Bibles and Oil and Bears…Oh My!

Friends, family, activists – please, stop sending me these Palin emails! My head is going to explode, already!

The latest is from a very close friend of mine – a ‘commentary’ supposedly by Eve Ensler, feminist extraordinaire. It’s full of complete untruths and sensationalisms. And, quite frankly, I am offended. I’ve been dashing off quick replies to these things, but I’ve finally had it. This one, I’ve got to respond to at length. Moonbats, take note.

It starts like this:

I received this today and felt it was important to pass along. It is the “opinion” of a single citizen who is a wonderful playwright. I saw her last play, listed below, in Hartford, and it was amazing!! Read, forward or delete…….as you see fit. Namaste & Peace, xoxoxxo Mandy

Subject: FW: fwd Eve Ensler – must read.

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.

So you ‘need’ them ’cause they’re big and fuzzy and live on ice. Now, there’s a political platform to hang on to.

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.

I’ve never been a feminist – largely because most of the “feminists” I’ve known aren’t looking for equality; they’re looking to get even. They don’t want true equality, and never did. You don’t see them asking to register for selective service, do you? And where are the funds for awareness of spousal abuse when it concerns violence against men? Millions were pumped in when statistics showed that women were more likely to die of heart attacks then men, with the result being that men are now more likely to die of heart attacks than women were before the awareness campaign. Countless dollars were pumped into schools for special programs to increase girls’ interest in math, etc. because girls’ scores were lower. The result? Boys are now failing where they used to do well, and girls are doing just fine. Numerous songs come out about women vandalizing their boyfriends’ property, or killing abusive husbands, and no one bats an eye. Imagine if those songs were about a man doing the same. Commercials fill the airwaves portraying husbands as idiots. Imagine a commercial with a dumb wife… Male students of a prestigious university had their lives ruined because everyone was too hesitant to disbelieve a woman’s claim of rape. Men who claim a woman raped them face ridicule in court. Men have an uphill battle when trying to gain custody of their children in divorce cases.

I am not, and never will be, a feminist. I don’t support NOW or any organization that says I need special treatment because I’m female. To borrow a phrase from MLK, people should be treated on the content of their character, not the color of their skin – or whether they have indoor or outdoor plumbing. If women want to kid themselves into thinking they owe the “sisterhood” anything, so be it. I owe the “sisterhood” nothing.

Now, onto Palin.

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.

Ending racism? So Palin’s a racist? Interesting, that, Palin’s a racist compared to the candidate who for twenty years sat in a racist church that believes in “Black theology.” Not Christian theology, or monotheology – BLACK theology. And he’s half white, but you never see him mention that, do you – because it’s not going to earn him votes. Imagine if he believed in “White theology”!! Then there’s his VP pick,, who sounded genuinely surprised when describing Obama as “clean and articulate.” Hillary adopts a sterotypical accent with certain audiences on campaign. But Palin’s a racist.

Empowering women? Yet you trash the first who may be VP. Somehow, that doesn’t feel empowering to me.

Giving young girls options, opening minds, deepening tolerance…..ah, the Left, which believes in tolerance as long as you believe what they believe. Otherwise, you’re screwed. Yep, that’s an open mind. And heaven forbid those girls who choose the option of staying home and raising a family, because then they’re betraying the sisterhood. So much for tolerance.

Ending violence and war. Those who would call for peace at any price aren’t heroes … they’re cowards. To quote one of our founding fathers:

“If ye love wealth better than liberty and the tranquility of servitude better than the animated contest of freedom, then crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly on you and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen … go from us in peace, we ask not your counsel or your arms.” — Samuel Adams

I say we “cry havoc” and let those dogs of war rip anytime, and anywhere, a nation or group of lunatics thinks it can cause us harm. We did not gain, and we will not keep, this free country by running from a fight. We have VERY rarely started one – but we damned well finish them. Until, perhaps, November. Some people should spend a little more time grateful that rough men – and women – stand ready to do what they lack the courage to. I guess women warriors are chucked out of the sisterhood, too.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country choose 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.”

Gotta love the Left, which characterizes any non-apologetic Christian as a fundamentalist. You know, atheists can go off the deep end, too.

Sarah Palin’s view on evolution is that she believes in the teaching of Creationism alongside evolution. I have no problem with that. What’s wrong with telling students what views on the start of the world are out there? Let the students make up their minds about what they believe. Unless, of course, our public schools aren’t interested in teaching students HOW to think, but rather WHAT to think…

Global Warming – Actually, the ‘scientific consensus’ on global warming is a myth. More and more scientists now state that there is no conclusive proof of human-caused global warming of any significance. A wide collection of evidence exists on normal cooling and warming cycles, and warming periods worse that in recent times – which long pre-date man (or woman). Some reports indicate that this year’s been cooler than normal. And, of course, there’s the fact that in the seventies, we were being warned about catastrophic global cooling….For the record, I don’t believe that anyone’s proven that humanity is responsible for global warming.

I’m not going to get into the ‘gift from God’ stuff. She has the right to believe whatever religion she believes. As far as Iraq goes, I have to laugh at the ‘plundered’ bit – we’ve spent, not gotten, a fortune in Iraq. And we’ve not gotten a drop of oil. What exactly did we plunder? Damn us for freeing millions of people and killing tens of thousands of terrorists. Damn us for taking out a dicator who shot at our pilots on a daily basis, and who paid bounties ($25,000) to the families of suicide bombers. Sarah Palin is a wacko fundamentalist – but suicide bombing terrorists are just ducky, apparently.

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.

Wow, I guess all those who believe abortion is wrong are fundamentalist wackos. Whole lotta wackos in this country. Sarah Palin does believe in the Supreme Court, though, so I think we’re safe – they are the ones who decide the abortion question. I don’t believe in sex ed the way the Left does, either. I think parents have the right to decide what their kids learn, and when, and somehow the idea of a kindergartener learning about sex just doesn’t sit right with me (some on the Left believe that’s when sex ed should be started).

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.

Really? Odd that the ones she tried to ban weren’t even published yet. Maybe she does believe in time travel…

She doesn’t like people who think corruptly, that’s for sure. And as a sitting governor, it’s her perogative to remove those who serve ‘at the pleasure of the governor.’ Welcome to our governmental system. Worked just fine when Bill Clinton did the same thing, I guess. Only a problem when Republicans exercise their legislative powers. How tolerant of ‘difference.’

ANWR – there isn’t a flipping polar bear or caribou anywhere for hundreds of miles in some parts. And those that scream about those critters probably don’t know thing one about ANWR. Hell, if it’ll keep this country from being beholden to terrorist states, I’m for drilling anywhere, anytime, even through the heart of downtown Polar bear city. Polar bear populations in Alaska are doing just fine.

Shame that we can’t have that alternate energy, but people like Ted Kennedy don’t want to mess up their sailing time.

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.

I believe in guns, too. Saying you don’t believe in guns is like saying you don’t believe in air. Guns exist. Maybe you don’t believe people should own guns, which makes you a sandwich short of a picnic in my opinion, but saying you just plain don’t believe in guns makes you…well…nuts. Wish I had a custom made rifle. That would be cool. I don’t hunt. Couldn’t do it, personally. But I don’t believe I have the right to tell others they can’t. Kind of goes against that whole liberty thing buried somewhere in that pesky Constitution of ours. I’d like to know the source on the Gov personally shooting wolves, and that 40-caribou thing. Wonder if it was another magic bullet…

I really hate the whole wolf-shooting idea. Lots, actually. But sadly, I think we also have MUCH bigger fish to fry this October. No one can save the wolves if we are attacked by terrorists.

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, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

Separation of church and state means that you can’t enforce a belief system – which, of course, would also mean you can’t make everyone NOT believe in God, either. Freedom of religion is not the same as freedom FROM religion. Not yet…

And finally…

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?

Eve Ensler

September 5, 2008

You think of rape when you think of drills? Going to the dentist must get real ugly for Eve.

I am not Eve’s ‘Sister.’ I am not the ‘Sister’ of anyone who would vote for a Socialist who has allegiance with racist, radical churches, terrorists who attack the nation’s capital, or who believe in universal healthcare, negotiation with terrorists, or running from a fight. She is right about the climate of fear – if the Left has its way, free speech itself will be threatened, and my ability to defend myself in my own home will be compromised. We will bow to terrorists. We will lift the weak, and harm the strong. Then shall we know fear.

I am not voting on the polar bear question. More drilling? Hell, yes – until something better is viable. And, for the record, I will stand with my ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ who tirelessly work to “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” (JFK)

I do not agree with everything McCain believes – or Palin, for that matter. But let the candidates be judged on who they are. It’s the one thing the Left doesn’t seem ready to do – because when it all comes down to it, I hold out hope that this country will choose freedom over servitude, strength over weakness, individuality over collective thought, and pride over fear. We are the nation that did what no other could – successfully fought off what was arguably the strongest empire the world had ever seen – with little more than a collection of angry dirtfarmers. HOOAH! We are the one nation in this world that is willing to bleed for the freedom of others, because we know not doing so means risking the loss of it for ourselves.

Until November, at least.

So don’t call me a sister to feminists. I am not. I am, however, a descendant of those who fought to see this country free, and those who kept it that way for these two hundred plus years. Sorry, Eve, but you can keep your ‘vagina’ – and your ‘monologue.’

Drill, Drill, Drill. Drill here, drill now, and pay less.

Barracuda, Baby!

Oh, and Eve – for the record, no polar bears were harmed in the writing of this piece.