Shooting Queers in California

Yes, an initiative ushering in a new sport in California is wending its way unto the ballot. It's called the "Sodomite Suppression Act" and could replace skeet shooting once and for all. Sure you've heard of proposals like this in Uganda,Iran, Russia and a whole slew of fly-by-night republics where bills like this have been introduced, mostly by frustrated Evangelical Americans.

Now thanks to attorney Matt McLaughlin, rumored to be the reason Will Shakespeare once suggesting killing all the lawyers, you can get that exciting third-world vibe without leaving home! If you're thirsting for homosexual blood and vengeance upon the wicked like Matt, there now exist a proposed death-penalty solution to that pesky, long-standing homosexual problem!

This homophobes ultimate wet-dream, is a bit unclear on specifics. This new initiative would require that "anyone who touches another person of the same gender for the purpose of sexual gratification “be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method.” Although I am deeply moved that expediency was a priority in this proposal, would Matt himself be responsible for the shootings? Will firing squads come back into vogue here as they have in Utah?

A nod here to Russian nationals greased-up for Putain's, er Putin's iron fist: “It would also make it a crime, punishable by 10 years in in prison for those who advocate gay rights to an audience that includes minors.” An even bigger nod to George Zimmerman in the section that would “authorize members of the public to carry out the killings if the state fails to do so within a year.” I’m starting to feel more secure already.

Yes, gathering signatures for this ballot proposal may begin quite soon. We can all rest easy in the realization that even calls for mass murder can get on the ballot in our Golden State. It's a process open to anyone who can put up the 200 dollar filing fee. Ask Charlotte Laws. She has responded with her own initiative aimed at McLauglin and his ilk, "The Intolerant Jackass Act."

Organizing Matters

Black lives matter. Women’s lives matter. Queer lives matter. Disabled lives matter. Every member of every ethnic group's lives matter. Working-class lives matter. All lives matter.

I am trying to be inclusive here, not divisive. Murder by law enforcement is appalling and wrong. It happens because the police, increasingly the arm of the new authoritarian state that is struggling for control, are the weapon of the one percent. They have been bought and paid for by the corporate personhood of the sickeningly wealthy. Yes, we must demonstrate against indiscriminate police murder without any accountability.

Getting out in the streets to demonstrate has always been a powerful tool to fight oppression. But now, more and more, the protests become the control group for testing every new military weapon. Sound canons that damage hearing are a new toy. The powers that be now bring strobe lights to make photo or video recording impossible. And, every day, more and more places are making the recording of police an illegal activity thus threatening the very basis of free speech.

This is a rat race and, unfortunately, the rats are winning. We are all potential criminals under constant surveillance. Survival itself has become so much more difficult since the banksters overthrew the economy taking away middle-class jobs and any remaining semblance of workers’ rights. Racism, sexism and ethnic prejudices are running wild. As far as trashing some minority group, anything goes It is no co-incidence that the atmosphere is starting to feel like Germany in the early 1930’s. The conditions are similar.

Massive demonstrations may take us in a different direction and they are worth a shot. It is also possible that we will see repression on a massive scale, unlike any we have seen before.

I’m not arguing for fear, just saying that we have to organize. Single issue struggle is fine but we need much more, a program that encompasses all our issues combined with the unity and commitment of each of us to fight for everyone. We will also need representative democratic structure with leaders we can trust.

Knowing that something is very, very wrong and desiring to fix it is the first step. We are on the tightrope now. On one side is a more egalitarian, compassionate society. Fascism on the other. The direction we will fall remains to be seen.

Women Rise Up in India and Nepal

Protest in India

Internationally freedom for women often takes the form of simple survival. "honor killings," "bride burnings" and requiring a woman to marry a man who kidnaps and rapes her have been common practices in India. Groping and molestation has been dismissed under the benign sounding designation, "Eve teasing."

But now women in India are rising up against brutal conditions. The impetus for this uprising was the gang-rape and murder of a young medical student aboard a bus in Delhi. This incident has been a last straw for Indian women. Their nascent militance is reminiscent of seventies feminism in certain ways ie: the viewing of women and men as distinct social classes with women playing the subordinate, powerless role and completely unlike our early movement in others ie: socially sanctioned brutality up to and often including murder.

Protest in Nepal

Now, the women of Nepal are rising up as well. Their last straw is the case of a maid who says she was raped and robbed by government officials in an international airport there. The perpetrators were not charged and she was reimbursed with less money than was stolen. This one story has opened a Pandora's box of tales of horror involving women in Nepal. Often it is the travelers and tourists who have brought the problem of rape to light, click here to see a story involving an American tourist, simply because Nepalese women had become inured to these travesties.

But this former attitude of helplessness and acceptance has transformed into a militant uprising. We are sending our sisters love and support to continue their brave struggle and hope it speads throughout the world, even to the repressive reaches of the Middle East!