At least they hate you if you’re from one of those baddddd states like Florida and Michigan.

Outcome from the RBC:

Florida gets half votes. Florida Dems didn’t set their own primary date (Republicans did) but in the Democratic party’s quest to prove it is just as elitist as the Republican party, Florida got spanked.

Michigan also gets half votes. But………
Since Obama took himself off the ballot, he gets not only the 55 uncommitted delegates but he also gets 4 of Hillary’s delegates. Hillary has reserved her right to challenge the MI decision with the credentialing committee.

Who knew you could win presidential nominations by not putting yourself on the ballot?

Obama apparently. He’s gotten rid of his competition in similar ways before.

is like asking a black person to vote for George Wallace.

Obama has made it clear with his every action that he disrespects women in every possible way. From the way he talks about us, to the way he uses misogyny to his advantage in the campaign. Now he’s floating Jim Web as a possible VP candidate. Webb is a former Republican and well known woman hater. But he *might* shore up some of the white working class vote Obama can’t win.

It would be one thing if Obama went the normal politician route and just ignored women. Plenty of politicians have. But he flat out HATES us. Yes, hates. Can’t be bothered to learn our names or use respectful terms (sweetie), can’t quite grasp that we should have full control of our own bodies. Doesn’t want our votes (yet- wait till he remembers that 60% of the base have vaginas). And when he does remember, you can bet he’s gonna use extortion and threats of supreme court nominees to drag women by their ovaries into the voting booth. Vote for Obama or your Democratic party will make sure you regret it.

So when I hear things like “let’s remember the goal is a Democratic White House”, I have to pause.

No, the goal for me is a world where I am considered a full human being. And voting for Obama is a step backwards from that goal. It is voting against my own best interest.

Since I cannot write Hillary in, and I cannot vote for McCain, I will vote for Cynthia McKinney.

That is not a threat. This is me, a rational and reasonable person who has voted straight Dem in every election since I came of age, voting in my own self interest as everyone should.

Bill Withers- cause no one is cooler.

Use Me

Lovely Day

Ain’t No Sunshine

Due to my tendency to sleep until late afternoon on Saturdays, I’m writing this now and throwing it into the the cue for tomorrow am.

Roxie, the most fabulous and erudite dog on the web is going to the rally with her human companions and promises to have pics and maybe live blogging.

Check her out, show her some love, and trolls beware- she bites.

Instead of playing banana republic games and disenfranchising two entire states, how about just stripping them of their super delegates.

The voters in both states had no control over when the primary was (and particularly in Florida where the Republicans in state government set the primary date). They should not be punished for the actions of the state parties. If you really feel the need to flex your muscles and prove your strength by punishing someone, punish the super Ds. They’re political bigwigs with power. Not the average everyday voter who just wants their voice heard.

Just a thought. Though if you were really smart, you’d stop playing rule geeks long enough to realize you’re behavior is going to cost us the election. But I don’t hold much hope in that.

We’ve all been wondering “What the hell?”. The party leadership has lost its mind and made rules that reward state party loyalty more important than the actual will of the voters. But that is just recently. The real downfall of the party started with Bill Clinton’s election, and it wasn’t Bill that was the problem.

First, a few bits of political theory.

Once upon a time there was a German-ish protege of Max Weber named Michel. Michel formulated a theory based on bureaucracy called Michel’s Iron Law of Oligarchy. It states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic or autocratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop into oligarchies.

But how, and why?

Even democracies are stratified. There is a top and a bottom. People with power like to keep it. In monarchies, they keep it through heredity. In democracies, they use bureaucratic rules, rules designed to make changing the power structure very difficult. (I can’t remember who said it, but a professor was fond of quoting “I like democracy. I think we should rotate elites periodically”)This is why it is so hard to pass public campaign funding.

So when Bill was first elected, there were a lot of old party Dems who were shocked, shocked that this yahoo from Arkansas managed to get to the highest office when their best and brightest had failed over and over and over and over. You might remember that the Dems in congress did such a lackluster job and fought Clinton on damn near everything in his first two years, that they lost the House for the first time in 40 years to Newt Gingrich of all people.

And then Clinton, despite sex scandals, congressional investigations, and even a law suit, managed to be easily re-elected while the Rethuglikans held onto the House.

And the old school Dems seethed. Bill (and Hillary) are populists. You know what populists do, they work for the people. You know what party elites do? Work for themselves.

So Gore ran in 2000 and didn’t use the most popular president in decades in his campaign. Now I liked Gore, still do. But he still represents the old party elite, even coming from a famously political family.

And Gore lost. And then in 2002, the Dems lost the Senate.

Now rather than acknowledge that perhaps the “Liberal Elite” label might be turning off their working class base, the Dems clung to it. Fortunately for them, by 2006 Bush had done such a piss poor job of running the country that the people voted Dems back into power.

But nothing got better. The Dems are still happy with their elitist status and can’t for a second imagine that it wasn’t their strength but Rethuglikan weakness that gave them another chance. Since taking back power they have not: fixed the CHIP program, ended or defunded the Iraq war, done a damn thing on healthcare, or the economy, or the mortgage crisis, or No Child Left Behind, or oil prices, or product safety.

So the Whole Foods side of the Democratic party thinks they have won out over those damn populist hicks, the Clintons.

And, as per the Iron Law of Oligarchy, they are using the bureaucratic means of the Rules and Bylaws Committee to keep power. They would rather lose the next election to John McCain and keep their own power structure than see a populist like Clinton legitimize white southern democrats, Reagan democrats, and anybody else that the elites have been trying to write off since the Republicans put the Southern Strategy in place.

They truly believe that with the arugala eaters, and (notoriously lazy in their voting habits) college students and an African American populace that hasn’t been promised a damn thing but really wants to see one of their own make it, that they can cut off the rest of us from influence and power- AND STILL WIN. HA!

That plan hasn’t worked yet (See Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale, McGovern, Humphrey)but it has let the party elite pretend to the moral and/or intellectual high ground.

People, actual people, the people that make up this country, and their votes are more important than maintaining the power structure of the Democratic party. Hillary knows that. She’s worked towards enfranchising more voters her entire political life. (And let’s not forget the Bill is the reason for the Motor Voter Act).

When the Democratic party starts acting like the Rethuglikans over voters, then the Democratic party has succumbed to the Iron Rule of Oligarchy. And like my favorite president, Jefferson, said (paraphrased, natch) You need a revolution to keep the powers that be from becoming entrenched.

The party elites have made clear the party is no longer the Big Tent party. No working class whites, no Latinos, no women, no Asians, no poor, no uneducated, no southerners. No Michigan, no Florida. No popular vote count.

And that is a hell of a lot of people to start a revolution.

So I have been asked to do some blogging at the Hillary1000 website. I think my comments just became so prolific they decided to let me have my own space.

If you haven’t checked out the H1K yet, you totally should. Redstar/ Hillary1000, Pocochina, and Donna Darko are some of my favorite writers. I feel a wee bit like a rockstar at the mo.

And btw trolls, WordPress has much better anti-troll protection, so don’t waste your time.

I’m tired of fighting Sweeties and stalker trolls, so I am making two definitive lists of 1) Why I am Pro Hillary an 2) Why I will not now, not ever, not under the pain of death vote for Obama. And in the future when either a sweetie or a troll tries to waste my time, I am simply pointing them here.

So let’s start with why I love Hillary. And I mean love.

She (and Bill) got a ton of money and power and didn’t forget where they came from. She laughs in the face of “poor” people like Maria Barteromo and Bill O’Reilly when they start whining about tax increases hurting “middle class” people like them. The only thing middle about either Barteromo or O’Reilly is their middling intelligence and Hillary has no problem calling them out on their hypocrisy. In other words- Hillary believes in a PROGRESSIVE TAX SYSTEM. Remember that? Surely when we had higher taxes during the 90’s there must some proof that it hurt the economy severely? No, you mean we had the longest period of sustained growth in a century.

She has a long, and I mean long history of working to improve the lives of children, starting with her work for the Children’s Defense Fund, her book It Takes A Village, etc. Also is a supporter of universal pre-k and expanding access to college education.

Has a long history of working for both equal rights for women and civil rights for everyone, (despite the current race baiting by the other side). She compiled the “Handbook on Legal rights for Arkansas Women”.

Does not believe the voter disenfranchisement is a good campaign strategy. Also wants public financing of campaigns and same day voter registration and no oppressive voter ID requirements. She has always been a strong supporter of voting rights, including working to get the voting age lowered from 21 to 18 during the Vietnam draft.

She has always believed (since her thesis at Wellesley at least) in programs that help people directly, not programs that create bigger bureaucracies. As a person living in poverty, I know that more bureaucracy means more hoops that I have to jump though to get help and less money and resources going to actually help me.

She does not use the divide and conquer strategy of most political elites. Her plans include ways of helping everyone, the poor, the middle class, all races, and both sexes.

Has a solid history of working to better low income housing and to increase affordable home ownership. Also has a solid grip on the economics of the current housing foreclosure crisis and is willing to fight for the homeowners instead of the banks by placing a temporary moratorium on foreclosures.

Is probably the single most experienced politician in the country today working on universal healthcare and has the best plan to create it.

She is not only anti-NAFTA (and has been since 92) but also wants to do away with the Bretton Woods compact. (Bretton Woods being the thing that gave us the IMF and the World Bank) in favor of a system that actually deals with the problems of a global economy instead of creating them. Also voted no on CAFTA.

Wants to eliminate tax breaks for companies that do business in the US but move their production overseas.

Is pro-choice, unquestionably and has the record to prove it.

Wants to make Big Oil fund alternative energy research and wants to invest in alternative energy jobs that can’t be outsourced. Will ratify Kyoto agreement and expand public transportation funding.

This post could go on forever. She has so many years of experience in all the important things and I don’t have a lifetime to type it up.

Mostly, I love Hillary because she is the strongest person I have ever seen in the political arena. She can take any kind of personal insult, humiliation, and hurt and still go on day after day after day fighting for the rest of us. She has the compassion of Eleanor Roosevelt, the pragmatic, energetic optimism of Franklin Roosevelt, the moral fortitude of Lincoln and strength of a mythological hero.

Hillary isn’t an “Us and Them” candidate. She believes in all of us, and she will fight for all of us.

And that is what I love about her. I know she really does care about people like me, and not just when election year rolls around.

Over on the Online Zenana post, Carissa asked “I just wish someone could explain to me what the hell “post-feminism”is”.

So post-feminism is a world where feminism is no longer needed because all sickness of misogyny has been cured.

What would a post-feminist society look like then and how will we know when we get there? For those who think that feminism is only about those educated white lady values like equal pay and reproductive rights, then maybe it is almost a post feminist world.

But it’s about so much more than that.

We will know we are in a post-feminist world when rape is not just something to be prosecuted, but is something that doesn’t happen. As long as men keep raping women, and children, and other men, we need feminists fighting to change the culture that makes rape acceptable and/or excusable.

We will know we are in a post-feminist world when the gender of your baby doesn’t matter to the success of your family to carry on the family name.

We will know we are in a post-feminist world when woman are not financially punished by pregnancy and childcare and when economists no longer need to explain the gender gap by blaming women for doing something that men cannot.

We will know we are in a post-feminist society when we don’t have to teach daughters to be afraid of men from childhood. Don’t walk alone at night will never have to be said to girls and women as warning again.

We will know we are in a post feminist society when we no longer have to worry about electing the first female president, the first gay president, the first trans president, or the first gay, fat, old, brown transwoman (or transman) president. Because the barriers will have been broken so many times that they are a footnote in history.

We will know we are in a post-feminist society when the only professions where women routinely make more money than men (sex work and modeling) no longer exist.

So what do you think makes a post-feminist society?