This blogaround brought to you by steamy weather.
Recommended Reading:
Julianne: [TW for racism and misogyny] Jezebels, Welfare Queens—And Now, Criminally Bad Black Moms
scatx: [TW for gender essentialism and misogyny] Do Dads Exist? If So, Do They Parent?
Veronica: [TW for racism and misogyny] What's the REAL Problem?
Latoya: [TW for racism and misogyny] Yet Another "Black Women Can't Get Married" Story (To underline Latoya's point, here's Elle, almost exactly one year ago, talking about the same damn thing!)
Living ~400lbs: [TW for discussion of fad diets] It's not the diet. It's YOU.
Andy: [TW for homophobia] Marcus Bachmann Is Okay with Being Called 'Silver Fox' as Long as It Doesn't Mean He's Gay
Holly: New Feminist Magazine Launching in UK (And seeking contributors.)
Akimbo: [TW for sexual violence, violence, misogyny, parental neglect] Video: A Way to Justice – Engaging Men for Women's Rights and Gender Transformation (Major blub warnings on this one.)
Leave your links in comments...
Monday Blogaround
This is racism.
[Trigger warning for racism, violence, torture, eliminationism, white supremacy.]
For the past three hours, I've been trying to figure out how to write about, and what to say about, this horrendous story about a group of white teenagers in Mississippi who are accused of (and were recorded by surveillance camera) attacking James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old Black man, beating him while shouting racial epithets and white supremacist slogans, and then running him over with a truck, killing him. Anderson was not known to them; they reportedly just set out that night with the explicit intent to do harm to a Black person.
I can't seem to form a cohesive response from my jumble of thoughts.
I want to extend my sincerest condolences to Anderson's family, friends, and colleagues. Losing a loved one is difficult in the best of circumstances; I cannot begin to fathom what it is like to lose someone under these circumstances, to try to find a way to mourn through the reverberating fear and shattered security caused by hate crimes. To know that he is gone only because of violent hatred, to be reminded of that seething, murderous bigotry every time they remember that he is gone, to have to try to navigate one's way to some semblance of peace through that wrenching anger, is just one of the most horrible things I can imagine.
I want to express my sympathies to every person of color who feels this morning just a little less safe, or a little more cynical. I have written before about the lack of familiar and comfortable words we have to offer to survivors of violent crimes; we have none for members of communities targeted by hate crimes, either—because, of course, we don't have those sorts of conversations as a country, which is part and parcel of how we create the atmosphere in which those precise crimes are inevitable.
I want to scream about how badly we failed James Craig Anderson, by failing to communicate the simple idea that racism is wrong. I don't mean someone, anyone, just failing to tell his killers, straightforwardly and clearly, that racism is wrong—although that, too; I mean failing as a culture to practice the idea that racism is wrong, as opposed to constantly treating as if it's axiomatic the idea that racism is wrong while upholding institutional racism in everything from casual slurs and "jokes" to disproportionate representation in Congress. This shit doesn't happen in a void. It happens in the context of profoundly entrenched racial prejudice and white privilege.
I want to write something about that white privilege, which I have, and about how, when white people are provided, over and over, with irrefutable evidence that white privilege is the backdrop against which hate crimes like the murder of James Craig Anderson happen, to simply assert that not actively trading on that privilege, that not being an overt racist, is enough, is bullshit. There is no neutral. There is only actively working to dismantle white privilege and institutional racism, or abetting it with silence.
I want to note that being All In as an ally is hard, and sometimes you fuck it up, at least I do, but it's a lot about knowing when to listen and when to talk, i.e. listening to people of color and talking to other white people about privilege. I wonder who failed the young men charged with killing James Craig Anderson, who failed to teach them to listen, who failed to talk to them. And I remember my own childhood, and I imagine that it was pretty much everyone.
And I want to underline that this ghastly murder is why ideas that we live in a "post-racial" country are both foolish and dangerous, and why the Oppression Olympics are such utter, contemptible garbage. There are a lot of reasons, actually, why the Oppression Olympics are utter, contemptible garbage, but perhaps none so succinctly demonstrable as this: In the Oppression Olympics, the death of James Craig Anderson is the gold fucking medal.
RIP Mr. Anderson.
[H/T to @PeterDaou and Shaker The_Great_Indoors.]
Submitted Without Comment
CNN Breaking News: Dow drops more than 3%; mortgage finance agencies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae downgraded by S&P.
Today in Raw Deal News
Everyone was playing the Downgrade Blame Game over the weekend on the political news shows. If scientists could find a way to harness the spin coming out of DC, we could be energy independent in no time.
The Hill—Axelrod: This was a 'tea party downgrade':
Top Obama strategist David Axelrod criticized Republicans over their handling of the debt-ceiling negotiations which he argued led to Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade the nation's credit rating Friday.On Meet the Press, Democratic Senator John Kerry also hammered the "Tea Party downgrade" talking point, while Republican Senator John McCain told demonstrable lies (which host David Gregory naturally failed to call out) about how the President never put forth any plan of his own, and argued that House Republicans were given a mandate in the last election to be obstructionist wankers (paraphrase), and insisted that the President was exclusively to blame because he holds the executive branch and the Senate. The whole time he was talking, all I could think was how different that song would be if it had been he who won the election and was a president with a split Congress.
This was a "tea party downgrade," said Axelrod on CBS News' Face the Nation.
...[Axelrod said] conservative, Tea Party-influenced Republicans "played brinksmanship with the full faith and credit of the United States. And this was the result of that."
"It was the wrong thing to do to push the country to that point" he said. "And it's something that should never have happened. And that clearly is on the backs of those who were willing to see the country default, those very strident voices in the tea party."
Meanwhile, over on Fox News, GOP Rep. Paul Ryan crowed that the downgrade is a "vindication" of GOP policies. Um, okay. That's a talking point that the GOP might want to retire as S&P chair John Chambers bloviates that "it could take between 9 and 18 years for the nation to regain its AAA credit rating" and threatens that S&P "could further downgrade the national rating depending on whether President Obama and congressional leaders can agree on reducing the deficit."
In related news, economists are warning that the US is careening toward a second recession, which would be much worse than the first.
President Obama acknowledged the challenge in his Saturday radio and Internet address, saying the country's "urgent mission" now was to expand the economy and create jobs. And Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said in an interview on CNBC on Sunday that the United States had "a lot of work to do" because of its "long-term and unsustainable fiscal position."How hopey-changey! (I'm sure everyone is relieved to hear that Geithner is staying on as Treasury Secretary.) Meanwhile, I continue to be baffled by President Obama's incessant statements about the urgency of economy stimulation and job creation, even after he caved during debt ceiling negotiations about new revenue—which he once said was the only thing on which he wouldn't yield. (Whoooooops!) He wants new revenue, but he extends the Bush tax cuts and agrees to budget reductions. This is a basic math question, and there's only one possible right answer.
But he added, "I have enormous confidence in the basic regenerative capacity of the American economy and the American people."
Over in Europe, where the history comes from, the Euro system of central banks will "intervene decisively on markets to respond to the escalating debt crisis, a euro zone monetary source said after a European Central Bank conference call on Sunday. Officials on the conference call carefully considered the situation in Italy and Spain, and took note of a statement by France and Germany which stressed their commitment to European financial reforms, the source said." See Professor Krugman for further commentary.
And, finally, in indirectly-related news, the Tea Party Terrorists' rhetoric is getting hyperbolic in the extreme, with one Tea Party leader saying at a rally over the weekend that leftists have "killed a billion people in the last century" and comparing progressive protesters to Nazi storm troopers, and another speaker comparing Democrats' policies to attacking Republicans and creating a "Ground Zero" against Tea Partiers.
This is straight-up eliminationist rhetoric against progressives. That the GOP does not categorically repudiate these terrorists tells you everything you need to know about that garbage party and its garbage ethics.
Happy Birthday, Kate!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
I wish you a nonillion biebers of happiness on your birrrrrrthdaaaaaay!
And some hope and change, toooooo!
Happy Birthday, grrl!
Open Thread
Hosted by a pumpkin sculpture by Karyn T. of Fort Worth, Texas.
This week's Open Threads have been hosted by fruit and vegetable art.
(You didn't think pumpkins had all the fun, did you?!)
S&P Downgrades US from AAA to AA Credit Rating
So, it happened. The thing that the Raw Deal, that piece of shit austerity plan which included no tax increases, no closing of tax loopholes, no new revenue to stimulate job creation, was supposed to prevent happened anyway.
Standard & Poor's announced Friday night that it has downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time, dealing a symbolic blow to the world's economic superpower in what was a sharply worded critique of the American political system.Make no mistake: The Republicans' chronic fuckery is to blame, and Obama's reflexive indulgence of their fuckery in pursuit of some fantastical ideal of bipartisan civility is to blame, and the Democrats' typical spinelessness is to blame (especially that jellyfish Harry Reid's), all for creating the embarrassing justification for this downgrade, but THAT SAID Standard & Poor's, which is already threatening a further downgrade, is full of absolute shit.
Lowering the nation's rating to one notch below AAA, the credit rating company said "political brinkmanship" in the debate over the debt had made the U.S. government's ability to manage its finances "less stable, less effective and less predictable." It said the bipartisan agreement reached this week to find at least $2.1 trillion in budget savings "fell short" of what was necessary to tame the nation's debt over time and predicted that leaders would not be likely to achieve more savings in the future.
"It's always possible the rating will come back, but we don't think it's coming back anytime soon," said David Beers, head of S&P's government debt rating unit.
Not only did the US Treasury Department find a $2 trillion math error in S&P's analysis on which they based the downgrade (which S&P conceded before commencing with the downgrade anyway), but S&P has its own political agenda, given its role in the mortgage crisis. As Paul Krugman wryly noted: "[I]t's hard to think of anyone less qualified to pass judgment on America than the rating agencies. The people who rated subprime-backed securities are now declaring that they are the judges of fiscal policy? Really?"
And, ultimately, they're just basing this decision on faulty thinking, the same ludicrous austerity fantasy that underlined the debt ceiling deal, which they believe has not gone far enough. Krugman explains:
[E]verything I've heard about S&P's demands suggests that it's talking nonsense about the US fiscal situation. The agency has suggested that the downgrade depended on the size of agreed deficit reduction over the next decade, with $4 trillion apparently the magic number. Yet US solvency depends hardly at all on what happens in the near or even medium term: an extra trillion in debt adds only a fraction of a percent of GDP to future interest costs, so a couple of trillion more or less barely signifies in the long term. What matters is the longer-term prospect, which in turn mainly depends on health care costs.But here we are.
So what was S&P even talking about? Presumably they had some theory that restraint now is an indicator of the future — but there's no good reason to believe that theory, and for sure S&P has no authority to make that kind of vague political judgment.
In short, S&P is just making stuff up — and after the mortgage debacle, they really don't have that right.
So this is an outrage — not because America is A-OK, but because these people are in no position to pass judgment.
And S&P's jackass maneuver should come as no surprise to the US government, given their well-documented irresponsibility (see again: mortgage crisis), which is why, despite directing some well-deserved contempt in S&P's direction, we should also be furious with the collection of nincompoops behaving the fools in DC, whose failure to demonstrate anything resembling responsible leadership provided both the context and the excuse for which S&P was looking.
The Guardian is collecting reactions to the rating downgrade here.
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!
Um.
Massive bather makes splash in German lake:
Call it "The Bath of the 70-foot Woman." Or "Two Tons of Mermaid."Okay, player.
The real name of the massive woman in a Hamburg, Germany, lake is actually "Die Badende" ("The Bather"), and she's an ad for British beauty brand Soap & Glory.
"We launched Soap & Glory in Germany last year, and we've been looking for a way to say, 'Thank you!' to everyone for embracing our products, and making us a real success there. At Soap & Glory, we consider it our calling to bring more beauty to the world, and have fun doing it – 'Die Badende' does exactly that," the brand's founder, Marcia Kilgore, said in a news release.
I know that beauty and fun are subjective concepts, but I'm not sure that either "beautiful" or "fun" are exactly the first words that would come to my mind to describe a 13-foot-high, 67-foot-long, and two-ton statue of an objectified woman, positioned so that boatfuls of gawkers can paddle between her knees.
It will spend 10 days in Hamburg's Inner Alster Lake.Oh good lord.
Apparently, "Die Badende" is as modest as "she" is massive. Soap & Glory promises a crane will be standing by with a supersize towel when "Die Badende" is ready to come out of the water.
Naturally, I am reminded of Chicago's Marilyn sculpture. Isn't it interesting that, in the middle of a ferocious feminist backlash in the West, giant statuary of sexualized retro pin-up girls are suddenly en vogue...?
Well. I can't wait for the seven-story Rosie the Riveter to hit Cleveland.
(If only.)
Whoooooooooops Your Austerity Deal!
Wall Street ends worst week in more than 2 years: "Stocks closed out its worst week in more than two years on Friday in a volatile session that saw major averages whip back and forth before the S&P 500 settled with a slim loss. ... For the week, the Dow fell 5.8 percent, the S&P 500 dropped 7.2 percent and the Nasdaq lost 8.1 percent."
Swell.
UPDATE: And it gets worse: Govt official: US expecting S&P downgrade:
A government official tells ABC News that the federal government is expecting and preparing for bond rating agency Standard & Poor's to downgrade the rating of US debt from its current AAA value.Awesome.
Officials reasons given will be the political confusion surrounding the process of raising the debt ceiling, and lack of confidence that the political system will be able to agree to more deficit reduction. A source says Republicans saying that they refuse to accept any tax increases as part of a larger deal will be part of the reason cited.
The official was unsure if the bond rating would be AA+ or AA.
For the Losties...
Whut?
J.J. Abrams asks [the people who didn't like the way Lost ended if they can do better:Here's my pitch: Jack and Kate and Hurley sit in a diner. Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" plays on the jukebox. Sawyer's at the counter with Juliet splitting a burger. Sayid's at another table, looking hot and surly. Mmm...onion rings. Claire parallel parks her car out front. Just as she runs in to join them—
"For years, I had people praising Lost to death, and now they say: 'I'm so pissed at you for the end of Lost.' I think a lot of people who were upset with the ending, were just upset that it ended. And I've not yet heard the pitch of what the ending should have been. I've just heard: 'That sucked.'"
Decent News
[Trigger warning for transphobia and prisoner abuse]
Back in 2006, the Wisconsin Legislature passed Act 105, the "Inmate Sex Change Prevention Act". [Good thing we had a Democratic governor at the time. Whoops!]
The act banned the state from providing trans* prisoners hormone therapy or surgery.
This happened at the exact same time I was struggling to secure medical care for myself. It was nice to know that three blocks away from my house, my bosses at The State of Wisconsin were willing to spend their time demonizing folks like me.
I thought about this a lot as I drove down the Northwest Tollway to Chicago, where the Chicago Cubs were graciously paying for my tits*, and the State of Illinois was patiently holding my semen.
After I spent a substantial amount of time, money, and emotional energy getting things squared away, I recall writing** state legislators:
Hey assholes,Needless to say, I had a car, and a job, and a studio apartment that was not a prison cell. So, unlike three trans* women that sued the state when the Department of Corrections took away their hormones, I had options.
I've given my life to eating jello salad, protecting your crops, and teaching your children, and you fuckers are having the people of Illinois subsidize my medical bills? Nice work.
xox
Kate
PS: To hell with the Packers.
A while back, a court sided with the trans* women in ruling Act 105 unconstitutional. Because the State of Wisconsin would rather spend bazillions of dollars defending its bigotry than actually shelling out a few thousand bucks a year on life and money saving drugs, it appealed the ruling.
Today the Seventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the earlier ruling in favor of current and future trans* inmates. Snippets from [TW] the ruling are below.
“Prison officials violate the Eighth Amendment’s pro-scription against cruel and unusual punishment when they display ‘deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners.’” Greeno v. Daley , 414 F.3d 645, 652-53(7th Cir. 2005) (quoting Estelle v. Gamble , 429 U.S. 97, 104(1976)).
In this case, the district court held that plaintiffs suffered from a serious medical need, namely GID [Gender Identity Disorder], and that defendants acted with deliberate indifference in that defendants knew of the serious medical need but refused to provide hormone therapy because of Act 105.
Surely, had the Wisconsin legislature passed a law that DOC [Department of Corrections] inmates with cancer must be treated only with therapy and painkillers, this court would have no trouble concluding that the law was unconstitutional. Refusing to provide effective treatment for a serious medical condition serves no valid penological purpose and amounts to torture. [Emphasis mine]Word.
--
*In that the Cubs are a major donor Howard Brown, the LGBT health center where I received my script. It's not that Ron Santo took me shopping or anything.
**My memory's not the greatest, so this is slightly paraphrased.
Crossposted
Via
Number of the Day
82%: The percentage of respondents in the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll who currently "disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job—the most since The Times first began asking the question in 1977, and even more than after another political stalemate led to a shutdown of the federal government in 1995."
More than four out of five people surveyed said that the recent debt-ceiling debate was more about gaining political advantage than about doing what is best for the country. Nearly three-quarters said that the debate had harmed the image of the United States in the world.It grieves me that politics has become a dirty word, as a result of the petty gamespersonship played in the Beltway that prioritizes winning over decency.
Republicans in Congress shoulder more of the blame for the difficulties in reaching a debt-ceiling agreement than President Obama and the Democrats, the poll found.
The Republicans compromised too little, a majority of those polled said. All told, 72 percent disapproved of the way Republicans in Congress handled the negotiations, while 66 percent disapproved of the way Democrats in Congress handled negotiations.
The public was more evenly divided about how Mr. Obama handled the debt ceiling negotiations: 47 percent disapproved and 46 percent approved.
The public’s opinion of the Tea Party movement has soured in the wake of the debt-ceiling debate. The Tea Party is now viewed unfavorably by 40 percent of the public and favorably by just 20 percent, according to the poll. [...]
"I'm real disappointed in Congress," Ron Raggio, 54, a florist from Vicksburg, Miss., said in a follow-up interview. "They can't sit down and agree about what's best for America. It's all politics."
But not as much as it grieves me that my government is functional garbage.
Mainly because I know that, although seeing the profound brokenness of my government beckons and challenges me to fight even harder for what I believe through ever more creative channels, that brokenness inspires in most people, and understandably so, crushing feelings of impotency and, eventually, indifference.
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by bittersweet memories.
Recommended Reading:
Queen Emily: When Am I Trans?
Renee: When It Comes to Dating, It's Not Always the Boys
Andy: [TW for homophobia; transphobia; violence] Police and Media Neglect to Respond Well to Crime Against LGBTQI People
BTD: The Argument on GOP Obstruction
Tanya: [TW for racism] Fox Nation Reports on Obama's Birthday: "Obama's Hip-Hop BBQ Didn't Create Jobs"
Michele: The Ten Most Beautiful Swamps on Earth
In other news... Roseanne Barr says she's running for president.
Everything that Phil makes looks yummy. I have had the great pleasure of having dinner at Phil's house, and guess what? Everything that he makes TASTES yummy, too.
Last but not least, you probably need some pictures of dogs shaking water off.
Leave your links in comments...
