Death Panels?

So I hate Sarah Palin.
She's nuts. She's a pathological liar (which I've written about before, albeit briefly). But she's really gone off the deep end on this death panel nonsense. First off, I get really tired of hearing people frame healthcare socialization (not that I foresee that being an option in the end) as a "lack of choice." I don't have choice now. My parents even WITH insurance have no choice of doctors, or surgeons, or anything. They have their one covered provider network, which is small (rural living at its finest), and that's all.

But worse, much worse, is this malarkey that she's pushing. And then defending, repeatedly, as if it has any merit.

It's a potshot, a clear attempt to destroy any chance of real reform, and for what purpose? What the hell is the point of making it impossible for ANYTHING productive to be done?

I'm cranky. And I've already had more coffee than I needed and a run today, so I'm stuck being cranky for the time being. Pah. I think I'm done blogging for today because I'm ceasing to make sense.

Damon Weaver Gets His Interview

talking racism

Every morning (and evening, most days) I open my 30-tab blogroll and read NPR, Salon, NYTimes, Jezebel, and then all of my favorite blogs. Chrome gets mad at me every time, popping up an "are you sure you want to open 30 tabs?!?" warning.

Of course I do, Chrome. Because I often find gems like this. Click through; it's an "interview" posted by the folks at We Are Respectable Negroes, and it talks about white racism and privilege from a slightly different perspective than usual.

I've heard it come up more often recently, just how much of the anger over healthcare and everything is based on race. Most of the punditry is quick to dismiss the idea, reflecting on the failure of healthcare reform during the Clinton administration, when there were White People in the office. Clearly there can't be a race issue at hand if the same idea failed when white people had it (not that the comparison as justification idea has ANY racist tendencies, of course).

Frankly, though, I don't remember this kind of rage happening when Hillarycare was on the table. And that's also not the only issue where it's coming up, just the loudest. The Birthers (intent on othering), the Tea Baggers (worst name for a dissent group I've ever heard), and the people toting guns to town hall meetings--all of that reeks of white privilege.

As I've said before: go take a bath.

Via stuff white people do: think that racism is dead, and from Respectable Negroes:

WARNNN: ...what exactly do you mean when you say that you’ve been “flattened” and “dumbed down?”

Racism: I really just mean that the criteria for what qualifies as racism has been changed to benefit white people: the bar has been raised impossibly high for whites, lowered for everyone else.

WARNNN: In what way? Can you elaborate?

Racism: Nowadays, only biological white supremacy, racial slurs (especially the “N’ word”), and explicit racial violence will get a white person labeled a racist. Therefore, many whites respond to charges of racism by saying things like, “I’m not a racist…Some of my best friends are black…I’ve never enslaved any black people or terrorized them with dogs and firehoses…I’ve never burned a cross on a black family’s lawn or called anyone ‘Nigger.’” You see? Nazis and Klansmen are the only racist whites from this perspective. This isn’t the only view, but it’s been the default for decades.

On the other hand, look at how conservatives have co-opted Civil Rights language to depict members of the black left as “racists.” I mean, in just the last week, these people have charged Obama, Sotomayor, and Skip Gates with racism. In some formulations, merely mentioning race and racial injustice gets you slapped with the racist label. Think about how, in the eyes of most whites, the Panthers, Malcolm, Reverend Wright—indeed, all blacks who offer savage critiques of white supremacy—are racists on par with David Duke.

Cultural (mis)Appropriation

Burqa Tourism at its Finest: How to Become an Expert on Muslim Women in Just One Week | Muslimah Media Watch


Scathing analysis of the current trend in British media (and law enforcement) to "understand the plight of Muslim women in the UK" by donning burqa/niqab for a short time with, of course, no other attempt and understanding anything other than the attire. Worth a read.

Khuda Ke Liye

So S sent me this clip the other day. I've been trying to write about it since then, but I can't even decide which topic to pull from it.

Check the tags, I guess, to see what the options were. It's about half of the tags I even have.

Also, the wikipedia and imdb pages about the movie. I'd like to see the whole thing, to be honest, because this little section hit me so hard.

"demarriage" and French PACS

This post is two steps removed from its original source, since it's a guest post on a blog that's not mine. It's written by Barry from Baslow's Electric OmniumGatherum, cross-posted at Women's Glib. The whole post is worth a read, for the anecdotal aspect, but the part that really caught my attention was the reference to the French PACS, short for pacte civil de solidarité.

"[it] is a form of civil union between two adults (same-sex or opposite-sex) for organising their joint life. It brings rights and responsibilities, but less so than marriage. From a legal standpoint, a PACS is a “contract” drawn up between the two individuals, which is stamped and registered by the clerk of the court. In some areas, couples signing a PACS have the option of undergoing a formal ceremony at the City Hall identical to that of civil marriage. Individuals who have registered a PACS are still considered “single” with regard to family status for some purposes, while they are increasingly considered in the same way as married couples are for other purposes."

Barry notes correctly that PACS are not regarded in the same way as marriage in France, in that family status of PACS signatories is still considered single, and PACS signatories without marriage licenses (namely same-sex couples) cannot adopt. But it's certainly something, in that a lot of the legal crap regarding healthcare and estate dispute that same-sex couples deal with here can be avoided in France if there is a PACS involved.

I'm in agreement with Barry that I would REALLY like a way to recognize the legal aspects of a marriage-type union without the religious and pseudo-moralistic connotations. For those who wish to ascribe religious significance to their union, why not, but not every marriage has anything religious about it. Not to mention the fact that the pseudo-religious regulations about marriage in the US are definitely Christianized in ways that, constitutionally, have no business in legislation.

Things Go On

Ahmadinejad Sworn In As Iran President Amid Crisis : NPR:

"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sworn in Wednesday for a second term as president nearly two months after a disputed election triggered massive street protests, split Iran's clerical leadership and brought attacks from within his own conservative camp over mistreatment of detained opposition activists."

I've written on this before. I think that this is the beginning of a change, despite everything, and I think that it's how it has to be for now. It's still not a fantastic end to the story.

What does Obama's health care bill cover?

Health Care Reform: The Beach-Reader Edition | The Root

"A midsummer status report on the big debate boiled down to the bare essentials"

Another Little Tidbit

Found at On Being a No-Name Blogger Using Her Real Name � Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose:

"You, dear male reader, are totally not one of those men. I know this, and I appreciate it. I really do. But here’s where all this victimy girl shit concerns you:

**every time you don’t tell your buddies it’s not okay to talk shit about women, even if it’s kinda funny;
**every time you roll your eyes and think “PMS!” instead of listening to why a woman’s upset;
**every time you call Ann Coulter a tranny cunt instead of a halfwit demagogue;
**every time you say any woman–Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Phyllis Schlafly, Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, any of us–”deserves whatever she gets” for being so detestable, instead of acknowledging there are things that no human being deserves and only women get;
**every time you joke about how you’ll never let your daughter out of the house or anywhere near a man, ’cause ha ha, that’ll solve everything;
**every time you say, “I don’t understand why thousands of women are insisting this is some kind of woman thing”;
**every time you tell a woman you love she’s being crazy/hysterical/irrational, when you know deep down you haven’t heard a word she’s said in the past 15 minutes, and all you’re really thinking about is how seeing her yell and/or cry is incredibly unsettling to you, and you just want that shit to stop;
**every time you dismiss a woman as “playing the victim,” even if you’re right about that particular woman…

You are missing an opportunity to help stop the bad guys.


You’re missing an opportunity to stop the real misogynists, the fucking sickos, the ones who really, truly hate women just for being women. The ones whose ranks you do not belong to and never would. The ones who might hurt women you love in the future, or might have already."

And later:

But please listen, and please trust me on this one: you have probably, at some point in your life, engaged in that kind of talk with a man who really, truly hates women–to the extent of having beaten and/or raped at least one. And you probably didn’t know which one he was.
And that guy? Thought you were on his side.

I've found a few of these today. They're powerful. Go. Go read them.

Public Baffled By Health Care Arguments : NPR

Public Baffled By Health Care Arguments : NPR

Alright, so I have a problem with the healthcare debates. My issue, in general, is that nobody's talking about healthcare reform. They're talking about health INSURANCE reform. They're trying to extend insurance coverage, not availability of care.

Let me tell you that I could afford monthly insurance premiums so that I could, at least, see a doctor without having to go to the ER. I could. But I don't, because those low-cost premiums would cover NOTHING, and I couldn't afford the medical bills. So yes, I might be able to get in and get a prescription, which is more than I can say in my currently uninsured state, but I would have to declare bankruptcy for anything more than a routine physical. I had a problem in my internal girly bits last year, which involved bloodwork and some other things, and even WITH the great insurance I still had through my dad, I had to pay over $400 for the extra work. And that wasn't even a serious problem, just one of those things where you need to rule things out.

Nobody's talking about making problems like that go away. They're talking about INSURANCE. I had insurance, and I still didn't go to the hospital when I (probably) broke my ankle because I wouldn't be able to afford the deductible.

What we need to be talking about is reforming the healthCARE system, not the health INSURANCE system. And we're not, not really.

Well There's A Good Call, Governator...

Stumbled on this gem via Feministing: Schwarzenegger eliminates funding for DV shelters - Feministing


Ok, so I'm obviously appalled. There's a surprise, right? Zip's blogging about something, she's probably bloody incensed.

I've needed those places. I've worked in those places. On both sides, there's enough tough shit attitude to deal with even when there's enough money to do the work and do it right.
There are appropriate places to cut budgets. There's even a little wiggle room to decrease funding for shelters, as long as money has to come from other places, too. I realize that California is in dire straights, budget-wise. But to cut 100% of funding for such a vital service is beyond financial management. It's the kind of action that brings to mind feudal England, or...I don't even know. Imaginary lands in post-apocalyptic scenarios. It's unfathomable as a legitimate idea. It's on par with saying "ok, we're broke, let's euthanise all the old people." We're a developed country. What the hell?

I don't know where these shelters are going to make up the difference in their operating budgets. Like the previously linked article, many or most of them probably won't.

If you're a CA resident, there's an action alert out at StopFamilyViolence.org. Here in the Midwest, all I can do is complain and hope somebody with clout hears it.

Privilege, Language, and Dialogue in Identity

In recent posts at Feministe, Womanist Musings, Women's Glib, and a few other spots, the discussion of labels has been heated and torn apart. It's a difficult issue for me, because it's one of those things where staging a dialogue isn't acceptable, but there are so many viewpoints on it that it's hard to handle. My own comments were as privileged as the original post, and I took all the criticisms therein as if they were directed at me.

I'm new to this, frankly, and I have a hard time handling it. Not the feminism, but the intersectionality of equity movements and how they work against each other. The roots of my feminism are academic, and so are inherently based around a privileged class and a privileged viewpoint. I am accustomed to discussing things round-table style, under the assumption that a discussion between people is the fairest way to hash this stuff out. So when I began asking and was quickly privilege-checked for expecting others to educate me, it was painful in a way that I haven't totally recovered from--a sure sign of the privilege associated with the issue.

The heart of the matter, I suppose, is that you can't check your privilege at the door. It isn't a jacket; it's more like your scent. It will follow you around the party wherever you go, and while some may think it's a lovely scent, others may find it downright appalling. That's the point. If you're being smart about it, you don't bathe in acrid fragrances before you leave the house. You realize that what you were born with may be offensive enough, and maybe you try to minimize it by showering regularly.

And when someone tells you that you stink, by God, go take a bath. Don't argue that you've got the most wonderful perfumes on and they should realize the care you put into your preparations for the evening.

So here it is, on the table: I'm white, female, cis, abled (I have a visible skin condition that occasionally affects the way people interact with me but doesn't debilitate me on most days), queer, young, middle-class. I am pretty high-tier on privilege ladder.

Sometimes I get it wrong. I don't ask you to excuse this. In fact, I'd much rather be called out on it. If you can bear to be nice, great. If not, I'll take that, too.

A few thoughtful posts on the matter (I'll add more as I come across them; this post may end up permalinked):

Kittywampus: What Intersectionality is and Isn't
Echidne of the Snakes: Culture and Privilege
What Tami Said: Nobody knows the troubles of a black womanist blogger in the white femisphere
Womanist Musings: Can a White Woman Be a Womanist?
Womanist Musings: The Name of This Blog Is
Womanist Musings: Womanism/Feminism Feminism/Womanism
Global Comment: Clean Up Feminism, Then We'll Talk

A lot of those are womanist discussions, which is both positive and negative, because while feminism has been exclusive of women of color, womanism has itself had a tendency to primarily include black women. Neither is truly inclusive of trans issues, among other things. In either case, there is a lot at stake and a great many balls in play on this court. Privilege, again, has determined who is playing and who is in the stands.

Primer on the Ideas for New Healthcare

Quick details on single-payer, public option, and the other ideas floating around the healthcare reform table.

Healthcare for dunces | Salon News

How 'Bout That Economy?

When will the recovery begin? Never | Salon: "The X marks a brand new track -- a new economy. What will it look like? Nobody knows. All we know is the current economy can't 'recover' because it can't go back to where it was before the crash. So instead of asking when the recovery will start, we should be asking when and how the new economy will begin. More on this to come."

I have some tentative hopes that this economic disaster will have the power to, eventually, bring about some real change in the overall outlook of society. We might just realize that trickle-down economics don't work, that social programs are not of the devil, and that the celebrity worship we've been engaging in, with the accompanying consumerism and overspending to mimic lavish lifestyles beyond our means, was simply foolish.

I am afraid of what this shift will entail, but hope to see the outcome before it's too late to appreciate it.

Democracy

And still our vote mattered | Salon News:

"Asking where our vote is, is not enough. Democracy must also be about who gets to reply."

I am pained about the Iranian elections. I've written about them before, and about how I'm not sure how to grapple with the dozens of issues inherent in the topic (westernization, democratization, religious governance, the list goes on), but I can't help but hurt when I see accounts like this:

That the vote was against Ahmadinejad there can be no doubt. Consider this: Over the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, some 30 percent of the population has never voted. These are the true disbelievers, citizens who take pride in having a blank shenasname, or identity booklet. They are the friends and family members who take every opportunity to remind the rest of us, at the dinner table, caught in traffic, sitting in the park, that voting is a mistake, that you ought not participate in a system that is at its core rotten.

Except ... Except this time a good half of these nonbelievers came. They came, pulled, pleaded -- coaxed into voting by sons and daughters. They came this year, dramatically reversing what had been a steady decline in participation, lifting turnout to heights not seen since the early days of the Revolution. With the much ballyhooed rural vote already in the bank for the president, the only place left for Ahmadinejad to make up his reported 6 to 8 million new votes was with the apostates. Are we really to believe, as some are now insisting, that these many millions showed up to vote for the incumbent?

There was so much hope, and it was simply crushed. How long will it be before there is enough strength to try again?

Off the Stove

Apologize for the lack of posting; there've been things going on! Left the fiance, visited friends, had my birthday, and am working on my application to grad school, meeting with the dept. head tomorrow and then visiting my papa, followed by a shindig in the country.

All of which have required some planning and much attention. Blogging is on the back-burner, but I imagine that on Monday I will be back.

In the meantime, I'm still trying to figure out what in the world is going on with Sarah Palin, and why she seems like a pathological liar, why she is being framed as a feminist martyr to The Democracy while clearly working against the interests of women in general.

That's as much as I have time to do right this second, though as I was digging those links back up I came across some new stuff and of course "I'll be out for a bit" means "I'll be posting like a volcano for the rest of the day."


Also, hello to my global readership! I got a Croatian flag on my counter today, adding to my India, GB, US, and Canada.

The Asshattery Does not Cease

Transcript:

"So now we got a czar, we got a domestic violence czar - I had a story, that's what she's calling about - the opening hour of the program, they just hired a domestic violence czar. An adviser. They're not calling it a czar, but it's a czar. It's a domestic violence adviser. What the hell kind of advice are you gonna get? About the only kind of advice - I mean we're talking about democrats here, right? We're talking about the party of Bill Clinton. So I assume If you're going to have a domestic policy adviser, the advice you're gonna get - put some ice on it. Your lip's a little bleeding and swollen - put some ice on it, as you leave the swanky motel room. Domestic policy - domestic violence adviser - why do you need any advice on that? There are some instances where it's justified and you need an adviser to tell you when, in case the woman's a republican and the husband's a democrat, it's perfectly understandable why there would be domestic violence, we've got to allow for this? What the hell are we doing here?"

Political Memo - Political Shifts on Gay Rights Lag Behind Culture - NYTimes.com

Political Memo - Political Shifts on Gay Rights Lag Behind Culture - NYTimes.com: "Monday, 250 gay leaders are to join Mr. Obama in the East Room to commemorate publicly the 40th anniversary of the birth of the modern gay rights movement: a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York. By contrast, the first time gay leaders were invited to the White House, in March 1977, they met a midlevel aide on a Saturday when the press and President Jimmy Carter were nowhere in sight.

The conflicting signals from the White House about its commitment to gay issues reflect a broader paradox: even as cultural acceptance of homosexuality increases across the country, the politics of gay rights remains full of crosscurrents."

I'm wondering what happened with this today. The situation regarding the Obama administration's thus-far lackluster approach to LGBT rights is precarious for everyone involved. On the one hand you have a significant group of people that desperately need legal recognition in order to achieve the rights of the privileged class, and on the other hand you have Obama risking a significant portion of his voter base. There are an awful lot of political incentives for both parties to make something happen here.

Hopefully the political sphere will catch up with the rest of us.

Questionable Natures

I'm certainly not the only one who has raised an eyebrow at this ruling:

Madoff Sentenced to 150 Years - NYTimes.com: "In pronouncing the sentence — the maximum he could have handed down — Judge Denny Chin turned aside Mr. Madoff’s own assertions of remorse and rejected the suggestion from Mr. Madoff’s lawyers that there was a sense of “mob vengeance” surrounding calls for a long prison term. Mr. Madoff’s crimes, the judge said, were “extraordinarily evil.”"

And with good reason. Clearly, Madoff was engaged in fraud on a colossal scale, which cost a great many people a great deal of money. Some of them could afford the hit; others could not, and there's no denying that lately, any financial hit is painful. I get that.

The problem is that the Madoff sentencing comes on the tail of things like this:

• 
  Sentence in Mexico Murder Is Cut to 27 1/2 Years

Furor Builds Over Child Rapist's Sentence

David Harold Earls, 64, of the southeastern Oklahoma town of McAlester, pleaded no contest last month to first-degree rape and forcible sodomy. Normally, the rape charge carries a sentence of between five years to life in prison, but the deal he struck with prosecutors called for 19 years of his 20-year sentence to be suspended.

(Effectively sentencing Earls to one year in prison)

And, more importantly, ideas like this:

Is Rape Serious?


Why don’t police departments treat rape kits with urgency? One reason is probably expense — each kit can cost up to $1,500 to test — but there also seems to be a broad distaste for rape cases as murky, ambiguous and difficult to prosecute, particularly when they involve (as they often do) alcohol or acquaintance rape.

The point being, of course, that fraud will keep a man off the streets, but violent criminals (if the victims are even able to bring them to court) will be back on the streets before the evidence can be fully processed.

Proving once again that, here in America, money is worth much more than humanity.

Ten Things Wrong with Sarkozy's Burqa Ban

Via the Czech

1. Mandating how women should dress is mandating how women should dress, whether it is a mandate to wear a burqa, or a mandate not to wear one. When a man tells a woman how to dress, it’s paternalism and subjugation one way or the other.

2. Plus, as Dori points out, a man telling a woman that too much of her body is covered, and that she needs to expose more of it to his view, is pretty weird. How much modesty is too much? How much exposed flesh is enough to satisfy Sarkozy?

3. A Christian man imposing rules of dress upon Muslim women does little to actually foster the kind of gender equality he claims to be advancing.

4. Sarkozy talks as though there is no “subjugation of women” among the non-Muslim denizens of France. As though France is a wonderland of gender equality. According to WikiGender: “Compared to other countries, France has always been rather late in adopting gender equality as a goal and designing policies to achieve it.” So why suddenly all this concern for a certain subset of French women, who just randomly happen to come from a community hated and feared by many in France?

5. What other items of clothing does Mr. Sarkozy disapprove of? Do they also happen to correspond to certain disfavored, marginalized communities?

6. Any attempt to “eliminate” burqas in France will only serve to further marginalize the women who wear them. Burqas, for some women, represent a compromise. Some individuals believe women are not supposed to be seen in public, or be looked at by men outside of the family. In this extreme view, women would be entirely confined to the house and removed from outside society unless they can put on a burqa and go out. Eliminating the burqa for these women would mean eliminating their access to the world. Better conditions for such women require a little more work than outlawing a piece of clothing.

7. Eliminating burqas in France would not mean that women’s oppression in Muslim communities would end. It would simply be a cosmetic change that would do nothing to actually work with communities and empower French Muslim women to achieve equality. It is a measure that ignores all nuance and avoids all honest work to actually tackle the heart of the problem.

8. All this “eliminate the burqa” talk fits just a little too snugly with the popular “Islam oppresses women” meme that Christian Westerners like to toss around, particularly when they are trying to frame a “War of Civilizations”.

9. Also, doesn’t this just come off as a cheap attempt at burnishing his Women’s Issues credentials while effectively only harassing a marginalized, already-persecuted minority? And doing little to nothing to further true societal equality for all women in France?

10. What real issues do French women, and French Muslim women in particular, actually face that Sarkozy is completely avoiding by diverting attention with this stunt? Why randomly target French Muslims now?