(Crossposted at: http://mom-of-three-journal.blogspot.com/, http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/myriamkoepcke/gG5NPF)

My take on the nation's pulse is that this is not just the year of the white woman's revolution. A much larger wave is building momentum offshore.

Hillary has helped to accelerate the white-woman-wave, but we are still, as I see it, just a drop in a larger and more powerful ocean of women and men of every race, national origin, and religious and cultural heritage within our country who have experienced oppression and are demanding, through any peaceful means available, the liberty and justice to all promised when we pledged our allegience.

It is important for white women to speak out now. Our voice must not be lost in the chorus, for we have something to say that is important to all, and must be heard: we have been closest to the oppressors, particularly those of us who live in rich counties (DuPage is the eighth richest county in the nation) and the changes affecting us will soon affect all. The fabric of American culture is being systematically, one county at a time, destroyed. White women have found ourselves first out of work, then fighting a newly impenetrable legal system in both divorce and domestic violence court which penalizes us severely if we have ever earned an income. Many legal protections for white women have been, while America slept, removed. The rest of the country would do well to pay attention, learn from our experiences, and help us to unstack the dominoes before they fall, as we are the canaries in the mine.

White women have, over the past decade, euphemistically said that we "left the workforce to raise our families." In truth, we lost our jobs and couldn't replace them with jobs that even paid for our kids' day-care. Most of us weren't even listed unemployed while we lost status both in the workplace and at home because, let's face it, breadwinners have more power. Why did we lose our jobs and equality in our marriages? Because we were targeted.

Suburban divorce courts have been manipulated, to the point of absurdity, to side with white male domestic abusers. Rich CEOs are adept at changing laws while America sleeps. They did it to make themselves rich, nobody stopped them, and now they don't want to share their assets with outsourced ex-wives who they have replaced with 16-year-olds. Why did we lose the assets that we thought were ours in divorce court? Because we were targeted.

One must understand the emerging culture of the ridiculously rich to see the whole picture and understand how alarming our situation is. The modern underground equivilent of finishing school is called "slave training" (kid you not) after which, in the underground equivilent of a marriage ceremony, rich CEO commits to taking wonderful care of trained 16-year-old for life as long as she obeys him unconditionally and, presumably, remains young and beautiful. She is presented with a collar, like a dog, rather than a ring. Her family is offered priveleges, for example, positioning her dad as a high-level executive in rich CEO's company--explaining (though not adequately) why a parent might support having the daughter they love take part in such an arrangement. According to legend, Anne Boleyn's parents supported her marriage too, and then tried, after Anne's beheading, to convince King Henry VIII to marry her sister.

Though the lives of the extremely rich have always seemed quirky, the rest of us were separated from them by a universe and had little reason to care. Divorce court is the one place where all of our lives intersect. Knowing that the most powerful people in the world passionately want marriage laws to change, and knowing how adept CEOs have been in the past at changing law to favor self-serving goals, white women need to be concerned. Very concerned. White men too. Our daughters have been targeted.

Divorce law is the most powerful deterrant, in any culture, to mistreatment of women. In DuPage County, Illinois, a rich white husband who proclaims "I divorce thee," can do so without paying any price at all. Joint custody in a non-community-property state in lethal combination with white-male judges litigating from the bench mean he can kick her out of the house without having to pay support if she has ever in her life worked a full-time job. If they are nearing retirement age and he quit his job two years ago in preparation for the divorce, her income and subsequent retirement will be split in half to support him for the rest of his life, even if he beat her and she left him because of the abuse. Though they should have to split assets acquired during the marriage, if he did his homework correctly, there won't be any. However, if she was the one who aqcuired the assets, since most women don't think to dispose of all the assets two years before filing for divorce, she must split them 50/50 with him. Furthermore, at least in DuPage County, if the wife alleges that a white father has been abusive, then he is awarded full-custody of children and child-support more often than not.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Devote time to studying DuPage County DV court records, as I have, and you will see: divorce proceedings involving allegations of abuse perpetrated by a white husband nearly always result in his wife being discredited as a "psych case" and the abuser getting custody, with her owing him support. Psychological problems so extreme as to inhibit her from successfully mothering her kids would, if they were real, (especially in this economy) hinder her from earning a salary enabling her to pay support, but the DuPage courts, though they could not really be so ignorant, don't admit to understanding this.

What better incentive could exist to divorce your wife and replace her with a 16-year-old than to be awarded full custody and have her made responsible to pay full support to you as the consequence of your having beaten her?

White moms, be afraid. Very afraid. We are targeted.

Divorced honkettes like me, if we have any brains, must see that those struggling against dauntingly difficult odds in the fight for racial-equality share the same enemy as those of us who struggle against stupefyingly-rich-unbelievably-well-politically-connected-and-immensely-corrupt-J.R.Ewing-type-white-men in divorce and domestic violence court. Racial minorities, as well as ourselves, are targeted to lose ground, and by whom? Our ex-husbands.

Non-white, unskilled, jobless, homeless women and men of the inner-city have had few options other than criminal activities leading to being killed or jailed since welfare was canned in the 90s, with the plight of homeless non-white moms being especially difficult. Even as an about to be homeless divorced-single-mom who can't get the courts to award support and who can't find employment, I believe my plight is less grave, as a white woman, than that of the homeless black single-mom or male unskilled laborer in inner city Chicago or Detroit. They are more likely to be jailed or killed than I, though knowing this doesn't quell my own fears. This will be a tough year for many.

Meanwhile, the white-middle-class, who blame our country's financial problems on "welfare moms" and generally and unfairly assume I am one--never mind that I was robbed of savings and earnings that most of them would not be able to earn in two lifetimes after pursuing a many-year-long disciplined program of schooling that they would never dream of committing to, studying nights while they partied at the local pub, working 60+ hours/week in a salaried, meaning no overtime, job for months on end without vacation, hours they would never dream of working, all of this going on for years before my kids were born--yes I feel entitled to more than I have recieved: we all feel entitled to what we have worked for--anyway, these middle-class individuals who so vehemently hate me as a single-mom and blame me for all of their problems, assuming that my dependence on welfare is sinking them and our country, though in fact I am not on welfare, and I paid as many taxes in a decade as they will pay in their lives--these white-middle-class workers are now, for the first time, because of the mortgage crisis, contemplating homelessness themselves. Mortgage crisis victims will soon discover, as I did, that Newt Gingrich successfully canceled welfare, nearly over Clinton's dead body as he vetoed it twice, almost a decade ago. Oh, and also, bankruptcy is no longer an option.

The white-middle-class has been targeted.

The moment could only be volatile when a large number of citizens across the board, not just black, not just Hispanic, not just white, not just women, not just the poorest of the poor, middle-class too, and a growing number of outsourced previous-top-20% earners who are now middle-class (or not even) trying to swing monthly bills based upon previous income with no equity left in the house, suddenly understand that we are financially desperate and that the options we always assumed existed don't.

Never in history, I believe, has a crossroads of leadership been so critical in determining our country's future direction. Lacking intelligent leadership, undesirable change will certainly occur.

Scholars from Harvard, University of Chicago, and other luminaries participating in think-tanks across our country know that diplomacy, not war, is the solution to our country's problems. Brilliant minds across the country, committed to peace, are working overtime developing solutions that our leadership needs to listen to before considering any action, domestic or international. Targeting citizens of our country for financial ruin is not acceptable. There are answers to this. Dispensing with discussion, allowing diplomacy to fail before it is even tried, shooting first, asking questions later, shock and awe, is also not acceptable. War should always be the last resort.

Obama is clearly the most qualified person to lead a team that inspires the country to demand intelligent diplomacy first, war last.

The best military minds in our country should be an integral part of Obama's team. A military person should not, however, co-lead the team, because to a hammer everything looks dangerously like a nail.

Ideal characteristics for Obama's running-mate:

+ teams well without needing to compete for the front position (I believe the stakes are high for this to be considered most important characteristic, though those listed below are also crucial:),

+ demonstrated ability to govern,
+ strong record supporting middle-class,
+ strong record supporting women,
+ strong record supporting minorities (Latinos being especially important, since for some reason Obama has failed to connect with them as strongly as one might expect considering the positions he supports),
+ strong record of effective diplomacy,
+ nobel peace prize nominations recognizing effective diplomacy couldn't hurt,
+ nobel peace prize nominations recognizing effective guarding of the country's national security wouldn't hurt,
+ intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the DOE couldn't hurt: the DOE is closely tied to the DOD--this knowledge implies understanding the inner workings of our nation's top security issues,
+ close relationships with allied international heads of state,
+ demonstrated peacemaking ability with enemies, while not compromising the nation's security and interests,
+ strong bipartisan connections,
+ appeals to fiscal-conservatives,
+ strong record of effective energy policies,
+ strong record of cost-effective governance,
+ understanding of how energy dependence, Iraq, and our nation's financial crisis are interconnected.

Only one person fits this description: NM Democratic Governor Bill Richardson.

Bill Richardson, alone, was repeatedly asked by the Bush Administration to negotiate with "bad guys" because he, alone, had the DOE/DOD and diplomacy background and expertise to understand how to conduct an effective negotiation without giving away the farm or compromising national security.

Bill Richardson is trusted by Democrats and Republicans alike to represent our national interests.

He has demonstrated governance ability, as one of the nation's most popular governors, maintaining a balanced budget while adding 80,000 new jobs, bringing his state under Kyoto energy emissions levels, and promoting the middle class standard of living, building a multi-million dollar shelter for abused women, replacing the district attorney and adding court advocates for women resulting in raising the percentage of DV cases prosecuted by 20%, and creating a state-wide public non-polluting transportation system that gets anybody, including elderly, homeless, and those who cannot afford to buy cars, wherever they need to go for $2 one-way--while the rest of the nation depends upon increasingly unaffordable fuel, with each individual who drives 10 miles each way to/from work now paying $3630 for gas annually and contributing 5500 lbs of C02 into the atmosphere. (http://transaction.vivacommute.com/costcalculator.shtml)

Gov. Richardson is the only person who I believe has the demonstrated governance experience to team with Obama and effectively resolve the grave domestic and international problems now faced by our nation, moving us into an era of energy independence, prosperity, and renewed diplomatic relations with former allies, leading to stronger international security and lasting peace.

I feel passionately choosing right leadership to support Obama because I believe that it will not only make the difference between success and failure as a country, but also as to whether many of us prevail rather than succumb to forces so powerful as to be, for the most part, beyond most of our imagination, which have targeted many of us to fail--and are unfortunately bipartisan enough, being made of so much money, to be supported by not only McCain but more than just a few sold-out Democrats as well.