From what I’ve seen, the leadership of this “movement” is comprised of a mix of about: 80% bitter Boomer-era feminists (“Our turn! Our turn!”); 5% younger wannabe first-wave feminists; 5% assorted cranks from the left and right (9/11-Truthers, racists, etc.); and 10% GOP agents provocateurs who are funding and promoting this latest foray of “Operation Chaos.”

More here on their pathetic PUMA conference:

http://www.rumproast.com/index.php/site/comments/the_truth_about_puma_conference_08_you_cant_spell_conference_without_c_o_n/

Nobody’s saying that they have to be happy with what happened in the primary; it’s not like losing a close race engenders the best feelings.

Yes, the appropriate response to backing a losing primary candidate is to try to get the winning candidate elected while griping privately to each other about how much the candidate and his/her campaign sucks, like we Deaniacs did with the Kerry campaign.

A month or so ago, I had more sympathy because it’s harder is to lose a really close primary, just like losing a close game is more heartbreaking than a blowout, but they’ve long since crossed the line from “we got screwed because the refs made a bad call” to “it’s unfair that the field wasn’t 90 yards long.”

Whoops, forgot to add some die-hard DLCers in the mix above, too. Lump them in with the Operation Chaos crowd, since their Penn/Wolfson incompetence and constant caving to the wingnuts on key issues accomplishes the same goal.

This blog has gone to hell.  Why aren’t you busy attacking Obama, anyway?

That phase of the operation begins November 5.

Whose death would they fake to get Gumbel 2 Gumbel back on the air?

As a supporter of pumas, I resent your using that photograph of a beautiful puma in a piece about PUMAs.  It adds an injury to the insult of the PUMAS’ use of the name puma. 

Just sayin.

Damozel; you’re right. That is a sweet kitty cat.
My take on the PUMAs is kind of the reverse of the one offered above: 80% Republican provocateurs, 10% boomer-era feminists. How any feminist could back McCain boggles the mind, though.

I don’t know anyone whose list is getting smaller.

Why the mention of a couple governors who have yet to step onto the national stage and wouldn’t even bring their home states… Governors just make terrible veeps.

Now, if someone would list women who’ve been around longer, who’ve been on the national stage - like Boxer or Feinstein or Pelosi or someone who’s on the national stage.

Choosing someone who didn’t want the job over someone who did seems also a bit insulting.

Of course, I don’t think Clinton is a good choice for veep, but she’s far and away better than the Bayh-Kaine list.

This blog awful and your clearly dont get it.

Nobody’s saying that they have to be happy with what happened in the primary; it’s not like losing a close race engenders the best feelings.

Pfah.  They didn’t really want Hillary in the first place.  They aren’t Democrats and they aren’t feminists.  I think the earlier post had Murphy’s motivation down pat: She supported McCain then; she supports McCain now. 

Aidyn sounds like Kang and Kodos.

So, the fact that a number of feminists have problems with Obama repeatedly dropping the ball on important issues like reproductive choice, LGBTQI rights, and so on, means that they’re bad feminists?  What the hell ass?

When did “sit and wait your turn and maybe the men will decide to give you some rights” become a feminist value?

Governors just make terrible veeps.

Well Agnew was pretty bad, and I’m no big fan of Calvin Coolidge, but theere have been some other decent ex-governor Vice Prsdidents, like T. Roosevelt, and T. Jefferson, not to mention the best Vice President ever, Thomas Marshall

Well said, flew.

As much as I do support Obama and will NEVER support McCain, I must say that Obama’s not stepping up to the plate enough regarding the necessary uniting of the Democratic party- and it’s extraordinarily disappointing. Equally so that bloggers are continuing to pound away like this.

‘Sit down and shut up, women- your turn will come someday’ IS the implied overall message here.

Gee, wonder why his numbers are down… and the animosity continues.

So, the fact that a number of feminists have problems with Obama repeatedly dropping the ball on important issues like reproductive choice, LGBTQI rights, and so on, means that they’re bad feminists?

The great fiction of this debate is that there is a lick of difference between Obama and Clinton on these issues.

‘Sit down and shut up, women- your turn will come someday’ IS the implied overall message here.

The only people actually saying that are people like yourself attempting to rile people up by overdramatizing. Similarly to how the correntwire folks repeated “why won’t the bitch quit?” over and over again as if someone other than themselves had ever said that.

I could easily characterize your positions as “I refuse to vote for a filthy n*gger.” Sounds like a productive conversation.

I also find it amusing that you pretend to speak for all women. When exactly were you elected as spokesperson of women everywhere?

It’s really too bad that you have completely missed the mark on what PUMA is about.  It’s about principle.  Something that is so above emotion you probably can’t fathom it.

Unfortunately, most young people don’t understand a concept of solid morals anymore and being committed to values today.  Furthermore, most young women believe that they are beyond the need for feminism.  Since women of my generation fought most of our lives for the rights you supposed “real feminists” have, you can do the heavy lifting from now on.  I’ve devoted most of my own free time to ensure that you have the right to birth control being covered by insurance plans and are safely escorted when getting your abortions.  So you can take your sanctimony and fight your own battles from now on.

I’m personally sick of a lifetime of period jokes and effectively being told by this New Democratic Party filled of neoprogressives to “go make the coffee” in the back room.  It’s just a reversion to women’s old put-upon roles during the social movements of the past.

If you knew anything about history, you would realize the relative newness of these gains women who preceded me and my own generation fought for when it wasn’t considered “sexy” to do so. 

Anyway, Obama just threw Planned Parenthood under the bus by claiming it was because THEY told him how to vote when he voted against the BAIPA in IL, when he was caught lying about said vote which did in fact contain a clause that it would not affect Roe v. Wade.  And a person of solid values wouldn’t have had a problem explaining how even this clause could even be an opener down the slippery slope.  That is what a real liberal would do.

So as you sink into the abyss of the failure of the Obama campaign…

Don’t let the tires split ya where the good lord split ya!

Men deciding what women are good or bad feminists. Nope, no privilege here. Carry on doods.

You can have problems with Obama’s positions - I have problems with Obama’s positions - but to argue that I’m any way criticizing that impulse is patently and completely dishonest.

Except that that’s what you’re doing.  You’re casting the impulse to say “Hey, Obama, quit selling us out!”  as something more akin to “We want Clinton or else we’ll vote McCain!”

And that’s a load of bullshit.

It’s really too bad that you have completely missed the mark on what PUMA is about.  It’s about principle.  Something that is so above emotion you probably can’t fathom it.

Oh, MY. That IS a good one.

I think you CAN quit your day job, son.

Margalis, that was a repulsive comparison. And I only speak for myself.

Jesse, the way I see it, opportunites have been lost by the Obama camp to repair the divisiveness since June- in part because he’s been a TAD busy dealing with the bizarre campaign launched by McCain, but also from his own inattention to the Clinton supporters.

Speaking as one who was an Edwards supporter (oh well… guess we dodged a bullet on that one) and has never been more than lukewarm about Obama (and who is pissed with his lame campaign right now), the whiny Clintonites can kiss my ass. Get over your stupid selves and deal with reality- which is that keeping Crazy McSenile out of the White House should be regarded as an emergency priority by all sane people.

I’m warming to Hillary VP.

She’d be a great attack dog, and the PUMA’s and Republicans (if there is really a difference) would have their heads explode simultaneously.

And we’d all be entertained by Chris Matthews ranting about how this castrates Obama, or something.

I’ve been fine all along with Hillary as VP, EXCEPT… what the hell do you do with Bill? Can he be sent on a four-year speaking tour in some remote corner of the world where television cameras are unknown?

“I’ve been fine all along with Hillary as VP, EXCEPT… what the hell do you do with Bill?”

Send him to a small, private island in the Indian Ocean with a mansion and a harem, and tell the media hes in some developing nation negotiating a peace deal.

Fembot, there’s something you should know about The Most Feministest Candidate EVAR, Hillary Rodham Clinton:

When you were, as you claim, fighting for women’s rights, especially women’s rights to do more than make coffee within the Democratic Party, Your Beloved Hillary was volunteering for the Goldwater campaign.  Hillary is NOT a feminist.  She may have appeared to be one as first lady of Arkansas in the 70’s, a time and place where a woman with a law degree, or any woman over the age of 22 without a ring on her finger, would have been considered some sort of Radical Lesbian Separatist.  She may have appeared to be one during Bill’s campaign in ‘92 where she, like, wore sensible shoes or whatever it was that made people think she was such a raging bra-burner. 

But seriously?  I was a women’s studies major.  I’ve been up and down the shelves of feminist theory, feminist activism, and movement history more times that I can count.  And I’ve never seen any real evidence that Hillary was Grand High Feminist #1 back in the day.  Or ever, really. 

The fact that old school second wave feminists, who were, like, actually there, don’t realize this is really fucking sad.  It’s especially sad that such people pissed away the primary season getting their knickers in a bunch over this woman they’d never really considered part of their universe before, as if it were Gloria Steinem running for president and not some namby pamby moderate whose main claim to feminism is that she lacks a Y chromosome.  The saddest part?  That those women unwittingly laid the groundwork for Republican ratfucker turds like you, Fembot.

We’re the ones ignorant of the women who preceded us, how exactly?  Because you seem to be the deluded one, here.

Let me give a serious answer as to what to do with Bill:

Promise that if he keeps his mouth shut, he can have his wife’s Senate seat.

“It’s a pitiful, shallow movement that couldn’t do more to damage Hillary Clinton, what she believes in, or the larger cause of feminism if it tried.  It’s no more Hillaryism than George W. Bush is a cowboy.”

THANK YOU.  Dead on.

Lisa, a Hillary supporter who can’t believe her eyes sometimes at how Hillary’s name is being taken so enormously in vain and so clearly against her OWN wishes and desires especially in regards to Obama

Hardly a rational article, more wishful thinking on the part of the author.

Facts remain: Obama has no qualifications and has no business wasting people’s time and money running for President.

BTW, we supported Hillary but that doesn’t mean we will support who Hillary now supports. We are not cult followers; we are the thinking public.

Dream on.

I’m sure you’re saying that as a lifelong member of the “Democrat Party”, aren’t you Alee?

I have been at the meetings.  We are all Democrats who are sad about the entire process.
You can say whatever you think, but the truth is we are all colors, male and female, and socially and economically diverse.  I am a mom of three, democrat all my life, veteran of the armed forces, daughter of a military officer.  I have three degrees, two undergraduate and one doctoral level.
Obama and the DNC have taken over my party.  Hillary may have been the catalyst, helping us recognize the problem. 
PUMA, I Own my vote, Real Democrats, Together 4 us, Just Say No Deal, and hundreds more, feel that the DNC has left us on the side of the road.  The DNC has been “Obama or Bust” since Iowa.  I don’t think that would have happened if Hillary was a male.  No Deal.  No Obama!
If you think I will allow an inexperienced person, male or female, black or white, run the country I love, you are mistaken.  I want someone who knows what they are doing.  If that is not Hillary then it’s McCain.

What a thread!

Ahistorical hsysteria over some folks who want the Dem Party to actually vote for the nominee. Men telling women, ‘Get over it.’

Pathetic. And to think!

I just became a facebook friend of Amanda’s. Ah well, nobody’s perfect; least of all you Jesse. If all you’ve got to say is STFU! why don’t you sit down for a while and….

..follow your own advice.

This PUMA thing?

It’s called democracy son. Get over it.

Listen sweetie, I am one of “those people” who is saying LOUD and CLEAR - I want Hillary Rodham Clinton as the next President of the United States.  I will not vote for Obama.  I am an American FIRST.  Obama is a sham, a charlatan, a puppet -  put in place by the DNC.

Obama and the DNC have taken over my party.

If it was truly “your” party, you’d understand that the DNC (Democratic National Committee) has been the campaign and fund-raising organisation that’s run the party’s day-to-day operations since 1848. That “takeover” happened a long time ago.

Now unless you’re about 180 years old (that is to say, a few years younger than your guy McCain), you’re probably thinking of the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council), which has pushed the party toward the right as a way to win elections. But as I mentioned above, the DLC and its bungling operatives is primarily associated with the Clintons rather than Obama (although he’s been affected by their misguided efforts, too).

Not that I’m surprised that someone calling themselves a “lifelong Democrat” (the cliche is almost parody at this point) would know less about the Democratic Party than an independent like myself. You’re not fooling anyone.

Oh, and FembotsForObama, I read you loud and clear: I’ll get off your lawn, now.

Listen sweetie, I am one of “those people” who is saying LOUD and CLEAR - I want Hillary Rodham Clinton as the next President of the United States.  I will not vote for Obama.  I am an American FIRST.

A) Be for Clinton. But,
B) Be aware that fewer delegates wanted CLinton than Obama.

Generally, that means wanting Clinton means contravening the American system.

That don’t seem American, somehow.

You need to get rid of these idiot PUMAs. They’re too stupid to understand that voting “present” in a legislature that requires a constitutional majority to pass a bill (like Illinois) means that every vote that isn’t a “yes” works against the bill. Voting no? Is a vote against the bill. Voting present? Is a vote against the bill. That’s how a constitutional majority works.

Facts remain: Obama has no qualifications and has no business wasting people’s time and money running for President.

Too stupid to understand that holding elected office longer than Hillary (12 years to her 8), sitting on several committees including being the Chairman for the subcommittee on European Affairs, introducing important pieces of legislation both in the US Senate (like Obama-Lugar and Obama-Coburn) and in the Illinois Senate (requiring police interrogations to be taped and brining affordable health care to 150,000 people) plus being a US Citizen and over the age of 35 makes him plenty qualified.

I want someone who knows what they are doing.  If that is not Hillary then it’s McCain.

And not even smart enough to realize the only things Hillary and McCain have in common are:

1.) They were both adults during the Vietnam War.

2.) They’re both white.

That’s it. Everything else? Health care, the Iraq War, civil rights, glbt rights, abortion rights - Hillary and McCain couldn’t be more different if they tried. Whereas Hillary and Obama are very, very similar.

we are the thinking public.

Delusions of grandeur, there.  Not the ‘public’ part—I don’t question your right to consider yourself part of the public—but the ‘thinking’ part, definitely.

If you think I will allow an inexperienced person, male or female, black or white, run the country I love, you are mistaken.  I want someone who knows what they are doing.  If that is not Hillary then it’s McCain.

You sound very sad.  Have you considered suicide? 

Seriously: fuck off and die, you Republican ratfucker.  And don’t forget to collect your ‘points’ from the McCain campaign website.

And don’t forget to collect your ‘points’ from the McCain campaign website.

I’m curious: do they assign points based on the quality and effectiveness of the troll’s comment, or is it more of a NCLB kind of thing?

We are all Democrats who are sad about the entire process.

The “entire process” is people vote and someone wins.

What you are sad about is not the process but the result. In sports I think this is called being a sore loser.

Even the name of the organization screams ratfuck. PUMA? Like a play on Cougar?

You sound very sad.  Have you considered suicide?

You sound like a prick. Etc.

Right. Keep antagonizing Hillary supporters and calling them bitter old bags and they will just rally to Obama’s side.
Just took you off my favorites.

The PUMA folk themselves are a tiny minority but like many, you deeply underestimate the phenomenon or the mistake the Democratic Party made in nominating Obama.  But this is part of a larger issue.  The Democratic Party is an uneasy coalition of voting blocs.  And it is either (at this critical time) losing, or choosing to lose, prominence in one or more of its voting blocs.  Most of that loss is passive, but its harbinger is the tiny PUMA active resistance.

Like it or not, not enough people believe that McCain is terrible enough that keeping him out of office is a necessity.  That can’t be the only argument,and Obama undermined that argument by using the Unity thing.

The Correntewire people invented “WWTSBQ?” in response to the increasingly angry calls for her to drop out before the convention.  You can’t deny that some of the calls for her to drop out when procedure did not dictate it were pretty angry.

It’s also very interesting about how eager people are to keep Bill Clinton out of the picture.  I mean, I was never that much of a fan, but I don’t see why people think he’s a liability or why he needs to be exiled to a remote island.  I mean, for all his faults, he actually did win two elections and emerged from his eight years more popular than ever.  Why would you *not* want him there?

It is quite legitimate, also, to feel insulted by the process and act on that insult.  A political insult by a candidate is evidence for whether the candidate seriously supports your priorities.  I think a lot of Obama’s problems could be solved not merely by having something in his platform on those priorities (“read the web site”) but actively campaigning on them.  The bitter “second-wave” feminists who might still be angry about the process and Clinton’s loss feel, possibly legitimately, that much of feminism’s gains are slipping away from them, and if this is reflected in campaign priorities, well, then…

You are talking out of your ass… so self-assured, just like Obama.  You got another thing coming.

It has to be said. “You can be feminist or you can be a PUMA….” Well, who better to tell a woman that than some pretentious college boy?  Jesse, sweetie, honey, young man, you don’t get to decide for any woman what’s feminist and what’s not. Your college boy embrace of anti feminist bullshit—-bitter old vags, dried out vaginas, scorned women, OMG, of course I haven’t said those literal things OMG—-is no less sexist than anything the Republicans have thrown at women. Honeypie babyass? Really? Really?! You think that’s the way you talk to any woman today? Especially feminists? Do you fucking listen to yourself?  You think that gives you cred? YOu think that’s acceptable? You think that’s feminist? Bite me, you sexist asshole, white, black, whatever you are.  You’re a sexist asshole, and the pretense ends now. 

Honeypie babyass,

Bitter. McCain voters. Whatever else you’ve said about Hillary’s supporters——just end the pretense. Anyone who endorses this shit, these stereotypes, and this utterly sexist crap, as you have done here is no feminist, is not progressive, and deserves Melissa McEwan’s all-too-apt epithet of “Fauxgressive.”

You’ve got quite the nice little ghetto going on in your thoughts right now. Obama voters=real human beings.  Non-Obama voters-all of the shit you leave festering here.

I left this site months ago when the writers made it clear that fellating Obama and buttfucking the Hillary supporters had become de rigeur. Even I didn’t think it would get so bad that some college asshole would take it upon himself to decide what’s feminist and what’s not. And any woman allowing this? Fuck you too.  The blaspheme button has gotten to be all too obviously false. Why don’t you just make it ‘praise’ and have done with it?

Why is Mandos, notorious anti-feminist, pro-sex poz troll, commenting here? Or are male commenters so valued that only the most obviously get shitcanned?

Oh, wait, Twisty’s one of those older bitches, so her judgement’s no doubt suspect because her pussy’s not wet enough for the Obamabots.  Maybe they could market a dipstick or something.

Oh, let’s watch for the bots to try and turn that one around.

I always read and never post, but I must interject:

ginmar, are you a total idiot? He said “honeypie, babyass” because vest called him “sweetie” (which he block-quoted directly above the “honeypie, babyass” comment.

The point, of course, (which was not lost on people who have reading comprehension skills) was that if vest wanted to be addressed in a respectful manner, she’d address others in like kind.

Jesus Christ. People are ridiculous.

In the most recent NBC poll, only 52% of Clinton voters are supporting Obama. 27% are planning on voting for McCain. You really think they’re all diehard feminists?

Look, lots of people think a nonentity who hasn’t accomplished a thing would make a really bad president. It is quite possible to support abortion rights and vote against Obama. I realize this is a difficult idea for an ideological zealot to wrap his mind around, but find a two year old to explain it to you.

Ginmar, you fucking rock. Thank you.

Krystal, I’m pretty sure ginmar got that. The point is that Jesse was all too eager to add a pair of sexist insults to his usual repertoire when he was given the chance.

He called ONE person honeypie babyass because she called him sweetiepie first. He was pointing out that it is as condescending for a woman to talk down to him that way as it is for men to talk to us that way.

I do have to say that fact-free polemics like this are a waste of time at best and damaging at worst. As ginmar is evidence of right now people are looking for reasons to talk past each other, assume the worst and fight like dogs. (Oh noes, dogsism!)

Providing opportunities for misunderstanding seems like a dumb idea.

Sometimes I wonder who *isn’t* a ratfucker. A good rule of thumb is to do what your opponent is afraid of—when your strategy is to do exactly what Republicans *want* you to do you’re doing it wrong.

Republicans read posts like this and the resulting thread and cackle with glee.

I hope Jesse thinks about this the next time he considers writing a similar post. Stop doing the Republican’s job for them?

PUMAs = Republicans.

I’ve already gone through my own Favorites list and gotten rid of the PUMA blogs and PUMA-supporting blogs (including Shakesville—though I’ve added litbrit and Jeff Fecke to replace it).

I suspect most PUMAs will make a public switch to the Republican Party after the election. And good riddance to ‘em.

By the way, I hope you morons- those of you who are actually Democrats and not ratfuckers, that is, if there really are any- realize that if McCain wins because Hillary didn’t do HER JOB of whipping you back in line to vote for Obama, she will be blamed and her political career is toast.

Better think twice before you sink your own supposed idol without a trace. If Obama loses, he will be the most hated figure in the party- but Hillary will be close behind.

I’ve already gone through my own Favorites list and gotten rid of the PUMA blogs and PUMA-supporting blogs (including Shakesville—though I’ve added litbrit and Jeff Fecke to replace it).
Shakesville supports PUMAs? (honest question)

Sorry, what was I thinking? PUMAs 4ever!

If, after these last sixteen yeaers, you’re emphatic about not voting for the guy with the D after his name, then I’d dare say you’re neither a Democrat nor a progressive.  In fact, hearing all the ‘It’s my vote’ tantrums, maybe you should consider voting for Bob Barr.  ‘Fuck you, its all about me?’  Fundamentalist Libertarianism right there.

Shakesville supports PUMAs?

Shakesville was an unfortunate casualty of the discovery that identity and partisan politics don’t always mix.

Last note: Caffeinate, then snark.

In all fairness, I don’t think most of the Shakesville bloggers outright supports PUMA. Zuzu comes mighty damn close, though. Melissa disagrees with Obama a lot, but she actually posts concrete examples to criticize him on. Also, there’s enough fun content on there not related to the election that I still like reading Shakesville.

80% of the regular commenters on the election-related blog posts, though, are insufferable. Posting any comment complementary of Obama will get one shouted at and despised.

Oops, make that (“bloggers outright support”)

What does criticizing Obama have to do with it, though? Hell, I’m not happy with him at all- he’s as much a Republican-lite as Hillary herself, and his religiosity especially sticks in my craw. But I’m damned if I will help elect a senile, batshit insane warmonger. And I live in Ohio, so my vote actually counts. (If you live in a safe blue state, go ahead and do what you like.)

Why is Mandos, notorious anti-feminist, pro-sex poz troll, commenting here? Or are male commenters so valued that only the most obviously get shitcanned?

Oh, wait, Twisty’s one of those older bitches, so her judgement’s no doubt suspect because her pussy’s not wet enough for the Obamabots.  Maybe they could market a dipstick or something.

Oh, let’s watch for the bots to try and turn that one around.

And I was agreeing with you.  I don’t take these old feuds seriously though.  I don’t think that too many people around here would remember year-old internet debacles.

Why is Mandos, notorious anti-feminist, pro-sex poz troll, commenting here? Or are male commenters so valued that only the most obviously get shitcanned?

Also to say that I am a “notorious anti-feminist” that deserves automatic banning is of course a matter of opinion, and most people who know Ginmar know that her opinions can be rather binary-valued.  If anyone wants to know, I was one of Twisty’s earliest commenters, and I found some of her ideas very interesting, and some of it I agreed with, and some of it I didn’t understand how they worked.  Eventually (after years) Twisty decided to change the mission of her site and I didn’t have a place there any more, and she ejected me in (highly appreciated) style.  I still read her regularly with some admiration, if not always agreement.

If you think I will allow an inexperienced person, male or female, black or white, run the country I love, you are mistaken.  I want someone who knows what they are doing.  If that is not Hillary then it’s McCain.

Yeah, by your definition our ancestors should have never elected Abraham Lincoln, who had less experience than Obama. I think we learned with Dick Cheney over the last eight years that experience is not necessarily a good thing.

By the way, I keep hearing so-called feminists who won’t vote for Obama shrug off Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court. Fine, whatever. But you’re also writing off women in Africa who are not under Bush getting the family planning they need because he cut off aid to the groups that do that sort of thing and you fucking well know that McCain will continue those policies. You’ll be voting to continue abstinence only education in school. And lack of parity in pay for women (remember, he voted against it). He’ll probably pursue Leavitt’s thing to define birth control as abortion.

And as we slide into Gilead, it won’t be the fucking Republicans I blame, it will be you.

Posting any comment complementary of Obama will get one shouted at and despised.

I think I first realized that something had gone wrong over at Shakesville when I posted something moderately pro-Obama and immediately got replies like “Sure, and Hillary’s a bitch, right?” I can’t imagine how rough it must’ve been for Jeff Fecke, because he’d get flamed hard just about every post he made, and no one in charge ever spoke up in his defense.

And this recent post by Melissa seems designed to provide excuses for Clinton diehards to vote for anyone but Obama.

By the way, I keep hearing so-called feminists who won’t vote for Obama shrug off Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court. Fine, whatever. But you’re also writing off women in Africa who are not under Bush getting the family planning they need because he cut off aid to the groups that do that sort of thing and you fucking well know that McCain will continue those policies. You’ll be voting to continue abstinence only education in school. And lack of parity in pay for women (remember, he voted against it). He’ll probably pursue Leavitt’s thing to define birth control as abortion.

Precisely. The idea that “My vote is my own” is fine in principle. But it works out to voting for a far worse society because you’re mad at the centrist Democrat who beat your preferred centrist Democrat. And the refrain of “If I vote non-Obama, and McCain wins and makes everything awful, don’t blame me, blame Obama” is unbelievably stupid.

I don’t see why people think he’s a liability

Probably because Hillary hasn’t been able to keep him on an adequate leash since 1997—hell, I’d be the first to say that she deserved a break by that point, having survived his last election without too many eruptions—and her being VP [shudder] would mean that a) they’d both be subject to a lot more scrutiny than the fluffing of the past several years, and b) presumably she’d have more important things to do than keep him from acting like the spoiled, media-sucking narcissist that he has been for quite some time now.  Privilege (from southern-white-guyness enabling his tomcatting to being ex-POTUS giving him audiences for his petulance) has always been a real problem for Bill, in that it makes his character downright unpleasant.

lots of people think a nonentity who hasn’t accomplished a thing would make a really bad president

This would be more credible if anyone could name an accomplishment of HRC’s other than getting Bill elected to the presidency, then using that operation to carpetbag a Senate seat in NY.  Oh, right—she Fights For… Things, I guess.  She must lose all the time, because lord knows everything she says she’s fought for has been steamrolled by the GOP for that same thirty years she’s claimed to battle, but she Fights.  Maybe if she put half the energy into issues battles that she has historically put into ensuring her and Bill’s political survival, some of those Fights could be called Accomplishments instead.  But there’s not much there to cite, I’m afraid, and certainly nothing that any prominent lawyer and/or reasonably diligent backbencher hasn’t managed.

Also, I agree with Sundown re: Shakesville.  It’s still pretty funny in some ways & I enjoy the generally irreverent tone, but the political stuff is like a grievance parade, especially among the commenters.  When Jeff Fecke departed, I knew that the doctrinaire victims had won.  Not a big deal, since I very rarely commented, but a bit sad nonetheless.

And the refrain of “If I vote non-Obama, and McCain wins and makes everything awful, don’t blame me, blame Obama” is unbelievably stupid.

They should ask the Nader ‘00 voters just how well they’ve been received by the progressive wing.

They should ask the Nader ‘00 voters just how well they’ve been received by the progressive wing.
I was 18. I didn’t know what I was doing!

I should also add that I thought my being in a red state made my voting for Nader not matter. Unfortunately, my “red state” was Florida.

The progressive wing is not all that progressive…

Posting any comment complementary of Obama will get one shouted at and despised.
Yeah, I tend to avoid commenting on any of the election related posts. But I still read (and enjoy) the non-election posts. Zuzu is one of those people that I just know I’m not on the same page with so I tend not to read her posts. Nothing against her personally.

I think the only time I’ve had a real problem with something they posted was when, on the night Obama accepted the nomination, there was a post bemoaning the loss for womankind without an immediately following post remarking on what a great day it was for the black community (of which there are obviously female members).

I was 18. I didn’t know what I was doing!

That’s OK, since you acknowledge and express regret for your past mistake. Unlike, say, Hillary…

“What does criticizing Obama have to do with it, though? Hell, I’m not happy with him at all- he’s as much a Republican-lite as Hillary herself, and his religiosity especially sticks in my craw. But I’m damned if I will help elect a senile, batshit insane warmonger. And I live in Ohio, so my vote actually counts. (If you live in a safe blue state, go ahead and do what you like.)”

Speak on, my brother. 

Lisa, who lives in a safe blue state and has not yet decided if she’s going to vote or not.

Ginmar cracks me up. She hates people that have gone to college! Bwahhhahahha. There’s a good reason right there to vote Republican. Is the PUMA platform anti-edumacation?

“And did any of you dipshits notice that the entire point of this post was defending Hillary Clinton as better than you self-obsessed attention seekers?”

I noticed.  Though hopefully I’m not actually a dipshit or a self-obsessed attention seeker.  I am a Hillary fan, though.

Shakesville is not “pro-PUMA.” Shakesville is against bullying and mocking people for not falling immediately into line behind Obama if they don’t feel that he represents them. The Pandagon crowd keeps insisting that it understands the difference between a “PUMA” and a feminist who has reservations about Obama, but damn, you wouldn’t know it from actually, um, reading the site.

Shakesville is not “pro-PUMA.” Shakesville is against bullying and mocking people for not falling immediately into line behind Obama if they don’t feel that he represents them.
I read Shakesville daily and- by and large- don’t find them to be outwardly pro-PUMA. But I’m going to disagree with the “against bullying and mocking people” part. Because there are several regular readers over there, including myself, who won’t comment in election related threads with anything even remotely in favor of Obama because we don’t want to deal with the fallout.

And that “fall in line” rhetoric got old months ago. Invest in a thesaurus. Or learn to comprehend. Most of the Obama “supporters” in here have said that they have plenty of problems with him, too, but are trying to avoid a McCain presidency (aka Bush Part III).

The progressive wing is not all that progressive…

Says someone who claims to support a namby pamby moderate who would probably be considered right-wing if she lived in any other country with a vaguely functional political process.  Someone who claims this support as a justification for voting for the candidate furthest to the right.

I’m a Canadian, though I live in the USA.  Both Obama and Hillary would be considered highly right-wing in the country of my birth and citizenship.  But Canadian politics is pretty right-wing these days.  A right-wing stalemate situation.

My criterion is not which one is marginally more “progressive”.  Mine is, which of the two viable (D) nomination candidates would have been more able to prevent McCain from taking office.  It is also, which one is more predictable, which one has enemies (a plus in my mind), and so on.  And which one would produce the most outrage from the usual quarters.

I think that Obama was the weaker choice, and I also think that people who support Obama are in a state of denial about the consequences of that political choice.  That’s all.

Jesse:  maybe some folks missed the direction of your original criticism, but how do you explain the overarching aggressive tone of the male posters here?  What is it about this election that men feel threatened about - so much so that they are trying to bully women into goose-stepping into the election?  What do you *men* have to lose if McCain is elected?  Anything?  Wouldn’t you just have the same business as usuall that we’ve been pandering to for the last several decades?  Why is it that a small subset of women claiming they will support McCain sets the men into hives of apoplexy?  Men have been the ones to get us into this mess (score one for Team Statistics), so why are the men here beating the war drums of women’s irresponsibility?  Whatever mess you men are facing is not at the doing of feminists, nor will the eleventh hour of this election be decided by rouge menopausal women.  This system is your system, set up to benefit you and to pander to men’s needs; not conservative vs progressive, not left vs right; just plain old man to man pandering. 

If you want to be a good male feminist, address that.

And just in case you haven’t figured the grand scheme out yet, it isn’t that some older women are suddenly traitors.  We’ve never been loyal in the first place; not in a world that doesn’t see us until they are knee deep in their own shit.  We’ve been pissed off for a long, long time.  Hillary Clinton’s success in the primaries (and yes, it was a success) was simply the final hurdle of fear we had to jump. 

You want our vote?  Maybe you should ask us what it is we need.

Look, as someone mentioned above, a good chunk of Clinton supporters are not going to vote for Obama.  Or they say they won’t.  Either way, it’s a big risk. 

Now, you may blame and shout imprecations at them.  You may label them as architects of their own destruction, and stupid and racist, or whatever.  But it doesn’t change the facts on the ground: they say they won’t vote for Obama. 

That’s the problem with Jesse’s post.  It takes the form of a threat.  “If you don’t accept our political choice, if you spoil the fun, we’ll politically destroy the lady.”

And for the record, Obama is looking *pretty* “namby-pamby” to me these days.  But, he always did.  Unity, anyone?

Jesse:  maybe some folks missed the direction of your original criticism, but how do you explain the overarching aggressive tone of the male posters here?  What is it about this election that men feel threatened about - so much so that they are trying to bully women into goose-stepping into the election?

Apparently I need to be more aggressive to represent for the ladies. Seriously, though, Q Girl, thank you for speaking for me as a woman. I had this great confusion about how to use my vocal chords and my fingers for typing. And, good golly, was coming up with my own beliefs regarding this election- beliefs made in the mind and not the ovaries- too tough for my delicate sensibilities. You’ve done me a solid.

My criterion is not which one is marginally more “progressive”.  Mine is, which of the two viable (D) nomination candidates would have been more able to prevent McCain from taking office.  It is also, which one is more predictable, which one has enemies (a plus in my mind), and so on.  And which one would produce the most outrage from the usual quarters.

I appreciate the more reality-based tone of your pro-Hillary argument here—it’s one we’re definitely not seeing from this PUMA “movement.”

Still, after looking at Hillary’s over-priced and feckless campaign: headed by losers like Penn and Wolfson; predictable in taking the easily-exploited and differentiation-reducing DLC tack; and consequently beset by “enemies”—Democrats and independents—who are looking for a return to core liberal values ... well,  I come to a different conclusion based on your criteria.

Obama is far from perfect, and the race with McCain is still close. But I’d wager it would be a lot closer if Hillary was the nominee.

Shorter Q Grrl: ‘anybody not my gender can’t write about politics unless I say so, ‘cause its not my fault. It’s their’s. Take that.’

Bwahhahhah
The lack or responsibility defense: oft used by (drum role).......Republicans to justify all kinds of shit….

This thread cracks me the fuck up.

Nice reading comprehension Brandy. What part of “some” women is confusing to you?  Or do you just want to dogpile because I was critical of the larger issue of male supremacy?

Are McEwan and zuzu pro-PUMA? Read their two-part series from the Guardian’s website and decide for yourselves:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/01/hillaryclinton.uselections2008

Gracchus: And I wouldn’t.  Because the primary is not the general.  Yes, Penn has, er, issues.  But for all practical purposes, what those issues ultimately boiled down to is a failure to note the shifts that had happened within the party since 2004. 

But, I believe Obama is likely to be a victim of his own success.  Because his campaign was a machine that was very finely tuned to exploit Hillary Clinton’s very specific vulnerabilities.  Most of those tactics won’t work/aren’t working against McCain.  For instance, it is possible, in the case of Hillary, to limit the scope of her campaign tactics using charges of racism.  There are few worse ideological charges in the Democratic Party, for reasons that are probably correct.

McCain has much greater scope of action in using blatant racism against Obama.  Yes, he could also use sexism against Hillary Clinton—-but who hasn’t?  And yet she was still standing.

I don’t believe Obama is ready to weather that storm.  Nothing to do with professional experience.  Just a lot shorter time in the public eye.

But I also believe that the dismissal of Clinton’s supporters and the meaning of that support (and the rejection of Obama) is wayyyyyyy too flippant among Obama supporters.

Look, as someone mentioned above, a good chunk of Clinton supporters are not going to vote for Obama.  Or they say they won’t.  Either way, it’s a big risk.

I have no problem with a Hillary supporter choosing to spoil the Presidential line on his ballot—unless the race was very close I was planning to do the same thing if Hillary had been the nominee. Not a major deal, because there’s a far greater number of Know-Nothing Republicans who loathe McCain will stay home on election day.

But the bogus PUMA movement is floating the ridiculous proposition that all these Hillary voters will vote for McCain out of spite. Now i’m sure a tiny group might do that, but we really have to slap down the idea that this is a grass-roots mass movement and depict it for what it is. My first comment in this thread pretty much sums it up.

What do you *men* have to lose if McCain is elected?  Anything?

Yeah, what do we have to lose other than the economy, the medical system, and perhaps our lives if McCain is serious about charging up San Tbilisi Hill.  Nothing as important there as having a woman president, not at all.

I read the original post, and if you don’t think that that’s reasonably interpretable as a threat, you’re being disingenuous.  Yes, there are a large number of voices among PUMA who are wrongheaded and/or a little detached from reality, but that’s true of any politically disgruntled group.  If you think that alone damages Hillary Clinton…

“But unless you assume that men aren’t going to be impacted by a worsening economy, a crippled educational system and dysfunctional health care, and a belligerent foreign policy that’s going to see us in more wars and at greater threat of terrorist attack - among dozens of other issues - I don’t see what your point is. “

My point is that these are issues that have pre-existed this campaign.  What is it about this campaign that drives a man to write on a feminist blog about a very small minority of women voters and for him to claim some sort of authority in naming what is and isn’t feminist?  What is *your* hang-up?  What is it about the conditions of this election that lead you to believe that this small subset of *women* holds the power to dash your bright future?  Really, from my POV you look either absurd or improbably timid, and I can’t figure out why.

[my gut feeling is that finally men are being impacted on a personal level after years and years of bad politics (the bulk of which have been driven, concocted, and put in place by other men) and now that *some* women dare be vocal, teh Menz are getting nervous.  Afterall, you might have to pay higher gas prices, or something.  I mean, it’s not *your* bodily integrity that’s been the cat toy of BOTH Republicans and Democrats for the last 40+ years.  You haven’t had much to worry about, have you?]

But the bogus PUMA movement is floating the ridiculous proposition that all these Hillary voters will vote for McCain out of spite. Now i’m sure a tiny group might do that, but we really have to slap down the idea that this is a grass-roots mass movement and depict it for what it is. My first comment in this thread pretty much sums it up.

Some among them are (going to vote for McCain), some not.  Do you actually read them?

Yes, PUMA is a small number of people.  But the growth of small, more radical groups over short periods of time tells you something about the overall political Zeitgeist.  For instance, the existence of Dobson tells you something about the opinion mix in the less radical right-wing population, and political tendencies that will accrue therefrom.

There’s no way in which making it easier for McCain to win is a feminist act.

There’s one way.  If you’ve convinced yourself that Obama is a hopeless closet sexist and male opportunist as many PUMA have.  Then waiting for Round 2 makes sense.

Stupid?  Naive?  Matter of opinion.  Most people here would say “YES!!!!” 

One thing I do share with them is a certain disappointment that revenge would not be had for the 90s.  I think political revenge and retribution is important.

Now i’m sure a tiny group might do that, but we really have to slap down the idea that this is a grass-roots mass movement and depict it for what it is.

Honest question: Where are you seeing all coverage of this “movement,” other than at blogs like this one? Am I missing all the front-page, top-of-the-hour stories about PUMAs? And even if such coverage existed, I should think it would motivate at least as many people to cast counterbalancing votes for Obama as to jump ship and join the so-called PUMAs.

If the PUMA-for-McCain army is tiny, bogus, and largely invisible, why does it command so incredibly much attention at Pandagon, and why does it incite such fury here? Is it really so powerful that you need to “slap it down,” or is it just an easy and enjoyable target to rail against?

Mine is, which of the two viable (D) nomination candidates would have been more able to prevent McCain from taking office.

You are a Canadian. 

Which means you can’t vote in our elections.

This whole controversy should be pretty much meaningless to you by now because A) Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination, has left the race, and has thrown her support behind Obama to the extent that she’s on his VP shortlist, and B) you have no more control over American politics than I have the results of the Olypic track and field events (Jamaica FTW!).  I’m sorry your horse lost and hope you didn’t have too much money riding on this.  What did your bookie tell you were the odds? 

Kindly go obsess over something else and let us have our election in peace.

Yes, Penn has, er, issues.  But for all practical purposes, what those issues ultimately boiled down to is a failure to note the shifts that had happened within the party since 2004.

I like the understatement. Seriously, though, the shift we’re talking about is a demographic one, and thus has a major influence on results. This is the first election where Gen Xers and Millenials are counter-balancing Boomers and Silents.

But, I believe Obama is likely to be a victim of his own success.  Because his campaign was a machine that was very finely tuned to exploit Hillary Clinton’s very specific vulnerabilities.

He’s exploiting the same vulnerability with McCain—the generational issue. To use your (genuine ) concern regarding race, most voters under 45 on the Dem and even independent sides don’t buy into the Boomer identity politics narrative whether it comes from the right (in the form of clumsy racism or sexism) or the left (in the form of politically-correct claims of entitlement).

As for weathering attacks, so far I’ve been quite impressed with how the Obama campaign has made lemonade from the lemons served up by the MSM and the GOP.

But I also believe that the dismissal of Clinton’s supporters and the meaning of that support (and the rejection of Obama) is wayyyyyyy too flippant among Obama supporters.

My dismissal of Clinton’s supporters (as opposed to Clinton herself) was their propensity to scream “misogyny” and “patriarchy” every time one made a completely gender-neutral criticism of her. If that’s not deserving of mockery, I don’t know what is.

My point is that these are issues that have pre-existed this campaign.  What is it about this campaign that drives a man to write on a feminist blog about a very small minority of women voters and for him to claim some sort of authority in naming what is and isn’t feminist?  What is *your* hang-up?  What is it about the conditions of this election that lead you to believe that this small subset of *women* holds the power to dash your bright future?

Translation: “I have no clue what a blog is for.”

“There’s no way in which making it easier for McCain to win is a feminist act. “

Perhaps this should be pointed out to Obama (and Jesse too).

Shorter Q and Lizard: “How dare Jesse write about things that annoy him in his blog!”

Perhaps this should be pointed out to Obama (and Jesse too).

Translation: “Its you and your candidate’s fault I’m voting against my better interests!”

Round 2? Is that (if you’re not meaning something else) the notion that a McCain win will make it easier for Hillary to win in 2012? So those four years of further ruin possibly causing permanent damage will totally ensure that suddenly the public will magically accept Hilary Clinton as president?

———-

As Faye said in July on Pandagon in a comment: “I really do not understand the constant meme that our pointing out that McCain has pledged to outlaw abortion is US threatening YOU with loss of bodily autonomy if you don’t vote for Obama. How can we threaten you? WE have no real power over abortion rights, therefore we cannot threaten. Our earnestness, which seems aggressive to you, just points to our deep concern. McCain wants to end abortion, period. Obama does not. And the same can be said for thousands of other important issues, for example, gay marriage.”

Maybe a subset of those who would most benefit from change have built their lives, and identity, around a “gut” that will not let them escape the cycle of opression they identify with. They perhaps are ultimately invested in the cycle itself, and become self-destructive when there is hope that the cycle would change. In this case, the self-destruction is manifest in the imperfectness of the change itself.
In this case, the folks involved will certainly vote for McCain/undercut Obama, and cite the failure of those around them to adequately rescue them.
Thus suffering no blame for their continued demise. Neat, tidy, simple, subliminal.

Doug, the “translation” thing is…..really dumb.

“How dare Jesse write about things that annoy him in his blog!”

I don’t think I made any suggestions about what Jesse should write about. I do think the constant drumbeat of “damn the PUMAs!” at Pandagon speaks volumes about the contributors and the readership. Let me know if you need that translated.

Just because I can’t vote, doesn’t mean that these things don’t matter to me.  I mean, Obama visited Berlin.

I have a “gut” feeling that staydaddy is the LAST person who should be commenting on feminism.

Yes, PUMA is a small number of people.  But the growth of small, more radical groups over short periods of time tells you something about the overall political Zeitgeist.

Except that this group is more GOP and MSM-bait astroturf than Dem grassroots.

Speaking of which…

Honest question: Where are you seeing all coverage of this “movement,” other than at blogs like this one?

These sorts of stories generally bubble up from the blogs into the sensation-hungry MSM—as the Operation Chaos crowd well knows. Better to stanch it here before it takes hold and the MSM can start painting it as a grassroots Democratic movement. It happens at blogs like this because sites like Shakesville shut down any discussion of it.

For me, the PUMA thing doesn’t incite fury so much as mockery. It’s clear that it’s mainly a GOP “Operation Chaos” operation that takes advantage of some very bitter Boomer feminists. Really, check out that link in my first post to see the kind of people involved in this thing.

I don’t think I made any suggestions about what Jesse should write about. I do think the constant drumbeat of “damn the PUMAs!” at Pandagon speaks volumes about the contributors and the readership. Let me know if you need that translated.

No, I read it loud and clear.  You still have no clue what a blog is for.  I’ll let Jesse speak for himself, but there are those of us who find this whole PUMA nonsense a non-factor but are having a good amount of lulz at the whole phenomenon.  Just because its not important, doesn’t mean we can’t have our fun poking at it.

Just because its not important, doesn’t mean we can’t have our fun poking at it.

And I’m free to draw my own conclusions about what that says about you. But please do enlighten me about the magical properties of blogs, of which I am so woefully ignorant.

Shorter Doug:  I have a weenie!  I’m going to go touch it now.

Nice reading comprehension Brandy. What part of “some” women is confusing to you?  Or do you just want to dogpile because I was critical of the larger issue of male supremacy?
Because right there’s the rub. If I’m not part of that “some” women group, I’m cast as being on the side of the patriarchy. And there’s all kinds of problems with that notion.

Gender really has nothing to do with this.  Hillary Clinton didn’t get the nomination largely because she her campaign was poorly staffed and managed. She has no solid history in the feminist movement (and just being a woman doesn’t count) so it is a bit perplexing that some people keep waving the feminist flag around her. Yes, it would be great to see a female president at some point but having one who didn’t earn it through the political process wouldn’t be much of a feminist statement.

For the record, Q Grrl, I was sympathetic to your perception of overaggression in certain circumstances (not really from Jesse, though, since frankly he was simply responding in kind to a complete refusal to read his post) but I have to agree with others that this:

What do you *men* have to lose if McCain is elected?  Anything?  Wouldn’t you just have the same business as usuall that we’ve been pandering to for the last several decades?

is just plain offensive. In addition to the things already mentioned (economy, health care, draft) the fact is that the loss of womens’ rights, the kinds of losses that will occur under McCain, affect me both because of the women in my life and because of my humanistic tendencies.

Do you really think that women are the only ones hurt by Republican policies?

You’re right, some male commenters get aggressive. I try not to, but then again, every time someone’s blase about the prospect of a McCain presidency I remember my family’s insanely high medical bills and think about the fact that my son will be 18 and draftable in 11 years (and hell, I’m still technically draftable IINM) and the fact that I like breathing air and not burning alive and on and on.

Have male Democrats just been faking it?

Apparently, “every time someone’s blase about the prospect of a McCain presidency” I forget to finish a sentence. You get the idea.

I was an Edwards supporter, and I could never fully get behind Clinton or Obama.  (I picked based on an issue pretty specific to my professional life).  So I come to this with little in the way of invested support for any candidate.

The “pro-PUMA” position that folks like Liss and Zuzu take really sticks in some folks’ craw for reasons that I don’t think are legitimate.  I’ll accept arguendo that it’s not about Clinton herself anymore.  If it’s about a power-bloc that supported her sticking together, and saying, “if the party wants my vote the candidate will have to offer something,” then this is hardly new in Democratic politics.  This is how the game is played.  Obama might have to do something to actually win these voters back—like not pandering to Rick Warren’s paritioners and hinting that choice, at the margins, does not matter to him. 

This is not a new issue.  Irish home rule was a dominant issue in late 19th and early 20th century British Parliament because the Liberals needed a bloc to win.  The Cuban community gets outsized voice in US policy because candidates need their votes in a swing state.  And ethanol gets support because it benefits the upper midwest, even if it’s a shitty policy idea.  That’s how one looks out for one’s interests in a pluralistic society with a representative democracy.  Hell, I’m sure there were blocs in Athenian politics that swayed policy because one side or the other needed them.  And if they don’t threaten the party when it really, really needs them, then they never get what they want. 

“Get in line” is a lot of tough guy talk, the kind that has ruined American foreign policy.  How about this:  Barack Obama, you get in line.  This is the party that supports a woman’s right to choose, we don’t buy those made-up right-wing hypotheticals about the seventeen year old who schedules a third-trimester termination between a school-sponsored blowjob symposium and a pedicure, because it’s bullshit.  If a politics of “change” is shading, DLC style, ever-farther right to chase the votes of the evangelicals, that’s not change at all.  At best, it’s Dick Morris triangulation that is antiprogressive, and at worst it’s selling out the party.  And it won’t work—not in this election, where folks right enough to need chasing on the social issues are not voting for Obama.

When it came down to it, I pulled the lever for Obama.  I’ll do that again.  But I have flat turned down all requests for money since the FISA cave-in, and he will not get a minute of my time or a cent of my money until he gives me a god damned reason to support him.  Otherwise, he’s got my vote or that’s it.

If, as many of you folks say, you are critical of Obama on some fronts, then why are you so opposed to people who actually are in a position to influence him in the right direction arm-twisting in a way that causes some pain?

“Have male Democrats just been faking it? “

Yes.

Yeah Lizard. Cause my Sig O’ at work right now earning .7 on the dollar, with a glass ceiling and a bunch of bullshit deserves a dipshit like you or the fuck wad ginmar to give a hand by electing Mcsame.  Thanks for your help, but our families feminism is not the moronic type that you espouse. Her opinion of you: Go.Fuck.Off.Asswipe. The last person to speak for us is you. And really, our kids feel the same way. Glad to not speak for your feminism, which sounds like “da Menz, Da Menz!!!!!!!” with no substance at all. While real feminists (like my wife and myself)actually make a positve difference each year for thousands and thousands of women (and other genders too) in the US and worldwide.

Ah. Well, I guess I know where I stand then.

I purposefully didn’t ask whether male feminists have been faking it since there’s a large group of women who feel like that is, indeed the case, and I can, really, understand why.

But I wasn’t aware that anyone felt the same way about party politics. That seems essentially as delusional about the realities of the world as patriarchy denial.

Just because I can’t vote, doesn’t mean that these things don’t matter to me.

It was understandable that “these things” would matter to you back during the actual primary season, when the winner had not yet been decided.  In fact it’s fine if the general election matters to you.

What’s incredibly fucking stupid and pointless and ridiculous, on the other hand, is that, you, a Canadian who can’t even vote in our elections, is continuing to dwell on the coulda woulda shouldas of a primary season that has long since been decided.  Your candidate has not only conceded the race but thrown her support behind the winner.  You continuing to be worked up about this is kind of like people who are still worked up about that time that Bill Murray was screwed, screwed, I tell you out of an oscar. 

It’s long since over, and you had no say in the matter in the first place.  Move the fuck on, already. 

Who knew that whole McCain Points deal extended across borders?  We should let the Nigerians know about this…

what those issues ultimately boiled down to is a failure to note the shifts that had happened within the party since 2004

I actually agree with this, but that’s also one reason I considered the HRC campaign’s feminist bona fides so suspect: she was proceeding from a position of arrogant entitlement, of dismissiveness, that should be exactly what feminism opposes (and IMO the arrogance was doubly offensive since it proceeded from her marriage).  I realize that there are plenty of second-wavers who have embraced assholery for advancement—and I don’t even really argue with their assumptions, since presumably that’s all they really knew wrt power—but that doesn’t make them less assholish for doing so.

Then, of course, the following kinda negates the cite above:

the growth of small, more radical groups over short periods of time tells you something about the overall political Zeitgeist

I thought the whole point was that the Clintonites had missed the current zeitgeist?- or is this supposed to mean that the Mighty Clinton Machine* Will Rise Again on the strength of supporters’ resentment?  That’d be a recipe for yet more Dem time in the wilderness, although maybe that’s really a more comfortable place for some in the party.

* ‘cause a machine—basically a hybrid of an urban patronage machine & nineties-era media operation—is all it really is.

how do you explain the overarching aggressive tone of the male posters here?

Huh… well, I’m a female, although I suppose since no one’s accused me of being aggressive [yet] it’s not really for me to say.  But I’m certainly aligned with most of the posters you seem to be referencing, and while I obviously don’t approve of every argument or phrase, I don’t see any behavior worse than in any other political debates.  I’ve been worse wrt HRC, in all honesty, and don’t even ask me about some previous run-ins with Edwards supporters (remembering how a few of them trolled Gore-hopeful diaries at dKos still pisses me off).

unless the race was very close I was planning to do the same thing if Hillary had been the nominee.

Yeah, I was too—red state, so no real electoral-vote concerns,  But I like to think that my position was a bit less, er, emotional than the <strike>walking</strike> typing wounded we see claiming that no one really cares about them, etc., etc.  Basically, I figured if the party wanted to be a restoration-seeking hack operation that would continue a record of long-term weakness, then it could do it without my very nominal support.  Like you, I don’t necessarily fault anyone for detaching (although I still marvel at their devotion to what was, after all, a low point for the party in general), but the emotionalism and grandstanding pisses me off because it undercuts feminism as a movement.

But I have flat turned down all requests for money since the FISA cave-in

So you believe the phone company should be penalized for not defying government orders? Why is this more important to you than, say, going to war with Iran? Where in our system of checks and balances did the phone company historically fall?

Thomas is right.  It’s about a group that presently feels excluded from the (D) coalition after the shift in 2004.  What are you going to give me, they are asking.  And some of them (PUMA) are saying that they don’t trust Obama to give them enough of what they expect.

And I can’t entirely fault them for that.  I hear, eg, young tech industry and/or bloggy types talking about politics and I sometimes shudder.  There really are people they’d throw under the bus, because while they think that Bush has been bad for world politics and the economy (no duh), they simply cannot understand the lives of some beneath them in the pecking order of society.  But these seem to be a big part of Obama’s base.

Identity politics matters, it is based in something real, Obama definitely exploited it against Hillary, and to think that the old political alignments can merely be shelved is deluding yourself.  The other side certainly doesn’t see it that way and will exert their brand of identity politics to the hilt, and they still do risk winning no matter that some think that Obama is a shoe-in.

It’s long since over, and you had no say in the matter in the first place.  Move the fuck on, already.

I think it’s worth going over the lessons a time or twenty, especially as we watch the actual general campaign unfold.

takes advantage of some very bitter Boomer feminists

What’s especially sad is that the PUMAs’ claims to feminism have started to hurt real life grownup feminism in the eyes of the MSM (I mean, not that they needed any help, but let’s not work too hard to give them more ammo)—I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen an MSM commentator remark that the failure of the Clinton campaign was a failure for feminism, or that feminists en masse are refusing to vote for Obama.  Neither of which is true.  But thanks for helping them string those thoughts together.

We feminists are really going to enjoy the years of damage control y’all have put in front of us.  Seriously, keep up the good work—we were coming to the end of our Honeydew Lists anyway…

latts: That’s not what I meant.  What I meant was that there was a shift in the composition of party activists and the mode of campaigning, and she couldn’t or wouldn’t exploit that. The point is, the way in which those party activists made her lose has rung alarm bells in more traditional segments of the party.  Because it’s not clear that this new coalition shares their agenda.

It doesn’t negate my later statement about Zeitgeist.  That was about whether or not Obama supporters were correctly gauging the nature of the reaction from the other camp and its motivations.

Staydaddy, you made a blanket statement about PUMAs being just too attached to their victimhood to be able to see their own interests clearly, and I’m sure you know that this is a classic mating call of anti-feminists. Now you’re making assumptions about me that couldn’t be more wrong. (For starters, I happen to be voting for Obama.)

Where the fuck did you get “da menz” from anything I said? Really, I’m curious.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen an MSM commentator remark….that feminists en masse are refusing to vote for Obama.

Certainly that’s bullshit. But I do wonder why more feminists aren’t pressing Obama to upgrade his positions and his language on key issues, and instead spending so much time attacking the PUMAs. Is it really because the PUMA movement is attracting more than its share of attention? Or is it because they’re afraid they might find out that their candidate isn’t nearly as progressive as he’s advertised to be?

As I said, I’ll vote for him, but damn, he disappoints me.

IMO the arrogance was doubly offensive since it proceeded from her marriage

This is what stuck in my craw from the very beginning, before things really started to go sour.  The fact that Hillary kept trying to run this big feminist campaign, but then the whole thing very blatantly rested on her husband’s accomplishments.  And then anytime she got into trouble, she’d send hubby to do damage control.  Her supposed qualifications over other candidates were based on the fact that she spent 8 years as first lady. 

I just felt sort of hoodwinked, from the get-go, by Clinton.  It seemed pretty obvious to me that she was running a fully moderate DLC campaign that had little or nothing to do with feminism, aside from the genitalia on the candidate.  The way she has tried to co-opt feminism for her own political gains sickens me.

I guess what really cemented it for me, though, is that I spent the bulk of the primary season traveling around a country that sees it as perfectly legitimate that a woman would be placed into political power as a proxy for her husband.  I met a lot of people in India who knew exactly what the score was, and were only too happy to have another 8 years of Bill Clinton’s presidency.  Which is what Clinton made it clear that her campaign was really about.

Certainly that’s bullshit.

No, actually, it’s not.  You see, I don’t have cable.  I only get the TV channels that are available via broadcast TV.  In other words, the networks and PBS.  My only exposure to the MSM, then, is through things like the Sunday morning political chat shows.  Which, anytime Clinton comes up, make sure to connect her campaign to feminism, mention Obama’s “woman problem”, etc. 

I don’t know if the same is happening on the cable news channels, but I’m not making this up. 

While I don’t think that these folks know what they’re talking about, and I sure as hell don’t think the PUMAs have anything like enough supporters to actually sway the election, they are definitely talking about you guys, and they don’t know you’re Republican shills.

the way in which those party activists made her lose has rung alarm bells in more traditional segments of the party.  Because it’s not clear that this new coalition shares their agenda.

I’m not at all certain that the traditional segments even had an agenda beyond surviving & keeping a bit of oxygen for pet issues.  If they were honest with themselves, they’d admit that the new coalitions formed—and chiefly among the demographics that usually were not inclined to be politically active—to counter a good thirty-plus years of failure.  The young, the educated affluent, the marginalized liberals in conservative regions, all were accustomed to being shut out from the party’s operations, except for the occasional voter drive or fundraising effort, but several years ago it became apparent that if they didn’t get involved, the Democratic Party would effectively become a sideshow and Rove’s century of dominance would be realized.  Howard Dean and Barack Obama realized this, and they stepped in against the traditionalists’ & Clintonites’ wishes to channel this dismay into action, so now we have the beginnings of (I won’t say we’re out of the woods yet, btw) a formidable progressive party.  And to address your second assertion (I understood it, btw, but it still seemed to assume a sort of consistency of view I just didn’t buy), if we revert to theatrically-declaimed grievances driving the party bus, we’re headed back to Loserville, because who wants to align with narcissists?

I’ll allow that the old-timers resent the newbies, but if they’re really pros they should understand that a) these shifts happen and are fundamentally healthy, and b) this one was a reaction to the failures of their leadership.  Period.  It hurts, but effective politics ain’t VALIDATING.

PS: sorry about the caps lock on that last phrase… not sure how I managed that one.

And I can’t entirely fault them for that.  I hear, eg, young tech industry and/or bloggy types talking about politics and I sometimes shudder.  There really are people they’d throw under the bus, because while they think that Bush has been bad for world politics and the economy (no duh), they simply cannot understand the lives of some beneath them in the pecking order of society.  But these seem to be a big part of Obama’s base.

I hear this meme a lot: basically the idea is that these educated creative-class types who support Obama are willing to toss the less privileged under the bus in order to win.

I don’t buy it any more now than I did when a DLCer like Hillary tried to make her appeal to “hard-working, white Americans,” or when the MSM got all aflitter when Obama dared to bypass discussion of identity politics and go straight to addressing the issues of class, bitterness, guns, and God. Somehow, discussion of those issues didn’t turn off his supporters, but enhanced their respect for him.

Identity politics matters, it is based in something real, Obama definitely exploited it against Hillary, and to think that the old political alignments can merely be shelved is deluding yourself.  The other side certainly doesn’t see it that way and will exert their brand of identity politics to the hilt, and they still do risk winning no matter that some think that Obama is a shoe-in.

The only times Obama exploited identity politics against Hillary was when she was stupid enough to bring it up in the first place. And he just as with the Rev. Wright pseudo-scandal, he judo-flipped it because he understood the shift.

The generational issue surrounding race and gender issues is that younger liberal and progressive voters are less concerned about the means (i.e. the identity politics on which the Boomers obsess) than with about ends (i.e. social justice).

Certainly that’s bullshit.

No, actually, it’s not.

Uh, I was agreeing with you, The Opoponax—-I was saying that the MSM stories were bullshit.

Latts: see, for me, the problems with the (D) party have been misdiagnosed, if Obama was the answer.  Because it’s not clear that Obama represents a more aggressive push for progressive positions at all.

And as I said, I wasn’t Bill Clinton’s biggest fan, but a lot of people kind of resent the view that Clinton’s presidency was part of 30 years of Democratic failure.  And Hillary Clinton would have been the “follow-through”—-that would have been an act of spitting in the eye of those who relentlessly attacked Clinton.

As I said, I think that political retribution is important, and Obama to me represents not only a misdiagnosis of the problem, but a lost opportunity for retribution.

Y’know what’s really funny?  Jesse here, along with the other Obama boosters, have totally bought the PUMA media meme, which is that PUMA is a group of angry old women who want to vote for McCain because they wanted Hillary or nobody.

Where is the PROOF of this?  Do you have any?

Wow, Thomas, that was an awesome comment. 

To maybe shed some light on why folks who are Obama supporters who state they have some issues with him in spite of this, appear to hate PUMAs when you’d think they’d actually appreciate a group getting together and saying “We have issues, Obama, and you need to make a good-faith effort to at least acknowledge them as serious like you’ve been doing with say the evangelical crowd or we’re taking our political power elsewhere!”  ...well, actually, they’d probably be totally happy with that.  I suspect the reason they aren’t is that they don’t see PUMAs as actually taking that tack—they see them as people who have already committed to voting for McCain no matter what Obama might say or do and trying to take as many other people with them as possible.  Like, the difference between a concern troll and somebody who’s really trying to understand and mesh your beliefs and philosophies with his own. 

Of course, I could be totally wrong.  I’ve been mostly ignoring the PUMAs and am not really an Obama supporter.

The generational issue surrounding race and gender issues is that younger liberal and progressive voters are less concerned about the means (i.e. the identity politics on which the Boomers obsess) than with about ends (i.e. social justice).

See, this is exactly what the “creative class” criticism is criticizing, and I don’t agree with you at all.  It’s a real mistake to think that you can achieve social justice without dealing with the “identity politics” issues.  If you’re going to use wince-worthy marketing “generation” terminology (itself a truly awful form of identity politics, kind of the Frankenstein version of it but more shallow), then the Boomers are still correct.  There’s no going around the “IP” issues.  Like I said, McCain will exploit this blind spot to the hilt.

And I disagree that Obama used “identity politics” merely in retaliation to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  On the one hand, a black candidate can’t *help* but bring up “IP” issues, and being brown, I understand that. But Clinton really used only the mildest instance of what McCain can and will bring up in September and onwards.  Only because he was fighting Clinton could Obama unleash what I thought was a disproportionate response.

Even if it wasn’t, segments of the party did and will see it that way—-as disproportionate.

One other thing to consider, Jesse: if you want Clinton supporters to vote for Obama, why do you think mocking and insulting them is a good idea?

Because it’s not clear that Obama represents a more aggressive push for progressive positions at all.

Obama represents a broad, structural push for progressive political dominance.  One of the many faulty assumptions of the old-timers is that a candidate’s own political positions determine the direction & success of the party, which isn’t true (not to say they don’t count at all; for example, I’m less-than-thrilled with Tim Kaine’s ability to rhetorically align with the right on choice, no matter how seriously he takes Roe as law).  This is why I chose Obama after it became clear Gore wouldn’t run this time: while both Edwards & Clinton looked better on paper (or white policy papers, anyway), I had no faith in Edwards ability to implement those policies, and even less in HRC’s trustworthiness to do so given the Clintonian history of tossing anyone and everyone overboard to ensure that they had a safe spot on the lifeboat.  IOW, I knew we weren’t going to actually get most of what was being promised—and not just because of direct GOP obstruction, either—so I went with the candidate who promised less and actually built more.  In politics, character & actions really do count more than policy statements, and Obama’s quite knowingly building a party structure that will almost certainly both outlast his career and shift the national dialogue more left.

This is actually why I find so many Dems painfully obtuse in their literalism: the Official Statement is of course the policy that must be advocated for and supported, but once they have to start working within the system they tend to lose everything because they have no structural power (btw, Mark Schmitt put a good piece up at the Prospect today about Dems’ evolving understanding of power) to defend their original ideas and maximize their gains/minimize their losses.

Hector, the big, politically influential corporations with phalanxes of AmLaw 200 lawyers can tell the Government that they can’t obey an unlawful order.  Qwest did.

If they do agree to play ball with the administration’s unlawful program, I expect them to be held accountable.  The cases were doing quite well in front of Judge Vaughn Walker when Congress killed them.  Obama voted for the cave, which was not just a loss on immunity but failed to provide substantive safeguards or hold anyone accountable for the wrongdoing.

(Plus, it said a lot to me about where he stands on civil justice issues.  I suspect he may be part of the Chuck Schumer wing of the party that makes some of the right noises but also believes in protecting big corporations from accountability to private litigants.  I’m strongly against that view.)

If you’re telling me that the FISA compromise isn’t important, I’m telling you that our priorities are different.  Sure, war with Iran would be a bad thing.  So would a long slide into a police state.  Both of these things are issues.  I want a candidate who is on the right side of both of them.  I’ll vote for a “best we can do” candidate, but I won’t donate to a lukewarm ally.  Because the devil you know ... is still the devil, y’know?

You’ve got quite the nice little ghetto going on in your thoughts right now.

If Jesse’s use of “honeypie babyass” proves he’s sexist, then your use of “ghetto” in that comment proves that you’re a racist shit for brains.  Thanks for letting us know your real reason for opposing Obama, ginmar.

“Ghetto” is not automatically a racist term, kesh.  And that sort of “if you oppose Obama you’re racist!” shit is, well, shit.

Lisa, anyone who says they are absolutely voting McCain ... well, they are McCain supporters, regardless of where they have been.  I actually don’t know anyone who says that.  The unreconsiled HRC partisans I know now are all in the “if he wants my vote he has to earn it, starting with not trying to bully me” camp. 

But Hector’s comment to me is emblematic of why many folks feel alienated by Obama supporters, as much as the campaign itself:  while people say they have issues with the candidate, anyone who actually proposes doing something about it (limiting support to vote and not donations, for example) gets a preachy attack about how we don’t understand our own best interest and have fucked up priorities.

latts: We’ll have to agree to disagree.  The political dominance you seek won’t be worth a lot when everyone is thrown off the lifeboat—-which Obama has shown the same propensity as everyone else to do.

All that is left is retribution.  I mean it.  Politics in a two-party, adversarial system hinges on retribution.  Which Obama’s campaign is not geared for.

Lizard, the hyperbolic “Attached to their victimhood” is what you said. Not me. But hey, with folks that can’t read being anti-college and all (see ginmar’s idiotic “college boy” post that you loved so much above where she invokes the language of lynching activist men in the 1960’s south race wars).
Besides that: Normal reading comprehension, a required activity in schools, would interpret the start of my comment you reference

Maybe a subset of those

as anything but a blanket statement, unless you wish to redefine blanket as a tiny wet piece of napkin. Which you apparently do. Which leads me to think :
Fuck.This.Moron
See, for me it seems like some element of the PUMA movement is rational, though self destructive. Just like the Nadar movement. But not because they like their victimhood.

In the model I posited above, for a minority of people, self destruction is linked to the fear of success (more so than “victimhood” as you posit), because the process, to these (hypothetical) individuals, has become more important to the participants than the result. Oppression (which you have re-interpreted as “victimhood”), is the machinery that the PUMA movement is fighting.

As to “da Menz”, read your own writing, including the unsupported:

I have a “gut” feeling that staydaddy is the LAST person who should be commenting on feminism.

maybe something will clue you in. BTW, I could give a flying fuck who you are voting for: you are still an asshole.  I’m glad that Obama is capable of attracting a broad range of people, including assholes, in hopes that he wins to avoid a Bush III and worldwide oppression for many people on the margins.

Well the latest July number is out.

Hillary only raise 80K or so in the first week of July (that’s when the PUMA tried to raise money)

nice. That pays for Mark Penn’s shoe shine.

It’s very interesting that Amanda, who has posted about PUMAs on more than one occasion, doesn’t get the same amount of shit about it as Jesse.  Certainly all the regular ratfuckers show up on her posts, but she doesn’t get legitimate Hillary supporters attacking her for “belittling” legitimate Hillary supporters.  It’s like we’re seeing a repeat of the nomination here, where Hillary was the default feminist candidate by virtue of being a woman and Obama got reamed for having the same record and position on women’s rights as Hillary.

It’s a real mistake to think that you can achieve social justice without dealing with the “identity politics” issues.

I agree: you can’t achieve social justice without dealing with identity politics issues. The problem has been that a whole range of people on the left, including Hillary to Wright to Ayers, have become so obsessed with issues of entitlement and victimology over the past 40 years (to the point of building academic and political careers on identity politics) that they’ve lost sight of the ends.

Read the speech Obama made in response to the Wright controversy: he’s not talking about bypassing identity politics, he’s talking about putting them in the larger context of social and economic class and taking a different approach that goes deeper than “I have a vagina/I have brown skin—my turn!” And whether or not you believe in generational framing, a fresh new approach is exactly what younger voters are looking for.

And I disagree that Obama used “identity politics” merely in retaliation to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.  On the one hand, a black candidate can’t *help* but bring up “IP” issues, and being brown, I understand that.

Well, when Hillary supporters criticised Obama, I didn’t hear nearly as many people coming back accusing them of bigotry as when the reversed happened. And while Hillary crowed a lot about being the first female President in her speeches, I didn’t hear Obama bragging much about being being the first African American CinC—mainly because it was as patently obvious that he was black as it was the she was a woman.

Even if it wasn’t, segments of the party did and will see it that way—-as disproportionate.

Obama responses were only “disproportionate” in that they were more effective and more clever in undermining the MSM’s “black guy vs. white woman” narrative (a narrative that Hillary embraced). A tiny group of Hillary supporters who are bitter over that outcome might very well find this GOP-driven PUMA idea appealing, but they certainly don’t deserve respect or to be taken seriously.

“Ghetto” is not automatically a racist term, kesh.  And that sort of “if you oppose Obama you’re racist!” shit is, well, shit.

It is when you’re talking to a black man.  That is what I have decided based on ginmar’s pronouncement of Jesse as a sexist due to his use of two words.  If you don’t like it, take it up with ginmar.

The part about Hillary or nobody?  Try any PUMA site?

And yet you and others here have been saying that PUMAs are not very numerous.  If they’re not, then why spend so much time and effort worrying about them?

Because you don’t represent 95% of former Clinton supporters?

So now you’re claiming that PUMAs account for 95% of former Clinton supporters?

Look, it’s really simple: if Obama wants the votes of former Clinton supporters, he has to earn them.  And deriding or berating them is not the way to do it.  It doesn’t reflect well on him when so many of his supporters do this.  Especially on an ostensibly feminist site.

Damn, you’re touchy, staydaddy.

If they’re not, then why spend so much time and effort worrying about them?

Because, while we get it, the MSM doesn’t, and yes, they certainly have latched on to this idea that there are significant numbers of Clinton supporters who are going to go for McCain over Obama, as well as that these supporters represent feminist members of the liberal base.  They’ve even gone so far as to imply that McCain is winning the feminist vote. 

And the MSM parroting that line becomes more and more potentially damaging as we get closer to the election and more people who are not very politically engaged start tuning in and figuring out where their alliances should lie. 

The idea that McCain is the feminist candidate could do a lot of damage if it catches on.  Especially because, having serious problems with the Republican base, McCain’s only chance of being elected is to win over moderates who see McCain as potentially “liberal” on the issues.

latts: We’ll have to agree to disagree.

Personally, I don’t mind just disagreeing.

The political dominance you seek won’t be worth a lot when everyone is thrown off the lifeboat—-which Obama has shown the same propensity as everyone else to do.

It remains to be seen whether Obama actually throws anyone who doesn’t act like a fool overboard; however, you’re making my point that too much is being invested in what one individual happens to publicly believe.  Triangulation—aka, the famed Clinton jujitsu—is a great way to save one’s own ass and undermine the rest of the party, but you’ll notice that the GOP has been dominant for quite some time (including during Bill Clinton’s presidency) without much reliance on it.  That’s because they built a strong partisan foundation that ultimately dragged even their more moderate pols to the far right.

All that is left is retribution.  I mean it.  Politics in a two-party, adversarial system hinges on retribution.  Which Obama’s campaign is not geared for.

This is disturbing on multiple levels, actually.  First, if ‘all that is left is retribution,’ we are well and truly screwed, because even if we did manage to administer a few swift (and emotionally satisfying) kicks to the GOP, that still ain’t gonna be enough to govern adequately, much less progressively.  I actually agree that Obama’s campaign is not geared towards retribution—at the very least, he’s unfortunately hampered by his race here—but that doesn’t mean that he’s unwilling to battle the right or that we’ll have no opportunities to wallop a few right-wingers.  For one thing, I think he’s somewhat more amenable to properly investigating and weeding out the Bushies’ highly-structured corruption in the federal government than any of his primary opponents except Kucinich, which would do us more good than a thousand media-driven kerfuffles.  I’ve been more concerned about his neutralizing the 527s than anything else, really, although the current word is that he’s quietly letting that position drop.

Second, the psychology of demanding retribution in the person of Hillary Clinton is, well… okay, it’s basically making her the Dems’ GWB and her candidacy a restoration narrative, which is both un-American in general and un-Democratic in particular.  That’s both bizarre and weak.

And third—related to my first point—retribution is not the only weapon of a two-party system, and it’s silly to assert that.  Again, the GOP built their operation on multiple levels before they openly discussed punishment (see Norquist, Grover, and his thoughts on ‘neutering’ Democrats); they waited until they had structural dominance before moving into the open.  The best weapon overall is still simply to get more voters to the polls, but even that depends on developing and fostering local and state operations that will make sure decent people are in charge of running the elections.  Then there are media operations (Dems weak), policy shops (Dems good, if uncoordinated), internal discipline (Dems pathetic), and any number of other moving parts that a party has to maintain in order to be effective.  After all, the Democrats need to be a helluva lot more than not-Republicans.

Right Lizard. I respond to your unsupported personal comment, and I’m touchy. Your hard to please. Glad its not my problem. See also: you. are. an. asshole. Now upgraded to a Whiny Asshole, same kind of sit-on-hands troll but even more annoying.

The idea that McCain is the feminist candidate could do a lot of damage if it catches on.

Pigs could fly too, if they could.

And he’s been doing that.

Obviously a lot of us don’t feel that way. And when I look to the MSM, what I see isn’t PUMAs ruining everything, it’s Obama consistently moving uneasily within right-wing frames and repeatedly falling short on the policy issues that matter most to me.

What “a lot of us” other than a small actual number of bloggers and hangers-on?

This whole poomah business is so much smokin’ and mirrorin’.

See, retribution is, in this context, one form in which accountability appears.  You can’t move forward until you have accountability.  Not with any progressive politics.

Jesus, I’M NOT A FUCKING PUMA. I’m a lifelong Democrat and a feminist lesbian who is not thrilled with Obama. But thanks for making my point—-I’ve just said I’m voting for Obama although I have major reservations about him as a candidate, and yet you can’t help casting me in your image of the dreaded PUMA.

Oh come on Qgirl, doncha wanna hear the Fresh!Manly!Wisdom!?

I mean, how often do we get to see men defining feminism for women? Aren’t you grateful? Because I’M ever so grateful! Why, if men weren’t around to tell us what a feminist is or how to be a good one I would have NEVER figured it out by myself!

And I get a double treat! I get to read white people discussing racism! That’s right folks, white people discussing racism! Not only discussing it, bet defining it too! That’s gotta be a first. Someone write the date down, quick.

Wow.. I simply must call my friends and family to see this, because as a woman of color, I don’t get to read white men’s opinions that often. Certainly not on subjects like What Real Feminists Think and Who Real Feminists Vote For! Truly, as a woman of color I don’t ever get to hear how a Presidential candidate will affect the white men in the country. I was surprised at how Very Serious that harm is.  I wonder of they’ll worry about occupying the bulk of prisons? Or have the highest rape rates in the nation? Getting shot by the police must also be looming in the future. Or perhaps having their condoms taken away and declared illegal forms of abortion?

I don’t know how they’ve managed all these years in silence.

Well, no more! I for one can’t wait to hear how I too can be a Good Feminist and What Racism Really Is from these white men!

My apologies Lizard.  I should have read a bit more before jumpin’ in.  I was thinking of actual poomahs only.

I don’t think they’ll have much effect in the end tho’, other than make some minor trouble.

And he’s been doing that.  The problem is the outsize influence of the small group of dead-enders who don’t really want anything except to be bowed to.

How?  By pandering to the religious right?  By adopting right-wing frames when talking about feminist issues like reproductive choice?  Come on, now.

At this point, I think I might just vote Green.  My state’s solidly blue anyway.

Thanks, starfleet_dude.

Careful, pheeno; next you will accused of speaking for ALL WOC…

Oh, I get it! That’s only a bad thing when you’re not acting as a token for white doods.

I forgot…I used the word *I* in there and when WOC do that it freaks people out.

I shall return to my proper place, listening worshipfully to the amazing new male wisdom being bestowed upon my dark little female head.

Thank you Louise, you can come sit by me as we are awed by this never before heard male opinion.

Okeydokey- I’ll scoot over and make space, but be aware that I am a middle aged white woman who supports Obama, so I’ve got alot of issues!

if Obama wants the votes of former Clinton supporters, he has to earn them.
Fine. What should he do that he’s not doing already?

anyone who actually proposes doing something about it (limiting support to vote and not donations, for example) gets a preachy attack about how we don’t understand our own best interest and have fucked up priorities.

The goal is to keep the Executive Branch from spying on the citizenry. Punishing the phone company for acquiescing seems a very attenuated means of attaining this goal. Oh, I have an idea!! Why don’t we change the HEAD of the FUCKING EXECUTIVE BRANCH?!?!!!

Just a thought. For your consideration. You might want to send Obama a few bucks. Unless you liked the Bush administration so well you want Grandpa Simpson to continue it? Or do you think Obama will be a spymaster as well?

Because after all you silly git, if you don’t like Obama you MUST WANT the other guy to win!

See? it’s all so very simple in Fresh!Manly!Wisdom!

What should he do that he’s not doing already?

Actually indicate that he takes issues like women’s rights, civil liberties (remember the FISA vote?), and such seriously by not pandering to the right wing framing all the time.  Stop talking in religious terms about everything as though he were running for Pope.  And maybe, just maybe, quit considering misogynist asshats for the VP slot.

I suspect the reason they aren’t is that they don’t see PUMAs as actually taking that tack—they see them as people who have already committed to voting for McCain no matter what Obama might say or do and trying to take as many other people with them as possible.  Like, the difference between a concern troll and somebody who’s really trying to understand and mesh your beliefs and philosophies with his own.

Lisa, I think you hit the nail squarely on the head. I’ve gone from being a “well, he was opposed to the Iraq War and Clinton is too hawkish for me but if she wins I’ll be happy” Obama supporter to having become so absolutely livid over this PUMA bullshit to the point that if Obama loses and Clinton gets the nom in 2012 (Jesse’s original point), I’ll call payback and sit out the election.

I think it’s also that I suspect a lot of these people are deep, down inside closet racists and they can’t admit it to themselves. When I hear terms like “empty suit,” and “inexperienced,” a that’s where I get v. suspicious. No one said those things about Edwards when he was a serious contender and he had much less political experience than Obama.

btw, despite my handle, I’m a 48 yo white woman. So maybe I’m also angry over the more feminist than thou attitude. or certain folks claiming to speak for all women.

“Okeydokey- I’ll scoot over and make space, but be aware that I am a middle aged white woman who supports Obama, so I’ve got alot of issues! “

That’s ok. I bite. *S*

Conundrum

I’m not white, only in my early 30’s and dislike Obama. I can’t be called racist, bitter or hinted at being “old”.

However to dismiss me without name calling or harboring some suspicion I’m a closet racist?

I’m not a Puma either. (wolf clan here, thanks)

Oh noes! I don’t fit into a box!

if you don’t like Obama you MUST WANT the other guy to win!

IOW, You can have my vote but you can never have my $$. I’m saving that for my dream candidate.

Every night I hope and pray
a dream candidate will come my way
A candidate to vote for in November
but also to donate to in September
‘cause I want (yeah-yeah yeah)
a candidate (yeah-yeah yeah)
to call (yeah-yeah yeah)
my own (yeah-yeah)
I want a dream candidate
to Obama I don’t wanna donate.

Dream candidate,
where are you
with your policies,
oh, so true?
And a stand that I can endorse,
so I can cheer you till I get hoarse.
‘cause I want (yeah-yeah yeah)
a candidate (yeah-yeah yeah)
to call (yeah-yeah yeah)
my own (yeah-yeah)
I want a dream candidate
To Obama I don’t wanna donate.

Someday, I don’t know how,
I hope she’ll hear my plea
Some way, I don’t know how,
she’ll bring her buttons and yard signs to me
Dream candidate, until then,
I’ll go to sleep and dream again
That’s the only thing to do,
till all my voter’s dreams come true
‘cause I want (yeah-yeah yeah)
a candidate (yeah-yeah yeah)
to call (yeah-yeah yeah)
my own (yeah-yeah)
I want a dream candidate
Please robocall me on my phone.

At this point, I think I might just vote Green.

...which means that no matter which of the two real candidates win, you lose.

McCain is obvious. 

If Obama wins, that proves that he was right to try and win over the center rather than try to win back Hillary supporters who never forgave him for winning. 

Politicians are beholden to the people who consistently vote for them.  The rethuglicans have become the political wing of the Religious Right because the Religious Right is a consistent voting bloc for them.  Without those votes, they lose a lot of their power.  Democrats move to the right because they can’t depend on liberals to vote for them. 

Get the person who isn’t your enemy into the White House first.  Make sure he knows you owe him for it.  Then start making demands.

Hector, thank you for illustrating my point.  Your answer to everything is “shut up and vote for Obama because McCain is worse.”  How do I know that McCain is worse on privacy?  Obama hasn’t said much on domestic spying, in fact.

And this is about more than the telco immunity, as I clearly said.  (1) the cave-in not only immunized the companies, it ended the discovery process that would get to the bottom of what happened, and didn’t impose any real safeguards.  But I said that.  Also, his vote for immunity evidenced a Schumer-like disrespect for civil justice.  But I said that.  And you didn’t respond on substance; you insisted that anything but unconditional support for Obama was stupid. 

And you wonder why people think some of the less restrained Obama supporters are assholes. 

Let’s try this one more time.  He has my vote because McCain is worse.  If he wants my dollars, he’ll have to tack back to the left on something I care about.

If Obama wins, that proves that he was right to try and win over the center rather than try to win back Hillary supporters who never forgave him for winning.

Politicians are beholden to the people who consistently vote for them.  The rethuglicans have become the political wing of the Religious Right because the Religious Right is a consistent voting bloc for them.  Without those votes, they lose a lot of their power.  Democrats move to the right because they can’t depend on liberals to vote for them.

AHEM.  Do you not see the problem with this line of reasoning?

The GOP has done one thing right: they play to their base.  The Democrats, meanwhile, consistently abandon their base and tack right in order to win over the mythical “swing voter”.  This never works, and yet they keep doing it!

Now you are saying to someone who is part of the DNC’s liberal base, “hey, suck it up, the Democrats tack right because liberals aren’t reliable”.  I submit that the liberal base isn’t reliable because the DNC consistently abandons them, chasing after “swing voters” while acting like an abusive spouse towards the progressive base, saying “Where else are you gonna go?”

What you are describing is a well-tested recipe for LOSING.

How do I know that McCain is worse on privacy?

Start here:

http://action.aclu.org/site/VoteCenter?congress=110&location=S&page=congScorecard

The GOP has done one thing right: they play to their base.

And the GOP base, for its part, knows the value of holding its nose and voting for the candidate who will allow them to keep power, rather than insisting on ideological purity. 

Interestingly enough, once said candidate is in place, he tends to give said base what they want.  Almost like he owes them or something…

Now you are saying to someone who is part of the DNC’s liberal base,

By voting Green, you remove yourself from the base.  You become irrelevant to both parties and your agenda matters to no one.  Doesn’t seem like a winning strategy to me.

I submit that the liberal base isn’t reliable because the DNC consistently abandons them

And I submit that the DNC knows they can’t count on liberals, who vote on some hopeless protest candidate if the DNC candidate doesn’t live up to their expectations.  Thus the search for other power bases.

Look, you and I both know that McCain (like GW and all GOP candidates before him) is playing to the Middle, too.  We both know that he’s trying to win the middle by soft-pedaling his true right-wing positions (yes, he’s still horrifyingly right-wing to you and me, but we both know that the real him is much worse).  We know that a lot of right-wing supporters aren’t happy about that…but they’re supporting him anyway, because when he gets into power, his true colors will show, and they’ll be that much closer (if not as close as they want) to achieving their goals. 

It can work for us, too.

If he wants my dollars, he’ll have to tack back to the left on something I care about.

Know who politicians are even more beholden to than the voters?  Their campaign donors.

Just sayin’.

“Hey, am I white now?

Sweet, I’m buying a North Face. “

Nope, you’re just the Male in the Fresh!Manly! Wisdom!

Tell me more oh wise be penised one, who should I vote for so I can meet your Fresh!Manly! Definition! of feminism. Use Roe to fear me into following that until now silent male opinion! So far I’m not loving Obama, so I need your Manly Guidance lest I vote on bitter emotions because Men know women never use their brains. We can’t until we have Wise Men fill them. I really can’t get enough of those implications, truly I am lost without them.

I know I can believe you because You’re Different!

Why does this website allow comments by posters like Jesse Taylor yet not the rest of the spam?

I have not problem with people criticizing Dems, I do it myself. But this type of post always ends up the same, with pissed off people calling each other names.

It’s pointless. Literally without a point, accomplishing nothing positive.

Rightly or wrongly people read attacks on PUMAs as attacks on Clinton supporters. That’s what happens when everyone is touchy.

I’ve read about a million posts about Obama / Clinton in the past 6 months and maybe 2 of them were worthwhile. I don’t get what compels someone to write yet another post on the subject.

This becomes a chicken or egg debate.  I come down the side that the base sometimes leave the party because the party was first unreliable.  The base will stay on the farm if the leadership stays on the farm.

Look, you and I both know that McCain (like GW and all GOP candidates before him) is playing to the Middle, too.  We both know that he’s trying to win the middle by soft-pedaling his true right-wing positions (yes, he’s still horrifyingly right-wing to you and me, but we both know that the real him is much worse).  We know that a lot of right-wing supporters aren’t happy about that…but they’re supporting him anyway, because when he gets into power, his true colors will show, and they’ll be that much closer (if not as close as they want) to achieving their goals.

I call bullshit.  I especially call bullshit on Obama not having yet shown his true colors.

Consider: Bush’s department of Health and Human Services has issued a proposal which would reclassify hormonal and several other forms of contraception as abortion in order to allow “conscience clauses” for anti-choice medical professionals who want to deny women medical treatment.  Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) have both raised strong objections, and are fighting tooth and nail in the Senate to block this new rule.

Senator Obama (D-IL, ostensibly) has not said ONE WORD about it.

This is an issue which affects 51% of the country’s population.  For a presidential candidate to remain utterly silent in the face of a blatant attempt to undermine the health of the majority of the population is absolutely inexcusable, and shows a critical lack of leadership.

WHERE IS YOUR ROE SAVIOR NOW?

Oh, that was awesome. Very satisfying to see Flewellyn corrected so swiftly and clearly. I was wondering when Amanda would show up, and it was worth the wait.

Perhaps Flewellyn was referring to Obama’s silence between July 17, when Senators Clinton and Murray took a public stand against the proposal, and 2:00 p.m. today.

I’m sorry, didn’t Murray’s and Clinton’s public stand consist of the letter they sent on July 16th, and then the letter Obama signed a week later? Did they give several speeches that I don’t know about? Funny, when googling to find any speech Clinton may have given on conscience clauses, all I could find was the information about her 1993 support for abortion conscience clauses.

He SIGNED a letter written by Clinton.  Oookay, well, that’s better than absolutely nothing…be nice if he said some of his own words, though.

Clinton, meanwhile, has had a petition going on her former campaign blog, and has been pushing the story in other venues as well.

If this comparison makes me a “damned liar” in your universe, Auguste, then I cordially submit that your head is shoved so far into your anus that you have emerged in an entirely new, intestinally-based reality.

Perhaps Flewellyn was referring to Obama’s silence between July 17, when Senators Clinton and Murray took a public stand against the proposal, and 2:00 p.m. today.

As a matter of fact, yes.

And I can’t believe Amanda Marcotte did the “you’re making feminists look bad” thing.  Of all people.  Good lord, what has HAPPENED to this place?

Auguste, you’re right; I missed your comment on the original letter, and since I couldn’t remember reading anything from Obama at the time and I couldn’t find anything on his website, I honestly didn’t know that he’d been a signatory. Since I’m a political junkie (who, admittedly, takes days off), does anything think the bulk of the American public has any clue that he put his name on that letter?

A signature is better than no signature, to be sure. And I’m willing to concede that this instance may not be representative of Obama’s overall platform on women’s issues. But anyone who tries to argue that Obama’s response to the proposal was somehow equivalent to Clinton’s is obviously not a reliable source.

Lizard, I thank you much.  You rule.

Oops—-does ANYONE think, not ANYTHING. Sorry.

Likewise, Flewellyn. Keep making feminists look bad, sistah!

(Or brother, as the case may be…..)

Technically, it’s “brotha”, since, contrary to Amanda’s assertion that I am “creat[ing] the impression that there’s no such thing as a man on our side”, I am actually male.

But I appreciate your kindness.

I apologize, Flew, for the assumption—-I should know better. I blame it on following this thread all day. 

Ooh, a petition. Something…for people to sign. What other venues has Clinton pushed it in? I’m actually curious, as a matter of fact, since (and this is, I am fully aware, quite typical) it hasn’t exactly been well-covered in the mainstream media. I’m more interested in this perception that every Senator must be The Lead Senator on every issue.

If Clinton had still been a candidate for president - or more to the point, THE candidate for President - do you suppose she would have been just as active as she is?

Lizard, you are one of a few people in this thread who have addressed me, who do NOT need to apologize.

And thanks, Lizard. I just wish that you and Flew would recognize the reality that being a signatory on a letter is, in many cases, considered significant involvement. Especially given the wide range of issues out there.

As for the gender confusion, given the implicit assumption by many in this thread that everyone taking “Jesse’s side” has been male, it’s not without precedent.

. What other venues has Clinton pushed it in? I’m actually curious, as a matter of fact, since (and this is, I am fully aware, quite typical) it hasn’t exactly been well-covered in the mainstream media.

You could try checking out the posts written by Melissa McEwan (remember her?) over at Shakesville on the subject.  This post links to her other posts, which have more info on what Clinton and Murray have been doing to make noise about this issue.

Or you could try Google.  Since your prior search didn’t work, I suggest “Clinton HHS rules” as your search string.  I found a lot of hits.

I’m more interested in this perception that every Senator must be The Lead Senator on every issue.

Every senator?  Good heavens, no.  But Obama is not just a senator, he is the presumptive Democratic nominee for the Presidency.  That puts a greater onus on him to respond to important issues as they come up.  If he has time to appear at bogus “faith forums” led by evangelicals, he has enough time to take five minutes and make a statement about a ruling that would hobble necessary health care for just over half the country.

Auguste, Jesse—-as I’ve said several times, Obama’s got my vote. But he doesn’t have my enthusiasm. And it’s largely because when he DOES choose to speak up on women’s or LGBT issues, he often says things that make me cringe.

Pretty simple, really.

I’ll probably end up voting Obama, while holding my nose…but what’s got me angry is that I didn’t WANT to hold my nose this time.  We had good candidates!  Why, why, why does the DNC consistently choose to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

I just wish that you and Flew would recognize the reality that being a signatory on a letter is, in many cases, considered significant involvement.

I just wish you’d apologize for calling me a “damned liar” when I did not, in fact, tell a lie.  I said that he hadn’t said anything about the issue, which was true.  Okay, so I omitted the fact that he signed the letter; my defense is that I didn’t know about it, because (as you said) this hasn’t gotten very much media coverage.

Okay, well, if you weren’t lying but simply lacking knowledge, then I do apologize for calling you a fucking liar. Yes. However, you still insist that Obama hasn’t said anything about it, when frankly, an issued letter for public consumption is a public statement, but I’ll stop splitting hairs.

It was quite a straw man to construct about something you didn’t fully inform yourself about, and to take a perceived and incorrect deficiency and expand it into OMG ROE was even more inappropriate.

Actually, if you’d said WHERE IS YOUR GRISWOLD SAVIOR NOW I might have been less exercised. While I’m obviously aware of the connection between anti-contraception stances and anti-abortion stances, it required a whole lot of leaps based on a faulty premise for you to overturn Obama’s consistently pro-choice record, just like is being done over the BAIPA issue.

Not sure where to post this, but I’d be interested in the Pandagon bloggers’ take on this:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/08/21/pastor_who_opposes_abortion_dnc.html

I’m not being a snot—-I really want to know what your comfort level is with this sort of outreach/pandering. (Unsurprisingly, mine is somewhere between “revolted” and “I guess Canada’s not SO cold….”)

“I feel betrayed by women who claim to support women but don’t realize how important for women this Obama win is”

I feel betrayed by women who sit by while men define who’s a real feminist or not, use words like bitter, old, angry blah blah insert the BINGO here.

I feel betrayed by women who can’t figure out why I would be suspicious of a man who talks about certain reasons for abortion being acceptable or not.

One male commenter who’s not arguing from essentially your point of view said the word “bitter”, pheeno. One. No one used the word “old” in the way you’re suggesting. No one used the word “angry” except to describe Obama supporters.

Ctrl-F is your friend.

And actually, I’m just assuming Gracchus is male. I don’t really know that for a fact. Seems likely.

And actually, I’m just assuming Gracchus is male. I don’t really know that for a fact. Seems likely.

For the record, I am male—not that it makes any difference in this case.

pheeno isn’t a PUMA, so obviously I wasn’t discussing her when I used the word “bitter” (as in “bitter that their any-woman-will-do candidate lost”). She may indeed be bitter, as her tone of aggrieved sarcasm suggests, but she seems more opposed to Obama than supportive of Hillary (which, by PUMA logic, would make her a racist).

But Obama is not just a senator, he is the presumptive Democratic nominee for the Presidency.  That puts a greater onus on him to respond to important issues as they come up.

No, being the Presidential nominee puts a greater onus on him to pick his battles. Only someone for whom the stakes are low like a blogger or oped writer, has the luxury of being able to respond to each important issue as it come up. Obama runs the risk of being marginalized.  Recall how far the ONE TRUE LIBERAL, Dennis Kucinich, got.

“One male commenter who’s not arguing from essentially your point of view said the word “bitter”, pheeno. One. No one used the word “old” in the way you’re suggesting. No one used the word “angry” except to describe Obama supporters.

Ctrl-F is your friend. “

And reading more than 1 thread might help you.

This is hardly the first time teh menz on Pandagon casually fling sexist bullshit at any women who does not believe Obama is leaps and bounds better than McCain. Stop justifying it. It doesn’t help your argument.

“She may indeed be bitter, as her tone of aggrieved sarcasm suggests, but she seems more opposed to Obama than supportive of Hillary”

I’m opposed to the sexism this topic ALWAYS degenerates into. This thread starts off with it.

Am I the only one who sees a huge fucking problem with some deciding he’s entitled to define feminism for women? On what’s supposedly a feminist friendly site? Does that just fly right the fuck over your head or what?

“I wasn’t aware that feminism was A.) only for women and B.) that PUMAs were only women. “

You’re either not aware of much, or just tap dancing like hell.

The statement ” You’re either a feminist or a Puma” includes women, you know it. Don’t pull the blinky eyed innocent bullshit. You as a man have no entitlement to declare who is or is not a feminist, especially women.

“he standard that you’re setting is that men are not welcome in your version of feminism, and entirely barred from critiquing anything without your approval.  I’m sorry that you’re so threatened by a feminism that’s actually encompassing and encouraging of others, but it’s your responsibility to pull the stick out of your fucking ass. “

Oh it’s not a stick up my ass, it’s male privilege.

Yours to be specific.

My standard is that men who claim to be feminist allies need to occasionally shut the fuck up and listen when other women point out something they find insulting.  The implications here so far have been that we’re too fucking stupid to know what’s good for us, or we’re racist or bitter or SOMETHING must just be wrong with us if we’re not in the line up to lick the ass of Obama.

And a great deal of MEN are the ones spouting this sexist bullshit.

And spouting off anti feminist bullshit like ” this makes feminism look bad”, well honey, only to idiots who think it’s a fucking monolith to begin with. Only someone who thinks it is would say that to begin with.

“I’m sorry that you’re so threatened by a feminism that’s actually encompassing and encouraging of others,”

Fail.

I can’t help but recall it was here that several posters used Obama’s score card with the NRLC to show how very pro choice he is.

How do you reconcile that with Bidens score card of 0%?

“WTF with this thread.  I’m so angry and disappointed that this is even controversial.”

You’re angry and disappointed that some feminists object to sexist and ageist framing of political issues?  Gosh, you must be the proto-super-mega-feminist!  Thank you for correcting us silly people who don’t think that whining about ‘teh evil wimmenz destroying our only good candidate’ is perhaps just slightly sexist.

“Mostly, I feel betrayed by women who claim to support women but don’t realize how important for women this Obama win is.”

Yeah, you know, it’s awful that not all of us on this here interwebs are Ammurican, isn’t it?  I’m so sorry for thinking that none of your candidates is going to stop your country fucking over the rest of the world, which is, incidentally, made up partly of women.  Also, sorry that not all of your fellow citizens prefer to support a two-party corporate-style system rather than support a real alternative candidate (e.g. McKinney).

I feel like saying here (as a regular reader since Amanda started up at Pandagon post-Mouse Words but only an occasional commenter) that there has been a definite change in tone since the nastiness of the primaries and particularly the site move.  It doesn’t help that I’ve noticed the ratio of male commenters has gone up dramatically, particularly in Jesse’s posts.  Don’t get me wrong - I like Jesse’s writing fine and continue to enjoy Amanda and Pam (and Auguste) but whereas I used to agree with the pretty much every post on Pandagon, I find I have a bit of a sick feeling about some of them now and almost always about the ones where there’s a political/election post that is combined with gender politics.

I continue to appreciate the writing and enjoy the site, but I agree with and understand the people who think this place isn’t what it once was in terms of progressive feminism.

JT, JT, great communication skills there, boyo.  Tell the feminists what they can and can’t do…. really, quite sterling, you hack.

And “Honeypie babyass”,—yep, that’s where a ‘committed feminist’ goes first opportunity he gets.

Oh yes, you’re all you say you are, yes indeedy doo.

Sorry, that was supposed to read that Biden has a 60% approval rating for NRLC.

“The standard that you’re setting is that men are not welcome in your version of feminism, and entirely barred from critiquing anything without your approval.  I’m sorry that you’re so threatened by a feminism that’s actually encompassing and encouraging of others…”

That this has been here 24 hours now without being addressed boggles the mind. Here’s some badly needed education for you, Jesse Taylor: feminism isn’t about you or any other man nor was it ever meant to be all-encompassing. Men are neither welcome nor unwelcome in feminism because feminism isn’t about men. Feminism is about women - women’s lives, women’s rights, women’s issues. To expect or suggest that feminism be encompassing of men is akin to expecting or suggesting that the civil rights movement of the 60s should have been encompassing of whites. It’s absolutely ridiculous, which was evidenced by Jim Crowe (anyone remember “separate but equal?”).

As for sticks in asses, to paraphrase the Bible, remove the stick from thine ass before pointing out the splinter in thy sister’s butt cheek.

Listen sweetie, I am one of “those people” who is saying LOUD and CLEAR - I want Hillary Rodham Clinton as the next President of the United States.

I want Noam Chomsky as the next President of the United States. Will voting for McCain help further that?