Taxation without rights

Taxation without rights

June 15, 2010

Dear DNC,

Today, as I mail my quarterly tax checks to the IRA I am reminded that I am not an “Equal Citizen Under the Law.” I can’t get married, I can’t defend my country at war, and I don’t have equal protections in the workplace under the law.

When WE elected you in 2008, you were supposed to make us Equal Citizens. You’ve failed miserably and until you correct this injustice our ATM is closed to the DNC.

Please stop asking for money until you repeal DADT, you passed ENDA, repeal DOMA, and have our President state that he believes in marriage equality.

Sincerely,





Carlos T Mock, MD and William R, Rattan
501 N. Elm Street
Three Oaks, MI 49128

Dr. Mock has published four books with Floricanto Press, Berklety, CA. His articles have appeared on publications like The Chicago Tribune and several gay and lesbian newspapers. He was inducted in The Chicago GLBT Hall of Fame in 2007. He can be reached at: www.carlostmock.com


Who Can The LGBT Community Support in 2010!

May 10 2010

LGBT people are great citizens - responsible, diligent and knowledgeable. We know and value the ability to be able to participate fully in the election process. None of us would even consider sitting out an election knowing ramifications on not only our issues but those facing our planet. So the option of boycotting any election should not be one that we embrace in protest. However, as we progress through this political year, several factors are clear to us.

1. There is simply no longer any benefit in giving to the national Democratic entities such as the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Fund. Because of their apparent love affair with Blue Dog Democrats, most who oppose LGBT rights, we would only be freeing up money for candidates who will hurt us instead of help us. Even 'special funds' set up inside those committees only help create money for those who oppose us.

2. Second, we don't have to support those committees to be good citizens and to help our community. There are now enough candidates who support full equality, including marriage equality, that we no longer have to accept second best. We can raise money, awareness and support for candidates who believe in us. We don't need to go through Committees to support them, we can write checks directly.

In this year's United States Senate races, there at least five candidates (maybe more later), who support full equality including marriage. They deserve our direct money, support and praise. I will do my best over the next weeks to point out other candidates who are supporting us fully. This is a beginning list:

Senator Barbara Boxer (California): The California Democrat was a vocal opponent against Proposition 8. She has been a long time supporter of the LGBT community and supports full equality.

Senator Russ Feingold (Wisconsin): Russ Feingold, when he was considering running for President, was the first Presidential candidate to support marriage equality leading the path for others to follow. This progressive is true champion of our community.

Candidate Lee Fisher (Ohio): Fresh off a primary victory, this Democrat nominee for senate is totally on board with full equality. Don't believe me? Just go to his website and see his positions! Lee Fisher is a strong advocate for marriage equality.

Candidate Alexi Giannoulias (Illinois): The youngest candidate for US Senate this year is a huge champion for full equality for LGBT citizens. Campaigning before straight audiences he has advocated strongly for marriage equality, repeal of DOMA and repeal of DADT just for openers!

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (New York): At this moment, there is no greater or tougher champion for the LGBT community in the United States Congress and that includes at times even some of our own elected's! Need proof? Just look at her recent letter to her constituents proclaiming how wrong Secretary of Defense Gates was to ask the Congress to wait before repealing DADT. In her we have found a powerful and amazing advocate for our freedom.

This is just the first in a series presenting to you candidates who you can feel comfortable in supporting. If you have choices and they support full equality (including marriage equality and not civil unions), please send them to me with documentation.

Illinois Senate Candidate on GLBT Issues http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5932/t/6348/thankYou.jsp?key=1271

Open letter to Senate candidate Mark Kirk.

Dear Congressman:

I find it offensive that Republican Andy Martin claimed you are a homosexual in a radio ad or that Mike Rogers—who has a reputation for outing politicians—is claiming that you are a closeted gay man. I am a gay man and I get offended because there is nothing wrong with being gay. As a a matter of fact I’m very proud of it!

However, a “single, good looking 50 year old man” is no longer called a “bachelor” in our society. When you voted against repealing don’t ask don’t tell policy in congress, you hurt the gay and lesbian community. And as such, the gay and lesbian community has the “right and duty” to ask if you are gay.

If openly gay Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jacob Meister criticizes me for the question, that’s fine by me; but based on your recent lies about your military career, I an starting to think that you’ll say and do anything to get elected.

Where’s your strong support for a woman’s right to choose? Gone in this election. As a fifth-term congressman who is running for U.S. Senate, you received an 85% rating from the Human Rights Campaign, the largest Gay and Lesbian organization in the US, in part for your support of hate-crimes legislation and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. However, now that you are running for the Senate, you lost the group's endorsement for the race to fill the seat to be vacated by Roland Burris, after the DADT vote last week.

Mr. Kirk, before this election in November, voters have a right to know the truth about you!

Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007

Carlos T Mock, MD
Uptown Chicago
June 10, 2010

What’s wrong with the GLBT Movement?

What’s wrong with the GLBT Movement?
By Carlos Mock, MD
May 24, 2010

Perhaps you are like me, wondering what happened to all those promises by the young Obama administration about equal rights for the GLBT community.

We were assured that ENDA would be passed in 2009. President Obama spoke at the HRC dinner last year in NYC and announced the repeal of DADT by year’s end. Many local Equality organizations have been announcing marriage equality, only to see New Jersey, New York, Illinois, and many others fail miserably.

Are you wondering what’s going on? For the last year, over and over again in the blogosphere, we have written about how 2009 was our year. We understood that never again would we have the kind of Congressional margin the Democrats had, that it wasn't an election year and it was time to act. The Obama team, and yes HRC, told us to wait; that they had a grand plan and everything would take place in time.

Well the time is over for poetic words and empty promises. Our patience has run out. If HRC has a master plan and time schedule, we at this stage, have a right to know what it is and what the Obama team promised to get them to back off. Simply put, enough of these political games and giving our friends permission to take detours, prolong the trip and deny us our equality.

As our president memorably said a while ago, "Enough." Really and seriously - enough.

Close your ATM to the Democratic Party and any GLBT organization that fails to deliver:

As if we needed more reason not to give to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Ben Smith of Politico.com, gave us yet another one. It turns out the DNC recently gave Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) over $500,000 to pay for ads for his re-election. Nelson stands against the LGBT community at every opportunity. Not only that, but he was also a major reason we are in the current health care situation. We don't need to be financing Democrats who act like Republicans. Why in the world would we give money to the DNC simply to free up their funds to give to Blue Dog Democrats?

How long has your local Equality organization promised you Equal rights and an end to discrimination? How long have you been waiting for them to deliver? Try asking questions about their failure or how they are spending your hard earned contributions and what results they’ve achieved. They immediately get defensive or even angry. When was the last time you saw an annual report detailing how your hard earned money was spent? With the Obama revolution, most state houses achieved Democratic majorities—yet, local organizations can’t convince the Democrats they helped to elect to deliver for them.

Tired of the status quo, a major new civil rights organization was formed in our struggle for freedom. Kip Williams and Robin McGeehee, Co-chairs of the National Equality March in October, announced the formation of "Get Equal." http://www.getequal.org/ The talented organizers have spent months since the March on Washington, carefully putting together an effective national network of activists to battle for civil rights for the LGBT community. They have traveled across the country, held retreats with young leaders and worked with march participants to create an entity that will fill the vacuum of the absence of a 'direct action' organization in our movement.

I encourage every GLBT person to carefully analyze where you will put your money in 2010. Do you want a repeat of 2009? Chose well and make sure you get accountability from the organizations you support. Don't budge and continue to only give money directly to candidates who are for full equality including marriage equality. To add insult to injury, our President is still against same sex marriage!

Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. Inducted in the Chicago Gay & Lesbian Hall of Fame October 18th, 2007. You can find more information on Dr. Mock at: http://www.carlostmock.com/

Why I should be the Next President of the USA

Why I should be the Next President of the USA
By Carlos T Mock, MD
May 30, 2010


The Tea Party movement things that Sarah Palin should succeed president Obama as the 45th President of the United States. In my opinion my qualifications are superior to hers.

I know that Africa is a continent, not a country.

I read every morning, The Financial Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Chicago Sun-Times.

I know the difference between North and South Korea. The Korean War (1950–53) was the first major proxy war in the Cold War (1945–91), the prototype of the following sphere-of-influence wars such as the Vietnam War (1959–75). The Korean War established proxy war as one way that the nuclear superpowers indirectly conducted their rivalry in third-party countries. The NSC-68 Containment Policy extended the cold war from occupied Europe to the rest of the world. Fighting ended at the 38th parallel and the DMZ, a strip of land 248x4 km (155x2.5 mi), now divides the two countries—but neither of the Koreas officially ended the war.

I know that Africa is a continent, not a country.

I know that the Boston Tea Party was a revolt of Americans against the British Empire for taxation without representation—and had nothing to do with the size of our government.

I’ve actually been to Russia, which is better than seeing it from afar.

Ms Palin was elected to office—namely Governor of Alaska—but she abandoned her post as soon as she realized she could become a millionaire. She placed money over her constituency, and that is something I would never do.

There is one big area I can’t compete against her—for at 54, I don’t think I qualify as “hot.” If beauty is a qualification for the presidency of the United State, then I nominate Beyoncé; not only she is much more younger and beautiful than Ms. Palin—she can also sing and act. Besides, Beyoncé was born in Houston, Texas—and you can’t get more American than that.

Finally, I don’t exploit my family for political purposes—and I would NEVER allow my daughter to get pregnant before being married by a priest or minister.

There might be one problem, I was born in Puerto Rico—and in the midst of one of the most precipitous political crashes in the Mountain West, Sarah Palin made a mad dash into Boise on Friday, urging the election of a man who had plagiarized his campaign speech from Barack Obama, had been rebuked by the military for misusing the Marine uniform and had called the American territory of Puerto Rico a separate country.

Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He's had several OP-Ed published at the Chicago Tribune. He can be reached at http://www.carlostmock.com/

Israel and the USA, A similar situation like Korea and China

Israel and the USA, A similar situation like Korea and China
By Carlos T Mock, MD
June 2, 2010


The USA is demonstrating to its neighbors, and the world, that being the only superpower is not necessarily to be welcomed. Though it has become undeniable that its ally and client, Israel, raided naval vessels that killed nine people, many of them Turks, on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza, no direct condemnation by US Official has come forth.

When the U.N. Security Council Condemned ‘Acts’ in the Israeli Raid, the wording (influenced heavily by the US) seemed designed to dilute demands for condemnation of Israel, which argues that its soldiers acted in self-defense in response to violent resistance from passengers on board the vessels they intercepted. After the raid, Israel seized hundreds of activists as well as their ships.

Einat Wilf, a Labor Party member of Parliament who sits on the influential Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that she had warned Mr. Barak and others well in advance that the flotilla was a public relations issue and should not be dealt with by military means. “This had nothing to do with security,” she said in an interview. “The armaments for Hamas were not coming from this flotilla.” It is well documented that the arms that are the supposed cause for the blockade are actually flowing freely through tunnels under the Egyptian border.

Israel’s deadly commando raid on Monday complicated President Obama’s efforts to move ahead on Middle East peace negotiations and introduced a new strain into an already tense relationship between the United States and Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel canceled plans to travel to Washington on Tuesday to meet with Mr. Obama. The two men spoke by phone within hours of the raid, and the White House later released an account of the conversation, saying Mr. Obama had expressed “deep regret” at the loss of life and recognized “the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances” as soon as possible.

In the short term Israel’s behavior has damaged the United States. Watching the US defend the indefensible probably helped provoke the multiple worldwide demonstrations against the US and Israel.

An end to the crisis in the Middle East will require a more responsible approach by Mr. Obama. Abstaining from a Security Council resolution is not enough; the US must act decisively to restrain Israel from further provocations. The events of the past week are a sign that the US cannot continue to be seen as propping up a criminal client state and also be regarded as benign in its growing power. Sooner rather than later, it will have a choice to make.

Dr. Carlos T Mock is a native Puerto Rican who resides in Chicago, IL and Three Oaks, MI. He has published four books and is the GLBT Editor for Floricanto Press in Berkley, CA. He contributes columns regularly to Windy City Times in Chicago, Ambiente Magazine in Miami, Camp Newspaper in Kansas City. He can be reached at http://www.carlostmock.com/