Michelle Obama and the Separatist Movement of Illinois

It’s interesting how certain things affect our consciousness, isn’t it? The wife of a prominent politician of the Democratic party, and a separatist organization bent on political and physical secession of their state from the union. Chances are, if you’re thinking about this and you support Obama, you don’t believe the two have any relationship whatsoever. Chances are, if you support “anyone BUT” Obama, you’re now desperately hoping they do.

Let me relieve you all of your suspense. There is no such relationship. To my knowledge, there is no such group in Illinois. Why did I bring up such an inflammatory subject? As a thought experiment. Allow me to explain.

In another blog entry, I explained that we are all, whether we like it or not, in some small way…bigoted. We all harbor negative feelings of “the other.” Whether it’s racism, sexism, homophobia, nationalism, religion…. we all have those feelings and thoughts, and we all respond to them either consciously or unconsciously. It’s an evolutionary tool called “tribalism.” Anyone not of our tribe is initially feared, rejected. Recognizing that, questioning it and being honest with ourselves about its existence goes a long way toward eliminating it. But people KNOW racism/sexism/etc. are bad, so their first knee jerk reaction is “NOT ME!!” To which I reply: “everyone.”

Sorry. I’m keeping you waiting. I have been flummoxed of late. People who claim to love this country to the point of fighting for it, waving flags for it, sacrificing for it, and loathing those who say a word against it….are embracing a candidate whose spouse was, until very recently, part of a fringe political organization whose purpose was the physical secession of their state from the union. No, it was not Michelle Obama. Nor was it Cindy McCain. It was Todd Palin, and up until 2002, he belonged to Alaska’s separatist movement. You are now having a reaction to that. Depending on several things, you are outraged, chagrined, defensive, or exasperated (because you’ve heard it to death).

And if you’re exasperated because you’ve heard it to death… can you then explain to me why…back up there when you so hopefully clicked open this blog entry…you WANTED to believe the same about Michelle Obama? And why it would not, regardless of reasons, been okay for her to have done the same? If it isn’t racism…so be it. But it’s at the very least “other,” under the header “liberal.” And that’s at least as bad, because you just torpedoed your own ethics and principles and justified them away for a candidate you know next to nothing about. All to make sure a “liberal” doesn’t win.

Ethics and personal principles shouldn’t be that easily sold to any political party.

Letting go of Palin

The time has come, the Walrus said, to speak of many things….

For a couple weeks now, the neocon faithful have been giggling like school girls on meth that Karl Rove’s tactic to use Sarah Palin as the GOP poster child has worked. And it has, brilliantly. Dems have been completely thrown off message by John McCain’s running mate.

Fortunately, Sen. Obama has recovered fairly quickly. Whether the rest of the party responds is yet to be seen, but it cannot be stressed enough: Sarah Palin is not important. No, really. She isn’t. Slimy she may be, and Dick Cheney in a skirt…but she isn’t important. John McCain is the candidate on whom we should be focusing. He’s so desperate to keep us from focusing on him, he’s giving us this shiny thing (Sarah Palin) to look at…and we’re doing it. Why?! We need to knock it off. It’s time to let it go.

Repeat after me: Sarah Palin is not important. Yeah, I know, but it’s true. She isn’t. The only thing Sarah Palin represents is John McCain’s total cluelessness when it comes to female voters. Time we went back to what this election is supposed to be about: beating John McCain. That’s easily doable.

Westmoreland, you are a racist slimeball.

Noted bigot and Georgia Representative Lynn Westmoreland refused today to rescind his comment calling Barack and Michelle Obama “uppity.” According to the column:

Westmoreland — who was born in 1950 and raised in the segregated South — said he didn’t know that “uppity” was commonly used as a derogatory term for blacks seeking equal treatment. Instead, he referred to the dictionary definition of the word as describing someone who is haughty, snobbish or has inflated self-esteem.

Sure. And David Duke’s misunderstood, too. Your explanation MIGHT be more acceptable, Mr. Westmoreland, had you not been such a vocal opponent of renewing the Voting Rights Act in 2006, or had you not grown up in, y’know, GEORGIA. You know damn well the word “uppity” is racist.

However. Let’s pretend for a moment that you really were living in a cave under a rock without exposure to your fellow man before miraculously emerging as a state legislator and you meant “uppity” in the “dictionary definition of the word,” which, as the article goes on to say, should cause no offense in your oh so humble opinion.

Explain to me, Mr. Westmoreland, how a man with working class roots, who worked his butt off to earn a scholarship to Columbia, then worked even harder and made president of the Law Review at Harvard law, then married a woman whose parents were equally blue in their collars and worked just as hard to make her own name and give back to her community… is MORE elite than a man who can’t even rememer how many houses he owns. ‘Splain that one to me when you have a moment, mmmkay?

But we both know this isn’t about “elitism,” is it, Mr. Westmoreland? Because you weren’t raised under a rock (much as you act like you crawled out from under one), and you have lived around and in racism all your life. So I’m not accepting the excuse. No, it’s about your holy fervent terror and hatred of the fact that a black man is actually on the ticket to become President of the United States.

I sincerely hope your constituency reads this, is appalled, and boots your monolithic histrionic race baiting ass in the general this year, Mr. Westmoreland, because there is no longer room for you or people like you in our government.

Bristol’s Decision or: Republicans stumble over the word “Choice”

So naturally, as an avowed Commie Socialist atheist liberal pig dog, I watch the Daily Show as often as I can. Well. Ordinarily I tivo it and watch it at some point over the weekend when I’m not running the kids around or cleaning the house or plotting the downfall of civilization as we know it by daring to vote Democrat. Last night, though, since I was up talking to the television during the RNC, I stayed up the extra half hour to watch Jon Stewart.

Ordinarily, I am not a big Samantha Bee fan; she ends up annoying me. But her last few segments have had me rolling, and I’m hoping the writers can keep coming up with the biting satire they’ve been writing for her lately.  Last night in particular had me grinning from ear to ear. On the convention floor, Samantha was interviewing attendees, asking them what they thought about the whole Bristol issue. Many of them said that, while it was an unfortunate incident, it was “a decision made privately, by the family.” I began to smile as Samantha asked each one “Hmmm….decision….she made her own DECISION… y’know…there’s another word…for decision…option? No…that’s not it….what IS that word…?” And hemmed over it more as each conventioneer got obviously more and more uncomfortable about the big hypocritical elephant in the living room. Finally one said “Um…choice?” “YES!” Samantha yelled. “That’s it. Choice. It was her choice.” The young lady then said (and I swear I laughed harder at this line than any Jon Stewart delivered) “well…yeah, but… y’know…’freedom of choice’ isn’t exactly the same thing as ‘pro choice.’ ” And she was SERIOUS!

(Clip here)

I was absolutely floored. Here’s this entire delegation who understands and supports the idea that getting married and having that baby is not only a private, family matter, but Bristol’s choice, and hers alone. And THEN had the balls to say it isn’t the same thing as being pro-choice. There I sat, my ghast totally flabbered. The darling man (who was raised in Texas and understands these things far better than a simple California girl like me) smiled at me rather gently and said “honey…they really do think ‘pro choice’ is a euphemism for ‘pro abortion’.”

I goggled at him. I blustered. What twaddle! NO ONE is pro-abortion! I’ve worked at Planned Parenthood; that’s not the motto! When we say “pro choice,” we really do MEAN….it’s your choice! Totally up to you! Bristol wants to have her baby. That’s great! SHE made that choice. Had she decided to keep it quiet, not tell anyone and given it up for adoption? ALSO great, and also totally up to her. Had she not told anyone, had an abortion, and gone on with her life? Guess what. That’s her choice, too.

The fact that people at the RNC supported that, on camera and on the record, should be screamed from the rooftops. The fact that it was the Daily Show and not a “hard news” program just means people were relaxed enough to say what they actually meant.  Republicans DO support a woman’s right to choose. Giving women that choice does not automatically follow that the choice they make will be the one with which their values disagree.