Sunday, January 1, 2012
The Year in Review, Sexually Speaking
Ron Paul on Sexual Harassment
Friday, September 3, 2010
Sharron Angle UGH
Sharron Angle, the Nebraska Nevada Republican Senate candidate who recently made headlines when a radio interview was unearthed in which she opposed legal abortion even in case of rape/incest because "God has a plan" (and your assault is part of it), has caught media attention again for her advice to 13-year-old incest victims to just make lemons into lemonade."Raped by Dad? Just Turn Lemons Into Lemonade!"
The Huffington Post reports that, during an interview on the conservative Alan Stock Show, Angle was asked what she would say to a 13-year-old incest victim who became pregnant by her father's rape. Angle's response? She says she counsels teenagers facing "very at risk, difficult pregnancies" to just look about for alternatives, and when they do, "they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade."
I don't think "lemon situation" accurately describes the unfathomable situation of a young girl who has been raped and impregnated by her own father — a situation that would be made even worse if Angle had her way and the girl was subjected by law to forced pregnancy. Angle's flippant, clichéd comparison shows how out-of-touch she is. You can survive a traumatic situation, move on with your life, but that doesn't make child rape a "lemons into lemonade" situation. There is no "upside" to being raped as a child, especially by your own father.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Texas Removes Thomas Jefferson From Teaching Standard - AOL News
Speechless. Truly speechless!
By dropping mention of revolution, and substituting figures such as Aquinas and Calvin for Jefferson, Texas Freedom Network argues, the board had chosen to embrace religious teachings over those of Jefferson, the man who coined the phrase "separation between church and state."
According to USA Today, the board also voted to strike the word "democratic" from references to the U.S. form of government, replacing it with the term "constitutional republic." Texas textbooks will contain references to "laws of nature and nature's God" in passages that discuss major political ideas.
The board decided to use the words "free enterprise" when describing the U.S. economic system rather than words such as "capitalism," "capitalist" and "free market," which it deemed to have a negative connotation.
Serving 4.7 million students, Texas accounts for a large percentage of the textbook market, and the new standards may influence what is taught in the rest of the country.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Pamphlets Tell Women "Ungodly" Dress Provokes Rape
In Tri-Cities, Washington, religious fundamentalists are handing out pamphlets telling women that their "ungodly" dress provokes rape. What century is this again? I get so confused....
A lady sitting in the backseat leaned forward, between the two men in front, and handed her a leaflet: “Women & Girls” it said across the top.more at link
“Even though nothing is showing, you’re being ungodly,” Canter recalled the woman telling her. “You make men want to be sinful.”
Canter was wearing boots pulled up over jeans, a pink zebra-print shirt with a black jacket zipped up over it. She has blond hair, dark eye make-up and a little red lip ring. “I just asked if she needed any salt, pepper or ketchup,” Canter said. “I mean, how do I respond to that?”
Minutes later, Canter’s mother, Pam Yates, who owns the restaurant, returned from the bank. Canter handed her “Women & Girls” and Yates started reading.
“You may have been given this leaflet because of the way you are dressed,” it begins. “Have you thought about standing before the true and living God to be judged?”
It continues with one essential theme: The sins of men are, in part, the fault of women, specifically women in tight-fitting clothing. Yates was annoyed. Then she got to a section on page two:
“Scripture tells us that when a man looks on a woman to lust for her he has already committed adultery in his heart. If you are dressed in a way that tempts a men to do this secret (or not so secret) sin, you are a participant in the sin,” the leaflet states. “By the way, some rape victims would not have been raped if they had dressed properly. So can we really say they were innocent victims?”
The hand-out is signed “anonymous.”
Yates was angry.
“What if my daughter had been a rape victim?” she said. “I hope that they never handed this to anyone, especially a young person, who’s been through that and struggles with that daily. And then they get handed something that says they are at fault. I cannot believe that a Christian, someone who walks in God’s shoes, would have made this.”
Leaflet in hand, Yates locked eyes with the old man driving the old white car, still parked in the lot, and stormed outside. The car quickly drove away.
Sandra G. Rasnake, the sexual assault program director at Bristol’s Crisis Center, had one eyebrow cocked as she read through the leaflet Thursday morning.
She cocked the other as she read aloud: “some rape victims would not have been raped if they had dressed properly.”
“Wow,” she said. “This idea that men don’t have enough self control – and evidently they shouldn’t have to – plays into all the old myths that we’ve tried for years to overcome: Rape happens to 2-year-olds and 92-year-olds, not just attractive young women. How about we hold the person doing the action accountable, whoever it is going against the will and consent of somebody else?”
Monday, December 28, 2009
OH, too funny...
A Great New Post From Twisty
I started hearing the phrase "man up" about a year ago, I guess. What the hell? I hate it. Like "having balls," "manning up" has no female equivalent. Of course, no one congratulates a woman on showing some real ovaries (well, actually, I have been known to do so from time to time) and no one tells a woman to "woman up."
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Barney Frank Says Repugs Not Like Colonials but Bourbon Kings
Friend --more here
The extremists who control the Republican Party have engaged in one of the most implausible masquerades in history by trying to identify themselves with the American Colonials who revolted against British rule.
In fact, as I prepare to go to the floor of the House this week to defend a package of tough financial reforms and consumer and investor protections, I confront a hostile, virtually unanimous Republican Party, which has a major characteristic in common with a different set of eighteenth century figures - the kings of France. When the French monarchy was restored to power in the 19th century, it was said that "The Bourbons have forgotten nothing because they learned nothing."
Friday, August 15, 2008
McCain's Mansions : The Real Elitist
From Brave New Films
More from Robert Greenwald at Brave New Films: The Real McCain
And my mother, a Democrat for Hillary, told me last week that Obama is an elitist. I told her about him trying to attend the 2000 convention and having his credit card rejected, how he owed lots of student loans until two years ago when his books became best-sellers, how as a child Michelle and her family lived in a one room apartment. So then my mom got sarcastic and said, "Okay, you're right. He owed student loans so he's wonderful, he's a god, and he'll be a great president." Uh-no. The point I successfully made was not that he's wonderful or a god but simply that he was not elitist - certainly no more so than Bill Clinton, and she adores Bill Clinton.
Yet again, whatever mental acrobatics it takes to avoid voting for a black man, Mother (see previous post on the old family plantation - I guess the family has moved away from River Road, but we haven't really moved away from the plantation, have we, Mother?).
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Random Observations on News Items
First, I can't wait until the Olympics are over. I won't watch some grand pageant from human rights abuser China, yet everywhere I try to watch or read news, it seems to be all Olympics all the time. Yawn.
So, celebrity chef Julia Child (follow previous link to a very fun short video of her!) was, it turns out, a spy. How cool is that! My daughter really wants to be a spy. She also really wants to be a chef! It's just too bad she's too young to know who Child was. Maybe I'll find get film footage somewhere and show it to her. I don't know if she'll really watch though. I seem to be becoming less cool in her eyes every week.
In England, a man has been banned from his girlfriend's apartment because they were too noisy during sex. I have a friend in the Pacific Northwest, where his home, like most homes there, does not have air conditioning. One summer evening, he was making love to a new acquaintance who turned out to be very loud. Having taken a break and resumed their love making, they heard his next door neighborhood yell up to the second story window, "All right, enough already, huh? Some of us have kids out here." He had forgotten that the window was open! Oops.
NBC News just reported what we all already knew. A study out today says that shit is getting really expensive. I knew potatoes shouldn't be $4 a bag! It turns out that the price of potatoes has risen 20%, bananas 20%, and rice a whopping 35%. A chain of dollar stores in California is going to start charging more than a dollar for the items it sells (I remember when the "dollar show" near me had to raise its movie ticket prices to $2.50. After that, we never could figure out what to call it - "...the dollar show...the used-to-be-dollar-show...the $2.50 show..."). The report says prices have increased at the highest rate in 17 years while wages have increased at their lowest rate in 18 years. Wages have fallen 3%. Seventeen percent of the homes on the market are there because the owner is going through foreclosure.
But, hey, what the fuck, let's just keep focusing on politics as playtime because that's what the media wants to do - and what the Republican party needs us to do. They have no ideas. They offer working Americans nothing except perhaps many more years of military enlistment as a career option. No help with health care. No end to George Bush's war. No restoration of our shredded Constitution. No plan to pay down the national debt so our leaders could openly criticize China's human rights record, which they should be doing right now but can't because we are now the world's biggest debtor nation and our national credit card has "Bank of the People's Republic of China" imprinted on it.
No, they offer more offshore drilling leases to the oil companies, even though the oil companies already hold leases on lots of federal land on which they aren't bothering to drill (meaning this isn't about drilling but rather about land-grabbing) and there are hundreds of wells in the Gulf off the Louisiana coast that are perfectly viable but are currently capped; even though it would take decades to drill enough new oil sources to affect prices; even though continuing to find new sources to feed our current addiction will do nothing to solve the climate crisis; even though if the oil companies do get their new leases, the American steel industry has been so thoroughly decimated that our country now lacks the means to build new oil rigs promptly anyway; and even though, as a Baton Rouge caller to the Ed Schultz show pointed out the other day, those of us here in Louisiana already know that offshore oil drilling jobs are definitely not McJobs. The work is brutally tough. Country singer Trace Adkins, who was an ordinary blue-collar Louisiana boy before becoming an "overnight" success in his forties, has talked about working offshore and actually sweating black from the oil. A taste of what the life is like from his song "Missing You:"
An hour into my shift
I'm covered from head to toe
Drilling oil from the bottom
Of the Gulf of Mexico
Sun's on the rise
Sweat rolling black down my face
Work until I can't move
Another back-breaking typical dayChorus:
I've weathered waterspouts and hurricanes
Hailstorms and driving rain
And missing you
I've worked through broken drills
And busted hands
Weeks without seeing dry land
And missing you
I'll work as hard as any man
But until I'm home with you again
The toughest thing out here
That I go through is
Missing youI lay down on my bed
And stare at the picture of you
Barefoot on the beach
Looking at me the way you do
I fall asleep with your letter in my hands
Dream about you until
That ol' whistle starts screaming again(repeat chorus)
Ill work as hard as any man
But until I'm home with you again
The toughest thing out here
That I go through is
Missing you
Yeah, so let's just go find a bunch more people to work on those rigs, right away! It is dangerous and difficult. Injury rates are so high that some Louisiana attorneys just specialize in such cases. It requires weeks at a time away from home and is notoriously destructive to family life. Still, people (men? I think it's all men) take those jobs because they pay well and that was the Schultz caller's main point - these are highly skilled jobs. If there were to suddenly be a bunch of new oil rigs, where would the oil companies suddenly find enough qualified offshore workers to get them going? This is not a field in which an employer just goes to Manpower and hires a crew of day laborers! So, it would take time to find lots more workers, time to get the steel industry able to build the rigs, time for new refineries to be ready, and years for the oil from new sources to hit the market and possibly affect the prices. And this is an energy policy?
But the games continue in the political arena. From Senator Kerry came the following email today:
The Liars Are Back:Pick up the New York Times this morning and read the headline: "Book on Obama Hopes to Repeat Anti-Kerry Feat."
Yes, Jerome Corsi, the right wing fringe author who made his bones smearing the Catholic Church and lying about my military record, is back atop the best seller list with an anti-Obama book chock full of lies.
If your blood isn't boiling yet, read this: "This is a fact: Today Barack Obama is subject to what is probably the greatest concentrated attacks of smears, lies and innuendo in the lifetime of anyone who reads these words."
Those are the words of Brent Budowsky in Editor and Publisher. He knows what he's talking about.
And it's not just Barack: up and down the ticket and all across the country, the rightwing smear machine is ramping up attacks on Democrats.
We've seen this movie before. The Republicans, without ideas, start running a negative campaign filled with personal attacks and misleading ads. The attacks get condemned, but they get lots of attention and get played on TV endlessly.
Kerry then goes on to say that he is starting a new website:
We're launching a new website that empowers you to fight back across the country in ways no campaign has attempted. It's called truthfightsback.com, and we can use all the help you can give.By signing up, you'll stay on top of what the rightwing is doing and help fight for the truth. And you can report smears when you see them to keep us on track on what the smear machine is up to at every moment. You will be our eyes and ears.
We know the game, we've learned some things, and we have a fired up movement of activists like no party has had in decades, all networked together with great Internet tools.
So sign up to help. This is a massive undertaking, so we need your help to pull it off....
You can't just play defense against smears, pointing out how they aren't true. You've got to play offense, too, exposing the whole cynical game for what it is: an attempt to keep us from talking about the real issues and ultimately changing our country for the better.
The Republicans have nothing to run on, no ideas to push, no solutions for America. They'll run a campaign of laughable gimmicks and outright distortions and lies. But we can fight back with the truth - and the truth can win this time.
Let's do it.
Thanks,
John Kerry
See Senator Kerry confront Senator Kyl on live television, demanding to know what the hell the Paris Hilton celebrity attack ad has to do with anything important:
The AP tells us about the new book by "swiftboater" Corsi:
Jermone Corsi's anti-Obama book, "The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality," claims the Illinois senator is a dangerous, radical candidate for president. The book is a compilation of all the innuendo and false rumors against Obama — that he was raised a Muslim, attended a radical, black church and secretly has a "black rage" hidden beneath the surface....Corsi's book is off to a swift start and is No. 1 on The New York Times' hardcover nonfiction best-seller list, even though Obama's campaign would argue the book should be listed as fiction.
Obama's campaign says the book is full of factual inaccuracies that include the wrong date for the Obamas' marriage. Corsi also writes that Obama left much of his family background out of his autobiographies — his father's polygamy and alcoholism, his sister's birth in Indonesia and that his then-fiance Michelle accompanied him on a visit to Kenya — but the campaign points out page numbers from "Dreams From My Father" where Obama discussed all those things.
In "The Obama Nation" — the title is a twist on the word abomination — Corsi catalogs various allegations that have haunted Obama on right-wing blogs and anonymous e-mails.
Corsi suggests, without a shred of proof, that Obama may be using drugs today. Obama has acknowledged using marijuana and cocaine as a teenager but says he quit when he went to college and hasn't used drugs since.
Corsi makes an issue of the fact that, before he quit smoking cigarettes, Obama didn't want it widely known that he smoked. "If Obama takes pains to hide his smoking from us, what else does he take pains to hide?" Corsi asks in the book.
He smoked cigarettes? Oh my god. I wonder what's really in that Nicorette gum he's been chomping on the campaign trail! Maybe it's really some halucenogenic!
Corsi also dwells on Obama's mother marrying Obama's African father and later marrying someone from Indonesia — whom Corsi describes as "a second man of color to be her mate." The Obama campaign says the description is one of many examples of Corsi's "offensive language" in the book....
Before I comment further, I probably should admit that my mother has been married - at different times, of course - to three different white men! Three of them - can you believe it? And my father has been married - at different times, of course - to three different white women. I really hope people of color aren't offended by that! Oh, and there was alcoholism and abuse involved in some of those marriages too - just tring to be totally honest. I hope no people of color get the wrong idea. There are some white men who are decent husbands and fathers. Just because my white father beat my mother, was a drunk, dressed in drag and kidnapped me, psychologically tortured his children, was unfaithful, and refused to ever pay a dime of child support for the three children he fathered doesn't mean all white men are like that. I promise - some are pretty decent, you know, especially if genuine economic opportunities are available to them.
He accuses Obama of wanting to weaken the military even though Obama's campaign calls for adding 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines.In an interview with The Associated Press, Corsi defended raising the issue of drugs without any evidence.
"I don't need more," he said. "I'm putting this question forward. I'm putting the evidence forward. Voters can make up their own minds."
Corsi writes for World Net Daily, a conservative Web site whose lead headline Thursday was "Astonishing photo claims: Dead Bigfoot stored on ice." In a series of Web posts several years ago, Corsi said Pope John Paul II was senile and unconcerned about sexual molestation of boys, referred to Islam is "a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion" and suggested Kerry was secretly Jewish.
Corsi apologized for the remarks and now says he didn't mean them and was simply trying to provoke discussion.
"Obama Nation" is published by Threshold Editions, a division of Simon & Schuster that is run by Mary Matalin, the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Corsi readily acknowledges the political goal of his book. He considers Obama a "radical leftist" who should not be elected president. Corsi said he has no plans to work against Obama with groups comparable to 2004's Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but said he would be willing to consider it....
Hey, man, you say "radical leftist" like it's a bad thing!
Here is camp Obama's forty page rebuttal in pdf format.
For a minute, I thought it couldn't be true that this trash is number one on the New York Times bestseller list, but it is.
Did I mention that potatoes are $4 a bag, that the price of rice is up 35%, that 17% of all homes for sale are there because of foreclosure, and that wages are down 3%? Oh, and it now takes $50 to fill up my little Hyundai.
Play on.
Monday, August 11, 2008
What the Hell is Twittter?
Today, I got a message at the associated email account saying this guy is "following my updates on Twitter." I don't have any updates on Twitter. I don't even know what it is or how I would update it or what I would say (what the hell, I'm no Barack Obama; where would I be GOING and why would I give anyone regular updates? Do ordinary people do this these days?? My god, I felt guilty because I thought blogging was a bit narcissistic!). And I really think this same guy tried "friending" me on myspace a few months ago, via my page at DailyKos.
I just followed his Twitter thing to his blog and he's pretty conservative, (I think) Christian conservative, definitely very homophobic. He mentions "gay 'marriage,'" with those damn quotation marks around the word marriage, which means he doesn't think there can be real (no quotation marks) gay marriages - right, because all the straight women I know with asshole unfaithtful husbands have the REAL marriages, and it's so helpful and good for one's self-esteem. Then there is his bit about Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl:"
This is an alarming trend as the song itself promotes unhealthy relationship between same sex genders especially for easily impressionable young females. Imagine this song becoming the talk of school playgrounds, neighborhood backyards or even at dinner tables. Little girls experimenting among themselves to see whether if the song is true or not. What would you say as a parent if your daughter brings up the content of this song? Is it ok to kiss another girl? Is it normal? Is it natural? Or your daughter telling you... Mom I want to kiss Jennifer or Ann and why not because it should feel good right!!! ??***My daughter already played it for me because we actually talk like that (otherwise - I must admit - I wouldn't know a thing about it, because I don't listen to much new music - yep, my fortieth birthday will be this Saturday; just think of the song "1985" as my anthem and you've got the picture). Girls are already talking about the Katy Perry song, dope; it's number 9 on the pop charts. So what? And what would I say if my daughter asked me about it? Well, she's kissed a few boys without asking me first, so I doubt she would ask me first if she should kiss Jennifer or Ann. She has talked to me about the couple of boys she's kissed afterwards though. So, if she asked me about Jennifer or Ann, I would ask her if it felt right to her (which is what I've asked her about individual guys she's kissed before - does it feel right?). I would tell my daughter that if kissing Jennifer or Ann feels right to her, then it is okay (although she and I have talked about the popular phenomenon of faux lesbianism among young straight women being used as a way to titillate the straight boys, and we both agree that that's annoying). So I'd be okay with it, Twitter dude.
I don't know why he would be trying to connect with me again via Twitter, as he did before from my myspace page, since I'm the same person on myspace that I am here - as in, definitely no conservative.
I did just post some things at DailyKos this weekend - where I have a link to my myspace page - about the difficulties of parenting and protecting our children from toxic culture (but when I say toxic culture, I tend to mean violence and graphic sex and objectifying women, but I don't give a shit about there being a song about a teenage girl kissing another teenager girl at a slumber party, "liking it," and finding that "she tastes just like her cherry chapstick;" as long as you're not homophobic, this is just a cute little song about a frickin' KISS (although the video seems annoyingly designed to titillate the straight boys who like thinking about lesbian kisses, as long as the "girls" involved are hot, pornolicious babes). When it comes to the sexual content that's out there generally, I see this song about a kiss as practically G-rated. So, yeah, I wrote about protecting kids from toxic culture, but I didn't mean that like a conservative thing. I mean, geez, it was at liberal Daily Kos! What's this guy doing there?
I notice too that his blog is FULL of criticism of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Hannah Montana, and that he calls them "pop tarts" (ah-ha-ha; how about at least coming up with some creative or original misogynistic bullshit, eh?). He worries about little girls not wearing panties to school "just like Britney" (dude, spare me your sick little daydreams - OH shit, I just accidentally typed "daycreams," how totally Freudian!). I don't want Britney to be my daughter's role model either, so I try to provide other models and some conversation about women-as-sex-objects, but I don't insult Britney either, for god's sake. And if he is SO concerned about toxic culture affecting our kids, why doesn't his blog have ANY criticism of any males - like Eminem and all the woman-hating (and gay-bashing) lyrics sung by men that I know my daughter is also hearing? Why are Britney, Paris, and Miley the great pop-culture evil-doers, with no mention on the blog of my new "Twitter buddy" (whatever the hell that is) of any male counterparts?
So, anyway, back to the whole Twitter thing...anyone reading who is younger and hipper than I am - Should I be concerned? Ignore it? Are there any potential consequences of being "followed on Twitter" that I should know about? What can he see about me from that? Can I somehow cancel him as my "Twitter buddy" or should I just cancel the damn account completely?
Thanks in advance,
technologically out of touch old lady who turns 40 this weekend
NOLA radfem turns forty - indulges in some eighties nostalgia
1985 by Bowling For Soup
***I have a longstanding policy of NEVER challenging what's written on someone else's blog here on my blog. I just don't think it seems fair to, you know, borrow someone's words, run back to my own little space, and then trash them. But I've made an exception here because this guy seems to be following me around the intertubes and I wanted some input about it.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Sunday Reading - the Serious Stuff
First, on a childhood with which any political geek can identify:
Norman and I would play a game titled Mr. President. Other kids were playing All-Star Baseball or Electric Football. We played Mr. President for hours at a time, five days a week. I grew up believing this was the most phenomenal game ever devised, which in many ways describes me. The object of the game was to win the presidential election. How many nine-year-olds knew that New York State had 43 electoral votes? Norman and I did. That fact might well sum up my childhood.On the disgusting cowardice of fellow Democrats who actually voted for a resolution condemning an ad by moveon.org:
Many Democrats voted for the resolution [against MoveOn] to distance themselves from MoveOn and the substance of the newspaper advertisement. Just imagine the furor that would have resulted had we proposed a resolution to censure the right-wing Christian Coalition or Pat Robertson for one of their more outrageous proclamations, such as blaming 9/11 on homsexuals. I voted against the resolution, but unfortunately many of my colleagues did not, and it passed. It was not our proudest day.On his outrage over the Supreme Court selection of George Bush as pResident:
Every politician learns how to lose as well as win--and as a Democrat I had a lot of practice losing. Through most of my career I'd tried to salvage what was possible, stand up for my constituents, and use the influence I had as a member of Congress in areas where partisanship played less of a role, such as foreign relations and constituent services, where I could do some good. But this Supreme Court ruling infuriated me. I was just outraged by it. Like many of my constituents, I feel it is a wound that will never completely heal.And on why impeachment of George Bush is still a good idea:
Certainly there were legitimate arguments made against these proceedings. Many people reasoned that we'd been through this gut-wrenching process with President Clinton and it had ripped apart the nation. I responded by suggesting that the worst possible legacy of the Clinton impeachment would be to discourage future Congresses from examining valid allegations of constitutional violations against members of the executive branch. Should that happen, the tragedy of Clinton's impeachment would be compounded.
I have to get this book (which is $30 for the hardback right now). I just checked and my library doesn't have it - although they DO have eleven titles by Bill O'Reilly. Geez.
A great diary on International Day of the World's Indigenous People, which is today.
While doing research for another story, I came across this film clip that every American should watch to see how our government today treats Americans. The film involves some of the Western Shoshone, who for years have been fighting our federal government's seizure of livestock and land for gold mining, water and nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site, which is located within the treaty-recognized territory of Western Shoshone lands. There are 60 million acres of Western Shoshone lands located in Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California. The federal government claims 90% of the lands as public or federally-controlled lands, which are then privatized for corporate raping of our environment and degradation of spiritual lands. Greedy profiteering corporations then swoop in to stake mining claims in the "third largest gold producing area in the world."The diary refers to this film:
The federal government has been doing the dirty work of corporations by assaulting people, seizing livestock, and privatizing ancestral lands for the sake of mining companies. Years ago, President Truman tried to seize the steel industry but the US Supreme Court held that was unconstitutional. Today, government seizure is permissible when done to enable, for example, mining in Mount Tenabo or storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
The film shows an armed, brazen cavalcade raid of agents in helicopters and jeep/semi truck caravans in the dark of night and in the daylight seizing the Danns' horses, wild horses and their cattle to enable corporate gold mines which are spreading through Western Shoshone sacred lands. It also shows the dead horses caused by the government's rush to roundup without listening to warnings that the cold and low food at this time of year would kill the horses. So, horses died on the range. And, horses boarded by BLM died of starvation. All so the government could privatize their range for gold mining. We hear about foreign governments seizing private land by force and raise our voices. But, the silence in America when our government does the same is almost deafening.Next, an interesting diary about what racism does to white people. I disagree with the author's claim that racism may be most damaging to whites, but I am 100% in agreement on the rest:
The federal government claimed that they lost their lands by gradual encroachment. After the US signed the treaty, it then obtained de facto "title" to the lands not by law, but by simply "treating" the land as federal land. When the Danns' case reached the US Supreme Court, the court did not even address how this title had been transferred from the Danns to the US because the Secretary of the Interior had accepted the money award on their behalf. The court concluded that the Danns had been paid, which took away their right to argue before the court that they had title to these lands. Thus, a shuffle of money between two federal agencies constituted the "sale" of the Shoshone land to the government.
Bell notes in Silent Covenants, his recently published analysis of the context and consequences of the famous civil rights case, Brown vs the Board of Education, that "from the nation’s beginnings, policymakers have been willing to sacrifice even blacks’ basic entitlements of freedom and justice as a kind of political catalyst that enables whites to reach compromises that resolve differing and potentially damaging economic and political differences." In fact, "policymakers recognize and act to remedy racial injustices when, and only when, they perceive that such action will benefit the nation’s interests without significantly diminishing whites’ sense of entitlement." Landmark twentieth century works as Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma, Lawrence Goodwyn’s The Populist Moment, C. Van Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow, and David Roediger’ 2005 study, Working Toward Whiteness, support this argument.A new blog called Inside Orwell has just begun that will reproduce, one entry per day and on the same days of the year as the originals, the diaries of George Orwell. It will be interesting to follow. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
Simply stated, it would appear that white people have been offered supremacy among peasants in exchange for their passivity....
As it turns out, racism may be even more psychologically damaging for the social class that "enjoys" its benefits, than for the class victimized by it. Fromm and his colleagues argued that authoritarianism, the soil of racism, makes dominant white culture in the United States an easy pawn of fascism. Post Modernists such as Michel Foucault and Jacque Derrida fully agree. They perceive a citizenry rendered passive and ineffectual, incapable of effectively interacting with much less restraining a power elite grown less democratic and more corrupt in direct proportion to its immunity from real criticism. Jurgen Habermas, the least pessimistic of the Frankfurt School scholars, finds the situation to be less hopeless. With resolve and proper knowledge, people may be able to free themselves of debilitating mind-sets and beliefs systematically inculcated by the powerful, exactly as predicted by Antonio Gramsci more than a century ago.
A diary at Daily Kos on rape in the military illustrates what some of us already knew - that at dudely liberal places like Kos, the liberal dudes are still mostly typical dudes and they just don't get it, which is why I rarely read sites like Kos anymore. Of course 1 in 3 military women experience sexual assault. At Kos, a few male former soldiers deny the statistic, but I've never heard of a former female servicemember denying the figures. Why? Any woman who has ever actually spent time on a military base knows exactly why - the entire culture of misogyny, an entire ethic of warfare based on the "otherness" of woman. When I lived at a base overseas, there were lots of sexual assaults that were covered up (which I routinely heard about through a close friend whose husband worked at the command post). There was woman-hating behavior that was constant and crazy - strippers at every birthday, retirement, or promotion party; adultery by most of the married men I knew; crowds of British women sent to the base nightclub on buses every Saturday night (this club was once named by Playboy magazine "once of the top ten best pickup spots for American men worldwide"). And, of course, the entire carnival of misogyny was fueled by an endless supply of cheap booze. As I have often said, my mother raised me to be a liberal feminist, but it took four years on a military base overseas to make me a radical feminist.
Next, a very nice diary on the U.U. church shootings in Tennessee. I am a Unitarian Universalist and my daughter's naming ceremony was in a U.U. church. Unfortunately, when I heard, with the television on in the background while I was doing somthing else, that a man had shot in a church and had wanted to "kill liberals," my first guess was that we U.U.s were the target. It isn't the first time. It, unfortunately, won't be the last. The following refers to the Sunday service the week after the shooting:
In the homily, Buice laid a minister's stole, a strip of cloth showing the Celtic cross' motif of violence combined with the symbol of hope, the rising sun, across the ministerial pulpit and "gave" it to the congregation, to "a good church," as it had been given to him by the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, "a good man." He thundered, "Today, we are all Presbyterians. We are all Jews. We are all Muslims. We are all liberals. We are all conservatives!" If there is one hallmark of Unitarian Universalism, it is the thoughtful response to problems of great complexity. Buice's statements cut to the quick of divisiveness, hatred, and bigotry. The congregation roared back in approbation.Finally, a very good - and quite long (although it gets better and better as it goes on) - article on John McCain by a Phoenix reporter who has covered him for years. The title is Postmodern McCain: The John McCain Some Arizonans Know and Loathe and it really is good - check it out (hat tip K).
The ministers past and present then moved to the back of the church, where the shooter had come in and begun to fulfill his self-appointed mission to kill liberals until he was killed by the police (he reckoned, in error, that people who work for peace are too weak for war, so he never anticipated that he would be brought down almost instantly by brave members of the church who did not hesitate). Standing in the same spot, the ministers reclaimed the space for peace, for justice, for love, and for strength....
The tone of the service was one of bravery, of defiance, of the conscious choice of thinking people to choose peace, and of the importance of community. The shooter may have taken two lives, but he left without taking the spirit of the church, which, as was printed on hundreds of t-shirts sitting out in the fellowship hall for distribution, is "love."
I was reminded by the UUs that it takes the strongest kind of people to love by choice, instead of hating by default or in desperation.
It was pretty magnificent, all in all.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Gay Scientists Isolate the Christian Gene
Hat tip The F Word.
The other day this New Orleans talk radio program did a whole show on Obama's pastor and some of McCain's buddies (Haggee?) and about what people thought. So, on the topic of some people's religious views, this woman called in and said that in the aftermath of Katrina, she worked sorting food donations that were coming in from around the country. The donors apparently didn't realize that the food bank would break packages down into the smallest possible units (I guess to get widest possible distribution). Time and time again, when this woman opened the packages, she found that people had tucked notes inside their food donations, notes telling the already devastated recipient that Katrina was the wrath of god visited upon a sinful people.
I really do hope those gay scientists, now that they've isolated the gene, can find the cure.
(with apologies to any REAL Christians out there; I get so frustrated with the other kind)
Friday, February 29, 2008
Dear Sister of NOLAradfem and Certain Other Clintonites
Welcome aboard! We are glad to have your assistance (of course, we do strictly mean your assistance, as women are, of course, not equipped to lead)!
Thank you for helping to circulate our emails about Barack Hussein Obama being a Moslem, the son of a Moslem, the stepson of a Moslem, the son an atheist, the stepson of an atheist, an Islam denier, a liar, a Moslem candidate ready to free the Middle East from the Great Satan, a former Moslem student paying to attend a Catholic school in Indonesia, an anti-Semite, a black militant, and the parishioner of a profanity-spewing, black militant, anti-semite, Methodist preacher who is clearly a racist because he points out that the U.S. is a white, racist nation; that Obama calls a Kenyan woman with a very black face (photo helpfully included) "Grandmother;" that he is the product of racial mixing, the descendant of African slave traders (because, as all we all know, the really bad slave traders were the Africans themselves, so American slavery was their fault); that he wants to get us into war in Kenya (because even though he opposed the Iraq war, he is indeed just itching to get U.S. troops into Kenya!); that he lied about his WWII vet grandfather teaching him flag etiquette when he was two years old; that he won't say the pledge or put his hand over his heart during the national anthem.
Even though we also have at our website articles claiming that domestic violence protection orders discriminate against men; that a woman can't be president ever because it's unconstiutional; that hetero, Christian, white males are oppressed; that the Clintons are murderers and cocaine runners; that Pell grants discriminate against the middle class in favor of the working class; that the proposed law banning cops and soldiers convincted of domestic violence from continuing to have employment that involves firearms is another example of discrimination against fine, heroic men; that radical feminism is ruining the world; that global warming is a hoax and Al Gore a fraud; that John Kerry must be impeached, since under the constitution, no traitor may hold public office; that the ten commandments must be displayed in all public buildings and that all American governments, state, local, and federal, must immediately adopt a resolution stating that this is a Christian nation and that the wall of separation between church and state is a myth; that the "pro-Hanoi" actions of Senators McCain and Kerry caused the death of one of our soldiers; that John McCain is a traitor who broke under torture and has been programmed as a Manchurian candidate...even though our website says all of those things, none of which you agree with, we are heartened by your taking the time to forward our anti-Obama hatred to your friends and family members (not to mention glad that you didn't first bother to research us and our websites! who remembers the google anymore anyway! whew!)
As you might imagine, cramming that much contradictory crap into one email was quite a bit of work, so we're grateful for your help in forwarding it to as many people as possible. It's true we don't usually make common cause with people like you, Little Sister of NOLAradfem (liberal, feminist, pro-Clinton, believer in the separation of church and state, all that kinda stuff).
But, you know, when it comes to sliming and destroying that Obama dude, we reichwingers will take all the help we can get.
Thanks again for your blind support. We look forward to serving you beyond January of 2009.
Signed,
SwiftBoatVeteransForGullibleAndBitterClintonSupporters
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Addressing The Issue Of My Middle Name
Furthermore, during last night's presidential debate, Hillary Clinton insisted that Barack Obama's denunciation of Louis Farakhan was insufficient, demanding that he "reject" Farakhan as well as "denounce" him - which Obama did.
As a supporter of Barack Hussein Obama's, I feel it's only fair that I offer the same disclosure expected of my candidate.
And so, in the interest of full disclosure, I need to say, right here on my blog, that, yes, my middle name is indeed "Kaye." I don't know if my parents were trying to prove what intellectuals they were by spelling out a letter of the alphabet or what. I do know that they were ordinary New Orleanians, stationed in Alabama at the time of my birth, so maybe they were trying to get a little too fancy-schmanzy with that spelling, stretching a humble single letter into four. Or maybe they were trying to show pride in the culture of that particular time and place with their choice of such a strange, bland, monosyllabic, apparently Anglophylic name. Please be assured that had I been consulted about the issue at the time - and had I been lingual - I might have lobbied for a different choice. This election, however, needs to be not about the the desires of the parents of a newborn over forty years ago, but rather about the dreams and futures of the American people. I had hoped that at long last we were at a point in American history where we could be judged not by the letters filled in on our birth certificates but by the content of our character. Alas, our time may not yet have come.
Also, I am hearing rumblings about my middle name reminding some observers of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson. Although we share a name, a mere one letter apart just like Osama and Obama, I hereby denounce and reject her Republican policies. I also denounce and reject the religiosity of the Mary Kay cosmetics company.
If I have left out any other "Kayes" whose values do not reflect those espoused on this blog, please let me know. I will denounce them and then, if that still isn't enough, I am even willing to reject them.
Finally, I'm sure there have been at least a few people over the years who wanted to be my friend but who I thought were creepy, just as Senator Obama apparently feels about Louis Farakhan. I would confess their names if only I could remember them, but the truth is that I just didn't realize I would someday be responsible for them. If anyone has any dirt on me regarding creepy would-be friends I've rejected, let me know and I will be happy to denounce them and their beliefs. If that isn't enough, I will even reject them - again.
Thank you for your continuing support. I look forward to further serving you this important election season.
Dear Senator Vitter - My Modest Proposal
Dear Senator Vitter,
I see that you have devoted time and effort to the pressing problem of the need to pass legislation ensuring that women receiving health care under the Indian Health Service can never get abortions there. You devoted time and effort to getting that passed even though the Hyde amendment has banned the use of ANY federal funds for abortions since the 1970s. Heckuva job, Davie, because what the voters in this devastated state really need is duplicate layers of legislation.
I understand though that you have a principled pro-life position. My suggestion is that, in that spirit, you should offer a Senate bill limiting contraceptive access for prostitutes and ensuring that the fathers of any children of prostitutes be genetically identified and then forced to pay child support. Politicians, who are, after all, the self-styled moral guardians of a nation, should submit samples of their DNA to a centralized database for these purposes, thus ensuring that any guilty parties may be identified and compelled to provide diapers for the duration.
Seriously, Senator, a man who rents women's vaginas and then legislates what they do with their wombs - what's with this obsession of yours? It's so obvious, and it's an embarrassment.