Stand Your Ground!

A Twin Cities feminist and longtime DFL stalwart wants feminists to write in Hillary! this fall:

Though she acknowledges it is a difficult sell, [DFL Feminist Caucus founder Koryne] Horbal said she and other feminists are promising not to vote for Barack Obama and write in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s name in November if the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations are not fully seated at the Democratic National Convention and Obama becomes the presidential nominee.

But if the move costs Obama the election?

“I don’t care,” Horbal said of the possibility that the move might cost Obama votes. She said she also would not be bothered if the write-in campaign indirectly helped elect John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee. “Let McCain clean it up for four years, and then we can have Hillary run again,” she said.

Democrats; for the love of goddess, by all means follow Mz. Horbal’s advice.  If womyn don’t stand as one behind any liberal woman; any liberal woman at all Hillary this fall, when indeed might you get another chance?

I’ll be copiously posting the write-in rules in this space over the next five months.

19 thoughts on “Stand Your Ground!

  1. Mitch,

    Posting in the write-in rules, well that seems logical, I hope you’ll encourage all the Ron Paul supporters to also write-in Paul – as I’m sure your support for Hillary comes from your vast activism within the woman’s movement.

    On the serious side, Mitch, outside this forum, I have reason to need to know, you said recently that copying any significant content from a blog violates several copyright laws, can you help point me to which ones? If you have the code or situs, that would be most helpful of all, but specifically at least, the one’s covering blog content being generally quoted (not for personal gain, or prevention of gain, as that I’m sure I can grasp represents unfair profit from the works of others) – I’d appreciate it. Thanks.

  2. BTW – I mean, copying content and attributing it, not claiming it as your own. You said it violated laws to do so – to copy AND attribute or at least, not claim as your own. Anyway, any help you can give would be appreciated. Thanks

  3. I’m with you on this one. While I’m no fan of Hillary — although, like many non-liberals, I’ve come to admire her grit, of late — I think the way that she’s been treated by her own party has been pretty awful.

    (And the speech where she talked about fathers whispering to their daughters, “See? You can do anything you want to” brought tears to this father’s eyes.)

    I’d much rather have McCain holding down the fort for the next four years, but I’d take Hillary over the snob in a New York minute. Say what you want about her, but the lady doesn’t have an ounce of quit in her.

  4. Peev,

    Nope. Can’t cite any laws, other than the US Copyright office’s “Fair Use” guidelines.

    It’s both simple and very complex; fair use involves quoting others’ copyrighted work to support your own, rather than entirely quoting another’s. The principle is that if you quote someone, it leaves the option/imperative to go buy/click on their original work; copying and pasting removes that need.

    The basic principle is that you can quote parts, even significant parts, of others’ work, in support of presenting your own original work. But posting an entire article, even with attribution, basically takes the distribution of that article away from the copyright owner.

  5. Joel,

    Hillary Clinton grew up in advantage, attended what? Vasser? Was a Goldwater girl, was part of the sneering condescension crowd according to righties while Bill was in the WH, lives in a multi-million dollar house, and campaigned on tired out saws of inaction and no improvement.

    Barack Obama, contrastingly, grew up in a much more harsh environment than Clinton, has never once evidenced the kind of bitter animous Clinton has, and outside of using the word ‘bitter’, hasn’t evidenced any amount of ‘snobbery’ at all in my opinion. His comments about the middle class being bitter, are you going to say they aren’t agry at watching their prospects dwindle, their prices rise, and their children’s future washed away in a see of debt? Obama may have used an indelicate word, but that hardly makes him a snob. Contrastingly, Bush looks on all the middle class as the ‘little people’ to quote his mother.

    If anyone is blue-blood in this election, it’s Clinton – not McCain, and sure as heck not Obama. He attended a terrific school, from a middle class background (at best) – that hardly qualifies him as either a snob or an elitist.

    Clinton is writing her political epitaph at the moment, her wilful disregard of rules she agreed to, her poisonous tone, her lethargic response and realization just how bad it really is, cost her the nomination. If being blind and stubbord is the same as not having an ounce of quit, ok, but most of us look at that as not being able to see reality. She could be a neo-con, she’s certainly doing her best Bush impersonation at the moment.

  6. Mitch, the reason I ask, is that blogs were recently found to lack some of the same protections as other published works. If I don’t post (full article or not) someone’s works where I am taking either credit, or denying them possible revenue – compensation, and I attribute the work – there isn’t any limit on a full article that I know of. Recently, for example, there were rulings on using other’s videos on You Tube – and trademarked material in it. As I understood the rulings, and I’m no lawyer, the general feeling was that you’re free to use blog material as long as you don’t claim it as your own, or prevent fair and free access/revenue to the author. I’ll read your free and fair use guidelines – but if I remember correctly, you said ‘several copyright laws’, I want to know for my own benefit to be honest, but it doesn’t look like there are several laws to be reviewed. Then again, you’re not an attorney either, and it’s not fair to expect you to know the law. Generally, my experience suggests that you could use a full article of anyone’s as long as you attribute it, and aren’t stealing from them their rightful gain by it.

  7. Read the fair use practice/guideline. I see your point about portion/substantiality, but on balance, since it’s non-profit (say in Cole’s case, and reallly in all blog cases), since it isn’t denying fair market value to the author, I don’t see any limit at all on inclusion of a full article. You perhaps violate one step, but not any of the rest. In short, the author isn’t out anything as long as he received credit.

    That said, as I said, it seems recent court rulings limit the level of protection afforded material posted in public space blogs/video pages. Fair use seems to be suggested to be use of public, not-for-profit content is fair as long as attributed, and no trademarked content is infringed upon. Such a position seems consistent with fair use. In short, I think your stance on copying full articles, may not be correct, but it would take a copyright attorney to say what the rulings have been, undoubtedly.

  8. Peev, seriously, get a blog of your own. you write so much that people scan them to see if they are longer than 150 words (or less) and skip them. You are really writing for yourself, and I fault Mitch for being an enabler. Get your own blog and write there.

  9. Peev with a blog? Nobody’d bother to read it.

    Personally, I’ve written a GreaseMonkey script that takes a peevish comment and replaces it with:

    “blah blah blah You have better things to do with your life than read this drivel blah blah blah.”

  10. since it isn’t denying fair market value to the author,

    Most of us who do make money from blogging (I get about $120 a month from ads) get paid by the click. If someone has no reason to come here, I get nothing.

    Which isn’t a big deal in the great scheme of things; just saying ethics, principle and economics do cross in this question.

  11. Geez.

    Over three thousand words last night, and over 800 more today.

    Like billhedrick said, but with more emphasis:

    Peev…

    Seriously. Get. Your. Own. Blog.

  12. What they said, Peev. In the time it takes you to type “for every finger you point, there are nine pointing back at you” for the fiftieth time, you could get out to Blogger and have your own all set up and ready to go. Literally; two minutes is all it takes.

    You can thank me later.

    Whoever you are.

  13. LOL.

    You are an evil, evil man.

    And I have water dripping out my nostrils.

  14. One problem with peev’s theory of fair use is that people who may have written something ‘not for profit’ may decide at some future time to use their copyrighted material for profit. They may, for example, put their not-for-profit writing into a book that they try to sell to a publisher. If all the material in the book is available for free on the web it reduces its value.
    Another example would be collections of letters & ephemera written by literary figures and published by his or her heirs after the author’s death. Not written for profit, yet they hold a dollar value for the inheritor of the copyright.

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