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What Business Wanted from Welfare Reform by Stephen Pimpare: How Democrats and Corporate Think Tanks Dismantled Welfare; Poverty and Hunger Up, Federal Aid to Poor Down; The Objective: Cheapening the Cost of Labor;
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Today's Stories
October 27, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
October 26, 2004
Brian Cloughley Three Weddings and Lots of Funerals: Atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan
William Blum Fear Factors
Lenni Brenner The 1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Lessons for 2004
Ben Tripp The Chicken Salad Election
Fidel Castro After the Fall
Greg Bates The Nation's Flawed Calculus
Walter Brasch Gag the Public: the War on Dissent
Niranjan Ramakrishnan An Open Letter to Pat Buchanan
Mickey Z. Rumble in the Jungle at 30: Ali, Foreman and the Congo
Amir Taheri The Boom in Conspiracy Theories
Alexander Billet Say It Ain't So, Bruce!: the Boss Endorses Kerry
Doug Giebel The Religion of G.W. Bush
Kathleen Christison Why I Liked Thomas Friedman's Latest Column Before I Didn't
October 25, 2004
Ralph Nader Letter from a Minnesota Highway
Werther West Texas Wahabbism
Dave Zirin Boston's Killer Cops: Death of a Fan
Fred Gardner Pot Shots: Oregon Revokes Dr. Leveque's License
Omar Barghouti Executing Another Child in Rafah
William J. Nottingham Lori Berenson's Story
John Chuckman A Foolish Consistency
Uri Avnery On the Road to Civil War
October 22 / 24, 2004
Alexander Cockburn You Can't Blame Nader for This
Rev. William Alberts On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions
Willliam A. Cook Killing for Christ
Saul Landau George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?
Bill Quigley I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children While Arresting Priest
Christopher Brauchli Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really Means
William S. Lind Fallujah and the Moral Level of War
Sharon Smith Guilt Trippers for Kerry
Greg Bates Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"
Justin E.H. Smith Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?
Rebecca Evans Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military
Mike Whitney Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion
M. Junaid Alam Purchasing Individuality in America
David Krieger Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and Kerry
David J. Ledermann The Emperor's New Crumbs
Lawrence Reichard Same Old FBI Story
Website of the Weekend Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling
October 21, 2004
Ben Tripp The Undecided Voter Examined
Joshua Frank Kerry and the Environment: It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green
Stan Cox What the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses
Bill Martinez State Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply
Mark Engler The War and Globalization
Lina Britto and Lucia Suarez Bolivia: a Year After the October Insurrection
Website of the Day Two Pampered Children of Wealth
October 20, 2004
Yitzhak Laor "Did You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian Child
Jason Leopold Sinclair Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception
Jesse Sharkey A Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School Students
Col. Dan Smith Choking Free Speech About the Draft
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Using My Religion
David Vest If Bush Wins, Blame Me
Jack Random The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny
Ron Jacobs Time to Kick It Up a Notch
James Brittain Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?
Christopher Dols Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest
Dave Lindorff First They Came for the Nurses...
Website of the Day Banana Republican Catalogue
October 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair Party Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
Jeff Taylor Confessions of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal American Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan "It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For": Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren Katz What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
By KRISTIN VAN TASSEL
At the conclusion of the third presidential debate, Bob Schieffer mentioned that all three men on stage -- Schieffer, George W. Bush and John Kerry -- were married to strong women and were the fathers of daughters. Of course, it was the men, not the strong women, who were asking and answering the questions about U.S. domestic policy. With a few exceptions, men continue to dominate business and politics. At the heart of this reality is the deep cultural schism between domesticity and professional success. We need policies that make it easier for both men and women to reconcile their domestic and professional lives. The absence of women with high influence has more to do with practicality than ideology. While fatherhood need not impede high professional advancement, motherhood often does. Evidence overwhelmingly suggests that women remain a minority in positions of power not because men are opposed to their leadership, but because tending children is incompatible with the intense demands of such jobs. It is not coincidental that one of the most powerful women in America, Condoleezza Rice, is childless. Despite the rising numbers of men involved in child rearing, far more women remain the primary caregivers of young children. The most recent census reports that among stay-at-home parents there are 5.2 million mothers versus 105,000 fathers. The number of parents sharing the role is more difficult to tabulate, but the research of Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels, authors of “The Mommy Myth,” as well as Judith Stadtman Tucker, editor of The Mothers Movement Online, suggests that even in these joint arrangements women consistently assume greater child-care responsibilities. As a result, many of the 81 percent of women who become mothers reduce their work time, or leave or put on hold their careers. This is true even for America's most successful and well-paid female professionals, as revealed in a recent “60 Minutes.” The consequences of such decisions can be significant and long lasting. Two hundred years ago, when approximately 90 percent of Americans were farmers, domesticity was integral to the lives of men as well as women. Because home and work were the same, both parents were with their children throughout the day. Men and women were partners in child rearing. Moreover, the very nature of farming, which requires the care of animals and plants, further encouraged men to develop their skills as nurturers. Domesticity was valued, regardless of sex. Shared domesticity has gone the way of the family farm. Men are now measured by different standards. The devaluation of domesticity, a result of the industrial revolution, hurts us all. It reduces the number of smart, capable women moving into positions of social and economic influence, and it discourages men from more fully participating in their children's upbringing. A good way to begin rehabilitating domesticity is to legislate paid paternal leave. The United States is one of only two industrial countries that do not guarantee paid leave for at least one parent. Increased job flexibility as well as pay parity and benefits for part-time work would make creative alternatives economically feasible for both parents. We also need substantial subsidies or tax breaks for businesses that provide day care on location for their employees, which would not only reduce stress for parents and children, but let working parents see their children during the day. Finally, we must start respecting domestic work as an important national resource, with the kind of monetary value that could be figured into the gross domestic product and, more radically, count toward Social Security. All of these policies would go a long way in renewing the prestige of child rearing and improving equal access to positions of power. Unfortunately, such changes remain unlikely as long as the men and women firmly committed to domesticity are absent from the policy-setting arena. As a result, we will continue to have campaigns like our current one -- where the issues most challenging to parents are not even being discussed. Kristin Van Tassel is a mother and teaches English at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas.
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