Category Archives: politics/class inequality
Men Mustn’t Pay For Pregnancies They Cause
No fair! Men shouldn’t have to pay for women’s maternity care!
Oddly, that’s a recent GOP argument against the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, which says insurance companies can’t charge women more than men.
It’s left extremist men complaining, “No babies will ever pop out between my legs, so why should I have to pay for someone else’s pregnancy?”
After all, men have nothing to do with getting women pregnant. Right?
Next, they’ll be whining that babies should have to pay for their own care!
Yet babies don’t ask to be born. Read the rest of this entry
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Credit Bill Too High? Don’t Pay!
George Clooney on democracy
You buy an expensive computer on credit and later think, “That cost too much, so I won’t pay.”
Really?
That’s what anyone who refuses to raise the US debt ceiling is saying.
They are confused.
They think that not raising the debt ceiling means not raising the credit limit. They are actually refusing to pay a debt we’ve already incurred.
If the US refuses to pay their debts for the first time in history, chaos will erupt.
No one will trust us anymore.
And instead of saving money, interest rates will rise, and we’ll end up spending even more. One-month Treasury bill rates are already spiking.
(And, just one week of government shutdown — another matter — cost us $1.6 billion. Yet the deficit-phobe GOP doesn’t care?)
Still, more than half of Republicans think the US can miss the debt-limit deadline without serious trouble.
Most likely, Read the rest of this entry
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Pro-Lifers Killing Kids
Plenty of “pro-lifers” are okay with killing kids.
On the one hand, they preach against contraception, claiming it might cause an abortion. And no woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy!
On the other hand, they have no problem taking away kids’ food and medical care, which will leave some of them dead.
Yes indeed, an awful lot of “pro-lifers” want to defund Obamacare and deny medical services to at least eight million children.
And last week “pro-life” Congress members voted to slash $40 billion from food stamps. Nearly half go to kids. (And then they lavish tax subsidies on rich corporate interests.)
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American Hunger Games
In the futuristic country of Panem of North America, young Katniss hones her archery skills to supplement her family’s meager meals in
a world where roses are unimaginable, and bread is a commodity so valuable that its arrival is a symbol from the heavens and it can create emotional ties that last a lifetime.
Amidst the impoverished masses dwell a wealthy few who dance beneath crystal chandeliers, turn platinum doorknobs, and embody their excess in elaborate hair, make-up and fashion — one dress is even designed to flame as it twirls.
The elite have invented “The Hunger Games,” a reality show to distract the masses, enthralling them with impoverished contenders picked by lottery to compete to the death — of all but one.
But perhaps these games are not so fictional.
In the last 40 years nearly all of our GDP gains have gone to the top 1%. And some of that 1% want to end food stamps — 80% of which goes to families with children, the disabled, and the poor elderly. Others are working poor.
Meanwhile, rising inequality squeezes the middle-class, with more and more dropping into the lower classes and, sometimes, poverty.
As the rich give big campaign contributions, the middle-class bails out Wall Street. The rich get tax shelters and tax preferences to offshore work. And they gain “right to work” (for less) laws. Minimum wage stays stagnant. Too many Walmart workers must apply for food stamps. Yes, the rest of us are supplementing the wealthy Walton family.
And in fact, House Republicans voted to both subsidize Big Agriculture and eliminate food stamps.
Government has no right to take people’s money and give it to the poor. But it’s a-okay to give it to the rich, as Paul Krugman points out. He continues:
Representative Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, for example, cited the New Testament: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” Sure enough, it turns out that Mr. Fincher has personally received millions in farm subsidies.
So the wealthy build helipads on top of penthouses and abandon kids unable to focus in school due to hunger pangs. Uneducated, they are more likely to drop out, get pregnant or go to jail.
Now, create a distraction by blaming the poor. It’s that hungry child’s fault that she can’t eat because she’s just too lazy to work, or wasn’t clever enough to be born into Sam Walton’s family?
Or, try to end public education to make the common folk that much easier to manipulate.
America is moving from democracy to plutocracy: the rule of the rich. If you would like your members of Congress to listen to you instead of Money Bags, get in touch with one of the following: Common Cause, Move To Amend, Rootstrikers or do your own Google search.
And if you’d like to help end hunger and poverty, contact RESULTS.
Because right now the odds are never in your favor.
Thanks to Alyssa Rosenberg @ ThinkProgress for a couple of these quotes.
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Tampons Confiscated as Women Protest in Texas
You know what happens when women protest restrictions on their rights?
In Egypt they’re harassed and raped.
In Texas their tampons are confiscated.
If you can’t bully women by forcing something into their vaginas, just keep women from putting anything in there, themselves.
That’s right. You can take a gun into the Texas State Capital. But tampons, pads, and condemns are forbidden. Or even diabetic supplies that could save your life. Because pro-lifers just don’t like that sort of thing.
After all, women’s lives and autonomy are far more dangerous than guns.
Any sort of control women have over their bodies and reproductive lives must be stopped by Texas law enforcement! Abortion, contraception, sex ed… and now tampons.
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Right-Wing Hearts Bleed for Kids
Right-wingers fret over “working moms” and want to jail pregnant women who drink, smoke, or use drugs. We wouldn’t want to harm children’s life chances, now, would we?
Unless children’s life chances are harmed by corporate pollution or government cuts to battered women’s shelters, early education, health care or food supplements for poor kids.
Then, no worries!
Concern only comes when the opportunity to jail or disempower women presents itself.
Right now sequester cuts are threatening shelters and early education, while budget discussions are threatening the ability of little kids to get enough to eat.
Congress rushed to rectify across-the-board cuts to the FAA – long lines at airport security are a no-no! Especially when frequent flyers so often bring in big campaign contributions.
But who cares if kids are so hungry or lacking in medical care that they can’t focus on their schoolwork? How about the life-long trauma that comes from watching fathers beat mothers? How about cancer-causing toxic waters?
Right-wing extremists have their priorities.
They stew about moms working outside the home. But that’s where they shouldn’t worry.
University of Michigan psychology professor, Lois Wladis Hoffman, reviewed 40 years of research and performed her own study. Turns out, kids whose moms worked outside the home did better academically and were better-adjusted behaviorally and socially. Daughters, in particular, had a higher sense of competence and effectiveness.
Extremists. Worried about kids? Or just looking for ways to disempower women?
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Extremists Messing With The Vajayjay
Are right-wing extremists obsessed with controlling women’s sexuality because screwing with a woman’s vagina-brain connection can weaken women and give men control?
Sounds crazy, but Naomi Wolf, famous for her book The Beauty Myth, suggests that’s what is happening.
The premise, laid out in her latest book, Vagina: A New Biography, has met mixed reviews from both scientists and the literati. But I found her thoughts interesting enough to give them some space here.
Wolf’s notion was sparked, oddly enough, when her spinal cord was repaired. Before surgery she had lost both her sex drive and her creativity. After surgery both returned. Curious, she began exploring how women’s sexuality might be connected to their broader empowerment and passion for life.
She began her journey by exploring more conventional notions of how society and power structures affect desire. But something was missing. So she moved on to biology, learning how the vagina, clitoris and cervix are connected to the brain. She found out that when neurotransmitters related to sexuality are blocked, an “anhedonic state” akin to depression can arise.
The science comes largely from Dr. Jim Pfaus, a researcher and psychology professor at Concordia University — and a defender of her book.
Next, Wolf suggests that extremists try to repress women’s sexual selves because sexuality allows women fuller, more productive and empowered lives. As she explains in the Huffington Post:
The data is sound elucidating the brain-vagina connection that many critics are struggling with. Dopamine builds confidence and motivation, oxytocin is about bonding and intimacy, and opioids are about bliss and ecstasy. If you know really what that cocktail [activated during sex] does [in the female brain], then it makes sense why patriarchy always targets female sexuality, always targets the vagina, with female genital mutilation, rape, and war, you know, derision, mockery. If you get that female desire and the vagina can be a medium for women of positive mindspeak unrelated to sex, it makes sense that the vagina is continually being targeted. The whole takeaway of the book is that the vagina is not just a sex organ. If you want to demean women, you demean the vagina.
I don’t know whether Wolf is right. (Are fanatics really that bright?) But interesting that sexuality seems so related to living a full-fledged, empowering life.
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Vote to Help the Rich, Hurt Yourself
Why do so many ordinary folks vote to help the rich and hurt themselves?
Why do those on (or who will be on) Social Security and Medicare vote for Romney and Ryan? Ryan calls Social Security a Ponzi scheme, a collectivist system that we should end. Romney wants to turn Medicare into vouchers, which won’t adequately cover costs. And if you’re old and in the private market, who will insure you, anyway?
I have friends who don’t make enough money to pay income taxes, but they want Romney even though his plan will bring Mitt’s taxes down and raise their own rates:
| For those making | Taxes would |
| Under $30,000 | Increase $183 |
| $50-75K | Increase $641 |
| $1 million + | Decrease $87,000 |
(Source: Tax Policy Center and Brookings Institute)
Romney complains about people who pay no income taxes – the lazy 47% — and says everybody should pay them. Unless you’re an investor. Ryan wants to bring the capital gains rate down to 0. Then Mitt wouldn’t pay income taxes, either.
One of my friends who’s uninsured hates Obamacare, but now his daughter’s in the hospital.
Another guy I know is blind but he’s a Romney fan. Since Romney will cut all spending outside of defense, Social Security and Medicare, this guy will be out of luck.
What’s up?
Turns out, people tend to see through the eyes of the privileged because the privileged have more control over ideas. They own television and radio stations, newspapers and magazines. They run government — and get campaign contributions from wealthy donors, who expect something in return. They fund think-tanks to create an acceptable message. Billionaire-owned Fox News and friends then spread the word.
Example: A wealthy Wall Street businessman makes a big contribution to his local member of Congress. He has a conversation telling her that a low rate on capital gains will encourage investment (a message created in think tanks). There’s no proof of this, but the excuse will do. Fox and friends then spread the word. Now repeat over and over so that people begin to believe it.
Others could find excuses for tax cuts, too: I should pay lower taxes because…
- My job is dangerous
- I’m a small business owner whose work involves manual labor and I must retire early
- I have to work hard for a living instead of sit on my butt and let my money work for me
These folks just don’t fund think tanks or have the campaign cash to change the tax rate.
For good measure think tanks message claims that minorities take money – in the form of welfare – away from hardworking whites. Welfare uses less than 1% of the federal budget. But it’s a great distraction from the redistribution of wealth from the middle-class and the poor to the rich, via outsourcing, offshoring, union-busting, technology replacing workers and failing to raise the minimum wage, for instance. (Not to mention big tax cuts, loopholes and shelters for the wealthiest).
As Nobel Prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, describes the charade:
Do everything you can to exaggerate the disincentive effects of higher taxes, while trying to convince middle-income voters that the benefits of government programs go to other people. And at the same time, you’d do everything you can to disenfranchise lower-income citizens, so that the median voter has a higher income than the median citizen.
Ah, but what if the truth comes out?
Easy-breezy: Warn against academics, liberal media bias, and fact-checkers so that folks will continue voting in the interests of the rich and powerful, and against themselves.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, Dorothy.
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No Longer Blinded by the Right
“It’s not fair that you get a free lunch when my mom has to work to pay for mine.”
That’s what I told a classmate at age 10.
In this view I was like a lot of conservatives.
In his book, Why Americans Hate Welfare, Martin Gilens found that while most want to fight poverty, many don’t like welfare, feeling the recipients are lazy and undeserving.
George Lakoff studies how language affects the mind. He says conservative morality is based on the notion that people should have “liberty to seek their self interest and their own well-being without worrying or being responsible for the well-being or interest of anybody else,” especially since — in their view — welfare fosters a “culture of dependency.”
All we need is equal opportunity, right?
Until taking a high school course taught by a conservative economist and a liberal political scientist, presenting opposing views, I had thought that equal opportunity meant that everyone was free to get a job.
Turns out, there’s not an even playing field.
A poor child sits in class but can’t read the chalkboard or a book because she needs glasses. Or she can’t focus on her studies because of a toothache. Or she can’t concentrate because she’s so hungry. If she’s not white she’ll likely face racial discrimination, too.
This little girl is less likely to learn, graduate and work, becoming a drain on society instead — whether through welfare or crime.
How can she get proper nutrition and health care so that she can get a decent education? Taxing those blessed with more is an obvious route. After all, it’s not fair that some kids are lucky enough to have rich parents and all the advantages that brings.
Republicans say tax cuts for “job creators” (the rich) will cure everything, including the economy. Even though businesses don’t hire just because they have extra money on hand. Really, businesses hire out of increased demand from consumers – who would have more money to spend if tax cuts were focused on the middle class. And if jobs for teachers, police, firefighters and people who build infrastructure were brought back.
But if those with more are unwilling to pay a bit more in taxes, how can poor kids get a shot at success?
Some suggest charity. But even with all the charitable giving little children still go hungry and go without healthcare. And go without educations.
So I moved leftward.
And so did Jeremiah Goulka, a former conservative strategist. As he explained in a post he wrote for TomDispatch.com and reposted in Common Dreams:
My old Republican worldview was flawed because it was based upon a small and particularly rosy sliver of reality. To preserve that worldview, I had to believe that people had morally earned their “just” desserts, and I had to ignore those whining liberals who tried to point out that the world didn’t actually work that way. I think this shows why Republicans put so much effort into “creat[ing] our own reality,” into fostering distrust of liberals, experts, scientists, and academics, and why they won’t let a campaign “be dictated by fact-checkers” (as a Romney pollster put it). It explains why study after study shows – examples here, here, and here — that avid consumers of Republican-oriented media are more poorly informed than people who use other news sources or don’t bother to follow the news at all.
When I scolded my young classmate with a free lunch ticket I hadn’t realized that it wasn’t fair that I was lucky enough to have parents who could feed me.
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Why Is There A War On Women?
Conservatives insist there is no war on women. They must be willfully ignorant to miss the signs.
In recent years the extreme right has voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, they have refused to protect all women in the U.S. from domestic violence, they have pushed to block cancer screenings and HIV testing for poor women, they have voted against contraception and abortion that could save women’s lives. Five states now require women seeking abortions to endure ultrasounds, which might require intrusive, vaginal probes. Some have made light of rape, narrowing the definition to “forcible” rape (what’s nonforcible rape?) or, as Amanda Marcotte at RH Reality Check points out:
Showing their true colors has been a theme of anti-choicers this campaign season, from Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment to Huckabee’s extolling the virtues of rape as a baby delivery system to Paul Ryan minimizing rape by calling it a “method of conception”… They don’t really think rape is a big deal—it’s not like raping uterus vessels is the same as violating people, right?
But what’s behind the war? Here’s one idea: sexist men fear that independent women won’t need them.
Marcotte points out that attempts to control women swell whenever women become more independent. She may have a point. We’ve seen increasing attempts to use government to control women as we become more independent. And the same thing occurs in relationships when some men destroy contraception, hoping their wives or girlfriends will get pregnant and become more dependent.
And the same men who work to limit women’s control over their bodies say things like this, from Rep. Allen West of Florida:
And all of these women that have been neutering American men and bringing us to the point of this incredible weakness. Let them know that we are not going to have our men become subservient.
Or Rush Limbaugh:
The average size of a penis is roughly 10 percent smaller than it was 50 years ago. And the researchers say air pollution is why. Air pollution, global warming, has been shown to negatively impact penis size, say Italian researchers.
I don’t buy this. I think it’s feminism.
Well then, men had better get their control over women back, and soon!
Marcotte sums it up:
Hostility to abortion rights and contraception access is about gender anxiety. It’s about this strange fear that unless women are forced into a subservient, dependent position to men, women will not want anything to do with men. Anti-choicers are reacting to a paranoid belief that if women are totally free to choose our own paths, we won’t choose to have men on our journeys. It’s yet further proof that misogyny has an element of man-hating to it, because the misogynist believes that men are not capable of being true friends and partners to women.
Looks like feminists have a higher opinion of men than these sexist men do, themselves.
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