season of the bitch

I meant to blog this earlier, but today is Blog for Equal Pay Day. Specter kind of took over the news cycle, but I do have a few things to say about this.

Women still make only 78 cents to every dollar men make. From the National Women’s Law Center via Change.org:

Women are far more likely to live in poverty than men. Women working full-time, year-round are paid only about 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. African-American women earn 69 cents and Latinas earn 59 cents for every dollar paid to men. This wage gap cannot be dismissed as the result of “women’s choices” in career and family matters. In fact, authoritative studies show that even when all relevant career and family attributes are taken into account, there is still a significant, unexplained gap in men’s and women’s earnings. Thus, even when women make the same career choices as men and work the same hours, they still earn less.

You can sign the petition for the Paycheck Fairness Act, blog about this, call your congresscritters, do whatever. You can also remember that unions are one of the best ways to raise the wages and benefits of working people, and that, as I wrote not long ago, the Employee Free Choice Act is a feminist issue.

From the Center for Economic and Policy Research:

*”On average, unionization raised women’s wages by 11.2 percent – about $2.00 per hour – compared to non-union women with similar characteristics.”

Finally, to tie all this back in with Specter and breaking news, even though Specter said his vote on cloture for EFCA would not change, in reality, winning a Democratic primary in Pennsylvania without union support will be tough–and apparently Specter had a meeting with Teamsters President Hoffa yesterday before deciding his party switch…

So. Support paycheck fairness for women, particularly women of color, and support the Employee Free Choice Act. Damnit.

I have two Democratic senators for the first time since I lived in Massachusetts (and was too young to appreciate Kerry & Kennedy). Arlen Specter has jumped the fence–and not only ditched the GOP, but joined the Democrats.

I’ll have more on this later, but here’s the dirt:

“Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.”

His full statement is here. Some more juicy bits:

It has become clear to me that the stimulus vote caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable. On this state of the record, I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate. I have not represented the Republican Party. I have represented the people of Pennsylvania.
…
My change in party affiliation does not mean that I will be a party-line voter any more for the Democrats that I have been for the Republicans. Unlike Senator Jeffords’ switch which changed party control, I will not be an automatic 60th vote for cloture. For example, my position on Employees Free Choice (Card Check) will not change.

Whatever my party affiliation, I will continue to be guided by President Kennedy’s statement that sometimes Party asks too much. When it does, I will continue my independent voting and follow my conscience on what I think is best for Pennsylvania and America.

While I was at school today, the verdict in the Angie Zapata trial came in–guilty on all four counts.

From Questioning Transphobia:

* Count 1: First degree murder - guilty
* Count 2: Bias motivated crime - guilty
* Count 3: Aggravated motor vehicle theft (1st degree) - guilty
* Count 4: ID theft - guilty

Sentencing for the first count: mandatory life without parole.
Sentencing on the remaining three counts will take place on May 8th at 3PM MST.

To me, the most important part of this verdict isn’t just the conviction for murder. Great, we’re admitting that a transgender woman IS fully human–is not a thing or a monster, killing her is in fact murder.

But what matters to me is the “bias motivated crime” charge. The fact that a jury convicted Andrade of a hate crime, that they not only didn’t buy his argument of “victimization” but they saw that killing Angie because she was transgender is a hate crime, pure and simple.

Like several bloggers and others that commented on Twitter, I know “justice” can’t ever really be done in cases like this. Angie isn’t back. Her killer will go to prison, but the prison system is itself horribly screwed up. Will this actually change the treatment of transgender women by the media, the legal system, the world at large?

I suppose all we can hope for–and work for–is at least a small improvement.

So this morning I heard NPR quote without argument the idea that the tea bag protests were “populist outrage” at government spending. And of course, I dispute that idea–if there was so much populist outrage at government spending, where were these people back in 2004 when Howard Dean ran on a platform of among other things, returning to a balanced budget, while Bush was racking up record deficits?

The populist anger welled up because people who are struggling to pay the rent were watching their governments pay billions of dollars to the same companies that caused the recession that was making it hard for people to pay the rent.

The press has a long history of simply ignoring protests or, when they do cover them, making them sound like they’re a few nut jobs who hate America. So when Fox News decided to cover the tea bag protests and legitimize them, the other news stations responded–even the hosts, like Olbermann and Maddow, who live to discount the junk spewing from Fox wound up oddly legitimizing the protests by talking about them. People who were pissed about bailouts suddenly heard their anger reflected–but deflected from the plutocrats who richly deserved it onto Obama’s budget, which would, among other things, give those people struggling to pay the rent a tax CUT.

Where does balance come in? Well, as Jay Rosen pointed out, “he said/she said” has long been a substitute for actually finding out which side is telling the truth. And Digby noted that the press also uses the lack of official voices making an argument as an excuse not to cover the argument–hence the usual coverage of political protests not legitimated by an Establishment political figure.

So when Republican Congresscritters jumped onto the tea parties as a way to seem in touch with the people, the protests gained even more legitimacy, and news stations were “forced” to cover them. Now they’re news! Politicians are there! Look, Rick Perry wants to secede!

And so suddenly protests that were populated mostly by John Birchers and Ron Paulies and people generally opposed to the very existence of government are being covered as if they’re seriously representative of the opinions of half the American people. “Balance,” right? We have to cover all the people’s opinions!

Except the relative loudness (and in many cases, well-fundedness) of certain voices doesn’t mean they actually represent large portions of American people.

But if you have enough money and elected officials, you can get any view into the sphere of legitimate debate (to cite Rosen again). Meanwhile, the actual left-wing equivalent of the tea party protesters are more like the few anarchists in any crowd of protesters, and protest movements full of average people (and far larger than the tea parties) are ignored or only covered when violence breaks out.

Basically, this is a perfect storm of the problems with the press: pack coverage leads mainstream journalists to follow the lead of Fox News, of all ridiculous outlets. Ideals of “balance” lead journalists to cover these protests far more than they actually deserve relative to how many people actually attended them. “Official” voices serve to legitimate wild, outlandish ideas. (Secession! Could you imagine if Deval Patrick suggested that Massachusetts secede?) And of course, money talks. Left-wing anti-government types tend to also be opposed to corporatism, while right-wing anti-government types seem to have no problem with mass corporate rule.

And so we have a situation in which a very narrowly held view suddenly is being discussed constantly, while very widely held views (like the idea that we should actually investigate the torture regime of the Bush administration) get ignored.