We keep falling for the same stupid trick with the football. Will we never learn?

I mention this because last night I was reminded that I once wrote a paper on Tacitus’ “On Germania”. It is considered to be one of the first ethnographies (cough, sputter cough). But what it really is is a blueprint for how to sell invasion of a foreign land back home. There is plenty of othering, idealization of the native and all around condescension, but what I focused on was the way Tacitus used his description of German women as a rationalization for conquest.

He describes the women as buxom beauties with a sense of family loyalty that is missing in their Roman counterparts. These women go to war with their husbands, they raise the children and cook the meals and do all the work while their unwashed men drink nasty beer and start fights with each other. They are oppressed, oppressed I tell you, by the loutish German men.

It is not a huge jump (any jump at all) to apply that same kind of thinking to Iraq or Afghanistan. We have to save the poor oppressed women from their brutish Muslim masters! We must rape and pillage and plunder to save these poor oppressed women from rape and pillage and plunder. Wait, what?

At the same time, it works to shut up women at home who might be getting uppity what with not being alowed to venture out of the house. See you could have it so much worse, you could be married to a drunken German or Central Asian Muslim! You can’t complain when you’ve got it so good, privileged women of the Empire.

And it works. Over and over and over. We keep falling for the same bullshit propaganda. We keep thinking that this time the patriarchy is going to let us kick the ball, only to end up flat on our ass with grass stains.

The patriarchy has no new tricks. Just the same ones in new shiny packaging for at least the last 2000 years. When are we gonna wise up and walk away from the stupid football? How many wars must we fight before we get that it just ain’t in our best interest?

First things first- Montag from Stump Lane is hosting this month’s Carnival of the Liberals. You should go check it out. I’m in it, so it must be good. 😉

Because of this here carnival I got a lovely little troll comment stuck in moderation from a guy ( I assume) with the lovely screen name of WaChinYu.(I could go on about how his name manages to be both creepy stalker fodder straight from the patriarchy AND racist at the same time- but you all are smart. I think you can dissect that yourselves).

If we can bait enough suckers with class envy propaganda, we too shall enjoy a socialist utopia; just like the ones envisioned by Stalin, Tito, Pol Pot, and Chairman Mao.
(pssst… don’t tell them that the little guys got stepped on too, or that there were still poor people in Utopia)
Bootstrapping doesn’t work if your a Dumb-Ass!!

What’s really funny is that dude doesn’t think there is all ready a class war going on.

I think this is a case of a woman saying “fuck this- I’m not gonna eat your shit sammich and call it dinner” and a dude with shit sammich crumbs all over his shirt refusing to call his sammich what it is, because he all ready ate it. I think somebody has a vested interest in keeping the spectacle alive, though a little tooth paste and rational thinking would serve him better.

During your first year as president something has happened, and it’s not a good something. It’s something that didn’t happen under George W., and he was pretty fucking awful.

In 2000, the year that Bush was appointed to the presidency, I made a reasonable salary of 35k per year. I was middle class. I owned a car, had my own apartment, paid an outrageous amount in money for childcare fees. But I always had enough money to buy my kid new shoes when he out grew them and I didn’t get a dime of child support or public assistance. I had health care that actually covered things. I went to the dentist. It was good.

Then there was a recession that was only moderately, kinda declared a recession. I got laid off, the only time I have ever been let go from any job. After that we never really recovered, though the news bunnies all declared the recession over. Since then I have never found a full time, non-temp, benefits eligible position.

The first year under Bush my income dropped by a third.

Every year after that, my income dropped by another third, until about 5 years ago when I bottomed out at the poverty crushing level of 7k a year. And there we stayed.

It was tough. I needed a shit ton of government assistance including: medicaid, food stamps, subsidized housing, LEAP grants to keep the lights on. We even sometimes had to rely on the kindly readers of this here blog for donations.

We survived. Well, physically I mean. I am now prone to bouts of serious depression and years of dealing with Welfare workers pretty much kills your dignity. But for 5 years, my income didn’t change, no more sinking. No raising either,but we floated along on the crappy Styrofoam beer cooler that passes for a life preserver in this country. I thought to myself, well if this is the bottom then we will get through it. It sucks, but we will get through it.

But that wasn’t the bottom.

I’m reminded of how far from the bottom that was by my tax return. See last year, 2009, the year you became the president of hope and change and bipartisan leadership (of the United States of Kleptocracy), I made a grand total of $3500.

That is less than $300 a month for a family of 2.

That is a 50 percent drop, bigger than any Bush level third. And it’s the most painful. I can no longer say “well if this is the bottom, it sucks but we’ll get through it”.

Thank you, President Obama, for destroying any hope (or should I say delusion) that I had about our government’s efficacy.

Thanks for giving me the change (and by change I mean the spare change I’m going to start asking for on street corners) I can believe in.

I am just one little person in a sea of millions of little people all drowning in this financial crisis. I do not have the clout that say a few “savvy” banksters do. I’m just a mom, with no income, no health insurance and a kid who has a toothache and can’t go to the dentist.

And what I need from my government is for it to work for me. I don’t give a flying fuck about bipartisanship. I don’t give a tiny fuck about “the tone” of Washington politics. These things don’t do anything as far as getting food on the table.

Sincerely,
RQ