The Unemployment Solution Is Hidden in Our Uterus!
By DAWN GABLE (from the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.)
HAVANA TIMES — I went to the Women’s Caucus at the Democratic National Convention, the first caucus I have ever attended, thinking that it would be a working session in which delegates would discuss the Party’s agenda from a female perspective and as it pertains to women’s issues.
But that was not at all the case. It was instead a pep-rally with the delegates being entertained and pumped up by a series of women leaders, personalities, and politicians.
Unsuprisingly women’s reproductive rights were the focus of the most speakers followed by women empowerment and political participation. Nancy Pelosi opened the event to raucus cheers. She declared that Women have the most to lose if the Republicans win, reminding us that they are not only anti-Choice, but they are also against birth control. They are not interested in education or health care, she pointed out, but they are for “government in our bedrooms and that’s just not right!”
Cecile Richards, demonstrating women’s progress over the past century, related that when her grandmother was just a girl in Texas, only idiots, imbeciles, illiterates and women were barred from voting. A generation later her mother Anne Richardson was the first pro-choice women governor of Texas.
Richards ruminated about last weeks’ Rupublican National Convention. Instead of talking about jobs and the economy, she said, they ranted about ending access to birth control, illegalizing abortion and cutting funding to Planned Parenthood. “It’s as if they think that the solution to unemployment is hidden in our uterus!”
When women vote, Democrats Win!
Richards assured that women are going to be the majority of voters… just like four years ago and we will relect Obama. He stood up for women and now we will stand up for him, she said, referring to early 2011 when the government was on the verge of a shut down because the Republicans refused to approve the budget unless Obama cut funding to Planned Parenthood. The President said no. They eventually gave in.
Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily’s List, a Political Action Committee designed to elect pro-choice women to office, alerted the women in attendance that if it were up to the Republicans we would all be put back in the kitchen. “If I’m in the kitcen people are going to starve.”
But there is hope; there are a record number of women running for the Senate and House of Representatives including two women Iraq combat veterans. She called on all Democratic women to go out and talk to their sisters about the difference between the Parties.
Health care is a right not a privilege
Mame Reiley, Chair of the event, confirmed one of the main tenents of the Cuban Revolution: health care is a right not a priviledge. But then Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar spoke of one of her main accomplishments: women in her state get a 48 hour hospital stay after giving birth. Incredibly, women around most of the country do not enjoy that right.
Florida Representative, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz shared a touching personal story about her battle with breast cancer and her concern for her two daughters. Obamacare made sure that citizens cannot be denied insurance for pre-existing conditions. The issue itself is something unconceivable in Cuba.
Wasserman-Shultz, Democratic National Committee Chair, who receives maximum campaign contributions from right-wing Cuban-Americans, then introduced Valerie Jared, senior advisor to Obama, as her “girlfriend”. That may explain something about Obama’s weak attempt at “improving” US relations with Cuba.
Dear Grady, agreed on all points.
Dawn, regarding your words on healthcare rights, our minimum program advocates a non-partisan, united front coalition Movement for an HRA–a Healthcare Rights Amendment. By altering the Constitution, and forcing the federal gov’t to implement a single-payer insurance system, we can stop being played by Democratic politicians who have been completely bought off.
Dawn, you’re absolutely right. We are locked into voting for the Democratic Party as our only viable way of avoiding the worse alternative. I and my half-handful of co-thinkers will vote for Obama because it’s the only helpful thing we can do in the near term.
What I was trying to do is raise the issue of the definitive liberation of women through a cooperative republican government in the foreseeable future. How else might a tiny, new movement that is trying to regroup the Left around a corrected socialist program speak to someone like you, a person who might become a cooperative republican leader?
If what I said appears to be sectarian and divorced from practical reality, or even a criticism of you, I regret it and hope you will look over it. But the truth is that only a socialist cooperative republic can make the old slogan of “wages for housework” a possibility, by making its reformulation, “salaries for motherhood,” part of our maximum program.
All this has to be discussed, or we will get nowhere, and our political lives will be wasted.
Take a look at the cynical, self-serving US modus operandi that is typical of that country that ‘Dawn’ quite accurately describes: the US has “fine relations with some of the most sleazy governments on earth” and “There are plenty of pragmatic political and selfish reasons for Obama to have dissed Cuba” – ‘dissed’ being an extremely gentle term for what it stands for – reneging on his campaign promise to remove an embargo that is responsible for a 50-year economic siege against Cuba and all the misery that it has caused.
‘Moses’ rants on about Cuban ‘dictators’ whilst ignoring the monsters in his own back yard, ones he votes for! Give me Cuban leaders any time! But of course, under capitalism, you are not given the opportunity to vote for any other system of government. If you think ‘Moses’ ilk are fanatical about Cuba’s alternative government, you should see the efforts they go to, to stop the possibility of it happening here!
To paraphrase what ‘Moses’ wrote, “The reality is that [the US] is still led by [two-faced presidents]. Relations will improve when [the hypocrites] no longer exist. It is as simple as that.”
Dear Grady, when you show me a better and VIABLE alternative, I’ll vote for them… reality is, this November, we got 2 choices…and one of them would like me and my sisters barefoot and pregnant from puberty until menopause or death….Unfortunately as long as the only other option is a bunch of Neanderthals, the Democratic Party is the only safe haven for women….as imperfect as it may be….I mean, seriously, who has ever even heard of the Cooperative Republic Movement? Are they going to protect my rights come November 7th? I’m thinking not….
Dear Moses, it seems silly for me to have to point out the obvious. Cuba’s political system has nothing to do with Obama’s policy toward it. We have fine relations with some of the most sleezy governments on earth. Unless you live in a parallel universe, you know this. There are plenty of pragmatic political and selfish reasons for Obama to have dissed Cuba. It’s better to stick to these more believable apologies than to resort to false morality .
‘Moses’ writes, “Obama and I are spot on with regards to Cuban relations”, that is, a two-faced policy claiming he wanted to eliminate the embrago and didn’t. Got it ‘Moses’.
The definitive liberation and empowerment of women can never be delivered by the Democratic Party. If the Cooperative Republic Movement–the party that will come out of it–is able to take political power however, women, as heads of the household/parent team, will be allotted salaries for this critically productive labor. Dawn Gable, unfortunately, is stuck in the very party that is used to keep her and all women the unpaid hired workers of monopoly capitalist society.
Valerie Jared’s predispositions on Cuba, assuming she had any, may have been the reason President Obama hired her as his advisor. He is a Harvard-trained Constitutional Expert and certainly capable of having formed his own opinions about Cuba prior to her counsel. Cubans and their syncophants continually try to explain why someone who gave Cubans such hope for change in US/Cuban relations in 2008 has turned out to be such a dud in their eyes on Cuban policy. Obama and I are spot on with regards to Cuban relations and will put my Democratic Party credentials up against anyone. The reality is that Cuba is still led by a dictatorship. Relations with Cuba will improve when that dictatorship is nullified or no longer exists. It is as simple as that.