Making the Political Personal

crunktastic asks a great question: Can I feel safe in the softness of your touch if you don’t feel led to question a culture where other men routinely touch other women violently? Its a great question, and one worth considering beyond gender politics as well. ps – Note to crunktastic, throwing in a historically inaccurate [...]

Fear Leads to Violence

You don’t have to be Yoda to understand that fear leads to hate and ultimately to violence.  This post by Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon is worth reading in its entirety: I do think there’s value in talking about the use of inciting language, like Sarah Palin is fond of doing, but I have to [...]

The Attack on Giffords Was NOT Senseless

To be clear, the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her staff was not senseless* nor unspeakable. We MUST speak about it. It was not meaningless. It was the act of yet another crazed and violent far right conservative – and targeted a conservative Democrat.  That is the political atmosphere we live in, and if [...]

Today in Stupid Hate Crimes…

Two homophobes were charged with assaulting a gay man… in a gay bar: Two men have been charged with a hate crime after an attack on a gay man in the bathroom of a historic gay bar in downtown Manhattan early Sunday morning Could this be as depressingly stupid as we are thinking? The 34-year [...]

When Religious Insanity Maims and Kills Children

Religion – throughout history – has on occasion stoked the fires of ignorance, hate, and violence.  The attacks on witchcraft – often a cover for overt misogyny or the elimination of competing religions – are a particularly brazen example.  Witch hunts continue to this day in Nigeria.  Specifically targeting children (nytimes – may prompt you [...]

Religious Conservative Incestual Rape Apologists

Sharron Angle is making public a textbook psychotic position on the horrible matter of incestual rape that leads to a pregnancy.  Digby Reports: Sharron Angle has a plan for girls who are raped by their fathers and get pregnant. Force the little girl to have a child and then adopt both of them out to [...]

What Police Murder Says About Us

The Police Officer who murdered an innocent man on San Francisco’s public transit system gets a lenient verdict – essentially concluding that the fear of black people is legally defensible.  As Digby notes: He was just trying to teach the little bastard a lesson by swearing at him and then shooting him full of electricity [...]

Health Care Reform in a Nutshell

The Republicans are engaging in fascist tactics to repress town hall Democracy while spitting out the most vicious and fearful lies they can think up. The misnamed center straight up wants to kill health care reform. The Democrats are working to ensure whatever reform exists will have as little meaning as possible, keeping the control [...]

Against Institutionalized Child Abuse

We live in a sick, twisted world. Sometimes it is too much. This is one of those times (via Jesus’ General). These places need to be shut the fuck down.

Question for Randall Terry

Randall Terry, Since you are effectively endorsing murder, if someone kills you will you have reaped what you’ve sown? Or just maybe, will a fucking crime have been committed? I disagree with you strongly, but I will never, ever advocate violence against you. That’s a key difference of character between us. And I feel for [...]

Andrew Sullivan: Shutting Down Discourse

If there is one thing I hate more than watching journalists cook up weak or phony examples of left wing wrong doing to “balance” their stories, its when those journalists use that nonsense to attempt to shut down discourse. Andrew Sullivan is a choice exemplar. He gives his Moore award to Sara Robinson for her [...]

Its Hard to Say Rape

Its hard to say rape, nevermind talk about it.  Yet talking about rape is the surest way to fight it.  Leaving rape as an unspeakable part of our discourse leaves victims and criminals out of the public consciousness, and only serves to aide rapists and rape-apologists.  The more we talk about rape, the less they [...]

Israel vs Palestine: Trust

A huge problem I have negotiating the very rough waters of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is trust. Both sides have such a problem seeing and understanding the other that the views pouring out of that miasma are convoluted and stained with assumption.  The pro-Palestine side seems to think a rain of rockets is a mild annoyance, [...]

Anti Israel Protests and Staying Safe

There are two kinds of protests going on right now.  Anti-Israel and Anti-War.  The media is conflating the two.  See if you can spot the subtle difference that has Reuters confused. Protest 1 (emphasis mine): demonstrators at the Israeli embassy in Dublin threw shoes and carried a mock coffin, covered with pictures of wounded or [...]

Police in San Francisco Commit Murder

This is horrifying (Holly at Feministe, emphasis mine): On New Year’s morning, the San Francisco BART police–yes, transit cops–dragged a bunch of young men off a train, including Oscar Grant. An officer then proceeded to execute Grant of them with a gunshot through the back, while he was restrained and lying face-down on the ground. [...]