Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients. (Link.)
Says Kevin, who gets the hat tip, "That's not controversial research; that's completely unethical, racist, and classist research. Why does this man still have a job? Oh, I know why. It's because when you use the poor and people of color as guinea pigs, nobody gives a shit; because they were only trying to help and gee, they got pretty lawns out of the deal too! Now, let's go back to talking about how we've all transcended race and how systemic, government-sponsored racism is a thing of the past."
What could be better, I wonder, for conservatives than the leftwing having bought into every pernicious lie about Hillary Clinton and every bit of misogynist framing used against her in the 90s (instead of, ya know, just discussing her very real limitations as a candidate without all the seething, mouth-foaming hatred), while simultaneously having carried Barack Obama on their shoulders past the usual meticulous vetting and weakness-probing required of a national candidate (instead of, ya know, just discussing his very real strengths as a candidate without all the pretending he has no room to be even stronger), and then having collectively promulgated the total horseshit that Hillary now cannot win, just in time for any Obama misstep to be blown up into a potentiallycandidacy-killingdrama under the totally true premise that the left has been careless about its due diligence on its leading candidate?
I mean, how great has it worked out for conservatives that the reality-based community has failed utterly to perceive a comprehensive reality about either of its remaining candidates, not to mention cast aside all that rigorous adherence to fairness, accuracy, and cynicism about the media and rightwing frames on which the leftwing blogosphere was ostensibly built?
Maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't have been so quick to stomp the shit out of her, or slay the golden calf for him—and hand to conservatives the perfect opportunity to make us look like we got it backwards, even if we didn't.
We're going to go into the general election with what looks to be a weak candidate either way, when we had the chance for the total opposite. And that won't be Barack Obama's fault, and it damn sure won't be Hillary's, no matter how many of the numbskulls who got us here try to blame her for their own idiocy.
Today marks the 96th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic; April 15, 1912. History records that when the ship struck the iceberg on the night of the 14th, it tore a gash in the starboard side of the ship that led to the sinking two and half hours later that took over 1,500 lives.
Appropriate and necessary use of the word rape: To describe what has happened to someone who has been forced or coerced into a sex act.
Inappropriate and unnecessary use of the word rape: To describe what has "been done to you" by the IRS and/or US Government by requiring you to pay taxes.
Important Corollary, subject to same rules as Important Announcement #10: If you are a rape apologist and/or teller of rape jokes, you are not a progressive; you're a fauxgressive.
Food Costs Rising Fastest in 17 Years: "The U.S. is wrestling with the worst food inflation in 17 years, and analysts expect new data due on Wednesday to show it's getting worse."
U.S. food prices rose 4 percent in 2007, compared with an average 2.5 percent annual rise for the last 15 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And the agency says 2008 could be worse, with a rise of as much as 4.5 percent.
…For the U.S. poor, any increase in food costs sets up an either-or equation: Give something up to pay for food.
"I was talking to people who make $9 an hour, talking about how they might save $5 a week," said Kathleen DiChiara, president and CEO of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey. "They really felt they couldn't. That was before. Now, they have to."
…Wonder Bagels, in Jersey City, N.J., posted a letter from its wheat supplier, A. Oliveri & Sons, saying the recent situation was unprecedented.
"The major mills across the country are using words like 'rationing' and 'shortages' if things continue," it said. "We will sweat out the summer together, hoping there will be some flour left to purchase at any price."
Higher costs—or flat unavailability—of healthy food will mean decreased health, even as healthcare costs also skyrocket, especially among the poor, where healthy eating is a class issue as much as access to healthcare is, and where increasing "very low food security" has been a widely ignored problem for at least two years already. Meanwhile, BushCo will just keep printing more money, which will further weaken the dollar, which will drive up the price of staples like milk and wheat even more.
And it's getting ugly out there for the global poor, who have to spend a higher percentage of their incomes on basic food necessities even than American poor: "Riots from Haiti to Bangladesh to Egypt over the soaring costs of basic foods have brought the issue to a boiling point and catapulted it to the forefront of the world's attention, the head of an agency focused on global development said Monday."
World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said the surging costs could mean "seven lost years" in the fight against worldwide poverty.
"While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs, and it is getting more and more difficult every day," Zoellick said late last week in a speech opening meetings with finance ministers.
…"In just two months," Zoellick said in his speech, "rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come. In Bangladesh, a 2-kilogram bag of rice ... now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family."
The price of wheat has jumped 120 percent in the past year, he said -- meaning that the price of a loaf of bread has more than doubled in places where the poor spend as much as 75 percent of their income on food.
That's not a total clusterfucktastrophe waiting to happen or anything.
But no worries—my president tells me that the invisible hand of the market will solve everything. It'll probably show up in Haiti carrying a bag of groceries any day now.
I'm sure if we had reason to worry, he wouldn't be so jolly.
Gary Bauer does not want to see John McCain pick Condoleezza Rice and holds out hope that he'll pick Fred Thompson instead: "[He] certainly has a lot of experience here in Washington, DC, and is also generally well-thought-of by conservatives. [He] comes from a border state, and those states are likely to be very important during what could be the third very close presidential election in a row. So, I hope that Senator McCain is considering former Senator Fred Thompson among many other possibilities around the country."
WASHINGTON After addressing the journalists gathered at the annual Associated Press luncheon in Washington, D.C., today, Sen. Barack Obama took a few questions. The last one from the audience, delivered via AP chairman W. Dean Singleton was related to how to troops to Iraq and the threat posed by, as Singleton put it, "Obama bin Laden."
Obama quickly corrected Singleton. "That's Osama bin Laden," he said. The crowd laughed a bit. "If I did that, I am so sorry," Singleton replied.
Via Atrios, who says: "Stupid stuff like this shouldn't even matter, but if Obama's the nominee a substantial chunk of Republican chuckleheads will believe, or pretend to believe, that Obama really is a terrorist who wants to destroy America."
What hyperbole! They don't believe he's an actual terrorist; just a terrorist-sympathizing Muslim crackhead who hates America, at least if all these Very Important Emails I'm getting are to be believed.
I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button. He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country.
Chet's earlier post reminded me of this post originally published January 28, 2005. It's frightening how relevant it remains three years later, and even more frightening to understand in retrospect what a significant role the Democrats have played in this disaster. Democracy could never have become the new opiate of the masses if impeachment hadn't been taken off the table, for example, making biding our time until the next election seem like our only stragegy, over and over and over... Good Germans we all.
* * *
After what feels like a very long week, the dismay surrounding the inauguration of President Bush to his second term now seems to be fading away, replaced instead with the dread of what the next four years will bring. Of particular concern is the sense of helplessness, of voicelessness, that we on the Left seem to share. We celebrate isolated incidents of strength from the elected Dems—Barbara Boxer standing up to Condi Rice, the brave baker’s dozen that voted no, the two that voted no to both Condi and Gonzo—but the reality of having no control in any of the three branches is wearing slowly on all of us, perhaps because '06 seems yet so far away; perhaps because things seem to be getting worse, rather than better.
The chance we have rests firmly in whether or not we have the ability to effectively challenge the tactics of the Bush administration, which requires first addressing the reality of how truly radical their agenda is. There are those who feel that claims we are veering dangerously close to handing America over wholesale to extremists are, in themselves, extreme. But such claims are not extreme; they are part and parcel of the beginnings of an successful offensive strategy.
Our president has joked about his affinity for dictatorships on more than one occasion. In describing his role as governor of Texas, he mused:
"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier." (Governing Magazine 7/98)
And on two other occasions, he referenced again how much easier things would be were a pesky little thing like democracy not in his way:
"I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
Said once, it’s a joke in questionable taste. Twice, and it becomes discomfiting. By the third time, it tends to raise genuine concerns about the inner feelings of a man who is meant to be leading a democracy. When that feeling stirs in our guts, that creeping sense that something isn't right, we must listen to our intuition. We cannot keep our heads down, hold our breath, and wait for it all to be over.
In reading Lawrence Kaplan's intense dispatch from Iraq today, I was struck how with a few very minor edits, an account of the politically mangled Iraq was easily turned into an applicable description of the political landscape in America:
[A] powerful executive branch…exerts significant control over all other branches of the state, being in some cases free from institutional checks and balances […O]fficial corruption runs rampant, [the president] governs more or less unchecked, and endless layers of bureaucracy weigh down the government.
This presents a real problem for [the country's] liberals. The advantages of democracy, after all, routinely get lost in societies divided along ethnic and religious lines, and, [here], these allegiances are rapidly crowding out all others. As a result, the very things that make for shifting majorities in liberal democracies--civic concerns, economic calculations, political preferences--have increasingly taken a backseat to the latest edict from [religious leaders].
I was reminded of President Bush's assertion in his inaugural address that he seeks to end tyranny. One wonders, however, whether he is truly interested in pursuit of that goal, or rather in simply replacing the old-fashioned tyranny with a new and improved version. In Bush's view, peace and freedom have become freakishly Orwellian threats; you will submit to our will for you to have peace and freedom, or we'll bring it to you with war and oppression.
The guise of propriety is undermined by close examination of the realities. In a tyrannical governorship, opposition is controlled through intimidation. We associate such intimidation with old school tyrants like, ironically, Saddam Hussein, whose death squads handily eliminated any dissention with all the death or destruction required. In Bush's updated version, the intimidation is of a less violent but no less perilous sort, where any opposition is crushed with the burden of carrying the tag of treason. Those who seek to make their voices heard by casting a vote for a challenger are subjected to questionable voting machines, prohibitive waits, and excessive challenges by controlling party operatives. With dissenting voices of the minority party's elected representatives silenced at every turn, and the rank-and-file relegated to casting a vote and hoping for the best, real opportunity for change remains elusive. In the new tyranny of liberty, democracy is the opiate of the masses.
What better way to quell the threat of revolt than to offer the chance to effect change once every few years, through the simple and effortless act of casting a ballot. But when those ballots have lost any remnant of power, then they have also lost all sense of purpose, and the act of democracy becomes an impotent gesture, its sole meaning to stave off acts of rebellion against an increasingly centralized and exclusionary ruling class.
We are, to be sure, collectively reluctant to acknowledge that our democracy is slowly becoming little more than a useful tool to mollify and distract any element that would seek to impede the increasingly boundless control of the Right. We tell ourselves that all the things that contribute to the steady march toward authoritarianism—no checks and balances, media deregulation, weak and ineffectual opposition—will be solved as soon as we get another chance to vote. But the vote came and went, and the will of the authoritarians triumphed over the will of change. It will not get easier to undo the damage with the last shreds of our democratic system; it will only become more difficult, and more unlikely.
Yet our tunnel vision controls our response. We look to '06 with blinders, ignoring the reality that focusing steadfastly onto a democratic solution is the very thing that will eventually render such a solution an impossibility. What will they accomplish in the next two years while we wait? What schemes will deepen their hold on us all while we depend on our votes to save us?
We must not give up on our right and our responsibility to vote, but voting alone will not solve the problems we face. Those of us who can look beyond our next chance to trek to the voting booth must find other ways of making our voices heard in the interim. When Ukraine’s government attempted to undermine their democratic principles, there was rioting in the streets. When will we riot in the streets? I wonder, anxiously, what it will take to shake us from our immutable belief that democracy will solve the problem of its own inevitable ruination so long as we depend exclusively on its fading potency.
Citizens of a democracy, we are taught, address their concerns and protest bad administrations and their dire policies on election days. We are polite and respectful as we register our dissent in quiet booths with drawn curtains. But maybe, just maybe, the pride we take in our civility will become our greatest shame.
And what I have consistently talked about is to take a comprehensive approach where we focus on abstinence, where we are teaching the sacredness of sexuality to our children.
My view is, is that we should use whatever the best approaches are, the scientifically sound approaches are, to reduce this devastating disease [HIV/AIDS] all across the world.
And part of that, I think, should be a strong education component and I think abstinence education is important.
I do think that -- and I've said this when I was in Kenya -- that there is a behavioral element to AIDS that has to be addressed. And if there is -- if there's promiscuity and we are pretending that that's not an issue in spreading AIDS, then we're missing part of the answer.
If you said Barack Obama, you win a pony.
Those are all things he said at the Compassion Forum, "an evening with the Democratic presidential candidates to focus on the issues of faith and compassion and how a president's faith can affect us all," last night.
Yes, I have cherry-picked. Yes, he said things about contraception and medical care with regard to both reducing the need for abortion and HIV/AIDS. But do not even tell me I'm being unfair by taking these things out of context, because these are things I do not want to hear my president saying in any context, ever. I do not want a president who believes the "sacredness of sexuality" should be part of a comprehensive sex ed plan. I do not want a president who believes abstinence education is a "scientifically sound" approach to reducing HIV/AIDS in Africa, or that the driving force behind that epidemic is fucking promiscuity.
And I don't even have words for this, especially coming on the heels of the above:
But I also think that -- keep in mind, women are far more likely to be infected now between the ages of 18 and 25 than are men. And that's why focusing, for example, on the status of women, empowering women, giving them microbicides, or other strategies that would allow them to protect themselves when they sometimes in certain situations may not be able to protect themselves from having unprotected sex, all those things are going to be just as important, as well.
When women "sometimes, in certain situations, may not be able to protect themselves from having unprotected sex"? THAT'S CALLED RAPE.
"Since the beginning of the month, we have had 140 cases of rape and defilement," said Rahab Ngugi, patient services manager at the [Nairobi] hospital.
"We were used to seeing an average of about four cases a day, now there is an average of between eight and 10."
Almost half of the cases at the hospital's specialised clinic are girls under the age of 18, Ms Ngugi said. One case was a two-year-old baby girl.
She knows that such a dramatic rise in numbers presenting at the clinic indicates that the reality beyond is far worse.
Only a small percentage of women actually come to receive medical treatment and counselling in the immediate aftermath of a sexual attack, she said. It means they do not get access to the drugs which might prevent the onset of HIV...
Women's position of relative weakness in society is emphasised in times of conflict, Kathleen Cravero, Director of the UNDP's Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery said.
"Battles are fought on women's bodies as much as on battlefields. It is not so much that women are targeted in some deliberate way but their vulnerability makes them easy targets for anger, for frustration, and for people wanting to cripple or paralyse other segments of the community in which they live."
And Obama stands there and talks about abstinence education and fighting promiscuity, characterizing an epidemic of rape as "certain situations [in which women] may not be able to protect themselves from having unprotected sex."
And that's after yet more noise about how we need to listen to and respect the "people of good will" who want to overturn Roe, how "potential life" has a "moral weight" that must be considered when discussing abortion, and how he believes abortion opponents should continue fighting the good fight trying to change the laws.
I've been accused numerous times of "only voting for Clinton because she's a woman" and ridiculed for that, as if white men haven't been voting on race and gender for the entire history of this country. Meanwhile, Obama has shown time and again that he is tone-deaf about women's issues at best, outright sexist at worst, and so worried about keeping conservative Christian voters on his side that he consistently uses their frames to discuss abortion, sexuality, and even rape. Yet I'm just playing irrational identity politics if I support the presidential candidate who famously declared that "women's rights are human rights," who does not waver on her pro-choice stance even when explaining it in the context of her Christian faith, who actually, manifestly gives a damn about the systematic oppression of women throughout the world--and who yes, takes these things personally, just as I do, because she's a woman.
Fine. Whatever. Just consider me proudly irrational then.
Yesterday, I was listening to Iain (aka Mr. Shakes) order a sandwich (which is always an event fraught with drama at Shakes Manor), and afterwards I commented to him how the differences in men's and women's socializations are evident in the smallest things, like a phone call to a sandwich shop.
Liss: You said, 'Gimme one of these and gimme one of those and gimme one of that other thing, too,' which is something I could never say without sounding like a bitch, even though your tone was perfectly polite.
Iain: Tootally. When it's two men, ye joost bark at each oover, because that's hoo ye get fings doone. Boot woomen are expected tae be poolite.
Liss: Uh huh. I always felt like I couldn't be as efficient in a corporate job as my male colleagues could, because if I were as curt as they were, no matter how pleasant my tone, I had to deal with attitude toward my perceived bitchiness.
Iain: Yeah, I've tootally seen that at woork. [He went into a brilliantly observed but casually reported description of the differences he's noticed in how women he's training are regarded by male clients versus how he is regarded.] Noo matter hoo good they are, woomen never seem tae get quite as mooch respect as men.
Liss: You've noticed that, eh?
From there the conversation turned to a general discussion of corporate culture and women's role within it. Iain told me he'd noticed how maternity leave is viewed unfairly and leaves women at a disadvantage, how female coworkers with the same jobs as the guys—and hence the same responsbilities—still seem to have the lion's share of child-rearing responsibilities at home, and the differences between the family lives of the male senior executives he knows (married, with kids) and female senior executives he knows (all unmarried, mostly without kids). He then observed, sort of vaguely, that women seem to "buy into the whoole coorpoorate fing less than men."
Liss: Yeah, women are generally less invested in corporate culture, but that's attributable to a systemic problem of inequality more than something intrinsic to womanhood.
Iain: I dinny fink it's intrinsic, eiver. There's definitely soomefing else...like ye said, soomefing wroong wif the system...
Liss: If you were asked to spend your whole life training for a marathon with the caveat that the medals were reserved for white men, that you could commit your life to it but only come in fourth at best, would you do it?
Iain: Good point.
Liss: It's rather discouraging; that's why a lot of women run the race for its own sake, but don't necessarily try to win.
Iain: Woo, yeah. [He paused a moment, taking that information on board.] Good fing there are woomen who do, though, all the Shakespeare's Sisters who try tae change fings wif their wee teaspoons.
Liss: [feeling very grinny and on the verge of blubby] This from the man who once told me soon after we'd met that he'd be emasculated if a woman sent him flowers.
Iain: I dinny ken what yer oon aboot, wooman. That moost have been soome oover blooke, who isn't as enlightened as I am! Now give me a kiss, wooman.
And so I did.
[Consider this my answer to the question of how to be a good straight feminist boyfriend. 1. Pay attention. 2. Honor your girl's teaspoon. 3. Kisses.]
Well, that didn't take long. If you were wondering which of the mainstream right-wing pundits would come right out and call Barack Obama a Marxist for his "clinging to religion" comment, wait no longer. William Kristol, whose idea of a small town is Greenwich Village, whips out his college-worn edition of Marx to find the exact quote about religion being the opiate of the masses; or, as he quotes from the original German, “Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes.”
Now, this is a point of view with a long intellectual pedigree prior to Marx, and many vocal adherents continuing into the 21st century. I don’t believe the claim is true, but it’s certainly worth considering, in college classrooms and beyond.
But it’s one thing for a German thinker to assert that “religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature.” It’s another thing for an American presidential candidate to claim that we “cling to ... religion” out of economic frustration.
And it’s a particularly odd claim for Barack Obama to make. After all, in his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, he emphasized with pride that blue-state Americans, too, “worship an awesome God.”
What’s more, he’s written eloquently in his memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” of his own religious awakening upon hearing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “Audacity of Hope” sermon, and of the complexity of his religious commitment. You’d think he’d do other believers the courtesy of assuming they’ve also thought about their religious beliefs.
And you would think that Mr. Kristol would trip over his own concept of irony -- assuming he has one -- to see how funny it is for him and his fellow right-wingers to take Mr. Obama to task when it has been they who have exploited the fear and loathing of the religious for their own political gains for a generation. The Republicans have counted on the Marxist opiate concept of religion to fill their coffers and the voting booths. It was the Republicans who whooped up the culture war against gay marriage, reproductive choice, stem-cell research, and Hollywood entertainment at the hands of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson, all in concert with the GOP and the RNC, and it was the Bush administration who went to the length of setting up a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives only to have them laughing up their sleeves like Elmer Gantry at the gullibility of the faithful. "Thanks for the money and the votes; now get lost."
But wait; it gets even better.
What does this mean for Obama’s presidential prospects? He’s disdainful of small-town America — one might say, of bourgeois America. He’s usually good at disguising this. But in San Francisco the mask slipped. And it’s not so easy to get elected by a citizenry you patronize.
And what are the grounds for his supercilious disdain? If he were a war hero, if he had a career of remarkable civic achievement or public service — then he could perhaps be excused an unattractive but in a sense understandable hauteur. But what has Barack Obama accomplished that entitles him to look down on his fellow Americans?
It's ironic for Mr. Kristol to be chastising Sen. Obama for not having accomplished much, especially since he has established his reputation by doing little more than sitting in his own ivory tower and looking down his own nose at the small town people he has patronized and exploited for all these years and trying to stir up some outrage, not to mention hauling out the old nostalgia for the days of red-baiting.
It would be hilarious were it not for the grim fact that it was also Mr. Kristol and his chickenhawk fellow travelers who urged us into the war in Iraq and did so by exploiting the patriotism and economic distress of the young men and women from these small towns and used them as cannon fodder for their neocon dreams of American domination. The economic woes that Sen. Obama spoke of are the reasons a lot of them joined the military; both out of a strong sense of patriotism and a need to find a way to better themselves through promises of education and a steady job. But how many of these young men and women have returned home either wounded or in coffins, leaving their families to cling to nothing more than their memories?
It takes a certain amount of gall for William Kristol to criticize someone else for snobbery, but when it comes to things like that, he's full of it.
Welcome to Shakesville, a progressive feminist blog about politics, culture, social justice, cute things, and all that is in between. Please note that the commenting policy and the Feminism 101 section, conveniently linked at the top of the page, are required reading before commenting.
