Michael Lucas: The Sound Of Silence

Out magazine.

Oh Michael, why oh why do we never hear from such enlightened yet marginalised voices such as yours, apart from in, for example, your regular column in America's biggest gay magazine?

If only the US gay media wasn't quite so repelled by hearing from rich right-wing gay cunts!*

* Apparently some Americans don't get irony. This was me being it so.

Joan Rivers: 1933-2014

Fagburn remembers the Joan Rivers he never knew:

About ten years ago I went to see the recording of a pilot for a Channel 4 gameshow she was hosting.
It was awful, just completely the wrong format for her considerable comic talents, and she clearly hated doing it.
Thankfully there were endless technical hitches that halted filming.
During which Joan kept the audience amused by telling jokes about the then ongoing Michael Jackson kiddy-fiddling trial.
It was one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed.
Sadly, all wonderfully unbroadcastable.
So that's how I'd like to remember Joan.
And not as the racist Zionist bitch whose last public statement was saying Palestinian kids in the Gaza Strip 'deserve to be dead'.

PS Oops! Nearly forgot - she loved The Gays!

• The poster above is for Joan's Quick... Before They Close The Lid tour of the UK next month - some tickets still available.

Michael Lucas' Campaign Of Evil: Russia And Gay Propaganda

Far right-wing Homocon racist loon, Michael Lucas, is Kickstarting a campaign to fund a documentary film; The Campaign Of Evil: Russia And Gay Propaganda.
A title so full of irony it may burst.
Odd that the filthy rich porn mogul is asking for money for this.
Perhaps he thinks its subject matter means other reactionary rich queens will be an easy touch?
Again, it's fascinating and instructive that this issue is so obsessing and animating the American gay right.
One might be forgiven for thinking there is another rather sinister political agenda at work here.

If you pledge $50 or more, you'll get a free copy of Michael Lucas's first documentary, the bonkers Zionist propaganda wankfest, Undressing Israel: Gay Men In The Promised Land!
It's probably his most obscene work - and this is from Lucas, the man behind the gay porn DVD, FARTS!

Yesterday Nikolai Alekseyev put out a press release declaring his latest victory in Russia, as Arkhangelsk (Archangel) has repealed its local law forbidding the promotion of homosexuality to minors.
As - apparently - they thought it unnecessary as it's now covered by the federal law, this is a mere technicality, and thus this is a nonsensical non-story.
But both Pink News and Gay Star News ran it unchallenged.
GSN calling it "an incredible turn of events"!
Pink News quoted GayRussia.org as their sole secondary source, seemingly oblivious to the fact that this is Alekseyev's own website.
[GSN's story has since been toned down, I think. PN are sticking by their usual editorial policy of not correcting false news items].
Unlike them, J Lester Feder at BuzzFeed actually bothered to ask Russian LGBT activists - and even Alekseyev admitted this move changed nothing.
Once again, when so many stories about Russia have been shown to be fictions, unfounded, or wild exaggerations, one has to ask why the gay news media does not bother to check or even question them?
This is a rather minor example amongst many, but the gay media's coverage over Russia, to cite but one example, and their readiness to re/print any old rubbish, has consistently shown such piss-poor editorial standards one has to ask if they serve any useful function.
Your readers deserve better.
Please, pull your finger out, wise up or close down.

Update: Another pukey video, To Russia With (Gay) Love.
Is there some studio in Satan's innermost ring making these things?
This comes with a note; "a Gallup poll released in September found 69% of Americans disapprove of the country’s harsh and far-reaching antigay legislation that was signed by into law by President Vladimir Putin this summer."
Why, one might think Americans, not Russians, were the intended target of this crude propaganda campaign...

The Advocate: Telling Lies For A Living

"You can say anything you want because you support power, and nobody expects you to justify anything. For example, on the unimaginable circumstance that I was on, say, Nightline, and I was asked, say, "Do you think Kadhafi is a terrorist?" I could say, "Yeah, Kadhafi is a terrorist." I don't need any evidence. Suppose I said, "George Bush is a terrorist." Well, then I would be expected to provide evidence, "Why would you say that?""

Noam Chomsky, 2002 interview.

I won't dwell on this story, I'll just get even more fucked off with everything than I was earlier today.
I'll just document what happened, as it demonstrates the spectacular achievements of hegemony, even in a gay media one might expect to challenge it.

Yesterday the above story went up on The Advocate, probably America's, and therefore the world's, most-read gay news source.
The gist of it? Islamic suicide bombers have been exempted from a ban on sodomy as regular bummings will make it easier to fit explosives up their arse; (""Is it permissible for me to let one of the jihadi brothers sodomize me to widen my anus if the intention is good?")
The story is so ludicrous someone told me they thought it was from The Onion.
Of course, it's all bollocks.
Here it is roundly and thoroughly debunked as "pure nonsense" by the Electronic Intifada. 
It had been fed to The Advocate by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a far-right Zionist US thinktank.
Did The Advocate try and check it?
No, why bother? They just ran it.
(It's worth noting that Michael Lucas, the Zionist, Islamophobic, racist Neo-con porn mogul is an Advocate columnist). 
The fiction soon got tweeted and blogged and published all over the world. 
I won't dwell on this, but most annoyingly by Peter Tatchell.
It's depressing that someone who prides himself on being sceptical and does so much good work and critical progressive analysis should fall for this Islamophobic Orientalist guff.
Not the first time, though.
Tatchell has since retweeted a link to the Electronic Intifada article, but as far as I'm aware has not personally retracted it or apologised.
At the time of typing the story is still on The Advocate's website.
It's all so fucking shameful, but sadly none of this sorry episode surprised me. 

 

 • 'What People In The US Know About Islam Is A Stupid Cliché' Edward W Said.

Saudi Arabia: Spot The Difference

"Activists are concerned for the safety of a 30-year-old man arrested by the religious police in Saudi Arabia for using Facebook to date other men. The man, whose exact identity is not known, was arrested on 23 December (2011) but full details of the incident are only now becoming clear after a detailed investigation by Gay Middle East. Experts warn he may face blackmail and/or corporal punishment..."

Pink News.
Their news story goes on to quote a spokesperson for Amnesty International:

"Amnesty International is seeking more information on this case. If the man reported in the Sabq story has been arrested and charged with homosexuality, Amnesty International would consider him to be a prisoner of conscience and call for his immediate and unconditional release..."

Fagburn agrees with Amnesty - let's find out more, like if this happened.
Particularly as so many LGBT stories from the Middle East turn out to be invented, spun or distorted.
The Saudi Arabia story could prove to be true, of course, but it could turn out to be a fiction like last year's "abduction" of A Gay Girl In Damascus.
The Pink News story was first published on GayMiddleEast.com.
It was written by Dan Littauer - executive editor of Gay Middle East, a German citizen who lives in London.
Gay Middle East's unreliability - often driven by a pro-Zionist bias - has been pointed out by many queer Arab activists.

Pinkwashing: Gay Rights As Zionist PR Tool

"In 2005, with help from American marketing executives, the Israeli government began a marketing campaign, “Brand Israel,” aimed at men ages 18 to 34. The campaign, as reported by The Jewish Daily Forward, sought to depict Israel as “relevant and modern.” The government later expanded the marketing plan by harnessing the gay community to reposition its global image.

"Last year, the Israeli news site Ynet reported that the Tel Aviv tourism board had begun a campaign of around $90 million to brand the city as “an international gay vacation destination.” The promotion, which received support from the Tourism Ministry and Israel’s overseas consulates, includes depictions of young same-sex couples and financing for pro-Israeli movie screenings at lesbian and gay film festivals in the United States. (The government isn’t alone; an Israeli pornography producer even shot a film, “Men of Israel,” on the site of a former Palestinian village.)

"The growing global gay movement against the Israeli occupation has named these tactics “pinkwashing”: a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life. Aeyal Gross, a professor of law at Tel Aviv University, argues that “gay rights have essentially become a public-relations tool,” even though “conservative and especially religious politicians remain fiercely homophobic.”..."

The great Sarah Schulman writing in The New York Times (surprisingly).
See if you can spot the four page (!) front-of-house foldover ad from the Israel Government Tourism Office in your favourite gay mag this month.
Don't forget to read that fascinating history of the Galilee - but see if you can spot who's missing from it?

Julie Burchill: Bye For Now

"Give the people what they want, goes the old line, and that day is here at last for me and the vast majority of Independent readers as I write my final column.
"I leave you with a light heart, well aware that it's time for me to move over. So I will now concentrate mainly on learning Hebrew and writing my memoir of philo-Semitism UNCHOSEN, with supplementary activity based around lunching, lazing and loafing. And the occasional foray into journalism, of course – I'd miss my trolls too much if I retired.
"L'hitraot! as we say in Israel – be seeing you!"

La Burchill signs off from her Independent column.
Fagburn got the feeling her wizened black heart was never really in this one, she can't even wind-up liberals like moi anymore.
All I remember over the last year has been the cracked record/mantra; "Try doing that in a Muslim country!"
And when she lapsed into one of her regular bouts of gay-bashing it was hard to feel insulted as they were laughably nonsensical and incomprehensible.
Fuck off Julie, you mad old right-wing Zionist Hove-dwelling witch.

Thought For The Day: Tony Kushner

"A handful of works in history have had a direct impact on social policy. One or two works of Dickens, some of Zola, Uncle Tom's Cabin and, in modern drama, Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart. But if I believed that Angels in America was important simply because it raised levels of sexual tolerance or encouraged people to be nicer to gays, I'd still be sitting at my laptop wondering what to do next. In fact, my new play is a big American family drama in the Eugene O'Neill tradition. I'm not a missionary. I'm primarily addressing progressive communities in the hope that we can go forward into the darkness trying to figure things out together."

Tony Kushner interviewed by Michael Billington in The Guardian.
The strapline; "When Tony Kushner's honorary degree was vetoed over allegations that he was anti-Israel, there was an outcry. Here he talks for the first time about the controversy"
Good stuff, but it's not the first time.
Here he is talking to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! in May.

David Norris: Virtually Ruined?

Senator David Norris's bid for the Irish presidency looks in serious trouble after an internet smear campaign begun by a self-styled Zionist blogger opposed to his "criticism of Israel".
The story has been picked up by the Irish press this weekend:

"The presidential candidate contacted the Sunday Independent as an increasingly virulent internet campaign about his relationship with Ezra Yizhak Nawi [a prominent pro-Palestinian Israeli human rights activist - Fagburn] gathered force, to address the issues surrounding the conviction of his former partner for having sex with an underage Palestinian youth in 1992.
"Mr Norris had, at that stage, been separated from his former partner for more than seven years.
"However, in a revelation that is almost certain to seriously damage his campaign, the senator told the Sunday Independent that when the case broke in 1997 he provided a character reference to the court in the first trial and a second reference to Nawi's lawyers in the subsequent appeal..."

Well, yes and no...
You can read a copy of the leaked letter here.
NB Norris states his belief that Nawi was "lured into a carefully prepared trap", and he finds the circumstances of his arrest "curious and troubling" (Page 6).
Nawi was the victim of false accusations by the Israeli authorities in 2009; he was charged with assaulting a border guard when Nawi was trying to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes - this led to an international outcry.
The recent scandal was manufactured by a right-wing Irish blogger, Thesystemworks.
The blogger is quite open about his real motives;
"My main problem with Norris in recent times has been his outspoken criticism of Israel."
On a personal page on the site the blogger - real name John Connolly - states; "I have two major loves: free markets and Zionism."
His website contains an entire section on/against Ezra Nawi, a hate figure for the Zionist far right.
Norris is standing as an independent and has recently been the front-runner.
He told the Sunday Independent he still intends to stand.

Update: 'Israeli embassy denies Norris intervention.' Never believe anything until it's officially denied...

Update 2: Tuesday PM Norris quits presidential race.