Wednesday, February 15, 2012

How much rape is "too much"?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
V-Jay Jay Day
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full EpisodesPolitical Humor & Satire BlogThe Daily Show on Facebook

Crazy, isn't it? Hey, if they want to serve their country, women have to expect to be raped by their fellow soldiers, right? Did they expect to be on the same team or something?

And then they complain about it? Wow, that's hard to understand, isn't it?

And this is a woman making such bizarre statements. (Admittedly, it's a woman on Fox News.) She even laughs a bit about that report on violent sexual assaults in the military. Yeah, funny, isn't it? Who wouldn't get a chuckle out of that?

What did these women expect? Well, I imagine that any woman who volunteered to place herself in danger in order to serve her country would expect to be treated with respect by her own side!  These women probably expected to be in danger from the enemy, but not so much from their fellow soldiers.

Is that really how the military works, that you have more to fear from your own side than from the people you're fighting? Somehow, I thought there was supposed to be a certain amount of trust among people who were all risking their lives in a common undertaking.

And since when do we shrug off rape, even when perpetrated by our own soldiers - maybe even especially when perpetrated by our own soldiers? Is that just one of the perks of being in the military then, that you get to rape whomever you wish? Somehow, I got the idea that we didn't want American soldiers raping even the enemy.

But, of course, those nasty feminists have to make such a big deal about this, don't they? Hey, man up and take your rape like a, like a... woman?

Really, I'm still struggling to get my head around the fact that it's a woman saying such insane things. Oh, not that right-wing women aren't just as crazy as right-wing men. But I guess I thought they might have a different perspective on rape, at least.

There was more to that Fox News segment than Jon Stewart shows. Here's Steve Benen:
When Fox News anchor Eric Shawn said that "many would say that they need to be protected," Trotta was unmoved. "That's funny," she said, "I thought the mission of the Army, and the Navy, and four services was to defend and protect us, not the people who were fighting the war."

"Us," in this context, apparently doesn't include Americans who wear the uniform.

The host pressed further, noting, "Well, you certainly want the people fighting the war to be protected from anything that could be illegal." Trotta was still unsympathetic, responding, "Nice try, Eric."

It's hard to even comprehend such a twisted perspective. To hear this Fox News contributor tell it, American women in the armed forces should expect sexual assaults; American men in the armed forces are likely to become sexual predators; and the American military shouldn't bother to take any of this seriously.

That anyone would find such attitudes acceptable is just stunning.

Amen to that. The right-wing continues to surprise me at just how crazy they can be. Every time I think they've reached the bottom, they demonstrate that I was wrong.

5 comments:

Gregg Garthright said...

Wow, that's an incredibly evil, stupid woman, isn't it?

I understand some ultra-conservative types think women shouldn't be in combat positions in the military, but how could anyone think this is acceptable - and expected - conduct from men?

Hard to believe that even Fox News would have someone like this on the air!

Jeff said...

"Every time I think they've reached the bottom, they demonstrate that I was wrong."

From a "Garfield" comic I saw years ago:

"Just when I think I've hit bottom, someone throws me a shovel! :)

Bill Garthright said...

Yup, I was just astounded at this. I guess crazy has gone mainstream these days.

m1nks said...

Just read this blog and spent a bit of time looking her up. What a truly repulsive woman. I can't understand how your country can have so many of these people getting 'on air' and spouting views like this and them not being pulled off by national outrage. These comments are so disgusting - why the hell isn't she being crucified by the media?

Is it because the States is so large even comments as inflammatory as that are like drops in the ocean?

Or is it rather because the bi partisan divide which seems to split your country down the middle has become such a chasm that no matter what one side says they will 'always' be defended against 'the enemy'? No matter what they say.

Bill Garthright said...

Being outrageous is an advantage here, m1nks - especially in the right-wing media. You have to be inflammatory just to get noticed. That's how you get on TV. So these people all try to be just a little more outrageous than everyone else.

True, that's not exactly the case in the mainstream media. Although you need to be outrageous to get noticed by them, they don't want outrageous employees. But they very much want to report on the outrageous things other people say, because that draws in the viewers.

Fox News is different. Fox is deliberately slanted. It deliberately appeals to the right-wing, and there's really no way to be too outrageous for their fans. Their employees are expected, even required, to be right-wing cheerleaders.

When someone on Fox News is criticized, that just proves what all Fox fans already know, that the right-wing is unfairly victimized by the liberal "lamestream" media. Criticism just enhances their feeling of belonging to a persecuted group.

There's something like this on all sides of the political spectrum, of course, but the right-wing specializes in feeling victimized. And Fox News is unethical enough to take advantage of it. (Indeed, they seem to be unethical enough to do just about anything.)

I was just reading about how educated Republicans are even more distrustful of science than the uneducated. Oddly enough, that's because they pay more attention. But what they pay attention to is Fox News and other right-wing sites. In other words, when your information is slanted, paying more attention makes you less informed, rather than more.

And again, when this is pointed out, it's dismissed as just an attack on their side. Indeed, it actually reinforces their beliefs. Crazy, huh?