Alex Jones

“Not all monotheisms are exactly the same at the moment. They're all based on the same illusion. They're all plagiarisms of each other, but there is one in particular that at the moment is proposing a serious menace not just to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but to quite a lot of other freedoms too. And this is the religion that exhibits the horrible trio of self-hatred, self-righteousness, and self-pity. I am talking about militant Islam.

Globally, it's a gigantic power. It controls an enormous amount of oil wealth, several large countries and states, and with an enormous fortune it's pumping the ideologies of Wahhabism and Salafism around the world, poisoning societies where it goes, ruining the minds of children, stultifying the young in its madrassas, training people in violence, making a cult of death and suicide and murder.

That's what it does globally. It's quite strong. In our societies it poses as a cringing minority, whose faith you might offend, who deserves all the protection that a small and vulnerable group might need.

Now, it makes quite large claims for itself, doesn't it? It says it's the Final Revelation. It says that God spoke to one illiterate businessman in the Arabian Peninsula three times through an archangel, and that the resultant material—which as you can see as you read it is largely plagiarized ineptly from the Old and The New Testament—is to be accepted as the Final Revelation and as the final and unalterable one, and that those who do not accept this revelation are fit to be treated as cattle infidels, potential chattel, slaves and victims.

Well, I tell you what, I don't think Muhammad ever heard those voices. I don't believe it. And the likelihood that I am right—as opposed to the likelihood that a businessman who couldn't read had bits of the Old and The New Testament re-dictated to him by an archangel—I think puts me much more near the position of being objectively correct.

But who is the one under threat? The person who promulgates this and says I'd better listen because if I don't I'm in danger, or me who says, "No, I think this is so silly you can even publish a cartoon about it"?

And up go the placards and the yells and the howls and the screams—this is in London, this is in Toronto, this is in New York, it's right in our midst now—"Behead those who cartoon Islam." Do they get arrested for hate speech? No. Might I get in trouble for saying what I just said about the prophet Muhammad? Yes, I might.

Where are your priorities, ladies and gentlemen? You're giving away what is most precious in your own society, and you're giving it away without a fight, and you're even praising the people who want to deny you the right to resist it. Shame on you while you do this. Make the best use of the time you've got left.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“we had the goldfish and they went around and around
in the bowl on the table near the purple drapes
across our front picture window and
my mother, poor fish, always smiling, wanting to
appear happy, she always told me, "be happy, Henry,"
and she was right: it's better to be happy if you
can be
but my father beat her two or three times a week while
raging through his 6 foot two frame because he couldn't
defeat what was attacking him.

my mother, poor fish, poor goldfish, poor nothing fish,
wanting to be happy, being beaten two or three times a
week and telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile!
why don't you smile?

and then, she always did to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw upon the earth, like hell and
hell and hell and hell, and nothing else

one day all the goldfish died, all five of them,
they floated on top of the water, on their sides, the
eye on each top side still open,
and when my father got home he threw them to the cat
there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother
smiled”
― Charles Bukowski

“I can't have it
and you can't have it
and we won't
get it

so don't bet on it
or even think about
it

just get out of bed
each morning

wash
shave
clothe
yourself
and go out into
it

because
outside of that
all that's left is
suicide and
madness

so you just
can't
expect too much

you can't even
expect

so what you do
is
work from a modest
minimal
base

like when you
walk outside
be glad your car
might possibly
be there

and if it is-
that the tires
aren't
flat

then you get
in
and if it
starts—you
start.

and
it's the damndest
movie
you've ever
seen
because
you're
in it—

low budget
and
4 billion
critics

and the longest
run
you ever hope
for
is

one
day.”
― Charles Bukowski

“This is why it would be nice to hear more about principles and less about ruffled feelings. What thoughtful person has not felt the hurt expressed by the Jews over some performances of The Merchant of Venice? A whole anthology of black writing exists in the United States, protesting with quite unfeigned horror about the teaching of Huckleberry Finn in the schools, for the good and sufficient reason that the book employs the word ‘nigger’ as natural. A mature and sensitive response to such tenderness of feeling and consciousness of historic wrong would run much like this, and could be uttered by a person of any race or religion ... We know why you feel as you do, but – too bad. Your thinness of skin, however intelligible, will not be healed by the amputation of the literary and theatrical and musical canon. You just have to live with Shakespeare and Dickens and Twain and Wagner, mainly because they are artistically integral but also, as it happens, because they represent certain truths about human nature. Think for a second. Would prejudice diminish with the banning of Shylock? Concern for the emotions of others cannot license a category mistake on this scale.”
― Christopher Hitchens