Across the American political spectrum, there is the right, the center-right, the center, the center left, the left, and there is Ashley Judd.
Now that Judd is making noises about running for Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat in 2014, it seems fair to examine exactly which planet she hails from. Here are some of the crazier thoughts she’s shared over the years.
Comparing mountaintop removal to the Rwandan genocide:
President Clinton has repeatedly said doing nothing during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 is the single greatest regret of the Presidency. Yet here at home, there is full blown environmental genocide and collapse happening, and we are doing nothing. Naturally, I accept that I set myself up for ridicule for using such strong terms, or perhaps outrage from human victims of slaughter.
Janette Jude, a 6th grade language arts teacher in Kentucky, furiously denounced Judd in 2010: “I recently listened to your luncheon speech on press.org and I must say I was appalled by your words.”
Lambasting fathers for giving away daughters at weddings:
To this day, a common vestige of male dominion over a woman’s reproductive status is her father ‘giving’ away her away to her husband at their wedding, and the ongoing practice of women giving up their last names in order to assume the name of their husband’s families, into which they have effectively been traded.
Tweeting that the coal industry should be eliminated: “The era of coal plant is over, unacceptable.”
Eviscerating Christianity for perpetuating “male power”:
Patriarchal religions, of which Christianity is one, gives us a God that is like a man, a God presented and discussed exclusively in male imagery, which legitimizes and seals male power. It is the intention to dominate, even if the intention to dominate is nowhere visible.
Comparing George W. Bush to a historic barbarian based on social issues:
Throughout history, men have tried to control the means of reproduction, which means trying to control woman. This president is a modern day Attila the Hun.
Blaming society’s problems throughout history on… men:
I’d like to propose that the society in which we live is, in fact, extremist and radical. It is so skewed, massively out of balance; the result of one sex ruling and objectifying another for at least the last millennia.
Should Ms. Judd make it to the 2014 general election, it will be interesting to see whether she stands by these statements–specifically, whether her opponent is evil simply for being male.