Countless military women and military spouses are victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. It is estimated that rates of marital abuse in the military are two to five times higher than civilian rates of domestic violence. Moreover, one in three women in the military will be sexually assaulted during their tour of duty. Ending sexual violence against women in the military must start now!
Golly. Rape. Sexual assault in the military. Kim Gandy and the gals of NOW must really care, right?
Hell no.
The did two e-mails last week. May 1st, they were asking you to demand a female Supreme Court judge and, April 30th, they were asking you to go to their next do-nothing conference this spring.
You've probably already figured out what they missed. CODESTINK missed it too and, yes, they sent out e-mails last week as well. Mainly the press missed it.
Friday Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, was weighing in on World Press Freedom Day, "The United States is proud to join the international community in celebrating World Press Freedom Day and the contributions that journalists make to advancing human dignity, liberty, and prosperity. We live in a world where the free flow of information and ideas is a powerful force for progress. Independent print, broadcast, and online media outlets are more than sources of news and opinion. They also expose abuses of power, fight corruption, challenge assumptions, and provide constructive outlets for new ideas and dissent."
And those lofty statements might actually mean something if the press did a damn thing but the reality is they really don't.
"Investigative journalism will be lost!" Norman Solomon's taken to screeching in his new guise as Chicken Little. Investigative journalism, according to Norman Solomon (for big laughs catch him on KPFK's National Lawyers Guild show last week), will be lost if daily papers go under. Really? News broadcasts won't do them anymore? We're remembering the amazing work CBS News did last year on the military suicides. They didn't partner with any paper. That was their work.
Reality is that few do investigative journalism any way. Check out tomorrow's New York Times. You'll have bad columns with gas baggery. You'll have the 'report' on the chat & chews seen. We doubt seriously you'll see investigative journalism. Or that you see it that often.
But what we know is that the paper which worked overtime to minimize the March 12, 2006 gang-rape and murder of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, the murders of her parents and sister, is still at it.
You'd think after the propaganda they ran with Carolyn Marshall and Robert F. Worth's names attached to it, they'd feel obligated to cover the Steven D. Green trial taking place currently in Kentucky. You'd think that, if only to get the blood off their hands, they'd cover it.
But they're not covering it. And they're getting away with it.
They've gotten away with never mentioning Abeer's name in print. The New York Times never mentioned her by name. They rendered her invisible and because a lot of Mud Flap Girls think The Little Mermaid is the height of feminism, the paper got away with it.
Calling out one of the three largest paper's in the country for the refusal to identify the (dead) victim was too much work. Just like it's too much work to call out The Times and all the other outlets ignoring the Kentucky trial.
Toe nails won't pay themselves! Going through 100 Webshots of kitties and cats takes time! And McDreamy and McSteamy make them so McCreamy, they just have to blog on that.
They have time for everything but for what needs to be done.
If, in 1978, you'd gone to, for example, a NOW conference and stood at the podium and informed those gathered, "There will come a day when we'll all look the other way when the press renders a rape victim invisible," you would have been laughed off the stage. If you'd managed to hold the floor for a few minutes more, you might tell them, "This isn't just any rape victim, mind you, it's a fourteen-year-old girl, raped by adults. Raped by US soldiers. US soldiers stationed in her neighborhood to provide protection. US soldiers who cut a whole in her home's fence, break into the home, force the parents and the younger daughter into another room, murder the three of them and gang-rape the 14-year-old Abeer before murdering her as well." If you'd gotten that information out, people would be wondering what you'd been smoking and if you were holding it currently and intended to share?
But that's the point we arrived at today.
Silence from the 'feminist' blogs, silence from the feminist organizations, silence from the feminist movement. We rightly gave Robin Morgan credit in 2006 for writing about Abeer when many in the media were playing no-big-deal. Guess what Robin? 2006 is three years ago. You can't sit on your ass and all day and get praise.
(Democratic) Women's Media Center (part of the "Media Alliance" -- a group that further destroys independent media) did note Abeer in March.
They've had no interest in covering the trial. Not with reporting, not with opinion pieces. Robin's a part of WMC. So is Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda gave a wonderful speech about Abeer . . . in 2007.
The trial's going on right now. The trial just finished its first week.
And where was the press?
Not only could WMC not cover it, neither could Feminist Wire Daily.
Pacifica apparently not only couldn't afford to send anyone to Kentucky, they don't know anyone in the state. That must be why they've failed to provide reports.
Some don't bother to offer excuses. Some do and only embarrass themselves. [See Keesha's takedown of Ann Bartow this edition, "Bitch Pleeze (Keesha)."] Maybe they should all pull a Condi and just pray no one notices them.
Yeah, Condi, you blend.
And, yeah, no one's noticing the silence. No one's caught on yet that a young girl who was gang-raped and killed by US soldiers is being ingored in the United States.
People have caught on. The only thing being exposed right now is the hypocrisy of so many as they maintain the silence.
Somehow a high school student, Evan Bright, shows more bravery than so-called 'leaders,' organizations and our 'free' press.
[See this edition's "Evan Bright Puts Big Media To Shame" for more on Bright.]