|
|
|
Che
Guevara was an Argentinian-born Marxist revolutionary and Cuban
guerrilla leader. He died at the hands of the Bolivian Army in
La Higuera near Vallegrande on October 9, 1967. After his death,
Guevara became an icon of socialist revolutionary movements
worldwide.
~ From WikipediA,
the Free Encyclopedia
|
Duck
& Cover - Why Should You Care?
Part 4 of 5
By Sensuous Sadie
SensuousSadie@aol.com
www.sensuoussadie.com
The full series includes:
About this Series
In September of 2005, the FBI formed an anti-obscenity task force to
crack down on pornography. Any website that has content containing
"sadistic and masochistic behavior" can be shut down. Not only
can the FBI shut down your website, but they can initiate a criminal
prosecution for obscenity, which is a felony and is punishable by jail
time. It is this criminal charge that is the most challenging problem
for any website owner, because once you are charged by the FBI with the
federal offence of obscenity, you are pretty much screwed because the
legal costs of defending yourself create an untenable situation. While
the first amendment protects free speech, it does not include all
speech, such as, for example, yelling "fire" in a crowded
auditorium.
The power of one begins with believing.
It starts in the heart then flows through the soul and changes the
world/
Imagine how life will be when we stand in unity.
Each of us holds the key to the power of one.
~ From The Power of One by Donna Summer
When I was growing up my mother was a real tree-hugger, one of those
Birkenstock-footed, natural fabrics wearing, seven-grain bread types.
She cared deeply about the situation in Nicaragua at the time, something
having to do with the Sandanistas. She explained it to me numerous
times, but I'm sorry to admit that not only did I not get any of it
(Where is Nicaragua again?) but I didn't really care. I still don't.
My mom knew that something wrong over there needed to be righted, just
as I knew it wasn't my fight. All my life people have been trying to
convince me that their cause should be my cause too. Whether it's the
ecology or animal rights or eating vegetarian – they wanted me to
fight their good fight. Their causes were well chosen, so I did a sort
of modified activism in that I recycle and don't kill spiders, although
I do still eat meat, not to mention Hostess cup cakes and all sorts of
things loaded with preservatives. My own cause is that I am a size
acceptance activist, meaning that I try to show through my words and
deeds that people of every size can be strong, healthy, and flexible.
Not a lot of marching on Washington involved, but then that's not really
my way. The message here is that we can't all work on every good cause
because we'd keel over in exhaustion, or as mom said gently as I nodded
off during her Nicaragua rant: choose your battles.
Except here's the thing: turns out that I'm in a bit of a hot spot
because I have this website with a bunch of obscene − according to
the Communications Decency act anyhow − content. So now I'm
channeling the spirit of my mother and asking my readers to wake up and
smell the legislation. The problem is, I'm not sure that you should care
any more about free speech that I cared about Nicaragua. Sure, the Free
Speech issue is right here in the good old USA, and Nicaragua is way
down there, um, somewhere. But either way, who am I to tell you to care?
Who am I to tell you to get active when it may not even affect you? Well
it does affect you of course, but you may not realize it so for all
intents and purposes it's not affecting you.
On the one hand, there's this famous quote by Pastor Martin Niemoeller
which goes: "They first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak
up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I
didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for trade
unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then
they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a
Protestant. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to
speak up."
What Niemoeller is saying is that if you don't stick up for those in
peril, you're going to be left swinging in the wind. This quote gives me
courage which is why it's up above my desk. The downside of course, is
that Niemoeller wouldn't have had to say it in the first place if so
many people weren't sashaying through life not sticking up for their
friends and neighbors during World War II. That's when all those
Communists, Jews, trade unionists, Catholics and Protestants (not to
mention the gays, and otherwise sexually adventurous) were ground up in
the Nazi war machine. Sure, we'd like to think things are so different
now, but maybe not so much. Heck it was only ten years ago that hundreds
of thousands of people were slaughtered in Rwanda, a holocaust that was
dramatized in the award winning film Hotel Rwanda. They're still
digging up the mass graves and giving people proper burials.
What I got from my mother doing her activist thing and me doing my
activist thing was that each of us is involved in the area that moves
us, and that in the gestalt it all balances out. In other words, she
worked on Nicaragua on my behalf and I work on size acceptance on her
behalf and the world improves a little bit for us and everyone else. At
the same time of course, there are other people working on the ecology,
animal rights, vegetarianism, and so on.
There are also lots of people doing nothing at all, but I figure there's
no point in trying to pound this into their heads; talk about a
pointless activity. My hairdresser is one of these people. When I shared
some of this with her, it was all pretty new to her and while she was
polite, she probably could have cared less. I don't think making the
world a better place is in her veltanschaung. I might have given up
right around here because I have a feeling that my hairdresser is
probably more typical of your red-blooded American than someone like me.
Fortunately, my friend Alia has a kinder, gentler take on this which I'm
thinking of adopting. She agreed that there are only a few people who
are radically active, like the people who go paint the baby seals so
they won't be killed for their pelts or who chain themselves to trees so
the trees won't be cut down. Then there's another core of activists who
understand how change occurs and they will fight for that. For this
group of people (like us) who are already active, it's pretty easy to
share information about free speech issues because they probably know
about the American Civil Liberties Union and are just as likely members
already. Preaching to the choir you could say.
Alia suggested that my goal not be so much to turn my hairdresser et al into
baby-seal painting activity, but rather to encourage her to become an
Activist-Lite if you will. That's what you might call me in the areas of
ecology and animal rights. My hairdresser may not be able to change the
Communications Decency Act (and neither can I) but she can share what
she knows with her friends, and she can encourage people like me and
others as she comes upon this issue. Once her awareness grows, she will
become more and more aware of these issues as they pop up in
contemporary media such as in the recent movie "Good Night, and
Good Luck," where TV newsman Edward R. Murrow faces off Senator
Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Alia's
idea is to plant seeds all about and do a little grass roots gardening.
I think she's got something there.
So should you care? I'm not going to tell you that you should. But I
will say this, and I'll keep the soapbox rant short. Helping people
fight for their rights in Nicaragua is good. Helping people hurt by a
hurricane here in the USA is also important. But there are also freedoms
that we must fight for because they are the foundation of who we are as
a nation. Freedom of speech is one of them. If you agree, please read a
little more. Do just one item on the ACLU's
list of action steps. Talk to your mom or your hairdresser even
though it might feel a little weird. I know my mom, (now in heaven),
would be proud of me, and of you too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACLU Action Checklist
The actions listed below are meaningful ways of raising public
awareness and shifting policy. They can be undertaken by
individuals or groups of interested people.
http://action.aclu.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AP_action_checklist
Sensuous Sadie is the author of It's Not About the Whip: Love, Sex,
and Spirituality in the BDSM Scene. Read an excerpt at
http://www.trafford.com/robots/03-0551.html. She is the founder and
leader (1999 - 2001) of Rose & Thorn, Vermont's first BDSM group.
Comments, compliments and complaints, as well as requests for reprinting
can be addressed to her at SensuousSadie@aol.com or visit her website at
www.sensuoussadie.com. Sadie believes the universe is abundant, and that
sharing information freely is part of this abundance, so she allows
reprints of her writing in most venues.
Copyright 2005 Sadie Sez Publications
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sensuous Sadie is the author of It's Not About the Whip: Love, Sex,
and Spirituality in the BDSM Scene. Read an excerpt at http://www.trafford.com/robots/03-0551.html.
She is the founder and leader (1999 - 2001) of Rose & Thorn,
Vermont's first BDSM group. Comments, compliments and complaints, as
well as requests for reprinting can be addressed to her at SensuousSadie@aol.com
or visit her website at www.sensuoussadie.com.
Sadie believes the universe is abundant, and that sharing information
freely is part of this abundance, so she allows reprints of her writing
in most venues.
Copyright 2005 Sadie Sez Publications
|
|
|
