I worked at the TODAY SHOW from 1980 to 1989. During that time I probably produced, conservatively, two pieces a month on "working mothers", as we were called then. It was rough slogging. No matter how many times we looked at it (always from both sides) it just wouldn’t die. Of course early in that same period we had trouble getting cameramen who would shoot a story including an AIDS victim, so there were tougher issues for sure.
In any case, in that period we talked to T. Berry Brazelton (often), Lois Hoffman, Ellen Galinsky, Dr. Edward Zigler, Phyllis Schlafly, Sylvia Hewlett, activists from Catalyst, NOW, Eagle Forum, David Elkind, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and literally hundreds of others. We debated every aspect of child development, nature/nurture – you name it, we covered it. By the time I left at the end of 1989 the issue had mostly been settled – by demographics if nothing else. Mothers were working. Many needed to be. More were on their own, abandoned by or never having had a partner in raising their kids. What was left of the battle was scraps, remnants and [very important] policy issues dealing with childcare, equal pay and family leave etc. Working moms were an American reality.
That was twenty years ago! Twenty years! And now, artificially or not, the issue has emerged again. And many of those allegedly "defending" working moms (or at least one named Sarah) are those who, for much of my working mother life, so vehemently opposed the idea of women going out of the home to work. Sorry. I know the conversation has passed this issue in many ways but as I read posts and newsletters today, it made me mad all over again. With all these conservatives defending working mothers, after what I remember, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. They’re all working now too so some of it is probably genuine but there’s also such an element of strategic hollering. Anyone else feel like they fell down the rabbit hole?
I wrote much of what appears below without knowing just how to begin it – and those wacky Republicans solved my problem. The response to this boilerplate Obama statement was to issue a vicious attack accusing him of sexism because of Palin’s convention speech “lipstick/hockey mom/pitbull” quote. This despite the fact that the metaphor has often been used by Republicans including Dick Cheney – to say nothing of John McCain – look here:
The McCain campaign, not only in its choice of Sarah Palin but in how they use her, is leaning on very scary tactics that are similar to the successful exploitation of voters illustrated by some of the mostmemorable characters in American political films. Watch this trailer for Tim Robbins’ Bob Roberts; see if it isn’t more familiar than you wish:
Creepy, isn’t it? A demagogue making his way to the top by lying about his opponent and manipulating the alienation of the American people for his own ends. That could never happen in real life, right?
Much, much earlier in film history, the beloved Andy Griffith played one of the scariest public personalities ever in A Face in the Crowd — written by Budd Schulberg and directed by On the Waterfront‘s Elia Kazan. He’s not a politician but watch the trailer and see if it doesn’t seem familiar. You have to watch until the end to get the full impact.
It’s so depressing — and enraging — to watch this campaign peddling pseudo-folksiness to win over its public. It’s time for that to stop working in our country. Stakes are too high to permit us (or the press) to fall for the most approachable (and least honest) over the most excellent.
Finally, remember Robert Penn Warren’s remarkable novel, clearly based on Louisiana’s Huey Long – All the King’s Men? It portrays a politician on his path to becoming a dangerous demagogue. Yeah, I know it’s melodramatic but does it feel at all familiar?
Clearly we should consider these archetypal characters as cautionary tales; instructive representations of our future if we allow this kind of campaigning to prevail. Movies are our largest export (unless video games have taken over while I wasn’t looking) and often reflect, if not our truths, at least our ghosts, shadows and neuroses. It gave us The Body Snatchers in the 50’s, Easy Rider in the 60’s and Working Girl and Wall Street in the 80’s. It’s easy to be seductive, to manipulate language and truth; easy to pretend to be one of the people in order to win them. The vicious, craven strategies of this campaign – and Sarah Palin herself – are perfect examples; John McCain, whom I used to admire, has allowed, no encouraged, this shameful campaigning in his name and surrendered all the positions of principal that he once held. If we don’t want (another) Bob Roberts (He does remind me of GWBush) or a cynical populist pretender or a MS Wilie Stark as our government, it’s up to use to exercise vigilance and fierce commitment to fight off these transparent manipulations and to ensure that it does not happen.
I really want to quote this (not long at all) post by the wonderful Liz of MOM-101 but it would spoil the surprise. You have to read it yourself. You’ll know what I’m talking about when get to it. She’s always great, but this is… well…. does off the charts cover it?
Well the Blogging Boomers have returned after a Labor Day respite and we are loaded with remarkable new content. It’s all housed over at John Agno’s So Baby Boomer. There are plenty of political links, but also some interesting perspectives on retirements and aging, spiritual retreats,religious belief, marriage and the 5-th birthday of AARP. So don’t miss it.
Before I say anything else, I want to show you this great response to Gov. Palin. Take the time to watch it.
I started this post last night but waited to post it until I cooled off and now I’m glad, because there are so many thoughtful responses from people who have gone beyond the rage I have been feeling. The first is the above video response from Nerdette. For some reason the mocking of community organizers was particularly painful to me. Of course since I’ve been listening to The PeopleHave the Power for days now I guess that’s not a surprise.
I also recommend. thanks to a tweet from Pundit Mom, the ever-wise Gloria Steinem’s response in the Los Angeles Times, which includes this: It
won’t work. This isn’t the first time a boss has picked an unqualified
woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most
other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job
for one woman. It’s about making life more fair for women everywhere.
It’s not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us
for that. It’s about baking a new pie.
Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer
by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard
Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton.
Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize
a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates
as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the
right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton’s
candidacy stood for — and that Barack Obama’s still does. To vote in
protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my
shoes, so I’ll amputate my legs."
My good friend Mocha Momma offers some very personal yet universal and policy-based observations – YES you can be personal – as SP was – and still think about policy — as Mocha did. Here’s a sample but go read the whole thing. She’s a wonderful person and educator whose commitment to schools in underserved neighborhoods is profound. She scoffed at Obama’s community organizing and pushed for her own
small town agenda. You know what I heard in that thinly veiled line?
Her lack of experience with people of color and the power of community
organization. She doesn’t know cities or poverty that way or even what
that does for education. She is keeping that dividing line bold and
prominent by letting me see what she thinks about that: small town =
hard-working white farming families vs. city/community = blacks and
latinos and asians and other people she knows nothing about.She so wasn’t talking to me.
OK I can’t hide any longer. Here’s me talking. I’ve been around a lot of political campaigns and presidencies. I remember Spiro Agnew and his vicious attacks on the press — many other Republican "red meat" speeches and Democratic ones too. But I don’t remember anything like this (except Pat Buchanan in 1992 but that was different.) Cruelty, sarcasm, disguised bigotry, language so beyond the appropriate, in my view, that it was breathtaking. Literally.
Shortly
after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said,
Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of
banning some books, though she never followed through and it was
unclear which books or passages were in question.
Ann Kilkenny, a
Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms.
Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of
banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or
socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.
The librarian,
Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms.
Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking
office but changed course after residents made a strong show of
support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years
later, declined to comment for this article.
If you have read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, you’ve seen a society in which these values were completely in control. Not only government control of women’s bodies but a government of rage, male-domination and the absence of liberty. Of course not even these folks can take us that far but every time we get into one of these periods it’s all I can think about.
Someone on Twitter last night wrote: When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."Sinclair Lewis
OK. So that’s why this song says so much. It has to.
Some very smart analysts, including POLITICO and PressThink founder Jay Rosen, are talking about the current Republican strategy in support of Sarah Palin as a "reigniting of the culture wars." Attacking with all the code words of past anti-"left" vocabularies. And here’s Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal:
I’ll tell you how powerful Mrs. Palin already is: she reignited the
culture wars just by showing up. She scrambled the battle lines, too.
The crustiest old Republican men are shouting "Sexism!" when she’s
slammed. Pro-woman Democrats are saying she must be a
bad mother to be
all ambitious with kids in the house. Great respect goes to Barack
Obama not only for saying criticism of candidates’ children is out of
bounds in political campaigns, but for making it personal, and
therefore believable. "My mother had me when she was eighteen…" That
was the lovely sound of class in American politics.
When the McCain Summer of Love ad debuted, I wrote this – They Will Campaign Against Us Until We’re Dead, and Maybe After. If you watch CSPAN, especially Washington Journal, you know from the phone calls how much anger still exists; how much hatred of the generation I grew up in. Against our opposition to the war, mischief and outrageousness, and even more, our search – no, demand – for peace. Going after all of us, FORTY YEARS LATER, still works.
I guess that since I’ve been postingquite a lotabout that timeforty years ago, the memories are long on both sides. But Barack Obama was 7 years old in 1968. It’s not and never was his culture war. It is, however, the never-ending flash-point in the conservative playbook, a safe way to rile folks up and re-ignite the hatred and anger manifested in the 60’s and 70’s and again in the 90’s when that Boomer couple, the Clintons, were in the White House.
I’ve given up trying to figure out how to respond. Most Americans, including us 60’s people, love our country and loved it then. It was the a desire to return the country to its true nature — just as it is today — that drove us. But it’s far more useful to the McCain campaign to taunt us — and Barack Obama; and to divide us, too, with these ancient battles. The tough part is figuring out how to answer.
I’ve started three new posts today trying to avoid writing about Bristol Palin. I don’t think I can. But I’m going to borrow someone else’s words, someone who has said it so much better than I could. The link in this piece came from the always wise Jill Miller Zimon, whose blog Writes Like She Talks is sharp and smart. She’s among those posting really thoughtful ideas about this very sad situation.
I’m as concerned as many of my peers about the choice issue and the complicated role it plays here; just as troubled by much of this candidacy and the tragic exposure of a very young woman to a national furor. My biggest problem though, is with what I see as the (noisy but far from majority) inappropriate writing and speculating about this family. In my mind, these attacks run a real risk of ending up as a "brie v beer" class war, and we’re not like that. We shouldn’t sound like we are. It’s the same feeling I had during the Paula Jones debacle when people wrote about her as "trailer park trash." Whatever the substance of either Jones or Palin, or this pregnant young woman, what’s been going on: trashing Sarah Palin for going back to work after her child was born, implying that if she’d been a better mother this pregnancy might never have happened… interpreting her values as "redneck" — is dangerous. I’m old enough to remember when conservatives talked like that – fought against all our efforts for equal pay, for non-mommy track hiring, for not only abortion rights but also contraception — all of it.
As I said though, Richard C. Harwood has written what I think is a very thoughtful piece about this potential battle – an unwinnable one, I fear. Here are two of the best quotes but you really should read the whole thing.
Moreover, I have said that I
know two families with specials needs kids where both parents work, and where
there is so much love and affection that I would be more than willing to have
my own two kids join those families. Further, I have wondered aloud why
stay-at-home dads who were once professionals are okay, but not Palin’s
husband. . . .
Let me be clear: I am not defending
Sarah Palin. To me, there is some virtue in her selection, but also the
rolling of dice. But how we talk this choice is just as important as our final
judgment. Why? Because so many of us want a different kind of politics in
America, a politics that is more reflective of reality, more thoughtful, and
more hopeful. We want a politics that transcends Red States and Blue States. We
want a politics that encourages honest and tough debate, but not unnecessary
discord and divisiveness. Now is our chance.
In 1984, I worked for Walter Mondale
when he nominated Rep. Geraldine Ferraro as his choice for Vice President. Of
course, the initial burst of excitement for Ferraro dissipated quickly as she
found herself mired in family problems, with Mondale losing in a landslide.
While Palin’s selection and her running mate may take a similar route, the race
is still far from over. But no matter what, my question is, what route will you
take?
There is so much we all want to say. How we say it, though, could make all the difference.
For weeks I’ve been writing about politics here, but today – some personal politics. They say the personal is political, and for me, the personal is music (and political) — and music makes all the difference — through time, sadness, joy, loneliness, political anguish, even spiritual connection.
I’ve started walking every morning – around two miles. Part of the reason is that I never get to listen to music anymore, so on my walks, I pretty much let my iPod take me wherever "shuffle" wants to go. For while we moved from Bruce to Great Big Sea to Juno. Then things got serious – an anthem really, of a time in my life when I valued awareness, aliveness, presence above all else: along came Me and Bobby McGee. Kris Kristofferson wrote it but this is one of the few videos I could find of him performing it – Janis Joplin’s version was the famous one. Still — it was this version, Kristofferson’s, that spoke to me.
A cut-loose road song and a love song too. "Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose." I remember my mother railing against this chorus — claiming that freedom was real and important and much more than "nothin’ left to lose" and she was probably right, but then… Then that road life was one I craved but never had the nerve to undertake and this song was my chance to travel along. Later, on Saturday Night Live, Gilda Radner did a monologue as "Bobby McGee" who had moved home, and whose "mom even kept my room for me." She’d given up. There I sat on our water bed in our Upper West Side apartment in our married, new baby life, and cried. It was way too familiar. Made me face the gap between what I had wished and what I was, that gap we all face as we enter "grown up" lives, with kids and responsibilities.
Then, around the time my walk reached Georgia Avenue, I traveled to London’s Grosvenor Square, and Scarlet Begonias. The Robert Hunter/Grateful Dead song included this description: "Wind in the willows playin’ tea for two; The sky was yellow and the sun was blue, Strangers stoppin’ strangers just to shake their hand, Everybody”s playing in the heart of gold band." It sounds comical now, I suppose, and it was really about Dead concerts, but I remember so many marches where people passed food around, each taking what they needed, and driving on the turnpikes on the way as we gave M&Ms to each tollbooth operator along with our quarters and even, at the first Clinton inauguration, being hugged by some guy I’d never met as I stood alone, close to tears (again) when Bob Dylan came out and surprised everyone.
At
last. Our whole day had been built around this. Obama accepts
the nomination with the highest TV ratings of
any acceptance speech in modern US history, according to the Hollywood
Reporter:
Barack Obama’s historic acceptance speech for the Democratic
presidential nomination Thursday night was seen by 38.4 million viewers — 57%
more than watched John Kerry four years ago — and was the most-watched
convention speech ever.
Thursday
night’s viewership set a new record for national convention coverage, according
to Nielsen Media Research. Naturally, it’s also the largest number since the
convention began, up 42% from Hillary Clinton’s
speech on Day 2.
Obama’s
speech was seen by more U.S. viewers than the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony
(34.2 million).
It was a remarkable speech in a spectacular setting. You either watched it or
you didn’t – watch it here. It’s actually worth more than one viewing for
not only the substance but also the environment and symbolism. Watch it —
it’s pretty amazing.
I
waited until today to write this because I felt so much emotion last night that
I thought I should let it all sink in. I’ve seen so many acceptance
speeches, and my sense of Obama’s role is so deep that I didn’t think I had
much new to offer. It doesn’t seem to be wearing off though — not that
I’m alone. MSNBC super-conservative and often inflamatory and somewhat
cruel Joe
Scarborough was still rhapsodizing when I woke up. I think any aware
American, anyone who’s lived through a substantial portion of our modern racial
history, anyone with any desire for a better, more just country — any of us —
could not have watched what happened last night and remained
dispassionate. Tweets all night, and not just from those in the arena
kept saying "Tears everywhere" "Tearing up"
"Didn’t think I’d cry but…" I was fine until the family
walked out to the center of the stadium holding hands. Then I just
disolved.
Beyond
the moving historic moment, and the incredible tableau of two decent committed
families who have made public service a life-time commitment, who are the kinds
of people who seem to manifest what Americans used to think of as "real
American" character, the substance was also inspiring, at least for
me. You can read blogger comments on the wonderful CSPAN Hub — assembled by a team that
includes that very smart woman you keep seeing on CSPAN, Leslie Bradshaw. This post of
hers will give you an idea of
what it took to run the Hub operation – so valuable to so many bloggers.
I was about to be a senior in high school that summer, with my family on vacation in Provincetown, MA, at the tip of Cape Cod. All I really wanted to do was find Edna St. Vincent Millay’s summer hangout and the theater used by Eugene O’Neill and the Provincetown Players. Those were gone; instead, I tripped over a future that quickly ended my quest for the past.
Walking by a restaurant, we passed a TV sitting on the sidewalk, on a milk crate so everyone could watch. On the air: the March on Washington and the speech by Dr. Martin Luther King. I was transfixed. Living in a little town outside Pittsburgh, I hadn’t really paid much attention. Until that moment. It was August 28, 1963, and it launched the next phase of my life. As I watched, I knew that I belonged there – where there was purpose – in the middle of history. It was a profound thing to listen to this man, to see the sea of people around him, watch the individual interviews, hear the music. When people wonder how we became a generation of activists, I know that this was one of the moments that drove us forward, if we weren’t there already.
How beautiful then that EXACTLY 45 years later, Barack Obama will accept the nomination of his party to be the Democratic candidate for President of the United States. I heard Rep. John Lewis, so badly beaten in the 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, tell an interviewer that he wasn’t sure he could make it through his own speech — that if anyone had told him that 45 years after that Selma march he’d watch an African-American man accept the presidential nomination, he would have told them they were crazy. Obama adviser and friend Valerie Jarrett, describing what it would mean to her parents in an interview with our own Erin Kotckei Vest, struggled to contain her own tears. This is important.
