Feminist Activists's topics - tribe.net

McCain has no opinion

lori — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:36:24 GMT

on whether insurance companies should fund birth control.

Check out this video:

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/mccain_respect_contraception/?r=922&id=574-180300-Rj_GA4x

and sign the petition.

Yes to viagra but no to birth control??? What kind of insanity is that?

posted in Feminist Activists - 4 replies

Emily's List

lori — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:50:07 GMT

http://www.emilyslist.org/

Is anyone else on their list?

posted in Feminist Activists - 3 replies

160th Anniversary of Seneca Falls Protest

ammanaga — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:49:23 GMT

http://july19action.blogspot.com/

If you attended a gathering, tell us about it!

posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies

Democrats on the Slippery Slope

ammanaga — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:58:30 GMT

Unborn for Obama:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/UnbornforObama

Looks like we have two pro-life candie dates this year, ladies.

posted in Feminist Activists - 2 replies

Glass Slipper, Meet Glass Ceiling: A Year Women Won't Soon Forget

ammanaga — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:24:27 GMT

This is a quite well written editorial piece, that ties together the current societal experiences of women... younger and older:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/21/IN9B11A2MT.DTL&type=politics

""Yet "Sex" is more than a high-ticket shopping spree. In their love lives, Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte all know that the Cinderella myth never comes completely true and that their emotions will usually betray them. They aren't happy with that, but they've sure learned how to cope. Their real power is in the safety net they altruistically provide for each other throughout all the missteps and tragedies.

More realistically, or at least seemingly so, traditional feminists tend to be armed with age and experience and sturdier shoes. They've been aiming for a bigger prize of elective and executive power much of their lives. They are determined to finally smash that barrier to the nation's highest office, for all it represents. They are the ones who laid the difficult groundwork for many of the workplace and lifestyle benefits that enable the younger, nontraditional types to go for the glass slipper instead.""

I haven't seen the "glass slipper" movie yet. But I have seen the "glass ceiling" Democratic Primary. And, damn... I really thought women were doing better than this in 2008.

Alas....

"" (Our) rage is particularly acute when discussing both mainstream and "progressive" media. Traditional feminists expected sexist attacks from the right, but not alleged lefty Chris Matthews saying that Hillary would never have been elected to the Senate had her husband not cheated.

The wound is opened anew when one of the most well-known exemplars of mainstream television suddenly dies and is revered as a "colossus" of journalism. This is the same man, the late Tim Russert, who chuckled benevolently when one of his guests, Christopher Hitchens on "Meet the Press," repeatedly called Hillary Clinton a "bitch." This is the same news icon who was satirized on "Saturday Night Live" as pitching softballs to Barack Obama and double whammy corkscrew change-ups to Hillary when he moderated a nationally televised debate. Women won't forgive him, even as he's laid to rest.""

Back to the drawing board, I guess. Cuz the patriarchy is not really interested in the liberation of women. Not even, and maybe particularly not, the "progressive" patriarchy. <sigh>

Of course.... there's really no such thing as "progressive patriarchy." Is there? Maybe that is what makes this particular wake-up call all the more painful...... and unforgetable. The loss of allies is never easy.

Amma

PS. This totally fascinates me: http://www.hireheels.com/ Because I really didn't think there were THAT many twenty or thirty somethings pulling for Hillary. But, there you have it: the crossection of "Sex in The City" with the Dem Primary.

posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies

Not So Fast Gloria.... Hoist that Lever!

ammanaga — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:57:27 GMT

Hillary was barely cold in her political grave before the elite mothers of the feminist movement began to promise our allegiance to her rivals:

[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/us/politics/07women.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&fta=y&adxnnlx=1213607696-taqfeMiKaXS9yyyKKfQ[/url]

"“I don’t know any Hillary or feminist supporter who isn’t going to support Obama,” said Gloria Steinem, adding, however, that a stray few may write in Mrs. Clinton’s name on the November ballot. The question, Ms. Steinem said, is the degree of support these followers will offer Mr. Obama, whether they will merely pull levers for him or apply some of the vast energy and generosity they did for Mrs. Clinton.""

WHOA! HOLD UP, GLORIA!! THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!! .....

This is BRILLIANT:
[url]http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/2008/06/12/archimedes-lever/[/url]

"What’s interesting, though, is that many of my sister feminists — the prominent pundit types, not the regular Jane Doe types — haven’t yet grasped the import of what’s happening. Even some of those who supported Hillary are now heard to quietly mutter that it’s time to “unite the party.” They don’t recognize the great big lever in front of us because, well, we’ve never had a great big lever in front of us. We’ve talked about leverage for years, yearned for it, but never had it. Most of us have spent our entire political lives being taken for granted. We’re so used to voting Democrat no matter what that it’s become almost second nature." YES ARE GONNA HAVE TO TAKE TO THE STREET.

LOOKS LIKE IT'S UP TO JANE DOE NOW....

posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies

Helping African girls with Glad Rags

miss_drea_cakes — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:52:54 GMT

Hi all,
I wanted to pass this along. You may have seen the commerical promoting the Kotex campaign to send dispoable mentrual pads to poor African girls so they can attend school. My first thought when I saw this ad was that they shouldn't be sending disposable products to people in rural Africa who can't dispose of them properly. I thought it would be better if they sent them reusable cloth pads... And I just found out that Gladrags agrees:
http://www.gladrags.com/goods-girls-p-172.html
I think it's an awesome cause, so I thought I'd share.
cheers!

posted in Feminist Activists - 2 replies

Check out the new pro-feminist “Cool Earth Party” tribe

steveargue2 — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:00:14 GMT

The Democrats and Republicans are the paid agents of the oil, armament, and insurance industries. Their continued rule of America will assure a future of more imperialist war, a healthcare system that doesn't work, and no meaningful action on global warming (the single biggest threat to the future of humanity and a healthy planet).

The Cool Earth Party is being established on the principles of revolutionary democratic socialism. We call for an end to the dictatorial power of the wealthy through the nationalization of major industries and for the establishment of a planned economy run to meet human and environmental needs. This socialist society must be established within the framework of full democratic freedoms and multi-party proportional democracy. To be truly Democratic all parties running in elections will be legally guaranteed equal time in the media, big campaign spending will be outlawed, and electronic voting machines (which are presently used to rig American elections) will be eliminated.

Upon taking power the Cool Earth Party will establish a system of socialized medicine for the United States, end all U.S. military occupations of other countries, end U.S. military aid to repressive governments, and nationalize the auto and energy industries to carry out immediate emergency measures to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

posted in Feminist Activists - 1 reply

Pro Life is Anti-Woman - George Carlin

steveargue2 — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 17:30:05 GMT

Pro Life is Anti-Woman - George Carlin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrXvDXVhqfU&feature=related

posted in Feminist Activists - 2 replies

Working Women Organization of Pakistan

steveargue2 — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:11:22 GMT

Working Women Organization of Pakistan
APPEAL

We Want Peace

This year, March 8th, International Women's Day. takes place in a world where the flames of war are rising all over the world:

We have heard the statements threatening the Chavez government of Venezuela, of war, because it does not accept the orders of imperialism.

We have all seen the terrible pictures of Palestinian women and children running under the fire of missiles and bombs provided by U.S. imperialism and fired by the armed forces of the Israeli state.

Those terrible scenes are the same as those of people of Afghanistan whose villages have been burned and reduced to rubble by the U.S. air force because they were charged with "hiding terrorists."

Military occupation of Afghanistan has now been going on for 6 years and it only brings along with it never-ending destruction and war. That war is now spreading into Pakistan.

To spread the flame of war, imperialism is attempting to break up our countries to sow the seeds of hatred and fear between people who want to live together in peace and making use of differences of language, religion and gender. We, the women are those who suffer first and most from the situation created by imperialism and which is prevailing in all our countries.

On the occasion of the 8th of March, it is time to launch an Appeal of Women against War for Peace, for peaceful and friendly relations between all the peoples and the nations of our area. We want peace.

It is a woman's appeal, because women have always stood in the first line of the struggle against wars.

We women are the first victims of so-called "ethnic cleansing' of massacres under cover of religion.

We women are opposed to wars, to the waste of human lives sacrificed to imperialist greed: these lives are those of their sons and daughters, of their fathers, their brothers and their husbands.

Let's unite because we want peace, we want to live peacefully, to live in conditions where our children are fed and can be educated, in conditions where we are no longer facing violence and harm on a daily basis because we are women.

We women know that the domestic civil repression is intrinsically linked to the violence of war.

We are aware that the situation of women in our countries exists in the larger context of the global history of our continent, of colonisation and its consequences: partition, displacement, forced migrations and expulsions, all elements which imperialism uses today.

And we know that wars can only worsen that situation.

We need peace, we know it can be safeguarded only by the united action of all the peoples of our sub-continent.

That is why we are resisting against the moves of imperialism to gain strategic influence in our area to control our natural resources, not the least of which is oil.

That is why we fight against the plans of the IMF and the World Bank which aggravate the poverty and misery in each of our countries and create the conditions which allow war, conflicts and barbarism to develop. In fact, terror roams the world in many guises and is perpetrated under various banners, but the root of evil, of war and misery is imperialist domination, a system ready to crush millions of lives for the sake of profit.

As working class activists from all the sub-continent stated at the end of the Mumbai conference for a "fraternal alliance of the peoples and the organisations of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, for peace and unity of the people.":

"War, occupation, military presence are used to aggravate in each and every country the conditions of the working class, to attack its rights, to intensify its exploitation.

"Workers of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, have the same interests. ...

"Imperialism today is everywhere fostering conflicts on so-called ethnic or religious basis. But in the class struggle, the workers are united. Those who have organised the partition, to weaken the people at the time of independence, today intend to aggravate chaos and division."

That holds true for women. Women are in the first line of the victims of that system.

We call upon women in India, in Pakistan, in Bangladesh, in Sri Lanka, in Nepal, irrespective of their creed, of their language, of their geographical location to unite, to say together: We want peace, we want democracy, we want equality.

We can be at the vanguard of the struggle of the people of our sub-continent so that instead of wars, conflicts, we build together a friendly and peaceful alliance of all the oppressed and exploited who share the same interests.

We, women, will continue to fight in defence of our rights.

We calls upon all women militants of the world to act jointly with men inside trade unions, to resist the capitalist globalisation, the imperialist wars and the destruction of the environment and to demand trade union and democratic freedoms.

We women, on the occasion of March 8th 2008, International Women's Day, state our determination to fight against war, against all attempts to divide us, on the basis of "ethnicity", religion or language. We stand against war for the unity of our people, for democracy and for equal rights.

Rubina Jamil,
Working Women Organisation

----------

I wish to endorse the appeal

"South Asian Women Against War, for Peace, for Unity of all the People of our Sub-continent, for Democracy, for Equality of Rights.

Name:

Organization Name:

Address:

Town:

Country:

Email:

Tel:

Cell Phone:

Fax:

WWO
93 A Nawab Town,
Raiwind Road,
Lahore, Pakistan
Tel: 5311319-5313906 Fax: 92-42-5314365
Email: rubinawwo@nexlinx.net.pk

posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies

Conspiracy History compilation DVDs torrents

History — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:45:42 GMT

**************************************************

Greetings to all my relations.

This is the last step of our project History Watch. If History is
defined and known by the texts, we can now add to this definition the
recorded events of the filmed archives. Animated images are harder to
deny than printed words. Our objective is to spread out freely some of
the little broadcast, even hidden informations about our collective
History.

We put online a collection of 391 documentaries and other selected and
recut videos, to offer to a wide public the best of the infos
available on the net in english and in french. If you are interested,
you have the time, the right equipment and connection, all you have to
do is open the joint document and decompress it if needed (but normaly
your system should do it automaticaly). You'll find therein nine links
that will open the torrents for the nine DVDs we compiled (around 4.6
Gig each, for a total of a little over 41 G, being over 100 hours of
videos).

Otherwise, you can go directly to btjunkie.com and search for these titles.

11 Septembre 2001 - 9-11
Bush family & friends
Capitalist & Communist regimes
Capitalist conspiracy
Mind Kontrol - Secret Programs
New World Order - Secret Societies
Secret services - cover up - covert ops
Secret weapons - UFO
Terrorism Theories propaganda

Torrents are a system of peer to peer data transfer. The more people
download a torrent, the faster it spreads and the longer it stays on
the net. If you don't have a bittorrent software, we suggest that you
download uTorrent on utorrent.com. If you want to participate in
facilitating the diffusion of these infos about our collective
History, download these torrents on as many computers as possible,
whether it is in cybercafes. It takes one or two minutes to open up
the links and the downloading will keep proceeding on its own.

Please spread this out, take part in this action for social education
on a planetary scale. Thanks.

For more info: watch.history@gmail.com History Watch

posted in Feminist Activists - 1 reply

Fraud Alert regarding North Coast Earth First! Aka NCEF! Media. Completely independent from any activist group!

White Rabbit — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:18:50 GMT

16 views since posting on Sunday, December 2, 2007
Location California

enlarge photo
NCEF! Media in Humboldt County Ca.(AKA NORTH COAST EARTH FIRST!), is accused of fraud and donation embezzlement. Caution! Do not support this lone wingnut's scam! Active and legitamate groups exist in the area. Caution! Do not be fooled by NCEF! Media and his fraudulent outreach. Shunka Wakan exists completely seperate from any active affinity group.

Read about how he perpetuated a lawsuit under the guise of EF! against a legitimate environmental nonprofit:

From: northcoastjournal.com/100407/...004.html

October 4, 2007

"Money On Trees"

Big cash nearly fell into Shunka Wakan's lap. Other Earth First!ers are kinda happy it didn't.

by Heidi Walters

As the jury trial for the civil suit Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation puttered to a start last week inside Courtroom 3 at the Humboldt County Courthouse, Shunka Wakan — a key witness for the plaintiff — spent mornings sitting on the hard wooden benches in the long hallway outside the courtroom. During breaks, Miller's attorney Linda Mitlyng, would come out of the courtroom to join him. But otherwise, as other people and their legal affairs swirled around him in a warm, odiferous bath of humanity, Shunka sat alone. Or, sometimes, he stood alone, straight-spined, his small, stocky body swallowed by the huge, stiff blue suit out of which his newly shorn, razor-scraped bald head poked vulnerably — as if, at any moment, the suit could gulp once more and he'd disappear completely. Always, he clutched a paper folder with a wolf's face on its cover.

The North Coast Earth First! Media guru had shaved off his woolly rust-tinged brown hair and beard the night before jury selection started, after discussing it with attorney Mitlyng. Now, it took an uncertain moment to recognize him. Then, of course: Shunka's light blue eyes in the pink-pale face, Shunka's closed-lip smile, Shunka's trademark husky murmur, "Mm-hmm, for sure," in response to a comment.

In Courtroom 3, the amiable but no-nonsense Judge Christopher Wilson's domain, the fate of a $185,000 donation dangled. Would the plaintiff, donor Kathryn Miller, prevail in her claim that the defendant, the Trees Foundation, was not in fact the intended recipient of her generous gift? That Shunka Wakan's NCEF! Media Center and the treesitters were? Or would the Trees Foundation convince the jury that, in fact, the money was intended all along for Trees, with no instructions attached for funneling it elsewhere?

Richard Idell, left, who is defending the Trees Foundation against a lawsuit filed by Kathryn Miller, confers with Doug Wallace, community support coordinator for Trees. Photo by David Lawlor.

In her opening arguments, Miller's attorney, Mitlyng, said the case came down to "fraud and broken promises." "She believed [Trees] would hold [the money] in trust, for the benefit of North Coast Earth First!" said Mitlyng. The defense's attorney, Richard Idell, countered in his opening argument that the donation was an unconditional gift and Miller never wrote letters of instruction — as Miller claims she did. "Ms. Miller ... didn't do anything. She took the check [from her mother's estate] and flipped it over and wrote on the back, 'Payable to the Trees Foundation,'" said Idell.

Miller's claim sought the return of her $185,000, plus interest.

Out in the hallway, Shunka waited to tell his side of the story. Maybe he thought about the magical donation that never materialized, and now probably never would. Maybe he thought about the other times he'd been in this courthouse — dozens of times, along with other activists, often before Judge Wilson, answering to charges of trespassing and other forms of civil disobedience in the woods. Likely, he wondered when they were finally going to call him in to testify — it was taking forever in there. He'd even sent out an e-mail prematurely to the several hundred subscribers to his NCEF! online group erroneously announcing he would be first up to testify.

By the end of Friday's court session, Miller was still on the stand. Perhaps Monday it would be Shunka's turn. Whenever it was, he would be testifying on Miller's behalf; but he wasn't a party to the lawsuit. And in the end, after hearing all of the evidence, the jury would be determining who was telling the truth about intentions and letters of instructions. Shunka was just there to provide context and evidence in a contract dispute.

But to a number of forest activists, including a half dozen or so who appeared in the audience last Friday to watch the trial unfold, that context matters more to them than the legal questions. They say this lawsuit has placed a strain on the environmental community that could do as much damage as an ill-felled redwood that takes down other giants in its descent. They disapprove of the lawsuit, and they blame Shunka for it. And, they say, it's just another example of how Shunka has commandeered the North Coast Earth First! identity and used it for purposes that nobody else in the amorphous but consensus-driven local Earth First! movement has agreed to.

"For a lot of us, when we read about the lawsuit, this is kind of like Shunka on trial," said long-time forest activist Deane Rimerman last Friday, calling from Olympia, Wash. "And, to what extent is he worthy of that money?"

Kathryn Miller wanted her money to go toward saving trees, she said on the witness stand last Thursday. The slender 59-year-old was dressed in a pink print skirt and white sweater, with her gray-streaked dark hair pulled back into a neat, thin braid tinted slightly green. (Little did the jury know that Miller had spent the night in jail, in blue jail duds, and then had been "dressed out," in court lingo, in her street clothes before being escorted into the court by the bailiff. Miller had been arrested the week before, on Sept. 17, when she arrived in civil court for the pre-trial readiness hearing; according to the misdemeanor criminal charges filed against her, Miller allegedly had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation all hours of the day and night.)

On the stand, Miller described how she became an activist. She remembered how, when she was a child in Orinda, her mother decided to stop spraying the beautiful oak trees on their property after reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. "And then, when my son was 9, we were watching the news on TV about the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown. And my son said to me, 'I wish I'd never been born. I don't think I'll get to live a full life.'"

She protested the building of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. She started a peace action group in the late 1980s in San Jose. She did nonviolent protests at the Nevada Test Site. And in 1990, she came up with some of her fellow protestors to help set up the camp for Redwood Summer, and to take part in demonstrations. She's been on and off involved in Earth First! actions in Humboldt ever since, she said, including huffing in supplies for treesitters and huffing out their garbage. She'd also, at one point, bought a condo in Arcata.

In 2004, Miller sold her condo and bought an acre of farmland, already planted with coffee, in Guatemala. She put in fruit trees to shade the coffee. That same year, her mother, who lived in Sonoma, died. "The last time I saw her was in 2003," said Miller. "She told me when she died, she was going to leave me some money. I told her I'd use it to further my work for the forest. And she was pleased, because she loved the treesitters and the forest."

Shortly after learning of her mother's death, Kathryn Miller sought out Shunka Wakan in front of the food co-op in Arcata, where he "tabled" to raise funds for the North Coast Earth First! Media office — selling T-shirts, and stickers, offering pamphlets, accepting donations. She'd known Shunka for about five years, she said.

"I said to him, I was going to inherit some money: What was the best way to get that to the North Coast Earth First!?"

In the spring of 2005, Shunka Wakan was floating above the treetops. "I was so excited," the 32-year-old said in an interview a few weeks ago, sitting inside his tiny but colorful North Coast Earth First! Media office in Arcata, walls covered in art and topo maps — including one of Buckeye Mountain, where in 2000-2001, during the "Mattole Free State" action, Shunka and others hiked 14 miles through waist-high snowdrifts to save trees.

Kathryn Miller, he recalled, had come up to him excitedly as he walked along the sidewalk outside the Arcata Co-op and said, "I just donated $185,000 to North Coast Earth First!'"

She'd talked to him the year before about making the donation — she'd said she was anticipating an inheritance from her mother's estate, and she wanted to make a big donation to his group. He'd told her to make it through the Trees Foundation, which handled the NCEF! Media office's finances through an arrangement that had been established years ago. (The Trees Foundation is an umbrella organization formed in 1991 to assist smaller environmental groups. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, it can accept large, tax-deductible donations on behalf of affiliates, and provide professional resources. And it can lead large campaigns, like the one to save the Headwaters Forest back in the '90s.)

Well, now she'd finally done it.

Miller and Shunka agreed to meet at Fiesta Café in Sunny Brae, so she could tell him how she wanted the money spent: She wanted, straight away, for someone to organize a mediated workshop for the local Earth First! activists on ageism and sexism, issues she thought were fracturing the movement. And, she wanted the bulk of the donation to help support the forest activists who blockade logging roads and hunker up in ancient redwoods to fend off loggers' saws.

Not long after, Shunka was on his way to have lunch with some folks from the Trees Foundation, where they'd talk about Miller's wishes.

"Our media outreach was going to get a big boost," Shunka said. "The donation would keep the EF! office going for many years. So I walked into the Wildflower Café feeling elated, thinking we got all this money."

Barbara Ristow and Doug Wallace of the Trees Foundation were there. "I was super excited," Shunka said, "and I said, 'This is great, this big donation. Isn't it wonderful?' We ordered food, and still I'm all excited, talking about the money, but I notice they're looking nervously at each other. [Finally], they said, 'Well, we're just shocked that you think this money was for you.' And I was like, 'I just met with the donor, and that's what she said.' And they're like, 'Well, let's go ahead and plan the workshop and deal with that later.' I remember that, because it put me at ease."

After that, Shunka said he gave Trees a list of people he thought might benefit from the mediator-run workshop. "Some were people I knew had beefs with me, but I was willing to bring 'em into the circle and talk about it."

According to some vague accounts, the workshop was a disaster. One person who was there claims that Shunka, at one point, pounded his fists on the floor, blustered, then got up and stormed out, yelling as he walked away. Shunka says that's overblown.

"The letter from Kathryn Miller to Barbara Bristow said she wanted the mediation to be a safe place, safe to be emotional," he said. "And I think people are saying 'I freaked out.' The freak-out reports are exaggerated. It's just part of this ongoing character assassination. People say I was 'red-faced.' But my face is naturally red."

In late 2005, while Shunka was in Seattle, a friend called him from Arcata to say a woman had come by asking for the office key. She had a list of equipment she wanted to take away. The friend didn't give her the key.

When Shunka got back from Seattle, he discovered his reimbursement funds from Trees had been "frozen." He also learned about a letter someone in the NCEF! movement had circulated for signatures and then sent to Mark Knipper, who handled the Trees Foundation transactions for the NCEF! Media office. It said, in essence, "We don't want Shunka running EF!"

"I called the Trees Foundation," Shunka recalled. "I was sick, it was the middle of the winter, I'm trying to table, it's raining, it's cold. And Barbara Ristow told me, 'You just need to have a meeting [with the other Earth First!ers] and come to a group consensus on what the Trees Foundation funding should be used for."

The meeting never happened — nobody could agree to meet, said Mark Knipper, also in an interview last week. Knipper is a social worker and a long-time activist who had been the contact person between Trees and NCEF! Media. "So it ate itself," Knipper said. "And although I'm former Navy, a mariner, I said I'm not going down with this ship. So I divorced myself from it ... and signed it all back to Trees."

The NCEF! Media office was dropped from the Trees Foundation altogether.

Shunka and the NCEF! Media office never did see any of the big donation. Miller didn't even know that, he said, until she phoned him up in the summer of 2006, more than a year after she made the donation, to ask about a guy named "Jungle," who had been reported as missing on the NCEF! hotline. Miller was spending much of her time in Guatemala now, where she was raising fruit trees; after she'd made her big donation, Hurricane Stan had struck — she spent the ensuing year mopping up the mess.

First, Shunka told her Jungle was still missing. Then he told her about the money.

"I said, 'Yeah, they told me it wasn't for us,'" said Shunka. "And she said, 'I meant for all of it to go to you guys.' She sounded real upset. And I was like, 'I knew it! I knew it!'"

Shunka tried to sue Trees in small claims court, but it went nowhere.

Miller filed a claim against the Trees Foundation on Oct. 5, 2006, in Humboldt County Superior Court, seeking the return of the $185,000 plus interest so she could distribute the money herself.

And if she wins? "She may just spread it out more," said Shunka. "She's got tree planting ideas. Maybe she could buy a grove. She'd maybe not give it all to Earth First! this time. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Trees blew for us."

On an uncomfortably hot afternoon last week, four forest activists who'd agreed to an interview for this story — Jeff, Shaggy, Sparrow and Farmer — sat on the ground at the Arcata Marsh next to a log bench on which a teeming crew of red ants worked a splintered notch. Someone had come along here in 1999 and carved a grouping of faces — bearded, grimacing, possibly mourning faces — onto the log and signed it Daniel. The carving had been drenched in red paint, and burnished by years of sitters.

"It kind of reminds me of the memorial for Gypsy," said one of them. "With the red paint."

Gypsy was the forest name of David Nathan Chain, who in September 1998, during an Earth First! action at Grizzly Creek, was crushed to death by a tree felled by an enraged logger. Farmer, actually, was there — he was just 16, but had a year of activism already under his belt. And Shunka was there — it was Shunka's first forest action.

Farmer, Shag, Sparrow and Jeff first made it clear that they spoke for themselves alone, although they participate in various forest defense affinity groups: Farmer works for the Mattole Wildlands Defense Group now, watchdogging the California Department of Forestry for new timber harvest plans, and keeping an eye on a Pacific Lumber Co. watershed analysis. Shag, who saw his first redwood about five years ago, helps keep the Fern Gully treesit village in Freshwater functioning. Jeff, who grew up in the high desert, and fell in love with the woods, works with the Nanning Creek treesit just outside of Scotia, as well as other groups. Sparrow, who was drawn to forest action because the cultural landscape was "like a folktale" he couldn't resist, is with the Fern Gully affinity group. These groups are all part of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association, a collective with a website but no formal structure.

The HFDA sprang into being six years ago — about the time the entity called North Coast Earth First! had essentially dissolved. It would take a book to describe that drawn-out dissolution — a book of lost causes, won causes, waning media interest, Judi Bari's death, Gypsy's death, ego-spurred squabbles, interpersonal catastrophes, a war overseas, hurricanes. And while the HFDA activists might still cherish the Earth First! name — the movement — in their hearts, it's now been further complicated by what you might call the Shunka effect.

"I still feel in many ways solidarity with the greater Earth First! movement abroad," said Farmer. "But in this county, in this climate, if you say you're with the North Coast Earth First!, many people associate you with North Coast Earth First! Media."

Shunka revived the North Coast Earth First! office around 2002. And he did what previous office managers had done — tabled, put out news releases, wrote articles for other publications. But it wasn't like the old days, in the '90s, when hundreds of people were getting arrested in forest actions and the jail support phone and legal resources were in constant use.

Shunka first worked in an office in Eureka, then later moved to Arcata. He called his outfit the NCEF! Media Center. For a time, he and other "affinity groups" tried to work together. But he alienated some people. He took over the North Coast Earth First! website. He controlled the North Coast Earth First! email list of 300 or more subscribers to the news alerts. He sent out press releases on his own.

"I felt the North Coast Earth First! Media Center was a unilateral effort on Shunka's part," said Farmer. Whereas, in the old days, "spokespeople were decided on by the group. And if you wrote an article it was passed by everyone. I feel Shunka appointed himself spokesperson at some point."

Many also claim they've been subject to a lashing anger from Shunka.

"I won't work with him because I pledge nonviolence in my actions," said Shag. "I don't believe he pledges the same thing. He has exhibited violent behavior towards me and towards other activists in my presence."

"He's a bear," said Jeff, making claw-fists with his hands.

But the sad thing is, all of this infighting probably has done nothing to help the actual trees. And the mediation workshop Kathryn Miller wanted didn't fix matters. Now, there was her lawsuit.

"When I heard about this lawsuit, I thought, the Trees Foundation does not deserve to be attacked in that way," said Farmer. "There's much bigger issues that need to be dealt with — with Maxxam and old-growth logging. ...If you look at Fern Gully and Nanning Creek (the Bonanza timber harvest plan), there's hundreds of old growth acres still standing whose fate is unclear."

Shag put it more bluntly: "If [Miller] knew Shunka and wanted to get the money to North Coast Earth First! Media, she should've given it to Shunka. But if she was trying to get it to treesits and forest defense, then the money went to the right place.

"My problem is this whole representation thing. There's people in the trees — how do you know who to get the money to, to help them?"

Shunka knows that a lot of fellow activists aren't happy with his role in the donation dispute. He also knows how some people talk about him and say he's hard to get along with. "I'm just standing up for the truth," he said. "And people don't like it. To me, it feels like a small clique of people who don't like me. I feel a lot of love and support in this community."

He certainly doesn't come off right away as someone who's angry, or who lashes out, or who locks the office and doesn't let people in. Why, recently, he helped a young woman hook up with the treesitters so she could learn the ropes. (Shaggy said that's proof Shunka doesn't have direct connections with the people doing direct action; but you can't deny it's a connection.)

It's probably a bad idea to ask Darryl Cherney, one of the founders of the local Earth First! movement, what he thinks of Shunka Wakan, whose real name is Jason Wilson. (Shunka tells a story of how he was named by a Lakota medicine man on the banks of the Cheyenne River in South Dakota in 1995. "Shunka Wakan," meaning "great dog," is only part of it. There's a secret part after that — altogether, his name means "the humble man called horse.")

"Shunka's a wingnut," Cherney said over the phone last Friday, sounding cheerfully vitriolic. "I have a 10-verse song about Shunka."

Here are the last few verses:

Who's at the co-op spanging a donation
Shunka, Shunka
Who's got a lawsuit 'gainst the Trees Foundation
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka
Who's gonna keep on fighting the fight
Shunka, Shunka
With four of his friends at swimmers delight
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka (Shunka voice: It's the last of the revolution)

There's no other word for it but "mean." But Cherney and Shunka have history — not all of it sour. Cherney said Shunka laughed when he heard the song, at least the first time.

"I met Shunka in 1998," Cherney said. "And I know he knew Julia ["Butterfly" Hill, whom Shunka had come west to find]. That was a good thing, helping Julia. That was good Shunka."

Cherney had even pushed for Shunka to go to Houston to talk with Charles Hurwitz, whose Maxxam Corp. bought out the old Pacific Lumber company back in 1985 and quickly became the forest activists' number one villain. Shunka went.

But now? "The current status of Shunka and me," Cherney said, "is that Shunka has sent me five or eight or nine e-mails threatening to sue me. Shunka is a joke."

Cherney can talk for hours about the problems he's had with Shunka over the years. His main point, though, is what has Shunka done for the trees lately?

"My question is, where's your topo maps?" he asked. "Where's your wilderness preservation proposal? Where's your lobbyist team in Sacramento?"

It has to be that, on some level, even the people in the movement who don't like Shunka understand somewhat where he's coming from. So he's emotional. Passionate. Perhaps he's caught up so completely in the cause he can't let go. Or, who knows — maybe he's a phony, like he accused Knipper of being back in 2005.

But being a forest activist comes with perils beyond the obvious physical ones.

"I'm really trying to have compassion for Shunka, even though he's kind of attacked us," said Susy Barsotti by phone from Laytonville a couple of weeks ago. Barsotti is president of the Trees Foundation board, and she says the lawsuit has held Trees hostage, unable to function fully. "I've been mystified and dismayed that he's participated like this in the suit. But Shunka witnessed Gypsy's death. And I think he may have post-traumatic stress syndrome. I don't think he's recovered from it. And that can affect your behavior."

A number of people mentioned this, actually, about Shunka. And he often refers to Gypsy's death himself. In an article titled "What Luna has taught me," posted on the website of Julia "Butterfly" Hill's organization, Circle of Life, Shunka writes: "I decided to commit to doing ground support after witnessing the death of David Nathan "Gypsy" Chain on September 17, 1998 ... I remember looking across the valley as we hiked up that day, seeing the rolling hills of forests and clear-cuts, and thinking out loud, "That's why we're here!" Seeing Gypsy's life taken from him, and then seeing the corruption and lies of the Humboldt County Sheriffs ... really opened my eyes to the situation our old-growth forests face."

Later, he did ground support for Hill in her second year in Luna. And in the same article on her website, something else Shunka writes indicates how ready he was to devote himself to a cause: "Being on the support team was the top priority in my life, and I was happy knowing that everything else revolved around when I'd be needed for the next supply run. I never felt lost because I knew what I was doing. That was a feeling I had not felt in years, between feeling dissatisfaction with life in college, and then more dissatisfaction with life as a minimum-wage worker after college. Before joining Julia's ground support team I was unhappy, even to the point of tears, wondering if my entire life was going to be a minimum-wage nightmare ...."

Pure devotion, without benefit of a little hypocrisy, could drive anyone batty. Deane Rimerman, the activist from Olympia who said it is Shunka who is on trial, said it's not uncommon for intense, stressful movements like Earth First! to produce an army of walking wounded. And he's been around, in forest actions up and down the coast, for long enough to know; he was the one, in fact, who "got the maps and led the first hikers up to the hill" to the Gypsy Mountain campaign and Luna treesit.

"In the forest activist movement, there's very little that's rewarding," Rimerman said. "There's a lot of post traumatic stress syndrome. All of us get it. Once you've been through the court process, and the jail process, and seen 1,000-year-old trees get cut down that you really cared about and thought you could save — it's devastating."

That alone, setting aside the troubles with Shunka, could explain the many rifts that have occurred within the local EF! ranks over the years. Josh Brown, who moved to Humboldt in 1995 right before the peak of the Headwaters campaign, said one of the unique qualities of Earth First! is that it "is primarily a youth movement."

"A lot of people that come through are young, are passionate — and it's a wonderful thing," he said. They get thrown into leadership positions quickly — and then they get burned out. Many move quickly on to other things. Brown stayed in longer than most. "When I left [in 2001], I was 30 years old. And I'd been a full-time activist since I was 18."

Paradoxically, said Brown, the youthful draw and the departure of seasoned activists leaves the movement with "no elders to kind of sit around and coach the [new kids]."

The movement also draws strong personalities, he said. Tenacious ones, too, like Shunka's.

"Shunka, I think he really does have a big heart," said Brown. "And I think he does care for the forest."

Last Friday, following the morning session of Miller v. Trees, a group of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association activists stood on the courthouse steps talking. The door opened, and Shunka walked out and down the steps toward the group. They didn't greet him. After a time, he tried to talk to one of them, Jeff. Jeff walked away. Shunka followed him, then stopped and talked to another guy. Then he stood alone again.

From: northcoastjournal.com/101107/...011.html

"Trees Foundation Wins"

October 11th, 2007

The jury in the civil case Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation decided in favor of Trees, after deliberating all day Tuesday. (See "Money on Trees," Oct. 4).

Miller is the long-time forest activist who inherited a bundle from her mother and then signed $185,000 over to the Trees Foundation. In her lawsuit, she claimed she had intended the money to be passed through Trees to one of its affiliates, North Coast Earth First! Media, run by Shunka Wakan. She claimed she had made her intentions clear, verbally and in writing, and that Trees had agreed to the conditions, then broken its promise and kept the money. Trees denied making such promises, and said it had never seen any letters or heard of instructions to give the money to NCEF! Media. (Also, somewhat relatedly, in criminal court on Tuesday Miller pleaded no contest to charges that she had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation.)

So, that's that. Now, there are only the pieces to pick up.

For Shunka Wakan — featured in last week's Journal as a central figure in a messy nest of infighting that has fractured the current ranks of local Earth First!ians — it could be a long, lonely patching together of lost friends and broken alliances. Not only did he and Miller lose their attempt to retrieve her donation, but now he's been banned from the North Coast Co-op.

Yes, that happened last week. It was Thursday, around 4:15 in the evening, and two activists with the Humboldt Forest Defense Association were tabling — hawking brochures and such — outside the Co-op. It's an activity Shunka himself has spent many a day doing in that very same spot, raising cash to pay for his NCEF!Media outreach work and other causes. And, well, these two fellows, Jeff and Farmer, were on Shunka's shit list, now. They'd spoken gently, but unfavorably, about Shunka's doings in the North Coast Earth First! arena — said he lashed out at people, said he commandeered NCEF! resources, and so forth. Here's a snippet of Jeff's account of what happened, which he sent to the NCJ in an e-mail on Friday:

"Shunka was removed from the Arcata Co-op yesterday after a scuffle with myself and another activist around 5 p.m. Well, he wasn't exactly removed, but APD was called. He was asked to leave after threatening to flip over the HFD donation table while stating he was 'like Jesus in the marketplace ...'"

Sue Coulter, manager of the Arcata Co-op, recounted on Friday how an employee walking by heard the argument and went inside to get her. "So I went out to talk to [Shunka], because it's not the first time we've had problems," she said. "Most of the time, he's fine. Most of the time, I stick up for him." One time, she said, she even called the police to protect Shunka after someone had threatened him. "But he gets into arguments. I tried to talk to him. I told him to leave. ... He was causing a scene, right by the door, and I can't have it. He refused to leave. ... I said, fine. I went into the store. He followed me into the store, and he was still yelling at me, 'Oh, now you're going to call the police on me.'" Coulter called the police, but Shunka left before they arrived.

Shunka, waiting in the courthouse for the jury verdict Tuesday, said Coulter did indeed ask him to leave and he did, indeed, refuse to. As for the HFD tablers, he said he merely asked them why they had Trees Foundation literature on their table. "I said, 'Why do you want to represent these people?'" And then, he said, "Jeff accused me of embezzling — he said this in public. He said, 'You've embezzled thousands of dollars from the Earth First! movement through the years.' And I complained to one of the employees who was walking by. Because that's serious, accusing someone of embezzling."

But Shunka said the whole thing's yet another attack on him. "I don't consider I was yelling. We were talking. I'm an emotional person, I concede to that. I speak from my heart. I don't scream at people. I would love to — but I don't."

In his email, Jeff with HFD predicted Shunka would leave town within weeks, if not sooner. But at the courthouse, even before the verdict, Shunka said he wasn't going anywhere.

"I'm just going to continue to run the Earth First! office and continue to call Humboldt County home," he said. He's also going to write a letter to the Co-op, complaining about how he gets scapegoated and booted out of there even when other people, he says, are the culprits. And, as for the Miller v. Trees case, he said, he and Miller may now take their complaint to another venue.

-- Heidi Walters

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posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies

Business networking and Events

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:02:43 GMT

i would like to invite my Tribe network to join me on www.connectture.com - its a social business network based in Europe with a growing base of users from all over the world. Easy way of keeping track of your Business Network.

Cheers

Sarah

posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies

V-Day:: Vagina Monologues

brooke118 — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:04:33 GMT

find the V-Day event nearest you:: www.vday.org and events.vday.org/search.php and v10.vday.org/

V-Day is a global movement to end violence against women and girls that raises funds and awareness through benefit productions of Playwright/Founder Eve Ensler’s award winning play The Vagina Monologues.

Since 1998, thousands of V-Day events have taken place all over the world, Shenzhen, China to Stockholm, Sweden from Canberra, Australia to Lagos, Nigeria. In 2007 alone, more than 3000 V-Day events took place around the world and in all 50 of the United States. 2008 will be V-Day’s biggest year to date as we come together to celebrate the last ten years of ending violence against women and girls and go forward into the next ten years.

To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $50 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it, crafted international educational, media and PSA campaigns, launched the Karama program in the Middle East, reopened shelters, and funded over 5000 community-based anti-violence programs and safe houses in Kenya, South Dakota, Egypt and Iraq.

V-Day is a 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 violence against women and girls, including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual slavery.

Through V-Day campaigns, local volunteers and college students produce annual benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues to raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups within their own communities.

find an event near you::
v10.vday.org/
vday.org

posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies

Michelle Obama, Oprah, Maria Shriver, etc. at UCLA

brooke118 — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 23:24:15 GMT

***seriously POWERFUL women*** tremendous.

i was at this event at ucla yesterday!!
to be in the same room with Oprah + Michelle Obama was AMAZING!!! and their speeches- truly epic.
(i was in the back- behind them-- can u believe Michelle didn't have any notes!!?)

::we can change the world::
:what are you ready for?:

Oprah:::: http://youtube.com/watch?v=a_FJQMriZUg

Michelle:: 5 min clip:: http://youtube.com/watch?v=K1J54St7ZYY
::full speech--three 10 min clips-- fuzzy picture (can also FF 'full rally' vid to the Michelle section)
part 1:: http://youtube.com/watch?v=3MHnf7usrVU
part 2:: http://youtube.com/watch?v=HiwBT8o9kP4 (my favorite!!)
part 3:: http://youtube.com/watch?v=I8krZtPED9g

Maria Shriver:: http://youtube.com/watch?v=62_ajoKkuHA

**UCLA full rally : 75 mins: http://youtube.com/watch?v=JZiNtTq10i0 (Michelle not-blurry speech here) **

*****************************extra**********
music video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY

Song & video, featuring a star cast, by Will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas. Inspired by Barack Obama's 'Yes We Can' speech.

http://www.yeswecansong.com

http://www.barackobama.com/

http://factcheck.barackobama.com/

posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies

People movement assembly atlanta and worldwide

Gamo — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:16:43 GMT

People's Movement Assembly-- Global Day of Action
Saturday, January 26, 10:00am

On Saturday, January 26, 2008, Atlanta, host city of the first US Social Forum, will be the venue for a statewide People's Movement Assembly, beginning with a caravan and rally at the State Capitol.
Initiated by the organizers of the annual Poor People's Day events at the Capitol and inspired by the year 2008 being the 40th anniversary of the historic Poor People's Campaign for Economic Justice launched by Dr. King, this multi-pronged effort seeks to bring the voice, aspirations, needs and demands of millions of working and poor people to the Georgia Capitol.
Following the caravan and rally, participants will meet to exchange views, plan ongoing actions and cement relationships and networks. Hundreds of volunteers are needed throughout the state to mobilize their communities.
Participation in the January 26 action is open to all who believe "ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE."
Complete the People's Movement Assembly Ballot!

Read more...

posted in Feminist Activists - 1 reply

Saturday, January 19th, 2008 10:30

liabear1 — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:46:26 GMT

Please join community members and activists at the "Forward-- Not Back! Reproductive Justice for All!" rally and march to counterprotest the anti-abortion "Walk for Life-- West Coast." Spread the word:

Resist the religious right! Protest their anti-choice march with a vibrant reproductive rights presence on the 35th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade! Saturday, January 19th, 2008. Assemble at Justin Herman Plaza, Market and Embarcadero streets in San Francisco at 10:30am.
This will be the 4th year that 10,000 right wingers will be bussed in to San Francisco for their annual "Walk for Life-- West Coast". Organizers of the "Walk for Life" want to strip women of their rights to a safe and legal abortion.

posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies

Feedback Needed on an Ad Campaign

earthlyLN — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:51:28 GMT

http://www.esperanzashelter.org/everyday_intervention.htm

This is designed to encourage bystanders to take action when they see domestic violence happening. We are seeking feedback....please feel free to email or post any thoughts you might have
ellen2571@yahoo.com

posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies

The Ron Paul “Revolution”, an Extreme Rightwing Threat

steveargue2 — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:20:47 GMT

The Ron Paul “Revolution”, an Extreme Rightwing Threat

By STEVEN ARGUE

For the most part the Iowa caucuses were business as usual for the Democrat and Republican Parties. Among the Democrats, “Anti-war” and “pro-single payer health care” Democrat Dennis Kucinich put his support behind pro-war anti--single payer health care, Barrack Obama. Yet on the far right, anti-war Libertarian and Republican Ron Paul gained a stunning 10% of the vote.

Seeing the failure of the Democrats to deliver a candidate worth supporting; some left leaning individuals have been suggesting support to Ron Paul. One is anti-war Vietnam veteran Stan Goff, who suggested in his January 4, 2008 article ”Monkey Wrenching the System, Ron Paul’s Revolution” that people vote in the primaries for Ron Paul, switching party registration right away if they live in a state where such a move is necessary to vote in the Republican primaries.

At the root of the Ron Paul "revolution" is the dismantling of Social Security and the Department of Education as well as other basic social programs, and the elimination of worker and environmental protections. Advances like single payer health care? No way. Ron Paul's message is that you need to take care of yourself, and that there shouldn't be such government programs, nor such interference with private profit. While he puts forward reasons for not supporting going to war abroad, his domestic policies would ignite civil war at home.

In addition to pretending he's against all government, he's for outlawing abortion and supports the continued ban on same-sex marriage. He was one of the original co-sponsors of the "Marriage Protection Act".

He's also a religious extremist who thinks that creationism should be taught in the schools.

On race, Ron Paul was one of 33 Congress members to vote against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, an act that was first passed to give Blacks in the south the right to vote. On a similar note, he says the Civil Rights Act violates the Constitution and impedes on individual liberties. Speaking of Blacks in Washington DC he states in campaign literature, "95 percent of African Americans in are semi-criminal or entirely criminal".

No wonder the American Nazi Party has close relations with him (see letter from Nazi Commander Bill White below). In addition, Ron Paul has the support of other white supremacists such as David Duke, and has knowingly taken donations from former KKK Grand Wizard Don Black.

Hell would freeze over before I'd support Ron Paul. And being an atheist; that will be a long time.

There are plenty of candidates to the left of the Democrats worth considering supporting who oppose the war, would preserve public education and Social Security, who would provide single payer or socialized medicine, and who aren’t raving racist, homophobic, and sexist “Libertarian” fanatics. Why not look at them rather than someone from the loony right?

I discuss some of the campaigns that may be worth supporting in the following article:

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States,
And the Struggle to Achieve It
By STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/02/18469739.php

Or here is a different version of the same article:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/01/93820.html

*****************
American Nazi Party Chief says Ron Paul is one of us

Bill White, commander of the American National Socialist Worker’s Party, aka The American Nazi Party, wrote the following on the Nazi Vanguard News Network:

Comrades:

I have kept quiet about the Ron Paul campaign for a while, because I didn’t see any need to say anything that would cause any trouble. However, reading the latest release from his campaign spokesman, I am compelled to tell the truth about Ron Paul’s extensive involvement in white nationalism.

Both Congressman Paul and his aides regularly meet with members of the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review, and others at the Tara Thai restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, usually on Wednesdays. This is part of a dinner that was originally organized by Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis and Joe Sobran, and has since been mostly taken over by the Council of Conservative Citizens.

I have attended these dinners, seen Paul and his aides there, and been invited to his offices in Washington to discuss policy.

For his spokesman to call white racialism a “small ideology” and claim white activists are “wasting their money” trying to influence Paul is ridiculous. Paul is a white nationalist of the Stormfront type who has always kept his racial views and his views about world Judaism quiet because of his political position.

I don’t know that it is necessarily good for Paul to “expose” this. However, he really is someone with extensive ties to white nationalism and for him to deny that in the belief he will be more respectable by denying it is outrageous — and I hate seeing people in the press who denounce racialism merely because they think it is not fashionable.

Bill White, Commander
American National Socialist Workers Party

*********
Poor Bill White. He’s having trouble with his brand of racism, anti-Semitism, mass extermination, and genocide not being "in fashion". But hey, you've got to thank the knuckleheaded Nazi for confirming our suspicions on Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan! -Steven Argue

Liberation News
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Feminist Activists - 4 replies

The Business of Being Born - A Must See Movie

amy — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:10:49 GMT

If you are having a baby, thinking of having a baby, have friends that are having a baby, like to practice making a baby, and/or are interested in women's health issues, etc this is a must see movie.

http://thebusinessofbeingborn.com/

Birth: it's a miracle. A rite of passage. A natural part of life. But more than anything, birth is a business. Compelled to find answers after a disappointing birth experience with her first child, actress Ricki Lake recruits filmmaker Abby Epstein to examine and question the way American women have babies. The film interlaces intimate birth stories with surprising historical, political and scientific insights and shocking statistics about the current maternity care system. When director Epstein discovers she is pregnant during the making of the film, the journey becomes even more personal. Should most births be viewed as a natural life process, or should every delivery be treated as a potentially catastrophic medical emergency? Official Site. Directed by Abby Epstein. Executive Producer: Ricki Lake. Running time: 87 mins

If you miss the movie, get a copy of The American Way of Birth by Jessica Mitford.

posted in Feminist Activists - 8 replies

Obama--"post feminist"? Well, according to the NYTimes...

timbo — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 19:32:56 GMT

"The Obama campaign is, in some ways, subtly marketing its candidate as a postfeminist man, a generation beyond the gender conflicts of the boomers."

From the following NYT article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/us/politics/02women.html

The article is mainly about "the struggle" Iowa women Democratic caucus voters are reputedly having over whether or not they should cast a vote for Clinton or Obama. I thought some folks here might be interested in the theory that we are "a generation beyond the gender conflicts of the boomers." Personally, I find that kind of disingenuous and condescending...although, that is a quote from the writer of the Times article, and not an official position of the Obama campaign strategy...as far as I know, that is.

In any case, I would assume that most people interested in supporting feminist and/or egalitarian candidates are likely leaning towards >any< Democratic party candidate rather than >any< Republican candidate. I could be wrong there too...but I don't quite see how "taking the bible literally" is all about egalitarianism, let alone feminism! Of course, though, there will be media outlets that will try to build dissension among those who support equal pay for equal work by playing candidates off against one another...not that that is what that article is about either...

posted in Feminist Activists - 1 reply

Movies Made by Women

amy — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:17:51 GMT

description copied from the website

"MoviesByWomen.com was initially called 50/50 Summit which was an outgrowth of the 50/50 Women Filmmaker's Summit which occurred in April, 2000. The mission of the group was to attain equality for women in film and television, and all media now known or hereafter devised, worldwide, in perpetuity.

By calling attention to past women directors we seek to write the true history of filmmaking. 5050summit.com changed names in the summer 2002 to the far more digestable name of MoviesByWomen.com. We are not a formal organization, but rather an informal group using the internet to increase awareness of our mission.

Our Strategic Goals are to increase the number of women directors working in film, television or other media; to build audiences for women directed films; to increase awareness of women's contributions to film and television history; to develop a community that will increase employment opportunities for women in entertainment. "

http://www.moviesbywomen.com/index.php

posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies

feminist chat?

Fifi — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 18:13:29 GMT

I'm wondering if anyone here would be interested in talking about what feminism means to them, how they came by their concepts of feminism and what it means in their practical day to day life. Any takers amongst the women here? Sorry to any guys here, please feel free to start another thread but I'd really like this to be a discussion between women :-)

I'm not looking to define a global feminism, just find out what it means to individual women. I'm not looking to argue over theory, or to promote one idea over another. Naturally I have my own ideas about all kinds of things regarding feminism, I hope that you do too :-)

posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies

is this activist?

Fifi — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:03:46 GMT

What's up with all the posts staying up that have nothing to do with feminist activism by a man who clearly has an issue with women and is actually posting things to do with philosophy not activism that are intended to insult and demean women while claiming that men are victimized by women?

posted in Feminist Activists - 7 replies

Patriarchy AKA Male Power

Zachary Trey — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:18:30 GMT

From Fidelbogen's The Counter Feminist:
What do the feminists really mean by the term "patriarchy"? When this word rolls off a feminist tongue, what does it specifically refer to? Is it possible to discover what they are talking about in terms of the utmost clarity, simplicity, and above all usability, and reduce it to a formula that will smack the nail bang on the head every time?
What do the feminists really mean by the term "patriarchy"? When this word rolls off a feminist tongue, what does it specifically refer to? Is it possible to discover what they are talking about in terms of the utmost clarity, simplicity, and above all usability, and reduce it to a formula that will smack the nail bang on the head every time?

Understand, that we wish to unpack the occulted lexical thread of signification which the word patriarchy carries throughout ALL examples of feminist rhetoric. When THEY talk about patriarchy, THEY assuredly mean something particular, something consistent, something examinable, something that would manifest their devices if it were brought to light. From the highest towers of the academy to the lowest reaches of the pop-feminist gutter, they all talk about "patriarchy", and in their varied accents they are all referring to the same thing. It is to this thing specifically that we direct our enquiry, in order that we may know it and name it and decode feminist speech by the light of it.

Here is the secret: When feminists speak of patriarchy, all they are really talking about is male power. It's just that simple. All of their circumlocutions dance endlessly and evasively around this -- that patriarchy is exactly synonymous with male power, neither more nor less than male power, and that in all cases the terms patriarchy and male power may be interchanged with a negligible adulteration of meaning.

Try the experiment yourself. Take any piece of feminist writing where the word patriarchy occurs; replace this word with male power; see if it makes any fundamental difference. Also, see if it throws an unexpectedly revealing light upon the matter, yielding a sense and consistency superior to the original version.

If you wish, replace the word patriarchy with the simple word "men", and it will yield much the same result. I know that many feminists have denied that patriarchy equals "men", but think for a minute: is not bare existence in itself a form of power? Tell me who has more male power: a man who exists, or a man who doesn't?

No feminist understanding of "patriarchy" makes any ultimate sense if you divorce this word from the idea of male power. If you aren't talking about male power in some way then you are wasting your time talking about patriarchy in any way whatsoever. Let that thought be your femspeak decoder template.

Feminist answer experts, seeking to confuse the issue, might reply that patriarchy is male power plus something else. Maybe so. But if you subtracted the male power part, the "something else" part wouldn't stand up any better than an empty gunny-sack, whereas the "male power" part -- even by itself -- would remain fully serviceable within the calculus of meaning.

Every feminist analysis that I'm aware of (for example, that of John Stoltenberg) does no better than make "something else" to be a form of male will-to-power emanating from the allegedly "constructed" nature of maleness in the first place. But this is a completely circular explanation that will never boost the discussion beyond square one, so we might as well scrap it. Besides, the whole mess boils down to male power anyway, so that in the end all you are really saying is that patriarchy is male power plus male power.

So in the end, you can't go far wrong if you simply set "patriarchy" equal to "male power". You'll go further wrong if you select any other option.

It follows that any feminist who talks about "ending" patriarchy or abating it in some way, is also talking about ending or abating male power in some way.

So what does male power mean? It means: any power of any kind which any male citizen might happen to possess.

And exactly what is this thing called...power? That is a very good and very important question.

In the realm of human affairs, as near as we can make it, power is a substance compounded of two ingredients: IDENTITY, and AGENCY.

Identity means the sum of all factors, both mental and physical, which identify you as a discrete center of conscious awareness in contradistinction to other such discrete centers.

Agency means your capacity to either effect or prevent change through the exercise of your volition.

Let that sink in. Take a break for a few minutes, if you want to. Get away from the computer. Go outside , look at the clouds, listen to the birds, enjoy the fresh air.

Very well, you are back. Let's recapitulate.

Patriarchy is a feminist code word for male power. Male power means any power of any kind which any male citizen might happen to posess, and power specifically means identity plus agency. So in practice, the feminist keyword patriarchy maps to the identity and agency of any male citizen.

Gentle reader, you as a person posess identity and agency. In other words, you posess power. You mightn't think you have enough of it, but you do have some. And so long as you have some, you have freedom. Again, possibly not enough for your liking...but some. And some is always enough to get you started - enough to leaven the dough, you might say. Be glad of it, and work intelligently with it.

Let's see how feminism enters the picture. Feminism is an anti-male hate movement, and it is perfectly natural that when you hate something you will seek to deprive it of power - the more the better. We have equated power with identity and agency, and so have the feminist ideologues - although not necessarily in the same terms. Still, they have copped the base mechanics that we've outlined here. They know it instinctively.

In order to undermine male power, the women's movement over the years has set afoot a variety of actions, both large and small, tending to vitiate the identity and agency of men. Indeed, nearly everything which feminism has accomplished has made some contribution to this overall effect.

This "campaign" has cut a gradual, descending swath from the macrocosm to the microcosm, from the political to the personal - striving always toward a finer granularity of control, a greater concision of shades and subtleties in the realm of daily life.

Dry alterations to the fabric of law and the outward form of institutions didn't satisfy them for long -- they thirsted for the essential juice of life, and in particular, the life juice of anything male which crossed their path. The last thing they wanted was a workplace or a world filled with insouciant, free-spirited, self-esteeming men and boys. Something had to be done to correct male joie de vivre and male autonomy.

Men were to be subjugated, but if they didn't know this, and if they didn't act like they knew it, then the whole thing would be pointless. It was necessary, then, for the reach of matriarchy to become omni-locational and all-pervading - like the ideological presence of a totalitarian social order.

So, it was and continues to be important to the feminist effort that every possible shred of male identity or agency be appended to the shadow of ideology in some manner. ANY speck of uncolonized male space or male autonomy constitutes a bit of turf still in the grip of patriarchal power. Or at any rate, that's how they see it.

Case in point: what is a "sensitive male"? For starters, it is a sexist concept in precisely the same way and to the same degree that "good negro" is a racist concept. This is a VERY exact paralell. If somebody employs the term "sensitive male", or worse, calls you one, then you ought to feel seriously offended.

Beyond that, a sensitive male is simply an emotional puppet whose strings are available for any woman to pull, whenever and wherever. In short, a man curiously lacking in power; a man of abbreviated identity and agency.

Sometimes they will rate you on whether you "know how to cry". Reason being, that if you know how to cry then it follows that you can be made to cry. That's what they are really looking for in the long run. And here's an extra thought that occurred to me: how would you like to be told that "it's okay to cry" by the very same person who made you want to cry in the first place? You'd be damned if you'd give them the satisfaction, wouldn't you?

These examples are given because in my opinion they implode the circumference of male power about as far as it can be pushed, at least in the daily realm of social interplay. Even to a point where the drive for control reaches straight into a man's inner world, breaching a barrier which civil propriety forbids should be violated.

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall." Know therefore that your coolness, aloofness, guardedness, your methodological skepticism, or even your native lack of response to certain stimuli which others might find compelling, are all vital elements of your identity. Your agency. Your autonomy. Your....manhood. In other words, your male power.

Oh, very well then, call it patriarchy!

Ha! And you thought that "patriarchy" was just a one-size-fits-all guilt-o-matic gizmo designed to put men eternally on the defensive while giving women a carte blanche moral advantage in any given situation!

Well it is that indeed. But as you can see now, it goes deeper....
It has relented a bit these days, but ten years ago the clamour for "sensitive New Age guys" was deafening. Women were tired of dealing with "macho" men and wanted someone softer and gentler. Even today, a lot of women complain that their men "aren't sensitive enough." This would seem straightforward enough: men should work at becoming more sensitive. But should they?
Before we all run off to teach ourselves "sensitivity," perhaps we should ask what does "sensitive" mean anyway? On the face of it, it should mean "someone who is more open to what is going on around them," "someone who feels their emotions more acutely." In this sense, women don't want sensitive men at all. A sensitive man would feel women's barbs and cruel jokes. A sensitive and courageous man would try to escape his soul-crushing job for more rewarding work that paid less. Women absolutely don't want this. They want a "sensitive" man who will still tolerate the abuse that they dish out without complaining or even realizing that it is abuse, and they want a man who will continue to do meaningless work to bring home a paycheque without complaining about it.
So you think that women bring home the paycheque now and so they don't need men to work hard at meaningless jobs to make more money? Don't fool yourself. Although women do "bring home bacon" these days, they also want a fallback position. I've lost count of my female friends who, when pregnant for the first time, were "trying to decide whether to keep working or become a full-time mother." I have always doubted that their husbands had any meaningful input into that decision. A truly sensitive man would be right in there saying, "Hey, maybe I want to be the one at home looking after the baby!" This is the last thing women want. Women want to make their life choices, then have hubby pick up whatever is left over. What that means, in practical terms, is that most women are looking for a man who is willing to do tough work to bring home the bacon, if that's what she says she needs. So, the "breadwinner" of yesteryear isn't gone—he's just in the back pocket, to be brought out if the need arises.
Neither does it pay for men to be sensitive where quality of life is concerned. Women spend most of their waking hours trying to improve their quality of life. Bath shops, clothing shops, makeup, vacations, decorating.... Feminists claim that women work hard on their appearance, smell, and environment in order to please men. This is laughable. Women do these things in order to please themselves. A man can tell a woman over and over that the dresses she has look just fine, but she will go out and buy a new one anyway. Men don't much care about fashion, makeup, and whether the bath smells like gardenias. As much as this speaks to women's motivations, it also speaks to men's motivations. Why don't men care about fashion, appearance, and sweet-smelling bath water? They don't care simply because it wouldn't work. Two people, each obsessed with their own quality of life would not get along, and women know this. A man who takes a satisfying but low-paying job, spends his money on luxuries for himself, and enjoys his environment is not a catch because he's "probably gay." Women want men who are willing to live and work in less-than-ideal conditions, men who are willing to spend their money on luxuries for women. Or, these days, men who will spend the money they make for the common good, so that women can spend the money they make on themselves. You know: "What's mine is mine; what's yours is ours." A man who values a pleasant, low-stress, high-quality life over "success" is not valued by a woman precisely because she cannot use him to improve her quality of life.
So, after all of this, why do women still demand "sensitive" men? The answer is that when women say this, they don't mean "sensitive" in the general sense. They don't want a man who is sensitive to his own situation and his own feelings the way women are sensitive to their environment and feelings. What they want is a man who is more sensitive to his woman's feelings. Women still want men who, when asked how they feel, are dumb as posts. Women still want men who are calm and unflappable. What a woman really wants when she talks about "sensitivity" is a man who can discover what she wants and then, having done that, goes back to being a traditional knight in shining armour by ignoring what he may want and making her wishes come true.
As such, the concept of the "sensitive New Age guy" was invented by women for women. The wonder is that everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Men are trying to figure out how to be more "sensitive," succeeding in becoming more sensitive, then wondering why everything hurts more. To add to the confusion, psychotherapists are 100% behind this new "sensitivity" and tout it as the only road to happiness. Nobody, it seems, has asked who this "sensitivity" would benefit, and, finding that it benefits only women, has asked why men would bother adopting it. "Being more sensitive" is not the road to happiness for most men; it is only the road to peace with their mates.
The punch line is that women act as though they agree with this. Several men's Web sites I've visited lament that women claim to want "sensitive" guys but then end up going out with jerks who abuse them. At first this female behaviour seems inconsistent, but it's far from it. Above all, a woman wants a man she can manipulate into doing all of the crappy, soul-crushing, mind-numbing, tough work in life so that she can do the stuff that involves love, warmth, and caring. Obviously, a truly sensitive man with self-respect wouldn't put himself through that, so he's not useful. What is left are the following:
• the sensitive but noble man, willing to make a conscious sacrifice for love. These too are few and far between, as all well-adjusted people are. Furthermore, such a man would rightly demand sacrifice in return from his mate, so he comes at a high price. As much as women say they want a man like this, it takes a special woman to match his generosity, so he's often tried on for size and then dumped.
• the whiner, who has over-sensitized himself and now realizes that life as a man is pretty damned meaningless. Women tend to try him out from time to time because he looks a bit like the "sensitive but noble" type, but then get tired of the constant complaints.
• the macho man, who to varying degrees isn't too aware of how he feels but just wants to get on with the job. These guys range all the way from church-going traditionalists to the bad boys who beat up their girlfriends from time to time or cheat. Women know that these guys aren't sensitive, but at least they're easy to manipulate and she gets what she wants: the resources and freedom to improve her own life.
• the committed feminist, who has managed the trick of being sensitive to his partner's needs while at the same time being totally blind to his own. This is what women say they want when they say "sensitive man." The problem with these men is that their occasional preachiness and holier-than-thou attitude can become irritating. Nonetheless, they can still be easily manipulated (sometimes too easily to maintain interest) and so they make good husbands.
So, out of the four types outlined above, only the last two are both commonplace and husband material, and—no surprise—the macho bad boy is in the club. The moral of this tale is that more than the much vaunted "sensitivity" what a woman really wants is someone who can stuff his feelings and do what needs to be done... so that she doesn't have to do it. Women value security over sensitivity, where "security" means the feeling that a man would go to his death to protect her, or slowly kill himself in a lousy job to keep her comfortable. That sort of thing is still worth much more than "sensitivity," no matter how much women whine about the latter.
If much of the advice on this site seems crusty and hard-edged, it's because I used to be a SNAG myself until I wised up. I'm writing here for the kind of man who has been through all of this and is beginning to suspect that something is not right. To this man I say, "If you're wondering how to become 'sensitive' in the right way to please women, if you've tried but can't seem to get it right, then you're probably already too sensitive and should stop trying." To other men, who are still deep into being SNAGs and thus find this advice offensive, or for other men who are scratching their heads over this wondering what it's all about, don't worry—this essay isn't for you anyway.

posted in Feminist Activists - 8 replies

Women's Shelter needs just a little more help

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:33:23 GMT

A short while ago I posted about Pretty Bird Woman House, a reservation battered women's shelter that had been destroyed by vandals. They need to raise $35,000 and are still about $3000 away from their goal. They need to have raised that last three thousand by midnight TONIGHT.

Please pass this around to help them achieve their goal.

prettybirdwomanhousefund.chipin.com/pretty-bird-woman-house

posted in Feminist Activists - 1 reply

the bloody revolution

jerushah — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 03:07:05 GMT

Sometimes I find myself yearning for women to rise up and start defending themselves by whatever means necessary. If the revolution came, I know which side I would be on. Is it terrible for me to fantasize about forming vigilante and militant groups of women who simply do not fuck around with men who intend to be violent with women? I am not pro gun, I am a pacifist, but I also think that enough is enough. And it seems that men respond to violent change far more readily than change instigated by reason or morals. Am I the only one who thinks that a bloody revolution is in order?

posted in Feminist Activists - 6 replies

So many women are targets of gun violence

newbie — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 07:08:56 GMT

Blacksburg is such a beautiful town. It's bike friendly and full of nature lovers. They have the kindest, friendliest small town folks. The gorgeous New river, which is one of the oldest rivers in the country, runs near it. College students love to float down it and climb the mountains which are close by.

I'm just heartsick about these murders. I worked at Virginia Tech in 1980 in the Chemistry department. My sister volunteered there with countless students and my brother-in-law taught there for years. I dated a police officer there who's still in active duty. I've contacted him to tell him people all over the world are thinking of them. I have college age kids so I particularly empathize with the parents who sent their loved ones to school, expecting them to be safe.

How long will we let American companies profit from the blood of our children?
http://www.vpc.org/studies/vidintr.htm

Please sign this gun control petition in response to the Blacksburg, Virginia tragedy.
http://www.bradynetwork.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=2960&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS

This week I'll light candles for those who were killed, all the more tragic, knowing this was utterly preventable.

More helpful links:

California gun law report card:
http://www.bradycampaign.org/legislation/state/viewstate.php?st=CA

from Million Mom March:

"All Americans have the right to be safe from gun violence in their homes, neighborhoods, schools, and places of work and worship.

All children have the right to grow up in environments free from the threat of gun violence.

Gun violence is a public health crisis that harms not only the physical, but also the spiritual, social, and economic health of our families and communities.

The availability and lethality of guns make death or severe injury more likely in domestic violence, criminal activity, suicide attempts, and unintentional shootings.

It is possible to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by gun violence with reasonable, common sense policy."
http://www.millionmommarch.org/aboutus/

The Brady campaign to prevent gun violence has excellent statistics that prove that nations that implement gun control have much less gun violence.
http://www.bradycampaign.org/

Here's another petition to get Walmart to stop selling bullets and includes stories of people who purchased bullets there and went on to murder others.
http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/involved/walmart/index.php

So many gun control opponents are abusive:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-price13aug13,0,4661455.story?coll=la-opinion-center

Gun companies should be held liable for the damage their weapons cause:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/reparchives/107/hearings/04182002Hearing537/Barnes919.htm

posted in Feminist Activists - 35 replies

Women's Shelter needs help

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 23:15:35 GMT

I'm cross-posting this in several communities. Apologies to those who see the message more than once.

Pretty Bird Woman House, the only battered women's shelter on the Standing Rock Indian reservation in South Dakota, was destroyed earlier this year by vandals. What they didn't steal they smashed up: computers, clothes, the t.v.--then they burned down the shelter. Now PBWH is trying to buy another building, located next to a police station, but they need $70,000 and need help to raise the funds. Please pass this along.

prettybirdwomanhouse.blogspot.com/

posted in Feminist Activists - 0 replies