Tag: feminism
Second Women’s March Again Brings Massive Protest Crowds Into Streets

Second Women’s March Again Brings Massive Protest Crowds Into Streets

It’s been exactly a year since the historic 2017 Women’s March, which brought millions out to protest Trump’s inauguration, flooding the streets of the nation with pink knitted hats. Millions have taken to the streets again this weekend for the Women’s March 2018, empowered by the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and fed up with Trump’s increasingly authoritarian and anti-immigrant policies, his war-mongering and his tantrum-centric presidency.

This year’s march arrived just one day after Trump’s attempt to block Planned Parenthood funding and amid a dramatic government shutdown centering on immigration. The shutdown came as Democrats and several Republicans refused to accept the border wall funding and deportation policies proposed by the Trump administration and the GOP in the federal funding bill. It marks the first successful government shutdown under a single party controlling Congress, and has become a big theme of the second Women’s March.

From Twitter:

 

Hundreds of Women’s March anniversary events are already underway or kicking off this weekend in every U.S. state. You can look up an event in your state and watch a live feed of today’s events on the Women’s March website.

The central organized 2018 Women’s March event is a Power to the Polls demonstration in Las Vegas on Sunday, focused on mobilizing national voter registration for the upcoming midterm election, which could reshape U.S. politics.

In Chicago, the turnout for the second Women’s March march had already exceeded last year’s numbers by 11:30am, with more than 250,000 people descending on downtown. In Los Angeles, a Weekend of Women movement kicked off Saturday morning with 200,000 expected attendees.

In New York City, hundreds of thousands filled more than 20 city blocks as the 2018 Women’s March kicked off at 11:30am in Columbus Circle and Central Park West, as Patch.com reports. Exact turnout is yet to be determined. Attendees interviewed by the New York Times on Saturday reported crowds that filled city blocks, though didn’t pack them quite as full as last year’s march.

Some the largest crowds of the second Women’s March are in Washington D.C., San FranciscoLos AngelesPhiladelphiaSeattleDenver, and even Rome, Italy. More than 250 additional cities and towns throughout the country and the world have also drawn large crowds.

April M. Short is a freelance writer who focuses on health, wellness and social justice. She previously worked as AlterNet’s drugs and health editor. 

Hundreds of thousands marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. during the Women’s March, January 21, 2017. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

#EndorseThis: Ivanka Trump Is Not Your Secret Progressive Buddy

#EndorseThis: Ivanka Trump Is Not Your Secret Progressive Buddy

She’s the Official Feminist of the Trump administration, the “nicest, smartest, best-smelling” member of the Trump family, especially compared with her brothers “Sonny and Fredo” — and Samantha Bee is willing to concede all of that to Ivanka Trump. But she warns liberals against fantasizing that Ivanka, nominated to the Great Feminists in Feminism Herstory Hall of Lady Fame, is their “secret progressive buddy.”

As the Full Frontal host observes, Ivanka’s press clippings suggest she is lobbying her loony dad for sanity and decency. She reportedly cares about climate change, amid the climate denial infesting her father’s cabinet (and his brain). She met with environmentalist actor Leonardo DiCaprio! But meeting with Leo doesn’t prove much except that Ivanka was “a teenager in the 90s.”

And let’s not forget her $500 billion child-care scheme, which is mostly another tax subsidy to wealthy families, or her dodgy business deals around the world, including that vacant Trump Tower in Baku, built by a crony of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

“People are comforted by the thought of a progressive feminist in the White House,” snarks Bee. “If you wanted that, you should have voted for it.”

Point taken.

Danziger: It’s Not Nepotism, It’s Feminism

Danziger: It’s Not Nepotism, It’s Feminism

Jeff Danziger’s award-winning drawings are published by more than 600 newspapers and websites. He has been a cartoonist for the Rutland Herald, the New York Daily News and the Christian Science Monitor; his work has appeared in newspapers from the Wall Street Journal to Le Monde and Izvestia. Represented by the Washington Post Writers Group, he is a recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army as a linguist and intelligence officer in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. Danziger has published ten books of cartoons and a novel about the Vietnam War. He was born in New York City, and now lives in Manhattan and Vermont. A video of the artist at work can be viewed here.

How I Escaped Being A Right-Wing Extremist

How I Escaped Being A Right-Wing Extremist

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.

How do you change the mind of a right-wing extremist in America today? How do you change the mind of a diehard Trump voter? You don’t. It’s a waste of your time and you have better things to do. We are not going to unite as a country anytime soon after what has happened.

I was raised in the ’80s to be a right-wing extremist like my father. I was sent to an extreme right-wing (John Birch Society) summer camp where I was brainwashed to be a heartless, paranoid conservative, just like my dad. I used to believe that homosexuals, atheists, immigrants, liberals, and anyone who wasn’t white like us, were out to take away our rights as good, god-fearing Americans. When I heard the words humanist, environmentalist, feminist, educated, and equal or civil rights, I’d get irritated, suspicious, and angry.

I was taught that if someone challenged my statements or beliefs, they did so because they were scared or intimidated and afraid of the cold hard truth. I was taught that liberals and Democrats were brainwashed and trained to ignore the truths regarding what was really going on in America. Arguing with a liberal was a complete waste of time, my dad would say. They were too dumb, too brainwashed and there was no way we could change their minds.

Every time someone argued with me about anything, I felt contempt. I felt ridiculed. I felt like they were telling me I was stupid and wrong. I felt they were telling me that my parents and everything I knew to be true was a lie. Just having someone argue with me or having my point of view challenged made me angry, regardless of the facts presented. I was taught not to believe your facts.

If you are wondering how to deal with a member of America’s extreme right, forget it. It’s a waste of your time. In fact, the harder you try to convince right-wingers or Trump voters that Trump is destroying America, the more they’ll support Trump and argue with and belittle you. As much as we all want every American to be mature, compassionate, and to believe only in actual facts, it’s not going to happen anytime soon. They think of us as their enemies. The GOP has been overthrown by the extreme right and they have zero interest in working together to actually keep America great.

It’s taken me over three decades to reject the filth, paranoia, and brainwashing that my dad, the extremist John Birch Society and the National Rifle Association emphasized. Both of my parents hate me for rejecting their nonsense. If I was more like them or Donald Trump, Timothy McVeigh, Ted Cruz, Ted Nugent, or David Duke, they’d be happy. Since I was 17—I’m 48 today—I’ve worked hard to not be anything like my dad. I’ve countered much of the ideology and negativity that was ingrained in me, but it’s been a struggle overcoming the lack of reasonable and honest judgment that was omitted from my upbringing.

I first began writing my thoughts down in 2011, after getting extremely frustrated with both of my parents when visiting with them for family events. I was also freaked during the 2012 presidential election when a few of the candidates started speaking nonsense and hate—things I had heard when I was an impressionable teen. That 2012 election revealed a lot about America when extremism began making the gradual shift from the fringe to the mainstream, and its cause gained a serious amount of traction.

Over time, it became obvious that I was writing a book about the role my parents (specifically my dad) played during my childhood, intentionally or not, in corrupting my life by molding me to be just like them. I shudder to think of what sort of person I would be today had I not escaped the influence of my upbringing. I’ve always known that there was something wrong with my parents. Had I not come to understand this, I’d likely be dead, in prison, or be a right-wing extremist politician.

Hate or Be Hated: How I Survived Right-Wing Extremismis my story of being raised by a paranoid, white-trash hillbilly in the woods of western Washington preparing for the impending communist invasion or overthrow of our country. One hundred percent of all book sale proceeds are going to the ACLU. It’s about how it took 30 years to undo the right-wing brainwashing I endured as a child. It gives a glimpse into what kind of family produces Americans who are primed to believe fake news and put their trust into anyone who seems as angry as they are.

This book is about my personal journey and the way these attitudes directly caused so much suffering in my own life as well as how they are still influencing the choices and decisions being made by a large percentage of people in this country today. It’s about my anger and embarrassment over who I was and how I was raised in an environment that didn’t value empathy, honesty, or caring. I am angry and embarrassed that on some level, I still want my dad to be proud of me.

Only in the past few years have I been able to look back over the life I’ve lived and seriously examine my childhood. I’ve had to come to terms with the thoughts, decisions, and actions that were a direct reflection of what my parents taught me as a young boy. This examination has been stressful and unsettling and has brought to the surface a lot of deep-seated anger which I’ve carried most of my life. I never understood it until recently. No child should experience the paranoia, despair, and isolation that my dad instilled in me. No child should be taught by radical right-wing American extremists that the only options in this life are to “hate or be hated.”

The United States of America has undergone a major upheaval and most people are still struggling to understand what the hell happened. What’s happened is done. The Republicans won and we need to get over that and never quit fighting to save this country. The only issue left at hand is that all of us, the Democratic Party, the progressives, and the true lovers of freedom must unite now or we’re going to be looking at more than just four years of this terrifying situation. We have to work together. All of us. Just like they did.

IMAGE: Supporters of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hold their hands to their chest as the national anthem is played at a campaign rally in Concord, New Hampshire January 18, 2016. REUTERS/Gretchen Ertl