21 Feb - Mostly FemBlogging

 Price Of Hamburgers

Political Voices of Women Community 

Now that the community is growing so quickly, I just wanted to remind everyone, that this is a community where all political views and opinions are welcome.

The International Violence Against Women Act - Why you should sign 

Lifting the Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy -- Those Arguments Against Sound Familiar!  

 Poor Haiti So Far From God, So Close to the US

I know the the US will kill for profit, but watching people dying for lack of aid, while US troops prevent civilian planes from landing and stockpile needed food and water in the airport, instead of getting it out to the people, is a new low in horrifying eye opening reality.

Americans, used to giving up their own rights, freedom, privacy and dignity for "security", are now apparently fine with watching people die under rubble, from crush wounds and compound fractures, move into their second week without food or water, and suffer great pain without analgesics, because, you know, our troops must be "secure".

Heavily armed troops are afraid of starving people? They're refusing to feed people because hungry people might rush to get food? And not letting other, braver, people into the country to supply relief?

I am so appalled that I don't even have words. And I am more appalled, and depressed, by reading comments to the Guardian UK website, when they reported that a French official criticized the US military for turning back relief planes, and for setting up an occupation force.

Hundreds of ignorant Americans wrote in to deny that the US would ever want to occupy Haiti. That the US military would ever be used to oppress other countries. There was a lot of chest beating bravado and inflated self aggrandizement about the unsurpassed virtues of the American people and the cowardice of the French. I am so embarrassed. Again.

This is the third century that the US and France have united to oppress Haiti. Originally a French colony, with African slaves worked to death to grow sugar, after the American and French revolutions, the slaves rebelled and overthrew the French. The new United States of America freaked out and helped impose a blockade on the new republic of Haiti. Then the French imposed reparations onto the Haitian people, to make them pay for their own freedom. They totally overcharged them, also, 150 million francs. They sold the Louisiana Purchase for 80 million francs. The US didn't recognize Haiti until 1863, when they freed their own slaves. Without paying for them, by the way.

 Free Speech and Corporations

Thoughts for a New Decade: What I Wish for Women 

I Am A Liberal 
It is the freedom to create an environment where the individual can excel. What is freedom if it cannot be used to better our lives? A truly free society must be one where its members can rise above their limitations and expand their futures.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep in a Corporate State 

Welcome to the Age of Government by Infomercial 

Children & Organs Being Trafficked Out Of Haiti Video

( It's funny. I was a 'neighbour' of Catherine Morgan at WordPress when she blew in with polished blogs from the start and a wish to talk politics. Oldephartteintraining seemed 'established' because of my couple of years quipping on political blogs - Pandagon, Kevin Drum's Political Animal at Washington Monthly,White Noise Insanity, Echidne of the Snakes and sometimes at Booman Tribune - and Catherine was hampered by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome...and she blogged about that too.
Oldephartteintraining is either gone or in its third incarnation depending on how you count my memberships in online communities...or a much higher figure. The establishing of a female blogging community has gone much further. Tonight I happened to 'have a look around'. )

The Political Voices of Women 

A Response to President Obama’s “Just War” Doctrine  
Representative Dennis Kucinich  
WASHINGTON – December 11 – “Yesterday, our president mused about the inevitability of war, war’s instrumentality in the pursuit of peace and just wars.

It is important for us to reflect on his words, because once we believe in the inevitability of war, war becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once we are committed to war’s instrumentality in pursuit of peace, we begin the Orwellian journey to the semantic netherworld where War IS Peace, where the momentum of war overwhelms hopes for peace. And once we wrap doctrines perpetuating war in the arms of justice, we can easily legitimate the wholesale slaughter of innocents.

The war against Iraq was based on lies. Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan are based on flawed doctrines of counter-insurgency. War is often not just; sometimes it is just war. And our ability to rethink the terms of our existence, to explore the possibility of peace without war, may well determine whether we end war, or war ends us.”
 
 A Television Event That May Remind People of Their Power 
Inspired by the books of Howard Zinn, (“A People’s History of the United States“) and Anthony Arnove, (“Voices of a People’s History“), The People Speak is a documentary which tells the story of American democracy through the words of the ordinary, yet powerful, people who have shaped it.

The Loudest Duck 
The Loudest Duck provides leaders and employees tools to make sure that diversity actually works to the benefit of all.

Can We Say It Now? 
An economy based primarily on debt and credit and very little production of tangible goods simply is not sustainable.

Radical Evangelicals an American version of the Taliban? 
( Back in the cheap seats I think 'Evangelism' is a Biblical precept whose practice is twisted by demons. I'm not even sure I don't mean that literally rather than merely figuratively. Evangel meaning 'Good News' from a chap who railed against Pharisees, legalisms and constraining mercy and charity with taxes,literalism and lies leaves little room for the action of fables in transmitting real 'home truths' between generations to be twisted into hatemongering without being challenged by those who think the forests are being obscured by focusing on the trees...i.e. 'I'm O.K., You're O.K.'  does not rest in the beliefs of others...but in personal conviction of the value of common humanity. )

When Michelle Malkin is Right, She’s Right  
reporter Nick Turse 
In June, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that, under pressure to fill the ranks, the Army had been allowing into its ranks increasing numbers of ‘recruits convicted of misdemeanor crimes, according to experts and military records.’ In fact, as the military’s own data indicated, ‘the percentage of recruits entering the Army with waivers for misdemeanors and medical problems has more than doubled since 2001.’
Paula Zahn’s 2007 report on “Gangs in the Military "
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): No one knows for sure just how many gang members are in the military. By some estimations, it’s less than 1 percent of all military personnel, hardly an epidemic, but enough to prompt the FBI to issue this report.

(voice-over): Gang members at military installations from Fort Lewis, Washington, to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, have been involved in drug distribution, robberies, assaults, and murder. According to this 2007 internal FBI document, the report found that gang activity in the U.S. — quote — “is increasing and poses a threat to law enforcement officials and national security.”

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Military men training gangsters on how to use weapons.

GUTIERREZ: An issue law enforcement is taking seriously.

Al Valdez (ph) is a former detective. He trains police around the country on gangs in the military.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It’s not illegal to be a gang member in the United States. And it’s a protected right. In fact, the head of Army Recruitment Command correctly states that. What happens is, they bring that gangster mentality within the military.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When these cats come back from — these gang members come back from Iraq, we are going to have some hell on these streets, because these dudes are coming back with training that’s on another level.

 The Women's Media Center

BlogHer  

Thank You, Mean Internet People, for Making Me Stronger  

Sustainable Architecture and A Bit of Hope for Haiti 

Interviews with 48 Changemakers: 4th Anniversary of the Big Vision Podcast 

Bloglines BlogHer's Feeds 

Blog Carnival  

The Carnival of Feminists  

The Carnival aims to build the profile of feminist blogging, to direct extra traffic to all participating bloggers, but particularly newer bloggers, and to build networks among feminist bloggers around the world.

Britblog Roundup No 261

Forgotten Past
In January the Council proposed that the local studies and archives service, based in the Central Library, Ilford, would become appointment-only and reduce its opening hours from 59 to 25 hours per week. Also, a senior librarian and 2.5 assistants would be made redundant, with the service being run henceforth by only one person.

The furious response from local users of the service prompted a revised proposal, by which the number of opening hours would be increased to 36, with free computer access to some online family research tools being rolled out to local libraries across the borough

In CPAC Meltdown, Breitbart Forced to 'Apologize' for 'Apparently' Lying About ACORN 'Pimp' Story
Tells confused listeners: 'I have to apologize to the nation'

Not A Warrior 

The Latest on Hacking the Planet
The prospect of cooling the planet manually—geoengineering—was the subject of several presentations here today, including two presentations that involved new findings on the controversial idea. The scene was the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceNOW). It turns out that there’s a lot scientists don’t know about various cooling methods, but that’s changing steadily. And researchers are learning lessons that suggest that some techniques may have fewer barriers than previously thought.

But before they got to the sessions, the scientists had to contend with protesters. Outside of the meeting room, a smattering of activists with drums, cameras, and a megaphone spread the message that the government is already performing geoengineering