My Video Deconstruction
Monday, November 5, 2007

I struggled for a long time about why, whether, and how to post my Proverbs 6:16 video in the Jesus and Teh Gay post. I talked it over in advance with my Beloved, who serves as an unfailing "integrity compass" for me when I am flailing in the deep waters of my own intentions and desires. I also asked a blogger for whom I have penultimate respect to preview it and give me feedback.

Here were some of the questions I asked myself (and then asked my Beloved) -- (plus questions that my Beloved asked me that I hadn’t thought about yet) -- before I posted that video:

1. What is my intention in posting this video at all?
2. If someone else posted a similar video about me, would I be mad/upset or feel that they had represented me unfairly?
3. Do I think this video will actually change anything, or am I simply succumbing to my “wit-demonz”?
4. Am I using tactics which, if used by someone who I consider an “adversary”, I would think were incomplete in presenting a “whole idea” or "whole picture"?
5. Does this video fit with my basic principles and ethics?
   

In truth, I haven’t answered all these questions for myself, and I opted to post the video and “let the shit fly where it may”.

I do have some answers to some of these questions though -- answers that I would never have had, if I hadn't asked these questions, or had them asked of me.

Question #1: What is my intention in posting this video at all?

My intention in posting the video is for people to understand that there are many, many, many interpretations and translations of the Bible, and that one of the problems with basing an institutional, legislative, or governmental structure on such a freely-interpreted religious text is that the text itself can be used to condemn or promote nearly any behavior that you want to either condemn or promote, a theme I've touched on before.

Question #2: If someone else posted a similar video about me, would I be mad/upset or feel that they had represented me unfairly?

I know that I am willing to be held accountable to the principles which I espouse.

When I breach my espoused principles, I'm willing to have others point this out to me, and I am willing to make apologies and amends if I think I've breached these principles. So, in that sense, I don't think that it's outside my own ethics to ask people who proclaim themselves as "Bible-believing Christians" to align with the things that they profess.

If I had claimed myself as an adherent to a particular text such as the Bible, and I weren't living in accordance with that text, I'd actually WANT people to point this out to me.

Question #3: Do I think this video will actually change anything, or am I simply succumbing to my “wit-demonz”?

I have found that I do have the hope that this video will change something.

I don't think it will (necessarily) change the minds of "bible-thumpers" (but I can hope, can't I?). However, I believe that many people in US culture are affected by "vestigial biblical overflow" (VBO) without realizing it.

I personally know "inerrant-word-of-god" type Christians who condemn homosexuality, consign women to subservient roles, and entertain a host of other judgments, and who do so because they believe that they are required to do so by the Bible -- whether or not their own actions are consistent with the actual mandates of the Bible, whether or not their interpretations of what the Bible says match up with literal translations, and whether or not their life experience with gays, women, etc. give them other, observable facts that might contradict what they are "supposed" to think/do/judge.

Because it is their religion, and I respect the right of any human to believe as they wish to believe, all I can say is: "OK, so that's the path they've chosen."

However, I think that there are people who don't claim Christianity as their religion, who are nonetheless affected by VBO.

These may be people who were "raised Christian", but who had deep, troubling questions about the obvious contradictions that they observed in the religion of their upbringing. (For me, this manifested very early on, as I witnessed the Vietnam War playing out on TV and compared it to the "Thou Shalt Not Kill" that I received at church, Vacation Bible School, Sunday School, and Catechism classes.)

These may be people who were raised with no particular religious focus, or in an entirely different religion from Christianity, but who were nonetheless steeped in the Judeo-Christian background noise that saturates this country's media, holidays, and basic cultural assumptions.

Example: Many of us grew up with the notion that being homosexual, or getting divorced, -- or being different in any way -- is "bad" and "wrong" (or at the very least, "undesirable" or "strange"). But how many of us were actively actually encouraged to ask the question: "Why?"

In fact, if you grew up like me, you were actively encouraged to NEVER ask the question: "Why is it bad/wrong to be homosexual/get divorced/be different? How does this actually harm anyone?"

So, at a time when there are pundits and celebrities throwing around Biblical justifications for oppression and bigotry, and bullying others with a book, I do want to post information about the many other possible interpretations that are based on literal translation of this ancient religious text.

So that people can, perhaps, begin to see how VBO might be affecting them, and how arbitrary and numerous and varied the interpretations actually are.

Question #4: Am I using tactics which, if used by someone who I consider an “adversary”, I would think were incomplete in presenting a “whole idea” or "whole picture"?

Ah, and now I come to the thorny problem.

The honest answer, when I ask myself this question is: "Yes, I think I used tactics which present a partial picture rather than a whole context."

I find a million justifications rising in my mind as to why this is OK -- but none of them really satisfy me.

I find this maddening sometimes.

In truth, I don't think that I can ever provide a complete picture. In five or ten years, the images included in that video will be virtually meaningless.

Which is the same problem I have with the Bible, or the Koran, or the Sutras -- that we're trying to create a living code of behavior from a book or writings that were pertinent thousands of years in the past.

If I'm honest with myself, this video doesn't "sit" quite right with me yet.

Yes, I think it is "fair" (if that's the word) in terms of asking people who claim to be Christian to adhere to their own religious texts.

However, if I think about how little most people actually know about the Bible, it's possible that the even the espoused Christians portrayed may not actually know that much about the text they claim to be espousing. This seems pretty evident to me when I see something like Ann Coulter claiming that Christians are "perfected Jews" (a concept which does not appear anywhere in the New Testament, as far as I can read).

I guess the biggest difficulty I have with the video is that it points attention toward these people, while I would really like to point my attention elsewhere -- to more expansive vistas.

Which brings me to:

Question #5: Does this video fit with my basic principles and ethics?

No -- and specifically, it flies in the face of one principle I'm working with a lot lately: What you resist, persists.

And another principle which I work on daily: Don't preach to the choir -- if you have a beef, take it to the person you have a beef with. (This is a bit more problematic for me, as I don't know how I'm going to manage a heart-to-heart with Bush, Cheney, Limbaugh, Coulter, Gonzales, or Rumsfeld -- but then again, you never know!)

I learned a lot in this process though, and I think that's the real point of any experience.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 10:45 PM 3 comments  

Labels: Look How Clever I Am, Mainstream Media, Personal Ethics, Queers, Religion, Spirituality

Ipecac Soup for the Soul
Wednesday, October 10, 2007

I've been trying to figure out an effective strategy for dealing with the absolutely astounding out-pouring of venom from the likes of O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin, etal..

I'm a firm believer in the concept that every challenge that arises in my life is a puzzle for me to figure out, and I choose pronoia to the best of my ability, opting for "the suspicion that the universe is a conspiracy on my behalf".

Honestly, however, the recent bilious overflow from my not-favorite pundits involving: severely injured children from working-class families being portrayed as deadbeats, children being blamed for their own torture, soldiers characterized as phonies because they had the temerity to exercise their freedom of speech, and Jewish people portrayed as needing to "be perfected" -- and the resultant cluster-fuck of hateful commentary (which has scorched my retinal ganglia right back to the visual cortex because I was stupid enough to actually visit some of the gall-bladderesque websites from whence this bile emerged) -- is challenging my pronoic capacity to its limit right now.

What to do, what to do?

How do I solve this puzzle?

I want to retain my integrity and ethics no matter what faces me. How then, do I deal with someone who seems to have absolutely no concern for ethics or integrity? How do I have an honorable engagement with someone who has no honor? How do I "work with them", if they are willing to pull out the vilest bilge, lie, cheat, steal, edit tape, and redact testimony? How do I have a discussion with someone who is completely dedicated to "being right" rather than having a discussion?

Today, Michelle Malkin (I will not link to her blog, I will not, will not, will not, will not, will not link to her blog) wrote about . . . . " the continuing campaign to silence the right".

Apparently, Malkin wants us to feel sorry for us.

Funny thing is -- I actually do feel sorry for her. And O'Reilly. And Limbaugh. And Coulter. Et Al.

I feel sorry for them because I know that, as I listen to their broadcasts and read their writing (and the commentary that follows these communications), I can feel a distinct toxicity that pervades my body, mind, and consciousness, and I believe that they probably feel this too (probably more keenly, as the authors of such a toxic flow) -- whether they are conscious of it or not.

To my mind, this denied toxicity would account for all the loofahs, pain-killers, anorexia, venom, lack of logic, hypocrisy, double-standards, and the continuous, insane, performance-art renditions of "do as I say, not as I do".

But even knowing that doesn't really answer my question -- how do I solve the puzzle of "If I've welcomed this into my reality and I don't like it, what is the response that will change my reality?"

I really want to solve this puzzle.

I don't think that complete avoidance is the answer, because, truthfully, I haven't actually found the strength of will in myself to completely avoid it.

Thankfully, I think I've discovered a hint in the many, many posts and comments that I've read recently that begin with, or include these words: "I think I just threw up in my mouth a little".

Yes, I think that Soul-Puke is the answer.

If I ingested something toxic into my digestive tract, my good old discerning stomach would bring it back up my alimentary canal and save my life and health in the process.

So, from now on, when I read, hear, or hear of any of this toxic, inane crap, I'm going to take a big dose of Ipecac Soup for the Soul and just have a spew. I'm not going to try to restrain it. I'm not going to hold back. I'm going to say things like: "This is completely unethical and lacks integrity and it's un-Constitutional and hypocritical and if you say you're a "Christian" and do shit like this you are going to burn in a hell of your own karmic invention and furthermore - - I WILL NOT STOMACH IT!

There. I feel better now.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 8:50 PM 2 comments  

Labels: Bad Behavior (Mine), Mainstream Media

If You're Not White, You Must Be Black
Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Today, after reading Melissa McEwan's post about this incredibly racist remark made by a gov. official in charge of protecting minority voting rights . . .

"It's probably true that among those who don't [have Photo ID], it's primarily elderly persons. And that's a shame. Of course...our society is such that minorities don't become elderly. The way that white people do. They die first." - John Tanner, Chief of Civil Rights Section, Voting Unit, U.S. DoJ

. . . . I quietly mopped my brains off my monitor, and went hunting some stats -- as I was almost certain that not only was this remark racist . . . . . but factually incorrect.

I recollected that Hispanic and Asian populations actually had longer life expectancy than whites in the US (turns out I was right about that) -- but as I sought credible evidence to support my post , a funny thing happened -- I found that it was very, very (no, like VERY!) hard to find detailed life expectancy statistics that display information on all the racial minorities in our nation.

Nearly all the "Life Expectancy by Race" data available online at the Census Bureau and the CDC presented data only about "Whites" and "Blacks" (subdivided by gender in these two races.).

Much as it may shock Bill O'Reilly and John Tanner (our champion of civil rights at the DOJ), the minority races that comprise 31% of our population are not a monolithic group of African Americans who keel over early after screaming for their m-f-ing ice tea.

Our national racial profile is more like the chart at right, with Asians and Hispanics (who outlive white people by 3-6 years) comprising 16% of our population, and Native American women outliving white women by an average of 2 years.

And, of the minority populations that do not typically live as long as whites, (Black men and women, and Native American men), there are vast disparities in life-expectancy depending on where these people live, and their income levels (just google "Eight Americas" to see what I mean) -- cuz, you know, sometimes . . . . (I'm not stating anything definitive here -- just positing a theory) . . . . just sometimes, being kidnapped and forced into slavery, enduring nearly complete racial genocide, and then dealing with several centuries of ongoing crap and present-day institutionalized oppression and endless betrayal and broken promises can be like, kind of stressful, ya know? 'Jus sayin'.

Back to my post title, however. If Tanner's comment didn't clue you in to just how deeply racism is institutionalized in our country, I want to impress upon you the fact that this man (who is, supposedly, assuring the civil rights of minorities in our nation's elections) took a statistic about one race (an appalling statistic) and used it as a broad and sloppy brush -- to justify the further marginalization of anyone who is not white!!!!!!! (Here, let me add a few more outraged exclamation points to that,) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To me, when I plumb the underlying racist assumptions demonstrated in this kind of comment (can't you just hear the not-so-faint echoes of "whites are fundamentally stronger and healthier". . . "people of color don't really matter anyway"?), I honestly ask myself: "What year is it again?"

The 31% of our nation who, according to Tanner, "don't become elderly the way white people do" currently outnumber the dwindling number of people who still support the president.

So, if 29% of The People can keep the Homicider Decider in office, why can't 31% of The People (and their myriad allies) get rid of asshat, racist, government flunkies, "pundits", and elected officials?

(Oh, and while we're at it, how about addressing and amending the factors that decrease the life-span of Black and Native Americans?)

I'm ready to take on the task. Are you?

Posted byPortlyDyke at 11:05 AM 4 comments  

Labels: Mainstream Media, Privilege, Racism

Do. Not. Even. Get. Me. Started. -- OR -- Harnessing Outrage
Thursday, September 20, 2007

Do not even get me started on some shit, cause you can't finish the fury I have.

I will now parse a sweeping generalization, using my mad programming skillz:

IF:
You're reading this blog and your head is not exploding because you think I'm a perverted, radical danger to society.
ANDIF:
You follow the mainstream media on a daily basis.
THEN:
Regardless of your race, color, creed, political party, or gender/sexual orientation, you probably feel really pissed off at least once a week by something in the "news".

Currently, I'm pissed off that the Atchison story still hasn't made the "top story" page of Google News, even though the perp attempted suicide in his cell this morning. Very pissed off.

In truth, though, I've been pissed off at the MSM with such frequency since the turn of the millennium (probably even longer) that I worry that I'm simply getting used to it.

Human beings are incredibly adaptable. A teacher of mine once said: "The mind can make 'normal' out of anything". I have found that this is true, and it is sometimes a little scary to me how quickly we can come to accept something that would have had us foaming at the mouth in the past.

Case in point: The "Homosexuality is a Danger To Society" Meme. I had the privilege to come out as a lesbian in the late 70's. During that period of time, and throughout most of the 80's, this meme, while still present in fundamentalist and ultra-conservative circles, was generally recognized as an ultra-conservative stance in the MSM, and in most forms of public discourse.

If Ann Coulter had called Al Gore "a total fag" on NBC in 1985, my guess is that there would have been a shit-storm of protest. Last year, it was pretty much just a blip on the screen.

The mind can make normal out of anything.

Thing is, I don't want to "make normal" out of institutionalized homophobia, racism, or misogyny. I don't want to "make normal" out of rape, child abuse, war, famine, crumbling infrastructure, or plain old intentional cruelty.

I do not want to just accept that "that's the way things are". Furthermore, I will not accept it.

I, for one, do not believe that human beings, as a species, are "getting worse", or that cruelty, disregard for the rights of others, and oppression are just "human nature". I know too many wonderful, smart, committed to human beings to draw that conclusion. I know too many fabulous homo sapiens who are kind and loving in spite of the abuse the world has dealt them. In fact, of all the bones I have to pick with "organized" Christianity (and they are many), I think that the concept of Original Sin may actually be the biggest.

Frankly, I resent the MSM for continually portraying my species as an assortment of slime-balls who just can't help themselves. I don't deny that slime-balls exist, and in truth, I do want to know where they are, and what they are doing, but I want those stories presented in the following light: This is unacceptable. This is NOT "just human nature". This is not just "the way things are". This is an individual making a choice to act in a way that is un-just/cruel/dis-respectful, and we will put a stop to it.

And I want equal time for the love, the kindness, the intelligence, and the grace of "humans behaving goodly".

I think I have a legitimate beef with the MSM. See, I really wouldn't mind if the MSM had big banners and slogans that said: "All the News That Will Scare the Crap Out of You and Make You Wish You Could Teleport to Another Planet!" or "We Just Want to Sell Some Shit!"

It's when I read (or hear, complete with tump-tumpta-tumptaaa-ta! theme music) slogans like "We're On Your Side!" or "All the News YOU need!" or "Your ONLY source for fair and balanced news coverage!" that I turn into a cranky bitch from hades.

Because I believe that if you say you are going to do something, people have a right to hold you to account for it.

What's at the top of the Google News reports as I type this: The Senate has voted to condemn MoveOn.org (#1), and "Democratic Bundler Charged with Fraud". I have yet to read a single article that cites the fact that John DR Atchison is a Republican. I have yet to read a single article on the top stories page about this US Justice Dept. attorney who not only broke the very laws he is supposed to be prosecuting, but did it in a way that is so shocking that even the most conservative conservative could not defend it.

I will harness my outrage. I will protest, and write emails and letters, and I will confront my brother-in-law every single time I hear something homophobic come out of his mouth. I will stop to help people who need help, and I will not spend money at businesses who support the MSM to slant the news.

I will not "make normal" out of this.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 3:05 PM 2 comments  

Labels: Mainstream Media, Rape Culture, Truth

In Case You Had a Single Illusion Left
Tuesday, September 18, 2007

About the Mainstream Media, Check out my Googles from this morning:



First, the smashing coverage of the John Kerry tasering incident.

452 articles! Way to chase a story, MSM!

And then the coverage on the Republican Attorney from the Pensacola US Justice office who arrived in Detroit with a Dora the Explorer doll, hoop earrings, and a jar of vaseline, planning to rape a 5 year old girl.

21 articles. Hmmm.

Note that the headlines do not ever use the word "rape", opting for the kinder, gentler term "child sex".
Note to MSM: It is impossible to "have sex" with a five year old. It is always rape. Always.

This story doesn't appear in "top stories" -- I had to dig for it within Google News. Before the arguments begin about how this does not represent slanted coverage by the MSM, let me just pre-refute them:

Anticipated Argument #1: "But Kerry is a main player. Atchison is a nobody attorney from Florida. Of course the story isn't going to get the same coverage!"

Refutation: Bullshit. "Nobodys" who are involved with child molestation make the Top Stories page all the time. Even more so if they are people of color, or poor, or uneducated, or mentally ill.

And as far as what the MSM considers "important news" -- today, a story about a city manager who got lost while hiking was more of a "top story" than the fact that a fucking representative of our justice department was arrested for coldly calculating to rape a child.

Anticipated Argument #2: "But he hasn't been convicted. Innocent until proven guilty is a part of what makes our country great!"

Refutation: Tell that to the prisoners in Guantanamo.

Anticipated Argument #3: "It was entrapment."

Refutation: Don't even start that shit with me. And while you're busy shutting the fuck up, take a look at the "cheerleading" program at the youth group that he helped with.

Based on recent experience, I think that the Republican party should be stripped of its right to use the phrase "Family Values" ever again, in any context.

Regular readers here will know why this particular story strikes close to home for me. I hope this man is put in prison for the rest of his life. However, I also hope that there is massive media coverage of it, because it highlights something I've always known: While the MSM rants on about sex offenders in the community and Cosmopolitan magazine warns us of the 5 places that sexual predators search for women, the same media ignores the fact that one of the most dangerous places for children to be is probably with some "upstanding" guy who constantly touts his family values, publicly and politically, and who is trusted because he is in a position of authority and adheres to a political party that claims the mantle of moral rectitude.

I noticed that when Melissa blogged about this over at Shakesville yesterday, there was suddenly a flock of commenters that I had never seen before. If they show up here, I'll consider that they are Republican flacks madly searching for Atchison references to hush up.

This is a rape scandal that conservatives cannot possibly justify with "entrapment" arguments, or ridiculous bullshit about being afraid of black men in the park -- its a crime so heinous that they must simply try to get us to ignore it. (Check out the "Look! A kitty!" tactics that were attempted over on the Shakesville thread.)

Try it over here, and I will go all avenging angel on your ass.

Posted byPortlyDyke at 10:30 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Mainstream Media, Rape Culture, Truth