omg it's biden

[dieblucasdie]

I think you're naive if you think Clinton's campaign didn't ask Bill to use his clout with the African-American community to go on the attack.

Again, not arguing with the fact that she ran a rather weak campaign.  But she wouldn't be running a campaign, she'd be taking orders from Obama's.  And I think you're buying the hype too much if you think she's not enough of a pro to handle that.

[John]

McCain will almost doubtless preside over the reversal of Roe v. Wade if he is elected.

I, too, hoped Obama would throw a bone to those of us for whom feminism is the primary political value. But Biden sponsored VAWA; he has feminist credentials as far as I'm concerned. Everybody needs to get behind the ticket and do the right thing. Like every other progressive, I am repulsed and sickened by what passes for the left in this country. But that's not the issue. The issue is how bad it's going to be for women and for the poor if McCain is elected. So, fuckin', enuf armchair QB'in. Watch this roundup of Biden-attack-dog moments and get as pumped as you can, and try not to think too much about questions like whether the lesser of two evils is ethically sustainable, etc. Just get on board, ok? I don't like the Democratic party either. They suck. They are a pathetic excuse for a left-leaning party. But they are the best we've got, so we gotta support them the way we would a messed-up relative. OK?

[dieblucasdie]

Yeah, the "a noun, a verb, and 9/11" thing was fucking classic.

[RavingLunatic]

those of us for whom feminism is the primary political value.

I'm all for feminism, but do you really find it more important than issues like hunger, war, the concentration of income in a small elite, and health care? I mean, don't something like 30,000 people in the US (don't quote me on that stat, but the number's in that area) die each year due to lack of health care? And good research indicates more than 1,000,000 Iraqis have died due to the Iraq War. That's big stuff right there, and if someone took truly progressive stands on any of those issues I could overlook just about anything else to vote for them. Of course no candidate but Nader (and Kucinich before he dropped out) is taking progressive stances on those issues, so I suppose it's a moot point. If it's a close race and there appears to be a chance that Indiana will go for Obama/Biden I'll vote for them, but I think that's unlikely, so I'm most likely going Nader again. 

[RavingLunatic]

Yeah, the "a noun, a verb, and 9/11" thing was fucking classic.

What are you referring to? Was it part of Biden's speech?

[John]

1) if you follow my Biden's moments link your 2nd question will be answered
2) I put the status of women ahead of everything because I believe that men will always find other things to put ahead of it - there will always be an "oh, yes, well that's important but surely this is more important" and fuck that & fuck the patriarchy

that's my position

[RavingLunatic]

I can kinda understand that, and my question is really a non-question, because all the people who have progressive positions on war, healthcare, etc, also have the most progressive positions with regard to women and feminism.

[Bernard]

Ok I believe you now about Illest not being an alt.

[andronicus]

A [male] politician's stance on feminism is about as close as I can think of to a measure of real character.  It seems to me that it's really hard for men to pretend not to be misogynists convincingly.  I've had conversations with many old-school social democrats/leftists/marxists, and despite the fact that virtually all of them might parrot the leftist party line re:women's issues if asked directly, the misogynists are really easy to identify if you just let them ramble for a bit.

[John]

^^^ truthbomb

[John]

(sorry, I usually avoid political threads here but learning that Biden sponsored VAWA was exciting for me and it's been hard to get excited about the ticket since FISA)

[Illest Waffle]

Motherfuckin' Obama owes me the passage of the DREAM Act if I manage to get that nigga elected.

Biden has gravel in his gut, him and I are bros. as far as I'm concerned.

[heather marie]

1) if you follow my Biden's moments link your 2nd question will be answered
2) I put the status of women ahead of everything because I believe that men will always find other things to put ahead of it - there will always be an "oh, yes, well that's important but surely this is more important" and fuck that & fuck the patriarchy

that's my position

John Darnielle for President, please.

[John]

I would run with a woman veep and resign as soon as I got elected

two-hundred plus years of men-only rule up in here with mediocre results at best, it's past time to pass the baton

[andronicus]

set the baton on fuckin fire.

sorry.

[RavingLunatic]

Well, I don't think a female president by itself is necessarily all that great a thing. I mean, was Thatcher a good influence in England? Maybe the lives of women in England did improve somehow, but I don't think it's all that clear. It's more a symbolic thing than anything I think. By the way, is it not awesome that Chile has a single mom for a president? I'd have to look it up to be sure, but I think she's even agnostic or something. That said, I doubt whether Chile is a better place for women to live than many other countries.

EDIT: Yeah, I guess I was right. Wikipedia says she's a self-described agnostic and separated mother of three.

[Babar]

i'd vote for the person who i think is best fit for doing the job, not because of what the person has or does not have in their pants.

i dunno, it's not like female leaders are some ancient hidden secret that will solve all problems of usa, there are and have been female leaders in the world, and like men, some do a good job and some do a bad job.

[John]

grrrr

"what a person has in [his/her] pants" isn't gender, and it's insulting to women's history to put it that way, though some people (usually men, one finds) do love to do it - reduce gender to parts. it's real easy for a man to announce that the playing field's level - men have been calling the shots for 6000 years. the question isn't "solving all the problems," it's correcting an historical imbalance that to me is much more important than any/all of the other problems.

since there have been zero good male presidents, I feel comfortable saying that men suck at the job, anyhow, so put them aside for 200 years, and if women can't right the ship, we'll talk at the end of their turn. 'k?

[John]

and before anybody asks for clarification, yes, I do mean all presidents have sucked ass, though I attribute this largely to the whole concept of single-figurehead concept, which I doubt we'd have at all if not for the patriarchy

[RavingLunatic]

the question isn't "solving all the problems," it's correcting an historical imbalance that to me is much more important than any/all of the other problems.

since there have been zero good male presidents, I feel comfortable saying that men suck at the job, anyhow, so put them aside for 200 years, and if women can't right the ship, we'll talk at the end of their turn. 'k?

This makes no sense to me. Shouldn't the real concern be about improving the lives of women rather than making sure that women win the presidency? I mean, if a Thatcher clone won the presidency won the presidency I don't see how that would make anything better. If there were some good evidence that women leaders actually perform better than men leaders, I might understand where you're coming from, but I haven't noticed any real difference in quality between male and female political leaders.

[RavingLunatic]

and before anybody asks for clarification, yes, I do mean all presidents have sucked ass

I'm with you on this one, though I seem to recall you saying that you were a big fan of Jimmy Carter.

[jess]

To add more on the feminism being a primary value thing, it also intersects with most of the other things you mentioned, RL, since women are disproportionately screwed over in almost every way people in general can get screwed over by bad politics. Being a feminist is not limited to caring only about the obvious things, like abortion rights, but instead means acknowledging this rampant inequality across all of these domains and working to right it. It's why giving damn about feminism means caring about the economy and the distribution of wealth—women make less money than men, our welfare policies discriminate against single mothers, etc. It means caring about health care—birth control isn't covered by insurance when viagra is, our current system that reimburses doctors amply for, say, dermatological procedures barely covers their expenses on many gynecological ones, etc. So it's not like helping women would mean ignoring or tabling these issues as less important, since part of the answer to feminist concerns is likely to be the same changes liberals generally seek.

I'd imagine the same argument could be made for working from the perspective of most systematically disenfranchised groups, but considering women are over half the population and have been oppressed for so fucking long, feminism seems like a good place to start to me.

the question isn't "solving all the problems," it's correcting an historical imbalance that to me is much more important than any/all of the other problems.

since there have been zero good male presidents, I feel comfortable saying that men suck at the job, anyhow, so put them aside for 200 years, and if women can't right the ship, we'll talk at the end of their turn. 'k?

This makes no sense to me. Shouldn't the real concern be about improving the lives of women rather than making sure that women win the presidency? I mean, if a Thatcher clone won the presidency won the presidency I don't see how that would make anything better. If there were some good evidence that women leaders actually perform better than men leaders, I might understand where you're coming from, but I haven't noticed any real difference in quality between male and female political leaders.

I really don't think we've had enough female leaders to make a decent comparison there. Yes, clearly there can be bad female politicians, no one would argue otherwise, but it's ridiculous that women are so underrepresented in American politics. There's this whole discussion about McCain's wealth, and wealthy politicians in general, and it seems a given to people that a political system of ridiculously rich people is more likely to screw over everyone who isn't rich. Why is it such a stretch then to believe that a political system of mostly men is more likely to do a poor job of taking into consideration the position of women?

[Ignatius]

I'd bet it's been covered here before, but since the issue has been raised... Would anyone like to suggest a few books (or dozens of them) that I could read to get myself started with learning about feminism, leading up to a working idea of which issues are especially important politically today, and why? Most arguments I've read that have been called "feminist" took positions that were pretty intuitive, but apparently addressed isolated problems other than that they were 'feminist' issues. I'd like to get a better sense of things, and none of the classes I've seen offered in my school's women's studies department seem designed for someone totally clueless like me. Anybody?

[Antero]

I think you're naive if you think Clinton's campaign didn't ask Bill to use his clout with the African-American community to go on the attack.

You mean the clout that he managed to completely lose in the course of his attacks?  He did more damage to Hillary's campaign than good, simply because he was unfocused, choleric, and in love with the taste of his own foot.

[Wally]

I'd bet it's been covered here before, but since the issue has been raised... Would anyone like to suggest a few books (or dozens of them) that I could read to get myself started with learning about feminism, leading up to a working idea of which issues are especially important politically today, and why? Most arguments I've read that have been called "feminist" took positions that were pretty intuitive, but apparently addressed isolated problems other than that they were 'feminist' issues. I'd like to get a better sense of things, and none of the classes I've seen offered in my school's women's studies department seem designed for someone totally clueless like me. Anybody?

Julie Kristeva- The Kristeva Reader
Luce Irigaray-  An ethics of sexual difference
bell Hooks- Ain't I a woman or the will to change
Susan Faludi- Backlash
Simone De Beauvoir- The Second Sex
Donna Haraway- Simians, Cyborgs and Women
Cherrie Moranga and Gloria Anzaluda- This Bridge called my back