Hillary vs the Patriarchy by Erica Jong

[robbedvoter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/03/AR2008020303194_2.html
You will also quote left-wing bloggers who love Barack Obama, and MoveOn.org peaceniks (I am one) who see no evil in him (nor do I). But I see little experience either. Obama is smart and attractive. Maybe he'll be president someday.

He was lucky enough not to be in the Senate when the Iraq war resolution was floated after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell lied about WMDs. That was the true tragedy of race: a black man lying for a corrupt white administration that was using him as a token, much as they use Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice now.

Obama is also a token -- of our incomplete progress toward an interracial society. I have nothing against him except his inexperience. Many black voters agree. They understand tokenism and condescension.

I understand my hopeful friends who think an Obama button will change America. But I'm sticking with Hillary. I trust her because all her life, her pro bono work has been for mothers and children. And mothers and children -- of all colors -- are the most oppressed group in our country. I trust her to speak for our children and grandchildren -- and for us. She always has.

[Dinger]

1. Truth

That's what this is, and thank you:patriot:

[mrreowwr_kittty]

2. What about the cluster bombs, Erica? Who speaks for the children killed and maimed by them?

Hillary voted against a ban on them.

[tabatha]

5. What about Iraq, Erica? Who speaks for the children killed and maimed by our invasion?

What about Rwanda that the Clintons ignored?
What about Dafur that the Clintons ignored?

[MannyGoldstein]

6. You're Clearly Part Of The Patriarchy

That poor woman. She's suffered so.

[GarbagemanLB]

3. More 'victim card' playing by the Hillary camp.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Clinton? Pro Bono?

Everything a Clinton ever does has a quid pro quo. Can't wait for her tax returns. :eyes:

And I guess that track records don't count for much.

[bluedawg12]

22. Everything has been quid pro quo?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton
>>Rodham then entered Yale Law School...During her second year, she worked at the Yale Child Study Center, learning about new research on early childhood brain development and working as a research assistant on the seminal work, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child (1973).

She also took on cases of child abuse at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and volunteered at New Haven Legal Services to provide free advice for the poor.<37> In the summer of 1970

In the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at Marian Wright Edelman's Washington Research Project, where she was assigned to Senator Walter Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor, researching migrant workers' problems in housing, sanitation, health and education;

The following summer, Rodham and Clinton campaigned in Texas for unsuccessful 1972 Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern

She began a year of post-graduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center.<51> Her first scholarly article, "Children Under the Law", was published in the Harvard Educational Review in late 1973.<52> Discussing the new children's rights movement, it stated that "child citizens" were "powerless individuals"<53> and argued that children should not be considered equally incompetent from birth to attaining legal age, but rather courts should presume competence except when there is evidence otherwise, on a case-by-case basis.<54> The article became frequently cited

During her post-graduate study, Rodham served as staff attorney for Edelman's newly founded Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts,<56> and as a consultant to the Carnegie Council on Children.<57> During 1974 she was a member of the impeachment inquiry staff in Washington, D.C., advising the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal.<58><59> Under the guidance of Chief Counsel John Doar and senior member Bernard Nussbaum,<38> Rodham helped research procedures of impeachment and the historical grounds and standards for impeachment.<59> The committee's work culminated in the resignation of President Richard Nixon in August 1974.<59>

Clinton appointed her chair of the Rural Health Advisory Committee the same year,<86> where she successfully obtained federal funds to expand medical facilities in Arkansas' poorest areas without affecting doctors' fees.<<

[KittyWampus]

7. And Hillary's experience boils down to a speech she gave in China. Hillary lost weeks ago

has zero chance of getting the nomination and is fucking over the Democratic party and its nominee for the upcoming election.

Erica Jong must have no knowledge of political realites.

[GarbagemanLB]

8. Amen!

[earthside]

9. Hilarious!

Pro-corporate, establishment, 'experience by marriage' Hillary Clinton(s) IS the candidate of the patriarchy!

It is amusing to see the lengths folks like Jong and Steineim wil go to to rationalize their support for old Hill.

[JimGinPA]

10. Sorry That Quote Is Just Ignorant

Vote for HRC, not the token? Fuck you very much Erica.

[zabet]

11. K and R

:patriot:

[Spider Jerusalem]

12. Pfft...

Hillary Clinton did not get where she is through her own merits; she is no feminist role model. And I have to say not only is Jong calling Obama a 'token' insulting, it's absolutely ridiculous that Clinton and her surrogates get a pass for making feminist identity politics a theme of her campaign, while Obama would be marginalised and not taken at all seriously were he 'the black candidate' rather than a candidate who happens to be black. The hypocrisy is staggering; the only people making an issue of Clinton's gender, in this election, are Clinton herself and certain of her supporters (just as are the only people making an issue of Obama's race; see Bill Clinton's comments in South Carolina).

[XemaSab]

13. Wow.... dismiss Obama as a token candidate

while arguing that Hillary is the candidate for womyn.

She's the one running the token candidacy, FWIW.

[Chalco]

14. At my book group the other nite...

the 7 other women were all for Obama. I kept my mouth shut. One of them speculated that if Hillary became president she could name Obama as Secretary of State. Then, someone said "But, he has no experience to do that!" , then she realized what she said and so did everyone else and then there was an "Ah, hah!" moment when all 7 women realized he shouldn't be president either.

[XemaSab]

25. When Bill Clinton was elected in 1992

what foreign policy experience did he have? :shrug:

[Chalco]

27. Not much, but he ran a state. Did Obama run

a state, a large organization?

[XemaSab]

30. I don't think this is an argument you can win

Obama's got way more foreign policy experience than Bill had, being a member of the senate.

And if you look at Reagan, Mondale, Dukakis, Bush I, Clinton, Bob Dole, Gore, Bush II, and Kerry (not to mention Gary Hart, Dean, Edwards, and all the other also-rans), I dunno that you can make a strong case for executive or foreign policy experience being the big factor in presidential success. :shrug:

[blm]

35. Protecting Poppy Bush's CIA drugrunning operations in Arkansas could be called

foreign policy experience.


The distibution efforts of all those tons of cheap IranContra cocaine had to have a hub, and Arkansas was available.

[leftofthedial]

15. what a crock

Hillary is the DLC.

Obama is the corporate-vetted non-DLC.

[Tellurian]

16. With the quote: "who see no evil in him"

Isn't it "evil" to be living a Lie?

Obama knows, beyond everyone else, he is unqualified. He said so himself, after he was elected to the US Senate.

[splat]

17. Here at Obama Underground, they think she sprouted from Bill's rib

She's been an extraordinary woman in her own right back since she was first elected president of student government at Wellesley. Ignorance feeds the prejudice here.

Thanks for posting this.

[robbedvoter]

37. Excellent comment! During Bill's presidency, she was attacked for being too influent

now suddenly, she's laura Bush - notice the selective memory...

[libbygurl]

18. Those 'who see no evil in him' -

- I don't even grant him that, Ms Jong. There's still quite a bit in his history that remains to be uncovered, and it ain't pretty.

Meet the 'new politician' (BO) = same as the 'old politician'. 'Hope' and 'change', indeed.

[Upton]

19. Jong is sticking with Hillary for one reason

because she's a woman. The shallowness of basing your support on gender is amazing.

[splat]

20. Yet the old-boy network is comfy supporting only men and vilifying her

[Upton]

23. Most of that is in your mind and an excuse

here in Wa. we have a female governor and both senators are women. All 3 won their positions based on qualifications, not by crying sexism every time things didn't go their way. I know in my case, my dislike for Hillary has nothing to do with her gender.

[Bucky]

21. Isn't it stunning how, despite his accomplishments & complicity, Jong views Powell

Right, Colin Powell is just a victim, just another dumb uneducated dupe to those eeeevil WASPS like Paul Wolfowitz and Condi Rice. To her, he's "a token", "a black man lying for a corrupt white administration", practically incapable of independent thought and thus not culpable for the misjudgments he made.

It must be a generational thing. Maybe most people Erica Jong's age just aren't capable of viewing black men as men.

[robbedvoter]

38. Oh, maybe like most of us all she can associate with Powell is this image:

I know some of you want him as Obama's VP which makes me very curious as to who you really are - but this seems to be Colon's major accomplishment. And yes, he was respected before W used him to justify his war.

[redstate_democrat]

24. If

Barack Obama had a vagina, Jong would be for Obama. She isn't fooling anyone. The lengths that these fringe radicals will go to never ceases to amaze me. These "feminists" really think that Clinton will actually do anything for women that Obama won't or can't do. Her support for Clinton to continue with this delusional, irrational charade basically guarantees two new radically anti-abortion Justices on the Supreme Court who will add to Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, Alito (hell, Kennedy won't even matter anymore). We won't see a rational thought or opinion come out of that court for a generation. Goodbye privacy and civil rights! These Hillbots are simply delusional.

I can't stand how Clinton has manipulated these desperate women. They want a woman POTUS so bad, they will scrape the bottom of the barrel for anything ... and the person they chose just also happens to be the LEAST likely woman ever to be elected nationally to office. D.E.L.U.S.I.O.N.A.L.

[robbedvoter]

39. "fringe radicals" - I am continuouslly surprised by POVs from BO supporters

Happy Woman's Day to you too!

[blm]

26. BULLSHIT, Erica. We resent that Hillary SUPPORTS BushInc's patriarchy, you blind bat!

THAT is our reason for opposing her. You KNOW that but you decided TRUTH doesn't mnatter as long as YOUR FAVORITE BRAND NAME is stocked in DC.

You don't give a shit about Clintons protecting the Bushes all the while you claim to want Bushes to be defeated.

Try STUDYING some recent history and ask some SERIOUS questions about your nation's closed government and WHO the Dems were who supported that secrecy and privilege every step of the way.

Take off the blinders, Erica. As SERIOUS QUESTIONS if you want to be taken seriously.

[IndianaGreen]

28. Hillary is "a ventriloquist for the patriarchy with a skirt and a vagina."

(Hillary) is "a ventriloquist for the patriarchy with a skirt and a vagina."

-- Jane Fonda

Hillary's "Feminist Problem"

The Nation: Feminists Rescind Their Support For Former First Lady

June 16, 2007

"I love so completely that, honestly, she would have to burn down the White House before I would say anything bad about her!" exclaimed Nora Ephron in a 1993 Newsday interview. Three years later, she told the Wellesley class of 1996, "Understand: Every attack on Hillary Clinton for not knowing her place is an attack on you." Come late 2006, however, Ephron was the one on the attack as one of the self-described "Hillary resisters" — those who believe that "she will do anything to win, who believe she doesn't really take a position unless it's completely safe," as she wrote on her Huffington Post blog, "who believe she has taken the concept of triangulation and pushed it to a geometric level never achieved by anyone including her own husband, who can't stand her position on the war, who don't trust her as far as you can spit."

This rather dramatic change of heart encapsulates one of the great ironies of Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency. Many of the very same feminists who were her most ardent supporters as First Lady are now fiercely opposed to her historic bid to become the first female President of the United States. The woman once described by Susan Faludi as a symbol of "the joy of female independence" now evokes ambivalence, disdain and, sometimes, outright vitriol. The right wing's favorite "femi-nazi" now has to contend with Jane Fonda comparing her to "a ventriloquist for the patriarchy with a skirt and a vagina."

So what's up with the Hillary-bashing? "Women don't trust Hillary. They see her as an opportunist; many feel betrayed by her," wrote Susan Douglas in a May In These Times article titled "Why Women Hate Hillary." A month later, in her Newsweek column, Anna Quindlen declared, "The truth is that Senator Clinton has a woman problem."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/15/opinion/main2934136.shtml

[ProSense]

29. Utter BS!

And so, when Steinem suggests, for example, in that article that Obama is a lawyer married to another lawyer and to suggest that, for example, Hillary Clinton represents some kind of sort of breakthrough in questions of gender, I think that ignores an entire history in which white women have in fact been in the White House. They’ve been there as an attachment to white male patriarchal power. It’s the same way that Hillary Clinton is now making a claim towards experience. It’s not her experience. It’s her experience married to, connected to, climbing up on white male patriarchy. This is exactly the ways in which this kind of system actually silences questions of gender that are more complicated than simply sort of putting white women in positions of power and then claiming women’s issues are cared for.

Patriarchy?

Bill Clinton, Vin Gupta, Ron Burkle, Rupert Murdoch, Mark Penn, James Carville, Terry McAuliffe and the rest, and she's claiming the white male patriarchy is against her?

NOW-NYS pres on the "gang raping" of Hillary (disgraceful attempt to portray Hillary as a victim)

[NorthernSpy]

31. Of course Jong leaves her own ethnicity out of it...

But she feels free to toss out these sly little digs at blacks:

He was lucky enough not to be in the Senate when the Iraq war resolution was floated after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell lied about WMDs. That was the true tragedy of race: a black man lying for a corrupt white administration that was using him as a token, much as they use Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice now.

Look, it's not hard to see what she's trying to do here. Those token blacks, so easily led!

But the truth is that Obama would have joined not a Republican administration, but rather the Democratic Congressional Black Caucus -- only one of whose members voted for the IWR (the guy who just lost his seat to Donna Edwards). They -- like Obama -- were elected officials, and their judgement held firm. Unlike Hillary's.


Would Jong tolerate such invidious crap if someone else wrote it and aimed it at Jews, such as herself?

[redstate_democrat]

32. Her token statement

just proves how irrational and utterly stupid she is. She is a stupid woman. The end.

[NorthernSpy]

34. she's not stupid -- she's malicious...

I want to figure out why she and others who agree with her seem to feel free to do this shit, so that I can help change the rules.

[woolldog]

33. racist and insulting article

Whether you like Colin Powell, Condi Rice or not, to suggest that they were "tokens" is insulting. They were supremely qualified for the positions they held in the White House and played substantive roles.

To simply write them off as "tokens" undermines their achievements and accomplishments simply on the basis of their race. And it is a method of subtly undermining the achievements of any AA. How insulting and racist.

[Maribelle]

41. They were tokens. The policy wonks Bush listened to were not hardly rice and Powell.

Now the string of neocons that Bush allowed to run things under the direction of Cheney - well they were not hardly tokens.

[woolldog]

42. would you call them tokens if they were white?

No. It's a racially loaded term used to denigrate accomplished blacks, to suggest that they didn't get to their position by merit, but simply based on race.

I've never heard a white person called a token.

I find the term, and the implication behind it, offensive.

[Maribelle]

44. Yes I would - - Bush pulled in Rice and Powell because of his big daddy

Before he even won the nomination, if I am remembering correctly.

[woolldog]

45. It's a racially loaded term.

PERIOD.

[Maribelle]

46. But on the part of whom? Bush is the one that put Colon in the position that he did..

and turned around and made a fool of him. Did or did not Bush do this?

And the irony in this, is that many Democrats respected and admired Colon for his experience and brilliance. Bush using this man as his puppet angered many.

I had the privilege of meeting General Powell some years back, and he had every bit the commanding presence in person.

I don't personally believe the term 'token' is racists. I've seen token CEOs and token wives. Celebrities are placed on boards as token members.

[CyberPieHole]

36. Funny how quickly the ObamaCult pull out the "FauxRaceCard" and label Jong a "racist"...

since they have nothing they can support their Chicago Charlatan up with they resort to calling ANYONE who doesn't support Obama "a racist.

If Obama gets the nomination say hello to President McCain.

[Maribelle]

40. I truly do not get this Obama is attractive shtick

Perhaps I need to get rid of our HD TVs - where he comes across terribly skinny body-wise and undernourished in his face. And those ears of his. lol

[Dinger]

43. ...

:evilgrin:

[Prophet 451]

48. Personal taste

We have HD TV too and I find him to be a damn handsome man but could never see the physical attraction to Bill Clinton (although he was doubled over with charm). Just personal taste.

[Prophet 451]

47. Erica's just plain wrong here

Happens to the best of 'em. What she's effectively saying is that she likes Hillary (fair enough) and that sexism is a bigger problem than racism. She talks about how much Hillary has had to struggle against "the patriarchy" (although, as ever for someone using this term for political reasons, she doesn't define it). To an extent, that's true but she refuses to give Obama credit for his struggle against ingrained racism.

Also, describing anyone as a "token" is just plain insulting. Both Powell and Rice are bright, capable people. That they also turned out to be unprincipled shills is a seperate matter. Intelligence says nothing about character. Obama is also bright and capable (and speaking purely for myself, a damn handsome man) and seems to have rather better character. None of them were tokens and, more to the point, if the "token" arguement can be levelled at Obama, it can just as easily be levelled at Clinton.

Yes, Obama lacks experiance. That's one reason I'm not entirely on-board with him myself. Hillary has slightly more experiance but if we're going to make experiance the be-all, end-all, we'd all be voting for McCain (say what you like about him but he has experiance in spades). And let's be honest, after President Dimbulb, Sparky the Wonder Goat would be an improvement.