As a bit of a follow up to the discussion on this post of the familial scandals confected or exploited about GOP Vice-Presidential nominee and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, here’s two excellent and thought provoking pieces. First, Feminist Philosophers asks why folks might be more interested in all this stuff than, well, actual issues:
Why is the front page of the NY Times full of Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy and New Orleans near miss, when the second major political convention is about to start and there are extremely important issues facing the United States about health care, clean energy, poverty and others?
She points to the importance of citizens – and by implication bloggers – trying to refocus debate on the issues, and on the necessity of a critical education in cultivating habits of mind which place the emphasis where it should be.
Secondly, the uniformly fantabulous Rebecca Traister at Salon writes:
How we got from the dispiriting political and ideological record of Sarah Palin — that she is adamantly pro-life and anti-gay marriage, that she is a lifetime member of the NRA, that she has no foreign policy experience and supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in schools — to the uterine activity of her family, makes perfect, human sense: Who wants to talk about boring policy when we can talk about teens and sex and pregnancy?
Traister is distressed that:
this election cycle could turn from one that was electrifying and energizing for women into one that situates their political prospects firmly back in the feminized territory of sex scandals, babies and mothering.
I’d strongly advocate following both links and reading them in their entirety.
I’d add to all this a third point I’ve been making again and again – the obsessive focus on the personalities of the candidates (and it sure as hell ain’t just about a celebrity cult of Obama – McCain’s whole schtick is all about himself and his personal qualities) is one of the most telling signs that the American political system is badly broken. And so is its civic democracy to the degree that people who are active participants in the “process” think that the politics of gotcha and charge and counter-charge is the way to go. It might be the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but it sure ain’t the way to bring about “change we can believe in”.
I’m still struck by Naomi Wolf’s remarks, which I cited in a previous post:
Of course the real fault is not Obama’s, but ours. We have forgotten the kind of risk and work it takes to build transformative mass movements, and so settle for iconography instead.
And it’s not just the KosBots who are at fault here. I’m increasingly tempted, despite perhaps being one of the few Australian bloggers who actually has a vote in November’s election, to just ignore all the noise emanating from the “netroots”. The hyper-partisanship and general horse-race point scoring all too characteristic of the American political system just finds its mirror in most of the so-called “left wing” blogosphere. There are some honourable exceptions, particularly among some bloggers of colour and/or feminist bloggers, but on the whole – for anyone actually concerned with social justice for the great majority of Americans who are daily damaged by its sovereign autocracy – it’s almost too dispiriting to read about.
I’d just say the main argument against her is that electing fundie Christian Governors from petrostates to federal executive office has not really worked out that well for the US lately.
“the obsessive focus on the personalities of the candidates (and it sure as hell ain’t just about a celebrity cult of Obama – McCain’s whole schtick is all about himself and his personal qualities) is one of the most telling signs that the American political system is badly broken.”
Indeed. Heh, etbloodycetra. Despite the best attempts of some MSM pundits here, Australia still seems to avoid going too much down this path. So far. Not least because both Rudd and Howard had fuck all interesting personalities to analyse anyway.
AFAICR, the most heated moment during the 2007 Aus election debates was a very bloglike squabble over interpreting OECD figures. And that’s how I like my local pollies – shining on about their management credentials not waxing on about values and culture shit. Which now mainly seems to be the preserve of superrightwingers and not their bete noires.
This is nothing new to American politics. Imagine the pleas to remain focused on the issues from America’s left had Edwards won the Democratic party nomination. What about Larry Craig, Cheny’s daughter, Clinton/Lewinsky, NY Governor Spitzer, Gary Hart and the rumours of Kennedy?
Are you surprised? With American, profit driven, infotainment style MSM calling the shots on what is or is not reported? As with everything else, sex sells. If you want issues, go to NPR or PBS. I expect their coverage of the fluffy BS will be minimal if any.
Yeah, it’s broken alright. Calls to focus on the issues are sadly just part of the normal rhetoric by those who get caught holding the short end of the stogie.
Ironically to let Palin off easy because she is a woman, working mother, etc. – would not only be bad for the MSM’s financial bottom line, but arguably sexist.
NABAKOV – What about Rudd’s inebriated trip to the topless/strip bar?
Kim,
I suggest George Lakoff is a good reference for understanding the positioning and electoral strategy of the Palin nomination.
Bottom line – you’ve got to be in it, to win it.
Ed, The table dancer bit only served to underline what a boring square Rudd is.
A male of his age saying he has been drunk only twice in his life, and he marked the occassion by phoning his wife the following morning to tell her all about it?
This is most suspicious behaviour. If he has any mates, you can bet they ain’t regular types who could fit in anywhere.
This is why I so heart Tom Tomorrow.
Pure gold, Helen.
If there were more concentration on the issues rather than on personality and iconography, the Rovian “Messiah” stuff about Obama wouldn’t work nearly so well either – superficially it appears to be just a dig at overly enthusiastic Obama supporters but it’s also a dog-whistle for a sizeable minority of conservative evangelicals who are worried that Obama is literally the AntiChrist of end-of-days biblical prophecy. More at Making Light and at Orcinus.
Apparently some of these fundegelicals believe that the Timothy LaHaye Left Behind books are prophetic in themselves, so that any leader who speaks of Peace as a primary goal is viewed as in reality wanting to enslave and devastate humanity. Nice.
I’m curious:
Did the school Palin’s daughter got to offer contraception education or did it follow the right nutter line of preaching abstinence?
If the school preached abstinence, was this because of state policies supported by Palin?
Faced with reality, does Palin still object to children being taught?
I’m not. Please, dear ecumenical omnipotent omniscient interventionist God, make this go away.
Palin will not go away any time soon, and the Dems just have to deal with her story, confront the issues, and make hay. Dirty politics, my fat aunt.
After all, if the neocons get back into power, the Supreme Court will be fixed for the next decade and american women’s rights will be stripped to the bone, and the rest of us may well follow them back into the dark ages. This is serious.
Too many Dem women are burying their heads in the sand on this, playing nice, on the intertubes anyway. That’s exactly what the men who run the show want, and expected.
Watching american television vox pops just after the news broke about the teenage daughter’s pregnancy, I was impressed by the woman who opined that Palin should think twice about running because she had so many real and tragic problems at home – a disabled baby and a pregnant teen daughter. Top argument.
Progressive women should not avoid discussing Palin’s “female” problems, and should not hesitate to make political mileage out of it all, if they really want to win the election, and not allow this utterly cynical selection to triumph in the end.
And I definitely don’t want a fundie airhead a heartbeat away from the trigger.
The fundamentalist “Family Values” line is there for the taking (and the parodying). Why is Palin not staying at home, at this critical time in her family’s life, to take care of her needy and deserving children? She can run again later (ha), when her family problesm have been taken care of and her personal circumstances are more stable.
That’s what real women do in the real world, all the time – adjust to disappointment, postpone, muster resources, and come back stronger. See Hilary.
If progressive women bang this “family values” drum hard enough, the MSM talking heads will explode, and the neocons will be exposed for the disgusting ratbags they are.
Yes I know, I’m dreaming.
“And I definitely don’t want a fundie airhead a heartbeat away from the trigger.”
Which is of course the problem. Of the 4 VP & P candidates, the other 3 are far bigger dickheads than she.
Well said grace.
In this particular version of ‘the ends justify the means’, the ends are horrendous to contemplate if the Republicans remain in power.
One of the amusing things about watching her appearance to accept the V-P nod (shown on The Daily Show) was her invoking the name of Hillary Clinton (as per the blatant rationale for her selection). The Republican crowd immediately starting reflex booing the mention of the H-word for a few seconds before they collectively realised that the whole point was trying to swing alienated pro-Hillary female voters to the McCain camp. Guess when you’ve spent a decade or more engaging in vile sexist slagging off of Hillary Clinton it’s hard to put it out of the mind in a single moment.
And in news just in (more or less).
Grace, Palin is a member of “Feminists for Life”. There are a lot of evangelical voters who don’t think “a woman should always be in the home” and for that matter most of the abstinence movement mob recognise that sometimes temptation… etc. She’s likely to get kudos for this from those voters. You’re working with a false stereotype of how they think, and that’s a problem for progressives and Democrats as well. Anyone who does think like that is going to be so far to the right that they’re never going to vote for Obama in a pink fit, and so anti-Obama that it won’t stop them coming to the polls.
As Liam was saying on the other thread, where are the voters who would switch to the Democratic column over this? And then there’s the backlash against politicising this stuff in the first place.
To put it bluntly, not only is this sort of thing the wrong way to go ethically, it’s also going to be completely ineffectual, if not counter-productive.
See also Amanda on the other thread:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/08/30/obligatory-obama-acclamation-mccain-veep-selection-thread/#comment-501641
Kim, absolutely. I’m not following the logic of the people who think that vile slagging of Palin about her reproductive life (and her reproductive life’s reproductive life) will ensure that the Republicans lose the election. If we’re going to vilely slag Palin, could we please do it because she is a corrupt, confused, animal-slaughtering fundie airhead gun nut?
There’s a clear gender agenda to this debate (about alpha-male behaviour, big swinging dicks and so forth), but I’m so not going there.
That was Amanda’s question, not mine, K. To be pedantic.
How unlike you, Liamista!
Nor am I PC.
“There’s a clear gender agenda to this debate (about alpha-male behaviour, big swinging dicks and so forth), but I’m so not going there.”
Well you just have, and it’s complete and utter bullshit as far as I’m concerned.
It’s about ensuring that everything possible is done to ensure that the Republicans are not re elected. If a candidate is parading her views on sex education. womens’ reproductive systems, and abortion as a key to her electoral appeal then she is fair game. Irrespective. of. her. sex.
adrian, see #15.
As a bit of a meta comment, and returning to what I said in the post, what we should be aiming for is a Democratic victory that actually does bring about something progressive. You don’t shift the agenda of politics by focusing on this shit. Which as I’ve emphasised, and as others have, doesn’t make any bloody sense strategically anyway, if you’re in ‘whatever it takes’ mode.
The problem for me is that US elections seem to be so much about a bogus parading of ‘values’ that it immediately opens up debates about candidates’ personal lives. Pretty it ain’t. Inevitable it is.
But I think Kim is right. The fundies will just see Palin as doing the right thing. She didn’t abort her foetus and her daughter is marrying the father of her child. In that world it’s entirely consistent. And it’s a nightmare.
The Dems are going to have to be so careful about how they play this.
I was so pleased when the Libs tried it on with Rudd last year and everyone just shrugged.
And you don’t shift the agenda of politics by losing. Something the Democratics are far too experienced at.
“If we’re going to vilely slag Palin, could we please do it because she is a corrupt, confused, animal-slaughtering fundie airhead gun nut?”
But if she’s anti-choice and anti contraception, shouldn’t we go after that as well? After all, the fundies aren’t going to see anything wrong with her cheerful, family-friendly moose slaughtering either. Which ever way you go, you lose.
See #15, adrian.
Sheesh, make that Democrats…
Exactly, Fine. She’s consistent. The point behind “values” attacks is to highlight a candidate or official’s hypocrisy, not the behaviour per se.
Whatever else she is in the context of reproductive rights, Palin is not a hypocrite.
“Grace, Palin is a member of “Feminists for Life”. There are a lot of evangelical voters who don’t think “a woman should always be in the home” and for that matter most of the abstinence movement mob recognise that sometimes temptation… etc.”
Not quite what I was saying Kim. Of course fundie women work and have children, and it is unsurprising that fundies have accommodated that fact. My point was that, through force of current circumstances in an imperfect world, progressive and fundie women all have to make compromises – including “time out” from the workplace for childbirth, parent-caring, and other family problems that just won’t be put on the backburner.
And I am not talking about hoping and praying for voter-switching, I am talking about confronting and demolishing the “family values” hypocrisy, by playing in league with all women, fundie or progressive, who understand the realities of being a woman with children.
I am sick of men running these debates because women are too afraid to argue with each other. As one of Huffpo’s contributors said yesterday, the men should just shut up, and we should speak out, its our business after all.
Backlash? Feminists, or progressive women whatever, have been whipped from pillar to post for the last thirty years. When exactly do we get to fight back?
I reckon this election is more than anything about the future of women in western democracies, now that Palin is in the mix, and progressive women should now take up the cudgels and win. This is our moment.
And PC, I am not talking about “vile slagging”, rather arguing strongly and sternly about the real issues that confront all working women, Palin included.
What about her husband? Even if she is VP he is still around.
But the pregnancy was always going to be an issue – as others have mentioned Palin is against teaching sex education in school and instead supports abstinence only education. Perhaps this is an example of how well the latter really works in practice. And as was demonstrated in the interviews of republicans, it also touches on the issue of abortion and marriage.
Grace, well, thanks for the clarification, but I’m left a bit unclear about what you’re actually suggesting – that Palin is at fault somehow for not taking “time out”? How does suggesting that do anything to bolster a progressive argument?
In the interests of balance perhaps it should be suggested that Mr Obama is not the father of one of his children, and of course, speculation should be encouraged about the sexual activities of his eldest daughter.
“If we’re going to vilely slag Palin, could we please do it because she is a corrupt, confused, animal-slaughtering fundie airhead gun nut?”
More than happy and have done including the… “fundie”.
So, Palin agrees not give contraceptive advice to her own daughter and presumably other daughters all around the world, if given the power, for wacky religious reasons, and it is supposedly a private family matter?
Purlease.
Absolutely. But go after it because it’s crap qua crap, not on the basis of her own personal life, and certainly not at the expense of a 17-year-old kid.
Who said anything about her sex? I was talking about the gendered behaviour of boots-and-all, anything-it-takes commentators (behaviour not necessarily indicative of their sex), not the sex of the would-be VP.
Rather than attacking her all-american values, which she seems to have in spades (shoots moose, raises kids, fires guns etc etc) she should be attacked for hypocrisy, incompetence, unsuitability for the VP office, and bad policies.
Hypocrisy: Nearest thing to it at this stage is “troopergate”, which may or may not amount to much.
Incompetence: Perhaps something in the way she operated as mayor. Stand by for developments, as her record there will be going under the microscope as I type (likewise for all aspects of troopergate)
Unsuitability for VP: Hahahaha… like THAT is possible. VP just smiles & glad-hands B-level international dignitaries and has little chance to put their oar in anyway.
Bad policies: Some scope here, depending how much she diverges from the Republican party line, and how much she seems to want to push any personal barrows.
Everybody: would this be a legitimate subject to bring up? Palin slashed funding for teen moms.[*] It’s a policy decision, so it sounds fair enough to me.
[By 22% - not by 100%. But stating "slashed" without providing figures sounds more dramatic.]
Sorry, PC I can see that I have misinterpreted your comment.
To the wider point, though as others have said, I cannot see how this wouldn’t be an issue given her public statements about sex, abortion and reproduction.
“her daughter is marrying the father of her child”
Is it the same father for both of her children?
On the vote implications, those who say that no voters will be attracted to the Democrats are missing the point, even if they are right. If enough Republicans decide not to vote at all, that would be very important, maybe decisive.
Read my comment at #15 again!
(It sounds fair enough to bring up, I should say.)
Kim, as I have said on the other thread, you and others are discounting the sense of crisis that this engenders arount the ticket, and the fact that it is sending the Republicans off message. If it continues I have no doubt that it will have an affect on the polls and potentially the election. It has the potential to de-rail the whole campaign.
And yes I have read post #15! Three times!!
As I’ve said, there is no dissonance between Palin’s political beliefs and her behaviour. Smearing campaigns based on her family—epitomised by Spiros’s purient question about the number of fathers—are internally incoherent. What, to a prospective Republican voter, is bad about anything so far mentioned?
You might as well “smear” George Bush for being an alcoholic in recovery, or Cheney for being a old white dude fond of guns and wars. That’s why they got elected.
Kim, as a political strategy progressive women should argue that Palin is putting the health and welfare of a disabled child and a pregnant teen well behind her own political ambitions. There is time for her ambition later.
What woman, fundie or progressive, would not understand this argument from their own life experiences?
It is not counter-progressive, or counter-fundie, to argue that mothers have a higher calling than politics when real trouble strikes in the home.
And it does provide a neat twist that would drive the anti-feminist MSM into slavering confusion. Feminists arguing that a woman should stay home? Well yes, in some circumstances, and Palin’s circumstances are particularly dire.
Meta-feminism anyone?
And perhaps, women voters might find their own gendered constituency is more compelling (re the legislative and judicial programs on offer) than the peculiarly unnatural dick-swinging political “narratives” we are currently forced to choose between.
Was talking to Spiros, adrian!
So a sense of crisis around the ticket is fine if spreading sleazy rumours focusing on the reproductive choices of the candidate is the way to engineer it? Isn’t there enough in Palin’s record and positions – and in her public not private acts – to question the validity of the choice?
The current firestorm – media generated – whereby this is “another Thomas Eagleton” and McCain is being urged to dump her is just going to create sympathy for Palin and let McCain stand up to the meejah and the political class – almost universally despised in the States. And look like a TOUGH MANLY PRESIDENTIAL MAN.
I return to the point I made in the thread – the Democrats are more than capable of winning based on the feckin’ issues! Playing the game on the “values” turf will actually be to Obama’s disavantage, because it gives McCain (and Palin) a huge free pass on their actual politics, while all this dumb-arsed nonsense swirls around.
“Kim, as a political strategy progressive women should argue that Palin is putting the health and welfare of a disabled child and a pregnant teen well behind her own political ambitions. There is time for her ambition later.”
Christ, I wouldn’t argue this in a million years. Doesn’t she have a husband? Doesn’t she have a strong infrastructure to support her? Her teenage daughter is getting married, which sound dreadful to me, but, hey, it’s their life.
“And it’s not just the KosBots who are at fault here. I’m increasingly tempted, despite perhaps being one of the few Australian bloggers who actually has a vote in November’s election, to just ignore all the noise emanating from the “netroots”. The hyper-partisanship and general horse-race point scoring all too characteristic of the American political system just finds its mirror in most of the so-called “left wing” blogosphere.”
The problem with this thesis is it simply wasnt the Kossacks who did this.
It was Andrew Sullivan.
The diary you are referencing is one of many, many occasional contributors to dKos – in fact, it was his first diary (no, really. See this http://bloggerjohn.dailykos.com/ ). But the screaming guy with the megaphone was Andrew Sullivan, a conservative blogger for the Atlantic Monthly.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/
I specifically refer you to his post of 01 Sep 2008 12:42 pm
“Now they’ve cleared the air on this – and good for them – what harm would it do to release the medical records showing that Sarah Palin delivered Trig on April 18 in Wasilla? This is not hard: there must be an obstetrician, medical records, and data that can easily refute this rumor. It is not out of the ordinary either: candidates routinely issue medical records. So let’s have them. And then we can move on.”
Finally, this is what Mr Sullivan has to say today about his own political opinions.
“The debate over whether the Republican party is now unfit for public office at a national level is now resolved. The longer, deeper explaination for this is in my book. One day, we will revive real conservatism. Right now, we have to ensure that this insane circus masquerading as a serious political party is defeated.”
So, if you want truth not to matter in a hyper-partisan cause, then, sure, blame Kos and the NetRoots.
But it werent them who done this.
This story was part of the uncivil war among the American Right.
Ian Whitchurch
Well, I’m not going to be one of them, grace. It seems a very convoluted argument to me and hardly a viable political one, or a progressive one, and I return to the fact that this is switching the focus to personal choices – away from both the issues and from Palin’s public record.
Well, well.
“Feminists arguing that a woman should stay home?”
Not forever Kim…
Grace, I don’t see that you can argue for women to have choices and simultaneously publicly judge Sarah Palin’s choices.
There are always going to be religious conservatives in the US, and lots of them unfortunately, but the fact that people like Palin and Huckabee are increasingly their public face is progress from the hate-filled culture warriors of the past.
Well, here’s the thing. Lots of Americans are evangelicals. That is not equivalent to being a “fundie”. It’s possible for Democrats to appeal to them on issues such as climate change (there’s a very big “environmental stewardship” movement among some evangelical churches) and justice issues – particularly because a lot are low income whites. A large majority of African-American voters are evangelicals, and they don’t vote on “values” issues.
The Democrats just shouldn’t be playing on this turf in this way.
Most of the negative comments about Hillary Clinton during the primaries were about her personality, very few about policy. Neither Hillary or Barack are policy-lite though there is little discussion in the US media and blogosphere about issues such as responses to climate change or the underlying problems of the economy. Hard to say whether it’s lack of interest which I doubt, or reluctance to tackle the complexities involved. Images such as the one doing the rounds today of Palin in a bikini, toting a rifle, are much easier to present. As was Paris Hilton’s video response to the Republican ad.
Photoshopped.
Administrative question: aren’t photographs of women with guns supposed to go here?
Kim’s right about the US being Evangelical, and that the Evangelical base are steadily shifting away from the Republicans.
If you don’t know who Jim Wallis is, chances are you won’t understand what is happening amongst this highly statistically significant demographic.
I side with Kim. There is nothing so hypocritical as one who argues that women should have choices, then arguing that a woman should not have a choice.
The full term gestation date of Bristol Palin’s current pregnancy may reveal that she was already a month or so pregnant when baby Trig hit the ground. This will be after the election of course, but will still make a fark-head of all who claim that Trig is Bristol’s child. (Son, not daughter, as some of the more fact-check challenged have alleged).
I couldn’t care less who is Trig’s mother. But to believe he is Bristol’s & not Sarah’s I am going to want to see more than foamy-mouthed “it must be so!” from a demographic who are so enamoured with Barack Obama that they have a brown-tongue.
Which brings us to those same brown-tongued disciples of Obama. From the lather they have got themselves into over the choice of Sarah Palin it seems that the choice was a shrewd one by the Republican Party, and the election will be decided on much more than just policy.
Kim, depends on which “choices” you mean.
The choice to work or not to work while raising children is available to many women these days, and that’s fine, but there is no real choice for mothers when it comes to a sick kid.
Most working mothers with sick children want to be at home or at the hospital for the duration, and they become sick with worry themselves if they are not. Call it a biological imperative if you will. I don’t know many women who won’t drop everything, grab their handbag and rush out the door when the school sick-bay calls, bugger the office and all who work in it. Next day, or next week, they come back to work and pick up where they left off…or not.
In Palin’s case, I grant you that she has a husband (although the pregnant daughter is doing all the baby-holding in the photos I have seen), and she is presumably wealthy enough to afford home help and specialist care. Lucky her.
Even so, dumping a newly-born disabled baby in the care of her husband, three other kids, and a pregnant and troubled teenager while criss-crossing the country campaigning for high office is still a bit rich, and worth talking about if only because of the “character issues” it exposes. What sort of mother is she really? Does this matter? I think it does.
If its OK to criticise McCain’s character for dumping his sick wife to marry a rich floozy, and I have not seen many left commentators step back from this line, then why is Palin off limits?
A week ago, Palin was not even on the radar, and this week she has suddenly dropped everything to run for office. Is this the right choice given her circumstances? I don’t think so. She is 44 years old, and there will be other opportunities down the track.
Yes, I am questioning the choice Palin has made as a mother (not just as a woman), and so should american women voters. After all, family values are very big in lalaland.
Anyway, its possible that Palin will go the way of Harriet Miers and get the flick simply because she is just too embarassing, and what’s the betting the reason will be: to spend more time with my family. That would be funny.
The baby is not ill, Grace.
He has Down’s Syndrome.
Thanks Another Kim. I was analogising on the basis that Down’s Syndrome babies need special care…
I think his dad’s taking care of him.
…and similarly with the pregnant teen daughter…
A young woman about to start her own family.
As a resident of a blue state, I have to say that Kim has the dynamics of the whole situation pretty well described.
The prevailing attitude is one of sympathy for Palin and her family.
She hasn’t even spoken there yet, but is the focus of the convention already.
But there’s no reason that her husband couldn’t give just as good care as she could (similarly with her daughter). And I think its being exceedingly optimistic to say that as good an opportunity as running for VP will come up in the future.
As for McCain & Palin being “four more years of the same”…the lady is as kooky as Bush & just as determined to use God as a motivational tool to mobilise troops…including her own son:
Palin’s Church May Have Shaped Controversial Worldview
By Nico Pitney and Sam Stein
02/09/08 “Huffington Post” — – Three months before she was thrust into the national political spotlight, Gov. Sarah Palin was asked to handle a much smaller task: addressing the graduating class of commission students at her one-time church, Wasilla Assembly of God.
Her speech in June provides as much insight into her policy leanings as anything uncovered since she was asked to be John McCain’s running mate.
Speaking before the Pentecostal church, Palin painted the current war in Iraq as a messianic affair in which the United States could act out the will of the Lord.
“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God,” she exhorted the congregants. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”
Religion, however, was not strictly a thread in Palin’s foreign policy. It was part of her energy proposals as well. Just prior to discussing Iraq, Alaska’s governor asked the audience to pray for another matter — a $30 billion national gas pipeline project that she wanted built in the state. “I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that,” she said.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20672.htm
The profiteering loops of the CROSS are potentially gonna take us all over the edge if voters continue to give them the driver’s seat.
I can imagine Palin playin’ BTO’s ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’.
N’
“But there’s no reason that her husband couldn’t give just as good care as she could (similarly with her daughter).”
Of course there isn’t Chris (ado), but my question is, why is this necessary right now, when the baby is so very young and so very vulnerable? And sorry about this, but I really do question whether any father, however loving, can do for a teenage pregnant daughter what a present and available mother can do, when the time comes.
Incidentally, I have no problem with Palin being a working mother and Alaskan Governor, because she is on the spot and presumably at home most nights with her large and troubled family, but I do think its worth questioning whether now is the right time for her to be flying across the country for the next three months campaigning.
that blunts Lakoff’s analysis somewhat..
“Watching american television vox pops just after the news broke about the teenage daughter’s pregnancy, I was impressed by the woman who opined that Palin should think twice about running because she had so many real and tragic problems at home – a disabled baby and a pregnant teen daughter. Top argument.”
I assumed that was sarcasm, until I read Grace’s other comments and my head nearly exploded.
Progressive women should tell another woman she shouldn’t run for politics because her daughter is pregnant and she has a baby with Down’s? WTF?
Should we also tell men with Down’s syndrome babies and teenage daughters up the duff that their place is in the home, and they’re disqualified from public office, at least “for a time”?
I must have missed the whole point of feminism – I thought it was about individual women being able to make the choices that are right for them.
Oh, and, you know, women not being disqualified from public office because they have TEH UTERUS.
Which brings us to those same brown-tongued disciples of Obama. From the lather they have got themselves into over the choice of Sarah Palin it seems that the choice was a shrewd one by the Republican Party, and the election will be decided on much more than just policy.
It’s not just the Kossacks who are in a lather over the selection. From the cover of one of the “Woman’s” magazines in the states: Babies, Lies and Scandal. This story isn’t just for political junkies anymore. We’re in Who Weekly territory, although New Idea may be a better comparison.
Shrewd? Ya must be having a lend.
Once an apocryphal notion embeds itself in lefty heads it won’t let go. August 2006.
There’s a difference between voting against condom handouts to school children and being against sex education, or for that matter being against abortion and being anti-contraception.
It’s quite logically consistent to promote abstinence AND contraception AND sex-education. None of these things are mutually exclusive. It’s also quite possible to do all three and still oppose abortion. You do also realise that contraception is specifically a Catholic hang-up, not a Christian one?
Perhaps I should draw a Venn diagram?
Rebekka, I’m with you. We’re always being told that the main reason that men don’t stay home with the kids is the whole breadwinner thing.
I’d be awfully surprised if Sarah Palin’s salary as governor isn’t significantly higher than the income her husband makes as a commercial fisherman/oil contractor. This family is making exactly the same decision that most other families do – the partner that earns the most money keeps on working, and the other partner shoulders the bulk of the child-care.
Also, she has an obligation after being elected to public office to turn up and do the job, it’s not the same as any other job – she asked people to trust her when they voted for her that she would do the job. There’s nothing wrong with her living up to that promise.
There are so many aspects of her public policy that are flakey and ripe for highlighting and criticism – her family’s reproductive choices should not be front and center, because once again it’s making a woman’s value be all about her uterus and what issues from it. Can we please look beyond a fertile woman’s uterus for once?
I sure hope, for poor Bristol’s sake (sob), that she wants to keep the incipient child, and that she’s not being forced into it by her mother for the sake of her political career.
“I sure hope, for poor Bristol’s sake (sob), that she wants to keep the incipient child, and that she’s not being forced into it by her mother for the sake of her political career.”
So that’s the audacity of hope.
Down & Out @ #69.
Yes, the word I used was “shrewd”. From the lather the extremes of the pro-Obama camp are working themselves into (clearly they have been jarred out of “obamah-messiah complacency and are in somewhat of a panic), from the massive hard-on of the conservatives (clearly they feel they now have a fighting chance of at least a close run race), and the media interest in her which (as you point out) goes way beyond news & current affairs reporting, yes, it would seem Sarah Palin was a shrewd choice for the Republican Party.
“Oh, and, you know, women not being disqualified from public office because they have TEH UTERUS.”
I thought Grace was being sarcastic, or Machiavellian, or something. The same argument would never be used for a man running for VP. Good grief!
Grace, your argument only holds up if you think the man can never be the primary caregiver.
So did I, Rebekka (and Fine).
Surely you haven’t failed to notice the distinction between the Catholic teachings against contraception as a frustration of God’s plan for fruitful wombs, and the peculiarly Protestant teaching (on the extreme wing, I grant you that) that hormonal contraception is just another form of abortion aka murder? And that barrier methods are all (literally) full of holes and will only lead to pregnancy anyway plus STDs?
The theology behind the two attitudes is quite distinct. There are PLENTY of evangelical Protestants in the USA who are against contraception. It’s not Catholic pharmacists, generally, who are refusing to fill prescriptions for hormonal contraceptives.
steve at the pub: I’m not sure I’d call it panic. More like hyenas circling a wounded animal. Some might call it unedifying, but that’s lokoing at things from an Australian perspective.
And Kim: US elections aren’t won on the issues. If they were, Palin – a patently unqualified candidate – would not have been selected, even as a last resort.
Please, conservatives disowned Sullivan years ago. You can have him.
Yeah, and bare-foot while she’s at it!
“Some might call it unedifying”
Not me. I call it sport, like fox hunting, only better.
Tally ho.
Another indictment of the so-called liberal blogosphere from The Pinocchio Theory:
http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=663
CraigMc,
Nope, Sullivan says he’s a conservative, acts like a conservative, holds conservative positions on just about everything … and the only thing that makes him a “not-conservative” is realising GWB and the Republican Party have driven America off a cliff.
You can argue this makes him a ‘thinking’ conservative or a ‘ethical’ conservative or a conservative-in-exile … but he’s still on the Right.
Steve at the Pub,
*giggle* If you think this is a shrewd pick, then you’re kidding yourself.
McCain just destroyed two things : the Experience argument against Obama, and his core support, which is the US Media.
Well we know she has experience reading from a teleprompter which is 60% if the job anyway.
Well if saying you’re something is all it takes, I’m a billionaire stud-muffin with a beer factory and an Aston-Martin dealership.
Sullivan acts like a liberal, holds liberal positions on just about everything, and the only thing that makes him a conservative is a “small-government” philosophy.
Says a supporter of the even (much) less qualified candidate. As someone else has pointed out Obama would have better luck campaigning against Bristol Palin on the experience issue.
Oh dear, I have upset a few of you haven’t I?
“Progressive women should tell another woman she shouldn’t run for politics because her daughter is pregnant and she has a baby with Down’s? WTF?”
Not quite that simple Rebekka. Its all in the timing. Palin’s daughter is still at school and is five months pregnant to a boy who does not appear to care much about her. As I understand it, the baby is only a few months old and needs special care. There are three other children at school.
That’s quite a family load right now, and for the next few months in particular, at least until the daughter gets through childbirth and the first few weeks, and the baby is settled and the family can cope with any special needs.
Is this really the right time for Palin? I don’t think so. And what on earth is anti-progressive about saying so? The campaign will run full pelt for the next three months, and I doubt Palin will have much time for anyone other than her campaign team. Not a good look for a family values candidate…
And by the way, I have not noticed progressive women winning many battles in the USA in the past few decades. Wonder why?
These people don’t have to vote. There is two ways to win, attract votes or get a demographic on the other side to stay home. The democrats just need the religious right to stay home.
It is about using the Republicans own odious prejudices and presuppositions against the Republicans. Considering the damage they have done to humanity I actually gets some perverse pleasure from seeing it happen.
It is similar to the congress elections when the good gay bashing Rev.Ted Haggard had that little problem with the male prostitute outing him. It gutted the religious rights anti democratic campaign.
They deserve to be caught in the web they weave.
21 adrian
This sounds like despicable ends-justifies-means logic adrian.
Do you really mean it?
Dunno, Grace, why don’t you tell us? What’s your point? That uppity progressive women get smacked down and outvoted by their conservative and/or male betters? We been knowin’ that already. You seem to be arguing that one should tailor one’s beliefs to fit one’s desire for power; is that what you’re arguing?
(NB — I have no kids so I don’t have a dog in this race, if I may put it like that, but I agree that in an ideal world it would be great if a PARENT, not necessarily a MOTHER but a PARENT, could stay home with small people until they become less small. Being pro-attachment is not the same as being anti-feminist.)
CraigMc,
While you are of course free to make stuff up on the Internet, I’d be interested in, like *evidence* that he takes liberal positions – unless of course, a concern for the Rule of Law and the US Constitution is no longer conservative.
Lets take him arguing health care, for example
“Anyway, I think his response fails to address my original point, which was that, no matter what, some entity needs to record and make available various health care metrics in order to make decisions about care. But there’s no guarantee—and in fact, I’d argue that there’s actually less of a guarantee—that the government is or will be equipped or willing to reliably do so. ” http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/02/health-care-met.html
Or maybe union organising
“Under the proposed bill, if the union gets a majority of workers to sign the cards, then that’s it; the union becomes their sole representative to management and they’re forced to pay dues. This opens the door to union organizers pressuring workers to sign up, while taking away their right to say “no” in a secret ballot.”
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/03/obama-and-union.html
Guys a conservative. OK, he taken the – IMO sensible and correct – position that the current US Republican Party is a corrupt and useless impediment to conservatism, but he is a conservative.
Finally, on the matter of Barry’s experience, I guess that building a political machine from scratch that defeated the Clintons doesnt count as experience. Ah well. Enjoy the latest tracking poll results.
the Democrats are more than capable of winning based on the feckin’ issues!
…if only they had a credible candidate, rather than America’s Mark Latham.
But congratulations Kim on progressing a generally sensible line.
Mark @ 82: I’ve been travelling the liberal blogs, and I think the misogyny argument is crap. Misogyny is the reason she was picked, for crying out loud. I haven’t seen much winking or ridiculing of her hunting skills. I’ve seen her taken apart on both the issues (eg. qualifications, experience, interest in big issues, etc) and on the weird hypocrisy that a the term for downtown Detroit teen pregnancy is (to quote Reagan directly) “promiscuity”, but when it’s a Republican anti-choice anti-s-x education candidate’s daughter, it’s pro-life values in action (James Dobson).
Craig @ 86: Obama’s experience is thin indeed, but I’d argue it’s more significant than Palin’s. But Obama has spent the last 12 months being tested, and beat a juggernaut. He also doesn’t tend to say “I’m not really interested in Iraq” or “what does the Vice-President do anyway?”. What people have seen from Obama over the primary season is a capacity to deal with complexities, amazing organisational leadership, an ability to break through bipartisan political conventions (eg. foreign policy), and so on.
But ultimately, your point proves my (main) point in my earlier post: US elections are not about the issues. I’m willing to say that’s why Obama beat Clinton too, if it makes you feel better. And that’s as an Obama fan from the beginning.
Indeed the Pill was invented by a Catholic. Funny Old World. Christianity is, in general, opposed to nooky for fun.
.
It’s the old Western tradition of adopting stuff from the East and taking it to extremes. Jewish sexual rules are strict but not entirely unreasonable there is no equivalent to the Ketubah’s laws concerning the sexual satisfaction of women in marriage in Christianity. The Irish-Catholic ideal (as I understand it from my grandparents’ story) is for a bride and groom to have no idea what to do. Sad but true.
“Is this really the right time for Palin? I don’t think so. And what on earth is anti-progressive about saying so?”
Grace, while I have some sympathy for your position, it is anti-progressive. While you obviously feel that taking on such a big project when she is facing such pressing family situations is too much, really, all you can say is that it is not what you’d have chosen to do. And I agree, I wouldn’t have chosen it either.
But we have to agree that the progressive position is that she has every right to do so, and even if we don’t agree with her choice, we have to support her right to make it.
Stop making sense, Polyquats.
Burn the witch!
AFAICS, Sarah Palin is guilty of nothing more than being in the republican party, down to earth, scrappy with a record of winning in David & Goliath battle, no crazy associates, and having more balls than most castrato urban vegetarian male soy latte drinkers. Which seems to be the bottom line of most of the criticism of her.
She is a union member, shooter, fisherman, hunter, has a real man for a husband, fantastic legs, oddly named kids, very white teeth, and a son who is about now on embarkation leave. Bullying her too hard is going to raise the ire of lots of people sufficient to get the anti-obama vote off the couch & into the polling booth.
A difficult path for the obama campaign to tread. Despite subjective comment above, the Obama campaign does not have her cold and is NOT circling her like hyenas about to pounce.
However, there are two months to go, what is being said today won’t even be remembered by election day.
SATP -
She does appear to advocate the Discovery Institute’s approach to science. I guess it depends on your definition of crazy. And yes I know all about Obama’s ex-minister don’t bother. As far as I’m aware Obama isn’t advocating that the CIA be investigated for starting AIDS.
.
Well I’m not sure that’s a recommendation. How many male vego soy latte drinking castratos have balls? Do you know many male vego soy latte drinking castratos? I suggest you contact the Opera apparently there’s a shortage of ‘em.
.
Incidentally the internet is lighting up with a general view that picking Palin was a good thing for McCain to do. Apparently she’s drawing heaps of support.
Steve at the pub,
“no crazy associates” – is this the same Sarah Palin we’re talking about ?
The one who was … associated … with the Alaska Independance Party ? And sacked council workers for the lack of a loyalty oath, and who was taken to the mat by the local librarian, who was prepared to go to the mat for Freedom to Read.
I’m just checking. There might be two of them. The one in your universe, and the one who was Mayor of Wasila in the Mat-Su valley.
I’m not denying she’s beloved by the Christian Right – she is after all one of them. But I want you to be honest and say ‘President Palin, leader of the Free World’ with a straight face.
Ian Whitchurch
Is it just me or is there something queer that the USA is the leader of the free world? I didn’t vote for ‘em.
.
Vote 1: Iceland I say.
Adrien, yes, hehe, it seems she is more popular than McCain himself. However, it is an election, not a New Idea cover photo op. AFAICS choosing her has made the contest more interesting for us disinterested observers.
Naturally I assumed that you know all about Obama’s minister buddy. Doubtless American voters are going to see plenty of him dressed in that.. er.. most unusual cassock whilst shouting “God Damn America!”
But there should be lots more than that for loopiness in Obama’s background, in addition to my personal belief that he is a nutjob, there could be some good op-ed fodder with the (possible) weatherman underground connection, and the sealed academic records, & so on.
On the where there is smoke there is fire basis, his being mixed up in the ..er.. colourful Democrat Party of Chicago means he will have lots of skeletons in the wardrobe and less than lily white associates.
Adrien, urban male nutjobs were my customers for years (city coffee shop). That thing in the butterfly pattern bow tie a few weeks ago, defending his right to publish nude pix of his 6-yo daughter is actually NORMAL in behaviour, mentality & appearance compared to some.
Polyquats said:
Since when is this a ‘progressive’ only position? Weird logic here.
MoDo refers to one of Sarah Palin’s travails as “Broken-watergate”.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/opinion/03dowd.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
What’s the basis for that assertion? The Weathermen? Wasn’t Obama like four years old when they blew themselves up? I think they’re reaching there.
.
My problem with American poltiics is that both sides seemed to’ve lost all sense of ethical competition. If we had a situation a decade hence where it was just an out and out slanderfest I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
Grace I’m with you on your point and find it hard to understand any parent who would put their career above their very young children. Of course men do it all the time–their families and wives are often invisible, but not a woman’s and it certainly looks pretty much to be the case with Palin i.e, career above newborn.
She looks consistently happy in the photos I’ve seen, but not so much her children. You’re right on this one and her choices do reflect what kind of person she is.
I’m pleased you raised it as I was thinking much the same meself. I couldn’t work out if it was regressive to think that a mother with a three month old child with Downs’ shouldn’t be a bit more interested in it. Some things just refuse to compute. Her relationship with Bristol is probably beyond repair.
I happen to think that women make better mothers than men. Indeed women generally make better everythings than men.
If people in the US feel sorry for her family then they won’t vote Republican with her as VP. Voting for McCain has become even more of a backward step. I hope for her baby’s sake that Obama wins. But more I hope for everyone’s sake.
Jesus passes a motion…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html
Hang in there Grace.
Sorry, Caroline, she’s getting a huge amount of support from evangelicals.
???? People are more likely to react against the stoopid personalisation of the attack on her.
Christ knows which smart Democratic wonks decided to give the GOP an enormous publicity boost anyway. I’d have sat back and said “she’s inexperienced and to the far right” and ignored her. It speaks of a campaign lacking confidence.
I’m still completely dumbfounded that anyone can try and make a “feminist” or a “progressive” argument that she should be at home with her kids…
Btw, hi Another Kim! Long time no see!
Indeed, hi again Another Kim.
Caroline, consider your words coming from a conservative man’s mouth, say, mine. Women, I might suggest, are better suited to home, child rearing, and caring. It’s OK when men leave children at home, but wrong when women do; women should be less free to pursue career before reproduction.
Is this view identifiably progressive or left-wing in any way? If so, how? I ask as a genuinely baffled reader.
Of course it’s regressive. Palin shouldn’t be judged on the basis of her mothering abilities (and how on earth any of us can have any idea about her relationship with her daughter is beyond me) but on the answers to the following questions: (1) how well would she perform the functions of a vice-president?(2) how well would she perform the functions of a president, should that be required? She could be the worst mother in the world and still be a great vice-president: I don’t see how the one has anything to do with the other.
Word, Brett.
Oh, FFS. For pure entertainment Alaska style just go here:
http://mudflats.wordpress.com
Hilarity Plus.
Hey Kimbo,
Is the title of this post — The Life of Palin — a play on Sarah Palin + Michael Palin + the classic Monty Python film about the chap who is NOT the Messiah, just a very naughty boy? (Which I note on Wikipedia, has been voted in Britain, on several occasions, the greatest comedy of all time.)
P.S. You are so right about the need to de-personalise the reaction to Palin’s nomination. If the Democrats were stupid enough to take the Spiros/grace line of character attacks on Palin, for not going back home to bring up baby, like any good woman would do — the Republicans could centre their campaign on how nasty and hypocritical their opponents are.
It would be the greatest gift imaginable to McCain (short of a video showing Barack giving head to Osama Bin Laden).
NM, maybe
A spinster aunt like Dowd presumes to lecture a mother of five about motherhood. That’s funnier than any of her columns.
Thank you for the hellos, Kim and Liam.
What has been of interest to me is the immense amount of blowback this has caused for the Democrats.
Intentional or not, it was clumsy politics gone horribly bad.
Sarah Palin has become a living Rorschach test, of sorts. There is much emotion swirling about her and her choices.
Any valid criticisms will be lost as the pendulum swings to the position of “Leave her alone, that’s enough.”
This has not hurt the Republicans, at all. Contributions and volunteers are up.
This has only damaged the Democrats.
There’s something not right about the idea of Bristol Palin’s reasonable fair game. How Sarah got the job OTOH …
“This has not hurt the Republicans, at all. Contributions and volunteers are up.
This has only damaged the Democrats.”
Another Kim, there is some evidence mostly from Repubican sources that contributions and volunteers have gone up since Palin was chosen. Nothing surprising, given ‘they would say that anyway’ and a lot of ready money runs around amongst the bible bashers and she was likely their most favoured choice.
I have seen absolutely no indication of anything in your other two points. Though it is clear there a number of nervous nellys, paralysed by fear of saying anything, about this exraordinarily bad McCain choice.
“oddly named kids”
Any woman who names her daughter Bristol is seriously lacking in judgement.
Of course Liam, but they’re not and not many conservative men, such as yourself, are going to go along with what I really think of this gender group, as a whole.
Brett, if she was clearly a bad mother and say unwillingly had had her children removed from her care then of course she would be judged for it. I cannot see how it is regressive to imagine that a mother should be thinking about caring for her offspring. To consider such a notion is regressive is absurd.
This has not hurt the Republicans, at all. Contributions and volunteers are up.
This has only damaged the Democrats.
Another Kim – at this point of time, how do you know? I don’t myself. The best summary I’ve seen is from TalkingPointsMemo:
Gallup: For Every Voter Palin Wins Over, Another Jumps To Obama
Gallup’s polling finds that McCain support among Republican women has increased from 85% to 90% in the last few days since Palin’s selection. But on the other hand, his numbers have gone down among other groups: He’s fallen by four points among independent men and three points with indy women, and is down by five points with Democratic men and two points with Dem women. So Palin hasn’t really helped him so far.
Yep, contributions are up, and the base is out. But let’s see if Palin can work out whether she’s running for the VP of the USA, or the VP of an independent Alaska.
So, it’s OK for you to judge Palin and say that women should stay home, but not for others to do it? That’s some serious double standards, Caroline.
I’ll say Liam.
The dissonance nearly broke my computer screen.
Spiros and Bristol.
You’re not thinking of that old Pommie slang for t*ts, are you? Michael Palin, eat your heart out mate. We Aussies’ve got Monty Python, The Goons, and Benny Hill all swirling round in our noggins.
We’re all ship shape and Bristol fashion.
” I cannot see how it is regressive to imagine that a mother should be thinking about caring for her offspring. To consider such a notion is regressive is absurd.”
How do you know she isn’t? The amount of presumption going on here is enormous. How do you know the family hasn’t talked it through, worked it out and everyone’s happy with the decision?
What this sort of attitude does for me, is make me sympathetic to Palin, in an entirely counter-productive way. It makes me feel like saying “You go girl! Don’t let the bastards grind you down”. Which is ridiculous as I’m totally against her policies. What you’ve done is shift focus from her plicies and on to her personal circumstances, which will only get people, of all political persuasions, to feel supportive of her. If progressive women make the argument you’re suggesting, it will only make us look like self-serving, hypocrites in the eyes of the conservatives. And guess what? They’d be right.
I read the whole MoDo column and I didn’t see any ‘lecturing’. Even if I had, it wouldn’t take a lot of research to point you to mothers of five all round the world who are desperately in need of some instruction on parenting. From anyone, really.
If you despise ‘spinster aunts’ as much as that, Craig McC, how bitter it must make you that MoDo (not to mention Twisty, to whom I presume the phrase is a reference) has so much power-and-influence. I bet you really hate Germaine Greer, too — although she is a divorcée, which sounds far more rakish. My, what a very old-fashioned vocabulary we are forced to resort to when we think about women in this way. Which is Twisty’s point, though you seem to have missed it.
The National Enquirer has broken the story that Palin has been having an affair with her husband’s business partner.
Of course Palin vehemently denies it. Mind you, John Edwards vehemently denied it when the National Enquirer broke the story that he’d been having an affair, and the story turned out to be true.
Is it possible that the Republican Fundo Right foisted Palin on a clearly reluctant McCain because the FR wanted McCain to fail?
Thus, are the Fundo Right following Lenin’s dictum “better fewer, but better”?
Strange days.
A line used by Greta Garbo in the Lubitsch comendy ‘Ninotchka’. A bit off-topic, but Lubitsch is always worth a mention.
Just because the National Enquirer was once caught out being CORRECT about something, doesn’t mean the National Enquirer is right about this.
(The reasoning is akin to a bloke with a crank idea saying, “they said Galileo was wrong, too!”)
Oh, BTW, Bill Clinton had that ex-business partner [Vince Foster?] of Hillary’s murdered in Washington. He hated the idea that a married person might be unfaithful. He just hated that!
I wondered that for a while Katz – but I think they may just know better what’s required to win. In which case dk.au @ 67, I don’t see that the ABC news article necessarily does blunt Lakoff’s assessment. The strategy was well-thought out, she was well-vetted – it just took super-misogynist McCain a while to come around.
PC: I don’t despise spinster aunts any more than you do – if you think it’s a pejorative then that’s your problem.
“Just because the National Enquirer was once caught out being CORRECT about something, doesn’t mean the National Enquirer is right about this.”
True and false, but will some blame a poor Democratic campaign strategy for this one or remember the initial call by Obama that family matters be out of bounds and that the media/blogs will do their thang anyway?
Liam, most people are judging Palin one way or another in a variety of contexts as to whether she is fit for the office she’s been marked out for. Suggesting that I am not allowing others to judge her while doing so myself is completely false.
Fine,
I feel similarly confused about this Fine and its pretty obvious that there are many shades of grey and no one right thing to do. As you point out, there are also many circumstances and conversations we cannot know of. However going on what we do ‘know’, you would have liked me to instead have encouraged you to have no sympathy for her? To totally oppose her as a human being in every possible way? The message I’m getting from you is that you are frustrated because you can no longer clearly oppose her because of what I’ve said.
The only reason I chimed in on this thread was to agree with Grace who brought this issue up. I had been thinking along similar lines. I knew it was ‘wrong’ of course, to think for a minute that a mother might just want to spend more time with her relatively newly born baby than hanging out with John McCain. That she chooses the latter, does make me question what kind of person she is i.e, someone who it seems, would put her own vain career ambitions above a newly born child. I realise that seems a darstadly notion, and yes to repeat, it would not be alright for some bloke to publicly make a similar statement. I am not an advocate for the male notion of the stay at home housewife, not by a long shot, but I do think that in at least the first 6-12 months of life its good for a baby to have their mother close at hand. There are many other reasons why this woman shouldn’t end up as VP and to me this is but one of them, deeply personal as it is.
@ Down and Out
I was basing that opinion on the massive flood of contributions (don’t have the figure at hand but I can find it) and the energized base,as you mentioned yourself.
There is a disgruntled former Hillary vote actively working against the Democrat party.
This is the most interesting election I can recall.
Social issues are front and center. The issues discussed here at LP are also being debated across the States in every home.
Primary Kim always accurately reports on the moods and nuances in the US that are difficult to present accurately. I commented because I read her post and thought how she had it so right on this.
I just wanted to add to Another Kim’s point. I always try to refrain from commenting too much on elections in far away places – like WA for instance.
It’s really difficult to get a feel for them – and with the USA, even though we’re deluged with information, we lack some of the filters that you get from living there or having lived there. That’s why I’m grateful to the two Kims for their reading of the situation.
Caroline @ 133
“That she chooses the latter, does make me question what kind of person she is i.e, someone who it seems, would put her own vain career ambitions above a newly born child.”
So you’re a busybody who thinks they know better than someone else about their own life. Palin’s nomination is all about putting shoes on other feet.
Mark @135.
And, I am always concerned about missives that declare how “progressives” should think, here.
Amazing Grace and Caroline thankyou for your contribution.
I’m not sending any such missives, joe2. Just making an observation.
However, I think it’s entirely legitimate for people to point out that publicly questioning one woman’s choices and doing so in such a way as to imply that her duty lies with her family and not in the public realm seems at best highly inconsistent with what progressives would normally argue.
I mean, look at the excerpt Nick quoted. “Vain ambitions”? What else is this saying but women’s primary focus should be on their family and not public and career aspirations? And stigmatising Palin’s choices as selfish. It’s also quite reminiscent of some of the stuff thrown at Hillary. Female candidates are always “too ambitious” while men just “want to serve the public”…
“This has only damaged the Democrats.”
Nabs, are you auditioning to replace Dennis Shanahan in the poll interpretation stakes? That tracking poll finished on the day Palin’s selection was announced. It’s for the week before, basically.
Never said YOU did Mark but one might guess you and Kim speak as one on this.
I have spoken here that I reckon a politicians personal behaviour should be ,at least, someway close to real life.
Particularly when they profess family value lies that they cannot, personally, uphold.
Guess I am out of time. Cheers.
“Nabs, are you auditioning to replace Dennis Shanahan in the poll interpretation stakes?”
Ouch.
joe2, my comment at 135 wasn’t supposed to be anything but an observation about the difference between interpreting what’s going on – at the grassroots – from a position here in Australia and from one with intimate and everyday knowledge of America. That’s all.
I wonder if you could explain to us all, joe2, where Palin’s beliefs about reproduction and her behaviour diverge.
She’s anti-contraception and anti-choice. Her daughter is pregnant and keeping the baby.
Your ‘criticism’ is OMG PREGGERS TEENAGER SHOCK HORROR which as we’ve discussed up the thread (and on the other one) is totally unlikely to have an electoral effect.
Nabakov, just keep on watching the polls.
Are you suure Mark? Her nomination was announced 29 August and the that poll tracks 30 August to 1 September. And here’s a later one.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/109996/Gallup-Daily-Obama-49-McCain-43.aspx
Perhaps I should have better made my point by asking AK to actually make her point with data rather some sort “it’s the vibe” call.
Anyway I’m not touching you again Mark without at least a 10 point poll.
Since you find it so difficult to understand, Liam @145
It is very good to be out there and expressing that the Palins’ abhorrent right wing views have come home, slightly, too roost, in his/her own nest, rather than number counting.
It’s a baby, joe2, not a chicken.
Your highly emotive choice of words makes it pretty clear where you stand on this. Would you have said it about JFK, who took office when JFK Jr was less than two months old?
You could just as easily have said ‘someone who thinks the place of women in the world is just as important as the place of women in the home’. Or ‘someone who, it seems, is prepared to try selflessly to balance private and public life for the sake of saving the world by not letting the evil libruls get in’. Spin is a remarkable thing.
Nabakov, the chart you linked to shows the polls haven’t moved since the 29th August. As Gallup say, that was bounce from the Obama acceptance speech and the Convention. It’s too early for any results that can be linked to Palin, so all there is vibe for now.
Evidence that it’s been too early:
[link]
Caroline, I think you misunderstand me, which is undoubtedly my fault.
I don’t feel the slightest bit confused. I abhor the idea promulgated by you and grace pettigrew that she shouldn’t run because of her family situation.
“I knew it was ‘wrong’ of course, to think for a minute that a mother might just want to spend more time with her relatively newly born baby than hanging out with John McCain. That she chooses the latter, does make me question what kind of person she is i.e, someone who it seems, would put her own vain career ambitions above a newly born child.”
Let’s look at the paragraph above. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a woman deciding not to run as VP because she wanted to stay home with her kids. It’s called choice. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a man making the same decision.
But why are her career ambitions ‘vain’? Why is that necessarily going to damage her new born kid? Why is it any of your business? Personally, I think running the USA is a far more important job than looking after kids. Kids aren’t always the most important thing in the world. But that’s just me.
You would never use this argument about a man. It’s sexism pure and simple.
My point about it making me feel like supporting her is because I get so annoyed at this sort of retrograde politics. This means that as well as anything else the argument is bad politics It makes people want to support her in the face of this rubbish, whether they find her politics repellent, or not. It’s precisely the sort of argument that might get her elected if progressive women use it.
And what PC said at 150, far more eloquently than I managed.
Do the polls indicate if any of those being polled are going to get off their behinds and actually vote?
Yes Shaun, those polled are registered voters – and more than 8 out of 10 of them will vote in the election.
Cool. Thanks Nick.
Your highly emotive choice of words makes it pretty clear where you stand on this. Would you have said it about JFK, who took office when JFK Jr was less than two months old?
Yes, that’s the problem. And her husband has taken time off to be a stay at home parent. In other words, the children have a full time parent, plus the resources to add a long-term nanny/carer. So Caroline your argument cannot be from anything but gender essentialism, as Palin is only doing what countless fathers have done and the husband is fulfilling the SAHD role. That’s OK, we’ll have to agree to disagree in that case.
Glad to learn it myself
Also Grace/Caroline, what is irresponsible about seeking a new job with better pay and job security?
From a purely prudential light, 2 months working hard on the campaign trail now would, if McCain/Palin win, mean both a huge pay rise (as Alaskan governor her salary is $125K, the VP salary is $208K) and a secure position until 2012, whereas as governor she’ll face another election in 2010. This time she has the huge national GOP machine behind her, for the gubernatorial race she only has the state machine.
Knowing that she has to raise a son with special needs, the family will have more income to spare and also more time to spare if she is VP compared to being governor of Alaska. She has a chance now to secure the financial stability of her family for four years rather than two, so is saying yes to being VP running mate for McCain really only a selfish act?
As Fine says, she also has political goals which running as VP helps her have an opportunity to implement. Those political goals are what should be our target here, not her parenting choices or the idea that she is wrong to be both personally and financially ambitious.
I think contributions close soon, so that may have something to do with any surge.
I think you mean she’s pro anti-contraception.
Apologies for my Quaylesque “potatoe” moment.
Or anti pro-contraception, I suppose.
Liam @ 1.48pm.
Are you sure it’s not a chicken? I mean, this is Alaska we’re talking about, eh? Have you been shown the scans privately on a need-to-know-basis? No feathers? No beak??
Look, if a chook wants to run, that should be fine with everyone, including progressives.
If VP Palin succeeds Pres McCain after an unfortunate incident with a champagne cork and a grizzly (how DID that bear find its way into the Oval Office?), will she proceed to set up a Palin dynasty along Bush lines? Will Trig be Pres one day?
I hope you’re taking all this seriously, Liam. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/03/oh_baby_the_spears-palin_conne.html
I think I’ve finally got it right – she’s PRO-contraception. Whew!
[googles]
You’re right, Craig Mc. I was confusing her stance on contraception (which I now know she supports) with her stance on sex education in schools (which she does not). Sorry all.
So she’s anti-conception?
Now I AM confused.
Definitive Palin: “contraception is ok, so long as kids don’t find out about it until it is too late.
“Let that be a lesson to you, Bristol.”
And do supermoms use contraception??? confused too.
“Grace I’m with you on your point and find it hard to understand any parent who would put their career above their very young children …
I happen to think that women make better mothers than men.”
Ah, the Doctrine of the Separate Spheres… I thought we’d got over that in, oh, the 1800s?
But no, fathers can’t possibly care for babies – how ridiculous! They do not have TEH UTERUS! What japes, eh, suggesting that the ladies could be involved in politics of all things! Clearly the ladies need to stay at home, and look after babies, while the men do the politics. What was I thinking? I can not run for parliament, I have TEH UTERUS.
If my partner and I were to have a baby, I’d be going right back to work. Is this because I would put my career above my very young children? No. Family is more important than anything. But I’d be a totally crap stay at home parent. I need intellectual stimulation, or I go nuts. I’d be ready to kill someone after a week. But my partner, on the other hand, loves being home, loves just pottering about, and loves spending time hanging out with friends’ kids and my nieces and nephew. He’s be a heaps better full-time parent than me – even if he does not have TEH UTERUS. And I’m heaps better at having a full-time career than he is.
Clearly that wouldn’t work for everyone – everyone’s family is different, every family has different ways of doing what works best for them. Sarah Palin’s family, much as I disagree with their conservative politics, have obviously worked out a solution that works for them, and it seriously should not even be up for discussion among people who call themselves progressive.
If you want to call yourself progressive, or feminist, you have to acknowledge that women should have the same choices as men. Otherwise, you need to call yourself a conservative. If you think men can not parent as well as women, you’re not a progressive (I’ll give you that they can’t produce breastmilk, but going back to work does not mean you can’t continue to feed a baby breastmilk). If you think it’s okay for a man with young kids to run for public office, but not a woman – you’re not progressive, or a feminist, you’re a conservative.
Cheers Liam. Actually, I don’t think she’s anti-sex education either (as far as I can tell), just against a sex-ed program handing out condoms in schools. She’s probably not too far from most American thinking there.
[googles again]
She’s against “explicit sex-ed” and is in favour of abstinence-only for sex education.
“She’s against “explicit sex-ed” and is in favour of abstinence-only for sex education.”
Yer, right, Liam , so it is ok for babies, in marriage, and not with a chicken.
Life is harsh.
Liam, you´re probably right. I still see a lot of philosophical wriggle room in that statement between her rejection of an ¨explicit¨ sex education program (including in-school contraception clinics and condom handouts), and her support for an abstinence-only sex education program. Especially given her public support for contraception.
Was this a package a house motion? If that´s the case she only has a blunt thumbs-up/down option for dealing with it. Nuance is for legislators.
I wasn’t born when JFK was elected.
Women by and large, do have the same choices as men but and the biggest problem is that they keep making the same choices as men.
Duh.
I didn’t say, or imply, that you were; I merely asked whether you would have (note conditional tense) judged him the same way. And I see you haven’t answered the question.
“If you want to call yourself progressive, or feminist, you have to acknowledge that women should have the same choices as men. Otherwise, you need to call yourself a conservative.”
What an extraordinarily ,bossy, bullying, comment.
Kim and Mark issue good warnings. The Dems should stay out of these attacks like the plague. Remember Pauline Hanson? Don’t draw too much attention to her. It just draws out all the Archie Bunkers and fundy preachers.
Can’t stop media and blog investigations, however. Let them come with all the contradictions. Obama et al need to focus on what they will be bringing to public office.
Silly warnings.
The more attention the better. Let Sarah speak.
I think Gloria Steinem nails it, here: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-steinem4-2008sep04,0,7915118.story?track=rss “She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.” Palin will use her status as a mother-by-profession as a stick to beat up on other woemn with.
The highly influencial Jim Wallis, and his blog God’s Politics may be interesting to follow over this election to get a picture of the new evangelical movement and their concerns. (Wallis and his movement have been instrumental in the evangelical shift to the left.)
Wallis, close friend of Obama for 10 years, defends Palin’s choice to run in the wake of criticism about her parental status.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/godspolitics/
“Women by and large, do have the same choices as men but and the biggest problem is that they keep making the same choices as men.”
How do you mean?
And Joe2, it’s not bullying to call a spade a spade – if you don’t believe that women should have the same choices as men, you’re not a feminist. It’s like saying if you don’t believe in Jesus, you’re not a Christian, or if you don’t believe that war is wrong, you’re not a pacifist.
Palin will use her status as a mother-by-profession as a stick to beat up on other woemn with.
“Woemn”?
Laura
What status do you use when beating other women?
The feminist hypocrisy on this site is priceless. It would make an excellent case study.
“Palin will use her status as a mother-by-profession as a stick to beat up on other woemn with.”
And Palin is clearly NOT a mother-by-profession. She’s a professional politician – a governor, before that a mayor, and now running for VP. How is that being a “mother-by-profession”?
#184-6 Oh goodie, it’s Greenfield back again.
Fuck off Greenfield. You are not welcome here. Go and troll at one of your usual sewers.
Rebekka, I was drawing out Steinem’s remarks, so the shortest way of answering your question is to suggest you read her article there.
yes, woemn, like presybterean only by accident rather than dumbarseness
Hi Laura, I’ve just read Steinem’s op ed piece, but I can’t find where in there she refers to Palin as a “professional mother”.
Steinem in fact makes a bunch of excellent points about Palin’s policy positions (and I agree wholeheartedly with Steinem and do not agree at all with Palin), and yes, she compares Palin to Phyllis Schlafly, but she does not call Palin a professional mother, even by implication.
Well I guess it’s a matter of differing interpretations then. Please don’t present it as you are right and I am wrong, that’s simply unnecessary. You do know that I don’t mean Palin’s primary / only significant job is being a mother don’t you? I mean that the marketing of her as a political figure is predicated on her motherhood and associated ways she’s managed her personal life, rather than on anything about her (other?) electable attributes. She’s professionalising her motherhood, making it the key issue, and so are the Republican spinsters.
From the Steinem article: When asked about Iraq, she said, “I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq.”
…And she sends one of her children there? Are these hawks just in love with death, or something? WTF?
“Please don’t present it as you are right and I am wrong, that’s simply unnecessary.”
If I’m having a political discussion with you and I disagree with you, then I do think I’m right and you’re wrong, and presumably you think the same in reverse, and I’m sorry if you find that confrontational, but to me that’s the basis of poltitical discussion (unless we all just agree all the time, which wouldn’t be much fun!) It’s not personal.
“You do know that I don’t mean Palin’s primary / only significant job is being a mother don’t you? I mean that the marketing of her as a political figure is predicated on her motherhood and associated ways she’s managed her personal life, rather than on anything about her (other?) electable attributes. She’s professionalising her motherhood, making it the key issue, and so are the Republican spinsters.”
Yes, I of course realised that you weren’t saying Palin’s primary job was motherhood, but none-the-less I disagree. The Republican Party may have picked her partly because of her motherhood (particularly of a boy on his way to Iraq), but I watched Palin address the Republican convention on TV yesterday, and the way she’s being marketed is much more complex than just “she’s a mother”. American politicians generally have to talk about their nuclear family – it’s a pre-requisite of American political life, and Obama certainly featured his wife and kids at the Democratic convention. But Palin didn’t focus on the kids – or the hubby – she introduced them briefly, just as another politician might have.
She is a very, very popular governor – she has an 80% approval rating. She’s essentially done that by being populist – moves like selling the previous governor’s private jet on ebay and getting rid of the governor’s chef, not to mention cutting spending and giving all the residents back $1200. And those are the sorts of things her speech focused on – along with support for small-town America, support for religion, and support for Iraq. And of course in the background, and part of the reason for her being selected, are her pro-guns, pro-creationism, pro-forced pregnancy views. And the awareness that there are some very angry Hillary supporters out there who have said they’re going to vote for McCain – putting a woman on the ticket can’t hurt their chances of cementing those voters. And if I was Obama, I’d be acting really soon on announcing a post-election position for Hillary, something good, and having her campaign with him.
But back to the point, my reading of Palin is that she’s a natural. She’s in need of a little more practice reading the auto-cue (her timing was just a tiny, tiny bit off) but she can connect with people, she has the folksy politician down pat, and she’s not selling herself based on her role as a mother.
Helen said:
I doubt very much if she ‘sent him’. More likely he volunteered. People do that you know.
Rebekka I was under the impression you were disagreeing with my reading of what Gloria Steinem had to say, and once that moves beyond direct quotation and close paraphrase, that actually is a question of interpretation.
Helen
Palin’s line about “not focussing on Iraq” looked stupid, but I wondered whether she was speaking from a policy/politics perspective, rather than a personal one. You wouldn’t expect the Governor of Alaska to get much of a look in on geopolitical strategy or military tactics, would you? Sure enough, if you track down the quote from its original source, you get:
“Alaska Business Monthly: We’ve lost a lot of Alaska’s military members to the war in Iraq. How do you feel about sending more troops into battle, as President Bush is suggesting?
Palin: I’ve been so focused on state government, I haven’t really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe. Every life lost is such a tragedy. I am very, very proud of the troops we have in Alaska, those fighting overseas for our freedoms, and the families here who are making so many sacrifices.”
So you were right to ‘WTF?’ this. It still sounds pretty stupid, but it wasn’t what you thought at all. As for Steinem, was it sloppiness or deliberately dishonest cherry-picking? I report, you decide.
BBB
She didn’t answer the question there.
‘how do you feel about sending more troops into battle’
And she gave a run of answers to different questions.
Yeah, I think she’s a politician or something.
BBB
LOL.
The way we see anything and everything in the world is a matter of interpretation, clearly. But if I didn’t disagree with you (and by implication, think you are wrong and I am right), I wouldn’t be bothering to have a political discussion with you.
Shrtr Lr: y’v bn sprng dkt’rng kwts bt d wmmn dn l bwt t.
wtf
Greenfield.
Nothing to see here.
Why do they tolerate him? Is he using an unblockable IP? Sorry to go off topic, but that’s just a bit too fucked up for my taste.
“I doubt very much if she ’sent him’. More likely he volunteered.”
Bristol, Trigg and Levi would too, if they could.
Rbkk ‘m srr t hv t pll rnk n y, bt knw ll bt Jn stn, s clrl m mch mr nsghtfl bt vrythng thn y cn pssbl ndrstnd
Piss off JG!
Laura, unfortunately, some morphing trolls use dynamic IPs, and some post from IPs that belong to a LAN at say, a university, which we will not, for obvious reasons, block entirely. This buggering about occasionally sneaks through the filters for a little while, and gives the morphing troll a sense of accomplishment.
That little spate was timed just when no moderators were around for a bit, obviously. Sorted now.
University ip, yep, figures.
Doesn’t he have anything better to do? Greenslime that is.
Want to see Sarah Palin give a nod to the proposal that Alaska will be a refuge, for many, in the last days?
Fruitcake. And scary that she would be anywhere near the red button.
About the politicisation-of-family thing:
Daisy Deadhead at Feministe:
Sarah Palin’s motherhood is being presented as a pro-life example. And as such, that POLITICAL example is open to analysis and criticism, since they are the ones making it political.
GOOD NEWS!
Mom rejects abortion after Down syndrome diagnosis
Praise for governor: ‘May God give America more women like her’
It appears this is wrong. Just to flog a dead thread some more, it seems Palin is for contraception education as part of sex-ed.
Quote from news interview
Q: Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?
SP: Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.
If civilisation had been left in the hands of bimbos like Little Miss Pravda Wolf, we’d all still be living in grass huts.
Yawn, another attack of greenslime?
Because of their ubiquitous cruising principle, aging is generally a more critical issue for gay men than it is for lesbians. Old dykes retain status as tough customers, while aging gay men need money, fame, power or all three to keep their clout vis-à-vis the beautiful boys who so casually and cruelly rule the roost.
My theory is that gay men, unlike lesbians, have an innate, hyper-acute visual sense. It’s related to what I have speculated to be the genesis of much (but not all) male homosexuality: an artistic gene that ends up isolating sensitive young boys and interfering at a crucial moment with the harsh dynamics of schoolyard male bonding.
Camille, are you sure that vis-à-vis is quite the expression you want?
Pavlov’s Cat
Yes, but thank you for your concern. Do you agree that the gay opposition to Cruising prefigured the dismayingly Stalinist gay and feminist picketing of Basic Instinct — in which Sharon Stone created one of the most indelible, charismatic dominatrixes of all time. Or are you more a Demi Moore in Showgirls fan?
I try not to base my world view on the movies.
Also, my understanding is that this thread is about Sarah Palin, who had better not be anything but a rampant heterosexual or there’s her career gone down the toilet. Am I right (she asked of the general readership) in thinking the Repubs are keeping Palin in smoe sort of opaque bubble wrap since the lipstuck pit-bull speech or am I just not reading the news carefully enough?
Ah Ms. Cat, you seem wilfully blind to the pussy-whipping allure of the Moose gaze.
Actually that’s not a bad line. It’s Hunter S. Thompson “not bad”, but still.
Make a good title for a B movie: Flash Caribou And The Pussy-Whipping Allure of the Moose Gaze!
Someone call Bridget Fonda and Kevin Spacey.
What is for sure, Helen@216, has proved conclusively that the Craig Mc attempt at suggesting that Palin is a closet contraceptive advisor, who knows what a franger looks like, has holes in it.
LOL, joe2!
The GOP Ticket
Hmmm, Camille Paglia uses the same IP address as various Greenfield sock puppets.
Surely not!
I know! I was so surprised!
Is this the Greenfield thread?
Perhaps Palin is a selective feminist? Racist, moose-shooting, anti-sex-education right-to-lifers good; Democrat candidates bad?
Palin stirs up smears and loathing in the blogosphere.
“liberal mainstream media”.
Good link Peterc. But do they actually have it there? I have seen no sign of it here.
Be careful, Peterc. The original LA Progressive article alleged that Sarah Palin regularly referred to the Alaska indigenous as “Arctic Arabs”. The allegation is a bit suspicious, considering her husband is 1/8 Yup’ik (and by extension, her children would be 1/16). Perhaps the article is a bit of clever provocation from the Right.
I’m with Down & Out. Almost every, if not all, smear against the VPELF has transpired to be complete hogwash.
Which is going to make it very difficult to believe any actual dirt on her which may be unearthed.
Media scrums in the USA, turning up to cover a candidate (or something) now, instead of being invisible bystanders, are on occassion finding themselves facing a hostile crowd.
Mainstream media liberals? That is old news.
Pavlov’s
I think you’re correct*: the Republicans do seem to be keeping Ms Palin under wraps. Perhaps she’s not very good in press conferences? Perhaps she doesn’t like doing interviews?? Perhaps Bristol needed some help with her f*cking redneck boyfriend???
But she’ll have to at least face Joe Biden in a televised debate, will she not?
* it is also my considered opinion that you are wise indeed not to base your worldview on movies, though this makes you and those who follow that principle a part of a small and diminishing minority. Sad.
You are right about the movies ambi, but hey maybe it would make a good thread.
If your world view had to be based on a movie, which one would it be?
One isn’t enough, adrian. “Dr Strangelove”, “Life of Brian”, “The Mouse that Roared”, “The Party”, “Paths of Glory”, “The Meaning of Life”, “Ferris Beuler’s Day Off” [spelling?], “The Journey”, “The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer”, “Wake in Fright”, “Whistle Down the Wind”, “Tiger Bay”….
….ah, look, it’s a good idea but I’m not the person to kick it off. Too old-fashioned.
Ah, a Hayley Mills fan.
A combination of ‘Wake in Fright’ and ‘Whistle down the Wind’ as a life guide it truly scary!
Sprung !!
Hayley Mills and Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, Monty Python, Peter Sellers; like I said…. VERY old-fashioned.
Chuck in The Parent Trap for levity.
Double the Hayley for your trouble!
With respect I think that is relevant. The first stoush I engaged viz Sarah Palin was on this issue. the reason it’s relevant is that if someone advocates abstinence-only sex education as Palin privately does that is subject to examination in the light of a 17 year old girl getting pregnant to a lad who declared on his MySpace page that he didn’t want kids. Unplanned pregancy is pretty clear evidence of abstinence only education not working.
.
That said the whole gambit of personal attack is, shall we say, lowering the tone of discussion somewhat. Australians thankfully don’t tolerate this sort of thing.
.
Palin’s ideological record/habitus: her christianity, her views on reproductive rights, her lifetime membership of the NRA are things that recommend her to her constituency. Many libertarians have fallen in love with her and have played down the abortion thing. In general libertraians support abortion rights as an extension of fundamental property rights – the right to one’s own person. American libertarians differ somewhat. Ron Paul apparently want to grant rights to the foetus from the moment of conception.
.
I support abortion rights for principled and realpolitik reasons. I can respect the ‘pro-life’ libertarian position to a certain extent. But I find that they fail when they overlook Palin’s advocacy of Creationism being taught in science classes and most especially the anecdote from her early days as mayor of Wasilla:
If you want to ban books you’re no advocate of principles classical liberalism. End of story. The librarian stood up to her.
.
Unfortunately the ideological shitfight that is currently American politics conducts electoral races according to the old nefarious, theocratic contest: Good v Evil. In this game the opposition aren’t just people with different policy views, they are unspeakable. And your side’s little difficulties are kept where they belong – under the rug. This is a problem on both sides of politics: Bill Clinton’s extracurricular activities should never have been tolerated by advocates of women’s rights.
Ok, I guess it’s the thread we have to have. Coming soon!
Love youse all but how is Paul Burns?
Yep, I’m a tad concerned too! Hope he’s ok!
Posted!
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/09/09/film-as-a-guide-to-life-the-thread-we-had-to-have/