Happy International Women's Day

In solidarity with the desperate struggle for freedom and equality waged by women living under Islamic law, I work to have women's programs part of the reconstruction of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, protected by US Military forces and trained indigenous female police units.



Effective organizing is more of a problem than solidarity

Big money has bought the entire system so it is almost impossible to be effective -- for instance, the most pressing feminist problem in the US is still reproductive rights. Women cannot get women's legitimate health care needs reflected in the health care bill --- they exclude abortion from coverage. Somehow the Right/patriarchy keeps winning on this control of women's bodies issue. I think that is because women will not recognize they need to give men reproductive equal rights and make this battle universal.

Think about the black civil rights movement -- once it was over with all the murders and the corruption of the Panthers, how could a subsequent wave organize as a MASS movement ? Is that form of organizing (marching for legislation; illustrating injustice) just over and ineffective? The media having been purchased by our opponents.

The religious right has defined this whole abortion/population control/autonomy struggle with tax exempt money. We need to require the economic playing field be more equal - either religions lose tax exempt status or we get free air time -i.e. The Fairness Doctrine. The right is so afraid of the Fairness Doctrine they always bring it up...because it attacks their their tactic of controlling culture through ownership rights. Let economic attack be the tactic we use this time of movement evolution. Attack on their ownership of all our institutions by attacking their tax subsidies.

Now perhaps blacks and women have to organize as the working class around economic issues such as health care. Or at least start to understand and teach that different economic sectors have competing interests. Some profit from overpopulation and women as baby machines. Women lose and quality of life degrades for those who cannot buy their way clear of such laws. Reconciling those differences to unite in masses large enough to influence policy is the Great Work.

In this country two issues should be primary for feminists because they connect to every other issue.

1.Reproductive rights is one primary issue to focus on as NOW is doing correctly in the health care bill. We must make economic issues the primary educational focus of our reproduction health actions.

2.Second is recognition that women are held as slaves by Islam and that this affects the status of all women. Actions should focus on women's liberation being part of the State Dept.'s reconstruction of Afghanistan/Iraq, funded by the US and secured by our armed forces. Organizing actions should focus on implementing the International Violence Against Women Act.

Do NOT work for passage of bills related to the UN and women's rights as NOW is doing. This means the US grants the UN money to do what the US should be doing. US women cannot control the UN. It has seriously misused money in the Trust Fund for Domestic Violence. US women cannot influence or audit the UN and free of oversight, they will steal and misuse funds as they did the oil for food money. These are funds that the US would use to reduce violence to women globally. We must keep our feminist foreign aid money right here in the US state Dept where US feminists have some control over how the money is spent.