Posts under ‘Rights’

(Image courtesy of digado)

As many of you may already know, I have recently launched a community, collaborative blog: sexgenderbody.com. In the last couple months, my content here had become a bit too higgledy-piggledy even for myself. I found that I had a great deal to say on personal politics, the politics of self-definition. This is not a conflict with the conversations I have been having here in the realm of Politics with a capital P, the politics of institutions and society at large or simply – groups.

During the Reagan years, I dated a woman that had two children from a previous marriage. They adopted a cat and went through this lengthy process of naming the animal. I really didn’t want to get involved, so I figured that I would offer a suggestion so bad that they’d just leave me alone.

“How about Separation of Church and State” I said.

Crickets.

This week, I attended another screening at Clarisse Thorn’s Sex+++ Film Series at Jane Addams’ Hull House in Chicago. Two documentary films were featured. The first one, “Sex, Disability & Videotape” (Beyondmedia Education) was about women from age 16 -24 with disabilities claiming and exploring their self image, self worth and sexuality. The second feature, “Orgasmic Women” (Marianna Beck) is a film of 13 women interviewed about masturbation, with demonstrations.

Do you write about any of these issues and communities?

LGBT
TS/TG/TV
FETISH
SEX WORK
POLYAMORY
SWING
BDSM
TRANSHUMAN

Do you work with these communities as an advocate or ally and would like to write?  Would you like to make an impact across your own affected community and reach out to other SGB communities?  Would you like to help bridge the gap between all SGB identities to increase understanding, acceptance, rights and respect?

A new collaborative community blog is being launched that will bring these communities, individuals and issues together in frank, open discussion.  Contributions will come from anyone that wants to post at the site, cross-posters from other blogs active in a community and featured writers.

We are looking for Feature Authors for this site from among the following:

ESTABLISHED BLOGGERS
ADVOCACY AND RIGHTS WRITERS / BLOGGERS
PUBLISHED SGB AUTHORS
SGB JOURNALISTS

Interested parties please contact admin @ sexgenderbody.com with the following:
NAME
EMAIL / IM / TWITTER
PHONE
SGB ISSUE OR COMMUNITY OF YOUR FOCUS
BLOG ADDRESS
WRITING SAMPLE

The site is scheduled to begin in May 2009.  The selection of Feature Authors will be completed by April 15.

Thank you

I was 12 or 13 years old, back in ‘72 or ‘73. It was summer. I played outside with my friends and did whatever young boys do, with time on their hands and no supervision. My friend Bob and I were outside goofing around. We ran into Jimmy, a man that lived in the neighborhood. He was tall, thin, had a mustache and long hair, in his late 20’s or early 30’s. He often said hello to me as he walked by. Bob and I saw him and we got to talking. There was a forest preserve across the street from my house, where I often played. As we walked along talking, we entered the woods. I had no reason to be suspicious. I was always in those woods.

This week, I attended Clarisse Thorn’s Sex+++ Film Series at Hull House in Chicago. This feature was a film on polyamory, entitled: When Two Won’t Do. The film is a documentary created by two people exploring polyamory for themselves. There was a discussion group afterward. The response to this film series has been overwhelming and Tuesday was no exception, with upwards of 70 people crammed into a room that expected maybe 40.

… could become as important a journalistic tool as the Freedom of Information Act.
- Time Magazine

Wikileaks is the world’s #1 resource for publishing secret documents that are in the interest of public good. This site is a colossal pain in the ass for corporate criminals, corrupt governments, tax cheats and anyone out to abuse the general public. The site allows anyone in the world to submit secret documents anonymously so that the whole world can know what the criminals don’t want you to know. Whistleblowers and people of conscience who come across powerful secret information are able to make it public through Wikileaks. It is the only site of its kind.

According to this well written piece from David Porter, also carried at HuffPo – US Army General David Petraeus is working to override US President Barack Obama.  

CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.

But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen that he wasn’t convinced and that he wanted Gates and the military leaders to come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan, according to two sources who have talked with participants in the meeting.

Obama’s decision to override Petraeus’s recommendation has not ended the conflict between the president and senior military officers over troop withdrawal, however. There are indications that Petraeus and his allies in the military and the Pentagon, including Gen. Ray Odierno, now the top commander in Iraq, have already begun to try to pressure Obama to change his withdrawal policy.

Taking a cue from so many conversations going on across the blogosphere, I am discussing the prosecution of George Bush. 

The world knows what he did.  The American people know what he did.  We have a choice.  We can demand justice.  We can defend ourselves from enemies to The Constitution, both foreign and domestic.  It will not happen if we do not.  The overwhelming call to action at change.gov was for the prosecution of criminal behaviour from the White House. 

George Bush is what we got for pardoning Nixon.  Nixon was a megalomaniac whose paranoia was his undoing.  Bush is much worse: a mouthpiece for the corruption of power amassed in Oil & Defense industry executive suites.  But, the motivations for breaking the law of the land from the highest office are not important.  What is of utmost importance is this: precedent.  In this specific instance, the precedent of breaking the law of the land from the highest office.  It is the path to dictatorship. 

(Image courtesy of Wikileaks)

This bulletin just came in from Wikileaks:

Wikileaks has released over 600 United Nations investigative reports, over 70 of which are classified. The reports expose sensitive matters from allegations of hundreds of European peace-keepers sexually abusing–and impregnating–refugee girls, to generals in Peru using Swiss bank accounts to engage in multi-million dollar procurement fraud.

A number of the reports have not only been marked "Strictly Confidential" but as an additional measure have had selected regions redacted before before internal distribution. Often these redacted regions can be "unredacted" by simply "cut and pasting" the blanked area. On the description page for each report, where possible, Wikileaks has provided a simple text version of the report that includes the redacted portions.

Since the number of reports is subtantial we ask that journalists, bloggers and other investigators take responsibility for those those reports closest to the month and day of their date of birth before considering the material at large.

They are looking for help from journalists and the blogosphere to help pore through this info, to further expose what the UN already knows and is hiding concerning the crimes of its own forces.  Here is a partial list of the items investigated:

• rape
• forced impregnation
• embezzlement
• extortion
• illegal weapons and ammunition dealing
• racketeering
• kickbacks
• fraud
• theft of food rations

Lest we forget that Bush & Cheney are not the only violators of human rights and public trust; there is a whole world of liars, thieves, rapists and murderers operating from the organizations that we ask to protect us from these crimes.  Someone stuck their neck out and did the right thing by exposing this information.  Let’s not waste that good effort.

If you have time and the will to help, you can start here.  The list of information is overwhelming.  Please help.

- gadfly