I posted to Facebook that
I realized while reading the Iliad that if for Zeus, Ares, Athena, and Apollo you substitute the White House, Defense, State and the CIA, the politics make perfect sense.
I also rented a Mini Cooper and drove to Ojai, California, for a burrito.
Arthur Silber has been continuing where Mark Twain was obliged to leave off when rudely interrupted by death.
Mark Twain was a ferocious anti-imperialist who was enraged and disillusioned by the US colonialist involvement in the Phillippines. His essay “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” describes the ruse of th
The simplest, most important reason that women’s opinion needs to be considered as seriously and immediately as men’s is sometimes, goddamnit, we’re right. This passage from the section on women and the French Resistance from France: The Dark Years 1940-1944 by Julian Jackson portrays a scenario us Hillary supporters are all too familiar with:
Even Helène Mordkovitch, one of the founders of Défense de la France with Philippe Viannay..was reticent about imposing herself. Unlike Viannay, she never harboured any illusions about [Marshal Philippe] Pétain [head of the wartime French regime at Vichy], but it never occurred to her, or to him, that her views on politics should be taken into the account on the newspaper, which remained a male preserve. It took her husband two years to reach views she had held from the start.
The timing of two to three years is striking. In the Chicago Tribune op-ed HIllary for President , a former Obama supporter rallies to the idea of Hillary–about three years too late to be of any use. Apparently his personal identification with Obama clouded his thought process. His outrage at the Hillary campaign’s “3 AM phone call” campaign ad is because the ad directly challenges his divine right (and Obama’s) as holder of the twin pillars of authority, the law degree and the penis, to rule. “I am mature enough but you are not” remains an unacceptable assertion from a woman to a man. Even if, goddamnit, and to the young pup’s sorrow, she is right.
Occasionally I open a newspaper and am not instantly punched in the face. On my latest long-haul flight I read a review of the book “All About Love: Anatomy of an Unruly Emotion” by Lisa Appignanesi in the International Herald Tribune (the global edition of the New York Times, the American bourgeoisie’s house organ and purveyor of genteel sexism.) Imagine my astonishment at reading such simple, shining truths “until women entered the field [of studying sexual attraction] and started asking different questions, the experiments tended to produce stunning affirmations of Western patriarchal stereotypes. ”
Contemplate also the sparkling passage:
..Appignanesi, who has written extensively on the history of psychoanalysis, turns her back on the ever-growing scientific literature on love, largely out of disgust with the way sociobiological theories get used to defend a conservative social order: “I’ll believe in evolutionary psychology more, perhaps, when it’s used less as an explanation for male philandering and female nesting,” she writes.
This from a newspaper that files all woman-related stories, including one about lesbian separatism, in the Fashion & Style section? Knock me over with a feather.
Wherein my son explains the origins of Justin Bieber.
This is a story. One day Satan was really bored. All the dead souls were (for once) making him sad. He tried taking a bubbly bath, but that didn’t work. He went to see if God was open for a game, but he was playing with fluffy bunnies. Finally, he tried to cheer up by going to Earth and getting a drink. But sadly, it was rush hour, and all the bars were crowded. But at that moment he had an idea. He would possess a human to torture the other humans. He went to Canada and found a little boy named Justin Bieber. He saw he found his perfect target. He went and possessed him, and unleashed the cries of a thousand tortured souls. But Satan was tricked by God. God made Justin Bieber famous somehow. But that was good for Satan, because he could torture more humans. That is why Justin Bieber’s singing is terrible and horrifying.
Now you know.
A study by the Pew Center shows the racial wealth gap has been getting wider recently, with black and Hispanic Americans falling far behind white and Asian-Americans. This item popped up several times in my Facebook feed, posted by liberal friends with no comment or context as if it were a deplorable act of God. They somehow neglected to mention that this was occurring on the watch of America’s first president of color.
Barack Obama was overwhelmingly supported at the polls by the very people who are being hit hardest by the current depression. Yet he has not lifted a finger in defense of their economic interests. Trillions are poured into Wall Street and wars, but nothing is being done for working people of any color –people who need homes that retain their value, a safe place to live and to do business, sane credit, jobs that pay a living wage, the means to stay healthy, support in their old age and a decent education for their kids. The Obama Administration has telegraphed its hostility to these needs in numerous ways: inaction in the face of the foreclosure crisis, advancing cuts in Social Security, prioritizing reduced spending over economic stimulus.
It is not the abstract concept of ‘privilege’ that is doing this. It is real, living people in positions of power, including the President of the United States, who are implementing privilege, if not oligarchy, by accelerating the flow of resources upwards. Privilege existed in the 1990s yet working- and middle-class Americans were better off. It is mendacious, insulting to the voters and condescending to the President of the United States to refuse to associate his name with the policies of his Administration and their consequences.
It’s time to name some names and point some fingers.
Hey, there’s at least one party in the world who gives a rat’s ass about women’s equality and is actually talking about it. It’s the Parti de Gauche (Party of the Left) here in France. In its latest press release it denounces the dismantling of the Service for Women’s Rights and Equality and pledges itself to the creation of a Ministry of Women’s Rights.
Remember when we talked about equality in the US? When did the equality of half the population become so radioactive? It’s tragic.
So last night at the European offices of Elizabitch Worldwide Industries we watched the June 30th Daily Show. Jon Stewart discussed the Supreme Court’s ruling against restricting the sale of violent video games to kids, accompanied by two hideously graphic clips of attacks by men on a woman. Then he skipped on to the choke-hold attack of Wisconsin Supreme Court judge David Prosser on his colleague Ann Bradley during a heated debate.
Men attacking women. Two simulated but with horrifying violence, one real and occurring in justices’ chambers of all places. It leapt off the tee vee at me. I wondered if Jon were going to riff on that.
No such luck. Jon was appalled by the heave-inducing violence of the video game, and astonished by the assault in chambers (and the partisan selective memory of the justices who were witnesses), but the one-way M->F direction of the violence? Left without comment.
Now I don’t blame Jon. He’s doing his job, which is to entertain the Rockefeller-Republicans-in-jorts who pass for liberals these days and who watch his show in droves. Anything with a whiff of feminism is a big downer to this crowd. Bringing up violence against women, even with his trademark feigned outrage, would sound like a lecture to some and hit too close to home for others. They’d squirm and roll their eyes, which kills the glow of superiority that is part of the magic of the show.
Jon did offer a powerful if oblique comment before the commercial break. “It seems your reality doesn’t inform your politics, your politics informs your reality.”
I’d say Jon said a mouthful there.
These recent additions to the Elizabitch lexicon are sure to expand the range of your rage. Note that two-thirds involve embroidering the F-bomb. Isn’t English grand?
To cap off a week from hell I offer up the Bellrays’ opinion of bureaucrats, technocrats and kleptocrats and their respective stooges, lackeys, and toadies.
