By now I am sure you all have heard the horrible news out of Arizona.

A 9 year old girl was murdered to make a political point. A judge was murdered to make a political point. A congress person was shot through the head to make a point. At least 5, possibly 6 people are dead because a terrorist couldn’t get his own way. (I’m working on sketchy internet access here, so apologies if I get some facts wrong- the sentiment is still the same).

We already know how this story is going to play out in the news. Rethuglikans and tea baggers will claim this was the act of a lone, disturbed man and has nothing to do with their rhetoric. Democrats will try to use this to guilt rethuglikans into bipartisanship (it won’t work). And Democratic politicians across the country will be even less likely to do anything but give into the right because of real fear of being killed for doing otherwise.

But Giffords is a moderate. She was already doing what she could to find common ground with people who will be gleeful that the bullet through her head gives them a chance to steal her seat. There is no middle ground to be found with them. There is no way to negotiate a fair deal with people who will happily load the gun that will be held to your head later. You don’t negotiate with terrorists because their end goal is your destruction, and there’s no middle ground between dead and alive.

There will be Democratic pundits and voters who will claim that this is what happens when you don’t vote blue. Actually, this is what happens when you do vote blue. As unhappy as we on the left were under Bush, nobody tried to shoot Tom Delay and the violent factions of our country were resolutely quiet for 8 years.

So this is the word we live in now. The political left pays ransoms to the political right in hopes of saving their own skin and the political right stokes the fires violence. 9 year old girls die in the crossfire.

I have always thought that the measure of a person is not what they would kill for, but what they would die for*. If there is no amount of moderation that can save you from the bullet of a teabagger, then perhaps it’s time to give up the idea of bipartisanship. They will kill you anyways. Go down fighting, or let someone take your place who will.

(Isn’t it also funny that the people most likely to murder in these situations are white Christian dudes. I may be a godless atheist, but I’m pretty sure that the bible doesn’t say “Jesus killed for our sins”. What would Jesus do certainly never involved mass murder.)

but very few people admit it well.

So Roger Ebert, who is usually awesome, weighed in on the controversy about replacing the word n****r in Huck Finn with the word slave by tweeting that he’d rather be called a n****r than a slave. (sorry folk, rules of reclamation mean I won’t type the whole word).

When someone pointed out this little bit of privilege, he responded with “You know, this is very true. I’ll never be called a N***** *or* a Slave, so I should have shut the **** up,”

That’s how you apologize when privilege comes leaping out of your mouth or keyboard. Imagine a world where after any number of stupid things said by, oh say Keith Olberman, we got a “you’re right, I’m never going to be date raped in Sweden, so I should just shut the fuck up”.

Or the virtuous foodies “you’re right, I’m never going to have to choose between organic steel cut oats and paying the electric bill. I should just shut the fuck up,”

Or members of the political class “you’re right, when we say sacrifice we mean only for people who have less than us. We should just shut the fuck up”.

(I think I had a little wordgasm typing that last one).

As far as the actual controversy goes, I think Renee sums it up better than I can. But I will add one little thing, would it be so fucking hard to include books written by actual people of color when talking about race and or slavery?

Anyone else find it funny that all the dead animals are in predominantly Christian countries?

Oh please, oh please, oh please, the rapture can’t come soon enough for this non-believer.

So a few years ago, when we had a house of our own, I used to say that what I wanted more than anything was to live out of a suitcase and spend my time writing*. Well, the Kid and I have certainly done that for the last year or so, and lemme tell you, it’s way less romantic than I imagined.

I don’t believe in god or kharma or magical forces of any kind, but every now and then I have to look at the order of the universe and go “What the fuckity fuck kind of sick joke is this?”

*What I actually used to say is- I want to travel around the world, living out of a suitcase, and getting to yell at people for a living.

whew. what a morning it has been. today we went from short term
temporary housing to longer term temporary housing. we made it her
with exactly one dollar left (thank you soo much to all of you who
made it so that we didn’t spend december living in a tent) as you can
see, i am back to interneting on my phone. don’t know when that can be
fixed but forgive the typing please. it’s still a long, hard, scary
road ahead, but we are safe and there is a thin possibility of
something better to come. happy belated new year, i think that might
actually be true this year.

—
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Willem de Kooning

(FTR, the blog tittle should be sung to the Beattles’ Daytripper)

New Left has an interesting little blurb up about gatekeeping in regards to college educations. Go read, I’ll wait.

Gatekeeping serves a major purpose in entrenching the dominant paradigm and reinforcing cultural hegemony. If you can only get a a decent job through a college education, and you can only get a college education by subscribing to capitalism and free marketeering, then the only people who get good jobs are those who will support the current system. But that’s just a small gate, there are much bigger gates to be guarded. Another small gate, say you are a lefty poly sci student. You can be as progressive as you want, but if you want to get a paying job doing what you spent years in school studying, you have to shelve those alternative ideas. Maybe occasionally someone (Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader) gets to be king of the ideal left, but you should note that they are usually white dudes who get to betray their elite status with radical ideas. If you have any kind of oppression points at all, that won’t be possible.

Our election system is one grand example of gatekeeping. We only get 2 versions of what’s possible, and strangely both those versions are business friendly. They may bicker over talking points, but at the end of the day real change and reform just isn’t going to happen when both parties rely on massive corporate funding and the elimination of third parties. You can start out as Mr. Smith (or Mr. Alan Greyson) goes to Washington as you like, the reality is that you either work to keep the system intact or you get sent home.

But gatekeeping doesn’t just happen in politics. This is where I may get into some trouble, so forgive me in advance. Take a look at Oprah Winfrey, undisputed media queen of the world. Oh yes, she is a dark skinned black woman. She is one hell of a business woman and talented too. All of that is true. Yet she wouldn’t ever have gotten where she is today if she didn’t repeat the false American dream ideas over and over and over. Your failures are individual failures. She pulled herself up by the bootstraps and look where she is. Anyone can do it if she did. All it takes is education and drive and hard work. Except that’s not all it takes. It also takes a certain degree of luck and the willingness to ignore cognitive dissonance. Oprah works really hard everyday, but does she really work harder than a minimum wage hotel maid? If Oprah didn’t repeat that hard work equals success narrative, if she started questioning the economic system that has made her so much money, would she still make so much money? Would she have been allowed to have a television show on networks whose job it is to sell ad space to companies that want to sell us on the American dream? No. (See also the new OWN network, if Oprah suddenly got all progressive her network would fail because major corporations wouldn’t advertise with it).

That same thing works in small ways too. If the only employer in town is Walmart, you shut up about how Walmart closed down all the little stores and the factories that went overseas to make the products that Walmart sells. You shut up and hope that you can get a Walmart job. You spew the company line, because if you don’t subscribe to it, you don’t eat. You become the gatekeeper for mass consumerism.

But some of us can point out the gatekeeping. We can explain that freedom doesn’t mean the choice between donkey flavored coke and elephant flavored pepsi. we can remind them that progressive economics are water for those dying of economic thirst.

So health insurance parasites companies are cranky. See, they’ve been tiering their prescription drug coverage so that patients have less incentive to take more expensive drugs because of the higher co-pays that the insurance parasite company charges compared to other, sometimes generic drugs.

But pharmaceutical companies (also often parasites, but at least they produce an actual product) have been countering by giving patients coupons to cut their copays. They are providing their own incentives. But the insurance parasites have to eat the larger drug costs because the coupons only pay for out-of-pocket (OOP in health and welfare speak) costs. Suck it, parasites.

And the insurance parasites are pouting. Hands on hips, bottom lip stuck out, pouting. “But but but it’s not fair” goes the parasites’ whambulance.

You know, if they don’t like it they could always get out of the game. But somehow I don’t think we’ll be that lucky. I would like to see big pharma and big parasite arm wrestle for legislative supremacy on this one. Usually they are all sunshine and rainbows for each other when it comes to lobbying the pols. Who will the pols side with? Who has deeper pockets come election time?

And this would all be unnecessary if we had single payer. Coupons for drug co-pays are already illegal for medicare users.

Or, a review of 48 minutes of the Road. I couldn’t watch any more than that. I like dark, bleak movies, I do. But this, no. There is no tiny sliver of light to hold onto in this film, and the theme of end of the world starvation is just too close to possible. So when Sylvie called me half way through, I was relieved to have an excuse to look away.

Me: I’m watching The Road

Sylvie: Oh my god! I read the book. It’s bleak. Turn it off!

Me: The people, the people in the cellar are going to the smokehouse!!!! You know that the cannibals are probably libertarians. They are sooooo the type to eat smoked people.

Sylvie: I read book. It doesn’t get better. Turn it off. Put on something happy and mindless. Watch Glee or something.

Me: I hate Glee. Actually I hate all musicals. I always feel super embarrassed for the people singing.

Sylvie: You liked Rent

Me: That’s because if you’re going to do a musical you have to sing about mortal death. Well all death is mortal, but you know what I mean.

This is where I changed the channel to something more upbeat. I think it was some flavor of Law and Order. And then made tuna melts, cause nothing removes the bad taste left by evil cannibals and certain horrible doom than delicious, buttery tuna and cheese.

But really, 48 minutes of cannibalism and watching a man repeatedly contemplate killing his son (for his son’s own good) was more than I could stand. Sylvie confirms that there is no happy ending, it stays bleak. All my little pipe dreams of the man and boy reaching a colony of kindly people at the coast who stuff them full of readily available fish are for nothing.

Of course if you’re suicidal, and looking for a movie to reaffirm your absolute hopelessness for the state of human kind before you swallow every pill in the house, this is probably a good choice. And Viggo Mortensen is never not interesting to watch.

I reblogged this in Tumblr, but I thought it deserved to be pulled out into the light a bit.

A patriarchal bargain is a decision to accept gender rules that disadvantage women in exchange for whatever power one can wrest from the system. It is an individual strategy designed to manipulate the system to one’s best advantage, but one that leaves the system itself intact.

This was posted in response to a question about why Kim Kardashian is famous. We (serious feminists and/or intelligent ladies) will point and laugh and disdain those women who make these bargains, pretending all the while like we haven’t made a few ourselves. Do you shave your legs, wear lipstick, shave or wax your bits, wear high heels, skirts, makeup of any kind, bras? You’ve made the bargain. Even if you convince yourself a thousand ways till Sunday that you do those things because you like them or because you need to.

For example, I shave my legs and pits. I would love to be able to skip those activities, but I am patriarchy deficient in enough other ways that the scorn from appearing in public with my above-patriarchy approved sized body in a tank top and skirt with hairy legs and pits is more than I can handle. A darling friend, who has a patriarchy approved sized body, can get away with her hairy legs and pits most of the time, but has to wear pants and sleeved shirts in the summer to avoid friction at work. I get away with not wearing makeup because I am traditionally attractive in spite of my size, and I still have a patriarchy approved hourglass shape.

But here’s the thing that is rarely said- it’s okay to make those bargains. It’s better if you can acknowledge that they are actual bargains while you make them, but if someone can’t or doesn’t acknowledge that they made these bargains shouldn’t make them an object of scorn.

That’s how we make ourselves never good enough. If you buy into all the patriarchy’s beauty standards, then you are ridiculous, fluffy and dumb. If you shun them, you are a fat, hairy legged, man hating, slutty, frigid lesbian (not that there is anything wrong with any of that). But the truth is that we are all trying to get by under a system that sucks. Do what you have to do, while fighting where you can afford to fight. Stop wasting your time policing the bargains others have made (even if those others are Katy Perry, ugh). Picking on the individual bargain makers doesn’t solve the problem of having to make the bargain to begin with. It only reinforces the bargain. Take breastfeeding vs. formula, for instance.

Before women (white, middle class and better women) entered the work force in mass (poor women have always worked) formula was the best thing new moms could do for their babies (or so says the patriarchy). Never mind the expense. Never mind the extra effort that you have to put into mixing the formula, heating the formula, sterilizing the bottles and nipples, cleaning the bottles and nipples, and the fact that formula isn’t actually as good for babies as breast milk. If you wanted to be a good mom in the 50s, 60s and 70s, you bottle fed. If you didn’t bottle feed, you were some kind of low class savage like the naked brown ladies in National Geographic.

Then women start going into the work force and suddenly the benefits of breastfeeding are touted as the only sensible choice for good mothers. Never mind that there is no paid maternity leave. Never mind if you have a condition that requires medication that might get into breastmilk and hurt your baby. Never mind that you work a minimum wage job and will be fired for taking breaks to pump milk on the toilet. If you don’t breastfeed your child you are some kind of declasse Jerry Springer mom who also feeds their kids koolaid and poptarts. (Never mind that food stamps and Wic will pay for formula, but not for a breast pump or to stay home with a newborn). Picking on women because they can’t or don’t breastfeed doesn’t actually make it easier for women to breastfeed (unless they take the patriarchy approved route of marrying a dude who makes enough money for her to stay home).

We need to take the fight where it belongs, to the structures that prop up the patriarchy****, and not to the individuals who are just as stuck in the system as we are.

*****You can replace patriarchy with kyriarchy and for every flavor of oppression there are bargains to be made. Lipstick lesbians are hot! Articulate brown people are cool!Disabled folks are fine as long as they are plucky lesson teachers or adorable telethon kids, etc, etc, etc. I’m not in the mood to do a “what about the menz” spiel, but they make bargains too.

The Kid and I are at the darling Sylvia’s to make a gazzilion Christmas cookies. Thank you, to everyone who reads this blog and chipped in over the last year. You all make me feel like George Bailey with a laundry basket of cash.