Why Sandra Fluke is bad for Democrats

Is the highly-educated, elite liberal activist Sandra Fluke really the woman Obamacare was made for?

This might sound illiberal and sexist, but I oppose Sandra Fluke's headlining for the Democratic Party at this year's convention, or anywhere else.  

Her main political credential: publicly complaining, and then testifying before Congress, that her student health insurance at Georgetown law school did not cover her $1,000 annual tab for birth control.  (And, to be fair, her friends' birth control.) Then Rush Limbaugh wrongly called her a "slut," saying she wanted to be paid to have sex, making her a media martyr for her cause célèbre. 

Yet I look at her from a different perspective: that of your everyday, full-time working woman, whose median gross income was $37 K in 2010. 

Tuition alone at Georgetown Law is over $50 K a year.  Before Georgetown, Ms. Fluke graduated from Ivy League school Cornell University, where annual tuition is currently $41 K for non-residents and $25 K for residents. Altogether, the cost of Fluke's top-flight education was upwards of $250,000, or at least $36 K per year. Ms. Fluke's annual birth control expense was under 3 percent of that -- even less, if you add in books, fees, etc. Furthermore, Ms. Fluke's opportunity cost of choosing not to work was about double (probably much more) the median female earner's annual income.

I understand that every little expense matters and it all adds up... especially when one makes the voluntary choice to pursue graduate school instead of working full time, and at a very expensive school in an expensive city, at that.  Maybe she won scholarships, grants or other financial aid, I don't know; but the true cost of her education remains the same, regardless of whether she paid for it.

Added to that basic cost, Ms. Fluke said she deserved birth control, paid for by the university's health plan, or the government.  (I suppose she was indifferent from whom, as long as she got it.)  Although she cited her friend's ovarian cyst as justification for female students' needing affordable birth control, Ms. Fluke did not claim any such medical condition for herself.  

Currently, a 36-pack of Trojan-ENZ ARMOR Spermicidal Lubricated Condoms costs about $22, or 61 cents a condom.  Even if Ms. Fluke chose to have sex three times a day, 365 days a year, her annual birth control cost would total $670... if she made condoms her method of birth control.  Male condoms are 82-98 percent effective at preventing pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control, (they're more effective when used properly, just like any contraceptive method).  In addition, latex condoms are "highly effective" at preventing the spread of HIV and other STDs. Whereas The Pill and many other forms of birth control are zero percent effective at preventing STDs.

So on cost, and on science, condoms beat most other methods of sexual protection. But they're inconvenient.  I know.  That's what this is really about for many of the 11 million U.S. women taking oral contraceptives: their, and their male partners', convenience.  

So Rush Limbaugh was wrong: Ms. Fluke did not want to be paid to have sex.  She wanted to be subsidized for her choice of study over work; and she wanted her pleasure and convenience subsidized.

Here's a little-known fact as an aside: Ms. Fluke chose to attend Catholic Georgetown Law knowing full well its medical coverage policy. According to The Washington Post:

She researched the Jesuit college's health plans for students before enrolling, and found that birth control was not included. "I decided I was absolutely not willing to compromise the quality of my education in exchange for my health care," says Fluke, who has spent the past three years lobbying the administration to change its policy on the issue. 

Let's compare Ms. Fluke's plight to that of most other U.S. women.  In 2010, an estimated 18.7 million women had no health insurance -- not even a basic university medical plan like Ms. Fluke's -- and another 16.7 million women did have insurance, but with such large out-of-pocket costs that they were effectively underinsured.  

Look, I understand that access to affordable birth control is essential for many working women to take control of their reproductive lives and remain in the workforce.  Thanks to Obamacare, starting this month, all private insurance plans must cover female contraception.  However, there is a good chance that Obamacare will be repealed, all or in part, after the November elections.  That would be a tragedy for working women.

In this context, I don't agree that privileged women who choose expensive graduate education over work should be trotted out as spokeswomen for reproductive rights, working-class women, or the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.  

So it's not so much the content of Ms. Fluke's complaint that matters, but the personal context:  hers, versus the millions of uninsured and underinsured women who take any job they can get, whether it provides health insurance or not, and would not even dare to complain to their at-will employer or dream of testifying before Congress that they need contraceptive coverage.  

Was Ms. Fluke brave for standing up for herself and her classmates, knowing that she had little to lose, and certainly lots to gain... like becoming a prominent national activist?  Are most working-class women meek for not following suit?  Certainly not. Ms. Fluke didn't pretend to speak for them.  That's good, because she can't.  She cannot possibly be their articulate spokeswoman on this issue, because she cannot understand the fear and the desperation of working-class Americans chained to bad jobs just to keep their health insurance, or worse, working at any jobs they can find, even without health insurance.  

Once again, Democrats have decided to make a highly-educated, articulate white woman their chosen spokesperson on "women's issues," instead of a real working woman.  The media and other highly-educated white liberal women applaud Ms. Fluke's bravery.  Meanwhile, the plight of real working women, including women of color, is ignored.  

Real women, real everyday people, have to sacrifice things they need all the time. They don't expect to get it all, they pray for enough to get by.

Putting the media spotlight on such real women at the Democratic convention -- and how Obamacare will benefit them -- could actually help Democrats win in November, and thus make sure that law is protected.  Instead, Democrats have chosen to hoist up a polarizing figure who exudes white liberal entitlement and Ivory-Tower detachment.  

Bad strategy.  Hurts the party.  Puts Obamacare at risk.

A man-cession in a woman's world?

So according to a new survey and study, when it comes to jobs, money and relationships, there still is definitely more sexual pressure on men from women than vice-versa.

Nowadays, western women believe they deserve to "have it all," meaning successful career, happy family with children, and generally good work-life balance. Even though they face many of the same realities and pressures as women, men rarely if ever talk about "having it all." We hear only about men's responsibilities, i.e. doing it all. (A woman might retort, "Well, men don't ask anybody for permission; they just do what they want!")

Although feminism successfully changed the culture's focus from women's duties to women's desires and opportunities, it seems that in many ways -- like having to be the breadwinner -- men got left behind in their old gender role, and they're not always happy about it. Other men retain all the old male responsibilities, plus new ones like housework and childcare.

With most families having two earners, a more even and equitable division of family labor is both fair and practical. But when it comes to joblessness, "There's something still about men's non-employment that flies in the face of what couples think a marriage should be." Feminism is silent about this double standard. In today's "man-cession," this double standard is especially painful. Women refuse to stand by their (unemployed) men. So should women be asked, like men have been asked recently, to overcome millennia of evolutionary hard-wiring to change their thinking and behavior?

Unemployment-Divorce Study: Behind The Ohio State University Paper Linking Male Joblessness With Marital Strife

By Anna Bahr

July 1, 2011 | Huffington Post

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/01/unemployment-divorce-stud_n_888357.html

Uthman: Palin reveals McCain campaign's cynicism

OK, even if you hate this op-ed, you gotta check out the Chappelle show clip referenced herein!  I promise you'll laugh.


Palin-Drones
By Allan Uthman
The Beast

A few months ago, a friend asked me who I though McCain would or should pick to be his vice presidential candidate. "I think if I were working for McCain," I said, "I'd wait until Obama makes his choice, and if he picks a man, pick a woman, or if he picks a woman, pick a man." You know, work the difference. So it was no surprise to me that McCain picked a woman. But, just like everyone else, I was dumbfounded that woman was Sarah Palin, one-year governor of a state over twice the size of Texas with the population of El Paso (there is one person per square mile in Alaska).

It seemed at first that McCain may have thrown the election by choosing an unknown, unready running mate with a BS in communications from Idaho University and a hard-right Christianist ideology, in a ploy to woo disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters. "We're not that stupid," came the cry from insulted feminists, and they were right to recognize that Palin did not in any way represent their ambitions.

But it turns out that they are that stupid, or at least some of them are. While it seems unfathomable that women who supported Hillary Clinton could flip to the GOP ticket for a woman who is pro-life, pro-assault rifle and pro-Bush just because she's a woman, McCain's numbers among white women have shot up with Palin's stunt nomination. This is incredibly disappointing.

Palin is so obviously not equipped to be president that her own surrogates are not willing to discuss the possibility that McCain could die or become incapacitated in office. "She's not running for president," is the refrain. But of course, the only relevant issue when considering a VP choice, according to both presidential candidates (at least before Palin was picked), is whether they are ready to become president. John McCain will be 73 by January, used to smoke, loves to eat barbecued meat, and has had multiple bouts with serious cancer. If any president was ever likely to die in office, it's McCain. The guy could go any minute, really.  And yet his campaign thinks it's okay to select a nominee based entirely on demographic appeal, after a single interview.  And then they withhold her from the press, an obvious sign that they know she is not knowledgeable enough to survive under the spotlight. She gives one speech—a single goddamn speech—over and over again, repeating the same, already debunked, self-flattering lies about her fabricated image as a reform-minded maverick, and the press stands up and cheers, just for the novelty of her. This is a step backwards for gender equality, because if Palin were a man, the press would have murdered him by now. Special dispensation is not equality.

What this selection says about John McCain is simple: He doesn't give a damn what happens to this country when he's dead. McCain's personal favorite choices, Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge, are much closer to him in terms of politics and experience. These are guys who McCain would have selected if he were a real maverick, bucking party orthodoxy for the good of the country. McCain would probably have won anyway, impressing independents by risking GOP mutiny to stay true to himself, although he would never have closed the fundraising gap. Of course, there's a good chance that all McCain ever had to do to win this thing was talk about Vietnam and stay white.

One of the most infuriating things to see on TV news—the only news that matters, when it comes to shaping public opinion—is when they do one of those "fact-check" segments while omitting relevant facts. A good example is the squashing of Palin's attempted book-banning episode when she was mayor of Wasilla, a town of 7,000 which Palin left $20 million in debt.

This is from The New York Times:

"[I]n 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book 'Daddy's Roommate' on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to [future Palin campaign director Laura] Chase and [former Wasilla mayor John] Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.

" 'Sarah said she didn't need to read that stuff,' Ms. Chase said. ''It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn't even read it.'

As mayor, Palin asked the town's library director, Mary Ellen Emmons, three times, how she'd feel about book-banning, the last time asking if she'd change her mind if people were picketing the library. Emmons was staunchly opposed. Palin fired Emmons for "not fully supporting her efforts to govern," only rehiring her when there was an outpouring of public protest against the move.

To me, this is a really big deal. But the story has been "debunked" repeatedly in the press, relying on a factcheck.org report dismissing a hoax e-mail that provided a bogus list of books "banned" by Palin. So the story is "Palin never banned any books," which is true, but she sure as hell would have if she could have. The abortive firing episode gets nary a mention, giving the impression that the very idea Palin wanted to ban books is false, when it clearly is not.

And, since Obama's church is such a hot topic, it would seem strange that Palin's church, which preaches end-times theology and glossolalia, has received little mainstream scrutiny. You want crazy pastor quotes? Check out Palin's pastor, Ed Kalnins:

On John Kerry: "I'm not going tell you who to vote for, but if you vote for this particular person, I question your salvation. I'm sorry."

On Bush: "I hate criticisms towards the president, because it's like criticisms towards the pastor – it's almost like, it's not going to get you anywhere, you know, except for hell. That's what it'll get you."

On Iraq: "What you see in Iraq, basically, is a manifestation of what's going on in this unseen world called the spirit world. ... We need to think like Jesus thinks. We are in a time and a season of war, and we need to think like that. ... Jesus called us to die. You're worried about getting hurt? He's called us to die. ... I believe that Jesus himself operated from that position of war mode. Everyone say 'war mode.' "

Yeah. That's where Palin learned about morality. And she was in attendance at the church just weeks ago, as a guest speaker from Jews for Jesus described Palestinian terrorism as a manifestation of God's "judgment of unbelief" against Jews for rejecting Christ. It's not surprising that evangelical Christians are fired up by Palin, but again, I can't fathom the idea that Hillary Clinton supporters are excited about her.

And then there's this little tidbit, from her RNC speech:

"A writer observed, 'We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity.' And I know just the kind of people that writer had in mind when he praised Harry Truman."

That unnamed "writer" was unnamed for a reason. It was Westbrook Pegler, an openly racist columnist who wrote of wishing for the assassinations of FDR—and Robert Kennedy. Pegler's xenophobic, red-baiting politics were so extreme (he described Jews as "instinctively sympathetic to Communism, however outwardly respectable they appeared") that he was booted from the John Birch Society. In 1963, Pegler wrote that it was "clearly the bounden duty of all intelligent Americans to proclaim and practice bigotry." And, by the way, Pegler described Truman as a "hater," and Truman called Pegler a "guttersnipe." High praise, indeed.

It's hard to imagine why Palin or her speechwriter would include a phoned in quotation about how much better small-town people are than the rest of us from such a toxic source, when so many similar folksy platitudes could be pilfered from more benign writers, even ones whose names could be mentioned in public. I can only conclude that this was a coded message to the fascist right, the worst element in American politics, the very people we were all hoping were waning in significance this election cycle, that it was game on once again. I suppose there are plenty of white women who are anti-labor, pro-life, evangelical Christians. It's just that I can't imagine any of them were planning to vote for Obama, or Clinton, before the Palin selection.

Before anyone starts claiming that black Obama voters are equally shallow, consider whether they'd have voted for Alan Keyes. Because that's the nearest analogy I can think of for Palin's politics. Black people wouldn't vote for Alan Keyes, even if he were running against Robert Byrd. They're just not that stupid. So what the hell is wrong with white women? Are they really so aggrieved that Hillary got edged out of the Democratic nomination by Obama that they're willing to ruin the country just for spite?

The tragedy here is that, for all McCain's groundwork in building an image of himself as a man of character, the McCain/Palin campaign is the most cynical in modern American history. No longer feeling the need to even find a fact to hang their hat on, they have broken through the limits of distortion into the realm of utter fabrication, revealing their total contempt for the voting public. They don't twist the truth; the truth's got nothing to do with their strategy. It's much easier to just lie. And it's working. For their lies about their opponents and about themselves, they have been rewarded by substantial gains in key demographics, especially white women. Palin's selection has also enabled them to deflect criticism by crying sexism whenever Palin's obvious deficiencies as a candidate are raised.

And about that: It was the Clinton campaign that opened the door on claiming gender victimization as an electoral tactic. As her chances in the Democratic primary waned, Clinton and her surrogates went hog wild on the sexism charges, lashing out at anyone who dared criticize her. Admittedly, there were some ignorant comments here and there, albeit never from the Obama campaign. But when things got hairy, the Clinton campaign and its supporters leaned on sexism as an all-purpose excuse for losing, and it was a big steaming pile of horseshit.  The fact is that Clinton's gender was pretty much the only thing that distinguished her from a field rife with old, white, compromised senators. If Hillary Clinton were a man, there would have been no telling her apart from Dodd, Biden, or John Kerry for that matter. But Obama, even if you made him white, would still have been young, eloquent, and charismatic. In other words, as weird as this sounds, if you made Clinton and Obama into white men, Obama would have kicked her ass—it wouldn't have been close.

But Hillary's dead-enders insist that their expected primary victories were robbed from them by the "rampant misogyny" of Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews, and somehow Obama himself. And as Hillary's defeat drew ever closer, she herself ratcheted up the faux feminist rhetoric, leaving Obama with hordes of angry, inconsolable women blaming him for their imagined oppression, and somehow admiring Sean Hannity at the same time. And now, the Republicans have picked up the tactic and run with it, accusing Obama of calling Palin "a pig" (willful ignorance of cliché metaphors is a symptom of this condition) and labeling anyone who dares scrutinize Palin a sexist, including Tina Fey. These allegations hold about as much water as calling condemnations of Michael Vick racist.

There's a great sketch from the Dave Chapelle show, wherein Chappelle and crew are dressed up as classic movie monsters. Charlie Murphy is Frankenstein's monster, and when he gets fired from his office job, he accuses his boss of racism. A black coworker looks at him and exclaims, "nigga, you a Frankenstein!"

Nobody is after Sarah Palin because she's a woman. The fact is, she's a Frankenstein. And if women are so angry about losing a primary fight that they're willing to elect a Frankenstein, even a female Frankenstein, then they really are gullible, emotional, weak-minded fools, and they really do deserve all the derision they've gotten and more.

Steinem: Palin 'unqualified' female token

I almost feel sorry for Palin.  Seems like the poor thing had no idea what she was getting into.  Lots of facts in here about her I hadn't heard before. 

At any rate, the VP choices prove Obama's point: judgment trumps experience.  Obama chose his VP based on substance; McCain chose his VP based on a gimmick, a ploy.  Obama's choice showed sound judgment; McCain's choice showed cynical (and faulty) calculation.

(BTW, thank Dubya for yet another sad turn in U.S. politics: ever since Cheney, "the most powerful Vice President in U.S. history," now we've got to worry about the Veeps, too.  Oh, whither bygone halcyon days of Quayle and Ford!...)


Palin: Wrong woman, wrong message
By Gloria Steinem

September 4, 2008  |  LA Times

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.

Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax.  Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.