As I noted during the Elevatorgate debacle, I had just recently written an article about the link between the atheist movement and broader social justice movements, and how that link could be explicated and strengthened. It turned out to be ironic, because it came out right as this controversy was causing a number of atheists to expose how low their opinion of women really is, and at least how unwilling they are to support feminists even if they quietly believe in feminist goals. That's too bad, because the two worldviews, as I noted, are firmly intertwined and the alliance could be of great help all around.
Take, for instance, elections. I'm uncomfortable comparing the levels of oppression atheists face with the levels of oppression other groups face---look, I don't get my opinion cavalierly dismissed or harassed on the street because I don't believe in god, but I do get both of those on a regular basis for being female---but it's definitely true that extreme amounts of fear and hatred towards atheism in the country does result in forms of oppression. One that movement atheists like to dwell on is the prejudice against electing atheists to office. The best way to combat that prejudice like that is to take it on directly. Start supporting atheist candidates, and if you do, they'll start having a better chance at winning office and that prejudice, which is based as much on fear and ignorance as anything else, will fade.
Now here's where I'm going to tell you that atheists would be wise to actually pay attention to feminists. Because---and let's be clear, many movement atheists really do get this---feminists and atheists face a common enemy, the religious right that wants to shove anti-woman theocracy down our throats. If feminists are able to pound these misogynist fuckwits out of office, atheists will find that the political support for the theocratic agenda will decline. Take, for instance, the case of Heath Shuler.
Feminists hate Heath Shuler, who is a first class misogynist and a member of the religious right who happens to be a Blue Dog Democrat instead of a Republican. Sarah Jaffe explains why he's such a fuckwit:
Feminists are angry with Shuler for his position on abortion and his role in co-sponsoring bills that would defund Planned Parenthood and other family planning organizations, that would further restrict abortion access, narrow the rape exception that allows women seeking abortions to access federal funds, and allow hospitals to turn away women who need emergency abortion services. Shuler supported H.R. 3, for example, the controversial bill that once included a clause that would limit abortions paid for with government funds to victims of “forcible rape.”
He's also opposed to gay marriage and laws that forbid discriminating against gays in employment. All this makes sense when you realize that Shuler is a member of the religious right. He's a member of The Family, the theocratic organization that works, somewhat in secrecy (which has eroded due to the brave work of journalist Jeff Sharlet), to push their imperialist form of fundamentalist Christianity into the government. They also backed the organizations in Uganda that promote the "kill the gays" bill. As a religious right Democrat, Shuler is basically working to undermine the Democratic party as a reliable source of support for women's rights, civil rights, and religious liberty. He has to go.
Luckily, Shuler is being primaried by an atheist feminist, Cecil Bothwell, who has gained some attention for being an openly atheist (he prefers the term "non-theist", but whatever) city councilman in North Carolina. Bothwell has been facing some horrible attacks for his atheism. If atheists really want to step up and stop oppression against atheists, they need to throw their full support behind Bothwell to fight attacks like these:
During his Asheville City Council campaign in 2009, two direct mailings were sent around warning voters of his non-belief, and after his election opponents tried to prevent him from being sworn in. The U.S. Constitution, of course, forbids religious tests for office, so the former green builder, journalist, and author (of a political biography of preacher Billy Graham) was able to take his seat.
Don't let the people wringing their hands about expanding the Democratic caucus by any means necessary scare you off this. Shuler is a snake in the grass who spends his time on the Hill trying to undermine Nancy Pelosi, who is, last I checked, the main source of hope this country still has. The seat is probably not going to depend on Bible-thumping and being a moderate Republican posing as a Democrat, anyway, as the district has been severely redistricted. But this is a good time to take a stand and send a message that the Democrats just can't be embracing the religious right or overt misogynists in an ill-advised bid to somehow win over the good ol' boys.
So, folks, let's give Bothwell some support! Let's blog about him as a feminist and an atheist standing up against the religious right in North Carolina. Let's get some donations going. There's no time like the present to start taking a stand against this bullshit.
It's not, by the way, that I oppose finding Democratic candidates with crossover appeal in the South. For instance, I see no reason not to start a campaign to draft Tim McGraw to run against Rand Paul in Kentucky, which would mean exchanging an actual liberal with buckets full of redneck appeal for prissy little Rand "I can't flush my toilet twice wah" Paul. We need to be more strategic about it is all.
The bacon gained speed trotting down the runway and improbably soared, aloft in the clouds—the reaction to Barack Obama’s acceptance speech earned glowing reviews all across the political spectrum:
MSNBC Pat Buchanan – “It was a genuinely outstanding speech. It was magnificent. It is the finest – and I saw Cuomo’s speech, I saw Kennedy in ‘80, I even saw Douglas MacArthur, I saw Martin Luther King – this is the greatest convention speech, and probably the most important because unlike Cuomo and the others this is an acceptance speech. This came out of the heart of America and he went right at the heart of America…”
FOX Bill Kristol – “Barack Obama faced very high expectations tonight and honestly I think he met them and I honestly think he exceeded them…He eloquently explained America’s promise. He explained why the Bush Cheney administration had fallen short of that…I thought it was an awfully impressive performance.”
CNN David Gergen – “In many ways it was less a speech than a symphony…It was a masterpiece”
MSNBC Tom Brokaw – “It was a wonderfully crafted political speech and the Republicans I’m sure were looking in and wondering what they’re going to be able to do next week to match it”
CNN Paul Begala – “He went fearlessly at John McCain’s greatest strength, national security. He went proudly into the social issue terrain that Democrats are usually so afraid of. He went boldly attacking the status quo of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, and then he went very comfortably in your living room…This is my ninth convention, it was as very nearly a perfect convention speech as I can imagine…”
MSNBC Chris Matthews – “I thought it was amazing – I’ve written speeches all my life, of course nothing like this…It was a great way of throwing back the other side’s best shot and saying it’s full of crap”
I’ll bet you weren’t aware that until Barack Obama’s quest for the presidency is over, Hillary Clinton actually owns the time 3:00 AM lock, stock and barrel. Anything that happens at 3:00 AM, from Taco Bell closing to your middle-of-the-night drink of water to someone’s car alarm going off?
All your 3AMs are belong to Clinton!
Again, the people who are most outraged about slights to Hillary Clinton are people who’ve spent the better part of two decades trying to destroy her family and everything they’ve worked for. Kind of them, really.
UPDATE: Is there some master address to which I can submit any post relating to Hillary Clinton for screening? I actually had another joke I was going to tell here, but I’m certain that it’ll spark another 20 comments about how sexist and Clinton-hating I am. And I’ve switched the picture in this post to a picture of me and Hillary Clinton chilling to see how fucking crazy the whiners are. I found Clinton to be charming, warm and great at managing a picture line, if anyone cares.
The first person who can tell me how I’m insulting Hillary Clinton based on this update wins an ice cream sundae.
Any number of things could have swayed the primary. But at the end of the day, Clinton apologizing for her Iraq vote (or just not having voted that way in the first place) would have guaranteed her the nomination. Or her running for Senate in Illinois. Or Barack Obama getting dysentery in the summer of 2004. Or not letting Mark Penn and Howard Wolfson run her campaign.
“Feminists” are up in arms about Obama’s latest assault on women, an insult so grave that I wonder if he hasn’t permanently ruined all chance at winning the general:
This is from the transcript of the appearance: “[B]ecause of the campaign that Hillary Clinton waged, my daughters and all of your daughters will forever know that there is no barrier to who they are and what they can be in the United States of America. They can take for granted that women can do anything that the boys can do (cheers begin)—and do it better, and do it in heels. I still (Obama laughs)— I still don’t know how she does it in heels.”
How he could possibly make a reference to a Democratic woman in high heels and think anyone could possibly take it as an innocent, respectful comment? I initially thought that Obama’s comment was just a reference to the fact that Clinton’s gender placed other specific burdens on her that none of the male candidates had to face, but I also thought that Robin Williams just had a lot of energy in the 70s.
Her persona was always unconventional. When she was nearly 60, a grandmother and governor of Texas, Richards took to riding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle because, she said, “I thought I needed to do something kind of jazzy.”
Another line she often quoted summed up her view of the aspirations of women in politics: “Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.”
I’ll be on KFPA out of Berkeley this morning with Kim Gandy of NOW and Shireen Mitchell, Founder of Digital Sisters to discuss Clinton’s feminist legacy and the future of women in politics, starting at 7AM Pacific Time, 10AM Eastern Time. You can listen to it here.
I’m in a sympathetic mood, because I just finished listening to Mat Johnson on a podcast talking about the diehard Clinton supporters who have clearly projected their own struggles onto Hillary Clinton and are taking her defeat in the primary as a referendum on their very right to be in the public sphere. Johnson made the point that he felt the same way as an Obama supporter in a lot of ways—-specifically, the chance to look at the candidate and relate in a way that’s previously been denied you—-and to be deprived that at what no doubt seems the last minute has got to be frustrating. He also makes some good points about the dynamics of the race, and how Obama’s campaign was privileged by the slow build, and Clinton’s campaign turned into a nightmare as they lost their grasp, and these things, independent of identity politics, framed the nastiness of the primary. He also makes points that resonated with me about why, if Clinton’s loss seems so personal to some women, it just doesn’t to me, which is complex and not worth going into here.
So, it’s with sympathy that I read this piece by Erica Jong (hat tip) about how personal the whole loss feels to some women. I am sympathetic, for instance, to this, even as I disagree with it.
It’s amazing the schisms that have broken open in this campaign season. Bil Browning of The Bilerico Project has an eye-opening post up, “Why is EMILY’s List endorsing anti-semitism, racism and homophobia?” EMILY’s List, an organization that promotes and helps fund women who run for public office, the primary goal is to ensure that pro-choice candidates are elected.
In one Congressional race (Tennessee’s 9th district, which includes Memphis and environs), EMILY’s List is backing a candidate, Nikki Tinker, who is up against a pro-choice, pro-LGBT incumbent, Steven Cohen. Tinker’s campaign and surrogates have engaged in disturbing tactics that show how conflicts between core Democratic constituencies have erupted into ways difficult to paper over.
Rep. Steve Cohen, who is Jewish, was attacked in a flier (left, “Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen and the Jews hate Jesus”) distributed by a black homobigoted pastor from Murphreesboro who is not even from Cohen’s district, Rev. George Brooks. Tinker, who happens to be black as well, and was called to condemn the flier. (WaPo):
[T]he literature encourages other black leaders in Memphis to “see to it that one and ONLY one black Christian faces this opponent of Christ and Christianity in the 2008 election.”
The Commercial Appeal wrote an editorial in Wednesday’s paper condemning Tinker for not speaking out against the anti-Semitic literature.
“What does Nikki Tinker think about anti-Semitic literature being circulated that might help her unseat 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen in the Democratic primary next August?” the editorial asked. “The question goes to the character of the woman who wants to represent the 9th District, and 9th District voters deserve an answer. But Tinker declined to return a phone call about the flier.”
The Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association, an organization of black pastors that has backed Tinker’s campaign as well, has openly criticized Cohen for his support of hate crimes legislation. Why is this not an issue for EMILY’s List? Certainly its resources can be spent more effectively in another race, given incumbent Cohen’s pro-choice record. Why back such a divisive candidate if your primary issue is already supported? Is there something missing from this picture that we should be aware of?
You can read more over at Bil’s pad. He concludes that in this case, for EMILY’s List, it has placed working to elect a pro-choice woman above any concerns about anti-Semitism or homophobia pouring from Tinker’s campaign and supporters.
Once again, I have to exercise skepticism that there’s huge numbers of “angry white women” out there who will vote McCain instead of Obama out of spite. Spite feelings are running high right now, which is why Joan Walsh makes me cringe 15 separate times in her piece today. Threats that there’s going to be a white feminist stampede out the door to McCain (with a few racist potshots thrown out on the way) are highly overrated. I don’t doubt that Obama won’t get the vote of blatantly racist white people, but I suspect most of them decamped to the Republicans in 1964 with Strom Thurmond.
But for those who want a good reason to vote for Obama over McCain (I can’t believe I’m writing this) for feminist reasons, um, there’s the issues. Remember those? Again, I think 99.9% of feminists are smart enough to remember those, even those smarting because they were invested in the Clinton campaign. I think a lot better of feminists than those who point to Geraldine Ferraro and say, “See? They’re angry and bitter and need to be coddled.” It reinforces a negative and untrue stereotype of women that we’re emotional and irrational and can’t be reasoned with. But really, it’s only Ferraro who is being irrational and unreasonable. You can’t extrapolate from there about all women, all white feminists, or even most of either group. Remember how it works:
“We as black people now have hope that we have never, ever had,” Mr. Sam-Brew said. “I have new goals for my little girl. She can’t give me any excuses because she’s black.”
What a wonderful country, and I can almost hear Mr. Sam-Brew explaining it to his daughter: Littlest darling, because of the Obama Ascendancy, you will never have to endure the institutionalized racism in America that I never actually endured either, seeing as how I was born in a different country in 1970. But after I arrived from never-prosperous Ghana the race hustlers here in America assured me it was awful, and I have no reason to doubt them. But let’s not look backwards - let’s look towards a brighter future, in which you have a great shot at being accepted into a top school or getting preferential treatment in hiring because you, too, are a once-oppressed minority. It’s a wonderful world.
See, paragraphs like this are the reason why a better strategy for the Republican Party to gain votes in the black community would be to leave bags of flaming dog shit on doorsteps in Birmingham.
Mr. Sam-Brew, incidentally, has a five year old American-born daughter, meaning that he’s been living in America for (wait for it…) at least five years. And those are American years, not those shitty Ghana years. Now, the fundamental question here is whether or not a man with black skin, living in America for any significant portion of time, would experience the same sort of racial prejudice that a man with black skin who was born in America would experience over the same amount of time.
If you can’t answer that question, then here’s another one: does the bouncy ball go bouncy bouncy? I think it does!
Leaving out the “black people get all the breaks” affirmative action knock, let’s move on, because pride is a stupid, stupid thing for people to have.
It was a difficult day on The Michelangelo Signorile Show yesterday, as Mike spoke with several angry callers who are ready to vote for John McCain before casting a ballot for Barack Obama. In the clip below, the caller cites a few reasons I’ve seen out there, including: 1) we know McCain, we don’t know Obama; 2) There’s just something about him (Obama) I don’t like. Watch it:
This whole call needs to be transcribed and circulated because we seriously need to have a discussion about the underlying issues here that are hitting on the third rail. Mike challenges the caller to explain these positions, given the huge political gulf between McCain and Obama on nearly every issue. The caller ends up admitting that his decision to vote for McCain is not based on logic.
Caller: My arguments aren’t logical…this is what my gut is telling me; I don’t consider myself a racist or bigoted…there’s just something about the man I don’t like and I’m not going to vote for him.”
Mike: It’s funny that you say your gut is telling you this and then you go on to say that you’re not a racist, funny how that works, right? Because maybe your gut is telling you something that you’re not wanting to admit…but listen, but you should be voting based on logic, based on rationality. What Republicans want is for you to vote on emotion. And you are a perfect example of how they get votes from people who are voting against their own self interest.
Obama’s and Clinton’s positions are far closer than Obama vs. McCain—it doesn’t make any sense to vote for McCain. For some, not all - there really is a deep-seated fear out there about being led by a black man, so much so that they’d vote for McCain. They think electing Barack Obama is somehow going to erase white privilege— as if it was possible—and then exact some sort of revenge for past wrongs perpetrated on minorities. Jesse and I blogged about this jokingly the other day, but this aspect of the rejection of Obama is not being honestly articulated—the caller in this case went out of his way to bring up how he’s not racist—when race had not come up in the conversation at all up until that point.
Another caller provided a comment on Mike’s blog. Read it below the fold.
I’ll admit - for a while, I even bought into the “Obama can’t win because he’s black” idea. It was disturbingly easy to believe, if for no other reason than what I call the Mike Alstott theorem.
Mike Alstott, for those of you who are unfamiliar with NFL fullbacks (and if this describes you, please fix this glaring personality flaw posthaste), played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for twelve seasons. The fullback is essentially a dying position in the NFL, with a backup running usually taking the same spot. The point of the fullback is to often serve as a miniature lineman on certain plays, providing another blocker for the quarterback or runningback. Other times (and far more rarely), the fullback serves as a ball carrier, using their superior mass and the unpredictability of their involvement to gain yardage in tough defensive situations.
Alstott was a fan favorite for the duration of his career in Tampa Bay, always drawing outsize cheers to what was, in the scope of football’s offensive positions, a relatively minor (but still key) role. There’s a certain breed of football fan who loves the tough guy, and between his position and his brutalizing style of play, he fit that to a tee.
I always wondered, though, how he became The Man in Tampa Bay, and how even outside of the team’s home market, he still drew cheers from fans who had no reason to particularly like a fullback who averaged 32 yards a game. Much of it was the tough guy aspect, a guy who hearkened back to an era when football players played in leather helmets and had to watch out for the goalpost every time they got near the endzone. For a small group of people, though, it was something else.
As I noted during the Elevatorgate debacle, I had just recently written an article about the link between the atheist movement and broader social justice movements, and how that link could be explicated and strengthened. It turned out to be ironic, because it came out right as this controversy was causing a number of atheists to expose how low their opinion of women really is, and at least how unwilling they are to support feminists even if they quietly believe in feminist goals. That's too bad, because the two worldviews, as I noted, are firmly intertwined and the alliance could be of great help all around. 
“Feminists” are up in arms about Obama’s latest 
I’m in a sympathetic mood, because I just finished listening to
I’ll admit - for a while, I even bought into the