Politics Redux
Sep. 10th, 2008 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWas reminded of a few things tonight. Spoke with a friend who told me that he did not think Rock Star Sarah was going to win this election. Because when it came down to it, we vote for the President not the Vice President. And Sarah and McCain to date still have not mentioned anything regarding how they will fix our economy, which let's face it is the number one topic for 80% of Americans. Food prices have gone up, mortages are up, fuel is up, education is up, everything but the value of our property, our cars, and our jobs has risen. Middle Class Americans are using food stamps. And over 85,000 jobs were lost this past month. And all Sarah and John talk about is Iraq? He also reminded me that it is not Sarah Palin who upsets me, it is her policies and her views. The fact that I do not agree that the Bible should be read literally or interpreted literally. (I don't. It is my problem with 80% of the Christian Religions - the fact that they believe the Bible is a "biblical record of factual information handed to us directly from God" - while I believe the Bible is an anthology made up of fables, morality tales, historical records, poems, stories, and songs passed down orally and written by men to explain their beliefs, figure out the world, philosophy, and comment on what was happening - often via metaphors. To read it literally to me is a bit like watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and seeing that as the Gospel, and believing vampires really exist. I do not believe that the Bible should be interpreted literally and that attempting to follow it's dictates literally only leads to hypocrisey and destruction and horrible things - because it contradicts itself in places and like any written work, is complicated.) I despise her world view not her. It's an important thing to remember - that we don't hate a person, we just disagree with how they see the world, for it is the opposite of how we do.
He told me that while he did not think McCain would win this, that the polls are the popular vote not the electoral vote where Obama is still leading, he is afraid there is an outside chance that Obama may lose primarily because he is African-American or Black. There are quite a few working class middle Americans out there from small towns, who no matter how bad things get, how poor they are, would never in a million years vote for an African-American ('Negro') for President. I pray this isn't true, but I read this morning in the paper, how NY's first African-American Governor, David Patterson, saw racism implicit not advert, but implicit in Sarah Palin's speechs and between the lines. And yes, I see it too. Sarah is like a lot of small town white Americans - who have lived in one place their entire lives and never interacted with a diverse group of people - she's Archie Bunker from All in the Family. Say what you will about Norman Lear but he nailed middle American white bigotry and it has not disappeared.
That said? This election is a positive one. It is the first time in US History that two women, and a black man ran as viable candidates for President. Not only that, they got more attention than the White Guys. That's major. It gives me hope that maybe we are beginning to move away from the old boys club. Regardless of the outcome - the fact that a woman and a black man ran as viable candidates - and one of them will either be President or in line for President of the US, when just a few decades ago neither had the right to vote - is something to celebrate and worth remembering.
Anywho - got this from another friend via email tonight:
Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin.
___________________________________
Drill, Drill, Drill
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
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
He told me that while he did not think McCain would win this, that the polls are the popular vote not the electoral vote where Obama is still leading, he is afraid there is an outside chance that Obama may lose primarily because he is African-American or Black. There are quite a few working class middle Americans out there from small towns, who no matter how bad things get, how poor they are, would never in a million years vote for an African-American ('Negro') for President. I pray this isn't true, but I read this morning in the paper, how NY's first African-American Governor, David Patterson, saw racism implicit not advert, but implicit in Sarah Palin's speechs and between the lines. And yes, I see it too. Sarah is like a lot of small town white Americans - who have lived in one place their entire lives and never interacted with a diverse group of people - she's Archie Bunker from All in the Family. Say what you will about Norman Lear but he nailed middle American white bigotry and it has not disappeared.
That said? This election is a positive one. It is the first time in US History that two women, and a black man ran as viable candidates for President. Not only that, they got more attention than the White Guys. That's major. It gives me hope that maybe we are beginning to move away from the old boys club. Regardless of the outcome - the fact that a woman and a black man ran as viable candidates - and one of them will either be President or in line for President of the US, when just a few decades ago neither had the right to vote - is something to celebrate and worth remembering.
Anywho - got this from another friend via email tonight:
Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin.
___________________________________
Drill, Drill, Drill
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
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
no subject
Date: 2008-09-11 01:57 pm (UTC)Why am I not surprised that she likes Palin?