I received a frighteningly fabulous email from Poppy from back east, written by Eve Ensler
c/o The Huffington Post:
Drill, Drill, Drill
The Huffington Post
SEPTEMBER 14, 2008 Eve Ensler
"I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
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 believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity. Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God." Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not. She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes. Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth. Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air. Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be. I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression. If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain. Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?"
~~~
Well, looks like I'm going to do a bit o' free association -- my apologies in advance for my not reading and re-checking what I am about to write...enter at your own risk.... From the first moment that I heard that a woman was picked for VP, I was reminded at just how brilliant the Reps are at strategy in the political arena. Not really keen on how they run the country, but the elections, boy they wrote, and continually rewrite, the book. It scares me to pieces. They always manage to find the "pulse" of the people, and get it racing through scare tactics, lies, slander, obfuscation, or any little thing BUT the truth and /or platform. They know what the US is about, separation of church and state, and they know there are huge people who are dying and and /or distressed because of this (still) undeclared war, and lack of health care and /or jobs, but dang - they sure know how to make it not about issues and track records, and get people all riled up with their smart use of slogans, or push the people's fear buttons, or even mentioning words about taxes, which get people hot and bothered, but they don't resolve the problem -- $300 - $600 dollars a year back to people is not going to be equivalent to earning a living at a real job.. and it will create a further deficit to boot. They don't take the mere pittance of additional tax off the rich which would be a good start towards downing the debt. People still are afraid to vote against the "war" and funds for same, lest they be called unpatriotic, and not supporting our troops, or the dreaded words 9/11 are invoked again -- it's the new "get out of jail free card" in politics. Drilling for oil to make the price of gas go down? How insane. We need our planet, what ever is left unscathed or re-growing now, so lets get the alternative fuel options in motion already. And if they are lobbying so hard against NOT getting alternative fuel for our automobiles, let's beef up the public transportation. I don't know why the Dems don't stay on their course, and talk about the issues. To try to use the tactics the Reps do so well is just not their style -- so let's get a different style. How about talking about THE ISSUES and demanding that the debates begin already. What about accountability? What about simply reading the constitution out loud again as a reminder? This ticket somehow has gained momentum and is a contender again. I just don't know how this keeps happening. Why don't people recall what was happening in the Clinton era. Perfect? No, but way less scandals, and surely, to have turned around the debt to a surplus? And to have a leader who truly loved his country first, and his own needs 2nd -- well, it's been a long time since our leaders believed that way. And c'mon -- they impeached Clinton for sex with a consulting adult, but nothing yet regarding "W" and his conflicts of interests, or the lying about the WMD, or the way these people hated anyone who was not a "good Christian", and didn't act like one, like the folk who hate homosexuals, but then get caught in the act themselves? What about fixing the election(s) and also keeping non-whites away from the voting booths. Or what about their NOT fixing the way people vote before this election?!? What are the people in charge doing? What about sending and re-sending our troops back into harms way -- and why is it a "moving target"? My William is going back for his 3rd stint in just about as many years!!! I know I have a poor memory myself, but these are big ticket items that they get caught doing and illegal and hurtful and selfish and even, yes, unconstitutional!!! Love thy neighbor...hmmm, is that why they didn't get to the folks in LA with Katrina? Yes, that was this administration too!!! Remember their "free pass" to eavesdrop and wiretap anyone? How about somehow believing they got the "green light" to TORTURE people, and place people in jail without letting them know why, or even letting them let any one know they were there? What makes some people think that it's ok to do that? Why don't people realize that "not in my backyard" isn't really going to keep them safe from harm from our own leaders? Once the system is ignored with impunity as it has been, and the voices are not raised, and there are no consequences for these actions, how in the world are we going to stop them from hurting "us" next? And where are the loud voices of the 5th estate? Remember after 9/11 everyone was too afraid to ask questions lest they seem unpatriotic? Is our Democracy and it's principles still binding? I'm afraid. Very afraid. And now, they so cleverly have a woman on the ticket to appeal to the feminist in alluvus, but she is not a feminist. She is scary. Very scary and is looking to take our hard earned "rights" away from us. But it isn't just about Palin -- au contraire, it's about McCain! Talk about your flip-flopper -- he is in no way a "Maverick" any more, presuming he ever was... This is a scary ticket, and the Reps are so good at their craft. We need to hear from the Democrats, and have them speak in from their strength, the need to talk about recent history, choices made for us the past 8 years, and not get caught up in their game. No more answering attacks or attacking them. Leave that to the pundits and comedians. C'mon already. Egads. I hate politics.
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