In 2006 and 2008, the Democratic politicians plied queers with their usual lies about how much they would support us if they got control of Congress and the White House. It was a crock of shit, to put it mildly. Let's look at what they did.

The only good thing they did of any actual importance was passage of a watered down hate crimes bill. It took the National Equality March and a picket outside of Barack Obama's speech before the HRC to get even that to happen. Why do I say it was watered down? The legislation helps the rare local jurisdictions that want to fight hate crimes (which doesn't even include the NYPD under that vicious bigot Michael Bloomberg), but it does little or nothing to deal with jurisdictions that don't. Heterosexist hate crimes are crimes of intimidation that are intended to impact across state lines, which makes them a federal law enforcement matter. There should be strong federal penalties against them, and there should be a specific unit in the Dept. of Justice to prosecute them. The good thing about the legislation was that it included trans queers.

Sadly, that was the best thing the Democrats did the entire time. The Obama Administration, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid blocked ENDA, the most important queer civil rights legislation from even getting a vote in Congress. Unlike same sex marriage, employment discrimination is an area where the GLBT community has overwhelming public support, which presumably why they didn't want to give this popular legislation even a vote. I can not give the Democrats a good grade on LGBT issues when they wouldn't even allow a vote on the one that is, by far, the most important.

Employment discrimination legislation should have passed during the Carter administration. Yet, we can't even get a vote on it during the Obama administration.

Sadly, President Obama has had a reprehensible record on LGBT issues. He deliberately incited violence against queers, queer teen suicide, and violence against women by involving one of the nation's most notorious bigots, Rick Warren, in the inauguration. Obama had been doing pretty much the same thing by pandering to and glorifying that monster during the 2008 campaign. Obama made things worse by showing up consistently to the National Hate Breakfast, showing his support for heterosexist fundamentalism and violating the Constitution of the United States of America.

It didn't stop there. On the DOMA court challenge, the Obama administration deliberately filed court papers comparing homosexuality and bisexuality to sex with animals and sex with the dead. They didn't need to do that, even if you accept the notion that they were obligated to defend that legislation. It was completely gratuitous.

Yes, the Obama administration will occasionally throw us a tiny bone, but most of the slight good that bone might do us is negated by the condescending and heterosexist attitude they display when they do it.

Then, there is the Clinton Administration's more draconian version of the military ban which is deceptively referred to as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," even though it was deliberately designed to increase witchhunts and discharges against queers. "DADT" has even led to the military sending undercover people to gay bars in DC.

President Obama has repeatedly put queers off and fought to keep the ban in court. When queers kept pressuring the Democrats, Obama's viciously heterosexist enablers, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, came up with weird scam legislation which would maybe, just maybe lift the ban if Robert Gates wants to do it. Unfortunately, Robert Gates is a notoriously bigoted Bush crime family crony who immediately preceded to sabotage the effort by creating a highly biased survey on the views of military families on the subject.

Then, Harry Reid took his typical Mormon homophobic hatred one step further. He made sure that the legislation that included this maybe, maybe lifting of the military ban, also included other controversial provisions in order to provide cover for Scott Brown, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe to vote fillibuster against lifting the ban. Reid is so fanatical in his hatred of us, he is willing to hurt Democratic Senate candidates in Massachusetts and Maine by giving the GOP homophobes political cover for hating us and attacking us.

We also shouldn't forget the pattern of heterosexist discrimination in appointments by President Obama. So far, Obama has yet to appoint even one openly queer Cabinet member or Supreme Court Justice, not one. Considering the fact that lesbian, gay, bi, and trans people make up far more than 10% of the population and the Democratic Party is disproportionately queer, this has been a particularly blatant and stinging insult to the TBGL community. Obama's record in this area is just as bad as that of another hateful bigot: Bill Clinton.

Obama also has badly underfunded AIDS, done nothing to promote needle exchange, and has done nothing the promote condom usage and condom education. The Democrats continue to fund "abstinence only" scams that are deliberately designed to promote the spread of HIV.

Even with the hate crimes legislation that did pass, the Obama administration has yet to take seriously the recent wave of heterosexist hate crimes and bullying. If there was a national outbreak of violence, bullying, and suicides among banksters, Obama and congressional Democrats would treat it like a national crisis. Queers just don't rate that kind of attention.

Queers have done so much to help the Democrats in 2006 and 2008. What did we get in return? I find it difficult to find words to articulate just how badly I have been betrayed by the Democrats as a queer. The best way for me to express it ultimately will be for me to vote party line Green this November. Vicious bigots like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama have given me absolutely no other option. They are as heinous as the Palins, Paladinos, and Pauls in the GOP on matters of substance.

Photos: jurvetson

talkradionews

 

An organization dedicated to electing queer political candidates is actually "honoring" Nancy Pelosi, who gay baited her way into Congress in 1986 against openly gay Harry Britt, who was the early frontrunner to become the first openly queer member of Congress to be out before being elected. Does this sound surreal? It's real. (Washington Blade 9/9/10)

The Victory Fund is set to award Pelosi with the organization’s 2010 Gay & Lesbian Leadershup Award for her “leadership on issues important to LGBT Americans” and for how she “continues to challenge official Washington to realize and embrace the fair-mindedness of their fellow Americans,” according to a promo for the event.

Nancy Pelosi has never challenged "official Washington to realize and embrace the fair-mindedness of their fellow Americans." That's completely fictional. She is an obstinate part of official Washington who needs to be challenged on queer issues.

It gets worse. Remember how Nancy Pelosi sabotaged ENDA in the last congress? Remember her taking gender identity out to attack trans queers and to give corporate lawyers a loophole to screw over cis queers? Remember how she riddled ENDA with a multitude of other loopholes to make almost completely unenforceable?

Is the Victory Fund so completely out of touch with reality that they haven't noticed that Pelosi has done everything in her power to block ENDA, the most important LGBT civil rights issue, from even getting a vote in the House during this session? Do they know and just don't give a flying fuck?

The "Victory Fund," like the Champagne Fund, and what passes for GLAAD these days, are completely uninterested in the queer civil rights movement or any middle class or poor queer. All they care about are wealthy donors who are solely interested in getting their pictures taken with powerful and influential figures.

Fortunately, there are grassroots activists who are still fighting back against vicious bigots like Nancy Pelosi.

The LGBT organization responsible for acts of civil disobedience across the country is considering taking action against U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her appearance this month at a Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund fundraiser.

Robin McGehee, co-founder of GetEQUAL, said activists affiliated with the organization are weighing the possibility of action directed toward the speaker at the Victory Fund’s Gay & Lesbian Leadership Awards, which is scheduled for Sept. 29 at the Mayflower Hotel in D.C.

If I get a fundraising letter from the so called "Victory Fund," I won't burn it. That would be bad for the environment. I'll recycle it instead.

Photo: SanFranAnnie

 

Photo: dereckesanches

I received this in an email from Pride @ Work today. I think it is great that it includes organizations in Nancy Pelosi's district.

From San Francisco Pride at Work, One Struggle, One Fight, GetEqual, Harvey Milk Democratic Club, Transgender Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, El / La, and National Pride at Work

An Open Letter to the House Speaker on ENDA

We are writing to express how extremely troubled we are that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) has not yet been scheduled for a vote by the full House of Representatives. We believe a floor vote must be scheduled for ENDA immediately.

It would be devastating for LGBT workers for this Congress to not complete its work on ENDA before the end of this session. ENDA would be historic in the number of LGBT people who would benefit from its passage. During this economic crisis, it is more important than ever to prohibit the often impoverishing effects of workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Most LGBT workers have no protections from workplace discrimination. ENDA would provide legal protection against discrimination nationally. Over and over we have been promised that a vote would be scheduled on ENDA, and these promises have been repeatedly broken. In 29 states, it is still legal to fire someone solely because they are lesbian, gay or bisexual. And in 38 states it is legal to fire someone solely for being transgender. The current version of the bill would outlaw discrimination on both sexual orientation and gender identity.

A 2006 study by the San Francisco Bay Guardian and the Transgender Law Center found that 60 percent of transgender people in San Francisco earn less than $15,300 per year, only 25 percent have a full-time job and nearly 9 percent have no source of income.

Only 4 percent reported making more than $61,200, which is about the median income in the Bay Area. More than half of local transgender people live in poverty, and 96 percent earn less than the median income. Forty percent of those surveyed don't even have a bank account. What this study reveals is that even in a city that is considered a haven for the LGBT community, transgender workers face profound employment challenges and discrimination.

A 2007 meta-analysis from the Williams Institute of 50 studies of workplace discrimination against LGBT people found consistent evidence of bias in the workplace. The analysis found that up to 68 percent of LGBT people reported experiencing employment discrimination, and up to 17 percent said they had been fired or denied employment.

Public opinion polling shows that Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of making sure LGBT Americans get the same employment opportunities as everyone else. In fact, the latest surveys shows that nearly 90% of Americans support workplace fairness for LGBT workers.

As you know, in a few weeks, Congress will finish it's legislative business for the year so that they can return to their districts to run for re-election. Last month at a LGBT Pride event, Congresswoman Jackie Spier announced to the LGBT community that not only would we not get ENDA before the end of the legislative session, that she did not think we would get it for five years because we won't have enough votes in Congress again to ensure passage. It is ironic that Congress plans on leaving town and going home to campaign for their own jobs while leaving thousands of LGBT workers without protections for the next five years. When 90% of Americans support workplace fairness, it is challenging to believe that anyone fears a backlash from the voters. The time to pass ENDA is now. The American people support it, the politicians promised it. No more broken promises. We demand that a vote be scheduled now.

Sincerely,

SF Pride at Work, One Struggle, One Fight, GetEqual, Harvey Milk Democratic Club, Transgender Law Center, National Center for Lesbian Rights, El / La and national Pride at Work

The most bizarre thing about this is that passing ENDA would help the Democrats politically, especially in the midterm elections where parties need to turn out their base. Heterosexism not only is trumping human decency, but it also is trumping sound electoral strategy.

I'm not terribly surprised that a labor organization like Pride @ Work gets it in terms of the importance of ENDA. That's why having a voice from organized labor in the queer community is so critical.

 

As usual, the homophobic Democratic Party leadership in DC is determined to act in an exploitative and abusive fashion against queers. (From the Keen News Service 7/14/10 - Hat Tip: Queerty)

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is not on the agenda for Senate floor action for the next few weeks, prior to the August 9 recess.

A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate will take up work on as many as nine matters during the next month, but none of those are ENDA.

The nine include the Defense authorization bill, which incorporates language aimed at repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; and the nomination of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court. They also include Wall Street reform, energy (including oil spills), and the extension of unemployment benefits.

Let's look at two of the volcanoes that queers are being sacrificed on. The Wall St. "reform" is so incredibly weak that it primarily serves to show how much influence bankers and brokesters have over Congress and the White House. The energy bill was originally supposed to be a global warming bill, but efforts to limit CO2 have largely been replaced by massive government subsidies of the polluting corporations that were supposed to be clamped down on.

Even the repeal of Bill Clinton's draconian version of the military ban isn't all that great either. It puts the repeal off until after the November elections and puts it in the hands of ultra homophobic Bush regime holdover, Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Even worse, Gates is rigging the whole thing against ending the military ban by running a survey of military personnel that is intentionally biased against repeal and which could be used to discharge queer troops if they answer it honestly.

There is no excuse for this. ENDA already should have passed in 2009. Legislation against employment discrimination should have passed when Democrats at the White House and Congress in 1993-04 and 1977-80. ENDA is the most important and least controversial LGBT civil rights bill in existence, and vicious bigots like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama keep screwing with it.

The Democrats keep hounding me with phone calls and junk mail asking me for money. Those bigoted asswipes are not getting a penny from me, much less a vote. I am so sick of being treated as less than human by the same people who demand I support them out of some unthinking loyalty that only goes in one direction.

This year is the year I'm going all Green.

Any and all efforts that might have gone to helping Democrats should go to pressuring the party to change its position and pass ENDA. Why should we passively go along with this viciously bigoted betrayal? We are human beings and should insist on being treated as such.

Contact the White House!

Contact Speaker Pelosi!

You can also sign Change.org's petition for ENDA. Change.org is definitely in Obama's pocket, but it is good for people to visibly support ENDA there too.

Photo: afagen

 

The Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA) is by far the most important queer issue in Congress today. It would have the largest effect on the lives of the broadest segment of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. ENDA also has broader support in the general public than most queer issues.

Yet, the Democrats have refused to even vote on it in this Congress. Well, it may be even worse than we thought, according to Jackie Speier. (Bay Area Reporter 7/1/10)

Addressing the crowd of gay and straight political and community leaders at Sunday's Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club Pride breakfast, Speier said, "Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi is doing all she can to ensure a majority for next year so we can pass ENDA."

Asked later in a brief interview if that meant the House would not vote on ENDA this year, Speier told the B.A.R. , "The rest of the year is in question."

"There's no question 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' will be history this year," she said. "ENDA, we will have that law for sure within the next five years."

The Democrats are holding ENDA hostage until after the next election (and the next, and the next). Yet, if they don't do much better on queer issues, many queers will stay home this year and some others will vote Green. Homophobic policy turns out to be incredibly bad political strategy. Remember what happened in 1994 after Bill Clinton and the Democrats went out of their way to be homophobic?

Equality California's Executive Director Geoff Kors pointed out:

"I'm worried LGBT people won't vote in the midterms" if Pelosi's promise is not kept, he said. "That would be disastrous for LGBT rights but it's understandable. People felt they did work, gave money, and lobbied members only to see once again being pushed to the back of the line."

The general strategy among Democrats has been to provide the minimal level of support for queers to keep us quiet. ENDA also has specific obstacles that other queer issues do not. Laws against employment discrimination regulate the behavior of corporations, and the Democrats are incredibly financially dependent on corporations, their owners, and their executives. Democrats have been studiously avoiding doing anything that even slightly offends these big money donors. That's why they have done precious little to stop Global Warming and Wall St. corruption. It's also why they passed a wealthcare bill for corporations instead of an actual healthcare reform bill.

Also, don't forget that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a vicious homophobe who gay baited her way into Congress in 1986. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid belongs to the notorously racist, misogynist, and heterosexist hate group: the Mormon Church.

We are getting screwed over big time and have every right to be furious.

Photo: afagen

 

In case you think that Nancy Pelosi has gotten even slightly less execrably rightist since Barack Obama has been in office, think again. Pelosi just isn't satisfied with pushing through a wealthcare bill that takes money and healthcare away from the middle class, the poor, and the elderly and gives money to the HMOs, the health insurers, and the wealthy speculators who own their stocks. Now, she's engineering a sneak attack against Social Security and Medicare.

You may have been reading about Obama's "deficit commission" in DC. The name is misleading. Some people call it the "catfood commission" because its real goals are raising the Social Security retirement age to 70, cutting benefits in that program, slashing Medicare, and putting 20% of the Social Security trust fund in the stock market. Healthcare Now has been fighting hard to resist this attack on the livelihoods of the elderly and the futures of the young.

Pelosi is really good at engineering ways of pushing through rightist legislation while appearing to be liberal to casual observers in her district. We find out from Firedog Lake that she is pulling another fast one. (Hat Tip: I Can't Believe It's Not Democracy)

Embedded in the rule is the requirement that the House will vote on the deficit commission’s recommendations in the lame duck session if they pass the Senate.

The commission, co-chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, is packed with members who favor the raising the retirement age to 70, means testing, and private accounts. Many also support investing 20% of the Social Security trust fund in the stock market.

This is a perfect opportunity. The lame duck session would happen during the holidays when people are really busy and aren't paying close attention to politics. That's the most opportune time to slip something in that is wildly unpopular.

Obviously, this isn't a done deal. However, liberals and progressives better do a better job fighting this than we did on the wealthcare bill. If we keep caving and letting corrupt politicians in both parties fuck us over, the poor will keep getting poorer and there will be no middle class left.

Photo: Speaker Pelosi

 

The highest duty of any patriot is to work to make his or her country the best it can possibly. That represents the highest value of liberalism, and liberals have fought for generations to do just that. We need to ask ourselves something.

Are we still living up to this standard?

There are some rather unpleasant realities that very few people in our society want to face. There is very little difference between the politicians on matters of substance. Whether you are talking about Barack Bush or George W. Bush, Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton, Newt Gingrich or Nancy Pelosi, you are talking about a set of politicians whose values and political agendas are almost identical. They vary in terms of style and the ability to coherently articulate positions, but they all have pushed for same substantive policies the overwhelming majority of the time. Those policies are overwhelmingly rightist.

Spectator sports and brand loyalty marketing have conned people all over the political spectrum into picking teams or selecting brands and obediently going with them without giving much thought to the whole process. Rationalization and denial have become national pastimes.

In the real world, the differnces between the Democrats and Republicans are no more meaningful than those between Coke and Pepsi, the Yankees and the Mets, Dodge and the former Plymouth, or the Patriots and the Jets. Yet, people beat their chests and root, root, root. During campaigns they buy, buy, buy.

The political discourse is poisoned by this not only in terms of substance, but also in terms of style. Having little important to disagree with from Democrats like Obama, Reid, and Pelosi, Republicans just keep getting nastier, more bigoted, and crazier.

Why are most liberals going along with this? Why aren't we questioning more? Why aren't most of us swing voters with a Green Party that agrees with us on the vast majority of issues? Why do so many on the left pretend that voting for the overwhelming majority of Democrats is anything but a wasted vote?

We need to start thinking critically and logically. We aren't helping ourselves or our country by going along with this rightist crap.

 

Ted Rall's syndicated column on Obama out Republicaning the Goppers is one of the best summaries of what has been wrong with this administration to date. The entire column is worth a read, but the comments on the wealthcare bill are of special interest.

Obama's revamp of healthcare, on the other hand, goes too far, perverting the liberal desire to provide healthcare for all Americans into a transfer of wealth from poor to rich that the hard right never dreamed of.

Buying into the classic, flawed, American assumption that a bad system can't get worse (ask the Iraqis and Afghans), ObamaCare entrusts 30 million new customers, to the tune of roughly ten grand a year each, to the tender mercies of private insurance companies.

ObamaCare pours hundreds of billions of dollars, some from taxpayers, the rest from poor people, into the gaping coffers of giant corporations. Once people find themselves paying even more for visits to the same crappy doctors and hospitals they can't afford now, they'll hold the Dems responsible at the polls. If Republicans stopped to think, they'd love it.

And if Democrats stopped to think, they'd hate it.

Some of us have stopped to think, and we do hate it.

The rightist policies of the Obama administration are going to cause some Democrats to vote Green at least some of the time for years. However, that won't be the biggest impact on the party. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and their minions are doing a really effective job in persuading Democratic core constituencies that it doesn't matter much who you vote for. This means lower Democratic turnout and less volunteer time. The couch is a more effective rival than third parties, at least so far, and the DINOs in power are giving the couch a huge electoral advantage.

The Democrats are digging themselves in deeper and deeper, and they are too foolish and too bought to see it.

 

Just as the HRC did when they invited homophobes like Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi to be their keynote speakers, history repeated itself when the Champagne Fund (Human Rights Campaign) rewarded Barack Obama for empty rhetoric and heterosexist substance at this weekend's annual dinner.

Fortunately, there were self respecting queers protesting outside the dinner. From the Washington Blade 10/11/09:

Tuxedo clad guests walking to the Washington Convention Center to see President Obama's speech Saturday before the Human Rights Campaign's annual dinner were greeted by a line of about 75 LGBT activists who criticized the president for not moving fast enough on LGBT rights legislation.

The protesters unfurled a 25 foot long banner bearing the words, "A Chicago Welcome for Obama: Keep your 0#% promises! Repeal DOMA, Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Protest organizer Andy Thayer, a member of the Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network, said he and members of the Dallas-based Queer Liberaction called the protest to raise objections to what they believe has been the president's record so far of "all talk and no action."

The quote from the protest flier says it so well:

"For too many years the LGBT movement has been the plaything of the Democratic Party," said a statement handed out by the protesters. "Courted for money and votes when they needed us, abused and disrespected once they're in power."

The Democratic Party is supportive of queers at the local level in some states and cities, but the national party continues to exploit and abuse queers. Just because the Republicans are even worse is no excuse for how execrable the congressional and White House Democrats have been to us.

I know that Obama threw some platitudes at the self loathing queers at the HRC dinner who put pageantry over activism. I don't care. Empty speeches are mostly offensive and irritating at this point.

Employment discrimination legislation should have been passed in the late 70s, yet the Democratic Congress still hasn't put the legislation on Obama's desk to sign or veto. It's 2009. This is unacceptable.

 

We need to act on our responsibility to fight for real change. We cannot trust or rely on politicians and pundits to fight for us. We need to fight for ourselves.

Tell President Obama to Start Withdrawing US Troops from Iraq:
Ending the war in Iraq was the most important campaign promise Barack Obama made. Ending that war is urgent in terms of the loss of lives and the devastating effects it is having on the US and Iraqi economies. There is no excuse for any further delays. If Obama is serious about dealing with our economic crises, he must take immediate steps to end a war that is diverting hundreds of billions of dollars from building the US economy to destroying the Iraqi economy. Stopping the war in Iraq would do far more to help the US economy than the stimulus plan, which includes far too many economy slowing tax cuts.

Tell the President to Start Troop Withdrawals Without Any Further Delay

You also can contact the White House comments line: 202-456-1111

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Support the Inclusion of LGBT People in the Civil Rights Act:
Hat tip to Queers United.

There is an online petition requesting that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid do the following:

Expand the Civil Rights Act to declare it the public policy of the United States that discrimination based on LGBT status is prohibited.

The organizers plan on delivering the petitions on June 1, 2009.

Please Read and Sign the Petition

You also can publicize the issue by Digging the Queers United blog posting.

---

Support the Confirmation of Rep. Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor:
As you know, the Goppers are trying to block the confirmation of Rep. Hilda Solis. The excuse they are using is a small amount of taxes that her husband got behind on, but which were paid before Ms. Solis' was nominated. The real reasons the Greedy Oily Pedophiles are going after her are as follows.

1) Ms. Solis is a strong supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act, and bought Republican politicians are doing the bidding of their corporate masters who don't want a level playing field for union organizing.

2) This is a chance to appeal to the GOP's anti-Latino base, which hates people of color and which hates Catholics (even though they are happy to work with rightist Catholics to oppress women, atheists, and queers).

The United Farm Workers is supporting her nomination, and you should too.

Hilda Solis would be a Labor Secretary who understands the struggles of the working people. She embodies President Obama's promise to make the government work for all Americans.

The UFW feels strongly about this issue as Congresswoman Solis has worked in collaboration with us for years. She has helped bring basic protections and dignity to one of the most vulnerable segments of our society.

As a life-long supporter of union representation and as an advocate of workers' rights, we believe Ms. Solis will help restore what was the initial mission of the Labor Department. We cannot think of a more qualified representative.

Tell Your Senators You Want Ms. Solis Confirmed ASAP

---

Tell Lou Dobbs to Stop Attacking the Middle Class:
Rightist gas bag Lou Dobbs is waging war against the middle class by spreading misinformation about the Employee Free Choice Act. From a Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) Action Alert 2/6/09:

CNN host Lou Dobbs falsely suggested that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would "end a secret ballot" on his February 4 show.

At the conclusion of a report by CNN correspondent Drew Tucker about the Service Employees International Union's mobilization in support of the legislation, Dobbs said, "The American people voted for lots of things, but I don't know a lot of people voted to end a secret ballot."

Dobbs' claim that EFCA would eliminate the "secret ballot" in union authorization elections, which has been a centerpiece in a U.S. Chamber of Commerce-funded anti-union PR campaign (see Nation, 1/26/09), is completely false. As the text of the act (H.R. 800, 3/2/07) reveals, EFCA contains no language about eliminating the "secret ballot" enshrined in the National Labor Relations Act under Section 9 e.

Under EFCA, workers would still have the right to vote in a National Labor Review Board (NLRB) "secret ballot" election if 30 percent of the workforce signs cards, just as they do now. EFCA would change the process of union formation by giving workers seeking to join a union an additional option of winning union representation after a majority of the workforce signs cards, through a new provision to the act (section 9 c 6).

As American Rights at Work points out, this method of union sign-up, known as "majority sign-up" or "card check," is already recognized under current labor law, but only when the employer approves it. EFCA would represent a change in such union drives by removing the ability of employers to withhold recognition and to insist on an NLRB election.

For generations, Unions have played a crucial role in bringing Americans into the middle class and helping them stay there. Lou Dobbs wants to help corporations lower wages and benefits so they can make even bigger profits at the expense of treating their employees fairly. Tell Lou Dobbs to retract his statements and to tell the truth about the Employee Free Choice Act.

Lou Dobbs
Email:lou.dobbs@turner.com

CNN:
212-275-7800

 

There has been a lot of commentary by Obama supporters on the reaction of the queer community to Obama's decision to have a fanatical bigot like Rick Warren give a blatantly unconstitutional invocation at the inauguration. Many Obama apologists have seen the furor merely as leftover rage at the passage of Prop. 8 in California and Warren's role in helping it to pass.

That certainly plays a role for many people, but the outrage, disappointment, and disgust among lgbt Americans at this goes way deeper than that. When someone has devoted an enormous amount of time promoting discrimination and violence against queers and women, giving them such a prominent role in an important government ceremony sends a viciously misogynistic and heterosexist message.

Such bigoted and divisive behavior from Barack Obama is seen among queers quite legitimately as a bait and switch. Obama had marketed himself as a supporter of lgbt issues and had made "change" his main campaign theme. Yet, Obama hasn't appointed even one openly queer person to his cabinet, following in the footsteps of Bush and Clinton. The involvement of a dangerous religious extremist like Warren is vintage Karl Rove politics...divide, divide, divide. Queers voted for Obama overwhelmingly, but we are getting Bush instead.

Those of us who have followed politics longer remember the betrayals, homophobia, and triangulation we experienced under Bill Clinton, a far right Republican who pretended to be a centrist Democrat. We have learned that you never "give him a chance" when "him" is a politician that has behaved as a heterosexual supremacist early on. We have learned the hard way that we have to fight bigots every step of the way.

Learning from history is a sign of political maturity in the queer movement. Obama, like Bush, has tried to pretend that history doesn't matter. It makes it easier for them to get away with doing whatever they want.

We know better.

The loss of lgbt support cost the Democrats a lot of House and Senate seats in 1994. Many of us stayed home. Very few of us volunteered for Democratic campaigns or made contributions to Democrats. Some of us voted Green instead of voting for a party that acted as if even treating us as second class citizens was too good for us. During the last Congress, we saw the efforts of Pelosi, Frank, and Reid to sabotage ENDA and hate crimes legislation. Now, with Obama's frighteningly homophobic behavior of late, we are a constituency the Democrats have lost.

They will have to do a lot at this point to win us back.

 

In 2007, I posted a thank you to Ms. Sheehan for her efforts on behalf of the peace movement. Now, I'm moved to thank her again for her daring campaign against the corrupt, heterosexist, racist, war mongering Republican, Nancy Pelosi.

Sheehan got 17% of the vote, which is both impressive and disappointing. It was disappointing because it always is sad when a corrupt bigot like Pelosi gets reelected. It was impressive, given the obstacles Cindy Sheehan faced.

One of them came from many liberals. Some of them were too obsessed on the presidential election to pay attention to what was going on down the ticket. Some of them have become such blindly partisan Democrats that they are unwilling to challenge anyone who even claims to be a Democrat, even when it is a Bush Republican like Pelosi who merely pretends to be a Democrat. However, I do admire the liberals and progressives who stood up for our values by supporting Sheehan.

The biggest obstacle Ms. Sheehan faced was massive censorship of her campaign by the corporate media, which wanted Pelosi's rightist, pro-war policies to continue. I checked Google News for articles on the Sheehan campaign fairly often, and I seldom found anything other than blog postings. The lack of "mainstream" media coverage reminds me of how the corporate interests have censored other liberal candidates in the past.

17% is a start.

I hope that Ms. Sheehan will run again or that another liberal or progressive candidate will challenge Pelosi. It will be of critical importance to get involved in media action to push the corporate publications to be honest enough to cover campaigns that their owners disagree with.

Pelosi can be beaten. Liberals will just have to have the courage and the commitment to back up our values and positions.

 

The effort to stop Cindy Sheehan's campaign just got even dirtier. From KPIX in San Francisco (NBC) 10/30/08:

Cindy Sheehan SF Campaign Office Attacked
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) ― The storefront of congressional candidate Cindy Sheehan's campaign office in San Francisco was broken early Thursday morning and a laptop was reportedly taken, according to Sheehan's campaign office.

Police responded to the office at Mission Street between Eighth and Ninth streets just before 4 a.m. Thursday because a passerby called in a report of a broken window, police Sgt. Lyn Tomioka said.

People working for the campaign office saw the storefront on their way in around 8 a.m. and called police only to find out a report had already been filed, a campaign spokeswoman said.

"We feel like certainly it's a possibility that we were targeted," campaign spokeswoman Tiffany Burns said.

Burns said the only thing missing from the office was a Dell Inspiron 7120 laptop.

The office temporarily replaced the glass and did not close, she said.

Any reasonable person would have to admit that Nancy Pelosi and her people are among the most logical suspects if you are looking at who is behind this.

Thanks to Christopher from From the Left for letting me know about this. (As of writing this posting, he hasn't blogged on it. He left a note in the comments of a previous posting here.)

 

There are so many reasons for queers to support Cindy Sheehan over Nancy Pelosi.

Nancy Pelosi always has been a vicious heterosexist bigot. In 1986, she queer baited openly gay Supervisor Harry Britt to get into Congress for the first time. The now defunct Waxman/Berman political machine asked her to run and threw their considerable political weight behind her because they were determined to make sure that San Francisco did not have an openly gay man representing the city in Congress.

Pelosi had no experience in elected office and no involvement in any kind of grassroots activism whatsoever. She did have a lot of experience as a Democratic Party fundraiser. Her view of politics primarily as fundraising explains part of why Pelosi has supported the Bush agenda as House Speaker.

Pelosi's heterosexist attacks on the queer community did not stop in the 1980's. They have intensified as House Speaker. Most queers know that she got gender identity taken out of the Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA).

Some queers know that taking gender identity out, in addition to being a cruel injustice to transgender queers, provides a legal loophole that corporate lawyers can use to deny justice to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people. Corporate lawyers can argue that the victim of sexual orientation was really discriminated against because of non normative gender behavior. Never mind that gender roles are so sweeping and self-contradictory that even heterosexuals can't help but violate them from time to time.

Very few queers know that Pelosi pushed through other loopholes in ENDA which would have made it even more difficult for queers to get justice from discrimination. Pelosi did this in a year when she knew that Bush would not sign ENDA. That heterosexist is determined, if not obsessed, with making sure any ENDA bill that would reach the desk of a Democratic president would be completely toothless.

Of course if sabotaging the content of the bill doesn't work, she can always try the approach that she has used with hate crimes laws to block ENDA: deception and manipulation. The hate crimes law that the House considered during Pelosi's reign was not the one you probably think it might be. It does not add sexual orientation, gender identity, sex, and disability to federal hate crimes law. It is a bill with a small amount of funding to localities to fight hate crimes. That would be a bit better than nothing, but would do absolutely nothing to protect queers who live in or travel to parts of the country which don't have queer inclusive hate crimes laws.

However, it wasn't just that Pelosi pushed the weakest bill that could be called a hate crimes act. She also used parliamentary maneuvering to make sure that never reached Bush's desk. Her strategy to screw us over was to attach it to a defense authorization bill when it was voted on by the House and the Senate and then to have hate crimes funding stripped out in Conference Committee. Now, do you see why queer activists should be concerned that Pelosi might use parliamentary games to scuttle ENDA?

Pelosi's approach to AIDS issues was always to do the politically acceptable minimum, despite the fact that so many of her constituents have died and continue to die of AIDS. She is so AIDSphobic and bought by the big drug companies that she actually refused to sponsor or even support the AIDS Cure Act, which would have created a Manhattan Project to cure AIDS. As House Speaker, Pelosi also has fought to keep funding for "abstinence only" scams instead of fighting to redirect the money to AIDS prevention programs.

Well-informed queers would never support Pelosi because of her history and present attacks against queers and People with AIDS. Yet, the queer press is largely a corporate press. So, most queers have no idea about Pelosi, past or present. Anyway, here is a press release from the Sheehan campaign announcing that four famous queers are supporting her against the de facto Republican, Nancy Pelosi. The 10/27/08 press release also goes into detail about Ms. Sheehan's positions on queer issues.

Celebrated LGBTQ Rights Activists and Entertainers Endorse Cindy Sheehan

Sheehan urges Californians to Vote No on Proposition 8 in November

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Cindy Sheehan, a candidate for Congress in California's 8th Congressional District race, announced she has received the endorsements of key figures in the LGBTQ community, including Rosie O'Donnell, Melissa & Tammy Etheridge, and Gore Vidal.

O'Donnell, the Etheridges and Vidal cited Sheehan's passionate commitment to equal protections and freedoms for the LGBT community as reasons why they are supporting Sheehan's candidacy. "Politics are about people," said Melissa Etheridge. "When citizens become empowered and realize that democracy is there to work for them, incredible change can happen. Cindy Sheehan knows that the old guard in Washington is fear-based and needs to change. She is walking her talk and running for office. Tammy
and I believe in her convictions and support her."

Sheehan's campaign has consistently advocated for the defeat of California's Proposition 8 among other policy issues that impact the LGBT community, including:

-- The immediate repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA);

-- The expansion of federal benefits and protections for civil unions;

-- Passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which ensures that no employee can be discriminated against because of sexual orientation or gender identity;

-- The elimination of the U.S. military's shameful "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. The policy forces the brave men and women fighting for America to hide who they are;

-- And passage of the Matthew Shepard Act, which expands the federal hate crimes law to include acts of crime and violence motivated by the victim's sexual orientation and gender identity, whether real or perceived.

"I am truly honored to have the support and confidence of these brilliant community leaders," said Sheehan. "If elected, I will advocate tirelessly to expand freedoms for the LGBTQ community and against any measure that eliminates those freedoms."

Support Sheehan Now!

www.cindyforcongress.org

 

Here are some of the ways that Pelosi has supported Bush policies.

- Keeping impeachment hearings from taking place

- Funding the Iraq War

- Pushing through the bailout

- Sabotaging ENDA, the most heavily publcized aspect of which was the exclusion of gender identity

- Sabotaging hate crimes legislation

- Pushing through corporate controlled trade agreements

- Withdrawing a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide

- Supporting the Bush "stimulus package" which did nothing to stimulate the economy, but which gave rich people more money they could use to inflate the stock market before the crash

Please Support Cindy Sheehan!

 

The ad is great. Check it out.



If you like the ad, you can help Ms. Sheehan put this ad on the air in San Francisco.

Update: The corrupt Democratic Party establishment is sabotaging Ms. Sheehan's campaign. For full details, go to the Daily Newscaster posting. Here is a rather blatant example:

Sheehan then received a jury summons for jury duty for the week of the election.

 

Support Cindy Sheehan!


Crowd shots from yesterdays union led protest in front of the New York Stock Exchange.

Corrupt Republicans, including Republicans who pretend they are Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, don't do anything out of the kindness of their hearts. They only care about themselves. Pelosi will continue to run roughshod over the Constitution, the middle class, the poor, queers, and people of color worldwide until it creates problems for her to do so.

The most effective way to make trouble for Pelosi these days is to support Cindy Sheehan! Make a donation. I just did.

Once you have done this, you can contact her and let her know that you have given money to the Sheehan campaign and why.

If you don't live in San Francisco, contact her at the House Speaker's website.

If you live in San Francisco and can vote that Rethug out of office, contact her at her House Member website.

Here are some great quotes from Ms. Sheehan about the bailout on the Market Watch website:

"This massive bailout is nothing short of a scheme by irresponsible corporate pirates to privatize gains and socialize debt," Sheehan said. "Such a move will only further add to the burden of individuals and families, who are already struggling to make ends meet. Not one of our tax dollars should go toward rescuing an industry that is failing because of unregulated lending and trading practices."
...
"My opponent has half a million dollars in stock invested in AIG alone, which is included in this so-called bailout," said Sheehan. "We need elected officials who will stand up for our interests, not protect their own pockets or the pockets of the very same people who got us into this mess in the first place."

"We are tired of giving golden parachutes to greedy corporate interests," said Sheehan. "We're standing up and saying, 'Not this time, not with my money and not with my consent.'"

Don't forget the Sheehan campaign website:

www.cindyforcongress.org/

 

Here is a truly disturbing example of the all too common attacks on our civil liberties, courtesy of OpEdNews 8/25/08:

"As I walked toward my room, I noticed that the door was opened with the security bolt blocking the complete closing of the door. I knew immediately that I had not left the door open, and I double checked to make sure it was the right room because, as a frequent traveler, I have been known to forget my room number, but it was the right room.

I was upset at first thinking that housekeeping had made a mistake and left my room open and I was worried that something might be missing. So I walked into my room and bigger than life, there was a man standing by my desk holding the room phone with a screwdriver in his hand!

I immediately said; "What the hell are you doing? Are you putting a bug on my phone?" He looked like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and stammered out: "N--no, we are having problems with the phone." I told him to get out of my room because my phone was fine and I called the front desk and the person at the front desk stammered something out about "problems" with some of the phones.

This room was reserved soon after we got to Denver last night because the room we had was inadequate for 3 people. The room was reserved under my campaign manager's name with a CFC debit card. By the time we left for the march, it could have very well been ascertained that I was the one in this room, and the room we did reserve could be bugged, also. I am confident that that's what was happening when I walked in on the "maintenance" man"

You don't come in the room with a screwdriver if there are problems with the hotel phones. You do it electronically, through the system or you hook up a new phone.

You can't help but wonder if this was done as a political payback to Nancy Pelosi, who has violated her oath of office by blocking the impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

 

Hat tip to From the Left for bringing me the great news.

Cindy Sheehan made it onto the ballot.

The fact that Sheehan needed over 10,000 valid signatures is an example of corrupt ballot access laws that limit the number of independent and third party candidates while wasting their time and resources. There really should be a successful constitutional challenge against these repressive and undemocratic laws.

I have trouble expressing how happy I am that Cindy Sheehan is on the ballot.

 

Even Pelosi's methods remind one of Bush:



There also were protesters calling for impeachment, but it's not like she is going to suddenly take the Constitution seriously.

The hat tip goes to Nancy Pelosi's Table.