FUCKING STOP: An open letter to Gov. Perry and the Texas GOP

Dear Gov. Perry, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, and the Texas GOP,

You don't know me, and I'm not a Texan in any way, shape, form, or fashion.  So I'd say you won't care what I think about this fiasco - except that you've already made it abundantly clear that you don't care what anyone thinks of what you're doing here, whether they're a constituent, a politician with the opposition, or God Herself, so I know it's nothing personal.

Since my words, and indeed, my very existence mean nothing to you, I will feel free to speak my true mind on this in very blunt terms.

You are the biggest pack of filthy hypocrites I've ever seen.

You (the wider GOP) venerate the Founding Fathers, who fought a war and founded a nation over the right to be treated with respect and have a say in one's government - and yet you blatantly disrespect the modern people of that nation when they gather by the hundreds and thousands to tell you to STOP.  You idolize (and I mean that in the truest sense of idolatry, by the way) a group of men who are remembered for, among other things, decrying "taxation without representation" - and yet you will happily impose far more intimate regulations on your constituents' very bodies while silencing their representation, whether it be through their elected officials or through their own voices raised in protest.

You use procedural trick after procedural trick to try to force those elected voices to shut up, eventually forcing them from the floor under guise of respect for parliamentary procedure - and yet you're quite happy to blatantly violate the same rules you insist everyone else abide by as soon as it suits you, by altering documents and timestamps to literally rewrite history once it became clear you'd lost.

Do you know why I am political in the ways that I am, Mr. Perry (et al)?  Because I still believe in - still want to believe in - the the noble ideals I was told we as a country stood for, as a child growing up in America.  I want this country to offer liberty and justice to all.  I want a government that is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people.

And you people claim to love the Constitution, love the Founders, love what this country "stands for" - that is, what we claim to stand for - and yet your actions tell a terrifyingly different story.

Because when you are faced with The People Themselves, in the flesh, by the hundreds, literally raising their voices to prevent you from making unjust laws that trample on their rights...

And your response, after every dirty trick and lie and machination you used failed you, is to say "That's fine, we'll just try it again next week"...

You are not acting in the spirit of the lofty goals of liberty and justice and freedom.  You are channeling King George.  (Hell, at this point, I'm inclined to say you're channeling Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine too, but that's my penchant for hyperbole and my geekishness sitting down for a drink together, so.)

You are liars.  You are hypocrites.  You are power-hungry tyrants unfit to wield authority over an ant colony, much less millions of human beings.  And you need to fucking stop.

With intense loathing,
J

The new "You're either with us, or with the enemy"

The rhetoric from the right has been getting more and more frenzied these past couple years.  I suppose that's what happens when your absurdly racist party is simultaneously confronted with a Scary Black Man President and increasing evidence of your slide into irrelevance as your single priority of "taking care of rich straight cis white Christian male businessmen" becomes ever-clearer at the same time that that particular demographic is shrinking compared to the size of every other demographic that you've made it quite obvious you hate.  So the bit I came across today isn't *surprising*, but it is, I think, something to note.

There's plenty to unpack in this particular off-the-rails screed from Don Feder of World Congress of [Cishet 2-Parent Unlimited-Children White Christian] Families about how Obama is totez gonna start rounding up conservatives and putting them in concentration camps any day now (and what IS it with these people and their Holocaust-appropriation fetish anyway?), but there was one line in particular that jumped out at me.

Recall Obama’s bitter-clinger remarks from the 2008 campaign – identifying resistance to his message primarily among those who cling to religion, guns and "anti-immigrant" sentiment. Think of his anti-nationalism (including the rejection of American exceptionalism) and attacks on the family, via same-sex "marriage" and taking medical decisions out of the family’s hands.

As an aside, "taking medical decisions out of the family's hands" is something to condemn when it's Democrats making it possible for people to even *consider* making medical decisions at all via expanded access to health insurance and health services, but taking medical decisions out of people's hands is awesome when it comes to Republicans legislating pregnancy and reproductive decisions? Uh huh. We see you, hypocrites.
But the part that got me here was the bit about "rejection of American exceptionalism" as equivalent to anti-nationalism.

If you don't believe the U.S. is inherently superior to all other nations on this planet, you are anti-nationalist.  If you do not believe we're better than everyone else, you hate America.  There is no middle ground.  There is no patriotism that allows for any understanding or critical examination of this nation's flaws.  If you don't uncritically laud everything America does as awesome simply because it was done by "the best country on Earth", it's a sign that you hate America and everything the country stands for.

(Considering that, if you look at our history, we have spent a lot of time and effort on standing for greed, corruption, imperialism, colonialism, warmongering, and genocide, I'm not sure why we *shouldn't* hate at least a solid portion of what this country "stands for", but that's a whole other conversation.)

Twelve years ago, Dubya famously said, "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists."

They've put it in fancy euphemisms and made a dog-whistle of it, but it's the same sentiment.  If you fail to believe 100% that this is God's Country and we can do no wrong, if you fail to uncritically support everything this nation does, you are the enemy.

And they wonder why I'm far more afraid of conservatives in my own country than I've ever been of nebulous "terrorists" halfway across the world.

Help a feminist blogger get her business off the ground!

Quick links if you wanna skip the whole reading-the-post part:

• My Indiegogo campaign page
• My Etsy shop
• My business' Facebook page

That said, here's the story:

I realize I haven't posted much at all here for awhile, and that's for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to:

• Seriously stressful home life stuff
• Jumping around between shitty temp jobs
• A repetitive-strain injury to my right hand that makes typing for long periods of time difficult and painful
• Battling moar depression stuff (bleh)

But most relevant to this post, I've also been working on trying to get my jewelry business off the ground.  

I make chainmaille jewelry (link goes to the maille tag on my tumblr blog where I post photos of completed pieces as well as works in progress [and, ahem, rants and crankiness about the making process when shit gets fucked up]) to sell on Etsy, to family/friends/coworkers, and by word of mouth.  And the instability of temp work I've been dealing with lately (along with the raves and encouragement from people who've seen my work helping me to gain confidence in my skills) has made me think - what if I could fill in the gaps in income with this work?  Maybe even be able to jump off the treadmill of the 9-to-5?  So I've been working on trying to make the shift from hobby to business.  I don't expect to make millions, but I'd like to be able to be at least partially self-sufficient from this.  The thing is, being a business requires looking like a business and acting like a business, and that requires some stuff I don't have and can't afford what with being between jobs and struggling to get by - more/a greater variety of raw materials, better tools, business cards, displays and packaging, table fees for local craft fairs, a small light tent for professional-looking product photography, etc.

Which is why I've created an Indiegogo fundraiser campaign to help me out with this.  The perks I'm offering include discount codes for my Etsy shop and pieces of custom jewelry.  Every donation is appreciated, no matter how small, and if you can't donate, signal-boosting is equally appreciated!  Toss the link up on FB, reblog my donations post on tumblr, retweet the new-post tweet for this post, any and all getting-the-word-out is awesome.  

Or just buy something from my shop.  That would work too.  ;-)

Thanks!