More on Fertile Myrtle and Hillary
I thought I'd share the latest columns of two of my favorite writers, San Francisco's Mark Morford and New York City's Ted Rall.
Morford's column from today is titled "God Does Not Want 16 Kids" (the links in his column and the captions for the two photos that accompany his column are his, not mine):
Here they are, the Duggar children and their father Jim Bob Duggar (top center), as their mother Michelle holds the 16th addition to the family. While the birth was successful, doctors were unable to remove the large feral monster squirrel growing from the back of Michelle's head. Nor were they able to convince any of the daughters that bad Amish-style haircuts actually make God cry.
It is not for you to imagine this couple's physical gyrations. It is not for you to wonder, after giving birth to 16 yes 16 children in a mere 19 years, what this woman's body must be like, what this man's weird motivations must be. It is perhaps enough for us to wonder at their infinitely distressing hair, their 16 gleaming white Christian fundamentalist children, and to cry to the gods, why, why, WHY?
Who are you to judge? Who are you to say that the more than slightly creepy 39-year-old woman from Arkansas who just gave birth to her 16th child yes that's right 16 kids and try not to cringe in phantom vaginal pain when you say it, who are you to say Michelle Duggar is not more than a little unhinged and sad and lost?
And furthermore, who are you to suggest that her equally troubling husband -- whose name is, of course, Jim Bob and he's hankerin' to be a Republican senator and try not to wince in sociopolitical pain when you say that -- isn't more than a little numb to the real world, and that bringing 16 hungry mewling attention-deprived kids (and she wants more! Yay!) into this exhausted world zips right by "touching" and races right past "disturbing" and lurches its way, heaving and gasping and sweating from the karmic armpits, straight into "Oh my God, what the hell is wrong with you people?"
But that would be, you know, mean. Mean and callous to suggest that this might be the most disquieting photo you see all year, this bizarre Duggar family of 18 spotless white hyperreligious interchangeable people with alarmingly bad hair, the kids ranging in ages from 1 to 17, worse than those nuked Smurfs in that UNICEF commercial and worse than all the horrific rubble in Pakistan and worse than the cluster-bomb nightmare that is Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise having a child as they suck the skin from each other's Scientological faces and even worse than that huge 13-foot python [that] ate that six-foot alligator and then exploded.
It's wrong to be this judgmental. Wrong to suggest that it is exactly this kind of weird pathological protofamily breeding-happy gluttony that's making the world groan and cry and recoil, contributing to vicious overpopulation rates and unrepentant economic strain and a bitter moral warpage resulting from a massive viral outbreak of homophobic neo-Christians across our troubled and Bush-ravaged land. Or is it?
Is it wrong to notice how all the Duggar kids' names start with the letter J (Jeremiah and Josiah and Jedediah and Jesus, someone please stop them), and that if you study the above photo (or the even more disturbing family Web site) too closely you will become rashy and depressed and you will crave large quantities of alcohol and loud aggressive music to deflect the creeping feeling that this planet is devolving faster than you can suck the contents from a large bong? But I'm not judging.
I have a friend who used to co-babysit (yes, it required two sitters) for a family of 10 kids, and she reports that they were, almost without fail, manic and hyper and bewildered and attention-deprived in the worst way, half of them addicted to prescription meds to calm their neglected nerves and the other half bound for years of therapy due to complete loss of having the slightest clue as to who they actually were, lost in the family crowd, just another blank, needy face at the table. Is this the guaranteed affliction for every child of very large families? Of course not. But I'm guessing it's more common than you imagine.
What's more, after the 10th kid popped out, the family doctor essentially prohibited the baby-addicted mother from having any more offspring, considering the pummeling endured by her various matronly systems, and it's actually painful to imagine the logistics, the toll on Michelle Duggar's body, the ravages it has endured to give birth to roughly one child per year for nearly two decades, and you cannot help but wonder about her body and its various biological and sexual ... no, no, it is not for this space to visualize frighteningly capacious vaginal dimensions. It is not for this space to imagine this couple's soggy sexual mutations. We do not have enough wine on hand for that.
Perhaps the point is this: Why does this sort of bizarre hyperbreeding only seem to afflict antiseptic megareligious families from the Midwest? In other words -- assuming Michelle and Jim Bob and their massive brood of cookie-cutter Christian kidbots will all be, as the charming photo suggests, never allowed near a decent pair of designer jeans or a tolerable haircut from a recent decade, and assuming that they will all be tragically encoded with the values of the homophobic asexual Christian right -- where are the forces that shall help neutralize their effect on the culture? Where is the counterbalance, to offset the damage?
Where is, in other words, the funky tattooed intellectual poetess who, along with her genius anarchist husband, is popping out 16 funky progressive intellectually curious fashion-forward pagan offspring to answer the Duggars squad of über-white future Wal-Mart shoppers? Where is the liberal, spiritualized, pro-sex flip side? Verily I say unto thee, it ain't lookin' good.
Perhaps this the scariest aspect of our squishy birthin' tale: Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony, whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation. Is that an oversimplification?
Why does this sort of thoughtfulness seem so far from the norm? Why is having a stadiumful of offspring still seen as some sort of happy joyous thing?
You already know why. It is the Biggest Reason of All. Children are, after all, God's little gifts. Kids are little blessings from the Lord, the Almighty's own screaming spitballs of joy. Hell, Jim Bob said so himself, when asked if the couple would soon be going for a 17th rug rat: "We both just love children and we consider each a blessing from the Lord. I have asked Michelle if she wants more and she said yes, if the Lord wants to give us some she will accept them." This is what he actually said. And God did not strike him dead on the spot.
Let us be clear: I don't care what sort of God you believe in, it's a safe bet that hysterical breeding does not top her list of desirables. God does not want more children per acre than there are ants or mice or garter snakes or repressed pedophilic priests. We already have three billion humans on the planet who subsist on less than two dollars a day. Every other child in the world (one billion of them) lives in abject poverty. We are burning through the planet's resources faster than a Republican can eat an endangered caribou stew. Note to Michelle Duggar: If God wanted you to have a massive pile of children, she'd have given your uterus a hydraulic pump and a revolving door. Stop it now.
Ah, but this is America, yes? People should be allowed to do whatever the hell they want with their families if they can afford it and if it's within the law and so long as they aren't gay or deviant or happily flouting Good Christian Values, right? Shouldn't they? Hell, gay couples still can't openly adopt a baby in most states (they either lie, or one adopts and the other must apply as "co-parent"), but Michelle Duggar can pop out 16 kids and no one says, oh my freaking God, stop it, stop it now, you thoughtless, selfish, baby-drunk people.
No, no one says that. That would be mean.
I said it back on Oct. 12, only a lot more briefly than Morford says it in his current column. And it's not mean if it's true. Speaking of which, I doubt that Mrs. Duggar really feels anything down there anymore, so I didn't "cringe in phantom vaginal pain" when I first saw the news story that the Duggars, who I'm guessing are Mormon, have popped out 16 puppies.
I stand by my assertion, in the comments section of my Oct. 12 post, that although this family might have the appearance of happiness -- fundamentalist "Christians" have the appearance thing down pat, even though Jesus taught us (I paraphrase) to concern ourselves more with cleaning the inside than with cleaning the outside of the cup -- there's no fucking way that those children could get the time and attention that they need in order to become mentally and spiritually healthy adults. It's just not physically possible. Even if the parents were model parents, it's a matter of fucking physics.
Here is Ted Rall's current weekly column, titled "Put a Woman in Charge":
Are Latvians more open-minded than us? Is Pakistan's commitment to democracy stronger than ours? What do the people of Ireland and Malta know that we don't? While half the population of the United States remains unrepresented by its pantheon of presidents, the citizens of these more enlightened nations have elected female presidents and premiers.
When Sirivamo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka became the world's first female Premier Minister in 1960, political prognosticators said that the United States, as the most important democracy, would soon follow suit by electing a woman president. Similar predictions followed Isabel Perón's ascension to the presidency of Argentina in 1974, yet both major American political parties continued to nominate males, and WASP males at that, to run for president. Meanwhile women took power in such supposedly backwards countries as the Philippines, Bangladesh and Mozambique.
Forty-three white males have led the United States over the course of 216 years and 85 years have passed since women's suffrage, and all but one of these white males were WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants).
As we assert the right to overthrow foreign governments for denying equal rights to women (Afghanistan) and to religious and ethnic groups (Iraq), the widening gender-religion-race gap between our increasingly diverse population and our resolutely WASP male presidents has devolved from hypocritical to downright embarrassing. The U.S. political system looks more like apartheid-era South Africa.
White men over 50 years of age account for a small-and-ever-shrinking proportion of the population yet occupy almost every seat in Congress, the Supreme Court and the 50 state legislatures. No wonder nearly 40 percent of Americans believe that the country isn't "ready" for a woman (much less a non-white) president.
Ready or not, here comes Hillary.
Three years is an eternity in politics, but soaring campaign costs have created an all but insurmountable barrier to late entries by dark horse candidates that make early predictions easier. The early fundraising leaders will probably get their party's nominations, which leads to an exciting possibility: America may elect its first woman president.
Machiavellian strategist Dick Morris' new book promotes a Condi vs. Hillary race, but the GOP, beholden to its racist base, is many years away from running a black woman for president. Hillary Rodham Clinton, benefiting from high name recognition, a PR campaign to promote her "newfound moderation" with swing voters and a dearth of high-profile challengers, is as close to a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination as you can get.
But it looks like she'll face a formidable adversary in the general election -- Arizona Senator John McCain. A Zogby poll conducted in June has the charismatic McCain beating Clinton 54 to 35 percent, a staggering lead to overcome. Both candidates are already well known, so the typical process of educating an apathetic electorate as the race draws nearer is less of a factor in comparing their popularity.
No matter who wins in 2008, we'll be better off than we are now.
Unfortunately, McCain's soft-spoken charm and reputation as an honest "maverick," belied by his right-wing voting record and his sucking up to Bush, could easily attract centrist voters turned off by Clinton's frosty demeanor.
Democratic "base" voters aren't crazy about her either. Liberals like the idea of a woman president, but prefer one who worked her way to the top all by herself. Clinton doesn't qualify.
Easterners still chafe at Clinton's "carpetbagging," running for the senate from New York despite not having lived there. Moreover, she voted the wrong way on the defining issue of the new century and, if she keeps it up, may end up as the last politician to admit supporting the Iraq war.
So why not vote for John "Plain Talk Express" McCain? If for no other reason than to send a message to the world, it's important for Americans to support Clinton's bid.
A country that claims to value its women as equals ought to have a woman president now and then -- roughly half the time, as a matter of fact. The fact that we have never elected a woman president conveys to every American schoolgirl, when she learns that shameful fact, that she is doomed to second-class status, that she will never be able to go as far in life as a boy no matter how hard she works. A woman president won't necessarily close the gender wage gap, solve the daycare crisis or smash the glass ceiling -- but electing one might spark those discussions.
Despite her shortcomings of both politics and personality, Hillary Clinton is smart, well-educated, politically experienced and articulate enough to be president. We are unlikely to see another woman with her qualifications score a presidential nomination for years to come; voters should seize this chance to make history.
There are plenty of solid reasons to vote for Clinton over McCain -- which candidate would be more likely to let Bush's reprehensible tax giveaways to the ultrarich expire? withdraw troops from Iraq? close Gitmo? address the healthcare crisis? -- but electing a woman to the White House trumps them all.
I'm all for the next president of the United States, the first legitimately elected (I hope) president of the United States in eight years, being a woman.
As I've written, I'm just not big on that woman being Hillary Clinton. As Rall noted, "Liberals like the idea of a woman president, but prefer one who worked her way to the top all by herself. Clinton doesn't qualify." Yup. And I say anybody but Hillary for other reasons also.
But I'm realistic. Polls for some time have shown Hillary Clinton to be Democrats' top choice for 2008. John Kerry and John Edwards come in at a distant second and third place. Other than her death, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which any other Democrat will be able to beat Hillary in the primary season.
The Repugnicans' top two favorites are McCain and Rudy Giuliani, who in polls are always within a few percentage points of each other, with Condoleezza Rice in third place.
I'm with Rall; we can eliminate Condi now. There's no way the Repugnicans are going to alienate their base of white, patriarchal racists by nominating a black woman for president. Maybe she'll be a vice-presidential candidate.
McCain will get the Repugnican nomination -- he is more personable than Giuliani and he already ran in a Repugnican presidential primary, which gives him a leg up on Giuliani -- and he will be tough to beat in November 2008.
Also in McCain's favor is that when he ran against Gee Dubya in the 2000 Repugnican primary, McCain successfully branded himself as a moderate, which in 2008 should get him the lion's share of the swing vote, which is critical these days. As Rall notes, McCain's voting record reveals that McCain is a solid conservative, not a moderate. But in 2000 Gee Dubya had already taken the right-wing gig, so McCain took the faux moderate gig. And the majority of the American people, not knowing any better because the majority of the American people don't live in Arizona, bought it.
Just as he did in his television campaign ads when I lived in Arizona (I lived in Arizona until I was 30 years old, when I moved to Sacramento from Phoenix in 1998), McCain, when running for president in '08, will remind us, over and over and over and over and over again, that he was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War. The message, which they'll never actually come out and utter, is this: "John McCain was a POW. He lived like an animal in a cage in Vietnam. Don't you think that you owe him your vote?" (And the same Repugnicans who criticized John Kerry for making his service in Vietnam such an important part of his presidential campaign will be perfectly fine with McCain doing exactly the same, of course.)
Unless the nation is over the entire "war on terrorism" thing and focused on the shitty state of affairs here at home in 2008, McCain's tactic will be hard to beat. He'll be like George W. Bush, but with brains and with at least some ethics. He'll be like George W. Bush, but he actually went to Vietnam and was even a POW. He'll be the real war hero, not the went-AWOL-from-the-Texas-Air-National-Guard poser in a flight suit. Again, unless the nation is preoccupied with domestic affairs, McCain will be difficult to beat.
The polls bear that out:
McCain beats Hillary Clinton in every poll in which they're hypothetically matched up in 2008. Even worse, Giuliani also beats Hillary Clinton in every poll in which they're hypothetically matched up in 2008. (Clinton does beat Condi, but that's little consolation.)
So I agree with Rall that we're long overdue for a woman to be president of the United States. And I agree that Hillary Clinton would make a much better president than does George W. Bush, but is that really saying much?
I'd rather have another white male Democrat in the White House come January 2009 than have a female 2008 Democratic presidential candidate who loses to a white male Repugnican, and it looks like Hillary can't win.
But it's even bleaker than that: In the hypothetical 2008 presidential match-up polls, Kerry and Al Gore do even worse against McCain and Giuliani than does Hillary. (In at least one poll, Kerry even loses to Condi!)
So it seems to be a Democratic Party problem, not a gender problem.
Thus far, Hillary Clinton seems to be the best that the Democratic Party can offer in 2008, and against either likely Repugnican 2008 candidate, McCain or Giuliani, Hillary isn't enough.
11:04:31 PM 
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