*11 yr old raped by 18 men had it coming ???
* Republican Morality Police to pass legislation re:the clothes young girls & women wear - Burqas, Chadri ???
* Wisconsin open meeting and vote on anti-collective bargaining illegal
* unintended consequence the public has become more pro-union than they were before Scott Walker and Republicans decided to crush the unions and the rights of workers
*Nuclear plants in US at risk not built to withstand major quake or Tsunami .
Texas 11 yr old blamed for being gang raped
Cleveland Texas 11 year old raped by 18 men or more is treated as if she were the criminal.
So much for the struggle of women in America over the last 100 years or so as the Neanderthals both of the male and female kind still wield a great deal of power and appear to believe that women are in fact to blame when they are sexually assaulted or raped whether she is 11 or 30 or 80 years old.
Sick: Republican Lawmaker Likens 11 Yr Old Rape Victim to a "21 Yr Old Prostitute" by Tana Ganeva at Alternet.org, march 16, 2011
Displaying the standard Republican concern for women and children, Florida GOP lawmaker Kathleen Passidomo had this to say about a recently publicized case in which an 11 year old girl was allegedly brutally gang raped:
There was an article about an 11 year old girl who was gangraped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed up like a 21-year-old prostitute. And her parents let her attend school like that. And I think it’s incumbent upon us to create some areas where students can be safe in school and show up in proper attire so what happened in Texas doesn’t happen to our students.
Passidomo made her comments during a subcommittee hearing about the vitally important issue of banning saggy pants in schools. When queried about her horrifying statement, she naturally just deflected the blame: "Thank you for your concern, I was not referring to my own opinion to the cause of the rape, but to the cause implied by a March 8th article of the New York Times."
The New York Times piece that serves as the basis for her backpedaling got tons of flak for appearing to sympathize with the alleged perpetrators of the attack. The piece observed that the young girl dressed much older than her age, suggesting that she had brought the attack on herself. Of course, the NYT article merely insinuated grotesque, sexist assumptions about the victim and crime. Passidomo does everyone the favor of illustrating the concept of "rape culture" in a much more helpful, obvious way.
So a woman or girl who is raped should keep quiet and if found out should be punished in some way prison, stoning or simply shunning its a matter of degree but in the end it is the same old defense of a visceral ancient tribal world view concerning subjects which are taboo. A woman raped is made unclean by such an act while the men get a slap on the wrist.
The article in the New York Times no less the paper of record (or revulsion) pertaining to this horrendous crime spent more space worried about these male thugs than about the 11 yr old victim.
Not that surprising since New York Times is the media outlet who kept the propagandist Judith Miller on their staff and flaunted her pro-Bush pro-war columns as great pieces of journalist.
In America it appears gang rape is treated as if it were a minor offence and those girls or women who are raped must have somehow provoked the attack. Well doesn't that sound like the type of argument that the Taliban would make???
" In Wake Of Texas Gang Rape, Florida Lawmaker Proposes School Dress Code Legislation " by Jason Linkins, at huffington Post, march 16, 2011
Last week, the world learned about the town of Cleveland, Texas, where 18 teenage boys gang-raped an 11-year-old girl and, according to The New York Times, caused the community to rend their garments about how the crime would ruin the lives ... of the rapists. There were many lessons to learn. Lessons like: maybe reporters who cover stories like this shouldn't exclusively focus on the adversity faced by rapists. Or: Maybe everyone in Cleveland, Texas is actually some kind of awful monster?
Here's the lesson that Florida state Rep. Kathleen Passidomo took away from the awful event: the state should step in and regulate the wardrobe of 11-year-old girls! Seriously! This is a thing that is happening in Florida, and in our lives, somehow. Per David Edwards of Raw Story:
"There was an article about an 11 year old girl who was gangraped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed like a 21-year-old prostitute," Passidomo declared.
"And her parents let her attend school like that. And I think it's incumbent upon us to create some areas where students can be safe in school and show up in proper attire so what happened in Texas doesn't happen to our students," she added.
What an excellent idea! In Afghanistan, the Taliban required women to wear the full-body chadri in public, and that solved the problem of institutionalized violence against women forever, yay!
Here's Brandon Thorp of the Broward/Palm Beach New Times, responding appropriately:
Whoa! We can debate the merits of the bill a little later, but I think it's incumbent upon us, as sentient mammals, to devote a moment to a collective wince. As a genus, politicians aren't the brightest wicks in the candelabra, but they usually possess sufficient self-awareness to shield the public from the horrorshows of their minds. Blaming the rape of an 11-year-old girl on her parents' sense of fashion -- and to do so out loud -- smacks of rank amateurism. A devastating attack ad will probably result from this slip-up, and unlike most attack ads, it will be richly deserved.
Republican law makers in America show their true colors as they place the blame for the rape of an 11 yr old girl not on the 18 or more men who sexually abused and raped her but rather that the 11 yr old was asking for it by wearing what the Republicans believe to be inappropriate clothing for an 11 yr. old . So the girl should have been wearing more appropriate clothing for her age and shouldn't have been flirting with these older men.
These politically right wing heartless ideologues along with their heartless religious right supporters don't blame the men so much as they do the girl.
They sound a lot like the Islamic extremists such as the Taliban who in cases of rape they blme the girl whom they believe by being raped has brought dishonor and shame down upon the family and so according to their tribal customs the female in question has to be thrown out into the streets or murdered by one of her male relatives in order for the family or tribe or community to get its honor back.
So in Cleveland Texas the Unenlightened Christian Taliban view is that boys and men can not help themselves when they find a woman or girl sexually attractive . So then if they so desire they and their 17 friends can have at it with the girl because it is just how the male animal is built.
Therefore the boys or men might be chastised or but it is the girl in this case who is at the end of the day responsible for the feelings she stirs up in men.
What is especially sad is to hear some well educated woman professional or politician or legilator side not with the girl but with the perpetrators.
So maybe these "Good Christians " will eventually insist that all girls and women should be wearing clothes that are unflatterening and have no sex appeal to them . So these Christian sexist Talibianis may learn from the Taliban and other Islamist that girls and women should be covered head to foot in a Christian form of full Burqa as the Taliban women wear.
So once again it seems these "Good Christian Fanatics " insist that we return to the good old days when girls and women were raped they knew to keep their mouths shut and not shame themselves or their families or make accusations against these good men who raped them.
As I have said if the men turned out to be Muslims or Black or Native American or Mexicans the right would go ballistic if anyone suggested that somehow the girl brought this upon her self.
Morality Police insists abstinence only programs should be financed by the US government. They do not want any sort of comprehensive sex education program or even mentioning birth control such as Condoms, the pill etc. or mention condoms as a way to have safer sex.
These uberconservative evangelicals actually believe that that they can convince young people from having sex outside of marriage.
Once again President Clinton is shown to have been more of an appeaser for the extreme right and their religious co-conspirators rather than take a principled stand on such issues and take his licks from these extremists who with every policy they can have changed moves America closer to becoming a Truly Christian Theocracy.
Let’s Try This One More Time: Bill to Eliminate Ab-Only Funding Introduced (Again)" by martha Kempner at Reality Check.org via AlterNet.org , March 26, 2011.
Today, Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Senator Frank Lautenburg (D-NJ) reintroduced the " Repealing Ineffective and Incomplete Abstinence-Only Program Funding Act. The bill would kill the Title V abstinence-only-until-marriage program and funnel the money into more comprehensive, evidence-based programs designed to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV.”
If it seems to you that we’ve already eliminated Title V, you’re not wrong, yet somehow this program refuses to die. Title V was originally introduced under President Clinton as part of welfare reform. It funneled $50 million dollars in block grants to states. States that chose to accept the money had to match each $4 from the federal government with $3 of state funds (or in-kind donations) and were then required to provide or fund abstinence-only-until-marriage programs that met a strict 8-point definition.
Among other things programs were required to tell young people that “sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects,” and that “bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society.
Some have tried to claim that Japan's safety record is poor in comparison to other nations in the Nuclear Energy club. But this is not quite true the United States Nuclear Energy Industry has been just as derelict in their duties as their counterparts in Japan.
Corporations only believe in the bottom line and if they can save even pennies by constructing and operating nuclear plants by cutting corners on safety regulations that is what they will do.
American Nuclear Catastrophe Inevitable given the Industries Poor Safety Record.
In America each president has done little to pressure the Nuclear Power Industry to clean up its act. Their solution from Reagan to Clinton to Obama is to ignore safety violations at Nuclear facilities and to silence those in the US government in the regulatory agencies such as the Department of the Environment or the Department of Energy etc. who dare to question the spokespersons for the industry.
They in fact prefer not to know so they can plead ignorance that is the politician and the bureaucrats code of silence and of not rocking the boat and to accept whatever the Party line of the moment is.
And President Obama has shown in the case of the Whistleblower Bradley Manning & Wikileak's Julian Assange that any who dare leak information to the public on the poor job government is doing in regards to Intelligence Security and the War on Terror or the poor job it is doing in protecting the American people from Industries that are running amok let alone the dangers to the environment. It appears that average Americans no longer have a right to clean air or clean water or food that is not a health hazard.
All that really matters as Fox Business news tells us each night is the bottom line and a steady increase in investors dividends .
Money, Wealth, Profits , Power and dominance around the globe are America's real values.
As Allen Ginsberg said Americans pray to the GOD MOLOCH asking for wealth and power. The more wealth the better a person you are . You are not judged by the strength of your character or on silly notions such as honest, integrity or having empathy for others but rather by how cruel and ruthless you can be in obtaining what you desire.
And unfortunately President Obama is not much better as he sells out to the war mongering Hawks and is more concerned about pleasing Big Business and Wall Street than taking actions against these rapacious greedy anti-democracy anti-government thugs .
If Teddy Roosevelt showed up he'd be astounded by how the United States government is under the thumb and influence of the super-wealthy elite. No "Trust Busting " on the part of President Obama can we expect .
Obama believes these corporations and Wall Street are too big to fail while the average American deserves little or no help in their all too personal financial crisis as they see their earnings falling or their jobs disappearing and their homes taken away from them by the Banks and corporations who are making record setting profits.
But this of course this is why those Americans who believe that all the power should NOT be in the hands of this corrupt wealthy elite and their political and mainstream media enablers need to become real activists who will fill the streets and the airwaves and swamp the Internet with passionate arguments for the average Americans and against the "Elites" whom President Obama and his gang feel so obliged to do their bidding.
"At California Nuclear Plant, Earthquake Response Plan Not Required" by Chris Kirkham , Huffington Post, March 16, 2011
"Conservatives: We Are Being Outworked And Out-Organized In Wisconsin Recall Campaigns" by sam Stein, Huffington Post, march 16, 2011
As the world's attention remains focused on the nuclear calamity unfolding in Japan, American nuclear regulators and industry lobbyists have been offering assurances that plants in the United States are designed to withstand major earthquakes.
But the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which sits less than a mile from an offshore fault line, was not required to include earthquakes in its emergency response plan as a condition of being granted its license more than a quarter of a century ago. Though experts warned from the beginning that the plant would be vulnerable to an earthquake, asserting 25 years ago that it required an emergency plan as a condition of its license, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission fought against making such a provision mandatory as it allowed the facility to be built.
Officials at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the utility that operates Diablo Canyon, did not respond to calls seeking comment before the story was published. After publication, a spokesman for the company said the plant does have an earthquake procedure that had been implemented during a 2003 earthquake near the facility, and that staff are trained to respond. The company did not provide further details upon request.
As Americans absorb the spectacle of a potential nuclear meltdown in Japan -- one of the world's most proficient engineering powers -- the regulatory review that ultimately enabled Diablo Canyon to be built without an earthquake response plan amplifies a gnawing question: Could the tragedy in Japan happen at home?
Experts who recall how the California plant came to be erected offer a disconcerting answer: Yes. And some are calling for more urgent government action to review safety at nuclear plants across the country.
"What they're displaying now is exactly what was wrong in the past with the nuclear establishment, which is that they didn't have their priorities right," said Victor Gilinsky, who served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Diablo Canyon debate and agreed with the call for greater attention to earthquakes in emergency plans. "They're more concerned about the protection of the plants, and installation of further plants, than they are about public safety. The president should be saying, 'I want every single plant reviewed.'"
Back when the California plant was being finalized in the mid-1980s, local activists and environmental lawyers sued the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in an effort to slow the project, arguing that the clear risks from earthquakes nearby required additional planning.
WASHINGTON -- Both national and Wisconsin-based Republican operatives tell the Huffington Post the party is being dramatically outworked and out-organized by Democrats in the recall campaigns being launched against state Senators.
The operatives, who raised their concerns out of hope it would jar the GOP into assertiveness, argue complacency has taken over after Governor Scott Walker successfully shepherded his anti-collective bargaining bill into law. While the Wisconsin Democratic Party, with major assists from progressive groups and unions, has harnessed resentment towards the governor into a full-throttled effort to recall eight GOP Senators, neither the enthusiasm nor organizational acumen exists on the Republican side of the aisle.
“It's clear that Democrats and liberal organizations are engaging in an attempt to make recall more than a mere hypothetical possibility for some Wisconsin Republicans,” said Liz Mair, Vice President of Hynes Communications and former RNC Online Communications Director, who has followed closely the work of conservative groups in Wisconsin. “Even though Governor Walker acted to end the impasse, Republicans and conservatives should not be acting like this is done and dusted.”
A conservative activist working inside the state on recall efforts was even more explicitly distraught. The Wisconsin Republican Party, the operative said, was not lending resources to the recall campaign groups had launched against Democratic Senators, in turn causing those groups to narrow their target list down from eight lawmakers to just three.
“It would be nice if the Republican Party, operatives, etc, would step in with a little money,” said the activist, who asked to remain nameless lest he draw the GOP even further away from the recall effort. “But they are talking about doing radio and I’m not sure that gets you signatures.”
Pro-Labor Group Working America Recruits 20,000 New Wisconsin Members In Wake Of Budget Protests by Amanda Terkel at Huffington Post, march 16, 2011
WASHINGTON -- While Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) may have won the most recent battle in Madison by securing passage of an anti-union bill, labor activists are optimistic they may emerge as the victors in the long run.
Forming a union is a lengthy process, and although labor officials say they already see more interest from workers, it's too soon to measure an increase in membership numbers. But there is one indication the battles in Wisconsin are providing a boost for labor.
Working America, an advocacy organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO that provides an outlet for non-union members to support the labor movement, has signed up approximately 20,000 new members since Feb. 15. The group was active in the state in 2008, when it built up the bulk of its membership, which now stands at 65,000. It was inactive for the past couple years, however, and just reopened shop the beginning of 2011.
No comments:
Post a Comment