RHRealityCheck.org: Nelson Gets Around The Vote, And Sexism Still Thrives In America

[Triana]

AUDIO:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/RealityCasts/RH_realitycast_117.mp3

TEXT:

Barbara Berg talks about why sexism is still a major problem. Also, the health care debate turns to back room deals over abortion and prayers asking God to smite enemies.


Issues in this episode:


Court-martialed for getting pregnant?

Not even paying tribute to the truth

Praying that God smites Robert Byrd

Passive-aggressive praying

The Puritans didn't actually write the Constitution, you know

Honor your father and mother by denying them professional health care

Holey moley that's racist!



On this episode of Reality Cast, I'll be interviewing Barbara Berg about her new book on why feminism is still so necessary. Also, health care health care health care. Nelson recovers from defeat to reattach abortion shaming to the bill, and health care opponents start praying for god to smite their enemies.



Now here's a story I'm hoping I can pay more attention to in the future.



* army *



I'm pretty sure that banning pregnancy in the military has got to be illegal. If anyone out there has a tip on who might be pushing back against this, please email me at amanda dot Marcotte at gmail dot com.



*********

Last week, I was premature in my joy that abortion might be taken off the table for awhile, having foolishly thought that Ben Nelson was going to be a grown-up and roll over after his amendment to restrict abortion funding was defeated. I failed you, listeners. Even I cannot believe the depths that some will sink when it comes to proving their deeply held misogynist beliefs. Nelson had a trick up his sleeve, it turns out.



* nelson 1 *



And his strategy was to threaten to hold up the bill with a filibuster unless the bill was amended to make sure that insurance cannot pay for abortion coverage with private funds paid to the insurance companies. Nelson was pandering to his anti-choice buddies, but of course, he immediately went into minimizing this amendment.



* nelson 2 *



He's trying to sell this as less invasive than the Stupak amendment. I guess it is, but only on paper. In reality, what he's proposing is what I like to call the dirty slut payments. Which is, they're basically requiring women who think they might need an abortion one day to keep a policy just for that, knowing full well that this measure is intended to shame and insult women. And that's the point, of course. Anti-choicers know this probably won't save a single fetus, nor do they care. The main thing is shaming women for being sexual. If they could legally punish them, they'd do that, but in the meantime it's all about the shame and stigma. And frankly, we know most women won't pay for the rider. Why not? Because no one plans on getting an abortion, duh. If you have an abortion, a lot of people will think you're a dirty slut. If you plan for it, then it's really embarrassing. Sometimes I'm amazed at the endless creativity anti-choicers show in their perversity.



Of course, the endless complexity of these negotiations has been seized upon by health care opponents in an effort to dismiss the entire bill. Senator Lindsay Graham hit all the points, from race-baiting to playing sentimental on abortion.



* nelson 3 *



Well, there doesn't have to be complexity on abortion coverage. It could be paid for straight up. And seriously, I'm so sick of people using language like "emotional" to describe anti-choice sentiments. Yes, sex-phobia and misogyny are emotional, but they're nasty emotions, and the word "emotional" doesn't really come close to describing them.



Tom Coburn took another tactic, which is my favorite health care opponent tactic, which is straight up lying.



* nelson 4 *



Let's face it: Even if they banned abortion and overturned Roe v. Wade in this bill, health care opponents would claim that the government is paying for abortions. They aren't constrained by truth in their quest to shut this bill down. It just makes all the attempts by Ben Nelson and Bart Stupak to pander to anti-choicers seem all the more pathetic. This was never about abortion, paying for it or not paying for it. It was always about the health care bill and killing it, by using women's sexuality to get people upset and distracted. Too distracted to remember that they need health insurance to pay for more than their neighbor's sexual habits that don't involve them.

***********

Insert interview

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Now that the health care bill is getting much closer to becoming a law, you're seeing the opposition moving from angry protests that they can stop this thing to straight up praying. Yes, I said praying. They want god to intercede against reforms that could improve the health and well-being of millions of Americans. And if you think that there's no part of that which is just wanting other people to get sick, well, let me just play this clip of Tom Coburn praying.



* prayer 1 *



Oh yeah, you heard that right. He actually just told people to pray directly for Senators to miss the vote, which is a not subtle way of wishing that they fall ill. So, should anyone tell you that there's no sadism in the opposition to health care reform, I point you to this. He's not just resisting helping people not get sick, but taking active steps towards making people sick. Unless Coburn doesn't believe prayer works, in what case he's just a liar and not a sadist.



Luckily, Dick Durbin did not let this pass.



* prayer 2 *



Yeah, well, we know why he has to pretend that he doesn't know. But we do.



But Coburn wishing illness on his peers was far from the only form of health care opposition praying going on. The Family Resource Council had a "prayercast" to beg god to defeat health care reform. Unsurprisingly, Michele Bachmann is really good at the passive-aggressive prayer, where one pretends to be humble in front of god in order to take swipes at their enemies.



* prayer 3 *



After that, she begs for mercy, apparently in the form of denying other people health care. I fail to see how that's mercy, but I'm not an expert at using prayer as a passive-aggressive political tool. FRC also had Representative Todd Akin praise the Puritans for having a theocratic form of government.



* prayer 4 *



Nevermind that the Puritans also practiced a form of socialism.



It's alarming to me that Akin not only doesn't realize that the Puritans didn't write our Constitution, but also that he actually thinks that you can get an argument against health care reform from the Bible. But of course he thinks that, because Pastor Jim Garlow actually tries to make that argument.



* prayer 5 *



Let's all just take a moment and enjoy a man who is deceiving his followers about the reality of health care reform acting self-righteous about deceit. Just when you think they can't go any lower, they do. Though I suppose it's hard to get lower than exploiting people's earnest desire for faith in order to deprive them of health care reform because some rich people are worried it might affect the marginal tax rate.

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And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts, the subtext is definitely becoming the text edition. Lindsay Graham got a little ahead of himself in whining about the costs of health care reform and forgot to put the racism filter up.



* south Carolina *



It's hard to tell what he's saying. I don't know if he's implying all African-Americans are on Medicaid, or if he's just generally complaining. Either way, holy moley that was racist, Senator Graham!

[Triana]

1. The interview with Barbara Burns is worth hearing in the audio version. n/t