I'm going to need a flow chart for the male cheesecake/beefcake female cheesecake/beefcake difference....
It didn’t always suck to be a woman in Afghanistan
As Comrade Jeff pointed out before everything went down the memory hole, the article mentions the Taliban and not the other factions of the woman-hating mujahedin.
Given more time to think about it, I also think those pix are just taken from Kabul and other metropolitan areas. I'm pretty sure life for rural women in Afghanistan has always sucked.
Article I found on the internet by an old comrade's mother
Vive le Galt!
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Anti-Caste: On Caste, Women's Oppression, Communalism, and Class Struggle in South Asia from a Marxist Perspective
Those who saw the horrific news from India today will understand why I am bumping this.
Sunil Soren, a tribal leader from a nearby village, insisted in a telephone interview that people in the area “respect our women a lot.” But he said that Mr. Sheikh and the young woman were “in an objectionable situation,” and that such incidents “pollute the minds of youngsters.”
I just don't even know where to begin when faced with a comment like that.
Well, I started with crying, and then moved on to rage.
[Beats dog]
Don't worry, it's okay, I'm a goblin.
I don't know what to tell you, Doodles. Sometimes the world is just an awful, awful place; even m'lord Dice was aghast, but sometimes it's too late to save anyone by the time it's hit the airwaves.
[Beats Dicey]
My dog thanks you, stooge.
You don't have to convince me.
My old comrades were pretty infamous on the eighties left for running around yelling,
Usually I am happy to agree with any outlandish accusation against the United States that anyone cares to hurl, but, um, I don't remember councils of Puritan elders ordering gang rapes of women. Maybe they made them wear the letter "A" on their clothes, and I'm sure they weren't terribly gallant to the native women, but, still.
Usually I am happy to agree with any outlandish accusation against the United States that anyone cares to hurl, but, um, I don't remember councils of Puritan elders ordering gang rapes of women. Maybe they made them wear the letter "A" on their clothes, and I'm sure they weren't terribly gallant to the native women, but, still.
Well yeah, between that and setting them on fire of course...
Hey, we New Englanders only did that once!
Ye olde Englanders and German-types did that, like, once a month for three hundred years!
I wonder what happens when I try to cut and paste a graph?
Approximate statistics on the number of trials for witchcraft and executions in various regions of Europe in the period 1450–1750:[35]
Region
Number of trials
Number of executions
British Isles and North America
~5,000
~1,500–2,000
Holy Roman Empire (Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Lorraine, Austria and Czech)
~50,000
~25,000–30,000
France
~3,000
~1,000
Scandinavia
~5,000
~1,700–2,000
Eastern Europe (Poland and Lithuania, Hungary and Russia)
~7,000
~2,000
Southern Europe (Spain, Portugal and Italy)
~10,000
~1,000
Total:
~80,000
~35,000
---
Hmm, well that sucks.
Hey, we New Englanders only did that once!
Usually I am happy to agree with any outlandish accusation against the United States that anyone cares to hurl,
I don't know what I was thinking.
Down with the US!
For women's liberation through socialist revolution!
---
I hate to keep sticking up for the US, Guy, and I'm going to go poke around about the Puritans (American and Britishiznoid), but I'd like to point out that while whatever they may have done 400 years ago is terrible, what happened in some (apparently nameless--isn't that weird? you'd think the NY Times would at least mention its name, but maybe I'm just missing it) village in West Bengal happened two days ago.
I think you might be missing what I was saying,
Probably. [bubble bubble bubble]
I found this:
The first guy who molested two little ten year old girls was sentenced to be "Severely whiped at Boston the next lecture day & have one of his nostrills slit so high as may-well bee, & then to be seared, & kept in prison, till hee bee fit to bee sent to Salem, & then to bee whiped againe, & have the other nostrill slit & seared; then further hee is confined to Boston neck [the peninsula of Boston], so as if hee be found at any time dureing his life to go out of Boston neck, that is, beyond the railes toward Roxberry, or beyond the low water marke, hee shalbee put to death upon due conviction thereof: and hee is also to weare an hempen roape about his neck, the end of it hanging out two foote at least, & so often as he shalbee found abroad without it, hee shalbee whiped; & if hee shall at any time hearafter attempt to abuse any p[er]son as formerly, hee shall bee put to death, upon due conviction."
Woah, I thought that's pretty gruesome, but, hey he molested two little girls in 1642, what do you expect?
And then a woman of loose morals was executed....for killing her baby. Ha, ha, I'm gonna get you, Humual, I'm thinking when next is
"Six years later, two more persons went to the gallows at Boston; James Britton, and Mary Latham, a young wife, 18 years old, from Plymouth. They had been found guilty of adultery."
and [deflates] I gave up.
I don't think I am being morally smug, though.
From Hyderabad to Hyannis, Massachuttes:
For Women's Liberation Through Socialist Revolution!
[facepalm]
I can't believe I misspelled "Massachusetts".
[Types a four-letter word, followed by a three-letter word]
Gobbo revolution's gonna getcha, Humual!
[Types a four-letter word, followed by a three-letter word]
Gobbo revolution's gonna getcha, Humual!
Oh, I know, were the words "love you?"
Of course it was.
Anyway, what little I have digested from the commie site about South Asia has made me even more sensitive to caste and communalism in Indian life and politics, so I went back to see if any of that came into play in the case. Well, I didn't see much, just that the groom was an "outsider," but, re-reading through some of the stuff I was struck by:
Guy Humual: ...but I also tend to think progress and prosperity are linked...
New York Times: Councils are often worried that marriages to outsiders will dilute communal land claims, among other concerns. Couples who defy the marital codes are sometimes murdered. Genetic researchers have found that India’s population has hundreds of distinct subgroups, in part because village councils have been enforcing marital codes and limiting intermarriage for centuries.
Anti-Caste: We understand that caste oppression is not simply a product of bigotry and irrationality. Caste in India is the foundation of the traditional systems of labor extraction in the villages, where nearly three-fourths of the population still lives. In the cities it plays an indispensable role in maintaining the capitalist order by keeping the working class divided. Sustaining—and sustained by—women's oppression, caste is closely bound up with the institution of the family in South Asia. An archaic remnant, it persists because scarcity persists, reinforced by imperialist exploitation. It will take a socialist revolution within the region and internationally to sweep away the caste system and build an egalitarian society founded on abundance. But only a party that fights to liberate all who are oppressed by caste—along with women; smallholders and the landless; Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, and other religious minorities; and all national groups and oppressed ethnicities, including tribals—will be able lead the workers of India and the region as a whole to power.
Vive le Galt!
And, for Citizen Humual's delectation, back to anti-woman America:
I couldn't say. I can, however, bump a conversation I had with my union brother from Madras the day after Nelson Mandela died:
Desperately trying to change the subject I asked, "Hey, Yippin, what caste are you?"
"Huh?"
"Caste? What caste? Are you a dalit?"
"What?"
[Tries two or three different pronunciations of "dalit" without success]
"You know, an untouchable?"
"No, no, we don't do that anymore, we got rid of that."
"So, you don't have a caste?"
"I am in the Vaishya caste."
"And your wife?"
"She's a Vaishya, too."
"And you had an arranged marriage, right?"
"Yes."
"So you don't do caste anymore, huh?"
Again, I couldn't say. But that's never stopped me before.
In one of those moments of synergistic weirdosity that I love so much, one week I had a conversation with my Buddhist monk player about a book he was reading by B.R. Ambedkar which was pretty critical of India's treatment of the dalits post-independence.
Not long later, my favorite commie rag wrote an article about India which, in part, read:
Out of fear that the “untouchables” might unite with Muslims and act as a parliamentary counterweight, Congress co-opted dalit leader B.R. Ambedkar to head up the drafting of the constitution, which banned “untouchability” but left the caste system intact. Seats in parliament were reserved for “untouchables” and “tribals” (dalits and adivasis today). Later, as a minimal reform, a percentage of jobs in public employment were reserved for dalits and lower-caste members. Coming to regret his involvement in drafting the constitution, Ambedkar summed up independent India: “The same old tyranny, the same old oppression, the same old discrimination which existed before, exists now, and perhaps in a worse form.”
In more of the full disclosure that Comrade Jeff appraciates so much, when I first found the anti-caste website, it was because I had googled a particular book review by Trotsky. But I think I know the guy who is one half of the anti-caste site. We were in the Sparts together. He was also a big fan of Gore Vidal and The Smiths.
Actually, no, I didn't realize that, although I guess all I had to do was read his wikipedia page.
Communist Afghanistan: The Musical Interlude
Clearly it was worth kicking the Russians out...
You really need to stop assuming that my comments are attacks against you. I was referring to the author of the article you quoted and linked.
I was feeling shame-faced because I didn't realize his death date, even after I found his wiki page.
As I said, I mostly learned about him in conversation with my Buddhist monk player rather than actually reading about him.
PS I am not desperately lurking in the chat window refreshing and waiting for a reply, even though the timing might make it seem that way, it seems that we're running on similar hours. But now that I got a reply I can sleep. I'll read your links later.
I'm just happy there's someone to keep me company.
Hello, Mr. Shifty!
I, of course, after reading three different cases of dalit oppression in a three month period from the end of last year, am nowhere near that confident.
I also don't get the sense that writers named Kumar Ashok, Prasanth Dontha or P. V. Srividya are westerners, although I imagine Leonard Dickens probably is.
I did however, take the liberty, of googling more stuff:
Mandal Commission Protests of 1990
Novemeber 2012: 3 Dalit colonies face mob fury in Dharmapuri
National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights
I admit it--I got all of these from the commie article that quoted Ambedkar. Perhaps they're cherry-picking, but shoehorning the quote doesn't seem very desperate to me.
But, I should also say, I haven't seen anything to indicate that the recent atrocity had anything to do with caste. It does, however, seem to have to do something with communal village land rights, which is why I quoted the Anti-Caste site about the economic backwardness of Indian rural communities, where, according to the A-C site, 80% of India's population still lives.
80% of India's population lives in rural communities? That sounds really odd to me.
Probably an older fact. The cia world fact book has it at
urban population: 31.3% of total population (2011)
rate of urbanization: 2.47% annual rate of change (2010-15 est.)
80% of India's population lives in rural communities? That sounds really odd to me.
Hmm, I thought I had read that on the site but now I can't find it.
[Looks around some more]
EDIT: Duh, it's in the blurb I quoted, but it doesn't say 80% it says "three-fourths."
Stats and [bubble bubble bubble] don't go well together, I'm afraid.
I think the site was started in 2009. If BNW's (or rather, the CIA's) stats are correct, that would've put the rural population at 73.64% when they wrote it.
More topics for future research derived from the Anti-Caste site, some of whom I've heard of, some not.
Burakumin
Quinquelleros (whom don't even have their own wikipedia page and google wouldn't even give me anything in English)
Travellers (I assume we've all seen Snatch?)
Sri Lankan gypsies
Cagots
And, for Citizen Humual's delectation, back to anti-woman America:
At the risk of having to watch Citizen Humual gloat:
Don't get me started on Dalit oppression.
Well, if it comes with interesting articles to read, then, please, get started.