State Of The Union Speech 2011

In a few hours all of us political junkies will be tuned in to our favorite news channel or C-SPAN to watch President Obama's second State of the Union address.

This one not only comes at the midpoint of his first term, it comes during a time when his poll numbers have rebounded after a bruising fight to enact health care reform legislation and a disastrous midterm election in which the Democrats lost control of the House

So it will be interesting to see what the president has to say about more than a few issues and his thoughts as to how this legislative year should play out..

All US Politics Are Identity Politics

One of the terms I see with regularity in the liberal progressive blogosphere is someone writing a comment decrying 'identity politics'. 

After slamming the term, they will then make the case that if identity politics didn't exist, our country would be a better place or whatever point they are trying to make at that time..

News flash, people.  All politics in the United States are identity politics, and that reality of American life ain't going away any time soon.   When you have one ethnic group which has dominated American life since before the founding of the United States, is grudgingly reluctant to share power and engages in the same identity politics decried to keep their hold on the top rungs of society despite their declining population numbers, you can guarantee that identity politics will be hanging around for a while.

So since we know that identity politics are an integral part of the American political landscape, why aren't we factoring that into the way we conduct our civil rights business in the TBLG community?

The Congressional Black, Hispanic and Asian-Pacific caucuses in Congress exist for a reason.  Those caucuses advocate for their ethnic groups interests as public policy is formulated .


We are still acting in the GLBT community as if the country is already 'post racial' and 'colorblind' when it most certainly isn't, and our organizations are not configured to deal with that reality.    They are also not dealing well with the reality that our rainbow community is multicultural, just like the country is.

It's past time that the organizations that claim to represent this diverse rainbow community represent and reflect that diversity.

You need Latino, African American and Asian Pacific islander GLBT people in your orgs to eloquently speak not only for the entire community, but articulate the concerns and policy needs of their specific communities in order to make overall GLBT policy better and more inclusive.

It should be obvious by now that you are not going to get broad based support for BTLG policies that are formulated of, by and for the benefit of predominately upper middle class white GLBT people.


The point is that you can either continue to misfire on gaining LGBT rights by ignoring reality and continuing business as usual or step into the 21st century, realize that we are a multiethnic country that engages in identity politics and calibrate your policies to not only be cognizant of that fact, but calibrate your politics to account for the identity politics that said polices will have to negotiate to become codified into the law of the land.

GOP House Majority Already Breaking Their Promises

The GOP hasn't been back in control of the House for a week and they are already violating their promises they made in the Pledge To (White) America  and the Tea Klux Klan.

They campaigned on cutting $100 billion in spending, and they're backpedaling away from that faster than you can say  Citizens United.    They promised to read the Constitution, but conveniently forgot to read the sections that dealt with my ancestors.        

The first one,  the "three-fifths compromise," counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of counting population for apportioning congressional districts.   The second one they skipped dealt with runaway slaves - if they escaped to a free state, the Constitution required that they not be freed but rather "delivered up" to their owners.

Then there was the embarrassing revelation that two Republican congressmen skipped out on their swearing in ceremony to be at an event in the Capitol Visitors Center and all the tapdancing they tried to do around the Constitution in order to claim that Pete Sessions (R-TX) and  Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA) were legally sworn in.

The Constitution says you have to in the chamber and sworn in by the Speaker of the House to be a congressmember.      Way to bring honor to and follow the Constitution GOP.


Then there was the action the GOP majority undertook that just disenfranchised people in DC, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and other US territories.   It just stripped their delegates who represent these territories of their committee voting rights.

Can we get to November 6, 2012 and the presidential election year as soon a s possible?   I'd rather have Speaker of the House Pelosi back.