I am a Pub-going, Loose and Forward Woman

A friend, rose is a rose, sent me this facebook group link and I had to ask her:

"What the heck is this about? I may be Pub-going, loose and forward but I am not a woman?"

Then she explained about it being against oppression and violence against woman. That is when the facebook group started to make sense...

Now, even the media is picking up the story:

India, as a nation, adores Valentine's Day. Indians embrace it as a holiday that goes beyond just being nice to your partner. Everyone – from the coffee guy to the gym receptionist who tried to hand me a red rose – was full of non-lecherous cheer. So I was shocked the next day to find the news awash with stories about far-right Hindu activists – from Shri Ram Sena to Bajrang Dal – who had beaten up unmarried couples and blackened their faces as a mark of shame for celebrating Valentine's Day. Their justification was that the day is a western practice, and promotes "lust not love".

This year, the same groups are out again in force. However, while the Indian government has been slow to act against these self-styled moral police, there's a keen sense that the winds of change are turning against these groups.

For a start, although it is a serious issue, it is hard not to laugh at the blustering of Pramod Mutalik, leader of Shri Ram Sena. Mutalik insists that his men will roam Bangalore armed with video cameras, capturing any unmarried couples found celebrating Valentine's Day and then force them to get married. In response, the brilliantly titled Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women has started a campaign on Facebook – which now has a whopping 28,496 members and counting – that calls on people to send the Sri Ram Sena a pair of pink chaddis (meaning underwear in Hindi) on 14 February as a sign of protest.

But this is very clearly a story about violence and oppression of women, religion and freedom:



I'll give you Blue Gals words (and tip my hat to her for the video) to sum up the karmic beauty in this world:

A group of reasonably outraged Indians has started a movement to send pink panties (known as chaddis) (and oh how I love that) to the fundie organization. They have a blog and a lovely Facebook group with panties images I'm destined to steal.

I also love that this horrible incident of violence against women can be met with direct action non-violence that gets lots of well-deserved attention. Fundies don't have a chance against activist women with a strong sense of self and humor.

Smart and funny women and men around the globe are coming together and the people who started this have garnered even more attention to this cause than the shocking and violent video ever would ever have.

As for myself? A great excuse to go out and raise a glass of beer (or tea, or fruit juice) is better than the simple reason that I will probably still go out and have that beer.

I am going to send a pink chaddi in to the addy they give at the movement's Blog (Don't expect me to wear them. lol). I figure I will be at Victoria Secrets tomorrow to get something "valentinish" for my wife anyways... A few bucks on panties and postage will be well worth it to show real support for freedom and against senseless violence for people everywhere around the world.

A final note from the organizers of this movement:

PS. Our good friend L says we should not colour-discriminate. So if you really, really can't send pink chaddis, send those in other colours.

PPS. Both Women and Men are invited to send in their chaddi's/ pictures of chaddi's.

Give the women of the world a very special Valentines gift this year. Give them freedom by lending your voice, and maybe a pair of panties or a picture, to this cause.

[update] OMFG! This is just sick. A commission blames the women for getting beat up:



Sounds just like the same arguments you would get from the far right fundies in the GOP, eh?

A: The "best little whorehouse on Wall Street"

Q: Where did some of these incompetent and corrupt bankers spend their time and the banks' money last year?

• an investment banker from Lehman Brothers who saw "Kelsey and Keely together" and later saw "Aria and Skyler at the same time"
• an investment banker at JP Morgan Securities who "loves Brooke" and spent $41,600
• an investment banker at Goldman Sachs who "only wanted all-American girls" and spent $27,000
• a managing director from Merrill Lynch who saw "Lana" using the name "Nataly"
• a managing director from Deutsche Bank "who called about seeing Nataly again"

Oh yeah... I guess these "corporate expenses" are very likely getting covered by "US" now.

"Some of these guys, I was invoicing on corporate credit cards," she said. "I was writing up monthly bills for computer consulting, construction expenses, all of these things, I was invoicing them monthly so they could get it by their accountants," Davis said.

C'mon an' say it with me: "FRAUD"

Of course, Kristen Davis was prosecuted, jailed and fined for her part... As for the nearly 10,000 high powered clients committing fraud to cover up their misdemeanor crimes, making these crimes a felony? Typically, the men remain untouched by these scandals.

How do you feel about bailing these people out?

Note to ABC news: We want names! All 10,000 of them.

McCain is still all in for his own economic failure

Go figure?

The ever ignorant John McCain, after being all over the map on the bank failures last week and in an interview on 60 minutes, is still all in for the failures that brought this economy down:

In the wake of last week’s financial meltdown, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been calling for more regulation and criticizing lax oversight of Wall Street, despite the fact that he and former senator Phil Gramm passed much of the deregulatory reforms that led to the current crisis. Interviewed on CBS today, however, McCain said he does not “regret” championing the deregulation of Wall Street.

• Q: In 1999, you were one of the senators who helped pass deregulation of Wall Street. Do you regret that now?
  
  
• McCAIN: No. I think the deregulation was probably helpful to the growth of our economy.

Our economy is in the dumpster and John deregulation McCain still supports what is a proven failure. A failure he pushed for.

Now... If that isn't enough to make you realize just how republicanly ignorant McCain is when it comes to wasting your tax money, remember that not only was McCain betting on privatizing your Social Security, dumping your secure money into the market madness John dergulation McCain created, but McCain is also all for expanding the same kind of incompetent deregulation to the health care industry:

The article, which appeared under Sen. McCain's name, included a favorable reference to banking deregulation that, in light of this week's near-meltdown in the financial industry, provided an irresistible target for Sen. Obama's campaign and once again put McCain on the defensive. McCain's campaign accused Obama of manufacturing an attack by deliberately misreading the Republican's words.

Well... Just so you don't "misread" McCain's own words let us look at exactly what he said, OK?

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."
- John deregulation McCain

Expect multiple contortions and flip-flops from McCain in order to try and run and hide from his failed positions over the next few days.

Democrat Barack Obama criticized Republican presidential rival John McCain on Saturday for his past advocacy of deregulation, ties to lobbyists and support for partial privatization of the Social Security system many of Florida's elderly residents depend on.

The Democratic presidential nominee used McCain's words to portray him as an opponent of federal regulation of the banking industry.

McCain, a 26-year veteran of Congress with a long history of opposition to such regulation, now says more controls are needed to prevent a repeat of the financial turmoil that sent the stock market plunging this past week.

"There's only one candidate who's called himself 'fundamentally a deregulator' when deregulation is part of the problem," Obama said during an appearance at Bethune-Cookman University, arranged to highlight his campaign's effort to reach out to women voters.

A Palin Planned Parenthood Action Item

Via ThePoliticalCat, a little something to pass along...

2008 Elections: Action Item and Entertainment

From ICHC, your source of all lolcattery

Diarist cloudwatcher over at DailyKos has this excellent idea. La Casa de Los Gatos reads DailyKos fairly regularly, but is not a member. Los Gatos, as you know, are not herd or pack animals. They prefer to be solitary in their pursuits. In the event, it's a simply brilliant idea, and for those of our visitors who are not DKos members here is the gist of it: Given that Palin is as anti-feminist as they come, those who disagree with her positions on women's right to choose and to their bodily autonomy ought to donate $10 (or more if you can afford it) to Planned Parenthood in Palin's name. PP has a policy of sending thank-you cards to the person being "honoured" by such donations. Cloudwatcher requests that you use this link, and adds:

You'll need to fill in the address to let PP know where to send the "in Sarah Palin's honor" card. I suggest you use the address for the McCain campaign headquarters, which is:

McCain for President
1235 S. Clark Street
Arlington , VA 22202

PS - Make sure you use that link above or choose the pulldown of
Donate--Honorary or Memorial Donations, not the regular "Donate
Online"

And, of course, in the interest of sharing teh love, please — pass it on!

Already done... Since she asked so nicely. You can go here to read the entertainment part of the post if this isn't already giving you a LOL or two. It's the only way you will find out why "McCain is a Coxsacker."

Gang Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR?

Is this brutal violence the kind of example the US is setting in Iraq?

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

snip

Jones told ABCNews.com that an examination by Army doctors showed she had been raped "both vaginally and anally," but that the rape kit disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.

snip

Legal experts say Jones' alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.

Hey... If she had been an Iraqi victim of something like this, likely, they would have just killed her and tossed in an alley somewhere afterwards instead of locking her up in a shipping container. Such are the ethics of contractors mercenaries in Iraq. And two years later we can clearly see how they remain unaccountable by the State Department and other government authorities under the criminal bush administration.

It isn't exactly like contractors mercenaries have a great track record in spreading bush's "Freedumb!"

And it is not like the military has been setting a great example for the contractors mercenaries, either:

As the anniversary of the Iraq invasion approaches, another milestone has quietly passed, leaving a window into the protracted and unimaginable human costs of this war in Iraq and here at home. A year ago, 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Al-Janabi was stalked, gang-raped, shot in the head and her corpse burned in her own home in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. Four U.S. soldiers and one former soldier are charged with the crimes.

The soldiers were so confident of their abilities to achieve their intended crimes that they rounded up the Al-Janabi family from their daily chores in broad daylight. Pfc. Stephen Green allegedly shot Abeer's parents and 5-year-old sister to death in the room next to where she was being raped by Sgt. Paul Cortez. His buddy, Pfc. James Barker held the struggling, crying teenager down while two other soldiers, Pfc. Jesse Spielman and Pfc. Bryan Howard, reportedly stood watch.

All this in the middle of the day under the hot afternoon sun, March 12, 2006.

Such are the unpleasantries of invasion, war and occupation. The medical journal Lancet estimated in 2004 that at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed, more than half of them women and children. Today, in the absence of accurate figures, that number likely has been far surpassed. To Americans, far from Iraq, these are presented as the sanitized statistics of collateral damage. But the Al-Janabi rape and murders were too well documented to ignore, just as the souvenir photos taken by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison forced Americans to see the torture being committed by their own troops.

[update] Just a minor clarification after re-reading this. I hope that no one took this in any way shape or form as belittling Jones’ situation: These guys that did this should have the book thrown at them if they are guilty. We will never know about that as long as they cover this up. But if Jones had been an Iraqi citizen? No doubt in my mind, she would be dead right now.

Military Sexual Trauma NOW

Via NOW on PBS:

Roughly one in seven of America's active duty military soldiers is a woman, but a NOW investigation found that sexual assault and rape is widespread. One study of National Guard and Reserve forces found that almost one in four women had been assaulted or raped. Last year alone, almost 3,000 soldiers reported sexual assault and rape by other soldiers.

On Friday, September 7 (check your local listings), in one of the only national television broadcasts of the issue, NOW features women who speak out for the first time about what happened. One woman recounts her ordeal of rape by her superior officer. Many more don't report the incidents for fear of how it will affect their careers. The shocking phenomenon has a label: military sexual trauma, or MST. NOW meets women courageously battling to overcome their MST, bringing light to an issue that's putting the Army in shame.

It should be broadcast on PBS on 9-7-07... In other words, tomorrow if you are still up reading at this hour. Today if ya catch this with your breakfast. (h/t C&L)

Local Cavemen Speak

Caveman O'Brien speaks:

Bill O'Brien, president of Connecticut Right to Life, said the group wants Rell to veto the bill. O'Brien said "the state has no business" telling Catholic hospitals to do something that goes against the church's teachings.

"We can't kill a person that was conceived of rape," O'Brien said.

Nothing like a baby that comes from a good old fashioned clubbing over the head!

Caveman Peter (FIC tribe) speaks:

As we have noted before, the next likely step will be a lawsuit based on the Connecticut Religious Freedom Act. Watch for more information.

Nothing like a caveman starting a lawsuit that will wind up cutting off all state funding to the hospital's medicine man. But that isn't what this post is about.

A quick look at the others that enjoy their women barefoot and pregnant, clubbed and dragged off to be raped and FORCED to bear them children... The leaders an outspoken members of some anti-woman groups as yanked from the FIC Blog:

The Rev. Deacon Tom Davis

Caveman

And JI editor Chris Powell

Caveman

the Catholic Church’s Dave Reynolds

Another caveman

Brian Brown

Might be more closely related to the chimps... But not as honest as his furry brothers.

Reverend James J. Cronin

And another caveman

The bishops of every state but New York fought the sort of law that is being advanced in the Connecticut legislature [emphasis added]. New York, for some reason, was the only state where Catholic lobbyists had no objection to such a law.

A whole lot of cavemen!

Notice a pattern here? I think you do...

(Image via the fat lady sings at My Left Wing)

(Edited with my apologies to Sen. Ed Meyer whose quote I misread when I addedhim here originally and my thanks to Maura! heh)