Why, Margaret Cho, why?
It's not funny when doodz go on about how they want to fuck Sarah Palin or sniff that she's probably frigid, and it's not funny when ostensibly progressive women do it, either.
Fuck, that's just twenty-seven shades of disappointing.
(And lest anyone be inclined to argue that it's somehow ironic, that Cho is appropriating the voice of sexists to make a point, there are 150+ comments that don't see it that way, and she hasn't disabused any of the commenters of the notion. So, um, yeah, on the irony?—not so much.)
And aside from disappointing, it's also bloody unhelpful. Feminism/Womanism does not advocate treating with dignity only the women deemed deserving by Margaret Cho (or Gloria Steinem or Angela Davis or every individual feminist/womanist), but treating all women with dignity.
The reason for that is not because all women are similarly principled or admirable or even likable, but because of how sexism works, i.e. against the collective.
Which makes using sexist attacks against one woman, in addition to disappointing and unhelpful, quite pointedly self-defeating, too.
And while Cho, like many women who have brazenly lived lives in the public eye, might reasonably argue that she doesn't care if she legitimizes attacks like that against her, because it's all so much water off a duck's back, I wish she'd consider that she's also legitimizing attacks like that against women and girls who don't have her gumption, her chutzpah, her safety net provided by fans who love and respect her even if some asshole publicly reduces her to nothing more than her fuckability (or lack thereof).
I wish she'd consider what allying herself with anti-feminist bullies really means, given how sexism works.
[H/T to Shaker Lina. Sarah Palin Sexism Watch: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen. We defend Sarah Palin against misogynist smears not because we endorse her or her politics, but because that's how feminism works.]
Sarah Palin Sexism Watch, #16
Same-Sex Marriage Ban Trails in California
This is great news.
Opposition to a California ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage is mounting following Attorney General Jerry Brown's move to change the language on the initiative, according to a Field Poll to be released today.The anti-equality folks had originally worded it so that it didn't say explicitly that the amendment would ban same-sex marriage. Now it does. Words have meaning.
The poll found that just 38 percent of likely voters support the measure, while 55 percent intend to vote no. That compares with 42 percent in support and 51 percent opposed in July.
Brown amended the Proposition 8 summary language after the state Supreme Court's decision on May 15 to overturn California's previous ban on same-sex marriage.
The pollsters found the amended language played a role in that growing opposition, especially among the 30 percent of likely voters interviewed who had never heard of Prop. 8.
Those voters were much more likely to oppose the measure when read Brown's wording (58 percent against it and 30 percent for it) than those in the same category who were read the old version of Prop. 8 (42 percent against and 37 percent for it), according to the Field Poll.
The Brown language reads, in part: "Eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry." The original version read, in part: "Limit on marriage."
Brown's revision makes it clear that voters are taking away someone's rights and that made the difference, said Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo.
What I can't figure out is why the people who are against same-sex marriage don't just come out and say "We think the idea of two men or two women getting married is icky!" That's because if they did, they would expose themselves (pun intended) as the sex-obsessed busybodies that they are. All of their arguments are based on mythology and fear, so they have to hide behind some faux-rationalization such as "Think of the children!" or "It makes a mockery of traditional marriage!" Seeing as how there's no proof that children raised with two men or two women are confronted with any more of the usual problems that all children face growing up -- except for the bigotry of adults -- and since "traditional marriage" is a catch-phrase for a definition of marriage that has been around for about 150 years (and less than fifty if you count the overturning of the miscegenation laws in 1967), and since no one can prove that because two men or two women living together in marriage in one house on the block suddenly destroy every other marriage on the block, the only thing those pathetic homophobes have left is the sex angle. And since they seem far more obsessed with gay sex than just about every gay man or lesbian that I know, it's them that we have to watch out for, not us.
(Cross-posted.)
Biden Is So Not Having It
So, after Joe Biden said, awesomely, that paying taxes is patriotic, Sarah Palin retorted, mendaciously, that raising taxes is "about killing jobs and hurting small businesses and making things worse." Katie Couric then asked Biden about that during an interview, and he shot back:
How many small businessmen are making one million, four hundred thousand--average in the top 1 percent. Give me a break. I remind my friend, John McCain, what he said--when Bush called for war and tax cuts--he said, it was immoral, immoral, to take a nation to war and not have anybody pay for it. I am so sick and tired of this phoniness. The truth of the matter is that we are in trouble. And the people who do not need a new tax cut should be willing, as patriotic Americans, to understand the way to get this economy back up on their feet is to give middle class taxpayers a break. We take the tax cut they're getting and we give it to the middle class.Sing it, Joey the Shark!
Someone take away the keys to the Straight Talk Express from John McCain and give them to Joe Biden.
[H/T to Shaker Marismae.]
Question of the Day
What one word would you like to see stricken from the English language?
This doesn't mean the concept behind the word, but a word that just sounds horrible to your ears, like, say, moist.
Remember, Ladiez…
…nothing you do will ever be as important as whom you marry:
Sure, you might have your own nearly twenty-year successful career as, say, an actress, writer, producer, and director, but if you're married to someone even more superstarry, you're rendered invisible! But, whatever you do, don't think about marrying someone less superstarry, or—Maude forbid—not marrying at all, because then you'll be rendered incomplete.
This Double Standard brought to you by The PatriarchyTM. Please enjoy, and have a nice day!
[H/T to Shaker Megankay. And, by the way, Yahoo: Her name is Jada Pinkett Smith.]
Good Question
Shaker Constant Comment asks: "Is he a liar, hypocrite, insane, forgetful, heinous, stupid—or all of the above?"
Michelle Obama Sexism/Racism Watch, #14
by Shaker Renee, of Womanist Musings
Any black woman that dares to stand and be counted is often deemed angry by the privileged. O'Reilly is the king of denial and regularly employees his white, male privilege to create bodies of colour as less than. I could probably dedicate an entire blog post to him and his ignorance but others have already done so far more eloquently than I ever could.
O'Reilly is determined to declare Michelle Obama an ABW (angry black woman). This commentary comes without him ever once examining his position of privilege in this world. As an upper class white male, his body exists with great power, and this combined with his position as a media
Michelle is an ABW because she is a woman that is educated, successful and opinionated. Black women have historically fallen into three categories, the licentious whore (read: jezebel), loving nurturer (read: mammy) or ball busting shrew (read: sapphire). Each stigmatization has the specific purpose of creating us as caricatures rather than real people. These stereotypes are one dimensional and the basis of their existence is their reaction to their environments. Black women are universally seen as objects rather than subjects; and personalities like O'Reilly perpetuate these images because it maintains white hegemony.
An autonomous woman that demands respect does not pander to the concerns of the white male power elite and is therefore a threat to their privilege. While he views his questions as innocent interrogations in fact what they are, are an attempt to reduce her validity as a person. If she is angry, the anger is deemed illegitimate. Quite unspoken is the opinion that her anger is based in her refusal to capitulate to the white male power base. Every ABW could be happy if only they would be more like Mammy or Jezebel.
Unlike ABW's, Jezebel and Mammy exist to perpetuate white comfort and white rule. Since slavery, socially black women have been deemed no better than beasts of burden who ultimately exist to find pleasure in the service of others rather than in our own joys and freedom. To decide unilaterally that we are subject rather than object is to declare manumission.Emancipation simply cannot be tolerated because patriarchy and white hegemony depend on a support staff to maintain their rule. If black women refuse to act in collusion with their oppression headship cannot be maintained. Calling a WOC an ABW is a disciplinary action, and it is specifically meant to remind us of our place in the race hierarchy.
Privilege assumes that we have no right to our anger. It is irrational and based on emotion because our historical purpose is to serve. To be angry is to deny the right of white males to their power. The current power structure is a social creation and not an independent source of nature. Osmosis, and fertilization, are acts of nature, encoding bodies with value and difference is a result of our desire to privilege. O'Reilly is not more entitled to autonomy than any other living being and it is this fact that daily he works to fight against. That Michelle will not offer him her breast for nurture or her genitals for pleasure means that she has decided her own worth. If a WOC unilaterally decides that she is an equal rather than a subservient body, O'Reilly and men of his ilk would not exist with privilege. Like any other ruling group in history white males will not release or reduce their privilege and therefore when we hear the taunt of ABW we should understand it for what it is—a call to war in the maintenance of white supremacy.
[Crossposted. Michelle Obama Sexism/Racism Watch: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen.]
Real Genius
So Bill Richardson wants Val Kilmer to be his successor as governor of New Mexico:
"I like the idea. Val Kilmer is a New Mexican; he was Batman. You know there have been successful actors going into politics."Yes, I do know! Like Ronald Reagan, for example.
Is it too much for me to hope that, a la Reagan, Val Kilmer will not only serve as a governor, but go right on to the White House? I want a President Kilmer so bad I can taste it. His secret service name would totally be POTUS ICEMAN, and he could finally realize my dream of changing the national anthem to "Danger Zone."
OMG. I'm all hot and bothered just thinking about it. My Val Kilmer doll is going to see some wild action tonight, bitchez!
Kick In The Eye
For a while now I've been convinced Hurl was the worst show on television, but I've since managed to find something even more repugnant: Discovery Channel's Destroyed in Seconds. Each episode is 30 minutes of planes crashing, factories exploding, boats sinking, burning houses, collapsing buildings, auto wrecks, flames, wracked metal, carnage, destruction and death. All presented as entertainment. Check out the promo:
Or this little bit from the show's website:
From well-orchestrated implosions of massive structures, to rampaging tornadoes, catastrophic mid-air collisions and sudden terrorist attacks, no topic is too trivial or taboo for our show.Yeah, hey, fuck you, Discovery Channel. Why don't you go ahead and just change your name to The Explosion Channel. Between this show, MythBusters' devolution from fun, quirky show to The Hey-Let's-Blow-This-Shit-Up Hour, and it's progeny, the dreadful, dreadful Smash Lab (AKA MythBusters Without The Charisma), Discovery Channel has become the number one network for exploding crap.
When they're not showing Bear Grylls drinking his own piss.
Discovery Channel's website offers up this pathetic bit of linguistic hopscotch as rationalization:
Destroyed in Seconds is not meant to just shock and entertain, but to explore the causes of mass destruction and how, when possible, families and communities bounce back from devastation.The show isn't just meant to shock and entertain, no, not solely, just like 95% of the time. When possible they talk, as an aside, about the survivors. You know, on those rare occasions a plane bursting into flames or a rescue chopper slamming a hospital leave survivors.
I watched an episode of the show and it left me queasy. Literally. How this collection of human suffering is packaged as entertainment is beyond me.
It's National Brotherhood Week
Guess who the Virigina GOP has tapped to appear at a rally for minority outreach this weekend.
George Allen. Yes, that George Allen.They tried to get David Duke, but he had another engagement and couldn't cross it off his schedule.
We checked in with the state GOP to ask if Allen is really an effective front-man for the party's efforts to win over minorities, given the "macaca" scandal.
The answer? Yes! "George Allen has an excellent record on issues of diversity, reaching out to people," Gerry Scimeca, communications director for the state party, told us. "His whole career, his whole life have been a testament to a guy who's treated people equally across racial lines, across every kind of line."
In His Next Life…
…Jon Carroll wants to be a kitten. Hey, who doesn't?
Sophie sleeps in the window, after a busy morning of pooping
on the carpet, because she doesn't like the "Big Girl" litterbox.
Mama brought back the "Baby" litterbox, which is just a big rectangular Tupperware container, so now we're all happy again. Hopefully.
[Thanks to Shaker Vicster for passing that along.]
Matthews Does His Job for a Change
In my No-Ownership Society piece, I referenced a segment on Hardball; here's the video for those who didn't see it, followed by some pertinent bits of the transcript.
[Starting at the 6:00 mark, when Matthews really starts laying into Cantor…]
Matthews: Congressman Cantor, we're in a national crisis right now; I'm looking at the market every day and it's scary; and we have a president of United States who's still in office, he still lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The normal president, at this time of a crisis, would be on national television at 9:00 at night talking to the American people about the problems we face. Do you still take—have confidence in this president you've elected? You voted for Bush the last time; you supported him. Does your party still support President Bush in the way he's leading this country economically? Do you like the job he's doing?
Cantor: [pause] Well, listen, nobody—
Matthews: Do you like the job that Bush is doing?
Cantor: Chris, Chris, no one likes an economic crisis. We have, as I said before—
Matthews: Do you like the job the president is doing, leading this country?
Cantor: —a confident, we have a crisis of confidence. What this president has done through his Secretary of the Treasury has reached out and tried to make the situation right itself so that the families of this country will not have to worry about where their retirement is coming from. And you know what? It is about time that we start to—that we stop the finger-pointing and start solving the problem. That's exactly what this campaign should be about, that is what John McCain is talking about, and you compare that to what Barack Obama has been saying the last 24 hours—let the voters hear that, because the question will be when they go into the ballot box, is, who, in their minds, is going to best be able to approach a problem and solve it as quickly as possible without trying to point fingers and lay blame.
Matthews: The problem you have is that your colleague from Virginia, Tom Davis, who once ran your campaign committee, said that if the Republican Party was dog food, they'd take it off the shelves. And you haven't used the word "Republican" tonight; your party didn't use it in the acceptance speech; John McCain never said the word "Republican"; he never said the word "Bush"; you're trying to take off your uniforms and run from the field of political battle and claim you're not Republicans. You're claiming—you're running against this administration! And I'm not going to let anybody get away with that kind of foolery! You have to take responsibility, sir. The policies of this administration that has gotten us into this mess—you can't walk away and say, "Oh, we had nothing to do with this," can you? Say it if you want to.
Cantor: No!
[crosstalk]
Cantor: Listen, Chris, it is John McCain and Barack Obama who are on the ballot for the presidency of this country, and what the choice is before the people is whether they're going to vote for John McCain, who has had the record of experience, who has been a reformer in Washington, versus Barack Obama, who has been in the Illinois Senate and then been in Washington for three years, with very little record to show for it, and frankly very little demonstrable ability to solve problems—
[crosstalk]
Matthews: Okay, is the Republican Party responsible for the economic policies of this country right now? That's all I'm asking.
Cantor: I think we're all responsible.
Matthews: What do you mean "we're all"?!
Cantor: The Democrats have been in charge of Congress for two years; they have been unable to pass any legislation of any consequence and that also is why we're in the situation that we're in.
Matthews: I have never in my life seen a party run from its own record like the Republicans have.
[snip to 12:03]
Matthews: I'm not pointing fingers here, gentlemen; I want to ask you both to answer a question—yes or no, you can answer either way, you're elected officials; I'm not. Congressman Wexler, do you take responsibility politically for the performance of the Democratic Congress the last two years, yes or no?
Wexler: Of course we do.
Matthews: Okay. Do you take responsibility, Congressman Cantor, for the performance of this president the last eight years? Do you take responsibility for that politically? The performance of this president? Yes or no?
Cantor: I take responsibility for—I take responsibility for my performance in the seat that I hold in Congress and our party in Congress.
Matthews: So it's every man for himself now in your party?
Cantor: Absolutely not. I support the policies that our party has put forward.
Matthews: It sounds like you're jumping ship, sir.
Cantor: No way!
Matthews: Are you defending President Bush's performance as president of the United States, as economic manager of this country, here tonight? Do you defend his economic performance as of tonight? You got him elected!
Cantor: This president has always been for trying to return more of the people's money to them, those who earn it; he has been a commander-in-chief who's gone out after the threat that has been presented to this country—
Matthews: Change the subject. Change the subject. Next time you quote Harry Truman, Congressman Cantor, remember what he said: The buck stops here.
The No-Ownership Society
I've got a new piece at The Guardian's Comment is free America, "Selling out the ownership society," about the GOP's refusal to own any of the policies that have led to the current economic crisis:
What is, perhaps, most unrelentingly galling about their affected posture is that, even as they disown, disclaim and distance themselves from Bush's economic policies and promote McCain as some sort of saviour, they refuse to acknowledge that his proposals are just more of the same conservative überfail that got us into this morass in the first place.Read the whole thing here.
Had he brilliant economic proposals, or even different ones, it might legitimately warrant their abandonment of Bush and his antiquated fiscal sensibilities. But McCain is merely a new face on the same old swill. They won't own it with Bush's name stamped on it, but they'll line up behind near-identical policies in droves, hoping no one will notice – hoping to help sell those policies again to the American people.
It's stunning, really.
The hypocrisy of the personal responsibility brigade brazenly, utterly refusing to take responsibility for this mess, and the irony of these great champions of the ownership society flatly refusing to own the economic policies which have resulted in massive losses among American families, would be positively hilarious if it all weren't so goddamned tragic.
Random YouTubery: Falling Slowly
From Once, which I just watched again this weekend, and this song has been stuck in my head ever since.
If you've never seen this movie...do.
Quote of the Day
"I think it's a stretch to, in any way, to say that she's got the experience to be president of the United States."—Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, on GOP veep nominee Sarah Palin. Hagel also recommended that the McCain campaign "stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia.' That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."
Indeed.
Methinks Senator Hagel has calculated that McCain can't win, so he's auditioning for that cabinet position tantalizingly dangled by one Mr. Barack Obama.
Unintentional Honesty
Economic turmoiling is hard work, but we're in good hands, people—in fact, probably the best for working hard on economic turmoil.
[Thanks to Shaker Sarah in Chicago for passing that along.]
Socialism for the Rich
As a perfect follow-up to my below grousing about the robber barons who never got nuttin' from the government, check out Richard Adams' "Socialism for the rich."
To rewind: last weekend Lehman Brothers asked the US government - the Fed and the US Treasury - for the sort of bailout that was granted six months ago to Bear Stearns, the US investment bank that went belly-up and taken over by JP Morgan after the US authorities agreed to pick up the tab. But the Feds said no this time - and were instantly applauded for this get tough policy, that after bailing out Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and pumping further unprecedented billions - $70bn on Monday alone - into the financial system, the government was saying that the there was no more "too big too fail". The Washington Post's editorial writers cheered loudly: "We think they made the right call. The long list of bailout candidates, headed at the moment by AIG, confirms that policymakers were going to have to send this message sooner than later." The Wall Street Journal's red-in-tooth-and-claw editorial board agreed, saying "We're happy to report that the world didn't end yesterday," and continuing:Read the whole thing here.The Treasury and the Fed have signalled that they can say no. While Lehman's failure has spooked markets, the lesson that a storied investment house can fail without a federal rescue is its own crash course in risk management.Not so fast. Only a few hours later and the Federal Reserve rode into town to rescue AIG, an institution that it doesn't even regulate. As congressman Barney Frank put it: "We had a one-day experiment in free enterprise."
Inherit the Dumbassery
After a brief break, Inherit the Dumbassery is seeing a revival with a new cast--this time in Brunswick, North Carolina:
The Brunswick County school board is looking for a way for creationism to be taught in the classroom side by side with evolution."Of the atheists". Well, Jimmy, you're not a moron at all, are you?
"It's really a disgrace for the state school board to impose evolution on our students without teaching creationism," county school board member Jimmy Hobbs said at Tuesday's meeting. "The law says we can't have Bibles in schools, but we can have evolution, of the atheists."
Simple Fact That You're Missing: The scientific theory of evolution is not "of the atheists"--atheists don't have a special patent on it nor are the only people who subscribe to it.
This production, as usual, is high on the drama and stupidity:
When asked by a reporter, his fellow board members all said they were in favor of creationism being taught in the classroom.You've been watching YouTube videos of Kirk Cameron with a banana and peanut butter nonsense, haven't you?
The topic came up after county resident Joel Fanti told the board he thought it was unfair for evolution to be taught as fact, saying it should be taught as a theory because there's no tangible proof it's true.
"I wasn't here 2 million years ago," Fanti said. "If evolution is so slow, why don't we see anything evolving now?"
But let's move onto where you say that "[evolution] should be taught as a theory", ostensibly because you believe 'it's not a fact'. And here is Simple Fact That You're Missing #2: evolution IS taught as a theory! It's a scientific theory. You don't know what that is? Shocking. Let's review, shall we?
In science, a theory is “an explanation that binds together various experimentally tested hypotheses to explain some fundamental aspect of nature”. For an idea to qualify as a scientific theory, it must be established on the basis of a wide variety of scientific evidence. Its claims must be testable and it must propose experiments that can be replicated by other scientists.
See? No, you probably don't.
The board allowed Fanti to speak longer than he was allowed, and at the end of his speech he volunteered to teach creationism and received applause from the audience.Of course.
When he walked away, school board Chairwoman Shirley Babson took the podium and said another state had tried to teach evolution and creationism together and failed, and that the school system must teach by the law.Oh that mean, scary General Assembly. It has more brains than you and for good reason, apparently.
"Evolution is taught because that's what the General Assembly tells us to teach," Babson said, adding that she doesn't agree with it, but that students must learn it to graduate.
Board attorney Joseph Causey said it might be possible for the board to add creationism to the curriculum if it doesn't replace the teaching of evolution.At least they aren't trying to call it "intelligent design" and are calling it what it really is. For now--I'm sure the Discovery Institute will change that once Ms. McGee contacts them.
Schools' Superintendent Katie McGee said her staff would do research.
Babson said the board must look at the law to see what it says about teaching creationism, but that "if we can do it, I think we ought to do it."
Ugh. These morons are trying to decide curricula for science classes when they don't even appear understand what a scientific theory is. Or what evolution itself is, for that matter. Or Simple Fact #3: that they can teach creationism all the live long day to their kids IN THEIR HOMES. This isn't surprising at all--it's par for the course and it's really fucking pathetic.
Right On
The Obama-Biden ticket is pushing my buttons (in a good way) this week. First Obama releases a refreshingly grown-up campaign advert focusing on the economy, and now Biden bluntly uses the most excellent framing evah to talk about the Democrats' tax plan:
Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden says that paying higher taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans.Yes. YES! Brilliant.
...Under the Democrats' economic plan, people earning more than $250,000 a year would pay more in taxes while those earning less — the vast majority of American taxpayers — would receive a tax cut.
Biden told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Thursday that, in his words, "it's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."
Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization." And I've always thought the Democrats should use that, should connect, at every opportunity, paying taxes and buying civilization.
Every time some bloviating nitwit conservative goes on about how the government never gave him nuttin', the Democrats should say: "Oh, you've never used roads? Never mailed anything? Never logged on to the internet?"
And every time the Republicans talk about the Democrats wanting to raise taxes, the Dems should retort: "Yes, we want to raise taxes on those who can afford it, because with taxes, we buy civilization. We build schools and bridges and freaking spaceships. You got a problem with that?"
