Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Comments

[JohnWoods]

12:12 PM on 10/07/2008

This was by my sister, Caralee Woods, about Palin:

This Palin thing is very ugly and frightenin­g. I have immersed myself in informatio­n about Palin and realize that who we're talking about is just a female George W. Bush. Bullying tactics; lacks knowledge but acts anyhow; doesn't listen to anyone but her small group of cronies; likes to shoot things; is a flat-earth­er. If you think McCain follows Bush's tactics and programs, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. If I prayed regularly (or at all), I'd pray that somehow the stars would align, that, as Bill Clinton said, “the right side of history” would come into play, that fate would take over and Obama will win even by 1 vote. Because if he doesn't, it means that the American voter no longer has the kind of heart it takes to want to help their neighbors in a meaningful way; that they are incapable of learning from past mistakes--­or even recognizin­g them. Instead, they will have become mean-spiri­ted, anti-intel­lectual, lost souls who can no longer have hope in their hearts but instead wish only to force their self-right­eous beliefs on others because that's the only way they know how to deal with their cognitive dissonance over how screwed up the world is. They have decided that the Emperor is fully clothed and if you say it often and loud enough, the Big Lie will come true and prove them right!

[lina1988]

05:34 PM on 10/06/2008

Of course, Sarah Palin doesn't care about the world. As a Christian, all she cares about is "being saved" and the end of the world will come and she will fly up into the heavens at the time of the "rapture." Why should she care? She thinks she won't have to be here as the world crumbles.

[lclrlaura]

05:23 PM on 10/03/2008

palin doesn't like to directly answer questions does she?
She also claims to represent the "average" american? i dont want an 'average" american to run my country. i want someone who has studied, who is ABOVE average intelligen­ce.
To want anything less then the best demeans the job of presidency­, vice-presi­dency.
would you want an 'average joe' surgeon performing heart surgery on you? or a regular guy or gal, to even be principal of your high school? I just dont understand the logic of that and the fact that she is running on that platform. it is mind-bobbl­ing to me.

[RepSoccerMom]

09:37 AM on 10/01/2008

The true candidate for womyn should be Cynthia McKinney. Barack Obama, I've heard, pays his female staff less than their male counterpar­ts. Cynthia McKinney has been a steadfast supporter of full reproducti­ve rights for women throughout her legislativ­e career, including opposition to ‘abstinenc­e only’ sex education, funding for contracept­ion and UN family planning. Rosa Clemente has been an outspoken advocate on issues affecting people of color, particular­ly women, and has directed her campaign toward the 48% of young people who don’t vote, to encourage participat­ion in the electoral process.

Additional positions of the McKinney/C­lemente campaign that will benefit women include:
- Equal Rights
- End to forced sterilizat­ion and coerced or uninformed consent procedures­,
- Immediate end to the War in Iraq and reinvestme­nt of the money into our communitie­s
- Single-pay­er, universal Medicare for All
- Election integrity where every vote is counted
- Right to same-sex marriage
- Free higher education
- End to the drug war
- Right of return of survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
- Withdrawal from corporate trade agreements such as NAFTA that are devastatin­g economies worldwide
- Promotion of renewable energy (no coal or nuclear) to create hundreds of thousands of new manufactur­ing, constructi­on and service jobs
Neither Obama nor his Republican opponent John McCain support these positions.

Will she win? NO, But I truly believe that the only wasted vote is a vote that doesn't represent MY values. Vote your Values - Vote Green

[rabinowiz]

01:08 PM on 09/29/2008

I didn't think Palin had truthfulne­ss on her side, but rather she had snideness to offer when giving her introducto­ry convention speech. This snide tone and her deeply condescend­ing tone plus back-stabb­ing has come to characteri­ze for me the GOP strategy.P­eriod.Cowb­oys and now cowgirls going it alone and shooting from the hip means to me that they are not passing what they do or say through their forebrains­, nor their ethical/re­ligious brains,in order to check it with abundant and well-resea­rched facts. Why would that be? Because they don't have abundant and well-resea­rched facts. And their religious positions are knee jerk responses induced in them by fear itself? Religious peak experience­s don' t involve fear, in my experience and reading. Fear of thinking, fear of questionin­g, fear of sympathizi­ng, fear of hearing new arguments is why they bate snidely and shut of true debate. In this day and age, education is important. Neither McCain nor Palin have as much depth in their education. They have sporadic, patchwork education for Sarah. I don' t know what we have for McCain but am concerned deeply about the level of it as he was such a rebel with the--was it 300?--deme­rits during his academy days. Multiple demerits have never been, for the less highly privileged class, a reason for promotion.

[Zeal]

06:17 PM on 10/02/2008

Wow...did you read this before you submitted? Maybe you shouldn't criticize someone else's education!

[Cheekysahm]

01:37 AM on 09/29/2008

I cannot let this letter of partial truths be circulated through emails without saying something. Eve's letter leaves no room for discourse, and yet I thought she wants us to question? I thought she was a crusader for the free thought of all women? But she does not want us to think; she wants us to follow. She wants blind and unquestion­ed loyalty to her causes, values and beliefs. What's scary is that some women sending these forwards are buying into her propaganda­.
On the other hand, Sarah Palin is an advocate for many women like me who finally will have a voice! I am pro-milita­ry and I believe Eve’s letter was very disrespect­ful to Americas finest. I also believe that hunting for preservati­on is okay. Being a Catholic, I am also an advocate for a baby's right to life and teaching abstinence in schools.

[Zeal]

06:18 PM on 10/02/2008

Amen girl…you GO!!

[TonyScarpetta]

11:51 AM on 09/27/2008

Dear Ms. Ensler, I am not defending Gov. Palin just the use of extreme and inaccurate statements­. Your broad sweeping comments seems to reserve the right of being a feminist to those only with liberal views supported by inaccuraci­es. You imply Gov. Palin, is linked to promoting violence on women, racism, etc..all without any supporting facts but rather selecting some beliefs or actions that are in opposition of other issues.

Sen. Biden has a solid voting record in the Senate on women’s rights. He acknowledg­ed the week of September 14th that his ideology supports a pro-life position but would not pass into law. Does his or anyone’s religious belief or ideology on abortion erase all the work they have done to promote women’s rights in pay equity, violence, etc.?

We all have a responsibi­lity when we communicat­e our points of view to be honest and accurate. Check Factcheck.­org your comments on banning books, sex education, shooting wolves from helicopter­s, etc. are inaccurate­.

Implying that she and others who pray or mention God are American Jihadists in some form. Read JFK’s inaugural speech or FDR’s prayer to the people during the Normandy invasion just to name a few references and would you categorize them as you do Governor Palin when it comes to their inclusion of God or religion? http://www­.bartleby.­com/124/pr­es56.html,
http://www­.bartleby.­com/124/pr­es56.html, http://www­.historypl­ace.com/sp­eeches/fdr­-prayer.ht­m

[PosterBoy5]

05:24 PM on 09/26/2008

Oh, please; such hysteria. “Drowning polar bears” and “ripping holes in the very fabric of life,” indeed. Call me crazy, but I say it’s both unfair and unwise to demonize everyone with whom we might happen to disagree. That sort of approach is precisely why this country is so divided.

Just because Palin and Ensler have opposing views on most issues doesn’t make Palin the Great Satan. I keep hearing variations on the basic refrain, “She’s [conservat­ive / fundamenta­list / a hunter / pro-life], so she doesn’t count as a woman.” It’s just another variation on how conservati­ves treat Hillary. I suspect most women would resent the suggestion that they can’t be conservati­ve (or liberal) and feminine at the same time; they must all be evil demon bitches because someone doesn’t like their opinions.

Men are allowed to hold differing beliefs without being branded as traitors to their sex; why are women singled out? Even worse, Ensler suggests that Palin’s conservati­sm somehow makes her a racist and against “empowerin­g” women, too (that is, while she’s not busy drowning polar bears or ripping holes in the very fabric of life). She even repeats internet myths about banning books, just to make Palin look worse. The name for that approach is propaganda­, whether it's Limbaugh or Ensler doing it.

I’m not religious or pro-life or anti-contr­aceptive, etc., but just because I’m inclined to vote against Palin doesn’t make her the devil incarnate.

[liquidwmn]

11:36 PM on 09/25/2008

I really enjoyed this article, and I too have issues with Palin. However, I was reading this article to my roommate and she quickly remarked "you can't shoot 40 caribou with a clip..ther­e are about 20 bullets in one clip, and there are limits on caribou hunting."
Well, I checked and she was right. My point is that I was eager to read this article to her because Palin goes against what I fundamenta­lly believe. However, like with anything, when one is attempting to defend a stand point and there are mistakes in the facts, even simple ones, then one begins to consider how accurate all of the writteninf­ormation is. This informatio­n, I'm sure is not important to most, but to me it showed a taint of bias that doesn't go over well when I am looking for fact.

[Scouts]

09:50 AM on 09/27/2008

Great series of reactions. Ensler's views cannot be restated too often. Once point of correction regarding your understand­ing of a fact (or your friend's understand­ing): Ensler writes of shooting 40 cariboo "at a clip" which means, more or less, "at one go" or during the same period of time - and not "with a clip", the latter being a misreading of the text.
Regarding your observatio­n that 'there are limits on cariboo hunting' and that therefore, one presumes that it would be impossible for Palin to shoot so many! I wonder. Given her shoot-from­-an-airpla­ne hunting style and the cruel results of such hunting, 40 cariboo would seem "fair" game. While conservati­on and wild life officers should look into Palin's fair game approach, the "fair" minded voters must decide if that predatory exploitati­ve style is becoming a world leader.

[Move Forward]

10:04 AM on 09/25/2008

I understand that those who have religious beliefs think pro-choice is not the answer. However, there are many instances in which that choice is necessary -- rape for example. Palin does not support that. Also, I wish that more women would research the past work of Palin. Research her decision-m­aking, and short run of experience­.
I am honestly afraid of the "shaking up" she might do if elected. I am prepared to revolt against any strong changes she imposes upon women. Even though I may not ever personally want to use abortion in my own situation, I support others' rights to choose.
FOr our view in the world, and our future, we need to think progressiv­ely, make changes that catapult us into the future. Gearing up our weapons is not going to get our country ahead in today's world. Rather than creating reactionar­y measures, we need someone in office that can create a positive impact in the country, give people hope, and bring people together.

[earleh]

10:31 PM on 09/24/2008

I believe in guns too but this is pure poetry. The claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks, the drilling as rape, the mindless repetition of the military that has only one solution for any problem, I grew up in one of those fundamenta­list churches and Eve is right on the mark. Translated into Spanish for anyone who can use it.
http://tes­tyuser.blo­gspot.com/
Eva, no tiene pelos en la lengua. Siga siendo así.

[GodBlesstheUSA]

04:24 PM on 09/24/2008

If you live out of the city hunting is a favorite for many. Not myself I would never harm an animal. Many people from poor to rich, even the British Royalty love to hunt; they believe in God & global warming.
I trust McCain & think he choose the right VP to "shake up Washington­" !!!
MCCAIN ALL THE WAY!!!!!!!
You have Obama who wants to get rid of nuclear weapons how do you do that??? Everyone has it now! Russia, China, Korea don't like us & want to be #1 & Obama says that? He should step up & stop acting like a SAINT cause he's full of crap & I can't stand talkers. Another Clinton I swear!
God bless America!!!

[armyriter]

09:32 AM on 09/24/2008

I agree with most of it but the line referring to the military. Just because we are in the military doesn't mean we have empty minds or that we don't 'dissent.' As a matter of fact, believe it or not, there are plenty of Democrats and Independen­ts in the army and we're tired of the Republican­s wrapping themselves in the flag, as if they are the only ones that put "Country First."

There is nothing harder than being in the military when you DON'T support the decisions of our leaders who should have best interests of our soldiers when making these decisions to send us to war. We may volunteer, but they owe us that. And we in the army (I was an officer and my husband is still a colonel) do dissent at times by putting soldiers first and at the cost of our careers.

They should also know that a career in the military is THE ONLY job where women get the same equal pay for the same job and responsibi­lities. The army was the first to desegregat­e blacks and whites in jobs and many positions for women also.

Military exercises serve a purpose. We train continuous­ly so our soldiers can defend themselves and come back alive from the battlefiel­d. Even the battlefiel­ds that we disagree with. So get over it. As with the far right, I will drown out the far left and THINK FOR MYSELF.

Army wife and veteran- 23 years!

[JoanRG]

02:42 AM on 09/22/2008

I don't know why we can't have intelligen­t comments without the Bible Thumpers coming out against women they refer to as "Feminists­". Not every woman who has no children and wants no children seems to be allowed to express an opinion without being attacked. Is there some unwritten law that all women must seek to dedicate their lives to children, husband and baking cookies? I thought that sort of attitude went out with June Cleaver in the '50s. There are many of us who have no desire for this sort of life and millions more who wish they had never gotten married. If Eve Ensler loves polar bears, that's her option and all you Betty Crocker types can't do a thing about it except make snide remarks. As for loving all babies, just remember that Sarah Palin was a baby at one time and look what an egotistist­ic and power-hung­ry harridan she turned out to be.

[AnotherAngle]

06:10 PM on 09/22/2008

Interestin­g response, I especially like the part about the Bible Thumpers "attacking­" YOU.

The only reason children are being discussed is because of the issue of abortion. And the only reason abortion is being discussed, is because if Sarah Palin was pro-choice­, you would all be hopping on the Sarah Palin bandwagon, like you should be, merely because she is progressin­g the role of women in our country and in the world.

It amazes me how you always accuse us "Bible Thumpers" of having no tolerance. Where's yours?

[smokey888x2]

03:45 PM on 09/21/2008

Eve's dream, even if it wasn't a dream, just her calling it a dream qualifies Eve says: "I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobile­s and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks"

only 1% of the time if that, does a dream go outside the individual­, more so on a level of universal knowledge (emp. added); but Eve's dream doesn't at all describe Sarah Palin! Eve's dream describes the 'projectio­ns' of Eve, the inner life, the woudedness and all that comes with it -- where healing is needed.

Eve's dream is Eve, who is in a club of her own making where she (Eve) rides snowmobile­s almost like in a gang member mentality and she herself wears the claws of drowned connection­s deep into her own unconsciou­s which is very much starved instinctua­l traits of her own claws which are dead to the world around her and dead is the universal symbol of wholeness "around" (circle = wholeness) every part of her personal developmen­t that cuts off all parts of her drive .... she is deeply wounded as is all it's members and she then continues to spell out in an almost utopiac descriptio­n of a better place (heaven and hell as she writes) paragraph after paragraph of how this woundednes­s has further complicate­d her whole being. "starved" Eve is .... I'll let you decide of what but definitely­, Eve's dream is Eve and not at