Pick Up Those Teaspoons

Greg Sargent—GOP winning the larger argument over government:

In recent days, the debt ceiling deal — which just passed the Senate and is about to be signed by the President — has sparked a fair amount of handwringing among liberals who worry that the fight shows the left has lost the larger argument over the proper role and scope of government in our society. Jared Bernstein and Kevin Drum have both argued that until liberals can make headway in that argument, the playing field in such fights will be dramatically tilted against them.

It's hard not to agree with these folks when you look at findings like this one from the internals of the new CNN poll... Sixty five percent approve of deal's spending cuts. But it gets worse. Of the 30 percent who disapprove, 13 percent think the cuts haven't gotten far enough, and only 15 percent think the cuts go too far. One sixth of Americans agree with the liberal argument about the deal. ... [I]t's hard to avoid the conclusion that the public is reflexively disposed to agree with the GOP's economic worldview, and is all-too-willing to blame government for our economic doldrums.

"We will only find success when a majority of Americans agrees with us that government is something worth fighting for," wrote Jared Bernstein. ... Liberals who still hope to shift the playing field have tons of work to do.

Cue the Laverne & Shirley theme.

Quote of the Day

[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]

"I was ready to die but give my consent never. Never, never."—Rosa Parks, from an essay about "nearly being raped by a white neighbor who employed her as a housekeeper in 1931." The six-page handwritten document was found among her papers "currently residing in the Manhattan warehouse and cramped offices of Guernsey's Auctioneers, which has been selected by a Michigan court to find an institution to buy and preserve the complete archive."

Civil rights historian Danielle McGuire said she had never before heard of the attempted rape of Parks and called the find among Parks' papers astounding.

It helps explain what triggered Parks' lifelong campaign against the ritualistic rape of black women by white men, said McGuire, whose recent book "At the Dark End of the Street" examines how economic intimidation and sexual violence were used to derail the freedom movement and how it went unpunished during the Jim Crow era.

"I thought it was because of the stories that she had heard. But this gives a much more personal context to that," said McGuire, an assistant professor of history at Wayne State University in Detroit.

...McGuire wondered why Parks omitted the attempted rape incident from her memoirs but included the story about the little boy who threatened her.

"It shows some kind of conscious effort in shaping her own legacy but also, I think, speaks to the issue of respectability. She doesn't necessarily feel comfortable telling the world about what happened," she said. "But she's contemplating telling people about it because she's written it down."

That was a woman with a teaspoon the size of Texas.

Question of the Day

How have you lifted a teaspoon recently in a way that makes you proud?

Doesn't have to be a Big Thing, just an important teaspoon to you.

Photo of the Day

In September, I wrote about [trigger warning for sexual violence] the case of two Michigan State University basketball players who were accused of taking turns sexually assaulting a woman for nearly an hour in their dorm room. Despite corroboration by one assailant of the complainant's story, they were never prosecuted and retained their places on the team.

Above, the Friendly Neighborhood Curmudgeon unfurls a sign at a game reading: EXPEL RAPISTS.

Two MSU basketball players raped a woman in the dorms then one admitted to it. Their only consequence was that they had to move out of the dorms. This picture is of me and one other woman holding up this banner during Midnight Madness. Two other brave souls had a banner on the other side for a while before some jerk started playing tug or war with them over it. This was taken before we got booed at by 10,000 people and police escorted from the stadium.

Brava. o.oP