Hillary and Misogyny

Americablog has a post called "HIllary's Girl Power" where they post a comment by Jacki Schechner, a feminist writer, in which she concludes that a woman would make a great Commander-in-Chief, but not necessarily THIS woman, Hillary Clinton. I heartily agree.

There is no doubt that the MSM has been horribly misogynistic in general, but particularly so in covering Senator Clinton's campaign. She has certainly used underhanded tactics that deserve derision, but the anti-female rhetoric was flowing from the very beginning of her run when she was just one of a field of candidates. Media Matters has covered this in detail, but I'll hit the high points. I don't remember anyone criticizing John Edwards' pantsuits, or debating whether any other candidates' show of emotion were real or practiced. John McCain has never been criticized for the unpleasant tenor of his voice. The word "bitch" flows from the lips of men who should know better far too easily - when was the last time anyone on TV called one of the candidates a "bastard" or some equivalent slur?

It took me months to resolve myself to rejecting the position taken by many feminists, as well as the majority of the Goddess community, that we should support Clinton because she was female. I've heard all the arguments - that it's a question of solidarity, that if she doesn't get the nomination, no woman in our lifetime will ever get it, that she "thinks like a woman" and is therefore a better choice, that she's the best qualified - and I don't buy any of them.

Solidarity, to have any meaning at all, means that we have to rally around a woman with equal or better qualifications for a particular position. I have grave concerns about the choices Sen. Clinton has made in her career. She opposed the impeachment of Richard Nixon. Her ties to Walmart and to overseas sweat shops are questionable. Her participation in The Family - a little known, DC based religious group focused on attaining and holding power for its powerful and often dangerous members - is completely unacceptable in a supposedly Liberal contender. The idea that she's the only woman in a generation to have a shot at the White House is insulting. We have many women in positions of leadership that would make better presidents, any one of whom might have a shot as Barack's VP, which would almost certainly guarantee a woman taking the office in 8 years.

I don't like her using gender as an excuse for losing. She's losing because she ran a poor campaign in which she, her husband and surrogates, have repeatedly behaved in racist and unethical ways, up to and including invoking images of violence against candidates in the past. These improper statements and tactics have convinced me that she lacks the judgement and ethics needed for the office of President. One need only remember her promise to "obliterate" Iran to know that she shouldn't hold sway in our public discourse, let alone control our nuclear arms.

I don't count her activism in her career of any greater value than Barack Obama's credentials as a community organizer and elected official in his home state. More importantly, she doesn't inspire the kind of hope and excitement that Obama does. America has, in my opinion, been on a gradual slide toward a form of fascism, or at least a greedy and inhumane form of Conservative extremism, since the tragic death of President Kennedy. The Bush administration is the direct result of the coup that began with that event - none of the Constitutional nightmare would be possible if President Kennedy had finished his term in office.

The Kennedy funeral is one of my earliest memories. I've waited my entire life to see another JFK, or Bobby, or MLK, who could invoke the "better angels of our nature." When a I see pictures of tens of thousands turning out to see Barack at his appearances, in numbers never seen before in presidential politics, It makes me believe that it's possible for America to be America again. Barack can begin to heal some serious national wounds - the enduring sickness of racism, our shame in the response to hurricane Katrina, our ill-advised and unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, the specter of incompetence that was born of the failure to heed the signs that the 9/11 attack was immanent, and the suspicion of complicity by members of the Bush administration in allowing it to happen, the restoration of our Constitutional rights, the end of torture by our soldiers, and a possible restoration of our standing in the world and the end of our xenophobic and entitled stance toward the rest of the planet- none of which could be expected or even dreamt of in an administration built around the Clinton machine.

This is not about girls vs. boys. This is about hope versus cynicism, the past versus the future, whom we are and whom we can be as a nation. I am not prepared to concede my idealism for a new gender selling the same old shit. A token torturer is still a torturer. I want massive change, more, I'm sure, than Obama could ever provide, but I'm going with the candidate who promises more change than any other. For Sen. Clinton to say that my choice has anything to do with misogyny demeans the entire Women's Movement. Equality is about more than having a vagina. It's about a true shift in consciousness that Hillary cannot catalyze for our nation. The feminist candidate in this campaign is Barack Obama.

As Purple to Lavender - Shakesville

I left the following comment to a post about the racism v. sexism argument.

Feminist. Womanist. Bitch. Witch. Priestess. President. Labels don't really matter at this level. There are many women's movements co-existing, but that isn't the point.

There's no up side to arguing about who is the more oppressed party. We're dealing with 6,000 years of an unnatural social order called patriarchy, which is by definition sexist, racist, elitist, greedy, violent and intolerant. None of us is untouched by this no matter whom we are. America has had ignoble beginnings. It began with an act of genocide against the First Nations, prospered from the work of slaves, sustained itself by breaking the backs of women who had no say in the governance of their own lives or bodies. For the most part, we've been taught to overlook these waves of oppression and take what we can get.

The founders of the country knew intellectually that their society didn't meet the measure of their own philosophies. They did what they could get away with and left it to future generations to make the wrongs right as it became possible. We're chipping away at a power structure that oppresses everyone in one aspect or another, and even those with the most privilege are hobbled by that oppression in some way. Patriarchy hurts everybody.

Yes, the MSM is sexist and racist. It is owned by greedy elitists with a financial interest in keeping women subservient and people of color powerless and dependent, and our country at war. I've been told by people I respect that I am betraying my Sisters by not supporting Hillary, but I refuse to believe that having a vagina is enough qualification to justify my voting for and elitist, racist and dishonest politician. Yes, she has been the object of extreme sexism and that is wrong. I don't have to support her to recognize that she has been treated badly. My objections to her largely stem from her race-baiting. She is both a victim of bigotry and a bigot herself. Many people fit comfortably into both categories. We are all damaged by patriarchy to some extent.

The mistake is that we think there's a difference in racism, sexism, classism, or any other form of oppression. Social Justice exists for all or it exists for none, and the situation might be improving here or there, but we still essentially live in a state of social INjustice. It doesn't matter what element of our person or position provokes the oppressive treatment - the treatment is the problem. The sense of entitlement that tells some elite group or individual that they are "more" is what we need to challenge. No one has a right to own, oppress, cheat, hurt or kill another human being. (Some would extend that to include animals, too, but one fight at a time.) That basic truth is violated all throughout our society. We have an elite group that feels blessed by a white male deity who loves them best of all, and that love justifies anything they want, at the expense of anyone or anything else. While we fight over who is more oppressed - WOC or women in general, the elite class continues its vampiric drain on our money, our culture and our lives. Our anger toward each other keeps us down. Only directing that anger where it belongs, at the elite classes who have stacked the game against us, is going to make a difference in any of our lives.

We can't afford to be divided - that serves the elite class. Why do their work for them? Why make it easier for them t6 keep us down? Everyone who is not independently wealthy needs to work together. We're a giant game of whack-a-mole and the moles only win when they all rise up together and take away the hammer. Ok, it's a stupid metaphor but you see what I mean. They can keep some of us down over there, and some over here, but if we all stand up together we outnumber them. This is class warfare and the only resolution to it is revolution. Solidarity.

A person of color should feel just as offended by sexism and they are by racism. Women should be as offended by racism in every form or situation. It's all the same hate from the top of one dominant hierarchy we need to tear down. This should be the function of the Progressive movement. If we aren't directly attacking that power structure, our efforts are wasted. Let's put all that hurt and anger where it belongs and get something done. Barack just might be able to focus our energy and make some real changes. I wish he were more liberal, but the movement behind him is more important than the man himself, though he gives it a name and a face. He creates the potential for a kind of healing both here and in the rest of the world that simply won't happen if Hillary is in charge. It's a long shot, but it's our only shot at the moment.

US slipping in life expectancy rankings

Yahoo! News

Michael Moore's recent movie SICKO cites a WHO (World Health Organization) statistic that the US ranks 37th among countries in terms of our health. This aticle presents a new study showing that we've slipped to 42nd.

From the article:

• Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.
  
  "Something's wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries," said Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.


• Forty countries, including Cuba, Taiwan and most of Europe had lower infant mortality rates than the U.S. in 2004. The U.S. rate was 6.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births. It was 13.7 for Black Americans, the same as Saudi Arabia.
  
  "It really reflects the social conditions in which African American women grow up and have children," said Dr. Marie C. McCormick, professor of maternal and child health at the Harvard School of Public Health. "We haven't done anything to eliminate those disparities."


• Black Americans have an average life expectancy of 73.3 years, five years shorter than white Americans. Black American males have a life expectancy of 69.8 years.


• Murray, from the University of Washington, said improved access to health insurance could increase life expectancy. But, he predicted, the U.S. won't move up in the world rankings as long as the health care debate is limited to insurance.
  
  Policymakers also should focus on ways to reduce cancer, heart disease and lung disease, said Murray. He advocates stepped-up efforts to reduce tobacco use, control blood pressure, reduce cholesterol and regulate blood sugar.
  
  "Even if we focused only on those four things, we would go along way toward improving health care in the United States," Murray said. "The starting point is the recognition that the U.S. does not have the best health care system. There are still an awful lot of people who think it does."

That infant mortality rate is absolutely shameful. What the hell are we doing to our babies? What are we thinking?!

It's time for America to wake up and realize that we're paying for the best, but most of us are living in Third World realities. We can't afford to wait until Bush vacates the White House.

There's a proposal in the House of Representatives right now for a single-payer, universal health care system. HR 676 would provide "Medicare for all" and it wouldn't require additional spending. Read about it here and here. It is absolutely possible to turn this around and there's no excuse for us to let these abominable conditions persist.

18,000 people die every year in America because of no health insurance. That's 6 9/11's every year that absolutely don't have to happen. Reps. John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich, Jim McDermott and Donna Christensen have paved the way for us - we just have to get it through Congress.

Michael Moore has a form set up to tell your Congressional representatives that you want this bill passed. Please go there now if you haven't already. It's time to end the Republican/Corporate war on Americans.

Black nooses hanging from the 'white' tree

Facing South:

Bill Quigley
Guest Contributor

In a small, still mostly segregated section of rural Louisiana, an all-white jury heard a series of white witnesses called by a white prosecutor testify in a courtroom overseen by a white judge in a trial of a fight at the local high school where a white student who had been making racial taunts was hit by black students.

The fight was the culmination of a series of racial incidents starting when whites responded to black students sitting under the "white tree" at their school by hanging three nooses from the tree. The white jury and white prosecutor and all white supporters of the white victim were all on one side of the courtroom. The black defendant, 17-year-old Mychal Bell, and his supporters were on the other.

The jury quickly convicted Bell of two felonies -- aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. Bell, who was a 16-year-old sophomore football star at the time he was arrested, faces up to 22 years in prison. Five other black youths await similar trials on attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy charges.

Yes, you read that correctly.

The rest of the story, which is being reported across the world in papers in China, France and England, is just as chilling.

I don't know whether to cry, scream or throw up. For the love of Goddess, who loves ALL of her children, please go read the rest of the story. The entire succession of events, and the fact that the whites are virtually unscathed while the black are being victimized by the entire system, including a prosecutor who told the black kids "that if they didn't stop making a fuss about this "innocent prank I can be your best friend or your worst enemy. I can take away your lives with a stroke of my pen." "

Apparently he's trying to do just that and it's working.

From the article:

People interested in supporting can contact:

The Jena 6 Defense Committee,
P.O. Box 2798
Jena, LA 71342

jena6defense@gmail.com

Friends of Justice
507 North Donley Ave.
Tulia, TX 79088,
www.fojtulia.org

ACLU of Louisiana
P.O. Box 56157
New Orleans, LA 70156

www.laaclu.org or 417-350-0536.



This is an urgent situation, so if you can send money, please do. If nothing else, join the ACLU because your dues go for things like this. This affects all of us, not just because the world is watching, but because none of us is free when shit like this can go down, and you know the Alberto's Justice Department won't do their jobs and stop this the way they should.