This Is Rush's America, People. Don't Cherish It. - By Charles P. Pierce

[kpete]

This Is Rush's America, People. Don't Cherish It.
By Charles P. Pierce
at 4:43PM

Beyond the fact that Rush Limbaugh is a drug-addled porcine sex tourist who shouldn't be allowed to give moral lectures to goats, you know why people remain so pissed at what he did to Sandra Fluke? Because slut-shaming is one of the oldest and foulest dodges in the history of organized patriarchy, that's why. And if you let somebody with that big a platform get away with it for three days running, it filters down to all the little Limbaughs in their local afternoon-drive hatefests (examples A and B, and then into the angry commuters and grumpy shut-ins who make up their audiences, and then they start acting out, and putting pressure on mayors and town councils and principals and school boards, and pretty soon you wind up with eighth-graders being outed as pregnant to entire school assemblies because they are bad examples to the rest of their classmates:


Shantelle Hicks, Pregnant 8th Grader, Outed To New Mexico School Assembly
(VIDEO) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/07/staff-out-pregnant-8th-grader-at-school-assembly_n_1327865.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D141915

Unless you've completely forgotten what it's like to be in eighth grade, which for most people I know was the worst year of their childhood by an order of magnitude, it's impossible not to sympathize with Shantelle Hicks, who finds herself pregnant, which is bad enough, but then also finds herself used as a cautionary tale of sin and punishment by every yahoo in her little town. It's Hawthorne come to the rez. She's suing, and I'm glad she is. I hope she cleans their clock for enough money to take care of herself and her baby. Worse, it seems she was outed because she didn't slink off the way the school officials wanted her to.

They'll be heroes on Fox and Friends within the month. Guaranteed.


Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/pregnant-eighth-grader-shantelle-hicks-7186416#ixzz1odGVf0V7

[zeemike]

1. It is a useful tool of intimidation

And Mr Pierce is right...it has been used effectively for centuries to keep people in line....and is still used today.
And he is right...they must not be allowed to get away with it or it will give them power.

[xtraxritical]

8. The "tyranny of the majority" manifests itself in peer pressure.

Thank heavens for elitist educated snobs and people that really read the Constitution of The United States of America once and awhile. And the church says what that matters? The Constitution is not stepping on the religion, the religion wants to step on the Constitution. Step on the Constitution and lots of people notice.

[liberal N proud]

2. As long as the Limbaugh's of the world can intimidate women

As long as people allow the Limbaugh's of the world to intimidate women, there will be more of them.

To have a dispicable being doing this on over the air just feeds the egos of others just like him to do the same to others.

There should be a special place in hell for those who thrive on shaming others in this way.

[pscot]

3. Mr. Pierce is always worth reading

[LuckyLib]

4. "Because slut-shaming is one of the oldest and foulest dodges in the history of organized patriarchy

And all women recognize it for the woman-hate that it is.

My anger is at an all-time high, and the letters have been blasting off to Rush's sponsors and congress-critters alike. I'm waiting for a march on Washington, with millions of women facing the Capitol, saying "Hell, no!"

[byronius]

5. Death throes of the throwbacks.

The future does not contain these people. They are being phased out, and they feel it.

When I was a child, people said the n-word openly, women were mocked for any feminist inclination, and gays were disappeared.

As time has gone by, these things have faded away, albeit in fits and starts, ups and downs.'

But the trend is clear -- a civil society that embraces its startlingly advanced founding creed. We're going there.

And they're going to be Left Behind.

[Doctor_J]

6. wake up, byronius

they're winning, not losing. This little Limpballs episode will jsut make the vitriol worse, not better. We'll be the ones "left behind" unless we start fighting back with more than LTTE

[byronius]

9. They get a short-term advantage (historically speaking) through being a solid bloc of ignorance.

But just like in WWI and WWII, democratically-minded peoples responding to the threat of rule by primitive tribal strong-men eventually carry the day. I at least have hope from reading hard history.

Conservatism is not an efficient ideology. Left to themselves, they last about two generations before descending into mad cannibalism. It is an illogical, hysterical, fact-averse ideology -- without us (liberals), they would all be dead or conquered by now. They desperately need us to survive, which drives their hatred of us to even greater heights.

I maintain that the historical trends are all clearly progressive, albeit with ups and downs, as I stated. But clearly, the demographics and polls show that conservativism does not appeal to young people -- the GOP is getting older and older and older, and I think the next twenty years will end up with the right-wing being a small, vocal minority, with the predominant arguments being between moderate liberals and hyper-progressives, much as it is in Europe.

And as it should be.

Recognize -- the modern conservative looks like a pinko commie dirtbag to the conservative of 1955. Try as they might, they cannot and will not pull it back their way.

[Atypical Liberal]

7. "The future does not contain these people."

I love this phrase.

[TrogL]

10. Pierce is becoming my favorite political commentator