March 3, 2014

Venezuela's Deep Political Education Means Venezuelans Will Withstand Right-Wing Protests

Venezuela's Deep Political Education Means Venezuelans Will Withstand Right-Wing Protests

Americans might be fooled by mass media misinformation, but Venezuelans know what is really happening in their country.

The misinformation in most of the media about the protests in Venezuela is astounding. Often the opposite of reality is repeated as if it were true. Americans who rely on the corporate mass media, politicians and corrupted nonprofits might fall for these tales, but Venezuelans know what is really happening.

The violent actions of the opposition and intentional undermining of the economy are signs of an oligarch class that has lost power and is desperate. It must work outside of democracy to try to retake control of the government.

Maria Paez Victor told us that the opposition will fail because it has no political base outside of the wealthy class. She writes:
"These violent tactics have no hope of succeeding because, unlike 1999, the Venezuelan people are now organized into many groups: the communal councils, the communes, the thousands of health, security, militia, sports, educational, cultural committees. The Bolivarian Revolution has fostered, not a mass of people, but an organized organic population that makes decisions about its living conditions along with its government because Venezuela is now a fully functioning participatory democracy."

Polls show President Nicolas Maduro is the most popular president in Latin America and the people of Venezuela are not fooled by the oligarch protests. According to a poll by International Consulting Services (ICS), 85.3 percent of Venezuelans disagree with protests mounted by sectors of the ultra-Venezuelan right. The poll found 81.6 percent of Venezuelans say that it is the opposition protests that have been violent, and 91.3 percent replied that preserving Venezuelan democracy is very important. The people of Venezuela do not want their democracy undermined by a mob demanding regime change.

Documents released by attorney and journalist Eva Golinger in November 2013 show a plan by the United States, Colombia and the oligarchs in Venezuela to undermine the economy to remove Maduro.

(continues at link)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/22121-venezuelas-deep-political-education-means-venezuelans-will-withstand-right-wing-protests

March 2, 2014

What fueled right wingers, fathers rights, mens' rights, gun rights & teabaggers into existence?

Angry White Men, American Masculinity at the End of an Era, by Michael Kimmel, copyright 2013

I'm currently reading this book, and it's amazing.

Here's the synopsis from the inside flap:

One of the enduring legacies of the 2012 presidential campaign was the demise of the white American male voter as a dominant force in the political landscape. On election night, after Obama was announced the winner, a distressed Bill O'Reilly lamented that he didn't live in "a traditional America anymore." He was joined by others who bellowed their grief on the talk radio airwaves, the traditional redoubt of angry white men. Why were they so angry? Sociologist Michael Kimmel, one of the leading writers on men and masculinity in the world today, has spent hundreds of hours in the company of America's angry white men - from men's rights activists to young students to white supremacists - in pursuit of an answer. Angry White Men presents a comprehensive diagnosis of their fears, anxieties, and rage.

Kimmel locates this increase in anger in the seismic economic, social, and political shifts that have so transformed the American landscape. Downward mobility, increased racial and gender equality, and a tenacious clinging to an anachronistic ideology of masculinity has left many men feeling betrayed and bewildered. Raised to expect unparalleled social and economic privilege, white men are suffering today from what Kimmel calls, "aggrieved entitlement": a sense that those benefits that white men believed were their due have been snatched away from them.

Angry White Men discusses, among others, the sons of small town America, scarred by underemployment and wage stagnation. When America's white men feel they've lived their lives the "right" way - worked hard and stayed out of trouble - and still do not get economic rewards, then they have to blame somebody else. Even more terrifying is the phenomenon of angry young boys. School shootings in the United States are not just the work of "misguided youth" or "troubled teens" - they're all committed by boys. These alienated young men are transformed into mass murderers by a sense of using violence against others is their right.

The future of America is more inclusive and diverse. The choice for angry white men is not whether or not they can stem the tide of history: they cannot. Their choice is whether or not they will be dragged kicking and screaming into that inevitable future, or whether they will walk honorably alongside those they've spent so long trying to exclude. By explaining their rage, Kimmel is able to point to a possible future that is healthier, happier, and much less angry.

He discusses the failure of the American Dream to materialize (and read that, white male American Dream, as there was no American Dream for anyone but white males). He addresses the Mens' "Rights" allegations that men get beaten up by women with the same frequency as women get beaten up by men, and analyzes it with all the available data (and of course finds it to be pure BS). He analyzes the attacks and accusations toward feminists and feminism. He covers all the basics, using an analytical point of view, and studies by the hundreds.

I strongly recommend it!

February 26, 2014

Porn is definitely sex-for-pay, as is prostitution. As for "sex-POSITIVE" feminists....

The history of sex-positive feminists is very interesting. These were Libertarian (that is, right wing women, as Libertarians are right wingers) who were part of the backlash against feminism in the 80s. And it should come as no surprise to anyone that it began in the 80s, right alongside Ronald Reagan and the right wing attacks on the U.S. which have lasted to this very day.

"Sex-positive" feminists are precisely that, Libertarian females whose intention is to promote the degraded-female-as-affirmative and positive and a good, healthy type of titillation. For whom?

February 25, 2014

A man saved from committing suicide searches for the man who saved him - and finds him

A LONDON man who launched an international search to find the man who stopped him from jumping off a bridge has found the stranger who saved him.

Jonny Benjamin was perched on Waterloo Bridge in January 2008 when good Samaritan Neil Laybourn approached him and calmly talked him down.

Mr Benjamin, then 20, had just been released from a month in hospital after being diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and was set to end his life, which he felt had "hit rock bottom".

After Mr Laybourn assured him that things would get better, and offered to take him out for a coffee to talk, Mr Benjamin climbed down off the ledge.

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/jonny-benjamin-finds-stranger-who-stopped-him-jumping-off-bridge-after-findmike-campaign/story-fnixwvgh-1226814460971

February 23, 2014

I'm not one of those women who thinks objectifying women is good

However, let me say one thing...

First, while it is true that some women (and a lot of them very young - 18, 19, etc) have bought into the heavily-marketed idea that in order to be thought of as worthwhile women they have to appear half-undressed, behave like sexual clowns, and follow the dictates of the media (which basically promotes the idea that women are pieces of sexual meat), we have to be aware that not all women buy into this shit, and it is shit.

Second, if we are to judge all women by the behavior of the worst ones (porn actresses, models for Victoria's Secret, and those humping one another - drunk - on the dance floor), we could just as easily judge all men by the behavior of the worst males (ones that rape, ones that hit, ones that are drug addicts), and so on. We could generalize till we're blue in the face, couldn't we?

Some men feel that it's "okay" to objectify all women and to post photos that objectify women, simply because there are some women out there desperately seeking male attention, or obtaining monetary compensation (porn, soft porn, etc.) by being the media's ideal and darling of the female sexual clown they (the media) adore to play up.

February 21, 2014

Some years back I served on a jury...

It was a murder case, and the defendant was a man who had allegedly shot to death a former friend, a man who had cheated with the defendant's girlfriend, who had gone around town convincing mutual friends that the defendant was gay, and who was now living in the defendant's girlfriend's house.

After the closing arguments, we, the jurors, were led to the jury room to deliberate the facts. The moment the door was shut, one white guy yelled, "I'm ready to fry the m@#$##@," whereupon he set about becoming the foreperson. He began to rush through the evidence, because, as he said, he had "better things to do" and wanted "to get the hell outta" there. He was one of those people that simply has to be the center of attention, and keep the attention of his audience, and a couple of other guys found him funny and laughed at his jokes and his abrasiveness. Then these two began to agree with his every word, and they became a team.

Up to that point, I'd imagined juries to be different, to be serious, responsible. I couldn't believe it. I'd never been a juror before, thought juries were those things on TV police and attorney shows, and I was soo disappointed that jurors I was serving with were behaving like complete a-hs!

I'd had just about all I could take, so I began to do the only thing I could do - disagree with him on everything (on purpose), debate every point he made, and hold up the process to force him (and the others) to consider and weigh everything carefully. Needless to say, I held up the jury by posing questions they were forced to discuss, and the foreperson became very frustrated, which made him look like an ass. Soon, one older man got exasperated with him and said, "Look, if you're not happy, let's call the bailiff and get the judge to excuse you." From that moment on he was pretty quiet and reasonable, we went through the evidence, discussed all points, and made a very measured, very cautious decision.

I SHUDDER thinking what goes on in jury rooms all over this country. People are people even in juries. People don't change simply because they're selected to serve on a jury. Republicans are STILL Republicans on a jury. Jury duty does not bestow on people a higher intelligence, more objectivity, or a stronger moral compass. Asses will still be asses, even when picked to serve on a jury.

February 15, 2014

My mom and dad passed away on Nov. 8 and Nov. 11, 2013.

It's been almost impossible for me to talk about it, since not a second passes that I don't miss them, and deal with the shock of having to spend the rest of my life without having them to call, talk to, take out to eat, buy things for, laugh with, and spend time with. I've cried so much I'm surprised I am still able to cry. I cry in the car, cry in the bathroom at work, cry myself to sleep. I've spent the past 3 months going through the motions of working, talking, functioning, and behaving as if I had it all together, but I don't. Inside me there's a turmoil, pain, and an incredible, heavy sadness.

They were the most wonderful parents, and that makes it all the more painful. I was truly lucky to have them as long as I did, but that doesn't provide any solace.

And today, Valentine's Day, I'm having an incredibly difficult time dealing with it all. Christmas and New Years I spent in a state of numbness, as if someone had severed nerves in my body. I barely noticed them because of how numb I felt. The holidays came and went as if they had not come at all. I could've been pierced with a lance, and wouldn't have felt it. For some reason though, Valentine's Day is proving to be excrutiatingly painful for me, and I don't even know why. It is the first holiday I'm fully aware of since mom and dad left me, and I feel a sense of isolation like never before, and wish that they could come back.