U.S. hiding its teeth very well

There was an AIPAC meeting yesterday. Benjamin Netanyahu and Hillary Clinton both spoke at it.

Bibi at AIPAC:

“The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years, and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today,” Mr. Netanyahu said to the group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “Jerusalem is not a settlement; It’s our capital.”

Clinton at AIPAC:

She warned that the Obama administration would push back “unequivocally” when it disagreed with the Israeli government’s policies. But she reaffirmed that America’s support for Israel was “rock solid, unwavering, enduring and forever.” [...] “There must be no gap between the United States and Israel on security,” she said to loud applause.

As for how far off we are from anything remotely resembling a rational state of affairs:

“I thought she was excellent,” said Hal Rosnick of Easton, Conn. “She wants the parties to get back to indirect negotiations.” But Diane Hornstein of Chicago, said, “I would like her to recognize that Jerusalem is not a settlement. There’s no evenhandedness in the demands made of Israel.”

Wooo! Indirect negotiations!

To be clear, "indirect negotiations" means George Mitchell talking to the PA in Ramallah, driving over to Jerusalem, talking to Bibi's government, then driving back to Ramallah, and so on ad nauseam. That this is the goal--for Clinton to smooth things over enough for Bibi and Abu Mazen to consent to essentially sit with their backs turned and have their poor friend play the "Bibi says you're a stupidhead," "Well, tell him HE'S A STUPIDHEAD" "...Abu Mazen says you're a stupidhead" game--is really all you need to know.

Link dump

Hillary arrives at Foggy Bottom to a very warm welcome:



A thoroughly depressing report on an area of Pakistan that has spent the last ten years descending into Wahhabism and violence, plus some thoughts on girls' education.

From Abu Muqawama ("a blog dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies as well as counterinsurgency tactics and strategy"; a new discovery that I owe to Andrew Sullivan), a dead-on take on the current struggle between Hamas and Fatah over who gets to rescue the starving Gazans:

So this is the fight to watch next. Pay close attention to who rebuilds Gaza -- and how Hamas will seek to get credit for every bit of aid that is delivered to the people. That fight will help determine the long-term strategic effects of this latest spasm of violence.

Glenn Greenwald is pleased with Obama's first few days, and I have to say, when Greenwald lays it all out like that, so am I.

One of Andrew Sullivan's ever-astute readers wrote in about another reason to close Gitmo and a reframing of the question "but then what do we do with the prisoners?" It's a useful perspective I haven't seen before. In the same vein, Chris Brodenner wrote at Sullivan's place that while politicians may be adopting a NIMBY stance toward relocating Gitmo detainees to U.S. soil, the actual consitutents who live on that soil don't seem to feel that way.

Just to be clear, stopping the military tribunals at Guantánamo is one of the things Greenwald (me, too!) is happy about. More positive moves by Obama here. In a last bit of Yay Habeas Corpus fawning, dday writes:

Obama is really setting a bad precedent of keeping campaign promises and abiding by the rule of law. It's like the oath of office reboot, setting the horrible precedent of acknowledging mistakes and seeking to rectify them. Who does this guy think he is?

Mommies and Mamis

I am quoting this post by Maegan “La Mala” Ortiz from
Racialicious in its entirety because I think it's so spot on in terms of why Sarah Palin's being hailed as a progressive moment bugs me. [Note: I have placed all Spanish words in italics. I would rather not have done so as it violates the integrity of Ortiz's bilingualism and alienates the Spanish words, but I have seen people mistake them for misspellings or bad grammar before and I wanted to avoid that.]

Last night, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin accepted the nomination to the vice-presidency at the Republican National Convention.

Originally the buzz about Palin, focused on her having a vagina. Her presence was analyzed as a calculated McCain strategy to lure disgruntled, hard core Hillary Clinton supporters.

Then the shift went internal, to her uterus, her identity as a mother to five, the youngest with some form of developmental delay, and a 17 year old daughter, unmarried and pregnant.

So what does this Palin parranda of information and analysis mean to mamis of color, Latina mamis like me? Not surprisingly, nada.

Sarah Palin wants to put herself out there as “every woman”. She wants to be seen as “just your average hockey mom”, and other mommies see themselves and their reality reflected through Palin, except, mamis of color, that is.

The talk returns to mommy wars, not mami wars, because the entire conversation excludes Latinas and other moms of color. We are not even soldiers. Even for so called progressive white feminist, the war is fought by them and maybe, if mamis like me are lucky, we’ll reap some benefit. When I was a pregnant teenager, in a Latin American country where abortion was and still is illegal (Chile), there was no opting out of pregnancy or working. Which is why the debate of how Palin could go back to work after having a baby with special needs or how a pregnant unmarried teenage daughter is being used, feels like a sideshow with little significance in reality. The politics of choice is being raised, with the emergence of a woman who is anti-choice, even in cases of rape or incest and with no talk of how for women of color, choice goes beyond an abortion and means the very right to have children (forget 5!) Imaginate if Michelle Obama had five children? Imagínate if one of the Obama children were older and pregnant? Imagine the hate and stereotypes that would be unleashed? Oh wait, I don’t have to imagine, as a single mami of color, I live it. Palin’s large brood isn’t seen as a strain on the system. They are a beautiful portrait of an “American” family making every other family, families like mine, ugly.

And let’s talk about the perceived double standard, that if a man had five children no one would be making a big deal of it, that men are held to a different standard, as stated in the video above. Claro if you take race out of the picture, it’s easy to follow along, pero if Obama was the father to five instead of two children, you don’t think the media and politicos would be making all sorts of references to black men and their hyper-sexuality? Or black men and responsibility? I hear no one telling Palin’s husband to put on a damn condom.

Just as many of women of color couldn’t get behind Clinton and her campaign because of racist attacks on Barack Obama, attacks that asked women of color to choose a candidate based not on a complex and painful history and reality, but rather because of perceived shared genitalia. Palin positions herself as continuing Clinton’s struggle, as continuing the struggle set forth by Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run as a vice-presidential candidate. Let’s not forget that Ferraro called Obama “lucky” for being black. Is Palin then lucky for having five children, like my abuela did before being forcibly sterilized? You wanna talk about Palin’s uterus or the uterus of her daughter? I want to talk about my abuela’s uterus, how it’s power was deemed dangerous because of it’s power to bear brown Spanish speaking babies, my uterus and it’s abortions, miscarriages, and pregnancies, violations upon it, the uterus of an immigrant woman being viewed as a weapon in a culture war and the need to put those immigrant women in chains as they push babies from them and the need the U.S. government has to separate mamis and babies and deport and dispose.

My uterus and my head is tired.

All DNC all the time

Schweitzer, Kucinich, and Clinton all delivered barnburners. The three of them each got the audience on their feet and screaming. It was great.

Mark Warner's speech was, I thought, brilliant, but a lot of people seemed to find the delivery boring. I was honestly disappointed in Janet Napolitano and Kathleen Sebelius--I've heard so much about them that I was really looking forward to their speeches, but they didn't hold me.

Looking forward to watching video of Deval Patrick's speech. I've heard good things.

ETA: Patrick was good. I also forgot to mention that Bill looked like he was going to explode with pride and affection during Hillary's speech, and it was nice to see.

Primary angst

I just can't take it anymore.

Clinton gave a great speech. I refuse, I absolutely refuse, to listen to or participate in any more discussion about how she didn't do enough, she should have said this, why are Obama's people letting the Clintons take over the convention, it's not good enough, some are still unconvinced, she's just setting herself up to run again in 2012/2016, Obama was dumb/too proud/sexist not to make her his veep...

I AM DONE.

The more people talk about how much there isn't unity, the less united it looks. The more people talk about the Clintons taking over, the more true it becomes. The more discussion of how Obama's not good enough or didn't assert his primacy over hers, the more it becomes a reality. Could everybody stop being such whiny-ass baby brats and LET. THE PRIMARY. GO?!

For crying out loud. I was ENJOYING this damn party until I started reading the news/the blogs and listening to people be SOURPUSS ASSHOLES.

You may remember that I posted a while ago about a proposed rule for the Dept of Health and Human Services that would redefine many common forms of contraception as abortion.

Well, despite Sens. Clinton and Murray doing their damnedest to stop this, it appears that HHS has gone ahead and proposed it.

Click here to read about Secretary Leavitt's repeated deliberate efforts to ignore the opposition to the rule; and to be reminded that abortion rights are important all the time, not just when somebody's trying to bully women into voting for him. (I agree with her--where the fuck is the party nominee on this, if the party cares so much about women?)


Also, why does Secretary Leavitt hate Americans?

ETA: Emphasis mine.
"Americans Should be Concerned that Bush Administration’s Proposed Rule Will Jeopardize Women’s Access to Reproductive Health Care

Statement of Debra L. Ness, President, National Partnership for Women & Families

“The regulations proposed today are nothing more than a blatant attempt to undermine women’s access to reproductive health care. This is a desperate attempt by an Administration in its waning days to impose one set of religious and moral views on the nation’s women, depriving them of their right to make their own informed health care decisions.

This dangerous regulation would give any person – physicians, administrative staff, volunteers – working at institutions receiving federal funds the right to refuse to provide services, information and counseling to any patient. The providers who refuse services would have no obligation to refer patients or give them other options for care.

This draconian regulation means that women can be refused care and information by the very people they trust to provide it. It undermines the doctor-patient relationship because women will now have to question whether their health care providers are giving them complete and unbiased information, and the best care possible. It even opens the door to denying patients contraception.

At a time when women’s health clinics are woefully under-funded, and women in this country experience millions of unintended pregnancies each year, the Bush Administration should be searching for ways to give more women access to the family planning information and services that can help them avoid unintended pregnancy.

Anti-choice politics and rightwing ideology must not determine health policy in this country. We urge the Bush Administration to rethink these regulations and instead put more funds into Title X clinics. There is no need for this regulation, no problem to solve. It should be withdrawn.”

Here's a petition on Hillary Clinton's website you can sign: http://www.hillpac.com/action/hhspetition/

And as to where's Obama--well, he's getting an anti-choice pastor to deliver the closing prayer at the convention. Thanks, Barry! Signed, Future Vagina Voter.

ETA: Go here for more on the exact ramifications of the rule for health care providers, and for some thoughts on the classist nature of the rule in practice. ("Go to another health care provider" is real easy when you have a car, money for gas, a job that allows you the time, and the resources to find another provider.)

UPDATE on the abortion/contraception looming clusterfuck

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/07/clinton-and-murray-hell-no.html

Senator Clinton and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) are raising a ruckus.

See, this is why it's not completely stupid for women to want a woman in the Oval Office. Of course there's no guarantee that no woman would ever propose something like the ridiculous initiative coming out of the DHHS (Dept of Health and Human Services), and there's no reason to believe that every man would--but it's a hell of a lot less likely that a woman would come up with this idea, let alone think it worth implementing.

Senator Obama, meanwhile, remains silent. Thanks, Barry.

Here is an interesting post re: Obama on reproductive rights, as well as one about his tendency to be massively unhelpful on this front (rather than trying to figure out why, which is what the first one does).

And
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/07/clinton-and-murray-hell-no.html

Senator Clinton and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) are raising a ruckus.

See, this is why it's not completely stupid for women to want a woman in the Oval Office. Of course there's no guarantee that no woman would ever propose something like the ridiculous initiative coming out of the DHHS (Dept of Health and Human Services), and there's no reason to believe that every man would--but it's a hell of a lot less likely that a woman would come up with this idea, let alone think it worth implementing.

Senator Obama, meanwhile, remains silent. Thanks, Barry.

Here is an interesting post re: Obama on reproductive rights, as well as one about his tendency to be massively unhelpful on this front (rather than trying to figure out why, which is what the first one does).

And is an absolutely essential post (it's long, but worth it) on why women might not want to vote Democrat this year. (NOTE: She's not advocating that women not vote Democrat. She's explaining the "bitter Clinton supporter" and generally alienated lefty woman point of view.)

If you are an Obama supporter and you want him to get elected and, you know, be a good progressive president thereafter, you would do well to understand these issues.

Fuck.

FISA passed the Senate.

Not only that, but Dear Leader Obama didn't even SHOW UP TO VOTE. His previous lukewarm statements about how he would allow the bill to go through but fight against telecom immunity specifically mentioned filibusters. There was a filibuster.

HE DIDN'T SHOW HIS SORRY ASS TO EVEN VOTE YES AND TAKE THE CONSEQUENCES.

I am also disappointed with Hillary Clinton, who didn't go to the vote even though she's already returned to the Senate, but given that she's not the de facto party leader OR the person parading around like I owe him a vote, my wrath goes mostly elsewhere.


Obama: Get disappointed by someone NEW in 2008!