Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Well maybe the Democrats should stop screwing-over women and pro-choice activists

The Democrats have been a damn shame to us as of late--not that you haven't noticed. And so have so called "A-list" predominately [frat-boyish] male-run liberal blogs such as the DailyKos (remember the sexist pie-wrestling episode with them?). Though these liberal blogs criticize the Dems for being the cop-outs that they have been recently, these liberal blogs have been acting like the Democrats in their own way without even knowing it. Case in point; the Democrats screwing over reproductive rights advocate groups and pro-choice voters. These liberal blogs, like the Democrats, have been treating women's reproductive rights like an easily discarded non-issue--and just flat out treating the women who vote for them or run as their candidates like easily ignored and brushed-off "pests". Sure, we hear all kinds of talk of Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton being nominated in 2008, but do you think with the way the Democrats have been acting recently, trying desperately to woo ultra-conservative voters while screwing their original voting-base in the process, that they would really back her in 2008? For the Democrats it's all about mimicking the neocon-Republicans--to hell with their voting base, right? Now back to the liberal blogs who keep telling pro-choicers (female and male), feminists, or specifically women in general that abortion "gets in the way" and "women just need to compromise abortion-rights for the greater-good of the Democrats winning again," along with telling pro-choicers to "stop declaring war on left-leaning blogs,"well Feministing has this in response to them...

DailyKos has taken issue with this post on BushvChoice, which called on pro-choicers to make their presence known in the comments threads of the major liberal blogs.

As Kos seemed to read it, the post was declaring war on lefty bloggers and, by proxy, the Democratic party. Not so. It was simply calling on pro-choicers to speak up.

Why is it so hard for the heavyweights of the liberal blogosphere to understand that, for many of us, choice is not something that "gets in the way" of more important Democratic party platform issues. It is the number one issue.

Sure, the Democrats are better than the Republicans on choice. But when Howard Dean is snuggled up with Democrats for Life and the party backs an anti-choice minority leader, forgive me if I'm not swooning in adoration.

I definitely don't think that NARAL should not be endorsing pro-choice Republicans who are running against pro-choice Democrats. Their strategy should also be focused on holding pro-choice Republicans (and Democrats) to their word. If Lincoln Chafee votes the wrong way, NARAL needs to pull their support. And be vocal about it.

But the underlying problem here is not NARAL endorsing pro-choice Republicans. The problem is the Democratic party's creep toward the center on reproductive rights. If Democrats want the support of the pro-choice movement, they have to earn it.
That forming a whole new party idea is really starting to look good right about now, with all of this disillusionment with the current Democrats. And we pro-choice and feminist bloggers have our own outlets in the blogosphere should the so called heavyweight liberal blogs keep failing us. Besides, I never expected frat-boyish "lefty" bloggers to take women's reproductive rights--or women's rights, period--seriously anyway. [/rant]