thoughts and prayers are with the people of Iran

 

liberal frustration

so in the fifteen minutes i’ve been browsing the new york times this morning, i’ve already realized that this is going to be one of those days where being a liberal means being disappointed yet again. obama is announcing his supreme court nominee today and official leaks are naming Sotomayor as the pick. and while she is liberal, i can’t help but wish the president would have taken advantage of the (basically filibuster-proof) democratic majority in the senate to appoint “a full-throated, unapologetic liberal torchbearer to counter conservatives like Justice Scalia”.

however, i’m getting used to the fact that obama is more interested in appeasing moderates than in throwing a bone to those who worked to elect him. because it is  more politically convenient to attempt to placate anti-abortion groups than to declare that a woman has the right to control her own body. and why should the country be forced to face the facts about the torture and detainee abuse that our government and soldiers engaged in under the previous administration? it is apparently enough, in obama’s book, to air a bit of the dirty laundry in a show of ‘openess’ without holding those responsible accountable for their de facto shredding of the constitution. and then, of course, there is the issue of gay rights….

the california supreme court is expected to rule today on Prop 8. i would desperately love to believe that the court will stand up for equal rights and basic human dignity. but i can’t. even with the recent wave of gay marriage legalization, i still doubt that the court will invalidate Prop 8. and allowing it to stand means that as long as you can get enough people to agree to it, it is perfectly legal to deny a group of people basic rights because of your own bigotry.  (please refer to the first paragraph about the need for a truly liberal/progressive supreme court nominee)

and in case you don’t feel like reading the article about the expected ruling, let me just leave you with this gem from Andrew Pugno, one of the lead supporters of Prop 8:

In addition to answering that legal question, however, the seven-member court is expected to address the legal status of some 18,000 same-sex couples who were married in California between June — when the legalization took effect — and Election Day in November.

The state’s attorney general, Jerry Brown, said last year that he believed those same-sex marriages would be legal regardless of Proposition 8. But opponents of same-sex marriage argue that it is illogical to continue to recognize marriages that can no longer be legally performed here.

Andrew P. Pugno, the general counsel for ProtectMarriage.com, the leading group behind Proposition 8, said it was meant to be “a blanket unqualified statement that applies to all marriages.” Allowing some same-sex marriages to stand, Mr. Pugno said, would “create two classes of gay couples” in the state.

apparently mr. pugno missed the irony that he himself is advocating to create two classes of citizens and marriages in the state. but as long as the division is between straights and gays, well, that inequality is just fine. god told him so.

 

 

 

 

 

quick post on the torture issue….

so i’ve been following the unfolding drama about the torture techniques that the u.s. used against terrorist suspects pretty closely. it makes my sick. and as soon as my semester is over, i’m going to sit down and write an in-depth post about it. but for right now, i’m going to just repost one of today’s letters to the editor from the NYT on the subject: 

To the Editor:

When I was 12 in the 1950s, my mother made me promise — if I were drafted into the Army — not to do something stupid or wrong even if an officer told me to. She is a Holocaust refugee. That was the meaning of the Nuremberg laws, I was told.

If I could understand that at 12, shouldn’t C.I.A. agents bear the same responsibility to judge the orders from their superiors?

I was astonished to hear that the Nuremberg rationale was invoked — “I was only following orders” — as an acceptable excuse in the current debate.

Where is that better America that President Obama calls upon us to heed?

Can we really live with ourselves if we fail to prosecute all involved under the real Nuremberg laws?

Tom Roeper
Amherst, Mass., April 22, 2009

 

THIS! A THOUSAND TIMES THIS!

 

so recently i’ve heard quite a bit about rape/sexual assualt and victim-blaming in the news and on the blogs i read. it started about two weeks ago, when i read about a young woman at my alma mater being raped after she accepted a ride from a stranger. a quick summary is that she was apparently leaving the bars at two am and got into the car with a stranger, who drove to a seculeded spot, raped her, and then dumped her on the side of a highway. i was horrified to hear this, but moreso by the reactions of people i knew. there was shockingly little sympathy for the vicitm because of her own actions.

i’m not going to lie, my first thought was “who the hell gets into a car with a stranger?! that’s like kidnergarden 101!”. but i did not think that she had ‘been asking for it’ or ‘deserved it’ in any way. and yet, i heard these responses from friends, coworkers, and commentors on the article in the school paper. Then, as i was trolling around over at feministing.com, i saw a post about victim-blaming that explored these same ideas and themes. and finally, jezebel (and the commentators there) chimed in with a study linking alcohol and sexual assault . suddenly it seems like the discussion over what role the vicitm, and their decisions, play in precieved responsibility for rape/sexual assualt.

now, this really annoys me. alot. first of all, no matter what they have done, drank, or are wearing NO ONE DESERVES TO BE RAPED! it is never understandable, never justifiable, never in any way anything less than a horrific violation of a human being. just because someone has a drink or two, or freaking 10, does mean that it is okay to rape them. just because they may be wearing a short skirt or low-cut blouse, it is not okay to rape them. just because they were out late, alone or with friends, is not an excuse to rape or sexually assualt someone! the responsibility is not on the woman (or man) not get raped, it is on the attacker not to rape them! i don’t care if you are in mid-thrust, if the other person says No or Stop, then you fucking stop. end. of. story.

i guess it just really makes me angry, because the last thing a victim of rape or sexual assualt needs to be second-guessed in their actions, which is in reality just another form of victim-blaming. this is why people don’t report rapes in the first place and why most cases end up dropped even if they do. the hell that the victims are put through during the judicial process and in public opinon can be almost as tramatising as the actual rape or sexual assualt itself.

ok, rant over for now ;-)

 

 

 

snow day = blogging hodgepodge

ok, so my bestie started her own blog recently, which has motivated me to at least post some links:

• i’m glad to see that the policy on allowing photographing of soldiers coffins has been changed (assuming the family of the soldier agrees). the soldiers who die should be honoured in every way possible and the public should be able to truly see the cost of wars.
• have you ever thought about the environmental impact of your toilet paper? this is my biggest eco-sin and yet i can’t give up my ultra soft charmin…..
•  this story freaked me out a little, because i used to shop on this street all the time in beijing
• and keeping with the china/self-immolation theme…..
• just say no to designer babies. its just creepy and wrong and way too gattica for me.
• ah, men in dc! makes me very happy to be engaged!
• so did you know that two nuclear submarines ran into each other? yeah, in the middle of the atlantic. and we don’t think we can trust the iranians will the technology……
• speaking of submarines, this is both heart-warming and sad
• country concerts are always entertaining! especially when the singer decides he’s done taking crap and hops into the crowd to deal with a fan.
• team gary all the way
• this is my relationship. seriously, i think someone was listening in to the bf and i arguing and that’s where the idea for this story came from.
• i’m a huge fan of attention-getting advertising to raise awareness about issues, and this concept targets a pet issue of mine: organ donation 

alright, sorry for the deluge of links! i’ll try and do this more regularly! and also, i know this is a little late, but WTF is with the entire freaking democratic party deciding not to pay their taxes?! i mean, seriously guys! gah!