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Learning about how our culture operates is critical for enlightenment and understanding. Jill from I Blame the Patriarchy shares her view on consent within the culture. In this case, a simple link would not do, as I want to copy/paste this concise definition in another spot on the internet, maybe pissing off some MRA’s in the process.
“For it is the stated position of the Savage Death Island Chapter of Spinster Aunts International that, in a patriarchy, “consensual sex” (between women and dudes) doesn’t even exist. This is because, in a patriarchy, agency is not conferred equally upon women and dudes. This untoward circumstance creates a contingency wherein the notion of consent is, for women, entirely non-substantive, a figment, a desperate fantasy invented to obscure the true nature of women’s status as the sex class. The true nature of our status as the sex class is, by the way, that we are imprisoned in a rape continuum. This continuum ranges from the “voluntary” performance of femininity (which quantifies women’s usefulness to men), to compulsory heterosexuality (which ensures availability to men), to pornography (which eroticizes inequality), to violent sexual assault (which is at the apex of the Global Accords Governing Fair Use of Women).
Wait. What?
The issue of consent — or, more precisely, the idea that women are considered by both custom and law to abide in a persistent state of always having given consent — is the absolute crux, nub, hub, axis, polestar, and epicenter of women’s oppression. The thing is, women can’t freely give consent because women can’t freely withhold it. “Consent” is a meaningless concept in the context of women’s reality.
In a patriarchy, women are, at essence, considered to be giant vaginas with the word “YES” stamped all over’em in red. Because of the sex-based power discrepancies inherent in our social structure, members of the sex class — that is, women — are always “yes” unless they specifically, adamantly, and in front of 3 witnesses with video cameras, say “no.” But even when “no” obtains, other (subjective and arbitrary) factors are almost always seen as mitigating it into a “yes.” Such as not saying “no” loud enough, not fighting back physically, being the dude’s girlfriend, or wearing a tight sweater.
SAP now coming to the USA
The US debt crisis is being oversimplified. The message we here is we cannot pay our debts and therefore we need balance our spending and balance the budget. Average people can understand that – but here is what has been done so far to combat debt via Whatever Works and a big thanks to Moe for her great work in compiling this list… The debt has not just magically become a priority, but has been helped along by the policies listed below…
- Irresponsible tax cuts.
- Toothless regulation.
- Interlocking directorates.
- Boards hand picked by CEO’s.
- Quarterly earnings now the fickle measure of a stock’s worth.
- Perverse incentive systems.
- A business media of enthralled groupies slavishly following and thrilling to rock star plutocrats.
- The collapse of the concepts of the common good and civics.
- Devotion to profits above all.
- The demonizing of any talk of fairness or social justice.
- Purposefully ignoring our collapsing infrastructure while we prop up the economies of China and Brazil and their enormous investments in their own infrastructure (transportation, ports, broadband) that will ultimately make us even more uncompetitive than we are now. (After all, there’s no profit in proppingup a joint where workers demand a living wage.)
- Our government’s committment to protect the ‘job creators’ who, during a decade of historically low tax rates have managed to lose more American jobs than at any time since the Depression.
Wealth is still being created in the US, but not for the average worker, or small business owner. Let’s take a peek at this startling table glaned from The Centre for Labour Studies in Boston Massachusetts.
(This is a informative report btw, I would highly recommend you read the whole thing, or at least the summary at Sociological Images for the highlights.)
Table 3:
Growth in Real Annualized National Income, Corporate Profits, and Wage and
Salary Accruals in the First Six Quarters Following the End of Five Post-World War II Recessions from 1973-75 to 2007 – 09
(Numbers in Billions of Dollars in Constant 2010 CPI-U Dollars)
| Recession’s Ending Quarter to Six to Seven Quarters Later | (A)National Income Growth | (B)Corporate Profits Growth | (C)Accrued Wage and Salary Growth | (D)Corporate Profits Share of Growth in National Income
(in %) |
(E)Aggregate
Wage and Salary Share Of Growth in National Income (in %) |
| Six Quarters | |||||
| 1975 I – 1976 III | $462 | $148 | $174 | 32 | 38 |
| 1982 IV – 1984 II | $817 | $227 | $205 | 28 | 25 |
| 1991 I – 1992 III | $237 | -$4 | $119 | -1 | 50 |
| 2001 IV – 2003 II | $333 | $178 | $50 | 53 | 15 |
| 2009 II – 2010 IV | $528 | $464 | $7 | 88 | 1 |
| Seven Quarters | |||||
| 2009 II – 2011 I | $505 | $465 | -$22 | 92 | 0 [!!!] |
“The absence of any positive share of national income growth due to wages and salaries received by American workers during the current economic recovery is historically unprecedented. The lack of any net job growth in the current recovery combined with stagnant real hourly and weekly wages is responsible for this unique, devastating outcome.”
The economy is working perfectly, or dysfunctionally depending on which class of people you belong to. The debt crisis is will be the stick used to beat the middle class and poor out of social benefits and health care, all in the service of keeping the plutocracy drowning in profit. The Republicans certainly are gung-ho about dismantling the social life preserving aspects of the state, as their backers (as well as the Democrats backers) are acting in the best interests of those who support them.
In a third world country this would be called “Structural Adjustment” and be headed by the IMP. What lies within Structural Adjustment Programs is can be boiled down to this Austerity for the Poor and Wealth Engorgement for the rich. Stay tuned for the hollowing out of Education, Social Security, Welfare, Public Health, Health Care and anything else that benefits the common good. The funds will be funnelled up the ladder to the wealthy elite and oligarchy with lip-service being payed to the tough choices being made for the “good of the economy” while the majority of Americans and their children are saddled in economic misery with the debt continuing to increase on them due to the malfeasance of the rich.
SAP’s are no longer for the “other” peoples of the world, now they are made ‘in’ and ‘for’ the USA.
His ignorance is like a shield of steel…
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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