Chris

I am an extremist at heart.  I know I get a little locked into "I'm right and aaa!", when it comes to certain topics.  So, I try my best to see things from the other side, or at least absent myself from conversations because I know I get rage-y.

Other times, fuck the other side.

From Amanda at Pandagon: JUST BE NORMAL AGAIN – "A couple of weeks ago, I got my hands on the training manual for the courses that anti-choice group Justice For All uses in its courses."  From her post at RH Reality Check:

What I first learned was that Justice For All has no problem instructing its activists to use deception to lure people into a conversation.   In the section titled "Why Don't You Pass Out Condoms and Promote Birth Control?," the authors tacitly admit that sensible people might be put off by the anti-choice movement's willingness to increase the abortion rate by standing as firmly against contraception, especially the birth control pill, as they do legal abortion.  So instead of allowing members to admit their hostility to all forms of contraception, they instruct them to conceal their beliefs until a target has been softened up to hear about their true message–sexual abstinence for all not trying to procreate–through a series of dodgy, misleading arguments, including misinformation about how the birth control pill works.

This tactic is a mainstay of the  anti-choice movement: it shows one face to the initiated, and another to the public, especially on the topic of contraception.  Once you realize this, the movement's half-hearted denunciations of Dr. Tiller's murder, coupled with the enthusiastic return to calling Dr. Tiller a monster, become all the more chilling.

If you are a "pro-lifer", instead of getting pissy with pro-choicers who are upset with you and yours, why not instead look to your movement?  This isn't just some freakish screed, this is a goddamn training manual.  This is for when they set up a table at college campuses, what the shit.

Mighty Ponygirl commented this, in the first link:

I had mentioned that very point to the husband last night: that after 9/11, Muslim groups came out an roundly declared that Islam was a religion of peace, that the hijackers and terrorists were not representative of the Muslim community, and that what happened was a horrific tragedy and an act of terrorism. [...] But the anti-choice movement is so comfortable with the language of victim-blaming, and so assured in their own safety because they have a powerful brigade of politicians and talking heads who will scream bloody murder if anyone treats their threats for what they are, that they're absolutely fine with saying things like "Tiller reaped what he sowed."

Have some more fun here, from Fred at Slactivist who used to work for an evangelical non-profit:

What I realized then, in 1994, as I watched these groups line up to condemn violence against "mass-murderers" and to renounce armed opposition to "the Holocaust," was that these folks didn't really mean any of it. They were horrified by the spectacle of someone taking their own rhetoric and arguments seriously. "We don't really mean anything we say," these groups rushed to announce. "We don't really believe any of that."

And since they no longer bothered to claim they believed it, I stopped trying to believe it too.

Words mean things.  Jesus.

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I think I'm going to investigate the local Planned Parenthood, and see how it's doing.  There were some stalls on building it, I recall, due to protests.  I wonder if they still get protesters.  I could go take pictures…

Originally posted at Xtinian Thoughts.  Comment here or there.

Ages ago, Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon posted this amazing post:

The liberal-feminist view of sex is that it's not a war or a game, but more of a mutual collaboration, less like a battle and more like playing music. In this model, to be a sexual person is to be a musician and sex is playing your instrument. Sometimes you play by yourself, sometimes you get with others and jam, and sometimes you actually have a band that you have a long-term relationship with. There aren't winners and losers, but there can be good and bad sex, just like there can be good and bad music.

I link it here because it needs to be linked more.  They changed sites (they're now at pandagon.net), so it's harder to find, for some reason.  But oh goodness, read that post.  She compares the liberal-feminist view of sex (playing music) to the conservative view of sex (playing basketball), and I adore it.

Have I mentioned already that I love words?

Originally posted at Xtinian Thoughts.  Comment here or there.

I am cracking up at this new-to-me blog Stuff White People Like.  It's more like upper-middle-class liberal white people, from what I can tell, but it's funny as shit.

Via Amanda at Pandagon.

Originally posted at Xtinian Thoughts.  Comment here or there.

Amanda at Pandagon takes on this WebMD essay: 11 "Don't-Tell-the-Wife" Secrets All Men Keep

But feminists hate men.  Men don't hate men.  Right, got it.

Originally posted at Xtinian Thoughts.  Comment here or there.

"the other good way i've seen it stated is that it pretty much doesn't matter what you are doing or wearing or drinking, only whether the people you're with are rapists or not."
- roula

This is an "Oh!" moment because once it's phrased like that, the question that immediately springs to my mind is, "How can I tell whether [men in any particular area] are rapists?"  And there's no good answer to that.  Since most rapes are in fact performed by intimates (friends, family, partners, &c), there's almost entirely no answer to that.  And it shortcuts many attempts at victim-blaming, or at least I'd hope so.

(Note: these are my "two two-hours-of-sleep sessions" thoughts.  It's possible I should be way more cynical.)

Originally posted at Xtinian Thoughts.  Comment here or there.

Amanda at Pandagon takes on a Reason article in "How the existence of sexism disproves sexism".  I am too tired to come up with commentary, apart from that the essay and the comments are the awesome.

Quasi-relatedly, one of these days we'll stop equating "People have a reason for doing things" with "People have a good reason for doing things".  Just a random annoyance.

Originally posted at Xtinian Thoughts.  Comment here or there.

Amanda writes about cleaning the house.

As I said in there, I always feel weird when reading about chore-wars, because my boyfriend is far more tidy than I.  What it tends to come down to for us is each of us trying to be fair to the other (I try to clean more, he tries to not give me hell), and we have a weekly cleaning hour-or-so set up.  We haven't had a cleaning argument in quite a while, so apparently we're doing something right.

It helps that a lot of things are separate.  We have separate areas, we each do our own laundry, and even our cats (my one, his two) have two litterboxen.  (To be fair, the last is due to my kitty having cancer.)  Sometimes I have a weird desire to merge more, to be more partner-ly, but the rest of the time I figure we're doing pretty okay.

Originally posted at Xtinian Thoughts.  Comment here or there.

I'm a bit late to the game, since I've been busy knitting a scarf today.

In lieu of writing with my own words – my hands hate me, see also "knitting" – I will link to some lovely and powerful posts I've read elsewhere.

* Feministe: Why I'm Pro-Choice by Jill.

"I am pro-choice because my life is worth something."

* Pandagon: Blogging For Choice and beyond choice by Amanda.

"I've never had an abortion, not because it's illegal, but because it's legal–because my right to control my body is respected, I have the level of control to make the unwanted pregnancy and therefore the abortion much less likely."

For many many other posts in this vein, have a slew of links.

For myself, a quick thing:

Pro-choice or pro-life is not about personal beliefs.  Or at least it had better damn well not be.  I know a wide range of people, from those who find the idea of abortions abhorrant to those who consider it to be a necessity, from those who don't want to have children to those who were impregnated due to a rape.  Personally, I don't know what I'd choose.

Choice is the point.  I'm not going to argue that abortion is the best thing in the world next to cotton candy.  I'm going to argue that it is my choice – my choice – to make.  Not yours, not PP protesters', and not government lackeys'.

Mine and every woman's, and no one else's.

Originally posted at Xtinian Thoughts.  Comment here or there.