Rights and Liberties

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Priceless: Gay Rights Activists Take Over Christian Right Hate-Fest in DC
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 17, 2009 at 12:00 PM.

I guess Dana Milbank just worships power and delights in picking on the marginalized. So while I've grown to detest him for years of snarky columns cherry-picking little vignettes to make progressives -- environmentalists, anti-war activists, human rights experts -- look like hopeless geeks who should be ignored when the GOP was in power, now that the Democrats are riding high he seems to be focusing that admittedly sharp pen on tea-baggers and the religious right -- the GOP's immoderate base.

Today he tells an interesting story that could have been titled: Reverend Smith Goes to Washington ...

Conservative Christian ministers from across the land, determined to test the bounds of a new law punishing anti-gay hate crimes, assembled outside the Justice Department on Monday to denounce the sin of homosexuality and see whether they would be charged with lawbreaking.

Needless to say, no arrests were made.

No hands were cuffed. In fact, the few cops in attendance were paying no attention to the speakers, instead talking among themselves and checking their BlackBerrys.

The evangelical activists had been hoping to provoke arrest, because, as organizer Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission put it, "we'd have standing to challenge the law." But their prayers were not answered. Nobody was arrested, which wasn't surprising: To run afoul of the new law, you need to "plan or prepare for an act of physical violence" or "incite an imminent act of physical violence."

But there was some drama ...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Free Market Vultures Are Snatching Away the Livelihoods of Minorities in the Inner City
Posted by Allison Kilkenny, True/Slant on November 17, 2009 at 9:31 AM.

You would think during a time of vast unemployment, wealth disparity, and economic instability that great minds would unite in order to imagine and build a new tomorrow in which the suffering of the masses could be lessened. Of course, that fantasy includes the provision that The Smartest Guys In The Room are also The Most Moral Guys In The Room, which is rarely the case.

Enter T.A. Frank, a New America Foundation think tank lackey, who believes the solution to horrific living conditions in the ghetto is to privatize Section 8 housing and ship black people out to the subprime suburbs.

This is a bad idea for obvious reasons laid out in The Exile by Yasha Levine. First, the area where Frank wants to ship poor black people isn’t that great, according to Levine.

My adopted home of Victorville, California, a McTractHome paradise on the edge of the Mojave Desert 100 miles east of LA, has a buttload of crime, non-existent employment options, racial isolation and a gestapo police presence—just like the real ghetto.

If men like Frank were truly acting in the spirit of altruism, wouldn’t they want to improve the preexisting communities of poor black people, say, by increasing police presence, creating job programs, fostering small businesses, and rebuilding public schools? Frank’s idea to “help” poor people is the same strategy negligent pet owners employ when they want to get rid of an unwanted dog. Drive to the city limits and dump the mutt in the woods. Then drive away as quickly as possible.

Second, unless the government is also willing to supply cars for this newly created diaspora, I have no idea how these people are supposed to get around. L.A. isn’t exactly known for its wonderful public transportation, so I doubt there is an efficient bus fleet. Of course, these are all minor details. The main goal is to get the black, poor people the hell out of the way so that Frank and Associates can get their fingers on that prime real estate. As for the black people, it’s like Levine says:

Outta sight, outta mind.

That’s the best kind of charity!

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No Logo, Ten Years Later
Posted by Naomi Klein, Huffington Post on November 17, 2009 at 6:00 AM.

Almost ten years ago, on November 30, 1999, tens of thousands of protestors shut down a meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. The activists were not against trade or globalization, despite the many misleading claims in the mainstream media. They were against a system of deregulated capitalism that was spreading around the world.

At the time of the Seattle protests, my first book, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, was at the printer. The book looked at the war being waged on public space by a new breed of corporate "superbrands," as well as the first signs of a fight back against corporate power. It was good timing for an author-activist: I had the rare privilege of watching my book become useful to a movement I believed could change the world.

On the ten-year anniversary of the Seattle protests, with anger mounting at the open collusion between corporations and governments, I am re-releasing No Logo with an extended new introduction. Among other developments, the new essay looks at the unprecedented bailout of Wall Street, as well as the rise of the Obama Brand (the most powerful brand in the world) and examines the troubling gaps between its marketing and reality.

As the new edition comes out, it feels like a "movement moment" once again. A new wave of exciting climate justice activism is underway in the lead up to the UN climate summit in Copenhagen, one that builds on many of the networks born in Seattle. As I wrote in a recent article in Rolling Stone, now that a serious deal is off the table, many activists see Copenhagen as "a chance to seize the political terrain back from business-friendly half-measures, such as carbon offsets and emissions trading, and introduce some effective, common-sense proposals -- ideas that have less to do with creating complex new markets for pollution and more to do with keeping coal and oil in the ground."

One of our movement's challenges back in 1999 was that, in the midst of the euphoria of the dot-com boom, few were interested in hearing about the downside of capitalism. Ten years later, perhaps our movement's time has come.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »