Category — Speak Out!

QWB received these 3 e-mails for publication. These are between  a City Council person, Constituent Services, and Engineering Services Bureau. Comments please. All of this correspondence concerns the library doors and making these doors accessible to all. The first is from the city council member inquiring about the doors,  the second is from Constituent Services, and the third and most interesting is from the Engineering Services Bureau, Project Manager [Read more →]

This info just in from Friends of the RNC 8. QWB is proud to be standing with our comrades.

This Saturday, Ramsey County amended their complaint against the 8 to include 4 felony counts of conspiracy:

1. Count 1-conspiracy to riot in the second degree in furtherance of terrorism. (original charge)

2. Count 2-conspiracy to riot in the second degree (without terrorism)

3. Count 3-conspiracy to damage property in furtherance of terrorism

4. Count 4-conspiracy to damage property (without terrorism enhancement)

If convicted they are facing over 2 decades in prison. The RNC 8 have their next court date all together on Wednesday, December 17th at 1:00 pm. During this time, the 8 will sit down with their lawyers, the prosecution and the judge to begin scheduling the future dates of their trial. In solidarity with the 8 and other RNC arrestees facing felony cases, please take time to call or e-mail Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner’s office on Tuesday and Wednesday December 16th and 17th. We are demanding that all CHARGES BE DROPPED.

Be sure to read a full report by clicking HERE. on QWB.

****RNC 8 NATIONAL CALL IN DAYS OF ACTION:****

Tuesday, Dec 16 (9-5) and Wednesday, Dec 17 (8-1) - all Central TimeAs part of our pressure campaign against Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner we are calling attention to her 2010 run for governor of Minnesota on the Democratic ticket. She’s already starting to fundraise in the hopes of being another in a long line of politicians with rhetoric of change but with policies of repressing dissent. If she continues with the charges against the RNC 8 and the other 10 felonies in Ramsey County Court , let’s not let her campaign run in peace!Friends of the RNC 8 are asking you to again take five minutes of your time to demand that all charges be dropped against the eight alleged “leaders” of the RNC Welcoming Committee.  In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the federal Patriot Act, Ramsey

Should previously incarcerated people be condemned to a life of unemployment?

No. We can’t afford that.

Join the Clean Slate Committee to pass a Hartford Ordinance to get rid of the job application box that asks about prior convictions. The Clean Slate Committee is working to end employment discrimination. Jobs are a RIGHT, not a privilege. We can win with enough People Power. We need your support.

Come out to the meeting:

Monday December 8, 2008 at 5:30 PM. The meeting will be held at the Institute for Community Research, 146 Wyllis [Read more →]

If the RNC8, Amy Goodman and others can be held on Conspiracy to Riot charges, then we should demand that the marketing and corporate executives of Wal-mart be arrested for Conspiracy to Riot ~ and for those stores in Minnesota, add with furtherance of Terrorism!

To me it is utterly amazing how our system of injustice can blatantly abuse the rights of citizens and organizations who are simply exercising their right to protest ~ yet let US corporations, under the guise of Free Market Economics, routinely impose economic shock techniques in their effort to capitalize upon targeting and manipulating the poor and working class for profit, aka The Poverty Business.

I am not a lawyer and so this writing is not a legal discourse on this subject. This piece simply arises out of just a little outrage at a system of injustice that employs State Violence to harm and then prosecute political dissenters (e.g. RNC8), yet this same system has served a blind eye to corporate instituted violence; if not actually being a co-conspirator of corporate induced violence. A most recent case in point is the tragic death of a Wal-mart [Read more →]

A few years ago I sat in on a Rhetoric of Gender Activism class. Among the assigned texts was David Wojnarowicz’s book Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration. This should be mandatory reading for all people who identify as queer, particularly those who find politics to be less relevant in their lives than cruising/chasing skirts. Published in 1991, this piece of writing reflects life during the earlier years of AIDS, when it was a more immediate death sentence; when the fear was tangible. In it, he critiques the local and national governments’ policies on AIDS:

A former city government official concerned with administering AIDS policy, in a private city meeting on housing for poor people with AIDS, said, ‘What you want is a little place; an island where you can isolate these people so they can bang each other up with this AIDS virus…’ Statements like this are not uncommon in government meetings and the city of New York is dragging its feet on this disease just like every other city and federal agency in the country–they simply don’t care

[Read more →]

Join the Queers Without Borders Contingent December 7

as we say

NO TO WAR.

March and Rally 2:00 PM Hartford State Capitol Building

Bring The Troops Home NOW!

No War on Iran! No War on Pakistan!

End US Support to all Wars and Occupations!

Money for Housing! For Jobs! For Education!

For Pensions! Not For War!

Queers Without Borders joins with Queers from across the nation who are standing up and out against war and against state sponsored repression through the USA Patriot Act. We raise our voices up above the oppression, fear, and hate.

[Read more →]

Duanna Johnson 

“(Memphis, Tennessee) LGBT civil rights groups are calling for an independent investigation into the shooting death of a transwoman who previously had been a victim of police brutality. Duanna Johnson was found shot to death in North Memphis just before midnight on Sunday, Nov. 9. There have been no arrests.”

 Click on over to 365 gay and read the full article. Thanks to queertoday.com for pointing out this article. Thanks to Kamora of True Colors for first alerting us about Miss Johnson’s murder and the call for donations to provide for a funeral for her. We send our sympathies to her mother, family and the trans sisters and brothers in Memphis. Rest in peace Duanna and know we will fight on for you. 

QWB stands with other groups calling for a full independent investigation into Duanna’s death.

For more information check out www.ttgpac.com. Also check out the links in our posting “Transsistahs & Transbrothas” by scrolling down our blog.

Check out Jack at AngryBownButch. Jack’s article “Can the LGBT Community Spare some out rage for Duanna Johnson” is a must read. Check out the comments also. For the article click here.

Join us as we listen to two Phil Ochs songs, the first is dedicated to all of those who spent millions to pass Prop 8 in California and to those who spent some big bucks here in Connecticut to try to pass a Constitutional Convention. To the Mormons, the Catholics, the Evangelicals, the Baptists and any one else let this song be a reminder. We got your number and our number will grow. The second song is a reminder to the new government in D.C.  So take heed, and ejoy as you listen to “Cannons of Christianity,” and “I Ain’t Marching Anymore.”

If the past week is any indication, the global economic crisis will not arrive slowly in the Hartford area. Those of us who remember the economic recession and the collapse of the housing market back in 1987 may recall that it arrived only after ripping its way through other parts of the country. Some economists had initially predicted that the Connecticut service economy would not be heavily impacted by the downturn, but they were dead wrong and when it came our turn (after the collapse of manufacturing in the Rust Belt) there was a rash of home foreclosures, a rise in homelessness, and a growing despair as decent employment opportunities were replaced with Mcjobs. But this time around there may not be a long, slow wind-up. Activists in particular must pay attention to signs that this recession will hit fast and hard.

In the Hartford area, even as we turned out in record numbers to elect Barack Obama and help defeat the dangerous call for a constitutional convention, we’ve seen two ominous developments. [Continued at Two Good Hands]

Minister to K of C: Stop Inciting Hate
by Melissa Bailey | October 30, 2008
New Haven Independent

A Westville church is taking on the Knights of Columbus for boosting an anti-gay marriage initiative on next Tuesday’s ballot.

Rev. Sharon Miller, who directs the social justice committee at New Haven’s Metropolitan Community Church, has drafted a letter calling for Christians to speak out against the Knights’ funding in support of ballot initiatives designed to turn back same-sex marriage.

The influential worldwide Catholic fraternal organization has its international headquarters in downtown New Haven, in the Tootsie Roll-shaped tower at Church and George streets. [Read more →]

ALERT 8 - Call for UN Election Observers!

A coalition of U.S. pro-democracy organizations today petitioned the members of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations for international election observers for the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Representatives of No More Stolen Elections!, True Vote, Liberty Tree, Global Exchange, and the Economic Human Rights Project filed the petition seeking international observers with embassies in Washington, DC on Thursday, October 30, 2008, and the New York City offices of the UN on Friday, October 31, 2008. The embassies we visited included those of UN ECOSOC member nations New Zealand, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia, France, United Kingdom, and Sweden. [Read more →]

I just returned from a thought provoking panel discussion entitled “Born Between Sexes: The Medical and Legal Status of Intersex People” held by the UCONN Law Lambda group.  Three of the panelists were from the “academic” medical and legal professions and the fourth was a person from the Intersex  (or Disorders of Sex Development) community ~M.  M’s personal reflections were very touching, moving and powerful and an interesting juxtaposition to the legal/medical professionals.

Sadly the Q&A was extremely limited so the forum did not allow for much interaction with the audience.  This discussion sparked a million questions/paradoxes in my mind, though unfortunately was never able to ask them. So I will muse a few of them on the QWB blog. [Read more →]

On Sunday, September 28th the PEOPLES VOICES were heard loud and clear regarding their opposition to the pending Constitutional Convention Ballot question [read original release].

For those not able to attend audio clips are embedded here:

Audio for first half of demonstration  Download link

Audio for second half of demonstration  Download link

Fox 61Download link

Pictures from demo

To read about Banned books check out here.