Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    On Sunday he had a bunch of ads about how much he'd  help the
    working woman because he's in favor of improved daycare and likes
    kids.
    
    --bonnie

    
    Thanks for entering this.
    
    A couple of quotes from Friday's article:
    
    "Although he praised the women's movement for having helped women make
    gains in some areas, Silber said that movement has also made it harder
    for women 'who've decided to take their maternal responsibilities
    seriously' to be housewives.
    
    "'There is no question that we have a generation of neglected children,
    we have a generation of abused children, by women who have thought that
    a third-rate day care center was just as good as a first-rate home,'
    Silber said in the interview with WCVB-TV (Ch.5)."
    
    Can you say "blame the woman"?
    
    D.   

    re .3 He sort of implies that _all_ day-care is third-rate as
    opposed to home care being first class. He doesn't quite say it,
    just does a d*mn good job of impying it. Probably managed to induce
    a lot of guilt with it. Notice the implication that parents, and
    especially mothers, should be willing to sacrifice their own lives,
    dreams, plans and happiness for their kids.
    
    Personally I'd rather the kids were raised in day-care than by
    someone who resents being stuck at home while their career plans
    go down the tube. I wonder how many kids were abused/neglected
    for _that_ reason ?

    It's hard to say what was meant by the comments.  I didn't hear
    or read it in it's entirety (sp?), but from what I did see, my
    take on it was the implication that day care should be better
    than it is.  this is not directed to parent/s who are presently
    using day-care, I'm sure there are plenty of wonderful centers
    out there.  Just remember that it wasn't too long ago that you
    could read another story of child abuse at day care centers almost
    *daily*.  Maybe he is personally against the idea of day care/
    working mother.  I think it's ok if it works for him, but it's not
    ok to force those values on anyone else.  I don't think he's trying
    to do that, he's just such a strong personality that sometimes it's
    hard to separate his personal feelings from potential policy making.
    
    Christine

    >he's just such a strong personality that sometimes it's hard to 
    >separate his personal feelings from potential policy making.
                     
    If someone can't seperate their personal feelings from their policy
    making, they DO NOT belong in office.
    
    D!

    Both interviews with Silber and Weld will be broadcast on Channel 5
    (Boston) tonight at 10:00.
    
    Natalie Jacobsen asked both candidates the same questions and it was
    interesting to see how different the answers were.  Sounds like Silber
    didn't do his homework...Jacobsen is the type of woman who "neglects
    their children", according to his definition.
    
    Mrs. Silber was asked how she saw her role as first lady, if her
    husband was elected.  Her reply was that she would maintain her private
    life.  
    
    
    Judi
    

    D!
    
    Well, I stated my opinion badly, I didn't mean to say that, but am
    as a loss for words to better describe my thoughts on this.  Of course, 
    I'm not trying to change your mind, mine's not even made up.  However, 
    I think most people in public office bring many of their own (read 
    personal) values/beliefs to the work they perform while in office.  A lot 
    of the acceptance levels of what's appropriate and what's not depend of 
    what the hot issues of the times are.  I'd still rather have someone in
    office that follows through on campaign promises regardless of personal
    feelings than someone who makes promises to get elected, then forgets
    his/her constituancy when in power.  DISCLAIMER:  this last remark is
    not a reflection on the behaviors of either gubenatorial candidates,
    but a personal feeling that politicians should support the people who
    vote them into office rather that ignoring their pleas) 

    .5 > Just remember that it wasn't too long ago that you could read
    .5 > another story of child abuse at day care centers almost *daily*.  

    That is highly misleading.  Although a couple of instances of
    (alleged) daycare abuse received endless publicity, children are
    HUNDREDS of times more likely to be abused by members of their own
    household than by daycare providers.

    It can be said of either Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate that he
    is the worst one imaginable, with the possible exception of his
    opponent.  Weld manages to come across as a much nicer guy, but it is
    doubtful that even the beloved Mass. Legislature can save us from his
    policy positions.  Amazingly, whichever wins, we will soon manage to
    make it look as if even a couple of New Hampshire governors were not
    all THAT bad!
    
    			- Bruce

I do not live in Massachusetts and if I did I would not support Dr Silber.
However, I would like to see someone come along who like him who has not spent
their life in politics, and gets angry about what is and has been taking place
in government and is clear about what they will do about it.


Again, I am not a Massachusetts resident, nor a Silber supporter.  I find the
man, for lack of a better term, scary.




Jim

    didn't mean to be misleading, just my impression from reading
    the papers and hearing some first hand horror stories.  As a
    result, my opinion is that choosing a day care center is a 
    frightening thought.  That's not to say that there aren't good
    ones, just that the bad exist.  I did not mean to imply that no
    childeren are abused in the home, we all know it sadly happens
    too often.

   >"Although he praised the women's movement for having helped women make
   > gains in some areas, Silber said that movement has also made it harder
   > for women 'who've decided to take their maternal responsibilities
   > seriously' to be housewives.
    
    That seems to imply that women who are working are not taking their
    maternal resposibilities as seriously as they should. I don't like
    that
    
    manisha who's_not_a_working_mother
    

    
    re .8
    
    And if Silber acts on the statements he made during his campaigning,
    then women, African Americans and the elderly will be in REAL
    trouble.  Silber is PRO_LIFE!!!  He has stated that he believes
    that the 'rights of a fetus' are more important than the rights of
    a woman.  He has stated that paraphrase(women who work are child
    abusers).  Even IF he believes that putting a child into daycare
    is the same as abusing it, then why aren't the husbands responsible
    too?  Or does Silber believe that WOMEN not MEN are SOLELY repsonsible
    for the upbringing of children?  He has decided not to speak in mostly
    black neighborhoods because paraphase( 'why should I go talk to a 
    bunch of prostitutes and drug addicts?').  Then he backed down,(READ
    CHANGED HIS STAND), and went to where-ever-that-was-I-forget and when
    a woman started yelling at him, he chickened-out and left.  Will he
    always run with his tail between his legs when confronted with strong,
    black women?  (I never saw him run from the media.)  And how about the
    elderly?  He indicated earlier that medicare is a good place to cut
    spending because they're going to die anyways.
    
    I should hope that IF Silber, God forbid, becomes governor of MA
    that he totally changes his stands on everything.
    
    Rachael
    

    
    re .13
    
    Please excuse me if I seem very emotional on this subject,
    but I am TERRIFIED of what will happen to the rights of individuals if
    Silber gets elected.
    
    Rachael
    

    
    re .14 -- great for personal name!  Now we might have a real choice :-)
    
    I keep deciding and then undeciding to vote for Weld simply because
    Silber's attitudes toward (and past history with) women, gays,
    non-whites frighten me.  I also worry about Weld's stance on gun
    control and his support for the CLT petition, but I just couldn't
    bring myself to vote for Silber.  So, I may decide in the booth,
    and for me it comes down to:
    
    1. Vote for Weld, and hope for the best.
    
    2. Write in Evelyn, and get some personal satisfaction.
    
    3. Leave that part of the ballot blank.
    
    Maybe tomorrow night's debate will help me make a decision I can stick
    to for more than 24 hours....
    
    Justine

I agree, Rachel.  I was not happy this morning as I walked past the banke of
newspaper machines to see that Silber is leading Weld in the race.

Sigh.

Please, everyone, if you have any feelings about who should be governor, VOTE!
Don't believe "them" when they tell you "one person's vote doesn't count!"
If it didn't, why would candidates spend soooo much money on campaigns?

E Grace

    
    Whenever I see that one is ahead in the polls, I cringe, until I
    remember that the alternative is the other one (groan).  Silber has
    absolutely no control over his mouth.  His actual stands on childcare
    and abortion are actually rather progressive, but he can't surpress his
    neandrathal verbal instincts.  Weld, on the other hand, is a real
    smoothy, but it isn't clear that his policies won't be worse.
    
    In fact, there is an alternative, our fellow Digit Umina.  I know
    little about him, but occasionally find that an excellent reason to
    give him my vote.  But I'll probably end up trying to pick the lesser
    evil.
    
    		- Bruce
    

    re: 17, Silber's view on abortion is far from progressive.  He is
    endorsed my the pro-life assoc, (whatever the name is of that group),
    while Weld is endorsed by the NOW and pro-choice groups.
    
    re: everybody else who isn't sure
    While Weld may not impress people, he did fight the mayor of Boston
    a few years back for corruption and I've heard that the real meat in
    his stands comes from Paul Cellucci.  I don't know much about him, but
    I'd like to learn more.  Weld/Cellucci's social policies are pretty
    much in line with Libertarian social philosophy.  (Basically,
    conservative about how much the government can/should interfere with
    our lives.)
    
    I'm voting for Weld, because Silber as governor is a terrifying thought
    and because I like CLT.  (Yes, not a very popular view.)  I think that
    Beacon Hill needs to be sent a message from the people of this state
    that they are managing state finances poorly.  CLT doesn't state where
    the cuts will come from, (no matter what the ads say about education
    being cut).  I called Weld headquarters and they told me that Weld
    wants to cut out the layer of middle management that Dukakis put in.
    (I had heard elsewhere that he added 50,000-80,000 new jobs!  I got 
    different figures at different times.)  I'd like to see figures on
    exactly how much this will cut.  I also heard from a fellow Decie that
    the MA government has spend 2+million on ads against CLT!!! $2,000,000!
    Sort-of makes you wonder why they are so nervous!  And where did they
    get 2 million?
    
    Gun control is a hard issue.  Guns are used by people to kill people. 
    A statistic that I'd like to see is what percent of guns used in
    murders are illegally owned.  I've heard that it's high but I don't
    know for sure.  We are given the right to bear arms in our
    constitution and that right is there to protect us, not only from
    criminals but from the government.  If guns are illegal, then normal
    people won't have any so ~maybe~ instances of domestice violence using
    guns would go down.  However, the people who would still be able to get
    guns are precisely the people who shouldn't have guns.  If we simply
    tighten the restrictions on who can own a gun and INFORCE those
    restrictions, then we might be able to get a handle on some of this
    crime.  (my favorite bumpersticker, "Criminals prefer unarmed
    victims".)  
    
    
    OK, off my soapbox.  I really am thinking about getting into politics. 
    It just seems that these people are not saying what they should.  Weld
    headquarters promised that he won't side-step the issues tonight.  I
    sure hope not!
    Of course, I'd rather write a good program that politic, so maybe I
    won't.
    
    Rachael
    

    
    Anybody in Stow, MA want a Weld/Cellucci bumper sticker?
    Send mail!
    
    

    I don't like Silber's views either, but I'm not that terrified at the
    prospect of him being elected.  Silber is obviously NOT a skilled
    politician.  Anyone who runs off at the mouth like he does, doesn't
    know how to play the game.  He will have to deal with a legislature of
    experienced politicians whose cooperation he must cultivate to be
    effective and powerful.  They can make it pretty frustrating for him if
    he doesn't compromise.
    
    One thing I like about Silber is that I know where he stands, I don't
    like where he stands, but I do believe him.  Definitely NOT a
    politician!!!  I can't say the same thing about Weld.
    
    Mary

  The only thing I've liked about Len Umina's candidacy is his tenacity.  He's
been running for at least the past 3+ years against all odds and, to some
extend, against the establishment.

  As for his political views, which the news media seem content to continuously
exlude from all mention, they are more than a little right wing for my tastes.

Jim

    
    	I have to go along with Weld/cellucci and yes on CLT.
    
    Joe

    .22
    
    I'll second that.
    
    D.

    I'm not  sure who I'll vote for for governor. Silber says a lot of
    things that other politicians are afraid to say, and often that we
    really should be debating. We end up arguing about who he outraged
    rather than about whether what he said was true.

    For example,  he's  the  only  one saying that in order to contain
    rising  medical  costs,  we may have to provide less care for some
    people.  It's  probably  true, but nobody is willing to debate it.
    It's  certainly  a  defensible  position, and we should be arguing
    about it.

    On the  other  hand,  Silber  is absolutely undemocratic in style.
    He'd make a great dictator.

    I can't  support Weld because the only thing he's ever done that I
    agree  with  was  resgning  in  protest  over Ed Meese. That was a
    gutsy,  correct  thing  to  do. But I don't agree with him on most
    other issues.

    I'll vote  against  question  2  on  the  grounds that it's poorly
    thought  out  and  poorly  worded, so I don't know exactly what it
    will do, and I don't like what I think it will do.

    I'll vote against question 3 because I don't believe the state can
    meet  its  obligations with that large a tax cut, and I approve of
    some  of  the  tax hikes it would roll back (in particular the gas
    tax and some of the increased fines.)

--David

    
    
    From this morning's Boston Globe -- some kind person posted this in
    another file.  I think I'm with Ellen.   
    
    Justine
    
    
    
    
                              A VOTER'S QUANDARY

                               by Ellen Goodman
                           1-Nov-1990 Boston Globe

    During the week before the election, a woman of my acquaintance
    appeared in the bathroom mirror, asking "What's a nice girl like you
    doing in a place like this?"

    The place was a political location known as a quandary, located halfway
    between a rock and a hard place.  The rock was John Silber.  The hard
    place was William Weld.  The problem was who to vote for as governor.

    The race has bewildered outsiders who think of Massachusetts as the
    land of the liberal, the miracle and the Michael.  Two angry years
    after Dukakis and the economy went down the chute, the choice for his
    successor will be either a Reagan Democrat, or a Bush Republican.

    Peering over the sink, I repeated the bare facts of the case to the
    woman before me for her judgment.  On the one hand there is Silber,
    whose style of open, intimate, inter-personal relationship is winning
    through intimidation.  Even Henry Kissinger once described working with
    Silber as "a bloody brawl."  But he's a man with some attractive ideas,
    especially about early education.

    On the other hand there is Weld, the affable patrician-in-training who
    worked in Reagan's Justice Department until he resigned in protest. 
    Weld exudes the politics of the well-fed, favoring a tax-cut proposal
    on the ballot that threatens a lethal blow to the state's services.

    The pack of national journalists who have come to read the entrails of
    liberalism find this pair anthropologically interesting.  But to the
    more-worried-than-angry voters of Massachusetts, the quandary has
    seemed like a sinkhole.

    Each time an undecided voter swallows hard, determined to go with
    Weld's temperament and hopes for the best, he makes them choke.  How do
    you vote for a guy who talks about the AK-47 as if it's sporting
    equipment at the Myopia Hunt Club?

    Just when another undecided figures that she can pull the Silber lever
    without sending a lethal shock through her veins, he raises the
    voltage.  Silber's knee jerks into the nearest groin.  His latest
    charge was that children are "neglected" and "abused" by working women
    who have thought that a third-rate daycare center was just as good as a
    first-rate home.  How do you vote for a pit bull hankering for a fight?

    Silber's attempt in Tuesday's debate to portray himself as tough but
    caring, a protector of small children, is as believable as Saddam
    Hussein patting little hostages.  Weld's CLT defense rang as empty as
    the budget.

    The woman in the mirror and I have tried to apply every logical
    proposition to this race.  We have looked at this decision from every
    angle.

    Angle One: It's better to vote for policies than people.  This is a
    popular theory, but how do you believe it after decades of broken
    promises and shattered platforms?  What difference do the programs
    matter if there's no money for them?

    Angle Two:  Vote for the person who seems decent, and assume that he
    doesn't mean what he sometimes says.  It's a nice idea, but didn't some
    Americans try that with Ronald Reagan?

    Angle Three:  Don't vote for either.  However attractive this notion,
    my favorite for weeks, not to decide is to decide.  Even if you vote
    for nobody, somebody will win.

    But having explored the terrain of undecided turf, only one angle holds
    any promise of decision.  Angle Four:  Which of these men do you most
    want to vote against?

    Backed into this unhappy corner, an answer of sorts is slowly emerging. 
    The woman before me admits that she most wants to vote against the man
    with a lifetime of contentious bullying in his curriculum vitae.  She
    most wants to stop Silber before he produces four years of rancor and
    sets off on the yellow brick road of national politics.

    Surely Silber's scorn for others, his disinterest in listening and what
    it implies -- an occasional change of mind -- makes him unfit.  So does
    the message that the victory of this ambitious man would send
    nationally: the politics of anger are winning.  Remember the subtitle
    of Silber's book?  "What's wrong with America and how to fix it."

    So at last, clambering miserably, reluctantly, halfheartedly up the
    sides of the quandary on this tortuous path of reason, I offer one last
    exchange with my mirror image.  This is what's "wrong with America" we
    agree.  So little to vote *for*, so much to vote *against*.

    In the end, the voting machine may count this a vote for Weld.  But
    Bill, don't take it personally.


    

>         <<< Note 484.25 by COGITO::SULLIVAN "Singing for our lives" >>>
>                     -< Ellen Goodman from the Globe 11/1 >-

    
>    Justine
    
I will not debate the "gun" issue here please don't start it but this piece 
belongs in the Silber note.

When Silber was asked, in public, by the chairman of the Fall River chamber
of congress about gun laws, silber said that to own a gun people must
go through background checks *AND* allow the police the right to enter
their homes at any time to "check up" on the guns, and that people should
allow their medical and criminal backgrounds to become public knowledge
to get permission to own a gun. When the chairman said "that will violate
peoples constitutional rights to privacy and violate the second amendment
Silber said "The Constitution doesn't matter, public good is more important"

Whether you agree with guns or not, the fact that he would throw out the
4th (and IMO the 2nd) Amendment to "control" a certain segment of the population
(gun owners) makes me ask what other rights would he tromple for the 
"public good"?

Amos
    

    I think that the alleged? comment Silber made about not following the
    Consitution in his example says it all.  The Constitution was set up
    by men who understood the problems the new Democracy would face and
    the quirks of men to bend guidelines to their own advantage.  I think
    we need a push to GET BACK to the Constituition not some who advocates
    ignoring parts of it.  To ignore the Constitution is a form of one man
    show.... "I know best".  That comment scares me more than any I have
    heard from him to date.  On that basis alone Weld would get my vote.

Yes, that comment bothered me a great deal also..reminded me of a comment
which I believe was made by  Drug Czar William Bennet...who said that Americans
may have to sacrifice some of their constitutional rights so that we can really
fix this drug problem.


Mighty scary.


Jim