Trolls under the Bridge.

To use the current vernacular:
    That awkward moment when some thing you wrote starts getting passed around on social media, and gets a thousand "share"s and two thousand likes, and it posted on several well-read pages, and somebody gives it to BBC Wales and people are saying how profound it is (and also what a piece of shit it is!) and you read over it again to see what all the fuss is about and realize it's your first draft they're passing aorund: you have revised and edited it several times since then  and don't really like this version.

   I know it's just 'not done' to self-criticize when someone offers you effusive- even undeserved praise. I have tried to learn just to say "Thank you". And then there are the critics, like the guy on the page "I Love it When I Wake up in the Morning And Barack Obama is President" who went on a screed longer than my original essay, faulting me for 1) saying that all non-Obama supporters are racists and secessionists  2)supporting all the terrible things Obama has done 3) wanting illegal immigrants to vote 4)wanting general overall cheating and mayhem to run rampant in America (honestly, it was too rant-y and dull to remember it all) and  4)Not understanding federalism.
   I have learned that it is an exercize in futility to engage people like this. They aren't going to listen: if they were listeners, they would have paid attention to what you actually wrote/said in the first place. They've demonstrated that this is not behavior they engage in. Nor is the truth up there on their list of priorities. Fervor and disdain are worthy substitutes in their book. If you try to answer  their complaints, you just get drawn into a shouting match- even if you aren't shouting. The only reason to respond to comments like this are to please your supporters who are reading his complaints and getting annoyed , and to relieve that dental-drill sound inside your head that reading illogical bursts of anger like this can induce. After careful thought, I replied with the following points:
    1)I called the racists and secessionsts racists and secessionists. If the shoe doesn't fit, leave it in the closet. 2)I never mentioned Barack Obama or a single policy of his that I either approve or disapprove of. Therefore, 3) You have made a lot of assumptions about what I believe and back them up with no facts- merely a lot of anger.  4)You should see someone about that.
   I figure that last bit will make his head explode.

   Oh, and the Stanford Encyclopedia would seem to mostly agree with me on Federalism. His definition seems to describe a Confederacy. 

Posted by Tracy on Nov 20th 2012 | Filed in The Daily Rant | Comments (0)

An Open Letter To American Secessionists

It started as a few muttered complaints the day after Barack Obama's election, but the foot-stomping tantrum chorus of  folks threatening to take their ball and go home if we don't agree to play by their rules keeps growing. 
     "This is not my America" you lament! "This is no longer the same country I know and love!"

Huh. You know what- you may be right.

Because frankly, if you believe that America in the 21st century should function under the same assumptions and with the same values that America did in the 18th century- then no, this actually isn't your America any more.

If you believe that "Freedom of religion" means that you have the right, based on your religious beliefs, to make decisions about health care, family planning, equal rights, evolution and education for people who do not even share your religion-  you're in the wrong place.
 
If you think you have the right to say who other people can love, this isn't that place.

If you believe that bullying and abuse is ok as long as you do it for Jesus, and that kids are better off in orphanages than with gay parents and that rape shouldn't be an 'excuse' for an abortion because hey, some girls rape easy… this is not your America.

If you believe that the working poor, pensioners and veterans in America just want 'free stuff' but of course the wealthy only demand their personal income tax cuts for the good of the nation- no, this is not your America.

If you believe that it was wrong for your Irish and Polish immigrant grandparents to be called 'dirty'and 'lazy'and 'stupid' 100 years ago but its ok to assume that Latino immigrants are all carrying Ebola, or that middle eastern immigrants are all terrorists (while you strut around the zoo with a gun strapped to your back)… I don't think so.

If you think that the reason there are so many single parent families today is a lack of shame attached to the mothers, and that the proper way to encourage better attendance at school is to take away the food stamps from the families of kids who miss school… you don't understand what that "beacon of hope" thing is supposed to mean.

If the idea of massive walls, and ID badges and internment camps for people who are different is a good thing- but that a gun license for you is government oppression… you probably would be happier somewhere else.

If you think that it is communism for a government that calls itself "By the people and For the people" to help take care OF the people and that "promote the general welfare" shouldn't include making sure citizens don't die from treatable illness just because they can't afford health insurance, you may have taken a wrong turn.

If you believe that black people only vote for a black man because of race but white people never vote for a white guy because of his race… if you believe that a 90 year old veteran who has been voting for 50 years should be denied a ballot because he no longer has a driver's license… then it's really not your America any more. If you believe that having your candidate criticized is abusive mud-slinging but it's ok for you to call the other candidate "The Antichrist" then yeah, you may be in the wrong place.

And if you believe that it's not possible for your candidate to lose an election unless the "urban" people cheated…by voting… if you believe that an acceptable way to win is to try to stop as many people as possible from voting: that "bipartisan' means that all those other people do things your way and that the "United" part of "United States of America" only applies when your party is running the show… then you fundamentally don't understand what America is.

 

It's not a country where you can just 'opt out' when things don't go your way, and where a bunch of people whining that they want to leave will make us turn our backs on our principles in order to appease and accommodate them. It's not a place where beginning a sentence with "I'm not a racist but' makes it ok to call the President a ni**er or to say that an unarmed man deserves to be shot down in the street because he looked 'suspicious'. Or where rape threats are an acceptable response to a woman concerned about the rape culture in America.

It's not a country where a rich, privileged old man can attack a young woman's character in vicious and almost pornographic ways simply because he disagrees with her politics- and not suffer consequences.

It's not a place where we believe that a helping hand in the middle of a natural disaster should come with a price tag or that hungry children in a land of plenty should hunt through dumpsters for food because if they ask for bread, they're lazy.

America is not a nation where we think it's ok for poor people to die from treatable diseases because millionaire CEO's don't want to cut into their profits. It's not a nation with endless tolerance for those who disdain  science and reason or for the hypocrisy of decrying 'government 'freeloading' by other people when you have your hands in the cookie jar.

And, thankfully, it's not a nation where bitter, obscenely wealthy men can buy themselves an election. Not yet.

So now you say you want to leave. That's strange, because you are the same people who yell "America- love it or leave it!" at us every time we're trying to fix what's broken around here. You think it's unpatriotic for us to feel dissatisfied with the status quo and that if we don't like poverty, injustice and inequality then we don't love America.

Now, it seems like you don't love America enough to stick around and work together. That's too bad.

Look, we're not trying to run you out, but you are certainly free to go. I don't think many of you have actually thought this out from an economic, educational or military perspective, but critical thinking doesn't seem to be your strong suit anyway.
So pack your stuff, if you must.

Uh, no- you don't get to take your state with you. Sorry, but that 'Constitution' thing you're always going on about says these states stay together. And you don't get to keep the flag you're always waving: that one belongs to America too.

But you can leave, if that's really what you want.

The border is that-a-way.
 

Posted by Tracy on Nov 17th 2012 | Filed in General,The Daily Rant | Comments (7)

Changes in Attitude

    Because I have friends and neighbors whom I know to be good, decent, generous people and are in the Republican party, I have always tried hard to remember that the misdeeds of GOP politicians should only relate to that person, and to not make party generalizations. I avoided using insulting terms like "rethugnican" in place of party name, did not pass on every negative rumor just because it was about "them" and generally subscribed to Bill Clinton's oft-stated position that both sides care about the problems facing this country, we just have different ideas about how to fix things.

Yeah, those days are over. Well played, GOP. Well played.

   Now I want to go to those friends and neighbors and ask "Really?"  I get it that you aren't crazy about Obama's policies, but exactly what aspect of the Republican party in 2012 do you support? Please explain this to me, because it doesn't make sense.

   Is it the part where the Republican party does not believe that people like me should be allowed to VOTE? Because that's about the most anti-democracy, un-American thing I can think of. The belief that, in the voting booth, we are all equal is kind of what this nation is founded on. So when your party intimidates, obstructs and out-and-out cheats to stop people who don't think like you from voting, they are saying they no longer want this to be a nation of the people and for the people, but instead, a nation for their people. Are you in favor of that?
    Maybe what keeps you loyal to the GOP is the part where they want to deny veterans decent jobs and health care, and to repeal child labor laws? Or their position that hungry children have lazy parents- so we should stop feeding their kids? As you clean up debris from Hurricane Sandy, do you really think we are better off electing people who simply make it illegal to teach inconvenient truths, as if that will stop the storms and the droughts? That what will make America strong is denying science, outlawing critical thinking and taking away our rights in the name of their religion? If not, then what is it about the Republican platform that makes you willing to overlook all those things?
    Do you actually prefer a president who is a serial liar and an economic succubus, draining American businesses dry and tossing away the livelihood of the workers like useless husks? You would vote for a man who doesn't believe that women are worth as much as men, doesn't believe that our gay sons and daughters are equal citizens and can not *wait* to send YOUR son off to another war that his sons will never fight? Who believes that your own grandchildren, beautiful and bright as new pennies, should spend their lives toiling for minimum wage mowing the lawns of the wealthy if their parents can't afford college tuition? That poor women should not have access to prenatal care at Planned Parenthood and that your daughter should die from a pregnancy rather than be allowed to end it?

    Please don't tell me that you disagree with some of these positions but you're still voting for Romney and his "forcible rape" running mate because of "economic reasons." Almost every economist and economic study out there has said, unequivocably, that Romney's tax and jobs plan is smoke and mirrors. And as for your Republican representative: he vowed 4 years ago that his #1 priority was to stop Obama from getting re-elected.  So if you plan to vote for someone who believes that putting a Republican in the White House is more important than creating jobs, regulating the banks which destroyed our pensions and stopping the outsourcing of jobs– then you obviously are Not concerned about the economy!

    Do you seriously believe that the way to renew America is to take money out of your wallet and deposit it in the offshore accounts of Mitt Romney, Donald Trump and the Koch Brothers? Because you simply CANNOT vote for this gang of thieves and cutthroats without voting for all of those things- and more.
    Don't fool yourself. A vote for the GOP in 2012 is a vote for continued dependence on oil and worsening climate change, a vote for more outsourcing, more tax cuts for the rich that pile, like stones atop the middle class until they gradually have all the strength and life squeezed out of them.
    The proof of that statement is all around you- well, everywhere but on FOX News. If you don't accept that this is true, despite all the evidence-  then you are deliberately ignorant, fools and cowards. And if you DO accept that this is what you are voting for but you're doing it anyway- then it means you support all those things: the oppression, the exclusion, the us vs them mentality.
    I don't care how much time you spend in church listening to sermons about Jesus careing for the poor or if you personally would give a stranger the shirt off your back: if you vote for a man whose policies would treat that stranger like less than an equal citizen– then you have no compassion.
  
    And you are not the good and decent people I thought you were.

 

Posted by Tracy on Nov 3rd 2012 | Filed in The Daily Rant | Comments (1)

A Handy Dandy List

   I am just stunned by the stories coming out about the utter failure of Mitt Romney's campaign  once again to "get it". In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, he announced he would not campaign but instead hold a "Disaster Relief Event" which, in true Romney style, turned out to be all  about the Mittster and his amazing incredible generosity.
    I get it that it's difficult, when you're in the final stretch, to suddenly pull up and step aside and let the professionals do their job. I understand that. But surely Mitt Romney has ONE person on his campaign staff who understands disaster ettiquette– or at least  how to convincingly fake basic human decency?
    Apparently not. So here is a handy dandy little list I've made up for future candidates on what to do- and NOT to do, when disaster strikes the nation in the middle fo your campaign. I am not making this stuff up!

 

DO: Express your heart-felt sympathies to the people affected by the disaster.
DO: Let your supporters know what they can do to help: distribute contact info for the Red Cross and other organizations that will be stepping in.
DO: donate generously yourself.
As far as I know, candidate Romney sucessfully completed these tasks. It's after this point where it all went horribly, disgustingly, wrong.

DON'T: stage an even where you ask supporters to collect supplies for the Red Cross that the Red Cross does not want and normally refuses to take.
DON'T: pressure the Red Cross into diverting workers from other tasks to process your donations (which they ask people not to give for precisely this reason.)
DON'T:  send your staff out the night before to blow $5000 on canned soup and granola bars, etc so the donation tables won't look empty for the cameras… donations that, again the Red Cross asks over and over that people not give them.
DON'T: make your supporters stand in line holding their supplies for up to 45 minutes, waiting until the candidate- and the cameras!- arrive to be allowed to put them down.
DON'T:  insist that people who came without donations take something from the pile your staff set up so that they can fake donate it to the smiling candidate in front at the cameras.
DON'T: have your running mate tell volunteers to stop loading the truck so quickly, so there will still be stuff to do when he shows up with… the cameras.
DON'T: Only deliver your supplies to states which are predicted to give you their electoral college votes. You're running to be the president of everybody, not just the Republicans.
DON'T: ignore 14 questions about your stated policy plans to leave future disaster victims out in the cold when you have known for at least 4 days that you would be asked this question.
DON'T: have a running mate on record saying that disaster money should not be given out unless you cut the same amount of money from other programs- like education, food stamps, etc…. (pretty much any program that helps the 47%) but never, ever from defense.
DON'T: send out on the campaign trail the guy who just said that in deference to the ongoing disaster, he would generously give $5 million to a charity…. if the president released his college transcripts by Thursday.
DON'T: send another surrogate out to a "Disaster Relief" event and have him bitch to the crowd that the president, who is currently grappling with the disaster, is "grossly incompetent". I know it's difficult to accept, but some things just really aren't about you.
     No, really. Unless your house- your only house, just got washed away, this thing is NOT about you.
DO: step back for a day and just shut the Fuck Up!

 

 

Posted by Tracy on Oct 31st 2012 | Filed in General,The Daily Rant | Comments (0)

Some Girls Rape Easy

"I'm very proud of my pro-life position."

    Have you ever noticed? That's always how they begin their explanation of the chains they want to put on their daughters and ours- by declaring how proud they are of their tyranny. They use phrases like "pro-family" and "sanctity of life" without reference to a single position, belief or bill that actually helps any  families or people  who are different from them.
    "Why are you proud?" I want to ask them "and what do you actually do to promote life?"

    After all, nobody is "Pro-abortion". Nobody wants it to be anything other than a last resort,  yet today in the enlightened country of America we find ourselves in the mind-boggling position of discussing- yes, we actually need to debate!- whether or not a woman who has been impregnated by violence should be allowed to decide for herself if she will bear that child.
    Does she, who was already robbed of the right to say "No" in the most brutally personal way possible, have the right at last, in this tragic moment,  to make her own decision, to say 'yes' or 'no'?
    Apparently,  the all-male  jury is still out on that.

    And what of these (mostly) men who want to assault her again: want to hold her down, rip away her will and her future and force their opinions and their beliefs inside her, forcing her to bear the fruit of their twisted values for the rest of her life? 
    They always begin explaining why they are going to violate her freedom and independence by saying how  proud, how fucking proud they are of  their God-given right to turn women into brood mares, obligated to sacrifice their very bodies as incubation pods for the almighty male seed. Just as rape is not about sex,  forcing a woman to bear a child she did nothing to conceive is not about life- it's about power, and that power is what they're most proud of.

    And of course most of them don't want women to be able to prevent pregnancies in the first place, because their  2000 year old fundamentalist theology clearly  knows more about contraception than mere doctors. So since birth control pills and emergency contraception for rape victims  "seem like murder" to the pastor of their church,  then women mustn't have them.  (And  really, a woman shouldn't be allowed to choose whether or not to let a man's magic seed grow anyway: that's just too emasculating.)

    And they're usually the first  to advocate balancing the budget by cutting prenatal care clinics for poor women, infant nutrition  and Head Start. After all- we don't want to encourage women to be dependent on the government by giving them the idea that the children we forced them to bear are entitled to eat! 
    They don't support rights and protections for gay families and can't wait to take away the guarantee that our children won't be denied medical care because of a pre-existing condition.  They vote against domestic violence laws, equal pay, clean air and water, and are actually willing to consider getting rid of child labor laws.

     Nothing about any of their policies speaks to life. It is a bleak, blasted wasteland of fundamentalist entitlement  filled with the brimstone stench of "God only loves people who think like me" theology.

    But look, rape victims aren't pregnant because they were slutty enough to have sex with their husbands or boyfriends, so surely we all agree that they, at least should be allowed to decide for themselves, right? And women whose lives are endangered by their pregnancy- how is it pro-life to insist that both the baby and the mother die??

    Well, it may not sound life-affirming to stand by and let a woman die when you could prevent it, but God's will is mysterious. They are quite sure that birth control is a sin and obviously it was God's plan for you to be attacked and raped or you wouldn't be pregnant, right? So your beliefs about all that… they just don't matter. 
    That's called "freedom of religion", see? Freedom to force their beliefs onto your body, to rape you with their family values, to murder you in the name of pro-life.

    So  we find ourselves in a place where, in the 21st century, these men look carefully into the camera and inform the women and girls of America that if they were raped and got pregnant: beaten and attacked,  drugged and abused or preyed upon by their father while in middle school- that's a bummer, but  hey, make some lemonade, ladies!  Relax and enjoy it! It was God's plan!
    Some girls rape easy, they say, and anyway, they're pretty sure that a woman can't get pregnant unless she secretly wants it- and isn't that convenient!  Girls, if you open your legs to do that nasty thing, you deserve the baby, as punishment… I mean a gift! A gift from God! The truth is, not all rape is rape-y enough to turn women from heartless, death-eyed sluts into unfortunate victims in their mind, and rather than run the risk of a few women lying about rape in order to get an abortion, we should just close that door altogether, don't you think?

   These dead-eyed men will never know the joy or the terror of a life growing inside them, never know the anguish of watching their future slip away as they stare at a pregnancy test, never know the horror of learning that their beloved unborn child has a fatal disease, or is killing them, and that this beautiful dream just wasn't meant to be. Maybe that's why they say that if cows and pigs can carry dead fetuses to term, women should have to as well.

    Gentlemen, life is a mystery, and a miracle, and if you cared about actual, breathing, cooing babies as much as you care about clumps of undifferentiated cells you would be out there handing out free birth control on the streets and funding medical clinics to make sure all babies are born healthy and wanted.
     You would not be braging about how eager you are to put already abused women in chains fashioned of your morality.

     So go ahead. Preen your feathers and crow like the rooster on the top of the hen house. Say you are proud. But you are not pro-life.  You are subjugators, overseers, the keepers of chains. And that's nothing to be proud of.

Posted by Tracy on Oct 26th 2012 | Filed in The Daily Rant | Comments (1)

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