A long-term point of contention for me has been the lazy media appropriation of the right wing talking point that because Western feminists don’t think the war is teh awesome, and we aren’t grateful that it’s being waged on behalf of damsels in distress, we just aren’t very good feminists.
Katha Pollitt writes and open letter to journalists:
In fact, as a bit of research would easily show, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of US feminist organizations involved in promoting women’s rights and well-being around the globe–V-Day, Equality Now, MADRE, the Global Fund for Women, the International Women’s Health Coalition and Feminist Majority, to name some of the most prominent. (The National Organization for Women itself has a section on its website devoted to global feminism, on which it denounces a wide array of practices including female genital mutilation (FGM), "honor" murder, trafficking, dowry deaths and domestic violence). Feminists at Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations have moved those organizations to add the rights of women and girls to their agenda. Feminist magazines and blogs–Ms. magazine, Feministing.com, Salon.com’s Broadsheet column, womensenews.com (which has an edition in Arabic)–as well as feminist reporters and commentators in the mainstream media, regularly report on and condemn outrages against women wherever they occur, from rape, battery and murder in the US to the denial of women’s human rights in the developing or Muslim world.
[]
We reject the use of women’s rights language to justify invading foreign countries.
Bingo.
Katha has collected over 700 signatures for her letter. If you’d like to add your name, the submission info is here. (And yes, men can do it too.)
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ZED!
We can expand women’s rights in the Middle East if we just bomb them more. Bombs are really great for that.
thank you for this, Jane.
I think editing Michelle Obama’s statement is both sexist and racist.
Women are getting killed for not wearing Veils since we took charge. Saddam at least let Women wear skirts and drive.
Just followed the link through to your earlier post as well. Excellent piece putting the lie to the Admin’s claim to be fighting for the women of Afghanistan…and Iraq…
Meanwhile, our friends the Saudis have one of the most repressive anti-woman regimes in the world. And Iraq was pretty decent in a repressive dictator of the middle east kinda way.
And how about now??
There is no defense for Sadam.
Not in our name! Altho, I’m of the wrong persuasion…!
OT Iraq is now buying Jet Airplanes from Boeing the Seattle TV news said. With what money am I wondering and is the American Government backing these purchases if Iraq can’t pay?
And they got to live in their homes. And not get raped and killed and got to send their children to school and had electricity. Saddam – a blessing compared to what the US Govt (read that as Bush, the neocons and the military industrial complex and big oil) are doing over there.
Er, yep. I should hope so…,
Thank you for the opportunity to join this fight, Jane. It’s yet another example of stupid men appropriating language they haven’t any conception of, in order to gloss their silly projects. Warmaking harms women, and warmakers shouldn’t use the language of women’s rights to wrongly engage us in their stupid cause.
However, there’s no defense for our taking him out, Raven…!
really
This is just another justification for war. first there was Al Quieda, then there was WMD, then the Saddam committed Genocide argument, using poison gas that we sold him a fact that was not really brought up at his kangaroo trial.
Now there is Women rights which were actually better under a genocidal Maniac than they are now despite the Surge working.
Unless, of course, you were a Shi’ia on the wrong side of the Ba’ath party, or someone that someone in Saddam’s ruling faction targeted or…well, you get the picture. This isn’t a cut and dried argument on any side of this, to be honest. Just ask the Shi’ia who had to live with the aftermath in the marsh areas outside of Basra how rosy their lives were for years. For starters.
Oh, but that doesn’t fit our argument!
“This is just another justification for war. first there was Al Quieda, then there was WMD, then the Saddam committed Genocide argument, using poison gas that we sold him a fact that was not really brought up at his kangaroo trial.”
So, if you roll out a new product, and no one buys it, do you fire your marketing staff or consider that maybe, just maybe, your product is a dud?
For every Edsel, how many cases where they changed the marketing staff instead of the product?
Does the name Mark Penn come to mind?
Bob in HI
using poison gas that we sold him a fact that was not really brought up at his kangaroo trial.
Now that is relevant.
I’m aware of the awful things he did. It’s just that overall, it affected less people than our precious war is affecting.
Where does the Media get off deciding that Women’s groups have to support the war in Iraq? Where do they get off making claims about the war being waged to protect women?
What facts do they use?
Why don’t they EVER say that we are fighting a war for Oil? There are a lot more facts to support that statement.
The going rate for an armed escort from the Baghdad Airport
to the Green Zone is $3,500. Who, exactly, are the customers
who will be riding in the nice new Boeings?
It’s affecting the very same people, jesus.
The southern and northern ‘No Fly’ zones had reduced him to the mayor of Baghdad, the economic sanctions were largely ineffectual, except to the already disenfranchised, but, he’d been rendered toothless… I certainly didn’t want the death and destruction that has since occurred…! 8-(
Bob Newheart “Ledge Psychology” I wish I had a link
Which he used prior to the first Gulf War!
I am Undone yours was the most obvious follow up, I should have seen it.
I wonder what other toys for Iraq Bush is buying I suspect on credit for his imaginary Iraq.
That is thanking him for doing so much for Women’s rights.
Under Sadaam women attended the Universities and became Doctors and Lawyers……
WTF, this has nothing to do with whether or not the mofo deserved to die.
The story that is on Kos about Michelle Obama…now says…sorry I can’t find that story…
I checked the two clips in question. Same time, same clothes.
The little man (me) has just fed the little woman (Lahoma). Now we are set for Olbermann. On the couch with Swiss Miss.
Sorry, I misinterpreted your ‘really’ comment!
I emailed him on this.
I know the war is stupid and unjust, I just won’t sit around talking about how swell things were before we started it.
All
lates windows update may have turn off your firewall . you may want to check it.
Thanks Raven.
So is this going to be a nail biter? Not for us. We just want to defeat the fascists.
I certainly won’t assert that, but, it’s a heck of a lot worse now…! *g*
I see no way to sign Pollitt’s open letter. To plagiarize Martha Stewart, it’s a good thing.
I doubt if someone will run up waving it yelling “stop da music stop da music”!
So me one GWB success.
The horse is out of the barn.
I’ll bet that if you asked Irakis if they’d rather they lived as they did under Saddam or as they live now, they’d choose living under Saddam.
I don’t see the petition, Jane.
What is it we say EPU’d or sumpin?
Unless, of course, you were a Shi’ia on the wrong side of the Ba’ath party, or someone that someone in Saddam’s ruling faction targeted or…well, you get the picture. This isn’t a cut and dried argument on any side of this, to be honest. Just ask the Shi’ia who had to live with the aftermath in the marsh areas outside of Basra how rosy their lives were for years. For starters.
reply
Should read ’show’ me…
raven, i never said or felt that thing’s were swell before we got to iraq. they weren’t swell at all. it’s just that now things are hideous, much worse overall and the war is still going on, with almost a million innocent iraqis dead at OUR government’s hands. millions of internal and external refugees who can hardly survive.
on topic: women overal are much worse off now than they were in february of 2003 and so are the men and children that are still alive.
aha so that explains it, thanks.
We think HRC or Obama can sink McCain’s canoe.
O/t -
Keith has nodo and russert on….scraping the bottom of the barrel, he is.
I saw an interview with an author on Book TV that had done a really interesting investigation of the framing of the war…everything was macho vs damsel’s in distress as Jane cites above. Brave American men saving the Muslim women….saving women and children (same thing…women and children), protecting us from the evildoers while “we” go shopping….”don’t worry your pretty little head, we’ll get ‘em..”
I don’t remember the book or her name, but what she demonstrated was pretty interesting.
No, you said “
And they got to live in their homes. And not get raped and killed and got to send their children to school and had electricity. Saddam – a blessing compared to what the US Govt (read that as Bush, the neocons and the military industrial complex and big oil) are doing over there.”
We can justify the war by taking out Saddam to make things better for Iraqis but since we, well the Reagen/Bush 1 administrations sold him weapons even though they knew what Saddam was doing our hands were not exactly clean.
But once we realized that we were making Iraq worse we should have stopped.
The GOP tries to pull my humanitarian heart strings with cries of if we leave the violence will get worse, oh and I suspect even more important to them we will Lose.
But after 6 yrs? I think less Iraq’s will die if we leave. I really don’t care if we lose I care why we lost. I care about how we were Lied into war.
Katha’s got an e-mail addy in the text of her letter if you click thru the link to read the whole thing.
. I really don’t care if we lose I care why we lost.
Huh?
Dayem…W told us to go shopping, but now all the shopping money is gone….D’Oh…..well.
Republicans. There’s a storm brewing.
Cat 5 “big wind” hopefully. ;>
Keep your eyes on the prize. That’s what Lahoma tells me.
I don’t think we should have invaded Iraq, Vietnam or Cuba and I think Saddam, Ho and Castro are murderous scumbags.
I’m not a Hussein fan, don’t misunderstand. It’s just that there was a large part of the population able to live fairly decently compared to much of the middle east. Christians lived in Baghdad. People went to school and universities. Things have gotten much worse, and I’m afraid they’re headed for the Vice and Virtue squads after we leave. Had we played our cards right, perhaps we could have won hearts and minds.
parts made in China..but you all knew that I’m sure
http://www.boeing.com/companyo…..china.html
Hello LS.
L.
In the last paragraph of the post at the Nation, just above the actual letter, she provides her email address for folks to send a note and have their names added.
Past is past I don’t think we can win in Iraq now not after all the mistakes we have made.
But the question of why we lost is something we can learn from to avoid this kind of mistake again.
Things are starting to get worse again for women in Afghanistan. For folks who are interested, RAWA has updates on a fairly regular basis on news dealing with women and children’s issues there.
All I said was that Saddam got what he deserved.
The time is arriving to unite.
Saddam killed plenty of Iraqis- so has George W. Bush. Many of the Iraqis Saddam killed died because Pere Bush told em to rise up against Saddam and he’d support em- then he changed his mind and let Saddam slaughter em.
The Bushes have some Iraqi blood on their hands.
I was hoping that in, uh, 1975. Unfortunately we learned zippo.
Kurds
In the article she gives you e-mail information about how to contact her to sign. It’s a bit of a scrounge, but I found it and e-mailed her with my signing information.
Well wasn’t it largely shiites that Pere Bush encouraged to revolt? Lots of Kurds got killed in the Iran/Iraq war didn’t they?
i meant it as a figure of speech, raven. i didn’t say it was a blessing for them to be living under saddan, i said it was a blessing compared to what our govt is doing. what i mean and meant is that while saddam was bad, we are worse for iraq.
The Iraq war is about oil and the strategic positioning to control it. It is not about human beings and their rights or their lives or their lifestyles. Hussein was in the way…if someone else had been in his position, they’d be dead now too. This war has zero to do with stopping a vicious dictator or looking for WMDs. It was a war of choice, based on lies, to secure the oil and the geographical positioning to carry out the agenda of the Neocons, period. PNAC.
Hi Lahoma!!
Signed.
And digg this post.
And I care about the fact that we have been arming all sides in this mess. Many more will die when we finally do leave. Hopefully the educated people will return, and somehow pull the country together. They are sitting on great wealth, and if they can somehow pull it together, they’ll be able to recover. It will take real leadership.
I thought we we’re spreading Democracy. Look what we have managed to accomplish in Iraq. Women are dancing in the streets. They’re so thrilled. Of course I know you probably understand Democracy is just for men. Not for the under class. Hope your evening is going a good as our’s is. ;0)
You have email.
It is just horrible.
Yes, democracy. Of the rose-colored glasses variety… SIGH Is it 2009 yet?
Olbermann: Waiting in Wisconsin.
That’s comforting. My HP Pavilion wouldn’t work properly until they put in parts made in the USA.
Absolutely!
Actually, it was both — Kurds in the north and the Shi’ia who had been driven into the marshy areas in the south after the gas attacks in the 1980s (The gas for which we sold Saddam components, btw…jeebus, our history is long and ugly there, isn’t it?) I could keep going, but it will just make me more peevish….
Yea but remember when we had to chopper in all kinds of supplies to bail the Kurds out too.
It shouldn’t have been YouTubed. I’m not too big on the Death Penalty. Perhaps he loved his country (or himself) enough that he would have helped in a transition if it would have saved his neck?
Yea, and there is a real tradition of that in a place made up by the limey’s!
God I hate to ask this question…It will be like the night I asked what 707 was.
I want to sign that petition, this would be a dark world without my daughters and anything that empowers them as they should empowered, i will do..But I didn’t see where to sign..cringing lol 707 help
OT:
“What the big banks who run many hedge funds are doing is going broke. They are pretending to be solvent by borrowing money from the Federal Reserve, the nation’s alleged superbank. But borrowed money is not capital, i.e. surplus wealth wholly owned. Borrowed money is an obligation, a liability, a negative on the balance sheet. You can’t have an entire financial system based on nothing more than a giant daisy-chain of liabilities. Somewhere there has to be a “reserve” of assets, items of value owned by somebody.”
We shouldn’t be worried about Iraq. No one else is. I’ve had MSNBC on since 5ish. Not a word. All the horse race, all the time. Now, I’m a half hr into KO and it’s the same story. He just hit Bush on that ridiculous fence but that’s it.
Didn’t I hear something yesterday about us all eating beef that may be infected with Mad Cow Disease? Oh, wait, the issue is animal cruelty and the offending parties have been charged with that crime.
Those who do not learn the lessons of History…Have to take it again in Summer school until they pass.
Yeah, and all the banned beef has supposedly already been eaten, because the video is not so new…or so it was reported.
LS, you’re having a cluster again.
We have three HP Pav. pc’s and Lahoma has three HP laps. We love ‘em. Hope you are having a good evening.
In the paragraph just before the actual “Open Letter”, there is an email address so that you can send an email with your signing information.
Sure there is future taxes after all the banks got loans from the Fed so if they are late paying or don’t pay how will we know until the problem gets so big that the Fed can’t hide the problem anymore.
Bush and Helicopter Ben just passed a Tax without asking Congress’s permission.
Here’s the article with the petition
Actually this is the most relaxed election I think we have ever had in this house. If Obama is the nominee; fine. If Hillary is the nominee; fine.
It would really be swell if the folks under the hood could make the text links more visible don’t ya think?
Was any of it tested for mad cow? Any time Beef is recalled it would make sense to test it for mad cow.
There is no “war” because no war was ever declared…there is a “use of force” and…there is now a “surge”…
What’s next…a “Purge”? A “durge”? A “splurge”?
That’s cuz it’s not and election.
And the beat goes on
KO is covering the failure of the 6th Circuit’s decision from being granted cert…!
If you combine the folks who support HRC with the Obama supporters, what do you have? A landslide.
Turley is very good.
None of it was tested apparently. It is not uncommon when you have so many cows together that for one reason or another a cow goes down and can’t get up…bloat and things like that, because they are pumping food into them to fatten them up in the feedlots and they become gaseous. I doubt it was mad cow, but still…
This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.
Delivery to the following recipients failed.
kolbermann@msnbc.com
Turley is pointing out the sole ’standing’ issue…!
We’re sorta already focused on the election. ;0)
Now that song is in my head….
Puhleeze. How are we going to maintain our perfect record of no MCD if we start testing?
Thanks, I’m frying chicken so it’s hard to keep up!
Silly Me!
That he is… ‘Crimes ordered by the Prez’…! ;-)
…and just why aren’t we about three feet deep up Kim Jong ‘Il’s ass about now?
They just did an MSNBC ad without David Shuster. It ain’t right.
Yep, then he pointed out how this decision highlights the importance of the Supreme Court for this election.
No oil.
What tax?
Very good. We would like to see Mr. Turley have a show of his own. Can you imagine Supreme Court Justice Turley? Mr. Turley it is felt is what it is all about. The rule of law. ;0)
They have no Oil…! ;-)
Haven’t you missed an American surname or two
Good gawd! I step away to blog elsewhere against the vile assholes in the White House and come back to find 100 new comments here on FDL! Wow. ;-)
Katha says says:
Dang, I owe ya a coke, clearly!
Good evening kiddo. I missed the later part of yesterday. Did you catch some cats?
Olbermann, is da mann.
Get out of my head!!! *g*
Appreciate it.
Lord. I dearly love me some fried chicken. ;0)
*swoon* With Rachel on tap too…!
That wasn’t the topic.
Not a one. As a result, I told my lady I considered myself a failure.
I see Mr. LS’s car lights coming up the road….Food!!!
Tonight, Italian sausage and peppers and black beans and rice. ;)
I’m so hungry.
And when I start talking about LBJ I get all this bullshit about the great legislation he passed.
Dakine, it’s milk gravy.
What did he say about that?
We’re ordering Pizza Hut tonite, I’ll be too preoccupied to cook…! *g*
He said that with only two Clinton appointees on the court and with both of them in their 70’s, the next president will appoint justices who are likely to affect which way the court leans.
Deep breath, my friend. You are winding yourself up again, and you’ll just give yourself a headache for no reason. *g*
Which is as it should be…
I cannot recall a time when Rachel and I didn’t agree. I am surrouned by all these smart people. I love it. Of course the real smarty pants is sitting on the couch here in the living room. It’s amazing. She just goes around living her life nonchalantly and being so brainy.
lol
Thanks, I needed that!
By printing a ton of money and by lowering interest rates the Fed has lowered the value of the dollar which has the same effect as a tax. The Fed decided that every body with a dollar will take a hit just so the banks can pay their loans at lower rates.
Now how could that be if you found her?
Obama “is running on his powerful oratory and his promises,” Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday as he pointed out the similar turns of phrase. “Therefore, it is appropriate when the oratory comes form someone else to point that out and for questions to be raised about it.”
Ooh, the Wisconsin #’s are coming in…!
Thanks. I was thinking you might be meaning something else. To me, that’s critical.
Damn, I just really* hate where this country has gotten to.
*really – optional, take it out or leave it in.
Never mind that the Fed is loaning banks money and we think taking worthless subprime loans at inflated face value prices as collateral.
Honkie cheese heads breaking for Barak, get some!
Too close to call now for Obama, but, McCain was called the victor already!
Oh my Gawd. That sounds delish.
I wish I had your understanding of financial issues.
Raven you’re so funny.
Kiddo needs to understand that. Hee-hee.
L.
Ouch! Mrs McCain sure has some bad stuff out there.
http://www.salon.com/news/feat…../18/drugs/
Tim Russert just called me an aging white woman. Life ain’t easy.
Oh boy a Mc Cain speech
It is!!! The secret is “Goya Sazon with cilantro”…in both…
I’m so hungry!!
Oh Lord. McCain’s on. Mute. Time for a snack.
“Takin’ care of business” is probably not the best background music for McCain given that picture of him “straining” that we’ve all been seeing.
Whenever anyone talks about Iraq and women’s rights, I point them to the story of the female Iraqi tech blogger known as “Riverbend”.
Before the war started, she rode the bus to her job in Baghdad, listening to her Walkman, wearing jeans and a blouse and looking pretty much like a lot of other Iraqi women.
The job was the first thing to go. Then the jeans. Then the ability to go outside the house on her own without a male relative, preferably two.
Her family wound up fleeing for Syria in July. Her last post was from Damascus, in October. I hope she’s alright.
We were just wondering if they get paid when their music is played like that…
We love fresh cilantro. Don’t you just love the fragrance. Same with fresh basil. Enjoy.
“An eloquent but empty call for change”
I worked over 2 years delivering newspapers the Financial Times, the Investors Business Daily, NY Times, which all came on one truck early. The Chicago Tribune came on a later truck sometimes much later which gave me plenty of unpaid time to read.
Thanks to the variety I could compare and contrast a lot of the bull in their coverage.
Seeking Alpha is a good site to check up though, oh and my Community College econ teacher was great!
Wow, she has not been heard from since October?…I hope she’s okay, maybe she doesn’t have access to computers or the service has been interrupted by the cut cables or something…
I hope so too, PW.
Thank You your pretty good yourself you know!
terrists boooooogiiiieeee
Signed the letter.
g
My daughters, my sisters, how can I not.