momta

momta's Journal

March 11, 2012

Evans: The president is right - War is not a game

Clay Evans is a columnist for the Boulder Daily Camera. (He used to be an editor, but writes only sporadically these days.) And in my opinion he is a great voice of reason on many issues.

...

Now we hear that Israel is prepared to take matters into its own hands and attack several nuclear facilities in Iran, amplified by American politicians eager to seem "tough." Netanyahu's government and many Americans are convinced that the big dog of the Persian Gulf (for that we can thank the ill-advised war in Iraq) is pursuing nuclear weapons.

President Obama said Monday that the United States "will always have Israel's back." At the same time, he has criticized all the cheap belligerence emanating from GOP presidential candidates and Israeli hawks. On Tuesday, he rightly called out the Republican war hounds for not taking war seriously enough.

"This is not a game," the president said.

No, it's not. But it's all to easy for many Americans to treat it as if it is. The media is generally more than happy to aid and abet that thinking.

...

http://www.dailycamera.com/opinion-columnists/ci_20140687/evans-president-is-right-war-is-not-game

March 5, 2012

Yeah, but...

I was all set to agree with this post, but then I went and read the whole article. And I'm sorry, but very little of what is referenced really rises to the level of "misogyny."

For instance:

"Matthews has wondered aloud whether Sarah Palin is even “capable of thinking” and has called Bachmann a “balloon head” and said she was “lucky we still don’t have literacy tests out there.” Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene, who is the former president of the Women’s Media Center, told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly in 2011 that Matthews “is a bully, and his favorite target is women.” So why does he still have a show? What if his favorite target was Jews? Or African-Americans?"

Now, everything here might be insulting, but it's certainly not misogyny. Any of those descriptions could apply to any man in the race for president, and actually does apply to many of them. Just like several people pointed out that "batshit crazy" applies equally well to Ron Paul and Michelle Bachmann.

I want to root out misogyny as well as the next woman, but I want to reserve my energy for the gross offenders like Limbaugh (and, arguably, some of the crap that is mentioned in this article, but only some) but I also want to make sure that I'm not just tilting at insulting windmills.

Another point: In the article, in almost every example she offers she admits that the left-winger who committed the offense came back and apologized. Now, I've heard apologies from Olbermann and Schulz (I don't watch Tweety anymore, and read Matt Taibbi only occasionally) and they are always more heartfelt and sincere than the milquetoast excuse for an "apology" offered by Rush--on a Saturday...on his website...after three days of relentless accusations...because he was losing advertisers. Olbermann especially, I think when he gets called out for it, he truly does regret having done it. Just like our brothers and husbands, sometimes guys just need a gentle reminder. Rush, on the other hand, needs to be pounded over the head with revenue-loss.

So...I do not disagree with the general nature of this column, but I will go on record here as believing whole heartedly that the true misogyny is alive and well and going strong on the right, and trying to die a quiet death on the left.

March 5, 2012

My 15-yr-old son gets it...even if Rush doesn't.

This morning, recovering from a nasty cold, he sat on the couch and chatted with me for over an hour. At one point he kind of launched into something that I could tell he had been thinking about for a while, probably since he started hearing his father and me discuss what an asshole Rush is. It went something like this:

"Here's what I don't understand. Women--even in America--if they have a lot of sex they're considered a slut or something equally bad. But there's no equivalent 'bad' reputation for a guy. In fact guys are pretty much EXPECTED to go out and have a bunch of sex with women, and if you don't you're some kind of wimp or you're gay or something. But even I can see that the math doesn't work. If girls are told not to have sex or they're a slut, then how does that help guys (read "me&quot get laid? Why aren't we telling women that they should go out and have just as much sex as men...or at least that it's okay?"

Now, I'm paraphrasing, but only a little. And he barely looked at me through a lot of this because he knows that I know that he's a virgin--albeit a virgin with raging male hormones who sneaks peaks of naked women on the internet .

Still, I could see his frustration about the whole Rush Limbaugh mess from a purely--ahem--logical perspective.

March 2, 2012

I just wrote both of my senators and my congressman...

asking them to try to remove Rush Limbaugh from Armed Forces radio.

I made a specific point about service men and WOMEN having to hear his vile crap while giving of their lives and talents so generously.

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