Arm Yourself with Facts and Stand Up for Women's Rights

Check this out. The following is a from The International Planned Parenthood folks Check it out. The daddy says, armed yourself with the facts and stand up with your sisters to get Bush to put more money in the federal budget to protect women's rights.

	Take action to improve the health and rights of women around the world! Recently, President Bush submitted a $3.1 trillion budget request to Congress for 2009. Unfortunately the amount he allocated for family planning within that budget, $470m, falls drastically short of the need. The graphs below illustrate just how low the funding level really is. The allocation requested for international affairs in 2009 is a mere 1.27% of the $3.1 trillion total, and within that only 16% is for global health, of which 5% is for family planning.
	As the FY2009 budget goes to Congress for approval, it is urgent that we act now! Join 91 members of the House of Representatives who are asking the appropriate committees in the House and Senate to invest a total of $1 billion in voluntary family planning programs and services for 2009. More than 200 million women of reproductive age around the world have no access to contraceptives, and studies show that the fair US share of the total funding necessary to meet their needs is $1B, a modest $530m increase from last year’s level. Each year, more than 500,000 women around the world die during pregnancy and childbirth. One in five of women seek an abortion because she lacks access to modern contraceptive methods. Approximately 68,000 women die each year as a result of unsafe abortions; and 5.3 million women are injured. We can end this tragedy! $1 billion for family planning programs will have a significant impact in developing countries, where improved access to education, information and health care will save millions of lives.
	Click here to ask your member of Congress to support the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women by doubling the current funding level for international family planning to $1 billion for 2009. Thank you for your urgent support. Sincerely, Carmen Barroso Regional Director International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region
		Sign up for FreeChoiceSavesLives.org!

e people don't even want us, is not even throwing much chump change for women's health. Get armed with this article, replete with graphs and analysis, then sign up to give the village idiot and is bureaucratic cronies a piece of your mind. Don't forget it.

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The X Man Had a Plan

In memory of El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X)

Now if we don’t go into the past and find out how we got this, we will think that we were always this way. And if you think we were always in the condition that you’re in right now, it’s impossible for you to have confidence in yourself. You become worthless, almost nothing…

But when you go back into the past and find out where you once were, Then you will know that you were not always at this level, that you once attained a higher level, that you once had made great achievements, made great contributions to society, to civilization, to science…You know that, if you once did it, you can do it again, you automatically get the incentive, the
inspiration and the energy to duplicate what our forefathers did.

--from "Malcolm X on African American History"

The X Man Had a Plan

by MacDaddy

Chorus:
The X-Man/ had a plan/ for an ebony people/
In a distant land/
He said, “Rise up/ take your stand.
Take your low-plight station, an abomination
To the people’s court/ to the United Nation.
1

Now listen, my children, and you shall hear
About the flame-throw preacher known far and near
I ain’t talking about an axe, no rock guitar
Ain’t talking about a soap but a bright-lit star
Ask any fine sister that’s on the go.
Ask any down brother you might know:
What leader in the movement had all together?
What brother in the sixties told the enemy never?
“Never will I give up. That you can bet.
You stole me from my own land
tried to make me forget.”
I was first of the first in human creation.
was king, I was queen, of my own African nation.”

2

The X-Man/had a plan/ for an ebony people
In a distant land.
He said, “Rise up/ Take a stand/
Take your low-plight station/ an abomination/
To the people’s court/ to the United Nation.”

3

Before Reagan left town, he told Bush, his boy,
“Say you’re tough on crime. That will get you far.”
“And when you get in office do the shuffle.
Cut the tax on the rich come hell or high water.”
Now Malcolm left us early, but he said it straight:
Get your own damn land, and let them integrate.”
“Take control of your future. Keep it in your hands.
Build schools, institutions for your children, and on your own free land.”

4

Chorus:

The X-Man/ had a plan/ for an ebony people/
In a distant land/
He said, “Rise up/ take your stand.
Take your low-plight station, an abomination
To the people’s court/ to the United Nation.

The X-Man-
He had a plan.

Arrogance and the Proverbial Woodshed

This post is not about white males. But it is about a particular white male, recognizing that there others like him. Beyond him, it's about a subject that we really don't want to discuss--about black music and the people who straight-up stole it, about cultural innovators who were nothing less than geniuses, about cultural expropriators who,were, essentially, nothing more than thieves. Shall we?

A white male friend came up to the table where the daddy was having coffee with several other black guys. Now, this guy is like several white male “friends” of mine. They see me hanging out with a bunch of brothers, come over for coffee and conversation. That’s cool. It’s a public place. But instead of asking how people are doing joining in the conversation, they sit down and immediately change the conversation to a subject with which they are familiar, and about which is obscure or about which they think the rest of the group nothing or little. “Hey, have you guys heard of Bill Haley? He was into rock and roll guy. He was great! Man, the guy could play anything."

So what’s bothering the daddy about this? After all, in and of itself, sitting down at a table with folks you don’t know very well and promptly changing the subject is not so bad. The daddy can work with that. But to bring up something out of nowhere that you think others know little or nothing solely for the purpose of lecturing a discussion group strikes the daddy as dishonest and self-centered. But wait. There’s more.

This particular guy has done this before; and the daddy has noticed a pattern-- that he only "chats" to us black folks about sports or music, but some aspect of sports or music that he thinks we don't know about, usually sports or music before the sixties. You see, apparently, if a sports activity occurred before Michael Jordan, black people don't know about it. And, if music was played before James Brown, black folks don’t know about that either. So, as far as this guy is concerned, for the daddy and his homies, music begins with “I feel good” and ends with Fitty at the candy shop. And what a perfect opportunity for the white boy/expert to wax poetic to the maddening, unwashed, black crowd at the yuppie coffee shop.

School is in session, alright, because, you see, the daddy comes from a musical family (gospel, blues, and jazz) from way, and because the daddy, in no uncertain terms, took this arrogant white expert and homie-wanna-be to the inner-city, proverbial watershed.

Arrogant white boy expert:

“Have you guys heard of Bill Haley? He was great. Man, he could…”

The daddy:

"You’re talking about Bill Haley and the Comets. He was born in Highland Park, Michigan in 1925, the day my daddy was born, I think. He tried to play country and western and swing music in Michigan. But them folks said, “Man, get that shi out of here.

Before hooking with three other dudes to make the Comets, he was in a group called the Four Aces. Then, he met this dude that was a producer for the Decca label, who told him to cut that swing shit out, that young white teenagers were ready for what they called jungle beats but their parents didn’t want their daughters dancing around black men. But they'll go for the jungle beat, if a white guy does it. He told him to go find some black music.

That’s how he came to make “Man Crazy,” which was the first so-called rock and roll record to make the billboard charts. But it was straight-up black music. But after his success with Man Crazy, he went whole hog, so to speak, and did nothing but black music. That’s how he came to make “Shake, rattle, and roll,” “See you later, alligator, and “Rock around the clock tonight.” He faded rom the scene around 1957, when younger, more exciting guys came along like Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lewis, and when racist, white American media finally let white girls go to shows where black men were performing like Little Richard and Chuck Berry. and Chubby Checker.

You know: Instead of talking about Haley, you should talk about the guy the main guy Haley got his music from: Big Joe Turner. Big Joe was the real thing. He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, grew up singing in the church and on the streets for tip. He was the first one to make “shake, rattle, and roll,” “rock around the clock tonight,” “Flip, flop, and fly,” songs Haley recorded.

By the way, today is Big Joe Turner's birthday. He was born on May 18, 1925. You got anything to add?"

The white expert said he had to get going. Everyone at the table smiled and said, “Have a good one.”

The daddy will feel bad about this tomorrow…honest!

Life is Good

On this day, this Saturday, the daddy won’t be posting about a Republican president that went all the way to Israel to criticize a Democratic presidential candidate. The daddy won’t be talking about a Republican senator who, lacking solutions to a depressed economy or a failed foreign policy, tries to run a presidential race solely by criticizing his opponent.

No, on this day, the daddy is strolling around St. Anthony Main, a small commercial enclave centered on the North side of the Mississippi river, in downtown Minneapolis.

The daddy is standing in the center of a bridge, staring at the water below. It seems to come toward the daddy in waves, somehow calming his nerves, replenishing his soul.

Standing on this bridge, the daddy, for some reason, begins to think of the great African American poet Langston Hughes, of his poem about the river, his first published poem, one of his best. The daddy, who fancies himself as a writer, a poet, stares into the mighty Mississippi and tries to remember Hughes’ “The Negro Speaks of Rivers:”

I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
Flow of human blood in human veins.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut in the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
Went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy
Bosom turns all golden in the sunset…”

{The daddy forgets the rest of the poem. Damn! Let me see: Senator McCain is 71 years old and sometimes has senior moments. What’s the daddy’s lame excuse?}

The daddy stares into the river again, beneath the waves, shutting out the sound and slowly begins to remember the rest of the poem:

I’ve known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

The daddy looks up into the sky, sees sunrays streaking down into swirling waters and thinks: when the daddy speaks in third person, life is good.

Why Clinton Lost: The Biggest Reason of All

Robert Creamer, author of "Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win," and commentator at Huffington Post, wrote a fascinating piece on Sen. Hillary Clinton, providing 10 reasons why she lost an democratic nominee for the US presidency.

Creamer said Obama won because he assembled a strong team that worked well together, developed an all-state (as opposed to the Clinton's big-states) strategy, executed better with all the little stuff, the nuts-and-bolts organizing on the ground; did better fund raising, communicated more effectively by using one consistent message about change and hope, used message of unity and hope to trump transcend fear and anger, and, on the whole, communicated portrayed Obama as he is in real life: a smart, charming, communicative, level-headed, and compassionate family man.

As for Sen. Clinton, she used a faulty big-state operational strategy, deployed an inappropriate political message (selling herself as a competent Washington insider at a time when America is begging for someone new, someone to make changes in Washington), and had no plan B past February 5.

Good analysis. But Creamer, you forgot one thing: Clinton's win at-all-cost mentality. To succeed in a man's world, Sen. Clinton had to be a fighter. Like a boxer running five miles a day, shadowboxing as she goes, she had to fight like hell to earn her place in the sun, her seat at the table in the senate, an all-boy's club if there ever was one.

To get there, she had to stay in fighting mode. She had to say to herself, "I'm not going to give up; I'm going to fight; and I'm going to win, no matter what it takes." Unfortunately, many women know this mentality all too well.

But at what point does a woman see the necessity to alter this mentality? Or can a woman sometimes move between fighter and peacemaker mode? Some would no doubt say yes. Others would no doubt say never-- not if you want to succeed, not if you want to break through the glass ceiling of a male-dominated society.

Maybe so. Maybe not. I think our society could very well be making a transition from a white male-ordered culture to something else-- something less definable yet more diverse in many ways. For instance, many a woman have left the corporate world and started their own businesses and, with it, started to change the rules and values in those particular institutions, one business at a time. Many men have chosen to work at home to be closer to their children or partner. And many fathers have chosen to raise their sons to be as free as possible from violent tv, movies and video games, guns and the other-as-enemy-mentality that got us into the amazingly stupid civil war called Iraq.

Maybe our society is catching up to those ideals it has long professed but never really manifested in practice to Senator Clinton or other oppressed classes: Ideals like equality, justice and democracy. But in the interim, when sex still sells and sexism (as in unequal women's pay for at least equal work to men) makes profit, is it really that difficult to understand why Senator Clinton wouldn't stay in a fighting mode? Why she wouldn't keep running , shadowboxing along the way, saying "I'm going to win no matter what it takes?" I didn't think so.

Nonetheless, that same win-at-all costs mentality that helped her to succeed, that got her to the senate, was, ultimately, the mentality that caused her demise in this campaign. It caused her to hire key advisors like Mark Penn, who presides over a consulting firm that counsels large corporations and governments on how to bust unions and whose man-the-torpedoes recommendations kept Senator Clinton from taking a breather, from showing voters the kind of person her closest friends swear she is (when she let's down the boxing gloves): a kind, compassionate and generous human being.

It caused her to portray herself to be as tough as any man, to be a warmonger if necessary at the precise time that Americans are desperately crying out for negotiations over pre-emptive war.

It caused her to sink to embarrassing depths of pandering: sitting at pubs with "ordinary Joes," throwing down shots of liquor and chasing it with a swig of beer; calling for an improbable and unworkable gas holiday; recalling her early Annie Oakley, gun-shooting days as a child in Scranton, Pennsylvania; and, worst of all, resorting to race-baiting against a member of her own party, a fellow colleague in the senate and a representative of a people who were her most loyal supporters (African Americans). Though she won the battle in Pennsylvania, she lost the respect of not only African American voters, but voters all across the country, including many white feminists who once sang her praises.

Some women will say that Senator Clinton is a fighter, that a woman must always stay in fighting mode to get what she wants. If true, that perhaps says more about our sexist society than a self-absorbed, power obsessed Hillary Clinton. But none of that can take away from the fact that it was her stop-at-nothing-throw-them- under-the-bus-if-necessary mentality that caused her to lose this democratic nomination.

But with a graceful exit extolling the virtues of party unity and the qualities that would make Obama the right president for our times, Hillary Clinton will live to fight again in 2012...if she can exit gracefully.

Update: For a different perspective, check out "Sexism and privilege: parsing gender politics in the Clinton campaign" at whattamisaid.

The Unofficial Funeral Program for the Hillary Clinton Campaign

I'm feeling this piece by Jasmyne Cannick over at The Daily Voice. Jasmyne is a commentator based in Los Angeles. She can be reached at: www.jasmynecannick.com. I think the invocation by Minister Louis Farrakhan is...special.
by Jasmyne Cannick

The service takes place at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and guess who's delivering the benediction?

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ORDER OF SERVICE

Trinity United Church of Christ
Chicago, IL

Processional
Family is led in by 20 year-old Emina Bicakcic of Bosnia carrying flowers

Musical Selection
"I Don't Feel No Ways Tired"

Family Prayer
Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright

Prelude Music
Elton John "The Bitch Is Dead"

Invocation
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan

Musical Tribute
President Bill Clinton on the Saxophone

Tribute
Maya Angelou

Speaker
Andrew R. Young

Remarks
Bob Johnson
Geraldine Ferraro
Magic Johnson
Monica Lewinsky
Maryann Pernold

Musical Selection
President Bill Clinton on Saxophone w/Daughter Chelsea Clinton
"Didn't We Almost Have It All"

Reading
Toni Morrison "Almost the first Black female President"

Benediction
Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright

Musical Selection
50 Cent ""I Get Money"

Offering
(Someone's got to pay for the service)

Norman Hsu

Pallbearers
(With her to the very end...)

Rep. Alcee Hastings
Rep. Charles Rangel
Rep. Corrine Brown
Rep. David Scott
Rep. Dianne Watson
Rep. Donna Christian-Christensen
Rep. Edolphus Towns
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver
Rep. Gregory Meeks
Rep. Kendrick Meek
Rep. Laura Richardson
Rep. Maxine Waters
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones
Rep. Yvette Clarke

Honorary Pallbearers

President G.W. Bush
Gov. Bill Richardson
Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Sen. Barack Obama
Sen. John Edwards
Sen. John McCain
Gov. Howard Dean
Rep. Ron Paul
Gov. Mike Huckabee
Mitt Romney
Sen. Joe Biden
Sen. Christopher Dodd
Sen. Mike Gravel
Gov. Tom Vilsak
Rudy Giuliani
Sen. Sam Brownback
Gov. Jim Gilmore
Rep. Duncan Hunter
Rep. Tom Tancredo
Sen. Fred Thompson
Gov. Tommy Thompson
Alan Keyes
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Gov. Howard Dean

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Did You Hear Obama's Speech Tonight? Fantastic!

Before getting an endorsement from former presidential candidate John Edwards, Sen. Barack Obama delivered a passionate speech that felt like a sanctified church revival, frequently interrupted by hand clapping, standing ovations, even fainting. Here's an excerpt:
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...John Edwards and I believe in a different America. Hillary Clinton believes in a different America. That is why we are going to take Washington by storm in November.

We believe no matter where you come from opportunity should be yours if you are willing to Reach for it and work for it. If you live in the U.S. of A., you should never be hungry or homeless. You should never have to want. That is what we are fighting for.

Poverty is not the issue that is always talked about in the media and it doesn't poll well. John Edwards talked about it because it was right, and it is still right. It is worth debating.

The fight I waged then, the fight John is waging now, is a fight I will bring into the White House. It has not even begun under this White House. I want to make sure he {John Edward} will have a partner in that effort (reducing poverty by half in ten years) because it will be a goal I will set.

We can do this. If you want to work, you can find work,
and if you do work you will never want.

We can start by ending the tax breaks we give to companies that ship jobs overseas, and invest them in companies that create jobs here.

We can refuse to give more tax breaks to the wealthy few who don't need it and aren't even asking for it. The next tax break will put money in the pockets of working families who need it most.

We can make sure that every child no matter where they come from gets a world class education. I won't just talk about how great teachers are, we will reward them with better salaries and more support.

We can invest in after school programs for children who don't have anywhere to go. When they graduate from high school we will make sure they can afford to go to college. We can do that.

This campaign is about you, about your struggles, your hopes, your dreams--about the guy I met in Marion, Indiana who had worked in the same factory, [who] described the feeling as he was packing up the machines. He was losing a sense of who he was; that is something people all across Michigan have been feeling.

It's about all the Americans watch their incomes decline even though they are working 2 or 3 jobs.

You are the corrective to our politics.

You are going to hold us accountable.

Make a declaration that we are going to come together as a country.

This election is also about how we apply those values overseas...because, since this war in Iraq started, we have lost our bearing and our focus; we have been distracted. It has not made us more safe and that is why I opposed this war in 2002.

I oppose Guantanamo. That is why we will reach out and END the genocide in Darfur.

This is the country that gave my grandfather the chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill, that gave him a chance to buy a home with a loan.

No more homeless veterans. No more begging for assistance. No more waiting for hours in the VA...

John Edwards hasn't forgotten what this country has done for him, for Elizabeth, for Michelle, for me.

This is the America we can build for tomorrow for the auto worker in Detroit. This is our time to answer the call that so many generations have answered before the American dream will endure. We are going to have a choice in this election, because John McCain -- as much as I honor his service -- is offering 8 more years of the same: 8 more years of your on your own politics; 8 more years of can't-won't-even-try, gotta go. That is the politics of the past.

We are tired of the politics of fear; we are offering the politics of hope. I know how difficult change is. The status quo resists because sometimes citizenship wins out.
I am convinced the American people are looking for something different. They are saying this time is going to be different.

If you are willing to put down the cynicism and join Barack Obama and John Edwards and Hillary Clinton, I promise you we will not just win this election, we will change this country and the world.