April 2014 archive
Apr 22 2014
Late Night Karaoke
Apr 22 2014
Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette
Our regular featured content-
- On This Day In History April 21 by TheMomCat
- The Breakfast Club: 4-21-2014 by urallmyminions
- Punting the Pundits by TheMomCat
These featured articles-
- Anti-Capitalist Meetup: Gay Marriage – Fools Rush in Where Angels Fear to Tread by Geminijen by Anti-Capitalist Meetup
- Sunday Train: What’s in SUPERTRAINS for Small Town and Rural America? by BruceMcF
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
Write more and often. This is an Open Thread.
Apr 21 2014
U.S. “Justice”
Future of 9/11 tribunal unclear after rocky week of hearings at Guantánamo
Spencer Ackerman, The Guardian
Monday 21 April 2014 14.45 EDT
The apparent investigation into Mohammed’s defense attorneys was only the latest example of intelligence or law enforcement agencies asserting their prerogatives over the 9/11 tribunal. Last year, the CIA remotely muted the courtroom when a lawyer for Mohammed attempted to discuss conditions at the agency’s now-shuttered secret prisons. The agency’s ability to mute the proceedings was a surprise to Pohl, who issued a cease-and-desist order.
Additionally, rooms used by the 9/11 defense lawyers for discussions with clients featured listening devices disguised as smoke detectors, confirming years of suspicion on the part of the defense that their conversations were under surveillance. The culprit was the FBI. Furthermore, the defense teams have faced a huge breach of their email data, which the Pentagon says was inadvertent.
“At this rate, it looks less and less likely that the 9/11 defendants will ever be brought to trial,” the Miami Herald editorialized.
If and whenever the trial commences, surreptitious surveillance of the defense and interference with the proceedings may also jeopardize any convictions or sentences obtained, according to legal observers.
“If the allegations are true, the FBI’s tapping of a member of the defense team for information on the defense’s case, something unimaginable in federal court proceedings, could conceivably lead to the defense asking for a mistrial,” said Karen Greenberg of Fordham University Law School.
“But as the trial isn’t yet under way, and mistrials assume that the trial is under way, it is more likely that you would get a request for dismissal based on outrageous government conduct.”
Apr 21 2014
The Breakfast Club: 4-21-2014
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
Apr 21 2014
On This Day In History April 21
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here. (Click on image to enlarge.)
April 21 is the 111th day of the year (112th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 254 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1777, British troops under the command of General William Tryon attack the town of Danbury, Connecticut, and begin destroying everything in sight. Facing little, if any, opposition from Patriot forces, the British went on a rampage, setting fire to homes, farmhouse, storehouses and more than 1,500 tents.
The British destruction continued for nearly a week before word of it reached Continental Army leaders, including General Benedict Arnold, who was stationed in nearby New Haven. Along with General David Wooster and General Gold Silliman, Arnold led a contingent of more than 500 American troops in a surprise attack on the British forces as they began withdrawing from Danbury.
Sybil Ludington (April 16, 1761- February 26, 1839), daughter of Col. Henry Ludington, was a heroine of the American Revolutionary War who became famous for her night ride on April 26, 1777 to alert American colonial forces to the approach of enemy troops.
Ludington’s ride started at 9:00 P.M. and ended around dawn. She rode 40 miles, more than twice the distance of Paul Revere, into the damp hours of darkness. This is especially remarkable because modern day endurance horse riders using lightweight saddles can barely ride such distances in daylight over well marked courses (see endurance riding). She rode through Carmel on to Mahopac, thence to Kent Cliffs, from there to Farmers Mills and back home. She used a stick to prod her horse and knock on doors. She managed to defend herself against a highwayman with her father’s musket. When, soaked from the rain and exhausted, she returned home, most of the 400 soldiers were ready to march.
The memoir for Colonel Henry Ludington states,
Sybil, who, a few days before, had passed her sixteenth birthday, and bade her to take a horse, ride for the men, and tell them to be at his house by daybreak. One who even now rides from Carmel to Cold Spring will find rugged and dangerous roads, with lonely stretches. Imagination only can picture what it was a century and a quarter ago, on a dark night, with reckless bands of “Cowboys” and “Skinners” abroad in the land. But the child performed her task, clinging to a man’s saddle, and guiding her steed with only a hempen halter, as she rode through the night, bearing the news of the sack of Danbury. There is no extravagance in comparing her ride with that of Paul Revere and its midnight message. Nor was her errand less efficient than his. By daybreak, thanks to her daring, nearly the whole regiment was mustered before her father’s house at Fredericksburgh, and an hour or two later was on the march for vengeance on the raiders.
The men arrived too late to save Danbury, Connecticut. At the start of the Battle of Ridgefield, however, they were able to drive General William Tryon, then governor of the colony of New York, and his men to Long Island Sound.
Apr 21 2014
Anti-Capitalist Meetup: Gay Marriage – Fools Rush in Where Angels Fear to Tread by Geminijen
Last week the decision in Ohio broadening the scope of gay marriage put one more nail in the coffin of homophobic culture and was a win for equal rights– or was it? Don’t get me wrong. I am in full support of gay marriage and everyone having the same civil rights. The trouble with fighting for a civil reform is that we are fighting for the right to be included in the existing system and that doesn’t take into account the fact that we are basically fighting for the right to be as f**ked up as everybody else.
The movement for gay marriage came out of the gay movement which came out of the male gay culture. The agenda of this movement for social change has always focused on reform demands for the same civil rights (i.e., gay marriage) that the heterosexual community already has.
Then along came the lesbian feminist movement calling, not for the right to assimilate into traditional gender roles, but the elimination of those roles altogether; eliminating the assumptions that women should be submissive and challenging the basis of marriage entirely since it had originated as an institution in which men literally bought and owned women, their labor and their children.
Although the majority of states that have weighed in still ban gay marriage, there are 17-19 states (depending on how you are counting) that have now legalized gay marriage. The most common way has been through the courts, though a couple of states have been through legislative votes and in recent years all the decisions and votes have been going in the right direction (for legalizing gay marriage).
The dominant liberal media has been strongly behind the LGBT community on this issue. None of the problems or oppressive social structures that have been associated with the nuclear family seem to make it into the media as we watch the two little old ladies who have lived together for 50 years finally gain social respectability and generous tax breaks as they take their vows, or the two gorgeous young men who just put out $500,000 for a fabulous destination wedding. Most recently, the media has been touting “statistics” that show that gay marriages have less divorces than straight marriages.
In fact many young heterosexual people are waiting longer and longer periods to marry, if they choose to marry at all, and the number of divorces for heterosexual marriages hovers around 50%. And the data that is currently being aggressively promoted by the media to show that homosexual and lesbian marriages are more stable is laughable given the lack of statistics or very small samples over very small periods of time that are available.
So why the rush by the media and the dominant culture to support gay marriage? Even a few Republicans have gotten on board (which really makes me suspicious given how in every other area of my life the Republican platform’s interests have been directly opposed to my interests)? Is it a sincere desire to accept gay folks for who we are or is it more about shoring up and reinforcing the failing institution of marriage? And why is marriage so important to them? Of all the policies issues we as a LGBT community could focus on, is Gay Marriage actually our first choice or is this the main LGBT policy issue because the dominant culture picked it for us?
I can hear the comments, even from anti-capitalists, now: It’s another one of those picky humorless Lesbian Feminists who just won’t give it a rest. OK, it’s only a reform, but it’s hard out there in a capitalist world and why can’t we just get a few tax breaks now with out this ridiculous harangue? Besides, I finally found my one true love and we want to proclaim it to the world like everyone else. We’ll get rid of the nuclear family after the socialist revolution.
Even I have occasionally drunk the Kool Aid. I remember when I was in graduate school writing whole treatises on the evils of the nuclear family, I went to a Bette Midler concert with my girlfriend where, with an entire concert hall of other lesbians, we held hands, and with tears in our eyes, loudly joined in the refrain:
we’re going to the chapel and going to get maaaried,
we’re going to the chapel and we’re going to get maaarried,
we’re going to the chapel of love!”
(The repeats are necessary to get the full emotional effect)
What we do and don’t get out of Gay Marriage on both the personal and policy level.
On a personal level, the most important advantages of gay marriage to me would be 1) the tax breaks (over 400) that I would get and the other legal conveniences such as hospital visiting rights, joint insurance, etc; 2) sharing the rent and utilities, the cleaning, etc.; being able to roll over and have an intimate relationship without having to go out and look for it. But all of these things could be available to me in a domestic partnership (if, in fact, the states gave all the same rights to domestic partnerships as marriages). What I couldn’t get is the social respectability that comes with two people signing up for a lifelong monogamous relationship that only comes with marriage sanctified by God and shows that I am an adult capable of a committed adult relationship — otherwise why would there be two separate categories if one was not better than the other? Like marriage is like the black belt of relationships.
I kind of resent this because, personally, when I was married, I tended to find the two by two Noah’s Ark relationship kind of isolating. One of the things I enjoyed most about the Lesbian community was that the very fact that marriage was not available to us, led to the development of more alternative types of arrangements. While plenty of women did live in couples similar to heterosexual marriages, many lived in relationships which involved three or more people. Also I found that many of us found our best friends and most committed relationships were with ex-lovers. Kind of like a community of sisters (think Sister Sledge and We Are Family).
I also find that in marriage, because of its origin in heterosexual marriages, there is a tendency to sometimes mimic the gender roles (who is the husband? Who is the wife?). Since the traditional marital relationship was also based on extreme inequality where the husband literally “owned” the wife, some of this power inequality also filters into gay marriages even though it not legally mandated in modern marriages.
Besides reinforcing the inequality between the two people in the relationship, marriage reinforces and magnifies other forms of inequality. For one, single people (who constitute and increasing percentage of the population) do not get the tax breaks or other financial benefits society bestows on marriage. Also, if two men marry, since men in a patriarchal society still make more money and accumulate more wealth than women, are likely to end up in a more upscale lifestyle than if two women marry since our incomes are lower. Moreover, if there are children (which is true in most cases) the women are more likely to be the custodial parents than the men and have to bear the labor and monetary costs this implies.
My personal policy solution would be to shore up civil unions that would in fact be equal to the advantages of marriage but would not 1)be based on sexual relations or required monogamy. In such cases, two single friends could apply, a grandma raising her nieces child could apply, several people in whatever kind of relationship (sexual or not)could apply.
Such a legal structure would further, if there are children involved, provide a stipend to the “parents” for raising the children. This would eliminate the blatantly unequal financial start children have in life, depending on what private nuclear family they were born into.
Speaking of focusing on private versus publicly funded solutions to our personal economic relationships, I think it is important to understand that capitalism is intent on preserving private arrangements for reproducing the next generation of children (i.e., marriage) because it gets them off the hook for paying for the necessary public services (childcare, physical nurturing, etc) to reproduce the next generation and greatly increases capitalism’s profits.
So let’s get marriage out of the public domain and leave it to the religious sphere where it belongs and focus our energies on civil unions.