no. 26

"[W]hen you teach adults and children sex-negative messages, sex becomes an undifferentiated mass of “wrong.” If all sex is wrong, then why try to tease out good from bad, pleasurable from painful? When students are taught not to think about sex, they aren’t going to spend any time determining what they do and don’t want, or what they might be interested in. Of course, they’re going to have sex eventually, but when it happens will they be able to communicate at all through the veil of guilt, shame, and self-loathing that sex negativity encourage?”

Sex-Negative Education and the Spectre of Rape « Sex Positive Activism

no. 25

Notice how closely the current Republican party models itself on the “Lost Cause’ movement of the South and the Civil War.

You know those theories. The South never really lost the war. Slavery was never the real issue. Robert E Lee never really lost a battle. Reconstruction was a bad, bad thing. Etc.

Now with the GOP it’s a similar denial of reality. Reagan never raised taxes or caused deficits. These things happened TO him. W didn’t start wars, they were forced on him by a Congress who voted to go. The massive increase in the money supply wasn’t accomplished by GOP Fed Chairs appointed by GOP presidents. It just happened. The recession wasn’t caused by the banks’ worldwide distribution of fraudulent MBS but by the Community Reinvestment Act forcing lenders to give money to poor people at gun point.

It’s really a brilliant way to conduct yourself from a political scientist point of view. All it requires is absolute loyalty to a mythical set of facts and complete discipline within the leadership cadre.

bannedagain5446, commenting here

no.24

So what exactly happened in Universe 25? Past day 315, population growth slowed. More than six hundred mice now lived in Universe 25, constantly rubbing shoulders on their way up and down the stairwells to eat, drink, and sleep. Mice found themselves born into a world that was more crowded every day, and there were far more mice than meaningful social roles. With more and more peers to defend against, males found it difficult and stressful to defend their territory, so they abandoned the activity. Normal social discourse within the mouse community broke down, and with it the ability of mice to form social bonds. The failures and dropouts congregated in large groups in the middle of the enclosure, their listless withdrawal occasionally interrupted by spasms and waves of pointless violence. The victims of these random attacks became attackers. Left on their own in nests subject to invasion, nursing females attacked their own young. Procreation slumped, infant abandonment and mortality soared. Lone females retreated to isolated nesting boxes on penthouse levels. Other males, a group Calhoun termed “the beautiful ones,” never sought sex and never fought—they just ate, slept, and groomed, wrapped in narcissistic introspection. Elsewhere, cannibalism, pansexualism, and violence became endemic. Mouse society had collapsed.

Will Wiles, discussing the work of John B. Calhoun

(via)

no. 23

"A Criminal is a person with predatory instincts without sufficient Capital to form a Corporation."

Clarence Darrow

no. 22

"Not a single fuck was given today."

Caroline in Coed

no. 21

Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.
Thomas Paine

no. 20

no. 19

"What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists, is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents."

Robert F. Kennedy

no. 18

"There has been in our country a divorce of church and state. This follows a natural sequence of the declaration that 'governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed'. The priest was no longer a necessity. His presence was a contradiction of the principle on which the Republic was founded. He represented, not the authority of the people, but of some 'Power from on High', and to recognize this other power was inconsistant with free government. The founders of the Republic at that time parted company with the priests, and said to them: 'You may turn your attention to the other world - we will attend to the affairs of this'. Equal liberty was given to all. But the ultra-theologian is not satisfied with this - he wishes to destroy the liberty of the people - he wishes a recognition of his God as the source of authority, to the end that the church may become the supreme power."

Robert Ingersoll, God In The Constitution, 1890

no. 17

"I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions."

Dorothy Day

no. 16

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

John Kenneth Galbraith.

no. 15

"A CEO, a TeaParty activist, and a Union member sit at a table. In the middle of the table is a plate of a dozen warm, delicious cookies. The CEO takes 11, then whispers to the teapartier, "look out, that socialist guy wants to take a big piece of your cookie!"

David Brin

no. 14

"Things that sparkle and glow always cast a shadow somewhere"

Lion-san

no. 13

“Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me.”

(Matthew 25:40)

no. 12

"The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the older man who will not laugh is a fool."

George Santayana, Dialogues in Limbo (1926), ch 3

no. 11

"I don’t care what Karl Marx thought of universal healthcare. I am in favor of it. The fact that you think Karl Marx was in favor of universal healthcare does nothing to prove your case that America should not have it. You have to come up with an argument other than someone you don’t like did the same thing, and since that person did other things you don’t like also, this thing must be wrong."

John Myste, commenting at Right Wing Nutjob.

no. 10

"There is a clear double standard when it comes to men, women, and hair removal. Now, perhaps you think shaving and waxing is a vapid issue to bring up, considering the more serious double standards of pay inequity, sexuality, and the like. But the fact is, spending the better part of your life having to shave huge areas of your body just to be considered not disgusting is a big deal."

— Jessica Valenti, He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know.

(via)

no. 9

"Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim."

George Satayana, Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense

no. 8

"There will be no change in direction until we hit bottom, until the economy and state of the nation literally cannot get any worse. This is no different than the Gilded Age, and it will end the same way. There is no point at which common sense or the Democratic Party or the American public or the media are going to turn back from the post-1980 Beltway elite consensus politics of Government is the Problem, free market worship, and tax cuts piled upon tax cuts. This is it. If the most liberal candidate who could plausibly be elected is an Eisenhower Republican trying to outflank the GOP on austerity, things aren't going to improve until we are indisputably and comprehensively screwed."

Ed, at Gin and Tacos

no. 7

"And it all starts when we say no. We can say no. When someone instructs us to lose weight, to shave, to straighten our hair, to get “in shape”, to wear makeup, to wear less makeup, to dress appropriately, to dress more stylishly, no not that stylishly, to stop standing out, to stop making noise, to stop being so damn large, to stop making excuses, to stop fighting, to just get along, to just do what we tell you, to just buy into this commercial weight-loss plan, to just take these pills, to just have this cosmetic surgery, to just follow instructions, to just know that we’re doing this for your own good, to never walk alone, to never walk alone in that outfit, to never draw attention, because no one wants to see that, because no one wants to see your body, because no one wants to see you.

You can tell them no, and refuse to say more on the subject. No is always an option. It’s a small word, a difficult word, a word that speaks volumes in a single syllable, and one that gets easier to say the more you do it. It’s part of your arsenal, whether you realize it or not, and it’s a powerful weapon.

You can say no.

You don’t have to explain it.

You don’t have to apologize for it.

You can just

say

no."

Leslie, at Two Whole Cakes

(via)

no. 6

“It’s criminal that so little is asked of people who are getting so much. I don’t mind paying more. I really don’t mind paying more taxes. I’d rather pay for taxes than cut ‘Reading is Fundamental’ or Head Start or some of these programs that are really helping kids. This is the greatest country in the world; is it really that much worse if you pay 6% more in taxes? Give me a break. Look at what you get for it: you get to be American.”

Matt Damon, who's my new hero

no. 5

"If Jesus Christ himself (I don't believe, but whatevs) returned to earth and preached the same proto-Communism as he did 2,000 years ago, the "Christian Right" would nail him up all over again."

Screamin' Demon, commenting at Gin And Tacos

no. 4

“Is rioting the correct way to express your discontent?”

“Yes,” said the young man. “You wouldn’t be talking to me now if we didn’t riot, would you?”

The TV reporter from Britain’s ITV had no response. So the young man pressed his advantage. “Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you.”

Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere.

an exchange between a young Londoner and a television reporter on MSMNC.

no. 3

"Conservatives built this monster. It didn’t just wander out of the woods one day, or land here from another planet. The Wingnut Base—whatever teabagger, Colonial Williamsburg camouflage they’re sporting this week, and however hard the media tries to pretend they aren't who we know they are—was manufactured by the Conservative Movement to win elections. Made right here in the U S of A out of spare parts left over from the Segregationist South, Right-wing fundamentalism, Bircher paranoia and general Archie Bunker pig-ignorance. Conservatives built the unholy thing, programmed it, wounded it up and sent it out to do their bidding. And everyone knows it."

Driftglass (via)

no. 2

"Our secular and religious fundamentalists come out of this twisted yearning for the apocalypse and belief in the “chosen people.” They advocate, in the language of religion and scientific rationalism, the divine right of our domination, the clash of civilizations. They assure us that we are headed into the broad, uplifting world of universal democracy and a global free market once we sign on for the subjugation and extermination of those who oppose us."

Chris Hedges

no. 1

"Voter fraud is rare, has little ability to affect election results, and when it's caught, it's punished severely. Voter suppression happens all the time, has the potential to change election results, is rarely caught and lightly punished. Clearly, the only logical thing to do is force through ever-stricter Voter ID laws while turning a blind eye to outright vote suppression attempts."

source, in comment at August 01, 2011 at 03:45 PM