athena
athena's JournalWhy Fat-Shaming Is Wrong.
When people fat-shame others, they make excuses that if the person being shamed didn't want to be shamed, they would just lose weight. And they say that fat-shaming is good because being fat is unhealthy.
The reality, however, is that it is impossible to lose weight, and that being fat is not unhealthy.
That may go against everything you have been told to believe, but it happens to be the truth.
Fat-shaming is no different than racism, sexism, or homophobia. When you fat-shame someone, you are shaming them for something they cannot control. When you define fat as "bad" and thin as "good", you are defining one group of people as superior to another group based on nothing more than the genes they were born with.
Here is why it is impossible to lose weight:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/04/why-diets-dont-actually-work-according-to-a-researcher-who-has-studied-them-for-decades
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/why-you-cant-lose-weight-on-a-diet.html
And here is why being "overweight" or "obese" is not, in fact, unhealthy, according to decades of scientific research:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/opinion/our-imaginary-weight-problem.html
https://qz.com/550527/obesity-paradox-scientists-now-think-that-being-overweight-is-sometimes-good-for-your-health/
Two wrongs don't make a right.
If fat-shaming is wrong, it is wrong, period. The fact that Trump fat-shames women despite being fat himself doesn't make fat-shaming Trump OK. I suspect that people fat-shame Trump in the hope that he will understand his own hypocrisy or feel bad about his own weight, but that is never going to happen. Trump has narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), which means he has almost no self-consciousness.
If people want to annoy Trump, they should attack him where it hurts. They should post about how weak Trump is and what a failure he is as president. They should post endlessly about Obama's inauguration crowd size compared to Trump's, and Obama's high popularity compared to Trump's. They should post pictures of Obama being adored by large crowds. Fat-shaming Trump will not hurt Trump, but it is likely to hurt other good people who happen to be fat. Just because you don't mind the fat-shaming of Trump doesn't necessarily mean other fat people don't mind it, either. In the end, fat-shaming anyone propagates the idea that being fat is bad and shameful. And that can only hurt fat people in the long run.
For the n'th time ...
sexism is not a men-vs-women thing. I am so sick and tired of DUers arguing that something is not sexist because some woman out there thinks it's acceptable. Women can be sexist, just like men can be feminist. In fact, the vast majority of women, like the vast majority of men, are sexist against women. If you don't understand that, or if you are surprised by that, go do some reading.
The fact that so many people have such a childishly simplistic (mis)understanding of what sexism means is a perfect demonstration of how far this society has to go before it can claim that it is no longer sexist.
Does the U.S. system "allow everyone to be treated in a timely manner"?
Answer: no, it doesn't. Not only do millions of people have no insurance, but millions of others have insurance that doesn't cover very much. Even those who, like myself, have excellent insurance, are regularly forced to wait upwards of three months to see a specialist for a 10-minute initial appointment. And hospitals and doctor's offices frequently make billing mistakes that increase our total out-of-pocket cost. I've spent hours calling hospitals and being put on hold, just to explain to them that I had already sent in a check that they had cashed but neglected to record in their system. After my last surgery, I spent hours, during my recovery period when I was still weak and in pain, arguing with my doctor's office because they submitted an incorrect claim to my insurance company and then tried to claim my insurance company refused to cover the procedure. The amount they charged me was more than three times what my insurance ended up paying, when, after many phone calls and e-mails, I finally managed to sort it all out. I dread going to the doctor here, and I have excellent insurance thanks to my husband's job. Consider yourself lucky to live in a country that views health care as a human right.
Note that those who don't have insurance often end up going bankrupt when they need emergency care. Tens of thousands of people die from preventable diseases like pneumonia because they lack health insurance. No one in Canada dies from a preventable disease. The only time you have to wait in Canada is when you have something that doesn't require immediate treatment. I know this because I lived in Canada for many years.
Finally, Canadians who travel to the U.S. for medical care usually do so not because of waiting times but because the specific service they need is more readily available in the U.S. than in Canada. When that is the case, Canada pays for it.
By the way, it is against DU rules to post articles from right-wing sources. "It came up in a Google search" is not a good-enough excuse.
Some of us did try to warn people
but they were so overwhelmed by their sheer hatred of Hillary that they didn't hear the message. I thought people had learned their lesson after the 2000 election and was amazed to see that they hadn't. I tried to tell several DUers that the 2000 election showed that one doesn't "teach the Democratic party a lesson" by letting the Republicans win. But they all knew better. 
If you just imagine what kind of a world we would be living in now if Gore had become president in 2000 -- that we probably wouldn't have had 9/11; that we wouldn't have invaded Iraq; that hundreds of thousands of lives would have been saved across the world; that innocent people wouldn't have been tortured; that there would have been no ISIS; that we would have reduced the rate at which we're destroying our environment; that Samuel Alito and John Roberts would not be on the SCOTUS -- it's shameful and heartbreaking that we made the exact same mistake only sixteen years later.
All I can say is that I hope those who allowed their hateful sexism to blind them to reality are pleased with the very-male and very-macho president they got themselves. I hope they're happy that they kept the presidency of the United States all-male. I hope they're delighted that they are not being led by a highly intelligent, highly experienced, and highly competent woman. I hope they're tickled pink with joy, because their selfish sexism has hurt too many people, and we're only six months into this.
Are they good, kind, and gentle to people of color, too?
Or only to white people who agree with them?
I know a Trump supporter, too. If you're a white person who agrees with her hateful, fearful, and racist rhetoric, she will seem "kind and gentle" on the surface. But there is nothing "kind and gentle" about the contemptuous way she talks about Black people. And the moment you disagree with her hateful rhetoric, she turns on you, and the fake gentleness disappears.
I'm sorry, but a person who supports Trump is a racist. If they were not racist, the dog-whistles blown by the right-wing media would not have resonated with them. There is simply no way that you will not find racism in a Trump supporter if you merely scratch a little below the surface. And there is absolutely nothing kind and gentle about a racist. They are the most hateful and dangerous people on earth. Stop making excuses for hateful people. Stop tolerating intolerance.
Impeachment wouldn't have achieved anything.
It would have made some people on DU feel good, but it would have given a lot of moderates out there the impression that Democrats were being vindictive. Many Democrats, including myself, feel strongly that it is wrong to use impeachment for political purposes, and impeaching George W. Bush would have appeared political to a huge part of the electorate. Nancy Pelosi chose to focus on getting legislation passed. That is why she is the leader of the House Democrats. She is extremely effective in passing Democratic legislation, and stopping Republican legislation, within the limits of what is mathematically possible.
I don't think it's good to imitate the Republicans. Their base is dominated by stupid and uneducated people. If Democrats started acting like Republicans and imitated their behavior on Benghazi, much of the Democratic base would become disillusioned with politics completely and stop voting altoghether.
Frankly, if it weren't Pelosi's comment about impeachment, it would be something else. Those who hated Hillary claimed they would be all for her if it weren't for her Iraq war vote. Yeah, let's just ignore 99% of a politician's positions and focus on the one thing she did that we don't agree with, to the exclusion of everything else. When people hate women, they always find something to latch on to. That kind of attitude is what gave us President Trump. I'm sorry, but I have no tolerance left for sexists who pretend that they're not sexist, just purer and better than everyone else.
Not supporting an extremely effective leader who happens to be female IS sexist.
The sexists gave us President Trump because they simply couldn't handle the idea of being led by someone with a vagina. Now they're trying to take power away one of the best leaders the House has ever had because she happens to have a vagina, as well. Then, they turn around and attack those who object to this sexism of being sexist ourselves.
I've had enough of this. Anyone who posts here about how Nancy Pelosi is not an effective leader reveals one thing, and one thing only: how utterly clueless he is about politics and what goes on in the House.
You should educate yourself before giving into your impulse to attack women because they happen to be women and are by definition less exciting to you as leaders than men are. Here is a start:
Washington Post: Nancy Pelosi turns 75 today. She’s still the most effective leader in Congress.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/03/26/nancy-pelosi-turns-75-today-shes-still-the-most-effective-leader-in-congress
Washington Monthly: Nancy Pelosi Is the Most Effective Member of the Resistance
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/05/04/nancy-pelosi-is-the-most-effective-member-of-the-resistence/
The Atlantic: The Staying Power of Nancy Pelosi
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-staying-power-of-nancy-pelosi/440022/
Alternet: Nancy Pelosi: The Most Effective Speaker of the House in History
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/425315/nancy_pelosi%3A_the_most_effective_speaker_of_the_house_in_history
The Guardian: Nancy Pelosi: is this the most powerful woman in US history?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/mar/26/nancy-pelosi-politician-speaker
So we're supposed to have a different set of laws for Trump
because he can't control what comes out of his mouth?
The problem is not that Trump is "not from the political class". The problem is that Trump has narcissistic personality disorder. That means he has the emotional maturity of a three-year-old. A three-year-old whose face is covered with chocolate will calmly shake his head and say "No" when you ask him, "Did you eat the chocolate cake?" That's what we're dealing with here. The fact that we have a three-year-old running the country does not mean that laws against perjury and obstruction of justice go out the window.
If HRC had become president, there would have been a chance of pushing the Democratic Party left.
The Democratic Party does not move left when it loses an election; it moves right. If Bernie supporters really wanted to move the Democratic Party left, they should have worked their asses off to get HRC and the Democrats in Congress to win in a landslide in 2016. Allowing the Republicans to "win", as they did in 2000, is not the way to make the argument that the country wants to move left. I thought we learned that lesson in 2000, but clearly some people weren't paying attention.
At this point, attacking the Democratic Party will only succeed in weakening it. We absolutely need to win back the House and the Senate in 2018. Relentlessly criticizing the Democratic Party is not the way to accomplish that goal.
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