TSA screeners do not want to touch your junk either

US politics, War on Terror
Published on

“Molester, pervert, disgusting, an embarrassment, creep. These are all words I have heard today at work describing me, said in my presence as I patted passengers down. These comments are painful and demoralizing, one day is bad enough, but I have to come back tomorrow, the next day and the day after that to keep hearing these comments. If something doesn’t change in the next two weeks I don’t know how much longer I can withstand this taunting. I go home and I cry. I am serving my country, I should not have to go home and cry after a day of honorably serving my country.”

Just one quote from TSA airport screeners not happy with the new patdown rules. It turns out your average security guard does not want to touch other people’s junk for eight hours a day, the occasional pervert excepted, nor likes it when travellers get upset with them for having to do so. The comments thread gets a bit overboard, nazi comparisons flying fast and loose, so be careful.

Second wave of student protests hits London

Life under Capitalism, UK politics
Published on

spot the tiny rogue minority

Lenny calls it the biggest student rebellion since 1968:

Several fires burn on the tarmac, someone gives an impromptu speech from atop a concrete wall, and a chant goes up: “Let us out! Let us out! Let us out!”. I am in the middle of Britain’s student revolt, and I am amazed by the high spirits of thousands of kettled children and teenagers. For my part, I can only think how cold it is. Things keep “kicking off” on the frontlines between police and protesters. Further up Whitehall, a huge crowd of kids has gathered outside the kettle. I’m told the younger kids are walking around telling the police to go fuck themselves. They’re so angry, more than I can explain, about being kettled in. When asked, the sheer righteous fury they express is impressive. The slogans that occasionally start up resonate throughout the wide avenue – “they say cutback, we say fightback!”, “Tory Tory Tory, out out out!”, and, yes, “one solution, revolution!”. The police apparently claim they’ve made toilets available to us. They have not. There are two cubicles outside the kettle, which may be toilets but we can’t access them. We have no water or food, and we are kept warm only by the fires. But still, people sing, dance, do the hokey kokey (yeah), and chant. This resilience is fuelled by white hot anger.

Nick Clegg showing his pledge not to raise student fees

According to the Dutch news, which lead with it in the eight o’clock bulletin, the students were actually trying to storm parliament. But much more happened today, as the demo list at the Anticuts website and the rolling coverage from the Socialist Worker make clear. Protest went on throughout the UK, including in Scotland, which is not affected by the proposed cuts itself. The students are angry, as are their younger brothers and sisters still in secondary schools, not to mention their parents, to be faced by massive fee increases needed to pay for the bankers’ crisis. and a lot of that anger is aimed at the LibDems, who had promised not to do so before the election. As Roobin puts it:

Election promises aren’t binding? I guess legally they’re not, but if politicians don’t have to honour what they say during the 6-4 week period every 4-5 years when they are obliged to seek popular approval why should the public respect the results of general elections, or any elections? What is left of any democratic notion in government?

In general, public disappointment with the LibDems is high, as is also seen in the results of a few recent local elections that saw their vote be hammered. The end result of the ConDem government just might be the complete destruction of the LibDems as a valid political party — public anger is high already even though most of the government’s plans so far have just been plans, not yet reality.

What do Bristol Palin and Ann Widdecombe have in common?

Wingnuts
Published on

A lack of dignity and self respect.

Ann Widdecombe is the picture of elegance dancing on Strictly

Reading Pandagon today I was amused to find out that in both America and Britain have the same problems with untalented rightwing celebrity contestants in their dance shows. Across the Atlantic, they have rightwingers voting for Bristol Palin in Dancing with the Stars to teach uppity liberals a lesson, while in old blighty it’s Anne Widdecombe making a fool of herself on Strictly come Dancing.

As you know, Strictly Come Dancing is a lighthearted entertainment show and dance competition featuring a dozen or so celebrities who’ve never had dancing lessons and their professional partners. Some of the celebs find out that they’re actually good at show dancing, some find out they’re crap and weeks of training doesn’t change that much, while most muddle through for shorter or longer periods. Widdecombe is of the second category, hopeless and with no chance of improving. There’s no shame in being a bad dancer, but what Widdecombe does goes against the spirit of the show: she doesn’t even attempt to try and dance to the best of her abilities, but flat out refuses to do anything she deems indecent. Though how shaking your hips is indecent while being dragged over the dance floor legs akimbo with your bum sticking out isn’t, I’ll never know.

Had she any dignity and sense of moral responsibility, she would withdraw, but I can’t see Widdecombe doing that: she has a much too huge ego. As a result, each week better and more deserving dancers are voted off. It’s a typical Tory move to abuse priviledge this way, disguising ego as principle by saying it would be rude to withdraw when people keep voting for you.

Poor Bristol Palin may be even worse off, lacking dancing talent but kept in Dancing with the Stars not because the voters find it funny to keep her in, as with Widdecombe, but to teach liberals a lesson:

Bristol is unpopular with the judges and the fans not because of any personality traits or anything she’s done wrong, but because she doesn’t work hard and she sucks. If she wasn’t considered a member of the wingnut tribe, she would have been gone a long time ago. But due to extensive conservative online organizing and possible cheating, Palin in hanging in.

[…]

Oh, those wily liberals! Always smiling and so smug, thinking they’re so cool. We’ll show them. We’ll get Bristol Palin to win on “DWTS”, even though she doesn’t deserve it, and elect any nutbar to Congress with an “R” behind their name. It’s all culture war and everything is about scoring points, damn the consequences. The possibility that it doesn’t actually piss off many liberals—for instance, I’ve never seen “DWTS”, couldn’t tell you who’s on it, or who has ever won it—didn’t seem to have been a factor.

As with Widdecombe, the dignified thing for Palin to have done by now was to resign, rather than suffer being kept in the show for ulterior motives. But then dignity is not a virtue much seen on the right, is it.