Jeanette (Japanette) Rankin
Just the first in a long line of schmucks who thought they were elected to congress to represent THEIR OWN beliefs. You were a REPRESENTATIVE, you moron.
On this day, Montanan Jeanette Rankin (R), the first woman elected to Congress and a dedicated lifelong pacifist, casts the sole Congressional vote against the U.S. declaration of war on Japan. She was the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. involvement in both World Wars, having been among those who voted against American entry into World War I nearly a quarter of a century earlier.
Rankin was a committed pacifist, and she cared little about the damage her beliefs caused her political career. Although some male representatives joined her in voting against World War I in 1917, many citizens saw her vote as evidence that a woman could not handle the difficult burdens of national leadership. Perhaps as a result, Montanans voted her out of office two years later. Ironically, Rankin won re-election to the House in 1940, just in time to face another vote on war.
While her commitment to pacifism was politically harmful during World War I, Rankin knew that in the case of World War II, it would be downright suicidal. The surprise Japanese attack on the U.S. military base at Pearl Harbor was devastating, and zeal for revenge was at a fever pitch. The vast majority of Americans supported President Roosevelt’s call for a declaration of war.
Rankin, however, believed that Roosevelt deliberately provoked the Japanese to attack because he wanted to bring the U.S. into the European war against Germany; she was determined not to cooperate with the president’s plan. After a 40-minute debate on the floor of the House, a roll call vote began. When her turn came, Rankin stood and said, “As a woman, I can’t go to war and I refuse to send anyone else.”
When news of Rankin’s vote reached the crowd gathered outside the capitol, some patriots threatened to attack the Montana congresswoman, and police escorted her out of the building. Rankin was vilified in the press, accused of disloyalty, and called “Japanette Rankin,” among other impolite names. She stood her ground, however, and never apologized for her vote.
When her term neared completion two years later, Rankin was certain she would not win re-election and chose not to run again. She continued to be an active advocate for pacifism, and led a campaign against the Vietnam War in 1968 when she was 87 years old.
ht/ reddecaesari
Amazing story I had never heard – what a loser. She was born too soon to wallow in that nonsense. This would’ve been her golden age.
Hey, isn’t that John Boehners mother?
Let me guess her rant…”Think of the children!”
She looks like Gilligan’s mother – might explain why he ran away from Ginger’s advances….
That is exactly the reason America should have never voted in a woman to act as commander in chief.
I call it “Oh-for-three.”
The only ones I respect are what Heinlein referred to as the “small-mouth pacifist” because “they tend to shoot back.”
I’m sure the people who voted for her knew she was a pacifist. Does that (R)
Mean retard?
I believe she was once a member of the International Workers of the World. They were once numerous in the west.
She may have been a pacifist, but she was a warrior in bed.
Hillary says we should be “empathetic” to those who would kill us. Both sicko lefties.
Key part of that word fits them: “pathetic”.
More Progressive ‘Hot Babe” pin-up material?
Jeanette Rankin (R, MT) ran for office promising not to vote for war and she didn’t. Even old Montana democrats admired her guts and some of them agreed with her that FDR had provoked Japan.
“…some of them agreed…that FDR had provoked Japan.”
Judge for yourselves.
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=408
I thought anyone living near the Pacific Ocean was a pacifist.
Count me in as a Pacifist (making two trip across the Pacific while in the Navy surely must make me a Pacifist, not) since I live near the Pacific Ocean. Does that also mean if you live near the Atlantic Ocean you’re an Atlanticist or if you live near the Indian Ocean you’re an Indian?
And women wonder why it took ’em 75 years to get the vote…
“Pacifism” was a cover for “Communism,” or “Socialism,” as were “Anarchism,” “Syndicalism,” and “Unionism.”
I had a college history professor who did his doctoral thesis on Jeanette Rankin – he idolized her. He lectured on her “accomplishments” most of the quarter but gave the multiple choice tests off of a test bank that went with the book for the class. He could run the answer sheets through the grading machine (a new technology at that time). He and I didn’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things because of his leftist views. I had a test average in the 99 percentile but the report I had to do for the class dropped my final grade to barely make a C out of his class. One of the few C’s I made in college.
But on a brighter note, my best friend at the time was dating his daughter. I understand she had excellent control over her gag reflex.
So did he ever figure out what you and your best friend were smirking about??
She was photographed in front of the Capital building holding a sign that read “Kill Bill ’76 Not Our Boys”