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Political Rants Return to Crazy for Fiber

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?

13 Responses to “Political Rants Return to Crazy for Fiber”

  1. judy h says:

    Palin lost me completely (not that I ever favored her) when I think she put down Obama’s job as a community service employee…to me that includes the many many people who are doing those jobs, for no or little pay to help those less fortunate; find jobs; homes. Never mind the thousands of volunteers who just plain give. Disagreeing with her politics and your sexist. Our son, early 40’s, commented on how horrified he found it that she would accept the nomination and put her pregnant daughter through all the humiliation & public scrutiny. With the whole world watching – no way would he do that to his child. “She’s young; there’s plenty of time for running for office.” Having watched the ABC evening news interview with her I noticed she never really answers with a yes or no..politically correct and non answers. Charlie even countered with something to the effct “after that blizzard of words, was that a yes or no?” She never did utter yes or no. Well schooled in the world of politics.

  2. Mandi says:

    Thank you. Very well put.

  3. Susan Tinberg says:

    I respect your right to rant on your blog. I respect your right to your opinions on a candidates policies or anything for that matter. You start to lose me though when you get personal. Our current president graduated from Yale and Harvard Business School and you consider him a mediocre thinker (believe me, he has disappointed me greatly). Exactly what kind of education does a person have to possess in order to qualify them to run for political office? As a side note I do enjoy all your political blogs even though we don’t agree on everything (okay, most things). I feel it is important to hear both sides of issues because it keeps me open-minded.

  4. KathieB says:

    I’m with Claudia–so angry I have to keep turning off the news. And I am SO INSULTED over McCain’s attempt to pander to the voting public.

    Keep telling like it is, Gerrie!

  5. kirsty says:

    Even in Australia we are watching this election with great interest. Your choices as American voters have a direct impact on the lives of almost every other person on the planet (even if we wish it wasn’t so!!). Gerrie, you are the voter I am grateful for – the Thinking Voter. In some ways, you are voting for me, too. Thank God for your sense and clarity!

  6. Miss Snips says:

    As a Canadian, I am thankful that I don’t have to vote in your election, this time it is quite a campaign, too long, too mean, too many liers. But then Canada goes to the Polls on Oct 14, to choose a new government or re-elect the old. Another war of words started and we have to figure out who is closer to what we want… Not sure if any of it is worth the trouble as in 50 years China will be running over us anyway… maybe… i hope not, though….

    Okay I am not going to read any more american politics I have enough on the Canadian side of the border to think about!

  7. pat says:

    After questioning the book banning story earlier, I subsequently read some pretty solid commentary about the topic. I stand corrected, and gladly so.

  8. JulieZS says:

    Those are some great rants, thanks for posting them as I hadn’t seen them. I’ve been kinda stunned in a numb silence for a while by the palinmania, unbelieving that this is happening to our country, again. I just couldn’t believe that John McCain is that cynical, that reckless, guess so. Will “we” fall for it all over again, or will enough people pay attention. A nail-biter for sure.

  9. Claudia Hill says:

    Thanks, Gerrie. I have written the reasons I am against Sarah Palin and forwarded them to the Women Against Sarah Palin site. I am full of anger and rage at this choice – so much so that I have to turn the news off at times because I will explode! By the way, she did ask about banning books and would have done so except for the response from her community. As I said in my letter, she is the antithesis of everything I believe in.

  10. dee says:

    Aside from everything else that’s wrong with her positions, I cannot possibly support someone who is idiotic enough to want creationism taught to children. Talk about the dumbing down of America.
    The smartest thing John McCain did was to pick her. She’s serving the kool aid to the radical right fundamentalist Christians and they are drinking it by the gallon. Scary times Gerrie.

  11. pat says:

    The first email you shared was well written. The second one, although well intentioned, has some unintended inaccuracies, i.e. the banned books bit. Although we on the left seem to be held to a much higher standard of accuracy than is the “right”, there’s still plenty of verifiable truth being ignored, and verifiable falsehood being promoted that we have lots to choose from. It is unfortunate, maybe tragic, that apparently an increasing number of people can’t tell the difference any more. Can’t. Or won’t. And we will all of us suffer the consequences of this vicious mental virus.

    Thanks for posting this. I subscribe to many art blogs, and 100% of those who have posted on politics agree with you. Me. Us.

  12. Kristin L says:

    … but that wasn’t meant as criticism of you.

  13. Kristin L says:

    My inbox is always filled with rants like this, but from the other camp (due to assumptions made about my politics due to my husband’s profession). I’m not sure if I’m happy to see that both conservatives AND liberals are passionate about getting their opinions out there and heard, or sad that vitriolic emails are universal.