Dear Mr. Matthews, I respectfully disagree

Dear Mr. Chris Matthews, With regards to your conclusions in your editorial, "Let Me Finish", for May 30th, 2014: "Chris Matthews responds to universities who rescind invitations to controversial commencement speakers because of protests" , I respectfully, but strongly, disagree.

There are a number of "controversial" speakers, with whom I probably disagree on virtually every conceivable subject, but would agree should be they allowed to speak. Why, say, Sarah Palin, who has never finished anything she started (except, perhaps, giving birth) would ever be invited to speak at a college is beyond me but, sure, let her speak.

Condoleeza Rice, however, along with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and anyone else who knowingly lied our nation into a war to protect American Oil interests, costing Americans and Iraqis 1,000's of lives, locked National Guard members into perpetual service (a "backdoor draft" intended to avoid piquing the curiosity of the majority of Americans to wonder why the loved ones of the wealthy weren't required to serve alongside those of the rest of us) a long with their equipment, so that there were insufficient personnel and resources available to use in fighting hurricanes, tornadoes, fires and other disasters here in the United States, as well as draining the surplus created under the Clinton administration and coming perilously close to driving the nation over an economic cliff.

If I were a pending graduate, or graduate's family member, who had a loved one die in Iraq, a family member injured, missing, return home with mental and/or physical problems - if I were one of those people whose families were shattered, losing my home, losing my children, my family on food stamps then hearing my family disparaged by the very people who put my family in that situation - the last person I would want to hear from at my (or my family member's) commencement, would be a member of the Bush administration.

Lynne and Liz Cheney, Barbara Bush, former President George H.W. Bush, Laura Bush, legislators and pundits who voted to support the Iraq War and still support the lies that led us into it, sure, let them speak. But, please, if we can't at least have an investigation or a hearing on a group of people  who could legitimately, argueably called "war criminals" and accused of "treason", let us not legitimize their monstrous behavior by asking them on talk shows to offer their "opinions" on anything (much less Iraq, Afghanistan and President Obama's or Secretart Clinton's "culpablility" with regards to Benghazi, or their response to the rest of the world on *any* issue) or giving "advice" or inviting them to offer "adivce" of any kind to graduating class of people their behavior has most likely harmed.

First rant on my new blog: 5 years since Dr Tiller was martyred

FRIDAY, MAY 30, 2014 04:35 PM EDT

“His murder did not stop us”: Meet the women keeping George Tiller’s legacy alive in Wichita

Five years after Tiller's assassination, his former clinic honors his memory by providing fearless care for Kansans

KATIE MCDONOUGH

[...]

"I interviewed Oklahoma state Rep. Doug Cox a couple months ago, he was saying that — as a medical provider — he has patients who have said, “I personally don’t support abortion, but here I am anyway.” Or “I don’t believe in abortion, but here my daughter is, and this is the situation she finds herself in, and I want to make a compassionate decision.” Do you see possibility there?"
[...]

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/30/his_murder_did_not_stop_us_meet_the_women_keeping_george_tillers_legacy_alive_in_wichita/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's what this boils down to: lack of access to birth control, lack of serious developments in the field of effective birth control, using legislative tricks to make abortion (at any stage of development) impossible and humiliating to obtain, right-wing state legislatures that can find money for "abstinence only 'eductation' ", but not for sex education, making certain forms of birth control unavailable because an unimplanted egg fertilized by a rapist or a male family member has more human rights than the 12 - 50 year old female it may or may not implant in.

This has nothing to do with concern for human life, because anyone who calls themselves "pro-life" while making life so miserable for working families, the elderly, children, veterans (yeah the GOP is up in arms about Shinseki and the problems at the VA - too bad they don't seem to give a shit that most of those problems have arisen from cutting funding for *everything* that helps veterans and those who are still in service. Currently, our military's only function is to act as human shielding for contractors, funneling still more billions "Koch-ward", which would be the only reason politicians and pundits have a "meltdown" over mention of removing troops from any place where their lives are being risked soley to protect American Oil Interests (Bloody Bill Kritol Loses His Mind Over Afghan Troop Withdrawal  ), because when the Koch Brothers lose money, so do the Koch-Toadies.

Ooops! god side-tracked on fodder for many other blog entries.... Gee, that never happens (ha!)

But this is my blog and I can get side-tracked if I want to.

The original point, however, is that Jesus and Dr Tiller have a lot in common. They were both martyred because they threatened the mythologies and power structures that benefitted only the wealthy and powerful in the societies in which they lived. They saw unfairness and suffering and risked their lives to do something about it. They challenged the idea that there was no greater sin than having sex and that women are the greatest evil because they are the cause of sex (and he said nothing about being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgener - or abortion, for that matter).

Our would be tyrants, paving their way to monarchy with money stolen from the labor of the masses they hate so much, love rigid hiarachies. The symbol of the Elizabethan empire was the beehive - orderly, structured, everyone accepting their place, no one asspiring to rise higher than their "divinely appointed place, by birth", with, ironically enough, a supposedly "virgin Queen" overseeing the hive.

Our society still accepts the notion that women are "fallow fields" with no say over what is "planted" in them - the idea of a field rising up to a farmer and saying "NO!" is, of course, laughable. At the same time, any woman who is raped must have wanted it and is lying when she says she didn't.

Unless it is us. Or someone we care about.

We pass laws requiring parents to know when a teenager seeks an abortion - supposedly because parents have a right to know what their children are doing. Even if it was a relative who got her pregnant and who will probably force her to abort to cover up his incest.

We pass laws requiring that doctors who perform abortions have hospital privileges, require 24 - 48 hour waiting periods and require women be fed a load of bullshit about abortion before the procedure. We force women who are already grieving that the baby they wanted might kill them (leaving the children they already have motherless, sending them into a system for which funds are continually being cut or denied for those little "moochers") or the fetus is so malformed that life after birth can only be brief and excruciating.

Because none of these people are "pro-life" - especially not the women who support this kind of "self-hatred". They care for the lives of neither the children nor the women. They do care about the suffering these forced "choices" will cause because they see women's suffering as God's will. They believe that "Eve" was "evil" because she got Adam "in trouble" and their god is so hateful and cruel and, above all, male, that he sentenced all daughters of Eve to get pregnant and suffer in childbirth and submit to the will of any and all men.

I don't buy that mythology any more than I buy the idea of Zeus turning into a swan in order to rape a woman who said, "No" to him as a god.

It's time we reached a point where we accepted that women are human beings with the same power men have as to what will or will not be put in their bodies or allowed to grow there.

I also would like to see Bill "Have I Got A Loofah For You!" O'Reilly, who repeatedly referred to Dr. Tiller as a "murderer" and "baby killer", take the blame he deserves for Dr. Tiller's martyrdom, dragged off his show, publicly tarred and feathered and never heard from again. That won't ever happen but visualizing it makes me happy.

WTF is WRONG with these people?

Ronald Reagan and NONE of the Tea-Kochian Party were ever worthy to lick the dust off the soles of Maya Angelou's shoes (and, yes, I'm telling you what I really think).

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/29/wingnuts_disrespect_maya_angelou_national_reviews_shameful_response_to_her_death/

Wingnuts disrespect Maya Angelou: National Review’s shameful response to her death

For conservatism's flagship magazine, the death of the widely admired author and poet is a good chance to troll

Don't video it with your Cellphone, Call 911

If something like this happens in front of you, don't stand there and record it with your stupid cellphone. At least call 911. Better yet, be a mensch, step up and say something. 8'(

Trans woman stripped nude, beaten during MARTA attack [NSFW]

http://www.projectqatlanta.com/news_articles/view/trans_woman_stripped_nude_during_marta_attack?gid=15664

Thus, ends the first day of the new blog. I won't post as much tomorrow. Today was about looking new places for new things, so it was "busier".

Texas is not "pro-life"

As long as Texas's politicians continue their relentless defense of execution of prison inmates (regardless of I.Q., or even guilt), support of vicious attempts to outlaw abortion ("from conception") and birth control, and this kind of thing isn't even on their radar, any time they refer to themselves as "pro-life" they are flat-out liars:

Texas woman files federal lawsuit after birth in solitary confinement results in baby’s death

http://feministing.com/2014/05/28/texas-woman-files-federal-lawsuit-after-birth-in-solitary-confinement-results-in-babys-death/#more-81849

3milliondogs.com

Just watch everything on 3milliondogs.com - almost all of it is wonderful (the rest of it makes me cry ... which is not necessarily a BAD thing....)

ELEPHANT AND DOG ARE INSEPARABLE FRIENDS

http://3milliondogs.com/cute/elephant-and-dog-are-inseparable-friends?utm_source=2014-05-27&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Digest%20Email

Someday...

Someday the businessguys at the top of the tv and film production food chain might figure it out, but I doubt it: the actual structure of the face is not all there is to attractiveness, it's what's behind it, and brains (male or female) are sexy as hell.

http://www.themarysue.com/bbc-tennant-cumberbatch-attractiveness/

"Another reminder: this isn’t an isolated incident. Not by a long shot." 

http://bellejar.ca/2014/05/24/elliot-rodger-and-men-who-hate-women

Sometimes I can't help but wonder if the current, unabated "guns uber alles", anti-woman (anti-abortion, anti-birthcontrol, anti-equal pay) anti-minority shriek in the GOP isn't all about putting women and minorities back in their pre-1920's "places" - "behave or we'll rape and kill you and everyone, everything you love or care about".  

The world has lost another awesome, much needed, human voice - long may her voice and works ring on!

http://feministing.com/2014/05/28/rest-in-peace-maya-angelou/