Archive for the ‘Not America’ Category
Naomi Wolf’s Feminism: Burqas Are Beautiful!
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009Naomi Wolf defended the Muslim veil. This is something I wrote about a couple weeks ago amidst some controversy because I feel that the face covering specifically is wrong for the reasons Phylllis Chesler mentions here:
I know that writers don’t often choose the titles of their articles but your article led your editor to title the piece: “Behind the Veil Lives a Thriving Muslim Sexuality.” I do not want to repeat what I’ve already written but your article asks whether “we in the West (are not) radically misinterpreting Muslim sexual mores?” And, you write that the “Western interpretation of veiling as repression of women and of their sexuality….is not so, (but is rather) rooted in a strong sense of public versus private…what is due to God and what is due to one’s husband.”
This does not sound like a feminist indictment of female genital mutilation, forced veiling, forced illiteracy, forced arranged child marriage, polygamy, normalized daughter- and wife-beating, honor killings, or the torture and murder of so many people, both women and men, in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sudan, Somalia and Algeria, by Islamists paramilitary forces and by the Islamic government.
You ask that I publish your piece. Indeed, I have already “published” your piece by linking to it in my blog. It is embedded in the piece. Check it out for yourself.
Naomi: Both your generation and my much earlier generation of feminists have failed a universal vision of women’s human rights; most have become multi-cultural relativists and politically correct leftists. Such feminists have been more concerned with the rights of formerly colonized Muslim men than with the rights of formerly colonized and still colonized Muslim women. And, they view America and often Israel as the Evil Empires par excellence and give a free pass to Muslim tyranny.
I have stood almost alone and have been condemned by many for telling the truth about Islamic gender and religious apartheid, and about Israel, anti-Semitism, jihad, and America.
Post-modern feminists are loath to condemn real injustices towards Muslim women. They prefer whitewashing with pap like this from Wolf:
“Many Muslim women I spoke with did not feel at all subjugated by the chador or the headscarf. On the contrary, they felt liberated from what they experienced as the intrusive, commodifying, basely sexualizing Western gaze. … Many women said something like this: …’how tiring it can be to be on display all the time. When I wear my headscarf or chador, people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I feel respected.’ This may not be expressed in a traditional Western feminist set of images, but it is a recognizably Western feminist set of feelings.”
Here’s what I wrote August 19:
It would make sense that Feminists would oppose burqas because they are a tool of oppression for women: that is, burqas are specifically made to make a woman persona non grata. A burqa’s very purpose is to hide the woman and make her invisible as an individual. She is just not there.
But feminists, and liberals in general support the burqa. The woman has a “right to choose”.
But Phyllis points out that is nonsense:
Most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice about wearing the chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab (headscarf), and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families. Is Wolfe thoroughly unfamiliar with the news coming out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan on these very subjects? Has she forgotten the tragic, fiery deaths of those schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia who, in trying to flee their burning schoolhouse, were improperly veiled and who were beaten back by the all-powerful Saudi Morality Police?
And this reality is what feminists don’t want to see. They wish to excuse sexist, abusive, raping, and murderous behavior inherent in much of Islamic practice because to be against it would be a tacit approval of Western standards and that simply would not do. It would require a moral choice that would undermine their own criticism of their own patriarchal culture that has long since ceased to be abusive to women. Again, Phyllis says:
Wolf presents the West as anti-woman because it treats women as sex objects. Am I happy about pornography and prostitution in the West? Hell no and, unlike Wolf, I’ve fought against them–but to portray these vices as a “Western” evil, and one that the Islamic world opposes, is sheer madness.
It is well known that the Arabs and Muslims kept and still keep sex slaves–they are very involved in the global trafficking in girls and women and frequent prostitutes on every continent. You will find pornography magazines in every princely tent–those for boys as well as for girls. I am told that the Saudis fly in fresh planeloads of Parisian prostitutes every week. Perhaps they veil them before they conduct their all-night and all-day orgies. Or, perhaps they view them as natural, “infidel” prey.
Naomi Wolf and her American feminist ilk are spoiled rotten grown women who seem to have lost the ability to spot true oppression when it’s right in front of their faces. The burqa has been effective on them, too, evidently. They don’t see the individual under the cover, either. They see their own desires to be judged purely by their brains and accomplishments and long for a way to have their physical imperfections hidden. They see a burqa as a useful feminist tool to achieve that end. What they don’t see is that by being visually invisible, burqa clad women become literally invisible in society, as a cohesive force, as women.
The Feminist’s own callous disregard for the covered and abused women as individuals demonstrates why burqas are an abomination. Perhaps if they saw the bruised, beaten, bleeding, burnt bodies of these women, the torment of women suffering under radical Islam, under the burqa, would be real to them.
Afghanistan, Arrogant Independents, Alcohol Taxes and Alpha Males
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009Steve Schippert of Threats Watch joined me for a furious segment about American policy in Afghanistan. Also, is President Obama a foreign policy genius? General Jim Jones thinks so. Steve has a quibble with that take. This is a must-listen to take on America’s place in the world.
It’s super popular these days to call oneself a political Independent. I call bull sh*t. Here’s a bit from my American Issues Project column on the subject:
Where Barlett differs from Beck is action. Where Glenn Beck encourages Americans to get involved, and he himself has supported Tea Parties, traveled the country and done his own forms of protesting and paid for it, Barlett sits in his easy chair playing Monday Morning Quarterback to….everybody.
That’s the new cool: hating everyone.
I, myself, have written about the pathetic political class. It’s patently obvious that D.C. is insular, out-of-touch and entitled. They feel more like lording over than representing. The power equation is reversed. However, I’ve also attended, reported from and painted signs for Tea Parties. In addition, there is no question in my mind that the road to salvation for America won’t be through a third party–a political porn fantasy for many Ron Paulian Republicans and other independents. The solution is to change the Republican party. The only way to do that is to change it from within by action.
Also, today in Illinois, alcohol taxes increase by 90%. Hmmmm…. I wonder what those fine citizens will do.
Finally, are Alpha Males a beast that’s nearly extinct? Maybe. That doesn’t seem like a good thing. More on that later, but it’s talked about in the podcast.
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When Melissa isn’t on the radio, you can find her at melissaclouthier.com and on Twitter. Her username is MelissaTweets.
Why Liberals Don’t Support A Burqa Ban
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009It would make sense that Feminists would oppose burqas because they are a tool of oppression for women: that is, burqas are specifically made to make a woman persona non grata. A burqa’s very purpose is to hide the woman and make her invisible as an individual. She is just not there.
But feminists, and liberals in general support the burqa. The woman has a “right to choose”. Just as liberals support abortion even though it’s used as a tool for gender genocide (gendercide?) against women in places like India and China where boys are valued over girls.
In both cases, gender suppression is valued over a misguided notion of “choice”. The baby obviously doesn’t have a choice. And the women in the Islamist cultures have little choice. People who know the religion know this:
“We don’t want to see burqas in Denmark. We simply can’t accept that some of our citizens walk around with their faces covered,” Naser Khader, a Danish member of parliament of Syrian-Palestinian extraction who was recently appointed spokesman for integration issues for the Conservative Party, told the newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
In comments published on Sunday, Khader said the burqa is un-Danish and oppressive towards women and should be completely banned. He and his party say that what people do in their own homes is their business, but as soon as they walk into the public domain, one should be able to see their faces.
And interestingly, supposedly chauvinistic right leaning politicians see the problem with burqas:
Denmark is not the only European country where politicians have proposed a ban on burqas. French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently said that the burqa was “not welcome” in France, while France’s urban regeneration minister, Fadela Amara, told the Saturday edition of the Financial Times that she was in favor of the burqa “not existing in my country.” The Netherlands has also considered a ban on burqas.
The logic that liberals employ to support abortion and burqas actually encourages oppression of the weak and helpless. And the weak and helpless are often women and children.
So, the “right” to abort, the right to wear whatever one wants, obliterates the rights of the unborn child and the Muslim woman. A non-existent right becomes a way to oppress the very ones liberals wish to liberate. Isn’t it always “for the children” and “women are 2nd class citizens”? With liberals, children are expendable and women against oppressive burqas should just shut up.
Gird Yer Loins, You Have Four Months To Survive!
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009It’s tough taking these people seriously. This speech by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Incheon sounds like a Pentecostal pastor at an over-heated Tent Revival:
“The downside is equally dramatic.
If we fail to act, climate change will intensify droughts, floods and other natural disasters.
Water shortages will affect hundreds of millions of people. Malnutrition will engulf large parts of the developing world. Tensions will worsen. Social unrest – even violence – could follow.
The damage to national economies will be enormous. The human suffering will be incalculable.
We have the power to change course. But we must do it now.
As we move toward Copenhagen in December, we must “Seal a Deal” on climate change that secures our common future. I’m glad that the Chairman of the forum and many other speakers have used my campaign slogan “Seal the Deal” in Copenhagen. I won’t charge them loyalty. Please use this “Seal the Deal” as widely as possible, as much as you can. We must seal the deal in Copenhagen for the future of humanity.
We have just four months. Four months to secure the future of our planet.”
Why not carry a sandwich board around the public square with the words, “World Ending! Get Right With Gaia!”
Anecdote here.
American Hostage–UPDATED Is he a deserter?
Monday, July 20th, 2009That this has happened is so distressing, I can hardly think about it let alone write about it.
War is hell and all that, but the thought of one of our service men at the mercy of these barbarians makes me sick. I hope we obliterate the bastards holding him.
UPDATED:
Is this soldier a deserter? That changes everything. If so, let him rot.
Michelle Malkin has the whole story.
President Obama’s Marxist Impulse
Monday, July 6th, 2009Why does President Obama wind up on the wrong side of history? Between North Korea shooting rockets (ignoring it), blood on the streets of Iran and public hangings for those desiring freedom (bland indifference) and near civil war in Honduras (actively encouraging the communist, drug lord thugocracy), President Obama is establishing some interesting credentials. In every single case, he’s siding with dictators, law-breakers, and murderers.
Why?
There are few pictures of Obama in full, glorious, heart-warming smiles. But he’s had a couple notable ones:
Why would President Obama be so sunshiny with despots and so miserable with leaders of free countries? Why would President Obama be comfortable attending a racist church bent on scape-goating Jews and “the other”.
Fundamentally, it seems that President Obama believes the tyrants are tyrants because the world made them that way in much the same way society “creates” criminals. So it’s not the individual’s choices that make the man, it’s the society that makes the individual who makes choices he can’t help but to make.
So a guy like Chavez or Kim or Ahmedinijad or Hussein does what he does in response to the world-wide oppression. Can Obama blame them? No, he can’t. He can’t even judge them, because, you know, who knows what that man’s experience is like, man? Who am I to judge?
Oh, there’s the little details of starving your own citizens (Kim), hanging gays and shooting innocent girls at point-blank range (Ahmedinijed), gathering a whole town, shooting them, and burying them or using chemical warfare on an ethnic population (Hussein) or destroying the economy methodically and taking over all private business for the state (Chavez). Still, all these decisions were made for the Greater Good.
And here in America, lots of decisions are being made in service to the Greater Good. The impulse is the same. If people would just realize that these state-run policies were for there own good. Why do they fight it so? The fact is, President Obama believes he knows what is best for the whole and wants everyone to submit. The only trouble comes when there is dissent.
When leftists get power, the power that they previously hated they exploit. The very means they decry become tools for their own domination (the Fed, wire tap, etc.). A lifetime nursing discontent and the sense of being wronged leads to a sense of entitlement when power does come. The government becomes the tool for seeking “fairness”.
Fairness, in the case of these different countries President Obama is friendly toward, means dominating everyone equally except for the select few favored and privileged. President Obama sees friends and like-minded leaders in these countries. That’s a disturbing thought.
Talking Foreign Policy: Steve Schippert Guest Hosts For Me
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Melissa’s show can also be found on RFC Radio every Monday and Wednesday night at 10:00 pm Eastern.
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When Melissa isn’t on the radio, you can find her at melissaclouthier.com and on Twitter. Her username is MelissaTweets.
Iran: Blood Is Spilled
Saturday, June 20th, 2009Please go look at this video. This video reveals the regime. There is too much proof.
Will Iran fall? We can hope. The suffering will be absolutely unspeakable should the mullahs reassert their iron grip.
Freedom for the Iranian people.
It is not too much to speak strongly in defense of the rights of our fellow men. To scorn another man as undeserving of the rights we enjoy is the height of selfishness. At the least, we can express our support for the individual. We can show respect for the blood that has been spilled like the girl you saw in the video.
Should the president of the United States be eating ice cream (looking very much like he’s campaigning) while people die around the globe?
A little respect for the blood spilled and the blood that will continue to be spilled. Freedom is always bought at a price and the Iranian people are willing to spill their own blood to pay it.
FREEDOM! Freedom For Iran
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009All men are free. Regime leaders know this. This is why they use force to suppress the people. If the people realize they are free….the fight is over.
Freedom for the people of Iran. Freedom for all men.
Yes. I’m idealistic. Yes, I know attaining freedom is not simple. Often, blood is spilled. For the Iranian people, I wish them freedom from tyranny. I wish them peace. I wish them self-determination.
Their brothers over the border in Iraq have it. Sure, it’s messy, but once a person has a taste of freedom…..domination by the government feels like it what it is: slavery.
So, love and prayers and solidarity with the people of Iran. You are not alone. The will of the world is on your side.
More from the Anchoress:
Emily Dickinson wrote:
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words
And never stops at all…How appropriate then, that the communications tool most responsible for keeping hope alive in shattered Iran is “a thing” called “Twitter,” and that the 140-character dispatches being sent and received by people in desperate straits are called “tweets.”
People are “tweeting” for their lives, and their messages are bold, frightened, determined and unbelievably moving. Students are sending out: “They are trapped in the dorms,” and “I cannot remain; I must participate.” They head off, unsure whether they are headed to a peaceful rally or a massacre, and they are not heard from for 18 hours; and people around the world -strangers- pray and wonder.
Indeed. The Twitter community has rallied where the officials in D.C. have dithered. Some have not been silent, though:
“The cause of American is freedom and in that cause, we must never be silent.” — @RepMikePence
I’ll give the last word to The Anchoress because she is so eloquent in the defense of Iran:
Pray for the people of Iran; pray for good to triumph. Pray for their safety, their fortitude, their energy, their “thing with feathers,” which is hope:
“…hope is not simply a feeling. Hope says, “awake, O Sleeper, arise from death!” Hope is the builder of bridges, the tamer of winds, the harnesser of ideas and possibilities. A poor man with hope is immeasurably richer than a wealthy man without it, because he carries within him the spark that can alight a thousand tomorrows.”
Freedom for the people.
Talking Iran
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009Hi guys! If you haven’t already listened, the Podcast with Steve Schippert of National Review Online The Tank and Threatswatch.org and John Hawkins, my co-blogger at Right Wing News is now available. It was so good and spot on! We talked about the structure of Iranian government, Islam’s relationship to Democracy and more. Plus, how President Obama should deal with this.
The Right Doctor (my) show is produced by Mike Williams and his daughter Kayla of Take That Radio who also produces Wendy Sullivan aka Right Girl’s show Brass Balls Radio. We, along with Tabitha Hale of Smart Girl Politics, also air our shows on RFCradio.com weekly from 10:00 – 11 p.m. EST. There is a chat room, where questions can be asked of the experts interviewed.
Melissa’s show can also be found on RFC Radio every Monday and Wednesday night at 10:00 pm Eastern.
To subscribe on iTunes, just click here!
When Melissa isn’t on the radio, you can find her at melissaclouthier.com and on Twitter. Her username is MelissaTweets.
