“Sorry Obama isn’t Jed Bartlet” could basically sum up 2008-2012.
woke up this morning, skimmed the news, wound up sobbing in my bed over this beautiful picture and those dates
1995
I haven’t written much about this, or reblogged as much as I maybe should - at this point my dash is so incestuous I figure all of you are seeing much of the same coverage as I am and my only thoughts on the matter have been incoherently angry, until today, when suddenly all I feel is the heartbreak. I cannot possibly imagine the sorrow, anger, and fear being felt in black communities right now. but I am laying in bed this morning, crying, because this child was born in ‘95, and now he is dead because of racism and now his murderer is free because of racism and I am hoping to god the federal and state investigations bring him justice but nothing can ever right this, the murder of a scared teenager walking through his own neighborhood or the centuries of anti-black racism and white folks turning their heads that have brought us here.
Michael Moore calls Rush Limbaugh a hooker.
Would have been more effective at slapping down a misogynist if it hadn’t included a misogynist slur.
michael moore doesn’t disagree with rush limbaugh because what he said is hateful and sexist — he disagrees because rush is a conservative. most progressive men just don’t experience this stuff as anything other than an abstract political penis measuring contest.
In the not-so-distant future of Virginia, the Personhood Act has outlawed abortion and chemical birth control. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, though.
this picture is from the campaign office on saturday, I’m the only one who hasn’t had a cuddly bantha face added to protect their privacy. I look hella unimpressed and disaffected because I am exhausted, there is no place to sit in this room, I have nightmare-grade cramps, and I hate how whiny I feel.
this was a good weekend.
- watched tank girl with my chosen family on thursday (and fielded a drunk dial from Highly Casual),
- got kinda smashed &saw a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in ages on friday,
- dragged my crampy, hungover ass out of bed on saturday to canvas in portland for suzanne bonamici,
- went thrifting with Andi this afternoon,
- & spent this evening making Real Dinner and unfucking my kitchen &bedroom
pretty good, pretty good.
A MAJOR WIN for
women’s healthreproductive rights!Fixed that for you.
Love,
Taylor
My mom and I ate Thanksgiving dinner in the cafeteria of the hospital where she works (as a barista). I met a bunch of her coworkers/friends, including a woman who was about four months pregnant and who my mother told me had become pregnant despite already struggling to care for her two young children and despite really, really not wanting to become pregnant. The hospital where they work is a Catholic one (having driven the county hospital out of business years ago) and didn’t cover contraception for their employees; this friend had just scraped together enough money for a doctor’s appointment to get on birth control (no clinics like Planned Parenthood within a few hours’ drive; and the state contraceptive program won’t cover you if you’re insured, even if that insurance is Catholic and won’t cover contraception) when she got pregnant. Because of the social pressures of living in a small town, abortion was not an option from her from the moment she reached out to tell anyone she was pregnant and devastated.
It’s too late to help that woman and loads of others choose their own reproductive lives, but this is such a huge win against institutions like Catholic hospitals that monopolize health care in small towns and then raise costs and employ tons of people when there are no other jobs, effectively forcing tons of poor people to choose between being sexually active ever and controlling their own bodies.
[snip snip]
I respect everyone’s peaceful right to protest, but what the hell? Showing up at a picnic gathering with a bunch of people and signs? It’s not like public officials or media were going to be there. The only reason they did that was to intimidate and quash views opposed to theirs.
What are you afraid of, Tea Partiers? Picnics?
Disgusting.
Exactly. I’ve been at my fair share of counter-protests, and I’ve even shouted at them and waved signs - but that’s at events like the Genocide Awareness Project, which involved HUGE billboards behind fences showing graphic images of genocide juxtaposed with “abortions” and comparing abortion providers and women to Nazis. When the people you disagree with are having a picnic and chatting with themselves, NOT demonstrating? I mean feel free to set up your own passive agressive counter-picnic with some signs nearby, but this is disgusting.
The kicker for me was: There were less than 20 MoveOn people (I think the number was like 18), and around 35 Tea Partiers. Ri-fucking-diculous.
Here is a video of the Tea Partiers in my hometown deliberately breaking up a peaceful MoveOn.org potluck gathering, aka a bunch of little old liberal ladies getting together in a park to talk about the American Dream and the Supreme Court decision declaring corporations to be people and money to be speech.
The Tea Partiers waltzed in with signs, called at least one (again, little old) lady a bitch, accused everyone of being communists, stood in the center of the MoveOn group, and shouted about “freeing America” and “go back where you came from”. They posted the video themselves, all proud of their behavior.
When the MoveOn people decided the best, nonconfrontational thing to do was just pack up and move the meeting to a private home, the Tea Partiers got in their cars and followed them, attempting to go down the private road to the personal home of one of the MoveOn people. They had to physically block the road to stop them.
This is what a free America looks like to these Tea Partiers: intimidating opposing ideas, breaking up gatherings of people you disagree with, and trying to follow them back to their homes when they decide to leave.