“If Liberals Hate Something, It Must Be Terrific And Effective”: Those Obamacare Rape Ads Are A Scam On Conservatives
I suppose I have to talk about the creepy anti-Obamacare ads that everyone, or at least all the liberal bloggers, are talking about today.
Look, folks: this is a very obvious scam.
This is not about stopping the ACA.
This is about money.
Oh, for the donors, it’s presumably about stopping Obamacare.
But for the people putting together the ads, unless they are incredibly stupid and naive, it’s almost certainly about raising money from those donors. And, perhaps, making a name for themselves (or a bigger name — I’m not looking to see who is responsible) within the conservative movement.
These ads could not be better designed to do one thing: to get condemned by liberals. Thus impressing easily scammed conservative marks, who tend to really believe that if liberals hate something, it must be terrific and effective.
This campaign is not designed to convince young people to “opt out” of Obamacare. It’s part of a “campus tour” supposedly designed to convince those young people to go without insurance, but that’s transparently a fraud; traditional-aged college students, the ones who are supposedly being targeted, aren’t really the customers that matter (it’s their older brothers and sisters…yes, some traditional-age college students may purchase their own insurance under ACA, more than was the case before, but it must be a fairly small group).
No, there are real efforts to undermine the law — harassing the “navigators,” pressuring the NFL and others not to publicize it, and more — but this campaign isn’t one of them.
Will it have any effect on actual consumer behavior? I doubt it. But it is worth noting that if it does “work” at all, it’s going to work on the people who respond best to the affect evoked by the ads: in other words, people already primed and ready to hate Obama(care), people already primed and ready to hate the government of the United States, people primed and ready to suspect the very worst of the program. And do note: the way it “works” is by convincing them to go without health insurance.
So basically: if you’re a rich conservative who isn’t very smart about how you give your money, this ad is designed to pick your pocket. If you’re a non-rich conservative, you might get duped into some foolish behavior, but that’s just acceptable collateral damage. For everyone else, it’s an occasion for (to be fair, entirely justified) outrage, I suppose, but basically it’ll come and go without any real effects.
Hey, I know: we’re not supposed to question motives. I believe that. So I’ll say again: it’s possible that these ads are not a scam, but a real political campaign undertaken by seriously naive and stupid operatives. Just as it’s possible that the people doing the “defund” campaign sincerely believe that a government shutdown threat would achieve that, as opposed (as Jamelle Bouie and others pointed out) just finding it an effective money-raising tool). I have to admit, however: that’s not what I think is going on.
By: Jonathan Bernstein, Washington Monthly, Ten Miles Square, September 20, 2013
“Failing Young Rape Victims”: Children Are Children And Acting Older Doesn’t Make Them Older
Last year, a defense attorney called an 11 year-old gang rape victim a “spider” luring men into her web. When The New York Times covered the case, they reported she “dressed older than her age,” wore make up and hung out with teenage boys. It wasn’t a new framing; when young girls are raped – especially young girls of color – they’re frequently blamed for “enticing” adult men or painted as complicit in the attack because of their supposed sexual maturity. From the criminal justice system that re-traumatizes assault victims to a media that calls rape cases “sex scandals” or insists statutory rape isn’t ‘rape rape’, we are failing young sexual assault survivors every day.
One young woman we have failed is Cherice Moralez. When Moralez was 14, she was raped by her 49 year old teacher. She killed herself a few weeks before her 17th birthday. Last week, a Montana judge sentenced Stacey Dean Rambold – who admitted raping Moralez – to just 30 days in jail. Judge G. Todd Baugh said Moralez was “older than her chronological age,” and was “as much in control of the situation” as her rapist. Baugh also said the assault “wasn’t this forcible beat-up rape.”
While state prosecutors are seeking to appeal the sentence and the case has generated justifiable outrage, some believe the 30 days was too much. Former lawyer Betsy Karasik, for example, used the case as an example to argue for the decriminalization of student-teacher “relationships” in The Washington Post. Karasik insisted that no one she knew who had sex with teachers was “horribly damaged” and that “many teenagers are, biologically speaking, sexually mature.”
But biological maturity or “acting” mature is not the same thing as being an adult. Roxane Gay writes, “People often want to ‘complicate’ the statutory rape conversation by talking about the sexual empowerment of adolescents and this and that. These exercises in intellectual masturbation are pointless.”
“I was a teenager, we were all teenagers and we all felt empowered in our youthful seductions. We maybe were and we probably weren’t. We like to tell ourselves we know exactly what we’re doing, even when we don’t.”
When I was a sophmore in high school, my social studies teacher – who was in his 60s or 70s – asked me to come to the board because “everyone wants to see how you look in that shirt.” I stopped going to class, too ashamed to return. Before the semester ended, the teacher cornered me in the hallway and told me if I gave him a hug, he would give me a 95 in the class. I did it.
At the time, I laughed with my friends about the “pervy teacher who gave me an awesome grade.” I reacted the same way when I was 17 and a man in his 30s who had been my teacher since I was 13 years old, called my home the week I graduated to ask me out. Because that’s what teens do – deflect pain with humor.
I thought my blasé reaction made me mature, but the truth is that it epitomized my immaturity – a testament to the fact that I didn’t know how to handle unwanted advances of much older men.
Teenagers can act unhurt over sexual harassment and abuse for all sorts of reasons, including trying to reclaiming agency from an abusive situation. That does not mean what is happening is not abuse, or rape, or assault. And no matter how grown teens act, it’s the responsibility of teachers and adults to remind us that we’re not adults, not to lasciviously bolster a myth that says otherwise or worsen it with blame.
Sexualization of young girls is not just something that happens as part of abuse, it’s something that’s part of their everyday lives. A report from the American Psychological Association shows that even the personal relationships girls have with peers, parents and teachers can contribute to this sexualization through daily interactions:
Parents may contribute to sexualization in a number of ways. For example, parents may convey the message that maintaining an attractive physical appearance is the most important goal for girls. Some may allow or encourage plastic surgery to help girls meet that goal. Research shows that teachers sometimes encourage girls to play at being sexualized adult women or hold beliefs that girls of color are “hypersexual” and thus unlikely to achieve academic success.
For girls like Moralez – who are depicted as “troubled” or deserving of the abuse done to them because of racism and their perceived sexuality – the consequences are acute. One study, for example, showed that Latina girls are likely to stop attending school activities in order to avoid sexual harassment – a survival technique that is more likely to result in a label of deliquency than victimhood.
Cherice Moralez deserves more justice than 30 days. She deserves more humanity than being fodder for an intellectual argument that supports rape. And no matter what she looked like or acted like, she was a child.
As Cherice’s mother Auliea Hanlon told CNN, “How could she be in control of the situation? He was a teacher. She was a student. She wasn’t in control of anything. She was 14.” Cherice was described as “gifted” by her teachers. She loved poetry. She was 14.
By: Jessica Valenti, The Nation, September 2, 2013
“Crazier Than His Chronological Age”: Montana Judge’s Comments Show His Ignorance About Rape
Generally, the courts in Montana go about their business without much notice outside the state.
But after 29 years on the bench of the 13th District Court in Montana, Judge G. Todd Baugh has brought the national spotlight to Yellowstone County and is hearing calls from across the country for his ouster after he imposed a 30-day sentence in a rape case, and said the 14-year-old victim was “as much in control of the situation” as the high school teacher who ultimately pleaded guilty. The judge also described the teenager as “being older than her chronological age,” even though the age of consent in Montana is 16.
Perhaps the judge should have just used the words that too many rape victims have heard: “She was asking for it.”
In this case, though, the victim could not hear those words. She killed herself in February 2010.
Plenty of others have heard those words. Tens of thousands of people have put their names on online petitions calling for Baugh to step down. Protesters crowded the lawn of the courthouse Thursday, vowing to campaign against him if he seeks reelection in 2014.
The judge, for his part, has apologized for his comments but not for the sentence he imposed.
In a letter to the Billings Gazette, he wrote: “In the Rambold sentencing, I made references to the victim’s age and control. I’m not sure just what I was attempting to say, but it did not come out correct.
“What I said is demeaning of all women, not what I believe and irrelevant to the sentencing. My apologies to all my fellow citizens.”
The apology was rejected by many people, including the rape victim’s mother, Auliea Hanlon, who told the Associated Press: “He’s just covering his butt. He wouldn’t have said anything if people hadn’t spoken up. He didn’t reverse his decision, so it’s irrelevant.”
While Baugh’s actions have sparked outrage, this is one of many instances of “pushback” that author Susan Brownmiller has seen since the publication of her groundbreaking book “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape” in 1975.
She emphasized that in the Montana case, the girl was 14, making her “incapable of giving an informed consent.”
“The consent laws are very clear about that,” Brownmiller said in a telephone interview. “A 14-year-old, by law, is not responsible.”
She added, “There are a lot of guys in positions of authority, like a judge, who really have no idea of what rape is.”
Other examples include former U.S. representative Todd Akin of Missouri, who lost a campaign for Senate after he said that women who are victims of what he called “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant, and Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who said in a campaign for the U.S. Senate: “Life is that gift from God that I think even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
At least some do understand what rape is and are speaking out, including Pete Taylor, a 51-year-old head waiter at a restaurant in Billings who attended the protest wearing a T-shirt on which he had written “14 is 14.”
By: Carla Baranauckas, She The People, The Washington Post, August 30, 2013
“Fear And Consequences”: George Zimmerman, The Not-So-Faceless Bogeyman, And The Protection Of White Womanhood
My first week of college, I had a heated debate about abortion with two new friends—both were white, and one, Nancy, was extremely pro-life. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for having such an “adult” conversation—we disagreed, but everyone was being respectful. Then my other pro-choice friend asked Nancy what she would do with a pregnancy if she was raped. I will never forget what Nancy said: “I think it would be cute to have a little black baby.” When we expressed outrage at her racism, Nancy shrugged. It never occurred to her a rapist would be anyone other than a black man. (DOJ statistics show that 80 to 90 percent of women who are raped are attacked by someone of their own race, unless they are Native women.) When this young woman imagined a criminal in her mind, he wasn’t a faceless bogeyman.
I hadn’t thought of this exchange in years, not until I was reading the responses to George Zimmerman’s acquittal—particularly those about the role of white womanhood. When I first heard that the jurors were women, I naïvely hoped they would see this teenage boy shot dead in the street and think of their children. But they weren’t just any women; most were white women. Women who, like me, have been taught to fear men of color. And who—as a feminist named Valerie pointed out on Twitter—probably would see Zimmerman as their son sooner than they would Trayvon Martin.
Brittney Cooper at Salon expressed the same sentiment: “I am convinced that at a strictly human level, this case came down to whether those white women could actually see Trayvon Martin as somebody’s child, or whether they saw him according to the dictates of black male criminality.”
And indeed, Anderson Cooper’s interview with juror B37 sheds light on who was considered deserving of empathy and humanization. Hint: it wasn’t Trayvon Martin. As Igor Volsky of Think Progress pointed out, “B37” used Zimmerman’s first name in the interview frequently and twice used the phrase “George said” even though Zimmerman didn’t testify. She also indicated that she wasn’t moved by Rachel Jeantel’s testimony because of her “communication skills” and that “she was using phrases I had never heard before.”
Perhaps most tellingly, though, “B37” told Cooper that Zimmerman’s “heart was in the right place, but just got displaced by the vandalism in the neighborhoods and wanting to catch these people so badly that he went above and beyond what he really should have done.” (The phrase “above and beyond” is interesting, given it’s generally understood as a positive.) To her, Zimmerman was a protector. Sure, maybe he went a bit overboard but “Trayvon got mad and attacked him,” and Zimmerman “had a right to defend himself.”
This juror’s comments cannot be divorced from our culture’s long-standing criminalizing of young black men, and white women’s related fears. As Mychal Denzel Smith pointed out here at The Nation and on MSNBC’s Up With Steve Kornacki, defense attorneys stoked this fear deliberately and broadly.
To my disgust, O’Mara literally invoked the same justification for killing Trayvon as was used to justify lynchings. He called to the witness stand Olivia Bertalan, one of Zimmerman’s former neighbors, who told the story of her home being burglarized by two young African-American boys while she and her children feared for their lives. It was terrifying indeed, and it had absolutely no connection to the case at hand. But O’Mara presented the jury with the “perfect victim,” which Trayvon could never be: a white woman living in fear of black criminals. Zimmerman had offered to help her the night her home was robbed. Implicit in the defense’s closing argument: he was also protecting her the night he killed Trayvon Martin.
They carefully made Martin—the victim—into that not-so-faceless bogeyman. Now, I don’t know what was in the jurors’ hearts—but the story the defense told and that juror B37 parroted is not a new one. It’s a story that ends with fear trumping empathy and humanity. (A fear that even now is being grossly defended as justified.)
Yes, white women—all of us—are taught to fear men of color. We need to own that truth, own that shameful fear. Most importantly, we need to name it for what it is: deeply held and constantly enforced racism.
I’d like to think if I was on that jury I would look at pictures of Trayvon Martin and see him for the child he was. I hope I would.
By: Jessica Valenti, The Nation, July 16, 2013
“Safe And Effective”: All Women Should Have Quick, Confidential Access To Emergency Contraception
Earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration took an important step for millions of women by moving emergency contraception out from behind the pharmacy counter and making it available to people ages 15 and older with valid identification.
As a doctor, I know that this is good news and a great first step. Emergency contraception is a safe and effective form of birth control that can prevent pregnancy if taken within five days of unprotected sex. By reducing barriers, this announcement will help more women prevent unintended pregnancy.
At the same time, the Obama administration said this week that it is appealing last month’s federal ruling that would have eliminated the age restriction completely. Citing scientific research and evidence, the judge removed the age and point of sale restrictions that made it harder for all women to access emergency contraception. That ruling should stand.
Unprotected sex sometimes happens – a condom breaks or non-consensual sex occurs. When it does, all women, regardless of their age, need access to emergency contraception quickly and confidentially.
Remember, emergency contraception prevents pregnancy. The sooner it is taken, the more effective it is (but if you are already pregnant, it won’t work). That’s why removing unnecessary barriers that delay access can help a woman prevent an unintended pregnancy.
The research shows that emergency contraception is safe for women of all ages, including young people. Research also indicates that teens understand how to use emergency contraception and understand it is not intended for ongoing, regular use. It doesn’t increase risky behavior either.
A recent study published in the medical journal Pediatrics found that sexual activity is exceedingly rare among the youngest adolescents. However, when sex does occur among teens under 14, it is often non-consensual and contraceptives are not used.
So despite some of the myths out there, emergency contraception is a safe, effective way to prevent pregnancy for all women, regardless of age (though, as someone who talks to parents everyday about health care, I also know it’s crucial that parents have conversations with their children about these issues).
The good news is that this week’s decision makes it a whole lot easier for women to get access to emergency contraception. More should be done to remove all barriers and unnecessary hurdles. While the teen birth rates have declined significantly in the last two decades, they are still high, including in states that lack access to medical providers and preventive health care.
That’s why, as a doctor, I know it makes good scientific and medical sense to expand access to emergency contraception to all women.
By: Deborah Nucatola, MD, Senior Director of Medical Services for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Debate Club, U. S. News and World Report, May 3, 2013
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