LynnS's blog

I'm a member of a mailing list with a broad cross-section of women on it: Very conservative, very liberal, and everyone in between. The undecideds on the list asked both me and the resident Republican activist to write up why we support the candidate we do, with as little bashing of the opponent as possible. This is the letter I wrote them about why I support Barack Obama. If it can help you with your undecided friends, please pass it on.

I was asked to tell the undecideds here why I support Barack Obama. I've been thinking hard about this; I want to talk to you honestly. You all know where I stand on things: I am a libertarian Democrat (small L, big D). Government is rarely the best solution, but when it is, it had better serve the common people. Initially I had a much, MUCH longer statement, but instead I have decided to boil it down.

The short version: I support Obama because he's right on the issues, and he has the right temperament for the times.

Cross posted at dkos

I am on an email list of women who were all pregnant together nearly 12 years ago. That's all we have in common. There are radical left-wingers, radical right-wingers, activists of all stripes and everyone in between. They just finished a ferocious debate about Sarah Palin and the attacks on her as a mother.

I didn't say a word, which is weird because when it comes to politics, I'm usually up front with the quips trying to sway the moderates. I wanted to wait until I could come up with a list (and control my temper), because I wanted to give the independents and swing voters in the group something to really think about. This is what I told them:

I think she's drop-dead gorgeous.

I think Tina Fey had better come back to SNL to play her in the skits.

I think she's a dynamic speaker.

I think she's closely tied to Ted Stevens.

I think it's no one's business but hers and Todd's how they run their family life.

I think she's a secessionist who is more loyal to Alaska than the Union.

I think she's a force to be reckoned with.

Cross-posted from Diary of a New Homemaker

Becky says Linda Hirschman gets it wrong again, and I agree. So much so, I feel a rant coming on and I've ditched today's planned "sermon" in favor of it.

Being a mother, I'm just plain tired in general. But these days I'm especially tired of people like Hirschman and her counterpart, Leslie Bennetts. They can both bite me, and so can the media that keeps setting these tired old arguments up.

I am tired of being told to be a good little feminist and do what's good for "women" instead of what's good for my family and myself. I am tired of being told I'm betraying the sisterhood by staying home. I am tired of listening to academics and pundits, claiming to be feminists, holding on to classist second wave claptrap like that espoused by these two. And I am most tired of the focus being put upon individual women rather than the society that makes it increasingly impossible for families to exist these days.

Why must academic feminists keep buying into the corporatist framework--that the only work worth doing is paid work? The corporatist philosophy leads to the dissolving of both familial and community ties, and everything becomes for sale, everything is a commodity. Motherhood is for sale--for that's what a daycare is, isn't it? Paid motherhood? I am not a commodity. You are not a commodity. Our children and our partners are not commodities.

CK will be down for an upgrade today.

[Liza suggested I cross-post this from my main site, The New Homemaker.--Lynn]

Over at the new-ish blog Mother Talkers, Amy points to a program in Wichita that is the kind of thing I wish anti-abortion people would take to heart. I have been saying this for years: The issue is not whether to outlaw abortion or not, the issue is, are we going to be there for women and children who need us?

I am personally pro-life, to the point that for me the only exception is life of the mother; after eight weeks, that's a baby as far as I'm concerned, and it's not that child's fault if it's the product of rape or incest.

At the same time I recognize the utter futility of outlawing abortion, especially without providing some form of help for women faced with unwanted or inopportune pregnancies. And "inopportune" is so not the right word, but it's the best one I've got at hand. The Choices program gives me hope, because as things stand now all we have are two polarized political bureaucracies who stand to gain from never moving forward on this issue.