BroadSnark

I read an interesting letter by Jim Davidson that got me thinking (HT to @BradSpangler and Diana Culda).  In a nutshell, the letter asserts that abortion is indeed homicide, but that it is justifiable homicide.  I’ll let you read the letter and ponder his arguments on your own time.  Because that’s not exactly what I want to write about.

Davidson’s letter got me thinking about the abortion controversy as a controversy over women having the power of death.  It got me thinking about the fact that women have the power over life and death.  And it got me thinking how a religious person might view that power.

So let’s say you are a man who has been brought up your entire life to believe you were the stronger, more powerful sex.  Let’s say you took for granted that your physical strength was an outward manifestation of that power.  If you believe in a strict gender binary.  If you believe in hierarchy.  If you believe that power is created and ordained by god.  Then wouldn’t the realization that your god gave women the power over life and death destroy your world?  Because wouldn’t that mean that god, having given women the power over life and death, intended for women to rule?

I don’t, of course, believe any of that.  But I do think it is fascinating.  It’s fascinating for the window it may provide into the fragile psyche of the male, anti-abortion zealot.  And it is fascinating for the window it provides into religion.  It so clearly shows religion to be about nothing more than deceiving women into believing that they were not given the powers of life or death.  It is not women, they claim, but god who creates life.  It is not women, but god who chooses whether or not a fetus survives.

Taken from that standpoint, patriarchal religion is just a cabal of men who got together to convince women that, rather than having the power over life and death, god gave them reproductive organs as a sign of their perpetual servitude (aka nurturing).  And it makes a lot more sense why so many anti-abortion extremists claim to be pro-life but support the death penalty and war.  It isn’t that they have a problem with death.  They just have a problem with women deciding who lives and dies.

So, if a religion’s fundamental purpose is to dis-empower women, then what point is there in trying to fight against the oppression of women from within the religion’s structure.  The Pope can’t cave in.  His entire purpose in life is to defend an elaborate structure that was built by men to give the illusion that they were given more power by god.  It was built so they could deceive themselves and anyone else who actually buys into their bullshit.

Which brings me to my question.  If the structure of patriarchy is built on the lies of religion, doesn’t that put the atheist “evangelizers”  on the front lines of the fight for women’s rights?

First off, I’ve started an anarchist meetup group in DC.  If you are in the area, or know someone who is, check it out.  Our first meetup will be on March 28th.

Second, I must apologize to all the women who responded to my post about a women focused gathering.  I wasn’t able to get a message out before vacation, but I promise it is going to happen!

There’s been an update on the snowball war.  The cop who pulled a gun is going to get a staggaring ten day suspension for…wait for it…not filing a report. (HT @InjusticeNews)

Doesn’t it make you all warm and fuzzy that nuclear waste is being shipped around the world? (HT @tovX).  Aren’t you glad Obama has changed his mind and now wants to join the nuclear energy party before we have a safe way to get rid of the waste?

Ever feel like you are being watched?  In what is turning out to be a series of post links, more students have had their rights violated by their school.  Webcams on student laptops were used by the school to spy on them and their families.

Perhaps they were looking for an excuse to put kids in solitary confinement? (HT Joe F)

At least the students weren’t publicly harassed and humiliated in order to get their names into a public database filled with information on New York’s minorities.  Oh no.  They won’t do anything rotten with that information.

But hey, we aren’t yet arresting people for listening to rap music, like in Australia.

All of which reminds me, now would be a good time to learn Seven and a Half  Things You Can Do to Resist Mass Incarceration.  You also might want to consider taking Dave Chappelle’s advice.

On Saturday night, I went to a friends birthday party.  The party was at a club in Temple Hills, Maryland.  Temple Hills is 85% African American.  It took the bfriend and I three tries before we found a cab willing to take us there.  (FYI – It is just outside DC and an easy 10 mile drive.)  When we finally did find one, the cabbie spent the whole drive telling us what a dangerous place it was.

On Sunday, I attended A Continuing Talk on Race (A.C.T.O.R.) at Busboys and Poets.  Ironically, this month’s guest was Rawn James, Jr.   He was there to discuss his new book, Root and Branch: Charles Hamilton Houston, Thurgood Marshall, and the Struggle to End Segregation.  The group discussion centered around exactly the kind of de facto segregation in 85% black Temple Hills or 79% white Santa Cruz (where I lived the six years before moving to DC).

And on Sunday night, I listened to Womanist Musings on blog talk radio.  The subject was bridging the divide between women of color and white feminists.  Renee asked, as she has been asking for some time, how we can more effectively work together.

Divisions, and how to work across them, have been on my mind a lot lately.  Two recent posts have been about collaborating across the divide and focusing issue by issue.  But I think I may have gotten ahead of myself, because we are unlikely to work together successfully without first understanding one another.  And in order to understand one another, we have to listen to each other.  Too often, we aren’t even putting ourselves in the same room, much less having conversations.

I’m not talking just about racial divides.  Political affiliation, economics, geography, religion, food, education, philosophy, music, clothes, cars, books, heroes, villains…  We seem to have a nasty tendency to let small differences (and not so small differences) become impassible chasms.  Sometimes the divides are rooted in prejudice and fear.  Sometimes, like one participant on Sunday admitted, it is just the ease of being with people you know and understand.

We are all (to some degree) uninformed, misinformed, bigoted, suspicious, petty, defensive, and closed-minded.  It may be easier to live in a neighborhood where everyone looks the same or to only get news from people who think like you.  It’s easier to shut out the things that challenge or offend.  It is easier to stay within your comfort zone than to risk exposing your ignorance or exposing yourself to other people’s ignorance.

But we can’t always just do what is easy.  And insulating ourselves only ensures that we stay uninformed, misinformed, bigoted, suspicious, petty, defensive, and closed-minded.

To be clear, we all need safe spaces.  We all need friends, family, and neighbors that we feel comfortable with.  We need people who know us well enough to overlook a bad day or a stupid statement.  We need places where we don’t have to navigate the daily minefields inherent in a society that is so separate and oppressive.  And the more a person feels the weight of those minefields on a daily basis, the more they need that space.

But we also need safe spaces for crossing the divides, because those minefields will not disappear on their own.

So expose yourself to different people and different ways of thinking.  If you are liberal, follow some conservative or libertarian blogs.  If you are white, follow some black blogs.  If you are a man, follow some women’s blogs.  Don’t be a troll.  Don’t read people just to find fault with them.  Don’t look only for opportunities to debate.  Look for opportunities to find common ground.

Get out there and make yourself uncomfortable.  Talk to people that you don’t normally talk to.  If you live in New York, spend time in Oklahoma.  If you live in Minnesota, spend some time in Miami.  If you’ve never left your country, do it now.  And I don’t mean go stay in a resort where they make sure you are not exposed to anything even mildly jarring.

If you look, you will find other people who are willing to put themselves out there, even when it is uncomfortable.  You will find people who will take the time to understand where other people are coming from and to explain where they are coming from.  You will find people willing to be open and honest no matter what kind of abuse or ridicule they suffer for it.  You will find people who create safe spaces, virtual and physical, that make the conversations possible.

Thank those people.

Cherish those people.

Be those people.

I strongly suspect that, if we focus on understanding each other, collaboration will follow.

I made it back from Florida with my sanity and only a minor drinking problem, so things are good.  I’ll get back to my regular posting schedule next week.  In the meantime, you can check out a couple blog carnivals I participated in.

Carnival of the Godless

and

Carnival of the Liberals (I know I’m not exactly a liberal, but…)

No posting this week, as I am in Florida soaking up the sun and trying not to let my relatives drive me over the edge.  If you don’t hear from me by next Wednesday, send a rescue team.

It occurs to me that I don’t spend near enough time pointing out the lunacies of the religion I was brought up in.  And since I am leaving today to go to Florida, where I will visit my kooky religious mother, it seems a perfect time for the the first installment of Growing Up Jewish.

My mother was brought up orthodox.  Her parents immigrated to Montreal from the old country.  Picture Fiddler on the Roof, but with less singing.  Not sure if I should be happy or sad about that.  Who doesn’t love a good  show tune?

But I digress.

My mother wanted to continue observing the sabbath.  By Jewish law, that meant that from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday there would be no electricity, no car, no writing, no cutting, no pressing buttons, no flipping switches… There was to be nothing that had any potential for fun whatsoever.

For a little background, the sabbath is supposed to be a day of rest.  I can see where observing a day of rest has had its advantages over the years.  We all need a break.  I’m sure the idea of a sabbath gave people leverage over employers who would have preferred seven day a week workers.

Of course whatever usefulness the idea of a sabbath had was long ago overwhelmed by the absurdities that institutionalization and  modernity have caused.  So while giving your transportation a day of rest may have been kind when your transportation was a horse, making your family walk 10 blocks to shul (temple) because you aren’t allowed to use your car is ridiculous.

My father, in contrast, grew up in a much less religious household. He was not prepared to give up his car, his television, or his morning cup of coffee.  So my parents had to do quite a bit of compromising.  This led to some incredibly nonsensical rules.

We could go out in the car, use electricity, watch television, and boil water.  However, we were not allowed to draw pictures or make toast.  I distinctly remember getting into trouble with a friend of mine for attempting to punch rhinestones into a t-shirt during the sabbath.  (Hey, I was like eleven and it was the eighties, so shut up.)

The rules were arbitrary and made sense only in the twisted mind of my mother.  Is it any wonder I don’t like rules?

Friday night sabbath dinner was a big friggin deal.  There was no such thing as missing it.  It was in the dining room.  You had to wear shoes.  My mother lit candles, which she ran her hands over three times and then prayed over with her hands over her eyes.  She did not appreciate it if you took the opportunity to play peak a boo.

There was special bread (Challah, egg bread) and special wine (Manischewitz, sickly sweet).  We prayed in Hebrew over the wine and bread, but nothing else.  Apparently, jews don’t think it is necessary to thank god for chicken.  In fact, my family never prayed over food any other day of the week.  This may be the source of my lifelong thankfulness for alcohol and alcohol alone.

My father went through the ceremonial motions reluctantly.  He was forced to wear a yamulka (beanie), which he threw half-assedly on his head for exactly as long as the prayers took and then immediately removed. On at least one occasion, my father and I took the opportunity of my mother covering her eyes for the candle prayer to chuck pieces of challah bread at each other across the table.  Often, after the wine prayer was over, my father and I made lovely wine spritzers, which actually makes the Manischewitz somewhat drinkable.  My mother tolerated this reluctantly.

Once I became a teenager, the special hell that was Friday night dinner became particularly unbearable.  Each minute at the table was a minute I was not out getting into trouble with my friends.  My social life was further delayed by my dishwashing responsibilities.  And while our sabbath dinners ended well after sundown, no amount of arguing would convince my mother that washing the Friday night dinner dishes was work and not rest.

To this day, I have no idea why my mother chooses to follow these bizarro rules.  I think part of it is that she was brought up to think she had to be doing something every minute of every day and the sabbath gave her permission to do nothing.  Why she needed permission, I don’t know.  I also think she is a control freak and that the rules gave her the opportunity to make her world the way she wanted it with the veneer of god’s authority.

Then there is tradition.  That’s a big one in Judaism.  And finally there is is the sick belief that all Jewish suffering is caused by Jews not being good Jews.  I remember hearing once that if all Jews observed the sabbath just once then all their suffering would end.  Get it.  Light the candles, drink the wine, say the prayers, and…abra cadabra…no more holocausts!

At least I got to drink wine.

Political parties and broad categorizations have warped the way we think about issues and problem solving.

We may think that we cannot work with a conservative on anything.  But which conservative do we mean – the Christian conservative from Focus on the Family or the follower of Buckley?  We may think we cannot work with a liberal on anything.  But which liberal do we mean – the liberal, gay man who wants low taxes and small government (but also wants to marry his partner) or the liberal, homophobic union member who thinks larger government can protect him from his boss?

People attach themselves to a certain label based on what they perceive that label to mean.  But that is often not going to be what you think it means.  Pro-life is a good example.  A recent survey found that 51% of people identified as pro-life.  Now to me, that means anti-abortion.  When I hear pro-life, my first thoughts are of rape and incest and putting women’s lives at risk.

But closer inspection of that poll reveals that only about 22% of respondents thought abortion should be illegal in all cases.  So the label pro-life tells you that a person thinks that some abortions performed are wrong.  And while 42% of those surveyed identified as pro-choice, only about half of those think abortion should be legal in all cases.  So the label pro-choice also likely means that the person thinks some abortions performed are wrong.

Not only does our political system encourage us to focus laser-like on those issues that are most divisive.  It discourages any meaningful conversation about what those labels actually mean to the people who embrace them.  And that is just one more thing that keeps us from being able to work together on those issues that we do agree on.

People are understandably skeptical when I speak of working together with “the other side.”  Self-described liberals or progressives, for example, usually bring up white supremacists or Christian extremists or just the people who still think Dubya was a good president.  But they miss the point.

We need to stop looking at the entirety of people’s beliefs and start focusing on the issues – one issue at a time.

The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) has done an exemplary job of this.  Ethan Nadelmann found that his fellow liberals were not always his best allies in the fight against drug prohibition.  So he has gone about building a coalition of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians who all think the drug war is a bad idea.  Nadelmann will appear at the CATO institute on one day and the NAACP on another.  And DPA is happy to show that even many seemingly ideological enemies agree with them.

DPA’s “big tent” is one of the reasons why there is such movement right now in the area of drug policy reform, especially regarding marijuana.  And they show us that people on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum can work on an issue without compromising their ethics and with a lot of success.

So instead of trying to find the overarching category or political party that you perceive to be closest to your set of beliefs, why not focus your energies on an issue?  Or two issues or ten issues.  A web of groups, each focused on a clear issue with clear goals, has a much better chance of success than large groups of people who have to spend all their energies trying to be all things to all people.

And there is no telling what unexpected benefits we might realize from these kinds of issue based coalitions.  Perhaps the interactions might change some participants views on other issues.  Maybe nobody would change their ideas at all, but would walk away with a deeper understanding of what “the other side” really thinks.  People who work together toward a common goal, even those who don’t like each other, will often develop a mutual respect.  And mutual respect would be a very good start.

Here’s a hypothetical situation.

You work in a town with one factory.  You need your job.  Moving to another town, starting your own business, or getting some other means of survival is not an option at the moment.

One of your coworkers (let’s call him Bob) is a racist, sexist, homophobic SOB.  You are a black lesbian (let’s call you Michelle) who, for obvious reasons, does not get along with Bob.

You and Bob have found yourself in a situation.  Your employer (let’s call him Dick) is planning on cutting your salaries in half and doubling your work load.  Dick is counting on the animosity between you and Bob preventing any collaboration to thwart his plan.  Dick has his eye on a lovely yacht that he will be buying with your recouped wages.

What do you do here?  Take the cut in pay?  Move into your car?  Live on Ramen noodles?  Or do you find a way to work with Bob to fight Dick?

I make up this hypothetical situation because I think this is where we are stuck.  This is why, even when the majority of Americans want the wars to end or a public option or whatever else, we can never get what we want.  Yes, there is a lot of money and power blocking our way.  But that money and power would be no match for an organized and united population.

The other day on twitter, one of the people I follow retweeted the following:

Jane Hamsher on MSNBC just endorsed certain aspects of Tea Party.  I for one want nothing 2 do w/teabaggers or firebaggers.

So I asked my twitter-friend, “If the libertarian wing of the teabaggers got behind a massive anti-war movement (which they are talking about), you wouldn’t consider working together?”

The rest of the conversation went like this:

Him: No.  Just because ppl who want to undermine us support 1 thing I do is no reason to break bread with them

Me:  So you would rather have war continue and people die?

Him:  No, id rather the war end and not enable ppl who want the countrys destruction

Me:  You are stereotyping a whole lot of ppl you don’t know based on impressions from TV.  Really think you can trust TV impressions?

Him: Stereotyping, no, just listen to what they say

Me:  U mean that you have talked to them 1:1 or you listen to the ppl the tv likes to quote?

He never answered my last question.

I understand where he is coming from.  The tea party movement is, at best, blind to the racism underlying their movement.  And the movement has undoubtedly attracted many white supremacists and Christian conservatives whose views of the world are everything I would die in opposition to.

However.

I do not believe that every person who is skeptical of government or resentful of government’s power over our lives is a neo-nazi.  And I definitely don’t believe that I can trust the media’s portrayals of who is at those gatherings.

I know that when thousands of average-looking people gather for a liberal anti-war demonstration, the media will find the one group of naked hippies with “Fuck the Gap” spray painted on their asses and present them as representative.  I know that thousands of preppy families could show up for a gay rights march and the news will find the two guys in bondage gear and present them as representative.  And so I must assume that they do that with everyone.

I don’t believe, as a Jew, I could ever work with a neo-nazi.  I don’t think, as a woman, I could ever work with a misogynist who believes he should have the right to beat his wife.  So I understand that there are some people that a person could not work with because of their extreme views.

However, I believe that people are called “extremists” for a reason.  And if we decide that we cannot work with anyone who is ignorant, fearful, distrustful, prejudiced, or angry – who would we work with?  Aren’t all of us struggling with those things to some extent?  Isn’t that part of being human?

The entirety of U.S. history is the story of elites fueling our prejudices and playing us against one another to their advantage.  If we have any hope of making things better, everything needs to be seen through that lens.

If you ever wondered how to confront the racism, sexism, and homophobia of your family and friends, Model Minority shows us how it is done.

Tech Dirt covers the creative ways music artists are getting it done outside the traditional system.

Alternet has an amazing article highlighting the stories of three children of white supremacists.  I am particularly in awe of Carolyn Wagner.

Kevin Carson wonders when exactly we were in control of our government.

Renee at Womanist Musings posts about how anti-abortion campaigners are targeting the black community.

And yet another student is criminalized for nothing.

Over the weekend, a friend of mine posted a video (below) about a Fox news report that was squashed.

Several years ago, Fox reporters were working on a story about Monsanto and rBGH.  Monsanto, upon getting wind of the story, had their attorneys send Fox a letter threatening to sue.  Fox wanted to squash the story, but were afraid the reporters would tell the world.  So instead, Fox management beat the story into a form that Monsanto would like better.

The reporters were eventually fired for not being willing to lie in their news report.  The Fox station attorney sent them a letter confirming that is why they were fired.  The reporters understood this to be a retaliation claim.  They believed they would be protected under the whistleblower statute.  But the courts ruled that a news show lying on the air was not illegal and therefore there was no whistle to blow.  Ergo, no protection for the reporters.

All of us discussing the post agreed that it was appalling.  The poster suggested that we start a campaign to make lying by the news stations illegal.  It was an instinct I understood, but all I could think of were the potentially disastrous consequences.

If we want to see what happens when it is easier to sue a news organization, look no further than the United Kingdom.  Libel laws there are much different than in the United States.  And corporations are taking advantage of those laws to sue newspapers and bloggers.

News organizations afraid that they are going to be sued are likely to self censor.  In fact, this very Monsanto incident is the perfect example of the kind of self censorship that news organizations are practicing.  Monsanto threatened to sue them, presumably for libel.  And rather than risk the expense of a court battle, Fox’s response was to cave to the threat of a lawsuit.

While this Monsanto case is disgusting, how would yet more laws that people can be sued under help rather than cause even more self censorship?  And even if there was no danger from self censorship, how could we be sure that honest mistakes were not prosecuted?

This is not just an issue of a free press or of free speech.  It is about how we are handling all of our society’s problems.  Our first instinct is – We must do something!  We must pass a law!  It has gotten to the point where we can’t walk out of our house without breaking a law.

Every time we try to resolve a problem by passing a law, we give up that much more of our power.  And we tip the scales that much further in the direction of the wealthy and specially educated.

Access to the justice system, and results from the justice system, are dependent on how much money you have and how much understanding you have of legal codes, precedents, rules of procedure and a million other pieces of specialized knowledge that most of us do not have access to.

When we turn everything into a law, we turn everything into something that requires an attorney and a judge.  We empower those people at the expense of our own power.  If every solution proposed requires a law, then availing yourself of that solution requires an attorney.  Can you afford an attorney?  I can’t.

This post isn’t about bagging on attorneys.  I worked for attorneys for a decade.  And some of the attorneys I worked for were fighting the good fight.  They worked on civil rights cases and sexual harassment cases.  (I’m talking quid pro quo – you can keep your job if you suck my dick kind of cases, not ooh I don’t like the bikini calendar cases.)  I even did a millisecond internship with the ACLU.  But even the attorneys fighting the good fight cannot deny that the courts, for all the publicity that those few breakthrough civil rights cases get, are all too often on the wrong side of history.

There is no way to craft laws that can only be used for good, that cannot be exploited by those with the power and money to exploit.  The solution does not lie in empowering more attorneys and judges.  It lies in addressing those inequities of power and money directly.  It lies in taking back our own power.  It lies in coming up with solutions and problem solving mechanisms accessible to all of us.