Starship: "Sara"
Today's Edition of "Conniving and Sinister"
See Deeky's archive of all previous Conniving & Sinister strips here.
[In which Liss reimagines the long-running comic "Frank & Ernest," about two old straight white guys "telling it like it is," as a fat feminist white woman (Liss) and a biracial queerbait (Deeky) telling it like it actually is from their perspectives. Hilarity ensues.]
Jail Is Preferable
File this under continued vilification of poor people:
Republican candidate for governor Carl Paladino said he would transform some New York prisons into dormitories for welfare recipients, where they could work in state-sponsored jobs, get employment training and take lessons in "personal hygiene."I don’t think I can fully break down the classist, sexist, and racist stereotypes/myths embodied in sentiments like these, but just to start:
1. Welfare recipients don’t work outside the home and don’t want to do so. Even before welfare “reform” back in 1996, most recipients worked or sought work. I always wonder if people like Paladino have any idea how paltry benefits are.
2. Being poor/needing assistance is some sort of moral failing that requires institutionalization and constant shame. That people seek welfare assistance is particularly “bad” to people like Paladino—the poor are supposed to suffer nobly and silently. As one commenter romanticized:
[B]ack in the thirties young men were ecstatic to get a job and to develop new skills via the Civilian Conservation Corp. But back then, the poor were tough, honorable folk with intact families… Today's poor aren't poor due to the economy, but the result of hand feeding that created and now sustains society breakdown.Recently, problemchylde commented on this mindset:
All rags-to-riches (or rags-to-bitches, if you want to get all Boondocks about it) stories start with people who are poor but industrious. Tales of kids eating cigarette ash sandwiches to survive. Tales of people saving mustard packets so they have food that stretches through the whole year. Bonus points if your parent proudly refuses government help, or if you suffer through and survive a vitamin deficiency. You’re a rock star if you live many years out on the streets and still pull down a 4.0+ GPA. You have done poverty correctly.I’d advise you to read the whole post.
However, if you take what little disposable income you have and buy sushi, you are doing wrong. Poor people do not want things like smartphones (you’re poor; who are you calling on a smartphone?), televisions (you’re poor; what do you need entertainment for?), nice cars (why wouldn’t you get a modest car to get around when you’re poor), or delicious food (do you know how much ramen you could have bought for the cost of that scone?). Poor people should not take any windfalls or nest eggs or scraped together pennies and expose themselves to luxuries. After all, isn’t that just a brutal reminder of how poor they are any other time? Why not just face the fact that poor is what you are, poor is what you shall be, and poor means that you cannot have nice things?
3. Motherwork is not "real" work/not valuable. The only work that is important/deserving of remuneration occurs outside the home. The article quotes Paladino as saying, “Instead of handing out the welfare checks, we'll teach people how to earn their check.” (Emphasis mine)
4. The mothering of poor women, especially poor women of color, is insignificant/not necessary for their children. As I said at that link,
A discourse has developed in this country to support stealing our children away from us that attacks us as immoral, "illegal," or uneducated. [Remember] black children sold away from their mothers and Native children forced into "Indian schools" so they could be "properly" Christianized and Americanized. In fact, Americanizers of the late 19th/early 20th century spent inordinate amounts of time threatening to take immigrant children from their parents, telling immigrant mothers how their methods of child-rearing were substandard to those of more WASP-y Americans, probably as much time as 20th century welfare critics spent convincing themselves that poor black women did not really love or want their children--they only had them to get more out of the system--and as much time as 21st century anti-immigration proponents spend convincing themselves that Latinas don't really love or want their children--they just want anchor babies.If most welfare recipients are single moms and you move them into dormitories, who takes care of their kids? Or do you institutionalize the children as well, under the blanket assumption that the state will do a “better” job of rearing them? As Dorothy Roberts said in Shattered Bonds, "America’s child welfare system is rooted in the philosophy of child saving—rescuing children from the ills of poverty, typically by taking them away from their parents," (p 26). Which brings me to another problematic idea…
5. Poor people need to be institutionalized/under constant government oversight because of their deficient character and abilities. We already know that the state intervenes disproportionately in poor families of color. According to Roberts, "the public child welfare system equates poverty with neglect," (p 27). And as the article noted:
the suggestion that poor families would be better off in remote institutions, rather than among friends and family in their own neighborhoods, struck some anti-poverty activists as insulting.I think “insulting” is too mild a word.
6. Poor people are unclean, all come from disordered homes and, thus, lack social skills. I mean, he’s going to give them lessons in:
“personal hygiene… the personal things they don't get when they come from dysfunctional homes.”Related to the belief in the disorder/dysfunction of all poor homes and communities, Paladino asserts, "These are beautiful properties with basketball courts, bathroom facilities, toilet facilities. Many young people would love to get the hell out of cities." To live in... jails. And see how he emphasizes the bathroom/toilet facilities? As if this is 1910 instead of 2010 and people aren't used to them?
[snip]
“You have to teach them basic things — taking care of themselves, physical fitness. In their dysfunctional environment, they never learned these things”
As an aside, that comment reminded me of Barbara Bush's assertion, after talking to Hurricane Katrina evacuees in Houston, "So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." The idea that poor people don't have "real" or worthy communities or family and geographic ties is infuriating.
7. Poor people deserve to have their labor exploited. He’s using prisons to house people to extract low-cost labor. I don’t think this idea is so original.
I'm sure there is more that I could highlight in this disaster of a suggestion, but I think you get the idea.
Today in Rape Culture
[Trigger warning for sexual violence on a mass scale.]
One of the most heinous expressions of a rape culture is the use of rape as a weapon of war—and, as has been previously discussed here, the prevalence and intensity of ongoing, endemic sexual violence against women in Congo has been described as the worst in the world. Hundreds of thousands of women have reportedly been raped in Congo, with sexual violence so widespread that Doctors Without Borders has said "that 75% of all the rape cases it deals with worldwide are in eastern Congo."
This morning, the AP reports that as many as 200 women, and possibly more, were gang-raped by rebels near a United Nations peacekeepers' base in Congo over the course of four days. International aid workers report that Rwandan Hutu FDLR insurgents and Mai Mai militia took over Luvungi on July 30, and occupied the town until August 3, at which point the rebels withdrew voluntarily. A spokesperson for the International Medical Corps says their organization has already treated 179 women.
In Reuters' story on the attack, the spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is quoted as saying the rebels "raped several women," only to follow that with: "International Medical Corps (IMC) reported that FDLR systematically raped the population during its four-day stay in Luvungi and surrounding areas. A total of 179 cases of sexual violence were reported."
I'm not sure anything more pointedly, and painfully, underlines the scope of what's happening in Congo than a UN worker calling 179 women "several women." Lest one misunderstand that as callousness on the part of the UN, by way of perspective:
Accurate figures for sexual violence are hard to come by as many rapes are unreported but the United Nations said at least 5,400 women reported being raped in neighbouring South Kivu in the first nine months of 2009 alone.Unfortunately, the UN is currently withdrawing peacekeeping troops from Congo, at the request of the Congo government.
Margot Wallstrom, the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, said in April the withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers from the country would make the struggle against endemic rape "a lot more difficult".I quite honestly don't know what I can say that I haven't already said before, in a hundred different ways, about the catastrophic devastation to survivors, and to entire nations, when rape is used as a weapon of war, forever changing entire populations of women and girls. Nothing makes me feel more helpless than this.
If you want to help, donate to International Medical Corps here. Donate to International Rescue Committee here. Both groups are working to end sexual violence in Congo and provide much-needed aftercare to survivors of sexual violence, too.
Forced March
The Army is investigating whether soldiers were punished for not attending a Christian music concert.
Fort Eustis spokesman Rick Haverinen told The Associated Press he couldn't comment on the specifics of the investigation. At the Pentagon, Army spokesman Col. Thomas Collins said the military shouldn't impose religious views on soldiers.Putting an end to forcing people to attend religious indoctrination is one of the things we went to war for in Afghanistan. Oh, wait... this was a Christian concert. What could possibly be wrong with that?
"If something like that were to have happened, it would be contrary to Army policy," Collins said.
Pvt. Anthony Smith said he and other soldiers felt pressured to attend the May concert while stationed at the Newport News base, home of the Army's Transportation Corps.
"My whole issue was I don't need to be preached at," Smith said in a phone interview from Phoenix, where he is stationed with the National Guard. "That's not what I signed up for."
Smith, 21, was stationed in Virginia for nearly seven months for helicopter electrician training when the Christian rock group BarlowGirl played as part of the "Commanding General's Spiritual Fitness Concerts."
Smith said a staff sergeant told 200 men in their barracks they could either attend or remain in their barracks. Eighty to 100 decided not to attend, he said.
"Instead of being released to our personal time, we were locked down," Smith said. "It seemed very much like a punishment."
Crossposted.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, proud distributors of Matilda's Home Brew.
Recommended Reading:
Melanie: On Relief Efforts for Women and Girls in Pakistan
Andy: Support for Marriage Equality, State by State
[TW for the policing of female bodies] Gayle Force: My little strip of stomach is going to make you lose your mind.
[TW for sexual assault] Renee: This, Too, Is Sexual Assault (and Not a Joke)
[TW for demonizing fat bodies] Victora: The Latest in Sizeism
Samantha: Fat Stigma: We know it exists, but what do we do about it?
Leave your links in comments...
Chipping Away at Roe in Virginia...
The Attorney General for the state of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, who is anti-choice, is trying to circumvent the general assembly by "issu[ing] a legal opinion allowing greater restrictions on abortion clinics, drawing swift criticism from providers who say it could cause some of the facilities to close."
The opinion, issued late Friday, provides legal guidance for the state Board of Health, and does not require legislative action. But pro-choice advocates accuse Cuccinelli of trying to circumvent the General Assembly, which has considered but failed to pass further restrictions on abortion clinics for at least eight years.Essentially, the opinion redefines abortion clinics as medical-surgical facilities, which would create much higher thresholds in terms of required equipment and space. Clinics have previous been "regulated the same way as offices where patients receive oral or plastic surgery."
"We've been waiting for the attorney general to take on abortion providers and it looks like this is his first pitch,'' said Tarina Keene, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia. "These so called regulations are only an attempt to shut down abortion clinics in the Commonwealth of Virginia."
The cost to make the potential changes to meet the requirements of the new designation could put clinics out of business, or cause them to raise their prices, passing on the burden of the new policy to abortion-seeking women.
Keene said if the Board of Health imposes the restrictions, 17 of the 21 abortion providers in the state would most likely have to close their doors.Chip, chip, chip...
Meanwhile, the office of Democratic Senator from Virginia Jim Webb has not issued a press release condemning this overt assault on women's healthcare. The office of Democratic Senator from Virginia Mark Warner has not issued a press release either.
Again, for the twelve millionth or whatever time I ask: Just how fucking stupid do the Democrats think feminist/womanist/pro-choice voters are? Because all the chest-beating about how they're the party that will defend Roe doesn't matter for shit when they evidently don't give a fuck about protecting it from being rendered an impotent statute.
It's frankly bad enough that the Democratic President, leader of an ostensibly pro-choice platform, can't be arsed to make a public statement about these encroachments on the basic bodily autonomy of half the nation's population, but the fact that the two Democratic Senators from the state in which it's happening don't even feel obliged to get one of their lackeys to write up a perfunctory press release is truly appalling.
[H/T to Shaker Museclio.]
B-b-but TRICKLE DOWN!!!!!eleventy!!1!
Krugman, on the Bush tax cuts:
We need to pinch pennies these days. Don't you know we have a budget deficit? For months that has been the word from Republicans and conservative Democrats, who have rejected every suggestion that we do more to avoid deep cuts in public services and help the ailing economy.So...starve the beast, to feed the privileged. Swell.
But these same politicians are eager to cut checks averaging $3 million each to the richest 120,000 people in the country.
What — you haven't heard about this proposal? Actually, you have: I'm talking about demands that we make all of the Bush tax cuts, not just those for the middle class, permanent.
...What's at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. For the sake of comparison, it took months of hard negotiations to get Congressional approval for a mere $26 billion in desperately needed aid to state and local governments.
What's the Deal...
(From The Marvel Comics Illustrated Version of The Empire Strikes Back, a copy of which I found while cleaning the garage this weekend.)
[Cross-posted.]
LOL Sure
CNN: 10 things Obama must do in 10 weeks.
I can't decide which is my favorite part: The juxtaposition of "2. Channel Ronald Reagan: Ronald Reagan, known as the 'great communicator,' put communications front-and-center, [David Morey, a communications expert who advised Obama's 2008 campaign] said," with "3. Propagandize the truth: 'There is a great hunger for leaders who can rise above the political pettiness and tell the truth,' Morey said," as if Reagan's communication style was all about telling the truth, or if I prefer the flat hilarity of:
8. Pay attention to independentsYeah, the BUSH STRATEGIST has a great idea there. Obama should definitely alienate his base and chase those Independents.
It's necessary to fire up the base, but the independents are the ones with the power to swing the election.
"You are going to have your Republicans that support the Republican candidates. You are going to have the Democrats that support the Democratic candidates. The question really becomes what is the mood of the independents," [Ron Christie, a Republican strategist who worked in the Bush administration from 2001 to 2004] said.
A Gallup poll released last month showed independents are leaning toward Republican candidates by a 12-point margin.
"The current snapshot has a clear message: Democrats should be afraid, very afraid," John Avlon wrote in a column for CNN.com.
Oh. Wait.
Open Thread
Hosted by a Nelson Coconut Chair. Want.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by Modern chair design.
Random Weekend Nostalgia Sublime
Shakers know, and Shaker love, the Two Minute Nostalgia Sublime, brought to us Monday through Friday by Deeky. But does anyone ever host a musical TMNS in Deeky's honor? No! (At least, uh, not that I remember.)
But wonders* wishes do come true! So herewith, in honor of Deeky's career as a DVD-cover-model-cum-Ernest-Borgnine-impersonator, are Lonzo and Oscar. (Yes! the Lonzo and Oscar!)
"I'm My Own Grandpa"
*Wishes. Wishes do come true. It's on the box, floating alongside one of Deeky's heads and above the other.
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Thank Maude
For Strippers Near Ground Zero, It's Business as Usual Amid Mosque Uproar.
Phew.
Thanks for bringing the hard-hitting nooz, Wall Street Journal.
Still kinda racist (rather a lot, really): Mayor Bloomberg
[Trigger warning for violence and racism]
In case you missed it (I did until it came up on the local news just now), Michael Bloomberg still has a problem with people of color.
Here's a 13 August quote from the NYC mayor's radio show, where he talks about the best way to strip the Haudenosaunee of tribal sovereignty (in this case, by collecting state taxes on cigarettes):
"I've said this to David Paterson, I said, 'You know, get yourself a cowboy hat and a shotgun,'...If there's ever a great video, it's you standing in the middle of the New York State Thruway saying, you know, 'Read my lips - the law of the land is this, and we're going to enforce the law."
Ooookaaaaay.
The Seneca Nation is not pleased.
The Bloomberg administration has refused to apologize, on the grounds that they think that New York State has the right to collect taxes from tribal nations. Apparently the whole "we should kill you and take more of your land" metaphor was a given for these guys. No, not racist at all.
...Starring Deeky!
In which Liss re-imagines masterpieces of post-Dadaist cinema, making them better by adding me to their classic posters. Today, a film about the greatest thing Santa can give you: Love. The second-greatest thing: The Death Star.
A Grandpa For Christmas
(See also.)
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Phyllis Schlafly: The feminist gestapo goes global.
our dear friend has gone positively apoplectic because the US State Department wants to create a position for an Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues:
The global reach of this new czar's activities opens the door for Obama's feminist constituency to dictate to other countries. The bill calls for a "comprehensive, five-year international strategy to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls internationally" and to set up "gender-integrated, comprehensive and holistic" plans in 20 countries.Heavens to Murgatroid! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
This new feminist gestapo will support the "development and enforcement of civil and criminal legal and judicial sanctions, protections, trainings and capacity." And there's more: The bill authorizes U.S. money to be spent to develop "programs affecting social norms, community attitudes, and male and female participation in violence and response to victims."
Poor Phyllis. So much self-hatred, so little empathy.
Media Training Available
Calling all future Steinems, Maddows, Amanpours and Courics! Do you want to become a political commentator or journalist serving as a strong voice in the media?
That's what the Women's Media Center (WMC) wants to know. They are accepting applications for the final group of trainees for this year in their Progressive Women's Voices program. The training seems to be oriented as much toward women who want to be a voice within the media for their field of expertise as it is to women entering or in the profession of journalism.
Criteria for selection include:
•Identification as a progressive feminist who is a recognized communicator in your field
•Demonstrated media savvy, political knowledge, ability to converse on many issues
•Willingness and desire to promote yourself, engage in new media experiences, and reach media goals
Women representing diverse backgrounds, areas of expertise, professions, ethnicities, ages, geographical regions and levels of experience are encouraged to apply (including those who have previously applied).
Each class includes ten women from around the country who are trained over two separate weekends in New York City. Travel, accommodation, and training expenses are paid for completely by the WMC.
The above link is to the Project's home page, which more fully describes the program, and includes links to both an initial application page and a page where you can nominate someone else for inclusion. The application deadline for this class is September 3, 2010, with trainings to be held November 5-7 and December 3-5 in New York City.
