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August 29, 2008
Laughing All The Way to the Polls
When I heard this morning that John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his VP running mate, I asked, as did I suspect millions of other people, “Who the heck is Sarah Palin?” Here I was betting breakfast on Lieberman. Mitt Romney must be furious. Maybe he’ll buy another company and outsource all the jobs as temporary solace.
I had no access to The Google at the time, so I was at the mercy of my friends via cell phone to reveal Ms. (oops, I mean “Governor”) Palin’s biography. She’s the governor of Alaska. Like most of you, I might be able to name a half dozen state governors right now, and only because they have been vetted as candidates for VP or were once running for president. Palin wasn’t one of them.
Then I vaguely remembered Palin's role in “TrooperGate,” the current Jerry Springer-esque scandal involving Sarah and her sister’s ex-husband whom she allegedly wanted fired. Various heads rolled and there is an investigation by the Alaskan legislature about abuses of power.
After I learned who Palin was, I laughed and laughed. I thought it was a great joke. When I was told it was true and that my sources were *not* making this up, I could only shake my head at such a hilarious choice! McCain picks a woman almost no one recognizes (because if I couldn’t place her, you can bet 99% of the voters haven’t heard of her, either), who is pro-life, pro-gun, pro-fur, pro-drilling in ANWR, pro-Big Oil, pro-BP pipelines (her husband works there), promotes “creationism” and dismisses science in regard to global warming and the impending extinction of polar animals. Not surprisingly, she has a few large, stuffed dead beasts in her living room. I’ll resist adding McClown to that list.
No doubt you’ve heard she was a runner-up in a beauty pageant (and I’ll refrain from any catty remarks about the competition in Wasilla, Alaska, a town a fraction of the size of Pleasantville and headquarters of a dog-sled race). She was the mayor of Wasilla for awhile. That, plus two years as gubner gives her the creds to be one heartbeat away from swearing in as Commander-in-Chief and leader of the World's Most Powerful Nation.
Alrighty!
Governor Palin has five children, including an infant with Down syndrome she bore in her 40s. That, of course, was her choice, but who’s taking care of this gaggle of kids while she works long hours as governor? I’m the last person to knock a gal for having an ambitious and powerful career, but as Vice President of the United States? Something’s mighty wrong with that picture. It’s mind-boggling.
But, what’s worse is the woefully misguided strategy the McCain camp employed to put her on the ticket to attract Hillary’s disgruntled supporters and to use Palin as a progressive prop, while overlooking any number of better qualified Republican women to complement the old POW and his historically misogynistic party. How else would you characterize this insult to women’s intelligence if not insidious disrespect?
Sure, the pundits will be talking about the Palin selection as much or more than the Democratic Convention on Sunday’s shows. They'll spin this as a "maverick" decision and tout Palin's "outsider" status as being "real change," and if you've been paying attention these past few months, you can write the slogans yourself. But, the voters, especially feminists, won’t be fooled.
I, for one, am giddy. I can't wait to see Joe Biden chew her up and spit her out like whale blubber in the VP debate. Yee Haw!
Posted by lorelei at 08:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (34)August 26, 2008
Frailty, Thy Name is Woman
Today the DNC will throw a proverbial bone to the Hillary supporters by giving their candidate a prime-time speaking spot in the convention. Will they concede second place and rally around Barack Obama and the Democrats to defeat John McCain in November? Or will they continue to wallow in self-pity, self-sabotage, and misguided indignation and either sit out the election or vote for a candidate who represents virtually everything they purport to despise?
Hey, nobody likes a sore loser. Everyone who has ever been discriminated against (because you were a girl, a minority, too fat, too old, from the wrong college, stuttered, limped or had HIV, you name it) appreciates the fact that life isn’t fair.
Back when I was in college in the mid-80s I wrote a senior thesis on “women in politics” and researched the history of what Susan Faludi in today’s New York Times described as “a foe that remains insidious, amorphous, relentless and pervasive”, and it seems not much has changed in 20 years.
Are the Clinton supporters seriously outraged that a (fairly unlikeable and divisive) woman was not nominated for the highest office in the land? After all, we have a woman Speaker of the House (albeit a really lame one), and Hillary waged an expensive and interminable battle and put “18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” according to her own colorful metaphor. And what exactly has each of her supporters (men and women alike) done, individually, to change the climate of misogyny in our culture? Does Hillary truly characterize the feminist ideal, or is she merely a carpetbagger, a poseur, another ruthless pol willing to throw real feminist principles aside to achieve her ambition?
While Hillary may have espoused a lot of support for so-called feminist issues such as equal pay, affordable health care, education, and pro-choice, she certainly exhibited enough testosterone in matters of war and in her no-holds-barred campaign to fool me into believing there is a reason she prefers pantsuits over skirts.
As a child of the 70s who grew up in the most active era of feminism in American history, coming of age during Ms. Magazine and Gloria Steinem, I have defined true feminism as independence, not equality. Women may never (in this lifetime) be “equal” to men in terms of earning power, opportunities or physical strength, but we can be financially, emotionally and mentally independent of men on our own terms, on their turf.
Last night, Michelle Obama gave a speech at the convention describing her modest upbringing on the South side of Chicago that was a striking relief to Hillary’s comparatively cushy childhood in the same state of Illinois. Michelle had to compete not only as a woman, but as a minority woman from a lower-middle-class background. By the time Michelle had earned her place at Ivy League schools and entered a male-dominated profession, borrowing money and swallowing a ration of crow along the way, Hillary was First Lady, having leap-frogged from privileged suburbia to private practice to marrying a man who would become a governor and then President of the United States.
The truth is, Hillary made good money as a lawyer, nobody will dispute her professional competence; but without Bill’s coattails to ride, she would never have been elected to the Senate in a state where she had trouble naming the five biggest cities and where she never resided as a constituent. She would never have secured the financial support or the audacious “entitlement” mentality without Bill's enduring popularity and countless connections. Her success as a politician was only a few rungs above the way most women took office in years past: by inheriting their late husbands’ seats.
So, Hillary was financially independent and competed in a man’s world. We’ll give her that. Yay! Bravo! However, when it comes to the core soul of feminism: that a woman can achieve emancipation on her own terms without a man’s help, she fails utterly. Any good feminist would have kicked Bill Clinton to the curb in January 2000 not only because of his indiscrete infidelity, but because of his chronic stupidity. Instead, she demanded her pound of flesh: a Senate seat and ultimately the White House. You owe me, Bubba, and you’re gonna pay!
Her supporters should reevaluate their heroine. Will they ever admit that Hillary didn’t lose the nomination because she was a woman, but because she was the *wrong* woman? Don’t hold your breath.
Posted by lorelei at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)August 20, 2008
Media Misinformation & The Funhouse Mirrors
We've all learned, if not from following the Peterson case then by critical thinking skills, to trust neither the media nor its anointed punditocracy. It has been clear for many years that mainstream media is owned by a few monopolistic corporations and driven by profit; it is not in the business of telling the truth or conducting any meaningful investigative reporting, with few exceptions. We were reminded of this when we watched Fox and MSNBC during the Peterson trial where the “expert panels” insisted that the prosecution was failing in its presentation of evidence and that Mark Geragos was constantly portrayed as a crackerjack defense lawyer eating the State’s lunch every day. This characterization belied the reality of the trial transcripts and the observations of those actually attending the trial.
I would wager real money that if a sampling of average cable news viewers were polled in August 2004, having read nothing beyond a few news stories and watching Fox during the heart of the trial, the majority would have believed that Peterson was going to be acquitted. Probably over 65% of them would agree that Geragos was driving trucks through the People’s case, and that there was more than reasonable doubt that gypsies, tramps and thieves had abducted and murdered the victims and planted their bodies at the east Bay to frame Mr. Innocent.
Of course, this would have been nonsense. It was the Funhouse Mirror strategy commonly employed by cable news producers, reporters with an agenda, and political campaigns.
So it is with the current “horserace” between the candidates running for president: if the news agencies accurately reported the truth about the candidates’ positions on issues, their respective economic and foreign policy platforms, and their qualifications for the job, there would be far less intrigue, drama and excitement. Considering the low approval rating of the current Congress, the vast unpopularity of our Executive-in-Chief, and the now toxic taint of the Republican brand, the election would be a “done deal,” as they say in the trade.
And, oh, how boring and unprofitable that would be! What would all these idiots have to talk about for the next three months? Hurricane season? Sports? The latest missing white pregnant woman? God forbid they discuss the FBI’s flimsy anthrax investigation, the economy, unemployment, failing infrastructure, Iraq, Iran, the Fed, or the various crises in homelessness, poverty, health care and education.
Au contraire! All six walls of our News Room are covered with Funhouse Mirrors! Meanwhile, mainstream media continues to perpetuate pseudo-issues that will have no bearing on the future of this country or help one iota with any of us paying for our next loaf of bread. Let’s review a few of the most egregious distortions of the current Funhouse Mirror strategy:
- Intellectualism, ties to Academia, multi-culturalism, diplomacy and pragmatism are signs of being elitist, out of touch, foreign, unpatriotic, un-American, strange, exotic, effeminate, arrogant, audacious, appeasing and treasonous.
On the other hand, being trigger-happy, short-tempered, caustic, rude, with cowboy tendencies, a take-no-prisoners attitude, bomb bomb bomb, drill drill drill, win win win, rah rah rah! is the red-blooded American Ideal. Liberals are sissy appeasers, Conservatives are macho defenders of freedom! (Never mind defenders of the corporate stranglehold on our lives.)
- A guy who shops at Whole Foods in holey-soled shoes for arugula, can hit a three-pointer on demand, runs and works out daily, draws crowds like a rock star, inspires artists, musicians and young people, uses technology with alacrity, experimented with drugs (oh my), never served in a military uniform, rubbed his bony elbows with terr-ists, black poets and anti-establishment folks, and penned a few best-sellers without a ghost writer is an inexperienced punk kid who doesn’t know his place.
On the other hand, a geriatric also-ran who plays his POW card with as much tasteless and irreverent abandon as did Rudy Giuliani his 9/11 card, whose closest encounter to an executive position is riding in his wife’s corporate jet, whose positions on the issues has changed more often than a Las Vegas showgirl’s fishnets, and whose ignorance of geography is only exceeded by his cluelessness to the suffering of the working class, is considered an experienced statesman, and guy you'd like to have a beer with (despite his owning millions of dollars in houses and wearing $500 Italian loafers and dumping his wife for a beer heiress and never having to pay a dime for health insurance or health care for his recurring cancer)....Oh, yes, he's such a "maverick.” He's such a regular guy; a real role-model for our sons.
Is this déjà vu or what? Are we going to sit back and suffer these fools again? There is much more at stake here than justice served to a murder victim. This is our nation's legacy, our survival as a democracy, our children's futures. Are we going to let the lying liars shape this debate?
The “Know Nothings” are still running the asylum and must constantly reframe the vast and embarrassing intellectual (and “age” and “hipness” and “modern”) canyon between the candidates where the American dream is distorted as "uppity" and the usurpation of power by incompetent, immoral crooks is morphed into preferable leadership skills.
I’m still shaking my head that the Republicans selected McCain as their candidate in the first place. It’s insane. The only conclusion I can draw is that he’s just a figurehead; the scrambling weasels must place *someone* in there with an “R” behind his name so they can protect the status quo and have at least another four years to bury the bodies, burn the evidence and hide the money.
Meanwhile, I think the greatest form of dissent would be to continually contrast, in a realistic way, the differences between candidates and shatter the Funhouse Mirrors.
Posted by lorelei at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)August 15, 2008
The Obamanable (sic) Sleaze Monster
Greetings to my remaining (woefully) neglected readers! Is that ((crickets)) I hear? (heh)
Ok, I have emerged from semi-retirement (from blogging, not working for a living or even writing, since I am rewriting a one-act play I hope will be produced off-Broadway next year; wish me luck!) to comment on a newly released book on Barack Obama entitled Obama Nation by Jerome Corsi, the co-author of a similarly defamatory (and debunked) propaganda piece on John Kerry in 2004, as well as other crackpot treatises too silly to mention. Corsi’s new fish wrapping, which premiered #1 on the NY Times best-seller list this week, is ludicrously touted as:
Meticulously researched and documented, THE OBAMA NATION is the definitive source for information on why and how Barack Obama must be defeated—not by invective and general attacks, but by detailed arguments that are well-researched and fact-based.
One of many reasons this promotional blurb is funny is the premise that this birdcage lining isn’t simply rehashed “invective” and “general attacks” on Obama, mostly specious, many proven false, and all irrelevant to the salient question of who among the candidates for president (Obama, McCain, or various third- and fourth-party fringe nominees) would best lead this nation after eight years of economic, foreign-relations and Constitutional disaster.
What do we know about Jerome Corsi? I’m ashamed to admit he’s a native of Cleveland, a graduate of an esteemed University (Case Western) and a PhD from Harvard, his newest nemesis’s alma mater. Corsi was no slouch as a student, but his current “scholarship” leaves a lot to be desired. According to many unflattering reviews of his book, the “over 700 footnotes” that comprise his references are often links to dubious right-wing blogs, or to his own material, which I believe would be rejected by any good sixth grade teacher, never mind a publishing house like Simon & Schuster. But wait! His editor was none other than Cheney groupie-right-wingnut-pundit Mary Matalin. That ‘splains it.
Mr. Corsi is an admitted practicing Catholic (which is a Christian denomination; you know, followers of Jesus Christ, the guy who promoted "peace" and "love thy neighbor" and "turn the other cheek", the last time I checked) but referred to the late Pope John Paul II as “senile”, and bases most of his fear-mongering about Obama on the unsubstantiated allegations that Obama is closely tied with Islamic radicals because his natural father and step-father were nominal Muslims. The idea that religion (whether practiced or eschewed) should continue to be a pseudo-issue in this campaign is getting more and more ridiculous. After all, look what a so-called recovered-alcoholic born-again Christian has done to this country. I rest my case.
And speaking of recovered alcoholics, Mr. Corsi told Larry King (The Unthawed) that Obama’s statement that he hasn’t used drugs since he was 20 is unverifiable because “self-reporting, by people who have used drugs, as to when they stopped is inherently unreliable.”
So, using that logic, are we to believe that Dubya is still drinking? (The least of my concerns.) Or that the millions of Baby Boomers who stopped getting high when they starting investing their weed money into mutual funds are still closet dopers? Come on. Seriously! Either Corsi is incredibly ignorant about drugs, or he’s deliberately playing to the great unwashed masses of bigoted buffoons who wouldn’t vote for Obama in any case because he’s black, he’s “arrogant” (read: uppity), he’s “elitist”, or because he’s the boogey man Muslim about to turn our republic over to the islamofascists. (By the way, does that word make any sense? Do the coiners of such non-words even know the meanings?)
Interestingly (at least to me), Mr. Corsi was a frequent commenter on the forum, Free Republic in 2004. Remember we were introduced to the Freepers back during the Peterson case, when some of their typically vituperative members brought politics into my blog and later became Mutts? Ahh, yes. The good old days. I loved being attacked by Freepers like Jeanne (Valerie) Paredes (aka Just Amazed) when she warned me that she would be my “worst nightmare” while claiming the moral high ground in issues of childrearing, internet privacy and integrity. Yes, this is the same kook who sent the cops to my house when I revealed her identity on Usenet after one of the many people she offended online gave me the goods on her. But, I digress. This is simply a good example of the kind of nutcases who comprise Corsi’s constituency. Other frothing maniacs that come to mind are Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Glenn Beck – another “recovered” alcoholic who is probably still going on benders, if you believe in The World According to Corsi.
One can hope that thoughtful readers, voters and the literate among us will reject this wholesale nonsense and demand issue-based debate in our elections. Yes, one can hope. Meanwhile, I cannot compose a better fisk than the one Obama’s campaign has devised here:
Good thing I am not actually running for Vice President. It would be a full-time job pointing out the countless false accusations made against me by bigoted, misogynist, xenophobic, sanctimonious, mendacious hypocrites. Oh, wait…never mind.
Posted by lorelei at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)