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You’ll All Pay #33

© 2004 Joe Conat

I know I rail, weekly, against this country’s bassackwardness. And I know that, often, what I say isn’t really “news” to anyone.

Well, this one isn’t “news” either.

This is about a drawn out ongoing problem. And that is…more than half of our country.

No, not the red states.

The women.

Suddenly, I sense your ears perking up. Is this man a misogynist? A he-man wimmin-hater? A complete jerkwad?

No, no and it depends on who you ask.

No, this column is about inequality and how more than half the population of our country is getting, you’ll pardon the expression and resulting pun, the shaft.

I remember back in the day hearing a lot about ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment. This proposed Constitutional Amendment, authored by Alice Paul in 1923, would state that :

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification

That’s it. Simple, direct. And yet…still not law.

I’ve heard it argued, by women, that ERA is an embarrassment. “It’s not right,” they say, “that I need a law written into the Constitution saying that I’m equal!”

Well, yeah. You’re right. It’s not right that, evidently, a law written into the very fabric of our country is necessary to ensure that you are treated and paid equally for your work.

However…

According to this report by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, on average women earned 80% of what men earned in 2003. For every dollar a man earned, a woman earned 80 cents. For the same work.

Women 45-54 years of age working full time earned 73 cents to a man’s dollar. Women 35-44 years old fared better…on average they earned 76 cents to a man’s dollar.

And this shows an upward trend. In 1979 35-44 year old women earned 58 cents to the dollar while 45-54 year olds earned 57 cents.

If a woman had not completed high school she earned, on average, a hundred dollars less a week than a similarly educated man in the same field. College graduates earned $200 dollars less a week than men with similar qualifications.

This is just last year, folks.

So, as much as we rail and scream against a Constitutional Amendment designed to disenfranchise homosexuals, we should holler and shout for a Constitutional Amendment designed to guarantee that women are no longer disenfranchised. It’s sad that we need a law to do this, but evidently we do.

Yes, it’s stupid. This country just put Bush back in the driver’s seat…what do you expect?

“But,” you may well ask, “what about the 14th Amendment? The 1963 Equal Pay Act? Titles VII and IX of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?”

Well, what about them? The 14th amendment contains the first use of the qualifier “male” in the Constitution, explicitly excluding women. It has been argued both ways…that the equal protection clause put forth in the 14th amendment does and does not guarantee equal gender rights. Obviously the 1963 Equal Pay and 1964 Civil Rights Acts are not being strenuously enforced…see the above 2003 census information. Furthermore, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, while including women under its penumbra of protection, is worded so that it takes a broad and liberal interpretation of the Act to guarantee equal pay…since the Act only explicitly guarantees equal opportunities for employment. In other words, a company must give you a job even though you’re a woman (assuming you are otherwise qualified for the job) but does not necessarily have to pay you the same as they would a man in that position. Finally both these laws can be diluted, eroded or reversed by a simple Congressional majority. Since the country is apparently headed for a “cultural recession” and appears to be embracing Spanish Inquisition Dark Age philosophy, don’t you think it paramount that we enshrine, and quickly, protection of equal gender rights under the highest law in the land?

What are the downsides to ERA? Well that depends on your point of view, doesn’t it?

Women would be required to register for the Selective Service System…the draft…and serve in combat alongside the men-folk.

So? Not to be harsh but…women are being protected by our troops’ continued sacrifice too. Women are not exempt from the freedoms that soldiers fight to ensure. Women should be given the opportunity, in my opinion, to go and fight for those rights just like anyone else, if they so desire.

Besides, studies have shown that in general women enjoy higher tolerances to pain, high g-forces (as you might experience in fighter jet combat) and faster reflexes. Sounds like good soldier material to me.

The ERA could also be interpreted to guarantee same-sex marriage rights.

I know this is a hot-button issue but, personally, I don’t see what the big deal is. I have no problem with same-sex marriage…I don’t see how more people deciding to celebrate their love and devotion to each other somehow “ruins” the institution of marriage. Let’s face it…the institution of marriage isn’t in such great shape anyway. Roughly half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce. The general population largely disregards the “sanctity of holy matrimony” and the aforementioned “sanctity” isn’t apparently doing anything to prevent rising infidelity among married couples. In terms of pure numbers I would think the institution of marriage could use a boost, quite frankly.

Single sex schools or sports teams would be forced to integrate. Again…so? To allow my chauvinist side a bit of free rein, I think women playing football would be hot! Much more entertaining to watch than regular old football.

ERA might remove laws specially enacted for the protection of women in areas such as heavy industry. You know what? Them’s the breaks, kid. I figure equality is equality. I don’t see any reason why anybody else shouldn’t take the same risks I’m willing to take just because of their gender. Not that I take a whole lot of risks…I’m essentially very lazy. But the principle is there.

As in all things there’s a balance, a consequence to the payoff. Equal rights means equal rights. Just as women would get better pay and be ensured, by law, that their promotion opportunities are as limitless as mens’…good-bye glass ceiling…they would be faced with the same cons as men do. Women would be forced to rely on their own merits just as much as men.

Frankly, I take a look at the women in my life and believe them to be up to the task.

As I’ve previously written, I’m about to have a daughter (any day now! Gah!). I realize that what I’m asking is for the world to regard her as one of their own…no better or worse, intrinsically, than they themselves are.

The “doting protective father” part of me is saying “Hold on! I want my daughter safe and cherished when she leaves the safe harbor of our home”. But I also want my daughter to have something just as important as safety and cherishment. And that is: self-reliance and the confidence that that reliance shall reap its consummate rewards.

This is the United States of America. The Land of the Free. The Home of the Brave. We really need to stop messing around and get with our own program. Equality is stitched into the very fabric of our country; it’s a founding principle.

The future is going to be harsh enough without relegating more than half our numbers to second-class citizenship. First-class citizens make a first-class country.

‘sides…women playing football! HOT!

(Special shout-out to Kari Plesco’s class back in Michigan! Keep my home state honest, kids!)

You’ll All Pay is written by Joe Conat, who would make more money than somebody named Josephine Conat if he got paid for writing this column. Which he doesn’t. Dammit.

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You’ll All Pay #32

© 2004 Joe Conat

There has, of course, been much “introspection” and “finger-pointing” and, let’s face it, “WTF?”-ing by the Democratic Party in the past week following the complete and abject failure to win back the White House in what should have been a cake-walk. Much has been made of the fact that 22% or so of the people voting for Bush answered exit poll queries with “moral values” being the primary reason they punched their ballot the way they did.

The Democratic answer has been, naturally, to try and win back those voters. “We’re moral, too” they say, and they’re right. I don’t think anyone reasonable seriously believes that Democrats are Satanist, cannibal, baby-killing hedonists. Well, not most of us.

And how do we try and win back those voters?

I proposed…and still, tentatively, hold to this theory…that we “speak to them in their language”.
There’s a problem with that. I’ll get to that in a minute.

What do I mean by “talk to them in their language”? If, though the numbers are inconclusive, “moral values” was indeed a prevalent driving force behind many Bush votes, beating out Iraq, terrorism and domestic agendas in 22% of the voters, then we have to reinforce our own message in moral terms that that 22% will understand. If it’s a matter of Christian mores then why don’t we quote the Bible? Nothing wrong with that. Good book of moral lessons there. Well, the New Testament anyway.

But, naturally, there’s a problem. And that problem is…I can’t talk to those people.

In Cobb County, Georgia there is a problem brewing that is reminiscent of the “Scopes Monkey Trial” of 1925. In 2002 the Cobb County School Board ordered $8 million worth of science textbooks. These books teach, as most science textbooks in the rest of the world do, evolution.

2,300 parents petitioned the school board, protesting the teaching of evolution and evolution only. They wanted creationism, the belief that God created the Earth whole-cloth in a mere six days, taught alongside Darwin’s theory.

As a compromise the Cobb County School Board had a sticker affixed to the front of all the textbooks stating: “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.”

Okay, so…argh.

Immediately my response is “…the hell?” but I thought about it for a second. It’s a neat compromise. It addresses the problem of those 2,300 parents while not endorsing creationism. It’s a nice Snoopy Band-Aid, pretty to look at and doing precisely nothing in regard to the actual education these students receive.

(Well, sort of. Some teachers have complained that students use that sticker as an excuse to disrupt class. “This says it’s just a theory,” they evidently say and waste class time. Ah, children…what miracles.)

But now other parents, alongside the ACLU, have gotten involved to challenge the sticker issue.

And, you know what? GOOD!

This is the problem the Democratic Party…or, at least, those segments of the Democratic Party consisting of, well, me…faces. How do you talk to people like this?

In 1987 the Supreme Court ruled that creationism, being a religious belief, could not be taught in public schools alongside evolution. You know why? It’s a religious belief. Let us, again, re-visit the First Amendment of the Constitution, shall we?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (emphasis mine)

This is the passage that is colloquially referred to as “separation of Church and State”. Now, it has been argued that stated thus it only means that there shall be no Federal LAW that says, for instance, “Judaism is the official Religion of the United States of America”, but does not mean that religious speech, iconography or beliefs cannot be used in government doings or edifices, or cannot be taught in public schools.

But the forefathers understood that the gravity of government endorsement endowed an issue with a heavy weight indeed, and that allowing, for instance, the Ten Commandments to be displayed in government buildings was an implicit endorsement of Christianity over other religions and could be in violation, in spirit if not in letter, of the First Amendment. It is with that understanding that the Supreme Court ruled that creationism could not be taught alongside evolution in public…and, thus, federally funded…schools. (*)

Besides…creationism has no facts supporting it! None! It’s a myth! It’s a fairy tale! It’s not reality!! Give it up already, you backwards thinking yokels!

See, this is why I should not be the Democratic ambassador to the Bible Belt.

In response to the 1987 decision supporting logic, reason and clarity over fuzzy-headed daydreams and illusions, the creationists changed the packaging of their voodoo mythology and now call it “intelligent design” and are asking it be taught alongside Darwinism.

My response: NO! It’s still creationism you deluded wackos!

Again, my job should not so much be bringing these people over to Our Side.

So Georgia is faced with the unenviable task of staging Scopes II: Evolutionary Boogaloo while the larger urban centers across the globe point and laugh and make Beverly Hillbilly jokes. Nice goin’, Georgia.

Seriously, in the 21st Century how can anyone subscribe to a literal interpretation of a book written when the Greeks were still trying to convince the rest of the world that, dude, the Earth is totally round. How can you take as fact a book that was written before Copernicus had a chance to look around the Heavens, do some math and say “Hey…we go around the sun, not vice versa”. I mean, can’t you accept and absorb new information and join the rest of us in reality?

How does the theory of evolution conflict with your belief in God? God, it is said, works in mysterious ways. So He grew us out of monkeys, so what? Why does that deny that humanity is still His chosen people? Are monkeys so vile that the thought of us succeeding them, rising from and above them is anathema to your very being?

This is why, when I first proposed the “talk to them in a way they’ll understand” plan, I got such a vociferous negative response from some people. I didn’t understand it then. I was going along with the idea that you can talk to anybody if only you can find common ground and how hard can it be to find common ground?

Well, not that hard, but the uncommon ground presents some very difficult obstacles.

If they can believe in creationism, then they can believe any lie. “I did not descend from monkeys.” “Pro-choice means they all want to kill babies all the time.” “The Earth is flat.” “There is a direct link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11.”

It has been shown, in a study [PDF] by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, that an alarming number of Bush supporters believed a number of things that just plain aren’t true in regard to the election issues. For instance, 36% of Bush supporters interviewed believed that the U.S. was participating in the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming. 47% of interviewed Bush supporters believed that Iraq had WMDs immediately prior to the war, while only 2% believed Iraq had no activities related to WMDs. 63% of Bush supporters believed that the United States had found clear evidence that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al-Qaeda. Not that Saddam was working with al-Qaeda but we couldn’t prove it…they believed the U.S. had in its possession clear evidence of such a relationship.

How do you talk to people like that? How do you convince them that you are right without snapping and screaming at them how wrongwrongWRONG they are? It’s infuriating.

But that’s what the next Democratic presidential candidate will have to do. He or she will have to talk to the Bible Belt and get them to see the truth…or at least get them to vote Democratic. And good luck to that unfortunate bastard.

It’d be easier proving the world is flat.

(* It appears that I have fallen into the same trap as others in interpreting this clause. As this very interesting article by Edwin M. Yoder Jr. points out, the clause as it is worded is vast in scope…not only shall Congress pass no law “establishing a religion” but “respecting an establishment of religion”…i.e. no religious establisment. Congress shall pass no law giving preference or respect to any church or religious doctrine.

Separation, my friends, of church and state.)

You’ll All Pay wuz written bah Joe Conat. Y’all kin tell ‘im why God will strike him down with tha rest of tha unbelievers here.

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You’ll All Pay #31

© Joe Conat 2004

Well there’s good news and bad news.

Good news: I’ve got fodder for this here column for the next four friggin’ years.

Bad news: A crack-addled gibbon with a closed head injury and his cadre of Republic serial villains is still running the country.

Hey, America. Yeah, you. Over here.

Bite me.

You do realize what you’ve done, don’t you? You don’t? Let me explain it to you in simple terms that even you, with your average eighth-grade reading level, can understand.

1) You’ve endangered the country. Yes, that’s right. This country will now never get the international support necessary to successfully prosecute an Iraq occupation. We have opened up a country in the Middle East to thousands of terrorists. Thousands. We’ve squandered…I’m sorry, I forgot…we’ve wasted, that is to say thrown away as though they were trash thousands of American lives pursuing some insane and unknowable agenda in Iraq that we are told somehow, we’re not sure how, precisely, but somehow has something to do with the War on Terror. Oh, plus: we’ve guaranteed that al-Qaeda and few dozen or hundred other terrorist organizations will treble…that is to say make three times as large…their efforts to attack us. This means, in all practical terms, we should hunker down with our heads between our legs and wait for the next 9/11 because the choice of Bush as president has virtually guaranteed it will happen again. In the meantime our own homeland security is a shambles: the borders are more porous because funding has been reshuffled; INS is still backlogged, understaffed and underfunded meaning they can’t monitor immigrations, legal or illegal, into this country as effectively as they should; and your precious president, the one who made 9/11 a photo op and posed with NYPD and NYFD officers and called them heroes and promised them the world has slashed funding for first responders. Where’d all that “homeland security” money go? Well to establish a half-assed Department of Homeland Security, a bureaucratic kraken…er, “squid”…that is so cumbersome and awkward it actually hinders rather than facilitates communication between the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies whose task it is to catch terrorists and prevent their attacks.

What, you didn’t know that? Try reading a newspaper once in a while.

No, NASCAR Winston Cup Illustrated doesn’t count.

2) You’ve made yourselves poorer. Yes, you have. Look, are you in the top 2% of the income tax bracket? No? What a shock. Well all these government programs, good or bad, have to be paid for. If the rich aren’t paying and the poor can’t pay, who will?

Yes, I’m looking at you, Middle Class. Directly at you.

So your taxes will go up. And the price of oil? Will go up. And the price of imported goods like that Sony plasma TV you’ve had your eye on? They will go up as other countries around the world punish our apparent blindness and stupidity and arrogance with tariffs. You will be working harder to gain less and less. Congratulations.

3) You’ve championed deceit, prevarication, obfuscation and mediocrity.

Oh, right. Lies, lies, secrecy and mediocrity.

This president…I suppose I have to leave off the “”s now, since you actually cast votes for the yahoo this time…has blatantly lied to everyone, you included, more times than can be counted. Service in the Texas Air National Guard? Not so much. Legitimate win in 2000? No, not really. “Steward of the land” in regard to environmental issues? Huh. Turns out: No.

WMDs in Iraq? Whups, guess not.

So, again, congratulations. Next time you catch your child lying and you tell him or her to go cut off a switch and git ready fer a whuppin’, be prepared if your child looks you guilelessly in the eyes and says “But the President does it.” What’ll you say then?

4) You’ve made your children dumber.

“No Child Left Behind” is a travesty that will, in all likelihood, reduce the quality of national education rather than its stated aim of enhancing it. “Hold teachers accountable, raise the bar”. Yeah, right on…but with what? There’s no money to pay for this. And with the pathetically small salaries most teachers make, from which they often pay for their own school supplies, do you expect them to be able to easily afford the certification testing now required under “No Child Left Behind”? Oh, you didn’t know they had to pay for that themselves? Yeah…under NCLB, teachers must be re-certified to teach, but there’s no helping them get re-certified. How much can a test cost? A couple hundred bucks a pop my friend. And if they don’t pass, they don’t work. And is there any help to get them “back in shape” so they can resume teaching your children how not to walk into walls? No, there is not. Result: fewer teachers with less resources teaching more students with higher standards. And as they consistently fail to meet these arbitrary standards with nothing to work with, they will lose their jobs and there will be even fewer teachers.

Just hire more, you say. Well, there’s a problem with that. Namely, NCLB makes the prospect of being a teacher less desirable. So all those college students who were eyeing Education as a career path are more and more looking for career choices elsewhere. You know, somewhere where they can actually do their job.

Because, as it stands, NCLB is like requiring an athlete to break the world pole vault record, then smashing his knee with a hammer and giving him a mop handle with which to vault. It’s a recipe for failure.

5) You’ve threatened to destroy what America stands for.

Oh, you think I’m engaging in melodrama and hyperbole, but I’m not. This president has proposed a Constitutional Amendment that would disenfranchise homosexuals. Do you understand what that means? It will be written into the Constitution of the United States of America that certain people do not have the same rights as other people.

Does that sound American to you? If it does, you never understood America.

USA PATRIOT Act has been shown to violate three of the first ten Amendments to the Constitution. Does anyone know what the first ten Amendments are also called? No? What a shock.

The first ten Amendments to the Constitution are called the “Bill of Rights”. These are the laws of our land that guarantee we are free.

But not anymore! Now we have USA PATRIOT, a set of laws that would make Joe McCarthy giggle like a little schoolgirl with glee. Joe McCarthy. He hunted Communists in the fifties. “Witch hunt”? No?

Which amendments? First and Fifth, for starters. Let’s review, shall we?

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The ban on “expert advice or assistance” to groups that may be terrorist-related is inexcusably vague. The way it is expressed it could be construed that inarguably pure speech and advocacy, protected by the First Amendment, violates the provision. In other words, if you say you “kinda like” a group that the government has labeled a “terrorist organizations”, you are in violation of USA PATRIOT and can be arrested. Or if you advise a group labeled as terrorist by the government to resolve their issues by peaceful means…you talked, you advised, you’re under arrest.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Due process. It’s right there. You cannot be held without indictment, you can’t be tried twice for the same crime, you don’t have to testify against yourself and they can’t take your stuff without compensating you. Except under USA PATRIOT.

Which also leads nicely into the third Amendment USA PATRIOT violates:

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Under USA PATRIOT the FBI can obtain a secret warrant for any object or document that might relate to terrorist related activities including bookstore and library records etc. etc. They can also sneak into your home and search your stuff without telling you. They can search without a warrant that details the person or things to be seized…it can, in effect, say “suspicious stuff. You know. Things that might be bad. Like…well, stuff.”

So, to recap: All men, suddenly, are not created equal, are not guaranteed the previously inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Your speech is not guaranteed to be free, your home and person are not safe from an oppressive police force.

Golly, seems to me there used to be a nation that sounded a lot like this…state monitoring, oppressive governmental law enforcement, crappy economy that benefited only the top elite…what was the name of that country?

Oh! Yeah! The United Soviet Socialist Republics!

If you think that I am calling you a traitor, you would be correct. If you think I’m insinuating that you are guilty of treachery, you would be wrong; I’m out and out saying you are guilty of treachery.

Treachery. Right, sorry…big word.

Main Entry: treach·ery
Pronunciation: -rEFunction: nounInflected
Form(s): plural -er·ies
Etymology: Middle English trecherie, from Old French, from trechier, trichier to deceive, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin triccare — more at TRICK
1 : violation of allegiance or of faith and confidence : TREASON
2 : an act of perfidy or treason

“Violation of allegiance or of faith and confidence”. Yeah. That’s about right.

I had faith and confidence that this was the Land of the Free, where individual and civil rights were paramount. That is no longer the case. Now fear and suspicion rule the day.

Fear and suspicion. That’s what won George W. Bush the White House. Not competence, not grace, not wit or intelligence or being good at the job. Fear. Suspicion.

Well, fine, cowards. You got what you want. You got the man who told you the bogeyman was under the bed and only he, George W. Bush, had the flashlight. You pulled the covers over your head and you punched your ballot. Good for you.

You’ve given the monkey a gun. Don’t come cryin’ to me when he shoots you. And he will. Monkeys are stupid and capricious.

Capricious: Fickle. Unpredictable.

Am I bitter? Yeah. Enraged? Man, you don’t even know.

Disgusted? In every single fiber of my being.

Four more years.

Damn it all to Hell.

You’ll All Pay is written by Joe Conat. You can e-mail him here.

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