Posts with the tag FEMINISM

D.C. Awakening--Jen Nedeau, FAB member

Madama Ambi — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:03:21 EDT

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.

Carrie Prejean: Are Progressives Becoming as Intolerant as Conservatives?

Eric from Covina, CA — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:55:07 EDT

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.

Open Letter to Leaders at Fem2pt0 : society’s issues + women’s voices

Madama Ambi — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:06:59 EDT

Please read my post and leave your comments at Fem2pt0's blog or wiki. The wiki can be found at www.fem2pt0.wetpaint.com.

email to Emily Kadar of Feminist Campus

Madama Ambi — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:50:48 EDT

Emily–I see myself as a bridge-builder and a cross-pollinator among women’s groups, and I have been spending time getting to know all the players in the femisphere, as well as forming Feminist Advisory Board for Obama, which now exists on both Facebook and Organizing for America. I’m very impressed with Feminist Campus’ energy and organization, watched several hours of your conference on the day of, and felt very connected to the excitement and passion generated by 600 unruly feminist activists!!! I also tweeted my butt off during Lilly’s and Tina’s and Ellie’s speeches!

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.

this email is also posted to FAB/Facebook, FAB/OFA, FAB/Blogger and Fem2pt0

FAB/OFA news reported by Tom Hayes

Madama Ambi — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:21:50 EDT

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.

a definition of feminism

Madama Ambi — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 17:35:52 EST

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

the game is still bottom-up

Madama Ambi — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 14:13:13 EST

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.

Interview4Obama http://madamaambi.blogspot.com
subversonance http://subversonance.blogspot.com
Patriarchal Disorder http://patriarchaldisorder.com
Feminist Advisory Board for Obama (join us on Facebook)

Whose Table Is It?

Madama Ambi — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:53:13 EST

My organizing began when I gathered all of the neighborhood kids plus my cousins, who lived not too far away, to put on a play to raise money for cancer. I must have picked cancer because it was the only "cause" I knew about at age 10. My next organizing venture was as an adult, in SF, and happened because I was suddenly too much at the mercy of decisionmakers who had not thought about how their actions would affect my little life and my puny goals. I won't bore you with the whole story, but both my activism and my feminism got fused into a sunny, warmish place in my brain, encased in an SF/Berkeley-Oakland/Bay Bridge no-snow-globe. And so, though I haven't lived or worked in N. CA for a decade, I have felt a real sense of belonging to the San Francisco for Obama group on MyBO.

This group has at least three activist hubs setting up post-election shop. Wade Hudson & Roma Guy are working together on their network, Paul Currier is organizing, and Paul Warnow, too. Today, Wade Hudson posted a link to Stephen Rose's blog, where a discussion about the future of MyBO is underway. Here's what I wrote in reply to the concerns that it won't be the viable, 2-way mechanism we think it should be when Obama is POTUS.

Thanks for this discussion--I agree that in order to have participatory democracy, many, many 2-way mechanisms must be in place, and must work! I've been writing and networking on this for some weeks now and have a few points to add:

1. The people are the movement, and we are still the movement. Whether or not MyBO continues to function, we can and we will create these structures.

2. The structures to be redundantly networked (a good thing, imo) already exist--I'm on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and more networking platforms. I'm creating post-election subversonance, networking like crazy with other activists, creating mechanisms for less active people to participate in political process...and I expect that other activists will, too...

3. I'd like to see all organizers/activists stay in touch. We need one another. We need to share knowledge, skills, and to collectively hold the Obama administration's feet to the fire on many issues. I agree completely that Obama wants us to "make him do" what he wants to do.

4. Facebook is frequently confusing to me, but it is a powerful organizing tool, maybe even more powerful than MyBO. In case you're not on it, you will discover this as soon as you join and invite your friends. You simply can't avoid finding out what your friends are doing, which instantly expands your awareness & connectivity. Now, how to translate all of that connectivity into action...that's the question.

5. In sum, here's what I'm saying. We, the people, build the table and take our seats. We invite Barack & Joe and anyone else relevant, to come to OUR table and LISTEN to us. We dialogue. We work it, work it, work it.

I will post links to the above groups separately. If you know of other groups that are also creating transparent, horizontal, voter-motivated activism, please feel free to write to me, madamaambi at g mail dot com.

Women’s Studies in the 2008 Presidential Election

Ethan — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:35:45 EST

Two conservative women's groups represent a paradigm shift in organized women's thinking in America. The Concerned Women for America and Independent Women's Forum play out on a platform against socially liberal women's interests and nationally organized feminist groups. These conservative women's groups, rather confusingly, don't support equal women's rights. Forming in opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, they do not want women to leave the capacity to stay at home, rear children and be homemakers and stay-at-home moms. They do not want women to serve in the military and oppose assistance in the form of child day care for single or working women. Women's right to reproductive privacy and gay's women's right to civil unions are opposed. Civil rights equality for women is a challenge to God's will in their view. In their stance against abortion, they use disputed and false data to make claims linking abortive procedures, contraceptives, or other family planning to causing breast cancer. They dispute the federal drug agency's proven safety and efficacy of the oral contraceptive pill. Opposing the feminist agenda is their ardent stance. They see feminism to have permeated all walks of American life and resulted in negative effects on women's lives. Women would be better off not trying to achieve greatness at the expense of family pursuits, it is believed. A career incompatible or at odds with having a family is said to largely lead to unhappiness in women. In the recent political arena, these groups have been courted by the Republican leadership, leading some to label them as pawns of men. However, Republicans and the conservative media have successfully utilized feminist arguments to right (no pun intended) the conservative women's faith and political support. For example, Fox news has accused socially liberal women of being hypocrites for not supporting conservative women, such as Sarah Palin. They have used feminist arguments against sexism, "No one would ask a man that," to their credit. The conservative women's movement claims, rather incorrectly, that the majority of women are conservative. Feminists are said to be a radical minority of women. The latest TIME magazine (Oct. 20, 2008) poll reports single women (rating 30 out of 100) and all women (44/100) rate McCain/Palin the lowest of all cohorts while the opposite is true for Obama/Biden, 78/100 and 62/100 respectively. Conservative women's groups are blaming evil college professors in the fields of women's studies for the brain washing of women to stand up for their rights. Women who demand equal rights are thought to be of a cult coming from college campuses primarily. Educating those women, gosh-darnit. We should have know better. While feelings on both sides are strong, it remains to be determined how elections will be swayed by the conflict between the socially liberal and conservative women's propaganda campaigns, taking place on college campuses and in the 2008 presidential election. Feminists will continue to empower women to stand up for their equal rights, while conservative will push to right feminists.

Virgin, Mother, Whore: The Impossible Triangle of Modern Femininity

Ugly Sister — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:56:55 EDT

http://locationofcontestation.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/virgin-mother-whore-the-impossible-triangle-of-modern-femininity-2/

I propose that our girls face an impossible and irreconcilable triangle of choices: virgin, mother, and whore. Simultaneous and contradictory constructions of femininity bombard girls and women with, unachievable and paradoxical standards of, beauty, sexuality, success, validation and power. When you boil it all down (and omit crone, sorry Grandma) we have three overlapping, yet ill-fitting options for our daughters: virgin mother, and whore.

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.

Palin Does Not Speak for Me - Undoing Women's Progress

Irish Musician for Progressive Solutions — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:25:47 EDT

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

Debunking the Palin Gender Politics Game

Irish Musician for Progressive Solutions — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 14:20:10 EDT

From: Cafe, Election Central

OK, I've Had Enough of the Palin Gender Politics Game. Now I'm Really Pissed.

The Lipstick Debacle, True Feminism, and Women's Rights

Irish Musician for Progressive Solutions — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:55 EDT

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

Drill, Drill, Drill (Eve Ensler on Sarah Palin)

Brandi Lou — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 11:02:31 EDT

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, Drill

September 2008

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

The "Lipstick on a Pig" Debacle is Masking a Larger Issue

Katie Loud — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:37:29 EDT

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?

Forced Balancing Act is Inappropriate and Unfair ... to Obama and to Women

Katie Loud — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 19:25:41 EDT

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.

A Must Read -Especially For Women

Karen — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 13:20:29 EDT

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, wrote the following about Sarah Palin.

Drill, Drill, Drill

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

September 5, 2008

High Price of McCain's Pandering Paid by Palin's Family(c) By Lauralyn Bellamy

Lauralyn — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:55:25 EDT

The High Price of Pandering; Palin Family to Bear the Cost ©
By The Rev. Lauralyn W. Bellamy, MA, MDiv

Assessing 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, and
o 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, and
o 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.

# # #

Steinem on Palin

Ben — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 09:36:08 EDT

Wrong Woman, Wrong Message
By Gloria Steinem

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.
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Gloria Steinem on Sarah Palin

Brandi Lou — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:16:06 EDT

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

Along Came Palin

Pea — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:57:37 EDT

I love Hillary Clinton. My excitement about her began when I worked advance on her campaign appearance at the University of Memphis in 1992 and never waned.

If my political activitism and party involvement had not come to an end when I began working for NBC news in 1994, I probably would have been one of the Hillary delegates on the floor at the DNC last week. But as it was, I watched from my living room and marveled at her pride. Her guts. Her grace. And I decided I would vote for Obama because she *wanted* me to vote for Obama. Still, I could not imagine that I could ever do more than vote for him. I could not activate others or find the kind of passion that had fueled my support of Clinton.

Then along came Palin.

And suddenly I found my motivation to be more than just an Obama voter. To campaign for him. To become passionate about him.

I'm insulted that the Republicans thought they could win my support by selecting a VP nom with body parts like mine. Because I can't imagine Sarah Palin and I have anything more than our body parts in common.

If the news articles from her past were lines in a screenplay, it would be hilarious. But the reality is gravely serious. Still, I'm kind of glad she's emerged to give us all the motivation we needed to drink the Kool-Aid, sing Kumbayah and chant "Yes we can," because now... we must.

It is Sara Palin night at the Republican Convention

MDR Miami Beach — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:20:32 EDT

Well. First there was Hillary's brilliant leadership last week at the Democratic Convention. She showed the person I used to respect -- the one I love again -- the one who knows what are the real issues and priorities we face as a nation... the person who is willing to do what is necessary to achieve those important social and national objectives (healthcare, education, equal rights, choice, etc). Hillary stepped up as the leader we need her to be. The true feminist, who will unflaggingly stand up for what is right and important.

Thanks, Hillary. We acknowledge and respect your leadership and look forward to continuing to work with your vision in the years to come. We fully respect your willingness and ability to work with Barack Obama as President of the US and to help his team to achieve those objectives that WE ALL are fighting for. Welcome. Together we will accomplish important things -- starting with electing Obama | Biden!!

And then the Governor of Alaska became the VP candidate for the Republicans. Oh my.

Let's go back to the fundamentals of feminism. Is every woman a feminist? What makes a person a feminist? Do we automatically support any woman? Or does any woman who we consider supporting need to at least be a feminist?

Do you know women who are seriously considering Sarah Palin as a candidate for VP? Please share your stories!!

Mothers, PTAs, Lawyers, and Politics

Redstocking Grandma — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:54:09 EDT

My mother had 6 children and 15 grandchildren. Born in 1921, she wanted to be a lawyer. Her father died when she was 17, and she had to go to secretarial school, not college. Her family required her financial support. From 1945, she raised 6 kids, was an active volunteer in her church and community. When my youngest brother was 5, she returned to college, graduated the same day I did in 1967, became a fervent feminist, got her master's degree in American History, and taught high school.

After she retired, she worked for Bread for the World, an international organization fighting world hunger. When my dad developed Alzheimer's Disease, she became a support group leader, then the Long Island legislative lobbyist for the Alzheimers Association. Later she became a lobbyist for long-term health care. She was an officer of the Women's Ordination Conference, fighting for women priests. She would have been a superb congresswoman or senator, much more effective because she didn't go to law school. Her obituary characterized her as a trailblazer.

I was raised Roman Catholic and have 45 younger first cousins. Like my mother, my aunts, their friends, my friends' mothers could not afford to attend college before they had children. They had their large families very young, then got their degrees and started their careers by the time they were in their early forties. Since their children were largely grown, they were able to focus their tremendous energy, talent, and experience on their jobs.

How About That Palin?

Peach McD — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:02:46 EDT

Had a fellow parishioner accost me this morning with, "How about that Palin? She's the greatest. What took you women so damned long to get someone so great running for high office?" It was shocking to me that he was trying to pick a fight just before church. If he hadn't been so elderly, I might've given him one, though.

The right-wing echo chamber was caught flat-footed by the VP choice, but they've wasted no time coming up with talking points for the dittoheads to repeat whenever challenged. My fellow Christian got the idea somewhere that this woman was a feminist's dream come true. Oy, veh! Perhaps Alzheimer's disease has destroyed his memories of Shirley Chisolm, Geraldine Ferraro, and (already!) of Hillary Clinton (whom Palin called a whiner during the primaries for objecting to sexist treatment by the press).

Old Al is convinced that Palin is a great woman, whose beauty is an actual asset in politics, and whose less than two years as governor of a state less populous than Milwaukee qualifies her for any position the US can offer her. Oy vey some more.

I can't blame the GOP for getting desperate. I can't be surprised by their cynicism anymore. I can't fault their use of the news cycle. But I would rather have had Danny Quayle in the White House than a woman who laughs at nasty jokes about a colleague who is a cancer survivor.

I also have deep qualms about Palin's possible abuse of executive power being investigated by the Alaska legislature. All we need is more abuse of executive power in the White House!

There are already several YouTube videos testifying to young Republicans' desire to vote with their penises ("Putting C%ntry First"?), which shouldn't surprise anyone, but this beauty queen's air-headed dismissal of the need to really understand what a Vice President does all day is really scary.

Also scary, given John McCain's age and health problems, is Mrs. Palin's Fundamentalism. This entails a position against a woman's Constitutionally-protected right to choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

I'm a faithful Episcopalian who knows history well enough to know that legislating morality doesn't work. A return to pre-Roe vs Wade laws won't decrease abortions - it will increase back-alley and coat-hanger abortions. Still more frightening for those who want every child to be a wanted child is the Religious Right's turn toward blocking access even to contraception.

One wonders whether the rumors that Palin's youngest daughter is actually her grand-daughter might reflect a family where birth control was not discussed except in negative light. If, as may be, that rumor proves as true as the John Edwards tabloid story, Palin's abbreviated vetting will blow back and McCain's campaign will be toast. Then it'll be me asking my fellow parishioner, "How about that Palin?"

An Open Letter to Senators Obama & Clinton

Unknown user — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:14:37 EDT

PROFESSOR HOVHANNESS I. PILIKIAN, B.A. in Eng. Lit. (American Uni of Beirut),

B.Sc. Hons. in Psych. (Open Uni), M.A. in Soc. Anth. (Sch of Oriental & African Studies),

Gulbenkian Foundation Scholar in Econ. (LSE) (London Uni),D.A.A.D-Fellow (Uni of Munich),

D.G.G.B, Dip. Th. Pr. (R A D A), Cert. Hum (Open),

Adamian Award (Ministry of Culture – Armenian S.S.R.), F.R.A.I.,

Contributor to Encyclopaedia Britannica

10th August 2008

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY)

Dear Senators Clinton and Obama,

You may like to know that my personal letter (dated 1st July, copy below) to your good selves is now an Open Letter published on the Web on

http://www.gibrahayer.com/index.php5?&page_id=21&path=29,21

My letter contains (1) A new Theory of History – that History advances by mindset-shifts,

(2) A radical historical interpretation of Warmongering – that it manifests masculinist obsessions contingent on the rape of women and the murder of ‘their’ children, and finally

(3) A proposition for a new socio-economic paradigm – universal CHILD-WELFARE, for all, to achieve global peace... with the sound-bite;

All For Child-Welfare and Child-Welfare For All

Yours truly

Professor Hovhanness Israel Pilikian.

***

Initially Exclusive to the Addressees 1st July 2008

Entirely Private and Totally Confidential

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)

713 Hart Senate Office Building

District of Columbia 20510-1305, Washington DC

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY)

780 Third Avenue Suite 2601

New York, NY 10017

Dear Senators Clinton and Obama,

If only the two of you would join hands, there can be no reasonable doubt that you two shall win the forthcoming presidential election, from that moment onwards ... and assuming that you shall resist all electoral fraud from the Republicans – for the very good reason that, with baited breath, the whole world expects America to change. The horrendous neo-Cons succeeded not only destroying Iraq, with Depleted Uranium bomb-winds blowing towards the Israeli nation they pretended to defend ... the inhuman neo-Cons destroyed as much America’s good name, dragging it into the sewage of History. The American people deserve desperately your healing powers to pull them out of History’s murderous mires of genocidal sludge.

Senator Obama is absolutely right that America is ready for change – and Senator Clinton has the right idea for that change – hence this letter to provide the clinching philosophical argument and deep conceptual grounding of your cause to make it irresistible for the whole world to adopt.

I think Human civilization evolves by paradigmatic shifts in Mindset – by which I mean that a nation’s mind – meaning the communitarian-brain – is re-wired through the processes of social relations and modern communications-media into certain ways and patterns of communal thinking.

Mankind’s History hitherto, alas, has manifested the Primates’ barbaric survivalist mindset of crude brutal power for its own sake. It took millennia for the parochial Italian Renaissance humanism to follow, and several centuries for the French Revolution to reflect and universalize by then the re-wired mindset of the Renaissance humanism. The American Revolution earlier for the first time in history had affected an ethical mindset shift by exemplifying the concept of Power-To-do-Good, and not for its own crude sake. Unfortunately the neo-Con Bushites wished to revert to the Malthusean-Hobbsean Jungle Law, demeaning the principles of the American Revolution. Thus, overall, human history hitherto (even at its best with the American Revolution, never mind now in the genocidal dumps with the Bushists) has manifested the humanoid Darwinist mindset of the proto-fascist (and Nazi) masculinist brain-wiring, set on the oppression and rape of women and children, and the elimination of ‘useless people’...

I shall propose to you a new paradigm to wire-up a new mindset to evolve in our post-modern human brain, if only the United States of America, as the dominant world-power, would agree through yourselves to pioneer its globalization ... Like a panacea, it shall solve all socio-economic problems, including all dangers from Climate change, which must be turned into the single most important issue of international politics. And it is this, and where Mrs Clinton already possesses the inkling by virtue of her maternal instinct – CHILD-WELFARE – pure and simple, it must be made the single slogan, the cornerstone of ALL complex policies held together in consistency. In the immortal words of Britain’s Silver Poet, Alexander Pope – “The Child is the Father of Man”.

History hitherto has been the ruthless product of bi-gender competitiveness, the male always oppressing, dominating and ultimately raping the female – well-proven by antique myths – females, be they divine or mortal, are always ‘ravished’ against their will – and endless modern warfare – even today, now, women are being raped in ... Zimbabwe, and everywhere else where genocidal wars are active, stretching back in time to Herodotus – the first Historian who lived in the 5th c. BC, and whose very first paragraphs record the gang-bang by Phoenician sailors of the free ‘feminist’ women of Argos – thus, according to the Herodotusean historical record, the very first of the countless series of world wars have begun with a ... gang-bang, literally, a group rape by foolish men of a group of innocent women!

The only way this awful bi-polar human stupidity can be eliminated once and for all from the disturbed human psyche and sexualized Freudian mindset is by creating a focus on a deeper perspectival third-dimension ; the child-and-its-welfare.

Both genders must focus all life-force on tending a healthy child, literally and metaphorically, in a healthy geophysical and social environment – it can become the measuring stick and guideline for all ethical human behaviour and action, individually, on the micro-, and politically on the macro-levels.

Marriage throughout history and in all cultures is played out as a power-game for the benefit of the adults in the game – Divorce in the West consequently, has been riddled with adult partners’ power-obsessive narcissism – their children as mere inconvenient extensions of their egos. In Britain, child-welfare is a byword for corrupt legal practices, and serving equally as political football for governmental publicity stunts.

A new categorical imperative in the style of Emmanuel Kant, one of the great thinkers of all time, in my proposed new paradigm would be – Do nothing that will shame your children, and you in their eyes - Adopting this as the cornerstone of all social and couple relations – it may reduce Divorce, one of the great Western social ills hitherto based on parental narcissism and gratification rather than the needs of child-welfare. And Hollywood film-industry shall produce less public nudity, if actors considered the shame of their children felt at their parental pornographic exposure.

Thou shalt not do anything that harms a child – which ensures that paedophilia for example, never takes hold of society – there are serious high-powered post-modern attempts in Anglo-America to render it acceptable ... And the British American Tobacco (BAT) company would be stopped immediately from the crime of selling tobacco to African children!

Thou shalt not kill children, or their mothers, can serve as grounds for all wars all over the world to be stopped – a good reason to dismantle globally the military-industrial complexes, against the inhuman dangers of which President Eisenhower first of all so wisely warned the American nation back in the 1950’s. A very simple undeniable post-modern historical fact is that America is armed to its teeth and ... toes with thousands of nuclear bombs - it simply does not need more of any ordenance! You need not waste a cent more on further armaments - instead, release all those trillions onto societal health and well-being!!! According to the Bible, Peacemakers are the children of God – I can never understand how and why an American Christian can ever be a warmonger.

Child-welfare must force the realization of Mrs Clinton’s humanitarian policies of universal health-insurance for the people of America – the first and only one of its kind (overdue) in American History. And according to the new paradigm I am proposing, Thou shalt not kill children and their mothers, now add to it – and their fathers, and grandparents – We all are the children of God!

And now to the ultimate problem of all global problems – Climate Change, which is a deceptive turn of phrase to camouflage the horrendous evil truth of destroying the very Oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere we need to breathe second-by-second ... Never mind polar ice-caps melting, oceans rising, we are (like the foolish individuals who smoke cigarettes on the micro-level) as nations destroying on the macro-level by-the-second the very Oxygen we need to survive and live by! Such destruction is evidence of sheer human cultural stupidity – dumping each year 7 billion tonnes of pollutants in the atmosphere of this sweet little child-planet.

Even the Nobel-prize winning Mr. Al Gore won’t dare speak the truth – the global car and aviation industries are satanic evils that need be controlled, transformed and absolutely rationalized, not-expanded. There can be no stupid glee and Big Business hand-rubbing in the lunatic economic predictions that China shall be helped to have ... 900 million cars in the next decade.

Hitherto, the planet Earth was conceived as a ‘mature woman’ – Mother Earth/ Mother Nature – and messed about, abused and finally ‘proudly’ raped by the Macho-male-warmonger-idiot. At the odd occasion in history when a Woman had acquired such power – Queen Elizabeth the First of Britain, and Catherine the Great of Russia – they have strangely morphed into the macho-male paradigm – with Ms Madeleine Albright, the elder Bushite lacking any female nurturing instincts, declaring infamously to the world that the death of half a million Iraqi ... children is a price worth paying for the discomfiture of one male idiot – the banana-tyrant Saddam Hussein, ex CIA operative and ordained murderer of Abdul Karim Kassem, his predecessor.

If one conceives of this planet – a grain of dust in the vastness of the universe – as yet another little child of the great Creator – then the politicians must do EVERYTHING to save it from the violent stupidities of bi-gender power-obsessed politics, as my noble wife Clarice puts it, “child-planet is precious, in need of care and protection, like all children”.

All for child-welfare – and Child-welfare for all should be the hub of the new neural network out of which the new mindset of the future mankind can and must be wired before we destroy ourselves through sheer stupidity – narcissistic greed and waste of our planet’s resources.

Only thus, dear ... President Obama, and Vice-President Clinton, can you change America, and the rest of the world, into a new order and Pax Americana, not by genocidal warmongering all over the world that is reducing day-by-day the very Oxygen we need to breathe merely to live as God’s little children!

Yours truly

Professor Hovhanness Israel Pilikian.

8th July 2008.

P.S. Please forgive me for the awkward lay-out, as I do not know enough computers to have done a better job ...

Randi Rhodes: Obama And Abortion And The Smell Of BS

Tanya — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:46:06 EDT

This woman is great

The Naked Invisibility of Michelle Obama

Adrienne Zurub — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:33:12 EDT

Recently, I have noted the lack of feminist/feminista support for Michelle Obama in light of the overarching 'white male' media attacks against Mrs. Obama. Sadly, Mrs. Obama has had her 'blackness' questioned as perhaps being too black, Mr.Obama was referred to as her 'baby's daddy' and other racially directed assaults have been levied against Mrs. Obama.

I for one am not surprised at the lack of feminist/feminista (f/f) response. The f/f's appear to still be pouting for Hillary. Not only that to be truthful, the f/f's are...hypocrites! You see the f/f's are more than willing to go full force for what they perceive to be a strong and powerful woman...as long as she is white. Yes. There, I said it. The f/f's hypocrisy is exposed.

I, as a Black woman can only imagine the collective rage of feminists/feminstas, if say a white male had 'hurt a puppy,' (of course a bitch). Or stated that Lilith Fair was meaningless and a feel good exercise for white women. Or, if Michelle Obama herself had said that female circumcision, oh,excuse me, female-genital-mutilation (the term used by those outside the culture and generally within the safety of suburbia) is okay with her. Or even better yet, that Hillary Clinton was not actually a feminist but Machiavellian in her use of the feminist mantle; essentially trying to win by 'any means necessary.' Oh Heavens!
The Feminist outrage, comments, and action would be...deafening!

Yet, Michelle Obama, a woman, a BLACK woman is subject to media attempts (mostly by white males) to discredit her, undermine her, and disrespect her and...nothing. Nothing from the Feminista's. Nothing from the Feminists. A perfect Ouroboros of impotence and disinterest from the beeatches.

The lack of 'voice' from the f/f's is nothing new. The problem with feminism, let me correct myself here, the problem with some feminists and now some feminista's is still the old problem of inclusion. Listen beeatches, this is not just a little fight with your men. Girls! This not a sexual tug-of-war!

The Weltanschauung of feminist/feministas is seemingly myopic and mired in me-me-me thinking; me meaning us white women. These women are more invested in platitudes than action.
Modern Feminism should embrace the dignity of, call for the respect of, and champion the collective socioeconomic-political-cultural empowerment of-all-women! It is a shame that feminists and feministas have to be prompted and prodded to 'do the right thing.' We are still waiting.
Fortunately, many Black women and other women of color do not rely on the actions and/or (delayed) socially conscious efforts of f/f women. For hundreds of years, we as women of color have known that our progress is based on our own steady might, focused resolve and yes, intelligence. I know that Michelle Obama,being intelligent, well-spoken and outspoken and not the embodiment of any stereotype, poses a decided threat not only to the familiar and comfortable labeling by some white men and women, but to the shifting power tectonics of both.
Yet, I know too, that Michelle Obama is used to 'holding her own' and 'maintaining' (in the vernacular) in a society that offers continual disrespect, constant devaluation as a woman and as a Black woman, as well as the inevitable racial assaults.
A 'Naked Invisible' is someone, notably a woman who puts herself out there and makes herself vulnerable in word, person and deed and no one appreciates her, or sees her for what she is and consequently, actively seeks to devalue and denigrate her efforts and her life. Bitches, come on!
I have always considered myself a 'Womanist.' I know there are many women of color who assign themselves as feminist. I wish them well and sincerely hope their 'inclusion' is not tokenism but activism for all.
What I would like feminists/feministas to do is simply embrace fully the principles, humanism and beliefs they espouse through the feminist mantle and to act fully in that regard...for all!

Adrienne Zurub
Author, 'Notes From the Mothership The Naked Invisibles'
http://chasewunderlickpublishers.com.cn

"Death of a Saleswoman: How Hillary Clinton lost me and a generation of young voters" by Meghan O'Rourke of Slate (June 2008)

Jennifer Knickerbocker — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 14:02:31 EDT

Death of a Saleswoman: How Hillary Clinton lost me—and a generation of young voters.

By Meghan O'Rourke Posted Wednesday, June 4, 2008, at 11:31 AM ET

"That bitter cynicism of yours is something you've acquired since you left Radcliffe." "That cynicism you refer to I acquired the day I discovered little girls were different from little boys!" —Lloyd Richards to Karen Richards, and vice versa, All About Eve

In the coming days, as Hillary Clinton moves to the sidelines and Barack Obama takes the stage alone, many people will suggest that America just wasn't ready for a female president. This may be true. But we'll never entirely know, because Clinton did not invite us to spend much time contemplating the momentous fact that she was the first female presidential candidate with any chance of occupying that position. Her problem wasn't that she was a feminist. Her problem was that she wasn't feminist enough. For me, at least, she wasn't—and for many young women my age. Back in the mid-1990s, as a college student, I spent an afternoon on the New Haven Green, adjacent to Yale University, waiting for Hillary Rodham Clinton to speak. There was a huge crowd of mostly young women. I found her impressive, if not entirely galvanizing. She had a girlish voice and soft, wispy bangs, as I recall, and she struck me as a real person—not merely a wife performing the role of first lady. I remember wondering if she might some day run for president. I also remember...

Racism & Suffrage

Mikel "Hussein" Whitney — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:26:17 EDT

Saw this article in the Washington Post today by Shankar Vedantam titled "When Disadvantages Collide." The discussion centers on the politics and passage of the 14th, 15th & 19th Amendments to the Constitution. The first two gave Black men the right to vote. The later gave women the right to vote.

Please read, as this is the Unity we aspire to attain to win the White House in November:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/01/AR2008060101557.html?sub=new

2008-1968? With Obama it is different

Steven — Wed, 28 May 2008 09:58:40 EDT

Recently I was invited to give a talk in Vienna, Austria about 1968 in the United States (and Britain) in historical perspective. It got me thinking about how the current electoral campaign relates to the torrid events of forty years ago. I am not alone in this, obviously. Just a few days ago, Evan Thomas published a review of Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland and made a point about the presence of Obama and Clinton as the Democrats’ candidates proving that the events of the Sixties--aka “1968”—were not totally without their positive side. But I think we can go a lot further than that. I have mulled over the ways in which 2008 looks in light of the consequences of 1968, and how the current Democratic candidates have responded to those consequences, and have modeled themselves in their light. I have concluded that one of the best things that the Obama campaign represents, and can potentially do, is bring a resolution to the divisions and the crisis that “1968” unleashed, and that the Right, since Nixon, has so expertly and cynically exploited.

To understand the brilliant prospects that Obama has made possible for the progressive Left’s agenda, the agenda that “1968” symbolizes, and to which the actual events of 1968 also dealt such a harsh blow, we need to go back to the Sixties and look at what was really going on then. As Mark Hamilton Lytle delineates in his readable and comprehensive introduction to the Sixties, America’s Uncivil Wars (Oxford, 2006), the original moving power for the various liberation movements came from the Civil Rights movement, centered on the goal of achieving real equality, real citizenship, for African-Americans, especially in the segregated Deep South. White liberals (with a considerable Jewish component) and African-American activists joined together to advance the egalitarian and emancipatory agenda of people like Martin Luther King Jr. This movement achieved notable successes, such as the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

By the later Sixties, however, this Civil Rights movement had been joined, complicated, and fractured by other movements of liberation, such as the student’s Free Speech movement, the anti-Vietnam-War movement, the New Left plans for social change among members of the SDS, Women’s liberation (feminism), liberation movements in the Hispanic/Latino community and among Native Americans, and the more anarchic fringe movements such as Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman’s Yippies. This spirit of liberation had begun to enter the mainstream of American life, as expressed in more liberal sexual mores and the ubiquity of “rock” music, along with a much wider usage of “recreational” drugs; at the same time, even before 1968, the original emancipatory, egalitarian and inclusive impetus of the Civil Rights movement, as well as of these other movements, had begun to shear off into much more exclusive movements of group-assertion, such as Black Nationalism, or indeed more radical forms of Feminism. Moreover, the initial emphasis on civil disobedience and non-violence had been replaced in many circles by a much more combative approach, that considered violence against “the System” and “the Man” increasingly legitimate.

There was more than enough cause for this turn to violence and pugnacity. The forces arrayed against the liberation movements, especially in the Deep South, were the ones with the power and a virtual monopoly of force, and they were not afraid to use it. There were, of course the Ku Klux Klan and other “citizens’ groups” that launched attacks on Civil Rightists, most notably during the Freedom Rides. And many of these attacks on Civil Rights activists, we need to remember, ended up in murder.

A very considerable amount of the violence targeted at the “movement” came from the established political and institutional structures, and it should be recalled that most of the politicians, mayors and police chiefs involved in the clashes against the Civil Rights activists were Southern Democrats, Dixiecrats, defending their white, segregationist privileges against interfering Northerners and rebellious Blacks, as they saw it. The opposition to the war, which most Civil Rights activists, King included, shared, also meant that the federal (Democrat-led) government and its state-level and municipal-level allies also came to oppose the “movement” with force that often brimmed over into quite shocking violence. Then there was the fact that the de facto segregation and racial inequality in inner cities in the West and North, where police forces were still virtually all-white, and African-Americans, despite being an increasingly large segment of the population, were shut out from most public jobs, also fuelled deep resentment that exploded in the inner city riots of the 1960s.

Yet we need to acknowledge that the turn to violence, no matter how understandable, was also one approved of by many leaders in the various liberation movements, and this was, in retrospect, a tragic mistake. Whether as a response to the violence of the oppressors, or out of some more ideological, pseudo-Nietzschean belief in violence as a form of anarchic, creative destruction, the readiness to turn to violence among the liberation movements was a deeply counter-productive aspect of “1968”.

We also need to remember that 1968 was a disastrous year for the Left and progressives in the United States. In Europe, perhaps, 1968 can be looked back on with a certain whimsical nostalgia by those on the Left. Not so for 1968 in the USA. In April Martin Luther King was assassinated; in June Robert Kennedy was assassinated. The progressive domestic policy agenda of the Democratic administration of Lyndon Johnson was being subsumed by a war in Vietnam that was not going well. Riots in the wake of King’s assassination in Washington DC and other cities left considerable areas of urban America a wasteland that was to take decades to reclaim. In August the Democratic convention was an unmitigated disaster, with party feuds, anti-war demonstrations and massive street violence (largely on the part, admittedly, of Chicago Democratic Mayor Daley’s police force). The end result was that in November Richard M. Nixon was elected president, bringing an end to only eight years of progressive Democratic government. That was not the end of the “uncivil wars”, not by any means, indeed they became more vitriolic and violent with Nixon in the White House, but not to the benefit of the forces of progress and liberation. Far from it—Nixon was reelected easily in 1972. Admittedly, Watergate gave this portion of the story an apparently happy ending for liberals, but even so the discordant and adversarial nature of “the movement”, and its tendency to violent expression, so evidently on display in 1968, had severely compromised the progressive cause, and left openings to the reactionary Right that figures such as Ronald Reagan and Lee Atwater were fully to exploit in the following years.

But of course that was only one side of the Sixties. During the Chicago Convention whose events were to destroy so many progressive hopes the Beatles released their single “Revolution”. Its lyrics convey vividly, I think, what the other side of the Sixties thought of the politically activist side evident at Chicago:

“You say you want a revolution

Well you know

we all want to change the world

You tell me that it’s evolution

Well you know

We all want to change the world

But when you talk about destruction

Don’t you know that you can count me out

Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright…

You say you got a real solution

Well you know

We’d all love to see the plan

You ask me for a contribution

Well you know

We’re doing what we can

But when you want money for people with minds that hate

All I can tell you is brother you have to wait

Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright….

You say you’ll change the constitution

Well you know

we all want to change your head

You tell me it’s the institution

Well you know

You better free your mind instead

But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao

You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow

Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright

Alright Alright” (Lennon/McCartney,1968)

My contention is that these song lyrics are about as good and accurate a commentary of where the 1968ers went wrong in America, and that of the two contenders for the Democratic nomination only one has really understood the lessons to be learned here, and that the other is still stuck in the negative spiral that the progressive Left has still not gotten out of in this country. Things have changed dramatically since 1968, of course, and the sort of violence (and revolutionary, messianic hopes for society) that accompanied political events then, are highly unlikely to occur in the context of the 2008 campaign. Nevertheless, the approaches of the two candidates do show parallels with those of 1968, and much to the benefit of one over the other.

Hillary Clinton is the candidate who is still stuck in the political past and is still fighting the wars of the Sixties, still trapped in the adversarial thought patterns of that era. This is, perhaps, to be expected, as the sixty-year old grew up and became politically active in precisely these years. She came from a well-to-do background, and was initially a Republican before her experience at Wellesley made her an activist and a feminist. (The fact that she now portrays Obama as the elitist and herself as the straight-talkin’ triboon of the people is quite ironic given her actual background.) Clinton has always had many of the combative instincts of the ‘68ers. One can argue that the antagonism she has evoked from the “vast right-wing conspiracy” and other right-wing Republicans was and is based very much on the Right’s—correct—sense that Hillary is still fighting the wars of the Sixties.

Ironically, she combines this combative, quasi-populist attitude with relying on the top-down approach of the Democratic political machine, which, when one thinks about it, was another problem with the progressive Left of the Sixties, whether in the Johnson administration or opposed to it—everything was for the people, very little was expected to come from the people. There is something truly elitist about the big-state solutions of the Great Society programs, and this is precisely what Clinton’s policies would seek to emulate today: top-down, “we know what is good for you” programs where the citizen has little input. It is a machine-client, interest-based model that is traditional and it is perhaps this that appeals to the less educated, and more traditionally “Democratic” blue-collar white voters that are her main base (especially in Appalachia). Clinton’s comment about Johnson being as or more important than King in getting Civil Rights legislation passed may or may not have been dabbling with the race card, but it most certainly revealed this top-down faith in the political establishment as opposed to the politics of the grass roots.

Clinton seems also to have retained the tendency to divisiveness and sectarianism of the 68ers. One might argue that it was Mark Penn’s proclivity to see the American electorate as only a series of discrete voting blocks that gives this impression of a segmented view of American society. Yet comments by Clinton since Penn’s departure suggest the reason she was so reliant on Penn in the first place is that she shares his dissectory view of demography. The comment about “hardworking white people” very much fit this view of American society being just a collection of constituent groups, without any commonality to speak of. Her recent accusations about misogyny in the media, suggesting that the failure of her campaign has been due to the sexism of American society (when the Democratic electorate who has not voted for her has been in a very large majority a female one) also point to the fact that she has not gotten beyond the identity politics and competing categorizations of the Sixties and its aftermath.

What I think such comments reveal is that her picture of the world is still one in which society is composed of a series of competing groups engaged in a zero-sum game in which the aim must always be to obtain 51% support in order to get your side, your constituents and your interests represented, and dominant, at the table of public goods. The world, and American society, remain a dangerous, Hobbesian place, where the hopes of the more idealistic 68ers are revealed to be pipedreams, ignorant of the divisions, racial, sexual, cultural, economic, which have governed human action, now govern human action, and will ever do so. In an odd way, Revd. Jeremiah Wright, a closer contemporary to Clinton than Obama, is more spiritually akin to the Senator from New York than the one from Illinois. For Wright too sees a society that has not fundamentally changed, and cannot fundamentally change, in which the opportunities for black people, or in Clinton’s case women, remain compromised and curtailed, with only incremental progress possible, if at all. Hillary Clinton, like Wright, continues to put faith in the same old adversarial politics of the past, because she believes, as a disillusioned 68er, that that is the only kind possible. Change, fundamental change in attitudes, is an illusion as far as she is concerned. Hers is, despite the superficial can-do nature of the program and the “fighter” image, at base a very pessimistic message, which has learnt, if anything, only the negative lessons of 68’s failure.

Barack Obama’s relation to ’68 and its lessons, whether consciously realized or not, offers a stark study in contrasts to the Clintonian approach.

To begin with, probably out of necessity but possibly by design as well, Obama’s team has used his outsider/newcomer status to build a campaign very much structured from the grass roots up. Building on Howard Dean’s pioneering use of the Internet for fundraising and campaign creation, the Obama campaign has used the new possibilities of IT to create the most broad-based political campaign this country has yet seen, as exemplified in its phenomenal fund-raising achievements, not only in terms of money, but also in the sheer numbers of donors (over 1.5 million). This is admittedly a rather armchair sort of grass roots campaign, with people vicariously “participating” by staring at computer screens, but even so there has also been a remarkable outpouring of more traditional participation, as in the floods of canvassers and phone bankers that have been mobilized in pursuit of Obama’s nomination, especially among students (and ex-students). Most crucially, there has been a huge turnout of people voting, a key goal of the Sixties idealists who looked to participatory democracy not only as a means to but also as an end of the Good Society. It is worth noting that much of this grass roots emphasis, and the whole tenor of Obama’s campaign, is directly traceable to Obama’s own theoretical and practical knowledge of the community organization advocated by Saul Alinsky, from the 1930s onward, that was such an inspiration of radicals back in the Sixties.

Following on from this Alinskian heritage, Obama’s campaign is very much marked by an emphasis on inclusion, not exclusion. While Obama has yet to be as successful as he wanted to in attracting the full spectrum of America’s diversity to his cause, with much work yet to do with the Hispanic community, Jews, women (for obvious, Clinton-related reasons) and the by now well-known Appalachian blue collar working class, his message and approach has been consistently to include all parts of the American nation. Not to exclude anyone. And this is more than just rhetoric—it is fundamental to the sort of logic that the community organizing movement has followed. America, in this image, is not a set of discrete client-groups with separate, mutually exclusive interests—as the Pennian model that Clinton adhered to so long suggests—but rather a collection of diverse individuals and groups that, for all their differences, share fundamentally similar goals, interests and values. For Obama’s campaign, at least in theory, getting 51% of the vote can not be the goal, because the aim is to get as many Americans on board, no matter their background, color, beliefs or culture, anyone indeed whose deepest conviction is that America and Americans can only succeed if they reject the things that divide them and concentrate on what unites them, for only by coming together, by listening to each other, by connecting with each other, by forming once again a true community, can Americans solve the problems that confront them.

It is this emphasis on connection and inclusion, on seeing society as a connected whole, that is, I think, behind Obama’s attraction for usually conservative columnists such as David Brooks. Instead of approaching American politics as an exercise in slice-and-dice demographics, with the aim only to satisfy one’s client base, Obama has tapped into what is really a very conservative, even patriotic notion of “not red-states America or blue-states America, but the United States of America”, which is a mightily attractive theme for what in Britain is called “one nation” conservatism. Similarly, if ironically given voting patterns in the primaries, this view of society as a web of interconnection, in which individuals can only achieve their goals and realize themselves within the context of others, and with their help, in which no one is an island and all are—ultimately--reliant on his or her neighbor, should be most attractive to Catholics, for it parallels the socially based, even corporatist approach of that religious heritage. Moreover, Obama’s emphasis on communication, co-operation and inclusiveness, rather than divisiveness, competitiveness, and “winning at all costs”, would seem to be tailor-made to what many, including many feminists, have seen as the “feminine” approach to society and politics.

At its core, Obama’s campaign is one based on the idea of its candidate as a uniter not a fighter. (Were it not for the prevalent, macho political culture of this land, one could even dust off the old Sixties phrase of being “a lover not a fighter”.) Instead of going the way of disuniting the progressive forces in the country, the path of divisiveness and exclusive identity politics that undermined the mission of 68, the Obama campaign has very consciously set about connecting groups, bringing them together under the mantle of the campaign. This does not deny difference or diversity, but it does strive to find commonality and emphasize what unites rather than divides. It is not too difficult to see where the inspiration of this aspect of the campaign comes from. The whole of Obama’s book, Dreams from my Father, is in essence a journey of realization that the “problem” of Obama’s multi-racial and multi-cultural background is not so much a problem of “divided identity” but a massive opportunity for connecting and uniting diverse values, diverse experiences, and diverse heritages, in one person, and, by extension, in one campaign and, by a further extension, one nation. Obama, in that sense, is the embodiment of what his whole campaign, and the Obama movement, stands for.

This diversity within unity at times appears a very “post-modern” concept, but it really goes back to the best sort of thinking of the Sixties, or even before, the liberal pluralism of someone such as Isaiah Berlin, acknowledging and embracing the existence of difference, while still asserting a fundamental unity in the human experience that many subsequent, “post-modern” versions of multi-culturalism unwisely abandoned. In this sense, “Obamaism” is a return to a Sixties optimism about the human condition that disillusioned 68er radicals rejected in their pessimistic reaction to the events of the last decades.

This optimism is not a naïve one. As Obama has constantly repeated, “hope” in his understanding is not pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking, but rather a commitment, almost an existential commitment, to belief in the “better angels of our nature” despite our full realization of the many challenges to any worthy cause, and the many imperfections of our own nature that we have yet to overcome. Yet the driving force of the Obama campaign is the belief that, if we do come together, a dynamic solution to our problems is indeed possible. Change is thus not just a slogan, but fundamental to the campaign’s premiss. It is only if we can change (in the Sixties we might have said “revolutionize”) the way we do politics, the way we approach each other, and other societies, only if we can replace the adversarial, zero-sum game, “gotcha” politics that has perverted and made stagnant the American political process these last decades, that we can really start with truly solving our many problems. In that sense the one thing that Obama and his campaign really is up to fighting against is the old politics where fighting is the be all and end all of the process.

From the start, and still now, the position of the Obama campaign has been that they are beyond all that, that they are in the business of transcending the old divisions and divisiveness of the American political scene. In this they show themselves to be both a movement emanating from a new generation (Obama at 46 is a post-babyboomer), and aimed at an even newer generation (the students, and youth generally, who have been such a central and vital part of Obama’s success). Their aim is not to settle old scores, but to get beyond all that, not get locked in the past but—having taken full note of it--transcend it. It is at times a strangely self-conscious movement, one in which spontaneity sometimes looks as though it comes pre-packaged, as with so much in our self-referential, post-modern age. Yet its yearning to look forward, and its willingness to have confidence in the future, to have the confidence to move beyond the inadequate political structures of the present to something more positive, more affirmative, and more suited to the future challenges that await us, remains deeply attractive. And it is, I think, a potential new synthesis that will, if the road is indeed taken, bring us beyond the conflicted heritage of 68.

Obama is, in the end, the one candidate in this election, who is a candidate of 2008, not some previous era. For those who, to paraphrase Lennon and McCartney, do “want to change the world”, he is the one candidate who can finally bring the demons that were unleashed forty or more years ago not to rest but to a more positive, beneficial and benevolent situation. The final irony is, given Obama’s African and American heritage, his election could well be the most fitting way to bring full circle an era in American history that began with a Civil Rights movement for African-American liberation and equality. Or perhaps it is that, in transcending the conflicts of the Sixties, Obama’s success will finally be enabling the best impulses of that era to achieve the goals that events and the internal logic of the movement then so cruelly frustrated? In overcoming 68, Obama will be realizing 68. Ann Dunham would be extremely proud of her son if that were the case.

The Gender Card: the task ahead...

Adoyo — Sun, 25 May 2008 15:41:40 EDT

Hello Everyone,

I have read several comments on the 'net affirming that Senator Clinton's campaign and particularly her tactics over the past few months have contributed to undermining a lot of the progress society as a whole (not just the female half) has made toward a gender-equitable future. Some people cite the mismanagement of her campaign, some her sensationally mercurial behavior, and still others speculate about her relationships with key male figures in her life.

Whatever you may wish to think of her, we can all recognize that this campaign season - for all that is at stake this year and because of all the dramatic turns - has been nerve-wracking for all. So we can only just begin to imagine how taxing it has been and continues to be on the principals.

I am personally truly proud of the way Senator Obama has acquitted himself through it all. He stands as an example and an inspiration to all of us in his grace, intelligence, good humor and generosity of spirit.

I sincerely wish Senator Clinton could have allowed herself to be as inspired by him as so many around the country and around the world have been. I imagine (perhaps mistakenly) that had she let herself recognize Senator Obama's strength as a human being and allowed herself to follow his lead by responding to the strain of the campaign with grace, intelligence and an even temper, many - women and men, young and old alike - would happily have accorded her the respect she has earned in her capacity as a tireless public servant.

I understand that her repeated failure to rise to the occasion is what leads so many to take the liberty of speaking so poorly of her. Nonetheless, I think, I hope we can recognize and accept that even when someone betrays our hopes, we still treat them well. Even if you may think that she does not deserve such consideration, surely we need not abandon our own aspirations to be our better selves for the low and fleeting satisfaction of mocking a fellow human being - a fellow woman - especially in what appears to be the twighlight of her struggle? For if she has indeed set society back in its quest for gender equality, we all have our work cut out for us in repairing the damage and continuing to rise - as individuals and as communities.

Adoyo

NOTES TO MYSELF - FEMINISM

DREAMZBIG — Sun, 25 May 2008 15:25:41 EDT

Both of my parents have passed. I am States away from their resting place, but I will be sending out prayers and have personal conversations with both. My father was a Veteran....Korea. I have his War Bonds tucked away in a safe place...along with his photos of those with whom he served. I wonder what both of my parents would think of the current state of political affairs. I remember vividly the grief of my mother (she would be 83) surrounding the JKF - MLK - RFK assassinations. I grew up in a wonderful rural Iowa home and blessed by my parents with a strong foundation of Christian values. My father was a farmer. My mother was a teacher. My mother didn't always agree with the course I pursued in life - we would argue about "why she was doing everything for dad....jump when he said jump." She was from a different era and didn't understand why I wanted to "burn my bra" and identify with Steinem and "those feminists."

As I reflect upon this with fond memories, the Friday before Memorial Day, Hillary Rodham Clinton makes an unforgivable statement. She not so subtlely references waiting in the wings for Obama to be assassinated. This has been on my mind, as she continues to move the bar, play with the math and wants to be VP if she can't have the whole enchilada. And I should be shocked that she said it on camera - but I am not shocked. I am not shocked that she has issued no apology to the people of this nation, or other nations, that she has made no apology to Sen. Obama. She has no remorse. This is the clearest example of where we have come politically in 40 years. Full circle.

I got my degree in Women's Studies. I wrote a research paper in the course of that degree based on my theory that "feminism" was analogous to all other "isms." But not in the sense you may think. I likened feminists to racists, classists, etc. It was a well written paper. I got a D- but was offered an opportunity to rewrite it for a better grade. I had spent 3 weeks on that first paper. The second one was haphazardly written overnight and - because it said what it was "supposed" to say, I received a B. It probably would have been an A - had not the first paper been submitted. So with my degree in Women's Studies in hand - and my own set of ideas about feminism in mind, I graduated with honors. But I would not "cling to" the feminist bible. I would not identify with the hatred of men - of all the whining and complaints of what had been done to "us women." I had chosen to be force fed the anger of decades and sent out without any tools to do make real change. But HARK: I saw the bigger picture. It was plain and simple - I made a wiser choice to become a humanitarian with a degree that would MARK me as I stepped into my future - but I would choose my battles wisely and eradicate all forms of ISMS in my work as an advocate for change. And with this knowledge, I better understood my mother.

I have supported Sen. Obama from day one. I have had a difficult time with "feminists" that would call me a traitor - they are feminISTS....like racist, classist and sexist. That "ism" is inherent in the feminist movement as a whole. White middle class women marginalizing all others, including women that aren't the "right" race or class.... who aren't WHITE enough. It isn't as though they don't address the marginalized women - they do - in well written articles - but ACTION is always based on the REAL feminist agenda. Thus Hillary Rodham Clinton - unafraid to race-bait - use class, do "anything" to get elected. I am not an Obama supporter because I am afraid to see a woman in the White House - as President. That day will come. But it will come when we have the RIGHT woman to rally behind. HRC is not that woman...her divisiveness, her words and her actions have made that clear. I have HOPE for the future. Sen. Obama offers that HOPE to UNIFY ALL - women are a part of ALL!

I pray that the feminists who want to see a Woman President in their lifetime will begin to look inside themselves and then look beyond their agenda to see clearly the bigger picture. I pray too, that they get beyond their notion that WOMEN have got to do it before BLACK MEN! That they can see that their actions are racist! To see the bigger picture is to be human - not categorized, marginalized or divided. I understand that feminists want it so much - and have worked hard throughout their whole lives - they want to see the OUTCOME of their efforts on a grand scale. But there is a refusal to see that Hillary Rodham Clinton - if elected - would undermine all of their years od work. Because it would be a long long long time before there was ever a second President of the USA that "happens to be a woman." I pray that they begin to see this and think not of themselves - but of their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

RIP The Clintons. RIP Feminism until 2050?

Ryan Kauffman in Portland — Sun, 25 May 2008 01:25:12 EDT

There was a period there, like a month, that I hated the air that gave Hillary life. But then I realized that I respected her and her work. So first off, I apologize for any Hillary hating comments or blogs I have been responsible for. She truly has been a hero that everyone should look to as inspiration for decades to come.

After the Indiana/North Carolina contests I thought I saw a new tone coming out of both camps. i had been disappointed in Obama's negativity and angry at Hillary's outright hatred. But after IN and NC something had appeared to change. Sadly, not for long. Giving obama praise for continuing his graciousness is like congratulating the super bowl winners for their sportsmanship, so it is not worth doing. But the losers of any contest are not supposed to go around pursuing a scorched earth policy toward the fair and obvious winner. Classy, respectable, honorable people do not do that.

As much as I want to respect the Clintons for all the work they have done to help America over the last few decades I am finding their image more and more sullied by the day. Its not rational. They were the heros of the 1990s. They held back the tide of neo-conservativatism. And as we saw, they took no small amount of hatred and retribution for their noble efforts. But their continuing hopes at attaining the nomination and their refusal to unite the party and the nation under the clear winner is going to destroy that legacy. That is a tragedy.

There is a larger tragedy at work here. A much larger tragedy that the feminist movement would be wise to take heed of.

The country should see Hillary's groundbreaking run to the White House as a signal that the glass ceiling has been broken. But her response to losing fairly and squarely is going to reflect upon each and every woman attempting to attain the highest political office in this great land of ours. If Hillary cannot find a way to exit this race gracefully and then do everything in her power to ensure the Democrat nominee makes it to the White House she will be blamed.

It will not be a fair trial of reason and facts and evidence. In fact, it will resemble the impeachment trial in a great many ways. This saddens me a great deal. Hillary will not deserve this blame. If Obama loses it will be his own fault. This election was the democrats to lose, but we seem to have a talent for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and someone will have to pay. It wont be Obama, the teflon don. Reality is that it will be Clinton.

And four years from now, eight years from now, twenty years from now and fourty years from now we will look back and remember how the first serious woman contender for President of the United States personified the most undesirable female trait: bitch. And fairly or not people will subconciously connect Hillary the bitch with every female candidate that runs for President over the next generation.

Hillary. if this was only about you I would watch you self implode with subdued glee as my guilty pleasure over the next few months. But its not just about you anymore. Now its about my friends, sisters, and daughters. Dont destroy what a century of determined feminism has brought you. Disgression is the better part of valor.

Rest in Peace Hillary Clinton. Please. Rest in Peace.

Letter to the Editor: A Woman's Opinion for Sir Elton John (from April 2008)

Jennifer Knickerbocker — Fri, 23 May 2008 23:20:53 EDT

Dear Editor,

I take exception to Sir Elton John's conclusion that people who don't support Hillary Clinton are misogynistic. Does this mean that people who don't support Barack Obama are racist? I am a middle-aged, white, liberal, feminist American woman who would dearly love to vote for a woman for president. However, the whole point of equality is to support the candidates you believe in no matter what their race or gender. I had misgivings about Senator Clinton from the beginning because of...

"Sex and the Sissy" from the Wall Street Journal (from May 2008)

Jennifer Knickerbocker — Fri, 23 May 2008 16:46:49 EDT

Here's a reprint of an article by Peggy Noonan of the WSJ about HIllary's claim that sexism has been her downfall.

DECLARATIONS By PEGGY NOONAN Sex and the Sissy
May 23, 2008

She was born in Russia, fled the pogroms with her family, was raised in Milwaukee, and worked the counter at her father's general store when she was 8. In early adulthood she made aliyah to Palestine, where she worked on a kibbutz, picking almonds and chasing chickens. She rose in politics,...

Ted's Tumor & the Caramel Colored Kennedy's Blues

Alex van Ommen — Wed, 21 May 2008 09:04:50 EDT

Ted Kennedy has a brain tumor while Obama is gearing up to need him most. Trying to avoid being labeled a misogynyst, Obama ignores Clinton and plows his way to November, where McCain Republicans eagerly wait to roast him over the flames of foreign policy inexperience.

On Feminism and the Election: Response to Ms. Feldt

Lorin Walker — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:59:18 EDT

In an email thread to which I was included, feminist, activist, author and commentator, Gloria Feldt asserted that, "Once we have had a woman president, or maybe two, then perhaps we might have the luxury of giving choice greater value than self interest." The gist of the exchange being that, as women and feminists, we must support Senator Clinton, or we betray all women and the entire feminist movement. While I appreciate and benefit from all the years and sacrifice Ms. Feldt, Ms. Steinem and countless others have dedicated, I respectfully disagree.

We will have a woman President, but it must be the right woman. If not, the door that so many have worked to open, will once again be closed. Hillary is not the right person for the job regardless of her sex. She is polarizing and not because she is a woman. We need the right leader in this fragile moment - Barack is that leader and not because he is a man.

Barack is the right leader because he pulls people together, he enrolls them to be bigger than themselves. It is time for this nation to stand together as one people to solve the enormous problems facing us, facing the world. Barack's cross cultural, world view and sheer brilliance pull for that eventuality. Hillary does not have that attribute. That does not make her bad or wrong, just wrong for the moment.

We will have a woman President - just not this woman at this time. This is not a feminist or anti-feminist issue, it is a human issue. As a woman and as a feminist, I support the best person to right the wrongs and heal the wounds of the past. I support the right person to move our nation forward in an intelligent, positive and humane direction. I support the person who empowers and inspires me.

As a human being, I support Barack Obama.

Something for women to think on before you choose Hillary

Mary — Sat, 10 May 2008 14:33:14 EDT

Feminists sharply divided between Clinton, Obama

One factor in play is generational. There is a widespread perception in the women's movement that younger feminists tilt more toward Obama while most of their elders favor Clinton. Clinton frequently mentions the elderly women she's met on the campaign trail who were born before women were able to vote and have confided to her they thought they'd never see a woman elected president. Indeed, 74-year-old Gloria Steinem, a Clinton supporter and icon of the women's movement, riled some younger, pro-Obama feminists with a New York Times op-ed suggesting that they were in denial about America's persisting "sexual caste system." Ariel Garfinkel, a sophomore at Mount Holyoke College, wrote one of the many counter-arguments in an online column. She and many other young feminists supported Obama because they perceived the Clinton campaign as trying to capitalize on racial divisions and to impugn Obama's patriotism. "This pattern of old-style politics and adherence to un-feminist values is part and parcel of the campaign Hillary Clinton has run," Garfinkel wrote. "In this race, Barack Obama is the true feminist." New York-based author Courtney Martin, also an Obama supporter, wrote on Glamour magazine's blog Glamocracy last month that she was not backing Clinton "in part because she reminds me of being scolded by my mother."

The rest of the article is in the link below. I have been thinking about the divide and want to suggest that women who follow the idea that they might not get to see a woman as president in their own lifetime think strongly about their daughter's future and not just take any old woman as the representative for women. In my opinion I think that some women choosing Hillary are doing just that, taking any old woman just because they feel they might not get another chance. I've lived long enough to tell you that it will come and a woman will one day be president but for now Hillary just isn't the kind of representative that is progressive enough for your own daughter's future. She has used a lot of old school male tactics and antiquated political ideals including mud slinging and even tears to win the femanist vote. Okay yes all women cry sometimes but as the representative of women, the one who claims to be more empowered than Barack Obama her tears betray that kind of behavior that is the antithesis of needy woman instead of empowered woman. Is that really what we as women want? She cannot control Bill throughout this campaign. Now to me that represents a woman who has issues and allows herself to be a victim even to her own husband's whims. It doesn't speak about the ability to work independantly from her husband or generate a sense of control within those precepts. It says that he is a controlling narcissist and she is the victim that allows him to continually ruin her campaign and butt in where he has no reason to butt in.

There is a lot at stake for women and I think that we need to do more than just accept the first woman who steps up as being the representative for all women. That would be a huge mistake and show a neediness in the femanists movement to settle for second best. So for now I would make a plea to women to wait, vote for Obama this term because we know that historically if he can win then a woman can win, and if he can't win then no woman will win. Besides, Obama is a wonderful dignified candidate that could have been like McCain and hit below the belt in cruel and uncouth ways at Hillary had he chosen to and like she has done on the occasion. Instead he has allowed her to keep her dignity and not bring up Bills cheating and things of that nature. He is highly for equal rights and for women's rights. Remember he is the father of two daughters so you can't say that there isn't an interest in his own daughter's ability to have a future as not only women but as black women. His committment is going to be strong where women are concerned believe me as a parent on this one. If I could better my daughter's future I would and that's another reason I have chosen to break the ranks and vote Obama. I'm not going to just take whatever woman comes down the pike out of fear or anxiety or neediness to prove my womanhood. I am strong and have lived as a single mother who supported feminism all my life but more than my own selfish needs I want future women to have the best and I think Obama is the beginning of that for women!

Test

Jackie Will — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:51:22 EDT

Test

Identity Politics

Rich Grace — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:36:52 EDT

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/04/17/politics/p132323D61.DTL) is currently getting her 'sisterhood' questioned by whom I feel are well-meaning but obtuse people.

The Obama-Clinton race has laid bare some social pathologies in the Democratic Party. It's very clear, at least to me, that identity-based politics has dominated our Party for decades. It is a primary reason, if not THE primary reason, why we kept losing election after election over the last 40 years.

Remember what Geraldine Ferraro had to say a few weeks back? You know, the same Ferraro who was a co-chair of Clinton's campaign? Let's recall: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

It really has to be a throat-cutting rivalry between blacks and women, doesn't it? Or, let's see... if Obama was an Asian-American... perhaps a Native American or part thereof... Maybe, um, a Latino. Do you really think her reaction would any different? I doubt it.

Identity politics is dying, and an entire generation of liberal Americans cannot stand it. It is the lodestone, the rock, the core of their ideology. It cuts across all races and both genders but appears to be most promiscuously toxic among the older generation of Democrats, particularly older women from the feminist movement, but also among older working-class Democrats who have never really been comfortable with the concept of a multiracial American society, where those of any color and ethnicity can pursue their dreams and their destinies. It is this cohort that Hillary speaks for most directly. Her entire campaign is based upon it.

The Obama Feminists: Why Young Women Are Supporting Obama

Mikeystyle — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:43:41 EDT

The epic struggle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama reveals strong fault lines between some older and younger women, first underscored by no less than Gloria Steinem who scorned those of us supporting a male over a female. Women of my generation venerate Steinem for her pioneering leadership but tend to reject her insinuation that the Democratic primary winner must have a body like our own. Beyond the importance of race and gender, we believe this election should be about a vision for the nation, leadership style and basic political values...

Continued at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackandbrownnews/the-obama-feminists-why-y_b_96128.html

OBAMA: CHILD OF A FEMINIST

Citizen20854 — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:35:58 EDT

A mother's unconventional life is reflected within Obama

Barack Obama's mother had a varied international career

By Janny Scott Published: March 13, 2008 document.writeln('');

In the capsule version of the Barack Obama story, his mother is simply the white woman from Kansas. The phrase comes coupled alliteratively to its counterpart, the black father from Kenya. On the campaign trail, Obama has called her his "single mom." But neither description begins to capture the unconventional life of Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro. (continued via link)

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/13/america/obama.php

OBAMA: CHILD OF A FEMINIST - IS THAT PART OF THE REASON FOR HIS UNUSUAL ABILITY TO TRANSCEND DIFFERENCES AND HIS TALENT TO EMBRACE UNITY?

From the beginning of Obama's candidacy, I knew there was something special about him and could never quite pinpoint what gave me that feeling. I identified with his life and overcoming diversity, beating the odds. We shared common threads, but there was more. Where did he get the his almost unshakeable sure footedness - the self confidence to choose a career path into public service, a path with promise but unlikely opportunity to rise to the top. Obama was very lucky he didn't have someone in his life who told him he was a hopeless dreamer. No one who mocked his aspirations.

So, when I asked myself these questions, I recognized that something or someone influential in his life must have changed his perspective, someone who did not put ceilings between him and his dreams. Something or someone must have made sure that he knew he could do what he aspired to do if he gave hope a chance and added some hard work and commitment to the equation. Somebody taught him, YES YOU CAN. Somebody taught him to follow his dreams, or at least showed by example that following dreams is the best way to achieve dreams.

That someone was his visionary, early feminist Mother, Stanley. She did not raise him on empty rhetoric, nor star dusted dreams, she raised him by example. I can imagine her parents in the early 1960's, from Kansas yelling out, "No way, how are you going to marry a black man from Africa. How will your child have a chance? There will be no hope for him." Of course, I am imagining this unlikely dialog. Something tells me, that Ms. Dunham-Soetoro may have had visionary parents as well, who may have wanted to protect her from the bad in this world, but let her go and supported her dreams. I mean, parents from the 1940's who would name their girl STANLEY had to have had some understanding of the feminist challenge.

   And when she chose to go to Indonesia and work with the poor, bringing financing know how to the poorest and teaching them how to make credit work for their dreams, she was showing her world that she did not believe in barriers, and that she trusted her judgement. Obama's Mother lead change quietly, so quietly that the United States was caught by surprise when her quiet son emerged from the crowded Democratic candidate field as a successful contender.

The media has been scrambling ever since to understand whether Obama is a phenomena or our future. Its taken awhile for them to catch on, but soon they will understand that Obama is a part of what we women have been working for since Susan B. Anthony. We want equality for women but that won't happen until the sons we raise live the equality we aspire for. We need the other half to make this work. We can't have half the votes to win. We need women's votes and men's votes and black votes and white votes, we have to achieve united votes. We will be equal when we do not have to define our candidacy by gender or race. In that, I think Obama is one step ahead, thanks in part to his visionary Mother.

If Americans understand that this young man, Senator Obama is the GREATEST TRANSCENDER we have seen in this generation, who is empowered by common decency and good judgement (according to the Chicago Tribune) as well as a keen mind, we would all be joining the hope wagon.

Gender based voters need to open up to the real reason for Obama's support. His candidacy is new and it is innovative. He is the first son of a feminist to reach this pinnacle. He has all the fine qualities a feminist Mother would like to engender in their children. He is a shining accomplishment for women's rights and civil rights.   A single Mother who overcame not only the stigma of single parenthood, but also crossing racial barriers and career barriers. She stepped outside of the box and peacefully pursued a pioneering approach to addressing poverty in Indonesia. She practiced micro finance when few had heard about it. She walked her talked and she did not let differences get in the way. This is the one America that Obama speaks of so eloquently and so readily about, because he is a product of one America.

Now if we are true feminists, who should we vote for? The son of a feminist or a woman who has an unremarkable history in the movement. Does Hillary embody the values of the feminist movement, does she live equality and not let it define her.

I for one trust the son of a feminist more than a woman who has no experience in transcending differences nor embodies our shared values.

Modern Feminism

Manya4Obama — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:27:19 EDT

From Susan Kaiser Greenland:

Clinton advisor Geraldine Ferraro, the first and only woman to have been a major party VP candidate in a presidential election, views herself as a victim of racism. Yesterday she said, "Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white." Hillary Clinton, a Senator from NY who may well be the first major party female candidate for President, can't stop boo-hooing about being a victim either. A male dominated press corps has counted her out. She always gets the first question in the debates. There is a right wing conspiracy against her and her husband. Her fellow Democratic candidates are 'ganging up' on her. If the Clinton campaign isn't careful, it will set the women's movement back a generation or so.
Let's be pragmatic for a moment. As women, it is not in our best interests to be viewed as victims who must remain on the defensive to survive professionally. A good fight over substantive issues? Count me in. An uphill battle? Fine by me. Viewing friends (and myself) as victims because we are women? No thanks. That is a load of psychological baggage that I am not willing to carry.
I commend the courage and chutzpah of early feminists like Geraldine Ferraro, Hillary Clinton and Gloria Steinem. Now that many glass ceilings have been shattered, most people support (at least in theory) equal pay for equal work, equal opportunity in education and equal opportunity in the workforce. Both men and women hope that their daughters will have the same opportunities as their sons. This is a meaningful sea change from a generation ago when middle class women stayed home and took care of the children while men brought home the bacon. The battles fought by the first generation of feminists have in large part been won.
The feminist issues facing us now are different from the ones that we faced a generation ago. From Moms Rising (www.momsrising.org):
Three-quarters of American mothers are now in the labor force.
A full quarter of U.S. families with children less than six years old live in poverty.
Nine million children are without healthcare coverage and many more are under-insured.
Fourteen million children are unsupervised after school. 40,000 of these are kindergartners due to a lack of affordable after school programs.
The U.S. is one of only four nations without any form of paid leave for new mothers. (The others are Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea.)
Women without children make 90 cents to a man's dollar, but mothers make just 73 cents, and single mothers make even less -- about 60 cents to a man's dollar.
Mothers are 79% less likely to be hired than equally qualified non-mothers.
A recent study found that mothers were offered $11,000 lower starting pay than non-mothers with the same resume for highly paid jobs, while fathers were offered $6,000 more in starting pay.
Of the twenty most competitive economies in the world, the U.S. is the only one that does not require employers to provide paid sick days.
Gender roles must be re-evaluated through the lens of current feminist issues. It will require a long and thoughtful conversation. It will take a lot of listening by all those involved. The less baggage everyone brings to the table the better.

Hillary's Race Against Time

jgabriel — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 09:21:03 EDT

Interesting article in Salon on the state of the race, and a rebuttal to feminist Hillary supporters.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/03/12/red_phone/index.html

I'm a Feminist for Obama.

Victoria Marinelli — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:49:52 EST

Hello!

I'm finally adding a post here, inadequate though it may be. Thing is, I've been so busy posting to my regular blog on issues relevant to feminism, the current elections, and my specific support for the candidacy of Barack Obama, that I keep forgetting to do anything meaningful with my profile here.

In any case, please feel free to visit me at: http://victoriamarinelli.com

Or to view only those posts tagged with "elections," try this link:

http://victoriamarinelli.com/main/index.php?tag=elections

The bottom line?

I'm not supporting Obama's candidacy DESPITE my feminism. Rather, my support for this campaign is deeply rooted IN my feminism. I've thought this through. and I'm as serious as a heart attack about it.

Finally, I'm extremely interested to hear from other feminists supporting Obama. I know there are a lot of us - and I'd really like to see us doing much better networking. Please feel free to contact me if you have blog posts or links relevant to this particular theme (feminists' and women's support for Obama), and I'll be happy to spread those links around.

Victory in November!

Sincerely,

Victoria Marinelli

Girlfriends

Andrea Heckman — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:42:01 EST

I've received a number of emails from female friends who are excited to promote Hillary Clinton as an iconic standard-bearer for women in government, always including an urgent mandate to forward it to all my 'girlfriends.' These messages include a healthy dose of presumption, a broad sweeping assumption that the gender of my commander-in-chief is an issue which trumps all others, and that I'm not progressive or liberal if I fail to campaign for Senator Clinton. They call my commitment to feminism into question, and suppose that if I really want women in power, I would of course vote for this one. Of course I want to see a female president, and of course I want to contribute to her candidacy. But since I am a woman who grew up with the benefits of a strong education, who was taught to think critically, who learned to make decisions based on the activities of the mind and conscience rather than a need to be embraced by others who look like me, these primaries and the ongoing campaign efforts have left me with some 'if's.

If Hillary Clinton were running against a candidate of lesser merit, I would vote for Hillary Clinton.

If Hillary Clinton were running against a candidate whose policies I disagreed with, I would vote for Hillary Clinton.

If Hillary Clinton had the best plans for our country, the broadest view of who is included in the democratic process, and a voice that carried effectively to all those diverse people, I would vote for Hillary Clinton.

If Hillary Clinton had a history of diplomatically uniting people of divergent political views in the face of difficult policy decisions, I would vote for Hillary Clinton.

If Hillary Clinton conducted herself respectfully and with the assuring presence necessary for any effective politician, male or female, I might vote for Hillary Clinton.

If Hillary Clinton ran her campaign with a fraction of the knowledge and organization she purports to bring to the presidency, if her advisers appeared well-chosen, intelligent, and eloquent, I might vote for Hillary Clinton.

If Hillary Clinton were able to speak persuasively on any topic in a manner that respects the (possibly contradictory) views of her listeners, I would be one step closer to voting for Hillary Clinton.

So here's a message to all my girlfriends: Good luck with voting for someone who looks like you and talks loud. I prefer to spend time looking at the voting records of my candidates, reading about their policy proposals, and making carefully weighed decisions based on character, record, and the potential to represent our nation positively to the rest of the world. If Hillary Clinton were the best person for this job, I'd have voted for Hillary Clinton. Instead I am voting for Barack Obama, and I hope you forward this one to all your girlfriends.

debate balancing act

jensmiles — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:38:42 EST

After watching the debate last night, my belief that Obama has the most difficult task in the debates, was again reaffirmed. He has the slipperiest slope, the narrowest high wire - pick your metaphor. MSNBC touched on it just a bit but not nearly far enough to the heart of the balancing act.

People always bring up the sadly true double-standard women face: a woman fights back and she’s an unfeminine b-word; a man fights back and he's strong, unflappable. But many gloss over the double-standard for a man.

A man must treat a woman like a lady or he is a prick. He cannot attack too harshly or he is seen as a bully. Have you noticed Obama pulling the chair out for her, standing when she gets up? I contend that she has gotten the first questions because of the very deeply rooted chivalrous traditions regarding men in women that many wish not to speak of ~ ladies first.

Now, agree or disagree to the previous point, Obama battles another layer to this balancing act. As a man of ethnic heritage, an African American, in order to maintain his integrity of his beliefs race is not a "card" he can play. Here is where MSNBC did catch on to a fascinating hypothetical.

Hillary ended with beaming pride over the opportunity to be the first female President. She stated that having her, a female, in the Oval Office would in fact bring about this "change" (not an accidental play on Obama's campaign themes) and a whole new world of what was possible and who could do what. She stated that “the rules would change” simply because she, as a female, would naturally navigate the Presidential world differently. Her implication was crystal clear - if a woman becomes President it is SO historically significant that a mere side effect will be inherent, dare I say genetic, change in Washington.

¿Quién Es Less Macho?

Shodja Ziaian — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:43:57 EST

By MAUREEN DOWD Published: February 24, 2008

Hillary was so busy trying to prove she could be one of the boys — getting on the Armed Services Committee, voting to let W. go to war in Iraq, strong-arming supporters and donors, and trying to out-macho Obama — that she only belatedly realized that many Democratic and independent voters, especially women, were eager to move from hard-power locker-room tactics to a soft-power sewing circle approach.

Among her other cascading woes, it turns out that Hillary is not able to manage her political family’s money. Like a prudent housekeeper, Obama spent the cash he raised — including from his continuing relationships with small donors — far more shrewdly, on ads rather than on himself.

Repost from my LJ from 2/10/08

Margaret from Madison, WI — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:49:50 EST

I have discussed this, probably excessively, over on my tumblelog, but I just want to say for the record, to Robin Morgan:

The majority of my female friends are voting for Obama. Not a single one of them is voting for him because they are "eager to win male approval by showing they're not feminists," or because they "can't identify with a woman candidate because she is unafraid of eeueweeeu yucky power," or because they "fear their boyfriends might look at them funny if they say something good about her," or because they naively think that "it's post-feminism and whoooosh we're already free." There are plenty of "glorious young women" out there who don't agree with you that Clinton is "better qualified (D'uh)." Also, using the word "duh" (and spelling it wrong) is not helping your attempt to bridge the "misrepresented generational divide," not that you've done a good job of it otherwise. If sisterhood is so powerful, what good does it do to pit one generation against another? Over on Jezebel, a commenter said she wanted the third-gen feminists to stop "sneering" at 2nd gens. I would posit that this essay sneers in the opposite direction.

I have been shocked in this primary season at how much casual sexism still exists in this country, especially in the media. But to me, the point of feminism is EQUALITY between the sexes. I'm voting for Obama because I believe both candidates should be judged on their merits, not on the color of their skin or the shape of their genitalia, and I personally think Barack Obama would make a better president than Hillary Clinton. And NO, that's not me being some retarded 3rd wave feminist girls-gone-wild bimbo who thinks that feminism is passé or icky or that all the battles have been won. It's me saying that I'm going to walk the walk if I talk the talk about EQUALITY.

Day One

Woolley — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:59:00 EST

Today, it all begins.

I've unpacked the British and French cheese from my luggage, contacted the people I need (one of whom commented, "I've missed these offbeat conversations... welcome back"), and unloaded my travel companion, Lester (a stuffed monkey), from my bags.

The last 3 days have proven useful. After reading Madam President: Is America Ready to Send Hillary Clinton to the White House?, I am convinced that the answer is still, simply, "no."

It was interesting contrasting this book with the Audacity of Hope, as the case for Clinton was very strongly a case for feminism. To be fair, Madam President is written by a pundit, whereas Audacity of Hope is in Obama's own words. However, Clinton is portrayed as a lifelong feminist: despite living in her husband's shadow she has created positive, long lasting relationships that helped her establish her own political career. Thus, a vote for her is an endorsement of this progressive practice. Obama, on the other hand, specifically discusses his governing philosophy and the changes he'd like to see in the US. For him, being part of a minority provides a perspective to build a broad reaching coalition rather than providing a special interest for him to challenge. In his words, "I reject a politics that is based solely on racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood generally," but "I can't help but view the American experience through the lens of a black man of mixed heritage."

Thus, Hillary argues that feminism would make her a great first female president, whereas Obama argues that being black would make him a great president.

The difference is significant considering the current debate over torture. Viewed from the narrow lens of a feminist movement, this torture can be viewed as macho culture, and from a racial perspective, this can be viewed as dominant aggression. However, from a broader scope, the issue lies in the ideals we live by... that we are committed to preserving individual freedoms and to curbing the government's natural disposure to compromise human rights for bureaucratic, political, or short-term national interests. Only from this "lens" can we justify systematic checks on the government's leeway into human rights.

Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama!

Homa — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 15:36:09 EST

Join me in signing this Very Important Petition:
Feminists for Peace and Barack Obama!
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/NYfeministsforpeace?e

Bad Attack Ads

Alamantra — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 14:31:56 EST

I wonder why Hillary Clinton doesn't realize how weird it looks to the casual observer when she runs attack ads in Texas that assert that Barack Obama won't debate her when there is a debate scheduled in Texas on Thursday night.

More Riverbend

alyce rocco — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:40:30 EST

I am saying more Riverbend, but a quick scroll of my post titles, not sure if I republished old posts from one of my now defunct blogs.

"I loved my job- I was *good* at my job. I came and went to work on my own. At 8 am I’d walk in lugging a backpack filled with enough CDs, floppies, notebooks, chewed-on pens, paperclips and screwdrivers to make Bill Gates proud. I made as much money as my two male colleagues and got an equal amount of respect from the manager (that was because he was clueless when it came to any type of programming and anyone who could do it was worthy of respect… a girl, no less- you get the picture)."

"We made up over 50% of the working force. We were doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, professors, deans, architects, programmers, and more. We came and went as we pleased. We wore what we wanted..."

Read the rest of the post here.

Soon after the US invaded Iraq to look for the weapons of mass destruction that were not there, Riverbend lost her job. She was soon unable to leave the house without a male escort. She also had to start wearing the tradition Muslim head scarf and was admonished if she wore shorts. She is no longer in Iraq but a refugee in another country. Her blog posting often became impossible due to electrical blackouts and bombing of her city.

I am a feminist for Obama. If Clinton were to be elected she is already hated by females like Riverbend whose peaceful life was disrupted and the Iraqi ladies that came to the USA to speech to Clinton with Code Pink. At one point Riverbend was so distraught said she wished the Americans would just take all the oil and leave. Because I discovered Riverbend a couple of years ago I have read her entire blog. It is a look at Iraq females from a native.

An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. MLK Jr As a feminist I care about my sisters across the sea and around the globe.

One woman's case for Obama, By Patricia M. Wald

Shodja Ziaian — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:01:17 EST

For one retired federal judge, Obama promises a better future for our granddaughters and grandsons

"Legions of women my age have fought for the opportunity to be judged on our skills, talents and abilities, not on our gender."

"For all Senator Clinton’s talents, skills and accomplishments, Barack Obama provides the greater hope. "

My Super Tuesday Hangover

Denise — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:27:44 EST

Last night was Mardi Gras, and boy did I have a headache from drinking---wait for it---coffee. How lame am I? My wild coffee-drinking days are mostly behind me, but with Obama picking up several states (including mine!), I figured what the hey, just go crazy and celebrate. I also ate TWO pancakes with butter and syrup--for dinner!
If you are reading this AND I sound like your mom (or grandma, even), I have something to say to you. It seems that older ladies like me are voting in droves for Hillary Clinton. They like her (hey, she's a mom, just like them!) and they are comfortable with her. In another time, she might have been the right choice for president, but right now, we need someone who brings more to the table than that.
I'm gonna be forty-five years old this week, and it does my old-lady heart good to see young people excited about a candidate and an election. It wasn't this way, so much, when I was a teenager. My unofficial senior class motto was L.O.I.--lack of interest. We even had it printed on t-shirts. The favorite candidate of most of my classmates? None of the above. Even in the midst of all of this apathy, a few of us cared. In 1980 I was seventeen, and frustrated that I couldn't vote. Then I learned that my dad was planning to vote for Ronald Reagan. "Reagan!" I said. "How could you?"
Long story short, my dad didn't vote for Reagan, because I talked him out of it! Seventeen-year-old me! He said he wasn't excited about voting for Reagan, and my enthusiasm won him over. In a matter of months, he was SOOO glad he didn't vote for Reagan.
Twenty-eight years later, I'm here to tell you that you can (and should!) do the same
thing.
Talk to your Mama about Obama!
Maybe you already are and you're not making headway. Maybe they're giving you that "parents know best" attitude that drives all young people insane. I'm hoping what I say can help.
The older generations and the younger generations need each other. Older folks bring patience and a knowledge of history to the table. Young people bring passion, and an ability to think out of the box. These are generalities of course--there are plenty of passionate senior citizens and patient, historian-types among the young--but I think Obama brings a willingness to try new ways of doing things, while Hillary Clinton brings history. Here's the thing--Obama has shown that he is doing his best to learn from history. He sought out Ted Kennedy as a mentor in the senate. His pastor is also a mentor to him.
Hillary Clinton, in contrast, is unwilling to approach this campaign or presidency any differently than Bill Clinton did. She's not listening to the younger generation, or she wouldn't be sellin' that condescending "mother knows best" attitude that drives people under forty crazy. We don't need someone to just kind of tinker with the economy and environmental policy. We need someone who will make big changes and seek to heal the deep divisions in our country. We need a president like Roosevelt, or Lincoln, or Kennedy.
Hillary Clinton has been an effective Senator for New York State, but she has been too focused on getting the nomination for the presidency to the exclusion of the bigger picture for too long. This election isn't about the symbolic value of the race or gender of a candidate, any more than Kennedy's election was about putting the first Catholic in office.
The stakes have never been higher. I work as an environmentalist and edit an environmental blog. Ask your parents if they have seen "An Inconvenient Truth" and "The Eleventh Hour." This movies are a quick window into the way our way of life has been poisoning our future. As an environmentalist, I find Obama's lack of details on how we will address the linked issues of the economy, the environment and energy policy reassuring. New scientific discoveries, technological advances and economic theories are emerging all the time that could completely alter the current conventional wisdom. I'm interested in a candidate with wisdom and character who will make the tough choices as they come up.
No matter who the nominee is, I will vote for my party's nominee in the fall. Maybe you are ready to make that commitment yet. If you are a young person and you will honestly not have it in you to support Hillary Clinton should she become the nominee, tell your parents and grandparents. Explain to them why you feel this way. It might change the way they approach voting in the primary. It might even change history.

How to Find This Amazing Song!

TeamBarack — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:38:06 EST

"Ready to Believe" can easily be found on You Tube where it's getting a lot of plays right now. Just search for the song title.

We think you'll like it enough you'll want an MP3. You can get a crystal-clear version for your iPod at:

http://www.CherishAlexander.com/reason_to_believe/

or http://www.BryceZabel.com

The State of the Union and Why I'm Voting for Barack

Susan Adelman — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:26:32 EST

I urge you to listen carefully to the words you will be hearing over the days preceding Super Tuesday and the remaining primaries. Vote for the person you believe most represents your values, because unless they muck it up (and we know that Democrats are perfectly capable of declaring defeat in the teeth of victory), I believe the Democratic candidate will be our next President. Please choose wisely.

The State of the Union is miserable. The occupation of Iraq continues with Iraqis and Americans dying daily. Much of the world hates the United States. The current administration has done its best to shred the Constitution. The economy is in the tank. Foreclosures are at a level not seen since the Great Depression. Most families are one serious illness away from bankruptcy (and those are the ones who have health insurance). We can’t seem to find a way to educate our children. The right wing wants to blame all the nation’s woes on immigrants. And when we might be celebrating the diversity of the nominees for President on the Democratic side, racism and misogyny are leaking into the contest, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so much.

Those of you who know me well know that I think of myself as a non-governmental kind of gal. Most of my activism, both in the peace movement and in defense of the Constitution, civil liberties and civil rights, is geared towards strengthening the voices of people who are frequently ignored in the halls of power. Even when we have some honest elected officials, the only way to guarantee progress is to for those of us who can’t spend millions of dollars on lobbyists to have the strength that comes when millions of us speak together.

Having said this, I want to tell you why I’m voting for Barack Obama and why I hope you will, too.

I'm Afraid of Americans

I. Alien — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:45:29 EST

(Soundtrack by David Bowie, from his Earthling album :D )

I *am* afraid of Americans, and I tell you, there are a lot of other people who share that sentiment. As a European living in, and loving, this wonderful, huge and scary place, my hope for Obama is so strong it's painful. Today, the Americans I am the most intimidated by are strong, well educated feminists, who appears to have signed a contract in blood back in their college days to support their female icon of the day.

My heart breaks a little every time I'm reminded of the lobbyists, the big companies dictating healthcare, environmental and who knows what other policies. Every time I am reminded that we are fighting an obscene war for all the wrong reasons, bleading resources that, if spent at all, should have been spent on fortyfying America from the inside - educating, nursing, housing, securing... Building a strong people with long term means.

So when a Presidential Candidate emerges who shows me there actually is a possibility of change - someone who called the truth about the war from the start, someone who can give both the American people as well as others, both here and abroad, the hope and respect America deserves, my hope soars.

Obama Paved His Own Way

Mansi — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 02:20:35 EST

Unlike Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama paved his own way when it seemed impossible. This should be key to our choice as Democrats or Independents in the primaries.

I am a woman who wants to support a woman presidential candidate, but I find myself having difficulty supporting Senator Hillary Clinton. This is not because she is not qualified, but because she never would have gotten to where she is if it were not for man named Bill. I want to vote for a woman who stands for what I believe in. When that woman, however, can only become a presidential nominee because her husband paved the way; I am troubled. I want to support a woman who did it on her own, who created her own legacy, and who made herself worthy without first becoming a known figure through her husband.

I think Senator Clinton has not done what Senator Obama has done. He rose on his own; he didn't cash in on social capital like Senator Clinton, rather he created social capital of his own. I find it much easier to support Senator Obama, especially now that the Clintons are going after his jugular by any means necessary. This race is no longer just Senator Clinton by herself -- it looks like the office of President has changed to fit a married couple, where two individuals are interchangeable in terms of experience and decision making, thus a Presidential reign can now rule for a total of 16 years.

I will not support a woman candidate who is not self-made, and is described as the product of feminism and women's rights. And I do not support a married couple that changes the office of President to effectively fit two people when it's helpful to them and the opposite when it's not helpful. So I support Senator Barack Obama, a true believer in our Constitution who understands the Executive Branch better than an ex-President.

Why vote Obama: a World Leader

Shodja Ziaian — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:48:53 EST

This is a historical moment, happening only once in generation. An opportunity not to miss, ... a chance to find a way out of the present darkness, out a worldwide Crisis, out of the immorality of our world.

Because of what is at stake, ... it is necessary to shift the focus from special interests to the general, from the noble idea of making a special friend like Hillary happy, to the good for all. ... Think about a future for the children of the world wherever they are and whatever the color of their skin, whatever their heritage! Look at the bigger picture when trillion of dollars of military expenditures ... will be redirected to improve education, build schools, pay better teachers and researchers, improve health and healthcare, and assure the well-being of all, happiness, social welfare, dialog and peace in the USA and on Earth.

Let's shift from the idea of a woman "now" as president, to the idea of a nicer woman, humbler, less personally ambitious, less divisive, more independent as President. A woman who will be elected on her own merits, not because her husband, a former President is using his unique talent and abusing 16 years of connections as President and Governor to move a fantastic political machine to have his wife elected. Let's wait, for example, for a time that a woman like the wonderful independent and courageous congresswoman from California and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, will step forward.

... Let's help have in the White House, the white and black, Christian and Muslim, religious and free-thinker, spiritual and practical, Barack Hussein Obama, the next President of the United States of America and the Leader of a new free world, prosperous, egalitarian, sustainable, peaceful, moral, ethical and loving.

Shodja Ziaian

feminist & civil rights movements

Janet Hurley — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:53:23 EST

Clarence Jones wrote a piece that brings together recent commentary by Gloria Steinam and statements by Hillary and Bill Clinton:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/clarence-b-jones/clinton-vs-obama-lest-w_b_81667.html

A timely piece for Martin Luther King Jr. day arguing that Steinem ignores the reality of African American experience from the Middle Passage until today and the Clintons' comments demean the history of African American struggle for rights.

Jones surmises that "... the Clinton presidential campaign's apparent blind ambition for power runs the risk of destroying Clinton's reservoir of earned political integrity and affection among black people."

Women's Libber

alyce rocco — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:23:52 EST

I often see articles declaring one generation as being the best. That generation thing confuses me. When people talk about the 1960s, I remember it more like late 1960s and early 1970s~the hippie generation~we were called~the flower children. Perhaps things trickle down to small cities slower, but I do remember it was 1965 when the coolest girl in our High School class stopped teasing her hair, spraying every thing into place and starting growing it long and staight. None of my classmates were Afro-Americans yet and girls were not allowed to wear slacks to school, boys could not wear sneakers or jeans. No tee-shirts for anyone. I do not recall any of my classmates starting to grow Afro's and they would probalby have been told to get haircuts if they had.

The Civil Rights movement was in full force, although I call it the Human Rights movement today. Thus I do claim my generation as being the very best of them all. We fault to lower the voting age and eliminate the draft. The boys were called draft-dodgers of their protest to be forced into being sent to Viet Nam to kill or be killed, yet not getting a voice by voting.

At the same time the Women's Liberation movement was in full bloom. Women or Wimmin Libbers was spat out as dirty a word as draft-dodgers and hippie. And the N-word was not exactly new. I am sure the "N-word Lover" was not new either.

How I ended up married to a man that used all those dirty words, plus quite a few more takes too long to tell and I am happy all three of our children are wonderful adults not a bit like their Archie Bunker type dad. Two like me support Senator Obama including the daughter that thought Hillary was the brains behind Bill's presidency. She would love a female president, just not Hillary. My son has not told me who he supports or even if he plans to vote this year.

I think todays coming of age generation look to be the next best generation~the Obama generation. Love, peace, equality, justice and unity is their goal and Obama the inspirational leader.

Kerry time!

ceejay1968 — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 05:13:13 EST

I could not be more thrilled that John Kerry is on board. I find Obama bloggers very excited about the John Kerry endorsement, as am I.

video of Kerry endorsement, part I:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tIAQGEtJXs

video of Kerry endorsement, part II:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYp1jZUe_ks

Kerry already doing a fine job making the case for Senator Obama on "This Week:"

http://www.kerryvision.net/videos/20080113thisweek.html

And, of course, there was Obama setting things up for Kerry at the convention in 2004:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3mOyuJvX8U

I am shocked by the bitterness of so many Clinton supporters over Kerry's endorsement of Obama (that means you too, Aunt J.). Many are either bitter or trying to pretend Kerry is irrelevant (that means you too, Mom). "Time," however, reports that the Clintons wanted Kerry's endorsement enough for Bill Clinton to lobby Kerry's brother and former brother-in-law:

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/01/that_kerry_endorsement.html

I can't imagine what the Clinton supporters were expecting. Remember this comment about the great "botched joke" debacle? "What Senator Kerry said was inappropriate," Hillary Clinton said back in 2006, as if a Yale grad who volunteered for Vietnam was really saying the troops are stupid (my husband was in the military for 22 years, and he was smart enough to understand what Kerry meant):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1k0nUWEQg

Well, Senator Kerry is on board, having chosen, I'm certain, the person he thinks will make the best president (as well as someone who seems to be trying to avoid backstabbing politics), and Senator Obama is, as he says, "Fired up and ready to go."

A video tribute to Obama (not my work, someone else's):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCPwbozpIzM

I'm working on an essay for my feminist sisters about the complex arguments for and against Hillary Clinton as a feminist's choice for president (hint: I spent some time in August of 2005 at "Camp Casey," camped out and protesting outside George Bush's ranch; Cindy Sheehan is my sister too, is she not?), based on months of difficult yet wonderful discussions at feminist boards and blogs. It will appear on this blog shortly. For now, here is a link to a letter I wrote a few months ago to Nancy Pelosi, making the argument that what matters is not just having a woman in charge (although that is revolutionary and a legitimate, cherished goal of feminists), but having the right woman in charge, making the right decisions:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=163533298&blogID=305017272

I hope to hear from, meet, and do some organizing with others in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I travel between the two quite a bit, although I'm closer to Baton Rouge these days.

I also like hearing from feminist activists anywhere, particularly those self-identifying as radical feminists and working against porn culture.

Hillary Clinton and the female trap

Emma — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 15:49:57 EST

In the case of Hillary Clinton I think she is a perfect example of the female trap. Just like my mother she belongs to the generation of women who always seems to believe they are never good enough. This can probably be traced back to the times they grew up in; a whirlwind of conflicting emotions, opinions and expectations, especially for women. It put enormous pressure on all to achieve far beyond what logically would be humanly possible. The generation before had more or less been content with trailing behind their husbands, abiding by their opinions and guidance. Now they suddenly sensed freedom and wanted it all. This meant the perfect career, the perfect home, the perfect body, the perfect life. They wanted to be all that they percieved their husbands to be, but they also wanted to be perfect mothers and wives. This expectation is enough to drive anyone insane, and in the case of Hillary Clinton I think she has had it worse than most.

Women & feminism and Hillary

Lucy Hussein — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 00:45:23 EST

This past weekend I saw a relative I hadn't seen for awhile, and she said she was voting for Hillary. Mostly because she'd met Hill back when she was campaigning for New York, but she said, "Wouldn't it be great to have a woman president? It's about time, isn't it?"

Then I read someone in Time magazine (Nora Roberts, that romance writer...woo hoo) saying the same thing. That got me thinking...a true feminist would NEVER vote for the woman candidate merely because 'it's about time' that we had a woman president. A true egalitarian would rather see a woman candidate as no different than a male and judge according to her attributes and performance, not her gender.

I wholeheartedly agree that it's about time we had a woman running, but that doesn't make Hillary the right woman.

Hopefully all us women can address this sentiment--this valid desire to see a woman become president--in our friends and gently help them realize that blind voting isn't going to help women in the long run. At all.

We Wish The Clintons Would Just Go Away

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 12:29:06 EST

Why We Wish The Clintons Would Just Go Away

By Paul Jenkins

Posted December 15, 2007 | 11:49 AM (EST)

Because they surround themselves with people like Mark Penn and James Carville (Rove-like figures, just dumber and more duplicitous than Karl), and rather than making the Clintons look pure by contrast, they make them look even sleazier.

Because they lie more often than they tell the truth, and we can't take it anymore (where to begin? Ah, perhaps, one of Bill's freshest: he was always against the war in Iraq).

Because when they don't lie, they avoid telling the truth, prevaricate and try to laugh it off.

ARTICLE- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-jenkins/why-we-wish-the-clintons-_b_76930.html

The gender card

Janet Hurley — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:25:55 EST

Much has been said about Hillary's using the gender card after the MSNBC debate. Susan Faludi sets the record straight here:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071126/faludi

Faludi and just about everyone else have accused Obama of criticizing Hillary for using the gender card; however, my recollection is that Obama did not accuse Hillary of dropping the gender card. Rather, Matt Lauer said that it sounded like she did and then asked how Obama would deal with that. Obama said that he assumes Senator Clinton wants to be treated like everyone else and that is why she is running for president. He continued:

You know, when we had a debate back in Iowa a while back, we spent, I think, the first 15 minutes of the debate hitting me on various foreign policy issues. And I didn't come out and say, "Look, I'm being hit on because I look different from the rest of the folks on the stage." I assumed it was because there were real policy differences there. And I think that has to be the attitude that all of us take. We're not running for the president of the city council. We're running for the presidency of the United States of America.

MR. LAUER: So you don't feel as if you have to be sensitive at all to this gender issue, that if you do vigorously challenge Senator Clinton that it might take on a more perilous tone than if you vigorously challenge a male candidate?

SEN. OBAMA: No, look, I don't think that people doubt that Senator Clinton is tough. She's used to playing in national politics. And, in fact, that is one of the things that she has suggested is why she should be elected is because she's been playing in this rough-and- tumble stage. So it doesn't make sense for her, after having run that way for eight months, the first time that people start challenging her point of view, that suddenly she backs off and says, "Don't pick on me."

Just thought we should set the record straight on both accounts: Clinton did not drop the gender card and Obama did not accuse her of doing so.

YOU Can't Handle The TRUTH: Here It IS

Anthony from Lowellville, OH — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 09:43:46 EDT

Catholic Charities USA Calls on Congress to Provide More Support to Low-income Fathers to Reduce Poverty, Strengthen Families

Alexandria, VA-As part of its Campaign to Reduce Poverty in America, Catholic Charities USA has crafted a series of legislative proposals that call on Congress to develop more comprehensive policies and strategies to help low-income fathers become more connected and engaged in the lives of their children.

"If we truly want to cut poverty in half by 2020, building strong family connections-especially by providing more support for low-income fathers-must be part of the solution," said Rev. Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA. "By supporting low-income men and fathers in a more comprehensive way, we can reduce many of the challenges that cause families to fall apart and children to fall into poverty."

Studies show that children who grow up with both parents are more likely to finish school, become self-sufficient, and have a healthier lifestyle than those from single-parent homes. Greater involvement by fathers in their children's lives promotes positive physical, social, emotional, and mental development.

Thirty-seven percent of poor children live in homes with a single mother and where the father is uninvolved. As a result, current public policies have logically and primarily focused on the mothers and their children,often overlooking the needs fathers have in providing financial and emotional support to their children.

"Despite all the information we have about the benefits to children of having strong families where both parents are involved, some of our nation's social welfare policies actually undermine the central role that both parents play in the stability and well-being of the family, community, and our society. In fact, some of these programs portray fathers in a negative light, demeaning the role of fatherhood, and equating it to simply an economic contribution," said Father Snyder.

According to Catholic Charities USA a comprehensive legislative agenda for improving support to low-income fathers should focus on policies that help keep families intact by providing-among other supports-the following.

More employment and training opportunities for low-income men.
Stronger support for marriage and two-parent families.
Equitable health and mental health services for low-income mothers and
fathers.
Improvement in work supports like the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).
Livable wages for working families.
Comprehensive supports for mothers and fathers who are disconnected
from their children due to incarceration.
Reform to the child support system to encourage the presence of
fathers in the lives of their children.
Expansion of opportunities for youth aging out of foster care.
Additional support to encourage work and economic opportunity among low-income parents.

"Developing better policies and programs that support low-income dads
will not only benefit the children in short term, it will improve the
long-term economic and cultural strength of our nation," said Father
Snyder.

Reigniting National Dialogue
Catholic Charities USA's legislative agenda is part of the organization'efforts to reignite a national dialogue on the need to build strong family connections and to find additional ways to help fathers become more involved in the lives of their children.

To kick off this national dialogue and hear first hand the challenges
dads face in engaging in their children's lives, Catholic Charities USA is hosting a conversation June 14 with Chicago area low-income fathers, services providers, and community leaders. This local conversation with fathers, held in partnership with the Catholic Charities of Chicago, will give CCUSA a deeper understanding of the barriers fathers face and what resources can assist them. Catholic Charities USA will use this information to guide its advocacy efforts for public policies and programs that strengthen families.

Catholic Charities USA also plans to engage local Catholic Charities and the communities they serve in joining in this dialogue as well as to help them create, share, or improve their existing programs that support dads and families.

Mr. O; your feminist friends are destroying America; turning it into Amerika. And you helped

You STILL Don't Get It!!!

Anthony from Lowellville, OH — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 09:32:23 EDT

Instead of posting my FEELINGS, which your feminist friends certainly would, I'm going to allow another to post in my name.:http://mensnewsdaily.com/2007/07/15/obama-fails-the-marriage-test/

OBAMA Fails The Marriage Test

Like nearly every other 2008 presidential prospect (Republicans included), Barack Obama failed the marriage test today. Speaking to a church congregation, he bemoaned the trend of violent young men "sickening the soul of this nation."

Barack pointed out that thirty students have been killed in Chicago this year -- more than the number of Illinois servicemen killed in Iraq.

Obama's answers are the classic prevarication uttered by anti-family politicians for the past forty years: more federal programs regulating guns, and after-school programs to keep kids off the streets. He did not mention new criminal law-enforcement programs he certainly has in mind.

Like many politicians in both parties before him, he intentionally ignores the obvious: Marriage is important. Two generations of young men have been raised in broken families, with little parental guidance available. The future was easily predictable then, and it is upon us now.

In 1980, crime in Los Angeles increased by 17%. LAPD Chief Darryl Gates was at a complete loss for an explanation. The answer was behind door number one: increases in divorce and illegitimacy in Los Angeles in the early 1960's yielded the first bumper crop of fatherless boys. Today, Wade Horn and former senator Kit Bond are finding out the hard way that begging on street corners for fathers does not work.

Marriage is critical. We simply cannot replace in-vivo parenting with federal programs. Washington has done this since 1965, with declining social data every step of the way.

If Obama were serious about reversing the trend, he would call for end of no-fault divorce. He would call for reform of the Violence Against Women Act (which is more of an entitled feminist marriage destruction machine than anything else).

If Obama were serious about ending crime, he would call for funding programs that help spouses work through the normal problems of marriage and aging. He would call for reform of every section of federal code that entitles marital and reproductive irresponsibility. He would call for changes in federal funding to penalize states that do not require shared parenting, in cases of divorce or illegitimacy where a parent is not found unfit.

Marriage is the most important social building block of the future. In this day in age, recognizing the importance of marriage is actually a progressive idea, because conservatives have abandoned it.

Politicians who fail to realize this and aggressively work for change, are sentencing America's women and children to continuing decreases in social and economic well-being. They are sentencing boys to growing up without a future in American society. They are leaving America to continue living in the longest civil cold-war in American history.

Where Barack Obama is black, he is the first man who should know these things. He is the first who should be working on it. Let us hold him to that standard.

You are dooming Amerika, comrade. You are selling the souls of Amerika's men, men of ALL races, for the hope that you might taste the bitter-sweet power of the White House. Sieg Heil das Mutterland, and welcome to it.

Another moment for women

Mid America Mom — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:04:44 EDT

When reading the announcement on the upcoming women for Obama house parties I had to pause.

It occurred to me that absent on this site is Men for Obama official group, Men for Obama shirts, or a threaded story of a man.

How revealing....

Nifong

Anthony from Lowellville, OH — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 11:00:08 EDT

Link on your affirmation of the inquiry into the nifong case. As President, would you have sent DOJ into Durham? Would the race of the protagonists make a difference?

Many see this as mainly a race based case, but we in the Men's Movement see it as another gov't attack on the male gender using anti-male rape shield laws and a DA that would sell his own mother to get a whiff of a govenor's seat.

Rape shield laws are, if not unConstitutional, immoral, and anti-Liberty. They cause thousands of men to go to prison because important evidence cannot be brought to light in front of a jury.

What do you think of the recent illnois law that allows a woman to cry rape during consensual sex? I think the rape laws like this, as well rape shield laws are misandry at its height. This is virolent feminist dogma being visited onto male citizens by elected representatives.

I have several friends in Chi-Town area, but will not go there, or anywhere in Illinois. Too much can happen.

Here's a little something to chaw on. Feminists have gotten law to lower standards in police, fire, and military (public safety) because women can't meet the requirments. It matters not to them, or gov't, that public safety is comprimised, what's important is that men and women are made equal. Here comes custody cases before the courts, where Best Interest of the Children is advanced as a legal test for placement of children. Somehosw, judges in 90% of contested cases are determining that children belong with the mother. I ask you, why are not standards lowered for fathers so they can compete equally in family court? Does not the same child whose life may depend on a female police officer, fire-fighter, or soldier have a right to share equally in a father's care, guidance, and love?

Apparently not.

O My Bama

Anthony from Lowellville, OH — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 08:58:57 EST

Mr. O said:

“We’ve got too many children in poverty in this country, and everybody should be ashamed. But don’t tell me it doesn’t have a little to do with the fact that we’ve got too many daddies not acting like daddies, think that fatherhood ends at conception.

I know something about that because my father wasn’t around when I was young. And I struggled. Those of you who read my book know. I went through some difficult times. I know what it means when you don’t have a strong male figure in the house, which is why the hardest thing about me being in politics, sometimes, is not being home as much as I’d like. And I’m just blessed that I’ve got such a wonderful wife at home, to hold things together.

But don’t tell me that we can’t do better by our children. That we can’t take more responsibility for making sure we’re instilling in them the values and the ideals that the Moses generation taught us — about sacrifice, and dignity, and honesty, and hard work, and discipline, and self-sacrifice.”

Yes, Mr. O. I agree. There are too many children in poverty. I also agree that there are too many daddies not acting like daddies. What you don't mention, but I will, is "why?" Why aren't these daddies acting like daddies? Let's examine the facts.

Post conception choices permitted men? None.

Post conception choices permitted women? Let me count the ways. 1. abortion. 2.Legal abandonment (safe haven laws). 3. adoption. 4. keep the baby and deny the father the right to share in that baby's life. 5. keep the baby, deny the father the right to share in the baby's life, but force him to pay child support. 6. keep the baby, force child support on the father, and allow him visitation when convenient. 7. keep the baby, share in all expenses, responsibility and time with the father.

Mr. O, if one were to put those choices on the scales of Justice, what would happen? Those scales would be etremely lopsided.

Let me re-state part of the above quote. "...think that fatherhood ends at conception..." Mr. O. Sir. Upon examining legal choices permitted men, it appears to me that fatherhood DOES end at conception, UNLESS permitted by the mother, provided she does not ABORT against his wishes, provided she doesn't abandon the child at the hospital, provided she doesn't place the child up for adoption (after applying through a never funded, never publicized state entity called the Putative Father Registry.)

Mr. O. Men have NO legal choices, post conception, and NO legal rights, post partum. Excuse me. There is one legal right called visitation. It is a right that is never enforced by the courts.

Some enjoy using the term "deadbeat" when refering to fathers. I prefer to use the term when refering to government and the judicial system. Deadbeat government. Sounds right.

Reduce child poverty by GUARANTEEING children equal parenting time with both mom and dad (not just mom)

John from Berlin, CT — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 15:05:27 EST

Regarding Senator Obama's speech in Selma, where he spoke about the absence of fathers...

(Brief YouTube clip of that portion of his speech:)
Link

(Here is a short transcript from Obama's speech:)

"We've got too many children in poverty in this country, and everybody should be ashamed. But don’t tell me it doesn’t have a little to do with the fact that we've got too many daddies not acting like daddies, think that fatherhood ends at conception.

I know something about that because my father wasn't around when I was young. And I struggled. Those of you who read my book know. I went through some difficult times. I know what it means when you don't have a strong male figure in the house, which is why the hardest thing about me being in politics, sometimes, is not being home as much as I'd like. And I'm just blessed that I’ve got such a wonderful wife at home, to hold things together.

But don't tell me that we can't do better by our children. That we can't take more responsibility for making sure we're instilling in them the values and the ideals that the Moses generation taught us -- about sacrifice, and dignity, and honesty, and hard work, and discipline, and self-sacrifice."

...I wish that Senator Obama would recognize that family law needs reform, so that fathers are given equal parenting time with their children as the starting point of a family court's determination of visitation. If marriage will not hold a father and mother together, then family law should be changed so at least mom and dad are GUARANTEED equal parenting time with their children.

Instead, you have custody going to mothers 85 percent of the time, with dads only getting to see their kids every other weekend. Mothers who have a grudge against fathers deny even this smidgen of precious time, and are never prosecuted. What IS prosecuted is a father's difficulty in paying child support. If he falls too far behind, he can be put in jail. That means child support continues to rack up while he's imprisoned, deepening his debt, while his kids see even less of him.

Child poverty is DIRECTLY RELATED to father absence. If Obama wants to reduce child poverty, he has to call for a national change in our family laws, so that fathers are legally guaranteed more time with their children. This is good for the kids, and good for the fathers.

Obama shouldn't just shame fathers for being alienated or absent from the family. He should encourage their active role regardless of what happens to the marriage. A child's ongoing and active relationship with his or her father should have little relationship with the health of mommy and daddy's marriage. Joint parenthood -- and active time with both parents -- should be the child's right.

John Dias

Welcome To My World

IlianaCatsPawn — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 13:51:05 EST

I've always thought it a bit presumptuous to blog about subjects I know nothing about. Therefore, I'm going to keep this blog (as much as humanly possible) about how political decisions effect me, my family and my friends on a very personal level.

It isn't all that difficult to do. I live in public housing, receive food stamps, Medicare and Disability. A decision made in Washington can certainly effect how much rent I pay or if I will even have a place to live. It can also effect whether I can eat a healthy diet, visit the doctor, get needed medications, pay my utilities or abide safely in my home.

In future posts I want to talk about how I feel that my civil rights as an American, and guaranteed by the US Constitution, have been systematically stripped from me and those I care about, solely because we are either poor, members of a minority, or both.

What about Hillary?

mswa — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 09:36:25 EST

A blog conversation--"Hillary Clinton vs Barack Obama"--is ongoing at other group sites. What follows below is the reply I composed in response to a member's question "Who likes Hillary?" Since it evolved into a lengthy post, I decided to put it here in my own blog. Feel free to comment.

------------------

Who likes Hillary? I do! Why do I like her? She is the first woman in our history who has an indisputable chance at the presidency. Is that reason enough to like her? For me, yes. A born feminist, I have longed to see a woman president in my lifetime. And yes for those of us who are tired of our government being run by men.

Is she the best candidate for the office? No, but she would be were Senator Barack Obama not in the picture. With no Obama, I would be a Clinton supporter.

Clearly, Clinton is the Democratic front runner in the presidential campaign. She is a known force, has a proven track record, has strong convictions, and is in touch with Americans. She may be the best person for the presidency. If she wins the Democratic nomination, I will be right there supporting her.

As a Hoosier in northwest Indiana, a part of the vast Chicagoland area, I've followed Obama's public career for years. I supported his US Senate candidacy although I could not vote for him. I watched his meteoric rise to political stardom and admired and still admire his continued humility.

From the earliest suggestions that Obama run for president, I've watched knowing in my heart he would be my choice in spite of the very real possibility that my long-held dream of a woman president is on the horizon.

Obama has inspired me in ways I've not experienced for many years. Clinton has not done that for me. I believe in Obama. He is what America needs.