sitakali

This morning, I was woken up by loud, high-pitched meows. It was my flatmate’s cat, Kaiya, a cute, petite five-year-old tortie. My flatmate had left for work, and Kaiya was hungry.

Kaiya has a normal sounding meow—that is until you try to sleep. Maybe it’s the fact that women are programmed to be awakened by high-pitched noises (like that of a baby), but whatever the reason, it is absolutely impossible for me to sleep through her meows.

I’m not supposed to feed her for various reasons, plus it’s just annoying to have a cat expect you to feed them at eight in the morning. My cat Sita (residing with my parents) waits until I get up. Plus, even though her meow is louder, it’s lower-pitched, so it doesn’t necessarily wake me.

Anyway, Kaiya meowed. And meowed. And she didn’t stop for an hour. I finally got up to check to see if she could get out. She could, she just didn’t want to. I should have thrown her out the door and closed all the windows, considering what happened next.

She came into my bedroom and got onto my bed, which she sometimes does. But then she crawled on top of me and started kneading the blanket, and I felt her claws through the comforter. I pushed her off, and she got on top again, kneaded me again, and laid down and fell asleep.

This was okay for the few minutes that I didn’t need to move, but when I did I pushed her off again. She got on top of me as soon as I had moved.

This continued about seven times throughout the morning until she finally left my room. And started meowing again.

About a half hour later, when I was officially awake, I picked up my laptop and opened it. Then I moved back toward my pillow to sit up. Unfortunately, there was something extremely furry in my way; I had almost sat on the cat. I picked her completely limp body up and told her she was the biggest pest in the world. After that, she finally left…hallelujah!

This is basically what she looks like.

A historically-challenged anarcho-capitalist (okay, that should go without saying) decided to take some of his precious time trying to educate me about the real world and why unregulated capitalism is soooo wonderful. I would like you to especially take note of this “Libertarian’s” laughably insincere concern for the poor sweatshop-less people of Cambodia.

Okay–now that you’ve had your say, will you listen to a staunch anarcho-capitalist? If yes, I would like to start you off with a great article from (of all places) Nick Kristof at the New York Times, entitled “Where Sweatshops Are a Dream.” Watch the video attached, read the article, and ask me questions if you wish.

But just remember a few maxims underpinning libertarian thought: 1) Poverty cannot be cured through force of arms or government decree–only by independent business. 2) Wealth is the foundation for all businesses except multinational conglomerates with sweet government contracts. Redistribution hurts everyone _except_ the Monsantos and Halliburtons. 3) The only power governments have military, and the only money they have is other people’s money. 4) Subsidizing an enterprise with ‘government’ money is no different than when identity thieves buy jet-skis with your credit card–it’s theft, pure and simple.

Next time you want to talk about capitalism being about “controlling and hurting other people,” remember that capitalism is the only thing keeping you from living a terribly harsh subsistence-agrarian lifestyle, such as the vast majority of humans on this planet must endure. Perhaps if the mother of that article had been in a more capitalist country, her son wouldn’t have been backed over by a garbage truck looking for scrap plastic. It’s rather hypocritical to mock the very thing that allows you and I to maintain such an expensive and comfortable existence, isn’t it?

This is my response.

Thank you for taking the time out of your day to educate me on the harsh reality (which apparently you inhabit 24/7) outside of my little utopian fairytale. I have a few humble comments about your enlightening and historically-accurate interpretation of how the world works. First, I’ll start with your list:

1) Poverty cannot be cured through force of arms or business—which continue to exacerbate it—or government decree, though that can make a huge difference. Poverty can only be cured by local communities taking responsibility for their people’s welfare.

2) Wealth is the foundation of all businesses. Period. Multinational conglomerates may have sweet government contracts, but that is still wealth. The problem with our system isn’t whether or not businesses are founded on wealth; it is that wealth in this economy is based on wage labour and the exploitation of the poor. Redistribution doesn’t “hurt” anyone. If I tell a child to share a toy with their friend, is that hurting them?

3) The only power that Objectivists want governments to have are through the military and criminal law. These are the two reasons why governments are so dangerous in the first place. Take away the military and criminal law, and all they can do is serve the people. You essentially have an anarchist society.

4) Subsidizing an already enormous enterprise through government money is completely unnecessary, but that’s what gets subsidies. Subsidizing a small business gives them the leverage they need in a competitive environment. Otherwise, the most ruthless competitors (AKA the ones that exploit humans and the environment the most) would have the upper hand…as they do today. So wouldn’t taking subsidies away from large corporations even the playing field? Yes, in the same way that cutting my hair would me closer to the height of an infant.

Aww yes, those poor people living in landfills. That must be because they aren’t working in wonderful sweatshops! Please learn a little history. Have those people been living in landfills for hundreds of years? Are they the People of the Landfill, whose simple culture has been waiting forever for a chance to work sixteen hours a day absorbing toxins through the air and passing out from exhaustion? Or is it perhaps related to the industrial revolution, or Western countries ravaging Third-World nations’ resources at the expense of the majority of the people on Earth? Such a simplistic view of labour is reserved only for the economist (who is taught from a young age to have tunnel-vision and accept economics as a “hard science”), and the Objectivist (who agrees with Rand that Native Americans deserved to be destroyed due to their primitive economic systems). That’s exactly how this mess started: Westerners destroyed the land that other societies lived on, and massacred indigenous people, so now they cannot hunt and gather or develop small farms; instead they must become intentional slaves.

Perhaps if you wish to understand the real reason why Cambodians are in such a bad way they’re willing to work in sweat shops, you will read this.

And now for my favourite: Capitalism is keeping us from living a “terribly harsh” subsistence-agrarian lifestyle. Let’s look at that for a second, shall we? People who live subsistence lives tend to be the happiest, most fulfilled people in the world. If African nations still used subsistence agriculture, they wouldn’t have any of the problems they have today (as a result of their subsistence lifestyles being forcefully transformed into cash-cropping and exports-based agriculture). No, the harsh existence that most people on this planet endure is directly caused by capitalism and imperialism, and is due to the fact that subsistence living has been all but destroyed globally. I hope that one day everyone will realize that the only way to combat poverty and environmental destruction is to grow your own food.

By the way, I live in an ecovillage community. We grow our own food here. We look after each other. And—whaddaya know!—we like it.

I want to get something officially out there.

I am furious. I am angry at my country, outraged at the people who run it, and appalled at some of the citizens there who have voting power. The country is disgusting. There, I said it. Every new thing I hear about, every new policy—whether it’s lowering the age that a child can be tried as an adult (and therefore executed) to fourteen; or continuing our pathetic excuse for a health system that kills, yes MURDERS, thousands of people a year—everything makes me sick to my stomach, everything lowers my opinion of humanity, everything makes me homicidal and burning with rage. When I have my bad days—when I think maybe the consequences of our destruction of the environment are completely deserved, or when I wish that some asteroid would come down and wipe out humanity—the United States of America is why. No, I don’t have to go look at some third world country with a despotic government. Why should I, when I can look at my own country and watch it rotting in the cesspools of shit that are our ignorant, greedy, whiny masses of right-wing psychos…who care more about their money than ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WORLD, to the point where they refuse to listen to reason, even if listening to reason means they would save money?!!!

Let me explain: The United States has one of the worst health care systems in the first world. It has THE MOST EXPENSIVE health care system in the entire world. And, shockingly, the most privatized health care system in the first world…wow, what a coincidence! Here’s some painful logic for you: Give multi-billion dollar corporations free reign over people’s health and they will reap an unimaginable profit while not providing what they’re supposed to provide: you know, HEALTH. Give the government control over health care and…denial of care? NOPE. Death panels? NOPE. Fewer deaths from lack of coverage? YES!

I moved from the US to New Zealand, a country with universal health care, and that’s one of the reasons. Every day, especially now, I thank the sweet fucking mother of holy Christ that I am not in that sorry-ass, world’s-most-powerful-third-world-nation-pretending-to-be-an-industrialised country. I no longer have to pay $700 for a pregnancy test (as I once did in New Jersey). I no longer have to pay $2000 for a blood and urine test (as I once did because my doctor was a paranoid prick who was covering his ass). I no longer have to worry about getting a job that has health care, in an economy where the ratio of job-seekers to job positions is 6 to 1!

Any time I have a fever, or break a limb, or anything else, I call up my doctor, get an appointment usually the next day, and pay $16. If I get a blood test, it’s free. Urine test, free. X-ray, free. Gyno exam, surgery, FREE. If I’m dying of a horrible infection, I can rest assured that I will be given proper treatment regardless of my insurance or lack thereof, and will not be charged a cent for it.

But socialism is bad, right? First of all, universal health care is not socialism, not even close, so get your head out of your ass, pull all the other stuff you stuck up there out as well, and embrace the shocking world of REALITY. Second of all, Cuba (you know, a socialist country?) is considered a third world nation for the simple fact that it is not capitalist and its GDP is not high enough, but when it comes to the Human Deveopment Index, the index used by the UN to rate human welfare, Cuba is better than us.

They have lower infant mortality rates, higher literacy, lower death rate, higher %GDP education expenditures (cause they DON’T thrive on ignorance), almost NONEXISTENT unemployment (that’s right, that means that the people there aren’t lazy at all, they’re working despite the fact that they get free food, housing, education, and healthcare), and MUCH lower public debt %GDP.

So, perhaps we should start changing our priorities with regards to socialist/not-socialist policies considering that socialist policies are better for people and their countries hands-down. If you have any thought whatsoever that I’m referring to the USSR, get off my blog right now, the USSR was not socialist and certainly didn’t illustrate what socialist policies could do.

People are so worried that healthcare reform will be socialist, that they don’t care that people are dying during this debate, that insurance companies are raking in record profits that a government couldn’t possibly make (not to mention governments, as we see right now, are actually responsive to their constituents), and, most importantly, that right-wing lunatics are suckers and perfect puppets of the corporate elite.

Add to that the fact that we have one of the highest prison populations in the world, we are the only industrialised nation that still practices capital punishment, and our ignorance regarding science and evolution are second only to TURKEY, and anyone with a brain should be shitting their pants right now trying to leave the country. Try to find a system with better health care.

Hey, I hear Mexico is taking immigrants.

My obnoxiously neoliberal economics professor once argued with me about workers’ collectives. We were talking about water privatisation in Cochabamba, Bolivia. She argued that despite the fact that it took 1/4 of the residents’ paychecks and left them starving, water privatisation was “better for the people” in the long run. Ignoring, for a second, that this was a ridiculously patronizing and paternalistic viewpoint and naive beyond belief, I told her about how the people had taken over the water system there and formed a collective. By doing so, the people of Cochabamba had essentially stolen the water supply from the large corporation that had bought it, but had also defied the government that had given the water supply to that corporation in the first place.

Globalization: privatizing the world, one resource at a time.

My professor smiled and said, “so you’re saying privatisation is bad for the people? But what is a collective? Is it public?”
I stupidly answered, “no.”
And there it was; she had proven herself right with her bullshit polarisation of private vs. public. I was too furious at the time to bother debating any further, but had I had energy to think, I would have simply said, “there are not only two sectors.” At the time, however, I didn’t know that there was a name for the Third Sector.

Collectivisation is not private ownership. For one, many workers’ collectives (or cooperatives, as they are sometimes called) are not interested in profit maximisation. Stock is only owned by workers, and this is not traded for profit. Collectives generally use direct democracy for decision-making and rotational jobs and leadership, to keep power evenly spread. There are many other differences between corporations and collectives, which can be seen here.

Collectives are the ultimate exercise of democracy. They are literally by the people and for the people and are not imprisoned by our culture’s hierarchical power structures. If someone found out I was against the private sector, they would assume I was a socialist. And they would be correct. Since collectives are not governments or run by governments, nor are they corporations or simple nonprofits, they are inherently anarcho-syndicalist or libertarian socialist in nature. Even non-libertarian forms of socialism favour collectives, as collectives make up a large part of a socialist society.

When people argue in favour of the private sector, they are arguing for giving power to corporations and for the rights of markets to govern society. They may even argue for the nonprofit industry and use the tired example of charities; how they work so much better than any governmental social system (ahem. Bullshit!). But they would never argue in favour of collectives, and certainly not collectives taking control from private corporations. If somebody argues in favour of collectives, they are not economic liberals, they are not laissez-faire capitalists, and they are not pro-privatisation.

In addition, my dear economics professor, if you are arguing that privatisation will help a country out in the long run, your argument has nothing to do with collectives. You are expecting a Reaganomic trickle-down effect that is simply not a characteristic of collectives. Collectives serve the people at the grassroots level, give power directly to the workers, and do not provide economic growth for a country at all as they represent more of a closed system with no profit and therefore no emphasis on increasing capital and investments. I assure you, your buddy corporations would be very unhappy to hear your simplistic definition of the private sector, and how you are not bothered by the fact that the little people rose up and stole (legally speaking) the water supply of Cochabomba from a large corporation.

Back to the First World’s ridiculously patronising ideas about how to “help” the Third World, I have to say I am so far unimpressed. We managed to fuck these countries straight to hell, then we order them to “fix” themselves the way we say or we won’t give them back any of the resources we stole from them! Yes, we are doing them a great favour by forcing them to develop the same way we have. After all, our industrial society is the best way to go, despite the fact that we’re destroying the environment, 1/7 of the population of the world is hungry, child abuse, racism, and sexism are rampant, and the Third World would not do what we tell them to if they had any choice in the matter.

My father wrote this letter to various media outlets, and I thought it was better than my previous post about Van Jones.

The Attack on Van Jones—a Betrayal of Hope

The first time I met Van Jones he gave a talk to my group of high school students. His talk, accompanied by a video about the way black youth are systematically treated, was addressed to a group of young white kids at an environmental action weekend in Marin County, California. The kids found him exciting and inspiring. You may be wondering what the question of black youth has to do with environmental action. To Van, the connection was complex but clear: In order to effectively address one critical issue we could not simply ignore another, equally critical one. The Environmental and Civil Rights movements are two of the most vital, powerful forces in the US. Imagine what could be accomplished if they worked together. True, not all black kids see the point of environmentalism—they are often more concerned with police harassment and their chances of having a meaningful career. And not all white kids understand racial profiling and injustice, what might be called the Skip Gates factor. White people just don’t have to deal with that, at least not directly.

Van saw, continues to see, the urgency of connecting the two. That is exactly what the “Green Economy” is: an attempt to solve both the economic crisis, which was already severe in the inner city before the current recession, and the environmental crisis, which threatens to drown us all in climate disaster. Train young people, including a fair proportion of those traditionally left out of these opportunities, as green collar workers. Produce and set up wind turbines, solar panels, composting systems, comprehensive recycling, local food production. Train and hire urban youths to carry out the jobs that will save both their communities and the planet.

Van’s vision is clear and compelling enough that it got the ear of Senator Obama, and once the Senator was elected President it got Van a job as White House Green Jobs advisor. His vision is clear and compelling enough that the Green Party co-leader of New Zealand—halfway around the world—raised it as an inspiration in his address last summer (US winter), mentioning Van by name.

Now Van Jones has resigned, in order to avoid becoming a distraction from the pressing national issues of climate change and health care reform. Van is a very smart man. He knows what he’s doing here. He also knows that he was the victim of a “vicious smear campaign” (his words) by the extreme right. The extreme right in this case takes the form of a national “news” program on Fox TV. Glenn Beck, the prime mover behind the campaign, fires a daily barrage of lies and hate at the Obama administration. Beck sees Obama as someone with “a deep seated hatred for white people”—this from a “news” caster who recently told a 7-year old girl to go back to Africa and offered to buy her a ticket there.

It doesn’t take a lot of insight to figure out who it is that has “a deep seated hatred”, and for whom. But it is very important that we understand: this is not just an attack on Obama. This is an attack on us. The extreme right has taken out a lead voice for both civil rights and the environment in one blow. And the purpose of this attack is to make all of us fear to lift our voices for social justice and the environment. It is wrong, very wrong, for Obama not to have stood up from the beginning and said to Fox News, over and over, as often as it takes: “You are wrong. You are a bully, and we stand against bullies. Your program is not news at all, but systematic personal attacks. Van stands for civil rights and the environment. The American people and I support him in that.” Bullies and abusers should not be ignored, because it only encourages them to more bullying and abuse. They must be exposed for what they are.

President Obama has communicated to us through his inaction that he will not provide effective leadership on these issues. But we do not require his leadership to act. The Color of Change, a civil justice group co-founded by Van Jones, has organized a very effective boycott of Fox News. Even conservative retail giant Walmart has withdrawn their advertising support for Beck’s program.

Van Jones has not resigned in disgrace. He has returned to the same civil society where he started such effective groups as Green for All and Color of Change. Van is one of us again. Let us stand with him for justice and against abuse.

Van Jones, one of my role models and strong promoter of environmental justice, has just resigned from his position of Green Jobs Advisor to President Barack Obama, due to incessant bullying by Glenn Beck and his ilk. I have heard time and again that these right-wing lunatics are only fringe, and they do not represent the majority of Republicans. If that is the case, I’m fucking terrified. That is one powerful fringe. To give you an idea on how beyond conservative these wackos are, here is an actual conservative blog post defending Jones.

That fringe has already penetrated Congress, since GOP Senator Kit Bond (R-Mo.) called a congressional hearing on Jones; he wanted to discuss the fact that Jones was liberal and how to prosecute him for it.

I have so far showed my support by signing a petition to call Beck out on his bullshit, posting several tweets about Van Jones, and becoming a fan on Facebook. Please go here for more information.

I also wrote him a note on his fan page on Facebook to show my support (below). I hope enough people can mobilise to do something productive about this blatant censorship.

Hi Van.

I have been a huge supporter for years, saw you talk a couple times, and supported the Ella Baker Center. You are one of my role models. I know if I had been bullied the way you were, I would have resigned a thousand times over. I was so excited to see you appointed as an advisor to Obama, and it hurts me deeply to see a visionary like you being attacked in this day and age. My disillusionment with the USA is one of the reasons I moved to New Zealand, I’m afraid.

But I hope to come back soon, because the US is my home and I am one of the more privileged (middle-class) people. We must use the power we have to stop injustices in this world. I will use my power to support you.

All the best,

Sitakali

Let me jump on the Twilight bandwagon for a minute here. Okay, I actually jumped on that bandwagon about four years ago, but I’m referring to the Twilight Movie bandwagon. Something has always intrigued me about making a movie from a book about vampires. You have to make the vampires look inhumanly beautiful. Or, as Meyer put it, “devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful.” Well, humans don’t look that way, but you can make them look that way if you find already beautiful ones. The actor who played Edward Cullen, the love interest vampire, would then be expected to look a bit like this:

Edward Cullen?

Or…maybe this?

Another Edward Cullen?

Or, if you really want, we could have this douche instead:

Douche bag!!!!!

The previous two actors (who both auditioned for the part) look a lot warmer, less full of themselves. But I’m not just talking about looks. Where others would be embarrassed and perhaps a bit irritated, Pattinson happily accepted his five thousand or so awards at the Teen Choice Awards, several of which had to do with, well yes, his looks. He decided to charm it up by saying basically nothing, but still managed to flirt with all the fans in his audience. All the while you could see the wheels turning in his head: “I’m so fuckable. Yeah. That’s me.”

The other Twilight actors very obviously have their own personalities, but Pattinson has benefited so much from this role that he keeps it in his regular life. His character isn’t exactly a good male role model for girls, and now he stays in character as the self-indulgent, careless bad-boy that his teen fans want him to be. That sickens me, not just because it’s arrogant and obnoxious, but because he’s not using his powers for good, essentially. He could be a wonderful role model, perhaps telling women that his fictional character would not make for a very healthy relationship. But he doesn’t, because he’s entirely self-absorbed. Hence, douche.

Here’s another one to rile you up before going to the punching bag. He’s showing his true potential as an idol, cancer stick in hand:

Smokin' hot

I saw these photos of him on a website, and thought, “These are just douche-tastic! I should totally post them.” So I did. I know, I’m a masochist.

From chimp-like animism to human monotheism and atheism

I found this picture at http://savagemike.tumblr.com/post/176870564/evolution.

As you might imagine, I have found a couple problems with this picture:

• It shows a visual manifestation of humans getting better and more upright, connecting changes in our physiology with “advances” in our belief systems.
• Monotheism is depicted as a necessary step towards atheism
• Tribal animism is depicted as the least “evolved”
• All four creatures in the picture have penises (unless those are supposed to be our vestigial tails?) *I know that’s the “M” but seriously, I’m sure this artist is capable of better.

What this tells me:

• The person who drew the picture was a man
• He connects his sex with the generic depiction of a human being
• He also connects the creation of Western civilisation with “evolution”
• He considers a category of religion that is responsible for millions of deaths, oppression, imperialism, and violence, to be more evolved than a category of spirituality that is grounded in respect for human and all other life

Let me be more specific. He quotes Dawkins, whom I respect a great deal, along with a man named Ibn Warraq, a secularist and active critic of Islam. Though I assume Dawkins would acknowledge that “evolution” does not by any means equal progress, Dawkins specifically refers to a progression from animism, to polytheism, to monotheism, and then onto atheism.

This is an obnoxiously presumptuous attitude that I have to say I’m a bit surprised by. Our global culture may have moved in that specific direction, but I would argue that our evolution towards monotheism was quite a regression. We started with a universal spirituality that respected all living beings, and saw symbolic spirits in observable natural phenomena (e.g. wind, water, trees…). We then “progressed” to a category of cults and superstitions completely devoid of any reason and separated from the physical world. Monotheistic deities even made a point to no longer be on this earth, but rather to be in some intangible place in the sky; in other words, we dissociated ourselves from our world and went off into la-la land. And at the same time, we—surprise!—separated ourselves from each other. We began dominating the earth, and each other. We oppressed other humans from other cultures that we regarded as weak or inferior and we treated women and children differently from men.

Now for Warraq. He has the unimpressive and simplistic idea that “monotheism is in its turn doomed to subtract one more God and become atheism.” It is just as difficult to subtract one god from a monotheistic religion as it is to subtract millions from a polytheistic one. Actually, I would argue it’s more difficult. And it is a million times simpler to move from animism to atheism. I would consider myself an animist, a pantheist, and an atheist. Animism is the belief that everything living (or even everything in existence) has a “spirit.” This does not have to be superstitious, unlike with polytheism and monotheism. It is rather like pantheism, the belief in god or gods as nature itself. We do not attribute supernatural abilities to nature; we simply revere it as it is; an amazing thing with awesome power. The relationship between both biotic and abiotic elements of an ecosystem is fluid, lifelike, changing, and worthy of reverence; yet none of it goes beyond the scope of the scientific method.

As for polytheism: gods in polytheistic religions and spiritualities are much more down-to-earth than the Judeo-Christian God could ever hope to be. In most polytheistic religions, gods represent certain aspects of nature itself, though usually with a supernatural slant. In Hinduism, Brahma is the god of creation, Shiva the god of destruction, and Vishnu the god of preservation; together they balance each other out. They each come to earth regularly and interact with the physical world. In Greek mythology, Gaia is the goddess of the earth itself. You do not need to look up into the sky and speak to a God whose whereabouts are never actually known; if you wish to speak to Gaia, she is right there beneath your feet.

Then came the monotheists. A group of people wandered the desert and became weary from their lack of resources. Everything seemed cruel to them; life seemed cruel. So they changed their gods to fit the cruelty they saw. They developed a philosophy of cruelty that involved more self-involvement and survival instinct and less interest in the good of all creation. They pushed their gods away from the earth and their minds left as well. They became disoriented and dissociated from reality, soon their gods formed a mass of one omniscient, omnipotent, abstract God beyond human comprehension. That is the culture that created our highly-evolved monotheistic culture today; a random group of unlucky people who succumbed to the cruelties of an arid climate. Now we must all pass on the abuse of this culture: their feelings of futility—that things are the way things are because God wants it that way; their fear—that God is judgmental and cruel and you must walk on eggshells around Him; and their self-hatred—that God loves and forgives you despite the fact that you were born into sin beyond your control. And don’t forget their hatred of others—that God does not forgive those who do not believe the same things, or act the same way that his followers do.

Yes, I can see why that God—the one that has always been at odds with science, reason, and empiricism—that God was a necessary step towards atheism: a lack of superstition, lack of futility, lack of fear, and lack of hatred.

Just because a culture is powerful does not mean it is best. Just because a culture dominates and destroys all others does not mean it is part of  progress in any sense.

It’s amazing what kinds of pictures you can find on the Internet. These either moved me, infuriated me, or both.

America the Beautiful

Yes, I can see why they call it the “land of opportunity.”

Social justice is for suckas

Finally, an honest conservative.

A Diamond is Forever

Frankly, I see this image in my head whenever I see a diamond.

The times have changed

So powerful. God I wish Martin Luther King, Jr. was here now. He would be so disappointed.

Keep your laws off my body

omg srsly? You know, you could recycle that sign for a pro-choice rally. You know, if you want to not look like a hypocrite.

Child abuse

This is what happens when unwanted children are born. We seriously need to get our priorities straight.
In New Zealand, a referendum to change a law protecting children from corporal punishment just won over 80% of the vote.