Guns are the problem

August 9, 2019 a world of progress, letters, media, progressive living, progressive media center One comment

Guns are the problem.

You can deny it all you want, but that’s the truth. Guns kill people. Sure they have to be in the hands of someone, but you can’t have mass shootings without guns.

Take the guns out of the hands of these angry white racist misogynists and the carnage will stop. It really is that simple.

Someone commented to me yesterday that cars kill people too. The difference here is that guns are manufactured expressly for the purpose of killing, I told him. Cars are made for transportation and accidents happen. People drown in bathtubs, too. Big deal.

He tried to tell me guns have purposes other than killing people. What about hunting, he asked.

I told him my father always brought home dead animals from hunting, and if that’s doing it wrong, perhaps I’d better talk to other people in my family who hunt.

Also, hunters who want to eat what they hunt don’t use assault-style weapons because you can’t eat an animal that’s been shot with one.

The problem is guns.

If these angry white men couldn’t get their hands on guns, we wouldn’t have mass shootings.

We need to regulate guns to keep them out of the hands of men who have been convicted of domestic violence, men who threaten people who disagree with them on social media, men who are members of “incel” (involuntarily celibate) groups, men who strut about in public with their assault-style weapons slung from their shoulders, thrilled that others “respect” (really, fear) them and believing it somehow will make their penises bigger.

Because guns are the problem.

It is not mental illness, either. The VAST majority of people with mental illnesses don’t shoot anyone. In fact, they tend to commit fewer violent crimes. Women have mental illnesses, too, and at the same rate as men, if not higher, but we don’t shoot up Walmarts, theaters or anything else. And the rest of the world has pretty much the same level of psychiatric illness as we do, but they don’t have the mass shootings because they don’t have unfettered access to guns.

Every now and then you’ll read about a person with a knife who manages to kill a couple of people and injure a few more before being stopped, and the gun lovers will say, “See? Knives kill people too!”

But had the knife wielder had an assault-style rifle, the death toll would have been a whole lot higher.

The problem is guns in the hands of angry, racist white men who think they should own and control everything and everyone.

The problem is the racist pig squatting in the Oval Office, egging them on so that he can watch with unconcealed glee as people he wants us to see as enemies are slaughtered.

The problem is Republicans who won’t do anything about gun violence because peddling fear is what gets them elected again and again. Well, that and cheating.

The problem is that right-leaning judges have been pushed by the NRA to interpret the Second Amendment as unfettered access to high-powered military-grade weapons.

The Second Amendment actually says, ” A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Do you want to join a well regulated militia? You know, attend meetings and take gun-safety classes? Do military drills? Have supervision?

Probably not. These gun enthusiasts want unfettered access to guns they see as toys.

The problem is that guns are everywhere and angry white men love to use them in place of the giant penises they wish they had.

Heaven has walls?

February 11, 2019 a world of progress, letters, media, progressive living, progressive media center No comments

I call this bad theology and bad business.

Recently, a “Christian” grocery store sent out a mailer claiming Heaven has walls, a gate and a strict immigration policy, and Hell has open borders. Then it uses the hackneyed phrase, “Let that sink in.”

On a Facebook post about this, a woman commented with a quote from Revelations certifying that, indeed, Heaven is gated and guarded. I suggested that a fevered hallucination by an old man alone on an island isn’t the best way to make public policy, and, of course, she went off. After a couple of exchanges, where she called me some nasty names, I replied that she probably should pay more attention to the words printed in red, since, as a Christian, she’s supposed to follow those words. I told her the theology of hate and exclusion is pretty effed up in my opinion because I don’t get any racism and bullying from those words in red. What I do get is the Greatest Commandment, which is in two parts: Love God, love each other.

I grew up among “Christians” who wanted to exclude everyone who wasn’t their brand of “Christian.” In fact, there was constant talk of taking over the country.

This was in the 1960s, when we were actually making progress on social justice issues, and they hated it. They hated giving the vote to African-Americans. They hated giving women the power to live on their own and manage their own finances, get credit in their own name, control their own bodies — to be human in our own right. They were vocal and mean-spirited about their hatred of anything different, and they used the Bible to back up their narrow-minded views.

There was actually a guest preacher at my church in 1969 who, from the pulpit, said, “We are doing God’s good work in Vietnam, killing those godless (racial epithet for Asians).”

I approached him after the service to say I don’t think God wants us killing any of God’s children. My pastor scolded me for being disrespectful, but I countered that I was being very respectful — respectful of the lives of God’s Asian children.

These so-called “Christians” ran candidates for school board to try and get their narrow-minded, mean-spirited views into the schools. They took over local elections and then moved on to the state and national levels.

The creature currently squatting in the White House is their creation, and they embrace him because he is as filled with hatred as they are.

It took them decades, but they are powerful now, these so-called “Christians.” Jesus would be appalled at their interpretations of his words.

I have no patience for hate, bigotry and exclusion in the name of Jesus, a man who preached love and inclusion.

For 30 years, I had to hold my tongue when faced with these things because I was a reporter and I had to be unbiased. Franklin Graham thought I liked and admired him when I interviewed him. Maybe that’s why I’m so vocal about it now. Because silence in the face of injustice is, in itself, an injustice.

People who call themselves “Christian” and who spew their hatred in the name of Jesus are just wrong. Christians have used the Bible for generations to uphold racism and misogyny, and we need to call that out every time we see it.

We can’t allow religion to be used as a club to beat those who are already down, and we can’t stand by while the public policies of hate embraced by these “Christians” continue to harm and even kill our impoverished brothers and sisters.

 

 

 

 

Not all men? Really? And do all lives matter?

October 14, 2018 a world of progress, letters, media, progressive living, progressive media center No comments

Just shut up and listen to us.

OK, I’m going to sound like an angry woman here again — mostly because I am angry.

I wasn’t at the keyboard five minutes this morning before I saw a post that said, “not all men.”

Well, duh. I never said it was. I told the man this sounded a bit like “all lives matter,” and he set about mansplaining to me why my feelings aren’t valid.

Let me survivor-splain why they are.

I know not all men. I’m married to one who gets it. I have a ton of man friends who get it.

The problem is, it’s enough men.

The problem is it’s systemic.

The real problem is, we never know which men.

See, not all men harass women, but pretty much every single woman on the planet has been harassed, attacked, raped, abused, molested, paid less, dismissed, interrupted … All of us.

And then we’re blamed.

Am I safe getting into that elevator with the man alone?

What about the man walking behind me in the mall parking lot? Is he going to grab me?

If I stop into a bar and have a drink, who’s going to think I’m there for him?

Ask me all the reasons I quit wearing heels as a young woman. Among the reasons are the fact that I can’t run as fast in heels as I can in flats, and the fact that some men are going to think it’s a come-hither thing.

This is not paranoia. This is as real as it gets. I know because I have lived it.

I know I’ve avoided being attacked at least once by being prepared. Back in the early 1980s, three men approached me one morning while I was walking in Paterson, NJ. I had my keys and the blade of a small knife sticking out through my clenched fingers. They walked past me. But I wasn’t in the office 10 minutes when I heard a woman walking alone in the same place I was had been attacked just a minute after I passed by. They stabbed her and stole her purse. Had I not shown I was willing to fight, I would have been the one attacked.

If you’re a man, tell me what measures you take every day to protect yourself.

I mean every day.

Every. Damn. Day.

Let me give you an example: Last night I was driving home from Raleigh. It’s a four-hour drive, and about three hours into it, I had to pee something fierce. There was no way I was going to make it home, so I stopped at a rest area.

It was 10 o’clock at night and the rest area was all but deserted. There was one other car, and a lone man standing outside the building, smoking a cigarette.

I stayed in my locked car, debating whether I should just pee in the car and get it cleaned later. Fortunately, another car with two people in it came along.

Witnesses.

I got out and went into the rest room, keys jutting out between my fingers in case I had to gouge an attacker.

So tell me, Mr Not-all-men, have you ever had to even think about doing that?

And if someone did attack you, have you not reported because you know you’ll be blamed for your own attack?

I have.

Has anyone ever told you a woman who was raped somehow asked for it?

I’ve heard it again and again.

Remember when the Kennedy kid was accused of rape? One of the reasons the young woman was blamed for her own rape was because she took off her pantyhose to walk on the beach. So tell me, if you’re going to walk on the beach barefoot, doesn’t that involve taking your socks off?

But she was at a bar.

So was he.

But she had a drink.

So did he.

But she was dressed up.

So, that means you get to have your way with her? Her attire is a personal invitation for you to screw her? I’ll bet that’s not what she thought when she was getting dressed.

How about the politicians who say educating females will get rid of rape? Know what they’re really saying? It’s our own fault for being prick teasers. And you know what? Our very existence makes us prick teasers.

So, don’t tell me not-all-men. I know that.

Instead, roll up your sleeves and stand with me.

Listen to me. I know more about this than you do. Every woman does.

If you do that, you never have to tell me not-all-men. If you have to say it and then you feel you have to mansplain it to me when I question your willingness to fight misogyny with me, methinks you doth protest too much.

 

 

I’m not just an angry liberal, I’m an infuriated woman

October 11, 2018 a world of progress, letters, media, progressive living, progressive media center No comments

 

Poor Eve. It was all her fault. It still is, according to old white men.

The Republicans have — once again — thumbed their noses at women and let us know just how they feel about us.

They think we’re liars.

They think we live to seduce and then destroy men.

They think we’re powerless to stop them.

I have never been angrier about the abuse of women by white men in power.

It was an old white man who violated me when I was 3.

No one would have believed me if I had said anything then, and people have questioned my honesty since I divulged in my 30s — 30 years after the abuse began.

Why didn’t I say anything? Because it was my word against a pillar of the community. Because when adults had to choose between my story and his, they would have chosen his and punished me for lying. And he still would have had control over my body.

When my ex-husband decided he didn’t need my consent to have sex with me whenever he wanted, the law of powerful white men was on his side, not mine.

I wasn’t allowed dominion over my own body in 1971 when I got engaged and went to the doctor for birth control. In Massachusetts in 1971, the law of powerful old white men decided I couldn’t have birth control unless I was married, and I was so unable to make decisions about my own body that I wasn’t the one who would be punished if I tried to take control of my own reproductive system — it would be the doctor — an old white man.

When a man wanted me to give him a blow job in exchange for me making a sale, I went back and told my boss. The pig denied it, but my boss believed me and threatened him with real trouble if it happened again.

Another white man asked me out to lunch and as soon as we were in the car, he pulled his penis out and asked for a “massage.”

At work at a small newspaper in new Jersey, I sold ads. Another sales rep, a creepy old white man named Bob, decided I would be his next conquest. I told him no every day, often several times a day. He made a habit of trying to grope me every time he was within reach. After a couple months of this, I went to the publisher to complain, and all he did was laugh and say, “That’s Bob.”

For the first time, I fought back. I told him to give me his home phone number, which he was stupid enough to do.

“If I call now, your wife will answer, right?” I asked.

His face fell.

“If I tell her what a fucking pig you are, she won’t be happy, will she?” I said.

Then I held up the slip of paper.

“Ladies, I have the phone number for Bob’s wife here. If he ever gropes you, if he ever makes another pass at you, please ask me for the number. I’m happy to share.”

I quit a short time later, but Bob was kept in check because I gave every woman that phone number.

A couple of years later, another white male boss bragged that he liked to keep the heat turned down to 65 degrees in the office because the women’s nipples got hard and he enjoyed that.

Every morning I went and turned the thermostat up to 70. Every hour or so I checked to make sure it was still set at 70. I left him notes letting him know what I’d overheard and promised to report him if I found the heat set below 70 degrees.

But people still ask why I didn’t report my grandfather. Am I SURE it’s not just “recovered” memories? Trust me, the memories are real.

Do I remember the room? Yes. It was a little room in the attic. Do I remember walking up the stairs or coming back down? No. Do I remember who else was in the house? No. Do I remember what either one of us was wearing? No.

But I remember his hands on me — all over me. I know what happened, even though he died in his bed and everyone else still thought he was a fucking saint. He was so good with children, after all.

Having people question Christine Blasey Ford’s motives in telling her story, or accuse her of lying, is the same as telling me I’m lying.

And I don’t care that he didn’t actually get to rape her. He intended to, and she knew it. She was fighting for her life for all she knew.

I’m tired of people asking why she was at a party where drinking was going on. He was at that party, too. Being at a party where people are drinking is not an invitation to be raped.

Wearing a short skirt is not an invitation. Having dinner with someone, having a drink, walking on the beach, just our very existence, seems to be reason to say we tempted him, and all he did was take what we really wanted to give him.

We are not here for your pleasure. We actually aren’t all that interested in you or your accomplishments or the size of your penis. We don’t care about your flashy car or your decked out apartment. You are inconsequential.

Brett Kavanaugh is a sexual predator. The creature currently squatting in the White House is a sexual predator. They flaunt it every day with their hate-filled rhetoric toward women. They flaunt it with their ramming through the nomination of an unqualified, active alcoholic, lying partisan hack to the highest court in the nation.

Damn right we’re angry. Women have had about enough of this.

More of us die at the hands of people who are supposed to love us. More of us live in poverty. We make less money for the same work. We do more of the work in the home, when when both partners work outside the home.

We are the Daughters of Eve, the people Evangelicals say are responsible for our own abuse and all the violence against us, and we are pissed.

We are coming for your white male privilege.

Look behind you. We’re gaining ground.

 

No sympathy here

July 2, 2017 a world of progress, letters, media, progressive living, progressive media center No comments

I feel no sympathy for Mika Brzezenski.

There, I said it.

Mika and her partner in crime and fiance, Joe Scarborough, spent the entire presidential campaign sucking up to the Republican candidate. They had him on their show for what amounted to hours of free, unchallenged air time.

They are part of the reason the election was close enough for the Republicans to steal.

Instead of denouncing his mean-spiritedness and misogyny throughout the campaign (and it is there and highly evident throughout this awful creature’s career), they allowed him a pass, just as most of the rest of American corporate media did.

They allowed him to lie without demanding the truth be told. They allowed him to spew racism and sexism and never confronted him about it.

He was entertaining, they thought. He made people laugh. I mean, what were the chances he would actually win the White House? Why not have a little fun instead of being so serious all the time? What harm could it do, right?

Well, here’s the harm that happens when we don’t take elections or public policy seriously.

Mika loses her self respect and 22 million Americans stand to lose their health care. The Orange One and his cronies are trying to stage an unprecedented attack on voter rights. Thank God many of the states are resisting.

Every single cabinet position — except for those having to do with the military — is occupied by someone who wants to dismantle his or her department. Every damn one. Education, Energy, Interior … They have stolen a Supreme Court seat and filled it with a right-wing ideologue, affecting public policy for a generation or more. They are trashing treaties and other agreements, showing utter disrespect for other world leaders and otherwise acting like a bunch of sugar-addicted toddlers loosed, unsupervised, into a candy store.

But poor Mika had to read a sexist tweet directed at her.

How about the sexist policies we all have to live with — defunding of women’s health clinics, withdrawal of access to birth control, unequal pay and unequal treatment in the workplace and in public policy, decisions about my health care being made by old white men who hate me because I demand equality — shouldn’t we also add that into the mix?

Mika is not solely responsible for the Orangini Tweeter, but she bears some of the blame. She could have challenged his lies or not allowed him air time if he insisted on lying. She wouldn’t have allowed Hillary or any other Democrat to get away with that kind of behavior.

It’s time the media started ignoring this giant asshole’s tweets. Just don’t report on them. Pretend they don’t exist. They are not newsworthy when compared to the damage he is trying to do to our nation.

Let’s pay attention to the abhorrent attempts to shred what’s left of our social safety net.

Let’s heed the warnings of climate scientists.

Let’s pay attention to the massive increase in our military budget as we march, inexorably toward all-out war.

Let’s call bullshit on his election commission’s attempt to collect our personal information so they can purge Democrats from the rolls.

Let’s wake up and stop looking at what my late son called “sparkly issues.” We must pay attention to what’s happening to our nation. It may be too late to save it already.

 

‘But both sides do it!’

September 14, 2016 a world of progress, letters, media, progressive living, progressive media center No comments

deplorable

“Both sides do it.”

What a load of crap.

Yes, Hillary Clinton called some of Donald Trump’s supporters “a basket of deplorables.”

That’s because they’re acting in a deplorable fashion.

Donald Trump called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers and I didn’t hear a single one of his supporters ask him to scale it back.

Donald Trump has said repeatedly that Muslims are terrorists, and his supporters have cheered.

Ah, yes, but Hillary has been accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, and there are witnesses.

No wait, that was Trump.

But Hillary has defrauded thousands of people with her fake university.

No wait, that was Trump.

But Hillary stands at the podium and encourages people to hit opponents at her rallies, offering to pay bail for people who get arrested.

No wait, that’s Trump.

But people at Hillary’s rallies punch opponents while her supporters cheer.

No wait, that’s Trump’s rallies.

But people at Hillary’s rallies call for her opponent to be hanged.

No wait, that’s Trump’s rallies.

But Hillary held that huge fundraiser for veterans and then didn’t give any of the money to veterans until she was shamed into it.

No wait, that was Trump.

But Hillary has cheated on two spouses and brags about her sexual prowess all the time.

No wait, that’s Trump.

But Hillary was endorsed by David Duke, the white supremacist and then tried to deny she knew him.

No wait, that was Trump.

But Hillary cozies up to Vladimir Putin and then denies she has ever met him.

No wait, that’s Trump.

But Hillary’s spouse stood at the national convention and plagiarized the current president’s spouse’s speech.

No wait, that was Trump’s (third) spouse.

But there’s evidence that Hillary’s spouse was working illegally in this country before they were married.

No wait, that was Trump’s (third) spouse.

But Hillary’s family has taken millions of dollars from her campaign fund.

No wait, that’s Trump’s kids.

But Trump’s foundation has provided clean water and more to tens of thousands of victims of natural disasters.

Opps, sorry. That was the Clinton Foundation. No one has figured out yet what Trump’s foundation funds.

But wait. Trump helped open negotiations for a settlement with Iran that stopped it from developing nuclear weapons — and the settlement, finalized in 2015, is holding without a single American soldier dying in “boots on the ground.”

No wait, that was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

But Hillary’s the crooked one, right? And the press is giving her fair coverage because, after all, she’s the candidate of her party, right?

Uh, not so much. At a rally here in Asheville on Monday, Trump opponents stood outside and called his supporters rude names. At least five opponents were slapped or punched and they were escorted out while their attackers were allowed to stay.

In my 64 years, I have never seen a campaign as violent and mean as this one, and it’s not Hillary who’s doing the damage.

Trump has been allowed to get away with disgusting racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, xenophobia, with suggesting we could use nuclear force, with calling for wars and more wars … He has been shown to be crooked and mean-spirited at every turn, while the corporate media have given him a pass every time, not calling out his hate or his lies.

But calling his behavior and that of his supporters deplorable somehow disqualifies Hillary?

What a load of crap.