Tomorrow on Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox, she and her guest Ray McGovern will discuss the war on Iran. Her program can be heard at 2:00 pm on Community Progressive radio and then after it airs it will be archived.
Cindy is a peace activist who's long been noted at this site (an advanced Google search for text only -- so as not to include her site which we link to on the side -- shows over 8,000 entries she's been noted in). She started Camp Casey when Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House. She's continued her anti-war activism since.
A variation of this statement pops up here every few days, "And in 2012, four women make up two US presidential tickets: Jill Stein has the Green Party's presidential nomination and her running mate is Cheri Honkala and Roseanne Barr has the nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party and her running mate is Cindy Sheehan."
A few e-mails have asked why we're not noting this or that candidate? There are many independent runs. If we were campaign central -- we're not -- we would note all the runs. We did that in 2008. I don't have that kind of time these days. For two weeks, a VA friend has been asking me to cover one of their reports that he feels got ignored. I keep telling him I'll work it in when I can. (I haven't read it yet. I don't know if I'll agree or disagree, like or not. He knows that and doesn't expect a slant or for me to shower praise if I want to criticize it, he just wants it noted.) If a candidate says something interesting about Iraq, we might find a way to include them time permitting.
Otherwise, I'm not really interested. (As already noted, I'm not planning to vote for president this year.) The only thing that changes that?
Two tickets made up of two women. Cindy would be covered regardless of anything else because we've long covered her. Roseanne's decision to pick Cindy means we needed to cover that ticket and I'd already stated some time ago that we'd be covering Jill's ticket.
I'm a feminist, that's no secret. If I don't cover women who run for office, especially anti-war women who run for office, why do I bother to type (or dictate, in the case of the snapshots)? What's the point?
I've said it before and I'll say it again, you have to have a lot of self-hatred if you're a feminist or a feminist website and you're noting the presidential race but you're refusing to cover the women in it.
Not only should feminists always be interested in third party and independent runs (due to the suffragette history as well as the historical lack of inclusion for women), when the candidates are women, they should cover them.
It's history. Ten, twenty, thirty years from now, people should be able to look back and find that, for example, Women's Media Center was at the forefront of Jill Stein's campaign. But that's not happening.
And that's disgusting.
Hillary, my opinion, should have gotten the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination.
She did not.
To date, no woman has been the presidential nominee of either of the United States' two major political parties.
Covering Jill and Roseanne's runs matters. It helps get across that women can run for the presidency. I myself saw nothing surprising about that. But the video for "Sexism Sells But We're Not Buying It" made clear that many -- including the awful Chris Matthews -- saw something bizarre in it. If you've forgotten the video, WMC produced in 2008, here it is.
It was kind of weak, the way WMC has sadly become. Goodness, Gloria, you promised so much in the 80s and 90s and now you're so weak it's pathetic. (Hint, go to Third tomorrow, I'm not in the damn mood, and the story will be there.) A far better mash up was done here:
But see, Keith Olbermann was popular and WMC couldn't call out Keithy. They had to put women's needs and women's interests second to what pigs on the left wanted. It's chicken s**t and it's pathetic.
The first video showed you where dead and decaying feminism was in 2008; the second showed the vibrant life of real, grassroots feminism.
And if WMC, even at their weakest, is saddened by the way Hillary was covered, it is encumbent upon them to set the standards now -- not when a woman's nominated by the Democrats finally -- for how to cover women running for president. And they do that -- if they would bother to -- by covering women who are making that run right now: Jill Stein and Roseanne Barr.
I don't want o hear Robin Morgan whining in 4 more years or 16 or whatever. Start covering women now. Set the standard now.
You're supposedly feminists. Why are you so afraid of covering third party and independent women? Roseanne and Jill are pro-choice. Strong women. Why the fear?
Because you might upset a few Democratic men? That really does seem to be what silences you over and over.
You're of no use to anyone. You help no one. You show up after the bloodbath and try to make it okay for women to vote for Barack. That's all you did in 2008. Hillary was on her own. You ignored the bulk of the sexism and refused to call out the leftist outlets that repeated it. Shame on you. Then you used the remaining time to ask -- no, to tell women that they had to vote for Barack. Stop telling women what to do.
Feminism is supposed to be about choices. Leaders who can't speak out suddenly thought they needed to be listened -- deserved to be? -- about who to vote for?
There's no excuse for feminists who cover the presidential race not to include Jill Stein and Roseanne in their coverage. These are two women who are trail blazers and their runs will have historical interest.. In addition, when the Keiths and the Chrises insist in the future that their focus on the neckline of some female presidential candidate is normal, WMC and Feminist Wire and others would be able to offer more than, "No, its not!" They'd be able to point to coverage of women who had run for president, coverage that focused on what the said, the positions they took, etc.
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!)
The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4488.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
i hate the war
the ballet
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