Kicking Ass

Molly Ivins is such a goddess, she sets my liberal rear on fire with shit like this:

“Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, ‘unpatriotic’ by a bunch of rightwingers.

“Take ‘unpatriotic’ and shove it. How dare they do this to our country? ‘Unpatriotic’? These people have ruined the American military! Not to mention the economy, the middle class, and our reputation in the world. Everything they touch turns to dirt, including Medicare prescription drugs and hurricane relief.

“This is not a time for a candidate who will offend no one; it is time for a candidate who takes clear stands and kicks ass.”

Personally, I’d love to see Gore run again, with Russ Feingold. Way to shove it in their faces, and get a decent President in the bargain. Bet they’d win, too, at this point.

64% disapproval rating, baby! Do I hear seventy?

Pimpin’ Still Ain’t EZ

I know I’ve been doing this a lot lately, posting things that I originally wrote in comment sections of other blogs’ posts. Sometimes, though, your thoughts only really crystallize when challenged with someone else’s—in this case, a post at Pajiba.com. Their post was about the Oscars, but the comments section also brought up the honoring of “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” a song from the film “Hustle And Flow”.

Doing their part to drag American culture a little farther astray, and bolster their own shaky egos at the expense of the ladies, hip-hop artists Three 6 Mafia performed their song at the Oscars recently. The “fuck”‘s and “n***az”‘s were mostly bleeped, but the “pimps, bitches, and ho’s” were left in by network censors, apparently on the premise that “everyone else is doing it, so why worry?”

The really sad part is how totally obliging the tough guys were when it came to censoring their own art to get on TV. Jordan Houston, one of the writers of the song, assured Hollywood blogger Army Archerd, “When we go on stage at the Oscars it will be a clean show. It will be hip-hop at its best.” They might lockdown on some females, but boy, do they roll over for the Man.

In honor of Blog About Sexism Day, I’d like to give a big “boooo” to anyone who acts like they’re against oppression, while trying to get a leg up in the world by repressing others.

***
It’s mortifying to imagine some of the great actresses in the audience, talented and strong women who have probably dealt with plenty of discrimination, not only subjected to such an insulting song, but then seeing it being honored. It doesn’t matter whether or not the song might ever describe a real situation, therefore giving it some coveted “gritty realism”–there’s no difference between a man saying “b**ch” or “ho” and a white person saying “n****r”. Is it alright for black men to disrespect on women, because black men are in turn disrespected by whites?

Sometimes it feels like black men and white men tangle all the time over race, but both breathe a collective sigh of relief that they aren’t “ho’s”.

Rap and hip-hop set a lot of the pop-culture value standards right now, and millions of people, black and white, look to artists like 3-6 Mafia for cues. I can’t say I’m glad of it. For all that I’m happy when anyone comes up in the world, I fucking hate hypocrisy. It makes me mad to feel uncomfortable about criticizing a black person, even if they’re doing something I find totally obnoxious and offensive. How many people, black or white, would get on my back for being racist about this, and unable to understand the realities of oppression—and then shrug it off and turn away if I brought up the oppression faced by women? I’d rather not know that I share the country with people that can accept the degradation of women as “acceptable loss” so that they can have a song that makes them feel vicariously tough when they crank it in their parents’ SUV. Thanks, 3-6 Mafia—you’re really addressing those social issues.

Even though it’s still a real problem, racism’s been officially accepted as “wrong” by most people in this society, and I’m glad that homophobia seems to be losing legitimacy, too. But even people that would stand up and shout for civil rights, and certainly feel bad about homophobia, are quick to turn scornful and dismissive about misogyny. It’s given no quarter as a real, live problem that affects over half of the American population—no, it’s a marginalized “woman’s issue”, or else feminist “ranting”. Well, the same mindset that lets people dismiss songs like this as harmless fun, and dismiss offended women as oversensitive and humorless, is on the same spectrum as mindsets that blame women for domestic abuse and try to rob them of their reproductive rights.

The message? Women aren’t real people, just mindless props that need our oversight.

I’m sure it sucks to not know anything but what it’s like to be an underprivileged pimp, struggling to figure out how to properly exploit your females; and I know sexism is a learned behavior, not innate to anybody. But it’s probably tough to make good choices if you were raised as a white supremacist, too. Wonder when a song glorifying that lifestyle will win an Oscar?

Answer: when hell freezes over.

Repeat After Me…

…”Highly skilled workers are not necessarily better people.”

But you wouldn’t know it from Britain’s new immigration plan.

Sure, every country needs more doctors and, I guess, “financial experts”. Why not create more incentive (besides just the big bucks—I mean, pounds) for people already in Britain to pursue those careers, if the country sorely lacks them? How is swiping them from countries that need them worse, going to help anyone but Britain? Under this scheme, instead of spending money educating people at home, they can just be lured from other, less fortunate countries—according to some experts, exacerbating poverty and brain-drain in developing countries.

I know that Britain is a small place, and some level of immigration selectivity must be in effect, to keep the islands from sinking into the sea under the weight of people. But speaking as someone who has just struggled to get a visa to work in Britain for a paltry six months—they make it plenty tough to get, and expensive. And I’m coming from America. It’s not like I couldn’t get a decent job in my home country.

I came here to gain experience and flexibility, and to open my eyes a bit more to other parts of the world, in a way you just can’t do as a tourist. For a country that’s produced some of the greatest explorers in history, giving the shaft to foreign students and “working holiday” visitors is like spitting on their own history. Nobody’s arguing that an Australian kid working at H&M for a few months is more important to the economy than a doctor or an IT geek who wants to settle for a lifetime. I’m just arguing that, sometimes, there are things that are just as important as the economy. A tradition of scholarship, for instance. A history of exploration, for another. Not to mention, the time-honored traditions of the “Grand Tour” and of settling in foreign places where you may or may not be wanted. The British have done it. Karma’s a bitch.

Power

This was originally posted in the comments section of a post at Bring It On:
***

“If you would rather kiss off any chance of winning the other over and would rather fight, by all means, call them names; use sarcasm, threats, shouting, ignore what they’re saying, etcetera. “

If that doesn’t work, why are the neocons in power?

I’m not saying liberals should endeavor to be like them. I’m saying we need to admit the reality of what we’re facing down. Hate is a very powerful thing, and a lot of the Right’s tactics are based on it—not greed, but pure hate and the desire to wantonly destroy. And that’s spoken to many people across America for the last 6 years. Perhaps they got sick of the PC thing and feeling like they had to “behave”; but I do remember a “cutting loose and misbehaving” kind of mischievous hatefulness that started after Bush took the big seat. I think everyone has the potential to be manipulated by fear and to act out of hate, but we all also have the potential to control such atavistic feelings with reason and conscience. Hatefulness can win control of any person anywhere if they fail to choose something else—Democrats and atheists can be hateful, as well as Republicans and religious fanatics. But it’s important to admit that some doctrines decry hate, and some promote it. What we have now in this country is six years of the cumulative self-indulgent hate of a country that ought to know better.

This administration has removed from the American people the need to have a conscience. They have decided that they are powerful enough to decree that. The effects of this administration can be seen in everything from foreign governments’ actions, to our own pop culture. And so we attack each other, and the harm the rest of the world. But like any pleasurable-but-ultimately-poisoning indulgence, America as a whole seems to finally be getting sick to its collective stomach. I see more and more people slowing down and asking “WTF?” We’re waking up to the hate hangover and beginning to see the real live, “it-affects-me-too-whoda-thunk-it?” consequences.

It would be a mistake to label this a “liberal” or “Republican” or even “religious” problem. It’s a hate problem, and we’ll periodically go through phases with it until we eventually decide that power stemming from giving a damn about people and fighting for them, is stronger power than that coming from hating people and trying to destroy them. Everyone wants power. Democrats need it. But they need to grab at the right kind.

I’m not part of any religion, and I’m not promoting any one moral code. But one thing that has to be valued if a person values life on this earth, is the willful attempt to deny the indulgence of hate. I don’t believe in blind “open-mindedness” or tolerating others’ intolerance, I believe that dogma has in part kept us from turning this tide before now. But the only way to fight the power that comes from something negative and shitty, is the power that comes from something good. If we can’t morally agree on what life-affirming things to fight for, then the false “culture of life” crust over a sea of tarry hate will continue to engulf us, even as we wake up just in time to watch ourselves drown.