Rachel Maddow hits President 'fierce advocate' Obama hard on DADT

More Respect all the Time

Rachel has been giving segments like this for a bit now, and I respect her more each time.

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by: Doc @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 01:06:41 AM CDT

DADT discharge counter available

Brava Rachel!!!

Your space is pretty full, Pam, but if you could find room for the automatically updating discharge counter from SLDN it would help your readers keep in mind that it's not just about Choi and Tsao and Fehrenbach and Witt being already discharged or in jeopardy since January 20th. Based on the most recently supplied Pentagon averages, 1-2 others are being discharged DAILY....which would make the total like 240 so far.

The Copy/Paste HTML script can be found at the SLDN link below, and anyone can add it to their own site, blog, MySpace page, etc. THANK YOU ALL!

http://www.sldn.org/content/di...

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by: Michael Bedwell @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 01:38:40 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

yay they've made a live counter!

before it was just dead graphics.  this is great.

Click HERE and sign up: Campaign For Military Partners.

Lurleen on Twitter.

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by: Lurleen @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 11:09:05 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Weekly Church Goers = 60%

  Rachel shows a poll about the 7:00 mark.  Weekly Church Goers and it shows 60%.  OK,  I understand the point of pointing this number out, but I am a bit suspicious.  

 That 60% ought to get the Religious Reich's panties in a serious twist.  

If I make sense? it was quite by accident.

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by: HappyCat @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 01:14:33 AM CDT

did you notice

how Rush Holt (D) kind of "declined" to directly answer the first question?  It would have required him to say something negative about Obama.  Instead he chose to answer a question that wasn't asked about the REAL issue being the poll numbers and public support.  I found that very telling.

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by: timNC @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 06:58:48 AM CDT

We Got Used

According to the Constitution, the President of the United States, as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, can set military policy without Congress' approval. He can't declare war without Congress, but he can set internal military policy on his own.

Yet he wants to wait for Congress and drag his feet. He asks Rick Warren to say the opening words of his new administration. He's against Equal Marriage. All this adds up to an opponent, not an advocate, of GLBT Equality, and definitely not a proponent of DADT repeal.

I donated $850 to Obama, pounded the pavement to get voters registered, solicited votes for him over the phone, donated money to all the candidates on the HRC's endorsement list to make sure he had enough support in Congress to do the good work.

And I want a refund. Not just for the money, but for the time and effort I spent on getting this SOB in office armed to the teeth with a Democratic Congress. I want all those hours I spent down here in the Deep South getting yelled at by rednecks as I calmly tried to explain that  wasn't a terrorist and no their taxes weren't going to get raised. I'd like to have back the hours I spent arranging rides to the polls for everybody, and calling them to remind them when it was the big day.

My dad was a steelworker
My mom was a kitchen girl
and that's why
I'm a socialist.
-from an old song I used to hum to myself

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by: DaveB @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 08:03:20 AM CDT

amen brother

from a southern girl who feels the same way dammit

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by: elizabethws @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 12:51:24 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

We need a new campaign

Just as Franklin Roosevelt had to be 'pressured' to do the right thing during the depression, Obama is not going to do anything unless we pressure him.  

Our advocate organizations are mired in DC culture, and while this may be necessary, they too are missing the bigger picture. The rest of the country has advanced, but DC is still stuck in their moldy existence.  

With the polls showing so much support for the repeal of DADT, we need a media campaign NOW.  We should have ads on all of the major TV news shows, drive-time radio shows, etc.  

This will foment a media frenzy, and each new DADT discharge will become a media event.  Only then will we have sufficient clout to force Obama and Congress to repeal DADT.  

I believe that if DADT is repealed, we may have an easier time with the rest of our civil rights issues because we can 'ride on the coattails' of that success.  It is synergy, pure and simple.  

Relying upon the HRC to broker back-room deals with the Obama administration will get us ENDA, probably minus LGBT, by the end of Obama's first term.  

ENDA was first introduced in 1994 by Congressman Gerry Studds, and we still don't have a protections.  So why is it that we think that doing more of the same is going to change the outcome?  

Not One Nickel for Obama and the Democrats (our friends, right?) until they begin moving on our issues. The money would be better spent on a media campaign.  

It there an organization - with a track-record that includes successes (ie not the "No on 8" campaign in California) that can take the lead on this effort?  

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by: Gary SF @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 08:08:39 AM CDT

Actually ENDA was first proposed in 1974 but it wasn't called that

Because Congress would pass all the protections of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for GLBT's they decided to break up the protections of the Civil Rights Act and make them "easier" to pass on a bill by bill basis. Fifteen years later, not even the employment protections have passed much less protection in public accommodations, protection from credit discrimination, prohibition of discrimination by the states, etc.

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by: craigkg @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 08:43:12 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

ABSOLUTELY RIGHT-ON BOTH COUNTS!!!!

With the polls showing so much support for the repeal of DADT, we need a media campaign NOW.  ... I believe that if DADT is repealed, we may have an easier time with the rest of our civil rights issues ...

For DECADES, I have never understood why national gay groups that HAVE THE MONEY have so rarely taken our issues directly to the public via mainstream media advertising. Can anyone name three instances?

Having become friends with Leonard Matlovich, the first servicemember to fight the ban [in 1975], shortly after his appearance on the cover of TIME magazine rocked the world, I know first hand that gay groups are now making the same mistake they have ever since then-assuming that a few poster servicemen and women just getting attention in news articles/programs will be enough to convince the government and voting public to "get" the insanity and rise up and demand change. THIRTY-FOUR years of this PROVES THEM WRONG.

From Leonard's courageous outing himself to the Air Force all the way through the dozens of others who have fought up to Lt. Dan Choi, Maj. Margaret Witt, Lt. Sandy Tsao, and Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach...progress was definitely made.

BUT I'm convinced that the ironic downside of putting single faces on the bigotry is that the public tunes out the accompanying "one of _____ discharged," and, however much they empathize for the challenger of the moment, do NOT get how many more people are actually hurt, and, in turn, the nation by the loss of their service and skills. The classic "tip of the icerberg."

It's demonstrated even by some gays, usually in the form of defenses of Obama's inaction because "only 3-4 people have been discharged since he came in." That's why I keep promoting everyone with a Web presence to display the automatically updating counter mentioned above.

Some of our own activists have unintentionally reinforced a misunderstanding of the history and depth of the problem by repeating over and over JUST the number discharged since DADT. Sure, use of the law's colloquial name has been "catchy" but, rather than just the circa 13,000 discharged since 1994, I'm convinced talking about the circa 130,000 discharged since gays were first discharged simply for being gay during WWII would carry FAR more weight. For example, the number is roughly equal to the TOTAL number of US troops in Iraq right now!

At the same time, that context helps Americans understand that the idea of "stop loss" as applied to gays is NOT new, but has gone on in one form or another for over SIXTY YEARS!

IMAGINE a full page ad in USA Today and a few key major "local" papers and a few national magazines with examples of great losses to the military's strength-from Matlovich to Choi, the shortage of Arab linguists, the story of the tell-tale terrorist message untranslated until AFTER 9/11, the talking points about the MILLIONS of $$$ wasted, other nations, etc.-all the talking points INCLUDING the polls which could give the reader a since of being a part of a groundswell, and urging them to call, write, e-mail the President to freeze discharges, their Congressman and Senators to repeal entirely.And, yes, at least HRC has the money for a few TV ads.

One of the many parts of the avalanche that smothered to death Clinton's efforts to stop the ban was that the
Antigay Industry generated 434,000...read that again...434,000 keep the fags out calls to Congress IN ONE DAY-five times the number of calls they get on the average day.

Finally, I totally agree that NO OTHER SUCCESS would so empower success for every other issue than the destruction of DADT. The general public WORSHIPS the military, and if they are forced to say "gays are ok" Americans generally and Congress specifically are going to be far more amenable to marriage equality, ENDA, etc.

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by: Michael Bedwell @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 13:45:46 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I agree

I'd like to see a TV ad with all 240 of Obamas discharged servicemembers.

Also as I have mentioned before; letters and phone calls do make a difference. Even now as I talk with lawmakers they anticipate the mass calling from the opponents even tho it hasn't happened this time around.

Please contact your lawmaker. We need to keep the pressure up. We can do this.  

Come, come, my conservative friend, wipe the dew off your spectacles, and see that the world is moving."
-Elizabeth Cady Stanton

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by: T2inDC @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 19:08:08 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Would be great but...

For multiple reasons, only a microscopic percentage of those discharged ever go public...or would be willing to if asked.

Family pressures, fear of a public profile hurting civilian job chances, a kind of Stockholm syndrome re the military that dumped you, a desire and need to simply move on with one's life, like Lt. Sandy Tsao after her fame for receiving the personal note from the President, and, even in 2009, the closet remains a powerful force. Many of us know people who are still closeted to someone in their lives. As counterintuitive as it sounds, some of the best known fighters against the gay ban were not out to important family members before they decided to launch a public fight, e.g., Leonard Matlovich, Tracy Thorne, and Jose Zuniga. 38-yr. old Lt. Col. Fehrenbach had never discussed being gay with his mother and seven siblings until he decided to fight his discharge.

LIFE magazine's montage of photos of one week's 269
American dead in Vietnam, Newsweek's 1987 montage of photos of 302 people killed by AIDS in the previous year [aside: at one point, that many were dying ever 11 DAYS in San Francisco], added to the progress on both those issues. Unable to be able to show actual photo of all those discharge, would blank silhouettes help or hurt?

One thing's for certain: current tactics [if one could call them that] AREN'T ending Obama's inertia [stubborness?].

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by: Michael Bedwell @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 21:17:57 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

I hope Rachel keeps the heat on

I will give up on mass media entirely if the big wigs at MSNBC force her to stop bringing up the issue. She has forced the matter in to the public domain where it belongs; DADT has survived this long only because it is not something that the media is willing to talk about.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même merde.

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by: TechBear @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 08:31:30 AM CDT

DADT, once Clintons legacy, is now Obama policy.

Obama's hardening hostility towards the LGBT communities is nowhere more apparent than in the fight to end DADT. This latest move in the Supreme Court is a stab in the back for GI's facing discrimination, loss of benefits, harassment and occasionally violence.

You have to wonder what Congressional Democrats and Obama have against GLBT soldiers and for that matter all GIs. He disapproves of challenges to DADT and Democrats in Congress refuse to repeal DADT after being a majority for the last three years. Obama and the Democrats are aping Nixon's Vietnam era mistake of trying to defeat the insurgency by enlarging and expanding the war against civilians in Southwest Asia.

As of today 5011 GI's have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and a further 15,000 plus have sustained disabling wounds. The US military command in Iraq admits only 186 suicides but the numbers are probably much larger and add up to thousands if you count returning vets unable to cope with wounds including PTSD. Scandalously the government refuses to fund the huge costs of taking care of suicidal vets and those badly injured by PSTD. Over a million civilians have been murdered by Clinton's food/medicine embargo, the Bush invasions and Obama's continued occupation.

How many more GIs and innocent civilians will have to die before Obama and the US military command are defeated as ignominiously as they and Nixon were in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Hopefully the combined efforts of the Iraqi oil workers union, the US civilian and GI antiwar movements and the determined resistance of the Iraqi and Afghan people can end it sooner rather than later.    

In the meantime we should do everything we can to discourage LGBT youth from enlisting to murder muslims so Chevron-Texaco and Haliburton can get rich and we should demand that Obama order courts martial for all officers and others charged with hate crimes and especially rape of women in the military.  

We should do and say nothing that implies support for Obama's murderous oil war. Support for the war is a betrayal of the LGBT and antiwar struggles.

The looter rich much prefer working with Democrats like Obama and the Clintons - they're greedier, they fool more people and they're able to get away with a lot more than Republicans.  

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by: donal1944 @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 10:10:57 AM CDT

Rachel show this administration a little something about being FIERCE

"race, taste. and History finally overcome....and you ain't there"
by Tony Kushner

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by: peteyPornpig @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 10:12:21 AM CDT

Lesbians are awesome.

I have mentioned here before that women's issues and lesbian issues should never have been separated during the ERA era, and I still stand behind that.  She's fighting for this, plus she keeps pushing the terrorism angle of  the Tiller murder.  Considering that, barring rape or a planned pregnancy that goes horribly wrong, she or her partner won't ever need to consider an abortion but yet she fights on.  It seems like straight women settle in and accept what is going on while our lesbian sisters are out there getting results.  Kudos to Rachel, Del, Phyllis, Pam, et al.

My America includes LGBT families.

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by: Mena @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 13:44:27 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Did you know that Del & Phyllis...

Did you know that Del & Phyllis, and Barbara Gittings and her partner Kay Tobin, were among the first pioneers fighting for gays in the military?

In 1966...THREE YEARS BEFORE STONEWALL...Del & Phyllis were among the organizers of a protest at the Federal Building in San Francisco against the military's ban, one of a number that day around the country. The one in New York City was cosponsored by the Daughters of Bilitis. I'm not certain if Barbara was only there and/or in the march from the White House to the Pentagon that day [her close friend and fellow combatant Frank Kameny flew to NYC to be in both].

I doubt very few people entering the current SF exhibit of the GLBT Historial Society at the corner of 18th & Castro realize that the first large photo they see is not just of Del but was taken that day:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com...

That photo, along with one of Phyllis at the same protest, is in the book, Different Daughters-
A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement

- Michael Bedwell, www.leonardmatlovich.com

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by: Michael Bedwell @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 14:32:24 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

A lesbian friend who went a long way back in the military

She was stationed in occupied Japan, an bless her heart she couldn't have hid as not lesbian if her life depended on it. BUTCHY BUTCH BUTCH.
She estimated at minimum HALF the women's branches of service were lesbian, and EVERYBODY KNEW, they were quite indiscreet, she and her friends would watch new service women getting off the boat, and decide who could be had.

"race, taste. and History finally overcome....and you ain't there"
by Tony Kushner

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by: peteyPornpig @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 15:42:42 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

"Ahem."

I think that said it all.

Click HERE and sign up: Campaign For Military Partners.

Lurleen on Twitter.

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by: Lurleen @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 11:07:04 AM CDT

Oh he's a fierce advocate for something, all right

He's a fierce advocate for the christian hate groups and their anti-woman, anti-choice, anti-gay agenda of legalized straight (white) male supremacy.

Where I come from we call those people Republicans, and treat them accordingly.

God save ornery old queens! - kevinchi

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by: Keori @ Tue Jun 09, 2009 at 16:30:26 PM CDT

CNN piece echos Rachel Maddow's points

An article written for CNN by Spelman College history professor William Jelani Cobb essentially validates Maddow's criticisms.   Cobb's conclusion is

Ultimately, the gay rights movement will have to learn something that the civil rights movement learned again and again during the 20th century -- it is often necessary to force the hand of even your allies to achieve your goals.

Since Spelman has had a reputation for being about as homophobic as American liberal arts colleges come, I found additional interest in the article.  The article is here:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITI...

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by: KerryGinn @ Wed Jun 10, 2009 at 11:20:19 AM CDT