Internet Resources on M58
Library Referrals
ADOPTION NATION: How the Adoption Revolution is Transforming America
Oregon's Measure 58 Timeline
The Campaign, The Vote, The Court, The Press, The Latest News.
ADOPTION POLITICS: Bastard Nation & Ballot Initiative 58
E. Wayne Carp
April 2004 University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700613056
The passage of Measure 58 in Oregon in 1998 was a milestone in adoption reform. For the first time in U.S. history a grassroots initiative restored the legal right of adopted adults to request and receive their original birth certificates. Within a day after the law went into effect, nearly 2,400 adoptees had applied for these previously sealed records, elevating their right to know over a birth mother's right to privacy. E. Wayne Carp, a nationally respected authority on adoption history, now reveals the efforts of the radical adoptee rights organization Bastard Nation to pass this milestone initiative. He has written an intimate history of a passionately proposed and opposed initiative that has the potential to revolutionize the adoption reform movement nationwide.
THE ACTIVIST'S HANDBOOK: A Primer Updated Edition with a New Preface
Randy Shaw
February 2001 University of California Press
ISBN: 0520229282
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The Activist's Handbook is a hard-hitting guide to making social change happen. Shaw, a longtime activist for urban issues, shows how positive change can still be accomplished- despite an increasingly grim political order-if activists employ the strategies set forth in this desperately needed primer. In a new preface, Shaw describes how the power of grassroots activism has won newfound respect. Mass protests against globalization and in favor of stricter gun controls have led once-invulnerable targets like the World Bank and the National Rifle Association to take citizen action more seriously. The Activist's Handbook details the impact of specific strategies on campaigns across the country: battles over homelessness, the environment, AIDS policies, neighborhood preservation, and school reform among others. Though activist groups can have widely different aims, similar tactics are shown to produce success.
RECLAIMING AMERICA: Nike, Clean Air, and the New National Activism
Randy Shaw
July 1, 1999 University of California Press
ISBN: 0520217799
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Shaw's new book includes a subchapter called "Bastard Nation: How the Net Created a Movement" which presents an example of how the Internet can be successfully used to effect positive social change. Marley, Shea, Helen, Ron and Damsel are mentioned, along with the history of BN, the Secrets & Lies pickets and the Oregon Initiative. Reclaiming America Shows the importance of creating national coalitions from grassroots community organizing in order to reclaim the United States with a progressive political agenda. Using examples of national campaigns such as the anti-sweatshop campaign and organizations working for tougher environmental legislation, Shaw shows the effectiveness of national activism whether it is affecting change from outside the electoral process or from within. The final section of the book highlights the effectiveness of the internet, the media and community-based organizations to aid in national mobilization. All these resources are essential for activists and their organizations to reclaim America's progressive ideals.
ELECTRONIC DEMOCRACY: Using the Internet to Influence American Politics
Graeme Browning, Daniel J. Weitzner
August 1996 Online
ISBN: 091096520X
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A practical guide to using the Internet as a political tool. The Internet's impact on American politics has been nothing short of revolutionary. With a special focus on recent elections, this resource explains the social relevance of online democracy through various case studies. Among the topics explored are the emergence of online voting; how the Internet has drawn youth back into politics and the reinvention of political action; online privacy and how it will affect Internet politics; the common mistakes of Net activists and how to avoid them; and propaganda, hacking, and the dark side of online politics. Plus how the Gore Democrats and the Bush Republicans pushed the Internet envelope during the presidential campaign.
Adam Pertman
2000 Basic Books
ISBN: 0465056512
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Pertman brings a reporter's skill and adopting parent's concerns to this comprehensive look at the process of adoption. After years of incremental change, adoption is undergoing a revolution: states are revising laws and agencies are simplifying rules. Pertman also examines the trend toward opening adoption for singles, multiracial families, gays, and the middle aged. Although adoption is still fundamentally private, it is no longer shrouded in the secrecy of the past as more states allow for open adoptions and balance the rights and desires of birth parents, adopting parents, and adopted children. Pertman examines the history of adoption from the foundling homes of the nineteenth century to current trends that are "advancing the ethnic, racial, and cultural diversity that is a hallmark of Twenty First Century America."
ADOPTION, IDENTITY, AND KINSHIP: The Debate Over Sealed Birth Records
Katarina Wegar
1997 Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300067593
Professor Wegar, an adoptee born in Finland, a country with open records, argues that the American obsession with pathologizing adoption and glorifying biological ties has impeded progress towards equal rights for adopted people.
ADOPTIVE KINSHIP: A Modern Institution in Need of Reform
David H. Kirk
1985 Ben-Simon Publishing
ISBN: 0914539019
A systematic analysis of the continuing controversy concerning the civil rights of adopted persons. Provides in-depth exploration of issues in adoption law and social policy, such as step-parent adoption, incest rules and child welfare activities. While identifying real troubles in adoption, it proposes humane, innovative answers. Difficulties peculiar to adoptive family life stem from well-meant but mistaken laws and administrative practices.
