Feminist Event: Reproductive Justice Conference Celebrates 30th Anniversary! April 8 - 10, 2011, Hampshire College, USA

image from the Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice is from here

The following press release was sent to me for publication on this blog and elsewhere:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 21, 2011

Contact: Lani Blechman Civil Liberties and Public Policy, Hampshire College 413-559-6834, lblechman AT hampshire.edu


Reproductive Justice Conference Celebrates 30th Anniversary

With activists around the country focused on recent attacks on reproductive rights, more than 1,000 community activists, students and national and international leaders will gather next month to build new strategies for reproductive justice and social change. From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: Building the Movement for Reproductive Freedom, to be held April 8-10, is sponsored by the Civil Liberties and Public Policy (http://clpp.hampshire.edu) and Population and Development (http://popdev.hampshire.edu) programs. The conference is held at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

The 30th anniversary conference reflects the significant growth of CLPP and PopDev over the past three decades. The conference will be nearly 30 times bigger than the first, with more than 60 sponsors and a diverse, inclusive range of speakers and activists from different generations, the U.S. and abroad. “There’s so much energy and vibration on the campus,” says Leticia Contreras who is a 2011 student conference coordinator. “With activists, artists and social justice participants of all forms of the spectrum—people who really want to change the world in so many different ways. You feel this energy instantaneously.”

Why are some men so incredibly ignorant and yet convinced they're not only intelligent, but capable of demonstrating wise expertise when all they're actually doing is shoveling out CRAP? To George Monbiot: Please shut the fuck up and just listen to Helen Calidott

banner is from here

I was watching a somewhat typical tv-induced debate on Democracy Now!, being annoyed with the same old format, of having two talking heads who obviously are going to disagree, and then we get to watch them disagree, and that becomes "the show". And instead we could have had the more intelligent, wise, compassionate, humane person on the show alone, not debating.

(Above: "Prescription for Survival": A Debate on the Future of Nuclear Energy Between Anti-Coal Advocate George Monbiot and Anti-Nuclear Activist Dr. Helen Caldicott.)

Helen Caldicott is one of the most informed people on the matter of nuclear power and its dangers. We might also consult Dr. Vandana Shiva on the hazards of Western white male supremacist science generally. Why it is this white man, George Monbiot, thinks he can debate Dr. Caldicott and sound at all reasonable, intelligent, compassionate, or humane is beyond me. Yet, he does go on and on as if he has something important and "experty" to say.

Using radioactive isotopes like iodine, cesium, uranium, and plutonium to heat water and make energy (or to 'win' war) has to be one of the most stupid and inhumane ideas-in-practice in the entire history of White Man's science and culture--and there are a lot of contenders for the most stupid and inhumane ideas-in-practice. That some white men defend other white men's use of these ideas-in-practice only shows that white men have each other's backs even when white men are stupid and inhumane--perhaps ESPECIALLY when white men are stupid and inhumane.

Goddess help us all and save us from these men who actually believe wars can be "just", nuclear power can be "safe", and capitalism and patriarchy and can be moral or humane.