The Political Voices of Women

 Here is a guest post by community member Deb Della Piana from Turn Left.

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Although the story I’m about to tell you is personal and happened to me and my family, it’s not just my story. It still happens everywhere, everyday. It’s a story of what it’s truly like to be gay in America. I don’t speak much about this these days, but I’m telling it to you today because I fear the country we face under John McCain and Sarah Palin. Under their virulently right-wing rule, this type of disenfranchisement and gutter treatment could spread exponentially throughout this nation.

I once worked for what I believed was one of the best Fortune 500 companies, a company that I had been loyal to since joining them in 1974 and I expected some type of loyalty in return. I was naïve back then. What I have learned is that companies expect loyalty, but they absolutely do not return it at the same level. No company name will be given, but let’s just say that with the advent of some new management came some discrimination. In this case, it was based on my sexual orientation (which, by the way, had not been an issue prior to management change). In 1997, after several ugly encounters between myself and my boss, I was roundly fired.

The circumstances are not important. The fact is that I signed an agreement not to sue (I was stupid, in retrospect) in exchange for a severance package. At the time, I had a small child under a year and a very sick partner, who had contracted pre-eclampsia during the final twenty weeks of the pregnancy and was saddled with a diagnosis of perinatal cardiomyopathy post-pregnancy. I saw no other way to survive and keep them both healthy and safe. One decision I had made, however, was that I would never again give my all to a corporation.

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There is an interesting dialog on the issue of Pro-Life, going on at BlogHer. Shannon has written a post titled Why I’m Pro-Life (there are already over 50 comments).

I wasn’t always pro-life.

In the early ’90′s, I was a card-carrying, sign-waving, Clinton-campaigning pro-choicer. I held to the notion that a fetus couldn’t fully be life, since it was dependent entirely on another for its existence. And I believed the notion that abortion is unfortunate, but it wasn’t any of the government’s business.

I wish I could point you to a specific point on my journey where my views shifted entirely. There was no dramatic morning where I woke up suddenly pro-life. My thoughts on the subject have meandered down many roads before winding up where they are today. I’ve been asked to tell you why I believe the way I do. — read full post at BlogHer

This is how I feel about the subject…

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*see the faces of hunger

This is from a post at BlueBloggin.

Over 1.3 million people, one in six New Yorkers, cannot afford enough food, with queues at soup kitchens getting longer, anti-poverty groups say.

The New York City Coalition Against Hunger says the number of people who use food pantries and soup kitchens in the city increased by 20% in 2007. … food distribution points are struggling to meet demand. Increased poverty as well as government cutbacks in food aid effect more and more indigents.

No Thanksgiving turkey

“This annual survey of food pantries and soup kitchens shows that more working families, children, and seniors are being forced to seek emergency food,” Joel Berg, the coalition’s executive director, said in a statement.

“Given that hunger continued to increase in the city, even when the economy was still strong last year, it is no wonder that now, when the economy is weakening, lines at pantries and kitchens are getting even worse.”

Some food outlets said their federal supplies of food had been cut by as much as three-quarters.

According to a survey, 59% of New York’s food programmes, up from 48% last year, said they did not have enough resources to meet demand.

The US Department of Agriculture says 12.6 million households nationwide, or more than 30 million people – 10% of the population – did not have enough food at some point in 2006.

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This is from a post at Fact-exque.

This morning when I woke up, I was still angry at Reid for telling reporters before the Labor-H override vote that the Dems were ready to come back after Thanksgiving with a bundled bill and $11B in cuts for Dear Leader to consider. My beef is that he removed any pressure the party-over country dead-enders who support BushCo’s War on the Poor and Middle Class may have been feeling to do the right thing. But then I realized something I knew but clearly hadn’t internalized – probably because my faith in our system of government isn’t completely dead. He knew the numbers; the vote was already over for him. Pretending otherwise would have simply been a courtesy to the voters. And, if I think about it, an unkind deception – why pretend that there’s hope when there is none?

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One of my first posts as a blogger at Informed Voters was “THE HOMELESS, THE HUNGRY, AND THE WORKING POOR“, it’s actually one of my most popular posts.  So sadly, this news today came as no surprise to me.

Associated Press: Study: Veterans Make Up 1 of 4 Homeless

Veterans make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to a report to be released Thursday.

And homelessness is not just a problem among middle-age and elderly veterans. Younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are trickling into shelters and soup kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.

The Veterans Affairs Department has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says 400 of them have participated in its programs specifically targeting homelessness.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, a public education nonprofit, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. 2005 data estimated that 194,254 homeless people out of 744,313 on any given night were veterans.

In comparison, the VA says that 20 years ago, the estimated number of veterans who were homeless on any given night was 250,000.

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