This morning I'm pissed off

Last night I watched the last 15 minutes of ER. One of the story lines involved an “honor Killing” of a young Middle Eastern woman by her brother. That got me a little pissed. Not the story, “honor killings.” I went to bed grumping about that crap. Then this morning there was a bit on NPR about women in Africa being sold off for livestock as children. During the story they mention, almost casually, that girls are typically “circumcised” at 12 then later traded off. First of all female circumcision is such a grotesque assault on a woman’s civil rights that it baffles the mind. Not to mention that it is clearly a sex crime aimed at subjugating women. Calling it a cultural tradition is just bullshit. That kind of spurious logic is absolute crap. What the fuck is with people? Seriously how can a parent do or allow that to be done to their child? Look I am a white middleclass American who lives in the Midwest. I am just about the most privileged person on the planet and as such I have that bullshit guilt about it. It is as if those facts should somehow void my ability to bitch about any other group’s problems. I don’t buy it. That crap pisses me off. Then to learn, as I did this morning on the web, that this sort of thing is still happening sometimes in this country. I am not blasting immigrants. I am second generation US so my ears are still wet but the carrying over of those barbaric “traditions” to this country is just not ok. I don’t know what I can do about any of this stuff and of course it leads to so many other arguments about crimes against women and children in this country that it quickly overwhelms the mind. These things happen ultimately because we allow them to. Rape will never be stopped. Child abuse will continue. What do we do to bring them to their knees in this country? I don’t have a single answer, just questions. What I need is my party, Democrat, to get off of it’s ass and grow a set. We have allowed the right wing assjobs to define the issues for decades and even now when they, Republicans, are at their weakest we still can’t come up with an issue or a candidate that doesn’t suck. Do I mean that Republicans are pro-rape? Of course not. But they are most assuredly anti-women. They focus on punishment of crimes rather than looking to the root issues. Counting all the lemmings after they jump off the cliff rather than pointing them another way prior to jumping seems a bit pointless. Shit I don’t know anything I am just so very tired of being led by people who know even less.

Later,

Sam