Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - This Week in Stupid (27⧸11⧸2016)

All Episodes

Previous Next

Nov. 27, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

24:08

This Week in Stupid (27⧸11⧸2016)

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 27th of November 2016.
	So we begin this week with migrants burned down refugee centre causing 10 million euros in damage because there wasn't enough Nutella, gummy bears or chocolate according to a presumably racist German Red Cross worker.
	A hall being used as a refugee centre was burned down because angry migrants were furious about the lack of Nutella and gummy bears it has been claimed.
	The building was completely destroyed in the fire which caused an estimated 10 million euros in damage.
	Two men have been charged with setting fire to the centre in Dusseldorf which apparently left 26 people injured.
	Meals at the centre had been cancelled because of Ramadan when Muslims do not eat during daylight hours.
	Protesters shouted There isn't enough Nutella, gummy bears and chocolate, the newspaper reports.
	I love that that is their protest chant.
	Not freedom, liberty, equality, or anything like this.
	No, no, no.
	There's not enough Nutella, gummy bears and chocolate.
	Olaf Lane, the district head of the German Red Cross, said the migrants set fire to the hall in anger.
	They named one and said that he allegedly called on others to start fires and acted as an accomplice.
	I just have to say this is really outside of the range of behaviours I would expect from people who claim to be fleeing war zones in fear of their own lives.
	You would think some measure of respect for the countries they find themselves in would just be something people would offer as a matter of course, as a way of saying thank you for saving me.
	I would have been killed by ISIS or Assad or whoever if it wasn't for you taking me in.
	So in exchange, I won't do things like burn down the hostels you put us in to keep us safe.
	I mean that's just me.
	I'm just one of those old world people who think that we should have standards.
	And I think that people should be responsible for their own actions.
	So I know that I'm kind of a dinosaur on these issues, but I consider this to be wholly unacceptable.
	And I would at least repatriate the two individuals responsible.
	And that would be my opinion if this was the very first thing any of these migrants had done.
	If this was the first and worst thing that migrants from the Middle East had done in Europe, I would consider this to be absolutely reprehensible.
	And I only say that because if I were a refugee, torn up from my home and forced to flee to a foreign country, the last thing I would do is burn anything down.
	So changing the subject to what's going on in Old Blighty.
	UK to censor online videos of non-conventional sex acts.
	Given the recent history of the UK Conservative Party when it comes to censoring pornography, I'm not surprised in the least, but I'll explain what I mean shortly.
	Web users in the UK will be banned from accessing websites portraying a range of non-conventional sex acts under a little discussed clause to a government bill currently going through Parliament.
	The proposal, part of the Digital Economy Bill, would force internet service providers to block sites hosting content that would not be certified for commercial DVD sale in Britain.
	I just want to be really clear here.
	The Conservative government does not have a mandate to censor pornography in the United Kingdom.
	They did not run on this as a platform.
	People did not vote for this to happen, and they are doing it because they can, and not because people want them to.
	Also, I just want to point out, this is not going to work.
	This is absolutely not going to work.
	Prohibition never works.
	If people want some kind of illicit material, regardless of what that is, they will get it.
	And you struggling to suppress them doing it is just going to be a waste of time and money.
	In order to comply with the censorship rules, many mainstream adult websites would have to render whole sections inaccessible to UK audiences.
	That is, despite the acts shown being legal for consenting over 16s to perform and for adults in almost all other liberal countries to film, distribute and watch.
	Not only will they be banning things that are not illegal, but they don't have the authority to do this.
	There is no legitimacy to any of this.
	There is no popular desire to have porn banned.
	And there is no platform on which the Conservatives can stand when they claim to be the moral guardians of the country.
	For example, who the fuck is defining what a non-conventional sex act is?
	Pictures and videos that show spanking, whipping or caning that leaves marks and sex acts involving urination, female ejaculation, or menstruation, as well as sex in public, are likely to be caught by the ban, in effect turning the clock back on British censorship regime to the pre-internet era.
	Now, I'm sorry, Conservatives, you don't know how often people do this, and the reason you don't know is because it's none of your fucking business how often consenting adults do any of this, and it's nothing to do with you as to whether they enjoy it or not.
	Remember, folks, overbearing moral busybodies exist on both ends of the political spectrum.
	They are just interested in policing different things.
	But get this.
	There is no definitive lists of sexual acts prescribed by the BBFC, but many adult film producers who have worked with the regulator have been forced to cut scenes, says Jerry Barnett, a free speech campaigner and author of Porn Panic, which details the rise of the new pro-censorship movement in the UK.
	He says, although it's nominally designed to enforce the Obscene Publications Act, guidelines of the Crown Prosecution Service, in practice it draws far tighter lines, many of them inexplicable.
	The ban on female ejaculation is a particularly strange example.
	The censorship regime has led to bizarre understandings between the producers and regulators, Barnett said.
	One is the four-finger rule, which limits the number of digits that can be inserted into an orifice for sexual stimulation.
	Fucking why are you wasting your time on this?
	I just want to point out to the UK government that if you are policing the number of fingers people can insert into themselves, then you've gone too far, you need to turn around and go back.
	This is not what a liberal society should do.
	Adults should be responsible for their own porn viewing habits.
	That's the point of personal responsibility.
	If consenting adults are doing it, then it's not your business and you have no right to interfere.
	And you have no right to ban me from seeing legal acts all over the internet.
	I know this is such a strange hill to die on, but if they have no right to ban me from viewing these websites, then why are they doing it?
	As I said at the beginning, this is not something new for the Conservative government.
	I'll leave a link in the sources to an article from The Independent where they list a long list of sex acts that were banned from being recorded in UK porn and as you can see the regulations were branded as simply a set of moral judgments.
	Because that's all this is.
	You'll notice that this can't be portrayed as some sort of method of protecting victims because there are no victims here.
	They're talking about consensual sexual acts.
	They're saying we don't like this.
	That appears to be the entire justification for what they're doing.
	They've not offered anything else.
	Since we're on the subject, Theresa May's Snoopers Charter has been passed.
	And no, I'm not pleased about that either, but at least that has more justification than banning porn.
	The Huffington Post sums this up by saying, Within its pages contain some of the most drastic surveillance measures this country has ever seen, including the bulk collection of personal data and the forced hacking of personal devices.
	One of the most controversial features is the requirement that all internet service providers like Virgin Sky, TalkTalk, and whoever must now keep 12 months of browsing history of every individual stored for use by government agencies.
	I have got no doubt that this is justified by the people enacting these changes as a form of extreme counter-terrorist measures, so they can get the data on people that they've been surveilling in order to ensure that they don't commit terrorist atrocities.
	And this is something that these countermeasures are enacted through Europe, and they do prevent terrorist attacks on almost a weekly basis.
	They are effective.
	So, whereas I can't say I'm in favour of it from a liberal perspective, it will, at least from a utilitarian perspective, have a functional effect in preventing people from being killed by Islamic radicals.
	Again, I'm not in favour of this, but at least it does have some grounding in the real world for the good it might actually do.
	If, like me, you would like to oppose the Investigatory Powers Act, there is a link in the sources to a petition you can sign that has already been signed by over 100,000 people, which means that the parliament will have to debate it.
	And now we come to the biggest story of this week, the death of the brutal communist dictator of Cuba, Fidel Castro, and the, and the frankly unbelievable eulogizing that he has received from leaders of Western liberal democracies.
	Look at the way this is being portrayed by left-wing outlets.
	World leaders have paid tribute to the former Cuban leader and revolutionary Fidel Castro, who has died at age 90.
	Yes, the leader.
	I mean, you could also call him El Presidente, couldn't you?
	Or you could more accurately describe him as a fucking despot.
	The revolutionary despot who ruled Cuba with an iron fist for 50 years.
	I mean, you could describe him like that.
	Or you could say, he's a Cuban leader and revolutionary.
	Much in the same way as Mahatma Gandhi was.
	Castro really ran Cuba as the last of the Soviet-era dictatorships.
	So it should be no surprise that Putin and Gorbachev have got very positive things to say about him, such as, Fidel stood up and strengthened his country during the harshest American blockade, when there was colossal pressure on him and he still took his country out of this blockade and to a path of independent government.
	Putin said, The name of this distinguished statesman is rightly considered the symbol of an era in modern world history.
	Fidel Castro was a sincere and reliable friend of Russia.
	Yes, I'm sure that that's what their opinions would be.
	I mean, I'm absolutely sure that's exactly how they would give praise to one of their closest allies, one of the people who was most instrumental in invoking and producing the Cuban missile crisis that brought the West and Russia this close to World War III.
	Castro was all in favour of it.
	So I can't really say that I'm surprised when ex-Soviets praise him.
	What I am surprised about is the way that Western leaders have begun to praise him.
	My favourite frenemy, Kevin Logan, found this Amnesty International report from 2007, the year that Fidel Castro retired his dictatorship and gave it to his brother.
	Their assessment is that freedom of expression, association and movement continue to be severely restricted.
	At least 69 prisoners of conscience remain imprisoned for their political opinions.
	Political dissidents, independent journalists and human rights activists continue to be harassed, intimidated and detained, some without charge or trial.
	Cubans continue to feel the negative impact of the US embargo.
	These prisoners of conscience continue to be held for their non-violent political views or activities.
	Orlando Zapata Tameo was sentenced to three years in 2003 on charges of showing contempt to the figure of Fidel Castro, public disorder and resistance.
	In 2005, he was reportedly sentenced to an additional 15 years for contempt and resistance in prison.
	Scores of people continue to be held without charge on suspicion of counter-revolutionary activities or on unclear charges.
	Their legal status remains unclear at the end of the year.
	For example, prisoner of conscience Oscar Marino Gonzalez-Perez, an independent journalist who was arrested in 2005 as he was about to take part in a demonstration in front of the French embassy, remained in detention without charge or trial.
	Severe restrictions on freedom of expression and association persisted.
	All print and broadcast media remained under state control.
	There was a rise in harassment and intimidation of independent journalists and librarians.
	Librarians.
	Of all fucking people to harass.
	There was an increase in the public harassment and intimidation of human rights activists and political dissonance by quasi-official groups in so-called acts of repudiation.
	And again, we have another example.
	And at the time of writing, Amnesty International had been unable to visit Cuba for about 20 years because they would report on these tremendous human rights violations and obviously they didn't want this information becoming public, did they?
	And that was Cuba in 2007.
	There is plenty of footage back from 1959 and beyond of people simply being shot by firing squad under the orders of Fidel Castro operating usually through Shea Guevara.
	These people were often not given trials.
	This is one of the rare times when they had a trial.
	They would often not be given trials.
	They would be simply marched out and shot because Castro's government was just like every other communist dictatorship.
	They don't care about human rights.
	They have no use for them.
	Human rights get in the way.
	But I know what an apologist would say.
	They'd say, yeah, well, you know, it was all worth it.
	I mean, just look at Cuba's hospitals.
	They've got free, socialized healthcare, and it's great.
	It's just brilliant.
	And I think that you have not been to a Cuban hospital.
	Now, I haven't either.
	So I googled hospitals in Cuba and guess what came up?
	Some real horror stories, in fact.
	I'm not going to go through them all.
	I'm just going to let you look at these pictures and ask yourself, would this be acceptable in any first world country?
	Socialized healthcare or not?
	The answer is, of course, it fucking wouldn't.
	But Fidel Castro is a hero of the people.
	He did what was right for the Cuban people.
	Except he didn't.
	And he acted exactly like every other communist or non-communist dictator in history.
	He impoverished the people he controlled.
	The average Cuban has a salary of $20 a month.
	Fidel Castro is a multi-millionaire.
	He consistently makes appearances on Forbes' rich list.
	And his sons regularly go on yacht holidays around the Mediterranean.
	If you're looking for any kind of equality within a society, you won't find it in Cuba.
	You will find a small group of very well-off people controlling and suppressing a country that most people are utterly impoverished living in.
	Just like every other communist country that has ever existed or will ever exist.
	And if absolute impoverishment doesn't sound good enough to you, don't make the mistake of thinking that Cuba was in any way progressive.
	Castro himself in 2010 said, Yeah, I was responsible for persecuting the gays.
	The former president told Mexican newspaper Lad Jonada that there had been moments of great injustice against the gay community.
	Yeah, but to be fair though, Castro, there were moments of injustice for almost everybody under your regime, so at least you didn't discriminate.
	Castro was a leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2009 and believed that sexual diversity was a corrupt consequence of capitalism.
	During his rule, many gay men suffered in Cuban labor camps as the regime re-educated homosexuals to rid them of their counter-revolutionary tendencies.
	And in the same breath, gay rights activists will then condemn Mike Pence for saying that gays need to be electro-shocked out of being queer or whatever it is that Pence thinks.
	These people are no different.
	They are not your friends.
	They are not your allies.
	They are terrible tyrants.
	It should then come as no surprise that when word of his death broke, crowds of Cuban exiles flooded the streets of Miami's Little Havana to cheer for Castro's death.
	Brandishing pots and pans, hundreds of elated Cubans paraded through the Miami neighborhood of Little Havana on Saturday night.
	They waved the Cuban flag as they cheered the death of a man who defined the lives of so many through decades in exile in the United States.
	One of the revelers said, It's a party here, but back home my dad says it's quiet and everyone's mostly staying inside because you can't speak out in Cuba.
	They have no option to celebrate the death of this dictator in Cuba.
	They have in fact been enforced into a government-mandated nine-day mourning period for the dear leader.
	Another reveler said, This is a celebration in a way, but not the celebration of a death.
	It's a celebration, hopefully, of a beginning of liberty that we were all waiting for many years to see.
	The hope is not just that because Fidel died, but also hopefully it opens up the people in Cuba a little bit more to go against what's happening there.
	Many families have suffered decades of separation, he said, with those left unable to return.
	This is what Fidel Castro has wrought.
	Hundreds of thousands of people have had to flee Cuba for the United States because of political persecution.
	Denise Castro, no relation, says her family isn't celebrating Castro's death per se, they're celebrating the idea that a piece of that old communism is dead with him.
	But she acknowledged that it was too late for many of the victims of Castro's regime.
	I did a live stream last night about the response to Castro's death from Western leaders, and so I'll put a link to that in the description or on the screen if I'm not too lazy, so you can go through and watch exactly how Western leaders were responding to this.
	Most of them did not respond in a manner that I find fitting of the leaders of Western liberal democracies, and I'm just going to pick out the ones that I found most atrocious and go through them here.
	And we are, of course, going to start with Justin Trudeau, who could not cuck harder for this communist dictator.
	It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba's longest-serving president.
	Yes, he just kept getting elected, Justin.
	Fidel Castro was a larger-than-life leader who served his people for almost half a century.
	Yes, that is what happens when you set yourself up as the unquestioned leader of a country.
	You become larger than life.
	A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to education and healthcare of his island nation.
	Bullshit!
	Sorry, sorry, Justin.
	While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro's supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for El Comandante.
	Fucking hell, Justin.
	Did you get the official Cuban press release and just go, right, okay, that's all I need to hear?
	I know my father was very proud to call him a friend, and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away.
	It was also a real honor to meet his three sons and brother, President Raul Castro, during my recent visit to Cuba.
	Presumably you think it was right after his elections, Justin.
	On behalf of all Canadians, Sophie and I offer our deepest condolences to the family, friends, and many, many supporters of Mr. Castro.
	We're not going to talk about his infinitely larger number of enemies though.
	Fucking.
	We today join the Cuban people today in mourning the loss of this remarkable leader.
	My God, Justin, you are just, I've never seen a man prostrate himself with words to such a degree.
	It's no wonder that you have spawned a trending hashtag called Trudeau Eulogies in which people decide to parody your eulogy of a brutal dictator using other brutal dictators through history to make you try and make you understand just how much of a fucking retard you are.
	And of course we have some lovely apologia from Comrade Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party.
	He was a massive figure in the history of the whole planet.
	History will show that Fidel was someone who stood up for something very, very different in the Caribbean.
	And many independent people would say how good healthcare and education are in Cuba compared to many other places in the world.
	That's right.
	Somalia's healthcare is terrible.
	That's right.
	The healthcare in Papua New Guinea is almost non-existent, Jeremy.
	That's a fair metric, isn't it?
	I mean, just fucking hell, Jeremy.
	And he is quoted as calling Corbyn, I'm not kidding, a champion of social justice.
	If that is what a champion of social justice looks like to you, Jeremy, I can guarantee to you you will find it in me a lifelong enemy, and that's only because I personally care about human rights.
	Amazingly, it was left to the God Emperor himself to actually inject a bit of reason into the constant lionization of Fidel Castro by the mainstream left-wing press.
	I just can't believe that Donald Trump has to be the one to say something sensible.
	Trump condemns Castro as a brutal dictator.
	Well, that's only because, you know, he was, in every sense of the word, a brutal dictator worthy of condemnation.
	For some reason, though, extreme left-wing activists can't bring themselves to do it.
	They think he was a fucking hero for some reason.
	He said, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades.
	Fidel Castro's legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty, and the denial of fundamental human rights.
	He says that the nation remains a totalitarian island, but hopes Castro's passing will mark a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and towards a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve.
	Though the tragedies, deaths, and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey towards prosperity and liberty.
	My god, why does that have to come from Donald Trump?
	Why the fuck isn't that coming from every single person on the left?
	This is what we want for the Cuban people.
	Prosperity and liberty.
	Human rights.
	And Donald Trump is the only world leader to come out categorically and say that Castro was a fucking monster who didn't care about liberal values and was, in fact, directly opposed to them.
	And Castro's death marks a milestone in the struggle towards freedom and liberty for an oppressed people.
	I can't believe it is up to Donald Trump to have one of his speech writers prepare something that is actually a defense of Western liberal values.
	And the left wonders why it is being consistently defeated.

▲