The Blind Spot By The Unity Tour Guys Where Women Are Concerned

[Me.]

“Bernie Sanders traveled to Nebraska this week to throw his support behind Omaha Democratic mayoral candidate, Heath Mello, who is running against the incumbent Republican mayor, Jean Stothert. A Mello win, Sanders has said, would give hope to other “progressive Democrats” in conservative states.

But Mello’s “progressive” credentials are questionable at best. As a state senator, he co-sponsored a bill requiring that abortion providers tell women they can have an ultrasound first, and mandating that providers who use ultrasound display the image in a way women can see if they choose. He said it represented a “positive first step to reducing the number of abortions in Nebraska.”

As a populist, Sanders has built a political career protesting economic inequality— and yet by campaigning for Mello, he has demonstrated a willingness to separate economic justice from reproductive justice. (So has Democratic National Committee Chair, Tom Perez, who is also helping to campaign for Mello and who has defended that decision, saying the job of the DNC is to help Democratic candidates win.) But abortion access is not just a medical issue, or even a social one; it is, at its core, also an economic concern. Here’s why.

Unintended pregnancies place an enormous financial burden on women.
Raising children in the United States is expensive. Like, more than $230,000 per child (from birth to age 17) expensive. That includes food, transportation, housing, education (but not college), health care and child care. Oh, and daycare for babies is now more expensive than college tuition in most states. “…cont…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/reminder-abortion-is-an-economic-issue_us_58f8d11be4b018a9ce58dd4f?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

[MontanaMama]

1. So thinking about this Mello

character is making me suspicious of candidates calling themselves Dems to get elected when they may have ulterior motives. Remember Kucinich? Now he's a conservative darling. WTF? I know Dems are thinking about voting for Mello because the alternative seems so much worse, and that may be true but dems aren't pro-life...or they might be personally but they don't run on that! Something's messed up here. We should be very careful. Choice is in serious trouble.

[mopinko]

2. iirc, roe v wade was decided, in part, on the economic impact

of an unintended pregnancy on not just the woman, but her whole family.

[Cha]

7. Interesting to know.. Mahalo, Mo

[dlk]

3. Bernie Can Be a Sexist

Like so many men of his generation, Bernie can sometimes be a sexist. You can call it a blind spot but sexism it is. It's ridiculous that in 2017, American women still aren't' able to control their own bodies without government (or politicians') interference. Do you think American men would tolerate government or political interference of the same nature over their bodies and reproductive freedom for even one single minute? Bernie can do better.

[JCanete]

10. I don't advocate his support for Mello, but his own support of women's rights...his own record

save for this endorsement, seems solid on this issue. I'd still like an explanation for why Mello has earned his and the DNC's support though.

[pnwmom]

14. I really don't think he sees women as true equals. Maybe it's generational.

When he claimed that some were only voting for Hillary because of gender, that was sexist. When he said in the debate that she wasn't qualified and wagged his finger and repeatedly interrupted her, that was sexist.

When he told a woman who was quietly but firmly stating her point: "As a senator from a rural state, what I can tell Secretary Clinton, that all the shouting in the world is not going to do what I would hope all of us want, and that is keep guns out of the hands of people who should not have those guns and end this horrible violence that we are seeing" -- well, that was sexist, too.

Unfortunately, this isn't about re-fighting the primary. It's about a behavior he still has today -- not seeing women as true equals, with an equal right to self-determination. If he did he wouldn't be supporting Heath Mello, with his anti-abortion views.

[JCanete]

26. No, it was not sexist when he said she wasn't qualified. That was not what that was about.

I remember the moment, and it was him playing tit for tat for something she was implying about him. Wagging his finger is something he does. Do you only see him doing that with Clinton alone? I'm not going to dispute everything you're saying here because its not like I know Sanders personally, but don't just find evidence in everything you see. That isn't convincing unless you can also show a trend where he only does these things with women.

[pnwmom]

27. Saying that women shouldn't vote for her only because she was a woman

was sexist in and of itself. And he said that repeatedly.

It was both an insult to women who supported her and a slap on her qualifications. Her female supporters didn't support her only because of her gender; we had many reasons to support her.

Here's an example. This was when Bernie defended a person who said "a uterus doesn't qualify you to be President of the United States."

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/bernie-sanders-defends-rapper-killer-mike-slams-bill-clinton-n521166

ABOARD AIR BERNIE — Sen. Bernie Sanders is standing up for Killer Mike after the Atlanta-based rapper stood onstage at a Sanders rally and quoted a feminist activist as saying "a uterus doesn't qualify you to be president of the United States."

SNIP

Aboard his campaign plane Thursday, Sanders told reporters that Killer Mike was quoting someone else — but that he agreed with the basic premise.

"What Mike said essentially is that ... people should not be voting for candidates based on their gender, but based on what they believe. I think that makes sense," said Sanders, who has mounted an unexpectedly strong challenge against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"I don't go around, no one has ever heard me say, 'Hey guys, let's stand together, vote for a man.' I would never do that, never have."

[JCanete]

38. I remember all of that. I didn't comment on that, but there was absolutely some attempt to

make Clinton the candidate for women because she was a woman. Cue, madeline Albright's "there's a special place in hell for women who don't support Clinton."

The point was that just because Clinton is a woman, does not necessarily make her the best candidate on women's rights. It wasn't a "talking to" to women. It wasn't mansplaining. It was taking a certain line of campaigning and saying it wasn't a good enough reason in and of itself.

That said, the last line of his you quoted sounds tone deaf. Men clearly don't have to go around saying "you should vote for the man" because there's so much implicit misogyny in our culture that that assumption is there already. So I don't want to say you're entirely off here. I understand what it was the campaign was trying to dismantle, but it doesn't mean it had the appropriate language or sensibilities to do so without stepping in it. And while it was "noble" of Sanders to try to support his supporter Killer Mike, and while I don't disagree with Sarandon's claim(I think it had to do with her fielding a lot of questions about why she wouldn't support Clinton, which might have just as easily come from men who were being misogynistic and simplistic about how women make up their minds on such an important issue), I don't see why it was Killer Mike's place to make this argument. I see that it was in bad form, and Sanders could have handled it differently.

[NurseJackie]

29. You are absolutely correct.

And that's all I feel comfortable saying (for obvious reasons.)

[Tom Rinaldo]

34. "It's about a behavior he still has today -- not seeing women as true equals."

That is a needlessly inflammatory statement. That is all.

[pnwmom]

35. His endorsing someone who opposes a woman's right to choose is inflammatory. n/t

[Me.]

30. Actuall Huffo Called It A Blind Spot

the title on their front page was 'Bernie's Blind Spot'. I changed it because, though not a fan of Bernie, Perez is also supporting Mello and I thought it only fair.

[Hekate]

4. 5th Rec. somebody please get to Bernie and Mello about this issue

[Cha]

6. Symone Sanders said.. "and nobody tells Bernie Sanders what to do."

Yeah, he's the one who thinks he gets to tell everyone else what to do.. JeezeCrackers.. she also admitted..

Symone Sanders: "In retrospect, she said, Maybe Bernie Sanders isnt the guy for the unity tour".

Why Bernie Sanders’s Unity Tour Failed

snip//

The independent senator hit the road with Democratic national chairman Tom Perez—and highlighted everything that's tearing the party apart.

More.. https://newrepublic.com/article/142152/bernie-sanderss-unity-tour-failed

The next Unity Tour.. send People there who Want to Unify!

[sheshe2]

5. The Handmaidens Tale.

Hulu 04/26

[Cha]

8. .@rtraister gets the DNC abortion debacle exactly right:

Link to tweet

[Vesper]

9. So much this!

[Cha]

11. I know right.. Vesper!

Shine the Light!

[Vesper]

12. I don't understand how any of these people thought this was a good idea.

Pissing off women by disregarding their human rights? Do they believe the hype that the resistance is about Bernie and not a movement entirely based on the hard work of women?

[Cha]

13. They're finding out that the Ressitance is about

.. "the hard work of women" and men who support and are there for women's full rights.. not one guy.. and their diminishing and undercutting our rights is not good look for them.

[Vesper]

16. I saw here a while ago where some people were posting all these threads

thanking Bernie for the Resistance, were those people deliberately causing trouble or do people really mistake the women's marches to be a Bernie thing?

The notion was started by a Hillary supporter and when it got bigger others were brought in to help. I know one was a particularly grating woman who supported Stein after her candidate lost and there was a hue and a cry when she kept erasing Hillary from the march. Some of my fellow campaign volunteers and the field organizers were making sure she was represented, sharing the leftover stickers and signs when they went to D.C.

I went to a local one, with my own sticker on my pink hat.

My FB feed is alive with some pissed off people, some of whom were Bernie supporters in the primary, a couple of people with personal connections to Ellison, etc. who are *livid*
with the both of them over the choice comments and the support of the anti choicer and the unfounded, unnecessary attacks on a guy who could win a much needed house seat.

Are these guys even thinking? I saw that GOP tweet mocking the "unity" tour. WTF.

Is this divisiveness deliberate? What are they doing?

[Cha]

21. Thanks to all the "hue and cry" who wouldn't let the sourgrapes

get away with her crap, Vesper.

"The notion was started by a Hillary supporter and when it got bigger others were brought in to help. I know one was a particularly grating woman who supported Stein after her candidate lost and there was a hue and a cry when she kept erasing Hillary from the march. Some of my fellow campaign volunteers and the field organizers were making sure she was represented, sharing the leftover stickers and signs when they went to D.C."

I'm so grateful for all the Women who are pissed at what has been happening with those men who.. "speak from the microphones about the need to compromise on their rights.." .. while "they're out doing the labor of organizing, protesting, campaigning"!

Yes, we're paying attention!

[Me.]

32. Especially

Women of color.

[Vesper]

37. These guys don't seem to know or care about our high maternal mortality rate in the US

Or how much worse it is for African American and Hispanic women, who are dying at Rae's several times that of the national average.

This is unacceptable. The anti choice contingent are literally killing women with the same policies the GOP promotes.

[pnwmom]

15. It's feeling like Vietnam protests again. Ugh. n/t

[Vesper]

17. What went on then?

Sorry, but I was an inert ovum back then.

[pnwmom]

18. The women made the coffee and the men made the speeches. Or even worse:

http://voicemalemagazine.org/a-mens-apology-for-sexism-in-the-sixties-anti-war-movement/

Imagine the scene: A rally in connection with antiwar protests at President Nixon’s inau-guration in 1969. Activist Marilyn Webb, then 26, on stage giving her first speech to a large crowd. What were described as “movement men” shouted her down, saying things like, “Take her off the stage and fuck her.” What had she been doing? Trying to raise “women’s issues” within the antiwar movement. But the group of men near the stage was having none of it. She told me later that fistfights broke out in the crowd in front of the stage and that march organizer Dave Dellinger told her and the other woman speaker, Shulie Firestone, to leave the stage, saying they were causing a riot.

The gruesome incident, in all its raw sexism, is portrayed in the provocative film She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry, a dynamic portrayal, through interviews and archival footage, of the rise of the independent women’s movement in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

Watching the film I was appalled. I was at that protest, but not at the particular event depicted. In fact, I hadn’t heard about it happening. When I wrote Marilyn she confirmed it was at the 1969 counter-inaugural protest. I told her how sorry I was. We had a nice email exchange. She repeated the point she made in her interview in the film—that it was that experience that convinced her and other women activists to form a separate women’s movement. “The rest is history” (or herstory, as it were).

SNIP

[Vesper]

19. Ah, like all the other movements of the past few hundred years, where we did all the

work, but were told our voices did not matter.

Someone literally told me to "suck it up" muttered something about Joe Manchin, and basically said to Kay crack and take it. Not in those words, but the meaning was evident.

I say NO, fuck NO.

These are our bodies and our lives at stake, and we will not let some clueless egotistical men shut us up, I don't care which side they pretend to be on as they support a right wing agenda that kills women.

*pardon my French

[pnwmom]

22. I'm always glad when younger women "get it."

The hero worship that Bernie gets from some younger women could only happen because they either don't notice or aren't bothered by the sexism. Like when he shouted at her about "all the shouting in the world" -- as if she had been raising her voice. Or when he said women shouldn't only vote for her because she was a woman.

But I think his support of Heath Mello might have opened some eyes.

Welcome to DU, Vesper!

[Vesper]

20. Thank you for the link!

I am going to check out that film.

I am a child of immigrants, my mom was not a part of the women's movement in her home country and she wasn't paying attention to what was going on here.

She and her classmates were kicking butt in medical school though, making their mark in their own way. She insisted on attending the march with me, sans hat though.

[pnwmom]

23. Wow. You must be very proud of your mom,

an immigrant AND a doctor. Good for her!

[Vesper]

24. Shhhhh!

Yes, but she's a pain in the neck, whom I am currently mad at, so let's keep that between us, shall we?

[pnwmom]

25. Your secret's safe with me.

[Me.]

31. God This Is So very True

not only depressingly retro, it's the way it is...look at who we have in the WH

[Hekate]

33. Oooooh, crap

[Starry Messenger]

28. K&R

[ZX86]

36. How many Democrats support and defend Saudia Arabia as our close ally?

All this fervor on this issue I find completely disingenuous. I see very high profile Democrats bowing to their royalty, taking their money, arranging arms deals worth millions and millions of dollars. Yet some mayoral candidate in some podunk town raises this kind of ire over failed ultrasound legislation?

Saudia Arabia beheads women in the public square. Prosecutes rape victims as adulterers. Whips women in the street. They don't even let women drive cars.

But by all means lets hold Bernie's feet to fire on this issue and give a pass to everyone else.