Mugged by the Pentagon?
By David Mixner
Copyright by David Mixner
Jul 14 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/07/mugged-by-the-pentagon.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Pentagon Can the Pentagon botch their study or review of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" any worse? First you have the horrific and vile survey which is polling troops about all sorts of ways we will try to see them naked. Then comes Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell who suggests segregated quarters then, following the understandable furor, backpedals to say he meant "shower curtains" so we wouldn't be able to see these big tough men's private parts.
Where is the commendation by this administration or even the Defense Department on this insult to the community? Surely those aren't the issues of concern that the Defense Department is worried about! All they have to do is visit with the Defense ministers of most European countries to see that the only change they had to make in their nations was in changing the policy and wiping out any form of discrimination.
This Neo-Amish-like concern about seeing each other's private parts is just childish. Are they afraid we will find out that they are not as endowed as gay men? Oh, wait a minute, we already know that answer since we have been serving with dignity and honor in the United States military for years without incident. This isn't about allowing us to serve. The change in policy is about allowing us to serve with honesty and integrity. Folks, we already are sharing the barracks, defending our brothers and sisters back in the foxholes, healing them as medics and risking our lives, like everyone else, to save others.
Is the Pentagon setting us up for failure next year hoping the House/Senate will turn Republican and DADT will stay in place? This smells so much like the Clinton "Study Period" in 1993 with Georgia Senator Sam Nunn and his "close bunks on ships" routine. This stinks to high heaven and leadership is needed from the White House to stop this insulting line of questioning.
Argentina Passes Marriage Equality and It Is Because of Its President! - Please hear her video!
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Jul 15 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/07/argentina-passes-marriage-equality-and-it-is-because-of-its-president.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Christina President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina powerfully and eloquently came out for marriage equality in Argentina. Guess what? After hours of debate last night, Argentina became the first Latin American nation to make marriage equality the law of the land!
Seems to me that it would be much tougher for President Kirchner politically in heavily Catholic Argentina than for President Obama in the United States.
The Argentina President pulls no punches. She deals with all aspects of the issue publicly and talks to her people why it is necessary. This is a must-watch video and be patient with the translation. I would strongly urge our organizations in Washington to make sure people in the White House. See this video!
Going To The LGBT Promised Land.....
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Jul 19 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/07/going-to-the-lgbt-promised-land.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Let's have some fun and let your imagination run wild for a few minutes.
Think of the possibility of the LGBT community having at least ten United States senators and a definite five new congressional members. Imagine five LGBT governors with both houses of the legislatures controlled by the LGBT community. Think of being able to control state funds to insure that all services are funded by the state. Free your imagination and think of four more states where marriage equality is legal to bring us to a total of nine states. Imagine how we could stop oppressive legislation in the Congress by using the filibuster to protect us!
Now think of the hundred of millions of dollars over the years we have spent fighting our oppression and defeating horror ballot measures. Recall how often we are excluded from state funding for our social services and the money we have to raise to take care of our own.
Now that I have you thinking right, lets take it one step further!
Just finished reading a delightful book called "The Gay State" by Garrett Graham which proposes a 'home-land' for the LGBT community. Now I don't really believe a lot of LGBT folks are going to head to the desert but maybe they might put up with a little plains cold. The book got me thinking and having a little fun. What if we moved to just five states and took them over completely!
Look at the math:
-If we look at the combined states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Vermont, we would only need a grand total of about a million LGBT folks to spread out over these states. If we calculate that 6% of the United States adult population is LGBT than that comes to about 13 million LGBT adults!
-In the last election, in Wyoming only 256,035 voted. Moving to the Dakotas, the North one saw 321,000 voting and the Southern one saw 387,000 people voting. Montana had near 500,000 voting. With Vermont at a grand total of 327,000 voting in 2008!
-The combined eligible voters in all five states comes to 2,721,000.
-The combined registrar voters in those five states comes to 1,787,000.
-For us to have a majority in all five states we would just have to find 893,000 voters to spread out over all five states.
Just think about it! We could create a massive Great Plains Park that would surpass the Serengetti Plains in Africa with massive eco-tourism. We could take care of our elderly like everyone else without fear of discrimination. We could create the best education system for our children. Given our experience with combating HIV/AIDS and fighting for freedom, we could create model states for the nation to behold.
Plus, we could get those ten U.S. senators, five new congresspersons and five new governors. Now isn't this a head trip? Have fun thinking about it. As John Lennon wrote, "Imagine."
Bob Shrum: "Obama Needs A Dose of Ideology"
By David Mixner
Copyright By David Mixner
Jul 19 2010
http://www.davidmixner.com/2010/07/going-to-the-lgbt-promised-land.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DavidMixnerCom+%28DavidMixner.com%29
Shrum In Bob Shrum's The Week column, he speaks of the gap between what the President has achieved since taking office and his rating in the polls. Basically we could call it "The Obama Gap." The entire column is worth reading but here are a couple of excerpts including three points "that demands a more ideological approach.":
First, blaming Bush won’t turn the tide, and not just because the 24-hour news cycle conditions the public to expect instant results (as we’ve seen with the oil spill). The crash came during the twilight of the Bush presidency, so Obama doesn’t have the breathing space of FDR, who came to office after three years of Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression. Americans, who had endured so much for so long, accepted the notion that FDR’s turnaround would take awhile.
Bush should be part of the 2010 narrative, but only within a larger context: He made the wrong decisions because he was on the side of vested interests, not ordinary people who are now paying the price. That highlights where the Republicans still are. It’s a defining difference between the parties. Without it, assailing Bush just sounds like an excuse.
The second flaw in a non-ideological strategy is related to the first. Unless they cast themselves as fighters against powerful forces holding people back, Obama and the Democrats, who are actually changing the country, can too easily be recast as the status quo that deserves to be overthrown. This is not the inevitable price of incumbency, as FDR and Ronald Reagan showed from different ends of the spectrum. In office they remained outsiders, tribunes of grievance and hope, by insistently standing for something larger than a transactional politics. Rather than shying from ideology, they proclaimed it. It was for this reason that one of them could repeatedly and profitably invoke the specter of Herbert Hoover, and the other could do the same with Jimmy Carter.
Third, Obama has to re-energize a discouraged Democratic base, which now appears less likely to vote in November. This requires an appeal to values, not just a comparison of results — because for some time to come, the legislative record, however impressive, will far outpace the results in people’s lives. The Obama voters of 2008 need to see the president and his party fighting not just on issues, but for a cause. Extended unemployment compensation, new measures to create jobs, some form of cap-and-trade, immigration reform, and the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” — Democrats won’t win on most of this, but that shouldn’t be the end of the story.
Shrum concludes in "The Week" column:
... Only he can shift the ground of the election to the true fault line of our politics, turning the country away from the Tea Party’s fake and bitter brew to what the November election can and should be about: Who will fight for you?
If the President and his party do this, they will still lose seats in Congress. But they will hold more of them. Along the way, Obama will also lay the foundations for a re-election in 2012 that stands for something — and leads, as Ronald Reagan’s did after a perilous midterm passage, to a realignment of American politics.
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