An Inclusive ENDA; Do Donors Make Obama Independent? ...
by , 2008-08-08
To the Editor:
Hale Thompson's editorial, "Don't Leave Out Transgenders," raises an important point frequently overlooked by supporters of an ENDA that excludes transgendered persons: It is gender non-conformity (women who are masculine, men who are feminine), not who one sleeps with per se, that most often leads to workplace discrimination.
In contrast, Marc Salomon's argument in favor of ENDA lite overlooks the fact that this measure will prove inadequate in protecting broad swathes of people whose gender expression is at odds with societal conventions, as well as transgender employees whose interests have been cast aside in the name of political expediency. His claim that "many individuals whose support is required wince and cringe when they think about transgender rights because they think first of gender reassignment surgery because they falsely assume that all transgendered people wish to cut off genitalia," thus seems to reveal more about his own anxieties around gender transgression than it does of the reality of trans and other phobias.
Let's fight for an ENDA that protects everyone rather than supporting legislation that deems some lives more valuable than others.
Samantha King
San Francisco
Paul Hogarth:
Your implication here is that Barack Obama, with a wider fundraising base, is more independent of big money and entrenched power than John McCain. In other words, "less reliance" automatically equals more independence. Not quite.
Obama is certainly not held captive by the nation's most reactionary forces, like this year's McCain, but whether a President Obama governs as an independent, let alone a progressive, is quite separate in my mind. Whether he's even a progressive (a word he avoids) or the well-positioned, smart mediator for the impossible times we live in remains an open question.
Agreed, Obama was no establishment pawn when he jumped in feet first -- the nervy newcomer facing the most formidable Democratic power duo in party history. But why should money alone change his core pitch as a new agent, even as Washington outsider? That doesn't prove independence from big donors, just different ones, and I hear very little from him about needed structural reformation.
Don't get taken in by what Obama will actually do, based on various "cringe" moments, as when Obama seems less anti-war than anti-Iraqi war, talking unilateral bombing of Pakistani caves, voting for FISA, or hesitantly attacking Bush's Constitutional outrages. I hear no Obama red flags about the dominant complexes that are non-progressive, mammoth international corporations who run the world, certainly determine large-scale resources usage, human labor, and speed of global warming.
What Internet money allows is less about independence from power per se and more about his pitch as the Great Consensus Mediator. That is his new idea, that change and hope only follow hard negotiations between extremists who now rule Congress. Obama has never pushed big ideas, whether foreign policy (for example, not rethinking whether militarized U.S. expansionism undermines world stability), or energy (nice package, good compromises, disregarding the only immediate solution: major, painful, even forced conservation), or the economy (standard Democratic list, plus pandering about "excess profit taxes" on big oil, a guaranteed no go; reducing federal subsidies or pushing alternative energy are the best Washington can do).
In short, has Obama's new funding impeded his rush to the center, mimicking every Democratic nominee or minimized his reversals? Has internet cash made him a feistier candidate, or more complacent one, trusting his fierce anti-Bush constituency (like me) will not desert him? Has his money effectively deflected McCain's jeering, trivializing, deceptive low road? I for one find the Obama campaign too polite, reluctant to slam the McCain today as not McCain before 2008.
Obama was very bold to challenge Hillary yet when frontrunner plays it safe, maybe too safe. Obama has always been king of consensus, little changed by who funds him. That's a good thing. Obama will not sell out on his main promise because his big deal is procedural, not ideological. He wants more people involved in governing but don't expect him to betray big money and power brokers who in this system rule American business, media, politics, taxation, and empire.
Robert Becker
Mendocino CA
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