I cried. Honestly.
Thanks to Jennifer Oullette for finding this and passing it on. I can’t imagine anything better to post for International Women’s Day.
Month: March 2012
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#Kony: Uneasy Answers
If you haven’t seen it yet, watch the Kony 2012 video. Al has it up on his blog. Even if you’ve already heard bad things about it and Invisible Children, the group that made it, go watch it. You should know what goes on in other parts of the world, and this will tell you more than most of the media you’re likely to come into contact with.
Once you’ve done that, read the Visible Children tumblr. It will give you background the video won’t, both on the situation in Uganda and on Invisible Children’s goals as an organization. Note that the site has its own problems, including a mention of the White Man’s Burden problem that happens only in passing when it needs some space of its own on this topic. If you don’t feel comfortable with Invisible Children after reading, the tumblr also gives you some other options for taking action, namely providing more direct aid to the people affected by what’s going on.
Then head over to Justice in Conflict, a blog that problematizes the notion of unilateral justice in situations like these. They have provided the best primer on the complicated situation in Uganda that I’ve seen. They are also the only people I’ve noticed who understand something that Greta Christina is good at pointing out: The victims and the victimizers in any situation are often one and the same.
I can’t and won’t tell you what to do about Kony or about Uganda. I don’t have good answers. What I can tell you is that we may have the luxury to ignore conflicts in Africa, but that doesn’t mean we don’t play a part. If you’re reading this, you have a hand in what goes on there. It’s time to start education yourself about what that means.
For Better For Worse For All
A few days ago, I mentioned that one way to get involved in activism is to lend your professional media skills if you have them. This sort of thing is why:
It’s lovely, it made me sniffly, and it’s exactly the sort of thing that works. It hits prejudice where it lives–in ignorance.
There’s plenty more still to be done to defeat the anti-marriage amendment in Minnesota this November, of course, but getting ads like this out there can only help. Pass it on.
Why Government Censorship Is Bad
Bear with me here. You may think you know why government censorship is bad. It’s quite possible that you really do. However, the perpetual outcry over comment moderation and the current to do about the Limbaugh boycott suggests that a lot of people don’t. At least they don’t think about it when they’re saying this stuff. If they did, they’d know better to compare it to what they’re complaining about.
So, here goes: Continue reading “Why Government Censorship Is Bad”
Not Our Burden
I don’t usually post TED talks. It isn’t because they aren’t often interesting or thought-provoking. It’s more because the whole concept of TED gets under my skin in some ways. “Look! A series of mini-lectures to tickle the brains of those who have the leisure to engage with them for a few minutes and the money to hire thinkers to assuage their boredom.”
Yes, I can get quite cynical.
This one I am posting, however, because I think it makes one of the clearest statements of humanism I’ve ever heard. Enjoy.
Rush Limbaugh Is a Fat, Classless, Druggy Prostitute
So Rush Limbaugh said something vile about someone. That’s apparently news, despite the fact that this is how he’s made his living for the last two decades. After all this time, Limbaugh’s behavior is finally costing him his major corporate sponsorships. Why now? Maybe because the regressive behavior of Republicans in office across the country is radicalizing the population in a way that wars and recessions couldn’t.
Maybe.
Or maybe it’s because this time Rush’s target is white (unlike the First Lady), fits our biases on “innocence” (unlike those who want access to birth control for sex), and as a Georgetown law student, exhibits the trappings of socioeconomic success (unlike many crusading for social and political justice).
Of course, it could just be that we were already watching and rooting for Sandra Fluke, so we were poised to move en masse when this happened. It could be the radicalization. It could be…something else.
I wish I could believe that was true, that we’re rising up against Limbaugh’s general behavior and not just because he dared to strike at an unacceptable victim. Sadly, the words of my fellow progressives give me altogether too much doubt on that score.
Continue reading “Rush Limbaugh Is a Fat, Classless, Druggy Prostitute”
Utah Getting More Regressive on Sex Education
In the middle of national hearings on birth control access and the passage of state laws punishing women who receive abortions, Utah has been doing something stupid. Most of us were distracted. April Gardner was not. I followed events through her Twitter feed and asked her to write a guest post since most people still don’t know this happened.
Utah’s Legislators Ignore the Purpose of Education and Expose Students to Harm
Over the last month, Utah’s conservative legislators in the House of Representatives have made a mission of pushing conservative morals into an education policy that is a solution in search of a problem. What’s more, in doing so they have not only ignored the entire purpose of educating the next generation, but they have created an environment that will leave Utah’s youths far more vulnerable than they are under the current curriculum standards. Continue reading “Utah Getting More Regressive on Sex Education”
The Myth of Our Moral Past
We have, it seems, memories that cast a rosy glow over our pasts. Times were always simpler, pursuits more pure. Or were they?
You know, the times when men where men and the women damn glad of it! The great times when you all went to school, everyone was constantly respectful and well-behaved and cared only about learning. Yeah, right! The great times somewhere in the past when politicians really listened and worked for us. The time when there weren’t all the problems with drugs and crime. Could we all stop eating from our bowls of Dreamos and focus on exactly when was this Golden Age?
Was it in the early 1900’s when capitalism was not at all controlled, child labor was common, six percent of the society graduated from high school, kids used to picket to have the right to attend school, railroad workers would lose an arm on the job and receive five dollars and their walking papers, monopolies controlled most of the economy and life expectancy was in the mid-fifties? No, it couldn’t have been then.
The fact is there was no perfect time to which we should aspire to return. Some things get better over time. Some get worse. Progressive and regressive forces battle it out on an ongoing basis.
Of course, that doesn’t politicians from using our faulty memories for their own interests. Continue reading “The Myth of Our Moral Past”
Atheist Activism Minus the Confrontation
At JT’s talk at CASH on Thursday, one of the audience members asked what people who didn’t have JT’s obvious taste for confrontation could do to help the atheist movement. JT had some good answers, I gave some suggestions, and we talked about the question a bit more after the session with Brianne and Heather Hegi, the incoming chair of the board of Minnesota Atheists. My brain kept working on the question for a while as well. What follows is a collection of suggestions from all these places.
International Sex Worker Rights Day
One of these days, I’ll get around to writing about where I stand on sex work. I don’t think it’s a complicated stance, but it is one that mostly relies on analogy, so it takes some explaining. So that day won’t be today.
What I will do today is link you to the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance’s page on International Sex Worker Rights Day. It gives you a good background on the challenges to the human rights of sex workers, of course. This year, however, there is also progress to be celebrated, partly thanks to Woodhull. Continue reading “International Sex Worker Rights Day”