Recognizing Women
In Modern Political Thought class the other day we read Olympe de Gouges (1791), Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) and the Declaration of Sentiments (1848)--all criticizing the new modern liberal states for not recognizing women. De Gouges literally lost her head for criticizing the French Constitution of 1791.I asked my students who was the first woman to run for US President. I gave them hints after Hillary Clinton's name came up--such as her running mate was a black man; and the date was 1872. None knew Victoria Woodhull's name, there was some recognition of Frederick Douglas.I then asked: Would it have made a difference if youn

Corporations & Some Senators v Women
I wrote the following in response to a series of discussions about generalizations about people because someone wrote that 30% of Republican Senators voted against an amendment that would deny appropriations to corporations which denied their employees their day in court. There were many "Republicans are people,too" replies. Here is my response:In the United States we as reasonable beings persuade others by facts. And, what ALL of you are forgetting is that WOMEN are people, deserving of respect, dignity, the protection of law, taking article 78 action, and taking legal action against the corporation when raped, assaulted or discriminated against when the corporatio

Hope & the Nobel Peace Prize
Obama became the 3rd sitting US president to earn a Nobel Peace Prize---and at the time of nomination had only been a sitting for 2 weeks. It was his message of hope and peace, of nuclear disarmament and diplomacy, of cooperation rather than aggression that won the prize. As Archbishop Tutu says " It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama's message of hope."May this honor encourage him forward.

Citizen Corporation
Montesquieu defined Political Virtue as the love of law and of one's country. And, that political virtue was arduous and hard to come by because to achieve it one had to move passed self interest to acting in the best public interest of all.In the first case that the Supreme Court heard this year, in fact they came back early to hear it was a case concerning a corporation which is claiming that since corporations have the right of free speech, and that the FEC is trying to abridge this right (Citizens United v FEC). This standing of citizen is courtesy of a pre-oral argument made by the Chief Justice Waite in 1886 that the court was

51% need health care reform NOW!
And that is because 51% of the people living in the United States are women who are regularly denied by the current health care insurance for being victims of domestic abuse (can we say re-victimized?) or for having delivered a baby via C-section; who are charged more for maternity coverage; and women pay higher premiums than males (on top of average women earning substantially less than men).This information is from a report by the National Women's Law Center. http://nwlc.org/reformmatters/NWLCReport-NowhereToTurn-WEB.pdfWe need a health care reform now! At