Dear Screaming Woman...

This is an excellent post about the lunacy into which much of the Obama-Clinton maelstrom has devolved and the need to gain a bit of perspective about who the real mysognists are in this picture.

Thorne Dreyer

I have to vent, Clinton supporters
By altruista / June 1, 2008

I'm a 55-year-old white woman. Our greatest matter of urgency in America is to be sure a Democrat becomes President in November, and to get as many Democrats as possible elected to both houses of Congress. We need to do the same thing at state and local levels.

I've never supported any political candidate enough to campaign or canvass for them. I've never felt that any candidate would be able to keep their campaign promises once they got into power and went up against the machinery that's occupying this country today. I've never felt strongly enough about a candidate to feel moved to be an activist for them. No candidate can ever be all things to everyone. And until now I've been able to keep a respectful silence while others with very strong feelings for either of the Democratic candidates for President have public melt-downs when their candidate has a political setback.

I can't keep quiet now. I've just been watching a white woman in my age group on CNN going radioactive to the cameras about how she's going to vote for McCain if Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn't get the Democratic nomination. She gave as her rationale for this chop-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face tactic that the Democratic party has turned on its women supporters.

To this woman, if you and others like you are reading this: and you'd like the proven record of Republican conservatives for their all-out war on women's rights? We're now paying the price for three decades of conservative domination in America --what it's done to the American character; the fact of American commerce now as morally bankrupt as it is; the abuses of Wall Street; the abuse of the environment; the poisonous cynicism and corruption of this administration -- I could go on for pages.

Back to the issue of women's rights. You, woman screaming into the cameras: you are old enough to remember the pre-Roe v. Wade days in America. Remeber coat hangers, Drano, women hurling themselves down steps, women dying and left unable to bear children from illegal botched abortions? Remember birth control outlawed? Remember the early 1970s, when a woman could not get a credit card or bank loan in her own name---when a woman needed an adult male co-signer's permission for them because we were deemed incompetent to manage our own financial affairs? Remember when sexual harassment and open sex discrimination were legal? Remember when we didn't have rape shield laws, when marital rape wasn't illegal? Remember when a woman being used as a punching bag by her husband had no recourse -- had no earning power, no options, when the police she turned to often were abusers themselves and sympathized with the husband, when domestic violence shelters weren't even a twinkle in anyone's eye?

If I remember all of that -- and I do -- then you do, too, Screaming Woman. Republicans fought the changes that spare today's women those infringements of basic human rights. Give the Republican Party platform a close reading. They want to return us to those days. And because the Democratic Party enacts a decision you (and maybe I) don't agree with, you're really going to show them, and vote for McCain? The same McCain who, in front of a group of people and in a mouth-frothing rage, called his wife a cunt? The same McCain who mocked Chelsea Clinton, a child at the time, as ugly? The same McCain who vows to appoint Supreme Court justices who will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade? The same McCain who simply laughed when a Republican woman asked him, on camera, "How do we beat the bitch?" -- referring to Clinton, your candidate of choice? The Democratic Party's decision was worse than this?

Please. Get things in perspective. I do not consent to watching Republicans -- the American Taliban -- imposing their misogynistic policies on my nieces. Grow up. I seldom use language this strong, and I understand your anger. But remember who our adversaries are. Rememeber what they're made of, remember the damage they've done already and the worse damage they surely will do if we vote them back into power. Truly, Screaming Woman, I cannot wrap my brain around any woman willing to hand all America's women over to these American Taliban if Clinton doesn't get the nomination.

You implied in your meltdown that the Democratic Party is making a calculated effort to prevent a woman from winning the nomination because she's a woman. News flash: it's possible to support Obama and not be a misogynistic goon.

I had to get that out of my system. Now please, calm down, get your emotions in check, and do this. Think critically, interpret what the candidates say and do, reach informed decisions based on their judgment, character, track record, and positions on the issues, and don't abuse the vote that women fought so courageously for so long to win.

Source. / Daily Kos

Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog