Victoria Brownworth

In 1994 I was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. I was having a severe episode of atrial fibrillation, a life-threatening heart irregularity. I have had a life-long congenital heart problem, but it didn’t start to really cause problems for me until I was in my 30s.

There is nothing more frightening than being in a life-threatening situation and being alone, surrounded only by strangers and no familiar, loving face.

Except I was not alone. I had a partner: we lived together, owned a house and a car together, had published books together, fostered a child together. But because we were lesbians, not husband and wife, hospital personnel said she could not be with me as I lay in critical condition in the cardiac intensive care unit. 

Doctors worked on me for several hours in the ER, but there was no change. My irregular and rapid heart rate (280 beats a minute makes you feel like your heart will explode) had not responded to the usual treatments. I was put on IVs with two different drugs that were supposed to re-convert my heart rate to normal within 24 hours. Until then, I would be admitted to the cardiac intensive care unit for round-the-clock monitoring.   

Eventually the doctors had to shock my heart (it’s nothing like on TV–it’s like having someone toss a flaming truck at your chest repeatedly) several times to re-start it properly. At one point the head of cardiology was standing over my bed with students explaining how AF is one of the major causes of stroke, partficularly in people under 40, like I was.

I spent several days in CICU. I was about 40 years younger (or more) than every other patient in the unit. I was also among the sickest while I was there. But unlike everyone else in CICU, I had to fight to have my partner with me. Why? Because I am a lesbian and my partner was another woman.

At the time I was in the CICU, I was a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News and I the only lesbian in the country writing a column about being a lesbian for a daily newspaper. My editor, who was a straight married man, thought it was time to have a lesbian voice at a daily.

So from my bed in the CICU, I wrote about what it was like to have to fight to be with your spouse when you were also fighting for your life. I was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize that year, in part for that column. 

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell had been law for about a year when I had my non-battlefield life-threatening experience. I wasn’t in the military, obviously. But in the years since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq I have often thought how awful it must be for our gay and lesbian soldiers to be alone when they are fighting for their country.

Imagine, for example, being Eric Alva, a Marine staff sargeant in Iraq. Here’s what Alva told the House Armed Services Committee hearings in July 2008:

I joined the military because I wanted to serve; I joined the Marines because I wanted a challenge. I was 19 years old. I was patriotic, idealistic. I was also gay.

For 13 years I served in the Marine Corps. I served in Somalia during Operation Restore Hope. I loved the discipline and the camaraderie, what I hated was concealing part of who I am.

My military service came to an end on March 21, 2003. It was the first day of the ground war in Iraq; mine was one of the first battalions in. Three hours into the invasion, we had stopped to wait for orders. I went back to the Humvee to retrieve something — to this day I can’t remember what –and, as I crossed that dusty patch of desert for the third time that day, I triggered a landmine.

I was thrown through the air, landing 10 or 15 feet away. The pain was unimaginable. My fellow marines were rushing to my aid, cutting away my uniform to assess the damage and treat my wounds. I remember wondering why they weren’t removing my right boot — it wasn’t until later that I realized it was because that leg was already gone.

Alva was discharged from the Marines after losing a leg and part of an arm to that landmine.

Alva is just one of about 13,000 men and women discharged from the military since DADT was initiated. But he’s representative of the valor with which so many lesbians and gay men have served in the military despite the often gruesome repression of DADT.

Majority America and even the majority of the military don’t have to consider what it means to be isolated from everything familiar and safe in moments of crisis or pain. If you are ill, you have your husband or wife with you in  the hospital. If you are serving in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan  and you are injured,  your wife or husband can visit you in the hospital or at the very least  talk to you on the phone or on Skype.

Not so for gay men and lesbians.

There are five states in the nation where same-sex marriage is legal, several others where civil unions are the law and in California, 18,000 gay and lesbian couples are also legally married. Yet if any of these married couples is serving in today’s military, their spouse cannot contact them if they are injured, no matter how severely.  

I know what it is like to be fighting for your life and not be able to have your spouse with you because of institutionalized bigotry. But I wasn’t also serving on a battlefield. My story, while harrowing, was not the same as Staff Sgt. Alva’s story. Imagine your leg blown off and not being able to talk to the person you love because of the segregation in today’s military.

One of the most disappointing voices in the renewed debate over DADT has been that of Sen. John McCain. McCain knows better than almost any other member of the Senate what it is to be a wounded warrior alone and suffering. And yet he would continue to impose that on gay men and lesbians giving their limbs and lives for this nation. As the new hearings begin on DADT, McCain’s voice has been among the strongest in opposition to changing the law.

Contravening McCain is Rep. Patrick Murphy. I would suggest we listen to him, rather than McCain.

Not to impugn McCain’s service, but Murphy served in Iraq, and the 40 years of difference between McCain’s years of service and Murphy’’s are telling. Like McCain, Murphy had devoted his life to the military until he ran for office.

Except Murphy sponsored a bill last term to overturn DADT. When he made the announcement in Philadelphia, he noted that his wife had given him great comfort and he could not imagine depriving other soldiers of the support of a loved one.

Murphy also noted that  he served with gay and lesbian military personnel. He noted that everyone knew that gay men and lesbians were in the military already and so the only real issue was allowing them to serve without lying.

Lt. Dan Choi has been an outspoken opponent of DADT and last May wrote to President Obama to ask that his incipient discharge be stopped. Choi had come out on the Rachel Maddow Show in March 2009 when he was discussing DADT.

The U.S. military really cannot afford to lose Choi, an engineer and an Arab linguist. Like Murphy, Choi, 29, has spent his entire adult life in the military since his gradutation from West Point. His discharge is still pending.

Choi was speaking to BBC World News on Monday about the new hearings on DADT. He noted that the discourse over morale was specious: Everyone is already serving with gay men and lesbians; an estimated 16 percent of the current military is gay or lesbian.

Choi is especially concerned about “foot dragging” among those, from President Obama to Secretary of Defense Gates to the Joint Chiefs who say that it’s time to change the policy. Since Obama took office 644 lesbians and gay men have been discharged under DADT. How many more will be discharged in another year? How many will be lying every hour of every day as they risk their lives for this country and their fellow soldiers?

Of particular outrage for me were yesterday’s comments by Saxby Chambliss (R-GA). Chambliss argued that straight men would essentially freak out at the prospect of homosexual sex acts in the military.

Let’s just look at Chambliss for a moment, shall we? Chambliss avoided serving in Vietnam by taking deferrments. Then he ran against incumbent Max Cleland, a Vietnam vet who was also a triple amputee. When he ran against Cleland he ran a campaign targeting Cleland as unpatriotic, superimposing the face of Osama bin Laden next to Cleland’s.

So let’s just pretend Chambliss isn’t that guy already. If Chambliss had ever been in the military or knew anything about the military, he’d know that sex between military personnel is against the rules. Period. So it’s not an issue. And Chambliss might also have noticed that women now comprise more than 20 percent of the Armed Forces. Is he also objecting to women being in the military? Because the likelihood of sexual acts between male and female personnel is far greater than that between straight guys and gay men. Really.

But let’s ignore the human component altogether. The cost of training and then losing people like Alva and Choi has cost, according to the Pentagon, upwards of $400 billion. Even Gen. Colin Powell who authored DADT now says it is time to repeal the law.

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald quotes the following in an update on his column on DADT today:

Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified today that “it is his ‘personal and professional belief that allowing homosexuals to serve openly would be the right thing to do’.”  On Twitter, he added (yes, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is on Twitter):

Stand by what I said: Allowing homosexuals to serve openly is the right thing to do. Comes down to integrity.

The bottom line in this debate is decency–or as Admiral Mullen notes, integrity. Last week the Woolworth’s lunch counter that was the site of a major civil rights action in 1960 was turned into a civil rights museum  in downtown Greensboro, N.C.

Fifty years ago it was unthinkable that blacks and whites eat at the same lowly Woolworth’s counter. Today most people can’t imagine why people of different races eating at the same lunch counter was ever an issue.

It is imperative that Congress not listen to the McCains and Chamblisses in this debate, but to the Murphys, Alvas and Chois. Or even to someone like myself, who knows what it is to fight for one’s life all alone Not because your spouse doesn’t want to be with you, but solely because of bigotry and segregation.

I simply cannot bear the thought of one more Eric Alva lying in a bed, wounded, unable to call his boyfriend or husband because it will mean dismissal. Or having to lie on his deathbed. Dragging this debate out for yet another year—it’s already been 17–is useless. Listen to Alva, Choi and Murphy: they just came from the war zone. Murphy didn’t care that he was serving with gay men. Choi and Alva wanted to serve with valor—and lying about who you are isn’t valorous.

DADT must end. President Obama still retains the power to end discharges under DADT with a stop-loss order. He could, as I wrote here  after he appeared at HRC in October, do it now, today. That would force the hands of the Chamblisses and McCains.

Today’s military needs people like Alva and Choi. The idea that we would sacrifice the lives of other military personnel just to maintain segregation and institutionalized bigotry is not just absurd, it’s obscene. DADT must be repealed.—VAB

Like most political junkies, I await  President Obama’s State of the Union address tonight with an uneasy anticipation. I doubt I will hear anything that will make me happy or contented or even less angry. I doubt there will be new promises that I can believe in or excuses for promises not kept that make sense.

The decline and fall of political figures is one of the least pretty things to witness. But I’m not thinking about Obama now, since I think he still has a second and even third act in him. I’m thinking about John Edwards.

I used to like John Edwards. A lot, actually. His placement on the ticket was the only way I was able to actually vote for John Kerry, who I found politically tone-deaf  in the way John McCain would be in 2008. Making the 2004 election a referendum on Vietnam was simply stupid and lost Kerry the election.

But John Edwards easy populism was both engaging and believable as a counter-point to Kerry’s heavy-handed elitism cum militarism. I liked what Edwards had to say and what’s more, I thought he meant it. Did he get his ass handed to him in the debate with Dick Cheney? Sure. But who wouldn’t have? Not too many people have gone up against Satan and won, after all.

I still liked Edwards in 2007. His message continued to include a segment of the population everyone else seemed to ignore: the poor. He seemed in touch in ways that were compelling. It was clearly the wrong year for him, but I thought he’d end up in either a Clinton or Obama administration in a serious post like Attorney General.

I was surprised when he and wife Elizabeth announced that her cancer was back, but he was staying in the race. It was the first time I felt a frisson of  discomfiture. Surely they weren’t putting politics above her very survival? Or–the thought crossed my mind more than once—were they counting on a sympathy vote?

The press conference left me with a feeling of ickiness that only intensified in the coming weeks. By the time Edwards seemed to be tag-teaming Obama to take down “the girl,” Hillary Clinton, in New Hampshire, I had started to feel real dislike for him. There was a combination of arrogance and desperation that I was beginning to see in his attitude, which I wrote about in a column after New Hampshire. It was, I noted, just a matter of time before he had the sense, since it was too late for grace, to withdraw.

He did–later than he should have done, and with a kind of nasty fanfare that put a sour note to all the good he might have done supporting either Obama or Hillary.

And then he held them hostage. Waiting to use his endorsement to do the most harm to one of them—and secure a solid place for himself with the other. It was creepy and not a little pathetic.

And that was all before the bombshell hit that he’d been having an affair with a staffer, paid her enormous amounts of money, snuck into hotel rooms after hours to see her–and that the woman had a new baby. The unraveling had begun in earnest.

The lesson of the Lewinsky scandal should have been more than cautionary for every cheating politico: Don’t lie about it. When half the world has a camera/video phone, what level of arrogance do you have to have to think you can lie and get away with it?

So today the Edwards’ have officially split. Elizabeth Edwards told People that she’d “had enough.”

I don’t feel the least bit sorry for her. Three and a half years ago I would have felt sorry for her as I would have for any woman who was battling cancer and whose husband was cheating on her with a much younger woman. But not now.

I never like to see women be humiliated. I watched Gayle Haggard on Oprah yesterday explaining how she loves the straying gay Ted too much to leave him (not coincidententally she was plugging her book Why I Stayed).  It was cringeworthy, to be sure. And made more so by Ted asserting that he wasn’t gay anymore and that there was ample proof of that, wink wink, nudge nudge, ew ew.

Elizabeth Edwards was more refined, or so it seemed. She had a classiness and a sweetness that belied her hard-edged political ambitions for her husband. As for Edwards, he was clearly being punished and it showed. While he didn’t seem capable of true contrition, he certainly seemed sorry. Living with St. Elizabeth could not have been easy.

But what neither Edwards seemed to get, and why I have no sympathy, empathy or anything but anger toward them, was that they both colluded  in the most hubristic fashion to lie to the American people for their own personal goals. Both of them wanted the White House or at the very least, the closest they could get to it. And in concert–very much as a couple, not as estranged partners–they decided to stand in a press conference together and lie. And then lie again, and again and again–on Oprah and every other TV show they could get onto.

Did Elizabeth Edwards really not believe that Frances Quinn was her husband’s child? She told Oprah the baby “doesn’t look like my children.” But did she look like her father?

What if John Edwards had won the primary? What if he had come as close to winning as Hillary did? How much damage were both John and Elizabeth Edwards willing to impart on the Democratic Party and the country to advance their own political ambitions?

It’s ugly to watch a marriage fall apart. It’s ugly to watch a political figure who once shone tarnish almost overnight. But one thing we have learned–without the help of F. Scott Fitzgerald–is that in American politics there are indeed second acts if one is honest and forthright and does some modicum of penance and tries not to screw the citizenry the way they screwed their spouse.

The Edwards’ are not those people. The Edwards’ still don’t get it. John thinks he can acknowledge his daughter publicly two years after the fact and all will be forgiven. Elizabeth thinks she can pull the victim card yet again and we will buy it just because People  put her on their cover.

No one doubts at this point that John Edwards is a cad. He seems incapable of telling the truth, even now, and it’s the children who are suffering. And Elizabeth seems to have left her marriage solely because there was no way to redeem it publicly. She didn’t leave three and a half years ago, she left this week when Andrew Young’s tell all book became available with rumors of a sex tape.

One could say that the Edwards’ deserve each other. One could say that they both need a good ass-whipping and a lesson in civic responsibility and pride. One could say that their children are the real victims here—and they are. But mostly one can only say as bad as things might shake out to be after Obama gives his State of the Union speech, at least John Edwards didn’t win the nomination. Obama still has time for another act, even if the Edwards’ do not.—VAB

     Democrats were jettisoned into a political spin last week and the fallout will likely be felt right up until the mid-term elections in November. 
     In a special election, the bluest state in the nation, Massachusetts, elected a Republican to fill the Senate seat held for decades by Ted Kennedy. 
      There are many reasons why Scott Brown beat Martha Coakley in Massachusetts. Some had to do with personality, since voters still are easily charmed by things other than facts. Brown is personable; Coakley, not so much. Brown campaigned hard while Coakley virtually stopped campaigning after winning a hard-fought primary, presuming–wrongly–that the general election was a mere formality since the big fight had been among several Democrats. There were no exit polls, but voters ignored Brown’s far right politics on many key issues–despite the fact that the majority of Massachusetts voters are Democrats. 
       There were other variables in the truncated race, but the only one that is truly relevant to Pennsylvania voters is this: Democratic voters outnumber Republicans four to one in Massachusetts and Brown could not have been elected without Democratic voters.
      Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one in Pennsylvania where a pivotal Senate seat is at stake in November. Only two to one.
      The other problem raised for Democrats last week was a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on corporate money, free speech and elections. In Citizens United  v. FEC (Federal Election Commission), the narrow majority opinion ruled that First Amendment rights trumped existing campaign finance reform restrictions. The 5-4 decision left progressives reeling for the second time in two days.
      The complicated Supreme Court case stems from the contention of the conservative group Citizens United that their First Amendment rights were violated when an attack film they had prepared on Hillary Clinton during the primary was not allowed to air on TV. The legal argument was predicated on whether the film could be considered a campaign ad under the McCain-Feingold Act which restricts corporate and union funding of campaign contributions.
      The Court split on ideological grounds: the five conservative justices voted in favor of Citizens United while the four more liberal justices voted for the FEC.
      Conservatives celebrated the ruling. Progressives decried it, calling it nothing less than judicial activism. (It should be noted that Chief Justice John Roberts had cited judicial activism as one of the major issues he would fight against during his confirmation hearings.)
      The ruling resonated on both sides of the aisle.  Rush Limbaugh told his audience, “Freedom is awaking from its coma today because of a huge, huge, huge Supreme Court decision—huge. I cannot tell you how big this is.”
       President Obama, himself a constitutional law professor, held a different view, stating that the ruling “gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington–while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates.”
      In his weekly radio address Obama said “this ruling strikes at our democracy itself” and “I can’t think of anything more devastating to the public interest.”
      Hyperbole? Perhaps, but for Pennsylvanians, the impact of the ruling may be felt sooner rather than later, as political ads for the Senate race are slated to begin running in the coming weeks.        Corporate interests, as well as union interests, are profound in the state, which is anticipating a brutal primary and dicey general election for the Senate seat currently held by newbie Democrat Arlen Specter. The primary is in May and one can only vote for the party one is registered for in primaries in Pennsylvania.
        Much was made of the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races back in November. Republicans wrested both seats away from Democrats. What was roundly ignored was what happened in Pennsylvania.
        In the off-year election last November, vacancies on the state Supreme Court, Superior Court and Commonwealth Court went overwhelmingly to Republicans who won six of seven seats, among them the controversial conservative Superior Court Judge Joan Orie Melvin, who was elected to the state Supreme Court.
        In 2008, voter registration in Pennsylvania hit an all-time high in anticipation of the presidential election, which included an increase of 1.5 million more registered Democrats than Republicans.
       Yet in the November 2009 election, even though Republicans were outspent by Democrats and Democrats control the State House and the Governor’s office, Republicans still won handily. That win was also without anti-Democrat momentum or access to soft money through corporate or union entities.
        Democratic pundits note that November is a long way off–and it is. But May is not and in Pennsylvania, primaries tend to determine which party will win the general election.
         In April 2009 when Arlen Specter switched parties, the move was roundly seen as blatantly political. Specter, considered moderate by Republican standards and with a strong voter base among Democrats in Pennsylvania, faced stiff competition from Pat Toomey, the far right contender for the Senate seat who came close to unseating Specter six years ago.
        Rep. Joe Sestak is Specter’s Democratic competition now. Or wants to be. But Sestak isn’t even popular in his own district where the former Naval commander’s pro-war sentiments have been at odds with Democratic values there. What’s more, when the health care debates broke out in force last spring and summer in Pennsylvania, it was Specter rallying for Obama’s health care reform plan and becoming a champion of the public option, not Sestak.
       Last week Democratic Party leaders in Pennsylvania requested that Sestak withdraw from the race as Toomey’s numbers continued to rise. Concerns are that a bruising primary will give Toomey even more momentum and end up in the unseating of whichever Democrat, Specter or Sestak, is the candidate in November.
        Could Pennsylvania go the route Massachusetts took last week? Absolutely. Those of us who have covered politics in Pennsylvania for decades have not forgotten that it was ultra-conservative Rick Santorum who unseated progressive Harris Wofford in 1994 in the Republican congressional sweep. The November 2010 election has the potential to replicate that sweep and Pennsylvania is one of the key states Republicans are angling to win.
        Now they have way more available money to help in that fight, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling. Corporate interests in Pennsylvania are strong and Toomey has solid corporate support while neither Specter nor Sestak does. What’s more, Toomey is already trying to pivot off the Massachusetts win. And with record unemployment in Pennsylvania, Toomey has a ready-made platform for the kind of “change” message Brown ran on in Massachusetts.
      It may be too early to discern how much of an impact a wide-open campaign ad policy will have on the Senate race, but Pennsylvania voters witnessed the propagandistic ads that ran in New Jersey in the gubernatorial race–and that was without the lid being lifted on corporate interests.
      Will a primary with soft money tossed into the mix and a Republican groundswell benefit Toomey? It may be too early to tell, but Toomey’s lead increased this week. Toomey now leads both Specter and Sestak in polling, by four and nine percent, respectively. Specter handily leads Sestak 53 to 32 percent.
       Numbers shift, of course. But Pennsylvanians are strongly against health care reform–Specter’s key issue–and two-thirds say the country is going in the wrong direction.
        Money and issues could reprise 1994 for Democrats. It may be a long time until November, but political time is fluid. Martha Coakley thought she had her seat sewn up. Pennsylvania Democrats who ignore that cautionary tale do so at their peril.—VAB
 

Today is supposed to be a day of service in tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. Even in a recession, the corporate sector is respectful: there are no MLK sales going on. Throughout the nation people are doing work in their communities in honor of Dr. King, who gave his life in an effort to change this nation. 

Sadly, this particular day of service is made more compelling by the tragedy still unfolding in Haiti where more than 70,000 people are now known dead and are being buried in mass graves. The outpouring of response to the crisis has been intense–both multi-faceted and multi-national. 

Only a few sour notes have been sounded throughout the crisis–not surprisingly from the Right (see my post Making Hay of Haiti), which never seems to miss an opportunity to make itself look like the political phalanx of crassness and heartlessness. (I was particularly stunned by a posting on Rush Limbaugh’s website that said “don’t give aid to Haiti, Obama will steal it.”)  

Like so many Americans, I feel a personal connection to Dr. King’s legacy.  My parents–young socialist ideologues that they were then–were civil rights workers throughout the 1960s. This meant I had the honor of  growing up stuffing envelopes, making signs and meeting some of the major players in the black civil rights movement. My childhood years were spent listening in awe to the stories being told by the men and women who came North and stayed in our house, spoke at our church and did organizing with my parents. I have no doubt that these experiences–as well as the concomitant threats against my parents from the KKK and the John Birch Society for what they were doing–informed my own political and social activism which began in those years when I was an elementary school child.

I was still in grade school when Dr. King was assassinated. I had already frequently experienced being called “nigger-lover” without even really understanding what the slur meant, only that it was indeed a slur.

The morning after Dr. King’s murder I got into a brawl with several other girls in the schoolyard. It wasn’t pretty. By the time it was over I had slapped a nun in the face and excoriated her for not standing up for Dr. King against the girls who were making jokes about his death. 

Of course in my child’s outrage, I had lost all sense of Dr. King’s non-violent approach to social change. Pushing, shoving, yelling and slapping was obviously not what he advocated. But I was a child and I was angry, hurt and incensed for Dr. King. I wasn’t in a Gandhi-esque mode.

Like so many other sad days in America it was bright and sunny and warm. But a light had gone out, and even as a child, I felt it. And I still remember what that felt like.

I still have fits of rage like the one I had that April day in the schoolyard in response to the vile racism that still sparks here and there in this country—Rush Limbaugh’s remarks last week about Haiti typified that racism as have so many comments about Barack Obama since his election.

I don’t hit anyone anymore, of course and I am still embarrassed about that scene in the schoolyard. Not that I spoke out, but that I shoved several other girls and slapped a nun. The girls were only repeating what they had learned at home and my response taught them nothing.  As for the nun–there are fewer excuses for her. Likely she was a product of her racist era and really didn’t understand that her role was to inculcate us girls with Jesus Christ’s perspective–which wasn’t racism. She didn’t make the connection between Dr. King and Jesus. But some of us–the children of King’s legacy–were taught that there was a connection, that King was representative of Christ.  I wonder now why that nun didn’t see it–it seems so obvious.

When one reads of the final weeks of King’s life, they pattern Christ’s with eerie similarity. King knew he might be killed and didn’t want to die. He was exhausted from the work he had been doing for years, tired at 39–not that many years older than Christ was at his crucifixtion–of the nights in jail, the separations from his family, the endless losses and the endless attacks. And yet, like Christ, he went on, even as he had premonitions of his own assassination.

I replay that day after King’s assassination  in my head–the fight in the schoolyard which was so not in keeping with Dr. King’s legacy, the poem I wrote for Dr. King as I sat outside Mother Superior’s office waiting to find out if I would be expelled, the men and women from Mississippi and Alabama who would call later at my parent’s house, the overwhelming sorrow and anger we all felt, even children like myself.  I replay that day on every anniversary of Dr. King’s death  and on his day of tribute. Kids like I was then, the children of the Sixties, were being raised on leftist ideology and protest songs. The music of our lives was by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs and Odetta. We were being innoculated with the antidote to generations of racism and Jim Crow laws and “coloreds only” signs. We were being taught that there was indeed no difference between white and black. We were the children of Dr. King in ways that were not biological but sociological. And so the killing of Dr. King seemed for a child like I was then, terrifying as it was incomprehensible. It was one more killing that I didn’t understand–like the murder of four little girls like myself  in a Birmingham church and three civil rights workers only a few years younger than my parents in Mississippi and all those others whose names we’ll never know. Dr. King would not be the last to die for the sins of others, and he wasn’t even the first in my own childhood; I had already watched the funeral of John Kennedy on TV. But I was just old enough when Dr. King was assassinated to feel how terrible his killing was and that it was an event that would touch millions and ultimately inform my own life and my future.

And so on this day of tribute I remember Dr. King in my own, very personal way, as do so many other Americans. But within those personal reminiscences there are also the wishes for the future of today: that we really do move toward a post-racial or at the very least post-racist society. That people like Limbaugh either cease to make their racist comments or cease to be honored with listeners. That we each examine ourselves for any hints of bigotry–and not just racism of whites toward blacks, but any malice that is borne out of racial, ethnic, religious or gender-based stereotypes we have internalized.

The best tribute to Dr. King and all he fought for and gave his life for is that we not hate, that we not perpetuate bigotry and discrimination. We may all be able to sit where we want on a bus today, but we are not all equal—not blacks and whites, not blacks and Latinos, not Asians and Latinos, not Jews and Muslims, not women and men, not queers and straights.

Let us pay tribute the best way we can—not with a fight in the literal or metaphorical  schoolyard, but with understanding and love. Dr. King exhorted us to open ourselves to difference and gave his life in the quest for equality. On this day of tribute, what are each of us doing to carry on his legacy?—VAB

Beyond giving money, those who want to help in Haiti can advocate granting Haitians Temporary Protected Status.—from Think Progress

The humanitarian disaster still unfolding in Haiti should be cause for everyone to rally to help. President Obama has pledged $100 million in immediate aid. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has been deeply involved in Haiti, has flown back from a diplomatic trip in Asia to help coordinate relief efforts. Bill Clinton, UN Special Envoy to Haiti, has been raising money and also coordinating relief efforts.

Aid agencies in Haiti said this morning that the death toll is at least 50,000 and could be 100,000 people before week’s end. There is currently no water or sanitation, which means the threats of disease, compounding the already ghastly injuries, are manifold.

In such a circumstance where the suffering is so extreme, it’s difficult to comprehend the comments of Rev. Pat Robertson (Haitians ‘made a pact with the devil’: Pat Robertson‎ )and Rush Limbaugh (Rush Limbaugh on Haiti).

Robertson isn’t new to assertions that natural disasters are a result of God smiting the wicked. He made similar claims after 9/11 and said Hurricane Katrina was the result of New Orleans’ acceptance of homosexuality.

Nor is Limbaugh new to hatemongering.

What is shocking, however, is that in the midst of so much real and truly horrific suffering in one of the poorest nations on earth,  anyone would try to use such tragedy for their own mean-spirited ends and to make political hay.

As vile as Robertson’s “pact with the Devil” comments were, Limbaugh’s statements were that much more incredible. Asserting that Obama was using what the UN has called the worst humanitarian crisis in the western hemisphere in more than 30 years to “boost his credibility with the black community,” Limbaugh said (be sure to listen to the video) Obama was “showing off”  his “compassionate” and “humanitarian” credentials to court favor with “light and dark-skinned blacks alike.” (This after his snide comment that Bill Clinton should “avoid the prostitutes in Haiti.”)

Limbaugh went on to complain that Obama took “three whole days” to address the Christmas Day terrorist attack. (It should be noted that George W. Bush took six days to address the shoe bomber incident and then proceeded to ignore every suggestion from national security advisors on the subject.) Limbaugh said Obama responded to Haiti “within hours.” Limbaugh queried if Obama’s priorities were straight.

Obama’s are. Limbaugh’s aren’t.

In case Limbaugh’s message isn’t clear it’s this: Obama doesn’t care about terrorism but he cares about poor black people. Fie on Obama, saith Limbaugh.

The Christmas Day attack was thwarted. The most serious injury was to the would-be bomber. More than 100,000 people may be dead in Haiti and three million are affected. Obama chose not to repeat the Bush failure during Katrina.

There’s a time and a place for partisan attacks. This ain’t it. Robertson and Limbaugh deserve all the ire they receive from these comments. If it weren’t for free speech, they would be ousted from their respective positions for such vile commentary. The sad thing is, people are still listening to them and nodding right along as the men, women and children of Haiti suffer. Robertson and Limbaugh have clarified it with exquisite precision what is wrong with the extremist wing of the conservative party in America: heartless to its core. It makes one wonder who really has made a pact with the Devil. —VAB

Yesterday we were taking umbrage at the mere fact that the same bonus system was in play on Wall Street as last year, despite the recession, the bank bailout and the crash of major banks and  money houses like AIG.

Today our outrage was ticked up a notch or so by reading this, reported by ThinkProgress:

Despite “generous” bonuses, some bankers are “complaining” that “too much of the payout is coming in stock instead of cash.” Banks and securities firms have shifted to stocks to assuage “public anger over the big paychecks,” but “some employees say the shift could leave them short of cash.”

Short of cash? Seriously? Get on a subway and take it to Morningside Heights if you want to see short of cash. Or don’t even go all the way to 155th Street. Stop at East Harlem and just walk around Spanish Harlem and tell me again that you are short of cash. With any luck, someone will slap the spare change out of you and then you really will be short of cash.

I sent an email to my friend DP, querying: “How is it possible that with ten percent unemployment and 17 percent under-employment, the banks are giving out $112 billion in bonuses (this from just six banks, btw) and feel no shame over it?”

Her reply was succinct and bears considering:  “Because Tim Geithner and Larry Summers told them it was just dandy, as did Obama when he appointed Geithner and Summers.”

Too true. Call me gob-smacked. —-VAB

I like it when Nobel Laureates agree with me.

No, I’m not talking about President Obama. If he agreed with me, there would be an executive order allowing gays and lesbians to serve without issue in the military and he would be supporting marriage equality.

But I digress.

The Nobel Laureate I am referring to is Paul Krugman. In his column “Bubbles and the Banks,” Krugman gives as precisely delineated an example of clarity in economic writing as anyone could hope for describing the difference between the housing bubble of the Bush years and the financial bubble of, uh, the Bush years. He calls out for reforms in the financial industry, as he has been for, well, ever. Then he ends with political clarity as well, noting:

Let me conclude with a political note. The main reason for reform is to serve the nation. If we don’t get major financial reform now, we’re laying the foundations for the next crisis. But there are also political reasons to act.

For there’s a populist rage building in this country, and President Obama’s kid-gloves treatment of the bankers has put Democrats on the wrong side of this rage. If Congressional Democrats don’t take a tough line with the banks in the months ahead, they will pay a big price in November.

Thank you, Mr. Nobel Laureate. That’s what I’ve been saying. Without the Nobel imprimatur, of course. Just with my own populist rage response to real life in real America.

If one Nobel Laureate can see clearly from his ivory tower, then perhaps another one can as well. Maybe things can get better in the new year.—VAB

The new year is feeling remarkably like the old year in all of the worst ways. It’s the old “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” I had really hoped some magic would happen at midnight December 31st.  Really.

So much for magical thinking. Maybe I should have listened to Oprah and bought The Secret.

The first working day of the new year I got an increase in my health insurance premium. Up 20 percent from December. Should it really cost me $1,000 a month for an HMO? Really? Who can afford this? Certainly not me, an under-employed writer who makes crafts to supplement my income since two of the newspapers I had worked for for over 16 years went bankrupt at the end of 2008. I’m doing more writing for less money than at any point in my 30 year writing career.

The news, then, that six of the major Wall Street banks, including AIG and Bank of America—which the Obama Administration and the taxpayers bailed out  handsomely—are currently preparing to give out  $112 billion in bonuses kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Severely, as my ten-year-old niece would say.

I listened patiently (I can’t afford to replace my TV) as a member of the Bank of America board explained why these bonuses were necessary to maintain the best and the brightest in their industry.  And besides, he noted, the banks paid back the money they borrowed from the government and you and me.

So they did. But they were not being charged the 30 percent borrowing rates compounded daily that most of us are paying on the credit cards we could not survive without. Credit cards we can never really hope to pay off or sometimes even down unless we win a lottery.

Try paying $12,000 a year just for your HMO plus 30 percent for your credit cards that pay for your groceries. Then I will believe you deserve a bonus.

As unhappy as I am with Wall Street, I am that much more unhappy with Washington. Some Democrats/liberals are pooh-poohing the heavy media intonations over the resignations of two Democratic senators.

I agree. It’s over-kill. The resignations of Dodd of Connecticut, who was never going to be re-elected anyway, and Dorgen of North Dakota (I still cannot believe that a state with a fifth of the number of people in my city gets two senators) who clearly just never wants to go back to North Dakota again (and who can blame him?) are really not in and of themselves life-altering.

But while some liberal pundits have been going all smug about this and saying that the right is over-reacting (as they are wont to do), the fact is, the left is under-reacting (as they are wont to do).

Where will we be in November 2010 when the mid-term elections take place? Who knows. Everything might change. I hope it does. But some realities obtain. Every year Americans get more fed up with how crappy their lives are. I’m not the only under-employed person with health problems, stupefyingly high medical bills and maxed-out credit cards. In fact, I pretty much typify a lot of Americans. Plus historically speaking–not that we ever pay attention to historical precedent in this country–mid-term elections knock the pins out from under the party in power. And although they never, ever act like it, the Democrats are the party in power.

 All of which makes me profoundly unhappy with Congress and anyone else in Washington who I voted for (yes, that means you, Mr. President). That the interneccine fighting that gets nothing done supercedes my very real bread and butter issues on a daily basis is frustrating at best. After all, these people have health insurance.

I cannot afford to pay for my health insurance any more. I have to continue to pay for it with money I don’t have because I am sick and need it. What kind of American Dream choice is that?

Oh right–it isn’t one. Someone should tell Washington and both sides of the aisle that you don’t have to be a crazed teabagger to be pissed off at how things are. My vote is all I really have to fight with. So for those whose names will be on the ticket in November, it’s a good thing that the mid-term election isn’t today. —VAB