No "What Ifs" Allowed

October 29, 2008

No "What Ifs" Allowed

Below the Belt: A Column by NOW PAC Chair Kim Gandy

Let's face it, you're probably not undecided at this point. If you're reading this column, you don't need another comparison of the candidates' voting records and policy positions. You don't need to be warned about the fate of the Supreme Court and women's reproductive rights. You don't need to be reminded about the candidates' efforts (or lack thereof) on issues like violence against women and equal pay.

In my estimation, however, there is one caution that feminists definitely need to hear: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT pay attention to the polls.

Okay, for a few precious moments you can revel in the apparent trend in favor of Obama-Biden and the dozens of women-friendly candidates for Congress. Now stop -- that's long enough!

We cannot afford to get complacent. All those new registered voters we keep hearing so much about -- will every one of them turn out to vote? Or, since things look so good, will they avoid the long lines and let everyone else take care of business? Or maybe those who have stood in line election after election might be tempted to sit this one out, thinking the conclusion is foregone?

Reject this line of thinking immediately. Your vote and the vote of every other women's rights supporter is crucial in creating a margin that can't be denied, stolen, challenged or ignored.

Each and every one of us needs to work our butts off until the final moments. None of us wants to wake up on Nov. 5 to another 2000 or another 2004. Remember, those elections were decided by a single state. Could that state be yours? Even if your state is as blue as they come, nobody wants to wonder . . . what if I had done just a little more? What if I had just logged in and made a few more calls to undecided voters in Ohio or Virginia that last weekend . . .

And I'm not just talking about getting out the vote for Obama-Biden. We need to elect a pro-woman Congress, with a filibuster-proof Senate, and we must defeat dangerous ballot measures in states like California, Colorado, South Dakota and Florida.

Which brings me to another concern -- if Obama is reported as the likely winner before the polls have closed in the West, will progressive voters in the Mountain and Pacific time zones break open the champagne instead of going to the polls? If they do, we risk losing the critical ballot measures on abortion and marriage in Colorado, South Dakota and California.

What can you do? Here's an easy one -- send emails to everyone you know reminding them to vote, especially if they live in a swing state. And even if you assume they're voting for your candidate, make your best pitch anyway and encourage them to call you if they want to talk about it. Then, move on to volunteering with a campaign - make phone calls, knock on doors, drive voters to the polls, whatever you are capable of doing. In addition, I want to urge you to take this weekend to volunteer with Obama or a local campaign. Heck, take off Monday and Tuesday if you can afford it -- you don't want to miss the fun and excitement!

NOW PAC has specific action ideas and links posted online. And if you do just one thing from that list, and then one thing more, and then something else, and I do one or two or three more things, heck, we could push this election right over the top.

As you track Tuesday's returns -- on TV, the radio, the internet, your cell phone -- into the wee hours of the next morning, you'll want to be able to say to yourself proudly: This was my election. I have no regrets, I did everything I could.

Do You Know Someone Who Says They Won't Vote This Year?

While listening to NPR this week (all about the election, swing states and supposedly "shoe-ins"), one of the guests on "Talk of the Nation" spoke of why it is so important to get everyone out there to vote. He also mentioned a friend who won't vote this year and that he (the guest on the show) calls "Rickey".

We all know many "Rickeys" who say they are not going to vote this year for any number of reasons--it won't count, I don't like either candidate and on, and on, and on!

A new website, www.rickeypac.org, was developed to get the "Rickeys" of this nation to vote and/or to help you get them to vote during this election...and any other election. Check it out!

"Only Rickey Can Prevent Forest Fires

Hello, Rickey. The Matrix has you. Follow the white rabbit to the nearest polling location.


What?

It feels like that, doesn’t it? For many of us, it feels as though the last eight years of our lives have been controlled by machines bent on reducing us to fodder for some absurd political agenda, and it’s impossible for an individual to have any effect on turning that around. It really is a turbulent time.

But now, with the election of our next President at hand, we the people actually do have a chance to turn things around—if we get out and vote our voice. That’s why I was moved to create RickeyPAC.

You see, I live in Vermont, a state whose three electoral votes will go to Obama unless he devours a live kitten on national television on Election Day, and even then I’m not sure they wouldn’t. So my vote won’t count for much in the grand scheme of things. Neither will the votes of my fellow Vermonters, the Texan, the Californian, nor the Illini I know."

READ MORE...

Mad Dog Palin--The Truth About Sara Palin

The scariest thing about John McCain's running mate isn't how unqualified she is - it's what her candidacy says about America...READ MORE

"Say it ain't so!" "The Return of Rove" Rolling Stone Magazine Article

Wayne Slater has known Karl Rove for 20 years. As the author of Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, he's not easily shocked by the Republican strategist's Gila-monstroid tactics. But even he's been blown away by Rove's latest political comeback.

At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, Slater watched Rove address a delegation from South Carolina on John McCain's behalf. That would be the same South Carolina where Rove helped torpedo McCain's campaign in 2000 by reportedly spreading rumors that the candidate's adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually his illegitimate black love child. Addressing the convention delegates, though, Rove acted like McCain's long-lost friend.

"Karl started talking in this emotional tone about how wonderful Cindy McCain was to adopt Bridget — eight years after he just took a machine gun to the guy," Slater says in an awed voice. "He's incredible."

He sure is. Ever since the nomination of Sarah Palin, Washington has been abuzz with rumors that Rove has been invited to help plot campaign strategy for McCain. His rise from the ashes is the scariest story of an already scary campaign season. Presidents come and go; they sit in a place where the law can still touch them, and they're subject to the vote once every four years. But Karl Rove is a revolutionary, a man who can't be stopped by anything except death and maybe — maybe — prison. Rove is trying to finish the work of Nixon and Bush: to achieve the supremacy of a peculiarly American form of Leninism, one that involves the drowning of the electoral process in idiot witch hunts and dirty tricks, the handing over of all policy to anyone with a dollar more than the next guy, and the total aggrandizement of incumbent power at the expense of an entire system of checks and balances. With Rove back in the mix, there's now a hell of a lot more at stake this November than there was when a batty, battle-scarred old poll-chaser like John McCain was the darkest figure on the ticket. Not to sound too alarmist, but Election Day now becomes a referendum on democracy itself.

The actual evidence of Rove's newfound influence on the McCain campaign is — like so much of the history surrounding this uniquely maddening personage — scant at best, part vapor and part legend, a thing mostly deduced and inferred from various factoids and ripples in the informational pool.

We know, for instance, that Steven Schmidt, who was tapped to be head of rapid response during Bush's 2004 campaign, is now a senior strategist in the McCain camp. Schmidt assumed a more central role in McCain's run in June, shortly after the stammering, much-mocked "green screen" speech McCain gave near New Orleans on the night Obama claimed victory in the Democratic primaries. This promotion would put to the test a theory that Rove has trained so many subordinates in his tactics that his revolution could go on forever even without him.

"If Karl were to get hit by a bus tomorrow, it wouldn't matter," says Slater. "There are hundreds of young Roves out there in the political bloodstream, ready to take over."

Sure enough, it was right after that dismal night outside New Orleans that McCain — whose campaign stumpery until then had been fairly predictable, focusing heavily on his personal story, the Iranian threat and his experience and patriotic bona fides relative to Obama — began a somewhat drastic rhetorical overhaul. Under Schmidt's guidance, McCain's tactics took on a darker and unmistakably Rovian character.

The hallmark of the Rove campaigning method is the political act so baldly below the belt that it literally staggers you. Even the most hardened cynics find themselves continually surprised by the ability of Rove and his minions to always hit that evasive new low, coming up with things that would shock a 60-year-old Greyhound-station hooker.

What American doesn't remember Rove, after 9/11, saying that liberals wanted to "offer therapy and understanding to our attackers"? What Texan doesn't recall fondly the "push poll" Rove reportedly commissioned for Bush, in which voters were asked if they would be less likely to vote for Gov. Ann Richards if they knew her staff was "dominated by lesbians"? And what veteran doesn't remember Rove impugning the patriotism of Sen. Max Cleland, a triple-amputee Vietnam vet, by running an ad showing the faces of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein fading into the wheelchair-bound Cleland's face? Suck on that, Mr. Silver Star!

The first whiff of this kind of tactic in the current race came at the end of June, when the McCain campaign launched its new slogan "Country First," making McCain the first presidential candidate in history to make "My Opponent Is a Traitor" his rallying cry. Then there was the unveiling of a new ad comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Following that came a coordinated campaign to ridicule Obama for the somewhat bombastic décor of the stage for his convention speech, with the campaign issuing leaflets mocking the vertical columns as a "Temple of Obama."

All of these fairly transparent moves were beginner-level Rove tactics, designed to remove real issues from the equation and concentrate voter attention on an image of Obama as "the biggest celebrity in the world," in Schmidt's words, a superficial, self-centered member of the beautiful people who probably windsurfed with John Kerry. Rove himself provided the outlines of this strategy earlier in the year when he said about Obama, "Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette who stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

This was classic Rove. Never mind the fact that Obama, a former community organizer who has never been a member of a country club, is running against a classic Washington insider who owns no fewer than seven houses and 13 cars. But these were merely remarks made by a private citizen, not official campaign pronouncements. It wasn't until the selection of Sarah Palin that there began to be whispers about a direct connection between McCain and the actual flesh-and-blood Rove, as opposed to mere Rovism or Rovian tactics.

First there were reports that Rove called Joe Lieberman before the GOP convention and told him to call McCain and withdraw his name from consideration for the VP nomination. Rove denied the report, but conceded that he had been in touch with the McCain camp, saying, "I receive calls from people who are friends over there, which I've said a million times." He described the interaction as mere "chitchat," a claim seconded by the McCain camp. McCain aide Tucker Bounds insisted Rove had no access: "He's a Fox analyst."

But after the surprising nomination of Palin — a move that fairly stank of Rovian thinking, with its 10-megaton brazenness, its blunt anti-intellectualism and its naked courting of Rove's beloved electoral cattle, the evangelicals — Rove seemingly let it slip in a Fox broadcast that he did have inside info, saying during the teen-pregnancy flap that Palin was "carefully vetted. . . . They knew all of it." An anonymous Republican source soon told a Washington newspaper that Rove had a consistent, "medium"-size role with the McCain campaign.

By then, it really didn't matter whether it was the actual, physical Rove who was pulling the strings, or just a coterie of Rove disciples in the McCain camp. By the time Palin finished her acceptance speech in St. Paul, it was clear that McCain had gone over to the dark side — that he had decided to sign on with the same Nazi-hearted smear merchants who kicked his face in eight years ago in South Carolina. Not only does McCain now have former White House aide and Rove ally Nicole Wallace serving as a senior adviser, he actually went out and hired Tucker Eskew, one of the architects of Rove's smear campaign in South Carolina back in 2000, a man whom McCain once said had a "special place in hell" awaiting him in the next world. The Republican Party even hired Tim Griffin, a notorious Rove protégé, to run McCain's anti-Obama operations — the same Tim Griffin named U.S. attorney for Arkansas, despite being linked to efforts to suppress minority votes.

Since the convention, all of these A-list hired political killers have helped McCain move the so-called debate so far from any real issues that it took all of Wall Street falling underwater for the public to snap out of it for so much as a minute. In recent weeks, the media have been fed a stream of fabrications and absurd accusations, some more subtle than others. Schmidt, for instance, told Katie Couric that reporters had asked campaign staffers in off-the-record lunches if Palin would be willing to allow paternity tests to be done to determine who the father of her latest child was. "Smear after smear after smear," Schmidt said piously. "It's disgraceful and it's wrong." Never mind that Schmidt himself was the only person ever to mention a paternity test in public. The whole gambit was clearly designed to create a sexy headline to help push the anti-media campaign strategy, at the expense incidentally of what passes for Sarah Palin's own honor.

Couric was also at the center of the next Schmidt gambit, a now-infamous ad in which a Couric monologue about the role of sexism in the campaign was run following a clip of Palin's speech. But Couric's monologue was actually an old one, referring not to Palin but to the Hillary Clinton campaign, and the McCain camp was forced to snip the Couric bit from its still-outrageous ad charging the whole world with sexism.

The clip also made the hysterical claim that Obama himself had compared Palin to a pig when he described McCain's repackaging of well-worn Bush policies as "lipstick on a pig." It didn't matter that it wasn't true, or that McCain himself had used the line at least twice during the campaign, or that Karl Rove, offering a hilarious impersonation of civic concern, suggested that McCain had gone "too far" in the lipstick debate. All that mattered was that a week after the convention, McCain suddenly had a 51-40 lead in polls among white women — a lead that held up until the Wall Street shit-blast jolted both sexes back to electoral reality.

Whatever his role in the campaign, Rove's unique position as both a campaign adviser and a media figure has created new opportunities for informational self-dealing of a type that would have seemed unimaginable a decade or so ago. Now the McCain camp can watch Rove say that Sarah Palin's nomination was "not a governing decision but a campaign decision" — and then have Schmidt tell Katie Couric that same night that Rove is "wrong" before going to whine that Palin has "been under vicious assault and attack from the angry left."

So long as there are reporters like Katie Couric out there stupid and desperate enough to let situations like this play out on their airwaves, the McCain camp can now create controversies out of thin air by arguing with itself on national television, turning premeditated, planted comments by the "independent journalist" Karl Rove into "attacks" from the "angry left."

One is tempted to call this brilliant tactics, except that it isn't brilliant, any more than pointing a gun at a Korean store owner is a "brilliant" way to make $135. One of the most remarkable aspects of Rove's career is the way the media consistently respond to being lied to, pissed on and manipulated by Rove: They stroke his already swollen gonads even more, hailing him as a singular political genius. Time celebrated Rove's return to the big stage in August by calling him "Bush's resident campaign genius." He is "regarded by many as a campaign genius," added The Hill, while the Sacramento News and Review distilled "Rove's genius" as his "willingness to push legal and ethical boundaries where no man has gone before."

Nobody appreciates just how far Rove has pushed those boundaries more than Don Siegelman, the former Democratic governor of Alabama. While the rest of us spent the last year forgetting just what an evil, conniving bastard Rove is, Siegelman was taking the scandal-plagued last gasp of the George W. Bush era right on the chin. Successfully prosecuted by the Bush Justice Department on seven counts of corruption, Siegelman was chased from office and spent nine months in prison before a judge released him on bond. When he got out, almost the first words out of his mouth were about Rove. "His fingerprints," Siegelman said, "are smeared all over this case."

The U.S. attorney who launched the prosecution of Siegelman, it turns out, is married to a close ally of Rove's named Bill Canary. A witness has since surfaced claiming that old Bill was talking about ridding Alabama of Siegelman way back in 2002, saying that "he had already gotten it worked out with Karl, and Karl had spoken with the Department of Justice, and the Department of Justice was already pursuing Don Siegelman."

When the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Rove to testify about the scandal in May, however, Rove blew it off, insisting that executive privilege makes him constitutionally "immune from compelled congressional testimony" — a curious defense, given that the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled twice that even sitting presidents can't hide behind executive privilege. But as we're all finding out, Karl Rove exists on a plane that lies somewhere beyond the presidency, a world that includes all the power of the chief executive but none of the legal constraints.

"The longer the Democrats let him get away with it," Siegelman says, "the more influence he'll have on the election."

Rove is not a genius, or even very clever: He's totally and completely immoral. It doesn't take genius to claim, as Rove ludicrously did last fall, that it was the Democrats in Congress and not George W. Bush who pushed the Iraq War resolution in 2002. It doesn't take brains to compare a triple-amputee war veteran to Osama bin Laden; you just have to be a mean, rotten cocksucker.

The reason Rove continues to survive is the same reason that Johnnie Cochran was called a genius for keeping a double-murderer on the golf course — because this generation of Americans has become so steeped in greed and social Darwinism that it can no longer distinguish between cheating and achieving, between enterprise and crime, and can't bring itself to criticize winners any more than it knows how to be nice to losers. He survives because an increasing number of Americans secretly agree with Rove's vision of rules, laws and "the truth" as quaint, faintly embarrassing rituals that only a sucker would let hold him back.

Rove's comeback is evidence that the attack on our civic institutions in the Bush years wasn't an isolated incident, something we can pin on a specific group of now-deposed politicians. It's a trend, a thing that grows in direct proportion to our greed and ignorance. We may be a country at war, facing one of the greatest financial meltdowns of all time. But in the end, the thing that could be our undoing is the kind of generalized boredom with legality and honor that empowers Rovian behavior. If we let it.

[From Issue 1063 — October 16, 2008]

Don't Take His Word For It, Below the Belt: A Column by NOW President Kim Gandy

She's been on the covers of publications from Time and Newsweek to Us Weekly. Alaska Governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin could be a heartbeat away from the highest office in the country. There could be a woman in the White House, and the nation's a-buzz over this rising star.

So why aren't I more excited about this?

Maybe because being a strong woman doesn't necessarily make you strong on women's rights.

Governor Palin is a mother of five who, like many women, balances being a mom and having a full-time job outside of the home. But feminism isn't just about being a mom or a working woman or both -- it's about believing every woman deserves an equal opportunity to utilize her strengths and control her destiny -- that every woman deserves a level playing field and a fair chance to succeed.

For me, this election has never been about getting one woman into office. It's about opening doors and opportunities for all women. "We don't think it's much to break a glass ceiling for one woman and leave millions of women behind," said Ellie Smeal of the Feminist Majority.

And make no mistake, the McCain-Palin ticket will leave millions of women behind.

Just for starters, Sarah Palin, like John McCain, vows to overturn Roe v. Wade. In fact, she opposes abortion even in the case of rape or incest. Let's think for a moment what that means -- a girl raped by her own father would be forced to carry her pregnancy to term, despite the risks to her young body. Has she no human compassion? She wouldn't even allow an abortion to protect a woman's health -- only to prevent her "imminent death." Wonder how many of a woman's internal organs would have to shut down before "Dr." Palin would consider her death to be imminent? And by then, would it be too late for an abortion to save her?

Her heartlessness doesn't end there. While she was mayor of Wasilla, rape victims were required to pay up to $1,200 for the cost of processing the police evidence (called "rape kits") in their cases. Just imagine - during perhaps the most traumatic moments of their lives, Sarah Palin made women pay, before the law would protect them. And it didn't stop until Democratic governor Tony Knowles signed statewide legislation prohibiting the practice.

How does this demonstrate respect for women and girls? How is this feminism?

Advancing feminism requires ending sexism, and NOW has been speaking out for over 18 months against the sexism aimed at women candidates and leaders, including Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Sarah Palin. But you already know that, because you know NOW. But when Palin was asked during the primaries about the sexism Senator Clinton was experiencing, she implied that Clinton was whining, and said women just need to "work harder" and "prove yourself to an even greater degree that you are capable."

What?! This is the same line that has been used against women for decades -- that we aren't trying hard enough, and besides we're just a bunch of whiners anyway.

Women are still being paid an average of 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Are they whining, too? According to John McCain they are. He explained his opposition to the Fair Pay Act by saying that women (who want equal pay) need more training - never mind that women tend to have more training and education that similarly-situated men, and still they earn less.

Lilly Ledbetter, an employee of Goodyear Tire and Rubber for 19 years, sued Goodyear once she'd amassed evidence that she was being grossly underpaid compared to her male counterparts. She won her case, but what could have been a landmark decision to end pay discrimination turned sour. Appeals by Goodyear took her case to the Supreme Court, where a narrow majority overturned the ruling in a dramatic reinterpretation of pay discrimination law. According to the majority, Ledbetter should have filed her discrimination lawsuit within 180 days after the first instance of pay discrimination - even if she didn't know about it (which she didn't). Huh? It was her fault? Now Ledbetter is speaking out and fighting back so that this injustice doesn't happen to anyone else. Is Lilly Ledbetter "whining" too?

So we whiners are supposed to herald Sarah Palin as bringing in a new wave of feminism? Who is telling us this? Pundits and politicians who've offered nothing in their long careers demonstrating so much as a mild interest in women's rights, that's who. "You might say," said Rush Limbaugh, "she's the face of feminism." Well, Rush Limbaugh might say so, but forgive me if I don't take his word for it.

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message, by Gloria Steinem

No one can say it better than Gloria Steinem. She helps to voice my opinion very eloquently!

From the Los Angeles Times
Opinion

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message
Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By Gloria Steinem

September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.

Not Every Woman Supports Women's Rights

August 29, 2008

Statement of NOW PAC Chair Kim Gandy on the Selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain's Vice Presidential Pick

Sen. John McCain's choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate is a cynical effort to appeal to disappointed Hillary Clinton voters and get them to vote, ultimately, against their own self-interest.

Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women's rights, just like John McCain.

The fact that Palin is a mother of five who has a 4-month-old baby, a woman who is juggling work and family responsibilities, will speak to many women. But will Palin speak FOR women? Based on her record and her stated positions, the answer is clearly No.

In a gubernatorial debate, Palin stated emphatically that her opposition to abortion was so great, so total, that even if her teenage daughter was impregnated by a rapist, she would "choose life" -- meaning apparently that she would not permit her daughter to have an abortion.

Palin also had to withdraw her appointment of a top public safety commissioner who had been reprimanded for sexual harassment, although Palin had been warned about his background through letters by the sexual harassment complainant.

What McCain does not understand is that women supported Hillary Clinton not just because she was a woman, but because she was a champion on their issues. They will surely not find Sarah Palin to be an advocate for women.

Sen. Joe Biden is the VP candidate who appeals to women, with his authorship and championing of landmark domestic violence legislation, support for pay equity, and advocacy for women around the world.

Finally, as the chair of NOW's Political Action Committee, I am frequently asked whether NOW supports women candidates just because they are women. This gives me an opportunity to once again answer that question with an emphatic 'No.' We recognize the importance of having women's rights supporters at every level but, like Sarah Palin, not every woman supports 

A Menu of Choices…Not just for Restaurants

Food
Alcohol
Cigarettes
Spouse
Friends.
Not relatives!
Religion
Career
Morals
Geography
Vehicle
Education
Children
Pets
Exercise

In life, we are constantly making choices. Some choices we agonize over and some choices we instinctually make without thought. We base our choices on nature AND nurture. Some choices are biological and some are taught. Wars are fought over choices that two individuals make, two countries make, two religious groups make. These wars ignite when either of the two do not respect the other’s prerogative to live with their choices. There are many of us, even in this country of “liberty” who feel that those who do not make the same choices as we do are ignorant, stupid, going to hell, not saved, “up tight”, out of touch, immoral, bigoted, anti-Semitic, homophobic, liberal, exhibitionist, introvert, conservative…and so on.

None of us is more right than the other. We need to accept other individuals’ choices, not attempt to forcefully impose our choices on others. Not live in fear as a result of being uneducated and uninformed about another’s life choices. Appreciate the differences. Or as the French so perfectly put it…”viva la difference”…embrace the difference.

These two poems by Robert Frost embrace this laisez-faire philosophy and just happen to be my favorite poems..they say it all to me!

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I would be doing a grave injustice if at the commencement of the DNC Convention, I did not include this part of the platform that speaks to choices. I base my choices on information and education. I look at facts and of course emotion! What I personally would do for myself…is just that..it is personal and it would be my choice as is every other individual able to make choices to fit their lifestyle and beliefs. I neither condemn nor approve their choices…they too are personal!

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.
The Democratic Party also strongly supports access to comprehensive affordable family planning services and age-appropriate sex education which empower people to make informed choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.

The Democratic Party also strongly supports a woman’s decision to have a child by ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre- and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support, and caring adoption programs.

Don’t Break Out the Champagne Just Yet
Below the Belt: A Biweekly Column by NOW President Kim Gandy
August 21, 2008

Deal: Clinton's Name Will Be Placed in Nomination at Dems Convention

There is a Goddess!

Deal: Clinton's Name Will Be Placed in Nomination at Dems Convention
Email
Share August 14, 2008 11:09 AM

ABC News' Kate Snow reports: A deal has been brokered between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that will allow Clinton's name to be placed in nomination at next week's Democratic nominating convention, sources close to the Clinton camp told ABC News.....Read More

Rhetorical Questions by James Fallows

Once again, I look for information that will help ME decide for whom to vote. I still haven't decided, but the more informed I am, the better to make an educated decision. I found this interesting article in the Atlantic Monthly online. Here is an exerpt.

---

Who will win the presidential debates? What does each candidate’s use of words say about how he would govern as president? Can Obama’s rhetorical skills lift him to the heights of Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan—or will his speechmaking do him in? After watching all 47 (!) of the primary season’s debates, our correspondent has the answers—and some harsh criticism for the moderators.

Rhetorical Questions

by James Fallows

(Final paragraph to this article.....)
The argument that Obama would be another Pétain-like Carter, offering his noble qualities only to be overwhelmed by ignoble reality, is the deepest fear about him, or at least the one that most resonates with me. The greatest hope is that before his brief time in the U.S. Senate, he absorbed more practical skills and sensibilities than Carter did in Georgia. Michael Janeway, who as dean of the Medill Journalism School at Northwestern knew the Chicago establishment figures who nurtured Obama’s rise in the 1990s, speaks of “the Chicago way”—“getting all the parties together and taking responsibility for finding a solution.” Under the Chicago way, the fact that Obama’s most important speeches are short on eight-point action plans is a strength rather than a weakness: it’s a sign that serious business will be done.

Peggy Noonan compared this approach to that of the Kennedy administration. “JFK and his people came into the White House,” she said in an e-mail, “with a faith they could be practical, pragmatic, worldly, that with these attributes they could manage what came over history’s transom. I see Obama as like this: things will come over the transom and he’ll approach them as a thoughtful sophisticate. He’ll think.”

For better and worse, if Obama wins, a thinking president is what we’ll have.

A King for four years…Does Age Matter?

Let me begin by saying I do not support Senator McCain, nor do I support Senator Obama and I really do not want another would be "King" for four years. So this is neither an endorsement nor a condemnation of either candidate…merely observations.

The confession is that I am a member of AARP and the question is does that make me less competent or less entitled to a job than someone who is younger?

Age is an integral part of everything in Politics--from Paris Hilton’s answer to Senator McCain (see video clip a the bottom of the blog) to the press’s ongoing bias for Senator Obama because of his “energy” and “young approach”

All other political party platforms aside, and assuming Senator McCain is in good mental and physical health, does age make him less qualified?

Sadly, I hear on the news my children’s generation thinking it is time for the Boomer Generation to step aside—after all, we have had our turn—right? I don’t think so. Most Boomers that I know are active, energetic, intelligent and vital people who still have a great deal to offer. Unfortunately, even many Boomers who would like to retire (not in a rocker, but maybe as a rocker) cannot afford to do so in today’s economy.

In conclusion, I really do not know for whom to vote…perhaps I could write in Betty Boop?

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Obama, Are You Listening? This One's for Your Girls

Obama, Are You Listening? This One's for Your Girls

Below the Belt: A Biweekly Column by NOW President Kim Gandy

July 31, 2008

It's hard to believe, but the Democratic National Convention is now less than a month away, and following right on its heels comes the Republican National Convention. This means the media are obsessing, as they love to do, about the presidential candidates' potential running mates.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee, appeared on Meet the Press on July 27 and was pressed by Tom Brokaw to discuss the criteria, timing and prospects for his selection for vice president. Obama refused to name any names, but he did offer this insight: "I want somebody who I'm compatible with, who I can work with, who has a shared vision..."

Well, I hope that shared vision includes full equality for women, because some of the names that have been floated recently aren't particularly reassuring.

We just had one of the closest primary contests I can recall -- with every last state and territory seriously in play, and 18 million votes cast for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Feminist voters, women and men alike, backed Clinton because they believed she would have their backs if she reached the White House. They were confident that her VP, Cabinet and federal court selections would reflect the equality principles she espoused. Some of these voters almost immediately transitioned to Obama once Clinton threw her support behind the senator from Illinois. But other voters are still grieving the loss of a dream. Others are taking a wait and see approach, and one of the things they are waiting on is Obama's VP pick.

One longtime NOW activist puts it this way, "I have my fingers crossed that Barack Obama picks a running mate who is a partner, who is capable of stepping in, and who is dedicated to the principles of equality."

Read More...

Family Rules

As we age, the family dynamic changes.  We, who were the youngsters, have now moved up the familial hierarchical ladder a couple of rungs…to a level that sometimes makes us dizzy…we are not sure how we got there so fast.

We thought that we would always be the tight family unit and that we are special.  Our siblings would always want to be part of our lives, just like before, and the expanded and expanding family would embrace all new members.

The reality is, that although our roots are similar (I say similar instead of the same purposefully), each sibling’s life experience(s) change the ingredients to produce different values, goals, passions, and raison d’etre!

The question is whether or not our elders felt the same way…did the family bond seem to slip through THEIR fingers and they yearned for the unity of THEIR youth, when they reached the top rungs…

Technology is great…it allows us to communicate instantaneously with our friends, acquaintances, and family members around the world…but, it also distances us from them.  In youth, we explore new and exciting geographies, settle down and drift away from the extended family warmth and support we had.

With the passing of each family elder, we run the risk of losing the unity that keeps us grounded.

What gives him the right?

We try so hard to protect our children from harm. We think if we love them enough and arm them with knowledge, personal strength, and support, everything will be okay when they are adults.

Abused, bullied, and manipulated women are never armed with enough tools before, during, and after to be ever be completely “cured”. If victimized women are fortunate or unfortunate enough (depending upon your perspective) to have a child with their nemesis, the underlying stench from that relationship, is not washed away until their child is 18—and even then, there will always be a residue.

Even though the couple is divorced, most abusive men continue to verbally abuse and coerce his former spouse into doing things out of fear and to “keep the peace” for the benefit of the child.

So many of us who have never been in that situation, have difficulty understanding why these women can’t stand up to these men…we can offer support, resources, gentle (and not so gentle) advice, praying that something will stick and the woman will finally be free. All logic disappears

• The vision of the Abused Women’s Advocacy Project is a community without violence where people treat each other with respect.
  Facts
  1. People often use power in a coercive way to control or dominate
  others. This abuse of power violates rights of individuals, negatively
  impacts entire communities and is unacceptable behavior.
  2. The historical imbalance of power between men and women has
  resulted in the current reality that over 90% of the victims of
  domestic violence is female. Men can be victims of domestic violence
  and domestic violence occurs in same-sex relationships.
  3. Domestic violence takes many forms including physical, sexual,
  emotional, verbal, economic, intellectual and spiritual abuse. When
  other members of the family, including children, or community witness
  domestic abuse, their lives, too, are impacted.
  Beliefs
  -People experiencing violence and/or abuse have the potential to control their own lives and can be helped in doing this through support, information and encouragement.
  -Perpetrators of abuse are responsible for their actions. All of society must hold abusers accountable by clearly demonstrating that domestic violence and abuse is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
  -We have the responsibility to model behavior that is nonviolent, use power responsibly, manage conflict constructively. When we embrace this philosophy we encourage individual responsibility for personal and organizational action and growth.
  -Collaboration with diverse community partners is crucial to achieving a community wide recognition of, and response to, domestic violence and abuse. We believe that widespread cooperative education about nonviolence is key to building a community based on respect and ensuring safety for all.
  -Above all, our work must recognize and advocate on behalf of the individuals with whom we serve. All people have the right to live free from violence and domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is a pattern of behaviors that include the use of control, coercion, and intimidation (physical, sexual, mental, emotional or financial abuse) to gain power over one’s partner. People who abuse come from all classes, cultures, sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, ethnicity, physical or mental ability or age. People who choose to abuse are the only people capable of changing their own abusive behavior.

As the 4th of July sparkles…or am I a Patriot

I definitely am a Patriot’s fan, maybe not so much after the most recent Super Bowl. But I am a sucker for the team and football. So, if there is even a glimmer of hope this fall, I will be right back into it…but I digress.

I’ve been listening to NPR (National Public Radio) and a continuous flow of discussions about Patriotism as it relates to Senator Obama. Does a lapel pin make someone a Patriot or the lack of it remove that distinction? I don’t think a piece of jewelry has the ability to change your soul. That being said, I did have concerns when Senator Obama did not place his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag. If he aspires to the Presidency, then a demonstration of loyalty is in order.

After enduring the 2004 Presidential Election and the “flip-flop” politics that were attributed to Senator Kerry, I wonder where the “flip-flop” police are now with Senator Obama “adjusting" his campaign to fit the requirements of the voters he wishes to attract.

Am I a Patriot? I believe I finally realized how much of one I am on September 11, 2001. Having protested the war in the late 60’s, I never questioned if we, as a country, were vulnerable until that day. I know my sleeping patriotism awoke in full, fierce force that day. That does not mean that I blindly accept and approve of everything we do in this country. It just means that I see our strengths and weaknesses, but I would not want to be anywhere else in the world!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

I am a Collector of People

After reading the preceding entry, you may start to wonder if my interest in a long lost friend, Liz Morgan, was the only person I sought out or if this is a on-going personality trait.

If you guessed on-going personality trait, you would be right...over the years (we won't discuss how many), when I make a friend, they become a part of me. Yes, I feel it emotionally, but it is as though they are a part of my physical make up as well.

With the help of the Internet, it is relatively easy to seek out long, lost friends, enemies and lovers...but there seem to be those people who remain elusive to the "spyders" of technology. I seem to have a few of those in my past that I wish had left some sort of "web" trail.

About the same time that I was friendly with Liz Morgan in Allston,MA, there was another free-spirited woman who traveled in her old Volvo with her dog. Her name was Diana Post and on a rare and privileged occasion we traveled together to her parents' home in Norwalk, Connecticut. I don't remember any more of the details, but I know I treasured the time.

Maybe the key to why these friend are so difficult to find now is that they were "free spirits" in the late 60's/ early 70's and probably remained so throughout their lives. I am sure that was part of the reason I enjoyed them so much. I wanted more of that free spirit in me!

More lost friends to follow!

Of George Carlin and Liz Morgan

Back when I was in college at Northeastern University in the late 60's, I was living in a 3-decker in Allston. Next door was a duplex. Somehow, I became acquainted with the woman next door. She was 10 years older than I was, married with 3 children. I only remember her children's names...Dawn, Kim, and David and her husband's name Jerry.

She became a wonderful friend...she told me stories about another friend of hers who was a friend of George Carlin and how she (Liz) had spoken with him on the phone. I thought..."how cool".

There was a short period of time where I needed a place to live and Liz stepped up and told me I could stay with her and her family. My mom (overwhelmed by the late 60's) didn't know how to thank her, so my Mom sent her a tablecloth and wrote her a long letter.

Liz wasn't very tall, but had an Asian look about her eyes (although she was not of Asian descent), had very long black hair and would sit at the kitchen table with a freshly brewed cup of coffee...not to drink it...but just to inhale its aromatic steam.

We spoke of love, sex, marriage and more. For some reason, after I moved out, I don't even remember how or why we lost touch. I've tried to find her many times using the internet, but to no avail...and every time I would see George Carlin on TV and laugh, I thought about Liz and what a great friend she was to me.

With George Carlin's death this past week, my thoughts once again drifted to Liz. My greatest fear is that I missed my opportunity to once more tell her how much she meant to me. I can only hope that with this blog, somehow someone will recognize her name and tell me what happened to Liz Morgan.

History, Legacy, and the Shame of Media

Below the Belt: A Biweekly Column by NOW President Kim Gandy

June 05, 2008
As Hillary gets ready to concede...thoughts.

Of Biased Elections and More

I have serious questions about the manner in which the media and the DNC continue to push Hillary into a corner. Whoever thought that women have come a long way, just need to look at this primary to see the degredation Senator Clinton has received from the media.

May Day 2008 and other ramblings

Well, it is May Day and here in New England, the weather is not indicative of what the name reflects. It's sunny, but cold. I went to the small neighborhood supermarket at lunch time and spoke with one of the retired/part-time women at the store. She is wonderful and always has an energetic smile and greeting for everyone she checks out! She told me about a tradition she remembered as a young girl. She and her family would decorate baskets with ribbon and fill them with goodies. Then they would bring the baskets to the elderly to brighten their day...what a great idea!

I work in the advertising industry and one of my favorite co-workers suggested that our class initiate an all-classes reunion. Since Bridgewater-Raritan High School is not that old, in terms of the number of graduating classes, I thought it was a spectacular idea. So I am putting it out there for my classmates and other graduates of BRHS. I realize this will be at least one year in the planning, so let's get started.

It's a great way to see people who were in the other "classes" that we either had a crush on or just admired!

Let me know what you think!

Six Word Memoirs

I listen to NPR (National Public Radio) every morning on the way to work…”The Bryant Park Project”. This caught my attention and I’d like to see what people come up with in my circle. Please add yours to the list below, send it to me and your friends! Thanks!

I sent this as an email to a few people I know and I will include their Memoirs after mine! Send me an email

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There's a new book coming out that caught our attention, called Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs By Famous and Obscure Writers . It's from the editors of Smith Magazine , and it's exactly what it says it is -- a collection of memoirs, each just six words long.
The idea stems from a literary legend. We don't know if it's true, but as the story goes, Ernest Hemingway was once asked to write a story in six words. His response: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." That's at least as good as The Old Man and the Sea.
The editors of Smith challenged writers to craft their own six-word memoirs, and got some interesting results. Most of them sound kinda like crosses between a personal ad and a haiku...
"Shy Jersey kid, overcompensating ever since." --Ariel Kaminer
"Being a monk stunk. Better gay." --Bob Redman
"Couldn't cope so I wrote songs." --Aimee Mann
Some of them are funny, others are pretty poignant. There's one that says, "Was father. Boys died. Still sad." That's from Ronald Zalewski.
Sum up your life in six words -- no more, no less. For best results, don't overthink it. And remember, it's supposed to be a memoir, not a fortune cookie.
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1. Mom said teach, I said “design”.---Barbara Cowen, Massachusetts
2."Lived, loved, laughed. God is good." -- Mickey, Texas
3. I left my heart in Jersey. -- Gene Orlando
4. Grew, saw it all, shrunk, content--Walter Englebrecht, Miami, Florida.
5. Creative life embraces passion and obsession.--Donna Lish, NJ
6. Family, good friends, and God's love - Gerry Cicero, Raritan, NJ
7. Hard to score weed at 59 -Woody, Mobile, Alabama
8. Youth, School, Career, Friends-Great Life! Ed Danberry
9. History called: I moved to Israel-Melody, Israel