some of the stuff worth buzzzing about
some of the stuff buzzzing around in my brain
some stuff that just buzzzes hither and yon ... and other musings from the deep dark scary south.
Watch the brilliant Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and the incomparable Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton in the now-classic Saturday Night Live / SNL video of this past weekend, September 13, 2008Labels: amy poehler, Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, saturday night live, SNL, tina fey, Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, video, youtube
posted by BZZZT @ 5:02 AM
Simply The Truth:
This nation has suffered through eight years of an ill-prepared and unblinkingly obstinate president. One who didn’t pause to think before he started a disastrous war of choice in Iraq. One who blithely looked the other way as the Taliban and Al Qaeda regrouped in Afghanistan. One who obstinately cut taxes and undercut all efforts at regulation, unleashing today’s profound economic crisis.
In a dangerous world, Americans need a president who knows that real strength requires serious thought and preparation.
Labels: 2008 Election, barack obama, bristol palin, Hillary Clinton, john mccain, NYT, president, presidential candidates
posted by BZZZT @ 12:29 AM
On CNN, Jeffrey Toobin concluded Sarah Palin's speech was much better than Joe Biden's. The democrat party and Biden have already proved they will have trouble knowing how to handle her without descending into sneering condescension.
"Palin gave the impression of an entire party rolling up its sleeves and digging in, never mind whether some of its arguments were illogical or shot full of holes, or even blatantly ridiculous, as when she portrayed the party as pro-environment and Giuliani earlier portrayed it as feminist-minded.
She proved herself in the great arena; that's what counts politically. Nobody could watch that speech and still consider her a joke, no matter how flimsy her credentials and qualifications may seem on paper. The joke, it seems, is on those who'd been laughing at her. Last night the laughing ended -- and the cheering began."
Labels: 2008 Election, cnn, convention, demo2008 Election, Hillary Clinton, jeff toobin, joe biden, john mccain, republicans, Sarah Palin
posted by BZZZT @ 12:45 AM
The unrelenting ranting, raving, spewing, hate-Hillary hysteria by so many in the press and the backroomers at the DNC/democrat national committee continues. At the very least we can take simple but concrete action which targets the main spewers of what one commenter called the unrelenting mysogynistic nightfest at MSNBC.
Take action against biased media, especially the knuckle-dragging slugs at MSNBC & NBC; join the boycott against Russert, Matthews, Olbermann, and their Obaminions.
It's time to make waves.
This entire election has been a sham. An almost comical farce in which the Mainstream Media, along with the ideological Left fringes within the Democratic Party have decided AHEAD OF TIME, who should become President of the United States. In this manner, and with full knowledge and intent, they have decided to re-write history, dismiss entire demographics, and besmirch the reputation of countless individuals, for the sake of political power and the ‘almighty dollar’. .... this election is NOT about the Clintons’, it is about AMERICA. It is about SELF RESPECT.
ALL Americans must understand that the Media and the Democratic Party did not insult Hillary Clinton as a person, they insulted what she REPRESENTED to all of her supporters. They insulted her ‘CLASS’: White Women (and men) in particular, and Latinos in general. These two important groups were told by countless pundits that their power was minimal, that they did not matter in the “grand scheme of things”, that Latinos and Whites were being “racists” when they voted for a White woman by 60%, while they simultanously characterized other groups (AA) who voted for Obama by 90% as “informed and motivated by the issues”. Many democratic insiders (Brazile et al) wrote columns in which they made the ridiculous case that Latinos and Whites were not as important as young and Black voters, and that “they can stay home” in November if they wish. Unfortunately for them, they seem to have overplayed their hand too far.
Labels: chris matthews, Hillary Clinton, i do not ♥ Keith Olbermann, journalism, journalists, media bias, meet the press, middle class voters, misogyny, msnbc, nbc, tim russert
posted by BZZZT @ 2:11 AM
Congratulations to both Democrat Party Finalists!
Hillary Clinton: 17,785,009
Barack Obama: 17,479,990
Barack Obama: 1766.5
Hillary Clinton: 1639.5
Labels: 2008 Election, barack obama, campaigns, democracy, democrats, Hillary Clinton
posted by BZZZT @ 11:50 PM
...while limping to the finish line.
Technorati Tags:
Write in Hillary, Michelle Obama, Farrakhan video
Labels: barack obama, democrats, elections 2008, Hillary Clinton, obama speech, presidential candidates, primaries
posted by BZZZT @ 8:26 PM
Fox News and the right wing 527s are having lots of fun with this:
Labels: 2008 Election, barack obama, bigots, campaign, clichés, Hillary Clinton, immature, misogyny, sexism
posted by BZZZT @ 7:47 PM
The law of diminishing returns has kicked into high gear and it's better for her to show them 'how it's done' when exiting the political center stage the same way she's proven she can and will fight to the finish.
The corollary is: He better get on his knees and kiss her butt-kicking shoes for the 'seasoning' she has provided his naive, not-previously-ready-for-primetime self.
Time for Obama to start actively building bridges and incorporating most of Clinton's policy positions into his own, including Universal Healthcare.
I think in the end women should make plans to be willing to show up at the polls and support Obama in the fall (he'll need it) — and honestly, we can't afford any more Bush-Cheney-McCain-Rove Republicans for ourselves, our children, our nation — but I don't think we should necessarily do the sort of heavy lifting we've done for political campaigns these past 40 years — with little or nothing to show for it as regards our nation's children, poor women, working class women, working moms, seniors and disabled citizens. Let the youngsters and idealists earn their keep. Obama can and should work hard for our votes if he really intends to win. He can't continue to put everything off into abstract up-in-the-cloud concepts either. Specifics must be put to pen, paper and plan — what will he do starting on day one?
Dues must be paid. We've paid ours.
Thank you Hillary. You can hold your head up and move on to the next set of challenges. We still need you to show that you can lead in other ways. For Example: If Oprah really wants to make a difference: why not transform that sh*thole of a worthless piece of sh*t "O" or "Oxygen" television channel into incorporating a Women's News Network? Meanwhile, as the boys club continues to refuse to grow up, it's time to let America live with its choices, just like any growing child struggling toward interdependent independence.
I write this with a certain resigned disappointment — not bitterness, although I can go there if Obama doesn't make the effort to build and repair those bridges — but mostly from a place of resigned detachment and a smidgen of hope that he can and will do what he says he wants to do. I'm still quite skeptical in that regard; but we shall see.
So, maybe the formal end for Clinton comes after West Virginia, after negotiating platform changes, certain policy guarantees, JUDICIAL appointments — especially those — whatever it is they do to bring something like this to its foregone conclusion. Step out with grace, respect and admiration. Timing is important. It's time. Getting close anyway.
Labels: barack obama, campaign, Hillary Clinton
posted by BZZZT @ 1:53 AM
By Anne E. Kornblut
The aunt of a young pregnant woman who died after a hospital told her she needed to pay $100 up front for care said in an interview on Monday that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been telling the story accurately on the campaign trail -- following claims by a different Ohio hospital that it did not turn the patient away.
For weeks, Clinton repeated an anecdote she heard in Ohio on Feb. 28 involving a young woman who lost her baby and later died because she lacked health insurance and did not have $100 to gain access to a nearby hospital.
But over the weekend, Clinton came under fire when officials at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital, after reading about her remarks, demanded that she stop recounting it because the patient, Trina Bechtel, was admitted there and did have insurance.
That part, it turns out, is true. But so is Clinton's claim that Bechtel did not get care at another hospital that wanted a $100 pre-payment before seeing her, according to the young woman's aunt, Lisa Casto. "It's a true story," said Casto, 53.
Casto added some details that were not part -- or differed from -- the Clinton anecdote: She said her niece had previously been in debt to a local hospital that later sent her a letter informing her that she could only be treated there in the future if she gave them a $100 deposit. At the time she went into debt to that hospital, Casto said, Bechtel was uninsured, though she later obtained health insurance and was insured at the time of her death.
Casto said she did not want to give the name of the offending hospital because the flood of calls over the incident has overwhelmed her and Meigs County deputy sheriff Bryan Holman, a friend of hers who retold the story to Clinton when she campaigned in southern Ohio.
But court records show that Bechtel had a civil judgment against her by the Holzer Hospital Foundation for the amount of $4,426, entered in 2002, which was repaid in 2005. A call to an official at Holzer Medical Center, which is run by the foundation, in Ohio was not immediately returned.
Casto said her niece, who suffered from preeclampsia during her pregnancy, did not seek care at the first hospital when she fell ill because she knew she did not have the $100 out-of-pocket she believed she would need to be seen. Instead, she went to O'Bleness Memorial Hospital, where her baby was stillborn. Bechtel was later flown to Columbus and died there. She was 35.
Casto said she has been stunned by the amount of negative attention her niece's story generated, and that she was sorry it had hurt the Clinton campaign. She was, and is, she said, a supporter. "Did I vote for Hillary?" she said. "You'd better bet I did."
Source: from the Washington Post (but I'm not hearing it anywhere on the 24 hour blatherers of cable network news!)
Labels: 2008 Election, campaign, elections 2008, health care, health system, Hillary Clinton, media bias, presidential candidates, WashingtonPost
posted by BZZZT @ 12:29 PM
See Update: Hospital Story is True
1. Mark Penn: What the frak took so long to dump this sleezebag?
2. As I've pondered before: why did she hire/trust/entrust her campaign to him in the first place? (He's easily the equivalent of Dick "among the worst of the worst scumbags in politics" Morris, someone we can credit to the first Clinton campaign for subjecting us to the past 15+ years.)
3. Finally, what the fracking frak is up with the truthiness of the Bosnia and dying woman/hospital anecdotes — where the frak are her key campaign staff to prevent such carelessness? More proof of incompetence? And if on the off-chance they were there trying to 'vet' every story that comes forth from her mouth (as they should and must), but she overrode their attempts to vet/correct/confirm the information/stories, why didn't she listen to them? Bad judgment due to sleep deprivation? Or something worse than confusion and chaos?
Hardball politics. Supposedly the Clintons not only play them, they helped invent them and they should be prepared for them, too.
Now I remember why I registered as an independent (again), after having signed up with the democrats for a while. Sigh...where is the pragmatic progressive party?
The problem and the reality is, there is no viable alternative. And we the people truly can't afford another republican presidency: especially not their violence, their disregard for human life (excepting the theoretical unborn and the rich), their unquenchable greed, their profiteering from irresponsible wars, their right-wing fascist and pro-corporation judges, and their total destruction of regulations and laws set up to protect working people against the growing, creeping wealth and power of the richest of the rich who are always the biggest beneficiaries of the republicans (as has been well-documented by many, including Kevin Phillips).
Still conceded: Obama has run a much better campaign overall. It doesn't mean however, that Obama's prepared for the republicans. But with all the recent (and cumulative) bone-headed miscalculations and mistakes of the Clinton campaign, I'm not sure they're prepared either. I'm seriously reconsidering (again) whether EITHER democrat is electible much less prepared to head this nation, much less prepared to truly LEAD its citizens. At this point, Obama has a slight edge, but he still has his own serious judgment and electibility problems mired in the muckiness of our racist history and his own issues of disingenuousness.
Doubts creep in and they could have easily been avoided.
Technorati Tags:
Dick Morris,Mark Penn
Labels: 2008 Election, barack obama, campaign, campaigns, Hillary Clinton, republicans
posted by BZZZT @ 4:18 PM
Technorati Tags:
2008 campaigns, 2008 election, Comedy Central, Jon Stewart, anti-democracy democrats, elitist democrats, democratic party elites
Labels: democracy, democrats, Hillary Clinton
posted by BZZZT @ 9:29 AM
He says she's his friend and he loves her, but apparently is more than willing to publicly disrespect her by adding "Bitch" to the end of his commentary on SNL. He (rightly) wants respect for black men, himself, Obama, but is more than willing to disrespect women and the amazing, talented Tina Fey in specific.
This kind of attitude is still a major problem in the struggle for respect and understanding between women and men, white feminists and many civil/black rights activists or proponents...a long-standing existing issue that white feminists have actively worked on for a long time (since the 60s), but Tracy Morgan seems not to have a clue; or if he does, he doesn't give a sh*t. Overt and hidden Sexism is still totally acceptable on TV, radio, print, music, comedy, popular culture ... everywhere, while racism is not. Neither should be. I won't even get into the whole sexist thing about Morgan referring to Fey as 'girl' in comparison to referring to any black male as 'boy.' Oy vey.
Again, "with friends like these" .... and all the sexist, misogynistic, agist tripe I've seen plastered all over the internet by Obama supporters (rivaling everything the repugnacons have ever said, published, thought), and the little I've heard from him in the way of denouncing that crap or acknowledging and understanding the concerns, problems, issues challenges faced by women, my willingness to support him has definitely diminished. I'm in a more 'wait and see' place. It's reminiscent of being in a long-term relationship, having done all this 'work' (emotional, behavioral, commnications) to build and improve the relationship only to be disappointed to find out there's no reciprocity. Hard not to be disappointed and disillusioned, if only temporarily. Meanwhile the lying, disingenuous, pro-Obama, Hillary-haters in the press (people like Tweety Matthews) continue to stand by their man while finding every possible way of denigrating Hillary (where's S.C.U.M. when you really, really need them?). :-)
I can't help but believe that Obama is going to have a lot of work to do to convince the women who support Hillary that he and his campaign and administration are not, will not be sexist and agist/ageist (sp?) and will work as much to address the issues of such a large percentage of the population as he says he will do in other areas. ALOT of work to do. If it's not already too late based on the Pastor Problem.
Update: I thought this commenter at bestweekever.tv got it about right:classy move by morgan to highlight america’s racism by being a sexist prick.
it’s getting harder to support Obama when rhetoric like this (even in the form of a joke) is being spewed around.
bitch really is the new black.
Sigh....I'm going to watch Kyle XY
Technorati Tags:
agism, age, agist, women's issues, Hillary supporters, white women,
Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan, SNL, Saturday Night Live, S.C.U.M.
Labels: barack obama, campaign, Hillary Clinton, misogyny, SNL, tina fey, tracy morgan
posted by BZZZT @ 3:51 PM
More proof that journalists have been lazy and overtly biased and caught up in Obamamania. The first tape in question about "God Damn America" has been in existence since September 2001.
Before going into hysterics: Anyone who stopped for a moment to think/empathize with the experiences of black folks in America and US history could understand how Wright could say what he said. And Obama has distanced himself (although you would think he would have had the judgment to understand this would be a problem when he first started to think about running for president.)
Given all that, I do sadly think Wright's anti-Hillary comments indicated an appalling lack of acknowledgment of and disregard for the effects of sexism in our culture, especially regarding what Hillary has endured for 15+ years. That's disappointing as well.
However, as they say, "With Friends Like These..."the republican and right-wing 527s are going to have a field day if Obama is the democratic nominee. That will very possibly lose him the election, if not the democratic nomination. I'll be interested to see how he handles it going forward. It's a big problem and it won't go away easily: that seems clear.
What also seems clear is that the old identity politics, politics of 'victimization', who's suffered more, politics of 'essentialism', are/is not going to sit well with the majority of voters, who happen to be white. That path can only benefit John McCain and the Republicans.
Regarding the Judgement/Judgment to be President issue: I also have to wonder why the Obama campaign didn't have the judgment to have seen this coming long before now.
Technorati Tags:
2008 campaigns, 2008 election, judgment, judgment to be president, judgement, judgement to be president
Labels: barack obama, bigotry, campaign, democrats, elections 2008, Hillary Clinton, john mccain, racism, racist comments, republicans
posted by BZZZT @ 3:35 PM
If you're a collector, especially of Campaign, Election, Historical, Presidential & Political Memorabilia and Collectibles, and if you peruse various sites such as ebay sellers for campaign or political collectibles and auction items, you might like to see a couple that caught my eye for Hillary and Obama.
The great thing about these limited edition collector's item political buttons/pins is that all proceeds are donated to the charity, Harvest of Hope Foundation. Right now you can make really low bids on these two cool presidential collectible items! Currently as of this posting they're offered for less than $2.00 each. You can also find the incredible limited edition and signed/autographed Shepard Fairey Obama Obey/Hope/Change/Transformation Posters that are the big buzzz these days!
If you aren't an ebay member yet, you can easily and quickly sign up and get your own free ebay membership here — you don't need a credit card to sign up and there are no charges or fees — I repeat: ebay membership is totally free (you do need an email account).
Once you sign up for your free ebay account, you can create a watch list of your favorite items.
Technorati Tags: Obey Poster, Obama HOPE Poster, Obama Shepard Fairey Poster, Shepard Fairey Posters, Obama Obey Posters,
ebay, free ebay membership, join ebay free, ebay auctions, political memorabilia, campaign collectibles, election collectibles, election memorabilia, political collectibles, campaign memorabilia, candidate collectibles, presidential campaign collectibles, presidential memorabilia, clinton memorabilia, obama memorabilia, clinton collectibles, obama collectibles, migrant workers, ebay charity, ebay nonprofit, Harvest of Hope, Obama Pins, Obama Buttons, Obama Pinbacks, Clinton Pins, Obama shirts
Labels: barack obama, campaign, fairey poster, Hillary Clinton, obama hope poster, obama obey poster, obama poster, obey poster, shepard fairey
posted by BZZZT @ 2:03 PM
As I've stated to friends and family: I don't have a problem supporting and voting for Barack Obama if he wins and it is indeed looking good for him. I also agree that the super delegates should not be used to 'award' the nomination to Clinton if the popular vote has gone for Obama.
However, I do have a big problem with the (mainly white male) broadcast media's disparate treatment and coverage of the campaign as evidenced by the condescending personal attacks and snide, not very disguised remarks about Senator Clinton based on qualities related to her gender, not her record, not her policies, not her skills.
Obama happens to be the beneficiary of unequal treatment which is not in his control. And yeah, of course, that's mainly MSNBC's undisguised favoritism of him and demonization of her, but includes a former Washington Post has-been schlub, Carl Bernstein on CNN.
I have a theory that most of these entitled, privileged, rich, very white guys actually DO have a lot of very deep anxieties about having a Black Male President (even though he's biracial and was raised by his white mom and white grandparents, he identifies himself as African-American, and the world does too, because we're a culture obsessed with racializing and sexualizing and categorizing and labeling 'others' — those who are 'not us').
So Tweety Matthews and Joe 'bully-boy' Scumbag and Smirking Fat-boy Russert and Living on Past Glories Bernstein and Chameleon Shuster and all those guys know vaguely on some level outwardly expressing their fears about Obama's Blackness and about having a Powerful Black Man in charge, installed in the most powerful office in the nation (and world) is obviously bigoted and stupid. (At least they know that it is forbidden to express publicly anyway — except for truly stupid bigots like Bill O'Reilly and Glen Beck who don't have the sense to understand that everyone doesn't think — and I use that word lightly — like they do).
But after the 'Imus affair', those same guys who snickered during all the Imus jokey jokes about people of color and Hillary and women in general, finally found out that: Racism is out. Finally. May it burn in hell never to return. (I can wish and hope, can't I?)
But remember Rutgers: the main public and media outrage (as presented by the media itself) was over the outrageous Imus/McGuirk racism finally going too far, not the sexism.
Sexism is still in — alack and alas — as so many of the constant barrage of movies, songs, videos, games, magazines, tv shows continually prove every minute of every day. Sexism, misogyny, sexual objectification, sexual violence toward all things female/feminine are still acceptable and sanctioned, in fact required by our culture .... including through trite political commentary which is irrelevant and pointless, superficial, cruel, mean, petty, unequal, unjust, but highly effective at demonizing Clinton who represents powerful women, women with ambition, women with plans and determination who don't 'match' the social strictures which require women to be quiet, attractive, young, sexually objectified, non-threatening and not empowered. It's still the whore/madonna syndrome with newer, more sinister twists.
These smug, bloviating, sputtering, spitting, cowardly pundits are so unconscious about their own fears and biases and they have no where else to 'put it' (all that double whammy castration anxiety about powerful women and black men — we really are a repressed, sadistic, puritanical nation) — so they act out other culturally and socially acceptable forms of psychological (and political) violence that mirrors the relationship and stranger violence which occurs every day in the sexual assaults, beatings, sexual enslavement, rapes, murders of women, pregnant women, children and girls every day throughout this nation and the world (just watch the most recent trials and news stories about murdered pregnant women, missing daughters, wives and mothers — most of which are also dismissed as just more media obsession with pretty women, which may be part of the story, but the unconsciousness of what is really happening to women and girls in our culture is what I'm more interested in). Women of color are and have also historically been the targets of all the rage of their own cultures in addition to white culture; white women do not have a great history of supporting their struggles nor the struggles of men of color. Women of privilege and power don't always have a very good history of solidarity with or supporting other women for that matter. Patriarchy is unrelenting. Kind of like the Terminator character in the films and the new, apparently soon-to-be-dead TV series which features a couple of strong, powerful, intellectually and physically superior and determined female characters, coincidentally.).
About that Acting Out, as Robin Morgan has pointed out, if you substitute racist or anti-semitic slurs, terms, attitudes and ridicule, it would easily be identified as such and the outrage would be so loud and vociferous that it would not take 10 minutes for action to be taken amongst the outpouring of righteous indignation and public ire.
Meanwhile, just as also happens everywhere that all these atrocities and indignities occur (large and small), women often willingly participate or act as after-the-fact accomplices (Dowd, Mitchell, O'Donnell — Norah, not Rosie — and to an extent Maddow — what a major disappointment) or are silent (almost everyone else).
Even when you think there are some good guys (Olbermann), they eventually capitulate in order to 'fit in' and put 'good ole boy' loyalty — wanting to be 'one of the guys' above any remaining layer thin integrity and with their jello-filled backbones quickly jump right in to the group activities. I've never seen it fail to occur on some level when in the company of their cohorts. Never.
So when Hillary and others point out that you can't always count on 'the guys' (including Bill himself) to stand up for us, there's a reason and it's called history (or reality, take your pick). We have to hope Obama is different‚ and if he's not — it's up to us to hold him accountable for his promises. The work never ends. Voting is not democracy; it is one expression of a life-long process and responsibility to participatory democracy, and to preserving and extending our constitutional rights to freedom, equality, and civil rights (with rights come responsibilities).
Deep? Yeah, sure. But I'll be interested to read some historical analysis of this extremely 'hysterical' time in our nation's schizophrenic history as we get some distance. It saddens me that we're still such an immature (uncivilized) nation when it comes to women in power (so few) and empowering girls, but encourages me that we may make some major inroads on one of our collective historical sins, racism.
The drama of it all also kinda reminds me of The Graduate, especially the final scene when the two star-crossed lovers (Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross) end up together on that bus hurtling down the road. It's one thing to see that film in your youth, another to see it after you've grown up and matured for a while.
..................................
When it's all over, who might be able to provide some honest, clear-headed analysis? Whose book about this history-making time in our democracy's history would you want to read?
Technorati Tags:
2008 campaigns, msnbc, 2008 election, castration anxiety, pscho-sexual fears, racism, sexism, Terminator, Sarah Connor
Labels: anti-semitism, barack obama, biased media, bigotry, bigots, dehumanization, democracy, democrats, developmentally arrested, elections 2008, Hillary Clinton, immature, journalists, media bias, misogyny, nbc news, people of color, presidential candidates, racism, racist comments, right-wing media, sexism, sexist, white males
posted by BZZZT @ 9:38 PM
When Obama had a chance to 'speak truth to power', when he had the opportunity to support the anti-war voters of Connecticut, why didn't he? Instead, Barack Obama endorsed and campaigned for Joe Lieberman. Say What?
Obama pro-actively supported Joe Lieberman, the ex-democrat who couldn't win the democratic primary fair and square, so he changed his party affiliation in order to be put back into office by the pro-war republicans. Obama supported Lieberman: the one who has whole-heartedly endorsed and been campaigning for Republican John McCain. Obama supported Lieberman: the one who has continued to side with the Republicans in the Senate in order to prevent the Senate Democrats from bringing about change.
What does that say about Obama's ACTUAL willingness to stand up to the actual status quo when given the clear choice and opportunites? (as opposed to the theoretical one that he has never faced, unlike Hillary.) What does that say about his actual judgment? (as opposed to the theoretical one after the fact where everyone is always a better Monday-morning quarter back) What does it say about how much change he's really willing to advocate for in the face of the pro-war, pro-zionist, pro-right-wing republican, defense department, military industrial complex?
Senator Obama really in actuality abandoned the people he claims to stand with: those who actually voted for anti-war candidate Ned Lamont — who actually won the primary. But Obama chose Lieberman, he stood, acted, campaigned in favor of the war, chose in reality to stand for and with those in power, one of the biggest pro-war hawks in the country, much less the Congress.
Why hasn't the media raised this specific issue? Not to mention so many others such as "what are the specifics" of all these beautiful but vague hopes and dreams?
........................
I don't begrudge Senator Obama his support or his supporters or his willingness to benefit from the sexism and misogyny directed at Hillary Clinton (okay, maybe that last part I think he's been a bit of a coward about. And what was with his wife not being willing to back Hillary if she wins? What the hell is that all about? Not to mention all those homophobic, right-wing supporters who don't seem to bother him -- hey, what does THAT say about his judgment? He's not right on that issue. What others are there that simply haven't been raised, researched, answered?)
He's gotten a free ride from the media. There's just no way to deny that. Studies have already been done. Senator Clinton hasn't. If you watched any of Glenn Beck last night, you'll have begun to hear the underpinnings of the right wing attacks that he has yet to fathom, much less experience. They're not pretty.
Look, I'm for Clinton. It's very clear she's gotten extremely unfair, unequal, grossly sexist and misogynist treatment from mainstream and broadcast media (see MediaMatters.org). If it had all been even-handed, no problem. But it hasn't been. Obama has benefited from the disparate treatment and love-affair support from the media — for now. I don't have a problem with him winning fair and square. But that's not the way it's been. (Not really his fault, not under his control; he could've been more up front about that fact, but he hasn't.) It's the media — both mainstream and right-wing, and so-called liberal and progressive media — which have treated poured every unnamed anxiety, fear, bias, lie, distortion into their coverage of Clinton.
I'm interested to read the definitive book/analysis about this after it's all over. It kinda reminds me of the hysteria (violence, bigotry, extremism) which emerged toward anyone who seemed 'middle eastern' after September 11th.
If Obama wins, I will vote for him. There's too much to at stake. I think it will take him longer to adjust to the office, to get things done that need to be done, and I think the repugs will pull out all their tricks to block and stymie him if he does win.
It's the unjust, unfair, disgusting treatment of Hillary Clinton that will (and should) haunt this nation's psyche for year — at least those who have any conscience or soul or who long for justice and fairness.
.There's a Time magazine article about Obama from two years ago, describing his desire to be liked by everyone. Where have we heard THAT before? "The minute you start casting votes, you make some people happy and some people unhappy"
And you might want to read this news story reprinted by Common Dreams:
>>Despite Rhetoric, Obama Pushed Lobbyists’ Interests
by Justin Rood
Away from the bright lights and high-minded rhetoric of the campaign trail, Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has quietly worked with corporate lobbyists to help pass breaks worth $12 million.
In his speeches, Obama has lambasted lobbyists and moneyed interests who “have turned our government into a game only they can afford to play.”
“It’s an entire culture in Washington — some of it legal, some of it not,” the Democratic hopeful told a New York crowd in June, rallying support for his ethics reform agenda.
But last year, at the request of a hired representative for an Australian-owned chemical corporation Nufarm, Obama introduced nine separate bills exempting the company from import fees on a range of chemical ingredients it uses in the manufacture of pesticides and herbicides. Nufarm’s U.S. subsidiary is based in Illinois.
Nufarm wasn’t the only beneficiary of Obama’s efforts to reduce customs fees and duties. In early May of 2006, two Washington lobbyists registered to work on behalf of Astellas Pharma, a Japanese-owned drug company which also has offices in Illinois.
The lobbyists’ task? “Introduce legislation to temporarily suspend customs duties for the importation of a pharmaceutical ingredient,” they wrote on their lobbying forms. Less than three weeks later, the men had earned their $20,000 fee, thanks to Obama. On May 26, he introduced S. 3155, a bill specifically exempting Astellas’ key ingredient from tariff payments. The bill cost the federal government more than $1 million in lost revenue, according to government estimates.
Together, Obama’s obscure measures — known as tariff suspensions — steered more than $12 million away from federal coffers, according to government estimates.
A spokesman for the senator defended Obama’s efforts on behalf of the two firms.
“Sen. Obama helped his constituents obtain foreign products necessary for their business at an affordable rate,” said Ben LaBolt, noting that Obama made sure all the products “met strong environmental standards” before pushing to make it cheaper to import them.
While legal, Obama’s bills on behalf of Nufarm and other companies are part of the special treatment machine Washington rolls out for special interests, say good-government watchdogs.
“If you have a company…there’s a whole factory set up to help you get these suspensions,” said Steve Ellis, president of the Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. “It’s a pay-to-play system you have to rev up and work.” Hire the right lobbyist, pay the right fee, and you can save millions, he explained.
In Nufarm’s case, Obama’s staff met with a lawyer representing the company, Joel Junker, in person and on the phone several times, Junker told ABC News. Junker says he worked with Obama’s staff to craft the nine bills and keep them moving forward.
“To the extent [the legislation] needs a little shepherding, you work with their staff, to be aware of the status, and work with the committee staff,” he said, and spoke highly of Obama’s staff. “Everything was very professional, very constituent-service oriented.”
Unlike Astella’s representatives, Junker did not register to lobby on behalf of Nufarm and did not disclose his fees. In an interview, Junker declined to say whether he believed his work could be considered “lobbying.”
Obama’s office said its staffers met once with Junker and once with the Astellas lobbyists, but it did not know how often the senator’s staffers spoke with Junker or the Astellas lobbyists by phone. Astellas did not respond to a request for comment on this story. Nufarm Americas’ marketing director, Tim Stoehr, confirmed his company had requested several tariff suspensions, including on products it “bought” from other Nufarm subsidiaries overseas.
A review of campaign finance records turned up no record of contributions from Nufarm to Obama. Astellas Pharma employees gave $1,100 to Obama’s campaign in recent months, the documents show.
Junker defended tariff suspensions as good for American businesses. The high fees are charged to protect American manufacturers from being undercut by cheap imports, argued the former U.S. trade official. If no U.S. firm makes a particular item, the cost only hurts a company which needs to buy it overseas.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed, ashamed or suspicious of,” he said.
In letters to Congress supporting Obama’s measures, Junker justified the breaks for Nufarm to import a chemical known as 2,4 D and other ingredients by claiming they would “eliminate these unnecessary and avoidable…costs to [Nufarm’s] consumers.”
In a statement to ABC News defending the measures, Obama’s spokesman echoed Junker’s argument.
“Just like he fought for funding to ensure Chicago’s transit system remains affordable and to invest in ethanol research, Senator Obama helped keep costs low for Illinois residents by helping them get the goods they need to do their jobs,” Ben LaBolt wrote.But the company’s financial reports indicate that may not be the case. In a glowing financial report issued just two months after Obama introduced Nufarm’s numerous tariff-lifting bills, Nufarm told its shareholders it was making more money than ever before in North America because it had increased its prices on its U.S. and Canadian customers, predominantly farmers.
Nufarm saw “strong revenue growth” in North America, it said in a July 31, 2006, company report. “Net profit was also up strongly,” driven in part by “price rises on key products,” it said. Nufarm trades on the Australian Stock Exchange.
When asked about the company’s contrasting statements, Nufarm America’s Stoehr told ABC News the financial report wasn’t accurate.
“I don’t know if I believe that,” he said. “A lot of that is a little more hype.” If the company had increased its prices, said Stoehr, it was only because its costs had “skyrocketed.” “Our profit remained steady,” said the executive.
In particular, “price rises on phenoxy herbicides,” a family which includes 2,4 D, “improved the profitability of those products, despite no significant increase in sales volumes.”
Economics aside, some medical researchers also harbor concerns over 2,4 D. Studies have purported to find a link between high exposure to the chemical and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer. Defenders of the chemical say it is safe, and note that even scientists who believe a link exists cannot explain how the chemical may cause the cancer.
With a dozen tariff suspension bills to his name, Obama stands out as the most prolific of any Democratic presidential hopeful on the topic. Sen. Hillary Clinton, N.Y., has introduced none, although she has co-sponsored 19 that were introduced by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. Seven were to benefit the Honeywell Corporation, whose lobbyist has contributed $6,500 to Clinton since 2005. Sen. Joseph Biden, Del., has introduced none.
Only one other 2008 presidential hopeful has introduced more tariff suspension bills than Obama. Longshot GOP candidate Sen. Sam Brownback, Kan., introduced 30 such measures in the 109th Congress. Fellow dark horse candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., introduced one in 2001; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. have introduced none.
Some say the tariff suspension process isn’t how Washington should operate.
“We all saw ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ and learned how Washington is supposed to work,” Taxpayers for Common Sense president Steve Ellis told the Blotter on ABCNews.com. “There’s no ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ episode on tariff suspensions.”
In his speeches, Sen. Obama seems to agree.
“We need a president who sees government not as a tool to enrich well-connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for every American,” the candidate said in his June speech. “That’s the kind of president I intend to be.”
Mansi Mehan contributed to this report.
Technorati Tags: Lieberman,lobbyists, lobbying, corporate lobbyists
Labels: anti-war, barack obama, biased media, campaign, cowardice, defending indefensible, elections, elections 2008, Hillary Clinton, iraq war, media bias, media matters, misogyny, presidential candidates, republicans, sexism, sexist
posted by BZZZT @ 4:22 PM
From Steve Lopez at the L.A. Times
But first, from a previous Lopez column:
Hillary Clinton gets the vote of a woman who had Barack Obama in her backyard.
Yes, Vitello says, it helped that Clinton is female. But it was about more than either gender or race.
Obama's inspirational call for change was no match for the trench work Clinton is capable of. As a nurse, Vitello has studied with interest the national healthcare reform proposals by the two candidates, and she's found Clinton's a bit more to her liking and more realistic.
"I felt Obama was all surface, with no center," says Vitello, who also confesses that in her backyard, she found him a little too much of a lefty, leaning too heavily on government solutions to problems people should work out on their own.
One woman at that gathering complained that she had run up huge credit card debt trying to put her child through college. Vitello doesn't remember all of Obama's response, but she recalls her own thoughts:
Maybe the student needs to get a job first and consider starting at a less expensive college, and maybe the parent needs to know better than to put college on a credit card.
When I point out that Vitello switched parties because of a war that Clinton supported, she says:
"But Clinton made her decision based on what everyone else was saying at the time, and I can't blame her for her choice when I voted for George Bush."
Nick Frousakis went to his grave in December, and one of his most loyal customers, Raul Sousa, followed him into the ground the very next day, old age doing both of them in."Nobody wants to sit there now," said Diego Romero, pointing to where Sousa used to hold forth at Jim's Burgers, State and 1st in Boyle Heights.
But the gang still shows up most weekdays to carry on the tradition despite the absence of Frousakis, a Greek-born businessman who had the good sense to put tacos up on the board next to hamburgers.
They drink coffee from Styrofoam cups. They soak up the sun. And they talk.
Life, death, sports, women, politics.
It was the last of those subjects I wanted to hear about last week. Latinos turned out as never before in the California presidential primary, accounting for 30% of the Democratic vote. As a group, Latinos sent an early valentine to Hillary Clinton, voting for her by a 2-1 ratio.
I wanted to know why, but first I had to find some Clinton voters. So which candidate did these guys like?
"Clinton," three men said in unison when I sat down Thursday.
"Clinton," said three different men when I took a seat at the same table Friday.
Altogether, four of the six said they had actually voted. One is a legal resident but not a citizen, and the other just didn't make it to the polls.
She should be held responsible, but that doesn't mean she's not the best candidate
The state's Latinos are overwhelmingly Democratic, and none of the Jim's crowd even considered voting for a Republican, even though Sen. John McCain supported a path to legal status for many illegal immigrants.
"They're for the greedy corporations," said retired landscaper Feliz Botello. "They don't care about us and our people."
He might get some disagreement from the estimated 10% of the state's Republican voters who happen to be Latino.
So why Clinton instead of Obama?
"El sabe menos [He knows less]," Roberto Luz, a mariachi, said in Spanish of Barack Obama.
"¿Que ha hecho, él? [What has he done?]," echoed Joaquin Vega, who used to run the auto repair shop across the street.
Most of the comments were similarly straightforward. It didn't hurt that L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa supported Clinton, said the men.
But if I had to list the top reasons the men liked Clinton over Obama or a Republican candidate, the order would go something like this:
She has more experience than Obama. The Clinton name is trusted. Times were good under Bill Clinton, and Hillary is cut from the same cloth. Too much money and too many lives are being wasted in Iraq while things fall apart at home.
Jaime Regalado of Cal State L.A.'s Pat Brown Institute told me by phone that some of Clinton's enemies on the right are seen as enemies of the Latino community, particularly on the subject of immigration. She was smart, Regalado said, to use Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in TV ads and link herself to the slain Kennedy's support for Cesar Chavez and farmworkers.
Regalado was surprised by just how strong the Latino turnout was. But in retrospect, he said, the gloomy economic news, the war and the possibility of ending Republican rule were something of a perfect storm, and Latinos were eager to make their voices heard.
"The last factor is that in the Latino community, as in all communities, there is a certain amount of prejudice," Regalado said, and some Latinos were probably more comfortable with a white woman than a black man.
Even a black man who said illegal immigrants should have driver's licenses and that immigrants can't be blamed for problems in some black communities?
Yes, and yes again.
"He's a very good speaker, and maybe he would be better than Clinton," said Vega, who agreed that younger Latinos seemed a little more inclined to connect with Obama. "But I like Clinton."
I pointed out to Vega, Bill Escarsega and Botello that they don't exactly come from a matriarchal culture. So how did these old-school caballeros suddenly get so comfortable with the idea of a woman in the White House?
"It's not black or white, male or female, it's experience," said Vega.
"My grandfather? Macho, macho, macho," said Botello. "My father? Macho, macho, macho.
"I don't believe in that B.S. anymore. You know why? I'm civilized. I went to school."
When the men talked about all the lives lost in Iraq, and Botello said his cousin was killed in combat, I reminded the kaffeeklatschers that Clinton had voted to support the war.
"And she should be held responsible," said Vega, but that doesn't mean she's not the best candidate.
"Bush lied," Botello charged. "Bush and Cheney lied to everybody, including Congress."
As we spoke, a Latin beat warped and wobbled out of a music shop across 1st Street, and a man came along pushing a battered old bicycle someone had just given him. It needed some love, he said, but it would be fine.
So who did he vote for?
"Clinton," he said immediately, and with that, the former first lady had swept the corner of 1st and State streets in Boyle Heights.
Technorati Tags:
Latino Voters, Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California voters, Steve Lopez
Labels: barack obama, Hillary Clinton, LA Times, LATimes
posted by BZZZT @ 11:00 AM
by Robin Morgan
February 2, 2008
Goodbye To All That” was my (in)famous 1970 essay breaking free from a politics of accommodation especially affecting women (for an online version, see http://blog.fair-use.org/category/chicago/).
During my decades in civil-rights, anti-war, and contemporary women’s movements, I’ve avoided writing another specific “Goodbye . . .” But not since the suffrage struggle have two communities—joint conscience-keepers of this country—been so set in competition, as the contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton (HRC) and Barack Obama (BO) unfurls. So.
Goodbye to the double standard . . .
—Hillary is too ballsy but too womanly, a Snow Maiden who’s emotional, and so much a politician as to be unfit for politics.
—She’s “ambitious” but he shows “fire in the belly.” (Ever had labor pains?)—When a sexist idiot screamed “Iron my shirt!” at HRC, it was considered amusing; if a racist idiot shouted “Shine my shoes!” at BO, it would’ve inspired hours of airtime and pages of newsprint analyzing our national dishonor.
—Young political Kennedys—Kathleen, Kerry, and Bobby Jr.—all endorsed Hillary. Senator Ted, age 76, endorsed Obama. If the situation were reversed, pundits would snort “See? Ted and establishment types back her, but the forward-looking generation backs him.” (Personally, I’m unimpressed with Caroline’s longing for the Return of the Fathers. Unlike the rest of the world, Americans have short memories. Me, I still recall Marilyn Monroe’s suicide, and a dead girl named Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick.)
Goodbye to the toxic viciousness . . .
Carl Bernstein's disgust at Hillary’s “thick ankles.” Nixon-trickster Roger Stone’s new Hillary-hating 527 group, “Citizens United Not Timid” (check the capital letters). John McCain answering “How do we beat the bitch?" with “Excellent question!” Would he have dared reply similarly to “How do we beat the black bastard?” For shame.
Goodbye to the HRC nutcracker with metal spikes between splayed thighs. If it was a tap-dancing blackface doll, we would be righteously outraged—and they would not be selling it in airports. Shame.
Goodbye to the most intimately violent T-shirts in election history, including one with the murderous slogan “If Only Hillary had married O.J. Instead!” Shame.
Goodbye to Comedy Central’s “Southpark” featuring a storyline in which terrorists secrete a bomb in HRC’s vagina. I refuse to wrench my brain down into the gutter far enough to find a race-based comparison. For shame.
“Well-behaved women seldom make history.” Goodbye to the sick, malicious idea that this is funny. This is not “Clinton hating,” not “Hillary hating.” This is sociopathic woman-hating. If it were about Jews, we would recognize it instantly as anti-Semitic propaganda; if about race, as KKK poison. Hell, PETA would go ballistic if such vomitous spew were directed at animals. Where is our sense of outrage—as citizens, voters, Americans?
Goodbye to the news-coverage target-practice . . .
The women’s movement and Media Matters wrung an apology from MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for relentless misogynistic comments (www.womensmediacenter.com). But what about NBC’s Tim Russert’s continual sexist asides and his all-white-male panels pontificating on race and gender? Or CNN’s Tony Harris chuckling at “the chromosome thing” while interviewing a woman from The White House Project? And that’s not even mentioning Fox News.
Goodbye to pretending the black community is entirely male and all women are white . . .
Surprise! Women exist in all opinions, pigmentations, ethnicities, abilities, sexual preferences, and ages—not only African American and European American but Latina and Native American, Asian American and Pacific Islanders, Arab American and—hey, every group, because a group wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t given birth to it. A few non-racist countries may exist—but sexism is everywhere. No matter how many ways a woman breaks free from other discriminations, she remains a female human being in a world still so patriarchal that it’s the “norm.”
So why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and the centuries, even millennia, of struggle that got us this far, as black Americans, women and men, are justly proud of their struggles?
Goodbye to a campaign where he has to pass as white (which whites—especially wealthy ones—adore), while she has to pass as male (which both men and women demanded of her, and then found unforgivable). If she were blackor he were female we wouldn’t be having such problems, and I for one would be in heaven. But at present such a candidate wouldn’t stand a chance—even if she shared Condi Rice’s Bush-defending politics.
I was celebrating the pivotal power at last focused on African American women deciding on which of two candidates to bestow their vote—until a number of Hillary-supporting black feminists told me they’re being called “race traitors.”
Why should all women not be as justly proud of our womanhood and the centuries, even millennia, of struggle that got us this far, as black Americans, women and men, are justly proud of their struggles?
So goodbye to conversations about this nation’s deepest scar—slavery—which fail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the U.S. and elsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women.
Women have endured sex/race/ethnic/religious hatred, rape and battery, invasion of spirit and flesh, forced pregnancy; being the majority of the poor, the illiterate, the disabled, of refugees, caregivers, the HIV/AIDS afflicted, the powerless. We have survived invisibility, ridicule, religious fundamentalisms, polygamy, teargas, forced feedings, jails, asylums, sati, purdah, female genital mutilation, witch burnings, stonings, and attempted gynocides. We have tried reason, persuasion, reassurances, and being extra-qualified, only to learn it never was about qualifications after all. We know that at this historical moment women experience the world differently from men—though not all the same as one another—and can govern differently, from Elizabeth Tudor to Michele Bachelet and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
We remember when Shirley Chisholm and Patricia Schroeder ran for this high office and barely got past the gate—they showed too much passion, raised too little cash, were joke fodder. Goodbye to all that. (And goodbye to some feminists so famished for a female president they were even willing to abandon women’s rights in backing Elizabeth Dole.)
Goodbye, goodbye to . . .
—blaming anything Bill Clinton does on Hillary (even including his womanizing like the Kennedy guys—though unlike them, he got reported on). Let’s get real. If he hadn’t campaigned strongly for her everyone would cluck over what that meant. Enough of Bill and Teddy Kennedy locking their alpha male horns while Hillary pays for it.
—an era when parts of the populace feel so disaffected by politics that a comparative lack of knowledge, experience, and skill is actually seen as attractive, when celebrity-culture mania now infects our elections so that it’s “cooler” to glow with marquee charisma than to understand the vast global complexities of power on a nuclear, wounded planet.
—the notion that it’s fun to elect a handsome, cocky president who feels he can learn on the job, goodbye to George W. Bush and the destruction brought by his inexperience, ignorance, and arrogance. Goodbye to the accusation that HRC acts “entitled” when she’s worked intensely at everything she’s done—including being a nose-to-the-grindstone, first-rate senator from my state.
Goodbye to conversations about this nation’s deepest scar—slavery—which fail to acknowledge that labor- and sexual-slavery exist today in the U.S. and elsewhere on this planet, and the majority of those enslaved are women.
Goodbye to her being exploited as a Rorschach test by women who reduce her to a blank screen on which they project their own fears, failures, fantasies.
Goodbye to the phrase “polarizing figure” to describe someone who embodies the transitions women have made in the last century and are poised to make in this one. It was the women’s movement that quipped, “We are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” She heard us, and she has.
Goodbye to some women letting history pass by while wringing their hands, because Hillary isn’t as “likeable” as they’ve been warned they must be, or because she didn’t leave him, couldn’t “control” him, kept her family together and raised a smart, sane daughter. (Think of the blame if Chelsea had ever acted in the alcoholic, neurotic manner of the Bush twins!) Goodbye to some women pouting because she didn’t bake cookies or she did, sniping because she learned the rules and then bent or broke them. Grow the hell up. She is not running for Ms.-perfect-pure-queen-icon of the feminist movement. She’s running to be president of the United States.
Goodbye to the shocking American ignorance of our own and other countries’ history. Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir rose through party ranks and war, positioning themselves as proto-male leaders. Almost all other female heads of government so far have been related to men of power—granddaughters, daughters, sisters, wives, widows: Gandhi, Bandaranike, Bhutto, Aquino, Chamorro, Wazed, Macapagal-Arroyo, Johnson Sirleaf, Bachelet, Kirchner, and more. Even in our “land of opportunity,” it’s mostly the first pathway “in” permitted to women: Representatives Doris Matsui and Mary Bono and Sala Burton; Senator Jean Carnahan . . . far too many to list here.
Goodbye to a misrepresented generational divide . . .
Goodbye to the so-called spontaneous “Obama Girl” flaunting her bikini-clad ass online—then confessing Oh yeah it wasn’t her idea after all, some guys got her to do it and dictated the clothes, which she said “made me feel like a dork.”
Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they’re not feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten thestatus quo), who can’t identify with a woman candidate because she is unafraid of eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them funny if they say something good about her. Goodbye to women of any age again feeling unworthy, sulking “what if she’s not electable?” or “maybe it’s post-feminism and whoooosh we’re already free.” Let a statement by the magnificent Harriet Tubman stand as reply. When asked how she managed to save hundreds of enslaved African Americans via the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, she replied bitterly, “I could have saved thousands—if only I’d been able to convince them they were slaves.”
I’d rather say a joyful Hello to all the glorious young women who do identifywith Hillary, and all the brave, smart men—of all ethnicities and any age—who get that it’s in their self-interest, too. She’s better qualified. (D’uh.) She’s a high-profile candidate with an enormous grasp of foreign- and domestic-policy nuance, dedication to detail, ability to absorb staggering insult and personal pain while retaining dignity, resolve, even humor, and keep on keeping on. (Also, yes, dammit, let’s hear it for her connections and funding and party-building background, too. Obama was awfully glad about those when she raised dough and campaigned for him to get to the Senate in the first place.)
I’d rather look forward to what a good president he might make in eight years, when his vision and spirit are seasoned by practical know-how—and he’ll be all of 54. Meanwhile, goodbye to turning him into a shining knight when actually he’s an astute, smooth pol with speechwriters who’ve worked with the Kennedys’ own speechwriter-courtier Ted Sorenson. If it’s only about ringing rhetoric, let speechwriters run. But isn’t it about getting the policies we want enacted?
And goodbye to the ageism . . .
How dare anyone unilaterally decide when to turn the page on history, papering over real inequities and suffering constituencies in the promise of a feel-good campaign? How dare anyone claim to unify while dividing, or think that to rouse U.S. youth from torpor it’s useful to triage the single largest demographic in this country’s history: the boomer generation—the majority of which is female?
Old woman are the one group that doesn’t grow more conservative with age—and we are the generation of radicals who said “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” Goodbye to going gently into any goodnight any man prescribes for us. We are the women who changed the reality of the United States. And though we never went away, brace yourselves: we’re back!
We are the women who brought this country equal credit, better pay, affirmative action, the concept of a family-focused workplace; the women who established rape-crisis centers and battery shelters, marital-rape and date-rape laws; the women who defended lesbian custody rights, who fought for prison reform, founded the peace and environmental movements; who insisted that medical research include female anatomy; who inspired men to become more nurturing parents; who created women’s studies and Title IX so we all could cheer the WNBA stars and Mia Hamm. We are the women who reclaimed sexuality from violent pornography, who put childcare on the national agenda, who transformed demographics, artistic expression, language itself. We are the women who forged a worldwide movement. We are the proud successors of women who, though it took more than 50 years, won us the vote.
We are the women who now comprise the majority of U.S. voters.
Hillary said she found her own voice in New Hampshire. There’s not a woman alive who, if she’s honest, doesn’t recognize what she means. Then HRC got drowned out by campaign experts, Bill, and media’s obsession with everything Bill.
So listen to her voice:
“For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.
“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
“Women’s rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speak freely—and the right to be heard.”
That was Hillary Rodham Clinton defying the U.S. State Department and the Chinese Government at the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (look here for the full, stunning speech).
And this voice, age 21, in “Commencement Remarks of Hillary D. Rodham, President of Wellesley College Government Association, Class of 1969.”
“We are, all of us, exploring a world none of us understands. . . . searching for a more immediate, ecstatic, and penetrating mode of living. . . . [for the] integrity, the courage to be whole, living in relation to one another in the full poetry of existence. The struggle for an integrated life existing in an atmosphere of communal trust and respect is one with desperately important political and social consequences. . . . Fear is always with us, but we just don't have time for it.”
She ended with the commitment “to practice, with all the skill of our being: the art of making possible.”
And for decades, she’s been learning how.
So goodbye to Hillary’s second-guessing herself. The real question is deeper than her re-finding her voice. Can we women find ours? Can we do this for ourselves?
“Our President, Ourselves!”
Time is short and the contest tightening. We need to rise in furious energy—as we did when Anita Hill was so vilely treated in the U.S. Senate, as we did when Rosie Jiminez was butchered by an illegal abortion, as we did and do for women globally who are condemned for trying to break through. We need to win, this time. Goodbye to supporting HRC tepidly, with ambivalent caveats and apologetic smiles. Time to volunteer, make phone calls, send emails, donate money, argue, rally, march, shout, vote.
Me? I support Hillary Rodham because she’s the best qualified of all candidates running in both parties. I support her because her progressive politics are as strong as her proven ability to withstand what will be a massive right-wing assault in the general election. I support her because she knows how to get us out of Iraq. I support her because she’s refreshingly thoughtful, and I’m bloodied from eight years of a jolly “uniter” with ejaculatory politics. I needn’t agree with her on every point. I agree with the 97 percent of her positions that are identical with Obama’s—and the few where hers are both more practical and to the left of his (like health care). I support her because she’s already smashed the first-lady stereotype and made history as a fine senator, because I believe she will continue to make history not only as the first US woman president, but as a great US president.
As for the “woman thing”?
Me, I’m voting for Hillary not because she’s a woman—but because I am.
Robin Morgan has published 21 books, including six of poetry, four of fiction, and the now-classic anthologies Sisterhood Is Powerful, Sisterhood Is Global, and Sisterhood Is Forever. Her work has been translated into 13 languages. A founder of contemporary U.S. feminism, she has also been a leader in the international women's movement for 25 years. Recent books include A Hot January: Poems 1996-1999; Saturday's Child: A Memoir; her best-selling The Demon Lover: The Roots of Terrorism, updated and reissued in 2001; and her novel, The Burning Time. Her nonfiction work, Fighting Words: A Took Kit for Combating the Religious Right, came out in September 2006.
Labels: animal cruelty, anti-choice, anti-semitism, barack obama, biased media, bigotry, bigots, blaming the victim, boys club, bush, campaign, chris matthews, civil rights, clichés, collective action, cowardice, defending indefensible, dehumanization, democracy, democrats, elections 2008, equal rights, equality, Hillary Clinton, homophobia, media bias, meet the press, misogyny, obama, people of color, politics, presidential candidates, racism, racist, racist comments, sexism, sexist, the personal is political, tim russert, white males
posted by BZZZT @ 12:36 AM
By PAUL KRUGMAN
OP-ED COLUMNIST
February 11, 2008In 1956 Adlai Stevenson, running against Dwight Eisenhower, tried to make the political style of his opponent’s vice president, a man by the name of Richard Nixon, an issue. The nation, he warned, was in danger of becoming “a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland.”
Krugman: Even the Democratic Party seems to be turning into Nixonland: the land of slander and scare, the politics of hatred.
Most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration.The quote comes from “Nixonland,” a soon-to-be-published political history of the years from 1964 to 1972 written by Rick Perlstein, the author of “Before the Storm.” As Mr. Perlstein shows, Stevenson warned in vain: during those years America did indeed become the land of slander and scare, of the politics of hatred.
And it still is. In fact, these days even the Democratic Party seems to be turning into Nixonland.
The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad support among the party’s grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.
Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the other if he or she gets the nod.
Why, then, is there so much venom out there?
I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.
What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.
The prime example of Clinton rules in the 1990s was the way the press covered Whitewater. A small, failed land deal became the basis of a multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, which never found any evidence of wrongdoing on the Clintons’ part, yet the “scandal” became a symbol of the Clinton administration’s alleged corruption.
During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of Dr. King.
And the latest prominent example came when David Shuster of MSNBC, after pointing out that Chelsea Clinton was working for her mother’s campaign — as adult children of presidential aspirants often do — asked, “doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” Mr. Shuster has been suspended, but as the Clinton campaign rightly points out, his remark was part of a broader pattern at the network.
I call it Clinton rules, but it’s a pattern that goes well beyond the Clintons. For example, Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during the 2000 campaign: anything he said, and some things he didn’t say (no, he never claimed to have invented the Internet), was held up as proof of his alleged character flaws.
For now, Clinton rules are working in Mr. Obama’s favor. But his supporters should not take comfort in that fact.
For one thing, Mrs. Clinton may yet be the nominee — and if Obama supporters care about anything beyond hero worship, they should want to see her win in November.
For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do.
But most of all, progressives should realize that Nixonland is not the country we want to be. Racism, misogyny and character assassination are all ways of distracting voters from the issues, and people who care about the issues have a shared interest in making the politics of hatred unacceptable.
One of the most hopeful moments of this presidential campaign came last month, when a number of Jewish leaders signed a letter condemning the smear campaign claiming that Mr. Obama was a secret Muslim. It’s a good guess that some of those leaders would prefer that Mr. Obama not become president; nonetheless, they understood that there are principles that matter more than short-term political advantage.
I’d like to see more moments like that, perhaps starting with strong assurances from both Democratic candidates that they respect their opponents and would support them in the general election.
Krugman could've also mentioned the phenomenon of GroupThink (Irving Janis), which also infected the Kennedy administration, and certainly every republican one since then. And don't forget the Republicans are still pining for the Cult of Personality and pure fantasy surrounding Ronald Reagan.
Krugman's online column here.
Technorati Tags:
Before the Storm, Adlai Stevenson, Dwight Eisenhower, Rick Perlstein, Nixonland, racism, Reagan, Cult of Personality
Labels: groupthink, hate, Hillary Clinton, hypocrisy, media bias, msnbc, new york times, NYT, nytimes, obama
posted by BZZZT @ 12:16 AM
E.J. Dionne asks: Who can beat John McCain? Polls today are a snapshot. Polls change, people change their minds. What the polls say today cannot be counted on tomorrow, or next month, or next fall. The polls had written off John McCain just a few weeks ago.
A Party Divided by Sensibility
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008; Page A19It's come down to this: Who can beat John McCain?
Winning that argument could allow Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton to reach beyond their respective demographic comfort zones. Only if one of them can build a clear majority will the party be saved from a descent into the mire of rules fights and backroom dealing. It will also take leadership to protect the Democratic village from chaos and recriminations.
For the moment, the world is moving Obama's way: He swept four states last weekend and is favored in today's primaries in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. Polling suggests that Obama can draw independents whom Clinton can't reach and can mobilize new and younger voters in a way Clinton never will.
Obama drove that perception by offering a brief against the politics of Clintonism: She “starts off with 47 percent of the country against her,“ he said in Alexandria on Sunday.
Meanwhile, as Professor Stanley Fish points out in his NYTimes column entitled "A Calumny* a Day To Keep Hillary Away", “Electability (a concept invoked often) is a code word that masks the fact that the result of such reasoning is to cede the political power to the ranters.“ One respondent to his earlier column on Hillary Hate wrote: “When Obama calls Hillary divisive he, of course, is pandering to these crazies...” Fish writes that “The beneficiary of this she’s-a-victim-so-we-must-expel-her logic is Barack Obama, and some respondents suspected him of fostering the divisiveness he rails against. Actually, Obama doesn’t have to work hard at all. The media ... are doing it for him. ... With unpaid employees on both sides of the media aisle, Obama doesn’t have to do anything but be his usual inspirational self. Unencumbered by the record of achievements and missteps that comes along with political longevity, he can present a clean slate to the electorate. Nothing hazarded equals nothing to be criticized for.”
...It's hard to imagine that she can “break out of the politics of the past 15 years.” The alternative: the antidepressant right there on the shelf in front of them. Its brand is Obama.Yet there is another world in Democratic politics, a practical, mostly middle-aged and middle-class world that is immune to fervor and electricity. It is made up of people with long memories who are skeptical of fads and like their candidates tough, detail-oriented and -- to use a word Obama regularly mocks -- seasoned.
If Obama is passion, Clinton is bread and butter. If she needs more flourishes, he could afford to traffic a bit more in the staples.
These are the Hillary people, and they gathered in Manassas last weekend in significant numbers at the Grace E. Metz Middle School, cozy schools being a preferred venue for a Clinton campaign aware that mammoth rallies are normally beyond its reach.
She does not lack for loyalists. Paulie Abeles of Derwood, Md., held aloft a hand-printed sign that did not mince words: “Talk Is Cheap. Mistakes Are Expensive.”
Abeles explained that people who are being “swept along by the eloquence of Barack Obama's speeches” forget that at one time, George W. Bush was seen as “charming” and “inspirational.” And electability was on her mind. If President Bush raised the terror alert level four days before the election (“I happen to be very cynical,” she averred), the Democrats would want their most experienced candidate confronting McCain.
Clinton spoke directly to her audience's skepticism of good talkers -- ironic in light of her husband's oratorical gifts. “You're so specific,” she quoted people as telling her. “Why don't you just come and . . . give us one of those great rhetorical flourishes and get everybody all whooped up?” The crowd actually whooped at that. But eloquence, she said, is not the point, since the election “is not about me, it's about us.”
If Obama is passion, Clinton is bread and butter. If she needs more flourishes, he could afford to traffic a bit more in the staples.
Her speech is a well-crafted recitation of how government could ease the lives of those without health insurance, students burdened by college loans, homeowners facing foreclosure, veterans who have been abandoned, the working poor who deserve a hand up.
As she speaks, Doug Hattaway, one of her aides, notes that her practical litany is precisely what appeals to working-class and middle-class voters who respond to “tangible issues.” They also rebel against the idea that they are not part of the cool, privileged masses for Obama. One of the signs at the Manassas rally defiantly touted “Well Educated High Earners for Hillary.” This is a party divided not by ideology but by sensibility.
Meanwhile that old CIA-Agent-outing traitor, Bob Novak worries for the dems about racism and "The Bradley Effect" when he's never shown that concern regarding his own Greedy Old Party of Rich Racist White Men. He also conveniently fails to mention the overwhelming numbers and percentages of white voters Obama has decisively won in those (mostly white) states in which he was the primary or caucus winner. As Dionne gets right, it's much more about sensibility, history, and the life experiences of voters, not racism. If anything is hard at work overtly and covertly, it's sexism and misogyny**.
* calumny | cal•um•ny |ˈkaləmnē
noun ( pl. -nies)
the making of false and defamatory statements in order to damage someone's reputation; slander.
• a false and slanderous statement.
**misogyny | mi•sog•y•ny | məˈsäjənē|
noun
the hatred of women
Dionne's complete column here; Fish's is here.
Technorati Tags:
Stanley Fish, calumny, sexism, racism
Labels: bob novak, bush, campaign, democrats, elections 2008, Hillary Clinton, obama, presidential candidates, washington post, WashingtonPost
posted by BZZZT @ 10:00 PM
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