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solarbirdTime for a political post? We're 2,500 miles away from Chicago, I've got a full browser's worth of open tabs, my arms are slowly getting better, it's dark, and I'm wearing hand braces. Yeah, it's hit it.
I am Dan Brown, destroyer of words. Why do people read this man? Honestly.
How much does the Catholic Church hate queers? Oh, lots. Like the DC diocese Catholic Charities ending all spousal benefits for employees just to say "fuck you, faggots." Mind you, to the Church, opposite-sex divorce and remarriage is no more valid than same-sex marriage, but they didn't care about that. And that shows where priorities lie.
Or maybe this does it even better: "Heart of Jesus Catholic School, in Boulder, has refused to readmit a preschooler because the child has two moms. Her parents are lesbians." I guess when they're talking about all the rejection children of same-sex parents will face, they mean by them. Vile.
Oh, Virginia's Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli II (R), is trying to get colleges in Virginia to drop protections for GBLT employees. More specifically, he's saying protections are illegal. Also, enjoy reading about this fundamentalist "prayer warrior" group in Amarillo, Texas. They're spending most of their time recently going against a group of straight "swingers," but have also targeted a play about the Nazi extermination of gay and lesbian people, nature preserves (as pagan), various non-Christian religious groups, and they have a lot more on their target list. The local police appear to be letting them just go at it, sending off state police who tried to intervene.
Anyway, please enjoy the idiocy of GOP Nevada candidate Sue Lowden, running in the primary to face Harry Reid. Yes, that's right; she's floating the "keep the government out of Medicare!" line. Pathetic.
To clear your palette, please enjoy this awesomely deranged clock that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jwz found. I love it to bits. Back yet?
The Obama administration is interfering with the Justice department, politically, to end more trials of terrorism suspects. It may and may not be a done deal, but it's pretty close. The three-tiered "justice" system designed to ensure targets are held forever no matter what isn't apparently good enough, so they want to reduce it to military tribunals (where they can use torture evidence) and no-trials-at-all. Marc Ambinder outlines the last scenario that leads to actual, Constitutional trials; it doesn't look likely.
Liz Cheney is spearheading the neoconservative push to make defence of terrorism suspects impossible, by destroying the careers of anyone who provides a legal defence for such suspects. National Review is a big player here, as well. The Washington Post is doing their best to support the effort. Here's a look inside how this is all being managed in the political media.
To end on a slightly upbeat note: anybody here remember Warren Throckmorton? He's a social conservative, and used to be a regular on Concerned Women for America, and big into the gaybashing, particularly the "reparative therapy," line but not just that, and all that bullshit. He's stepped back a bit - arguably, a pretty good bit. No, I mean, really. He's still big on the sexual-attraction-is-malleable thing, but he's come a long way back towards something like reality, and normally, people in his camp don't. So, well, good on him.
I am Dan Brown, destroyer of words. Why do people read this man? Honestly.
How much does the Catholic Church hate queers? Oh, lots. Like the DC diocese Catholic Charities ending all spousal benefits for employees just to say "fuck you, faggots." Mind you, to the Church, opposite-sex divorce and remarriage is no more valid than same-sex marriage, but they didn't care about that. And that shows where priorities lie.
Or maybe this does it even better: "Heart of Jesus Catholic School, in Boulder, has refused to readmit a preschooler because the child has two moms. Her parents are lesbians." I guess when they're talking about all the rejection children of same-sex parents will face, they mean by them. Vile.
Oh, Virginia's Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli II (R), is trying to get colleges in Virginia to drop protections for GBLT employees. More specifically, he's saying protections are illegal. Also, enjoy reading about this fundamentalist "prayer warrior" group in Amarillo, Texas. They're spending most of their time recently going against a group of straight "swingers," but have also targeted a play about the Nazi extermination of gay and lesbian people, nature preserves (as pagan), various non-Christian religious groups, and they have a lot more on their target list. The local police appear to be letting them just go at it, sending off state police who tried to intervene.
Anyway, please enjoy the idiocy of GOP Nevada candidate Sue Lowden, running in the primary to face Harry Reid. Yes, that's right; she's floating the "keep the government out of Medicare!" line. Pathetic.
To clear your palette, please enjoy this awesomely deranged clock that
jwz found. I love it to bits. Back yet?The Obama administration is interfering with the Justice department, politically, to end more trials of terrorism suspects. It may and may not be a done deal, but it's pretty close. The three-tiered "justice" system designed to ensure targets are held forever no matter what isn't apparently good enough, so they want to reduce it to military tribunals (where they can use torture evidence) and no-trials-at-all. Marc Ambinder outlines the last scenario that leads to actual, Constitutional trials; it doesn't look likely.
Liz Cheney is spearheading the neoconservative push to make defence of terrorism suspects impossible, by destroying the careers of anyone who provides a legal defence for such suspects. National Review is a big player here, as well. The Washington Post is doing their best to support the effort. Here's a look inside how this is all being managed in the political media.
To end on a slightly upbeat note: anybody here remember Warren Throckmorton? He's a social conservative, and used to be a regular on Concerned Women for America, and big into the gaybashing, particularly the "reparative therapy," line but not just that, and all that bullshit. He's stepped back a bit - arguably, a pretty good bit. No, I mean, really. He's still big on the sexual-attraction-is-malleable thing, but he's come a long way back towards something like reality, and normally, people in his camp don't. So, well, good on him.
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 10:06 am (UTC)and her bullshit! i mean, for fuck's sake, they're LAWYERS - it's their JOB to defend people, even if they DID commit a crime [and in most cases in Guitmo, what are the chances that the person "caught" ACTUALLY committed a "crime"? not just "did they break a law in the country they were in" but "did they do ANYTHING AT ALL" to deserve it - beyond, of course, wrong place, wrong time, wrong ancestors?
long-ranty-bit
i am so incredibly sick of right-[fill-in-blank] able-bodied throwing a fit about health care reform. i am 33 years old, and i am now not capable of working. i can't walk, can't stand, can't *sit* - i've worked [and paid taxes!] since i was 15.5. i've PAID into social security.
so OF COURSE they keep denying me. the latest person i spoke to at the SS office "advised" me to stop trying for disability. stop paying bills/rent, get evicted, go on welfare. A) i don't have children and B) without children, adults can't get "welfare". food stamps, maybe; medi-something, maybe; "welfare", no.
so she told me TO GET PREGNANT.
insane on all levels. i can't work, my savings are GONE, i can't pay for the meds i need NOW - but i should get pregnant. a thing that will kill me. to get welfare. which i won't get because i'll have died by the 20th week of pregnancy.
i keep being [by those assholes on the right, over there] that disabled people are worthless. and a waste of resources. medical TIME shouldn't even be wasted om them/us
i PAID for social security disability insurance, i PAID for medicamedi-whatever it is, i PAID for disability programs and the handi-van bus system and wheelchair ramps and...
i worked for 15 years. and while, no, that isn't as long as a non-disabled person would have worked, i ALWAYS paid my taxes, and never even applied for tax credit for health care or education [and i could have gotten back more than i paid.] but i didn't, for a lot of reasons, like the fact that the "taxes" were, in all reality, insurance primiums. sure, it was insurance sponsored by the government, but that doesn't mean it's not insurance.
and, dude, in my case it is *LITERALLY* true that, if i had had consistant medical care, i would still be able to work. so i would be, right now, working and paying taxes, if we had decent health coverage [suffice it to say. from age 18 until shorty before i turned 30, i effectively didn't have insurance at all. if i HAD, the problem could have been found and solved then - and hell, i was BORN with it, if i hadn't gotten consistently BAD medical care, it could have been fixed anywhere between about ag 3 ad 28/29. the damage done is now permanent. if it had been found and fixed even TWO YEARS EARLIER I WOULD BE WORKING AND PAYING TAXES ]
and i'm not the worst-off person i know!
seriously, what the fuck do they WANT from us? i actually really think that they just want anyone with a disability that makes able-bodied people "uncomfortable", i think the Right wants us all to die.
barring that, they want us to give up, and go live in a cheap and scary institution that costs much more than helping us *outside* the institution would be - but this is NOT, no matter what they say, about money -
they just want is to Go Away. death'll work, but so would forced institutionalis,,,
they don't care, as long as we Go Away. and since we AREN'T going away...
we are of NO USE to the Right - at our very best, we show [just by being seen] that changes to our medical system *need* to happen. at worst, we make them look like the heart-less, soul-less bastards they are.
it's not paranoia if everyone really *is* out to get me...
sigh. sorry. rant over. [i really needed a rant in a mostly safe space...] i hope it was ok to rant here - if i said something bad/wrong/not allowed, i can fix it or remove it, whatever you want.
frustrated... sigh
no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 07:48 pm (UTC)When you ask "What do they want from us" I think it misses the point. They don't WANT anything from the disabled or those born with birth defects*...the fuckers don't even know we EXIST.
Seriously. Every time I see people arguing this issue, they're all about 'personal responsibility' and your 'health choices.' Apparently everyone they know is perfectly healthy and chooses to eat/drink/smoke themselves to misery... funny, I know a whole lot of people who's great irresponsible act was being born.
*I'm in the 'born with birth defects/conditions' category, not the disabled category...but one can easily become the other if medical care is removed.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 04:05 am (UTC)as for the substance, there - do you really think that's the case? that we really just don't exist?
i don't know if that's more frightening, or less. i mean, [and not for Godwin purposes, sorry] a fair chunk of the populace killed by Germany in WWII was comprised of those who were disabled - and not just genetic issues. so sometimes i think it might be *good* to fly under the radar - many of my health issues *ARE* genetic - but then again, Palin's got a son with Down's, and there are SO MANY people on the Right - i can't believe that NONE of them know someone disabled [or otherwise impaired].
and if they *do* know disabled people, in real life - family, friends, coworkers - and are stilling willing to throw all of us under the bus, to avoid supporting "lazy people" who are "afraid to bootstrap" -
well, that goes from ignorance to willful evil...
[your * there is well taken :( stupid stupid lack of health care means that a friggen paper-cut could turn into something deadly. :( ]
no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 05:42 pm (UTC)I honestly don't know HOW it works that they seem to think we don't exist, but total ignorance is the impression I get everytime in the last year that healthcare as an issue has come up with someone on the right. It's all a boatload of 'Take personal responsibilty for your health' garbage that assumes that no one ever had a health defect they had NO control over. When I point out my situation re: birth defects, they sputter and sometimes backpeddle -- they have no response.
I'd forgotten about Palin's baby (okay, I'm willfuly trying to block out all things Palin!), but it does make it even more confusing. There are lots of very high-profile stories of disabled individuals, but the reality of it doesn't seem to hit home. Perhaps because the high profile stories are always motivational "So-and-so perservered against all odds because of strength of will and Jesus!" type things?
no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 01:33 am (UTC)that's probably a huge chunk of it, too :( because X did it, so should EVERYONE. [Steven Hawkings, I Blame You!]
and thanks - *hugs* back!
no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 06:16 pm (UTC)When my little bro was in the hospital (open-heart surgery due to congenital birth defect), my mom stayed with her sister, who was pregnant. Mom asked her if she was scared by seeing all the ill babies at the children's hospital, and my aunt replied "No, I'm not worried, because Dan and I are healthy and normal."
Needless to say, my 'healthy and normal' mom was pretty deeply pissed off by that comment, but it sheds some light on people's thought processes. They think that SOMEONE is to blame, and if it's not the sick individual, it's their parents. That way they can tell themselves "It won't happen to ME!"
I think fear is why it's so hard to get people to realise that a bad situation can happen to anyone. They want it to be your fault, because that implies you did something wrong and the situation was preventable, i.e., they can prevent it/don't have to be scared of it. The idea that shit happens is simply too terrifying.
Given that, I've still no idea how you get the importance of REAL LIFE through their skulls. Understanding your enemy is a lovely philosophical excersise, but it doesn't nessecarily HELP.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 01:38 am (UTC):(
it's just - i mean, most people who are born with a problem do NOT come from parents with the problem [some, yes - but NOT most]. i have a dominate genetic disease, which is present on BOTH sides of my family, but i'm the only one who's had it "active" - my mom, my sister, my dad's sister [those we KNOW have it] have never had a single symptom of porphyria. there was no reason to think that anyone in my family would have it at all, until i was diagnosed when i was 9.
my youngest sister -also- had a congenital heart defect, also had to have open-heart as a toddler. and there weren't any known conginital heart issues in the family then, either [my step-dad died of heart problems - but those he did to himself, too many drugs and too much alcohol when he was younger. which is NOT the same as being born with it...]
i hate people, i really do sometimes. how can they be "pro-life" but "anti-healthcare"?!?! i don't even understand the right-wing... sigh