No argument from me that gender exempts anyone from complicity in Bush admin crimes. But as long as this election has identity politics all over it, it's worth asking questions and seeing where they lead:
--What issues does Condi face as an woman or an African-American woman that a white man would not. Smart woman taking up with a dumb guy? The monkey cartoons I ran across one time in some foreign press? Do these issues matter either to her effectiveness as a tool of empire or to the person costs/ benefits of the roles she chooses to play?
--What's with feminists mocking Sarah Palin because she is a former beauty queen who went to college at a state U in ID, one of the key tools for educating the middle class, instead of, say, slugging it out with the cream of the elite at the Ivy leagues?
--Are the Obamas really elitist because they got scholarships to mix it up in the class wars in Ivy League schools. Or if their experiences were anything like mine, do they deserve extra regular person credit for putting up with all the elitists and parochial sense of entitlement, not to mention the work of having to serve as pioneers with many fewer comparable role models than peers whose families have strolled those halls for generations? --Is Obama's speech on Thursday really a fulfilment of Martin Luther King's dream or is it a cynical manipulation of many folks desires to assume racial issues are over? I think it's kind of easy to fetishize MLK without going anywhere near his radical critics of war and empire, but I would still rather be looking at MLK's face adnd thinkinga bout the I have a Dream speech than at a bunch of smug white folks who look too much like my relatives.
I have more to say than I have time to write today, but it will be a long campaign and I expect these topics to come up again.
DC On Sat, Aug 30, 2008 at 9:25 AM, Dwayne Monroe <dwayne.monroe at gmail.com>wrote:
> Dorene:
>
> ...my standards are low, about the level of that bumper sticker that
> says "We need a President who is literate in at least one language."
>
> Condi is literate in at least two. That unfortunately does not make up
> for her boss, but....
>
>
> [...]
>
>
>
> ...
>
>
>
>
> It's interesting that you inserted that line about her cleverness not
> 'making up for her boss'. It's interesting because it suggests that
> she doesn't share equal responsibility and is, maybe, not as odious a
> person. What's implied (and maybe just implied and perhaps, not your
> intention at all) is that she isn't a true believer, isn't a war lord.
>
>
>
> This sort of thing comes up a lot re: Bush and the women who work on
> his team. Some people seem to give them an extra benefit of the doubt
> as if, because of their polish (and maybe just because they're women
> and women are assumed to be less likely to sanction mass murder) they
> aren't really a serious component of the machine.
>
>
>
> In 2005, Doug interviewed Laura Flanders, author of Bushwomen, about
> this very topic:
>
>
>
> Radio Interview --
>
> <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio_1.html#050407>
>
>
>
> And, in 2004, Doug spoke with Cynthia Enloe about related topics:
>
>
>
> Transcript --
>
> <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Enloe.html>
>
>
> Radio Interview --
>
>
> <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio_1.html#040520>
>
>
>
> I consider Enloe's and Flander's insights to be a correction to the
> idea that the Bush admin's female members are a better class of
> monster.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> .d.
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>