Saturday, March 17, 2012

The GOP’s Bizarre Quarrel with Reality


The hornet's nest that the GOP has stirred up through its anti-woman agenda continues to swarm and swirl around delusional Republicans who refuse to accept the reality that it is no longer the 1950's and that women - and gays for that matter - are not going to go willingly back to that era dominated by white males with all others playing subservient or even invisible roles. This inability to cope with objective reality likely arises in part from the fact that Christianists, who by definition, reject objective reality, and ignorance embracing elements of society now form the base of the GOP. One has to wonder when these self-centered white males will wake up. Take for instance Virginia's Governor Ultrasound, Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell whose Facebook page makes for hysterical reading as he is incessantly lambasted by outraged women:

Governor, I'm having really bad cramps, been in bed 3 days puking bile, and my period is so heavy, that I've bled through onto my sheets. I would go to my doctor, but was told you're the "go to" guy for medical help on vaginal issues.

You are very famous all over Europe as well and they believe we are dealing with a man from the 14th Century...which was the time they use to burn Women ....for NOTHING. GET OUT OF OUR LIVES YOU are not going to Lord over us. Get another JOB.

You have ignored Virginia women. You represent the Taliban of Virginia. women do not forget. So sorry you feel you must control the lives of others. You will forever be known as the Vaginal Probe guy . . . probably not the V.P. you were hoping for.

Obviously, Taliban Bob should have remained focused on protecting closeted Republicans like his buddy former Congressman Ed Schrock.

But McDonnell is only one of many in the GOP who have declared a war on reality and modernity. A column in the Kansas City Star provides another example of the GOP's self-inflicted wounds. Here are highlights:

Women get a lot of lip service about being equal and fully valued members of society, although sometimes we have to wonder.

As we have advanced in the workplace, so have the fortunes of the men in our lives. “Mad Men” may be a popular TV drama, with its alluring evocation of the days when men were men and women were sexually available office underlings (or were at home wearing an apron). However, I doubt many married men would trade their wife’s income for a chance to relive that era. They couldn’t afford it.

Yet the Republican Party seems to live in a different reality. Here we are, smack in the middle of a presidential race, and the right is busy trying to undo everything the women’s movement has accomplished in the last 50 years — most notably reproductive rights, which were crucial in letting us pursue careers in the first place.

Mitt Romney, desperate to prove his conservative bona fides, has declared war on Planned Parenthood, vowing to strip the nation’s largest family planning service of federal funding. Opposition to abortion is the subtext of Romney’s attack, but the organization plays an even greater role in American society by helping to prevent unwanted pregnancies — and that bugs many conservatives, too.

In this climate, even the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act is stirring GOP pots. The bill passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee without a single Republican vote. It seems Republicans have a problem with new provisions having to do with Native American jurisdiction, and with the fact that the bill extends protection to immigrant women and same sex couples. Heaven forbid that the law protect too many victims of domestic violence!

All of this is quite a shock for women of my generation, who were playing hopscotch during the struggles of the 1960s and ’70s. The feminists of those heady years didn’t quite succeed in quashing male chauvinism. . . . . Now it’s up to new generations of women to defend our ground.

The rebuke of Rush Limbaugh is a start. His vile sexual taunting of a Georgetown law school student who dared to speak up to Congress was so excessive that advertisers abandoned his show in droves. It was remarkable, considering that vileness is his brand.

What truly enraged women about the episode were the craven excuses for Limbaugh’s comments offered by leading Republicans, including three of the four remaining presidential candidates. They couldn’t muster the moral courage to stand up to Limbaugh — because they desperately need his approval.

It would be convenient to write off these affronts to women as the last gasps of male privilege. The forces of patriarchy have lost, and all they have left is their resentment. But we should remember that resentment is powerful fuel for political movements, and the fires of backlash are still burning on the American right. The challenge for women (and their male allies) is to hold up a mirror to the real America — where the vast majority of women want and, at key points in their lives, use birth control — and to expose the phoney arguments and bogus values of the party that would deny them that right.

The Christianists have pushed the GOP into this anti-woman territory and I hope it drags the GOP down. I just hope that those who may be thrown from office or see their ambitions dashed remember who set them on this backward facing journey.

d more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/16/3495765/woman-troubles-the-gops-bizarre.html#storylink=cpy
d more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/16/3495765/woman-troubles-the-gops-bizarre.html#storylink=cpy

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