Saintless

Sarah Palin’s comment about Pro-America wasn’t some off-hand comment that was taken wrong, as she tries to convince us of in this video:

We believe, we believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom.

She’s feeding part of a message intended to “inspire” the right wing of the Republican Party. Here’s the other part of the message, from a different mouthpiece:

Well, I would say that people who hold anti- American views. I don’t think it’s geography. I think it’s people who don’t like America, who detest America. And on college campuses, a Ward Churchill, another college campus, a Bill Ayers, you find people who hate America. And unfortunately, some of these people have positions teaching in institutions of higher learning. But you’ll find them in all walks of life all throughout America.
[...]
I think the people that Barack Obama has been associating with are anti-American, by and large, the people who are radical leftists. That’s the real question about Barack Obama — Saul Alinsky, one of his teachers, you might say, out of the Chicago area; Tony Rezko, who is an associate also.

It disgusts me to think that they are getting away with trying to divide our country in this fashion, not by pitting political ideas against political ideas, but by pitting ordinary Americans against ordinary Americans. And it disgusts me that it seems to be working, and that somehow that message is more attractive to some people than this message:

(Check it out about 4:50 in)

“There are no real or fake parts of this country. We are not separated by the pro-America and anti-America parts of this country. We all love this country, no matter where we live, where we come from.”

This idea that Barack Obama wants a united country is not a new one. His 2004 DNC speech is an easy example. “There is not a red America and a blue America…There is a United States of America”, and if you look, those examples go back through all of his public life.

For more, see Keith Olbermann’s special comment last night:

As I was writing this, a friend sent me this link, to an article titled “Populism Without Pitchforks“:

Here again, Obama’s recent soft-populist language goes off in another direction entirely, not targeting much of anyone, but instead invoking a sense of natural order in which all of us live up to our responsibilities, in service of a sense of national purpose. It is an ethics based on a sense of mutual obligation and engagement, embodied in the ever-expanding circle of Obama’s own campaign. And in this sense, it is deeply reflective of the best in American populism, what the historian Lawrence Goodwyn called, “the movement culture” characterized by “collective self-confidence,” and the active engagement of millions in the practice of democracy.

I voted yesterday, and I feel even better about my vote today, knowing that in two short weeks, we’ll find that Obama won the 2008 Presidential Election, and that we can look forward to a United States of America, and not a Divided States of America. And when Obama wins, that means that Americans will have chosen to band together, and rejected the politics of hate and fear. God bless America.

(h/t Richard Warnick and Jason The)

(via Wonkette)

I thought about this for a moment after watching, and wondered how I’d like it if “they” came to an Obama event and tried pulling the same thing on me. I’d be a bit irritated, right? Then I realized, I’d just be laughing because it would be the same nonsensical people, only behind the camera instead of in front of it, and I’m sure I’d have to see the humor in it. Idiocy at it’s finest.

Anyone know what the molecules thing had to do with the rest of the sentence? Or well, what any of it meant? I think all of America may feel like they’re drunk (even if they’re not) when listening to her this Thursday!

Speaking of Thursday’s debate, I’ll be hanging out at Saints and Sinners with Drinking Liberally for the Vice Presidential Debate Watch Party. Event information here. (3040 South State St, SLC at 6:30 PM, Private Club for Members, 21+)

P.S. If you want your own chance to Interview Sarah Palin, check out InterviewPalin.com.

I just got this email, and I think it’s a wonderful idea!

This idea came from Letty Cotton Pogrebin.

Make a donation to Planned Parenthood. In Sarah Palin’s name. A Planned Parenthood donation is tax deductible, where a political donation isn’t.And here’s the good part: when you make a donation to PP in her name, they’ll send her a card telling her that the donation has been made in her honor. Here’s the link to the Planned Parenthood website:
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ go to donate, then to honorary gifts.

You’ll need to fill in the address to let PP know where to send the “in Sarah Palin’s honor” card.

Governor Sarah Palin
Alaska State Capital Building, 3rd floor
P.O. Box 110001
Juneau AK 99811-0001.

The fax # is 907 465.3532.

I really, really don’t want to write another blog about Sarah Palin. But, this issue just cannot be ignored. First, I will say that I fully respect Palin’s right to her personal views on abortion and contraception. However, I do not believe she has any right to force those beliefs on me, or anyone else.

My personal view of abortion is that, in a nutshell, it’s an awful, horrific thing. My moral values tell me it’s wrong. My moral values also tell me that I can’t force my morals on any other person, and the government has absolutely no business doing that, either. And anyone who believes that abortion should be 100% banned should read this article.

That aside, Sarah Palin has absolutely no respect for a woman’s body when it comes to the issue of rape. I’m convinced of that after finding out more of the story about Palin’s “Troopergate” scandal. (h/t Kagro X of DailyKos) According to ABC News, Alaska has an epidemic of “sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence and murder that make her state one of the most dangerous places in the country for women and children”, the rate of this abuse is 2 1/2 times that of the national average. Even Palin apparently agrees that this is an epidemic, and needs to be fixed.

According to the article, Palin did have members of her administration focused on the issue, and they were even devising a very ambitious plan to combat the problem.

But, then….

Some members of Palin’s administration were focused on the issue of sexual violence. Officials in the Department of Public Safety were devising an ambitious, multi-million-dollar initiative to seriously tackle sex crimes in the state, but Palin’s office put the plan on hold in July.

Days later, Palin fired its chief proponent, Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, after he declined to dismiss a state trooper Palin accused of threatening her own family members. Palin has said she fired Monegan because she wanted to move his department in a “new direction,” and he was not being “a team player on budgeting issues.” The dismissal is now at the center of a hotly-contested investigation by the state legislature.

Many have suggested that Palin’s true cause for firing Public Safety Commissioner Monegan was that he wouldn’t fire her former brother-in-law. That’s the subject of the investigation centering around Sarah Palin. This isn’t a bad rumor going around about Palin. There’s enough evidence that she’s being investigated over it.

This suggests to me that, as Governor, a vendetta against Palin’s brother in law trumped women’s safety. If her brother in law was truly a danger, there are protections in place that would have led to him being fired. But, those would have gone through a normal course of legal standards, which Palin apparently has little respect for.

But, the story doesn’t end there. Back in 1996, when Palin was Mayor of Wasilla, the town’s police force began charging rape victims for forensic work done in their case. Palin signed of on the budget where that became the standard, and otherwise never said a word about it, leading to Alaska having to make it illegal in the state to charge the victim for the kit. I cannot even imagine the empty space that must be inside of any person who would even consider asking a rape victim to cough up $1,000 to cover a rape kit. Mary Mapes over at HuffPo has this to say:

Oddly enough, Fannon did not make the same kind of choice in other criminal cases. He did not make people injured by hit-and-run drivers or mugging victims or the families of murdered men and women cough up money to investigate their cases or collect evidence to catch their attackers.

It only happened in rape cases.

Hmmm.

Now, why would that be?

There is one terrible possibility: that this happened because somebody in charge in Wasilla — either the police chief or the Mayor or both — hails from the craziest corner of the pro-life community, the people who believe that birth control is abortion.

These people oppose paying for forensic work in rape cases because as part of that process — as a final step in a humiliating and dehumanizing procedure — a woman is typically asked if she would like a “morning after” pill, a medication that will prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the lining of her uterus. The treatment is believed to be about 80% effective in preventing pregnancy.

Sarah Palin has not deigned to take questions from the unwashed masses in the media, but if she ever does, this might be a good place to begin.

Does she believe that giving a rape victim a “morning after” pill is committing murder? Does Palin believe that the taxpayers shouldn’t pay for this or that police shouldn’t offer this as a matter of course? Does she really believe that a woman should have to bear the child of her rapist?

We already know that’s what she would want for her daughter.

During her successful gubernatorial campaign in 2006, Palin declared that she would not choose an abortion for her daughter — then 14 years old — even if the girl was raped and became pregnant. “I would choose life,” Palin said.

Eric Croft suspects that these pro-life beliefs were the reason behind Wasilla’s no pay police policy on rape victims.

He is the Democratic legislator who got the system changed by sponsoring a state proposal in 2000 that required local police departments in Alaska to pay for victims’ “rape kits,” as the evidence-gathering process is called. He wrote the bill with Wasilla’s misguided police procedure in mind.

After asking a whole host of questions related to this story, Mary Mapes then says:

Maybe this is all some kind of unthinkable misunderstanding. Maybe Palin didn’t know this was happening, didn’t hear about it even the whole state joined the conversation, maybe this tough-talking Mayor couldn’t control her police chief.

Maybe she has changed over the years, maybe she now recognizes the immorality of treating rape victims this way.

Whatever the answer — before we vote — before we are treated to another story about her taste in shoes or her time as Governor, would someone please pin Palin down and ask her what the hell was going on with rape victims in Wasilla?

And more importantly, why?

This person who says she’s prepared to be a heartbeat away from the presidency could clear this whole thing up in a heartbeat.

Why won’t she?

After you read the ABC article, read the rest of Mary Mapes’ article, and think about how these stories fit together.

It really reminds me of my childhood. I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness (JW). They have strict beliefs about literal interpretation of the bible, and I understand that Palin’s religion does, as well. Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that if a woman is being raped, but she does not yell out, struggle with all of her might, even up to death, that she is responsible for the rape. I have no idea whether this idea might be taught from the pulpit of Palin’s church, or whether she agrees with it. But, this teaching comes from Deuteronomy 22:23, 24:

If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death–the girl because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

Now, having grown up where that scripture was used to teach us that if we’re raped, it’s our fault. We were also taught that if we wore clothes that excited a man, then we were asking to be raped, and even screaming wouldn’t take that responsibility from us.

Add to that, when a JW elder, who was also a close friend of the family and my employer, began to touch me inappropriately about the age of 14 or 15, I ended up telling. Which led to me being taken into a room with other elders, and my mother, where I was told it didn’t happen, because there weren’t two or more witnesses, and I must be imagining it. His wife later told me he was impotent, so it couldn’t have happened. I didn’t have a clue what impotent was for years. But, I did know that when he would come up behind me at the counter and “give me a hug”, there was something poking at me, and it’s not normal for a 50-something year old man to “hug” a 14 year old girl for 10 minutes at a time.

I won’t get into the other, more personal, stories that have affected me regarding religion and/or rape. But, suffice it to say, it’s a big issue with me. And when I put the bigger picture together about Palin’s passive acceptance of charging for rape kits, her putting on hold the comprehensive rape legislation to get back at her brother in law, I can’t help but wonder if her religion could be guiding those decisions. And if so, what future decisions might be guided by her religion, and what direction would they go?

Mind you, I could care less what church someone belongs to, with very few exceptions. But, what a person of authority and power does with their religious beliefs is very much my business. When that person’s worldview is very much shaped by their religion, it’s my business. And yours.

There are lots of scary questions out there, but my biggest question is this: Does Sarah Palin care more about doing what is right, or what her religion says is right?

Sarah Palin seems to have some very misguided views, and she’s repeatedly been on the wrong side of the issue of rape, which scares the shit out of me. She doesn’t seem to have a moral compass that tells her kindness and compassion is needed, and she’s put her interests ahead of the citizens of the town and the state that she’s been in charge of. And she most certainly doesn’t have the judgement to be Vice President of the United States of America.

Here are my thoughts about Palin’s speech. It’s already 30 minutes into it. Hope it’s not too disjointed to read, but I’m writing it as I hear. Hopefully, I’ll be able to expand the thoughts later. This will update every time I save, it’s my first attempt at live blogging.

Seriously, McCain doesn’t run with the Washington herd? What exactly do you call lobbyists?

Did she know who Harry Reid was prior to making this speech?

Is that booing I hear in the background? And what was up with the “lipstick” joke?

Not supposed to be a journey of personal discovery? That may be the most hypocritical line in this speech.

Being a POW doesn’t qualify you for presidency, ask McCain’s fellow POWs.

Brave men served and suffered to serve their country. The journey from that to the Oval Office…seriously, is she saying that the only reason to elect McCain is to fulfill his personal dreams? How does that qualify him for POTUS?

POW, POW, POW. Yeah, we caught that part. Is there a point? I’m waiting…..

That’s the kind of man we need to see us through the next four years? Someone who can feed you full of shit, knowing it’s unlikely you’ll get out alive, but make you think it can happen anyway? Where do I sign up?

Damn, this is over already?

Haha, KSL radio just called her Sarah McCain!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I was trying to remodel my bathroom as I listened and couldn’t take it anymore. I think I’ll try this liveblogging thing again, soon. It’s very freeing to get my thoughts out as I listen to crap spew from my radio. I bet it would be even better to get my thoughts out when there’s something positive to write.

Overall, my thoughts on the speech are that she knows how to read from a teleprompter and emphasize the right words quite well. When she told the joke….”What’s the difference between a PTA mom and a pitbull? The lipstick.” It became totally obvious she was reading someone else’s words, not just their outline.

Sad.

Is KSL seriously asking if she wrote that herself? Ugh!

Haha, caller is talking about Palin’s cheap shots at Obama’s community service. Ethan is defending her. She’s new, it’s ok. What?? Those are just jokes, PR, marketing.

Not sure who is talking (Ethan?), but he’s saying that his problem with Palin’s speech is that it required temporary suspension of disbelief.

I’m off to figure out how to finish my remodel. Feel free to leave your thoughts below. (We bloggers like that kind of thing.)

A (female) friend just sent me a message saying “I’m embarrassed for women if they really think this is supposed to be a representation of women. I’m really embarrassed for myself.”

First, an apology to those wondering why I didn’t blog much while in Denver. My laptop has had some issues, so blogging wasn’t an option. But, if you missed me, I’m sorry! I’ll try to make up for it over the next few weeks with some more in-depth posts.

As our chauffeur, Jeff, drove Jason, Craig and I home from Denver last Friday, a frequent topic of our conversation was this mysterious woman, Sarah Palin, about whom we knew little. Although MSNBC didn’t give us much to feed on before we left Denver, we managed to find lots of tidbits via our phones on the drive.

We found out that she’d been a “mayor/manager” of a small Alaskan town for a couple of years before spending the last year and a half as Alaska’s Governor. She apparently ran that little town into the dirt before moving on. She has no foreign policy experience. She was a beauty queen (like many other women in McCain’s life). She has a firing scandal that is as of yet unresolved. Her Wikipedia entry was scrubbed, as was her website, but they missed the Google cache of her praising Barack Obama’s energy plan just last month. A month ago she didn’t know anything about McCain’s position on Iraq. And those are just the first few hours of what I learned about Governor Sarah Palin.

The more I learned, especially about her inexperience, and the more I thought about the obvious ploy to win “disaffected” Clinton voters, the more angry I got.

I’m not a feminist, or at least I don’t call myself one. With politics, as with most things, I find that balance is really an essential part of getting it right. And feminists are pretty much seen as extremists. The original movement is really one I could get behind, but so many of the arguments coming out of modern feminists mouth’s really are extreme. I don’t think I deserve a better job than men because my grandmother didn’t have a chance in hell of getting one. I do think that I should have an equal chance at getting that job, though. I think most feminists probably agree with me, but the loudest ones are a bit too extreme, and so I do not identify with them.

That said, something I truly didn’t understand during Hillary Clinton’s run for President was why her supporters sometimes had no better reason for supporting her than to get a woman in the Oval Office. I do see that it would be a wonderful thing to have a female president, but I needed more of a reason to support her than I had. By far, I think that Clinton’s core supporters have come over to the Obama camp, or are at least on their way. Hillary Clinton’s principles on women’s issues were matched well to the Democratic Party.

And so, in choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, how can John McCain think that the true core of Clinton supporters will come running? Sarah Palin believes that the government should decide many things for women that most of us would like control of ourselves. She is pro-life. Hillary Clinton is pro-choice.* Sarah Palin has not been a voice on issues, such as domestic violence, equality, or anything else typically thought of when discussing women’s issues. Her vagina does not make her any more of an expert or an advocate of those issues than Alaska’s proximity to Russia makes her a foreign affairs expert.

This next part may seem a little disjointed, but I wrote some notes during the car trip home, and I’d like to separate those thoughts from the rest of this. So here they are.

In general, a woman can work and still raise a family. Of course, some challenges with work or the family can make success at either less likely, without choosing one. A highly stressful job, one that takes you away from your home or a child with a disability are perfect examples of what I’m talking about.

Is Sarah Palin some kind of undiscovered superwoman that she can be both a good mother to an infant with Down’s Syndrome and a good Vice President of the United States of America?

Is her husband the nurturing matronly type who will make a fine mommy-substitute to this baby with Down’s Syndrome? Is she hiring a surrogate “mommy” to fill that role? When her child cries, will she be given the choice between America and little baby Trig? Which will she choose?

Is McCain’s choice a signal that he’s resigned to losing this election, and the choice of a woman was to make the party look good, as if they’re suddenly over their history of discrimination? Or is the whole thing a joke because he couldn’t get anyone to accept?

Sarah Palin has put herself in the position of abusing the issue of women’s rights, as has John McCain. Sarah Palin is undoubtedly an irresponsible choice to put one missed heartbeat away from running this country. And McCain’s choosing her twisted the entire women’s rights platform into something else entirely. Sarah Palin as VP isn’t the same as Hillary Clinton as VP, or even POTUS. Sarah Palin is a willing puppet, and is doing harm to women’s rights, not helping it. Sarah Palin is a mockery of Hillary Clinton and every thing she stood for. Most of Clinton’s supporters are going to understand that.

And women everywhere are going to be pissed in the years to come when a serious woman Presidential candidate comes along again, whether it’s Hillary or not, because clips of Palin will be shown and jokes about her clownish run at the White House will be used to discredit that woman candidate.

I, as a woman, am offended by McCain choosing Palin, and by Palin accepting the offer.

*I often feel the need to clarify when this topic is brought up. My personal view of abortion is that it is wrong. However, I don’t think the government needs to decide that for anyone, nor do I. On top of which, reducing the number of abortions will only happen with education and working harder to get people to consider adoption or not getting pregnant in the first place. But, I digress.