salting the earth

In Washington County, Emmer officials changed their strategy on Tuesday. On Monday, Republican observers asserted that ballots that had no marked vote for either gubernatorial candidate implied a vote for Emmer. On Tuesday, Emmer representatives abandoned that practice, said Kevin Corbid, Washington’s elections director.

No, really.  What the hell kind of strategery is this?  For those who have been following the recount, this level of cynicism is actually a little surprising.  It’s not to say that the Coleman/Franken battle wasn’t bad, but it exposed a lot of problems in the system.  We thought we took care of them.  We created a category of “Frivolous” challenges that didn’t move the count so that it was harder to game the narrative on the news.  But why do we tolerate that screaming little bastard, Sutton, and his constant attacks on the Minnesota electoral process?

Challenging a blank ballot should be a sanctionable offense.  We made rules after all.  We decided what made up for voter intent.

The sheet was created by then-Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson when he served on the ’08 recount Canvassing Board….But now Magnuson is a lead attorney for Republican Tom Emmer in the disputed governor’s race, and the sheet is proving little guide for Republicans disputing ballots in this recount. Ballots that would have been deemed valid by Justice Magnuson in 2008 are being aggressively challenged by attorney Magnuson’s team this time.

At the end of it all, I want to know what the price is for Eric Magnuson’s soul.  All we know is it’s under 1 million.  He should have bargained for more.

 

this much i know

Just wanted to write on this one real quick…a rumor that blackwater was operating in saint paul for the RNC.

I won’t say for sure that they weren’t, but i strongly, strongly doubt it.

Yes, the number only riot gear cops are intimidating, but let’s face it. They have ID numbers on their helmets. That’s #7 on the top ten list of things Blackwater would never do. It’s a pale and empty nod to the St. Paul policy of handing out ID cards that have names and badge numbers to any citizen who complains.

Also true, that in the afternoons and evenings, there were spotters on the bridges leading into town from both north and south. I’m not sure who’s they were…my best info says they were Ramsey Cty Sheriffs. Fletcher, the idiot in charge of them, is dangerous in his own right…but is more penny-ante dictator than true fascist. Ham handed voter suppression and money laundering is actually more his style.

What happened over the last few days was in many ways wrong, and we’re going to be working for a long time to right things.

But i think it’s important to keep some perspective on what did and did not happen.

Blackwater is an unlikely story.

The truth was bad enough.

-b

ps: photo credit to nezua

 

excuse me, your ablism is in our feminism

Zuzu opens her stay at Shakesville up with a nice takedown of the continuing calls that Hillary must step aside. Like her, i tend to think that Hillary has the right to stay in, and hell…the earned media isn’t exactly hurting. It would be well and good for both the Democrats to adopt a more positive tone, so that the winner isn’t quite so bloodied up, but they’re not exactly lightweights. As long as McSurgy can’t get a media cycle to save his life, we’re good.

She closes that post with a swipe against McGovern and Eagleton, the former being one of the voices trying to get Hillary out.

She writes this of Eagleton, who was revealed to have had shock therapy for depression. That news helped sink the McGovern ticket.

So not only did Eagleton smear McGovern anonymously during the primary, he then accepted his offer of a VP slot knowing full well he had an explosive and disqualifying secret. Nice, huh?

My emphasis added.

Zuzu?

Forget you.

It was an explosive secret. But not a disqualifying one.

There is a difference between being unfit for public office and unelectable.

I suppose FDR never should have ran, eh?

as it was in the beginning…

-sly c

 

A pox on all houses, everywhere

*twitch*

*twitch*

In the last 72 hours, we’ve had the following.

Mysogynist criticism of Shillary for “crying.”

Sexist response from Edwards.

Sexist followup from Obama’s camp.

Racist comebacks from the Clinton campaign.

And as icing, a race denying masterpiece from Gloria Steinem.

A pox on all houses, everywhere….for America has successfully made g!n*ack*m@rism it’s official public policy.

Excuse me all, while i go to my happy place.

-sly

 

Concern

Sly Civilian, you have a knack for entering a discussion in such a way that—regardless of the validity of your point—you instantly piss everyone off and make them not want to engage with you. I’m not saying you aren’t entitled to your indignation. I’m just saying that it’s not getting you very far.

-Lizard, QotD, Shakesville

This is a statement which is of the type often called concern trolling. It presents itself as interested in the reception of your argument, but asks you to gut major portions of it so that it might be better appreciated by those who oppose you.

It’s a funny thing, really.

I don’t know what to make of it. Honestly, i know i’m a bit of an ass. But this stuff goes on day in and day out, and I’m pretty much out of fresh ideas. Bomb throwing seems like a pretty reasonable choice at the moment. And i’ll be joining a legion of kickass folks who have been told that they should stop being so strident, angry, confrontational, and so on.

Most of the time, even on queer stuff, i manage not to get this reaction. What is it about my relationship with disabilities activism that manages to make this sort of thing happen? Does my tone change that much? Is it my audience?

I’m not out to ban the word “crazy.” But this, like other things i’ve pissed and moaned about, conjures up particular images of mental illness to do it’s work. Kucinich doesn’t care if Bush gets “care.” He wants him out of power. And speech like this has an effect. Not on the targets, hardly ever. It’s the spill over, to the point that mental illness and political power are held not to be unrelated terms, but a contradiction.

Remember that study about how “crazy folks like Bush” that didn’t factor in incumbancy bias on a population that is held in restrictive settings and used a tiny little sample size unworthy of the name?

Some of the most common comment at liberal blogs were the expression of surprise that they “let” us vote.

Fuck it.

I’m gonna be angry. I’ll figure out that effective thing later, ’cause right now is my time to burn.

-sly

 

Why I Loathe HRC

No, not the HRC. The other one.

It came to my attention, talking with a fellow politico the other day, that I probably am in possession of a rather irrational dislike of one Hillary R. Clinton. I bickered for a good while with my friend as to whether or not the Hill was deserving of funds from her organization.

Right wing turns on immigration.

Suggestions of the abolition of abortion.*

Poisoned “support” of queer communities that panders to the sellouts.

A history of support of unchecked free-capitol trade.**

Then again, as I have repeated many a time in the last months: There is not a single acceptable candidate for the Democratic nomination in the race.

Not a single one.

Every contender is to my eyes, fatally flawed with compromised positions, status quo preserving double talk, and sheer un-electability. I do question my particular vehimence against Shillary, and I tend to think that it may be rooted in my growing feeling of betrayal by the Clintonian politics of my youth. For some time, I had seen Bill as heroically liberal, only to grow in understanding that he’d been anything but. The suggestion that he’d told Kerry to support the FMAs came as a final straw, obliterating any residual good will.

The problem, I have come to understand, is that most of my fellow Americans are damned idiots, and get precisely the government that they deserve. Sadly, we have yet to find a way to contain the misery produced by such poor judgment onto those most responsible.

-sly

*This is why “safe, legal, rare” is not an acceptable tagline for a progressive. You start talking like this, and you reinforce the perception that those who engage their choice to terminate a pregnancy are either victims or moral weaklings. Holistic family planning is a good. Surrendering to the moral outlook of the forced natalist crowd is not.

** As distinguished from a system in which labor is equally liquid.

 

Primary Offense

The Minnesota Senate has just voted to make seatbelt laws a primary offense, meaning that a traffic stop can be initiated for the sole justification of failure to wear a seatbelt.

Anyone wanna guess what the average person stopped for this looks like? Or how many “voluntary” drug searches will follow these seatbelt stops?

My guess?

Young, Black, male.

Sometimes, I hate my state.

-sly

 

Pam. Out of the Park. Again.

Pam’s gone and laid out the gold standard of how queer folk can think most clearly about what candidate might deserve their vote.

The problem, as she notes, is that the press and such keep asking the canidates how they “feel” about queer rights, or marriage. We don’t give a rat’s ass how they feel. We give a rat’s ass about how they vote, make policy, and govern. Their fee-fees are their own.

Justice Frankfurter…though on the wrong side of history with this one, puts it thusly: “Were my purely personal attitudes relevant I should wholeheartedly associate myself with the generally libertarian views in the Court’s opinion . . . But as judges we are neither Jew nor Gentile, neither Catholic nor agnostic.”

That’s the dissent on W. VA School Board v. Barnette, btw.

Back to Pam’s criteron:

Candidates having positions in place for LGBT voters that are 1) consistent (not dependent on the audience they are speaking before/shaking down for money), 2) policy-driven (not what’s in your heart or how you were raised), 3) believable (you have to explain how civil unions are going to work with the federal DOMA still in place), 4) honest (A tall order indeed), help us shop for candidates to support. It’s not a lot to ask where they actually stand on the issues and what policy changes, if any, they will advocate for in this area. Get on the record and explain yourself. Put your positions up on your web site, for god’s sake.

Go read the rest.

And ask why we’ve gotten so caught up on feelings. Why do some issues come down to that, and what issues get policy statements?

 

A Little Break

I’m still working on my stuff on Boundless, which will be the first of a loose series on responding to religious rhetorics…but I have a feeling it’s going to wait until spring break, which is coming up this friday.

But not all of my writing should be churchy stuff. I know some of y’all don’t really do that, and I try to be nice about that.

I was talking with a friend last night, and she bequeathed me with a phrase I shall have to use.

“Down for the fight.”

Offhand, she referred to a male colleague who didn’t just get it, but took action without prompting and made sure to interrupt a likely expression of sexism. He went to someone who was seeking to give him privilege, and clarified that he wanted to make sure his qualified female friends were being considered for the same.

Damn. That’s nice, ain’t it? Someone just up and did the right thing.

Which brings me to the point. In another conversation (i would come up with random names as to cease confusing y’all, but half of these are total composites anyway to protect the innocent, guilty and the cute widdle puppies) someone told me that they weren’t sure if they would feel comfortable dating a person who identified as bi.

My reactions are thus:

1. That’s great, I don’t identify as bi anyways!
2. #$%^!
3. Whatever. On your own time, I guess.

I’m not gonna lie. Snark and anger are the first two things i feel when someone says something so painfully anti-queer. It’s stupid. And whatever you’ve done trying to be an ally doesn’t pardon that off. Maybe it comes out of a sense of hurt, or confusion, or just plain ignorance. Maybe it’s something else entirely, that I don’t understand.

Which is just the way I like it.

“Whatever. On your own time, I guess.”

I’m still friends with the person who said this to me…hell, I’m friends with almost all of the people who have said this to me. I’m not given to that kind of hand holding, so if you’re gonna change your mind, that’s probably on you and maybe if you’re lucky a really awesome straight ally. And most of the times I’ve heard this, I’ve also heard an acknowledgment of that…that they know they’re not right, but that they “just aren’t there yet.” A confidential to every candidate for the Dem nomination…where this might be vaguely annoying in personal life, it’s fucking irrational as a basis for public policy. Screw off. Watch me vote for BFP as a write in as soon as I figure out her real name. Yeah, bet you didn’t count on that, hunh.

Where was I? Not being there yet…for the average person, is fine in the sense that it kind of comes standard with the human condition. You’re trying to be a good person, trying to understand and support queer people in their struggle. No cookie, though. Cookies are for people who are down for the fight.

You just made a plain, honest admission to holding a queerphobic view, and that you don’t have immediate plans to divest yourself of this opinion. Your relative level of guilt surrounding this doesn’t really interest me, and to be honest, it’s kind of drain to have to try to reassure folks when this happens that I don’t hate them. I don’t, but who wants to have to go through the song and dance after hearing something asinine? Just go. Deal. On your own time, in your own space. Like you’d expect from me when it comes to matters close to your own heart.

Maybe some folks aren’t down for the fight yet.

I hope we will be.

-slyc

 

theocrat

Well. Hmm.

Apparently, someone had a reaction to my piece on the Edwards blogger mess. And didn’t bother to leave a comment. Thanks! I’ll be returning the favor.

Pardon me while I roll my eyes for effect.

I knew that piece wasn’t a total package, and that it relied quite heavily on readers knowing my other work. But it’s what i had time for. So when you get a queer dude telling you to take James Dobson seriously, do you assume that I’m trying to welcome in the New Theocracy? I’m not that masochistic, I swear.

Criminy, folks. This is exactly what I’m talking about. I’m telling you how to beat the system. And the first step is to stop laughing at it. You’re losing. Wipe that stupid grin off your face, and you may still get out of this before we all take the Hell’s Greyhound to Theocracy Land.

The reason that you need to take Christian rhetorics (note the plural here, since one of the sillier criticisms i got over there is that i think that there is a singular Christian belief. Right.) is that they have a historic pattern of being used by various actors and factions to shape American life. And right now, they’re being used by a certain faction of Christendom for some pretty evil ends, and we’re getting fucking rolled.

But all of this does not mean that they are ontologically irrational, stupid, or inferior. As I’ve said before, we’ve done this to them before…America has pushed Fundamentalists to the sidelines by the application of epithet and shame. They left after Scopes as disillusioned social reformers. They came back as Jerry Falwell and the Left Behind series. If anyone thinks that this is a good trade…

Dismissing these folks as sideshow or simply railing at how terrible that they have influence, and looking for any possible way to Other them (think about all the American Taliban comments, the burqa jokes, and all the ways “liberal” types go for a racist joke to try to alienate Fundamentalists from the American mainstream…because if we can’t bond over racist humor, what’s left?)…is flatly unproductive.

Now, I’ve got no love for the electorally minded response that comes from outfits like Sojourners and Jim Wallis, but they have a point this far. Demonization doesn’t work. But they’re not right in thinking that the way to win is to throw our lot with disaffected Fundies and hope for a return to the Social Reform days of Fundamentalism. These folks brought us some of the major energies for Suffrage and Abolition movements, but they also did Prohibition. No go…especially when abortion is so frequently cited as the stumbling block. As someone once said, what does it profit one to win the world and lose one’s soul? Sacrifice of our deeply held convictions just to get a vote is not what is on the table here.

Where my thesis resides is that in the understanding of the social forces behind Fundamentalist rhetorics, and the way in which they connect to social power as it is currently expressed gives us the best chance of responding with intelligence. A lot of this lies in the anxiety that comes out of the various social movements of the last century. Understanding the backlash is NOT the same thing as saying it’s valid.

As I said. Take these rhetorics seriously enough to engage them on their own terms.

Unless, of course, you like losing.

In which case…go on ahead.

-sc