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GOING WOBBLY
The
Cheney/Bush consortium has enlisted the aid of its usual bedfellows to
bring women into the GOPster fold. We've mentioned how the media
has mostly been in lock step with them and have brought you editorial and
news items from other countries for contrast to what our media reports.
Now they are mounting a full body press for the women's vote. They are always thinking of gaining more political power and their strategy is to put their agenda through by tying their invocations to the war effort. This way, all that criticize or refuse to go along are un-American.
Their recent campaign began with platitudinous, slobbering histrionics from the kowtowing media that prostrated its corporate entity before Mrs. Dubya, Laura, and her radio address. It called her reading "historical" and claimed that she was the first woman to give "a president's radio address." (Not true)
Excuse us, but weren't we told firmly and often during the Clinton years that wives were not presidents? Come to think of it, the un-president, Dubya, isn't really the duly elected president according to the Constitution.
Anyway, Laura told of her concern for the women of Afghanistan. Guess she had only recently discovered the hell they have been going through since our government let the Taliban take charge.
Contrast this with the many voices of women around the world [including our own Democratic Senators Clinton and Boxer, for example] who have been lobbying for attention to these atrocities and labored to diminish the suffering for many years now.
Adding insult to injury, we hear commentators are now extolling Dubya for another first. They say his idea of holding a Ramadan Dinner will show that we are not making war against a religion. Those reporters know full well that the Ramadan Dinner is a tradition and it was Hillary Clinton as First Lady that began the tradition.
Now women are being assaulted and insulted by another GOPster cadre, The Independent Women's Forum. Nothing could be more misnamed since these women are not independent except in terms of income. Their corporate hubbies keep them well supplied with cash.
This allows them to write and publish books and articles detrimental to women, specifically those who support the woman's movement for equality. Knowing absolutely nothing about poverty and the work-a-day world and even less about American History, the IWFers spin evil yarns of evil that would make Osama blush in shame.
A case in point is a recent article by Manon McKinnon titled, "Women are Strong and Now They Must Show It." She begins by telling us that we must be strong like the women of America in other wars. To do that we must first "abandon the weakness of victimization and stop being aggrieved."
Then she implores us to "turn our attention from sexual harassment, date rape, the absurd notion of placing women in combat and from the endless feminist myths that have invaded the public consciousness." WOW! This has us pumped!
Here all this time women have been caring for women! Battered women. Raped women. Women in poverty. We have been caring about women instead of fulfilling our biological role and our destiny to always be HANDMAIDENS of men. Especially now when we should be giving all our attention to aiding men in their war-games.
Manon claims that we have "cultivated among many women a false indignation and a groundless sense of oppression in the hands of an imaginary enemy, the male patriarchy." In short, she tells us that we have been making things up and these are "foolish indulgences." Furthermore, "We must stop pretending that women are being shortchanged, and gender quotas must be put aside, for there is more important work to do."
She exhorts women to take up our role in homeland defense and do what we are told to do as unpaid volunteers. That means, leave our jobs and our education behind and volunteer for the scut-jobs. It sure sounds to us like going back to being doormats but she thinks it is the right thing for women to do because that's what women did in other wars and it seems we won them.
Her thesis leans on the words of a former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, giving advice to Daddy Bush. "This is no time to go wobbly." Obviously going wobbly is to continue to guard our human rights for our children and ourselves. Nuts to you, Manon! We prefer wobbling to quaking and boot licking, but ya'll go right ahead and lick whatever floats your boat.
Finally
she really knocked our socks off by completely avoiding any references
to the many brave women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
who struggled so diligently for our right to vote. Instead she asserts
that it was because in WWI, we were being good little handmaidens doing
what we should that "prompted President Woodrow Wilson to lend his
support to passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution extending
the vote to women."
She got one thing right by quoting author Midge Decter, "American Women are among the luckiest, healthiest, FREEST people on Earth." Uh huh, Ms. Manon, and by all the Gods on Mount Olympus, we are damned well going to stay that way.
