I know I didn't post yesterday, and I said I would post every day. Well, life happens. :) Had some family come over unexpectedly, and just didn't have the time. And today's post will be short and sweet. It's a simple comment Brenna made to our Home Teacher last month.
Somehow, the presidential election came up in conversation. Brenna says, "I'm not going to vote for Barack Obama. I'm not a Democrat."
Now I know politics is a subject that is best left alone most of the time...so all I'll say is I hope we all get informed and exercise the right our forefathers fought for.
Happy Monday to everyone!
4 comments:
She is so grown up!!! I love her picture!
As you know, we love that stuff over here, too, so I can't wait until we can talk with our kids about this stuff! Way to go Brenna :)
I love that girl.... She's smart AND beautiful. :o)
My two cents:
Ally wrote: "so all I'll say is I hope we all get informed and exercise the right our forefathers fought for"
I say: As a former member of the U.S. Military (USMCR) I concur with Allyson on the importance of voting. Here is a little tid bit of information that my Mom passed along to me via email that should cause all you ladies out there to pause and reflect upon the importance of voting if in fact you typically do not vote. (as this was forwarded via email the original author is unknown to me at this time)
Subject: Why Women Should Vote
This is the story of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers; they lived
only 90 years ago. Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were
granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed
nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.
And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison
guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above
her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart
attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917 when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured
liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because -why, exactly? We have car-pool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new
movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling
booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a
privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use , or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The
right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'
HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'
Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so
hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.
History is being made.
Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Proverbs 3:27
http://www.hbo.com/films/ironjawedangels/synopsis/index.html
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