More About Tasers at Progressive Gold
Much of the blogosphere is in an uproar over the tasering of Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a student at UCLA, by the campus police, and rightly so. Over at
Progressive Gold they have a series of posts addressing this incident, police brutality in general, and tasers specifically.
First there is this post with the video of the incident,
Now you know why some cops need killing.
Then there is this post, with video of the police trampling striking janitors in Houston with their horses,
Supressing Dissent. It also describes other incidents in Europe and how increasingly western governments are using laws supposedly intended to fight terrorism against their own citizens, those citizens who protest corporate control in their lives. The money quote:
The police are not there to protect us: they are there to control us.
Last there is this post about tasers (stingers too, another stun gun),
The Business of Repression. Republic of Palau packs in all kinds of information we all should know, the history of the taser, how it's been sold to the US public as non-lethal, and how it IS lethal. Also how these weapons amongst others are being sold to third world countries, which fuels conflicts there.
Isn't this how we got into trouble with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, didn't they also get their weapons and/or funding from the good ol' US of A? Americans and westerners are rather ignorant as to the meddling our countries do in our colonial conquests of other nations. In our ignorance it is easy for our government and their corporate clients to sell us on the idea of our benevolence, while actually raiding third world nations of their resources. Instead of supporting democracy, we support puppet regimes to do our bidding. Be serious, we don't actually want governments that are responsive to the people of their respective nations, we want governments that are responsive to our multinational corporations. They don't hate us for our freedom. They hate us for the fact that they will never have freedom because of us. We support repressive regimes like Saddam Hussein as long as they give us what we want; we only oppose them and start in on the flowery democracy speeches when they oppose us.
Holy Moley! I've got a great update on this already. Black Amazon goes on a furious rampage and says things I wish I had even thought of, because of a shithead who claims to be anti-racist but excuses the tasering by the police, because Tabatabainejad had the nerve to raise his voice. Yep, that's all the excuse the cops need according to this dickweed. Shout at the cops and get tased. Go and read
Dear Brown Folk, Please Don't Make No Noise and feel the rage.
Less Family Drama, I Think...
Small update: If you aren't interested in my nutty family skip this post, there are a couple of other new ones below.
I got a call from my sister a couple of days ago, and the situation has completely reversed itself out in Connecticut. Yes, it's truly bizarre. All my sisters are speaking to my dad now except me! I have mixed feelings about that, mostly it doesn't affect me, and I don't want to speak to my dad anyway, but I do worry that he might try to turn them against me. Although for the most part I think, yeah, good luck with that. He's a wily one though.
As I mentioned before, CJ was broken up about this, so it comes as no surprise that she is already talking with him. But she found out that my dad was pulling all kinds of b.s. behind the scenes and in a complicated situation, our baby sister is involved in a nasty custody battle which my father's machinations could affect. Since he wasn't speaking to DA, he went behind her back to her ex to see his grandson without her knowing a thing about it. The saddest part is, he never gave a damn about his grandson when he was speaking to all of us and didn't call her to spend time with him then. It's only now when he wants to pump the kid and the ex in laws for information that suddenly he needs to see him. He had also been calling the husbands behind CJ and EG's backs on their cell phones to find out what we have been saying about him and doing. He couldn't do that with my husband since we are neandertals who never got cell phones. He would have to call the house direct and I would probably be the one to answer.
Anyway, CJ called DA to warn her that our dad was seeing her son behind her back and that it probably wouldn't look good in court so that she should contact him and either tell him to go through her when she has him or tell him to knock it off. She did call him and told him to go through her, and mostly made up with him then, but also took him over to EG's house and while he was there he pretended like nothing happened which was fine with EG. EG still doesn't know that dad was calling her husband, and worst of all, neither CJ or I want to be the one to tell her, because her husband was being a blabbermouth! He is a lovable but gullible person and really believes that my dad was only concerned about us. Seriously, he was never concerned before, but now my dad has to know all the minute details of our business? If we told EG she would kill her husband, and if we told DA how much he told our father about her divorce, custody, and living situation, she would kill him a second time.
Can you see why it isn't exactly killing me that I'm still not speaking to my dad? Man, he is a Machiavellian character. He's always been able to move us like chess pieces in the past but lost that power. That's all this is, a big power over struggle to him. Not about love, or missing us. Fuck him.
Seinfeld's Kramer is a Racist
Michael Richards who is best known as Jerry Seinfeld's wacky neighbor Kramer was at the Laugh Factory doing a stand up routine when he was being heckled by a black man. He retaliated by calling that man the n word. You can see the video of the incident at
TMZ.com.
I guess it's better that racists come out in the open, on the one hand. But I also think that conservatives have cultivated a society where racism and bigotry are acceptable, especially during the last decade or so. They kept it mostly underground and in code words in the past, now more and more people are having public outbursts like this. I'm not saying that Richards is a Republican, what I am saying is that those in power do affect the rest of society and what is and is not acceptable. Conservatives in general and Republicans specifically have made hate of many groups not only acceptable but almost mandatory...Muslims and Arabs; immigrants, especially Mexicans; gay people; blacks; Europeans; the poor including the working poor; hell, just about anyone who isn't rich, white, and American.
See Pam's take on this over at Pam's House Blend:
I never watched Seinfeld anyway.
Oh and much thanks also to our allies who deride PC in the name of freedom of speech, you idiots. In case you can't figure it out, here is how freedom of speech works, some moron spews racial epithets (his free speech), and I can tell him he's a fucking racist pig (my free speech). Feel free to add your opinion to the mix (free speech for everyone!). No one is censoring anyone. Free speech allows us to shout down racist idiots, it's not censorship, since there is no state involvement.
Read Kai's excellent essay on
political correctness for some history and reasons why the politically incorrect crowd are misguided and just plain wrong.
Update: Kai has more,
White Supremacy By Any Other Name. Oooooooh it's a good one.
An Apology & Some Interesting Reading on SCF
I've gotten pretty far behind in my blog reading lately, but that doesn't mean I am completely unaware. I have visited a few blogs and have wanted to write posts about what I have read or at least comment at those blogs, but I also knew I didn't really have the time to devote to get my thoughts in order, so I let it go. I still don't really have time to get my thoughts in order, but screw that. The time passes and nothing gets said. So I'll take my chances and hopefully say what I mean, but even if I don't, I can always come back and update or write a new post clarifying.
First, I know I offended B|L in the comments at
this thread. It's the one about Jessica's book "Full Frontal Feminism". Scroll WAY down to my comment at 135 and some of the comments afterwards. I think part of the reason is because the talk amongst POC lately seems to box sex positive feminists in as frivolous. And I directly stated this, when it isn't quite what I meant. There is a particular faction of sex positive feminists who are like this. It's what BA meant about
Sofia Coppola feminists. These are mostly middle class white women whose feminism is centered around themselves and only themselves, and they can not see women of color, or women in countries other than America, or even poor white women, as women with agency and women with agendas that differ from their own. When those agendas come under discussion, it always comes back to them, or they force the subject to come back to them and their worldview. Sometimes they do this by introducing defensiveness or white guilt into the subject, it's about them and how the other is making them feel bad; sometimes they belittle the concerns or ignore them completely and move on to what they believe are the important issues; but the worst is when they take the lead and they decide what is best for the other.
I'm not certain I fully understand why I offended B|L, but I do know she is one of the people I do not want to offend. She is a real ally. She isn't some airhead with only her own concerns; her life experiences have taught her empathy and she can put herself in others shoes to understand. I apologize to her. I never learned feminist theory, hell, I never learned theory with regard to race relations. I am only using my experience, my education, my reasoning and logic, and blundering along the best I can. I won't always say things right or completely understand what I am talking about! All I know is that since B|L tries her damnedest to understand me and other POC and be respectful, I will do the same for her and the rest of our allies.
On a related note here's more reading on the frustration of POC lately with the Sofia Copola feminists:
From BlackAmazonFrom KactusFrom BrownFemiPower where incredibly Lindsay of Majikthise steps in it again in regards to Afghan women. She really ought to stick to talking about white issues since she can't face the fact that her mind is steeped in racism and imperialism.
Missing In Action
One of the reasons I never started a blog is because I knew this would happen. Alright, self fullfilling prophesy and all that, but anyway... For a week or two I will be all fired up to write, but then I will suddenly realize that not much else is getting done and I have to get back to taking care of the family and home as well as other things. For recreation I like to read, go to the movies or rent videos with the family, play cards with friends, and sell stuff I find at yard sales etc at ebay. I've done all those things and then my husband topped it off by working huge amounts of overtime, which I assumed he did to buy something for the house or some new toy for himself...but he instead did it for me and the kids. He told me to go and buy two (YES! TWO!) new computers. A laptop for me, since the computer I am typing on now is crap, and a desktop for the kids. So I did that and have been spending time setting those up. The bad news is that the laptop has something wrong with it and after spending time setting it up I had to send it back. Hopefully I will be getting it returned to me fixed or replaced soon.
Unfortunately this has left me with little time to post to the blog but soon I hope to post a little more regularly. I know that people get bored if they come to a blog and there is nothing new for days, or worse weeks upon weeks at a time. So if I plan to do this seriously and be read by anyone besides myself I will have to settle in and post at least a couple times a week.
In other news, my health is doing pretty good. I still get enough chronic pain that i have to take the vicodin a couple times a day, but it's not as bad as the past couple of months when I was taking it 5-7 times a day. So the fog is clearing a bit. And my sister is handling the break with dad better. I like to think that has something to do with me since I am still talking with her about every other day. Now she spends alot more time talking about how happy she is with her new home, the coming holiday plans, and our kids. Dad rarely comes up in conversation. I still haven't read the letter, or destroyed it. I think I will take the time to read it, even if it pisses me off. You'd have to know my dad. I think that if the day comes when I am ever in contact with him again he will throw the things I have said to him in my face and I will leave myself "unarmed" if I do not read what he said. It's a bad reason to read it, but I've never said I was an angel. LOL I know I'm not an angel in fact, since I still do not feel bad about not speaking to him ever again. I know I should, but I really don't. He has simply turned into someone I don't want to know or spend any time with. The only qualms I have are whether my not wanting to be with him impacts others who do, like my children. They have spent very little time with him since we are in Wisconsin and he is in Connecticut. But should I take away any more time from them? Also I don't want or expect my sisters to avoid him on my account but they may do it out of a sense of loyalty to me. I hope they are true to themselves and work out whatever arrangement is best for them and their families. I won't be hurt if they want a relationship with him except if he tries to turn them against me. It's funny, it's more like we children are more mature and he is the child. He's a sociopath, republicans tend to be. All he cares about is himself and his appearance to others. He doesn't actually have to be a good person, but wants others to think so, and he's quite the actor when he needs to be. You'd like him if you met him, it's too bad it's all on the surface, and once you left the room he'd probably gripe about you or make fun of you behind your back.
My oldest sister said that everything good she has in her personality or outlook on life she got from our mother, and everything bad from our father. I couldn't agree more because it's also true about me. For instance I have a quick temper like my father, but if I was completely like him I would hold grudges forever, even over stupid small shit. My mother doesn't get angry often, and gets over it quickly. I also get over it pretty quickly. So while I'm no angel, I sure hope I inherited much much more from her than I give myself credit for. You'd like her if you met her too. She is hilarious, many times unintentionally. She has a ninth grade education, but is one of the smartest people I know. The best part about her is that she has a big heart. You'd like her and she would genuinely like you too.
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