On the Nomination
Aug. 29th, 2008 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hertinknessWell, I saw Barack Obama's speech. It was awesome, I agree, and if I hadn't been backing him up until now, I would be behind him. Whatever your views on abortion, we SHOULD be working together to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Whatever your views on Iraq were in the first place, we SHOULD be working to bring the troops home, and give them the benefits they deserve. Whatever your views on offshore drilling are, we SHOULD be working together to find better sources of energy.
I made it twelve hours without a case of stress induced heartburn.
Now, I respect Senator John McCain and his service. But he shares... maybe one of my political positions. My veteran co-worker shares more than that, just by virtue that he works in the environmental field and deserves vets benefits. Likewise, Governor Sarah Palin seems like personally a pretty cool lady that I might get along with- I respect anyone who can ride a motorcycle safely- but politically, the only things she and I have in common are lady parts.
OK, so maybe McCain was going for the fundie vote. I can see that- she's got Stalinist-era Soviet Article 121.1 views on gay rights and abortion, and probably does not support contraception either. This alone is a fairly big deal for me, because I honestly don't know what I'd do in an unexpected pregnancy, and because I want access to the pills that prevent my ovaries from swelling up to the size of grapefruits. She also believes that creationism should be taught as science (a humanities class maybe, but not science), so I guess she's got that bit locked up, too. More reasons why she turns me off are her positions on drilling in ANWR (going to cause more problems than it solves), her apparent ignorance of the connection between clean streams and fisheries, and her seeming insistence on turning Alaska into Disney World by pursuing policies that drive its wolves and polar bears closer to extinction, but that's another story. But you know, he could have just about gone down the list of current and former Republican officials and picked the same person. Why didn't he?
It smells a bit like pandering in here...
Yeah. We knew about the so-called "disgruntled" Clinton voters. I doubt very much of that was even real- people might have voted for Senator Clinton in the primaries because they wanted to vote for a woman president (her policies and Obama's were very, very similar), but no rational person is going to vote for McCain because Clinton didn't win. Notice that I used the qualifier "rational"- deciding what percentage of the US population that makes up is left as an exercise for the reader.
But seriously- thinking that you'll win over women just because your running mate is a woman? While completely ignoring the issues that matter to us? Issues like, oh, I don't know, like health care, equal pay (Lily Ledbetter, anyone?), protecting our right to end a pregnancy and not have one in the first place, preventing pollution from giving our kids birth defects when we are ready for kids, making it easier to care for our parents because we KNOW we're going to get stuck with the dirty work, not shoving our kids into overcrowded and underfunded schools where underpaid and underinsured teachers teach an arbitrary test, and DOING SOMETHING about both the economy and the economic inequality so that we don't end up living in a goddamn cardboard fucking box!?!
Try harder.
Frankly, I'm mildly insulted that people think women are that fucking dumb to so blatantly vote against our own self-interests.
Unfortunately, I'm also a little worried that Americans really are that fucking dumb. I mean, look what we've had for the past eight years.
Please, any power that is listening, do not allow Americans to be that stupid.
I made it twelve hours without a case of stress induced heartburn.
Now, I respect Senator John McCain and his service. But he shares... maybe one of my political positions. My veteran co-worker shares more than that, just by virtue that he works in the environmental field and deserves vets benefits. Likewise, Governor Sarah Palin seems like personally a pretty cool lady that I might get along with- I respect anyone who can ride a motorcycle safely- but politically, the only things she and I have in common are lady parts.
OK, so maybe McCain was going for the fundie vote. I can see that- she's got Stalinist-era Soviet Article 121.1 views on gay rights and abortion, and probably does not support contraception either. This alone is a fairly big deal for me, because I honestly don't know what I'd do in an unexpected pregnancy, and because I want access to the pills that prevent my ovaries from swelling up to the size of grapefruits. She also believes that creationism should be taught as science (a humanities class maybe, but not science), so I guess she's got that bit locked up, too. More reasons why she turns me off are her positions on drilling in ANWR (going to cause more problems than it solves), her apparent ignorance of the connection between clean streams and fisheries, and her seeming insistence on turning Alaska into Disney World by pursuing policies that drive its wolves and polar bears closer to extinction, but that's another story. But you know, he could have just about gone down the list of current and former Republican officials and picked the same person. Why didn't he?
It smells a bit like pandering in here...
Yeah. We knew about the so-called "disgruntled" Clinton voters. I doubt very much of that was even real- people might have voted for Senator Clinton in the primaries because they wanted to vote for a woman president (her policies and Obama's were very, very similar), but no rational person is going to vote for McCain because Clinton didn't win. Notice that I used the qualifier "rational"- deciding what percentage of the US population that makes up is left as an exercise for the reader.
But seriously- thinking that you'll win over women just because your running mate is a woman? While completely ignoring the issues that matter to us? Issues like, oh, I don't know, like health care, equal pay (Lily Ledbetter, anyone?), protecting our right to end a pregnancy and not have one in the first place, preventing pollution from giving our kids birth defects when we are ready for kids, making it easier to care for our parents because we KNOW we're going to get stuck with the dirty work, not shoving our kids into overcrowded and underfunded schools where underpaid and underinsured teachers teach an arbitrary test, and DOING SOMETHING about both the economy and the economic inequality so that we don't end up living in a goddamn cardboard fucking box!?!
Try harder.
Frankly, I'm mildly insulted that people think women are that fucking dumb to so blatantly vote against our own self-interests.
Unfortunately, I'm also a little worried that Americans really are that fucking dumb. I mean, look what we've had for the past eight years.
Please, any power that is listening, do not allow Americans to be that stupid.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-30 04:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-31 12:11 am (UTC)Problem is Palin believes in absolutely NOTHING that Hillary believes in. She's anti-abortion, pro-big oil, anti government. The Hillary supporters will be insulted and many independent women will just laugh.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-31 04:44 am (UTC)