Well, I was happy to see this post by Dr. Socks, though the breakdown in comments blows chunks. In this post, Vi uses the last minute abortion amendment to show how some Democratic pro-choicers are finally “getting” what PUMA was all about, and I suppose in some ways that’s true. I started this blog because I wanted to be part of the conversation that was taking place because of PUMA, and I had something important I wanted to contribute first: a discussion about what Democrats have really done to protect a woman’s right to choose. If you’ll recall, it was a four part series called The Specter of Roe v. Wade (all four parts can be accessed from that post). In it, I found that Democrats had become increasingly willing to throw this issue under the bus even as they continued to use it as a weapon to club women over the head in an attempt to demand their loyalty.
That loyalty was short-sighted, and the abortion amendment proves it. Abortion, beginning in 2013, will become even more difficult to obtain. Abortion clinics have been the target of pro-life activism; meanwhile, 87% of insurance policies cover abortion services. That will change dramatically as a result of this amendment. In one fell swoop, and without even having to work for it, pro-life politicians have managed to do to the insurance industry what Operation Rescue spent 20 years doing to abortion service providers and their clinics. Non-PUMA liberal women can blame themselves for this new development. I certainly do.
Because PUMAs saw it, and they talked about it. They knew this was a possibility. They could well see that the Democratic party had been succumbing to the authoritarianism that already permeated the Republican party, and their voices were shouted down, I contend because they were the voices of women and because they were the voices of reason coming from women. In the rising misogyny of the ’08 election, women who would not toe the party line were attacked and vilified by the party that said it was the party of women. Still some women could not see it. I hope they see it today, and I hope this vote leads to an even bigger backlash against Democrats. They have shown they will not be held accountable by their constituencies. They do not work for us, and they haven’t for some time.
But back to those comments. They are largely a lament that PUMAs either turned radically right, or got infiltrated by the radical right. Commenters point to such ideas as supporting McCain or Palin , the birth certificate agenda, accusations of socialism, etc. I understand the discomfort level of the liberals commenting in the thread, and I myself was often turned off by some of what I saw going on at certain PUMA-designated blogs. All of this, of course, misses the point. Even Madame AB, a woman I respect and admire and who became a major influence on my thinking last year (along with Dr. Socks and many others), had this to say:
Now, too many PUMAs appear to be apologists for the Republican Party. I don’t think either Party is intrinsically good for women, frankly. I thought that’s what PUMA meant – that we would stop concentrating on political parties and start standing up for our rights.
Turns out I was mistaken.
Sadly, the point as far as I’m concerned, the lesson we should have learned and which we failed to learn, is that we have to start standing up for our rights by holding both parties accountable, or perhaps by expanding party options. I’m no fan of the two-party system, but it is what it is. I can’t change it by myself, and a handful of insurgent female activists could not do it in one year either. Many of us, contrary to the spin put on it in the comments of that thread, did not vote Republican as a protest; we had an agenda of reform for both broken parties. This is the lesson that I see people still not learning, and the rush back to the liberal side where all Republicans are icky, to-be-avoided-at-all-costs-lest-you-lose-your-liberal-cred, is proof positive that people outside didn’t understand and still don’t understand.
Parties are what we make them. By refusing to participate, by pretending that one side has cooties and the other side just has the propensity to catch cooties, we are selling ourselves short. We women could be the driving forces behind both parties, bringing them both back to the center. Every day we choose not to do that because we happily believe the lies the Democratic party and its loyalists tell us about the Republican party. We even help them by treating anyone who is truly reform minded, who is unafraid to play both sides of the aisle, as an infiltrator or as turned odiously and “radically right.” It’s just another kind of sexism against PUMAs, coming from people who should be more broad-minded, and who should see the value of the strategy. If a man put forth this theory, he might have a chance at being taken seriously. Look at Kos and his support for Republican Scozzafava in NY-23, which was met with resistance for two seconds before folks were, like, “Yeah, he has a good point!”
This is the lesson that Dr. Socks laid out beautifully in her opening shot across the bow last year with Archimede’s Lever, or so I thought. I thought at the time it was a true attempt at reform. I thought at the time that she meant we could make both parties understand the value of female voters so they would both fight for our votes with female-friendly policies. Apparently I misinterpreted the article. I understand now that she was just talking about a temporary walk away from Democrats, just enough to let them know they really needed us. It appears that she wanted lop-sided reform, if we are to judge from her anti-Republican rhetoric of late, not to mention her stance on Iran at the time.
As a former PUMA and a life-long liberal, my political values and goals have not changed. I am for a more egalitarian society. I believe in equal rights for all. I want more opportunity for the disadvantaged and dispossessed. I believe that government is a better method of social safety than religion. I believe war should be reserved for self-defense only. I believe in our founding documents and our founding mothers and fathers, and believe also that they came up with one of the best ideas for governance the world has ever seen. I used their arguments last year to suggest an agenda I saw as necessary, which is that parties are folly. If we could ever get to the place where we could not have parties, I would be all for it. We don’t, and so I must act sensibly, using the knowledge that I have to fight the system that is in place. The agenda then was that party loyalty was folly. It still is.
It’s true that I have been more critical of Democrats since Obama’s election that I have been of Republicans. That is because Democrats have most of the power right now, and because they have moved so far away from the Democratic Party I was introduced to as a young adult, and categorically different than the lie I internalized in the 1990s that they were the party for women. When Republicans held more power, they claimed more of the focus of my criticism. I spent 6 years warning Democrats that if they continued to let Bush and his cabinets get away with acts that no other American president had ever attempted that they would find themselves corrupted by the same poison. I was right, and they are.
Democrats got into power in 2006 and they started doing exactly what Republicans had been doing for those six years, including holding bogus late-night weekend votes such as we saw last night, where the president or his VP would go over beforehand and twist arms. This is the Democratic party of today and this is what liberals and progressives try to hold up as somehow better than the Republican party. And many in the middle, like the commenters in that thread, honestly assert that trying to infiltrate the Republican party in order to reform it is somehow ickier than continuing to support Democrats while playing middle school gossip games with people who are willing to take more political risks than they are.
We are never going to bring those on the right into a moderate agenda as long as we are calling them fascists and wingnuts, just as we will never be able to negotiate with those on the right as long as they are calling liberals/ progressives socialists and the nutroots. This is the problem with the political system today. It’s adversarial instead of complimentary, as it was designed to be. Unfortunately, this is a lesson the left cannot understand any more than the right. This was the lesson of PUMA: The current system doesn’t work and there has to be a better way, which will require risks. That’s something neither the left nor the right want to face, but it is still our responsibility to push the idea. If we were fighting against anything, it was the idea that the status quo was good and should remain. We were fighting for radical change for the greater good.
November 8, 2009 at 9:03 am
Sorry I’ve been away so long. I just needed a break in order to be able to digest all the political changes and gauge trends.
And for the record, I want to make clear that I still admire, respect, and read Dr. Violet Socks, but I do not now nor have I ever always agreed with her. I am addressing specific arguments she makes in this post, but that criticism is in no way meant to reflect on my support of her person or her blog. She’s a firestorm in the web, and I hope she keeps on writing. I’ll keep reading and commenting.
November 8, 2009 at 10:19 am
Brava to you, anna Belle!! For speaking the truth and for holding the vision…. of a country where both/ all parties are held accountable for the women’s votes they seek to exploit!!!
One more word: AMEN!!
(And keep blogging!!!)
November 8, 2009 at 10:32 am
: ) I was thinking of you as I wrote this post, Syd. You did a great job in those comments, as you do in your blog, of trying to keep an open mind and keep the focus on your message. I loved your defense and your ability to present it without vitriol. I appreciate your comment here.
November 8, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Great post Anna Belle. When I saw your comment over at my place, I raced right over here hoping you’d have a post up. I think you and I are in the same place, but feel free to correct me if I’m mistaken. I absolutely agree with you that it’s time for women to hold both parties’ feet to the fire and literally remove themselves from supporting either with their time and treasure until either of them actually pony up and treat women as full citizens. Or do you mean we jump back in? I don’t think I could stomach being part of either political entity. Having done my share of political organizing, I don’t think I can drink either brand of poison.
Oh, and I think that insurance policy discrimination will start sooner than 2013. Watch.
November 8, 2009 at 3:19 pm
BL, good questions. No, I am not interested in joining in with either group, but neither am I interested in taking the apathetic “they both suck” road. I know both major parties have issues, and I agree with you that I don’t want to support them with my time and money as parties. I will work for individual candidates of any political party or without one if I believe in their ideas and get a sense of sincerity from them, especially if they are women.
As far as a voting strategy, I’m not yet sure outside of voting for women until parity is reached. I won’t belong to either party. Independent voters get listened to these days. Maybe I should go with my anti-incumbent idea to vote for all non-incumbents after I vote for all the females?
But ultimately I am interested in promoting more critical thinking, with breaking folks minds away from the ideologies of “right” and “left,” “conservative,” “liberal,” progressive,” etc. Those are just as bad as party labels, and they encourage people to hunker down in their beliefs.
Anyway, just some thoughts I have in response to your questions. Good to see you again. And I bet you are right about more gender discrimination sooner as a result of that amendment. Wouldn’t surprise me at all.
November 9, 2009 at 8:15 am
i, too, was surprised by some of the comments at violet’s the other day. i still think ‘party unity my ass’ is a great slogan and the fact that we who call ourselves pumas don’t agree on everything is not a problem. democrats don’t agree on everything, even republicans don’t march in lockstep as much as dems like to say they do.
as women, we need to be individuals and support the best candidates, regardless of party affiliations, particularly electing women. i will always vote for the woman candidate in the future, barring a woman holding awful positions, of course.
i’m glad to see you’re back, anna belle.
November 10, 2009 at 3:00 am
It’s great to see you posting again. I agree with you on so many levels, it’s uncanny. If I could articulate as well as you, your words would be coming straight out of my mouth, er, keyboard. It’s unbelievable what the Dems have just done to women’s rights. I’m livid!!! I’d like to ask Violet who is batshit-crazy now? I’ve felt a little queasy lately reading some of her posts and reader’s comments. I’m not feeling the “unity” anymore. Please come back soon. It’s the only place I feel safe (so to speak).
November 10, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I’d like to ask Violet who is batshit-crazy now?
I’m a little concerned reading this. Who, exactly, has Violet called ‘batshit-crazy?’
She’s on our side. We may not always agree, but for the most part, we’re simpatico, don’t you think? I’ve pulled away from PUMA as well, for many of the same reasons Anna Belle notes. So I’m not sure what’s going on here, and maybe you can explain it to me.
November 10, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Glad to be back, ModemX and Patti. I hear you Patti, and I do hope to be more of a presence in the coming weeks. Sometimes I need a break to get a big picture view so I have something meaningful to say. I’m not interested in a blog round-up/morning readership blog or trawling news stories. I can go to Memeorandum and other places for that.
BL,
Violet has been ratcheting up her rhetoric against the right in recent weeks. I am not without sympathy for why she would do so, and yet I understand why some people would question what is going on with her at the same time. I myself, as I said above, still read and admire Dr. Socks, and will continue to do so.
I’m not always consistent either. However, creeping authoritarianism such as we warned about last year has been making a ferocious resurgence from some corners where we wouldn’t expect it after what happened last year. I can see how some might say that has applied to DVS’s rhetoric of late, and I would even agree at times. I don’t think it’s permanent; I think it’s symptomatic of mis-targeted frustration. Just my 2 cents.
November 11, 2009 at 7:14 pm
bluelyon, I think that Sarah Palin’s opinion on abortion was called “batshit-crazy” by Violet … and to me, it seems problematic that a woman is called batshit-crazy for being personally anti-choice but never once lifting a finger to block anyone’s access to abortion while being in a position to do so, while in the meantime, an entire political party sneaks up (clumsily in squeaky sneakers while knocking over a few lamps, but that’s quiet enough for some people apparently) and rips abortion rights clean out of women’s hands.
In fairness, this is a double standard that Violet herself seems to have called attention to — why liberal feminist women will never fail to shriek and moan and tear theatrically at their hair over a woman who SAYS she’s anti-choice but legislatively ACTS pro-choice but give political BJs to a party and its members who SAY they are pro-choice and legislatively ACT anti-choice.
Personally, I’m just glad this topic hasn’t come up in my home. I remember my roommate having hysterical fainting fits on our couch during the general election over Sarah Palin hypothetically tearing her abortion rights away from her, and I haven’t seen so much as one little sniffle over Stupak much less a hissy fit and speculations about taking her car and hightailing it up to Canada before The Monsters Get Her.
The whole thing just sickens me. I remember saying out loud in a public post that was later quoted in a book that Roe was safe because men would never dare to try to take it away. It never in a million years occurred to me that women — liberal, feminist ones, no less! — would simply hand it the hell over at the first sign of a curled lip from an imagined, non-existent enemy.
November 11, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Janis: I don’t recall Violet calling Palin’s position on choice “bat-shit crazy,” and I think I think I’ve read everything she’s written about her. Can you point me to that post? In fact, Violet was one of the best voices for pointing out exactly what Palin believed, contrary to what was said she believed, with regards to choice, abstinence-only, birth control etc. So if you could point that out to me, I’d be grateful.
Anna Belle: I agree. I do think it’s frustration, but I have to agree with her, the wingnut-right crazies are not our friends either, and every once in awhile, it’s helpful for those of us who are repelled by what our own (or former) party is doing, to be reminded that the solution isn’t necessarily going whole hog over to the dark side (which I’ve seen some do – not you or me – but some have).
November 12, 2009 at 1:48 am
BL,
Anna Belle and Janis pretty much explained what I meant. I still love Violet’s blog and she’s entitled to her rage, it doesn’t mean I always have to enjoy it or agree with it. I really hate the name calling and stereotyping of all Republicans though. I guess I’m just feeling conciliatory right now.
Here’s the comment Janis referred to in this post:
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/2009/10/22/exciting-new-growth-sector-in-feminism-bashing-women/#comment-34614
Violet says:
So she’s not necessarily batshit, that remains to be seen
But in my opinion, the Republican agenda — even the basic beltway GOP agenda — is batshit. “Small government, local government, free markets, and individual liberty” are euphemisms for irresponsible and grossly unfair policies that have no place in the modern world. In my opinion. So when I say Republican ideas are batshit, that’s what I mean.
Beyond that, though, we do know that Palin is extra-batshit on a couple of things: abortion and, it turns out, healthcare.
October 23rd, 2009 at 12:14 am EST