queerbychoice | Leonard Peltier

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Leonard Peltier

The only really good thing about the election is that Leonard Peltier won the Peace & Freedom Party's nomination for President. Although I'm a registered Democrat (because my mother told me I'd have more political power if I could vote in the Democratic primaries, but I'm increasingly thinking that since my candidates always lose the Democratic primaries anyway, I'd probably stand more chance of making a difference by just helping make the Peace & Freedom Party's registration numbers get bigger), the Peace & Freedom Party has always been the party that's won my heart. I mean, I don't just like this party, I love this party passionately! What other political party can you name anywhere that anyone truly passionately loves?

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as I just discovered, you can still vote in the democratic primaries if you are a registered independent. But that aside, I encourage you to vote and register with your conscience, rather than supporting a more plausible candidate. Third party movements have succeeded before and they can again.

To paraphrase Eugene Debs:
Don't vote for freedom, you might lose. Vote for slavery, and you'll surely win.

I've always voted my conscience; I just didn't register my conscience. I almost did, but my mother talked me out of it at the last minute. (Hey, I was 18 at the time. Or 17 really, but approching 18.)

But registering as an independent doesn't appeal to me even remotely. I want my existence to be recognized as a distinctly left-wing voter so that the politicians who attempt to discern the general leanings of the country will look at the voter rolls and see a larger number of people registered with distinctly left-wing parties. So if I weren't going to be registered as a Democrat, I'd definitely be registered as a member of the Peace & Freedom Parrty and not as an independent.

Perhaps I shall change my party registration. I've certainly been considering it for long enough - almost ten years now.

I love the Green party's ten platform points.

I don't love the Green Party. Every time I look at the Green Party's statements I just think, "Ha, you aspire to be as radical as the Peace & Freedom Party but you fall short!"

Thanks for writing this post. I've been following the Peltier case for a few years (how horrible of the government might I add). I had heard his name mentioned recently in a news program and I thought maybe I had heard wrong.
First things first- get him out of jail.
I can't believe Clinton (wait I can believe) had the opportunity to pardon him and he didn't. He pardoned some supporter for his campaign. It makes me sick that in this era, the government can get away with these things. There's also an interesting article in Jane magazine about the lack of the government trying to help in a case of two murdered girls. ERrrrrrr... I don't get how it can still be like this in a First World country.

Hey, changing the subject to something of far less worldly importance - what do you make of our girl Shandi's treatment of her boyfriend? I'm beginning to remember that the one huge advantage of having crushes on TV people is that I don't have to be the one who they're jerks toward.

I think Shandi's treatment of her boyfriend is pretty wrong. I think what it is (and I hate to say this cuz I do like Shandi) is that she know "thinks" she's hot and she's doing things thinking she's hot. Hence, I think, she's gonna sleep with that guy b/c Shandi thinks she's hot and she's gonna work it. I know, I could be wrong, but that's the impression I get.
I think it's pretty shitty to freak on him for going to a movie with a married woman as a friend, but the way she's begun to talk to him is like a "superiority" thing. To tell him - "no I never told him I had a boyfriend." is like digging a nail into his side. I feel girls do that to create drama. It irritates me to no end.
My two cents!

Yes - I feel like she has this intense need to control who her boyfriend goes to movies with because she's really terrified of ever not having any guy at all, but she's not really that much attached to her boyfriend as an individual at all and seems to really want to trade him in for a higher "status" guy who she would find more "befitting" for her own new glamorous model status. And maybe because of her intense terror of not having any guy at all, she doesn't handle the long-distance not having any guy geographically with her right now thing very well either. Anyway, she seems to just really not care that much about her boyfriend as a person or as anything other than something to prevent her from being single, and it would be a lot kinder and more mature of her to at least inform him of that directly and just dump him outright rather than distancing herself from him more and more by kissing a bunch of other guys and pleading for forgiveness and putting him in the position of feeling like the "bad guy" for putting this miserable relationship to its death.

And yet I can't stop still basically liking Shandi too, even at the same time that I see her handling her relationship really immaturely and hurting her boyfriend. Strange how that is. Perhaps it's hard to hate anyone who already hates themself from their guilt at what they've done, but really then, why do people do things in the first place if they know it's going to cause them to hate themselves? I don't really understand that kind of behavior.

Oh well, I guess Shandi still deserves sympathy, if only because unlike most people who do this kind of thing, she's doing it on national television and thus will be more severely publicly embarrassed by it all than almost anyone. She's behaving badly, but she doesn't really deserve that level of punishment for it.

And I don't think she's going to actually sleep with that guy, if only because their schedule doesn't really seem to allow for being away from the group overnight. I think she's just going to make out with him a whole bunch, but when you yell at your boyfriend for going to the movies with a married platonic friend, you really can't expect him to fogive you for making out with some other guy, and even less so when you also previously gave some other guy your phone number and called him and failed to tell him you had a boyfriend.

I wanted to love them, for their name alone. But as soon as I got to the word "feminist" on their website, they were lost to me forever. Damn.

Why?

I'm a very staunch egalitarian. A group with a name like "Peace and Love" should really be focusing on being egalitarian as well, not merely feminist. The world needs far more equality than just between the binary gender construct. What about people outside that system? What about other types of bias? A group can't be "Peace and Love" without being egalitarian to me. It's like saying carob is chocolate. It just don't fly.

Their website already cites other types of bias all over the place. I don't think it cites non-binary genders, but, well, however less than ideal the name may be, feminism is the most commonly recognized name for the movement that fought for the Equal Rights Amendment - which did include equal protection for all genders.

I guess my point is just that if they are meaning to be focused on all sorts of prejudice, they should say they are egalitarian right away, not leaving a person to sort through and try to find other information. I care about bias against Arab peoples, and Jewish people, and Scientologists, not just people of varied (or no) gender.

Feminism doesn't bring that to mind. So by using the word "feminist" it puts the focus squarely on gender, and mostly on getting equal rights for women specifically. So the party you linked to, whether they mean to or not, give the impression that they are most concerned about the rights of females, secondly interested in the rights of other people in the gender binary, and other things as well, maybe. If they really mean to be inclusive of all, using the word egalitarian would strike a much better chord than feminist.

I'm not saying they're a bad organization in the least. I just don't get why people are so focused on feminism when there is so much else that needs attention as well. It irks me. ;)

Can I forward this to the website owner for consideration? I've written to him before and gotten responses.

Hey, if I can help sway even one person to begin calling theirself (gads, I hate all the gender-neutral words) egalitarian, I'll be a happy happy person. If you think what I wrote could possibly do that, then please do feel free to pass it along.

Thanks for your posts. I have some pretty heavy issues with gender myself. I've never heard of this egalitarian of which you speak. but am quite intrigued. Can you give me a URL that will help explain this?

I've just past my first Green Party primaries. I've held with the Green Party's beliefs for decades but let the democrats and republicans warn me away from leaving the two party voting system on the grounds of throwing my vote away on a candidate that would never stand a chance, or not being allowed to vote in the primaries.

Well I just voted in the primaries in the green party. I just figure sooner or later I need to vote my conscience and since George Dubyah Bush still has a brother in the Govenor's Office in Florida I doubt we will have an honest count of the votes. So since my vote may not be worth the pushing of a "press button to cross street" button at rush hour, at least someone will know that I know they are killing the world that sustanes us.

My point? Don't let the two party boogyman scare ya. Vote your conscience now man. Waiting just means that if you can cause change you may be to damned old to enjoy the results.

Egarlitarian isn't a party or a group, it's a belief. Like the core belief of a feminist is that of equality between the sexes, the core belief of an egalitarian is equality for all people. The American Heritage dictionary describes the belief as such "Affirming, promoting, or characterized by belief in equal political, economic, social, and civil rights for all people."

I don't know of any groups with egalitarian beliefs. At least none that advertise it as such. I'm sure there are some out there, but I haven't looked into that much.

As for the upcoming election, I agree with you completely about voting one's conscience. However, in this election my conscience tells me the most important thing is getting Bush out of office. My vote, whether he's the top candidate in my mind or not, is going to have to go for Kerry. The world is a far too valuable place to risk having Bush in power any longer.

I have to agree with you there. If we stand any chance at all of getting that war monging dictator out of control of this country it's going to take all of us to do it. I voted my conscience during the primaries but come november I will be voting to save our country as well as the rest of the world from what Bush is doing to it.

so, i almost forgot what i was going to say because i got all distracted and entertained by the other comments...but then luckily your entry appears at the top of this little page. so anyway, my pet peeve in this whole election mess is this concept of electability. what on earth?! someone becomes electable because people are voting for her/him! *sputters unintelligably* if you don't vote for someone because you don't think they're electable, you make them unelectable! ok, i need to quit before i pop a vein in my head or something. oh, and go kuccinich!

Yay, a fellow Kucinich voter! He got my vote.

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Leonard Peltier

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Looks like a chance to open minds.

Re: Looks like a chance to open minds.

Re: Looks like a chance to open minds.

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