After the election, Urvashi gave the 2010 Kessler Lecture at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at CUNY and called for intersectional, grassroots movements that look beyond formal equality to true social justice. She joins Laura in studio to talk about just that--integrating racial and gender justice aspects into the larger progressive movement.

Kai joins Laura in studio to talk about what can be learned from the movement around the DREAM Act and Don't Ask Don't Tell, moving beyond "inside/outside" strategy, and why the military is traditionally a first step toward wider equality and rights for all Americans.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has cost more than 13,000 trained troops their jobs. In addition it’s cost some activists their health and well-being. Lt. Dan Choi, a tireless crusader, who chained himself to the White House fence for repeal, was involuntarily committed to a Veterans Hospital earlier this month after a breakdown.

No activist should be portrayed as superhuman, Choi wrote to friends. The failures of government and national leaders carry consequences, he said, that go far beyond the careers and reputations of corporate leaders, and elected officials. “They ruin lives. “

With ruined lives in mind, before the vote on Don't Ask Don't Tell, last Thursday, 131 demonstrators--many of them veterans--were arrested outside of the White House, protesting war. Among them were GRITtv guests Chris Hedges and Daniel Ellsberg. Hedges wrote eloquently of what drove him to act: the horrors of armed conflict and the cost of militarization to civil society and its citizens.

This Friday, Bradley Manning spent his 23rd birthday in a six-foot by twelve foot cell, accused of the crime of revealing information about this nation’s wars in the hopes of stopping them. He's been there for seven months. In solitary. Manning may have acted alone, but he’s not alone. Militant action helped change Don't Ask Don't Tell—and militant action is needed to get him out of solitary.

And then, it's time to take a tip from those LGBT service members. As they came out for their rights openly to serve in our wars, are wars' opponents as willing to come out, loud and proud -- leaving no-one to stand alone -- against our nation's waging of them?

Megan joins Laura in studio to talk austerity measures, tax cuts, Don't Ask Don't Tell, rape prosecution, and much more.

Joshua Kors has reported on soldiers being denied medical care and benefits when their injuries were called "preexisting conditions," and Margaret Stevens is a veteran of the New Jersey National Guard and testified in the recent Winter Soldier conference about her experience in the military. They both join us in studio for a frank discussion this Veterans' Day about the ways in which we are still failing our veterans.

But it's not just him. How about our justice strategy? As we mark another Veterans -- or Armistice - Day,  with LGBT vets shut up and shut out, it's time we called an Armistice on making nice to our military.

Before another much-medaled macho man talks about unit cohesion and combat readiness -- and why we simply must protect our boys from out gay men and lesbians -- we need an answer. Just what is rape and sexual abuse doing for unit cohesion?

General James Amos, the new commandant of the Marine Corps, recently told reporters that he was concerned about a possible loss of unit cohesion and combat readiness if "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" is repealed. It's the umpteenth time we've heard this.

According to SWAN, the Service Women's Action Network, one in three women is raped or sexually assaulted while serving in our military. I heard a Marine Corps captain choke back her pain this week. Her cohesion's barely holding up; is that just fine with General Amos?

Misogyny and homophobia go hand in hand. Listen to any service person talk about their training. Much of it actually encourages female-hate, or the hatred of the femme within. So no wonder "fag" is a label to be terrified of. The military will never be safe for LGBT people until it's safe for females and it's not. It's deadly.

It's time to stop asking servicemen and starred generals how safe they feel -- and start bringing them into the dock to account for hate crimes. They've wrecked and ruined enough brave women. When they put that to rights, maybe we'll consider letting them employ the services of our precious gay and lesbian people.

But, Bhargava notes, ordinary Americans are organizing as well, and the One Nation march in Washington will be a start toward holding the administration accountable, and building a real bottom-up movement.

LGBT voters came out and contributed en masse to Barack Obama's campaign. A year ago, he promised them action on, among other things, repeal of the military's discrimination policy, Don't ask Don't Tell.  This May it seemed as if they'd won. To much ballyhoo, on the eve of a war appropriation vote, the White House announced what sounded like repeal.

Now half the LGBT community thinks Don't Ask Don't Tell is already repealed, Miriam Perez of Feministing told GRITtv recently.

Except what the President actually announced wasn't repeal. It was a compromise that opened the way for a vote on repeal if a Pentagon working group, the President, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs all approved such a thing.

Now it turns out that 400,000 service members are going to have their say as well.

As the jobless go with nothing and school libraries are shut up tight for lack of cash, we the taxpayers have, it turns out, paid a research firm  some $4.4 million to send an email-survey  to 400,000 troops.

Leaked copies include the following questions: "If a wartime situation made it necessary for you to share a room, berth or field tent with someone you believe to be a gay or lesbian service member, what are you likely to do?" (The survey offers options.) "If Don't Ask Don't Tell is repealed and you are assigned to bathroom facilities with open bay showers with a gay or lesbian service member, would you: Take no action? Use shower at different time?"

There's also a question asking service members, if a gay or lesbian member moved into military housing with a same-sex partner, would they pick up their family and move out.

There's no question about how troops feel about serving under Don't Ask Don't Tell (of course.)

And -- no question, this is a first. No one surveyed the troops when it was time to desegregate. No one surveyed male soldiers about allowing women in. When it came to school desegregation, the Supreme Court didn't survey white kids. In fact it's impossible to imagine such a thing.

About as impossible as imagining that LGBT campaign contributors will be doling out much cash to Democratic candidates this fall.