Vangelis: "Chariots of Fire"
Terrorist to run against Obama in Democratic primaries
[Trigger warning for terrorism, misogyny, reproductive coercion and homophobia, applies to all links]
Activist Terrorist Randall Terry, founder of the anti-abortion hate group Operation Rescue, has chosen today to announce that he'll run against President Obama for the 2012 Democratic presidential nomination. He was set to make the announcement (a few minutes after this writing) at the Holocaust museum, because that's what Randall Terry does.
On a related note, Terry is hoping to run an anti-abortion ad during the Super Bowl. It just so happens that it's theoretically harder for networks to reject advertisements from political candidates than it is from gay people.
The real story here is clearly whether he'll show up to a debate in his alligator boots, because as the Washington Post recently reminded us, he's a terrorist an interesting guy.
Today in Totally Not Terrorism
[Trigger warning for racism, terrorism.]
You might have heard (but PROBABLY NOT!) that a backpack bomb was found along the parade route of a Martin Luther King Day event in Spokane, Washington. You probably haven't heard about it because our liberal media largely doesn't appear to give a fuck, an indifference that is almost as chilling as the evidence that white supremacist terrorist groups are escalating, as hate group trackers like the Southern Poverty Law Center have been saying, loudly, to resounding yawns from people with the sort of vast platform that, once upon a time, was used to raise awareness about these things.
In fairness, ahem, to our lazy, indifferent, ethically bankrupt, corporatized, for-profit, conventional wisdom-driven media, this incident—described by FBI Special Agent Frank Harrill as an act of domestic terrorism—doesn't fit the totally fun narrative that terrorism is something brown people do to white people and not the other way around.
But even given the usual apathy toward terrorism directed at marginalized people, the virtual silence on this story is astounding. Harrill also plainly noted that the backpack bomb was an "improvised explosive device" with a remote detonator and a "very lethal design" capable of inflicting "multiple casualties." It had been "carefully placed on a metal bench with a brick wall behind that would have directed shrapnel toward Main Street, where marchers were expected to pass, investigators said."
Marchers honoring non-violent activism.
This should be major news. We should be having a national conversation about domestic terrorism. In fact, this is the best time to have that conversation, because no one was hurt, giving us the best chance to have a serious, calm, reasonable, mature discussion, as opposed to the usual "OMFG WE NEED MORE GUNS TO STOP THE CRAZED LONE BOMBMEN!!! PLZ TAKE OUR CIVIL RIGHTS AWAY TO PROTECT OUR FREEDOM!!!" alarmism in which we typically engage in the wake of effective terrorizing violence.
But no one got dead. And there's no ratings boost for responsible conversation.
So.
[H/T to Eastsidekate.]
Top Chef Open Thread
[Image from season six: Tintin de Neckerchief shows off his wrists.]
Last night's episode will be discussed in detail, so if you haven't seen it, and don't want any spoilers, move along...
House Repeals Healthcare Reform
Because the Democratically-controlled Senate is vanishingly unlikely to take up a similar measure, this is essentially just a symbolic gesture, evidence that the House Republicans are both totally obnoxious and still way better than the Dems at understanding how to play to their base.
The Hill: "The House voted on Wednesday to repeal the sweeping healthcare law enacted last year, as Republicans made good on a central campaign pledge and laid down the first major policy marker of their new majority. The party-line vote was 245-189, as three Democrats joined all 242 Republicans in supporting repeal."
Washington Post: "Republicans vowed to keep pushing to overturn the law. But with no immediate likelihood of that happening, they said they would try to change it by eliminating certain parts of the law, such as a requirement that nearly all Americans obtain health insurance - and working to replace others. They also hope to take advantage of Democratic support for a proposal to remove a tax on businesses, an idea that President Obama has indicated he is willing to consider."
New York Times:
Republicans denounced the law as an intrusion by the government that would prompt employers to eliminate jobs, create an unsustainable entitlement program, saddle states and the federal government with unmanageable costs, and interfere with the doctor-patient relationship. Republicans also said the law would exacerbate the steep rise in the cost of medical services.Also see D-Day.
...Democrats, eager for a second chance to sell the law, trumpeted the benefits that have already taken effect. These include protections for people who would otherwise be denied insurance coverage based on a pre-existing medical condition, the ability for children to stay on their parents' policy until age 26, and new tax breaks for small businesses that provide health coverage to their workers.
Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, said, "It is unbelievable that with so many people out of work and millions of people uninsured, the first act of this new Congress is to take health care away from people who just got coverage."
Question of the Day
What is your favorite solitary leisure activity?
Here, "leisure activity" is designed as anything that isn't paid work.
Daily Dose of Cute
Video Description: Scenes of Dudley being playful, wrestling with his favorite blanket and running around the dog park with his friends Eddie the Labweenie, Daisy the Beagle, Molly the Mutt, and Pixie the Yorkie. Set to "La Corde" by Yann Tiersen.
It's Been Way Too Long
Transcript:
Voice Off-Camera: Hey, Kiefer. You're a pirate, man.
Kiefer: That would explain everything. [jumps into Christmas tree]
Number of the Day
Zero. The number of shits I give about John McCain's opinion about who should be in President Obama's cabinet.
Or his opinion on anything else, frankly.
Dreaming of Sunlit Sidewalks
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
I haven't been sleeping well lately. I keep having these dreams.
In the dreams, a woman is about to be raped. It's a different woman every time—not someone I know, just a woman created by my subconscious, whose face looks a little like a woman I saw on the news or a recent episode of Cake Boss. And she is in danger.
Last night, I dreamt that my oldest female friend C and I were at some shitty bar having a drink. It was daytime, in the summer, and there were two doors, both of them open to let in the fresh air. We were the only patrons besides a man who appeared to be a regular, who was sitting at the bar. A young woman was behind the bar, with the bartender. I couldn't tell if she was an employee, or the daughter of a family friend maybe—she was speaking to him like she knew him, but not well.
The bartender, an older white guy, old enough to be her father, was creepy in his behavior toward her. Whatever her relation to him, it was evident she thought she was safe trusting him. No—that she felt like she had to trust him, like being distrustful would be disrespectful. Her body language was uneasy, but she was obliged.
C and I watched this all from our table, while we half-heartedly kept up our conversation.
Suddenly, the young woman, who had been chattering away, went very quiet. I looked at her from halfway across the room. Her eyes were drooping. My gaze went to the bartender, who had come from behind the bar and was closing one of the doors. As he started to walk to the other, he caught my eye and held it as a smile played at the corners of his lips but never formed. With a menacing matter-of-factness, he said, "We're going to rape this girl now. So if you don't want to get raped, too, you'd better get on outta here." The young woman slumped to one side against the barfly; she'd been drugged.
C and I made our way toward the door that was still open, next to which the bartender stood, waiting for us to leave. My mind was racing, trying to figure out what to do. I said, "Wait, I forgot my purse," and turned to walk back into the bar. The bartender blocked my way, and I pushed past him. "My phone is in there. I need my purse!" I went back in and I grabbed the young woman's hand and yanked hard, dragging her body across the floor and out the door. I felt the muscles in my back and legs straining, and I began to cry, thinking I might never get her out of there.
This being a dream, somehow the mere fact that I wanted to save her rendered her attempted rapists unable to stop me. Once I got her across the threshold and onto the sidewalk, we were all safe.
That's the sort of pattern the dreams always follow. A woman rendered unable to extricate herself from various sinister venues because she's been wounded or drugged, and me, sometimes with a female friend and sometimes alone, pulling her or half-carrying her out onto a sunlit sidewalk, sobbing.
Lest you imagine I fancy myself some sort of hero in these dreams, it is not a feeling of triumph with which I am left. It is an encompassing feeling of grief.
I wake up with tears on my cheeks, the muscles in my limbs and torso constricted and tight, my teeth grinding against one another.
The rape culture is so vast and pervasive, so comprehensive and insidious, ever changing its form and shape to permeate the tiniest nooks and crannies in even the remotest corners of this life and its every experience. It snorts derisively at my teaspoon, creating rapists and rape apologists and new means of revictimizing survivors, bullying them into silence, faster than I can comprehend. I am overwhelmed by it in every conceivable way.
But the only alternative is apathy, which is a luxury I cannot afford.
Frequently I get emails from women who have just been raped, who just want to know how the fuck to get on with life. I don't know. I really don't. I tell them that I don't believe things happen for a reason, but I do believe that we can retroactively give meaning to the things that happen to us. For me, that was becoming an activist, fighting even when it feels futile. It's the only thing I've found that gives meaning to a thing that cannot be meaningless.
So I stand on the beach, digging my toes into the sand, gripping my teaspoon until my knuckles turn white, and I face the tsunami coming toward me. And I wonder how to reconcile the knowledge I can never do enough with the fierce urgency nestled within the depths of my will to do something.
I have no answer in my waking life, and I've found none in my fitful rest, either.
Holy Shit, You Guys!
Have you heard that President Obama might not be a US citizen?! OMG why didn't anyone CHECK before he was elected president?!
Thank Maude the World News Daily is on top of this important story!
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
Men have upper hand in sexual economy. O RLY? Is there any way we can make this nooz out to be feminism's fault?
Researchers found that since women in the 18- to 23-year-old group feel they don't need men for financial dependence, many of them feel they can play around with multiple partners without consequence, and that the early 20s isn't the time to have a serious relationship. But eventually, they do come to want a real, lasting relationship. The problem is that there will still be women who will have sex readily without commitment, and since men know this, fewer of them are willing to go steady.Perfect.
"Women have plenty of freedom, but freedom does not translate easily into getting what you want," [University of Texas at Austin researcher Mark Regnerus] said.
[H/T to Shaker Amy, who also notes that the picture chosen to accompany the article whiffs strongly of the rape culture.]
Wednesday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by Shaxco, makers of McEwan Brand Teaspoons, now with ergonomic grip!
Recommended Reading:
BQ: Tunisian Revolution Links Roundup
Echidne: Anti-Rape Evolutionary Adaptations. Beep, Beep. [TW for rape, gender essentialism]
Chérie: On Teenage Blood Running in Our Veins
Jamison: The Washington Post's Idea of "Respectful Conversation" [TW for violence, homophobia, dehumanization, Christian supremacy]
scatx: STFU, Dr. Laura [TW for violence, racism]
Melissa: Tweet of the Day [TW for violence, racism, dehumanization]
Andy: Schwarzenegger's Mom Took Him to the Doctor Because She Thought He Was Gay
Leave your links in comments...
Quote of the Day
"You cannot allow yourself to think that activism to change things for the better isn't worth doing, even if it's difficult."—Eighty-four year-old Monnie Callen, social worker, retired member of 1199SEIU, and civil rights advocate who attended Dr. King's 1963 March in Washington DC, reflecting on what she's "learned about activism, both from Dr. King, and my family and my life's work."
[H/T to @NatashaChart.]
Your Corporatocracy in Action
When the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which granted corporations, unions, and nonprofits the latitude to donate freely to political campaigns and thus effectively bankroll federal elections, I grimly mused: "It is not hyperbole to say this decision is paving the way for America to become a fully-fledged corporatocracy, which, depending on your perspective, is a sibling to fascism or a version of it. ...This decision further diminishes any voice that isn't backed with a fuckload of money. Someday, we may look back on this day and realize it was the day our democracy died."
Today, People for the American Way is reporting that the repeal of President Obama's healthcare legislation has been "Bought and Paid for by Citizens United." Irrespective of one's feelings about the healthcare legislation itself, that its repeal is being driven not by a grassroots objection but instead by vested corporate interests "dedicated to the repeal of the health care reform law" is chilling.
[E]mpowered by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, corporate-backed groups intent on the repeal of the health care reform law spent an enormous amount of money to help defeat vulnerable supporters of reform and elect candidates who vowed to repeal it.In a piece for the Washington Post yesterday, Katrina vanden Heuvel described reversing Citizens United as "a question of whether American democracy itself can beat back a corporate takeover, whether our most cherished principles of self-government can ultimately prevail."
...This outside spending—a total of over $100 million in the 36 flipped health care races—came from a set of 20 national groups dedicated to the repeal of the health care reform law. Three groups, US Chamber of Commerce, 60 Plus Association, and the Coalition to Protect Seniors received support from the health care industry according to news reports. The other groups identified as pro-repeal, Americans for Tax Reform; Americans for Limited Government; Alliance for America's Future; American Action Network; American Future Fund; Super PAC for America; BIPAC; Revere America; Club for Growth; Americans for Job Security; American Crossroads & Crossroads GPS; Americans for Prosperity; Center For Individual Freedom; FreedomWorks; NFIB, and the New Prosperity Foundation ran advertisements attacking health care reform, often including misleading claims, but were largely exempt from requirements to disclose their funders.
...In the 2010 elections, because of lax restrictions on corporate spending and disclosure laws rife with loopholes, 20 anti-reform groups were able to make substantial investments in congressional elections. At the same time, they were able to magnify the impact of their dollars by spreading misleading claims about the health care reform bill. This week, as the House votes to repeal a bill that would bring health and financial security to millions of Americans, they will see a powerful return on their investments.
There are those who suggest the coup is a fait accompli, and they may be right, given that successfully turning back Citizens United is contingent upon penetrating the thick armor of apathy that many US voters don to insulate themselves from evidence of the slow erosion of their collective power. That's no small feat, getting people to pay attention to something ugly in order to change it.
But we've certainly got to try.
Support the Fair Elections Now Act, which will need to be reintroduced in this Congressional session. There are all kinds of ways to take action at that site. Contact your Senators. Contact your Representative. Ask them to support Rep. Donna Edwards' (D-MD) proposed constitutional amendment to quash corporate personhood, which states "unequivocally that corporations are not people and do not have the right to buy elections." Link this post and the other links contained herein wherever you can, to make people aware of the issue and enlist their teaspoons as part of the solution.It's time to make some noise.
Clinton May Leave State Department
It's very unusual for Secretaries of State to serve both terms of a two-term presidency, but I was still hoping Secretary Hillary Clinton would stick around if/when Obama is reelected. Well, I suppose the fact that she hasn't committed to staying means she hasn't committed to leaving, either:
Clinton said she had committed only to serving as the nation's top diplomat during the president's first term.Can't blame her. She's been going a million miles an hour on the national stage for twenty years now. If anyone deserves to put her feet up...
..."I am very pleased to be working in this position now, but I've said on many different occasions that I'm looking forward to returning to private life," Clinton said. "I do look forward to having a little more spare time, and a few more hours to take just a spare breath."
She also repudiated former Vice President Cheney's assertion earlier this week that Obama would be a one-term president.Heh heh heh. Even in her retirement, whenever that may be, she'll still be the Secretary of Sass.
"I am pleased that former Vice President Cheney is healthy and resuming public activities, but I could not disagree with him more," Clinton said of Cheney's one-term claim. "I think President Obama has been playing the hand that he was dealt by the Bush/Cheney administration very well indeed."
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