WHO are you going to believe? An articulate young woman fighting for reproductive rights for all her sisters...or a vile, right wing swine and his apologists?
We knew it was inevitable because when they're stuck, pigs squeal. And so it is also with the biggest 2-legged swine of them all, Rush Limbaugh, otherwise known as El Rushbo or (more recently to millions of young women) "El Swinebo" after his despicable remarks over the air concerning Sandra Fluke.
Anyone with two neurons in their gray matter knows this "apology" is bollocks. I mean, any sensible person - and that includes Ms. Fluke- can tell the genuine article from grandstanding and excuses wrapped in PR. Especially as El Swinebo made his vile comments for not one, not two but THREE days running, and then blamed liberals because he "made the mistake of following their example" as opposed to his own good conscience. (What's the difference if it's the conscience of a pig? Wait, I maybe ought not insult pigs here!)
The truth is that this odious, grunting porker miscreant: a) feared the exodus of no fewer than 35 major advertisers already, and b) oinked what was in his heart - which 'oink' also echoed what most of the Woman-hating GOP believe in their own heart of hearts (accounting for their tepid reactions), as well as Rush's sickening listener audience - wherever they are. Indeed, the news in today's press (Denver Post, p. 5A) was that "callers to the show urged him not to give in to critics and blamed the media for the pressure..." Between these knuckle -sucking troglydytes and those who yelped "Let 'em DIE!'' in a repuke debate (when the subject of what to do to help the uninsured came up), we ought to send all of 'em on a one way trip to MARS!
Typical rightist bullshit! Always crying then blaming being caught out on the 'librul media'! Any time you can, when caught with your pants down, pose as the victim in the piece! We've seen Sarah Palin do it any number of times, as well as Herman Cain (with his other woman he kept in Ga) and who can ever forget Newtie with his "threesomes"? It's the same shell game over and over.
Meanwhile, there is the quiet, articulate Ms. Fluke who with her characteristic poise and aplomb rejects what she sees as a manifestly insincere apology while noting it did nothing to change the "corrosive tone of the debate". As I watched again her eloquent testimony on C-SPAN,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlRC0nsjtKQ
then her reactions as viciously attacked by reich wing swine, I couldn't help but summon the compelling image of a modern-era 'Joan of Arc' - doing battle almost alone against the cultural knuckle-draggers who'd keep women chained to beds, though as Rachel Maddow's guest Connie Schultz put it last night, 'They are attacking not just Sandra but our own daughters!'
Indeed, all 22 million- odd women from 18-29 are under monstrous attack from a Right Wing scream machine that defies them to speak up for themselves, and would grind them into chattel and baby making machines with zero self-autonomy and determination if it could. This includes the Unholy Trinity of the GOP, the vitriolic Reich Wing media and its associated blogosphere- as well as the Catholic Church and its sick sycophants.
As Maddow's guest Connie Schultz also noted, though her age group can assist, this is now the battle of the younger female demographic. If they prevail, they will have established new freedom parameters and social justice for themselves and their sisters. If they fail,....well, we prefer not to go into that....but think of how women are regarded and treated in most fundamentalist-dominated nations.
Even as this front of the culture wars plays out, the Catholics and their apologists have tried to attack Sandra from the other side (thereby offering Limburger de facto support), such as in today's WSJ (p. A17, 'Limbaugh and Our Phony Contraception Debate') by Cathy Cleaver Ruse - a "senior fellow" at the extremist Right wing "Family Research Council".
Ruse claims to be a former graduate of the Georgetown Law School (20 yrs. ago), so from the get- go she posits credentials that she hopes will trump Sandra's as a 3rd year law student. This technique is frequently used by those who haven't anything but hot air in their quivers but they use it because it often works on susceptible minds.
Ruse then makes a big deal of the fact that Sandra told the Washington Post she "deliberately chose Georgetown knowing specifically that it did not cover drugs that run contrary to Catholic teaching."
Let me again remind readers of what I said before, that the Church's birth control proscription is not any kind of a central teaching, issuing as it does from the Magisterium or teaching office, and not ex Cathedra or from the 'Chair of St. Peter' (which office designates "infallibility"). Hence, and logically, as Hans Kung has pointed out ('Infallible?') it could be wrong ....so there is no absolute compelling reason to follow it and most priests in the day (late 1960s-70s) regarded it as matter of personal conscience.
Hence, Sandra in this light was perfectly well justified to choose Georgetown as her law school. In addition, it made sense because she reasonably perceived how young women's reproductive rights were being squelched by an iffy but anachronistic ruling, and saw it as her duty to be on the spot to offer challenge, i.e. through the 'Students for Reproductive Justice'.
Not content to try her hand at distortion here, Ruse goes on to blabber on all the ways Georgetown "flung wide its doors" to all manner of "clubs and activities that run contrary to fundamental Catholic beliefs ...but it is not inclined to pay for or provide them....and it has the right to say this far and nor further."
Which of course mixes chalk and cheese. Obviously, then, we aren't querying why Georgetown (just as Loyola University where I once went to school - 1964-67) won't pay to establish a Georgetown Atheist Club, or Jean -Paul Sarte Existentialist Organization, which may well challenge fundamental beliefs - such as the Incarnation, the Trinity, Mary's Immaculate Conception and Transubstantiation. What we are challenging - including Sandra- is the school's right to deny health service while operating in the public square based on an IFFY ruling that is not, nor ever has been, absolute in its truth claims.
There is a universe of difference here, but clearly Ruse even with her illustrious "J.D." doesn't get it. This is obvious, because Ruse then goes on to try and paint Sandra as belonging to the"victim" class of witness - noting there are "two kinds, experts and victims". How about just one kind, truth tellers! Thus, Ruse goes on to try and debunk Sandra's testimony as being more about trying to save money on contraception than health repercussions, despite the fact Ms. Fluke explicitly stated yesterday on a network appearance:
"I want to correct the misperception, which Mr. Limbaugh and a lot of other commentators have been putting out there to confuse the public, the idea that this is about taxpayers or the government paying for contraception. It is absolutely not. This regulation covers private insurance and it wants to have this type of medical drug treated in a way that’s similar to how other medical drugs are treated. And it is health care. "
But no, in the hallowed pages of reactionary finance, distortions like Ruse's get the ink! So it's no wonder Ms. Cathy Ruse follows this up by admitting that:
"What about Rush Limbaugh: I won't defend his use of epithets but I understand his larger point ...that contraception isn't like other kinds of health care..."
But that's the point! It is! She then goes on to claim, responding to Ms. Fluke's testimony as to treating other medical problems like ovarian cysts with contraceptives,
"Yes, birth control pills can be used to address medical problems, though that's extremely rare and the Catholic Church has no quarrel with their use in this circumstance."
Well, two lies here: first that these medical problems are "extremely rare". They are not. It's estimated (by The Guttmacher Institute) that nearly 1.7 million women suffer from endometriosis - treatable exclusively by contraceptives, each year. That is NOT "extremely rare"! Second, the Catholic Church obviously does have a problem if Georgetown U., for example,would not provide the pill for use to the student with ovarian cysts without having to pay for them. So ....is Ruse calling Sandra a liar, or is she the liar?
The last statement in Ruse's WSJ piece is its own way as vile and debased as Limbaugh's rant, when she writes:
"Should Ms. Fluke give up a cup or two of coffee at Starbucks each month to pay for her birth control, or should Georgetown give up its religion? Even a first year law student should know where the Constitution stands on that!"
But see, even a 1st year frosh from ANY Catholic university ought to know that allowing contraceptives to be dispensed as part of a a health care mandate and plan is NOT "giving up one's religion"! Especially as the anti-birth control ruling doesn't issue from any infallible edict or ex cathedra but from the Magisterium - in which self-direction and personal conscience is allotted paramountcy.
No one, certainly not Ms. Fluke, is demanding Georgetown U. recant on the true fundamental beliefs such as Transubstantiation, the Immaculate Conception or the Trinity or even Papal Infallibility. So in the end, all Ruse's arguments amount to no more than silly straw men.
The most vile aspect is that millions will interpret this piffle to be ideological - theological support for Limburger which they are emphatically not! They are the spurious arguments of one zealous member of the Family Research Council, with a long history of war against reproductive choice.
Anyone with two neurons in their gray matter knows this "apology" is bollocks. I mean, any sensible person - and that includes Ms. Fluke- can tell the genuine article from grandstanding and excuses wrapped in PR. Especially as El Swinebo made his vile comments for not one, not two but THREE days running, and then blamed liberals because he "made the mistake of following their example" as opposed to his own good conscience. (What's the difference if it's the conscience of a pig? Wait, I maybe ought not insult pigs here!)
The truth is that this odious, grunting porker miscreant: a) feared the exodus of no fewer than 35 major advertisers already, and b) oinked what was in his heart - which 'oink' also echoed what most of the Woman-hating GOP believe in their own heart of hearts (accounting for their tepid reactions), as well as Rush's sickening listener audience - wherever they are. Indeed, the news in today's press (Denver Post, p. 5A) was that "callers to the show urged him not to give in to critics and blamed the media for the pressure..." Between these knuckle -sucking troglydytes and those who yelped "Let 'em DIE!'' in a repuke debate (when the subject of what to do to help the uninsured came up), we ought to send all of 'em on a one way trip to MARS!
Typical rightist bullshit! Always crying then blaming being caught out on the 'librul media'! Any time you can, when caught with your pants down, pose as the victim in the piece! We've seen Sarah Palin do it any number of times, as well as Herman Cain (with his other woman he kept in Ga) and who can ever forget Newtie with his "threesomes"? It's the same shell game over and over.
Meanwhile, there is the quiet, articulate Ms. Fluke who with her characteristic poise and aplomb rejects what she sees as a manifestly insincere apology while noting it did nothing to change the "corrosive tone of the debate". As I watched again her eloquent testimony on C-SPAN,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlRC0nsjtKQ
then her reactions as viciously attacked by reich wing swine, I couldn't help but summon the compelling image of a modern-era 'Joan of Arc' - doing battle almost alone against the cultural knuckle-draggers who'd keep women chained to beds, though as Rachel Maddow's guest Connie Schultz put it last night, 'They are attacking not just Sandra but our own daughters!'
Indeed, all 22 million- odd women from 18-29 are under monstrous attack from a Right Wing scream machine that defies them to speak up for themselves, and would grind them into chattel and baby making machines with zero self-autonomy and determination if it could. This includes the Unholy Trinity of the GOP, the vitriolic Reich Wing media and its associated blogosphere- as well as the Catholic Church and its sick sycophants.
As Maddow's guest Connie Schultz also noted, though her age group can assist, this is now the battle of the younger female demographic. If they prevail, they will have established new freedom parameters and social justice for themselves and their sisters. If they fail,....well, we prefer not to go into that....but think of how women are regarded and treated in most fundamentalist-dominated nations.
Even as this front of the culture wars plays out, the Catholics and their apologists have tried to attack Sandra from the other side (thereby offering Limburger de facto support), such as in today's WSJ (p. A17, 'Limbaugh and Our Phony Contraception Debate') by Cathy Cleaver Ruse - a "senior fellow" at the extremist Right wing "Family Research Council".
Ruse claims to be a former graduate of the Georgetown Law School (20 yrs. ago), so from the get- go she posits credentials that she hopes will trump Sandra's as a 3rd year law student. This technique is frequently used by those who haven't anything but hot air in their quivers but they use it because it often works on susceptible minds.
Ruse then makes a big deal of the fact that Sandra told the Washington Post she "deliberately chose Georgetown knowing specifically that it did not cover drugs that run contrary to Catholic teaching."
Let me again remind readers of what I said before, that the Church's birth control proscription is not any kind of a central teaching, issuing as it does from the Magisterium or teaching office, and not ex Cathedra or from the 'Chair of St. Peter' (which office designates "infallibility"). Hence, and logically, as Hans Kung has pointed out ('Infallible?') it could be wrong ....so there is no absolute compelling reason to follow it and most priests in the day (late 1960s-70s) regarded it as matter of personal conscience.
Hence, Sandra in this light was perfectly well justified to choose Georgetown as her law school. In addition, it made sense because she reasonably perceived how young women's reproductive rights were being squelched by an iffy but anachronistic ruling, and saw it as her duty to be on the spot to offer challenge, i.e. through the 'Students for Reproductive Justice'.
Not content to try her hand at distortion here, Ruse goes on to blabber on all the ways Georgetown "flung wide its doors" to all manner of "clubs and activities that run contrary to fundamental Catholic beliefs ...but it is not inclined to pay for or provide them....and it has the right to say this far and nor further."
Which of course mixes chalk and cheese. Obviously, then, we aren't querying why Georgetown (just as Loyola University where I once went to school - 1964-67) won't pay to establish a Georgetown Atheist Club, or Jean -Paul Sarte Existentialist Organization, which may well challenge fundamental beliefs - such as the Incarnation, the Trinity, Mary's Immaculate Conception and Transubstantiation. What we are challenging - including Sandra- is the school's right to deny health service while operating in the public square based on an IFFY ruling that is not, nor ever has been, absolute in its truth claims.
There is a universe of difference here, but clearly Ruse even with her illustrious "J.D." doesn't get it. This is obvious, because Ruse then goes on to try and paint Sandra as belonging to the"victim" class of witness - noting there are "two kinds, experts and victims". How about just one kind, truth tellers! Thus, Ruse goes on to try and debunk Sandra's testimony as being more about trying to save money on contraception than health repercussions, despite the fact Ms. Fluke explicitly stated yesterday on a network appearance:
"I want to correct the misperception, which Mr. Limbaugh and a lot of other commentators have been putting out there to confuse the public, the idea that this is about taxpayers or the government paying for contraception. It is absolutely not. This regulation covers private insurance and it wants to have this type of medical drug treated in a way that’s similar to how other medical drugs are treated. And it is health care. "
But no, in the hallowed pages of reactionary finance, distortions like Ruse's get the ink! So it's no wonder Ms. Cathy Ruse follows this up by admitting that:
"What about Rush Limbaugh: I won't defend his use of epithets but I understand his larger point ...that contraception isn't like other kinds of health care..."
But that's the point! It is! She then goes on to claim, responding to Ms. Fluke's testimony as to treating other medical problems like ovarian cysts with contraceptives,
"Yes, birth control pills can be used to address medical problems, though that's extremely rare and the Catholic Church has no quarrel with their use in this circumstance."
Well, two lies here: first that these medical problems are "extremely rare". They are not. It's estimated (by The Guttmacher Institute) that nearly 1.7 million women suffer from endometriosis - treatable exclusively by contraceptives, each year. That is NOT "extremely rare"! Second, the Catholic Church obviously does have a problem if Georgetown U., for example,would not provide the pill for use to the student with ovarian cysts without having to pay for them. So ....is Ruse calling Sandra a liar, or is she the liar?
The last statement in Ruse's WSJ piece is its own way as vile and debased as Limbaugh's rant, when she writes:
"Should Ms. Fluke give up a cup or two of coffee at Starbucks each month to pay for her birth control, or should Georgetown give up its religion? Even a first year law student should know where the Constitution stands on that!"
But see, even a 1st year frosh from ANY Catholic university ought to know that allowing contraceptives to be dispensed as part of a a health care mandate and plan is NOT "giving up one's religion"! Especially as the anti-birth control ruling doesn't issue from any infallible edict or ex cathedra but from the Magisterium - in which self-direction and personal conscience is allotted paramountcy.
No one, certainly not Ms. Fluke, is demanding Georgetown U. recant on the true fundamental beliefs such as Transubstantiation, the Immaculate Conception or the Trinity or even Papal Infallibility. So in the end, all Ruse's arguments amount to no more than silly straw men.
The most vile aspect is that millions will interpret this piffle to be ideological - theological support for Limburger which they are emphatically not! They are the spurious arguments of one zealous member of the Family Research Council, with a long history of war against reproductive choice.
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