Free Soil Party Blog

USA, Hamid Karzai, and his Parliament dominated by warlords have created a mockery of democracy in Afghanistan. It has come down to Karzai pushing this law for the Shia minority which will deny women a right to refuse sex with husbands, among other traditional privileges granted males to enforce male power over women. After the news got out, and Karzai got admonished by Hillary Clinton and other outraged leaders, he trumpets the law is being misinterpreted, then he says he will have it thoroughly reviewed. He deserves no credibility. RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) News documents some offensive sections of the new law in Sharia for Shias: ‘Legalised rape’. For instance,

Article 132
(3) The couple should not commit acts that create hatred and bitterness in their relationship, The wife is bound to preen for her husband, as and when he desires.
(4) The husband, except when travelling or ill, is bound to have intercourse with his wife every night in four nights. The wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.

I cannot find the expressions of shock and outrage from world leaders credible. As if they knew nothing of what was afoot? This law was briefly debated in the Parliament, then railroaded through by Karzai as a political stunt. Those who act so shocked that Karzai, alleged ally, would jump at a chance to subordinate women if he thought it could get him a political edge, ought to read RAWA news, or some horror stories in the war news section of this blog. The indifference of the Karzai regime to the rights and safety of women is notorious. The article in the Guardian, ‘Worse than the Taliban’ – new law rolls back rights for Afghan women, also posted at RAWA News, as well as the New York Times in Karzai Vows to Review Family Law, quote Soraya Sobhrang, head of women’s affairs at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, who had worked on this bill for two years. She decried the lack of protest from the international community while the law was debated in the legislature.

‘Worse than the Taliban’ – new law rolls back rights for Afghan women
Jon Boone in Kabul
The Guardian, Tuesday 31 March 2009

Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in Afghanistan’s presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalises rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands’ permission.

The Afghan president signed the law earlier this month, despite condemnation by human rights activists and some MPs that it flouts the constitution’s equal rights provisions.

The final document has not been published, but the law is believed to contain articles that rule women cannot leave the house without their husbands’ permission, that they can only seek work, education or visit the doctor with their husbands’ permission, and that they cannot refuse their husband sex.

A briefing document prepared by the United Nations Development Fund for Women also warns that the law grants custody of children to fathers and grandfathers only.

Senator Humaira Namati, a member of the upper house of the Afghan parliament, said the law was “worse than during the Taliban”. “Anyone who spoke out was accused of being against Islam,” she said.

The Afghan constitution allows for Shias, who are thought to represent about 10% of the population, to have a separate family law based on traditional Shia jurisprudence. But the constitution and various international treaties signed by Afghanistan guarantee equal rights for women.

Shinkai Zahine Karokhail, like other female parliamentarians, complained that after an initial deal the law was passed with unprecedented speed and limited debate. “They wanted to pass it almost like a secret negotiation,” she said. “There were lots of things that we wanted to change, but they didn’t want to discuss it because Karzai wants to please the Shia before the election.”

The international community has so far shied away from publicly questioning such a politically sensitive issue.

“It is going to be tricky to change because it gets us into territory of being accused of not respecting Afghan culture, which is always difficult,” a western diplomat in Kabul admitted.

Soraya Sobhrang, the head of women’s affairs at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said western silence had been “disastrous for women’s rights in Afghanistan”.

“What the international community has done is really shameful. If they had got more involved in the process when it was discussed in parliament we could have stopped it. Because of the election I am not sure we can change it now. It’s too late for that.”

But another senior western diplomat said foreign embassies would intervene when the law is finally published.

Some female politicians have taken a more pragmatic stance, saying their fight in parliament’s lower house succeeded in improving the law, including raising the original proposed marriage age of girls from nine to 16 and removing completely provisions for temporary marriages.

“It’s not really 100% perfect, but compared to the earlier drafts it’s a huge improvement,” said Shukria Barakzai, an MP. “Before this was passed family issues were decided by customary law, so this is a big improvement.”

Karzai’s spokesman declined to comment on the new law.

From the New York Times article:

The law also outlines rules on divorce, child custody and marriage, all in ways that discriminate against women, said Soraya Sobhrang, commissioner for women’s rights at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

While the law applies only to Shiites, who represent approximately 10 percent of the population, its passage could influence a proposed family law for the Sunni majority and a draft law on violence against women, Ms. Sobhrang said. “This opens the way for more discrimination,” she said.

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, said the law represented a “huge step in the wrong direction.”

“For a new law in 2009 to target women in this way is extraordinary, reprehensible and reminiscent of the decrees made by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the 1990s,” Ms. Pillay said in a statement posted on her agency’s Web site. “This is another clear indication that the human rights situation in Afghanistan is getting worse, not better.”

In addition to the clauses on when women may leave the home and must submit to their husbands, Ms. Pillay said she was concerned about a section that forbids women from working or receiving education without their husband‘s permission.

Ms. Sobhrang, who has been working on the issue for the last two years, said women’s groups and the human rights commissions had worked with Parliament to introduce amendments but then the law was suddenly pushed through with only three amendments. The bill as originally drawn up by Shiite clerics barred a woman from leaving the house without her husband’s permission, she said. The parliamentary judicial commission amended that provision to say that a woman could leave the house “for a legitimate purpose.”

Mr. Karzai cited that provision in a news conference on Saturday, pointing out that the final version of the law did not ban a woman from leaving her house. But Ms. Sobhrang said even as amended the law contravened the Constitution, which recognizes equal rights for men and women. The term “for a legitimate purpose” was open to interpretation, she added.

What is the Afghan government doing, writing an unconstitutional law for a religious minority? Why is Karzai pushing this, just to win reelection? Karzai is a major embarrassment, but what would one expect from a puppet dancing to the strings of Bush and company, who certainly did not give a hoot about rights for women, except as an excuse to justify the war. Are Karzai and the Parliament not making a statement with this law, a way of asserting their independence, daring USA to do something about it?

Obama says America did not choose to fight this war. The people were given no choice. Making Afghanistan pay was the hook, though that nation had only provided shelter to mostly Saudis giving their lives to make USA pay, for maintaining a military base on their holy ground, for instance. Afghanistan was chosen as the scapegoat because Osama bin Laden and company ran warrior schools there. He was an ally against the Soviet Union, and some historians credit that struggle with forcing the collapse of that empire. It was the Vietnam War analogue for Soviet Union, and promises to repeat the lesson for Obama, who is naive or complicit enough to promulgate this fantasy of securing Afghanistan to deny the terrorists a safe haven.

Obama has reservations about Karzai, and has also denounced the new law, but regardless, this mockery of a democracy, created as a corporate friendly shell regime to facilitate the businesses of fossil fuel pipelines and opium, is what Obama is committing to prop up as the cause that could not be more just. USA may not be in a position to tell Karzai to scrap the law, but USA can withdraw support for Karzai, which would probably mean his assassination. His life is worth nothing without protection, getting the fitting nickname Mayor of Kabul. USA has no business trying to occupy Afghanistan or Iraq, and this alacrity to sign away rights for women by this corporate stooge shows how little the Bush experiments in democracy mean. These are sham democracies, where women are worse off than before USA invaded, to set things right? Something went horribly wrong, and if it is all the fault of Bush, why is the Obama policy not a full reversal? These experiments in democracy are total failures, except for a few corporations with sweet contracts supporting the war effort. Obama could renounce it utterly, but has chosen just to shift forces and strategies around, hoping both disasters can be salvaged with his wise leadership? If Obama wants to improve on Bush, or if he thinks rights for women should actually carry some weight, he could renounce recognition of this government headed by Karzai, or get the hell all the way out, preferably both. Obama thinks his strategy will bring America back from the brink. No, that would require abandoning conventional wisdom, from which he has chosen liberally to guide and implement his plans.

President Obama could give up trying to salvage what Bush started. These are not his wars, though he consistently voted to fund them, not wars the people of USA understood, after being sold a bill of goods, a public relations masquerade now shown to have more holes than substance. He could get the troops out of there. They are not wanted and can serve no useful purpose. The occupation plays into the hands of the resistance, which Obama promises to defeat, to deny terrorists a safe haven, but that will never be accomplished by military means, or making alliances with warlords notorious for terrorizing women. Obama could ask the women of RAWA, read their News Archive, get a clue of the views of the women he says he cares about. The occupation has not liberated women, only on paper, and Karzai and that Parliament of warlords has shown how little those words can mean.

Another prominent feminist activist, Sitara Achakzai, was shot down last Saturday in Kandahar. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility. Her friend and fellow member of the provincial council, who asked her name not be published in fear for her own life, was quoted in the Sunday Globe and Mail

“Obviously, we’ve had a brain drain. … Now when we’re slowly trying to think for the future of the country …this is how our country repays people,” Ms. Achakzai’s friend said. “I have no faith in my government. I have no faith in the Taliban. I have no faith in the international community.”

Malalai Joya knows how little those claims of liberated women mean. Here is some of what she said recently about the plight of women in Afghanistan, from The Age in Australia

A voice of hope for Afghanistan’s women
Frud Bezhan
April 14, 2009

“Today, because there is no strong central government, Afghanistan is carved up between these same warlords, who have now filled the shoes of the Taliban,” Joya says. “Afghanistan is once again in the hands of rapists, murderers and extremists.”

She claims that although liberating women was one of the main moral arguments for invading Afghanistan in 2001, the situation for women has continued to deteriorate. “Ninety per cent of women in Afghanistan suffer from domestic violence, 80 per cent of marriages are forced, and the average life expectancy for women is 44 years,” she says.

Joya recounts the harrowing stories of two women she has met. Fatima, the daughter of a poor shopkeeper, was sold to a man, 50, who raped and beat her and then traded her for a dog. Her father did not have the money to buy back his daughter, 23. Shabnum, seven, was kidnapped and raped by three men, who cut her genitals.

“The plight of victims such as these girls is my driving force,” Joya says. “I will never give up my fight for justice, and I’ll continue to try to represent the millions of voiceless Afghan people — especially women and children — who are still being brutalised by warlords and the Taliban. While ordinary women and girls face rape, forced marriages and inhuman acts of abuse daily, women who stand up for their rights and take a public role in society risk being killed or silenced.

Despite the pressure brought to bear by the world community and while acknowledging the contribution of international forces in Afghanistan, Joya believes the US and other foreign powers are making a mockery of democracy and the liberation of Afghan women by empowering the warlords and fundamentalists.

“The US talks about thousands of girls flocking back to school, but the fundamentalists in power are encouraging the destruction of schools, the killing of teachers and the kidnapping of students,” Joya says. “The US also talks about the improving situation for women, but they are committing suicide more than ever. They would rather die than live.”

Yes, President Obama is contributing to this mockery of democracy and the liberation of Afghan women by empowering the warlords and fundamentalists. Calling this new law abhorrent is a nice gesture, but it means about as much as Karzai promising to review it. Karzai has no need to review the law; he knew all along what is wrong with it, and pushed for it anyway. If Shia men want to crack down on their rebellious women, that should be condemned. If the law and President cannot forbid Shia from practicing their oppressive customs, they should at least remain neutral, not codify those customs into law. Clearly maintaining his power matters more to Karzai than rights for women. Since that is his attitude, supporting his government contributes to this mockery. Obama may claim his plan is the best hope for Afghan women, but few of them agree, and they ought to know better than any US politician or general determined to defeat the terrorists.

Barack Obama has a vision for a changed politics, honoring a preacher John McCain might have chosen with the opening prayer for his inauguration. This is his way of reaching out to all Americans, reaching out to wary Republicans while leaving many of his supporters behind. This is standard old Democratic big tent politics, no great change in policy here. No hesitation to flout international law by bombing Pakistan, not just the requisite dose of bellicose rhetoric for the campaign. Smarting Republicans will not be easily charmed, nor those who supported Obama reluctantly, not their first choice. Sometimes the tent is too big, when efforts to straddle the elusive center matter more than its principles.

Change is coming, but who will benefit? In the name of economic hardship everyone will be asked to sacrifice, but that is not facing the real issues. The model of economics underlying modern capitalism is rabidly self-destructive. This latest bubble bursting was not so hard to predict. Obama has better plans, such as open government, lifting the abortion gag rule, more emphasis on diplomacy and alliances, more careful treatment of prisoners of war, first steps toward nuclear disarmament and a more sustainable way of life, a White House Council on Women and Girls, a White House organic garden, various other reforms, not trifles but nothing radical or unexpected. It remains to be seen what actions will spring from those plans. Among his bad plans are:

Expanding the war on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Taking his time winding down the war on Iraq. Defending Israeli and US war crimes, flouting international law. Stressing patriotism and maintaining military supremacy, claiming our way of life gives USA the moral high ground to project power around the world . Expanding the armed forces and NATO. Clean coal. Any role for nuclear power other than rapid phaseout. Faith-based initiatives. Abstinence as part of sex education, and new restrictions on abortions under mental distress. Promoting agrofuels and genetically engineered crops. Throwing good money after bad, keeping bankrupt crooks afloat. Using any of those extreme executive powers seized by Bush and Cheney with the Patriot Act and its follow ups, while letting them off the hook for their crimes. Promoting reversion to Clinton policies and people as the change we need. Promoting triangulation, selling out core constituencies, as continuity and bipartisanship. Promoting a food safety bill that as written, could ruin small and organic farmers by requiring them to take safety measures prompted by reckless agribusiness practices. Most of these bad plans were readily predictable, within the first weeks of his term.

Among many better plans he will not take on:

Reducing military spending to a minimum necessary to end all occupations, close or turn over all foreign bases, clean up the toxic messes the military-industrial complex has left in its wake, provide a realistic defense against potential invasion, get an international campaign going to decommission all nuclear weapons, research facilities, and power plants, and other indefensible weapons and research programs. Substantial luxury taxes on socially costly indulgences, such as junk food, tobacco, alcoholic beverages and other recreational drugs, unsupportive shoes, cosmetics and cosmetic surgery, unnecessary toxicity or pollution, sexist imagery, resource hogging, solely speculative transactions. Firing Jon Favreau, chief Obama speechwriter featured in a picture on Facebook of his gleeful mug and another Obama staffer groping a Hillary Clinton mockup. Firing the lot of military industrial friendly bureaucrats Obama picked to implement his plans. Abolishing slavery of all kinds, including sexual, and making it an important human rights issue around the world. Abolishing poverty by funding appropriate shelter, nutrition, health care, rehabilitation, education, day care for everyone who wants or needs it, so nobody has to remain stuck in a bad job, relationship, or sexual slavery to survive. Teaching boys thoroughly there is nothing salutary, manly, or legal about raping, battering, harassing, or buying women as part of comprehensive sex education. Banning dress codes requiring women to wear cosmetics or constricting or revealing clothing. Abolishing genetic engineering and cloning, at least outside the laboratory, as examples of science going too far, violating the precautionary principle. Getting toxic chemicals out of food, water, air as fast as possible. Stop subsidizing big agribusiness. Stop logging old growth and using wood for purposes where substitution is easy, such as paper. Nullify the free trade agreements, World Trade Organization, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Federal Reserve Bank. Forget about biofuels, from corn or high tech. The focus on embryonic stem cells is misplaced, since other sources are more promising and less trouble. The focus on prescription drugs is misplaced, since other means are often more promising and less trouble. The focus on metaphorical wars is worse than misplaced, but expected of leaders of an empire.

Examples of misplaced focus abound, since the economic model is corrupted at its source by its assumptions about the value and meaning of hierarchy, capital, competition, incorporation, life itself. Capitalism has long been not about free markets or competition, but has devolved into bailing out insolvent companies too big to fail. That such could exist violates the principle of a competitive free market. The system is not even true to its own principles, let alone principles that affirm life, but will be defended to the last breath by the new leadership as well as the old. The system has revealed its fatal core rot. Let the institutions that deserve to fail die by their sword, unbridled debt and undeserved abusive power. There could be fulfilling work for all, but not under these fundamentally messed up conventional models.

Priorities as well as values and principles of those models are all backwards, designed and working to preserve power and privilege, not for common people. Obama will try to have it both ways, but his plans are too little, too late to do much about this mess. He thinks part of the answer is people acting more responsibly. This has some relevance, but the models underlying the way of life he touts as needing no apology encouraged rich people acting irresponsibly to get the world economy into this bind, inventing vehicles for reckless speculation fueled by cheap debt. Breaking up all the companies too big to fail might seem inconceivable, but it was not so long ago that these were denounced as monopolistic, and forced to split into multiple companies. Antitrust legislation was passed for good reasons, though enforcement has been lax, as a rule. Corporations used to be set up for specific purposes requiring a pool of capital. The idea of a corporate bottom line of short-term profit is among modern corruptions that make such a mockery of competitive free enterprise and fair play.

Those ideals Obama touts so proudly are sullied by blood. Some of that blood is already on his hands, authorizing full speed ahead on the Pakistan front, and hardly a word of protest at the rampage in Gaza. Democrats run scared from the soft on terror label, showing why the nation will not regain the moral high ground it squandered after blowback struck home. Obama was the last hope of Pakistanis to avoid confrontation over the raids, but he wasted no time dashing that, leaving the people of Pakistan to wonder how much worse could things get now that their neighbor and its people hiding in Pakistan are to be the central front of the war. It seems people in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are still fair game for the war on terror, because they are sheltering terrorists, and who knows what Obama will do about Iran when his vaunted tough diplomacy gets nowhere. Is this a war on terror, or of terror? Is this a vision for healing, or is that just a mirage created by a master of illusion? Obama exudes confidence his plans will work. If they accomplish anything, it will be when the business cycle has run its course, or when he is forced by harsh reality to give radical ideas a chance.

Competition for dominance was bound to produce bad consequences, because it is a distorted fundamental value of warlike cultures. It may seem innocuous if one does not think too hard about it. Competition could be about other things, like being the best one can be, providing a better product or service, finding a better way to do or look at anything, honing a skill or talent, building on what works to make it better, and so on. In and of itself, competition is not a bad thing, but warlike culture makes it vicious, cutthroat, cannibalistic, dog eat dog, racist, me first and the hell with whoever or whatever gets in the way, men feeling entitled to rape, assault, harass, devalue, and buy women. The concept of power is closely tied to this valuation of dominance. Power over others is a heady emotion, enabling the atrocities of war and all sorts of other symptoms of this rotten culture, though its practitioners prattle endlessly on their good intentions. Power that empowers is internal, creative, inspiring, passionate, furiously resisting abuse of power. This kind of power is out of political power, but would turn politics as we know it on its head. People with integrity of character and vision could do that, but politics as we know it rejects them as idealistic impractical radicals whose ideas are ivory tower utopian fantasies that could never work. Instead politics presents mainstream versions of pragmatism, conventional wisdom, which can only appear to work through illusions and bubbles, motivated by fear and greed. Where is the sense of perspective in that, looking out for future generations? Unfortunately politicians have learned how to fake concern about the future to convince people how much they care. It remains to be seen what Obama will try, but his initial forays to deal with this colossal mess he inherited are surface treatment desperation measures cloaked in a cool confident manner, as if confidence in him could be the new bubble to obscure what really must be worked through.

There are better ways. There are more where those came from. For example, see the campaign blog Heart put together for 2008, or What This Feminist Revolution Could Accomplish from last January.

I imagine you crying out, convulsing with revulsion as all the things driving you to madness in your life surround you, perhaps not realizing you are not the crazy party, even if you feel crazy, lost, trapped, stuck, hopelessly overwhelmed with no way out. It is hard not to feel more than a little crazed when masters of policy and technology have it all backwards, any sensible view being ignored or ridiculed in favor of male propensities to contend for dominance. The basis of that paradigm is this drive to subordinate, so everything derived, directly or indirectly, from that is corrupted at its source. The list is unimaginable in length and horrors. For instance, might makes right, rape, battering, sexual harassment, intimidation, manipulation, bullying, winning, cruelty, hierarchy, cutthroat competition, cutting corners, plundering nature, toxic dumping, mixing up genetic structure for profit, war, conquest, colonization, occupation, arms race, superpower, doomsday weaponry, poverty, proselytizing, political, psychological, and economic models, Constitution recognizing rights only of white men, not even most of those getting to vote for decades… The rot is endless, so it is not alarming that you sense things are amiss; they are, and not because of anything deficient in you. That is a reversal scam, wool pulled over your eyes, that the problem is how you look at things, or biochemical imbalance. It is to your credit that you sense things are amiss, deeper than stock markets crashing, so your problems cannot be all your fault. Living in such a messed up world has to bring out charged up reactions, of depression, madness, going numb, or fury. It infuriates me anew beyond belief, to look at fresh examples of this madness every day, that trend showing no sign of reversing, even if Obama does get some things done by working with amenable Republicans. He seems anxious to reach out to them, despite drawing protests from dismayed supporters who expected better than another betrayal from a big talker politician, this time.

The world is effectively mad, upside down, its collective mind twisted into a pretzel by any sensible or rational standard, the worst schemes of the rich and powerful creating chaos as their bubbles of recklessness unravel. Even what men call knowledge is skewed by their basic premises, but fundamental to their learned thought patterns is this drive to subordinate, serving to prop up and escalate theories and practices like hierarchical models, hero worship, violence. One can say men compete to control everything, often with the worst of intentions or tools. Under another model one could say people can work with each other and resources provided by a generous but finite planet to make quality balanced relationships, products, services, instead of competing to control, dominate, master others, show who is boss in a society hierarchical in just about every way conceivable. Why is one group better than another? Sex? Sexuality? Ancestry? The only possible means to make such a comparison make sense is on the basis of proficiency in each ability possible to humans, in other words specific rather than general, since by differences readily apparent by appearances, those comparisons will trade off. Subordination of inferior groups is all twisted delusion maintained for benefit of men in power, a conflation of personal or cultural pride with being better or entitled. Pride does not require feeling better than others, a different kind of pride than feelings of superiority and entitlement associated with hierarchical models.

Convention allows males to look at females as sex objects, since females are different, the Other devalued to prop up male ego. Leave it to man to invent ideological violence. Other animals fight over territory, but man had to expand the territory of battle to beliefs, invent slavery and Inquisitions, turn war into a sinister art demanding ever more money and death. In some parts of the world, I might be killed for expressing my opinions, while in others people send death threats, or lean on me to tone it down. Times are bad, enough for pornography bigshots to stage a publicity stunt applying for a bailout, another maneuver to add insult to injury they must trot out. They are almost accepted as part of mainstream media, so why not? While men feel entitled to devalue women into sex objects, one group can justify devaluing another into slavery or other forms of second classhood. The default to see men as the norm, those who matter, head the household, must be taken seriously, is arbitrary, deliberately set up that way and maintained to keep the clique of the powerful, mostly men, in power, subordinate men contented with power over women. Feminism threatens to disrupt all that, so it is roundly reviled as anything but what it is, women taking power, which would ultimately bring radical change, at least in the way the culture sees and values women and power, since feminist power is not hierarchical or about vengeance or subordinating anybody. There is far more diversity in feminism than the media presents, as if it is divided between Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin camps, or man-hating and pornography is so liberating camps. Radical women are visionary, going to the root of matters, not necessarily extreme, leftist, or lesbian.

The degree and forms of social madness vary, but the trend looks bad. It gets to the point the public relations people do not seem to care how unbelievable their spin is, they expect people to buy it. Why live in such a mad world, where people look down on you, want to abuse, devalue, or ignore you? Any hope of meaningful change seems a forlorn futile pipedream, not going to happen in your lifetime? Rebels try to organize, but are splintered into myriads of narrow focus groups that cannot agree on anything?

It can all seem hopeless, mocking you when hope itself is made into a campaign slogan, and Obama slogans into commercial advertising. Are there ample reasons to suspect Obama of selling out his principles to big money? His marketing program has kept these murmurs mostly off the map of mainstream media, otherwise it would be dealing with President McCain? Life can seem intolerable at times, yet is resilient enough to recover from most insults. Life cannot seem such a wonderful thing if you are having a miserable time with a job you cannot abide, or someone determined to make your life miserable, whether your boss, coworker, relationship, stalker, or your own compulsion. You do not deserve this. Blaming or taking it out on yourself is tantamount to conceding they win, you are too miserable to fight back. However implausible it may seem, a supportive friend or group could help you find a way to fight back. Usually there are ways, at least to work toward a better life, though finding one and making good use of it can seem farfetched, since the cold cruel world at large is so unsupportive.

The world will have to clean up its act more than most people can imagine if there is to be any chance of reversing course before too late to avert major ecological collapse. It could happen before humanity is forced awake by any number of possible disasters awaiting business as usual. It is hard to contemplate living under predictable scenarios, but people do have choices, and having their backs against the wall could bring out the worst in people, or the best. It is hard to see the point in living, if the future is so bleak. Yet there are better ways, and to work for any kind of change is a reason to live. To work for radical change that would deal with this predicament in a practical, realistic way is a reason to live. That may sound utopian, but it is clever but ironic artifice to call what can actually work utopian, when what is supposed to work according to conventional wisdom caused and is compounding the problems.

People will squawk, what a pipedream, yet this is to say there is no way better for visionary women to find than bailing out the scam artists? That goes for more than the financial mess. Scam artists have pulled the wool over our eyes in every way they could imagine. Nothing is left untouched, not science, medicine, psychology, religion, tradition, what one learned to believe. It all goes back to fundamental beliefs, based on fundamentally flawed presumptions on reality, twisting it to maximize hierarchy. Think about what the opposite would mean, if hierarchy had no value. This is closer to reality. There should be no hierarchy for its own sake. There is no need to overvalue necessary evils. The founding document, the Declaration of Independence, of USA says governments are instituted to secure rights,

deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

It seems government has taken it upon itself to stretch another phrase,

organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness

If that last their refers to well off white men, the voters allowed under the original Constitution, there is our system, though it has revealed some heavy cracks lately, so very few powers that be are feeling so safe, smug, and happy at the moment. The Obama bubble might fix that for awhile, but look out below.

It may seem all so hopeless, so beyond any hope of repair, at least on the level of your own life. A woman needs a room of her own, and she needs support as well. When I was young women had a widespread support group movement, of small mostly disorganized groups of women throwing thoughts and feelings out for discussion, finding out how similar some of our issues with men were. Those groups were known as CR groups, for consciousness raising, before New Age and postmodern movements came along to recast consciousness into a ghost of what it meant. If that movement had been able to network as easily as is possible today, it could have turned political reality on its head, because feminist political awareness is powerful, potentially enough to endanger the powers that be. Those groups also helped women work out ways of dealing with our problems that seemed too personal, just your own problems, but other women could empathize, realizing political implications. Most problems are manufactured as consequences of wrongheaded assumptions of prevalent psychological and economic models. These assumptions only make sense if one believes in them, so men run the world, into the ground. That cannot last forever, but the sooner women realize how to turn things around, the better. It is all about networking, to communicate about gripes and figure out practical real life solutions. Eventually enough women will be emboldened to speak out, to express in all our creativity, wisdom, and power, to sweep enough of the rascals out of office to try something really new.

It could also help to try writing out your pain into a blog, or journal. A blog can be private so only friends can see it. If you make it public and allow comments, you might have to censor a few losers who feel like harassing you, but you might find someone who empathizes with you, can relate to what going through your battle is like. Another way is to join a moderated forum at an online support network. There is nothing like a supportive friend to help you ground, get your bearings, find a way out of the maze. The Free Soil Party is sponsoring a Depressed Women Network where women can rant and rave freely in forums carefully moderated to keep the atmosphere safe for that purpose. One section is visible to the public, others more private, some for venting only, others for discussion of issues. I imagine what depresses most depressed women is not unrelated to what infuriates me. This is not in our imagination. Women have reasons not to believe men know what they are doing, with women or anything else in this world of, by, and for men, throwing a few crumbs our way to placate our fury. We cannot agree on what to do about it, but that need not keep us feeling so alone and powerless. This is a political issue for Free Soil, the system built to keep women down, nothing new, but still depressing, infuriating, and under challenge. You can help fight the system by venting. Despite what you learned to believe, do not downplay what you contribute to the world. It is a political issue that depressed and angry women have so little support, our feelings ridiculed or dismissed as our fault, best pacified with drugs. Better to join a feminist revolution, or vent among friends. Repressing your feelings only hurts you, keeps the wounds festering. The drugs only make you numb, apathetic, docile. Your feelings are important. Venting them might help you and others more than you can imagine. You can fight back. You do not have to settle for blaming yourself, or drugging your life away. Most doctors are part of the system, not on your side, telling you how you need to adapt to society, get with the program. To some extent we must all make deals to survive, but Martin Luther King said in The Power of Non-Violence over fifty years ago

God grant that we will be so maladjusted that we will be able to go out and change our world and our civilization.

Think about that the next time you are told how you need to adapt or adjust to society. Society needs to adapt and adjust to women taking power. In the meantime, business goes on as usual, which is oppressive and depressing, but there are many ways to contribute to the struggle. This may seem remote, but so many women seethe inside that you might find some empathy or answers, if you venture to vent. Think on your depression as a reasonable reaction to such a messed up world. If you understand it is not your fault, you can help fight the oppression that is depressing you. To truth, healing, discovery, a way out of all the poison illusions!

Obama Girl says in her video It’s Hopeless, directed at Hillary Clinton, which made ABC News back in March,

It’s become an Obama Nation…
We all have a crush on Obama

Anyone reading this, contrary to the perspectives behind those notions and the new swiftboating book Obama Nation, is not likely altogether convinced Barack Obama is a different kind of politician, or represents the kind of change one can believe in. The change he represents, I have heard it all before. He is a kinder gentler figurehead of the corporate state. His candidacy is different, not because he is such a different kind of Democratic politician, but his perspective is not that of a white man. His erstwhile primary opponent shared that distinction. This is significant, but their moderate posture is not otherwise groundbreaking, not the kind of root change needed to solve the problems of this time, slightly more rational on domestic policy, but on foreign policy, more of the same, while shifting primary focus of the war efforts from Iraq to what some call the just war, or real war on terror, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This is from a recent flyer asking for money, substituting bold for underlined. What is it with is for these slick Democrats? Here is the Obama brand of change as of that flyer, already slightly revised for the next, the underlined is noticeably absent.

Change is a tax code that rewards work instead of wealth. Change is a health care plan that guarantees insurance to every American who wants it, and an education policy that gives every child a chance at success.

Change is ending a war in Iraq that should never have been authorized, and finishing a war against al-Qaida in Afghanistan that should have never been ignored.

(My name), that’s what change is. And that is the choice in this election.

It’s more of the same versus change. It’s the past versus the future. This choice has confronted generations before us. And now it is our turn to choose.

His message for a recent Democratic National Committee fund raiser substituted:

Change is an economy that rewards not just wealth, but the work and workers who create it. Change is a health care plan that guarantees affordable coverage to all who want it. And change is ending a war in Iraq that should never have been authorized and never been waged and that distracted us from winning the war against al-Qaeda. That’s what change is.

When the proposed future looks like the usual stale veneer of a kinder gentler version of corporate empire, Democratic style, a different kind of choice confronts the people. More of the same, with a slight swerve toward moderate politics, or turn it all around to clean up this mess politicians like these choices have fostered while pretending to the public, everything is under control, there is no cause for alarm, the experts know what they are doing. Obama thinks he can send some more troops to Afghanistan and its people will come around, the job can be finished with military victory there, terrorists smoked out of Pakistan, and friendly Iraqis running Iraq? Obama is dreaming. I can say that with confidence, because I am a dreamer. The Free Soil plan to end the war on terror is more visionary and feasible than his, no comparison. Obama is predictably selective about who is eligible for negotiation, and under what conditions. Free Soil supports a full accounting of all the war crimes on all sides. That means stopping this pretense to hold the moral high ground, negotiating with those these politicians dismiss as envious evil terrorists, the ringleaders Obama and McCain promise to eliminate. USA has lost whatever shaky claim to moral high ground staked after agents of blowback delivered that act of war that could not go ignored, even by a complacent citizen of empire.

Obama finally renounced his Pastor Jeremiah Wright, not for things he said that made me bristle, but for reiterating some inconvenient truths about US foreign and domestic policy. The war on terror is doomed to defeat, because it is battling rebellion against empire. No empire can stand for long, and these days any attempt will fall amazingly fast, this one already showing manifold effects of internal rot, its economy tottering precariously on a house of cards as mountains of junk debt devalue, while a few mostly white men get richer. To maintain the Obama image matters more than truth, so he can say he will finish the war on terror. How he expects anyone with an ounce of sense to believe that shows his arrogant disregard for reality. What does he mean, finish the war? I shudder to imagine what Obama might do to show how tough he can be on those terrorists. From Bloomberg, July 13

“I continue to believe that we’re under-resourced in Afghanistan and that that is the real sediment for terrorist activity that we have to deal with, and deal with aggressively,” Obama told reporters while campaigning in San Diego today.

Afghanistan is notorious for not staying conquered. What makes Obama think this time will be different? How does he expect to find the recruits to expand the ground forces? This is from the text of his remarks on Iraq and Afghanistan published in the New York Times on July 15.

I will restore our strength by ending this war, completing the increase of our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 marines, and investing in the capabilities we need to defeat conventional foes and meet the unconventional challenges of our time.

He sounds like another warmonger to me, but he wants to fight the real war, hoping a US friendly Iraqi government and army will be able to take over there. I see parallels to Vietnamization. It might be possible, if the occupation ended smoothly, but not if US keeps meddling and blaming Iraqis for the violence and not meeting milestones, like that peculiar oil sharing agreement to divvy up oil profits, intended to give control of Iraqi oil to transnational oil companies. These milestones were not meant for the benefit of Iraqis, as they would see it. The point is this change Obama touts is another bunch of timid pseudo solutions people who can remember have come to expect from Democrats, lofty promises never meant to be delivered. Obama talks about health insurance for all and a chance for success for every child. Success as a cog in some corporate machine, or an education policy that gives everyone a fair and reasonable chance to develop their talents and skills? Free Soil has a few things to tell Senator Obama about the meaning of change. There is no need for health insurance if necessary health care is taken as a basic right, as an essential consequence of the right to life.

That right was not meant for a fetus, but Obama thinks if the fetus is far enough along, so-called partial birth abortion can be declared illegal unless birth would endanger the health of the mother. The Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act Congress passed in 2003 is vague, banning a medical procedure, with no health exception, not only used for late-term abortion, so what late means is up for dispute, the label just another distortion to inflame people against abortion. Obama is the new Mr. Slick, pretending to have a perfect pro-choice record, ignoring the twists thrown on the common sense notion that women should not have late-term abortions unless necessary for health reasons, since after viability the procedure is generally more hazardous for a woman not otherwise expecting complications than carrying the baby to term. The procedure is rarely used, but is sometimes the best alternative before viability, so it is not a trivial matter if Obama would support this bill, with a health exception. It does appear he would not oppose a ban after viability with more limited mental health exceptions than exist in present law. Then there were controversies about him saying sweetie to a reporter, coded language about Senator Clinton, and his present votes in the Illinois state legislature, instead of no on five anti-choice bills, on request of Planned Parenthood as a practical political strategy, but protested by NOW. Is this practical politics at work? Since his supposed trustworthiness on abortion and other feminist issues is a big Democratic selling point for women, one might wonder, what principle will he not sell out in his quest for the center of conventional wisdom?
(more…)

Dear Cindy Sheehan,

I am writing to offer an endorsement, and some information concerning you. I would not presume Free Soil is the first national party to offer to endorse you. I could understand why you wish to remain independent. As one rebellious woman to another, I know of the pitfalls and treachery of party politics, but I think Free Soil can be different, partly because my circle of friends revived it over thirty years ago. The blogger known as Heart, Cheryl Seelhoff, has volunteered to run for President, endorsed by the Feminist Peace Network as “a candidate for the rest of us.” That was the title of the announcement on the FPN blog last July . Her platform, a work in progress, is organized as a blog here

Regardless of all that, I wanted you to know Free Soil appreciates your efforts, valiantly fighting to stop the Bush agenda and this war that killed your son for no good reason. The opposition party refuses to take that role to heart. Big surprise, hardly. Democrats make an art of playing it safe, making big deals of minor points of difference, while leaving major points unchallenged, so the war goes on while Democrats think they score points by blaming it all on Bush and filibusters. One might think all this going on would make people mad enough to revolt, throw all the bums out, but there appears to be insufficient common ground to rally behind, so it appears people are complacent or resigned, at least to the eyes of pollsters and pundits. Some groups try to bring people together on this issue or that, putting pressure on legislators to pay attention, but on the surface there are so many problems, it seems impossible to make headway enough to pierce the armor of the system. The media creates the aura of invincibility and inevitability around the corporate empire, but the web is part of the media that is out of control, so women can try to show how we do not have to settle for the usual stuck in a rut male ways. The change Obama represents does not impress me. I suspect it means along the lines of working with Republicans to get things done, like the rotten compromises of constitutional principles in this FISA bill. Perhaps the grassroots will get to Democrats to make the bill unacceptable to Bush, removing the immunity provision at least, but I will not hold my breath. I hear rumors the immunity is only civil and would not hold up in criminal court, but that does not make sense to me.

Just a sample of my issues with that misnomer of an opposition party. As you may know, the old Randi Rhodes message board had a special Cindy Sheehan sub-forum, but her entire site, message board and all, was disappeared without explanation when she left Air America. I heard you on her show, kicking off your campaign against Impeachment Is Off The Table Speaker Pelosi. Friday June 20 she was incensed enough with the leadership over the immunity for illegal wiretaps the House approved to give you another plug. The next week someone on her board announced your Mike Malloy interview. I have been an infrequent, though perhaps notorious, poster there. My first post was to protest an infuriating oddity I found, a picture of you meeting with Larry Flynt, the caption announcing an exclusive interview and political alliance. I challenged this bogus image, a discussion about Mr. Flynt and his business ensued, and eventually the link to the image was broken, presumably by whoever contrived it.

In May Flynt phoned Ms. Rhodes privately, and she agreed to doing a story, with some reservations. She mentioned this on the air. This prompted a Randi Loves Porn thread in the Heard on the Show forum. I had to protest again, perhaps got some people to realize Mr. Flynt and the hardcore gang are peddling something other than erotic art. I had somehow missed that side of Randi Rhodes, hearing a different segment of the show after the local station moved her time slot to live. Some poster volunteered information about previous statements about her preferences, not hardcore. I have since learned she interviewed Flynt on air early this year. She has been alluding to starting a third party, when feeling especially sickened by the party bosses, which caught my attention, but I wish to keep at a distance uncritical fans of Obama or Flynt. I suspect both are up to no good, for different reasons.

Ms. Rhodes, though not entirely uncritical of Obama, has not paid any mind to my protests, unless I missed hearing it. This may be due to the infrequency of my posting, or the issues I raise may not interest her. The LA station was running a clip of her saying we can do nothing without one Democratic Party. She is sold on Obama, at least since March when she concluded his lead was insurmountable. Obama touts his plan to remove all combat troops from Iraq in a year or so. That is his best case scenario, though subject to refinement and excepting personnel to train Iraqis and guard that notoriously huge embassy, fronting for a military base? Then there is the private mercenary contingent. No way can I trust Democrats to end the occupation of Iraq, let alone find a way to avoid escalating the war on terror. Obama talks about finishing the war in Afghanistan. If that is not escalation, what is, especially considering his belligerent posturing at Pakistan. I could ask plenty of questions about his good judgment and connections, and do, in my critique. I am working on a detailed dissection for my blog.

I wondered if you had heard of Omar Osama bin Laden, peacenik son of Mr. Blowback From Hell? He and his British wife are trying to start a campaign for a truce. So I wrote him an Open Letter, submitted it to commondreams, CounterPunch, truthout. No response. Nothing new, being ignored, though in my ventures on various internet forums I have gained some notoriety. If you wish to read it, it is at the top of my blog at the moment, or here . It continues the article it links to, Feminist Diplomacy, posted almost a year ago, before I heard of this man or his quest for peace. I have posted commentary on various articles about the wars in the War category of the news section, accessible through the blog sidebar. War is a particular interest of mine. Obama will do his best to recruit and defang the peace movement, as if his plan will get all the troops out as fast as possible. The foreign policy promised by these warmongers makes me shudder. What would Obama do to counteract the idea he is soft on terror? I am not one to suggest these two parties are the same, but on most issues I care about, they differ too little. Conventional wisdom says people must settle for one of them. You, Heart, who knows how many rebels say otherwise, or would if they believed an alternative possible.

Media determines political viability to maintain its stranglehold on political reality. Free Soil is all about real solutions, going to the root of issues and applying a life-affirming value system. Perhaps you will find Free Soil too radical, far out, rebellious, utopian, etc., though I do not consider my positions impractical or extreme, to the contrary, but I have heard it all. People understand only what they are willing to take in. We are women bold enough to put our ideas out there to try to change the ways men run things, killing and mayhem in endless cycles of revenge, fouling our nest to make money, basing interaction on hierarchical models and cutthroat competition. Women all have different ideas and ways, but I see vast untapped commonality beneath the surface, looking for a way to break that stranglehold. Humanity has the brains and technology to solve most of the problems blindly following conventional ways has created, but as conventional wisdom would have it, business and politics must go on as usual. Hell no. That way lies madness and planetary catastrophe.

Any opinions would be welcomed. If you think there is a possibility we could work together on something, do not hesitate to let me know. You are also welcome to comment on our blogs or forums. I wish you good fortune, as one rebellious woman to another.

Aletha

(Note: I sent this via email on July 4. I know Ms. Sheehan must be rather busy, but at this point, it appears she prefers to keep her opinions of this communication to herself.)

Mr. Omar Osama bin Laden, as a great many women, and some men, oppose much of US foreign policy in general, this endless global war on terror in particular, the Free Soil Party would like to discuss with you and your wife your efforts for peace, and the truce offers made by your father. Diplomacy to end the jihad by engaging the issues driving it has been nowhere on the agenda of the leading candidates. Politicians painstakingly paint their positions into a corner, arguing over strategy and tactics to win the war on terror instead of how to negotiate its end, or at least a truce. Last summer Feminist Diplomacy was posted on the Free Soil home site and blog, making an argument for negotiating a truce with the jihad identified with Osama bin Laden. The point being, it is possible — however difficult it may be, that is expected — to negotiate in good faith with anyone with some sense of honor intact, which should include the devil of Christian mythology as well as Osama bin Laden. I am not suggesting a connection, but others have, while others proclaim USA is the great Satan, on a new Crusade. On top of all the past and recent grievances on all sides, the restrictions on women to the proper place prescribed by fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, with such severe punishments for violators, all make for tense negotiations. This is not an atmosphere like negotiating normalizing friendly trading partner relations. That part of the cultural clash is not important to US politicians, but is to Free Soil, recognizing the implications.

Trade is a separate issue from war, but a trade war on principle could substitute for physical hostilities. This is to suggest, one possible settlement of a war is mutual boycott, or slightly less stringent trade barriers, since friendly relations are out of the picture. This jihad is a different kind of war, making such avenues as could settle limited tribal or national battles presumably irrelevant. There is widespread suspicion or disbelief that anyone could convince the loosely knit confederacy that has arisen to the call of jihad to stand down, or even that the offer was meant to be more than a formality, bluff, or bad joke. This is not a simple matter, negotiating a truce that will stick, but that does not mean the truce offer should be dismissed or ridiculed, as it has been, for the most part, as if war is the only way, USA has no choice but to wage perpetual revenge for 9/11. At what point does one call crossing the line, enough revenge, torture, plunder, death, birth defects, destruction, refugees, too much already, or not in my name? USA has major credibility problems trying to claim moral high ground on anything in the light all this.

Iraq is safe territory for Democratic politicians to timidly dissent, but that aside, what kind of escalation of the real war on terror are they likely to instigate? Pakistan, one likely scapegoat, is already plenty destabilized, which can only get worse as Barack Obama and John McCain vie to outhawk each other on waging the real war on terror, ignoring what is really going down, refusing to recognize it is predictably disaster on all fronts, succeeding only in wreckage, plunder, and creating more and fiercer enemies. Pakistan is already tired of US attacks and meddling, supporting Pervez Musharraff after he was so decisively repudiated in the election, and may not be expected to remain an ally in any sense if that meddling keeps up. Obama is willing to talk to some enemies, if they speak for nations with oil or nuclear weapons? In contrast, in a comment to Feminist Diplomacy, I cited a Reuters story about a group of diplomats who think it is time to talk to al Qaeda, though the discussion makes it sound like a strategy to win through diplomatic ruse. Talking to al Qaeda? Don’t rule it out, some say

So the idea of negotiations is being discussed by a few important people. The Democratic candidates do not represent Free Soil, for a multitude of reasons. One is, as I blogged here, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were arguing over whether to take nuclear weapons off the table in anticipated fresh attacks on Pakistan. The place for women in my world is no paradise, men devaluing and terrorizing women in various vicious ways, but under the laws women have some rights, implied theoretical equality, with certain crucial loopholes, such as explicit equality. Western men had to be dragged kicking and screaming, but after persistent effective activism women won those rights, including the critical rights to vote and run for office, though women are far from being safe or respected as due, in general. The prevalence of rape and battering is one example of how unreliable male self-control is, relapsing into brutality for revenge. Muslim theocracy raises some different issues for women, perhaps another matter for diplomacy, if talks could progress from truce to airing and peaceful settlement of differences. Feminist Diplomacy describes what it might take to end the jihad:

… creating a forum to hear grievances, an international tribunal to settle all issues peacefully, negotiating compensation for legitimate grievances. Terror is a desperate tactic of people whose grievances are ignored, rather exacerbated by official reaction to protests. Recognizing this is not appeasement or justifying exceptionally deplorable acts of terror, rather recognizing enemies have legitimate issues is critical to negotiating a workable agreement to stop the killing, on the basis of there being a way to air all legitimate grievances for fair hearing and reasonable compensation. This is in no way about justifying terrorism, but pointing out how belligerent policy aggravates the matter, trying to force compliance with demands instead of negotiate a live and let live in peace agreement.

Free Soil renounces US foreign policy across the board, so this is a matter of principle, finding a way, however difficult it may be to work out, to live in peace regardless of differences. We are all the same species, sharing the same planet, who must find less belligerent ways if intelligent life is to survive. I cannot dismiss the prospect Bush will do more than snipe at Pakistan with occasional drone missions, activate those persistently rumored plans to bombard Iran, with nuclear bunker busters for fortified underground targets. John Conyers has promised to impeach Bush if he attacks Iran without getting approval from Congress, but even that might not get any traction with the party leadership. Negotiating a fair truce that will stick is a practical goal, unlike winning a war on terror, and any assistance you could provide would be welcomed by a fair sized segment of the Western world sickened by the mockery of everything decent and honorable going on in the name of defeating the jihad. Others may mock or dismiss you, but they are less popular than they think. If Free Soil has anything to say about it, there will be negotiations for a truce next year, and high politicians on trial, for war crimes and violating the Constitution, verging on treason. If you would like to discuss these matters, send a response or contact to editor@freesoil.org. A contact would not be published, but your response could be published on the Free Soil Party blog and allied blogs, if you do not mind.

This war on terror is such a hopeless travesty, revenge for blowback from militant Muslims who used to be allies, against Soviet Union. I do not know how anyone can think these wars are eventually going to force or convince mujahadeen to surrender. People are supposedly intelligent reasoning animals knowing how to settle differences without spilling blood. It requires willingness to negotiate, and a way to air grievances in a neutral setting so they can be fairly appraised for legitimacy and compensation. That could be other than monetary, such as assistance with rebuilding or renewable energy projects. Politicians in power may not have any interest in negotiating with designated terrorists, but others who represent real people, as opposed to big business interests, would talk to anyone if it will help to stop this war on terror. The planet cannot stand much more of the same old same old. What these wars have done to Afghanistan and Iraq is a war crime of proportion vastly exceeding the toppling of the World Trade Center towers, arguably a military target. Iraq has a plague of deformed babies from depleted uranium dust on the winds, no doubt also contributing heavily to Gulf War syndrome. We are people, not maniacal brutes. We have marvelous brains. Let us talk out a way to share the planet peacefully in spite of our differences. Vengeful men may not find any way to settle differences besides bloodletting, but that does not mean, there can be no other way. I say to all enemies, on the honor of what you believe, let us talk about truce and find another way to settle differences!

Let the naysayers wag about how this is how it has always been and must always be. War is not the only way. War is never the best way, though self-defense may require it. These are traditional ways of ancient conquering hordes, battles over territory devolving into a slow parade of empires having their day in the sun, all destroyed by resistance and internal rot. This is a new millennium and should be open to new ways. USA must renounce all aspirations to empire, no more enforcing its will as police force of the world, defiant of international law and opposition. All the candidates for President are calling for change, so the word has little meaning left under the convolutions piled on it for political spin. They are emphatically not calling for negotiating a truce or halt to the war on terror. Democrats want to concentrate on the real war on terror, code for taking out Osama bin Laden, killing al Qaeda or Taliban wherever they can be found, hoping Iraq can manage its own affairs as troops trickle out, while keeping the gargantuan embassy complex secure. That embassy fronts for a large military installation. USA should get out and stay out of Iraq, as well as the sordid business of toppling governments US politicians find objectionable. That complex will remain a target unless it is dismantled or turned over to Iraq. Republicans would do likewise on the Afghanistan and covert fronts, perhaps more aggressively trying to keep Iraq under chaotic control.

Free Soil has a different plan and ways of seeing things. It is a difference in fundamental vision of what can be. Barack Obama caught a glimpse of that and tries to claim it for himself, though it belongs to no one. He says he is willing to talk to some avowed foes, but designated terrorists like Hamas and Osama bin Laden are not on the list. If leaders of the jihad are willing to negotiate for a truce in good faith, that could be seized upon as an opportunity to negotiate an end to this war on terror. Western officials scoffed, if they recognized the truce offers at all. They are officials of democracies, so people can replace them with others more representative of the interests of the people. Many may scoff at negotiating with terrorists, but if the wave for negotiating for a peace settlement takes off, it will leave them behind.

I note this because I catch part of her show and have been posting off and on at her forum about feminist revolution. I doubt she paid any attention, while the posters mostly seem to think I am too fringe to worry about. However, she is invited to join Free Soil, as any rebellious woman who wants to make noise, rock the boat, change the way politics, commerce, relationships operate in this world. That is intentionally vague, but I think most women will understand, especially if they know anything about Free Soil. Men can tag along as well, if they are sincere about wanting to help. Heart has put up her platform, as a work in progress, here.

Not to rain on the parade of this budding Randi Rhodes Party in the making, but she should know what it would mean to work outside the system. Once her upstart party gets any attention the Democratic Party will do whatever it takes to smash down the threat. This is a given. Shudder to imagine what they will say about surrendering the war on terror if her party goes too far toward renouncing war. The only reason it has not happened to Free Soil is because Free Soil has gone unnoticed, under the radar as a threat, so far. Ace in the hole? There will be more surprises than just what is new in the platform. Free Soil invites such an attack, which could only help get our message out. Is this new party a way to save the Democratic Party, or will it only destroy it? That may be in the eye of the beholder. The party regulars may take down any such rebellion as the party as they know it collapses. They may try and fail. Will there be anything left to save after the kitchen sink strategy plays out?

Where else would the rank and file of the Democratic Party go once they realize the party people do not represent their best interests? Women might go to a party dedicated to representing the interests of women, once they decide the Democratic Party is hopeless. Many might think there is no hope but to work within the system. I think Randi Rhodes might relent, since the pressure to try to reform the system from within is so strong. That pressure means less to me, being outside the system by intention, than being dismissed as fringe. Why that may be, I would like to know. My ideas are outside the mainstream because I am an innovative feminist philosopher, what else could one expect? I think they are better than anything in the mainstream, knowing so do a million other people, so why should anyone pay attention to me or Heart? Is it that, or are our ideas really so outlandish? Possibly anyone who reads enough could see we did our homework, that women can construct a new, more practical way of relating not burdened by male assumptions or limitations.

I wish this new party luck in saving the Democratic Party. As rare as it is for me to agree with party faithful, I have to expect any such effort could only succeed in destroying the party, inflaming the self-destructive feeding frenzy escalating with last-ditch desperation tactics of the Clintons. A rebellion needs a radical vision to change anything of significance. Nothing significant will be changed by a halfhearted rebellion that only means to split or take back a party so many reluctantly swallow as the lesser of two evils. The rebels are free to try defining a new party however they choose. That field is wide open, most attempts not worth mentioning or ravings of lunatics. Randi Rhodes is not a lunatic, and might create a big problem for the party before she intends to. Though she has gotten plenty mad at the party people in the past, I did not expect her to so emphatically threaten to abandon the party. I have invited her to interview Heart a few times, at her forum, not expecting a response, but I had to try. She has her own ideas, and it would make sense for her to try to orchestrate a new party herself. It is possible she will notice Free Soil someday soon, but she likely will soon fall back in line, to concentrate on getting Obama elected.

The devil is in the details. Nobody defends actually violent radicals or real terrorists, but is that whom this crackdown is after? There are screams on the Internet about the vagueness of this bill, passed by the House 404-6. Dennis Kucinich voted against, and Ron Paul did not vote. It went to Senate committee in October. It may not pass muster in the senior chamber so easily. One can only hope.

The bill calls for studying how to fight what it calls violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism, which presumably means spying on especially disliked dissenters. Eco-terrorists are high on that list. The word terror is used deliberately to demonize such dissent, and it often has nothing to do with reality, more like high officials pursuing personal vendettas against groups interfering with business plans. I have wondered how long it would take Big Brother to get around to spying on me or Heart. I might hope the effort would be spared, being so averse to coercion generally, though I will defend all peaceful forms of dissent. To draw where the line is crossed into coercive action is a matter of interpretation, which it is why government cannot be trusted to protect itself from forms of dissent it considers coercive. Dissent is not a luxury for officials to decide what forms are tolerable. Government must tolerate all peaceful forms, stop sending spies to incite violence. This is a country with a constitution and bill of rights, loophole ridden they may be, and a simple disclaimer to respect that is not credible, especially under this ultra portentous atmosphere created since the towers came crashing down.

The Bill of Missing Rights would throw this bill right out, unless it defines specifically exactly whom it is intended to fight. It might make sense to crack down on bombers of abortion clinics or rapists or batterers or hate groups like KKK, but somehow I think Congress has dissenters in mind. I will comment further on the final version, but in the meantime, there is still time to lean on your Senators to reject this unwarranted expansion of domestic spying. Like one would expect from our spy agencies, this plan is not like how it appears to be on its face. That would spoil their fun. I do not know what this incremental approach to intrusion on dissenters could possibly be meant to accomplish, besides fulfilling some dystopia. Big Brother would be proud of this bill. Anyone claiming to respect civil liberties who voted for this bill should be ashamed and think about it. But those Democrats fear inviting the weak on terror label, so they must show how tough they can be. The same has gone for crime, so this bipartisan assault on civil liberties is nothing new. The excuse for trampling the Constitution under the security blanket is different.

Feminist revolution may sound scary because of fools who insist on distorting what it means. Men valuing male privilege do have lots to lose. It means women are so fed up with all men do to women, children, each other, and the planet that the ideas and ways of men have lost all claim to any unearned deference, trust, or credence. Whoever among men disavows prevailing ideas and ways should make it known, or they might as well be complicit. This is to say, men have a choice. Women can meet men halfway, but owe our oppressors nothing, and will fight back when attacked. Women have enemies willing to threaten anything to shut down our voices of revolution. As a mild sample from self-proclaimed great defenders of free speech, “the Free Soil Party website has been taken down by the Internet Police [edited from Anonymous].” I had not known that side of the perils of internet warfare. I had seen verbal trolling, spam, threats, vendettas, but that was no idle boast. The site had to be moved to where it could be well protected. Heart, a primary target as candidate for President, along with her friend whose candor on her forum got their attention, got hit much worse.

In defiance of all attempts to silence me, past or future, I say this. Women are revolting. The prevalent ideas and ways are toxic, emphatically not in our best interest, to be generous. There are always better ways, though improvements may range from minor, such as the Hillary touch on business as usual, to major overhaul necessary to substantially limit the damage, to the total revisioning necessary to reverse all the damage. There are ways to detoxify, rethink, revision, create a different reality, restore natural balance in our lives and the environment to whatever extent possible, as a goal instead of willfully trashing natural balance as a means to profit and subordination. It is not necessary or wise to foul our nest or resort to physical coercion against others, unless they initiate violence. No theory, system, or philosophy invented by man is free of corruption from the cultural rot of this order, based and dependent on fundamental imbalance between male and female, extended to all manner of hierarchy for its own sake.

On a level field, competition could be about quality instead of winning. Taxes could be mostly on luxuries. The hierarchical value system is thoroughly messed up, rigged beyond meaningful hope of reform or repair, headed for environmental collapse not so far off. Feminist revolution could supplant it top to bottom with philosophy that affirms life and balance, values people and other beings regardless of how they look, for their gifts, diversity, uniqueness, skills, effort, who they are by their own lights, their own sense of purpose and meaning.

It is about time to try out ideas of a feminist revolution. Women want our say, our chance to try out ideas, make everything from the economy to relationships work in ways that respect ideas from anyone according to the respect they are due, on merit. Respect is more than I can expect from enemies. Their conventional wisdom I scorn, as worn out shadows cast by their distortions of reality, with predictable disastrous consequences, such a sad, gross corruption of what reality could mean on this planet. As a sample of what that means, this is a sneak preview of the Free Soil Party platform currently in development, bearing in mind it is not like feminist revolutionaries such as myself, my web site editor, Heart, or friends, are blessed with free time or funds for a campaign, grassroots working women all. Men can be friends, those who prove deserving. Language and reality are being reclaimed, agreement is not expected, perfect agreement is not possible. The party has its basic principles it will honor and fight to bring about.

The system is fundamentally corrupt, rigged to perpetuate the existing hierarchical order, all the way down to its core value and belief systems.

There is no political reality, besides what men create to maintain the system. That deserves no more credence than any other illusion men have created for their benefit.

Artificial hierarchies of any kind cannot be allowed to abuse authority.

At least a truce will be negotiated with all enemies willing to negotiate in good faith.

To break down the hierarchical order, a first step will be to roll back all hostile takeovers, another abuse of this unbridled exchange economy known as modern capitalism. Businesses should grow by providing quality products or services, not by taking over rivals or otherwise exploiting political or economic clout to force competitors out of business.

The free trade agreements are the modern face of colonialism and should be dismantled.

A Pollution Abatement Corps will clean up toxic messes, equip buildings to collect solar energy, and build wind farms in suitable locations worldwide to phase out nuclear power and fossil fuels as soon as possible.

Toxic chemicals will be phased out as quickly as possible, heavily taxed as luxuries to encourage alternatives.

All sacred cows are under challenge at the Free Soil Party.

(That is a relatively recent statement of principles and high priority goals. The following is one of the oldest, nearly unchanged over a quarter century. The party was founded nearly thirty years ago by four women deciding our consciousness raising group was diverse and political enough to form a political party. Intent on abolishing sex roles, the original basis of slavery, we revived the name Free Soil, an abolitionist party preceding the less radical Republican Party, which took its time, but did abolish slavery during the war, then passed constitutional amendments granting black men rights, excluding women by design. Both big parties have practiced the art of betraying women to this day.)

Bill of Missing Rights

Whereas, the original bill of rights permitted slavery of Blacks and women, trashing the environment, and other abuses of economic and political might too plentiful to list; Free Soil therefore declares the following rights fundamentally necessary to secure blessings of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all:

The right to nourishment, shelter, and professional care sufficient for good health, with fully informed choice among all alternatives, excepting unwarranted invasive experiments or life support efforts beyond the scope of public support.

The right to noninterference and privacy; the property, dignity, actions, and bodies of people define an inviolable zone against uninvited intrusions, excepting government or business authorities, and people under clearly warranted suspicion of violating or threatening some right of another person.

The right to sufficient basic and vocational education to qualify for a job reasonably consistent with the talents, abilities, and potential of a person. Those people demonstrating unusual creative abilities would be allowed three years of self directed apprenticeship to develop independence. While attaining sufficient skills for survival, no person should be held liable to pay for survival.

The right to procreative and sexual autonomy; birth control, abortion, child care, and assistance to escape abuse should be readily available, at least as high quality public health services, and household work should be fairly compensated.

The right to full information on anything potentially dangerous to a person, including: All possible side effects of any ingredient of anything one may ingest, and of any poisons, irradiation, drugs, hormones, and other treatments used in its production. All possible consequences of medical procedures and exposure to hazards in work, living, and other environments. All files which concern one’s interests or government activities, excepting methods of producing weapons of mass destruction. The right to know belongs to the people, not bureaucrats.

The right to effective prevention of unwarranted disruptions of ecological quality and balance, including: nuclear power; radioactive, ozone depleting, and other unconfined unselective harmful substances; high energy waves; genetically engineered forms of life; endangering species; deforestation; monoculture; cloud seeding; overfishing; whaling; and other irresponsible practices. An appropriate bounty shall be paid for evidence of covert polluting or poaching. The people or legislators of any state or locality may vote for additional specific restrictions, including banning or taxing the production, sale, or use of any selected polluting substance within that area.

The right to fair and equal consideration and opportunity, before the law, and in all fields of endeavor, without regard to sex, ethnicity, or persuasion.

Nothing in this Bill shall be construed to deny or limit any right defined in the Constitution or its Amendments, as Amendment IX states: “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The people of any local community or state may vote to overrule any restrictions on rights, or tighten rules on business activities, regardless of previous recognition.

Diplomacy may seem a lost art these days, when the lone superpower prefers belligerent bluffing games creating cover rationales for a lead in to war. Making a huge deal of refusing to negotiate with certain enemies officially tagged evil terrorist creates a convenient rationale for aggression justified as preemptive war. There is no excuse for aggressive attack or preemptive war, though US politics seems to take the principle of intervention for granted, especially since the war on terrorism commenced. Democrats are also all for fighting the real war on terror, as they call it, refusing to take nuclear attack on Iran off the table. This is not limited to Republican madness. That idea is mad, inviting Armageddon or a science fiction horror story, at least for the Middle East, though taking a wider view, there is no escaping consequences of a nuclear attack. Any attack on Iran would be yet another foolhardy violation of international law, making harder to deny the argument USA is at war with Islam, as its extremist spokesmen have been saying at least since the attack on Afghanistan for harboring Osama bin Laden, after refusing to consider the Taliban offer to turn him over for some of that solid evidence of his primary responsibility that was claimed to exist at the time. If US officials really had more than suspicions so quickly, that was one way to avoid war, among others men in power ignored, never saw, or dismissed. Unlike Afghanistan or Iraq, Iran is not an inconsequential appearing foe, having several ways to retaliate beyond the obvious, attacking US troops across its border or Israel. Some have argued this is already a world war, but most Israeli and US officials seem determined to provoke one. From my perspective, feminist diplomacy for my country would develop practical, nonviolent ways to deal with enemies no matter why, or with what kind of passion, they hate US policy, which in no way represents the interests of women anywhere, though some may support it. Since that last spectacular attack on USA, it is more egregiously igniting more and fiercer enemies.

These ways could include creating a forum to hear grievances, an international tribunal to settle all issues peacefully, negotiating compensation for legitimate grievances. Terror is a desperate tactic of people whose grievances are ignored, rather exacerbated by official reaction to protests. Recognizing this is not appeasement or justifying exceptionally deplorable acts of terror, rather recognizing enemies have legitimate issues is critical to negotiating a workable agreement to stop the killing, on the basis of there being a way to air all legitimate grievances for fair hearing and reasonable compensation. This is in no way about justifying terrorism, but pointing out how belligerent policy aggravates the matter, trying to force compliance with demands instead of negotiate a live and let live in peace agreement. Politicians may lean toward selective diplomacy, even Republicans, but while posturing about plans to bring a change in course to get troops home from Iraq, Democratic leadership is desperately running away from the weak on terror bogeyman, supporting that bill to privatize Iraqi oil, talking tough on Iran, as well as promoting free trade agreements, going to show once again, they play their part in the problem. New trade agreements will include better protections for local workers and environment, so they say, sounds like what they always say, so next time never arrives. That implies something not so hot about the last one with a few countries in Latin America willing to go along, raising a question, how much better than those lousy deals making big business money at the expense of the local population and environment, as well as workers losing offshored jobs? This tribunal I suggest, I predict most politicians would denounce as treasonous or appeasement, more likely ignore, as they ignore most issues I choose to raise hell about. US politicians hope to avoid jurisdiction of international law or courts, but World Trade Organization is another matter, a tool to grease the race to the bottom. Plans for ramming the World Trade towers, Pentagon, and ? were no doubt initiated long before Bush Jr. claimed victory, possibly before Clinton, but certainly did not go on hiatus for him.

Warmongers see any attempt at diplomacy with bitter enemies as appeasement, as though there were no legitimate grievances with US foreign policy and transnational corporate activities. Those cost USA the moral high ground needed to discredit the jihad, ranks swelling thanks to the war on terror, the sinister trap luring USA to disaster, dishonor, violating international law to pursue a new Crusade, shattered credibility, alliances, and rights back home, and ultimately end of the corporate empire. That could happen suddenly and soon, through cascading bankruptcy or abandonment of the dollar as primary currency for international trade, causing a bond selloff to collapse this current stock market bubble. Call it military defeat or standoff in Afghanistan and Iraq, both make a mockery of superpower stardom. Expanding the war may reveal just how much worse it can get. This is no benevolent empire justified in its noble humanitarian interventions. It is not immune to military defeat or war coming home.

I see feminist diplomacy bringing an end to all that, an end to any desire to dominate, from the world to another being, human or otherwise. That is the road to more disaster, the sudden end of ability of this planet to sustain human life, perhaps all life. Men have to listen to reason, talk truce, or stand aside as women negotiate peace plans for wars around the world, end the war on terror, put forth ideas to stop the vicious cycle of retaliation. Men have gotten it wrong, more or less distorted or reversed, on just about everything, what they think they know notwithstanding. Most of that is based not on reality, but male theory, structured hierarchically on every level, which in practice glorifies violence, making it seem normal, casual, the expected way to solve an escalated conflict. Violence is only justifiable in self-defense or to aid self-defense, to stop or capture a violent criminal. Aggressive violence is never the only way or best way to resolve a conflict. That would fly in the face of reason, sense, instinct, reducing people to thoughtless insensate brutes, insulting the intelligence of most animals. Yet such is the psychology of the culture of empire, as if there is a right of the most powerful to claim dominance, rule, authority to make decisions directly affecting another. There is no such right; men invented and enshrined the might makes right concept, now devolving into corporate empire pushing to claim the world as a free trade zone so as to ruin local culture, enterprises, social services, and ecology, the better to grab up resources and cheap labor.

Democrats are complicit in most of this, still funding the wars and expanding free trade. They are by and large as comfortable with the war metaphor, the tough guy or gal act, working to further corporate empire. They are by no means about a feminist revolution, even if Hillary Clinton becomes their nominee. She is part of the problem, putting her touch on business as usual. As most Democrats, she wants to fight the real war on terror, whatever that means. Negotiating to end the war on terror is not part of her lexicon. National or cultural pride has limits. Aggressive war is illegal and foolish, but US politicians do not want to risk the taunt of appeasing terrorists. Negotiation is the only way to end this war. Winning is impossible even to define. USA has to own up to consequences of its trampling all over the world. Instead it heads for world war with few if any allies. This is a logical end result of male philosophy, the men on top will go for it all, control of everything they can think of. Scientists meddle with everything from DNA and brain chemistry to outer space in the quest for money and weapons. Women are reduced to pawns in this world, most forced to serve male ideology, interests, or lusts to survive. Women could represent the interests and ideas of women, but virtually all political parties big and small give women short shrift. Ms. Clinton has the name recognition, so is portrayed as the only woman who has a chance to win. This insults the intelligence of all women, but within the confines of mainstream party politics, it may be true.

To US politicians, the idea of discussing the truce Osama bin Laden offered is unthinkable. He is a war criminal, but he has lots of company in that regard among his enemies. If he could make a truce stick, persuade his followers to call off the jihad in the name of Islamic honor, that could be a starting point to negotiate a peace plan. It is easy for forget he was once an ally, against Soviet Union. Some credit that jihad with the breakup of that evil empire. It is too easy to say he has no honor, or is too sexist or fanatical or full of hate, so cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith. It is too easy to say negotiating with an enemy rewards terrorism. This war on terror cannot be won or justified. There is no moral high ground on either side. Bin Laden represents the views of too many and more all the time. An enemy figurehead such as bin Laden cannot be dismissed as not negotiable fanatical terrorist. However ghastly the tactics of an enemy, this does not create the luxury of ignoring their grievances. USA has hopelessly lost the battle for hearts and minds, for many good reasons, like Abu Ghraib and all the other instances of rape and mayhem. Women soldiers do not escape, getting raped and harassed regularly, the perpetrators rarely disciplined. USA casts itself as a model for the world. No wonder most of the world objects to that arrogant extreme of nationalism.

Feminists have created different models, creating a space for ways to exist peacefully with bitter foes, put a stop to the cycle of violence. This may sound pipedreamy, but that truce was offered for a reason. The Islamic code of honor required it. It should have been recognized and discussed, but it was dismissed out of hand like a bad joke, hardly noticed by the media. It is said Islam is about love of death, that its believers think America is too soft, a pushover. This is all warmonger hype, since love of death is a common disease of male-centered religions and politics. Hamas is said to be avowed to the destruction of Israel. This is also hype; Hamas stated it accepts the fact that Israel exists, but not Israeli claims and violent actions in occupied territories. Israel could negotiate with Hamas, but Israeli leaders are determined to isolate Hamas, despite its popularity as a resistance force defending the people, winning a hotly contested election. Significance of recognizing the right to exist of a state illegally occupying your land is overlooked by mainstream media. The tactics on both sides are deplorable, as usual, but most wars are battles over hyped variations of male ideology, cutthroat competitive nationalism or religious pride at work, while women have no say worth mentioning, but take more than a fair share of the suffering.

Cutthroat competition is how the theory of free enterprise has degenerated. Competition could be revisioned as trying harder, to excel in whatever pursuit, without seeking to dominate. The point would be not to win, but to improve life, for oneself or also others. Schools could be all about developing talents, creativity, independent thought, skills, not passing tests to be dumbed down, appropriately drugged, raised on TV, cogs in the corporate machine. This is another subject, but feminist revisioning runs across the board. Men make so much of winning, the ideal, competing to win the central purpose of everything. No wonder Earth is in such a mess. It is not for nothing I say men have almost everything backwards, wrong, corrupted, twisted to serve the few near the top of the local hierarchal house of cards. Men like to score, as if seducing women is a victory, a conquest. Winning is a bad reason to compete, nor is conquest a goal worthy of human potential, in war or sexuality. I think men focused on winning long ago because some man got the idea to overpower a woman saying no. Self-defense is not remotely about winning or dominance, nor is responsible hunting for food. Aggressive violence is about winning, forcing the target to accept whatever the will of the winner imposes. Rape could have been the original model for coercion, winning by violent acts the ability to have his way over her. Men could have found other reasons to fight, but winning a fight need not make the loser a slave. Life has meaning, not a contest with the object to beat, conquer, or control other people. Rules of doing business need not allow abuse like competing to be the biggest, devouring competition, or polluting a neighborhood. Hostile takeovers have no place if fair competition is valued in free enterprise. That is only workable as a free marketplace of ideas, so companies compete to make the best quality products and services, so customers can choose among a variety for the one that best suits them. Throwing hostile takeover and huge aggregations of capital into the mix ruins free enterprise. Competition has degenerated so far from its potential value, even Adam Smith would find it horrifying.

Cutthroat competition does not have to be the way free enterprise works. When free enterprise was working reasonably well was when corporations had to follow limited charters defining their narrow purposes for existing. If corporations stayed within those bounds, they could not buy out or put competition out of business, buy unrelated businesses to form a conglomerate, or get cozy subsidies to ruin farmers in other countries by dumping subsidized excess grains on their markets so, for instance, the best Mexican farmland can be grabbed by a few rich guys while desperation drives its impoverished people north for a chance for a better life. Some big US employers make money off this free trade arrangement for cheap labor. Some employers of migrants are more like slavemasters, figuring the workers will not dare trying to organize or raise issues with working conditions. All this is going on partly because corporations have been allowed to ruin business and politics with the edge cutthroat competition gives those with big money and connections, corrupting politics into a mockery of a democratic republic. Free enterprise can only work well with brisk competition and sensible rules of doing business keeping everyone honest.

Preemptive war is an extreme expression of lack of honesty, transparency, tolerance, thought, sense, civility, and common decency. It is the worst way to attempt to solve a problem, solving nothing, creating more bitter enemies while lining the pockets of companies in military or related businesses. Despite the debacles in the first two battles in the war on terror, Iran will probably be next in line, with feeble if any protest from Democrats, chastened by hawkish supporters of Israel hyping Iran as a nuclear threat. Any nation producing nuclear energy is a nuclear threat, because reactors produce plenty of material for dirty bombs, along with suitable ingredients for arguably the worst kind of weapons ever invented. Uranium and its derivatives have no place in a civilized society. Unlike their peculiar places in modern warfare from ultra hard penetrator to doomsday deterrent, none of their industrial or medical uses are irreplaceable. It does not help US attempts to win hearts and minds to put uranium dust on the winds just because its chemical properties make it such a valuable weapon. Uranium is toxic as well as radioactive, so ingesting it is no picnic. It is quite capable of causing epidemics of unusual cancers and birth defects, as well as symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome. Is this the modern variety of scorched earth tactic at work? The prerogative to pollute shows its worst extremes in military applications.

Feminist diplomacy would not insist on imposing feminist models of behavior on other cultures, but would encourage women of all nations to express their grievances and ideas for better ways. Men may not want to listen, but that just means men have lessons to learn. Offering assistance to capture energy from sun and wind might help convince men to listen to women. There are many things USA could offer other nations in exchange for things like respect and rights for women. There are also ways of encouraging women to revolt, but that gets risky and complicated where women have no basic rights such as a right to vote. Women could be encouraged to organize resistance regardless, but open revolt risks deadly retaliation, unless the resistance catches on to overwhelming numbers.

USA has made enemies that will be skeptical of any talking, but could show it means to negotiate in good faith by negotiating treaties to outlaw and decommission the worst weapons, meaning nuclear, biological, chemical, including the research. People already know far too much about killing; we should be investing all that time, energy, and money in improving quality of life for everyone. People have the intelligence to work out ways to live in peace, but too many men would rather fight. That oversimplifies matters slightly; men may know no other way, under the circumstances. It can be tricky to theorize on faraway wars while living in a nation that prospers on the surface while here and across the borders, some get richer, but more poor get poorer. Some call that imperialism, but it goes down deeper. I see nothing deserving authority in the airs men in power put on. Their power is contrived, built into the game they play, the winner take all power over principle refined to support intricate hierarchical structures. If the rules of that game change to reflect inherent reality, let alone its model, anything based on unsound theories must collapse, as any house of cards must once losing its shaky foundation. There are many ways of trading goods and services. Cutthroat competition dominated by multinational monstrosities with proportional political influence is about the worst imaginable in a democracy. Next up is fascism, and it is a quibble how close is USA, because it is too close and looks to get closer, regardless of who wins next election, unless someone comes out of nowhere with a radically different vision.

Feminist diplomacy has many such possibilities that sound impossible in a mainstream frame of reference, because they are. Those points of view are based on the principle of hierarchy, based at bottom on the idea men need to be in control, so women must accept that. No, women feel forced by fear or belief in duty when they accept anything of the sort. Nobody needs to be in control in a partnership. In business or politics, decisions need not be made by someone at the top. Decisions could be worked out to be acceptable to at least a majority of everyone affected by the decision. If there is no need or desire to dominate, no concept of subordinate or rank, creativity can have free rein, a free marketplace of ideas can develop rewarding products and services of better value. That is what competition could mean, in my ideal sense, which is so different from what it means in capitalism that it is no wonder some consider concepts of competition and free markets beyond redemption, doomed to a mockery of what free enterprise could be, degenerated into a race to the bottom for wages and quality of life, health, and ecology. Reclaiming language so far gone can be a tempting but fruitless enterprise. The point is, this world has potential to support all its life forms with reasonable quality of life, but not one with the winner take all might makes right mentality. That way lies utter ruin for planet Earth.

Women have more reasons to revolt than anyone can imagine, because the reasons all compound on each other. Just about everything I have written on this blog, and the home page, is about that compounding. This list that follows may appear unconnected, but I do not mean to separate them, because my perspective connects them all. Things are the way they are by male design. Females have other ways. Some ways are better than others, but how that comes down depends on the confluence of individual perspective and actual results.

In the spirit of that feminist aphorism from Robin Morgan, all issues are women’s issues, this is a list on my mind presently. This is by no means a comprehensive or in depth list. These issues are not of equal importance or scope, to me or feminist rebels in general. Every woman has different reasons to rebel, or different ways of looking at issues. The multiplicity of issues has been used by men to divide and conquer women. This is a bluff. Women cannot agree on anything in particular, so what? Most women can agree there are too many reasons to challenge the powers that be and how they run things. Individually and in groups, women have worked together on important issues, making a mark on history that cannot be ignored. Women will not go back. Women will not let men go on ruining the world. That is the bluff, that women will find no way to work together on a scale threatening business as usual.

Men run the world. The world is a mess, in more ways than I can think about, but I have to live here and deal with all that. Male dominant value systems demean and devalue women in more ways than I can think about. There are answers to problems men in charge do not want to think about, so they dismiss these solutions, as though conventional wisdom has all the answers. Men think free speech, supposedly meant to protect the right to dissent from authority, means they have a right to buy images of women sexually degraded and violated in horrendous ways. A man taking home millions a year for insulting women and minorities thinks free speech means he can say on the air women playing championship college basketball are whores, because he thinks that is funny. He went too far with that line, cost him his job. Once in awhile when a man goes too far, it costs him. That depends on public reaction. Women have long been forced to tolerate routine vicious male nonsense, at great cost. If a man must express his hate for women, he should do it in private so he can only hurt himself.

A man taken by police for psychiatric evaluation for stalking two women students, initially found to be an imminent danger to himself or others, is then reevaluated and released with a voluntary recommendation of counseling. His hostile behavior causes most of his class to stop attending and a professor to threaten to quit. Yet nothing goes on his record to show up on a background check to stop him from casually buying a semi-automatic with enough ammo for a massacre at his college.

Men have big problems treating women with respect. It is beyond the capacity of typical men, since they believe men are superior. What men believe about women, and how men form expectations of women as a result, has filled volumes, both their expositions and women dissecting all that smug male theory about things men cannot understand, having no experience, no insight or perspective or inside way of knowing that of which they speak so knowingly. Some males pretend they have women figured out.

Men routinely rape women who trusted them, thinking nothing of the violation, as if they did nothing wrong. The idea of consent is twisted to cover for men, to make it almost impossible to prove no meant no, short of visible wounds.

Men think they have some business interfering with the choices women make about reproducing.

Men think a relationship means a woman is his property, to abuse as he sees fit.

Men routinely terrorize and batter women under the cover of love, thinking this is appropriate discipline, or that it was her fault he overreacted, so an apology should mend the fences. Often she has no recourse, no protection if she leaves him. If she kills him, she may be prosecuted for cold-blooded murder, though sometimes juries are wiser than to go along with that.

Men sexually harass women, for fun, and have the gall to think women ask for it, like it, or deserve it for the nerve of competing with men. Men think they have some right to foster a hostile work environment for women.

Women are expected to go along with male decisions. Women almost never get credit due for what women contribute, in all areas of life.

Women are expected to take care of needy men and children, without fair if any compensation, appreciation, or respect.

Some men pretend they can transform into female by hormones and surgery. That certainly can affect appearances and how one is treated by others, but they are not female, nor can they understand how females think or feel, though they may be atypical males. Feeling compelled to express this pretense gives no right to cross natural boundaries to impose beliefs on women. The expression can be done freely in private so it hurts noone else.

Women are expected to wear makeup and high heels. Most cosmetics contain toxic ingredients.

Most food contains genetically engineered and toxic ingredients or residues. Big agribusiness has no respect for biodiversity, nutritional value, or sustainability. Ancient trees are clearcut to make room for development, or paper or biofuel plantations, with token if any respect for biodiversity or sustainability.

Industry thinks it has a right to pollute air, soil, and water, with the gall to claim overregulation while species extinction and cancer rates accelerate.

Millions of women are still prescribed hormone replacement therapy, despite the uproar when the mainstream finally could no longer deny its harmful effects.

Women feel pressured to go on unhealthy diets to lose weight. Some develop an obsession, lose too much, committing unintentional suicide. Most diets can cause health problems, yet these frauds rake in the dough.

Male doctors perform many unwarranted surgeries on reproductive organs of women, especially in the USA.

Uranium is used in conventional warfare, spreading radioactive dust on the winds. Nuclear energy is promoted as an answer to global warming by most politicians and some environmentalists. Safety standards are relaxed to extend the lifetime of old nukes while new nukes line up on the drawing board. This is technology at its worst, while endless energy showers Earth, untapped except by infant industries and plants, naturally tapping sunlight for photosynthesis.

Fluoride is added to public water to prevent childhood tooth decay in many cities in the USA, though most everywhere else abandoned the reckless experiment long ago.

The poisons of orthodoxy and putting profit over truth have taken hold of scientists in service of big business. Regulatory agencies are plagued by conflicts of interest, protecting industry at the expense of public health and safety. Serious charges have been leveled about the poor results of conventional medical practices, and attempts to stifle legitimate competition from alternative modalities. These charges should be fully investigated by independent reviewers. Science should be about truth, innovation, finding better ways to serve people, from producing goods, services, and energy to preventing and treating disease.

People in general, but particularly women and children are routinely drugged for behavior judged abnormal. For authorities to make that judgment is dangerous at best, easily a tool for enforcing conformity. Drugging or involuntary treatment should be a last resort reserved for those who are truly unbalanced to the point of threatening others.

The major parties are both committed to an endless war on terror. One talks as if it opposes the occupation of Iraq, but still votes to fund it, finally with some flimsy conditions attached. Such tepid opposition is typical of US politics, quibbling over tactics, slinging mud, making hay of scandals, anything to keep the public diverted so the gravy train of money driven politics keeps rolling while meaningful opposition is kept off the table.