When good women do nothing...

Edmund Burke may have said that "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Yesterday, at the 3rd Annual San Francisco Women's Policy Summit, which convened more than 170 public sector representatives, nonprofit leaders, and advocacy partners with the unifying cause of promoting policies that increase the status of women, Campaign Boot Camp author and advocate Christine Pelosi wisely closed the Summit by saying, "DO something, don't just be something." And my boyfriend once paraphrased the introduction to The Life of the Mind as "Don't just jack off to your brain."

Thinking is great. Thinking begets ideas, theories, plans. But those ideas need to have an actionable aspect, and those plans need to be carried out. 2010 is going to be a tough year both locally, with important Supervisorial seats up for grab in San Francisco, and on the State level, with constitutional reform and ballot initiatives aimed to fix - and some to further cripple - our fragile economy. Anyone who's ever purported to care about the state of our existence needs to be ready to act, and furthermore, to give.

It takes roughly $2.5 million for a statewide initiative to qualify for the ballot.

It takes more than $15 million to win.

Here's where I'm going with this: A FOURTH ballot initiative seeking a California constitutional amendment requiring parental notification and a 48-hour waiting period before a minor can obtain an abortion was filed at the California Attorney General's Office this month. Parental notification initiatives were defeated by California voters in 2005, 2006 and 2008, but moneyed right-wingers are still attempting to sink Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice providers by exhausting their funding streams with excessively repetitive ballot initiatives. They may not win (if we do our job right), but they will make sure that money that can be used to provide services is instead spent on politics.

So I'm just saying, be prepared to act and give, and give as generously as you can. If you're constructing your budget for 2010, don't forget to work in your future political contributions. Men, too. We appreciate it more than you know.

I will leave you with this the following quote that my colleague Heidi Sieck has just posted on Facebook (I almost hate to say it, but it's a great tool for exchanging ideas):

"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help each other" - Secretary Madeleine Albright, 1:15 PM 10/27/09 at the Women's Conference