The MAD Goddess writes out loud with candor and humor about the changing landscape of life for women with retired husbands,
adult children, and grandchildren. It's not always a pretty story,
but it's usually pretty funny.

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Tuesday, September 9, 2008

SARAH PALIN IS NOT EVERY WOMAN

The Republican Party plucked Sarah Palin from obscurity and served her up on a platter as super woman-mom-politico. Her meteoric rise over the national landscape is far less due to any political acumen than it is to her own blind ambition.

Her supporters like to say that she is “Every Woman”, meaning (I think) that she represents the common every day mother and working woman. I am a mother, grandmother and working woman. Sarah Palin does not represent me in any of those aspects. She does not represent my best interests in areas of the economy, education or family values.

Really? What kind of values is a mother teaching when she delivers almost her entire acceptance speech, in front of her children, from a bully – or lipsticked pit bull’s pulpit? Our schools are enacting zero tolerance on bullying – why isn’t Sarah Palin demonstrating that family value?

She certainly does not represent the advancement of women’s concerns in America. I fear that what she does represent for women is the worst of gender-biased, stereotypical character traits that have kept women from breaking that glass ceiling for so long. Sarah Palin is not every woman, but every woman has known someone like her. If you are her friend, you are golden. Just don’t oppose her or stand in the way of her ambition unless you want to feel that proverbial knife in your back

It seems an astute blogger has discovered the facts in the book banning, librarian firing myth. “Turns out Sarah requested the librarians -- who was a big supporter of Sarah's political opponent -- resignation before she ever broached the subject of a potential book boycott.”

I have two thoughts about that. First, as an elected government official, Palin is sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America – including all amendments in place. A move on her part to ban or otherwise remove books from a public library is a direct freedom of speech violation. Private citizens can question and take proper channels to remove materials that may be deemed objectionable – but Sarah Palin is no longer a private citizen.

Second, her effort to fire the librarian who didn’t support her during her campaign and/or in areas of ethics (and when she became Governor – a cop who wouldn’t cooperate with her very private, family agenda), is abuse of power. If that's not bad enough, it is divisive and reminiscent of the high-school-girl-drama antics most adult women have long since abandoned.

Sarah Palin has used her power to repeatedly advance her own agendas, often times in opposition to her ticket’s slogan – County (substitute neighborhood, town or state) First. She won her mayoral election with the promise to rebuild her town’s crumbling infrastructure. Instead, the self described “hockey mom” pushed through the building of a multi-use sports complex (big ice arena) that one citizen describes as a “huge money pit”. When she took office in Wasilla, Alaska “she inherited a city with zero debt.” Despite raising the amount of city collected taxes by 38%, “she left it with an indebtedness of over $22 million.”

Her new battle cry is for drilling in the Alaskan Wilderness. Whether this is a wise move or not, remains to be determined. It has the potential to provide short-term relief from the burden of rising energy costs in America. It also carries the threat of allowing us to become overly complacent in our continuing dependence of oil, thus pushing the advancement of new energy technologies to the back burner once again. It also contributes to the growing concern of greenhouse gasses and global warming, all of which is not the future I want for my grandchildren – even if it would make my tank of gas more affordable now.

Also, consider her motives for drilling in light of the fact that their family income has never come from her husband’s commercial fishing business. He works a high-paying union job on the North Slope for BP which allows him the flexibility to take a few months each summer for fishing.

In a move straight out of Pygmalion, Sarah Palin is being packaged as something she is not, nor ever has been – a common woman driven to public service. She might know how to talk the talk, but it seems she is barely beyond baby steps in learning to walk the walk.

3 comments:

  1. Yes, yes, yes to what you have outlined here. This woman does not speak or represent the women I know and I don't get how so many are suddenly behind her. A friend, with a four-month-old, just commented that if she were to bring her baby to work, then she would find herself at home with baby and without work. Really, this is not the reality for working women.

    Please tell me how a woman whose son, given the choice jail or army, is suddenly a "hero" for going to Iraq. And how is her daughter's pregnancy at 17 a sign of good parenting? Hello! College. We want our kids to go to college. We want them to have opportunities in life.

    Where are the journalists who are asking her questions? And will the mccain camp really get away with making journalists bow down to her and promise to be nice before they can talk to her? Seems like it's working so far. It's Schizo land: one reality for Democrats and another for Republicans.

    Repeating the lie to make it sound like the truth. Apparently the oil and natural gas that they want to drill to save us from the foreigners, well, the intention is to sell it to Japan. I'm not quite sure what spin they'll put to that to convince people that it really is what we want. Would the price of sushi plummet? Afterall, we're using their word and we have not paid for it.

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  2. Here's your daughter putting her 2 cents in again......Yes, yes, yes, so very true on all accounts. You forgot to mention the scariest prospect of this whole election....there is the possiblity that old father time (Mr. McCain) might have to step down at some point. I know some disagree with me but the odds are there in any election. The vice president could end up in charge!!!! To me it seems more relevant in this election...Do WE really want to take the chance that Sarah Palin will be running our country!!!!!!!!

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  3. Everytime I look at her I see something very frightening. I guess it is control. A right wing religious zealous, dressed in Carol Kennedy clothes and ready to make changes people have fought so long and hard to obtain. She could be president and don't know why that isn't sending up a huge red flag...cj

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