Welp, the GOP continues to blame mass shootings on everything but guns. Doors, pot, mental illness, video games, and now smartphones. Meanwhilst, Cucker Tarlson insists that we need “traditional masculine values” which, since he extols male sports, apparently means allowing your rivals to beat you senseless for the entertainment of the masses and/or abusing the women closest to you. On the contrary, we don’t need more traditional masculine values; we need LESS.
Someone asked, what happened in the last 50 years? (I think that too was Tarlson, but I can’t find it in a quick Google search.) What happened? Women, minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community wrested a few more opportunities out of this country and the globe, and those with toxic straight white male privilege can’t stand it, throwing temper tantrums like spoiled 2-year-olds. We elected our first Black president in 2008 and they elected their first Orange president in 2016 in retaliation, and still they weren’t happy — on the contrary, mass shootings increased during the $Rump years. Study of the manifestos of mass shooters shows repeated “expressions of masculine overcompensation, ritualistic responses to exclusion, and racialized status threat”. This study was published in 2021, and although there was no similar document from the Uvalde shooter, the Buffalo shooter did post similar rantings. In efforts not to spread hate, his manifesto was removed from social media, but reports are that he targeted Blacks specifically and believed the "great replacement” nonsense.
What else happened during this time? Rush Limbaugh first aired as a “conservative” commentator in 1984 and the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated by Reagan in 1987, so that media no longer had to present balanced views. Rush was under contract to work at a Top 5 radio station (NYC) and syndicated as of 1988. By 1990, he had the most listeners of anyone on radio. Then in 1996, the Faux Network was founded. It has been the top-rated cable news show since 2002. Could there be a connection? I’m just asking the question.
[For those not familiar, the “brains” at Faux often phrase the most incendiary rhetoric in the form of questions, and then respond to criticism with “I’m just asking”.]
But toxic rage in these and other echo chambers seems to just amplify the rage, not give it safe expression so it defuses. The Internet has also been more of an amplifier than a solution. Available information might provide something of a balance, but not when Internet searches provide more of the same in the searcher’s bubble.
What might masculinity look like when it is not so toxic? Welp, maybe a lot like core liberal values: Belief in individualism, rationalism, freedom, responsibility, justice and tolerance - the last two bolded because when applied to all, there would be very little toxic anger at a more equal society, IMO.
Then of course no thinking person can state a solution to mass mayhem and murder without doing something about the guns: There is a lot we have tried to do and a lot we can still do to limit illegal guns and the inappropriate violent use of guns in the US. Here is a good dive into the history of guns and regulation, www.americanprogress.org/… And here is a chart of the incidence of mass shootings in the US, ,www.statista.com/… See how things started to rise in 2004, with more bad years and more frequent years with ever-higher deaths and injuries (even if you ignore the giant spike in 2017, which was the year of the Las Vegas shooter)? What was a major event in 2004? The sunset of the assault weapons ban, and little to no further attempts to restrict guns ever since. American Progress breaks down relatively minor legal changes we can make that might make big differences (i.e., enforcement of existing laws, not any major restrictions to gun owners’ “rights”). Maybe we should try those. And more: Tell Congress to pass federal law to outlaw assault rifles. Sure, we know it won’t happen right now with a few too many GOP and GOP Light lawmakers. But they need to keep feeling the pressure.
In Other News
Abortion
With the Roe v. Wade Decision Looming, Employers Are Rethinking Hiring in Certain States
It will be an expensive proposition to protect women employees’ rights otherwise.
...The cost of covering the procedure have ticked up in recent years. The median charge for an abortion from 2017 to 2020 was $560, which has since increased to $575 for abortions performed during the first trimester and $895 during the second trimester, according to an April 2022 study published in Health Affairs. These prices will only increase with more regulation.
Travel prices are also skyrocketing with record high fuel prices, rental car shortages, and pilot shortages hitting the airline industry. The U.S. currently harbors 27 abortion deserts, or major cities where people must travel 100 miles or more to obtain abortion care, a number that will increase if Roe is overturned....
reuters fndn Lessons from around the world when abortion is banned
As the U.S. Supreme Court looks set to overturn the Roe v. Wade ruling that established the right to abortion, campaigners for abortion access from Africa to Latin America say the move could have devastating consequences. Abortion is completely banned in 26 countries: Egypt, El Salvador, Honduras, Kenya, Madagascar, the Philippines [and] Another 50 nations only allow abortion when the woman's health is at risk or in cases of rape or incest ... More than three-quarters of countries have some kind of legal penalties related to abortion, which can include lengthy prison sentences or hefty fines for people having or assisting with the procedure [according to world map from the Center for Reproductive Rights dot org.]....
Trigger warning: The article starts with the story of a women who died after taking blackmarket abortion meds.
Sexual Assault
Simone Biles, other women seek $1B-plus from FBI over Nassar:
There’s no dispute that FBI agents in 2015 knew that the now-imprisoned Nassar was accused of assaulting gymnasts, but they failed to act, leaving him free to continue to target young women and girls for more than a year. He pleaded guilty in 2017 and is serving decades in prison.
-snip-
The Justice Department in May said that it would not pursue criminal charges against former agents who were accused of giving inaccurate or incomplete responses during the inspector general’s investigation.
For background, more Larry Nassar news here, https://apnews.com/... (none of it this week's news).
The Right Wing has more than One CreepY Problem
‘You gotta keep having babies’: TPUSA’s Benny Johnson demands conference full of underage girls start getting pregnant:
Turning Point USA held its Young Women’s Leadership Summit over the weekend. The event appears to have been designed to convince their high school- and college-aged audience to become subservient, “Christian” [white] mothers as soon as possible.
-snip-
Benny Johnson’s version of this advice turned the most heads. Giving birth, Johnson posited, is like “having that sweet bite of ice cream or a slice of pizza.”
-snip-
“You gotta keep having babies. I say this to all you out there, more Americans! More babies! Let’s go. Greatest country in the world. Let’s have more Americans.”
In light of the likely end to abortions in many places, anyone else feeling a “do it or we’ll make you” vibe?
Trump (ew. His own brand of creepy)
$Rump and family will have to undergo questioning by NY AG Letitia James, https://www.npr.org/... At least, that's the latest, but I won't be surprised if somehow the $Rumps delay again.
Who is Letitia James?
Raised in Brooklyn, NY, one of 8 children. Educated in public Brooklyn schools. BA from Lehman College, JD from Howard University, Master of Public Administration from Columbia University. First Black and first woman to be elected NY AG.
She doesn't play around.: She goes after price gougers, scammers, guns, even Cuomo, "a sick, pathetic man". So not too surprising that she's the one who might finally bring some justice to some of the victims of the $Rump family.
If you didn't know, now you know.
Then Again, Witches
from RNS How to make a thousand witches with one Supreme Court decision "Magic has always been, in lore and in life, a tool of the oppressed...."
...Women may turn to witchcraft when times get tough, but often any activity that a woman embraces in such times becomes demonized. In fact, the term witchcraft has been historically applied to all kinds of spiritual activities of marginalized people. Similarly, the word ‘witch’ itself was, and still is, thrown at any defiant or independent woman.
In her new book “In Defense of Witches,” French journalist Mona Chollet suggests women have come to embrace the epithet. Take, for example, a 1960s radical feminist group named W.I.T.C.H. — the Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell — to capitalize on this ideology. “The witch embodies woman free of all domination, all limitation,” Chollet writes. “She is an ideal to aim for; she shows us the way.”
It is this legacy of independence and social defiance that sits at the heart of modern witchcraft and led to its rebirth into a modern, and increasingly popular, alternative religion.
Good News
Golf Clubs in UK are welcoming muslim women to their courses to learn about golf
https://www.theguardian.com/...
... a series of taster sessions aimed at Muslim women at golf courses in England and Scotland this summer. The women’s taster tour has been organised by Amir Malik, founder of the Muslim Golf Association and advocate for inclusivity in the game.
“Most Muslim women have never had the opportunity to play golf. But it’s the perfect sport for them,” he said. "There is no physical contact between players, and modest clothing and head coverings are no impediment."
Within a few days of launching his taster roadshow online, 180 women had signed up. Another 500 are on a waiting list to take part.
Native Americans: from IndianCountryToday "TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – A standing-room-only crowd gathered in Tahlequah to celebrate the life and legacy of the Cherokee Nation’s first female principal chief, Wilma P. Mankiller, now immortalized on a U.S. quarter released June 6...."
from The Conversation The ordination of the first [known] female rabbi 50 years ago has brought many changes – and some challenges
For nearly 2,000 years, the position of rabbi – which literally means “my master” or “my teacher” - was limited to men. The only exception during all those years had been Rabbi Regina Jonas, who was ordained in a private ceremony in Germany in 1935. Jonas perished at Auschwitz in 1944, and the details of her life were discovered in archives after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
...An estimated 1,500 women have become rabbis across every major Jewish denomination. After Rabbi Priesand in 1972, Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso was the first in the Reconstructionist movement in 1974, Rabbi Amy Eilberg in the Conservative movement in 1985 and Rabba Sara Hurwitz in Modern Orthodoxy in 2009. ...
...Feminist Jewish theologians have questioned the ways in which God is described and understood, challenging the centrality of both male imagery and hierarchy in Jewish religious thinking, and leading to the production of prayer books with gender-inclusive language....
Civil rights advocate Xernona Clayton is still ‘fearless’:
A key aide to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who helped sustain the civil rights movement in the 1960s says she’s deeply saddened by the hate crimes seeking to terrorize people across America.
-snip-
“I’m fearless, for the most part. You know, I’m not afraid to tackle an issue,” Clayton said. “I’ll fight for what is right.”
-snip-
It became her motto: “One person can make a difference. So don’t run away if you see a problem. See if there’s a way you can help,” she said. “I tell people all the time today, look around — there’s something you can do.”
A good motto for all of us: There’s something you can do.
As always, this column is a group effort! Many thanks to officebss and mettle fatigue for items and discussion this week!
And as always, I will have to take care of Mom, but please discuss amongst yourselves and I’ll drop in later tonight.