VOTE TODAY! Why Women Should Vote

This was sent to me by several friends. I thought it appropriate to republish today. I urge everyone, aside from their race, sex, political opinions, to go out and cast your vote today. It is our sacred freedom. It is your duty as an American citizen. It is your duty to our children, our government, and our future. It is a privilege that in the country we live in that we can elect our leaders. A privilege. Exercise your right. Cast your ballot and let your voice be heard!
Go. Vote. Today.



WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE
This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived just 90 years ago. Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

These women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.



(Lucy Burns)
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 for air.

(Dora Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, 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.

(Alice Paul)
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. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf
In 2004 HBO released a new movie called 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that we women could pull the curtain at the a polling booth and have their say.
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.


OH! After casting your political ballot and allowing your voice to he heard...head over to seek out freebies. They are out there if you voted and have a sticker. My friend Terri at Bama Bargains will give you all the lowdown here on all the great giveaway's today.

Vote. Today!