Politics

I must be psychic, because Bush is on TV announcing his support for the Constitutional Amendment to Ban Equal Marriage Rights right now.
If you vote Republican this election, you will no longer be a part of my life. I’m not kidding; if you truly don’t believe I should be able to get married, then you’re a toxic person, and my life is difficult enough without you contributing such a hostile and vicious belief into it.

I’ve never been a single issue voter. I’ve always been a democrat, but I don’t pick candidates based on particular issues; rather on their whole record on a variety of subjects, from the environment, to taxes, to foreign policy, to education, to gay civil rights, to corporate responsibility.
That’s changing with this election. Because the Equal Marriage Rights issue is becoming a defining issue of this campaign, and it’s becoming a defining issue for me. It’s becoming clear that a constitutional amendment banning me from getting married is a serious possibility, and frankly, something that directly affects me so directly, personally, and deeply is something that gets priority.
I never imagined that I would be able to get legally married in my lifetime. That’s always been a pipe dream for me; something I thought I should fight for for the sake of my children, but something I never thought I’d have the opportunity to achieve. Strangely, that seems to be something within reach now. And something in serious danger.
Quite simply, voting for Bush and for Republicans who will push through an amendment is a vote against me being able to get married. To my family and friends — of course it’s your decision who you vote for. But your vote will directly affect me in a way it will probably never affect you. And if you love me, you’ll think about that when you vote this fall. Because I will certainly be thinking about that, and about our relationship, when you go in to vote.

This weeks list, courtesy of Democratic Underground.

V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls. V-Day is a palpable energy, a fierce catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money, and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop worldwide violence against women and girls including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sexual slavery. V-Day provides funding to create and nurture innovative programs to stop the violence.

Salon has a massive, detailed article on the government’s efforts to spy on anti-war and anti-Bush activists under the guise of the Patriot Act. It covers in depth the scandal of government spying at Drake University (my father’s alma mater) that recently occurred, as well as accounts of other government infiltration of non-violent and anti-war protests around the country.

Amendment 1, Bill of Rights:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Apparently, the above is no longer valid:

DES MOINES, Iowa — In what may be the first subpoena of its kind in decades, a federal judge has ordered a university to turn over records about a gathering of anti-war activists.
In addition to the subpoena of Drake University, subpoenas were served this past week on four of the activists who attended a Nov. 15 forum at the school, ordering them to appear before a grand jury Tuesday, the protesters said.
Federal prosecutors refuse to comment on the subpoenas.
In addition to records about who attended the forum, the subpoena orders the university to divulge all records relating to the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a New York-based legal activist organization that sponsored the forum.

And more on this:

Yesterday, February 3, Detective Jeff Warford of the Polk County Sheriff’s Office-FBI-Joint Terrorism Task Force came to Catholic Peace Ministry’s office here in Des Moines with a subpoena for me to testify before a Federal Grand Jury next Tuesday, February 10. �Mr. Warford also served papers on Elton Davis at the Catholic Worker House and Patti McKee, who was coordinator of Iowa Peace Network until last month. The Grand Jury process is shrouded in secrecy. We do not know who or what the object of this investigation may be, beyond “possible violations of federal criminal law in the Southern District of Iowa.”
The proceeding will be behind closed doors. We may not have an attorney present. We have the right to plead the Fifth Amendment, refusing the answer questions that might incriminate us. �The government, then, can offer us immunity from prosecution, in which case we will obliged to answer under threat of contempt of court and could be imprisoned for the length of the Grand Jury session, 18 months, should we continue to refuse to answer. This immunity would be limited to our own testimony and anything any of us say could be used against the others.
Whatever is going on, this is definitely an escalation on the part of the government’s war on dissent and clamp down on civil liberties. �The fact that anything that we three and the peacemaking communities we represent could possibly attract the notice of a “Terrorism Task Force” is reprehensible. Please spread the word, express concerns you have with Federal and Polk County authorities. Keep us in mind and prayer.
Brian Terrell
Executive Director
Catholic Peace Ministry

I guess I can get behind Kerry, but Dean is the only one who I knew wouldn’t completely sell equal marriage rights down the river, and Kerry and Edwards will definitely do it to keep it from being a campaign issue.

One-time Republican hero Kevin Phillips dares to speak up against the Walker-Bush oligarchy that rules the American state through oil, intelligence, big money and the power of the Christian right in his new book: American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush. It should be noted that Phillips is not a Democrat — just a Republican who is unhappy with the current administration.

“Ideological terrorists offer up no clear view of the world they are trying to create. They speak vaguely about bringing people into some new relationship with one another but never tell us what that relationship might be. Their goal is destruction, not creation. To the extent they are Marxists, this vagueness is hardly surprising, since Marx himself never described the world he hoped to create, except with a few glittering but empty generalities.”

Interesting article.