I found what follows *here* at Towleroad: A Site With Homosexual Tendencies. (I love that subtitle!) That lesbians and gay men are harassed by white Christian haterosexuals isn't new. But it needs to be in the news.

08/23/2010
Watch: Toronto 'Christians' Pray in Front of Gay Couple's House and Neighbors Drive Them Out


Torontoist posted this video of a prayer group from Highfield Road Gospel Hall in the Dundas and Greenwood area of Toronto that apparently prays outside the homes of regularly harasses gay and lesbian couples.

The videographer, resident Geoffrey Skelding, writes:

"This is a group from a church at the end of my street. Apparently they have been grouping in front of a gay couple's house and reading their bible loudly for the past 7 years. They may have also driven a lesbian couple from the area as well by doing the same thing. Tonight most of our neighbours came out and were successful in getting them to leave. The people who go to that church don't even live in our area! Police came by shortly thereafter."

Says one worshiper in the clip: "We have an authority to preach the gospel. We've been doing this seven years."

(via slog)


Posted 7:53 PM EST by Andy Towle in Canada, Evangelical Christians, Evangelicals, News | Permalink

image of Dwaine Tinsley: cartoonist (creator of "Chester the Molester" published in Hustler magazine for years), good friend of Larry Flynt, and incest perpetrator of his daughter, is from here

From this blog website: http://heartlessriot.com/post/990641874/misandry-is-not-feminism. My reply to it follows.



Julian Real's reply:

Feminism isn't "misandry" and those tired old quotes don't make it so. They are trotted across the internet more often than the "important" news of which female celebrity was caught in the paparazzi's photographs not wearing any make-up. You're really misleading people here with this post, and it's sad to see--again.

Feminism has always been anti-rape (against anyone), against violence (against anyone), and for equality and dignity and human rights, for raising boys to be humane, for raising girls with self-esteem and confidence.

The people who most promote the hatred of men are MEN, not women. Haven't you noticed that? It is men, after all, not women, who start and maintain wars, right?

The people who do hate women most dangerously are men, and too many of them demonstrate it in ugly and lethal ways, as we all got to witness when recently hearing Mel Gibson be verbally threatening and insulting and degrading to Oksana Gregorieva, or with Phil Spector's murder of Lana Clarkson. We have story after story of male serial rapists and serial killers in the news, which also seems like a storyline prime-time programs like CSI, NCIS, and Law and Order cannot do without. How many more times do we have to see a young, thin, white woman appearing to be dead, bloody, wrapped in plastic, to "entertain" mass U.S. audiences? Those shows, every week, don't show bloody, naked, young pale men in plastic, do they? Who writes those story lines: women or men?

Lies are spread about feminists being "man-haters" by reproducing  five or seven or a dozen quotes, as you do above, as if we couldn't do precisely the same thing with just quotes that have left the lips of male actors, or that were composed by "great" male novelists, essayists, or playwrights. Shall we conclude then, that those men's quotes are representative of how most or all male actors, novelists, essayists, and playwrights feel about women? Why do men's rights activists regularly, online, promote this the double standard:

A few hateful comments by men towards or about women are indicative that some men are bitter about women because sometime in their lives a woman probably hurt them very badly; but a few quotes by some feminists, often from works of fiction or as noted in statements that have been made up completely (evidence linked to below), mean that feminists who disrespect or disregard men in some way are speaking the one truth that all feminists believe--or that even the feminist being quoted believes?

Is that fair? Is what you do above fair to feminism?

Why the very selective quoting? You could promote feminism with the quotes listed below. Feminists were and still are trying to achieve: an end of male violence against women and an end to rape. Feminists work to achieve equal rights, including equal pay for the same work done by men, and feminists note that "housework" is hard work.

See this for more on how your blog post dovetails with what anti-feminist men's rights activists spread across the web:


http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2010/08/catharine-mackinnon-is-not-proponent-of.html


http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2010/06/those-mratrolls-and-their-list-of.html

Why don't you put up the quotes below, by radical feminists? I'd recommend that you at least balance out the post you have above by also posting these (not just in a comment by me) to show how even more feminists, including the one's selectively (like Dworkin's and Morgan's) or quoted out of context (like Stanton's) by you above, really feel about men's humanity.

"The strongest lesson I can teach my son is the same lesson I teach my daughter: how to be who he wishes to be for himself." -- radical feminist Audre Lorde

"People can find eroticism in relations with people whom they respect and whom they see as equals." -- radical feminist Catharine MacKinnon

"In the long run, Women's Liberation will of course free men -- but in the short run it's going to COST men a lot of privilege, which no one gives up willingly or easily." -- radical feminist Robin Morgan

"[A] legitimate revolution must be led by, made by those who have been most oppressed: black, brown, yellow, red, and white women —- with men relating to that the best they can." -- radical feminist Robin Morgan

One of the most spuriously quoted lines by Marilyn French is one from her novel, The Women's Room. It reads, "all men are rapists, and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws and their codes."

What is next was quoted from her in 2007 and is NOT from her fictional characters:

"Most men are on our side. They like their lives better than their fathers' lives. They like being involved with their children. They like having a better relationship with their women." -- radical feminist Marilyn French

"I believe that all human beings are equal. I believe that no one has the right to authority over anyone else." -- radical feminist Marilyn French

"For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?" -- radical feminist bell hooks

"No one deserves brutality because of what they are, there condition of birth." -- radical feminist Andrea Dworkin

"Truth is harder to bear than ignorance, and so ignorance is valued more--also because the status quo depends on it; but love depends on self-knowledge and self-knowledge depends on being able to bear the truth." -- radical feminist Andrea Dworkin

"Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust." -- radical feminist bell hooks (Communion: The Female Search for Love)

"As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media." -- radical feminist bell hooks

Why do you quote Dworkin from a work of fiction? Does a misogynistic quote by Norman Mailer or Ernest Hemingway mean all male novelists hate women? And, noted above here, there are plenty of quotes you could cite by Dworkin that demonstrate she believed in the humanity of men. She was no man-hater, which is obvious if you read her work carefully and know anything at all about her life.

The Stanton quote was obviously written in response to the predominant and prevailing view that white men are superior to all women, of any ethnicity.

Let's visit a few of the quotes by men, throughout history. Because given what follows, you ought to conclude what you do about "feminists": that a few carefully chosen misogynistic quotes from men who say hateful things about women are representative of how men feel, generally, as a group. Is there or isn't there a double standard about what quotes mean when compiled in curiously biased ways?

Below are just a tiny sampling demonstrating that men's institutionalised hatred of women is centuries old and exists across many societies. These are men, who, unlike anyone you cited above, occupied positions of significant political leadership and social influence with actual power to control institutions and societies that radical feminists, as yet, have never had.

Jack Holland details the ways in which both the Greeks and Hesiod viewed the figure of Pandora.

 ‘The Greek phrase used to describe her, kalon kakon, means ‘the beautiful evil’.’

In Hesiod’s words...
 ‘From her comes all the race of womankind
 The deadly female race and tribe of wives
 Who live with mortal men and do them harm.’

Tertullion, one of the founding fathers of the Catholic Church, famously harangued the archetypal feminine thus...
‘And do you know that you are Eve? God’s sentence hangs over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you. You are the devil’s gateway, it was you who first violated the forbidden tree and broke God’s law. You coaxed your way around man whom the devil had not the force to attack. With what ease you shattered that image of God: man!’

 ‘Woman is a stupid vessel over whom man must always hold power, for the man is higher and better than she is.’   Martin Luther, Protestant Reformationist. (NOT Martin Luther King!)

 ‘A man with a hundred tongues who lived for a century would still not be able to complete the task of describing the vices and defects of a woman.’  Mahabharata, Hindu.

Georg Hegel, wrote in his ‘Philosophy of Right’...
 ‘Women are certainly capable of learning, but they are not made for the higher forms of science, such as philosophy...Women acquire learning – we know not how – almost as if by breathing ideas, more by living really than by actually taking hold of knowledge.’

Friedrich Nietzsche said that...
‘When a woman inclines to learning, there is usually something wrong with her sex apparatus.’

And it lurches into the twentieth century with the words of Otto Weininger on the absolute nothingness of women...

‘Women have no existence and no essence, they are not, they are nothing, Mankind occurs as male or female, as something or nothing...the meaning of woman is to be meaningless. She represents negation, the opposite pole from the Godhead, the other possibility of humanity....A woman cannot grasp that one must act from principle; as she has no continuity she does not experience the necessity for logical support of her mental processes...she may be regarded as ‘logically insane’.    From ‘Sex and Character’, 1906.

Dr. Max Baff, Professor of Psychology, in 1910:
‘All women are fundamentally savage, and the suffragist movement is simply an outbreak of emotional insanity.’

‘Women who say no do not always mean no. It is not just a question of saying no, it is a question of how she says it, how she shows and makes it clear. If she doesn’t want it she only has to keep her legs shut and she would not get it without force.’  Judge David Wild, 1982.

And here's another bit of "brilliance" by Martin Luther:
‘Men have broad shoulders and narrow hips, and accordingly they possess intelligence. Women have narrow shoulders and broad hips. Women ought to stay at home; the way they were created indicates this, for they have broad hips and a wide fundament to sit upon, keep house and bed and raise children.’

‘The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shown by man attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than woman can attain – whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of senses and hands...’  Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man.

I haven't even tapped the vast body of "great" literature, exposing all the quotes from those famous misogynists Norman Mailer and Ernest Hemingway. I haven't even shown images of woman-hating mass produced by pimps like Larry Flynt of Hustler, who thought monthly cartoons created by a convicted incest perpetrator of his daughter, Dwaine Tinsley, and good friend of Larry's, about how funny it was to be a child molester. I've shown no images by Bob Guccione of Penthouse, such as his "classic" photographs, in his magazine, of East Asian women wrapped in white sheets appearing to have been dropped off a cliff onto rocks, as if dead--in a pornography magazine for men's entertainment (according to men and the fact that they said they enjoy the images). I haven't begun to quote what all those men have to say about women and especially feminists that is disgustingly pro-rape and virulently woman-hating.

So will you correct the perception you leave readers with above about what feminists generally believe, and please also clearly indicate what men, historically, have done to subordinate women, that far too many men still do?

image is from here

TIME fucking lies.

I've already discussed how TIME refuses to print what's truthful, in favor of a propagandistic, pro-Empire war version of reality that suits rich white men. Men who profit from our wars across the globe: economic, political, and military wars, including domestic wars, using domestic violence as a primary form of terrorism--against women and children, by men who supposedly love those they maim and murder.

TIME magazine would like you to believe that U.S. men don't do things like cut the features off of women's faces. But we do. There's nothing done to women anywhere in the world that U.S. men don't do to women somewhere. Below is that exploitative cover, grossly misusing the photograph of a young woman maimed by an abusive man in her life under circumstances that the U.S. government and military not only could not have stopped, but is working to ensure happens a whole lot more. That's something TIME won't tell you.

All patriarchal war is war against women even when it is publicly determined to be men fighting men, and even when it is also men killing men. And so in every war, women are raped, blown up, murdered, by men. This is necessarily and strategically part of any war game that men play with one another off the video-screen. And in most places--but not everywhere, men who are with women intimately commit criminal acts against them: degrading them, disfiguring them; dominating and subordinating them; acting out various emotional-political lethal potions of misogyny and projected self-hatred--which is the only functionally, institutionally existent form of misandry that exists anywhere. Men do horrid things to women, and when women complain about it, women are, yet again, called horrible names by men, or are beaten, cut, and killed. I abhor TIME magazine's cover choice; if you haven't seen it, you won't see it here--if you haven't seen it and want to, click on the linked phrase "Time Magazine Cover" in the article below, which is where the image appears on the RAWA website. TIME owes every Afghan woman an apology, but needs to follow up that apology by demanding in every issue, on their cover, that the U.S. must stop its atrocities against women domestically and internationally, not by exploiting that violence with images, but by naming it accurately, in politically unambiguous text. Everything that follows is from that RAWA website, which you can link back to by clicking on the title just below.

The real story behind Time’s Afghan woman cover: American complicity

Now they (warlords) have posts in the new government, or if they do not, soon might.

image/poster is from here

Historically in the White West, Capitalism, Socialism, and Communism are three political-economic solutions for arriving at an equal, fair, and moral society. Just one problem: none of them accomplish this, especially with regard to women. None of them, as theorised and practiced by white men--regardless of the white men's ideological identities and affiliations, factor women as anything other than beings that exist to serve men, or workers who exist to serve the State. While Capitalism typically exploits women's sexuality, encouraging sex to be paid work; Communism typically exploits women's labor, pretending her gender-class isn't subordinated to men through sex and work. Engels tried to theorise on the matter of women in society, and failed miserably. Catharine A. MacKinnon analyses what is missing from Marxist theory in her book Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. 

Ward Churchill, a white man and batterer who is seen by some as an American Indian, discusses how Marxism fails to centralise the political and social well-being and survival of Indigenous people.

I have yet to encounter white men's theories and practices that set as a priority the liberation of women of all colors from male supremacy, economic exploitation, and men's sexual terrorism. I am not pro-Capitalism, pro-Socialism, or pro-Communism for these reasons and more. I don't believe money economies will free anyone or bring about sustainable living predicated on the value of spirit, not the worth of money.

What you will read below are the mental offerings of a WHM who goes by two names on Yahoo Answers: Unisom and Die Hard PC Parrot. He either makes up or finds a made up quote [not] by Catharine MacKinnon, and believes she is a Communist. Once he makes this inaccurate statement, using a quote she never wrote or said, others weigh in on the matter of whether feminism and communism are one and the same political phenomenon.

This post examines the logical phallusy presented by Unisom, and, with supporting quotes from him, make the case that what many anti-feminism, "anti-misandrist" men claim radical feminists think and feel is, rather, what many men who are both woman-hating and man-hating think and feel.

As you can observe below and from many other posts on A.R.P., there is an abundance of actively anti-feminist men online who project their own hatreds onto radical feminists, and pretend those women are "the enemy" because they carry such awful assumptions about men. That men carry these same assumptions, and have, for centuries, well before "radical feminism" existed as we know it in the last forty or so years, appears not to matter to these men.

Below, you'll notice that it is an anti-feminist and otherwise bigoted man who carries precisely those assumptions attributed to radical feminists, except here he reveals them as his own. Whether it's being pro-rape in some circumstances, or pro-murder of women by men, or pro-murder of men by women, he reveals what most men have learned to not so overtly display in many-gender social environments that pretend to value being humane. Many of his views are as vile as they are obnoxious. They reveal a person who seems to have little grounding in reality, little understanding of feminism, and a gross contempt for most for humanity generally. The only group of humans he seems to show repeated compassion for is heterosexual men who are under six feet tall. (I'm not kidding.)

When this particular anti-feminist does get around to quoting a radical feminist, he gets the quote very wrong, and shows that he hasn't even read the one page of text he's quoting from (and he cites the misquote!). We begin with a series of comments from this woman-hating and man-hating person called Unisom, also known as Die Hard PC Parrot, on Yahoo Answers.

Unisom asked a question "Gender difference: Most educated women live on the cloud while their male counterpart live on the ground?"

"Some men (over 6 feet or rich) get much more than average man share of women. Or some women are serial polyandry by being hookers" -- Die Hard PC Parrot, aka Unisom

Toto is once again engaging with silly if determined-to-make-all-men-look-bad men on Yahoo Answers. Thank you Toto for alerting me to the latest clear case of "a misinformation campaign" designed to discredit feminists who are, in fact and in practice, human rights activists trying to alleviate the suffering of women who are oppressed by men in grossly and abusively male supremacist societies.

The answer to "Who in the world is Die Hard PC Parrot?", with many examples of his racist, anti-Semitic, anti-gay, misogynist, and anti-feminist questions, answers, and colleagues on Yahoo Answers, appear below. But first, let's get right on with his recent question, which Toto answers in a way that makes the questioner look like a Die Hard Patriarchally Correct Parrot.

• 
  
  by In With a Meh

  why does you always say one IN the same? it used to be AND. that makes more sense. think about it.

  • 15 hours ago

  
  
• 
  
  by peterdou...

  Well, obviously she is/was a Marxist Feminist, and can't be taken to be speaking for all Feminists, most of whom do not link Feminism with Socialism or Communism.
  
  Even so, she got it wrong: Socialism, according to Marxist theory, is just a stage on the road to Communism, which you don't get until the State "withers away." With Socialism, you still have a State.
  
  Marx and Engels worked together on the Communist Manifesto, and Engels was a Feminist. So it is not surprising that some modern Feminists are Marxists.
  
  Any social structure in preexisting society (such as marriage or the family) is likely to be seen by revolutionaries (such as Marxists or radical Feminists) as an obstacle that needs to be abolished, so that new structures can be set up.

  
  
• 
  
  by Rio Madeira

  That's what she thinks. I can combine feminism and libertarianism.

  
  
• 
  
  by Toto Gotawa

  Below I describe exactly how your entire argument is built on a house of cards, cards loaded with great inaccuracies, at the most basic level, including the spelling of her name.
  
  First of all, the top quote above is not on page 10 or any other page of Catharine MacKinnon's book Towards A Feminist Theory of the State. Instead, in that very book, MacKinnon harshly critiques Marxism, including how it devalues women's work in the home as not actual work. (Quotes provided below in this reply.) Have you read the book? Because that's so clear it puzzles me how you could miss that. Anyone can do a phrase and word search of the entire text at the URL provided below. You may also read all of page ten there. I'll offer quotes to support my argument, from page 10:
  
  "Feminist observations of women's situation in socialist countries, though not conclusive of the contribution of marxist theory to understanding women's situation, have supported the feminist theoretical critique. [If you read the whole chapter, or even the entire page, it is extremely clear she is saying that marxism is inadequate to remedy the oppression of women by men: marxism, in practice in Communist or in Socialist countries, fails to accomplish this. She goes on:] In the feminist view, socialist countries have solved many social problems--women's subordination not included. The criticism is not that socialism has not automatically liberated women in the process of transforming production (assuming that this transformation is occurring)."
  
  [Also on page 10:]
  "The basic feminist criticism is that these countries do not make a priority of working to change women's status relative to men that distinguishes them from nonsocialist societies in the way that their pursuit of other goals distinguishes them. Capitalist countries value women in terms of their "merit" by male [supremacist] standards; in socialist countries women seem invisible except in their capacity as "workers." This term seldom includes the work that remains distinctive service to men, regardless of the politics of those men: housework, prostitution and other sexual servicing, childbearing, childrearing. Sexual violence is typically barely mentioned."
  
  [Also from page 10:]
  "When women's labor or militancy suits the needs of emergency [of men's military emergencies, such as in the U.S. during and following WWII], she is suddenly man's equal, only to regress when the urgency recedes. Feminists do not argue that it means the same to women to be on the bottom in a feudal system, a capitalist regime, and a socialist regime. the commonality is that, despite real changes [and real differences in each] bottom is bottom." [The point is that in societies that are or have been feudal, capitalist, or communist, none have ever valued women as equals to men and have all treated women as inferior.]
  
  [Also from page 10:]
  "Where such attitudes and practices come to be criticized, as in Cuba or China, changes appear gradual and precarious, as they do in capitalist countries, even where the effort looks major." [End of quotation of C. A. MacKinnon's writing on page 10.]
  
  Second, Catharine MacKinnon was never a president of N.O.W. Where did you get your very easily verified information, and can you get back to the person or website to tell them it's grossly inaccurate? Here is a list of all the presidents of NOW from start to present, from NOW's own website. (URL provided below)
  
  Betty Friedan, Aileen Hernandez, Wilma Scott Heide, Karen DeCrow, Eleanor Smeal, Judy Goldsmith, Molly Yard, Patricia Ireland, Kim Gandy, and currently Terry O'Neill.
  
  Third, taking quotes out of context, and including misquotes--making up things that someone never wrote or said--is a poor way to build a case that what you're discussing has any validity, merit, or is worth engaging with in any serious manner. Arguments prepared this way make someone appear to be very ignorant rather than knowledgeable on the subject at hand.
  
  Fourth, Lenin ruled a very large country. Catharine MacKinnon rules no country, state, or organisation--including NOW. She commands no military or police forces, governs no land, and has no authority to do anything that State commanders can do. To compare a past totalitarian Communist leader of Russia to a contemporary U.S. feminist writer, lecturer, Constitutional law professor and attorney, and human rights activist, is to not understand the meaning of the term "fair comparison."

  Source(s):

  http://books.google.com/books?id=Shn5xHywtHIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=mackinnon,+toward+a+feminist+theory+of+the+state&hl=en&ei=GuxvTKC1AsKC8gb6yNTxDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
  
  http://www.now.org/history/past_presidents.html

Here is some information about the Parrot of Patriarchal Correctness, only using information he himself provides on Yahoo Answers. Absolutely no "digging around in the dirt" was required to unearth what was found. Just click on his name on Yahoo Answers: it's all there.

• 45 - Male - Montreal, Quebec
  
  
  2 months ago

And here are many more of his questions and answers to life. Some of what follows has been copied and pasted above, to highlight some of his preposterous views.

• 
  

  Unisom answered a question "what is some of the feminist biggest fear?"

  
  

  Masculist Revolution.
  Posted at 7 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Are women tamed by the type of beeting and ownership you give them in bed.?"

  
  

  Yes, esp. Masochistic women like you.
  Posted at 8 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Are mesomorphic women least desired?"

  
  

  It's the Misandristomorphic type that is. (a.k.a. Andrea-Dworkinomorphic type)
  Posted at 10 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Why is it that when two drunk adults have?"

  
  

  Brilliant, yet I think it's more than Kafkaesque nighmare, rather, it's feministed Stalinism comes to United Soviet of Anti-Men (USA), where at anytime a man can be thrown to jail. Few years ago, I've heard a black man on TV rant that "…
  Posted at 10 hrs ago Posted to
• 
  
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Okay fella's, don't you think that's enough?"

  
  

  No, it never enough, manginas as you have been one of the main culprits of Draconian Oppression of Men . Wait till the Masculist Revolution, baby! The reason you get laid easy because you are 6 feet tall or more, please admit it! You have more than your …
  Posted at 10 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Men wear Bras so women can go topless: Can you be more feministed than these men?"

  
  

  http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.aolnews.com/weird-news/article/men-wear-bras-so-women-can-go-topless/19590056 Excerpt: ".... male supporters of the cause will show their support by wearing bras and bikinis...........…
  Posted at 12 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Opinions... Are women by nature monogamous while men are polygamous?"

  
  

  Since ratio of men/ women are 49/51, mathematically it is impossible for such conjecture to happen, except that : Some men (over 6 feet or rich) get much more than average man share of women. Or some women are serial polyandry by being hookers or have m…
  Posted at 12 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Ladies, do you enjoy showing cleavage?"

  
  

  Ha ha ha, the fervent Jewish feminist Rio now have a change of heart & confess to being dependent on Patriarchy Approval! Ha Ha Rio, get back to the Synagogue & be a good Orthodox Judaist Ashkenazim woman! Now march!...Thy shall pray G_d for being the C…
  Posted at 12 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Which Women Do You Find To Be The Most Gold Digging? Asian? White? Black? Hispanic?"

  
  

  Depend on her morality & the depth of her swallowing of Misandry Propagandas.
  Posted at 12 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Feminist: do you know who pay for the US war in Iraq?"

  
  

  Guess what? The hated "Patriarchy China", to the tune of 1 TRILLIONS DOLLARS! Uncle Sam , after years of Anti-Male Laws & Policy, now no longer capable of funding its own war, even its side effect is to liberate Oppress Muslim Sisters! In the …
  Posted at 13 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Viagra or Meat protein, which one is more effective?"

  
  

  Ladies, don't feed your spouse too much meat, lobsters or shrimps...after a good night sleep, in the morning, his gun would be at 3' o'clock position all day long. That's my experience. Viagra, IMO, is only for men who suffered from Heart…
  Posted at 13 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "is PMS a mental illness?"

  
  

  It's a temporary insanity for some women. It produce 2 problems: -If a women on PMS get hallucinated, she may claim Sexual Harassment, Rape, Violence against any Man unlucky enough to be near by, most likely her spouse. The guy AT LEAST would spend a…
  Posted at 13 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom answered a question "Which man is more likely to win in a fight?"

  
  

  Gays would generally win, since Aspergers is a debilitating disease, further more there are many kinds of Gays, some of them have as good Coordination as straight. Some even have very high Visual-Spacial Intelligence (though in a much smaller population…
  Posted at 13 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Gender difference: Most educated women live on the cloud while their male counterpart live on the ground?"

  
  

  At least, that's true for readers nowadays (keep in mind that most readers have good education, fools rarely read ): Excerpt: "...If it's even metaphorically true that men and women hail from different planets, it seems safe to assume that …
  Posted at 14 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Men: Don't you dare walking alone with your daughter in Gynocratic Republic of Canada?"

  
  

  You may end up in the Slammer! , because the Public Witch Hunt for "all Male are pedophiles" has reached a climax: http://www.thestar.com/article/223150 or here: http://petepatriarch.blogspot.com/2007/06/don-go-walking-with-your-daughter.html
  Posted at 15 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Is this the future of our Western Anti-male educational system?"

  
  

  “Our culture, including all that we are taught in schools and universities, is so infused with patriarchal thinking that it must be torn up root and branch if genuine change is to occur. EVERYTHING MUST GO – even the allegedly universal disciplines of log…
  Posted at 15 hrs ago Posted to
  
  
• 
  
  
  

  Unisom asked a question "Dear GS members, what do you think about this former N.O.W President Catherine MacKinnon's claim?"

  
  

  “Feminism, Socialism, and Communism are one in the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism.” - Catharine A. MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (First Harvard University Press, 1989), p.10 ============================…
  Posted at 15 hrs ago Posted to

I am appreciative of the blogs dedicated to telling truth instead of lies. Globeistan (link below) is one of those, revealing that the Empire is wearing a sign that says "no close".

image is from here

This is a cross post:

image of Don Imus is from here

Remember back when Don Imus made his disgustingly racist-misogynist comment? And Michael Richards went on a racist tirade on stage, caught on video? And Rosie O'Donnell, when co-hosting The View, did a racist "impression" of someone who is allegedly Chinese--but in fact was doing a really accurate impression of a racist white woman who thinks it's hilarious to do insensitive and insulting anti-East Asian, racist vocalisations? And remember back when Mel Gibson made his anti-Semitic and sexist comments when pulled over by the cops? It's obvious he hasn't learned a damned thing since then about how to not be a bigot and an abuser, and to be both in verbal outbursts, most recently hurled against his former romantic partner.

Well, once upon a time I didn't have my own blog. :(  However, I did have activist-blogger friends who welcomed me to post stuff I was writing to THEIR blogs!! :) So, here's one of those "old" pieces, which I had to dig up from underneath some heaps of cyber-debris.

With thanks to YC for originally editing and posting it.

4/11/2007
The Politics of Offensive Speech and Requisite
Apology of Individual Offenders
By Julian Real, copyright 2007

Given recent events, I offer this analysis to assist myself in sorting out what is going on when media celebrities (including Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, Rosie O'Donnell, and Don Imus) can spout racist/misogynist/anti-Semitic/homophobic slurs and comments and the primary, immediate response from the public is a demand for "a sincere apology" on the part of the perpetrator.

For this to occur, U.S. racist patriarchy much comprehend and treat hateful, harmful "speech acts" as qualitatively different forms of oppressive abuse than acts of physical aggression, such as queer-bashing, men's battery of women, and lynching and other violent acts against people of color by whites. That this distinction is both false and dangerous needs to be said out loud.

This false distinction of forms of oppressive harm serves white male supremacist interests and power, especially in the media, where one can't say "shit" over the airwaves but one can say "[insert here any racist/misogynist/anti-Semitic/homophobic expletive]." That "shit" is off-base, but racist misogyny along the lines of Don Imus's remarks is not, tells us quite a bit about the "standards and practices" corporate media are invested in containing and which can slide if the spouter shows a requisite amount of sorrowful remorse and sincere regret.

What the public needs to get is that these acts of oppressive harm exist--are promulgated, promoted, and usually praised, inside a system where race and gender are institutionalized hierarchies of power, with men over women, and whites over people of color. (It doesn't take much to conclude where in the political pile that leaves women of color.)

These are not "offenses" or "errors of judgment" or simple acts of "sloppy speech". These acts, like all acts arising out of oppressive (dangerous, demeaning, and deadly) systems, are not remedied by a tear, a plea, and a promise to do better.

They are crimes, and violations of human beings civil and human rights. When children or women are raped, is "an apology" sufficient to mitigate the harm done? Does a sincere "I'm sorry" heal the wound? To construe even this to be the case—and some talk shows do, means that the system of harm which produces and reproduces these criminal, human rights-violating acts is left unnoticed and unchallenged.

Instead we get individualistic broadcasted litmus testing of whether the white man is truly good or deep down dirty. His soul is being inspected through a libertarian lens that cannot see the forest-fire for the trees. In this view, only his speech is hot and must be cooled down, hopefully without hurting HIM—he is human, after all. Never mind the many injured HUMAN souls, who cannot recover because the harm he just expressed is experienced in a hundred different ways, daily, and they have never had the social standing he has enjoyed and will likely continue to enjoy.

Again, within this view, this way of perceiving reality, the most important matter "doesn't matter". The most important matter is that there are powerful systems of harm at work, manifesting in myriad ways. What is called "hate speech" is among them. But it takes placing the word "hate" hesitatingly before the word "speech" to even make it actionable under the law. And, curiously, "hate crimes" do not include rape.

The more this is examined, the more we see what we're not supposed to see—the white male supremacist atrocities behind the corporate media curtain. It is this political reality that needs to be identified as such, named, called out, and not made remedy-able by individual "I'm sorries."

To turn oppressive harm and damage to whole groups of people into "unfortunate or distasteful word choices" is to miss the brutal boat that is perpetually tossing too many oppressed people in toxic water, day after day. And the people being tossed overboard are not seen as individuals. They are otherized, stereotyped representatives of a subordinated group. Portrayed as either contemptuously submissive, or virulently dangerous, they are greeted and defeated (the oppressors hope) with lethal disdain by those in power.

The most powerful group of people in the U.S. are white men with corporate control. An apology from one of their more public employees does not touch the fact that these specific white men are in charge of what's going on. They call the shots as they fire the guns. Their press-people make the occasional public statement, agreeing with the public that "something bad happened here." Their staff decide what happens to our mass of emails and letters of protest. (Would you like to wager as guess as to what happens to them?) These white men, not the public, not the courts, dole out the consequences based on how much money they and their shareholders will lose should this get "really ugly." And the "really ugly" part isn't what the human rights violating celebrity did, but what the protesters do in response.

The ugliest part, the system itself, is never exposed and rarely even gets to glance at itself in a mirror. We are living in a land where atrocity is either not noticed, is verbally neutralized and denied, or is media-exploited to the point that it is CSI-style entertainment. The horrors of racism and rape are the story-lines of crime shows, the components of videogames made for teenagers, and the core content of industry pornography. Each of these interlinked spheres of media contain and replicate the values and aesthetics of misogynist-racist harm which are increasingly soaking into mainstream culture and everyday life.

We live in a land where we are all encouraged to be deeply deluded about what is actually going on. The Katrina disaster in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast flashed a momentary spotlight on often invisibilized Americans trying to live lives of dignity and purpose in a society that callously and disproportionately kills them, one way or another, by flood or (gun) fire. The real ugliness of our white male supremacist government was revealed as such, while still not being named by the corporate press.

Those disproportionately female poor, predominantly Black Southerners, suffered in condensed form, what the poor, women, and people of color suffer every day, in one form or another, worldwide.

I support all efforts to name reality in ways that make oppression visible, and its harm real—as actionable harm, while challenging and targeting those at the top of the ruling class who have the power to stop the harm.

In the autumn of 2008, I began to lay out some of the major themes of this blog: challenging profeminists and antifeminists who purport to be acting on behalf of justice and freedom; identifying the dangers of white privilege and white supremacy; and offering up perspectives on radicalism, rape, and white men's ageist sexism and misogynist racism in media.

I have been deeply dismayed and disheartened to learn that Ward Churchill, who I regard as a white man with a strongly pro-Indigenist politic and perspective, has since been identified as a batterer of at least one American Indian woman. This raises the on-going question of who we look to for leadership on matters of liberation from oppressive systems of dehumanisation and degradation. In my own experience, one definitive answer is "not white men". I find white men, on both structural and experiential levels (the two being intimately related) ill-prepared to lead anyone out of white male supremacist ways of being and systems which benefit them. The investment in them is too great, and white men believe themselves too great to not be leaders.

Here are some excerpts:

“[...] it is obvious to most of us that under socialism, and certainly under communism, social relations will be ruptured and go through lots of changes, in line with the necessities of building a new society.” [a comment from another website's discussion on socialism, by Linda D.]

The question, of course, is whose new society, and is there just one? If just one, is it based and constructed on the political philosophies and practices of white europeans and their descendants? If so, this is deeply problematic, which is to say, white supremacist. See, Yurugu: An African-Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior (1994), by Marimba Ani for much more on this matter.

Although not strictly on the topic of LGBT community and its future, Ward Churchill does tackle this matter rather impressively. I shall first pull the passage from the above discussion I am responding to, posted by Dave:

The issue is a line that says that it is an open question whether or not a certain group of people will “cease to exist” under socialism or communism. This is wrong, and worthy of derision and scorn.

What follows is from the book Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader (2003), page 260. I believe it can apply to some degrees to many marginalised and oppressed ethnic/cultural groups, but here he is discussing Indigenous populations/nations. I will note that I consider Ward Churchill to be a U.S. white man, as am I, but in the passage below he speaks of himself as someone directly descended from American Indian nationalities. This is beside the point, in terms of accepting his analysis of marxism-leninism, however. His work is thoroughly researched, and not only academically.

Our very right to exist in a national sense, and usually as distinct cultures as well, has instead been denied as such. Always and everywhere, marxism-leninism has assigned itself a practical priority leading directly to the incorporation, subordination, and dissolution of native societies as such. This is quite revealing, considering that the term “genocide” was coined to describe not only policies leading to the outright physical liquidation of “ethnical, racial, religious or national” aggregates, but also policies designed to bring about the dissolution, destruction, and disappearance of these “identified human groups as such,” by other means. [see note 113 in the book] Viewed this way, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that marxism-leninism is and always has been a genocidal doctrine, wherever indigenous nationalities/cultures are concerned. [see note 114 in the book]

I also want to recommend two other books to the readers and commenters here on the matter Linda D. specifically raises. One is titled Black Sexual Politics, by Patricia Hill Collins (2004) and the other is called Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism (expanded edition, 1997), by Suzanne Pharr. With those two books, and Churchill’s and Ani’s, I strongly agree with Linda D. that Dworkin’s analysis, too, is needed in this discussion.

Related concerns:

Whose LGBT culture are we talking about? Is our understanding of this culture u.s./eurocentric? Does it place the experiences of Two Spirited people and Womanist woman-centered women at the center of its theories on heterosexuality and queerness? What is our analysis of heterosexuality and its causes? Heterosexuality, not having an asocial or cross-cultural history, nor a future that is eternal, is infused with political ideology, is it not? (It sure seems that way to gay ole me!)

Do those who discuss "the LGBT community" mean white people in the middle class or those who are part of the bourgeoisie? If so, this is but a small piece of the whole of Queer experience and culture.

On Roger Ebert's sexism and ageism (and if you read the whole post, we can note how this also includes racism and heterosexism):

What irks me even more is this comment by Roger: "What a pleasure this movie is, showcasing actresses I've admired for a long time, all at the top of their form. Yes, they're older now, as are we all, but they look great, and know what they're doing." Well, we're not all "older now", as the film stars one actor who is all of thirteen; let's hope she's not yet hit the top of her acting game. And I doubt he's been admiring her for a long time, or, well, I hope he hasn't.

So, getting to the most sexist portion of his review: why do men ALWAYS say things about women's appearances like "they're older now, BUT they look great"? What, exactly, does "great" mean: not old? That they've had enough cosmetic facial surgery, but not too much? First, older women are older than younger women AND they look great. Age doesn't take away beauty; it adds more dimensions to it. And what's with the obsession about how great older or younger women appear, particularly to white heterosexual men who write movie reviews? This film's actors are whatever various ages they are (and they are various ages: a teenager performing in a film with women in their thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and at least one woman in her eighties). And whether or not they are still lookin' great really ought to be entirely irrelevant. It would appear looks don't matter when we're dealing with white male actors who are "older." There's plenty of unattractive older male actors, and plenty of ugly-as-f*ck younger ones as well.


On September 2, I published another piece on the sexual assaulter and former profeminist activist Kyle Payne, who I'd dealt with in several posts already and who I regard as a dangerous man, psychologically and politically capable of sexually assaulting women again. I regard him as such because he has demonstrated no appreciable empathy for his victim, nor a willingness to be accountable to feminists, or, even this one profeminist. He has refused to answer basic questions about his crime and his awareness of what he did that was destructive to another human life. He has remained utterly preoccupied with how his life was harmed by being caught.

On whiteness, white privilege, and white supremacy, there was a posted video promoting the work of Tim Wise, who, increasingly, I find to be in need of a deeper immersion in radical feminism, particularly that radical feminism which firmly embraces intersectionality as a core theoretical practice, based in the reality that most women, intersex people, men, and transgender people, occupy multiple locations socially and politically such that focusing on just one--say racism/white supremacy--insufficiently deals with the complex of oppressions ALL oppressed people endure, resist, and challenge. There is not one single human being who is only located as oppressed by color or race.

I also noted a few personal-political observations about white folks like me, the content of which is reproduced below:

1. We know best. When we fight for justice, for, say, animal rights, we are quick to condemn those other human cultures (you know, the ones we have colonized and are exploiting and destroying) because they, allegedly, "don't get it" that animals are not inferior to us. Never mind that this view doesn't inhere in Western Philosophy, in our Civilizations at all. Our religions, laws, and customs place men above women, (some) humans above animals, (some) men above the Earth, as a ruler, as a dominator. Never mind that most white folks, disproportionately men, are or have been barbarians and savages (currently often by proxy). Never mind that any notions of animals being like us, not being inferior, being spirited and sentient, comes from the cultures we oppress, not from our own.

2. We behave, without acknowledging it as reprehensible and wrong, as if white folks were adults, and people of color are children. We will actually argue (not in so many words, necessarily) that because some people of color participate in the systems which disproportionately harm them and benefit us, that they are not equipped to lead a struggle against oppression.

3. We actually believe that because not all Indigenous cultures were/are [fill in the blank: respectful of women, respectful of animals, peaceful, sustainable] that we ought to decide who owns the land, as if it is ethically ours to begin with. (It isn't: we stole it, and ought to give it back "without reservation.")

4. We think we are the experts on everything that isn't about us, while being profoundly ignorant about how and what we do that is so harmful and oppressive to others. We call our oppression of others "good", "moral", and "right".

5. We don't think we are raced: we actually believe that "those people" are a race of some kind, and we are, well, just people. We refuse to acknowledge that in any social space, we are white supremacists. Whether we behave like white supremacists has a lot to do with what we recognize in ourselves as racist actions. There are exceptions to this belief: white liberals think we are white, but that race should just be invisible, meaning we should all act like white people. White Nationalists do believe in a white race, and that it is in danger, or must be "pure" as if that was ever the case, or as if creating "purity" involves anything other than bigotry and violence against people of color. White Nationalists, the ones I've heard speak out, believe that race is natural, inevitable, not political and cultural. White Nationalists believe in genocide against non-white people, even if they don't promote it publicly. Such white folks, it may be concluded, aim to be purely evil.

6. We argue there is such as thing as "reverse racism" and reverse ethnic bigotry. We carry around a ridiculous belief that we either have been living in, do live in, or will soon be living in, an Indigenist Supremacist, Asian Supremacist, Latina/o Supremacist, Arab Supremacist, Jewish Supremacist, Muslim Supremacist, or Black Supremacist society. Never mind who still controls every political institution and economy in this country and other white-dominated countries. (The answer is white Christian men.)

photo of Dr. Mehmet Oz is from here

photo of Dr. Phil McGraw is from here

These are two white het male doctors who owe their fame and great financial success to Oprah Winfrey: Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. (We get to Dr. Laura shortly.)

The first man, who has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, supported her during a trial the commercial/atrocity-protecting meat industry put her through for simply stating her own point of view on the subject of burgers. The second is am M.D. who is a heart surgeon and is a proponent of complimentary medicine, to promote several less invasive methods of treating heart disease. He's also more infamously known for showing Oprah's audiences deceased humans' diseased organs and talking about healthy pooping. He's got some very good things to say--generally I like him and his style, and he's got a good bed-side manner, unless you're a battered woman in a hospital bed, that is. I also sometimes like Dr. Phil, when he isn't using his television series to exploit conditions and people and instead sincerely tries to alleviate human suffering, usually in the context of personal relationships. While I've seen Dr. Phil hold men accountable for the violence they do to women, I've never seen Dr. Oz do this.

I realise he didn't study sociology, social psychology, or the sexual politics of psychopathology, but Dr. Oz couldn't be more clueless about the reality and dynamics of men's war against women. He actually discusses inner brain structure to explain why it may be that some women kill their terrorist husbands or battering boyfriends. He doesn't seem to get that women who are terrorised and sadistically abused do not usually kill anyone, while the terrorists often kill a whole lot of people: most commonly the women in their lives, the women who leave them, and their children, in disgustingly horrid ways. But Dr. Oz's brain structure discussion isn't about THE TERRORISTS. He's concerned about the brain structures of the TERRORISED WOMEN who [usually don't] kill. What are the sexual politics of THAT?

In a case linked to below, he tries to explain to the audience why a woman guest may have killed the male terrorist in her life. He is wrong at every turn, and fortunately he has another "expert" guest on to set the audience clear on what is really going on. Unfortunately, it is yet another white man. (To be clear: Dr. Oz's family's background is Eastern European and Turkish. Dr. Phil is all white.) How it is that white and light-skinned het men have become the people women should turn to for expert advice on anything and everything, is a trick of the trades called WHM supremacist media and education. What undermines feminist knowledge and activists, scholars and doctors, is the owners and producers of mass media talk shows refusing to make women of any color the experts in matters that impact women--and men.

Well, there IS Dr. Laura, who has a PhD in physiology--which is not at all why she's on the air. At least Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil are discussing matters that usually fall within their own educational areas of study. She gives anti-woman, overtly racist, anti-gay relationship advice. She's way more WHM supremacist than Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz in her public advice. She should be removed from the airwaves. Immediately, as she should have been years ago for calling "homosexuals" deviant.

photo of Dr. Laura Schlessinger is from here

She is in the news this week for her arrogantly privileged racist-misogynist assault against a Black woman caller who wanted wise counsel on how to deal with a white husband who, along with his friends, makes racist remarks in front of her. He obviously enjoys trying to humiliate her. Would Dr. Laura pick up on that? Well...

Dr. Laura used the question--while berating and abusing the questioner--as an opportunity to pretend that THE ISSUE is African Americans who are the problem population who uses the n-word and COMPLAIN when whites do the same. Dr. Laura managed to work the word into her radio show eleven times in way fewer minutes than that. The caller, understandably, was totally taken aback and very respectfully attempted to call Dr. Laura's attention to the problem of turning this problem back on a Black woman, which only led Dr. Laura to intensify her own vitriolic volume, utterly silencing the woman seeking wise counsel. Dr. Laura understood the caller's predicament about as well as Dr. Oz understands why [very few] women kill terroristic men. NOT. AT. ALL.

While I think Dr. Phil makes mistakes many times with regard to appropriate forms of advocacy for women-in-patriarchy, too often presuming a kind of level playing field that patriarchal societies will never let exist, I'll say this: he's way ahead of where Dr. Oz and Dr. Laura will probably ever be on the matter of understanding that far too many men terrorise and grotesquely abuse women--and that men's use of physical violence is NEVER the women's fault! Proof of this difference between the two male doctors is in very intense (and potentially very triggering) programs each recently did about the subject of domestic violence leading to murder.

Dr. Oz's show wasn't about patriarchal abuse. It was about how the brain sometimes doesn't work right so some people cannot moderate their violent impulses. And he means women's violent impusles, not men's!

Dr. Phil's program was a VERY good program, if also deeply disturbing and triggering, about the FAILURE of FAMILY COURTS across the U.S. when it comes to adequately protecting children and women from adult male terrorists. His show centered around one case, in which a woman's baby was murdered by her ex- and the baby's father, after she repeatedly went to the court for orders of protection for herself and the baby--each time she was told by the white het male misogynistic judge that she was lying and had no evidence, even when she brought evidence. But there was another interview he did with a teenaged young woman who is a survivor of incest and witnessed a court give custody of her little sister to the incest perpetrator, after she testified about his abuse of her. Yes. It happened. The audience was also filled with women who had similar stories to tell, which appeared to have a VERY supportive effect on anyone who spoke out on this horrendous issue of VIRULENT PATRIARCHAL PREDATION PROTECTIONISM in family courts across the country.

What gets revealed is that the terrorists and their attorneys, along with generally misogynistic society, have effectively convinced the courts to not believe mothers if they raise "domestic violence" as a factor in why those mothers should get custody of their children, not the fathers. Even the women's attorneys are counseling women to not bring up the fact that the ex-husband is a batterer or incest perpetrator because too many judges hear that as a big ol' lie--an allegedly sure sign that the woman is trying to manipulate the court against the interests of the fathers' "right" to have more access to their children. When it comes to court manipulation, however, look no further than the battering, raping, incesting men and their attorneys, who convince the courts that the lack of evidence presented means they aren't sadistic brutes. In this case, the rule "presumed innocent until proven guilty" cannot apply, because no one's attorney will let the proof into the courtroom to begin with.

This is the case across the white het male supremacist globe, from the U.S., to the UK, to Australia. That there are WHM organising to undermine women's credibility in the courtroom even more is despicable and evil. There's nothing loving or just about such efforts by these misogynazis (fascistic, terrorising woman-haters) at all.

To note how this impacts U.S. women, compare these two episodes of programs that, one would hope, are supporting both physical/emotional health and human rights:

Dr. Oz: http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/tuesday-dr-oz

vs.

Dr. Phil: http://www.drphil.com/shows/show/1442/ 

But I cannot write about Dr. Phil without noting this CLEAR FORM OF MISOGYNY he regularly engages in. HE REFUSES TO STOP SAYING THE B WORD WHEN REFERRING TO WOMEN, and as an adjective (b-word with a y at the end). He a conservative guy, socially-politically, in many ways, and doesn't welcome cursing on his show, generally. I'm not sure you can get away with saying ASS on his show without it being bleeped! But he says the b word like it's going out of style, which of course it won't while he and other major media personalities keep legitimising it on TV. Please write to him and ask him why that's the only derogatory curse term he allows on his show.

And visit *here* for more on the Dr. Laura story of the week. TRIGGER WARNING for OVERTLY RACIST LANGUAGE AND GROSS MISTREATMENT OF A BLACK WOMAN BY A WHITE WOMAN.

photograph of Yanar Mohammed speaking to one of millions of people who need to hear what she has to say

What follows is an assessment of current political tensions and parties attempting to rule a country the U.S. has been trying to rule through military force. To whom do we turn for guidance. At the end of the article Federico speaks with one of the women who has the most knowledge about what her country needs, in order to become more democratic and humane; she also ought to be consulted on international matters with regard to human rights for women. Getting the U.S. military out would be a good first step, imo. Getting the U.S. out of the whole of Central Asia would also be useful to all those who live in the region and are working for justice and national self-determination. What follows may be linked back to by clicking on the title. It is from the Huffington Post.

Making Sense of Iraq's Political Deadlock

Federico Manfredi
Posted: August 11, 2010 09:59 AM

Baghdad -- A popular refrain throughout the Middle East is that "the Arabs agree to disagree." And in fact this is what appears to be happening in the top political circles of Iraq today, where the only issue on which the various leaders seem to agree is that their differences cannot be reconciled.

More than five months after the March 7 general election, Iraq still does not have a new government. Ayad Allawi, whose secular list Iraqiya won the most seats, 91 out of a total of 325, maintains that under the constitution he has the right to form a new government. But the wording of the constitution is vague and open to interpretation, and Iraq's Supreme Court has ruled that the right to form a government belongs to the largest coalition--regardless of whether that coalition was formed before or after the elections.

That ruling favored Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, who is vying to retain his position at the helm of the Iraqi government. After his State and Law list came in second, with 89 seats, Maliki, sought to outflank Allawi by establishing an alliance with the other Shi'a bloc, the National Alliance, which is dominated by the followers of the populist cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr and those of Hammar Al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, an influential political party with ties to Iran.

Together, Maliki's list and the National Alliance would have had 159 seats, just four short of the majority required to form a new government. But after months of talks this "all Shi'a coalition" fell apart, due to disagreements over who would obtain the coveted post of prime minister.

The National Alliance requested that the new prime minister be either Ibrahim Al-Jafaari, the preferred choice of the Sadrists, or Adel Abdul Mahdi, one of the two vice-presidents of Iraq. In any case, the Sadrists were seemingly prepared to accept anyone but Maliki, whom they loathe for having launched a series of successful military offensives against the Mahdi Army in the southern city of Basra and in the Sadr City suburb of Baghdad.

Maliki, however, is firm in his determination to serve another term as prime minister, and this eventually led the National Alliance to withdraw from talks with his list.

"Maliki does not want to give up power. He is acting like a dictator," said Jalal Al-Din Ali Al-Saghir," a prominent Shi'a cleric and a member of parliament for the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. "We will not join any government in which Maliki is the prime minister. Our doors are tightly closed to him," he said.

Now the National Alliance may decide to form a coalition with Allawi, even though he heads a secular list. Wahil Abdul Latif, a judge and a member of parliament within the National Alliance bloc, told me that he personally supports Allawi because of his ability to reach out to the Sunni minority. He also said that the National Alliance would be willing to join forces with Allawi and support his bid to become the new prime minister, if only he accepted to remove certain "tainted" Sunni leaders from his list. Among these, he named Vice-President Tariq Al-Hashimi, the leader of one of the main Sunni political parties, and Saleh Al-Mutlak, another Sunni, whom he accused of conspiring with Ba'athist reactionaries to overthrow the Iraqi government.

Allawi, however, is unlikely to exclude these individuals from his list, since they represent pillars of his cross-sectarian outreach strategy.

When I asked Abdul Latif how long it might take the various leaders to reach an agreement on the formation of a new government he laughed and said: "This could take another two months. Perhaps more." Such a delay, though, could severely strain Iraq's fragile institutions, since it would not only protract the current state of governmental paralysis but might also lead the army and police to question the constitutional authority of their leadership.

"They continue talking but they cannot agree," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent member of parliament within the Kurdish bloc. Intrigued by the use of the pronoun "they" I asked him to elaborate. "The Kurds are not part of this conflict. We have no preference as to who gets to form the new government," he said. Indeed, the conventional wisdom in Iraq is that the Kurdish leaders are ready to make a deal with whichever coalition is willing to grant the most autonomy to their region. Othman agreed with this assessment. "Yes, of course, we will shift to the side that offers us the most," he said.

The prospects for a speedy resolution of Iraq's political deadlock do not look bright, particularly if we keep in mind the track record of similar political stalemates in the region. In Lebanon, for instance, the negotiations leading to the appointment of the current president, Michel Suleiman, took more than six months.

As Iraqis brace for the holy month of Ramadan with little or no electricity in the sweltering summer heat, their only consolation is that at least for the time being these power struggles have not led to violent clashes between rival party militias. When I asked Yanar Mohammed, the President of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq, what she thought about the current stalemate, she said: "At least they are fighting in parliament and not in the streets. Hopefully the sectarian war of 2006 and 2007 has transformed itself into a political dispute among competing parties."