By Kelly Jean Cogswell
I thought I could imagine equality, but not really. As an activist, I just push forward in the dark with no idea towards what. I got a glimpse Sunday when I tuned in to one of France's CNN-like channels just in time to catch a Latin American map and a voice talking about which country gave which rights to queers. Colombia's High Court had just ruled that same-sex couples had to be given the same rights as heterosexual ones in common-law relationships.
After answering a couple questions from the anchor about Argentina and Brazil, the commentator said, "But that's yesterday's news. Today, Iceland just got a lesbian prime minister. Granted, they're a small country of just 300,000 people. But still. The first openly gay head of state in the world."
I was pleasantly shocked. A whole gay segment on TV. And a gay commentator to boot smiling away as they flashed the photo of Johanna Sigurdardottir, the most popular politician in Iceland, and described how she was supposed to save the place from financial ruin. I punched my girlfriend in the arm. "They're doing a gay segment of the news. Are you listening? And the commentator's a fag."
Even after the anchor moved on to something else, I kept muttering, "A gay segment. Imagine that. A gay segment." Including background and context as naturally as they would for a report on developments in Malaysia or Taiwan. Or for that matter the auto industry.
Usually, if LGBT people make the news, it's as protestors, or victims. We're always the fringe, always the beggars on the outside looking in, no matter how "mainstream" our spokespeople look. In the U.S., especially, news producers (like organizers of inaugurations) then give air time to bigots so they can indulge in a false sense of balanced coverage and remind us just how much we're hated.
Which was why it was so particularly moving to hear the matter-of-fact description of Johanna Sigurdardottir's rise from union activist at IcelandAir to regular politics. No apologia for her queerness. No pats on the bottom for the white-haired dame.
It made me happy for a while, then depressed. God, I'm tired of homophobia. I'm tired of misogyny. I'm tired of promises of change then more of the same, even in Obama's stimulus package. When it isn't giving bankers free dough, it's all about rewards for dickholders. Even though women make up almost half of the workforce, Obama's projects primarily create jobs in extremely male fields like "green" industries, technology, construction, and mining where the few women that manage to survive have to fight for equal pay.
The programs to bring women into traditionally male jobs have had little success though their rate might improve now that it's easier for female employees to sue (thanks to Obama signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.)
Trying to justify the disparity, the January release from the Obama administration used old data indicating women suffered less from unemployment during downturns. Unfortunately, August numbers showed women hitting unemployment as often men.
In fact, the National Women's Law Center crunched the numbers and found adult women's unemployment rising almost three times as fast as men's. "While the unemployment rate for men rose from 5.3 percent to 5.6 percent between July and August (a 5.7% increase), the unemployment rate for women jumped from 4.6 percent to 5.3 percent – a 15 percent increase in one month." Subcategories of black women and women supporting families were much harder hit.
Adding insult to injury to poor women, Obama and the Democrats dumped a measure from the stimulus package that would have allowed Medicaid coverage of family planning services, which includes birth control, but also a lot of basic gynecological services, like pap smears.
A New York Times editorial reports that the measure would have provided coverage to 2.3 million women by 2014 and saved $200 million over five years. Also, "the Medicaid family planning provision would reduce the number of abortions by helping an estimated half-million women avoid unplanned pregnancy, according to a study by the Guttmacher Institute."
The editorial blamed the GOP for their obstructionist politics and lack of commitment to women's rights and health. I blame Obama and the Democrats who already signaled in the presidential campaign that women's rights were a commitment of convenience. If it is convenient, they're committed. If not, not.
For instance, when all Obama had to do was sign a paper to revoke the gag rule forbidding U.S. funding of international programs that included family planning services -- he did. But when the similar Medicaid provision in the stimulus plan required a vote, traded favors and a backbone, women's interests were summarily dumped.
I'd likewise be surprised to see even a partial repeal of DOMA before an Angeln Saddleback pig takes to the sky.
Showing posts with label democrats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democrats. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Democrats to New York Queers: Drop Dead!
Like every election year, most LGBT people spent this one working for Democrats, and writing checks in exchange for promises of little things like anti-discrimination laws, gay marriage, and equality.
There's never much of a payoff. If Democrats were an investment fund, we would have pulled out years ago. They're the Lehman Brothers of queer rights, offering worthless paper to willing marks. How many times have they said, "Our hands may be tied, what with a Republican governor, and Republicans in charge of the legislature, but just you wait."
We did. We waited for years. And now that Democrats are in power, stacking Albany from top to bottom, the only return on our investment is still the big middle finger, and a double dose of screw you. In a recent New York Times article they said there's the economy and the state's emptying coffers to consider first. And re-election. We don't want to get the Mormons and Catholics riled up about gay marriage and pouring money into state electoral politics like they did in California.
State Senator Tom Duane frankly hinted that gay marriage should bury itself as an issue for the near future. "We definitely want David Paterson to run for re-election and to win," he said. "There'll be a discussion. And we'll have a point of view about time frame; he'll have a point of view on time frame."
That's the Democrat's refrain, one more election cycle. A better time frame. The Democratic faithful horrified at Bush heard their party caution patience until they had control of the House and Senate. Once voters gave Democrats the Congressional majority, Democrats claimed they needed the White House, too, and continued to rubberstamp Bush's policies hoping to establish conservative credentials for election 2008. Now, with a Democratic president-elect, they're murmuring something about needing a filibuster-proof majority to undo Bush's legacy.
If torture and spying weren't enough to get them moving in D.C., it's not surprising that human rights -- yes, they include queers rights -- are taking an eternal backseat in New York to whatever Democrats can come up with, including the bigoted likes of evangelical State Senator Ruben Díaz who threatens to destroy the slim majority of the Democrats for hatred of queers. Already, he's organized anti-gay marriage rallies, and regularly preaches against us as criminals, perverts, and pedophiles.
Instead of standing up to his bigotry and hate, Democrats once again tell us queers to wait one more election cycle when they'll pick up a few more seats, so maybe his one vote won't count.
Do we really believe the Democratic ascendancy is guaranteed? That incumbent governors never lose? The economic crisis will expire just in time to boost Democrats and queers? And homophobes will be sitting inactive while legislators line up their votes and minimize political risk?
There should be one, unified, queer response, and it should be this. "Screw you, Dems." If we don't seize the moment, we may not get another. And the moment, the momentum, is now.
As always, the politicians have it wrong. The disaster in California isn't an impediment, but a rallying cry, and a blueprint -- for what to avoid. If a same-sex marriage fight may attract fundamentalist dollars, it will also attract queer money, and activists willing to pound the pavement on our behalf. Two weekends ago, a million people were out on the street protesting Prop 8. They'd come out for New York, too.
Better yet, they'd be willing to do what the Prop 8 "leadership" weren't. Organize on a massive scale across lines of class and race, even parties. Republicans voted overwhelmingly for Prop 8, even though they have queer cousins, uncles, sisters; I hear they even breed queer children who probably came out last weekend over the turkey. They're all ripe for approach. And queers and their allies are ready to do it.
Properly done, same-sex marriage activism could even bolster the image of Democrats across the state because it goes far beyond a discussion of gay rights. Civil rights and legal equality for everyone, are obvious talking points, but to convince, you also have to hit on things that concern everyone, financial security as the economy shrinks, health insurance as people lose their jobs, protecting the family, protecting kids. All issues related to marriage. Far-sighted Democrats could be their defenders.
As for queers, nothing good will come of backing off. It will tell homophobes they're on the right track. That we will go away if they pour enough money into the issue. If, like Mr. Diaz, they hold enough rallies against us. Backing away tells them we're weak, afraid, and alone. And that Democrats consider queers expendable. Well? Are we? Maybe it's time to find out.
edited dec. 3
There's never much of a payoff. If Democrats were an investment fund, we would have pulled out years ago. They're the Lehman Brothers of queer rights, offering worthless paper to willing marks. How many times have they said, "Our hands may be tied, what with a Republican governor, and Republicans in charge of the legislature, but just you wait."
We did. We waited for years. And now that Democrats are in power, stacking Albany from top to bottom, the only return on our investment is still the big middle finger, and a double dose of screw you. In a recent New York Times article they said there's the economy and the state's emptying coffers to consider first. And re-election. We don't want to get the Mormons and Catholics riled up about gay marriage and pouring money into state electoral politics like they did in California.
State Senator Tom Duane frankly hinted that gay marriage should bury itself as an issue for the near future. "We definitely want David Paterson to run for re-election and to win," he said. "There'll be a discussion. And we'll have a point of view about time frame; he'll have a point of view on time frame."
That's the Democrat's refrain, one more election cycle. A better time frame. The Democratic faithful horrified at Bush heard their party caution patience until they had control of the House and Senate. Once voters gave Democrats the Congressional majority, Democrats claimed they needed the White House, too, and continued to rubberstamp Bush's policies hoping to establish conservative credentials for election 2008. Now, with a Democratic president-elect, they're murmuring something about needing a filibuster-proof majority to undo Bush's legacy.
If torture and spying weren't enough to get them moving in D.C., it's not surprising that human rights -- yes, they include queers rights -- are taking an eternal backseat in New York to whatever Democrats can come up with, including the bigoted likes of evangelical State Senator Ruben Díaz who threatens to destroy the slim majority of the Democrats for hatred of queers. Already, he's organized anti-gay marriage rallies, and regularly preaches against us as criminals, perverts, and pedophiles.
Instead of standing up to his bigotry and hate, Democrats once again tell us queers to wait one more election cycle when they'll pick up a few more seats, so maybe his one vote won't count.
Do we really believe the Democratic ascendancy is guaranteed? That incumbent governors never lose? The economic crisis will expire just in time to boost Democrats and queers? And homophobes will be sitting inactive while legislators line up their votes and minimize political risk?
There should be one, unified, queer response, and it should be this. "Screw you, Dems." If we don't seize the moment, we may not get another. And the moment, the momentum, is now.
As always, the politicians have it wrong. The disaster in California isn't an impediment, but a rallying cry, and a blueprint -- for what to avoid. If a same-sex marriage fight may attract fundamentalist dollars, it will also attract queer money, and activists willing to pound the pavement on our behalf. Two weekends ago, a million people were out on the street protesting Prop 8. They'd come out for New York, too.
Better yet, they'd be willing to do what the Prop 8 "leadership" weren't. Organize on a massive scale across lines of class and race, even parties. Republicans voted overwhelmingly for Prop 8, even though they have queer cousins, uncles, sisters; I hear they even breed queer children who probably came out last weekend over the turkey. They're all ripe for approach. And queers and their allies are ready to do it.
Properly done, same-sex marriage activism could even bolster the image of Democrats across the state because it goes far beyond a discussion of gay rights. Civil rights and legal equality for everyone, are obvious talking points, but to convince, you also have to hit on things that concern everyone, financial security as the economy shrinks, health insurance as people lose their jobs, protecting the family, protecting kids. All issues related to marriage. Far-sighted Democrats could be their defenders.
As for queers, nothing good will come of backing off. It will tell homophobes they're on the right track. That we will go away if they pour enough money into the issue. If, like Mr. Diaz, they hold enough rallies against us. Backing away tells them we're weak, afraid, and alone. And that Democrats consider queers expendable. Well? Are we? Maybe it's time to find out.
edited dec. 3
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
All Hail, McCain
By Kelly Jean Cogswell
McCain did what eighteen million women couldn't. By choosing Sarah Palin to run as VP, he got Obama and the Democrats to retrieve women from the shit heap where we'd been dumped. At least for the moment.
Already her Democratic handlers had forced the accomplished Mrs. Obama to put on her metaphorical apron and play mom and wife at the DNC. Hillary even interrupted the roll-call detailing the success of her own historic candidacy to ask that Obama be named the nominee by acclamation.
John Dickerson in Slate, who had predicted that women would immediately roll over for Obama after the primary dust settled, was busy considering whether or not Obama could win without the votes of persistently disgruntled Hillary supporters. And his conclusion before Palin was yes. There were plenty of new voters, and while, he wrote, Hillary supporters aren't "all crazy harridans or racists" they are "snippy, irritating, and impervious to reason (Obama is lucky not to have them)."
Obama couldn't have agreed more. Pre-Palin, when Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee dared ask Obama to reach out to the millions of women that supported Hillary, he reportedly said nope. That would take too much time and he had to focus on McCain. Obama also sniped, "If women take a moment to realize that on every issue important to women, John McCain is not in their corner, that would help them get over it."
Thank you, Mr. McCain, for your unintentional service to America, and challenge to Democratic Party misogynists. Without your nomination of Sarah Palin as VP, advocating abortion and progressive Supreme Court nominations would once again be women's only visible roles. Fall in line, the Dems blackmail us, or you'll lose the little you've got. The only real issue for women, half the American population, is apparently reproduction.
That's like reducing questions of racism and the role of people of color in America to affirmative action. Or reducing queer issues to gay marriage, and ignoring that at the root of our fight for legal rights and equality is the desire to end homophobia and discrimination, in short, to win liberation.
Since McCain nominated Palin, it's been every so slightly harder for Obama's attack dogs to continue to dismiss disgruntled Hillary supporters as divas, McCain plants, or simply nuts. ie. Go back in the attic where you belong, madwomen. Suddenly our votes count, and attacking us endlessly means risking that women like me will either vote for McCain and Palin, or just stay home.
The problem all along has been that Democrats imagine women are too stupid or irrational to understand the stakes of this election. We're somehow oblivious to the Iraq War, the mortgage crisis and the disastrous economy, the schools that are falling apart, and struggling families. As if we aren't usually the ones picking up the pieces.
Who after all gets stuck pinching pennies while working the worst-paying jobs? Who still ends up with the kids when families fall apart? Women. And women comprise a significant part of the hardcore anti-war activists, the widows, grieving mothers, even vets. Surely it's not women that have long been recognized as the key to successful economies.
Every misogynistic sneer, every suggestion we females stick to questions of female plumbing tells us Democrats don't give a crap about what we think, and that we're not a valuable part of the economic and social recovery of the United States.
If Democrats are stupid and arrogant enough to believe that, why should we trust them and reward them with our votes? Why should we think they're fit to lead? Leaders build bridges, they don't burn them. And the Democrats have burnt plenty in the name of unity. Trying to force Hillary out of the race when it had just begun. Making us fight for a roll call to register the votes she won. Resorting to nomination by acclamation.
That's not unity. It's a tyrannical attempt to erase dissent, and above all, erase women. Women of all races. It was a black woman, Sheila Jackson Lee, that Obama told to get over it. Party Unity My Ass. What Democrats were aiming for was victory, sheer domination over Hillary. Like when one wrestler has the other down on the mat with their arm twisted out of their socket and their legs broken in several places.
Confronted with that, Sarah Palin is a better role model for young women (and queers) despite her conservative social views, than the likes of the retooled Michelle Obama. Palin took on the corrupt Republican establishment in her own state. She defeated oil companies. She may wear go-go boots and drop litters of babies, but she's a fighter.
Remember what that is? Queers don't. In this election, the Log Cabin Republicans have been totally invisible. And queer Dems have been reduced to jumping for joy because Mrs. Obama turned up at an LGBT delegates luncheon. You can take my uterus and shove it.
McCain did what eighteen million women couldn't. By choosing Sarah Palin to run as VP, he got Obama and the Democrats to retrieve women from the shit heap where we'd been dumped. At least for the moment.
Already her Democratic handlers had forced the accomplished Mrs. Obama to put on her metaphorical apron and play mom and wife at the DNC. Hillary even interrupted the roll-call detailing the success of her own historic candidacy to ask that Obama be named the nominee by acclamation.
John Dickerson in Slate, who had predicted that women would immediately roll over for Obama after the primary dust settled, was busy considering whether or not Obama could win without the votes of persistently disgruntled Hillary supporters. And his conclusion before Palin was yes. There were plenty of new voters, and while, he wrote, Hillary supporters aren't "all crazy harridans or racists" they are "snippy, irritating, and impervious to reason (Obama is lucky not to have them)."
Obama couldn't have agreed more. Pre-Palin, when Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee dared ask Obama to reach out to the millions of women that supported Hillary, he reportedly said nope. That would take too much time and he had to focus on McCain. Obama also sniped, "If women take a moment to realize that on every issue important to women, John McCain is not in their corner, that would help them get over it."
Thank you, Mr. McCain, for your unintentional service to America, and challenge to Democratic Party misogynists. Without your nomination of Sarah Palin as VP, advocating abortion and progressive Supreme Court nominations would once again be women's only visible roles. Fall in line, the Dems blackmail us, or you'll lose the little you've got. The only real issue for women, half the American population, is apparently reproduction.
That's like reducing questions of racism and the role of people of color in America to affirmative action. Or reducing queer issues to gay marriage, and ignoring that at the root of our fight for legal rights and equality is the desire to end homophobia and discrimination, in short, to win liberation.
Since McCain nominated Palin, it's been every so slightly harder for Obama's attack dogs to continue to dismiss disgruntled Hillary supporters as divas, McCain plants, or simply nuts. ie. Go back in the attic where you belong, madwomen. Suddenly our votes count, and attacking us endlessly means risking that women like me will either vote for McCain and Palin, or just stay home.
The problem all along has been that Democrats imagine women are too stupid or irrational to understand the stakes of this election. We're somehow oblivious to the Iraq War, the mortgage crisis and the disastrous economy, the schools that are falling apart, and struggling families. As if we aren't usually the ones picking up the pieces.
Who after all gets stuck pinching pennies while working the worst-paying jobs? Who still ends up with the kids when families fall apart? Women. And women comprise a significant part of the hardcore anti-war activists, the widows, grieving mothers, even vets. Surely it's not women that have long been recognized as the key to successful economies.
Every misogynistic sneer, every suggestion we females stick to questions of female plumbing tells us Democrats don't give a crap about what we think, and that we're not a valuable part of the economic and social recovery of the United States.
If Democrats are stupid and arrogant enough to believe that, why should we trust them and reward them with our votes? Why should we think they're fit to lead? Leaders build bridges, they don't burn them. And the Democrats have burnt plenty in the name of unity. Trying to force Hillary out of the race when it had just begun. Making us fight for a roll call to register the votes she won. Resorting to nomination by acclamation.
That's not unity. It's a tyrannical attempt to erase dissent, and above all, erase women. Women of all races. It was a black woman, Sheila Jackson Lee, that Obama told to get over it. Party Unity My Ass. What Democrats were aiming for was victory, sheer domination over Hillary. Like when one wrestler has the other down on the mat with their arm twisted out of their socket and their legs broken in several places.
Confronted with that, Sarah Palin is a better role model for young women (and queers) despite her conservative social views, than the likes of the retooled Michelle Obama. Palin took on the corrupt Republican establishment in her own state. She defeated oil companies. She may wear go-go boots and drop litters of babies, but she's a fighter.
Remember what that is? Queers don't. In this election, the Log Cabin Republicans have been totally invisible. And queer Dems have been reduced to jumping for joy because Mrs. Obama turned up at an LGBT delegates luncheon. You can take my uterus and shove it.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
DNC: Let the Games Begin
By Kelly Jean Cogswell
I watched Bush at the Beijing opening of the Olympics Games. With his binoculars and smile, he seemed relieved to finally be at an event he understood. I bet at night, instead of thinking of all those dead kids in Iraq, or Afghanistan, the tanking economy, or tortured men in Guantánamo, he dreams of owning another ball club. Where the rules to winning are simpler and there's always someone else to blame.
Yesterday, making a statement condemning the Russian invasion of Georgia, his lips were thin and pinched again. He looked depressed. Probably he has a bumper-sticker over his bed: Anybody, but Bush. At least it's almost over. He squints trying to count it out. A hundred and something more days.
The Democrats, meanwhile, know the schedule down to the hour and are already practicing their walk to the podium in a historic year of firsts. Clinton was the first woman to take a state in the primary, then dozens after. Obama, already the first black candidate to head a major ticket, will be the first black U.S. president. Walls tremble and tumble as he breaks through to join the celebrated ranks.
Symbolically powerful, I wonder just how much change his firstness will bring to the U.S., or even his intransigent Democratic party. Does Obama have coattails? And for whom? In an eight thousand word New York Times article asking "Is Obama the End of Black Politics?" not one of the dozen politician interviewed, old guard or new, was a black woman. Donna Edwards appeared just as a mention. Unsurprisingly, Michelle Obama's actually pledged to be Mom-in-chief if her husband's elected. Here's a hod of bricks. Get out the trowel to wall the women back in.
As a consolation prize, Clinton's scheduled to give a speech the night of August 26, the 88th anniversary of the day women finally won the vote, though it doesn't extend as far as the Democratic Party which may not give the delegates she won the right to vote for her.
Likewise, Stonewall Democrats trumpet 350 plus queers at the Democratic National Convention, a record number of participants making it onto the floor, while the words "lesbian," "gay," "bisexual" or transgender have yet to make it into the platform. What we get instead are vague references to fights against discrimination. The platform did condemn the Defense of Marriage Act, though not particularly for its bigotry, but for its potential to divide us Democrats.
The only place the platform seems enthusiastic to have us is in Iraq. "At a time when the military is having a tough time recruiting and retaining troops, it is wrong to deny our country the service of brave, qualified people." Especially when otherwise you'll be faced with reinstating the unpopular draft.
That's about what you can expect from a party led by Howard Dean. He's an affirmer of heterosexual marriage. Recently a a former DNC employee Donald Hitchcock brought suit against him, claiming he was fired from gay outreach after his partner, Paul Yandura, publicly urged gay donors not to give money to Dean's increasingly faith-based Democratic Party.
And just why should we hand over our votes or our cash? Democrats have done very little since they've been in control of Congress. Guantánamo is still going strong. Diplomacy is still nixed in favor of military spending. The Constitution continues to disintegrate in the name of the endless War on Terror. Just a couple of weeks ago Democratic votes actually helped expand government surveillance powers with FISA. New York Senators Clinton and Schumer voted against. Illinois Senator Obama was one of several Democrats voting for.
Why? To look tough for election 2008, and appeal to all those right-wing voters? If we swallow that, what will his excuse be next? Reelection? Are Democrats never accountable? The standard we set for them is so low it takes a Jules Verne craft diving into the center of the earth to reach it.
Reforming them from the inside has proven nearly impossible as queer "gains" attest. And outside, the Democrats, as the Republicans, are literally keeping demonstrators as far away as they can. Neither seen nor heard. So instead of focusing on what they might want to demand from Democrats, protesters at the convention will be fighting for their basic right to protest.
This week, meanwhile, Bill Richardson, once in the running for the Obama's V.P. spot, highlighted the uncertain Democratic grasp of foreign policy by immediately blaming Bush for the Russian invasion of Georgia. Putin apparently never declared the collapse of the Soviet Union, "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" or expressed the desire to restore Russia to its once-dominant role in the region and the world.
If Richardson's any indication for Democrats 2009, they'll be taking the easy road whenever possible, blaming the Republicans, and hoping for the best.
I watched Bush at the Beijing opening of the Olympics Games. With his binoculars and smile, he seemed relieved to finally be at an event he understood. I bet at night, instead of thinking of all those dead kids in Iraq, or Afghanistan, the tanking economy, or tortured men in Guantánamo, he dreams of owning another ball club. Where the rules to winning are simpler and there's always someone else to blame.
Yesterday, making a statement condemning the Russian invasion of Georgia, his lips were thin and pinched again. He looked depressed. Probably he has a bumper-sticker over his bed: Anybody, but Bush. At least it's almost over. He squints trying to count it out. A hundred and something more days.
The Democrats, meanwhile, know the schedule down to the hour and are already practicing their walk to the podium in a historic year of firsts. Clinton was the first woman to take a state in the primary, then dozens after. Obama, already the first black candidate to head a major ticket, will be the first black U.S. president. Walls tremble and tumble as he breaks through to join the celebrated ranks.
Symbolically powerful, I wonder just how much change his firstness will bring to the U.S., or even his intransigent Democratic party. Does Obama have coattails? And for whom? In an eight thousand word New York Times article asking "Is Obama the End of Black Politics?" not one of the dozen politician interviewed, old guard or new, was a black woman. Donna Edwards appeared just as a mention. Unsurprisingly, Michelle Obama's actually pledged to be Mom-in-chief if her husband's elected. Here's a hod of bricks. Get out the trowel to wall the women back in.
As a consolation prize, Clinton's scheduled to give a speech the night of August 26, the 88th anniversary of the day women finally won the vote, though it doesn't extend as far as the Democratic Party which may not give the delegates she won the right to vote for her.
Likewise, Stonewall Democrats trumpet 350 plus queers at the Democratic National Convention, a record number of participants making it onto the floor, while the words "lesbian," "gay," "bisexual" or transgender have yet to make it into the platform. What we get instead are vague references to fights against discrimination. The platform did condemn the Defense of Marriage Act, though not particularly for its bigotry, but for its potential to divide us Democrats.
The only place the platform seems enthusiastic to have us is in Iraq. "At a time when the military is having a tough time recruiting and retaining troops, it is wrong to deny our country the service of brave, qualified people." Especially when otherwise you'll be faced with reinstating the unpopular draft.
That's about what you can expect from a party led by Howard Dean. He's an affirmer of heterosexual marriage. Recently a a former DNC employee Donald Hitchcock brought suit against him, claiming he was fired from gay outreach after his partner, Paul Yandura, publicly urged gay donors not to give money to Dean's increasingly faith-based Democratic Party.
And just why should we hand over our votes or our cash? Democrats have done very little since they've been in control of Congress. Guantánamo is still going strong. Diplomacy is still nixed in favor of military spending. The Constitution continues to disintegrate in the name of the endless War on Terror. Just a couple of weeks ago Democratic votes actually helped expand government surveillance powers with FISA. New York Senators Clinton and Schumer voted against. Illinois Senator Obama was one of several Democrats voting for.
Why? To look tough for election 2008, and appeal to all those right-wing voters? If we swallow that, what will his excuse be next? Reelection? Are Democrats never accountable? The standard we set for them is so low it takes a Jules Verne craft diving into the center of the earth to reach it.
Reforming them from the inside has proven nearly impossible as queer "gains" attest. And outside, the Democrats, as the Republicans, are literally keeping demonstrators as far away as they can. Neither seen nor heard. So instead of focusing on what they might want to demand from Democrats, protesters at the convention will be fighting for their basic right to protest.
This week, meanwhile, Bill Richardson, once in the running for the Obama's V.P. spot, highlighted the uncertain Democratic grasp of foreign policy by immediately blaming Bush for the Russian invasion of Georgia. Putin apparently never declared the collapse of the Soviet Union, "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" or expressed the desire to restore Russia to its once-dominant role in the region and the world.
If Richardson's any indication for Democrats 2009, they'll be taking the easy road whenever possible, blaming the Republicans, and hoping for the best.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Screw Unity, Save America!
By Kelly Jean Cogswell
I'm definitely a freak. There's a drum beating out there and I'm no where near in step. In fact, I don't even hear it. Just a dripping in the kitchen sink that calls for a plumber rather than some political savior like Obama.
I finally managed to have a look at his recent speech on race after reading glowing reports from both sides of the aisle. Expecting to bask in the warm glow of his great vision for America, I felt my skin crawl at his insistence on unity, unity, unity.
In my experience, unity usually translates as "Shut your trap, Bitch," or more nicely, "We'll get to your issue when we've solved the really important ones. It's just not the right time." Funny, the right time never does come.
After all, isn't unity what we've had under Bush? The minority Democrats voted in lockstep with Republicans for an Iraq War which is now costing us $5000 per second, burdening a family of four with about $330 per month, a failed economy, not to mention dead American relations, whole cemeteries of Iraqis, and a Middle East that may well be destabilized for generations to come.
Then there're the boatload of democratic perversions in the name of Homeland Security like wire-tapping, racial profiling, oh, and Guantanamo, that have continued even with a Democratic majority in Congress, all because we have to be unified to fight that endless War on Terror that has as many definitions as that soporific word, "nice."
Obama, above all, seems like a nice man. His heart is in the right place wanting to welcome everybody into his big tent, though I still balk at his campaigning down South with the same black preachers that Bush used for their popular rabble-rousing and money-raising capability. You just have to ignore their hellfire and brimstone conviction that all us queers are going to burn eternally. Come on in.
I get the idea he just can't abide anger. Not that he doesn't understand it. In this speech, Obama gives one of the more passionate defenses of anger in black and working class communities that I've seen, citing its deep roots, the damage it can do, how it can embitter, paralyze and blind. All true, including the fact we have to see past our anger to find solutions.
The problem is that he'd be happier if we put our anger entirely aside. It "... is exploited by politicians." "It distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition..." "Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits..."
He's forgotten, or never knew, that anger is one of the few things, maybe the only thing, that gets us into the street. Fury about injustice was what sent Jesus on a rampage in the temple knocking over the tents of moneylenders. Anger freed Malcolm X, ACT-UP, the Lesbian Avengers. It is an essential engine for change.
I am afraid we Americans are not angry enough, and that insistence on unity will lead to a white-washing of the past eight years, skipping the justice stage for reconciliation, and leaving Bush's damage intact.
No one except the grunts will be responsible for the men and women we've tortured in American prisons. No one will be responsible for lying about the imaginary Weapons of Mass Destruction that got us into Iraq, or for deregulating the banks that are self-destructing, preaching the hate that translates into dead queers, refusing jobs and basic respect to people because of their accents or skin.
I find rage coordinates nicely with the Timberlands I wear to demos, though I understand the exigencies of politics. You can't only work from the margins, though it's the best place to be an activist. Politicians have other needs. To them I say, "Forge alliances if you must, hold hands, sing Kumbaya, but keep your eyes on justice."
For that reason, I'm wary of Obama. I'm troubled by how easily unity translates into silence and amnesia, and hope into absolution. I'm afraid of his Christian rhetoric that makes it seem like his victory is sanctified by Jesus, a manifestation of divine will, and genetics. "...Seared into my genetic makeup [is] the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one."
In Obama's America, what will happen to those of us that are part of the devil named Multitude, and insist on dissent? How will we be labeled? Will the censorship that was imposed by Bush and the Republicans in the name of patriotism and fear, be replaced by that other American fascism of Niceness, Unity, and Hope? Will anybody have the guts to speak the truth?
I'm definitely a freak. There's a drum beating out there and I'm no where near in step. In fact, I don't even hear it. Just a dripping in the kitchen sink that calls for a plumber rather than some political savior like Obama.
I finally managed to have a look at his recent speech on race after reading glowing reports from both sides of the aisle. Expecting to bask in the warm glow of his great vision for America, I felt my skin crawl at his insistence on unity, unity, unity.
In my experience, unity usually translates as "Shut your trap, Bitch," or more nicely, "We'll get to your issue when we've solved the really important ones. It's just not the right time." Funny, the right time never does come.
After all, isn't unity what we've had under Bush? The minority Democrats voted in lockstep with Republicans for an Iraq War which is now costing us $5000 per second, burdening a family of four with about $330 per month, a failed economy, not to mention dead American relations, whole cemeteries of Iraqis, and a Middle East that may well be destabilized for generations to come.
Then there're the boatload of democratic perversions in the name of Homeland Security like wire-tapping, racial profiling, oh, and Guantanamo, that have continued even with a Democratic majority in Congress, all because we have to be unified to fight that endless War on Terror that has as many definitions as that soporific word, "nice."
Obama, above all, seems like a nice man. His heart is in the right place wanting to welcome everybody into his big tent, though I still balk at his campaigning down South with the same black preachers that Bush used for their popular rabble-rousing and money-raising capability. You just have to ignore their hellfire and brimstone conviction that all us queers are going to burn eternally. Come on in.
I get the idea he just can't abide anger. Not that he doesn't understand it. In this speech, Obama gives one of the more passionate defenses of anger in black and working class communities that I've seen, citing its deep roots, the damage it can do, how it can embitter, paralyze and blind. All true, including the fact we have to see past our anger to find solutions.
The problem is that he'd be happier if we put our anger entirely aside. It "... is exploited by politicians." "It distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition..." "Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits..."
He's forgotten, or never knew, that anger is one of the few things, maybe the only thing, that gets us into the street. Fury about injustice was what sent Jesus on a rampage in the temple knocking over the tents of moneylenders. Anger freed Malcolm X, ACT-UP, the Lesbian Avengers. It is an essential engine for change.
I am afraid we Americans are not angry enough, and that insistence on unity will lead to a white-washing of the past eight years, skipping the justice stage for reconciliation, and leaving Bush's damage intact.
No one except the grunts will be responsible for the men and women we've tortured in American prisons. No one will be responsible for lying about the imaginary Weapons of Mass Destruction that got us into Iraq, or for deregulating the banks that are self-destructing, preaching the hate that translates into dead queers, refusing jobs and basic respect to people because of their accents or skin.
I find rage coordinates nicely with the Timberlands I wear to demos, though I understand the exigencies of politics. You can't only work from the margins, though it's the best place to be an activist. Politicians have other needs. To them I say, "Forge alliances if you must, hold hands, sing Kumbaya, but keep your eyes on justice."
For that reason, I'm wary of Obama. I'm troubled by how easily unity translates into silence and amnesia, and hope into absolution. I'm afraid of his Christian rhetoric that makes it seem like his victory is sanctified by Jesus, a manifestation of divine will, and genetics. "...Seared into my genetic makeup [is] the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one."
In Obama's America, what will happen to those of us that are part of the devil named Multitude, and insist on dissent? How will we be labeled? Will the censorship that was imposed by Bush and the Republicans in the name of patriotism and fear, be replaced by that other American fascism of Niceness, Unity, and Hope? Will anybody have the guts to speak the truth?
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