Archive for the 'Daddy State' Category

PSA: Phony Pheminists

Terri Whitehouse September 15th, 2008

Aww, how precious. Conservatives have gone and discovered pheminism. A whole week-ish after I called it like I saw it, B. Hussein Osama’s uppity ass went and said that the same old bullshit by any other name still stinks.

It doesn’t just stink. It STANKS!

At any rate, it’s really sweet to see the GOP hustle at developing their pheminist muscles. (No, I’m not talking about kegels.) To the conservatives out there who are new to pheminism, I’d like to offer a very brief rundown of the concept. I understand that you’ve dedicated your whole lives to harming women’s physical, psychological, and financial well-being, so there are bound to be early failures. Pheminism, like any asset worth having, doesn’t develop over night. You’ve got to practice!

First off, rushing to the defense of your VP, as though she were a Damsel in Distress and not a damn pit bull-skinned moose hunter is problematic. Read and learn. No, rape is nowhere near as bad as some boy being a big meanie, but I think the same concept applies.

Secondly, please understand the difference between “feminism” and “pheminism.” Feminists are a bunch of fugly, hairy, man-hating sluts that care about shit like getting paid, and not dying as a result of pregnancy. Real trivial crap.

Pheminists, on the other hand, are beautiful, non-threatening white women (mostly) who collect wingnut welfare and have made hefty money putting bitches in their place. Intellectually, feminists win hands down, but who wants to hang with a bunch of humorless brainiacs? Pheminists are women, so you don’t have to hide or feel all guilty about your deep-seeded innate hatred of them.

Finally, it’s 2008, not 1968. Therefore, it’s probably not the brightest idea to call out supposed sexist attacks by reverting back to racist dogwhistles. While it’s admirable that you’re coming to pheminism in the 9th inning, better not to do it on the back of racism. That’s not how feminism works.

This is.

(x-posted: B&P)

No Banker Left Behind

Terri Whitehouse March 15th, 2008

There is an excellent post on Greg Palast’s blog linking the Eliot Spitzer scandal with the recent bailout of Bear Stearns:

It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the bone-headed choice to order take-out in his Washington Hotel room. He had just finished signing these words for the Washington Post about predatory loans:

“Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.”

Bush, Spitzer said right in the headline, was the “Predator Lenders’ Partner in Crime.” The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet.

Spitzer wrote, “When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favorably.”

But now, the Administration can rest assured that this love story – of Bush and his bankers - will not be told by history at all – now that the Sheriff of Wall Street has fallen on his own gun.

It looks like Gov. Spitzer wasn’t the only one getting screwed.

(h/t: Crooks and Liars)

Quick Hit: Welfare Kings At It Again

Terri Whitehouse March 12th, 2008

Dean Baker has an excellent commentary about the recent bailout of financial services companies, and the media’s lack of reporting on it, at The American Prospect:

There is one other issue that is extremely important that has been completely omitted from the media’s discussion of the Fed’s actions. There are people who have shorted the counterfeit notes (mortgage backed securities and related assets) because they recognized that these assets were in fact going to lose much of their value. While these short sellers were trying to make money, they were actually performing a valuable public service. They were pushing down the price of these assets towards their true level. If we had many such short sellers in the market we would not have seen the housing bubble grow to such dangerous proportions. The same holds true of the stock bubble.

However, if the Fed acts to sustain bubbles even after they have started to collapse under the pressure of their own weight, it makes it far more risky for short sellers. This means that even investors who realize that Citigroup has nothing but counterfeit currency will be reluctant to short its stock or other assets supported by counterfeit currency. As a result we can expect to see even bigger more dangerous bubbles in the future.

This is not a pretty story and there are economists who can make this point. The media should be talking to them, not just the cheerleaders for the housing bubble.

When it comes to personal responsibility, the rich need not apply. Go read the whole thing here.

Quick Hit: Recommended Reading

Terri Whitehouse March 10th, 2008

Law Student Jill Filipovic has two excellent posts up on Feministe this week, which follow up on that 1 in 99 statistic that was recently reported.

In “America Behind Bars”, Filipovic discusses the economic and social impact of the incarceration rate:

And entire communities depend on prisons for their economic stability. They have disproportionate political power — prison inmates count as residents, meaning that the areas are allocated greater resources that the inmates don’t benefit from and they’re counted in the population of Congressional districts. And inmates, of course, can’t vote — and in many states, they can’t vote once they get out, either.

Piggybacking on that post in “Judicial nominees, prison exploitation and discriminatory country clubs”, Filipovic takes a closer look at the prison-industrial complex and those who profit from it:

…like the private military contractors that the Bush administration pays to do our dirty work in Iraq, private prison employees were long not subject to the same laws that federal and state prison employees are…

Who’s Your Daddy?

Terri Whitehouse January 11th, 2008

Republicans sure love their daddy state, don’t they? Oh, sure, they’ll raise stink about big government when it comes to public health or helping families, but damned if they’re not itching to bend you over their knees for a fierce spanking when it comes to issues of bodily autonomy or privacy.