The PUMA movement is a grassroots uprising of people determined to resist the Obama takeover of the Democratic party and all that it represents. We refuse to legitimize from the left the sexism and misogyny that Obama exploited. We refuse to endorse the strong-arm, anti-democratic actions of the DNC itself, which manipulated the nominee selection process to force a predetermined result. We refuse to comply with the metastasization of the Republican cancer to the Democratic Party, which is what in our view Obama represents — in his imperialism, in his pseudo-religiosity, in his money-soaked corruption, and in his political positions. We refuse to give up our voices — our leverage — for the sake of a fraudulent “party unity” that is no more than the short-circuiting of democracy. We refuse to let the Democratic Party become “Republican lite,” abandoning its mission to represent women, workers, immigrants, gays, the poor, the disadvantaged, the elderly.

Most of us are lifelong Democrats, seasoned veterans of the political game. We know exactly what we’re doing. We’re making a high-stakes strategic bid to salvage the Democratic Party — or, failing that, to build a new coalition that will take up the mantle that the DNC seems determined to shed.

So why are we dismissed as hysterical angry women, so bitter at the defeat of Hillary that we’re ready to lash out in blind, confused rage and vote against our interests? Because of sexism. That’s how sexism works: it is the systematic devaluing of women and their actions. No matter that not all PUMAs are women; the movement is female-identified. And so we’re dismissed as hysterical old bats who can’t think straight.

I sympathize with the men in the PUMA movement who are experiencing this for the first time. It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Read this fine post by myiq2xu, a mixed-chromosome PUMA. There’s a subtext in that essay, an unspoken air of frustration along the lines of, “why aren’t people taking me seriously?” Welcome to the world of women, myiq2xu. You could have the political intelligence of Bismarck and you’d still be dismissed as a hormone-addled cow on the rag.

Just as reactions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign served as a kind of giant diorama of sexism in this country, so the reaction to the PUMA movement shows how anything female-identified is automatically assumed to be irrational. Media coverage of PUMA has exploded in the last week, but I’ve yet to see an article that actually explains what we’re about. Again and again we’re described as angry, bitter women, unable to get over our burning disappointment that Hillary lost. We’re made to sound like fan girls having a crying fit because our favorite got voted down on American Idol.

The overtures (such as they are) from the DNC and the Obama campaign are in a similar vein: the same assumption that we’re just crying over Hillary, the same assurance that once we get a grip on ourselves we’ll come around, the same failure to acknowledge our actual agenda. Obama tells us that if we stopped and thought for moment, we’d get over it. (Newsflash, Opossum: we’ve spent a lot more than a moment thinking about you, and that’s why we’re working so damn hard to bring you down.) Gov. Rendell tells us that, basically, we’re dumb pussies. “Feminists” (note the scare quotes) in the Obama camp weigh in with articles telling us that our hysterical whining just proves the male chauvinists right. (Enlisting women to deliver the sexist message is an old trick, and has precisely zero effect on us cowgirls who have been around the rodeo a few times. But nice try.)

What none of these folks realize is that they’re simply confirming our judgment of what the Obama movement is about and why it must be resisted. Sexism? Check! Intellectual dishonesty? Check! Smug insistence that Obama Is The One and anybody who disagrees is insane/racist/hysterical? Check!

Keep it up, possums. Keep it up. You’re making our case for us.

Posted by Violet under Election 2008, PUMA on June 29, 2008, 8:12 pm EST

33 Comments »

From Janis. This could stand as the creed of the PUMA movement:

In order to keep at least one party on the straight and narrow in this country, we have to kick the Democrats in the teeth so hard that their heads ring like church bells. They need to be slapped down from this precipice so hard that they never, ever, EVER consider pulling shit like this again.

Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on June 28, 2008, 11:17 pm EST

18 Comments »

From the folks at I Own My Vote. I know there are a bunch of petitions floating around, a lot of different PUMA groups to join, a plethora of “why we fight” statements. But this particular manifesto looks like it has legs. It could end up being the unofficial head count of our movement, the bargaining chip laid before the DNC. If you’re any kind of PUMA, you need to sign this one.

When you read the I Own My Vote Pledge, keep in mind that the demands it contains are not admissions of defeat, nor are they conditions precedent to your vote. Hillary’s campaign is only suspended, not ended. And only you can decide when your vote has been earned. Whether you are a PUMA activist, a WomenCountPAC donor, a Just Say No Deal blogger, a Clinton Democrat for McCain, a yellow dog Democrat for VoteBoth, or simply a Hillary Clinton supporter who feels like the Party leaders and their presumptive nominee are ignoring everything that you value, the most powerful statement you can make right now is that YOU OWN YOUR VOTE. Only in finding that common ground will we be counted, for only in that common ground will we be able to count ourselves.

I stand together with Hillary Clinton’s 18 million voters to demand that Senator Obama and the Democratic Party:

• Bring us together by seating 100% of the Florida and Michigan delegations in Denver with 100% of their votes, allocated in accordance with the popular vote of each state.
• Bring us together by adopting policies on the Platform Committee that Hillary Clinton has championed.
• Bring us together through reform of the primary and caucus system to reflect the basic principle of one person/one vote.
• Bring us together through outspoken denunciation of all gender bias, racism and other forms of discrimination.
• Bring us together by fairly and respectfully including Hillary and her supporters at the Democratic National Convention in Denver by, among other things, placing her name in nomination for President, conducting a roll call vote, and providing her a prominent speaking role during prime time on August 26th, the 88th anniversary of women’s suffrage.

I own my vote. It does not belong to any party. It does not belong to any candidate. It does not belong to any mob that would impose its will on me. Only I can decide how to use my vote, and I can decide based on any criteria I choose. Therefore I pledge not to give my vote to anyone who does not earn it.

Click here to sign the pledge: http://iownmyvote.com/

Posted by Violet under Election 2008, PUMA on June 27, 2008, 2:04 pm EST

14 Comments »

(I know the Possum Seal has been retired after its “one-time use” — har! — but once was enough. B.O. will always be Opossum to me.)

The other day a commenter asked, “Do his women supporters even know what this guy is about? The more I talk to them to try to understand the more clueless and uninformed they seem. They just project hopeful views onto him that have no basis in what he’s said or claims to do.”

Short answer: no, and ain’t that the fricking truth, and bingo.

I discovered this for myself several months ago, when I realized that: a) most young women were supporting Opossum, and b) they were doing it for the same reason as almost everybody else, which was that they’d dreamed up in their heads some fantasy of what this guy was about.

Now, right up front here let me insert the caveat that there are some Opossum supporters who are not at all deluded about the man and whose support for him is carefully considered. I know those folks exist, and I’m even related to some of them. But this post isn’t about them.

This post is about all those young women (mostly young) who think Opossum is Cream of Jesus on toast.

Let me give you an example: sometime in the spring I read a post by a young feminist blogger in which she excitedly interpreted a statement from Opossum as a dogwhistle to his supporters about his pacifist intentions. “What pacifist intentions?” you’re wondering, but hang on. In this feminist blogger’s mind, Opossum is a pacifist who is completely opposed to war, and, once in office, will purge the State and Defense departments of anyone who’s ever been involved in making war. I don’t know who he’s supposed to replace them with — Kermit the Frog? Big Bird? — but no matter, because clearly we’re in the realm of serious delusion. There was no dogwhistle, no secret message to his supporters. The blogger had just dreamed it up. Besides, Opossum is not a pacifist.

Here’s what we know about Opossum, based on his own statements: he favors a “strong” military (whatever that means), wants to expand our forces by almost 100,000 troops, argues for the use of war as a legitimate tool of international relations, and has made a point of pouring scorn on the peace-and-love hippies of the 60s and 70s. His plans for Iraq aren’t much different from anybody else’s, despite his lies (now exposed) to the contrary. Although he did make one speech opposing the Iraq war several years ago, since then he’s argued that it would be a mistake to set a deadline for withdrawing the troops. Certainly his record in the Senate has been one of consistent support for the war. As for his plans once he’s President, last I heard he was throwing around a lot of macho talk about going after targets in Pakistan whether our ally was on board or not.

None of this is a secret. The information is readily available. The feminist blogger in question doesn’t live under a rock, and in fact characterizes herself as politically astute and involved. Yet somehow she reads Opossum’s own words, reviews his actual actions, and her brain hallucinates something entirely different.

This isn’t just a question of being misinformed or misled. We’re talking about thought-blocking to a profound degree. Opossum has never claimed to be a pacifist. He has explicitly disavowed pacifism. To fantasize otherwise is to mentally overwrite the evidence in front of your face. It’s like reading your Toyota car owner’s manual and thinking it’s Finnegans Wake.

The feminist blogger isn’t alone, of course; her malady is one that’s common in Opossum land. Anybody who’s tried to talk sense into these people is well aware of the problem. You try to feed them information from the reality-based world and they react like you’re offering to inject them with smallpox: Noooooooo! Get away! Germs!

That’s why things like the Roberts confirmation story have zero effect on the hardcore fans, feminist or otherwise. Their brains just refuse to process the information. There is abundant evidence that Opossum is personally rather sexist and as a politician is unreliable on women’s rights, but evidence means nothing to his fans. Absolutely nothing.

Don’t you find that scary? I do.

Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on June 25, 2008, 12:59 pm EST

26 Comments »

From FemB4Dem (emphasis mine):

I am a longtime Dem — a money sending, door knocking, phone banking, foot soldier dem. No way I vote for Obama. Not only that, if my state is in play in November, I vote for McCain. Otherwise, I will be guilty of agreeing to, and participating in, the greatest screw over of women ever by 1) a major political party, and 2) the mainstream media. And why am I supposed to vote for him? Oh yeah, because the Dems are better for women — especially for those young, Obama-swooning type women who might need to exercise that right to choose we older women have protected for them for so long. Not this time. Nope, I won’t be an enabler in an attack on myself. It’s really that simple. What’s not to get?

Seems like a good opportunity to post the big version of the PUMA video link I made for my sidebar today:

Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on June 24, 2008, 8:38 pm EST

23 Comments »

Salon is pulling out all the stops to explain that the silly PUMAs are just venting when we say we won’t vote for Opossum. Walter Shapiro is up first with a piece that is breathtaking in its derision:

As an empty threat, it ranks right up there with “Eat your spinach now or your mother and I won’t pay for college” or even George W. Bush’s taunting promise to get Osama bin Laden “dead or alive.”

Predictably, Shapiro displays zero understanding of what’s actually at stake, and of why women are uniting to exert their leverage over the Democrats. In his estimation it’s all just “ruffled feelings.”

Next comes Rebecca Traister with a piece that is, I believe, intended to be slightly more sympathetic, but is ultimately just as bad. First she explains that, just as we learned in Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, angry ladies simply need to “vent.” Our words don’t really mean anything; we just need someone to pay attention to our hurt fee-fees. With that setup, she goes on to enumerate some of the things women are pissed about (though she gets a lot of it wrong), but assures her readers that none of it actually matters. This is her closing:

In a recent New Yorker profile of Keith Olbermann, MSNBC chief Phil Griffin described how Clinton voters felt alienated from Olbermann’s anti-Clinton coverage: “He turned out to be a jerk and difficult and brutal. And that is how the Hillary viewers see him. It’s true. But I do think they’re going to come back. There’s nowhere else to go.”

Exactly. These angry people have nowhere else to go. So the safe expectation is that they will fall in line without much kicking and screaming. And that, ultimately, is why many of them are kicking and screaming. Yes, they’re going to vote for Obama. Of course they’ll vote for him. The truth is, they’ll probably love voting for him.* But after what they feel has been done to them — the way in which they were written off, marginalized and resented, their hopes mocked and their history-making ambitions dismissed as retrograde identity politicking — damned if they’re going to be nice girls about it.

Traister’s piece is a study in Third Wave feminism, and the reason she has no comprehension of what’s happening is because PUMAs are moved by the spirit of Second Wave. We’re the women who know that sexism doesn’t go away if you lie back and play nice; we know we have to fight and we’re ready for it. Third Wave, on the other hand, is all about accommodation: accommodating patriarchy, primarily — reassuring men that women might fuss a little bit but they won’t actually rock the boat. Maybe a few frowns under the lip gloss, in between the boyfriend’s porn tapes and episodes of Keith Olbermann, but that’s about it. Just a few little glossy frowns.

Somebody’s got a surprise coming.

*This sentence is so weird and freaky and offensive that I almost bolded it when I originally published the post. As you’ll see in the comments, I’m not the only one whose mind was boggled.

Posted by Violet under Election 2008, PUMA on June 23, 2008, 2:42 pm EST

34 Comments »

Obama’s new seal:

Love the Latin motto. Tell me, is it SOP for candidates to use seals that look an awful lot like the real Presidential seal? Or is this just another example of the subliminal advertising Obama’s campaign is famous for?

Given how things have gone so far, this could totally work. The more people see Obama standing in front of 17 US flags and with a big pseudo-Presidential seal on the lectern in front of him, the more they’ll feel like it’s only natural for him to be President. They walk into that voting booth in November and their eyes will glaze over and Angela Lansbury will turn over the red queen and then they’ll pull the lever for Obama, just pull that lever because it’s what has to happen, see? They won’t be able to help themselves.

Personally I hope Obama will start printing his own money. I’m playing around here on the computer with some graphical ideas, kind of a mash-up of the eye/pyramid thing and the Obama sunrise. Think I’ll send them off to the campaign. Couldn’t hurt.

Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on June 21, 2008, 9:07 am EST

20 Comments »

A reader sent me this, and it’s a doozy. At the Congressional Black Caucus meeting, Obama reacted unsympathetically to advice that he needed to reach out to the millions of women angry about how Hillary Clinton was treated:

According to Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., Obama then said, “However, I need to make a decision in the next few months as to how I manage that since I’m running against John McCain, which takes a lot of time. If women take a moment to realize that on every issue important to women, John McCain is not in their corner, that would help them get over it.”

On top of that, he’s still telling lies about the Clintons:

Obama then said, two sources at the meeting said, that he’d held his tongue many times during the campaign against Clinton in the interest of party unity and sensitivity. Clinton and her allies had suggested he was a Muslim, had said he wasn’t qualified to be president. According to the sources, Obama suggested he bit his tongue every time. He could be asking for an apology, he could be asking for the Clintons to reconcile with him, but he chose to rise above it.

The Muslim thing is one of the most thoroughly debunked smears spread by the Obama campaign, and here he is still peddling it — and still pretending he’s the injured party who ran an above-board operation! Well, why not? That was his strategy throughout the campaign, and it worked very well for him. Why quit now?

Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on June 21, 2008, 8:39 am EST

10 Comments »

I had to disappear for a few days to do some reclusive things, but I’m back in time for the holiday. That’s today, National Fourth Amendment Defense Day. I don’t think there will be any half-price sales at Bed Bath & Beyond to mark the occasion, but you can contribute to the festivities by phoning your Senator. Lambert explains:

Have you read the Fourth Amendment lately?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The Fourth Amendment, along with the other amendments to the Constitution that form our Bill of Rights, came into effect on December 15, 1791.

The Framers of our Constitution — and the voters in the states that passed the Bill of Rights — understood how tyranny worked, and they took a dim view of King George breaking into their homes, rummaging through their desks, opening their mail, and reading whatever the Fuck he wanted, whenever the fuck he wanted to, without going to a judge for a warrant, and without having to explain what he expected to find when the warrant was executed. The Framers had already had a bellyful of kings.

The Framers understood tyranny, even though they didn’t have computers in 1791. And if the Framers had computers, it’s plain as day they wouldn’t have wanted King George breaking into their hard disks, rummaging through their desktops, or reading their data—whether the data was email, documents on your hard disk, your telephone calls, your Google searches, or the sites that you surf.

Tyranny is tyranny, no matter the technology.

So it’s simple and crystal clear: The Fourth Amendment means that the government doesn’t get to read your data—to the Framers, “paper”—without a warrant.

It’s simple. And anybody who tries to make it complicated is trying to fuck you.

Well, surprise! The Democrat leadership is trying to fuck you.

Hey, that doesn’t surprise me. Nor does it surprise me that Barack Obama is emerging as a prime enabler of the Democrats’ complicity with the BushCo police state. Just one more reason we need to deal these bums a bitter, bitter blow.

As Glenn Greenwald notes, “Obama is conspicuously missing as his party is on the verge of enacting a radical bill to give the President vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers and retroactive amnesty to an entire lawbreaking industry. ”

Let’s see: Obama watches without complaint as the President’s police state powers are ratified, meanwhile anticipating his own election to the office on the backs of fanatical believers who think he can do no wrong, and at the head of a party that has already subordinated its entire national machinery to his personal campaign. Why do I think this is not a coincidence?

Posted by Violet under Politics, Election 2008 on June 20, 2008, 7:54 am EST

10 Comments »

In 1972 the Democrats became, somewhat half-heartedly, the party of women’s rights. Throughout the 1960s the Democrats had served as the de facto gathering ground for all the social justice movements of that era, and with the advent of the McGovern Commission rules, what had been informal became formal. The rules were changed, the convention was opened up, and suddenly all the various grassroots activists (feminists, civil rights workers, the anti-war crowd) had a seat at the table.

Ever since then the Democratic party has served, however inadequately, as the political home for people who care about human equality. Think of Jesse Jackson’s magnificent Rainbow Coalition: that has never been the reality, but for 35 years it has been the ideal. It’s what the Democrats are supposed to be.

But increasingly over those 35 years, we women have been taken for granted. Even the lukewarm support we enjoyed in the 1970s is just a distant memory. The Democrats no longer attract our votes so much as the Republicans repel them. We vote Democrat simply because the Republicans are even worse.

This is a wonderful situation for the Democratic party elites, of course. They don’t have to really fight for anything or take risks or work hard for their constituents; all they have to do is be marginally less bad than the Republicans. Or not even that: they just have to maintain the appearance of being less bad. For us, on the other hand, it’s a distinctly unwonderful situation. We’re stuck with riding this donkey (to borrow from Al Sharpton’s glorious speech) as far as it’ll take us, but there doesn’t seem to be a damn thing we can do to actually make the fucker go anywhere.

This has been the problem facing American feminists for years. Long before Hillary ran for President, long before Barack Obama smugly assured the world that Hillary’s supporters would vote for him in a flash, we had a problem. The Democrats weren’t earning our loyalty. They were taking us for granted, knowing that no matter how little they did to earn our support, every year women would still go to the polls and vote Democrat anyway because, remember, the Republicans are even worse.

It’s reached the point that we can’t even rely on the Democrats to stand up for our basic rights. Twenty-two Democratic Senators voted to confirm John Roberts as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 2005. A few months later, when Democrats failed to block the confirmation of batshit-crazy Samuel Alito, most feminists I know went into a state of barely-contained fury. Many of us had worked our hearts out for years to elect every Democrat we could, in no small measure because we were relying on the party to stop the erosion of our rights under a conservative Supreme Court. Lot of good it did us.

The netroots have been no better. New Democratic power-players like Markos Moulitsas have made it clear that women’s rights are at the absolute bottom of the priority list — any priority list. Kos himself famously invited those of us from the “women’s studies set” who disagreed to either don a burka or get the hell out of Dodge. (Meet the new boss: same as the old boss.)

What we needed, feminists said to each other, was leverage. How could we get leverage? How could we get the Democrats — old and new — to represent women’s interests? How could we create a situation where women’s votes weren’t assumed to be in the bag, but were a prize that Democrats would have to work for?

Voilà. Leverage is here.

It’s here because of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the shameful way she was treated — by the media, by the Obama camp, and, most damning of all, by the Democratic National Party. Even women who didn’t personally support the Clinton candidacy were nonetheless appalled by the Trashing of Hillary. It’s not that she lost; after all, losing is part of the game. It’s that she wasn’t beaten in a fair fight. She was treated like garbage, and she’s still being treated like garbage. (As of this writing, Howard Dean is refusing to let Hillary’s name be on the ballot for the first vote at the convention, a startling departure from the norm. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in this campaign and she earned more primary votes for President than any Democratic candidate in the history of this country. And the DNC won’t even let her name be on the ballot.) The huge swell of anger in the land is the righteous rage of millions of women — women who are armed and more than ready to punish the DNC. Over and over the message is being beamed straight to the powers-that-be on a laser light of pure anger: You don’t get to take our votes for granted anymore. No more.

It’s a glorious situation. It’s what we’ve needed for years. Finally, the Democrats have to work for our votes! Finally, we have leverage!

That’s why despite my anger at Hillary’s mistreatment, I am thrilled that so many women are drawing their line in the sand. I’m thrilled by the growing PUMA movement (Party Unity My Ass). I’m thrilled that for the first time since the 1970s, women as a group are demanding that a national political party treat us with respect — or else. And they — we — are dead serious. We’re too old to be tricked or browbeaten or guilted. We’ve been riding the Democratic donkey faithfully for 35 years, and damn if that ass didn’t turn around and fuck us.

No more.

What’s interesting, though, is that many of my sister feminists — the prominent pundit types, not the regular Jane Doe types — haven’t yet grasped the import of what’s happening. Even some of those who supported Hillary are now heard to quietly mutter that it’s time to “unite the party.” They don’t recognize the great big lever in front of us because, well, we’ve never had a great big lever in front of us. We’ve talked about leverage for years, yearned for it, but never had it. Most of us have spent our entire political lives being taken for granted. We’re so used to voting Democrat no matter what that it’s become almost second nature.

Another reason, a more insidious one, is the powerful social conditioning that even feminists struggle to transcend. We women are supposed to get along, to not make waves, to put our own needs aside. To sacrifice for the greater good. To unite the party.

But “unite the party” is simply nice-speak for “give up your leverage.” The Democrats certainly know that, as do the Obama trolls who are now flooding our moderation queues with comments. Every time they say “unite the party,” what they’re really saying is, “please give up your leverage. Please just put down that gigantic lever you somehow got hold of and walk away. Please go back to the way it was before, when you voted for the Democrats no matter how much they took you for granted.”

Not bloody likely.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out. My own prognostication is that the existing feminist movement and this new wave will remain largely separate, at least for awhile, and very possibly even oppose each other. That’s because modern feminism is dominated by a) young Third Wavers who support Obama anyway, and b) “establishment” feminists who are too plugged in to the money circuit to fight City Hall. This new wave is different: a big grassroots uprising of women of all ages whose latent feminism has been awakened by this election. This group is big and messy and fairly diverse in its political orientation (from leftists like me to near-Republicans), much the way the Second Wave was in the 1970s. But these women are united in their anger and their exasperation and their determination that now is the time to draw the line. No more.

I’m looking forward to it. But that’s another post.

Posted by Violet under Recommended, Election 2008, PUMA on June 12, 2008, 5:53 am EST

84 Comments »

Oh, man. This is a real operation.

Today’s troll comment, from (alas! a flaw in the plan!) the same IP block as the last set:

I thought I’d chime in with a different perspective. I’m a military mom; my only son is currently on his second tour in Iraq. His first tour was quite an eye opener. Some of the things he wrote about in his letters horrified me, and when he came back home I begged him to pursue a new avenue so he wouldn’t get sent back.

But like many of the heroes serving there today, he told me his country needed him, and he would do all that is asked until they can ask no more. He will be voting this year through an absentee ballot, and he’s voting Obama for one simple reason: through his firsthand experience in Iraq, he knows Americans can’t afford another President who will wage unneeded wars. Many of his fellow soldiers feel the same. For them, their vote could be the difference between coming home to their families, or fighting for their lives in a country that does not want them nor need them.

I ask you to please reconsider. McCain has already aligned himself closely with the policies of the Bush administration, and he’s made it clear that he wants a lengthy US military commitment to Iraq. As tensions in the region rise, I fear that a McCain presidency would not only mean my son will be sent on a third and fourth tour to Iraq, but that we’ll also have a very real danger of falling into another unneeded conflict with Iran before his term is over.

Question for the group: why the hell can’t Axelrod hire better copywriters? Nobody talks like that on a blog. “But like many of the heroes serving there today…” Jesus, it sounds like a TV spot.

David, dude: up your game, man. This is pathetic.

Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on June 10, 2008, 2:00 pm EST

17 Comments »

From BDBlue at Corrente:

I have long believed the most dangerous thing about this primary was the misogyny, especially aimed at older women, running rampant unchecked by Obama or the Democratic Party. You can’t simply put that back up in its cage now that the nomination is over. That kind of hatred spewed into the culture is bound to affect the culture and change it in ways that are not positive.

Obama may very well want to stop this now, but I’m not sure this monster is still within his control. But then that’s what always happens when you accept help from a monster, it eventually turns on you. What? Obama and the Democrats thought Frankenstein was really about a scientist who built a monster from dead people?

Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on June 9, 2008, 8:42 pm EST

9 Comments »

I don’t know why this continues to surprise me, but it does: Obama supporters live in a parallel universe. It’s a mirror universe, a place where up is down.

A blogger at Alas is talking about the “fact” that “all” the candidates have praised the historic significance of Hillary’s campaign, but have almost never mentioned the significance of Obama’s. I’m not going to link to it because Alas runs off racist pornography, but I’m sure you can Google it.

I wish I understood how that worked. How is it possible that you can follow the news for the past 6 months, with the endless hallelujahs about how electing Obama would represent a hugely important redemption of our nation’s racist sins, with the stubborn refusals to acknowledge that Hillary’s campaign could possibly be equally transcendent in its own way — how do you do that and somehow flip it upside down in your mind?

How do you watch Hillary laud Obama’s historic achievement in speech after speech throughout the primaries, while Obama sails through without ever even mentioning women’s rights, much less celebrating Hillary’s breakthrough (in fact, he referred to her at one point as a “conventional candidate”) — how do you do that and somehow flip it upside down in your mind?

I think we need to figure it out, because that’s what’s making the Obama folks tick. Some kind of upside-down-making koolaid.

Posted by Violet under Election 2008 on June 9, 2008, 12:27 am EST

29 Comments »

From a commenter at Tom Watson’s blog:

Oh well who cares if no majority Caucasian country in the history of the western world has ever nominated a black man before. It’s no biggie, some dude’s wife is much more monumental.

Just in case you’re wondering why women like me are ready to fight tooth and nail to keep these assholes from taking over the party.

I’ve said it before and I expect to say it many more times over the next months: if Obama succeeds in taking over the Democratic Party, then the Democratic Party will no longer be the party of women’s rights.

Posted by Violet under Politics, Election 2008 on June 8, 2008, 7:08 pm EST

6 Comments »