ICWA: 35 Years and they Still Don’t Get It

Posted on by — Leave a reply

Today is the 35th anniversary of ICWA. *The Indians Child Welfare Act,(, You’d think that our christian and cultural missionaries would have gotten it by now, but they don’t Anti-Indian websites such as the Christian Alliance for Indian Child Welfare (CAIDW) and the racist Ciizens Equal Rights Allaince (CERA) proclaim individual Indians and entire tribes unworthy, corrupt, dangerous, disempowering, and archaic. Tribal sovereignty and maintenance of Indian family ties, tradition, and culture, are “racist.” That is, they impinge on white privilege and hegemony and obstruct desire.

Indian Country, is a their personal Plunder Country. They should be able to take what want:: land, natural resources, children. Continue Reading →

PAPal Therapy: Ohio Right to Life’s Quick and Easy Adoption “Reform” Hearing

Posted on by — 4 Comments ↓

This afternoon I attended the first hearing of HB 307, Ohio Right to Life’s cheap and easy adoption scheme that I wrote about last month. I suggest you go there first for background.before you continue here. For those not so inclined, here’s a cheat sheet: HB 307: Continue Reading →

Demons of Adoption 2013: The suspense is over and the winner is…

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

.…Raymond Godwin and Nightlight Christian Adoption aka Capobianco, Inc. I’m not surprised.  I can’t remember ever running into a more despicable gang of adoptahugs than the Cs and their entourage of baby grabbing lawyers,  adoption agents,professional media whores,PR hacks, racists, haters, religious nuts, and crybabies. They make the DeBoers look sane. The Demons of Adoption Award is a response to the annual Angels in Adoption Award sponsored by the Congressional Coalition for Adoption Institute (CCAI).  Ironically,  in 2010, Godwin and his wife Laura, the head of Nightlight Christian, received an Angels of Adoption. Award.  They were nominated by former Senator Jim DeMint (SC-R), now president of the conservative Coors-family founded Heritage Foundation and long-time friend of Bill Pierce, founding president of the National Council for Adoption.  A few years ago, a writer for the Heritage suggested that women be allowed by law to sell their parental rights. (not online; document in my possession.) Announcing the latest Demon, Pound Pups Niels and Kerry write: : Knowingly starting an adoption procedure that can reasonably be expected to be contested, is immoral. Adoption, when practiced, should increase a child’s stability in life, not lower it. Raymond Godwin and his wife  [director of Nightlight Christian]Laura Continue Reading →

International Adoption: The White Woman’s Burden. Agency staff picture is worth a thousand words

Posted on by — Leave a reply

Just a morning thought on International  Adoption and American foreign policy, such as it is. I had never heard of  MLJ Adoptions before this morning, until I ran across it on a re-Tweet 30 Things to  do During Adoption Month. Since I’m lazy and didn’t make a list of things to do for NAAM I’m ready to take on an assignment. Not content with telling people to set up book displays or make a “life book” for their kid, MLJ   busy-ness is more specific and time-consuming.  If I’m not promoting Orphan Sunday, subjecting my friends and neighbors to Stuck, raising $$$ for other people’s adoptions or setting up an adoption booth at a local high school’s Friday night football game to  drum up producers and consumers, I’m not doing my fair share  to spread the Good News of Adoption. Why NMJ has even created a handy-dandy selection of  MLJ adoption banners and pictures for my FB page. Aimed at the crunchy social justice crowd  the selections include the consumerist: Adopt Globallly — Love Locally By globally  MLJ  means adopt from our program.  MLJ’s grabby fingers reach into Bulgaria, Congo (oh! oh! just closed!), Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Samoa, and Ukraine. It Continue Reading →

James Lane for NYC Public Advocate: Vote for one of us. This is how we win

Posted on by — Leave a reply

I don’t live in NYC, but if I did I’d vote for James Lane on Tuesday. James is the Green  Party candidate for New York Public Advocate,  He is also an LDA (Late Discovery Adoptee) who learned in his early 20s that he was adopted, but  that under New York law, he was  prohibited from getting information about his biological family or his adoption. Being barred from accessing his own birth records propelled James into  lifelong social justice activism  for adoptees and others; From James’ campaign webpage: From that moment, his fight for justice through political activism formally began, with the hope that laws such as denying a person’s right to know about their origins will be removed from our society forever. James has been active in adoptee rights movement for years. I can vouche for that! He won’t remember this, but we ran into each twice, once at an AAC conference a few years ago and again in 2011 at  the Times Square  Hard Rock Cafe.  Ramping up activism to electoral politics, James has made  the restoration of OBC access  the centerpiece of his Public Advocate campaign (with election reform especially involving third parties and re-allocation of tax money “back Continue Reading →

Hard Rock Manifesto: Whose side are you on?

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

We have proven that focused, energized civil rights campaigns can win. Yet, today we are sitting in the midst of corporate America–the Hard Rock Cafe– amongst a sea of adoption tweakers, self-defeaters, self- promoters, and neocons, who have never passed a “clean bill,” having a bizarre discussion over what we can learn about adoption (or open records?) from Oprah Winfrey–or so it was billed. This is the most bizarre adopta meeting since Ron Morgan, Bill Pierce, and Troy Dunn hooked up in LA to go on the Dr. Laura Show. We know how to restore adoptee access to our OBCs.. The only question now should be: why isn’t everybody following the model? Continue Reading →

Why is Adoptee Rights Still an Issue? the 20/20 question

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

National Adoption Month 2013 opened with a bang today.  Clicked on a link to “Bethany Christian Services” and “NAM” and got a live sex site. (No, I won’t put up the link) Then there’s the real porn.  ABC/s 20/20 Facebook question: Do you think all adoptive children should have access to their biological parents? Excuse me?   Some production intern, without much thought or grammatical skills, must have posted the question. I’m not even sure what the question even means: Does it refer to actual children, open adoption, the right of adult adoptees to their own original birth certificates? Or what? For the last 80 years, for their own specific  and sometimes unrelated reasons,  the state and its  politicians, along with social engineers, private industry, therapists, churches, and social do-gooders across the political spectrum have moderated the public and private lives of adoptees and their families.  Nowhere is the entwining of the personal and the political so grotesquely practiced as in adoption in the United States today.  Nowhere is the conflation of adults with children in public policy and public imagination so blatant.. Hence, even those deeply involved in bastard rights, don’t know for sure what the clumsy 20/20– post even Continue Reading →

Adoption Books

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

I’m working on making fixes on the new Bastardette format, and i’ts taking much longer than I thought.  Too much racket at home, so I packed up everything and came down to Subway on campus since there’s free WiFi here..  It’s open 24/7 and nobody cares how long you stay as long as you at least by a small drink.. It’s quiet (more or less but what a strange mixture of music–dance and country) with plenty of room. AA  mouse keeps running across the floor.  I’m not snitching. I’m trying  to do one “page” a day. Today I’ve listed my favorite adoption books.  Look under “Media”.  Keep in mind that these are books that I like, not necessarily what you like. They range from adoption history to policy to memoir to novel.  No Primal Wound! There’s more to add, but it’s enough for tonight. BTW, I don’t know why last nights blog on the anti-ICWA folks decided to format different from the rest.  I’ll work on that later.