Who knew "woman" was a category like felon and that any "woman" was immediately suspect?
As we continue to see, Gov Sarah Palin, GOP vice presidential nominee, is attacked for who she is.
It's not like she has positions you can't question. She supports the illegal war.
But better to focus on the real 'crime,' that she is, of course, a "she."
Instead of dealing with her issues, sexist pigs (of both genders) think they can smear her.
Where there are piggies, there is Matthew Rotschild -- non-Democrat, non-believer . . . What does he stand for? Sexism. That's really all he has left to believe in and he grips it tightly at The Progressive.
Governor Sarah Palin closed the GOP convention last night. Rothschild decides "Palin can do long derision" is a headline. See, it's a slap at Sarah's performance and it's a slap at all women because, HA HA, women aren't supposed to be good at math.
That's the stereotype and what does a tired, flacid Matthew Rothschild have to offer but tired stereotypes? Strip him of those and . . . well he'd have nothing to offer.
"Palin piled on" is a thread popping up and it popped up last night. Palin didn't pile on. But it is amazing that so many see any woman doing the job of a vice presidential nominee to be threatening, isn't it?
Matty's threatened by strong women and, probably, by strength period.
That's why he could air non-stop sexism at Hillary including recommending The Weekly Standard. If it's a ha-ha on Hillary, yes, The Progressive and and did recommend the right-wing Weekly Standard.
Matthew believes he can drop principles and pick them back up later. No, like his hair floating in the shower drain, when they're gone, they're gone.
"Sneered" is what Sarah did. Or that's what Matty insists. And to really pile on, guess who he says she sneered like? You guessed it, Hillary.
No woman will be left standing if Matty has his way. Matt lies for his man crush Barack (you sort of picture Matthew having endless wet dreams night after night, don't you?) insisting "HAS TOO!" to questions of Barack's qualifications. (Barack has no qualifications. Keep fighting that losing battle, Rothschild.) He insists that "this line of attack raises the obvious question: What have you done, governor, that qualifies you to be vice president or president?" Uh, Pig Matt, I believe the "governor" in your question is also partly an answer.
It's amazing that he wants to defend Barack for president by going after Sarah's qualifications for vice president. Yes, Matthew is that stupid. He will gladly play the game the GOP wants played. He will smear and rip apart Sarah, insisting that this woman is not qualified when everyone watching from the outside will be thinking, "Uh, actually, she's more qualified than the guy at the top of the Democratic ticket." All Matthew has to offer is more sexism and more flacid writing.
"The women of The Nation," Katrina vanden Heuvel once intoned.
What about those sexist, worthless, Queen Bees? They're in a tizzy and it's time to send out the fembots! First up, or maybe she just always crowds her way to the front, Katty-van-van. Katrina writes endlessly and the only reason to read it is to laugh at the Immature School Girl who still thinks that by citing males over and over, she's got a paper teacher will love. Patrica J. Williams proves how deep into the gutter she can go with her first sentence. The woman has no ethics -- which should have been obvious by her going on KPFA early in 2007 and LYING that Barack voted against the illegal war (only to then attack a MidEastern woman who called in pointing out the obvious fact that Barack was not in the US Senate in 2002) if not before that in 2004 when she was inventing mythical young boys in France with whom she conversed about the state of the Kerry-Edwards campaign. Professor Patti's been useless because she's made herself that way. Then we turn to self-loathing lesbian Laura Flanders. Barack's got homophobes on stage in South Caroline and Laura choses to pen a column begging him to . . . break with torture. If you won't stand up for yourself, Laura, why should anyone else? In her post, Laura trots out Katherine Harris because what could be more pro-woman than that? It's not pro-woman. Neither's Laura.
And because those women have made repeatedly clear that The Nation is about spitting on women (tip-off: publishing 149 female bylines in 2007 to 491 males), they attract their 'base.' Which is how "leftofcenter" is able to comfortable post to Flanders' nonsense, "Palin is a smirking cheerleader with a background that prepares her more for a neighborhood back sale than a heartbeat from the POTUS." And Barack's background prepapers him for what, leftofcenter? "Guanabana" contributes this sexist comment, "Lady Sarah needs a nickname and I'm here to give it to her: The Luv Guv."
And if you're not getting how anti-woman The Nation is, just check out their poll. "What previous VP nominee will Sarah Palin most resemble this fall?" they ask.
Eagleton. More scandals from her past will be revealed, leading to an ugly resignation.
Quayle. Her inexperience will be a major drag on the ticket but won't prevent victory.
LBJ. Untapped party regulars will rally behind her, turning out in huge numbers for McCain.
You may be thinking, so what? There's a positive choice in there, she can be LBJ! (Does anyone other than Bill Moyers see LBJ as a positive?)
I pulled the second choice from the list so you could really absorb it. Here it is: "Ferraro. She will briefly inject energy into the campaign, but will not hold up under scrutiny."
That's a decription of Geraldine Ferraro? Who wrote that choice, Elizabeth Holtzman? Ferraro didn't "briefly inject energy," she was the only energy in the Mondale-Ferraro ticket. Tell it to the kiddies, Nation magazine, lie to them and know they'll never call you on your garbage because they don't know better.
Hillary would not have been the victim of so much sexism if people had called it out. When a woman who has been a mayor and a governor is running for the vice-presidency any woman who says "Palin's inexperienced" is an idiot and, yes, I read the papers today. That woman made herself an idiot today. I'm sorry that she did. But who the hell is she to declare Palin is "unqualified"? She needs to check herself.
This is how the attacks on Hillary started. If a governor isn't qualified, what woman is? That's what real feminists need to be asking themselves today. Before they go to town on Palin, they need to realize it's not Palin.
It wasn't Hillary.
It is about women.
Palin walks on the stage at a time when all the garbage about Hillary still hasn't been cleared off. You see the same men going after her and you see women even more eager to join in.
Guess what 'leaders' in the feminist movement, it's not about you. It wasn't about you because the bulk of you were too useless to stand up. Bill Moyers is chuckling at Hillary Clinton on Bill Moyers Journal, "moisty". And where are the feminist leaders? He wants to examine that moment, he says. Only instead of playing that moment in New Hampshire, he chooses to play Jesse Jackson Jr. sexist attack on Hillary. How were viewers at home supposed to determine what happened? Someone needs to ask Bill Moyers about that. And they need to ask the useless Dr. Kathy (Hall Jamieson) about it as well because she never objected to it. But what woman does?
What feminist 'leader' has called Bill Moyers out all damn year? Step up, ladies. Don't be so reluctant. Claim your prize, girls.
Oh, that's right. You didn't say a DAMN word. You made yourself useless. Over and over.
Oh, we can't call out Bill and we can't call out ___ or we can't call out him or him or him or . . .
How useless, how pathetic.
The feminist movement used to be about women and had leaders who understood that.
CounterSpin is FAIR's weekly half-hour program. How many times did it note sexism in the Democratic Party primary throughout 2008? Did you guess once? It was only once. For one damn sentence. And they didn't even name the CNN's gas bags participating in the discussion of whether or not Hillary could be considered a "bitch."
Now every damn week, CounterSpin found racism -- even when they had to invent it. But sexism? Never. They stayed silent. When loudly called out -- and, no, not from their advisory board, not from feminist 'leaders' -- they finally rushed in on May 23rd, as the primaries were ending, to declare "CNN viewers were treated to one pundit explanation that people might call Hillary Clinton a bitch because well isn't that just what some women are" -- and so began and ended CounterSpin's entire 'coverage' of the sexism in the 2008 primary.
When did a feminist 'leader' lodge a complaint? When did a feminist 'leader' complain? When did a feminist 'leader' insist, "Take my name off your advisory board"? The answer to all three questions is: Never.
The grassroots never fails feminism. The grassroots live it. It is their daily life. It's not something to pick up and drop in between cocktail parties. How did Katha Pollit put it when she finally decided to call out a little, tiny bit of the sexism aimed at Hillary? Oh, yeah: "I want to do my bit for Obama, so I vowed I would give up attacking Obama-supporting progressives for the duration of the presidential campaign." Well that's great Katha. Feminism is a faucet you turn on and off!
It doesn't work that way and 'leaders' (Katha's no leader) better grasp just how quickly the rage against the media can turn against themselves. The grassroots are damn well aware of what went down during the Democratic Party primary. And they're damn well aware of how many got passes and how those passes came from 'leaders' who made the decision not to call various people out. That's not your decision to make if you're attempting to represent the movement to the press.
And it is not your right to call any governor "unqualified" to be president. That crap doesn't just hurt Sarah Palin. It hurts Ruth Ann Minner, Jennifer Granholm, Janet Napolitano, Kathleen Sebelius, Kathleen Blanco, Christine Gregoire and countless other women who will become governors in the next years. It is not your right to make the playing field even less level for women in order to advance a men. It's not your right and it is not feminism.
Allison Stevens and Alison Bowen (Women's eNews) do something especially amazing considering all the garbage feminist 'leadership' is currently offering -- the two speak to Republican women. Republican Majority for Choice's Jennifer Blei Stockman calls Palin being McCain's running mate "a risky choice." Pro-choice Nancy Johnson (US House of Rep 1983 - 2007) calls the choice "refersshing." Republicans for Choice's Ann Stone declares, "We're happy about her. It shows the boys . . . that history will not end if a woman is in that office." And their article points out what 'leadership' won't, there are Republican feminists. It's an election year so apparently all those women can be tossed on a pyre by feminist 'leadership.' Lots of luck working with those women in the future when you need their help. And way to disrespect their choices. Hate to break it to the 'leaders' but while they might be able to convince young feminists otherwise, there was never a partisan litmus test for movement membership. Had there been, Republicans could have kept Democrats (and others) out of the feminist movement because Republican women were leaders early on. What was Margaret Chase Smith's political party? Republican. She was the first woman of a major party to run for president.
Not all, but some, of the leaders trashing Palin today elected not to have children. That is their choice. However, maybe that explains why they fail to acknowledge the power of last night. Maybe if they'd had children, they could have pictured themselves at the TV with their daughters and sons, pointing to Sarah Palin, explaining she is running for the vice presidency? If they had pictured that, they would have grasped how powerful the moment was. As Elaine observed last night, "Here's the reality feminist 'leaders' are ignoring: An eight-year-old girl just knows a woman got to do something. She doesn't know the woman's life story. Abortion? I'd be surprised if she had an opinion, let alone knew what anyone else thought." That is reality.
Tearing down Palin doesn't help any woman. Tearing down Palin doesn't help a woman who runs for office. Tearing down Palin, after the trashing Hillary already endured, may well discourage some young girls and women from running for office. Feminist 'leaders' need to grasp they don't own the movement. They need to grasp that the movement's first duty is and always has been to women. It's not the "man's movement." It's not the "masculinist movement." It's the feminist movement and it's past time 'leaders' indicated they grasped that.
No woman 'owes' Sarah Palin her vote. Some may feel she's the best choice and that is their right. Some will not. You can make a case for or against Sarah without resorting to sexism, without fostering sexism and without making the world a little more difficult for all women. The feminist movement's first concern is supposed to be women and there's been little indication that's the case in the Sarah 'coverage.'
This community is against the illegal war. There's not one member that's planning to vote for the McCain-Palin ticket. That's not the issue. The issue is that sexism isn't acceptable. That the same feminist 'leaders' who were calling for the destruction of an edition of The New Yorker now think they can use sexism to go after Sarah Palin is a sign of just how crazy things have gotten and how sad a candidate Barack Obama makes. Here's another reality, Barack's not promised to end the illegal war either.
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)
August 21st, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4145. Tonight? 4154. That's seven more and, yes, M-NF only released four death announcements (they let DoD 'make the announcements' for the others). Just Foreign Policy lists 1,252,595 as the number of Iraqis killed -- the same as last Thursday.
NOW on PBS has a web exclusive on the presidential race:
NOW on PBS Host David Brancaccio sits down with RedState's ErickErickson in a web-exclusive interview shown only at NOW Online. The two talk about Obama's bounce, Palin rumors, and whether or not political blogging really counts as journalism. I think you and your audiences will find it very intriguing.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
i hate the war
the ballet
sarah palin
pbs
now on pbs
allison stevens
alison bowen
like maria said paz
