Women's lives will not fall to the bottom of the heap amidst all the other outrage!!!


There's somethin' happenin' here.......

From today--cheering all those who are going in to be arrested:

Wish I could be there.

--I can't believe that over 800 have now been arrested! Courageous and inspiring.

Notes from the speech:

NAACP campaign to pass anti-racial profiling laws and repeal Stand Your Ground--We MUST end gun violence. My oldest boy heard Fox commentator say--"Trayvon is not a hero, his life ended because he decided to confront a man..." My legislature has gone gun crazy--concealed weapons on campuses and bars, parades, no records kept.

When a Trayvon dies, we all die a little.

I came back to honor the sisters. We love you, we are with you. When they mess with you they mess with us.

I needed to be here to be with you, people who still believe in the possibility of us being one people. I needed to be here for my own personal renewal.

Everyone is applauding you from all 50 states and many are talking about doing Moral Monday in their own states.

This is our ground, this is freedom ground--Tell Mr. Berger, Tillis & McCrory--anyone who would force and ram through immoral and extreme legislation--you might be able to pass it now but you can't break our spirit.

A starving child is violence. Suppressing people is violence. Neglecting schoolchildren is violence. Discrimination is Violence. Ignoring healthcare is violence.

We all need a movement that can somehow keep our eyes open in the midst of the ugly realities of meanness and injustice.

We need a movement that doesn't ask what is Republican, what is Democratic, but what is RIGHT.

We need a movement that troubles the conscience of the nation. We will stand our ground.

We need a movement. We will stand our ground. God bless us with enough foolishness to believe we can make a difference.

We need a movement that stands against violence without being violent. A movement that stands against meanness, hate, injustice, destruction, uncaring, evil--without being that ourselves.

Thank you for being the modern day Esthers. We Shall Not be Moved.

Chanting: "We must Stand Our Ground"

Good job, NC GOP!



Thanks for posting. And don't forget, today is "Thankful Tuesday"!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10692958

MORANS.

??? Guess they couldn't make that work. Too foreign a concept.

And they are supposedly having a reception in the rotunda and so how did they wrangle that? They have a reception where others get arrested. "Let them eat cake" comes to mind.

LOL--yeah, angry white man. Very angry. I wouldn't mess with him. for diversity

they're a little (A LOT) confused. Truthful? Thankful? Close enuff.

I hope they have their little reception, and that local media is ALL over it. The good people in this state outnumber the crazies, and it won't sit well with them. Pat's approval rating has dropped 15 (?) points; this sort of stunt will only add to overall disapproval ratings.

Seriously, what group haven't they pissed off? Young, old, black, white, men, women, workers, gays, Muslims... Go NC GOP, go!

Here's a little cake for their "reception" (that's McCrory looking a little uncomfortable on top):

"Awk! The *Democrat* Party sucks! Awk!"

I guess they are thankful--they think Santa has arrived and they'll get everything on their list. This story is from today:

http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/07/15/3031913/gop-supporters-to-gather-at-legislature.html

Speakers will focus on two key issues, tax reform and Voter ID laws, Rusher said.

“We actually have overwhelming support for Voter ID, and we’re happy to be moving on that one as well,” he said. After a state Voter ID bill sat in a Senate committee for two months, a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the 1965 Voting Rights Act has brought it back into play. The bill will come up in the Senate Rules Committee this week, said Chairman Tom Apodaca, a Hendersonville Republican.

Francis De Luca, president of the Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank, said he doesn’t support holding an event like Thankful Tuesday. The left-wing groups that gather on Mondays have more heft than Thankful Tuesday organizers. If the GOP did manage to draw a big crowd, it’d be quite a success, he said.

“It’s a lot harder to get people to come out and support things that people are doing than it is to get them to rally against something,” De Luca said.

Republican leaders want to reward legislators for sticking to their principles during a tumultuous session, said Donna Williams, the Wake County GOP chairwoman. The event has evolved over time – its name changed from “Truthful Tuesday” to “Thankful Tuesday.”

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/07/15/3031913/gop-supporters-to-gather-at-legislature.html#storylink=cpy

Last edited Tue Jul 16, 2013, 10:38 AM - Edit history (1)

I'm in WNC and it's so damn frustrating not being able to get to the Moral Monday protests! I'm in a power wheelchair and don't have transportation to get me there so I'm stuck. Arrrggggghhhhhhh!! (I know my docs would frown on me going to the protests anyway because the groups from here are gone for a good 10 to 12 hours from what I've seen.) Oh well, I guess I just have to cheer loudly from my seated position.





(ETA: I just read over my post -- how bloody narcissistic can I be! I neglected to add this: I'M PROUD OF MY FELLOW NORTH CAROLINIANS!! Love the pox of the oldsters in particular -- they're my age group and I'm so damn proud of them getting out there to protest knowing there was a good likelihood they'd be arrested. You all rock!!! )

--to be in Raleigh in spirit is JUST as important as being there in person! You speak for many around the state, I am sure. It's important to have visibility online as well, and the organizers and participants are doing such a great job of documenting this. And even the national media has covered it to some extent, and deserve credit for that.

You wrote "pox of the oldsters" instead of pix, but y'know I think it's better as pox--so may a POX of righteously angry oldsters descend on these pirates, these marauding abusers of power! Thank you for caring and being there.

You'll be interested to know that the day I went to Moral Monday, I was walking along the street with some friends near the protest site and a quite ancient old lady came driving along in her car. She pulled up to the curb and waved us over and said, her voice feisty and strong--"If I had two good knees I'd be right out there with y'all!" She had the spirit if not the knees. That's what counts.

thanks for the love NC on watch

and for the over my typo (which I wouldn't edit out now for anything!)....yep, a pox on all of them. What they're doing to this state is unbelievable! I just keep hoping that the morons who voted for these assholes are getting hit even harder than those of us who are getting hit. And, if we're not among the wealthiest 5% in the state, we're getting hit.

I had Inclusive Health health insurance. I've been excluded from Medicare due to a preposterous loophole and had health insurance for the first time in 10 years. And the Republicans in Raleigh took it away. May a pox be on them.....when I was finished sobbing when I found out about my insurance, I have to admit I wished a pox on each and every legislator & McCrory for doing this to me!

I hope you have written some letters to your reps documenting this. And also anyone else you can think of who might care. What the McCrory cabal are doing needs documentation. So that WHEN, not if, we reverse this mess, there will be written evidence of the human cost of their insanity. And people in future in NC will NEVER let this happen again.

It is they who have the illness.

for you tpsbmam. Hang in.

The Push Back is that "Thank You Tuesdays" will begin with the RW'ers/Fundies out there to support the Repugs and McCrory.

Art Pope will be working hard to put out the bucks to hire a good crowd for the counter demonstrations. Koch Brothers will provide the Porta Potties and the Free Eats.

I wonder how many they can pay off to show their faces....I'll bet it will be the size of the crowd that used to come to stand against the Peace Demonstrations against Iraq Invasion and then the Occupation. If Pope/Koch can spring for more then they might get something sizeable for the first Tuesday then after that it probably will be 50 or so standing in front of the Porta Potty which was the usual crowd...if anyone remembers the pictures from that time that were posted on DU.

The 4 stages of civil activism:

"First they ignore you," (at the beginning when they pretend you do not matter, you are invisible, you are powerless)

"Then they laugh at you (begin to see your message is taking fire so they try to demean and make it less potent than they well know it is)

"Then they hurt you," (After they realize that the movement is building they try to tamp it down with arrests, beatings, use of power to try to silence, even murder)

"Then you win ..." (self explanatory)

Gandhi's movement worked. The goal was to end British rule and this indeed did happen. But it was not easy nor was it all colorful signs and silly hats. Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Tutu did note that this method only works with moral nations, it does not work with those in S Africa or Nazi Germany because immoral nations have no shame when they mow down innocents. It may be also true for a small part of our nation ~ but never forget there are people in other parts of your country who ARE moral and DO believe in true justice and WE will also be a "still small voice" to those immoral legislators! If these people have no conscience, it only proves THEY are immoral!

The hardest stage for the bravest to endure is the 3rd stage. It is the stage that most fall away because they lose heart, they do not believe that the 4th stage is coming. And it is true that sometimes this stage seems to go on forever. However, it is the most important stage that needs the strongest to keep standing because the more that endure that 3rd stage and still remain standing, the quicker the goal will be reached.

It is so helpful to always remember those stages when you are beginning to feel the heat and the hatred directed towards you. Tell others about it so they can keep their endurance too, put it in your breast pocket, write it on the wall, put it on a sign chant it, make a song about it!

PeeEss: Gandhi said he got his inspiration for the nonviolent movement from Jesus words out of the The Sermon on The Mount. As a devout Hindu, he said he might have become a Christian but the churches he saw were not living up to those words themselves. So he decided perhaps it was time he took the reins and put those word in action and when he did, many found that not only were they beautiful, idealistic words, they were actually a practical recipe that could be used to make change ...

In Solidarity and Love,

Cat in Seattle
Board member of P.O.W.E.R. http://www.mamapower.org

solidarity

:large

Hubby told me he responded to a request for a doctor when one of the attendees
collapsed due to the heat.

glad to hear that mnhtnbbhub was there...and you in spirit.

This needs to happen in Wisconsin.

@SpudLovr Abortion bill hurting NC Republicans - PPP poll http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/07/abortion-bill-hurting-nc-republicans.html … … #wiunion #wipolitics @GovWalker

July 16, 2013
Abortion bill hurting NC Republicans

North Carolinians are very angry about the abortion bill that's been working its way through the General Assembly...and now their anger toward state government is really being directed toward Governor Pat McCrory.

For the first time since taking office we find that McCrory has a negative approval rating this month. Only 40% of voters are happy with the job he's doing to 49% who disapprove. That's down a net 15 points from June when he was at a 45/39 spread. While McCrory's numbers are pretty steady with Republicans, he continues to lose ground with Democrats (down a net 17 points from -36 at 24/60 last month to now -53 at 17/70) and independents (down a net 20 points from +12 at 46/34 last month to -8 at 41/49 now). Only 68% of people who voted for McCrory last fall continue to approve of his job performance.

July of the first year in office seems to be a tough time for North Carolina Governors- McCrory's predecessor Bev Perdue posted the worst numbers of her entire administration at this time four years ago with 25% of voters approving and 55% disapproving of her.....

that most of the anger toward McCrory is about the cutting of medicaid and unemployment benefits than anything else.

Next week it's Voting Rights. Other topics that the Repugs have done to bring NC back to the 19th Century are being addressed on "Moral Mondays."

Even our Business Community is angered. Chamber of Commerce is losing members in Charlotte our state business capitol.

Wolf Blitzer video clip at this link:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/16/politics/north-carolina-protests/index.html

Raleigh, North Carolina (CNN) -- Washington no longer has a monopoly on bitter partisanship. Much of the nation's political rancor has spread to statehouses across the country. And the weekly demonstrations outside the North Carolina legislature, dubbed "Moral Mondays," are only the latest example.

As they have for three months, liberal activists rallied once again on Monday outside the GOP-dominated statehouse to protest what they see as an aggressive and fast-moving conservative agenda.

"First the Great Recession. Now the Great Regression," read one protest sign.

"It's about exposing what's immoral and extreme," the Rev. William Barber II, a key Moral Monday leader, said.

Republican leaders in the state just walk past the demonstrators and their posters. Ever since they won control of the legislature and the governor's office for the first time in more than a century, they have repeatedly flexed their newfound muscle.

Legislators' secret abortion bill fuels #vaginamotorcycles

Just this year, Gov. Pat McCrory and GOP legislators have cut unemployment benefits, rejected the expansion of Medicaid under the new national health care law, and moved to change voting laws, to the chagrin of Democrats.

On the same day of the latest Moral Monday protest, McCrory announced a deal to reduce state personal income and corporate taxes. Another check, Democrats complain, on the tea party checklist. (more at link)

--------------
Comment on the article:
Good luck to the protesters. I am a Republican, but I am aware that our cause cannot long last with very poor leaders constantly in the headlines. The Republicans have already alienated every group imaginable. To attack the unemployed is the lowest of the low. They are rightfully seen as kicking the most defenseless among us into the ditch, picking the pocket of those who have almost nothing left in order to add a few more perks to their own lives..

Disgraceful North Carolina. Hope you enjoy your new found luxury. It is likely at the expense of many children, many poor families.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/16/1223977/-N-C-Moral-Monday-11-101-unique-arrests-things-heat-up#


-----
Amid sweltering July temperatures in Raleigh, thousands attended the 11th wave of Moral Monday protests at the N.C. General Assembly. Early estimates from local law-enforcement and detention personnel indicate that 101 people were arrested for civil-disobedience actions of singing and praying in the hallways outside the N.C. Senate chamber door.

This brings the cumulative total of Moral Monday arrests to 857. (These are unique arrests; no Moral Monday civil-disobedience arrestees have been taken into custody more than once.)

(snip)
In the wake of the Motorcycle Vagina bill's passage, Gov. Pat McCrory -- who initially said in a campaign pledge that he would not support changes to North Carolina's abortion laws -- has said that he would indeed sign SB353 into law. He also got into hot water by telling a newspaper reporter that he's attended "several" Moral Monday protests and been "cussed at" by protesters. Thousands of hours of video and myriad photographs were scoured, but none showed the governor at even one event. The chief of the General Assembly Police (who is not a Moral Monday fan) likewise said that he's never known of the governor's presence at any of the protests; his team would be charged with providing the governor's security.

All in all, it was an angrier, less patient Moral Monday that those that preceded it. General Assembly police, Raleigh police, and Capitol Area police were joined with many more State Bureau of Investigation officers than prior rallies/protests. On previous Moral Mondays, law-enforcement attitudes were businesslike but also respectful and even cordial; this week's Moral Monday saw a law-enforcement presence that was much more brisk and brusque.

Speakers on the rally stage, too, were noticeably more stern with the crowd, making frequent reminders to listen respectfully to the speakers and to stay away from the area behind the stage.

Part of this was the heat; part was the fact that North Carolinians, as are people from all over the United States, are reeling over the Zimmerman acquittal and the rhetorical backlash from those who believe strongly in Stand Your Ground laws. We in North Carolina are facing a showdown over our own escalation of Stand Your Ground legislation, with a coming vote (probably as early as today) on HB937, the Gun Omnibus Bill. Tar Heel State residents are also outraged over the anti-abortion legislation that was shoved down our throats in the past two weeks.

Next week's Moral Monday will focus on the ALEC-sponsored decimation of public education and criminal justice in North Carolina. (more at link)

http://vimeo.com/70386504

This is my biggest hope!

(I'm an Old Broad so I can say that) getting 'cuffed. One of the MANY things that is cool about getting old? Having an arrest record and not giving a shit! You go, girls!

K & R. Proud of you, North Carolina!

Shout out for the Elders of North Carolina. Thank you for showing up when it really counts! You are inspiring and awesome.

There are so many really good people in NC who do NOT deserve this plunge back into the dark days of prejudice, voting suppression, do-it yourself abortions, lack of basic medical care, lack of living wages, keeping women down, religious oppression, private exploitation of commonly held resources, class divisiveness and blatant corruption.

The elders remember. They helped to change things then. And they DON'T approve of the McCrory agenda now, which smacks of the worst of the past. They are making a strong statement of rejection. From experience.

Thanks Le Taz Hot!

they give me hope and cheer and raise my spirits every week.

This kind of protest--the visible rejection of a government's agenda--uplifts and empowers many. That's why when some people say, "but it has no effect" --I say pffft. It may not sway the legislature in the near future, but it does inspire hope among the people. It sets up the expectation of overcoming, instead of the expectation of being ground down further and adopting a victim mentality in response to being abused. It tells the Rethuglicon legislature that we will NOT go along with their backward insanity. We are watching, we are angry, and we are calling them out for what they are-- abusers and raiders, not statesmen. We are drawing a line in the sand.

So it's not only just for publicity that visible, non-violent protest is necessary--it's also building our collective will to overcome, to resist and overturn these oppressive policies. Visible protest focuses the progressive efforts behind the scenes, working to address these tragically bad political moves. And it supports the progressive legislators who are literally there in the trenches doing battle with the regressives. We need to keep our team's spirits up.

The Rethuglicon legislators in Raleigh have nothing but disdain for the protestors, never mind that the activists represent thousands of others. They don't even acknowledge the legitimate concerns of the Moral Monday groups. They know very well that many of the groups have worked for decades to bring about changes that are documented to help the people of NC. They impugn the motives even of the respected clergy, doctors, teachers, researchers and other community leaders taking part. All are reduced to "hippies." This insulting attitude indicates how much the legislators in question are unfit for the responsibility they have assumed, shows that they have NO intention of governing in a democratic manner.

I am so glad that supporters from NC or other parts of the country who have not been able to go to even one actual Moral Monday, have weighed in here. Makes my spending the time to do this worthwhile--raises my spirits too. It is important to 'witness.' (I use this word in the universal secular sense of having the courage to see and respond, in whatever way one can. The word of course speaks to those who follow a spiritual imperative, but not exclusively).

Thank you mountain grammy!

and have set aside a donation from this month's income as well. Nothing is more important than this.

Thank you again for keeping us up to date on these protests.

I remember when the Civil Rights movement began. People wrote it off, but the time was right. The time is right again.

--small donations to the NAACP and couple others. Not much, but it all adds up.

Yes the time is right. Again.

I only found this mention on the page about Pat McCrory, at bottom:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_McCrory

But doesn't Moral Monday need it's own page? Not sure how you make that happen. Maybe somebody is working on it.

Good new video clip of the 100 who were arrested this past Monday, filing into the Legislative building.

New article:

http://www.thedurhamnews.com/2013/07/19/3038264/moral-monday-critics-blinded-by.html

Moral Monday critics blinded by their own propaganda
Published: July 19, 2013
Rob Schofield is the director of research and policy development at N.C. Policy Watch.
--------------------------------

First, the right tried to dismiss the movement as the work of “outside agitators.” Then, it was supposedly the work of elitist college professors. Next came the intimidation tactics, as the Pope Civitas Institute – a group founded and funded by the state budget director – began compiling and publishing an online list of arrested protesters along with personal information about each individual.

In recent days, it’s been a hodgepodge of ineffective responses. The governor himself called the protests a “peripheral issue.” At about the same time, however, his commerce secretary appeared to pay the protests a backhanded compliment by telling reporters that the turmoil surrounding the 2013 legislative session was making it hard to sell North Carolina to out-of-state businesses.
--------
In both a recent fundraising solicitation and a new “study,” the Pope-Civitas group alleges Moral Monday protesters have descended on Raleigh because some of the groups involved want to steal public funds. Yet another broadside personally attacked NAACP President William Barber, claiming that his motivations in leading the protest are a byproduct of the connections between the church he pastors and some nonprofit service providers that administer public funds.
-------
On the one hand, they are just so downright crude and ham-fisted that you almost have to cringe in embarrassment for the Pope-Civitas people. Seriously, the notion that giant organizations with proud histories like the NAACP, AARP and the YWCA are protesting the myriad regressive actions of the 2013 General Assembly because some branch happens to administer a few thousand dollars in public funds is just so patently absurd that it’s hard to believe that a supposedly serious group would stoop to allege it. Similarly, to imply that Barber – a courageous man who works night and day at enormous personal sacrifice, physical pain and even personal risk; a man who directs a tiny paid staff and who has, for years, tirelessly traveled the length and breadth if the state in an old minivan to help countless underdog causes – is doing what he is doing in order to advance his own personal financial agenda, is just so utterly wrong and, for lack of a better word, malicious, that it must render any fair-minded observer virtually speechless.
---------
By all indications, the Pope-Civitas people are so enmeshed in the world of market fundamentalist economics – a place in which the personal acquisition and accumulation of wealth and property is endlessly celebrated and assumed as the driving human instinct and predictor of human behavior in all circumstances – that they simply can’t grasp the notion that Moral Monday protesters would be seeking to vindicate something higher – something like … wait for it, morality.

We all must do what we can to support this effort.