Catherine Fenton: When Hillary Lost Me and Why I'm So Angry About It
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 02/18/2008 - 5:47am. Reader ContributionShe voted for the Iraqi Resolution, and I could have gotten over it. After all, so did John Edwards, and I got over that.
She voted to continue funding this war, and I could have gotten over it. After all, Obama makes those same votes, and where are you going to go for your protest vote: John "One Hundred Years War" McCain?
She voted for the Lieberman-Kyl amendment, and I.... well, I couldn't have gotten over that, but I think I could have closed my eyes and pretended it didn't happen. Pretended I was like the majority of Americans and had no clue what a Lieberman-Kyl amendment even was. Sometimes I think of how peaceful ignorance must be. Why shouldn't I get some peace too?
Maybe because you understand the dangers of ignorance, especially in a Democracy; you know, like the one we had, about 150 years ago? Ignorance may be nice (it isn't bliss. I know what bliss is and it isn't "not knowing").
No, it was in late 2006 when Hillary really, unredeemably lost me. She voted against Senate Amendment 4882, which would have banned the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas. They said she had to "look tough." Killing children makes you a tough guy now! How does it feel to live in a country that demands that you be "tough" enough to kill children in order to make it to the Presidency? To me, it doesn't feel so good, but regardless of the national psychosis creating this atmosphere... Hillary is responsible for this vote.
And oh, Hillary, would I like to have a word with you. It's thanks to this vote, Hillary, that I am forced to sit back and watch men chase you out of this race. It's thanks to this vote, Hillary, that I have to tolerate Chris Matthews and his drooling, hateful idiocy. And Patrick Buchanan, who taught me that men are traumatized by any voice that reminds them of their wife. David Shuster, who slid under everybody's radar the night he imitated the women from The View, in an alarmingly sexist manner, and thus lived to not slide under the radar when he started pimp-talking. Rush Limbaugh, who let me know that he's not down with watching a 60-year old woman age in front of his eyes. (How come we don't just shoot 60-year-old women anyway? Or maybe that would get PETA or NOW, or whomever all up in arms. Is there a pasture we can farm the useless eyesores out to?) And hello to Mike Barnicle who informed me that "when she reacts the way she reacts to Obama with just the look, the look toward him, looking like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court, OK?" Yeah OK, Mike, thanks. Up until you said that I didn't know that "everyone" had a first wife, who "everyone" had divorced and who "everyone" hated. What happened Mike, did the b*tch want alimony? How nice for you that you can get on a national news show to work out the trauma of your divorce, Mike. "Everyone" sure appreciates your contribution.
Agreed!!! But it is better than him getting to work out all of his psychological hangups and hostilities while sitting in the Oval. We've had about all that we can stand eh?
Hillary, I wanted in this fight. I am so ready for this fight, Hillary. My body is surging with adrenalin, and I know that if the men quoted above, and so many more are allowed to drop-kick your 60-year-old bottom out of this race, (how dare you have a 60-year-old behind!) and have a good laugh over it, it will be a good long time before a woman gets close to the White House again.
Maybe, Catherine. Don't be so sure of that. A woman, a real steel magnolia could come out of the woodworks just as Obama did. Nevertheless, Catherine, you have to get rid all that adrenalin. That stuff is stupid juice and not only that, it will kill you, eventually. There are too may women having strokes and heart attacks these days, at young ages. Something tells me, I don't want you to be one of them.
I see a very qualified woman Presidential candidate, running against a very qualified African American Presidential candidate, and what it is doing to the Democratic base. I see how quickly progressives get angry, and how deep that anger runs, at any hint of racism. (And I am with them there.) And I see them giving what feels like short-shrift to the rampant and brutal sexism surrounding your candidacy. It's not progressives who are yelling at the top of their lungs against the sexism, they only mention it. It's women. It is women. But we are not truly being heard, even by progressive men. They try to hear us, they even think they are hearing us, but I do not feel heard. I am furious. I am not just a little piqued, wanting to make sure I mention that "I'm not for Hillary, but this sexism is wrong." I am enraged. And that little platitude isn't enough. Get as mad about sexism as you get about racism, then you'll impress me.
And so I understand that the black feminist intellectual, Bell Hooks, got it right when she made her case that sexism is a stronger force than racism in our society. And oh Hillary, how badly I want to enter this fight with every fiber of my being; I want to stand against them, I want to roar. I want to blast those misogynists, who hold the pinnacles of power in our media and who set this ugly narrative, back to the last century, where they belong.
Germaine Greer wrote, "Women have very little idea of how much men hate them." Of course Ms. Greer probably hadn't taken into account Maureen Dowd, who proves with most of her columns that men have plenty of help hating women, but point taken Ms. Greer. So now I know.
Oh, c'mon, Maureen is an equal opportunity hater in her columns. That woman could sneer at a bunny. Bur she is oh, so funny sometimes.
And even with all of this -- the leering faces of the misogynists so eagerly hired by major news organizations, the gleeful malevolence being shown at the very thought of Hillary being "taught a lesson" (shouldn't "everyone's" b*tch, er, I mean, ex-wife, be taught a lesson?), the Maureen Dowds playing the old "let me sidle up to you mister and make you feel good about your hatred of woman, aren't I just the cutest thang you ever did see?" -- even with all of that and so much more, I still can't fight this fight. This fight that feels like my fight. This fight I have to walk away from with the heaviest of hearts, against every instinct of every fiber of my being, and with Germaine Greer's words ringing in my ears. Because Hillary voted against the cluster bomb ban -- and those kill children.
And I'd like a word with you about that Hillary. I surely would.
Maybe, just maybe, Hillary isn't the woman for the White House; to be the the first female president. I'm afraid I came to that conclusion a long time ago, before the vote on cluster bombs and populated areas, but what god are cluster bombs if they aren't dropped on populate areas? Like Napalm, cluster bombs are weapons, not only of death, but of terror, which of course, makes our guys who are ordered to cluster bomb whole cities (like Dresden during WWII) today, they are murders and terrorists, if they follow the order. Guess what. We are all co-conspirators, especially those who don't give a damn. and know it's happening. But we all are because we can't seem to stop any of it. Maybe it is because we aren't ready to do what it will take, because it won't be fun.
Of course, most of us do what is within the law, providing we can figure out what the law is from day to day, and we do a helluva lot of it. But we haven't done what it will take. Perhaps when the dem-bulbs get the W.H., we can hang up our illusions that it really matters whose in the W.H. now, because nothing is going to change. Then, maybe, then we will be able to see the horrible reality we face
Like you, I think it sucks that we live in such a sick society that a woman has to prove she is not only tough, but just as capable as any man of psycho-pathological acts of horror. I'm past the adrenalin rushes when I am faced with these terrible thoughts, of yours and mine. It just makes me sick to my stomach, sometimes to the point of vomiting. I'm not kidding. I'm also not Bulimic. There are few things I hate more than throwing up. I'm not fond of crying either, but I find my self doing that quite a bit, lately.
This may sound like a terrible thing to say, given that I have squamous cell carcinoma that is currently in remission, but I just have to say it: I, sometimes, sit and think with my head in my hands, "I''ll be glad when this is over."
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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.
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