(exasperated)sigh

La Cucaracha is especially fitting today.

And I want to link you again over to Green Fairy because I don't want you to get any false notions about how great America is. We could be. If we'd stop fucking things up. That is to say, if the people in power would stop fucking things up and start listening to what people actually think.

I am frightened by the ability of hate groups (masquerading under positive names- "Pro-Life" is a nice way of saying antiabortion. To be truly pro-life, however, you would have to concede that a woman...is a life. I know that's a big step. Let's take it slow here) to mobilize quickly and effectively, to use religion to convince people of the wrongness or rightness of something, and to scare politicians and policymakers into submission. I don't think the majority of Americans believe abortion should be illegal, but those voices are overpowered by the angry ones, the people who are threatened not by the loss of life (because then they would have to consider more than just the fetus as a live) but by the loss of power. Fear is the greatest motivator. Go on over to Echidne and read her post (jan 30) on "The Manly Art of Politics." Some talking heads are afraid that politics is over femininzed. It goes hand in hand with Bush's stance on machoism and revenge: power! greed! punishment!

And that's where I get lost in the debate. Why should politics be "masculine" when half of the population is "feminine"? Shouldn't they have everyone's best interest at heart? Don't laugh. I'm serious. Which is why I find myself feeling more and more lost and hopeless in this big, bad-ass, macho country. I understand that the majority of Americans are not extremists like anti-abortionists, and so at the same time I understand that not everyone's a radical feminist. I just like to hope that most people swing in that direction when it comes down to talking rights, improvements, and actions.

This is good news though: Massachusetts High Court rules for Gay Marriage.