Palin And Sufferin’
Scary Sarah leads the way to a nastier, stupider America
by Bernadette L. Wagner.
Sarah Palin wouldn’t be my first pick for Vice President of the United States. The Alaskan Governor is unfit for the job.
For starters, forget that she’s female. Palin is no friend of women’s rights. She rose to the top not because she’s cream, but because she’s female, a token woman — a strategic play by Republicans to lure Hillary Clinton supporters to their ticket — and because neoconservative types like her. A lot.
Still, her spot on the Republican ticket shocked the world. Mitt Romney or Joe Lieberman were the favourites to run as Senator John McCain’s running-mate. How, exactly, Palin floated to the top remains a mystery.
Palin hails from Wasilla, Alaska, a town in a state with an incidence of sexual assault that’s twice the national average. During her two-term reign as mayor in the 1990s, Wasilla was one of a number of Alaskan municipalities that began billing victims of sexual assault for the forensic testing they underwent after filing a report with the police. (This ‘blame the victim’ policy stood until 2000, when the state legislature squashed it so Alaska would be eligible to receive funding for (from?) the federal Violence Against Women Act.)
The “rape-kit story has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media during the U.S. Campaign. That’s surprising given the sheer viciousness of this policy that was in place under Palin’s tenure. Can you hang the whole mess on Sarah? Well, no, but she’s far from blameless. — After all, she hand-picked a police chief who championed the policy and Palin signed off on the budget that turned the rape-kit expenses into revenues.
None of this should be really surprising, given that Palin belongs to a book-banning, gun-toting brand of hard right, Christian fundamentalism. Officially blessed by Wasilla’s Church of God, Palin opposes same sex marriage and holds strident views on reproductive choice (women don’t get any). As a member of Feminists for Life she believes all pregnancies should be carried to term, even those that are the result of sexual assault.
Thanks to the good women (& men) at BnR for the great accumulation of Palin links!
the regina mom 
Fred . . .
/ October 23, 2008gawd yer a stupido of the first order.
Someday, when you get yer head outta yer ass and can breath some clean air, you might get a rel life instead of whinging on about about bad it is that socialist utopias really suck.
A little bit of bright light can sanitize even the likes of you & your passe & sick beliefs.
Go Brad go, time to put a stake through the cold black heart of Socialism.
skdadl
/ October 23, 2008Fred, that is hardly a constructive or useful comment. Perhaps you missed trm’s concern for women who have been victims of sexual assault (sadly, in Alaska, very high numbers).
When do the police anywhere ask victims of crime to pay for the supplies and equipment of investigators? That’s right: nowhere, nowhen, nohow. Unless Sarah Palin is running things, and then the women not only pay a second time for being assaulted but are forced to carry any resulting pregnancy to term, even if that is a risk to their lives, because Sarah is holy. Or something.
transplant
/ October 24, 2008Hey Fred, why don’t ya just move to the good ole’ USofA, eh?
Where Palin & McLame are going to lose big time.
And you can spend the next 8 years whining about it.
R. edneck
/ October 24, 2008Of course, it took a republican woman to step forward on the world stage. You modern feminist (socialist) types are still waiting for the offer – so long as it meets your demands.
Whether you like to believe it or not, Scary Sarah has done more for the woman’s movement in three months, than you who carry the burden so willingly (and with that shoulder borne chip).
Of course, then there is drivel like this blog, and that sets it back 10 years again….
Stephen Whitworth
/ October 24, 2008Hi Fred,
I’m the editor who commissioned Bernadette’s article on VP candidate Sarah Palin in prairie dog. We fact-checked the story before publishing it. It stands up to scrutiny.
Your comments, Fred, do not. You bring no information to the discussion. Your post is pure abuse.
You write: “a little bit of bright light can sanitize even the likes of you & your passé & sick beliefs.” What are you talking about? And what do you mean by “sanitize”? Sounds alarming.
You should probably stop embarrassing Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall with what I have no doubt is your desperately unwanted support.
Stephen Whitworth
Editor
prairie dog
Regina’s Independent Voice