Last night here in Chicago’s Boystown, we counted 22 separate Sarah Palin/John McCain costumes out – always generating strong crowd interest, cheering, and applause. One of the costume sets was a guy dressed as Alaska (outline of state) matched up with another guy dressed as a house (I can see Alaska from my house). There was one group of people who dressed as Palin and her secret service entourage. Another of Palin with her husband Todd, and plenty of Palin’s by themselves in bright red suits. The best of the night was a man dressed as McCain and another as Palin, complete with a Cindy and Todd and a Bullwinkle moose.
Not a single person dressed as Obama and Biden.
I’m a flaming heterosexual, but if I ever go to Chicago I want to party with those guys.
As I have already confessed, I have one of those penis things, so I am no authority on feminism. However, I was raised by a single-mother feminist (I learned to drive back in the 70’s in a car with a bumper sticker that said “A Woman’s Place Is In The House – And the Senate”) who has been the local chapter president of LWV, BPW and PWP so I picked up a few ideas on the subject. This post at Partizane makes sense to me:
[Update by katiebird: Quoted text was originally published at The New Agenda by Artemis March.]
I began asking myself, what is going on with feminists as they rationalize lining up with their misogynist Party/candidate while engaging with this new rorschach named Sarah Palin? How is it that feminists—the Americans most caricatured, distorted, misunderstood, and demonized by the Right and by the Left—are themselves caricaturing, misrepresenting, and demonizing a woman whose policies and beliefs offend them? Is it too much to ask that they at least get their facts straight, and not push rumors and unexamined claims as if they were gospel? How is it that Hillary supporters who have aligned with the DNC’s selectee are exhibiting some of the behaviors they formally excoriated in Obama devotees (e.g., self-righteous judgmentalism, and the rejection, denial, or trivializing of information unfavorable to their guy)? Is it just too uncomfortable for them to bear the cognitive dissonance entailed by their second choice?
[…]
Sarah Palin is a rorschach for the Left and for feminists. She has exposed the boundaries and implicit rules for inclusion in their clubs, thereby sparking a much needed dialogue about what feminism is and can be. She has thrown into relief the limitations of establishment feminist strategies, and blown open the door to alternative strategies. Sarah Palin arrived on the national scene at the moment when many Hillary supporters were recognizing an old political truth: If you can’t walk away from the table, you have no bargaining power. If you have no alternatives, you will get nothing but crumbs.
There’s more, so you might want to go read it for yourself. If you don’t agree with it, don’t blame me, I’m just a guy with a penis.
BTW – My mom, in addition to being a feminist, is a religious conservative who attends a fundamentalist church. My college-educated older sister is a pro-life fundie feminist too, but has raised two foster kids in addition to her own. Maybe that explains why I don’t find Sarah Palin so scary.
And it was yummy too! Like my my previous post when an SEIU Canvasser dropped by, I’ll write out the exchange in a MadamaB style playlet post except that it’s actually happened to me. It’s a phone rant, so please bear with me:
[The Scene: I am in my humble bungalow abode in Tampa, FL, coming back from picking up Abuela from a medical lab test appointment. While making a “greca de café“, the phone rings. On the Caller ID I see “Democratic Party” with a local number. Suddenly, I maliciously smiled as my inner PUMA growled and I answer the phone. A polite caller introduces himself en español. For the sake of this post, I will write out the exchange in English.]
ME: Hello?
DNC Phone Guy: Hi, my name is Mauricio and I am calling on behalf of the Democratic Party. We would like to remind you that you can early vote today at the West Tampa Library located on Howard and Union streets.
ME: Hello Mauricio, I plan to vote in my district, 205, at the West Tampa Convention Center on Election Day. I want to vote where I always vote.
DNC Phone Guy: Well, that’s good then, ok, well we’d also like to remind you to please vote for Barack Obama as well as other Democratic ticket runners…
ME: Hold up, stop right there. Mauricio, with due and proper respect that you deserve, I know that you are only doing your job. Whatever I have to say, please don’t take offense. Get this straight, write this down and tell anybody and everybody in the FL Democratic office there. There is no way I’m not voting for Barack Obama after he and the DNC stole my vote in the primaries and did not allow my vote to be cast the way I intended it at the convention. I will be voting for McCain because he co-wrote the bill for Comprehensive Immigration Reform together with Ted Kennedy and endorsed by Hillary Clinton. I marched in the LULAC protest and McCain stood by us Latinos – but what has Obama done? His own aunt in Boston is an illegal immigrant and he hasn’t even had the nerve to help her, not even to help her get an immigration attorney to help her out. If he ignored his own aunt, what makes you think he’s going to help pass this Reform we so desperately need, especially in the Latino community? I was going to vote for McKinney but with the race so close as it is in Florida and in other states, I want him and the Democratic Party to lose so they know not to steal votes like they did on May 31st at the RBC meeting in Washington.
DNC Phone Guy: I, I, I understand and I’m happy to know that you are an informed voter and…
ME: And another thing – the Democratic Party I knew, the one defended Democracy, one person=one vote, Liberty, Freedom of Speech, Women’s rights, is DEAD thanks to Obama, Pelosi, Dean and Harry Reid. They trashed everything that I identified with as a Democrat. If Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, he’d be hanging his head in shame at the fact that the first African-American presidential candidate stole votes in order to win. This is a disgrace and a cancer to Democracy. Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina’s votes counted, but not Florida and Michigan’s? The only thing that makes everyone equal in this country is the right to vote. And the Democratic Party did not count my vote because they felt like putting Obama as the leader and how are they going to do that when Hillary won the popular vote and she won the electoral map across the board? He only won little pockets of the population but the DNC assigned more delegates to that particular population and ignored the rest. Well guess what, my vote will count this November 4th and when Democracy comes back to the Democratic Party, so will, I. Until then, I am a PUMA – have you heard of PUMAs before?
DNC Phone guy: Well, I have heard yes, but I urge you to please at least vote downticket…
DNC Phone Guy: I hope that you have a good day and I understand that you feel this way, but I am happy to know that you are an informed voter and you’ll be voting this election.
ME: Without a doubt I’ll be voting and yes, I do look forward to Hillary Clinton running for 2012 – but this time, let the process play out. Tell them to send Obama back to Democracy School so he can learn what a Democracy is. You can’t steal votes in the primary and expect the same people you stole from to support you in the general election. There is no Party Unity worth enough to trade the only thing that makes me a free person in this country, which is MY VOTE. Remember that and have a good day.
DNC Phone Guy: Thank (click)
And that was it – I leave you with Eddie Palmieri’s “Revolt/La Libertad Logico” with the Fania All Stars sound that invokes the spirit of rebelión and demands freedom for all people.
A vote for Obama is a vote against the poor. A vote for Obama is a vote against workers. A vote for Obama is a vote against good government. A vote for Obama is a vote against the future of the Democratic Party.
Piper “Snow Princess” Palin redistributes her candy wealth:
Sasha Obama not quite so crowd friendly (H/T BreitBart):
AP: Democrat Barack Obama got annoyed with the media Friday as he tried to walk down a Chicago street with his 7-year-old daughter, Sasha, who was dressed up in a shiny costume for Halloween. A pool of national photographers, reporters and a video crew traveling with Obama quickly covered the spontaneous moment. “All right guys, that’s enough,” said Obama, wearing a casual outfit and sunglasses in the early evening. He and his daughter were walking right toward the media on a public street. “You got a shot,” he told the photographers. “Leave us alone. Come on, guys.”
Hmmm, this one is close. They’re both cute as buttons. But I’m going to give the edge to Piper. The camera loves her.
I am waiting for the last kid to go home so I can get out of here and get on the road to Scranton, PA where I hope to meet up with Harriet Christian and her posse from Manhattan. Someone needs to document the event. Moi!
In the meantime, here is a wrap of interesting stuff from around the web:
Anglachel (we need to forgive) has an ominous post about discrimination of women in the workplace based on pregnancy in Reproduction of Culture. We really don’t want to go down this road but I don’t see Obama’s present slash and burn campaign tactics as being conducive to a more female friendly work environment. The misogyny genie has been released. Not good. Not good at all.
Joseph Cannon explores Obama’s murky past, his friendships with wealthy Pakistanis and his possible ties with the CIA. Where *did* all that money come from when he was in college? Was he working for the CIA? Of course, that is probably not what happened. I mean, the only people I knew who hung around with Pakistanis back then were selling hash, not hanging with the spooks. (Spooks in this case meaning CIA operatives. Jeez, you have to clarify *everything* these days.) But when it comes to conspiracies about the CIA or conspiracies about selling hash, both are just entertaining thought experiments. Probably neither of them true. Probably.
“We’re not ones to go around spreading rumors. No, really we’re just not the gossiping kind. You’ll never hear one of us repeating gossip. So, you’d better be sure to listen close the first time.”
One more thing: I lifted this from PUMAPac, but I don’t think murphy minds. I love the shot of Toulouse, France. I went there last year on business and it’s beautiful. The buildings are made of rose colored brick so they call it the pink city.
The Confluence 