Weasel Words (Trigger Warning, Police Brutality)

(Originally posted at my Tumblr.)

This post, from the NY Daily News: Wall Street protesters cuffed, pepper-sprayed during ‘inequality’ march. This first sentence is, “Scores of protesters were arrested in Manhattan Saturday as a march against social inequality turned violent.”

The relevant bits: “a march… turned violent.” This language implies that the marchers were the ones who turned violent, who initiated the violence. However, reading on, it becomes clear that the violence was almost entirely on the side of the police: the article references “the dramatic mood shift in an otherwise peaceful demonstration,” “80 people carted away in police vehicles and up to five… hit with pepper spray near 12 St. and Fifth Ave., where tensions became especially high,” and “footage of other police altercations.” Multiple witnesses talk about the pepper spraying, police slamming protesters to the ground, and police striking protesters who were already on the ground. In contrast, “one demonstrator was charged with assaulting a police officer.”

By saying “a march… turned violent,” the article takes a supposedly “balanced” look at the facts that, in this case, obscures what really happened and makes it sound like the protesters were the ones who became violent. This is, in my opinion, poor journalism; it’s not terribly surprising, however, since the supposedly liberal media is… not particularly liberal.

Rewriting History

This morning, browsing a link from a link from a link, I found this article about how some Indiana Tea Party groups want to replace sitting Republican Senator Lugar with a more conservative candidate.

Among the motivations listed are that, and I quote, Lugar "Voted for Obama’s controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which pumped billions of dollars into ailing banks and financial institutions during the 2008 financial crisis." The article as it stands now does not read that; it has been corrected. I cannot find a screencap and I did not save it when I originally found it. However-- the problem with the article as it read is apparent, yes?

President Obama was elected at the end of 2008; he took office at the beginning of 2009. How, therefore, could he have created a program that took effect in 2008? Am I the only one who vividly members that one of the presidential debates was nearly canceled so that the senators could go back to Washington and work on TARP? TARP was, in fact, signed into law by President Bush on October 9, 2008.

Googling "Bush TARP" turns up 7,530,000 hits, while Googling "Obama TARP" turns up 11,800,000 hits. Such Googling also turns up this article from the Pew Foundation, which indicates that more than half of Americans cannot correctly identify which president signed this widely-reviled bill into law. I've seen people blaming Obama for it before, but never so blatantly, and never in a published news piece.

Things like this are literally rewriting history. I'm glad the article was corrected, but appalled that, with TARP as such a hot-button issue three years later, less than half the country actually knows the president to whom it should be attributed.

Conflict Minerals and the DR of Congo

[Trigger warning for rape]

A new study reveals that rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo occurs 26 times more frequently than was previously estimated. 1,150 women are raped every day-- and that figure doesn't include women under the age of 15, over the age of 49, men, or boys.

While about a fifth of the rapes are committed by husbands or partners, rape is still being used as a weapon of war-- sexual terrorism, to fragment communities and hurt millions of people.

This human rights violation is beyond words. You can take action against it by contacting the State Department and asking Secretary Clinton to urge the U.N. to take action. You can also take action by contacting your federal representative and senators and asking them to sponsor legislation addressing the conflict minerals problem; legislation has been introduced in the past to require electronics manufacturers to show that their supplies are "clean," but it has not been passed. A third way, possibly more productive, to help end the conflict in the Congo, with its accompanying horrifically high rape rate, is to stop purchasing new electronics unless you know that the source of the minerals in the electronics is conflict-free.

This is one of the things that shows us that everything is connected. Consumerism fuels rape; environmental problems fuel feminist problems. What everything boils down to is treating each other well, and realizing how much power we have, as consumers, to affect lives halfway around the globe.

News Round-Up

How not to do breast cancer awareness! If you want to do something for awareness, why not making your status links to instructions for breast self-exams? (Or testicular self-exams, or skin self-exams, or guidelines for Pap smear frequency, or...)

It bothers me how breast cancer is spun as this thing that's horrible because it affects breasts... not because it affects women.

In other news, solar is back at the White House! President Carter had solar panels installed during the 1970s energy crisis; President Reagan removed them. President W. Bush used solar for some things, but it sounds like the Obama White House is scaling up.