Malignant Absurdity, Vol. I

Cropped image of The Scream by Edvard Munch, 1893.
Oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard.

I usually scroll past comments that express outrageously sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and general wingnuttia but maybe taking the temperature of BlogHell can heighten the awareness of the Malignant Absurdity™ that's eating away people's brains with divisiveness and hatred.

Something to ponder: are the authors below incurable wacky-doodle bigots or a vanguard of a concerted ratfucking effort? If you're unfamiliar with the term, ratfucking, a Wiki definition: "...an American slang term for political sabotage or dirty tricks. It was first brought to public attention by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their book All the President's Men. Read on for details.

IOW, are Republican operatives (who refined ratfucking into a dark art) spoofing Obama or Clinton supporters to alienate voter blocs from the candidates and Democrats in general?

WARNING--highly offensive snippets ahead.

Last night's stumbling-upon comments... Clinton-bashing, misogyny, racism, verbal violence, and Obama disinformation via a WashPo post on Clinton in Indiana at The Trail:

Clinton is st8 ridiculous. Everyone knows men and women are different. The rest of the world knows this. Muslims keep their women in check. It's time for real men in America to do the same. If your a real dude, keep your women in the kitchen. The 21st Amendment was the worse thing to happen to America. It's time to take this woman out. The politics of change is here, and we got a skirt - thanks to the liberal media - and elite white ppl who are on some messed up idealogoical sh**. Men and women are different; history does not lie, and the rest of world doesn't either. This is troubling times we're in, and we need the politics of change. Hillary get yourself back in the hot kitchen. Real dudes, keep your woman from voting (thats the only group she got along with racist white folk), and keep them and Hillary in the kitchen where they belong. Our time has come, move over. 1.

Posted by: Treyshaun1 | April 25, 2008 8:49 PM

Treyshaun1, my brother. Once again your words bring tears to my eyes. When I see your comments on various blogs, I know that there will hope and real black leaders in the future. I can only pray that my son will have half your strength. It is time for us to unite and take this woman out. We've come a long way, and we got this woman whose still stuck in la la land. Racism is alive and well in this country, and these white folk will get whats coming to them. Our time has come, hehe. Treyshaun, my brother, stay up. 1.

Posted by: Masai Hanley | April 25, 2008 8:53 PM

The next poster, JakeD, politely corrects the erroneous reference to the 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition--the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote--and he also noted, "this is the second time I've seen it (mistakenly) used against [Clinton]." Hmmm, curious, isn't it? Followed by another raving wacky doodle, further descent into depravity:

I used to work hard and I used to follow the American Dream and tried to pick myself up from the bootstraps and provide opportunities for my children that I didn't have. I kept quiet and worked hard. I was accountable for my own actions, and knew that I determined my destiny. I would rise and fall by my own merits. But I have learned something from black people.

I HATE WHITE PEOPLE. Saying this, believing this, and blaming my economic situation on white people will get white people's attention. This is the lesson I've learned from black people. It works. I think I will now proceed to rob white people, kill white people, rape white people, and blame all my problems on white people.

Hard work has gotten me nowhere. I thank black people and white people stupid enough to listen to them for showing me that the American Dream is dead and traditional American values are dead. We live in a new era, and I'm ready for the CHANGE.

KILL WHITEY, RAPE WHITEY, ROB WHITEY IS THE NEW WAY OF THE FUTURE.

Posted by: Mexican President | April 25, 2008 8:58 PM

JakeD - your one intelligent white man (sarcasm added). Thank you sir, for correcting my brethren. I bet it makes you happy when we tripped up on one detail. Treyshaun is right though, we have the politics of CHANGE. And we got a racist skirt whose stopping the change for her own selfish ambitions. And its white folk like you who like focus on ever misstatement or mistake that black males make. Why don't you focus on your own pathetic life and your own inadequacies, time's are changing, and your time is done. My boy Treshaun, 1.

Posted by: Masai Hanley | April 25, 2008 9:01 PM

Mexican President,
Are you serious? No one cares about your people or Asians. I'm tired of white folk talking about how successful Asians are, or why is it that some slant-eyed dude from the Orient can do well on SAT's, get into good schools, and get good jobs without affirmative action. Or why can't blacks work as hard as Mexicans. I'll tell u what boy, we ain't like u. We're not as stupid as Latinos and Asians to be toiling for the white man and trying to assimalate into his racist culture. We live in a government of white sponsored racism. If Latinos and Asians can't see that, thats they bad. CHANGE is coming, and we'll get u fools too. Our time has come. When your white master's time is done, who you gonna run to?

Posted by: Masai Hanley | April 25, 2008 9:06 PM

[...]

Hey Treyshaun and Masai, Obama has already planted the CHANGE in Kenya when he worked so hard to get Odinga elected. I don't think a lot of people know that Odinga is not only a communist Muslim whose first order of business was going to be to replace Kenya's democracy with Islamic law, but that he shares a vision with Gaddafi to see Africa become a Pan African/Islamic socialist nation. That's why besides Obama, Gaddafi also supported Odinga's campaign. Although Odinga didn't get to become president of Kenya, he was able to do a little ethnic cleansing of around 1000 Kenyans which secured him the title of prime minister. Anyway, now that he's Kenya's prime minister, any day now he'll attempt a coup like he's done in the past and kill the president of Kenya so he can take his place and finally impose Islamic law. I'm sure you'd both be much happier living in Kenya then in the United States. There you'd be able to fully appreciate and enjoy the CHANGE and even have a front row seat watching it happen. You can probably even join in on the ethnic cleansing festivities. May I suggest giving Farrakhan a call to help you out with the airfare.

Posted by: Ijane | April 25, 2008 9:34 PM

The spittle keeps flying if you dare to read the entire thread. After I scanned WashPo's Post a Comment policy at The Trail--"User reviews and comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site...."--methinks someone is falling down on the job. Aren't they? Or...? Wouldn't be the first time the Pravda on the Potomac acted as a tool for GOP propaganda.

Are the above quotes examples of Malignant Absurdity™ or ratfucking or both?

POSTSCRIPT: When Anglachel referenced the violent rape-and-murder hate speech aimed at Hillary Clinton in her commentary on Keith Olbermann, she wasn't kidding. It's far more disturbing to read it on SCLBs.

International Women's Day

Women rallied [emphasis added]:

PARIS (AFP) — Calls to end forced marriage, domestic abuse and job discrimination marked International Women's Day on Saturday as demonstrators took to the streets worldwide.

The issues highlighted crossed a wide spectrum, including abortion rights in Italy, violence against women in Iraq and women hostages in Colombia.

Nearly 100 years old, the day marks the worldwide struggle for equal rights for half the globe's population.

Scores of women rallied outside a Baghdad hotel demanding an end to violence and equal social status with men.

"Stop neglecting women. Stop killing women. Stop creating widows," read a large banner that the women, from various ethnic and religious backgrounds, held at the Babylon Hotel in Baghdad's central Karrada neighbourhood.

In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai spoke out against forced marriages and said threats from a Taliban-led insurgency were keeping girls out of school.

"I call on religious leaders, tribal elders and particularly men: stop forcing your under-aged girls to marry, stop marrying them to old men," he said.

Up to 80 percent of Afghan women face forced marriage, and nearly two-thirds are married before the legal age of 16, according to the United Nations.

Events were also planned in neighbouring Pakistan, where "honour killings" of women and punishment gang-rapes have been widely reported.

Gatherings took place in India, Indonesia and China as activists pressed for an end to discrimination ranging from abortion of female foetuses to workplace bias.

Australian women's minister Tanya Plibersek said the occasion was a chance to acknowledge issues such as women's lack of financial independence.

"From the moment a woman enters the workforce she is likely to earn less than her male colleagues, regardless of her career, industry or level," she said.

Communist North Korea marked International Women's Day in its own way by urging its women to reject Western fashions and to "set good examples" in their clothes and hairstyles.

In Europe, job inequality, domestic abuse and abortion rights were highlighted.

Tens of thousands demonstrated in several Italian cities in favour of the right to abortion -- legalised in that country 30 years ago, but unexpectedly a hot topic ahead of April elections.

Nearly 2,000 people gathered in Warsaw over abortion rights. Poland, like Italy a heavily Roman Catholic nation, has one of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws.

A demonstration in France drew attention to French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt, seized by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in February 2002 as she campaigned for the Colombian presidency.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for an end to pay inequality between men and women, and pledged to institute financial sanctions to address the problem.

There were also reminders of persistent difficulties facing women on Saturday.

Two women were attacked in the northern South African province of Limpopo because they were wearing mini-skirts, public radio reported. A group of people surrounded them, pushed them and yelled for them to undress before the women took refuge in a nearby hair salon.

In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, thousands of women protested to demand punishment for those who commit sexual violence, including rape.

"The law on sexual violence is not applied," said Esperance Katungu. "Women are often not informed of their rights."

In Canada:

Thousands in cities across the country are expected to mark the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day with parades, rallies and other events.

While some are celebrating the achievements of women over the past century, many say gender equality in Canada is still a long way off.

Helen Chilas, co-ordinator for the Canadian Voice of Women For Peace, says violence against women is still rife across the country.

And childcare worker Rochelle Dobas says women still make about 30 cents per dollar less than their male counterparts.

Where are the rallies in America?

On a sour note, Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum spread her toxic opinion by condemning "the U.S. Government's endorsement of the worldwide feminist event, International Women's Day."

"The United States Government has no business supporting IWD," said Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly. "The radical feminists know that they can't complain about American women because we are the most fortunate class of people who ever lived, so they search the globe for oppression in other countries using taxpayer dollars."

"The U.S. is joined by a crowd of sponsoring feminist groups who hide behind the guise of being the 'voice of women,' but instead promote such policies and ideals decried by the vast majority of American women, such as taxpayer-funded abortions," Schlafly said.

"These supporting organizations are the very ones who lobby for ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or CEDAW, which is basically a UN-imposed version of the Equal Rights Amendment," Schlafly said. "The U.S. Senate has yet to ratify this disastrous treaty ever since Jimmy Carter signed it in 1980, and rightly so."

"Today's feminists and CEDAW advocates view 'progress' as government-run day care, greater access to abortion, the elimination of 'Mother's Day' because it promotes an 'negative cultural stereotype,' decriminalization of prostitution in China, and government-mandated workplace benefits that men do not enjoy, just to name a few," said Schlafly. "Their goal is not equality, but preferential treatment."

"The radical feminists want to remake our laws in order to eradicate everything that is masculine from our culture and create a gender-neutral society," concluded Schlafly. "The United States should seriously reconsider lending its stamp of approval to future IWDs."

Can Schlafly be more out of touch with reality? The nutty stuff she spews just shows that misogyny springs from both sexes--men and women. What's the best response to Schlafly and her kind? Laugh! Laugh at her inanity. She's a joke and a dinosaur destined for extinction.

So let's celebrate while at the same time acknowledging the serious challenges women around the globe face. And most of all, let's stand strong for women's rights and work to end the violence and bigotry against them.

IMAGE: Through the Flower by Judy Chicago, acrylic on canvas, 1972.

Violence against women worldwide

Women! Let us join together to heal our plight.

On Tuesday, the United Nations issued a report collected from studies involving 71 countries:

Violence against women is "severe and pervasive" worldwide, with at least one in three women experiencing abuse by an intimate partner at some point in their lives...

Undersecretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Ocampo called violence against women...

..."a pervasive phenomenon – it's really a global problem that has to be addressed."

"According to the quantitative estimates, which certainly underestimate the amount of violence that occurs, at least one out of three women experiences violence at some stage of their lives," he said. "The report states that the major form of violence takes place at the domestic level, in the households ... and it takes place in societies throughout the world."

In addition to spontaneous violence, the report also condemned what it found to be high levels of institutionalized violence, such as female circumcision, estimating that 130 million girls and women living today had undergone this practice.

Women are not receiving adequate protection from their governments, the report said, finding that 102 member states had no specific laws on domestic violence. The report also found that martial rape was not a prosecutable offense in at least 53 states, and only 93 have laws to prevent female trafficking.

Rachel Mayanja, the secretary-general's special adviser on gender issues, said the curtain has been raised on violence against women and it's now time to act in a coordinated way "to try and eliminate this scourge."

"We are going to try to end impunity — (ensure) that those who are violating women will be prosecuted, will be punished, and that none of them will be allowed to continue to prey on their women," she told the news conference. "This is the hope — that this study can galvanize this kind of action."

The report urged governments to take action to bridge the gap between international policy and national laws, including securing gender equality, gathering more data on violence against women and allocating more funding for its prevention.

Violence against women affects whole societies, the report said, citing the costs of treating women injured both physically and emotionally, the effect of the violence on children, the loss of employment productivity, and the cost of bringing perpetrators to justice.

Additionally, fearing abuse from a sexual partner, women don't get tested for HIV, don't divulge their HIV status, or seek medical treatment.

"We cannot make poverty history unless we make violence against women history," U.N. Population Fund Executive Director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid said in a statement.

In July, Martha Nussbaum at The Nation reviewed Catharine A. MacKinnon's book, Are Women Human?

In the two most deeply troubling articles in the collection, "Genocide's Sexuality" and "Women's September 11th," MacKinnon examines the internationally accepted definitions of genocide and terrorism, and argues that many acts of men against women meet one or both of these definitions. As defined under the UN convention on genocide, genocide is either killing or inflicting serious bodily or mental harm on members of a group, with intent to destroy that group either entirely or in part. The groups mentioned are "national, ethnical, racial, or religious" groups: So in that sense violence against women clearly doesn't qualify. On other grounds, however, one could argue that a great part of violence against women does involve a similar infliction of "serious harm" on women because they are women, and its aim can be said to be to destroy "in part"--for "destroy," if mental harm is sufficient for genocide, must mean not "kill" but "remove from the ranks of the fully human"--something that happens to women all the time.

At that time I wrote:

We hear of post traumatic stress disorder and its usual association with soldiers of war but the most common PTSDs are those not of men in war, but of women in civilian life. Judith Herman, M.D., in her book, Trauma and Recovery, described the "domestic captivity" of women and children, "those subjected to totalitarian systems in sexual and domestic life, including survivors of domestic battering, childhood physical or sexual abuse, and organized sexual exploitation." A quick glance of domestic violence statistics... will confirm that the casualties of the private sphere rival those in the public sphere. I repeat MacKinnon's question, so why isn't this political?

The question begs an answer, doesn't it? Well, actually it demands solutions.

Here in America, Bonnie Erbe of U.S. News & World Report writes:

Right now there are 14 women in the U.S. Senate (five Republicans nine Democrats) and 67 in the U.S. House (24 Republicans and 4 Democrats.) As recently as 31 years ago, there were 19 women in th U.S. House and none in the Senate. That number has risen in each election–stubbornly molasseslike, according to some anxious observers (present company included), but risen nonetheless.

John Fortier, an American Enterprise Institute scholar writing in the Hill newspaper, says the current climate favors women. He writes: "Research shows that women do just as well as men in running as incumbents, challenging incumbents, and running for open seats. As more seats open up and as the number of women running for office increases, so inevitably does the number of women in Congress rise. According to the Center for American Women in Politics, there are 139 women running for the House on major-party tickets and 12 in the Senate, significantly up from 20 years ago. And as the National Council on State Legislatures reports, the pool of potential female candidates with political experience is deep, as women make up 22.6 percent of state legislatures."

Still, it's unclear whether this year will turn out to be another "Year of the Woman" in national politics. At least, things do not appear to be shaping up that way. While women may hold more seats in Congress, it could be just a handful more. The Hill, for example, projects a gain of one or two seats for women in the U.S. Senate and a pickup of six to 10 seats in the House. What's more, I've been hearing a lot about women securing major-party nominations to challenge other women in this political season, and I've wondered whether 2006 might be a record year for women in that regard. Sorry, nope, says the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University. In 1998, 14 women ran against women (one in the Senate and 13 in the House). This year, there are 11 such woman vs. woman races–nine in the House and two in the Senate. So, unless there is a sudden turn of events, the pace of change will remain, well, stubbornly molasseslike.

Politically, more women must step up. It's too late for this year's election but all of us women need to keep the eye on the prize: Get women elected, support women running for office (except for the Republican Stepford Wives), and change the laws to abate violence against women.

IMAGES: Raise The Veil: Repent and Raise The Veil: Forbidden from artist Tricia Grame.

Digg this story

The war on women

Writing at The Nation, Martha Nussbaum opens her review of feminist and lawyer Catharine A. MacKinnon's book, Are Women Human?, with a reality punch in the gut:

Inequality on the basis of sex is a pervasive reality of women's lives all over the world. So is sex-related violence. Rape by strangers and acquaintances, rape within marriage, domestic violence, trafficking into sex work, the abuse of women and girls in the pornography industry: In all these ways, argues Catharine MacKinnon, women suffer aggression and exploitation, "because we are women, systemically and systematically." Although violence against women is certain to be underreported and undercounted, data still show a tremendous amount of it everywhere. (Cross-cultural studies cited by MacKinnon show that rates of violent domestic abuse are similar in the United States, Japan and India.) As a 1989 United Nations report summarizes, "The risk of violence and violation within the household is one thing women, irrespective of their social position, creed, colour or culture, share in common." So, too, is vulnerability to rape in wartime--the well-documented mass rapes of Bosnian women being just one recent example of an appalling reality that has characterized most armed conflicts.

Despite the prevalence of these crimes, they have not been well addressed under international human rights law--if, indeed, they have been addressed at all. Typically, there has been what MacKinnon calls a "double-edged denial": The abuse is considered either too extraordinary to be believed or too ordinary to constitute a major human rights violation. Or, as MacKinnon says, "If it's happening, it's not so bad, and if it's really bad, it isn't happening." Until recently, abuses like rape and sexual torture lacked good human rights standards because human rights norms were typically devised by men thinking about men's lives. In other words, "If men don't need it, women don't get it." What this lack of recognition has meant is that women have not yet become fully human in the legal and political sense, bearers of equal, enforceable human rights.

Wow! We have a long way to go. The situation has improved through international agreements such as the 1979 Convention of the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) that has addressed domestic violence and sexual harassment, and through the efforts of women's organizations, networks, and NGOs that have...

...pressured states and the international community to act on issues like trafficking and rape in war. Indeed, as MacKinnon notes, "Women's resistance to their status and treatment" is now "the cutting edge of change in international human rights."

MacKinnon through her "shrewd" and "creative use" of the Alien Tort Claims Act "brought suit against Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on behalf of a specific group of female clients, seeking damages for injuries consisting in 'genocidal sexual atrocities perpetrated as a result of [his] policy of ethnic cleansing.' " The reward: a permanent injunction to stop the genocide and a $475 million judgment delivered in the State of New York.

The main theme of MacKinnon's book...

...repeatedly and convincingly mined, is the hypocrisy of the international system when it faces up to some crimes against humanity but fails to confront similar harms when they happen to women, often on a daily basis. There is a category of torture, and we think we know how to define it. We think we know what it does: It uses violence to control and intimidate. And yet when violence is used to control and intimidate women "in homes in Nebraska...rather than prison cells in Chile," we don't call it torture, and we somehow think it is not the same thing. Torture in Chile is not explained away as the work of isolated sick individuals. We know it is political, and we can see how systemic it often is. When violence happens to women in Nebraska, we say, Oh well, that was only some sicko, and men really aren't like that. Well, given the numbers, shouldn't we ask more questions about that?

Again, we have a concept of war, and we think we know what war is: People get maimed and killed fighting over land and power. And yet when women get raped and beaten up by men who want to control them, we pay little heed. "It is hard to avoid the impression that what is called war is what men make against each other, and what they do to women is called everyday life."

As in her prior work, MacKinnon is caustic about the damage done by the traditional liberal distinction between a "public sphere" and a "private sphere," a distinction that insulates marital rape and domestic violence from public view and makes people think it isn't political. "Why isn't this political?... The fact that you may know your assailant does not mean that your membership in a group chosen for violation is irrelevant to your abuse. It is still systematic and group-based. It...is defined by the distribution of power in society."

Steinem long ago coined the slogan, "the personal is political " and her words seem to refrain in the subjects MacKinnon undertakes of the "private sphere." Indeed, why isn't this political?

In the two most deeply troubling articles in the collection, "Genocide's Sexuality" and "Women's September 11th," MacKinnon examines the internationally accepted definitions of genocide and terrorism, and argues that many acts of men against women meet one or both of these definitions. As defined under the UN convention on genocide, genocide is either killing or inflicting serious bodily or mental harm on members of a group, with intent to destroy that group either entirely or in part. The groups mentioned are "national, ethnical, racial, or religious" groups: So in that sense violence against women clearly doesn't qualify. On other grounds, however, one could argue that a great part of violence against women does involve a similar infliction of "serious harm" on women because they are women, and its aim can be said to be to destroy "in part"--for "destroy," if mental harm is sufficient for genocide, must mean not "kill" but "remove from the ranks of the fully human"--something that happens to women all the time.

We hear of post traumatic stress disorder and its usual association with soldiers of war but the most common PTSDs are those not of men in war, but of women in civilian life. Judith Herman, M.D., in her book, Trauma and Recovery, described the "domestic captivity" of women and children, "those subjected to totalitarian systems in sexual and domestic life, including survivors of domestic battering, childhood physical or sexual abuse, and organized sexual exploitation." A quick glance of domestic violence statistics so pervasive in American society--worldwide, one in three women "has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime"--will confirm that the casualties of the private sphere rival those in the public sphere. I repeat MacKinnon's question, so why isn't this political?

An insightful and enlightening book and one I encourage readers to buy, you can read the complete review on MacKinnon's Are Women Human? at The Nation.