Mother Hillary - Democratic Underground

McCamy Taylor

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Fri Jan-11-08 06:18 PM
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Mother Hillary

"...they treat you like dirt I dont care what anybody says itd be much better for the world to be governed by the women in it you wouldnt see women going and killing one another and slaughtering when do you ever see women rolling around drunk like they do or gambling every penny they have and losing it on horses yes because a woman whatever she does she knows where to stop sure they wouldnt be in the world at all only for us they dont know what it is to be a woman and a mother where would they all of them be if they hadnt all a mother..." James Joyce Ulysses

I have my own theory about why Hillary did better in New Hampshire than in Iowa. It is because somewhere between 20-30% of New Hampshire residents identify themselves as being of Irish or Scots-Irish descent, whereas only 13% of Iowans claim to be descended from the Irish. If I am correct, we can expect Hillary Rodham Clinton to defy the corporate media’s expectations in every community that has a sizable Irish, Scots-Irish or Welsh population.

All three Democratic front runners have devoted followings, based upon their almost mythic appeals. In previous journals, I have discussed Obama’s messianic qualities, John Edwards’ qualifications for American sainthood. Now, I am going to describe why I think that women (and some men) are so enamored of the Hillary 2008 campaign.

It all boils down to the same issue that drives all Democratic voters this election----George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have been disasters. They have created a war of choice that has bled this country dry. We are unable to provide for the basic needs of our children. Children in other countries are dying before our eyes, at our hands . It is enough to make a citizen with a conscience cry.

In a situation like this, when an excess of testosterone combined with greed seems to be the driving force behind all that ails us, it is natural for the American matriarchy to hold up its hand and say “What about the women?”

The American Matriarchy is a tricky subject, since so many people will deny that it exists. It depends upon what kind of family you grew up in, what religion they followed, where you were born and a whole lot of other factors. Just take my word for it, if your family is Irish, there is indeed an American Matriarchy.

http://www.madinpursuit.com/Family/General/Emigrant02.htm

Social scientists describe Irish culture as matriarchal, and mothers hold considerable if not singular sway in Irish American families. Unmarried women command far more respect than in other ethnic groups. Irish girls are raised to be respectable, responsible, resilient -- and rarely with any expectation that they're going to be taken care of. For better or worse, there is no such thing as an Irish American princess.

Joseph Campbell offers an explanation for this phenomenon. In volume three of Mask of the Gods entitled Occidental Mythology he devotes two chapters to goddesses. In the first one, “The Serpent’s Bride”, he describes how most of Indo-Europe and Africa worshiped a pair of deities, a male and his wife, in the stone age through the bronze age. The male was associated with the serpent.

With the coming of iron age Aryan invaders, these deities were ruthlessly suppressed---the tale of Eden in Genesis was meant to vilify the Serpent God and his goddess consort. However, in Ireland, the suppression never took. Campbell describes how goddess tales and worship persisted even after the introduction of iron age male deities to the pantheon.

Later, St. Patrick would drive the serpents from Ireland (though the country never had snakes), but women would not assume the subservient positions that they occupied in southern Europe, the Middle East or Africa. The same is true across the Irish Sea in England, Scotland and Scandinavia, countries where Queens could rule with divine mandate just as men could.

We have no queens in the United States, but we have goddesses---who are often reviled as she-demons, modern day Liliths by leaders of the status quo. Mother Jones, born Mary Harris in Cork, Ireland is one such. Persecuted, prosecuted, called “the most dangerous woman in America” for the crime of attempting to organize workers, including child laborers, she said “Whatever your fight, don’t be ladylike.”

We also have an old tradition of electing the wives of politicians. Take for example, Ma Ferguson (a fine Scots-Irish name that) of Texas, who ran for governor after her husband was impeached and won in 1925. And then won again in 1932. Some politicians' wives become goddesses. Take Eleanor Roosevelt for example. She became one of the most influential political figures of the 20th century in her own right--and even more controversial than her husband. Note that she, like Hillary, was accused by the press of being a lesbian.

We have literal goddesses in the New World, too. In Maya Deren’s Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti she describes the serpent deity Damballah “ the venerable father….as of a world before the troubles began, and his children would keep him so: image of the benevolent, paternal innocence, the great father of whom one asks nothing save his blessing.” Damballah appears coupled with a rainbow, Ayida, his feminine half, the goddess consort.

This is not a mythology of three thousand years ago. This is an active religion. And much of the iconography of the Virgin Mary comes from retained goddess worship, New as well as Old World. In particular, Mary is the retelling of Isis, widely worshiped through the Mediterranean during the early years of the Roman Empire.

Isis, the Egyptian goddess was married to her brother Osiris, god of agriculture. Her brother Set, god of animal husbandry, killed Osiris in a fit of jealousy and dismembered his body and hid the pieces. Isis reassembled the pieces and conceived a child, Horus by her re-animated husband, Osiris. Horus killed his wicked uncle, became the new god-king, and Osiris became the god of the dead. In addition to being an obvious source of the Abel-Cain myth (except from the point of view of farmers not shepherds) and a forerunner of Mary iconography, this is a tale about the miracle which the love of a good woman for her man can perform. So the forces of evil conspired to murder your husband (or his reputation)? No problem. If his wife is a goddess, she can resurrect him---and his presidency again. All she has to be is stick with him through the bad times as well as the good.

Goddesses do not have it easy in this modern age of patriarchy, dominated as it is by war, acquisition, tough talk and lies. Campbell writes:

We are going to find, throughout the following history of the orthodox patriarchal systems of the West, that the power of this goddess-mother of the world, whom we have here seen defamed, abused, insulted, and overthrown by her sons, is to remain as an ever-present threat to their castle of reason…

In other words, though the patriarchy is currently in the ascendant, it watches over its shoulder, always afraid that its value system----dualistic, confrontational, egocentric---will be supplanted by the “feminine” principle which it fears. Unfortunately,

…with this turn from the plane of the mother to that of the sons, the sense of the identity of life and death disappears, together with that of the power of life to bring forth its own good forms, so that now all is strife and effort, defamation of what is alien….

Sounds like USA, 2007. No wonder those of us who are most inclined to look for the goddess in our patriarchal world see Hillary as a bringer of hope, Athena sprung fully formed and armed with wisdom from Bill Clinton’s head to lead America, like Athens, back to the path of Democracy.

This is a very old, very hard fought battle. Expect to hear her called “witch”, “Medusa”, “bitch” and all the other names with which the goddess has been labeled. The hatred of Hillary is directly proportional to the fear which her enemies have of her and no mere mortal woman could possibly have the kind of power which is attributed to her. Indeed, part of her reputation as a strong Democratic candidate rests upon the way that she makes the right wing tremble. Only someone full of power, some one possessed of true goddess spirit could inspire such loathing in the patriarchy, that is how the popular wisdom goes.

Hillary's relationship to Bill is important, as the cosmic coupling of the Serpent deity and the goddess is crucial in preserving the cycle of life, death and rebirth that keeps the earth in harmony. However, the goddess is the active intermediary force. As with Isis or Mary, she is the one to whom mortals appeal. She is the one who cares and intercedes. She takes the raw energy provided by the male spirit and fashions it into something useful for her children---a new guiding force. She cares.

Voters who support Hillary are not expecting four or eight more years of Bill. They are counting on four or eight years of Hillary plus Bill. Big difference.