Gloria Steinem's article

> Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
>

> By Gloria Steinem
> September 4, 2008

> Here's the good news: Women have become so politically
> powerful that even the
> anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on
> the Republican Party
> -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever
> female vice
> president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too --
> who have picketed, gone on
> hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women
> can vote. We owe
> it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the
> "white-male-only" sign off the White
> House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there
> through ridicule and
> misogyny to win 18 million votes.
>
> But here is even better news: It won't work. This
> isn't the first time a boss
> has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees
> with him and opposes
> everything most other women want and need. Feminism has
> never been about
> getting a job for one woman. It's about making life
> more fair for women everywhere.
> It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are
> too many of us for
> that. It's about baking a new pie.
>
> Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush
> Limbaugh, is no way
> to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton
> supporters. Palin shares
> nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home,
> divisive and deceptive
> speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention
> that has more than twice
> as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate
> who is owned and
> operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes
> pretty much everything
> Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack
> Obama's still does. To vote in
> protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying,
> "Somebody stole my shoes, so
> I'll amputate my legs."
>
> This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be
> wrong, even on
> issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she
> can't do the job
> because she has children in need of care, especially if
> they wouldn't say the same
> about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the
> spotlight on
> national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero
> background, with one
> month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37
> years' experience.
>
> Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When
> asked last month
> about the vice presidency, she said, "I still
> can't answer that question until
> someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does
> every day?" When
> asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really
> focused much on the war in Iraq."
>
> She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was
> unpopular, and
> she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented
> oil wealth to give a $1,200
> rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by
> McCain's campaign as a
> tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state
> income or sales tax.
> Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long
> that he doesn't know
> it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not
> lowering them. Or perhaps
> McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in
> the Justice
> Department, of putting a job candidate's views on
> "God, guns and gays" ahead of
> competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job
> one 72-year-old heartbeat
> away from the presidency.
>
> So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may
> have chosen Palin out
> of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the
> difference between form
> and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing
> ideologues; the same
> ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a
> supporter of reproductive
> freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have
> chosen a woman who knows
> what a vice president does and who has thought about Ir aq;
> someone like
> Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of
> Maine. McCain could have
> taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who
> determine his actions,
> right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.
>
> Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes
> just about every
> issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She
> believes that creationism
> should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global
> warming; she
> opposes gun control but supports government control of
> women's wombs; she opposes
> stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only"
> programs, which increase
> unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and
> abortions; she tried to use
> taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves
> from the air but didn't
> spend enough money to fix a state school system with the
> lowest high-school
> graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate
> who opposes the Fair Pay
> Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural
> gas pipeline across
> Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National
> Wildlife Reserve, though
> even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore
> drilling. She is Phyllis
> Schlafly, only younger.
>
> I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of
> the National Rifle
> Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from
> helicopters, she does it
> herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use
> of fossil fuels but puts a
> coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She
> doesn't just echo McCain's
> pledge to criminalize abort ion by overturning Roe vs.
> Wade, she says that if
> one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest,
> she should bear the
> child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human
> right but implies
> that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also
> protects the right to
> have a child.
>
> So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has
> attracted is James
> Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson,
> "women are merely waiting
> for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be
> voting for Palin's
> husband.
>
> Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term
> bipartisan gains from
> this contest.
>
> Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing
> patriarchs and most
> women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the
> centrist majority of
> Republicans to take back their party, which was the first
> to support the Equal
> Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite
> government into the
> wombs of women.
>
> And American women, who suffer more because of having two
> full-time jobs than
> from any other single injustice, finally have support on a
> national stage
> from male leaders who know that women can't be equal
> outside the home until men
> are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning
> on their belief
> that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their
> children.
>
> This could be huge.
>

```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````


I was tearing articles out of the newspaper all week to write about this again.
My long time friend from California (who now lives in Arizona) sent me this Gloria Steinem article this morning, it basically says everything I was thinking of writing.

So I copied and pasted the article.


I read today that Palin is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through prayer. She used state funds to fly from Juneau to Wasilla to attend the graduation of the Master's Commission program. She spoke to graduating students, urging them to fan out through Alaska "to make sure God's will be done there" The tab was $519.50 plus $120 for meals and expenses.....

Just a tiny little article hidden on page 7. But in my eyes, HUGE.

This girl scares me to death.

I don't like barracudas. I don't like barracudas who MIGHT get to a position where she will affect the rights and lives of women and gay people.


And as liberal as I am, I cannot get over the fact that she has a family of five kids, ok...three of them are "grown" and she accepts a job that would put her family second while it should be first.

I saw the little face of her youngest daughter during the convention. She was trotting after her mom, as mom walked away to shake hands...I saw the apprehension in that child's face...do I go with mom, or am i supposed to stay back here? She looked proud and excited, but I caught that little sign of fear and uncertainty too.

She wanted her Mommy's attention...her little face was saying: mama? mama? where are you going, mama?

And then there is the baby. Is this woman's priority her family? or being the president?
Is she rich enough with enough sources for that child's care and welfare? Is dad going to take care of the family? Yes, I know, this is the 21st century, men take care of their families when mom's are working. But this job is not just SOME job.

Will she stay at home with him when he goes through physical problems? Or will she hand him over to the nanny and say: sorry kid, I need to go see Russian president Medvedev, or Putin, or all the other world leaders?

Oh and by the way, can you see those guys' faces right now? They don't even respect the president we have now, you think they will respect her? I think they are gleefully wringing their hands.

She doesn't even know what her job description would be.

Oh God, help us all.

I think Condie Rice would have been a better choice (although I doubt if she would have accepted, but experience wise she should have been on the top of the list.)

By the way, did you notice that Gadhafi did NOT shake her hand when she met him yesterday?
And they think these guys are going to welcome a hockey mom with ultra conservative christian beliefs?

And here I go again, ranting, ranting....

It's just...I cannot imagine running a family with five children, one of them needing extra care.
I am exhausted after a week of running after a 16 month old. I could not hold down a job looking after Wheelie and Boo boo also. And worrying about Bug's life, It's just too much.

So either I am very old fashioned after all, or I am just really very practical...or I am a loser who doesn't live up to her full potential....

Anyway.....It's Sunday again. Wheelie is watching Mr. Smith Goes To Washington...how appropriate! :>)

It's time to catch up on bathroom cleaning and ironing...and a nice long nap...

Strapping myself in in the meantime, waiting for the ranters and the disagree-ers to pound my message board.

Have a wonderful day y'all!

SGMKJ!