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In reply to the discussion: The 99% is not valid percentage to be using... [View all]Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)nor about the movements that advance those issues. What are the top historic issues of LGBT politics? First and still number one, discrimination in employment, fully legal in 29 States to this day, the big issue Harvey Milk organized around was also a jobs issue, teacher employment. When ACT UP started doing street actions to raise awareness about AIDS issues, what was target #1? Wall St. 'No More Business As Usual' was the tag line and profiteering Pharmaceutical Corps. ACT UP did protests on Wall St year after year, with mass arrests and big headlines. Where was the famous 'economic left'? Unable to protest and chew gum at the same time.
It's always been both, for those actually in these movements. It's only for the theoretical straights that do not actually take part that they seem separate.
LGBT groups are doing far more about the TPP and TPA than DU's blustering straight white populist crowd. Can you figure out why? Human rights yes....but also issues of intellectual property as related to medicines, issues of immigration, employment protections, on and on and on.
Back in June people from my LGBT Union organization joined Congressional Democrats in calling on the administration to halt these talks because of Brunei's horrific laws. Back in June, the DU folks who are currently shouting about TPP were promoting the Pope and saying that LGBT issues are insignificant 'social issues' compared to their own concerns.
As a person who first demonstrated for Universal Health Care as a 'gay issue' way back in the early 80'sI find it comical when straight folks yap about these 'social issues' that are not economic. The first 'gay rights' legislation to come to Congress did so in 1978. It was of course about jobs, the Equality Act, an early form of ENDA. How is job discrimination not an economic issue?
Why do you think that people who have been fighting for decades for equal protections in employment are not concerned with economic issues? That they need that explained to them by 'straights, the true left'? We don't, kid. It's you that needs the lesson. Sorry.