Alas, a Blog | Feminist, anti-racist, pro-fat, plus whatever else we feel like talking about.

They are Americans, not "refugees"!

Posted on September 3, 2005 by Pseudo-Adrienne

Christopher over at Afro-Netizen cites, in frustration, the media’s somewhat annoying characterization of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina being “refugees“, which in a way gives off this impression that they are people from an entirely different country. How can you be a refugee in your own country? Well, if the media labels you as such then I guess so. Sigh…..

Hurricane Katrina victims are not “refugees”

Hurricane Katrina victims are Americans!

If Mississipians fled to Jamaica, then they would be refugees.

I don’t recall the media referring to Hurricane Andrew victims in ’92 as refugees. Do you?[…]

Like the members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) said this morning at their press conference (that both CNN & MSNBC cut away from for dubious reasons), we need to not only demand that the Bush Administration intensify its relief efforts for Katrina victims, we need to pressure our major corporations who have not already stepped up to do so on a major scale.

We have the largest economy in the world and have a fairly decent track record of innovation in this country.

Let’s hope that these two facts will override our very rich nation’s equally robust insitutional racism and indifference to the poor.

In the interim, kindly support the NAACP’s hurricane relief efforts by clicking here. (Other links to other support organizations are forthcoming.)

P.S. Incidentally, I’d “steal” food and clothing and “trespass” to survive and sustain my loved ones.

But if you were White and upper-middle-class or wealthier, you would be appear to be more sympathetic to the media apparently. Another sigh. Oh, guess who got the contract to “re-build,” not the city of New Orleans, but naval facilities in Mississippi (then mabye naval facilities in New Orleans too)? Halliburton. As if they were the only company available for the job. Also see the “compassion” of this Christian Pastor here, who obviously thinks he speaks for all Christians, and knows exactly why his and the Christian deity “allowed” this tragedy and natural disaster to happen.

[…]Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans, also sees God’s mercy in the aftermath of Katrina — but in a different way. Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.

The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as “Southern Decadence” — an annual six-day “gay pride” event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week — God’s judgment would be felt.

“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion — it’s free of all of those things now,” Shanks says. “God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there — and now we’re going to start over again.”

The New Orleans pastor is adamant. Christians, he says, need to confront sin. “It’s time for us to stand up against wickedness so that God won’t have to deal with that wickedness,” he says.[…]

Shit on a shingle–natural disasters and massive loss of life just bring out the worse in these batshit-crazy and hateful wingnuts who just can’t wait to show off their vitriol and contempt for other human beings and cultures. Oh Christ, what the hell is wrong with some of your followers (or those that claim to follow your teachings anyway)? Once again if you can, please donate to legit organizations who are working in the relief effort to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina–who are *Americans* by the way (unless if they were some of the foreign tourists who were caught up in the storm, obviously, but they too should be helped in the relief effort).

Posted in Katrina, Media criticism, Race, racism and related issues | 49 Comments

On Katrina….

Posted on September 2, 2005 by Pseudo-Adrienne

Kudos to my fellow bloggers who have done a hell of a better job than I in covering the tragedy and disaster of Hurricane Katrina and urging people to donate. Of course for the passed few days in which I have spent observing CNN’s coverage of the disaster and tragedy, I’ve noticed all the things I’m sure many of you have. One which is irking me, and certainly and rightfully so the locals and survivors in New Orleans–especially those in the Superdome–, is “why the fuck is it taking so long to get these people some serious help and aid?” And I sympathize with the mayor of New Orleans and his anger directed towards the Federal government and their apparent ‘slowness’ to respond.

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 2 – Fires and explosions jolted an area south of the French Quarter this morning, and the city’s mayor, by turns angry and sad, blasted Washington for what he said was its lack of response to the storm disaster.

An exasperated-sounding Mayor C. Ray Nagin did not hold back his anger in an interview with a New Orleans radio station.

“I keep hearing that this is coming, that is coming,” he said in reference to federal aid. “And my answer to that today is b.s. – where is the beef?”

“Let’s figure out the biggest crisis in the history of our country,” he added. After Sept. 11, he said, the president was given “unprecedented powers” to send aid to New York. The same response should be applied in this case, too, he said.

President Bush was scheduled to leave the White House this morning, and, after meetings in Alabama, and a walking tour of Biloxi, to take part in aerial tours of Mississipi, New Orleans and the Gulf state coastline.

This afternoon he was to make a statement on the hurricane recovery efforts at the Louis Armstrong international airport in New Orleans.[…]

And David Corn of The Nation has a few things to say about the Federal government’s response, the warning signs that were pretty much ignored, and the Bush Administration.

I just spotted Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, on CNN arguing with anchor Miles O’Brien. O’Brien was suggesting that the federal government dropped the ball in terms of preparing for Hurricane Katrina. Barbour kept defending the federal government–that is, the Bush Administration. He seemed to suggest that the hurricane was not that powerful when it first approached land and that there had not been enough time to do more preparation. Of course, Barbour did not note that before becoming governor of Mississippi he was head of the Republican Party and, therefore, not of a disposition to speak critically of an Administration that has gutted FEMA, slashed funding for flood control and sent many National Guard reserves to Iraq. (By one estimate, about one-third of the Louisiana National Guard is in Iraq now.) O’Brien pushed his point about as hard as is permitted on cable television. But he neglected to raise these specifics or to question Barbour about his previous work as a corporate lobbyist who, on behalf of his well-paying clients, fought fiercely against the Kyoto accords. (Recent scientific research suggests that global warming has led to more destructive hurricanes.) And, as I noted previously (click here), Barbour led the GOP when it was waging war on Big Government. Now he’s all for it. O’Brien didn’t query him on this conversion.

[…]I mean, isn’t the real threat the terrorists in Iraq who want to destroy America because they hate our freedom (even though they don’t seem to mind the freedoms enjoyed by people in, say, Finland)? Hurricane Katrina illuminates bad choices and bad policies. It may have been an act of God. But its devastating impact was also determined by the folly of our leaders.

It also makes me wonder, Can this government deal with one of the nightmare scenarios? A biological weapon? A nuclear detonation? The Bush Administration, according to numerous studies, has not fully funded first responders. Hurricane Katrina shows why this is foolishness. […]

Corn also calls on bloggers to encourage donations to relief organizations. However it should also be noted that last night the U.S. Senate convened an emergency session and passed a bill that would authorize $10.5 billion in relief funds. It’s a start. Also former Presidents Clinton and Bush Senior have also re-joined forces again to raise funds for the relief effort, and by the time this is posted Dubya will have arrived in Alabama.

Another unavoidable issue brought to light by the coverage of the devastation and those hardest-hit by Katrina, is the race plus socioeconomic status issue. Once again the media has whether intentionally or unintentionally cited how much race tied in with socioeconomic status plays a roll in our society and *still matters*, especially when it comes to such disasters as hurricanes that devastates certain segments of our society more so than others. Of course this brought the bigots out of the woodwork (especially with the media showing tons of images of looting done byAfrican-Americans 99% of the time on screen, as if Whites don’t loot or the cameras are never present when they do, or don’t phrase it as “looting” when they do it–how very interesting) and I have heard vicious insults directed towards those who remained in New Orleans during the storm, never mind that there are many of them who had no means of leaving (ie: a vehicle, with enough money to stay the night in a hotel/motel some where up north), or could not leave due to the needs of elderly or ill loved-ones. Oh well how nice, let’s piss on those who are poor and according to our society’s racist stereotypes regarding specific groups of people, who supposedly “fit the profile” of being “lazy” and “lacking common sense,” and have now lost everything because of the storm. Disgusting. It’s almost as if some of the willfully ignorant people making these bigoted-laden insults just couldn’t wait to find some excuse and opportunity to spout their racism and classism. What bullshit, but what more can I expect from our culture and society, with its notions about race and those of lower socioeconomic standing? And meanwhile people continue to die and suffer in the city of New Orleans, certainly in the Superdome where the people are practically being ignored and left to live like animals, and be treated as such. More disgust. Oh and see Brown of FEMA cover his and the organization’s asses and their failures, and even do some victim-blaming of his own.

There have been numerous reports of rapes (Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas is offering free contraception and emergency contraception), beatings, horribly unsanitary conditions, shootings, fires, bodies floating in what used to be streets in New Orleans and obviously in the Superdome, parents being separated from their newborns, and other terrible incidents and situations one would never expect of ever occuring in our country. Yeah well, it has, so we and especially our government (who now more than ever needs to get their shit together and their priorities straight) need to do all that we can to help in the relief effort. If at all possible, **please donate to the Red Cross** and other organizations who are helping the cause to aid the victims of this disaster and the states–especially Louisiana–devastated by Katrina.

Posted in Katrina, Media criticism | 15 Comments

Even For Pro-Lifers, Banning Abortion Makes No Sense

Posted on September 1, 2005 by Ampersand

In comments on that thread on Dawn’s blog, “Butterfingers” wrote:

The bottom line is that abortion is as old as mankind. There has never been a period in human history when abortions were not performed. There has not been a single society – whether it officially approved of abortion or not – where abortions were not performed.

And then “Steve G.” responded:

What you state here is without doubt true in regards to historical accuracy. But that it occurs really has no bearing on its moral correctness, whether we should accept it, or whether it should be legal. I could rewrite the entire paragraph you lay down and substitute the word rape, and it would be equally accurate. I presume you wouldn’t be willing to argue that rape should be legal because, well after all it’s always happened and will always happen, correct? This argument just doesn’t hold any force.

I don’t think Steve’s argument makes much sense. After all, we all want rapists to be punished, regardless of what happens to rape prevalence.

In contrast, what I’ve heard from pro-lifers over and over is that pro-lifers don’t want to punish women. Unless pro-lifers are lying about that, then there’s a critical difference we all agree on between rapists and women who abort – punishing the former is an independent good, punishing the latter is not.

But if punishing women isn’t an independent good, like punishing rapists is, then pro-lifers can’t logically say that women who abort should be punished regardless of what happens to abortion prevalence.

* * *

It’s a more than theoretical point, because in the real world, countries do in effect choose between a punishment-based approach, in which abortions are banned by law, and low abortion rates.

As I’ve said in the past, pro-lifers should be asking which countries have the least abortion? Belgium has an abortion rate of 6.8 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44. The Netherlands, 6.5. Germany, 7.8. Compare that to the USA’s rate of 22. Even better, compare it to countries where abortion is illegal: Egypt, 23; Brazil, 40; Chile, 50; Peru, 56.

According to the World Health Organization:

Contrary to common belief, legalization of abortion does not necessarily increase abortion rates. The Netherlands, for example, has a non-restrictive abortion law, widely accessible contraceptives and free abortion services, and the lowest abortion rate in the world: 5.5 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age per year. Barbados, Canada, Tunisia and Turkey have all changed abortion laws to allow for greater access to legal abortion without increasing abortion rates.

Pro-life policies aren’t associated with low abortion rates. But pro-choice policies are.

Without exception, every country in the world with a very low abortion rate has either legal abortion, or bans so toothless that abortion is effectively legal. But what those countries (Belgium, West Germany, The Netherlands, etc) also have are cultures that strongly promote effective use of birth control, and that have strong social support programs that support poor parents – not just before birth and in the first year of infancy, but for life.

The abortion debate in the US can go on forever. We can have yet another round of clever, heartfelt essays like Dawn’s, implying that the other side is uncaring; or, if we want a better debate than that, we could argue for the zillionth time about how to define personhood. But that will never get us anywhere.

Rather than rehash those questions, I’d like to ask pro-lifers: Do you forsee a time when pro-choicers will give up our most heartfelt goals, and stop finding ways to make abortion available? Will there ever be an abortion ban in the United States that vastly lowers our abortion rate? And since saving baby lives (or what you folks consider to be baby lives) should be more important than opposing birth control and welfare, shouldn’t you be willing to consider supporting policies that are empirically associated with low abortion rates in the real world?

We can have it both ways. We can have full bodily autonomy for women, and combine it with an incredibly low abortion rate. And we can end the deadlock. But it requires both sides to give something up. It requires pro-choicers to agree that pursing low abortion rates is a legitimate policy goal; and it requires pro-lifers to agree to pursue low abortion rates through giving women more choices, not through banning choices.

I know pro-lifers may consider that to be an immoral thing to ask of them. But consider: Real-world experience indicates that Belgium-style social policies are the only national policy that is associated with the lowest possible abortion rates. Is it really clear to pro-lifers that a policy that could potentially prevent tens of thousands of abortions annually is the less moral choice?

(Note to “Alas” posters: I’m really, really interested in what pro-lifers have to say about these issues. But it’s my observation that the most intellgent and thoughtful pro-lifers are also the least likely to hang out in places where they get insulted and flamed. So please, as a favor to me, don’t flame pro-lifers who happen to show up in the comments of this post.)

Posted in Abortion & reproductive rights | 92 Comments

The NY Times writer is a jerk; his clients not necessarily so

Posted on September 1, 2005 by Nick Kiddle

I’ve lost count of how many posts and comments I’ve read about that New York Times article. I’ve been by turns fascinated and amused by individual stories, shocked by the level of vitriol and misunderstanding, intrigued by the various side-tracks that come up and baffled at how many people miss the point of the outrage.

Consider the conclusion of the article:

Women may want to consider the risks as they invite their partners to watch them bring new life into the world. For some of the passion that binds them together may leave their lives at the very same time.

The responsibility for considering these risks lies with the women. If the passion leaves their lives as a result, that’s something over which their menfolk have no control. Women have to decide whether they want to take the risk of asking their partner to support them as they bring into the world the child they created together.

Either you think there’s a problem with attitudes like that, or you don’t.

Posted in Abortion & reproductive rights, Feminism, sexism, etc | 13 Comments

Over The Counter Plan B Indefinitely Postponed – FDA Director of Women's Health Resigns

Posted on September 1, 2005 by Ampersand

This little bit of news is met by me with both approval and sadness. It seems that FDA official, Susan Wood, director of FDA’s Office of Women’s Health has resigned after the FDA decision on Friday to postpone the decision to make Plan B an over the counter drug indefinitely.

CNN reports that in her letter of resignation, Wood wrote;

“I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled,” wrote Wood, who also was assistant commissioner for women’s health. “The recent decision announced by the Commissioner about emergency contraception, which continues to limit women’s access to a product that would reduce unintended pregnancies and reduce abortions, is contrary to my core commitment to improving and advancing women’s health.”

So for obvious reasons, it’s very sad to see an ally that potentially had pull within the lions den deciding to give up the fight, but on the other hand I can understand and appreciate her frustration in the face of continuously mounting opposition within the FDA via ultra-conservatives and fundamentalists being appointed to key roles.

Commissioner Lester tried to soft-pedal his objections, in an obvious attempt at pacifying people for the ignorant decision;

the agency considered over-the-counter sales to women 17 and older fine, but that younger teens would still need a prescription — and that the agency was unable to decide how pharmacies could enforce an age limit, or even if it was legal to have such dual sales.

Posted in Abortion & reproductive rights, Anti-Contraceptives/EC zaniness | 15 Comments

Fetal Pain Researchers Failed to Disclose Abortion Affiliations

Posted on August 30, 2005 by Ampersand

This past Wednesday, JAMA published a review of research into fetal pain. The researchers concluded that fetuses are not physically capable of feeling pain until sometime after the 28th week. (No surprise there – you can’t feel pain if you don’t have a working cerebral cortex). The JAMA report conflicts with a proposed pro-life law, which would require women seeking abortion to be told that their fetuses will suffer pain, and would require anesthetic for the fetus (which can complicate the procedure).

Now it turns out that three of the article’s five authors had potential conflicts of interest.

The editor, Dr. Catherine D. DeAngelis, of The Journal of the American Medical Association, said in an interview that had she been aware of the activities, the journal most likely would have mentioned them. But she added that the disclosure would not have kept the article from being published, because editors and outside experts who had read the manuscript before publication had found it scientifically sound.

One author, Susan J. Lee, a medical student, is also a lawyer who for eight months from 1999 to 2000 worked in the legal department at Naral, an abortion rights group. Another author, Dr. Eleanor A. Drey, performs abortions and is medical director of an abortion clinic.

Neither tried to conceal those activities from reporters before the journal article was published. […] Anti-abortion groups criticized the journal’s failure to mention the two authors’ work and said their backgrounds revealed a bias that cast doubt on their findings.

In addition, a third author, Mark Rosen, is a professor and vice-chair of the University of California – San Francisco’s department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, which is affiliated with the women’s health clinic Dr. Drey runs. (That’s a very weak connection, but many pro-lifers seem to consider it a big deal, so I thought I should mention it.)

Pro-life blogger GrannyGrump comments:

So the results of this “study” boil down to the equivalent of research by R. J. Reynolds showing that cigarette smoke doesn’t have any effect on children.

A few points.

The researchers didn’t think it was necessary to point out that an oby-gyn performs abortions (what a shock!), or that a student who worked on this study, also worked for NARAL for less than a year over five years ago. Clearly, the researchers were wrong. The researchers should have disclosed all their affiliations to JAMA, even ones that seemed obvious or minor, and let JAMA’s editors decide if they were relevant or not.
GrannyGrump’s argument is an Ad Hominem. Logically, research is legitimate or not based on how well or poorly it is done; you can’t just look at the researcher’s affiliations and conclude that it must be bad research. (However, conflicts of interest can be a legitimate warning sign, letting us know to view the research methodology carefully.)
Obviously some medical experts on abortion are going to be doctors who perform abortion, or medical professors who teach about abortion. It goes too far to imply, as GrannyGrump seems to, that experts writing about their own fields are as biased as a tobacco company study. Yes, it raises a legitimate question of conflict of interest; but so does having heart surgeons write articles about heart surgery.
This particular article passed through JAMA’s peer review process. And it’s not original research – it’s a review of peer-reviewed medical research on the subject. Both these facts make the JAMA article completely different from the faux-research put out by tobacco companies – and make it likely that the findings are legitimate.
Finally, the pro-life press is full of studies conducted and funded by professional pro-life advocates – and many of those studies are never published in legitimate peer-reviewed journals. It seems unlikely that pro-lifers would be willing to hold their own studies to the standards they’re holding this study to.

Bottom line: It’s no surprise that the pro-lifers have been attacking this study with ad hom attacks on some of the authors, rather than attacking it on the scientific merits.

Posted in Abortion & reproductive rights | 36 Comments

"Don't want to be murdered? Don't marry a murderer!"

Posted on August 30, 2005 by Nick Kiddle

Thanks to a commenter on the thread about feminism and the murder rate, I found some interesting discussion about Latoyia Figueroa’s murder (scroll down about two-thirds of the page). Criminologist Jack Levin addresses the horrifying fact that the most common cause of death among pregnant women and new mothers is murder by speculating about the cultural pressures that might drive men to kill women who are carrying their children:

We glorify, we romanticize fatherhood but there are many men who don’t want it. They see the baby as an obstacle to their success.

Of course, there’s more to it than that: some men who don’t want to be fathers take the responsibility for avoiding fatherhood onto themselves, while others expect their girlfriends to bear all the responsibility. The ones who think murdering your pregnant girlfriend is an appropriate response to an unwanted pregnancy push the sexist, women-are-to-blame thinking to its extreme, but the difference between believing you have the right to kill her and believing you have the right to compel her to have an abortion is one of degree and not kind.

It’s true that one of the ways our culture contributes to crimes like this is by putting pressure on men that some cannot live up to. But the other side of the coin is the image of motherhood and femininity as subservient to male control that makes these men consider their partners as objects for them to control and, if necessary, destroy. Both are cultural pressures, both are factors in crimes like that, and I’d prefer to see more attention paid to the one that directly affects women than to the one that could be read as excusing men.

But at least Levin is focussing on the actions of the criminal. Criminal profiler Pat Brown picks up this social pressure and runs with it into blame-the-victim territory:

I think we also have women out there who are not picking men who want to be fathers. It’s a simple solution for the women. Don’t get pregnant by men you do not trust and absolutely think want to be in a relationship and want to move into fatherhood.

Such a simple solution. Don’t want to be murdered? Don’t marry a murderer. Don’t want to be raped? Don’t let yourself be alone with a rapist. Don’t want to be used as a sexual object and then discarded? Don’t associate with sexist jerks. Not to say that victims of murder and rape are to blame for what happens to them, of course, but we know there are predators out there and it makes sense for women to take these few simple steps to protect themselves.

It falls to Levin to point out the flaw in this plan:

Not all of these guys…in fact some of them are the last person you’d suspect and that’s part of the secret of being a sociopath and getting away with murder. So you know sure, let’s use warning signs and common sense, but it doesn’t always work.

Until men who see women as expendable objects start wearing labels to distinguish them from the rest of the male population, “don’t get involved with a jerk or a sociopath” isn’t a solution at all. There are men who appear to be wonderful, caring people as eager for parenthood as the women who fall for them, but who, at the first sign of things not conforming to their fantasies, blame the women and expect them to fall immediately into line. When the man who is genuinely trustworthy and the man who is only trustworthy as long as he gets what he wants look the same to the naked eye, what’s a girl to do?

Whatever filters women set up to screen out the jerks and the sociopaths, they lose. No filter is perfect: it will either underblock and let undesirables through or overblock and screen desirables out. If the filter underblocks, you could end up with someone who thinks murder is an acceptable form of birth control, and the likes of Pat Brown will suggest that it’s your fault for not realising who you’d tangled with. And if it overblocks, you’re an evil misandrist who thinks all men are rapists and won’t give a nice guy a chance.

But given that the stakes are so high, why do “nice guys” deserve a chance before they’ve produced solid evidence, as opposed to unreliable assertion, of why they should be trusted? Outside of feminist discussions, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the question asked. Nice guys deserve a chance because they’re nice guys, and because deep down, a woman really needs a man and won’t be happy without one. Male privilege and the myth of subservient femininity, all packed into one unexamined assumption.

Posted in Anti-feminists and their pals, Feminism, sexism, etc, Rape, intimate violence, & related issues | 70 Comments

Does Whatever A Spider Can!

Posted on August 30, 2005 by Ampersand

Monday baby blogging is a day late this week… sorry, I was really busy all day today.

Trust me, if you had one of these “baby” thingys around the house all the time, you’d be doing dumb things with it too.

Posted in Baby & kid blogging | 18 Comments

Report from Darfur

Posted on August 29, 2005 by Ampersand

An extradordinary post on Blue Girl, Red State describes the experience of a volunteer aid worker in Darfur, who posts on Kevin Drum’s blog under the name “Shameless Hussy.”

What she dealt with daily goes beyond the pale…beyond the nightmares of most people; Children with all four limbs hacked off right above the knee or below the elbow. Twelve year olds who died in childbirth after being gang-raped by the Janjaweed. Women who gave birth to rape-babies who were then cast out by their families for shaming the family name, leaving only one avenue of survival for themselves and their children after the camps: Prostitution.

What is fucking her up is the desperation, and the fact that she worked herself to death for over a month, and she still didn’t really save anyone. Now that she’s gone, it’s like she was never there. Even the ones she helped keep alive, she didn’t save. You try dealing with that reality.

And women are the preponderance of victims. Men do not leave the villages to go to the countryside to gather firewood and other necessary items of sustenance. Women venture out, even though every time they leave their villages, they are at horrific risk of being beaten and raped and disfigured. The reason they go instead of the men? The women are only attacked, the men are killed.

Blue Girl’s posts has more details, and also a number of links if you’d like to donate money – if you leave a post there, Blue Girl will make sure Shameless Hussy finds out about your donation.

Posted in International issues | 5 Comments