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Mar. 16th, 2012 03:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* In Arizona, they are pushing a bill to allow employers to fire women for using birth control. After all, whether or not a woman is sexually active is the employer's business, right?
* One of the tactics the bosses used to prevent Unionization in the early days was racial/ethnic division. They would hire scabs of a different racial/ethnic group during strikes and pay folks to yell about how those dirty *Insert racial/ethnic slur here* took our jobs! As long as a Union stayed whites only, or no Irish/Italian/whatever, there would always be angry folks they could use to break strikes. They'd finance/buy ads etc. to encourage racist diatribes. The more hatred, the better for those in power and the weaker the Unions. I wonder how much of this sort of thinking is behind the whipping up of racial hatred here in the twenty first century. Scream about how Mexico is invading us at a time when there is zero net immigration from Mexico. Use anti-black code words like Rick Santorum or out right claim African Americans have no work ethic like Newt Gingrich. Circulate racist cartoons or "jokes" and AstroTurf anti-Obama rallies where you know the most ignorant element will show up with racist signs. At the same time outlaw Unions, disenfranchise millions of poor white and POC voters, outlaw protests (Georgia), do everything possible to make it so ordinary people can't combine and stand up for their rights. Let's hope folks are brighter this time and see through all this deliberately divisive stuff. Let's hope this time the average person will be sensible enough to act in zir best interest instead of getting distracted by racial/ethnic scapegoating. I'm not sanguine, but I'd love to be surprised.
* Debunking "Climategate:" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#46754847
* I was going to give you a beautiful CNN clip featuring female legislators fight back against the Republican anti-woman agenda, but CNN sucks as far as posting clips I'd actually like to link up in a timely fashion or at all. *Sigh*
* The Army has pulled advertising from the Limbaugh show.
* It always alarms be when the Daily Show breaks a story I don't see anyone else much covering. If you missed the 3/15 thing on us yanking UNESCO funding, I encourage you to check out the John Oliver segments.
* So there's another round of Wallis Simpson nostalgia going around in the culture, which always makes me queasy. I get it. A King abdicated for love of her. It sounds really romantic, until you remember the King in question was pro-NAZI in the 1930's. People were literally being herded into death camps and he was using what power and influence that was left to the English crown to push the British Government to support Hitler. I don't think being literally pro-NAZI is even vaguely romantic. Sorry, I just don't. Imagine what it would have been like to have a Hitler partisan on the throne while Germany marched across Europe, giving pro-NAZI speeches and stirring people up to vote for Mosely and his ilk. Eeeeeew! I'm glad he abdicated and went into exile; I'm just sorry he didn't take the Union of British fascists with him. (Or was it British Union of fascists? The name changed at some point). This is not Godwin's Law: These are actual fascists, actually pro-Hitler, actual pro-genocide people. So pardon me if I'm not jumping on the Wallis Simpson nostalgia train. I suppose she is a heroine, in that she got that disgusting pig Edward VIII off the throne, but the idea of him as a romantic lead makes me queasy, and I don't want to picture what she did to make that happen. Also, she herself was pro-NAZI and had lots of NAZI friends. Eeeeew! No thanks. I'm sitting out this wave of romanticization of two people who approved of atrocities.
* I am still trying to decide if tomorrow should be a rest day or a get stuff done day.
* It turns out I'm still not okay with 9/11 themed fiction. Sorry, David Leviathan.
* Rm recently said, "Kurt actively both aligns himself with a community and an identity and is also very interested in being what is, in Lima, OH, at least, something that seems like a species of one. " That's always how I felt growing up in Pennsylvania; I called myself "an alien anthropologist." In a lot of ways I am still a species of one and always have been.
Seriously, there's a reason I'm finding rm's writing on Glee more interesting than the show itself and this is exhibit A.
* O.o: http://instagr.am/p/HzDbMYkiRx/
* One of the tactics the bosses used to prevent Unionization in the early days was racial/ethnic division. They would hire scabs of a different racial/ethnic group during strikes and pay folks to yell about how those dirty *Insert racial/ethnic slur here* took our jobs! As long as a Union stayed whites only, or no Irish/Italian/whatever, there would always be angry folks they could use to break strikes. They'd finance/buy ads etc. to encourage racist diatribes. The more hatred, the better for those in power and the weaker the Unions. I wonder how much of this sort of thinking is behind the whipping up of racial hatred here in the twenty first century. Scream about how Mexico is invading us at a time when there is zero net immigration from Mexico. Use anti-black code words like Rick Santorum or out right claim African Americans have no work ethic like Newt Gingrich. Circulate racist cartoons or "jokes" and AstroTurf anti-Obama rallies where you know the most ignorant element will show up with racist signs. At the same time outlaw Unions, disenfranchise millions of poor white and POC voters, outlaw protests (Georgia), do everything possible to make it so ordinary people can't combine and stand up for their rights. Let's hope folks are brighter this time and see through all this deliberately divisive stuff. Let's hope this time the average person will be sensible enough to act in zir best interest instead of getting distracted by racial/ethnic scapegoating. I'm not sanguine, but I'd love to be surprised.
* Debunking "Climategate:" http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#46754847
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
* I was going to give you a beautiful CNN clip featuring female legislators fight back against the Republican anti-woman agenda, but CNN sucks as far as posting clips I'd actually like to link up in a timely fashion or at all. *Sigh*
* The Army has pulled advertising from the Limbaugh show.
* It always alarms be when the Daily Show breaks a story I don't see anyone else much covering. If you missed the 3/15 thing on us yanking UNESCO funding, I encourage you to check out the John Oliver segments.
* So there's another round of Wallis Simpson nostalgia going around in the culture, which always makes me queasy. I get it. A King abdicated for love of her. It sounds really romantic, until you remember the King in question was pro-NAZI in the 1930's. People were literally being herded into death camps and he was using what power and influence that was left to the English crown to push the British Government to support Hitler. I don't think being literally pro-NAZI is even vaguely romantic. Sorry, I just don't. Imagine what it would have been like to have a Hitler partisan on the throne while Germany marched across Europe, giving pro-NAZI speeches and stirring people up to vote for Mosely and his ilk. Eeeeeew! I'm glad he abdicated and went into exile; I'm just sorry he didn't take the Union of British fascists with him. (Or was it British Union of fascists? The name changed at some point). This is not Godwin's Law: These are actual fascists, actually pro-Hitler, actual pro-genocide people. So pardon me if I'm not jumping on the Wallis Simpson nostalgia train. I suppose she is a heroine, in that she got that disgusting pig Edward VIII off the throne, but the idea of him as a romantic lead makes me queasy, and I don't want to picture what she did to make that happen. Also, she herself was pro-NAZI and had lots of NAZI friends. Eeeeew! No thanks. I'm sitting out this wave of romanticization of two people who approved of atrocities.
* I am still trying to decide if tomorrow should be a rest day or a get stuff done day.
* It turns out I'm still not okay with 9/11 themed fiction. Sorry, David Leviathan.
* Rm recently said, "Kurt actively both aligns himself with a community and an identity and is also very interested in being what is, in Lima, OH, at least, something that seems like a species of one. " That's always how I felt growing up in Pennsylvania; I called myself "an alien anthropologist." In a lot of ways I am still a species of one and always have been.
Seriously, there's a reason I'm finding rm's writing on Glee more interesting than the show itself and this is exhibit A.
* O.o: http://instagr.am/p/HzDbMYkiRx/