This Bridge Called Her Back: Hillary Clinton

as the possibility of having the first woman president in my lifetime begins to slip away, i’ve been thinking.

in november, when i step up with glee to vote for the obamarama, i want to close my eyes and feel something for a second that ISN’T about him.

it’s about her.

i want to thank her.

i think he should thank her.

i think we all should.

because like all women who against all odds work their way up to a position of power like a salmon fighting upstream before she spawns and dies, she’s made a bridge of her body.

i hear all the time (in a sort of tepid and high pitched voice) from fellow women this:  “I WANT to vote for a woman, just not this woman.”  Then they list all of her faults, or what they’ve decided to see as her faults; chief among them is that she voted to authorize the use of force, which somehow turns into she sent our troops to war, which somehow starts sounding like the war is partly her fault.

i like to slow down in my brain and remember something that they don’t seem to.  i don’t have any problem at all addressing her dreaded vote. i think it was wrong. i think she made a mistake voting to authorize the use of force.

but the thing i can’t seem to get through on is that congress didn’t vote to go to war. like ever. and the reason is, because BUSH BROKE THE LAW. he didn’t ever make a full declaration of war, he didn’t bring it to the congress to vote on. remember? that’s one of the things he ought to be impeached for.

so NO ONE in congress voted to “go to war,” because our president broke the law by not asking them and getting their unanimous consent, then he did an end run around the US congress by going straight to the united nations with the house negro.

so i don’t place the blame at her feet in quite the same way as others do. i think she’s been scape-goated for a big mistake she made. and then all the stones got cast at her, instead of at the heads of the shitwads who really are responsible, bush, cheney, and rumsfeld.  and nobody, it seems, seems willing to remember that our own complacency also contributed to this clusterfucked war–we didn’t do a hell of a lot. did we.

but it’s much easier to throw rocks at hill’s head than look in the mirror, huh.

sigh.

and i’ve been thinking about the NEXT WOMAN.  for surely, since the problem is this woman, who has fought her whole life in concrete and direct ways to make the lives of women and children better, and to get the needs of women and children up on the same level of political discussion and action as the “boys list” of priorities, since the problem is her, surely the NEXT WOMAN will be what we want, right?

for one thing, she’ll be prettier, younger, definately more hip.  and she’ll be inspirational of mouth.  hugely.  her speeches will move nations.  it won’t be the slow and steady hard labor of changes a chunk at a time like all the important women of history have had to spend their lives toiling at.  it will be THE PERFECT WOMAN who can claim the position of power.  a woman who has never made any mistakes, doesn’t have very much experience, speaks so eloquently it makes you think you can fly, smart as a whip, and utterly unconnected from anything which has come before her. and her husband will keep his mouth shut and his dick in his pants, he won’t fight to defend her because she won’t need that, since we live in such a fair and balanced society, and she will never fail at anything important like health care–she won’t have to come back for round two because everyone will magically do everything she wants with no opposition.  NEXT TIME–this perfect woman–she’ll be the embodiment of CHANGE.

i just hope that when SHE COMES, and everyone who said they wanted her–this NEXT WOMAN–when they step up to vote for her, i hope they take a second to look down at what we’re all standing on.

this bridge called her back, and all the womens’ backs we stand on and then forget.

because without her body THIS TIME, NEXT TIME, we got butkus.

(title riffed from This Bridge Called My Back/Gloria Anzuldua)