Cleveland NOW Press

Spring 2005         Diane Dodge         Editor

Wal-Mart:

Always Low Prices!

…But How?

Wal-Mart now faces the largest class-action suit ever - on behalf of 1.6 million women employees who allege that Wal-Mart practices widespread sex discrimination. That is why NOW has named them a "Merchant of Shame."

Please join Greater Cleveland NOW and learn the truth about the hidden costs of Wal-Mart.

Panel Presentation: Marsha Walker, past employee who is now part of the class-action suit Becky Boling, organizer for United Food & Commercial Workers, Local 880 Diane Dodge, National NOW Board Member who will help plan an action

Free & Open to the Public Tuesday, April 19, 2005 7 pm - 8 pm YWCA of Greater Cleveland 4019 Prospect Ave. Cleveland OH 44103 Free secured parking in an attached lot Refreshments will be served.

Greater Cleveland NOW Meetings PLEASE JOIN US! We normally meet at 7 pm on the 3rd Tuesday of each month at:

YWCA of Greater Cleveland 4019 Prospect Ave Cleveland OH 44103

Free Parking in a secure attached lot Meeting Dates: Apr. 19, May 17, June 21, & July 19 Meetings are free and open to the public.

MEETING APRIL 19, 2005 Please join us for a panel presentation on the hidden costs of Wal-Mart.

• Learn the facts about the discrimination of women.
• Find out why more than half of the employees leave the company each year.
• How they would rather close a store then pay union wages
• How they are bringing down the wages for all US employees
• The negative effect they have on other businesses
• What benefits they give the employees instead of health insurance

The National Organization for Women, as part of their Women Friendly Workplace Campaign named Wal-Mart a merchant of Shame. Less than two months ago Wal-Mart agreed to settle federal charges that it violated child labor laws. In March Wal-Mart agreed to pay $11 million and settle federal allegations that illegal immigrants have been paid to clean its stores for years.

Wal-Mart now faces the largest class-action suit ever - on behalf of 1.6 million women employees who allege that Wal-Mart practices widespread sex discrimination. The most-sued company in the US, Wal-Mart has also been accused of wage abuses, violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and discrimination based on sexual orientation.

This is no way for the country's largest private employer to behave. Wal-Mart earned more than $9 billion in net profits - after taxes - in 2003.

Demand that Wal-Mart end its unfair practices. Join us on April 19th and make plans to take action to change the world.

After the Wal-Mart panel presentation we will be having a brief Greater Cleveland NOW business meeting.

GREETINGS CLEVELAND SISTERS

As a youth growing up during the height of the feminist consciousness era during the late 1960's and 70's, I have been one of those proud, card carrying NOW members for almost thirty years. I was active during Sharon Fawley's tenure as NY State NOW. When I moved to Jamestown, NY there was no active local chapter. And at first as I lived in Anchorage, Alaska there was no active chapter. Now I reside in Euclid and am so thankful to find that circle of women who continue to spread the news and empower the movement for radical and perhaps final reclaiming of women's rightful place in society, history, politics, the church, the sciences, etc.

I was recently hired as the Program Director for Cleveland, for the Ohio Religious Coalition of Reproductive Choice. I look forward to working with many of you as we move through these times seeking to halt the torrent of back lashing, undermining and worse, dismissing, of women as moral change agents and birthers and nurturers of a new creation.

Thanks for welcoming me "home." Rev. Karen Lipinczyk

SAVE THE FILIBUSTER FIGHT NUCLEAR OPTION

Since the first US Congress, Senators in the minority party have has the ability to filibuster, or extend debate on legislation or judicial nominees that they feel need more discussion. Now the Republican majority wants to change the rules and invoke the "nuclear option" a proposal that will not allow Senators to filibuster judicial nominees, including judges that are being considered for lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court.

This proposal will undermine the Senate's authority, prevent bi-partisan compromise, and set a dangerous precedent. The Senate is charged with confirming judicial nominees to protect the American public from extremist judges from either party. Please sign & circulate the petition.

EDUCATIONAL FORUM DINNER & A CONCERT

Speak-out on Gender Discrimination. 11:30 am - 1:30 pm. Free and Open to the Public: includes fish bowl, panel participants on gender discrimination at work-what is it, what it looks like, what it feels like, bow to fight it; working with legal system & unions. Tell your story; be heard; learn from others. Participants will include women from Greater Cleveland NOW, Bowling Green State University, grievants, plaintiffs and lawyers.

Followed by: A Delicious Vegetarian Gourmet Buffet 2-3:30 pm. Meal Tickets $20-$50 till April 19, $30 - $50 after April 19. Proceeds from the buffet are to help Batya Weinbaum with her legal costs in suing CSU for sex discrimination. During the buffet music will be provided by Peggy Cella and lots more…

Saturday, April 30, 2005 Cleveland Friends' Meeting House 10916 Magnolia Drive, Cleveland From 90, get off at MLK Drive; onto Wade Oval Drive.; past Veteran's Hospital to 109th. Turn left on 109th at light, you'll see Western Reserve Historical Society; go down a block; then right on Magnolia; first house past museum.

For more info call 216 321 9201 or 440- 396-6237. Advance purchase by check to Diann Bowoman/FBW, 263 Natta, Youngstown, OH, 44509.

Co-sponsored by: Greater Cleveland Now Friends of Batya Weinbaum (FBW)

THE FEMINIZATION OF HIV/AIDS
Public Forum Sponsored by the League of Women Voters-Cuyahoga Regional Area. May 12, 7 - 9 PM, Trinity Commons, 22nd St and Euclid Ave., (enter from Prospect) Cleveland, Ohio The face of AIDS is a woman…" The HIV/AIDS pandemic is devastating Africa, but it is a crisis right here in Cleveland too. And AIDS disproportionately affects women. AIDS is the fourth-leading cause of death among U.S. women, 25 to 44, and the leading cause among African-American women ages 25 to 34. Globally about half the 12,000 people infected every day are women.

Panelists include: Dr. Christopher Whalen, Center for AIDS Research, CWRU; Dr. Steve Weirich, Medical Director of the Cleveland Free Clinic; Crystal Copeland, Director of the Antioch Baptist Church AGAPE program; and Barbara Baylor, Minister of Health and Wellness, United Church of Christ. Betsey Kaufman, Director of Planned Parenthood will serve as Moderator. For information call 216-781-0555.

(WOMENSENEWS)-There was more to the 19th century progressive women's agenda than the right to vote.

When Matilda Joslyn Gage saw conservative religious women like Frances Willard of the Women's Christian Temperance Union playing an increasingly larger role in that movement, coupled with broader pressures to dissolve the boundaries between church and state, Gage took action and spoke out. In 1890, Gage, the long-time political ally of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, organized a group of her own-the Women's National Liberal Union, based in upstate New York. At its opening meeting on February 24th, her speech called "The Dangers of the Hour," took on religious fundamentalism as a threat to human-and especially women's-freedom.

There were, at the time, several bills and amendments before Congress whose "pretext," Gage said, was "protection of the people" against an encroaching tide of immigrants. Determined to make the United States a Christian nation, these proposals would have imposed Biblical dogmas and clerical authority on secular society. A proposed "day of rest" on Sundays, along with compulsory church attendance, was, she said, "not for the benefit of man, but in order to commemorate the work of creation."

A potential amendment to the preamble of the U.S. Constitution that would insert explicit evidence of the "Christian character and purpose" of the nation provoked her wrath. That amendment called for the Bible as "the standard to decide all moral issues in political life . . . " Scriptural authority, Gage reminded her listeners, taught contempt for women, "through whom sin and death came into the world" as well as that "the wife (is) not an independent being possessing independent rights, but a veritable slave of the husband."

Were religious authority to move beyond the realm of both Catholic and Protestant institutions into civil life, it would un-do the work of the movement that had secured women's growing legal independence in divorce, property laws and education, Gage believed. She resisted. Seeing the church as "that ever most unscrupulous enemy of freedom," Gage fired the first salvo of a campaign that would result in her book, "Woman Church and State," three years later. From then on, she was under government surveillance. By Louise Bernikow WeNews historian

THE CONSTITUTION RESTORATION ACT
Say Hello to Taliban America and Goodbye to Godless Judges, Courts and Law

By W. David Kubiak; April 03, 2005 http://tinyurl.com/5hnyy

Tired of waiting for the Second Coming to enforce Christ's rule on Earth? Fortunately, so is your Congress and they know how to "bring it on."

Just when you thought the corporatist/Christian Coalition had milked the 9/11 "surprise" for all it was worth in powers, profits and votes, we regret to report that you may have to think again. Just in case you've briefly fallen behind on your rightwing mailing lists, you might have missed the 3/3 filing Senate bill S.520 and House H.R. 1070, AKA the "Constitution Restoration Act" .

In the worshipful words of the Conservative Caucus, this historic legislation will "RESTORE OUR CONSTITUTION!", mainly by barring ANY federal court or judge from ever again reviewing "any matter to the extent that relief is sought against an entity of Federal, State, or local government, or against an officer or agent of Federal, State, or local government (whether or not acting in official or personal capacity), concerning that entity's, officer's, or agent's ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF GOD AS THE SOVEREIGN SOURCE OF LAW, LIBERTY, OR GOVERNMENT." [Emphasis demanded - see full text here: http://tinyurl.com/4afa8 ]

In other words, the bill ensures that God's divine word (and our infallible leaders' interpretation thereof) will hereafter trump all our pathetic democratic notions about freedom, law and rights - and our courts can't say a thing. This, of course, will take "In God We Trust" to an entirely new level, because soon He (and His personally anointed political elite) will be all the legal recourse we have left.

This is not a joke, a test, or a fit of libertarian paranoia. The CRA already has 28 sponsors in the House and Senate, and a March 20 call to lead sponsor Sen. Richard Shelby's office assures us that "we have the votes for passage." This is a highly credible projection as Bill Moyers observes in his 3/24/05 "Welcome to Doomsday" piece in the New York Review of Books: "The corporate, political, and religious right's hammerlock…extends to the US Congress. Nearly half of its members before the election-231 legislators in all (more since the election)-are backed by the religious right… 45 Senators and 186 members of Congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the most influential Christian Right advocacy groups."

This stunning bill and the movement behind it deserve immediate crash study on at least 3 different fronts.

1. Its hostile divorce of American jurisprudence from our hard-won secular history and international norms… 2. The political implications of replacing "we the people" with a Christian deity as the "sovereign source" of our laws… 3 The incessant mainstream media blackout on the bill's existence and import…

The potential impact of the Constitution Restoration Act on American life, law and politics is so radical and vast that you would expect a boiling national debate. Yet just as with the crimes and questions of 9/11, everyone in the media seems terrifically busy looking the other way.

In the meantime, however, before the CRA takes force and reduces legal education to a Bible study course, what say we undertake a little Constitutional defense of our own? To get up to speed on the current Christian right agenda, Moyers' "Welcome to Doomsday", Katherine Yurica's "The Despoiling of America" and John "The 9/11 Truth Candidate" Buchanan's "Fixing America" are excellent places to start.

None of these analyses offer a silver bullet or paint a pretty picture, but as students of 9/11 now know, spreading the courage to face the truth is really the only hope we've got. (Unless we can get Matilda Joslyn Gage to come back)

SUPPORT GREATER CLEVELAND NOW

Time is running out to support Greater Cleveland NOW, and at the same time make your skin look and feel good, support community trade, and activate self-esteem.

Our first ever The Body Shop at Home fundraiser ends on Monday, April 18, 2005 at 6 pm. Call or email today to place your orders (Sell lots to your family & friends) for Body Butters & Scrubs at a SPECIAL fundraising cost of $16.00 each which includes shipping, handling & tax.

Body Butters: Blueberry, Cocoa Butter, Coconut, Grapeseed, Hemp, Mango, Nut, Olive, Papaya, Passionfruit, Sesame & Shea
Body Scrubs: Cocoa Butter, Coconut, Grapeseed, Mango, Nut, Olive, Papaya, Passionfruit, Sesame & Shea

You can mix and match any way you want. I must have the orders by 6 pm on Monday, April 18th. VISA, MC, Discover & AMEX accepted.

Please call or email me with your orders: Diane Dodge, Independent Consultant, The Body Shop at Home, 2660 Blake Rd, Wadsworth OH 44281 330-336-2578 msdodge@akrobiz.com ACTION…ACTION…ACTION…ACTION…

FIX THE PATRIOT ACT
Urge your Members of Congress to fix flaws in the Patriot Act and help keep America safe and free. Click here for more information and to contact your Members of Congress: http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17913&c=206

RESTORE OPTION 3
Please help provide life-saving treatment for Ohio breast cancer patients. Restore Option 3 of the Breast & Cervical Cancer Treatment Program to the budget amendment today! Option 3 will save lives and money for Ohioans." Call these reps today: Rep. John Husted (614) 644- 6008 Rep. Merle Grace Kearns (614) 466-2038 Rep. Kevin DeWine (614) 644- 6020 Rep. Charles Calvert (614) 466- 8140 Rep. Chuck Blasdel (614) 466- 2206 Rep. Larry Flowers (614) 466-4847 Rep. Jim Carmichael (614) 466- 1474

PUT SCIENCE BEFORE PROFITS
Tell Members of Congress, FDA senior officials, and the White House to put science ahead of politics and reject approval of silicone implants for general use until adequate research and long-term data are available. www.now.org:81/t/199882/215869/680071/0/

SAVE THE DATE
The National NOW Conference will be held July 1-3, 2005 at the Loew's Vanderbilt Hotel in Nashville, TN. Become a chapter delegate, attend the conference and elect the National NOW Officers. Two slates are declared. Act for NOW www.actfornow.org and also Rosie's Riveters www.TheRiviters.org

Calendar
4/14 PPGC Party Politics at the Old Angle Tavern in Ohio City. The event will be an Everyday Activism theme with some games and activities. The idea is to present people with ways they can be pro-choice in their everyday life (with their mind, voice, style, time, money). Judith Wright 216-961-8804 x225
4/15 "Perils & Pitfalls of Privatizing Social Security" Women Speak Out for Peace & Justice 7pm Max Wohl Civil Liberties Center, 4506Chester Ave 216-851-0968
4/16 "Election Protection Town Hall Meeting" 8:30 am - 12 noon Cuyahoga Community College - Metro Campus Student Cafeteria, 2900 Community College Ave., Cleveland, OH 44115 RSVP at: http://activist.acthere.com/page/s/townhallOH.
4/19 EQUAL PAY DAY
4/19 GREATER CLEVELAND NOW Meeting 7 pm YWCA of Greater Cleveland, 4019 Prospect Ave 44103 Free Parking next to bldg. Wal-Mart Program For info greaterclevelandnow@yahoo.com or Roslyn 216-524-1813
4/21 Social Security Coalition Fund Raising Dinner - Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse, 5:30 pm 26300 Chagrin Blvd., Beachwood. $60.00. Call 216-881-7200 for ticket reservations.
4/23 - 24 Planned Parenthood Live Action Camp a two day, hands on grassroots training and organizing model in Columbus. Training is FREE! Contact kellihykes@ppao.org or visit www.ppao.org for info.
4/30 "Speak-Out on Gender Discrimination" See info inside 216-321-9201 or 440-396-6237
5/12 "The Feminization of HIV/AIDS " See Info inside. 216-781-0555.
5/17 GREATER CLEVELAND NOW Meeting 7 pm YWCA of Greater Cleveland, 4019Prospect Ave 44103 Free Parking next to bldg. For info greaterclevelandnow@yahoo.com or Roslyn 216-524-1813
5/21 - 22 NOW Activist Training Weekend. See details inside chapdev@now.org or call 202-628-8669 x 137 or 129
6/4 Ohio NOW Board Meeting & Ohio NOW PAC meeting, PAC 11-1 Board 1 - 4, Columbus ohionow@akrobiz.com
6/18 Cleveland Pride Help staff the Greater Cleveland NOW table 330-336-2578 msdodge@akrobiz.com
6/19 -21 "When Women Gain, So Does the World" Conference Washington DC conference@iwpr.org
6/21 GREATER CLEVELAND NOW Meeting 7 pm YWCA of Greater Cleveland, 4019 Prospect Ave 44103 Free Parking next to bldg. For info greaterclevelandnow@yahoo.com or Roslyn 216-524-1813
7/1 -3 National NOW Conference, Nashville, TN www.now.org
7/19 GREATER CLEVELAND NOW Meeting 7 pm YWCA of Greater Cleveland, 4019 Prospect Ave 44103 Free Parking next to bldg. For info greaterclevelandnow@yahoo.com or Roslyn 216-524-1813