Pinkwashing: Debate

The day before Tel Aviv's internationally renowned gay pride parade, Haaretz asked: Is gay pride more complex when it comes to Israel? Should we be questioning whether Israel is using gay rights to "pinkwash" its actions in the West Bank and Gaza, or are pinkwashing charges just an irrelevant ploy to change the subject back to the Palestinians?

Aeyal Gross, Haaretz's legal commentator, and James Kirchick, a Washington-based journalist, debated the question right here.

Kirchick defined pinkwashing as "anything Israel does that's positive with regard to LGBT rights [having] an ulterior, sinister motive." Gross, meanwhile, called pinkwashing an "appropriation of LGBT rights for propaganda to promote an image of [Israel] as democratic while diverting from other rights violations."

When Kirchick challenged Gross to provide an example of a leader who used LGBT rights to justify the occupation, Gross replied that "when after the flotilla, Netanyahu says 'go to Gaza, not to us,' the message is clear."

Kirchick and Gross continued to debate the merit of claims that gays in Israel have more rights than gays in the Arab world. "So what," Gross said. "Gays in the U.K. have many more rights than in Israel. So what?" ...

From a Twitter debate held by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Kirchick is arguably America's most right-wing gay journalist.

He once famously tried to end homophobia in Russia by revealing that he was wearing some rainbow suspenders [braces] during an interview on Russia Today.

PS Israeli security forces exploit Palestinians’ sexual orientation to blackmail them into becoming collaborators. The Israeli LGBT mainstream’s silence about this persecution exposes a moral lapse.

Why I Won't Be Participating In Tel Aviv's Pride Parade.

Israel: Oh Fuck You

And while thousands die the gay media can just print salutations to top gay holiday destination Israel.

Why LGBT People Around The World Need Israel James Duke Mason, The Advocate.

Or why not take a holiday in 'the gayest city in the world'?

Tel Aviv is famous for it's neverending beach-line. A magnificent 14km of blue sea, open horizon, sun and lots of people, make the Tel Aviv beach a perfect place for spending many hours of your vacation.

Along the seashore you will find a promenade which is always busy with people around the clock. Take a bike ride, jog, go for a swim, or enjoy the dozens of restaurants, cafe's, pubs, discos and more, there is always action at the beach. GayTLVGuide.

Odd that it's the same gay far right-wing Russia bashers, like Michael Lucas and James Kirchick, that are now getting kissy to the kid killers in Israel, dontchafink?

I stand with Israel. pic.twitter.com/BleuYMULoc
— Michael Lucas (@MichaelLucasNYC) July 16, 2014

Anyone for more right-wing gay exceptionalist hegemony? 

America: Land Of The Free

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — A dozen states still have anti-sodomy laws on the books 10 years after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled they are unconstitutional.

One such state is Louisiana, where gay rights groups contend police have used anti-sodomy laws to target gay men. But state lawmakers sided with religious and conservative groups in refusing to repeal the law last week.

Of 14 states that had anti-sodomy laws, only Montana and Virginia have repealed theirs since the Supreme Court ruling, said Sarah Warbelow, legal director for the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights organization.

Warbelow says that in addition to Louisiana, anti-sodomy laws remain on the books in Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

The Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 that it is unconstitutional to bar consensual sex between adults, calling it a violation of the 14th Amendment.

Last year, police in East Baton Rouge Parish arrested gay men for attempted crimes against nature using the anti-sodomy law in a sting operation that caused a national outcry.

Associated Press.

And 33 states have banned gay marriage.

Meanwhile, back in the USA, right-wing goons and hand-maidens of power like James Kirchick, Michael Lucas, Dan Savage and Queer Nation NY can only protest about Russia.

And finally, US states that have anti 'gay propaganda' laws...

Boycott AmeriKKKa!

Putin: Skating On Thin Ice

The Economist on why someone waving a silly rainbow flag or not drinking Coke for a fortnight is the least of Putin's problems.

Great cover.

And here's America's most right-wing gay commentator James "Rainbow Suspenders" Kirchick writing for Britain's biggest right-wing magazine, The Spectator, about you-know-what. Zzz...

Update: Fans of reasoned, informed political debate, not hysterical right-wing posturing, may enjoy Gevorg Mirzayan; Sochi 2014 Boycott Would Have Been Counterproductive - who points out how no political leader is 'snubbing' the games, and besides there's a whole raft of serious differences and tensions between Russia and the West right now.
There's little things like Syria and Ukraine and that.

It's not all about The Gays, you know, The Gays!

Arafat: Poisonous Rumours

Suspicions that the former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned will be strengthened by the discovery by Swiss scientists of 18 times the normal level of radioactive polonium in his remains.
Mr Arafat, who had long symbolised the Palestinians fight for their own state, died on 11 November 2004 from an illness that was never fully diagnosed by his doctors.
Swiss scientists have been carrying out tests on tissue taken from Mr Arafat’s body and personal items with which he was brought into close contact.
They say they are confident up to an 83 per cent level that the Palestinian leader was poisoned and suspect that the cause may be polonium...
The report only examined what killed Mr Arafat not whether or not he was deliberately poisoned.
The death of Mr Arafat seriously weakened the Palestinian cause, of which he had been the enduring symbol for almost 40 years, and removed the one figure who could unite the diverse and quarrelsome Palestinian groups...

The new-look Independent have splashed this big across their front-page.

Though heading it The Smoking Gun?, under a story about the assassination of JFK, might suggest they think it's a conspiracy theory.
The Independent's usually reliable Middle East correspondent, Robert Fisk, has looked into its plausibility before here.

The news causes the Electronic Intifada to recall what happened last year when rumours of Arafat being poisoned first gained credence - Zionists began concocting their own conspiracy theory.

                                       ******************

While Israel markets itself as the most gay-friendly country in the world, its PR hacks are busy reviving homophobic rumors that Arafat was a gay “sexual deviant” who died of AIDS due to his promiscuity.

On Tuesday, Aljazeera broke a bombshell story that the clothes Arafat wore as he died of a sudden and mysterious illness in 2004, contained strong traces of the lethal radioactive element polonium, raising the possibility that he may have been poisoned...

Following the Aljazeera report, Lenny Ben-David, former Deputy Chief of Mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and current public relations consultant to the Israeli government, posted a lurid article at The Times of Israel reviving rumors that Arafat died of AIDS and blaming his “sexual proclivities”:

Yasser Arafat was a murderous, genocidal, diabolical, duplicitous sexual deviant who died at the age of 75. He was despised by Arab and Israeli alike.

Ben-David dismisses the possibility that Arafat was poisoned and asserts:

Less romantic and mythical, however, is the more likely cause of Arafat’s death – AIDS.
Arafat’s sexual proclivities have been an open secret for years. The former head of Rumanian intelligence, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, disclosed in his book “Red Horizons,” that one of his officers reported, “the ‘Fedayee’ [Arafat’s code name] is in his bedroom making love to his bodyguard. The one I knew was his latest lover. He’s playing tiger again. The officer monitoring his microphones connected me live with the bedroom, and the squawling almost broke my eardrums. Arafat was roaring like a tiger, and his lover yelping like a hyena.”

In addition to this “evidence,” Ben-David cites another piece of “proof” that has circulated widely on Zionist websites:

After Arafat’s death, his personal physician admitted in a TV interview that his patient died of AIDS.

Both of these pieces of “evidence” are junk...

                                    ***********************

Out magazine article by James Kirchick - filed appropriately under 'Entertainment'
Note comedy limp wrist.

The author, Ali Abunimah, proceeds to routinely and roundly demolish both of them.

Which didn't stop the right-wing Homocon, James Kirchick, pushing both these fictions in the American gay media.
James is the jerk who hijacked a TV debate about Chelsea Manning to tell lies about Russia, not uncoincidentally.
Rumours that Arafat was a pederast have long been popular with the Western right; it feeds into a domestic Orientalist myth of the Arab as sexually deviant, and is thought to discredit him amongst his own constituency in the Middle East.
One may have noticed something of a paradox in this propaganda; "Arabs are queer - Arabs hate queers!"
But anyway, the Electronic Intifada conclude...

Why should Arafat’s sexuality be of interest to propagandists loyal to an Israeli “state” that is going to great pains to present itself as a haven of gay rights amid an ocean of intolerance and to attract gay tourists and their money to Tel Aviv?

According to former Israeli diplomat and current Israeli PR hack Lenny Ben-David, all these gay tourists are nothing more than “sexual deviants.”

The lurid stories and lies about Arafat’s sexual relationships aim to provoke homphobic reactions and marshal this homophobia to produce hostility and revulsion at Arafat, and to delegitimize him in the eyes of an Arab audience that is presumed to always be disgusted by such behavior.

These Israeli reactions belie Israel’s “pink” marketing and expose the homphobia that exists at the heart of so much of its propaganda.

Russia: Another Country

Today gay America is mightily pissed over this video.
RUSSIA BOO HISS!!! etc etc.
Can you believe it!?
Nobody knows who made it - or if it was actually made by Russians, anyone could have thrown this old cobblers together on a laptop in half-an-hour. 
Although only an idiot would see one crappy little homemade video as being representative of an entire nation, it is offered up as further evidence that Russia today is exactly like Nazi Germany/Apartheid South Africa (delete as hysterical) - comparisons that are as morally obscene as they are ludicrous - and uniquely evil in how it treats gay people.
But its "arguments" - that homosexuals are carriers of disease, die early, want to rape your kids (that's why they want to adopt them), and are taking over the nation etc etc - are exactly the same sort of nonsense that American rightwing and/or Christians regularly come up with (eg the charming booklet below).
Indeed, many of its "facts" are lifted straight from this American Christian tract.
And it acknowledges a laughable "study" by anti-gay Catholic loonbag, Mark Regnerus, who claimed one in three kids adopted by gay men were sexually abused - again an American.
Perhaps then the video tells us as much about the sickness in the American body politic?
Just as how the new "gay propaganda" law so closely echoing Britain's Section 28 says much about our own moral low ground.
Can't happen here...

The video was "newly discovered" - and posted on YouTube (purely coincidentally!) - by the rightwing self-styled "liberal" gay blogger, John Aravosis, who runs AMERICAblog. - their touching patriotic slogan: 'A Great Nation Deserves Equality'.
Aravosis - "I got involved in gay politics 20 years ago in order to win the right to serve in the military, have a job, and get married..." - is the source for many of the scare stories about Russia's anti-gay "pogrom", along with Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, and Voice Of America - all are rightwing propaganda media funded by the American state.
They are usually obediently repeated, unquestioned, unchecked - for in the current climate anyone can get away with writing any old bollocks about Russia.
The credulity of so many people to these media reports is thoroughly depressing, but sadly - as a cursory look through this blog shows - this is endemic to our culture.
I wouldn't be surprised to read in the gay media soon that; 'PUTIN EATS GAY BABIES!', with the usual caveats; "allegedley", "reportedly" etc.
Aravosis is so angry about what's happening right now he's started a subsite, Gay Russia.- a veritable mine of disinformation.
(The only other hot topic he thinks deserves its own subsite is "Putin's puppet" Syria).
Note how the two other loudest voices shouting about the plight of LGBT Russians are the far-right Zionist porn mogul, Michael Lucas, and the equally politically dodgy HomoCon/NeoCon, Jamie Kirchick, who famously hijacked a live TV debate about Chelsea Manning to rant about Russia while wearing rainbow "suspenders".
(Dan Savage who instigated the Boycott Sochi campaign - against a vodka that's not actually Russian - is seen as a "progressive" - but his last major foray into international politics was the "lefty" and liberal-bashing, 'Say YES To War On Iraq').
Seems the gay right are still living out their Cold War wet dreams.

Anti-gay propaganda from America the beautiful

The latter act - or rather self-publicity stunt - by James Kirchick is surely the neo-imperial mindset defined - where someone literally ignores the great crimes being committed by their own country, and fumes about those of its power rivals.
As is the tendency by westerners to think they know best about what to do, while ignoring what LGBT Russians are saying.
(Note also how often neo-colonialist Orientalist rhetoric appears that Russians are "backward", "uncivilised" etc - ah, the thankless western gay white man's burden). 
Witness what happens whenever someone on a messageboard points out LGBT Russian groups have asked people NOT to boycott.
Simply stating this obvious and important fact can get you compared to a holocaust denier.
An oft repeated post is some variation on "This is exactly how Hitler started!" - as preposterous and offensive as saying any discriminatory legislation is the first step on the road to Auschwitz, and as silly as saying drinking Earl Grey tea will inevitably lead to heroin addiction.
[Edit: It's just as common to be accused of supporting Putin or being a homophobe, if you challenge or correct an untruth here].
The debate has become so debased - and so many commentators are so indoctrinated, so oblivious to facts - it often seems pointless to enter into any discussion.

Yesterday, John McCain, the Republican party presidential candidate, slammed the Russian bogeyman in a widely-circulated op-ed.
He - but of course - highlighted how; "They write laws to codify bigotry against people whose sexual orientation they condemn."
This is somewhat odd, to say the least, as a senator McCain has always opposed any gay equality initiatives.
Ever get the feeling you're being used?
Perhaps it was a joke, and he was being ironic?
For he also wrote; "[Putin] is not enhancing Russia's global reputation. He is destroying it. He has made her a friend to tyrants and an enemy to the oppressed, and untrusted by nations that seek to build a safer, more peaceful and prosperous world."
Could any rational, intelligent, informed person hear an American politician saying any of that without risking dieing laughing?

Manufacturing Discontent

Sophisticated political satire.

It is heartening and moving that so many people in the west are angry about the oppression of gay people in Russia, and are expressing solidarity.
Though it often seems like an outbreak of whipped-up mass hysteria, akin to 1984's Hate Week, usually expressed in "passive activism"; actions that are pointless (clicktivism), and/or counterproductive (boycotts).
Or like a little outburst of over-emotional collective insanity much as that we witnessed when Princess Diana died.
All too often this does not look like some queer political re-awakening, but further proof of the depoliticisation of our culture.
But people can not be blamed for reaching for their pink pitchforks and torches when they've been subject to the sort of avalanche of media misinformation we normally only witness in wartime.
It is foolish and politically blind not to question why this has now become such an issue - warranting endless, blanket coverage, to the virtual exclusion of other countries' often far worse gay rights abuses - at a time when tensions between the US and Russia are at their most heightened since the Cold War.  
And it is obvious that the increasingly hysterical, hyperbolic and hypocritical "debate" has been hijacked, and is being used - meaning our struggle for gay rights is being used - as rightwing propaganda, by demonising a declared enemy in service to American hegemony.
USA! USA! USA!

Exclusive: Putin 'Murders Gay Puppy'!

President Putin, the Russian president of Russia, has apparently killed a gay puppy with his own bare hands, Fagburn can exclusively reveal.
The photo above shows the clearly terrified little doggy-woggy, just moments away from certain death.
It is taken from a shocking new video that no-one has actually seen, but Radio Free Europe/Voice Of America - a highly-respected independent news outlet funded by the US state department - has said definitely exists.
They say Putin can apparently be heard calling the dog "my beautiful little bitch" and trying to sexually humiliate it by threatening to "give it a bone".

There are fears this could just be the beginning of the mass extermination of all gay puppies in Russia.
"I fear this could be the beginning of the mass extermination of all gay puppies in Russia," commented national treasure, Stephen Fry. "I spent an afternoon in St Petersburg last year, and I can tell you these adorable little doe-eyed balls of fluffiness are treated like dogs."
Mr Fry has called for a show of solidarity by all entrants at next year's Cruft's Dog Show wearing a big pink bow.

Playwright Havey Fierstein was not alone in pointing out this all has chilling echoes of Nazi Germany; "This is exactly how Hitler started. First he killed his alsatian, Blondi, in his Berlin bunker, then he gassed all the Jews. Except this time, Poo-tin is killing gay puppies right now. In secret."
Fierstein claims that in Moscow specially trained "dog-handlers" round up "stray" dogs and intern them in specially-constructed "dog homes".
It is understood many have been "put down". 

Leading American gay journalist and mediawhore, Dan Savage, has urged for a mass boycott of Choco Choco Doggy Treats, which are made in Baltimore.
"Enough is e-fuckin'-nuff! Time to hit the Russians where it hurts! All gay men and our straight allies must stop buying Choco Choco Doggy Treats immediately! Even if they don't have a dog."
"Money talks! Let's make it bark!"
And if that doesn't work? "I think we should invade Russia, just like I kept saying we should invade Iraq."
Asked if his boycott was ill-thought-out and pointless, Savage told Fagburn; "It's working! There's no reports of Putin killing any other gay puppies today."
"The fact that Putin isn't doing something now that he wasn't doing before proves the protest - which was organised by me, incidentally - is working."

The #boycottchoco campaign has rapidly caught on worldwide - Manhole, a gay bar in London's trendy Soho, has sent out a press release saying they will not sell Choco Choco Doggy Treats to their customers - and pointing out that they currently have a wide range of tantalising drinks offers most nights.
Veteran gay rights campaigner, the normally publicity-shy Peter Tatchell, has promised to bombard the media with press releases quoting himself, and photos of himself, until someone prints one.
But the campaign's most famous supporter has to be Ian Brady.
The Moors murderer has posted a selfie on his Facebook page where he holds up a sign reading; "#Boycottchoco! Won't somebody please think of the children!?"

Yesterday, America's most right-wing Neo-con gay loon, James Kirchick, took over a live TV debate on Russia Today about Syria to bring attention to the non-existent gay puppy pogrom.
Donning a comedy rainbow bowtie that spins round and round, he told their dozens of viewers; "You know what? Fuck Syria. America should just bomb it back to the stone age. Then we should get all our sexy US marines to march on Moscow."
After launching into a barely coherent tirade about how Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald should be publically hanged as traitors in a Walmart carpark, the censors at Russia Today immediately cut-off Kirchick after half-an-hour.

Patrick Smugtwit, a gay journalist famed for his stunningly original and intellectual articles, has written online; "I literally weep for the Russian gay puppies. No-one feels their pain as much as me. Boo-hoo-hoo. Why has there been such silence about this, apart from all the articles about it? Imagine if this was happening to black puppies!"
In a statement, Sebastian Posh-Twit from LGBTory - the Conservative party's gay group - slammed the Russian premier; "Although our party has a long history of supporting the torturing of puppies for fun and political gain, we have changed, and now only use them for hunting foxes."

But it's not just the gay right who are angry about this - many apolitical gay men are now pretending they care by leaving ever madder and ill-informed comments on gay media message boards.
One - @keverrett69 - posted recently; "LETZ BOMB THE RUSSIAN SCUM! 4 THE LOLZ!!!"

A spokesman for Puppy Love (мальчишеское увлечение), Russia's leading dog advocacy group, told Fagburn they thought this was all "hysterical and rather silly and based on wilful misinformation."
"I think there might be a hidden agenda here, where, once again, an officially declared enemy of the US is obediently demonised by the media in the service of Western power and neo-imperial American hegemony," he said.
"There are far, far worse things happening to gay men in many other countries now - and the US and UK are hardly queer utopias - so maybe people should stop and ask why the situation in Russia has suddenly got such obsessive, endless blanket coverage?"
"Any rational person would see this as an outbreak of mass hysteria."
"Basically you can say any old shit about Russia right now and get away with it."
But what would he know, he's a fucking filthy Russian?

• Protests have been organised in cities around the world next Friday, where people are invited to take part in a mass Pissing Against The Wind - or, if they can't be arsed, they can make themselves feel better by clicking on one of those AllOut.org e-petitions that politicians always ignore.

Nikolai Alekseyev: Fight The Gay Fight In Russia

A Sochi Olympics boycott will only serve those who do not understand that their goal will only further isolate the LGBT community in Russia and make the lives of its representatives living in the country (and not in New York or London) even harder. Or, is this boycott nothing more than cold war nostalgia lead by some who today regret that they ran away from the Soviet Union or Russia? After all, who will the ordinary Russians (who might not be as homophobic as they are portrayed), blame for the disruption of this event? I think you know the answer. Will it make lives better for the millions who will stay? Will it lead to the repeal of the federal law banning gay propaganda? In both cases, definitely not!

From an important essay, Fighting The Gay Fight In Russia by Nikolai Alekseyev.
Still what would Russia's leading gay rights campaigner know about any of this, eh?
Obviously, I don't think Nikolai speaks for all LGBT Russians - nor does he claim to - or that he has all the answers or some magic fix, but far better listen to him than some know-nothing knee-jerk idiot in the West.
Please also read this hilarious piss-take of that publicity-seeking right-wing gay cunt, James Kirchick.
And, if you haven't read it already, What If Chelsea Manning Were Russian? - an excellent piece by Michael Arria on the double standards and hypocrisy of those power-serving patriotic all-American gay boys, James Kirchick and Dan Savage.
Right, think that's probably enough about Russia for today...

солидарность!

Chelsea Manning: Free Chelsea Manning!

The Next Stage of My Life

I want to thank everybody who has supported me over the last three years. Throughout this long ordeal, your letters of support and encouragement have helped keep me strong. I am forever indebted to those who wrote to me, made a donation to my defense fund, or came to watch a portion of the trial. I would especially like to thank Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network for their tireless efforts in raising awareness for my case and providing for my legal representation.

As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me. I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition. I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility). I look forward to receiving letters from supporters and having the opportunity to write back.

Thank you,

Chelsea E. Manning

Chelsea’s mailing address remains:
Commander, HHC USAG
Attn: PFC Bradley Manning
239 Sheridan Ave, Bldg 417
JBM-HH, VA 22211

Via a statement Chelsea gave to her lawyer, David Coombs. 

As ever and always, thinking of you, Chelsea, with thanks, solidarity, respect and much love.
x

• What If Chelsea Manning Were Russian? An excellent piece by Michael Arria on the double standards and hypocrisy of those all-American gay boys, James Kirchick and Dan Savage.

Update: Trans Media Watch respond to Chelsea Manning coming out. Daily Mail and Independent good, others not so...

Update2: And a list of which media are using Chelsea's preferred pronoun, and who isn't...

Update3: Send Chelsea Manning a book!

The Gay Right: Whose Side Are You On?

This video has - as they say - gone "viral".
Unfeasibly right-wing gay Neocon Jamie Kirchick goes on Russia Today to talk about Bradley Manning's sentencing; "I'm not really interested in talking about Bradley Manning..."
Who knew? *
So what does our little Homocon want to talk about?
He launches into a hysterical, poorly informed - or rather willfully misinformed - rant about; "The horrific environment of homophobia in Russia right now...."
Zzzzz...
Much of the gay media are declaring him a "hero" - Kirchick that is, not Manning, obviously.
What? For wearing a pair of rainbow braces on TV!
Again, ask yourself why this issue is so animating the gay right - who here literally ignore what a great injustice their own beloved country has done to a gay man like Bradley Manning, to rant about Uncle Sam's mortal enemy, Russia?
Only the deeply indoctrinated could see this right-wing hijack as something to celebrate.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you thought control in a democratic society in action!

Funny! American journalist tried to disrupt @RT_comhttps://twitter.com/RT_com">@RT_com

> saying they lie about USA. And @cnnhttps://twitter.com/CNN">@cnn> does not lie about Russia?!— Nikolai Alexeyev (@n_alexeyev) August">https://twitter.com/n_alexeyev/statuses/370375714690039808">August 22, 2013

* Here Kerching argues the "traitor" Manning should fry in an electric chair. Which is nice.
Here's a panel debate on the boycott from Russia Today.
(Kirchick, laughably, claims RT has ignored this topic).
Against? A man from the Russian LGBT Sports Federation, a British gay journalist who lives in Russia, and two other Russian people who actually know what's happening in, err, Russia.
And for a boycott? Reactionary British lesbigot, Julie Bindel!
You really couldn't make it up.

Update: And finally... Eddie Mair takes on the architect of much of Russia's recent anti-gay laws, Vitaly Milonov. That's the way to do it etc etc. Listen here.