Quote of the day, 7/21/07

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race, or his holy cause.

--Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

And now, a touching little ballad

...Ren reminds me of one of me favorite tooms:



and as long as we're at it, an assortment of other delights by The Wet Spots:

a three minute highlights reel



and a Christmas carol that ought to put the roses back in ORly's and all the other Christmas warriors' cheeks. Ho! ho! ho!

Quote of the day, 7/20/07

The broadcasts changed...as soon as it had been discovered by spies that the other nest had a good store of seeds.

Mammy-mammy-mammy- gave place to Antland, Antland Over All, and the stream of orders were discontinued in favor of lectures about war, patriotism, or the economic situation. The fruity voice said that their beloved country was being encircled by a filthy horde of Other-Nesters- at which the wireless chorus sang:

When Other blood spurts from the knife,
Then everything is fine.

It also explained that Ant the Father had ordained in his wisdom that Othernest pismires should always be the slaves of Thisnest ones. Their beloved country had only one feeding tray at the moment--a disgraceful state of affairs if the dear race were not to perish. A third statement was that the national property of Thisnest was being threatened. Their boundaries were to be violated, their domestic animals, the beetles, were to be kidnapped, and their communal stomach would be starved.

...This is how the second [broadcast] went:

A. We are more numerous than they are, therefore we have a right to their mash.

B. They are more numerous than we are, therefore they are wickedly trying to steal our mash.

C. We are a mighty race and have a natural right to subjugate their puny one.

D. They are a mighty race and are unnaturally trying to subjugate our inoffensive one.

E. We must attack them in self-defense.

F. They are attacking us by defending themselves.

G. If we do not attack them today, they will attack us tomorrow.

H. In any case we are not attacking them at all. We are offering them incalculable benefits.

--T.H. White, The Once and Future King

Helping

*sigh* and once again i am roused from my torpor most easily by something that pissed me the hell off.

and, I'm sick of that TOO; meanwhile, however, my response to some commenter over at Renegades's:

...actually, first read the OP and the links at trin's, because I think the following comment is a textbook example of exactly the thing they're talking about. Basic thesis of all three posts: trying to squish your sexuality into someone else's mold is not good for women and other living things. Particularly if you're doing it primarily because someone's trying to shame you into renouncing or at least being very, very quiet about, your sexuality; because, in some way that's yet to be satisfactorily defined, but with much passion and spittle, you have been reassured that it -hurts- other people, your sexuality, and oh by the way: it makes you disgusting and sick and selfish and and and.

Yeah, I'm a bit familiar with that one.

Even though--surprise! neither trin nor Ren has -the same- sexuality as me (nor each other). We all seem to have that experience in common. Curious.

So, onward:

Not Ok said...

Renegade Evolution:

There’s no other way for me to say this. I hate you. I don’t even know you and I hate you. I keep coming back here hoping you’ve changed some how, that something’s clicked in that Machiavellian head of yours and you’ve figured out that so much of what you stand for, defend, do, and make light of is built on the broken souls and bodies of other humans and instead, you get more and more vicious every time. No, it can’t all be blamed on you, that’s not the point. You do however propagate real harm to other humans, and not even for something that is necessary for people to survive. People don’t need porn. They don’t need strippers. These are not needs, they are destructive diversions both to those who make and consume them. You just flat out don’t care.

I know you do charity work, I know you donate money, but that’s like putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. I know you're rabid about being seen as a woman who has made her own choices, crafted her own destiny so to speak, and guess what, I think you are. “Victim” is never a word I'd associate with you, even though you've been one. You’re a hard, calculating businesswoman who has parlayed good looks and personal lust into a career, a profitable career, with all the cutthroat efficiency of CEO.

But Goddess, look at what you’re selling! Look at what you’re promoting and defending and advocating! Meaningless, violent, degrading sexuality where little is out of bounds, respect means nothing, and achievement is a perfected, ideally sexual body and extreme acts are common place- bodies most women will never have, sex that most women will never want. No, it’s not all on you. But it is on your industry, the industry that you defend, even while mentioning its faults (generally in passing). YOU may have claimed your true sexuality and power in the world of raunch and the Patriarchy, it may suit you to a T and fit like a second skin, but you and every other hardcore supporter of your industry force that on other women and girls, and men too when it most certainly does not fit, does not give us power, and I hate to say this but it’s true: Hearing a pro-porn agenda and defense out of a woman most of us will never be and have no desire to be is a hundred times worse than hearing it out of a man. You help legitimize the stereotypes. You help insure that men think this sort of thing is okay and women do really want it. Your personal kinks and sexual quirks, when put on film or out there in other ways, normalize them and desensitize men to them. Your “good sex and good paying job” are many women’s ideas of torture and hell. You know that, you admit it, yet you support it anyway. Vehemently.

Fantastic that it’s worked for you, RE. In this patriarchal world you’ve managed to own your sexuality, profit from it handsomely, and probably even parlay it into real power: financial security, an impressive education, happiness, and even moderate amounts of prestige, respect and notoriety, and I have no doubt you’ve used your brains and charisma as well as your body to do it. That’s great for you, but how you manage to smile and enjoy it when you damn well know what it costs other people is beyond me. You can’t claim ignorance; you’ve had people tell you time and time again how they’ve been hurt.

You even pretend to listen, but you don’t change, and you don’t care.

You've made jokes about being a bit of a mercenary? Well, the term is accurate. You profit on death and destruction, you just don’t use a gun to do it.

And you know it.

Righteous, innit?

The bit that really stuck out for me, I mean besides the very sisterly "I hate you, woman whom I do not know:"

You help insure that men think this sort of thing is okay and women do really want it. Your personal kinks and sexual quirks, when put on film or out there in other ways, normalize them and desensitize men to them. Your “good sex and good paying job” are many women’s ideas of torture and hell.

Well, there are a couple of things there.

One, blame the Other Woman for the mens' behavior; this is, of course -totally feminist.- Because we can't can't can't expect men to change, much less understand the difference between fantasy and reality; and we have no power to say "no, I don't want to do that," of course. It's all about the Men, always; they're the only ones with any agency here (except when it comes to completely overhauling your career and personal sexuality, I guess). Don't show -that-; the Men might get ideas. Let's yell at the Bad Woman so that the Men don't get ideas. Because Men, well, they're just too powerful to talk to. And also too stupid. They're like...wild beasts, really: they watch things, they make their women do things, and all we can do is wring our hands, yell at the women, maybe act out on the street a couple of times, and continue to purge our ranks of impurities, of course. Terrific. Well, this is not news.

But then, there is this, and this is what -really- sends me into overboil:

Your personal kinks and sexual quirks, when put on film or out there in other ways, normalize them and desensitize men to them.

Yes, Christina Diana forbid she ever get the idea she might be in any way shape or form normal. Same with the other, o, two or three women in the entire world (right) who share her proclivities. I mean, I -guess- we can tolerate your existence; but better not EVER forget what a total freak you are, it's too threatening to the rest of us. No, so, she can have her filthy sexuality, she just, what is it now? Shouldn't flaunt it. Not PARADE it. Stay in...the closet. Innocent women and children and puppies (and the Bad Villains who want to harm them but otherwise would have no template for it) might get ideas. Even though it's sick and disgusting and no sane person would want to do it.

Gee, where have I heard THAT one before think think think.

Well. I suppose it's somewhat different in this case in that we're assuming that teh Menz are a different species and it's them we're worried about: getting ideas. Because of course the women whose idea of hell it is, why, goshes, they just don't have to watch it, do they? I know that's how I feel about Nora Ephron movies. Certainly, as we've just been reminded, women--excuse me, NORMAL women are far too pure to come up with this shit all on their very ownsome. Our. Wait, -am- I a woman, I mean a -real- woman? I forget, see. I forget these things, sometimes.

Because, according to just an awful lot of people, one way or another, my own desires really shouldn't exist at all, either. And really, neither should I. At minimum I should have the good grace to know my place. No one NEEDS sexual things, after all; not THAT kind of sexual thing, anyway. Your shit is of central importance, necessary and natural. My shit is frivolous at best, dangerous at worst. Got it.

And...yeah. In a way, you know, this isn't really THAT different from the fundie line, either. In content as -well- as principle. Not this particular comment, at any rate. Here it is, the bottom line, as bald as it gets:


Won't someone please think of the heterosexuals?

The NORMAL ones, that is. The straight ones. Not the kinky and poly ones, not the gender-bending ones, not the freaks who flaunt it in public or sell it on a weekend. The nice girls. And their...men. Who in this case, apparently are the root of all evil; but somehow or another, it all boils down to the same goddam thing: blame the deviant for harshing the nice straight folks' mellow.

Yes, I first and foremost mean the reactionary religious Right, and I mean the ignorant fuckhead division of the General Public; BUT, here, too, I mean this commenter, too, and any number of "feminists" I've heard taking similar lines over the past x months.

Because, that's what this is really about, isn't it? Why can't you think of all the nice normal straight partnered women out there. It's not like the argument is that men will see Ren's movies and leap out of the bushes at strangers; no, they see this and think that's how they can treat their girlfriends, right? Their wives, even. It's a rather astonishingly consistent argument across the ideological spectrum when it comes to the anti-porn movement. At least when the religious right blames the scarlet woman/homewrecker for the dissolution of all that's good and safe and pure, it's a bit more ideologically consistent.

And yeah, sometimes, you do come across lesbians, self-declared, who also spout this line, more or less. Not many, these days, but there are a few holdouts, and a few newcomers to what is frankly a very anachronistic but once pretty popular (as these things go) worldview. Sometimes they also have shit to say about how other lesbians run their sex lives. Mainly though it comes back to the Men, the Men, the Men. Why can't you help us rein in the Men. You're not cooperating! Stop focusing on your selfish objectifying sexuality, stop putting those other freaks and men and male-identified people (the pervs, the queers, the whores, the sissies, the trannies,) who have nothing to do with us as lesbians, as WOMEN, that is, because that comes first, ALWAYS (remembering always) that Some Women are More Women than Others). Help us concentrate on what's really important ! the Bad Men! and the traces of bad Manliness that we must purge ourselves of! Odd, that, I find.

So, of course, of course, it's -ridiculous- for me to be calling homo-bigotry on feminists like our commenter friend here, because real! live! lesbians! might back her up, hell, she -might- even be one herself for all we know In fact, these are the PURE, the REAL lesbians, really: it's not about desire, it's not about sex, certainly not -that- kind, it's about -womens' culture.- Or rather, heh, -loving- women, yes, without necessarily bringing all that icky, objectifying sex into . Putting women FIRST. (p.s. and some women are more women than others).

I've wasted far more energy on these anachronisms than I should already, and I have other shit to do, but what the fuck, I guess it's cathartic or some shit like that.

So, let me just make a Statement on this once and for all:

Maybe for you lesbianism (if such you are, I have no further patience with straight women spouting this crap, "feminist" or otherwise, much less forfuckssake men) is a loving gentle thing, totally utterly different from the world of men and that's what's so wonderful about it, freedom from, not freedom to, well--mazel tov, good for you. And hey, I won't even tell you how abnormal you are.

But that's NEVER been what it's about for me, and, in my experience, it's not what it's about for most queer people, frankly. (And yes, goddamit, the men count, here. I -do- have more in common with gay men -in this regard- than i do with straight women, and you can sit on a tack if you have a problem with it).

It's about DESIRE.

It's about LUST.

It's got fuckall to do with Sisterly Solidarity. I don't care what Adrienne Rich said. That was a -long time ago,- in a particular milieu. More to the point, she's not me. I'll bet she's not even you, either.

Look, call yourselves whatever you want. But the buck stops when you start trying to police my and others' seuxality, sister. Some of us are all too familiar with that.

If you're not, well--gee, that's a different experience to mine, and--in that sense, if not others? Lucky you. Seriously.

If you are, well: aren't you an asshole for turning around and doing unto others what you hated being done unto yourself.

I really can't make it any plainer.

"Eight random things" meme

I know at least a few different people have tagged me with this one a zillion years ago, so, okay. while my brain is still on *ffssssssssss*

1) When I was a kid, I wanted to be, variously, Big Bird, a ballerina, a figure skater, a fairy princess, a paleontologist (for about five minutes, after a field trip) and--I shit you not--a "master baker."

2) The above came from a fairy tale I was particularly fond of, some 19th century or earlier Irish folktale. I told this to some adults and didn't figure out for -years- why this was funny, even though I knew what the Other Thing was. just didn't make the connection till..."Oh."

3) As a matter of fact, I spent so much time reading fairy tales and folktales and all that kind of shit that I talked like an Andrew Lang book, all archaic slang and Victorian purple. My second grade teacher asked my parents, "Do you...talk like this at home?"

4) I grew up with two little dogs, a West Highland White Terrier and a little white mutt. She was a lot more butch than he was.

5) I love swimming: pools, lakes, the ocean, water in general. Nothing feels more freeing, somehow.

6) My grandmother once told me she was "afraid of my big toe." I still don't know what it means.

7) (Although these days I'm not so fond of it myself; some horrible nail fungus you really don't need to know the details of. that wasn't true at the time, though).

8) I LOVE making lists, but for some reason I'm having real trouble with this one. and I don't think I'm terribly organized in general, just weird fits of compulsive compiling every so often.

I tag whomever the spirit moves.

"Strange bedfellows"

So, an interesting tangent developed toward the end of the comments in this thread. I can't really sum it up here and do it justice, I don't think, but I wanted to open it up to a wider question, as it relates both to that side conversation and the original post. This is particularly for the activists: How far does realpolitik go, for you? Who, if anyone, are you -not- willing to work together with under -any- circumstances, even if it's a question of "the enemy of my enemy"? Under what circumstances -are- you willing to work with...well, name your line in the sand. What's up for compromise and what's non-negotiable, for you? What are your most important goals? How do you determine whether a given group or individual is not merely really alien to your own cause/worldview but actually inimical at the very root?

And: how do you go about building coalitions?

If you all could spare a moment out of your busy days ;-) something you might want to look at

passive-aggressive notes.

ooh, more unexpected pretty colors!

Rare pink dolphin spotted in Louisiana lake.

Existential question of the day:

Why are some people such utter, utter fuckwits?

No, I mean: I KNOW why, or as well as anyone else; you know, I can riff off the nature and nurture and society crap as well as anyone else. Psych of all stripes, sociology, religion, U-Name-It. I KNOW some people are raised by wolverines, and some of those don't get better. I KNOW some people just, some combination of factors, synapse A doesn't quite synch up with synapse B or however that goes, haven't had a fair shake...for whatever reason, however it plays out, won't or can't act like a human being, the end result is: they don't, and that's just how it is.

and yes, obviously, we're ALL fuckwits some of the time, no one is saying otherwise.

But in my observation, SOME, not many, but too many, SOME people ARE fuckwits ALL of the time, or at least pretty damn close, and what I want to know is why?

And, I'm not even sure -why- I want to know why, you know? I mean, it's not like it's going to make any difference. It's not like you can go to the person and go, aha! I have pinpointed EXACTLY WHY you are such a fuckwit, and the person will go, my god! i never thought of that, but you're right! i SEE it now! i AM a fuckwit! this changes everything. as God as my witness, I will never be a fuckwit again. It's not like they'll take -any- responsibility for what they're doing or saying at -all.-

Because if they DID, if they WERE capable of and/or willing to do that, why, they WOULDN'T BE FUCKWITS IN THE FIRST PLACE, NOW WOULD THEY.

*sigh*

Belated blog-against theocracy/Independence Day mullings

Apart from the obvious issues that concern most progressives (or however you want to define it), i.e. the people who get left out and left behind of the general principles of "freedom" and "democracy" (however you want to define it);

Maybe the real divide isn’t between “Republicans” and “Democrats,” or even Whigs and Tories. It’s between the people who actually respect the Constitution as more than another symbol to surreptitiously wipe their ass with when they’ve finished the football rally--you know, "liberty, equality, fraternity," all that good Enlightenment jazz--and the spiritual descendants of the people who really believe in the idea of -some- sort of Shining City on the Hill. God's chosen people. or, -someone's- Chosen People. We're special because we're virtuous.

And--that's the problem: "we are the Elect" and "democracy" really aren't compatible.

The only reason it's confusing is because a fair number of people who really believe the former use the language of the latter.

But...I think it becomes important for people who have ears to hear to learn to listen for the music, because some people, they know all the words, but not the tune.

Action alert: another woman in danger of being stoned to death

Via Thorne's World and tenpercent:

You may remember a few weeks back an Iranian couple were sentenced to be stoned to death and after some publicity the stoning was cancelled. Well it turns out they simply waited until no-one was watching, they stoned the man Jafar Kiani to death thursday 5th July. His partner Mokarrameh Ebrahimi is now awaiting the same fate unless another wave of attention forces them to stop. So full details and contact details on Women’s field here.

And details for UK and US contacts here:-

Email to: info@iran-embassy.org.uk

Ambassador Rasoul Movahedian,
Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran
16 Prince´s Gate
London SW7 1PT

Also the UN Ambassador is Javad Zarif email-
iran@un.int

There is not an Iranian embassy in the US, but the Pakistan embassy handles their interests so you could email to ask for clemency to this address-
requests@daftar.org

If this gets the attention the stoning video of Du’a Khalil Aswad got, if you were disgusted at that, if you read about it or read Joss Whedon’s article, well now you can actually do something this time, not just be revolted after the fact.

and here's the Stop Stoning Forever campaign site.

Hot town, summer in the city

the air is heavy and the stench is shitty
pollution's blowin' and my eyes are all gritty
can't concentrate so i'm writing this ditty
i gotta eat something but i don't want a bit 'e
my brain is in meltdown and it sure ain't pretty

...eh, sod off.

My hero. :-) <3

Wee Beastie just swatted a giant fly for me.

While on the general subject of cognitive dissonance, btw...

I want to thank Azundris for the link to the experiment i couldn't remember how or where the hell to find the reference, and it was driving me nuts. Yeah, file under the general subject of dissonance, cognitive:

In Festinger and Carlsmith's classic 1959 experiment, students were made to perform tedious and meaningless tasks, consisting of turning pegs quarter-turns and, another one, putting spools onto a tray, emptying the tray, refilling it with spools, and so on. Participants rated these tasks very negatively. After a long period of doing this, students were told the experiment was over and they could leave. This is an example of an induced compliance study.

However, the experimenter then asked the subject for a small favor. They were told that a needed research assistant was not able to make it to the experiment, and the participant was asked to fill in and try to persuade another subject (who was actually a confederate) that the dull, boring tasks the subject had just completed were actually interesting and engaging. Some participants were paid $20 for the favor, another group was paid $1, and a control group was not requested to perform the favor.

When asked to rate the peg-turning tasks later, those in the $1 group rated them more positively than those in the $20 group and control group. This was explained by Festinger and Carlsmith as evidence for cognitive dissonance. Experimenters theorized that people experienced dissonance between the conflicting cognitions "I told someone that the task was interesting", and "I actually found it boring". When paid only $1, students were forced to internalize the attitude they were induced to express, because they had no other justification. Those in the $20 condition, it is argued, had an obvious external justification for their behavior. Behavior internalization is only one way to explain the subject's ratings of the task. The research has been extended in later years. It is now believed that there is a conflict between the belief that "I am not a liar", and the recognition that "I lied". Therefore, the truth is brought closer to the lie, so to speak, and the rating of the task goes up.

The researchers further speculated that with only $1, subjects faced insufficient justification and therefore "cognitive dissonance", so when they were asked to lie about the tasks, they sought to relieve this hypothetical stress by changing their attitude. This process allows the subject to genuinely believe that the tasks were enjoyable.

Put simply, the experimenters concluded that many human beings, when persuaded to lie without being given sufficient justification, will carry out the task by convincing themselves of the falsehood, rather than telling a bald lie.

It goes on to talk about how that particular study's been criticized for faulty design (which is the sort of shit I should be able to grasp a lot more easily and quickly if/when I ever finish this fucking research methods/stats course. in theory)

But, I think the general principle does hold up.

"Oh dearie dearie me, this is none of I!..."

tangentially, I think that actually also nails part of what was freaking me out about the Battlestar Galactica season-ender. hell, the entire damn show, come to that.

Off my back and out my ass.

So, there's this new anti-porn activism blog, apparently. I am only mentioning it here because, well, in case you were ever looking for places where some feminists are apparently okey-fine with the Religious Right: le voila. Plugs and blogroll listings for Diana Russell and Robert Jensen and "off our backs" nestle cozily alongside gems like this, also in the blogroll: National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families.

"Moving the People of God to embrace, live out, preserve, and advance the truth of biblical sexuality.

Gee, I wonder what -that- means. Oh, wait, here's the sidebar, "Hot topics:"

According to a recent report by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), some comprehensive sex-education curricula taught in the nation's schools has essentially no impact on behavior. The HHS study found abstinence education programs to be nearly 100 percent accurate.

and--why, yes! It's a hotlink to a Focus on the Family Action!

Two Democratic and two Republican lawmakers in Massachusetts – whose election platforms included preserving traditional marriage – voted against a proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

...

Mineau said lawmakers are supposed to do just that: represent the interests of the people who elected them. But these four did not.

"They're going to have to answer to their constituents for that – plain and simple," he said.

Uh huh. Oh, wait, look, there's a disclaimer on the anti-porn activist blog, she doesn't necessarily support everything everyone says on the roll. Decide for yourself, okay. Be -open minded-, right?

Yeah. About people--organizations, rather-- who support motherfucking James Dobson and Beverly LaHaye. I mean, they're -nice- about it; there's nothing right on the front page about how they'd like to feed HOmosexshuls to the wolverines. They just, what, support traditional marriage. Well, sure, we can agree to disagree on that. As long as we agree on the IMPORTANT shit: to wit, porn is like heroin and is bad for women-children and other living things.

Later, we can sort out the little differences like o i don't know between the agendas of radical feminists like the editors of "off our backs," you know, against patriarchy, and people who support THE MOST PATRIARCHAL AND CLOUT WIELDING FUCKING INSTITUTIONS AND INDIVIDUALS IN THE DAMN COUNTRY.

Believe in the "traditional family" as a one-size-fits all, and whomp up laws and campiangs to make it so, go to prayer breakfasts with the President and the Congress to talk about getting rid of abortion and available birth control, let's all party like it's 1955 or maybe 1655, okay, that might be a bit problematic for a feminist but we can gloss over that because, hey, look, at least in 1655 THEY DIDN'T HAVE SO MUCH POOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRN.

o, whatever. No, I don't know this person, and so will refrain from trying to engage further (like, ask, "are you high?"), but: are there even as I type bloggers who are joyfully heralding this newcomer to the feminist Team? Does the Pope shit in the woods?

well, hey, just as long as no one -films- it.

Yeah, I know, I shouldn't even bother. goddam, though. Yeah, I'll be sure to pledge not to -wank- to nekkid pictures, that'll totally bring about the Feminist Revolution.

foods that are tempting in miserable hot bloody weather.

name some.

i'm running low on inspiration here.

"Sicko," addendum, or: it's the end of the U.S. dominated world as we know it, and I don't feel so good myself.

A few what-I-thought-were-disparate ideas sort of congealing, then:

First of all, Jill is right, "Sicko" is well worth seeing. I agree with most of the post, including the critiques (altho', look, no one ever claimed the man was "fair and balanced;" he's a polemicist, it's what he does. But, yeah). And, particularly, this is astute, and important:

the film so thoroughly challenges our deeply-held assumptions that I wonder how receptive American audiences will be to it, and to the fact that we’re ranked very, very low in terms of health care compared to the rest of the developed world. American cultural pride is very much tied to our superiority; questioning that can not only feel like anti-Americanism (which Moore does address), but is so far outside of what we’re used to hearing that I worry too many audience members will simply refuse to believe it. I’m a decently-traveled coastal liberal, and I had a hard time swallowing some of it.

Yeah. I was there for the preview (Moore himself showed up to take a bow at the beginning, to raucous applause--as a friend dryly noted, "This is like a Trekkie convention for leftists), and--we all did get that same vibe from the audience. (Audience member, as we exited: "France is the shit! We should all be in Paris, yo") The really groundbreaking thing about that flick isn't so much "dude, our health care system sucks"--although that in itself isn't talked about nearly enough--but

Oh my God, this may not actually be the greatest place in the world to live after all.

There are a couple of components to that, the BOO YA AMERICA! thing. Yea, basic kneejerk patriotism/nationalism, we all get that. But specifically: well. One thing is, there's this (gropes irritatedly) it's a psych term, or a phenomenon: basically, there's this instinctive human response to go into denial mode when confronted with evidence that we've been screwed over real bad. The more we've been screwed, the more the denial drive kicks in overtime, in what seems at first like a counterintuitive move.*

*(I forget exactly how the experiment I'm thinking of went: something like, the supposed test was this dull-as-paint questionnaire the participants were supposed to fill out; the -real- test was monitoring the reaction of the participants afterward, when the testers told them to out and tell the people in the waiting room how the experience was. Some of these exiting participants were given twenty bucks; some, this is the part I can't remember the exact mechanics, were either given a much smaller amount of money, or nothing at all; or maybe some of each. Anyway, point being: curiously enough, the ones who'd been compensated with money were the most candid: yeah, it's really boring, but they'll give you twenty bucks for it. I think maybe the ones who got no money and were promised no money were also pretty honest: boring. But the ones who only got a piddling amount, were all like, oh, it's really interesting! Yeah, it's worth your time.)

So, ego. After all, we really WERE Number One! in many ways for a while there; not to mention the commonly acknowledged Good Guys after WWII, which is heady stuff. Heroes. World saviors. Top of the world, Ma, and rightfully so. No one wants to be reminded that they're slipping, that their glory days are over (isn't that a good chunk of what the War in Iraq is -really- all about? I think so). But, instead of adknowledging that circumstances have changed, and we can either adapt or, well, decline and fall, we stick our fingers in our ears and pretend it's not happening. Lalala.

But even besides that: I think, o my fellow Americans, honestly: we just really don't have much of a clue what else is going on out there, period.

Maybe it's related to the Number One! thing: we're not that curious about the rest of the world because we didn't have to be. Or maybe it's partly because, well, we're big, and compared to say a country in the E.U., relatively geographically isolated. Canada's...different, (not least in, as Moore reminds us, in their health care system), but close enough in many ways. And Mexico, well...that's a whole subject to itself, isn't it, that particular relationship. ("Something there is that doesn't love a wall...")

But so, and then meanwhile, this week, right here, there was this little dust-up in the comments of one of Aishwarya's posts.

I got into it there, and I don't want to go into the specifics again--I don't particularly want to rag on anyone here. I'm just noting it because, well, as I made this (cranky) response:

Oh fer crying out loud. It’s not really necessary to go into paroxysms of GO USA! on one of the rare occasions when someone from somewhere -else- starts talking honestly from her POV, -is- it? Would it be possible to just -listen- for once? Because it’s this sort of thing that makes people retreat into “you know what, I am now going to be silent over the things I find fucked up about my own country/culture and Represent as an ambassador, because clearly nobody here has the faintest clue and I feel like I’m selling out.”

I mean, tell you what: go over to a Eurocentric board, okay, and start trying to explain to them about our health care system, or the religiosity permeating the culture at every step. See what kind of reaction you get (”those barbaric Americans.”) See how you feel like responding.

and yeah, newsflash: a lot of people do shit -better- than we do, too. It doesn’t mean you still can’t get irritated when people go, o my, -we- don’t have -anything- like that over -here-, thank goodness; how on earth can They stand it? what’s wrong with you Yanks, anyway?

...of course, I was also connecting back, again, to Sicko, and that sort of bristling Jill alludes to when confronted with...well, what?

I just think, you know, it's a really common reaction in the U.S., that, and yeah, even among the "left," a lot of it, that, well, jingoism, but even when it's not that, this sort of weird...myopia. Like, Scott Adams (Dilbert) talking about his "Elbonia" strips, that basically this is what "we" tend to think of when we think of Other Places, especially those that aren't immediately identifiable as "Western," (whatever that actually means): a sort of vague impression of odd little people wearing fur hats and wallowing around in waist-deep mud, with airlines that basically consist of giant rubber bands. Oh, and rampant poverty and outrageous sexism, of the sort we -never- encounter in the U.S., flawed as it is, thank God. None of "us," that is, all three hundred million and change of "us," especially the one with the trick knee.

Oh, but of course, we're not surprised that the Elbonians speak flawless English. Who doesn't, really?

So anyway, I'm thinking these thoughts, and making some long overdue blog rounds. And immediately run into two posts at Mera Terrha Pakistan that seem to tie into this inchoate...theme.

First,

Last week I met a woman researching queer women’s lives in Pakistan. She’s American, half-Indian and very nice. And did not cause me to vomit up my lunch in any way.

I’m not sure why. First of all, she understood bisexuality. Secondly, she wasn’t patronizing and didn’t assume that all Pakistan women are oppressed and all queer women must be dying of suffocation. And finally, since queer women are pretty much suffocating in a way that queer men are not, I didn’t feel particularly defensive, apologetic or untruthful about talking about that.

So I spoke about my own experience and how it may well be exceptional in that I’m not answerable to my family for everything in my life. And how my girlfriend lives a life of compromise and is more answerable than I am. How it’s all about autonomy. It was pretty good.

But then she said, “I feel like I’ll go do this research, or this article, and show to folks in the West and it doesn’t do anything for the women it’s about.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It doesn’t help much.”

And it doesn’t. What good does it do a woman here who has been interviewed for a paper or radio? What does it do for discussion here? Nothing. Just makes us more defensive because now, in addition to being Islamic fundamentalist third world shits who beat their women, we’re also queer haters.

And then, (riffing off one of my own posts):

So I read the above-linked blog post today and I thought, speaking (in my head) to the strange woman quoted by belledame, that sure, lady, marriage is the place where values come from and gay marriage means a change in values, and that scares the kack out of you and that’s fine. But talk to someone for whom the whole gay marriage conversation is a luxury or, more accurately, irrelevant. And your smooth-as-silk cool may be disturbed a bit when you find out that in both India and Pakistan, sodomy is punishable by life imprisonment under India and Pakistan Penal Codes Section 377 (thank you, Britannia, for that shit) and that in fact any “unnatural act” that involves penetration is so treated. So it’s not even a moral or ethical choice at this point. Being queer is illegal, flat-out.

So what use for marriage?

I guess all I’m saying is that the global discourse in gay rights is defined by, primarily, the US. And while, sitting here in what, for the purposes of gay rights work, really is a backwater, I get great support from the US gay rights movement, but its issues aren’t my issues. Which means I can’t ride on its coat tails anymore. I’ve never been to a pride parade and there was a time that I said I wasn’t interested in marching. Now I wouldn’t mind. But it’s also just a side thing, a distraction. Or a PR exercise, I don’t know. “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it?” That’s not quite what our motto is. “We’re here, we’re queer, and we won’t get punished for it.” That’s more what we’re looking at. We’re here, we’re queer, do you know what that means? We’re here, we’re queer, just leave us the fuck alone. That sort of thing.

So, I could look at that and take a number of different points from that. "Thank God I live in the U.S.A., where at least marriage is (NOW) on the table at all; where we HAD Stonewall, where the theocrats aren't quite as powerful as some places." Sure.

I can do that, and I can ALSO note, as one of the commenters** at the originating thread wrote,

Europe and the rest of the western world marches on: civil unions are present in most EU countries in some form, and are likely to become mandatory under the new human rights acts - indeed this is all old news when several years ago Spain, a prodominately catholic country passed a gay marriage law - which the pope demanded they not do - to which the president of Spain said that he was responsible for the secular equality of the population, regardless of religious belief (and went on to pass a T-rights bill almost as sweeping - Italy HAS at one point 2 Trans members of parliment (the US has the worst representation of females in houses of power in the western world). In Canada, legal marriages are hitting the 6 and 7 year mark, Mexico itself, with the Mexico city law has moved farther ahead of the US per capita in gay rights (though perhaps not culturally - a bit tied there)

(**if you read this commenter's blog, which i can't recommend enough, actually, among other things, there's a somewhat less rosy picture of the Canadian health service to be found therein).

And yeah, not to wander too much farther off into the weeds, which I could easily do as, hoo, queer rights/queer marriage on an international scale, talk about oh I could go on, but I won't here, except to note: yes indeed, thank FUCK I live in a country where two of my friends who've been in eight/ten year relationships respectively are in constant danger of being broken up on account of one member of each couple is from Elsewhere, -none- of the countries in question recognize same-sex marriage, not least of which this here Land of Opportunity, Number One Go USA; and, well, ze green cards, zey are just not all that easy to get these days.

...but, we DO have the freedom to make zany, yet Message-filled, comedies like this. God bless.

ANYWAY.

As I also said in the Nudity is Not a Solution thread:

...and no, ftr, “thank God I live here” probably wasn’t meant to be offensive, I wouldn’t expect, and no, it also isn’t necessary to go into “boo yah, Amerikka SUCKS!” either.

Partly because that's kind of egocentric in its own way; but mostly because, well, it's true.

Which brings me back to Sicko.

It's particularly ironic that Michael Moore gets slapped with the broad brush applied to all on the "far left" (i.e. anyone to the left of Joe Lieberman, pretty much), you know, "Why do you hate America so much, you Islamicist-loving Commie." Because actually, whatever his flaws, I think Moore is about as American as they come, in many ways. Good ways, for the most part. You really see it toward the end of "Sicko:," that old-school all-American populism and optimism: why, he asks, can we not fix this? Look, other people are doing it better. That's not meant as a shaming club, that should be a -hopeful- thing, dammit. Because it means that it's possible. And: we CAN do this, if we really want to. We're good enough, we're smart enough, and gosh darn it...well, we're rich enough, collectively. And if people don't like us (anymore)? Well, maybe time to suck it up and just -deal- with it. Start cleaning up the messes we made, acknowledge that we might not, in fact, be Number ONE!!11!!ELEVEN in EVERYTHING, FOREVER...and that that is potentially a good thing.

We can learn from other people, and--for once--follow, gracefully.

And maybe even, you know, we could dump some of this collective ego shit, which is exhausting to maintain and isn't really working anyway, and maybe, you know, just try to live better.

And at the same time:

Yeah, there are reasons why we were Number One! for a while, and no, they're not all bad ones. They're not all great ones either, but some, I think, still serve, if we want them to.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal...

Well, on this board of all places, I think we can already spot one basic honking flaw with that. As have others, before us. Along with many other...problems. Some are more equal than others, always have been, it's built right in.

Yeah, it was flawed from the git-go.

Aren't we all.

And yet, I think, there's something fundamentally good about it, that -idea-, that's worth saving.

Aren't we all.

And with that:

Happy Independendence Day, a day late and a dollar short.

Maybe that's my personal-shit-is-possibly-political Thought For The Day. Better late than never.

And: It's not a once-a-year thing, really.

And: It isn't about being perfect, or being on top all the time.

It's about the work. It's about change. It's about keep going.

Keep going.

x-posted at feministe.

Who is Lily Allen?

A rhetorical question, really, because I can put my fingers together and Google as well as anyone else, natch. I just hadn't heard of her till recently stumbling on these on Youtube, and, well: kind of intrigued.

Fragment of a street scene

Last night, around dusk, my little Queens neighborhood briefly turned into a Keystone Kops montage.


I'm walking down the street, past the little Turkish grocery, past the new Tui-Na bodywork/manicure place, past the 99 cent store and the weirdly depersonalized automated video-rental place and any number of pubs and delis and laundromats. Suddenly the comfortable ambient noise of corner chat and hollering kids becomes much more sharply focused: footsteps pounding up behind me. A kid, maybe about thirteen or fourteen, small, lithe, and scared-looking, darts past, followed hard upon by several uniformed cops. Sadly, the pedestrian variety doesn't have sirens. They thunder down the block, cross the street, and momentarily disappear out of view. Some of the other locals and i make eye contact, quizzical: wha who? Shrug, keep going.

Shortly afterward there are other runners jogging after the cops-n-robbers scene: an older man, who has the trifecta of balding, long grey ponytail, AND a combover; and his younger female companion.

When I get to the corner there is a Scene in process. Across the street, the cops have converged on the lad and have him pinned and surrounded on the ground.

Over here, though, the drama's just getting started, as Ponytail and his irate female companion are trying to...well, it's not really clear -what- they're trying to do, but anyway they're talking in very, very angry and scoldy tones to two young girls, who look both sullen-defiant and scared.

Ponytail: (gesturing to scene across street) You see? You see that? If it wasn't for you, this wouldn'ta happen.

Girl: We didn't do anything.

IFC: The hell you didn't. You saw it. You protected him (them?). Now your parents are gonna find out, how you like that, huh? Maybe you'll go to JAIL.

Girl: We didn't DO anything, we don't even KNOW him--

IFC: (overlap) I don't give a damn! --Yes, you DO. We SAW you. You covered up for him. That's a crime. I'ma tell those cops. You'll see. You're in so much trouble.

Girl: (pause, then) Yeah well, I'll just tell them you were stalking us, cause that's a crime too.

Ponytail: (angrily bellows something or other, everyone's yelling by now)

I missed the next bits as i was openly rubbernecking with the rest of the gathering crowd at the saga across the street. Next thing, though, I catch Ponytail lunge and hold out his arms as if to block the girls from leaving, as they try to do just that.

Random neighbors, variously: Hey, what are you...? Man, you can't do that.

Girl: (overlap) See, you can't DO that...

In the confusion, the girls manage to feint past the guy and run for it.

(continuing through and over this)

Someone: You can't just threaten kids like that, if you think they did something go tell THEM (points at cops).

Everyone's shouting and kibitzing by now. I leave shortly after the newcomers who've just trotted up and tuned in go, Wha hoppened? and it becomes clear that no one actually has any better idea than I do. Ponytail and Irate are still there, but they're not talking. Just glaring ferociously, still.

So, sorry, no button on this scene; your guess is as good as mine.


p.s. Happy Independence (Week): one way to honor it, go check out the Blog Against Theocracy, a post for which is yet another thing that I had planned and didn't get to. As always, I am with y'all in spirit.