Tommy’s civics lesson

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Pay attention!
By Becci Robbins

Tonight we got a call from Jennifer Tague seeking counsel after her son, Tommy, was muzzled today on the grounds of Dutch Fork High School in Columbia.

Tommy Gordon is a 14-year-old in the 9th grade. He has uppity roots. His grandmother is Harriet Hancock, the Columbia lawyer and longtime Network member and gay rights activist who has been shaking up the state’s homophobic and closeted communities since her son came out in the ’80s, when it was still dangerous to so. It’s still a harsh culture for gay folks, but is much less so over the past decades in large part because of Harriet and others who have made it their life’s work to seek parity and respect for all people.

That’s just background for this account of the incident, along with a photo of a friend (his political polar opposite) sporting her message:

today at school a lot of kids who are pro-life wore shirts reflecting that view (shirts with big red lettering that says PRO LIFE, SILENCED FOR THOSE WHO WILL BE SILENCED or things of that nature.). i heard that kids were doing this so i made myself a Pro-Choice shirt that reads:

pro life is sexist. a woman should have the right to choose what she does with her body.

i was stopped while i was walking toward my first class of the day by an administrator who said: “We don’t do that here! Go to the office and change your shirt now!” and was forced to put a bright-orange shirt on with the words “Today I Violated The Dutch Fork High School Dress Code”.

i understood and wore the shirt all day. meanwhile the people who were wearing their Pro-Life shirts did not have to censor their shirts. i was deeply humiliated to have to wear this shirt that marked me as a rule-breaker while other kids who had done the same thing as i, but held different views about the issue than i did, were allowed to continue wearing their shirts.

my mom told me to email you about this.

thanks!

Tommy Gordon

prolife.jpg

this is an example of what the pro life people were wearing today. its a picture of my friend alix, in her pro life shirt, taken from her myspace site. the lettering on the shirt is backwards because the picture was taken with a camera phone.

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While it’s no surprise that Tommy has decided to make waves at Dutch Fork, my favorite part of the story is that, after wearing the dreaded orange tee all day, he was allowed to take it off during 6th Period, when his teacher instructed him that as long as there was a pro-choice shirt being worn in the classroom (there was) there would be equal exposure for tees of a different political hue. Kudos to Mr. Geliske.

Profound thanks to the good professor, who understands that democracy is not a spectator sport. And hats off to Tommy and Alix, who understand that friendship trumps ideology.

We could all learn something here.

See Al run?

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Democracy for America is sending around an invitation to vote in its Pulse Poll for your favorite Democratic presidential candidate. If you had to vote today, who would you choose?

Right now, Al Gore is ahead, followed by Obama, Edwards and Kucinich. Clinton is coming in fifth, pulling just 5 percent of the vote.

Add your two cents.

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DFA:

Our challenge to Al Gore: Jump In or Drop Out!

Something surprising is happening at Democracy for America; former Vice President Al Gore is leading the race for the DFA Presidential endorsement – as a write-in candidate.

Voting is still open until November 5 at midnight, and there is plenty of time for any candidate to win. All your candidate needs is your vote right now:

VOTE in DFA’s Pulse Poll

Despite the fact that Al Gore has not announced that he will run and wasn’t even included in the endorsement poll, DFA members have seized the power and written him in. With over 65,000 votes cast so far, the time has come for Vice President Gore to make a decision.

The clock is ticking. We are deep into the 11th hour. There are fewer than 90 days until the first votes are cast. And filing deadlines to be on the ballot start closing in just days.

You deserve to know. Is Al Gore in or out?

Cracking down

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Fixing Cocaine Sentencing Laws
By Kara Gotsch

This month the Supreme Court heard a case which touched on a 20-year-old controversy involving justice and crack cocaine. The court will rule early next year in Kimbrough v. United States whether a federal district judge’s more lenient sentencing decision, based on his disagreement with policy that punishes crimes involving crack cocaine more harshly than those involving powder cocaine, is reasonable. The case will help judges determine their ability to sentence below an advisory guideline range. Unfortunately, the outcome will leave in place the excessive mandatory penalties that the Kimbrough judge found unjust.

The case of Derrick Kimbrough stems from his 2005 guilty plea in Virginia for possession with intent to distribute 56 grams of crack cocaine and possession of a firearm. Kimbrough, a Desert Storm veteran with no previous felony convictions, was prosecuted in federal court where penalties involving crack cocaine are harsher than in state systems. As a result, instead of receiving a sentence of about 10 years under Virginia law, he faced a federal sentencing guideline range between 19 and 22 years.

Federal District Judge Raymond A. Jackson, who presided over Kimbrough’s case, called the recommended guideline sentence “ridiculous” and instead sentenced Kimbrough to 15 years, the minimum required by mandatory sentencing laws.

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The inevitability of sameness

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If you caught the story on this blog, or elsewhere, about students at Claflin University being recently told that they couldn’t form a Students for Barack Obama – then getting coerced into participating in a Clinton for President campus rally that pulled them out of class – you are beginning to understand what pundits mean when they talk about the “inevitability” of a Clinton nomination.

The Clinton muscle was flexed at Claflin by Sen. John Matthews (D-Orangeburg), a black legislator who has been in the legislature for 32 years.

It was given another workout at a recent fundraiser for a Columbia-based nonprofit, which charged $50 a head for tickets sold to folks with the expectation of hearing US Rep. Jim Clyburn keynote.

Clyburn, one of the most powerful black men in America, has repeatedly said that he was not going to make a primary endorsement in the Democratic presidential contest. So it was a bit of a surprise to those who turned out for the dinner when it was announced that Clyburn couldn’t make it and that Sen. Hillary Clinton would fill in for him.

Event organizers say they didn’t expect the event to turn into a Clinton rally, but that’s what happened. Rep. John Lewis, arguably one of the most progressive members of Congress, had announced his endorsement of Clinton earlier that day in Atlanta, and was on hand to introduce AME Bishop James, Chairman of the nonprofit. James happened to be the Bishop of Arkansas when Bill Clinton first ran for the White House, was credited with helping deliver the black vote, and has been tight with the Clintons ever since.

James told the crowd that there wasn’t time to recognize all the politicians in the room, “like Senators Ford and Jackson,” so he wouldn’t mention any names. Both Ford and Jackson are on the Clinton campaign payroll. Bishop James then lead the roughly 1,000 assembled guests in a prayer that he had written as a poem. The refrain was, “We had a leader, Lord, and Bill Clinton was his name, and what we need, God, is more of the same.”

Hillary then took the stage and gave a great speech about leading us to the promised land of peace, prosperity and health “coverage” for all. If you didn’t know the back story on all her positions, you would have cheered!

It was an amazing display of the power of the “Clinton machine,” and a lesson on what some interpret as the inevitability of another Clinton presidency (or at least candidacy).

Brett Bursey

How she learned to love the bomb

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Clinton rakes in cash from the weapons industry
by Leonard Doyle
The Independent

The US arms industry is backing Hillary Clinton for President and has all but abandoned its traditional allies in the Republican party. Clinton has also emerged as Wall Street’s favourite. Investment bankers have opened their wallets in unprecedented numbers for the New York senator over the past three months and, in the process, dumped their earlier favourite, Barack Obama.

Clinton’s wooing of the defence industry is all the more remarkable given the frosty relations between Bill Clinton and the military during his presidency. An analysis of campaign contributions shows senior defence industry employees are pouring money into her war chest in the belief that their generosity will be repaid many times over with future defence contracts.

Employees of the top five US arms manufacturers – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon – gave Democratic presidential candidates $103,900, with only $86,800 going to the Republicans. “The contributions clearly suggest the arms industry has reached the conclusion that Democratic prospects for 2008 are very good indeed,” said Thomas Edsall, an academic at Columbia University in New York.

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Womb with a view: SOLD

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The Real Estate of Women’s Health
By Ann Friedman

In the politics of providing reproductive health care to women, opponents are using three important things as weapons: location, location, location. Which is why health-care providers scored a major victory this month with the opening of a sparkling new $7.5 million clinic this week in Aurora, Illinois.

Abortion may be legal in America, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s available to all American women. For years, right-wing activists have used property law and building codes to make the provision of women’s reproductive care prohibitively burdensome. They’ve successfully passed laws in a number of states that target abortion providers, requiring expensive interior renovations to change air-circulation methods, heighten ceilings, and widen halls and doorways.

Some who oppose abortion have made a practice of buying up the property leased by women’s health clinics, then installing a so-called crisis pregnancy center – where right-wing activists try to guilt women out of having abortions – on the premises. These property grabs are typically made by a third party whose name is unfamiliar to clinic directors, as was famously done in Wichita, Kansas, by Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue. But when Planned Parenthood went to open its new Aurora clinic, opponents cried foul because the reproductive health-care provider built its facility and obtained building permits through a subsidiary, Gemini Office Development, LLC.

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A for Attendance

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Students told attending Hillary press conference was “part of class”

FITSNews – October 18, 2007

Students at Claflin University, a historically black college in Orangeburg, are accusing the school’s administration of prohibiting them from forming a Students for Barack Obama chapter, yet simultaneously compelling them to attend a press conference supporting his chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

In fact, several students who serve as volunteers on Obama’s presidential campaign tell FITSNews that they were coerced into holding Clinton signs and standing behind State Sen. John Matthews, who unveiled Clinton’s higher education plan at a press conference held at the school last week.

Which would probably explain some of the unenthusiastic expressions visible in this photograph.

claflin.jpg

Here’s what we’ve been told:

About three weeks ago, an honors student at Claflin University says she approached the administration about establishing a Students for Barack Obama chapter at the school. The student was told that she and fellow students could not form such a group on campus, but no reason was given for the school’s decision.

Fast-forward to last week, when this same honors student says that she and other Obama supporters were in a class that was cancelled so that students could attend Sen. Matthews‚ presentation on behalf of the Clinton campaign. She and other scholarship students say they were “coerced by administrators” into standing behind Matthews during his address. About half of those students are Obama volunteers who felt they had “no choice” but to stand behind Matthews at the event.

Not surprisingly, Clinton stickers and placards were passed out while the Senator was making his presentation, and a sign-up form for the Clinton campaign was circulated, which many of the students said they felt they were obligated to sign.

Claflin is technically a private institution, but it receives millions of dollars in government grants each year due to its historically-black designation.

According to a senior U.S. Department of Education official who spoke with FITSNews on the condition of anonymity, the school’s political favoritism – if proven true – may violate the irst Amendment rights of these students, as well as a federal prohibition against using tax dollars to promote a political campaign.

“It stinks to high heaven,” the official said. “Given that Claflin receives federal money and based on the school’s clear support for Clinton and its efforts to limit support for Obama, this could be a violation of that prohibition. It could also be a potential violation of the First Amendment rights of free speech and free association, but you’d have to determine the constitutional standard for a private school that accepts federal dollars. Are they considered a government actor for constitutional purposes or not? That’s what a case like this would hinge on.”

Claflin University did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment. Clinton’s campaign said it would look into the allegations.

US militarism is modern invention

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America’s Anti-Militarist Tradition
by Sheldon Richman

The right wing went apoplectic at the skepticism that greeted Gen. David Petraeus’s recent testimony about the alleged success of the military escalation in Iraq. It was as though a member of the military was incapable of engaging in spin to support his commander in chief’s war policy. President Bush summed up this attitude revealingly when he said it was one thing to attack him, but quite another to question General Petraeus.

War, Clausewitz noted, is politics by other means. That makes high-ranking generals a species of politician. Not a few have harbored presidential thoughts, and some have made it. It is said that Petraeus would like to be another. These are the people the pro-war conservatives are willing to trust implicitly? (Anti-war members of the armed forces, on the other hand, are, in Rush Limbaugh’s words, “phony soldiers.”)

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Waging peace

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Hello peacebuilders,

I received a link to this news report today through a list serve with Dept. of Peace State coordinators. I have read the letter, and encourage you to do as well. It is a report of a letter written from Muslim leaders of all the major sects of that religion, to all of our religious leaders in the Christian faith. It shows us that the movement that we are a part of is working, and that there is a thirst for peace among this world’s religions. It brings tears to my eyes and warmth to my heart to know that there are religious leaders taking the time to research and demonstrate the similarities between the Muslim faith and Christianity. The work that you are all doing in your own hearts and communities is not in vain, and we will see a world that knows peace.

Keep up the good work and the faith!

In Pursuit of Peace,

Dee Partridge, Charleston