First, I want to thank one of my incredibly bright students (and I say that without any trace of irony; these ladies quoted Homi Bhaba to me the other day in class and the quotes improved my understanding of the text we were discussing) for directing me to this piece by Eve Ensler.
Second, Ensler makes a clear argument for why the McCain/Palin ticket is a bad idea and why Palin herself shouldn't be allowed to be one heartbeat away from the presidency. What I especially like about this argument is that Ensler writes without out rancor or ire. Her argument is clear and concise--and truthful.
Here is one of my favorite passages:
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I highlight this passage because Ensler does what many feminists have been unable to do since Palin's nomination was announced. She discusses the problems with Palin's take on things without relying on sexist language (yes, as Bitch, Ph.d. recently pointed out it is possible for feminists to also be guilty of sexism or at least using sexist language). Rather she emphasizes why she is a feminist and points out how Palin contradicts that ideology--an ideology that Ensler describes in overwhelmingly positive terms. And frankly, this is what we need--nay, have to d0--focus on why McCain and Palin are a bad idea rather than getting caught up in the culture wars and identity politics.
6 comments:
Harrogate isn't so sure how he feels about Ensler's piece, actually. Certainly he agrees with her politics and loves her art.
But the idea of not raging against women as a value in and of itself, is not something that appeals to Harrogate in the slightest.
What is the right way for engaging Sarah Palin in wanting to put Georgia and Ukraine in NATO and for wanting to inflame the culture wars and for actively seeking to curtail women's rights and for expressing interest in book banning and for equating creationism with evolutionary science?
How would we be speaking of Rick Santorum if he were McCain's running mate? How would EVE ENSLER be speaking of Santorum? Does Palin deserve any less of a rhetorical beatdown than he? And so those who Santorum wanted to imprison for having homosexual sex, might well think of him as a "bastard." Actually those worried about civil rights might think of him, and speak of him that way. Do women who share Santorum's philosophy deserve the kid glove treatment? If Rick Santorum is a "bastard," what is Sarah Palin?
And please, don't suggest it is enough to simply say they are both "wrong." Or "liars." Or even "evil." When the gun is to your head, sometimes only invective will do the trick.
In politics the stakes are life and death. Somehow, it seems not up to snuff to politely state:
"Now, not to rage against women or anything. But I respectfully disagree with this honorable lady who proposes to have my sister imprisoned for having an abortion and who proposes to have my brother sent off to fight in a war with Russia for reasons light and transient."
No, parlor talk doesn't cut it. Worrying about whether or not our oppositonal rhetoric is too strong seems banal, at best, when whether there is a world for our children to grow up in has suddenly become an even question.
Somehow we prefer the strong language of a Harrogate to the measured PC quips of an Eve Ensler. Somehow we prefer Senator Jim Webb (D, Virginia) when he is at his best--verily, Webb, whose son's life is on the line in Iraq and who famously said of George W. Bush that he wanted to punch him in the face.
So sayeth Harrogate. Who humbly suggests that Sarah Palin merits the moniker "bitch" not because she is a woman. But because you can't call this very dangerous woman a "rat bastard motherfucker sonofabitch." But you can call her a "bitch." And then some.
Boo-yah.
I feel like you missed the point of the piece, Harrogate. While everything you say is likely accurate, including your statements about what Ensler might say about Santorum, you overlook her points about feminism, which, for me at least, is really the point of the piece. That Ensler argues there is no real value in pitting women against women is powerful. After all, you don't attack Palin for being a woman; you attack her politics. I don't think that Ensler is saying Palin doesn't deserve a "rhetorical beatdown." Rather what she is saying is that there is no value or point in giving her a "rhetorical beatdown" solely based on her sex. And I think that is a valid point.
And one more point: labeling people like Palin and Santorum as simply evil or wrong isn't useful, at least in my mind. Articulate why they are wrong--why their policies are dangerous and destructive to this country and the entire world. Saying their "evil" or "wrong" is doing little more than they do to us so-called liberals when they call us "baby-killers" or "god-haters."
Another long comment because this is interesting and fun. On principle we agree far more than we differ, but maybe that's what makes the slight differences so much more glaringly perceived.
While Palin isn't being attacked because she is a woman--and hopefully Ensler doesn't really beleive that the reason is so simple as that--the truth is that Palin's status as a woman DOES exacerbate things, because of the TOKEN factor. See Thomas, Clarence. Now if everyone worried less about "empowering women"[Ensler's words] or "empowering blacks" and more about social justice on the basis of principle, then perhaps the TOKEN factor wouldn't trip us liberals out to the extent that it does.
But Harrogate has argued previously that Sarah Palin is God's wrath against American liberals, to make us answer for the sins we committed in the Primary. [Now Roof is going to get on Harrogate's case again] To pay for the fact that we let our prideful agendas vis a vis race and gender become more important than, say, questions of policy and justice.
God's wrathful sense of humor, Sarah Palin is.
And it is God's wrath being visited on the likes of Eve Ensler as well.
This is the final solution for those who spend their lives obsessing over ovaries, pigmentation, sexual orientation, etc.
As though in a Dante sequence, Ensler must now wring her hands over the implications of attacking a "powerful woman" like Palin on ideological grounds.
To avoid the word TOKEN at all costs even though it has got to be ringing in Ensler's mind like those wonderful clocks at the beginning of Back to the Future.
We seem to agree, m that it is Healthier for the Democracy to attack Palin at the same level of vitriol that we attack McCain. Where we may not agree is what level of vitriole we in fact need, in the first place.
Harrogate finds the premium on "civilize" discourse to be vastly overrated when it comes to matters of life and death.
Had Webb punched Bush in the face for sending his son off to Iraq, how would the media have reacted? How would each of us have reacted? Would we have called it coarse?
Or would we have called it Justice.
One point about Webb punching Bush: as much as we all may have wanted him to do so, let's keep in mind that Bush is the president. The Secret Service would have taken Webb down before he got too close.
And you're right, Harrogate, we agree on one thing: in most cases, violence typically doesn't end violence. The American Civil War and the second World War stand as 2 examples which contradict this point; however, most other wars we've been involved in have not led to an end to violence. But we likely disagree on the fact that violent rhetoric isn't going to accomplish much either. It's all well and good to call Palin, McCain and Bush evil, hateful, ignorant, etc. (words I've certainly leveled at them myself), but it doesn't get to the heart of the matter, something I think Ensler is trying to do. We have to, as you do point out, attack their policies, not them as individuals.
All of which BTW.
Explains why Harrogate supported Hillary Clinton in the Primary. Even though he sent his prayers up to Heaven for America to come to its senses and put Russ Feingold at the top of the tickert.
Between Hill and Obama. Hill understood from bitter experience that American Republicanism is a bare-knuckle drag out fight.
For example. While is is conceivable that Obama and some of his most ardent supporters were surprised by the depths to which McCain has sunk in this campaign. Hill, like Harrogate, saw it coming long ago.
Harrogate sympathizes with Obama's premium on common ground and thinks Obama has done a good job remaining as elevated as possible, under the circumstances. But it is likely that he is also discovering that his ideological stances place a huge rhetorical target on him and that the same people who had the knives out for Billy Jeff are deinitively uninterested in finding common ground with the new Dem standard bearer.
Oh ands while we're on a roll, like butter. Also we're as smooth as butter.
But while we're on a roll. Remember that the incident Webb was referring to, Bush had walked right up to him, offered to shake his hand, and asked "How's your boy?" So Webb clearly had a chance to get one good punch in before the SS took him down.
But you're right that it wouldn't have solved anything other than costing Webb and his fellow Virginians the Senate Seat they had earned. And you're also right to subtly remind Harrogate that for all his bluster, Harrogate is at his core a staunch pacifist.
Which is why he infinitely prefers watching Ratatouille with his son to thinking about the Republicans.
Sigh.
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