Yesterday I wrote about fascism, with little optimism.  Today I’m going to write about someone who fought authority in a big way.  After she died two years ago, I wrote about Rosa Parks:

I just read tonight that Rosa Parks has died at the age of 92

I’ve always loved the real story behind Rosa Parks, which is a bit different than the one most of us read about in school.  The mythology runs that she was a tired lady who just got fed up with having to give up her seats one day.

This isn’t quite how it happened.  Rosa Parks was an activist and she knew exactly what she was doing at the time.  The bus boycott didn’t just happen spontaneously.  It was planned and executed masterfully.

More on Parks, her legacy, and what we, as activists, can learn from it, after the fold.

The mythology behind Parks served its purpose at the time.  NPR’s “On The Media” did an interview with Tim Tyson about Parks.  Here’s a question that was asked as part of that interview, by Bob Garfield:

I’m speaking to you on Wednesday – the Washington Post, in its appreciation of Rosa Parks, referred very much to her as a seamstress and very little to her as an activist. It did nothing to squelch the myth that she was just one woman who, on a certain day, had had enough.

Tyson’s response is instructive:

I think for some reason we are unwilling to honor people who are politically active. We want to honor people who just have had enough and sort of spontaneously won’t take it any more. But somehow if they get categorized as active citizens, which would be a positive way of saying it, as troublemakers… then somehow it becomes self-serving, part of a movement which we’re less comfortable with… it started very quickly after the bus boycott. And they talked about her tired feet. That gets mentioned a lot more often than it should. She may have been a little bit tired, but that had nothing to do with the decision that she made.

So here’s the thing: nothing in the narrative is wrong exactly.  She was a seamstress.  She was tired.  But she was smart, articulate, and really knew what the hell she was doing.  I like to use this as an example because it wasn’t just about doing the right thing.  It was about doing the right thing in a really smart way.

As activists, we have an obligation to push, and we’re often at odds with those who are more mainstream.  Barney Frank opposed the activist San Francisco same-sex marriages a few years back, saying it was merely a symbolic diversion.  Nancy Pelosi complained that she couldn’t arrest the anti-war protesters who have been dogging her.

Time and time again, activists and mainstream politicians create these divisions between themselves which don’t reach a solution, and part of the reason for this is because we’re a culture that has convinced itself that activism is selfish.

The reason Rosa Parks is portrayed as a tired lady who just got fed up is because, as a culture, we’re afraid of acknowledging what she really was: a powerful woman who had used what wits she had to take control over her situation against overwhelming odds.

She didn’t do it alone, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott had been planned for some time before, but the organizers of the boycott were really smart about it, too.  As Tyson notes:

Within a year, there had been a couple of cases of black women arrested on the buses who they almost had a boycott around, but who weren’t just right in one way or another. And so they were sort of waiting for this case… When she [Parks] got arrested, the word went forth and people in the community knew what would happen.

They waited for the right case and were patient and prepared and ready to go.

Can you imagine what could happen if we had a highly organized and coordinated opposition movement which would be ready to start flooding the media with letters to the editor whenever some boneheaded Republican would say that Iraq was worth the deaths of thousand of American troops?  Can you imagine what would happen if, today, we had people writing letters to every news organization that didn’t bother with this story?

Can you imagine what would happen if instead of just being outraged and frustrated we were outraged, frustrated, and extremely well coordinated?

Can you imagine what could happen if we were to transform the public dialogue and make activism something to be proud of?  Can you imagine what would happen if we told people far and wide that not only should the admire Rosa Parks for standing up for herself, but for doing so with eyes open, knowing that she was risking arrest in doing so?

I’m an activist and I’ve been an activist for most of my adult life, but I don’t tell many people this because I know that it might make them uncomfortable.  I need to get past this and say screw it; activism is good and we’re doing this because it’s good for the damned country.

Take this with you throughout the day: be proud of your activism and support other activists.  Don’t be afraid of what people will think of you for it.  Speak your mind, but see if you can find other like minded people to help, because this isn’t fun to do alone.  Parks strength came from her courage, but it also came from her allies and her willingness to sacrifice herself for a greater good.

  What are you going to do today that connects with other people?

  What are you going to give up today that makes the world a better place?

Last year, Live Science published a nice little summary article (How the Brain Tunes Out Background Noise)) about our mental process and how our perceptual process will tend to phase out the aspects of our surroundings which are routine or predictable:

The “novelty detector neurons,” as researchers call them, quickly stop firing if a sound or sound pattern is repeated. They will briefly resume firing if some aspect of the sound changes. The neurons can detect changes in pitch, loudness or duration of a single sound and can also note shifts in the pattern of a complex series of sounds.

This applies to politics a lot more than we might think.  I’ve got some writing below about general concepts (driving and music).  At the end, I’ll apply this to fascism and where our country might be headed.

The piece continues:

“It is probably a good thing to have this ability because it allows us to tune out background noises like the humming of a car’s motor while we are driving or the regular tick-tock of a clock,” said study team member Ellen Covey, a psychology professor at the University of Washington. “But at the same time, these neurons would instantly draw a person’s attention if their car’s motor suddenly made a strange noise or if their cell phone rang.”

I’m interested in how this applies to driving– there’s a lot we need to attend to, as drivers, and a lot we don’t even notice on a conscious level.  How much of what we do when driving is necessary and how much of it is background?  Do some people tend to have more trouble with the distractions than others?  Do some of us have the ability to better distinguish background noise from necessary information?

As I am known to do from time to time, I will use birding as an example.  When I’m looking for birds, I pay a lot of attention to the sounds and calls of birds, but I suspect that, after a short while, I do not pay any attention at all to familiar birds.  Once I know that there are American Robins around, do my ears pay attention to them any longer, or do I just mentally dismiss them?

Or, on the other hand, we can think about music: when I am listening to a fairly common and unoriginal melody, I may not notice it at all on the surface, but I may notice unusual harmonies or arrangements of that same melody.  Or, alternatively, unless I specifically attend to it, I may not even notice the chord progression of a tune, once it’s gone through once or twice.  Unless the music does something interesting, it may fade entirely into the background– how often have you not even realized what song was playing on an intercom until someone pointed it out to you?

This may seem like a stretch, but let’s apply this to fascism:

One of the things the Bush administration is very smart about doing is to introduce concepts through slow bleed:

• don’t just start war in Iraq– spend months making it sound inevitable and then just do it;
 

• don’t just start spying on everyone.  Claim you’re spying on terrorists.  Then claim you’re spying on suspected terrorists.  Then claim you’re spying on suspected terrorists and those who talk to them.  Then claim you’re spying on those who talk to the people who talk to the suspects.  Pretty soon it’s everybody;
• don’t just announce that you’re torturing people.  Slowly get people used to the idea of torture by calling it someone else.  Then break down the definition.  We don’t torture, but we will use harsh interrogations.  Causing severe emotional distress?  Oh, that’s not torture.  It’s just extreme persuasion.

Little by little, break down peoples’ natural reaction of shock and surprise– keep it subtle enough that, eventually, Dick Cheney can shoot a guy in the face and get the victim to apologize.

If Bush and Cheney had just announced early on that they would be a lawless government accountable to no one, our novelty detector neurons would have been flashing like crazy.  But today, we’ve got basically that, and no one seems surprised by it at all.  This is because today, it’s background noise.  We can speak today of the evils of internment camps in WWII, but we can have people interned in Guantanamo Bay without it shocking anyone at all..  We can have a whole country being spied on and treat it as though it’s not something unexpected or totally out of the realm of possibility.

As I write this, I worry about crossing that line between useful and healthy paranoia and freakish conspiracy theory, but as much as I read about how there are people vehemently opposed to us invading or bombing or whatever to Iran, even people within the government, and I keep hoping that such a move would be enough of a “novelty” for us to be sufficiently shocked, but I don’t see anything actually stopping military action against Iran if/when this administration decides it’s time.  What I see, instead, is a bunch of rhetoric about it in advance so that we can get that novelty and outrage out of our system, and then, in the not too distant future, an attack and an after the fact explanation for it.

I don’t see us stopping it.  I don’t see the Senate stopping it.  I don’t see the House stopping it.  I don’t see the country stopping it.

Clearly, I’m not in an optimistic mood.

Let’s start with the Rutland Herald:

University of New Hampshire researchers found that gay men who live together earn 23 percent less than married men, and 9 percent less than unmarried heterosexual men who live with a woman. Discrimination is most pronounced in management and blue-collar, male-dominated occupations such as building, grounds cleaning and maintenance, construction and production, according to the study by UNH’s Whittemore School of Business and Economics.

Okay.  Fair enough as far as it goes.  I can’t yet find a copy of the research itself to read, so I’m not sure about the exact methodology, but the rest of the article gives me pause about its methodology and validity.

Continuing from the AP article in the Rutland Herald (which,  by the way bears a striking resemblance to UNH’s own press release):

The authors also found that lesbians are not discriminated against when compared with heterosexual women. They conclude that while negative attitudes toward lesbians could affect them, lesbians may benefit from the perception that they are more career-focused and less likely to leave the labor market to raise children.

Okay.

So.

While lesbians may benefit from the perception that they are more career-focused and less likely to leave the labor market, the odds are that the real issue is that they are more career focused and have children less frequently.  Disruptions in employment affect salary, benefits, long-term career goals, etc.  This happens less frequently with Lesbians.  Other studies (I don’t have them at my fingertips, but I’ll find them when I have the chance) have shown that lesbians are more likely than heterosexual women to choose career over relationships when it comes to having to make a choice.

It seems to me that given this, if heterosexual women and lesbians are at equal par in employment, it’s actually evidence of anti-lesbian discrimination that happens to be compensated for by circumstances.

That said, I also want to note one other item that appeared in the article:

The authors analyzed U.S. Census labor and wage information from more than 91,000 heterosexual and homosexual couples in March 2004.

This comes as a throwaway line at the end, but it’s more important than it appears on the surface.  This study isn’t so much a study as it is an analysis of census data.  Census data on sexual orientation seems suspect to me and I question its validity.  Its data which is at least a few years old, and the study itself was started three years ago.  Things are changing a lot fasted than that today, and I wonder if this whole study is just sort of useless at this point.

Given that the authors list fear of HIV/AIDS as a possible explanation for discrimination against gay men, I suspect they might even be living in the wrong century.

Don’t get me wrong.  Discrimination definitely takes place.  I’m just not convinced that this is actual evidence of it.

This morning’s Rutland Herald Piece on Vermont Yankee has a couple interesting items in it. It talks generally about the safety concerns, but it has one specific item that was news to me, even though it probably shouldn’t have been:

Since Entergy received final approval for the power uprate in March 2006, Vermont Yankee has produced 20 percent more electricity ? about 100 megawatts more, for a total of 640 megawatts, with little of the new energy staying in Vermont. Less than half of its total power generation is sold to Vermonters.

In other words, when Vermont Yankee wants an uprate to produce more energy, they’re not doing it to meet the demands of Vermonters. They’re doing it to make more money out of state.

Why on earth would anyone think that the increased risk that comes with the uprate is worth it if it doesn’t even benefit our own state?

Pam Spaulding just posted about a piece from Christian News Wire with five “reasons” that same-sex marriage is bad for kids. Just to keep things honest, I wrote up a rebuttal to the wingnut idiocy that is Trayce Hansen

One at a time:

…mother-love and father-love–though equally important–are qualitatively different and produce distinct parent-child attachments. Specifically, it’s the combination of the unconditional-leaning love of a mother and the conditional-leaning love of a father that’s essential to a child’s development. Either of these forms of love without the other can be problematic. What a child needs is the complementary balance the two types of parental love and attachment provide.

“mother love” and “father love” are fabricated concepts. They’re this woman’s assumptions about how mothers and fathers form attachments, yet she presents no evidence to support these assumptions. Even if she’s right about a child needing that combination of the two types of love, there’s no evidence that women are incapable of conditional-leaning love or that men are incapable of unconditional-leaning love.

…children progress through predictable developmental stages. Some stages require more from a mother, while others require more from a father. For example, during infancy, babies of both sexes tend to do better in the care of their mother. Mothers are more attuned to the subtle needs of their infants and thus are more appropriately responsive. Fathers are generally needed later when they play a restraining role in the lives of their children. They restrain sons from acting out antisocially and daughters from acting out sexually. When there’s no father to perform this function, a boy is more likely to become delinquent and incarcerated and a girl is more likely to become promiscuous and pregnant.

This is, again founded on that same assumption about parental behavior, making assumptions about gender roles which do not necessarily play out in reality.

Third, boys and girls need an opposite-sexed parent to help them moderate their own gender-linked inclinations. As example, boys generally embrace reason over emotion, rules over relationships, risk-taking over caution, and standards over compassion, while girls generally embrace the reverse. An opposite-sexed parent helps a child keep his or her own natural proclivities in check by teaching–verbally and nonverbally–the worth of the opposing tendencies.

Once again, she’s working with assumptions here and, more importantly, presenting no evidence that there’s anything worth with girls adapting behavior she associates with boys or vice versa. That’s because children are individuals and that even if (and I’m not saying it’s true) most girls tend to be interested in emotion over reason and caution over risk-taking, that doesn’t mean that girls who don’t exhibit those behaviors have problems. What she’s trying to do here is to pathologize human behavior and she’s doing a piss-poor job of it.

Fourth, same-sex marriage will increase sexual confusion and sexual experimentation by implying all choices are equally acceptable and desirable. So, even children from traditional homes–influenced by the all-sexual-options-are-equal message–will grow up thinking it doesn?t matter whom one relates to sexually or marries. Holding such a belief will lead some–if not many–impressionable young people to consider sexual and marital arrangements they never would have contemplated previously. And children from homosexual families, who are already more likely to experiment sexually, would do so to a greater extent, because not only was non-traditional sexuality role-modeled by their parents, it was also approved by their society.

This is a common tactic of the right: make assumptions about the cause of sexual orientation and then extract an argument based on it. Of course, this is entirely absurd. No one’s demonstrated any evidence that children raised by same-sex couples are more sexually experimental than those raised by non-same sex couples. Furthermore, if a child is gay, it’s probably a lot healthier to for that child to have adult role models who can demonstrate that being gay is not the end of the world.

This, of course, is really the point of pieces like this: having gays walk around proud is dangerous because it will suggest to other gay people that there’s nothing wrong with them. The horror!

Anyway…

Human sexuality is pliant. Consider ancient Greece or Rome–among other early civilizations–where male homosexuality and bisexuality were nearly ubiquitous. This was not so because most of those men were born with a “gay gene,” rather it was because homosexuality was condoned by those societies. That which a society sanctions, it gets more of.

So… what she’s saying is that it is natural for people to be gay? That unless we have an iron fist determined to block gay at every turn, that a whole bunch of people who wouldn’t otherwise be gay would suddenly start acting all gay? I know a lot of women who would really like to be attracted to women and not men because they think it would make their life easier (I’m not even going to try to explain this) but none of them seem to be able to actually find themselves attracted to women.

And fifth, if society permits same-sex marriage, it also will have to allow other types of marriage.

Right. Because it always goes in that direction. If you allow men to sleep together, then you have to allow goats to sleep with cats. If you allow same-sex couples, you have to allow Rick Santorum to have sex with a dog. If you allow allow women to have sex with one another, you have to allow the lion and the lamb to lie down together and… hmm… never mind that last bit. I think God’s given the OK on that one.

Sorry, I can only read so much of this stuff before I get punchy.

I just got this note from the Vermont Freedom to Marry Task Force:

Dear Julie,

Please email Congressman
Peter Welch to thank him for his co-sponsorship of the
gender-identity-inclusive ENDA.

Congress is on the verge voting on the Employment
Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill co-sponsored by
Vermont Representative
Peter Welch that would prohibit employment discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation and gender
identity.  Congressional leaders are seriously
considering pulling back the fully-inclusive ENDA, substituting
in its place a bill that does not protect transgender
Americans or people who don’t conform to gender
expectations.  The unified outcry from the gay,
lesbian, bisexual, transgender and allied communities has been
striking– and leadership has delayed its move to make the
substitution.  We have the chance to prevent this
critical non-discrimination bill from itself becoming a
vehicle of discrimination. 

Please, take 30 seconds to send a quick e-mail thanking Peter
Welch for his co-sponsorship of the
gender-identity-inclusive ENDA, to encourage him to stand
firm against any attempts to water down this bill, and to let
him know that you do not support a bill that would exclude many
in our own community. 

 

Contact
Peter Welch today!

 

Thank you for taking action!!

 

Robyn Maguire

Field Director

I’m a fan of Barney Frank and, more often than not, I think he’s on the right side. In this particular case, however, I think he’s made some tragic missteps. I’ll explain more below the fold.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with what’s been going on lately, there’s been a push for decades now to get Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) passed into law. ENDA would outlaw discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation and gender presentation. This would go along with similar protections from discrimination on the basis of race or religion.

In recent weeks, there’s been a push to remove gender presentation from the bill. While on the surface that may seem like decent strategy, it comes with multiple problems, outlined quite clearly Lambda Legal:

[removing gender identity] “diminished the bill not only by excluding transgender people ? a consequence we oppose in itself. The cut also made the bill far weaker by denying protection of the earlier version to those who may not identify as transgender but who are discriminated against because they are perceived as gender nonconforming. Lesbians, gay men and bisexuals frequently are perceived that way.”

This has led to a fairly nasty and divisive fight. From my point of view, the infighting is nasty and unproductive, but so is the splitting ENDA into separate bills, one with Gender included in the language and one without. Watching this unfold has been both politically and personally brutal, but I’m really glad to see Welch step up to the plate and do the right thing.

The way I see it, this bill will not, under any circumstances, become law with the current administration occupying the White House. I’d personally rather we fail while trying to do the right thing than fail while trying to do the compromise. Then we can spend the next year doing education to get everyone up to speed on why the bill as originally presented is crucial and how much of an open gap in protection the other version leaves.

I know Welch gets a lot of crap from us and the progressive community in general, and I think some of it’s justified, but it’s also important to highlight when he does the right thing.

Last night, Vermont’s panel on same-sex marriage had their first public forum.  The Rutland Herald presents a good report on how it went and, more importantly, presents a revealing comment about where the opponents of same-sex marriage are coming from.

One of the people opposing gay marriage at Wednesday’s meeting was Brian Pearl, a social conservative from Grand Isle who has vowed to challenge Gov. James Douglas for the Republican nomination next year.

Pearl, who was the first to speak, said he worried that legalizing gay marriage would result in minors marrying older members of the same sex.

Okay.  So first on the right-wing anti gay agenda is the obvious canard: child molesters.  Here’s a funny sidenote: for some time, it was perfectly legal in Utah for a 14-year old girl to marry a 35-year old man.  I never heard anyone who opposed same-sex marriage claim that they needed to defend marriage against THAT (and yes, this was while DOMA was being placed into law).

Let’s continue:

He added that same-sex marriages should not be recognized because the couples cannot procreate as heterosexual couples do.

Canard #2. Of course, we need to protect marriage from those who can’t procreate.  That’s why we have laws protecting marriage from the evils of 60-year-olds, the infertile and those who use birth control.

Pearl wasn’t the only one who came out in opposition to same-sex marriage:

Claire LaBounty of St. Albans said she “wants to do all she can for gays and lesbians,” but as a Christian believes that marriage is a union devoted only to a husband and wife.

In other words, she wants her interpretation of her religion to be the law of the land.  Whether or not she wants to “do all she can,” she’s demonstrating that her interest in using the law of the land to endorse her religious beliefs is more important than the civil rights of others.

And that’s what it comes down to.  This isn’t about marriage.  It’s about religion and whether or not we’re free to ignore the religious beliefs of those with whom we disagree.  Refusing to implement same-sex marriage primarily because it will threaten the sensibilities of those who can’t handle the idea that their religion is not the only acceptable one.

This isn’t about marriage.  It’s about the civil rights which are conferred by marriage.  Civil unions simply do not convey those rights.

Reading the Brattleboro Reformer’s article on the Nude Demonstration in Brattleboro today produced some cognitive dissonance. For example…

“There are so many alternatives that are readily available,” Anderson opined, her sun block glistening under the hot, afternoon sun.

“Her sun block glistening?” Really? Why do I think the author was channeling an adult magazine when he wrote this? Here’s more:

As the hour wore on, the crowds of spectators snapping pictures with cameras and cell phones dispersed. But Gorman and Frechette stuck to their detail and fiddled briefly with Frechette’s personal digital camera.



Gorman hastened to point out they had not yet taken any pictures and were carrying the camera just in case they needed it to gather evidence.



When asked why they were using a personal device, not a department-issued camera, Gorman said, “If we’ve got a big camera, people are going to think we’re a bunch of police perverts.”

Right. So, instead, you make sure you use your personal camera for this? Okay… And how about all the townsfolk with cameras who were there? I wonder what they were trying to get pictures of.


Anyway, the creepiest moment in the story was this:

Board member Dick DeGray, who supports a nudity ban, showed up briefly before the protesters disrobed and said, “They’re exploiting our town for personal gain.”

It’s not inherently creepy. It’s creepy because I had to reread it, as I first read it like this:

Board member Dick DeGray, who supports a nudity ban, showed up briefly before the protesters, disrobed, and said, “They’re exploiting our town for personal gain.”

Stories like this give me a headache, which I felt compelled to share with all of you.

I’ve posted about my support for Edwards before.  I’ll mention that even though I have real reservations about Obama, I’d be willing to vote for him come the general election.  Clinton, on the other hand, disturbs me greatly and I don’t think I could actually vote for her in the general election.

But this post isn’t about that.  This post is about the Republicans.  While I think it’s plausible that some of the front runners could win a national election, I don’t think any of them are likely to do so unless the Democratic nominee is a small chunk of moldy cheese (and even then, I think Romney would lose). 

There’s only one Republican candidate whom I think would be a dangerous opponent in a national election. 

Policy-wise, I think most of the country opposes Governor Huckabee.  That’s not what scares me.  What scares me is that I when I see him speak, I find myself wanting to like him.  I figure if I want to like him, knowing who and what he is, people who choose not to be informed may be much more easily swayed towards his candidacy.

Don’t get me wrong: no way in hell would I ever vote for the man.  He’s very conservative, and a major part of the religious right.  I don’t think that he’d get elected if his policies were what were being voted on.  In a general election, where many of the voters don’t don’t vote in an informed fashion (think I’m wrong?  Look at 2004) but instead rely on their general feelings about a candidate, a Huckabee nomination would be a serious problem for any Democrat because he’s funny, clever, and doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Here’s the silver lining: he’s got no problem at all speaking about President Bush in very unflattering terms.  This means there’s not much of a shot for him at getting the Republican nomination.  The wingnuts who are deeply committed to their path of cognitive dissonance and self-justification of rank hypocrisy can’t allow themselves to accept that their pet Shrub is an incompetent, arrogant, grandstander who has made everything infinitely worse.

So I don’t think it’s a huge risk of him being the nominee, but I think there’s a risk, and even as a VP candidate, he’ll add to the appearance of humanity of whoever ends up at the top of their ticket.  Fortunately, again, as someone who routinely trashes Bush, I don’t know that that’s a major risk either, but it’s there.

So, anyway… my dream ticket for the Democrats would be Edwards/Obama.  My dream ticket for the Republicans would be Romney/Keyes.  That last bit would be just for the major comedy factor that would ensue.  I think we’d have to write a theme song to go with the campaign, like The Odd Couple meets Jesus Camp. 

This post probably revealed way more about my psyche than I should have allowed.

We’ve been involved in The Localvore Challenge this week, and it’s been an interesting experience. 

A quick summary: there are lots of reasons different communities may be interested in eating locally.  Some are environmental; others economic.  For some, it’s just about support for their own community and community engagement.

In our case, it’s a combination of factors, the biggest for me is that I like to know where my food comes from and what goes into it.  If I’m eating food that’s mass-produced in some factory somewhere who the hell knows where, how could I possibly know what conditions exist in that factory?  I still don’t know perfectly well here.  I don’t know if every worker at a farm washes their hands.  I don’t know if every worker at a local produce center is or is not carrying a contagious disease.  But I do know that the food I eat is primarily coming from nearby sources which makes the food I eat more personal and more economical.  When I purchase locally I am:

• saving the fuel cost of shipping something across the country;
• supporting local economy over destructive large-scale agriculture;
• eating foods which are pollinated by local insects which means I have more built-in immunity to local allergens;
• reducing waste and pollution by using food that doesn’t require multiple layers of packaging or chemicals designed to keep the food looking fresh over long periods of time.

More information about local foods can be found at http://www.localharvest.org/ and http://animalvegetablemiracle.com/