The Audacity of Hope

A year ago an international flotilla attempted to deliver aide in the form of food and basic necessities to the besieged people of Gaza. The government of Israel responded to this group of peaceful protesters with bullets and bad decisions. There was an international outcry at the slaughter of innocent civilians and this put the United States in a very awkward position indeed. Do they defend their ally in spite of the gruesome truth? Or do they at last condemn the cruel actions of a government that openly sponsors violent racism? In a wholly unsurprising turn of events, the US chose to disregard the findings of several international investigations which found the Israeli military to have commit atrocious acts of unprovoked violence and murder, and instead supported the findings of the Israeli investigation. You know, the one no one was allowed to verify? The one that claimed that the flotilla attacked the military vessels despite being utterly without firepower? That one.

On the anniversary of this travesty, another flotilla is scheduled to leave, once again carrying only basic necessities into the Gaza ghetto. This time the United States decided to cover its ass ahead of time. Hilary Clinton announced that the US government condemned the idea of an aide flotilla, going so far as to imply it was an act of terrorism (imagine that, the US calling someone it disagrees with a terrorist). The clincher though was when she and her cronies outright stated that the government of Israel had the right to defend itself. When pressed by a number of people, who were, unfortunately, struck with the terrible affliction of common sense, what exactly Israel was defending itself from (because apparently food and medical supplies are the new tools of chemical warfare?), Hilary hemmed and hawed and generally avoided any statement of merit. As did every other government representative to whom these legitimate questions were posed.

In short, the United States government has openly declared that the potential murder of its citizens is permissible because, well hey, they were totally asking for it!

Jihad

I'm almost too disgusted to say anything. But therein lies the point. It needs to be said. Hypothetically speaking, how seriously do you think most people would take a chain letter or article or news segment about the evils of Christianity? Even if they cited a million examples of the horrible things people have done in the name of Christ (and frankly, a million is a drastic understatement in that regard), most people would smirk and shake their heads at the crazy nutjob extremists who expect us to believe that an entire people could be evil just by nature of believing a certain religion. Doesn't that sound like something the Nazis would do?

If such a letter or article were released, the backlash would be swift and it would be harsh. This holds true for practically any religion, except one. One people are exempt from being dealt with with courtesy and understanding: Muslims. Condemning Islam has become a national pastime in this country (and in several others in the Western world). People cite a number of absurd reasons for this distinct prejudice: the oppression of women and gays, the "violent" nature of the Muslim people, the overwhelming number of terrorists who kill in the name of Allah. Today I was sent a chain letter with the urgent message to "spread the word!" The entire thing was comprised of fanatical ignorance and astounding overstatement. One point in particular nearly made me lose my breakfast: "In the Muslim faith a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year old and have sexual intimacy with this child." Really? Could that sentence contain any more paranoid delusion? 


You may say "well of course that sounds crazy, but that's just the wacko fringe." Except it's not. It would be one thing if this sort of behavior were shunned or condemned by the general public, but instead it's encouraged. All you have to do is look back at recent events to see that Islamophobia isn't a concoction of the liberal agenda, but rather an established American institution. That is the frightening part. There will always be crazies with wild eyes who accost you on the street to tell you that judgement is at hand, but it becomes a serious problem when those madmen are the ones running the country, the media, the hospitals and schools.

Free The Boobies!

It’s become commonplace to see scantily-clad women in almost every type of advertisement around these days. The majority of the population doesn’t bat an eyelash when faced with the nearly-nude or the overtly sexual. Of course, there’s a fringe who believe that this idolatry of the carnal is the reason for all our suffering and that we should turn to the Lord and yadda yadda. So here we have two extremes, deathly opposed to the other’s perspective on what basically amounts to a singular issue: women’s breasts.

Nevermind that breasts are not inherently sexual organs or that both genders posses them (to varying degrees of utility), according to both sides of this argument, breasts are the most important aspects of a woman’s sexuality. These bits of flesh have been so eroticized that all other attributes of them have been thrown aside as secondary. Breastfeeding has become something almost vile. It’s seen as something uncivilized, something that animals do for lack of modern technology and opposable thumbs. Their primary biological function aside, breasts have become the embodiment of sex. It often astounds me that so many heterosexual males don’t even think twice about the supposed goal of their conquest (you know, the vagina) but instead focus all their lust on two fleshy orbs.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to find breasts sexually appealing. The problem I see with this hypersexualization is that the rest of the woman is basically forgotten. This licentiousness is used by both sides of this contentious argument to reduce a woman to a sex object.

By labeling this otherwise benign section of a woman’s body as taboo, we’ve created a huge disparity between the sexes. A man’s exposed chest is not only commonplace in advertisements and in the media, but it is perfectly legal for a man to walk around shirtless in public. We, as a society, do not consider a bare-chested man to be inherently sexual. But a woman’s breasts are seen as a corrupting influence, something dirty and sinful. The religious right seeks to cover them for the sake of salvation while the liberal media seeks to expose them for the sake of profits. Both sides neglect the harmful impact this has on the psyche of those who just happen to have been born with these fleshy lumps of controversy.

I recently read an article on Jezebel.com about Barnes & Noble censoring the cover of a magazine which displayed a bare-chested male model. Why, you might ask? Because this particular guy looked just a little too girly for the bookstore’s tastes. Apparently the decision was made in order to diffuse the possibility that some young child might look at the cover and realize that that fine line between nature and pornography is actually pretty damned wide. This, of course, would create a backlash causing an entire generation of Americans to grow up not being ashamed of their own bodies. And of course that lack of shame would bankrupt both of the institutions that capitalized on it, the church and big business.

And so an entire gender (as well as the slew of androgynous men out there) is reduced to being only slightly more useful and maybe a little less shameful that a Fleshlight. I honestly don’t think women’s rights will progress substantially at all until both genders are treated equal when naked. It’s a catchy slogan isn’t it?

The original article on Jezebel.com if anyone wants to read it.