No One Puts B. in a Corner!

I assume everyone gets the occasional phone call about how uncouth they are. I try to take it in stride. After all, along with meaning “crude and unrefined,” it also means “awkward, clumsy, or unmannerly” and “strange and ungraceful in appearance or form,” which, let’s face it, even with as cute as I am, is kind of fitting.

But anyway, someone called me again today to insinuate that I was uncouth and to ask how, after saying this–

What’s radical about how she voted for the Iraq war, a war that has had devastating consequences for women, both Iraqi and American? What’s radical about using your husband’s job as an argument for your job qualifications? Is there something particularly radical about shopping around for a state that will elect you and moving there, rather than running in a state you’re actually from?

–I will be able to advocate for folks voting for Clinton if she wins the nomination.

First, I don’t think that Clinton’s failings are any worse than any other politicians. Jesse Jackson Jr., for instance, has his job under similar circumstances and, as far as I know, he’s been an interesting and inspiring choice. Hell, President Bush has almost those exact same problems (substituting “father” for “husband”) and he’s President, so I don’t see them as deal-breakers in terms of her fitness as a politician.

I see them as deal-breakers in terms of me accepting Steinem’s characterization of Clinton as some kind of radical.

Second, she’s better than anyone the Republicans are serving up, hands down. Neither she nor anyone in her family has tortured or killed a dog, for instance.

And third, voting for her would bring me great glee. Evil glee, but glee.

Jan 9

Can’t We Just All Accept that Campfield Genuinely Cares?

I read this post from Brownfemipower last night before reading this post from Campfied today. Kind of makes for one of those “aha” moments, doesn’t it?

Anyway, it did for me. Just who, exactly, is Campfield comparing to slave owners and Nazis?

Women who need abortions.

I often joke, but I’ve got to tell you, sometimes I feel inadequate to the task before me. This is one of those times. I wish you were, right now, reading someone who could smartly take on Campfield and point out the abhorrent evil in what he’s saying–how he twists the notion of women having control over our own bodies into being on par with us being slave-holders and Nazis. I mean, do you see that?

He’s sitting around being all thoughtful and reasonable sounding about his belief that women having the final say over whether we want to be pregnant or not is just like us owning slaves or committing genocide. And, as Brownfemipower alludes to in her post, it’s not just the accusation, but how the accusation turns us into traitors against humanity.

This is so important–that you see how Campfield is advancing the argument that women are the enemy of life, how we so regularly and systematically strip others of their humanity and then massacre them that, for the good of humanity, we must be controlled–because it’s the unspoken assumption that really drives the abortion debate in this country and I feel like I don’t know how to get it across to you with the urgency it requires.

I know some of you will be tempted to say “But maybe Campfield really does care about the babies and is not about taking control of women because he thinks they’re too easily swayed to do evil!”

Okay, then, consider this. We know why women have abortions. We have abortions because we got pregnant when we didn’t want to be. Or we can’t afford to have a kid right now. Or being pregnant endangers our lives. Or we were raped. Or we don’t have the kind of homelife stable enough for children. And so on.

If we rule out the women who have abortions because we just don’t want to have kids, anybody who is anti-abortion can make enormous strides in lowering the abortion rate by addressing the other reasons women have abortions.

And yet, do you see Campfield trying to pass legislation that would increase aid to poor families? Is he supporting and agitating for comprehensive sex ed in our public schools? Is he advancing legislation that would guarantee women the right to have their prescriptions filled at the pharmacy of their choice? Is he fighting for more and better healthcare for Tennessee’s citizens? Is he specifically trying to get funding for research into countering deadly birth defects? Is he fighting for women’s safety? He could, for instance, bring a great deal of pressure on the city and state to get us full-time police coverage in the park where we had that brutal rape this fall. What’s he doing to try to bring more and better jobs to Tennessee?

I mean, really, rather than calling women Nazis and slave-owners, what’s Campfield doing to ensure that, when a woman discovers that she’s pregnant, it’s a happy and healthy occasion?