European Womens Lobby tackle prostitution

The European Women's Lobby (EWL) have begun a campaign to eradicate prostitution from Europe.They seem to think they have the moral right to judge people who work in the worlds oldest profession, and they seem to think they know best.

Their webpage, which is http://www.womenlobby.org/spip.php?rubrique187&lang=en,    has two videos in which they put across their argument.

Here is their first video:

This video is full of gross exaggerations and false portrayals. At the end of the video the voice says "Prostitution is a form of violence and oppression." This is a blanket generalisation, the sort you might hear from a person who is entirely uninformed and who is full of bias and prejudice, and who probably believes such things because of a lack of education and understanding. Perhaps also because of religious indoctrination.
   Women who choose to do that job, willingly. Who set out their own rules and who manage to cope, and those who also enjoy it are not oppressed. Of course there is a risk of violence in that job but there are indeed many who have been fortunate enough to not experience such a thing. To label this as "violence and oppression" and to simplify it as they have done in that video shows ignorance.
  
This is the second video:

This video isn't quite as bad, however what it does do is portray all prostitutes as "a piece of meat in the window" and it does portray many of them being reliant on drugs when that is not especially true or accurate.
      Of course they have  to have someone from the flip side of the coin, and indeed they do. At the .34 second mark in the video above they have have a man identified simply as "sex entrepreneur in the Netherlands." The clip of him is short and is simply of him saying how he hopes to expand to five hundred clubs and brothels. Of course there is no guarantee that he provided an explanation as to why he is in that business and why he thinks it is OK, but I think it's safe to assume that even if he had they would not have included it.  I think it's safe to assume that they edited that clip in especially to show him and people like him as callous and uncaring with a lack of morals. In a negative light.
  
 At the 1:14 mark the words "It's so glamorous" appear followed by a clip of a specially arranged parking lot for prostitutes to service their clients. Each parking space is separated by walls of corrugated iron. Of course this must be the only way prostitutes service their clients right? Right?

   I think it's quite clear what the objectives of this campaign are. It is first and foremost a campaign to tackle prostitution in Europe but it is also, it seems, a campaign to tar all those who work in that industry and who hire people from that industry, and they have done so in a cavalier way.

   Quite distasteful I believe.

Trial or Error?

    Whilst watching the YouTube channel "The Young Turks" whose segments I often watch, I came across a video of theirs in which they discuss a conversation between Michael Moore and Elisabeth Hasselbank on a show called "The View."
   Now most of you might know who Michael Moore is but you might not know who Elisabeth Hasslebank is or what "The View" is.
  Elisabeth Hasslebank is a TV personality over in the US and general television presenter. She more often than not represents Conservative views and has been outspoken more often than not.
  "The View" is the USA's version of "Loose Women" except in the former they have proper debates and conversations with some fairly serious people as opposed to "Loose Women" which is mostly celebrities and celebrity chatter with a bit of debate on the side.

   Now that's out of the way, to the video itself.
The video is a debate on the TV show on which Michael Moore was a guest. They were discussing the death of Osama Bin Laden. As you are about to see, Michael Moore believes he should have been taken back to the USA and put on trial:

Now in this Moore compares such a trial to that of the Nazi's indicating it would have been the right and moral thing to do. He also claims that "we are no longer at war" (and by "we" he means the USA). This is obviously not true.

 The reason the comparison to the Nazi's and the Nuremberg trials doesn't fit is because that was the aftermath of a world war. The Germans had accepted defeat and the general consensus was that it was right and proper to try those who were responsible for war crimes. There was no real division over the decision to send those people to the Hague to face trial, and there certainly wasn't any objections least of all for religious reasons.

Had Osama Bin Laden gone to trial in New York it might well have caused a certain amount of religious tension and division and could have caused civil unrest in certain parts of the world. Furthermore, had he been captured alive and sent to New York to face trial it could have triggered a spree of kidnappings or murders of Americans in retaliations or in an effort by the supporters of Bin Laden to free him. Any dignitary or person in a position of power both in the USA and abroad (especially in countries where the population is considerably or mostly Muslim) could have been in danger of being taken and held to ransom.
   
   Another person on the panel makes a the valid point that Bin Laden was killed instead of captured alive because the USA did not want to make Bin Laden a Martyr to which Moore replied that putting the Nazi's on trial didn't make them martyrs. However the Nazi's weren't religious fanatics. They were fanatics but not driven by an insane religious brainwashing.

In conclusion, if a democracy puts a person like Bin Laden on trial nine times out of ten, just because they didn't do it once out of those ten times that doesn't make that country any less democratic. Furthermore, I think said countries are allowed to make exceptions, especially in a case like Bin Laden, because Bin Laden and all that surrounded him and 9/11 is no ordinary case.

I believe it was right to kill him, so that all nations effected by 9/11 and the familes can perhaps move on, if indeed that is possible.

The Value of Friendship

I was browsing the Internet recently and I came across a video of habitual idiot Glenn Beck before he left fix...sorry....faux..nope..Fox News.

Watch the video here:

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201105190035

Now the title of the video is:

Beck on Obama's Israel Speech: The President has "Betrayed our last strong ally."

So from that title I was expecting...no...hoping for at least some substantial argument from Beck. A detailed argument of why Israel is a stronger ally than the others, and why it is more valuable than the other allies. Then why Israel is the USA's last strong ally.

But then I watched the video and I was disappointed for all of ten seconds, whereupon I remembered it's Glenn Beck one of the Faux News morons and a logical argument is difficult for them even on a good day.

In the video Beck breaks down the list of allies of the USA. They are (according to him:)

Japan,
Great Britain,
France,
Germany,
Australia,
and Canada.

So his reasoning is;

Japan - Beck says they have been devastated by earthquakes and tsunami’s and perhaps they have. And he says the USA is helping them. Well that might also be true, however Japan is still very involved with the USA in terms of massive trade and no doubt the economy.

France - "Well, where they ever our allies?" Glenn Beck asks. Well loosely I guess, however one of the reasons he gives were the civil unrest incidents. Not really substantial. Sure Sarkozy might not be on best terms with Obama and the USA and neither might his opponents, however I wouldn't call that a substantial argument.

Great Britain - (My favourite one.) He says Britain has been "ravaged by socialism and political correctness" and "is on fire."
I wonder what his reasoning is to think we are being "ravaged by socialism?" And as for the political correctness, well anyone who knows about the media we have here knows that many or most of the stories about political correctness are completely exaggerated and come from the tabloids, many of which are right wing and biased.
The political correctness side is seriously exaggerated and anyone who knows anything knows that it is definitely not a reason to dismiss a nation which frankly has probably given the most as an Ally of the USA.
After all we have, as a nation, fought alongside the USA in two world wars, Korea, two Gulf wars and one in Afghanistan, not to mention many other conflicts around the world.
What do we have to do to be recognised as an equal? Or maybe we should just stop trying. Because frankly, if all that we have done is not enough then nothing ever will be. Especially in the eyes of the Americans, or maybe at least in the eyes of plebs like Glenn Beck.

“God Bless Great Britain but are we really an ally?” Beck asks. Umm, yeah we are. We are involved financially with the USA, with the markets, we have soldiers fighting in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Americans and did so in Iraq before then, and then in the Balkans before that, then Iraq again before that, and Korea before that. Really, does none that mean anything to him?

So at the end of the video he says that Australia and Canada are the only two allies that the USA has left.

Frankly if this is the attitude of Beck and people like him, and those who listen to him (whomever those poor unfortunate misguided people are) then I think it’s time we, as a country re-evaluated our “special relationship” with the USA.