Stop the Quotes 3

by a LIFE member, July 2007  

Banned email on subject of "Feminist Agenda? Get a Job?". (there were many emails on this topic posted to the PAR-L list serve. The list moderators wrote: "Your message still largely consists of a series of quotes. Please express your point more clearly and succintly and we'll post your message to the list. " A second revised email that had transitional phrases between quotes was also rejected.

Again, one can only wonder what was offensive about this email. Given that there obviously is not a winning communications strategy to reverse with the widening wealth gap, and 24,000 people a day die from hunger in the world, shouldn't we try alternative ways to communicate? Isn't it worth experimenting? Emails sent to PAR-L last year about 'free market' think tank charities was also composed of a series of quotes after being posted on our LIFE website it has now become our most popular article .

Email sent July 26, 2007 from LIFE to the PAR-L list-serve, rejected by list moderators)

[PK] wrote: "In short, while I sympathize with some of Lillian Hanson's anger, and her goals, I think that blaming feminism for the emphasis on paid work is like blaming feminism for the divorce rate."

On the Mother Warriors Voice website there is an article, titled "Mothernomics - The Economics of Motherhood."

Cindy L'Hirondelle, wrote, "In an article titled 'Poverty is Voluntary', Fraser Institute researcher Fred McMahon advocates ending welfare because it 'subsidize[s] bad choices.' He writes, 'The end of welfare would eliminate the two main routes for the 'inheritance' of poverty-- the welfare culture and single-mother families.' (Vancouver Sun, Aug. 9, 01) | http://www.welfarewarriors.org/mwv_archive/w07/w07_mothernomics.htm

On the Feminism and Women's Studies website there is an article by Katha Pollitt where she states: "Women have been unfairly blamed for a lot of things over the years--the Fall of Man (sic) . . . But poverty? Women cause poverty? That is the emerging bipartisan consensus, subscribed to by players as far apart as Charles Murray and Eleanor Holmes Norton, Dan Quayle and Bill Clinton, National Review and The New York Times. All agree that unwed mothers, particularly teenagers and, to a lesser extent, divorced moms, are the driving force behind poverty, crime and a host of other ills. If mothers got married and stayed married, children would be provided for, the economy would flourish, crime would go down and your taxes too. "Welfare dependency" would vanish, replaced, as God and nature planned, by husband-dependency" ("originally published in the May 39, 1994 issue of The Nation." | http://feminism.eserver.org/workplace/wages/women-cause-poverty.txt

The question is how can we defend poor mothers (and all poor people) from a Fred McMahon, a Charles Murray and an Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Dan Quayle and Bill Clinton, a National Review and a The New York Times?

Moreover, if we have no money -- or an insufficient amount of money to escape poverty, (i.e. you were unemployed or underemployed) -- what email would we send to a social justice list serve to persuade people to publicly defend you from a Fred McMahon, a Charles Murray and an Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Dan Quayle and Bill Clinton, a National Review and a The New York Times?

After all, in her book, "All You Can Eat" Linda McQuaig wrote, "Under the market system, there is demand for a product if a lot of people want it - but that demand counts for nothing if those people have no money. If they lack money, their demand essentially doesn't exist" ("All You Can Eat Greed Lust And The Triumph Of The New Capitalism," 2002). | http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Linda_McQuaig
http://www.amazon.ca/All-Greed-Lust-Triumph-Capitalism/dp/0140262229

In regard to not having enough money to demand food, ANURADHA MITTAL said, "People are hungry because they are too poor to buy food. There is a shortage of purchasing power, not a shortage of food." (ON THE TRUE CAUSE OF WORLD HUNGER) | Published in "The Sun" | February 2002 http://www.derrickjensen.org/mittal.html

In his book "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?," Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, "We must create full employment or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other." (Publisher: Beacon Press 1968) | http://www.progress.org/banneker/kingsay.html
http://www.amazon.com/Where-Do-We-Here-Community/dp/0807005711

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote "I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective -- the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income."

Currently, there is no guarantee of full employment at living wages in constitutional law. In fact, George Mason University Economics Professor Don Boudreaux wrote, "People talk of 'jobs' as if these are ends in themselves – as if jobs are goods, rather than bads. But jobs are bads -- or, more precisely, they’re costs" ("Correct Thinking is a Job" July 22, 2004). | http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2004/07/correct_thinkin.html

In his book, "Economics in One Lesson," Henry Hazlitt wrote, "The progress of civilization has meant the reduction of employment, not its increase. It is because we have become increasingly wealthy as a nation that we have been able virtually to eliminate child labor, to remove the necessity of work for many of the aged and to make it unnecessary for millions of women to take jobs" ("The Lesson Applied | The Fetish of Full Employment")
http://jim.com/econ/chap10p1.html

SEE: "Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economic" (Publisher: Three Rivers Press, December 14, 1988)
http://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232

SEE: "Henry Hazlitt (November 28, 1894 – July 8, 1993) was a libertarian philosopher, economist,[1] and journalist for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Newsweek, and The American Mercury, among other publications." -- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Henry Hazlitt"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hazlitt

Economic thinkers such as a Don Boudreaux & a Henry Hazlitt are opposed to 'our' governments guaranteeing us BOTH (1) full employment at living wages AND (2) a guaranteed livable income.

Moreover, many conservative groups such as REAL Women of Canada agree that everyone must compete for money and win it in the free market.

For example, REAL Women of Canada, wrote: "In a decision handed down on December 19, 2002 for Gosselin v. Attorney General of Quebec, the Supreme Court of Canada narrowly concluded that the Charter of Rights did not include a 'social charter,' requiring that individuals be provided economic and social security" ("CURBING THE POWER OF THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADA"
http://www.realwomenca.com/analyses/analyses_01.htm

Of course, REAL Women of Canada needs money to publish its SINK or SWIM in the "free market" dictum about what should be written OUR constitution!

WE READ: "Support REAL WOMEN OF CANADA with Your Donation | Your financial support is needed to help us continue to be a voice in the courts, in the media and in government for women and for the traditional values of family and marriage. Unfortunately, contributions are not tax deductible due to the political nature of our work.

"Send your contribution by cheque or money order to: REAL Women of Canada | Box 8813 Station T
Ottawa ON K1G 3J1"| http://www.realwomenca.com/donation.htm

However, Canada's Constitution states: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice" (Canadian charter of rights and freedoms, Constitution Act, 1982)
http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/

In the American "Declaration of Independence" of 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends ["Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

But Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm wrote: "The Constitution they wrote was designed to protect the rights of white, male citizens. As there were no black Founding Fathers, there were no founding mothers -- a great pity, on both counts. It is not too late to complete the work they left undone. Today, here, we should start to do so" ("For the Equal Rights Amendment," delivered 10 Aug 1970, Washington, DC).
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/shirleychisholmequalrights.htm

In regard to "work they left undone" Sojourner Truth wrote: "What we want is a little money. You men know that you get as much again as women when you write, or for what you do. When we get our rights we shall not have to come to you for money, for then we shall have money enough in our own pockets; and maybe you will ask us for money. But help us now until we get it. It is a good consolation to know that when we have got this battle once fought we shall not be coming to you any more" ("Keeping the Thing Going While Things Are Stirring" | Address to the first annual meeting of the American Equal Rights Association delivered by Sojourner Truth on May 9, 1867)
http://www.pacifict.com/ron/Sojourner.html

In 1991 Doris Anderson's book "The Unfinished Revolution: Status of Women in Twelve Countries" was published. In the chapter titled, "SO WHERE DO GO FROM HERE?" she wrote, " . . .money should be directed and augmented at putting real teeth into human rights commissions, equality commissions . . ." (Page 287).

Finally, Hillary Rodham Clinton said, "Women comprise more than half the word’s population. Women are 70% of the world’s poor, and two-thirds of those are not taught to read and write" (Remarks to the U.N. 4th World Conference on Women Plenary Session, delivered 5 September 1995, Beijing, China).
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hillaryclintonbeijingspeech.htm

But if "Women are 70% of the world’s poor, and two-thirds of those are not taught to read and write" then who is writing emails to social justice list serves on their behalf, and, if Clinton is elected to be the next President of the United States, will she put "real teeth into human rights" so that people don't continue to die in poverty for no other reason than they don't have enough money to buy the food that has already been grown and is sitting in grocery stores or rotting in granaries?

ANURADHA MITTAL: "Of the 830 million hungry people worldwide, a third of them live in India. Yet in 1999, the Indian government had 10 million tons of surplus food grains: rice, wheat, and so on. In the year 2000, that surplus increased to almost 60 million tons -- most of it left in the granaries to rot. Instead of giving the surplus food to the hungry, the Indian government was hoping to export the grain to make money."
http://www.derrickjensen.org/mittal.html

Sincerely, Livable Income For Everyone (LIFE) (an organization started in 2003 to promote the implementation of universal Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI) in every country in the world.)

http://www.livableincome.org/

********************************

ABOUT PAR-L: According to their website, PAR-L is "a bilingual, electronic network of individuals and organizations interested in women-centred policy issues in Canada". PAR-L stands for "Policy, Action, Research List" and their moderated email list has 1500 participants from across Canada.

"This bilingual (English/French) list is open to any individual or organization interested in discussing policy, action, and research on issues of concern to women in Canada. The scope is intentionally broad to provide an open forum where feminist activists, scholars, and researchers can come together, communicate, share, and disseminate information in a supportive environment."

Read another banned for too many quotes email here