D.C. Awakening--my interview with Jen Nedeau, Women's Rights blogger at Change.org.
Jen Nedeau blogs about Women's Rights at Change.org. She's not a seasoned feminist who has it all figured out; in fact, her feminist awakening began only a year ago. But she understands that women of her generation have grown up with a "dangerous sense of equality" that does not sync with real-world politics. This interview was recorded in March of 2009.
Get it at iTunes.
BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
Carrie Prejean: Are Progressives Becoming as Intolerant as Conservatives?
I've always been proud to consider myself a progressive, because being a progressive meant that I was open-minded, willing to assess every issue on its own merit, and I'm tolerant of varying points of view. But it seems that many of today's "progressives" have corrupted the term. Though many of these people call themselves progressives, they are not progressive thinkers–they are progressive in name only. Over the years they seem to have somehow lost their way, and as a result, have managed to redefined the term "progressive" to simply mean, not conservative.
A case in point is the unconscionable way in which the so-called progressive community has demonized Carrie Prejean after she indicated, almost apologetically during the Miss America Pageant, that she thought marriage should be between a man and a woman. Why in the world did she say that?!! Thereafter, she was called a bitch, seminude photos of her have been posted on the Internet, and she's been generally, dragged through the mud. It is unbelievable that people who call themselves progressive could do that to that young woman.
In addition to being supportive of many groups, I’m also a transparent organizer, regularly laying out my ideas, my visions, and inviting collaborators. As I’ve said in many places, there’s a tremendous amount of talent in the femisphere and the movement can prosper with many leaders; we don’t all have to sign onto the same agenda or even belong to the same group. That said, the more I get to know who’s doing what, the more I see women’s movement as a vast network of groups and individuals with specializations. Recently I floated the idea of unifying women’s movement on a wiki-map with a recognition of specializations so that we can share talent, resources, know-how and connections. It seems to me that the circuitry exists–the job is to strengthen our connections. Here’s an analogy from a recent article in the NY Times on brain research:
"…research…suggests that brain cells activated by an experience keep one another on biological quick-dial, like a group of people joined in common witness of some striking event. Call on one and word quickly goes out to the larger network of cells, each apparently adding some detail, some sight, sound, smell. The brain appears to retain a memory by growing thicker, or more efficient, communications lines between these cells."
Gloria Pan of Fem2.0 replied that she liked the idea but that there were too many egos involved for this to happen, to which I replied if that’s what’s holding up women’s movement, then we women need to confront it. I’m building relationships with many women and especially focusing on women of color, partly because as a Jew (secular) I don’t identify as white (although I recognize that I have had much white privilege), but also because I really feel that women’s movement cannot succeed without leadership of women of color. Women of color will be the leaders of this phase of women’s movement, imo, and I’m gung-ho on helping this happen.
My basic organizing principle for Feminist Advisory Board for Obama is that it will be networked to all other women’s groups and will facilitate direct communication from the people with the needs to the people who make public policy. This is a very big vision, and I’ve laid out some of my ideas for this in a a proposal for a needs-based women’s media network driven by user-interactivity: Our Needs Have Not Been Met: needia
Although I already feel like you are a friend, I wanted to extend myself to you and your fellow organizers in recognition of our common cause and to open up the lines of communication. Would you please pass this email to your fellow organizers? Also, you are all invited to join Feminist Advisory Board for Obama. I’m looking forward to having meaningful conversations with Feminist Campus.
http://digg.com/politics/Feminist_Advisory_Board_FAB_within_Organizing_for_America
How nice to wake up and find an idea that exists right now in my head and in words is getting eyeballs. Tom Hayes, the Synergist, has posted about FAB and http://needia.blogspot.com at his blog.
Someone has also DUGG the post! Oy, this reminds me of the months I spent doing the drill for the Obama campaign! Push push push! Digg Digg Digg! Tweet Tweet Tweet!
thank you, Mr. Tom Hayes, whoever you are...I see also that you are an entrepreneuer? Would love to have your input on needia.
Professor Bettina Aptheker's popular course at University of CA, Santa Cruz, has released a 17-DVD set of her lectures covering an entire academic quarter.
You can view a short video clip of her giving her own definition of feminism--click here.
There's more info at my blog Feminist Advisory Board for Obama
I'm glad Allison Fine is critiquing Change.gov, (on techpresident) and I think she makes some good points. I know that some activists are frustrated that the Obama team hasn't shown the ground game leadership that was the power behind the campaign. I think it's way too early to criticize Team Obama, but not way too early to be floating and discussing ideas.
But here's my meta take on one of the most vocalized complaints I've been hearing: post-election Team Obama (they're not even in the White House yet, he hasn't even been inaugurated yet) has not built the 2-way bridge to everywhere and everyone is stranded on the shores of post-election chaos and confusion.
I don't see this and I think it's a myth being created for good press and/or to push one's own agenda. Activists & organizations exist by the hundreds, maybe the thousands, and they aren't waiting around for instructions from Change.gov. They're doing what activists do. I'm one of them. I'm very busy right now getting back to my regular feminist agenda after having put it on hold for 9 months while I was All Obama All the time. As a result of having joined the Obama community, I am more skilled, more connected, and more activist.
In my opinion, it will take some time before the Obama administration figures out how to build bridges with its grassroots base, but, folks, this is and will continue to be a bottom-up movement, and so should it always be. We, the people, must agitate for what we need, and we, the people, will continue to build our visibility, our agendas, and our collective voice. And we will then invite the O-administration to visit our table...or our tables.
Do I hope that the O-administration will get the bridge thing right? I certainly do, but I'm not holding my breath. We're in an economic crisis. We're involved in two wars. Terrorists sent the world a new message yesterday in India. The unemployment rolls are swelling...in my view, Obama and team will be on ER duty for quite a while. In the meantime, my fellow feminists and I continue to expand the base, to network wildly, to get our agenda seen as a universally applicable set of needs as opposed to being marginalized as "women's issues."
The feminist movement never ended even though the mainstream press reported otherwise. We are not post-feminism. We are not post-patriarchy. There are staunch and stalwart feminists still at work, there are younger feminists emerging as leaders, and there are even younger feminists who are energizing the movement.
We're here, we've been here all along, and we're not waiting for the phone to ring.
http://locationofcontestation.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/virgin-mother-whore-the-impossible-triangle-of-modern-femininity-2/
The paradox is immediately clear. A woman cannot simultaneously be a virgin, a mother and a whore. But the idea that a successful woman must be at least two out of the three is pervasive in modern society. Ubiquitous advertising images reflect the widespread cultural emphasis on physical perfection and sexiness in the way we view and judge our girls and ourselves. At the same time, purity and virginity are celebrated in churches, schoolrooms, and in charity programs all over the country.
Undoing the hard work that progressive women have been fighting for for decades:
http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/09/19/first-wave-second-wave-and-then-came-sarah-palin/
http://rochesterhomepage.net/content/fulltext/?cid=34081
From: Cafe, Election Central
OK, I've Had Enough of the Palin Gender Politics Game. Now I'm Really Pissed.
I found another article of interest, this time on NPR. What encourages me the most are the comments in the blog below the article. I am deeply encouraged and heartened to see that there are so many thinking women out there who are not taken in by the Sarah Palin falacy.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2008/09/putting_lipstick_on_a_monolith.html#commentSection
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears. I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists. But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war. I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity. Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God." Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not. She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes. Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth. Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air. Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be. I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression. If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain. Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
Eve Ensler: Drill, Drill, DrillSeptember 2008
Eve Ensler: Drill, Drill, Drill
i heart eve ensler, even more so now than ever before. this woman has awed and inspired me for many years. i came to know her through the Vagina Monologues, which i was lucky enough to see her perform solo back in 2001, and have followed her work --literary and altruistic-- ever since. she is a playwright/performer/activist and the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end (sexual) violence against women and girls. they just celebrated their 10th anniversary, V to the Tenth, in New Orleans. google her if you dare and pass this piece along to the ones you love, especially those with a vagina! thanx. i hope these words find you all snug as bugs in rugs. take care and g'nite. <3, B.
taken from the Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/drill-drill-drill_b_124829.html, during yet another shameless, self-imposed media blitz brought on by severe tropical weather and political unrest :l
A political cartoon depicting Barack Obama as a mental asylum inmate appeared in my local newspaper yesterday. Restrained in a straitjacket, Glenn McCoy's Obama has clearly been writing the word "Sarah" with his foot all over the walls of his padded white room ... in lipstick. The clearly simian bend of McCoy's portrayal (the monkey-like face is overshadowed by the clenched ape foot clutching the tube of lipstick) is obviously a not-so-subtle jab at Obama's race. The cartoon is available at http://townhall.com/funnies/cartoonist/GlennMcCoy/2008/09/3
What I want to know is, where is the outcry? I mean, the chorus of dissent over Obama's use of a popular political phrase reached the rafters, but why are cheap shots about the fact that Obama is an African-American allowed to pass without comment? I'm a white female, and my increasing awareness of the double-standard allowing everything that might possibly be construed as anti-woman being blown out of proportion while blatant jabs at African-Americans are evidently fair game is starting to really make me angry.
If anyone hasn't heard about it, Senator Obama said, in reference to McCain's economic policy, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." For some reason, this was taken as somehow referring to Governor Palin and, faster than you can say hypocrisy, the word was out that Obama had made an anti-woman crack.
The phrase, "You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig" is clearly another way of saying that, no matter what short-term appearance fixer you put on something ugly, it's still going to be ugly. In other words, you can't change what something is by playing with its outward appearance. A similar phrase involves the inability to make chicken salad out of chicken s***, but I digress.
The fact that John McCain said of Hillary Clinton's health care plan, "I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig" in Iowa last October (that's less than a year ago) is for some reason not getting the same press. There was no feminist outcry last October, and there is very little mention of this in response to the public skewering Obama is currently taking. The ultimate irony, in my humble opinion, is that Hillary Clinton is a far greater champion of women than Sarah Palin will ever be.
A longtime part of used-car dealership jargon, the phrase was, according to Time magazine, first exposed to the public in 1985 when a news station said using its financial surplus to renovate Candlestick Park would be like "putting lipstick on a pig." Since then, the phrase has been used by (in no particular order) Elizabeth Edwards, Dick Cheney, Torie Clark (former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs under Rumsfeld, former communications chief for the Pentagon for a portion of Bush's presidency, and former McCain press secretary), John Edwards, and House Minority Leader John Boehner as well as by John McCain and Barack Obama.
The overblown criticism Obama has taken for his use of a saying that has been used by a variety of people from differing walks of life is just adding to the surreality of this campaign. That direct cracks directed at Obama (a la McCoy's political cartoon) are somehow fair game only add to the bitterness that is starting to really bog me down and look at my country with a cynical eye.
Has anyone else noticed this, or am I just overly sensitive, cynical, or out-and-out wrong?
I am appalled at the game the McCain campaign is playing in the name of feminism. I am even more appalled that it’s, at least to a degree, working.
Conventional wisdom in recent political blogs seems to be that McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for a running mate caught Barack Obama completely by surprise, that his perceived “shakiness” in responding to her reflects poorly on his ability to think fast in response to sudden curveballs should he become president. Has it not occurred to those of this mindset that this is a situation with unwritten rules, that proceeding with caution is the only recourse available when every step you take is so open to criticism from every direction?
Obama’s position as the first viable African-American presidential candidate has already given this election a unique feel. Some feel that the media has given Obama a free ride because of his race, or even that his ethnicity is the sole reason for his meteoric rise as the Democratic candidate. And sometimes it gets far uglier than that. American citizens post hundreds of internet comments about “Barack Hussein Obama” as though this “proves” that the senator is a distant relative of Saddam. He is targeted as the anti-Christ, accused of being a radical Muslim even as he is simultaneously taken to task for worshipping at a Christian church (where, in response to questionable comments by the pastor, Obama severed his ties), written off as an arrogant upstart, and insulted in various ways that speak directly to an unfortunate and frightening degree of racism still present in America today.
Obama is exposed to abuse and harassment from the media in various forms, the American people (the internet has really allowed the crazies a place to speak their supposed minds), and even subtly from politicians. As an African-American, Senator Obama has put up with words and actions that are chilling even as he faces a crushing silent doubt. There is a belief by many in the working class demographic that Obama is untrustworthy, elitist, and unable to relate. I’ve heard many people say, “There’s just something about him that rubs me the wrong way.” Although I’d like to hope it’s otherwise, I’m scared that this is because he’s an African-American from humble origins that has somehow managed to succeed.
Our country has come a long way, but there is unfortunately still a degree of doubt when a young boy born to a white mother and black father, raised with help from his grandparents, no stranger to words like food stamps and student loans, is able to rise to the top. There’s a certain degree of, “Why him and not me?” Although pains have been taken to keep this simple truth under wraps, here it is: Barack Obama is more like the typical American than most politicians will ever be.
The McCain campaign’s selection of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential candidate has proven to be a brilliant move. If an attempt is made to hold Palin’s feet to the fire on the issues, there will no doubt be an outcry because “she’s being picked on for being a girl.” If Palin is given a pass on some of her ridiculous statements or actions while in public office, an outcry is equally likely under the “she’s getting away with it because she’s a girl” argument.
Senator Obama, who has withstood varying degrees of both active and passive negative response to his race throughout his campaign, is walking a tightrope with the addition of Palin that his opponents—and a media that has allegedly given Obama an easy ride—seem bent on blowing him down from.
I’m a professional working mother and a proud believer in equal rights for women. I am ashamed of Sarah Palin’s candidacy on behalf of the hundreds of better-qualified Republican women whose policies I can disagree with even while I respect them as people and workers for the greater good. I am ashamed of John McCain’s manipulation of those that believe in women’s equality. I am ashamed of those women supporting Palin solely because she’s a woman with little or no thought given to her beliefs or her record.
The reaction to Palin’s candidacy is a huge step backward for feminism because doors are simultaneously forced open and held closed in the name of women’s rights; if the country had truly come as far as we’d like to believe in terms of equal rights for women, a female candidate would be able to comfortably open a door and walk on through by herself.
Instead, there is a disturbing focus on how wrong Obama's attitude toward Palin's inclusion on the Republican ticket is no matter what he does. This is especially ironic when one realizes that, if anyone can understand the frustration of being judged on outward appearance and stereotypes instead of accomplishments, it's Barack Obama.
Drill, Drill, Drill
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, 'It was a task from God.'
She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008
The High Price of Pandering; Palin Family to Bear the Cost ©By The Rev. Lauralyn W. Bellamy, MA, MDivAssessing Palin's integrity, credibility and aptitude for the job she is campaigning for must include the criteria she has established for herself: politically conservative, actively evangelical Christian, "hockey Mom." In fact, she has conducted her public life modeling her role as Mom-and-more. To evaluate Palin's addition to the McCain ticket without including the Christian family values she has so publicly advocated is to distort the process and give us an incomplete portrait.But, there is an even more important question that the increasing number of women candidates and public officeholders has been catalyst to: should the family values modeled and practiced by those candidates who are parents and/or spouses be part of the matrix of factors determining our voting behavior?When women candidates and officials complain, "If I were a man running for/ in this office you wouldn't be asking these questions!" My response is: "We should be and we are starting to!" When John Edwards decided to continue his race for the presidential nomination in the face of his wife's recurrence of cancer deemed terminal, he faced a firestorm of judgment: how could he go on campaigning and leave her to go through her treatment without him? The society you and I live in is created one family at a time. When families are suffering because parents have placed the highest priority on "getting ahead" in their careers, to the emotional neglect of their children, those kids are more likely to "act out" in ways demanding a governmental response. Sen. McCain's biographies confirm this. His "bad boy" carousing and "chasing skirt" came close to having him tossed out of the Naval Academy. He graduated second from the bottom of his class. He has described his years as a POW in North Vietnam as the experience that turned him from a self-centered, hotshot fighter pilot with a disdain for going by the book, to a man who embraced the Navy's code of honor, and surrendered to a "cause bigger than myself."So Alaska's first term Governor is an evangelical Christian wife-and-mother. I respect the core value of evangelical Christianity: having a living, personal relationship with Jesus the Christ as one's savior. The explosion of jewelry, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and a staggering variety of products bearing "WWJD" ("What would Jesus do?") is an expression of this commitment to consult with and be lead by the living Christ. I respect that Christianity idealizes marriage and parenting as incarnating among ourselves the love we have received - unearned, unlimited and unconditional - from God. With evangelicals, I, too, believe that if we were to love one another as God loves us, life on earth would, indeed, be "as it is in heaven."How folks attempt to practice their religious beliefs in the sphere of political governance is where things get tangled up. Judged by evangelical Christianity's tenets, Palin's decision to accept the nomination violates her religion. Her commitment to the presidential campaign and the office of the vice president, should she be elected, tramples the sacred covenant to put her call to co-parent her children and be an emotionally available partner to her spouse. My assessment is specific to Todd and Sarah Palin's family. Take a moment to step back and take a brief look at the the family situation into which Sen. McCain's political campaign leapt without first looking!As 2006 begins, Sarah Zamboni Palin takes office term as Governor of Alaska - the geographically largest state, making travel a necessity in state governance. This is a high profile leadership position conducted in the glare media and citizen scrutiny going way beyond a 40-hour work week. The Governor's spouse has also chosen to work outside the home and, as a field engineer for BP spends part of the year "out in the field." . She has a son, Track, who is a senior in high school, and three daughters: Bristol, also in high school, Willow in junior high, and Piper, in elementary school. The family appears to be managing the unique stresses of public life OK. As autumn of 2007 unfolds, Track makes a decision to enlist in the Army at graduation. Is he excited by the "surge" of our troops in Iraq, or the search for Bin Laden in the "other war" in Afghanistan?. Regardless of what each member of the Palin family thinks about these two military situations, they must live with the anxiety of seeing their son/ big brother going off to war in a year or so. Sarah and Todd discover she is pregnant, with a due date in the spring. This blessed event is doubtlessly celebrated with their children. In the winter of 2008, the end of her 2nd trimester, Sarah and Todd probably know this pregnancy is not typical: the baby boy she is carrying has Downs Syndrome. They prepare their children to welcome a special needs baby brother into their family. No one can know to what severity Down's syndrome will affect the baby's capacity to live a mainstream life. It is Spring, 2008 and their firstborn child, Track has left home to begin Army boot camp. Sarah and Todd go through the last weeks of her pregnancy. Their daughters deal with the absence of big brother and a very publicly pregnant mother. Eldest daughter, 17-year old Bristol, is dating a young man, Levi Thompson, who boasts of his fast living on his MySpace.com profile. Her parents' publicly defended position on sex education in the public high schools advocates chastity and abstinence. Gov. Palin has opposed providing information on birth control and a woman's right to choose a safe, legal abortion, except to save the mother's life.Literally around the time Sarah goes into labor, daughter, Bristol, is having sexual intercourse with Levi. By July, 2008, the family knows that:· Track will be deployed to Iraq with his unit this fall, and · Bristol is pregnant and single. · Piper and Willow are taking in the dramatic changes in their lives: o a baby brother with Downs Syndrome, o big brother is about to be sent to the other side of the planet in a dangerous war, ando a sister living with the secret shame of being pregnant out of wedlock by a boy who boasts on MySpace.com, "I don't want to have kids!"Into this off-the-charts stressful situation for the Palin family comes a representative from Sen. McCain's presidential campaign exploring the suitability of offering Sarah the vice presidency of the USA. If she is chosen, she will not only have to campaign full time across the nation, she will have to be brought up to speed on an encyclopedic range of political topics and situations; she will have to become an expert on all 100 members of the US Senate. This will be "the mother of all" cram courses. She will be grabbing sleep as she can when not campaigning or being briefed. Todd may be asked to accompany her to select events on the campaign trail.The 4-year job (with a possible renewal for another four) would begin in January in Washington, DC with the family living in the Vice President's mansion on "Embassy Row." The family would be living with Secret Service officers, Are there ANY skeletons Sen. McClain needs to know right now? Any scandals? Litigation? ANYTHING?One has to wonder how thoroughly Sarah and Todd, first, comprehended and, secondly, grappled with the enormity and intensity of the changes accepting the nomination would have on their marriage and their children. Did they agonize over any of these factors?· Bristol's pregnancy will become international news. o She will not be able to experience her unexpected pregnancy in the safety and privacy of her family, and later the people of Alaska. o Bristol's due date is within weeks after the election; how will Sarah be able to give her daughter the emotional support she needs in these months?o Is Bristol going to marry the boy? If so, WHEN? o When is Sarah supposed to carve out the time to help her daughter plan the wedding?o Will the newlyweds move to Washington, DC and live in the VP mansion or on their own (in Alaska or DC)?· Trig, the degree of his Down's syndrome still not fully measurable, is an infant still requiring his mother's physical and emotional presence in his daily life;o Will Trig hit the campaign trail with Mom and, if so, what emotional effect will this have on Willow, Piper and Todd?o He will need special activities to optimize his development that can be taught by an education specialist, but involve all family members' participation to reinforce the program, ando Trig also needs continued physical intimacy with his mom and dad to anchor him emotionally and neurologically to his parents. · Will Todd be the emotionally available, physically present, primary parent to their 4 kids during the campaign? · How will the family adjust to living in DC? This family has only known Wasilla, Alaska! (What is the "non-white, non-Indian" population of Wasilla, anyway?)· Track will be fighting in Iraq with a bulls eye on his back, as John McCain knows:o As a hostage, he would have powerful propaganda value to insurgents. o If McCain becomes President, deploying Track to a safer assignment (assuming Track would want it) would not be likely.· Willow and Piper will have Secret Service accompany them everywhere, to Willow's mortification (call Chelsea Clinton and Amy Carter for advice). o Social isolation is a real possibility for these girls. Anything they say or do with their old group of friends will likely end up on internet blogs and celebrity news;· Should Mom win, Willow and Piper will be thrust into new schools in the middle of the school year with TV lights and cameras blazing. o They're used to public schools in Wasilla, what about in DC?o Any attempt at making new friends risks private conversation winding up on MySpace, YouTube and international news media. · Sarah will be even less available to her husband and four children than now. · What happens to Todd? o Will he be given some job in the private sector that doesn't present any perceived conflict-of-interest and keeps him - occupied.? o No more taking off to go ice fishing! o Can he accept the Secret Service that shadows him? o Can he adjust to being "handled" and "managed" by the Veep's staffers?· Would Sarah be able to handle temporary presidential powers if McCain needed to undergo surgery (and radiation?) for a recurrence of his malignant melanoma?o If poor health required extensive attention, or he did not survive; will someone with no prior national or international political experience be a successful President Palin?· "When will we get to go home to Alaska?" the kids are asking.What would Jesus want you to do, Sarah?
Because Sarah has never been ashamed to publicly testify to her faithfulness in seeking God's counsel and following Jesus, it would be reasonable to imagine that Sarah and Todd held a very private family council with all their children. Afterward, I like to imagine she took a few days in prayerful reflection, awaiting the Holy Spirit's gift of, "the Peace that passes all understanding."I imagine a moment when Divine Wisdom (see the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament) descended upon Sarah's heart: "There will be other opportunities to be God's servant-prophet at the highest levels of government, Sarah. Your family should not be sacrificed upon the altar of political ambition. Your attention is already unduly divided between governing this magnificent vastness called, 'Alaska,' and participating in the life of your family, Sarah."Trig needs you."Bristol needs her Mom to love her through these last three months of a very challenging pregnancy; "Track does not need the added risk of being the Vice President's son in a war zone; "Todd cannot single parent Trig, Willow and Piper. "It's easy, Sarah; just say, 'No, thank you.' I'm asking you to take up my cross, this time, Sarah. Will you follow me?"What happened? In evangelical Christian terms, Sarah was tested, tempted and succumbed to the lure of worldly political power. Now the world knows about pregnant 17-year old Bristol and the baby's father - the cocky boy posting on the internet that he didn't want children!Now the world is holding Sarah and every member of her extended family under the white-hot light of media scrutiny.Now Mom is out campaigning and there is no predicting when and for how long Mom will be able to visit with them..Is anyone planning Bristol's wedding? Parenting Trig? Spending quality time with Piper and Willow?One does not have to believe in God to assess this situation in terms of integrity, virtue, and character. Applying this template over the facts of the Palin family, Sarah's "me first" decision is even more nakedly abhorrent to me.Gov. Sarah Palin is a damaging choice for vice presidential candidate:NOT because she is a woman, but because she is a Todd's spouse and their family is being severely stressed by three intense, very personal crises during her governorship!NOT because she is a woman but because the education of this bright, aggressive and cunning orator will not be completed while she is campaigning and she will take office unprepared to be effective! NOT because she is a woman and Sen. McCain's age is a liability; but because Sen. McCain's specific history of recurring malignant melanoma makes it more likely his VP will have to assume at least temporary presidential powers during his first term than a man of comparable age without this cancer marker - and she is not up to the enormity of the office of President of the United States!We have in the 2008 Republican Presidential ticket, "the perfect storm" of political factors coming together in McCain's selection of Palin: he is repeating his pattern from his 2000 race for the nomination; as McCain gets closer to grabbing national power, he changes from the daring rebel-with-a-cause, the maverick outsider and becomes a craven chameleon, doing and saying whatever it takes to "win;" and Palin is so seduced by the national spotlight, so hooked on the adrenalin-pumping thrill of being chosen as the Ultimate Prom Queen to this feisty, larger-than-life War Hero, she she is blind to the pain and shocking changes her husband and children are only just beginning to live through.# # #
Because Sarah has never been ashamed to publicly testify to her faithfulness in seeking God's counsel and following Jesus, it would be reasonable to imagine that Sarah and Todd held a very private family council with all their children. Afterward, I like to imagine she took a few days in prayerful reflection, awaiting the Holy Spirit's gift of, "the Peace that passes all understanding."I imagine a moment when Divine Wisdom (see the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament) descended upon Sarah's heart: "There will be other opportunities to be God's servant-prophet at the highest levels of government, Sarah. Your family should not be sacrificed upon the altar of political ambition. Your attention is already unduly divided between governing this magnificent vastness called, 'Alaska,' and participating in the life of your family, Sarah."Trig needs you."Bristol needs her Mom to love her through these last three months of a very challenging pregnancy; "Track does not need the added risk of being the Vice President's son in a war zone; "Todd cannot single parent Trig, Willow and Piper. "It's easy, Sarah; just say, 'No, thank you.' I'm asking you to take up my cross, this time, Sarah. Will you follow me?"What happened? In evangelical Christian terms, Sarah was tested, tempted and succumbed to the lure of worldly political power. Now the world knows about pregnant 17-year old Bristol and the baby's father - the cocky boy posting on the internet that he didn't want children!Now the world is holding Sarah and every member of her extended family under the white-hot light of media scrutiny.Now Mom is out campaigning and there is no predicting when and for how long Mom will be able to visit with them..Is anyone planning Bristol's wedding? Parenting Trig? Spending quality time with Piper and Willow?One does not have to believe in God to assess this situation in terms of integrity, virtue, and character. Applying this template over the facts of the Palin family, Sarah's "me first" decision is even more nakedly abhorrent to me.Gov. Sarah Palin is a damaging choice for vice presidential candidate:NOT because she is a woman, but because she is a Todd's spouse and their family is being severely stressed by three intense, very personal crises during her governorship!NOT because she is a woman but because the education of this bright, aggressive and cunning orator will not be completed while she is campaigning and she will take office unprepared to be effective!
NOT because she is a woman and Sen. McCain's age is a liability; but because Sen. McCain's specific history of recurring malignant melanoma makes it more likely his VP will have to assume at least temporary presidential powers during his first term than a man of comparable age without this cancer marker - and she is not up to the enormity of the office of President of the United States!
We have in the 2008 Republican Presidential ticket, "the perfect storm" of political factors coming together in McCain's selection of Palin: he is repeating his pattern from his 2000 race for the nomination; as McCain gets closer to grabbing national power, he changes from the daring rebel-with-a-cause, the maverick outsider and becomes a craven chameleon, doing and saying whatever it takes to "win;" and Palin is so seduced by the national spotlight, so hooked on the adrenalin-pumping thrill of being chosen as the Ultimate Prom Queen to this feisty, larger-than-life War Hero, she she is blind to the pain and shocking changes her husband and children are only just beginning to live through.# # #
Opinion
Palin: wrong woman, wrong message Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By Gloria Steinem September 4, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-steinem4-2008sep04,0,7915118.story
