Rape and Wikileaks

This morning, I woke up, checked twitter, and had this:

Rape is being used in the #Assange prosecution in the same way that women's freedom was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up! #wikilieaks

by Naomi Klein staring at me. It galled me so much I sent my first "@" reply to someone marginally famous, and went on with my day. But my mind kept returning time and time again to this idea, the idea that Assange is being railroaded as a way of getting to Wikileaks. And what it came down to is this: I don't care.

Don't get me wrong, I'm more or less okay with Wikileaks as an organization. This last round of leaks left me fairly unimpressed, as it was mostly just gossip; and the leaks before that about the Afghanistan war effort had the potential to place the American troops on the ground in danger and I was definitely angry about that. But at this point, I find the idea behind Wikileaks to be something worth exploring. And Tom Merritt is right when he says, "It is not against the law to publish this information." In that sense, going after Julian Assange more vigorously than any other person accused of the same crime is exactly what Naomi Klein is saying: Assange has attracted more attention for this particular, often overlooked, crime because of who he is and because of what website he runs. But Klein is completely incorrect in asserting that we should wake up to this reality, and that because Assange is being pursued in such a manner we should defend him and decry the pursuit itself. Instead, the question we should be asking isn't why is this particular case getting so much attention, but why aren't all of the other cases out there getting taken as seriously?

This is an issue completely separate from a defense of Wikileaks. We can discuss whether or not the application of these charges were politically motivated. We can discuss if this is a tactic being used to attack Wikileaks. We can discuss how unbalanced the application of this law may be. What we cannot do, what we should not do, is defend Assange based on the unbalanced application of the law because he may be doing something we find admirable in other quarters. Whatever you think of Wikileaks as an organization, I think we can all agree that if its spokesman and editor-in-chief has charges brought up against him, he should stand trial.

This, right here, is what makes rape an insidious crime. Those we admire, those we respect, we tend to minimize, deflect, or outright deny such a charge against them. What we as a society have got to come to realize is that a rapist can do good in other areas and still have raped someone. A rapist can be someone who does works we admire. A rapist can be someone whom we have previously respected, and whose political and ideological beliefs mirror our own. Which is why an organization or political thought should stand alone, divorced from its most vociferous defenders and/or creators. Wikileaks needs to stand or fall on its own merits, and we need to defend or decry Wikileaks on its own merits (or lack thereof). What we cannot do is excuse Julian Assange from even having to defend himself against a charge because such a charge may hurt his organization. Which is where Klein is wrong again. Yes, women's freedom was used as a battle cry in Afghanistan. Yes, it was the wrong cry, not in the least because we have done a piss poor job of securing the safety and freedom of women since entering Afghanistan. But Julian Assange may have actually committed rape. And there are laws against rape. And he can and should be charged with the crime. This isn't some nebulous "protect teh women" battle cry.

I don't know if Julian Assange is or is not a rapist. I know he is being held in connection to a crime. I know that the support he is receiving from Klein is, to be frank, beneath her. As Jessica Valenti highlighted, one of the charges facing Assange is not merely that he had sex with a woman without the condom she required but that he engaged in sexual intercourse with a sleeping woman. That last one? That's describing rape, pure and simple. It's rape, because a sleeping woman does not have the ability to consent to sex. These two women deserve their day in court. If their accusations are true, they deserve every measure of justice that can be awarded to them.

It is a shame that Wikileaks can be undermined because its editor-in-chief and spokesperson is alleged to have committed an act of sexual assault. But it isn't our shame. It is Assange's own, and it is a bed of his making. Our shame comes from the fact that we do not take every allegation of rape seriously. Our shame comes from the fact that we leave rape kits untested, that we victim-blame, that we use horrifying and damaging excuses like "women don't do that" or "boys will be boys" or "what were you doing there, anyway". Our shame comes from the strange idea that to assent to one sexual act is to assent to all sexual acts, that anything less than "no" is "yes", that enthusiastic consent is too hard a criteria to meet, that enthusiastic consent is not sexy because it makes sex into a negotiation. Sex is a negotiation. Sex is about communication. Sex is about boundaries, about which ones can be crossed by whom and when. Sex is about recognizing that if your partner wants sex with a condom, you'd better damn well put on a condom. Sex is about recognizing that if you don't have an already established understanding that starting while your partner is sleeping is both okay and relished, you can't do that. Sex is about stopping when your partner asks you to stop, tells you to stop, for whatever reason zie does so.

Our shame is that people feel comfortable defending Assange because that we are taking this particular sexual assault seriously deviates from the norm.

Further reading:

Naomi Wolf Really Needs to Read the Internet - Jessica Valenti

Some Thoughts On "Sex By Surprise" - Jill

Julian Assange Captured By World's Dating Police - Lena Chen

How We Describe Women Who Report Sexual Assaults Now - Sady Doyle

My Road to Anarchy

Years in the future, when I'm asked when I became an anarchist, I'll be able to point to this paragraph in an incredibly powerful and moving piece by Laurie Penny titled Inside the Whitehall Kettle:

They want to make you uncomfortable, and then desperate, putting your route back to warmth and safety in the gift of the agents of the state. They decide when you can get back to civilisation. They decide when the old people can get warm, when the diabetics can get their insulin, when the kid having a panic attack can go home to her mum. It's a way of making you feel small and scared and helpless, a way for the state's agents to make you feel that you are nothing without them, making you forget that a state is supposed to survive by mandate of the people, and not the other way around.

I'm being more than a bit hyperbolic. I'm not an anarchist, and I doubt very much that I'll ever actually be one. At the moment, I'm more afraid of the callousness of the average citizen than I am of the malicious strength of my government (or the governments of our Western European allies); and I don't see that changing any time soon - though I do recognize that a lot of that has to do with my own personal level of privilege. However, I have an ambivalence that is swiftly heading toward distrust when it comes to police and police action, especially large scale police action at the behest of the state. Any state.

There is something terrifying and immobilizing about recognizing how little recourse we as people have against our governments - even those that claim to be representatives of "the people", that large nebulous group that is always being trotted out with rhetorical flourish to assail or support a political point or a politician's plans and ambitions.

What enrages me the most about this particular incident is who this form of oppression happened to. These weren't seasoned and hardened political warriors. These weren't "professional" protesters. These were children - teenagers the age of or younger than my sisters. This is a group with little political capital, because they have yet to be able to vote. This is the group whose political activism we as a global community should nurture and encourage and recognize as being key to our good future.

What the British police did to these teens, who took the chance to try to make their voices heard and their presence felt, is despicable. The message they imparted was loud and clear - Sit down, shut up, and take whatever lumps we as a government decide to give you. Do not organize. Do not become politically active.

This is how states create apathy. This is how states destroy idealism. This is how states betray their citizens.

Who Is Like The Beast?

Remember when Speaker Pelosi walked arm and arm in a Civil Rights March across Independence Avenue, from the House buildings over to the Capitol. In three years, I have never seen Nancy Pelosi cross the street the way that you saw in that picture. They deliberately went through that crowd, perhaps to try and incite something.

- Michelle Bachmann

If she was really worried about violence and she thought these people were violent, why would you grab a big hammer and walk into a sea of people?

Did anyone say to Nancy Pelosi, "You're inciting violence. You're slapping them across the face"?

- Glenn Beck

They faked - they were trying to provoke an incident. There's no reason to walk above ground to get to the Capitol building from their offices. There's tunnels underneath with trains, subways, and so forth. They're purpose - send the Congressional Black Caucus to walk over, send Pelosi over there with a big gavel, trying to provoke an incident.

- Rush Limbaugh

Listen, I know the three people listed above can in no way really be described as serious people in search of an honest debate on the issues. But one of the things I found so interesting in their various statements was how close these come to some classic rape apologia statements - you know, the ones that go, "She shouldn't have been there", "Did you see how she was dressed?" "She obviously wanted it", etc.

I especially find it interesting how the act of crossing the street, whether or not Speaker Pelosi does so often, is deemed indefensible here.

There is something happening in this vision of reality that seems to claim any and all negative actions taken against a person should be that person's responsibility. Even if all she did was cross a street when a bunch of protesters were out there showing their might.

There is something else that I find strange here as well, and that is this idea that not allowing a protest to effect your actions - or to not respond in the manner desired by the protesters - is suddenly a call to incite violence.

If Michelle Bachmann is right and Nancy Pelosi truly never has "cross[ed] the street the way that you saw" before, then what she seems to have been doing is creating a demonstration of her own. Not a show of force, no matter what Limbaugh and Beck think about her big gavel. But a demonstration of determination, a demonstration that she and those with her were not going to be bullied or be shamed for what they saw as a necessary vote for needed legislation - no matter how much they wanted/didn't want that was left out/put in the bill.

In effect, Nancy Pelosi seemed to be giving a clear message to the protesters, and to those people like Beck and Bachmann. That message was that she was proud of her accomplishments and her vote, and she was not going to be scared underground because there were people above ground who didn't like it and who didn't want to see her walk to the Capitol Building.

Frankly, it was a message that she deserved to walk up to that particular building in the light of day just as much as they deserved to demonstrate outside that building in the light of day. That she and her rights weren't dissolved simply because this group didn't like her and her ilk very much.

And if that very action was seen as a provocation, if hanging onto a giant gavel that was first used when Medicare was passed while walking was a horrible indignity those protesting and those commenting favorably on the protests, then the problem lies more with them than with her.

She was just, you know, doing her thing. Walking along. Being proud.

Too often, doing your thing, walking along, being proud, carrying a giant gavel is used as an explanation for someone else's actions.

Hopefully, enough people will see how silly this line of thinking is when it comes to someone like Nancy Pelosi and the passage of healthcare, and think back on that giant gavel. Hopefully, enough people will see how silly this line of thinking is when someone is walking down a street, and recognize that simply the act of living is in no way something that prompts an angry, violent response.

There are the things Nancy Pelosi talks about, when she brought up her experiences in 1970s San Francisco, that could be used, by some, as a balance, a sort of, "You're all hypocrites" and "the Left talks about provocations to violence too, so she shouldn't have walked there".

For the record, Pelosi has said, "I think we all have to take responsibility for our actions and our words. We are a free country and this balance between freedom and safety is one that we have to carefully balance... ...But again, our country is great because people can say what they think and believe. But I also think they have to take responsibility for any incitement they may cause."

And a person could claim that Pelosi is simply getting hit from the Right with essentially the same stick she advocates for here. I don't think so, though. Because there is a difference between walking to a place you have to go anyway, and speaking in such a way that could incite violence. There is a difference between carrying a comically large gavel, and, say, a blogger who urges his readership to break DNC office windows in an attempt to avoid a larger - armed - conflict.

I happen to agree with Pelosi's statement. I'm a free speech advocate, but I also believe in a speaker's responsibility - along with the responsibility of the rest of us to call out speech we find to be unsavory. I am a fan of verbal self-restraint, though that may astonish anyone who has heard me babble for any length of time. I'm a fan of recognizing the power your words hold, and realizing the effect those words may have on an audience. I'm not a fan of the government making that line, and forming those distinctions.

I started this out by making allusions between rape apologia and what these three right-wing people said about Speaker Pelosi's march on the Capitol Building. But what I find interesting is that in these cases, it isn't merely that there are more often than not marginalized bodies involved. It is the weirdly fatalistic viewpoint. In rape apologia, a lot of the criticism comes down to Doing Something While Female. And in this, there may be more than a little of Being Speaker While Female.

But there is also this idea that we should beware of waking the foul Beast. Because the Beast cannot be controlled, should not be expected to control the urge compelling violence. All we can hope to do is not anger the Beast, to not draw the Beast's attention to us, to creep around as quietly as we possibly can and make as few waves as possible, lest we attract the Beast's attention. And if you do? If you awaken the Beast, if you are attacked or hurt or raped? It is obviously your fault. Because the Beast is nothing but a force compelled to action. To hold the Beast accountable would be foolhardy, and besides, only those people stupid enough to not follow Teh Rules get attacked. There's never this compulsion that maybe, just maybe, we should do something about the Beast itself. That maybe walking to work, even if there are angry people afoot, shouldn't be something that can be used to scold someone for provoking some sort of negative action, should that negative action arise. But no.

Double Standards, And Their Absence

I'm not going to go into Senator Harry Reid's comments regarding the electability of then-Senator Barack Obama. But what I am going to talk about is the "double standard" talk emanating from some members of the GOP.

There is no damned double standard. Why? Well, for one, in order for it to truly be a double standard, the parties would have to be on equal footing. Guess what? They're not.

There is a long-standing tradition within the GOP to use dog-whistles, in their ads and in their robocalls. Like the Willie Horton ad, used against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election. Like the poll calls in 2000 asking South Carolina voters if they would be less likely to vote for John McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate African-American child, based partially on the fact McCain and his wife had adopted a little girl from Bangladesh. Ronald Reagan used the specter of the "welfare queen" in order to win the support of white America.

Then there is this: the person Harry Reid is being most compared to on an individual level within the GOP camp is Trent Lott. Lott, who said that had Strom Thurman been elected president, the country would be in a better place, that we wouldn't have all the problems we have now. Some nice remarks for an elder statesman's birthday? Perhaps. But the question becomes, better for whom? For the African-Americans who were left out of Thurman's America? No. It would not be better for them at all.

And that's what it comes down to - policy decisions and reaching out to a minority community. I'm not going to say that the Dems don't house racists. I'm not going to say that the GOP is totally bad on issues of race and the Dems are totally wonderful. What I am going to say is that the GOP has continually made a home for itself in the high places, and have perpetually attacked policies that are designed to help minorities in our nation. Sometimes, out of a sense of political theory, but just as often it seems that it happens out of bad faith.

So, they don't get the benefit of the doubt when one of their members runs his mouth. So, they don't get the cushion that comes with having an amiable history with the community in question. So, they get hammered harder because there is no trust there. There is no sense that these guys are trying to do right, that they've stumbled and fallen because they're idiots and not because they just don't care.

That's why there is no double standard. Because, in general, the GOP and the Democratic Party start from two entirely different ledges. And to wipe that clean in an effort to win some scant political support is from the preschool pool of political wisdom.

You's A Dick

Not you. Well, maybe you. It kind of depends on who you are.

But definitely these people in the first act of This American Life's most recent episode Bait & Switch.

Here's the accompanying article.

I'm, to put it mildly, not exactly happy with the idea of bait cars. I understand the impetus to make those criminally minded think twice about taking a car that looks like the perfect target. At the same time, I don't see how this isn't entrapment. And, possibly owing to my own admitted ambivalence toward the police and their authority, I see this as a potential conflict of interest.

In the article, there's one quote that stands out to me as particularly problematic.

"Let me ask you something: If you see a car with the keys in it, would you take it?" Tate said. "There are hundreds of people walking by these cars, and they make the choice to keep walking. The bottom line is this: If you see a car that doesn't belong to you, don't take it."

And sure, that is the bottom line. But that bottom line gets blurred when the person leaving the car open and inviting to be stolen is the person who is responsible for catching those who steal cars. The car would not have been there if the cops didn't think they could lure someone into taking said car.

And so, here we have a crime (or, in the case of Mark Ledford and Asia Ward, not even that) facilitated by the officers in question.

The same sort of morally grey case building has been highlighted before by This American Life, notably in Arms Trader 2009. That case had all the hallmarks of this one, had the same moral questions of setting someone up, of giving them all of the opportunities to commit a crime they otherwise may have never had the inclination to commit, and then arresting them and trying them for that crime. Another case highlighted in Act II by the This American Life episode Turncoat discussed Brandon Darby, a radical activist-turned-FBI informant who pushed two fellow (and fledgling) activists into more extreme actions than they otherwise would have participated in.

The moral implications of a nation whose policy it was to facilitate fake terrorist actions in order to smoke out people who would or could potentially turn to terrorism disturbed me. I would really rather not have a government goading people who perhaps do have some inklings or some potential to do some pretty bad shit, who have the potential to become arms dealers or crazed lefties throwing homemade bombs at Republican National Conventions, but who would very probably never get to that point on their own.

And in that comment by Sgt. Oliver Tate, it becomes clear as to why. No one should steal a car, or try to smuggle weapons to enemies of America or make plans to bomb places; but there is no moral high ground in creating the perfect storm effect, to push all of the buttons, on those people you suspect may have the want to steal a car or smuggle weapons or make bombs but who - without your help - would have none of the know-how or drive to do so.

What makes the case involving Mark Ledford and Asia Ward all the more abhorrent is what it demonstrates about the people who do plant the necessary buttons, who create those perfect crime-doing scenarios. It is that they don't care about the motivations. Mark Ledford called the car in to the police. He confirmed with a neighbor that she, too, called the car's presence in. And after he got no indication anything was going to be done, he decided to do something about the car himself. Smart? No. Criminal? Not in the least. And instead of admitting that they fucked up, instead of looking over their records and seeing what they could have done differently, instead of looking at the whole "bait" car itself and wondering if leaving a car unattended in a neighborhood may do more to unsettle the neighbors than it would ever accomplish in catching the criminally-minded-but-lazy, the police decided to leave out several salient details and set about bringing a case against Ledford and Ward. Instead of working to make the streets safer, the cops then were just being dicks.

And that's the problem with this "greater good" strategy. It gives too much power to those in authority. It trusts that those in authority are somehow more moral than the average person on the street. It trusts that in the event the authority is proven wrong, the authority will humbly admit to its mistake and take the necessary steps to correct it. And it does not allow for the formation of a crime independent of the entity responsible for stopping said crime. It makes the organization a facilitator in the crime it gets rewarded for preventing. And that? Is pretty heady. It is also possibly among the worst solutions to the problem.

Dear Conservatives,

I was going to start this off with "in all likelihood", but no. A stronger statement is needed.

Thomas Paine would not be your ally. Not now, and very probably not ever.

Paine was a radical liberal. Paine was a fan of the progressive tax. Paine was a (strong) critic of religion, and especially of Christianity. Paine was a Deist, just like George Washington. Paine was a proponent of a guaranteed minimum wage. Paine was a believer in the redistribution of wealth - as well as an old age pension.

And, he was a fan of the French.

Please, for the love of my sanity, find another Founding Father. One who wasn't quite so prolific in publishing oppositional writing to your views.

Affirmative Action in America

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. How many people do the first two?

Americans seem to be notoriously bad at follow through. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We can get one of the three major parts of how to green our world down (incidentally, it is the one that affects our routine the least), but the other two? Nah. We're already recycling.

That's kind of how I feel about the Affirmative Action fight, and the Race in 2028 editorial by Ross Douthat in Sunday's New York Times a friend of mine highlighted on his blog.

Affirmative Action is the slightly more arduous version of "recycle" in the whole "making America more equitable racially"...

The other steps, the ones we know about and the ones we haven't quite worked out yet, well, we can ignore those because we're already working on this Affirmative Action thing.

Because we've accepted that Affirmative Action has to happen, at least for a little while, we can ignore the fact that the world, our world, the world we live in and play in and work in and are entertained by, still remains pretty damn white - and male. We can talk about how "the senators are yesterday’s men. The America of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is swiftly giving way to the America of Sonia Maria Sotomayor and Barack Hussein Obama" without truly delving into the fact that there is one African American in the whole of the Senate, that he wasn't elected, and that he isn't going to run for an actual election (admittedly, for reasons not stemming from his race). We can ignore these facts:

Women – Women of voting age represent 51.6 percent of the voting age population yet are 16.3% of the Congress, putting America below the global average of 17% female representation at parliamentary level. As of 2007, the US ranks 68th in terms of women holding office in the legislature — this puts the US just above Turkmenistan, and just below El Salvador and Panama.

Latinos – Hispanics represent over 14% of the U.S. population, while their Congress representation is 3% in the Senate and about 5% in the House.

African-Americans – The Senate is 1% African American and the House is roughly 9.2% African American compared to the 12.3 percent of American population that are of Black or African-American descent

This is the world in which, as Douthat notes, "The nation’s largest states, Texas and California, already have 'minority' majorities. By 2023, if current demographic trends continue, nonwhites — black, Hispanic and Asian — will constitute a majority of Americans under 18. By 2042, they’ll constitute a national majority." And it is a world in which racism, real and actual and deadly and debilitating and degrading, is still present. In this society, "where the quest for diversity is already as likely to benefit the children of high-achieving recent immigrants as the descendants of slaves", and where those children of the high-achieving recent immigrants are still considered less than, and are still likely to be discriminated against.

I'm not against class-based affirmative action, but I also don't think that we - those of us who have been privileged and still remain privileged - should necessarily be the ones to decide if and when Affirmative Action has done enough. I don't think one African-American elected president and one Hispanic on the Supreme Court is the ushering in of a world in which Affirmative Action is ultimately unnecessary. At some point, I hope that it will be. At some point, I hope that we as a nation learn the follow through. I hope that we as a nation learn to suck it up. I hope that when white America is truly a minority, we recognize that we should probably then be a less of a majority in a majority of the institutions we now, as a race, have a hold over.

But I can understand focusing on the selfish crap. I'm a selfish person. I like knowing how something will help ME. And in truth, Affirmative Action does help me - and not just because I'm a girl and girls are helped. It helps me, because it makes my country better. It gets more viewpoints out in the open. It helps tear down the false belief that there is such a thing as an objective viewpoint. It culls from a wider source. It forces new thoughts and new ways of thinking into spaces that would otherwise be bereft of them. It creates opportunities to interact with and learn from people who have had profoundly different life experiences. It creates different ways of thinking about the very people who have, through the history of our country, been oppressed and discriminated against. And, if we go into Affirmative Action mindful that we as white people were very often not the subjects of a meritocracy and instead had a leg up due to that whole being white thing, it helps reinforce different avenues of viewing fellow citizens.

In a world where a preeminent African-American scholar is arrested after breaking in to his own house and providing identification proving who he was and that the house he was found in was indeed the one he lived in, we as a nation haven't learned all the necessary lessons from Affirmative Action, and we certainly haven't done the necessary follow-through. In a world where latently racist assumptions are made about our president's birth place, in a world where Rosario Dawson - who was born in New York City - was disregarded as the main character in But I'm a Cheerleader because she was Puerto Rican, and thus not "All-American" enough, we haven't fully acknowledged that the only Americans worthy of that title are white Americans. We haven't fully accepted that we aren't the center of our nation's universe.

I agree with my friend's quoting of Andrew Sullivan's "The goal of the gay rights movement should be to cease to exist", and his assertion that should also be the goal of Affirmative Action programs. But I'm not the person who gets to tell the gay rights movement when it has done enough, and when it should declare the ultimate victory by ceasing to exist. And I'm not willing to declare that by 2028, Affirmative Action will have done enough and should cease to exist. White America may not get to be the most central voices in that conversation, and we probably shouldn't be.

The Ending of a Career

Yesterday, after I posted a quote from Eugene Robinson's Washington Post op-ed, I began to revisit it. There was another line in Robinson's piece that bothered me when I first read it, and continued to niggle at me through the night. It was this one:

But when he brought up the "wise Latina" remark, as the GOP playbook apparently required, Graham said that "if I had said anything remotely like that, my career would have been over."

That's true.

The reason the line, and Robinson's acquiescence regarding its truthiness, bothers me is because I don't really think it is true. Senator Graham's career may have been over had he uttered a similar line. I'd be willing to bet his senatorial career would have suffered. But I'm not entirely sure if Senator Lindsey Graham would actually lose his Senate seat, or if his career would be over. And the reason why is because of Senator Jeff Sessions. Sessions has said some pretty boneheaded things. I would be willing to step away from the rule I generally follow, the rule outlined by the incredible Jay Smooth, of pointing out racist behavior without calling the person in question an out and out racist. I'm willing to lay it down that Jeff Sessions is, in point of fact, a racist. I'm willing to lay it down because due to his comments about the NAACP and the ACLU, and the comments he allegedly made regarding a white civil rights attorney being a "race traitor". And while Jeff Sessions didn't get the federal judgeship he was nominated for because of his comments, he has hardly become a pariah in society. His career has not been destroyed.

That is the problem with the outrage over Sonia Sotomayor's "wise Latina" comment. It is that it is all too easy for those who are already privileged to move beyond a kerfuffle like being outed as a racist in the Senate. That is the problem with Graham making such an assertion when his colleague is very much someone who has made statements "remotely like" Sotomayor's, except his statements were couched in a history and carried a power Sotomayor's words aren't and don't have - because, as Eugene Robinson alludes, Latinas haven't been running the world for the last millennium. And to ignore how many white men get away with racist and biased and prejudiced statements, to ignore how many minorities have been beaten or killed or harassed for daring to even assert equality, is to ignore the world as it is and as it was. 

Edited for accuracy, via mikhailbakunin's corrections.

Wow

I did not see this coming.

Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, is resigning some time this month.

I honestly don't know what to say to this. There's speculation afoot that this is to best prepare for a 2012 run for president.

But I seriously hope not. Especially since she apparently said "she feels she can be more effective working outside of government."

If she does run, I want that thought to be brought up. I don't want someone running my government who doesn't like government, or who doesn't feel effective within government. I want someone running my government who likes government; I don't even need someone running my government who likes Big Government, as long as they believe in Efficient Government.

For my money (not that the GOP would want it or take it - they've practically ex-communicated Colin Powell after all), a Sarah Palin presidential nomination would be a Bad Thing. For the party. For the country. In general. It would be good for Saturday Night Live, and possibly John Stewart. But few others.

I can only hope that Palin realized that politics may not be the best fitting of hats. I can only hope that she'll find something else to do that won't put her on my television screen incessantly. I can only hope that she has felt a pull toward a different calling.

Editing to Add:

In an ironic twist, this:

is what greeted me on the "Post Successful" Blogger page.

Oh, the pleasures of keyword generated advertising.

Michele Bachmann Is Why We Need To Elect More Republicans

No, seriously; that title isn't MST3000 material. I think Michele Bachmann is why we need more Republicans in Congress. Just listen to her crazy ramblings:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

A good democracy has more than one party, and at the moment the Republicans left - especially in the House - are tending toward the unhinged side with Michele Bachmann being the head of them all. And while that leads to fun Chris Hayes, I really think that bipartisan efforts and better legislation in general could come about if there were more moderate Republicans in the mix. I can't help but feel like maybe we (collective we, because I don't live there) shouldn't have voted Chris Shays out of representing Connecticut's 4th district.

Newsflash: Chris Matthews - Still a Jackass

Seriously, Chris Matthews needs to take some logic classes, some women's studies classes, and maybe some law and history classes before he is allowed to grace television screens again. Why? Well, because Matthews seems to have some trouble discerning the difference between a nation enforcing a strict number of children and a nation providing the opportunity for its citizens to make an informed choice about the number of children they want to have. After all, first he declared that the $200 million dollars of the economic stimulus package set aside for family planning reminded him of China:

And now he's going on about how actually funding family planning is the federal government regulating the amount of children we can all have.

No, Chris. If the government wanted to regulate the amount of children we could have, birth control would be mandated, not simply available. The government was actually doing something truly democratic, and allowing even more freedom to choose whether or not a woman (or a couple) wanted kids, or if they wanted more kids, or if they wanted kids some time in the future but not right now. The choice part of family planning is what is missing from China's one child policy, and is what would be missing if this were actually a government program aimed at regulating who could have kids and when.

Fuck Anti-Intellectualism

I'm becoming ever-more foul-mouthed, and it would bother me more if there weren't so many reasons to be very, almost indescribably, angry. Anti-intellectualism has become a way of life. Anti-intellectualism goes to the core of the idea that you have to be likable and someone we'd all like to grab a beer with rather than some snooty guy who actually understands the basic principles of things like economic policy, global warming, and that pesky thing called The Constitution when running for president of the United States. And I hate it. There are some intellectuals who are elitist. There are some intellectuals who are divorced from reality. But there are just as many -if not more- people who are not intellectuals (one of whom that is coming to mind being the 43rd president of the United States) who are also divorced from reality. And now we've got McDonalds ads telling us to be less intellectual (and seeming to claim that all or most intellectual are pseudo-intellectuals any). Because apparently, being dumb and eating french fries is so much more freeing than actually contemplating global ramifications of our actions and knowing where Paraguay is -or even what Paraguay is:

This commercial and this one as well:

are products of a culture for whom thinking is apparently too hard, and something that should garner resentment if tried by others. We're living in a time in which Thomas Jefferson would have probably never made it to the White House (well, he wouldn't have made it for a variety of reasons, one of them being his crippling shyness and another being possible sex scandals, but let's ignore those for a second) because apparently being an excellent writer, admiring the French, and being not only a first class mind but a true Renaissance Man is a detriment when running for the highest office in the land.

I'm tired of it. Being an intellectual, being someone who is aware of the outside world and who is studied and learned, should be something we aspire to. It should not be the realm of just liberals. Liberals should not be attacked for being of the Ivies. We should be celebrating people who are smart enough and dedicated enough and talented enough and lucky enough to get such a chance as to go to an Ivy league school. And as Aaron Sorkin says (through Sam Seaborn), as today is his day, "...can you tell me what's wrong with the Ivy League? Should we be discouraging parents from hoping their kids get into Princeton and Yale and Dartmouth?" I want a president with gravitas. I want a president who can lead both by intellect and instinct, and I don't think we should have to choose between the two. I want a public that is proud of the brilliance of our public officials. I want a country where education and getting one is not something to be mocked. I want a world similar to Aaron Sorkin's, where being the smartest person in the room is an asset. I want the world to resemble Joss Whedon's, where intellect can take many forms rather than just the pure, straight up intellectual and where all those forms are acknowledged and praised and utilized.

But what I really want is for people to stop scoffing at the idea that being smart and being learned is something to take pride in. I want people to stop assuming that because you read a couple of books on a subject, you're just as much an authority as a person who wrote one of the books. We're a country of dichotomy. We believe that every single person is created equal; we also have people who are in positions of authority, intellectual and otherwise. We have to recognize that there isn't a contradiction there. That we have to keep striving for the land where all are equal, and we have to strive for the land where wanting to better oneself through education isn't a bad. We have two learned candidates right now; Obama was president of the Harvard Law Review. McCain read For Whom The Bell Tolls at age 12. He is a consummate reader and rereader. These two should be emphasizing that aspect of their candidacy, that they are both educated, smart, capable individuals; and the fact that is a strength and not a weakness.

I also see an anti-intellectual bent in this whole idea of "not blinking". Sarah Palin brought it up in her interview with Charlie Gibson:

 I want a president who will blink. Not in the face of danger or terror, or from making the hard choices. But I want a president who will assess which path to take, and then assess how successful that path was and whether or not it would be better to change course. I want a president who will do so willingly, instead of one -like the one we have now- who will do it obstinately and under duress. I want a president who will measure his actions and consider their continued trajectory. The idea that not blinking, that not 'flip flopping', that not reevaluating situations, is the greatest measure of a presidential candidate (or in this case, vice-presidential candidate) scares the daylights out of me. All of the great presidents reevaluated their situations and their beliefs. The Louisiana Purchase went against Jefferson's core principles about the federal government (and was very probably unconstitutional besides). Lincoln was forever reevaluating and reassessing his side's tactics in the Civil War. Great presidents do that, for the good of the nation. And it is utterly depressing to see one of the greatest skills, the skill to look beyond one's own beliefs and decide what will truly be helpful, being portrayed as an act of cowardice and vulnerability.

For the record, though, that second commercial with the men is a great deal funnier than the first. For one, it allows for the idea that these guys aren't idiots but would like to discuss football. And I did like the line at the end about the glasses: "I do need mine. They're very real". I still scowl at the idea that intellectuals don't know how to get down and discuss the sports or movie-movies (I enjoy doing both), but it does less to remove every vestige of intelligence than the ad featuring the women.

The Necessity of Money

It is easy to react with contempt and incredulity at the people of New Orleans who are not leaving the city in anticipation of Hurricane Gustav, especially after Katrina's destruction only three years prior. But that does not take into account something rather rudimentary, and that is money. Some of these people do not have the money to get out, to pay for shelter during their time away from their home, and to continue living on while they are without work. For some, the reality is that they are forced to stay. Michael Kennedy, a dishwasher, says:

Most people don't have cars to leave, don't have money for gas. Pay for a hotel that long? I mean, you have to do whatever you have to do, and I guess I'm gonna stay and work.

Jeremiah O'Farrell, another dishwasher:

If I left, I'll probably lose my job. I really don't have anywhere to go if I could leave.

Sidney Williams:

I wish I had the money to go... ....Lot of folks around here are gonna make do with what they have, and you won't hear a terrible amount of complaining. You can't just come in here and expect to hear people fussing about how they don't have nothing.

Mayor Ray Nagin warned "residents that staying would be 'one of the biggest mistakes of your life'", and "emphasized that the city will not offer emergency services to anyone who chooses to stay behind". But for too many, staying behind is not an independent choice, but a decision tempered by other factors. And even though the city is providing transportation for those who have no other way out to shelters in northern Louisiana, that does not protect the poorest (or just poor) from losing their source of income. It does not offer much in the way of actual shelter or assistance once the storm is over and they return (or not) to their old lives, with less than they had before and very possibly no way to pay for necessities like food and shelter.

It is easy to blame the poor, the immigrants frightened of deportation, the disabled, and the wary for their fate in this storm. But that isn't the whole story. It doesn't take into account that these are people existing on the precipice, and it doesn't take into account that people -regardless of race, gender, or income level- deserve to feel safe enough and secure enough in their position to take whatever assistance is available in preparation for the onslaught of the storm. But that isn't the reality these people who are staying in New Orleans live with. They aren't guaranteed anything after the storm dissipates and life returns to some semblance of normalcy. And that is a modern injustice and a tragedy.

"Till The 19th Amendment Struck Down That Restrictive Rule"

Section 1: The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Yes, the 19th Amendment was certified on this here very day. In honor of that (and just because I like it), here's School House Rock's take on it:

Georgia vs Russia

If anyone else is like me and has absolutely no clue as to what's going down between Georgia and Russia (or who, also like me, had the knee-jerk reaction of thinking Georgia-next-to-Alabama had been attacked), the New York Times has a helpful article that partially explains reasons for the conflict and helps put the whole thing in a more historical context. I also found this blog, and more specifically these blog posts helpful while I mull over exactly what is happening there over yonder.

News Stories of Interest

First and foremost, there is the story about how "federal agents may take a traveler's laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrong-doing". They are apparently allowed to copy the contents of the hard drive, and it does not matter if the person in question is a US citizen. Well, I can't possibly see where this violates civil liberties or how this is an abuse of power, or how it only further highlights how much of our freedom and our rights we will casually part with in the name of security. No, authoritarian states never begin like this; no, George Orwell and other distopian authors never described how governments slowly strip away a citizen's rights until the yoke of oppression is tied too tightly around them. Obviously, there is no need to worry.

Then there is the first of two real zingers from The Wallstreet Journal; Wal-Mart is "mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win in November they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize". Those damn unions, fighting for better wages and actual health care plans for the workers. How distinctly un-American. Almost as un-American as using corporate power to tell employees how to vote and who to vote for.

The second piece from The Wallstreet Journal is probably my favorite of the day, because right away it starts off with "John Kerry ran for president as GI Joe (or his naval equivalent), the war hero. This fell apart when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth called attention to Kerry's history of slandering his fellow servicement". What is intensely funny about this is that much of what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth stated has been contradicted by naval records; by accounts of people who were, you know, actually there; and by John Kerry's own statements over the years. So, great job reporting there, Wallstreet Journal! Excellent job; especially when the overall point of your article is to suggest that Obama may have his halo tarnished by the end of the campaign season!

The Wallstreet Journal does have a point somewhere in their crappy tale of political woe, and that is that the John McCain political ad featuring Britney Spears and Paris Hilton isn't racist. I have my own problems with the ad, but it isn't that it is "trying to plant the old racist seed of black man hitting on young white woman" as stated by the Huffington Post (renamed the Puffington Host by the Wallstreet Journal). But my reasoning for not believing that was a part of the ad is not, as the Wallstreet Journal offensively suggests,  that "the invidious old stereotype has to do with black men as a threat to feminine innocence, and it is hard to imagine two less innocent symbols than Hilton and Spears". It is because the ad doesn't suggest that Obama is going to take advantage of white women but that Obama has the same superficial fame as Hilton and Spears. That is the obvious reading of the ad, and the right one. 

If the ad was one against Hillary and Bill Clinton was juxtaposed with young women, then a sexual reading of the ad would be grossly apparent. But the ad doesn't have Obama leering and isn't sexualizing him (or even Hilton and Spears) at all. Merely comparing fans of the two celebrities with the fans of Obama, and the talent and skill of the two celebrities with Obama's talent and skill. It is insinuating that Obama is empty calories and nothing more. And had The Wallstreet Journal taken that route, and left John Kerry out of it (or at the very least not insinuated like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were in any way an actual fact-driven organization), then they would have had something meaningful to say on the matter. But as it is, they came off as offensive on so many different levels it would be almost impossible to count them all.

Surveillance is High

Attention: I am seriously considering disconnecting myself entirely from the internet, my cell phone, credit cards, places that take my picture as I enter under the guise of a "fun" family momento, and also E-Z pass. Sure, these things make my life easier (with the exception of the "fun" family photo), but seriously. It has got to stop. As someone who is just this side of paranoid, the constant surveillance is starting to push me over to Tin Hat County.

What caused this recent rash of paranoid behavior? Well, as probably none of you know, I spent the weekend in Rhode Island, specifically Providence and Newport. I used my computer while I was there, because obviously I have a serious addiction that will probably need a support group of some kind to get over (though I didn't have time to actually write an entry while there or after I returned). One of the places I visited was Facebook, because -once again- addicted.

So today, I sign into Facebook and along the side is an ad for a shop in Newport. "Huh," I thought to myself, "how odd! I was just there!" I go to the next page, and there's an ad for cellulite removal ("dramatization: results not typical"), the next page, an ad for Obama gear (I don't want an Obama shirt, leave me alone!), and on the next page, an ad for the Providence WaterFire; this was something I went to and it was awesome. They put bonfire type things in the river and light them on fire -after a rather long wait. Then everyone mills around, because it extends quite a ways up the river and down the river; it was ungodly hot though, so I recommend it as more of a "fall" venture. There was also a street fair. Overall, a "10" on the awesome sliding scale. So my thought on this was "Oh, I did that! It was cool!" And then a couple more pages with things like "Single and 22?" (why, yes, actually; how kind of you to notice) and "Shop for engagement rings!" (haven't we just established that I'm single and 22?), there was suddenly an ad for Newport again; the Newport Jazz Festival, August blah-blah through blah-blah. And now, I've got a creepy sense of foreboding, like someone who is being tracked by the government feels.

I'm pretty sure we're already on government watch lists; my father is a guy who is a registered Republican but has voted for Nader the last two elections, and frequently writes the government letters disparaging their goals and practices. He once wrote Joe Lieberman a letter that ended with the line, "If you continue to support this foolhardy war, I must come to the conclusion you have taken a permanent leave of your senses", and when my aunt was visiting the Capitol on business and had a chance to send the flag that flies over one of the government buildings to my sisters for their birthday and had to get our address, the first thing that popped up when her congressional guide searched for our address was an angry letter my father had written to the FDA about GMOs and Frankencorn. Which was a little embarrassing for my aunt (the story gets better: when the flag arrived for my sisters with no return address or note of explanation, and my parents jumped over to full fledged paranoid state because my aunt had forgotten to tell them what the flag was and why it showed up at our house; obviously, we know now). 

He is also a frequent caller to the White House; the first time was after he'd had back surgery and was left to his own devices for something like 6 hours. I came home from school to find him in a loop where he kept getting connected to the White House gift shop. That would discourage other easily bored people, but my father wanted to get through so he could tell Bill Clinton (or an aid to an aid to Bill Clinton) that he approved of whatever it was that Bill had done that week; he finally did. These days, I imagine the phone calls aren't quite as congratulatory.

What all of this means is that I'm starting to feel as if I live in an Orwellian situation, like I'm only outside of government (or advertising's) scrutiny when I stand in one corner of my room. Although, my computer is in here, so not so much. I want to be literally free to move about the country, without being tracked or photographed or monitored; I don't care if a majority of these images or information will never be seen by human eyes. I don't care that Facebook advertising is more than likely dictated by some kind of formulaic code and that no one really knows where I've been all weekend unless I tell them. Because the information is there, and it can be found. Like phone records. I want to have a little bit more liberty, and a little less security. I was at a museum built at the site of the 1969 Woodstock concert, and there was a booth where people could leave messages for one another. "Bill, I'm on the left side of the stage". Yeah, so Bill probably never found his friend at the left side of the stage; but I kind of like the go with the flowness of it all. I like safety precautions; but I'm thinking that we're taking it a bit far, that we're turning into a people who have grown complacent about consistently being monitored, that we're growing into a people who really are starting to believe that it doesn't matter if people are watching if you're not doing anything wrong instead of recognizing the importance of privacy for privacy's sake.

And so, if I weren't as addicted as I am and if I didn't have problems with substandard sanitation, I would definitely go off, build myself a shack, and disconnect from this as much as I could. Live without having my purchases, reading habits, movement, and moods tracked. But I am addicted, I am jacked in, and I don't foresee leaving any time soon. But the time may very well come when I try to lead a revolution against photos the next time I'm pressed into a fake background and told to smile. Especially when I'm told they're for "security purposes".

Random Facts

Rick Shenkman is going to make a lot of money telling us how uneducated Americans are with his book Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter. I'm definitely going to read it when I get my hands on it, because I have a sick fascination in regards to these kinds of things. I'm currently reading about how Americans know nothing about religion, so this will be a nice follow-up. Anyway, some helpful (ie, scary) facts were available from Shenkman's book, so I thought I'd share some of them as well as some from Stephen Prothero's book Religious Literacy, and then give my impression.

-Only 2 in 5 Americans can name the 3 branches of the federal government.

We need to start making School House Rock, and America Rock, required viewing. For everyone. Helpful songs talking about how the government is like a three-ring circus will definitely take care of that one, because this is absolutely appalling.

-Nearly half (49%) of Americans think the president has the authority to suspend the Constitution.

This one, I can give Americans some of the benefit of the doubt on. I mean, in recent times it has certainly begun to seem like the president can suspend rights and trample the safeties in place through the Constitution with nary a care or complaint being uttered. The recent FISA vote, the Patriot Act, and the president's blatant disregard for the law definitely lends to that impression. Also, they may be (hopefully) misremembering that Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus during part of the Civil War, and thinking that was the whole Constitution.

-Only 1 in 7 Americans can find Iraq on a map.

This one doesn't shock me; I don't think many Americans could find many of the states in the Union on a map. My disillusionment comes from a trip to the midwest/west when I was 16; people asked me where I was from, I said Connecticut, and got a variety of responses ranging from "Is that a county?" to "Is that a country?" to "Is that a new state?" No, assholes; it is one of the original 13 colonies -and thus one of the original 13 states.

-Only 1/5 of Americans between the ages 18-34 bother to keep up with current events.

Well, duh.

Stephen Prothero gives me a couple great ones too:

-When questioned, American students would place Jesus' birth place as often in Jerusalem or Nazareth as in Bethlehem.

This one really depresses me, mostly because it is laid right out for people in the damn Christmas carols. "O Little Town of Bethlehem", anyone?

-Only 44% of born-again respondents correctly identified "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" as a quote from Sermon on the Mount, versus 37% of the broader group.

Christians don't know their Bible!

All of this makes me think of The West Wing; in a Thanksgiving episode, the Press Secretary CJ Cregg wants the President to pardon a turkey so he won't be eaten. The President responds that he doesn't have any real legal jurisdiction over birds, especially since this turkey has not been convicted of a crime. Leaving us with this:

CJ: Yes, I know that and you know that, but Morton Horn doesn't know that.

PRESIDENT: Who's Morton?

CJ: He's a high school kid from the turkey place.

PRESIDENT: He's in high school, and he doesn't know I can't pardon his turkey?

CJ: That's what I'm betting.

PRESIDENT: CJ, if we don't and I mean completely overhaul public education in this country...

That is where I stand right now. Kids don't know presidents can't pardon turkeys or suspend the Constitution. We need a complete overhaul of the public education system, and we need it fast. Because we are fast becoming the kid in the corner with the "Dunce" cap on while the rest of the world points and laughs.

Who Needs Constitutional Rights?

A graphic for you all:

On the up side, what with the Supreme Court upholding the 2nd Amendment, my father has decided to start a citizens' militia. More on that to follow.

Pregnant Teens

A controversy of the past week has been that a Gloucester, Mass. high school has 17 pregnant girls this year. This is four times the amount the school had last year, and a rather large number. It should be a controversy in and of itself; except a great deal of attention has been paid to the superintendent of the school district's claims that the girls made a pact to get pregnant instead of acknowledging the fact that the nation as a whole has experienced a 3% rise in teen pregnancies. The waters became muddied and the information convoluted when the superintendent's statements were contradicted by the mayor of the town.

Why anyone would make claims about a group of girls getting pregnant on purpose is fairly simple to figure out: if the pregnancies happened independently of one another and with no real purpose, then the dialogue would focus on things like the failure of abstinence only education (or, God forbid, parental interaction with children). However, if the girls deviously and purposely were intending to get pregnant, then the dialogue becomes once again the trite and overly repeated version of "kids today". The focus is removed from the programs and societal mores and it simply becomes about this group of girls with a hankering for changing diapers.

But the mayor's "outing" of the superintendent's lies (and a 164 page report) put the focus back where it should be: abstinence only education programs just don't work. Perhaps they did, once upon a time, work. I doubt it though. There have always been homes for unwed mothers, girls who would disappear to "Europe" or their grandparents for about 9 months and then come back, and there have always been people like Bobby Darin -who discovered late in life that his older sister was in fact his mother. In Puritan societies, that beacon of moral propriety, many girls got married during their pregnancy. And the term "shot-gun wedding" isn't a part of our verbal lexicon because girls and boys weren't having sex.

And why should they work? Especially now, we as a society focus on sexuality. We demand it. We embrace it. Teens see sex everywhere, see their bodies as marketable commodities to be advertised and used. So, for that matter, do the rest of us. Television, movies, magazines, etc. tell teens that sex is good and sex is great and that with sex comes power -power to buy, power to sell, power to get their way- and we expect them to listen to a teacher (or nurse) who tells them "Don't"? Who shows them pictures of genital warts and tells them that sex ALWAYS leads to pregnancy and that they had best save themselves for marriage because virginity is something to be treasured (if they discuss any of it at all beyond the initial "no")? Abstinence only programs are out of touch, and were probably always out of touch, because they do not take into account (a) the world outside of the classroom, and (b) students' own sexual desires.

I don't want 15 year olds having sex; I certainly don't want them getting pregnant. But I do think that when schools (and parents, and government, and society) refuse to acknowledge that these feelings are real and powerful and that 15 year olds think they know everything, we are bound to have more 15 year olds having sex and more 15 year olds getting pregnant. Teenagers aren't stupid, even if they behave stupidly when not given all of the information. Sex and drugs are things we have to, as a society, have serious and complex discussions about. We have to look to the route of the reasons for why kids want to try them and how we can convince them not to. Telling them "no" doesn't cut it. Establishing a dialogue with them, teaching them about emotional maturity in sexual matters, showing them how to properly use a condom (and dispelling myths about Mountain Dew or jacuzzis), and all the while emphasizing why it is better to wait while listening to and respecting them and the validity of their opinions and emotions and reasons is the better way.

We can simply sit our children down as parents at the age of 5 (or as soon as they ask) and tell them where babies come from, in graphic detail and with books. We can start discussing these things at a young age, and be active parents. We can limit their exposure to shows like One Tree Hill or Gossip Girl. We can read Judy Blume books with them. We can dress our kids in age appropriate clothing instead of high heels for babies. And we also need to accept the fact that teenagers have sex; teenagers had sex when we were in school, when our parents were in school, and more than probably when their parents were in school. We should remember that fact, and then think about how a lack of knowledge about contraception doesn't limit sexual activity. It just limits safe sexual activity.