The Best Interview You'll Never See on Fox News.

New York Observer: Exclusive "Occupy Wall Street" Unaired Fox Footage - YouTube:

'via Blog this'

Its late, but I want to bring this clip to your attention. This. Is how you keep conservative media on point. The entire clip is pretty much worthy of being quoted verbatim, but a few points stand out; "We find that we can't get conversations about the ongoing investigation about Newscorporation in which you are an employee, but we can certianly ask questions about why we're 'engaging in class warfare'."

I want to have this gentleman's ideological puppies. No more blithely allowing the talking points to be dictated by those with vested interests in maintaining control. The clarity with which he eviscerates the interviewer is quite important here. There've been very few people who have held anyone to task for the misdirects and partisan fabrications on "birthers" and "death panels" and "special rights demanding gays" , when these claims have yet to be proven legitimately. They're distractions that have been allowed to keep the public from dealing with the realities of outsourcing, golden parachutes ,economic freefall and deregulation for too long. The time for polite conversations may be passing us by...but then its not as though the Koch brothers and the other 1% consider us "people" in the first place...

Enemies w/ Names- More on North Carolina's SB 514

Now hear this, cats and kittens. The enemy has been named. Say what you will about the book of faces, but it has its uses- chief among them, information about the May 3rd vote on State Bill 514. You know, the one that will enshrine the state constitution in discrimination (unnecessary, because same sex marriage isn't legal in the state to begin with).

If the aftermath of today's rally is any indication, I anticipate a great deal of crazy ratcheted up on both sides. (An entry on the "discussion" I had with "the opposition" is forthcoming) Roughly 7 months of escalation and division to keep us firmly rooted in the past to endure. Should be a great deal of fun. How this sort of division is good for the state is even now beyond me.

In Which We Mildly Regret Relocating...

You're going to want to watch this: Chris discusses NC legislative madness on MSNBC « The Progressive Pulse

Three things-

1.) Since I'm back in NC for the foreseeable future, I vow to take a vested interest in state politics from this moment forward. I expect it to be a cringe worthy experience if this anti-abortion legislation is any indication...

2.) I adore-full stop- Melissa Harris Perry. She inspires, and makes me want to actually finish my Phd (cutting through the angst, shocking I know) .

3.)Gov. Bev Perdue is as showcased in this clip is doing an amazing job being the "thin blue line" against the idealouges and the Tea Party drives policy from staunchly conservative to batshit conservative. Seems a tireless job to use a veto stamp so much and so necessarily.

(Speaking of somber notes, this song evokes a similar pang of longing and...utter despair)

Defamation for fun and profit. And fail.

Judge: Sherrod Defamation Suit Against Breitbart Can Proceed | TPMMuckraker

The lesson? Running a burn campaign on low level burrecrats (and otherwise kindly old ladies) by editing their meaningful and introspective testimony about how racism can lead to poor service and is wrong because you're making a name for yourself as a Republican shil is...about as douchey, illegal and unethical as it sounds. Proceed to Trial and do not pass go.

• More "fun" reading on Breitbart (and his "technical" employee facing federal felony charges). (Also...there's an African American conservative group called ....AACORNS. *headdesk*)

Teen Suicide Factory

The Teen Suicide Epidemic in Michele Bachmann's District | Mother Jones:

At this point it is safe to say Anoka-Hennepin school district is developing something of an image problem. The district has had a high teen suicide rate the past two years, and amid the spat of homophobia fueled suicides in 2010, began to come up as part of the dialog on volatile issue.

Its interesting to note that the school has, within the past two school years, had 6 suicides that have been linked to sexual orientation and subsequent bullying. Additionally, the school's policy on bullying when it pertains to real or imagined glbt issues is decidedly lackluster:

The Ankoa-Hennepin school district “neutrality” policy has been in place since 1995 and restricts teachers from speaking about lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) persons in the classroom. Local teachers have also come forward to speak out against the “neutrality” policy because they say it restricts discussions and enforcement of bullying and harassment polices and does not create a safe school environment often leaving them unable to to help.

The school's policy on neutrality essentially ties the hands of teachers and health professionals in the district and dissuades intervention or any affirmation of those perceived as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender while...not addressing the causal factors of said bullying whatsoever. One of the results? A suicide rate that is quickly becoming one of the highest in the nation, and an apparent apathy about modifying policy enough to counteract it. The policy itself hangs frozen in a strange sort of ideological limbo in which it must attempt impartiality while not actively affirming what could be seen as an endorsement of the "homosexual agenda"(tm). The area's educational professionals expressed some justifiable confusion as to how to proceed, leaving the socio-environmental conditions perpetuating the toxicity of bullying unchecked.

The Justice Department, the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, The Southern Poverty Law Center and National Center for Lesbian Rights have all been investigating Anoka-Hennepin since 2010, with the SPLC and NCLR both recently filing suit against the district over the detrimental policy and the hostile social climate of the school district.

The Mother Jones' article by Stephanie Mencimer notes a tactic put to use by area churches looking to counter what they feared were "pro-gay" messages, in which they passed out "Day of Truth" tees and encouraged christian teens to "preach to" those they perceived as gay.

Another volley in the so-called culture wars, but ones with very real, very awful implications for those with the misfortune of being labeled as "other". If we entitle children and justify those that want to enforce school sanctioned repression through bullying, we further perpetuate the meme that some viewpoints and lives are more important than others, which by extension is nowhere near neutrality in my mind.

Above, is a clip from series 5 of the ever trendsetting series Skins. Franky's a troubled, ostracized androgynous teen who has yet to find her place. She makes for some compelling storytelling.

On Pledges, Preambles and Other Putridness.

Conservative group backtracks on marriage pledge slavery language - Maggie Haberman - POLITICO.com

Ahhh, the day to day fascination that is following American politics. There's grandstanding. There's posturing. There's vast distortion...and there's this...

"Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA?s first African-American President,"

Some of the most vile, infuriatingly pat justifications I ever heard of Antebellum slavery in American History was that "at least it wasn't as brutal as slavery in other parts of the world"1 , or "Black people were happier or better off under slavery". A social institution that bred, bought and sold persons as though they were baseball cards (or Pokemon) , separated "families" as it was profitable, and generally denied the ability to have meaningful longterm relationships with their spouses and families should it have interfered with their prime directives was somehow the halmark of hearth and home. Or whatever other lies one will tell oneself in order to avoid the real, horrid human costs of southern history.

A quick internet query refutes the dizzy notion of two-parent household bliss in the Antebellum slavery system fairly succinctly, saying:

Marriage was not a locked-in-condition. Strings were attached which had an effect on slaves who tried to marry and live in the cities. Moreover, "a house was not a home." Slaves families cold hardly exist in bondage. A marriage contract was not recognized as law, the circumstances being a negative response. Children of this marriage were to become the property of the master and not the parents. This situation was the general condition of slavery.

the Slate.com does considerably better, directly countering the absolute lunacy of the above "preamble", and fully debunks the falacy of the stable slave family with the appropriate vigor:

Because of the high premium placed on male labor, throughout every period of American slavery, black men were the most likely to be parted from their families. For slave owners, who considered the basic family unit to be comprised of mother and child, husbands and fathers could be, and were, easily replaced. Many a slave woman was assigned a new husband by her master. Male children were also frequently taken from slave mothers. The bond between an enslaved mother and daughter was the least likely to be disturbed through sale. Yet this tie was also fragile. Owners could reap large returns by selling pretty girls, especially light-skinned ones, into prostitution or concubinage.

Does that sound like a stable, loving familial environment to you? What I find curious about the Family Leader's eagerness to get a dig in at the standing President and bemoan the less than idyllic black single parent household that it would omit historical reality in order to do so. Its beyond contemptible, and its fairly damning that Bachman and Santorium signed this "lofty" pledge that disparages and ignores the complex social realities foisted upon American slaves so readily. Perhaps not as telling when we stop to consider Rick Santorium and Michelle Bachman have no lost love for other cultural minorities.

• Bachmann on a very passionate tirade about gay people being "of Satan" and lamenting for the days when gay people were mocked on television (courtesy of Goodasyou.org ).
  
• Santorium, what can I say about Mr. Santorium that isn't more fun to Google for yourselves?
• Anderson Cooper 360's "Keeping Them Honest" coverage on "reparative therapy" and the Bachmann PR problem.

In the meantime, I'll just be rolling my eyes and wondering what other sorts of outlandish misconceptions the two of them could step in before the election cycle begins in earnest. Its going to be a very fun trainwreck.

And now a bit from the ultra-lovely new Bon Iver album (Its been on repeat for days and days on my ipod). I think a calming influence may be needed after trying to comprehend troll logic. Later days.

XCOM- Video game characters, social change and the Cold War. Cool.

http://gaygamer.net/2011/06/e3_11_interview_jordan_thomas.html

Below is a post of an interesting article about an upcoming (and impressive looking) FPS/Sci-fi game called XCOM, and more importantly its very interesting take on minority characters you find yourself working with to save the world.

One of the most often repeated, if utterly foolhardy, arguments against gay characters in games is that their sexuality is never a relevant detail to the plot. So I was more than a little curious and delighted to hear a developer put such a strong emphasis on a character's homosexuality in the game's second public showing. Thankfully, Thomas was gracious enough to sit and chat with me about the character of Dr. Weir, and how social commentary is a natural partner for the videogame medium.

"Weir is an Australian," Thomas began. "He's not a citizen of the States, although he came there to study particle accelerators, and already found himself an outsider on that grounds alone simply because of the paranoia of foreigners that was prevalent in the mid-century."

"But on top of that, he is also a closeted homosexual. He has both a sexual and a political opposition to the elite of the country, which are still very conservative - very focused on America as the best and the brightest - and he doesn't fit their paradigm. It is hard for them to acknowledge that one of the best scientists in the world is, in their minds, deviant. So he's struggled with that for a long time."

"But all of sudden this alien invasion hits and they need him and they have to put it aside. But then you see those tensions come to bear in the base. There are characters who don't like working with him. They are people of their time. And so you'll see different positions represented amongst the core cast. But he is - he is a man with true grit. He's able to weather it pretty well, and the player kind of gets to decide where they fall on that continuum. You can basically decide how to treat him."

Of course, homosexuality wasn't the only civil rights movement making headway in the 60's, and XCOM will explore other socio-cultural tensions of the time.

"As a narrative guy, it's the reason I'm excited to work on the game. The setting was chosen very specifically because I feel that the socio-cultural tension was about to come to a head. It was an old America and a new America kind of locked in a mortal combat, and it was very interesting for me to start exploring what was going on at the time."

"Agent Barns, for example, the African American guy who runs the agent operation and recruits for you, he was working COINTELPRO in the FBI - and that was a bureau program to run surveillance on the American people, not known by anybody - and Dr. Martin Luther King was his assignment. He was supposed to infiltrate that movement and discredit King by finding evidence that he was Red. He didn't find anything, and he was asked to fabricate it. He refused, and was almost going to be kicked out by J. Edgar Hoover and his cronies, but at that time the alien invasion happens and XCOM snaps him up."

I commented that it sounded like XCOM was really more of a 60's period piece that happened to use aliens as a catalyst to bring out the social climate.

Between these two characters mentioned, this game sounds fascinating. Whats the idea many a dystopian story has suggested? When confronted with bigger problems (i.e- world threatening invasions etc) there's nothing like a threat of an apocalyptic scale to unify people and (at least temporarily) forget our collective "differences". Marginally at least.

There are of course incidences to the contrary: Alan Turning was a gifted British mathematician that proved to be influential during WWII by code breaking and using his considerable talents to counter the threat of Nazi Germany in England. In the 1952, Turning was convicted of "indecency"(for being proven to be a homosexual) and subsequently chemically castrated, and committed what is believed to be suicide two years later.

It stands as one of the most galling examples of how moral "correctness" and rigid expectations regarding sexual conduct/sexuality can lead to the ruin of otherwise brilliant people. Much about homosexuality during the time period XCOM is set in is still wrapped up in the idea that gay= defective and that its a national security risk. Of course, the way the culture demonized gay men and women it somewhat became a self fulfilling prophecy...

The other compelling bit about the argument is what the US Government, especially in the Jim Crow south, did to black servicemembers, Treating them with distrust and genera purpose malaise. The heavy scrutiny and intel conducted by the FBI against Martin Luther King Jr was done in the interests of finding something to damage his credibility or discredit him (and prove the idea that black people were "agitated" into activism by Communists and otherwise fine with segregation*).

*See note #168.

XCOM's character details, coupled with this pretty amazing looking trailer released at E3 last week puts it waaaay wayyy higher on my list of must have video games this year. I'll be keeping a very close eye on this one.

UPDATE: More on XCom's demo here.

Lovings and Marriage.

Joe. My. God.: 44 Years Later: <i>Loving Vs. Virginia</i>

Without question, this is one of the most important legal cases in United States history. Every semester this is brought up in class when discussing race, or social change, or marital equality and each and every time younger students sit agape- amazed that something like interracial marriage was illegal in their parents lifetimes and not some ancient, distant age where pilgrims wore funny hats. 44 years ago these two good and noble people drew a line in the sand and simply by loving and contesting an archaic law taught us how utterly wrong conventional wisdom can be.

While its refreshing that youth culture seems to be disconnected over the recentness of the changes that grant persons to marry of whatever "race" they choose (I hope to marry a human someday, myself) I always find it a tad alarming that most people in a class of freshmen aged students are so oblivious to the fact that less than a generation ago this was a big deal, that segregation was not only social thought, but legally binding institutional discrimination.

I've heard it said a great deal lately, from thoughtful young trailblazers in their own right, that we'll collectively look back at same sex marriage, Proposition 8 and its subsequent banning and conservative pushbacks as wrongheaded and horrific, the same way many look at Loving v. the Supreme Court of Virginia. As a horrible dinosaur from another age. A reminder of how awful and alien the past can be, and in its own way, how recent and transformative the power of love can be. Its because of the Lovings that I'm convinced the right to marry the human of your choosing is worth changing the world for.

Look to the Skies: Bioshock Infinite

BioShock Infinite Video Interview Video - Xbox 360 - IGN

Look on this and be amazed. I won't gush about how much I love the concept and themes at play in Bioshock (much), but needless to say I'm eagerly anticipating Bioshock:Infinite. Which is in some ways a prequel (?) and some ways a bold continuation of the exploration of socio-political ideology through video games. (Yay!)

According to this interview Levine et al seem committed to offering the gamer more choices still. Elizabeth looks like a compelling and endearing ally and I think this story, set amid the backdrop of 1912, American Ultranationalism, American Exceptionalism and Xenophobia (which seems particularly timely - if memory serves Bioshock: Infinite was announced right around the time the State of Arizona introduced its "immigration" bill justifying profiling). The propaganda posters littering the streets of Columbia seem pretty jarringly demonizing of would be interlopers, but we're talking about a steampunk reality springing from the initial salvos of the cold war (1912) so it makes sense thematically. Its a wonder how little society can change in 100 years. A post for another time, perhaps.

(Above is the 10 minute demo for the game for your pixel porn viewing pleasure)

Still, Bioshock Infinite looks thought provoking, gorgeous and immersive

and I cannot wait to get my mitts on it. More on this as it comes.

UPDATE: Gaygamer.net just did a keen post about Bioshock: Infinite's (intricately crafted) propaganda. Observe here. Also? I'd prefer to buy vigors that are "proven against hooligans". How this concept astounds.