Bedwetters, communists, feminazis, girly-men . . . You can tell the Republicans are scared when they resort to name-calling — which, of course, means they are scared most of the time.
They rule from a position of fear, and they seek to project that fear onto the rest of us. Remember when GWB promised that electing Gore would result in another terrorist attack? It almost sounded like a threat. It was not true, of course. American voters did in fact elect Gore and nothing happene...Nothing at all. (Though, of course, some would liken the judicial fiat employed to put GWB in office, and GWB’s subsequent bombing of small countries, as a form of terrorism.)
When the village Republican calls you a terrorist for opposing the escalation in Iraq, this is just more of the same. Calling Hillary Clinton a communist — now that’s a real case of the pot calling the kettle black. Hillary Clinton is a Democrat. If anything, she may lose the primary for being too moderate.
Do not believe the lying liars who tell you Hillary Clinton wants to confiscate your property and distribute it among the poor. Do not even fall for the more common pronouncement that Democrats always raise taxes. Truth is, Democrats are often the only voice of reason crying against a tax increase.
Just last week, Republican Governor Sonny Perdue raised your taxes without even bothering to tell you. Every time you fill up your car, you will pay even more for your gasoline, thanks to an automatic gas tax increase that Perdue allowed. The only state officials who took a stand against the gas tax are Democratic legislators like Rep. DuBose Porter.
The evil of communism is not that communism teaches sharing what we have, or feeding those who cannot work. The Bible teaches the same thing. The evil of communism is that freedoms are stripped from individuals — among them: the right to speak freely and privately; the right to elect a government of by and for the people; and the right not to have our homes occupied or our family members arrested without cause.
When it comes to freedoms like these, our Republican president is the biggest Big Brother since the days of McCarthyism.
Bush scrapped the Geneva Convention and reinstituted torture as a sanctioned military procedure. Previous military wisdom taught that fair treatment of prisoners encourages your enemy to surrender. Enemy combatants will never put themselves at your mercy if they expect to be tortured, abused and mistreated. Result: The abuses at Abu Ghraib have produced an enemy that will never surrender.
Bush eliminated the right of habeas corpus. Once upon a time, people could not be detained unless they were alleged to have committed a particular crime. Result: People may just disappear, like they did in Stalin’s Russia.
Bush launched a “pre-emptive” war based on lies, non-existent weapons of mass destruction, and fabricated ties to 9/11. Result: Vietnam-like quagmire in Iraq.
Bush claimed that the only way to protect American freedom is by getting rid of it. Result: The PATRIOT Act.
Bush used PATRIOT to destroy many of our civil liberties, including the right to check out a library book without Big Brother reading over our shoulder, or the right to know our home is about to be searched. Result: Death of “knock and announce,” end of library privacy — heck, even your church records can now be accessed by the government, and church officials are not allowed to tell you if it happens.
Bush also used PATRIOT to erode the privacy of Internet and telephone communications without making his spies wade through the pesky delays caused by all that unnecessary red tape formerly known as “due process.” Result: Domestic spying.
Bush’s administration uses some of the same coercive tactics seen in fascist countries to surround himself only with those who agree with him, get rid of those who don’t, and force even his friends to abandon any principles that get in the way. Alberto Gonzales fires attorney generals who don’t tow the party line. Karl Rove uses the DOJ to settle partisan conflicts. Scooter Libby leaks the name of a CIA agent to retaliate against her husband, who challenged the WMD-in-Iraq claim.
Stalin would be proud.
But have the growth of Big Brother and the occupation of Iraq really made the world a safer place? The State Department recently reported that terrorist attacks worldwide shot up 25 percent over the last year, while terrorist fatalities increased 40 percent.
The numbers in Iraq are particularly dismal. In 2006, 65 percent of worldwide terrorist-related deaths occurred in Iraq. In fact, this represents a 91 percent increase in the number of terrorist incidents in Iraq.
Republican commentators will tell you that the plan is working —after all, there has not been a second attack on American soil! Anyone who buys this argument is conceding that America was safer under Bill Clinton; after all, it was on GWB’s watch that the 9/11 was allowed to happen.
Although Osama bin Laden took credit for the attack, GWB hardly went after him at all. He bombed and devastated Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, causing thousands to starve and sending the infant mortality rate sky-rocketing.
But he let Osama bin Laden slip away. GWB even said — some time after 9/11 and Osama’s admission that he was the mastermind behind it — that he rarely thinks of Osama anymore.
He attacked Iraq instead. The fact is that GWB has had a score to settle with Saddam, and stated as much during his 2000 campaign. 9/11 gave him an opening to dupe the American people into accepting a quagmire in Iraq. It has been over four years since GWB stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier beneath a “Mission Accomplished” banner, and the mission is still not accomplished. In fact, the war is bloodier than ever.
We support our troops, and we want them home. Bush has steadfastly refused to open his eyes and ears to the American people. As a result, his popularity has plummeted so steeply that Republican presidential candidates are abandoning the current administration like rats from a sinking ship. At the recent debates, Republicans condemned Bush more soundly than the Democrats did.
Just remember, as you see these men desperately disavowing their leader, that they participated in and support the same curtailing of your freedoms.
Republicans who tell you that Democrats want to “take away your freedoms” are either liars or just plain stupid. Over the last seven years, our freedoms have been quietly pulled out from under us while our eyes were trained on hypnotic red, orange and yellow terror warnings.
The government is now bigger, more bloated and more heavy-handed than it has ever been. The trade deficit is out of control (particularly with China) and as a result the U.S. has lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs since Bush took office in 2001.
So when you hear the conservatives trashing their opponents with third-grade epithets, remember what Mama always said: People call names because they have nothing intelligent to say.
Jeannie Babb Taylor is a local business leader and author. She also teaches Sunday school, educates her children at home, and engages in Georgia politics. To contact Jeannie, E-mail jeannie@babb.com.
Showing posts with label Abu Ghraib. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abu Ghraib. Show all posts
Monday, June 25, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Between the (Head)lines
A Canton, Georgia headline reads, “Couple, child victims of apparent murder-suicide.” The headline is sanitized and de-sexed, suggesting that everyone involved is a victim, as if none of the three were to blame. The headline does not tell us who shot who, but we all know. It is not just that 94% of murder-suicides are male on female. It is the headline that gives it away, by what is left unsaid. If the shooter had been female, the headline would read “Woman murders husband, leaves baby to starve.” As another example, consider two arrests that were made Easter weekend. The male-on-female murder was noted in this gender-neutral manner: “Arrest made in teens’ death.” But when three women were arrested for delivering a baby and discarding it, that headline read: “NY sisters arrested in baby’s death.”
Acts of violence by women against men are still extraordinary enough to rate “Man bites dog” news status. When Lorena Bobbitt was arrested for maiming her husband, that story was a great headline-grabber. News of the forced abortion and the continual abuse she had endured at his hands -- so horrible that the judge chose to acquit her for the attack -- barely made a ripple on the news radar.
The media gender bias extends beyond perpetrators; it is also evident in the treatment of victims. Consider the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal. The world was outraged at the discovery that priests were molesting altar boys. We barely noticed that they victimized girls, too. One priest raped numerous teenage girls upon the altar, yet it was boys who made the news. Defenders of the Roman Catholic Church note that children are more likely to be sexually victimized by school teachers than by their priest or pastor. Yet public outrage against student sex abuse has never risen to the level of calling it a scandal. The difference? Girls are the usual target.
Abu Ghraib stands as the strongest testament to the media neglect of female victimization. Emblazoned on our collective consciousness are the images of abused and humiliated men, out of context with Lynndie England’s thumbs-up and happy camper smile. But where are the photos and the stories of the women who were tortured at Abu Ghraib? Perhaps you’ll have to look it up, as I did, but women were (and still are) incarcerated in Abu Ghraib. Many women were stripped of their clothes, tortured, raped, and sexually humiliated right along with the men. A 70-year-old Iraqi woman was harnessed and ridden like donkey. But it was only violence against women, so it did not make the front page.
When mentioned at all, the abuse of women at Abu Ghraib is downplayed. The Taguba report makes no bones about the sadistic torture inflicted on male Abu Ghraib prisoners. As for the women, the report includes an innocuous-sounding admission of “a male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.” The legal term for such an event is rape, because the law recognizes that a prisoner cannot give meaningful consent to an armed guard. Acts against males that involved penetration were termed rape, but the rape of women was categorized as sex. The women who have been released alive went home tight-lipped. After all, this is a culture where a rape victim’s family often stones her to death in order to restore their “honor.”
Journalists tell us about violence against women in the passive voice, as if these things just happen. Consider “school shootings.” Schools don’t get shot; people do. And someone does the shooting. The shooters are nearly always male (boy students or sometimes a man from the community) and the victims are predominantly female. Sometimes the shooters even excuse the males and shoot girls exclusively. Very few media outlets have noted the gender component, preferring instead to imagine that school shootings are senseless or random acts of violence.
Another passive term the media likes is “domestic disputes.” This one sounds like two people on an equal playing field, who are having a bit of trouble working something out. Yet we most often hear this term after the discovery of a dead body (usually female), e.g. “The couple had a history of domestic disputes.” To me, a domestic dispute is what happens when somebody uses up all the hot water on a Sunday morning. The term does not adequately describe what it is like for a woman to be dragged through her house by her hair, choked, or threatened by a person who may be twice her size. Journalists should avoid using vague, sexless terms like “domestic dispute” and instead write strong sentences such as, “Police reports indicate this was not the first time the man choked his wife.”
Statisticians are also guilty of using this neutered, passive vocabulary. For example, they inform us that 1 out of 3 girls “will be sexually victimized” before age 18. Although sexual abusers are almost invariably male, we do not read that “Men sexually abuse 1 out of 3 girls before the age of 18.” Nor do we ever hear the percentage of men who abuse. We read about women in the military “getting raped,” not about “male soldiers raping their female comrades.”
If my rephrasing of these sentences disturbs readers, it should. We should be very disturbed that there are men in our midst, in this very community, perhaps at our church or our children’s schools, who perpetrate crimes against women and children we know. According to the CDC, men commit over 90% of the sexual violence in America against victims who are 78% female. Every year, American men kill 1,000 wives or girlfriends and rape or sexually abuse hundreds of thousands more.
Male-on-female violence is pervasive and is mostly ignored by our society. We cannot adequately address it by talking about how many women are abused. The problem is not abused women. The problem is abusive men.
-- Jeannie Babb Taylor
On the Other Hand
April, 2007
Acts of violence by women against men are still extraordinary enough to rate “Man bites dog” news status. When Lorena Bobbitt was arrested for maiming her husband, that story was a great headline-grabber. News of the forced abortion and the continual abuse she had endured at his hands -- so horrible that the judge chose to acquit her for the attack -- barely made a ripple on the news radar.
The media gender bias extends beyond perpetrators; it is also evident in the treatment of victims. Consider the Roman Catholic sex abuse scandal. The world was outraged at the discovery that priests were molesting altar boys. We barely noticed that they victimized girls, too. One priest raped numerous teenage girls upon the altar, yet it was boys who made the news. Defenders of the Roman Catholic Church note that children are more likely to be sexually victimized by school teachers than by their priest or pastor. Yet public outrage against student sex abuse has never risen to the level of calling it a scandal. The difference? Girls are the usual target.
Abu Ghraib stands as the strongest testament to the media neglect of female victimization. Emblazoned on our collective consciousness are the images of abused and humiliated men, out of context with Lynndie England’s thumbs-up and happy camper smile. But where are the photos and the stories of the women who were tortured at Abu Ghraib? Perhaps you’ll have to look it up, as I did, but women were (and still are) incarcerated in Abu Ghraib. Many women were stripped of their clothes, tortured, raped, and sexually humiliated right along with the men. A 70-year-old Iraqi woman was harnessed and ridden like donkey. But it was only violence against women, so it did not make the front page.
When mentioned at all, the abuse of women at Abu Ghraib is downplayed. The Taguba report makes no bones about the sadistic torture inflicted on male Abu Ghraib prisoners. As for the women, the report includes an innocuous-sounding admission of “a male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.” The legal term for such an event is rape, because the law recognizes that a prisoner cannot give meaningful consent to an armed guard. Acts against males that involved penetration were termed rape, but the rape of women was categorized as sex. The women who have been released alive went home tight-lipped. After all, this is a culture where a rape victim’s family often stones her to death in order to restore their “honor.”
Journalists tell us about violence against women in the passive voice, as if these things just happen. Consider “school shootings.” Schools don’t get shot; people do. And someone does the shooting. The shooters are nearly always male (boy students or sometimes a man from the community) and the victims are predominantly female. Sometimes the shooters even excuse the males and shoot girls exclusively. Very few media outlets have noted the gender component, preferring instead to imagine that school shootings are senseless or random acts of violence.
Another passive term the media likes is “domestic disputes.” This one sounds like two people on an equal playing field, who are having a bit of trouble working something out. Yet we most often hear this term after the discovery of a dead body (usually female), e.g. “The couple had a history of domestic disputes.” To me, a domestic dispute is what happens when somebody uses up all the hot water on a Sunday morning. The term does not adequately describe what it is like for a woman to be dragged through her house by her hair, choked, or threatened by a person who may be twice her size. Journalists should avoid using vague, sexless terms like “domestic dispute” and instead write strong sentences such as, “Police reports indicate this was not the first time the man choked his wife.”
Statisticians are also guilty of using this neutered, passive vocabulary. For example, they inform us that 1 out of 3 girls “will be sexually victimized” before age 18. Although sexual abusers are almost invariably male, we do not read that “Men sexually abuse 1 out of 3 girls before the age of 18.” Nor do we ever hear the percentage of men who abuse. We read about women in the military “getting raped,” not about “male soldiers raping their female comrades.”
If my rephrasing of these sentences disturbs readers, it should. We should be very disturbed that there are men in our midst, in this very community, perhaps at our church or our children’s schools, who perpetrate crimes against women and children we know. According to the CDC, men commit over 90% of the sexual violence in America against victims who are 78% female. Every year, American men kill 1,000 wives or girlfriends and rape or sexually abuse hundreds of thousands more.
Male-on-female violence is pervasive and is mostly ignored by our society. We cannot adequately address it by talking about how many women are abused. The problem is not abused women. The problem is abusive men.
-- Jeannie Babb Taylor
On the Other Hand
April, 2007
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