Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin.
Drill, Drill, Drill
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor.
In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic , the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.
She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, t hat is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this
election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet.
It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
Monday, September 22, 2008
Saturday, September 20, 2008
"It's A Man's World, And These Things Will Never Stop"
On July 14, three young Pakistani women en route to marriage to the young men of their choice were abducted, beaten, tortured, and buried alive by their male relatives. Two female relatives--the mother of one, the aunt of another--begged for the young women's lives. For their pains, they were shot and killed and tossed into the young women's grave.
Media exposure has caused the government of Pakistan to open an "investigation." The Pakistani senator who represents Balochistan province, where the murders occurred, believes such a probe not only unnecessary, but wrongheaded. In his view, the killings were justified.
"This action was carried out according to tribal traditions," says Israr Ullah Zehri. "These are centuries old-traditions and I will continue to defend them. Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid."
An elderly woman from the same village as the dead women declined to give her name to inquiring reporters. Her view: "It's a man's world, and these things will never stop."
The three young women, identified in this piece as Fatima, Fauzia, and Jannat Bibi, ages 16-18, had asked their male relatives and tribal elders for permission to marry young men from another tribe. Permission was refused.
On July 14, the three young women boarded a taxi in the village of Babakot. During the hour's drive to the village of Usta Mohammed, the women happily discussed their plans to meet their young men at a restaurant, and then proceed to a civil court to enter into matrimony.
The cab driver, a rat fink of both pathetic and monstrous proportions, dropped off his fares "and then drove straight back to Babakot to inform their families about the secret plans he had overheard in the back of his taxi."
Almost immediately after the taxi driver’s return, a posse of male relatives, including fathers, uncles and brothers, set out from Babakot for the village of Usta Mohammed to bring the girls home. The men arrived in land cruiser jeeps bearing Balochistan government license plates--one belonging to the district mayor[.]
The girls were kicked, punched and then pushed into the vehicles at gunpoint[.] Once back at home in Babakot, the girls were beaten again and interrogated by their fathers and uncles for almost one hour before their "verdict" was announced.
They would be killed--buried alive.
The girls were dragged into vehicles and taken to the end of a back road in Babakot accompanied by two female relatives[.] The men dug ditches and ordered the girls to be thrown in. When the female relatives saw the ditches, they tried to intervene and begged for the girls’ lives[.]
There was "pandemonium at the site," according to the findings of the Asian Human Rights Commission, and a tribal elder gave orders to shoot the two older women. They died immediately and were thrown into the wide ditch. The three girls, who were wounded in the gunfire but still alive, were then thrown in and covered with sand and mud.
It is necessary here to remember again what it was to be 16. To feel what it would be like: in one hour but moments away from marrying the boy of your dreams; in the next, rattling out your last breath, suffocating in mud and stones, extinguished by your father.
Pakistan outlawed "honor killings" in 2004, and the penalty for those who perpetrate them is death. But, as we know, law enacted in Islamabad does not mean much out in the provinces. Islamabad can condemn Osama bin Laden, but cannot catch him; Islamabad can outlaw honor killings, but cannot stop them.
The families of the murdered young women belong to the wealthy feudal Umrani tribe; the uncle of one of the dead is a minister in the provincial government and a deputy leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party. As this person puts it, in an understated way:
The delay in action against those responsible, who enjoys perks and privileges as feudal lords in the area, has called into question the credibility of erstwhile pro-women policies of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) of slain premier Benazir Bhutto, who always advocated civil and political liberties for women.
Official sources in the country‘s capital Islamabad say that the PPP-led government had been reluctant to take action against the perpetrators as it feared it might lose the votes of a number of legislators sympathetic to Sadiq Umrani, who is also deputy parliamentary leader of the party in Baluchistan Assembly, in the just-held September 6 presidential elections.
The local reporter who publicized the story, Saarang Mastoi, says he has been threatened by "powerful people" in the Umrani tribe. Mastoi said everyone in the village of 7000 knew of the killings; shortly after the women were buried alive, local shepherds guided Mastoi to the burial site. Now, he says, "everyone is too afraid to talk."
The "investigation" will probably not get much of anywhere. According to the Asian Human Rights Commission, "the Balochistan police have removed three of the five bodies and started destroying any evidence that might prove useful to an eventual investigation."
According to this source, the individual assigned to "investigate" the killings has been prevented from visiting the scene of the crime, and is instead "made to sit in Islamabad, with a limited mandate to only monitor investigations."
Observed an editorial in the Pakistan Daily News International:
"Even as the Senate passed a unanimous resolution condemning the incident and demanding punishment for its perpetrators, an attempt at a cover-up is on. The government presented an extremely dubious report before the Senate, stating three women and not five had been killed, that the incident involved a property dispute and was not a case of 'honor' killing and that the women had been killed before being buried."
Meanwhile, Pakistan flies US-supplied F-16s; plans are afoot to kick an additional $226.5 million in US "counter-terrorism" funds to the Pakistanis in order to trick out their jets so they can better give the boot to "Islamic extremists." The total amount of military aid provided by the US to Pakistan cannot be known; too much if it is shrouded in classified appropriations. What is known is that Congress is currently considering providing to Pakistan $7.5 billion in non-military aid over the next five years. Pakistan itself would prefer $20 billion.
Stop the Mothers Act: Save Expectant Mothers from Mandatory Drugging with Antidepressants
by: Mike Adams
Big Pharma is pushing hard for passage of The Mothers Act, a bill that would require all pregnant women to be "screened" for depression and then drugged with patented antidepressant drugs. The bill is being reintroduced by Sen. Harry Reid, who is reportedly attempting to include it in a legislative package called the "Coburn Omnibus Bill."
Antidepressants are linked to violent thoughts and suicidal behavior in expectant mothers and new moms. Rather than treating the root cause of maternal depression -- nutritional deficiencies -- the medical industry wants to put expectant mothers on dangerous psychotropic drugs that may impact the health of their newborns.
NaturalNews interviewed one mother who, after being forcefully put on antidepressant drugs, began to hallucinate murdering her newborn. When she sought help at the local hospital, they doubled her dose of SSRIs and had her arrested and held against her will. Later, once she realized the drugs were causing her violent thoughts, she stopped taking the drugs and her violent hallucinations vanished within days.
This woman, Amy Philo, founded UNITE (www.UniteForLife.org) and is organizing grassroots opposition to The Mothers Act in order to protect women (and their children) from mandatory medications with psych drugs.
NaturalNews urges readers to contact their Senators in Washington (see below) and voice their opposition to The Mothers Act.
To learn more about this issue, watch this YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUiszFyIby4
Also, visit Amy Philo's website at www.UniteForLife.org
Also consider printing and signing the following letter, then faxing it (or mailing it) to your Senator:
DO NOT PASS THE MOTHERS ACT AS PART OF AN OMNIBUS PACKAGE.
The MOTHERS Act is a highly controversial bill, considering the growing public awareness that antidepressants have serious and even deadly side effects. This bill, if passed, will assuredly increase the number of pregnant women and new mothers being put on antidepressant drugs. There are already too many pregnant women being put on antidepressants evidenced by the FDA's adverse reaction reports (MedWatch) listed below. This bill will assuredly increase the number of pregnant women and new mothers being prescribed antidepressants documented by the U.S. FDA to cause suicidal ideation, mania, worsening depression and birth defects. FDA's MedWatch System (Adverse Drug Reactions) Already Has Overwhelming Evidence of Spontaneous Abortions, Premature Babies and Birth Defects from SSRI Antidepressants:
Doctors, other health care providers, pharmacists, lawyers and consumers filed the following adverse drug reaction reports with the FDA's MedWatch system during 2004-2007 concerning pregnant women taking antidepressants (the most common and recommended treatment for women diagnosed with postpartum depression). In all the reports below, antidepressants were cited as the primary suspected drug to have caused the adverse reaction in pregnant women:
145 spontaneous abortions
150 premature babies
208 babies born with heart disease
218 babies born with defects
The FDA states that only 1-10% of side effects are even reported to their MedWatch database. Using a median range of 5% being reported, the actual number of pregnant women experiencing adverse reactions to antidepressant drugs is estimated as follows:
2,900 spontaneous abortions
3,000 premature births
4,160 babies born with heart disease
4,360 babies born with birth defects
The "Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act," also known as "The MOTHERS Act" was named after Melanie Stokes, a new mother who was subjected to a cocktail of psychiatric drugs and electroshock after being diagnosed with post-partum depression. It was only after she had been administered drugs documented by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to cause suicidal ideation that she committed suicide. There is too much controversy over antidepressants to pass any legislation that could increase the administration of these drugs to pregnant women and new mothers. Do not allow the pharmaceutical interests to put new mothers and their unborn children at risk. Do not pass the MOTHERS Act.
Signed
___________________________
Printed Name:
Big Pharma is pushing hard for passage of The Mothers Act, a bill that would require all pregnant women to be "screened" for depression and then drugged with patented antidepressant drugs. The bill is being reintroduced by Sen. Harry Reid, who is reportedly attempting to include it in a legislative package called the "Coburn Omnibus Bill."
Antidepressants are linked to violent thoughts and suicidal behavior in expectant mothers and new moms. Rather than treating the root cause of maternal depression -- nutritional deficiencies -- the medical industry wants to put expectant mothers on dangerous psychotropic drugs that may impact the health of their newborns.
NaturalNews interviewed one mother who, after being forcefully put on antidepressant drugs, began to hallucinate murdering her newborn. When she sought help at the local hospital, they doubled her dose of SSRIs and had her arrested and held against her will. Later, once she realized the drugs were causing her violent thoughts, she stopped taking the drugs and her violent hallucinations vanished within days.
This woman, Amy Philo, founded UNITE (www.UniteForLife.org) and is organizing grassroots opposition to The Mothers Act in order to protect women (and their children) from mandatory medications with psych drugs.
NaturalNews urges readers to contact their Senators in Washington (see below) and voice their opposition to The Mothers Act.
To learn more about this issue, watch this YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUiszFyIby4
Also, visit Amy Philo's website at www.UniteForLife.org
Also consider printing and signing the following letter, then faxing it (or mailing it) to your Senator:
Letter of opposition to the Mothers Act
DON'T LET THE 110th CONGRESS BE RESPONSIBLE FOR INCREASING ANTIDEPRESSANT-RELATED BIRTH DEFECTS AND INFANT DEATHS.DO NOT PASS THE MOTHERS ACT AS PART OF AN OMNIBUS PACKAGE.
The MOTHERS Act is a highly controversial bill, considering the growing public awareness that antidepressants have serious and even deadly side effects. This bill, if passed, will assuredly increase the number of pregnant women and new mothers being put on antidepressant drugs. There are already too many pregnant women being put on antidepressants evidenced by the FDA's adverse reaction reports (MedWatch) listed below. This bill will assuredly increase the number of pregnant women and new mothers being prescribed antidepressants documented by the U.S. FDA to cause suicidal ideation, mania, worsening depression and birth defects. FDA's MedWatch System (Adverse Drug Reactions) Already Has Overwhelming Evidence of Spontaneous Abortions, Premature Babies and Birth Defects from SSRI Antidepressants:
Doctors, other health care providers, pharmacists, lawyers and consumers filed the following adverse drug reaction reports with the FDA's MedWatch system during 2004-2007 concerning pregnant women taking antidepressants (the most common and recommended treatment for women diagnosed with postpartum depression). In all the reports below, antidepressants were cited as the primary suspected drug to have caused the adverse reaction in pregnant women:
145 spontaneous abortions
150 premature babies
208 babies born with heart disease
218 babies born with defects
The FDA states that only 1-10% of side effects are even reported to their MedWatch database. Using a median range of 5% being reported, the actual number of pregnant women experiencing adverse reactions to antidepressant drugs is estimated as follows:
2,900 spontaneous abortions
3,000 premature births
4,160 babies born with heart disease
4,360 babies born with birth defects
The "Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act," also known as "The MOTHERS Act" was named after Melanie Stokes, a new mother who was subjected to a cocktail of psychiatric drugs and electroshock after being diagnosed with post-partum depression. It was only after she had been administered drugs documented by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to cause suicidal ideation that she committed suicide. There is too much controversy over antidepressants to pass any legislation that could increase the administration of these drugs to pregnant women and new mothers. Do not allow the pharmaceutical interests to put new mothers and their unborn children at risk. Do not pass the MOTHERS Act.
Signed
___________________________
Printed Name:
Friday, September 19, 2008
McCain-Palin: 15th Century Solutions for the 21st Century!
This week, we asked you to vote for the winning bumper sticker slogan to help educate the public about the dangerously anti-choice views of the McCain-Palin ticket. The response was incredible!
And the winning slogan picked by our supporters is: McCain-Palin: 15th Century Solutions for the 21st Century!
With just 46 days left until Election Day, the time to turn up the heat is now! So we’re asking you to donate $15 in the next 48 hours to support our work, and we’ll send you the winning bumper sticker. It takes $10.87 for us to educate a voter about the most anti-choice ticket we’ve ever seen.
Every dollar you can give matters as we work to elect pro-choice Barack Obama as our next president. Your contribution will support our vital efforts to defeat this extremist anti-choice ticket and protect choice at every level.
John McCain and Sarah Palin are serious about overturning Roe v. Wade -- and I need you to help us spread the word. At the Saddleback Forum a few weeks ago, McCain said: "I will be a pro-life president and this presidency will have pro-life policies." Believe me, he has the voting history to prove it. And Palin has expressed support for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, opposes abortion in cases of rape or incest, and described herself as “pro-life as any candidate can be.”
Why give to NARAL Pro-Choice America now? Because we know that when pro-choice swing voters learn just how strongly John McCain and Sarah Palin oppose freedom and privacy, they'll reject the anti-choice ticket and support Barack Obama for president.
My best,
Nancy Keenan
President, NARAL Pro-Choice America
P.S. And after you've requested your own anti-McCain-Palin bumper sticker, forward this email to your friends and family in the next 48 hours and ask them to get a bumper sticker too!
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Lipstick on a Pig: Privacy/Choice the McCain-Palin Way
John McCain on NBC's, Meet The Press, 1/30/00
Mr. Russert: “A Constitutional Amendment to ban all abortions?”
McCain: “Yes Sir”
Mr. Russert: “But, Senator, women across the country would say, prior to Roe v. Wade, hundreds of thousands of women a year went to the back alleys to have abortions.”
McCain responded: “I understand that.”
Mr. Russert: “Many died.”
McCain, “I understand that.”
Stop McCain-Palin Now!
Gov. Palin had a good applause line last night about hockey moms and lipstick on pitbulls. Well, we have an expression here, too: Dress it up any way you like, but the McCain-Palin rhetoric about women’s freedom and privacy is nothing more than lipstick on a pig!
John McCain and Sarah Palin would leave American women with no choice and no privacy. And we can’t let voters be deceived. Not when reproductive health is on the line. And make no mistake, it is!
When you take away the rhetoric, chants, signs, and spin -- the McCain-Palin ticket is one of the MOST anti-choice campaigns we’ve seen and the platform on which they are running is the most anti-choice ever put forward.
Contribute now to defeat McCain-Palin.
Both McCain and Palin believe that Roe. v. Wade should be overturned. They believe politicians should be involved in our most personal medical decisions. And their party platform clearly states abortion should be outlawed with no exceptions.
Make an online donation right now to stop McCain-Palin.
Listen carefully tonight. I doubt you will hear anything about outlawing abortion when McCain addresses a national audience. And you didn’t hear it from Palin either.
Why? Because if pro-choice Republican and Independent women find out how extreme they really are, they will not vote for McCain-Palin.
In the next 60 days, NARAL Pro-Choice America will get out the truth about the McCain-Palin ticket but we need your help.
Your contribution to NARAL Pro-Choice America now is crucial. Even if you’ve given recently, we need all the resources we can raise to let voters know the clear difference between a McCain administration and a pro-choice Obama administration.
No exceptions. No apologies. It’s the McCain-Palin way.
Your privacy. Your choice. Your dollars right now will help elect pro-choice Obama on November 4.
Please make an urgent contribution right now.
My best,
Nancy Keenan
President, NARAL Pro-Choice America
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)