Constructive Feminism and the Third Wave

August 30, 2010 — Anna Belle

Remember the 1990s and the Clinton scandals? Remember how, after a while, all the media attention was like so much white noise and it became a chore to pay attention? Remember how most people you knew wished those spittle-flecked Republicans would just STFU already? Maybe you don’t. Maybe you recall those as the Bush years and you and your friends just wished all those spittle-flecked Democrats would blow it out their ears for once? The point is that a constant barrage of hyperbolic negativity often has the opposite effect from what was intended. It doesn’t breed agreement; it breeds apathy and discontent.

So it is with the subject of Sarah Palin. She is constantly under attack and disrespected by feminists on the left, who often don’t know much about her other than what they hear in the echo chamber that is the left-blogosphere. The noise level has ratcheted way up since she started describing herself and her conservative sisters as feminists and “Mamma Grizzlies.”

As a writer who teaches people how to write, I can tell you that you’ll lose your audience if constant negativity is your opening strategy, which is why I almost didn’t finish reading the NYT op-ed by Anna Holmes and Rebecca Traister, A Palin of Our Own. It droned on and on for nine solid paragraphs (out of 15 total) of negativity and bad logic, using few, if any, examples or citations to back up questionable partisan speculation about Sarah Palin.

I’m glad I did finish it though, because it is the most promising sign yet that feminists on the left are finally willing to address their #1 problem: internal issues regarding women and the Democratic Party. For a while now feminists on the left have been engaged in a profoundly destructive focus, clearly seen in the various campaigns to tear down Sarah Palin, the vitriol directed at her and other Republican women, and the impulse to, ironically, defend feminism against expansion. It’s a weird dynamic akin to xenophobia, and it has cost them the ears, hearts, and minds of many women of every generation, but especially those of us who didn’t get to go to the best colleges or didn’t go to college at all, and who don’t live in fabulous urban areas. In other words, most of America. The kind of internal focus promoted by Holmes and Traister in their article will be a necessary step in creating a constructively focused feminism that can attract these women back. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Translations, feminism. Tags: , , . 9 Comments »

Media, Madness & The Glenn Beck Rally

August 28, 2010 — Anna Belle

Can you count the jellybeans?

I don’t personally care about Glenn Beck’s rally any more than I cared about the mosque in NYC, but sometimes the volume on a thing gets so loud a person just feels like they have to say something, even if it is yelling into the wind. Besides, someone has to unpack this thing in the midst of all this madness, and the media sure ain’t going to be the ones to do it. I’m not defending Beck, but on the issue of this rally, I have this to say:

Well played, sir.

I’m not a fan of Glenn Beck, having watched his show for over a year due to Grandpa’s love of it. I see clearly how Beck sometimes twists rhetoric, but sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he says what’s on a lot of minds. I’m also rational enough to realize that very few people in life, if any, are wholly evil. I do respect him for a couple of things, #1 being his chameleon persona. The man has invented himself more times than Reagan. The other thing I respect is his ability to quietly rile up his opponents until they’re the ones who look crazy, complete with flying spittle and all sorts of logical fallacies, mostly of the ad hominem or strawperson variety. He’s done it again with this event.

Take Bob Herbert of the New York Times. He’s come so far from Martin Luther King’s dream that he actually hates his fellow Americans and hates their right to speak freely anywhere, on any date they choose. He opened his op-ed, which was posted before the rally even started, with this ad hominem:

America is better than Glenn Beck. For all of his celebrity, Mr. Beck is an ignorant, divisive, pathetic figure.

As I said, not a fan of Beck, but I don’t think he deserves the adjectives ignorant or pathetic at all. He’s smart and unpathetic enough to dominate the entire news cycle for the last few days (it’s the only story being reported on Memeorandum all day today). He might be divisive at times, but judging by media reports he’s a uniter of several thousands of people today (reports vary widely, from 87,000 to 300,000). Herbert’s essay then, a shot across the bow before the rally was even in progress, is just the verbiage of a powerless person shadow-boxing a straw man. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Political, the media thinks you're stupid. Tags: , . 8 Comments »

Hot Damn, a Reading Roundup

August 23, 2010 — Anna Belle

Is anyone else tired of reading about the mosque? I don’t live in New York, and I don’t visit enough to care, and honestly, it stinks of the cat and mouse media game political operatives play in August.

That game is working, of course, as the left ratchets up a shiny new racism charge, and desperately tries to get the nation to believe that 70% of Americans are both stupid and crazy. In other words, typical leftists alienation tropes that will result in political losses for them. They never freakin’ learn. They make the same mistakes they’ve been making since the 1960s, which is to shout people down instead of talking to them. The continue to sorely miscalculate the electorate.

The electorate is composed of individuals like me, and we can think for ourselves. I’ve followed the story and I don’t buy that opposition to the mosque is racist. Maybe Rush is screeching his usual crap about Islamofascism, but then I don’t waste my time listening to him. Most of what I’ve been reading from the opposition has been respectful and persuasive for the most part. Take this editorial by the Muslim daughter of a 9/11 victim. She made a point I hadn’t considered:

Yet, I worry that the construction of the Cordoba House Islamic cultural center near the World Trade Center site would not promote tolerance or understanding; I fear it would become a symbol of victory for militant Muslims around the world.

It’s not like the peaceful Muslims who want to build this could (or would) stop radical militant Muslims from using the site as a war memorial if they wanted to. And that’s exactly something that radical militant Muslims would do.

Anyway, in the end I don’t care. Build it or don’t build it, build it somewhere else, but for fuck’s sake, stop lying about it and vilifying your countrymen-and-women over it. And Obama should stay out of it. His statements in support of it were a first class blunder from a completely unqualified neophyte. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Democrats and Republicans hate you, Political, economy, the media thinks you're stupid. 4 Comments »

Which Would You Rather Read?

August 16, 2010 — Anna Belle

Posted in Political. Tags: . 4 Comments »

Story of the Day: Gibbs Edition

August 10, 2010 — Anna Belle

It has been hilarious watching the Story of the Day and the reaction of those who got snookered by the most famous Chicago Democrat (!) evah. A few things worth pointing out about the whole thing.

First, everyone seems to have adopted the term “professional left” without thinking about it. That’s the slog-headedness of August for you. I would bet $50 that the term was born of a strategy session within the White House, and now a term that did not exist yesterday will be the favored punching bag of Republicans and Democrats going forward.

Second: wtf is this about, Mr. Aravosis?

Then there’s all that work we did for the campaign, all the dirty work they asked us to do – and we did it, gladly, and quietly – none of that counted either, apparently.

There’s apparently more to the story than just Journolist. Care to tell us more about this “dirty work” you did so “quietly,” John? Because you know, the White House hates you and you haven’t got a damn thing to lose by going public. If you’ve got the balls, which I doubt.

Third, Rep. Ellison has got it right. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Democrats and Republicans hate you, Political, Propaganda, Stop lying to yourself, the media thinks you're stupid. Tags: , . 2 Comments »

The Mandate Mantra

August 4, 2010 — Anna Belle

I’ve been wondering for a long time why progressives and captive liberals keep saying Obama had a mandate. The chorus that creates the mandate-meme has been gearing up again lately. I saw the election up close and I did not see a mandate in the numbers. What I saw, and what has still not been reported, was that Sarah Palin took an election that should have been a landslide for any Democrat running and made it competitive. This despite the media’s relentless attacks on her, including the now outed Katie Couric.

So what was up with the “mandate mantra,” which progs and their administrative overlords keep trying to push? It must be the electoral college, right? There is a sizable difference in those numbers. But those numbers are misleading, and I knew it. Anybody not trying to manufacture reality knows it. Jay Cost knows there is no a mandate, and though he articulates an apologists argument, he has the map to prove it.

To appreciate what I’m talking about, consider the following picture. It compares Obama’s election in 2008 (by county) to previous landslides – Roosevelt in 1932 and 1936, Eisenhower in 1952, Johnson in 1964, and Reagan in 1980. These maps come from an excellent French cartographer named Frédéric Salmon, whose work can be accessed here. They follow a different color scheme than the red-blue divide we are used to. In the following maps, Republican counties are in blue – and they become darker blue as the county votes more heavily Republican. Meanwhile, Democratic counties are in yellow – and they move to brown as the county votes more heavily Democratic.

Interesting. They carried enough urban areas to produce a win, but that’s all they had.  This bodes well for 2012, folks.

Our job in the meantime is to use the map to refute the mandate mantra. This manufacturing of reality is exactly what so many of us hated about the Bush43 regime, and it’s equally troubling coming from Democrats. Nobody gets a pass on duping the American people. Nobody.

Posted in Democrats and Republicans hate you, Political, the media thinks you're stupid. Tags: , . 2 Comments »

Sunday Polling: The In-Laws

July 25, 2010 — Anna Belle

This is a prelude to a post. I’ve had some trouble with my in-laws lately, and I’m probably going to write about it. This blog is about the All-True Tales of Yours Truly and Various Heathens, after all. Before I do, though, I wanted to poll readers  who have in-laws about the relationship they have with them.

Feel free to share your stories in comments. I’ll be sharing my outrageous story soon, as I really need to get it off my chest, and I need the communion that comes with sharing stories and supporting each other. My heart has been hurting for almost a month now over this, and I’ve worked hard to set aside the justified anger so that I can talk about it sensibly. Abusive actions can only have an effect in isolation, and talking about it is the best way to avoid that isolation. Thanks in advance for your participation.

Some links you might enjoy:

I Hate my In-Laws!

My Crazy In-Laws

Posted in personal. 6 Comments »

Democratic Voodoo Keeps Us on This Path

July 15, 2010 — Anna Belle

Froma Harrop has a new straight-from-the-rhetoric-making-noise-machine article about how irresponsible Republicans were and how we’re still dealing with it. I won’t disagree with her—they were categorically awful and left a huge mess. However, I do take issue with her idiotic assertion that Democrats have been any better. She starts her reality-sculpting piece with this indictment of Republicans:

“We’re still recovering from their [Republican] last round of debauchery — their fiscal irresponsibility, servility toward Wall Street, disrespect for science, contempt for the environment.”

While this is true, it is also true of Democrats. Let’s take this point by point, shall we?

Fiscal Irresponsibility: While President Bush did sign the TARP act, it was passed through Congress solely on the backs of Democrats. Furthermore, Obama, in full campaign mode, rushed back to Washington in the middle of the crisis so he could bring his enormous weight to bear on the issue. The Democrats own that debacle far more than Republicans do. The American people, the little guys and gals out here struggling in the face of the economic uncertainty unleashed by the political establishment’s sandbox playmates in the finance sector, will never forget who owns it. We lobbied to prevent it, and they refused to listen and even changed the rules to pass it.

Now they refuse to bail us out, while upping the deficit and budget imbalance to huge new levels for their friends and lobbyist co-workers. And we’ll never forget that either.

Servility toward Wall Street: Bailing out Wall Street and passing the useless Wall Street-friendly “reform” package, which secures permanent bail outs for them, was created and passed by Democrats in Congress, and pushed by the Democrat in the White House. Following the money, it appears as if Democrats have been in the business of trading servility for campaign cash on Wall Street since at least 2006. Democrats have and continue to have Wall Street’s back, even as it abandons Main Street and seeks to extract more rents for Wall Street from it. Automatic enrollment in IRAs are evidence of Democrats servility toward Wall Street, as is the Cat Food Commission, which will take your Social Security, forcing you to give up your SS taxes to Wall Street. How’s that for servility, Froma?

Disrespect for science: NASA’s biggest challenge is to make nice with Islamic countries? Huh? How about all of those scientists who continue to insist there is no such thing as clean coal? How about disrespect for scientists who have been telling the truth about the oil spill, while the White House continues to lie about it? What about the economic scientists who keep saying austerity is the wrong approach to the deepening economic depression? Not a lot of respect for science coming from this administration as far as I can tell.

Contempt for the environment: Three words: Gulf oil spill. Add to that a permanent press ban and BP thugs enforcing it with government assistance.

That’s a start. Next up is an article by John F. Harris and Jim “I love the taste of Obama’s shorts” Vandehei. In this whine-fest they want to know why Obama is always losing despite legislative victories. The short answer, of course, is that these legislative victories always fuck the little guys and gals and always benefit the rich and privileged. Harrop, Harris, and Vandhei all qualify as the latter. That’s why their articles are so out of touch with regular folks and only resonate with their political bosses and the left base, which continues to be duped and love it. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Political, Stop lying to yourself, the media thinks you're stupid. 4 Comments »

Desperately Seeking Susan B. Anthony: The Search is On

June 30, 2010 — Anna Belle

This article has been cross-posted from The New Agenda.

Hello from the great state of New York, city of Rochester! We’re here in search of Susan B. Anthony, and hope to find her at her homestead later today. We’ll report on that and Seneca Falls on Friday. My apologies for being out of touch so long, but we’ve had some glitches accessing wifi outside of my iPhone. Here’s what we’ve been up to before today.

Amelia at Paulsdale

We visited Paulsdale, Alice Paul’s house at Mount Laurel, NJ on Saturday. We had stopped at a hotel in Mt. Washington, NJ the night before and found ourselves surrounded by loads of families decked out in Valley Forge gear after having seen the sights there. It was a festive atmosphere and I couldn’t wait for the next day to see Paulsdale. Seeing all the folks so hyped about history really whet our appetites for it. As we pulled into the driveway on that crisp morning and saw the placard with her picture on it, I admit I started to tear up. It was an emotional moment stepping onto those grounds, knowing the story, and being able to share it with Lily and Amelia.

Thing is, the place was deserted. No one was there at 11:00 on a Saturday. I realized my mistake later after re-checking the website—tours had to be scheduled. I was pretty surprised. Here was the female equivalent of Abraham Lincoln, and no one seemed to care, save the folks who run the place. That was the first eye-opener of this trip. There aren’t any Paulsdales in the Midwest where we live, and while there are plenty of women’s historical sites to see, they don’t get a lot of traffic. I don’t know why I thought it would be different here.

Nevertheless we attended the grounds and peeked in windows while I told the girls why Alice Paul was important. They were most impressed with the force feedings and Night of Terror, of course. I told them how Alice Paul had used Paulsdale as a planning headquarters, how she had scads of women up to help plan and foment the revolution that Abigail Adams had promised 150 years earlier. I asked my young charges if they could picture it, the women moving about the gorgeous wrap-around porch or trailing their skirts along the grass, engaged in such meaningful conversations. We stood in the yard and let our imaginations run away with us. I think they could see it once I prompted them.

Boston the next day was the same mixture of disappointment and profound reverence. We arrived in Boston and located Beacon Hill, but then had I left my travel binder with info on the Women’s Heritage Trail and The Boston Women’s Memorial in it in the car. We knew the trail started at the State House, so we made our way the block and half to that, where we saw the statues of Mary Dyer and Anne Hutchinson at either end. If you don’t the stories of these two amazing women who gave their lives in pursuit of religious freedom, I encourage you to look them up.  It is amazing that Massachusetts has acknowledged how badly they wronged these two women, and offered a mea culpa in the form of bronze statues.

From there we made our way to Boston Commons in search of a visitor center. As we walked we asked several people if they knew where the Women’s Heritage Trail was or the Boston Women’s Memorial. Without exception people were surprised to hear it existed, and no one knew where it was, even locals. At the visitor center a half a dozen employees were working the front desk, and only one of them even knew of the Boston Women’s Memorial and where it was. This whole aspect of the day was the most disappointing for me, for I had assumed that these monuments had been erected because the general public cared and appreciated the contributions of women.

Lily contemplates the Boston Women's Memorial

We left our disappointment in the park and struck out for Commonwealth Avenue, which we learned was an entire avenue of monuments, all men save the Boston Women’s Memorial, which was almost at the end. We traveled the five or six blocks and examined the monuments to the great men of Boston on our way. I was delighted when we finally arrived to see the statues of Phillis Wheatley, Abigail Adams, and Lucy Stone. I walked to each of the statues telling the girls the women’s stories. Other walkers stopped to listen in, and that was the most delightful thing. People cared if they could understand, that much was obvious. Afterwards we sat on a bench and people-watched while we talked. Here I had a revelation of my own, which I shared with the girls. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in The Awesome Women's History Adventure 2010, Women's History, Women's Rights, feminism. Tags: , , , , . 5 Comments »

Desperately Seeking Susan B. Anthony Summer Tour

June 25, 2010 — Anna Belle

My passion is women’s history, as most regular readers know. Over years of pro-woman activism, I have found nothing that touches the heart and fuels the imaginations of young women quite like learning their own history does. Women of every generation might disagree about what the exact issues facing us are, and how we might address them, but nearly every one of them is surprised to learn the that stories exist that were denied them as they labored through lectures on the American Revolution or the Civil War, etc.

Knowing this history is important enough, but there is something to be said for seeing a spot on which history was made, or to visit the graveside of some long-dead heroine to whom we may owe so much. I once had occasion to visit Seneca Falls and see Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s house, in which she bore most of her children. As I meandered my way on the narrow road from her house to the still-quaint main thoroughfare, upon which the remains of Wesley Chapel sat off in the distance, I felt I was able to understand in some way the incredibly small world Stanton inhabited and the magnificent change she wrought within it. That was some 12 years ago.

Now I’m ready for more and I’m ready to share it. So, for the next eleven days my daughter (Lily*), her best friend (Amelia*), and I will be exploring the upper east coast in search of women’s history. We’ll be searching for more than Susan B. Anthony, of course. And we’re going to take you lovely readers with us as much as we can. I’m hoping that these two young women will learn something and be inspired, and that readers will too. This kind is so important to take not only for the educational value to my charges, but also because so many of these sites are self-funded, or rely on state grants. Raising awareness in that regard is paramount.

To give you a brief run-down of our tour: We’re going to start at The Alice Paul Institute, then travel to Boston to check out The Boston Women’s Memorial and the Women’s Heritage Trail, as well as visit some monuments in the hometowns of Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren. From there we’ll go see Susan B. Anthony’s house in Rochester before heading down to Seneca Falls. In and around Seneca Falls there’s a lot to see with the Jane Hunt house and Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, which resides in her former home. After that we’ll head down to New York City, where we’ll visit with TNA founder and President, Amy Siskind. She’s going to show us Val-Kill, Eleanor Roosevelt’s Historic Site located in her former home. We’ll wrap it up on July 4th in Philadelphia.

We’ll also be twittering (follow me at annabellep) and on the Peacocks and Lilies Youtube channel. We hope you’ll be inspired to plan a trip yourself, or to research women’s history sites in your area. Don’t forget to share with others what you find.

*Not their real names

Posted in Excellent Women's History Adventure of 2010, Women's History, Women's Rights. Leave a Comment »
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