to her partner.

"I was home with each of my children for eight months. My ex-wife used a breast pump, one of those modern tools that exist which... meant that it worked very well to enable me to continue to give my children breast milk. That still works today, as far as I understand," Lars Ohly said.

Ohly's comments raised ripples of laughter in the studio and became something of a talking point in the mainstream and social media on Monday. Green Party spokesperson and mother of two, Maria Wetterstrand, was not as amused. "I am not going to have any opinions on whether people should use a breast pump or not. I don't think it is of interest for voters," she said to news agency TT.

Social Democrat leader Mona Sahlin rejected the assertion that Ohly's comments should be interpreted as a political manoeuvre to raise the profile of the issue. "It was no manoeuvre, it was a less clever way of answering a question," Sahlin told TT.

Anna Herting at breastfeeding advice service Amningshjälpen told The Local on Monday that the proposal is hardly practical if the child is still breastfeeding full time. "If the woman wants to go back to work, and the family want to carry on with breast milk, then it would require a flexible employer to allow the working mother to pump out her milk and transport it home during the day."

When asked whether a mother could pump out sufficient milk in the evening to be used the following day, Herting replied: "She would need that milk to feed the child in the evening, and using a breast pump can be problematic for many women."

Lars Ohly on Monday morning also seemed to distance himself from his breast pump comments. "I think that most women are okay with finishing breastfeeding after five or six months," Ohly said on SVT's God morgon programme, a comment which has drawn further criticism. "It is not for a politician, but for every family, to decide how long to breastfeed. It has to depend on the family's situation," Anna Herting told The Local.

Herting explained that Swedish recommendations are for full-time breastfeeding for six months and then part-time for the remainder of the year, but that the choice has to belong to the families themselves on what is best for all parties.

SOURCE





Bollywood Can Show Hollywood How to Fight Terror and Bigotry

Reconquista is the New Cool in Racist Left-wing Hollywood

The Anarchists, Marxists, and Revolutionary Zapatistas I photographed in May now have a movie championing their lunatic vision of America. James P. Pinkerton’s review of Hollywoods latest anti-American killing spree, “Machete” is aptly titled “The Reconquista is Here”.
One could figure that the current drug-war in Mexico–nearly 30,000 people murdered in just three years–would generate a cultural reaction. And one could further figure, of course, that the tens of millions of people who have crossed the U.S.-Mexican border in recent decades would have an enormous cultural impact, including on the movies. But who knew that Hollywood would blame everything that’s gone wrong in Mexico on the “Anglos”?

Well, actually, come to think of it, maybe Hollywood’s adversarial stance toward the majority culture is no surprise at all. Yet rarely has the “case” against Anglo America been made as strongly, albeit cartoonishly, as in “Machete.” …. all the Anglos are either evil or stupid.

By contrast, almost all the Hispanics in the film are virtuous, especially the character portrayed by Michelle Rodriguez, reprising her hot-but-tough-girl role in “Avatar.” In “Machete,” she plays a selfless underground community worker, giving selflessly to “the people.” Her character, who comes to be known as “She,” is meant to remind us of “Che,” as in Che Guevara, of course. Indeed, She/Che has the most political lines in the film: “We didn’t cross the border–the border crossed us!” And using words directly taken from advocates of “comprehensive immigration reform” in Washington, she adds, “The system doesn’t work, it’s broken.”

More than just another movie exemplifying liberalism’s self-loathing and glorification of violence, Machete goes further in advocating the radical justification for leftist war against America. Machete is nothing less than Psycho-political incitement to violent revolution against American society and sovereignty.

John Nolte at Big Hollywood puts it this way:
The story of a former Mexican “Federale” (the great Danny Trejo) framed for the attempted assassination of a racist Texas State Senator (the hammy Robert DeNiro) is both racial and racist. “Machete” isn’t about a political call for the powerless to fight THE corrupt MAN, it’s a call for revolution; Mexicans against Americans – and in the words of the character meant to be our evolving conscience, Jessica Alba’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Sartana, it’s about how those who believe in only LEGAL immigration “deserve to be cut down.” This is her rousing fist-in-the-air message to a gathered army of illegal day laborers who have been patiently waiting for the call away from their jobs as dishwashers, gardeners and hotel maids to wage war against a cruel America whose immigration laws, by the way, are nowhere near as harsh as Mexico’s.

In Machete Americans are shown committing atrocities like killing a pregnant woman while saying “Welcome to America” or nailing a dope smoking priest (Cheech Marin) to a cross while hurling racist hate speech as Hollywood imagines it.

Meanwhile it’s been 9 years of non-stop terrorism and terror plots here in the real world and Hollywood has not offered one critical portrayal of the world of the Islamic jihadist. It takes Bollywood to show the way in 2009 with Kurbaan, which is set inside the muslim community in the United States. The movie, made in Hindi with English subtitles, courageously portrays the infiltration of academia and suburbia by foreign born jihadists and also provides a portrait of liberated (moderate) muslims as heroes fighting against the terrorists next door.

It depicts a liberated muslim woman who is forced to participate in a suicide terror plot after unwittingly marrying a foreign jihadi. A liberated muslim couple who work in the news industry are brought into the plot as tragic heros to combat the terrorists. Go to the second half (instant view on Netfix) of this movie (skipping the Bollywood romance) and see what Hollywood should be doing to help combat the world of Jihad terror that has imbedded itself into the very fabric of American society. The moderate muslim heros are credible and complex and go a long way to present positive role models for the muslim community.

Hollywood has no doubt yearned to make jihad supporting movies reflecting their true sympathies for America’s Islamist enemy. The only question is why they haven’t. My guess is that they are afraid of the impact it might have on their wallets but not out of any conscientious restraint. The idea of loving America or valuing western civilization above all others is anathema to the lewd liberal lushes and dopers that run Hollywood. Having imbibed their anti-American marxism with their LSD in the 60s they can’t help but cheer on the reconquista and turn a blind eye to the Stealth jihad. It’s just a new chapter in their long hoped for smashing of “the system.”

Truth is much weirder than fiction when it comes to the mindset of American’s homegrown Hollywood left.

SOURCE






Greek daily distributes Turkish film to mark Sept. 6-7 pogrom

Slaughter of Christians by Muslims again

On the 55th anniversary of a pogrom that precipitated the exodus of thousands of Istanbul’s ethnic Greek minority, the best-selling newspaper here has marked the date with the distribution of a movie on the events – one made by a Turkish director.

“We – filmmakers – should work more for the two peoples’ wounds to be healed. For this [to be achieved], four films were made in the scope of Turkish cinema, of which two are mine. Unfortunately we do not see such examples from Greek Cinema. I expect similar works from Greek colleagues who share my artist sensitivity,” said Tomris Giritlioğlu, director of the film “Pains of Autumn,” which is being distributed by one of Greece’s top-selling dailies, Ta Nea.

The pogrom, which occurred on Sept. 6-7, 1955, was directed at the non-Muslim residents of Istanbul and resulted in many deaths, huge property damage an exodus by a huge proportion of Turkey’s remaining Greek population.

Ta Nea devoted four pages to covering the pogrom, in which it featured memories from Greece’s top-selling crime fiction novelist and screenwriter, Petros Markaris.

Markaris, who was 18 at the time, spoke about the events at Heybeliada Island, where he was on holiday.

“The commander of the Marine School on Heybeliada convinced the police chief not to let demonstrators set foot on the island. The police chief pulled his gun and halted the demonstrators when they arrived. I faced total devastation the following day when I went to the Beyoğlu, Fener and Kurtuluş [neighborhoods of Istanbul]. Wherever Greeks lived, that neighborhood’s school and church had been destroyed. It was impossible to walk in Beyoğlu because of the broken glass from shop windows and the rolls of fabric that had been thrown onto the street,” he said.

“It is wrong to say that all Turks took part in or supported the events. There were Turks who helped their Greek neighbors, who protected and hid them,” he said.

Reminiscing over some of his friends at the Austrian High School, he remembers being told, “‘Tell your complaints to Greece.’” Another student, however, said, “‘We do not approve of what has been done.’”

Markaris said he never forgot his literature teacher telling him, “‘Petro, I want you to know, I am ashamed in the name of my people. I am apologizing to you.’ What my then 27-year-old literature teacher said, Turkey repeated 50 years later.”

The atmosphere in Istanbul had been tense in the lead-up to the pogrom, especially because of Cyprus and demands from some for “Enosis,” or union, with Greece.

“The word ‘Enosis’ was perceived as a curse by the Turks. The Greeks sensed they would be the scapegoats in this matter. The slogan ‘Speak Turkish, Citizen’ was becoming popular in Istanbul,” he said.

“They blamed Adnan Menderes [first PM of Turkey in the multi-party era] for the Sep 6-7 events. However, we now understand years later that is not really an accurate reflection of what was happening. The Greek, Armenian and Jewish minorities who dominated trade in Istanbul had been living in fear since the start of World War II. There was an evil person who wanted to ‘reset’ those minorities: İsmet İnönü.”

Markaris said President İnönü was a fan of the Germans and accused him of intending to emulate the Nazis and cleanse Istanbul of religious minorities.

“The ‘20th Draw Safeguards’ in 1941, and the ‘Wealth Tax’ in 1942, were implemented in this scope,” Markaris said, in reference to various official policies essentially designed to economically impoverish non-Muslims.

İnönü, however, was forced to loosen the measures after the Nazis were defeated at Stalingrad, giving religious minorities some time to recover, he said.

As for Menderes, Markaris said he supported a liberal economy. “He let the minorities take initiative. The same Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, who the Istanbul Greeks saw as a ‘savior,’ left those people to the mercy of the mob.”

Whether Turkey’s then-prime minister was notified of the pogrom beforehand or not, or whether the attack was a conspiracy from the secret services remains unknown.

“The Greeks of Istanbul held Greece and Cyprus [responsible] for what happened to them. The generation that experienced those events has no sympathy for Greek Cypriots because of this,” he said.

SOURCE





A licence to interfere in our everyday lives

The [British] Liberal-Conservative coalition government’s proposed licensing reforms were whisked out for a brief consultation in August, which comes to a close this Wednesday (8 September). The anodyne title of the consultation (‘Rebalancing the Licensing Act’) and the rhetoric of ‘empowering communities’ are little more than pretty wrapping: the content is sinister stuff.

Far from empowering communities, the proposed changes would increase the power of local councils, the police and other authorities, who will be removed from necessary checks and balances. Far from rolling back New Labour’s hyper-regulatory regime, the proposed changes would roll it out much further and faster.

After the Licensing Act 2003, New Labour created a network of Licensing Committees, based in each local authority, to issue licenses to sell alcohol to pubs and other premises. This replaced the previous system of licenses issued by local magistrates. In theory, replacing magistrates with local councillors could have been a good thing - except that the Licensing Act set out four ‘licensing objectives’, which meant that the committee started to play a much more interfering role in licensed premises.

The objectives were wide-ranging: 1) the prevention of crime and disorder; 2) improving public safety; 3) the prevention of public nuisance; and 4) the protection of children from harm. In pursuing these aims, Licensing Committees have imposed petty conditions on pubs and bars that have little to do with genuine public order or legality issues. At the Manifesto Club, we have had cases reported to us of pubs asked to install CCTV cameras or CRB-check their staff, put up ‘responsible drinking’ notices, search customers, or install a ‘Think 30’ ID check policy. These same Licensing Committees were responsible for issuing licenses for what the Licensing Act termed ‘regulated entertainment’, covering everything from live music to the mere possession of a piano, not only in licensed premises but in village halls and old people’s homes.

If this current government is committed to civil liberties, as it claims, then the powers of Licensing Committees should be reduced and not massively increased, as this consultation document proposes.

In our view, the problems with the government’s proposals are as follows.

Overturning principles of due process

The Lib-Con consultation document proposed allowing licensing authorities to bring cases for licence removal before themselves. It also suggests reducing the burden of proof required for a licensing authority to remove a pub’s or bar’s licence - and that licensing authorities hear their own appeals, rather than the appeal being heard in a magistrate’s court as it is at present. Finally, it suggests enacting licensing authorities’ decisions as soon as they are made, rather than pending an appeal.

These proposals go against the basic elements of justice: that a person is innocent until proven guilty; that a state authority must have a very good reason before stopping people from doing things; that an appeal is heard by a different authority from the authority that made the original decision. These proposals essentially give licensing authorities unchecked powers to close down, or impose their conditions on, licensed premises, without being subject to due process.
Accepting the police’s word as truth

The consultation document proposes that licensing authorities accept all representations from the police – for example, to close down a bar – unless there is strong evidence to the contrary. This is a big shift from the current situation, where evidence from the police is generally treated with the same weight as evidence from other bodies.

This is a worrying development. The police have a very particular set of interests, which do not marry with those of civic interest groups. The police, if given the choice, would doubtless not have any bars or nightlife at all, since this would mean less crime and rowdiness and a quieter life for them. In Barking and Dagenham, two police officers put in 22 applications for licence review in the course of a single year; there were even local supermarkets on their list. Should their opinion always prevail? No. The police’s views on these matters must always be tested and weighed in courts or by other independent bodies, not only for their truth but also for their reasonableness when countered against other social interests, such as members of the public wanting to be able to buy beer at their supermarket.

Empowering the health police

The consultation document suggests allowing health authorities to bring licence review cases. It also suggests designating ‘health harm’ as the fifth ‘licensing objective’.

Most local health authorities would no doubt be too busy treating patients to get involved in licensing proceedings. But there is an element of the medical establishment which, like the police, has a particular set of interests that are not necessarily the same as the general public’s. Statements from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and other health bodies show a growing penchant for interfering in people’s liberties for the alleged sake of our health – for example, NICE’s recent call for a minimum alcohol price and for a complete ban on alcohol advertising.

From a pure health perspective, it might be better not to drink at all and to be in bed early every night. However, we do not organise our lives solely around our physical wellbeing, which is why it is better that doctors do not get too involved in politics. Giving health authorities more political powers would encourage the authoritarian strand of the medical establishment. As a licensing objective, it would also give Licensing Committees even more powers to interfere in city nightlife.....

The consultation document proposes increasing the regulation of what are known as ‘temporary events’, with the proposal that holders of temporary events must give longer periods of notice. It also proposes that the police have more time in which to object to applications, and that the number of applications that can be made by one person or in one area are limited.

There is already too much bureaucracy covering applications for ‘temporary events’ – a category that includes carnivals, village fetes, public concerts, beer festivals, and so on. Temporary events are essential and spontaneous parts of community life; it should not be too onerous for members of the public to organise these events, even if they lack expertise in licensing regulation or other forms of local council bureaucracy. The proposal to increase the regulation of temporary events, requiring more procedures, greater notice and more potential for objection from the authorities, would greatly increase the administrative burden and make it harder for local events to go ahead...

More here

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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