Real Political Protest

I'm about out of good teabag jokes and I have a Very Important Interview in the morning (cross your fingers for me, OK?). I've spent a bit of time pissing off conservatives on Twitter by posting very good reasons to pay taxes, but honestly, there was a far more significant political protest today, far from the bloated white folks who don't want to pay taxes don't want their tax money going to brown folks want to secede from the union.



It was in Afghanistan, and these are women protesting their repressive treatment.

The New York Times reported:

The young women stepped off the bus and moved toward the protest march just beginning on the other side of the street when they were spotted by a mob of men.

“Get out of here, you whores!” the men shouted. “Get out!”

The women scattered as the men moved in.

“We want our rights!” one of the women shouted, turning to face them. “We want equality!”

The women ran to the bus and dived inside as it rumbled away, with the men smashing the taillights and banging on the sides.

“Whores!”

But the march continued anyway. About 300 Afghan women, facing an angry throng three times larger than their own, walked the streets of the capital on Wednesday to demand that Parliament repeal a new law that introduces a range of Taliban-like restrictions on women, and permits, among other things, marital rape.

Read the whole article. It'll make you cry, and make your own problems feel very insignificant. There's video, too.

This week's issue of The Nation offers Ten Things you can Do to Oppose the War in Afghanistan, and includes links to women's organizations in Afghanistan that we can support, and I pass them on to you.

Afghan Women's Mission, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, the Afghan Women's Mission Newswire and MADRE.

I'd like to be able to say that my tax dollars help Afghan women gain freedom, but we're not there yet. So at least a few of my spare dollars will.

Action: UAFA to be reintroduced

From Immigration Equality:

Great News!
Rep. Jerrold Nadler plans to reintroduce the Uniting American Families Act on Feb. 13!

You can make the bill a success by convincing your Representative to support the bill from Day One. Reintroducing the bill with as many cosponsors as possible will show powerful momentum for the rights of gay and lesbian binational couples!

Please call your Representative and ask them to be an original cosponsor of the “Uniting American Families Act of 2009”

Action NOW on Stimulus Bill

The Nation sent this urgent call out over Twitter.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, currently being debated in the Senate, was passed last week by the House of Representatives. If enacted, the economic recovery plan will be one of the biggest and boldest pieces of progressive legislation in the past forty years...

Nonetheless, as Horn reports, "Here in Washington, DC, the word on the street is that the Right is killing us with phone calls to Congress. One congressperson said the calls are running 100 to 1 against the Obama economic recovery plan. The legislation is now on the Senate floor. If Senators perceive that Americans side with Obama in this fight, that will strengthen the power of progressives in the debate and we'll get a good bill. If, on the other hand, Senators are feeling the heat from conservatives, then our advocates will be weakened and we'll get a lousy bill. That's just the way things go on Capitol Hill."

As the invaluable Fact-esque blog wrote yesterday "This is the Superbowl of Activism and We're Losing Big." Progressives need to hit the phones and fast. Call your Senators toll-free at 1-866-544-7573 and demand immediate passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Please take just a minute to call.

Ah, progressive Utah.

Woke up this morning and matttbastard and Sylvia were already ahead of me on this one:

The Utah House of Representatives will hear a controversial proposal that could hold physicians responsible for homicide if they perform abortions deemed illegal by the state.

Under current state law, abortion is allowed only in cases of rape or incest, if the fetus cannot survive outside the womb or is unlikely to survive, or to save the mother's life or preserve her health.

Abortions that don't meet any of those standards can result in third-degree felony charges.

Under House Bill 90, sponsored by Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clinton, physicians who perform illegal abortions could be charged with second-degree felony criminal homicide...

Ray's bill states that, to justify an abortion, two physicians would have to separately determine a fetus has a birth defect that would prevent it from surviving outside the womb, but Hodo said it may still force women to give birth to children who have no chance of long-term survival...

Rep. Phil Riesen, D-Salt Lake City, cast the only vote against the measure. He said women should be allowed to make their own choices, and expressed frustration with the overall nature of the abortion debate in the Legislature.

"It's analogous to charging people with crimes because there are accidents at four-way intersections, when we have the technology and the knowledge to prevent those accidents by installing traffic lights," Riesen said.

Yeah. Um, Utah state leg? Fuck right off. You can tell 'em what you think here, at their website.

Note, also, that it's the doctors being charged. Not the women, because women clearly don't have enough agency to make their own choices. Doctors (obviously gendered male) must make the choices for them.

Like Sylvia said,

“Will women be accomplices, then? Or scenes of the crime?”

Elections ongoing

It still ain't over until...

Well, according to this post over at Bitch, Ph.D., it might end up in the courts.

I'm by no means unbiased here. Norm Coleman is a dangerous wanker, one of the few political figures I actually hate. He was my hometown mayor, he's in a sham marriage and talks about family values, and his hypocritical stands are matched by canny triangulation.

He's engaged in a full court press. With Alaska gone D, and Georgia close, this might be THE filibuster breaker. The Star Tribune, the onetime liberal Minneapolis daily, is drinking Normade, and Minnesota Public Radio, the most aristocratic of public radio stations, is pushing RNC lines.

Please call the Franken campaign and get them to wake up. Call MPR and write the Star Tribune. Maybe this will work out, but the Right is putting more pressure on the Secretary of State's office than the other side. Minnesota has a good process that should be run without interference. If Coleman wins the recount clean, well then we kick him around for 6 more years, but if he succeeds in sending it to the courts, then we're still in 'Right Wing Judicial Coup' territory.

Links available over there.

Also, over at my.barackobama.com, you can find a phonebanking tool for voters in Georgia for the recount.

Don't forget these because we won the big one.

Prop 8 Protests

Around the country today, at coordinated times, people took to the streets to protest the passing of Proposition 8 and other gay marriage bans across the country.

I've been in my Obama-victory haze and have admittedly not written as much about this as I should, other than recommending Olbermann's comment on the subject.

But Karthika and I headed down to City Hall in Philly today to join the fun, and took some pictures on the way.

It's always amazing to me to see the diversity at events like this. I absolutely love the energy, the straight parents bringing little kids, the older parents holding signs that say "Proud Father of a Gay Son." The "str8 against 8" signs were particularly prominent today. And despite the stupid coming from some sectors, people of all ethnicities were represented.



That's the thing no one tells you about public protest, collective action, etc. How much fun it all is. I'm not happy that Prop 8 passed. But the response to it around the country has been amazing.

For those Obama organizers and volunteers who are genuinely befuddled as to "Now what?" I offer these events as an idea. Electing Obama was a beginning, not an ending. We still have much work to do.

And while I'm talking about Prop 8, I'd like to remember Duanna Johnson, a transgender woman murdered in what is all too common a manner. While we fight for marriage equality, we need to remember that not everyone's life will be made OK by granting marriage rights.

We still have a way to go, indeed.

(more photos at Flickr)

Petition against Larry Summers

Pass it on. (via bastard.logic via shakesville)

Say NO to Larry Summers as Treasury Secretary.

This was my note:

I, along with thousands of American women, worked tirelessly to elect Senator Obama. I campaigned against the possible first woman president because I did not want a return to Clinton-era policies that contributed to our current economic crisis.

To appoint Larry Summers to the treasury would be a slap in my face and a slap in the face of all the women who campaigned for Senator Obama. Not only a return to Clinton-era economic policy, but a man who thinks that women are inherently less gifted than men.

There's got to be somebody better.

Election Time!

I don't think that anyone who reads this blog needs a reminder to vote on Tuesday, if you haven't already, but just in case you need one: DO IT.

I probably won't be updating much because I'll be out knocking on doors and hanging out at the polls watching for shenanigans. I hope you'll be doing the same. Especially if you're a lawyer or legal type. They always need more people to ensure people can vote.

Also, go download Greg Palast's "Steal Back Your Vote" investigative comic, because Palast is my hero and protecting our democracy is both his and my passion.

I'll try to toss things up on Tumblr as they happen, and no doubt will be twittering.

They're still trying to execute Troy Davis

It takes just seconds to send an email. Please do.

Troy Davis

Is set to be executed tomorrow despite unreviewed evidence that he is not guilty.

The Supreme Court is set to review his case--six days after his execution date.

This is disgusting, it's immoral, it's basically everything that makes the death penalty a terrible idea. I'm opposed to it in any case, but in this particular one it's making me physically ill.

I wish there was more I could do.