Posts under ‘women's rights’

Is the United States of America is the world’s largest dealer of illegal drugs?  What about the world’s largest gun runner?  For years our government has used the CIA, NSA & other super-secret ‘intelligence’ agencies to cultivate drug harvest and distribution in SE Asia and Afghanistan.  We offer ‘aid’ and ‘trade’ to countries in the forms of weapons and ammunition.  The drugs come home to the US to poison and kill our own population.  The weapons we sell are used either against us directly by people to kill others, who then seek to kill Americans.  Did the founding fathers envision a country that would become the world’s largest debtor and blood merchant?

(Image courtesy of thinkvegan.net)

Sexism is the ‘gateway ‘ism”, that makes all other ‘isms’ possible.  It precedes all other forms of discrimination, setting the example that there are some people that view others as inferior and they use brutality upon them.  What I mean by that is that because our family and society models are built around the model of inequality, injustice and brutality - we accept that behavior as normal.  So, too is racism, classism, speciesism and any other oppression by one group toward another.  The behaviors of sexism are the behaviors of bullying, injustice, intolerance and cruelty.

(Image courtesy of indiesocial.com)

I walked onto the train platform in downtown Chicago today.  A woman had just finished shopping at Macy’s and had several red shopping bags.  She was trying to put everything into one bag.  The wind picked up and blew some of the empty bags down the platform.  I took off running and stopped them from blowing out onto the street. 

Then, she yells to me that: "It’s OK!  They’re empty."  Then she sits down and waits for the train with her two bags full of stuff.  The 5 empty big red bags are just out there on the platform and she makes no effort to pick them up.  I told her that I didn’t want litter for a Christmas present, picked them all up and threw them in the trash (no recycling on CTA platforms…dammit!).

Image courtesy of cesr.org

This post begins a series to recognize people that speak about the world in terms of what they observe and what they can prove.  Their voices stand out in the crowd.  In their words, they speak not of fantasy, delusion and rationalization.  Instead, they utilize the gifts of human cognition, awareness to observe what is here in the world around us.  They are not dogmatic, but analytic and take in the world ‘warts & all’ for what it is and what it is not.  They do not separate humankind from nature in any form of grandeur.  In short, they look at things the way they really are and not what we would have them be.

Every morning on my walk to the bus, I pass the windows of a shop called Bazar.  They sell imports, womens’ clothing, shoes, etc.  I often look at the dresses on display with an eye for something my wife would like me to surprise her with.  They often have some posters for bands or performances that I assume the owner fancies. 

However, in addition to their normal offerings for eye-candy, they offered something to reflect Barack Obama’s election.  Entitled "a historic night"; it was several large swaths of white paper hanging in the windows.  The hangings, read from left to right were one-line capsules of events, ideas, statements and thoughts from the beginning of the campaign up to election night. 

Hi everybody! 

Did you know that today is International Anti-Corruption Day?  I sure as hell did not (but I do now).  Just in case you forgot, corruption occurs when people pay money in a secret deal, in order to break the law…so they can make a lot more money.

Why don’t we look at how the world celebrated this wonderful new holiday.  Maybe we can even see some real corruption in action.  Wow!  This is so much fun.

Religious institutions have been attacking the Constitution and the people of the United States long enough.  I don’t want their money, but it is the only way to get their goddamn mitts off of my government.

Hit ‘em where it hurts!  Tax the power hungry bastards.  They cannot stop themselves and it’s up to the rest of us to do it.  Believe me, if they had to pay taxes in order to infiltrate government and tell the rest of us what to do:

• They would leave Washington and state capitals overnight.
• They would stop funding anti-gay legislation.
• We would not hear about Intelligent Design.
• They would stop trying to force regulation of women’s bodies.

These mega-churches, the LDS, Focus on Family, Pat Robertson and other charlatans would clam up in a hurry if they had to pay taxes.

The larger, politically active religions would face pressure from smaller churches and other religions that do not interfere with the lives of others.  They would ask for a separate status for their churches, but I suggest that we lump them all together.

The new rule is: even if you talk about God, you pay taxes.  That’ll stop them dead in their tracks.  Because, no matter what they tell you on Sunday…it’s all about the ‘benjamins’.

The extra benefit for the taxpayer - we can regulate them into a living hell.

bwahahahahaha….

-gadfly

In an article entitled “Equal share in land, property for women urged” by Sikander Shaheen in The Nation (Pakistan) details a campaign by ActionAid within Pakistan, urging equal property rights for women. (ActionAid is an international anti-poverty organization that has been in operation for over 30 years.)