mighty in pink

[Liza Featherstone]

Thanks Jenny. I did also feature NOW pretty prominently in my Wal-Mart story
in December. But it's true that much of the Nation-reading left doesn't
realize what a grass-roots organization NOW is, or how much work they do on
materialist/economic issues. I agree, Code Pink does talk too much about
testosterone - that's why I quote you (and Virginia Woolf) for a smarter
analysis. 

Here's my NYC report, though we've already had quite a few of those.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15196

This one also features an LBO-talker: our own John Mage. And, some of the
cities in which protests took place, I would not have known about if not for
LBO-talk - so, thanks to all.

Liza


> From: JBrown72073 at cs.com
> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 18:23:14 EST
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: mighty in pink
> 
>> The Nation - March 3, 2003
>> Mighty in Pink
>> 
>> by LIZA FEATHERSTONE
>> 
>> It's not easy to be warm and fashionable at the same time," smiled
>> Nina Human of Atlanta, who, ensconced in a billowing pink scarf, was
>> succeeding admirably. It was a sunless late afternoon in January, and
>> Human was at the Women's Peace Vigil in front of the White House,
>> protesting the Bush Administration's impending war on Iraq.
> 
> Good going, esp. quoting NOW.  They normally get short shrift in the Nation.
> Unfortunately the Pacifica coverage (via Free Speech TV) of the march whapped
> the interview with Medea Benjamin (re: Code Pink) midsentence.  I missed the
> earlier coverage to demonstrate here.
> 
> I worry about the slightly essentialist tinge of Code Pink because it can
> suggest that the problem at the top is testosterone rather than money and
> power grubbing.  After all, it's not like a hormonally-charged Bush-Rumsfeld
> dyad will be out there hacking people's heads off personally.  They somehow
> made sure they weren't in that call-up even when they were of head-hacking
> age.  Happily, the claim to female peacefulness (and violent male tendencies)
> seems to be considerably reduced from fifteen years ago when the 'women's
> peace movement' would regularly make Caldicott-like claims to womb-authority.
> Caldicott I heard quoted on the radio this morning and she recalled for me
> some of the more vivid characterizations of Lerner on this list, was it Budge
> who called him a pious fuckwit? She's mostly a scolding one.
> 
> Jenny Brown