Scanlyze

The Online Journal of Insight, Satire, Desire, Wit and Observation

To: His Excellency Gérard Araud, Ambassador of France to the United States Re: Burkini ban

To: His Excellency Gérard Araud, Ambassador of France to the United States
Re: Burkini ban

Dear Sir and to whom it may concern:

I am writing to express my concern with the so-called ‘burkini ban’ imposed by several French municipalities and recently upheld by your court system.

These laws violate human rights, are illogical, and stupid.

How can burkinis be a public health issue but not wetsuits?

Where is the security issue in wearing a burkini? Is France in danger of being overrun by women in burkinis?

We have seen in the (UK) Guardian how a woman with her daughter at the beach was accosted by four armed officers, compelled to take off her top, which was not a burka nor a burkini, and fined while her daughter cried and onlookers shouted “Go Home” at her.

cf French police make woman remove clothing on Nice beach following burkini ban

How can you possibly allow such a law to exist or to be implemented?

What will be done to punish the officers who so abused this innocent woman?

I am a friend of France but I cannot in good conscience buy French products, watch French movies, eat French food or drink French wine while this ridiculousness, and the crude bigotry and intolerance which underlie it, go on.

Why is France standing against personal liberty?

Why is France standing for the subjugation, intimidation, and state-sponsored racist harassment of harmless unarmed women by armed men?

Please take this opportunity to keep me informed of how these policies will be reversed and outlawed, how the women so harassed will be compensated, and of those responsible to making such laws as well as anyone who has enforced them, how they are punished and sanctioned.

Thank you for your attention and for your prompt reply.

Henry Edward Hardy
Copyright © 2016 Henry Edward Hardy

24 August, 2016 Posted by | Ambassador, ban, beach, burkini, France, Gérard Araud, liberty, politics, racist, scanlyze, stupid | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why I support Bernie Sanders for President

Bernie Sanders is a good man, brave, kind, compassionate, courageous, insightful, thoughtful, and honest. He is a friend to all living things. Bernie Sanders is the kind of candidate who comes along only once in a lifetime. We shall not see his like again. Vote your hopes and not your fears. Vote SANDERS FOR PRESIDENT!

If you want to understand why there are so many die-hard Bernie supporters such as myself, I offer this. It isn’t because we hate Hillary Clinton. It isn’t because we are all democratic socialists. It isn’t because we all hate all of the rich.

We support this good man because he is kind, he is compassionate, he is a real person who has always had the same message, who doesn’t bend and blow with the breezes of popularity or the outcomes of focus groups.

We support Bernie Sanders because he is the last, best hope of leading us by the angels of our better nature, to making the aspirational America with ‘freedom and justice for all’ real, to restoring the character and standing of America to where the people of the world will thank us for our brother and sisterhood, and not hide their children in fear and curse us whenever they hear a plane overhead.

Bernie’s America is our America is the America of “This Land is Your Land.” Our America is the America of “America the Beautiful.” Our America is the America of “We Shall Overcome.” Ours is the America of “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Our America is the America of Abraham Lincoln and Sojourner Truth and Emma Goldman and Paul Robeson. Our America is the America of Joe Hill and Eugene V Debs and Norman Thomas. Our America is the America of Michael Harrington and Kwame Ture. Our America is the America of Malcolm X and Upton Sinclair. Our America is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt. Our America is the America of Smedley Butler and Abbie Hoffman.

Join us!

Deeply Moving Message from Bernie Sanders

Copyright © 2016 Henry Edward Hardy

6 June, 2016 Posted by | America, America the Beautiful, Bernie Sanders, civil rights, election, freedom, Hillary Clinton, scanlyze | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

WTF happened to the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The greatest ideological weapon the US used to have is that we could point to the material and ethical benefits of our free, liberal society.

*We* had freedom of speech. *We* had a free press. *We* had full employment. *We* had the right to public education, including affordable or free college education. *We* did not spy on our citizens. *We* did not engage in torture. *We* obeyed and enforced the laws of war. *We* founded the United Nations. *We* had a democratic, pluralistic society in which everyone had a voice. *We* had separation of church and state. *We* had the right to organize and form unions, to bargain collectively, and to strike. *We* had the right to peaceably organize and protest against our government. *We* had free enterprise, where monopolies and cartels were neither tolerated nor legal. *We* had banks which were regulated in the public interest to prevent another economic crash. *We* had an open form of government where the people were in charge and the government did neither fear the people nor did the people fear the government. We had so much leisure time people didn’t always know what to do.

Our people were the wealthiest, freeest, healthiest and happiest in the world.

I am not talking about some never-neverland utopia. I remember this time in America. So does anyone my age if they think back.

What the fuck happened to us?

Copyright © 2013 Henry Edward Hardy

27 September, 2013 Posted by | freedom, liberty, media, peace, politics, scanlyze, US, USA, war | , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment