You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Insanity’ category.
Okay, I can’t figure out how to make my blog go completely dark, so this is going to have to do for now. Stop SOPA/PIPA! Fuck censorship!
Okay, credit on this one goes to, I’m guessing, a Rosie O’Donnell reader. At any rate, this is posted on her site, and the context suggests that it came from one of her readers. I don’t ordinarily do reposts in this space, but in this case, I’m making an exception — if nothing else, maybe my mom will see the source and give it some serious consideration instead of dismissing it out of hand because I said it:
We had eight years of Bush and Cheney, Now you get mad!?
You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.
You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.
You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.
You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.
You didn’t get mad when we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich.
You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.
You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you, but helping other Americans…oh hell no!
Ordinarily, I focus on national politics in this blog.
There’s a good reason for that. See, I am currently living in Colorado Springs. Mecca for evangelical Christians and right-wing hotbed. Looking at local politics is just too damn depressing.
So for the most part, I ignore it, and focus on the national issues.
Every now and then, though, something from local politics intrudes on my consciousness, and I feel like I have to say something.
This is one of those times.
Our local embarassment of a state senator, Dave Schultheis, cast the only vote against a measure that would provide for HIV testing of pregnant women. The idea behind the bill is that it would allow doctors to take appropriate steps to prevent an infected mother from passing the virus on to her child during delivery (which is when infection of the child usually occurs).
Now, there may be good privacy-related reasons to argue against mandatory testing in other circumstances, though I think the health and safety of the child should trump privacy concerns, since knowledge of the mother’s infection status can allow doctors to take steps to prevent transmission of the disease to the child.
But Schultheis wasn’t making a privacy-based argument.
He was making an “AIDS is punishment from god for immoral behavior, and if the child gets the disease the mother will feel guilty” argument. In his own words:
What I’m hoping is that, yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that. The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior. (Quote courtesy of the dead-tree edition of the Colorado Springs Independent.)
Nothing like condemning a child to life with an incurable and ultimately fatal disease in order to teach his or her parents (who are already similarly condemned) a lesson.
Forget the fact that many women with HIV were infected with the virus as a result of their husbands’ cheating. We have to PUNISH these women and make them feel GUILTY for their husbands’ behavior.
How utterly appalling.
The good news is, Schultheis was the only state senator to vote against the bill. It passed. Pregnant women and their doctors will have the information necessary to prevent HIV transmission to newborns, in spite of Schultheis’ moralistic myopia.
If you’d like to let Schultheis know what you think of his position, you can e-mail him at senatorschultheis@gmail.com
–jane doe
Like everyone else, I’ve been watching the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip. And I’ve been horrified by the loss of life. But I’ve been hesitant to comment on it.
Much to my shame, I really don’t know what to make of the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
I get that Israel is surrounded by a lot of people who don’t acknowledge its right to exist as a nation. And that wouldn’t be a pleasant situation to be in. It would make one want to have the best damn military possible, and it would tend to give one a rather itchy trigger finger.
At the same time, I think the Palestinians have some legitimate grievances against Israel. Really legitimate grievances. Grievances that could make one want to fire rockets into their territory, maybe, after decades of frustration in the face of those grievances.
But I don’t approve of bombing civilian targets. Something both sides have been doing to some extent, but Israel far more than Hamas in recent days.
I think Israel’s reaction to Hamas has been disproportionate, but at the same time, I realize that I haven’t walked a mile in Israel’s moccasins. It’s hard for me to know what I would do in their shoes.
I think they’re trying to get their licks in before Obama takes office, knowing that Bush won’t do anything to stop them.
And I think this is only going to make us look worse in the eyes of the Arab world. Where we already look quite bad enough.
I just don’t know what to do about it.
Any suggestions?
–jane doe
For those who didn’t get a chance to see War, Inc., John Cusack’s awesome satire about the corporatization of war that’s a bit too close to the reality on the ground in Iraq for comfort, when it was in theaters earlier this year, now’s your chance: it comes out on DVD tomorrow.
I’ve reviewed the movie previously (see my review and various other mentions of the movie here), so I won’t go into all that again here. But I do want to urge you, my dear readers, to see the movie if you haven’t already done so.
For an awesome double-feature to really get your blood pumping about just how badly Bush and his chronies have screwed our troops, innocent Iraqi civilians, and the American taxpayer, check out Robert Greenwald’s Iraq for Sale, as well. And while you’re at it, pick up a copy of Naomi Klein’s book on disaster capitalism, The Shock Doctrine, which will provide you with a whole new level of insight into the news not just in Iraq, but right here in post-9/11, post-Katrina, and ongoing-economic-meltdown America.
–jane doe