Undercurrents

To quote the eloquent Gomer Pyle: Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

As the Senate (and let’s not forget Ms. Pelosi and many of her fellow House colleagues in this realm) is likely to hand Bush another victory in the pending FISA vote (today);  the Rasmussen report yesterday reveals that the percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. The report notes that this month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. This is down from a whopping 11% last month! Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category.  Of course it should be noted that the four Connecticut House Dems voted against against both the war supplemental and against retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies included in the FISA bill.

The full report is pasted below or can be found at this link. (more…)

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I spent eight minutes with Dennis House in an interview that will be aired Sunday morning at 11 on WFSB’s “Face the State.”  I think I was able to keep my seething core from blowing on camera, but I did manage to utter ”thug” and “fascist.”  Check it out.  And if you haven’t signed my petition, drop me an email at sfournier1945@yahoo.com  and I’ll pay you a visit. 

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In the neo-democratic institutions of the 21st Century, the inalienable right of the people to opt out of debate and decision-making has created a new social order: decidership. Americans live in a decidership, and it has rather suddenly replaced the republic we have been relinquishing over the past 20 years or so. (more…)

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First HRC attempts to marginalize the Transgender Community and now Metroline is quick on their heels of Trans Oppression! The current issue of Metroline has an Editorial by the Editor Joseph DaBrow that revises Stonewall History (4th paragraph) by stating that at Stonewall “there were no drag queens there at all. It was gay human beings simply standing up for being who they were.” Has Mr. DaBrow and the publisher of Metroline John Crowley never heard of Sylvia Rivera or Marsha P. Johnson both well know and prominent Stonewall Veterans? Perhaps if Mr. DaBrow and Crowley attended our New England Trans Pride, they would have heard Miss Majors, a Stonewall Veteran, as well as many other speakers remember the critical participation of our Transgender (i.e. Drag Queens or Transvestites in 1969 vernacular) comrades at Stonewall. Or to learn that the theme of this first ever New England Trans Pride was: “Remember Stonewall? That was us!” Or perhaps they never listened to Pacifica Radio’s excellent audio documentary: “Remembering Stonewall.” (more…)

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I just got a chance to catch up on some quasi-recent Democracy Now! podcasts and had the pleasure of just listening to Amy’s 2004 interview of Activist and Wobblie Utah Phillips. Prior to getting to the point of this post, I must reflect for a moment. As I listened to Utah Phillips, I realized how little I know and how much I missed in my life. I spent so many of the early years of my life running towards death simply because I could not live with who I was. However, quite literally the moment I stopped this death run and began to allow myself to live as who I was and not what others told me, I began an amazing journey of spiritual enlightenment and listening. Having just listened to Utah and reflecting on my having worked with some truly dedicated lifelong activists, my heart saddens for how little I know and lost and how much there is to learn and embrace. A horridly exhilarating and depressing feeling at the same moment.

At any rate, Amy asked Utah whom he would be voting for in 2004? Being an anarchist I truly struggle with our so-called democratic system and the fascists who have wrested power from it; yet I found his response potentially worth sharing given the state of our electoral politics.

Voting with our bodies

Utah relayed a discussion he had with Ammon Hennacy shortly before Ammon’s death. (more…)

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The gang rape committed by the embedded mass media on Jeremiah Wright will never be acknowledged, but history will record it as a sample of 21st Century racism. Wright is the hapless victim of neobigots, paid promoters of a popular racism that proceeds not from the presumed superiority of the white race but from its presumed inferiority. (more…)

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The political opportunities of third-party candidates may be unconstitutionally impaired by Connecticut’s campaign finance law, a federal judge has ruled, and a legal challenge to the law will have its day in court. (more…)