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By Mina Xavier, January 23, 2009 7:42 pm

I don’t generally play the fan girl and I don’t ever advocate the adoration of any person in this way, but I did find some fascinating statements in these letters. I didn’t vote for him. But I am interested in watching him to see what occurs within his administration.

In their latest issue (hitting newsstands January 27), Ms. Magazine has collected a stunning array of letters and remarks from feminist icons and activists across the country, written directly to President Barack Obama.

Some of the more memorable among them:

SOW EDUCATION, REAP REWARDS.
To solve the most challenging problems facing our world, President Obama should actively promote global gender equality. For every additional year of education a woman receives beyond the fourth grade, her average family size drops by 20 percent, her children’s mortality rates drop by 10 percent and her risk of HIV/AIDS infection drops by over 50 percent.
—KAVITA RAMDAS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, GLOBAL FUND FOR WOMEN

ENSURE WOMEN CAN EARN.
The road to social parity for women of all cultures, including Afghanistan, is the same: universal education for girls, access to health care and family planning for women, and, above all, the means to earn money. Earnings give a woman a voice in the family, the society and her own destiny. Nothing else will elevate a woman as quickly in any culture, including our own.
—MAVIS LENO, CHAIR, FEMINIST MAJORITY FOUNDATION’S CAMPAIGN TO HELP AFGHAN WOMEN AND GIRLS

ROOT OUT MILITARY RAPE.
As commander in chief, President Obama can direct the military never to tolerate or hide the sexual persecution of its women again, and to lift the ban against women in combat, which denies them the respect they have earned. Today, even as women soldiers are fighting and dying in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, their treatment by their comrades is a national scandal. They are sent into combat without official recognition, one-third are sexually assaulted and almost all are harassed. Here is Obama’s chance to take on military misogyny at its roots.
—HELEN BENEDICT, AUTHOR OF THE FORTHCOMING THE LONELY SOLDIER: THE PRIVATE WAR OF WOMEN SERVING IN IRAQ (BEACON PRESS, APRIL)

DEAR PRESIDENT OBAMA:
I have received so many breathless letters myself and now it’s role reversal time. You have reawakened a disillusioned and passive electorate and begun healing racial wounds that have crippled us for centuries. I believe, like you do, that America today is not as intolerant and bitterly divided as we are encouraged to be by the mainstream media and the military industrial complex that dictates its messaging. It is my sincere hope that our national discourse will rise to your example and employ more humility and maturity in the political arena. I look forward to working with you. ¡Viva democracia!
—ANI DIFRANCO, SINGER-SONGWRITER

BROADEN HEALTH CARE.
Create health care systems that are culturally competent, linguistically accessible and geographically centered in underserved communities. It is imperative for our nation’s leaders to make the health of women of color a priority.
—ELEANOR HINTON HOYTT, PRESIDENT AND CEO, BLACK WOMEN’S HEALTH IMPERATIVE

RE-ROUTE U.S. MONEY.
It’ll be a long hard slog for our new president to correct all the ways American policies deepen the marginalization and poverty of women in developing countries. From the boatloads of cash we send to patriarchal, undemocratic regimes such as Saudi Arabia to the trade policies that allow U.S. corporations to exploit the labor of some of the most impoverished women in the world—it’ll take more than the brush of a presidential pen. In the meantime, can we at least not spread sexist dogma with our aid dollars? Billions in U.S. funding for HIV/AIDS prevention require recipients to preach abstinence and condemn prostitution. It doesn’t work, it’s dangerous and it should end, straight away.
—SONIA SHAH, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST; AUTHOR OF THE BODY HUNTERS: TESTING NEW DRUGS ON THE WORLD’S POOREST PATIENTS AND CRUDE: THE STORY OF OIL

REMEMBER THE THREE R’S.
Feminists understand that equality for women and girls will be sustained when government makes progressive education a national agenda. As we study and learn together we create community. Making literacy and democratic education available to everyone is the necessary foundation for responsible citizenship. Without education, diverse populations cannot communicate across boundaries.
—BELL HOOKS, AUTHOR AND DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR IN RESIDENCE, BEREA COLLEGE

DON’T FORGET THE POOR.
The most urgent problem facing women and girls here and around the globe is poverty and its dire consequences: poor health, dying young, illiteracy, violence, HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancies, dependency, bleak futures. Women continue to be unsafe in their homes, their workplaces, refugee camps and in war-torn spots around the world. Their families, not just middle-class families, need the president’s ear.
—BEVERLY GUY-SHEFTALL, FOUNDING DIRECTOR, WOMEN’S RESEARCH & RESOURCE CENTER, SPELMAN COLLEGE

ELEVATE WOMEN SCIENTISTS.
President Obama can encourage young women to enter careers in science and technology by appointing distinguished women to influential positions in such federal agencies as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Young women need to believe that they have a place in science, and success breeds success.
—SHIRLEY M. TILGHMAN, PRESIDENT, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

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By Mina Xavier, November 21, 2008 10:36 pm

Let me preface this report with a brief review of the more memorable battles that led up to Tuesday’s confrontation on Capitol Hill. In February of 2007 Ron Paul’s combative dialog with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had investors in the Chicago market literally cheering.

In December of 2007, Rep. Paul was such a force to be reckoned with against Bernanke during a Q&A session of the Joint Economic Committee that poor Ben’s voice actually wavered in response to the grilling he’d just received.

Continue reading 'Bernanke Gets the Horns'»

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By Mina Xavier, November 20, 2008 4:15 am

This has a two-part punchline:

November 25th is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and to raise awareness about rape in Italy, the organization Telefono Donna has been placing posters in major Italian cities putting the issue directly in the face of the public.

Across the midsection reads, “Who pays for man’s sins?”, while the copy reads, “Only four percent of women who suffer sexual violence report their assailants”.

The media agent gets +5 points for avant-garde nudity even if it does immediately raise the ire of male politicians like city councillor Maurizio Cadeo, who promises, “”I’ll do everything in my power to stop this poster going up.”

Not to be outdone, the Vatican has threatened to sue… for copyright infringement. Indecency notwithstanding, the Catholic Church has forgone the usual aneurysm about unsuppressed sexual innuendo and instead asserted that it owns the copyright to the crucifixion symbol. (I will pause for a moment to allow that to sink in.) I would have thought that God owned the rights to the cross but evidently this one has been rendered unto Caesar.

Ironically, the Vatican has not offered an official statement regarding the nation’s tragic statistic of unavenged sexual violence.

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By Mina Xavier, November 9, 2008 12:46 am

I did not even have to make this up:

Barney Bush, the presidential terrier of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, apparently was not ready for his closeup on Thursday.

While interviewing Dubya for Reuters TV, reporter Jon Decker suddenly got the teeth.

“I don’t know what set him off,” says Decker. “Maybe it was the Republican debacle Tuesday night, the fact that soon he’ll be replaced as America’s first dog or that I happened to have bacon for breakfast.”

AURN correspondent April Ryan also got the entire event on camera:

No word yet on whether or not the dog was wearing lipstick at the time of the attack.

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By Mina Xavier, November 5, 2008 5:43 am

I am still speechless.
And it takes quite a bit to shut me up.

I have some amazing photograhs and video from election day in my township and will be sharing soon.

I have to digest what I’ve just lived.

Keep well and look for an update.

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By Mina Xavier, October 26, 2008 4:09 am

Now you, too, can participate in lynch mob politics!

No matter what state you live in, you can sign the petition urging Congress to censure Rep. Michele Bachmann for shooting her mouth off earlier in the month.

Rachel Maddow never misses a mark, and here we have a two-for-one bargain featuring both Bachmann and doomed iconoclast Sarah Palin:

Her campaign manager must own stock in Rolaids by now.

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By Mina Xavier, October 20, 2008 1:31 am

Please pardon my francais, but you scare the shit out of me.

Not one free thinking, intelligent person will ever completely approve of the actions, spending, military behavior and secrecy of the organization in control of their nation.

Having a severe opposition to government conduct and abuse somehow equates to hating one’s country, and as such you are therefore an “anti” nationalist, and having social views that qualify you as liberal (”radical-leftist”) puts one on the radar of the organization at the top.

“The newsmedia should do a penetrating expose and take a look … at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?”

If being non-conservative makes one anti-American, and “anti-American” is something scary to be investigated, scrutinized and exposed, then what is next?

Indictment? Impeachment?

Quoting Palin, Obama is someone who “sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who’ve targeted their own country”.

Pal around? Peripheral relations with Ayers through an educational board could apparently qualify anyone as a co-conspirator. Should I, therefore, be looking over my shoulder for the fact that my mother was a rock-throwing war protestor in her hippie heyday? Probably.

Listening to you give a roll call of names of “people who hold anti-American views”, as you called them, and “people who don’t like America, who detest America”, is downright chilling.

I love this country. I love my neighborhood and every neighborhood I’ve ever lived in (even the shitty ones). I get along incredibly well with the cops who live here, their kids and their dogs. I have always gotten along better with my bosses and office managers than most of my peers. I liked most of my teachers in school and college.

My issue is not with authority. My issue is not with my national identity.

My issue, Mrs. Bachmann, is with the deliberate misuse of national funds, the manipulation of media, the misrepresentation of facts, the wire-tapping, the invasive legislation, the payroll theft, the chastity contests, the fear-mongering, the insider trading, the economic enslavement of developing countries, the wars in Saudi Arabia, the deregulation, the lobbying, the double-standard, THE DISMANTLING OF THE CONSTITUTION, the bankrupting of the lower class, etc …

Have I met enough of your criteria to earn myself the distinctive descriptor of anti-American radicalist yet?

Don’t let the door knob hit you in the colonial rift on the way out of office, darling.

Sincerely,

MX

PS: You may want to quiet down about Senator Obama’s freshman status. You are a first-term representative yourself, lest we forget.

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By Mina Xavier, October 20, 2008 12:14 am

By now you’ve heard about Michele Bachmann (R, MN) and the bombastic political stunt she pulled in an interview with Hardball’s Chris Matthews on Friday. (The fallout was even more impressive.)

Not to be outdone, radio conservative blowhard and former prescription narcotic addict Rush Limbaugh shot his venom at General Colin Powell today for announcing his endorsement of Barrack Obama, principally targeting him for his up-front declaration that his decision had nothing to do with race.

Powell’s severance of loyalty to the GOP couldn’t possibly have anything to do with their turncoat handling of his career at the UN, wherein they systematically destroyed him in full view of the world’s political fishbowl, and after which he gracefully resigned.

If straying from the herd and giving personal support to their nemesis is to be reduced to an issue of simple racial politics, then the party itself is out of touch with reality to a deeper degree than previously feared. This is the same party whose secret weapon for this election was a feisty pistol-whip from the hard north to rouse the religious base and swing the feminist vote.

Having failed that, we are now in the midst of a libelous media blitzkrieg to keep America in the mentality of white flight: If they can’t infiltrate our government, they can’t change our country.

History has already witnessed the character assassination of Paul Robeson. Having nervously observed the downscaling of Powell, this flagging of Obama is not unexpected and yet still unnerving in its implications.

If the tactics employed in 1950 were any indication of our nation’s willingness toward silent complicity, today’s culture of racial profiling and anti-homosexual hate crimes is indeed worrisome.

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By Mina Xavier, October 19, 2008 6:41 pm

Following her incendiary diatribe on Hardball on Friday, the fallout against Rep. Michele Bachmann was swift and fierce.

Literally overnight, Bachmann’s opponent for her congressional district was able to raise over $100,000 toward his campaign to unseat her.

And because karma is a sport suitable for crowd participation, you can send Tinklenberg’s campaign some loose change too, if you’d like.

Mess with the bull, you’ll get the horns. Let’s nip this in the bud before it weeds the garden.