Tuesday 26 June 2007

Totalitarianism isn't cool . . .

. . . no matter how many bubble-headed Hollywood celebrities think it is.


The picture above shows Cameron Diaz* swanning through Peru, a country that was ripped apart by communist terrorists, wearing a fucking Chairman Mao bag round her scrawny damn neck! The picture at right shows her laughing. One would hope the two things are not connected, since as Peruvian human rights activist Pablo Rojas explains:
[the bag] alludes to a concept that did so much damage to Peru, that brought about so many victims. I don't think she should have used that bag where the followers of that ideology did so much damage.
Says the Independent on Sunday, this is like "wandering up to the Wailing Wall with a swastika printed on your handbag." Would you do that, Cameron? You'd say "what was she thinking," except thinking is the last thing anyone's doing when they wander anywhere with a totalitarian talisman hanging around their neck. Dimwit Diaz, by the way, is "one of the eco-friendly stars offering advice on how to live responsibly in a new publication called The Green Book, out in the US this week." [Hat tip Jameson]

Message to dumb blondes and dimwits who think commy chic and totalitarian tat is cool -- who think hanging out in the Lenin Bar with your Che T-shirts and your Mao bags is hip: You're not "cool." You're just glorifying totalitarians and making yourself look as stupid as you are. You wouldn't wear a Hitler shirt, would you?

_ _ _ _ _
* She's an actress, apparently. That is to say, she's famous for appearing in films.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Although this woman has displayed extreem stupidity, callousness, and radicalism of a phillosophy (communism) which all sane people know to be both illogical and dangerous, do not the libertarianz stand for freedom of expression ? (even if thing being expressed is patronage of nighmarish dictatoships).

Anonymous said...

"do not the libz stand for freedom of expression"?

Correct, Anon. Which automatically includes the right to criticise another's beliefs/actions.

Julian Pistorius said...

Anon, you're confusing moral judgment with legal judgment.

Of course the stupid bint has the right to wear whatever totalitarian accessories she likes. Libertarianz/s would not dream of forcing their choice of fashion on her. That doesn't mean I won't call her a stupid bint who urgently needs a moral health check.

See, the difference between legal judgment and moral judgment, is that legal judgment is always backed up with force - the government's. And as such, legal judgments should only be reserved for situations where somebody is inflicting force or fraud on another person.

For example, if she decided to attack somebody with the bag, that would fall in the realm of legal judgment, and Libz would want the police to step in.

Another example: I consider gluttony immoral. I think it's terrible to eat yourself into an early grave. However, does that mean I would consider making gluttony illegal? No.

There are many things which are immoral, and which aren't (shouldn't) be illegal. Wearing a Mao bag is one of them.

Moreover, I think it's right and proper to speak out against immoral acts. Hence my heartfelt applause for PC's post.

Cheers
Julian

Anonymous said...

Cameron has apologised I believe.

Don't be too hard on those who wear this stuff - they don't know who these people are from Adams's housecat - such is the education system. A shirt with someone looking cool in a beret and 'Revolution' printed on it appeals - my own son bought a Che shirt and had no idea who he was.

Young people especially want to wear this stuff. There is a gap in the market here. Maybe a well designed Free Radical T shirt is an idea.

Julian Pistorius said...

"Don't be too hard on those who wear this stuff" Erm... Yes, well.

I do like your suggestion about a good Free Radical t-shirt though. :)

Cheers
Julian

Anonymous said...

Yes some well designed pro Liberty/Capitalism items would be the go.There are some great ideas and designs on the web at liberty minded sites....if someone wants to set up an order system and bring some in I would be in for some stuff...3xl tees for starters.

Peter Cresswell said...

"Don't be too hard on those who wear this stuff - they don't know who these people are from Adams's housecat - such is the education system."

Well, this much is certainly all too sadly true.

These poor miseducated bastards don't know who the world's biggest mass murderers were, but they do know where to see Spiderman 3, how to download pictures of Britney's crotch, and what's "cool" to wear at the mall this week.

It's tragic. Taking advice from Cameron Diaz on "how to live responsibly" is probably the extent of their abilities for many of them.

As it happens, George Reisman attacks those responsible for the tragedy in the forthcoming 'Free Radical,' precisely highlighting the tragic failure that is modern education and its (literally) empty-headed products. Here's a few quotes:

• With little exaggeration, the whole of contemporary education can be described as a process of encumbering the student’s mind with as little knowledge as possible. The results of this type of education are visible in the hordes of students who, despite years of schooling, have learned virtually nothing.

• By the time a student has completed a college education, his brain should hold the essential content of well over a hundred major books on mathematics, science, history, literature, and philosophy, and do so in a form that is well organized and integrated. Yet, as the result of the miseducation provided today, it is now much more often the case that college graduates fulfill the Romantic ideal of being “simple, uneducated men.”

• Such students go through school “by the seat of their pants.” They are forever “winging it.” And that is how they go through life as adults. It is impossible for them to have genuine understanding of anything that is beyond the realm of their daily experience. To such people, almost everything must appear as an arbitrary assertion, taken on faith.

• In their context of actual ignorance masked by pretended knowledge, they are prime targets for irrational skepticism. To them, doubt of everything can only seem perfectly natural... They are totally unprepared intellectually to resist any irrational trend and more than willing to leap on the bandwagon of one that caters to their uncertainties and fears.

Anonymous said...

For an offering of non pc T shirts

http://www.thepeoplescube.com/

Anonymous said...

PC said...
These poor miseducated bastards don't know who the world's biggest mass murderers were, but they do know where to see Spiderman 3, how to download pictures of Britney's crotch, and what's "cool" to wear at the mall this week.

PC I think that you judged this as an issue about the educated and the un-educated class, but the world don't have to be like that. I mean that everyone doesn't need to know a history about X, Y or Z in order to live in this world.

Sure, that someone who is championing mass murderers must be criticized and opposed, but there are always people in any society who knows very little about history or other cultures, such as Paris Hilton. Her family has got a lot of money but I doubt that she knows who Dalai Lama is? In my Tongan community , there are a lot of people who are like that, uneducated and unaware of history. Lots of cheap Chinese clothing are imported to Nuku'alofa, and you see photo's of people in the village, with Mao Zedong T-shirts, etc... There are also lots of second hand US clothing that are imports, where you can find many T-shirts with George Bush on them. These villagers have no clue to who Mao Zedong is. They just wear those shirts as they were cheap to buy.

Your criticism is too harsh.

Julian Pistorius said...

Hey Falafulu,

I'm not sure what you're trying to say... Are you saying that Paris Hilton and Cameron Diaz is as ignorant as third world villagers in remote, isolated islands? That's a bit of an insult to the villagers, don't you think?

Cheers
Julian

Anonymous said...

Julian said...
Are you saying that Paris Hilton and Cameron Diaz is as ignorant as third world villagers in remote, isolated islands?

No, PC's point is that he talked in a condescending manner such that Cameron Diaz is an uneducated person (except that she is filthy rich) that she never learnt about history. I wondered if he only applies that label to the filthy rich white blonde beautiful chics. What if it is a shirt given to a desperate refugee in Dafur. Of course we all know that majority of those refugees are uneducated, but will PC dare to call them directly as uneducated for wearing Mao Zedong's T-shirts perhaps donated by the Chinese government? I doubt it.

The issue here is Cameron Diaz's was perhaps being unaware of it, if it was not the case, then may be she was ignorant, but it has nothing to do with being educated or uneducated.

I condemn Cameron Diaz's for being insensitive if she was aware of the situation, but I don't condemn her for being an uneducated person.

Peter Cresswell said...

I condemn her for being an uneducated, dumb, bubble-headed bimbo eco-weeny bitch who doesn't have the brains to leave her house without someone holding her hand or the talent to even make a decent fist of the occupation listed on her passport -- yet who in all apparent seriousness is offering her followers advice on "how to live responsibly" -- and I condemn too her followers, the whole brainless, braindead lot of you who follow the pathetic adventures of the whole Diaz/Hilton/Lohan/Ritchie pack of talentless, emaciated, anorexic bitches in such numbers that their pathetic adventures have now spilled over from the pathetic pages into the news pages.

And the reason both for them being considered in any way talented, and in any way newsworthy -- and in fact the reason that commy chic is that the vast bulk of their audience are the poor miseducated bastards that George Reisman describes so accurately and so well.

Why do people like Diaz matter? Precisely because "it is impossible for [the miseducated] to have genuine understanding of anything that is beyond the realm of their daily experience" -- in other words gossip is about the extent of their capacity to comprehend anything beyond their own self-important experience.

Anonymous said...

Chairman Mao, Che Guevara and Lenin were revolutionaries and thus have more acceptable images for adorning young peoples T-shirts. They were seen as heroic over-throwers of corrupt, autocratic, old fuddy duddy, regimes that exploited and oppressed the common people and that makes them appealing. These regimes would happily let children starve in the streets while their elites feasted inside. Perhaps young people today should be taught that also. That their philosophies turned out to be disastrous for the common people and that they were no better or even worse than their predecessors is almost beside the point.

Che Guevara's image became a powerful icon and will for all time be with us as a great work of art. To rid the world of this image would be a sacrilege as there are very few photographs in existence like that one taken by Alberto Korda you see on T-shirts and posters everywhere.

Anonymous said...

"There is nothing quite as bad as a willfully ignorant American".- Y Solomon

Perhaps there is a great deal of wisdom in this comment. Diaz with all her wealth, pampered existence and leisure time (time she could have used to educate herself- after all she is a famous figure that many people do see as an example to look up to and emulate) claims not to have realised the nature of the symbols she so happily displayed. Perhaps she ought to get a hammer and sickle or carved on one buttock and a swastika on the other. Oh and while she's at it she could try female circumcision.

There is no excuse for willful ignorance. The girl is a evil person who deserves a good bitch slaping.

Hitman

Anonymous said...

Reisman puts it well -- as long as he is talking with reference to an individuals own capabilities. Unfortunately most Objectivists only seem to be interested in the 'best and brightest', deriding and kicking the less intelligent to the curb. Van Damme, Montessori and others are all fine and dandy, but the kids who need this type of education, like the at-risk teens from South Auckland, never get a look in. It is reserved for rich white kids, who are going to do ok in life whether they excel at school or drop-out.

I suspect this is partly what Falafulu is getting at.

We are not all equals in intelligence, and Diaz may well be rather dumb, but intelligence is not the issue here. The issue is living consciously/mindfully.

Anonymous said...

Now, I think that the Libz should support Sue Bradford's bill that she's going to submit which requires our education system to teach the parliamentary process as a compulsory subject.

Libz should add to Bradford's bill a requirement to also teach history about mass murderers as a compulsory subject? Would the Libz going to support this? I am curious.

I am opposed to such move, as these type of sociology subjects must be made optional for students to take or drop. It shouldn't be made compulsory at all.

Anonymous said...

"That their philosophies turned out to be disastrous for the common people and that they were no better or even worse than their predecessors is almost beside the point."

But it's precisely the point.

You're virtually saying that two wrongs make a right.

Anonymous said...

" .. and I condemn too her followers, the whole brainless, braindead lot of you who follow the pathetic adventures of the whole Diaz/Hilton/Lohan/Ritchie pack of talentless, emaciated, anorexic bitches in such numbers that their pathetic adventures have now spilled over from the pathetic pages into the news pages."

Correct. I was stunned to see 3's late news last night lead - yes, lead - with Paris Hilton's release from jail.

And if that wasn't enough, there was secondary coverage in the form of an 'interview' with some silly bitch outside the courthouse.

Don't know what followed because I switched off in disgust.

Julian Pistorius said...

Ruth, I am unsure what you're getting at.

Your characterisation of most Objectivists "kicking the unintelligent to the curb" is a generalisation and smacks of a chip on your own shoulder, rather than truth.

Yes, the public education system sucks. Are you defending it, or its propagators? Should we not try to improve it by pointing out how crap it is, for fear of hurting somebody's feelings?

What does this have to do with bimbos like Diaz? Are you excusing her? Isn't she one of those "rich white kids" as you call them?

Cheers
Julian

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Julian, if you knew me you wouldn't be asking those questions. I have always been a foe of the education system, and have had more dealing with the Ministry and School boards than most who post here.

Having spent many years on the fringes of the Objectivist movement I assure you it is not a generalisation that most look down their noses at those with lesser intellectual ability. I have said before it is no use citing educational alternatives which are simply not on the agenda for most parents.

You need to get these ideas into the schools as they stand now. Have another essay competition, give gift subscriptions of the Free Radical, start a T Shirt design competition - you have money on IBD I believe - donate a box of Anthem to your local Intermediate School, and The Fountainhead to colleges. I've done my bit on that score.

You can't just sit around wringing your hands and complaining people are dumb, or else nothing will ever change.

Go in peace.

Luke H said...

Falafulu, the Libz would not support the addition of any more compulsory subjects to the curriculum. The ultimate Libz aim is to have NO compulsory curriculum, and NO publicly funded schools.

That aside, in general I think it is a bad idea for the government to teach goverment process. There are trust issues and separation of power here ... its like getting the Catholic church to teach Christian history, or like getting dodgy car salespeople to tell you your rights when buying a used car.

Anonymous said...

"I think it is a bad idea for the government to teach goverment process".

As a matter of fact that's what public schools in California have always done, Luke. Well they were doing so 20 yrs ago, but I'm unsure as to current practice, or if other/all states did/do so.

"US Govt" was a subject offered at HS, right through to Senior year, (7th form).

With the advent of Patriots 1 & 2, its purpose is up for debate ...

Libertyscott said...

Well put PC. The dominant issue here is the culture that makes this vapid irrelevancies "news" and which means that the vast underclass of intellectually challenged aspire to be like them, because they can see a life of wealth, partying and general lack of responsibility to do anything - and there is nothing that a whole segment of the underclass want more than to be wealthy for nothing.

The flipside is the attitude shown by so many decrying the money made by successful entrepreneurs.

The "I feel guilty so I drive a Toyota Prius" point is simply part of the trendy "my life is empty so I should stand for something" single cause bullshit these vixens of vacuousness adore.

Anonymous said...

Another point. This Diaz girl has nothing of substance to her. Even her mother hates her guts! A most disfunctional, empty person...

Hitman