Fabulously Feminist Sharon Smith

What We Learned at Notre Dame
Obama and Abortion Rights
By SHARON SMITH

As soon as the news surfaced that President Barack Obama had been invited to speak at the University of Notre Dame’s 2009 commencement ceremony, the fanatical wing of the nation’s anti-abortion crusade began assembling the smoke and mirrors needed to masquerade as a mass movement. Media savvy crackpot Randall Terry, who boasts a long record of confrontation with the enemies of the Christian Right, immediately took the lead. With great fanfare, he announced his plan to “make a circus” out of the pro-choice Obama’s speech — the kind of grandiose threat guaranteeing a prominent spot on the evening news.

Terry is perhaps best known for his role as a media representative for the parents of Terri Schiavo and a key proponent of “Terri’s Law” in Florida, a bill passed in 2003 that temporarily blocked the removal of their daughter’s feeding tube as she lay in a prolonged vegetative state. At the time, Terry organized angry protests outside husband Michael Schiavo’s home because he wished to have the feeding tube removed. The media lapped it up.

But Terry’s pet cause is opposing abortion. He founded Operation Rescue in 1987, which specialized in whipping anti-abortion fanatics into a collective frenzy as they blockaded abortion clinics across the country during the following decade. As Washington Post staff writer Michael Powell wrote in 2004, “Subtlety wasn't Terry's thing -- he described Planned Parenthood's founder, Margaret Sanger, as a ‘whore’ and an ‘adulteress’ and arranged to have a dead fetus presented to Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention.”

In the weeks before Obama’s May 17th speech, Terry et al worked hard to create the illusion that they represented a groundswell of outrage at Notre Dame’s betrayal. Money was apparently no object, since Terry spent $50,000 saturating the campus with photos of bloody “aborted fetuses” — which, as usual, looked suspiciously like newborn babies covered in ketchup. These doctored photos appeared and reappeared on placards, on the sides of semi-trailers that circled the university, and even on so-called “Truth Banners” streaming from low flying “Abortion Planes” above Notre Dame.

Anti-abortion activists pushed strollers with plastic baby dolls covered in red paint through neighborhoods as horrified residents tried to calm their frightened toddlers. On May 1st, Terry and a small group of these stroller pushers achieved their first well-publicized arrest on Notre Dame’s campus. Many more arrests would follow in the coming weeks.

As graduation day approached, rumors circulated that up to 20,000 protesters would descend on campus for commencement weekend. A student organization calling itself Notre Dame Response was formed, claiming it was a coalition of campus groups planning to protest Obama’s speech. When the day arrived, however, the anti-abortion masses never appeared. Only 26 seniors and their families — out of a graduating class of 2,900 — skipped commencement to protest Obama’ presence. And 23 student groups actually endorsed Obama’s invitation to speak. No students were counted among the dozens arrested over the weekend (many of them repeat offenders), while a mere 150 off-campus protesters demonstrated against Obama’s speech.

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Yet curiously, no pro-choice demonstration took place at Notre Dame that weekend to combat all the anti-abortion hype. A handful of students did line up holding “Pro-Obama” signs, but “choice” never made its way into the campus discourse. It seems that the established pro-choice organizations preferred to let Obama represent their side of the debate.

He did not. On the contrary, his speech called for those on opposing sides of the abortion debate to find “common ground … to work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term." Obama’s speech never articulated his own support for women who choose abortion to end an unwanted pregnancy. His speech was so conciliatory to abortion opponents that even the Pope expressed delight. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano praised Obama's speech and noted that Obama had stated at a recent press conference that passing a Freedom of Choice Act, which would protect women’s right to choose, was not high on his list of priorities.

As such, Randall Terry was able to transform Notre Dame into ground zero for the most maniacal wing of the anti-choice movement without ever being forced to answer a coherent defense of the right to choose.

Shortly before Notre Dame’s commencement, a new Gallup poll was released claiming that for the “first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.” The poll found 51 percent describing themselves as “pro-life,” up 7 points from a year ago. To be sure, the same poll showed that 53 percent of respondents also believe that abortion should be legal in certain circumstances. But this severe erosion of support for choice – which stood at 75 percent in 1973 – should be a wake-up call for abortion rights advocates.

Obama appears intent on replaying the Clinton-era scenario, in which the pro-choice presidential candidate promises supporters that he will pass the Freedom of Choice Act while on the campaign trail. Once elected, his enthusiasm vanishes and, when pro-choice supporters do not protest this betrayal, the legislation never materializes. Indeed, the pro-choice movement’s silence during Clinton’s two terms allowed the passage of a wide array of anti-abortion restrictions in states around the country — including mandatory parental consent and notification laws for minors, 24-hour waiting periods and anti-abortion “counseling” — allowing abortion rights to recede under the watch of a pro-choice president.

Entrusting politicians to defend legal abortion has proven a disaster for the pro-choice movement. The movement embarked on this calamitous strategy in the late-1980s, when the leaders of the largest pro-choice organizations, including the National Abortion Rights Action League (now called NARAL Pro-Choice America) decided to adapt their argument for choice to one more acceptable to rightward moving Democrats. NARAL issued a “talking points” memo to its affiliates in 1989, instructing staffers not to use phrases such as “a woman’s body is her own to control” and to reshape the right to choose as a “privacy” issue.

In so doing, the politically passive pro-choice movement allowed the more aggressive anti-abortion crusade to successfully hijack the very definition of “life” in the abortion debate. Removing women’s rights from the debate allowed the rights of embryos to supersede those of living, breathing women desperate to end an unintended pregnancy.

Since Clinton’s election in 1992, the anti-abortion crusade has remained defiant while the pro-choice movement has been in steady retreat. This is the only way to understand how a small but dedicated army of religious zealots has managed to successfully transform the political terrain in its favor — and why a figure as ridiculous as Randall Terry is now regarded as legitimate within the political mainstream.

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Those who specialize in doctoring photos of babies care little about saving women’s lives. But large numbers of women die when abortion is illegal, because they are forced to undergo unsafe procedures performed in unsanitary conditions. If they develop an infection, they are often reluctant to go to the hospital for fear of arrest. In 2003, the World Health Organization estimated that 78,000 women around the world die from unsafe abortions every year. The death toll during the century when abortion was illegal in the U.S. is unknown, but the number is certainly large — and some estimates are as high as 10,000 each year. A University of Colorado study done in the late 1950s reported that 350,000 women experienced postoperative complications each year from illegal abortions in the U.S.

One in every three U.S. women — including one in every three practicing Catholics — has an abortion in her lifetime. Indeed, the abortion rate has been rising as the economy worsens in the current recession, while the National Network of Abortion Funds told the New York Times that calls to its hotline requesting financial help are almost four times higher than a year ago. The majority of women who undergo abortions are young and low-income. So legal abortion is not a marginal issue but an urgent need for millions of women.

Women bear the ultimate responsibility for carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term—often as single parents, earning wages that are much lower than men’s. It is not a coincidence that female-headed households are the most likely families to be living in poverty in the U.S. today. For all these reasons, the decision whether to terminate a pregnancy should belong to the pregnant woman alone.

The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal in 1973 was the greatest victory of the women’s liberation movement — and it was the product of struggle. If support for abortion has declined in recent years, it is not because the right to choose is any less necessary. On the contrary, there is an urgent need to build a new pro-choice movement that reinserts women into the abortion debate and wages an uncompromising fight for abortion without apology.

From Counterpunch

Unsung heroes of World War II finally get their due

By Kevin Bohn
CNN Senior Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- From the time she was about 8 years old, Jane Tedeschi wanted to fly.

Jane Tedeschi when she was in the Women's Airforce Service Pilot program.

1 of 4 "[Charles] Lindbergh was flying across the Atlantic, and a lot of other people were flying air races and things like that. It was very romantic," she said.

Flight was still relatively new in the 1920s and 1930s, and female pilots were few.

But Tedeschi was determined.

In 1941, she found a childhood friend who taught flying and started taking lessons. After the friend was sent off to war and the airport near her home in Bethesda, Maryland, was closed to private flying, she traveled about 40 miles to Frederick and spent nights on the floor of a farmhouse to continue her lessons.

Around the same time, Deanie Parrish was working in a bank in Avon Park, Florida, and kept seeing aviation students who were attending a flying school there.

"I asked an instructor 'Why can't I learn to fly,' and he didn't have an answer...so I decided to find out for myself."

She found an instructor and started taking lessons.

These two women were not only fulfilling a personal dream. Along with 1,100 other women, they would become an instrumental part of the war effort during World War II, becoming the first women to fly U.S. military aircraft.

The Women's Airforce Service Pilots was born in 1942 to create a corps of female pilots able to fill all types of flying jobs at home to free male military pilots to travel to the front.

In the days after the outbreak of the war, Jacqueline Cochran, one of the country's leading female pilots at the time, went to a key general to argue that women would be just as capable pilots as men if they were given the same training.

She won the argument, and the program was launched.

Parrish joined up at age 21 in November 1943.

"Everybody was doing something," she said. "I wanted to do something for my country."

Some 65 years after their service, the WASPs are being honored with the Congressional Gold Medal -- one of the national's highest civilian honors.

Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, shepherded a bill through the Senate, and it now awaits a vote by the House of Representatives.

With fewer than 300 living former WASPs, all in their late 80s or older, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Florida, a sponsor of the bill, told CNN it's important for the House to act quickly.

"This is a largely overlooked veterans group. They haven't gotten the medals they deserve, the recognition they deserve," Ros-Lehtinen told CNN.

Some 25,000 women pilots applied, and 1,830 were accepted. They had to pay their own way to Texas for 21 to 27 weeks of rigorous training, for which they received less pay than the male cadets in the same program, Parrish said.

Candidates had to be at least 21 years old and at least 5-feet, one-half inch tall.

When Tedeschi underwent a physical, she was told her height was only 5 feet. Watch Tedeschi recall WWII »

"I frowned," she recalled. "I said I need that half inch so he wrote it down." She was in.

Eventually 1,102 women completed the program and were assigned to one of 120 bases across the country to start their missions.

Depending on the base, they did everything from participating in ground-to-air anti-aircraft practice; towing targets for air-to-air gunnery practice with live ammunition; flying drones; conducting night exercises; testing repaired aircraft before they were used in cadet training; serving as instructors; and transporting cargo and male pilots to embarkation points.

"We were still civilians. All of our training was to make (Army) Air Corps pilots," Tedeschi said.

They flew more than 60 million miles in every type of aircraft -- from the PT-17 and AT-6 trainers, the fastest attack planes like the A-24 and A-25 or heavy bombers such as B-17s or B-29s.

Paid $250 a month, the women were not officially part of the military -- receiving no benefits, no honors.

Eventually Parrish was sent to Florida where she flew a B-26 bomber for air-to-air target practice, training gunners for combat.

Tedeschi, who graduated in May 1944, was sent to a Selma, Alabama, base which did more engineering work.

"We did whatever they asked us," she recalled in a CNN interview. "You knew enough about flying you could adapt ... sometimes it was a little tougher."

For instance, she would take planes up after repair which could involve acrobatic work -- "which, of course, we liked to do," or be called to do night flying.

While the work was technically non-combat, it could be dangerous.

Thirty eight of the pilots were killed. Parrish recalled the military would not allow the flag to be put on a colleague's coffin.

"It still bothers me," she told CNN.

As the war was winding down in December 1944, the program was closed -- with no recognition from the government and not much help for the women who served.

"You got home the best way you could," said Parrish. "I paid my own way home."

The women then went off to restart their prewar lives -- but without getting any of the help that male veterans were getting.

Several of the women, however, said they were not bitter since the only reason they had signed up was to do their part for the country, pointing out that they were just like the thousands of other women who also learned new skills and went to work in the factories to replace male workers sent off to war.

"We were proud of what we did, and the war was over. It was time to get on," said Tedeschi, who is married and 89 years old.

But many Americans were not aware of their efforts. The WASP records were sealed for more than 30 years. In 1977 Congress voted to make them eligible for veterans' benefits.

"I didn't care for veteran status, but now I could have a flag on my coffin ... that is important to me," Parrish said.

Parrish married a pilot after the war. She and her daughter, Nancy, for over a decade have documented the work of the WASPs. Read more about the WASPs at the Wings Across America Web site.


While some of the WASPs say the medal itself is a nice gesture, more importantly they say they hope the publicity will teach younger generations about their accomplishments and remind some still skeptical men just how capable women are.

"People all over the country will hear about it. It will be a national event," Parrish said.

Fabulously Feminist News

Report Indicates Severe Abuse in Catholic Irish Orphanages

A report issued this week by Ireland's Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse on abuse within at least 216 Catholic orphanages and state institutions has resulted in a global outcry against the continued abuse of children by the Catholic church. The report investigated alleged incidents of abuse dating back to 1914 and included evidence from more than 1,700 people relating to abuse they experienced as children in state institutions, according to the Irish Times. More than half of those surveyed reported sexual abuse.

The report stated that
"In some schools a high level of ritualized beating was routine….Girls were struck with implements designed to maximize pain and were struck on all parts of the body….A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from," reported the Guardian UK. Most of the schools were run by the Catholic-affiliated Christian Brothers and Sisters of Mercy. The report also found that the Catholic Church protected known pedophiles working in the institutions.

Through a statement, the Christian brothers said: "We acknowledge and regret that our responses to physical and sexual abuse failed to consider the long-term psychological effects on children.....We appreciate that no healing is possible without an acknowledgement of our responsibilities as a congregation for what has happened," reported ABC.

Media Resources: Irish Times 5/21/09; The Guardian UK 5/20/09; ABC 5/22/09


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DC Defense of Marriage Act Introduced in Congress

A bill was introduced yesterday in the US House of Representatives that would institute a Defense of Marriage Act for the District of Columbia defining marriage as between a man and a woman. The bill is sponsored by Representatives Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Dan Boren (D-OK), neither of whom represent the District of Columbia, according to Politico. District of Columbia Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), has long supported gay, lesbian, and transgender rights.

This bill's introduction is in response to the passage of legislation earlier this month by the DC City Council that will enable the District to recognize same sex marriages performed in other states. Since Congress has jurisdiction over DC, Congress could block this legislation by passing a joint resolution against it and having this resolution approved by the president, according to the Washington Times. If Congress does not take action, the measure will become law.

Washington, DC Councilmember David Catania (I) has said he will introduce a same sex marriage bill this year. Democratic committees in three wards in Washington, DC have voted in favor of a same sex marriage resolution and a committee on a fourth ward has voted in opposition, according to the Washington Post.

Media Resources: Washington Post 5/21/09; Feminist Daily Newswire 5/6/09; Politico 5/21/09; Statement of Eleanor Holmes Norton 5/5/09

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Louisiana House Passes Health Care "Conscience" Bill

Legislation that would allow health care providers to withhold certain services and medications, including abortion and emergency contraception, on the basis of religious or moral objections was approved by the Louisiana state House this week in a 65 to 33 vote. The bill (see PDF) also includes conscience clauses on stem cell research, cloning of human embryos, physician-assisted suicide, and euthanasia and now moves to the state Senate, reported the Associated Press.

A previous version of the bill said that it would protect health care providers "from liability, discrimination and employment action for refusing to provide certain health care services," but did not specify which "certain health care services" the law would include, according to the News Star.

The current Louisiana bill is similar to a Bush-era regulation released in December 2008 that established new protections for health care providers who refuse to provide certain services based on moral or religious bases. The provisions of the regulation placed the burden on women to seek out individual providers who will provide certain kinds of treatment, including birth control, abortion and sterilization. The regulations drew widespread protest. During a month-long public commenting period, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) received tens of thousands of comments against the regulations, including letters opposing it from at least thirteen state attorney generals and six medical groups. The Obama Administration moved to rescind these HHS regulations in March.

Media Resources: Associated Press 5/20/09; Feminist Daily Newswire 3/9/09; News Star 5/20/09

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California Assembly Passes Fair Pay Legislation

The California state Assembly passed a state-level version of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Monday on a 49 to 28 vote. The measure codifies at the state level a broader version of the federal Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. According to the bill, the statute of limitations on pay discrimination claims runs from the receipt of each discriminatory payment.

Assemblymember Dave Jones (D), who co-authored the legislation, said in a press release: "The Court's ruling encourages employers to hide information and will likely lead to more unlawful discrimination. President Obama and the Congress have acted to amend federal law and now we should act to ensure that our state law is not weakened by this court decision. This legislation will ensure that the Supreme Court's flawed decision does not apply to state laws that affect a worker’s right to equal pay."

The federal Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, signed by President Obama in January, corrected the Roberts Supreme Court decision (see PDF) that gutted the ability of women workers to sue for wage discrimination. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that a wage discrimination complaint had to be filed within 180 days of the initial salary decision even if the victim is unaware of the discrimination until much later. The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 requires that a complaint be filed within 180 days of receiving a discriminatory paycheck.

Media Resources: California NOW Press Release 5/18/09; Feminist Daily Newswire 5/8/09

Why women need single payer

Why women need single payer

Gary Lapon looks at a new study that details the gender inequality built into the U.S. health care system.

May 18, 2009

"WOMEN AT Risk: Why Many Women Are Forgoing Needed Health Care," an issue brief released this month by the Commonwealth Fund, reveals the gender inequality of the U.S. health care system and illustrates the gross inability of the current private health insurance system to meet the needs of working class women and men.

Although the study doesn't call for it, it provides further evidence for the compelling case for "everybody in, nobody out" single payer health reform as necessary both to provide universal access to health care and as a blow against sexism.

Report authors Sheila D. Rustgi, Michelle M. Doty, and Sara R. Collings begin by placing their findings in the context of an economic crisis where millions of workers are losing their jobs (and with it their employer-provided health insurance) while "health care costs are rising at a rate of more than 6 percent per year...increasingly, health insurance and access to care are falling further out of reach for many working families."

Women are disproportionately affected because on average they "require more health care services [than men] during their reproductive years" and "have higher out-of-pocket medical costs." Considering that women are paid about 76 cents for every dollar a man makes, they face the triple burden of requiring more care, paying more each time they access care,and relying on less income to cover these costs.

Disturbingly, "in 2007, more than three of five adult women under age 65 reported a problem paying medical bills, a cost-related problem getting health care, or both." And this data, from before the onset of the current economic crisis, is likely much worse today.

While U.S. Census Bureau data shows that some 47 million (nearly 16 percent) of U.S. residents are uninsured, the inclusion of the underinsured--those who have insurance but "incur out-of-pocket health care costs" such as co-pays and premiums "that are high relative to their income"--reveals that health care woes are spread across a much broader section of the population.

According to the "Women at Risk" report, 75 percent of adults with yearly household income under $20,000 and 60 percent of those with household income between $20,000 and $39,999 "had gaps in their insurance coverage or were underinsured...in 2007, 45 percent of women and 39 percent of men were underinsured or uninsured for a time in the past year."

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THE FINANCIAL burden of health care costs for the underinsured can be crushing, especially for those living paycheck to paycheck, and it's growing at a rapid rate. In 2007, 55 percent of women with household income under $20,000 spent at least 10 percent of their income on health care, up from 29 percent of those women in 2001, an increase of nearly 90 percent in just six years. The underinsured have coverage, but financial barriers mean they must at times go without needed care or choose between paying for care and other necessities such as food, rent, or debt payments.

According to the "Women at Risk" study, 67 percent of low-income women and 65 percent of moderate-income women responded "yes" when asked if, during 2007, because of cost they'd "not filled a prescription; skipped a medical test, treatment, or follow-up visit recommended by a doctor; not visited a doctor or clinic when they had a medical problem; or did not get needed specialist care." Working-class men fare better, but still face a crisis situation: for men in the same income brackets the percentages forgoing needed care are 57 percent and 52 percent, respectively.

Frequently, the un- and underinsured skip preventive care, such as cancer-screening: according to the Commonwealth report, "only 67 percent of underinsured women over the age of 50 received a mammogram in the past two years, compared with 85 percent of adequately insured women." Going without preventive care has tragic consequences: patients with treatable but dangerous diseases such as cancer and diabetes may go years without a diagnosis, only finding out about their condition when it's too late to prevent serious complications or even premature death.

According to Urban Institute findings based on Institute of Medicine methodology, 137,000 people died in the U.S. from 2000 to 2006 from a lack of health insurance. To put this in perspective, that is over 28 times the number of U.S. soldiers who've died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 23,702 more than the number of U.S. residents murdered during those same six years.

The United States spends more on health care than any other country in the world, yet is the only advanced industrialized nation that does not provide universal access to care and of thousands of poor and working class residents die each year as a result.

They die because health insurance giants maximize profits, which increased 170 percent from 2003-2007 to $12.6 billion for the industry leaders, by providing less care and passing more costs on to those who are insured, providing insufficient coverage to those who are underinsured, and refusing to cover those who cannot afford to pay enough in premiums for the insurance companies to make a profit.

Until the profit motive is removed and the insurance companies excluded by the introduction of a single-payer reform or system of socialized medicine, millions will continue to suffer from forgoing needed health care.

Proposed reforms that maintain a role for private insurance, such as the "health insurance mandate" reform (the Massachusetts model), under which everyone is required to purchase health insurance, even if they contain enough subsidies to insure everyone (and even in Massachusetts over 2 percent aren't covered) will amount to a massive public subsidy to the health insurance industry and fall short of providing universal health care.

As illustrated above, millions of the underinsured, those who have insurance but pay a prohibitively high percentage of their income in premiums and out-of-pocket costs, do not have access to the care they need. Having access to insurance is not the same as having access to care, and it is not enough to fill in the gaping cracks in the system.

Those who are oppressed and marginalized, such as low-income women, are more likely to fall through these cracks, or be "swept into them" (as described in Michael Moore's Sicko).

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REPRODUCTION IS one of the main reasons women as a whole require a greater amount of health care than men. Women must pay for birth control, abortion services, prenatal, maternity, and post-partum care (before during, and immediately after the time of birth), and other services associated with choosing whether or not to have children or ensuring the health of mother and child.

According to a 2007 Thomson report for the March of Dimes entitled "The Healthcare Costs of Having a Baby," for the insured, the average vaginal birth in 2004 cost $7,737 (inclusive of prenatal and other care) while the average Cesarean section cost $10,958, the overwhelming majority paid for by the insurance company.

However, for the uninsured and underinsured, disproportionately low-income women, these costs are prohibitive and can have a devastating impact on the health of the woman and child. According to Dr. Jennifer L. Howse, president of the March of Dimes, "it is well documented that a lack of prenatal care is associated with poor birth outcomes, including prematurity and low birth-weight, and high out-of-pocket expenditures may discourage women from obtaining the care they need."

Control over reproduction is essential to winning equality for women. Working-class women who cannot afford birth control or an abortion when they so desire, do not have full control over their bodies and therefore cannot enjoy equality with men.

Similarly, this control is denied women who would like to have children but are discouraged or go without proper care because they lack adequate health insurance and cannot afford the costs associated with the care necessary to minimize health risks to mother and child.

For working-class women especially and for the working class as a whole, health-care costs associated with reproduction are one of the ways the capitalist class passes the cost burden of raising the next generation of workers onto the working class. The capitalist class that wants workers to have more babies for the former to exploit for profits when the latter grow up, but would much rather the working class pay the costs and perform the unpaid labor to raise them.

The enactment of a system of universal health care, one that includes full funding for abortion (and a repeal of the Hyde Amendment restricting federal funding for abortion), would be a major victory for the women's rights movement, the labor movement (health care benefits are often used as a lever for employers to gain concessions from labor) and for the working class as a whole.

Today, according to a recent CBS/New York Times poll, 59 percent of Americans support government-provided national health insurance as opposed to 32 percent who think it should be left to the private sector. And numerous polls have shown that significant majorities of doctors support a single-payer system that eliminates the role of private health insurance.

Earlier this month, when nurses, doctors, and other "single-payer" advocates disrupted a Senate finance committee meeting on health care reform to ask why supporters of single-payer were not included and why committee chair Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) refused to consider it, they were removed by police and arrested.

A government that would provide a seat at the table for health insurance executives who preside over a system that kills dozens every day by denying care, while arresting those who actually provide health care and speak for a majority of the population, is not going to pass single-payer unless pressured by a movement from below.

As Frederick Douglass wrote, "Without struggle, there is no progress." Supporters of women's and worker's rights should join the movement for single-payer health care, health care for all. Everybody in, nobody out!

From our Friends at Socialist Worker

Escaping the Dollhouse

Adam Turl looks at a new television series, Dollhouse, from Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy and Firefly.

May 14, 2009

"THERE'S NOTHING good or bad but thinking makes it so." That's the world according to Topher Brink (played by Fran Kranz)--the fictional scientist that programs the brains (of only semi-willing subjects) in Joss Whedon's Dollhouse.

Last Friday, Fox aired the season finale of Dollhouse--which stars Eliza Dushku as Echo, one of dozens of brainwashed and programmable human "dolls" or "actives" hired out to the wealthy and powerful by the secretive corporate cabal that runs the "Dollhouse."

The Dollhouse is a gilded cage (that looks like an upscale spa) hidden beneath a high-rise office building in Los Angeles. Actives are assigned names based on the alphabet, such as Alpha and Echo and Whiskey. Their minds are wiped clean in between their assignments--which frequently involve sex (prostitution) and violence (sometimes assassination).

Dollhouse, written and created by Joss Whedon. Starring Eliza Dushku, Harry Lennix, Tahmoh Penikett, Fran Kranz and Alan Tudyk. First season finale aired May 8 on Fox.

They are nominally "contracted" employees (who have signed over five years of their lives to the Dollhouse). Their new personalities, dreams and talents are controlled by the house (while their real personalities and memories are stored in computer files called "wedges" until their bonded servitude is over). The Dollhouse is illegal and "underground" (figuratively and literally).

I usually love Joss Whedon's work, and Dollhouse is one of few shows on television that successfully goes beyond mere entertainment--but with a Friday night time slot (a notoriously bad time for new shows) and with a "difficult" underlying theme (to say the least), ratings have been low. The show might be canceled.

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WHEDON, A third-generation television writer, is known for his fantastic premises (ranging from fighting demons to spaceship-piloting bandits with hearts of gold) in classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and the brilliant web-only Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog--that nevertheless put "real-life human" drama at the center.

That is not to say that his shows are simply soap operas with amazing settings. They have a particular outlook on what it "means" to be human. Whedon is certainly no socialist or radical, but he describes himself a humanist, a feminist and has repeatedly professed his atheism--saying that he doesn't believe in the "sky bully," i.e. God. With Whedon, the old axiom "nothing human is alien to me" comes to mind.

His shows are often unique because the viewer is led to understand and, on occasion, empathize with the "bad guys" and because Whedon's "heroes" sometimes make horrible mistakes. In other words, his characters act like real people who develop and change due to their actual circumstances (however fantastic these may be).

This is refreshing with a "popular culture" where "bad guys" are often one-dimensional cartoons and where the "good guys" are largely infallible and unflappable.

In Buffy, Angel is a vampire with a "soul" trying to make up for his past crimes. In Buffy's sixth season, Willow (Buffy's friend and a powerful "witch") becomes so distraught when her girlfriend Tara is murdered that she tries to destroy the world. Some of the worst villains in Firefly are flesh-eating "reevers"--but in Whedon's film adaptation of the show, Serenity, we learn that they were created in a botched government experiment in behavioral control. They become victims instead of villains.

Dollhouse takes this theme farther. As the "dolls" are reprogrammed with new personalities and memories, every week the question is: who are these characters really? In particular, this is the case with Dushku's character Echo (her real name is Caroline before she becomes a "doll"). The dolls are victims of the Dollhouse and, at the same time, its pre-programmed defenders.

Whedon got inspiration for the show from an episode of This American Life. "Guys had found a way to block a memory stream on mice," Whedon recalls, and "got flooded with letters from people begging them to be test subjects, because they were like, 'I don't want to remember my life. Something bad happened,' or 'I want to cut out something.'"

Many of the more recurring characters in the show are the corporate managers of the Dollhouse. What they are doing is clearly wrong, but they are depicted like real people, more or less middle management in a global conspiracy of "dollhouses" from Los Angeles to Tokyo to London.

Paul Ballard (played by Tahmoh Panikett) is a suspended FBI agent who is trying to root out the Dollhouse and rescue Caroline, but ends up agreeing to work for the Dollhouse in a deal to free one of the actives.

"The good and evil is kind of the point," Whedon told Salon.com, "the relativity of both and our assumptions about what's evil is something we want to explore all the time. The Dollhouse is by definition kinda sketchy. And very illegal."
This is not to say that Whedon never takes sides--and his ideas obviously tend toward the liberal and progressive. His earlier shows demonstrate this more clearly.
For example, in one episode of Buffy, the "slayer" is sucked into a demonic sweatshop dimension (until she leads a rebellion to free those inside). In Firefly, two principal characters are veterans of the defeated war for independence from the supposedly "civilized" Alliance.

In the first season of Angel, the show makes the case for rehabilitation instead of punishment when the renegade vampire slayer Faith (also played by Dushku) tries to kill Angel. In fact, the main enemy in Angel is an "evil" corporate law firm, Wolfram and Hart.

Dollhouse also takes sides--but not enough. Every episode is downright eerie--and it couldn't be otherwise given that it is in no small part about the commodification of personality itself. Actives are essentially bullied into signing away their lives. As Whedon describes it, "the question of whether they've actually volunteered or not is obviously somewhat dicey. And as we'll begin to learn, every Active has a different backstory."
Some are former prisoners or victims of different tragedies.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

WHEDON'S SELF-DESCRIBED feminism also permeates Dollhouse--as it has in his previous work.

In 2006, Whedon won an award from Equality Now for his positive depictions of women. In his speech accepting the award he argued that "the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who's confronted with it."

Feminist ideas showed early on in his career when he worked as a writer on Roseanne--a show that presented working-class people and working-class women as actual human beings. Part of his logic behind Buffy was to invert the Hollywood formula of "the little blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed in every horror movie." Instead of a victim, she is the super-hero able to protect and defend others.
As Whedon recalled: "I started out with [the idea of] 'Martha the Immortal Waitress.' The idea of somebody that nobody would take account of, who just had more power than was imaginable."

Similar themes--including the power of the supposedly weak to fight back--cross through his other shows. In the first season of Angel, the heroes essentially abort a series of unwanted demonic pregnancies (using magic). In Firefly, the show's characters defend women in a brothel from a misogynist warlord (and fight alongside them).

The feminism is there in Dollhouse--although it is more problematic. Not all the dolls in Dollhouse are women--but many are (and it likely isn't an accident that it shares a similar name with Henrik Ibsen's play, A Doll's House).
In the second episode of Dollhouse, Echo is hired out to a psychopathic multimillionaire who hunts her in the woods (until she kills him). In another episode, one of the Dollhouse "handlers" is killed (by the Dollhouse brass) when he sexually abuses one of the dolls. Throughout the show, Ballard's motivations for "saving the girl" (Caroline/Echo) are called into question.
But the series suffers because Whedon doesn't clearly condemn the prostitution implicit in the fabric of the dollhouse (not unlike far too many later-day "feminists" who wrongly believe there is something "empowering" about prostitution). Whedon doesn't go that far, but his ambivalence about the "world's oldest profession" is a weakness in the makeup of the show.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

REGARDLESS, EMPATHY, liberalism and feminism aren't the only reasons why Whedon's shows are so good. They are (usually) genuinely good stories--using "classic" plot devices (cliffhangers, "the end of the world," criminal capers, etc.) as well as groundbreaking new ones--where the fantastic reinforces the mundane.
For example, Buffy won an award for the fourth season episode "Hush." In "Hush," for 35 minutes there is no spoken dialogue (a demon has stolen everyone's voices) but the silence brilliantly underscores the "real" conflicts of the characters.
In Dollhouse, at its best, the twists and turns of plot underline the larger questions the show raises about control and individuality.

In the season finale, an escaped (and homicidal) doll, Alpha (brilliantly played by Alan Tudyk) kidnaps Echo. Alpha was accidentally given 48 personalities at once and considers himself a sort of ubermensch. However, his homicidal impulses began before the Dollhouse accident--raising the question of how much control the Dollhouse really has over the minds of its actives.

Echo is the would-be hero of the show. Throughout the season, she remembers things she is not supposed to--engagements, skills and memories that were supposed to have been wiped from her mind.

Dollhouse's biggest problem (politically, artistically and in getting viewers to tune in each week) is also what makes it interesting--the identity crisis of its characters.

Part of what made Firefly, Buffy and Angel compelling was that viewers loved the characters and identified with them, warts and all. They were trapped in conditions often beyond their control, trying to do their best, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding (much like real life).

Whedon has said that "Echo is a much more complicated character by virtue of being hardly a character, and the premise itself is designed to be kind of distancing."
But that could be a fatal flaw. It may be that the lack of control (and the limited ability to fight back) that Echo and the other dolls have is too apocalyptic--and the line between so-called "good" and "evil" too blurred to be useful as either an artistic or political device.

By way of contrast, in Buffy, Angel and Firefly, you often understood why people did the wrong thing--but they could only find hope by switching sides and trying to make the world better. By extension, viewers could conclude that they too could find hope by picking the right side--whatever tragedies, weaknesses or failures they had endured.

In these series, even large numbers of people joined together to fight back--as in the finale of Buffy season three, when Buffy's graduating class unites to defeat the town's newly transformed demonic mayor.

Dollhouse should be renewed--and folks should watch it. For all Whedon's wild plots, his stories are some of the few on television that really resemble the complications and conflict of life as it is actually lived. But here's to hoping that as the show progresses, its characters will start picking sides--and ultimately that they "burn" the Dollhouse to the ground.

That's what Buffy would do. "Martha the Immortal Waitress" is nobody's slave.

Right on!!!

From our Fabulously Feminist Friends at Feministing.com

Marriage Equality Bill Passes NYS Assembly, Now On To The Senate!

So same sex marriage is legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa. (And will be in Vermont and Maine by September 2009). We're really happy for those states, but also pissed off that our own state of New York hasn't followed suit yet. That may be about to change, but we have some work to do first.

In April Governor David Patterson introduced a bill to legalize same-sex marriage (one that a majority of New York voters support ). The bill would amend the Domestic Relations Law to give same-sex couples the opportunity to enter into civil marriages, qualifying them for state rights on issues such as property ownership, inheritance, healthcare and insurance coverage. (Note: it specifically says "civil marriages", so all those bullshit lies about how priests could go to jail for not performing same sex weddings don't apply).

The bill has just passed through the New York State Assembly by a bipartisan vote of 89-52 . Yay! Getting it through the Senate might be a little trickier. (A similar bill passed in the Assembly in 2007 with a vote of 85-61, but couldn't pass in the Senate).

Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith has stated that he won't bring the bill to the floor of the Senate unless he' s sure it has sufficient votes to pass. As of now it still seems like the numbers come up short, so what can we do about that? Although Republican Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos opposes marriage equality, in April he stated that members of the Senate Republican Conference will be free to vote their consciences rather than pressuring the GOP to vote against the bill.

Recent articles in New York magazine and the New York Times broke it down on who the swing voters might be. Some of them are "undecided" on the issue (or just haven't spoken out publicly about their stance) while others are against the bill but worth the time to try to convince them to change their minds! So we think it'd be a good idea to get in touch with those Senators and tell them how important it is for them to support same-sex marriage.


Thomas P. Morahan (R-Rockland County) - He has said that he's "not going to come out one way or the other" on the issue.

Kemp Hannon (R-Nassau County) - He told the Times that although he's inclined to oppose the bill, it "deserves serious consideration".

Vincent L. Leibell (R-Westchester/Putnam/Dutchess) - He prefers civil unions to marriage, but said that he might not make up his mind until the last minute and that "society changes over time". (Interesting piece of info: His law practice does estate planning for gay couples).

James S. Alesi (R-Rochester) - "My public opinion has not been stated yet, and it probably won't be for a while". (Possible factor: He attends a church that blesses same-sex unions).

Kenneth P. LaValle (R-Hamptons) - Gay rights advocates consider him "open" to considering a yes vote.

Elizabeth O'C. Little (R-Queensbury) - Gay rights supporters believe she is "within reach". So um, let's reach out to her, shall we?

William T. Stachowski (D-Buffalo) - He opposes expanded same-sex marriage rights.

David J. Valesky (D-Oneida) - He was quoted in April : "I don't think that that's an issue that should be at the forefront of the Senate agenda and I would be very surprised if it was anytime soon." He would not say whether he himself supported the bill or not.

Shirley L. Huntley (D-Jamaica) - She opposes the bill largely based on her religious beliefs and that she's had a "large influx of calls and letters from constituents who asked me not to support it." Hm... sounds like it's time for a large influx of calls and letters from constituents who do want her to support it?

Brian X. Foley (D-Suffolk County) - He has yet to voice a decision either way.

Ruth Hassell-Thompson (D-Bronx/Westchester) - She's said that she's reserving judgment on the issue. Good sign:"I always try to believe that I'm an open-minded person." Bad sign: "This is an issue that challenges the fundamental believes that people have and that's not easy."

John L. Sampson (D-Brooklyn) - He went from no to undecided, saying "I can't impose my own religious beliefs in a situation like this".
Joseph Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard Beach) - He said in April that he's yet to make a decision, but that "gay marriage is not a priority at this time ".

George Onorato (D-Astoria) - He might be the biggest problem of all the Democrats... Apparently he has pledged to vote against marriage equality for reasons of "faith" and being "old fashioned and so far little progress has been made with him. There are already have been organized attempts to change his mind , so feel free to jump on board, especially if you're from his district.

You can contact the New York Senate: here or here.

Maybe you think it's a waste of time... but look at U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), who no longer supports the Defense of Marriage Act, despite voting for it in the past. And here in New York, Assembly member Joe Lentol initially opposed gay marriage, but voted for the bill in 2007, and there are several members who voted no in 2007 but changed their votes to yes this time around. The point is that politicians do change their minds - and it's up to us to help them get there in time for this bill to pass.

For more information on which district you live in and what you can do in your area: Marriage Equality New York . (If you're in NYC this weekend, you might also want to check out this event May 17th).

And of course, if you are going to try to go head to head with your senator, some myth-busting tips from Empire State Pride Agenda might help you counter any anti-gay arguments.

WTF!!! of the Week

By Mohammed Jamjoom
CNN

(CNN) -- Husbands are allowed to slap their wives if they spend lavishly, a Saudi judge said recently during a seminar on domestic violence, Saudi media reported Sunday.

It is OK to slap Saudi women who spend too much, a judge has told an audience.

Arab News, a Saudi English-language daily newspaper based in Riyadh, reported that Judge Hamad Al-Razine said that "if a person gives SR 1,200 [$320] to his wife and she spends 900 riyals [$240] to purchase an abaya [the black cover that women in Saudi Arabia must wear] from a brand shop and if her husband slaps her on the face as a reaction to her action, she deserves that punishment."

Women in the audience immediately and loudly protested Al-Razine's statement, and were shocked to learn the remarks came from a judge, the newspaper reported.

Arab News reported that Al-Razine made his remark as he was attempting to explain why incidents of domestic violence had increased in Saudi Arabia. He said that women and men shared responsibility, but added that "nobody puts even a fraction of blame" on women, the newspaper said.

Al-Razine "also pointed out that women's indecent behavior and use of offensive words against their husbands were some of the reasons for domestic violence in the country," it added.

Domestic violence, which used to be a taboo subject in the conservative kingdom, has become a hot topic in recent years. Groups like the National Family Safety Program have campaigned to educate the public about the problem and help prevent domestic abuse.

Saudi women's rights activist Wajeha Al-Huwaider told CNN that Saudi women routinely face such attitudes.