Harrogate suspects there might be Board Members at least somewhat curious as to what that crazy old gal, (Heh), Camille Paglia, has to say about the election. Well, Breaking News: Paglia still calls herself an Obama supporter, but for the life of her, cannot figure out why Palin's Veep run isn't being celebrated as a huge feminist achievment.
So here's to ya, Camille. You Betcha and you're Darned Tootin', nobody deserves the October 8th Assy McGee Award® more than you.
Your concern about the foreign-policy world-view of liberal Democrats is certainly justified. The university culture at Columbia and Harvard through which Obama passed has been drenched in a reflexive anti-Americanism for several decades. Armchair blame-America-first leftism is the default mode. Disdain for the military is rampant, and conservative voices are rarely heard.
and
Yes, both Todd and Sarah Palin, whom most people in the U.S. and abroad had never even heard of until six weeks ago, have emerged as powerful new symbols of a revived contemporary feminism. That the macho Todd, with his champion athleticism and working-class cred, can so amiably cradle babies and care for children is a huge step forward in American sexual symbolism.
and
And where is all that lurid sexual fantasy coming from? When I watch Sarah Palin, I don't think sex -- I think Amazon warrior! I admire her competitive spirit and her exuberant vitality, which borders on the supernormal.
and
People who can't see how smart Palin is are trapped in their own narrow parochialism -- the tedious, hackneyed forms of their upper-middle-class syntax and vocabulary.
That's right. But, Friends: These are only teasers. Follow the link to get the full ridiculousness.
9 comments:
This may make me a bad feminist, but I've never been a huge fan of Paglia, who, when everything is said and done, is relatively conservative. While I do agree that Palin can be seen as a positive role model for being able to balance work and career seemingly without sacrificing one or the other, I don't think she is a huge feminist icon. Is she--in terms of her ability to achieve this balance--representative of what the future holds for American women? I hope so. But she is not a champion of women or of women's issues. And while I also agree that she is intelligent (I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that one has to have a modicum of intelligence in order to run a state like Alaska), her intelligence isn't the issue. Her inability to answer questions is the issue, although I'll give her credit for openly saying that she wasn't going to answer questions.
Here is the thing that Gloria Steinem gets and that Paglia apparently doesn't: it is more important for women to have a President and a VP who support women's causes than it is to have a woman as President or VP. I mean, would Paglia write the same things about Dr. Laura Schlessinger or Ann Coulter?
To your last question, m. Based on his limited reading of Paglia's literary criticism, Harrogate would bet substantially that she finds Coulter "fascinating."
How can we continue to say that Palin is "able to balance work and career seemingly without sacrificing one or the other" when she has been bad at both?
What counts as sacrificing your family more than failing to teach you children to practice safe sex (and that her daughter's proposed marriage will fall around...gee?...late January? has always been suspicious).
What counts as sacrificing your career than being the targetted center of multiple scandals and having no discernible ethical nature?
Ok, Roof, I take issue with calling Palin a bad mother because her daughter got pregnant after having what we assume was unprotected sex. First, we have no idea what the Palins have taught their kids in terms of sex education. Second, choosing to teach abstinence only doesn't make you a bad parent; it might make you a naive parent, but not a bad parent. Third, I think you and I very well that it doesn't always matter what you teach your kids; at some point they are going to make their own choices. And before you tell me that she's a bad parent because she's forcing her daughter to marry her boyfriend, I'll have to stop you right there. Bristol Palin is 17, and as we can assume from her decision to engage in a sexual relationship with her boyfriend, she's quite capable of making her own decisions. While it does seem clear that the Palins (and the young man's parents for that matter) are in support of any potential marriage, we have no way to know whether this marriage is "forced." In most states, Bristol Palin and her boyfriend can get married without the consent of her parents. Let's not strip Bristol Palin and her boyfriend of all agency and autonomy.
If we're going to call her a bad mom because her daughter had unprotected sex, I would venture to guess that we'd need to call your mom and my mom bad mothers too.
Here's one more question for you: why aren't we calling out Todd Palin or the boyfriend's parents? Why are Sarah Palin and Bristol Palin solely responsible for this? Seems a little 1950s to me . . .
We aren't calling them out because no one is saying "Todd Palin is a hero to all men because he managed to get his dick wet without leaving soon after AND fight to secede Alaska AND so he should be respected."
On what grounds did Sarah Palin become "a good mother"? She managed not to smother her kids in the bathtub? Does she get bonus points for not driving them into a lake and blaming "some black guy"?
What has she done that YOU haven't? To clarify, that YOU haven't and that isn't also terrifically immoral or a feat of expert marksmanship. Because, let's be frank, I am not electing YOU to VP for having a baby and a job. I don't respect you for it alone.
The scale she is being judged on keeps rewarding her for not eating her young to spite England.
Frankly, Roof, I'm happy to entertain other reasons why she might be a bad mother (and, as I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong, I'm now recalling Supa's points last week about how Palin has used her children to get ahead; that definitely makes her a bad mom in my book), but I don't think it is fair to nail her on her daughter's pregnancy. I just don't.
That said, the other points you bring up are valid. Maybe, and I'm admitting my own desire to believe the best about people and my own need to see some progress for American women with her nomination, I just want to see one thing positive about her.
I have no interest in nailing her...for her daughter's pregnancy EXCEPT THAT her supporters intentionally overlook it as a private matter. Where I suggest that letting your underage daughter date an of-age boy is at least A LACK OF JUDGEMENT.
One at least as serious as having done charity with a man who, in a different life, was a bad man.
However, no one is suggesting that Obama is a successful black man because he has associated with men with criminal records and we should respect him for it.
Nevermind the fact that Palin argues that, as VP or President, she would counsel conflicted young women to make the moral choice. And she repeats this with the pregnant evidence of the failure of such an impossible policy smiling behind her.
AND, if her narrative were that she worked up the heirarchy of government and succeeded at winning the Republican VP candidacy against male competitors, then even I could respect what the difficulty of her success.
BUT she didn't.
--She was picked out of obscurity BECAUSE she has a womb and
--She is protected from the outside world and the prying eyes of the press BECAUSE she is a woman and
--Even when she fairly achieved a position of power, she charged the taxpayers extra so that she could go home to her family at night.
I've know successful mothers, M, and Sarah Palin is no successful mother.
Roof, you're awesome.
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