Hey, y'all
I want you to know that as a native North Carolinian, I have been supporting John Edwards' campaign. Awhile back, I wrote a blog about why on my blog, Femifesta.
But now I have a big problem with some things John has said, and some other things he hasn't said. Can you give me some answers?
Recently, in reaction to all the neocon hype about Iran (all of which is based on information just as accurate and honest as the hype about Iraq before the war), John Edwards said that "nothing is off the table" in terms of military action against Iran. We interpret that to mean nuclear weapons are "on the table".
I will not support nor vote for any candidate who will not pledge to keep nuclear weapons off ANY and EVERY table. If John has so little faith in his ability to find diplomatic solutions to problems (here and now in the 21st century) then I don't think he's the man to be president of the world's leading weapons maker and aggressor.
Another issue that I would like for John to address is the existence of Blackwater USA (http://www.blackwaterusa.com/) in our home state of North Carolina. Founded by Erik Prince, a former Navy Seal and "billionaire right-wing fundamentalist Christian from a powerful Michigan Republican family" he is a "major Republican campaign contributor, ... interned in the White House of President George H.W. Bush and campaigned for Pat Buchanan in 1992. He founded the mercenary firm Blackwater USA in 1997 with Gary Jackson, another former Navy SEAL." http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Blackwater_USA
I'd like to know what John, an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war who cannot possibly support a mercenary organization like Blackwater--which operates outside any code of military, civil or Geneva Convention law--is doing to shut down this aberration. Clearly Governor Easley has lost his mind and has begun selling our precious state to big business--I need to know what action presidential candidate John Edwards has taken against the war machine right at home.
How can I believe that President Edwards will be a Peace President if he isn't working on these two peace issues right now in his campaign?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Your fellow North Carolinian,
Kit Kimberly
Monday, June 25, 2007
Thursday, June 7, 2007
On Developing as a Feminist
Part of my Femifesta is ecofeminism. I’ve been an ecofeminist for 20 years; my feminism came about when I was 16, read The Women’s Room, and realized that the ostracism, criticism and judgement I had been facing—for not doing what I was supposed to do, not valuing what I was supposed to value, not being who I was supposed to be—didn’t result from who I was but from an artificial social construct of gender called sexism. I was at the time aware of racism—its artificiality, its arbitrariness, its injustice. I had always been, for the most part, much more interested in books about girls and their adventures. I had (not so quietly) rebelled against the restrictions placed on me by parents, teachers, caretakers, even peers; but all the while I internalized the criticism and subconsciously believed I was somehow fatally flawed.
What a relief to realize it wasn’t me—it was a social injustice, not a personal flaw. I celebrated by becoming even more rebellious; and for a Southern “well-bred” white girl, that meant, more than anything else, sexually liberated and highly experimental (well, again, remember the context). I immediately jumped the color barrier—after all, my caretakers as a child had been ample, warm, honest-smelling black women. We didn’t call them Mammy, we called them by their first names: Beatrice, Anne, Hattie. And they called our parents Mr. and Miz (they only called me “Miz” when I was in trouble, as in “Miz Jane, you better get your little butt in this bathtub!”). My mother tried to control by nagging and the occasional switch; Dad hollered and hit. I respected neither of them and my response to their “discipline” was the same as a cat’s: I just didn’t let them see me do it.
But those large, firm, black women had my complete respect and obedience—well, as much as I could give it—in exchange for the warm and sincere affection they showered on me. No place was so safe after a knee scrape or a wasp sting than Anne’s ample lap; only her sweet-smelling breath could ease the burn of mercurochrome. So when Marilyn French and feminism gave me permission to follow my desires for sex (and approval and affection and love), it was natural that I crossed that forbidden color barrier.
My first black lover was a beautiful man—at 17, he was tall, sleekly muscled with the athlete’s broad shoulders tapering to a fine sinuous waist; upper arms as lithe and powerful as a race horse’s; smooth, narrow hips and that beautiful black man’s butt: high, hard and round. I wasn’t inexperienced and the size of his “member” didn’t shock or frighten me, but it definitely did nothing to dispel the size mythology that surrounds black men’s sexuality. I never had an orgasm with him—I had not yet had orgasm during sex. I’d only learnt a short while before to have one with myself and I was too shy to suggest any extracurricular activities on his part. I don’t remember the sex itself being particularly fabulous—only the urgency of my desire. It never took very long and he, like every other teenage boy I slept with, was always eager to be on his way afterwards. Most of my pleasure was in the anticipation and the admiration of his beautiful, mocha-colored body; his huge, slightly tilted brown eyes; his regally high cheekbones and aquiline nose; and those full lips, so gorgeous, so inviting—the first time he kissed me I nearly fainted. I probably would’ve been happy with just kisses.
Less than a year after our—relationship? affair? fuck-fest?—ended, he was dead. He was in an automobile accident; we’d gone to different colleges but a mutual friend told me about the horrendous wreck and that he was hospitalized. When I saw her the next day in the student center, her usually knowing good-natured features ashey with pain, I knew he was dead; I fainted at the news. I had never known anyone so close to me to die. Especially someone so vital and pulsing and arrogant with life. It was impossible to fathom. I went home for the funeral, but when I drove downtown and saw all those dignified black folks out mourning yet another loss of youth and beauty, I knew I didn’t belong. His parents wouldn’t welcome me—they’d answered the phone a few times when I’d called and I knew they were no more happy about him seeing a white girl than my parents would’ve been if they’d known. I couldn’t go to the viewing or the funeral—some time later, I went to the grave, a flat, scrubby plot, the stone tiny and nearly anonymous. I imagined that godlike beauty shrinking and crumbling in the coffin; his athletic valor, his physical grace, his demand that the world acknowledge and respect him. I certainly had. I mourned not knowing him better—his dreams, the impediments—of which there were many. He came from a upwardly-mobile black family in an old Southern town that had fought integration hard and had even come to violence not long before I was in high school. The fact that he was in college was a triumph, though I’d heard he was partying too much and not working hard enough—he was bright, very bright, but unprepared and unmotivated. It’s questionable that he’d have finished college. I think now of the Houseman poem:
“Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.”
and wonder if, despite all his beauty and potential, his life would’ve got better or worse; if, were he alive today, I’d still admire and respect him.
But I digress. The radical-ness of my feminism never diminishes, though its form morphs and shifts—a belief in liberated, free sexuality has only developed; but my philosophy of feminism grows, becomes larger and more inclusive. The first foray outside of women and sex was ecofeminism. I visited a friend at Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington. Famous for producing such 90s radicals and creatives as Cobain, Vedder, Love and Cornell, in the 80s Evergreen and Olympia also nurtured (and probably still does) a quite radical green pocket—and one that fully incorporated a feminist perspective. In Olympia, I met my friend’s “goddess-Mother” Willow, who soaked the blood out of her menstrual rags and used the water on her moon plants—which produced the most lush, amazing flowers I’ve ever seen! I learnt about Starhawk and Charlene Spretnik; James Lovelock and Deep Ecology; Alice Walker and Marge Piercy. It being the 80s, and a crest in the wave of women’s empowerment that began in the 70s, these ideas got a lot of play at the time. I was lucky enough to visit some of the places they got their start: Olympic National Forest, for example, is a place where the philosophies of Deep Ecology seem not only possible, but undeniable. It is like the Narnian forest that Lucy tries so hard to waken in Prince Caspian; the trees are like Tolkein’s quiet, deeply raging Ents. You feel their energy, their power—at the time, I also felt sadness. I did not belong in their forest, it was clear. Even though my intentions were good, I had no place there. I had flashes of the dryad who comes to tell King Rillian that the Lantern Waste is being murdered; but I was not the king, nor were these trees subject to me. Nor did they know that I was not one of those who laid them waste in broad, murderous swathes that caused the topsoil to wash away and the land to bleed its rich, red clay into the rivers of the Pacific Northwest. It was a powerful connection I made with the trees there, one that has never left me. It also opened me up to many more connections with the natural world—connections that I remembered from my early childhood but that I had lost in the process of “civilization”.
(to be continued)
What a relief to realize it wasn’t me—it was a social injustice, not a personal flaw. I celebrated by becoming even more rebellious; and for a Southern “well-bred” white girl, that meant, more than anything else, sexually liberated and highly experimental (well, again, remember the context). I immediately jumped the color barrier—after all, my caretakers as a child had been ample, warm, honest-smelling black women. We didn’t call them Mammy, we called them by their first names: Beatrice, Anne, Hattie. And they called our parents Mr. and Miz (they only called me “Miz” when I was in trouble, as in “Miz Jane, you better get your little butt in this bathtub!”). My mother tried to control by nagging and the occasional switch; Dad hollered and hit. I respected neither of them and my response to their “discipline” was the same as a cat’s: I just didn’t let them see me do it.
But those large, firm, black women had my complete respect and obedience—well, as much as I could give it—in exchange for the warm and sincere affection they showered on me. No place was so safe after a knee scrape or a wasp sting than Anne’s ample lap; only her sweet-smelling breath could ease the burn of mercurochrome. So when Marilyn French and feminism gave me permission to follow my desires for sex (and approval and affection and love), it was natural that I crossed that forbidden color barrier.
My first black lover was a beautiful man—at 17, he was tall, sleekly muscled with the athlete’s broad shoulders tapering to a fine sinuous waist; upper arms as lithe and powerful as a race horse’s; smooth, narrow hips and that beautiful black man’s butt: high, hard and round. I wasn’t inexperienced and the size of his “member” didn’t shock or frighten me, but it definitely did nothing to dispel the size mythology that surrounds black men’s sexuality. I never had an orgasm with him—I had not yet had orgasm during sex. I’d only learnt a short while before to have one with myself and I was too shy to suggest any extracurricular activities on his part. I don’t remember the sex itself being particularly fabulous—only the urgency of my desire. It never took very long and he, like every other teenage boy I slept with, was always eager to be on his way afterwards. Most of my pleasure was in the anticipation and the admiration of his beautiful, mocha-colored body; his huge, slightly tilted brown eyes; his regally high cheekbones and aquiline nose; and those full lips, so gorgeous, so inviting—the first time he kissed me I nearly fainted. I probably would’ve been happy with just kisses.
Less than a year after our—relationship? affair? fuck-fest?—ended, he was dead. He was in an automobile accident; we’d gone to different colleges but a mutual friend told me about the horrendous wreck and that he was hospitalized. When I saw her the next day in the student center, her usually knowing good-natured features ashey with pain, I knew he was dead; I fainted at the news. I had never known anyone so close to me to die. Especially someone so vital and pulsing and arrogant with life. It was impossible to fathom. I went home for the funeral, but when I drove downtown and saw all those dignified black folks out mourning yet another loss of youth and beauty, I knew I didn’t belong. His parents wouldn’t welcome me—they’d answered the phone a few times when I’d called and I knew they were no more happy about him seeing a white girl than my parents would’ve been if they’d known. I couldn’t go to the viewing or the funeral—some time later, I went to the grave, a flat, scrubby plot, the stone tiny and nearly anonymous. I imagined that godlike beauty shrinking and crumbling in the coffin; his athletic valor, his physical grace, his demand that the world acknowledge and respect him. I certainly had. I mourned not knowing him better—his dreams, the impediments—of which there were many. He came from a upwardly-mobile black family in an old Southern town that had fought integration hard and had even come to violence not long before I was in high school. The fact that he was in college was a triumph, though I’d heard he was partying too much and not working hard enough—he was bright, very bright, but unprepared and unmotivated. It’s questionable that he’d have finished college. I think now of the Houseman poem:
“Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.”
and wonder if, despite all his beauty and potential, his life would’ve got better or worse; if, were he alive today, I’d still admire and respect him.
But I digress. The radical-ness of my feminism never diminishes, though its form morphs and shifts—a belief in liberated, free sexuality has only developed; but my philosophy of feminism grows, becomes larger and more inclusive. The first foray outside of women and sex was ecofeminism. I visited a friend at Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington. Famous for producing such 90s radicals and creatives as Cobain, Vedder, Love and Cornell, in the 80s Evergreen and Olympia also nurtured (and probably still does) a quite radical green pocket—and one that fully incorporated a feminist perspective. In Olympia, I met my friend’s “goddess-Mother” Willow, who soaked the blood out of her menstrual rags and used the water on her moon plants—which produced the most lush, amazing flowers I’ve ever seen! I learnt about Starhawk and Charlene Spretnik; James Lovelock and Deep Ecology; Alice Walker and Marge Piercy. It being the 80s, and a crest in the wave of women’s empowerment that began in the 70s, these ideas got a lot of play at the time. I was lucky enough to visit some of the places they got their start: Olympic National Forest, for example, is a place where the philosophies of Deep Ecology seem not only possible, but undeniable. It is like the Narnian forest that Lucy tries so hard to waken in Prince Caspian; the trees are like Tolkein’s quiet, deeply raging Ents. You feel their energy, their power—at the time, I also felt sadness. I did not belong in their forest, it was clear. Even though my intentions were good, I had no place there. I had flashes of the dryad who comes to tell King Rillian that the Lantern Waste is being murdered; but I was not the king, nor were these trees subject to me. Nor did they know that I was not one of those who laid them waste in broad, murderous swathes that caused the topsoil to wash away and the land to bleed its rich, red clay into the rivers of the Pacific Northwest. It was a powerful connection I made with the trees there, one that has never left me. It also opened me up to many more connections with the natural world—connections that I remembered from my early childhood but that I had lost in the process of “civilization”.
(to be continued)
Monday, June 4, 2007
John Edwards for President
Debate in the Pink House over presidential candidates has not even considered the two top runners—Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama. I can’t speak for the other Pinklers, but, although I am thrilled and aware of what a huge step forward for the US it is to have a woman and a black man as the leading contenders for the presidency, I can support neither of them. Clinton began to lose me when she went from Ms. Rodham to Mrs. Clinton, worried more about her hairstyle than her politics, and stopped being a voice for women. Despite the whole sex scandal, Bill did more for women than Hilary has. Initially,I was interested in and hopeful about Obama, despite his inexperience, until I heard him say he wanted to INCREASE the size of the military.
Being from North Carolina, however, and having a hugely sentimental bias towards the state, I have wanted to support Edwards ever since 2000. Like other Pinklers—and indeed, the majority of my leftist friends—I questioned his “slickness,” his multi-million dollar residence, his record victories in high-priced law cases. And by the time Election Day 2004 came around, my enthusiasm for Kerry was so deflated, Edwards’ name on the ticket hardly caused a blip in my blood pressure. Like in 1988, however, when “Duke til you puke” was as excited as we leftists could get about the Dukakis-Benson ticket, I voted democrat. Fat lot of good that did.
John Edwards, however, really attracted my notice when, instead of taking a high-powered corporate or political job as his status as vice-presidential candidate would have allowed, he chose to head up the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At that point, I would’ve thought, he could’ve traded his profile and charisma for either big money or heavy duty Washington power. He did neither, instead working for an organization that has neither glamour nor prestige. This, of course, may have had something to do with his wife, Elizabeth’s, breast cancer diagnosis on election day—I was exceedingly disappointed when, after stating with great passion and sincerity, “We will count every vote,” Edwards caved so easily when it was clear that irregularities in Ohio cast every shadow on the election’s legitimacy. But I forgave him with tears in my eyes when he and his wife announced her cancer; with such a heavy emotional blow (on a family that had already suffered so much), I thought, how can I blame him for conserving his energy to support his wife during her illness.
Since that time, however, I have given Edwards a lot of thought, and have concluded that he is the best candidate for president in the current race, for a number of reasons.
1) He’s a Southerner. In case the Democrats, and indeed, liberals, leftists and progressives, haven’t noticed, the last two Democrats to win the White House have been from the South. And unlike Georgia and Arkansas, North Carolina is not a “deep South” state, mired in the poverty and racism that traditionally characterize some of her neighbors. North Carolina was nearly evenly divided between seceding from the Union and staying, because its economic base consisted as much of small (non-slave owning) farmers as it did big plantations. That relative egalitarianism has developed over the last 150 years in NC—one of the first Southern states to “recover” from reconstruction, the state has maintained a better and more equal standard of living than almost any other state in the South. NC had its share of Civil Rights activities—and there were no Bull Conners, no dogs and water hoses turned on the folks at the Woolworth’s counter in Winston-Salem. There were some issues with integration, particularly in the southeast; but North Carolina also has several old and well-respected traditional black universities. Edwards was born—as is often touted to add to his “rags to riches” credibility—to a textile mill worker in South Carolina, a southern state never known for its progressive attitude. But that he chose to go to university and then to live in North Carolina is a fact I count to his credit.
2) I have yet to hear John Edwards spout the same old xenophobic rhetoric about how the US is the greatest nation on Earth, etc, etc—while it bubbles like an over-full septic system from the lips of every other mainstream candidate. WHAT, exactly, is the US greatest at? As Bill Maher recently noted, the US “isn't ranked anywhere near first in anything except military might and snotty billionaires” (http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/05/04/france/index.html). I have lived in a number of other countries, most of which have nowhere near the economic clout or democratic foundations the US claims; and yet the standards of living for the majority of the people in those countries is so much better than that of the US, it’s shocking. For one thing, they all have national health care, which is a great relief both financially and psychologically; when you never have to choose between eating, paying a bill, or going to a doctor, that’s a huge weight off your shoulders.
I love that John Edwards talks about the problems of this country, the two
Americas—older lefties may remember Michael Harrington’s book, The Other America, which heavily influenced JFK’s and Johnson’s “War on Poverty.” I haven’t researched his writing enough to know if his ideas come from the same populist movement that influenced Harrington, but it doesn’t matter where he got the ideas as long as he’s sincere about them. Coming from the textile worker’s background as he does, he surely has memories and experience of a lower working class lifestyle.
** Note on the $400 haircut: Maybe if the US people weren’t so damned shallow, choosing a president like they do an “American Idol”, Edwards (and other candidates) wouldn’t have to be so concerned about image, calling in top dollar cosmetic services because they are so busy on the campaign trail (raising money, mind you, not actually campaigning yet) that they don’t have time to go to their regular barber. Maybe, if the US people (and I’ll acknowledge that it might be the media who’s doing it, not the people) actually cared about substance instead of style, a candidate could appear in a public forum without having to worry about looking like a movie star—be it haircuts, makeovers, face-lifts, or teeth-whitening.
3) And speaking of which, let’s talk about that multi-million dollar house. Sure, it’s extravagant. But isn’t that the whole idea of the American dream, to come from poverty and go to wealth? It’s not my dream to be one of the super rich (which, incidentally, Edwards is not) nor clearly is it that of my fellow Pinklers; but isn’t it the dream—that has been touted and fostered as the ultimate possibility in this country—of many US people? Sure, Dennis Kucinich reflects, much more than John Edwards, my ideals in both his lifestyle and his politics—but does he reflect the ideals of the majority of US people? As Jeb Bartlett (you know, the guy who plays the President on TV) famously said, “I was elected to represent all the people, not just the ones who agree with me.” Who will be perceived as being better able to do that—Kucinich or Edwards?
4) Which brings me to my final point: Electibility. Yes, yes, that’s a defeatist attitude, if we keep saying Kucinich isn’t electible, he won’t be. Well, that’s what I said about Nader in 2000. Now, I don’t blame Nader (or my voting for him) for the theft of the White House by Bush. I blame the people who did actually vote for Bush (though to be fair who would’ve thought he’d be this bad?); I blame Al Gore for not having a more dynamic and appealing campaign; and most of all I blame the wimpy damn congress who allowed the whole travesty to be foisted upon the people and the world. Now, if Kucinich gets the nomination, he will certainly have my vote and my blessing. But I don’t believe he will, nor do I believe he can win the majority of votes in the US. And when you’re in a hole this deep, the first thing you gotta do is stop digging. As far as I can see, John Edwards has the biggest shovel.
5) Now, I would personally be thrilled to death for the US to make a huge surge to the left—hell, let’s put those damned French to shame!—and I would devote every waking minute to helping whoever achieved that surge succeed. But I don’t think it’s going to happen. US people are too scared, too timid, too uneducated, too unaware of their own history—let alone the history of the world—to make such a brave step. This timidity and lack of moral and political courage is all too evident in our elected representatives in congress. I’m furious with the Democrats for continuing to allow the neo-cons to set the agenda, even with a majority in congress. I do appreciate the courage of Kucinich and Gravel—as I applauded the courage of Cynthia McKinney and Barbara Lee (where were the Democratic senators in the Congressional Black Caucus’ calls for an investigation into voter fraud and disenfranchisement); even Republicans like Walter B. Jones Jr (from … wait for it … North Carolina …badum-ching) who challenge the warmongers on every step. I understand that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are working with a very slim majority and they have to be diplomatic—but I can’t help but think that, as smart as these people are, they must be able to come up with ways to outsmart the Bush cabal, whose responses (“I don’t recall” and “I don’t have time to answer a subpoena”) are certainly not evidence of membership in Mensa. Finally, in November, the US people got off their asses and said NO MORE to the neo-con railroad; we have, in fact, done the most that we can within the electoral framework to demand new leadership. Now where the hell is it?
6) And that may be the single most important reason to vote for Edwards. Although he spent one senate term in Washington and thus has some experience in how things work, he is NOT part and parcel of this yin-yang of corporate mouthpieces that both parties seem to have become. Edwards is a new, fresh face. He’s neither a Clinton nor a Bush nor a Reagan (although after 6 years of W, I’m sometimes nostalgic for the “kinder, gentler” Reagan years). We the people seem to have made an awful blunder here in the early years of the new millennium; let’s correct it by voting for a leader whom all of us can live with, and some of us can even admire. I envision an Edwards presidency as one of gracious charm, interested affability, and sincere willingness to listen to and work for the people. He’s been championing the individual against the corporate behemoth for years in private practice—well, isn’t that what we need in a president? Someone who will go against the multi-national Goliath’s to protect all of the individual, hardworking Davids, both in the US and abroad? He’s no Dennis Kucinich—but neither is the US Sweden—or New Zealand.
As a feminist and a long-time supporter of racial justice and equality, I’m saddened by the fact that I can support neither the woman nor the black candidate for 2008 (although I did see an “Oprah/Obama 08” sticker the other day—now, that would be just too damned hard to resist). At this monumental time in US political history, alas, my candidate is the rich white male. But hey, isn’t that the whole point—that it be not the “color of his skin” or her gender, but the content of character, on which we base our vote? Surely the choices we have this election cycle in the Democratic Party reflect how very far we have come in such a short time.
Being from North Carolina, however, and having a hugely sentimental bias towards the state, I have wanted to support Edwards ever since 2000. Like other Pinklers—and indeed, the majority of my leftist friends—I questioned his “slickness,” his multi-million dollar residence, his record victories in high-priced law cases. And by the time Election Day 2004 came around, my enthusiasm for Kerry was so deflated, Edwards’ name on the ticket hardly caused a blip in my blood pressure. Like in 1988, however, when “Duke til you puke” was as excited as we leftists could get about the Dukakis-Benson ticket, I voted democrat. Fat lot of good that did.
John Edwards, however, really attracted my notice when, instead of taking a high-powered corporate or political job as his status as vice-presidential candidate would have allowed, he chose to head up the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At that point, I would’ve thought, he could’ve traded his profile and charisma for either big money or heavy duty Washington power. He did neither, instead working for an organization that has neither glamour nor prestige. This, of course, may have had something to do with his wife, Elizabeth’s, breast cancer diagnosis on election day—I was exceedingly disappointed when, after stating with great passion and sincerity, “We will count every vote,” Edwards caved so easily when it was clear that irregularities in Ohio cast every shadow on the election’s legitimacy. But I forgave him with tears in my eyes when he and his wife announced her cancer; with such a heavy emotional blow (on a family that had already suffered so much), I thought, how can I blame him for conserving his energy to support his wife during her illness.
Since that time, however, I have given Edwards a lot of thought, and have concluded that he is the best candidate for president in the current race, for a number of reasons.
1) He’s a Southerner. In case the Democrats, and indeed, liberals, leftists and progressives, haven’t noticed, the last two Democrats to win the White House have been from the South. And unlike Georgia and Arkansas, North Carolina is not a “deep South” state, mired in the poverty and racism that traditionally characterize some of her neighbors. North Carolina was nearly evenly divided between seceding from the Union and staying, because its economic base consisted as much of small (non-slave owning) farmers as it did big plantations. That relative egalitarianism has developed over the last 150 years in NC—one of the first Southern states to “recover” from reconstruction, the state has maintained a better and more equal standard of living than almost any other state in the South. NC had its share of Civil Rights activities—and there were no Bull Conners, no dogs and water hoses turned on the folks at the Woolworth’s counter in Winston-Salem. There were some issues with integration, particularly in the southeast; but North Carolina also has several old and well-respected traditional black universities. Edwards was born—as is often touted to add to his “rags to riches” credibility—to a textile mill worker in South Carolina, a southern state never known for its progressive attitude. But that he chose to go to university and then to live in North Carolina is a fact I count to his credit.
2) I have yet to hear John Edwards spout the same old xenophobic rhetoric about how the US is the greatest nation on Earth, etc, etc—while it bubbles like an over-full septic system from the lips of every other mainstream candidate. WHAT, exactly, is the US greatest at? As Bill Maher recently noted, the US “isn't ranked anywhere near first in anything except military might and snotty billionaires” (http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/05/04/france/index.html). I have lived in a number of other countries, most of which have nowhere near the economic clout or democratic foundations the US claims; and yet the standards of living for the majority of the people in those countries is so much better than that of the US, it’s shocking. For one thing, they all have national health care, which is a great relief both financially and psychologically; when you never have to choose between eating, paying a bill, or going to a doctor, that’s a huge weight off your shoulders.
I love that John Edwards talks about the problems of this country, the two
Americas—older lefties may remember Michael Harrington’s book, The Other America, which heavily influenced JFK’s and Johnson’s “War on Poverty.” I haven’t researched his writing enough to know if his ideas come from the same populist movement that influenced Harrington, but it doesn’t matter where he got the ideas as long as he’s sincere about them. Coming from the textile worker’s background as he does, he surely has memories and experience of a lower working class lifestyle.
** Note on the $400 haircut: Maybe if the US people weren’t so damned shallow, choosing a president like they do an “American Idol”, Edwards (and other candidates) wouldn’t have to be so concerned about image, calling in top dollar cosmetic services because they are so busy on the campaign trail (raising money, mind you, not actually campaigning yet) that they don’t have time to go to their regular barber. Maybe, if the US people (and I’ll acknowledge that it might be the media who’s doing it, not the people) actually cared about substance instead of style, a candidate could appear in a public forum without having to worry about looking like a movie star—be it haircuts, makeovers, face-lifts, or teeth-whitening.
3) And speaking of which, let’s talk about that multi-million dollar house. Sure, it’s extravagant. But isn’t that the whole idea of the American dream, to come from poverty and go to wealth? It’s not my dream to be one of the super rich (which, incidentally, Edwards is not) nor clearly is it that of my fellow Pinklers; but isn’t it the dream—that has been touted and fostered as the ultimate possibility in this country—of many US people? Sure, Dennis Kucinich reflects, much more than John Edwards, my ideals in both his lifestyle and his politics—but does he reflect the ideals of the majority of US people? As Jeb Bartlett (you know, the guy who plays the President on TV) famously said, “I was elected to represent all the people, not just the ones who agree with me.” Who will be perceived as being better able to do that—Kucinich or Edwards?
4) Which brings me to my final point: Electibility. Yes, yes, that’s a defeatist attitude, if we keep saying Kucinich isn’t electible, he won’t be. Well, that’s what I said about Nader in 2000. Now, I don’t blame Nader (or my voting for him) for the theft of the White House by Bush. I blame the people who did actually vote for Bush (though to be fair who would’ve thought he’d be this bad?); I blame Al Gore for not having a more dynamic and appealing campaign; and most of all I blame the wimpy damn congress who allowed the whole travesty to be foisted upon the people and the world. Now, if Kucinich gets the nomination, he will certainly have my vote and my blessing. But I don’t believe he will, nor do I believe he can win the majority of votes in the US. And when you’re in a hole this deep, the first thing you gotta do is stop digging. As far as I can see, John Edwards has the biggest shovel.
5) Now, I would personally be thrilled to death for the US to make a huge surge to the left—hell, let’s put those damned French to shame!—and I would devote every waking minute to helping whoever achieved that surge succeed. But I don’t think it’s going to happen. US people are too scared, too timid, too uneducated, too unaware of their own history—let alone the history of the world—to make such a brave step. This timidity and lack of moral and political courage is all too evident in our elected representatives in congress. I’m furious with the Democrats for continuing to allow the neo-cons to set the agenda, even with a majority in congress. I do appreciate the courage of Kucinich and Gravel—as I applauded the courage of Cynthia McKinney and Barbara Lee (where were the Democratic senators in the Congressional Black Caucus’ calls for an investigation into voter fraud and disenfranchisement); even Republicans like Walter B. Jones Jr (from … wait for it … North Carolina …badum-ching) who challenge the warmongers on every step. I understand that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are working with a very slim majority and they have to be diplomatic—but I can’t help but think that, as smart as these people are, they must be able to come up with ways to outsmart the Bush cabal, whose responses (“I don’t recall” and “I don’t have time to answer a subpoena”) are certainly not evidence of membership in Mensa. Finally, in November, the US people got off their asses and said NO MORE to the neo-con railroad; we have, in fact, done the most that we can within the electoral framework to demand new leadership. Now where the hell is it?
6) And that may be the single most important reason to vote for Edwards. Although he spent one senate term in Washington and thus has some experience in how things work, he is NOT part and parcel of this yin-yang of corporate mouthpieces that both parties seem to have become. Edwards is a new, fresh face. He’s neither a Clinton nor a Bush nor a Reagan (although after 6 years of W, I’m sometimes nostalgic for the “kinder, gentler” Reagan years). We the people seem to have made an awful blunder here in the early years of the new millennium; let’s correct it by voting for a leader whom all of us can live with, and some of us can even admire. I envision an Edwards presidency as one of gracious charm, interested affability, and sincere willingness to listen to and work for the people. He’s been championing the individual against the corporate behemoth for years in private practice—well, isn’t that what we need in a president? Someone who will go against the multi-national Goliath’s to protect all of the individual, hardworking Davids, both in the US and abroad? He’s no Dennis Kucinich—but neither is the US Sweden—or New Zealand.
As a feminist and a long-time supporter of racial justice and equality, I’m saddened by the fact that I can support neither the woman nor the black candidate for 2008 (although I did see an “Oprah/Obama 08” sticker the other day—now, that would be just too damned hard to resist). At this monumental time in US political history, alas, my candidate is the rich white male. But hey, isn’t that the whole point—that it be not the “color of his skin” or her gender, but the content of character, on which we base our vote? Surely the choices we have this election cycle in the Democratic Party reflect how very far we have come in such a short time.
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