Speak your mind even if your voice shakes
I don’t know what to write today to introduce you to this video.
It covers many subjects and it is of course up to the viewer to make their own interpretation.
If you think the voices sound familiar, it is Judy Collins and Joan Baez.
*some images are graphic*
For some reason the embedded player was cutting out half way through, it is fine on the youtube site.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqewiVEemww
Recent events and news stories bring very sharply to mind that women still have not achieved equality and that there are factions who wish us to be divested of those rights and freedoms we have achieved thus far.
Bearing that in mind, and the toll it took on 14 young women as well as women around the world, I would like to propose an action.
Starting on Nov. 23 and culminating on Dec. 6th.
14 days to represent the 14 women whose lives were taken that day.
If you have a blog or a website write one thing each day in recognition of women.
It could be about abuse stats, it could be about the work your local women’s group is doing, it could be about the wonderful woman in your life. Friend, mother, girlfriend,teacher…
It could be the goat you bought for a woman half way round the world.
It could be about other actions people can take to change the world.
One thing a day to recognize women’s lives.
On Dec.6th every participant will create an entry called Dec. 6th Memorial with only a picture of a candle as the post.
For anyone who would like to participate but who doesn’t have a blog, you can sign up at Rose’s Place and I will set you up to be an author and you can post there or you can sign up at Bread and Roses and take part in the thread there.
If you take part please send me the name and url of your blog and I will put your link on my blog under Dec.6th Action.
(debrascot@gmail.com)
While debate continues as to whether reducing women to their sexuality is acceptable, women and female children around the world are suffering from the permissions those attitudes are granting.
A man has admitted murdering his baby daughter after thinking about killing her every day since her birth as part of fantasy about controlling women.
Andrew Randall, 33, of Havelock Street in Kettering, committed “a catalogue of horrendous violence” on seven-week-old Jessica, Northampton Crown Court.
Jessica, born five weeks early, was abused almost since she left hospital until her death in November last year.
Randall also pleaded guilty to causing her grievous bodily harm.
After her death, Jessica was found to have at least nine injuries to her ribs as well as brain injuries and cuts to her face, the court heard.
Permission to destroy
A Canadian couple convicted of brutally assaulting two girls, one of whom said she was kept as a sex slave, were sentenced on Tuesday, but the victims’ relatives denounced the punishment as too lenient.
Prosecutors had described the couple — Terry Ladouceur, 39, and Lynnette Traverse, 25 — as “evil incarnate,” and the case evoked memories of the trial of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, who were convicted in the torture killings of two Ontario girls in a notorious sex case in the 1990s.
A Manitoba judge sentenced Ladouceur to 10 years in prison and Traverse, his common-law wife, to four years on charges that included sexual assault, kidnapping and forcible confinement involving the two girls, who were 12 and 13 when the assaults started.
Because of the time the couple spent in jail awaiting trial, Ladouceur will spend only an additional seven years behind bars, and Traverse will be eligible for release almost immediately.
The victims’ relatives cursed and cried in the courtroom over sentences that they said were too lenient. They complained to reporters that the couple have never shown remorse for what they had done.
Prosecutors had wanted Ladouceur to spend up to 18 years in prison and Traverse eight years. They called the sentences handed down by the court an irony since at least one of the girls would likely never recover psychologically.
Interesting in these cases how more blame seems to go to the female accomplice.
Permission to assign blame to the victim
Until now rape cases were dealt with in Sharia courts. Victims had to have four male witnesses to the crime – if not they faced prosecution for adultery.
Now civil courts will be able to try rape cases, assuming the upper house and the president ratify the move.
The reform has been seen as a test of President Musharraf’s stated commitment to a moderate form of Islam.
“It is a historic bill because it will give rights to women and help end excesses against them,” Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told parliament after the vote.
Religious parties boycotted the vote, saying the bill encouraged “free sex”.
Free sex? seems right now the men have a right to all the free sex they want.
Oh! I get it! Women shouldn’t be able to have sex freely. Ya know like with free will.
Do something!
Limbaugh on the Democrat win;
LIMBAUGH: Now, I mentioned to you at the conclusion of the previous hour that people have been asking me how I feel all night long. And I got, “Boy, Rush, I wouldn’t want to be you tomorrow. Boy, I wouldn’t want to have to do your show. Boy, I’m so glad I’m not you.” Well, folks, I love being me. I can’t be anybody else, so I’m stuck with it. But the way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I’m just going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, “Well, why have you been doing it?” Because the stakes are high. Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country’s than the Democrat [sic] Party does and liberalism.
However, it was M.P. Belinda Stronach, (Newmarket – Aurora) who got down right rude and insulting when she stated:
The Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, Ian Brodie, has said that the organization, REAL Women, raises, interesting points that warrant close inspection. This is a group that is anti-choice, anti-gay, does not support equality for women and wants to obliterate the Department on the Status of Women. This group’s website even has links to sites that suggest that day cares do not care and homosexuality is a psychological disorder.With budget cuts on the horizon, who is the minister listening to, Ian Brodie, the right-wing organization, REAL Women, or will she stand up and defend the rights of Canadian women?
I want to add that promoting equal rights for Canadian women is never a waste.
In response to Ms Stonach’s remarks the Conservative MPs pounded their desks and called out “hurrah for REAL women”
On September 25, 2006, the Conservative government announced long overdue cuts to a number of government departments including the Status of Women. The latter’s budget was cut by $5 million out of a budget of 23 million. It is an excellent beginning on what we hope will be the eventual elimination of the Status of Women.
This is from REAL women’s Sept/Oct. newsletter.
I’m just going to deal with this small section of it.
Belinda Stronach was rude and insulting with what she said?
She only repeated their platform. Are they embarrassed by it? (they should be)
Here is a group which supports violation of human rights, which would have us all governed by their religious beliefs, and whose members seek to force women to carry a pregnancy to term regardless of the circumstances of conception, danger to the woman’s life or psychology ability of the woman to continue on.
In response to Ms Stonach’s remarks the Conservative MPs pounded their desks and called out “hurrah for REAL women”
And we have a party fully supportive of this type of platform. Do we want our country to be known for intolerance, bigotry, sexism and denial of human rights? That’s not what my parents fought for.
The views expressed by this party and their support of a group of sexist bigots need to be repeated loudly, widely and constantly to remind people of the how the conservative government views women, gays and those who support reproductive choice.
Finally this last sentence is chilling and wraps up the conservative stance on women, and women’s rights in a nutshell;
It is an excellent beginning on what we hope will be the eventual elimination of the Status of Women.
Yes, they hope for the elimination of the Status of Women and the status for women.
These are people who would happily return to the days of Father knows best, women in the kitchen, and biology is destiny.
I am not willing to allow the Conservative Party, the fundamentalist religious wingnuts, or the fake progressive men who can talk a good game but get testicular shrinkage when asked to walk the talk, to determine what opportunities are available to my daughters and granddaughters.
We will not be silenced and we will not go back!
I suppose you can’t expect much from people who think the internet is a series of tubes
Still you would hope that a government which regularly uses THE WAR ON TERROR as their go to for every right killing bill they pass would have some sense that posting how-to manuals on chemical weapons and atomic bombs on the internet just might possibly be a bad idea.
(is it an oxymoron to use sense and republican in the same sentence? I think it might be.)
But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.
Last night, the government shut down the Web site after The New York Times asked about complaints from weapons experts and arms-control officials. A spokesman for the director of national intelligence said access to the site had been suspended “pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing.”
Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures.
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