Having just gotten back in your good graces...

The ERA passed by the 35 states you refer to has expired, as of June 30, 1982. A new ERA will require passage by House and Senate plus ratification by 38 states (or through a convention of the states, but that's much less likely). Not to dissuade, but it will require a total do-over.

Guess I should ah, amend this comment to make clear that I've read through the argument for reviving the earlier ERA effort from the dead, and I don't buy it. I don't think the SCOTUS will either. It might have had a chance if the deadline hadn't already been extended once (before it expired) but a plain reading of the legislative history is that Congress clearly intended the amendment to be passed within a certain time frame and confirmed that intent by legislating an extension; when that didn't happen the life went out of it. The Madison amendment doesn't bear, there was no deadline involved.

but it sure looked like a good idea.

So enlighten me -- COULD the ERA put a stop to the pro/anti Roe and the marriage equality hassles we're currently undergoing? Because if the answer to either of those, or both, is yes, then the way to find out for sure what kind of America we live in -- one that cares about people, or one that is already a right-wing delusion -- is to try to get the ERA revived, isn't it?

feral equine populations.

just my not so humble O. sorry, but that was a magical moment i was too young to enjoy and participate in. "feminism" of that wave is effectively dead in this country. young women have very little interest in any sort of political agigtation of the form you describe, in my experience. the gay community, which is as lazy as can be in terms of politics, is much more involved.

or so it seems.

feel free to come by and give me a massage, tho. it's nice and cold here, it'll man you up to do so. or something. ;-)

Because, trust me, all US treaties are lies.
Starting with any one that says "as long as the grass shall grow and the ____________ river shall flow," and ending with any one signed in the last eight years.

Instead of Dude Nation or Obama Nation, take your pick, the ERA would've been passed long ago, as well as CEDAW, the global gag directive repealed, and all the governmental offices looking after women's interests that were done away with by W stands for Women, reinstated. We don't live in a righteous nation, but today maybe we got on the path towards a world where women aren't instinctively and systematically made invisible - Hillary did us proud at the SOS confirmation hearings:

Our foreign policy must reflect our deep commitment to the cause of making human rights a reality for millions of oppressed people around the world. Of particular concern to me is the plight of women and girls, who comprise the majority of the world’s unhealthy, unschooled, unfed, and unpaid. If half of the world’s population remains vulnerable to economic, political, legal, and social marginalization, our hope of advancing democracy and prosperity will remain in serious jeopardy. We still have a long way to go and the United States must remain an unambiguous and unequivocal voice in support of women’s rights in every country, every region, on every continent.

And in a Q&A exchange with Barbara Boxer:

I want to pledge to you that as Secretary of State, I view these issues as central to our foreign policy. Not as adjunct or auxiliary, or in any way lesser than all of the other issues we have to confront. I too have followed the stories that are exemplified by the pictures that you held up. I mean, it is heartbreaking beyond words that, you know, young girls are attacked on their way to school by Taliban sympathizers and members who do not want young women to be educated. It’s not complicated! They want to maintain an attitude that keeps women — as I said in my testimony — unhealthy, unfed, uneducated and this is something that results all too often in violence against these young women, both within their families and from the outside.

This is not culture. This is not custom. This is criminal. And it will be my hope to persuade more government — as I have attempted to do since I spoke at Beijing on these issues, you know, 13 and some years ago — that we cannot have a free, prosperous, peaceful, progressive world if women are treated in such a discriminatory and violent way. I’ve also read closely Nick Kristof’s articles, in the last months and especially the last weeks, the young women that he has both rescued from prostitution, and met, who have been enslaved and abused, tortured in every way– physically, emotionally, morally– and I take very seriously the function of the State department to lead our government through the Office on Human Trafficking, to do all that we can to end this modern form of slavery. We have sex slavery, we have wage slavery, and it is primarily a slavery of girls and women. So I look also forward, Senator, to reviewing your legislation and working with you as a continuing partnership on behalf of these issues we care so much about.

So we’re going to have a very active office on trafficking, we’re going to be speaking out consistently and strongly against discrimination and oppression of women, and slavery in particular. Because I think that is not only in keeping with American values, as we all recognize, but American national security interests as well.

It's about damn time already that someone recognized half the human race as worthwhile - in public, and on the Senate floor.

on women's rights with the strong (and understandable) desire to get the hell out of Afghanistan will make for some interesting moral judgments.

We are knee-deep in that Big Muddy already; now "This is not culture. This is not custom. This is criminal." What to do, what to do?

by means of the pen, the scroll, and the coin, bringiton.

a people subjugated cannot be freed unless they have education and commerce to support them after the revolution -- this is how the Taliban got back into power. The US knocked them down but not out and did NOTHING to relieve the suffering they created while in power, nor during their 'intifadeh' against the US.

The Taleban promotes a cruelty against women the like of which we have not yet seen much here in the US (altho in some enclaves of immigrants, it appears that such things as female genital mutilation and honor killings are occurring). It will only spread if it is not stamped out, as a range fire spreads in dry grass and drives everything before it to exhaustion and death.

although by preference I'd like to say we can give it a hell of a try.

But HRC has evolved beyond that, I'm pretty sure, and so should those of us who think she's got her head on straight. Hence the comment that not by the sword only, but also by the pen, the scroll and the coin.

Baby steps. The pen creates laws protecting women (and kids). The scroll spreads those laws (and incidentally the pen and scroll spread other notions). The coin rewards those who obey or punishes those who don't -- depending on if it's a reward or a penalty.

First you get the women to think of themselves as humans, who deserve safety and care.

This is hard in a world where 99.9 percent of the other half the population doesn't think so (else why did the ERA deadline expire?) and a good quarter (Eagle Forum / Concerned Women For America / Pro-Life women / damn near any 'pietous' woman in any evangelical or conservative church) of the half they're biologically identified as being "in" agrees. So yes, it isn't gonna happen overnight. But it can be made to happen. Women gotta be part of it, just like gays and blacks and Hispanics and Asians; just like atheists and agnostics, Buddhists and Catholics, Confucians and Protestants. But you can do it if you work hard enough at it.

That's where the pen and scroll (and some of the coin) come in. Teaching. Legislating. Enforcing. Protecting. Change the culture. Raise the next generation to think instead of being led by the nose-ring of religion.

Then you get them to think of themselves as capable, and empowered to support themselves. That's where the coin (and the pen and scroll, and yeah, the sword to some extent, because once you're not somebody else's chattel you have the right if not the obligation to defend yourself as your own property, at the very least, and if you have the gall to go into business for yourself you damn sure better be able to hold off the thieves and the scum who'll try to cave your head in because you're making an income that doesn't depend on spreading your legs for their pleasure or profit) comes in much more majorly -- microloans is just one example.

Can't remember offhand where, but in some country I first heard of after the Tsunami, a group of women got a microloan and bought, like, two cellphones and a year's international service, and then set up a pay-to-yak service of their own with it -- and first thing you know they're out of debt and expanding. Other such success stories involve women who got livestock from Heifer Project or microloans for sewing machines (maybe even treadle-powered ones) in rural villages in South America and Southeast Asia, and all of a sudden their kids weren't starving to death one after another anymore.

Very small steps, yeah. TIme-consuming. Expensive. Probably bloody.

Don't see any help for the costs, if we're going to end up with the benefits.

Speaking of that hell of a try -- if it were up to me it wouldn't be just the Taleban men. It'd be the janjaweed and the "prophets" of the FLDS and every paedophile, rapist,and torturer on the planet, and if the entire adult membership of the Westboro Baptist "Church" wandered through hostile gunsights I reckon my conscience would be clear.

Not so much with the liberty, equality and brotherhood. Way more with the liberty, equality, and humanity.

Favreau of the frathouse is merely a symbolic amateur in the auteur of piggery, and I'm pretty sure he'll get his comeuppance in style, if not in public.

just the unreasonable ones.

You, for instance, are exempt.

W, not so much.

I don't know if anybody will ever know what to do in Afghanistan. I would suggest that we try something DIFFERENT than what the Soviets failed to do, but it's too late for that already (as of, oh, October of 2001, as a matter of fact. Thanks, W.)

My kid probably said this better: "We should start by wiping out all religions."

It would, at the very least, remove a pillar of the temple that justifies a big chunk of the world's wars, tortures, and repressions of "righteous" people against "other" people.

I guess, at the heart of it, that's my problem: people don't recognize that other people are really people, too. Cut us, do we not bleed? etc. notwithstanding.

Think I'll have that printed and framed, just in case, since c.f. Aeryl, above, my breeding days are behind me (shhh).

don't you?

that order would be costly in money and blood, I'd bet.
I mean, geez, look what happened with the freaking FLDS right here in Texas last year.

I'm game, but then, my breeding days are behind me, too.

How you gonna convince the women and kids to go?
I mean, geez, look what happened with the freaking FLDS right here in Texas last year.

Ninjas. That's what we need. And a boatload of really big troop-moving helicopters. Plus something like ... tear gas, only that puts people to sleep instead of making them helpless and pissed off at the same time.

Kidnapping, or rescuing? I guess it depends on which side of the line you're standing when the question arises, eh?
I mean, geez, look what happened with the freaking FLDS right here in Texas last year.

'Cause, yeah. Eventually the guys will die out -- and raids to get more women to abuse will help that process along, in some cases.