Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Put it this way, without feminism the only women who get into politics and public life are the ones who manage to contort themselves into the tiny window of acceptable public femaleness under patriarchy.
Oh come on... even if you think Margaret Thatcher is the anti-Christette, you've got to grant she was in no way "acceptable" to the Tory grandees -- she was a "pushy" little daughter of trade who'd was a (barely) acceptable place holder until someone better came along.
It's not so much absurd to dump on your own gender, as inevitable in a world where feminist successes are incomplete. Uncle Tom is the equivalent term in a racist society.
I think I'm going to back away from this thread before Emma, Megan and Danielle smell the "bad feminist" troll-bait...
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And when it comes to coyote ugly politics, the Americans have nothing on the Aussies:
STATE Labor has stepped up its campaign against the surging Greens, targeting the party's candidate for Melbourne, prominent barrister Brian Walters, and seeking to smear him as anti-Semitic and an unscrupulous lawyer.
Senior Labor figures including former Victorian secretary Stephen Newnham have contacted influential members of the Jewish community seeking to generate a political backlash against the Greens, and Mr Walters in particular.
Ugly and desperate. I'm no fan of the Greens, but if the Victoria State government doesn't actually understand that defending an alleged Nazi war criminal doesn't make you a Nazi (or the basic principle that everyone accused of a crime is entitled to a defence) everyone should be very nervous indeed,
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I suspect they feel somewhat ripped by the broader NZ media, who did go pretty over the top at times, and it felt like 'union bashing', frankly.
Meh... Deborah Coddington tried playing the victim over the totally justified Asian Angst backlash, and I wasn't buying that either. It would be easier to feel sympathetic to the unions if they weren't busy mounting a lavish, all-star production of Brain-Death on The Denial.
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If I was an American Democrat I would be pretty annoyed that Hillary Clinton is at the bottom of the world shaking hands with a right wing Prime Minister, rather than using all her celebrity power to get the Democrat vote out at this crucial time.
@Hillary: You do realise that Hillary Clinton resigned from the Senate to become Secretary of State? Perhaps Secretary Clinton should stick to the day job -- God knows she's got so many fences to rebuild she has a brilliant post-politics career as a carpenter to look forward to.
America is fucked.
Yeah, well not as deep dicked as we are if Winston Peters ends up holding the balance of power again.
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I'm faintly intrigued by the idea of going to the Gang of Four gig being advertised here -- but doesn't that consist of listening to a load of tracks that sound exactly like they do on the albums?
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There's apparently a glass-half-full group in the Democrats who is thinking that way, yes. And they don't seem very good at having power, so what the heck?
The "heck" is that the Republicans would have to be propose something and be responsible for it -- which would have sheer novelty value, if nothing else. And the US federal government was designed to be a bicameral legislature separate from the executive branch for a reason.
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And don't get me started on the "angry black man" subtext.
OK, I don't think hiring Samuel L. Jackson as White House Director of Tea-Bagger Outreach is a good call, but how many times do the Republicans get to tell you to fuck off and die (and court a crowd for whom "secret Muslim Marxist baby-killer" isn't subtext but a blaring neon text) before you get a wee bit pissed? That's not being grown-up, it's being the bottom in a nasty BDSM scene that is neither safe, sane nor consensual.
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the "enthusiasm gap" will not close enough to prevent the Democrats losing their majority in the House of Representatives.
OK, this might sound insanely counter-intuitive but would it be such a bad thing if the GOP had (slim) majorities in House and Senate. You know, a position where the GOP's mindless obstruction (and policy black hole) would actually matter.
Don't think it would Obama's stock any harm if he had to stand up and say "this is fucking insane, and I'm going to keep vetoing idiotic legislation like this until the GOP stop doing crack in the cloak rooms."
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this is an interesting analysis by Jonathan Raban in the Guardian. His take is that the American public have largely failed to grasp what the Obama administration have achieved so far, which is actually quite considerable - and that it is essentially Obama's fault for not articulating it clearly enough to them as he probably over-rates their ability to think like grown-ups.
The ghastly thing is that as horribly condescending as that sounds, Carol's paraphrase is on the money. I also really love how its "essentially" Obama's fault, when I wouldn't vote for the shape-changing alien jellyfish who've decided it's a jolly wheeze to be the Democratic Congressional leadership. Lyndon Johnson may have been a sociopathic rat-bastard, but at least he managed to advance a legislative agenda.
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Our man morphed into a slimmed-down, suited-up media mogul with a metal fist that he was unafraid to use to squash those who annoyed him.
Well, there's a grain of truth in that -- I'm pretty sure Peter isn't on former New Line CEO Robert Shaye's Christmas card list. Still, it's been rather delicious seeing the attempt to re-frame this as nasty Darth Jackson and his supine media stormtroopers laying waste to the peaceful unions. Is Matt planning to wear a Princess Leia costume (with bagel wig) tonight?
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