October 2008 – Page 13

South Dakota Live Action Camp

As I noted, I spent the weekend in Sioux Falls South Dakota, working with South Dakota Healthy Families to fight Initiated Measure 11, which would ban virtually all abortions in the state.

You probably remember that in 2006, anti-choicers got the legislature to pass a bill that would have banned abortion, even in cases of rape/incest, and where the health of the woman would be endangered — and when pro-choicers challenged the law and got it sent to a referendum, the ban was shot down 56% to 44%. Leslee Unruh and her ilk did not like this, and so now the proposed ban is back in force — only this time, with supposed and completely bullshit “exceptions” in place. In a state that is rather anti-choice, this does indeed make the task somewhat harder. And in a state with only around 500,000 registered voters (this is in fact a high number for a population of about 700,000), every vote really does matter. Thus, Planned Parenthood (along with other orgs like the ACLU, who was not present last weekend but will be this weekend) has been sending out people to help identify supporters — meaning people who are voting “no” — and there were around 40 of us this weekend.

We started out on Friday evening with an orientation — featuring former Feministe guest-blogger Shannon! — explaining the messaging that SD Healthy Families has been using in their campaign. Just from checking out their website, you can get a pretty clear idea of how this works. 1. Emphasize the message of “health” 2. Use the word “decision” (pro-choice research has indicated for some time now that the word “choice” does NOT resonate with a lot of people, including many who are in effect pro-choice, but for some reason the word “decision” does in fact tend to.) 3. When possible, talk about families making decisions, or women and families making decisions together and 4. put a heavy emphasis on the incredible fallibility of the supposed exceptions, specifically by pointing out that there is absolutely not a damn thing in there about fatal fetal abnormalities. As South Dakota apparently has a strong libertarian streak, another major point of discussion is government intrusion on personal decisions.

Remembering Senator Wellstone

Beth writes,

My senior year of high school it was announced that the county was looking for people to work as “junior election judges” on election night. I don’t remember all the details, but I was 17 at the time and signed up. I can’t remember if I was supposed to get paid or not (I didn’t), but I didn’t do it to get paid; I was excited to get to help people vote and maybe steal an “I voted” sticker. Ten days before a very close election, the plane carrying our incumbent senator crashed in the north woods. I don’t know any Minnesota liberal over the age of 20 that is completely over the death of Sen. Wellstone, his wife, his daughter and his aides. Election day rolled around, as it had to
despite our grief, and we had to hand count the provisional ballots that had been printed. While Mondale carried our precinct, Coleman won over all. In the six years since then, Sen. Coleman has proven that he is a politician in the worst sense of the word. He’s finally up for reelection. I’ll be voting for Al Franken soon, but I still wish I had gotten the chance to vote for Paul [Wellstone].

Oh, Senator Wellstone, an early community organizer whose politics I could get behind, including the “Organization for a Better Rice County, a group consisting mainly of single parents on welfare, which he organized to advocate for public housing, affordable health care, improved public education, free school lunches, and a publicly-funded day care center.” If only.

Meanwhile, if any of you are in the NYC area on Thursday night, PPNYC is organizing a VP Debate Watch Party:

Thursday, October 2nd at 8pm
Slainte Bar & Lounge at 304 Bowery (between Bleecker & Houston)

Join them for games and drink specials.

And by the way, if you aren’t registered to vote, GET ON IT. You can find out if you’re already registered, and if not, find out your state’s final registration dates here.

Quote of the Day

I think of feminism as a socially just and imaginative world. You know, in my twenties I was taught that feminism meant we had to be supersmart, in the realm of intellectualism—to make rational, detached, unemotional pleas. But now I think what Gloria and all our sisters have given us is imagination. It’s a question of: Can I imagine that world?

–Suheir Hammad

That certainly puts words to how I feel about feminism. It’s about social justice, but it’s also about being able to imagine something better.

And an exchange between Hammad and Gloria Steinem about the choices we make in childbirth, child-rearing and reproduction generally:

SH: You know, it’s complicated. I do want children. But one of the things that’s interesting about it now being a choice, there’s the possibility of feeling regret about the decisions you’ve made. I don’t know if that was the case before, but the more options you have, the more you can do—

GS: That’s very smart. I think that’s true about abortion too. When I was growing up, if you got accidentally pregnant, you were so desperate to get an abortion, ambivalence about it was extremely small. With availability, you can afford to be ambivalent.

The whole interview is interesting. Check it out.

Alaska is like a microcosm of America

And we all know that nobody reads in America.

Palin on the books, newspapers and other media she consumes to get a well-rounded worldview:

Palin: I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

Couric: What, specifically?

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

Couric: Can you name a few?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where it’s kind of suggested, “Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?” Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

I missed that part of the interview, but I did tune in to the tail end to see Palin talking about her gay friend. Did you know that Palin has a gay friend? Because she does. Or rather, not a gay friend, a friend who just happens, coincidentally, to be gay. Who Palin just loves. But not like that. Because Palin has made a different choice in life; the choice to be straight, which she apparently sat down and thought about. Unlike her gay friend, who has chosen to be gay. Also, who has chosen to be her friend. Good friend. Who happens to be gay. Who she is not judging.

I also missed Palin on feminism:

I’m a feminist who, uh, believes in equal rights and I believe that women certainly today have every opportunity that a man has to succeed, and to try to do it all, anyway. And I’m very, very thankful that I’ve been brought up in a family where gender hasn’t been an issue. You know, I’ve been expected to do everything growing up that the boys were doing. We were out chopping wood and you’re out hunting and fishing and filling our freezer with good wild Alaskan game to feed our family.

Gah, enough with the hunting stories! We get it, you shoot things and eat them. NEXT.

Apparently, Palin believes that women should not only have the right to full participation in wood-chopping and moose-killing, she also thinks that they should get paid the same at work. Except, you know, if the law mandates it:

Couric: Where do you stand on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act?

Palin: I’m absolutely for equal pay for equal work. The Ledbetter pay act – it was gonna turn into a boon for trial lawyers who, I believe, could have taken advantage of women who were many, many years ago who would allege some kind of discrimination. Thankfully, there are laws on the books, there have been since 1963, that no woman could be discriminated against in the workplace in terms of anything, but especially in terms of pay. So, thankfully we have the laws on the books and they better be enforced.

Couric: The Ledbetter act sort of lengthens the time a woman can sue her company if she’s not getting equal pay for equal work. Why should a fear of lawsuits trump a woman’s ability to do something about the fact that women make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. And that’s today.

Palin: There should be no fear of a lawsuit prohibiting a woman from making sure that the laws that are on the books today are enforced. I know in a McCain-Palin administration we will not stand for any measure that would result in a woman being paid less than a man for equal work.

Couric: Why shouldn’t the Ledbetter act be in place? You think it would result in lawsuits brought by women years and years ago. Is that your main problem with it?

Palin: It would have turned into a boon for trial lawyers. Again, thankfully with the existing laws we have on the books, they better be enforced. We won’t stand for anything but that. We won’t stand for any discrimination in the workplace – that there isn’t any discrimination in America.

So women face pay discrimination; our Supreme Court held that they only have a tiny window of time to bring a claim for that discrimination, and if they miss that window too bad, even if it was impossible for them to know that they were being economically discriminated against; Congress had an opportunity to fix the problem and Republicans (including John McCain) opposed doing so; and it’s trial lawyers who are taking advantage of women?

It’s like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Over and over and over. On CBS.

Tomorrow will be interesting. What are you all doing?

The Living Room Candidate

Meredith found the coolest site that tracks presidential campaign commercials from 1952-2008, The Living Room Candidate. My son has a report on LBJ coming up, so we decided to watch this one:

That shit is bananas. And if you want an example of nasty, truth-telling politics, check out this commercial featuring LBJ and the KKK (trigger-warning).

Further Meredith writes,

Back to fall 1984. I was a junior at Pacific Lutheran University and my friend Kristin and I were already ardent Democrats. We waited in line for hours at the Tacoma Dome to hear Geraldine Ferraro speak. The crowds were so massive (apparently she drew a crowd of 12,000, according to an article in the Seattle PI), and I so short, that I didn’t actually get to SEE her…only hear her. I was thrilled to be able to cast my first vote for a presidential ticket with a woman for VP. How tragic that it didn’t happen again until 2008, and even though I’ve questioned much of Ferraro’s behavior in the past year, Ms. Palin, you are no Geraldine Ferraro.

Two hard-core, nerdy Young Republicans on the first floor of our small dorm began to target us for our political beliefs and declared all-out war on us. We had “KGB-approved” stickers slapped on our room doors (I’m sure my conservatish roommate was horrified!), regularly received taunts, and one day they even rigged an album cover full of flour to explode when I opened my room door in the morning. We had to get the ineffectual hall director to intervene, who called a not-very-successful mediation. I can’t even remember the boys’ names, but I will never forget what they look like. No doubt they work for the Eagle Forum or FOX News now.

Meanwhile, most states still have through early October to get registered to vote in the 2008 presidential election. Some states allow voters to register through the end of October. You can find out your state’s deadline here. If you haven’t registered to vote yet or don’t know your polling location, FIND OUT NOW.

Meet the new Feministe kitties

Percival / Omar Little sleeping, originally uploaded by JillNic83.

Leopold, originally uploaded by JillNic83.

Yes, I got kittens. Do I get my official Feminist Club Membership Card now?