



Republican Math



Like many people McCain's Veep choice

has me stumped.



A play for Hillary voters?

Palin's pro-life, wants Creationism taught

in schools, doesn't think there is scientific

proof of global warming, is against listing

the Polar Bear on the Endangered Species

List —



A wet start to counter Obama's convention

speech? Get his ratings up?



Oz wrote about McCain's alarming propensity

for crashing airplanes. See: The Wrong Stuff.

Was it a gamble, an impulse?



Or do Republicans just have weird ideas

about women?



It's not Cindy McCain's fault that she looks

like Barbie, but didn't John offer her up

to take part in a contest to be Queen of

a Biker rally — a competition that involved

topless contestants French kissing guys

in Motorcycle garb?



Or consider Bush's first pick for Supreme Court

Chief (no less) Justice, Harriette Meyer — who quickly

withdrew when it became obvious to everyone

her only qualification was loyalty to G.W.



Or Texas Senator, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, who

votes lock step with the Bush agenda. Wasn't she,

like Palin, a beauty pageant winner?



Or Kathrine Harris (Catherine the Great) who

ran for Senate after fixing the vote for Bush

in Florida in 2002.



And there's Laura Bush, the librarian who didn't

know Walt Whitman had written bitterly

in opposition to war.



Or Barbara Bush, who said Katrina refugees in

shelters in Houston probably had better accommodations

there than they were accustomed to.



Or Condi Rice —

the Russian Scholar from Stanford who gets

everything wrong.



It is not that there are no qualified women

in the Republican party. Olympia Snow,

has international experience.



Palin got her first passport

after she was elected Governor of Alaska.



I'm not alone in wondering what McCain

could possibly have been thinking when he

picked her. Here are ten disturbing things

about Palin from AlterNet.



I don't give a flip that her daughter is pregnant,

but it concerns me that Gov. Palin either lied about

whose child the four month old baby is —

or recklessly endangered his life and her own

by waiting after her water broke to deliver a speech

in Texas, then flew (while in labor) eleven hours

to Alaska, drove to her home town hospital

to deliver — a mother over 40, carrying a Downs

Syndrome baby? And the hospital records

only two births that day, neither of which

were her's.



Starting with Enron, which my family first

experienced as rolling brown outs in California,

I've been convinced that Republicans can't

count. Or if they can, the numbers don't work

unless you assume the existence of something

that's invisible.



Photos of Palin within weeks of the "birth"

of her last child show her svelt and trim.

Her daughter, at the same time, was absent

from school for several months with mono,

the kissing disease.



Apply Republican Math to a woman's gestation

cycles -- an age old trick -- and you get

Palin's announcement yesterday that her

daughter is 5 months pregnant and will

marry her childhood sweetheart and raise

the baby with the loving support of the whole

family.



And that's cool.

It also gets Palin off the hook, if you buy it,

for the earlier rumor, that her youngest child

(4 months old) is actually her daughter's baby.

Impossible. The daughter's five months pregnant.



Women have been counting the days of

our cycles, the months of our pregancies, hours

and minutes and seconds between contractions

since there have been women. If a woman says

her baby is early (born 7 months from the wedding

day) who's going to challenge it? Who cares?



Why are we even talking about this?



Is it possible that McCain knew this beforehand,

and counted on the distraction it would provide?

They don't have to defend GW's record —

Iraq, the economy, the housing market crash,

the cost of oil? They just have to speak up

for a damsel in distress?



What does this tell us about how

he makes decisions?



What does the Palin choice tell us about how

he views women?



Anyhow, what do Republicans do when they are

confronted with a competent, brilliant, informed,

woman who asks questions, speaks the truth —

like Amy Goodman?



They arrest her.



©Susan Bright, 2008



Susan Bright is the author of nineteen books of poetry. She is the editor of Plain View Press which since 1975 has published one-hundred-and-ninety books. Her work as a poet, publisher, activist and educator has taken her all over the United States and abroad. Her most recent book, The Layers of Our Seeing, is a collection of poetry, photographs and essays about peace done in collaboration with photographer Alan Pogue and Middle Eastern journalist, Muna Hamzeh.



Amy Goodman and Two Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested At the RNC



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

www.democracynow.org



September 1, 2008



Contact:

Denis Moynihan 917-549-5000

Mike Burke 646-552-5107, mike@democracynow.org



ST. PAUL, MN-Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ



Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfully detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman's crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.



Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.



Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman's office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).



Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amendment rights of these journalists.



During the demonstration in which they were arrested law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.



Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism's top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists from the nation's leading independent news outlet.



Democracy Now! is a nationally syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.



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Labels: poetry, political philosophy