Judaism is a revealed religion that is based on the premise that they are God’s Chosen People are better than the rest of us. If they wanna believe that in private, they may.
If they want to start practising that policy, especially on the field of armed conflict, then they must be prepared to face some serious problems in confronting believers of other religion/ideology who feel that they themselves are the better people.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Sep 1 2006 7:07 utc | 4

Ha Ha Ha

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 1 2006 7:12 utc | 6

“John The Revelator”
Brilliant remake of the Depeche Mode cut “John the Revelator”

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 1 2006 9:24 utc | 8

There is some consolation in the God that chose them having picked the one spot in the ME without any significant oil in the ground for them to inhabit.
BTW – The Eskimos are God’s Frozen People.

Posted by: SteinL | Sep 1 2006 13:03 utc | 10

Ah, moral clarity, how sweet it is.

Posted by: Dick Durata | Sep 1 2006 16:02 utc | 12

I see this as the Stockholm Syndrome writ large. They have become who they abhorred.

Posted by: moe99 | Sep 1 2006 17:06 utc | 14

Since most of those towns and villages in northern Israel along the border under rocket attack by Hizbollah are populated with IDF reservists, does that mean the attacks are OK? The argument advanced here would say “yes!” Sometimes the sword of argument cuts three ways.

Posted by: PrahaPartizan | Sep 1 2006 18:32 utc | 16

This from the rabbis is an example of nerd-think. It’s an antenna problem. Some missing brain circuitry. Sociopathy, autism, nerdom all seem to partake of this particular kind of unlikable, creepy disconnect. And there’s too much of it in high places, these days.

Posted by: ferd | Sep 1 2006 19:14 utc | 18

“As I was about to post it, my computer crashed and ate the whole almost two hours of work.”
Save,…Save,…Save. After every paragraph, save.
Especially if you have something important to say, as you always do Malooga.
As for me, the longest thing I have written for most of my life has been nothing longer than a short note to the stable help. So “one liners” are about the best I can do.
I hope you will continue to post your insightful comments in spite of the flak that sometimes interupts the discourse.

Posted by: pb | Sep 1 2006 22:39 utc | 20

one learned (and antisemitic) British don — a TheoD I believe — wrote

how odd
of God
to choose
the Jews

to which a more astute contemporary riposted:

but not so odd
as those who choose
a Jewish God,
yet spurn the Jews!

the whole Chosen thing is overrated, I think, since it figures largely in the folk mythology of just about every tribe of humans on earth and justifies whatever bad things We (the People) do to those other lesser hominids (the not-We, not-People). if it were only the Jewish religion that offered this ego-buttering comfort (and comfort it is indeed during centuries of persecution), it’d be accurate to ascribe Chosen-ness to Judaism. but it’s more or less a universal fantasy of human beings that some deity or other planted My Kind of People here on earth For a Reason, that our culture is on some kind of Mission From God, and that excuses all the rest.
Romans thought they were Chosen, Egyptians thought they were Chosen, Han Chinese thought they were Chosen, and so it goes. everyone wants to believe that “Mom and Dad really liked me best”. presumably small tribes in remote precipitous valleys in PNG think they are Chosen when they go bash heads in the valley next door. imho we all need to get over this one, not just the Zionists…

Posted by: DeAnander | Sep 1 2006 23:55 utc | 22

Religious intolerance! And in the middle east! What will those wacky Jews come up with next?

Posted by: citizen k | Sep 2 2006 3:22 utc | 24

there is no God
but God
and it wis us

Posted by: catlady | Sep 2 2006 7:54 utc | 26

Re. some of the topics on this thread:
Whatever the Eskimos essentially are, the Inuit …
Warming signs rise as Inuit buy air-conditioners
link
Jim Lobe informs:
In Pro-Israel Circles, Doubts Grow Over US Policy
link
Malooga wrote:
The thread where debs is dead correctly attributed the entry of women into the workforce as a factor in the rising price of housing in the first world resulted in a flame war of such attacks and assertation of mere opinion.
Yes. I’m puzzled and unhappy.
Still here for now. For a tad here and then. Like my links here. Maybe the form – the perpetual news cycle, short memories, the glee of blame … who knows.
I have to go baste the chicken. Lemon tarragon. Huh. Thrilling.
I also see the talk about religion as obscurantist and serving the powers that be. Little girls in Baghdad being killed (or worse) has nothing to do with religion, except insofar as that disconnected overlay distracts, or is instrumentalised by Bush and jihadists and others. Ok. I’m an atheist.

Posted by: Noirette | Sep 2 2006 16:48 utc | 28

Edits for #29
‘may’ make
would ‘be’

Posted by: gylangirl | Sep 2 2006 23:04 utc | 30

Look, I don’t have the time to do the research and compose the post again these days, but I’ll tell you what I did, and if you’re interested you can replicate the post, and then maybe I’ll listen to you with some respect, instead of hearing you ignorantly throwing “sexist” one-liners up into cyberspace and hoping they stick.
First, you and debs is dead were comparing apples to oranges — he made the asssertion that the entry of women into the workforce increased the price of housing as housing is priced upon people’s ability to pay rather than something more intrinsic, like cost. He didn’t give any dates. Then you started arguing about the price of housing today, when he never said that this increase in price had just happened.
So, here is what I did:
I googled the web and found data on the percentage of women in the workforce from WWII to the present. Then I found data on the relative earnings of women compared to men for the same time period, and also average wages for that same time period. This allowed me to calculate the average women’s earning in dollars, and $ contribution to total family income. As I seem to remember, women entered the workforce during WWII because of need, then they found that after the war they couldn’t quite get the genie back in the bottle, no matter how much they tried. That’s what all those “Father Knows Best” TV shows were trying to do. Anyway, as I recall, the main entry of women into the workforce was between 1950-70, with parity being almost reached by 1980.
Then, I charted average house prices and interest rates over the same time period, which gave me monthly payments. I also looked briefly at population growth, immigration, new housing starts, and a few other factors to see if there was some major event I wasn’t taking into account. From there, I could compare payments with dollars earned per family.
What I found was a clear rise in housing prices, most likely attributable to the increased earning power of a two-wage family. There was some latency, but as I recall off the top of my head, the increases began around 1970 and leveled off before the end of the eighties (allowing for the recession of ’73). One factor which had a small limiting effect on the rise of prices at the same time was the increased prevalence of divorce, so prices did not double, but they did go up by over 50%.
Earning power peaked at the end of the Nixon presidency, but did not really begin falling until the Reagan years. That, coupled with the recessive tax changes which The Gipper ushered in, led to a real fall in purchasing power for the average US family. This was only offset by the superficial savings of globalization — Walmarts and such — which really was the beginning of a vicious cycle of lower prices leading to loss of small business and lower wages: a destructive cycle we are still caught in. Deterioration under Clinton was masked by Greenspan’s “irrational exuberance” of the induced high tech bubble, and a fall in the rate of increase of the defense budget after the collapse of the Soviet Union (OT — it should be noted that a significant basis to Bush’s police state was being developed in the mid-nineties under the guise of gov’t technology imrovements).
Anyway, it turns out that the entry of women into the workforce was the single largest change to American family life, and earnings, of the past century — and cause of countless ramifications in addition to housing prices. That doesn’t make it sexist, and that doesn’t mean that women working is a bad thing. Rather, it is a complex thing, with both good and bad effects, depending who you are and what your goals are.
I, then, took my analysis a step further and looked at the previous major victory in women’s struggles, namely the sufferage movement. Women’s sufferage was the largest, and penultimate, step towards expansion of the franchise (last being the civil rights advancements of the ’60’s). In that case, the elite fought back against advances in participatory democracy by perfecting the science of propaganda — in effect nullifying the hard-won power to have a say in the political process. Back to the present, the entry of women into the workforce was countered by two factors: first, the increased price of housing; and second, the emergence of globalized trade hollowing out the working class’ availability of jobs and job security — and leading to a real fall in wages and benefits.
I don’t make these points out of sexist notions, but rather, to indicate that the elite don’t take kindly to any loss of primacy or control in society, and will always find ways to fight back. If they learned one lesson from ’60’s activism and consciousness experimentation, it was that people had too much time on their hands to protest and disrupt the orderly flow of profits. Call me sexist, but the elite have sertainly countered that problem — now people can barely keep up with prices and events and change.
Finally, I would like to suggest that the effect of women entering the workforce upon themselves and their families is also a factor of socio-economic position. Women who have advanced degrees and work interesting jobs with a high level of challenge, responsibility, and satisfaction, are bound to have a differing opinion than working class women who have to fight for a demeaning, humiliating, job on the assembly line, canning factory, or Walmart floor, in addition to raising a family with few, if any, government services. Big topic; no time here to deal with it.
In any event, I was able to pull the research I detailed above together in an hour and a half, or so. Reproduce it and I will listen to your assertations with respect. If it’s too much effort for you, then don’t expect my respect or interest in what you have to say about me being sexist and not understanding the effect of women working on housing prices.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 3 2006 6:22 utc | 32

Couldn’t it have been the rise in housing, among other prices, that caused women, and men, to work more?
I grew up during that time period, and that is not my memory. Women entered the workforce because they wanted to, after being accepted as workers during WWII. As I stated, this trend started shorly after the war, and didn’t show up in housing prices until a significant amount of time later. Early two-income families DID experience a substantial rise in earnings relative to single earner families, and greater disposable income. Now many two income families find themselves without any disposable income. Of course, as I stated, there has been a class dimension to how this change has affected families, hurting the poorer disproportunately compared to the relatively well-off.
I think there is more to it than juxtaposing two trends and labelling the one as the cause of the other.
Of course relationships are complex — I did my best to isolate cause from effect the best I could in a brief time. Nor is my contention anything remarkable; the point “did” and I have attempted to assert — namely that the addition of a second wage into families initially added to their earning power, but that over time earning power in the US eroded substantially, costs increased, and a second wage became necessary to a family’s survival — that is almost universally accepted by Sociologists. I’m rather surprised by the resistance to its acceptance here — or the notion that this is a sexist theory.
But feel free to disagree; that’s what Moon is for.

Posted by: Malooga | Sep 3 2006 14:13 utc | 34

Noriette,
Simple points, probably only because we spend so little time discussing the social effects of technology. Suppose the right wingers would be willing to turn back technology, if it would end womens empowerment? I doubt even they, would sacrifice the former to gain the latter, even though they have no sense of social progression that enevitably must accompany any technological change. Technological change is almost never discussed in terms of its social effect, its simply accepted. Then we argue over the morality and ethics of how people adapt. I’m not sure what one expected women to do, freed of the endless backbreaking tasks of transporting & boiling water, stocking wood/coal, cleaning ash, hanging clothes etc — watch the washing machine run? Technology has not only givin people the time, but the means to change the social order.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 3 2006 21:30 utc | 36

The obvious alternative explanation is that women enter the workplace and prices of housing rise in the most advanced economies because the process of every customary activity and common holding turning into “commodity” is still continuing at high speed. So the customary unpaid work of middle class women (because poor women always worked) becomes economically untenable for middle class families who substitute machinery and contracting out as the wife goes out into the world to sell her time, just like the husband. Similarly, the goal of “a stable family house” turns into a series of investments as houses, just like the labor time of married women, become an item to be bought and sold. This process is both liberating and not. Women (of a certain class) escape unpaid servitude and can enter the world of things that are in theory more satisfying than mopping the floor but that bind them to the corporate machinery. Instead of being fixed in the neighborhood of birth until displaced, middle class people were able to engage in real-estate speculation, moving from starter house to ever grander conditions. This also has a price.
See: we don’t have to stew bitterly about how those ungrateful bitches left the home because of their lack of revolutionary ardor or otherwise.
(and Sloth – note a semi-orthodox marxist explanation where needed without a single german-multi-syllabic-paragraph-in-itself-stuff).

Posted by: citizen k | Sep 3 2006 22:05 utc | 38

ck
i had no idea your rejection of marx was owed to an aversiveness of tergidness
but your tortuous explanation seems wrong to me. the entry of women into the workforce was made possible by the division of office labor and the general taylorist deskilling of white-collar work in the services and distribution sectors. this had the predictable effect of driving down wages for all workers. and, not too coincidentally, the bourgeois feminism of the 60s accommodated the cheerful “liberation” of the housewife and mother to become housewife, mother, and corporate wage-slave.
it’s all been very lovely. as lovely as hilary clinton.

Posted by: slothrop | Sep 4 2006 0:30 utc | 40

I should also add that not all married women earners contribute to the mortgage. Many potential homebuyers feel it more prudent to qualify only on the primary earner’s income. The second income is then applied to something such as savings for the kids college. And so although hse is in the paid workforce, the second income of the wife does not affect the price of housing at all.

Posted by: gylangirl | Sep 4 2006 0:48 utc | 42

gylangirl, our comments must have crossed while posting. i’m not going to continue here. it would be waste of my time to continue to argue this, particularly since you seem to think you can make my arguments for me. imho, this discussion has devolved into absurdity.

Posted by: conchita | Sep 4 2006 1:01 utc | 44

we weren’t cross posting. conchita I was having some fun at your expense in 39. sorry.

Posted by: gylangirl | Sep 4 2006 1:08 utc | 46

One other point on this blame-the-secondary-earner for outrageous housing prices: if you don’t beleive me, then listen to someone else who debunks debs’ ‘demand economy, wages increasing the money supply to increase prices’ argument. This link was posted by DeAnander in the Breaking levees thread:
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney08302006.html
As I have been trying to explain in the prior thread, folks were able to afford higher priced houses, not based on increases otheir combined incomes but based on their higher debt: as Whitney says in this article
Secondly, the Fed knew that wages had actually regressed (2.3%) since Bush took office, so they knew that the soaring value of real estate was entirely predicated on debt not real wealth. In other words, home values increased because of the availability of cheap money which inevitably creates a buying-frenzy. It had nothing to do with real demand or growth in wages.
Now Malooga you can call that ‘apples and oranges’ re current price trend versus distant past price trends, but the current situation was what was being discussed when Debs made his original statements attempting to explain the problem of high housing prices.
Because all the above [#39] holes I found [in your argument re measuring the impact of women’s wages] apply to both both past and present….. I suspect that if one looks historically at past price increases in housing too, that fed policy was also more likely to have caused those past trends than the emancipation and entry of one particular demographic into the paid workforce.

Posted by: gylangirl | Sep 4 2006 1:56 utc | 48

gylangirl, actually we were cross-posting, i saw your comments just after i hit post, but no matter. honestly, i don’t see the sexism in debs is dead’s remarks, and i am very sensitive to how subtle sexism can be. i agree with you completely that it can be barely discernible to, particularly to those who have become accustomed to it and/or accept it because they have not learned differently. one of the reasons why i left boston college (and chose to continue my undergrad work later at a women’s college) was because i began studying feminism at bc and saw the sexism when guys in classes got called on before me even though my hand was up before theirs and i had developed credibility through previous contributions. it doesn’t take much to extrapolate beyond that and look at how a university spends its money to see the larger effects of sexism. but all of that aside, i read debs is dead’s comment as saying that women’s and immigrants’ increased earning power were both factors in the rise in housing market. i did not detect negativity, even subtle, towards women as wage earners.
i am also quite serious in stepping away from this discussion tonight. i have only a few hours left in the day to accomplish all that didn’t happen this afternoon. and to be truthful, i can’t help but question if citizen k’s perspective is colored by the exchanges he and debs is dead have had about israel. seems better if i just mosey on. however, should i find myself in a place where i see sexism i am with you in a heartbeat in calling out the offender. because yes, i agree, the world would be a better place – for everyone – if we all could be feminists.
and on that note, i am off to eat the chinese take out i just picked up.

Posted by: conchita | Sep 4 2006 2:02 utc | 50

one more thing. the expansion of credit needed to fuel real estate speculation is a means for the capitalist class to extract wealth from indebted home”owners”

Posted by: slothrop | Sep 4 2006 2:15 utc | 52

I think we will just have to agree to disagree, conchita. just because an acquantance has a particular situation, and just because proposed cause and effect make sense intuitively to you does not make it applicable to the whole economy in reality.
as slothrop pointed out, the banks’ financial criteria that indicate which earners would “qualify” for a loan has been watered down so much that borrowers [no matter which gender, marital status, dual or single earners, nationality or race: those are all red herrings] can borrow more even though they are making less. their incomes did not help them afford more house, their being told it was acceptable to go deeper into debt did. that’s what is so evil: bankers lured paople into unsustainable debt so they could profit from them. and they’ll foreclose on those trusting souls in a heartbeat. which, bottom line, is theft of worker wages by wealthy corporations.
[that’s even before examining the impact of the fed’s dropping of interest rates to pay for fed debt that had been worsened by tax breaks for the wealthy . or the impact of the tax write-offs for mortgage interest payments but not for rental payments. or the bull market phenomena of new down payments generated by prior equity accumulation. all THIS is what Debs ought to have fingered, not the entry of women into the paid workforce which is a specious argument.that he refused to make this same specious argument about blacks or immigrants only underlines the sexism in it.]

Posted by: gylangirl | Sep 4 2006 2:54 utc | 54

Thanks Bea, I’ll have one.
Here’s “old time religion” practiced in the hands Mr. Self-Righteous.
Bush’s Chosen Ones
“You know what I’m gonna tell those Jews when I get to Israel, don’t you Herman?” a then Governor George W. Bush allegedly asked a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman.
When the journalist, Ken Herman, replied that he did not know, Bush reportedly delivered the punch line: “I’m telling ’em they’re all going to hell.”

Posted by: Rick Happ | Sep 4 2006 5:30 utc | 56

Some established research folks do support Deb’s and Malooga’s argument (I agree with their analysis too) – i.e. houseprices did increase because of an increase in the numbers of double-income families.
From a book review of
The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke. By Elizabeth Warren & Amelia Warren Tyagi. 2003. New York: Basic Books. Pp. 255. $26.00 (cloth).

Of particular interest is the discussion of the bidding war in the housing market.[16] When mothers first entered the workforce, much of the additional income generated by that shift was allocated to the welfare of their children.[17] Given the nature of public education in this country, in which a child’s zip code determines her school district, the location of a family’s home is the prime determinant of its children’s educational opportunities.[18] As dissatisfaction with schools increased, more and more families fled substandard districts in an effort to place their children in the best public schools. With two incomes to throw into the market, families bid up the price of safe homes in good school districts.[19] The additional income generated by working mothers was in many cases applied to the demand side of the housing market, and in the end families found themselves working against one another. This bidding war is an interesting and plausible explanation for the increased cost of middle-class existence. However, it does raise another question: Why has the woman’s increasing contribution to workforce productivity not led to an increase in the quality of schools?

Of course this only one factor in the economic/sociologic relations – credit is another one. But a much lesser one in the timespan Debs talked about, the decades after WWII, than it has been in the last decade.
Bea, thanks for the drink.

Posted by: b | Sep 4 2006 6:27 utc | 58

also, zoning restrictions on homebuilding have added to costs, no doubt.
many reasons. but i’d bet speculation and transfer of wealth to finance is main problem of the housing crisis. i’d like to know more.

Posted by: slothrop | Sep 4 2006 15:30 utc | 60

Back in the 1970s and up until about 1980, most households existed on one salary, usually the husband’s. That is skewing the results. Since most households are now bringing in two salaries, the percentage share of income into a house is half since the income has doubled.
When my son was born in the late 1960s, there wasn’t any such creation as “day care centers” since very few mothers worked. Even by the mid-70s, they were uncommon. If you had to work, your alternative was a family member or a neighbor who would watch your child during the day. As for which came first, professional day care or both parents working, who knows; but they are directly interrelated, as are household income levels after spouses entered the job market.

Posted by: Ensley | Sep 4 2006 16:33 utc | 62

good point. it’d be nice to find a good resource for these questions.

Posted by: slothrop | Sep 4 2006 18:20 utc | 64

Bea I will continue to call the specious economic argument sexist because that is what it is. Your irrational overreaction to the word sexist makes you and others think it is namecalling. It is not namecalling.
If you want to start banning the use of the words racist, sexist, classist etc to describe point of view because feathers get ruffled by it, then you are helping to promote racism sexism and classism.
In the [continued] abscence of anyone here offering proof that a correlation between rising female income and rising housing prices implies causality, the argument is sexist. Indeed, some posters here have even thrown in blacks and hispanics rising income to explain the rising cost of housing. In the absence of proof of causality, that argument is racist.
Let’s see what other demogaphic scapegoating is left? Oh I know, how about this comparison:
The high cost of housing is a result of unionization’s effect on wages. Blue collar wages increased and that’s why a college educated professional can’t afford a decent house anymore.
Let’s see you defend the notion that that is not a classist argument. Or that it shouldn’t be labeled a classist argument because it is uncivilized namecalling.

Posted by: gylangirl | Sep 5 2006 2:49 utc | 66

@glyangirl, one thing that hasn’t changed at all is the sexism of self-identified leftists. That’s why women fled the left in ’70. The ones who stuck around were male-identified. For the males politics stopped at the mailbox, as we used to say. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose (plus the accents.)

Posted by: jj | Sep 5 2006 6:46 utc | 68

JJ: Well it’s not just sexism. We have an entire discussion on working women that assumes middle class women are the only ones worth discussing:

# The higher a person’s educational attainment, the more likely they will be a labor force participant. Here are the labor force participation rates for women age 25 years and over by educational attainment: with less than a high school diploma—32.9 percent; with a high school diploma—53.8 percent; some college, no degree—63.9 percent; associate degree—71.9 and bachelor’s degree and higher—72.9 percent.

Anna Missed: Women in the labor force, according to what we learn on MOA, have also “caused” a major increase in divorce rates.
Now some people might argue that the decrease in effective buying power of traditional lower skill jobs such as factory work and the cost of living for middle class families have increased pressure on women to work and have decreased the economic viability of single earner families, but apparently “leftist” economics doesn’t work that way.

Posted by: citizen k | Sep 5 2006 12:16 utc | 70

i didn’t mean stock bubble, i meant the stock crash that led investors to take advantage of the low interest and run to real estate, creating bubble/debt/etc. the more people investing, diverse or otherwise, more debt.

Posted by: annie | Sep 5 2006 19:11 utc | 72

annie,
I am sorry you still feel that you must be rude to make your points, which, by the way, still are not convincing ones.
You don’t have to have a degree in economics to understand the concepts. But it helps.

Posted by: gylangirl | Sep 6 2006 1:40 utc | 74

@Glyangirl, sorry but I’m overwhelmed w/personal stuff right now. I just stopped by for a moment the other night, in case you needed some support. When my load returns to normal, I’ll do a post. Hope that’s ok. Just don’t feel like the Lone Ranger – this is a rerun of the battle women fought w/guys & other women at the dawn of the women’s movement. Males Define everything, and decide what is important. Look around you, you’ll see that they are always the implied subject, although they use words like human, people, blah blah. A fascinating experiment in disgorging the male perspective is to Always use the female pronoun meaning both genders. What you discover, to your horror, is that you don’t even know if the statement you just made is true…we are largely undefined, except as objects. The male as the totality is so ingrained, we haven’t begun to rip it out – except as you did here in a specific instance. And you were lucky you had data to back you up. Usually it doesn’t exist.

Posted by: jj | Sep 6 2006 3:39 utc | 76

gylangirl, I never pass up the chance to recommend people catch up on their history. Here’s Sara Evans’ Personal Politics. Might be outdated, but it is a classic.

Posted by: Rowan | Sep 6 2006 4:33 utc | 78

I am sorry you still feel that you must be rude to make your points, which, by the way, still are not convincing ones.
yawn. i don’t feel the need , it just flows out of me naturally when i hear crap.

Posted by: annie | Sep 6 2006 5:19 utc | 80

@ conchita
women were extremely disillusioned by what they found in the organizations of the left – the same old male dominated hierarchies. some fought battles on that turf and won
How did the ‘same old male dominated hierarchies’ on the left finally see the light? Exactly how did the left get over its male dominance?
If they didn’t, why tell jj that she exaggerates when she brings it up?
I also noticed that, even though you had taken a women’s studies course yourself, you feel it necessary to defer to ‘the men’ for a better discussion of it.
i’m sure others here, even the men, will be able to speak of this more fluidly than i given the years since i have paid careful attention to this part of our history.

Posted by: gylangirl | Sep 6 2006 13:14 utc | 82

Thanks Rowan, for the reference book.
a bientot, jj. we need more contributions from you here.
citizen k, slothrop, anna missed, John Francis Lee, and other thanks for adding your POV

Posted by: gylangirl | Sep 6 2006 13:32 utc | 84

It’s good to be optimistic.
yes it is. some people see a glass 1/2 empty and some see it 1/2 full. either way the glass isn’t filled to capacity. considerations about your sex start in the home. fortunately i was raised by a strong woman in a house w/four girls. most of us have primarily been self employed. it is possible to live in my neck of the woods and not feel impacted by sexist conditions. that may not be for everyone by a long shot but it’s possible. just because we haven’t reached the ‘glass ceiling’ doesn’t mean we have an empty glass. far from it. pounding it into everyones head how unequal we are imho does not serve us. considering ourselves worthy and equal regardless of how we may be treated is the first core step in full equality. while some may think statements like married Mister homeowner are reasonable i think it is a perfect example of sexism. certainly the law is more evolved than this statement for if that couple were to divorce presto, w/clarity all along we acknowledge married mister becomes mr and mrs married homeowners.
one persons obvious sexism is anothers total blind spot. it isn’t good to be a total pushover and ignore injustice, but it is also inappropriate to blame society soley on one’s situation when opportunity exists for equality.
the married people i personally hang out with consider themselves equal partners. these people aren’t rare. sexism starts at home w/the personal choices we make. the world is different now.
accusations of sexism where none exist can be a personal perspective. so yes, it’s good to be optimistic.

Posted by: annie | Sep 6 2006 16:15 utc | 86

one persons obvious sexism is anothers total blind spot. it isn’t good to be a total pushover and ignore injustice, but it is also inappropriate to blame society soley on one’s situation when opportunity exists for equality.

I’m at a loss to understand what you mean by this. I doubt that you think, for example, black women nursing aids make minimum wage because they are ignoring an opportunity for equality, but I can’t think of what you do mean.
The point is very simple. During the period of rising housing costs, we have a number of social changes. These include women entering more middle class occupations, blacks and hispanics entering more middle class occupations, the transformation of the housing market into a much more dynamic investment market due to all sorts of structural changes in the economic system, the collapse of unionized and other relatively high paying working class jobs that were traditionally male jobs – a collapse that makes it impossible for working class people to have the traditional one parent does child care role division, and perhaps most important many structural impediments to construction of moderate housing. On the last, NYC used to have many developments aimed at working class people – almost all of these have either become dumping grounds for the very poor or very high end housing. Since Reagan, the various American governments completely stopped building low income housing and many inner cities have totally gentrified. In the 1960s, Soho NYC was cheap housing and cheap workspace for machine tool plants that paid good wages to unionized workers who worked in Brookylyn. Now, SOHO is luxury housing and art galleries and offers jobs for maids and the old working class neighborhoods in Brooklyn are filled with stockbrokers.
To take this complex mix of social change and say “women entering the workforce caused housing prices to rise” is such bad social science as to immediately give rise to questions of motive. That is, as I understand it, what Gylangirl is saying and your furious response is out of scale at the least.
The fact that one has to have a discussion of this sort on a “leftie” blog is quite interesting in itself.

Posted by: citizen k | Sep 6 2006 16:41 utc | 88

reminds me of a poem I once wrote:
Surprise
they trash you on the radio
but you don’t even hear it
they trash you in a movie
you’re paying them to smear it
[but they pay the actress less]
guess feminism’s over
now you’re equal dear
that’s what you want to hear
[reading your bible at night]
good girls don’t notice any male chauvenist
saying god gave him her rights
they trash you in a slow song
moving to the beat you
gaze into his eyes
forgetting he mistreats you
what a big surprise
what’s the big surprise
–gylangirl

Posted by: gylangirl | Sep 6 2006 17:28 utc | 90

to begin w/the quote..the ‘one persons obvious sexism’ i highlighted was gylangirls use of the term married Mister homeowner ,
here is the full text “After all, the argument you make is that housing prices rose because the second income helps married Mister homeowner spend more for his house than single Mr. or Miss homeowners can. [Annie and conchita and fauxreal, and I suppose Debs too, chime in: Those dreadful double income marrieds, don’t they see how unfair that is to us poor singles?]
(i’m going to skip over the insult in the last sentence which of course cannot be supported by any cut or paste)
now, to a person who believes a married womans income “helps” her husband pay for a house, or allows “him’ to buy a nicer house, this comment may not seem sexist. i have not been furious at gylangirl for refusing to acknowledge that woman entering the workforce impacted the housing price. i have previously stated that. i have also made clear i do not know if it was a factor, yet i think perfectly reasonable (and not sexist) to consider when one is examining the demand for either upscale houses or increase housing due to divorce or just more single people. or more imporatantly id demand at all played any part in the cause. i am pissed because i continually hear insults like this while she has accused others of sexism.
back to the original quote taken in context to my reference it isn’t good to be a total pushover and ignore injustice, but it is also inappropriate to blame society soley on one’s situation when opportunity exists for equality.
in post 86 i was specifically addressing sexism. the kind of sexism a woman might feel at home, with her husband, that allows her, and society to consider her contribution to be ‘less than’ quite frequently a person earning less may be contributing more to the overall aspect of the family than solely their income. the idea that a house ‘belongs’ to the husband and she ‘helps him’ is the kind of programming little girls learn at a very very early age, unless they don’t. i didn’t. many wives would bristle at this statement. so in this context, as a wife in a marriage, the kind of husband we choose and the relationship we have and raise our children in goes along way towards either promoting or absolving sexism. if the contribution of your very own mother is considered secondary in her very own home by members of her own family (including herself)one cannot blame society alone for ones oppression. if there does not exist an opportunity for equality in one’s own marriage, we are no longer chattel. we can leave. usually.
i will come back and address the rest of your post later, i need to get moving w/my day. i hope this clarifies the initial quote

Posted by: annie | Sep 6 2006 17:54 utc | 92

At this point, to respond further to annie would be to feed a troll.

Posted by: gylangirl | Sep 6 2006 18:07 utc | 94

gylangirl, why the name calling?
not much time to post here. at work. however, i did get a response from bonddad. his response is not very definitive and i will ask him later to consider the u.s. market specifically. but for now:
my query –
bonddad,
i read your diaries regularly on kos but seldom comment – not enough time and others do it better. however, i do have a question for you because i have been following your diaries about the housing bubble for months now and i expect you may have an answer for this question. i read and comment some at moonofalabama.org and we have been having a discussion about the cause of the housing bubble. one commenter suggested it was due in part to the increased earning power and the larger presence of women in the workforce. i am wondering 1) if you might have thoughts about this and 2) if you have reached any conclusions about what caused the housing bubble. obviously, interest rates, adjustable rate mortgages, and interest only mortgages have encouraged people to spend beyond their means, but do you think there are other factors? the comment that has caused such a stir was written by a new zealander. i am including it below in case you are interested. if you have any time at all to respond to this i would very much appreciate it. there are accusations of sexism flying about – lots of fur and feathers with it – and it would be great to get the issue dealt with properly and put to bed. thanks in advance for any thoughts you might have. feel free to email me directly and i will post for you or use this link.
i do appreciate you taking the time even to read this.
bondada’s response –
Sharon, I can’t comment on the comment because I don’t know what the specific demographics are. However, I think the main reason is the lowest interest rates in a generation + increased use of unconventional mortgages.
i’ll try to address the questions about women and how they dealt with hierarchies in the left when i get home tonight.

Posted by: conchita | Sep 6 2006 18:50 utc | 96

I really wonder what this all is about.
In his original comment Debs talked about the NZ housing market. He cited three historic reasons for doubling (and more) house prices there:

As far as I can work out there have been three major causes of the increase in house prices. The first is going to be the most difficult to solve in a demand economy and the biggest, cause it probably near doubled the real price from 3 times median income to 6 times median income. It is of course the mass utilization of women in the workforce.

The second reason he names is immegration and the third baby boomer investment buys. All in relation to HISTORIC development of NZ housing prices.
The first one somehow did set up gylangirl, starting the current brawl.
Above I cited a Harvard professor, specialized in analysing the reasons and problems of bancruptcy, who wrote in The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke. (By Elizabeth Warren & Amelia Warren Tyagi. 2003. New York: Basic Books.)

The additional income generated by working mothers was in many cases applied to the demand side of the housing market, and in the end families found themselves working against one another. This bidding war is an interesting and plausible explanation for the increased cost of middle-class existence.

This is the exactly the same argument Debs did make. Now maybe Elizabeth Warren is a sexist too. Still the argument stands.
As a historic reason it should be taken seriously especially for the timeframe of the 50s 60s in the US and other societies (in Germany this was more in the 70s)at other times. I don´t know about NZ development, but Debs does.
This does NOT have anything to do with the CURRENT housing bubble in the US, UK, Spain, Australia, NZ(?), but as a historic reason it has its standing.
The current housing bubble has been induced by cheap money, i.e. low central bank rates after the stock bubble crashed. As it was cheap to lend, demand increased and through higher demand housing prices did rise into bubble land.
Both reasons, women entering the payed workforce, and cheap credit have had similar economic effects, though in different timeframes, if analysed as demand economy phenomens. Higher availability of “income” did increase the willingness to pay relative more for houses, i.e. demand. House prices therefore did rise.
What is so strange with this concept that it has been taken as reason to accuse people here? Social changes do change economic parameters. I am still waiting for someone to refute Debs argument on economic grounds.
Why this was taken as a reason to start a brawl is beyond me.

Posted by: b | Sep 7 2006 4:39 utc | 98

thanks b. really.
fullmoon, bonfire, good times w/friends (and oh yeah we talked about it) a little lubrication and i am back to respond.
Annie:
I’m sorry, but your post makes no sense at all to me.
really? that’s ok citizen k you don’t have to be sorry. i will try to walk you through it.
here is the segment i found sexist
the second income helps married Mister homeowner spend more for his house
during my post i am not addressing the same topic she is. in other words i am not debating her point, i am simply pointing out the not so very subtle inference is sexist. now perhaps she is so very up on her sexism that she is allowed to make sexist statements as ‘snark’. frankly i think someone who so easily accuses others could set a better example. that’s assuming she hears it herself.
if you review my post on 86 i initiated it w/your comment about optimism, conceeding that either way you look at the situation the glass is only 1/2 full, meaning we aren’t there yet as a society. the glass isn’t full. although anyone i suppose could interpret this as guess feminism’s over now you’re equal dear that’s what you want to hear or twist the meaning, either way equating a situation 1/2 way or partially fixed, is not the same at all as thinking it is resolved.
one persons obvious sexism is anothers total blind spot. it isn’t good to be a total pushover and ignore injustice, but it is also inappropriate to blame society soley on one’s situation when opportunity exists for equality.
the paragraph you were at a loss to understand was not in relation housing prices.
it was in relation to referring to a couples house as his and that the womans contribution helps i posit with the majority of married couples the woman’s contribution is not only helpful but quite necessary.
there are people who think , act and speak like that. that’s what i meant by now, to a person who believes a married womans income “helps” her husband pay for a house, or allows “him’ to buy a nicer house, this comment may not seem sexist.
just because you apparently found no sense in my post, i will still refrain from placing you in this category
as for sexism starting at home, really, i can’t quite understand what about this you could not understand. while most people work outside the home and have a multitude of opportunities to encounter sexism one place we should be free of it is in our own home w/our own family. that is the reference of opportunity for equality. if you don’t think you have that opportunity in your own home really, i don’t understand what you don’t understand about that.
but i absolutely understand how you could be confused if you take my quotation and apply it to the housing situation.
To take this complex mix of social change and say “women entering the workforce caused housing prices to rise” is such bad social science as to immediately give rise to questions of motive. That is, as I understand it, what Gylangirl is saying and your furious response is out of scale at the least.
The fact that one has to have a discussion of this sort on a “leftie” blog is quite interesting in itself.
clearly you are confused by the positions taken. many people have posited that market demand had nothing to do with the fiasco of price rises and drop. i have shared numerous emails w/whitney, the author of the counterpunch article, and this is his position also. obviously if the market fall had nothing to do w/demand, it doesn’t matter who invested in real estate. i do not know if demand accounted for it. but if demand did push prices up then virtually every person feeding the frenzy played a part in it. this is not to say it is their fault. then again does an investor take any responsibility at all? it is perfectly normal that people would try to take advantage of the low interest rate w/out noticing the trap. or, noticing it, decide to gamble, people love to gamble. free money was offered. free debt i should say. but it wasn’t like rape where anyone was dragged into the market unwillingly..
in this case it is so drastic partly because so many people invested. it’s hard to take responsibility for your part in a disaster, but i still think it is possible that had so many people not been cautious we wouldn’t be in this position as a society. when you party w/the powerful you can get burned. at some point, if one is going to learn a lesson, one has to acknowledge one’s own responsibility in the mishap. that is why it is screaming victim to lay all of the blame on the oppressor. we aren’t children and they aren’t the pied piper. of course all this is totally irrelevant if demand had no impact. however, if it did, then it is reasonable to look at how the demand rose for housing, because it did rise.

not only are unmarried women a large segment of the home buying population but they are the fastest growing too, increasing their share of home buyers by 50 percent in 8 years. the value of their home purchases over a 3 year period totaled more than $550 billion.

go to pdf on left
women are not the only segment of society that demanded more housing. to construe the contribution of women into singling out a female demographic [instead of placing responsibility on FED policies] to explain why Joe sixpack can’t afford a house, is a stretch. women singled themselves out by being the fastest growing demographic of new homeowners.
but personally, i am not convinced the demand contributed to the rise in prices. everyone keeps saying that it didn’t. so, you think there is a motive behind questioning this, or associating women doubling their homebuying.
we also have the incident where someone is accused of sexism for considering the influx of women on the market. why? why on this leftist site? what are the motivations? a very good question. frankly, i think this subject was fairly flushed in the last thread, but coming back and finding the same accusations coupled w/numerous wild speculation (note my #85) and obvious distortion, and inaccurate paraphrasing, it is appropriate to question motivation. for apparently it is not enough to simply question aspects of the bust, the cause, we must now prop up our reasoning w/defense of sexism. and accept the sexist snarks that accompany those same accusations.
we also have moved on to rallying comaraderie for trolling accusations. perhaps if i take your statements, manipulate them and accuse you of sexism you would just LOL. me, i’m not like that. i can’t help but point out hypocrisy.
seriously, if you can’t follow this train of thought, at the least you can comfort yourself knowing that you are not alone. as i mentioned earlier one persons obvious sexism is anothers total blind spot.
i am not alone, i have recent emails to prove it, so i know i’m not totally off the wall.
all in all it may be hard for some people to comprehend that women could have ever progressed so far that their culmative incomes could actually effect any market. to you i say wake up, times they are a changin’. and it doesn’t require a sexists to see the turning of the tide. personally, i don’t feel like this site is filled w/sexist. i feel very fortunate that i have so many positive experiences w/both sexes. so many men are different, including my son. i feelvery fortunate to have the moon community w/so much openness. that is my motivation for calling out accusations of sexism. it is my nature to defend people that i care about. sweeping statements that include almost every poster as being sexist or racist or whatever, they don’t intimidate me, they say more about the accuser than the posters.

Posted by: annie | Sep 7 2006 5:45 utc | 100