Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Clinton’s Magical Fairyland of Doom

I wasn't going to write this blog. I was going to calmly let all this pass, but given the fact that I have no women who regularly read my blog, I guess I am safe to say what I am about to say. I am rather disheartened by the support that some women are giving Hillary Clinton, despite her clear self-centered nature.

Men do a lot of stupid stuff, that is true. We can get very enamored with large televisions and the newest gadgetry. We have been known to continue down roads without asking for directions. The stereotypical male is pretty awful.

Fortunately we don't live in the land of stereotypes. The world isn't written by a cosmic sit-com author, based on ingrained biases handed down in some dusty book.* We live a life filled with lots of people who do things outside of what they are supposed to be doing. We have democrats who are gun activists. We have Republicans who are working feverishly to save the environment. I have known responsible corporate leaders, honest politicians, and one or two math majors who didn't bore me to tears.

Women have a lot of stereotypes too. Turn on the television and see if you can find them. There is the "angel of the household" stereotype where mom has to look after everyone in the family. (Dad is relegated to the biggest child status.) We have the double standard motif where a guy is allowed to be promiscuous, but not a girl. (It still exists.)

To be honest, the stereotypes women have are probably a lot more intrusive than the one's that men feel. Men are regarded as uncouth idiots, but it really doesn't effect our jobs or our leisure. Women have had a tradition of really having to work hard to get where they are. The generations of suffragettes and female workers who tirelessly fought to gain equality under the law of nations and law of economics is truly a triumph for all of humanity. It does not belong to females alone, but to all people.

That is why it sickens me to see a snake-oil salesmen come in and usurp history.** I would vote for a myriad of other women before I would vote for Ms. Clinton and the women of this nation should too. She is not a populist and she doesn't care about the needs of women. And even if she did care about these things, it would not qualify her one bit to be president of the United States of America. Pandering to the public with a platform of bread and circuses is neither helpful or safe; and unless I missed my guess the president is supposed to be the president of all Americans, not just people of his or her own cliche.

It is also disgraceful the way Clinton has insinuated, and her followers have out and out said, that Barack Obama is ahead because he is a man. (He won, but you will never hear a Clintonite or Clintonian or whatever they are say he's won.) That is the most utter nonsense I have ever heard in my life. If that was the case, the democrats wouldn't allow a black man to be the nominee either. They would've picked someone smarmy like Jon Edwards or someone crazy like Denis Kucinich because they are white. The democrats had a lot of white guys to choose from this year. If it comes to elections being about picking people like us, the democrats decided to be a little on the brave side. (It is a pity that they weren't more brave in actually backing their nominee.)

For all her faults and flaws, Ms. Clinton seems to have served her constituency quite admirably. I suppose she will be a fine legislator. Her problem is that she doesn't want to be a legislator, but rather she wants to have power. She has lied about her credentials, her record, and her rival. I suppose if they had been very good lies, she might make a decent president, but the lies haven't even been that good.

The thrust of my blog post is this, stereotypes are fine as rubric. They help create a sort of order to our lives and allow us to organize things, but when we ignore facts in order to adhere to our stereotypes than we are living in a fantasy world and a dangerous one at that. Ms. Clinton is doing just this. She is reinforcing the stereotypes that men are evil and out to get her, you cannot trust Mr. Obama because of his race, and that the people of money only got that way by screwing everyone else out of their money. Such broad stereotypes are not believed by the Clintons, but they are used to manipulate those who WANT to believe in these nefarious cabals. It would be wise of Clinton supporters to trade in what they want to believe for what they need to believe.



* We must ban together and find the actual stereotypical sit-com book. My bet is that it is in the L.A. public library and has its own private group of librarians who take calls from stymied second-rate authors about how to get a character in and out of trouble. "Oh, he's a man," one declares, "have you had him burn down the house while trying to cook dinner?" Another says, "well, she is a blonde and we all know that means she's a ditz, so have her mispronounce some words and do a few cheers." When we find this book we must destroy it. We will have to go without television for a few weeks, but it will be worth it. Then again, the stupider parts of society will probably not know how to behave without the "sit-com reference"

** I am not going to write "herstory" because history and his are based off of two different linguistic branches. "His" is an old english word and "history" is from Latin, no doubt brought over by the Norman French. So once again, blame the French.