In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: September 2005

Culture of Life: Katrina

Why am I so angry? Obsessed? Read this post:

They would move heaven and earth to save the life of one White Woman in Florida to combat the very idea of euthanasia (which technically it was not). A woman that a decade earlier had lost her ability to so much as ask for help, much less have coherent thoughts about the quality of her own life.

And they would sit on their ass and watch as tens of thousands of poor men, women, children, babies, and elderly bake in the New Orleans heat surrounded by water, sewage, gasoline and an abandoned city, now devoid of anyone with the means to have escaped ahead of the storm.

This is the culture of life. The culture of life wants to save brain dead white women and unborn children. The culture of life wants you to watch endless non-news about the disappearance of one white teenager in Aruba. The culture of life wants you to support your nation as it kills tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians in its Quixotic quest against a non-threat. The culture of life wants a zero-tolerance for looters policy to sound authoritative as babies die of dehydration. The culture of life expects you to take care of yourself, and if you can’t, then it is your own fault for getting into that situation in the first place. Fuck off. You had your shot. Station in life, where you hang your hat, and whether you have the $40 at the end of the month to pay for the overpriced gasoline to get out of that home in time is all up to you.

…But none seem to support American Culture. New Orleans, as much as any city, represents distinctly American Culture. A melting-pot of language, music and revelry unlike any other. But it is desperately poor. Over 50% of the children in the state live below the poverty level. But no matter. Mostly black folk down there. They shouldn’t have lived there in the first place. They should have gotten out while they had the chance. It’s their own fault.

Michael Chertoff was interviewed on NPR this afternoon. He was asked if he had heard of thousands of people at the Convention Center in New Orleans, without water or food or sanitation. Elderly dying. Little girls being raped. Mr. Chertoff was eloquent in his cluelessness. Completely unaware of what had been on the television all day long on both MSNBC and CNN. Unaware that he, at the top of the agency charged with bringing relief to the affected areas, had not been informed of something every American with a remote already knew. That the situation there was desperate. That people needed help. And that noone seemed to be providing it. The man in charge was not in charge at all, folks. It took the Bush Administration 4 years since 9/11… 4 years of chasing ghosts and old demons in Iraq to not do a fucking thing about stateside preparedness. To gut the national guard’s responsiveness by sending so many of them overseas. To cut funding for the levee system that allowed Lake Ponchartrain to roll into the city. To put someone in charge of Homeland Security and FEMA that is eloquent, but so impossibly incompetent that he is incapable of establishing a staff capable of letting him know the worst of a situation so large.

Mr. Chertoff said, that he had not heard of such things. That you couldn’t believe every rumor from the streets of the area. That he wasn’t in a position to argue about what the NPR Reporters had witnessed.

Get the people to our staging areas, he stated, and they can get water there.

Donate and bully your family and friends to give some money too.

via Jim

Trying to Be Strong

I saw the first moving footage of the aftermath tonight. I had imagined a horrible image of what it must look like.

The reality is worse.

I am so goddamned infuriated at our government, among the richest countries in the world, being unable, unwilling, or fearful to help our own refugees in a timely and responsible manner.

Look at these children.

“The first bus that arrived at the Astrodome was primarily made up of child travelers. Children taking care of children. This girl looked like she was trying to have the strength of an adult, but she’s not an adult. Her eyes tell the story.”

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Amnesty International is “Jane Crow”

Why do I read this ridiculous right-wing sites? I have no idea. But this time around, Men’s News Daily asserts that Amnesty International — that’s right, the reputable human rights organization — is dominated by “rad-fems” because they recognize that domestic violence is an issue for women. God forbid.

Their evidence that women commit just as many acts of domestic abuse as men? Well just this week, two women killed their husbands! That has GOT to mean something! But the really disgusting part is this:

It took America over 200 years to restore basic civil rights to African-Americans. How long will it take America to restore the simple human rights of men?

What was it I wrote earlier about the right co-opting the tragedy of others for their own personal gain? You know, Hurricane Katrina is Hiroshima/the tsunami, abortion is the Holocaust, and now white men are slaves.

In other stupidity, apparently Muslims (but ha! He wrote “Moslem“!) are censoring America. How are they doing this? By expressing their outrage that a radio host called Islam a “terrorist organization.” The host got fired. Hate to break it to this guy, but no one’s first amendment rights have been violated here. This guy can say whatever the hell he wants; but he can’t demand access to a radio station to say it. Kinda like how Janet Jackson can’t demand to show her nipple at every Superbowl.

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Back to (Slut) School

Her title, not mine.

As if we didn’t have enough reasons to dislike the Independent Women’s Forum, head anti-feminist wingnut Charlotte Allen quotes and links to a long rant about how girls are being turned into little prostitutes by the kids clothing departments.

Lingerie, size 6x, with a ‘back to school’ sign on it.

When did ‘toy’ lipstick become bright red and start lasting all day? Why would a six-year-old child need to carry a purse to school? Why is there makeup in it? Why does she know how to use it?

There are clothes in the little girls’ department that nobody would buy except Brooke Shields’ mother in “Pretty Baby.” Except. . . somebody’s mother IS buying them, and probably thinking “doesn’t she look pretty” in them.

Picture poor sleazed-up exploited JonBenet. That little girl breaks my heart.

Tiny little girls, wearing makeup and boobless versions of adult slinkwear. What kind of mother dresses her child like a bimbo?

Because that’s what these little girls look like, you know, when their mothers layer them oh-so-carefully in slinky satin underwear, croptops, hiphuggers (before they even have hips!) skirts that barely cover the subject, fishnet stockings, and HEELS. On a little child who has RECESS to deal with!

(I see London, I see France. . . .remember when the playground was the only place you could hear that?)

What is going through these mothers’ minds when they buy this sexy stuff for a seven-year-old child? Why don’t more schools forbid it? I don’t believe in censorship but clothing a little girl in Victoria’s Secret and sleaze is NOT right.

Come on, people. Please don’t send your tiny little girl to school in clothes that advertise something she doesn’t even know about yet. Dress her like a child, not a whorehouse intern.

Hooker with a Dora lunchbox. What’s wrong with this picture?

Now. Ask me what I think about beauty pageants for little children. Because they tell us more about the poor little kid’s mother than about anything else, don’t they.

That’s right. Call little girls sluts, and then blame mom.

Now, I agree that highly sexualized clothing is innapropriate for children. But is this the way we go about dealing with it? How about asking, “What is going on in our culture when we start sexualizing little girls?” Calling girls sluts because they dress a particular way isn’t going to accomplish much.

Quick Links to Katrina Posts (More Later)

I don’t know about the accuracy of any of these posts, but the accounts are absolutely astounding.

DID YOU DONATE TO HURRICANE RELIEF?

I can call looters “sumbitches” on the premise that someone is maintaining order. But there won’t be any order for some time. I just saw an interview with a Pentagon official on American Morning who said, “It’s hard to believe, but we don’t have enough information on the ground to coordinate relief efforts.” […] WHAT? Maybe you people should get your butt down to Canal Street because there’s lots of trouble there. And how about a helicopter to get those people off that highway? This is a massive failure of FEMA and our federal government. Crap, man, Kellogg’s can get breakfast bars down to New Orleans, and our government can’t help people evacuate?

Lake New Orleans is Bush’s Fault & I Can Prove It

I am fucking outraged about this:

FEMA is directing Katrina donations to none other than the Rev. Pat Robertson …

Millions of Americans and people around the world have rushed to donate money to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, which is shaping up to be one of the worst U.S. disasters in history, if not the worst.

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is the lead federal agency in the rescue & recovery operation at work in New Orleans and the Mississippi gulf coast.

FEMA has released to the media and on its Web site a list of suggested charities to help the storm’s hundreds of thousands of victims. The Red Cross is first on the list.

The Rev. Pat Robertson’s “Operation Blessing” is next on the list.

Class Revolt Brewing in Mississippi

Rightfully angry for being left behind–as were the poor of New Orleans–to fend for themselves against the beast Katrina turned out to be, the poorest of one of the poorest states are lashing out. The potential for civil unrest right now is at an alarming high.

A round-up of first-hand accounts from Jacqui, including a more than bizarre picture.

Gawker:

According to Drudge, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently enjoyed a little Broadway entertainment. And Page Six reports that she’s also working on her backhand with Monica Seles. So the Gulf Coast has gone all Mad Max, women are being raped in the Superdome, and Rice is enjoying a brief vacation in New York. We wish we were surprised.

What does surprise us: Just moments ago at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue, Condoleeza Rice was seen spending several thousands of dollars on some nice, new shoes (we’ve confirmed this, so her new heels will surely get coverage from the WaPo’s Robin Givhan). A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to the Secretary and reportedly shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” Never one to have her fashion choices questioned, Rice had security PHYSICALLY REMOVE the woman.

Angry Lady, whoever you are, we love you. You are a true American, and we’ll go shoe shopping with you anytime.

New Orleans in Anarchy With Fights, Rapes

New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday, as corpses lay abandoned in street medians, fights and fires broke out and storm survivors battled for seats on the buses that would carry them away from the chaos. The tired and hungry seethed, saying they had been forsaken. “This is a desperate SOS,” mayor Ray Nagin said.

“We are out here like pure animals,” the Rev. Issac Clark said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where he and other evacuees had been waiting for buses for days amid the filth and the dead.

…An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

“I don’t treat my dog like that,” 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair.

“You can do everything for other countries, but you can’t do nothing for your own people,” he added. “You can go overseas with the military, but you can’t get them down here.”

Some race and class data on New Orleans

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