George Carlin:“Power does what it wants. Now they’re just more naked about it. Now they just put it right out front and say, ‘This is what we’re doing to you folks.’ This country’s finished. It’s been sliding downhill a long time.
Everybody’s got a cell phone that makes pancakes so they don’t want to rock the boat. They don’t want to make any trouble. People have been bought off by gizmos and toys in this country. No one questions things any more. Seriously.
That’s what I love about your show. You bring the thing right to them. That’s the only way to do it.”
Keith Olbermann:“As you know, if you’ve got the platform and you’re not doing something with it you might as well have a trained monkey out here.”
TENNESSEE
Anti-Adoption, Anti-Gay Legislation Filed by Memphis Duo
Tennessee State Sen. Paul Stanley (R) and State Rep. John "DINO" DeBarry (D) bond in dominance-based same-sex union against adoptions
from the Tennessee Equality Project web site:
Jan 30 2008 Our adoption rights are officially under attack today. In what could be the first of several bills with adoption restrictions filed before the deadline this week, SB3910 / HB3713 filed by Senator Paul Stanley (R-Memphis) and Rep. John DeBerry (D-Memphis) would prohibit “any individual who is cohabitating in a sexual relationship outside of a marriage that is valid under the constitution and laws of this state from adopting a minor.”
This attack is grounded in prejudice and not in the best interests of our state’s children. We call on you to help us fight back.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A proposal that some opponents said would allow the state to know what's going on in a person's bedroom is under consideration in a Senate committee.
The bill would ban any couple living together in an unmarried sexual relationship from adopting children.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Paul Stanley, R-Memphis, said single mothers and fathers could still adopt under his plan.
"Our responsibility is to put these children in the best homes in the ideal environment. It's not always the perfect environment. The ideal environment is a married couple that are able to bring them up in a great home life. And, if they're not married, a lot of times there's just not the commitment to one another. Now, there's exceptions to that as there is a lot of things, but over the course of a lot of relationships, that's definitely the case," he said.
FLORIDA: State constitutional amendment banning benefits for same-gender and unmarried opposite-gender couples, including the de facto elimination of any existing benefits
Impeachment ImpeachSpace.com Pride At Work was the first national gay organization and the first national labor organization (AFL-CIO delegation at 2006 Pride At Work Convention) to call for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney. Resolution
Pride At Work was the first national gay organization and the first national labor organization (AFL-CIO delegation at 2006 Pride At Work Convention) to call for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney Resolution
California inmate healthcare needs $7 billion reform
by Mike Rosen-Molina for JURIST
Jun 10 2008
California prisons need an influx of $7 billion to bring inmate
healthcare up to constitutional standards, said court-appointed prison medical
overseer J. Clark
Kelso yesterday. The state senate has been unwilling to authorize a bond to borrow money for the project, so Kelso has appealed to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to use his emergency powers to raise the
needed funds. Last week, a court ruled that section 8658 of the California Emergency Services Act granted the governor authority to address prison conditions in times of emergency. The Associated Press has more.
In January, a federal judge ruled [JURIST report] that the healthcare provided in California prisons does not meet constitutional standards even though medical services have improved significantly since the court assumed oversight of the system in 2005. Bringing the
state's prison system up to constitutional standards could take as long as four
years, according to officials at the California Health Care Receivership. In
July 2007, the court ordered the formation of a special three-judge panel to supervise
and reduce California's prison population after finding that California's prison overcrowding was preventing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) from adequately providing mental health care.
Senator Tim Huelskamp is a conservative Republican from the Kansas farm community of Fowler. Larry D. Ballou Jr. is a Shawnee County Jail inmate who says he's "been to every main prison in the state" while serving a 27-year sentence for burglary and robbery. Huelskamp and Ballou have at least one thing in common. Both are disgusted about the prison-based board game being sold by John, the son of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Democrat of Kansas. Ballou took exception to references to rape in the game, Don't Drop the Soap. "I have seen prison rape/sodomy firsthand, and there is nothing funny about it," Ballou wrote. "This is a free country. People can use his/her rights to say or create many things, but as a governor to claim she supports her son's board game with a title of Don't Drop the Soap, in which the title clearly implies rape and/or sodomy, is just morally wrong." Huelskamp expressed the same concerns when he held a news conference to suggest the state ethics commission and possibly even Kansas Attorney General Stephen Six should launch investigations based on the game.
Please invest in your present and your future. Listen to Larry Kramer
March 13, nearly 20 years after his speech founding ACTUP
(AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power)
"I don't want to start another organization, and yet I know that we must start another organization. ... I also know that any organization that we start now must be an army. You have resisted this word in the past. Perhaps now that the man in charge of America's army is calling you immoral you won't resist being called an army any more.
"We must field an organized army with elected leaders and a chain of command. It must be a gay army with gay leaders fighting for gay people under a gay flag in gay battle formations against our common enemies, uncontaminated by any fear of offending or by any sense that this might not be the time to say what we really need to say. We must cease our never-ending docile cooperation with the status quo that never changes in its relationship to us.
"It is very wearying to witness our carrying on so passively year after year, particularly now that all of us - and I mean all of us - all of us have been given the gift of life. I know that young gays don't think this way but many of us died to give you this gift of staying alive. You are alive because of us. I wish you would see this. And we all owe it to the dead as well as to ourselves to continue a fight that we have stopped fighting.
"The more they see us, the more they hate us.
"Why do I think we need the word 'army'? Because it connotes strength and discipline, which we need desperately to convey."
Watch Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy's speech to Southern Baptist ministers, promising to resign the Presidency should he ever find that his Roman Catholic religious beliefs conflict with his duty to act in the best interests of this nation under the the U.S. Constitution.
"If the time should ever come -- and I do not concede any conflict to be remotely possible -- when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office, and I hope any other conscientious public servant would do likewise."
By this standard, The Wuss is not a conscientious public servant, as he has grossly violated the national interests of this nation. He has told us his god is ordering him to violate the U.S. Constitution because it is the right thing to do, this is the time to do it, and he is the man to do it. As history will record, the things he is being ordered to do by his god are wrong. Those savage actions are motivated by greed, and it will take decades for our nation and its people to recover.
The Student Environmental Action Coalition provides a list of recommended reading, websites, trainers, and other interesting projects all related to differing forms of oppression - both within our society at large and within activist circles.
If you'd like some sort of explanation as to why environmental activists should be concerned about anti-oppression work, check out SEAC's Caucuses. As with everything that SEAC does, this set of pages is a work-in-progress.
General Anti-Oppression
Anti-Sexism
Anti-Racism
Anti-Classism
Environmental Justice
Queer Stuff
Age Oppression
Anti-Ableism
General Practices
NAVIGATION [In some places, you will find only a working skeleton. A lot of content is still being organized and
formatted for transfer to this new
layout. If what you want isn't up yet we
apologize. Please join everyone at
ImpeachSpace.
That site is more important than this one
right now. We add content here
and there.]
Yo estoy loco, pero no soy tonto. Please turn off pop-up
blockers for this web site (for content
only, we pop no ads). We use a few safe,
simple JavaScripts to produce basic
interfaces and effects. We’re here
to create, collect and share content, not to collect
information about you. We loosely track
increased interest. Pseudonymous
columnists sought, content contributions
accepted. See Warning. If you send us
nasty stuff your personal information
might get published. All
“ads” are volunteered.
Help yourself to our
graphics.
All rights reserved exclusively for the use of people who believe
that in the world of tangible reality, the lives of gay, lesbian,
intersexed, bisexual and transgendered people are at least as
important and necessary to the state as are other identifiable,
vulnerable, minority classes still subjected to societal abuse,
discrimination, physical abuse and murder -- including
individuals who are targeted specifically because of their
perceived or actual inclusion in a larger group based on natural
qualities such as sex, color, race, or national origin, or
because of their chosen religion . . . and now including the
perceived or actual natural qualities of gender identity or
sexual orientation, age, or disability. Editor AT
UsQueers.com
