...to Echidne, too!
Purity and Innocence
[Trigger Warning: War/Violence]
Following assistance from the State Department and Senator Chuck Schumer, a Afghanistan resident who was permanently disabled during the war has been flown to the United States, where he will receive free medical treatment in a residential setting.
He will also presumably receive free rodents for life. This is because Mitch, as he goes by (or so I'm told) is a bird, a steppe eagle to be precise.
Sure. This is a great thing. United Statesians deserve a pat on the back. Yay us! Yay U.S.!
However.
I can't say that the offer of free lifetime healthcare extends to, say, wounded Afghani people. There are good reasons for this. We can't afford it (although in fairness, we're having a hell of a time coming up with the money to maim them in the first place). And in theory, US (and allied) troops are doing what they can to improve the healthcare infrastructure of Southwest Asia.
A cheaper alternative would have been to not invade Afghanistan in a war of choice. Then there'd be fewer injured birds. And people. And hospitals. Not choosing to go to war would have been, as the kids say these days, a more sustainable solution.
Thus, this is really a post about things that aren't injured birds. I have a sneaking suspicion that our eagerness to care for wildlife (and children, which oddly enough seem to fall into the same category), stems from the values we map (or don't) on to them. Wildlife is pure. Children are innocent. We have a sacred responsibility to care for them/not shoot them in the wing. Call me a socialist, but I actually agree with that. However, what is it about the adults in Afghanistan that frequently doesn't get them the same care and attention?
Prove the Point MORE
[Trigger warning for police brutality, violence, murder.]
Nearly two years ago, a young man named Oscar Grant was executed by former police officer Johannes Mehserle, who shot Grant at point-blank range unprovoked and unnecessarily. Mehserle was arrested on suspicion of murder, which was a reasonable charge to anyone with an internet access and a functional sense of decency. (Kevin retains video of the incident here. A trigger warning applies. It is very upsetting to watch.)
In the subsequent trial, the jury could have found Mehserle guilty of second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, or involuntary manslaughter. After six and a half hours of deliberation, they convicted him of the least serious charge, on the basis of Mehserle's absurd contention that he had accidentally pulled out his gun (located on his right hip) instead of his taser (located on his left hip) and fired a round into Oscar Grant before realizing he'd "grabbed the wrong weapon."
Mehserle faced up to 14 years in prison. He was sentenced by Judge Robert Perry to two, with 292 days as time served and credits for good behavior. Mehserle will be free in 72 days.
Quite reasonably, citizens of the area who don't like the idea that a cop could kill them for the cost of 72 days of prison time protested the sentence.
And the same (and/or neighboring) police force whose member effectively got away with cold-blooded murder caught on camera then did this. (The author of that piece is Shaker Westa.)
Welcome to America 2.0.
The Overton Window: Chapter Twenty-One
I think we all agreed that chapter fifteen was the creepiest, right? You remember the whole "don't tease the panther" incident, I hope. (And if you're fortunate enough to have scrubbed that from your brainpan, go here and re-read it.) I only bring this up because, somehow, Beck et al have produced a chapter even more unsettling. And there is no sex in it at all.
The taxi takes Molly and Noah to Molly's ... ummm ... safehouse? Hideout? Crash pad, like maybe the teabaggers are going to the matresses? "Come on up. See how the other half lives" is her invite. And the author spends the next page describing how run down and ramshackle the building is. I suppose this is to contrast with opulence of Noah's condo.
Inside, however, the place is quite nice:
Great effort had obviously been taken to transform this space into a sort of self-contained hideaway, far removed from the city outside. What had probably once been a huge, cold industrial floor had been renovated and brought alive with simple ingenuity and hard work.
Ah, yes, those ingenious and hardworking teabaggers. They made their living space nice. Not like Noah, who got his from Daddy. Noah is a schmuck for not living in a shitty apartment, obviously. He could learn a lot from these teabaggers.
"How many people live here?" Noah asked.
"I don't know, eight or ten, so don't be surprised if you see someone. They come and go; none of us lives here permanently. We have places like this all around the country so we can have somewhere safe to stay when we have to travel."
I don't know, but that sounds... well... vaguely communist, what with all the sharing of housing and whatnot. It also sounds, to be perfectly honest, a little like a criminal hideout. Or maybe a terrorist cell. Why the fuck are there "places like this all around the country"? Why do they need somewhere safe to stay? Is the Hyatt not an option?
Molly offers to fetch Noah some tea (of course!) while he settles in.
He walked about midway into the front room and found a slightly elevated platform enclosed in Japanese screens of thin dark wood and rice paper panels. There were a lot of bookshelves, a dresser, a rolltop desk, and a vanity. But the space was dominated by a large rope hammock, its webbing covered by a nest of comfy blankets and pillows, suspended waist-high between the red shutoff wheels of two heavy metal pipes that extended up from the floor through the ceiling. This room within a room was lit softly by small lamps and pastel paper lanterns. The total effect of the enclosure was that of a mellow, relaxing Zen paradise.
How ingenious and hardworking. And creepy:
A glance through the nearest bookcase revealed a strange assortment of reading material. Some old and modern classics were segregated on a shelf by themselves, but the collection consisted mostly of works that leaned toward the eccentric, maybe even the forbidden. There didn't seem to be a clear ideological thread to connect them; Alinsky's Rules for Radicals was right next to None Dare Call It Conspiracy. Down the way The Blue Book of the John Birch Society was sandwiched between Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book, Orson Scott Card's Empire, and a translated copy of The Coming Insurrection. Below was an entire section devoted to a series of books from a specialty publisher, all by a single author named Ragnar Benson. Noah touched the weathered spines and read the titles of these, one by one:
The Modern Survival Retreat
Guerrilla Gunsmithing
Homemade Grenade Launchers: Constructing the Ultimate Hobby Weapon
Ragnar's Homemade Detonators
Survivalist's Medicine Chest
Live Off the Land in the City and Country
And a last worn hardcover, titled simply Mantrapping.
While there is no "clear ideological thread" that explains the commie lit jumbled up with works by professional homobigots, I think the list of survivalist manuals is more than telling.
"Those are some pretty good books she's got there, huh?"
It was only the tranquil atmosphere and a slight familiarity to the odd voice from close behind that kept him from jumping right out of his skin. He turned, and there was Molly’s large friend from the bar, nearly at eye level because of the elevated platform on which Noah was standing.
"Hollis," Noah said, stepping down to the main floor, "how is it that I never hear you coming?"
The big man gave him a warm guy-hug with an extra pat on the shoulder at the end. "I guess I tend to move about kinda quiet."
And certainly, Hollis, gentle giant that he is, likes Homemade Grenade Launchers. Hollis, though, seems to like guns. And bullets. And guy-hugs. Yay for guy-hugs! He shows Noah around the compound, taking him to his own room for a moment.
In the room that Hollis identified as his own there was a low army cot, several neatly organized project tables, and a large red cabinet on wheels, presumably full of tools. All these things were arranged as though bed rest wasn't even in the top ten of this man's nighttime priorities.
"What is all this stuff?" Noah asked. One table was covered with parts and test equipment for working on small electronics, another was a mass of disassembled communications equipment, and a third was devoted to cleaning supplies and the neatly disassembled pieces of a scary-looking black rifle and a handgun. More weapons were visible in an open gun safe to the side, but his focus had settled on the nearest of the workbenches. "Are you making bullets there?"
Yes, Hollis is spending his Saturday night just like any American patriot, making ammo. In his safehouse. With a complete stranger looking on. Okay, maybe Noah isn't a complete stranger. He did get Hollis out of jail and all that. Still, seems odd to me.
Noah asks why he's making ammo, instead of, you know, buying it at Walmart like most folk.
"Noah, do you like cookies? And which do you like better? Do you prefer those dry, dusty little nuggets you get in a box from one of them drive-through restaurants? Or would you rather have a nice, warm cookie fresh out of the oven, that your sweetheart cooked up just for you?"
So... homemade bullets are just like cookies from your sweetheart? Gak! WTF? This book is really starting to get to me. I just so cannot comprehend the sentiment here. It is so far beyond my reasoning.
Molly returns with tea, and shows Noah around the rest of the apartment.
At the end of this hall they came to a large room with a diverse group of men and women sitting around a long conference table. On a second look Noah saw that this furniture consisted of a mismatched set of folding chairs and four card tables butted end to end.
The people inside had been listening to a speaker at the head of the table but the room became quiet when they saw the newcomers.
"Everybody," Molly said, "this is Noah Gardner. And Noah, these are some of the regional leaders of the Founders' Keepers.
The regional leaders of the Founders Keepers are a diverse group. Just like the diversity at the Stars 'n Stripes pub. Just like the diversity in the real teabagging movement. What? They're diverse! It says so right there! Molly introduces the group, all using pseudonyms: Patrick, Ethan, George, Thomas, Benjamin, Samuel, John, Alexander, James, Nathaniel, another Benjamin, Francis, William, and Stephen. Oy.
One of the Founders Keepers leaders readers reads from a Thomas Jefferson text to the group. Noah is confused. I am unsettled.
"So what's the meaning of all this?" The book was clearly hand-bound and not mass-manufactured. It looked old but well cared for, and there was a number on the inside front cover, suggesting that this one and the others were part of a large series.
"It's one of the things the Founders' Keepers do," Molly said. "We remember."
"You remember speeches and letters and things?"
"We remember how the country was founded. You never know, we might have to do it again someday."
What? Now I am confused too. They need to remember how the country was founded in case they need to found it again? That doesn't make much sense, does it? I could see needed to know the Constitution, so you've a good base of law... but the how it happened? I'm not sure the how of it would translate, contextually. Unless slave-owning white dudes are somehow relevant in the post-NWO landscape. That seems a stretch.
"So you keep it in your heads? Why, in case all the history books get burned?"
"It's already happening, Noah, if you haven't noticed. Not burning, but changing. Ask an elementary school kid what they know about George Washington and it's more likely you'll hear the lies about him, like the cherry-tree story or that he had wooden dentures, than about anything that really made him the father of our country. Ask a kid in high school about Ronald Reagan and they'll probably tell you that he was a B-list-actor-turned-politician, or that he was the guy who happened to be in office when Gorbachev ended the Cold War. Ask a college kid about Social Security and they'll probably tell you that it was intended to provide guaranteed retirement income for all Americans. Ask a thirty-year-old about World War II and they'll recite what they remember from Saving Private Ryan. Do you see? No one really needs to rewrite history; they just have to make sure that no one remembers it."
Okay. So, Ronald Reagan wasn't a B-list-actor-turned-politician? I mean, I get that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and should be outlawed, it's the one thing I really learned from reading this book. But what the hell is she talking about? I need me an elementary school history text, pronto. I'm getting lost here.
Molly throws out some Thomas Paine quotes and hands Noah his tea. Noah asks about Hollis' guns.
"That looked like a small arsenal Hollis had back there," Noah said. "Are all those guns legal?"
"Two of them are registered. The rest are just passing through. He's on his way to a gun show upstate."
"So the answer's no, they're not legal."
"Do you know what it took to make those two guns legal in this city?"
"I can imagine."
"It took over a year, and the guy who owns them had to get fingerprinted, interviewed, and charged about a thousand dollars to exercise a constitutional right."
Then, of course, there's a long bit about the Second Amendment. No need to tell you where Molly and Beck come down on that issue. Molly says "The militia was every citizen who was ready and able to protect their community, whatever the threat. It was as natural as having a lock on your front door." And no, I have no fucking idea what that even means. Militias are as natural as locked doors, maybe?
Noah asks about Molly's books:
"I was noticing some of the titles. That's quite a subversive library."
"People use some of those books to smear us, and some of them were written by our enemies. I read everything so I'll know what I'm up against, and how to talk about them. You don't see any harm in that, do you?"
"Who's this Ragnar Benson lunatic?"
She smiled. "He's not a lunatic. That's a pen name, by the way; hardly anyone knows who he really is. He writes about a lot of useful things, though."
"Like how to make a grenade launcher in your rumpus room?"
"That one was from his mercenary days. He's mellowed out some since then. Now he's more about independence, and readiness, and self-sufficiency, you know? The joys of living off the grid."
Ah yes, the joys of living off the grid. Whatever those joys are. It's not clear. Nor is it clear which books in her library are used to "smear" teabaggers, and which are written by their "enemies." But when Noah asks about Ragnar Benson, Molly confides two things.
First, Ragnar Benson is Hollis' uncle. (Faction!) Secondly, Ragnar has retired and Hollis now writes books under that name.
See? I told you this chapter was creepy. There really is a Ragnar Benson (a pseudonym) who writes books with titles like Guerrilla Gunsmithing, Breath Of The Dragon: Homebuilt Flamethrowers, Home-Built Claymore Mines: A Blueprint For Survival, The Most Dangerous Game: Advanced Mantrapping Techniques. These books are real. Scary as that may be.
And one of the characters, one we, the reader, are supposed to have some affection for, is now revealed to be that author. It's mind boggling. It's really unfathomable. I don't want the heroes of my books to be people who've authored Homemade C-4: A Recipe For Survival. The idea that someone else does is really unsettling.
Molly and Noah sink into the hammock, with Noah suggesting "What do you say we just stay here like this, for a really long time." Molly would love to, but she can't. Though, I am pretty sure Noah wasn't being literal. Molly encourages him to finish his tea, which he does in one long swallow.
Molly shows Noah her bracelet. It is inscribed with a Thomas Paine quote "We have it in our power to begin the world over again" on one face. On the other: "Faith Hope Charity."
"I guess I don't really understand," Noah said. "I mean, I understand those words, but that's not really a battle plan, is it? Do you know what you're up against?"
"Yes," Molly said. "But I doubt that our enemies do."
"So tell me."
She explains, sort of, what it all means. No, it doesn't really make sense. She tells how 'no taxation without representation' was coined by a preacher and how the French revolution failed because they don't believe in God in France. (Which totally goes against what I learned in The Da Vinci Code. Wasn't Amélie's grandpappy Jesus? She was French, right? No? Argh!)
"Our rights come from a higher power, Noah. Men can't grant them, and men can't take them away."
Okay. God doesn't like taxes? Or something. And we should definitely not render unto Caesar what is Caesar's? And all of our rights, like not having to quarter soldiers in our homes in time of peace, come from God? And no man can interfere with your right to own an assault rifle? Because God? Whut?
"And charity is simple. We believe that it's up to each of us to help one another get to that better tomorrow."
Unless the way to help your fellow man is by paying taxes to ensure a social safety net for the disadvantaged. Because that is bullshit, my friends. Remember when Mel Brooks quoted Jesus in Spaceballs?: "Fuck the poor!" Amen, sister!
If anyone can make sense of this, you're clearly smarter than I am. (And if you can't, well, it's probably safe to assume you're still smarter than I. At least you're not reading this claptrap voluntarily.)
Suddenly, Noah feels dizzy. He thinks, for a moment, that maybe he's drunk. Like in college. He tries to get up, but Molly tells him to be still.
As the cloudy room began to swim and fade he saw that three strangers were standing nearby, young men dressed in business suits and ties.
"It's time to go, Molly," one of them said, the voice far away and unreal.
Whoops! Looks like Molly slipped Noah a mickey.
Whut?
"You'll stay with him, Hollis, won't you?"
"I'll stay just as long as I can."
He felt her arms around him tight, her tears on his cheek, her lips near his ear as the blackness finally, fully descended. Almost gone, but the three simple words she'd whispered to him then would stay clear in his mind even after everything else had faded away into the dark.
"I'm so sorry."
Molly, our hero, has spiked Noah's drink. Why? I have no idea. Maybe it will become clear later. I doubt it. Nothing in this book has made any sort of sense, so I don't think this will either. Just another random plot point in a series or random plot points.
In good news, at least something happened in this chapter. Right? That sort of makes up for nothing much happening the last five or six. Though, we didn't really need fifteen pages to get there. She could have just drugged him at the start of the chapter. But I guess then we'd never have learned that Hollis is Ragnar Benson. And we'd have missed all that bullets as cookies stuff. Truthfully, I could have stood to miss that. Gun fetishism always gives me the creeps. But then, so does our hero poisoning her love interest.
Happy Blogiversary...
...to Mustang Bobby, celebrating seven years of barking and woofing. Woot!
Congratulations, MB!
Olbermann Back on the Air
I hope he's learned his lesson!
Keith Olbermann will be allowed to resume his nightly program on MSNBC on Tuesday, the channel's president said Sunday night, after he was suspended for donating money to three Democratic candidates.Funny how that went from an "indefinite" suspension to a four-day weekend as soon as the network's hypocrisy and its corporate master's own political donations became a matter of public interest.
The policy at MSNBC's parent, NBC News, says journalists cannot make political contributions without permission from the head of the news division. "After several days of deliberation and discussion, I have determined that suspending Keith through and including Monday night's program is an appropriate punishment for his violation of our policy," the MSNBC president, Phil Griffin, said in a statement. "We look forward to having him back on the air Tuesday night."
Principles!
Hope you had a nice long weekend, Keith.
DADT Repeal Unlikely
Despite Defense Secretary Robert Gates' exhortation to Congress to "act quickly, before new members take their seats, to repeal the military's ban on gays serving openly in the military," the chances of Don't Ask Don't Tell actually being repealed appear to be vanishingly slim for the near future. Again.
The attachment to the Defense Bill which would pass the repeal is currently a political football being tossed around in Senate Armed Services Committee negotiations between the Committee's top Democrat and Republican, Senators Carl Levin and John McCain, who are "in talks on stripping the proposed repeal and other controversial provisions from a broader defense bill, leaving the repeal with no legislative vehicle to carry it."
And the Obama administration, in a move that will surprise absolutely fucking no one, has failed to identify the repeal as a priority for the final session of the outgoing Democratic House majority.
Asked what the White House priorities are for the coming congressional session, press secretary Robert Gibbs named four issues—tax cuts, a nuclear-arms treaty with Russia, a child nutrition bill and confirmation of Jack Lew as White House budget director. Asked why he wouldn't put gays in the military on the list, Mr. Gibbs said it looked like Republicans would block action.So, ya know, why even try?
(Hey, Mr. President: If you want to know why your party lost last week, maybe it's because you let the Republicans set the agenda even when they're in the minority. Just saying.)
Meanwhile, also to resoundingly no surprise, incoming House Speaker John Boehner is also not keen to make repealing DADT a legislative priority.
The issue isn't high on the to-do list of Rep. John Boehner (R., Ohio), the likely next House speaker. "In the midst of two wars, even with one winding down, I certainly don't think this will be a priority," said Michael Steel, spokesman for Mr. Boehner. When the House voted to repeal don't ask earlier this year, five Republicans voted yes and 168 voted no.That a Democratic executive branch and Democratically-controlled Congress, with the help of the judiciary, could not get DADT overturned, despite the President's claim to want to put an end to the profoundly discriminatory policy, is indicting evidence of the Democratic Party's institutional fecklessness on social justice issues.
Marginalized people have no champion in the US government anymore.
Open Thread
Hosted by watercolors.
This week's open threads have been brought to you by art supplies.
Happy Birthday, Iain!!!
It's my burfday!
(And not just any birthday, but his 35th birthday, which is the age that really felt Officially Grown Up to me. And, as I discovered after previously mentioning the significance I'd attached to that number, to a lot of other people, too.)
Once upon a time, I mentioned to my friend Mannion that Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks had always been my favorite Hollywood couple. "Not Bogart and Bacall?" he asked. "Not Newman and Woodward?"
"Nope," I replied. "Definitely Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks."
He asked why. It was because of something Anne Bancroft once said. Yes, that Brooks made her laugh. And this: "When I hear his key in the lock at night my heart starts to beat faster. I'm just so happy he's coming home. We have so much fun." I can totally relate.
I'll never get over my crush on Iain.
There will never be anyone with whom I more want to share good news, with whom I most want to celebrate my successes or lament my failures, with whom I more want to see a movie I'm dying to see, or passionately discuss a book I loved, or play Rock Band until my fingers are ready to fall off.
(True Fact: I am composing this Friday evening. I just at this very moment got a text from Iain, who is on the train on his way home from work. It reads: "Totes wanna play some Rock Band with you tonight if you feel like it!" I do. I do I do I do.)
Tonight I will take him to dinner at his favorite restaurant, and, nearly ten years after our first dinner date, I am still excited to gaze at him across a table and have a tumbling conversation about interesting things.
Which reminds me of something else Anne Bancroft once said about Mel Brooks. "I'd never had so much pleasure with another human being. It was that simple."
I can totally relate to that, too.
I love you, Iain. Happy Birthday.
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!
Open Thread on Olbermann
So, as you may have heard, Keith Olbermann has been suspended from MSNBC indefinitely without pay because he made three campaign contributions to Democratic candidates.
There is a shit-ton of coverage at Memeoradum, and I've been retweeting a lot of good stuff worth checking out.
Frankly, I don't give a fuck about Keith Olbermann on a personal level, but the principle of this thing is ridiculous. FAIR rightly asks:
A journalist donating money to a political candidate raises obvious conflict of interest questions; at a minimum, such contributions should be disclosed on air. But if supporting politicians with money is a threat to journalistic independence, what are the standards for Olbermann's bosses at NBC, and at NBC's parent company General Electric?Here's the thing: Keith Olbermann doesn't pretend to be objective, nor is he required to be. So who gives a fuck if he makes campaign contributions? No one was busily thinking Keith Olbermann wasn't liberal. He isn't an anchor on the evening news. I don't give a fuck if Glenn Beck is making contributions to SarahPAC, either.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, GE made over $2 million in political contributions in the 2010 election cycle (most coming from the company's political action committee). The top recipient was Republican Senate candidate Rob Portman from Ohio. The company has also spent $32 million on lobbying this year, and contributed over $1 million to the successful "No on 24" campaign against a California ballot initiative aimed at eliminating tax loopholes for major corporations (New York Times, 11/1/10).
Meanwhile, Boehlert amusingly notes: "Note there are no [asinine] cries that Olbermann has been 'censored.' (Cuz one side is smarter than the other.)" Heh.
Daily Dose o' Cute
"Ahhhhhhhhh, yesssssssssss, that's the spot!"
"Why did you stop, Two-Legs? MUSH!"
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.]
Pro-Choice
Here are some reasons that a straight, married feminist/womanist woman might have taken her husband's name:
1. Because she was not a womanist/feminist when she got married.
2. Because it was a huge point of contention with her in-laws, or maybe even her own parents, and she was picking her battles.
3. Because a name change makes it more difficult to be found by a violent ex, a stalker/rapist, or anyone else by whom a woman might not want to be found—and a marriage-related name change is easy and doesn't create a public court record.
4. Because she or her husband immigrated for the express purpose of their marriage, and proving that they are a "real" couple to a government still steeped in patriarchal traditions is made significantly easier if she takes his last name.
5. Because she works in a field or at an employer or in a location where not changing her name risks revealing an ideological leaning that could affect her career or target herself/her family for ostracization.
6. Because her maiden name was her father's name and keeping it did not feel like any more a rejection of the patriarchy than taking her husband's name did, and she liked her husband's name better.
7. Because her maiden name was her father's name, and she likes her husband a lot more than her father.
8. Because her family was abusive and her husband's family is wonderful to her, and she wants actively to become a part of it and feels taking their name is a symbol of that joyful joining.
9. Because she and her husband want the same last name, but the law makes it infinitely easier for her to change her name to his than for him to change his name to hers, or for both of them to choose a new name they share altogether.
10. Because despite knowing it comes from a weird, fucked-up patriarchal tradition, there's still some weird, fucked-up place inside her that likes the idea of taking her husband's name—and no feminist/womanist lives a life free of compliance, consciously or not, with weird, fucked-up patriarchal narratives and expectations. But unlike privately calling another woman a bitch or playing the role of Exceptional Feminist with a group of male coworkers or secretly doing all the housework in her own home, the name thing is there for everyone to see and question, every day of her life.
This is hardly a definitive list. Not everyone who reads this selection will consider each (or any) item a legitimate reason for a woman to opt to take her husband's name. Still, few of us would feel inclined to directly tell a womanist/feminist woman who's survived and escaped a profoundly abusive family of origin and found a wonderful partner whose family she adores, and who adore her right back, that her desire to take their name is a betrayal of The Sisterhood.
Few of us would directly tell a rape survivor, whose attacker the justice (ha) system declined to prosecute thus allowing him to continue to stalk and harass her, that she's a traitor to feminist kind if she opts for a quick and quiet name change upon getting married.
Few of us would directly encourage a woman whose immigration status (or whose husband's immigration status) could be imperiled or delayed or made any more difficult than an already-labyrinthine process to prioritize her name over her entire future.
Et cetera.
Yet that is most assuredly what we're doing every time we publicly castigate or question women who have taken their husbands' last names—because there are reasons, not always evident and none of our fucking business, for that choice which can and sometimes do trump political statements on a personal, individual level.
This is not to argue that taking one's husband's name is inherently a feminist choice (although I'm not sure it's inherently not a feminist choice, either, depending on the circumstances). It is merely to say that we cannot (and should not) axiomatically assume anything about a woman who has taken her partner's name, rendering this yet another subject on which the casual passing of judgment is a pernicious affair indeed.
Quite evidently, we each have a responsibility to think critically about our individual decisions, and not pretend they happen in a void even when we make choices for no one's pleasure or security but our own. just because one is doing something for herself doesn't magically turn it into a choice without cultural implications.
But it's eminently possible to critique the culture in which individual choices are made, and the cultural narratives that may affect our decision-making processes, without condemning those individual choices. Or the womanists/feminists making them.
Not every feminist/womanist will make the same choice, nor should they be thus obliged in order to prove feminism's value. Feminism has sufficiently demonstrated its own worth by providing that spectrum of choice in the first place.
And even though not every one of those conceivable choices is implicitly feminist, having a choice is evidence of feminism's reach.
Today in !!Free Markets!!
In light of all the new Congresspeople devoted to keeping government from getting between patients and their doctors/wallets/freedom!!!!!, I thought today was as good a time as any to issue a friendly reminder.
1) In the absence of government intervention, the free market is rapidly changing the healthcare many folks in the US experience. Or don't. Whichever. (The freedom! Why won't somebody think of the freedom?!?)
2) Despite what you may have heard, free markets are, at best amoral. I'd go farther than that, but my therapist says I really need to work on making friends.
The big Catholic hospital here in Syracuse just bought the area's largest private practice. [I wish I had enough money to buy doctors :sigh:] Earlier this year one of the other 3 hospitals in town (which also has a working arrangement with the area's state-owned hospital) bought up another large medical group.
Economies of scale, efficiency, all that crap.
Permit me to lay out two scenarios:
1) The US becomes a double un-secret Muslim socialist dystopia, in which an all-knowing government controls every aspect of healthcare.
2) Some guys (Catholic Health LLC, perhaps?) control every aspect of healthcare.
Furthermore, permit me to make an argument in favor of scenario 1 (the dystopian one). In theory, the people run the government. No, really, I learned about this in school (but see this). Interestingly enough, this seems to be a point that the Tea Partiers really like making. Well, they usually phrase it in terms of 'black/lady people are running the country, and we should put Americans in charge', but you get the idea.
The people, especially the black/lady people do not generally run HealthCo Ltd. That's up to boards of directors, shareholders, all-knowing Messiahs, whichever. Okay, that last one's a bit of a joke, but it's less funny when you think about the possibility reality of healthcare providers refusing to provide healthcare due to self-imposed religious mandates.
There are those of us who choose our doctors and emergency rooms very carefully, on account of how badly we were treated (or :ahem: not) those times we really needed medical care, what with the gender non-conformance/ladybusiness/virulent non-Christianness/fatness/queeritude/lack of privilege.
There are also those of you who don't get to chose your doctors at all, because:
1) You live in a place where the market will support only one (or less!) healthcare provider.
2) Economies of scale, efficiency, all that crap*.
In both of the scenarios I laid out above, there's a lack of choice. In only one of the scenarios above, do people theoretically have any control over the quality (and quantity) of medical care.
In scenario 1, an unsatisfied (non)-patient has the option to write a letter to a Congressperson, and theoretically, to vote to elect leaders who will improve the healthcare system. In scenario 2, you're either likely to get Ernestine or a confused 'have you even read The Bible?'
I choose dystopia.
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*Which includes the fact that it's just not profitable to give you healthcare.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of Lissie's Knit Hats for Autumn. Perfect for keeping heads warm and hiding fuckhair.
Recommended Reading:
Shark-fu: The New Reality
Echidne: The Trouble With Compromises
Lisa: Truthout About Kyriarchy: An Open Letter To "Feminist" Writers, Bloggers, and Journalists
Fannie: "Human" and "Female" as Mutually Exclusive Categories [TW for sexual violence]
BTD: The Lost Decade Will Continue
Renee: Angelina Jolie, Appropriation, and Dangerous Rape Narratives [TW for sexual violence]
Andy: Queer Kiss Flashmob to Greet Pope Benedict in Spain
Leave your links in comments...
