Combat Zones and Women

"Women are already serving in combat [in Iraq and Afghanistan] and the current policy should be updated to reflect realities on the ground."

-Wendy Morigi, Senator Obama's national security spokeswoman.

Obama is also for women registering for the draft, even though he (and McCain) do not agree with the draft being used to mandate military service. I'm for that; I have no problem with women registering for something men have to register for. And I'm all for women being acknowledged as being in combat zones and in danger and paid accordingly, both in respect and money.

I admit to liking the idea of women registering for the draft for a couple of reasons, and they are all based in my feminism. While I would rather work to eliminate the Selective Service system, I do believe that as long as caveats and special conditions are granted to women on the basis of gender, we will never truly gain equality - in society or in the hearts and minds of its people. Barring women from serving in the armed forces is partially rooted in gender roles; I can't even begin to count the number of times I have seen editorials and letters to the editor decrying some child's mother being sent off to a war zone, to be placed in danger, with nary a letter about the fathers of those very same children. Mothers are both ignored and deified in that way. I don't want husbands or fathers being sent off to die; but as long as they are, I think wives and mothers should also be allowed to serve without recrimination and without cries about the children. I do believe women who look to serve in the military should be subject to the same combat ready requirements as men; this shouldn't be gym class, where my running the mile in 13 minutes counted the same as a boy my same age running the mile in 11 minutes. In a war zone, the enemy isn't going to care that I should have a two minute buffer. At the same time, the belief that women are wholly incapable of reaching those heights has to be eliminated as well. Not every woman would be able to; I certainly couldn't. But not every man can perform at those levels either.

The military needs to be reformed in certain respects, and in one of those respects is not only changing its Old Boys' Club feel but also understanding the changing nature of troops and the changing role of women in society. Our job is no longer to be ready with the hot toddy and a Times Square kiss after the boys come home from war. We've moved beyond that, and women who excel in the armed forces should not only be acknowledged but allowed to openly excel in the first place.

A More Perfect Union

My father is more a fan of Keith Olbermann than I am; I prefer The Daily Show. But I do love some of what Olbermann does and I love how often Chris Hayes is a guest. And I love some of the issues that are brought up in segments such as this one.

This is the kind of attitude from Palin Obama and company have to attack. It isn't enough to keep chanting "4 more years" because although that is what we're going to be getting, the picture McCain and Palin are presenting is one of two genuinely likable people. And apparently Americans have forgotten that voting for the seemingly genuinely likable guy (with the surly VP choice) is what got us into much of the mess we face today both at home and abroad. Obama should be flooding the airwaves with the idea that not only is Palin mimicking a line from Bush, it is a line not even Bush publicly states any more. Any sort of connection between Iraq and 9/11 have long been disproved, and the fact that someone who is the potential #2 (wo)man in the White House (and could hold the #1 spot at some point in the next 4-8 years) either believes it or believes it still has enough political milage to parrot it more is more than scary. If she believes it, then we are in a terrifying situation. If she doesn't believe it but thinks it will help her side win, then - as Chris Hayes rightfully points out - it is morally repugnant.

We need to actually detail how the next four years will resemble the last eight if McCain and Palin are elected. We need to make it clear that we can't afford four more years of this. I hate the argument that we should vote for a president based on what will potentially happen on the Supreme Court. It didn't work in 2000, it didn't work in 2004, and it probably won't work in 2008. But I really think we need to emphasize the whole host of issues with a McCain and Palin picked Court, along with McCain and Palin foreign policy and McCain and Palin domestic policy.

We also need to seriously examine the fact that so much of our money goes toward military endeavors. The West Wing taught me why the military needed more expensive items when Jack Reese broke a $400 ash tray to demonstrate how the added cost created an extra safety measure. But I think Chris Hayes is right when he says, "what's really, really frustrating is the fact there is no other area of policy and political debate in which your prescription can be to just spend 12 billion dollars a month and keep a hundred and forty thousand Americans somewhere with no definitive strategic end point." We also need to firmly examine whether or not Chris Hayes' assessment regarding McCain's foreign policy as being even more extreme than Bush's current policy is correct. Because if it is, that is also something that needs to be stressed to the American public. Yes, this man is a POW. Yes, he is a respected and respectable man. Yes, he does genuinely want to do the best by his country and for his country. But that doesn't mean that some of his policies aren't just insane, and that his vision for our future may not, in point of fact, be the vision we require to carry us toward a better and more actualized version of this great American experiment.

"Billy Idol Gets It..."

Growing up in my family means sometimes speaking in quotes more than independent and new formulations of words. For example, instead of saying, "You've done a bad parking job", my parents will say, "We can walk to the curb from here". If two children are fighting, the least stubborn child (or oldest child) will not be told that the other one is younger and so it would be good for her to triumph, but "Let the Wookie win". If we're lost or taking an alternate route, the line is, "It's over the ocean to Scranton, Pennsylvania?" (That movie is probably quoted than any other, what with ones like, "We missed it by a good foot and a half", and "I'm such a great driver it is incomprehensible that they took my license away".) If something seems impossible but got done, the quote most often said is, "Only Nixon could go to China". Quotes from movies and television shows pepper my language, sometimes to the detriment of others' understanding me. "Blah, Tralfaz, blah" is one of those phrases people look at me oddly for. But it has become ingrained behavior; so much so that when I read this article featuring Milo Ventimiglia, in which he said, "I mean, fuck, it's 2008. The fact that people are still worried about stuff like that baffles me", my first thought was, "See? Milo Ventimiglia gets it. I don't know why she doesn't!" Of course, I had to substitute Milo's name for Billy Idol's, but the gist of the quote is still the same (bonus points if you know where the quotes in this paragraph come from).

It continues to confound me, the idea that being gay or transgendered or bisexual or just different, is something the greater society still persecutes people for. It continues to astound me how far we still have yet to go. I've gone to Provincetown a few times in my life. It is a fun time, and I really enjoy it. I particularly like the gay man who runs the hat shop there, who said, "Oh, honey, it's a little late, don't you think?" when I told him I was buying a hat to shade myself from the sun while sporting a wicked burn. I love walking down the street and seeing, actually seeing, people of all walks of life being profoundly comfortable with who they are. Couples, feeding each other in restaurants, who couldn't do that in other places because they are both guys (or girls). And I love it there; the shops are great, the whale watch (where I got my infamous  sunburn) is great, and the whole vibe of the place is laid back and freer. I hate the idea that it is somehow magnanimous to proclaim that a person can be gay (I'm sure they're glad you grudgingly acquiesce to their existence), but that they shouldn't "be gay" in public. That it is somehow a horrible, scarring thing to see two people exchange nothing more than a peck on a city streets, or in movies, or in television. We're getting farther than we have been in the past. Homosexuals can now marry in Massachusetts and California, and I'm so glad that Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon were able to wed before Del passed away earlier this week, after being together for 55 years and campaigning even longer for LGBT rights. I may think the ritual of marriage is antiquated and slightly ridiculous, but I want that ridiculous ceremony to be open to everyone who wishes to take part in it. And I can't believe that it isn't yet.

And I firmly believe the worst, most craven thing the Clinton administration did during their 8 years in office was to capitulate, however slightly, on the issue of gays in the military with that horrible "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Worse than Whitewater, and more prevalent than Monicagate (and how I loathe sticking "gate" onto any political crisis! It was called Watergate, people, because it happened at the Watergate hotel complex). The idea that gays could so hurt morale that it would endanger the United States troops is the argument once used for keeping the troops segregated. As we've seen, the integration of the troops didn't bring the military complex to its knees. So, Milo Ventimiglia gets it; we just have to wait until more people -especially in government- catch up.