I claim to vote so therefore I can bitch about the choice that was made...but this story is the REAL reason women should vote! And how much control of the country could we have IF we stepped up, like these women, and demanded that our voices be heard. I recently heard that women outnumber men again...so WHY in heaven's name are WE "letting" men control our destiny, our country? They've done such a brilliant job so far...(just a little sarcasm)
We have always known that some of the Presidents have cheated on their wives while in office...why are we not more outraged that our elected officials can't keep their pants zipped up and do the job they were elected to do? Just because it's always been done, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do!
I would love to have a woman President, but it has to be the right woman. Part of the reason I did not want Hilary in office is because she "let" Bill humiliate her before the country, not once mind you...MANY times! And I am trying to wrap my mind around why it bothers me and why I don't think she'd be a good President. Now if Ann Richards was alive and well and running for President...she is the woman and the democrat I would vote for...
I am SOOOO tired of trying to figure out who is going to be the lessor of two evils when it comes to electing someone to office. I want someone who has good business sense...that can lead our country out of debt...that can lead us back to being a RESPECTED nation...to have integrity and honesty. And it's not just about the Presidency either...it's the whole of Congress. If the President can only have TWO terms, let's set limits on Congress to three or four terms at MAX...NO LIFETIME MEMBERS! I think NEW blood is in order to stir things up!
I want a President like Geena Davis played on TV, like Kevin Kline played in "Dave" and maybe even Michael Douglas played in "The American President".
It is time to do away with the Electoral College
(An electoral college is a set of electors who are empowered to elect a candidate to a particular office. Often these electors represent different organizations or entities, with each organization or entity represented by a particular number of electors or with votes weighted in a particular way. Many times, though, the electors are simply important persons whose wisdom, it is hoped, would provide a better choice than a larger body. The system can ignore the wishes of a general membership, whose thinking need not be considered.) and go to a popular vote so that we can feel as though our choice matters.
Okay...those are my ramblings about politics for tonight...
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This is the story of our Grandmothers, and Great-grandmothers, as they lived only 90 years ago. It was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
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The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic."
They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson 's White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie "Iron Jawed Angels." It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women' s history, saw the HBO movie, too.. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I use--or don't use--my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn." The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her "all over again."
HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."
Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party -remember to vote.
History is being made! May God Bless America!
