Category: politics

Posted on

May 9: Mona Van Duyn

Van Duyn, Mona. “Leda”. No More Masks!: An Anthology of Poems by Women. Edited by Florence Hower and Ellen Bass. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, 1973. poem is found on page 129.

Advertisement
Posted on

A good question

Thom Hartmann asks if CNN is normalizing fascism. Apparently, CNN is trying to out-Fox Fox News & get on the Trump train before they can. YAY for CNN! Going the low road.

This is a great read. I encourage you to click on the link & take the five minutes, or however long it takes you to read this, especially if you are a devotee of history.

link here ~~~~~> https://hartmannreport.com/p/trump-town-hall-is-cnn-normalizing?r=3y3vw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Posted on

“Hard Lessons in Life” by Helen Joyce

An article from The Critic, by writer Helen Joyce

Two pick excerpts:

“I’ve heard opposition to “gender-affirming” care analogised to conversion therapy many times, and it’s absurd. This is the treatment pathway involving giving puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones to gender-distressed children, often as a precursor to surgery that will leave them sterile and lacking in sexual function. Most children sent down this path would have grown up gay if left to do so in peace; when they identify as the opposite sex, they become nominally straight. It’s the gender ideologues, in other words, who are the modern-day conversion therapists.”

And:

“The spread of victimhood culture has helped popularise novel gender identities (non-binary, agender) and sexual orientations (aroace, pansexual) since they allow people to claim membership of oppressed groups without experiencing any actual hardship. It is also driving the self-diagnosis of mental illnesses, from quotidian conditions such as anxiety and depression, to boutique ones such as multiple-personality disorder or a novel form of Tourette’s transmitted by TikTok. 

“More generally, this is a culture that encourages young people to regard themselves as traumatised. According to Jonathan Haidt, co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, US schools and universities have started to promote three pernicious falsehoods: that what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; that feelings are a good guide to reality and action; and that life is a battle between good people and evil ones.”

Do read the entire article. It’s well worth your time & it won’t take very long.

link here ~~~~~> https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/april-2023/hard-lessons-in-life/

Posted on

A must-read about trans-kids

A thoughtful essay by Jamie Reed, a queer woman married to a transman, bringing up five children, who worked with children wishing to transition.

As she writes, politically she is “left of Bernie Sanders”, like so many of us are, but this issue is really not a left/right issue, it’s a human rights issue, a children’s rights issue, which transcends political posturing.

Normally, I would put this on Aunt Polly’s rants, but I wanted to reach a wider audience. Let me state that I am not anti-trans (far from it) but I am quite worried about what is happening to vulnerable children. Transitioning is a decision that ONLY adults should be allowed to make. Even then … the question should be asked … who is benefiting from all this? Big Pharma? The plastic surgery industry? Who else? Why is the push to transition exploding now?

link here ~~~~> https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids

Posted on

This, today.

“This user is blocked from commenting on Scotties Playtime. The person has been asked not to comment on this blog. This person deleted my comments on her blog and refused to answer questions why, but this person left up their replies under a prior comment attempting to make me look stupid and uneducated on the subject. When I asked her why she did that she refused to answer. This person continuing to comment here and not addressing my question on her behavior to me shows contempt for me and a lack of respect for my blog. I have now gone to the step of blocking this person. Bye”

At least Scottie had the courtesy to tell me why he blocked me, although he’s totally wrong. I’ve never tried to make him look “stupid & uneducated” on any subject. & I don’t have a contempt for him or any other person, nor do I have a lack a respect for his blog. I stopped following his blog because he posts too much & I can’t take all the email in my inbox. I have too much email as it is.

My beef with Scottie is that we disagree on trans-ideology & instead of “agreeing to disagree”, like reasonable people do, like friends do, he kept trying to argue with me. Some of his arguments, especially those concerning the transing of children & the education of young children concerning trans-ideology seemed to me just like the arguments that abusers use, especially child abusers. I am giving Scottie the benefit of the doubt here & I don’t think he knew what he was saying. But as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I am really tuned to this kind of thing & I am all about keeping children safe from predators, ALL predators.

As to “refusing to answer”, I did what I do with all people who continue to hound me when I say I do not wish to continue the conversation … I walk away. Which is what I did with Scottie. I am very sad that it’s come to this. I really like Scottie & I am going to miss him. This argument has rippled through WordPress & now I am finding myself no-platformed on several other blogs that I follow. I won’t list them here but it’s really getting to me. & it’s all because of the stupid trans-ideology political crapola.

I will state it here & I will state it clearly. I do not hate anyone. I have fought for the civil rights of all people, including transgendered people & I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. However, I do not & I will not fight for an ideology that is toxic & is obviously the patriarchy on steroids … that is removing sex-based protections for girls & women … that is teaching gender ideology to children too young to understand what it means … that is weaponizing BOTH the Republicans & the Democrats in their war against each other & the American people. An ideology that is based on kink & porn & should be left in the adult sex industry where it belongs. As a former sex worker, I know what I am talking about.

This is an ideology that should NOT be taught to children. Honestly, no ideology should be taught to children. Leave the kids alone! You don’t give kids alcohol & cigarettes or drugs … you make them wait until they are adults. This ideology is the same damn thing. But for some reason, it now OK to put children on life-changing drugs & even mutilate their bodies, all in the name of being “trans inclusive”.

As a mother & soon-to-be-grandmother, I find this absolutely egregious.

I have no doubt that there are children that think they are the opposite sex. When I was a kid, I thought I was a deer. For a while I thought I was a horse. & yes, I thought I was a boy. I was a tomboy & I am still a tomboy. But I am a woman & I am SO FUCKING GRATEFUL that I don’t live in today’s world because I still have my beautiful breasts, I wasn’t ever put on puberty blockers, I have experienced orgasms & still do. I think of all the children who will NEVER have an orgasm because of the drugs they are being fed, because nobody is making them wait until they are old enough to know what’s going on in their growing minds & bodies. Nobody has the strength to tell them NO. Like parents & the adults in their lives are supposed to do. Like mine did. Yeah, I hated my parents sometimes. You’re supposed to hate your parents. Now I am so thankful I had parents who loved me enough to be “mean”. They weren’t mean … they LOVED me.

As for puberty blockers … you’re supposed to go through puberty! & you’re supposed to hate it. I know I hated my period, especially back in the 1970s, when I wasn’t allowed to wear a tampon (my Catholic mother forbid it) & I had to wear this awful belt with the pad & the metal clasp bit into my skin. It was TERRIBLE. When I hear young girls complain about their periods now, I think, gee you just don’t know. But yeah, I get it. Puberty sucks & periods suck & boys being boys suck. & all the changes suck. It’s called growing up. It’s what all animals do & humans are animals.

Stop trying to fuck with reality. Reality is humans come in two types, men & females. You cannot change your sex. You can change your gender but not your sex. Gender is not sex. I know that most people now think that gender & sex is the same thing but that is not true. I am a WOMAN, that is AN ADULT HUMAN FEMALE.

Transwomen are not women. They are men. Transmen are not men. They are women. This is reality. The prefix “trans” has meaning, it’s not there for nothing! If transwomen were really women & transmen really men, why is the “trans” there? Because they’re not. & everyone knows this. It’s only ideology that says they are.

I live in the real world. Not in some transgendered magical world. This does not mean I hate transgendered people or that I’m “transphobic” or “hateful” or any other stupid thing. It means I am living in REALITY.

Goodbye Scottie. I’ll miss you. But that’s the way it goes in war.

Posted on

Fans by Greg Fallis

I’ve been following Greg Fallis’ blog for a long time, a couple of years, at least. I wanted to reblog his latest blog entry about Trump supporters not really being supporters of Trump at all but the reblog button wouldn’t work – WordPress has been increasingly tough to deal with lately – has anyone noticed? So I’m doing this old school way …

HERE’S THE LINK ~~~~> https://gregfallis.com/2022/09/08/fans/

Give it a read. It makes perfect sense. As a Buffalo Bills fan, I totally get what he’s saying & I have to say … this is not good.

Posted on

What I Heard Today While Watching The Bills Game

I wasn’t going to go out today because it’s been a hell of a week but my GF Chrissy texted me & asked me to go to a neighborhood bar to watch the Bills game & even though I can watch it at home & I’m pretty damn broke right now because of buying baby stuff for my granddaughter that’s coming in early December, I said OK. I had enough money for beers to get me through the first quarter & I figured there would be a couple of friends there to buy me a few; there usually is. As it turned out, I only had to buy myself one; my friends bought me every other beer I drank.

During the first quarter, I was sitting at the end of the bar with Chrissy & Jimmy M. Jimmy M. is a good guy; I’ve known him forever. He lives in my neighborhood. He often takes me to a food pantry which is in a evangelical church that his mother belongs to; it’s probably one of the best food pantries I’ve ever been to, although not as good as the Catholic Charities on Lawrence Street in Lowell, MA. That one was AWESOME. But this one is pretty damn close. Anyway, Jimmy M. is a great guy but he’s a die-hard trumpster & he’s never met a conspiracy he didn’t like.

If you read my post from August 6 link here ~~~~ > https://silverapplequeen.wordpress.com/2022/08/06/what-the-fck-happened-to-you/ one of people I was talking about was Jimmy M.

So we’re sitting at the bar, watching the game & I’m not sure how the conversation got to politics – I wasn’t really paying attention – but suddenly, Jimmy M. was saying, “If Trump runs for president again, I’ll vote for him! For sure! He was a great president!” & we were all laughing. Even people I know who voted for Trump in 2016 don’t want him back again – they got what they wanted – their tax cuts, the abortion ban, the thrill of “owning the libs” – whatever. They’re done with him.

But there’s people – like Jimmy M. & other people I know – who are still enthralled with Trump – who the F knows why.

Jimmy M. was going off because we were laughing. “People who don’t like Trump never have a good reason why they don’t like him,” he said. “They just say he’s an asshole.”

“He is an asshole,” I replied, “but if he was able to govern reasonably, being an asshole wouldn’t be a reason not to vote for him. But what about the January 6 coup? He was totally behind all of that. That’s high treason, dude. He should be brought up on charges already!”

“The January coup!” Jimmy M. almost spit out his beer. “The Democrats were behind that!”

Again we all laughed. I was laughing so hard I almost fell off my bar stool. But really – the Democrats were behind the January 6 coup attempt? Really? They were the ones who didn’t want the election results to be verified? Really? How fucking stupid is that?

I’m friends with these people because I’ve known them forever & I like them, but I swear, they lost their brains somewhere & they don’t even know that their brains are gone.

Posted on

A conversation between Mark Jacob, former editor of the Chicago Tribune, and Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at New York University

You hear all the time about the failure of our mainstream media & how so many people have stopped watching the news or reading newspapers or how they simply don’t believe anything they hear at all; or conversely, they believe everything they hear. This conversation shows how bothsiderism & not calling out the lies of politicians & not doing anything that would “get a lot of complaints” failed our democracy.

This article was originally published on Press Think. I found it on Mike the Mad Biologist’s daily links.

link here ~~~~> https://pressthink.org/2022/06/he-used-to-edit-political-stories-at-the-chicago-tribune-now-he-says-the-press-is-failing-our-democracy/

BTW, I was acquainted with Jay Rosen many years ago, when we both went to the State University of New York at Buffalo. He was the editor-in-chief of The Spectrum & I was going out with the music editor. Jay used to tease me, asking me why was I seeing the music editor when I could have the editor-in-chief? He used to throw the best parties. 🙂