This one's for Lindsay (and anyone else who has thoughts on the matter)

OK, this is going to be a long one so grab some popcorn and a drink 'cause here we go!

On "Digital Scrapbook #8" Lindsay commented:

Do you think there is an order to Kasl's human value list? it is stated as "gender, race, class, position, religion, age, appearance, ethnic background, physical ability" i recently had a theory about this list and if they are treated equally or if some have more privilege than others and it was based on the outcome of the democratic presidential campaign.

Let me start by saying that I have not read all of Kasl's book. We read chapters from different books throughout the quarter. The list stated above is from chapter 3 "Is Addiction Inevitable? Patriarchy, Hierarchy, and Capitalism" in the book Many Roads, One Journey: Moving Beyond the 12 Steps. Any quotes from Kasl in this post are from this chapter. Also, I'm just guessing and giving my point of view; I am not an expert on this subject by any means. Now that I've gotten my paranoid disclaimer out of the way, I can give my thoughts on the matter.

In terms of a certain order to Kasl's human value list, she has created an illustration of hierarchy and patriarchy in the United States. I don't have an image file for it so just know that it looks like a triangle and at the top is are white men with images implying power and authority. The men are separated from everyone else by a chain-link fence. Below the fence we see everyone else (I didn't type these in any particular order): the white wives of the men above the fence, athletes, criminals, divorce, singers, teachers, the elderly, gay and lesbian couples, single mothers, those on welfare, drug dealers, Native Americans, etc. Here is what she writes about the illustration (emphasis at the end is hers, not mine):

If we look at our illustration of hierarchy and patriarchy, we see people of different genders, ages, colors, races, classes, educations, or economic situations. To survive this system, all of them have been conditioned to lose, bury, or not develop parts of themselves. it could be their ability to love, cry, show tenderness, feel pain, express anger, experience their fear, be assertive, or pursue their personal hopes and dreams. The part that gets lost or buried or never developed depends on where they are in the hierarchy, their particular childhood circumstances, and their personal empowerment. This ties in with our discussions of the human energy system--chakras--that follows.
For example, the white males at the top get to set the rules, but are cut off from their sensitivity and love because they must blind themselves to the fact that they are living off the backs of the people below them. The people who live below the chain-link fence spend a lot of time figuring out the rules of the people who live above them because they have to survive in their world. Thus they may have insight into the workings of the people above them, but they may not have a lot of time left to understand themselves. And the ones on the very bottom are exhausted simply trying to survive. This hinders them from experiencing the luxury of self-exploration and personal growth.
When we have parts of ourselves buried or undeveloped, we feel out of harmony, empty, or off-center, and often experience a sense of alienation that results in an inner void fueling both compulsive and addictive behavior as well as codependency. Gotta fill up the emptiness, gotta get rid of the pain and desperation. Give me money, sex, drugs, food, status, a wife, a husband. We engage in compulsive or addictive behavior so we don't have to feel what's inside. Patriarchy/hierarchy maintains and perpetuates addictive and dependent behavior in order to cover up the incredible losses of self and separateness created by our system.

I type all of this out to show that there does seem to be an order to this list as it relates to addiction. Within the context of the primaries for the Democratic Primaries, I think there are a couple of ways of looking at a potential order to the list. Kasl stresses that "the motivating force behind the white men at the top is often fear of losing their control over others" (73). Keeping this in mind, here are my thoughts.

In her illustration, the image of "two Black adult men being admired by a little boy" is farther down in the hierarchy than any of the images representing middle or upper-middle class white women. For the image of Black men, Kasl says that "by the age of eight, this inner-city boy realizes that he is unlikely to have access to the mainstream United States privileges of education and respect, so he is finding his heroes. Who are they? The local drug dealers." (70). Because of Obama's race and his admitted issues with drugs, one could argue that he would be more oppressed. If he is able to climb over the chain-link fence, he might give other Black Americans the idea that they could too, thus threatening the status quo. On the flip side, because middle and upper-middle class, white women are closer to the chain link fence, they could be perceived as a bigger threat to the men above the fence. Some of these women are directly below the fence, specifically the wives of the men in power. Therefore, Clinton would face more opposition as she grew up as a white, middle class girl and she is also the wife of one of the men above the fence, making her the bigger threat.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am an Obama supporter and have been since the end of February. I started off as an Edwards supporter.

Before the primaries got underway, my only problem with Clinton was that, for a majority of my life (all but 7 years), there has been either a Bush or a Clinton in office. This just doesn't sit right with me. As the primaries started, I began to actually dislike Clinton. When I would listen to her or her supporters speak, I felt like she had a sense of entitlement; that the Presidency was somehow owed to her. The tactics she resorted to sickened me. I felt like she was willing to risk a Democrat loosing in November if it wasn't her name on the ballot. And I feel like her behavior and actions hurt women more then it helped advance us. But these are my issues with her. Do I think this is why she didn't win? Perhaps it played a role in it.

I don't think she ran her campaign as well as Obama did. Again, going back to the issue of entitlement, she was the presumptive nominee before a single ballot had been cast. She didn't campaign as much as she should have in the months running up to the first primaries because everyone figured it was in the bag. It seemed like her campaign didn't even have plan beyond February 5th (Super Tuesday).

In the end, the thing that bothered me the most was her insistence that, including Michigan and Florida, she had more popular votes than he did. The problem here is that the popular vote count doesn't include the caucus states, which mostly went for Obama. So, every vote should count, but only for states who hold primaries and not those who hold a caucus? And her including Florida and Michigan after she herself said their primaries shouldn't count? Of course this was when she thought it was in the bag, there was no question she was going to be the nominee.

This is not to say I think Obama is perfect, I don't. But he ran a very different campaign because no one assumed anything. And, perhaps because he didn't need to, I don't feel like he resorted to the type of dirty tactics that she did. He was certainly doing his fair share of mud slinging, but Clinton went several steps farther. In the end, Obama ran a better campaign.

Did she loose because of sexism in the media? No. I'm not saying the media wasn't sexist in some of its coverage, certainly there were sexist remarks made. Just as there were racist remarks made. But this same sexist media is the very same media that declared her the presumptive nominee months before the primaries started.

I think I'll end this here for now but I would love to hear what others think, regardless of if you agree with me or think I'm full of shit. I love talking politics!