Republicans Still Fucking Hate Women

[Kim]

Source (http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/01/02/16305284-house-gop-blocks-violence-against-women-act?lite)

Congress had a lengthy to-do list as the end of the year approached, with a series of measures that needed action before 2013 began. Some of the items passed (a fiscal agreement, a temporary farm bill), while others didn't (relief funding for victims of Hurricane Sandy).

And then there's the Violence Against Women Act, which was supposed to be one of the year's easy ones. It wasn't.

Back in April, the Senate approved VAWA reauthorization fairly easily, with a 68 to 31 vote. The bill was co-written by a liberal Democrat (Vermont's Pat Leahy) and a conservative Republican (Idaho's Mike Crapo), and seemed on track to be reauthorized without much of a fuss, just as it was in 2000 and 2005.

But House Republicans insisted the bill is too supportive of immigrants, the LGBT community, and Native Americans -- and they'd rather let the law expire than approve a slightly expanded proposal. Vice President Biden, who helped write the original law, tried to persuade House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) to keep the law alive, but the efforts didn't go anywhere.

And so, for the first time since 1994, the Violence Against Women Act is no more.

Welp.

[Solid Snake]

This is a wholly negative development (and it's outrageous that the Republicans' 'excuse' is mere bigotry against immigrants, the LGBT community and Native Americans), but one positive element that I've been witnessing over the past few days is the implosion of the GOP.

...The GOP's tearing itself to shreds and tossing away all its credibility at such a unprecedented pace that it's tempting to imagine they're in a death spiral.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I don't know- the most outrageously ridiculous they get the more they seem to gain followers.
I don't understand how a bill can be "too supportive" of various minorities- like even in the mindset of the republican vortex I don't even really understand how that makes sense.

[Solid Snake]

I don't understand how a bill can be "too supportive" of various minorities- like even in the mindset of the republican vortex I don't even really understand how that makes sense.

Any bill that acknowledges that minorities even exist in a country that Republicans like to believe solely consists of wealthy white suburban 'gentlemen' alongside their obedient submissive baby-making machines housewives is too 'supportive' for Republicans.

[stefan]

Its interesting. Anyone looking between the lines can clearly see that modern American society has had a severe backslide in civil rights in the last twenty years, that even compared to the late 90's the US as it stands is significantly more racist and sexist on an average person-to-person basis. Shit, look at the entertainment industry - just as an example, do you think something like The Cosby Show could be made today and keep a prime time slot on NBC, or would it get shuffled off into BET or some other slot where people can pretend it doesn't exist? Do you think that if Alien was made today instead of the 70's, they'd be able to put Ellen Ripley as the main character without her being a whimpering incompetent or a butch nutcase who needs to learn "the value of being feminine"?

And yet, if you try to bring this up in any sort of debate, people will argue that this is "obviously" not the case, saying that Feminism has "won" and needs to end before they start taking rights from others. I haven't seen any arguments in relation to VAWA lapsing yet, but I'm sure they'll be along the lines of it being "no longer necessary." That women have "already made it" and don't need special protections.

This is how bigotry wins the country, not with vast sweeping acts of blatant oppression, but by convincing an entire generation with subtle barbs that it already lost before they needed to fight it.

[Shyria Dracnoir]

Snake, at least Don Quixote was an aimiable lunatic. Still patronizing towards women, granted, but nothing like the level the Republican party has fallen to.

[Solid Snake]

Snake, at least Don Quixote was an aimiable lunatic. Still patronizing towards women, granted, but nothing like the level the Republican party has fallen to.

Republicans' new slogan: "We're somehow even more regressive than a character who was deliberately written as a chauvinist who objectified women in the seventeenth century."

[Loyal]

This is a wholly negative development (and it's outrageous that the Republicans' 'excuse' is mere bigotry against immigrants, the LGBT community and Native Americans), but one positive element that I've been witnessing over the past few days is the implosion of the GOP.

...The GOP's tearing itself to shreds and tossing away all its credibility at such a unprecedented pace that it's tempting to imagine they're in a death spiral.

I'm not entirely sure the GOP has a choice at this point. The only constituency that will abide them is the hardline jackasses in the Tea Party, which only forces them to veer further and further into xenophobia to keep that voter base (I'm not sure I can even call it "the right" at this point), simultaneously driving away more and more right and center-right voters.

If they lasted long enough to remain politically relevant in 2016 I would be super surprised. In the meantime it's both amusing and depressing to watch their death throes as they either declare their own party too extreme or, in sequence, throw each other under the bus to appear sufficiently "conservative" to their voter base.

edit: for instance. (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/02/peter-king-near-tears-threatens-to-quit-republican-party-for-blocking-sandy-relief/)

[Shyria Dracnoir]

In the meantime it's both amusing and depressing to watch their death throes as they either declare their own party too extreme or, in sequence, throw each other under the bus to appear sufficiently "conservative" to their voter base.

That and if the rest of the voting public helps throw them under the bus by vouching in no uncertain terms the GOP is on the way out, we can be done much faster.

[shiney]

47% of the country voted for Mitt Romney. The GOP is not done because they are viable as a "they are not democrats" option for the sizable portion of the country that does not vote for a candidate, but instead against one.

Everyone who says they are dying was not paying attention in 2010 where they took over basically every contested state government and gerrymandered districts to hell, ensuring a long reign of GOP-led House of Representatives. Remember 2008, how they got obliterated? It wasn't two years before they weren't just back in power, but swept ridiculously into power. I won't kid myself for even a second that it is just as easy for them to win again in 2014.

[CABAL49]

And let's not forget that the ship is run by rich twats who fund this shit all over the world.

[The SSB Intern]

Hey guys, let's be fair. It's not just the Congressional Republicans who are fucking things over. The news networks are happy to help as well. (http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/01/03/msnbc-emerges-as-only-network-to-expansively-co/192009)

[Bum Bill Bee]

Y'know Cabal I can't help but laugh at people who think that "rich people are 100% Republican all the time". President Obama didn't get elected twice by having poor backers. Between the average rich and poor person who's more likely to be openly gay, support all the paperlessstuff, explore exotic religions and philosophies, Know about various world problemsand be able to do anything significant about them? And then the two states that are most heavily associated with diversity and liberalism- NewYork and California- have the highest real estate and are by far the most heavily represented in pop culture. Of course this is just another thing that makes Republicans look dumb, why keep doing things that only benefit the rich if roughly half the rich voted against you? Mind you, I voted Obama mainly as a matter of "lesser of two evils".

Now I must really disagree with Stefan's commnets about the Entertainment industry. Ellen Ripley couldn't be invented in the 2000's? Regardless of how many high priofile pussyfication stuff thats produced I can still find tons of tough independant female characters. Surely couldn't all the Tophs, Ziva Davids, Konos, Emma swans, Agatha Heterodynes, Nico Minorus and Emily the Stranges outweigh the few overstated Bella Cullens types out there? Plus there's all the recent fairy tail/fantasy stuff where a kickass princess is having to save some dumb inmeffectual man-bitch prince like in Mirror, Once Upon A Time,Enchanted, and to a lesser extent Shrek 3. Anyway, I can't really understand people who treat Ripely as some femminist god-heroine. Her ass-shot near the end of the first movie irritated me to no end, and I know there's femminists who hated it too. And then in the sequel a more tomboyish character was killed off.

Now part of the reason the Cosby show might not take off in 2000s as it did in the 70s is because in 2000s time Brown is the new Black. It would be far more ground breaking and relevant to have a show about a Hispanic upper-middle class family, and that's already been done with the Solis on Desperate Housewives, not to mention the hordes of Telenovelas that have growing popularity in the US. Besides, wasn't Tyler Perry just named the highest paid man in entertainment? Isn't Oprah still one of the richest most influential women of all time?

What I'm more concerened about are all the recent implications that African Americans are better/more important than other minorities. In an early casting call for Runaways had specified a black actor for Alex Wilder while it didn't specify an asian one for Nico. The "bald black leader man" trope BY FAR outnumbers all other non-white male leader characters. You can find all black versions of a dozen Broadway shows, but no such luck with other groups. A bunch of blacks protested Chinese man Lei Yixin being the sculptor of the Martin Luther King Memorial, because apparently "only black people can reverantly appreciate the messages and legacy of MLK". Then there's the Travon Martin case getting tons more attention than the 14 Sikh killed in Wisconson, or maybe thats just an instance of "an individual=tragedy, a quantity= statistic", which is not an improvement.

Also noteworthy is the massive gap in black sexuality. I mean we see tons of black men in both real life and fiction marrying/loving white women but FAR fewer white men marrying/loving black women. I find this ecspecially concerning with all the Beyonce/Whitney Houston types conforming to white standards of beauty. Another object of concern are the "lighter balcks are smarter than darker blacks" implications in Resident Evil 5 and Boondocks. Heck, why do we even persist in calling Africans black? Somehow seems backwards since few Africans are anywhere near the actual color.

With the whole race thing I'm just all out disillusioned. When growing up I was led to believe that we honkies had to fix are act as a matter of keeping up with the other races being smarter, tolerant, accepting and never polluted the environment. Imagine all the raging confusion I felt when I learned of all the racism, mysogeny and environment destruction done in the other countries. Or how absolutely pissed I feel at minorities bashing other minorities. Along with the aforementioned black supremacy stuff, there's Mexican (and other) immigrants being homophobic. Or how anti-Semitism is more common innon white Americans than white ones. And heck sometimes being a minority dosen't prevent one from being a massive douche. Coptic Christians are not the majority in Egypt but that didn't stop Nakoula Basseley Nakoula from making Innocence of Muslims. Muslims are not the majority in India but that didn't stop some of them from doing Love Jihads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_jihad). I'd be alright with minorities attacking whites in America, we had it coming, but nothing's prepared me for all the weirdness I've gone over.

Now in terms of fiction/Entertainment industry Liberal types complain about some weird ass things, and often just seem to hurt their own causes. Like why is a character speaking with an accent considered racist? Isn't it far more racist to suggest that everyone speaks in perfect unaccented King's english all the time? Or how is changing a character's skin color ever a suitable counter to racial stereotypes? Or what about the MASSIVE lack of non-whites in areas of likeable kickass villains, antiheroes, disabled people, clowns, or goth/emo people? I see it as some Liberal writers are too afraid to show minorities as anything beyond clean sparkling perfect goody goodies who are overly competant. Tropes like "White gang bangers" seem to support this theory. Or with more serious real life stuff there's the apparent idea that "genocide only counts when white people do it". Why else would the South Africa apartheid and Italian invasion of Ethiopia (whites attacking blacks) initially get more attention than Rwawanda (blacks attacking blacks). Or how about the fact that in Germany you can go to jail for Holocaust denial while in Japan there's political parties that get to deny the magnitude or even existance of the Nanking Massacre? Was the Holocaust all that much worse than Nanking or what?

Look, I wasn't trying to troll anyone, I just wanted to get off my chest some things that were banging around in my head for a long time, I'd be happy to hear any responses you'd have, I won't drive myself deeper into a shit storm by posting here again. On a more relevant note yes, I agree this seems monsterously dumb and backwards for the Republicans to do. I just don't agree that we're all the backward in the ways others have said.

[CABAL49]

I never said all rich people are Republicans. A more apt statement would be 98% of problems can be blamed on the rich or those with wealth. But yeah, most Liberals tend to be hypocritical and at their best, keyboard activists. Considering how much money is invested into things like preventing gay people from getting married, and the interest groups set up to represent the rich to influence public and domestic policy. It makes sense for them to fund Democrats who are fairly right winged but have more credibility than Republicans and and snatch the liberal vote. Neo-conservatism continues to be on the rise. Even the big socialists in Europe are finding more and more assets privatized. In Germany they are talking about privatizing their healthcare. Not to mention other laws that are being set up around fucking the more like their welfare reforms.

But I can only comment on my own statements. Your rant isn't exactly clear when it is talking about Liberal writers. If it is things like making Heimdall black, well that is silly. Thor and whatnot are people based off Norse myths but are hardly those people. Heimdall is a shape shifter, so no real reason why he can't be black. I find it funny cause I don't really hear about people complaining about how Nick Fury became black. But I can't bring myself to care about that either, alternate universe or whatever. But that is the thing here is that when writers change the race of a character, it often is subjective in terms of how people receive it. I have never heard anyone complain about how Red from Shawshank Redemption was originally a white guy, hence the name Red.

Also Germany and Japan worked out differently, not saying either way was good but different. When the US first occupied Japan, the US did start putting war criminals and the such on trial. But Japan surrendered after Germany and we were at the cusp of the start of the Cold War. The US decided it was better to keep the fascists in power, because the only other power in Japan at the time were the communists of which the US thought would be too friendly to the Soviets. The US kept a lot of Nazis in power in Germany as well, but not to the same extent. The US let a lot of war criminals go in Japan so that they could ensure the loyalty of the fascists. Also, Germany was occupied by France, UK and USSR at the same time. And white people didn't die in Nanjing.

But talking about how other groups of people discriminate is kind of a moot point. Just because everyone else is racist, doesn't mean you should be.

[Osterbaum]

Y'know Cabal I can't help but laugh at people who think that "rich people are 100% Republican all the time".
Doesn't matter if they're Republican or Democrat, both suck and rich people are still way more likely to support policies that make them richer andfuck over everyone else.
President Obama didn't get elected twice by having poor backers.
Yeah but he is a liberal fuck, it's not surprising a few rich liberals would support him and the democrats.

For the rest of your post I don't even know where to start.

[pochercoaster]

With the whole race thing I'm just all out disillusioned. When growing up I was led to believe that we honkies had to fix are act as a matter of keeping up with the other races being smarter, tolerant, accepting and never polluted the environment. Imagine all the raging confusion I felt when I learned of all the racism, mysogeny and environment destruction done in the other countries. Or how absolutely pissed I feel at minorities bashing other minorities. Along with the aforementioned black supremacy stuff, there's Mexican (and other) immigrants being homophobic. Or how anti-Semitism is more common innon white Americans than white ones. And heck sometimes being a minority dosen't prevent one from being a massive douche. Coptic Christians are not the majority in Egypt but that didn't stop Nakoula Basseley Nakoula from making Innocence of Muslims. Muslims are not the majority in India but that didn't stop some of them from doing Love Jihads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_jihad). I'd be alright with minorities attacking whites in America, we had it coming, but nothing's prepared me for all the weirdness I've gone over.

This whole paragraph reads like you just realized that minorities are human and therefore capable of being sexist/homophobic/etc. like everyone else, which is kind of disturbing. Of course being a minority doesn't prevent you from being a douche, but that's not the point. O_O

[Premmy]

Actually complete bullshit

I was going to yell at everyone in the Zero Dark Thirty thread for dissing Amazing Spider-man but reading this has struck me blind. good job

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I'm sick of these one post trollers- the true genius trolls of the golden age would take craft and effort, would craft a character with subtle hints laced throughout- would become so much their character that it was unclear why they stopped and the character started. The whole thing would be directed by Satoshi Kon and at first you would get only odd hints of something wrong- a strange glance in a mirror, maybe a delusion on the subway- before it slowly built up and then in their glorious masterstroke the whole edifice of reality is torn asunder and they stride asunder on your open jaws, laughing at your false god of rationality.
Or we can just can come in and post barely coherent rants I guess.

[Kim]

I blame Twitter.

I can sort of sympathize with his thing about being disappointed when he found out minorities weren't perfect, but from the completely different perspective of being a member of those groups and seeing how shitty they were, which dismantled the idealized image of how I saw groups I was previously unable to participate in.

First example would be seeing homophobia in gay groups when I identified as a gay man.

Second example is seeing shitty gatekeeping in the trans community now.

It sucks to find out groups you had once idealized are full of shitty people, because the world is full of shitty people in all areas. That said, shitty people in positions of privilege are generally worse because they have power backing up their shittiness.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I don't understand why anyone would idealise any minority groups though. That doesn't make sense to me.

[Kim]

I don't understand why anyone would idealise any minority groups though. That doesn't make sense to me.

Because cis people are fucking awful and I wanted to believe trans communities would be a chance to get away from that awfulness in its entirety, which was silly and naive of me.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Haha, that's dumb- everyone is dicks. Like if oppressed people were ace then 99% of humanity would be ace. Human history would be totally different too.

[Nique]

First example would be seeing homophobia in gay groups when I identified as a gay man.

I remember the first time I heard a gay person use the phrase 'too gay' and I thought that was pretty fucked up. I think this is a thing that happens in oppressed groups eventually because like, I guess it stems from wanting to be more accepted. It's just sad that this turns into throwing everyone else under the bus, as it were.

And even though Bum Bill Bee's post is uh,

Actually complete bullshit

I don't think it's trolling, at least not intentionally. This is pretty common confusion/ bothsidez thinking about issues that aren't fully understood.

But it's all pretty shitty finger pointing and attempts to shift the blame away from privileged groups. Are you actually disillusioned, Bill, or is this just some bullshit conscience easing?

[Locke cole]

How old is the term "cis" anyway?

I swear, I never heard that term before last year, and suddenly it's everywhere.

What bugs me is that we now have a relatively neutral word for people with that sort of identity (as opposed to loaded words like "normal", which don't really describe it all that well in the first place), and it seems I only see it used as a slur most of the time.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

It's more that there is a massive disconnect between our actions and feelings when we are target compared to when somebody else is the target. It's the same reason poor people vote conservative and you get gay homophobes. People aren't extremely nonrational, they are little balls of strange urges and cultural outpourings.

[Nique]

Cisgender has its origin in the Latin-derived prefix cis-, meaning "to/this the near side," which is antonymous with the Latin-derived prefix trans-

And wikipedia goes on to say it's been in use for about 15-20 years, but really only about in the last 6 years or so for common usage.

What bugs me is that we now have a relatively neutral word for people with that sort of identity (as opposed to loaded words like "normal", which don't really describe it all that well in the first place), and it seems I only see it used as a slur most of the time.

It's no more of a slur than 'white' would be if Kim used that word instead so what exactly are you getting at?

It's more that there is a massive disconnect between our actions and feelings when we are target compared to when somebody else is the target.

I'm sure this is true. But I think there is a motive for that disconnect in that all of us tend to look at qualities we might have, ones that society doesn't seem to value, and rationalize it's impact ('At least I'm not as gay as that guy', etc).

[Locke cole]

I'm not sure what I was really "getting at", I suppose

[Nique]

Well, it's not anymore of a slur than words like 'trans', or 'black' and probably even less then that? Like, Kim was using it in a somewhat pejorative way but the context clearly refers to institutional bigotry among that group?

I dunno. Obviously I would not like to be grouped in with awful people but that use of 'Cis' can't really hurt me in the same way since if it is a 'slur
it's almost always used in a way that refers to an actually true problem.

[Locke cole]

Alright.

Sorry. I'll try to think of what I'm saying more in the future.

[stefan]

It's no more of a slur than 'white' would be if Kim used that word instead so what exactly are you getting at?

Its not so much Kim as it is the larger tumblr Social Justice Olympics community such as Riley etc. that have basically coopted "cis" as an all-purpose argument ender, generally in the form of drowning out dissent or disagreement by calling all those not in lockstep a bunch of cidgendered fucks and other such wonderful terms.

its basically made it utterly impossible to discuss social issues on the internet now without getting lumped in with psychotic net crusaders who make Valerie Solanas look like a calm and reasonable voice for equality.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I'm sure this is true. But I think there is a motive for that disconnect in that all of us tend to look at qualities we might have, ones that society doesn't seem to value, and rationalize it's impact ('At least I'm not as gay as that guy', etc).

See but all my friends back home are the most radical left wing fucks you could ever imagine- homosexual slurs would make you stand our not fit in yet we still got them from the gay people. It's about wider culture not fitting in cause like 95% of the time I've heard them its alienated the people.