On the Allegations Against Assange

Julian Assange, the spokesman for Wikileaks, stands accused of sexual assault in Sweden. It is well-known that U.S. officials have been scrambling to find something, anything to charge him for in order to try to stop him from doing what he does.

The mere existence of Wikileaks is a threat to the integrity and continued dominance of the U.S. military-industrial complex. To be sure, the whistle-blower website hardly has the power to topple this punishing machine on its own -for that we'd need a mass movement in the belly of the beast. But it is still a serious threat- a threat to the smooth functioning of the U.S. military machine. It is not for nothing, then, that elites are livid. If I were Assange, I would fear for my life- the U.S. government has a long tradition of carrying out political assassinations.

So in this context, it is a bit unsettling that Interpol has issued an international warrant for Assange based on the allegations he faces in Sweden. Whatever it is that is alleged to have occurred in Sweden, and I'll get to that in a moment, you can bet that Interpol and international power brokers don't really give a shit. They just want to bring Assange down by any possible means, solely because of his political role in Wikileaks.

But it is a separate question whether Assange committed rape. I myself have no idea whether he did or not- but I will tell you that much of the response to the question has been dismissive and sexist. For example, from Counterpunch:

"Ardin has written and published on her blog a “revenge instruction”, describing how to commit a complete character assassination to legally destroy a person who “should be punished for what he did”. If the offence was of a sexual nature, the revenge also must also be sex-related, she wrote. Ardin was involved in Gender Studies in Uppsala University, in charge of gender equality in the Students’ Union, a junior inquisitor of sorts.

In other words, she was perfect for the job."

Perfect for the job, huh? Because she worked in a Gender Studies department and was involved in work enforcing gender equality? That sounds to me like feminist-baiting. The caricature is well-known enough: feminists are always women, they are always "man haters" and they are just out for "revenge". They might as well have just called her a "bitch".

Now, I'm not really interested in Ardin the person, what her politics really are, etc. I'm just noting that she's been impugned for allegedly being a feminist, etc. as in the above quote from Counterpunch. It might turn out that she is a CIA agent, and it would hardly matter for the point I'm making here: there should be nothing illicit or suspicious about being a feminist, fighting for gender equality, and so on.

The other layer of the sexism here has to do with the talk about the legal dimensions of rape. It seems to be a favorite line of many sexists that, somehow, all cases of rape are the fault of the woman, on the one hand, or simply malicious acts of "defamation" waged by bitter women that "hate men" on the other. I've read bits about this issue on several websites that more or less invoked these very tropes.

I've also seen character defenses of Assange to the effect that "he simply couldn't have committed rape... he's a great guy who does a lot of good political work!". That's non-sense. As I note above, he is a great guy who does a lot of good political work, to be sure. But that is not a defense in a court of law for a good reason: it has nothing whatsoever to do with whether he did, or did not, sexually assault someone. They don't call it the ad hominem fallacy for nothing.

I've also seen complaints about the allegations that are so general in their attacks that, if generalized, they would to rule out the possibility of conviction in any rape case whatsoever. That's clearly reactionary. As is well-known, the U.S. legal system is woefully unable to address the problem of rape. It's not surprising, then, that a very small percentage of rapes are even reported, and a far small number ever conclude in a conviction. The system is set up against the interests of women.

As far as I can tell, none of this has anything to do with imperialism, the politics of whistle-blowing, hacktivism or global power plays. That is, none of the business in Sweden, whatever the facts are, has anything whatsoever to do with the politics of Wikileaks.

Now, the powers that be want us to think that it does. They want us to think that the allegations in Sweden are a knock against Wikileaks itself. They want us to, irrationally, let the U.S. war machine off the hook because of something Assange, the man, did or didn't do in his personal life. That's clearly bullshit.

So let's not buy into the imperialist narrative. Whatever did or did not happen in Sweden is a separate issue- let's not shit on feminism because the U.S. war machine sucks. And let's not use this as an excuse to further the oppressive myth that rape accusations are always about some "vindictive" feminist scholar looking to castrate some innocent, angelic man.

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Pictures of fat(ter) women? Revolutionary.

Thanks to Shapely Prose and Jezebel, I've come across a couple of posts recently about plus-size models. These models, of course, are not the people we'd consider plus-size in real life: sometimes they're as small as a size 8. And they're still models: nicely proportioned, with beautiful faces and skin and all the rest.

But I'm emerging from my blogging hibernation to register just how powerful these images are. As I look at them, I think: she is really sexy! And then I think: wait, is it possible that I could look that sexy, too? Even though I have a belly pooch, flesh on my hips and thighs, and slightly unwieldy breasts?

Click 'em and weep.

This photo in Glamour magazine made a huge splash because it shows the model's little belly pooch. The same model also has much more generous thighs than most of her colleagues.

This photo shoot from Harper's Bazaar Australia did not airbrush away the cellulite on Crystal Renn's thighs.

I'd never heard of plus-size model Kate Dillon before, had you?

In all these comment threads, I think women are truly moved to see a female body that looks "real" to them: one they can identify with, one that rings true with their own experience of having a body. (Even if, as so many women are, they're larger than these supposedly plus-sized women.)

And these are beautiful, able-bodied white women who are making such a splash. I can only imagine how much women with disabilities, women of color, and unusual-looking women may be longing (perhaps unknowingly, as I was) to see images of themselves -- somewhere, anywhere -- in our media.

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How did we get so delusional?

At what point does the discourse about healthcare in the mainstream media send me into a hair-pulling, teeth gnashing, fit of rage?

About the same time CNN uncritically says things like this to characterize the opponents of reform:

Specter remained calm most of the time, except when a woman asked if the bill meant a 74-year-old man with cancer would be written off by an overhauled health care system.

"Nobody 74 is going to be written off because they have cancer," he responded angrily. "That's a vicious, untrue rumor."

Is a news outlet no longer capable of then following up with comment on whether or not the bill allows for 74 year olds with cancer to be left to die?! Is it not a matter of fact or fiction? There is in fact a bill in public. There are in fact reporters capable of reading. Let's not leave this as a "here's what this side says, here's what that side says," issue if it isn't one. There's a truth here. Fucking write about it.

And this:

In particular, Republicans and some Democrats reject a government-funded public health insurance option, arguing it would lead to a government takeover of the health care system.

No comment on whether a public option actually could elad to a government takeover, what they actually mean by a government takeover, whether these claims are legitimate or just political fuckery. That's just the end of the article.

I can't take much more of the healthcare debate. I imagine being politically conscious in the early 90s fight could've killed me.

p.s. If I hear one more person say they don't want the government taking away their healthcare OPTIONS I will freak the fuck out. WHAT OPTIONS DO YOU HAVE?! I've never had options. I was either lucky enough to have coverage or unlucky to not have coverage at every point in my life. It has always been completely out of my hands. And what's certain is that when I have had coverage, I haven't had any choices, no say in what that coverage is, in what it covers, in what my deductible is. It's either being paid for by someone or it's not and I have to live with it.

Options presented to you by a for-profit health insurance industry are not options. That's not freedom of choice.

Ok, ok. /rant

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Calling torture, "torture," and the problem of false balance

If you have a moment in the next couple days, listen to Monday's Radio West (a brilliant interview show produced by Salt Lake City's NPR affiliate), which centers around the recent controversy over the NPR ombudsman's declaration that water boarding cannot be referred to as torture (a characterization accepted by 140 of the world's nations) by NPR reporters, for the sake of supposed objectivity.

The program provides an interesting discussion about journalism, ethics, and the power of language. The best moment comes when guest Bob Garfield, of On the Media, talks about this as an example of the media's insistence on what he calls "false balance," or the idea that anybody who has a different view than the majority, should be represented as a legitimate voice, even if it is completely irrational. Sometimes there are not two legitimate points of view, he argues, sometimes there is the truth and there is a lie. Knowing which is which requires a journalist's judgment and is a sign of good journalism, not of bias.

I truly think this false balance problem is a symptom of the ridiculous clammering about the "liberal media" that has been going on at least since the Reagan era (at least that's what I always hear was the beginning of this claim). Moves like the ombudsman's, especially from such a respected news outlet like NPR, can only be read as desperate attempts to appear nonpartisan or ideologically neutral.

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My alter ego did it: letting Eminem off the hook

I've never been much of an Eminem fan. But thanks to my younger sister's absolute worship of him throughout 1999, I've got a lot the Slim Shady LP pretty well memorized. His unforgettably pointed, nasal voice still goes straight to my bones. His voice, after all, is inseparable from his words: those dark, skillful raps were some of my first experiences with real misogyny in music. And that was before I would have named it as such.

The media blitz surrounding Eminem's return to the scene and his new album, Relapse, is as much about the artist as the art. It appears that Marshall Mathers (his given name) is rediscovering his creativity and talent, while recovering from some serious drug addictions.

But reviewers can't avoid mentioning -- and in many cases, rationalizing away -- the misogynistic violence that fills Eminem's songs. On National Public Radio, reviewer Robert Christgau points out Relapse's indebtedness to an obscure hip-hop genre called horror-core.

Horror-core songs are so outrageous, they're impossible to mistake for acts of advocacy. No one will think Eminem plans to lynch Lindsay Lohan with 66 inches of extension cord in "Same Song & Dance."

Whether these images of strangling Lindsay Lohan -- a young woman who has been the punch line of so many misogynistic jokes, it's a wonder she can leave the house -- are "acts of advocacy" is, for me, irrelevant. These descriptions of violence against women are the air we breathe. They make it easier to publicize -- and then dismiss -- the image of a pop diva's battered face. They change the entire context in which violence against women occurs.

The New York Time's piece on Eminem's return to the scene focuses on his "multiple-personality" schtick: at any point in the rap, the voice we're hearing could be Marshall Mathews, Eminem, or Slim Shady -- his particularly virulent alter ego. Slim Shady is the one who abducts, abuses and murders women, including Mathers' ex-wife Kim. And somehow, that ought to make these lyrics easier to swallow?

These folks seem eager to point out that Eminem's probably not really a bad guy: he's just playing a role. His songs are "exposing" male jealousy and rage. He's not advocating that anybody be abducted and strangled in a car. Lohan's name just happened to be the rhyme he needed.

I don't want to sound like Andrea Dworkin here, and I don't claim that violence has no place in art. But why is nobody talking about what happens to a society that can actually process this kind of violence ... and call it a joke?

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How could such a nice, upper-class white man do such bad things?

(This post contains potentially triggering descriptions of violent crimes against women.)

Philip Markoff is white, upper-middle class, highly educated, and engaged to be married. There is also strong evidence to suggest that he's committed some deeply misogynistic crimes. Why are these two realities so difficult for some folks to reconcile?

Prosecutors have alleged that Markoff prowled Craigslist for vulnerable women (who'd posted services as masseuses or sex workers), made appointments with them, and then robbed them. He allegedly tied up one of his victims inside a hotel room, binding her to the inside of the door, after robbing her. When his second target Julissa Brisman put up a fight, he allegedly killed her. She had three bullet wounds and a massive head injury when her body was found.

In the NBC news video available with this article, the anchor expresses incredulity that a man with Markoff's background apparently has the capacity for misogyny, violence, and -- in an aspect of the case that has particularly fascinated our media -- that he fooled his fiancee into believing that Markoff could never hurt a fly.

I know it's a really predictable narrative: good boy gone bad. Markoff isn't the first white man to kill a woman and be the subject of armchair psychological analysis of "what went wrong," or how he "snapped." Indeed, it's interesting how Markoff himself - instead of Brisman, his victim -- is the object of such intense fascination. We can only imagine how differently this case would be treated if Markoff were a young black man, or from a poor background, or an immigrant. And his victims' status as sex workers reinforces their invisibility.

The Markoff case isn't being framed as an issue of violence against women. But why shouldn't it be? If we're going to psychoanalyze, why not start with the patriarchal field of medicine in which he's being trained? Why not start with the culture of date rape on college campuses, where Markoff has spent the last six years of his life? Why not ask why Markoff selected these victims -- women doing sex work, women living somewhat on the margins -- to rob and terrorize?

Most of all, it is a dangerous assumption that a man who looks nice (in this case, "nice" means young, white, and educated) could not be a predator. Nice-looking, affable men may beat their female partners every day. Nice-looking men may be misogynists. Nice-looking men may abuse prostitutes, or rape their dates. Unfortunately, violence against women crosses race and class lines. As a culture, we must recognize that the dehumanization of women, particularly sex workers, is an equal-opportunity social phenomenon.

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International Right-Wingers Attempt to Assassinate Morales

BBC reports.

Bolivia's President Evo Morales has said the country's security forces have broken up a plot to assassinate him.

Three alleged international mercenaries in the city of Santa Cruz were killed, after Mr Morales gave the order to thwart the attempt on his life.

And the silent American press remains completely disconnected from from developments in leftist Latin American politics.

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Katy Perry Syndrome?

For a fascinating read on sexual orientation, bisexual politics, and the media, check this out. Editor-in-Chief of AfterEllen.com, Sarah Warn, details a recent dispute with former L.A. Times journalist, turned novelist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez.

It appears Valdes-Rodriguez tried to pull a fast one and "play gay" to please Warn's largely queer audience in an interview last year, and has since accused the publication of lying, as her coming out as bisexual has begun to receive mainstream attention. You can read all the exchanges between them...it's a real display of heterosexual privilege and ignorance, on the one hand, and a seriously smart, passionate editor on the other.

Update: Valdes-Rodriguez has written (and personally directed us to) a clarification/apology of sorts at her blog. Check it out to hear both sides of a story that should never have been played out in the public of the internets like this...

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Immortal Technique on Venezuela

Immortal Technique is a radical rapper my brother introduced me to last year, and whom we both admire a lot. Here's an interview with him, via Hands Off Venezuela. As usual I think he's incredibly sharp and good natured:



As a person in the States, with no concrete links to Venezuelans or Latin Americans to give me first-hand accounts, I find it really difficult to navigate news about Venezuela and Bolivia. Immortal's critique of the Venezuelan media and the U.S. media as being driven by bourgeois interests makes sense and sounds really plausible to me. But there's something in the back of my head that makes me say, "hey, no, what if this is propaganda and Chavez is actually Stalin incarnate?!" Ok, maybe not that extreme, but I do have a hard time knowing what to believe, when I'm getting everything through sources with vested interests. And it's not that I think Immortal would deliberately deceive me either, it's that I'm afraid he's fooling himself because he wants it to be a good thing and he wants Chavez to be a good guy. Is that just what the capitalists want me to think? Or am I right/smart to be a constant skeptic about both sides?

Anyway, check out some of his music when you get a chance. Not exactly a toe tapping good time, but it does what he said he hopes. It really gets you pumped up about revolution.

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Yeah, NOW you notice.

I personally didn't need a roundtable discussion to tell me that the NYTimes (and all other mainstream news sources) have failed to fulfill their obligations to the public in this election.

But apparently, the Times did hold a roundtable, and that's exactly what they found out. Since the national tickets were formed, only around 10% of their election articles have focused on policy substance. You know perfectly well what the rest of the articles are about: strategy, polls, spouses, "messaging," mudslinging, Wasilla, and electoral "offense and defense."

It's not too late, media friends! You could actually give front-page coverage to a comparative study of the candidates' health care plans, or talk to experts about how each candidate might change the future of reproductive health in our nation. Hell, it needn't be fair and balanced! This article about economically struggling voters in Indiana is sort of a decent start.

In the meantime, Pink Scare -- with a readership just slightly smaller than that of Times -- will continue to (try to) bring the goods, both electoral and not.

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Fox News conversation turns weirdly tragic

A couple of Fox News pundits have their undies in a bundle about Sarah Palin's photograph on the cover of Newsweek. It's a close-up, full-page photo of Palin's face -- which some people claim is deliberately unretouched. I really don't care to speculate about what "flaws" they're referring to. There are some small lines and wrinkles under her eyes, and some slightly blotchy color variation in her makeup.

Yes, it's a cheap attempt by Fox News to generate a little partisan drama. But as a public moment in the women-and-beauty discussion, it's fascinating. In the clip, three female pundits discuss Palin's photograph: a stunning, Barbie-like anchorwoman, a skinny brunette GOP analyst, and a slightly overweight, exasperated-looking woman from American University. As they bat back and forth the question of Palin's right to look perfect on the cover of Newsweek, one can't help but think of the pressures to be beautiful that they themselves are under - particularly as women who appear frequently, or even daily, on television. The media has told us repeatedly that many women look at Sarah Palin and see themselves. Apparently, these women looked at Sarah Palin's closeup and saw their worst career nightmare.

GOP analyst Andrea Tantaros practically bares her soul here. She makes her own insecurity - and that of all women - another talking point:

Julia, this is mortifying ... this is mortifying. Any woman who would look at this cover, or if this were me, or if this were you - if this camera would zoom in on me right now, the viewers, I can tell you right now, it ain't pretty. And I tell you what, I'd be pretty upset. Any woman who would see this cover would be shocked and horrified.

Does this remind anyone of certain passages from Gulliver's Travels? Jonathan Swift's novel, adored in high school literature classrooms, is known for deep misogyny, particularly in his depiction of women's bodies and bodily functions. In one large section of the text, Gulliver is a miniature man living in a world of giants. And the breasts of giant women, seen from this zoomed-in angle, are described with categorical disgust. He sees every ugly freckle, crevice, discoloration, and hair. And Gulliver says he's never seen anything so "monstrous" as the up-close breast of his caretaker.

But, uh that was Jonathan Swift, hating on women's bodies in 1726. Centuries later, are we still telling women that the most mortifying, horrifying, shocking thing that can happen to them would be the revelation that they have pores, wrinkles, and facial imperfections? Andrea Tantaros is revealing more than her disdain for Newsweek. She's revealing disdain for her physical self, and by extension, ours.

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Our emotional-electoral state

Shark Fu at Angry Black Bitch has a seriously incredible post today on her response to election coverage so far. Some parts are so true and so funny, it hurts. The thesis:

I don’t know about y’all, but this bitch has had enough political bullshit tossed my way in the last few months to keep me shoveling for a lifetime.

You can say that again.

I feel like a passerby who can't turn away from the hypnotic sight of a car crash. I feel like a broken-hearted teenager who, burned by the failure of his last attempt (back in 2004), refuses to get involved and get hurt again. I feel, frankly, like I'm getting jerked around. A friend I hadn't seen in a while asked me recently how I was feeling about the election, and I replied immediately, "You know what Noelle, I'm just so sick of being manipulated!!"

It's been that kind of an election, and I place a lot of blame on our media. They're like that girl in high school who would yell a piece of provocative gossip across a row of lockers and watch the student body freak out straight through 7th period. While CNN's (and NBC's, and NYTimes's, and Fox News's) advertising department laughed all the way to the bank, we poor folk have been subjected to manufactured conflict, drama, and tension.

In an election year, the media isn't covering what's actually at stake in our country. They aren't lifting up stories about the disappearing "American dream" of affordable housing, health care, child care, and decent-paying jobs. They aren't reminding anyone that we aren't taking care of military folks like we should, and they certainly aren't questioning the way we use our military might in the first place. And they are definitely, definitely not talking about what would happen in our country -- what is already happening in countries around the world -- if John McCain and Sarah Palin got their wish, and abortion became a crime.

No - instead of substantive coverage, we've mostly got an echo chamber, repeating sound bytes until they become common wisdom, become truth.

As one of Shark Fu's commenters, Rileysdtr, put it: "Nice game-changing speech, Little Sister! Expect a whale of a bounce in tomorrow's polls."

Sigh.

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