VAWA is dead. It suffered the stroke of 2013, when without congressional re-approval, the massive behemoth of legislation that funded the largest feminist bureaucracy and system of corrupt, unconstitutional governance in American history since Jim Crow, it simply expired.
Don’t pop the cork on that Veuve Clicquot just yet.
With VAWA Joe Biden being given four more years to promote the subjugation of American men, with a boss that has his back, efforts will quickly be underway to retool the legislation, or rebuild it from scratch, and send it through again, where it will likely find sweeping support.
It is tempting to give the Republicans a tip of the hat on this at least temporary removal from the quick, since it was their work that ultimately blocked the renewal of the legislation.
But rather than tip my hat, I have a question to pose to Republican leadership.
What the fuck is wrong with you people?
Here’s the deal, and what really chaps my ass with the Republicans, who have historically supported VAWA, no matter how draconian or unconstitutional, as long as they thought it was legislation supporting the heterosexual white women filing in to the malls (and voting booths) in their SUVs.
When language was entered into proposed reauthorization to include GLBT, illegal aliens and Native Americans, the Social Conservatives managed to muster objections and work to undermine reauthorization.
I can hear the “But, but, buts!” already. Some people will say that this is political strategy; that the Pubs took a viable path to undermine re-passage because they knew they could not do anything as the language of the law didn’t force a bunch of Gays, Native Americans and illegal aliens down the throats of entitled, straight white girls.
And they were right. Sadly and shamefully they were right. Just attacking the law on its unconstitutionality, its foundation of propaganda and bad science, its sexist slant and its draconian nature would never have much support from the Republican base because by and large the most people hurt by it directly were men and the non-voting children in their care.
So they appealed to homophobes and white bigots, and temporarily got their way. Stupid.
That is the precise reason that the progress on ridding the world of this very nasty piece of legislation won’t last.
It will be rewritten and passed, with Republican support and back slapping.
The one hope we have is that the fiasco the current administration has made of the American economy will in some way water down VAWA in a more crippling way.
And I cannot underestimate the importance of that.
VAWA is the life blood of many man hating, professional ideologues. For many feminist organizations it is their primary or only source of economic viability. A dead or significantly weakened VAWA, is, without question, a significantly weakened feminist governance and influence.
Let us hope that as the new version of VAWA is reintroduced, and surely it will be, that the Republicans are smart enough to go after the money with a chainsaw. If you need to tell your constituents you are doing God’s Will by protecting them from Fags, Injuns and Wetbacks, then I suppose you gotta do what you gotta do. I will leave it up to you to wonder about the people you represent.
What I am suggesting, however, is that rationale alone will eventually wind you up with a new version of VAWA that is more pernicious and devious than the original.
You might actually start educating your constituents on what the real problems are with VAWA, especially about the rampant corruption and misuse of VAWA funding by agencies that do not meet any discernible measure of account of how they spend the money.
Remember, even decent God Fearing White Girls don’t like corruption and wasted tax dollars.
I know, I am idealistic and rigid. I want VAWA dead, but I want it to choke to death on the truth. That might be akin to winning the lottery and bitching about the taxes, but it is what it is.
I encourage all MRAs, regardless of your political leanings, to make contact with your LOCAL representatives with great frequency when the “new” VAWA begins to rear its ugly head. Complain about the MONEY.
Shall I say that again? COMPLAIN ABOUT THE MONEY!
Ask your lawmakers to explain to you how they can justify such a massive and expensive program, based on ideologically tainted data, with limited to no financial accountability, given the current state of the economy (not that you would support it if we were flush).
Then I suppose we will have to tolerate how those leaders fuck it all up in selling a no vote to their constituents. But if they hear from you about the money, rather than a bunch of xenophobic or homophobic ramblings, you may help teach them how to sell this to the public at large without putting very well deserved targets on their backs.