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herochan · 6 years ago

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The Greatest Female Marvel Super Heroes

The Marvel Universe is massive. There are thousands of characters from different realities, timelines, spaces, and places, all sourced from nearly 80 years of magnificent Marvel material. But across all of Marveldom, female Super Heroes have proven to be some of the most amazing, dynamic, powerful, sharp shooting, heavy hitting characters around.

With that in mind, Marvel decided to take the opportunity to spotlight a few of the most impressive women in Marvel Universe. So if you need to get up to speed on the invincible women of Marvel, you’ve come to the right spot.

Here are just a few of the greatest Super Heroes (who also happen to be women) ever. Check out the full list below.

Carol Danvers AKA Captain Marvel

Carol Danvers long dreamed of space exploration, so it’s fitting that she would grow up to become the leader of Alpha Flight and one of the most powerful spacefaring Super Heroes in existence!

She had an accomplished career even before gaining her powers, though. Working as an Air Force pilot, intelligence agent, and NASA employee, she investigated multiple attempts by the Kree and the Skrulls to disrupt the American space program. During a related battle, she was exposed to the Psyche-Magnitron, a Kree device that rewrote her DNA. This transformed her into a human-Kree hybrid and gave her powers similar to those of the Kree Mar-Vell, the original Catpain Marvel. Namely, she gained the abilities of flight, superhuman strength, and “binary” powers which, though largely dormant, give her the virtual strength of a sun.

For years she fought alongside Mar-Vell as Ms. Marvel. When he died, took over the moniker Captain Marvel as a tribute. In addition to leading Alpha Flight, she has also served as a leading member of the Avengers.

Natasha Romanoff AKA Black Widow

Black Widow aka Nat, is the epitome of everything that comes to mind when you think of a cool, always capable spy.

Born in the Soviet Union as Natalia Romanova, she was orphaned as a child. This difficult start then led Natasha down winding path to the Russian army and the Black Widow program, where she was trained to become a skilled assassin and enhanced with the Soviet version of the Super-Soldier serum. While her work required her to undertake some morally questionable missions, she ultimately defected to S.H.I.E.L.D., became an Avenger, and joined the forces of good.

Wanda Maximoff AKA Scarlet Witch

Scarlet Witch is definitely not someone you want to pick a fight with!

One of the planet’s most powerful magic wielders, she can manipulate chaos magic and warp reality. The complete history of her childhood is unknown, but she grew up in Eastern Europe with her twin brother Pietro (AKA Quicksilver). Local conflicts separated the twins from their parents, forcing Wanda to hide her growing powers. As they got older, Wanda and Pietro were taken in by the mutant master Magneto and joined his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Soon, however, they became disenchanted with the group and struck out on their own, with Wanda ultimately becoming an Avenger.

Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones is everyone’s favorite sarcastic, leather jacket-loving private eye.

When Jessica was a child, her father accidentally crashed the family car into a military truck. A canister filled with an unknown, experimental material crashed through the windshield and into Jessica’s lap. Her injuries sent her into a coma, but she ultimately recovered and discovered she had superhuman physical strength, the ability to fly, and enhanced resistance to injury. Her parents were killed in the accident, and she later suffered mind control and manipulation at the hands of the villain Killgrave (AKA the Purple Man), all of which scarred her emotionally.

For a period, she adopted the Super Hero name Jewel and fought villains alongside the Avengers. But that kind of crime fighting didn’t suit her, so she started Alias Investigations, a private detective firm where she now puts her cunning intelligence to good use.

Ororo Monroe AKA Storm

With the ability to manipulate weather patterns, Storm is one of the planet’s most powerful mutants.

She is the daughter of a Kenyan princess and an American photographer, though both parents were killed in a plane crash when Storm was young. Finding herself an orphan, Storm had little choice but to wander the streets and pick pockets to survive. However, her latent mutant abilities eventually manifested, giving her the opportunity to save the life of Prince T’Challa (the soon-to-be Black Panther), and to come into contact with Charles Xavier, who asked her to join a new version of the X-Men. Since then, Storm has built a legacy as a freedom fighter and a mentor to young mutants.

Kamala Khan AKA Ms. Marvel

Ms. Marvel is a Pakistani-American, Muslim teen growing up in New Jersey that idolized the Avengers and, in particular, Captain Marvel.

When she was exposed to the transforming Terrigen Mist, her Inhuman powers manifested, giving her the ability to extend her limbs, grow in size, and shape shift in other ways. She began fighting villains under the name Ms. Marvel as a tribute to Carol, who ultimately became her mentor.

Ms. Marvel continues to fight alongside the Avengers and the Champions while, all the while, facing the everyday struggles of being a teenager.

Shuri

Shuri is the sister of T’Challa and the princess of Wakanda. Unfortunately, she spent much of her early life forced into the shadow of her brother, but after stopping an invasion of Wakanda and helping T’Challa recover after being attacked by Doctor Doom, Shuri stepped into her own.

She took the spotlight and, for a period, served as the Black Panther, proving herself to be a true hero. Though the mantle eventually went back to T’Challa, Shuri has continued to demonstrate her talents as a brilliant scientist. And, by ingesting a heart-shaped herb that grants her enhanced physical strength and donning a suit made of vibranium, she fights villains as a hero in her own right.

Gamora

After watching as Gamora’s parents were killed and her people wiped from existence, the Mad Titan Thanos took in the young women as his adoptive daughter. The Titan then raised her to be the “deadliest woman in the galaxy,” training her as an assassin.

Gamora became a highly talented fighter, practically unkillable, though Thanos’s tortuous mind games and punishing training took their toll. Eventually, Gamora broke ties with Thanos, joining the Guardians of the Galaxy in part as a way to seek redemption for the violence she had committed while still under his influence.

Jean Grey

She’s certainly not a woman to be underestimated.

Jean Grey had her telepathic mutant abilities first manifest at age 10 when she witnessed a close friend die. Her parents sought the advice of Charles Xavier, who is himself a mighty telepath. Xavier treated Jean and introduced her to the astral plane, at which point a part of her mind manifested as a Phoenix and her telekinetic powers grew.

She joined the X-Men and, while on a mission, was noticed by the Phoenix Force, which believed her to have unlimited potential. Ultimately, the Phoenix Force would take over her body and powers, and she would find herself in an extended struggle to retake control from it. However, when Jean was later killed, it was the Phoneix Force that resurrected her.

Janet Van Dyne AKA the Wasp

As a young socialite, Janet met Hank Pym, a brilliant scientist and the original Ant-Man, when her father (who was also a scientist) consulted him about a device he was building. Janet and Hank hit it off, and she eventually married him and began fighting villains at his side as the Wasp.

She wore a suit that, like his, used Pym Particles to allow her to shrink to the point of being microscopic or, alternatively, to dramatically grow in size. She would also sprout antennae and gain the ability to fly when at her smaller size. Janet became a founding member of the Avengers, and in fact led the team for an extended period; Janet even gave the team their name. These days, Janet mentors Hank’s previously unknown daughter Nadia, who is also a genius scientist and has taken over the mantle of the Wasp.

Laura Kinney AKA X-23

Wolverine has spent much of his life as a loner, with few people who could truly relate to the struggles he has faced. But the one person who might understand him is Laura Kinney.

Created from Wolverine’s stolen DNA, she was made to be a perfect killing machine. The leaders of a top-secret program tasked Doctor Sarah Kinney with recreating the Weapon X experiment that transformed Logan into Wolverine. Laura was born as a result of these experiments, and was trained to be a cold and unfeeling killer. But X-23 isn’t the type to allow her fate to be determined by others, and she eventually escaped. Though she led a bit of a checkered life after that, she found her way to Charles Xavier and, later, the Avengers Academy.

Doreen Green AKA Squirrel Girl

If you’re looking for a hero who has both fighting prowess and an endlessly spunky, optimistic spirit, you’re in luck!

For unknown reasons, Doreen Green began to develop odd, squirrel-like features at a young age, including buck teeth and a bushy tail. She soon gained the relative strength and agility of a squirrel which, taking into account her human size, gave her formidable powers. To escape the taunts of her classmates, she began spending much of her time in the woods, where she bonded with the squirrels there and learned to communicate with them.

She saved the life of a squirrel named Monkey Joe, who encouraged her to use her abilities to help others. Due to her interest in science, she idolized Tony Stark and soon found herself in a position to fight Doctor Doom by his side. This launched her on the path to becoming an unbeatable Super Hero and an Avenger.

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years ago

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Darklands: Summary and Rating

Note how little the box art exemplifies the game’s adherence to historical accuracy.

Darklands

United States

MicroProse (developer and publisher)

Released in 1992 DOS

Date Started: 24 May 2019

Date Finished: 13 July 2019

Total Hours: 65 Difficulty: Moderate-hard (3.5/5) Final Rating: (to come later) Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

Summary:

A highly-original and innovative game from a rare entrant in the CRPG market, Darklands offers a compelling setting in the medieval Holy Roman Empire. Four characters struggle to gain fame and riches through a series of repeatable, statistically-driven, scripted encounters based on common themes and beliefs of the era, including escorting pilgrims, fighting bandits, storming the castles of robber knights, routing towns of evil witches, driving dwarves back into the depths of their mines, and slaying dragons. A main quest involving the Knights Templar and the demon Baphomet caps the experience. Nothing is quite like other RPGs: combat draws upon the realistic limitations and strengths of various weapons and armor; divine magic involves praying to saints and going to mass; and arcane magic involves mixing reagents into potions. Skills like speaking Latin and reading and writing are rare and prized, and many of the game’s perils involve (seemingly) mundane situations like surviving a blizzard, gaining entry into a city, dealing with an arrogant priest who wants a “tithe,” and getting a local lord to receive your party. Unfortunately, the “repeatable” encounters end up being “repetitive,” and the lack of traditional RPG approaches to equipment, combat, and leveling creates some unbalanced gameplay.

*****

Well, what a ride. Darklands offers perhaps the most original approach to role-playing that we’ve seen since the inception of the genre, and in several dimensions. The experience wasn’t always a joy, but I never stopped admiring what the developers were trying to accomplish. In this case, the primary developer (“original concept” and “project leader” in the credits) is Arnold Hendrick. It was his only RPG. Hendrick wrote responses to 13 pages of questions on Steam between 2016 and 2018, participated in a three-part interview with Matt Barton in 2010, and submitted to a long interview on RPG Codex in 2012. Thus, I was able to pepper my summary below with many of his recollections. (Hendrick, I should add, is a fairly unique game designer in that he came from a background of board and tabletop gaming and never learned programming. It reminds me of how Irving Berlin became immortal writing hundreds of hit songs while never actually learning how to read, write, or play music. I sometimes wonder if I could make a go as a game designer or a composer with a similar lack of foundational skills. Perhaps–but I don’t think I’d ever have the gall to put myself out there as such.)

As often happens when I encounter an innovative game, at its conclusion I (perhaps unfairly) find myself lamenting missed opportunities. First, for a game that offers so many different types of encounters, Darklands doesn’t really support much “role-playing.” It is assumed that every party is trying to be good, to gain fame, to enhance local reputation, to build virtue. For most encounters, the worst option you have is a mildly neutral one, such as bidding pilgrims good fortune without helping them, or ignoring traveling merchants. You can’t become robber knights, steal from church collection boxes, or join evil cults. You can be overly-zealous, accusing innocent towns of witchcraft or bursting down the front doors of helpless women living alone–but in those cases, the game goes out of its way to make you feel bad about yourself.

Don’t burst in on a witch unless you’re sure she’s a witch.

Perhaps the one exception to the “no evil” rule is the ability to attack town guards, as a way to enter or exit the city without molestation, or as a way to avoid paying a fine for sneaking about at night. The consequences of such actions are relatively severe–you find it hard to enter that same city ever again–and thus hard to role-play.

My second regret is that the game doesn’t use its setting to its fullest potential. Early 15th-century Europe was one of tremendous upheaval. There were dozens of competing factions. There were two or three rival Popes at most times until 1449 and no settled Holy Roman Emperor between 1378 and 1433. When I started the game, I thought it was going to be like Pirates! and I was going to be encouraged to pick sides, perhaps favoring Bohemian rulers and thus losing reputation in Burgundy, or hustling messages for supporters of Gregory XII. I thought real-life events would have ripples throughout the game setting. There was none of that. Most cities were interchangeable.

Slight variances in the names of key locations is all that distinguish most cities.

Third, I would have liked to see better balance between the deterministic and random encounter and quest systems. Darklands features an early incarnation of Bethesda calls “radiant” quests: repeatable missions to fetch items or kill enemies that send you to a random area each time. The concept isn’t exactly new–it goes all the way back to many of the PLATO games, plus Akalabeth–but this is the first game to feature these quests in such detail and variety. I certainly don’t mind them, but I like to see them balanced with more hand-crafted, fixed quests and locations. In Darklands, the only unique quest locations were the Templar fortress and the Castle of the Apocalypse.

A game has to be good in the first place for it to spark so many desires for it to reach the next level, so despite my few complaints, expect Darklands to GIMLET well.

1. Game World. It’s a great idea: set the game in the real Middle Ages, but act as if the superstitions and rumors of the time were all true. In this, Hendrick said that he was influenced by the Warhammer tabletop RPG, which took its inspiration from the Holy Roman Empire. As pointed out in a recent thread, the creators thankfully didn’t take the concept too far, or my characters would have spent the game slaughtering Muslims or constantly in debt to Jews. But even subtracting the more offensive caricatures, it takes some guts to build a divine magic system on the pantheon of Catholic saints. I learned some new things about history, geography, and language as I played, which is always a bonus. The world is well-described in the manual, which makes a clear distinction between history and legend, and does a good job explaining the game’s choices. I just wish that the world has been more responsive to my party’s actions, and that it had (as above) made more dynamic uses of its themes. Score: 6.

If only the act of praying to saints cured plague victims in real life.

2. Character Creation and Development. The Traveller– and RuneQuest-inspired creation process is a lot of fun as you envision various career paths for your characters, so it’s unfortunate that no reference is later made to those careers. I found that development, while rewarding, was also very uneven, with weapons skills developing almost too quickly and most other skills too costly or time-consuming, or not improvable at all. In particular, virtue–a vital skill–is oddly obstinate, only increasing a point or two occasionally no matter how many pilgrims you help or witches you slay. I would have liked more opportunities to improve attributes, too. On the positive side, your character “builds” have a significant impact on how you approach quests and encounters, and thus adds some replayability to the game. Score: 5.

3. NPC Interaction. The various political and economic leaders that the party encounters aren’t really so much “NPCs” as “encounters.” They’re interchangeable ciphers with identical encounter options and no dialogue options–which was all disappointing given the various historical possibilities. The only real NPCs are the Hanseatic League representatives and small-town mayors who will join the party for a quest or two. They were a nice boost to the party’s power, even if they had no individual personalities. Score: 2.

“Hanse” is really the only NPC in the game. He comes with pretty solid skills, and higher attributes than I think are achievable for regular characters during character creation.

4. Encounters and Foes. Unfortunately, setting the game in the “real” world creates a certain paucity of enemy types–but there are enough to require the player to make tactical adjustments. The monsters are thoroughly described in the game manual; you get not just a description and picture, but also a sense of their motivations and habits. I also like that they’re slightly different than the foes you find in other CRPGs.

The crux of the game is, of course, its non-combat “encounters,” presented in the form of menu options with associated skill checks, forcing you to find tactics for everything from entering a city (without paying the toll) to disrupting a coven of witches. Darklands is fundamentally an “encounter-driven” game in ways that we’ve never seen before. Unfortunately, very little role-playing takes place in those encounters; the player is usually trying to identify the option with the highest likelihood of success, not the one that best fits the party ethos. The encounters also become repetitive and boring over time. Nevertheless, it’s an approach to RPG gaming that we’ve never quite seen before and may never again. Score: 7.

The long selection of options even extends to the party getting thrown in jail.

5. Magic and Combat. The real-time-with-pause combat system is an important innovation, although it hasn’t quite reached its apex in Darklands. (In previous posts, I outlined some precursors to the Darklands system, but it appears from the interview material that the developers had never been exposed to them and came up with the system independently.) I outlined most of my problems with it in a recent entry, and these remained problems until the end. Nevertheless, the system is more interesting and more tactical than most of the RPGs on the market at the time, and I like how the skills system allows you to create some specialties among your party members without any artificial considerations of “class.”

I had mixed feelings about the magic system. I thoroughly enjoyed the pantheon of saints and their various uses, even if it did take me a while to fully grasp how it worked. I found offensive potions significantly under-powered, however, and I thought the alchemy system was far too complex and simply encouraged the player to purchase potions rather than make them. This makes arcane magic more of an “equipment” consideration than a magic one. Score: 6.

6. Equipment. This is another relatively strong category. I like the variety of weapons and armor, how they associate with various skills, and key considerations like quality, penetration, and encumbrance. Potions are also, of course, a major consideration, often making the difference between a difficult battle and an impossible one. But I was disappointed how few unique and powerful items you could find, excepting a few “relics.” And it annoyed me how many useful-sounding but ultimately useless items I carried until the end, including spikes, grapples, and lanterns. Score: 5.

7. Economy. Darklands has perhaps the first truly good economy in RPG history. (Previous games that tie this score were rated too high, for the most part.) It hits all my points: you make money from successful encounters and quest-solving; there are multiple ways to make money (including working odd jobs); there are multiple ways to spend money; and you never reach a point in which you are “too rich.” In a very real-world way, money is power in Darklands, and you can use it to compensate for party weaknesses–by, for instance, purchasing potions instead of making them, increasing virtue through copious donations to churches, and fronting tuition to increase your skills at the university. You can even bribe your way out of some encounters. I never reached a point where I stopped collecting equipment to sell, and I never reached a point in which I had too much money. I did think some of the quest rewards were unbalanced, however, with robber knights netting you dozens of florins while a more lengthy, complicated artifact quest might only get you half a dozen.

The only way a game could really improve upon the economy here is to offer more expensive and useful equipment and to offer the ability to purchase property, something that would have been within the game’s theme and I’m surprised wasn’t offered. Score: 8.

In a game were potions are so expensive and you can give copious amounts to churches for divine favor, money never stops being useful.

8. Quests. Another strong category. There’s a main quest, of sorts, as well as innumerable side quests that serve to build the party’s fame and fortunes. I particularly like that the party can assume only the quests that it wants and has the skills to successfully complete, ignoring others with no particular penalty. There are multiple ways to solve most quests (although they’re not really role-playing choices), and there are even some alternate paths within the main quest, albeit with an obvious preferred set of choices.

As I mentioned above, I would have liked to see more scripted, deterministic quests to go along with all of the repeatable, randomized ones. (Such had been planned but were ultimately scrapped as the game ran over time and cost.) Plus, it would have been nice to have more quests that better used the history and characters of the time. But overall, Darklands earns a high score here in contrast to most games that offer a main quest and nothing else. Score: 6.

9. Graphics, Sound, and Interface. Graphics are a mixed bag. The still scenes that accompany most of the menu encounters are well-drawn and evocative, but the overland navigation screen is a nightmare in which it’s hard to identify entire cities. I thought the character and enemy icons were also poor. I found the sound to be mostly forgettable.

The interface worked mostly okay. I appreciated the keyboard backups for all of the menu commands. I would have appreciated numbered options on the encounter screens, so I could choose them. There are a few too many commands that are indiscernible from the interface and must be looked up in the manual; for instance, pressing “A” to equip items in inventory, or “F7” to set an ambush. I didn’t enjoy the number of places in which my party refused to walk in the outdoor environment, despite showing no obstacles, nor the micromanaging I had to do indoors to move the party through narrow hallways. There were other miscellaneous problems like the saved games not sorting in any clear order. Score: 3.

I found it difficult to see key features and to get my party to move where I wanted them to move on the overland map.

10. Gameplay. We finish on a strong note. Owing to the nature of the quests, plus the fact that every party starts in a different location, the game is both non-linear and relatively replayable. You could set all kinds of fun challenges for yourself, such as hitting a certain fame level within a certain time frame, or making a certain amount of money.

While I found the adjustment period longer than usual, overall the game had the right challenge level, and it’s hard to complain about length in a game that has no fixed end and lets you retire whenever you feel like it. Score: 8.

That gives us a final score of 56. That doesn’t quite put it in the top 10 list, but it’s very close, and the game clearly will contend for “Game of the Year” for 1992. You could easily envision a near-perfect RPG that would, for instance, merge the Gold Box style of combat, Ultima NPC interaction, and the variety of equipment found in Might and Magic with Darklands‘ basic approach.

“. . . and ends.”

Like many games that appear near the top of my list, Darklands was controversial in its time. In the November 1992 Computer Gaming World, Scorpia loved the setting and character creation process, but she had many of the same combat complaints that I did, and she found the world a bit boring in its uniformity. She had issues with bugs, freezes, and a lack of features that were fixed by the time of my version.

But although I generally found myself nodding with her review, I have no idea where she’s coming from regarding the ending:

The party’s basic goal in Darklands is to acquire fame and virtue, to be remembered in times to come as great and daring heroes. While this appears to be a novel twist, something a bit different from the more common “Kill Foozle” objective, in actuality the game isn’t quite so different . . . . Darklands operates in much the same fashion as any other CRPG, with the party working towards that big encounter with Foozle, although the final confrontation, in this case, is not exactly a battle in the usual sense of the word.

Not for the first time, I have to ask: what does Scorpia want? If a game with as original a main quest as this one still isn’t original enough to escape being painted with the “Foozle” brush, what game could possibly avoid it? “Ho, hum,” she seems to be saying, “it’s just another RPG where the party gets more powerful and tries to complete some big objective. Yawn.” As if there were any other satisfying way to structure a CRPG.

But the climax of Scorpia’s review is reserved for invective against the sacrifices the party has to make in the final battle, including the lead character’s reduced attributes (she made the same choice that I did) and the loss of florins to Pestilence. These things didn’t bother me as much as perhaps they should have, since finishing this quest essentially brings the game to a close. (Having these developments spoiled for me by Scorpia, on the other hand, would have bothered me quite a bit.) But Scorpia was livid:

Probably some Bright Mind at MicroProse though it would be a Good Idea to have the player “make a real sacrifice.” If so, that Bright Mind needs a new brain. It is inexcusable to treat the player in this manner, to not only provide no real reward for success, but to make the victory a Pyrrhic one. For this point alone, I would not recommend the game to anyone . . . . This is a shame, since Darklands might have been one of the great ones. Instead, it turns out to be a game more to be avoided than anything else.

This is certainly in keeping with a trend. Scorpia knew her stuff, no question, and was probably the most experienced RPG player of the time. But when she was wrong, she was just staggeringly, bafflingly, unaccountably wrong.

I thought there was something noble in making such a big sacrifice.

(To avoid some fruitless debate along the lines of “how can someone be wrong about an opinion?,” the issue here isn’t that she’s wrong about not personally liking the game. It’s that she fails to recognize that her own perspective is dominated by a relatively minor issue, and that most players–as their own recollections prove–would appreciate the game regardless of that issue. It’s one thing to say that “I didn’t like it”; it’s another to say, “it’s to be avoided.”)

Of course, Computer Gaming World was well aware of this, and by 1992 they were pairing her reviews with more temperate ones written by less-experienced players. This time, the counterpoint is written by Johnny L. Wilson, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, who had already read Scorpia’s review and was “horrified” by it. (I have to wonder: did he consider simply not publishing it?) His own column isn’t so much a review as a counterpoint to Scorpia specifically, particularly taking issue with her inability to “recommend the game to anyone.” Along the way, he shows that he gets Darklands‘ originality better than the magazine’s more experienced reviewer:

I truly enjoy the variety of choices on the menus, by the way. What other game would give the party the choice of extorting a defeated witch for useful information; allowing her to give one alchemical formula; forcing her to repent . . . or killing her? In what other CRPG does the party really have to think about whether to let a physicker try to heal them or not? In what other CRPG can one avoid a major battle by asking a saint for protection? How many potential ambushes can players sneak around and avoid in most CRPGs? I honestly believe that Darklands gives players more authentic role-playing choices than any CRPG since Dragon Wars.

Scorpia was unrepentant. A year later, in a 1993 summary of modern CRPGs, she concludes her Darklands summary with: “Horrible ending, with the player being shafted rather than rewarded. For this and other reasons detailed in the article, it is not a recommended game.” She really knew how to hold a grudge.

Dragon also had a mixed review (4 stars!) that complained about combat AI, the repetitiveness of some encounters, and a tough beginning, but otherwise called it “a great adventure and . . . certainly one of the best multicharacter FRPGs [?] we’ve had the delight to play” and recommended that the player “stick with it for a winning experience.” A completely positive review is found in the May 1993 Compute!: “This newly revised game [some bugs had been fixed] should give you hours of pleasure. MicroProse should be congratulated for a truly heroic effort in creating a game for sword, sorcery, and history buffs.”

I was curious how European magazines rated a game set in their back yard, but all of the OCR’d text that I could find just gave general platitudes and didn’t address the setting specifically. The worst (62) was in the September 1992 German Power Play (“a diffuse brew of game elements that are neither thematically nor technically compatible”), the best (90) in the September 1992 French Tilt (“MicroProse has managed a tour de force to renew the genre”). Most were in the 70s or 80s. Overall, Darklands seems to have required a bit of aging to fully appreciate. In modern times, it’s hard to find a review that doesn’t stretch towards hyperbole. “One of the best RPGs ever made,” declares a 2014 review on “Rock Paper Shotgun.” In 2004, it was included on GameSpot’s list of “The Greatest Games of All Time.” It has a 9/10 rating (from 117 reviews) on Steam. It has a dedicated fan page. It has a wiki. The only thing it doesn’t have–bafflingly–is someone trying to remake it. There have been several attempts over the years, but they all seem to have fizzled out.

Alas, lukewarm reviews in its own day affected sales, canceling planned expansions of the game to other areas of the world and other times in world history. In his Steam interview, Arnold Hendrick said that the game had gone over time and over budget, “nearly bankrupting” MicroProse in the process, and that while subsequent sales were good, the company also received a lot of returns because of bugs, and then had to work on fixing the bugs. Hendrick blames poor approaches to project management in the era: “Nobody was teaching project management as a discipline, so the development process was poorly organized by AAA development standards today,” he reported in the RPG Codex interview. Such comments are echoed in Jimmy Maher’s coverage of Darklands from a few months ago. He portrays MicroProse owner “Wild” Bill Stealey as an eccentric, laissez-faire manager, personally uninterested in any game that wasn’t a flight simulator. The failure of Darklands left MicroProse in such poor financial straits that Stealey sold it to Spectrum Holobyte the following year. In the Steam thread, Hendrick is quite pessimistic about the possibility of either a sequel or a modern remake of Darklands, believing it would cost so many millions of dollars that it would be unlikely to get enough venture capital for even a demo. In fact, reading his cost estimates, I wonder how any modern game actually gets made.

The “real-time-with-pause-and-orders” combat system used by Baldur’s Gate (1998) seems like a natural evolution from the system pioneered in Darklands.

The legacy of Darklands is difficult to pin down. It seems impossible that its wide-open world and procedurally-generated content did not affect the early Elder Scrolls games, and the Infinity Engine’s combat system (used in Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment among others) seems to be a natural evolution from the one presented in Darklands. But I haven’t been able to find any explicit acknowledgement from the developers of these later games that they had experienced Darklands. For what it’s worth, Hendrick himself considers Baldur’s Gate and its sequel the “finest and most polished” party-based RPGs ever made.

Darklands was one of only a small number of CRPGs released by MicroProse. I think it’s fair to say that the company didn’t really understand RPGs, the quality of Darklands notwithstanding. As we’ve seen, it suffers in some of its departures from standard RPG conventions. The only other two RPGs released by the company–The Legacy: Realm of Terror (1992) and BloodNet (1994)–are adventure hybrids that may ultimately fail to meet my definition. It really is too bad that the company never overcame its “RPG problem” because it produced extraordinarily memorable games in other genres, and it probably would be remembered as a major RPG publisher if it had built on Darklands instead of abandoning it.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/darklands-summary-and-rating/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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theconservativebrief · 6 years ago

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ESCONDIDO, California — When voters in the suburban and rural district just east of San Diego talk about their representative, Republican Duncan Hunter, they don’t wonder if he will go to jail — they talk about when.

“I don’t meet much of anyone who thinks Duncan Hunter has much of a political career left,” said Bill Wells, the conservative mayor of El Cajon, California, located in Hunter’s district.

As Democrats run on an anti-corruption message, Hunter, a Donald Trump-loving Marine veteran, seems like the perfect test case. He was charged with massive campaign finance violations in August, too late for him to drop out of the race. The 47-page indictment alleges he used $250,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses, including a vacation to Italy, private school tuition, and flying his family’s pet rabbit cross-country in the passenger cabin.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) walks into the federal courthouse for an arraignment hearing on August 23, 2018, in San Diego. Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images

This should be Hunter’s race to lose. Registered Republicans here outnumber Democrats nearly two to one. Hunter, who has been in Congress since 2009, won this Trump-friendly district by 27 points in 2016. But less than a month from Election Day, the polls show the Democrat in the race within single digits.

Hunter’s Democratic opponent is a first-time candidate: Ammar Campa-Najjar, a 29-year-old Mexican-Palestinian-American progressive who is a former Obama White House aide and Labor Department employee. His slogan: No one wants a “lawbreaker for a lawmaker.”

“Ammar is doing well because people are sick of corrupt liars,” said Kristine Alessio, an ex-Republican City Council member in La Mesa, California, a city in the congressional district.

Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar holds a meet-and-greet event with voters at a home in San Marcos, California. Tara Golshan/Vox

But whether the public is truly fatigued enough to oust a Republican from a seat that’s been held by one for nearly a decade is an open question here — and one that will play out in districts across the country as Democrats attempt to flip longtime red seats to blue.

Hunter is following in the footsteps of the other San Diego-area lawmakers who’ve survived all manner of scandal. His father represented this area from 1981 to 2009, during which time the good-government group CREW called him one of the most corrupt members of Congress. An it was in the 50th Congressional District where former Republican Rep. Duke Cunningham survived corruption scandals before finally going to jail for receiving $2.3 million in bribes.

Hunter is borrowing from a familiar playbook to keep up the fight, calling the indictment a political “witch hunt” and playing up racial fears by openly linking his opponent to terrorists.

The $600 plane ticket for Hunter’s pet rabbit was only a small piece of a much larger scandal. But the rabbit has become something of a mascot in Hunter’s race. Last year, Shawn VanDiver, a prominent San Diego political activist and adjunct professor at San Diego State University, hired a couple of friends to put on a bunny suit — naming it Duncan Thumper — and sit next to Hunter at his favorite San Diego bars. When Hunter and his wife pleaded not guilty, a sea of bunny ear- and pussy hat-wearing activists were waiting outside the courthouse.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (left) leaves court as a woman holds a sign for Ammar Campa-Najjar in the race for California’s 50th District on September 24, 2018. Gregory Bull/AP

“I’m not like Hunter; I’m not flying pet rabbits around,” Campa-Najjar tells voters at every campaign stop. “People are telling me — Republican, Democrat, independent — they’re fed up. They’re done.”

Scandals like Hunter’s weigh heavily on elections. They can have a net effect of 9 percentage points in an election, FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver found in an analysis of past scandal-ridden incumbent candidates’ races. Hunter’s scandal alone prompted the nonpartisan Cook Political Report to move the midterm rating for California’s 50th District from Solid Republican to Leans Republican.

That’s why Democrats rolled out a national campaign earlier this year taking aim at corruption and pay-to-play politics in Washington under the Trump administration — a platform reminiscent of a message Democrats successfully campaigned on in 2006. (The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm for House Democrats, still hasn’t gotten involved in Campa-Najjar’s campaign, though a DCCC aide said the organization is monitoring the race.)

Still, this race continues to “lean Republican” in a district where voters have turned a blind eye to corruption scandals many times before.

Democratic congressional candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar (center) speaks in front of a federal courthouse as reporters wait for the end of an arraignment for Duncan Hunter and his wife on August 23, 2018, in San Diego. Gregory Bull/AP

“The problem with the culture of corruption message is that Democrats have tried many times to use that message and it’s never really worked [in San Diego],” said Kurt Bardella, a former media consultant for Breitbart News and former spokesperson for ex-San Diego County Republican Rep. Brian Bilbray. In 2006, Bilbray, a lobbyist, won a special election for Cunningham’s seat after Cunningham went to prison for taking bribes from lobbyists.

“This is a party that is conditioned now to look the other way and doubt fundamental facts and truth. They are told every day that the news reports are fake news, that it’s a conspiracy — so it’s not that much of a stretch to extend that to Duncan Hunter’s situation,” Bardella said.

Hunter’s campaign, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the San Diego County Republican Party all did not respond to interview requests. The Republican Party is standing with Hunter through all this.

“We have a conservative district that we are about to lose to a pretty radical leftist,” Wells said of the party’s calculus. “Let’s just vote [Hunter] in and then maybe he’ll make a deal with the DOJ and we will have a special election and move on.”

Hunter has been lying low. But the last time he made a campaign appearance, in late September, he was recorded strongly implying that Campa-Najjar was an “Islamist” who changed his name to “infiltrate” Congress.

Later that week, Hunter’s campaign played up the attack in an ad calling Campa-Najjar a “security risk,” tying him to his grandfather, who was part of the Munich massacre terrorist attack and who died 16 years before Campa-Najjar was born.

Hunter, who appears at the end of the ad in full Marine combat gear, also claims Campa-Najjar has been endorsed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR does not endorse candidates, though an independent CAIR PAC has supported his nomination), and the Muslim Brotherhood (there is no evidence of that). Hunter has been fundraising on this message since.

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It’s the same kind of race-baiting Republicans have retreated to over and over again when they feel under siege. After all, conventional wisdom says there are wide swaths of this district that could never imagine voting for a Democrat — let alone a Palestinian Mexican American.

This is the part of California where you see Confederate flags, and where many people only socialize with people who look like them. Volunteers for Campa-Najjar’s campaign will tell you they find themselves explaining that their candidate disavows terrorism.

It makes people uncomfortable, Wells said. To “look nice” and be kind isn’t enough to gain people’s trust, he says. Still, Campa-Najjar thinks he has a shot.

“There are two candidates in this race: One of us was indicted by the FBI, the other one was cleared by the FBI to work at the White House,” Campa-Najjar recently told a group of voters. And if that doesn’t work, Campa-Najjar is quick to assure them he’s a Christian.

Campa-Najjar’s path to victory is winning the vote of every single registered Democrat, almost all independent voters, and some Republicans. He needs to execute a mammoth voter turnout operation, and he has to persuade independents and Republicans to vote for him.

Hunter’s corruption scandal has people paying attention. But it’s his job to quell Republicans’ biggest fears about the Democratic worldview.

He does it by walking an impossible tightrope: He’s a progressive whose main message to voters is fiscal responsibility. He supports Medicare-for-all, says he would vote to bring the corporate tax rate back to 35 percent, and talks about the “forgotten men and women” — a campaign line coined by Trump. He tells voter he’d never vote to defund Planned Parenthood — the most popular health care organization in the district — the same way he would never ban guns.

Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar answers voters’ questions on policy at a campaign stop in San Marcos, California. Tara Golshan/Vox

And just miles from the southern border, Campa-Najjar will first concede that some undocumented immigrants are criminals, drug dealers, and killers — another Trumpism — to then say their most likely victims are other undocumented immigrants. He says he will fight for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants as part of his national security platform. His campaign manager is a DREAMer.

“The truth doesn’t matter as much as trust,” Campa-Najjar tells me. He needs people to tell him that they’ll “trust he will make the right choices,” more than Hunter would.

People like Tom Theriault, a 61-year-old Republican resident of San Marcos, California, who is staunchly anti-abortion, thinks homosexuality is unhealthy and who plans on voting for Campa-Najjar, are listening.

“From scandal-magnet Clinton to scandal-monger Trump, what are we doing?” Theriault said. “Selfishness is not a Christian aspiration.”

On a Sunday morning, 30 days from Election Day, 70 volunteers — some locals and some from the not-too-far cities of Los Angeles and Santa Barbara — staged what they called an “invasion” in the red-leaning town of Escondido, California, to turn out voters.

Bambi Finney, 61, volunteers for Campa-Najjar’s campaign five days a week, knocking on potential voters’ doors. Tara Golshan/Vox

Bambi Finney, a 61-year-old woman with more than 10 years of experience door-knocking for Democratic campaigns and causes, volunteers for Campa-Najjar five days a week. She says she is cautiously optimistic about his chances.

“This is the first year people say, ‘Yes, we are willing to volunteer,’” she said.

After more than an hour of walking, and near the end of her list, Finney knocked on the door of Elsie, a 76-year-old white woman. With a firm and dismissive, “Have a nice day,” Elsie shut the door in her face. Finney is used to this kind of rejection; she usually checks the “not interested” box on her list and moves on to the next house.

But this time, less than a month from Election Day, Finney paused at the closed door.

“I’m not taking her off my list yet,” she said.

“Maybe next week she’ll see Ammar’s commercial.”

Campa-Najjar holds a rally in Escondido, California, with local Democratic candidates and 70 volunteers before a two-hour door-knocking session. Tara Golshan/Vox

Original Source -> How this Mexican-Palestinian-American progressive is selling the anti-corruption message in Trump country

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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1800any · 6 years ago

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Term 3: Final Sculpture

For this Assignment, I have taken a look at the language of the plinth and two artists that work with sculpture and how they have influenced my artwork into being that it is. The main focus for my artwork is to shed light upon the atrocities of Christianity throughout time.

Christian Terrorism and Atrocities

Gunpowder Plot

The early modern period in Britain saw religious conflict resulting from the Reformation and the introduction of Protestant state churches. The 1605 Gunpowder Plot was a failed attempt by a group of English Catholics including Guy Fawkes to assassinate King James I, and to blow up the Palace of Westminster, the English seat of government. According to Vahabph D. Aghai, "The beginnings of modern terrorism can be traced back to England and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.” [Self-published source] Although the modern concept of religious terrorism had not yet come into use in the 17th century, David C. Rapoport and Lindsay Clutterbuck point out that the Plot, with its use of explosives, was an early precursor of 19th century anarchist terrorism. Sue Mahan and Pamala L. Griset classify the plot as an act of religious terrorism, writing that "Fawkes and his colleagues justified their actions in terms of religion.” Peter Steinfels also characterizes this plot as a notable case of religious terrorism.

Pogroms

Orthodox Christian-influenced movements in Romania, such as the Iron Guard and Lăncieri, which have been characterized by Yad Vashem and Stanley G. Payne as anti-Semitic and fascist, respectively, were involved in the Bucharest pogrom and political murders during the 1930s.

Ku Klux Klan

After the American Civil War of 1861–1865, former Confederate soldiers organized the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) organization originally as a social club, which was taken over in the next year by "night rider" elements. It then began engaging in arson, beatings, destruction of property, lynching, murder, rape, tar-and-feathering, whipping, and voter intimidation. They targeted newly freed slaves, carpetbaggers and scallywags, and the occupying Union army. That iteration of the Klan disappeared by the 1870s, but in 1915 a new Protestant-led iteration of the Klan was formed in Georgia, during a period of xenophobia and anti-Catholicism. This version of the Klan vastly expanded both its geographical reach and its list of targets over those of the original Klan.

Rev. Branford Clarke's illustration in the 1926 book Klansmen: Guardians of Liberty portrays the Klan as slaying Catholic influence in the US.

Vehemently anti-Catholic, the 1915 Klan had an explicitly Protestant Christian terrorist ideology, basing their beliefs in part on a "religious foundation" in Protestant Christianity and targeting Jews, Catholics, and other social or ethnic minorities, as well as "immoral" practices such as adultery, bad debtors, gambling, and drinking alcohol.

The goals of the KKK included, from an early time onward, an intent to "re-establish Protestant Christian values in America by any means possible", and they believed that "Jesus was the first Klansman". Although members of the KKK swear to uphold Christian morality, virtually every Christian denomination has officially denounced the KKK.

From 1915 onward, Klansmen conducted cross-burnings (adapted from scenes in the 1915 film Birth of a Nation), not only to intimidate targets, but also to demonstrate their respect and reverence for Jesus Christ. The ritual of lighting crosses was steeped in Christian symbolism, including prayer and hymn singing. Within Christianity the Klan directed its hostilities against Catholics. Modern Klan organizations remain associated with acts of domestic terrorism in the United States.

Central African Republic

Anti-balaka groups destroyed almost all mosques in the Central African Republic unrest. In 2014, Amnesty International reported several massacres committed by the Anti-balaka against Muslim civilians, forcing thousands of Muslims to flee the country. Other sources report incidents of Muslims being cannibalized.

While anti-balaka groups have been frequently described as Christian militias in the media, this has been denied by Church leaders. Bishop Juan José Aguirre said: "But in no sense can it be said that the anti-balaka is a Christian group. The anti-balaka are made up of people of all kinds, terribly enraged, and including many people whom we call the 'dispossessed' – bandits, ex-prisoners, delinquents, criminals – who have got involved in these groups and are now extending, like a plague of locusts, across the whole of the CAR, murdering Muslims". The Tony Blair Faith Foundation has also pointed out the presence of animists in anti-balaka groups. However, there have been reports that many members of Anti-balaka groups have forcibly converted Muslims and animists to Christianity.

On 20 January 2014, Catherine Samba-Panza, the mayor of Bangui, was elected as the interim president in the second round voting. The election of Samba-Panza was welcomed by Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General. Samba-Panza was viewed as having been neutral and away from clan clashes. Her arrival to the presidency was generally accepted by the anti-balaka. Following the election, Samba-Panza made a speech in the parliament appealing to the anti-balaka to put down their weapons.

The next day anti-Muslim violence continued in Bangui, just days after the Muslim former Health Minister Dr. Joseph Kalite was lynched outside the Central Mosque and at least nine other people were killed when attacked when a mob, some of whom were from Christian self-defence groups, looted shops in the Muslim-majority Miskine neighbourhood of Bangui. As of 20 January, the ICRC (The International Committee of the Red Cross) reported that it had buried about 50 bodies within 48 hours. It also came after a mob killed two people, whom they accused of being Muslim, then dragged the bodies through the streets and burnt them. Within the previous month, about 1,000 people had died. On 4 February 2014, a local priest said 75 people were killed in the town of Boda, in Lobaye prefecture. In the southwest, anti-balaka militants attacked Guen in early February resulting in the deaths of 60 people, according to Father Rigobert Dolongo, who also said that he had helped bury the bodies of the dead, at least 27 of whom died on the first day of the attack and 43 others the next day. As a result, hundreds of Muslim refugees sought shelter at a church in Carnot.

In May 2014, it was reported that around 600,000 people in CAR were internally displaced with 160,000 of these in the capital Bangui. The Muslim population of Bangui had dropped from 138,000 to 900. The national health system had collapsed and over half of the total population of 4.6 million were said to be in need of immediate aid. Also from December 2013 to May 2014, 100,000 people had fled to neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo bringing the number of CAR refugees in these countries to about 350,000. Amnesty International blamed the anti-balaka militia of causing a "Muslim exodus of historic proportions”. Some Muslims of the country were also weary of the French presence in MISCA, with the French accused of not doing enough to stop attacks by Anti-balaka militias. One of the cited reasons for the difficulty in stopping attacks by anti-balaka militias was the mob nature of these attacks. In October 2017, Anti-balaka militants killed 25 muslim worshipers in a mosque.

Anti-balaka groups have also kidnapped burnt and buried alive women and men accused of being 'witches' in public ceremonies.

Christianity and violence

Christians have held diverse views towards violence and non-violence through time. Currently and historically there have been four views and practices within Christianity toward violence and war: non-resistance, Christian pacifism, Just war theory, and the Crusade (Holy or preventive war). Concepts such as "Holy war", whereby fighting itself might be considered a penitential and spiritually worthy act, did not emerge before the 11th century. The concept of "Just war", whereby limited uses of war were considered acceptable originated with non-Christian Roman and Greek thinkers such as Cicero and Plato. Though this theory was adapted later by Christian thinkers such as St Augustine, the perspective was not based on the New Testament. The "Just War" concept was widely accepted early on. However, warfare was not regarded as a virtuous activity by some and expression for concern for the salvation of those who killed enemies in battle, regardless of the cause for which they fought, was common.

The Bible and violence

The Bible includes several texts regarding and describing violence. Leigh Gibson and Shelly Matthews, associate professor of Religion at Furman University, write that some scholars, such as René Girard, "lift up the New Testament as somehow containing the antidote for Old Testament violence". According to John Gager, such an analysis risks advocating the views of the heresiarch Marcion of Sinope, who made a distinction between the God of the Old Testament responsible for violence and the God of mercy found in the New Testament.

Mahatma Gandhi embraced the concept of nonviolence which he had found in both Indian Religions and the New Testament (e.g. Sermon on the Mount), which he then utilized in his strategy for social and political struggles.

Christian violence

J. Denny Weaver, Professor Emeritus of Religion at Bluffton University, suggests as common examples of violence in Christianity "the crusades, the multiple blessings of wars, warrior popes, support for capital punishment, corporal punishment under the guise of 'spare the rod and spoil the child', justifications of slavery, world-wide colonialism in the name of conversion to Christianity, the systemic violence of women subjected to men". According to the view of many historians, the Constantinian shift turned Christianity from a persecuted into a persecuting religion.

Miroslav Volf has identified the intervention of a "new creation", as in the Second Coming, as a particular aspect of Christianity that generates violence. Writing about the latter, Volf says: "Beginning at least with Constantine's conversion, the followers of the Crucified have perpetrated gruesome acts of violence under the sign of the cross. Over the centuries, the seasons of Lent and Holy Week were, for the Jews, times of fear and trepidation; Christians have perpetrated some of the worst pogroms as they remembered the crucifixion of Christ, for which they blamed the Jews. Muslims also associate the cross with violence; crusaders' rampages were undertaken under the sign of the cross."

The statement attributed to Jesus "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" has been interpreted by some as a call to arms for Christians. Mark Juergensmeyer argues that "despite its central tenets of love and peace, Christianity—like most traditions—has always had a violent side. The bloody history of the tradition has provided disturbing images and violent conflict is vividly portrayed in the Bible. This history and these biblical images have provided the raw material for theologically justifying the violence of contemporary Christian groups. For example, attacks on abortion clinics have been viewed not only as assaults on a practice that Christians regard as immoral, but also as skirmishes in a grand confrontation between forces of evil and good that has social and political implications."

Historically, according to René Girard, many Christians embraced violence when it became the state religion of the Roman Empire: "Beginning with Constantine, Christianity triumphed at the level of the state and soon began to cloak with its authority persecutions similar to those in which the early Christians were victims."

Genocidal warfare

The Biblical account of Joshua and the Battle of Jericho was used by Oliver Cromwell to justify genocide against Catholics. Daniel Chirot, professor of Russian and Eurasian studies at the University of Washington, interprets 1 Samuel 15:1–15:3 as "the sentiment, so clearly expressed, that because a historical wrong was committed, justice demands genocidal retribution.”

Inquisition

The Inquisition is a group of institutions within the judicial system of the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy. The Spanish Inquisition is often cited in popular literature and history as an example of Catholic intolerance and repression. The total number of people who were processed by the Inquisition throughout its history was approximately 150,000; applying the percentages of executions that appeared in the trials of 1560–1700—about 2%—the approximate total would be about 3,000 of them were put to death. Nevertheless, it is likely that the actual death toll was higher, keeping in mind the data provided by Dedieu and García Cárcel for the tribunals of Toledo and Valencia, respectively. It is likely that between 3,000 and 5,000 people were executed. About 50 people were executed by the Mexican Inquisition. Included in that total are 29 people who were executed as "Judaizers" between 1571 and 1700 out of 324 people who were prosecuted for practicing the Jewish religion.

The period of witch trials in Early Modern Europe was a widespread moral panic caused by the belief that malevolent Satanic witches were operating as an organized threat to Christendom from the 15th to the 18th centuries. A variety of punishments was imposed upon those who were found guilty of witchcraft, including imprisonment, flogging, fines, or exile. In the Old Testament, Exodus 22:18 states that "Thou shalt not permit a sorceress to live". Many people faced capital punishment if they were convicted of witchcraft during this period, either by being burned at the stake, hanged on the gallows, or beheaded. Similarly, in the New England Colonies, people convicted of witchcraft were hanged. The scholarly consensus on the total number of executions for witchcraft ranges from 40,000 to 60,000.

Christianity and domestic violence Violence against women Issues

Acid throwing, Breast ironing, Dating abuse, Domestic violence, outline management and pregnancy, Eve teasing, Female genital mutilation, Gishiri cutting, Infibulation, Foot binding, Force-feeding, Forced abortion, Forced marriage, Forced pregnancy, Forced prostitution, Human trafficking, Marriage by abduction, Raptio Sacred prostitution, Devadasi, Fetish slaves, Violence against prostitutes, and Witch trials, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Campus sexual assault, Mass sexual assault, Rape and pregnancy laws, Types of rape by deception, Sexual slavery were all issues surrounding the oppression of women throughout history.

Christianity and domestic violence deals with the debate in Christian communities in relation to the recognition and response to domestic violence. There are some Bible verses that abusers falsely use to justify discipline of their wives.

Christian groups and authorities generally condemn domestic violence as inconsistent with the general Christian duty to love others and to the scriptural relationship between husband and wife.

According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, "Men who abuse often use Ephesians 5:22, taken out of context, to justify their behaviour, but the passage (verse 21-33) refers to the mutual submission of husband and wife out of love for Christ. Husbands should love their wives as they love their own body, as Christ loves the Church."

Steven Tracy, author of "Patriarchy and Domestic Violence" writes: "While patriarchy may not be the overarching cause of all abuse, it is an enormously significant factor, because in traditional patriarchy males have a disproportionate share of power... So while patriarchy is not the sole explanation for violence against women, we would expect that male headship would be distorted by insecure, unhealthy men to justify their domination and abuse of women."

Christian domestic discipline

A subculture known as Christian domestic discipline (CDD) promotes spanking of wives by their husbands as a form of punishment. While its supporters rely on Biblical interpretations to support the practice, activists for victims of domestic violence describe CDD as a form of abuse and controlling behaviour. Others describe the practice as a simple sexual fetish and an outlet for sadomasochistic (sodomy) desires.

Significant numbers of Christian pastors ordinarily would tell a woman being abused that she should continue to submit and to "trust that God would honour her action by either stopping the abuse or giving her the strength to endure it" and would never advise a battered wife to leave her husband or separate because of abuse. One mid-1980s survey of 5,700 pastors found that 26 percent of pastors ordinarily would tell a woman being abused that she should continue to and that 71 percent of pastors would never advise a battered wife to leave her husband or separate because of abuse.

The American religious news-magazine Christianity Today has published articles lamenting U.S. churches for possibly making domestic abuse worse "not in incidence, but in response" due to inadequate understandings. In December 2017, academic W. Bradford Wilcox wrote for the publication, "Domestic violence is still present in church-going homes... some local churches, clergy, and counsellors fail to address abuse head-on for fear of breaking up a marriage." He also argued, "Others steer clear of addressing the topic from the podium or in adult education for fear of broaching an uncomfortable subject. This silence around domestic violence has to end.”

Cross of Saint Peter - In Christianity

The origin of the symbol comes from the Catholic tradition that Simon Peter was crucified upside down, as told by Origen of Alexandria. The tradition first appears in the "Martyrdom of Peter", a fragmented text found in, but possibly predating, the apocryphal Acts of Peter, which was written no later than 200 A.D. It is believed that Peter requested this form of crucifixion as he felt he was unworthy to be crucified in the same manner that Jesus died. As such, some Catholics use this cross as a symbol of humility and unworthiness in comparison to Jesus.

According to Roman Catholicism, the pope is Peter's successor as Bishop of Rome. Therefore, the Papacy is often represented by symbols that are also used to represent Peter, one example being the Keys of Heaven and another, Petrine Cross.

Anti-Christian imagery

By inverting the primary symbol of Christianity, the upside-down cross has become popular within anti-religion groups and has appeared in films such as Exorcist: The Beginning, Paranormal Activity, The Conjuring and many more.

The inverted cross is also a recurring motif in punk rock and heavy metal, where it is embraced as symbol of anti-authoritarianism and defiance (but not necessarily Anti-Christian), and is featured in the iconography of punk-themed fashion label Cheap Monday, hip-hop collective Odd Future, worn by fictional bassist Murdoc Niccals of the band Gorillaz and worn on a necklace by rapper Lil Uzi Vert.

My Sculpture

By working primarily with symbolism and he idea of the plinth and the power relations between an artwork being lifted by a plinth compared or being placed on the ground, I want to challenge the and also reveal the historical and modern atrocities of Christianity.

Artists that influenced me were Hank Willis Thomas and Yinka Shonibare. Both these artists address colonialism, Catholism and create the conversation of how the word of God has been twisted and manipulated into creating conflict and dominance within society.

The sculpture and plinth will be made from gray iron due to the fact that it is a durable, cost effective moulding metal. Gray iron also experiences less solidification shrinkage than other cast irons that do not form a graphite microstructure. The silicon promotes good corrosion resistance and increased fluidity when casting. Gray iron is generally considered easy to weld. Compared to the more modern iron alloys, gray iron has a low tensile strength and ductility; therefore, its impact and shock resistance is almost non-existent. The material I chose will be more important because of the colour and finish it will have.

It is a free standing sculpture that will be placed in the direction away (towards Voortrekker Road) from the Cape Town CBD due to the fact that more cars pass by in the direction of the CBD, hence giving it a clearer view to onlookers. The sculpture intentionally has the cross upside down in order to state its anti- authoritarianism and defiance against religious atrocities, terror and Christian domestic discipline and raise awareness about the above mentioned research. The artwork criticises the history of these events and sheds light on valuable information about belief systems.

The total diameter of the salt circle is 14m. I felt like having the sculpture according to the following measurements due to the fact that i think it is a satisfactory size in proportion to the circle and also to be fairly notices and intimidating at the same time. The scale of the machete will be 1cm:0,5m as shown by the drawing below: (can also be found on my Tumblr Blog)

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itsnelkabelka · 7 years ago

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Speech: Queen at 91 an inspiration for UK and Ghana

QUEEN’S BIRTHDAY PARTY SPEECH, Thursday 1 June 2017

Your Excellency Mr President,

Your Excellency former President of the Republic, John Agyemang Kufuor.

Please allow me also to mention His Excellency John Dramani Mahama who sent a kind message regretting not being able to join us but who I would like personally to thank for our extremely close working relationship during the first 2 ½ years of my posting here.

Likewise, we are sad that His Excellency Jerry John Rawlings could not join us this evening but we are honoured to have his whole family join us.

Honourable Ministers and Honourable Members of Parliament, Mr Deputy Speaker and Mr Minority Leader

Your Excellencies and colleagues from the Diplomatic Corps

Religious leaders, with a particularly warm welcome to the Chief Imam through whom we wish Ramadan Mubarak to all our Muslim guests, with thanks to them for breaking their fast today with us here this evening.

Traditional leaders, with warm greetings to the Okyenhene, to Togbe Afede, the President of the National House of Chiefs, and the Oblempong of Jamestown who are here with us this evening.

Niimei, Naamei, Nananum, Torgbewo, Mamawo

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Guests, Friends one and all and – this may be the last time I ever get to say this in Ghana – All Protocols Observed! You are all very welcome here tonight.

This is my fourth and final Queens Birthday Party in Accra, my first having taken place three weeks after my wife, son and I arrived in May 2014, and this last one comes just three weeks before we leave Ghana at the end of our posting.

At my first Queen’s Birthday Party hardly anyone listened to my speech - partly because most guests were more interested in watching England losing to Uruguay in the World Cup at exactly that same moment - but partly, too, because, yes, I spoke for too long.

So, this time I’ll keep it a bit shorter. Or to quote Winston Churchill who once said: “I am about to give a speech. My job is to speak and your job is to listen. But let me know if you finish your job before I do.”

As we prepare to leave Ghana, my wife Carolina and I would like to thank all my wonderful British High Commission colleagues and so many Ghanaian friends for their support, friendship, kindness and solidarity through so many good times and … well, a few tough times too.

I’d also like to thank our kind sponsors who helped make this evening possible, particularly Vodafone, Vitol Upstream Ghana, GE Oil and Gas, Vivo Energy, G4S, Apex Health Insurance, Invest in Africa, Stork, Guinness Ghana Brewery, Blue Skies, Voltic, Labadi Beach Hotel, WARA, McVities, DecoKraft, TT Brothers, Swiss Spirit Hotel and Suites, the Movenpick, Oxford Business Group and Shampex wine company. Sincere thanks to all of them.

Thanks, too, to the artists entertaining us this evening – to Jollof Balls, Dark Suburb, Blakk Rasta, Mutombo Da Poet and of course to such a good friend of ours, the Ghanaian international diva superstar, Noella Wiyaala! And if our other artist guests here tonight like Becca, Manifest or Shatta Wale want to jump up on stage later on to join in, they’d be very welcome!

I believe our guest list tonight reflects the fact that our High Commission is profoundly integrated with so many different strands of Ghanaian society - in politics, the civil service, the judiciary, armed forces and police; in sports, music and the arts; in the media and social media; in religious and traditional communities, academia and civil society.

We are extremely proud of those links. Without such links no foreign diplomat can hope really to understand the country they are posted to, or succeed in developing real partnerships.

We are proud, too, that there is so much else that links the UK and Ghana, particularly through people-to-people networks, exemplified by the hundreds of thousands of British citizens of Ghanaian family heritage and by organisations such as GUBA, with their huge celebration of the UK and Ghana this weekend in London.

Working with that diaspora for the benefit of Ghana is a key part of the job of my opposite number, the Ghana High Commissioner in London, and we wish Papa Owusu-Ankomah much luck and success as he takes up that role. Good luck Papa!

Ladies and Gentlemen

We are proud of the work we do here - some of it famously, or infamously, covered in the media, and sometimes highly inaccurately so - but most of what we work on and have achieved together with our Ghanaian partners goes largely unreported.

So, please allow me to mention a few, perhaps lesser known highlights of our work over the last three years.

I recall particularly how our - always politically impartial - election-related assistance last year helped the police, judiciary, electoral commission and civil society prepare for elections which further cemented Ghana’s reputation as a leading African democracy. We congratulate again the Electoral Commission for a well-run election, the seventh consecutive peaceful such and an example for many others.

But we call once again on all political parties to disown and disband all so-called vigilante groups which should simply have no place in a 21st Century democracy. And where such groups act violently or usurp the role of the State, they should face the full force of the law. Violence can so quickly spiral and can kill as we have, so sadly, seen this week. In that context, please allow me to extend our deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Captain Maxwell Mahama, RIP.

I recall, too, how our development programme - amounting to several hundred million pounds in just the last three years - has contributed so much to so many necessary tasks, whether by providing millions of bed nets; or through start-up funding to some of Ghana’s brightest young entrepreneurs with Ghana’s best new business ideas; whether by supporting women and girls through improved educational and reproductive health opportunities while addressing the scourges of domestic violence, the mistreatment of so-called ‘witches’, female genital mutilation and child marriage; or whether by helping to underpin successive governments’ commitment to the LEAP programme, to improved agricultural production and market access, and to tackle the too often hidden and stigmatised problem of mental illness. And in these last three years we have also helped 700 young UK volunteers under the International Citizen Service programme to come to Ghana to assist local communities.

In short, our DFID programmes have directly helped hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians and will continue to do so, and I salute the huge contribution to all that of Jim McAlpine, the Head of DFID Ghana, who also concludes his posting and leaves Ghana later this month. Thank you Jim!

Ladies and Gentlemen

I also recall how our British Council colleagues have hugely increased UK support to young entrepreneurs to develop their digital and social enterprise skills, while building the Connecting Classrooms programme bringing together UK and Ghanaian schoolchildren, and supporting UK universities to expand our higher education links, of which our Chevening Scholarship programme - now with nearly 300 Ghanaian alumni - is a jewel in the crown.

Plus, there are so many other areas I could mention, such as our large training and other support in the military sphere to the Ghana Armed Forces and Kofi Annan Centre, including in peacekeeping cooperation and counter-terrorism work; or our hugely expanding law enforcement cooperation to tackle drugs trafficking, people trafficking and other forms of organised crime; or our work to improve prison conditions at Nsawam and elsewhere.

In short, we are very proud of our work in all those areas, all aimed at assisting Ghana on its path to fuller economic development and out of poverty. The President has spoken of his aspiration to move to a “Ghana Beyond Aid” - and it is our honour and duty to help Ghana where we can to achieve just that. People often forget what the long-term aim of an aid programme ought to be, namely to assist its recipient to reach a point where it is no longer necessary. We remain highly confident that Ghana can reach that point in the years to come.

Ghana is a fantastic country, a country I feel such affection for and such hopes for. Or to put it simply – I love Ghana, medoh Ghana paaa! This is a country full of potential, talent, human dignity and inner strength. I have travelled widely and consistently been touched by the warmth, hospitality, generosity of spirit and good humour of so many Ghanaians, including many whose daily lives are ones of real struggle just to get by. Ghana’s people, its human capital, is a real treasure. That is why we are fundamentally optimistic about Ghana’s future.

But it is not all rosy of course. Those who pretend everything is just fine when they know it isn’t, or who refuse to recognise problems which are as plain as day, do a disservice to themselves, to those they work for and with, and ultimately to their country.

In the last three years, for example, our total UK-Ghana bilateral trade has fallen much too far - in fact, by nearly a third from its 2012 peak. We must look to recapture and then exceed those levels soon, underpinned we hope by significantly improving macroeconomic management, and a better business and investment climate here - both areas in which we are also making a contribution in line with the government’s priorities. The signs are good and British companies are again looking to Ghana, while our new UK Ghana Chamber of Commerce is motoring ahead.

At the High Commission, we have also seen far too much attempted visa fraud, including by people occupying high positions commanding societal respect who seem to think that the rules apply to everybody else but themselves, or that they can break those rules with impunity. I think we have made it clear enough: we will not tolerate visa fraud against us and we will ban those who attempt it.

It may, however, interest you to know that, during the last three years, we have approved more visa applications by Ghanaian citizens than we have refused – yes, an approval rate averaging over 50%, contrary to some claims we see. Or, to put it another way, we have approved visas for nearly 50,000 Ghanaian citizens in the last three years. But it is, and will remain, our absolute sovereign right to control entry into our country by visitors, workers and would-be immigrants.

And, of course, we have seen far too much greedy, wanton corruption in too many spheres - in government, in politics, in public administration, in religion, in traditional leadership, in business, in football, in the media - and at too many different levels from top to bottom.

I refer, for example, to highly padded single-source contracts and unfairly awarded tenders; I refer to obvious conflicts of interest by those who use state positions to promote private business interests; and I refer to numerous egregious cases on which no action is taken, such as the arson fire at the Central Medical Stores in early 2015 in which over £4 million worth of UK-funded medical supplies were destroyed and for which nobody - yet at least - has faced justice.

Indeed, nobody - not a single person - of any high standing has been sent to jail for corruption in Ghana for more than a decade. I know many Ghanaians who say, at least privately to us, that it is high time that changed. They are right and we support them.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Yes, we have made and we will continue to make an issue of corruption. We make no apology for that. Corruption is a long and sophisticated word for which a much shorter and clearer word suffices, namely - theft. Corruption so enriches the few and so impoverishes the many, and is therefore such a huge obstacle to Ghana fulfilling its true potential.

Those who steal state resources or abuse their positions of trust to enrich themselves, their families and their friends are effectively robbing millions of their own Ghanaian compatriots of their best possible future. When someone buys a luxury property here in Accra or overseas, it is perfectly legitimate to ask whether the money invested in this way was legitimately obtained. But it seems to me, after three years here, that everybody knows that these questionable practices are happening but few dare to talk about it openly. So, we end up in a scenario, like in that fairy tale about the emperor’s clothing, where it is simply taboo to talk openly about what is staring us right in the face, and a kind of hypocrisy risks becoming hardwired into the national discourse.

There is, I submit however, a direct line to be drawn between, on the one hand, a few people right here in Accra who own fleets of V8s - each one of those vehicles costing multiples of their official annual salary - and, on the other hand, the still far too many examples throughout Ghana where children are forced to go to school under a tree rather than in a classroom - a classroom, incidentally, that could cost much less than the value of just one of those V8s to build. That seems to me a particularly apt comparison today, the first of June, which is UN International Children’s Day.

The moral of this story? It seems that for a few people easy money is a better choice than hard work, and that self-interest hugely trumps the national interest.

So, we salute you, Mr President, in your determination to address this scourge of corruption which has simply got worse in recent years and sometimes veered out of control; and your determination to punish - finally - its worst perpetrators with real sanctions. We hope that all political parties and Ghanaians from all walks of life will take this chance to act. Few things are more important for Ghana’s future. The UK stands ready and willing to help your efforts to combat corruption for the undoubted benefit of the whole of Ghana.

Ladies and Gentleman, I note in conclusion that these last three years have been more than averagely eventful, and not just here in Ghana.

In the UK, during that time, we had a general election with an unexpected result, a referendum about Scotland’s continuing place in the United Kingdom, and another resulting in the UK deciding to leave the European Union. And a week from today, somewhat unexpectedly, we have another general election, now in the wake of the cowardly and heinous attack in Manchester early last week. These are turbulent times. But through all of that we have enjoyed one constant, as we have indeed for the last 65 years, namely Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, our wonderful Queen, whose 91st birthday we mark here tonight.

And through all of the political ups and downs, bound by a long common history, first of colonialism but now of a 60-year track record of partnership between equal, independent Commonwealth nations, UK-Ghana relations have endured, grown and flourished, producing real results for real people in both countries. Long may that continue.

And, so, with sincere thanks to each and every one of you, with fondness and sadness in equal measure, I take my leave of you. Ghana will remain in our heart and thoughts throughout my family’s next chapter of a three-year home posting in London and far beyond. We and all of us in the UK want nothing more than the very best possible future for Ghana as a nation and for all its wonderful people. And you can count on us to accompany you on that journey as a steadfast friend.

Thank you, Medaase

from Announcements on GOV.UK http://ift.tt/2qHDCNT via IFTTT

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katiezstorey93 · 8 years ago

Text

Anti-Muslim conspiracists escalate campaign to crush Muslim Civil Society organizations

This short article initially appeared on AlterNet.

A brand new effort advanced by right wing Republicans in Congress and apparently supported from the Trump management places National Muslim civil community teams within the government’s crosshairs. Without exactly the same annoyed protests or condemnatory media meetings impressed by Trump’s journey bar targeting guests and twin people from eight Islamic-bulk nations, the reduced-recognized work is targeted at smashing strong Muslim civil community arranging within the Usa, utilizing the construction of the battle on fear.

The effort seeks to state the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist business, a name that used, will probably give a car to get a community of anti-Muslim crusaders to chase unaffiliated, conventional Muslim businesses and possibly criminalize their management.

Your time and effort hails from edge conspiracy advocates who, supported with a well-heeled Islamophobia business that is, espouse the declare that is misguided that the Brotherhood has treated the reaches of the government. These edge numbers cost that notable governmental people, from Abedin to Norquist to Ellison, are working as key providers of the business.

Singh Sethi, teacher and a municipal rights attorney at Law Heart, informed AlterNet this work represents of the Islamic bar and you will be utilized like an automobile to assault and smear Islamic governmental and social businesses within the Usa. The $57 thousand Islamophobia business is going to do something in its capacity to mistakenly and randomly link teams towards the Brotherhood within the Usa. These allegations alone may ruin reputations and tarnish businesses forever.”

This edge concept includes a primary point towards the Whitehouse nowadays.

This Jan, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Sen. Ted Jones launched the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Situation Work in both congressional chambers. The statement additionally needs the Revolutionary Corps’ name like a terrorist business, a historical objective of professional and neoconservative -Israel components in California.

In a news release championing the regulation, Jones invoked an expected conflict of cultures. “I am happy to reintroduce these expenses that will codify required reforms against revolutionary Islamic terrorism in battle he explained. “This powerful risk to the world has increased underneath the federal government because of the willful blindness of politically proper guidelines that limit our security and security.”

Alongside this legal drive, advisors to Trump are apparently evaluating an executive order to state the Muslim Brotherhood like an international terrorist organization.

Conspiracy-theory supported by Islamophobia business

“One of the business for years’ favourite smear techniques hasbeen to accuse establishments and people of helping the mythological Muslim bogeyman within the U.S.,” stated the rights attorney, Sethi. “If the Brotherhood is specified a terrorist business that is foreign, this business may double-down about the strategy. This name might ignite to what we noticed throughout the red shock a witch-hunt similar. Harmless establishments and impugned and folks might be damaged. Additionally, the federal government might produce extensive substance assistance regulations and find to prosecute people and establishments, forfeiting their assets.”

Sethi underscored this governmental strategy comes even though the Brotherhood doesn’t possess a recognized existence within the Usa.

In a released in 2011, the Middle for National Development decided that eight fundamentals shelled-out $42.6 million between 2009 and 2001 to consider tanks evolving anti- guidelines that were Islamic. In another research posted in 2015, LIMIT recognized what it named a $57 thousand business that’s based on the scattering of anti-Muslim feeling. This business immediately facilitates tangible plan actions targeting Muslim towns within the Usa, such as the over 100 anti and also the NYPD’s surveillance program – bills which have been at their state amount around the world.

The misguided declare that the government has been treated by the Brotherhood performs a vital part within this business and it is espoused by main figureheads. Included in this is Frank Gaffney Jr., who started the Middle for Protection Plan, the think-tank that created the substandard study behind Trump’s strategy promise to bar Muslims. An anti-Islamic capitalist and conspiracy theorist, Gaffney offered being a agent to Cruz’s failed presidential strategy and it is near co-workers with several in Trump’s cupboard, including Steve Bannon.

Gaffney has stated the Brotherhood has treated the government, levying allegations that lots of authorities are agents including Hillary original aide Abedin without creating any proof. In the Traditional Political Action Meeting, Gaffney was briefly banned in 2011 for blaming the best- to be a realtor of the Brotherhood side activist Grover Norquist. Stating the Brotherhood takeover that was intended, McCarthy has been repeatedly required by Gaffney – investigations targeting Muslim Americans. “So persistent now’s the MB’s [Muslim Brotherhood’s] ‘civilization jihad’ inside the U.S. government and municipal establishments that the severe, continual and demanding analysis of the trend from the legal department is so as,” he contended in the Middle for Protection Plan in October 2011.

Somewhat, this isn’t the only real conspiracy concept Gaffney sticks to. He’s additionally asserted that Barackobama is just a key Muslim who had been not created within the Usa which Saddam Hussein was probable behind the Planet Trade Middle and Oklahoma City bombings.

Gaffney isn’t alone. Steven Emerson, a once Islamophobic writer and pundit, has performed a crucial part in perpetuating the idea the federal government was treated from the Muslim Brotherhood. Emerson has spread propaganda for example, the Oklahoma Federal Building have been bombed by Arabic “terrorists.” Occasions later, claiming in 1995, for a long time, the bomber was unveiled as nationalist McVeigh that was bright. 2 decades later, Emerson seemed on Foxnews to create phony promises concerning the lifestyle of Islamic no go areas within the U.K. Monk was pressured to problem numerous modifications and apologies for Emerson’s claims, which in turn-London Mayor Boris Johnson ignored as “total nonsense.”

Although each Gaffney are specified anti-Islamic extremists from the Law Heart, these within the best echelons of energy have espoused their sights. Ten years before, Bannon suggested a documentary-design film accusing a coalition of generous Jewish teams and Muslim civil rights businesses for posting horror into America, the Washington Post lately unveiled.

Two additional former allies towards Katharine Gorka—have and the bright nationalist publication Gorka lately registered Trump’s cupboard. Their professions fear-mongering has been constructed by the set over Muslims. Gorka, who today acts as national-security helper that was deputy, has formerly asserted the Usa is just a country that was Religious. “We don’t understand where the refugees from battle areas live in the USA,” he explained in a July-15 look on Foxnews. “We’re a country that is Religious; we ought to be altruistic to these in need. But charity isn’t a reason for suicide.” Katharine Gorka has formerly backed far reaching regulation to state the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.

“You have these right wing edge advocates who believe every Muslim has links towards the Muslim Brotherhood, and that’s cause to doubt them,” Faiza Patel, denver-representative of the Freedom and National Security Plan for that Brennan Center for Justice at Ny University Law-School, informed AlterNet. “But today they’re in a position to drive conspiracy theories available and near to the middle of energy. This may be truly utilized as a means to clamp-down on Islamic teams in addition to notable activists.”

The founding father of the Authority of Jewish Speech for Serenity, Rosen, informed AlterNet, “As a Jew, I’d state this is actually the of individuals due to identification and their faith. Jews know-all about this. This could be the registry that is Islamic. This could provide the government the chance to transport through officially on which it’s confronted to do.”

Islamic civil society may be the actual goal

In 2014, Rep. Michele Bachmann launched regulation to “impose supports against individuals who purposefully supply substance assistance or assets towards the Muslim Brotherhood or its affiliates, connected teams, or brokers, as well as for additional purposes.” The regulation called crucial Muslim civil community agencies, including ISNA and CAIR.

Fear mongering within the Brotherhood has additionally supplied fodder for targeting humanrights agencies that are Palestinian. “Israel advocacy organizations within the U.S. have now been in the front of initiatives to tag Islamic, Arabic along with other teams that supporter for Palestinian privileges as ‘terrorist’ using the scantest of proof and also the thinnest posts of affiliation,” Dima Khalidi, the representative of Palestine Lawful, informed AlterNet over e-mail. “David Horowitz, for instance, has eliminated after the pupil teams the Muslim Pupils Connection (MSA) and Pupils for Justice in Palestine (SJP) together for supposed affiliation using the Islamic Brotherhood.”

“Notably, Dark Lives Issue, that was seriously assaulted by Israel advocacy teams because of its words of solidarity using the Palestinian independence motion, has additionally been named ‘terrorist,’ with calls to specify it as a terrorist business,” Khalidi extended. “The incline is actually higher and much more slick by having an management that’s a really anti-Islamic and anti-black agenda.”

Despite prior governmental initiatives to specify the Brotherhood a terrorist business, both Barak organizations and the Bush rejected. As correspondent Waqas Mirza lately mentioned, the “British government had additionally rebuked such calls along with a statement posted from the U.K. Home of Commons Foreign Affairs Panel this past year figured the Muslim Brotherhood didn’t participate in ‘terrorism.’”

Yet governments have extended on the Usa to apply strain to enforce the name, included in this Egypt and the UAE. In 2013 dedication the Brotherhood was a terrorist company was used-to warrant a large-scale and chaotic attack including disappearances torture and also the misguided arrests of thousands of individuals. The attack adopted the massacres of more than 2,000 demonstrators within the Cairo suburb of Rabaa.

Human Rights Watch reported this Egyptian precedent in condemning the governmental strategy within the U.S. “If the U.S. government designates the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist team, subsequently not just its people, but anybody possibly within the Usa or abroad assumed of supplying assistance or assets towards the group could be vulnerable to elimination in the U.S. if they’re non citizens and having their belongings freezing,” the business mentioned. “They might also risk unfairly being focused for justice under numerous regulations, including these excluding content assistance for terrorism.”

Arun Kundnani may be the writer of and an adjunct teacher at New York School. He informed AlterNet, exactly what the character of the business is and “We might have a concerning the Brotherhood, however the recommended name of the Brotherhood like a terrorist firm has nothing related to the Brotherhood. It’s a weird fantasy.”

Impact that was “The is always to criminalize most of the top numbers top the protests against Trump Kundnani extended. “It might effectively criminalize Islamic businesses that represent the primary resistance towards the broader Trump plan, when it comes to rights and the Islamic bar. Mainly, it’d eliminate resistance towards the broader Islamophobic agenda.”

“This is frightening compared to bar that was Islamic,” said Katebi, performer and a coordinator with on National For That People Designers Combined and communications planner for that Detroit section of the Authority -Islamic Relationships. “When you include something and the term ‘terrorist’, the condition has branded you and most people are also scared to assist. Unlike a blanket bar on Muslims that’s simple to determine as incorrect and move assistance against, being named an enemy like an Islamic basically removes you and alienates you from support.”

Where many allies may fall off since this really is “This is specially crucial to become rallying against very important to appear as partners. This is actually the stage where partners is likely to be by what to complete also scared and uncertain. I would like to let you know today: you have to appear and do everything inside your capacity to assistance Muslim organizations who’ll be separated and Muslims and turn off by this name that is racialized. Never allow the condition determine your enemies.”

from network 8 http://www.nsorchidsociety.com/anti-muslim-conspiracists-escalate-campaign-to-crush-muslim-civil-society-organizations/

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