Because, I am too upset not to address the larger audience of this blog. All I can say is: Uppity Women, Unite!!
Here are a couple of e-mails that I have received today.
To my dear friends:
This Sarah Palin thing is infuriating. It’s so deep under my skin: I am just about to burst, like my head is going to explode. I am pissed off and need to rant.
Forget that her positions are so asinine (anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-anything reasonable, on and on for every single issue I’ve looked into), even just putting all that aside, she’s just mean.
Yes, I do judge her on the level of her heart and soul.
I judge a person who can lean out the side of an airplane with a rifle and shoot animals in the wilderness. To kill them, for sport. I judge that.
I judge a person who drips with condescension and divisive language directed toward anyone different from herself.
I judge a person who manages her own reproductive and family affairs the way it suits her but then wants public policies that would manage other people’s personal affairs also to suit her.
I judge a person who openly lies on the public stage. She is still lying in her stump speeches– about her support for the “Bridge to Nowhere,” about Obama’s tax policy, and so on.
I judge — yes, I admit it — I judge a person who attended six colleges in five years to get a journalism degree and then wants to be Vice President. Yes, goddammit, I want my leaders to be smart and educated people. We’ve had enough of leadership by a mediocre thinker. I don’t judge anyone for their educational path. I judge Sarah Palin for her educational path AND her belief that it is sufficient for her to be VP. It’s beyond asinine.
And about the Republican Party and McCain:
I judge them for their divisiveness. McCain was surely aware in choosing Palin that he would reignite the culture wars. Once again, Republicans play to people’s worst instincts, their fears, their insecurities. They divide, they split off votes whenever they can.
I judge them for their racism. What was it, five black delegates at the RNC? And can you imagine if Obama’s daughters were a bit older and one of them were pregnant? The Republican spin on an unmarried pregnant BLACK teenager certainly would not be about family privacy and the beauty of “choice.”
I judge them for their sexism. The choice of Palin was the most blatant tokenism imaginable. I judge them for thinking women who supported Clinton will support Palin just because, as someone said to me the other day, “any old vagina will do.” They truly deeply honestly believe that women are stupid, and yes, I judge them for that.
I judge them for the way Palin can spew pugnacious, condescending and fact-free attacks on Obama but if he retaliates then he’s sexist. I judge them on the level of hearts and souls for that.
I judge them for their elitism. Yes, elitism. There’s a new elite: the “normal person.” That person has to be wholly uninterested in public affairs, undereducated, deeply religious (but only in the right religion) and part of a nuclear family unit. If you are not part of this elite, then you clearly hate everyone.
I judge them for engineering a political climate where it’s impossible to make any of these points publicly.
Please feel free to forward anywhere. I am damn furious.
That was a well written rant. I couldn’t have said it better. I am suffering from the virus that Mia brought to us this week-end, so my brainis like mush. Here is the second.
Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters,
We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed mere partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce-on the part of a pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate-that has a real possibility of becoming fact.
Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms. Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and for our present or future daughters. To date, she is against sex education, birth control, the pro-choice platform, environmental protection, alternative energy development, freedom of speech (as mayor she attempted to ban books and fired the librarian who refused), gun control, the separation of church and state, and polar bears. To say nothing of her complete lack of experience.
We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a woman, a mother, or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but solely as a rash, incompetent, and all together devastating choice for Vice President. Ms. Palin’s political views are in every way a slap in the face to the accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers so fiercely fought for, and that we’ve so demonstrably benefited from.
First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She does not demonstrate or uphold our interests as American women. It is presumed that the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win over women voters. We want to disagree, publicly.
Therefore, we invite you to reply here with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living in this country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command for our nation.
Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and place of residence.
We will post your responses on a blog called “Women Against Sarah Palin,” which we intend to publicize as widely as possible. Please send us your reply at your earliest convenience-the greater the volume of responses we receive, the stronger our message will be.
Thank you for your time and action.
VIVA!
Sincerely,
Quinn Latimer and Lyra Kilston
New York , NY
womensaynopalin@gmail.com
**PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY! If you send this to 20 women in the next hour, you could be blessed with a country that takes your concerns seriously. Stranger things have happened.
I hope you will e-mail your response to this. Here is a link to their blog Women Against Sarah Palin. I noticed that blogger has flagged their blog: “This blog is currently under review due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations.” You can still open it – no problem. Hmm! has McCain gotten to Google, too?