Note: Cross-posted from my blog, which is not linked because I don't believe in pimping it. But this rant is so long I decided to share it here.
Ladies and gentlemen, today I am officially Madder Than Hell. And it's not just because I had to get up early--though I firmly believe morning people passed legislation to make the world run far too early while the rest of us were in bed. For which I could sue, if I could find the culprit.
Just kidding.
But I'm not kidding about being mad, for two or three reasons.
She just found out that the local Army base is not only looking to build over the mass graves of her people but is actually denying that the episode of smallpox-infested blankets ever happened.
Yes, you read that right. The Army historian at the base says there's no evidence it ever happened and that the Comanche went from multiple thousands to a little over one thousand "naturally," without being "helped along" by the US Government.
Ladies and gents, that is so much bullshit I don't even know where to begin.
The other point of view espoused by the Army base is a ranking officer at a meeting last year who says that a 1970s court case gives the base the right to build over the mass graves without so much as a by-your-leave now in 2007. As my friend points out, unless there's some special time-travel clause we don't know about, that's pure bullshit as well.
Here's part one and part two of my friend blogging about this. If you'd like, you can drop an email to the Fort Sill public affairs office, or send a letter, etc. Please be polite and courteous...but if this upsets you, please do a drop a line. The only thing that stops big corporations from pulling crap is public fury, and the Army is no exception.
Note: My grandfather and father are both in the Armed Forces, and this sort of stuff horrifies them, too.
Which is, as Flewellyn points out, So Wrong It's Not Even Funny, as well as blaming the victim. If the man who committed the massacre was rejected by a woman, it does not make the massacre the woman's fault. In what world does an editor decide this kind of coverage is appropriate?
When the Sullen One and I ducked out to dinner last night (everyone else was at kendo practice) the television in the pho restaurant was turned to Inside Edition, which was--I shit you not, dear Reader--comparing how many minutes each TV show had spent on the tragedy. And then there was, while the body count kept rising during the event, the gun-rights lobby immediately weighing in with their stupid trumpeting while people were dying.
What is wrong with us?
Look, I have nothing against guns. I was raised with guns in the house, and taught gun safety almost before I could talk. I believe in the right to bear arms as part of a well-ordered citizen militia. For Christ's sake, I write books with hair-trigger Necromances and government agents!
But something is wrong. We are the most violent society on earth, excepting a few little places like Darfur where genocide is apparently the order of the day. Switzerland and Canada have plenty of guns, but people aren't roaming around killing each other. For some reason, Americans are frocking violent. And I have to say, Michael Moore's hypothesis that it's the fearmongering of our government, aided and abetted by the right-wing bias in the media, seems to me to be pretty reasonable. Added to the fact that our country places a great deal of importance on the right to bear arms without equal importance on gun safety training--as my grandfather put it: RULE ONE: IT'S LOADED, even if you think it isn't. RULE TWO: Don't point a gun at anything you don't intend to kill. RULE THREE: If your gun is unloaded, see Rule One.--and this just turns plain ridiculous. When even a fraction of the amount the gun lobby spends on spinning news coverage after catastrophes like Columbine and Virginia Tech is redirected to gun safety training made mandatory, we'll begin to see some improvement, methinks. It would at lease cut down on accidental deaths. Who knows, it might even help with horrible events like Virginia Tech by changing our perception that it's okay for every wacknut, no matter how potentially-dangerous, to be fully armed.
- Last but certainly not least, the Supreme Court has upheld the partial-birth abortion ban. We are seeing the fruits of the religious right's drive to pack the courts with activist judges. (And they yell about "activist judges" on the left, who are most often simply the judges with due respect for law, the Constitution, and common humanity. I don't know why we're ever surprised at anything the conservative theocrats do, they accuse liberals of their plays well in advance.) Apparently we are in for an attack on Roe vs. Wade by the folks who think women are too stupid or subhuman to be allowed control of their own bodies.
I would have a lot more respect for antiabortion activists if they were even a quarter as concerned about kids once they were born as they are about controlling women's bodies. But no--the religious righters and conservatives who scream about abortion being murder are the same folks who think it's unpatriotic to suggest that every child has a right to food, shelter, and an education. Abortion is murder, but feeding kids or giving them the right to medical care is welfare and a waste of money. Let's face it--for just the smallest fraction of what we spend on "defense" (which, as Noam Chomsky points out, is actually Orwellian-named offense), we could feed all the hungry kids, get them medical care, and get a decent education to those most at risk of getting desperate enough to commit crime--i.e., the poor. Which in America means the non-white.
But antiabortion "activists" aren't concerned with kids once they're born. Then they're the mother's problem, and God help you if the economic war waged against mothers makes you poor enough to consider going on welfare. I can't think of anything more damaging to self-respect or more endemic in our culture than the war on women once they decide to have children, unless it's the war on women who want to control their own reproduction.
Which IS our right. Sorry, guys. The day men can possibly die from bearing a child is the day I grant them the right to dictate to us about abortion. Until then, it's none of their business. The old saw remains true: if men could give birth, abortion would be a sacrament, instead of "murder."
There. That's why I'm Madder Than Hell today. I decided long ago I wasn't going to take it anymore, but sometimes...
I really do wonder if it's worth fighting the uphill battle against the slew of asshole behavior in the world. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to keep fighting the good fight. There is no choice, if you're an honorable person.
So I'm heartsick and mad at once. What a combination.