On Jodie Foster and ‘privacy’ vs. shame

NBC/Associated Press photo

Actress Jodie Foster kind of officially, publicly came out of the closet the other night when she accepted an award at the Golden Globe Awards. Thankfully, the 50-year-old Foster’s apparent shame over her sexual orientation is rarer in our youthful non-heterosexuals today — no thanks to Foster, of course.

I don’t want this to be a repeat of what I wrote about lesbian astronaut Sally Ride’s posthumous outing in July, so I’ll quote what others have said about actress Jodie Foster’s recent quasi-coming out.

Matthew Breen, the probably-too-pretty editor of The Advocate, wrote this about Foster:

… Everyone should come out in her own time, but Foster was angry last night. One reason could be embarrassment at not having come out publicly (at least in her own estimation) until 2013. Last night’s speech clearly took a lot of guts for Foster to undertake. But too much anger was directed at a straw man of her own creation.

“But now apparently I’m told that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance, and a prime-time reality show. You guys might be surprised, but I am not Honey Boo Boo child. No, I’m sorry, that’s just not me, never was, and it never will be,” she said.

There’s where she’s got it wrong. By referencing Honey Boo Boo, a stand-in for all that is shamelessly confessional about celebrity in 2013, Foster’s implication was that the choices she faces as a public figure are few: (1) stay closeted, never acknowledge your sexual orientation in public, or (2) tell the world every sordid detail of your intimate life.

That’s a bogus comparison, and it’s one that reinforces the idea that being LGBT is shameful, worthy of being hidden, and that saying you’re LGBT is an invitation to the whole world to come into your bedroom. That’s patently wrong. There are numerous out celebrities who guard their personal lives: David Hyde Pierce, Anna Paquin, Zachary Quinto, Amber Heard, Anderson Cooper, just to name a few. … [Emphasis is all mine.]

Breen states in his piece on Foster that The Advocate’s policy on outing is this: “While we encourage everyone who doesn’t risk his or her own safety by coming out to do so, The Advocate has a policy of not outing people who are not actively doing harm to LGBTs through word or deed.”

That’s pretty much my personal view on outing, too. Those who can be out should be out, in my book. You can’t assert that someone who might face real physical danger and/or who might be tossed out of his or her home (or maybe even his or her job) should come out if you’re not the one who would have to face the consequences – but often closeted individuals exaggerate how awful it might be should they come out.

Still, that said, even if I strongly think that an individual should be out, in the end, in many if not most cases it’s up to the individual as to whether or not he or she should be out (assuming that everyone doesn’t already know or strongly surmise the individual’s orientation anyway — there are so many closet cases whose self-awareness is so low that they seem to think that no one knows that they’re not heterosexual when pretty much everyone does).

In my book, the individual deserves the “protection” of the closet until and unless he or she does not deserve it, such as if it’s a closeted guy who is not keeping to himself but is sexually harassing others at the workplace (as happened to me) or, of course, if it’s a closet case who actively is working against the “LGBT community,” such as a “Christo”fascist “leader” or a politician. No traitor deserves the “protection” of the closet.

Most people agree on that point, but there remains a sticking point — that of “privacy.”

I like what LGBT writer Nathaniel Frank has to say on this:

… It’s true that hiding [one's sexual orientation] hurts. Research shows mental health consequences to holding major secrets over time. And yes, it’s absolutely a wasted opportunity for powerful, visible people who probably could come out unscathed to deny young LGBT people the nurturance of knowing that an admired public figure is gay.

Privacy and shame are closely connected. Adam and Eve covered their “privates” the moment they gained moral consciousness, an awareness of good and evil, setting the tone for a truism ever since: You don’t cover up stuff if there ain’t something wrong with it.

Any step a gay person takes to hide their identity that they wouldn’t take to hide the fact that they’re, say, Irish, vegetarian or left-handed is probably not a neutral quest for privacy but reflects their own doubt about just how OK it is to be gay. Foster’s reluctance to just pull an Ellen (“Yep, I’m gay”), and her tortured speech, with its resentful tone and its ultimate avoidance of the “L” word, made being gay and coming out seem tortured things in themselves. … [Emphasis mine.]

And that’s the deep and profound problem that I have with the widespread argument that one’s sexual orientation (if it is not heterosexual, and only if it is not heterosexual, of course) is “private”: The vast majority of heterosexuals don’t go around asserting that their attraction to members of the opposite sex is “private,” do they? And why is that? Because they’re not fucking ashamed of their sexual orientation, that’s why.

So to assert that one’s non-heterosexuality — not one’s specific sex acts, but one’s basic sexual orientation – is “private” is to keep alive the toxic, ignorant, bigoted, harmful belief that to be attracted to members of one’s own sex is shameful, abnormal, “sinful,” etc.

And to contribute to that toxic, heterosexist and homophobic environment — and yes, all of us are responsible for the environment, since all of us make up the environment – is only to add to the number of non-heterosexual people who become addicted to drugs and alcohol, who contemplate or commit suicide, who don’t protect themselves from STDs because (in their low self-esteem) they don’t find themselves to be worth protecting, and who are the victims of hate crimes, since they exist in such a heterosexist, homophobic environment that encourages such hate crimes.

You are contributing to the problem or you are contributing to the solution.

Lying that your basic sexual orientation is a matter of “privacy” – and lying that what others really want to know are the “dirty” details of your sex life when, in fact, no one is inquiring as to such details – is to try to excuse yourself for your own laziness, selfishness and cowardice for which there is no fucking excuse.

That is the problem that I have with Jodie Foster and with others like her who toss out the red herring of “privacy” instead of manning the fuck up already and working to make things better for everyone.

‘Bomb-throwing’ Ron Paul wins wingnuts’ New Hampshire debate

Associated Press photo

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, left, gestures at front-runner former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney during tonight’s Repugnican Tea Party presidential primary debate in Manchester, New Hampshire. Romney was polished and toed the party line, while Paul kept it real and wasn’t afraid to buck the party consensus.

I live-blogged tonight’s Repugnican Tea Party presidential debate, the first 2012 Repugnican Tea Party presidential primary debate that I’ve watched in its entirety. The live-blogging is below.

I conclude that Ron Paul won the debate, hands down.

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5:59 p.m. (Pacific time): The debate should begin within minutes… I’ve yet to force myself to sit through an entire 2012 Repugnican Tea Party presidential debate, but tonight I am going to, come hell or high water.

6:03 p.m.: It’s telling that all six candidates are middle-aged or old white men. These are the faces of the Repugnican Tea Party, no doubt. Anyway, with Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos and some other guy moderating, this apparently is a pretty high-level debate…

6:07 p.m.: All of these fascists more or less look alike to me, but thus far Mitt Romney seems to be doing pretty well, with the exception of his fakey-fake “friendly” voice, which is whisper-like and condescending. Rick Santorum seems to be uncomfortable in his own skin, not entirely unlike how he is parodied by Adam Samberg on “Saturday Night Live”…

6:11 p.m.: The candidates are now singing the praises of capitalism, which they aren’t calling “capitalism,” but are calling “free enterprise,” since that polls better and since capitalism isn’t as popular as it used to be with the 99 percent these days. There was a mention of how dangerous Iran is, which I’m sure we’ll get back to. This “free enterprise” crap sounds just like the portion of a debate I listened to a long time ago, when Michele Bachmann was still in the race…

6:14 p.m.: Ron Paul has called Santorum “corrupt.” Santorum has taken issue with this charge, of course. Santorum also states that he isn’t a libertarian, but that he believes in some government. (Government when it helps the plutocracy, right?)

6:17 p.m.: Ron Paul brags that he has signed only a handful of appropriations bills in the U.S. House of Representatives, that he opposes most government spending. “I am not a libertarian, Ron,” Santorum has repeated.

6:19 p.m.: Rick Perry is on now. He has bashed “corrupt spending” in Washington, D.C., and touts that he’s a D.C. outsider. His claim that he has been the “commander in chief” of Texas’ National Guard, apparently, is risible.

6:21 p.m.: Ah, we’re back to Iran. What’s the U.S. without a bogeyman? Jon Huntsman is rambling now. Sawyer asked about Iran, but Huntsman, perhaps fearing he won’t be able to answer another question, hasn’t answered the question, but has given a little stump speech. Huntsman is as white-bread as Romney is, but maybe that’s a product of their Mormonism.

6:25 p.m.: So Romney has called Barack Obama’s a “failed presidency,” stating that Obama has no leadership experience (I guess that the past three years don’t count), and alleging that Obama hasn’t been tougher on Iran, even though elective war in the Middle East has brought the American empire to the brink of collapse already.

6:27 p.m.: “Iran’s a big problem, without a doubt,” Rick Perry has proclaimed, further claiming that Iran (somehow) threatens our freedom. (It would be the plutocrats here at home who threaten our freedom, but that’s another blog post.) We heard the same thing about Iraq, did we not? That it was a threat to our freedom and our security? Again, it’s apparent that the Repugnican Tea Party fascists intend to use the specter of Iran to scare the populace into voting for them. Will it work again?

6:30 p.m.: Ron Paul passionately has talked about chickenhawks, though who gladly send our young off to war when they avoided military service themselves. Paul and Newt Gingrich went back and forth about whether or not Gingrich evaded military service, which would make him a chickenhawk. It’s rare for a Repugnican Tea Party candidate to bash chickenhawks.

6:33 p.m.: Ron Paul passionately has talked about how blacks and other “poor minorities” disproportionately are punished by our “criminal” “justice” system (as opposed to whites), including the fact that blacks and other poor minorities are more likely to be executed than are whites. Paul’s rant was a diversion from the question about the reportedly racist overtones of his old newsletter, but it’s rare to hear a Repugnican Tea Party candidate admit that the “criminal” “justice” system is patently unfair and racially biased.

6:35 p.m.: So there’s a break now. Some fucktarded ABC News pundit has called Ron Paul a “bomb-thrower,” but Paul seems sincere in his positions to me. Thus far, Ron Paul is doing the best in the debate, in my book, but as his views are closest to mine, maybe that’s why. I find front-runners Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum to be yawn-inducing and utterly uninspiring.

6:41 p.m.: Mitt Romney states that he personally opposes any attempt to ban contraception, although he states that he has no idea as to whether or not it would be constitutional for a state to attempt to ban contraception. Romney states that he supports an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define a marriage as being only between a man and a woman. This makes him utterly unelectable to me, to codify homophobia in the U.S. Constitution.

6:42 p.m.: Romney states that he believes that Roe vs. Wade should be overturned, which also makes him utterly unelectable to me.

6:43 p.m.: Rick Santorum, not to be outdone by Mitt Romney, also states that he also would overturn Roe vs. Wade. These men sure hate women.

6:45 p.m.: The topic now is same-sex marriage. Ron Paul has talked about privacy rights, but I’m not sure of his stance on same-sex marriage. Thus far no one supports same-sex marriage, unsurprisingly, with the possible exception of Paul. Jon Huntsman says he supports civil unions but does not believe that same-sex marriage should be allowed. That’s the coward’s way out, and separate is not equal.

6:47 p.m.: Santorum says that marriage is a federal issue. (I agree. Same-sex marriage should be allowed in all 50 states.) Santorum sounds like he also supports an amendment to the U.S. Constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman only.

6:49 p.m.: Romney has used the bullshit “argument” that same-sex marriage should not be allowed because children should be raised only by heterosexual couples. Studies refute this assertion, and of course many people marry with no intent to raise children. Newt Gingrich essentially has tried to make the argument that “Christo”fascist haters are being oppressed by not being allowed to hate and to discriminate against others based upon their hateful religious beliefs. Oh, well. Gingrich has a snowball’s chance in hell of making it to the White House anyway.

6:54 p.m.: Rick Perry couldn’t resist adding that he also supports an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning same-sex marriage, and he is echoing Gingrich’s “argument” that the poor “Christo”fascists are experiencing a “war on religion.” Really? How about we start throwing them to the lions so that at least they aren’t lying through their fucking teeth when they claim that they are so fucking oppressed because they can’t cram their bullshit beliefs down our throats?

6:59 p.m.: Sounds like Jon Huntsman supports our withdrawal from Afghanistan. Newt Gingrich has used the topic of Afghanistan to bring up the specter of Iran, but, surprisingly, indicated that the problems in the Middle East don’t call for military solutions. Rick Santorum speaks again. He still seems ill at ease. He opposes withdrawing from Afghanistan any day soon, very apparently, because, he says, “radical Islam” is a “threat.” (Funny — I see radical “Christianity” as a much bigger and much more immediate threat to my own freedoms and security than I see Islam ever being.)

7:01 p.m.: Rick Perry says that he disagrees with the pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq, because Iran will overtake Iraq — “literally” “at the speed of light,” he said. (Really? Literally at the speed of light?) Like the last governor from Texas knew what to do in Iraq… Anyway, Rick Perry isn’t getting much air time, and I predict that his campaign won’t make it to next month.

7:04 p.m.: Ron Paul correctly points out that so many of the members of his party can’t wait to, as John McCainosaurus once put it, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, but that he thinks it’s a bad idea, as the U.S. military already is woefully overextended. (Paul did make an awkward comment about how although the Chinese government killed scores of its own citizens, it was a ping-pong game that “broke the ice.” Again: Awkward…)

7:06 p.m.: Rick Santorum seems like he’s so nervous that he might barf. We’re on another break now.

7:11 p.m.: Still on break. In my book, Ron Paul is winning this debate. However, he’s not mimicking all of the others on key stands (Iran evil, same-sex marriage evil, etc.), so I can’t see him getting even the vice-presidential spot on the 2012 ticket (presuming he’d even want it).

7:20 p.m.: We’re talking about the nation’s infrastructure now, apparently having finished with social issues and foreign policy. Mitt Romney is supposed to be talking about infrastructure, but instead he’s singing yet another insipid paean to capitalism, as opposed to Barack Obama’s “social welfare state.” Newt Gingrich is actually answering the question. Newt says that we have to maintain our infrastructure in order to keep pace with China and India (not because it’s good for us commoners, but because it’s good for business, apparently). Rick Santorum is supposed to be talking about infrastructure, but instead is claiming that corporations are overtaxed and over-regulated. Apparently the Repugs don’t really want to talk about the infrastructure, which the unelected Bush regime allowed to crumble for almost a decade.

7:25 p.m.: So little of substance was said on the topic of our crumbling infrastructure. Apparently all of our resources should go into even more warfare in the Middle East for the war profiteers and for Big Oil. Ron Paul is rambling on about cutting spending. Who is going to pay for our infrastructure? Oh, no one, since it’s not important, apparently. Rick Perry is now pontificating about lowering taxes (although without taxes, we can’t have a commons) and is advocating an energy policy of “drill, baby, drill,” essentially, and claims that Texas’ being a “right-to-work” state has resulted in job growth there. The plutocrats love it when the worker bees cannot unionize for better working conditions and better pay and benefits and rights. Rick Perry is evil, and his state’s jobs are low-paying jobs with bad or no benefits, which is why he focuses on the number of jobs, not the quality of those jobs, in Texas. Bad, low-paying jobs in which the deck is insanely stacked in the favor of the plutocrats are great for the plutocrats, but are catastrophic for the working class.

7:26 p.m.: Mitt Romney says that the November 2012 presidential election is about “the soul of the nation.” Indeed. If any of these fascists win, the soul of the nation will wither even further than it has over at least the past decade.

7:28 p.m.: Newt Gingrich has brought up Ronald Reagan. I’m shocked that it has taken this long for the name of St. Ronald to be brought up. (No mention of George W. Bush yet. Not one… Hee hee hee…) Rick Santorum, who still appears to be nauseous, just essentially stated that we don’t have socioeconomic classes here in the United States of America, and that Barack Obama has been trying to stoke “class warfare.” Wow. We are a classless society? When is the last time that Rick Santorum hosted a homeless person in his home, I wonder? And given that Obama took more money from the Wall Street weasels than John McCainosaurus did in 2008, how has Obama been stoking “class warfare” (as Santorum means it)?

7:32 p.m.: Now the topic is China. Apparently China is The Enemy, too, although I’m sure that Iran remains Public Enemy No. 1. Hmmm. Isn’t it the capitalists who sell us out here at home for their own enrichment, rather than anyone in China, who are responsible for our nation’s economic collapse? All of these bogeymen, when the enemies are right here among us…

7:40 p.m.: Another break. Overall, this is a sorry batch of candidates, a bunch of circus clowns, for the most part; Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman seem to be the least insane of the six all-white, all-male candidates. Rick Perry wants to be George W. Bush’s third term, apparently, and again, I can’t see that happening for him; I predict that he’ll be the next to drop out. Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum seem to be too similar on the issues for it to matter much which one might ever be president, Mitt the Mormon “Christo”fascist or Rick the Catholick “Christo”fascist.

7:42 p.m.: Damn, this shit is over already!

The winner of the debate, in my book, was Ron Paul. The pundits, not shockingly, are calling Mitt Romney the winner. Gee, if being as insipid as a glass of warm milk makes you the winner, then perhaps Romney won, but Paul showed more spunk and passion and sincerity — and, dare I say it, some wisdom – than any of the other five candidates.

I think the pundits are calling Romney the winner only because they’re fucktards who are going to side only with establishmentarian, orthodox candidates. To them, Ron Paul essentially is a ghost, an invisible man, because he doesn’t say what they think he should say. They don’t really listen to him, but only compare what he’s saying against what his cohorts/“cohorts” are saying, and because he isn’t mimicking his cohorts, and because his views don’t fit neatly into the pundits’ oversimplified worldview, they simply ignore him or dismiss him.

I hope that Paul sticks it out and keeps sticking it to them. He’s the only thing remotely interesting about this crop of backasswards white men who would be president who seem to be stuck in the ethos of the 19fucking50s.

Save us from the new ‘feminists’!

Associated Press photos

“Democratic” U.S. Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are coming for your balls (or ovaries…) next!

U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner wisely has decided to take a timeout from “Weinergate,” requesting a leave of absence from the U.S. House of Representatives.

He claims that he is going into treatment, although for what, exactly, I am not sure. Treatment for sex addiction, that is, for sexually compulsive behavior that has disrupted his life? Treatment for the 46-year-old’s apparent midlife crisis, as evidenced by the fact that he even took a picture of his toned and depilated chest — and by the fact that he even depilated his chest in the first place? 

In any event, whether Weiner truly believes that he needs treatment for something or not, it’s a great political move, whether it was intended to be a great political move or not, because now those who are calling for his resignation appear to be self-righteous assbites who are attacking a man who only wants to overcome his problem(s).

Sadly and pathetically, these self-righteous assbites aren’t only members of the treasonous Repugnican Tea Party.

The other day I remarked that

… I don’t expect the spineless Democrats in D.C. to support the now-politically-radioactive Weiner — and that’s how most politicians are, of course: they’re your “friends” only if they perceive it still to be in their best personal political interests — and without the support of his fellow Democrats in D.C., I don’t know if Weiner can politically survive being frozen out of his own party, even if he strives to survive politically.

and

… for the Democrats to cave into this kind of sexual blackmail — instead of fighting back and changing the game instead of playing along with the wingnuts’ game – is yet another example of the spectacular spinelessness and political ineptitude that we’ve come to know and loathe about the Democratic Party.

Am I prophetic or what?

I wrote those words before Democratic Party House leader Nancy Pelosi — whom all of us everywhere on the political spectrum are pretty fucking sick and tired of, I think — and new Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (who, up to now, I’ve kinda liked) both publicly expressed their belief that Weiner should resign.

Problem is, in a recent poll, 56 percent of Weiner’s constituents said that he should not resign.

So whose best interests are the likes of Pelosi and Wasserman Schultz looking out for? Their own, perhaps?

Is this the new “feminism,” in which self-proclaimed “feminists” cooperate with and enable the hypocritical right wing in its attempt to shame others over the fact that they are sexual beings?

By just giving the likes of wingnut Andrew Breitbart what he wants (Weiner’s head on a silver platter for Breitbart’s own petty ego), are “feminists” like Pelosi and Wasserman Schultz helping the cause of sexual liberation for everyone, for men as well as for women, or are they only aiding and abetting the sexually hypocritical right wing because they are lazy, self-serving cowards who just want to do the most politically expedient thing, which is to excommunicate Weiner?

Perhaps more to the point: Does Nancy Pelosi want every American male to be castrated? I mean, I generally have opposed the right wing’s attacks on her as being misogynist in spirit, but now I’m starting to wonder about the woman.

This is the deal: Anthony Weiner has not been accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault or sexual battery. He has not been accused of having sexually forced himself on anyone, in person or via cyberspace. He has acknowledged that he has had some consensually sexually oriented communications with several women, even after he got married. He claims that he has not had physical sexual contact with these women, and there is no evidence to contradict this claim.

What has happened is that some of these sexually oriented communications of his were made public for some petty wingnuts’ petty political gain. In my book, his privacy has been violated. (I reject the claim that elected officials are not entitled to any privacy. Perhaps legally their right to privacy is diminished, but morally and ethically, in my view, they have as much a right to privacy as does anyone else.)

If Weiner has wronged anyone, I suppose, he has wronged his wife — but that’s between him and his wife. And for all we know, they have an open marriage. We don’t know. It’s their marriage. Not ours. Not any of our fucking business.

But sanctimonious types like Pelosi and Wasserman Schultz, by stupidly calling for Weiner’s resignation instead of just keeping their mouths shut — which almost always is an option, by the way — are only making it not only possible, but more likely that bottom-feeders like the blackmailing Andrew Breitbart will try to destroy the careers of progressive politicians by searching everywhere and anywhere for any salacious dirt on them.

We owe it, in fairness, to Weiner and to everyone accused of sexual impropriety to look at exactly what the allegations are and to proceed only from such a careful examination. To recap some fairly recent U.S. House of Representatives sex scandals that resulted in resignations:

• Repugnican Rep. Mark Foley resigned in September 2006 after it was alleged that he had sent sexually explicit messages to underaged male congressional pages. So the main problem here (besides Foley’s apparent then-closetedness [he reportedly is out of the closet now, by the way]) is that the alleged victims were underaged and that a U.S. representative apparently was greatly abusing his power over his much less powerful staffers. It is reasonable to expect a U.S. representative who has sexually harassed any of his or her staffers to resign or to be expelled from the House.
• Democratic Rep. Eric Massa resigned in March 2010 after it was alleged that he had sexually harrassed at least one male staffer. Massa reportedly used sexually charged language with his male staffer or staffers (he copped to having used “salty” language from his Navy days) and apparently he thought it appropriate to continuously tickle at least one male staffer on at least one occasion. (A supervisor just doesn’t tickle or otherwise prolongedly touch his or her supervisees.) The problem here, again, is that of (apparent/alleged) sexual harassment, compounded by the fact of the power differential between the accused and his alleged victim(s).
• Repugnican Rep. Christopher Lee resigned in February 2011 after it was revealed that he’d sent a shirtless pic of himself to a woman (a male-to-female transsexual?) whom he was trying to pick up on Craigslist. (The woman [MTF?] herself outed Lee to the sleazy website Gawker, and Lee resigned the same day that Gawker ran the story.) Besides sending the sexually charged (but not X-rated) image of himself, the heterosexually married Lee apparently also lied about his marital status. While creepy, as I noted at the time, Lee apparently was guilty of no more than attempted infidelity and being in the grip of a midlife crisis. He was not accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault or sexual battery. Therefore, as I noted at the time, I don’t see that his resignation was called for, and I still see the matter as having been between him and his wife.

So the dog-piling upon Weiner seems to come primarily from the belief that a member of the U.S. House of Representatives may not be sexual outside of (heterosexual, of course) marriage — because sex is dirty, sex is wrong, sex is sinful, etc., and a member of the “lofty” U.S. House of Representatives just should not be acting in any way that is sexual, because sex is only for animals — and for unhappily but dutifilly married heterosexual couples.

Meanwhile, it’s widely considered perfectly OK for fucktarded, wingnutty U.S. representatives like Repugnican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher to do such things as to announce in Iraq that Iraq should repay the United States for the cost of the unelected Bush regime’s illegal, immoral, unjust and unprovoked Vietraq War.* (Of course, “unelected,” “illegal,” “immoral,” etc. are my words, not his.)

Now, I find it much more reprehensible that a textbook stupid white man like Dana Rohrabacher would be in another nation making foreign-policy pronouncements for the United States of America as though he had been elected fucking president than I find it reprehensible that Anthony Weiner apparently is going through a midlife crisis a la former Rep. Christopher Lee.

The actions of Rohrabacher and his ilk at least border on treason if they don’t actually cross the line into treasonous territory, yet they are not so much as slapped on the wrist. Weiner has only offended some sexually repressed hypocrites’ sensibilities – boo fucking hoo! – and yet there are calls for his resignation.

And it’s sad and pathetic to hear those calls coming from self-professed feminists**, who spit on the grave of the actual feminists who actually fought for sexual freedom for women. Because the so-called “feminists” who are calling for Weiner’s resignation aren’t advancing the sexual freedom of women, but are diminishing the sexual freedom of all of us because they enable the sexually hypocritical right wing to use our sexuality against us.

Shame on them.

P.S. My defense of Weiner as of late extends only to “Weinergate.” I do not agree with him on every issue, such as his ass-licking of Israel. Like way too many Jewish (and non-Jewish) members of Congress, he is unable to be anything even remotely like fair and evenhanded where it comes to Israel, which can do no wrong and is never guilty of terrorism or any other crime against humanity, even though the angelic Israelis have slaughtered far more innocent Arabs than vice-versa since the state of Israel woefully misguidedly was imposed upon the Middle East in the aftermath of World War II.

–

*Iraq asked Rohrabacher and his contingent to leave because of Rohrabacher’s incredibly fucktarded remarks, which reportedly included, “Once Iraq becomes a very rich and prosperous country… we would hope that some consideration be given to repaying the United States some of the mega-dollars that we have spent here in the last eight years.”

Gee, I don’t recall that Iraqis ever asked for the March 2003 invasion of their soverign nation that the United Nations Security Council had refused to rubber stamp for the Bush regime and that has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

**Not just to pick on Pelosi and Wasserman Schultz (and some other “feminist” women in Congress, such as Rep. Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania, the very first House “Democrat” to stupidly publicly call for Weiner’s resignation), because I’ve also seen so-called “progressive”/“feminist” women writers also dog-pile upon Weiner, including one who apparently believes that it’s up to her to decide whether or not another woman has been sexually harassed (novel!).

Assorted shit

Finally, a brilliant move by the Dems

Apparently the Democrats are planning to make the Repugnicans’ refusal to go along with Wall Street reform a centerpiece of their November election strategy.

It’s a brilliant move.

Perhaps spurred on by the attention that Michael Moore brought to the subject in his documentary “Capitalism: A Love Story” (which I reviewed here and which I just watched again on DVD), the Democrats have seized upon the fact that the Repugnicans prefer unfettered financial fraud to any regulations on Wall Street whatsofuckingever.

With so many Americans struggling financially, for them to see, graphically, what the Repugnican Party stands f0r — the interests of the plutocrats, the true elites — around election time should put a significant dent in any gains the Repugnicans otherwise anticipated they’d make.

The Repugnican Party’s insistence on aiding the already filthy rich at the expense of the rest of us should do at the ballot box for the Democrats what the unelected Bush regime’s constant reminder of the “threat” of “terrorism” did for the Repugnicans at the ballot box in 2002 and in 2004.

I’m starting to feel some hope that we’re going to have some change…  

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Chuck Crist poised to pull a Benedict Lieberman

I remember the joke that Jon Stewart made when former Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman announced that he would run for re-election to the U.S. Senate as an independent candidate (under the newly formed “party” of “Connecticut for Lieberman”) after he had lost the Democratic primary to opponent Ned Lamont: Stewart joked that Lieberman had announced that if he lost the Senate election, then he would start his own Senate. (Unfortunately, Lieberman won the 2006 election as an “independent,” but fortunately, this meant that he didn’t have to start his own Senate…)

That’s pretty much what it has come to, with power-hungry, egomaniacal baby-boomer (I know, redundant…) politicians refusing to take no for an answer and wanting to hold on to their power at all costs.

Repugnican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who is featured in the excellent documentary “Outrage” as being a probable closet case, is considering running for the U.S. Senate as an independent because his Repugnican primary opponent, wingnut Marco Rubio, has overtaken him in the polls.

Under Florida law, Crist has until April 30 to decide whether to remain in the Repugnican primary or to run for the U.S. Senate as an independent, a la Lieberman. (Under Connecticut law, Benedict Lieberman still was able to run as an independent after he lost the Democratic primary, but Crist does not have that option. [I suppose that Florida can do some things right where the fairness of elections are concerned...].) 

Crist has indicated that he’ll do what’s best for the people of Florida.

Oh, bullshit.

Crist will do what’s best for Crist.

Those who choose to participate in one of the two major parties should accept their fate if their political fortunes fall. Running as an “independent” because one can’t make it in his or her chosen party anymore is one of the refuges of the scoundrel.

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It’s no different from phone-tapping

It is lamentable that those making the legal decisions regarding the privacy of employees’ electronic communications (e-mails, text-messages, etc.) are mostly baby boomers (or even older people) who barely fucking understand today’s electronic communications.*

I wholeheartedly disagree that an employer’s mere warning that its employees’ communications may be monitored makes it legal for it to monitor its employees’ communications any more than tapping their telephones is legal (except in certain circumstances, such as at call centers).

And if I give you warning that I might punch you in the face, does that make it legal for me to punch you in the face? Since when does a mere warning make a follow-up action legal?

New communications technology does not mean that the privacy laws that already apply to telephones, for example, don’t apply to that new technology.

The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding this issue now, with new Justice Sonia Sotomayor seeming to be leaning on the side of privacy protection and most of the other justices leaning on the side of Big Brother. 

Fact is, as Sotomayor seems to have indicated, most employers who snoop on their employees just get off on snooping.

Tell you what: When all of us can read the employers’ electronic communications, then maybe they can read ours. 

Um, yeah.

*The Associated Press indicates that Chief “Justice” John Roberts and “Justice” Antonin Scalia apparently don’t even understand how text-messaging works, yet they are poised to rule on whether or not privacy law applies to text-messaging.

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Bill Clinton: Can’t we all just get along?

Former President Bill Clinton is quoted by The Associated Press as having said that the United States has an image around the world of having too much political infighting.

God, I’m sick and fucking tired of hearing direct or indirect calls for a national singing of “Kumbaya.”

Much if not most of the opposition to President Barack Obama stems from the fact that he is presiding while black, for fuck’s sake.

I’m supposed to make nice with a bunch of fucking racists and white supremacists? Who hate me and who want to continue to oppress me because I’m gay?

I just don’t fucking think so!

The rest of the world can think what it wants to think.

And Bill Clinton can go kiss all of the wingnut ass that he likes.

I, for one, would rather die than to give the impression that I think that the likes of Sarah Palin-Quayle and Glenn Beck and their fascistic followers are anything less than satanic.