The Women of Afghanistan Speak Out

Dear Orikinla,

THE WOMEN OF AFGHANISTAN SPEAK OUT

"Afghan women and girls want education. Many risk their lives to go to school... Human rights are not a western concept, but universal and necessary for all human beings "

Dr Sima Samar, chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and Special Human Rights Rapportuer for Sudan.

Kabul, Afghanistan, April 15, 2009: Hundreds of Afghan women stood up to an angry crowd and marched to the Parliament, calling for repeal of a new law restricting women's lives.

For the women of Afghanistan and neighboring areas of Pakistan dominated by the Taliban, recent news has been dire: The new law passed by Parliament and signed by President Karzai, forbidding women to leave the house without their husbands' permission and legalizing marital rape; a 17 year-old woman in the Swat region of Pakistan, flogged for what the local Taliban commander described as a "transgression"; continuing attacks on girls' schools. According to the Feminist Majority Foundation, hundreds of girls' schools have been destroyed and teachers murdered; young girls on their way to school had acid thrown at them.

Reaction to the new law -- and to the attacks on women which preceded it -- has been strong: President Obama said "I think this law is abhorrent. Certainly the views of this administration have been, and will be communicated to the Karzai government... The first reason we are there is to root out al Qaeda...those two things aren't contradictory, I think they're complementary..."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: "My message is very clear: Women's rights are a central part of American foreign policy in the Obama administration; they are not marginal; they re not an add-on or afterthought...So we will continue to work very hard on behalf of women and girls in Afghanistan and around the world."
Women Senators have spoken up: a bipartisan group, led by U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and including Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) sent a letter to President Karzai.

"This law should be reversed immediately," Boxer said. "Not only is this law an attack on individual freedom, but it condones despicable acts against women in their homes. By approving this law, Afghan leaders are holding back the entire country's progress and turning the nation back toward some of the most oppressive practices of the Taliban."

Responding to the public outcry, President Karzai has now promised to review the law. According to his aide, the legislation is not yet law, and will be reviewed so that it will be "consistent with the rights provided in the Constitution -- equality and the protection of women"

The State Departments is monitoring what happens next: "We're glad that President Karzai has agreed to review this law critics say permits spousal rape and severely limits women's rights," said State Department spokesman Robert Wood. "And we'll be watching this closely to see how the process develops."


Watch the video.
Video courtesy of the Associated Press.

The women of Afghanistan are risking their lives to speak up for their rights; we must continue to speak up for them.

SCIENCE COMES (BACK) TO WASHINGTON

An important policy announcement this week, and a demonstration that respect for scientific evidence and evidence-based decision making has come back to Washington:
The Environmental Protection Agency said formally that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases "endanger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act." Among the problems they cause: increased drought, flooding, more frequent heat waves and wildfires, and harm to water resources, agriculture and eco-systems.
The proposed finding is open for comment review for 60 days, but I think I have my favorite already:
"'Duh' may not be a scientific term, but it applies here" said Emily Figdor, federal global warming director of Environment America. " EPA has embraced the basic facts on global warming that scientists around the world have acknowledged for years."
A very happy Earth Day to all of us concerned about the health of our families -- and our planet.

EQUAL RIGHTS AT HOME

Next Tuesday, April 28th is Equal Pay Day -- and if you wonder why that day was chosen, April 28 marks how long into the current year American women have to work to catch up with what was earned by men just in the previous year. Think what a difference that equal paycheck would make to your family!

This year, we can celebrate passage of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first legislation signed into law by President Obama, which ensures that women have a reasonable chance to sue for pay discrimination. But we could do so much more by acting, to prevent discrimination the first place. The Paycheck Fairness Act, originally sponsored by then-Senator Hillary Clinton, and now led by Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) would strengthen the Equal Pay laws, and help take equal pay from the law books to our checkbooks.

We have a lot more information coming about and actions you can take on Equal Pay and the Paycheck Fairness Act -- stay tuned.

NO LIMITS IS GROWING

We're so proud to announce the next steps for No Limits: our new website will be ready soon, with resources and information about the issues you care about, and a special social networking feature that will make it easier for us all to stay connected.

You can help us grow! When you get the announcement of our new website, will you forward it to your friends?

Sincerely,

Ann Lewis

What would you do?

What would you do if you had a friend, whom you really liked a lot, who was a supporter of a hate group?

What if it was a hate group that targeted you?

What if it was a hate group that encouraged the murder of anyone like you, and would defend this person if they murdered you, regardless of the circumstances, even going so far as to provide them with a top defense attorney free of charge?

What if your friend was completely deluded about what the movement actually stood for, about what it actually was? What if they insisted it was a nice movement, all about peace and love and everyone getting along and having an equal share of everything, but all the while you knew that it was nothing like that and never had been? You had tried and tried to tell your friend the truth, but they just didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to know the truth because the truth is unpleasant. They preferred the lie because it makes them and everyone like them out to be martyrs and heroes.

"No, it's not like that," they insisted. "Sure, there are some radicals, but that's not what its all about."

"Those radicals created the movement. They run it. They control it and determine everything it does," you countered.

"Yes, but that's not what most people want," they insisted.

"No, I know it isn't. But it doesn't change what the movement is just because you wish it were different. It is what it is."

What if you showed them direct quotes from every single founding member of their beloved movement, as well as all the current leaders, in which these people expressed the most vile and blatant hatred of you and all those like you, and yet your friend stubbornly and illogically dismissed the statements, excusing them by saying things like, "I'm sure they didn't mean it the way it sounds" or "you just don't understand" and still they continued to follow these haters and to defend them and their murderous movement?

What if they would crucify you or anyone else like you if you were to ever make similar statements as those their founders and leaders had made, but you directed the statements back at them?

What if you regularly saw on the news where people just like you were being robbed, denied justice in court, mutilated, tortured, and even murdered by people like them, people who believe what they believe, and then you heard your friend laugh and celebrate these crimes, justifying them and making excuses for the hate criminals, reflexively declaring the victims to be deserving of it despite the fact that your friend knew virtually nothing about the cases or circumstances at all? What then? Would you you blow it off? Would you overlook it?

What if the leaders of their hate movement were experts at making excuses, always twisting everything around so that no matter what evil things their followers did, they always managed to argue that they were the real victims while their victims were declared to be oppressors? What if they were damned good at it, very talented at arguing and persuading lots of ignorant, weak-minded, and youthful people that no matter what, everything they did is always justified, and everything their victims suffered because of them was also always justified?

What if large masses of people joined with them and agreed with them?

What if other nations' governments began to join with them, writing their hate and lies into their laws?

What if the News Media was entirely on their side, promoting all their hatred of you as a kind of religion, declaring that there is no need for debate and it is time that everyone simply accept it all as true?

What if the Media helped them create a huge lie about a conspiracy to oppress them and hurt them, a conspiracy to wage war on them, and when there was absolutely no evidence to support their lie, they simply attempted to manufacture the evidence by claiming they had it hidden somewhere, but weren't going to show it to anyone? What if they were caught in this lie over and over and over again, and yet they were never held accountable, never held to the same standard of truthfulness that you and others like you are held to, so that they could just continue telling lies as often as they wished and it became clear that no one in authority was ever going to do anything about it?

What if the leaders of this hate movement stood before your nation's government and told these lies in order to get laws passed declaring themselves to be a special "protected class" and you and all others like you, to be a "hated unprotected criminal class" with few rights and no legal protections when faced with accusations by them?

What if your government established special federal agencies whose only job was to hunt you and accuse you based on the mountain of lies that by now had been created by them about you, and they paid for these agencies with your hard-earned tax dollars that your government takes from you by force?

What if your friend honestly believed all the lies and truly didn't think they were hurting you with the hate they were supporting, and you got along fine with them otherwise, except when anything related to their religion, their faith in their own superiority came up? Would you remain friends with them?

Would you grit your teeth and just ignore them whenever they spouted off stupid religious dogma and political propaganda related to their faith in the movement that was actively working to enslave and destroy you?

Would you call them a 'hater' and break off all contact with them, even though you knew you were just going to encounter hundreds more exactly like them everywhere you went thanks to the evangelical influence of television over the masses?

Would you take it as long as you could until you finally exploded and punched them in the face?

Would you kill them?

What would you do?


What would you do?

God, Adam, and Balls - from a comment I left on TKW's blog

I’ve always thought that just before God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, right after he told Eve that he was going to make childbirth suck for her, he pulled Adam aside and said “And you, you want to let her lead you around by your penis, do you? Allow me to give you something worse for her to lead you by” and then he made Adam’s testicles drop out of his abdomen where they damn well belonged, and just hang by nerves and skin, swinging like two exposed kidneys and just as sensitive to pain.

After God left, Adam said “I am fucked.” And it was not good.

For whatever reason, God chose not to include this important little detail in the Bible. Men for thousands of years have been asking “why why why?” only to get no answer. But you notice, even Jesus, with all they did to him, was never hurt down there. Apparently he was willing to go to the cross for us, but when it came to having his nuts bashed in and nailed to the cross like the Romans did to so many other men*, much like modern cops do with their Tasers, he said “no fucking way.”


Well OK, he probably didn't use those EXACT words.




* Yes, the Romans did on occasion actually nail men's genitals to the cross along with their hands and feet. I shit you not. We are becoming more like them every day.