I get what ya mean, however....the reality of the matter is that it has ZERO to do with "courage." US presidents are actors who work for the shadow govt that OWNS them, installed via our phony "elections." To suggest as you've done implies that the grim specter of american fascism could somehow dissipate if only 'we' could 'elect' better (more "courageous") politicians, when that is simply not the case. At all. Electoral politics is dead, which is why the establishment makes such a big show of it - keeping The People focused on the 'sports' mentality of phony 'elections' helps stave off what's already begun: the inevitable era of when the police state is forced to reveal its true colors.
*edit - wow, 90 min later & still no public display?

Here's a link to the Mike Wallace interview of a very young Steinem discussing her Company involvement:

It begins at 3 miutes 40 seconds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQUl4etN_Yg

I have previously provided overwhelming proof that Gloria Steinem worked for the CIA organizing US youth participation in The Austrian World Youth Congress as head of a CIA front organization. This is a well known historical fact, and one that Steinem openly admits to. So it is much more than "my allegation." I would think that you are intelligent enough to understand this.

When this covert operation was revealed by Ramparts magazine in 1967,
Steinem told The New York Times that she approved the Agency's role. "I was
happy to find some liberals in government in those days who were far-sighted
and cared enough to get Americans of all political views to the Festival."

The only question regading Steinem is whether she ever quit the Company. I think the evidence points to her maintaining her CIA contacts, and that she used those contacts to get CIA funds for MS Magazine through foundation fronts like Ford and Rockefellr Foundations. Her lifelong asociation with

Ms. Magazine's first publisher was Elizabeth Forsling Harris, a CIA-connected PR executive who planned John Kennedy's Dallas motorcade route.

When N.Y. Times reporters confronted Steinem with documentation of her
connections to the CIA and CIA funding of her various activities, Steinem
remarked that she got caught because CIA wasn't tricky enough. Hinting
that CIA should have made better use of front companies, Steinem remarked:
"The CIA’s big mistake was not supplanting itself with private funds fast
enough." By the time Steinem founded Ms. Magazine, the CIA had learned
how to funnel money through private individuals and corporations

Gloria Steinem dated J. Stanley Pottinger for nine years.
Pottinger was in charge of sabotaging civil rights enforcement at the
Justice Department (he was assistant attorney general) under President
Nixon and President Ford. According to Donald Freed & Fred Landis in
their book "Death in Washington", J Stanly Pottinger also helped to
cover up the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Orlando Letelier.

I reject your contention that I am falsely maligning Steinem. Please take the time to reserach this matter, and you will see that Steinem's CIA involvement is a fact, not an allegation.

Also, since Alice Walker is mentioned in this article too, you might be interested in the fact that Steinem recruited Walker and arranged CIA financing for Walker's particiaption in the Vienna Youth Festival.

She also recruited and financed Zbignew Brezinski's ticket. Funding for Michael Harrington was withdrawn when he stated his intention to critique both communism and capitalism. He bought his own ticket and went anyway.

This was a high level propaganda op that was monitored by Cord Meyer. The cover organization, the Independent Research Service, was led by Steinem..

The rabbit hole is very deep, and it is naive to think that feminism is somehow immune to Company Corruption.

Siouxrose, I am glad you are joining Code Pink, one of the best activist organizations.

Tom & Jmowery: Perhaps one has to be acquainted with media (directly), or the entertainment world to understand that devices like what Code Pink is seeking to do are done more to energize "the masses," then to change the minds of women born to the mold of Athena, goddess of war and battle.

Do you honestly think that women with the intelligence of an Alice Walker expect someone like Hillary Clinton to suddenly grow a conscience? If a public official is presented with an unimpeachable, morally sound idea they are put in an embarrassing position. They can no longer claim that "they didn't know." This material (or public act) enters into the Public Record. It makes future deception and inhospitable acts & decisions far more transparent.

Did you think that Michael Moore expected to change the NRA when he managed to get in a quick interview with Charlton Heston?

Today's elites are so empowered that writers, teachers, activists, and ordinary concerned citizens have limited access, not to mention power. To use any channel as a vital means to get The Message through should be applauded, instead of chastised. Or do you think writing in this forum, added to your professional jobs is having any impact on a VERY sick status quo?

If you understand "Solidarity," what's with the critiques on people sincerely trying to make a difference? SUPPORT their efforts!

Too bad that such cynicism stands in the way of anyone doing anything. Give credit where credit is due. Have these people done nothing worthy of your approval? When is the last time that you disrupted a Congressional hearing, to then be dragged out and arrested? CODEPINK members have done this countless times.

Of course we need millions of people in the streets, and of course appealing to Michelle Obama and Clinton seems futile, but isn't it worth, publicly confronting them?

Putting the onus on CODEPINK, and those who have set up this website, that it is either millions on the street or their efforts are meaningless is not rational. Also, admonishing CODEPINK and others' actions cited in this article as giving "people the false impression that the Left is actually doing something to move us forward" us unfair.

I suggest perhaps you contact CODEPINK, to start coordinating those big protests.

I agree completely. You live in reality and not in some dream state of delusions. Those that don't live in reality will predictably describe your post as "cynicism"---when actually you're just being realistic but they don't want to hear it---because they still live in some form of Denial and wishful-thinking. Gracias.

What exactly have YOU done, out of curiosity, compared to what Code Pink have done ? Are you organising the "sheeple" to go out on the streets to take over the nation's capital as well as the strongholds of corporate media?

I've been observing people since childhood, and even before I knew anything about astrology, started forming analogies in my head about the way people behaved based on the months in which they were born. Although there are exceptions, Leo men lean heavily on their partners; and just as the FEMALE lion goes out for the hunt (while the male lion enjoys the fruit of that labor), he sits around.

Meanwhile, there is no sign more coldly ambitious than Capricorn; and that is Michelle's sign. Again, while there are exceptions to every astrological sun-sign trend, Capricorn requires status and power the way the bee requires honey.

I think she IS the power behind the throne, and she could well be a "Lady Macbeth" type... that is, the one who encourages bloody behavior for its sheer political expediency. I'm sure, as parents, this couple wants a good future for their own children; yet to sacrifice so many millions of other children to:

Chemically polluted regions
Wars, unending
Bank graft that reduces the basic quality of life across the board
Nonsensical programs directed at decimating Public Education
Murdering hope
Etc.

Remember, we all answer to the law of karma at the level of our complicity... and power. The average citizen who believes Fox news and casts a vote for a murderer is hardly as accountable as are the elites who shape false messages, seduce the masses, and then KILL (in vast ways) in their names.

It's about the nature of scale... added to motive.

Michelle Obama has gone on 16 family vacations (10 with Barack the Baby Killer) at a cost of more than $1 million for each. Each of her vacations costs more than the average worker earns in a lifetime.

There tends to be this weird and idiotic idea , as demonstrated here, that the spouse of a politician should somehow change the politician's view to be better / kinder / nicer.

In reality that almost never happens. We can speculate why it never happens, but it almost never happens. So, at best, campaigns such as this, are not meant so much to convince Michelle Obama, but rather, to simply use her name to try to convince others.

Also, there seems to be this strange idea among "progressives" that somehow Michelle is this "progressive" heroine.

JOE: Millions of sincere women wish for gender parity; yet you reduce this movement to an effort to besmirch feminists. You do not want to share power, it's as simple as that. Who gets published, Joe? I've battled all my life to get my work in print and with rare exceptions, it's been an uphill battle all the way. For you to take the evidence of those who do get published as indicative of the full spectrum of any philosophy or movement is at the least, short-sighted. In other words, just because Steinem may have been an opportunist and used the resources at her disposal, doesn't mean she represents ALL feminists. Nor do I necessarily agree with your characterization of her.

Is the media liberal?

Is Rachel Maddow or Obama a socialist? Vaguely Progressive?

Words are being used to destroy TRUTH these days, and the labeling process is a huge part of that strategy.

First of all, what gives you the authority to decide what feminism stands for? In the past, in EVERY article exposing the crimes SPECIFICALLY leveraged against women, things like gang rape and repulsive sex crimes, you sought to make the conversation about MEN or crimes done unto men. There was a profound lack of sensitivity exhibited.

Just as Democrats compose a spectrum of viewpoints, as to a lesser extent is true of Republicans, you CANNOT speak of feminists in a narrow way designed to paint them as what they are not. There are scientists who believe in nuclear power, even after Fukushima. And I use that as an analogy to suggest that short-sightedness can impact members of ANY group. Perhaps some feminists are not as hip to the class conflict as you think they ought to be, but for many of us, the key issue is gender parity.

The first cleaving of the clay of mankind took place when warrior clans overwhelmed more peaceful societies and established male superiority. THAT was the germ from which emerged all later forms of hierarchy. Thus the prized Marxian class conflict came AFTER the beginnings of hierarchy.

You want to correct the problem through economics, and like other otherwise intelligent males in this forum (added to a few odd females who remind me of Gator football cheerleaders) fail to look at the causative factors that gave way to unequal advantages (acess, rights, privilege) in the first place.

NO MAN would allow for the types of inhibitions to HIS sexuality that women have been forced to endure for centuries. And now that we've had access to The Pill and other forms of birth control, that an insidious patriarchal-religious movement is rising to turn this nation into a locked down Christian Theocracy, you fellas try to down play what's going on as some form of peripheral symptom of Identity Politics. Either you're a closet sexist who wants "the little lady in her place," or you're missing the boat on this one.

The fairest analysis is one that connects ALL dots, rather than dismissing issues of VITAL concern to at least half the population.

In another thread some right wing poser promoted the ruse that The Left is "just as intolerant" as the right. As if there is any equivalency between the well-organized right wing groups that would STEAL liberties from others, and those tasked with defending their own rights.

In any case, I appreciate your thus far civil discourse on this matter.

Yeah. An article by an anti-war org that is using the fairly standard tactic of appealing to a politician's spouse (who is seen, mistakenly IMHO, as sympathetic to their anti-war message) demonstrates the fundamental flaw of US feminism.

*rolls eyes*

Liberal feminism has its problems. This article doesn't demonstrate those problems. Neither does your poorly thought out post. By then, that's not unexpected. Every single one of your post on feminism tends to be poorly thought out and poorly argued.