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Those Who Follow Sarah Palin are Sowing the Seeds of Their Own Destruction
The former Alaska governor represents thwarted aspirations and brooding resentment. But she backs policies which would increase them
In the film, The American President, the president's speechwriter Lewis Rothschild (played by Michael J Fox) appeals to the commander-in-chief to take a firm, clear stand against the Right. "People want leadership, Mr President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone." he says. "They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand."
The president (played by Michael Douglas) retorts that the American electorate's problem is not a lack of leadership but an undiscerning palate.
"We've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight," he says. "People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference."
As the faithful wait in line in small towns across the country (some for more than a day) to see Sarah Palin on her book tour, the question of whether the US is deprived of a competent political class or gets the leadership it both deserves and truly desires seems as pertinent as ever.
On the one hand there is roughly between a quarter and a third of America that will clearly believe anything. That is the figure that strongly approved of George Bush's handling of the economy last year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the bailout. That same figure, in the immediate aftermath of hurricane Katrina, believed that Bush's response to the disaster was "about right", and still supports the war in Iraq.
That also happens to be approximately the same proportion of Americans who back Palin for president. Most data suggest the overlap is considerable. Palin's rise to prominence, from little-known governor to one of the most popular and arguably most charismatic Republicans in the country in just a year, has been startling. She had a thin record when she was picked to run as vice-president. Today, having quit the Alaska governorship mid-term and published a bestseller, only her wallet is thicker.
Her resignation speech was so rambling that you would have struggled to find a coherent sentence with an industrial-strength searchlight. "Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports," she announced. "I use it because you're naive if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket ... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can win." This was not the answer to a hostile interview from the "liberal media elite" but a prepared speech of her own making.
It would be easy to discount her as just a media phenomenon who would go away if we stopped talking about her. That would be a mistake. It would be even easier to poke fun at her as just a small town hick who has blundered into the limelight with a nod, wink and a "you betcha". That too would be a mistake.
For the very things that liberal commentators ridicule her for - being inarticulate, unworldly, simplistic and hokey - are the very things that make her attractive to her base. Indeed, every time she is taunted she becomes more popular because it reaffirms the (not entirely mistaken) view that the deeply held values of a sizable section of the population are being disparaged.
The same dynamic was true for George Bush, but with one crucial exception. Bush is the scion of a wealthy family who turned his back on the cultural trappings of his class while embracing the social confidence and political and financial entitlement that came with it. Palin had none of those advantages: she grew up far from power and privilege in every sense.
The difference in their comfort levels when put on the spot with simple questions was evident when each was asked about their newspaper reading habits. Bush was cocky: "The best way to get the news is from objective sources. And the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world." Palin froze: "I've read most of them ... all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years."
In her world, Ivy League is a slur; cities are not the "real America"; and those who know the price of arugula but cannot handle a rifle are not to be trusted. Palin is the antithesis of an aspirational figure. Her supporters love her not because they want to be like her, but because they already are like her. So for better and for worse, Palin is an entirely self-made - and, if her book is anything to go by, self-invented - personification of the kind of political animal Bush sought to both emulate and nurture. Bush was Palin-lite.
To that extent her performance over the past year has been more tragic than comic. Palin represents the thwarted aspirations and brooding resentment of a large section of white working class Americans. That is not to suggest that her supporters are necessarily racist, but polls show her support is racially exclusive.
Her base has plenty to be resentful about. Their wages are stagnant, their economic security has eroded, and their prospects for social and economic advancement have stalled. In 2004, white Americans were the only racial group for whom the poverty rate actually rose. The fact that it was lower than every other group is of little comfort. Demographically, they are set to become a minority by 2042. Geopolitically, the country for which they display so much patriotic fervour has lost one war, is losing another, and is regularly lectured by others about the urgency of putting its fiscal house in order. America is not what it used to be. The country they keep saying they want to "take back" no longer exists and is not returning.
So when Palin rails against Washington DC, bank bailouts and elitist media she catches their ear. The longer unemployment keeps rising, house prices keep falling and universal healthcare continues to be elusive, the more ears there will be. Motivated, organised and angry, Palin's wing of the Republican party does not have the numbers to make bad things happen; but, as it showed over the summer during the healthcare town hall meetings, its determination to derail good things should not be underestimated.
The trouble is that while many of their grievances are well founded, their affection is certainly misplaced. None of their problems can be remedied by the politics championed by Palin. Indeed, the greater the traction her politics gets, the worse things will be for her base. The America whose passing they mourn was lost precisely because of the freemarket, low-tax, warmongering agenda she advocates.
To crawl through the desert in search of water only to find sand is disappointing; to not know the difference between water and sand is delusional; but to go looking for sand in the belief that it will truly quench your thirst, not once but twice, well that is truly depressing.
74 Comments so far
Show Allwho?
Palin is the "Reality TV" version of a politician...the off key and screechy "American Idol" of the looney right...the two left footed "So You Think You Can Dance", The starving "Survivor" who fights with her Islandmates but can't rub two sticks together to make fire.
I am an ordinary person. Couch potato, lazy and concentrating on anything for too long bores me. The last thing I want is for a politician to be LIKE me.
I've not worked in 10 years, thus I don't pay taxes and I eat at the expense of taxpayers (food stamps). Hey - politicians ARE like me!
endlessly pissing on about this non-entity is sowing the seeds of everyone else's destruction
move on folks
haven't you got more important things to digress upon
In a rational world, Palin's supporters would ensure Republican losses at the presidential level in at least the next election if not the next few. The hardcore Palin supporters will bleed votes from any legitimate Republican (is that an oxymoron?) candidates. However, this is not a rational world. Also, the Dems have not shown that they are that much more superior to Repubs themselves.
Do we need "a political class," incompetent or not?
I don't like Tina Fey either!
It's amazing that America's leaders are composed almost entirely of opportunistic liars. At least Palin seems to be sincere in her incoherence. The current president said all the right things. And they were virtually all untrue.
'Those Who Underestimate The Sarah Palin Phenomena Are Sowing The Seeds Of Their Own Destruction'
It's not about Palin herself. It's about the American celebration of wilful ignorance. Read Susan Jacoby's 'The Age Of American Unreason'. Then hopefully you'll gain a better understanding of why the USA is what it is and not be so quick to dismiss the 'Palin Phenomena' as irrelevant.
I'll read the book. I agree that Americans are willfully ignorant. You can tell your friends and relatives until you're blue in the face that if they want to know what is going on, listen to Democracy Now, and a few other media, but their reply? Laughter and telling you YOU are on the fringe, a conspiracy theorist, etc. etc. To be in touch with reality is too much work, too painful. And then there is the American tendency of hero worship, a god the father, all knowing, all loving... I would not underestimate Palin for one moment. In fact, I would not be at all surprised if she became the next president.
The USA is the only advanced democracy in which people demand A LEADER. Other advanced democracies became so by killing their Leaders and since then have tried to elect people who will do what they want them to do. But the USA went from "We the people" to "Give us a leader" in less than two centuries.
I suspect the confusion arose out of the fact that other democracies have a system that allows them to appoint or elect (or inherit) a "leader" who is purely ceremonial and signs laws only on instruction from the elected government, while the voters actually vote for politicians to enact what laws they want them to enact. Unfortunately the Founding Fathers, in combining the head of state with the head of government, muddied the waters so that Americans keep voting for another king to lead them, repeatedly, "Once more through the breech."
It's great theater but lousy politics.
The U.S. is an "advanced democracy"? I would suggest "degenerate democracy," given the direction we're heading. As for Sarah Palin, I would discount her completely but for one thing: George W. Bush was elected twice, and he's every bit the idiot that she is, and the country that elected Bush ain't getting any smarter.
No, W was NOT elected. The first time, he was APPOINTED by the SCOTUS, who according to the constitution, had NO power to do such a thing. It's the SENATE'S call on such things. In fact, the SCOTUS said right in the decision that this decision would NEVER be used as a precedent. This tells me that they KNEW that what they were doing was WRONG and most likely ILLEGAL. And BTW, then the votes in FL were actually counted after 9-11, Gore WON.
The second time, it was clearly theft, just like it was the first time. What do you think would happen when the head of Diebold said IN PUBLIC that his goal was to put George W Bush back in office? He didn't win EITHER time. In fact, republicans CAN'T win unless they lie and cheat. Ask Max Cleland.
To blame the American people for the theft of two elections is pathetic. Without SOME level of trust, NO gov't can work. And that is EXACTLY what the republicans want. If they piss everyone off enough, then it's a LOT easier to steal whatever you want. Why do you think they wanted to attack Iraq so desperately? They knew that if they could go in an cause chaos, they would make out like bandits, stealing everything that wasn't nailed down. And they DID.
Don't blame ME or mine for the actions of those whose ambition outweighs any amount of honesty, dignity or morality. I didn't vote for the idiot bastard son, and will NEVER vote for a republican of ANY stripe. I don't trust democrats, but I DETEST republicans. I know when someone declares war on me like the republicans did in 1973 after Watergate. And I saw it announced in no uncertain terms when Reagan gave the rich all of MY money and YOURS too.
I stand corrected regarding the elections. Yes, they were both fraudulent, which is actually why I called our democracy "degenerate." I stand by that as an accurate depiction of our political state. In fact, it's so degenerate it's not really a democracy anymore.
My second point was don't count Palin out because the example of Bush shows "they" can put anyone they want into office.
I don't recall blaming anyone for anything; sorry you took it that way. I guess my final point now is: don't expect any election in this country to change anything. It just doesn't work that way anymore.
yeah, in our counry democracy is simply a word that rhymes with hypocrisy
It's sad that the election was close at all, that GWB wasn't trounced say 80%-20%. That part reflects on the electorate.
"It's great theater but lousy politics." –(Rainborowe)
–It is no longer even that, as it has long degenerated into a garish, craven spectacle resembling nothing so much as a sustained excrescence of what is worst in America.
But there is a far more sinister component underneath the admittedly bad 'entertainment' value: the gathering ghosts of its victims clamor for revenge on the edges of the memories and consciences of the survivors, the world over.
The anointing of yet another mass killer, another state terrorist, another global capitalist and another war criminal in the making is an occasion of evil celebrating itself.
Every American Presidential season resembles nothing so much as a phantasmagoria of dread and gathering darkness visible.
As far as 'politics,' well everyone knows it is not real politics but a processional of terrifying, if not unnerving deception.
America haunts itself. Palin or Obama? Take your pick of the Zombie litter.–(Jill Bains)
Sioux Rose
AMFORTAS: What you define as the ghost dance of guilt (or would-be shame had the nation retained any semblance of a conscience) I see as the boomerang of karma, an energetic form of blowback that has been unleashed.
It dawned on me this evening that the sum total of America's actions has formed its own momentum and this driving force cannot be stopped at this time. That doesn't mean that each of us cannot add our light or contribution to the surrounding world as best we can; but any hope of turning the tide at this particular point where congress persons are entirely paid to do the bidding of their corporate masters, and the Supreme Court primarily rubber stamps the profit-oriented wishes of said corporations, the vote itself is in the hands of corporations (who design the voting machines and their program codes), while the media is entirely infused with messages expensively fabricated by the corporations to manufacture not only consent, but pseudo desires in a populace mostly only "free" to shop. Of course this freedom takes the form of a modern take on debtors' prison, for most are invisibly tethered to a debt that virtually imprisons them since it circumscribes the scope of their actions. We are unofficially inside the matrix now and something like the consciousness of cold, metallic machines IS in charge. The Mr. Smiths are all the natural authoritarian clone-like persons who think this is how a successful society operates.
The true nature of the United State's economy is in tatters, its job base gone, its children suffering from rote style "education" (in relation to the comparable educational programs of students in other lands), and so many of its citizens absolutely deluded. The agencies once instituted to protect the environment, ensure the safety of drugs and foods, make sure that loans were fairly rendered, and so forth, have all been gutted to serve profit, i.e. Mammon, over the welfare of the commonwealth.
Meanwhile the tools at our disposal to change things grow slimmer by the day. We wonder if and when the Internet, our last ditch place to "join" minds, will fall under some kind of censorship or quarantine. Our protest zones are a joke, the MSM barely covers the remotest dissenting voices of reason, our candidates are pre-selected, our citizens in too many instances dumbed down, or rendered depressed, obese, or absolutely deluded.
All of the elements are in place to foment an enormous national tragedy. The political stage is already a travesty. These now systemic problems will not be altered overnight, and that's where an understanding that the momentum must play itself out comes in handy. At times like these wisdom from the I Ching helps greatly. In one Kua (or hexagram) the advice is "To be like the willow tree that bends, but doesn't break in response to the rising flood waters." One must learn how to retain their strength, light, and integrity until the "waters" recede.
Sarah Palin is simply a filler in a political down time. She is selling books, not making a political career.
A Lady that wasn't and never will be ready for prime time.
"A Lady that wasn't and never will be ready for prime time." –(Henry8)
–There lies the problem. American political consciousness appropriates the metaphors of Television and the cinema as the valorizing concept of 'Prime Time.'
Try to envision an American politics where there is no "Prime Time." No, you can't.
American politics can not travel far from or depart from its inherent and substantive vulgarity whether it is Palin or Obama.
When it is said that an American politician is "ready for Prime Time" one already knows he or she is a straw man and a puppet.
It would be more appropriate to borrow a phrase from American basketball, when one team has already 'blown out' the other and the substitutes come on court to play out the remainder of an already 'decided' game: 'Garbage time.'
–(Jill Bains)
Jeeezzzzzeeeeeee!
The sort of American Gary Younge described has a long and dubious history in America: they filled the ranks of Confederate armies fighting for the economic interests of their exploiters. The Palinistas are merely the latest incarnation of the truly sad and pathetic tendency of a certain portion of the American population to support policies that screw them, then blame cultural "enemies" who have considerably less to do with it than the WASP elite (like the Bush crime family) who do the screwing, then laugh all the way to the bank behind their backs. As the piece points out, demographics are against them, so the best thing that progressives can do is to speed along their slide from irrelevance to the dustbin of history.
"The America whose passing they mourn was lost precisely because of the freemarket, low-tax, warmongering agenda she advocates." And advocated by "Washington DC, bank bailouts and elitist media" that "Palin rails against".
Sarah is the darling of the MSM and as much as I detest this airhead, I would not sell her short. She could very well be a formidable candidate in 2012.
Not unless there is another crooked Florida election that requires SCOTUS to interfere with the results. This woman, whose only apparent assets are her attractive appearance and a big mouth that inspires imbecilic Americans to think that she'd be agreat leader, would bring rational Americans to the polling places in
huge numbers. Please tell me that there are lots of rational Americans left.......
"...would bring rational Americans to the polling places in huge numbers. Please tell me that there are lots of rational Americans left......." –(Pippilin)
–A query that all but answers itself.
But the larger question and one that is categorically dismissed as being nonsensical if not reactionary and heretical is the rationality of the non-voter. In fact, the mere participation or voting in ANY American Presidential contest may one day be seen as the very apotheosis or height of the irrational.
Perhaps it is the rational Americans who do not vote?
For more on this see Alain Badiou's important essay in "Polemics," (Verso Press,2006), "On Parliamentary 'Democracy': The French Presidential Elections of 2002."
In this view, Democracy is little more than a 'fetish' for presentation, not representation. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau has said in remarks on British Democracy, as soon as the elected take office, the people are enslaved.
–(Jill Bains)
Palin stands a very good chance to be elected president if Obama continues down the same path with the same people around him. The fact that she is stupid is certainly no handicap in a country that elected George Bush twice.
The pistol packin mama from Alaska stands a very good chance of being elected President in 2012 if the Supreme Court ambushes the election for her like they did Bush. I agree being stupid will be no handicap for her as she is probably smarter than Bush, but then who isn't!
Micheal Douglas was the best fictional president we have ever had and his political insight about the ignorance of a class who "don't know the difference" is astute but even more astute is to ask why that class attitude exists. As it is constituted the U.S. government needs that class-- to swear allegiance and fight its wars, to keep the right wing politicians in power, to accept whatever hardship is imposed on them. Could our government, our political system be as it is without them?
"The trouble is that while many of their grievances are well founded, their affection is certainly misplaced. None of their problems can be remedied by the politics championed by Palin. Indeed, the greater the traction her politics gets, the worse things will be for her base. The America whose passing they mourn was lost precisely because of the freemarket, low-tax, warmongering agenda she advocates."
For me, this paragraph hi-lights the only interesting aspect regarding any dialogue about this ridiculous woman. The same was true for Bush, and Tammons, you allude to this phenomenon when you state that "the government needs that class--to swear allegiance and fight its wars...".
The psychology behind this kind of delusional thinking is curious: why do certain, usually disenfranchised, groups of people consistently support orthodoxies that history has repeatedly shown to be not only regressive, deceptive, and often cruel, but also in complete opposition and detrimental to their own self-interests? Is it a lack of intellectual capacity, or is it simply true that people don't know history? Willful ignorance? Cognitive dissonance? Perhaps it's a combination of many factors. Whatever it is, this all too common paradox always reminds me of those multitudes of white men tapped by a small cabal of wealthy, southern capitalists who needed men to fight and die to preserve an economic system based upon free labor during the 1860s. Somehow, these wealthy capitalists were able convince a group of poor, unemployed men to fight in a Civil War in support of a barbaric institution, slavery, which, if successful, would have kept these same white men poor and unemployed.
its called 'lazy'... for the most part these people are to lazy to do the intellectual work necessary. I see it all the time in my 'discussions' with fellow Catholics about the church's 12th Century theology (Aquinas). They have no desire to 'think about' why a women would want to control her fertility using current medical technolgy, they already have an answer given them by a crystilized theology that 'gives' them the answers so many of us must 'work' for...
" Whatever it is, this all too common paradox always reminds me of those multitudes of white men tapped by a small cabal of wealthy, southern capitalists who needed men to fight and die to preserve an economic system based upon free labor during the 1860s."
Sure. Now they tap Obama and our well integrated military.
Nice work, liberal academia. If you can get it.
Giovanna: ...why do certain, usually disenfranchised, groups of people consistently support orthodoxies that history has repeatedly shown to be not only regressive, deceptive, and often cruel, but also in complete opposition and detrimental to their own self-interests?
=======
They don't pay attention to history. They don't care enough to be educated. Yet they are willing and eager to be told what to think and what to believe, while believing that the opinions they hold are products of their own individual deduction and inference. Yet, their opinions and positions are virtual clones of one another, and they think and act in lockstep.
(I'd call them children, but my five year old son exercises more critical thinking.)
Similarly, they are susceptible to demagogy and sloganeering. They are easily manipulated to vote and act for causes that undermine their own well being. They trust whomever charms them with smooth words, attractive appearance, and cultural heterogeny. Notice I don't mention logical coherence, citation and evidence, or even consistency with known past events. Since they have no critical faculties, they can easily be convinced to believe and espouse untruths, and substitute vitriol for debate, and eliminationism as virtue.
This also explains why fundamentalism is so strong in the same population. Fundamentalism relies on the same segment of population that needs to be told what to think and believe. And, therefore, in the greatest irony, they themselves are the ones most susceptible to the charms of the "antichrist" they so fear and anticipate. Time and again their public figures are exposed as hypocrites, criminals and abusers -- yet they continue to elevate the same kinds of silver-tongued sociopaths to social pinnacles.
These are the people who H. L. Menken expected to adorn the White House with a "downright moron," and they may yet succeed. Some say they already have, and it's hard to argue with that.
"Those Who Follow Sarah Palin are Sowing the Seeds of Their Own Destruction."
–(Gary Younge)
So screams the reassuring Headline, but it is hardly comforting.
As the baleful demographic of the troglodyte,right-wing sinks numerically– as it proceeds to self immolate– this is a harbinger that the style, but not the substance of American politics will change.
What will replace it? A greater suavity and little else. Something more 'tasteful' and not as vulgar or rude. A more refined program of systemic, self-congratulating deception.
The rampant fascist militarism and hegemony of finance capital will always be in the ascendent as there are no countervailing oppositional forces to oppose them within American non- society. They either exist or they do not exist. Americans always want to 'split the difference.'
The atomization of American society precludes the concept or the reality of a public that acts consciously for itself, in the larger human or collective interest. There is no 'public.' Similarly, there are no 'politics.' As one astute poster said: Americans demand 'LEADERS!'
And that is what they get.
What will replace the Sarah Palin barbarians as they sink into the firmament of demographic obsolescence? Obama. There you have it. The people cheer!
–(Jill Bains)
"What will replace the Sarah Palin barbarians as they sink into the firmament of demographic obsolescence?"
Their children, of course.
My high school president was more of a statesman that Palin. I'd love to laugh her off but I keep remembering that dotty little painter, Adolf. Picture this, Palin with a nuclear arsenal.
It would be cool guerrilla theater to go Palin book signings and pass out glasses of sand for the thirsty fans.
Those Who Follow Sarah Palin are Sowing the Seeds of Their Own Destruction
____________________________________
Each dull thud of the Beware Palin! drumbeat tempts me to copy and paste a recently-updated long comment setting forth a minority view of the Palin phenomenon that is, I realize, indigestible to conventional, mainstream progressive political orthodoxy.
That would be tedious, so I'll improvise.
Even when I've ventured my "take" in casual conversation with intelligent and thoughtful mainstream progressives, I'm promptly kicked in the shins by a knee-jerk impression that I'm "for" Palin, "support" Palin, or am even about to argue that Palin has redeeming qualities.
This horrified "startle" response happens before I even get into specifics-- it's become a topic that those who don't buy into the orthodoxy must either avoid, or carefully qualify by beginning with assurances that one is NOT "objectively pro-Palin".
Please move this sentence to the top of the comment if it helps: I'm not objectively pro-Palin.
My unpopular insight is that Palin is a scapegoat. The fact that there is indeed much to criticize and fault in her expressed politics and popularity is merely gasoline on the fire.
The protracted animus projected upon Brand Palin is based on rational anti-demagogue, anti-wingnut convictions. But such rationality is incorporated into a neurotic antipathy grounded in cognitive dissonance.
Lest I obscure my meaning by burying it in passé pop-psychology: it's abundantly clear to me that the sincere outrage, high dudgeon, and antipathy expressed toward Palin as the ultimate Don't-Bee is a mechanism to avoid the inconvenient truth that our vaunted Do-Bees are equivalent charlatans: narcissistic power-junkies with self-serving agendas surrounded by a shell of altruistic politics-- a death-warrant for the progressive, populist, democratic common citizen slipped into a fortune cookie.
And not just some off-the-shelf fortune cookie, but using a cookie recipe carefully designed to incorporate the most fashionable and popular ingredients of the day.
Thus, the Obama Brand Do-Bee cookie-- baked using whole-grain dough, NO trans-fats, and just a TOUCH of delicious, multi-cultural, pseudo-intellectual fat-free frosting suited to a cosmopolitan palate. The Nobel Committee still orders them by the case! Those leaden Palin Brand Bisquick biscuits can't even compete!
This isn't to say that all of the things wrong with a Palin (or McCain, etc.) are illusory. That's why I characterize them as gasoline on the fire.
Since being lifted to the international political stage, Palin has distinguished herself by being on the losing team, and leaving the office she DID hold. Still, mainstream political orthodoxy argues that it's prudent to remain vigilant, and keep an eye on Palin even though she's relatively powerless.
Internet sites like Salon.com, in the vanguard of latte-liberal, moderate-progressive meme enforcement, have adopted a trash-tabloid obsession with Palin, in which no quotidian event in Palin's political OR personal life is allowed to pass without derisive comment.
They express an editorial policy that justifies regular excoriation of Palin for prophylactic purposes-- I honestly believe that editor Joan Walsh believes that if Salon.com had been around during the Weimar Republic, it could've influenced popular opinion sufficiently to prevent a charismatic monster from being elected to office.
This high purpose and noble mission is the PERFECT way to retreat from even the presentiment that the Amerikan political system presently precludes anyone who ISN'T a charismatic monster from being elected to office.
Patent hyperbole! Unless I'm on to something, i.e. that the status quo demands that well-adjusted citizens remain in a state of occluded understatement.
To the extent that detractors feel the compulsion to stomp Palin, they are successfully avoiding the bitter truth that Obama's cloven hooves haven't been so much as singed in the feeble fires they've built.
Focusing on the Wicked Witch of the West's manifest wickedness is a way to vent the fumes of shame, guilt, and rage emanating from the unconscious insight that the Great and Powerful Man Behind the Curtain is not only no Wizard-- he and the Witch are ultimately allies and partners.
Sorry for raining on another misguided Munchkins parade.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Darn that was good!
What Robert Reich said about her book...."never has so much been made about so little" applies to the Lady herself. A non factor.
are the doobies still kept in the Romper Room?
"Focusing on the Wicked Witch of the West's manifest wickedness is a way to vent the fumes of shame, guilt, and rage emanating from the unconscious insight that the Great and Powerful Man Behind the Curtain is not only no Wizard-- he and the Witch are ultimately allies and partners." –( Obedient servant)
Almost Lacanian in its counterintuitive insight.
"Ultimately allies and partners...!"
An apostasy! Render the miscreant to Lithuania at once. The audacity of truth has no place here!
Another masterful and creative mini essay. Plaudits from this quarter. Saying what must be said, against the grain, is never easy.
– (Jill Bains)
"Thus, the Obama Brand Do-Bee cookie-- baked using whole-grain dough, NO trans-fats, and just a TOUCH of delicious, multi-cultural, pseudo-intellectual fat-free frosting suited to a cosmopolitan palate. The Nobel Committee still orders them by the case! Those leaden Palin Brand Bisquick biscuits can't even compete!"
He is a product of the so-called "liberal" liberals arts academy, complete with all its biggest problems: the shift off any focus on economics and onto culture and identity, and the shift off a comprehensive understanding of constitutional law and onto identity.
This effectively abandoned everything we're dealing with now to the conservatives for 40 years and renders Obama effectively stupid, incapable of dealing with anything. Obama is a "constitutional scholar," I'm quite sure we have yet to see much evidence of this. Where is the proof that his ivy league butt stamp has produced anything beyond a smooth exterior?
Cultural identity brand-Obama is not for *trying* times. The figure Obama cuts would have been a great sop to liberal idealism, narrowly defined, in the considerably less troubled 1990s. The substantive problem with him is basically that he seeks to govern like it *is* the 1990s--including playing out the Clinton obeisance to the financial sector, obeisance which he no doubt believes would enable him to get fabulously rich off the presidency like Clinton.
Heck, even Clinton had to be wrestled into that position a little bit. Bam assumes it like an entitlement. Whereas in the 1990s Clinton could have kidded himself about his compromises with the incestuous and arrogant financial sector, you can't kid yourself in 2009. Obama is a self interested jerk on the make.
MEanwhile, Palin is the Republican response to the 2008 Democratic identity politics primary. The establishment would like to keep the whole plain of public debate right there. It's worked like a charm for them for 40 effing years.
To refuse it is the only intelligent thing to do. I can see, though, why so many upper class cultural liberals--the kind who have press platforms-- want to keep it going in the short run. They're no more insightful than Obama.
In the long run, however, I think they're every bit as wrong as academic economists who played along with the Chicago school.
Their asset deflation is on the way. The smartest thing they could do--perhaps the only thing they can do-- is stop pissing on the canaille and whipping up the barely educated coastal smoothies, but I won't hold my breath.
since serious political discourse is out of fashion:
Hey how bout dem Raiders eh? They finally won a game.
OMG did you hear about Oprah?
Anyone see Adam Lambert's performance?
"since serious political discourse is out of fashion:
Hey how bout dem Raiders eh? They finally won a game."
OK.....don't worry, its a one game streak....they play the Cowboys Thursday.
I got a tattoo on my ass. Can I make into The Huffington Post now?
Perfect. You're hired!
Those Who Follow Sarah Palin are Sowing the Seeds of Their Own Destruction
They don't care. In fact, they love it! Death before disown her.
Sarah the Goon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs16kGWWqt8
As bad as Sarah Palin is, Glenn Beck would be much worse. It's clear he plans to make a move onto the political stage, and would be trying to tap the same demographic as Palin. Palin's casual relationship to reality is somewhat honest, in a sad sort of way. Beck's is completely contrived, by a master and conscious-less liar.
These pundits on the right, like Limbaugh, O-Reilly, and Beck, who have lately been moving into the GOP leadership mansion, these guys are the most dangerous for our nation. I believe the worst Palin could be is another Bush. With those rightwing pundits, its clear they would be much, much worse than that, given the chance.
All these developments of anger in the 'armed-to-the-teeth' American right are very scary indeed. I just wrote a piece obliquely praising Palin: that's indicative of just how scared I am.