In Case of Rape, by Michael Davis – Straight No Chaser #256
February 17, 2012 Michael Davis 12 Comments
In case of rape, put 2 aspirin between your knees and count your blessings.
“In my day, women “used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives.” – Foster Friess
Foster Friess is Rick Santorum’s biggest money backer.
“I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you.” – Rick Santorum
He added that rape victims ought to “make the best of a bad situation.”
Today (Thursday, February 16, 2012) an all-male Congressional panel today refused to allow a single woman to testify in favor of access to contraception at a hearing on a proposal to provide access to contraception under the federal health care law.
GOP lawmakers created the panel.
Wow, an ALL MALE Congressional hearing to talk about women issues.
What’s next, a Congressional hearing on erectile dysfunction and no one with a dick is invited?
I’ve said a zillion times I don’t know how any Black person can be a Republican with all the hate towards Black people that come from some (not all) in the GOP. The real problem for me is that LEADERS in the GOP talk that racist shit.
As a Black man I just can’t see ANY way I’d belong to a party in which it’s leaders support calling Black people ‘niggers’ as Sarah Palin did when she told Dr. Laura, “Don’t retreat, reload” after the good doctor defended using ‘nigger’ over and over again on her radio show.
As a Black man I can’t see ANY way I’d belong to a party in which a Presidential candidate said the majority of Black men in Washington DC are criminals. Ron Paul said that.
I’m not a women, (well, not unless you are a hot Asian girl and you want me to put on a dress, high heels, make up and a wig because that will turn you on. Other than that, I’m not a woman) so when I say I can’t understand how women can be a member of the GOP I have no authority whatsoever to even assume what the answer may be.
So, can some woman any women tell me why you would belong to the Republican Party? Clearly the GOP could give a fuck about YOUR right to do what YOU want with your body so I’d like to know what are the other reasons you would belong to a party where it’s not 2012 it’s 1950.
Wait a sec…it is 2012.
Evidently, that’s why the GOP can be so verbal about not giving a fuck about women; it’s the end of the world.
Doug Abramson
February 17, 2012 - 4:03 am
What MOTU left out is the name of the schmuck that called the hearing. His name is Darrel Issa. That’s I, S, S, A.; Republican, California. Five term Representative for California’s 49th District. My Congressman. An alleged crook, who only ran for Congress because he couldn’t get elected to a state wide office, but continuously walks away with the District vote… and my neighbors can’t understand why I don’t want to be more neighborly. Please feel free to get your friends and neighbors to bombard his office with emails and phone calls, letting him know how big of an asshole he is. It won’t make a difference to the pompous windbag, but it will annoy the hell out of him and might distract him from his main purpose in life; trumping up a reason to impeach President Obama. That’s what makes this current sideshow really sad. Its about publicity and raising campaign money while he’s waiting for his big political score to come along. Taking away women’s rights is just a bonus.
Doug Abramson
February 17, 2012 - 4:03 am
Other than that, I don’t have an opinion on the “man”.
Mike Gold
February 17, 2012 - 9:03 am
Doug, that was great. I love it when Issa refers to himself as a moderate.
The line about holding an aspirin between your legs goes back to the fight to sell the birth control pill in the early 1960s. Whereas I’ve referenced Griswold vs Connecticut (1965) in this space before, I should add that the right for the UNMARRIED to birth control wasn’t certified by the Supreme Count until 1972’s Eisenstadt v. Baird decision when they struck down Massachusetts’ Crimes Against Chastity law… which had nothing to do with then-Ms. Bono, who was only three years old at the time.
Of course, prior to 1967 (although the laws were left on the books in some southern states for over 30 years), MOTU would be arrested for shacking up with an Asian girl.
Or lynched. Some elderly Chinese-Americans had a pretty regressive attitude towards race mixing, even extending that definition to exclude people whose families came from neighboring villages.
R. Maheras
February 17, 2012 - 9:26 am
Mike — Left unsaid is that MOTU would have almost certainly been arrested by fellow Democrats prior to 1967.
And MOTU, while you have some valid points about how some Republicans handle contemporary women’s issues, I think you’re kidding yourself about the racial divide between the parties. I said it before and I’ll say it again: As someone who was raised in the Democratic fortress of Chicago, the public, overt racial divide there — even as late as the 1980s during the “Beirut by the Lake” years — dwarfed anything I’ve seen on the Republican side in the post-Civil Rights era. And while some Democrats in Chicago point to Obama and proudly say, “Look what we did,” the fact is that life in many of the black neighborhoods in Chicago (including my old stomping grounds) is, in many ways, worse than ever.
Mike Gold
February 17, 2012 - 10:03 am
Russ, I blame the ghost of H. H. Holmes (Google, chillin’).
Much of Chicago’s violent crime is centered in two neighborhoods: Englewood on the south side (within about a mile and a half radius of Holmes’ hotel) and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Lawndale on the west side. Both have large tracts of land that resemble Beirut, but with much better rib shacks (truth, folks; not a lot of good ribs in Beirut). Chicago police have failed to do what places like New York did VERY successfully: export street drug sales to the suburbs, where the money is. The Chicago street mobs don’t want to work that hard. Even though they have been fragmented since the Jeff Fort days — Fort, of Black P Stone Nation / El Rukn fame, was a much bigger mobster than Capone was in his wettest wet dreams — they’re still amazingly powerful. The Beirut ambiance in those neighborhoods comes largely from abandoned housing: black folk learned to do what the Greatest Generation did back in the day and get the hell out of Dodge under any circumstances. Don’t hold your breath for gentrification: many other black and poor neighborhoods have successfully gone that route. For good and for bad.
When it comes to Republicans vs. Democrats, I’d spent a lot of time in then-Republican-controlled southern Illinois and let me tell you, if I were black I’d rather have been in Chicago than Cairo any day of the week. Hell, the Cairo cops shot at me back in the day, and I was white at the time.
The aforementioned Jeff Fort received an invitation from President Richard Nixon, a Republican, to attend the 1969 inaugural ball. He sent a couple of highly-ranked underlings. Damn, THAT must have been fun. As for frightening white people, Nixon wouldn’t let Abbie Hoffman into the White House as Grace Slick’s date when Grace was invited to attend a Finch College finishing school reunion hosted by Tricia Nixon. Tricia (who’s a right broad) and Grace Wing (later Slick by marriage) were at Finch together.
Much of Chicago’s OVERALL crime, of course, occurs in the LaSalle Street financial district.
R. Maheras
February 17, 2012 - 12:25 pm
Mike — You’re really kind of dodging the issue.
The way I see it, there are plenty of bigots, crooks, and really, really dumb people in both parties.
And unfortunately, Chicago, a Democratic stronghold for more than 75 years, and a town I love dearly, seems to have cornered the market on most, if not all, of these negative traits.
This article, posted just yesterday in “The Huffington Post” sums it up pretty well: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dick-simpson/chicago-corruption_b_1281856.html
I wish I could argue with the author’s assertion that, historically, Chicago has been the most crooked and segregated city in America — but my momma taught me not to lie.
So MOTU, please don’t think I’m a Republican or just some ignorant boob because I don’t lap up your singular one-sided criticisms of the GOP. You simply can’t imagine what it was like living for decades in an environment where on camera, Democrats smiled at each other and espoused all of these noble ideals, yet when the cameras were turned off, these same folks immediately turned around and started stabbing each other furiously in the backs.
Doug Abramson
February 17, 2012 - 12:46 pm
Mike,
Are you suggesting that some of the violent crime on the Southside is caused by some kind of psychic echo; or do you favor a more metaphysical explanation? Serious or not, that sounds like the basis for one hell of a story! You could eVen work Gacy into it. Since I can’t write fiction well, I demand that you do it. There might even be a multi-book series in this. Holmes creeps me out in ways old Jack doesn’t.
MOTU
February 17, 2012 - 2:36 pm
R. Maheras,
Kidding myself?
Here are the facts-the GOP was founded as an anti-slaverly party. The GOP did more for the rights of Black people up until the they STOPPED. The Democrats had a horrible position on Black people for a VERY long time, until THEY stopped!
TODAY the GOP has a HORRIBLE party line regarding Black people.
TODAY the Democrats have a MUCH BETTER (far from perfect) party line towardsBlack people.
TODAY my friend. Today.
Mindy Newell
February 17, 2012 - 3:36 pm
I don’t have a CLUE why any woman would be a Republican these days, Mike.
R. Maheras
February 17, 2012 - 4:34 pm
MOTU — Well, TODAY, blacks in Totally-Democratic-run Chicago (including those in my old neighborhood) are twice as likely to be murdered than in Democratic/Republican-run Los Angeles, and three times more likely to killed than in Democratic/Republican-run New York City. And in the case of NYC, it has triple the population as Chicago.
Jonathan (the other one)
February 17, 2012 - 5:29 pm
Hell, the Cairo cops shot at me back in the day, and I was white at the time.
So, what color are you now, Mike? 🙂
Why does the Republican Party think it can get away with this sort of thing in 2012? Well, in his Future History, 2012 was the year Heinlein pegged as seeing the election of Nehemiah Scudder (and the prompt descent of the US into a theocratic dictatorship for the next hundred years…).
Martha Thomases
February 17, 2012 - 5:53 pm
And, of course, the right-leaning men on this board are ignoring the subject at hand (the way the GOP talks at women) to push their own agenda. An agenda they developed more than 30 years ago, and haven’t revised.
MOTU
February 17, 2012 - 6:32 pm
R,
We are not talking about where the best places are to be shot. I was almost shot by the police while entering MY home in Beverly Hills at 2 in the morning-you would think I’d avoid a bullet in the back at my OWN home. Party affiliations had nothing to do with that.
My point is the racial and sexist venom coming from the GOP regarding women, blacks and gays is a clear and PRESENT position many in the GOP and some in it’s leadership have embraced.
R. Maheras
February 17, 2012 - 7:56 pm
MOTU — Well, I’m not happy with many of the people in EITHER party. And I guess what baffles me is the “my party, right or wrong” attitude prevalent by adherents of both sides. When one side or the other can count on votes from the base regardless of the candidate, you not only have dumb or unqualified people elected into office, those folks will most likely stay in office once voted in, regardless of what they do or say. They have no voter accountability, and will only leave office if forced by their party bosses to resign in disgrace — something that doesn’t happen very often.
I’m so tired of going into the voting booth on election day, looking at my (usually) two choices, and thinking out loud in disgust, “Geez, is THAT the best you two parties got?”
MOTU
February 17, 2012 - 8:20 pm
R,
““Geez, is THAT the best you two parties got?””
I’ve had that very thought MANY an election.
Neil C.
February 17, 2012 - 9:40 pm
R.,
The “they do it too!” argument doesn’t work when one party is constantly bringing up its misogynist, racist beliefs in public. I also don’t understand how anyone who isn’t a millionaire can support the GOP. Can you explain that without saying how bad the Democrats are, too?
Mike Gold
February 18, 2012 - 9:54 am
Russ — I worked with Dick Simpson 40 years ago. He is appropriately named. But, as you point out, at least NYC has achieved parity with Chicago. The fact is, NYC is more dangerous because “neighborhoods” change from block to block. In Chicago, you know where not to go (blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, Republicans). In New York, if you’re walking a half-mile you’re likely to go through three different districts with three totally different attitudes. To be safe, if I can’t pick up a vibe I’ll just start singing “When you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way.” Then the locals think I’m from New Jersey and tend to be sympathetic. And.. In the version of “Wide Wide River” on “It Crawled Into My Hand, Honest,” Ed Sanders of the Fugs, asked “Was George Washington the lesser of two evils? Sometimes I wonder.”
Neil — Hey, Joey Goebbels wrote the book on setting that one up. It’s called “pointing at nothing and shouting at the top of your lungs ‘Look! Over there! THOSE are the people that are screwing YOU! Forget about the Kaiser! It’s the Jews, the Gypsies and the Homosexuals that are responsible for 1000% inflation!”
Doug — No, not in the least. I just think it’s damn uncanny. That neighborhood has been totally doomed ever since Holmes built that hotel. Go figure.
Mindy — I’m not sure exactly when the post-WWI GOP ever represented women’s interests, except for those who are married to the filthy rich and don’t give a whiff of a fuck for those who aren’t.
Jonathan — Right now, I’m just real hairy. Good point about Heinlein. And scary, too.
Martha — You mean, the idea of holding a Congressional hearing about birth control where you only offer testimony from men, and largely religious mutterers at that, doesn’t represent the views of women? Really? I can’t understand why you might think that. I mean, geez, I guess they could have had Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin up there. Any snatch in a storm.
MOTU — Top 10 Best Places To Get Shot was a Dave Letterman list, wasn’t it?
R. Maheras
February 18, 2012 - 10:21 am
Neil — I’ll answer your question with another question: How can a person who has to pay any significant amount of taxes (that is, anyone who makes more than $40,000 a year and/or owns their own home), has to keep their own financial house in order, support most Democrats?
My biggest beef with the Bush administration and Republican congress members from that era was the fact that they spent like drunken liberal Democrats. My second biggest beef with the Bush administration is that it picked some real crappy people for top key positions — most likely as a reward for being partisan supporters. I know that happens (I’m from Chicago, remember?), but as a consequence, some of the Bush administration’s blundering was real amateur-hour stuff (particularly regarding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars).
My biggest beef with the current administration is that it spends like a drunken liberal Democrat. My second biggest beef is that it picked some real crappy people for top key positions — most likely as a reward for being partisan supporters. Consequently, some of this administration’s blundering has been real amateur-hour stuff (particularly regarding the economy and the Justice Department).
It’s bloody deja vu all over again.
Neil C.
February 18, 2012 - 4:06 pm
R.,
That doesn’t answer my question, but thanks for playing!
R. Maheras
February 18, 2012 - 7:56 pm
Neil — What game? I’ve already explained how, over the years growing up and living in Chicago, I heard much more racist and misogynistic talk from Democrats than I ever did Republicans, which is why I think the whole Democrat holier-than-thou attitude is a crock.
For example, women make up more than 50 percent of the overall electorate, yet Democrats have only two sitting women governors right now. The Republicans have six. The Democrats are doing a better job representing women in the House and Senate, but even as late as the late 1980s, there were no female Democrat senators. As far as the executive branch goes, the Democrats still have a very solid glass ceiling — even in the nomination department. Geraldine Ferraro was apparently a fluke on the Democrat side in the throw-away 1984 election that hasn’t been repeated. Why do you suppose Hillary faded in the stretch in 2008? Yes, Obama was agressive, and had a strong organization, but Hillary had a better resume than Obama, and I thought she did a pretty good job stumping. By all initial accounts, she should have been the chosen one in that election. But she wasn’t. And I think part of the reason was because male Democrats (and probably even a significant number of female Democrats) are much more misogynistic than they realize — or let on.
So, like I said… what game? I simply tell it like it is.
Martha Thomases
February 19, 2012 - 6:28 am
Taxes? I paid several times that $40K just in estimates last year, and I’m not GOP. I care about what my tax dollars pay for (just as I care what my non-tax dollars pay for).
And also, I don’t want the government sticking probes into my body, as I say here (https://mdwp.malibulist.com/2012/02/papa-dont-preach-by-martha-thomases-brilliant-disguise/).
Rene
February 19, 2012 - 7:55 am
Russ –
.
Because there are people on the Democrats side that are covertly misogynistic, it somehow excuses the Republicans that OPENLY and PROUDLY defend positions that want to turn the clock back on women’s lib by half a century?
Neil C.
February 19, 2012 - 2:40 pm
As I said, Rene, Republicans can only defend their stance with the “They do it, too!” defense without any denying their own misogony and racism as wrong. The economy must be doing better now that we’ve entered the social-issues part of the campaign.
Neil C.
February 19, 2012 - 2:41 pm
The difference, Russ, is Democrats will admit they were wrong, while a GOPer doing that acts like they had their balls cut off.
MOTU
February 19, 2012 - 4:21 pm
Mike,
“MOTU — Top 10 Best Places To Get Shot was a Dave Letterman list, wasn’t it?”
No-but look for it in a Straight No Chaser article soon!
Mike Gold
February 19, 2012 - 5:46 pm
MOTU, I can hardly wait.
And I hope I won’t have to.
Jeremiah Avery
February 20, 2012 - 10:46 am
If the Republican Party espoused the ideals of fiscal conservatism, smaller government, etc., they may have more people listening to them and taking them seriously. Instead, the inmates are running the asylum and these so-called devotees of Reagan seem to be forgetting his statement about not insulting fellow Republicans. If you’re not 100% in line with the way out there social conservatives, you’re branded as being a RINO. It’s asinine.
This is before my time but I’ve read some of Barry Goldwater’s ideas and he’d be booted out of the party so fast today (e.g., his support for gays in the military)!
Mike Gold
February 20, 2012 - 10:56 am
Jeremiah, social libertarians and fiscal libertarians are oil and water. Goldwater would up being both and the party hated him for it. Of course, since he was the one who finally talked Nixon into resigning, they had a grudge against him anyway. The concept of “for the good of the country” is far, far too altruistic for the Republican Party.
Jeremiah Avery
February 20, 2012 - 11:07 am
Plus, some seem to forget that the definition of “compromise” is not “I get everything I want and you get nothing.” Whenever I hear some of the ones in Congress say that Obama “was unwilling to work with them”, I get the feeling that the translation of that is “we wanted him to bow down and give us what we want”.
I don’t agree with some of what Obama has proposed and done but the idea that Santorum is now a legit front-runner is downright scary.
R. Maheras
February 20, 2012 - 11:31 am
What the Republicans have shown thus far in their primaries is that their base is schizophrenic. This, however, has probably been due to the fact that none of the choices have been very good. The initial front-runner, Romney, has not been able to capture the imagination of the base, and, as a result he just cannot seal the deal. And since the rest of the Republican candidate options are probably unelectable, the Republicans are basically shooting themselves in the foot by switching from one candidate to another, and another, and another.
Couple that with a slowly improving economy, and Obama’s re-election chances look brighter every day.
Regarding Neil’s (and others’ assertion) that Republicans as a whole openly embrace racism and misogeny, that’s just partisan horseshit.
From what I’ve seen in Chicago politics, if a Democratic politician wants to get anywhere she or he (but mostly he) learns real quick what to say and what not to say publicly. However, even though “saying the right thing” is pounded into their heads of democrats early on, some of the more stupid ones still occasionally show their true colors publicly. And all any of you partisan doubters have to do is Google “Democrat racist remarks” or “Democrat sexist remarks” for the proof.
Which is why I think neither party holds the moral high ground in those two areas.
Mike Gold
February 20, 2012 - 1:11 pm
Russ, what the Republicans have shown thus far is “none of the above.” It’s not so much that one person or another is winning, depending upon the date and the phase of the moon. Turnout at primaries and caucuses have been frighteningly low. Yeah, somebody is going to win those delegates anyway, but if you can’t turn out the voters during the primaries, your election day turnout (barring astonishing new events, which occasionally happen) is quite likely to be lower than the 2008 turnout. It doesn’t take that many voters to swing a state.
Of course, we have indication what Obama’s turnout will be. “GM is alive and Osama is dead” isn’t a bad campaign tactic, particularly in the rust belt states which tend to have a great impact on elections: Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania will make or break a presidential candidate — along with Florida. Drive down I-80 in Youngstown or I-94 in Detroit and you see U.S. car companies with full parking lots once again. And Pennsylvania is also dependent upon those jobs — the same voters who rejected Santorum as their senator during the last election.
Rene
February 20, 2012 - 1:24 pm
You still didn’t address my point, Russ. I always knew some leftists were, at heart, sexist pigs. Some of the male Sixties cultural revolutionaries treated women like shit. I’ve known of labour leaders in my country that beat their wives at home.
.
Compare and contrast that to the many Conservative figures that aren’t just sexist pigs, they also publicly defend positions that very much would result in turning the clock back for women’s rights by decades. Santorum has publicly said that he views sex for pleasure as a social problem that should be addressed as a matter of government policy. That sex is for procreation only.
.
Return to a time when contraceptives weren’t the norm, and women had little choice but to marry early or be saddled with a child to rise all on their own or give up on sex altogether. It’s a time where women choices were a lot more restricted than today.
.
You believe Democrats are hypocritical, fine. I agree with you that some are. Democrats are human, after all. Republicans too are human, and since they’re no better than Democrats, some of them are sexist also. Seeing as both parties have sexist men among their membership, which party a sane woman should support? The party that is for women’s rights (even if it’s lip service only, according to you), or the party that wants to subjugate women’s rights to an antiquated view of Christianity?
.
The hypocrites that won’t set you back 40 years, or the hypocrites that want to set you back 40 years? That is a non-choice to me.
MOTU
February 20, 2012 - 2:15 pm
THIS debate is another reason I simply LOVE MDW.
Bill Mulligan
February 20, 2012 - 5:29 pm
I believe we are heading toward a fiscal disaster that will destroy our quality of life and that of our children and grandchildren. Greece is just the canary in the coal mine. I think it’s slightly more likely that a republican will have the will to make the hard choices needed to prevent or at least mitigate that (we may be too late to prevent it) and keep the backing of his base. It’s more likely they will do as GW Bush did and be just as bad on the spending but there you go.
That slender likelihood is enough reason to consider voting for a GOPer, though there are some lines I can;t cross. I’ll vote for Obama again before I’d vote for a proven mediocrity like Santorum–I have zero faith in his abilities and he’d likely damage the party beyond fixing. Unlike some, I have no desire to live in a Chicago or Detroit style one-party mess. Any place that repeatedly sends Shirley Jackson Lee back is in serious need of some competition (and any party that will take her has nothing to be proud of).
I also am not so self indulgent that I can seriously look at the half of the country that votes differently than I do and shake my head and marvel at the mystery of it. Seriously, some of you need to broaden your circle of friends, you’re missing out on some good people. Or at least if you DO have friends form “the other side” I hope you talk to them with less condescension than shown here.
R. Maheras
February 20, 2012 - 5:31 pm
But Rene, Santorum’s apparent view isn’t that much different than those of devout Catholics — a voter bloc in the U.S. that almost always votes Democratic.
Every single candidate the Republicans have put forth, the Democrats have attempted to demonize. I know that that’s politics, so please don’t expect me to honestly believe that if, for some impossible reason Santorum becomes the Republican nominee, and even more impossibly is elected president, that life in the U.S. will suddenly rever to the 1600s again. Some on the left may be able to sell that red meat hysteria to the base, but I, and other independent voters, just are not that stupid.
R. Maheras
February 20, 2012 - 5:43 pm
Mike — Unless a drastic increase in gas prices derail the weak recovery, and unless the average voter finally gets serious about sending a message to Washington regarding the killer deficit looming over this country, I’d say Obama has a decent chance at getting re-elected. He could then preside over this country as it goes bankrupt — which would only be fitting, I guess, since it was his policies that, in large part, steered us off of the cliff.
MOTU
February 20, 2012 - 9:15 pm
R,
“Every single candidate the Republicans have put forth, the Democrats have attempted to demonize.”
The GOP candidates are being called out for what they say and believe. JUST like Obama. Santorum’s views are playing to his base, that shit will NEVER work in the general election. Black people, gay people and women all feel Santorum hates them. I’d like to see his punk ass defend his view to all 3 of those groups in the general election.
That’s not a spin-that’s the truth.
Bill Mulligan
February 20, 2012 - 9:25 pm
Santorum would be crushed…the only good thing about him is that he might force a brokered convention, which would be cool.
R. Maheras
February 20, 2012 - 11:47 pm
MOTU — If the GOP is short-sighted enough to pick Santorum as their nominee, then they deserve to lose 2012 with Mondale-like numbers — which is exactly what I think would happen.
‘Nuff Said.
Larry White
February 21, 2012 - 12:21 am
Mondale’s numbers would look respectable in comparison.
Martha Thomases
February 21, 2012 - 5:30 am
In re “both sides do it,” I’ll quote someone on Facebook:
“Santorum compared Obama to Hitler, but Obama compared Santorum to Santorum, so there’s nasty mud-slinging on both sides.”
Rene
February 22, 2012 - 3:45 pm
Russ –
True, there are hysterical people on the Left that would demonize anyone with a R after their names. Still, the GOP picked a few candidates that are so easy to be demonized, that it isn’t even funny. Seriously, I miss George Bush. You had to put a little more effort into demonizing him. Santorum, Bachmann, Newt, they do the job themselves.
And I don’t believe that Santorum or anyone else in the White House could turn the US into the Handmaid’s Tale. Still, it’s a mistake to minimize social issues when picking a candidate, IMO. They do have an effect into various government-based projects, large and small.