DON'T LOOK UP: Violent Patriarchy Goes Down

I'm not focused on feminism most of the time but it was impossible for me to view the holiday season blockbuster DON'T LOOK UP without a keen awareness of what it had to say about gendered politics. My last blog post considered the intersectional wisdom of Black feminist thinker bell hooks. This one will consider the folly of proceeding without that wisdom.

Meryl Streep's performance channeling the goofy worst of the female former governor of Alaska and some current members of Congress was a perfect way to show rather than tell: electing women solves nothing. Or, put another way, a woman who claws her way to the top of violent patriarchy will not embody the feminist values of concern for the common good, the imperative to cooperate, or reverence for life on our planet. Played for laughs with a perfect surprise at the tail end of the credits.

More central to the film's narrative, though, is the juxtaposition of an idealistic scientific heroine played by Jennifer Lawrence with a weak-willed scientist antihero played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Lawrence rocketed to stardom as the protagonist of THE HUNGER GAMES, and the association with dystopian competitiveness is likely not lost on the audience. 

At first her male mentor/boss creates space for her amazing discovery and gives credit where credit is due. But then he treats his wife like crap and falls into the morass of structural sexism enshrined in modern government and mass media. Lawrence is sidelined like legions of female discoverers before her; its been over 100 years since Einstein used his wife's mathematical calculations without attribution, and little has changed. Then, Lawrence's instant memehood is emblematic of the way social media tears women to shreds as misogyny cowers and snipes from behind screens.

The way in which the solutions to a natural disaster are conceived of as military first and capitalistic second further illustrate the problem with patriarchal thinking. The filmmakers clearly had a great time creating the characters who drive the rockets to doom, lampooning both generals with muscle for brains and brainy tech entrepeneurs with their minds on their money and their money on their minds.

Ariana Grande as the voice of wisdom was a nice twist since she's first presented as a vapid foil to Lawrence's nerdy Cassandra. Once the two are working together, Lawrence's communication powers increase considerably.

Cate Blanchett takes a star turn as a dumb blonde journalist successfully riding the shallow wave that passes for culture on broadcast television. A recurring theme of the film is journalists as corporate stenographers for the status quo being mercilessly lampooned. 

The data mongers who know everything about us predict the deaths of two characters, but only one of these predictions proves true. An extended family dinner of the sort convened by nurturers since the dawn of humankind may not be able to save the world, but it does save a soul or two. A final prayer to the big daddy in the sky reminds us that things might have ended differently had the spiritual wisdom of matriarchies not been replaced by the degraded values of violent patriarchies. 

Hierarchies have served us poorly as elites who have clambered over bodies to reach the top of the heap hog both resources and the power to conceive and implement solutions.

In the end, we are reminded that whatever Nature has in store for us can only be faced together. The I've-got-mine-and-you're-out-of-luck mentality is the antithesis of feminist values, and likely spells our collective doom.

With Corporations In Charge Of Your Health Care, What Did You Expect To Get?

I would boycott Hobby Lobby, the corporation that won its Supreme Court case to be able to deny birth control health coverage to its female employees, but I've never shopped there in my life (guess what -- I never will). 

Ironically, it's a craft store chain with an enormous female customer base. Hobby Lobby could be the perfect test case for the power of non-cooperation because if every woman who shops there stopped, the chain would be forced to close in a matter of weeks, possibly days.

Many will see this landmark court case as evidence that electing liberals is super important because of whom they appoint to SCOTUS. In the puppet show that is U.S. electoral "democracy" the SCOTUS, POTUS and Congressional players are deployed to mimic balance of power while the super wealthy corporate interests behind them all continue to amass fortunes and squeeze the rest of us into our austerity boxes.

I see the Hobby Lobby debacle as prima facie evidence that corporate health care is the ultimate oxymoron, because corporations are about profit and health is about, well, health. Most every rich country on the planet figured this out decades ago. 

Us? We got the "Affordable" Health Care Act to further enrich the nasty health insurance corporations that wrecked our system in the first place.


Dr. Margaret Flowers was one of eight sheros who stood up in the Senate hearings that kicked off crafting what conservatives vilify as "Obamacare" without allowing a voice at the table for the option most doctors and citizens wanted: single payer. After being dragged out of the hearing at the direction of its chair, corporate rent boy Sen. Max Baucus, Dr. Flowers went on to lead a movement for popular resistance to government of, by and for corporations. 

Or, one could say, by rich men.

...of the five best-paid executives at each of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index companies, 198 were women, or 8 percent of the total. (Bloomberg study)

In case you needed any more evidence that rule by patriarchs is not healthy for children and other living things, the U.S. maternal mortality rate has doubled in the past 25 years while the newborn mortality rate for babies born in the U.S. is higher than that of any other wealthy country.

For an explanation of why these basic health metrics continue declining, I suggest reading Birth Matters by midwife educator and pioneer Ina May Gaskin. It is one of the most thought-provoking public policy analysis books I've read in recent years. An excerpt:

We now find ourselves in a situation in the US and in many other parts of the world where women are increasingly being denied what is perhaps the most powerful and primal experience a woman can have: the right the give birth without the use of medical interventions unless these prove necessary. Women have been taught to believe that they must sacrifice themselves in important ways in order to have a baby -- that the greater good for the baby means that the mother must submit herself to greater risk, even if that means a C-section for which there is no medical reason.

Why, you may ask, would a woman have a C-section for no medical reason? For-profit health care strikes again: the price differential is about $20,000.

But Gaskin looks a lot deeper into why a system of "health" would systematically disempower half the people it serves.

And that's the most hopeful thing about the Hobby Lobby decision. It may just be the catalyst that sets off a mass movement of women in the U.S. unwilling to see their daughters and granddaughters crushed under the juggernaut of for-profit medical care and government. All the women in this country would need to do to claim their power and stand up to corporate government would be to stop supporting it. If all of us did this together, suddenly, the system would crumble.

CODEPINK's Alli McCracken in action outside the Supreme Court, which has a huge buffer zone to keep protestors away from its doors -- but denied Planned Parenthood clinics the same protection in another bad decision last week.

#Monsanto Resistance Goes Global May 25, 2013

source: British Museum. A looted relief from the ancient palace of King Ashurnasirpal in Iraq.

Violent systems of domination have historically bolstered their own delusions of grandeur with propaganda claiming their control of the very stuff of life.  Need I mention that the vast majority were patriarchal systems, advertising the righteous machismo and victories of male warrior-kings? From the museum caption that accompanies the above photo of palace art depicting a super buff deity in his majesty's service:

The cone in his right hand is described in Assyrian texts as a purifier, and was presumably envisaged as being covered in liquid from the bucket in his left hand. The cone may derive its shape from the male date-spathe, used to fertilise female date-palms. On the right is half a Sacred Tree, again a symbol of great importance in Assyria.

Right after fertilizing the Sacred Tree this royal servant probably hit the gym for a few hours and then kicked back with some date wine that he made possible!

Today, May 25, 2013, is the day the planet has chosen to march against the agribusiness corporation Monsanto. The corporation is responsible for inventing epic toxins DDT and Agent Orange before going on to patent the genetic code of seeds thus, in its own mind, claiming ownership of agriculture.

The state of Illinois swooped in without a warrant and stole the bees of a man who had been working for 15 years to research bees killed by Roundup, a modern nasty pesticide in the Monsanto portfolio. Scientists conducting research that threatens the empire are at risk, and I dare say many of them -- including legions of small organic farmers and gardeners -- are conducting stealth resistance.

People marching against corporate control of government, of information, of education and of life are not in stealth mode today.

Say it loud and say it proud: get your tentacles out of our food supply!

Get copies of this Occucard here.

The text as it appears on the back of the card

Monsanto is a multinational agricultural biotechnology corporation headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. With the exception of weapons manufacturers and other private military firms, there is perhaps no corporation that provides such a dramatic example of corporate influence over government. Not only does Monsanto spend a staggering $8 million a year lobbying government officials (imagine 80 full-time lobbyists each paid $100,000 a year), but many former Monsanto executives hold key positions in the FDA, EPA and USDA, where they have made favorable regulatory decisions regarding Monsanto products.

One of those products, recombinant bovine somatotropin, commonly known as “bovine growth hormone” (rBGH), is a synthetic hormone injected into cows to increase milk production. It also increases the levels a substance called IGF-1 in their milk, which is then passed on to humans. Elevated blood serum levels of IGF-1 have been linked in numerous studies to breast, colon and prostate cancer. For this reason, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and all 27 European Union countries have banned the use of rBGH. The FDA’s highly controversial 1993 decision approving rBGH was overseen by former Monsanto attorney, Michael R. Taylor, who was serving as the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner of Policy at the time. After the decision Taylor left the FDA and again joined Monsanto, becoming the company’s chief lobbyist and Vice President for Public Policy. He has since gone back and forth between Monsanto and various government positions in the FDA and the USDA, highlighting the “revolving door syndrome” that has become a hallmark of corporate-government collusion.

Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) crops consist primarily of those modified to be resistant to the herbicide Roundup (another Monsanto product) and those modified to contain within their cells the biological pesticide called Bacillus thuringiensis (or Bt). Widespread health and environmental concerns over both these types of GM plants are based on numerous scientific studies and have resulted in many countries banning GM crops entirely. In the European Union a moratorium on new GM crops has been in effect since 1998 and strict labeling is required on all genetically modified food products approved before the moratorium. Monsanto has spent millions of dollars pressuring EU officials to allow the introduction of GM foods into Europe, and—more significantly—recent Wikileaks documents reveal U.S. State Department officials also pressuring EU officials on Monsanto’s behalf.

Monsanto’s actions run the gamut of illegality and dirty tricks, and include the attempted bribery of Canadian officials; the intentional dumping of toxic waste into the environment; and the filing of hundreds of lawsuits alleging “patent infringement” against small farmers whose crops became contaminated with their patented genes, etc. Mass protests against Monsanto have spread to dozens of countries around the world and have included civil disobedience actions like the burning of experimental crop fields and the nonviolent occupation of Monsanto facilities.

References and external links:

http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=209
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/03/wikileaks-us-eu-gm-crops
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9RL51J81.htm
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article…
http://www.ejnet.org/bgh/igf-1science.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide…
http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2961284.stm
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/25/magazine/playing-god…
http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/OfficeofFoods…
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6262083…
http://facebook.com/geneticcrimesunit
http://www.facebook.com/occupymonsanto

Get copies of this Occucard here.

"I, Ashurnasirpal, the king whose glory is mighty, took Kalhu and changed its ancient mound.... A palace of boxwood, mulberry, cedar, cypress, pistachio, tamarisk, and poplar...for my royal dwelling and for my lordly pleasure I founded therein, I adorned and made glorious."

Patriarchy Spiraling Down, In Its Death Throes

The bad effects of having so little representation of feminist values in the cabals that make decisions that all of us must live with are increasingly evident.

The rape of the Earth, as in this Hellish operation in North Dakota, or as depicted in this map of fracking accidents, are just two examples of an enormous global problem.

source: EarthJustice.org "Because the earth needs a good lawyer."

The superheating of the planet is evidence of patriarchy in action, as in this example where Australian children and their grandmother cling together in a body of water to escape temperatures so high they required a new color on the weather maps.

photo source: AP Photo/Holmes Family

Guarded over by their grandfather who is taking the photos, it is fitting that they have the appearance of white Europeans who took over land stewardship in the fragile ecological system of Australia that had endured since African descendants arrived on foot over 30,000 years ago.

White European culture is all about patriarchal control. That's why it must fund vicious misogyny in the Middle East, to make itself look benign by comparison (and create the chaos that enables resource grabbing, of course).

Top down management has resulted in governments that are the best corporate lobbyists can buy, corporations that destroy the very ground they live upon in order to generate short term profits.

Another of its results: rape culture.

I blogged earlier this week about the Oscar-nominated film The Invisible War, which is about decades of rape culture in all branches of the U.S. military. It's a pattern of abuse.

Arundhati Roy speaks eloquently of the class and gender politics in India that result in New Delhi being known as the rape capital of the world even prior to the gruesome rape and murder of a female medical student kidnapped along with her escort by a van posing as a bus.

Now comes the hacktivist collective Anonymous with a full release of the Steubenville rape video which constitutes part of the online evidence of gang rape of a drugged 16 year old girl by members of a high school football team. Others, most notably blogger Alexandria Goddard, have offered the rest of the evidence including a photo of the girl being carried as if she were a slain deer. Carried from party to party to be raped repeatedly.

And then the bragging began. You can read DemocracyNow! reporting on it, or view the full 12 minute video of braggart here.

Many who have viewed the video warned that is is revolting, best viewed in small doses. I found it disturbing but less than shocking. For one thing, there are protests off camera from more than one young man objecting to the de-humanizing statements being made, urging the braggart to develop his empathy.

I've been around adolescent males much of my life, so his attitude is not too surprising. What struck me is that it could be used as a textbook study of bullying and what fuels it: the show-off who thinks he is hilarious, enabled by the sycophant (in this case the boy behind the camera) who laughs at everything whether funny or not, and eggs the bully on when he starts to wind down, and fuels the whole performance with his adulation.

From working in schools I know that current thinking on bullying is that, while bullies must experience consequences, don't make the mistake of thinking that will stop bullying. Sadistic behavior is its own reward, and is often addictive (a point made tellingly in The Invisible War). It is the bystanders who hold the key to disrupting the dynamic; the victim often does not have the resources to stop it -- unless he goes home and gets his older brother's shotgun, as happened in the latest school shooting, at Taft High School in California.

So here's the connection to patriarchal culture: the prevalence of hyper-masculine violence as entertainment and glorification of our way of life is the very air the current crop of jocks and soldiers have breathed from infancy. All human beings have both violent and compassionate impulses. Which ones does a culture support and develop? Winner take all, eat or be eaten, dog eat dog, alpha males intimidating their so-called inferiors -- women, children, and "weaker" males by definition -- are the signature style of the sick culture of the U.S. Empire and its outposts.

Commandeering the airwaves to drown out other voices is just one aspect of the problem, albeit a very powerful one.

Seeing the women who sell out to become mouthpieces of such a system is just sad. Check out The Invisible War segments of Susan Collins or Chellie Pingree or DOD spokeswomen to see what I mean.

Seeing the men who are the refuseniks -- Bradley Manning, the husbands and fathers in The Invisible War, or the hacktivist "X" who leaked the Steubenville brag video confirms what we all know -- there is much goodness in men as individuals. It is the sick system allowing sadistic alpha males to control our common resources that is the underlying and very real, very urgent problem.

It is time for patriarchy to step down before this planet is no longer habitable. It is time for all who hold feminist values to withdraw our cooperation from this system.

If you are in Maine or nearby, consider joining a Feminist Values GA-style discussion in Augusta on Saturday, January 26 at the Pine Tree State Arboretum. Small groups of diverse people will discuss how to free ourselves collectively from the death grip of patriarchy. This is 19th in a series of Changing Maine Gatherings. More details are here.

Revised 5:10pm EST - Could not resist including this bit of evidence from the ongoing disaster of NATO/US occupation in Afghanistan where soldiers have murdered, raped, desecrated and pissed on corpses -- among other crimes:

Karzai confident he can get U.S. troops immunity

Wall St. = War St. Amen To That, Brothers and Sisters.

Source: Black Agenda Report blog by Glen Ford.

Looking forward to some fun today, making a copycat video in the "Sh*t Folks Say" series which has lampooned, among other groups, Ron Paul supporters. A compilation of some of the funnier ones here in Mother Jones inspired me to look for the inevitable "Sh*t Obama Supporters Say" but oddly enough I could not find one. Since my husband comes home regularly steaming over shi*t people have said in his presence defending the Obomber, I knew we could generate plenty of absurdities.

Online to do a bit of research, of course I thought of Glen Ford and the Black Agenda Report, who have been telling it like it is all along about the first Black man in the White House.

I also remembered one of those Xtranormal animated shorts with the cute bunnies and teddy bears discussing economic policy (my all time fave is the one where they explain, in context, quantitative easing). So I mined the video below for some sh*t Mark can say while cross-country skiing, snow shoeing, or splitting wood outdoors on a gorgeous winter day like today.

Arguing with an Obama Supporter
by: mjk2527

I'm going with an LLBean catalog-type look because I think that's a neat cultural fit for privileged  liberal white people still clinging to their get-out-of-racism-free card by making apologies for the warmonger and civil liberties destroyer Obama. I know, I know, the video should be funny, not bitter. Working on that.

It is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day off for many of us clinging to our middle class jobs. Dr. King was angry but he did something about it, and we're still reflecting on his words and deeds even while knowing that he was a cheating husband and a male supremacist.

In my opinion, you will know that the old order is crumbling when you stop seeing the patriarchy still in charge. We are a long way from that yet. But the cracks are in the foundation. And humans probably won't survive unless this great sea change back to being guided by the collective wisdom of the indigenous grandmothers happens pretty damn soon.

Source: International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers website

Mission statement from their website:

We represent a global alliance of prayer, education and healing for our Mother Earth, all Her inhabitants, all the children, and for the next seven generations to come.

We are deeply concerned with the unprecedented destruction of our Mother Earth and the destruction of indigenous ways of life. We believe the teachings of our ancestors will light our way through an uncertain future.

We look to further our vision through the realization of projects that protect our diverse cultures: lands, medicines, language and ceremonial ways of prayer and through projects that educate and nurture our children.

I'll just end by saying my belief that it makes very little difference who ends up in the White House. As long as we have the current system in charge of the commons of Mother Earth, humankind is doomed. I intend to keep raising my voice, though, and having some fun doing it -- while we ride into an uncertain future on this heavily armed missile that our planet has become.

Methane Plume under Arctic Ice / Source: bpoilspillcrisisinthegulf.webs.com