The Reluctant Writer

Also posted in the comments section of the LA Times in response to editorial by Gloria Steinam.

September 6, 2008 by Lynn Allen

Dear Gloria Steinem- Thank you for this article. I find your analysis to be thoughtful and urgent about the risks we take in potentially having such a shallow and pugnacious woman as Sarah Palin as our Vice President. She has nothing to offer us that we haven’t already seen in President Bush – a bulldog lacking depth and diplomacy; a zealot lacking compassion for civil and human rights, acting only from ideology and not reality. A truly disastrous administration.

It has little to do with gender and much to do with capability. Reading the article written by the resident of Wasilla confirmed my suspicion that Palin’s greatest talent is intimidation. This seems congruent with the way the Republicans have won elections in the past, and how they will conduct themselves yet again in this election. They can’t win on their record – it fails in almost every respect and has been listed many times here already. The Republican policies of the last eight years have been the most negative and destructive in recent history. We will suffer for decades due to Bush and Company. Electing The POW and the Pit Bull will only ensure that the suffering continues even longer.

The responses of those who oppose your views show that this pattern of winning by intimidation is rampant among those who support Palin. Her record is dismal once you see it for what it is, and yet the support howls loudly if anyone calls her on it. She herself has been vindictive in the extreme. It all fits. Like attracts like. It’s disgusting and disheartening. If this is what America is becoming it is a great travesty indeed.

But this is not likely to be corrected anytime soon because critical thinking, intellectual pursuits, and education generally are disparaged rather than embraced. If you are too smart you are a nurd, an elitist or some other epithet that brands you “other.” Back to school doesn’t mean much anymore. Since when is it a bad thing to be smart and to act smart in behalf of others?

I support you and all adventurous women in pursuing excellence, no matter their political leanings or religion. I can never support women like Palin who would constrict opportunities and denigrate those who work for the positive aspects of life in the United States. She may be female, but she’s not necessarily a friend of women or any other minority.

Keep talking. You have inspired me to speak out. In this time of political expediency I know others will as well.

Lynn Allen

URL to Steinem’s opinion in the LA Times, Sept 4, 2008:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-steinem4-2008sep04,0,7915118.story

THE TRUTH ABOUT SARAH PALIN. Read this for an accounting of Sarah’s business and goverance record by someone who was there:

http://webpages.charter.net/suasponte/

If you really want to know Sarah Palin’s history (in detail) this is a “must read”. It was written by Anne Kilkenny, a resident of Wasilla, Alaska.