Third world nation doesn’t cut it.Neither does developing or less developed,because the countries we use that label for have all had their natural resources developed right into the pockets of rich countries and companies.

Of course any term that aptly described those countries would not be very complimentary to us in the first or developed world.

Terms used now are more than a bit similar to the way we talk about rape, actually. First we talk around the acts of plunder and we never mention a perpetrator. When we talk about a woman being raped it’s as if she was walking along and tripped and fell on an invisible, nameless, faceless thing called “rapist”. When we talk about poor countries it’s as if they are resource-free deserts and never acknowledge that their resources are stolen by the nameless, faceless thing called “capitalism”.

I read once that the terms explorers used for newly discovered (by white people) lands were all feminine. “The lush, virgin forests need to be opened up for exploration” is the erotica of colonialism.

You can’t fix a thing till you can properly name it. Rape doesn’t end when we call it a “sex act”, so what do we call this looting of poor countries?

Wonder and I were having a chat the other day about panic attacks.

Wonder: Does every woman our age have some kind of anxiety issue?

Me: (Runs through list of every single woman I know) YES.

First- don’t gimme that shit that depression, anxiety, psychological problems et.all
are new ways of drug companies making money. What was previously called hysteria was more likely than not the point where a woman just got so fucking fed up with the shit sandwiches that she blew her lid.

Second- Imagine how much more time and energy we would have if we didn’t have to spend so much time and energy trying to heal wounds created and constantly reopened by others? Wonder is so fuckingsciencebrainysmart she could have cured cancer by now. No shit.

And I’m so fucking entrenched in the shit sandwich miasma that I don’t even know what I’d do. Be an architect I guess. I’ve been doodling houseplans since I was a little kid. It’s what I use as an escape (in place of being a WoW geek like some people we know cough*ouyangdan*cough).I’m trying to convince the family to run away to New Mexico and start and artist commune mostly so I can be the one to design the cabins (from recycled shipping containers with solar power).

I also sometimes threaten to run away to any tropical island where I could make a living selling hand painted coconut shells on the beach, but since I am in a tropical climate right now and am giddy for temperatures that drop below 70, that might not be a workable plan.

And I also sometimes dream of making soup. I don’t wanna run a restaurant, I don’t wanna cater fancy parties. I wanna make vats of soup and then sell them to a restaurant or fancy caterer or a deli.

So peeps- if the kyriarchy ended tomorrow and all those stupid wounds finally heeled- what else would you like to do with your time and energy?

1)End DADT and DOMA AND because you’ve been so douchey allow gays and lesbians all the same federal benefits that straight marrieds get and the gays may come back.

2)Strip the Pitts-Stupak amendment out of health care reform AND because you’ve been so douchey repeal they Hyde amendment and you may get women back.

3) Enact real health care reform including Medicare for all and reforms to drug pricing and you may get your liberal label back.

4) Enact real regulation of the financial industry including a temporary moratorium on foreclosures and maybe we’ll get a functional economy back.

5)Throw money at the problem – JOBS JOBS JOBS. I don’t care how. Pay people to stand on their heads and entertain on street corners. It doesn’t matter what kind of jobs, but we need them now.

(And for good measure you could strip all anti-choice, blue dog, Joe Liebermans of all committee memberships until they remember what fucking ticket got them elected in the first place)

Sincerely,

An Entire Group of Fucking People Who Should Have Been Reading This Blog During The Primaries But Were Overcome With Hopium Instead*. Oh and RQ.

(*I figure it’s nicer just to sign for them rather than do the I Told You So dance)

My friend Ms.J sent me this link and I thought it was too important to just throw in the reader.

UN investigator accuses US of shameful neglect of the homeless.

In my old, super blue, super “progressive” hometown, tent cities have been renamed “Nicholsvilles” after the mayor. There are trailers parked under interstates where homeless people live because it’s one of the few places the police won’t harass them. The Kid and I are just lucky we have family who could take us in. We don’t have a tent or a trailer.

My aunt told me today that she heard half the school aged kids in Las Vegas are homeless because of the housing crisis.

And how many people still can’t return to New Orleans after Katrina?

What does it take to wake people up, cause 8 years of Bush didn’t do it and Obama seems to be just as thoughtless when it comes to the massive fucktastrophy. Do the homeless have to start pitching their tents on suburban lawns? Or better yet, right in front of the White House?

Would it even matter? I’ve already been proven right that Obama doesn’t care about women, or real health care reform, or anybody who makes less than 100k a year. Would shoving this problem in the face of the Democratic party do anything when the Dems are so busy trying to prove their actually Republicans.

Seriously, cause I’m mad as hell but self-immolation in front of FDR’s memorial on live tv seems to be the only way we might get some actual results.

This is the memorial. The sign reads “They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers……call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.”

This made me laugh so hard I almost peed myself.

(You all know that the only phrases I can actually say in French are Je suis Americaine and Do you speak English – which I don’t know how to write in French)

Yeah, not so much

And continuing on in Afghanistan and Iraq in hopes of creating more jobs at home isn’t such a good idea either.

Better get moving on that new “green” economy Mr. President, or my prediction that you are the second coming of Hoover will make people flock to me like I’m the second coming of Nostradamus.

H/t to Corrente

There’s a bunch of whinging from rethuglikans that the Ft. Hood shooting is an act of terrorism because it was perpetrated by a Muslim.

Now I know it’s asking a lot for rethuglikans to use proper definitions and all,but this is an important one.

Since I’ve already gone over the dictionary use of the word let’s get into the legal definitions.

For judicial purposes you need a perpetrator or actor, a victim, and a motive.

There are specific conditions that must be met for all three things if something is to be considered terrorism.

1) The perpetrator(s)must not be acting on behalf of a government. People who commit crimes on behalf of a government are committing acts of either espionage or war, not terrorism. Perpetrators of terrorism are generally part of a non governmental organization of some sort, though that organization can be of just one person if other conditions are right.

2) Terrorism is an act or threat of violence against civilians. You can even stretch that as far as non-combatant government employees (see Oklahoma City) but a military base does not count as non combatant.

3) The motive MUST be designed to cause or instill fear for political gain. This is vital. Without this it really is just the act of a mad man. Scott Roeder, murderer of Dr. Tiller IS a terrorist because his goal was to terrify other doctors so that they would not perform abortions. That is terrorism.

John Allen Mohammed, the DC sniper who was recently executed, was not a terrorist. His ultimate goal was to kill his ex wife, though he made it look like a terrorist act so as to hide his tracks.

We don’t yet know what the Ft. Hood shooter’s motive was, but the Army doesn’t think it was terrorism. Being that we know he fails the test on elements 1 and 2 (he was not a non-governmental actor and he was not firing on non-combatants) his actions, though horrible, were not an act of terrorism.

That’s all people. Terrorism in a nutshell.

So I was reading this post at Jezebel and was reminded of a “fun” moment during my pregnancy with the kid.

It was labor day, I was maybe 4 months pregnant. Our entire apartment building got together and had a huge party on the roof.

I was wandering around, mingling with peeps, when condescending neighbor girl walks up to me and starts screaming at me and trying to grab the glass of dark brown liquid out of my hand. Seriously, like I was wielding a knife or something.

She was screaming “You’re pregnant, you can’t fucking drink, blah blah blah.”

At which point I gave her the classic raised eyebrow of doom and said “It’s tea you fucking dipshit” and finished the glass.

Now for all this person’s concern over the life of my future child, she never once told Kid’s dad to stop drinking. He got piss faced, stupid-assed drunk and decided to jump off the roof that night. Ended up with a seriously sprained ankle. No one (besides me) said that getting high in the hospital parking lot might not be the best thing when your girlfriend is about to be wheeled into the operating room for a C-section. No one (but me) told him that driving your new baby home from the hospital should not be done while high as a fucking kite.

But I’m a girl, so throwing public hissy fits because I might not be performing the acts of sainthood required of parents mothers is ok. He’s a boy, no sainthood required to be a dad.

For all the swelling, color changing, pain it caused me last night, the toe is in miraculously good shape.

It’s just a slightly bruised tone nail after all. Hurray.

Especially since Ouyang Dan was threatening me with stories of drilling holes in toenails with needles or nails or something sharp and non-bendy.

So the Dems are pissing off the ladies, and the gays. And they are ignoring the poor, the unemployed, the workers in the real economy.

And what we’ve always been told about the Dems is that getting the people in party to do anything is like herding cats, cause it’s one big tent with a diverse population underneath.

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

We either all float together or we all sink alone. And we shouldn’t can’t save ourselves by sinking someone else.

It’s pretty simple, health care is neither “reformed” nor “universal” if it drags women down into the abyss.