Revolution #183, November 15, 2009
Readers Comment …
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Re: "Report from Li Onesto on the National Equality March"
We received the following comment online:
The Report from Li Onesto on the National Equality March in issue #181 was great. The NEM was a righteous and bold action. And it was right for the RCP to join in this call for LGBT rights. But Li's article and my own experience also underscore how much work needs to be done in getting people to see the connection between the righteous demand for LGBT rights and the larger struggle for the emancipation of humanity. Much needs to be done around getting LGBT people to understand how certain forces like Christian fascists play a powerful role in the continued marginalizing and demonizing of LGBT people and further how and why this system we live under allows this to continue.
I'm writing this the day Obama has signed a piece of legislation that includes attacks on LGBT people as hate crimes. I have many emotions about this. One of which is incredulous anger. What does it say about this system we live under when we have to have a piece of legislation that will double the sentence of those convicted for killing a person for being gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender, Black, Latino, Muslim, and so on. It is an indictment of this system. Why? Because people are not born into this world hating other people. A system that upholds backward and outmoded beliefs instills this hate in people—that's why. This is why a revolution is necessary—one that changes the way people think and view the world and the people in it.
The second thought is this: This piece of legislation passed because it had an over 600 billion dollar military spending bill attached to it. Think about this for a minute. Someone like me, a lesbian, is supposed to have the satisfaction of knowing that the person who might attack and kill me because I happen to be a lesbian will get double the time in prison. Meanwhile the money attached to this legislation is being used to allow the continued rape, torture, and murder of a people half way around the world in this so called "war on terror." I'm not satisfied—I'm sickened. How many LGBT people know that this spending bill was attached to this hate crimes legislation? I bet not many. Many do not know and see how this capitalist-imperialist system pits one section of people against another. And for those who know about this spending bill—well, what this does is reinforce "my rights, my comfort, my life before anyone else's" attitude so dominant under this system. This is why we need a revolution so that people don't have to make these horrible and deadly choices and instead work to create a world where everyone acts in the interests of humanity.
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Re: "An Open Letter to NYU Students From Sunsara Taylor—The Furthest Thing From Your Minds"
We received the following comment online:
Sunsara Taylor's letter (An Open Letter to NYU Students From Sunsara Taylor—The Furthest Thing From Your Minds) is a very coherent and illuminating analysis of what is happening to students on a college campus—but it is not only to students.
ALL OF US are suffocating. The workers at big box stores, the laborers in fields, the clerks in office cubicles... it is not just students.
Perhaps students, due to their relative youth, have the most possibility of escaping the mind prison Ms. Taylor describes.
But all of us, the workers, the immigrants, the unemployed, the elderly, etc. are in this same, stifling environment that daily, hourly shrink our human existence, our human potential.
I agree with everything Ms. Taylor says, but only wish to expand it to ALL OF US. And she is right... because many of us are suffocating. Communism is the furthest thing from our minds.
Avanti, camarati!
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