The New Radicals

WARNING: This is a post about healthcare and the execrable Joe Lieberman. If you come at me trying to compare the politics of Hillary Rodham Clinton to Joe Fucking Lieberman, I will get in my car and I will find you and follow you around for the rest of your life hollering that Hillary Clinton was busting her ass trying to get us to universal coverage 25 damn years ago.

I just heard Jon Lovett do an opening rant about Joe Lieberman (who is execrable) on this week's Lovett or Leave It in which he explained how Joe Lieberman, all by his little self, killed the Medicare Buy-In for 55 yr old + Americans. Had he not killed it, people 55 and over wouldn't have to keep killing themselves to hold onto their corporate health insurance and young people would be paying lower premiums as older people cost more to keep healthy, and thus drive premiums up. Joe Lieberman was working for the insurance companies who are, I genuinely believe, more evil that Philip Morris.

Speaking of which, I also read an article this morning over on Splinter about a British woman who was diagnosed with lung cancer and who is on the path to healing due to government-provided health care. She will not end up broke. She won't end up scrabbling to come up with thousands of dollars to pay for life-requiring medicine. She'll just get better.

On the liberal scale, I'm pretty far left. I also believe, though, in incrementalism and that you can get away with being more liberal in New York and Chicago than you can in West Virginia. I think expanding already popular programs is a more practical path towards healthcare-for-all than blowing up what we could get into law despite the nasty little corporate shitheels like Joe Lieberman. I could well be wrong and I'm happy to have that argument. This isn't about that, though. This is about how my party, the Democratic party, has a long history of letting the right intimidate them not into moderating radical leftish positions, but rather into radicalizing moderate positions.

Government-backed healthcare is not a radical position. It is as practical a position as one can take in American politics. It makes fiscal, moral and political sense. The system we have now is radical. It's breathtakingly expensive and irredeemably cruel. I don't want any Democrat, any liberal or any person trying to tell anyone running for any office, especially if they are running in an already liberal district, that they should not be agitating for it. If you let the nasty little corporate shitheels tell you that a congressional candidate in Queens can cost you an election in West Virginia, you've already conceded a radical argument. Stop it.

Let's all remember that it doesn't matter what a democrat running for office says; the toadies at the GOP propaganda network will lie about it.  For instance: not one democrat is agitating for open borders. The right-wing noise machine (led by our feckless, traitorous president) says they are on the daily. Not one democrat is agitating to ban guns, but likely every member of the NRA believes they are because they are being told they are by rightwing liars.

So let's just stop letting them set the terms for the debate. They are skilled liars and easy manipulators. Fuck 'em. Just say what you really believe and stop giving a shit what Tucker Carlson pretends to get his knickers in a twist over.

Got some Ragrets and some White Feminism

I got some ragrets, you guys, about my sign at the #KeepFamiliesTogether march. Here's what it said:

When I made it, I was feeling good, but there was this little voice in the back of my head going "Meg, are you sure this is a good idea?" And then I answered (as one does) "I don't care about those horrible women!" And then my little voice said, "Well, that's not quite what I meant..." and then I said "shhh, I'm watching TV" (I was watching TV by that point).

When I got to the march, I felt great about my sign because all kinds of folks were asking to take a picture and telling me how great it was and then about 30 or 45 minutes into it, I realized that all the people telling me that it was great and asking to take a picture where also white ladies and my little voice said, "You picking this up yet?" And instead I went to have a beer with my smart friends who did not have problematic signs.

Gurls and boys, I have often said this of myself: I am smart, but I am not quick. It often takes me waaaaay too long to get to understand things. Fr'instance,  it took me until the middle of this week, far too many days after the march, to realize what my little voice was trying to say.

That sign up there? That is some peak white feminism. I carried that message into literally the safest environment I could, and then toted it around so that other white ladies could congratulate me (and by extension, themselves) on how much better we are than Permit Patty and Barbecue Becky. Oof. That sign was so self-serving and I have regerts. My browser keeps trying to autocorrect my misspellings. I am being funny, Autocorrect. You don't know my life!

Anyhoo, my sign had another side. I am not even a little bit craftsy and I was embarrassed at the outset of this side of my sign because I thought it looked a little low-rent and poorly done:

It does look a little low-rent and poorly done. But it also does not have a problematic message. This sign doesn't put me in the middle of the equation and, despite looking as though it were made by a third grader operating under a pretty tight deadline, that makes it a much better message.

I'm trying to be better, folks. But I reckon I'm gonna be traveling this path along the way...

Live and learn, white feminists. We live and we learn and try to get better.

Acting and Reacting

When I was in the UK last week, a male friend of mine asked me what I thought about the new  upskirt photo law making its way through Parliament. I told him I thought it was great and that I hoped all those creepy motherfuckers got ticketed past their ability to pay for their ISP. He shrugged and said "I just don't get why the women don't just give him a slap on the face and walk away."

I'm gonna let The Vixen respond for me. 

I loved that loud messy queen and I loved her especially in the reunion show when all the queens were dissecting her following a fight with Eureka she said "Everyone's telling me how to react and no one's telling her how to act."

Oh, that is concise and well-said, n'est-ce pas?

Before we start instructing someone on how they ought to react, first let's ask ourselves "Do I have the necessary context for an informed opinion?" If it's a matter of groping, catcalling, upskirt photos, etc and you are a man, gurl, trust me: you don't. There are some women who are up to the task of calling it out (like The Vixen!), slapping the groper's hand away and there are some who aren't. Speaking personally, I hate it when men put their hands on me, say gross things to me, etc., and have for almost 40 years (gentlemen, for context, be advised that this tends to start for girls around 10 or 11, or, if they're people of color, earlier). I don't feel secure or strong enough to slap his hand away or call him out. I shrink and disappear into myself and am only eager to get the fuck away.

A story: I was walking down the street with Laney when she was 11 and we were holding hands. A carful of dudes catcalled us because they thought we were a lesbian couple. This happened four years ago and I still wonder if I reacted right.

But you know what, fuck that! My reaction isn't the point - their action is. And that's all I'm willing to discuss anymore.

Because, ladies, we all learned what happens when we pay more attention to our reaction than their actions, right?

[INSERT GIF OF DONALD FUCKING TRUMP DOING OR SAYING SOMETHING SEXIST AND HORRIBLE BUT I'M NOT GOING TO PUT ONE HERE BECAUSE I CAN'T STAND TO SEE HIS STUPID FUCKING FACE]    

Remember, when confronted with bad behavior, let's all concern ourselves more with the ACTION rather than the REACTION. Be like The Vixen. I kind of love her.