What are Republicans doing, anyway?

This woman is my hero:



Wow. Word up, lady. What does a war on women have to do with jobs and the deficit? If neo-cons got their way, leaving women in positions where they're better off leaving the jobs for the menfolk, the economy would go tits up fast.

Luckily, it seems like we have some folks with 1) brains and 2) the ability to voice their opinions without devolving in the process. I think we might make it through this shitstorm, if the neocon asspirates can shut the fuck up for a while and do some some legislation.

Abortion aside, considering it's only the target issue of a much larger problem, if you take away women's ability to plan a pregnancy, stay healthy, pay for the birthing experience, pay for diapers and breast pumps and etc., and earn a living wage while she's home with the newborn, you're left with a woman who must rely on someone else for income and support. We'll fall into a situation where we have abused children and rising crime rates (read Freakonomics if you think I'm pulling that tidbit out of my ass), we'll have kids and their moms living on the streets, and we'll have a lot fewer women in the workforce. You think it's bad now? Just wait. Just. Wait.

But, you know, women should know better than to spread their legs for a man. Unless they're married. In which case, they ought to stay home and take care of the brood. Because that's their best contribution to the economy, you know. And women who own their sexuality and maintain agency deserve to get pregnant. Because babies are God's punishment to whores. Right? Isn't that the "logic" ruling this anti-woman agenda?

Shame on the anti-choicers, those who don't actually value life at all, whose only concern is ensuring sinful women pay for their indiscretions and learn that their true place is only as helpmeet and mother.

ETA this awesome link provided by Kimba in comments: The true story of a late-term abortion, which reminded me of a (not late term) abortion a very dear family member had. She desperately wanted a third child, but she had to go through hell to have the two she managed. When she got pregnant with what would be her third, she was old enough to require an amniocentesis. They could draw no fluid. After tests, they found that the fetus had no kidneys. The doctor told her the baby would draw one breath, cry once, and die of a painful heart attack. She was heartbroken, but the pregnancy was also dangerous to take to term, and time was of the essence if she had any hope of getting pregnant again. She chose to abort, but my evangelical shithead cousin called her up and ranted about her evil decision and told her that it was her duty to fill her quiver. She was devastated at the need to terminate her pregnancy. But this shitfuck of a dickless assmonkey, who stuck his nose into someone else's private affairs, went after her for doing the right thing. The fuckbag is lucky I haven't run into him since this incident. Though this happened a long time ago, I'd still rip his fucking nutsack off if given half a chance to try.

Shit that is pissing me off lately.

Tomfuckery in Georgia

Personhood laws

Incredible tomfuckery

Don't fall down

Court orders

A list of court ordered interventions

Laura Pemberton from NAPW on Vimeo.

How to Support the Military

I'd like to see a huge bonfire. A bonfire fueled by the stupid fucking pointless yellow ribbon paraphernalia that's made someone a fuckwad of money while these women need help. Real fucking help. Not a "bless your heart" or "thank you for your service." Acknowledgment is nice, but it doesn't fix all that's broken with the system that should be supporting our veterans.



If you want to support the military, find a way to make sure that the homeless in your city - who are more often than not veterans - have the help they need. And for gods' sake, don't forget that there are women veterans who need help, too.

Sexual assault and the military

Today, the running theme here has been shocking comments concerning rape and assault aimed at women. First there was apparently a submarine douchebucket today who said that Lara Logan should have known if she went into Tahrir Square that she would be raped - after all, she's a pretty blonde in Egypt. In other words, it was her fault. YodaMan heard this and called the wee lieutenant on his fucktardian commentary. I was stunned. The fuckchuckle might as well have said straight out that she was asking for it.

Then we were watching Piers Morgan tonight interview a former Marine involved in the lawsuit against Pentagon officials over its ineffectiveness in dealing with rape. He also spoke to two women who had been raped during their service and who then dealt with a "rape" from the system that should have protected them as it prosecuted the offenders. It was all sad to hear, including that 40% of VA post-rape help is given to men (which, even as it pains me that men deal with this, too, gives me an ironic and bitter bit of hope that the culture of shame and blame might be overhauled with numbers that significant), but none of it shocked me.

That is, not until one of the women shared what happened when she sought help after being confronted by her attacker. She requested a SAVI officer or chaplain to help her and was given a chaplain. And guess what the chaplain told her?

The rape was God's will, and the best thing for her to do would be to get back to church and get right with God.

Chaplains are supposed to be trained in how to help survivors of assault and rape, and I am pretty fucking sure none of that training includes sexist, victim-blaming dogma. Whoever that fuckstick was needs to have his commission yanked, burned, shit on, burned again, and thrown into a fucking sewage pit. In fact, yank his credentials to act in any kind of official religious capacity, too, because even the most anti-woman, Bible-thumping, evangelical freak who would hand over such appalling advice should have a little come-to-Jesus thorny beating before being allowed to lead a congregation in a round of Mary Had a Little Lamb.

FUCKER.

How does this happen? How does the culture of the military convince so many to just keep quiet until further threats are imminent, at which time it's too late to do a rape kit, which means commanders are better off taking the fuckhole through non-judicial punishment so that some form of justice is done? How does our society's rape culture persist? How do young men born during and/or raised through the nineties, who ought to fucking know better, say a woman was asking to be raped because of where she dared to go? How does anyone living in our country, in this supposedly post-feminist era, get away with saying a woman should curtail her activities, her conversation, her style, or her beliefs because if she doesn't, she deserves to be raped?

How is this okay?

Oh, wait. I keep forgetting that we still have old fucker jackwads who love to paternalize us wee womenfolk, protect us, fight over us, and treat us like we're tender flowers who need to be led. That's just one root of our rape culture, but it's a pretty fucking sturdy root. When you make women targets, make them prizes or objects rather than people, you make them less than, so it's okay to rape them. After all, they're weak and dared to step outside their spheres, so they had it coming.


In other news, completely unrelated, the next reporter who calls the Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain "Pearl Square" will get a steaming pile in the mail from me. First, roundabouts are not square in shape. Second, they are not gathering places as a general rule. The Pearl Roundabout is one of the largest roundabouts in Bahrain with already freaky-ass drivers pulling some of the scariest maneuvers, and in spite of the very cool pearl monument in the center, it's not a social spot. Therefore, it is not a square in either shape or function. Facts are bendy, though, I suppose.

ETA: This fabulous take on the racism and xenophobia inherent in responses to Logan's attack, in addition to the "she was asking for it" bullfuck. Please to read!

In which we mock the troll who goes by "alley"

A few weeks ago, I apparently stepped on a dung beetle nest and ended up in the middle of a shit-eating frenzy that was...well, let's just call it stunningly grotesque¹.

One of the trolls who hit the comment button and proceeded to bless us with some unholy yarf goes by the profile-free, link-free name of "alley." Nobody can identify this person with any online presence. Even in a world frequently anonymous (or mostly, as this here blog is), s/he is especially so. I'm assuming this person is a female. I don't know why, but that's the sense I got from the comments.

The first comment little miss alley left was a semi-veiled threat to a fellow milspouse blogger who's heard time and again from the conservative fuckbuckets that when her husband is killed in action, it'll be her fault because she's a liberal.

Keep it classy, neo-cons fuckholes!

When this comment appeared, it had a few lines of actual "worth" in it. And by worth, I mean shit that wasn't threatening. I seem to recall it had more of the same simple-minded attempts at logic that made all the troll comments so incredibly entertaining. I couldn't censor the threat from the comment, which was too bad. I'd have loved the option to bleep out the part that could have resulted in legal issues, since what remained would have added immeasurably to the comedy. I'm bummed that I had no choice, in absence of an edit function, but to delete the comment and direct further discussion to a post in which we could attempt to sling less shit and have more discussions.

I didn't start out bummed. I started out pissed as fuck-all at the audacity of this twatwaffle. Now I've calmed down, though. Now I'm ready to mock the troll. So let's do it!

Here was alley's second comment, this one posted to the new discussion I opened after she forced me to shut down the original.

Note for all: I left a comment on the last post on this issue and your oh-so-openminded Navy wife hostess deleted it because she couldn't handle the truth. Feminists and liberals though you may be, you must admit that deleting a comment you just can't argue against is nothing more than censorship, and isn't that everything you liberal bitches fight against?

Or maybe it's like the "pro-choice" debate, where you refuse to admit your ideological predecessors (like Dorothy Sanger) were actually eugenicists who were in favor of KILLING "inferior" people like blacks and Irish.

Once again, I advise you, "Navy Wife," to remove the Obama crap from your site. You're just exposing yourself as an anti-military sleeper agent.

Now that y'all know why I deleted the comment, let me tell you what I recall it said (and I might be wrong, but I do remember this statement being made, and I don't see it in that comment thread anymore, so I assume this was her): She gave advice to "the enemy" by letting me know the pro-Obama gif gives me away as Not Really A Milblogger.

And really, I swear that last sentence implies her belief that I'm...what, a terrorist? Maybe one out to get the military? Yeah, I can so see that. But really, if I were a sleeper agent, wouldn't I keep my discontent about military services to myself? They already watch for me when I go to Pendleton, for example, so my "cover" is totally blown there. Oh, doh! I get it. She thinks I'm a terrorist who targets the military, and I'm not too bright because I advertise it.

Frankly, that makes perfect sense to me. No, really! Can't you see the deliciousness of her logic? Bueller? Bueller?

Also, I'm the enemy. Liberals in general are the enemy. I assume that attitude is based off the idea that liberals are anti-American (because only a conservative ass²-fucker can be a Real American, and if you disagree, that makes you anti-American).

And, of course, we must fling the censorship poo, this time with "you liberal bitches" tossed on the pile. It wouldn't be a proper neocon wankfest if us libs weren't painted as anti-American in some form or fashion. If "alley" knew me in person and knew how often I went off about censorship (for fuck's sake, I'm a writer, so I'd be supremely fucked in the head if I supported censorship; also, have you read this fucking blog? ripe for the censors, y'all), I seriously doubt that would have been the particular anti-American wangst she'd have brought up.

And now for the truly amazing non sequitur of anti-choice rhetoric. First, I shouldn't be surprised at the uneducated³ comment, but here I am, expecting better from someone who'd try to lob insults this way. Sanger isn't generally the right person to point to as the progenitor of abortion, since abortions were going on in this country on from the first settlers who arrived here, and happened for thousands of years before Europeans happened upon this continent. Sanger didn't whip out a coat hanger and say, "Eureka! Let's kill the baybeez!" In fact, her actual stance on abortion is hotly debated. We don't know where she stood (my guess is she'd be down for it in the lower classes and among "lesser" races but not so much for whites and upper class folks). We only know for sure that she supported birth control and, yes, eugenics. Yay on the former. Boo hiss on the latter. A model person to start Planned Parenthood? No. But then the slave-owning forefathers of this country aren't exactly model by contemporary standards, either. Yet we still see the value in what they brought to this country in spite of their devastating shortcomings. Yes?

But back to the subject, WTF does that have to do with deleting your comment? Nothing. It was just none-too-clever sleight of speechifying and self-righteous chest beating.

I almost went on a rant about abortion here, but my views are distasteful both to radical feminist anytime-anywhere-any reason views and to conservative take-your-punishment-you-whore/pro-life-until-it's-actually-life-and-needs-assistance-or-else-is-a-brown-skinned-person-on-death-row views. They're not much fun, and they have nothing to do with mockery.

I hereby open the floor to mocking commentary. I've left plenty of mock-fodder for everyone to take part. ;) Enjoy.

¹ Which brings to mind the show Being Human, in which this exchange made me choke on my coffee:
Ray: A wolf's stomach processes food different than a person's. The first few times after changing, I found myself throwing up all the animals that I'd eaten. The wolf will chow down on some crazy stuff. That ever happen to you?
Josh: I think the wolf eats its own poo.
Ray: Yeah. Yeah, that's the worst.
² As in donkey buggerers, not consenting adults in the bedroom. Because the former is an insult, the latter none of my business.
³ If not uneducated, alley clearly heard this little argument elsewhere and has never bothered to research it herself to see what it means. Or she has researched it and somehow came up with this conclusion, but she doesn't have a strong enough grasp on the English language to convey her own argument...much less how she makes the jump from censorship to abortion.

Voting for your boss

Recently, I had a chat with YodaMan about some interesting shit he's heard from friends of his in the past. Apparently, there's a contingent of service members who refuse to vote (or at least vote in federal elections) because they feel it's not right, as apolitical service members, to enter the fray, much less to vote for your own boss.

I find this fascinating. I absolutely disagree, but the reason for my disagreement is my belief that (regardless of what the military says) you're not a service member 24/7. Your soul is sold to the military, yes. You're basically "on call" 24/7, yes. But there's more to your life than the military, and there are parts of your life that should remain separate from your career, especially one so invasive as the military.

But even if you are always a service member, always on the job, then let's break something down.

The monthly pay for an E-5 with about nine years in is $2800.50.
BAH for an E-5 with no dependents in Bremerton, WA, is $1020.
That's a monthly total of $3820.50 per month or a total salary of $45846.

There are 365 days/year, 24 hours/day. So that works out to $5.23/hour. That's about $2 less than the federal minimum wage. For a skilled laborer with 9 years of experience? Bollocks. Even with tax breaks for housing allowance, extra pay for the 24/7 served in a war zone or separated from your family, etc. Even with "benefits" like medical and dental. Considering the importance of the work being done, and especially considering the other financial sacrifices required just to serve, that's a shitastic level of pay. Shit. Tastic.

So if you're working in the civilian world, and you and all your peeps are being underpaid, what recourse do you have? You can have an arranged sick day or even go on strike. Do that in the military, and there are serious repercussions to your well-being, if not freedom and criminal record. You can appeal to the upper management to reconsider your value. How do you do that in the military?

Vote. Vote for the folks who already know your worth and who will work to get you the pay you deserve. That's how I see it, anyway.

What do y'all think about this? Do you agree service members should relinquish their rights and obligations as citizens when they enlist or are commissioned? Or do you think they have rights and obligations in both worlds? In Tunisia, in order to ensure the military remains apolitical, members of the military relinquish their right to vote. Do you think this ought to be the case for our country, too?

What the--

Since the troll-fest here a few weeks ago, I've gone back to reading the nutfuckery of teabagger types*, even those coming from the site that instigated much of the nutcase trolling. It's reminded me why I stopped reading that shit. I think my blood pressure has easily gone up ten points on both top and bottom just from the generalizations, the assumptions, and worst of all, the absolutely willful ignorance that these people seem to want to roll around in. I honestly don't understand how someone can want to be ignorant, and yet, there it is. The problem comes when they try to argue their points. I find it difficult to debate with irrational, angry, logic-free types. I'm too easily sidetracked by astonishment when these fucknuggets drop comments that are so radically inappropriate, incorrect, and inflammatory, that I lose my steam and my focus.

I think in those moments, it becomes clear to me why our awesome country is stumbling now. We have a large portion of society that looks down on education, on time-honored methods of investigation and study, and generally speaking, on logic. It's astounding. Worse, I have no idea how to turn this tide of anti-intellectualism. How do you educate (and through education cultivate a powerful machine of debate and growth) people who spit on the idea of education?

It reminds me of, gods love them, the folks from my husband's home town. He grew up in this tiny area in the southern back woods, and everyone there ends all discussions with, "Well, we're just simple folk with a simple life. We don't need none of that highfalutin' stuff."

You just can't say that shit anymore. This is a global society now, and if you access the internet and use and/or appreciate the technology that has drawn our world together - for better or worse - you can't then claim that education and knowledge distort truth or are irrelevant. They're more relevant now than ever.

I didn't want to link to any one thing on That Site, since I really don't want to draw attention or make them feel validated in any way, but here goes. This comment blew my fucking mind. If you don't want to go there, this is the gist of the statement: all progressives are by definition elitist.

Astonishment. I sat there, blinking at it for several long seconds before I could even get to the point of laughing. Clearly, to start, there's a difference of interpretation on what defines an elitist (and frankly, the attitude displayed at that site is nothing if not elitist by my interpretation of that definition). Second, what happened to logic? One does not equal the other, though an elitist might be a progressive (just as many elitists are teabaggers). Also, looking at one of the responses to this guy's comments, how does 'highfalutin' vocabulary' mean that someone's progressive. I've met several stupid and uneducated people who are progressives. I've met several very intelligent people who are conservatives.

What the fuck?

The joy in all this, I suppose, is that attitudes and commentary in this vein make it super easy for me to target my liberal venting. The lack of joy comes when hotheaded anti-intellectuals resort to threats and name-calling because they can't be bothered to puzzle out a reasonable argument. Honestly, the differences between libs and cons boils down to a few essential worldview points, and we'll never agree on anything based on those arguments. However, compromises can be made when we understand those differences and work to find middle ground that satisfies each of our basic needs.

The problem, of course, is when one side decides to willfully misunderstand or revile fact in order to demonize the other side. It's supremely adolescent behavior, but I suppose most of those types think of high school as their glory days. Why try to make yourself a better person through compassion, understanding, education, and community building if your best days are already past you?

I guess I'd be a bitter, wailing teabagger, too, if my life's highlight was a wedding proposal at senior prom.

I need to create a label for this blog that specifies whether this is the default wangst-vent post or an attempt at actual discussion. My fear is that it's not obvious when I drop insults and f-bombs that it automatically relegates the post to the wangst-vent pile. I have a feeling I need to be more plain. So henceforth, when I'm trying to create a real discussion here, I will label it thusly. Just in case the difference in tone passes you by.

*Again, my definition of teabagger: The willfully ignorant conspiracy-theory type who blindly believes whatever conservative personality du jour says they should. Current personalities include most of the "entertainment" and even some of the "journalist" types at Fox News. And, yes, I delight in the double entendre the teabagger types created when they first used this term to describe themselves.

Where's the Neo-Con Wangst?

Ahem. Michelle Bachmann proposes we cut VA benefits as part of our fiscal responsibilities, and the neo-con room goes silent.

Where's the fucking self-righteous anger now, douchebuckets?

I guess it's only offensive to consider the idea, to even propose the idea, if you're not a conservative. If you ARE a conservative, and especially if your free time is spent writing odes to teabagging, you won't hear a single conservative service member wangst about it. No personal attacks. No crosshairs. No general outrage. Just silence.

Interesting.

Hypocrites.

Another stab at religion

As a member of a minority faith, I think I'm more sensitive than many of my fellow milspouses (maybe overly sensitive) of religious issues. Certain things pop out at me that don't always occur to even my most like-minded milpeeps. I often keep my mouth shut because it's not worth tussling over, but it always irks me when we default to a single assumption: All service members and their families are Christian. This assumes that everyone is religious and that of the religious buffet of choices, they've picked Christianity.

Today or tomorrow is celebrated as Imbolg among many Pagan faiths. Imbolg is a significant day, a holy day, and is actually one of the four Greater Sabbats (harvest days, as opposed to days of solar significance). It signifies the coming spring, the promise that the womb of the earth is about to bring the first green shoots of new life. It's celebrated with candles, symbols of the growing power of the sun/masculine aspect of the Divine. It's light in darkness, hope in desolation, a promise that the wheel turns still and brings life from death. At least, that's the general idea. Every Pagan's mileage varies.

I was thinking about the fact that a "non-denominational" prayer at a Pagan Imbolg ritual would be fabulously bland. And then I thought about "non-denominational" prayers at military gatherings. I've always felt bad for others in the group who were bowing their heads so as not to stick out, even though they're thinking about work or are seething that they're being subjected to a prayer at all. Not everyone sitting in those rooms during those prayers are religious. Some of us are able to transpose the very Christian prayers (as they are non-denominational to the Christian faith, have no doubt) into something palatable to our beliefs. Others of us are scanning the room, wondering why nobody points out how strange it is that religion is ever injected into a military function at all. Never mind how strange it is to publicize a very private communion with God....

All these thoughts were in the back of my head this morning as I trawled around a certain site from whence the trolls love to flock, baaaing like widdle sheep, shitting everywhere like sheep, too*. Lo and behold, what did I find at this site? Wankage about Muslims. I'd love to do a direct quote, but then I'd have to link back to the site, and those fuckers don't need any encouragement. So I'm going to ask you to take my word for it as I paraphrase. You can DM me on Twitter or shoot me an e-mail, and I'll tell you where to read the actual bollocks (and if you've already figured out where the trolls swarmed here from, look at the posts from yesterday, the 31st).

While I'm always down for a Southpark reference, and his would have been funny if it weren't sunk within a pit of offensive verbal diarrhea, I'm concerned about the attitude displayed. In essence, he's saying that moderate Muslims are like fabled beasts that nobody's actually seen yet. And he implies that the current unrest in Africa and the Middle East are possibly real, actual sightings of Bigfoot.

Never mind the countries full of moderate Muslims everywhere. Never mind all the really cool folks I met in Bahrain. Never mind the millions of Muslims here in the States. They've been only a figment of our collective imagination up to this point, apparently. And it'll be a downright miracle if we see a real, live, actual moderate Muslim. We'd better warn them all off--the way folks like these go on about Islam and extremism (and how apparently they're one and the same), they'll probably want to dissect and study the poor Muslims if they're ever caught.

Assmunches like these can go on all day long about how Islam is dangerous and Muslims are extremists. To be sure, there are extremists. There are even extreme beliefs within fervent (but not extremist) Muslims. For example, the Shiite celebration of Ashurah is pretty fucking gruesome, especially when they involve their infant and toddler children. But the religion is no more violent in nature than Christianity, and its violence-loving mullahs are no worse than the violence-inciting Christian extremist freaks this country is et up with. As for dogma, look at the Old Testament. How many times and how many terrible ways are Christians called upon to murder others for their beliefs/practices/sins/abominations? How stringently do Christians believe it's their duty to witness and proselytize? How fervently do some of these folks believe that this nation was built on Christian principles and should invoke Christian morality among its citizens?

What's the difference, y'all? I don't see it. Except, of course, the One True Path I'm Right And You're All Going to Hell bullshit. There's the only obvious difference. Otherwise, I'm not seeing it. (Feel free to enlighten me if you know how it is that Christians are allowed a certain political worldview but Muslims are OMG FUCKING DANGEROUS when they want the same.)

Frankly, from my non-Abrahamic perspective, I don't want to live anywhere that someone of a different faith has the power to tell me how to live when I'm not interfering with the life or well-being of anyone else. But that's a different convo.

I'd like to see an end to the hypocrisy, obviously. But I'd also like to see my fellow nation-tribe members back the fuck off the inflammatory, derogatory, egocentric, and ethnocentric bollocks. It's not cool, it does us no favors as a country, and is willfully ignorant.

Instead, let's take this time to bask in stillness, reflect on the interconnected web of life and its cyclical nature, tune in with our humanity and the promise of light in the dark.

Blessed Imbolg, my bitches.

*Why was I there? I've found it a pool of high-larity to see all the dick swinging that goes on over there, so I've peeked over there a couple of times. Today? Not so much. I guess the level of jizz from all the dick swinging was just too deep.