Our clownish press continues to castigate Hillary Clinton for her "outburst" over a question that she (justifiably) considered rude. As usual, the pundits fixate on petty non-issues while ignoring problems that are grave and urgent.
Hillary Clinton went to Africa to try stem the epidemic of rape being committed by Congolese soldiers and by Hutu rebels.
According to the United Nations, there were 15,996 new cases of sexual violence registered throughout Congo in 2008. Nearly two out of every three rapes were carried out against children, most of them adolescent girls, the Human Rights Watch report says.
Aid groups have started to see an uptick of rapes of men this year, although women and girls remain the primary targets. "The brutality has increased on a huge scale," Van Woudenberg says.
She says she interviewed one 15-year-old girl who was held in a hole for five months and gang-raped nearly every day. She had gone out shopping when soldiers approached.
How can we force the major media and the opinion-molders to forego the nonsense stories? How can we make everyone to pay attention to the real stuff?
10 comments:
Thank you for this post. It's an important question, how can we make the press forego the tabloid crap and cover the vital issues. Apparently, we can't use shame, because they obviously have none.
What, then?
While i fear being seen as callous; I do not believe she was in the Congo to stop the rape epidemic-- which is an (inexcusable) byproduct of the quest for columbite - tantalite or Coltan.
Which didn't get mentioned even as little as rape-- much easier to talk about her being insulted. Or say "minerals" when really it's all bout the Coltan
We can't make anyone do anything.
The only thing we COULD do, if we cared about bringing truth to the public, is what I've been preaching about for eight long years.
http://makethemaccountable.com/index.php/progressive-media-strategy/
Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com
Case in point. Today's AP headline, the "cherry" on the top of their continued obsession with SOS Clinton's "temperament" (because it boggles their puny patriarchal minds how a woman official could snap at a male student in a country rife with rape who asks what her husband's and another man's view is after she risked her life to be there to answer questions!):
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090812/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_clinton_i_m_secretary
US official gropes to explain Clinton's outburst
"As the question was posed to her, it was posed in a way that said, 'I want to get the views of two men, but not you, the secretary of state,'" Crowley said.
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"Gropes," huh?
Is it just me, or...
"How can we force... How can we make everyone..."
Signs of the times?
Howabout we all take a stab (hwhoops!) at rephrasing the question?
My humble contribution:
How can people be turned from being consumers of entertainments, into creative or productive creators of history? Is there a catalyst we might employ?
No, Hippie Joe, I don't see you as "callous" --- try ignorant.
Why talk out of your ass if you have no idea what you're talking about?
Hillary has traveled the world for YEARS speaking out about this, at length, in many countries, even when it was politically inexpedient to do so. Now she is in a position to CONTINUE her speaking out for the voiceless and denouncing "man's inhumanity to women" (her words!) and you can bet your sorry blabbing ass that is exactly what she is doing. On purpose. She didn't just inadvertently gather rape stories!
Plus, she has thus far also gotten the release of *three* women journalists who were all working on stories about abuses against women and were imprisoned in two of the most abusive countries.
And yes, there are recent news sources which detail the corruption and abuse she is fighting, and the connections between the mining rights and war and rape---but just because that is the excuse men are using in that particular country, it doesn't make man's rampant inhumanity to women a "byproduct" of greed for mineral rights!
The rape-mentality is INHERENT in the entire toxic-patriarchy our world is blood-drenched in.
Just wait until that global human trafficking story is finally amplified to the point where we quit pointing our fingers at the scum of the earth who bring the asian and east european girls here as sex slaves and start asking WHY you regular JOHNS ---yeah, you!---you regular CALLOUS men think that your pocket change ENTITLES you to "engage whores." EG, entitles you to RAPE SLAVES.
You are either a John or a John-enabler if you are not actively denouncing your end of the sex slave trade. There should be no market here for slaves.
And there's YOUR answer Gary "LaRouche" McGowan: how can we "force" anyone to give up slavery?
Gee, I don't know! I guess we can't SHAME some of you Johns out of the mentality that you are entitled to your slaves, huh?
I mean, our own military has been unable to handle all the rape charges amongst their own (with some of the women soldiers murdered after they were raped). No mineral rights involved.
No wonder the male-dominated media prefers to smack-down SOS Clinton on her temperament, given where the path leads once we start denouncing the rape-mentality and the sexual slave trade of "other" countries.
I would love to have a few hours alone in a "Gitmo" cell with each and everyone of these animals!
You know what was said about us "Apache" back in the day...." We were artist in making a man suffer!"
Zee:
If your two sentences directed at me above don't meet the definition of slander in the strict legal sense, they are awfully damn close.
Your proclaiming of patriarchy as the root of our problems I shall leave for others to discuss, if they will. Your posts don't leave me with the impression that you intend discussion. This could get things started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Matriarchy
Why don't you use your given name when you post, "Zee"? Who are you?
There really isn't any way, now that the idea that news divisions should turn as big a profit as possible is firmly established here in the US. But you can start your own media channels and not worry about making more than you need to be able to do it full-time.
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Zee, maybe if women stopped pretending they don't want sex just as much as men and just had sex whenever they wanted to with whomever they were attracted to without all the preliminaries (which are holdovers from the days when sex meant children and women had to select all sexual partners based on their fitness as fathers and providers), that would help. If (for example), a woman was no less likely to sleep with a man if he picked her up for a date on his bicycle, took her to McDonald's for dinner ("Dutch treat", of course), and then to the basement of his parents' house (where he lives) i.e. if she didn't effectively act as if she were a prostitute having a car dealer, maitre d', and landlord as pimps, we'd see an end to 99% (if not all) of prostituton and sexual slavery.
Oh, and what data we have shows that from prehistorical times onward, "matriarchies" have been just as bloodthirsty as "patriarchies." Blood thirstiness seems to be a product of the "dominance" society, regardless of the gender balance of its rulers.
Sergei Rostov
"You are either a John or a John-enabler if you are not actively denouncing your end of the sex slave trade."
Wow. What horse shit. So, if you happen to be male, and you are busy working on your dissertation, or you're a climate change activist, or work in an old-folks home cleaning shit out of octogenerians' asses-- you are a John even if you don't know where the call-girls advertise nor where one can pick up an Asian sex worker? You are a John or a John enabler if you don't give up your day job and switch to the struggle against sex slaves? Fuck that Zee, if i have no choice. I would much rather be the pimp, or the call girl if by my sheer maleness and my sheer resistance means I am a John or John Enabler because I don't work for your #1 issue. Your vehemence, Zee, sounds too much for me like "you're either with us or against us" Bushian bullshit. Get a grip.
And maybe clear some space to get rid of your own ignorance, and learn what Coltan is and how much of it we use and how damn important it is for you to even type out your previous screed.... we are addicted to it, and it only comes from the Congo. You can call me an asshole, but when it comes to ignorance, you lady, are the one stuck in the 70s. Get over the hate, Andrea Dworkin, and then maybe more people can work together....
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