It’s feeling kinda maverick-y, if I’m reading Camille Paglia correctly:
Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an explosion of a brand new style of muscular American feminism. At her startling debut on that day, she was combining male and female qualities in ways that I have never seen before. And she was somehow able to seem simultaneously reassuringly traditional and gung-ho futurist. In terms of redefining the persona for female authority and leadership, Palin has made the biggest step forward in feminism since Madonna channeled the dominatrix persona of high-glam Marlene Dietrich and rammed pro-sex, pro-beauty feminism down the throats of the prissy, victim-mongering, philistine feminist establishment (ed. the Third Wave).
In the U.S., the ultimate glass ceiling has been fiendishly complicated for women by the unique peculiarity that our president must also serve as commander in chief of the armed forces…
As a dissident feminist, I have been arguing since my arrival on the scene nearly 20 years ago that young American women aspiring to political power should be studying military history (ed. Hear, hear!) rather than taking women’s studies courses, with their rote agenda of never-ending grievances…
The gun-toting Sarah Palin is like Annie Oakley, a brash ambassador from America’s pioneer past. She immediately reminded me of the frontier women of the Western states, which first granted women the right to vote after the Civil War — long before the federal amendment guaranteeing universal woman suffrage was passed in 1919. Frontier women faced the same harsh challenges and had to tackle the same chores as men did — which is why men could regard them as equals, unlike the genteel, corseted ladies of the Eastern seaboard, which fought granting women the vote right to the bitter end.
But enough about Palin, what about the reaction to her from Paglia’s fellow travelers on the left?
Over the Labor Day weekend, with most of the big enchiladas of the major media on vacation, the vacuum was filled with a hallucinatory hurricane in the leftist blogosphere, which unleashed a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin. What a tacky low in American politics — which has already caused a backlash that could damage Obama’s campaign. When liberals come off as childish, raving loonies, the right wing gains.
Well, a thing is what it does, and no one should really be surprised at the frothings of the angry left. Principles must give way to Will to Power, even if that means that the left becomes entagled with unseemly misogyny even as the right tries on the mantle of female empowerment.
What about the Tribunes of Democracy?
But what of Palin’s pro-life stand? Creationism taught in schools? Book banning? Gay conversions? The Iraq war as God’s plan? Zionism as a prelude to the apocalypse? We’ll see how these big issues shake out. Right now, I don’t believe much of what I read or hear about Palin in the media.
Welcome aboard! But what about the Democratic Party itself, which – giving credit where it’s due – only loosely overlaps with either the mainstream media and the leftosphere – what has Ms. Paglia to say to them?
Let’s take the issue of abortion rights, of which I am a firm supporter. As an atheist and libertarian, I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. Every individual has an absolute right to control his or her body… Nevertheless, I have criticized the way that abortion became the obsessive idée fixe of the post-1960s women’s movement… Similarly, Bill Clinton’s support for abortion rights gave him a free pass among leading feminists for his serial exploitation of women — an abusive pattern that would scream misogyny to any neutral observer.
But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand…
Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue…
On the other hand, I support the death penalty for atrocious crimes (such as rape-murder or the murder of children). I have never understood the standard Democratic combo of support for abortion and yet opposition to the death penalty…
The gigantic, instantaneous coast-to-coast rage directed at Sarah Palin when she was identified as pro-life was, I submit, a psychological response by loyal liberals who on some level do not want to open themselves to deep questioning about abortion and its human consequences…
It is nonsensical and counterproductive for Democrats to imagine that pro-life values can be defeated by maliciously destroying their proponents…
(The) one fundamental precept that Democrats must stand for is independent thought and speech. When they become baying bloodhounds of rigid dogma, Democrats have committed political suicide.
From your lips, ma chere, to God’s Gaia’s ear.
Update: Si se puede!
Oh man! I want one of those signs! Sarah Palin as Rosie the Riveter.
Now if only more people would listen to Camiile things might go the way they need to go. Long time until November though.
IJ — get out your Visa card:
http://www.zazzle.com/sarahpalintees/products/cg-196026221484194889
I read her piece earlier and was struck by her abortion comments. In a weird sort of way, I can respect her position a lot more than the other “Choice” narratives.
“I realize abortion is murder, but I just don’t care.”
Wow. At least we can cut through the fluff and discuss where our ideological differences lie. Of course, put like that on a national level and a lot of ‘pro-choice’ support falls away.
I agree. It’s damned odd that Obama is now using all his campaign energy to attack the VP candidate of his opponent. It shows his lack of confidence in his own choice of running mate, that he’s not leaving the attack-dog B.S. to Biden. You’d think The One is running against Sarahcuda.
Which isn’t a bad thing; I’m enjoying watching him implode on his own hubris.
You know you’ve done something right when they start eating their own young.
Camille Paglia personifies the outsider perhaps as well as any voice in America.
Her conversion, if you want to call it that, shows just how masterfully McCain has usurped Obama as the legitimate agent of change.
The great WWII generation had held the presidency for 32 years, Kennedy through Bush senior.
Bill Clinton was the first baby boom president, and George W. the second. Interestingly, McCain’s generation was completely skipped.
McCain-Palin thus uniquely personifies a change away from the baby boom leadership with the team from both the pre-boom (post-WWII) generation and the post-boom generation (gen X). No baby-boomer could legitimately carry the “country first” theme as effectively as McCain, who evokes not only his generation, but that of his fathers.
Obama, up to that point seen as a fresh “new generation” leader, weakened his change message with the selection of Biden, who represents the same-old same-old me first generation, we bastards.
I read it similar. “Forget the past, maybe there is a different future, one we had not thought of yet?”
She isoneof those who are totally dissalusioned with Clintonianism, latched on to Obamanism as alternative, but were not really married to it yet.
Palinism?
This one cracks me up.
http://www.zazzle.com/im_voting_for_sarah_ringer_tee_shirt-235940135858035045
“I’m voting for Sarah, and that guy she’s running with.”
Just hope it lasts.
Dude, I’m gettin’ a couple of those to go in my house and vehicle!
Bring it, Sarah! Bring it!
Damn, that is hot!
On an ADD segue (which I do sooo well…):
Biden’s gonna fall on his sword for the Messiah and Miz Hillary? Lawdie…Lawdie…is the DNC ever so desperate!
Ooh…Ooh…see how noble he is? See how much he loves Citizen Barack? He’s so willing to sacrifice himself! We should all be so grateful for such sacrifices! Let us all bow down to the sophistries of our Lord and Master…Barack the Wonderful!
I’m having a Bill the Cat moment just thinking about it…ACK! Phhfft!
Flatlander, that Boom…Boom thing. Was that the Shuttle going feet dry? Just asking…
Kris, I’m laughing with you as I read. How close do you think he is to the inevitable “Oh, Bummer”? Pun intended…
Err, that would be “no-boom no-boom”, not to be confused with “ka-boom ka-boom”.
Hah! Got it!
Flatlander: The Presidency skipped over not only MnNain’s generation, but mine as well–sandwiched as we are between McCains generational cohort and the boomers. We are also the smallest, due to being born during the war years (I’m Class of ’66) but are the most academically accomplished if SATs mean anything, as they peaked my Sr. yr in H.S. and have been in free-fall ever since…….
Virgil, you would be considered by many as first wave of the “baby boom”, same cohort as Clinton and W., even though born before end of the war…
When we talk “generations”, I find myself confused and alienated. Perhaps someone could explain to me where I (and my fellows, born in the early 60s) belong?
I don’t identify, really with boomers or Xers.
Neither is me.
?
Perhaps it was my quiet rural, sheltered, family-values upbringing?
Or maybe, like my brothers always insisted, I’m just weird and don’t fit anywhere
d
Palin actually fits comfortably into the feminist third wave: she is not allowing herself to be tied into one particular stereotype of femininity, or for that matter, masculinity, but is willing to blur lines between what is socially prescribed appropriately male and female behavior. If her social beliefs were different, she might have become a hero of the queer community.
doorkeeper, I highly recommend “Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069″
“Generations has been heralded by reviewers as a brilliant, if somewhat unsettling, reassessment of where America is heading.
“William Strauss and Neil Howe posit the history of America as a succession of generational biographies, beginning in 1584 and encompassing every-one through the children of today. Their bold theory is that each generation belongs to one of four types, and that these types repeat sequentially in a fixed pattern. The vision of Generations allows us to plot a recurring cycle in American history — a cycle of spiritual awakenings and secular crises — from the founding colonists through the present day and well into this millenium.”
According to Generations, the next “Great Generation” will be the kids born 1980-2000. In other words, today’s junior officers are the first cohorts. And Generations predicts their challenges are just beginning.
Since the book was written in 1991, I would have to give a lot of credit to the predictive track record so far.
Thanks, F, I’ll get it on my list. d