Queen Matilda, under her royal blankie.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Daily Dose of Cute
Queen Matilda, under her royal blankie.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
[Content Note: War; terrorism] After having launched nearly 200 strikes against ISIS in Iraq so far, the US has now begun a campaign of airstrikes in Syria, against both ISIS and a second group, a "little-known al Qaeda cell" known as the Khorasan Group. "While the United States is still 'assessing the effectiveness' of the bombing campaign against ISIS, which included up to 20 targets, the Pentagon believes 'that we were successful in hitting what we were aiming at,' Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said. ...Many of the targets were in and around Raqqa, Syria, believed to be an ISIS stronghold, a defense official said Monday." Believed to be? Well, this is encouraging. We are bombing targets we believe to be part of an ISIS stronghold, and, while we're at it, bombing some other folks, too. Who wants to make two trips to the grocery store?
[CN: Misogyny; sexual assault; harassment] Immediately after giving a speech on feminism at the UN, Emma Watson has been threatened by 4¢hɐn: "Online perpetrators have created a website called Emma You Are Next with a countdown clock ticking down to something happening in about 4 days. While the message doesn't say what happens when time is up, it was posted on 4¢hɐn, the same image-sharing site that leaked nude celebrity photos on Saturday, and earlier this month. The words 'Never Forget, The Biggest To Come Thus Far' appear on the page below a picture of Watson apparently wiping away a tear." What heinous fuckers.
[CN: Stalking; threats of violence] Last Friday, a 42-year-old former military sniper named Omar Gonzalez managed to get past the Secret Service and break into the White House with a knife. Yesterday, prosecutors disclosed that "a search of his nearby car uncovered 800 rounds of ammunition, a machete, and two hatchets." Something is deeply wrong with the Secret Service, y'all.
Dylan Scott at TPM: "If You Listen, Hillary Is Trying To Tell You What Her 2016 Message Will Be." Scott's piece is really terrific counterpoint to this garbage. Of course, expecting people to listen to a woman is always a radical proposition!
[CN: Rape culture; police brutality] What in the shit is wrong with this guy? "An Oklahoma Highway Patrol official reportedly told women that the best way not to get raped by an officer was to 'follow the law.' In recent months, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer and an Oklahoma City Police officer have been accused of repeatedly raping women, often during traffic stops." So Captain George Brown told Tulsa NBC News affiliate KJRH that "the best tip that he can give is to follow the law in the first place so you don't get pulled over." Not only do I love, ahem, the idea that it's women's responsibility to not get pulled over to avoid being raped by a police officer, rather than police officers' responsibility to not rape people, but I love, ahem, the idea that a rapist cop would never pull over a woman unless she's actually broken the law. What an asshole.
[CN: Guns] This is terrifying and I am so glad I am not a parent and I am sorry for those of you who are parents and have to navigate this horseshit with your kids: "Legally gun-owning adults are now allowed to carry guns in public schools in more than two dozen states, from kindergarten classrooms to high school hallways. Seven of those states specifically allow teachers and other school staff to carry guns in their schools. A News21 examination of open records laws in those states found that those who do choose to carry their firearm into their classrooms are not required to divulge the information to principals, other teachers, students or parents. Only five of those states have completely open access to concealed carry permit information through public records requests. Some states' laws completely seal off those records and others are silent on the issue. That means there is no way of telling how many teachers are taking advantage of the option to be armed. ...There is no record of who has a gun in any school in any state." Emphasis mine.
In better news: This David Bowie exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art sounds really neat!
Welp: "State Farm drops ad starring Rob Schneider over anti-vaccine views." An arguably even better reason to have dropped the ad is because Schneider is reprising his "Makin' Copies" character that's so old it still uses a rotary phone.
Did anyone watch the Sunday premiere of Madam Secretary, starring Téa Leoni? I finally watched it last night, and I liked it all right. This review by Tim Goodman is fairly reflective of my impressions. I liked how many of the other characters borrowed biographical details from real life folks—the president was a former CIA chief, like George H.W. Bush; Leoni's Secretary of State was a professor, like Condoleezza Rice; etc. I wasn't thrilled that the premiere episode centered on the new Secretary having to save two nice white American boys from the clutches of swarthy enemies. (Come on now.) I'll stick with it for awhile and see where it goes, because I really like Leoni.
And finally! Photos show a manatee appearing to keep a dog company while it struggles to get out of a river in Florida. Officers safely rescued the pup, and the manatee went on its way. ♥
News from the Conservative Legislation Lab
[Content Note: Class warfare.]
As I've said many times before, if you want to know what garbage policies are coming down the conservative pipeline, look no further than Indiana, where we are used as guinea pigs to test out the latest and greatest in Republican governance theory.
This time, however, I'm not bringing you news of what's to come, but instead a follow-up on how one of these cool theories panned out for us.
As you may recall, our former Republican Governor Mitch Daniels, who is a genius, decided to privatize the toll road in Northwest Indiana, which connects us to Chicago. This was a bad idea, despite the fact Daniels routinely touted it as a huge success.
(In fact, many of Daniels' cutting-edge conservative policies were loudly touted as successes—by Daniels, by other members of his party, and by prominent members of the media—in spite of their having proven to be abject failures for Hoosiers.)
This is what Daniels' huge toll road privatization success looks like now: On Sunday, the company that operates the Indiana Toll Road, ITR Commission Co., a venture of the Spanish-Australian company Cintra-Macquarie, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The General Assembly narrowly voted for the lease, allowing then-Gov. Mitch Daniels to sign a contract with the company in 2006 to exchange a lump-sum payment of $3.8 billion for a 75-year lease of the road that runs between the Illinois and Ohio state lines.In fact, what Daniels said at the time was that the privatization plan would "trigger tremendous job growth using in large part a very handy tool: Other people's money." Ho ho ho. Because Northwest Indiana, which is part of suburban Chicago, is treated as if we are not part of the state of Indiana, but instead an ATM from which to draw funds to spend in the rest of the (more politically conservative) state.
But the toll revenue failed to meet the company's expectations, as traffic volume fell short of predictions.
Indiana Finance Authority Director Kendra York said in a statement ITR Commission Co. will continue to manage the Toll Road through the bankruptcy process. The Finance Authority must also approve any potential sale of the lease.
...Back in 2006, Daniels touted the deal as a win for Indiana, comparing the lease to selling Manhattan for beads.
He said Indiana gets to pocket $3.8 billion, but could take back the Toll Road if the operator failed to meet demands.
Daniels absurdly claimed that "the increased tolls on the road would be mostly paid for by out-of-state motorists," even though the road is mostly used by people who drive to and from Chicago every day for work, because, once the mills collapsed, Hoosiers in NWI were left with precious few local jobs offering a livable wage.
We protested the privatization of the toll road. And we were ignored. And we started paying three times the tolls, at shitty automated booths from which operators were fired, on an increasingly poorly maintained road, while our governor went around declaring the scheme a success.
Now, we've no idea what's to come.
"This is a valuable asset that was really, really sold off at a discount when you consider the value the Toll Road could have had by gradually raising tolls," Shaw Friedman, an attorney in LaPorte County, said. "The problem is the $3.8 billion was gone in the first six or seven years. What do we do with the remaining 70 years?"Yes, yes privatization ought to be questioned. And it ought to be deemed a colossal failure. And yet Republicans in the state are still continuing to defend it.
Politicians who opposed the lease in 2006 spoke out Monday.
"This is our worst fear come to fruition," said state Sen. John Broden, who voted against the lease.
..."A new investor will come in to make money, and how they make money is doing business as inexpensively as they can," [State Rep. David Niezgodski, D-South Bend] said.
Joe Bock, who is running against [Republican U.S. Representative from Indiana's 2nd district Jackie Walorski], held a news conference Monday afternoon, and warned against the privatization of public assets.
Development of infrastructure is the "fundamental role of government," Bock said. "The idea to turn that over to a private consortium is one that ought to be questioned."
Walorski's deputy campaign manager made a statement yesterday that the Congresswoman stands by the lease and the decision to privatize, incredibly insisting that "the toll road will continue to operate normally, tolls will not increase, and drivers will not be impacted," and breathtakingly asserting it's "important to remember the state of Indiana specifically provided many safeguards into the lease to protect the interest of Hoosier taxpayers," even though it's Hoosier taxpayers who have been paying the increased tolls and repairs to cars damaged by a road in a state of disrepair through several horrendous winters.
Everything about this idea was a catastrophic failure. And these assholes are still trying to claim it's a success.
Quote of the Day
"The only difference is that we just know it's legal and nobody can do anything about it. We've always been married in our hearts."—Vivian Boyack, 91, who legally married her partner of 72 years, Nonie Dubes, 90, earlier this month in Iowa. [Video at link may begin playing automatically.] I highly recommend reading their whole story. Bring a tissue.
[H/T to my pal Bill.]
It Continues to Be a Real Mystery Why Republicans Aren't Connecting with a Majority of Female Voters
[Content Note: Misogyny; domestic abuse; racism; heterocentrism.]
In their continuing bid to win over female voters, the conservative political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity (of which the Koch Brothers are key funders) has put together a 60-second spot currently airing on cable news channels, designed to convince women to abandon the Democrats for Republicans by playing on one of the most loathsome stereotypes about female voters—that we vote for male politicians we want to fuck.
A young, thin, dark-haired, olive-complected woman, wearing a pink collared shirt (get it?) and a string of pearls, looks directly into the camera and says: "In 2008, I fell in love. His online profile made him seem so perfect—smart, handsome, charming, articulate, all the right values. I trusted him. But by 2012, our relationship was in trouble. But I stuck with him, because he promised he'd be better. He's great at promises. He told me we'd be safe. Have you looked at the news? He's in my emails and text messages, spying on me but ignoring real threats. He said that we'd finally get on our feet financially. I'll never pay down what he's spent. He thinks the only thing I care about is free birth control, but he won't even let me keep my own doctor. [cut to laptop screen, on which is a picture of President Barack Obama; the woman closes the laptop] I know I'm stuck with Barack for two more years; I get that. But I'm not stuck with his friends. I'm looking for someone who gets that this isn't about him; it's about us."I feel reasonably confident asserting that the number of ways this ad is fucked up is significantly higher than the number of female voters who will be swayed by it.
This is what conservatives think of (straight/bi?) women: That we vote based on who we think is the cutest boy; that we view our (male) political representatives as our boyfriends; that we are not offended by categorizing disappointment in a politician as an abusive relationship; that we think it's totally appropriate to suggest the President is stalking us like an intimate partner; that we don't hear or care about racist dog whistles like referring to the black President as "articulate"; that we don't find it wildly disrespectful to refer to the President as "Barack," especially to maintain the reprehensible illusion that he's our mean boyfriend; that we think caring about free birth control is frivolous; that we are stupid. Very, very stupid.
Message received loud and clear, assholes.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker masculine_lady: "In honor of Banned Book Week, what's your favorite banned book? Or several."
You can find compiled information on frequently banned and/or challenged books here, if you need to take a peek at the list(s) to find your answer.
In 2013, the Top Ten challenged books "out of 307 challenges as reported by the Office for Intellectual Freedom" were:
1. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey | Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence
2. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison | Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence
3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie | Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
4. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James | Reasons: Nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins | Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
6. A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl, by Tanya Lee Stone | Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit
7. Looking for Alaska, by John Green | Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky | Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
9. Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya | Reasons: Occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
10. Bone (series), by Jeff Smith | Reasons: Political viewpoint, racism, violence
Ink
This weekend, Iain went to see Lui (who's done most of my tattoos, and did Deeky's first tattoo) for the first session on a big arm piece. I went along and took some work with me, which I finished midway through his session, so I asked Jake, who did my scarab, and didn't have a client scheduled, if he felt like doing a piece on my leg for the cash I had on hand, and he did, so here is my latest tattoo.
Jake has been working on this abstract ink-and-paint technique, and I told him to do whatever he wanted to do. (About which he was really excited, and so was I!) He started by drawing on my leg with a light purple marker, then smeared the marker, and let it dry. He followed the outline of the marker with black ink, to create this effect of what looks like a ribbon of ink curling around my leg, and then he went through with various colors to create the splatters and brush strokes.
I couldn't be more thrilled with the result. The pictures don't even do it justice; the details are so beautiful.
It's really fun to know the person who's tattooing you, and be known by them, and just be able to trust in their talents and let them have all the freedom to create something beautiful.
This sort of abstract stuff isn't everyone's cup of tea, of course. But whatever your cuppa is, if you can find someone who excels at it and just let them go, it's totally the best.
The End Game
[Content Note: War on agency.]
Ian Millhiser at Think Progress: "Religious Conservatives Finally Admit What They Really Want out of Hobby Lobby."
Spoiler Alert! They don't want anyone to have access to contraception ever.
The Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by a cool autumn breeze.
Recommended Reading:
Anne: [Content Note: Misogyny] Feminism Killed All the Grownups
Suzanne: [CN: Misogyny; violence] Progress in the Face of Adversity: Activists Discuss Setbacks and Challenges for Women's Rights
phoenix hobbit: [CN: Transmisogyny; sexual harassment] The Boxtrolls Is Transmisogynist
Digby: [CN: Gun violence; racism] A Funny Kind of Hero
Kyler: [CN: Homophobia] STFU, Sarkozy
Carla: [CN: Police brutality; racism. VIDEO] This 11-Year-Old Is Already Smarter Than Every Republican in Congress
And finally: stavvers has a good round-up of a terrific stuff to read!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged.
Emailing! With Aphra and Liss!
Aphra_Behn: Oh my god, this is rich. The GOP's big oppo research file on Hillary reveals—wait for it—SHE ACTS LIKE A REPUBLICAN SOMETIMES!
Liss: Good job, Republicans! You've really blown the lid off the case!
Aphra_Behn: I mean, really, how else would you sum up this shit that boils down to she's cozy with corporations and rich people, some of her staff make profit from their associations with her, etc. etc.? They have some fucking gall.
Liss: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL THEY ARE SHAMELESS.
Aphra_Behn: So, basically can we just refer the GOP back to their own document every time they claim she's an anti-capitalist Bolshevik revolutionary?
Liss: I can't stop laughing at "Clinton Confab Complications." Is this supposed to be a serious policy document (HA HA OF COURSE NOT) or a chapter of an Encyclopedia Jones mystery?
Aphra_Behn: LOLOLOL! Perfect. Also: "WELCOME TO CLINTON WORLD – A PLACE OF 'POLITICAL BENEFITS,' 'WEALTHY CELEBRITIES,' AND 'CONFLICTS OF INTEREST.'" Worst. Amusement Park. Ever.
Liss: I hate that amusement park. I got totally sick after riding the Misog-A-Whirl.
ISIS
[Content Note: War; violence; death; displacement; terrorism.]
In the past few days, ISIS has captured around 60 villages in Syria. On Friday alone, they captured 39 villages, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
As they make their way through Syria, residents of the captured villages are fleeing to avoid being killed, and more than 130,000 Syrian Kurdish refugees have poured into Turkey seeking refuge, overwhelming Turkey and putting pressure on the government to join the fight against ISIS.
Meanwhile, ISIS leadership is also urging its members "to attack citizens of the United States, France and other countries which have joined a coalition to destroy the ultra-radical group."
The United States is building an international coalition to combat the extremist Sunni Muslim force, which has seized large expanses of territory in Iraq and Syria and proclaimed a caliphate erasing borders in the heart of the Middle East.I don't even have words.
[Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani] said the intervention by the U.S.-led coalition would be the "final campaign of the crusaders", according to SITE's English-language transcript of an audio recording in Arabic.
"It will be broken and defeated, just as all your previous campaigns were broken and defeated," Adnani said, according to the recording, which urged followers to attack U.S., French, Canadian, Australian and other nationals.
Daily Dose of Cute
On the beach. Where Dudley enjoys the water, and Zelda not so much, lol.
Zelda's more of a cottage girl, rather than a beach girl.
Dudley can get on board. Where there's a couch, he's happy.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In the News
Here is some stuff in the news today...
Emma Watson, who is a UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, gave a speech at the UN asking men and boys to join the fight for gender equality. The transcript of her address is here.
Pope Francis said over the weekend: "Let no one consider themselves to be the 'armor' of God while planning and carrying out acts of violence and oppression! May no one use religion as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman, above all, the right to life and the right of everyone to religious freedom!" His comments "appear to be an indirect reference to the actions of groups such as" ISIS and also appear to have been said without a trace of irony. For the record: The Catholic Church has not changed its position on reproductive rights, gay rights, or trans* rights.
[CN: Gun violence; racism] In February, a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on the first-degree murder charge in the trial of Michael Dunn for killing unarmed black teenager Jordan Davis. A new trial begins this week. Let us fervently hope for a better result this time.
[CN: Police militarization] "Wyoming's Goshen County Sheriff's Office wants you to know they have a grenade launcher." All right then.
[CN: Police killing; racism] Darrien Hunt, the 22-year-old black man who was killed by police in Utah while carrying a replica samurai-style sword may have been cosplaying. "Attention was swiftly drawn online to Hunt's remarkable resemblance as he walked around on the morning of 10 September to Mugen, a swordsman character in the short-lived Japanese anime series Samurai Champloo. The Comic Con convention had also taken place in Salt Lake City, about 35 miles to the north, the weekend before the shooting. Hunt's aunt, Cindy Moss, previously told the Guardian that a witness to the confrontation with police had told the family that Hunt 'had his earbuds in, and was kind of doing spins and stuff, like pretending he's a samurai.'" Everything about this case is so fucking awful, but the possibility that he was cosplaying, just having fun in his own imagined fantasy world, when he was killed, is unbearable. Sob.
[CN: Misogyny; appropriation] Andrea Grimes: "Texas Republicans Attempt to Reach Women Voters by Appropriating Feminist Successes." Of course. OF COURSE.
This is hilarious: Alaska television reporter Charlo Greene "reported on the Alaska Cannabis Club during KTVA-TV's Sunday night broadcast but did not disclose her connection to the business until a live shot at the end of the packaged report. Then she surprised viewers and her colleagues by quitting in dramatic fashion, reported the Alaska Dispatch News. 'Now everything you've heard is why I, the actual owner of the Alaska Cannabis Club, will be dedicating all of my energy toward fighting for freedom and fairness, which begins with legalizing marijuana here in Alaska,' Greene said. 'And as for this job, well—not that I have a choice but, fuck it, I quit.' Then she walked off camera as her stunned anchor apologized to viewers." LOL!
And finally! Tiny kitten and giant hand! Squeeeeeee.
Today in Rape Apologia
[Content Note: Rape apologia; disablist language.]
I know it's early, but this is a strong contender [DoNotLink] for the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Actual Headline: "The Rape Epidemic Is a Fiction." Welp!
Kevin D. Williamson's case primarily rests in the discrepancies that have been found in the number of women who report sexual assault depending on how the questions are asked.
This is not unusual in surveys attempting to establish incidents of sexual assault, whether one is asking victims or perpetrators. For example: Perpetrators who will answer yes to a question like "Have you ever had sex with an unconscious partner?" will, even in the same survey, answer no to the question "Have you ever raped someone?"
This also speaks to the concern Williamson raises here:
It is probably the case that the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses is wildly exaggerated—not necessarily in absolute terms, but relative to the rate of sexual assault among college-aged women with similar demographic characteristics who are not attending institutions of higher learning. The DoJ hints at this in its criticism of survey questions, some of which define "sexual assault" so loosely as to include actions that "are not criminal." This might explain why so many women who answer survey questions in a way consistent with their being counted victims of sexual assault frequently display such a blasé attitude toward the events in question and so rarely report them. As the DoJ study puts it: "The most commonly reported response — offered by more than half the students — was that they did not think the incident was serious enough to report. More than 35 percent said they did not report the incident because they were unclear as to whether a crime was committed or that harm was intended."Sanity has nothing to do with it. Understanding that much of our culture has no idea—by design—about what constitutes sexual assault, or meaningful consent, is crucial.
If you are having a little trouble getting your head around a definition of "sexual assault" so liberal that it includes everything from forcible rape at gunpoint to acts that not only fail to constitute crimes under the law but leave the victims "unclear as to whether harm was intended," then you are, unlike much of our culture, still sane.
That women are failing to report incidents of sexual assault not on the basis of their lack of consent, but on their assumptions about whether their assaulter intended to harm them, should be of grievous concern. It's not evidence of feminism gone wild; it's evidence of a cultural diminishment of women's agency so profound that women allow their rapists' presumed intent to define whether they were raped.
For that reason, women who may answer yes to a question like "Has anyone ever had sex with you while you were unconscious?" might also, even in the same survey, answer no to the question "Have you ever been raped?"
The horrible truth is that many women have a "blasé attitude toward the events in question and so rarely report them" because we are groomed by our culture to be compliant victims: Sexually objectified, denied agency, not empowered with the right of consent, entrained to be shamed by sexual exploitation, and experiencing sexual assault as so ubiquitous as to be utterly normalized and a routine part of womanhood.
The most objectionable part of Williamson's piece is not, however, that he is wrong about the most basic facts of his premise. It is that he accuses feminists of inventing this fiction as a political gambit:
The fictitious rape epidemic is necessary to support the fiction of "rape culture," by which feminists mean anything other than an actual rape culture, for example the culture of the Pakistani immigrant community in Rotherham in the United Kingdom. "Rape culture" simply means speech or thought that feminists disapprove of and wish to suppress... Feminism is about political power, and not the Susan B. Anthony ("positively voted the Republican ticket — straight") full-citizenship model of political power but rather one dominated by a very small band of narrow ideologues still operating under the daft influence of such theorists as Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, each of whom in her way equated political opposition to feminism with rape.I have not written, to date, the majority of the 710 entries in our Rape Culture archive (after starting to use labels only in '09), as a political game.
I care about people who are harmed. I remember them and carry them with me. I ache from knowing that I will be writing about victims of sexual violence for as long as I do this work.
This is not a goddamned game. Not to me.
Two Americas
[Content Note: Class warfare; bootstraps rhetoric.]
Or what feels, truly, like two different planets, sometimes. The planet on which people live who understand the reality of being unemployed in the US, and the planet on which Republicans live. Paul Krugman:
Last week John Boehner, the speaker of the House, explained to an audience at the American Enterprise Institute what's holding back employment in America: laziness. People, he said, have "this idea" that "I really don't have to work. I don't really want to do this. I think I'd rather just sit around." Holy 47 percent, Batman!I strongly recommend reading the whole thing.
It's hardly the first time a prominent conservative has said something along these lines. Ever since a financial crisis plunged us into recession it has been a nonstop refrain on the right that the unemployed aren't trying hard enough, that they are taking it easy thanks to generous unemployment benefits, which are constantly characterized as "paying people not to work." And the urge to blame the victims of a depressed economy has proved impervious to logic and evidence.
But it's still amazing — and revealing — to hear this line being repeated now. For the blame-the-victim crowd has gotten everything it wanted: Benefits, especially for the long-term unemployed, have been slashed or eliminated.
...I don't know how many people realize just how successful the campaign against any kind of relief for those who can't find jobs has been. But it's a striking picture. ...[E]xtended benefits for the long-term unemployed have been eliminated — and in some states the duration of benefits has been slashed even further.
The result is that most of the unemployed have been cut off. Only 26 percent of jobless Americans are receiving any kind of unemployment benefit, the lowest level in many decades. The total value of unemployment benefits is less than 0.25 percent of G.D.P., half what it was in 2003, when the unemployment rate was roughly the same as it is now. It's not hyperbole to say that America has abandoned its out-of-work citizens.
The people who constantly bray this fairy tale of lazy moochers who cruise through life on government benefits are so out of touch with multiple realities—how difficult it is to secure long-term payments (e.g. disability); how difficult it is to live on government welfare; how many people who desperately need welfare aren't getting it because they don't qualify; how many people are desperate for work they can do; how many places in the US simply don't have enough jobs with livable wages to support the community anymore—that their ignorance, willful or otherwise, would be laughable if it weren't so unfathomably harmful.
And then there is this: Poverty is extremely difficult. It is stressful, demoralizing, exhausting. Poverty is not for lazy people. No one is getting rich, or even living a carefree life, on the paltry sums that constitute government benefits in the US.
The only lazy people in this discussion are the ones who repeat ad nauseam the reprehensible lie that unemployed people are shiftless takers, because that's a hell of a lot easier than just admitting their theory that making life difficult for unemployed people will force them to "get a job" is rank garbage.
Like the rest of their fantastical contentions underwriting their contemptible policies.
[Related Reading: $10.10.]
Open Thread
Hosted by Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
This week's Open Threads have been brought to you by the letter S.
