To the Next Generation

I had an interesting discussion with a woman close to my age today. She wrote to me after I posted a comment on a facebook discussion about needing to step up the fight against the Republican Party's War On Women. I said that while I would continue to actively play a role in the battle, it was no longer my generation's fight, and that it was up to each generation to choose their battles.

At the risk of sounding like one of those tedious old folks blathering on about young whippersnappers who just don't understand the sacrifices we made for them, I still feel it's important to do a bit of generational back slapping for what we did accomplish and explain how all of that is at risk now.

As archaic as it may sound, I grew up in a time when birth control was limited and not very affective. For women who don't even think twice about filling their prescriptions for the varieties of protection available out there, here's something to think about.

When the pill first came out, women couldn't just go and get a pack or two for themselves. They had to be married and in far too many cases, had to have their husband's permission to get a prescription. No, this wasn't the dark ages. This was the late 60's, early 70's. We wrote notes for each other pretending to be each other's husbands saying yes, we give our permission for our property to get something to put in their bodies.

Can any of you imagine doing that today? But we did and we also began to object, to protest, to demand the right to get our own prescriptions, to take charge of our own bodies. It wasn't easy and yes, some of us lost our jobs over it, were considered no better than prostitutes if discovered that we had a prescription without being married. And today, any woman has the right to get any kind of birth control she wants. It's so easy, most women just take it for granted and ignore there's politicians in office right now who consider birth control as a form of abortion.

And speaking of that topic that is guaranteed to stir up heat in any discussion, try this one on. Women of my generation and before either gave themselves abortions that often killed them or left them torn up so bad many of them never had to deal with an unwanted pregnancy again. Or they went to some backroom butcher that did the same thing, only he/she charged them lots of money to do so.

Or they did as my mother did and went to Mexico to some dirty little clinic just over the border that was a short bus ride there and what can only be described as an horrendous bus ride back. I was about nine or ten when a cab pulled up to the house (an unheard of luxury as they were expensive and rare) and the driver half carried my mother to the porch and left her there bleeding. She wouldn't let us call an ambulance because she'd probably end up in jail for having an illegal abortion. I became pro-choice that day and along with other women of my generation, fought hard for the right for women to have safe and legal abortions.

And now we live in a time when women can find a safe abortion, even though they may have to travel to another state. They really don't think about how they may not be able to get one, or that they can't afford it, or that it could kill them or leave them seriously infected or butchered.  Thanks to my generation they know they will not have their insides ripped up, infected, destroyed, and then left bleeding on a doorstep.

But we also live in a time when immoral bastards on Fox News and hate radio promote the active killing of Abortion doctors. If this doesn't get women's attention and compel them to action, then maybe it's time they woke up because those same crazy politicians that consider birth control as a form of abortion, want to classify  abortion as murder. So the next time you pop that pill in your mouth, remember that some vicious little tyrant is plotting on how to charge you with murder.

And even though racism and discrimination against women, gays, and minorities exists, it was our generation who took to the streets and demanded change, who protested and got ourselves arrested, and walked arm and arm with each other until equality for all people is the norm instead of the exception.

But we aren't there yet. There are still far too many people who use all kinds of blatantly transparent bullshit to cover up their racist hatred of Obama. There are still parts of this country where Gays and Lesbians get beat up and murdered just for being born homosexuals. There are still places in this country where women are second and third class citizens and who are routinely beat up, raped, and killed.

And far too many people look to their friends of color, their Gay and Lesbian friends, the women who hold public office and positions of authority and think not much has to be done anymore. This is where my new email friend said she felt like we did almost too good a job in changing the mindset of our culture away from racism and bigotry and toward tolerance. Because it's no longer so blatant, it no longer seems like such an important thing to fight.

But even as I write this there are people in power who are working to find ways to take away the equal rights we fought so hard to make ordinary. There are people fighting to roll back all the work we marched in the streets for, made phone calls to politicians for, wrote books for, composed music for, made art for so that equality and tolerance and acceptance of each other as human beings would seem ordinary.

Which brings me to my biggest complaint, my biggest whine as a 60 year old aging activist: how dare you not vote! I get really angry when people tell me there is no difference between the two parties, that they don't even bother voting anymore. To these people I say they need to go read up on the women who took to the streets, who got beat up, who got shunned and had their families destroyed so you unappreciative little shits could say voting was meaningless. And oh yeah, it wasn't exactly ancient history. Women in America got the right to vote in 1920. It's a good chance your grandmothers had baseball bats taken to their heads so you could stay home on election day.

And finally on that there's no difference between the parties crap...it's not the Democrats who are trying to take away the rights my generation fought so hard to make sure you could take for granted. Educate yourself and find out who the real dangerous party is right now in America and get off your ass and vote them out or everything my generation worked so hard for will disappear.

But as I told my friend, maybe that's the way the cycles move. Maybe you don't want those rights. Maybe they mean less to you than other things. Maybe the concern with the state of our planet is so dire that you can't afford to take time to fight any other battles. I have to admit I partly agree with you on this. It is a battle that must be fought.

You also have to continue the work we put into peace because it sure didn't work out too well. We still have stupid wars, stupid bought and paid for by defense contractors politicians, and too many ways the wealthy get even richer from war.

So yes, I can see there's a lot to choose from but I'd sure hate for all the work the women of my generation put in to go to waste. It's much more valuable than that and hopefully you will realize that and fight to keep it for the next generation to take for granted.

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To the Next Generation

Note to Bigots, Racists, Homophobes, and other Losers

I was blessed or cursed, depending on your perspective, with an abundance of the optimism gene. It's allowed me to get through a life that might have killed those weaker or less stubborn. I've always been able to see the positive side of a situation along with the negative. I've always believed that evil can be overcome by good, that hate takes effort and love does not, that humans for all of our flaws, are basically good creatures.

I still believe that, but in the last few months with the advent of the teabagging crazies and  their "creative" spelling known as TEABONICS or Texas Schoolbook Learning,  infecting the country with such manipulated bigotry and hatred, I have finally accepted that in order to be a decent human being some basic requirements must be met.

First, you must understand the planet is home to many people and they're not all going to look like you, worship the same imaginary friends, embrace your narrow ideology, or have the same definition of truth. If you think it's all about you, then you need to seriously grow up and open your eyes and especially your heart.

Which leads me to the requirement of compassion. If you don't have it, then you really don't have any claims to the title of human being. You're something else, something small and mean, something incomplete and lacking an essential component that says I am more than a list of skin, bone, chemicals, fat, and ego.

If you can look at another human being and consider him or her less than you because he or she does not worship where you do, does not have the same skin color as you do, does not stay within the same gender lines as you, does not speak with the same stress or lack of it on the same syllables of the same words, does not come from the same piece of dirt that held your mother's body as you fell out on it, then your claim to the label of human being is seriously in doubt.

I've said many times that love is easy, it's hate that requires you get up every day and say today I am going to hate, today I'm going to be an intolerant asshat shoving my worldview down everyone's throats. And all day long you have to feed that hate. You have to make up stupid shit about people and then get others to believe it and help you spread it, much as most of the world spreads manure on their crops.

But the crops of those who hate, those who are intolerant, are the mean and hungry gardens of bigotry and intolerance. And the most fallow of those grounds belong to the racist, that fraud of a human being who thinks that people are things to categorize like so many dead insects on a cardboard backing. The only reason to separate human beings into little herds is so they can be separated from the rest of humanity and be at the mercy of bigoted jerks who take out their hatred of life on them.

For many months now, and for a good deal of my life, I've dealt with bigots and racists differently, depending on who they were. I was much more willing to ignore the stereotypical joking of some elderly old fellow who barely remembered his name ,much less understood that his world  changed so much that the mildly racist joke that cracked everyone up in his youth, now made his listeners uncomfortable.

I never laughed, but I wasn't strong enough to walk away, especially if he was a relative or the relative of a friend. I called that being tolerant, being accepting of someone who meant no harm, but was merely old and oblivious to the changing mores of the planet.

I don't know if I was wrong to not say anything, to just listen uncomfortably. Was I respecting the elderly or was I helping grow what became the overtly racist and intolerant Teahadists with my silence? If I was wrong, I can console myself with knowing I never had a bit of a problem openly calling out a racist who was motivated by pure hatred and nothing else.

There were several times in my life where I put myself in really stupid situations for the sake of my ethical soul. I don't regret them even though I'm appalled at how oblivious I was to the danger. Idealism is like that. It blinds you to the dangers so you can move forward and make the world a better place. Not everyone survives that leap. I was lucky and lived to raise hell another day.

And because I did, I continue to speak out to the obvious racists. I won't let up on the Teahadists because they are as ugly as the KKK is ugly, as ugly as jackbooted thugs are ugly, as ugly as the Inquisition burning Pagans and other non-Christians in the name of their viscious and bloodthirsty god is ugly. Hate is ugly. Bigotry is ugly. Intolerance is ugly. Selfishness is ugly.

As human beings, we have only one enemy and it the ugliness that ferments in other human beings. I thought it could be defeated by love and yes, in those that still have a heart, those that are not sociopathic thugs, those that can see beyond the smallness of their world view, it can be defeated and made whole by love.

But I also understand there are those who are lost to humanity. They are mean little creatures who both direct the haters and thrive on the hatred they create. They do not know what it means to love authentically. It is all about usage rights with them, things that do not require compassion or understanding.

And yes, many who hate are poorly educated and ignorant. Racists are people who have only had their own race as friends. They are ignorant of other people, cultures, literature, music, ideas, and beliefs. It is a willful ignorance because it is the most easily cured if they wanted to cure themselves.

But they don't because more than anything, bigots and racists are lazy. They don't want to make the effort to understand because it requires doing more than moving sluggishly through a life where everyone but them is calling the shots. People who think for themselves are not easily led.

Freethinkers would never let a hateful, pill-infested moron named Rush Limbaugh tell them what to think, what to believe, and whom to hate. That's for the masses, the ignorant and willfully uneducated "morans" who are too lazy to think for themselves. They are the fodder, the rabble, the used and abused by everyone who has more power and influence. They are nothing and know it, which is why they hate.

And they allow the Becks of the world to yank their very short leashes and command them to take to the streets in support of the very corporations who keep them at the bottom of the shit pile of life. This is beyond stupid. This is lazy, willful ignorance. And it is damaging to the planet, to human beings and all living creatures.

These are the people I will no longer politely turn away from. I will fight them with everything I have. I will expose them for the miserable pieces of human shit they really are. I will write about how easily and stupidly they allow themselves to be manipulated because they are too lazy to take charge of their own lives. I will be mean. I will be nasty. I will beat them over the head with facts. I will humiliate them with truth. I will overpower them with the forces of good that drive me and command me to defeat their forces of evil.

And I will win because love is stronger than hate, peace is more powerful than war, and truth always always wins, even if it takes a while. Do you hear me, losers? Truth ALWAYS wins. And when it does, this is what history will show as your legacy:

As for the rest of us, we'll be working to make a better world, one where all living creatures have an equal right to exist, to share in the bounty of life, love, and yes...happiness. Without mean, hateful people to infect the earth with their vitriol, maybe that happiness thing will be a lot more in reach. Especially if people like me and others keep lifting the rock on hate because we all know it can't survive once exposed to the light. It needs the dank, ugly darkness to survive and decent people are all carrying lights these days to expose you.

Note to Bigots, Racists, Homophobes, and other Losers

Religion: The Making Of Mean People

Way back in the dark ages of the 60's, groups of young and glassy-eyed gigglers would pounce on you in airports and college campuses to proclaim their love for Jesus. These "Jesus Freaks" as they called themselves, were annoying but harmless as they really believed they were spreading a special message from their spiritual leader to love one another.

They were joined by their equally glassy-eyed but chanting and flower offering kin, the Hare Krishnas. No airport was safe from their good-hearted but increasingly annoying invitation to chant your way to blissful idiotic happiness.

But somewhere in the last couple decades, the message of love in both these cults got lost to the mean-spirited, hateful and politicized rhetoric that Christianity has become. The Hare Krishna's fell into abuse and depravity from all that love and chanting, and the Jesus Freaks went from preaching love to bombing abortion clinics, murdering doctors, hating gays, and loving executions and war.

Political thugs and media whores have taken advantage of an increasingly dumb and religion-befuddled population by turning them into mobs programmed to hate on command. They learned what the other religion-based regimes learned: give the population a religion they can use to justify their hate and you control their balls for life.

Of course, the logical question is what use could a group of ignorant hating morons be to anyone, other than flying planes into buildings? And the obvious and sad reason is they can be used and used, and then used some more by those who see them as convenient political tools to advance their personal enrichment agenda.

To how many fundie whackos did Karl Rove promise he would get abortion outlawed if they only voted for Bush? Or how many pockets did he and his fellow Goposaur thugs pick with the promise that the donations would banish all gays forever from the face of the planet? Or that those scary brown and dark-skinned people would never be allowed to live next door to them? Or that immigrants were all bad and would never be allowed to walk on the sacred ground of America to take their toilet-cleaning jobs from them again? All they had to do was vote for Bush and god would be happy and not strike them dead.

Rove and the other paid whores of the super-rich played these poor fools like the morons they were. It was a small step from filling them with Jesus wants you to donate to these candidates this week, to getting them to die in the new wars of the new Christian crusade grounds in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it was sadly an even smaller step to use religion as a wedge to divide the country against itself so the thievery could go on undetected as Americans fought Americans over ideas.

Centuries from now, if our poor planet still exists, the History of this time will seem incredulous to ordinary human beings. They will ask themselves, as we ask ourselves now when we read our own history of the last few decades, how could people just sit around and watch whole groups of people be murdered and villified in the name of religion? They will wonder why no one stood up and said this is wrong, this is evil, this is not what Jesus meant when he said to love one another, to live in Peace.

And the answer will be found in the following, the voices who will become through the historical passage of time, our own voices. Is this whose voices you want to speak for you many years from now? Is this what will cause future generations to say of us: they were wiped out by their religious intolerance for any cult but their own.

Pat Robertson on the Haiti Earthquake, an event that will definitely make the history books. Watch

South Carolina Lt.-Gov. Andre Bauer on how our generation dealt with the poor and the hungry, a subject that will be part of history because the sheer numbers of those going without food in one of the wealthiest countries of the world is definitely material for future generations to study. Watch

Is this the voice of Christian love you want representing you many years from now because the issue of overpopulation and therefore abortion, will definitely be a subject in future history books. Read

And how will you feel when they talk about the military, those who fought in our wars? No, not THOSE veterans. Those are too ordinary and history is already suffering from a glut of them. This is the army that will make the history books and shame you in your grave. Read

And of course, no history will be complete without the intolerance that was honed and used like a sword for dimwitted morons to stab themselves with by that religious Tool-in-Chief, George W. Bush. Read

But the complete package, the most astonishing bit of history that will appall and confound future historians will be the livid hatred that only decades of festering racism can unleash on the first African-American President--especially that directed by so-called men of god. Read

What they will see from the perspective of objective Historians with decades of previous thought to ponder, is a culture of hatred fostered by people who used religion as a ways and means to achieve intolerance, political power, and personal wealth. And unless we throw off these masters who control this country through the most ignorant layers of humanity, the last chapter in the historical records will end with us destroying each other over whose god reigned supreme.

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Religion: The Making Of Mean People

That Prop 8 vote...

I don't understand most hate. I'm just not the kind of person who wastes what I feel on such a non-productive emotion. I'm always slightly embarrassed for the person who goes off on some tirade that turns them red and livid and bordering on the edge of stroking out from it all. It seems so futile, so low on the list of ways to accomplish something or change an event or manifest what it is that eludes you so completely you must hate all those who keep it from you, justified or not.

I admit to a feeling of bewilderment, of not understanding what it is that people who object to same-sex marriage are objecting to. It seems simple to me. Two people discover they love each other and want to have a party where everyone comes and joins in the celebration of their love. It happens every day all over the world. Why does their being gay make a difference?

And yes, I've heard all the religion arguments and it's probably because of such self-serving interpretation of words written many years after the fact by those with their own agendas to push, that I am an Atheist. Religion has always fed on hate to perpetuate itself, especially in times when it felt threatened. And the last eight years of religious manipulation for political gain has probably created more Atheists than believers so the beast is threatened. And it strikes back to perpetuate itself.

But this time it has stepped on its own tail. Not only has the validity of the initiative process been validated, but so has the legality of voting in a specific agenda based on the small-minded and cruel beliefs of religious cults. This has opened a very wide door that will be shoved open with great force, exploited and trashed for points and counterpoints, and will eventually force a definition of who gets to decide how someone else lives--and why they should have that right over someone other group or individual.

Therefore to help speed up that process so we don't have to endure anymore religious crap wrapped around bundles of bigotry and hate and obscenely paraded as the word of god, I propose the following initiatives for the people of California to consider gathering signatures for and getting on the ballot and then turning out in huge numbers to vote for them:

1.  Make all marriages performed in churches illegal. If churches can decide which civil marriages are valid or invalid, then the people should have the same right to decide if church weddings are legal or illegal.

2.  Make divorce illegal. Force those who bleat about the sanctity of marriage to stay married to each other. No escape. For eternity. That means you, Mel Gibson and Newt and Rudy all the other hypocrites. No new bimbos. Marriage is, after all, sacred and we say so, therefore you must obey whether you agree or not. You must now go back to your original wives...forever. And ladies, you have to take them back because chances are you don't differ that much from them politically so you deserve them.

3. Any church that preaches politics, hatred, and intolerance immediately loses its tax-exempt status and must register as a PAC.

4. Before anyone can get married, a percentage of people based on the number that voted in the last election, get to vote on whether they can get married or not.

5. Make it mandatory that anyone who brings up the Bible as an excuse to justify their bigotry has to sit down and actually read it for themselves, every damn word, every damn page. No unholy intermediaries putting their political spin and manipulation on it.  And if they can't read? Well, then they'll just have to put off using the Bible as an excuse until they learn how.

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That Prop 8 vote...

An Open Letter To President Obama

Dear Mr. President:

I followed the story of your grandmother with heartfelt interest because mine was also a huge influence on me. She was the one constant in a dysfunctional family with a father who was absent most of the time and a mother who worked all of the time. As the oldest child it often fell to me to take care of my younger brother and sister and the household too, especially since my grandmother was already a senior citizen when she came to live with us.

My grandmother immigrated to America a couple years after we did. It took that long to save the money to sponsor her, and during that time she struggled to survive until we could send for her. As I was growing up, she was my support, my encouragement, my source of hope. And she had endless stories of what it was like to live through two world wars, how she managed to stay on the safe side of political struggles that redefined the boundaries of her home every few years, and all the ways she escaped the horrors of the Nazis and the Fascists.

But there was one story I did not learn until after her death, and it was about one of her sisters who remained behind. In retrospect, she probably suspected her sister was a Lesbian, but in the period of time that extended from the turn of the century through the 1960's, it was not a topic one discussed lightly in any of her homes: the former Yugoslavia, Italy, or the United States. But it is a story that haunts me because it is one that is far too common even today.

My grandmother's sister lived with her partner for most of her adult life. I can only imagine what it was like to live openly with her "roommate" all those years. I'm sure they had friends. I'm sure her partner had family. But we never knew any of them. We never knew if she was safe, if she was fed, if she was afraid. She disappeared into a world where secrets are kept for life. She disappeared into a world where it was impossible to immigrate as her sister had done, as just about everyone who was related to her had done. She was left alone with only the woman she loved, a woman we could never bring here because she was not related to us by blood. In the eyes of the law, she was not family, no matter how many years she lived with my grandmother's sister as her life partner. The law would let us bring her but not the woman she loved. The law would make her abandon her partner. She chose the path of her heart and stayed behind.

I think of what my life could have been like with more than one granny, more than one adult who could nurture me, who could help me grow, or who could just help me in the many small ways that left me exhausted when I should have been playing with all the other kids. And I think of how lonely my grandmother's sister was when her partner died, how alone she must have felt. I can't even think of this without breaking into tears. I can't even begin to comprehend the unfairness of it in any way that would sense.

Mr. President, I tell you this story because this story is still being played out all over the world. I have American friends who are gay, who fell in love with citizens of other countries. In so many cases these other countries have afforded them citizenship rights and recognized the legality of their marriages. I have friends who have lived in other countries with their partners for many years and now they want to come home to the America that has new promise, new hope because of your Presidency.

But in order to do so they still have to make the choice my grandmother's sister had to make. I want to believe we are a better people than that time. I want to believe that we no longer split up families, people who love each other because of bad laws. But all the evidence says we still do and will continue to do so.

That's why I'm asking for your help in passing the UNITING AMERICAN FAMILIES ACT. It's time to bring home your citizens who want to help make America realize it's true potential as a beacon of hope and promise to the rest of the world. They want to be part of what we're creating together. But please, Mr. President, don't make them choose between love of country and love of their partners. Please help pass this vital piece of legislation for all Americans, no matter what their sexual orientation.

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An Open Letter To President Obama

Strong Women and the continual battle to stay strong

I know so many strong women, so many capable and intelligent women, so many women who have advantages some of our own mothers only dreamed about. I think of my teen years when I followed the path of the women in my own family and worked to bring equality to my gender. I remember the jobs where I did the work and the male manager got the credit. I remember the difference in pay between me and the man hired months later for a higher salary than I received for the same job. I remember having to lie and say I was engaged in order to get my first prescription of birth control pills in the 60's that were only for "married women." I remember my neighbor telling me in the 70's that I was going to the polls because she had fought for women's right to vote as a young woman in America.

I also remember fierce arguments about whether women belonged in the military or in politics because of their hormonal instability as newspaper headlines screamed about men who snapped and shot up schools, shopping malls, post offices, and work places. I also remember the Mormon Church in Las Vegas loading up the big yellow school buses with stay at home moms, driving them to the polls and directing them to vote against the equal rights for women amendment so it wouldn't be ratified. (It never was) I also remember wondering if they dragged out those same school buses in California to vote against the right for Homosexual-Americans to marry.

I remember the Reagan years and the power suits that women wore so they would look more serious, more like men, less feminine so they would be taken seriously. I remember men wearing pink shirts and no one accused them of looking less masculine because they had all the power and that was masculine enough.

In the next few years, I watched the religious shackles start to appear again and grab for the ankles of women as more and more restrictions were imposed on a woman's right to choose. I watched in horror as pharmacies denied women the means to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, and then made her drive hours and hours out of town because abortion clinics were suddenly few and far between. I watched these same religious groups lose interest and financial support for the fetus once it was a real live human being.

I watched young women start to have babies they couldn't afford nor were able to care for because they were still in high school with no job or parenting skills. I watched the churches interfere more and more with freedoms that women of my own generation fought for: the right to choose, the right for safe access to birth control, the right to learn about our own bodies, the right to run companies, the military, and our own government.

And now I am watching us go backwards. I am watching 16 year old celebutards given rock star treatment for having babies so that insecure and unhappy teens can eat it all up and start popping out more responsibilities they can't afford to feed nor care for adequately.

I am watching women who are strong, opinionated, educated, intelligent and smart run for office and get called castrating bitches and other put downs drawn from the most ignorant of 1950's insult banks. I am watching the news media judge women by different standards than they do men. I am watching them do wall to wall coverage of bad women, naughty women, evil women who kill their children by drowning, shooting, strangulation, starvation. And I am watching them do wall to wall coverage on men who kill their wives by shooting, strangulation, drowning, starvation.

I am hearing young girls say I can't more often than I'm hearing them say I can. I am hearing them ignore the strong women they see on television and focus on the Palins and Spears instead. I am seeing them dress up as mini hookers because brains aren't as sexy. I am watching them vote for Palin and not care that she is dumber than a rock because it takes the pressure off them to be smart. I am watching us go backward in time.

I would hate to see my long ago neighbor's work to get us the vote go to waste, I'd hate to see all the work my friends and I did to get some semblance of equality in the workplace, some fairness in hiring practices, some equal standards for handing out both academic and athletic scholarships get sent back to the 1950's. I would really hate to see women lose the right to choose what they want to happen to their own bodies. I would hate so much to see women die in wars that they can now participate in but have no say in determining whether they are fought or not. I want a woman president who doesn't have to wear a power suit to win respect. I want a world where young girls have heros who do something instead of having something done to or for them.

So I opened a store just for women and young girls to spread the message once again that we are equally smart, capable, strong, and able. I am sorry that once again the message is needed. I had hoped after all these years, all these battles, that I could just sit back and watch the seeds of equality, tolerance, respect, and peace take hold. But like all gardens, it needs constant tending or it will die. Here are some of my seeds to keep it alive.

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Strong Women and the continual battle to stay strong

The Stewart-Huckabee Smackdown Video

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When you get done watching this lovely smackdown of a bigoted moron, do send him a thank you for having the courage to speak up. The link to thank him is here

The Stewart-Huckabee Smackdown Video