Culture of Life

This story is working its way around the web, but imho it's not moving fast or far enough yet. I believe that it deserves to be reposted here on CultureKitchen, for obvious reasons, and to get as much other online exposure as possible.

The following is quoted verbatim from egalia's post on the finestkind femblog produced by the fine folks from the Tennessee Guerilla Women, and includes links to her other online sources as well:

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Blogger Denied EC, Gets Pregnant

Feminist blogger Biting Beaver has courageously shared her story about being denied emergency contraception in rural Ohio and then getting pregnant.

This is what happens when you live in a country ruled by delusional religious zealots who prefer for women to be treated like breeders, or chattel from the 19th century.

If Margaret Sanger were alive today, she'd be setting up illegal clinics to dispense illegal birth control. But those were the good old bad days when repressive laws and customs inspired civil disobedience.

And politicians still wonder why when I interview them, "how do you stand on the separation of church and state?" is one of my standard questions, the second one being "what's your view of parental rights?"

To anyone who has been a long-time reader of culturekitchen will know that my politics are fiercely founded on the right to privacy, secularism and the questioning of parental rights.

[via The Raw Story | Harris: Separation of church and state 'a lie']:

In a lengthy interview with Florida Baptist Witness, struggling U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris asserts, among other things, that the separation of church and state is a fallacy.

"We have to have the faithful in government and over time," the Witness quotes Harris as saying, "that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers."

Look, we all know deep down that many right wingers (those who aren't just plain greedy) are pretty damned stupid. I mean, who but a person of very little brain would believe Fox News. But it is rare that the stupidity of the right wing nuts is so clearly illustrated as in a recent blog post on an anti-abortion site. This was picked up by Daily Kos.

This anti-abortion fanatic actually read an Onion article about a woman celebrating her abortion by throwing a party...and believed it! His righteous indignation would be great parody if it wasn't so tragically serious.

I am hoping that I have once again made Michael Bouldin snarf his coffee.

Now, I have known some genuinely intelligent and caring people who were anti-abortion. You don't have to be an idiot to be anti-abortion, you just have to make some basic assumptions that differ from those most of us around here make. But somehow the anti-abortion movement just seems to attract a particularly dumb brand of self-righteous fool.

But to be fair, this guy is not the first person to take the Onion seriously. China's news agency reported as serious that Congress was threatening to leave DC if they don't get a new Capitol Dome. And, of course, there was the Christian fool who thought that the Onion article about JK Rowlings writing Harry Potter to encourage Satanism was real.

I will leave you with one sad note. Sometimes, the Onion proves to be far more prescient than we would like. As in the case of a 2001 article titled Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'. Sadly, THAT article proved all too true.

America claims to be fighting for democracy and freedom worldwide. Yet we condone torture and refuse to comply with the UN.

From BBC news:

A U.N. panel said Friday the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo violates the world's ban on torture. In issuing its report, the Committee Against Torture said the United States should ensure that no prisoner is tortured.

Why did we invade Iraq? Well, among the many reasons we gave in our desperate attempt to jutstify an illegal invasion was that Hussein committed torture and that he violated basic human rights and UN resolutions.

And now we, the United States, are justifying torture, violating basic human rights and violating UN resolutions.

The article goes on to report how Condaleezza Rice and John McCain see Guantanamo's detention camp a dilemma for the United States. A dilemma? A camp where we detain hundreds of people from around the world illegally (according to the United Nations) under conditions considered by international law as torture, with no legal due process whatsoever is a dilemma for the United States?

They blame the low income women for ruining the country because they are staying home with their children and not going out to work. They blame the middle income women for ruining the country because they go out to work and do not stay home to take care of their children. 

--Ann Richards

If you're looking for reasoned analysis, read no further.

I'm too fucking tired. I think I'm just going to take to my fainting couch and have a case of the vapors. I'm going to gather my lovely children around me, and instruct them in the gentle, moral arts, so that both my daughters grow up to be fine mothers, who recognize that despite their intellects, their ambitions, and their dreams, when push comes to shove, (and a lady never shoves,) their jobs are about putting their children above all.

The fate of Western, elite, white society depends upon it.

All else is pure selfishness.

You can call me paranoid, but I don't think that it's accidental that at the same time that we have a virtual war going on against women in the United States (and that war is spreading throughout the West) --just one example among many--over the right to privacy, at the same time, another assault has been re-launched. It's all part and parcel of the same meme: women are selfish creatures. We cannot be trusted.

What she said. Why are Christians not standing up and protesting the murder of the innocents in Iraq?
Or do we only see the shadows on the wall?

The photograph, by the way, is from an Iraqi bombshelter. During Gulf War I, we bombed a shelter where hundreds of civilians had gone to seek safety. They were obliterated, but the outlines of their bodies were charcoaled onto the wall.

So while dozens of countries around the world are passing laws recognizing and protecting women's reproductive rights, the United States takes another step toward reproductive enslavement of their citizens witht the state of Tennessee. Proving that the issue of abortion is not one of saving lives but using the law to create a the new Confederate States of America, Tennessee is looking to amend the state constitution to deny women their right to reproductive autonomy :

[via Tenn. Senate Backs Anti-Abortion Step - Yahoo! News]

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The state Senate on Thursday passed a proposal to amend the Tennessee Constitution so that it doesn't guarantee a woman's right to an abortion.

The 24-9 vote was the first step of many toward officially amending the state constitution. The measure would go before voters if the General Assembly approves it twice over the next two years.

Milan Babic, a former Croatian Serb leader commits suicide in a prison cell in The Hague and I cannot find it in my heart to give the man a minute of silence. No, what I find is rage, pure blind rage because the repercussions of his actions are but a glimpse of what could become the future of this country.

Babic was tried and imprisoned for crimes against humanities; some of the including the politically sanctioned raping of thousands of Bosnian women by Serbian soldiers. It ought not to be taken as a coincidence that the only other suicide case at The Hague was of Slavko Dokmanovic, another Croatian Serb leader.

UNICEF created a report about the Bosnian rape babies that allegedly has been blocked by the country and not been published. You can read about it at Bosnian Institute News: Bosnia's rape babies: abandoned by their families, forgotten by the state: