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Codifying the Worst of American Society

Log Cabin Republicans, Polynesian Mormons, hell–females subscribers to any of the 3 Abrahamic religions who really know what the tenets are……… why are so many in need of a world-view that clearly finds their very existence to be a shady proposition? Mormons tenets say dark skinned people were made “dark and loathsome” due to some sort of past tribal transgression. Log Cabin (gay) Republicans….well just WTF? And religious women? Do you really feel that unclean, that much less of a human than your brethren? How do you explain it away…..the things these religions say about women? I know, I know– Stockholm Syndrome and the like on a big scale, perhaps. Stockholm Plague, really, the extent of all this. Lots of women are very pleased with the recent enhanced incursion into medical decisions on the part of dumbass entities like Hobby Lobby. You know, Hobby Lobby– a big crapstravaganza of shitty Chinese goods made by de-facto slaves who are often strong armed into abortions. Isn’t that enough to throw out anything the idiots blather on about? No, of course not—because hypocrisy is evidently very much on the shelves at that place right below the glitter pens. The masochistic tendencies run very deep in modern society, this need for narratives that call on people to feel flawed as a prerequisite. And this fits like a missing puzzle piece when you want to give corporations all the power.

This kind of self-loathing isn’t relegated to the conservative set in America. I see articles penned by “progressive” women that come across as a missive to shake off the hurt feelings, and forget about the injustices because women just don’t come off as strong speaking of these things too much. I see these types of articles as barely better than the tales of mythical agrarian women (always from some distant and indistinct region) who gave birth in the fields and kept on harvesting. Because they were that tough! Modern women take heed. Don’t whine because you get mansplained to. Kind of what I think of when I see items that try to shake off issues like rampant misogyny contributing to numerous murders by spouses/boyfriends. It’s real and pretending it is not won’t help. But it might win you some fans among those who like to hear women talk rough about the shaky feelings of those other sensitive members of her sex. Being a star to those types is like being the oft referred to “black friend” of a Fox viewer. That whole “I have a black friend, but”……..then it devolves into some screed against something so distasteful I won’t even type it. Such a special place to reside, being the one liked by those who consider you to be just palatable enough to be safe. You could probably be invited to their house and would maybe entertain them.

I suppose it is intoxicating to think of yourself as superior and the lesser types of men smarm around in it. But there is some serious female enabling going on or this could not persist. I’m speaking to Western society. I’m not judging some poor woman ensconced in walls in Saudi Arabia for lack of a male relative to take her out. She is a slave and not an enabler. Anyway, hating women is about as much of a red flag as hating any group. It says so much more about the one doing the hating than the groups they target. It’s just that the women haters sadly have peers that buoy them up, where the guy who really, really hates diabetic Sikhs doesn’t. He is sort of on his own. So a “culture” of hating diabetic Sikhs will never take hold (thankfully…..they have enough to deal with).

Even in the realm of other anarchist leaners I have been so dismayed to find a good dose of self-loathing and self-fulfilling misery achievement. I suppose due to the background noise that we are all so damn flawed and deserve nothing but strife with each other. I love this saying from the Dineh (Navajo)–you cannot wake someone who is just pretending to sleep. I referenced this to someone who resides in a dark, stupid place and was told “sometimes you pretend to sleep for so long, you just fall asleep.” How terrible is it when even those who know, choose sleep? So I see a humanity on the ledge of a ledge of a cliff with a flawed Acme jetpack. It looks pretty bad without some monumental changes in how we view each other in the most basic sense. And also a notion of what we deserve just for being human. But right now it is this inability to celebrate the beautiful and an inability to connect. All has been dismembered to reflect the price of the organs.

So what does this have to do with shitty SCOTUS rulings? Basically it is just a codified continuation of the worst in society tapping into the worst of motivations and telling us what to do. And never for the reasons they say. When about half of women use oral contraceptives for things other than birth control (and seriously, fuck that…. having to broadcast that disclaimer…..like a guy would ever have to say….but, but, but I am using Viagra off-label as a GPS device. I’m not having dirty, awful, wrong sex with it!)

It is not anyone else’s business. I would never tell a guy to stop using Viagra. I just don’t care. I might encourage an actual GPS device, and that he could use it to go find a woman (or man, again….I don’t care, be happy) willing to have sex with him, but that would just be friendly advice. Not a SCOTUS ruling. Subjugating others and allowing corporations to rule us due to their money……none of it is human.

As an entity called Sorry, Kansas says: “If corporations were people, I’d have the opportunity to fucking murder one.”

Kathleen Wallace writes about music and culture for CounterPunch. She lives somewhere in the Midwest.