...the fuck?! PONY!

Okay Hivemind, riddle me this...

How, the FUCK, am I supposed to react to the written skidsmarks you monocleclub wankers have left in my comments? tell me this. I've got Ren asserting that some physical law of the fucking universe forbids me from objecting to anything she says, Octogalore fails at life (again, I would not want ot be you when you reincarnate...) with both another failed attempt at grammar criticism (I speak vernacular english Octagalore! get the fuck over this concept already) and some classic bad faith arguement in form of the hoary old "conspiracy theory" chestnut.

*le sigh*

I've got Daisy mad at me because of, I fuck you not, a misplaced hyphen and Ravenm failing at Ally work quite spectacularly.

But it's the good kind of failier, you know, the kind that is wrong in that way taht is begs for a correction that is oh so right.

Folks, MLK has explained this already; it is very easy to trick a POC, you just have to make them trust your crackery ass and then punished them for that misplaced trust.

It's a side effect of living in a racist, white supremicist society, where it is literally beaten into POC's heads that white opinions are far far more valid than their own, where white voices are given room while POC voices are shouted down.

Being an ally means creating spaces where POC are accomodated and treated like equals, so when, after several years in which Ren has humored every crazy ass MRA and white racist misogynist that felt like posting a comment on her blog, she decides to pick out and hold up for ridicule - how dare Kate tell you that a phrase you use makes your blog a hostile place for her! The nerve of the chink Other! She almost acts like she doesn't ph33r your We-sha-sha! the impudence of it! - a POC who was just expressing how something Ren said made her feel, I am obligated to make some noise about that, and too keep making a noise about that because silence is what the racist society needs me to produce to enable it's bullshit.

And the absolute ally-vacuum into which I shouted in that comment thread is... well that's what "the silence of our freinds" thing MEANS you idiot white people. And far be it from me to point fingers, but could someone please remind me why, despite the fact that I, unlike "radical" folks like Daisy, am not a regular commenter at Ren the Magical Asian-jews's ethnically challenged asian lady's blog, I was the only one who called bullshit when Ren;

NOT ONLY, used the racist "Political Correctness" dogwhistle to silence and dehumanise a POC,

NOT ONLY co-opted the oppression experienced by asian americans so that she could use it like a commodity rather than the fucked up bullshit women like Kate have to put up with every fucking day of their lives that it actually is,

NOT ONLY then proceeded to pretend that she and her white regular commenters (like Amber) had authority enough to decide whether or not that POC was ALLOWED to be offended by something Ren said, when only a sociopath would presume that what a person feels is a debatable thing.

No agree to disagree there of course, and no allies hanging around that blog neither.

Let me now go off on a seeming tangent for second:

My objections as an anarchist to the monocle club are not to the group per se, but the power dynamics inherent to such exclusive secret clubs, linked into the same mechanisms for utilizing social capital that you find in Kos's townhouse group, or in the little club Vallenti and Marcotte formed a year or so back, or like the "safe spaces" Radfems are always using to fuck over sex workers and transexuals - And we can know that groups like this impose a hierarchy onto the social groups they arise from because that's what all the other groups have done, even though the other feminist groups who have these groups are, just like you guys, allegedly against such abusive power structures and hierarchies.

And yes, calling a safe space a "book club", or a hippo for that matter, doesn't actually change those underlying dyanmics and hierarchies.

My second major, philisophical problem you could say, with such groups is that they generally require an acceptance of what Marx in manifesto call "critical utopian socialism", and thus are inherently flawed and self restraining for the same reasons, and I cannot repeat what Mardx wrote better than him so I'll just quote the relevent section:

We do not here refer to that literature which, in every great modern revolution, has always given voice to the demands of the proletariat, such as the writings of Babeuf [4] and others.

The first direct attempts of the proletariat to attain its own ends, made in times of universal excitement, when feudal society was being overthrown, necessarily failed, owing to the then undeveloped state of the proletariat, as well as to the absence of the economic conditions for its emancipation, conditions that had yet to be produced, and could be produced by the impending bourgeois epoch alone. The revolutionary literature that accompanied these first movements of the proletariat had necessarily a reactionary character. It inculcated universal asceticism and social levelling in its crudest form.

The socialist and communist systems, properly so called, those of Saint-Simon [5], Fourier [6], Owen [7], and others, spring into existence in the early undeveloped period, described above, of the struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie (see Section 1. Bourgeois and Proletarians).

The founders of these systems see, indeed, the class antagonisms, as well as the action of the decomposing elements in the prevailing form of society. But the proletariat, as yet in its infancy, offers to them the spectacle of a class without any historical initiative or any independent political movement.

Since the development of class antagonism keeps even pace with the development of industry, the economic situation, as they find it, does not as yet offer to them the material conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat. They therefore search after a new social science, after new social laws, that are to create these conditions.

Historical action is to yield to their personal inventive action; historically created conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones; and the gradual, spontaneous class organization of the proletariat to an organization of society especially contrived by these inventors. Future history resolves itself, in their eyes, into the propaganda and the practical carrying out of their social plans.

In the formation of their plans, they are conscious of caring chiefly for the interests of the working class, as being the most suffering class. Only from the point of view of being the most suffering class does the proletariat exist for them.

The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favored. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at large, without the distinction of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people when once they understand their system, fail to see in it the best possible plan of the best possible state of society?

Hence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social gospel.

Such fantastic pictures of future society, painted at a time when the proletariat is still in a very undeveloped state and has but a fantastic conception of its own position, correspond with the first instinctive yearnings of that class for a general reconstruction of society.

But these socialist and communist publications contain also a critical element. They attack every principle of existing society. Hence, they are full of the most valuable materials for the enlightenment of the working class. The practical measures proposed in them -- such as the abolition of the distinction between town and country, of the family, of the carrying on of industries for the account of private individuals, and of the wage system, the proclamation of social harmony, the conversion of the function of the state into a more superintendence of production -- all these proposals point solely to the disappearance of class antagonisms which were, at that time, only just cropping up, and which, in these publications, are recognized in their earliest indistinct and undefined forms only. These proposals, therefore, are of a purely utopian character.

The significance of critical-utopian socialism and communism bears an inverse relation to historical development. In proportion as the modern class struggle develops and takes definite shape, this fantastic standing apart from the contest, these fantastic attacks on it, lose all practical value and all theoretical justifications. Therefore, although the originators of these systems were, in many respects, revolutionary, their disciples have, in every case, formed mere reactionary sects. They hold fast by the original views of their masters, in opposition to the progressive historical development of the proletariat. They, therefore, endeavor, and that consistently, to deaden the class struggle and to reconcile the class antagonisms. They still dream of experimental realization of their social utopias, of founding isolated phalansteres, of establishing "Home Colonies", or setting up a "Little Icaria" [8] -- pocket editions of the New Jerusalem -- and to realize all these castles in the air, they are compelled to appeal to the feelings and purses of the bourgeois. By degrees, they sink into the category of the reactionary conservative socialists depicted above, differing from these only by more systematic pedantry, and by their fanatical and superstitious belief in the miraculous effects of their social science.

They, therefore, violently oppose all political action on the part of the working class; such action, according to them, can only result from blind unbelief in the new gospel.

The Owenites in England, and the Fourierists in France, respectively, oppose the Chartists and the Reformistes.

And So I must also object to your group on communist grounds.

Thirdly; As an ally I must again Object to your group on practical grounds. to summarize, no gated community ever changed the world.

That is largely my objection to the radfems' silly little safe spaces, you can't change hte world from outside, and if you think that you can build a shangri-la so awesome that unreconstructed crackers will flock to you and demand to be let in...well I have news for you, the crakcers like being crackers, more importantly the system that made them crackers in the first place is bigger, and weilds more of the power that these sorts of groups are trying to weild.

This is one way to intrepret Audre Lord's "you cannot demolish the master's house with the master's tools" - you don't take a knife to a gun fight, and if your opponent has more guns than you have, then going to a gun fight at all seems stupid.

And here's the thing that I suspect I've been leaving unspoken when I should have: surely there's a better way to do things than this?

You can't deconstruct privelage in a secret little exclusive group because privelage works by it being kept invisible - if your attempt to tackle privealge doesn't consist of being LOUD and being PUBLIC rather than polite and private it WILL fail, because of what privealge is and how it works.

More importantly you can't build a community from exclusivity - you partition off the conversation between allies and you stop the silent majority (the lurkers) from being able to gain anything from it, and you create a circle jerk.

And you try to pass that off as "ally work", as "SRS Anti-racist bizness", then well... don't.

Because that's the thing, I can't force you to listen, I can't force you to actually think or have an open and public conversation about this group, about what it should involve and the draw backs of various approachs, and how maybe you should set up checks and balances to stop abuses of power and to limit the degree of damage an unhealthy and uncritical social cohesion can bring about.

Because you have far more social capital than I can bring to bear, and you have more social captial than I am willing to accumulate to fight you all.

And while I suppose I could hack into your accounts, your email, your bank accounts and similar, and dredge up your personal details and basically utilize the exact same pre-existnt power structures that your group, as it stands, has been supportive of, I have a horrible sinking feeling that I'm morally obliged to take the higher ground. Also I is lazy and personal bank details has not got a flavor

But I don't expect you to listen, you've shown that you don't want to take anything I say in good faith, you would rather prefer to dismiss and dehumanize me to protect your clique, and you're free to do that I guess.

This is a public space and public spaces are, in our society, by definition, the "safe space" of assholes - sure the neo-nazis have to skulk around stormfront, but you visit most of the "big blogs", and you'll find that any talk about race, or sexism, or whatever and privelage will be quickly shut down, shouted down and then locked down, because there's nothing worse than being called "racist" or "sexist" and it's all so unfair to the poor opressed rich white guy.

Don't be the poor oppressed rich white guy, don't be self pitying.

And even more unfortunately the old saying goes that you can't teach a student who isn't willing to learn, so as of this moment please take it as read that I am no longer going to self identify as an "ally", considering that you guys will undoubtably drag the term through the mud, and make us whtie folk who give more of a shit about people rather than privelage look really fucking bad by association, during this year - even more so than you already have of course, thank you for that Ren and Amber - and I have no power to stop you.

So I guess you win? Or whatever this is exactly.

Bon apetit XXX

FEEAAR! And while you're doing that, vote hillary '08!

MORATORIUM!

I'm declaring a moratorium on stupid radfems. No existing for a month.

In the mean time here's a time line:

22 june, 2006: I write a blog post pointing out that secret organisations never end well, in response to the revelation that Middle Managers like Kos and John Avarosis had been operating a little thing called "townhouse".

Quoth myself:

Now the thing that occurs to me is, WHY ON EARTH DO YOU NEED TO DO THIS THING IN SECRET!? Come on Kos, even you must be able to figure out that that was going to come back to bite you in the ass at some point, you’re coordinating and holding discussion with a group of left wing and democratic party supporting journalists, bloggers and activists via this mailing list, and you’ve sworn them to secrecy? Why on earth would you do that? Hell-fucking-lo Kos, did you not realize that a “new people-powered movement”, has to, you know, NOT involve an exclusive and secretive group of media peeps holding closed discussion that could effect the wider movement? Did you not understand that a freaking mystic oligarchy is probably not the best way to organize support for the democratic party? Are you not aware that you have justified any rightwinger who now calls you a “stalinist”? You’ve made a crazy right wing insult accurate for god’s sake, even Bill “I invented Gitmo for HIV+ Haitians” Clinton hasn’t done that.

Suffice to say that I am not a fan of secret oligarchies - if you can't run your conspiracy in plain view you probably shouldn't run it. transparency is an issue with such things, as is accountability.

And as with all things, knowing is half the battle. (The other half? Guitar Hero!)

Sometime in 2007: belle sets up a secret email list, for reasons that I can't help but call "abject laziness". From an outsider's POV it sounds pretty much like she just tricked some WOC into acting as gophers because she was too busy to bookmark some sites/type in their URL/follow links around herself - stuff that's neither time consuming or difficult basically, but which nonetheless was sold to the WOC as a sort of safe space for people who get crap thrown at them.

Of course the road to hell is paved with good intentions...

sometime in or around early december, 2007: flamefest erupts because of some stuff Amber starts by slapping people in the head with her racist parents (father or mother depending on what day you ask about it), leading to Donna and M leaving the secret email club, and thus depriving Belle of her two main gophers and thus causing the whole thing to devolve into a "we H8 Hrt" club...but *secret*, because otherwise bitching about Heart starting silly little (open) safe spaces wouldn't be ironic and fucked up.

God forbid someone take the higher ground and keep it for five fucking seconds....

Mid december 2007: Amber runs whining to Bitch|Lab, thus prompting this thread, which manages to make both BL and Amber look like complete assholes.

Some of the points BL makes are valid though, especially the ones about "wow, doesn't actually forming a little posse make everyone who scoffed at Marcotte accusing us of having a secret cabal, kinda look like idiots now huh?"

But Belle disagreed! And so calls BL and Amber self centered (presumably after fixing large brass rings around her head to stop it exploding from mental dissonance) in a post that neither mentions names nor links to anything, thus leaving anyone who didn't already know what the fuck she was talking about in the dark, and making a public post kinda...pointless, nonsensical? One can only assume following the advice she gives in her own post was too much for the poor little lambykins, aww.

Bonus Dilbert Points of course for complaining about how she doesn't have the time for the busy and complex business of moderating the groups she created primarily because she was too busy to just fucking read blogs in the first place.

And there's hte special honorable mention for how catbert there acts as though it's shocking, SHOCKING that BL might have been pissed off at the whole thing, "but we were BFF! I mean you've written a lot about how you object to those inner circle type cliques after having seen it tear apart so many other groups you've been involved with, and I did exclude you from the group, and insult your intelligence a bit when you did find out about it, but seriously why are you acting like such a jerk towards me, jeez..."

Skip ahead a bit, Belle has curled up into her email based womb (again), except the group is now a largely (upper-middle class) whites only affair, the blogosphere's not heard much about this because most of the people involved were hubbloggers - lots of the even smaller blogs tend to link into them, and they link into each other, so posts at BL or my blog don't really spread far because they would have to go through those blogs who have pinky sworn to silence on the matter... for the sake of group cohesion or something else that doesn't make any sense.

That's the slight problem with people who you think are smart, but who then go and set up secret white-only oligarchies; any assumptions you made about them being smart were clearly wrong, otherwise they wouldn't have thought that a secret whites-only oligarchy was a really neat idea.

During this period I'm a bit confuddled. Basically my life since july has gone:

- homeless.

- stay at friend's place.

- Start experiencing rage attacks along with massive stress based crying jags as a result of the homeless period.

- Anorexia goes into overdrive and my period disappears during late august, but fortunately it reappears when I get my eating pattern sorted out again

- Ren randomly insults me, her commenters go all borg-esque on me and join in. As the insults tend less towards "R is being stupid and btichy and needs to get a grip" and more towards "oh R is a terrible writer, everything she says is just wrong" and others that were basically their generic anti-heart comments with my name in place, even if that didn't make all that much sense.

- Due to the sheer randomness of the attacks and my general low self esteem, I flounce and do an impression of Zippy the pin-head. Admittedly not my finest hour.

- find new apartment, start moving in.

- I start blogging again. Amanda starts yet another round of bullshit.

- start new job.

- finally see BL's post about Belle's secret treehouse club and I'm pissed off, but not sure whether to really take it up because while it raises huge warning flags in my mind, just from the basic concept* of an inner circle like that developing, and regardless of the reasons for it, becuase I know from history that such things never stay true to their origins, no matter how noble. And then their's the issue of the massive empathy failier on Belle and Co's parts, I mean, anyone who's read BL's work during the sex wars or burkagate should have been able to tell that BL was going to have issues with such a thing, and for belle to turn around and pretend that it's totally invalid to have issues with such a thing...

And then as I'm starting to think that maybe I can just ignore it, let the whole thing be, Ren's brings the butt hurt.

Not just any butthurt though, we're talking prime A-grade racist butthurt.

With. Sprinkles.

I should point out that this came after another, almost as bad thread; where Ren let her commenter turn her place into a cesspit, and you remember how I accused Marc of humping his recently deceased dog to death? Well it turned out that I actually do have a standard of decency wrt rhetoric.

That level is reached at about the point where, in response to a relatively tame attack post for Ginmar, Ren commentariat suddenly decided that accusing Ginmar of being mentally ill as a way to dismiss what she was saying.

I think the fact that they were using Ginmar's PTSD, which she got from serving in Gulf War 1, as a way to dismiss her was as bad if not worse than the whole using a mental disorder someone suffers with to attack them, because it is ridiculously dehumanizing - and again this was from people, including Belle, who'd talked, previously, about the importance of empathy and how they stood against dehumanizing people and the violence that that leads to, who suddenly turned around and threw all that out of hte window.
So I wade in, as I am want...

Oh no, if Ginmar chose to join up... well it's what she deserved for helping american imperialism and she has no one to blame but herself...

Comment after comment like that. From Ren, from belle, from others who should know better.

And I'm looking around and I'm starting to get that odd prickling sensation on the back of my neck because I suddenly realise that all of her regular commenters are all, exclusively, upper middleclass, and spewing the most hateful classist bullshit imaginable, at women like me who are getting screwed over by the system they benefit from without the costs that we have to endure for their comfort.

Because anyone who pretends that the working class are not given three, equally evil, choices in life, to either join up with the military, turn to crime and get put in jail, or to be slowly killed by the soul destroying working that will, if we're really really Lucky, provide just enough to keep a roof over our heads and maybe put some instant ramen in our stomachs as well, is a fucking evil bastard themselves, who has decided to make themselves complicit in the oppression working class poeple like myself experience.

Because those rage attacks I've been suffering are due to both the way I got treated while out on the streets last year, and the first time I was homeless back in the 90's as well, by other people, and the little voice inside my head, that told me that it was all my fault and that I deserve that kind of treatment.

Because underlying all the oppression people face is erasure, both the willingness of the victims to accept the bullshit notion of some how deserving to be tortured by a system of Hate, and that willingness of seemingly rational human beings to, with out cause or seeming prompting, to suddenly declare that black people are just jealous when they complain, or Latin@s are just being lazy when they demand a human wage. Underlying oppression is a society that is willing to do any, ANYTHING, rather than admit that such oppression exists, let alone that We, that meta-textual Us, is in any way responsible for it.

And after witnessing that bullshit being thrown by Ren's pals with her tacit acceptance, after the shit with the email list, with Amanda's crap again and again...

That's when I saw this at ren's place.

Ren was told by Kate that a term she used made Ren's blog hostile to her. Kate is voicing how Ren's writing makes her feel, in a remarkably polite way, and asking Ren to do something that really doesn't cost Ren.

So obviously ren did what any Ally would do: she declared that she was asian and then started waffling about how she deosn't do Politically Correct while utterly dismissing Kate's expereince of racism, while dismissing the hurt that Ren's words can.

Because oppression of Ren is the One True Oppression, accept no substitute folks.

And the thing I have to ask, in retrospect, given the entire bushel of bullshit is basically this:

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THOSE PEOPLE!?

I mean because we discussed that sort of thing, I rememeber conversations involving how to be a better ally that dealt with just that sort of sitaution, and everyone being a racist asshole in that thread has called other white people on pulling that crap so...

I'm looking at the people who are supposedly anti-racist, and who've demonstrated intelligence in the past and who has demonstrated that they know better and yet...

And I've been shying away from this, because like a crap Ally myself I've been afraid, cowardly even, my lifes chaotic, and the amount of emotional investment required to, once again, completely write off people I'd thought "Got It", thought were true allies, not with myself, but with the people who need allies, the people who get it in the neck when people like us don't pull through and don't speak up, and let them come for their children because they ain't coming for us yet, and it turned out I was nieve, stupid, cowardly and blind.

I could stand being personally insulted, because there is nothing any of those scumbags could say that is worse than what I say to myself, and I could stand silliness that was probably going to lead to an epic, mind boggling blowout that would at least be fun to watch.

But then Amanda goes and out does herself, and I see another good writer, not one of the heartless sychophantic hacks who buzz around Ren, for obvious metaphorical reasons, but a good writer, and a strong women, and a good woman, and I see how it affects all those other beautiful and I see these silly little cliqueish types, buzzing around it all, saing not very much apart from a bit of empty posturing that makes promises their hearts can't cash, and I'm torn between vomiting and killing myself, because maybe I did something wrong? Maybe the degeneration of these people from actual allies into pathetic self absorbed racists.
Except I'm still blaming mysefl for other people's failings, and I'm suffering because of their problems, and causing suffering because I'm trying to accomadate the feelings of such losers, and staying silent not for any valid reason, but to maintain some fantastic notion I have that the group that we're all tied up in is worth more than actaully supporting those beautiful women who get silenced while the hacks keep chortling to themselves in their dirty little whites only club.

The hell with that.

You still reading this?

I'll be back on the 20th of next month, and you remember that R. Mildred from waaay back who was kinda awesome, back before everyone turned into jagoffs? She'll be back too. I'm gonna clear my head, sort my self out, make out those clear boundaries between myself and the bastard world that got destoryed at some point, see if I can't squeeze a little more free time for RL activism and then I shall return.

And one more thing:

After burkagate, I vowed to punch Amanda in the face should our paths ever accidentally cross.

After this Seal house explosion let me make this promise; should I happen to bump into Bfp, or BA, or M, or Donna or yes, even Nez, I promise to pick them up and mercilessly soak their feet.

It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

Peace out.

*fart*

...And I just farted on Cocksucker's head.

Phuck Phridays.

Here's a funny weblog to amuse you for a while.

NOTE: I'm gonna get a list of "R. Mildred Recommended Reading Rrrlist" together at some point as Kmittenz asked me to.

Obviously there'll be Nietszche, Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu and Marx on there as obvious choices, though I warn you I'll be throwing Protocols of the Elders of Zion on there as well because, unlike silly people who think of it merely as nasty anti-semitic propaganda, what Protocols really is, when you put it into its proper historical context, is basically the earliest formal collection of conservative memes and fascist meta-theory that exists. And viewed like that, it's actually kinda shocking how little the ideas and attacks have changed in the hundred years since protocols was first published (SPOILERS: it has changed very little).

Speaking of which let me share one little brain breaking thing for people who are more psychologically stable than I am right now, who hopefully can come up with something vaguley witty about this.

Basically you've all probably heard of ACC studios, a small group of emotionally retarded comic artists who produce right wing propaganda comics, they're the guys who came up with the whole "cyborg Sean Hannity is a freedom fighter who's fighting an evil french UN peace keeping army who's taken over america and is forcing people to act like strawliberals" thing that did the round a few years back.

ANYWAY, recently they apparently produced a shortish set of comics called "librarro", which is a portmanteu of "Bizarro" and "Libral" - because all their titles have to have the word "liberal" JAMMED somewhere into them - in which John Kerry, Howard Dean, Edward Kennedy and Hillary end up creating bizarro versions of themselves.

Now my problem is not just the lameness, nor the horrific writing going into these comics (which is exemplified by the 6th preview page they have up here), but something far scarier.

basically the bizarro version of Hillary is described as "a sultry anti-feminist".

Am i wrong in thinking that that hints towards the idea that the secret masturbatory fantasy of some (if not most) conservative men somehow involves Hillary Clinton?

Oh did you know that Kevin J Taylor, one of the most influential porn artists of the 90's who's most known for the Tardis-gina'd* WOC protagonist known simply as "Girl" , has a blog?

Going sleepy-byes now.

* bigger on the inside, at least I assume so, due to the fact that Taylor tends to stick Tom Of Finland sized manparts on his male characters.

OMG, even Samurai L Jackson isn't free from the Jealousies!

Srsly.

Fuck This Everything.

I am being quiet

I am being quiet about the whoel Seal press bullshit/appropriation of BFP's voice/the silencing of BFP's Voice by Hillary Voters thing becuase I don't want to start off about Ren and Belle's general bullshit because:

A) I don't want to center something about white people that shouldn't be centered around white people because that's what the white people want me to do really.

B) I don't want to get into the habit of mocking people suffering from mental illness, and NPD is a mental illness as far as I'm concerned, even if the whole "being in a co-depedent relationship with The Seelhoff and the rest of the Nuns Who Say 'Ni!'*" thing isn't a mental illness (get well soon you two).

and C) I think I've proven with both Marcotte and chasingmoksha that I pretty effectively suck at the whole "teaching potential white allies that it doesn't cost you anything to not be a racist douchbag", especially in the face of Ren's intermittent illiteracy thing (and get well from that too hon, you have nothing but my pity atm).

So I'm just leaving it for hte moment, and hoping that BFP comes back when she's hungry rather than doing that whole Obi-Wan style "turn into a large blue ghost, appear randomly to despence advice".

Which you know can only lead to BA breaking her finger when BFP appears unexpectedly while BA's flicking the bean and some poor white ally getting stuck playing Whoopi Goldberg to BFP's Patrick Swaze and translating her for the betterment of other POC.

So I'm sending helaing vibes (well, I'm not actually sending vibrators, because they don't grow on trees you know, but I am using healing vibes at the moment, srsly, this one is allegedly a "back massager" for instance. And if being a white ally doesn't mean "showing largely hollow and meaingingless support for POC while avoiding inconveniencing myself" then I honestly and sincerely don't know what does**) and doing what will best help WOC in this chunky period asshole white ladies are throwing at them I.E. avoiding actually giving them more problems.

Just think of me as a Rodent Cheerleader - a mouse with little pompoms in its forepaws, dressed in a miniskirt and doing the splits for no satisfactory reason.

* So called because while they're probably fine with shrubbery, the whole political lesbian thing points to them having severe problems with honest to god bush ifyouknowwhatImean...

** Because I have a room temperature IQ (celsius, not farenheit), duh.

Gay Look for a Jay Leno?

So blogswarm, so anyway,

Remarkably few pictures of cats licking their asses.

Remarkably more pictures of cats licking this one woman's cooter.

fuck you Leno, fuck you googleimages, fuck you catpussylady.

It's the 80's! (but I feel like the 70's)

Heavy drinking of a weeknight is never a good idea.

Holy fuck: Like slavery

(Via) I'm picking "holy crap!" as my witty commentary on this:

"I pulled up in a car and rolled down the window," he recalls. "Someone said, 'Do you want to get a person?'"

Though the country was in a time of political chaos, the street where he met the trafficker was clean and relatively quiet. A tape of the conversation reveals a calm, concise transaction. He was initially told he could get a 9-year-old sex partner/house slave for $100, but he bargained it down to $50.

"The thing that struck me more than anything afterwards was how incredibly banal the transaction was. It was as if I was negotiating on the street for a used stereo."

In the end, he agreed on the price, but told the trader not to make any moves.

"When I was talking to traffickers, I had a principle that I wouldn't pay for human life," he says.

This principle enabled him to keep a certain distance from the system, but not giving in to the temptation to free a suffering human being was an emotionally taxing struggle, he says.

"It's one thing when you are planning an effort like this, this is a work of journalism — I'm not going to interfere with my subjects. It's another thing when you are in an underground brothel in Bucharest, who has this girl with Down Syndrome, who you know is undergoing rape several times a day. When this girl is offered to me in trade for a used car ... I walk away ... it's not an easy thing to do," he says.

Obligatory Speech Post: Now with 100% more John Barrowman offering cunninglingus!

John Barrowman was in a movie once upon a time.

It was a bad movie.

Here is that movie cut down to a run time of 4 minutes.



I was gonna do a post about the way Obama juxtaposed the daily experience of being a POC in a racist society with the paranoid delusion some white people have about affirmative action, but Kai mostly covered it really.

The only thing I have to add is that, judging by his past speeches, Obama does, unfortunately, seem to be one of those ladder pulling types who's "thing" among his fellow white people is to be okay with white people who object to affirmative action, and even going so far as to apologise and approve of anti-AA politics.

It's why I get this little twiching eyebrow thing going on when people compare him to MLK - basically, affirmative action was something MLK thought was not the whole of the solution, becuase while it dealt with some of the long lasting problems facing POC as a result of the vast history of even-worse-than-current racisms it wasn't the magic bullet that would solve all of them, it was basically a good start to a process that still needs a lot of work to be done on top of that start. So when someone starts talking about how some white people are suffering under delusions of inferiority regarding AA, and that such delusions have just as much validity as does the daily lived experience of POC, (to the point where they can be treated, as Obama did, as equivalent and equal) I imnagine that MLK, if he hadn't been shotm he'd have responded with a stirring, heartfelt speech that could be summarized thusly:

How, in the name of God and all that is holy, is it fairer for white people to pretend they're not getting benefits from historical racism - which they certainly are - to the continued detriment of POC, yet unfair if something is done to counter act that assault upon justice, love and human rights?

I don't like it, I don't like the deep seated waft of Cosby that permeates anything Obama says with regard to race.

But on the other hand the tone, and the subject was new, and shiney and something which no other potential president in the history of our nation has even touched upon.

So my overall feeling is that time may tell if the speech is either a irrelevent peice of pretty sounding hogwash, or a "1.5 steps forward, 1 step back" sort of affair.

Though if Hillary does steal the fucking nomination, no one will even remember it by june so...


HOWEVER, let me point out to all the people who have decided to come out about hating Obama now that, for the first time in his fucking career, he's done something not weaselly and entirely meaingingless; I hated Obama back before it was popular, since 2005 in fact, when he whipped out the Letter To The Kossacks and declared that not only wasn't opposing AA programs racist (which is and was a factually inaccurate statement), but also that being anti-choice wasn't misgynistic at all.

Which was a nice thing for him and penis to declare.

However let me just point out the ways in which arch-sHillacrat Ferraro was in fact kinda right when she said that Obama wouldn't be in the position he is in today if he weren't black.

The surface level aspect of the statement was what caused all the controversy becuase it's playing the race card yada yada, but let's posit some way to make her statement accurate.

for instance, if by "position he is in today" she had meant "in a position where the Klan would threaten to shoot both him and his immediate family" then yes, he would not be in that position today if he weren't black.

But the sad thing is that Ferraro was partially correct in the context she intended as well, Obama is undeniably a token, and hence would not have gotten where he was today if he wasn't black.

But let me explain to you the great racist little twist to the stabbage of racial tokenism; no black person could get away with being as stupid, buffoonish, childish, badly spoken, ineloquent and prone to episodes of borderline kleptomaniacal greed and avarice as white politicians get away with every fucking day of their careers.

Which is to say that Condi and Powell were undeniably the smartest members of the bush administration, and their routine habit of being grossly incompetent is most probably an accidental side effect of the Bush admin's consistent commitment to massive incompetence, that would have seen either of them being thrown out of the administration if they had actually dared to be fully competent anyway.

Now understand what I'm saying: I'm not saying that POC of color are smarter or somehow better than white people, what I'm saying is that politics is racist and that that racism means that there are limitations to how high a POC can go in government unless they act in ways that make them "not scary" to the eyes of the white politicians they'll need to fellate to get any where meaningful.

Imagine for instance you had a presidential candidate who spoke with a thick southern accent, couldn't get through a single speech without flubbing most of the words including the monosyllabic ones, constantly played up his ability to ape gross stereotypes of working class people, acting dumber than a rock in the process and looked a bit like a chimpanzee.

Now imagine he was black, how close to the presidency do you think he'd be able to get?

The deep seated and unintentional irony of Ferraro's declaration is that it preceded the Wright controversy, in which Obama's pastor, with classic black baptist bombastic style and righteous, justified, anger suddenly painted Obama as maybe not as antiseptic a black token as they had believed - which is why you've got the conservative talking heads on every crappy fauz-news type channel calling Obama and his pastor racist.

Because like with the "unfairness" and "racism" of Affirmative Action, there is no racism more unpalletable, no injustice less worthy of nasty little white people wailing and gnashing there teeth at though that maybe, just maybe, a black person somewhere out there is acting like a person, complex, multilayered and not neccesarily your loyal servant, without in someway bending and bowing and constraining themselves to act, at all times and in all ways, to standards and limitations that white people put upon them.

So here's the thing:

When Obama gets confirmed as the DLC's "boy", and he's tearing into senile old Grampa McCain like a small fat child goes at a mountain of ice cream shovel first, I will be delighted to tear both of the bastards apart as they present reasons to.

But while Hillary, extension to Bill's penis that she is, represents no one but herself and other waffling mercenary DINOs who will cling to any brief political fad that passes her way, Obama represents the flip side of the experiences of POC like Andrea Smith, like every POC who's been passed over for promotion, denied a raise or otherwise had their careers retarded because someone above them who's support they need to advance hates them for "what" they are and not how they perform their job.

Ferraro was right, he really wouldn't be where he was today if he wasn't black, just as he wouldn't be where he is today if washington wasn't powered by the heat of burning crosses and it's economy maintained by the pointy white hood industry. If politics weren't racist it's likely another, probably dumber, less well spoken black guy would be in his place.

And the funny thing is that Hillary would still be losing to that dumber black guy, not because of misogyny (because anyone who won't vote for Hillary "because she's a woman" is gonna vote for McCain anyway or is going to vote for hillary on the principle that doing so might give McCain an easy election, so they're not why Obama is doing so well) but because she went from being a reasonably okay politician back in the 90's to being the shallow, superficial rightwing hack she is today and we remember the difference, and hate that shift and her with it.

If it weren't for her immense experience as a campaigner, having helped both Bill on his campaigns and having fought her own various campaigns for senate and for the NYC mayorship*, she wouldn't even be in the position she's in to make those not particularly veiled threats about cheating Obama of his well deserved victory.

{ending goes here}

RIP Arthur C Clarke

Just writeing sutff down before I forget it, pay no attention to the economist behind the blog

If you understand any of this you're probably an economist and I hate you:

Smith's Law: cost of production*(demand/supply)=fundmental price.

Obviously only applies to the stupid little Test Models freemarketeers masturbate to, but even within a "dirty" Marx-Smith Model you're really only adding onto that basic equation.

Including the ghastly hideousness of Raymond's* Inconstant: Gross Costs of Production*(cost of bribes to avoid regulation*SQRTthe waist line of the companies' CEO/the waistline of their spouse)

Economics=Srs but poorly explained Bizness

* Named for Lee "meat flaps" Raymond, Ex-head of ExxonMobil, who's chin justifies all fat jokes. Do a google image search, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Why harry potter needs glasses

JeJeJe, as nez always says.

Rifles of the IRA

So I saw this Billy connolly Video on youtube right;

And because I had the little bagpipe tune he sings near the end stuck in my head for a few days I started looking for scottish bagpipe music.

Shut up.

And eventually I found a catchy little Irish number, that does not contain bagpipes whatsoever, called "Rifles of the IRA" sung by wolfe tones, which is ridiuclously catchy but here's the lyrics:

In nineteen hundred and sixteen
The forces of the crown
For to take Orange, White, and Green
Bombarded Dublin Town
But in '21, Britannia's sons
Were forced earn their pay, when
The black and tans, like lightening ran
From the Rifles of the IRA!

They burned their way through Munster
Then laid Leinster on the rack
Through Connacht, and through Ulster
Marched the men in brown and black
They shot down wives and children
In their own heroic way, but
The black and tans, like lightening ran
From the Rifles of the IRA!

They hanged young Kevin Barry high
Just a lad of eighteen years
Cork City's flames lit up in the sky

But our brave lads new no fear
The Cork brigade with hand-grenades
In ambush wait and lay, and
The black and tans, like lightening ran
From the Rifles of the IRA!

The tans were got, taken out and shot
By a brave and valiant few
Sean Treacy, Dinny Lacey
And Tom Barry's gallant crew
Though we're not free yet
We won't forget
Until our dying day, how
The black and tans, like lightening ran
From the Rifles of the IRA!

It is however very very catchy like so much chlamydia, so if I don't post for a while I have probably been lynched by a mob of orangemen.

Here's some more Billy Connolly in the mean time, because he is awefully funny donchaknow.

I draw the line at (on?) my pussy

bascially my new apartment has mice. White mice, who can in fact jump quite a distance btw.

This proves to be their undoing somewhat.

So I asked a friend to borrow his cat, who is called "cocksucker" and is gorgeous if not exactly the most solitary of cats; as in he does not like being left on his lonesome and if I sit on the edge of the chair I am currently sitting on, he will jump on the back and then slide down between the back of hte chair and my butt, whereupon he will commence to spoon my butt.

This is the non-painful thing he does to my butt.

Alternatively he will jump down there and then proceed to attempt to burrow (?) down my pants and up my ass, which is why my ass is now covered in claw marks. He is the most detirmined Cocksucker I have ever met.

He is not detirmined to catch mice of course, because cats are by definition non-utilitarian - so he has caught an epic 3 this week, which was about how good I was doing just by grabbing them by their tails as they scurried past and then flinging them out of the window.

Except I keep waking up to find a small dead mouse in the main room, his little feet curled up because Srs Burrowing Cat is not loving the mouse taste or something. Quite frankly and imho, cats without the adorable little tributes to the Great Cat meta-ego - consisting of artfully arranged animal entrails placed into places where uncovered human hands and feet will come into direct squishy contact with them - somewhat misses the point. Dead Mouse ala It's Own bodily Fluids is not really good enough, so the cat gets a definate B- as far as I'm concerned.

Yes I grade cats. I even put little "x"s and ticks on them in in red pen. That's not weird.

What is weird is that, in part because it's been ages since I've had pets of any kind really, I'm finding myself projecting my body dysmorphia onto the cat.

Which is an absolute bizarre thing to experience by the way, I'm feeding him okay regardless, because my brain is set up with all sorts of self-critical thingies that spend hteir time watching myself thinking, and are in turn watched over by yet more who watch them watching me think. Yet it's still weird to look at a cat and wonder if he's looking a bit fat when I haven't had him long enough for him to really visibly gain weight anyway even if I was over feeding him.

ED: It sucks, and then it sucks your pussy...to DEATH

But this is not his story, for this is the story of a very stupid mouse.

this mouse was on my kitchen counter top and as I moved away from whatever it had been hiding behind it made a mad dash ot the edge and jumped.

Now Cocksucker saw it as it reached the edge and was already in midair as it made it's suicidal leap for freedom.

Unfortunately I also saw it out of the corner of my eye.

now the corner of the eye is a curious thing. It can judge size, velocity and fuck all else, and the brain of the arachnophobe is one that automatically assumes anything moving in the corner of my vision which cannot be identified as "non-spider" must be a spider.

So my hand jerks out and slaps the mouse out of the air, up and away from me with a brief surprised "squik!" of shock followed by another "squik!" of a mouse hiting a wall at high velocity and bouncing.

Meanwhile Cocksucker, being a cat, is now flying through the air with no real purpose, and because cats always attempt to look nochalant regardless of what they're doing, he utilizes the innate power of anti-gravity all cats have to redirect himself in mid flight and to then latch onto my thigh with the most crazed, ears back pupils twice the size of his own head, look a cat can have, as if to say: "What? I hate your thigh evil pinkskinned pet creature, and that is only possible reason that I might have jumped for."

So we have this tableux then: Me looking shocked as my brain processes the events that ust led to me bitchslapping a mouse across a room while a cat knaws halfheartedly at my pants while the slapped mouse in question twitchs on its back in a sort of mild coma.

And then my pants fall down with the weight of Cocksucker.




Of course you do not understand the full import of what has happened because I have not let you in on two small but oh so important details. I mena, yes, slapping a mouse across the room and making it make a noise eerily akin to the noises that those mice being hit by hammers in that one monty python skit made is funny. A cat then pulling my pants down is also amusing, right?

Except I have to make a confession: I don't wear underwear if Aunt flow ain't in town - ostensibly becasue it saves on cleaning and wear-and-tear, and hence saves money.

But mostly it's because I started doing it and now it's habit *shrug*

Oh and did I mention that the parents of one of my friends was round so I could make them dinner? And they saw all of this because I have one of those mainroom-with-kitchen-area all in one dealies?

Fuck Saturdays.

Ah, the age old Sanger Debate

a Fight over at La chola (Bfp's?) pad, in regard to apostate, who was an out and out anti-choicer subjectivist last I checked but anyway:

If we define privelage as relative to societal violence - so that privelage is a matter of being protected by and from societal violence, and oppression is being subject to societal violence - then what we find is that the eugenicist arguements that Sanger and similar upperclass white feminist put forth to rationalize PP to natalist men who worried about the everpresent War O' Teh Wombs becomes an excersiing of privelage those white women did to avoid having to fight the fight neccesary to push PP through anyway.

Because that's the problem with the pragmatic after the fact rationalization - the whole "we had to burn the ghettos to save them" (as the polish security forces said to the Nazi Kommandants) idea explictly puts it forth as a silly zero-sum issue but it wasn't - utilising white privelage and upperclass privelage, upperclass white feminists sold woc to the ministrations of eugenicist white men and the violence they love to do to POC "for their own good" (which includes rape funnily enough, because clearly it's better for a black women to have a mixed race baby with superior white genes than not eh? Which of course means that Kant's Intent Fallacy fails once again) becuase doing so gave them a socially normal and culturally approved way for upperclass white women to obtain their own rights faster and easier than otherwise.

And I keep the economic class status of Sanger et al connected to their racial class status for the simple reason that poor white women got fucked over, by the selling out to the eugenicist patriarchs those society feminists did, almost as much as WOC did - becuase all white people were not equal and the fact that sanger et al's abusive attitude towards the poor in general is often papered over is really fucking annoying in its own right.

The early feminist movement fucked over a hell of a lot of women for an almost idealized version of the "screw you - I got mine" centrist creed, and they did the screwing over for the sad and pathetic reason that doing so was easier, irregardless of their declarations-sans-proof that it was "neccesary" (a cry centrists always make to justify their laziness) for the upperclass white women than to actually give a fuck about other people's humanity.

Making them spiritual forerunners of the modern anti-choice movement more than anything else.

But here;s where it gets tricky and here's where the whole "learning from history lest you repeat it" business comes in; you don't have to have a mystical love of spermatozoa and brain-dead uterine parasites to be anti-choice, any more than Sanger et all needed such mysticism to get their -isms on. Becuase the only thing anti-choicers are unified by is their hypocrisy, their stupidity, their psuedo-science leanings, their blind willingness to hate women and their position that some women deserve choice more than others, according to some mystical magical personality test that just so happens to declare that upperclass white lady's shit rose petals.

If the modern pro-choice movement cannot handle having selfish little anti-choicers as part of their history, it is therefore in a terrible position to deal with their, our, anti-choicers in the present. Therefore it is clearly too weak and pathetic to do anything other than die anyway, and we should start anew with something that ain't inherently broken.

I ma pretty damn certain that My pro-choice movement can handle the anti-choice little racist, classist centrist asshats who love the idea behind the whole thing (because it suits them) but hate the inclusiveness that means people who are not like them get treated equally to them, and it can handle it by A) owning it's history without erasure of poor non-white people or out and out revisionism and B) being willing to deal with its present sans "we're better than them therefore we're perfect" willful, cliqueish blindness and general sofia coppella shenanigans.

How about yours?

Ich bin Pinky, Ich bin Pinky *mumbles* eh junger, en narf

I'm Not Helping Am I?

Some times when I'm riding The Bus after a long hard day of earning my teeny tiny paycheck I get bored.

Some times when I'm riding the bus after a long hard day of earning my teeny tiny paycheck I get crazy stranger crackers talking to me like I give a flying fucking about their crazy crackery bullshit.

Today both such events occurred.

To be fair the amusement this correlation between two annoying events is largely down to the spanish speaking skills of two random latinos who I often see hopping on a stop or two after I get on, and presumably get off after I do.

Now these are one of those spanish speaking banditos who do that most terrible of things: they speak spanish amongst themselves, and thus ensure that crackery crackers such as myself are totally unable to listen to their quite interesting seeming conversation. /outrage

I say quite interesting seeming of course, but largely what I mean is that it's a conversation which I can't listen to, and is there far more interesting than it would be if I could actually listen to it, according to Newton's famous Law of Monoglot Nosiness.

Of course this is going on for a few stops, nothing that really requires comment or even taking note - I don't have an Ipod and so it's a nice background noise really but you don't really notice it all that much unless you're an insane person of some kind,.

So the insane cracker in the seat in front of mine turns to me and tries to start up a conversation. Now this is some old woman - decent, reasonably expensive clothing, not a bag lady by any measure, but she does have the sort of halitosis that they probably use in iron foundries to purify slag.

And she starts talking in that harsh penetrating whisper of the conspiritorial cracker, the sort of whisper that lets you know, before she's even finished her first sentence, that she's about to say something nasty and prejudiced and crackery as all get out.

Her first sentence goes like this: "Some people seem to be new."

I blink. Once, twice, three times and the lady seems to be saying what I think she's saying. So I stare with my bored-cat expression. The one I use as a warning to cat lovers to shut up and/or back off slowly, but not to run. Never run from that expression. Running requires a chase, and chasing involve pouncing.

Nothing good ends with a pounce.

The old lady continues; "Don't you just wonder what's so important they can't speak normally when those sorts of peopel do that?"

A plan forms, not that interesting yet.

"Oh it's okay for me," I reply, "I can speak spanish." I can't but she looks interested so I continue: "D'you wanna know what they're saying?" I finish mischievously, watch that snopping little hunger at the thought of having an "in" to the brief little private space the latinos' have carved into this sad little lady's life using their words. Away from the judging, hating senses of women like her.

So I turn and mock her in a way that she surely can't miss, but doesn't give any sign of noticing, as I look towards the latinos' I basically do an impression of the psychic guy from Heroes - eyes squint while I put one hand ot my head in that way of TV psychics. Because, as crackery americans know, bilingualism is basically a form of black magic practiced by only the occasional person with "the gift", and so requires suitable actions.

But as I squint at the latinos, I notice the bus is slowing for a stop that's not so far from my apartment.

And Coyote dances through my brain and stall until the bus stops.

That's when I look scared, with a little whispered "oh my god." escpaing my lips as though unbidden. Meanwhile, fate and chance dance in my palms because the latinos finally notice me staring at them like I'm taking a dump in my pants and stop talking to give me a weird look before trying to ignore me, while I think of spiders and attempted rapes and homelessness and all those other things I can do to fool lie detectors, and rush off clumsily as the bus stops.

then, just as I am about to step off the bus, I turn back and meet the perplexed and slight weirded out expression of the halitosis lady's face and mouth silently to her "Run."

Then I hop down to the pavement and run like all the maitre'ds of all the restaurants I've dined & dashed from were two steps behind me, just around the nearest corner back from the path I know the bus will take.

Around the corner I stop and breath with barely supressed giggle of shenanigans well played. Of course I can't resist a covert peek around the corner.

And there I see the bus carry on for a few yards before stopping, with an irritable hissing noise, to let off an ashen faced lady, with considerable bad breath and more fear than any sensible person would carry around with them, if they stopped to think about themselves rather than merely how they relate to Los Other.

Fuck Wednesdays.

And one more thing...

The thing I was originally looking at Hillary and Obama's health insurance Shenanigans was to find proof that Obama's was better than Hillary's.

Because, and you might not hav realised because I've been keeping this pretty close to my chest, double XX top-secret and all that, I really really really really Re-hi-hi-eally do not like Hillary, at all, even a little bit.
She seems to spend far too much time doing weird little straight armed salutes and she and Kos seem to have gone to the same "body language for professional speakers" class, though that might because they both have a similar ugly build (one of those legoman figures is about hte most flattering comparison I can think of) and are equally terrible at public speaking.

Any suggestions that they both come from the same litter of pigs is unjustified and wrong: Kos is a lizardman from outer space, and hillary is heir to a tribe of mormon sloths who accidentally took the bar back in the 1850's and have been a-lawyering ever since.

But anyway, the thing was that in attempting to find something that Obama's medical plan did that was different from Hillary's.

That's where I hit a teeny tiny snag: I couldn't find any specifics which might have been used to diferentiate the two plans.

And when I say "could find any specifics", I mean... well, picture a big field that is completely Not full of unicorns, and then try to spot the unicorn.

And looking through both candidate's intertube pages this was pretty much par for the course - and so in the 2nd millenium of our lord jesus christ (who just step out for some smokes but is going to be back ANYDAY now - the democrats have achieved what I can only assume has been their ultimate goal all along; to turn actual fact and detail into a mythical animal that we only know anything about due to the frenzied ramblings of classical scholars like herodotus.

Fuck.

So Evil I Was Momentarily Struck Blind

So I was writing a post to dismantle Hillary and Obama's health insurance schemememabobs.

And then I go over to read La Chola and find out that I had made one rather huge and ungainly mistake in my reading of the two bastard's health plans:

You see, everytime either candidate's policy talked about penalties for people who don't opt into the scheme I assumed they were talking about imposing penalties on insurance companies for not opting in to what I assumed was a sort of federal insurance scheme which would do all the stuff that the medical insurers are each currently paying a small army of skilled papyrus engineers to finagle, and by centralising the system it would cut the costs of isurance back down to the level before Middle Class people started having their monocles knocked off by the ridiculous admin creep afflicting the current system.

It'd still leave businesses in the position of having to outsource all those middle class positions that are making outsourcing a bad thing (now that it's affected the lives of people outside the working class manufacturing industries of course, nevermind the issue of the people who the outsourcing companies treat like honest to god slaves*) because the places those jobs are getting outsourced too tend to either have socialised medicine, and so avoid the issue of the companies having to spend money paying for their worker's healthcare, or the regulations are so lax and "business friendly" that it's a moot point anyway, and what the fuck is medicine anyway?

Centralising the admin side of medical insurance doesn't do much for getting the uninsured covered in any real way, though undoubtably some of the lower middle class will find themselves more easily covered, but it would completly changes the cost effect of outsourcing all monocle displacing middle class jobs, and so likely stem that to a certain amount.

The slight problem that socialised medicine would do the same thing (in fact, most places that could be outsourced to will probably require the business to pay somehting akin to insurance, if not bribes for local official to be exempt from such things, making it cheaper to operate locally on all levels) AND AT THE SAME TIME ensure that every american who can actually reach a doctor is covered for it, all of which kinda makes the centralised insurance thing seem silly because it's a net win only for some businesses, and even then only in some situations.

Which is why, in my theoretical presidential run, I would have fought like a claymore wielding scotsman for socialised medicine, but kept the centralised insurance thing as my final, ultimate fall back point.

Because when haggling (and I say this as someone who's a terrible haggler btw, econcomics requires understanding that money has a purely subjective value and the metaphysics involved makes such htings problematic), the person selling something should always throw out the highest price they think it's possible to get as though the person they're haggling with is a complete idiot - generally by doubling or tripling the usual break even price of whatever is being offered.

This is then followed by the person buying the thing halving the initial price, and leads to the final price that gets agreed on being somewhere between the two points.

Which is a partial win, and in the case of political policies gives you grounds on which you can build future successes on.

This was how the civil rights movement operated btw, the partial freedoms won by civil rights groups came about as a side effect of them shouting "We want freedom, we want ice cream, and we want it now!" and the regressive countered with "you can have some fake freedom and you no icecream!" which eventually ended up with partial, but actual, freedom, and a flavor of ice cream of the regressive's choosing (chocolate chip).

This worked because is does the thing that any winning strategy should do; it puts you in a win-win situation, becuase even if you don't win precisely what you're asking for, it will at the least make things a bit better, while also putting you in the position of being A) able to rally the troops around a single, consistent goal and B) having the huge syphistian rock stop falling just a little bit nearer the top than it would have otherwise, makiing the climb back up short each time it does slip out of your hands.

Plus you get icecream.

This principle has been corrupted into the modern "pragmatic" approach of many liberals and the laissez faire repugs (those who began defecting a while ago, like Avarosis and the rest fo the log cabin sort), where you aim you sights at a small and achievable thing, and just hope your opponents don't fight too hard.

Which is stupid, because the regressives always aim for the most difficult target they can get (becuase guess who the civil rights groups learnt their strategy from? And was not Strom Thurmond's campaign speech "no ice-cream for the darkies"?**) which means that if you don't pull as hard you can in the opposite direction, you're gonna lose ground and you're gonna lose ground hard.

And not even get any ice cream to show for what little fighting you actually did bother to do.

But I digress slightly.

Because of this weird multi-layered idea of what needs to be done, what can be done and finally what it's reasonable to expect Democrats to try and do, I ended up suffering from severe pessimism failure - and after calling Obama supporters ridiculously cupid as well! Oh the irony...

You see, because those penalties are not aimed at the insurance companies, as one might expect, but at people who are uninsured!

Because you see, in fear of Rush throwing the word "socialised medicine" around (Come on dems! Sticks and stones won't... oh ffs, don't capitaluting to things until they happen dammit!), Hillary and Obama have adopted the motherfucking, what the fuck is wrong with the world, Strawman version of socialised medicine

Yes folks, because this plan achieves both things that have been thrown at the very idea of an actual national healthcare system, you know, the kind with the huge NATIONAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM NOT TO BE TREATED LIKE A PROFITABLE BUSINESS out front to stop the silliness of the Freemarketeers and their belief that the great depression never happened breaking the system in their usual way, and then go on to add the kicker of it not actually being a form of universal medical covereage either - just being called one, so that the people who flail against the strawman can be "champions of The People" in opposing actual universal healthcare.

You see, the neat thing is how tax money goes to the insurance companies who have done such a good job providing ever cheaper forms of insurance, because what those tax breaks mean is that if you earn less than a certain amount, you still get as much as you normally would taken out of your paycheck for income tax, but part of that "tax" actually doesn't go to pay for public services (and the military and shit of course, but let's focus on the things people care about tax being spent on), but is instead siphoned off to your insurance company.

which means that the tax breaks for the rich, which would be repealed to pay for hte admin side of things (which of course adds another cost the insurance companies will use to justify yet more increases to premium rates, woohoo) then get pushed back into the hands of... the rich people who own the insurance companies.

F'king A.

But the mandatory aspect means that if you don't get yourself insured - because, say, you're happier with your income tax going to things other than the many chinned caviar eating LoliCon attendees that your insurance premiums are mostly paying for at the moment, and also you like doing things like paying the rent and eating and similar frivolous shenanigans the poor insist on throwing money after - you actually end up paying more than you currently do and (drum roll please) YOU STILL DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO MEDICAL COVERAGE.

but what I'm loving was the justification for it, the rationalisation for what is basically a bare naked strip show by the dem candidates who are basically trying to get the backing of the business community with this bullshit, yes folks, because guess who's fault the current healthcare crisis turns out to be.

You'll never guess.

It's NOT the insurance companies of course, who due to the vast meritocracy of hte freemarket are forced, FORCED I say! to raise premium prices to ridiculous levels for even the most basic coverage, nor is it even the drug and medical equipment companies for using copyright lawyers to keep prices high on their products.

Of course not, don't be silly. Many Chinned CEOs are never at fault of course.

It's the uninsured's own fault of course! (oh don't be shocked) For this is the age of randomised and inconsistent personal responsibility, and don't you just know it; it turns out the reason people are limiting their life expectancy is because they're just silly little dunderheads who thiink they can get by with untreated painful stomach ulcers and leave those pesky long term progressive conditions without treatment.

Yeah, Hillary and Obama have actually gone to the level of declaring "stop hitting yourself *punch* stop hitting yourself *punch*".

Man those fuckers are "eloquent", really well spoken there Hillary.

I shouldn't be shocked. I shouldn't even be surprised. This is SOP for everyone in the government, and has been for the past 50 years or so. basically, the government has been run in a way that requires it to constantly point out that it is in fact powerless to actually do anything useful, about anything on any issue, irregardless of which party is in power, all to justify, to rationalize and apologise for its aggressively proactive hands-off, non-interventionist policy towards the predation of the rich upon poor, man against woman, and white against brown.

But what I love is that we have a health insurance system being posited - by both dem candidates no less - that actually makes it debatable whether the age old "lesser of two evils" line still applies to the dems, because for McCain to really gain the lead in the age ol' "screw the poor, I got mine" battle between the Masonic Lodge of The Blessed Reach-Around Donkey and the Elephantine Knights of Selffellatio, he would actually have to adopt this system for his own... while also instituting slave labor camps for welfare recipients and immigrants (legal or otherwise).

becuase it's got everything a centrist could want to screw the poor unwashed masses - it's got the meritocracy handwave at it's prow, while also being quantitively better off for the rich while fucking over the poor using a system of taxation that in turn supports the idea that any universal health care system MUST use taxation to the detriment of the many, and to the gain of the few, even as the people denouncing such things are making money from it and who's politics are based around screw the poor policies.

It basically would kill not just the immediate application of universal healthcare, by being a sort of crappy saw-dust based hotdog that business interests and politicians can put forth to block actual universal healthcare plans - none of which are going to be allowed to be defined as "reasonable" or "practical" compared to this hideously unreasonable and massively impractical (even across the board deregulation of insurance companies would be better than this, ffs, versus the **cking freemarket this plan loses, and I swear that takes actively intentional effort usually***) - while also killing any future hope of the damn thing becuase, like with reinvigorating southern industry, when people start talking about universal healthcare the business interests and hteir puppets will just point to the inevitable collapse of this vile system of out and out prole-bashing as fudging proof that universal healthcare cannot work - what foreign countries? are you a communist francomuslim pussy?

the real kicker of course is that there is nothing stopping an actual working system of universal healthcare except this inexplicable fear of provoking the unimpressive wrath of hte insurance companies, because if they instituted a full blown system of socialized medicine, not only would it not break the fucking bank as repugs and some of the Obama fanboys seem to be all too happy to imply, it would actually be a win-win situation for both Bourgious (who can save a shit load of money by no longer having to pay the insurance companies, and are therefore able to compete with european and asian businesses on an even footing) and Proletariat (who would finally be able to actually get that thing on their scrotum looked at without going broke while not even being able to afford it being treated).

And if the dems are too stupid, and surround be other people who even more stupid than they themselves are, to think up actual universal care plans, well shucks, they could have asked! I Coulda provided a f***ing sliding scale of working systems, as could anyone with even a passing claim to f***ing sentience who put their mind to becuase it's not that fucking hard a thing to do, and you can even copy the system from, say germany or something. After all, they felt free to use jim crow as a basis for the nurembuerg laws, so I don't see why we can't recipricate the favor and copy something not actually out and out evil off of them. Mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery after all.

A ssytem no better than the current one would have been one thing, a system actively worse smacks of full blown malevolence.

But I guess this is what I get for not paying to much attention to what the muffclowns are up to...

* The problem isn't even the outsourcing really as far as I'm concerned, but the military industrial complex that maintains tyrranical regimes in the countries who provide outsourceable labor - who in turn only make economic sense to outsource jobs to as long as they are exceptionally cheaper to "employ" than local workers.

And due to the fact that the man/hour doesn't just magically cost less if the hour belongs to a man who has a different skin tone (though don't think there ain't more than a few genteel middle class marxist racists who truly do think that the White Man/Hour is worth more than the Brown's, and that it's suddenly a meritocracy when capitalism happens to other people), you need a mechanism to explain the difference, and that folks is where the international web of state violence called globalisation comes in. and yes, it involves a lot of work done, and which has to happen to keep the entire system upright, and wages for do-nothing CEOs and insurers high and the working classes' wages low.

** Well no. But the point is that it could have been.

*** the freemarket is ridiculously unoptimized for doing the things Adam Smith said it should do, and that's if we ignore the small problem that if it's in the best interest of a group of economic agents to form a national governement to protect their best interests against competition, they will. So you have a system that is built so that it almost immediately collapses into a World Bank or NAFTA type creature, leading eventually from that to a kleptocratic totalitarian state, and Hillary and Obama's Healthcare plan still loses.

And that's terrible.

Political Lesbians part 1

WARNING:=: POSSIBLY FOR VEGANS

fingers wove themselves through golden locks dissolving into darkened roots - one set curling while the other hung from the curly headed one's fingers limp and straight.

Oh so straight.

Their lips parted from their passioante kiss, tongues dancingly teasingly against each other as they disengaged with a wet smacking noise smacking noise. The straight hair woman's mouth pawing at the air for a moment before the lids that had covered her twin gaping soul-voids opened and she looked into the eternally unfocused gaze of the curly headed one's ravenous hunger for her taut skinned blonde goddess.

"The Seelhoff," the curly headed woman began huskily, referring to herself in the third person as always. "Wants to taste you, Ann." She darted her head forward in a quick birdlike motion and nibbled briefly on Ann's right ear lobe before withdrawing so as to give her one last lopsided glare of unbridled lust. then, in oily smooth motions, her mouth and therest of her head descended into the thick patch of inexplicably straight hair that framed Ann's brown and pink meat packing district...

My policy on Hillary Clinton

I know this is really belated but I just want to say one very important thing:

Of all the stupid, poorly thought out down right mentally retarded ideas I have ever had the misfortune to witness being put forth in my entire life, the idea of Hillary clinton actually getting nominated is the most stupid by far.

Let me just lay this one out for folks who don't get what I'm talking about here:

The first, and for me the worst, problem with Hillary is that she has no policies, and her "message" is... there's no message, for fuck's sake, a goddamn Mime is better able to communicate what they're passionate about than she is.

So basically she's running on a platform of "vote for me!" period, full stop, end of message.

But wait, what about her voting record?

For the patriot act, both when it was foirst put ot vote and then again in 2006 when it was up for renewal(!), which means that even if you accept the "everyone else was doing it" nonsense rationalization that most dems throw out when called on doing what amounts to wiping their ass with the consitution and civil liberties, Hillary actually then went out and actively approved of it the second time around when a lot of otherwise spineless dems felt they could get away with being absent or actually voting against it.

She took a day off when the bankruptcy bill was put to the vote - despite being vocally against it, so not just a douche who hates the poor, but a two faced douche who hates the poor.

And as for the iraq war, well, can you say "for it before she was against it?".


The only democrat who's managed to brown nose the bush admin's worse excesses more than hillary is basically Lieberman - she is in short, not a nice woman, and she's married to the guy who set up a nasty little extra-legal holding facility for HIV+ haitian refugees, so when people discuss whether or not her time as first lady counts on her resume (it should in my opinion) they should bare in mind that they're basically discussing whether or not she's partially responsible for all the nastiness and bastardry Bill pulled off and which laid the ground work for the Bush administration to be as bad as it has been.

But wait you say, who cares about "idealism" and "litmus tests", you'll vote for any democrat just so long as they can beat the repugs? (go blue team go! We'll win the meaningless trophy of hollow authority this year!)

So you won't be voting for hillary basically?

because that's the thing - even the ol' cliche ridden, stupid as hell "pragmatic" voting strategy means Hillary is to be avoided like the fucking human plague she is. It's actually one of thsoe weird, once in a blue moon occurences actually: everyone from centrist tools to Radical progressives can coem together in their mutual hatred of Hillary.

The trouble, pragmatically speaking, is that the right wing has spent hte last ten years, at a conservative estimate, turning Hillary into the human avatar of their myriad strawliberals and strawfeminists so that by this point she's basically just a woman who's spare time is spent having unprotected sex with terrorist commumuslims and then aborting the resulting preganacies just for fun, and putting forth all the skeevy flag burning amendments and acceptably hysterical anti-video game legislation she has put forth in the past few years (because they don't have anything important to deal with in government these days, because it's just one of those slow decades you know?) will only achieve one very very simple fact: those who'll care about your actual voting record will hate you more, and those who won't care, won't care because you will always be "hitlery" in america's eye you vinegary backwash of crotch pus.

However, you may notice that this raises the small question of, if she's so fucking unelectable, why the hell did Edwards drop out and not her? Why, in short, did she get so fucking far if she's so "unelectable"? Surely the very fact that you're worried enough by her remarkable success to finally bother to slam her like this disproves your central thesis?

Let me make this clear then; I have found no one who would vote for or has voted for hillary clinton who is not also a complete bastard of some kind.

Case in point: Heart AND Ann Coulter AND Rush Limbaughn have all endorsed her.

Now that pretty much proves my point, but bellatrys mentions a ladder-pulling Latina bus driver and this I think pretty much represents the demographic that Hillary has inadvertantly tapped into.

Basically there are uncomplicated racists and there are complex racists. the uncomplicated racists work on the principle that if you're not one of Us you're one of Them, and then they set you on fire and rape your culture and children (not neccesarily in that order).

These bastards vote republican.

the complex racists are the sort of people who "aren't racist but" or are into the general fun and games of being a ladder pulling ethnic group members of one kind or another, often with a side order of Cosbyite waffles rounding off their specific bastardry.

These people are the "fence sitters" (who are actually solid democrats, have always been solid democrats, and are, in some instance at least, most probably Kos himself taking on the form of one of the lost soul's his vile demonic masters require him to collect each year) democrats have been playing too for the last couple of election cycles, and these people would rather knaw off their own limbs than vote for a black guy.

And while it may seem horribly reductionist to basically just call people who vote for hilalry racist, ladder pulling authoritarian brown noses, but it's the only thing that makes sense.

She's a terrible woman, she's a terrible politician and undoubtably smells of vinegar.

She's someone who normal non-idiot people can't even vote for, and even among idiots only a very special kind of idiot who ensure that "the race isn't about race" (which is why everyone keeps mentioning how race isn't a factor) can hold their noses long enoguh to vote for the Evil Creature of the White. Though maybe it isn't so impressive to find out that mouth breathers are kinda good at holding their noses for long periods of time, but you know what I mean. They're too stupid and horrible to be nauseated by the thought of voting for the vile alleged human basically.

And anyone trying to shovel some crap about her being "the feminist" choice can suck my wazoo - Obama is at least someone who wouldn't personally vote for parental consent laws or the repealing of Roe, even if he'd be perfectly fine with them being made into law as long as other people voted for them - because he's got that whole upperclass liberal sophistry thing going on, you know, no one but him exists, and so anything that happens in politics is just a point scoring thing and people's lives aren't, you know, at stake or anything.

But hillary? Hillary would personally enjoy watching women who survive illegal abortion being melted in a vat of acid as a form of execution. She's just that evil basically.

And in case you think that I'm going too far, maybe engaging in a bit too much hyperbole, let me just point out that I tried to think of something to make Hillary less likeable, and for a second I thought that, maybe, if she were to put on a strapon and anally rape an orphanage live on natioanl TV, and ended ever rape by dislocating her jaw and biting the child's head off... she'd probably come across as not only more human and down to earth than she does at the moment, she'd also be both more generally likable than she currently is and far far more likely to win an election should she actually get the nomination (Bush has done worse after all).

So unless Hillary rapes an orphanage and bites the heads off a bunch of kids therein, and the DLC still goes ahead and tags her for the presidency camapaign, I swear to god some of the DLC are gonna find themselves awoken in the middle of the night by me giving them an acid and broken glass based enema.

beacuse if Hillary gets tagged for the Dem's candidate, then we know for certain that the DLC is intentionally throwing these elections as some of the more cynical out there have been guessing in a half joking fashion. And that makes them accomplices in the Bush Admin's evils.

And vici french get vici strung up by meat hooks and stabbed by local children as A-grade edutainment about not selling your soul for fucking peanuts.

Do Not Want Dammit.

Substantial posts in the pipeline

got at least two sizable posts that are verging on completion Had two posts taht were verging on completion until I just fucking deleted them by accident, but in the mean time, here's two funny webcomics:
#1

#2


And it will never fail to amuse me how "abortion is worse than the holocaust" has entered into the realm of the cliche.

ETA: Here's two very funny comics by Big Big Truck (who is largely responsible for getting me addicted to Robbie Robertson's music), who did these two comics about Nice Guys, and had taken them off her site.

Or so I thought, until I did some judicious googling, and discovered that with a nifty bit of url hackage one could find the damn comics were still on her site technically, they just weren't linked anywhere and so were hidden from mortal eyesight.

But instead of linking directly, I'll post the two comics here and we shall all pretend that I totally just saved them once upon a time to a hard drive.
Niceguy2 by BBT:


Niceguy3 by BBT:


She's also a good "real" artist if you have some cash and would like something painted (not fences or interior decor)