{"id":381,"date":"2008-08-31T13:31:38","date_gmt":"2008-08-31T17:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/?p=381"},"modified":"2008-08-31T18:18:03","modified_gmt":"2008-08-31T22:18:03","slug":"my-politics-anti-manipulation-anti-word-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/2008\/my-politics-anti-manipulation-anti-word-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"My politics? Anti-manipulation, anti-word-abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: well whaddya know? The offending site<\/a> has closed registration. hmmmm, cause that convinces me the posters were legit.<\/p>\n

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As a former journalist, and current federal government employee (for an organization respected for its non-partisan nature), I generally keep my politics to myself and I definitely try to keep them off the blog. It’s one of the reasons I’ve kept this blog quasi-anonymous. [1. I think of my blog as one-way anonymous. kinda. If you know me in real life (IRL) you know this blog is mine, but if you come to washwords, you probably don’t know who I am, or at least you have to work a little to find it.] Probably the closest I’ve come to politcal posting is linking to other folks’ political posts or maybe my\u00a0 convention haikus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But one thing (okay two things)\u00a0 I do feel free to rant about: 1) word abuse and\/or 2) people who use words to try to manipulate. (See, for example, “Toxic”.[2. Toxic told me within minutes of my joining a work organization that certain people were “toxic.” Not only was this a neon site that the toxicity lay within the toxic-citer (it did) but it told me she didn’t respect or think very much of me to presume that I was so blindly trust her take and cruel words at face value.]<\/p>\n

And when I hear people calling Sarah Palin a feminist<\/a> or a choice for the Hillary-supporters<\/a>, I feel angry, politicized. When I see folks, my SISTERS and fellow women (presumably) [3. It IS the interweb – so who knows how many of these peeps are real\/unique users\/female\/Hillary supporters, etc,. etc.]\u00a0 writing pages and pages and PAGES of vitriol anti-obama and pro “lady VP at all costs, yay!” I feel sad. Really sad.<\/p>\n

I feel that McCain gambled on some Hillary-ites, some women voting for ANY woman. And I feel that these posters create the perception that he was right.<\/p>\n

Please note: I’m not chastizing the people who genuinely love what Sarah Palin stands for, or what John Mccain stands for, who believe in them. It’s the blind – “oh woman? super! that’ll show obama!” that I resent and the “finally, a feminist choice” that makes me sad. Because she is not. Among the ways Sarah Palin is not\u00a0 feminist, in my understanding of the word, and not a “Hillary” and most certainly my choice: anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, wants creationism taught in schools, is capitalizing on her child’s illness praising herself for golly-gee KEEPING a baby[4. And I’m not even going here<\/a>, but wow, this is interesting.] with down’s syndrome – what a saint, right? all the while criticizing people who DARE to bring up her family. the same family she is basing her campaign on. I could go on.<\/p>\n

But here’s what I’m gonna do (fight speech with speech right?.<\/p>\n

I’m going on hillaryforum.net<\/a> (not in any way associated with her btw, and hmmm, donations there go back to the site owners, not Mrs. Clinton in ANY way, shape or form) with this message:<\/p>\n

I consider myself a Hillary supporter at least in the sense of being an admirer, in the sense of respecting what she’s done and what she stands for even if I, too, don’t always agree with her style or her approach. And this is not what she stands for. Not at all. In no way is supporting Ms. Palin, nice lady though she may be, woman though she may be supporting anything Hillary has ever stood for. Count me in the Hillary supporters\u00a0 for Obama column; count me as actively involved because of the insult to my intelligence by Mccain that I would vote for any woman because I’m a woman. To me and to Hillary as she said herself my right to choose, equality of all people to marry who they want, the environment, the economy, putting an end to the last eight years of crony-ism and self-centered leaders, is a LOT more important than having or not having a vagina. Cheers!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MAYBE YOU WANT TO DO THE SAME.<\/a> Yes, you have to register. Might be worth it. Let’s turn propaganda by the same old few into a discussion about change, feminism, and thinking. And hey, if Palin’s your gal, go on there and tell people that, too.\u00a0 See you at the debates!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: well whaddya know? The offending site has closed registration. hmmmm, cause that convinces me the posters were legit. As a former journalist, and current federal government employee (for an organization respected for its non-partisan nature), I generally keep my politics to myself and I definitely try to keep them off the blog. It’s one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[766,622],"tags":[912,919,200,49,230,911,291,910,917,915,914,358,908,909,918,916,913,618,820],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wash","category-words","tag-barak-obama","tag-dont-cross-me","tag-election","tag-feminism","tag-feminist","tag-hillary","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-insult","tag-insulting-my-intelligence","tag-lies","tag-manipulation","tag-mccain","tag-palin","tag-propaganda","tag-ticked-off","tag-untruth","tag-vote","tag-woman","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions\/383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/washwords.com\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}