Arthur Silber on Stockholm Syndrome when the captor is the State.

Most “dissenting” writers exhibit the characteristics of Stockholm Syndrome, even if to a somewhat lesser degree than reflexive supporters of the status quo. Consider the deeply awful Sam Smith article that I analyzed the other day. Smith identifies a number of reasons for his strong criticisms of Obama — and then proceeds to offer transparently unconvincing rationalizations for voting for Obama next year (because, as Smith says, Obama will “do us the least harm,” ignoring that Obama, too, is committed to your complete destruction).

Which is all just a much more concise way of saying that common sense isn’t actually common sense for us plebeians. Which is, I freely grant, just a convoluted and appropriated way of saying “You can’t bring down the master’s house with the master’s tools”.

There is no fixing a system that’s lone function is to oppress by using mechanisms designed by the masters specifically to obfuscate the oppression.

(It’s so clear and simple, I often feel like I’ve been banging my head on a wall to write about it. But then I have to remember that it took me a really fucking long time to see it and that others have probably felt like they had been banging their heads while I rah-rah the voting apparatus. So I owe some people apologies and some people some patience. I’m good at the first and bad at the last).

H/T to Blue Lyon.

Ugh, I just got a response back to one of the resumes I sent out last week asking me to submit to a credit check through a seedy looking site. Actually everything about it looked seedy. But you can’t check these things out before you email your resume when all you’ve got is an anonymous craigslist email.

I am creeped out because these people have my name, address and employment history already. Now they want to scam me out of my social security number and birthday. Fuckers. Not. Gonna. Happen. (actually I sent all the info to the WA state AG’s office. Once upon a time this office used to do awesome things, but I have very low expectations of our second term Republifucker AG).

But this is all to be expected in an economy with the highest level of sustained unemployment since The Great Depression. It’s also expected that the poor and desperate are most likely to be the targets of these scams. Rich people don’t have to do things like log every employment contact and accept any job, no matter how awful, that comes along or suffer more consequences than being merely unemployed.

Ugh. People suck.

I’m all stuffy nosed and raspy voiced and not at all happy about it. So here’s a lazy bloggers post. There will be lots of shit to piss you the fuck off in these links. Trigger warnings everywhere.

Scott Adams, creator of the super crappy Dilbert who has gotten himself in trouble before for writing some shitty stuff and then sock-puppeting to his own defense, now writes about how rape is one of mens’ natural instincts. Does anyone remember that study that showed that rapists and/or wife beaters were more likely to think that all men acted like they did? I think Scott Adams may have just outed himself as a creepy rapist if those stats are true. How else do you explain a man who thinks rape is something all men want? (This is the tactic I think I will take with all rape apologists in the future. They have all ready told us who they are, we should give them the respect they deserve.

From (one of) the fauxgressives on my Facebook (ugh, why?) comes a link to this post about how a whiny, self-involved asswipe of a woman blames feminism, and not her abysmal taste in men and/or her own selfishness for making her a single, middle aged mother. Boo fucking hoo. I am also a single (almost) middle aged mother and feminism is one of the things that has kept me from going all Sylvia Plath, but perhaps that’s because I don’t think feminism means license to be a douchenoodle.

I’m not a big one for poetry, but White Women Laughed is amazing. Thank you Anishinaabekwe.

Dan over at Womanist Musings writes about minor incidents of stealing in order to get by while poor. Pearl-clutching ensues in comments. Let’s all remember what I think about “common sense” and ask ourselves how starving is more sensible than eating while poor?

There is officially no branch of government fighting against the War on Women. Not the Legislative, not the Executive, and not the Judicial. I would suggest that the wives of the tacky men in their tacky blue suits (or polyester black robes) go all lysistrata. I all ready make it a policy not to sleep with men who hate women, or I’d go lysistrata too. (ETA fuck that link to Jezebel. Read this link at The Crow’s Eye instead )

So peeps, since I am laid up all- gimme something good to read. Leave me a link in comments and I will love you forever.

I’ve been having little ongoing bits of discussion about this lately, so lemme see if I can sum up.

It’s not about being PC. PC is a term, uttered with a sneer, by shitheads who are peeved that they can’t go around being offensive without consequences.

It’s about not being one of those shitheads to begin with. You may not know it, you may not get called on it, you may get an uncomfortable laugh or a stunned nod from someone who just made the connection in their head that you are not a good guy because you use language that shows some little hateful side of you.

And I get that removing those old, relied on phrases and terms is a hassle. I get that the extra seconds it takes (in the beginning) to find a non-shitty way to say what you’re trying to say makes you feel a little stupid. Hell, about every 6 months I do another “I need a new insult” post just for that reason. But I do it because I don’t ever want someone around me to think I’m not someone they can trust simply because I’m too lazy to use my words carefully.

I never want to wound someone with my words on accident (though I am more than happy to do it on purpose). I never want to accidentally insult a whole group of people when what I am really trying to do is convey the awfulness of one person. I never want someone to trust me less because I can’t be bothered to use words that don’t hurt them.

Not using oppressive language is something I try to do because I don’t want to be an asshole, an accidental asshole. That’s all there is to it.

Oh fucking hell no.

Maybe I should have titled this “feminism, you’re doing it wrong.”

Here’s the thing, feminism isn’t about women competing with men. It really isn’t. it is about women being respected as full and complete human beings in their own right. In relationships, that should mean partnership, teamwork, having each others’ backs. Not competing with each other.

What I get from the little essay is that this wildly insecure woman didn’t get the life she wanted and blames it all on feminism. Shit, I didn’t get the life I wanted either honey.

(yes yes yes, Jack White is still a jerk. But I like this song. I like most of his songs. Fucker)

When your mouthpiece can’t come up with ANYTHING your administration is doing/or going to do to stop the War on Women, your contempt becomes painfully, blatantly obvious. And it has been, to me at least, since the fucking primaries.

Obama, you may have had “99 problems but a bitch ain’t one” in 2008. That’s not true anymore.

I stopped taking Vitamin D a little less than 2 weeks ago. My doctor wanted to take some blood levels to see if I still need to take it or if I can be done.

For the last week I’ve been hunched over like an 90 year old. Everything hurts from my neck to my toes. I even got an hour and a half long massage (gently) and that helped for a few hours. But the next day I was right back to cramping and aching.

I’ve got a bottle of over the counter Vitamin D. My prescription was for 50,000 IUs 3 times a week. The over the counter stuff is just 5,000. I took 2. I should take 4. We’ll see how I do.

I can’t decide if I should be super happy that (maybe) all that is wrong with me is malnutrition (technically malabsorpbtion, I think) and anemia. I know that sounds weird.

So I have these cousins on my dad’s side of the family that I have never met (or met when I was so young I don’t remember- that’s the joy of deadbeat parenting) that have become Facebook “friends” by virtue of sharing some DNA with me. No biggie.

Then there is this guy who I had a brief (couple of) flings with a few years ago. We are not Facebook friends. He keeps popping up in my “people you may know” thing because he is friends with one of the above mentioned cousins.

And that is probably the only time in the last 5 years that someone I know has actually met a member of my family.

Fucking Facebook, blurring all my steadfast social boundaries. Grrrrrrr.

Jezebel oh fucking Jezebel. When all I want is to get some trashy gossip with a funfeminist spin, you go and pull some stupid ass shit. There is a reason that I have to put warning labels up every time I link to you.

Tracy Egan Morrisey, writing at the above mentioned Jezebel is SHOCKED OMG GRAB THE SMELLING SALTS that someone might not believe in adoption.

I don’t. Well, I believe that adoption happens. It’s not the same as not believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. And I am pro-to my bones and the depth of my (crooked) uterus- choice. But I think that adoption is the last possible option that should be considered. I think that it is the worst kind of betrayal, to know that the person(s) that were supposed love you most in the world, don’t want you at all (while I was not adopted, I can tell y’all about what an awful feeling that is for a kid. Lived it.) But I am a pragmatist, and I understand that there needs to be a way for children with no parents (or with awful parents) to have a loving family. So I am not all “burn down social services and protest adoption organizations” about it.

That there are people, like me, who don’t think adoption is the universal good it’s made out to be should not come as a great big fucking surprise. There are people who don’t think abortion is all the great either and would never choose it for themselves, yet still think abortion should be accessible and legal for those who would choose it. There are also lots of interracial adoptees who aren’t so keen on the whole adoption thing either.

Now as for what Tracy is describing regarding the show 16 and Pregnant, that’s probably closer to reproductive coercion. From the description, the teenage father seems to be a complete and utter asshat who has no interest in raising his own kid but “doesn’t believe in adoption”. So his teenage girlfriend sits at home, struggling to raise a baby with the help of her mom, while he cheats and is verbally abusive.

(And for the record, 35% of teenage pregnancies end in abortion. Yet almost all the teens on 16 and Pregnant choose to either parent or give their babies up for adoption. There was one special about abortion that MTV did regarding this show. It’s this kind of skewing that makes it easier for forced pregnancy blowhards to get laws passed.)