Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Protesting

I found this to be pretty enlightening:
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/525008.html

Keep in mind, those who have actually been governed by Palin know her best! Let them tell you how qualified she is.

What's Right and What's Feminist

I have recently begun a paid internship with a feminist organization. That's right, I'm no longer unemployed. Still uninsured but who really cares about me....

As I was saying, I have recently begun a paid internship with a media-based feminist organization. Part of my daily responsibilities is to go through all of the organization's (general) e-mails, most of which are comments in response to news briefs the organization puts out to its subscribers. Many of them salute the work of this organization, some are trying to promote their own work, and then there is a fairly substantial amount who write to voice their disappointment at this organization for being a feminist media organization and yet still bashing Sarah Palin.

I stick to my beliefs fully and I expect others to do the same. Which is why a large part of me sympathizes with these commentators. As a feminist, media-oriented organization, what are our goals? Sarah Palin, for all of her faults, is a woman in a position of extreme power and media-attention. She is the first woman to be a nominee for a GOP presidental position. Whatever the motives behind her selection and no matter how much she may or may not be qualified for her proposed position, she is still a woman in an incredible place. Without really thinking about it, you could say that she is a breakthrough for women. No Hillary Clinton, who really earned her position in politics, but she's still there none the less.

As a feminist organization, where does that leave you? Ok, Palin doesn't support abortion at all, for any reason, but she does still consider herself a feminist. Why, I'm not sure, but she apparently does. And even if she didn't, she's still a woman. What does a feminist say to this? How does a feminist organization deal with the fact that our country's first female Vice President does not agree with its values? Do you not support her because you tend to be a liberal organization (as many feminist organizations do and many feminists are) and she is very conservative? Do you shun her because her values are not the same as yours? If you do, aren't you going against the very fiber of your beliefs?

This is surely a very troubling spot to find oneself, as a feminist, in. I am all for women's rights but have never waved the feminist flag too much myself, so I have the pleasure of not being faced with this problem. Plus, I am a single person, allowed as many opinions and hypocrisies as I please. But as an organization...with a motto....with a code of ethics....with RULES....what do you do? Support a woman in that position simply because she's a woman--the organizational way to approach the issue-- or shun her because, despite her gender, she just does not believe in the same things as you do--a much more individualistic way to approach the issue.

This is a sticky subject indeed and, to be honest, I can't help but nod my head to those e-mails I read shaming us for our anti-Palin actions.

If These Walls Could Talk....

...they would probably say, "Stop getting us involved!"

I had a strange moment the other day...a moment when, while simultaneously looking at a picture of one thing and a bunch of words written about something else, and suddenly a whole new thought came into my head. The picture was of the wall being built in our country's southern borders with Mexico and the bunch of words had something to do with Obama's support of AIPAC. Suddenly, it came to me, this new idea.

The Great Wall of China must seem like a cure-all solution for the US and Israel today. When you don't want someone coming into "your" country, just build a wall! Much like people not wanting people to come to close to them so they build an emotional wall...some of you may be better able to relate to that.

Why does this seem like such a good idea? Why does simply putting a band-aid (or in this case a giant wall) on the wound seem like it will make it heal? The Great Wall of China may have been successful in keeping the Mongols out, but we are not living in barbarians days anymore. We live in a world of dipolmacy...of democracy...of the United Nations...why can't we find other ways of solving our problems?

Another advantage of our modern times is our modern technologies. The Mongols may not have been able to break down the Great Wall with their swords or their testosterone, but today there are new options for people really, really wanting to get through a wall.

And what about the other feature of our modernity: the recognition of human rights? You know, we may still be living in a world of barbarians, but are they still the ones trying to get over the wall?

Who, exactly, is a "real" politician?

One of the many highlights of the RNC was the GOP bashing of....senators??

What?

One of their 'tactics' was to talk up 'real' politicians, like Palin, who serve as governors of their proud state, and to down talk those money-grubbing, soap-opera watching, DC politicians. Wait a second....doesn't the man running for President in your party reflect those qualities? He's a seasoned senator...he's spent lots of time in DC...his wife is a multi-millionaire...

By attempting to make Palin look like a legitimate, qualified candidate for VP, they just went ahead and made McCain look...well...like an illegitimate, underqualified candidate for President. All the things they said make up for a bad politician are all things that McCain is.

Another point for the RNC! Actually, this one should qualify as a three-pointer.

The RNC: Repetition Equals Success?

Can the RNC speakers do anything other than hate on Obama and talk about how McCain was a P.O.W.?  Here's a hint Guiliani and Co.: Talking down Obama does not equal talking up your party.  Get something real to talk about. 

Conservatives + Republicans = What the &$*@

As I sit here watching Mike Huckabee going on about how McCain was his second choice for GOP presidential nominee (hardy-har-har) and how all GOPs really just want smaller government, I am struck by a question that has haunted me since PolSci 101 in college...How the hell did conservatives ever manage to merge into the Republican party?  And how did Liberals become Democrats?  It's truly one of the most ass-backwards features of our nation's political system.

As the history of our country's two-party system (one that I disagree with, but that's another topic for another day) shows, historically the two parties' ideals were sort of switched.  Historically, Republicans represented more truly liberal ideals...smaller government, bigger liberties for Americans.  The party stood for economic and social liberalism.  You were a Republican if you believed that the government's involvement with your life should be as minimal as possible.  In today's world, a traditional Republican would stand for the lowest taxes possible as well as for limited government intervention in social affairs, such as gay marriage, abortion and other morally debatable issues.

The democratic party, on the other hand, stood for bigger government.  Government charging higher taxes to provide our country with more.  Economically--as a business owner under a Republican government, you could either become as wealthy as possible without any government interference or begin a business that goes down in flames costing you everything, and not have the government to fall back on.  Under a democratic government, if your business was wildly successful you would be held accountable by the government to give back to your country a portion of the wealth you have accumulated, and if your business goes down in flames costing you everything you have your government to fall back on and to take care of you.  That's traditionally the purpose of a Democratic-led government...to have the government to take care of you/to hold you accountable for giving back to your country.

My confusion comes in here: at whatever point in time it was that the Republican party also became the party of social conservatives.  I suppose there's really no way they could fit into the Democratic party, but why the Republican party?  How is it that Mike Huckabee can stand up at the RNC and proclaim that his party asks only for smaller government and minutes later rant about how women shouldn't have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies?  Why can what you do with your body or your choice to marry whoever you want be the business of our government but how much you have in the bank cannot?   Why do Republicans feel that American citizens should NOT be accountable for sharing the immense wealth they may make as business owners with struggling single mothers without access to affordable healthcare, but feel that they should be forced by the government to follow their moral values?  The moral values that may have put that struggling single mother in the place she is in the first place.

This has always been my primary example of how much sense the GOP party doesn't make: Republicans oppose abortion, but also oppose paying the taxes to support all those struggling mothers forced to have their children young and uneducated.  They oppose abortion and then also tend to oppose teaching sex education in school.  It's perplexing.  But here I am digressing a bit.

I'm just wondering where and how the Republicans adopted the conservatives and why it makes any sense.  A conservative Republican...looking at it historically, this is the oxy moron to end all oxy morons.

I will never forget the day I realized that, traditionally speaking, I would probably be a Republican.  A student in one of my PolSci classes proclaimed himself to be Republican.  He stated that he supports gay marriage, he supports abortion, he supports people doing whatever they want and the government keeping its nose out of the peoples' asses.  What happened to you, Republicans?  What happened to the days you could call yourselves the Grand Ol' Party and really deserve it?

Smells Like Teen Pregnancy

When I first heard the news that Sarah Palin's 17-year old unmarried daughter is five months pregnant, I'd be lying if I said that one of the first thoughts in my head wasn't, "Yes!  Now I get to use that blog post title I thought of a few nights ago and have been dying to use!"  I figured I would have to wait for another Jamie Lynn Spears incident of teenage starlette pregnancy, but apparently I got lucky.  Now I can fit the title into my blog in a completely relevant manner!  

My blog-centered joys aside, this news brought the same delight and fear that any other news I've heard about this Palin character has brought to me.  Delight at the fact that I now know that not only is she completely inexperienced and underqualified to be vice president, but I now know that she is also a mother of five, one of whom is a pregnant seventeen-year-old, and the youngest of whom is a four-month-old with Down's Syndrome.  No way can this woman be our country's VP!  Not that I have anything against Palin's family facts...in fact it's quite admirable to know that she manages to hold her post as Alaska state governor while also dealing with these 'issues'.  Clearly she has accepted and embraced these things that most people may see as misfortunes and continues on with her responsibilities both to her family and her job.  But not as VP.  There is simply too much going on that would fall on her shoulders and too many distractions in her family for her to take on this magnitude of responsibility.  Even if her youngest child did not have Down's Syndrome, requiring more care and attention from the family, it's still a four-month-old child who needs his mother more than our country does.

The fear that I feel is the fact that this woman actually could become our VP.  It gives me a headache just thinking about it.  And the fact that this is clearly just a ploy of McCain's (or whoever's pulling his strings) to get him into office, but what then?  What happens when we realize that our VP is completely unavailable because she's busy attending to her plethora of family issues.  Family does come first, but when taking on a position as globally involved as the VP of America is--at a time when our economy is basically in a recession, we are in a seemingly never ending military entanglement with Iraq and Afghanistan, globalization is at its peak, our environment is deteriorating--the person assigned that post should definitely have the family issues at a minimum.  

I hope I've managed to make my point without sounding too arrogant or anti-feminist.  If not, as long as I made my point I'm at peace with it.