Tomgram: Rebecca Solnit, When Institutions Rape Nations

[babsbunny]

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175395/tomgram%3A_rebecca_solnit%2C_when_institutions_rape_nations/

Posted by Rebecca Solnit at 5:11pm, May 22, 2011.


In addition, a small reminder: if you are an Amazon.com customer and arrive at that site via a TomDispatch book link to buy Hochschild’s book, or Rebecca Solnit’s gripping tale of disasters and the human communities sometimes constructed in their ruins, A Paradise Built in Hell, or to mention just a few others on my mind, Martin Van Creveld’s history of air war, The Age of Airpower (which I’m in the middle of), Beverly Gologorsky’s heartbreaking stories about Vietnam Vets, their wives, and kids, The Things We Do to Make It Home, Henning Menkell’s final Wallander mystery, The Troubled Man (my summer reading), or anything else, book or not, we get a small cut of your purchase at no extra cost to you. It’s a great way to support the site regularly. Tom]

[Bucky]

1. Not of fan of casual appropriations of "rape" as a metaphor for harsh treatment

Particularly when the OP borrowing that metaphor fails to demonstrate how such an extreme comparison is justified.

"Dinner at that fancy restaurant really raped my wallet" just doesn't work for me.

[liberalmuse]

2. 'Rape' is being misused these days.

I think people like saying it to make others flinch and get their point across, but rape is rape, and pillaging or robbing is quite another thing. I don't like the savage, degrading sexual assault of a human being, being compared with shit like 'pushing the replay button on YouTube' or to describe Institutions taking advantage of people. The latter two are not even close to being RAPE.

[Odin2005]

3. Etymologically "rape" originally meant "pillage".

It's current meaning of "Sexual Assault" came in the Early Modern period.

[Mojeoux]

4. I agree, they just need to make up a new word for poisoning the water table of 3rd world

nations. They use "rape" and if they are being very metaphorical, they talk about the earth being our mother. I get it, but there has to be a new word, not just slang, for what they do, and it should be a major world crime.