Guest Blogging – Page 115

Open Blogging Schiavo…

I’m Dylan, and I spew my rhetoric at Something Requisitely Witty and Urbane. I hope this doesn’t bore anyone to death about a subject that is already getting beaten into the ground, but here’s my take.

And now for the most often typed phrase in the blogosphere over the past 3 weeks: I haven’t written about the Terry Schiavo situation because of (fill in the blank) reason.

My reason is… well… I’ve been way to busy to really keep up with all the details. That being said, I’ve some things to say. I won’t delve into the specifics of the case because you either know them or you don’t and, if you don’t, your lack of knowledge will in no way diminish the impact my writing will have on you.

Perhaps I’m overselling… Chances are there will be very little impact. But here’s my two cents.

That Congress stepped in on this issue is a travesty and a complete and utter disregard for the judicial system in this country. The Florida courts are skyrocketing past Massachusetts to regain their rightful position atop the the “Most Likely to be Involved in a Constitutional Crisis” list. Like the Massachusetts case, the Republicans are attacking what they view as “activist judges.” In Mass. it was the judges who usurped the law and tried to establish gay marriage. But this round, the activist judges are the ones who UPHELD THE CURRENT LAW which states that the decision of whether to cease actions which keep a person alive by purely mechanical means is to be made by the spouse, if married, in consultation with their doctor. Period.

Congressional Republicans stepped in to go against the law (similar laws having been passed by Republican Congresses in the past decade, and one which was passed by a certain Governor of Texas not so very long ago) which is already in place, completely disregarding the courts which are there to act as a check on their legislative powers. The good news is, I have no doubt that that check will work, and that, ultimately, the Supreme Court, if and when it gets that far, will uphold the current laws and Terry Schiavo will be allowed to die in the manner which befits the wishes she expressed to her husband: To die with dignity, it’s just that there will be slightly less dignity left for her once “Culture of Life” neo-cons are done on their soapbox.

This brings up troubling precedents, however. Let’s say that I’m wrong, and that, because of all their work, the Republicans wind up with the Courts ruling in their favor. Terry Schiavo is left alive, and James Dobson does a little dance and declares it a moral victory against the Godless tyranny that has befallen this country before the Lord ordained Bush to lead us into the promised land (the promised land which, of course, can only be found after Armageddon). We will now be left with hundreds, probably thousands, of people left alive in name only, on machines until their bodies completely and totally wear out like a piece of fatigued metal after it is bent one to many times. Ther will be entire wings of hospitals where people are left alive with no hope for a future meaningful life, the familes who care about them will be kept in a state of emotional limbo as they wait for bodies which have no other option but to simply whither away. It brings to mind the often asked question of just why Christians, who are so sure about the afterlife, are always the ones who are most afraid to go to it.

Also, do I have to now concern myself with the political persuasion of my doctor? If I have a heart attack tomorrow which results in the cutting off of the oxygen to my brain long enough to cease any and all conscious functioning it might have had, and I’m left in a vegetative state, should I have, in the midst of that heart attack, asked the doctor who happened to be next up on the board when my name pops up if he or she is a Republican or a Democrat, and if they will abide by my wishes? (For the record, if I am in this situation… Pull the fucking plug, chop me up, and donate every single usable part to anyone who needs it). This is a can of worms that was best left unopened, if only for the fact that has already been decided (and if it gets to the Supreme Court, and Mr. Schiavo’s lawyer isn’t pounding his fist on the table screaming “Stare Decisis! Stare Decisis!” then he has no right to be there).

The good news is, though they might get some play out of righteously holding fast to their moral absolutes, just like they do with abortion and gay marriage, this will ultimately be a losing issue for Republicans for two reasons. The first is simple: Public sentiment is not behind them. They might get points for steadfastness, but it will be in vain as the American public has loudly resounded during the life of this story that it is pissed as hell that Congress got involved in the first place. But the second and more important point is that Republicans are not going to be able to stand by this forever. In the past, many Republicans have aided in the passage of laws for just such a situation, and they will have to do it in the future. This isn’t the same as abortion, and this isn’t the same as gay marriage. They find themselves on completely hypocritical ground, howling into the wind that “every life is precious… every life is precious” and then standing behind Dear Leader who governed a state which has put countless prisoners to death. One day they’ll be staring down the barrel from the other side of this issue, and they’ll have lost all credibility. Delay, Frist, and Santorum have officially stumbled, and eventually they’ll realize that the pebble that tripped them up was their own political hubris.

Performance Anxiety!

My name’s Stacie and I’m from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I hate discussing where I work or what I do, so I’ll skip to the fact that Im changing all that and starting graduate school in the Fall semester. My web log is called Spitting in a Wishing Well and you can visit any time you like. I should be asleep by now, but I hate to go to sleep when there are so many fascinating things left to explore in the world. I’m not saying this to sound pretentious, or corny – I really resent sleep for this simple reason. I’ve leave you with one interesting thing about me (which I’ve already left on someone else’s site today but which you can’t read about on my web log), though this is not the most interesting thing, I’m sure – it’s just on my mind at the moment.

I LOVE giving things away through FREECYCLE (Freecycle.org) which hooks people up in communities around the world so that people can give away things they either don’t want or use anymore to people who really want and need them. I get such a warm feeling, mixed with relief and freedom, from giving away all kinds of shit I no longer need to hold on to. And, I love it.

Also, read on my web log that they are finally releasing Prozac Nation on Starz then on DVD (quoted from Slate.com).

Exit stage right

Well it looks as though Lauren is back for a while so I’m going to take a long walk into the sunset. Thanks to Lauren for letting me vent my spleen for a bit on her blog, I really enjoyed it and learned a bit too. Millstone and Spooky pass on their farewells.

Did I get through that without any shameless link plugging?

Cheers,

Flute

Chess, anyone?

You know you’re dumb when your cat reckons it can beat you with its eyes closed.

AMWU promotes menstrual leave

Flute here, not Lauren. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union has put a claim in for 12 days menstrual leave for those women who suffer from chronic problems during their menstrual cycle.

“It’s a tough, hot dangerous job and we believe that this is a sensible claim that’s good for the company because it will improve productivity, it will improve quality and it will improve health and safety.”

So far the talkback on ABC radio this morning is very split even amongst women.

“I work in a male environment and this is the last thing I need”

Another woman said that she used to suffer extreme pain and terrible symptoms and this would have been very good to have had while she was working.
I expect that this will be beat up into a larger issue as usual. The union is not talking about this kind of leave for all women, only those with a medical history. Is this a good thing? Does it add further hurdles for women in the workplace? Is that really a justification for not bringing the idea to the table? Or is it a male idea designed to muddy the waters of women’s issues?

Cuz Ya Know, We Support Our Troops!

Guest-blogger Roxanne here.

An article that originally appeared at CSM and republished yesterday at Military.com illustrates just how much we Americans support our fighting women and men in the armed services. Here’s a snip:

Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are now showing up in the nation’s homeless shelters.

While the numbers are still small, they’re steadily rising, and raising alarms in both the homeless and veterans’ communities. The concern is that these returning veterans – some of whom can’t find jobs after leaving the military, others of whom are still struggling psychologically with the war – may be just the beginning of an influx of new veterans in need. Currently, there are 150,000 troops in Iraq and 16,000 in Afghanistan. More than 130,000 have already served and returned home.

So far, dozens of them, like Herold Noel, a married father of three, have found themselves sleeping on the streets, on friends’ couches, or in their cars within weeks of returning home. Two years ago, Black Veterans for Social Justice (BVSJ) in the borough of Brooklyn, saw only a handful of recent returnees. Now the group is aiding more than 100 Iraq veterans, 30 of whom are homeless.

“It’s horrible to put your life on the line and then come back home to nothing, that’s what I came home to: nothing. I didn’t know where to go or where to turn,” says Mr. Noel. “I thought I was alone, but I found out there are a whole lot of other soldiers in the same situation. Now I want people to know what’s really going on.”

This is part of what makes Jonah Goldberg’s excuse for not serving –yet supporting the war so vociferously that to liken him to a feverish, frothing mad dog would be a compliment– so unbelievably shameful. In case you missed it, here:

As for why my sorry a** isn’t in the kill zone, lots of people think this is a searingly pertinent question. No answer I could give — I’m 35 years old, my family couldn’t afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter, my a** is, er, sorry, are a few — ever seem to suffice.

No, Jonah. No excuse you could give would suffice.

When people say they “support the troops,” what exactly do they mean?

Opinions sought from non-trolls

Flute here, not Lauren. I’ve just been speaking at length with my local MP about his position on abortion as it was reported that he is against government funding for it. He said that although he is personally against abortion, he is against any cuts or changes to the system and supports the right to choose. He is for the gathering of more information on the reasons why women chose abortion and tackling those, such as poor financial situation etc. Any comments?

The fall and rise of community

Flute here, not Lauren. Humans are social animals. Yet today, through decades of targeted marketing, people place more value on consumer products than they do on each other. Gone are the days where social capital was the major currency of life, it has been replaced by the cold hard greenback. Now a persons capacity to function in an unspoken reciprocal relationship with their communities is less of a factor of perceived value than their bank balance, what car they drive, and how many plasma TVs they own. It is only natural, after all we have been bombarded with “Buy this, feel good” messages for years. People have become insular, focusing on their own immediate needs and the needs of their family in a materialistic sense, rather than looking at the gains that can be made from socialising with others.

But deep down, people need more than this. Reality TV was the first stop gap, why talk over the fence to your neighbour when you can watch them on TV. You can even relate to them by voting them off if you don’t like them. And boy, if there was a 24 hour channel of neighbours fighting and police beating up black people then sign me up straight away.

But people need more than this. Somehow this Coca-Cola Sony Big Brother lifestyle is not enough, particular in areas where a sense of community used to exist. People need to be reaffirmed and made to feel good about themselves, so what better way to exploit this than for a government to espouse divisive policies. You with your two kids and a dog, you are right, that single parent is less right, the unemployed woman without a DVD player is a bit iffy, and that dark skinned poofta fella is just plain wrong. Don’t condone their actions as they are a threat to your way of life. But these policies only satisfy self-esteem, not social instinct.

Enter evangelistic organisations such as the Assemblies of God! Now people can satisfy that missing urge to be part of a community. What is more, this community reaffirms that your way of life is not only right, but others will burn in hell for eternity. The congregation can gather and get their quick fix of old time community, sing some songs, praise the lord, and if they’re lucky maybe that prayer to pay off the mortgage and buy a new dishwasher will be answered. So now everyone is happy, big business is happy because their consumerism has the gold seal stamp of approval from God Almighty, people are happy that they belong and they are right, politicians are happy because they now have an easy to read block of society to peddle their wares to.

Unlike traditional communities, membership is highly conditional. First, you have to believe that Jesus is the saviour and that the bible is the word of God – suitably twisted to suit your lifestyle which makes the pill easier to swallow. Second, membership comes at a very high financial price, both at the collection plate (by the way if you’re sitting down, let the person next to you sit down if they want to sign a cheque – actual quote from good old Sydney Channel 31 RIP) and through various merchandising that allows you to get closer to Jesus. Once you are in, you are in, and the fear factor of being ostracised from this new home and lose part of your identity makes you buy more.

So who are the real beneficiaries of this non-reciprocal arrangement? The people that run the organisation, the pastors, the boards, big business and of course those who inhabit the dark recesses of the market forces political right. And now the “preachers”, not satisfied with having a sympathetic ear in the conservative politics, have taken it further by exploiting their one way social-capital to gain political power. The wave of consumer lead religion and political myopia that was born in the United States of America and is spreading worldwide, is truly the most frightening phenomena that is occurring in the Western world today. It is a potent force that will not be spent until victory or defeat, there is no room for compromise or collaboration.

Mother’s time: diary study

I don’t usually do this (Flute here, not Lauren) blogging at the weekend lark, but an interesting study on how parents spend their time was highlighted in one of the weekend newspapers. Here is the newspaper story, and here is the full report. Interesting points include:

Working mothers spend as much “active” time with their children as stay at home mothers.
Whether the mothers work or not, the fathers generally spend less time on household work and looking after the children.

A very interesting read

Trans In Iran

Obligatory disclaimer: I am not Ms. Lauren, nor was meant to be; I am Charles Johnson, guest blogging on Ms. Lauren’s behalf while she takes a much-deserved break. You can normally find me at Rad Geek People’s Daily.

Here’s a fascinating read (thanks, LiveJournal feminist community) from several days ago in the Los Angeles Times, on the growing acceptance of transsexuals in Iran–a move that has been embraced by, of all people, the radical Islamist clerics who also staunchly defend unflinching patriarchy and violent suppression of homosexuality:

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, gay male sex still carries the death penalty and lesbians are lashed, but hundreds of people are having their gender changed legally, bolstered by the blessings of members of the ruling Shiite clergy.

“Approval of gender changes doesn’t mean approval of homosexuality. We’re against homosexuality,” says Mohammed Mahdi Kariminia, a cleric in the holy city of Qom and one of Iran’s foremost proponents of using hormones and surgery to change sex. “But we have said that if homosexuals want to change their gender, this way is open to them.”

Not that it’s easy in Iran. The Islamic Republic remains a fundamentally traditional, conservative society, laced by harsh judgments and strict mores. A blizzard of clerical decrees is unlikely to make a mother eager to see her son become a woman or enlighten leery co-workers who squirm at hearing their colleague’s voice drop a few octaves. And the government’s response is fractured, with some officials remaining opposed to sex change.

“The people our age, they all know and accept us,” says Toumik Martin, a brusque 28-year-old businessman who was born a girl named Anita, leaning in close to be heard over the cacophony of ambiguous tenors bouncing off the waiting room walls. “Our problem is with the parents. They don’t know how to differentiate between transsexuals, gays and lesbians.”

…

Iran isn’t the only Muslim society that appears to be growing more accepting of sex changes while still shunning homosexuality. … But no Muslim society has tackled the question with the open-mindedness of Shiite Iran. That’s probably because the father of the revolution himself, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, penned the groundbreaking fatwas that approved gender reassignment four decades ago.

Khomeini reasoned that if men or women wished so intensely to change their sex, to the point that they believed they were trapped inside the wrong body, then they should be permitted to transform that body and relieve their misery. His opinion had more to do with what isn’t in the Koran than what is. Sex change isn’t mentioned, Khomeini’s thinking went, so there are no grounds to consider it banned.

“There is no reason why not,” says Kariminia, the cleric. “Each human being is the owner of his body, and therefore he can make changes.” … “Islam has recognized the rights of transgender. We can’t say to anybody that they must be a man or a woman,” Kariminia says.

You really should read the whole thing.

I’d just like to add a few slightly pointed, but entirely non-rhetorical, questions. (I have my own opinions on these things but I think that they’re very tricky topics and I want to raise the questions and hopefully provoke some discussion more than push any particular point.)

On the other side of things, some trans activists have tried to argue that critiques of patriarchy ought to be subsumed, or in some places modified, by critiques of a more fundamental form of oppression: the constrictions imposed by the so-called “gender binary.” I wonder what they think about Iran, where trans acceptance is steadily growing and has support among even the most fanatically conservative sectors of society, but where pervasive, thoroughgoing, and violent male supremacy remain widely defended by some of the very same clerics. The rise of Khomeini have made it possible for people who were born as girls to take up life as a man and people who were born as boys to take up life as a woman. But to become a woman still means to be given a chador; while gender identity has become fluid and changeable, gender politics remains the same, and the growing acceptance of trans people in Iran seems to be proceeding without posing any challenge at all to patriarchal norms or traditions. What does that say about whether or not the “gender binary” is really any kind of fundamental explanation for patriarchy (rather than, say, just a symptom of the way that patriarchy happens to be tricked out in certain periods of American and European history)? Not that trans acceptance isn’t important or good enough in its own right to cheer on–it is!–but shouldn’t, well, something more be happening in Iran if the “gender binary” is fundamental in the way that some people have claimed it is?
On the other side of things, the moderate liberal wing of the gay rights movement–Human Rights Campaign and their crew–have repeatedly defended a political strategy of working for legal protections based on sexuality but not gender identity, and have told the trans community and their supporters that they are framing their demands only in terms of sexuality because it’s better to get something than nothing. I wonder whether they feel the same way about the inverted case in Iran. In Iran, the struggle for trans rights is rocky and uncertain, but there is growing acceptance and support from what you might think are the unlikeliest of sources; meanwhile homosexuality remains a capital crime. Political battles on behalf of trans rights are far more likely to succeed than political battles for gay liberation and trans rights together. Should the gay community in Iran just grin and bear it and chip in their support for trans activism in Iran for the good of the Iranian “TLBG community”?

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I’m demanding all-or-nothing politics here, or saying that the surprising acceptance of transsexuals in Iran is bad or even neutral without gay liberation. (The lack of gay liberation is bad, but that’s not the fault of the growing trans-acceptance.) I may be a radical kook, but I also think that piecemeal progress is the only kind of progress that there is. But there’s a difference between what is better than what you have now, and what you should be demanding; the first is always going to be much broader than the second. And the question here for the HRC crowd is how it makes them feel when the shoe is on the other foot, and prominent trans activists are saying things like “Approval of gender changes doesn’t mean approval of homosexuality. We’re against homosexuality,” or “Our problem is with the parents. They don’t know how to differentiate between transsexuals, gays and lesbians”? Yes, we should cheer on whatever victories we win in this world, but when the demands of trans activists in Iran are framed in such a way as to specifically exclude any questioning of violent oppression on the basis of sexuality in favor of sticking to the more politically palatable questions about gender identity, shouldn’t we find that just a bit problematic, and shouldn’t we insist on these points of criticism even while we cheer on what advances the make? And shouldn’t we feel the same way for precisely the same reasons while the reverse is happening in America?