Friday
Oct 28, 2005
SGN.org
Volume 33
Issue 43
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Tuesday, Dec 02, 2008
05:46
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Lesbian Notions by Libby Post |
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| Which way did they go, George, which way did they go? | ||
| Poor George. First, the man who really calls the shots at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Karl Rove, had to go into hiding. Remember? This past summer he'd been implicated for exposing the name of Valerie Plame, the covert CIA agent who also happens to be the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who criticized the administration over Iraq.
Then Katrina hit New Orleans and the bankrupt morality of Bush cronyism was brought front and center. Michael Brown, the incompetent whom Bush picked to head FEMA (now considered the Feeble Emergency Management Agency), acted out Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine as a one-man play while thousands of poor, mostly African-American, New Orleans residents lost everything. Then Tom DeLay, the House Majority Leader and Bush hatchet man on the Hill, was indicted - not once, but twice, for campaign fraud and money laundering. As a fellow Texan, DeLay has built a political operation in the Longhorn State that has served George well, but that appears to be a matchstick structure soon to go up in flames. Then George needs to come up with a new Supreme, and in order to maintain the gender balance (well, the gender configuration) at the Court, he nominates Harriet Miers, the White House counsel whose lack of judicial record (she's only been a lawyer, not a judge) has Bush's base up in arms. The conservative cadre who anointed George the savior of the right expects him to dance its dance and select a Court nominee who will vote to strike down Roe v. Wade, block any Gay rights laws, and turn back the legal hands of time in this country. Other than being a born-again, Miers, for the most part, is a blank slate, and that's not OK for folks who want a guarantee that their brand of strict conservative, constructionist constitutionality will be the order of the day. Poor George. It's all starting to fall apart. What's a guy who hasn't had an original thought in his life and who surrounds himself with syncophantic yes-men and -women to do? He's losing his friends. He's losing his credibility. He's losing his grip on his political base. He's losing the public relations war. He's losing any claim to a positive presidential legacy. But his losses do not necessarily translate into gains for the Lesbian and Gay community. Sure, it's great that individually we can walk around with a "we told you so" attitude. I, for one, am proud that I still have my Kerry-Edwards bumper sticker on my car. But how far can that really take us? How can we, as a community and a potentially powerful political force, capitalize on the crumbling of the conservative coalition? First, we need to expose their politics as a sham. Katrina showed us that compassionate conservatism is an oxymoron. While the right has formed antiGay coalitions with black clergy throughout the country, those same clergy woke up the day after Katrina to see a government they supported refusing and unable to help their own people. Perhaps this is the right time for LGBT groups throughout the country to reach out to their local African-American clergy to build new bridges and work together to help our domestic refugees down south. Second, we need to raise the visibility of LGBT groups throughout the country to show the compassion and concern we've routinely shown for people affected by disasters. From AIDS to 9/11 to Katrina, the LGBT community did not sit on its hands and wait to be told what to do. We're well aware of the need to do something, to make change - after all, if we don't do things for ourselves, no one is going to do it for us. Thankfully, our action is just not limited to doing for ourselves - we understand that we need to bring our compassion and concern beyond the borders of our Gay ghettos and touch the lives of anyone, anywhere in need. Third, we need to make it clear, over and over again, that we're here, we're queer, and we ain't going away. This is no time to seek refuge in a closet. We need to be clear about who our families are, who our children are. We need to work on the midterm elections, side by side with folks who share common goals, and defeat those in the House and Senate whose politics are not only dangerous to us, but deleterious to the nation. We need to run for office as well. Openly Gay elected officials do make a difference. Having a seat at the table beats knocking on the door anytime. And, yes, we may just need to march on Washington as well. If we do all this and work together, we may be able to show George and his cronies which way to go - out the door. Libby Post is the founding chair of the Empire State Pride Agenda and a political commentator on public radio, on the Web, and in print media. She can be reached care of this publication or at LesbianNotions@qsyndicate.com. |
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International Readers |
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 Theatre Off Jackson & Vixen Productions Present A Pulp Vixens |
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