TNA Spoke Out: the Media’s Orchestrated Hit Job on Palin
July 23, 2010
by The New Agenda
|Those of you following this blog are well aware of the sexism directed at Hillary Clinton during her presidential run. In case, you need a reminder, watch here.
The Daily Caller now reveals that there was an orchestrated attack on Sarah Palin when she was chosen as John McCain’s running mate. The attack includes many sexist elements such as:
Politico reporter Ben Adler, now an editor at Newsweek, replied, “but doesn’t leaving sad baby without its mother while she campaigns weaken that family values argument? Or will everyone be too afraid to make that point?”
…Suzanne Nossel, chief of operations for Human Rights Watch, added a novel take: “I think it is and can be spun as a profoundly sexist pick. Women should feel umbrage at the idea that their votes can be attracted just by putting a woman, any woman, on the ticket no matter her qualifications or views.”
Sarah Palin has blasted back, calling these “journalists” sick puppies.
Despite was so obviously sexist attacks on Palin in 2008, The New Agenda was the ONLY women’s groupto defend Sarah Palin in her run to become the first woman vice president, calling the attacks a “smear job”:
Stay tuned for a busy 2011 – and if you have not already, please join The New Agenda as a member.
It’s true, the New Agenda was the only “feminist” group to stand up and speak out against the Democrat misogyny in 2008. They other groups have lost their credibility in my eyes. The media also lost their credibility.
It amazes me that the race card was played so reliably to safeguard a black candidate, while the sexist card is played to destroy a female one. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. And women fall for it.
You’re right Janis and I never thought about it like that before. Other than it was obvious that liberal women were being scammed and they didn’t seem to have the common sense to realize it or care.
and never forget, the 15th amendment gave voting rights to black people. not quite. women of all races secured the right to vote not before 1920 seventy years later. anniversary coming up on August 26. if you are in DC there will be a rally on pennsylvania avenue from 6- 9 pm. the 26 is women’s equality day.
They were too busy trying to get liberal boys to like them, and too busy trying to rationalize to themselves that even though the boys treated them like garbage, they liked and respected them. They really, really did. It’s the mantra of women through the ages: I know he doesn’t really mean it. He’s not like that when we’re alone. He’s just saying that. But she asked for it. (Implied: I know how to keep it from happening to me.)
Nothing new to see here, move along …
So it’s not just a lack of common sense. It’s active denial and rationalizing. Someone on the TGW blog quoted Andrea Dworkin (I think it was there) about right-wing women, and how they are a lot less fantasy-driven and delusional about how men behave and what they are like, and that allows them to bond together more effectively because they aren’t all undermining one another on the assumption that Prince Charming Who Respects Me is right around the corner.
I mean, if I had a nickel for every time I saw on ANY BLOG OF ANY KIND about ANY TOPIC the following exchange:
“Generalized annoyance about feminist issue affecting women negatively!”
“Agreement from the readers!”
“Assurance by the OP that she’s not like a manhater or anything!”
“Vehement agreement by her friends!”
“I mean, I LOVE men!”
“So do I!”
“I think they’re just FABULOUS!”
“Me, too! Me, too!”
“So I’m not a manhater or anything!”
“Me, either! I LOVE hot sex and men and penises! Yummy yum!”
“Post by Male Reader making some sort of nondescript comment.”
“I mean, look how wonderful Male Reader is! I wish ALL MEN ON EARTH were just like him!”
“I know! I know! We all love you, Male Reader!”
… well, let’s just say I wouldn’t have to work for a living. The near-hysterical desperation of it just started to get really funky-smelling, and need I say that ALL of these women were all over not voting for Hillary because they wanted to prove they would never under any circumstances vote for a woman, and they all think calling Sarah a cunt is a feminist act?
TNA, bless them, gets massive props from me for being completely unbiased, although I still think that the “BUT WE NEED MENZ” attitude really needs to be watched like a hawk lest it capsize THIS round of women’s enlightenment, too. I can see how abortion was used to balkanize women this time around, but let’s face it, it’s always something, and the root cause of it is that we’re all just too goddamned scared to put women first and let men fend for themselves like the adults they are supposed to be.
Whoops, that one wandered …
Janis, You are always correct in my opinion. The men who are interested in seeing women reach parity in every part of our lives don’t need us to coddle them, or reassure them that we really love them, or any of that crap. They just give support because they believe it is the right thing to do. And if they cannot help, they get the hell out of the way.
If they had to put up with the crap our gender has for centuries then they would be a little peeved too, don’t you think? So the angry man-hater feminist mantra that some of the trolls perpetuate to make those of use here “soften” our approach is really just a pile of pig doo doo. It is a strategy to weaken our side and it has been successful on the Democratic Party front forever.
Pro-woman does not equate to man-hater. But if you are a man and you want us to make you feel all secure in your manhood, that we won’t trample on your feelings on our way to parity, then you need to find security in your baby blanket cuz you ain’t getting it here.
We vote for women…period.
TNA really was one of the few places to speak out against the sexism directed towards Palin.
The smear job done on her is so much worse than the tearing down of just one woman. Voters are not informed about what she stands for, about what kind of a politician she is because it’s all been spun around and convoluted. If people really knew what Palin was like, some might still disagree with her politics, or they might not. The problem is that the media deprived people of their right to make informed choices. That interferes with our whole concept of democracy.
“Pro-woman does not equate to man-hater.”
It’s a point that I think not only shouldn’t need to be made, but mustn’t be made. It’s vital that we find a shibboleth to tell apart the men who can be helpful and the men who will suck our energy away without contributing, and that’s how it’s done. Any man who confuses anger over the sexist degradation of women with hatred of men is the kind of man I’d prefer stayed far away. Not only do I not want to reassure men like that that I’m no threat, but they are probably right to dislike me. The JADL does not do much shiksa outreach — the decent ones don’t need it, and to the jew-haters it wouldn’t make a difference anyway.
And on the other side, any man who can tell the difference without having seven dozen women exhausting ourselves trying to explain it to him is just the sort of sober, level-headed, secure-in-himself, and sensible man who would be a great asset. A rare asset, but a real help and a flat-out relief to have around.
I’ll make this my last comment on this topic since we already hashed this out elsewhere. I just want to reiterate that the TNA’s refusal to play “but that bitch asked for it” is probably the most refreshingly right and effective stance I’ve seen in a long time. It’s about time someone sussed out the game.
I think Palin was being compassionate in using the term “sick puppies”. The journolist boyz are more like shrieking little male monkeys who fling around their own ‘doo doo’ (to borrow from Opitxmom) and then congratulate themselves for being clever enough to orchestrate the flinging. The women who participated in this are beneath contempt. I really cannot fathom how anyone could exploit a special needs child for political purposes. It’s beyond vile.
Judging from Janis’s catalogue of quotes, I think it’s time for a recover-dignity movement among women. The women (?!) quoted must have problems with self-esteem and an intrinsic need to enable all men, even the worst and most manipulative. Do these women need to justify their own femininity by resorting to fawning? What the hell is wrong with them? And am I supposed to believe that they are “true feminists” because they behave like this on behalf of male Democrat candidates? It’s heartbreaking to witness this kind of regression.
Oh Janis et al don’t forget the “It’s just that particular woman” that they (women) fell for too.
how much I enjoy this site and especially the comments above. my take is this site is not about men. if anyone fells like men hating she probably has plenty of reason and has to have a space to express it.
Palin’s way of experimenting with being pro-women is a refreshing new stride in politics. it is so much entertainign to see the difficulties the political class has to make sense of it.
Monarch, I think I can see how the young women on the left fell into that mindset in some ways. First off, they are young and horny and they want to boink. That’s pretty reasonable — but whereas their male compatriots are perfectly happy with porn-sex, those women want to be loved in the process. Men for the most part don’t need to give a shit for their sex partners in order for the sex itself to be perfectly satisfying for them, especially the young ones.
Second, liberalism doesn’t mean the same thing to women that it does to men, or the same thing to any disadvantaged minority that it does to men, particularly white men. For women, gays, blacks, etc., liberalism means a lot of very hard work getting rights, investigating outrages, coming to terms with how things are stacked against you.
To men, liberalism means fucking and pot. Seriously. There are no civil rights that are withheld to them as a matter of course, so the ONLY thing that puts them on the left side of the fence is the birth control and the drugs. Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. That is ALL liberalism means to them.
So, if you look at the left wing, what you have is a very poorly matched political alliance between oppressed minorities looking to solve their legal woes and porn-addicted frat boys. Given that the right wing IS AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN hostile to women’s equality (like it or not, people), that leaves the women on the left side of the fence with what they perceive to be one option for finding the fabled Man Who Has Sex With Me And Respects Me In The Morning: a porn-addicted recreational drug user. Maybe he’s got a little granola in there someplace because he likes to call himself environmental, but even when men like that call themselves “back to nature” what they mean is that their wife does the laundry — by hand — while they sit around and write about trees. We all worship Thoreau, but his mommy cooked and cleaned for him the whole time. It’s easy to simplify-simplify when you have a convenient little female someplace on whom to shove responsibility for all the complexity.
And honestly most right-wing men are like that Republican asshole Ken Buck who just said he’s no pansy pantywaist and doesn’t wear high heels, so vote for him if you hate girl cooties. I’ve already said it elsewhere, I’m old enough to recall the Glory Days of Reagan when the right-wing frat-boys were just as disgusting, hateful, and dangerous as the left-wing koolaid-addict boys are now — and it was all still porno and pot to them then, too. If it’s not, then it’s a bunch of jerks saying that their business as men is to keep their wives from HAVING to work! What shining knights. Sparing MY kind from the horror of outperforming one of them or having my own money. Thank dawg Todd Palin disagrees.
Anyhow, what it amounts to is that left-wing women feel they can either give up their careers and have babies-babies-babies 24/7 on the right side of the fence, or else at least have jobs and an education and the ability to decide whether to continue with a pregnancy on the left side … but be stuck searching for a hubby from among the cadre of loser-slackers standing there alongside them. So they do the mental math and figure that their best bet is to cut slack for the assholes in the uneasy political alliance with them on the left side of the fence.
It doesn’t work. It never works. There is NO amount of slack you can cut for a man that will make him shape up. And all that slack-cutting gets on their nerves, even if they don’t want to admit it, so they overcompensate by cutting NO slack AT ALL for women. “I’m bending over backwards for every goddamn loser idiot over here,” thinks the left-wing woman, “I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to cut one inch of slack for another buttwiper like me!”
Like the movie says, the only way to win is not to play. But most women are not willing to never marry or have kids — for me, it’s not a sacrifice since I don’t want them and hence don’t identify with the desire to cut them any slack.
But while I agree that “dignity” is something that should NEVER be sacrificed FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER, most women are, like it or not, stuck in a bind where they have to sacrifice it — or feel that they do — in order to get married and have kids. Right-wing women and left-wing women both — only like Andrea Dworkin said, the righties aren’t under any illusions about men whereas the lefties are in permanent slack-cutting mode. And they don’t seem to realize that if they’d just tell the men to screw off and vote for the women anyhow that eventually even the left-wing men would play ball.
Yes, this site has credibility on calling out sexism wherever it occurs. Nowhere is that clearer than being the lone voice decrying the Palin sexism.
Agree with every word Janis wrote above!!
Janis, You hit on so many important points here that, if you haven’t considered writing a book, you might want to consider it.
My disappointment may be that going all the way back to the 60′s social and anti-war issues, one impulse behind the feminist movement is that women within leftist organizations were relegated to ‘get-coffee and provide free-sex’ mode. It seems we’ve lost sight of that. Men on the right, as you point out, were always self-serving and intolerant, but men on the left are just as bad and even more hypocritical since they claim to have a social conscience and to co-opt the banner of “tolerance”. Your info about Thoreau is apt. It’s easy to be an idealist when someone ELSE (read “female”) is scrubbing the toilet. Also, your insight that there is really no common denominator between liberal men and other groups that are disenfranchised because of gender, color, etc. I want women to adapt a posture of “I take care of myself first and foremost. After that, I may lend my strength to others.” When women do otherwise, they wind up depleted and defeated.
On the plus side, I am seeing a difference in my daughters’ generation, more give and take in marriage, less deification of the male. My son-in-law recently criticized a male friend of his for being 40 and sending his laundry over to his 70-something mother. It’s more than ironic that Todd Palin is a better male role-model since he is not threatened by his wife’s success whereas the Journolist gang is extremely threatened by that.
” … men on the left are just as bad and even more hypocritical since they claim to have a social conscience and to co-opt the banner of “tolerance”.”
That’s one of the big reasons why they love (to hate) Sarah Palin so much, and why most of their misogyny wears a darker face than usual. Bear with me here.
No, I’m not saying black men are more sexist — I’m saying that when white men want to be sexist, they wear fake-blackface while they do it. Misogynist music a la Eminem — a white boy who found out that he could still keep his liberal cred and mouth off about bitchez and hos as long as he identified with blackness. Those white guys don’t even care about the issues facing black males really, although some black males may have been fooled into thinking they have arrived at the table. White guys have simply realized that they get to call women filthy names and mythologize gang rape as long as they surround themselves with the sterotypical bullshit accoutrements of Hollywood-style blackness first.
Palin is the same sort of thing, being a Republican. Her existence allows lib’ral doodz to maintain their liberal street cred and still go off on that goddamned fat-ass pussy’s motherfucking drippy cunt and I want to gang-rape her and by the way my wife says she’s fine with it. It’s their most beloved dream come true.
The Gibson garbage really highlighted it. Attention lib’ral doodz: as long as you avoid racial epithets, there is now a certified liberally politically correct way to beat the living shit out of the mother of your children.
Up until 2008, liberal men had sort of been sloping around resentful and muttering because being liberal meant giving a crap for stupid chicks. Now, being liberal and hating hos can go hand in hand. Finally, a liberalism that men can believe in!
BTW, I trust that no one with more than two brain cells needs to have it explained to them that I am not calling out black men for more sexism than white men.
I’m saying that white men hide behind an unreal cartoon of blackness they’ve created in order to lob rocks at women. They couldn’t give a rat’s ass for real black men, nor gawd knows for women of any type.
Excellent comments, all! Janis, you are definitely on a roll.
Here’s a thought…whenever someone comes here or anywhere, for that matter, and calls any woman a man hater for speaking out against sexism/mysoginy of any kind, remind them that you never see women killing boy babies like they kill girl babies in China. Now, that’s hatred of the female sex!
It’s more likely that a woman is the one who nurtures boys and men and continue to do so throughout their lives. The same cannot be said about men when it comes to nurturing women on the same scale (and I’m talking about working mothers too!).
I’ve always wondered about those men who have no problem attacking women and finding fault with them at every turn and for any reason, how they felt about their own mothers and how they would respond to someone treated their own mother in such a way. Would they recognize themselves?
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