[Content Note: Terrorism; racism; death; white supremacy; guns. Video autoplays at first link.]
Last night, a young white man went to a service, a Bible study group, at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina. He asked for the church's pastor, the Reverend Clementa C. Pinckney, and sat next to him during the study.
Once it had ended, the white man opened fire on the black attendees, killing six women and three men, including Rev. Pinckney. Three others survived. A female survivor reports the man reloaded five times, and that he told them: "You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go."
The shooter fled, and still remains at large. Charleston is not on lockdown, despite a mass shooting that was the an act of a terrorist, who took more lives than the Boston Bombing.
Police are investigating the shooting as a hate crime. The Department of Justice has launched a federal civil rights investigation.
In a statement, Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said: "We'll never understand what motivates anyone to enter one of our places of worship and take the life of another."
Oh, Governor Haley. I think you and every member of your party understands what motivates violent hatred very well indeed.
This was not an incomprehensible act, nor was it a "senseless crime." It is a crime that makes a perfect, terrible sense inside of a system of white supremacy upheld by and aggressively defended with violence.
Its perpetrator was not a lone gunman; he was a gunman with the companionship of white supremacy.
He is not a poor lost soul with mental illness; he is a terrorist.
This shit does not happen in a vacuum.
It happens in a white supremacist culture in which black people gunned down by police are thugs and white men who kill black women and men en masse are troubled boys whose mysterious motivations who can't possibly be discerned.
It happens in a culture of anti-blackness in which #BlackLivesMatter is a plea, and in which white people are privileged and exhorted to believe that our lives matter more.
It happens in a culture in which there is more mainstream news coverage of black protesters demonstrating for their very lives, deliberately misrepresenting those protesters as rioting criminals, than there is mainstream news coverage of nine people being slaughtered in an act of racism terrorism by a deliberative white killer who was welcomed into their midst.
It happens in a culture in which a confederate flag is flying at half-mast over the state capitol.
It happens in a culture with a long history of racially-motivated attacks on black churches and the black people who attend them, a culture in which shots were fired into a church in Memphis just this morning.
This shit does not happen in a vacuum.
Unknowable motivations. Senseless crime. Lone gunman. Mentally ill. Isolated incident. Watch for these weasel words and the weasel narratives they serve, urging us to shake our heads instead of our fists.
We should be angry. We all need to be angry.
* * *
My sincerest condolences to the friends, family, neighbors, colleagues, and fellow congregants of the people who were killed.
The names of the victims, aside from Rev. Pinckney, have not yet been released. I will update this post with their names when they have been made public.
UPDATE: Four of the victims have been identified as South Carolina State Senator Reverend Clementa Pinckney, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Cynthia Hurd, and Tywanza Sanders.
A fifth victim has been identified as Ethel Lee Lance.
A sixth victim has been identified as Myra Thompson.
A seventh victim has been identified as Rev. Daniel L. Simmons.
An eighth victim has been identified as Susie Jackson. She and Ethel Lee Lance were cousins.
The ninth victim has been identified as Rev. Depayne Middleton.
* * *
Commenting Guidelines: Anything even resembling apologia for this act of white supremacist terrorism will be deleted. Anything even resembling policing of black people's emotions will be deleted. Further, this is not the space to work out your white privilege. White people need to be doing that right now, as ever, but that is work to be done with other white people, not in a public forum where people of color who don't have the luxury of ignorance afforded by privilege are obliged to encounter and navigate it as a cost of participation.
Terrorist Attack on Black Church in Charleston
The Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by rain. More rain.
Recommended Reading:
Jenn: [Content Note: Murder; sexual assault; details of assault] #SayHerName: Two Male Suspects Arrested for the Murder of Arnesha Bowers
Monica: Fayetteville, Arkansas, Passes New Civil Rights Protection Law
Daniel: [CN: Racism] No More Mr. Chow
Kenrya: Selma Director Ava DuVernay on Why She Wants to Be Defined as a 'Black Woman Filmmaker'
Multiple Signatories: [CN: Racism; transphobia; appropriation] An Open Letter: Why Co-Opting "Transracial" in the Case of Rachel Dolezal Is Problematic
Libby Anne: [CN: Racism; abuse; sexual assault] Let's Talk About Rachel Dolezal's Parents
Miriam: The Moon Has a Dust Cloud, But a Lunar Mystery Remains
Colleen: [CN: Misogynistic violence; discussion of bodily functions; spoilers for Mad Max: Fury Road] Sweet Nectar of the Matriarchy: Breastmilk in Fury Road
Leave your links and recommendations in comments. Self-promotion welcome and encouraged!
Today in Misogynist Terrorism
[Content Note: Murder; police brutality; misogynist terrorism; white/male supremacy.]
In Asbury Park, New Jersey, a Neptune Township police sergeant shot and killed his ex-wife in broad daylight yesterday, while their daughter and other police officers watched.
Phillip Seidle, 51, a 22-year veteran with the Neptune Township Police Department, was charged with murder in the shooting death of his ex-wife Tamara Seidle on Sewall Avenue, said First Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Marc LeMieux.This is Seidle's defense in the making—and eager misogynists who defend toxic masculine violence are already jumping all over it, invoking narratives about bitch women who refuse to let their husbands see their kids.
[Following a street chase, culminating in Tamara Seidle wrecking her car] Phillip Seidle got out of his car, took out his .40- caliber Glock service handgun and fired "several" shots into Tamara's Seidle's car.
Phillip Seidle then put the gun to his head and started pacing around the area of Tamara Seidle's Jetta, LeMieux said.
LeMieux said officers were able to talk Phillip Seidle into handing over the couple's daughter. Once the daughter was in police custody, Phillip Seidle then fired more shots at Tamara Seidle through her front windshield, he said.
...Several times during the standoff, Phillip Seidle complained to police about not being able to see his children as much as he wanted, the neighbors said.
"He said, "You guys don't understand. I'm tired of paying alimony. I don't get to see my children,'" said the witness, who asked not to be identified.
But, even if it is true, and not just Phillip Seidle's skewed perception corrupted by entitlement, that Tamara Seidle was preventing him from seeing his children, it seems like she had very good reason, given that he chased and crashed into her with their 7-year-old daughter in the car and then murdered her.
Seidle, a police officer who appears to be white and who was armed and had just killed his ex-wife, was not harmed by police on the scene. Instead:
The standoff came to an end after police officers, on one side of Sewall Avenue, slid a small black box about the size of an individual cupcake box to Seidle, who was standing on the other side of the street, the witness said.Let me just repeat that: After killing Tamara Seidle and endangering his daughter, police welcomed Phillip Seidel into custody with hugs.
After looking at the object, he raised his arms over his head and walked out into the street to surrender, the witness said. The witness said police officers surrounded Seidle, who was "bawling his eyes out." While taking him into custody, some of the officers hugged him and patted him comfortingly on the back, the witness said.
I trust that I don't need to elaborate on how white supremacy and male privilege protected this man from his fellow police officers and entitled him to sympathy and affection that was never extended to Rekia Boyd, Michael Brown, John Crawford, Jordan Davis, Jonathan Ferrell, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, Freddie Gray, Darrien Hunt, Tamir Rice, Tony Robinson, Walter Scott, and all the other black women and black men killed by police, many of whom had committed no crime at all.
He killed his ex-wife and then they hugged him.
To be abundantly clear, I'm not arguing that police officers at the scene should have shot and killed Phillip Seidel. (His daughter has certainly been traumatized enough without seeing her father killed, too.) I'm arguing that the vast majority of other people killed by police don't need to be killed, either.
I don't want to hear a single fucking police officer anywhere in this country argue that they had to shoot anyone, when they can take the time to talk down an extremely dangerous and armed murderer and then hug him, as long as he's one of their own.
My condolences to the friends, family, and colleagues of Tamara Seidel. I'm sorry for your loss.
And my condolences to the women of Asbury Park, New Jersey, who might quite reasonably not be feeling very safe, seeing the officers tasked with protecting them instead embrace a man who murdered his ex-wife, because she wasn't giving him what he wanted.
I have serious questions about how well they protected Tamara Seidel, long before they embraced her murderer in broad daylight.
[H/T to Andrea Grimes. Because this has happened in other spaces in which this story has been reported, please let's remember that expressing a lack of surprise is not helpful to people who are reeling, but not surprised, from a devastating story like this one. Be angry with us, or feel free (and encouraged) to keep your thoughts to yourself.]
Quote of the Day
"Donald Trump's use of 'Rockin' in the Free World' was not authorized. Mr. Young is a longtime supporter of Bernie Sanders."—Elliot Roberts, manager of Neil Young, whose song "Rockin' in the Free World" was used by Donald Trump during his presidential announcement yesterday.
Republicans, WHO TOTES LOVE THE FREE MARKET YO, have a rich history of stealing liberals' songs for their garbage campaigns. And a rich history of misunderstanding those songs. "Rockin' in the Free World," for example, is a song critical of George H.W. Bush's administration and its contempt for the poor.
Whoooooooooooops!
[H/T to Aphra_Behn.]
Daily Dose of Cute
"It's a day!"
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: Racism; anti-immigrant sentiment; class warfare] I don't even know where to begin with this story; the sheer scope of what's happening is breathtaking: "Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are facing deportation from the Dominican Republic, the latest in a series of actions by the government that have cast a light on the country's long-troubled relationship with its Haitian neighbors. Undocumented workers in the Dominican Republic had until Wednesday to register their presence in the country, in the hope of being allowed to stay. The government says nearly 240,000 migrant workers born outside the Dominican Republic have started the registration process. But there are an estimated 524,000 foreign-born migrant workers in the country—about 90 percent of whom are Haitian, according to a 2012 survey—leaving a huge population of migrants at risk of deportation. Human rights groups had hoped the government would delay the registration deadline, given the difficulties faced by many in producing documents and satisfying bureaucratic requirements. But there were no indications that the authorities would stall their plan to begin ejecting workers." This is happening right outside the US, and there has been hardly a peep about it in US media. Absolutely awful.
[CN: War on agency] It continues to be a real mystery why Republicans aren't connecting with a majority of female voters: "House Republicans released a budget proposal this week that would eliminate funding for the Title X program, a decades-old network of family planning providers offering birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing, and reproductive health treatment to millions of low-income women across the country." When they want to prevent access to abortion and access to contraception, there is little room for them to deny that they simply want to force women (and other people who can get pregnant) to have babies, irrespective of our desire to have them.
[CN: Water access] Fuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh: "The world's largest underground aquifers–a source of fresh water for hundreds of millions of people—are being depleted at alarming rates, according to new NASA satellite data that provides the most detailed picture yet of vital water reserves hidden under the Earth's surface. Twenty-one of the world's 37 largest aquifers—in locations from India and China to the United States and France—have passed their sustainability tipping points, meaning more water was removed than replaced during the decade-long study period, researchers announced Tuesday. ...Scientists had long suspected that humans were taxing the world's underground water supply, but the NASA data was the first detailed assessment to demonstrate that major aquifers were indeed struggling to keep pace with demands from agriculture, growing populations, and industries such as mining. 'The situation is quite critical,' said Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and principal investigator of the University of California Irvine-led studies."
[CN: Class warfare; carcerality] Over 80% of people charged with a felony crime in the US are indigent and thus qualify for, and must rely on, representation by a public defender. But: "According to the US Department of Justice, in 2007, about 73% of county public defender offices exceeded the maximum recommended limit of cases (150 felonies or 400 misdemeanors). Too often, those who are poor receive lower quality defense than those who have the means to pay. The on-going decimation of public defense prevents defense attorneys from conducting 'core functions,' including factual investigation into the underlying charges." Public defense is a right, but it's just a worthless promise if public defenders aren't empowered to do their jobs effectively.
[CN: Racism; appropriation] This is a great article in which Stacey Patton interviews other female academics about Rachel Dolezal's fraud. Two quotes I liked in particular: Kinitra D. Brooks, an assistant professor of English at the University of Texas at San Antonio: "I have three words for Rachel Dolezal: How dare you? As black feminists, we have to work so hard just to be accepted and to have our critical theories considered valid. Her falsity can color what so many have previously argued as the supposed illegitimacy of black feminist scholarship." And Jennifer Griffiths, an associate professor of English at the New York Institute of Technology: "As a white woman professor who has focused on race issues in my scholarship and teaching, I feel like she avoided the hard, ongoing process of addressing her white privilege as part of work toward racial equality. Dolezal took it to a whole new level of arrogance about the ability to know someone else's experience, and to me, that's a kind of violation and betrayal that undermines any good intention."
[CN: Transphobia; gender policing] Bangkok University is letting its trans students wear whichever one of its binary-designed student uniforms that they prefer. This is a pretty nifty solution while the tradition of requiring uniforms is maintained. It would be pretty cool if they'd also let anyone who identifies as female wear trousers.
[CN: Injury; abuse; violence against people and animals] This is a truly bizarre story about a military doctor who has been abusing trainees, raising red flags for years, but somehow still "earning at least $10.5 million in federal contracts since 2007 through his company." Fucking hell.
Philae news! "European scientists are planning a risky manoeuvre to get their Rosetta spacecraft closer to the comet it is orbiting, so it can communicate with its robotic lander on the surface and start experiments that could unlock some of the universe's secrets. The lander, called Philae, surprised scientists at the weekend by waking up and sending a signal to Earth. ...With the comet moving closer to the sun, scientists hope Philae will be able to generate enough power to resume its pre-programmed experiments. But in order to receive the data, Rosetta will have to get closer to the comet." *bites nails*
We need bees. We need them big time. We need to protect them.
And finally! Chelsea the Golden Retriever jumped in to save her family during an accidental encounter with a mama moose protecting her two calves. Who's a good doggy?! YOU ARE, CHELSEA!
Just Stop
[Content Note: Choice policing; disablism; infertility.]
This gross piece of clickbait in which the author, Elizabeth Broadbent, asserts that "Saying Your Dog Is Your 'Baby' Is an Insult to Moms Everywhere" is being widely shared, and normally I would be reluctant to even give it any attention, but there's one point I want to make, which I've not seen elsewhere.
There's been lots of pushback along the lines that it's shitty to tell infertile people that they can't call their pets their "babies," as well as lots of pushback from women (especially) who have both children and pets and refer to both of them as their "babies." Both of which are absolutely correct.
And I'll note, once again, that even though I don't refer to my pets as my "babies" (or "furkids," or whatever variation), there are plenty of people who want to impose a parenting frame on my relationship with my pets. There is an enormous amount of pressure, especially on childfree women, to identify their pets as their "babies," and, in my experience, that pressure comes disproportionately from people who are parents, suggesting the idea that "moms everywhere" are insulted by the conflation of kids and pets is hardly accurate. To the contrary, I find that lots of parents who want to force me into a parenting model of pet guardianship do so because they're insulted by my choice not to parent.
But the one thing I haven't seen a lot of pushback on is how this shitty argument completely ignores that dogs (and other pets) increasingly fill roles in humans' lives beyond just being a pet.
Dogs have always filled roles beyond pets for lots of people: They have helped us hunt and protected us from predators. They ensured agricultural success by keeping critters away from cultivated land. They flushed pests from the earth. They helped us herd. They helped us navigate. They kept us warm. They accompanied us to war. They have retrieved on land and in water. They were service dogs to people with disabilities long before we even had a term like "service dog."
Cats have long helped with vermin control, in ways that history has long ignored. On farms and in cities, where contagious outbreaks may have been even worse in some cases, were it not for cats.
They have been our companions, in every conceivable way, for longer than we imagined.
People who use service animals may be dependent on them in order to function on a daily basis, and may literally trust their very lives with their service animals. Not everyone who relies on a service animal thinks of that animal as their "baby," or even their pet, but I would hardly begrudge anyone who does their right to honor that relationship however feels best to them.
And then there are the parents whose young children rely on service animals. Or have family pets who have just, of their own accord, saved a child's life. If that parent considers that pet a member of the family, loved as much (if differently) as the child they saved, who the fuck has the right (or even the desire) to police that?
Pets and/or service animals fill all different kinds of roles in our lives. Of course there will be different ways that different people love them, different ways they view them.
That doesn't demean parenthood. It celebrates the vast capacity humans have for love, in all its beautiful iterations.
Another Pool Incident, in Ohio
[Content Note: Racism; police brutality.]
Following the incident in McKinney, Texas, earlier this month, police in Fairfield, Ohio, have arrested four members of a black family—two adults, a 15-year-old, and a 12-year-old—after an altercation following a minor rule violation at a public pool. At the Daily Beast, Kate Briquelet has an excellent summation of what happened leading up to the altercation.
Police physically restrained several teens and pepper-sprayed at least one of them. The 12-year-old girl reportedly suffered a broken jaw and broken ribs after being slammed against a police cruiser.
And here is what Fairfield Police Officer Doug Day said about the incident: "Our officers used great restraint."
And here is what Fairfield Mayor Steve Miller said: "This is an unfortunate situation and our officers had a tough situation there. But I think they did a good job in showing restraint."
Quite a system we've got here, when police using pepper-spray and force against 12-year-old girls is considered "restraint."
All I'm hearing is: "At least they didn't shoot them." I got zero fucking cookies to give anyone for that.
* * *
Recommended Reading: "America's swimming pools have a long, sad, racist history."
"It’s clear to me that at a moment like this, being more open about it could do some good."
South Bend, Indiana, is a town of about 100,000 people, the fourth largest city in Indiana, and home of the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic school which is the town's biggest employer.
Its Democratic Mayor since 2012, Pete Buttigieg, is 33 years old, and has lived quite a remarkable life so far. Born in South Bend, he attended Harvard University (and graduated magna cum laude), was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, worked for John Kerry's presidential campaign, and is a veteran of the Afghanistan War.
He is also gay, which he publicly disclosed in a piece for the South Bend Tribune this week:
Experiences with friends or family members coming out have helped millions of Americans to see past stereotypes and better understand what being gay is — and is not.Beautiful.
...I was well into adulthood before I was prepared to acknowledge the simple fact that I am gay. It took years of struggle and growth for me to recognize that it's just a fact of life, like having brown hair, and part of who I am.
Putting something this personal on the pages of a newspaper does not come easy. We Midwesterners are instinctively private to begin with, and I'm not used to viewing this as anyone else's business.
But it's clear to me that at a moment like this, being more open about it could do some good. For a local student struggling with her sexuality, it might be helpful for an openly gay mayor to send the message that her community will always have a place for her. And for a conservative resident from a different generation, whose unease with social change is partly rooted in the impression that he doesn't know anyone gay, perhaps a familiar face can be a reminder that we're all in this together as a community.
Whenever I've come out to friends and family, they've made clear that they view this as just a part of who I am. Their response makes it possible to feel judged not by sexual orientation but by the things that we ought to care about most, like the content of our character and the value of our contributions.
...Like most people, I would like to get married one day and eventually raise a family. I hope that when my children are old enough to understand politics, they will be puzzled that someone like me revealing he is gay was ever considered to be newsworthy. By then, all the relevant laws and court decisions will be seen as steps along the path to equality. But the true compass that will have guided us there will be the basic regard and concern that we have for one another as fellow human beings — based not on categories of politics, orientation, background, status or creed, but on our shared knowledge that the greatest thing any of us has to offer is love.
Kids Today
[Content Note: Fire; injuries.]
Ten-year-old Isaiah Francis and eleven-year-old Jeremiah Grimes were playing video games when they started to smell smoke. They looked out the window and saw that the house next door was on fire, so they called 911 and then ran over to see if anyone needed help.
"So we ran over there as fast as we could, and the dad was outside trying to find water," said 10-year-old Isaiah. "We asked them if there were any kids in there, and he said, 'Yes!' We said, 'Where?' He said, 'In the kitchen!'"When the firefighters arrived, because Jeremiah had called them, they rescued two other older children, ages 2 and 5, who were still inside. They are both in critical but stable condition.
So the boys raced inside the home.
"I grabbed the infant, and Isaiah grabbed the one-and-a-half year old," explained 11-year-old Jeremiah.
Isaiah said he saw flames inside the home.
"Yes, it was really close to the babies, because it started by the couch," he said.
..."Mostly, it was just dark. You could see black and orange flames everywhere, and I was kind of scared of doing that," Jeremiah said.
Isaiah added, "I was scared, but got through my fear and went into the fire."
After the boys carried the children out of the burning home, they headed five houses down, to Isaiah's house, where they placed them on the couch and gave them some water.
"We made sure they were ok, nothing wrong with them," Jeremiah said.
The cause of the fire is being investigated, and the parents of the children are super grateful to the two boys: "They said, 'Thank you so much! We're so proud of you for saving our children!'"
Amazing. Well done, boys! ♥ ♥ ♥
Question of the Day
What two flavors commonly combined just don't go together on your palate?
This question inspired by the strawberry-banana juice I was drinking early today. I know lots of people love that flavor combination, but it is just incredibly disharmonious in my mouth. I just don't understand how strawberry and banana goes together at all!
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Racism; appropriation.]
"In the days since this story broke, many people have been quick to point out that race is merely a social construct—as if that fact changes the very real impact of race on the lives of minorities. The persistence of systemic racism means there are penalties for blackness in America. Black women—real ones—live at the nexus of that oppression and enduring sexism. The gender pay gap is steeper for them. They are more likely than their white counterparts to live in poverty, to be victims of domestic homicide and sexual assault. If Tyisha Miller or Rekia Boyd, black women who were victims of extrajudicial violence, had been able to slide into whiteness—for just a moment—they might still be alive. (Perplexingly, Ms. Dolezal told Matt Lauer that her decision to identify as black was a matter of 'survival.' That is rich, indeed.) But racial oppression is not as easy to shrug off as racial advantage. This is partly because America has spent centuries ensuring that certain people can never be white."—The always-brilliant Tami Winfrey Harris, in an op-ed for the New York Times on Rachel Dolezal and the history of race in the United States, "Rachel Dolezal's Harmful Masquerade."
Senate Passes Torture Ban
In 2009, almost immediately after taking office, President Obama issued an executive order which restricts all government employees from using on anyone detained during any armed conflict "any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to interrogation, that is not authorized by and listed in Army Field Manual," thus effectively ending the torture program used by the CIA and US military.
This radical (!) order prompted outrage from conservatives, including Bush's former chief speechwriter Marc Thiessen, who moaned: "It's not even the end of inauguration week, and Obama is already proving to be the most dangerous man ever to occupy the Oval Office."
Dramatic!
Except: Because it was an executive order, it could be overturned by the next president. And almost surely would be, if the next occupant of the White House is a Republican.
So Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstin and Republican Senator John McCain joined forces to co-author an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act to reaffirm and codify President Obama's executive order banning the use of torture.
Should the McCain-Feinstein amendment be made law...it will be harder for future administrations to repeat the actions of the Bush administration, which used controversial legal opinions to justify torturing detainees. The amendment would also turn into law a second component of the Obama order, which requires the Red Cross to have access to detainees in US custody, bringing America into line with the Geneva convention.Despite opposition from many of McCain's Republican colleagues, whom he urged to avoid the "dark path of sacrificing our values for our short-term security needs," sounding like a reasonable human being for once in his life, the amendment passed in the Senate, 78-21.
And any further Republican opposition to the amendment is unlikely to hold up the legislation to which it's attached, because the National Defense Authorization Act is the defense appropriations bill neither party likes to delay even for the most objectionable amendments, because they don't want to be accused of failing to support the troops or being soft on defense or whatever.
So, the long and the short of it is: We are very close to outlawing torture once again.
Until the next Republican War President, anyway.
* * *
[Video autoplays at link] Relatedly, if you can access video, John Oliver did a segment Sunday night on US torture policy that is definitely worth a watch, with warnings for description and images of torture, as well as a rape joke. In addition to the usual providing of solid information, he also employs a video clip that is near and dear to many of our hearts. I won't spoil it for you, though. *jumps into Christmas tree*
This Fu@#king Guy
[Content Note: Privilege; racism.]
Here are some cool highlights from Sir Donald Trump's presidential announcement today:
Donald Trump, standing at a podium in front of US flags (of course) and shouting in his usual obnoxious fashion: Our country needs a truly great leader, and we need a truly great leader now. [edit] We need a leader that can bring back our jobs, can bring back our manufacturing, can bring back our military, can take care of our vets; our vets have been abandoned! [edit] Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for President of the United States, and we are going to make our country great again! [edit] I will be the greatest jobs president that god ever created. I tell you that. I'll bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places. I'll bring back our jobs, and I'll bring back our money. [edit] Sadly, the American Dream is DEAD! But if I get elected president, I will bring it back! Bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again! Thank you! Thank you very much.Sir Donald Trump is going to bring everything back! Except sexy, which Justin Timberlake already brought back years ago!
I can't even with this fool. "The American Dream is dead!" declares a total fucking bozo who has amassed a $9 billion fortune.
"The American Dream" has always been and will always be a myth spun by people who uphold privilege.
And Trump is a man who loves his privilege. He also loves shitting all over people who don't share it. Here is an actual excerpt from today's address that was not included in the above video:
When do we beat Mexico at the border? They're laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they're killing us economically.And here's another:
The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems. ...When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we're getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They're sending us not the right people.
[President Obama] wasn't a cheerleader. He's actually a negative force. He's been a negative force. He wasn't a cheerleader; he was the opposite.So, Mexican migrants are garbage people and President Obama has ruined our country's "brand." And, in case that wasn't enough for you, he had plenty of cool stuff to say about China and the Middle East, too.
We need somebody that can take the brand of the United States and make it great again.
Donald Trump is a fucking joke, but the shit that falls out of his mouth isn't. It's seriously contemptible.
FDA Bans Trans Fats
[Content Note: Fat hatred; eliminationism.]
In 2013, the US Food and Drug administration announced that would "require food makers to gradually phase out artificial trans fats [which] provide no known health benefit."
Today, the FDA banned trans fats completely, giving the food industry three years to comply.
The only potential "health benefit" trans fats can provide is calories, which is a "health benefit" to someone who is experiencing food scarcity, but artificial trans fats are not the only and certainly not the best fat to provide even those calories. There are much better alternatives.
Even Crisco, the granddaddy of trans fat, now contains no trans fat.
The real benefit is to food companies, as trans fats prolong shelf life and are cheaper than saturated animal fats.
But it's not such an enormous benefit to them that many companies didn't ditch trans fats for better alternatives immediately, after the FDA required them to start including trans fat content information on nutrition labels in 2006.
So, yes, let's do away with trans fat.
Still, I have very mixed feelings about accomplishing this via a ban.
Because this ban doesn't exist in a vacuum. It exists in a culture in which there is a vast eliminationist campaign against fat people, being waged under the aggressive moniker "war on obesity," which includes a metric fuckton of policing what fat people eat.
And while there is abundant justification for getting trans fats out of our foods, that is certainly not the case for many other food-related bans and restrictions that are (and will be) simply about policing diets under the auspices of "health" when health is rarely a serious consideration, and instead is just a thin veneer of respectability draped over hatred of fat people and our fat bodies, just because of the way we look.
That said, there is always concern that, if the food industry is left to their own devices, they will simply use a cheaper product in their cheapest foods, thus deepening an ever-increasing food access divide, in which people the only people who have access to the healthiest alternatives are those who can afford to pay for it. And a ban is perhaps the only way to prevent that potentiality.
BUT. Here's the thing about trans fats: Merely requiring food producers to label trans fat content significantly diminished the use of trans fats.
The F.D.A. estimates that consumption of trans fats fell by a stunning 78 percent from 2003 to 2012, and it contends that the labeling rule and subsequent reformulation of foods were important drivers.The ban seeks to eradicate the remaining 15%, but perhaps there is an interim step, between regulation and a comprehensive ban, that could have accomplished the same, i.e. providing tax incentives to companies who elect not to use trans fats.
...[Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest] said that about 85 percent of trans fats in the food supply have been eliminated.
My reservations, to be clear, are not about trans fats. I have no interest in arguing that trans fats should stick around. But I am deeply skeptical of the methodology by which trans fats are being ushered out, especially when the same government crowing about this great win for the nation's health continues to subsidize the equally objectionable high-fructose corn syrup to the tune of billions of dollars every year.
The thing about banning trans fats is that only a real asshole would object. (Ahem.) Which makes it a great test case for a new front on the war on fat people, waged through food restriction and official policing. The trans fat ban will be cited as a grand success the next time a similar ban is proposed, and on we go down the rabbit hole.
Naturally, I will be accused of paranoia, but sometimes that's what sounding the alarm because you've been paying attention looks like.
If you don't know what I mean by "official policing," here is but one example: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has a proposed rule, whose comment period ends in three days, regarding "the regulations and interpretive guidance implementing Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as they relate to employer wellness programs. The proposed rule amends the ADA regulations to provide guidance on the extent to which employers may use incentives to encourage employees to participate in wellness programs that include disability-related inquiries and/or medical examinations."
And you know who's primarily targeted by compulstory participation in "wellness programs," yes?
And you remember when "obesity" was classified as a disease by the American Medical Association, yes?
And you remember our First Lady talking about what a drain on the economy fat people are, that we are a problem to be solved, yes?
There is a campaign to officially pathologize fat in order to give employers, insurers, and even the government justification for policing fat people under the auspices of public health.
We should thus regard with heightened scrutiny the attempt to ban (certain) foods under the auspices of public health. Because those bans don't exist in a vacuum, and "public health" has been used to justify all manner of harm.
I'm glad that public awareness campaigning and regulation decreased trans fat production and consumption by 85%. Maybe we could have stuck with that plan for awhile longer, is what I'm saying.
