An Eclectic Mind

…for change.

For the past six or more years, I’ve been watching my country — and my town — deteriorate as the result of bad decisions by our leaders.

We go to war in Iraq, spending $341.4 million per day. Thousands of people die — our soldiers and Iraqi civilians — and many thousands more are permanently maimed with lost limbs and worse. We lose the respect of many nations because of our arrogance and stubborn refusal to “lose” a War we can’t win and probably never should have started in the first place.

Our country is in financial meltdown because of bad lending practices and other policies of greedy financial institutions. The “flip this house” mentality has caused thousands of people to invest in properties now worth far less than they paid. Rather than pay mortgages they can’t afford, they’ve been mailing their keys to the mortgage holders, leaving them with properties they have to maintain and sell in a market they’re not willing to lend to.

Businesses have sent thousands of manufacturing and support jobs overseas, leaving fewer job opportunities at home for Americans. With the economy tanking, thousands of people are losing their jobs every month. People without jobs don’t have money to spend on the goods and services still offered in this country, so they’re not buying. Less revenue for U.S. businesses forces them to cut staff even further. It’s a vicious circle.

The country has split into two factions: conservatives, who strive to force their values on everyone, and liberals, who want the true freedom this country promises. Among those freedoms are the freedom of speech, so recently misunderstood by a vice presidential candidate. Yet when we speak out about what’s wrong with this country, we’re labeled as unpatriotic traitors.

Clearly, the country is sick and needs a cure.

I’m voting tomorrow and I urge every U.S. citizen reading this to do the same. It’s only by voting that we can make a difference in our country. Vote for a change. Vote to make things better. Vote because it’s your right and your responsibility.

And don’t let the polls con you into staying home. Your candidate needs your support.

Get out and vote.

A public service announcement.

Leonardo DiCaprio, will i. am, Tobey Maguire, and Forest Whitaker have created public service announcements to encourage American youth to register to vote. The non-partisan PSAs, produced by DiCaprios Appian Way, were created to engage and inspire young people to register and vote and participate in the upcoming election. Celebrities appearing in the PSAs include: Amy Adams, will.i.am, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Bacon, Halle Berry, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Connolly, Courteney Cox, Ellen DeGeneres, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Jonah Hill, Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Kiedis, Ashton Kutcher, Adam Levine, Laura Linney, Eva Longoria, Tobey Maguire, Demi Moore, Natalie Portman, Giovanni Ribisi, Ethan Suplee, Kyra Sedgwick, Michelle Trachtenberg, Usher, and Forest Whitaker.

If the embed won’t work (was having trouble with it), here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vtHwWReGU0

My response to an e-mail message.

The other day, I got an e-mail message from a cousin of mine back east. The title of the e-mail was “Why Women Should Vote.” It was one of those typical “forward this” e-mails that tries to fire people up about one thing or another. It included the usual bold and UPPERCASE text and images. (I guess folks think that pictures can help make their case.)

I need to say here that my cousin did not write this e-mail. She just forwarded it. She often forwards messages about topics of interest to women.

I get a few of these forwarded e-mail messages each day. I agree with and enjoy reading about half of them. Some of them don’t even get read — I just delete them. And some of them — like this one — get under my skin and prompt me to respond and blog about it. Regular readers may recall “The Star Spangled Banner, In Spanish?”

The message was a combination history lesson and call for action. It began with the sentence, “This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.” I knew I was in for it when I saw a series of sepia-tinted photos of suffragettes on the march. I fully admit that I didn’t read the whole thing.

Instead, I thought about the idea that women should need a special reason to vote. And frankly, it made me angry. I wrote a response:

Women should vote for the same reason men should vote: it’s our RESPONSIBILITY as part of a democratic society. It has nothing to do with women’s rights or anything else that’s specific to women. We vote to have our say. Anyone who is eligible to vote and doesn’t is an IDIOT, plain and simple. They’re giving up their right to have a say in the future of our country.

Use it or lose it — that can apply to the democratic process, too.

And don’t you think this “battle of the sexes” nonsense has gone on too long? If we we acted like PEOPLE rather than WOMEN we’d be treated like people. That’s how I’ve always worked in male-dominated fields — finance, computers, and now aviation — and I’ve never had any problems.

Thanks for including me in your distribution lists, but you really don’t need to. I get an awful lot of e-mail and really don’t have time to wade through it all. I guarantee that I already THINK about things like this far more than most of the people in this country — people who care more about American Idol and Paris Hilton than how their congressman voted or what the votes were about. I don’t need e-mails that spell everything out for me with pictures, clip art, historical trivia, or angry words directed against one group or another.

Don’t be offended, please.

I didn’t get a response and honestly don’t expect to. There are far too many women who are quick to make us into some sort of special case. While I hope she understands my point, I don’t think this e-mail will change her point of view.

Comments? Use the Comments link or form below to share them.

A Web site sharing what thinking women think.

The other day, I got an e-mail message from a friend. She doesn’t usually forward political e-mails, but she had a lot of respect for the two women who’d written what she forwarded, so she sent it on rather apologetically.

The e-mail message was an appeal to women to share their thoughts on why Sarah Palin was a bad choice to be “one heartbeat away from the presidency. E-mails sent to a certain address would be put on a new blog. I shared my thoughts.

The following day, a Twitter friend linked to the resulting Web site, Woman Against Sarah Palin. I stopped by this morning to read what a few of the women had written. There were hundreds of comments from all over the country and none of them were positive.

The main thought of the site’s founders is summarized in their “Profile”:

We are not in the habit of criticizing women in the public sphere, as we usually feel we should support our female compatriots with as much encouragement as we can. However, Sarah Palin’s record is anti-woman. Feminism is not simply about achieving the power and status typically held by men. It’s about protecting and supporting the rights of women of all classes, races, cultures, and beliefs. Palin’s record and beliefs do not align with this. She was chosen by John McCain specifically because he believes that American women will vote for any female candidate regardless of their qualifications. He is wrong.

This echoes my sentiments exactly. I’m actually quite insulted by the choice — as if picking a woman as a running mate is enough to get the female vote.

But what’s scaring me most is that it seems to be working among some women. And that’s why I hope people will read what’s on this site. Don’t be fooled by a skirt and a lipsticked “hockey mom.” She was chosen not for her qualifications but for her ability to pump up McCain’s campaign. Do you really want someone with her background to be one heartbeat away?

Visit Woman Against Sarah Palin and see what the women there are saying.