Maine

Another post from The John echoing his post-2007 development of a disdain for incrementalism.

Ben Smith at Politico raises an interesting point:

President Obama resisted pressure from gay allies to comment on the Maine referendum, and Eric Holder has professed ignorance of it. If the same-sex marriage law is repealed, national gay groups and the White House will likely absorb another wave of grassroots anger for spending their time celebrating incremental victories while the big prize slips from their fingers.

Okay…

He basically just reposted the Politico piece.

And, okay…

I can’t really say I disagree with the analysis.

However, I’m still amazed at all of this newfound disdain for incrementalism – and I wonder how easily the newly-found will be conveniently misplaced once things get ugly regarding 2009’s ENDA.

Antecedents, Anyone?

From Amygdala, word that a church is going to hold an interesting event on Saturday: a bible-burning.  Apparently, everything other than the King James version is satanic – which, of course, leads me to ask: Does that include the 1500+ years of versions predating that one?

Amygdala has a bunch of interesting screen-captures of webpages that have miraculously disappeared.

Most worth the look, however, is this comment to the post:

I’ve always enjoyed the American Taliban. It’s like Jerry Springer on Survivor Island Dancing With the Rhythmless floating in a homemade balloon. With Krusty the Klown emceeing.

If Krusty is hopped up on Percodan, I’m in!

Addendum

and a question. Re:

That’s currently up over at the ‘gay’ side of The John’s AmericaBlog.

Now, I don’t have a problem with that analysis of The Blanche (or with the take on the situation over at Pam’s).

But I do have a question for the AmericaBlog crowd: Would you still be saying:

Weak. Very Weak.

…

It’s pathetic actually.

if her problem was only with gender identity and her vote was needed to get some version of ENDA in 2009 or 2010?

Yes – I’m sure its getting old to see people pointing out inconsistencies and hypocrisies.

Well…

Being excluded gets old too – but the feeling never quite goes away.

GENDA? GENDA? GENDA?

Oh…

GENDA isn’t gay marriage. 

Gov. David Paterson said there’s no reason why a number of non-budget issues shouldn’t be on the agenda for the upcoming legislative session, including a vote on legalizing gay marriage.“Well we have a number of issues that were not resolved at the end of the session because of the upheaval in the Senate, and since we are having a special session, I don’t see any reason not to continue to address them, including public authority reform, which we’re trying to work out,” he said.

Silly me – I thought that something that has been left unresolved since 2002 (I won’t mention SONDA by name) might take precedence.

But, as I noted, GENDA isn’t gay marriage – so it doesn’t exist.

When ‘We’ Means ‘You’

From HuffPo:

A Goldman Sachs International adviser defended compensation in the finance industry as his company plans a near-record year for pay, saying the spending will help boost the economy. “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all,” Brian Griffiths, who was a special adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, said yesterday at a panel discussion hosted by St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

‘We’, of course, means ‘you.’

A question for Mr. Griffiths: In college, in between learning how to make the obscenely – and already unjustifiably – wealthy even more so on both accounts, did you – or anyone at Gold-filled Sacks – take any courses which, in any way, how well the nobility ‘tolerated’ the French Revolution?

I’m just askin’.

Anything to Deny How History Actually Has Taken Shape

Rex Wockner on the aftermath of the Obama speech:

The praise for Obama inside HRC’s fancy dinner and the denunciations of Obama in the streets of D.C. seemed to unequivocally confirm the split that’s emerged in the gay community in the aftermath of the passage of Proposition 8 in California.

Confim the split?

I have no qualms with that.

Its his ‘day one’ that I’m calling him out on.  

Once again, we have a gay man unable to acknowledge when ‘The T’ started a movement. 

The anti-Prop 8 protests were confirmation of the split that HRC, Barney Frank and John Aravosis triggered in 2007 over trans-inclusion in ENDA – and I’m being charitable by saying that the anti-Prop 8 protests were a confirmation of that.  Yes, there was plenty of overlap among the vocal anti-Prop 8 folks and the anti-Aravosisists, but the anti-Prop 8 protests largely ignored how the entire notion of ‘gay marriage primacy’ (1) is one largely concocted by the big-money, don’t-give-a-damn-about-the-street-queers interests that comprise HRC, and (2) pretty much erases transsexual legitimacy.

Forty-Six Years Ago Today

This will be a brief time-out from the aftermath of the embarassment that was HRC’s Weekend in Patienceville.

I’ve occasionally mentioned my friend, the late Dee McKellar, who died in 1997 – just as I was beginning my final year in law school.  I inherited two of her prized possessions: a darling kitty named Faith (who, 12+ years later is still alive and purring, keeping my mom company back in Houston) and boxes and boxes of photos that Dee took over the course of her life (mostly long prior to her transition from Dave to Dee.)

One of my many unrealized goals has been to publish a collection of her work.  Some of it was random snapshots, but much of it was top-notch art.  One reason that the published collection hasn’t come to fruition has been money; another is time.  Even now I haven’t fully explored all of the boxes of slides and negatives. 

With my niece moving in with us this summer, I had to do a lot of re-shuffling of ’stuff’ within the house (translated: my office became my niece’s bedroom, and the dining room became my makeshift office.) In the process of all of this, some of the boxes of Dee’s photos came out into the light of day again – and, just to avoid doing the many things I need to be doing, I prowled through one of them this weekend.

A box of slides (Kodachome, Ektachrome and, yes, even Technicolor).

Dee meticulously divided them up by subject.

One group was labled “Boston” and chronicled the construction of a building over what looked to be the course of a year.

Another group, however, stopped me in my tracks this morning.  They’re not the best photos I’ve ever seen – be it hers, mine or anyone elses.

The key, however, was the label: Canoe Trip 10-12-63.

So, as a break from everything, here are four random instants from the life of an old friend (and, if anyone is wondering, no – the woman is not Dee; I have no idea who she is.)

Forty-six years ago today – probably somewhere in Massachusetts.

 

We still miss you Dee.

Now…

Back to your regularly scheduled cynicism.

The Chicago Thing

Of Chicago being chunked out of the 2016 Olympic derby on the first go-round, Pam comments:

Chicago and Tokyo are out of the running despite the President flying to Copenhagen on behalf. And out on the first round. Chicago was never in it to win it.

I don’t know about that.  I’m not in the Chicago TV market, but I’m able to listen to Chicago radio every day.  Pam could be right – but I think there’s a bigger problem afoot – nationally and internationally.

Many viewed the Chicago 2016 bid as a way that post-Bush America could crawl out from under the hoodie of fascism that the country had involuntrarily worn from 2001-09 – and, whilst cloaked in, waged war and acted obnoxiously abroad and even more obnoxiously domestically – and have a chance to make real all of the images of America that, though we know they were actually a lie to most Americans, weren’t so far from reality as to be unable to be made real.

I think that this is the signal that the rest of the world is sick of America and wants this nation to disappear – even with its ability to go from an unelected neo-noble white christianist evangelical warmongering zealot president to an elected president who is a non-white child of an immigrant who made his own way in a nation rigged against non-whites.

Translated: The damage that our self-important fake political nobility did to this nation whilst not giving a shit about what we did to the rest of the world – and how we did it – while an equally-illegitimate economic nobility carried on a decade-long financial orgy is too much to repair.

The rest of the world is watching as we – collectively the diseased bully who goes to church on Sunday to sing of love only to purposely run over puppies, kitties and even humans while driving home to his now-decaying mansion on the hill that was built with slave labor and stolen money – rot while clinging to the only thing we have left: the weapons of religious fear that we use to limit and even destroy the lives of our own people – and the radioactive weapons with which we can, from the imaginary comfort of our rat-infested, mold-covered formerly-Ward Cleaver-signature dens, with the push of a single button kill anyone and everyone who dares even to speak the truth of what we have become, much less treat us with the disdain that we’ve earned over the course of this first decade of the 21st Century.

And to think…

I haven’t even gone to see Capitalism: A Love Story yet today.

Anything to Avoid Rectifying the Political Hate Crime Known as SONDA

From Queer Channel Media:

The New York State Senate’s only openly gay lawmaker said his chamber could vote on the proposed same-sex marriage bill later this month — and he’s optimistic it will win approval.

And every half of every couple that takes advantage of it will continue to be able to rely on the product of New York’s incremental progress lie – sometimes known as SONDA – to discriminate against trans people if they so choose.

The World of The John: The Only Thing That ‘Incremental Progress’ Should Apply to is Trans Employment Anti-Discrimination Law

All who can be honest with themselves should acknowledge seeing this one coming.

The John on The Healthcare Insanity:

Obama is leaning towards dropping the public option, even though it remains popular in the polls.

Then there’s this:

Sources expect the president to emphasize the message: If Congress passes something now, it will serve as a foundation to pass further reform in the future.

Yes, better luck next time. And when exactly will that future be? The next time we win control of the White House, and both houses of Congress, while the Republicans have been absolutely decimated after having destroyed the economy and the military, and our president has a 70% approval rating that he refuses to use?

It’s rather amazing that President Obama is now suggesting that we should wait until next time, when he hasn’t even tried this time yet. They are going to split the baby in half on every issue for the rest of their presidency, and then tell the folks they betrayed to take it or leave it, because at least it’s better than the Republicans would have done.

Hmmmmmmm….

I seem to recall no problem whatsoever in The John land regarding splitting a certain legislative baby in half and having those who were betrayed stuck with even less than ”take it or leave it.”  In 2007, there was no option to take it.  We were forced to take it.  Our only option was to squeal or not to squeal while it was happening.

I remember a time when Democrats aspired to do good, rather than simply aspiring to be better than the Worst Republican President Ever.

I remember a time when The John should have said that – and it was just about two years ago.

Of course, we’re not even to the real irony yet.

If there was anything that The John – or anyone – should be willing to accept ‘incremental progress’ on, its healthcare.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I think he and I are actually on the same page with respect to abject disappointment over the performance of the Darling Dems on healthcare.

However…

If Obama and the Dem Weaselship cave to their Corporatist overlords, the result will indeed by shitty – but it will be shitty across the board.  No – I’m not asseriting that no one will be worse off as a result of any Rahm-promise; I’m assuming a lot of people will be.

But in terms of classes of people affected, it will not be arbitrarily confined to a class.

There will be no hirdwiring into law of crap such as:  ’no decent option for insurance for women’ or ‘no decent option for insurance for Jews’ or ‘no decent option for insurance for those of Asian ancestry’ or ‘no decent option for insurance for gays’ or ‘no decent option for insurance for transsexuals.’

In short, whether the ‘no decent option for insurance’ angel arrives at your door will be the same crapshoot that it is now.

Its a form of ‘incremental progress’ that is incrementally bad for everyone.  There’s always the potential that a minor illness will destroy you financially – but there’s no guarantee that it will happen.

You know…

Like it is now regarding federal anti-discrimination protection.  If you’re gay or trans, there’s always the potential that a new supervisor where you work will decide to rid the jobsite of queers, potentially destroying you professionally and financially – but there’s no guarantee that it will happen.

But under the ENDA that The John was willing to settle for two years ago, if you’re gay or trans, there would still always the potential that a new supervisor where you work might decide to rid the jobsite of queers, which potentially could destroy you professionally and financially – and there would be no guarantee that it would happen, but if you were gay there would be a guarantee that, if it was to happen, you would be able to fight back in court…

and if you were transsexual there would be a guarantee that, if it was to happen, you would not be able to fight back in court.

The John’s shitty 2007 ENDA would not have been shitty across the board – it would have been shitty for one (de-)enumerated class of people.

‘Incremental progress’ is fine and dandy for The John when he knows that it will not negatively affect him.

But, with healthcare, there’s always a chance that the lie that is ’incremental progress’ will be laid bare and exposed for all the world to see on his doorstep.

And that, apparently, just will not do for The John.