Yes, we still CAN!

I'm so bitter my eyes hurt - Go Barack!

Echidne on Feminism

Go to Echidne. Read posts marked Part I: Inhale and Part II Exhale. My comments on part II:

Because of time constraints and laptop problems, I couldn't read all of the preceding comments, but i do want to comment on this issue. I'm not really old enough to be a second wave feminist, and I'm definitely too old to be third wave. I guess I'm a two and a half. Anyway, I haven't really written about the presidential campaign since Edwards and Kucinich gave up because I've been struggling with just this question - who is the remaining feminist candidate? Before, I was quite certain it was Kucinich, though there are some feminists that give me crap about that. Now, I'm torn as to what to do.

I usually call myself a matriarchist, which is a "feminist plus" - in my mind. There are a few issues, like pornography, typically lumped in with the tag "feminist" that I'm not in sync with the Sisterhood about. I am most definitely a Sister, though, I'm quite sure.

My perception of second wave feminism is that it was always about social justice, and that the broader purpose was lost when people had to whittle down their mission statements to apply for funding. Funding is bad - it obligates us to and limits us by the patriarchy we're supposed to be trying to destroy. Yes, I said and mean that we should aim to destroy it, not get along with it and not try to make it more woman friendly.

The human race is 54% female, and the other 46% includes a wide array of variations on the original theme. The first step to making progress is to get out of the artificial patriarchal binary. There is one original gender and a variety of adaptations, the most common of which we call "male" but it's certainly not the only one. One and many. E pluribus unum, as it were.

Anything that affects 54% of a population, and that 54%'s children, is a human rights issue as well as a feminist issue. These terms are synonymous, and it's time we really drive that point home to the boys on the Left who aren't really feminists at all - they just play at it to keep their incoming links count up. A pox on the ones who claim to share our goals then quickly sell out our reproductive autonomy when it gets in the way of their insider status. There is a very real enemy in this world and it's old, white, wealthy and male, though not all of the enemy meets all those criteria. Not all rich white men are bad, of course, but they have to try harder to make me take them seriously, as should any person of privilege who claims to empathize with an oppressed minority - even if said "minority" is 54% of the population. There are people of all races and genders, of all social classes who are with us and against us. The trick is to find those who are really with us and stick together.

Comparing "isms" plays into the hand of the patriarchy. It divides poor whites from poor blacks, lower class women from upper class women with means and access, lesbians from hetero women, and on and on. Divide and conquer. We fight over Obama and Clinton, McCain wins. It's that simple. The only way to defeat the old rich white male system is to approach it differently.

When the Constitution was originally written, the person with the most votes was president, the one with the second amount of votes was vice president, no matter what their party affiliation. If we look at the original intent of the Constitution, there's a clear solution - let the party decide whom to name president and whom to name vice president, and let's get on with it. Or we could just say that Hillary is older and has more experience, so make her P and Barack VP and let's focus on the real issues here. Barack could run for President in 8 years and be a shoe-in. What is clear is that we need to settle on a Clinton/Obama ticket NOW and waste no more money sniping at each other. That's what THEY want us to do. The media moguls and the power brokers are laughing their asses off at that "bitch" and that "uppity u-know what" doing their jobs for them. The key to feminism has always been inclusivity. Social justice for everyone IS feminism. Why waste obscene amounts of money, that could be put to better use, perpetuating a fight that gets us nowhere?

McCain is a nutcase and he has virtually sold his soul to get that nomination. He would be a disaster for America, and that is where our focus should be. Hillary and Barack need to make nice and focus their efforts outward. That's the only way we move forward. United. Anything else, and we lose. We can't afford to carve up the injustices - there's plenty to go around.

Call ABC's comment line and tell them you have a right to hear ALL the candidates

ABC Audience Comment Line: 1-818-460-7477.

After voice prompt, press #2, then #699(ABC Specials) to leave a 30 second comment.



ABC is acting as if they are the first primary - tell them they're supposed to report, not manipulate.

Populist Rhetoric Kicks Ass in Iowa!

Mike Huckabee, Barack Obama and John Edwards are big winners in Iowa tonight, and there's a reason for that - all three represent change from the status quo. Hillary Clinton came in a close third for the Democrats, specifically because she's too beholden to the DLC's Republican-lite corporation-loving party machine. Edward's took second place with far less money than either Barack or Hillary - he's only using public campaign financing. He won't owe anything to corporate interests when his campaign is over, and he got there without a huge war chest.

Huckabee is a nice guy - he's easy to like. The problem is that beneath that personable image lie some very fucked up ideas that would have us living in a Christo-fascist theocracy and women would be breeding slaves of the state. That, my children, must not happen. The Democrats have to win next year, no matter what. Whoever gets the Democratic nomination, make no mistake, we all have to get behind him or her. Right now, I say the money is evenly split between Barack and John.

The turnout in Iowas was unprecedented - young people were an astonishing 56% of new voters. If you watched the caucus, you saw that Kucinich, Dodd, Biden and Richardson all failed to generate enough support to be considered viable. The vast majority of those people who started out supporting one of those four candidates (or should that be 5? Is Gravel still in this race? I haven't heard from him in a while, but there's been a virtual media blackout on anyone but the top 3 Dems) went to Obama. Young people overwhelmingly went for Barack. Not my first choice, but it made me proud. I never thought I'd live to see a viable non-white presidential candidate. Maybe there is hope for us as a nation.

My heart still belongs to Kucinich. While he's still in the race, I can't in good conscience vote for a lesser candidate. He's the only one with all the goods, and I'm praying that all the weeks he has spent in New Hampshire pay off in a big way. I want to see Dennis surprise everybody the same way all those new people who turned out tonight in Iowa surprised the media. Dennis represents the clearest and best form of change we can hope for - but I'm realistic as well as optimistic.

John Edwards speech after the race was called tonight gave me chills. He was damn near channeling John Kennedy and it brought tears to my eyes. Barack is giving his speech as I write this, and he's an inspirational speaker, too, though I'm not feeling it the way I did with Edwards. I could get behind an Edwards/Obama ticket with great enthusiasm thought neither is my first choice. Barack has a huge banner behind him that says "CHANGE" and if there was one resounding winner in tonight's caucuses, that winner was Change. There will be a new America in one year - let's hope it's a better, free-er, kinder and more prosperous one.

One final note to all the Progressive men who will be crowing about the upset accomplished by Libertarian spoiler Ron Paul - about one quarter of Paul's positions are radical and wonderful, but the other three-quarters are frightening and exactly the wrong direction for this country. One of those very wrong positions is that he is radically anti-choice. Some of you are far too eager to trade my sovereignty over my own uterus away for the idea of smaller government. The friend of my enemy is my enemy, too.

The FBI comes to Knott county. Again. Politics in Eastern Kentucky...

DISCLAIMER: I have only indirect knowledge of the following events. I believe this information to be essentially true, but I have not proof. I believe the FBI is acting in good faith, but finding what they're told to look for and how to interpret it. This is why we desperately need a good investigative reporter in this area.

Kentucky is known internationally as having the most violent elections in the US. The BBC did a special on it in 2000, when a car carrying a county official was sprayed with bullets in Clay County, and in a separate incident a sheriff killed by an opponent. Floyd Co., where I was today, is where two friends got into a fight about the Iraq war and the Republican killed the Democrat, though the Democrat drew his gun first. The moral of this story is that Kentuckians often express themselves with firearms. See the previous post about my cousin redecorating the Holiday Inn when his girlfriend dissed him at a party. It that hotel had been locally owned then, it might not have been a big deal, but being an international chain, Holiday Inn pressed the issue HARD. Some people just don't understand "armed and crazy" as a cultural norm. (Yes, I'm sorry, I gotta call them the way I see them.)

Anyway, Knott County, Kentucky also has problems, but at least they're more subtle. Remember that little dust up we call the War Between the States? Well, Kentucky didn't join the Confederacy, but a lot of Kentuckians did and never left it. As a result, until 2006, Knott County, Kentucky never had a Republican Judge Executive. This created a long-lived Democratic political machine which was corrupt and incompetent beyond belief. Lots of money got spent, but none of it benefitted the people of Knott County.

In 2000, many of us had had enough. So we got together and showed up at the Democratic committee meetings, elected some new officers and delegates, and we voted the bastards out, to be replaced by a relatively honest new kind of Democrat named Donnie Newsome. For the first time in history, money that was appropriated for public works got used for... Public Works! Specifically, we got "city water," so we no longer had to buy bottled water and use iron-out on our clothes because they had turned rusty brown. That's a great thing.

The local Democratic Machine, known hereabouts as The Mountain Mafia, was not pleased. Unfortunately, somebody in the clique allegedly has a friend or a cousin in the FBI. Our new, functional Judge Executive was framed for buying votes - a Kentucky tradition from way back, 1 vote = 1 pint of moonshine, except that he DIDN'T but his opponent DID according to testimony in the trial - and he was convicted by people coerced to testify against him for reduced sentences in drug cases. He went to jail for many months thanks to the Republican, Bush-appointed judge who had a chance to screw a Democrat .

Donnie's assistant, Mac Combs, was also an honest guy and filled in admirably in Donnie's absence. One day, Mac went out to his truck and leaned over to put a tin of chewing tobacco inside when he found - a stash of drugs. He took them straight to the sheriff, but I don't think there was ever an official report. I could be wrong. Anyway, the drugs were planted to get Mac in trouble. Apparently, the plan was to let him drive home not knowing what was in his glove compartment and tip off the state police. No one ever found out who planted the drugs, but Mac locks his doors now, which is unheard of in this area.

After months of this nonsense, Donnie got out of jail, but it ruined his life. Another guy who was caught up in the scandal had his house burned while he was away and wasn't allowed to come back to Knott County to live. Finally, it was up to Republican governor Ernie Fletcher to appoint a temporary Judge Exec. There were two main candidates for the job - Mac and MIke Hall, the Mountain Mafia candidate. Loyalties ran deep and there were alliances made and lost as the tension between the Mafia and the New Democrats squared off to fight for the office. In the end, Ernie Fletch appointed ..... Randy Thompson, new Republican and owner of a local radio station. What. the. hell?!

Randy moves in, people are not pleased, but the delight of many, he does a good job. He's forward thinking guy with vision and he started projects like skate parks and ATV trails. Things settle down until the next election.

The two Democratic camps square off again, and the voting machines mysteriously report 0 votes in Rock Fork, which is a strong Democratic area that would have gone for Mac. Who knows how many other mistakes were made? At the end of a tense night, the odious Mike Hall wins and the Democratic committee has a mass of resignations by people who start researching whether they can legally reject the winner of the primary. They couldn't, and many are now Republicans or Independents.

When the election rolls around it's Mike Hall vs. Randy Thompson. For the first time in history, the Republican wins in Knott county because nobody but his little clique likes Mike. Republicans rejoice, having no real opposition now. Randy stays in office and continues to kick ass for the people of Knott county.

--but wait--

The Mountain Mafia still allegedly has an "in" with the FBI, who recently swooped down on county offices with federal warrants and bad attitudes, taking computers and documents by the box-load, including one item essential to the Judge's defense of which there is no copy. An audit ensues. Misinformation trickles forth. Knott county is having bad flash-backs to the previous tragedy that followed the FBI.

If Randy Thompson is convicted of anything, no one else with a clue will ever run for Judge Executive and we are back at the mercy of the Mountain Mafia.

No, I can't run for office, I'm physically unable, though I wouldn't if I could because I ain't going to jail if I happen to win.

Chicken-shit Democrats fail to backup Kucinich in debate.

That tells me all I need to know about this bunch of Democratic contenders. Cheny needs to be impeached, Dennis is the only one that will do it.