Zombie Republican "Feminists" Must be Stopped

Posted by Don Hazen, AlterNet at 9:16 AM on September 11, 2008.

There is a remarkable guerrilla war going on, where everything that feminism stands for is being turned on its head, as the McCain campaign goes for the jugular with massive doses of Orwellian double speak -- framing Obama as a sexist wolf -- and the corporate media reports it as news.

Here is the beginning of today's Washington Post main story by Jonathan Weisman and Peter Slevin for one sickening example:

McCain Camp Hits Obama On More Than One Front

Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign launched a broadside against Sen. Barack Obama yesterday, accusing him of a sexist smear, comparing his campaign to a pack of wolves on the prowl against the GOP vice presidential pick, charging that the Democratic nominee favored sex education for kindergartners, and resurrecting the comments of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

Rebecca Traister on Salon gamely tries to stop the flood gates of Palinania, while explaining why she is gobsmacked at the notion of Sarah Palin as fake feminist in chief in the White House:

Suddenly it's Rudy Giuliani and Rick Santorum schooling us about pervasive sexism; Hillary Clinton's 18 million cracks have weakened not only the White House's glass ceiling, but the wall protecting Roe v. Wade; the potential first female vice president in America's 200-year history describes her early career as "your average hockey mom" who "never really set out to be involved in public affairs"; and teen pregnancy is no longer an illustrative example for sex educators and contraception distributors but for those who seek to eliminate sex education and contraception.

In this strange new pro-woman tableau, feminism -- a word that is being used all over the country with regard to Palin's potential power -- means voting for someone who would limit reproductive control, access to healthcare and funding for places like Covenant House Alaska, an organization that helps unwed teen mothers. It means cheering someone who allowed women to be charged for their rape kits while she was mayor of Wasilla, who supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution, who has inquired locally about the possibility of using her position to ban children's books from the public library, who does not support the teaching of sex education.

But that isn't enough. She and all of us have to to stop being so "thoughtful," wondering how this situation came about, and get the knives out. It is not too late. This is about a future that Margaret Atwood's "Hand Maid's Tale" was written about. She was warning us about now, where black is white, and class resentment is being mobilized again as cultural warfare, but this time with skirts and lipstick. There is a pattern here: if we thought Reagan was bad, wait until Bush I. If we thought Bush I was bad, wait until Bush II and Cheney. Now, with a new Supreme Court in the wings, if we thought Bush II was bad, wait until Palin and McCain. It is a dark future, and McCain isn't remotely running the show. He has become a ventriloquist for far right ideas coming from Rove, Schmidt and Co., and Palin is their dream girl.

Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet.