This is hardly a surprise

As the title here suggests, I am not in the least bit surprised that the Republican National Committee's health insurance plan covers abortions. I am not surprised for two reasons.

Number 1, most US insurance plans cover abortions because it is part of providing comprehensive health care to cis-women. It is a needed procedure, not to mention a legal one that is part of having a right to control ones own body, which applies to so much more than just abortion.

Number 2, because throughout my time of being aware of the heated anger over debating abortion, I have noticed that a good deal of those who opposed women having the right to choose suddenly support it when it is their daughter, or themselves that need the procedure. And its because underneath all of that moralizing, it comes down to thinking that some women don't deserve to have a choice. It isn't about "teh poor widdle baybeeez" cause if it was, these same fucknecks would support social programs that allow women who couldn't afford an abortion, or who swallowed their morality hook but don't have the resources to raise a child to be able to do so. (And before anyone starts whinging about "welfare queens," try being on welfare. It enables you to eat, and if you are lucky it helps you pay for a place to live. "Welfare queens" are a racist, Regan-era myth.)


Since this story broke, the RNC has stated that they are re-assessing their current insurance plan. I find it slightly ironic that if their little Stupak bomb does what they want and kills health care reform, they are going to be limited to about 15% of the insurance companies out there who actively do not cover abortions. Because even with all of the asshole things that insurance companies do, they still recognize that abortion is an important part of cis-women's health care. When there are insurance companies with a better handle on reality than you, well, I don't need to point out what that says about you.

It still doesn't make this expectation on the "liberal"/"progressive" side that cis-women will take yet another one for the team here any better, but it does make me chuckle evilly. Because I'm a bitch like that.

I hate my conscience

Reading this article by Renee of Womanist Musings made me really uncomfortable. That isn't unusual. Renee speaks her truth and does so bluntly. Her truth includes intense criticism of things that I get to take for granted, and if you can stay comfortable in a situation where your privilege is challenged, then you are doin' it wrong.

This is different.

In her article, she makes the point that prison rape is still rape and is still a crime and is still a violation of basic bodily integrity.

As far as my morals and my social/political positions, I agree completely.

But there is a twisted little worm in my gut that doesn't. An angry, scarred and vengeful part of me. I think of the people who are in prison for violating the bodily integrity of others, rapists...murderers...I think about the people they have hurt, and a part of me wants them to fucking suffer the pain they have inflicted on others. Yes, I realize they are still people, despite their actions...but why do they get the rights that they violated in others? Why do they get to live a life without that pain, fear and scars?

The logical part of me usually pipes up around here to remind me that revenge fantasies are not constructive, and to point out that I can't hope to help bring an end to rape culture and still tolerate it happening. How can I hope to help deconstruct this concept of shame in being penetrated, the power dynamics that create the current societal attitude toward rape, if I still, personally consider it a just punishment for a rapist? How will that accomplish anything besides continuing to reinforce the messages that excuse rape to begin with? It also points out to me that most justice systems are flawed enough that there is not always a certainty that the person in prison for the crime actually committed it.

These are not easy standards to live up to, and I can see just how far this seeps into our minds. Its what happens when you are soaked in rape culture for the whole of your existence, and if we want that to end, we have to be able to admit that we are a part of it as well.

Damn Straight

Down with "Bipartisan Politics at any cost"!

Holy Shit!

I GOT MY WISH!


Well, one of them anyway, the Global Gag Rule is fucking GONE! At least until the next anti-choice president reinstates it. Seriously, can we get some legislation on this already? We are talking about women's lives here, not some fucking ideological disagreement.

There has been some annoyance on my side of this issue about why President Obama (GOD but writing that feels good!) waited til the day after the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (when this was initially scheduled) to do this. While I can understand that annoyance, I don't share it. He fucking DID it people, and he did it in a way that doesn't have anti-choice assholes losing their shit.

As painful as I know this is, because we have been waiting for 8 fucking years for this, we can't afford to just upend the power structure that has been built over that time. Why the hell should we subject those who disagree with us to the same treatment we have been subjected to? What purpose does that serve except to foster more resentment that there already is? That and the bat-shit crazies that feel threatened by a liberal president who is also a POC don't need any more encouragement at this point.

Compromise doesn't have to mean what we have been told it means for so long. Progressives are regularly told to back down a little bit so we and vicariously, our message, will be more acceptable. The demand of compromise has regularly been used to silence us and block our efforts. So-called compromises have been made on their terms, and usually include us giving us the very issue that is central to our struggle (Example: civil unions instead of marriage for queers) while trying to placate us with crumbs from the table. That is not true compromise, and it never has been, but this troll's bargain has been dressed in the language of "reasonable compromise" for so long and used to paint progressives a rigid and inflexible, that any compromise is suspect. Any admonition to respect the other side is possibly a way to get us to shut our collective face and know our collective place.

This DOES NOT have to be the case. We can define compromise as well, in a way so that our needs and rights are respected. We don't have to become what we despise, and we don't have to become what the other side wishes we were.

We won this one for now. I am content with that and ready to keep working.

Polish those teaspoons people, we have an ocean to deal with.

(and thanks Sady for getting my wheels spinning on this)

Blog for Choice day

Its Blog For Choice Day.

The 36th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade is traditionally marked by anti-choice(I categorically reject the term "pro-life" to describe these people. Anyone who supports laws that kill women and do not save fetuses is not "pro-life.") advocates widely protesting the fact that women are still worth more than an unborn fetus. Today, there are anti-choicers marching in DC showcasing "Women Who Regret Their Abortions." The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Not only are these... people... doing just that, they are running this campaign on faulty information.

Say it with me kids: THE NOTION THAT WOMEN ARE ADVERSELY AFFECTED MENTALLY BY HAVING AN ABORTION HAS BEEN REPEATEDLY DISPROVED.

Saying otherwise over and over again with no solid proof is the same as smashing your head against a brick wall: its pointless, and proves no other point than that you are a moron.

The concept of medical choice covers more than just abortions, more than just reproduction. It means that as human being we have the right to decide what will medically be done to our bodies. It all comes down, as Liss at Shakesville put it, to trust. I trust people to make their own medical decisions. I apply this universally: I trust people to decide when to have children, I trust people to decide if ther bodies are right for them, and I do not trust someone who doesn't know me or mine to make that choice for me.

What I want to see from our new pro-choice President is the end of the Global Gag Rule that pulls American federal funding from any organization that dares to think the word abortion and results in the maternal mortality rate world-wide going up. I want to see the end of the DHHS regulations that allow medical providers to refuse necessary services based on being offended. I want to see the end to the so-called "partial-birth" abortion ban. I want safe, affordable access to contraception, and abortion, as well as comprehensive sex-education programs.

Its not enough, but dammit, we deserve to be treated like people, not fucking brood mares.

Hope Over Fear

Its finally happened...

Its over.

The nightmare is over.

For eight years I have been watching a sad, petty little man and his friends destroy everything this country has that can be good for the world and laugh in the process like some immature freshman frat-boy giggling that he got away with defacing a memorial to those not as privileged as himself.


I have few illusions about Obama. I voted for him, but I do have some concerns about his actual progressivity cred. However, I truly believe that we have a chance now. We now have a president who listens to the people, even those we wish he would not listen to (Rick Warren, anyone?) Even so, this inauguration heralds the end of Christo-fascist (hey, if they can make up insulting terms, so can I)control of a country that has the potential to be so much more than it is. I trust this man, and I will expect as much of him as he has promised.

It is not lost on me that we are facing one of the most historic moments I can ever hope to see, the end of the white male dominance of the highest office in the land. We have someone with a perspective shaped by a society that constructs him, his family, and those who share his ethnicity as worth less as our commander in chief. I don't pretend that this is the end of racism and oppression, but my god it is a step I never thought I would see.

Don't let us down sir.

The only thing I can say has been said better by Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay episcopal clergyman:

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

(h/t to Monica @ Transgriot)

Mmmmm...Cowardice in Hypocrisy Sauce

Y'all are not gonna believe this shit. Unless you've been paying attention, then it just fits perfectly with the line of bullshit spin that these groups regularly dish out.

So, the state of California has a law that requires that donations to legislative measures and political party campaigns be made public knowledge. Its an anti-racketeering law to ensure that organized crime syndicates haven't bought politicians or legislation (oh the IRONY, which will be apparent shortly.)

Several groups who have donated to the anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 are suing to be exempt from this law.

"Why?" you may ask, "why would these upstanding citizens who claimed to only be protecting their own right to be bigoted and limit the rights of those they despise so worried about being known as the defenders of (their own) rights that they clearly are?"

Well, cause they claim to be afraid of "threats" such as blacklisting and boycotts. They claim that these things will violate their First Amendment rights. The AP article linked above cites other threats, like fliers calling them bigots being distributed in their neighborhoods, and threatening emails.

However, Justin McLachlan has an interesting bit of info that the Associated Press mostly ignored in their article:

BTW, Protectmarriage.com is the same group that used public campaign disclosure records to threaten a San Diego business that donated to the "No on prop. 8" before the campaign. The registration documents they want to make secret are the same ones that I used to show the campaign was being organized through a mutual benefit corporation -- California Renewal -- that the state had suspended for failing to pay taxes.

Excuse me, I need to go laugh til I puke. Gimme a second.

::exits stage right::

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

::re-enters stage right::

Ok, I think I can get through the rest of this with only minor giggling.

I have said this before but its worth repeating: the freedom of speech inherent in the First Amendment applies equally to everyone (at least it should.) Yes, people in this country have every right to give money to a piece of legislation that they agree with. People have the right to express ignorant and hateful views. However, this right DOES NOT protect them from the First Amendment rights of others. Boycotts of businesses who donated obscene amounts of money to take away your rights is also protected by the concept of free speech. Having the right to publicly be an ignorant ass does not protect you from people calling you an ignorant ass. Freedom to speak is not freedom from criticism.

Please note that I can't condone violent threats against supporters of Prop 8, but I can understand why someone would feel that angry. Acting on those threats is crossing a line into territory that I think we can still rise above.

As much as I'm sure these hypocrites would like it to not be the case, there are consequences for your actions, especially when those actions oppress others. If you were worried about your profits, you might have considered the fact that queer people and their supporters have money too, and that hitting you in your wallet is a fitting price to pay (ooh unintentional pun! HOW WITTY AM I!) for treating other people as less than a full legal person.

(h/t to Keori)

Gaza Update

The body count in Gaza has climbed to 348 Palestinians and 4 Israelis.

Israel has rejected international attempts at truce.

Israeli officials said the military blitz against Hamas targets is just the "first of several stages" of military action.

Medical officials in Gaza have also put the number of wounded at about 800. Considering the lack of medical supplies that are allowed to enter Gaza, which is little better than a walled in prison, those wounded are unlikely to survive.



What crime have these people committed that they deserve being dehumanized like this? Voting for Hamas? little light makes a point about this particular argument that I find difficult to disagree with:

Tell me what you would do! Tell me! Who do you believe, who do you listen to, who do you rely on? You are walled into a prison with guns pointed at you all the time. Food is not allowed in, fuel is not allowed in, medical supplies are not allowed in. You lose count of family members violently dead or maimed. Your schools and hospitals and places of worship are destroyed, your neighborhood is full of rubble with few buildings intact, and you cannot expect to live to thirty. And you don't know any of the people on the other side of that wall.

Who do you listen to as a reliable source? The guys with the guns pointed at you, who took the food away and tell you you deserve to have nothing, but who the outside world tells you are decent folks acting justly? Or the people you're told are evil scumbags, but who provide you food, medicine, a little pride, a little order, and the promise to fight for you? Who among you, looking at your hungry, sick child, is going to listen to the person telling you that you shouldn't be allowed to care for them over the person handing you bread and antibiotics and a little civil infrastructure? Do you listen to the asshole who gives you food, or the asshole who takes it away? When you have nothing, no dignity, no hope, when you've got nothing to lose, who do you listen to? What do you think you would do differently? Do you honestly think that, with a gun pointed at your family, you wouldn't be grateful for even a vile human being who tells you you don't deserve it and points a weapon right back?

I don't think I'm that saint. I don't think you're that saint. You want to say you'd know better?

I really don't care what anyone says. Inflicting this level of suffering on a group of people with as few resources as the Palestinians in Gaza have is NOT justifiable. Inflicting this kind of suffering on any group of people is NOT justifiable.

I have heard argument after argument that the Palestinians started it and therefore deserve this. Bullshit. The Palestinians are living in some of the most resource deprived, most densely populated places in the world. There are people who have been living in refugee camps for half a fucking decade. They get angry and toss some rickety rockets over the wall at the people making their lives hell, and we rush to justify their oppressors sending one of the most well-funded and equipped militaries in the world back at them.

Living in fear because your government insists on treating another group of human beings like animals DOES NOT justify the taking of lives, especially on this scale.

To add a disclaimer: No, I do not think that the violence perpetrated by Hamas is right, as it clearly leads to continuing the cycle of violence. However, Israel has the power to stop these cycles before they start, and the Palestinians do not.

To quote Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville, "...sometimes, at a certain point, being right becomes less important than doing the right thing."

Israel...I Just Can't...

Gaza body count: Palestinians-271 Israelis-1



From the linked article:

Israeli jets have launched a second day of airstrikes against the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Despite international condemnation over what is being called a disproportional response, Israel is not excluding a ground offensive. According to Palestinian officials, 271 Palestinians have been killed so far for only one victim in Israel.

Israel is reponding to rocket attacks perpetrated by Hamas which killed one Israeli. I will repeat that, because it bears repeating. Israel's government and military is killing almost three hundred Palestinians including children in response to the death of one Israeli.

Let me put this out there right now: any violent death is a tragedy regardless of how many are killed. HOWEVER, 300 to 1 is disproportionate force. Especially considering that it is widely known that Hamas, a paramilitary organization, is responsible for the single Israeli death.

And of course, while most of the world is decrying the extraneous violence of this situation, the US is blaming Hamas.

"The message from the United States is that Hamas is a terrorist organization that is firing rockets into Israel and they fired them onto their own people as well," Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said.

"The United States strongly condemns the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against Israel and holds Hamas responsible for breaking the cease-fire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.

Even the Dutch government, who tends towards virulent anti-Arab and Islamophobic policies and positions is calling Israel's actions almost a war-crime. I am so very sick of the "arab=agressor" stance of our government. Just because Israel is our friend, this does NOT put them above reproach. It doesn't change the facts. And this ignoring of the facts mainly serves to make the US look like anti-arab assholes once again. The next time someone tells me that the arab world needs to fix its anti-American sentiment before we can work with them, I might just bite their damn heads off.

Julie from Modern Mitzvoh has this to say:

If you can’t figure out why this is unacceptable - if you insist on an eye-for-an-eye mentality, in which one Israeli eye is worth an infinite number of Palestinian eyes - then quite frankly, you’re a privileged fuck with no concept of how violence is perpetuated or what the phrase “human rights” actually means.

I could not have said it better.

ETA: Anonymous comments will be rejected. If you want to engage in discussion, at least have the intestinal fortitude to post with a username.

What?!

(h/t to almost every progressive blog I read)



I saw this last week and had to take a second to put my jaw back in place. Christ. How fucking EDGY is The Advocate! Conflating the black civil rights movement with the LGBTQI movement and it's oh-so-important fight for marriage equality.

Look, I'm queer. As queer as a $3 bill. HOWEVER, I am not so arrogant as to believe that my relatively privileged fight for the right to marry someone of the same legal sex as myself is the last great civil rights issue! Not when institutionalized racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia (to name only a few) are issues that are causing people to live in poverty, face threats of and actual physical and sexual assault from not only other individuals but from law enforcement officers, face court battles to even have their victimizers recognized as such, and...lessee...um...oh yeah! FUCKING DEATH!

Don't get me wrong. I would love it if people like me could just hang up our activist badges and go home, if there really was something that was really the last civil rights struggle ever ever ever. However, as pointed out above, this is patently untrue.

Suggesting that "Gay is the new Black" ignores the existence of queers who are also of color, who have to face racism, homophobia and sexism. It also ignores the fact that a good deal of the queer community is not served by the fight for marriage equality, and effectively disappear their members who are in need of things that are more essential than marriage.

This cover implies that all other civil rights movements are over and unimportant. The only purpose something like this will serve will be to alienate members of the POC community as well as any other groups that are not served by the marriage fight. It doesn't help that the article that this cover is in reference to is actually a decent article. This cover is a disservice to the author, and to the queer movement as a whole.

In short, fuck whoever at The Advocate thought this would be a good idea. Nice breakin' it "hero."

No Guts, No Glory

I came across this at Alas, a quote from a gentleman who blogs at Instapundit, or Instaputz as some have termed him. Behold, Glenn Reynolds:

I feel a little sorry for Martin Luther King — his enormous accomplishments got less attention than they deserved because of the cult of Malcolm X, and now he’s being eclipsed by Barack Obama. Though I suppose he’d be perfectly okay with that.

Uh huh...

Jeff Fecke proceeds his own takedown:

Now, we can go on and on about the utter stupidity of Reynolds pretending that W.E.B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman are now totally unimportant thanks to Obama’s victory; indeed, we can go further and note how insane it is that Reynolds would think Du Bois, Douglas, King, Malcolm X, Tubman, and the several million other African-Americans who worked for equality through our nation’s long and bitter racial history would see Obama’s victory as anything other than a positive outcome of their work.

I do agree with Jeff, although, I thought to take it one step further...

Reynolds' perspective makes sense when you account for the fact that a good deal of people who are recipients of social privilege tend to quest for nothing more than personal gain, or for the hero-worship that we tend to bestow on figures who represent fundamental social progress (See Betty Friedan and her repudiation of the feminist movement because she did not get enough attention). Even their participation in social justice is for the recognition they will get for what they do, so there is little understanding of someone who does something for the benefit of more than just themselves, of someone who knows that they may never see the end result of the work that they do, but they do it regardless because someone needs to lay the bricks so that the next generation can move forward a little further.

I would argue that some people can't see any reason to be a visible activist besides the "glory," which is a symptom of the tendency to white-wash history and try to show it without full context.

If all you can remember of the civil rights movement is the so-called "glory" that came with being Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., then there are some serious gaps in your knowledge and understanding.

Granted, it was pointed out to me that the very nature of history and historical recollection is about selective editing, and therefore has gaps by definition. I don't entirely agree. I think it is possible to be honest about history to a point. We can never escape our own perspective, and objectivity is especially difficult in the arena of social movements and trends, but we are still able, and obligated, I think, to be as honest as possible when looking back.

The American practice of making shining and pure paragons of virtue out of our historical figures has been key in helping to promote the blindness of the privileged classes in this country. We forget that Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner, we forget that Helen Keller was a radical feminist and socialist, we forget that Woodrow Wilson was a racist SOB...etc. We want our heroes to be moral exemplars, and forget that they were only human. It only serves to obscure the historical context and reality not only of these people, but of our own time. If we cannot honestly look at the past as something more complex than simplistic children's stories, then how can we create comprehensive solutions for the present?

I would also argue that this heroification leads to the "glory" perspective, these people did the things they did to be heroes, to get the spotlight...and it distances us from our own abilities to affect change in our world. Most "heroes" were and are ordinary people doing what they see as needing to be done at the time. I'm pretty sure Harriet Tubman wasn't risking her life for attention sake, or for recognition of her "great accomplishments". Some have the chance to come in at a time when they can get a lot of attention, some are largely ignored until decades, sometimes centuries after their deaths. When the people who pushed for change are regarded as exemplars of society, "special" if you will, then we assimilate the idea that we can change nothing because we are just "normal" people, and forget that the world is changed by normal people who choose to make a stand.

I have always wanted to be one of those people who change the world. My aunt (who was more like my big sister growing up) has always said that I have an over-developed sense of justice, and a need to fix things that strike me as wrong just because they are wrong. When I was young, I not only wanted to be one of those activists we always read about, I wanted to be the Special kind, the ones that stand in front of crowds and cause a national uproar when they are arrested...I thrived on stories of heroes, and I wanted to be one. Not a comic book or cartoon hero, but a real live historical hero.
As I got older, I realized that being that public recognizable hero is only possible when the groundwork is laid, and that I couldn't just wait for the groundwork to come to me. So I started volunteering, writing, speaking, making a stand in my small high-school student way. After a few years of this, it hit me that I may never be that hero the way I initially envisioned it, but that I had a hand in making possible for one of those heroes to come forward. I am fine with putting a few bricks in the road so that the next group coming behind me can go just a bit further than I did.

When I see my twelve-year old sister taking apart the bullshit of the world designed to break her spirit and put her in her "place", and dismissing it like an annoying fly, I feel like a cape-wearing, swishy-haired, bona-fide super hero.

And that is enough for me :D

Your Intrepid Explorer Risks Eye and Sanity...

okay, I did a bad thing...

I went over to Glenn Sacks' blog, mainly because it is rude and fallacious to criticize someones position without actually knowing anything about their position. I am not going to link to it, simply because its not hard to find on your own, and because the last thing I need right now is a deluge of some of the people who read those blogs. I am not in the mood to heavily moderate comments to maintain a safe-space.

When I was there, I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, because as much as I have a serious problem with MRAs, there are inequalities that men face that I am against. I mainly disagree with the source of these inequalities, and the technique for solving them that most MRAs seem to advocate. They want to blame feminism, or feminists, which ends up turning into a fight against the very group of people with the history and experience to solve the inequalities they are being blamed for.

I only managed to really analyze one thing before the whole space started to really bother me, so I will make this a gradual thing. I will start with one, and if I can stomach spending more than a few minutes over there, I may do this again.

An ad that occurred right after the first article:

Discover how she has 'played' you. For the first time ever, a book that tells you exactly how manipulative and deceitful women win against their unsuspecting prey--and there's detailed information about what you can do about it. Read Roy Sheppard and Mary T Cleary's book "Venus: The Dark Side".

An alternate title for this book, when you follow the ad's url, is "That Bitch" (You cannot make this shit up.) It was changed because the authors wanted to reach as many people as possible with their message of "evil conniving" women who victimize "innocent" men. If Mr. Sacks and his movement are not interested in demonizing women, why have an ad for something so flagrantly anti-woman? ETA: Since it came up in the comments, when was the last time you saw a book about abusive men titled "That Asshole"? Even more than that, was it advertised on a site run by gender equality activists?

To be fair, many blog ad programs simply search keywords and post ads that match. We find that on feminists sites as well, a discussion of eating disorders or fat acceptance flanked by diet ads, a discussion of porn or sex-workers rights surrounded by ads for "free" porn sites, discussion of abortion rights bringing up ads for pro-life services. This is why a good deal of feminist bloggers have very limited ads, and tend to stick to ads that they can approve pre-posting. It is possible that this is what is happening here. Make of it what you will.

I am skeptical, mainly because all of the other ads seem directly applicable to the content of the blog.

I have heard a lot of excuses from MRA's about how they aren't anti-woman, they are just anti-feminist, or even how they aren't anti-feminist, just anti-radical misandrist feminists. I personally do not see that distinction being made here.

Keep an eye out for later posts examining the inner-workings of the MRA blogosphere...

A Turkey Called Brotherhood

(yet another hat tip to Renee @ Womanist Musings)

This is pretty obnoxious.

Basic rundown: A pair of schools have a Thanksgiving tradition of dressing one kindergarten class up as indians and one as pilgrims. They have a parade and then go have a party together. This year, a parent who is actually native, protested this event, calling out the lie that children are being forced to believe, the lie of the peaceful coming together of white settlers with native tribes. She also protested the racist stereotypes being perpetuated by the "indian"costumes.

The thing that chaps my ass is all of these white people trying to claim that this is not offensive at ALL! That these are just CHILDREN! Enjoying a holiday TRADITION! I am so glad that these privileged asswipes can conveiniently forget that by TEACHING these children this tradition, they are continuing the myth of a benevolent white man vs the gentle savage. I really wish they would blow it right out of their asses. As the member of the group that benefits from the oppression of the other, YOU DON'T GET TO SAY WHAT IS OFFENSIVE TO THEM! This is Don't Be An Asshole 101 folks.

These white people wringing their hands about telling children the truth of their history reminds me somewhat of this clip:

I normally don't like South Park all that much, but every once in a while, they have a really good point. That IS how it actually happened. This idea that white people calmly showed brown people their "better ways" in the spirit of brotherhood and Christian Godliness is blatantly false, besides being obnoxious and racist as fuck.


And if we are really going to clutch our pearls and gasp about "THE CHILDREN," consider this: what about those native children, who learn their history from the perspective of people who think that it is okay to ignore the massive damage done to their people? They learn that their history doesn't matter, only the history of the white man matters. Renee says it very well:

It is further disgusting that children are being taught this falsehood as a method of maintaining white hegemony through the physical performance of revisionist history. The indoctrination of children with revisionist history is part of the way that racism passes from one generation to another.

Of course to a child this seems like a harmless tradition, they have no knowledge of history. They count on us as adults to be their guides and tell them the truth. This is an abdication of our responsibility to educate them.

Native culture has repeatedly been appropriated. We see it show up in the form of mascots for sporting teams as a normalized display. People seem to feel that it is their right to cheapen and demean the culture of another, while telling the oppressed community that they are being too sensitive.(go read her post Teaching The Young To Disrespect Indigenous Culture. I'll wait here)

The myth of the peaceful thanksgiving is regularly offered up in order to forget that the real beginning of this country was violent, painful and bloody. What happened to the native population of this hemisphere when Europeans came here was GENOCIDE. Nothing less.

We continue this heroification of the white people who came here and supposedly built this amazing civilization out of nothing, ignoring the rape, enslavement, murder, cannibalism and early germ warfare that made all of this possible.

These lands were not "discovered" by Europeans. You cannot "discover" a place where people are already living! Many of these colonies would not have survived if not for the work already done by tribes living there previously, if not for stealing from the tribes who were still there, if not for enslaving members of these tribes, if not for living off of the decomposing bodies of natives who were killed by epidemics spread from early European explorers, if not for slaughtering whole cultures.

Whole cultures, languages, ways of life are GONE, destroyed by this idea that God gave White people dominion over the Earth.

I will be using this day to teach my children about the cultures that were here already, about what happened to them, about what their lives are like now. I do not accept this white-washing of my history.

As a kid, I always wanted to do a Weddnesday Addams when confronted with this season:

Granted, a good deal of what occurs leading up to her soliloquy is offensive as hell, which is not surprising considering it is intended to show a white privileged man's perspective of the Thanksgiving myth.

In the end, I believe we have an obligation to be honest about our history. There is no excuse for ignorance, and no excuse for degrading displays of faux "brotherhood." These myths are dangerous, despite what some may think. They allow those of us who are granted white privilege to pat ourselves on the back and escape our responsibility to end oppressions that we benefit from. They create an environment where understanding of current effects that can be traced back to these event is impossible, because without honesty in regards to our history, we have no realistic idea of the true roots of injustice. These myths create an attitude that we white western people can still charge into whatever country we want and do whatever we please because we forget that we aren't the saviors of the goddamn world. They allow us to be blind to the personhood of others, and to the actual effect we have on the world. They allow us to continue to marginalize and oppress others simply for not being one of us.

National Day of Mourning for Indigenous People

(h/t to Womanist Musings)

Following are excerpts from a statement written by Mahtowin Munro (Lakota) and Moonanum James (Wampanoag), co-leaders of United American Indians of New England. Read the entire statement at www.uaine.org.

Mahtowin Munro

Mahtowin Munro

Every year since 1970, United American Indians of New England have organized the National Day of Mourning observance in Plymouth at noon on Thanksgiving Day. Every year, hundreds of Native people and our supporters from all four directions join us. Every year, including this year, Native people from throughout the Americas will speak the truth about our history and about current issues and struggles we are involved in.

Why do hundreds of people stand out in the cold rather than sit home eating turkey and watching football? Do we have something against a harvest festival?

Moonanum James

Moonanum James

Of course not. But Thanksgiving in this country—and in particular in Plymouth—is much more than a harvest home festival. It is a celebration of pilgrim mythology.

According to this mythology, the pilgrims arrived, the Native people fed them and welcomed them, the Indians promptly faded into the background, and everyone lived happily ever after.

The pilgrims are glorified and mythologized because the circumstances of the first English-speaking colony in Jamestown were frankly too ugly (for example, they turned to cannibalism to survive) to hold up as an effective national myth.

The pilgrims did not find an empty land any more than Columbus “discovered” anything. Every inch of this land is Indian land. The pilgrims (who did not even call themselves pilgrims) did not come here seeking religious freedom; they already had that in Holland.

Leonard Peltier

Leonard Peltier

They came here as part of a commercial venture. They introduced sexism, racism, anti-lesbian and -gay bigotry, jails and the class system to these shores. One of the very first things they did when they arrived on Cape Cod—before they even made it to Plymouth—was to rob Wampanoag graves at Corn Hill and steal as much of the Indians’ winter provisions of corn and beans as they were able to carry.

They were no better than any other group of Europeans when it came to their treatment of the Indigenous peoples here. And, no, they did not even land at that sacred shrine called Plymouth Rock, a monument to racism and oppression which we are proud to say we buried in 1995.

The first official “Day of Thanksgiving” was proclaimed in 1637 by Governor Winthrop. He did so to celebrate the safe return of men from the Massachusetts Bay Colony who had gone to Mystic, Conn., to participate in the massacre of over 700 Pequot women, children and men.

About the only true thing in the whole mythology is that these pitiful European strangers would not have survived their first several years in “New England” were it not for the aid of Wampanoag people. What Native people got in return for this help was genocide, theft of our lands and never-ending repression. We are either treated as quaint relics from the past or are, to most people, virtually invisible.

When we dare to stand up for our rights, we are considered unreasonable. When we speak the truth about the history of the European invasion, we are often told to “go back where we came from.” Our roots are right here. They do not extend across any ocean.

National Day of Mourning began in 1970 when a Wampanoag man, Wamsutta Frank James, was asked to speak at a state dinner celebrating the 350th anniversary of the pilgrim landing. He refused to speak false words in praise of the white man for bringing civilization to us poor heathens. Native people from throughout the Americas came to Plymouth where they mourned their forebears who had been sold into slavery, burned alive, massacred, cheated and mistreated since the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620.

But the commemoration of National Day of Mourning goes far beyond the circumstances of 1970.

Can we give thanks as we remember Native political prisoner Leonard Peltier, who was framed up by the FBI and has been falsely imprisoned since 1976? Despite mountains of evidence exonerating Peltier and the proven misconduct of federal prosecutors and the FBI, Peltier has been denied a new trial.

To Native people, the case of Peltier is one more ordeal in a litany of wrongdoings committed by the U.S. government against us. While the media in New England present images of the “Pequot miracle” in Connecticut, the vast majority of Native people continue to live in the most abysmal poverty.

Can we give thanks for the fact that, on many reservations, unemployment rates surpass 50 percent? Our life expectancies are much lower, our infant mortality and teen suicide rates much higher than those of white Americans. Racist stereotypes of Native people, such as those perpetuated by the Cleveland Indians, the Atlanta Braves and countless local and national sports teams, persist. Every single one of the more than 350 treaties that Native nations signed has been broken by the U.S. government. The bipartisan budget cuts have severely reduced educational opportunities for Native youth and the development of new housing on reservations, and have caused cause deadly cutbacks in healthcare and other necessary services.

Are we to give thanks for being treated as unwelcome in our own country?

When the descendants of the Aztec, Maya and Inca flee to the U.S., the descendants of the wash-ashore pilgrims term them “illegal aliens” and hunt them down.

We object to the “Pilgrim Progress” parade and to what goes on in Plymouth because they are making millions of tourist dollars every year from the false pilgrim mythology. That money is being made off the backs of our slaughtered Indigenous ancestors.

Increasing numbers of people are seeking alternatives to such holidays as Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. They are coming to the conclusion that if we are ever to achieve some sense of community, we must first face the truth about the history of this country and the toll that history has taken on the lives of millions of Indigenous, Black, Latin@, Asian, and poor and working-class white people.

The myth of Thanksgiving, served up with dollops of European superiority and manifest destiny, just does not work for many people in this country. As Malcolm X once said about the African-American experience in America, “We did not land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us.” Exactly.
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Articles copyright 1995-2008 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Jim Quinn Rejects Germ Theory

Is it just me, or are homophobic bigots really reaching lately?

I mean, I get it. They are against science as a rule. Earth is 6000 years old, and dinosaur bones were planted by scientists with the help of Satan as a test of faith and for personal profit, and all other scientists are just one huge secret cabal (with all this "Global Warming" and "melting ice caps" stuff) out to take away their God-Given American Right to drive the biggest, ugliest gas-guzzler imaginable, thereby confirming their status as gigantic assholes.

But sex producing a virus?

Haven't heard that one before.

So funny that all I can do is stare:

"[G]ay marriage doesn't produce anything that the state has an interest in. Gay sex produces AIDS, which the state doesn't have -- or should have an interest in. They should charge homosexuals more for their -- for their health insurance than they charge the rest of us."

I shall name him...Quinny.


The meme of "the Gay Plague?" It's dead, Jim.

HIV causes AIDS. It is a virus that can effect anyone that comes into contact with it in a communicable fashion, generally through body fluids. Examples: blood transfusions, infected needles, sex of ANY kind between ANY partners.

I would need to find some stats to back me up on this, but I'm pretty sure that the largest infected group of people in the US is young, straight African American women. But wait, thats science again...

Bush's Environmental Legacy

It's ironic that an administration that likes to quote Theodore Roosevelt as much as the Bush administration does would have spent 8 years actively undoing the protections of the National Park System that Teddy established. One key example here is the Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska. One of W.J. Clinton's final acts before leaving office was to extend protections to this nearly pristine wilderness, which was then the largest unlogged coastal temperate rainforest in the world. These protections were rolled back gradually when Bush 2.0 took office and since 2001 the Tongass has lost nearly 20% of it's old growth forest.
The Bush administration has been busy entrenching supporters in the EPA and The Federal Bureau of Land Management as well. According to the Washington Post, between March and November of 2008 the administration has made 20 political appointees in the Department of the Interior into career government bureaucrats protected from the 'whims' of the shifting political landscape. Simply put, agents of the Bush administration are being inserted into permanent positions to protect the interests of logging and mining industries in the Obama era. Still looking to make a buck for your friends at the cost of further rape of the earth, eh Georgie Boy?
Congressman Raul Grijalva (D) AZ, who is apparently under consideration for Secretary of the Interior, issued a letter on October 18, 2008 detailing many of Bush's sins against the land. This administration has ran roughshod over the Constitution, the people of several sovereign nations, and the planet. It's time for this reign of terror to end and to fade quietly into the annals of history.

Who wakes up and says, "I wish I could be oppressed too"?

I have been talking with my cousin lately. He is 15, and I have been trying to explain the mechanics of oppression, privilege and power to him in a way that doesn't make him think he is being accused of something. Frighteningly, I have had to debunk several ideas that he has picked up from Cthulhu-knows-where about how oppressed he is. After doing that, he said something really upsetting to me:

"I wish I had a struggle of my own, something to fight against."

O.o

The mind...she boggles.

Somewhere along the way, the idea that having a struggle, an oppression to fight against, was in somehow. Stylish. It got you "special rights." Either that, or the rapid loss of privileges was seen as a loss of rights.

The idea that white affluent western men are an oppressed minority is laughable. It is also a perspective that one encounters quite frequently in popular culture, and especially from so-called men's rights activists(MRAs).


Let me explain something about MRAs. These people are rarely concerned with actual rights or oppression. They are primarily concerned with maintaining the status quo, because the only way they can see the rights of men being violated is when women have those same rights.


They see rights, freedoms and opportunity as a zero-sum game, namely, if females are doing well, that means that males must be getting worse. This ties in to the problem with essentialist thinking. If one group is "naturally" better at something, but the other group is doing just as well as them in actuality, then the only way to maintain this false dichotomy, is to assume that something must be holding back the "naturally" better group.

These groups do little more than encourage the very gender essentialist notions that create the inequalities they like to scream about. They help create these structures, and then blame them on the groups that are actively trying to fight them.

They blame feminism for all of their problems, with no knowledge of what feminists and feminist groups actually do. They tend to be against any legislation that deals with domestic violence, any legislation that makes divorce easier for women, against taking the victim's side in rape cases, against women having the choice to abort or continue a pregnancy, generally against anything that doesn't include men regardless of whether they actually need it or not and tend to support using children in custody cases to control and/or threaten ex's, support rapists, and rape apologists, and generally blame women for all of their own personal failings.

They tend to spend a great deal of time spouting off inaccurate information to support the idea that a cabal of women, queers, racial minorities and evil radical feminists control everything, and may even be responsible for the fall of Western Civilization! As a result, they paint hapless white men as the unfortunate victims of an "anti-male" society that grinds them into submission under the boot heel of the Fascist PC Thought Police.

Let us examine some of this, shall we? Not too much, lest we scratch out our eyeballs in frustration.

As far as this idea of "politically correct" (scare quotes intended) as code for "uptight" or "restrictive," I don't see why it is so important to some people to be allowed to use words that create an othering effect of specific groups. One thing that must be put out there right now: complaining about being forced to be "PC" is, in essence, complaining that you can't be a racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic douchenozzle without there being consequences. I seriously don't see why treating other people like the people that they are is such a damn burden. In the US, one does have the freedom to say exactly what one wants to, however, the rest of us also have the freedom to tell you that you are being obnoxious and insulting. Attempting to shame people with the sneering at political correctness indicates that you would rather be able to hurt people because you like to. This would make you, at best, a bully, and at worst, someone incredibly dangerous.

The gentleman doth protest too much is something else I want to examine here. There is a huge discussion amongst these supposed rights activists about false allegations that lead "innocent" men to being dragged through the court system and possibly imprisoned. Yet false allegations "experts" tend to turn out to be nothing more than perpetrators who are finding ways for other perps to get away with beating and raping. There has even been evidence that false allegations are more likely to come from men:

Are Allegations of Sexual Abuse That Arise During Child Custody Disputes More Likely to Be False?

An Annotated Review of the Research

Bala, N. & Schuman, J. (2000). Allegations of sexual abuse when parents have separated.

Canadian Family Law Quarterly, 17, 191-241.

Canadian Family Law Judgments: Nicholas Bala and John Schuman, two Queen's University law professors, reviewed judges' written decisions in 196 cases between 1990 and 1998 where allegations of either physical or sexual abuse were raised in the context of parental separation. Only family law cases were considered; child protection and criminal decisions were excluded.

The study showed that the judges felt that only a third of unproven cases of child abuse stemming from custody battles involve someone deliberately lying in court. In these cases, the judges found that fathers were more likely to fabricate the accusations than mothers.

These people want to tilt at windmills to preserve their privileges to the detriment of those they consider to be lower than them. They couch their true desires in the language of empowerment, and attempt to cast themselves as some tragic victim.

There are inequalities in this world, some of which specifically effect men, and most are rooted in constructions of masculinity. To resolve those inequalities, deconstruction of gender essentialism must occur. There are people who do this, who truly work to make sure that people are seen as equal regardless of what is in their pants.

They are called feminists, and they are not your expectation.

"Post Racism" my shiny white behind

There has been some buzz lately that the election of an African American to the highest office in the land means the end of racism in America.

...

...

...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

oh yeah, that's a good one. No seriously.

You see, in the REAL world where progressives function, we know this is not the case. One man does not a glass ceiling shatter. We have seen things like this stated before, like when Geraldine Ferraro was on the Mondale ticket, or even more recently, with the Clinton and Palin insanity this last election.

Every time something vaguely progressive happens, it is treated as though this one thing means all oppressions are now officially "out of style," it just isn't cool or with it to be a misogynist, racist fuckneck anymore.

That doesn't stop rising,
racially motivated crimes. (Second and third graders chanting "Assassinate Obama!" for fucks sake?)

To think that it does is to apply a gloss over the realities that people live with, like the likelyhood of being murdered for not fitting gender norms particulary if one is a person of color.

Don't be fooled.

Power systems survive by duping the less powerful into thinking that one small inch forward is equivalent to a major achievement. Its a pat on the head to silence those of us who want to live our lives without oppression informing every move we make.

In the immortal words of Melissa McEwan, promise to keep working my teaspoon, even when my arms are tired.

The ham is floating

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
WE ELECTED A NEW PRESIDENT!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

This has to be one of the bestest birthday presents EVAH!

On the day I turn 25, I am very aware that this is a day to tell my grandchildren (should I ever have any) about. It is a day that has seen a true historic moment, but it is not without it's sadness.

Last night was amazing. I got home from work around 10:30, and pulled out the tequila. I was stressed and nervous as hell, dealing with the stress of watching the numbers trickle in while I was supposed to be working. entropyinjersey, amichandrn and I watched the election maps as the returns came in. As soon as Ohio was called, we knew, but I refused to believe it until there was a concession speech from McCain and an acceptance speech from Obama.

Then my mom called, screaming about McCain conceding, and how I had to come over and drink with her. So I went over, we drank and we watched President-elect Obama's acceptance speech, and there were many tears.

We could hear some noise from outside, and saw a local news cast about people taking to the streets in celebration...so we took to the streets in celebration as well.

We walked up to Broad street and there were people hanging out of car windows, running in the streets, dancing, singing, shouting, hugging...Most of them were my age or thereabouts, and it was so beautiful to see. As we got closer to City Hall, we came upon a crowd of dancing, laughing people in the middle of the street, they chanted "YES WE CAN" and waved an American flag above the Obama signs, proud, some for the first time, of the potential that their country had shown.

We decided to head back due to the rain and the fact that it was 2am. We walked down Market street to Independence Hall, and stopped at a display/archeological dig that is excavating and exploring the lives of slaves in the home of the first presidents. This site was a big issue when it was discovered, and led to a discussion of how honest did we want to be about our nation's history, and the stories of those who truly worked to build it. It took protests and activism, and demands that the truth not be silenced in order to preserve some heroic ideal of the founding white men who began the government that now will have a man of African decent as Commander-in-Chief.

Needless to say, it was a profound moment of looking at the immediacy of our history. An election where a woman who is the daughter of a slave can cast a vote for an African-American man, and see that man in the highest office in the land, an election that brings people who were long thought not to matter in and gives their voices wings.

However, all is not well, and there is still much to do, considering all but one proposition that enables discrimination against LGBTQ persons and divorces them from their human rights have passed, including Proposition 8 in California. We are still living in a world where some people are told that they are lesser simply because their very existence is seen as a threat to those who want to keep their unearned privileges. We will have to fight for recognition as full human beings, who simply want to live our lives in peace.

This election is not an end, but a beginning. I truly believe that we can make a difference and we can win based on integrity and compassion.

Yes...

We fucking can!

and we better.

At Brandeis, Carter Responds to Critics

Most of you have probably heard about Jimmy Carter and his book, so you can probably see why I am posting this. I do not have a terribly complex deconstruction, just a few comments. If you don't understand at any point in the article what the big deal is, just ask me and I'll try to elaborate.

WALTHAM, Mass., Jan. 23 — In his first major public speech about his controversial book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” former President Jimmy Carter told an audience at Brandeis University on Tuesday that he stood by the book and its title, that he apologized for what he called an “improper and stupid” sentence in the book and that he had been disturbed by accusations that he was anti-Semitic. well, everyone knows that if you don't support Israel 100% then you must hate Jews! My mother, who is not religious in any sense (never even had her bat mitzvah) accused me of the same thing when i stated that Israel was out of line. how stereotypical of me, a self hating Jew.

Mr. Carter’s book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” drew protesters to Brandeis on Tuesday. Critics have said the book contains errors and misrepresentations of the roles of both the Israelis and the Palestinians. funny how you don't hear complaints like that when someone writes something denouncing Palestinians

Although controversy had preceded his visit here, Mr. Carter was greeted with a standing ovation and treated with obvious respect by the audience, even as students asked questions that were critical of his assertions.

“This is the first time that I’ve ever been called a liar and a bigot and an anti-Semite and a coward and a plagiarist,” Mr. Carter told the crowd of about 1,700 at Brandeis, a nonsectarian university founded by American Jews, where about half the students are Jewish. “This is hurting me.”

He added, “The fact that they deteriorate into ad hominem attacks on my character has probably been a greater barrier to progress than the fact that I chose a particular word in the title.” the fact that they deteriorate to ad hominem attacks on your character Mr. Carter, is because they have no other way to refute what you have said. Thats what happens when you try to force people to see the injustices that are committed in their names or that they are brainwashed.

Mr. Carter said he realized his use of the word “apartheid” “has caused great concern in the Jewish community.” He said he had used it “knowing that it would be provocative.” He said he had intended to describe conditions not in Israel but in the occupied Palestinian territories, and had not meant to “equate Zionism with racism,” but to point out “that this cruel oppression is contrary to the tenets of the Jewish religious faith and contrary to the basic principles of the state of Israel.” A-freakin'-men

But he said a sentence in which he seemed to suggest that Palestinians would not have to end their suicide bombings and acts of terrorism until Israel withdraws from the territories “was worded in a completely improper and stupid way,” adding: “I have written my publisher to change that sentence immediately. I apologize to you personally, to everyone here.” except that according to international law, that is a very correct assertion. The Palestinians have the right to resist an occupying power, and to counter it with force. I do not support that as an effective action simply because historical precedent in this situation alone has shown us that these actions only contribute to an escalating cycle of violence, but i am not going to deny that their actions are, according to international law, justified.

While many students and professors said they disagreed with elements of the book, they said they welcomed the opportunity to hear Mr. Carter.

“I’m happy to have a contrary viewpoint, I’m happy to have a former president, I’m happy to have controversy,” said Daniele Kohn, 21, a fine arts major, who asked Mr. Carter why, in a television interview, he had seemed to suggest that the Palestinian condition was worse than the Rwandan genocide. (Mr. Carter responded that he had not meant to suggest that.) “I think this school hasn’t gotten publicly upset in far too long.”

Mr. Carter’s book has prompted criticism from many American Jews and some Middle East experts, who say it contains factual errors and misrepresents the role of both the Israelis and the Palestinians.proof? In addition to the word apartheid, with its implication that Israel’s actions resemble the racist policies of South Africa, these critics object to Mr. Carter’s assertion that Israel has committed human rights abuses against the Palestinians, that pro-Israel lobbyists have stifled debate in the United States and that American newspaper editorials are overwhelmingly pro-Israel. EXCEPT THAT THEY ARE! theres plenty of proof and a good portion of it comes from ISRAELI reporters!

The book prompted the resignations of 14 of Atlanta’s business and civic leaders from the Carter Center’s advisory board. Kenneth W. Stein, a professor at Emory University who was the first executive director at the Carter Center, resigned his position as a fellow there in December. And Dennis Ross, a former envoy to the Middle East who is now a news analyst, has accused Mr. Carter of using maps that Mr. Ross created without his permission, and mislabeling them in the book, accusations Mr. Carter has denied.

Mr. Carter initially rejected an invitation to speak at Brandeis because it suggested that he debate Alan M. Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor who has sharply criticized the book. Wanting the university to welcome contrary views, more than 100 students and faculty members signed a petition contending that Mr. Carter should be invited without conditions. Questions were preselected by the committee that invited Mr. Carter, and the questioners included an Israeli student and a Palestinian student.

After Mr. Carter left, Mr. Dershowitz spoke in the same gymnasium, saying that the former president oversimplified the situation and that his conciliatory and sensible-sounding speech at Brandeis belied his words in some other interviews.

“There are two different Jimmy Carters,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “You heard the Brandeis Jimmy Carter today, and he was terrific. I support almost everything he said. But if you listen to the Al Jazeera Jimmy Carter, you’ll hear a very different perspective.” duh dipshit. thats how politics works. just because he presents things differently to different people does not mean he is changing his facts or lying. the facts that are presented are still the same. lets put this in perspective, shall we? would you talk to your grandmother the same way you would talk to your best friend? probably not, but you can tell them both the same information without changing the facts

Mr. Carter started his Brandeis speech by calling it “the most exciting invitation” he had received since his inaugural address 30 years ago, and enumerating his years of pro-Israel stances and involvement in the Middle East peace process.

Responding to one of the criticisms of him, he said: “I have never claimed or believed that American Jews control the news media. That is ridiculous to claim.” He said “a lot of support for Israel comes from Christians like me who have been taught since they were 3 years old to honor and protect God’s chosen people from whom came people like our Christian Savior, Jesus Christ.”

But he said he believed there was too little willingness in Congress and elsewhere to debate or accept his premise that “Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighbors’ land and permit the Palestinians to exercise their basic human and political rights.”

Despite the warm and dignified welcome, several students said they were disturbed by the book and Mr. Carter’s conclusions.

“He did some great work in the past,” said David Kuperstein, a junior, but “it has made me a little bit angry, the unfounded skew and bias that he specifically shows in his book toward Israel.” hardly unfounded, in fact it is quite supported by, oh i don't know, the international community via the UN? Or maybe the Peace movement against the occupation in Israel? or maybe just with some common fucking sense and an objective view of historical fact? Why is it that every time someone tries to say that Israel has or is doing something wrong, people pull out the "thats biased against Jews!" argument? The state of Israel and the Zionist agenda are not indicative of an entire group of people based on genetics or religion. In fact the basis for Zionism was atheist and socialist! HEADS OUT OF ASSES PEOPLE! MOUTHS CLOSED, EARS TO BE OPEN! Just because Israel was founded on the concept of a home for people who were being rejected by almost the rest of the world does not make it infallible or any less capable of corruption.