Good, Bad and Ugly News: Iran's Elections, G20 Spying Scandal and Nigella Lawson Abuse

Last night CNN brought the good, the bad and the ugly right into my home. The good was the result of Iran’s elections. 

After too many years of Ahmadinejad’s narcissistic extremism that ostracised Iran from the rest of the world and destroyed the economy, the Iranians have finally been allowed to have enough of a voice to elect a moderate. 

And that’s what they did. There was a lot scepticism prior to the Ayatollah’s Khomeni’s selection that there would even be a moderate to vote for but that scepticism proved ill-founded.

Hassan Rouhani looks and speaks like a reasonable man. Granted it’s two months before he takes office, and it remains to be seen whether he’s allowed to do what he wants, but he has said that the days of extremism are over. That he wants to forge a relationship with the US and the west. The west, of course, is going to have to come to the party as well. 

His requirements are that the US will not interfere in domestic policy and that Iran will have its nuclear program. The US will probably require total transparency regarding that. Personally, I warmed to Rouhani. I’m tired of western media’s portrayal of Iran as the embodiment of all that’s evil. It’s not. It’s a country with ordinary human beings who clearly aren’t extremists and who deserve the right to forge their own destiny. I think it’s kind of ironic that they have voted a moderate in while in the US conservatives still control Congress and hinder true progress for that country.

Moving on, CNN’s bad was also kind of funny. Turns out the British government spied on the G20 in 2009. Or the Guardian alleges they did. Bit embarrassing for the British hosts this time round.

The ugly was a picture of Nigella Lawson and her husband in a restaurant, he with his hand around her throat, his thumb pressing into her neck. Another shot was shown of her outside the restaurant on her own, in huge distress. As if that wasn’t enough, the bastard put out a press release saying he wasn’t being violent; he just had his hand round her neck while they argued about the children. As if it’s normal to partially choke somebody while you argue. He added that she wasn’t upset afterwards because he’d hurt her, but just because they hate it when they argue.

Well I bet she hates it. I wonder what’s been going on up until this point. Nobody gets to that level of abuse in one leap. Why didn’t she kick him in the shins, call out for help, scream? That she didn’t, says more about him than anything. 

He’s a pig and deserves whatever is coming to him. The whole situation is horrendous and shocking. Not just because of his actions in the restaurant but because we’ve believed a lie. Here we have another beautiful woman who’s seemed like such a great role model. She’s consciously created a universally appealing image from which she’s garnered fame and fortune. It hasn’t all been about food. Part of it has been that she’s an independent and spirited woman who has made a life for herself. But it’s been underpinned by being married to an abuser. That part leaves me feeling betrayed. 

Who knows when the abuse started. If she’d been able to be truthful from the start, would she still be so famous? It’s hard to say. Can you imagine her speaking passionately about being trapped in a marriage of abuse, crying, angrily slamming things down, but still creating marvellous dishes? Getting help, walking away with her children. Now that’s real role modelling. What immense courage that would have taken, though.

The Vatican, NRA, Republicans and the Muslim Brotherhood Have a Lot in Common

Conservatives are an interesting group. Whoever they are or whatever party name they bear – the Vatican, Republicans, Muslim Brotherhood, the National Rifle Association in the US - the same dynamics operate. Lust for control and power, misrepresenting themselves, disregard for the people they supposedly represent, reliance on dogmatism, success in conning those they rule for a while, and absolute inability to see when they've pushed it too far and have hit the losing streak.

Oh, and the desire to keep women down and out of their power. Granted some are a lot more rabid than others, but it’s just a matter of degrees, really. The essential thing is a shared fundamental disregard for democracy and the sacredness of the individual and their right to the use of their own mind and body. The funny thing about conservatives is that they’re paranoid about their enemies and always think they’re better than and different to other conservatives. For example, I’m sure Republicans would be outraged to be compared to the Muslim Brotherhood and vice versa.

Catholics would shoot me for saying members of the Vatican – which includes the pope – are in principle not much different from the National Rifle Association. And the NRA members would hotly defend themselves perhaps, saying they don’t protect child rapists. 

In a way, though, they’re all control freaks with big PR engines, living in a culture of immunity. Control lust drives them. In some it’s rabid, vocal, and even physically violent; in others it’s more sophisticated and a whole lot more sinister and difficult to eradicate. The people who know how to use their brains and have independence of mind should be the ones running the world, but even when one becomes a leader, like Pope John Paul I or Barack Obama, either they’re gotten rid of or they don’t get the support they need to do as much as they could. It’s frustrating to watch.

People who are more or less in control of their minds often just want to get on with their lives. And although eventually that control lust casts its long shadow over them and they’re forced to act, by then it’s such an uphill battle. It’s a shame, because these heroes who rise up in our midst like living miracles don’t get the support they deserve and we don’t get the full benefit of what their leadership with our support could bring us all. 

But it seems to be the nature of the human beast. The aggressor is always the control freak. I guess the important thing is that at some point Liberals do wake up and start asserting their rights, using their power for good, participating more actively in politics. 

So, liberal Egyptians will vote the Muslim Brotherhood out of power. Americans will vote conservative Republicans – especially those backed by organizations like the NRA - out of Congress. Catholics will eventually get vocal about a cabal of bishops voting in pope after pope who does nothing about the bishops who protected pedophile priests and about corruption in the Vatican and the disempowerment of women that Catholicism promotes.

It’ll happen. And nobody’s going to keep women down. We’re destined to progress, all of us.

No Pedophile Priests, Exploitation, Guns or Corrupt Politicians / Corporations

I was recently asked what I'd do if I was the supreme leader of my country and I had carte blanche. Well, if you're going to fantasize you might as well go the whole hog. So I thought about what I'd do if I was world leader. 

I’d order mammoth research into the drug and psychiatric industries and I’d get rid of all guns. Yes, all guns that shoot real live bullets. Every single last one of them. People could go to counseling if it was traumatic. They’d get over it. I’d get rid of all armaments and shut down all military industrial interests. No more war. Anybody who had a snit about territory or religion or power would have to learn how to debate well. If it was traumatic they could go to counseling. They’d get over it.

  

I'd decree that the Vatican is no longer an independent state, that it is part of Italy and must declare its earnings for the past hundred years. The backtax it would owe would be used to create an organization to provide social security benefits for people who have been demolished by austerity measures, globally. 

The pope and all the bishops around the world would be forced to adhere to their vow of poverty and stripped of all their wealth. They’d all have to take a truth drug so they couldn’t lie. Those assets and that money would be put into a global proactive investigation to unearth all pedophile priests past and present and defrock them, to pay settlements to all legitimate victims who came forward. 

The Vatican would be investigated by a team of the best experts in the world to unearth its connections to the Mafia and other thugs in organized crime. It would be stripped of any excess wealth and some of that money would be used to create organizations in different countries that provided job opportunities at decent salaries, and education for people who needed it to be able to do decent jobs. These benefits and jobs wouldn’t only be for Third World underprivileged but for anybody who has slipped through the cracks.  

Some of the money would go towards counseling organizations so that everybody who wanted it would have a chance to know what it is to get decent parenting, unconditional love and sane, practical guidance and teaching, so they could learn about self esteem and entitlement and how to live the good life.  

Some of the money of course would have to go to preserving the beautiful buildings of the Vatican City. I know, it seems like a waste, but I’m sure there’d be more than enough. If there wasn’t, it wouldn’t matter because the Vatican coffers would be emptied and all the corrupt leaders in the world who are still alive would have to cough up the money they got by abusing their power. Since Berlusconi is still around, there’d be plenty from his bloated fortune. Relatives who are living off fortunes of dead corrupt officials and politicians would have to cough up too. 

Whilst I’m on the subject of corruption, some of the money from corrupt leaders would be used to investigate bankers who would be charged with crimes if they committed them. Their wealth would be added to the pile used to educate and empower people who needed help.  

All corporations that have committed crimes and been able to avoid prosecution, or that have won their cases because of intimidation etc. would be retried and forced to pay huge sums. Those that were prosecuted and convicted but got away with a relative slap on the wrist would have to pay fines and compensation commensurate with the crime and how much they earn. In other words, it would hurt. And the proceeds would be really useful. 

And on the subject of hurting, all the corrupt church, government, corporation people, once they’d been properly tried and had paid their dues, wouldn’t have to go to prison. They’d be set free and if they’d learned anything they’d be left alone, but if they didn’t, they’d miraculously find themselves in dire poverty. They wouldn’t be told that it wouldn’t be forever and all their efforts at pulling themselves out of it would be blocked. In other words, they’d know the humiliation and pain of being disempowered unfairly. 

Remorse and a desire to change would be the key to them being offered counseling and assistance. Would I make sure there was intervention for anybody who looked like they were ready to commit suicide? I wish I was nasty and vindictive enough to say no, but alas I’m not. Yeah, yeah, there’d be intervention.

Imagine a world with no guns, no pedophile priests, no super-wealthy corrupt Vatican, politicians or corporations. Not because they’d been stripped of their power with one wave of my hypothetical and utterly fantastical wand, but because we’re all so conscious of our rights and our worth that we didn’t let anybody get away with exploiting us in any area of life. That’s a world I look forward to.

If Women Ran the World, Would We Have Wars and Guns?

I recently read a book on the American Revolution. You’d think that women didn’t exist in that time because not one was mentioned.  The history of America was simply about the battles. Never mind about the general people and how they thought and what they did. I love the story of America’s development, but after a while it got old. 

Who gives a damn about who shot who? I wanted to know about everyday lives. I definitely wanted to know what the women were doing, what they were thinking, who they supported, how they did it. Virginia Woolf wrote a book Three Guineas which was, as far as I remember, about why women wanted so much to have what men had.

Why they didn’t forge their own way of doing things in the world. How much they contributed to war when they supported their men, sent their sons off to be shot to pieces, worked in factories and hospitals. I liked her perspective, and I agree with her. If women refused to let their sons go to war we wouldn’t have any war. Leaders would have to fight it out. 

You can bet they wouldn’t want to risk being shot themselves. So women are just as responsible for war as men, I guess, because we didn’t take Virginia Woolf’s advice at first. We didn’t forge a world where we operated on different principles, we fitted into the one that was already established. I guess that’s how we learned. 

We followed example until we had a foundation, then we started separating out, doing ourselves differently. Everybody does it like that. Still, I wonder what the world would look like if women had always had the power, run governments and corporations, been responsible for all the big decisions. If they had been the educators and the educated. 

Would they have kept men down and resisted their empowerment when men finally woke up and realized hey, we want a slice of this pie, too? Probably, because whatever the inner drive that impels people to carve an exclusive place for themselves in the world and keep competition out isn’t about gender. Women are control freaks just as much as men are.

It’s a factor of entitlement and self esteem. Too much entitlement of the unhealthy kind – I can do whatever I want because I’m more powerful than you - and not enough self esteem. A lethal combination. It’s what keeps women down and the decent men quiet, ties them both into a system where the only way they can hold onto themselves is to be passive aggressive and manipulative. 

We’re all late developers with regard to that, we’re all learning how to really know what our worth is, how to be conscious of our own behavior and be accountable for it. How to find the balance between claiming and compromise. Without a doubt, though, women have been late developers in the sense of knowing they have as much right to anything in life as the men with bullying power do. 

But that awareness is developing exponentially. Women are doing great things these days, and claiming their turf in ways they couldn’t have done in generations past, because they didn’t know they could. Now they do. And the more they come into their own, the more they are creating a world that’s quite different from the one forged by men hell-bent at one time on holding onto all the power. 

For women and young girls who still struggle to find themselves and carve that niche in the world, there are brilliant role models to help them along. And men who aren’t bullies are finding themselves too. This bodes well for humanity, I reckon. But the thing I wonder about the most is; if the power of the sexes had developed differently, how would the history books read? 

Would women have conquered through killing? Would they have instinctively designed and manufactured arms that were a projection of their sexual organs and developed them to the extent that they controlled world culture?  Since bullets and bigger destructive arms look remarkably like penises and do what rapists do, it’s hard to imagine. 

How would you create a weapon of destruction that resembled a vagina?