After the tragic day of September 11, 2001, many in Afghanistan thought that, with the ensuing overthrow of the Taliban, they might finally see some light, some justice and progress. But it was not to be. The Afghan people have been betrayed once again by those who are claiming to help them. More than seven years after the U.S. invasion, we are still faced with foreign occupation and a U.S.-backed government filled with warlords who are just like the Taliban. Instead of putting these ruthless murderers on trial for war crimes, the United States and its allies placed them in positions of power, where they continue to terrorize ordinary Afghans.

You may be shocked to hear this, because the truth about Afghanistan has been hidden behind a smoke screen of words and images carefully crafted by the United States and its NATO allies and repeated without question by the Western media.

You may have been led to believe that once the Taliban was driven from power, justice returned to my country. Afghan women like me, voting and running for office, have been held up as proof that the U.S. military has brought democracy and women’s rights to Afghanistan.

But it is all a lie, dust in the eyes of the world.

From the book A Woman Among Warlords by Malalai Joya.

I just found out she is speaking today in NYC. Too late to see her, argh!

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• Michelle Malkin, your assertion that getting health insurance coverage is merely about “priorities” is ridiculously insulting. I will tell you about MY priorities. In prioritizing my mental health, I can not afford to pay for the care of possibly serious physical ailments. Those of your ilk have told me that if it were really so important, I’d get a second job….. Possibly aggravating said physical ailment further in order to PAY FOR TREATMENT.
• “Well, you shouldn’t be at the doctor so much” – Another ridiculously ignorant, flippant statement made by people who have health insurance and don’t want to see the system change…. Obviously you’ve never met numerous coworkers of mine who have serious physical ailments that require biweekly doctors visits and costly tests. “Priorities” will also get them nowhere, as insurance agencies refuse to cover them. Getting second jobs in their condition is NOT POSSIBLE.
• “Personal responsibility” doesn’t make a WHIT OF DIFFERENCE IF YOU SIMPLY CAN’T AFFORD TO PAY!!!
• Justifying the care you get and its quality based on your “worth to society” in terms of how much you make, and justifying others NOT receiving the quality care they need because they don’t make enough – you are scum.
• Your beloved “liberal media” is out there smearing the Canadian system and the idea of single payer health care because it has a vested, CORPORATE interest in the status quo. THIS IS NOT ABOUT LIBERAL OR CONSERVATIVE. It’s about seven corporations owning our news outlets, looking out for CORPORATE INTERESTS.
• I consider myself to be, at the very least, a SOCIALIST. Yes, I said a super scary word that Americans will forever live in fear of without educating themselves about what it TRULY IS. So while you spout your misinformed propaganda about the US “turning into Russia or China” please understand that systems like Canada’s are NOT SOCIALIST.
• While I advocate a system like Canada’s, I do believe 100% that the US government WILL fuck up this health care reform because the system is too compromised by lobbyists – insurance and pharmaceuticals who don’t give a shit about the human factor, and will count every profit making penny despite the person on the other end who needs medical care. As much as I’d like to think this will ease a huge burden for me in the future, I HIGHLY DOUBT IT.
• For a “Christian Nation”, as many of your ilk like to claim, the current system is certainly the embodiment of Jesus’ principles! But Socialism, and making sure people’s needs are met is godless….. quite a switch.
• For once, the advice to “get out if you don’t like it” sounds like a GREAT idea. It would be nice to go to a place that’s informed by policy and citizens that CARE ABOUT HUMAN BEINGS AND NOT ABOUT PROFITS.

I know it’s difficult to believe that the world is not always so neat and tidy, that it doesn’t fit into a view that uses buzzwords like “priorities” and “personal responsibility.” I am tired of the blinding stupidity and ignorance, the mulish refusal to think critically. I am also tired of the selfishness and the “fuck you, I’ve got mine” mentality that permeates America like rot. Fuck terrorists – we’re doing an amazing job of destroying this country on our own.

MYTHBUSTING CANADIAN HEALTHCARE

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Aside from a sprinkling of leaders and 1 or 2 “great people” – who are male bodies anyway – and despite being 50% of the population I should be happy we just got that, I’m told. Well, I’ve been advocating flipping the ratios of government offices so that we have a majority of women instead of men for a long time – nothing wrong with that, right? My overall point being that women constantly get that we should be happy with whatever bone someone throws us, but to reverse the situation would be utterly ridiculous and inconceivable. And I suppose you can say that politics is such a different thing in comparison to representation in a game, but that’s the problem – women are so rarely represented in an equal manner ANYWHERE. And we’re expected to just be happy with what we’ve got. We live in the man channel baby! (Chick flick = film with more than two women. Chick books = books about women. Some sort of equal representation of experiences might dilute testosterone or something.)

I’m cutting the angry part. Read at your own risk.

First story of the day I see, Rihanna was beaten to a bloody pulp and left unconscious in the street by a no good piece of shit. (Kanye West – “Give him a break.” At least I know you’re a no good piece of shit too!) But of course she must have done something to provoke him. Yeah. Let’s continue to be a world full of domestic violence and rape apologists because then we’ll never actually have to address the problem – abusers and rapists rather than the women they beat and rape and murder. Let’s keep letting these men off the hook in favor of concentrating on the woman’s actions.

Add to that the Muslim woman who was beheaded by her husband because she filed for divorce. (Why she stays – often a woman is seen as “stupid” for staying and continuing to take abuse, except that violence escalates when she makes the move to leave, and this is often when he will kill her.) Of course, that’s one story from today, and there are always more and more and more both here and around the globe. I want to know what a world looks like where we take violence against women seriously.

In a similar vein, something that has been pissing me off for a long time – also filed in the “men use religion for all sorts of heinous things” and “women are chattel” categories – Christian nutjobs who deny women the right to leave an abusive husband because “it doesn’t say so in the Bible.” I’m looking at you Rick Warren, and all your small brained misogynistic cronies. Take your (written by men, surprise surprise) Bible and shove it.

Also, the Rock for Life cretins who believe it’s their right as patriarchal Christian men to restrict a woman’s access to abortion and birth control. I was also horrified to see them glorify women who opt not to have abortions despite their lives being in danger. Remember, the cells growing in your body are far more important than you. To say otherwise would actually grant you person-hood and that’s only reserved for men.

You can all take your patriarchy and your religion elsewhere. In fact, go to El Salvador where women are put in jail for 30-50 years if they have an abortion, and you can all hold hands and sing Kumbaya till someone has an unwanted pregnancy (In part due to your mind-boggling restrictions on birth control. Get me a hanger. The constant effort to control the reproductive and sexual lives of women enrages me. But hey, FREE VIAGRA!).

I planned to write a longer post on all these things – Rick Warren, El Salvador and Rock for Life men, but the whole thing just gets me so angry that I really haven’t been able to untwist my brain from the knots they give me.

Speaking of patriarchal Christian men, how can I not mention Mike Huckabee, a man who freed a rapist despite victim’s pleas and advocates that women submit to their husbands. Yeah, I’d certainly trust you to take care of me! “Do the Right Thing” my ass. Please return to whatever hole you came from. Whatever God has in store for you, I hope she makes it good. Eye for an eye and all that, right? Your presidential campaign videos, in which you sat around with Chuck Norris (won’t even start with him) with a cowboy motif (representative of a genocidal era) and talked about how we need a real man for president was truly sickening. You need to get hit with the clue bat, sit down and STFU.

Last but not least, Cara blogged about a Japanese computer game called “RapeLay” in which “The entire objective of the game is to rape women with varying levels of violence — sometimes stalking them first, sometimes using gang rape scenarios, and sometimes forcing them into abortions afterward.” And here I was disgusted at the level of rape and misogyny in Conan the Barbarian and GTA games!

The point isn’t “oh my god, this game is going to create rapists.” The point is “oh my god, this game is going to make rapists think that people are on their side.” Which, of course, too many people actually are already, through their rape apologist jokes and excuses. The premise of the game reinforces the idea of rape as okay and not a big deal. It reinforces the idea that women exist for the sexual pleasure and abuse of men. And the preview of the game Boing Boing, which does not include any actual rapes but only attempted rapes, also ends up reinforcing the dangerous and stereotypical idea of your “real” rape victim who always cries, calls out in distress and overall completely breaks down at actual violence or threats of it.

This post has a lot more vitriol than I usually like to display. I’ve been feeling angry and sad over the pieces of news all day, and I’m just angry at the world right now. People are sick. In blocking these things out for the last few months I seem to have lost a degree of numbness. I am going back to Civ IV. Let me know when the financial crisis has blown the world up for good.

ETA: Twisty’s post sort of restored a little bit of my sanity.

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And Sean!! We love to give!!!

Well, that makes me feel so much better about you, considering you felt the need to backhand people who are losing their homes in this crisis. I’m so much more convinced of your sterling character now.

(Proceed to some drivel about how if Obama gets elected it will destroy her “giving spirit.”)

I was pointed to this NPR program – The Giant Pool of Money – as a means to try and better understand what’s going on right now, and I have to say, so far I am really liking it.

Naomi Klein has also been writing about this, and I’m a little disturbed since I’m about halfway through the Shock Doctrine – ESSENTIAL reading and rather frightening.
Free Market Ideology is Far from Finished
Now is the Time to Resist Wall Street’s Shock Doctrine

EDIT 9/24: This was posted today at What About Our Daughters – Very good video about stopping the bailout!

EDIT 9/25: In and around Wall Street and Washington at Toban Black – A chronology of quotes pulled from a large number of articles on the subject.

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