This is a link dump for things that make me want to spit. Things that piss me off & make me want to bitch—remind me why I should be angry. John just posted his experience at Church the other day, I think most of us can agree that his experience counts as something we all want to bitch about. Feel free to respond to mine or add your own in the comments.
“Sweetie” pisses me off. In fact, most diminutives or “familiar” forms, especially from strangers (although also from other sources: DH called me “baby” once during sex & that did not go over well for him…) really make me mad. I’ve posted about this in the past, but now, research shows that it’s not just me: treating people like you’re better than them affects them psychologically, which can then affect them physically. I wonder what it says about the person who’s doing the treating.
The Republicans’ sheltering of Palin makes me mad. The fact that they don’t want to let her have a forum reminds me how little they think of women. Andrew Sullivan calls on us to “Demand a Press Conference” and both Rachel Maddow & Keith Olbermann have offered to let Palin name the terms in order to get another interview (after the Couric interview, apparently, the Republicans locked her in a penis-shaped tower, word has it that they’re tending their garden of cabbages below, flying about on broomsticks at night, and climbing up her hair when they want to access her—no word yet about a white knight). The awesomeness from CNN’s anchors (which I previously posted) reminds me that sometimes, the mainstream media doesn’t suck.
Trayce Hansen, Ph.D. and her ilk infuriate me. She’s the one being quoted on Christian & conservative websites as claiming that “social endorsement of homosexuality [...] will lead more individuals into a homosexual lifestyle”. Which, if you think about it, really means that closeted gays will no longer feel shame if society didn’t think that homosexuality was an unnatural, dirty activity that leads to STDs and death. Wait, isn’t that their same argument about sex? About divorce? About abortion? Oh, that’s right, they’ve only got one! Her name might be Hansen, Coulter, or Schlafly, but whatever her name, the Conservative Woman Who Hates Women So That She Can Prove To Men That All Women Suck But Her (or maybe that She Is The Only Woman Who Will Suck) drives me crazy.
People who deny the rights of everyone because they don’t want to exercise them. This goes for the anti-abortion lobby (don’t have one!), the anti-gay marriage lobby (don’t be one!), and the anti-euthanasia lobby (don’t do it!). Don’t tell me I can’t do it just because it makes you feel icky. What if militant vegetarians took over the country & denied people the right to hunt and eat meat? Or if militant environmentalists turned every highway into a bikeway? Sure, the world might be slightly better, but it wouldn’t be right. Equally, it is not right to deny rights (heh. get it?) just because you don’t want them. Hell, I don’t want to marry a woman. But you know what? I’m glad I have the right to if I wanted. I do not understand what is going on in the minds of people who want to deny rights. So often, we hear the story of a person who was anti-this or anti-that and then suddenly finds themselves in such a position that they are glad that they and their friends were unsuccessful because now? Now they’re really glad they have the right to this or that.
There are too many links for that one, but here’s Dan Savage’s recent experience with his mother’s terminal illness and death. He lives in Seattle, too—I’m not really sure who has the greater reach, though, my father, with his religious network or Savage with his queer network (I hope it’s Savage), but at least someone there is standing up in opposition to my father’s desire to take rights from others.
*pant pant*
Again, I have to say: if you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention. Leave in the comments the things that get you righteously angry, and about which you are passionate. Anger is only helpful if it’s channeled.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Craig // Oct 10, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Oh, this is a dangerous one for me.
Perhaps I’ve been paying too much attention, because I’m fucking angry as all get-out. (Was that sufficiently folksy?)
You’ve already hit upon a lot of them. The ignorant (too often republican) masses who hate the environment, gays, women, and the rights of everyone else but their own.
I’m angry at religion in general, but Mormonism in particular for “protecting the family” to the point where half of my family no longer communicates with the other half. Yeah, that’s protecting my family all right. Protecting us from communicating and accepting and loving each other. Good job Mr. Monson.
I’m angry at the media for being so soft on Palin, and thining that being unbiased means that they have to let the right wingers spew their lies with impunity, because to call them on their bullshit would be a “liberal media bias”. As long as they fact-check both sides and report what REALITY really is, then there’s no bias.
I’m angry that so much of my energy is being spent trying to secure rights that should already be mine, and angry that no matter how hard I try to convince “friends” and family that murdering the environment is a bad idea, they seem to think that jesus is coming soon anyways to destroy the earth, so why not rape it to death?
I’m angry that this has become a christian country instead of a secular haven for rationalists and science like it was supposed to be, like it was designed to be.
I’m passionate about tolerance for everyone and treating all humans with respect. I’m passionate about my rights being the same as everyone else’s, even the very religious, because even though I think that religion is ridiculous, equal rights means that they have the right to believe whatever the hell they want, so long as they DON’T harm anyone or infringe on everyone else’s rights.
I’m really angry that I have to keep explaining this OVER and OVER again. I’m angry that this is a country of adolescents who want their own way regardless of whom it impacts, because they’re right and everyone else is wrong, and they should go to Canada or Europe or Russia, the commie faggots, because the US is only for Moose-shooting, environment-raping, bible-thumping, gay-hating, muslim-killing, red-blooded, REAL AMERICANS.
*sigh*
I’m beginning to get jaded. I’m beginning to wonder if it is even possible to turn this country into a place of tolerance and acceptance, if the effort is even worth it, or if I really should just go somewhere else.
2 Chandelle // Oct 10, 2008 at 4:54 pm
I’ve had a really angry week overall so I don’t have a lot left right now…I guess right now my angers are mostly personal. I’m pretty pissed off at the economy. I just wrote a long diatribe about how it’s ruining my life, but I deleted it because I don’t want to get a bunch of offers to send me money or warm blankets or non-perishable food.
I feel you on the homophobia, Jane, but I also realize that, sadly, this argument doesn’t play with the bigots because they don’t usually seem to consider marriage a right. And it would totally destroy straight marriage. And they’d be forced to marry gays. And children would end up with gay parents (scream!). And so on and so forth.
I feel so tired from this, just so, so tired, and I don’t know how you guys in CA manage to survive it. I feel horribly ashamed that when the bill was up in Utah to ban gay marriage, I just bit my knuckles, secretly voted against it but never talked about it with anyone. Things are so different for me now, but too little too late, huh?
Here’s one nice piece of information. My dad is very conservative and used to believe that gays shouldn’t have these rights. He believed this for monetary reasons; he considered it unfair that he lived with a woman for 10 years without sharing benefits but the gays get to do it. Recently he told me that he’s realized this is wrong. He now supports gay rights and is disgusted with his party for their actions against equality. Go Dad! (Now if only I could get him to believe in climate change…)
3 G // Oct 10, 2008 at 10:15 pm
oh sweetie… you have some anger showing… better powder your nose…
JK!!!
k, for serious, just reading your post and realizing that I am feeling apathetic and blase… maybe just a tad fatalistic.
hmmm… need to get some anger going, somehow…
great post, btw.
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