BIG Changes at GDPR

Your progressive-peace Internet public radio voice is movin’ on up: We’ve upgraded our broadcast server and now are available to a much wider audience. GDPR still presents our singular multigenre kind music mix, progressive news/talk programming such as Democracy Now, Free Speech Radio News, Alternative Radio  and NORML Show Live, activist and altruist opportunities, artists and points of view you won’t find in mainstream media, music shows including Grateful Dead Hour and WoodSongs Old Time Radio Hour, and much more. But now, it is available directly from our website at http://gdreadradio.net and the Live365.com website. Our signal can also be found via a number of platforms, including Yahoo!, Netflix, Roku, Hulu Plus and TiVo (just go to Live365 and search for “GratefulDread PublicRadio”). You can also listen to GDPR on your smartphone: Get the Live365 app for iPhone or Android and search for “GratefulDread PublicRadio.” Check out our diverse sounds and ideas for open minds and become a supporting member—listening is free of charge!—but we need you as a member more than ever as we finalize our available budget and decide upon our new progressive news/talk, lifestyle and cultural programming for 2013 (we’re also trying to become a Pacifica member). Noncommercial, nonmainstream media is what we do as part of our mission to educate, entertain, inform and inspire in the hopes of making a better world. GDPR is here for you: Tune in, turn on, become a member.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The staff of Grateful Dread Peace Media and Summit Peace wish you and yours the happiest of times. May your winter holiday celebrations be filled with light and love, with joy and peace. And may the new year bring us all good times with family and friends, prosperity and positivity, and opportunities to help make the world a better place.

Thanks for your support now and in the past. We hope we can count on it in the future. Trust, you can count on us.

In honor of the season, GDPR will air kynd holiday music beginning at 1pm Eastern on Christmas Eve and ending at midnight Christmas Day. Enjoy!

On the Use of “Teabagger”

President Obama is feeling some heat from the Left and Right for allegedly bashing the Tea Party. Progressive commentator Jonathan Alter’s new book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, features the commander-in-chief opining that the GOP’s kneejerk refusal to cooperate with Democrats over the stimulus package “set the tenor for the whole year … That helped to create the Teabaggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where [the radical conservative element] now controls the agenda for the Republicans.”

Many of these Tea Party reactionaries are plenty steamed. Even Democrats as highly placed as Rahm “Non-Lipsticked Pitbull” Emanuel found Obama’s use of the controversial title ill-advised. This is not surprising: The term teabagger has an alternate meaning that can be seen as rather rude in polite circles, and there are many on the Left who use that double entendre to mock the New Millennium Know-Nothings.  But many on the Left employ the term because it is accurate.

The reactionary Right proudly embraced the term Teabagger and obstructionism almost from the start of the Obama presidency. Photo from Brendan Calling

Yes, accurate. Did that group employ tea bags in its protests? It did. Look at the above photo. Thus, as far as I am concerned, those protesters are Teabaggers. I do not in any way refer to a sexual practice; it is not my style. So when I say Teabagger, I mean one who uses tea bags to protest against the Dusky President, progressive values, and equality for all. Period.

Hate Kills: The Tragic Tale of Clay & Harold

What a country. Yes, the good old Yew-nited States is the land of the free, the home of the brave, the bastion of equality under law for all. Unless you’re gay, that is.

The story that follows is so outrageous and features such cruelty and evil that it literally made me retch.  Even while writing this, tears are streaming down my cheeks. But write I must: The level of man’s inhumanity to man and the assault on basic decency portrayed in this real-life nightmare is so overwhelmingly offensive that however disgusting it is, it must be told. People need to know the reality of 21st century life for LGBT people in the US — and folks, it isn’t pretty.

In case you didn’t watch the video, here’s the gist:

Clay, 77, and Harold, 88, were a devoted pair for more than 20 years. As we queers were warned to do in the 1990s, the couple attempted to protect their relationship and family from hateful hets. They spent thousands and thousands of dollars in government and legal fees to draft wills, powers of attorney, medical directives, etc., to ensure that no one could violate their union or dispute their family status. As time passed, the men aged, and Harold’s health began to deteriorate. And when Harold fell ill, those legal protections turned out to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Despite the couple’s carefully prepared documentation, California’s Sonoma County methodically put Harold into a nursing home and forced Clay — who was healthy — into a different facility. Their rented home was seized, all their worldly possessions sold behind their backs. Clay was forbidden to see his longtime love (after all, according to the law, these men were strangers, and certainly not family). Harold ended up dying alone shortly thereafter.

Now, Clay is mourning by fighting: He is suing Sonoma County and other entities involved in taking away his home and goods and in keeping him away from his lifemate, his partner, his love — the person who would have been his husband, save for hate-filled, fearful, and  ignorant Californians.

My assignment to you: Tell everyone you know. Attention must be paid to the story of Clay and Harold. This sick, twisted tale illustrates quite clearly that marriage equality is a necessity, not tomorrow or next week or next year, but yesterday. It demonstrates exactly why “the people” cannot be trusted to make decisions about what rights other citizens are allowed to have. That we are still unequal under law in 2010 is unacceptable to any decent human.

Yes, I am saying flat out — if you don’t support equality under law, you are not a decent human being.

Don’t give me the religion crap: Being religious doesn’t mean one must agree to uphold or demand inequality in law. If your deity has a problem with queers, he, she, or it does not need your help or your government’s help to punish us. We are talking about civil law; your god has no power here.  At least, he or she or it should not. Don’t the religionists get juicy tax exemptions and a whole passel of governmental kissing-up: the pledge, the prayer breakfasts and invocations that communicate that good Americans are godly Americans, the money, etc.?  That isn’t enough? Apparently not, which means that these ignorant bigots have yet another sin for which to atone:  greed.

It’s time for all good people to come together in honor of Clay and Harold and all the people treated in such horrific fashion. How? By saying goodbye to complacency and apathy. By putting a stop to this injustice. By taking action.  How can you not? People are dying because of this hate!

Please, share the story of Clay and Harold with everyone you know, particularly lawmakers and the right-wing, antigay folks with whom you must deal. Our bigoted brethren must know the results of their hateful actions, philosophies and doctrines. They must be told:  Harold and Clay loved each other for more than 20 years. Now, Harold is dead and Clay is alone, all because they dared to love each other and the state of California just could not stand it.

Enough with the bigotry already: You’re making the American people look like hateful killers. Natalie Maines rightly was ashamed of being from the same state as the bigot and war criminal George Dubya Bush. I am ashamed to have been born on the same continent as those who had a hand in destroying Clay and Harold’s home, their family, and their lives. Contradicting David Bowie, this is America — a land of hate, a land that would rather gays be dead and alone than equal.

I’ll repeat that, because people need finally to get what I’ve been bitching about my entire adult life: The US is and chooses to be a land of hate, a land that would rather LGBT people be dead and alone than equal.

How sick is that?

How to Help in Haiti

Forget Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson, who apparently made separate pacts with Satan: Haitians are good people who live in, as CBS describes the island nation, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. They are our brothers and sisters and they are in crisis: The American Red Cross estimates that 50,000 people may be dead as a result of the 7.0 quake that hit Tuesday near Port au Prince. We MUST help them — that is what family does.

How to help (info gathered by WJZ-TV Baltimore):

If you would like to help with the recovery effort in Haiti, there are dozens of organizations accepting donations to help get aid directly to the people. Here is some detail about a handful of such groups, followed by links to other sources.

The Red Cross – To help with relief efforts, text “HAITI” to “90999” and $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross, charged to your cell phone bill.  You can also give online, via phone or even through wire transfer. Donate to the Red Cross

Yéle Haiti – Founded by musician and U.N. Goodwill Ambassador Wyclef Jean, Yéle’s is “a grassroots movement that builds global awareness for Haiti while helping to transform the country through programs in education, sports, the arts and environment.” Donate to Yéle Haiti

Doctors Without Borders – DWB is an international medical humanitarian organization founded by doctors and journalists in France in 1971. The organization currently has staff on the ground in Haiti working to stem possible loss of life. Donate to Doctors Without Borders

Mercy Corps – Mercy Corps is described as hodgepodge of about 3,700 professionals working to help millions in crisis around the world. The group is sending an emergency team to Haiti to help provide food, shelter and other aid. Donate to Mercy Corps

Other Ways To Help Haiti:

• Action Against Hunger
• American Jewish World Service
• Catholic Relief Services
• CARE
• Beyond Borders
• International Medical Corps
• Oxfam International
• Samaritan’s Purse International Relief
• Ben Stiller’s ‘Stillerstrong’ Foundation
• AmeriCares Disaster Relief & Humanitarian Aid
• MercyCorps Emergency Response
• World Vision
• UNICEF In Haiti Children’s Fund
• Lutheran World Relief
• World Relief
• International Orthodox Christian Charities