Tags
ALEC legislation, Campaign Finance Reform, Legalized Rape, Legitimate Rape, Political Strategy, Rape, Republican Strategy, Republican War on America, Republican War on Science, Republican War on Women, Todd Akin, Voting, Voting Suppression
As I tried to scrape the remnants of my chin off the floor, I wondered how in hell ANYONE (let alone Representative Akin, a person representing the public and promoting it’s welfare) could utter the words “legitimate” and “rape” together?
So I began to look at how we got here–no, not from the “egg” status, nor “evolution v creationism,” but to the current state of our U.S. of A.
First, I looked up the definition of “rape”-to seize, take by force, violate, assault, well, you should have the picture by now. The after effects of rape listed: demoralization, depression, diminished self-esteem, etc.–clearly NOT a place any sentient person would want to visit.
I wondered if there was something fundamentally wrong with us as Americans that would cause such a prominent Republican, one of our two major political parties to have such a wrongheaded and cruel conception of rape.
So I reflected on the beginnings of our country. Settlers came over, decided they wanted this continent (no, not to share it, to OWN it.) So what did they do? Mowed down anyone and anything in their path–Native Americans (aka “savages”–Indian Removal Act, anyone?), decimation of their food supply, the buffalo, reservations, look it up. then came the railroads, pushing westward and taking whatever they wanted. And leave us not forget the oil companies, with Standard Oil and those Rockefellers at the helm–always with force, nothing conciliatory about these guys.
Funny too, all this done by men. Everyone besides these men were forced to live with the repercussions of their bullying stampede. And so this form of rape continues in various forms to this day.
Steps have been taken to stop, or at least diminish this type of “legitimate rape.” There have been successes, However, in the last 30 years during Republican administrations, huge strides were made to remove hard-won protections of people, lands and laws that deny “legitimate rapists” the type of assaults they have been perpetrating since the day the first white man disembarked.
The rapists have done an admirable job, what with the financial industry–banking in particular–kicking people out of their homes, taking over their property, oftentimes illegally, (starting to sound familiar?), private prisons and voter suppression (to name a few.)
They even created a HUGE lobbying agency called ALEC for their one-stop-legislative shopping needs, where the legitimate rapists write the laws and all a state, local or federal representative has to do is remove the letterhead, replace it with their own and march it to the floor of their particular legislature. ALEC takes care of this.
ALEC, which stands for the American Legislative Exchange Council, is both well-funded and totally devoid of scruples. Did I also mention that they are very, very cunning? what they have done is not to only “legitimize” this sort of rape and plunder, but to “legalize” it as well.
Enmeshed in this kind of mindset, I can see how someone like Todd Akin can put the words “rape” and ‘legitimate” together and feel just fine about it. Along with that offensively absurd statement, he added that the female body has ways to “shut that whole thing sown” to prevent pregnancy. Of course, there are no facts to support this.
There is, however, a fact that has held fast throughout centuries: if everyone votes–everybody–we may not be able to wipe out all kinds of rape, but we sure can shut down this particularly ugly, nasty and violating ALEC-type “legitimate” rape…of all people.