Bitter Knitters, Spinning Wheels, And Pretzel Logic

I am not a bandwagoneer.  It takes a lot to get me to go along with anything, or anyone, at any time.  Given the way perceptions can be radically shifted by agents employing fairly subtle techniques, I have a hard time accepting things that are reported as “prevailing wisdom,” or “common knowledge,” or anything suggesting that whatever being discussed is something “everybody knows.”  Everybody knows shit.  Nobody knows squat.  However you want to say it, unless you’re under the age of 17 and trying to cajole a parent into granting permission for something you want, but know good and well you shouldn’t have, “everybody knows” has no place in anybody’s vocabulary.  Everybody knows that.

When I hear people compare the current power struggle in Iran to last year’s Democratic party primary shenanigans here in the United States, and cast the Iranian dissidents in the role of PUMAs, i.e., disgruntled voters outraged about voter fraud, I can only scratch my head.  Trying to cast Mir Hossein Mousavi into the Hillary Clinton part is way too big a stretch for me.  Although in the primaries and caucuses, the “establishment” was felt to be unfairly supporting Obama, especially in the case of Michigan and Florida, and it was Obama who bussed shitloads of people to out of state caucuses and gangstered them, not Clinton, and it was Obama who bought off the superdelegates, and strong armed any number of people in order to circumvent a true floor vote at the convention, it was Obama’s camp that threatened to riot in the streets, and, who spread their message through the social media.  It was Obama who captured the malleable passions of the latest gullible campus bound Pepsi Generation, and conscripted them into an online army.

Mr. Mousavi is clearly using the Obama model to help him engineer his bid for power.  In an interview with Foreign Policy, his representative said just that, though bloggers of Left Blogostan disagree.  Mrs. Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, who retains her maiden name, has been compared to Michelle Obama, which she rejects, and Politics Daily says she’s more like Hillary Clinton.  Whatever.  But, one does not need confirmation from any other sources to see what is right in front of their face.  Any number of facts should render a free thinker duly skeptical.  Since Google just started supporting Farsi, and Twitter still doesn’t, as far as I know, and, since the Iranian government has been trying to clamp down and control all communication into and out of the country since Day One of the protests, one would naturally wonder who, if anyone, is helping to coordinate the organized web-based effort to foment and exploit the youth-driven dissent, wouldn’t one?  Someone with a deep appreciation for, and, dedication to, the viral dissemination of information at the grassroots level could very well see the Iranian situation as one ripe for subtle manipulation, with the potential for maximum effect, and, the added benefit of exposing such “collaborators” to very little risk of exposure, or anything else.  Hardball with clean hands.

There are other areas where PUMA supporters are currently championing causes that give me great pause personally.  While I understand that David Letterman’s sexist “jokes” about Sarah Palin and family’s “sluttiness”, and his smug chauvinistic belief that penis-bearing insulates one from any real negative effect resulting from knowingly engaging in such verbal attacks against women, is seen by many women as a sort of last straw, deliberate line-in-the-sand crossing, I can’t help but wish that the troop rallying was on behalf of the woman whose broad-shouldered shit-taking is directly responsible for Sarah Palin’s current visibility, Hillary Clinton.  Clinton’s relative equanimity in the face of much more vile attacks from left and right, and unfortunately, women and men, allowed her a largely unacknowledged dignity even when forced to bow out gracefully, paving the way for opportunist men to attempt to capitalize on her misfortune by elevating Palin to the national spotlight.  For Clinton’s strength and sacrifice to be overlooked while Palin is defended as she is being further exploited by the men in her party looking for any positive promotional advantage they can glom onto, burns my frosted cookies.  Though I “get it,” that after so much public abuse, this latest affront broke the proverbial camel’s back, so to speak, the fact that the acceptance of the same kinds of grievances that have constantly been lodged about sexism and misogyny over the past two years only comes on behalf of a Republican woman, frankly pisses me off.

Though I’m nobody’s “feminist,” i.e., political activist on behalf of women, I am a woman, so issues concerning “feminists” concern me, too.  However, it seems to me that “feminism” itself is under attack, and, sadly, is being defended largely by troops whose commanders are not up to the task.  CNN’s AM Fix is asking “is feminism obsolete?” then framing the issue in a “liberal versus conservative” box, when the question is far too broad to be so constrained.  “Feminism,” unless it is defined only in terms of “activism,” can mean far different things to different women.  A woman as discriminated against on the basis of her color, class, religion, etc. as she is subject to be objectified and discriminated against because of her gender, is going to have far different issues with which to contend than the woman standing next to her.  Unless and until “feminism” finds a vehicle large enough to embrace the vast patchwork village that is “woman,” and finds a woman with the strength and clarity of vision and purpose to competently steer said bus to a common destination, “feminism” will remain relevant to only a relative few women, while the relevant issues will continue to affect all of them.

If that’s not bad enough, when the White House is occupied by a man with “Daddy issues” of his own, and the attendant reverse Oedipal “Mommy issues” that go along with them, as well as the inescapable racial issues resulting from being the child of mixed parents, both of whom abandoned him, you’ve got a maelstrom of mixed messages swirling around muddying the waters with the stamp of government approval on them.  Fathers “step up,”  is the oft-repeated message and recurring theme of the Mom-In-Chief’s husband who thinks women have the right to cover their hair if they’re forced to.  Of course, since he’s “black,” these messages of distorted Huxtabilizaton (Claire Huxtable did work outside the home, after all) as the standard of proper African American behavior, have special meaning.  I think the logic goes something like, “black men, you too can be the inner Ward Cleaver you longed to be, and would have been, if not for that pesky Civil Rights business we had to get out of the way first, my brother.”  In that scenario, women can probably be expected to assume very prominent roles in support of men.

Black Americans, on the other hand, will continue to occupy our unique place in the unheated melting pot that is our country, too.  I mean, when the Senate is passing toothless bills apologizing for slavery that only serve as an injunction against reparations nobody’s really asking for in disguise, and/or an excuse to throw an “ain’t we the shit with our black president and all, given our history,” back patting party sometime in the near future, or just commemorate Juneteenth, I gotta feel good about the opportunity to forgive myself, as an American, on behalf of my slave and Jim Crow oppressed ancestors, right?  That’s cause to celebrate, isn’t it?  Especially in light of the fact that, as an American, I’m not gonna get any real health care reform, even though, as a black person, I’m prone to need it more, I really should be in a partying mood since the pretendident responsible for going back on his promise to give it to me, as an American who happens to be black, happens to be black himself.  It’s not like his broken promises to the gay community, since, as far as we know, he’s not gay, right?  Or, am I missing something?

The media muddied waters that define politics today continue to place people in uncomfortable and untenable positions, with no clearly defined entities with which to align oneself.  Whether deliberate or accidental, overt or covert, the mischaracterization of facts by the press, all too often causes people to chose sides against their interests.  Nowhere is this more obvious than in the case of the brouhaha surrounding our innocent Spokesmodel-in-Chief’s Senate Seat For Sale Scandal, and all the drama surrounding it.  He, of course, is the good guy in all of this; his, and his Obacolytes’ involvement is completely aboveboard, while the machinations of anyone associated with the evil Blagojevich is tainted beyond salvation.  So, when the States  Attorney’s office says no perjury charges will be brought against Blago’s duly appointed replacement, Roland Burris, many people are left unnecessarily perplexed.  Burris, whose begging for consideration never amounted to anything more than pitiful, was accused of talking to the impeached governor’s minions about his desperate desire to be a player.  And, he did.  But, nothing in the transcript of his near-tearful pleading conversation with Blago Brother Bob ever rose to the level of criminality, regardless of how many hundreds of news articles portrayed it as such.  Burris was always a last resort joke of a candidate as far as the Brothers Blago were concerned, and the fact that they got to pimpslap the Barraco Bamacrats with his appointment was a deliciously ironic practical joke.

Lastly, another area where I see muddled media reports making strange bedfellows of my fellow PUMAs, is in the case of Gerald Walpin, fired Inspector General holdover from the Bush administration.  Yes, Claire McCaskill jumped off the deep end criticizing Baracus Hubris Maximus, (Hail, Caesar!) a newsworthy event in and of itself, as we know, the hapless McCaskill has a habit of leaping without looking as her warrantless support of Obiteme at the behest of her kids attests.  I can agree that any impropriety involving current Sacramento mayor, and former NBA player, Kevin Johnson should be fully investigated, that’s mainly because as a longtime Lakers fan, I’ve never liked the guy.  However, I’m pretty sure we should avoid full-scale embrace of rightwing talking points, and stick to trying to balance them with something attempting to at least pretend to pass itself off as fact.