I have no idea who this woman is, but she is an American Shero for sure. Watch it, cross-post it, the revolt begins now. Many thanks to my friend Michele for passing this along.
The STOCK Act–Demand Full Disclosure Of Congressional And Supreme Court Stock Portfolios
Here in the U.S. we have the best government money can buy. As the healthcare debate has illustrated all too well, corporate lobbying goes a long way. But the problem goes beyond that. According to a new group on Facebook, Full Disclosure of U.S. Congress/Supreme Court Stock Portfolios NOW!
a look at investments in the defense industry held by members of Congress might make you wonder just 
what interests our military is defending.
According to the most recent reports of their personal finances, 151 current members of Congress had between $78.7 million and $195.5 million invested in companies that received defense contracts of at least $5 million in 2006. In all, these companies received more than $275.6 billion from the government in 2006, or $755 million per day, according to FedSpending.org, a website of the budget watchdog group OMB Watch.
and,
in 2008, the Center for Responsive Politics, listed the following lawmakers as having the most money invested in companies with Department of Defense contracts:
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) $28,872,067 $38,209,020
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) $12,081,050 $49,140,000
Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC) $9,232,037 $37,105,000
Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis) $5,207,668 $7,612,653
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif) $2,684,050 $6,260,000
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich) $2,469,029 $8,360,000
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WVa) $2,000,002 $2,000,002
Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis) $1,365,004 $5,800,000
Rep. Kenny Ewell Marchant (R-Texas) $1,163,231 $1,163,231
Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) $1,000,001 $5,000,000
The group is calling for support of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (STOCK Act) which:
would prohibit Members of Congress and their staff from using nonpublic information they are able to obtain through their official positions to enrich their personal portfolios.
This is an excellent idea and deserves the support of every American.
Riding The Economic Roller-Coaster–The Big Plunge Is Just Up Ahead
In what at times has sounded like a script from Sesame Street, pundits and economists have endlessly engaged in speculating about whether the recession looks like the warm and fuzzy Letter U, the nasty Letter V, the even nastier Letter W, the crazy Letter X, or the dreaded Letter L. It’s enough to make you swear off Alphabet Soup forever.
Call me illiterate, but I think we’re barking up the wrong analogy, what we’ve got looks more like a roller coaster from where I sit. Think about it: the most terrifying ride in the park–you go up a little and then down, your heart lands in your stomach and you’re afraid you’re going to upchuck all over your date but then you realize that you survived and it isn’t so bad and hey you’re going up again. And then you get to the top of the next rise and see the very long and steep decline that lies ahead…
I’m no economist, but while the Cash for Clunkers program certainly helped lower car inventories and upped the average mpg of the cars on the road a tad, only 41% of the cars bought under the program were American and hey did you know that the payments are taxable? (Note–after a comment from an alert reader, see the clarification of what this means below.) Much more importantly, none of this does jack to reform our transportation policy. So now that the program is over, how long does the economic honeymoon continue? And when does an understanding of peak oil temper our Detroit at any cost mantra?
Then there is the money laundering bailout of the banks and insurance companies. Stockholders got stuck in the hot water spin cycle where their money shrank the big one leading a panicked Congress to shovel enormous amounts of money at these companies with shockingly little oversight or regulation. We don’t even know how the money was used or where it all went. And funny story, those companies that were about to plunge into the abyss and take us with them–stock prices are back up, and the CEO’s are doing quite nicely, thank you. And what exactly has been done to insure that it doesn’t happen again?
As for the foreclosure crisis–that nasty little house of cards seems to have eased. Or not. Seems there are some mortgages called Option ARMs about 70% of which will reset before 2011, some by as much as 63% leaving a whole lot more people with not much of an option but to go into foreclosure, so that one isn’t over yet either.
Those factors, and throw in the health care debacle and unemployment while we’re at it, are enough to say we’ve still got a problem but our current economic woes are only the tip of the not so proverbial iceberg. Which happens to be melting. And quickly at that.
Our national self-centered myopia when it comes to climate change and environmental peril is blinding us to the inevitable, drastic changes ahead. In the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, we believe there is such a thing as clean coal and safe nuclear energy, we blithely use pesticides and herbicides on our land and then drink them from our rivers. We poison our air and imperil our food supply by genetically modifying it and then go back to watching Mad Men or American Idol without a minute of my bad or wondering about the consequences and cost of this folly.
And costly it will be. As the healthcare ‘reform’ debate has made all too clear, we have incorporated our democracy to the point where the welfare of huge corporations is considered at least if not more important than the welfare and health of the people they supposedly serve. The same is even more true of the energy and global warming debate, witness the recent effort by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to hold a “Scopes”-like trial on global warming for the simple reason that the corporations they represent will do just about anything to keep making a buck for as long as they can, no matter the cost and heaven forbid they should be held accountable for the damage that is staring us in the face.
This head-in-the-sand state of national denial is not sustainable, it’s not even survivable and it most definitely is not profitable. Richard Power puts it quite eloquently,
(T)he climate change debate (by that I mean what to do about it, not whether it is real), is not… simply one of dire national importance, it is one of dire planetary importance, and the nature of opposition to meaningful action on climate change is not simply self-abusive, it is suicidal.
Or in the even more dire words of Johann Hari, we are at “five minutes to ecological midnight.”
Whether or not the recession is ending is irrelevant and not even the correct question. At best, we are in a bit of economic remission, but do not be deluded, the ride has only just begun, and the big fall is still ahead.
I’ll leave you with this…
Reclaiming Medusa (Again)
Reclaiming Medusa was born in 2005 as one of my early attempts at blogging. I regretfully gave it up when I started the Feminist Peace Network (FPN) blog, because it was one project too many. It was a necessary choice, but at the time I promised myself I would eventually get back to it. And eventually is now.
The following is an updated version of the introductory essay I wrote for the original blog, along with a postscript. What I wrote in 2005, and the necessity of the spirit of Medusa, is even more true today than it was then:
I first crossed paths with Medusa at an Audrey Flack exhibit. It was of course the hair that caught my attention, I knew immediately that this was one Goddess who refused to be defined by revisionist mythology. Medusa means sovereign female wisdom and according to Alicia Le Van’s The Gorgon Medusa, her
“mask was used to guard and protect women and the secret knowledge of the Divine Feminine. It literally warned men to “Keep Away! Female Mysteries.” It was erected in stone,(corresponding to her look of stone), on caves and gateways at sacred sites dedicated to the Goddess.”
But of course Medusa’s power was incompatible with the myths of male power that were necessary to explain the rise of patriarchy and she had to be destroyed. La Van explains,
“The mythological beheading of Medusa symbolizes the ultimate silencing of female wisdom and expression. It is the act which stops her growth, limits her potential, movement and cultural contributions. She is obliterated and her severed head is flaunted on the Acropolis and other works of art in pride of her and all women’s subjugation by violent men. She is broken and her body enslaved. Her spirit, her mind, her spiritual powers are killed. Her once honored forces of female creativity and destruction are halted. Her role as dynamic mediatrix degraded. Her life-giving, death-wielding powers and wild forces of nature are controlled, tamed, and mastered by the male order. The cycles of life and nature are made to conform to his linear perspective.”
Not so metaphorically, in both global and very personal terms, we are living the fate of Medusa. Women in particular face a relentless struggle for economic empowerment. Violence, particularly against women and children is an escalating epidemic. The right of women to control their own bodies is under siege and the degradation of this planet with all manner of chemical and nuclear poison endangers our future. We are in danger when we question the patriarchal system from which dominating power and identity are derived and when we honor the wisdom, rights and lives of women. In the face of these threats to our existence, we need to continue to relentlessly tell our stories, name our needs and speak our truths. We need to reclaim the discussion.
Postscript: In recent months I have wanted to write about a number of topics that are somewhat outside the focus of the Feminist Peace Network blog. I believe passionately that the FPN blog should continue to focus primarily on misogyny and the intersection between violence and women’s human rights, so I intend Reclaiming Medusa to be a place to explore other topics that are not a good fit for FPN.
Before undertaking this project, I gave a lot of thought to simply posting to blogs on other sites, but if there is one thing I’ve learned over the last few years, it is that it is urgently necessary for women to have their own spaces in the ever-evolving media universe and I chose to be a part of that effort.
I’m not sure yet what the rhythm of this blog will be, probably less posts than FPN and some combination of quick hits to provide links to other things that should be read and lengthier pieces when I find the time, so be patient as I find the path and feel free to offer your thoughts, they are always welcome.
Go here to learn more about me, including contact info and check the links in the sidebar for copyright and comment policies. Be sure to join the Fan page I set up on Facebook for the blog, I’ll be posting some links there to things that I think might be of interest but that I’m not going to address on the blog.
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Feed your soul: Click here to learn more about Goddess symbolism.
