Hello All,

I know there is a lot getting sent around about Palin, but I thought this was quite eloquent.

Sarah



Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best

known for ³The Vagina Monologues², wrote the followingabout Sarah Palin. Drill, Drill, DrillI am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that shewas a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore theclaws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I havea particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it¹s their snowy whitenessor their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that Ihave never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the factthat they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need thepolar bears. I don¹t like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my lifetrying to build community, help empower women and stop violenceagainst them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why theSarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The peoplewho made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity ofFeminists. But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antitheticalto Feminism which for me is part of one story ‹ connected to savingthe earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girlsoptions, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violenceand war. I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerouschoices of my lifetime, and should this country chose thosecandidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast inso many areas that America may never recover. But what is equallydisturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of theworld. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I haveseen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to thepresidency with regularity. Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor.In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or getsbetter or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. Themelting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, thepollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God¹s plan. She isfighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. Theearth, in Palin¹s view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolvesand the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here tobe taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. Asshe said herself of the Iraqi war, ³It was a task from God.² Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe womenwho are raped and incested and ripped open against their will shouldhave a right to determine whether they have their rapist¹s baby ornot. She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. Iimagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how manybabies that makes. Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather shehas tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispensewith people who think independently. She cannot tolerate anenvironment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who couldand might very well be the next president of the United States. Shewould govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth. Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian huntingrifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shothundreds of wolves from the air. Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her privateright. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, whenwar is declared in God¹s name, when the rights of women are denied inhis name, that is the end of separation of church and state and theundoing of everything America has ever tried to be. I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold thiselection in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine thefuture not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determinewhether we create policies to save the earth or make it foreveruninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towardsdialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violencethrough invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whetherwe go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money inalternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. Itwill determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare orwhether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determinewhether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place offear, fundamentalism and aggression. If the Polar Bears don¹t move you to go and do everything in yourpower to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled thehall after Palin spoke at the RNC, ³Drill Drill Drill.² I think ofteeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think ofdestruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercisesthat force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis,doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain. Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in thefloor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust betweennations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thingwe call life? Eve EnslerSeptember 5, 2008