Wow! This is the only intelligent thing I have heard Bill O'Reilly say:
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Huge Anti-Palin Rally in Anchorage-A Perspective
Palin Lies: One Man's Protest on the Juneau Cruise Ship Docks
Huffington Post
AKMuckraker
September 20, 2008
The huge Anti-Palin rally in Anchorage last weekend saw more than 1500 people gathered in front of the Loussac Library. It's gotten lots of attention and support from around the nation. People needed to know that not all Alaskans support Palin as the VP nominee, or share her values. Some may even like Palin as a governor, but find her completely unsuitable and inappropriate on the national (nevermind international) stage. It was the largest rally in Alaska history. And huge rallies are great, but sometimes a powerful statement can be made by just one person stepping out and holding a simple two-word message painted on a piece of cardboard. Enjoy this wonderful story from Doug, a Mudflats reader in Juneau, Alaska.
------
For starters, I can see the Governor's Mansion from my front deck. By the McCain/Palin campaign's standards this would make me an expert on Governor Palin and her family. The problem is that the Palins don't live in the mansion, unlike the Russians who actually live in Russia.
Last weekend my wife spoke with her Dad who lives in New York. He was concerned that his neighbors had just returned from an Alaskan cruise and had confidently reported that "everyone in Alaska loves Governor Palin."
So last night I took a piece of cardboard from the garage, found some of my son's tempera-paints and made a sign. It read "PALIN LIES", in big green letters. It wasn't clever, it wasn't profound. It was just the way I felt.
I vowed to my family that I would go downtown the next morning and mount a one-man protest.
I would start my protest at the State Capitol, go to the Governor's Mansion then end up at one of the Cruise Ship Docks near the center of town.
I somehow saw myself victoriously squatting on the Capitol steps flashing my sign to dignitaries and legislators (maybe even lawyer Ed O'Callaghan). But once I got downtown I realized that most people entering or leaving the building at this time of year are State administrative staff. I figured all of them already know the deal, and they would shun me anyway, in fear of losing their jobs.
On second thought, the Governor's Mansion was a no-go as well. The Governor wasn't at home. No one was at home. One lonely maintenance guy was raking the yard and all the houses in the neighborhood sported Obama signs either on their lawns or in their windows. I'd be preaching to the choir.
No, the cruise ship docks were the biggest bang for my protest buck. Thousands of people from all over the country, maybe world would see me. I had found my audience. I opted for the Holland America dock. It was close to the Red Dog Saloon, a local landmark, and near a series of steps that went from the dock to the street. People would be coming and going. Perfect.
I parked my car by the McDonald's and went to a nearby barber shop to get a haircut. I didn't want to be mistaken for a bum during my protest. I returned to the car pulled my sign out, careful to turn the "message" side toward my leg so no one could read it. I walked down to the dock and sat down on one of a series of wide arching steps that led up to a large platform, then the ship.
I positioned myself on one side of the walkway so as not to impede traffic. I put the sign in front of me and balanced my hands on top. I was ready to take my stand. I promised to keep any conversation on point. I was here to let visitors know that not all Alaskans supported Governor Palin. If pressed I would outline a few of her recent lies as they pertained to earmark spending, Troopergate, Alaska's role as an energy producer and maybe some informative patter about the "Bridge to Nowhere".
From the start people directly and indirectly stared at the sign. I was surprised how many people smiled. There were out-and-out grins, secret tilted-head grins and the little nod-and-grins. Some folks even turned to face me head-on and flashed me a killer smile with a thumbs-up sign. I was also surprised how many folks said "you are brave to do this." As if any minute a black SUV was going to pull up and spirit me away.
I was approached by men and women from all over the USA and the world. A middle-aged couple stopped and told me they were from Wisconsin and that they were voting for Obama. Others really wanted to know about the "lies" and many said they had a "bad feeling about her." A couple from Britain thought her selection to be "ridiculous" and wanted to talk at length about the campaign.
Even a young couple from India joined me, the husband enthusiastically snapping my picture as his wife kneeled behind me saying "this is the first time I have done anything political". The Canadians and Australians were troubled by her selection and glad to see me "standing up to it."
There were also lots of casual rubber-neckers and picture-takers but it wasn't all roses. Some folks were briefly belligerent. The most popular pro-Palin comment I received was "Why don't you have a job?" When I mentioned to one man that I was a small business owner he said "where is your office, on the sidewalk?" Surprisingly none of these guys asked me any other questions. Just a quick insult and back to the ship for the buffet.
The middle-of-the-roaders looked at me and said "all politicians lie." I bet I heard this ten times. It took a while for me to formulate my response, which was "But some lies are more hurtful than others." Later I realized that I sounded just like my grandmother.
Another man, middle-aged in a crisp blue jacket passed me and said "So do you" (as in lie). I don't know why, but I stood up and called back "What did you say?" He stopped, turned around and faced me. He was standing a couple of steps above me which made him about a head taller. I told him that I was only here to express my opinion. He actually apologized and quietly walked away.
Passing cars honked. Taxi drivers gave me the "thumbs-up" sign.
I was having an oddly good time until the vendor from the Kettle Korn stand across the street started yelling at me. At first I thought he was drunk. He was obviously opposed to my being there. "Get out of here before I come over and kick your f****ing ass!" he screamed. "I mean it! I'll come over there and kick your ass!" I didn't really relish the thought of having my ass kicked, but was more afraid this guy would spoil my quiet protest. Of course he also screamed that I should leave "because school kids pass by here." So school kids would be traumatized by my "Palin Lies" sign and not the sight of some popcorn vendor beating the crap out of a mild-mannered protestor. Go figure. He kept it up for about five minutes. The 20-something tour guides working the booths behind me started to yell back at him. I was afraid it might all end in a little battle royal (popcorn flying, ravens circling) right in front of all the tourists. Finally he stopped, although I noticed afterwards that he was filming me with a video camera. Later, I was told that he is a member of a local Evangelical church.
Shortly thereafter, I was accosted by a couple of 60-year old women from somewhere in the South. They quickly grouped me into an unsavory collective "you-all". Suddenly they were quoting Palin's approval rating and Obama's record as America's most liberal senator (reminding me they got their information straight from CNN). They were joined by their husbands and a couple of other tourists. They stood over me and shook their fingers. Did I want to be a socialist? Did I remember Jimmy Carter's administration? Was I really for health care for "all" people? Then they brought out the big gun: "How about Ronald Reagan?" I have to admit at first I was a bit angry, but once Reagan was mentioned I had to laugh. I said something about Reaganomics. More clucking, head shaking and pointing. Finally I defused the situation by asking if they were enjoying their cruise. This seemed to settle everyone down and they walked away with only a small chunk of my butt between their teeth.
I talked with a few more people and decided it was time to go, besides I was starting to get cold. I stood up and headed down the street (opposite the Kettle Korn Stand). I walked less than two blocks when I ran into a group of Veterans for Peace. About ten guys were waving signs and generally having a good time. I flashed my "Palin Lies" sign and got a big cheer and lots of good natured laughs. My morning was complete.
All in all, I'd say about 70% of the folks who saw me were in favor of my little protest (out of probably 200-250 people). My picture was taken about 50 times, and I was featured in a couple videos. I was passed by the local police once and cruised by U.S. Customs once (both probably unrelated). My ass was threatened with a "kicking". My back was patted and my hand was shaken. I was even given a thumbs-down by a 70-year old woman who looked at me, pursed her lips and gave me "the raspberry". I was called a liar, and also called "my hero". So here I am at home pouring over the news and thinking... I should go out there again.
Huffington Post
AKMuckraker
September 20, 2008
The huge Anti-Palin rally in Anchorage last weekend saw more than 1500 people gathered in front of the Loussac Library. It's gotten lots of attention and support from around the nation. People needed to know that not all Alaskans support Palin as the VP nominee, or share her values. Some may even like Palin as a governor, but find her completely unsuitable and inappropriate on the national (nevermind international) stage. It was the largest rally in Alaska history. And huge rallies are great, but sometimes a powerful statement can be made by just one person stepping out and holding a simple two-word message painted on a piece of cardboard. Enjoy this wonderful story from Doug, a Mudflats reader in Juneau, Alaska.
------
For starters, I can see the Governor's Mansion from my front deck. By the McCain/Palin campaign's standards this would make me an expert on Governor Palin and her family. The problem is that the Palins don't live in the mansion, unlike the Russians who actually live in Russia.
Last weekend my wife spoke with her Dad who lives in New York. He was concerned that his neighbors had just returned from an Alaskan cruise and had confidently reported that "everyone in Alaska loves Governor Palin."
So last night I took a piece of cardboard from the garage, found some of my son's tempera-paints and made a sign. It read "PALIN LIES", in big green letters. It wasn't clever, it wasn't profound. It was just the way I felt.
I vowed to my family that I would go downtown the next morning and mount a one-man protest.
I would start my protest at the State Capitol, go to the Governor's Mansion then end up at one of the Cruise Ship Docks near the center of town.
I somehow saw myself victoriously squatting on the Capitol steps flashing my sign to dignitaries and legislators (maybe even lawyer Ed O'Callaghan). But once I got downtown I realized that most people entering or leaving the building at this time of year are State administrative staff. I figured all of them already know the deal, and they would shun me anyway, in fear of losing their jobs.
On second thought, the Governor's Mansion was a no-go as well. The Governor wasn't at home. No one was at home. One lonely maintenance guy was raking the yard and all the houses in the neighborhood sported Obama signs either on their lawns or in their windows. I'd be preaching to the choir.
No, the cruise ship docks were the biggest bang for my protest buck. Thousands of people from all over the country, maybe world would see me. I had found my audience. I opted for the Holland America dock. It was close to the Red Dog Saloon, a local landmark, and near a series of steps that went from the dock to the street. People would be coming and going. Perfect.
I parked my car by the McDonald's and went to a nearby barber shop to get a haircut. I didn't want to be mistaken for a bum during my protest. I returned to the car pulled my sign out, careful to turn the "message" side toward my leg so no one could read it. I walked down to the dock and sat down on one of a series of wide arching steps that led up to a large platform, then the ship.
I positioned myself on one side of the walkway so as not to impede traffic. I put the sign in front of me and balanced my hands on top. I was ready to take my stand. I promised to keep any conversation on point. I was here to let visitors know that not all Alaskans supported Governor Palin. If pressed I would outline a few of her recent lies as they pertained to earmark spending, Troopergate, Alaska's role as an energy producer and maybe some informative patter about the "Bridge to Nowhere".
From the start people directly and indirectly stared at the sign. I was surprised how many people smiled. There were out-and-out grins, secret tilted-head grins and the little nod-and-grins. Some folks even turned to face me head-on and flashed me a killer smile with a thumbs-up sign. I was also surprised how many folks said "you are brave to do this." As if any minute a black SUV was going to pull up and spirit me away.
I was approached by men and women from all over the USA and the world. A middle-aged couple stopped and told me they were from Wisconsin and that they were voting for Obama. Others really wanted to know about the "lies" and many said they had a "bad feeling about her." A couple from Britain thought her selection to be "ridiculous" and wanted to talk at length about the campaign.
Even a young couple from India joined me, the husband enthusiastically snapping my picture as his wife kneeled behind me saying "this is the first time I have done anything political". The Canadians and Australians were troubled by her selection and glad to see me "standing up to it."
There were also lots of casual rubber-neckers and picture-takers but it wasn't all roses. Some folks were briefly belligerent. The most popular pro-Palin comment I received was "Why don't you have a job?" When I mentioned to one man that I was a small business owner he said "where is your office, on the sidewalk?" Surprisingly none of these guys asked me any other questions. Just a quick insult and back to the ship for the buffet.
The middle-of-the-roaders looked at me and said "all politicians lie." I bet I heard this ten times. It took a while for me to formulate my response, which was "But some lies are more hurtful than others." Later I realized that I sounded just like my grandmother.
Another man, middle-aged in a crisp blue jacket passed me and said "So do you" (as in lie). I don't know why, but I stood up and called back "What did you say?" He stopped, turned around and faced me. He was standing a couple of steps above me which made him about a head taller. I told him that I was only here to express my opinion. He actually apologized and quietly walked away.
Passing cars honked. Taxi drivers gave me the "thumbs-up" sign.
I was having an oddly good time until the vendor from the Kettle Korn stand across the street started yelling at me. At first I thought he was drunk. He was obviously opposed to my being there. "Get out of here before I come over and kick your f****ing ass!" he screamed. "I mean it! I'll come over there and kick your ass!" I didn't really relish the thought of having my ass kicked, but was more afraid this guy would spoil my quiet protest. Of course he also screamed that I should leave "because school kids pass by here." So school kids would be traumatized by my "Palin Lies" sign and not the sight of some popcorn vendor beating the crap out of a mild-mannered protestor. Go figure. He kept it up for about five minutes. The 20-something tour guides working the booths behind me started to yell back at him. I was afraid it might all end in a little battle royal (popcorn flying, ravens circling) right in front of all the tourists. Finally he stopped, although I noticed afterwards that he was filming me with a video camera. Later, I was told that he is a member of a local Evangelical church.
Shortly thereafter, I was accosted by a couple of 60-year old women from somewhere in the South. They quickly grouped me into an unsavory collective "you-all". Suddenly they were quoting Palin's approval rating and Obama's record as America's most liberal senator (reminding me they got their information straight from CNN). They were joined by their husbands and a couple of other tourists. They stood over me and shook their fingers. Did I want to be a socialist? Did I remember Jimmy Carter's administration? Was I really for health care for "all" people? Then they brought out the big gun: "How about Ronald Reagan?" I have to admit at first I was a bit angry, but once Reagan was mentioned I had to laugh. I said something about Reaganomics. More clucking, head shaking and pointing. Finally I defused the situation by asking if they were enjoying their cruise. This seemed to settle everyone down and they walked away with only a small chunk of my butt between their teeth.
I talked with a few more people and decided it was time to go, besides I was starting to get cold. I stood up and headed down the street (opposite the Kettle Korn Stand). I walked less than two blocks when I ran into a group of Veterans for Peace. About ten guys were waving signs and generally having a good time. I flashed my "Palin Lies" sign and got a big cheer and lots of good natured laughs. My morning was complete.
All in all, I'd say about 70% of the folks who saw me were in favor of my little protest (out of probably 200-250 people). My picture was taken about 50 times, and I was featured in a couple videos. I was passed by the local police once and cruised by U.S. Customs once (both probably unrelated). My ass was threatened with a "kicking". My back was patted and my hand was shaken. I was even given a thumbs-down by a 70-year old woman who looked at me, pursed her lips and gave me "the raspberry". I was called a liar, and also called "my hero". So here I am at home pouring over the news and thinking... I should go out there again.
Friday, September 19, 2008
White women, Once pro-Obama, but now swoon for McPalin? Who the hell are they?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, September 19, 2008
Every white woman I know is positively horrified.
Wait, that's not exactly true. It's more accurate to say that every thoughtful or liberal or intuitive or open-minded white woman I know worth her vagina monologue and her self-determination and two centuries of nonstop striving for equal rights and sexual freedom and exhaustive patriarchal unshackling is right now openly horrified, appalled at what the addition of shrill PTA hockey-mom Sarah Palin seems to have done for the soggy, comatose McCain campaign -- that is, make it not merely remotely interesting and melodramatic, but aggressively hostile to, well, to all intelligent women everywhere.
Truly, among women in the know and especially among those who fought so hard to bring Hillary Clinton to the brink of history, nausea and a general recoiling appear to be the universal reactions to Palin's sudden presence on the national stage, stemming straight from the idea that there's even a slight chance in hell such an antagonistic, anti-female politico could be within a 72-year-old heartbeat of becoming the most powerful and iconic woman of all time.
They say: You've got to be kidding me. They say: This is what we get? This could be our historic role model? Two hundred years (OK, more like 2000) of struggle, only to have this nasty caricature of femininity try to hijack and mock and undermine it all?
It cannot be true, they say. The universe must joking, would not dare dump such a homophobic, Creationist evangelical nutball on us, this anti-choice, God-pandering woman who's the inverse of Hillary, this woman of deep inexperience who abhors birth control and supports abstinence education and shoots exhausted wolves from helicopters and hates polar bears and actually stands for everything progressive women have resented since the first pope Swift-Boated Eve.
But now, the truly bizarre part. Despite this defiant outcry, a great many pundits and reports have suggested that, just after the Palin VP announcement, a sizable chunk of predominantly white women nevertheless abandoned their tentative support for Obama and leapt into the lyin' arms of McCain, presumably simply because of Palin's gender and PTA momhood.
And thus did the harrowing wail go out: WTF? Could it be true? Are cadres of formerly Obama-leaning white women really so enchanted by Palin's gender and motherhood status that they openly ignore the fact that she basically wants to shove women's rights back about five decades? Can it be so simple, crude, sad?
Let us analyze. Let me, being a straight white male and therefore only capable of gazing in awe at the spectacle that is the indecipherable female intuitive response, foolishly attempt to decipher some of it anyway, and explain why in hell some women might jump to Palin, despite the fact that she essentially hates them. Shall we begin?
"She's one of us." This was the resounding quote from many deer-in-the-Palin-headlights fans, a bizarre, dangerous sentiment that echoes the blue-collar Midwest's blind love of George W. Bush, simply because he came across as the kind of simple-minded aw-shucks guy you'd want to have a beer with, never you mind that giant silver spoon sticking out of his mouth or that giant daddy's-boy chip on his droopy shoulders.
Is this all it is? Does "one of us" merely mean white women really believe Palin could, if McCain didn't survive his first term, effectively lead the most powerful, flawed, complicated nation on the planet merely because she's a hard-workin' mom with moxie, that she's managed to raise a gaggle of strangely named kids who hunt and don't believe in evolution and get pregnant before they're old enough to buy a pack of Marlboros?
Or does it mean they agree with Palin about not giving a damn for equal pay, or honest sex education, or separation of church and state, or alternative energy, or a woman's right to choose, or their own daughters' rights if they get knocked up after being raped or incested? Nah, that can't be it.
Maybe we're just not used to seeing the female voting demographic depicted this way. Truly, it's usually men who are the knuckleheaded ones, who will flip their vote merely over a single inconsequential issue ("I like everything about Obama except he supports gun control, and I love my guns, so I guess I gotta go for McCain"). Women, according to the eternal mythology, are no such dupes, and choose more wisely, from deeper intuition, instinct. Right?
Wrong. Maybe this is our simple summary, the blaring headline we should be reading in the wake of recent events. "Easily duped Palin supporters prove: Some white women are just as dumb as men." Is that all it is? Maybe so.
Ah, but there is good news. It appears the bloom is already off the McPalin rose, the baby bump she gave McCain is already gone, as everyone from here to Wasilla is sick to death of hearing about her. Every day that goes by it comes clearer that the Sarah juggernaut is no juggernaut at all but merely an increasingly disturbing PR stunt, and a bit of a disgrace for John McCain himself, whose once-noble aura of integrity and class has essentially vanished.
A potent backlash is coming fast. Actually, it began almost immediately, just after the Republican National Convention, when the GOP cheerfully announced they'd raised a whopping one million bucks in the 24 hours following Palin's speech, so inspired was the heavily drugged conservative base by her teleprompter-reading skills (she didn't write a single word of her own speech, of course; it came from a former Bushite, well before she was the VP pick).
Well, gosh. Really? A million? Wow.
But then Obama's campaign issued a statement of their own. Turns out they'd raised a bit money in the exact same time frame, a rather impressive outpouring of cash from all those on the left who could be heard screaming "oh my God no way in hell" to their TV screens as Palin's finger jabbed at the heart of all that's right and good with the world. The amount Obama raised in the same 24 hours? $10 million. Well now.
How much of that staggering amount came from the newly galvanized, infuriated female populace from the left who see right through Palin's shrill charade and damn well recognize an imposter in their midst, it's impossible to tell. But I think it's a damn safe bet to assume, they are legion.
And let me tell you, they are pissed.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Every white woman I know is positively horrified.
Wait, that's not exactly true. It's more accurate to say that every thoughtful or liberal or intuitive or open-minded white woman I know worth her vagina monologue and her self-determination and two centuries of nonstop striving for equal rights and sexual freedom and exhaustive patriarchal unshackling is right now openly horrified, appalled at what the addition of shrill PTA hockey-mom Sarah Palin seems to have done for the soggy, comatose McCain campaign -- that is, make it not merely remotely interesting and melodramatic, but aggressively hostile to, well, to all intelligent women everywhere.
Truly, among women in the know and especially among those who fought so hard to bring Hillary Clinton to the brink of history, nausea and a general recoiling appear to be the universal reactions to Palin's sudden presence on the national stage, stemming straight from the idea that there's even a slight chance in hell such an antagonistic, anti-female politico could be within a 72-year-old heartbeat of becoming the most powerful and iconic woman of all time.
They say: You've got to be kidding me. They say: This is what we get? This could be our historic role model? Two hundred years (OK, more like 2000) of struggle, only to have this nasty caricature of femininity try to hijack and mock and undermine it all?
It cannot be true, they say. The universe must joking, would not dare dump such a homophobic, Creationist evangelical nutball on us, this anti-choice, God-pandering woman who's the inverse of Hillary, this woman of deep inexperience who abhors birth control and supports abstinence education and shoots exhausted wolves from helicopters and hates polar bears and actually stands for everything progressive women have resented since the first pope Swift-Boated Eve.
But now, the truly bizarre part. Despite this defiant outcry, a great many pundits and reports have suggested that, just after the Palin VP announcement, a sizable chunk of predominantly white women nevertheless abandoned their tentative support for Obama and leapt into the lyin' arms of McCain, presumably simply because of Palin's gender and PTA momhood.
And thus did the harrowing wail go out: WTF? Could it be true? Are cadres of formerly Obama-leaning white women really so enchanted by Palin's gender and motherhood status that they openly ignore the fact that she basically wants to shove women's rights back about five decades? Can it be so simple, crude, sad?
Let us analyze. Let me, being a straight white male and therefore only capable of gazing in awe at the spectacle that is the indecipherable female intuitive response, foolishly attempt to decipher some of it anyway, and explain why in hell some women might jump to Palin, despite the fact that she essentially hates them. Shall we begin?
"She's one of us." This was the resounding quote from many deer-in-the-Palin-headlights fans, a bizarre, dangerous sentiment that echoes the blue-collar Midwest's blind love of George W. Bush, simply because he came across as the kind of simple-minded aw-shucks guy you'd want to have a beer with, never you mind that giant silver spoon sticking out of his mouth or that giant daddy's-boy chip on his droopy shoulders.
Is this all it is? Does "one of us" merely mean white women really believe Palin could, if McCain didn't survive his first term, effectively lead the most powerful, flawed, complicated nation on the planet merely because she's a hard-workin' mom with moxie, that she's managed to raise a gaggle of strangely named kids who hunt and don't believe in evolution and get pregnant before they're old enough to buy a pack of Marlboros?
Or does it mean they agree with Palin about not giving a damn for equal pay, or honest sex education, or separation of church and state, or alternative energy, or a woman's right to choose, or their own daughters' rights if they get knocked up after being raped or incested? Nah, that can't be it.
Maybe we're just not used to seeing the female voting demographic depicted this way. Truly, it's usually men who are the knuckleheaded ones, who will flip their vote merely over a single inconsequential issue ("I like everything about Obama except he supports gun control, and I love my guns, so I guess I gotta go for McCain"). Women, according to the eternal mythology, are no such dupes, and choose more wisely, from deeper intuition, instinct. Right?
Wrong. Maybe this is our simple summary, the blaring headline we should be reading in the wake of recent events. "Easily duped Palin supporters prove: Some white women are just as dumb as men." Is that all it is? Maybe so.
Ah, but there is good news. It appears the bloom is already off the McPalin rose, the baby bump she gave McCain is already gone, as everyone from here to Wasilla is sick to death of hearing about her. Every day that goes by it comes clearer that the Sarah juggernaut is no juggernaut at all but merely an increasingly disturbing PR stunt, and a bit of a disgrace for John McCain himself, whose once-noble aura of integrity and class has essentially vanished.
A potent backlash is coming fast. Actually, it began almost immediately, just after the Republican National Convention, when the GOP cheerfully announced they'd raised a whopping one million bucks in the 24 hours following Palin's speech, so inspired was the heavily drugged conservative base by her teleprompter-reading skills (she didn't write a single word of her own speech, of course; it came from a former Bushite, well before she was the VP pick).
Well, gosh. Really? A million? Wow.
But then Obama's campaign issued a statement of their own. Turns out they'd raised a bit money in the exact same time frame, a rather impressive outpouring of cash from all those on the left who could be heard screaming "oh my God no way in hell" to their TV screens as Palin's finger jabbed at the heart of all that's right and good with the world. The amount Obama raised in the same 24 hours? $10 million. Well now.
How much of that staggering amount came from the newly galvanized, infuriated female populace from the left who see right through Palin's shrill charade and damn well recognize an imposter in their midst, it's impossible to tell. But I think it's a damn safe bet to assume, they are legion.
And let me tell you, they are pissed.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
The Final Distraction: McCain/Palin Worse Than Bush
John Cusack
Posted September 15, 2008 | 08:27 PM (EST)
We all know McCain has sold his soul to win. Big mistake: the Democrats are taking the GOP bait, especially on Palin. She is the ultimate distraction. If we're not careful she'll be the final distraction. The perfect new celebrity -- Sarah Barracuda -- to capture the message in the 24-hour spin orgy, all the while attacking Obama as an elite celebrity. Any narrative that focuses on her -- any -- is a win for Republicans, carrying an undercurrent of race wars, gender wars, class wars. All ending with a debate on God and a return visit to Rev. Wright.
Palin is a gateway drug to a back-alley brawl Obama can't win. A Joseph Conrad-produced reality show/sitcom with Palin replacing Roseanne Barr fighting for the little guy with sass and sex. Wonderful.
Watch McCain repeat "maverick" 300 times a day, like a mantra, 'til Election Day. Republicans and hockey moms against corruption and Lear jets. Orwell for second graders: distraction and chaos, phony scandals and bullshit patriotics from the crew that would install an inexperienced neophyte -- not even put through the crucible of the national stage -- a heartbeat away from the greatest nuclear arsenal the world has ever known, and not blink. Darkest reptilian politics that speak to the ultimate calcified cynicism of Republicans.
Democrats need to ignore her -- unless she speaks about policy -- maybe she can explain and solve the collapsing world markets -- and keep the focus relentlessly on the disastrous results of Bush/McCain/Republican rule. They need to remind voters of the disasters of the last seven-plus years. Specifically. And as people have been saying, we need to be mad as well as inspired.
John McCain is the Republican Party as much as Bush -- we need to be constantly reminded of the policies (and, yes, the crimes) that are threatening this country from within.
Obama must hit Republicans ten times harder. Let's hear about war profiteering, taxpayer-funded mercenary armies and privatizing core functions of state, habeas corpus and warrantless wiretapping and presidential signing statements, and Katrina and justice department politicization, and phony intel and Abu Ghraib, rendition and torture.
If the Democratic leadership wants to disregard its base and continue to disregard the rule of law, they deserve to lose...and will. Let's hope the Obama campaign doesn't come to this conclusion 10 days out. He needs to articulate his vision of the future, but he also needs to articulate a version of reality. The fiercest urgency is needed now.
But some other fundamentals seem to be lost in the frenzy. McCain is no maverick, but it is worth understanding why the rabid right wing is cheering his call for government "reform" and to change "how government works at every level."
McCain won't just be more of the same -- it will be worse than Bush-Cheney -- using the disasters of the past eight years and the actual crises we face to double down on the American Enterprise/Heritage Foundation vision of government that desires, as Grover Norquist said, to shrink government until "we can drown it in a bathtub."
I would recommend a return visit to the groundbreaking Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
McCain, who said he knows nothing about economics, will surely hand over the reins to the Friedmanites and neoconservatives who have sent the country on a path to ruin. Anyone looking at his team could tell you that. Palin and the interests she represents are even further to the right.
Now, no one in their right mind -- including reasonable independents and Republicans -- wants to double down on neocon ideology, but here comes the "maverick" and his economic advisers to use the crises we face to implement more "change" and "reform" to the system by privatizing everything in sight. Is this what the American people want? When they are aware of it, the answer is always no. It's the same bullshit re-branded.
It may happen in a shock therapy in the first 100 days, or financial chaos may force them to wait until things stabilize, but sooner or later they will follow their fundamentalist creed. Ruin the government you are purporting to run and turn it over to privatization frenzy, creating a shadow government of private corporate rule. That's the whole idea.
So let's brand bust this maverick gibberish but understand the coded language that belies their true mission... we should take them at the true meaning of their words.
Not just more of the same -- worse than the same. Times of crisis are great opportunities to implement the radical agendas we usually reject.
That's also the idea.
McCain and the neocon ideologues won't "reform" government, they will gut government and privatize everything in sight in the name of responding to the crises they helped engineer through Bush and Cheney. Their view of government is the reverse of the Hippocratic Oath: do harm and then when the patient is sick, give the wrong medicine, watch him die, and sell off the body parts.
They will destroy the Department of Energy, HUD and anything else they can get their hands on. With this crew, all you need to do is destroy government, privatize it and get out of the way, and then a magic utopia appears. Well, actually it doesn't, but a lot of connected people get rich, and in the privatized war business, blood money flows and a fuck of a lot of innocent people die. The numbers and the misery are staggering. The legacy of Bush/McCain is a legacy of shame. Any man that stood with this criminal administration should be forced to answer for it.
The Republicans have been ruinous and most of it stems from an ideology that leaves the government in ruins. McCain has been on board hook, line and sinker. He voted with Bush over 90% of the time. End of story.
It is fundamentally corrupt and dishonest to call it reform when leaders want to cripple government, then hand it over to private industry, usually subsidized by taxpayers, but for other people's profits. More like contempt for government.
Red meat for dummies... a horror show for the rest of us.
Obama needs to explain to the country what this will cost us in real terms -- however many billions a day in Iraq and what that could buy, repair, fix, and allow in human terms -- ask us if can we afford it, and Obama must -- to use imagery the neocons can understand -- knock them down, put his boots on their throats, and never let up.
Posted September 15, 2008 | 08:27 PM (EST)
We all know McCain has sold his soul to win. Big mistake: the Democrats are taking the GOP bait, especially on Palin. She is the ultimate distraction. If we're not careful she'll be the final distraction. The perfect new celebrity -- Sarah Barracuda -- to capture the message in the 24-hour spin orgy, all the while attacking Obama as an elite celebrity. Any narrative that focuses on her -- any -- is a win for Republicans, carrying an undercurrent of race wars, gender wars, class wars. All ending with a debate on God and a return visit to Rev. Wright.
Palin is a gateway drug to a back-alley brawl Obama can't win. A Joseph Conrad-produced reality show/sitcom with Palin replacing Roseanne Barr fighting for the little guy with sass and sex. Wonderful.
Watch McCain repeat "maverick" 300 times a day, like a mantra, 'til Election Day. Republicans and hockey moms against corruption and Lear jets. Orwell for second graders: distraction and chaos, phony scandals and bullshit patriotics from the crew that would install an inexperienced neophyte -- not even put through the crucible of the national stage -- a heartbeat away from the greatest nuclear arsenal the world has ever known, and not blink. Darkest reptilian politics that speak to the ultimate calcified cynicism of Republicans.
Democrats need to ignore her -- unless she speaks about policy -- maybe she can explain and solve the collapsing world markets -- and keep the focus relentlessly on the disastrous results of Bush/McCain/Republican rule. They need to remind voters of the disasters of the last seven-plus years. Specifically. And as people have been saying, we need to be mad as well as inspired.
John McCain is the Republican Party as much as Bush -- we need to be constantly reminded of the policies (and, yes, the crimes) that are threatening this country from within.
Obama must hit Republicans ten times harder. Let's hear about war profiteering, taxpayer-funded mercenary armies and privatizing core functions of state, habeas corpus and warrantless wiretapping and presidential signing statements, and Katrina and justice department politicization, and phony intel and Abu Ghraib, rendition and torture.
If the Democratic leadership wants to disregard its base and continue to disregard the rule of law, they deserve to lose...and will. Let's hope the Obama campaign doesn't come to this conclusion 10 days out. He needs to articulate his vision of the future, but he also needs to articulate a version of reality. The fiercest urgency is needed now.
But some other fundamentals seem to be lost in the frenzy. McCain is no maverick, but it is worth understanding why the rabid right wing is cheering his call for government "reform" and to change "how government works at every level."
McCain won't just be more of the same -- it will be worse than Bush-Cheney -- using the disasters of the past eight years and the actual crises we face to double down on the American Enterprise/Heritage Foundation vision of government that desires, as Grover Norquist said, to shrink government until "we can drown it in a bathtub."
I would recommend a return visit to the groundbreaking Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
McCain, who said he knows nothing about economics, will surely hand over the reins to the Friedmanites and neoconservatives who have sent the country on a path to ruin. Anyone looking at his team could tell you that. Palin and the interests she represents are even further to the right.
Now, no one in their right mind -- including reasonable independents and Republicans -- wants to double down on neocon ideology, but here comes the "maverick" and his economic advisers to use the crises we face to implement more "change" and "reform" to the system by privatizing everything in sight. Is this what the American people want? When they are aware of it, the answer is always no. It's the same bullshit re-branded.
It may happen in a shock therapy in the first 100 days, or financial chaos may force them to wait until things stabilize, but sooner or later they will follow their fundamentalist creed. Ruin the government you are purporting to run and turn it over to privatization frenzy, creating a shadow government of private corporate rule. That's the whole idea.
So let's brand bust this maverick gibberish but understand the coded language that belies their true mission... we should take them at the true meaning of their words.
Not just more of the same -- worse than the same. Times of crisis are great opportunities to implement the radical agendas we usually reject.
That's also the idea.
McCain and the neocon ideologues won't "reform" government, they will gut government and privatize everything in sight in the name of responding to the crises they helped engineer through Bush and Cheney. Their view of government is the reverse of the Hippocratic Oath: do harm and then when the patient is sick, give the wrong medicine, watch him die, and sell off the body parts.
They will destroy the Department of Energy, HUD and anything else they can get their hands on. With this crew, all you need to do is destroy government, privatize it and get out of the way, and then a magic utopia appears. Well, actually it doesn't, but a lot of connected people get rich, and in the privatized war business, blood money flows and a fuck of a lot of innocent people die. The numbers and the misery are staggering. The legacy of Bush/McCain is a legacy of shame. Any man that stood with this criminal administration should be forced to answer for it.
The Republicans have been ruinous and most of it stems from an ideology that leaves the government in ruins. McCain has been on board hook, line and sinker. He voted with Bush over 90% of the time. End of story.
It is fundamentally corrupt and dishonest to call it reform when leaders want to cripple government, then hand it over to private industry, usually subsidized by taxpayers, but for other people's profits. More like contempt for government.
Red meat for dummies... a horror show for the rest of us.
Obama needs to explain to the country what this will cost us in real terms -- however many billions a day in Iraq and what that could buy, repair, fix, and allow in human terms -- ask us if can we afford it, and Obama must -- to use imagery the neocons can understand -- knock them down, put his boots on their throats, and never let up.
The Palin Doctrine: Why the Neocons Are So Excited
Arianna Huffington
Posted September 15, 2008 | 12:47 PM (EST)
Sarah Palin may not have known what the Bush Doctrine was, but we're getting a pretty good idea of what the Palin Doctrine is. Or will be -- because it's still currently under construction. And what is it going to look like? Let's just say, it's going to seem familiar.
According to London's Daily Telegraph, the architects of the Palin Doctrine are a group of people who have been singularly wrong about virtually everything in the last decade -- the neocons, who have been briefing Palin for weeks.
As predicted, the fact that she didn't know anything wasn't a bug, it was a feature. She's perfect for the neocons: likeable on the outside, a blank slate on the inside. To borrow from an old cliché, if Sarah Palin didn't exist, the neocons would have had to invent her.
In fact, this is how one former White House aide describes her: "She's bright and she's a blank page. She's going places and it's worth going there with her."
Of course, the place her neocon mentors hope she's going is the White House. Given their dismal track record, they're smart enough to figure that the American public wouldn't be too keen on letting them in the front door again, so they are trying to sneak in hidden behind Palin's skirt. The Trojan Moose approaches.
The Daily Telegraph details how the neocon talent scouts spotted their political Eliza Doolittle back in the summer of '07. The love connection began, appropriately enough, on a love boat:
"Sources in the McCain camp, the Republican Party and Washington think tanks say Mrs. Palin was identified as a potential future leader of the neoconservative cause in June 2007. That was when the annual summer cruise organised by the right-of-centre Weekly Standard magazine docked in Juneau, the Alaskan state capital, and the pundits on board took tea with Governor Palin."
So nice to meet you, Governor. And don't forget, cucumber sandwiches and preemptive invasions on the Lido Deck at four!
Not surprisingly, Palin's biggest fan is Bill Kristol, who describes her as the "specter of a young, attractive, unapologetic conservatism" that "is haunting the liberal elites."
Among her other Henry Higginses is neo-neocon Joe Lieberman, who is reportedly helping prep Palin for the big ball -- her debate with Joe Biden.
She's already passed her first test with flying colors: being willing to link 9/11 with Iraq, something not even the president is still willing to do. Last week, she told a group of Iraq-bound soldiers that they were going to "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."
By George (Bush), I think she's got it! Congratulations, Professor Kristol, your student is coming along just fine.
Of course, the neocons know they already have an ally at the top of the GOP ticket. McCain may have been a reformer on campaign finance, but when it comes to foreign policy, he has always been solidly in the neocon club. He loves to burnish his foreign policy bona fides by talking about how he wanted to fire Donald Rumsfeld months before Bush did. But he doesn't talk a lot about how, in the days immediately after 9/11, he was part of the neocon crowd itching to get into Iraq.
Just a few days after the attack, McCain was already talking about "some other countries" that helped Bin Laden. Countries like Syria, Iran, and...Iraq. And a few weeks later, during an October 18, 2001 appearance on David Letterman, McCain answered a question about how the war in Afghanistan was going by announcing that the invasion of Iraq would be "the second phase" of the war on terror (how prescient of him to know that Saddam wouldn't give up those nonexistent WMD). What's more, he tried to buttress the case for attacking Iraq by claiming that the recent spate of anthrax attacks "may have come from Iraq." Or Fort Detrick.
Six years later, demonstrating how little he's learned from the debacle in Iraq, McCain hired Randy Scheunemann, a neocon darling who helped form The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq in 2002, as his campaign's chief foreign policy advisor.
As TPMMuckraker noted in July, "Of all the hawkish Washington foreign-policy types pushing both before and after 9/11 for war with Iraq -- a war that an overwhelming majority of Americans now considers a mistake -- Scheunemann, though not a marquee name, was among the most energetic and influential. And in the invasion's aftermath, he consistently opposed steps that might have helped stabilize the country."
And now, according to the Daily Telegraph, Scheunemann is briefing Sarah Palin.
McCain's selection of Palin may have been reckless, but it was anything but random. The neocons' view of the world may be disastrous, dangerous, discredited, and deadly -- but it's far from dead. Their patron saint, Dick Cheney, the scowling embodiment of the Neocon Doctrine, had way too much baggage -- and way too low approval ratings -- to mount a run for the White House.
That's why the Palin pick was so brilliant. On the outside, she's exponentially more likable and talented at connecting with people than Cheney ever was. But on the inside, once she graduates from the neocon finishing school, she'll be a complete and total Dick. Cheney. With lipstick.
Posted September 15, 2008 | 12:47 PM (EST)
Sarah Palin may not have known what the Bush Doctrine was, but we're getting a pretty good idea of what the Palin Doctrine is. Or will be -- because it's still currently under construction. And what is it going to look like? Let's just say, it's going to seem familiar.
According to London's Daily Telegraph, the architects of the Palin Doctrine are a group of people who have been singularly wrong about virtually everything in the last decade -- the neocons, who have been briefing Palin for weeks.
As predicted, the fact that she didn't know anything wasn't a bug, it was a feature. She's perfect for the neocons: likeable on the outside, a blank slate on the inside. To borrow from an old cliché, if Sarah Palin didn't exist, the neocons would have had to invent her.
In fact, this is how one former White House aide describes her: "She's bright and she's a blank page. She's going places and it's worth going there with her."
Of course, the place her neocon mentors hope she's going is the White House. Given their dismal track record, they're smart enough to figure that the American public wouldn't be too keen on letting them in the front door again, so they are trying to sneak in hidden behind Palin's skirt. The Trojan Moose approaches.
The Daily Telegraph details how the neocon talent scouts spotted their political Eliza Doolittle back in the summer of '07. The love connection began, appropriately enough, on a love boat:
"Sources in the McCain camp, the Republican Party and Washington think tanks say Mrs. Palin was identified as a potential future leader of the neoconservative cause in June 2007. That was when the annual summer cruise organised by the right-of-centre Weekly Standard magazine docked in Juneau, the Alaskan state capital, and the pundits on board took tea with Governor Palin."
So nice to meet you, Governor. And don't forget, cucumber sandwiches and preemptive invasions on the Lido Deck at four!
Not surprisingly, Palin's biggest fan is Bill Kristol, who describes her as the "specter of a young, attractive, unapologetic conservatism" that "is haunting the liberal elites."
Among her other Henry Higginses is neo-neocon Joe Lieberman, who is reportedly helping prep Palin for the big ball -- her debate with Joe Biden.
She's already passed her first test with flying colors: being willing to link 9/11 with Iraq, something not even the president is still willing to do. Last week, she told a group of Iraq-bound soldiers that they were going to "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."
By George (Bush), I think she's got it! Congratulations, Professor Kristol, your student is coming along just fine.
Of course, the neocons know they already have an ally at the top of the GOP ticket. McCain may have been a reformer on campaign finance, but when it comes to foreign policy, he has always been solidly in the neocon club. He loves to burnish his foreign policy bona fides by talking about how he wanted to fire Donald Rumsfeld months before Bush did. But he doesn't talk a lot about how, in the days immediately after 9/11, he was part of the neocon crowd itching to get into Iraq.
Just a few days after the attack, McCain was already talking about "some other countries" that helped Bin Laden. Countries like Syria, Iran, and...Iraq. And a few weeks later, during an October 18, 2001 appearance on David Letterman, McCain answered a question about how the war in Afghanistan was going by announcing that the invasion of Iraq would be "the second phase" of the war on terror (how prescient of him to know that Saddam wouldn't give up those nonexistent WMD). What's more, he tried to buttress the case for attacking Iraq by claiming that the recent spate of anthrax attacks "may have come from Iraq." Or Fort Detrick.
Six years later, demonstrating how little he's learned from the debacle in Iraq, McCain hired Randy Scheunemann, a neocon darling who helped form The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq in 2002, as his campaign's chief foreign policy advisor.
As TPMMuckraker noted in July, "Of all the hawkish Washington foreign-policy types pushing both before and after 9/11 for war with Iraq -- a war that an overwhelming majority of Americans now considers a mistake -- Scheunemann, though not a marquee name, was among the most energetic and influential. And in the invasion's aftermath, he consistently opposed steps that might have helped stabilize the country."
And now, according to the Daily Telegraph, Scheunemann is briefing Sarah Palin.
McCain's selection of Palin may have been reckless, but it was anything but random. The neocons' view of the world may be disastrous, dangerous, discredited, and deadly -- but it's far from dead. Their patron saint, Dick Cheney, the scowling embodiment of the Neocon Doctrine, had way too much baggage -- and way too low approval ratings -- to mount a run for the White House.
That's why the Palin pick was so brilliant. On the outside, she's exponentially more likable and talented at connecting with people than Cheney ever was. But on the inside, once she graduates from the neocon finishing school, she'll be a complete and total Dick. Cheney. With lipstick.
Governor Palin's Reading List
by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Huffington Post
September 15, 2008
Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."
It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list
Huffington Post
September 15, 2008
Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."
It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list
National Humane Society Legislative Fund Says Palin is the worst governor in the US to animals in history
A Heartbeat Away from Disaster for Animals?
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Human Legislative Fund
Washington, D.C.
Last night in the Twin Cities, the GOP conventioneers were officially introduced to their vice presidential candidate who is, as Fred Thompson said, “the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field dress a moose.”
But it’s not Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s personal love of hunting or appetite for moose venison that should strike fear in the heart of every animal advocate in the nation—it’s her retrograde policies on animal welfare and conservation that have led to an all-out war on the state’s wolves and other creatures.
Her record is so extreme that she has perhaps done more harm to animals than any other current governor in the United States—and that’s a difficult distinction to achieve among our 22 Republican and 28 Democratic chief executives. Voters of both political parties who care about the humane treatment of animals must unite to make sure that the nation’s worst governor doesn’t end up just a heartbeat away from the nation’s most important job.
Palin is not only a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, but is also a close ally of Safari Club International. These radical groups don’t represent rank-and-file hunters, but instead lobby on behalf of their elitist, wealthy members to defend despicable and unsporting practices such as captive trophy hunts, bear baiting, and steel-jawed legold traps—practices that real hunters agree are inhumane and unacceptable.
And the Palin Administration, in lock-step with these extreme anti-conservationists, has waged an all-out war on Alaska’s predators to artificially boost the populations of moose and caribou for trophy hunters. Palin has tried to pass legislation making it easier for state officials to gun down wolves and bears from the sky, and even offered a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf as an economic incentive for pilots and aerial gunners to kill more of the animals.
Leading up to last week’s statewide vote on Measure 2 to stop the aerial shooting of wolves and bears, Palin’s Board of Game spent $400,000 of public money on brochures and radio ads to influence the election. She not only took an inhumane and unsporting position at odds with the principles of wildlife management and fair chase, but did it in an undemocratic and underhanded way. Palin may have criticized “the old politics as usual” and “the culture of self-dealing” in her speech last night, but that’s a pretty good description of her dealings with the NRA and Safari Club.
Since Alaska is not protecting its wolves from aerial hunting, the U.S. Congress has stepped in and is now considering the Protect America’s Wildlife (PAW) Act, which would close a loophole in federal law that allows the shooting of animals from airplanes and helicopters. But Gov. Palin has attacked that effort, too, and used her office to criticize the federal legislation. She wrote in a press release that the bill’s author “doesn’t understand rural Alaska” and “doesn’t comprehend wildlife management in the North.”
This new video from our friends at the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund reveals shocking images from the brutal practice of aerial hunting, and shows the world just what Gov. Palin has championed at the state and federal levels. But that’s only one part of the story. It’s not just wolves, of course, who have been the targets of Palin's outdated policies, but also the Arctic region’s iconic polar bears, the 21st Century’s canaries in the mineshaft who are teetering on the brink of extinction.
Despite the effects of climate change on the bear’s vanishing habitat and shrinking ice floes, Gov. Palin penned an op-ed in The New York Times earlier this year arguing that it was the “wrong move” to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Later, when the Bush Administration announced its listing of the polar bear as a threatened species, she filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the decision. Environmentalists fired back over Palin’s lawsuit and said “her head-in-the-sand approach to global warming only helps oil companies, certainly not Alaska or the polar bear.”
For those who don’t believe that the number two spot on the ticket matters much at all, consider this: fourteen vice presidents in American history eventually climbed to the top job, eight of them because their predecessors died in office. If Sarah Palin were to be propelled into the presidency and given the opportunity to run the United States like she has run Alaska—controlling the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce, with wide-ranging authority over issues affecting pets, wildlife, farm animals, marine mammals, animals in research, and public lands—it would indeed be a terrible day for animals and for the country.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Human Legislative Fund
Washington, D.C.
Last night in the Twin Cities, the GOP conventioneers were officially introduced to their vice presidential candidate who is, as Fred Thompson said, “the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field dress a moose.”
But it’s not Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s personal love of hunting or appetite for moose venison that should strike fear in the heart of every animal advocate in the nation—it’s her retrograde policies on animal welfare and conservation that have led to an all-out war on the state’s wolves and other creatures.
Her record is so extreme that she has perhaps done more harm to animals than any other current governor in the United States—and that’s a difficult distinction to achieve among our 22 Republican and 28 Democratic chief executives. Voters of both political parties who care about the humane treatment of animals must unite to make sure that the nation’s worst governor doesn’t end up just a heartbeat away from the nation’s most important job.
Palin is not only a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, but is also a close ally of Safari Club International. These radical groups don’t represent rank-and-file hunters, but instead lobby on behalf of their elitist, wealthy members to defend despicable and unsporting practices such as captive trophy hunts, bear baiting, and steel-jawed legold traps—practices that real hunters agree are inhumane and unacceptable.
And the Palin Administration, in lock-step with these extreme anti-conservationists, has waged an all-out war on Alaska’s predators to artificially boost the populations of moose and caribou for trophy hunters. Palin has tried to pass legislation making it easier for state officials to gun down wolves and bears from the sky, and even offered a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf as an economic incentive for pilots and aerial gunners to kill more of the animals.
Leading up to last week’s statewide vote on Measure 2 to stop the aerial shooting of wolves and bears, Palin’s Board of Game spent $400,000 of public money on brochures and radio ads to influence the election. She not only took an inhumane and unsporting position at odds with the principles of wildlife management and fair chase, but did it in an undemocratic and underhanded way. Palin may have criticized “the old politics as usual” and “the culture of self-dealing” in her speech last night, but that’s a pretty good description of her dealings with the NRA and Safari Club.
Since Alaska is not protecting its wolves from aerial hunting, the U.S. Congress has stepped in and is now considering the Protect America’s Wildlife (PAW) Act, which would close a loophole in federal law that allows the shooting of animals from airplanes and helicopters. But Gov. Palin has attacked that effort, too, and used her office to criticize the federal legislation. She wrote in a press release that the bill’s author “doesn’t understand rural Alaska” and “doesn’t comprehend wildlife management in the North.”
This new video from our friends at the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund reveals shocking images from the brutal practice of aerial hunting, and shows the world just what Gov. Palin has championed at the state and federal levels. But that’s only one part of the story. It’s not just wolves, of course, who have been the targets of Palin's outdated policies, but also the Arctic region’s iconic polar bears, the 21st Century’s canaries in the mineshaft who are teetering on the brink of extinction.
Despite the effects of climate change on the bear’s vanishing habitat and shrinking ice floes, Gov. Palin penned an op-ed in The New York Times earlier this year arguing that it was the “wrong move” to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Later, when the Bush Administration announced its listing of the polar bear as a threatened species, she filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the decision. Environmentalists fired back over Palin’s lawsuit and said “her head-in-the-sand approach to global warming only helps oil companies, certainly not Alaska or the polar bear.”
For those who don’t believe that the number two spot on the ticket matters much at all, consider this: fourteen vice presidents in American history eventually climbed to the top job, eight of them because their predecessors died in office. If Sarah Palin were to be propelled into the presidency and given the opportunity to run the United States like she has run Alaska—controlling the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce, with wide-ranging authority over issues affecting pets, wildlife, farm animals, marine mammals, animals in research, and public lands—it would indeed be a terrible day for animals and for the country.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Palin pick means McCain is like Bush
By PAUL BEGALA | 9/16/08 4:49 AM EDT
McCain may be trying to distance himself from Bush, but his VP pick tells a different story.
As the political class prattles on about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, we are overlooking the most important aspect of her selection as the GOP running mate: what it says about John McCain.
And what it says is, he’s just like George W. Bush.
In choosing Palin, McCain was in full Bush mode. Like Bush, he followed his gut, ignored advice from experts and acted on impulse. In fact, McCain’s rash and reckless choice of Palin makes Bush look downright careful by comparison — so McCain may well be more Bushian than Bush himself. If you liked eight years of a president who went with his gut, acted on impulse and gambled our nation’s future on a hunch, you’ll love John McCain.
Let’s take a test. Who does the following describe: A wealthy and hot-tempered rebel, he spent half his life fighting to live up to a famous father and grandfather, encouraged always by an indomitable mother. A self-described moderate on the campaign trail, he courts ultra-right-wing preachers behind the scenes and promises to appoint stridently conservative judges. A multimillionaire who supports more tax cuts for more millionaires, he surrounds himself with supply-siders and calls for policies that would drive us deeper into debt. The chief cheerleader for the war in Iraq, he said we’d be “welcomed as liberators” and angrily challenges anyone who questions his distorted and out-of-touch view of reality.
A self-styled reformer, his Kitchen Cabinet is stocked with Washington lobbyists. Deeply out of touch on economic issues, he repeats nostrums like “the fundamentals are strong” even as the fundamentals are deteriorating. He carefully courts the press, who suck up to him even though he supports authoritarian policies like wiretapping Americans without a court order. He is supported by oil company lobbyists and supports drilling in some of our most sensitive ecosystems. Although he gladly accepts government health care for himself, he would abandon you to take on colossal insurance corporations on your own. Charming and disarming at first blush, his wit masks a petulant temper and a self-righteous streak that even members of his own party worry about.
If you guessed George W. Bush, you’re right. And if you guessed John McCain, you’re also right.
Aided by a team of a dozen researchers and writers, I spent months going through McCain’s record. In ways both large and small, frightening and funny, on matters of both style and substance, and on issues of policy and politics, McCain represents a continuation of the Bush years. His defenders — and they are legion in the national press corps he accurately calls his “base” — will howl, but a clear-eyed reading of the record makes a compelling case that on nearly all of the things that matter most, John McCain would be more of the same.
The war hero part of McCain’s biography is indeed real. But the notion that he is a maverick and the argument that he’s a reformer are myth. McCain has in fact voted with President Bush 91 percent of the time, and yet otherwise sensible people call him a maverick. Sports fans, being less gullible than politicos, would never call a baseball player who hit from the right side of the plate 91 percent of the time a lefty. Yes, there have been brief apostasies (apparently 9 percent of the time), but even when he has broken with Bush, over time he has recanted his heresy and fallen back in, as he has done on taxes. McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts in 2001, but now he proposes making the Bush tax cuts permanent. That’s like marrying a girl you wouldn’t date.
And, like Bush, McCain has a remarkable affinity for lobbyists. His campaign has, by my count, 134 lobbyists serving as bundlers or advisers or staff members. He has chosen to associate himself with people who have lobbied for foreign dictators, big oil companies and every corporate special interest you can think of. And yet he gets away with calling himself a reformer. Now, 134 lobbyists are not lining up to support McCain because they actually believe he’s a reformer. If John McCain’s a reformer, I’m a Hassidic diamond merchant.
If Barack Obama can get every voter to learn just two numbers, he will be president. Those numbers are 91 and 134. If by Election Day every American knows McCain votes with Bush 91 percent of the time and has 134 lobbyists in his campaign, then the myth of the maverick reformer will be dead. And with it, McCain’s chances of following his unlikely soul mate as president.
Paul Begala is a political contributor to CNN. He served as counselor to the president in the Clinton White House. This column is adapted from his new book, “Third Term: Why George W. Bush Loves John McCain” (Simon & Schuster).
McCain may be trying to distance himself from Bush, but his VP pick tells a different story.
As the political class prattles on about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, we are overlooking the most important aspect of her selection as the GOP running mate: what it says about John McCain.
And what it says is, he’s just like George W. Bush.
In choosing Palin, McCain was in full Bush mode. Like Bush, he followed his gut, ignored advice from experts and acted on impulse. In fact, McCain’s rash and reckless choice of Palin makes Bush look downright careful by comparison — so McCain may well be more Bushian than Bush himself. If you liked eight years of a president who went with his gut, acted on impulse and gambled our nation’s future on a hunch, you’ll love John McCain.
Let’s take a test. Who does the following describe: A wealthy and hot-tempered rebel, he spent half his life fighting to live up to a famous father and grandfather, encouraged always by an indomitable mother. A self-described moderate on the campaign trail, he courts ultra-right-wing preachers behind the scenes and promises to appoint stridently conservative judges. A multimillionaire who supports more tax cuts for more millionaires, he surrounds himself with supply-siders and calls for policies that would drive us deeper into debt. The chief cheerleader for the war in Iraq, he said we’d be “welcomed as liberators” and angrily challenges anyone who questions his distorted and out-of-touch view of reality.
A self-styled reformer, his Kitchen Cabinet is stocked with Washington lobbyists. Deeply out of touch on economic issues, he repeats nostrums like “the fundamentals are strong” even as the fundamentals are deteriorating. He carefully courts the press, who suck up to him even though he supports authoritarian policies like wiretapping Americans without a court order. He is supported by oil company lobbyists and supports drilling in some of our most sensitive ecosystems. Although he gladly accepts government health care for himself, he would abandon you to take on colossal insurance corporations on your own. Charming and disarming at first blush, his wit masks a petulant temper and a self-righteous streak that even members of his own party worry about.
If you guessed George W. Bush, you’re right. And if you guessed John McCain, you’re also right.
Aided by a team of a dozen researchers and writers, I spent months going through McCain’s record. In ways both large and small, frightening and funny, on matters of both style and substance, and on issues of policy and politics, McCain represents a continuation of the Bush years. His defenders — and they are legion in the national press corps he accurately calls his “base” — will howl, but a clear-eyed reading of the record makes a compelling case that on nearly all of the things that matter most, John McCain would be more of the same.
The war hero part of McCain’s biography is indeed real. But the notion that he is a maverick and the argument that he’s a reformer are myth. McCain has in fact voted with President Bush 91 percent of the time, and yet otherwise sensible people call him a maverick. Sports fans, being less gullible than politicos, would never call a baseball player who hit from the right side of the plate 91 percent of the time a lefty. Yes, there have been brief apostasies (apparently 9 percent of the time), but even when he has broken with Bush, over time he has recanted his heresy and fallen back in, as he has done on taxes. McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts in 2001, but now he proposes making the Bush tax cuts permanent. That’s like marrying a girl you wouldn’t date.
And, like Bush, McCain has a remarkable affinity for lobbyists. His campaign has, by my count, 134 lobbyists serving as bundlers or advisers or staff members. He has chosen to associate himself with people who have lobbied for foreign dictators, big oil companies and every corporate special interest you can think of. And yet he gets away with calling himself a reformer. Now, 134 lobbyists are not lining up to support McCain because they actually believe he’s a reformer. If John McCain’s a reformer, I’m a Hassidic diamond merchant.
If Barack Obama can get every voter to learn just two numbers, he will be president. Those numbers are 91 and 134. If by Election Day every American knows McCain votes with Bush 91 percent of the time and has 134 lobbyists in his campaign, then the myth of the maverick reformer will be dead. And with it, McCain’s chances of following his unlikely soul mate as president.
Paul Begala is a political contributor to CNN. He served as counselor to the president in the Clinton White House. This column is adapted from his new book, “Third Term: Why George W. Bush Loves John McCain” (Simon & Schuster).
Sarah Palin: A Life In Song (THIS IS GREAT!)
The Bud Brothers pay tribute to that darling of the conservative right, Alaska Governor and McCain VP pick, Sarah Palin!
Palin and Clinton-I Challenge You to Compare!
Actual Segment:
Now look what Fox News shows below. They showed a short clip of the SNL footage to make it look like they were making fun of Hillary being upset about not being the first female in the White house. The point of the skit was to point out the absurdity of Sarah Palin nomination, which it brilliantly did.Fox News decided to choose one of the least funny segments of that sketch and coincidentally also one of the few segments that didn't make fun of Palin's incompetence to be vice president. I wonder who they're supporting this election? Thanks Rupert Murdoch!
Now look what Fox News shows below. They showed a short clip of the SNL footage to make it look like they were making fun of Hillary being upset about not being the first female in the White house. The point of the skit was to point out the absurdity of Sarah Palin nomination, which it brilliantly did.Fox News decided to choose one of the least funny segments of that sketch and coincidentally also one of the few segments that didn't make fun of Palin's incompetence to be vice president. I wonder who they're supporting this election? Thanks Rupert Murdoch!
Faced with Palin, Women's Groups to Turn to Obama
By Lois Romano
Clearly worried about the impact Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has had on the presidential race, the Obama campaign stepped up its efforts to court women this week, recruiting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to join Sen. Joe Biden for a taped webcast answering questions from women, announcing a list of high profile women who are endorsing Sen. Barack Obama and releasing a tough anti-McCain ad targeting women.
On Monday, as part of his "Women's Week of Action," Obama held a conference call with female supporters to outline the issues he will bring to the forefront in the weeks ahead, such as health care, the Supreme Court and pay equity.
And today in Washington, a number of high profile unions and groups representing millions of women joined together to throw their support to Obama. Ellie Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, and Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women -- both of whose organizations supported Clinton in the primaries -- held a press conference here announcing the support of ten groups for Obama.
NOW's endorsement represented the first time in 24 years the group has endorsed a general election presidential candidate -- the last being Walter Monday in 1984, who ran on the first ticket to feature a woman as a vice presidential running mate.
The largest organization for women's rights, NOW says it is stepping into the contest to educate women about Palin's positions and highlight Obama and Biden's long-time commitment to policies that support women personally and economically.
"For us its a red alert," said Gandy. "Palin is so out of touch with women. I don't think people fully understand her positions."
"They are stark differences between these two candidates," said Smeal. "John McCain has a 26 year record of voting against issues important to women."
Smeal cited McCain's opposition to a bill that would afford equal pay to women, his opposition to abortion funding and a vote he cast against breast cancer research.
The new Obama pay equity ad says that "women work to help support their families but are paid just 77 cents to a dollar a man makes. It's one more thing John McCain doesn't get about our economy. He opposed a law to guarantee women equal pay for equal work, calling it too great a burden on business.... A burden on business? How about the burden on our families."
McCain's campaign quickly countered saying McCain's pays women on his senate staff better that Obama does.
Clearly worried about the impact Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has had on the presidential race, the Obama campaign stepped up its efforts to court women this week, recruiting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to join Sen. Joe Biden for a taped webcast answering questions from women, announcing a list of high profile women who are endorsing Sen. Barack Obama and releasing a tough anti-McCain ad targeting women.
On Monday, as part of his "Women's Week of Action," Obama held a conference call with female supporters to outline the issues he will bring to the forefront in the weeks ahead, such as health care, the Supreme Court and pay equity.
And today in Washington, a number of high profile unions and groups representing millions of women joined together to throw their support to Obama. Ellie Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, and Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women -- both of whose organizations supported Clinton in the primaries -- held a press conference here announcing the support of ten groups for Obama.
NOW's endorsement represented the first time in 24 years the group has endorsed a general election presidential candidate -- the last being Walter Monday in 1984, who ran on the first ticket to feature a woman as a vice presidential running mate.
The largest organization for women's rights, NOW says it is stepping into the contest to educate women about Palin's positions and highlight Obama and Biden's long-time commitment to policies that support women personally and economically.
"For us its a red alert," said Gandy. "Palin is so out of touch with women. I don't think people fully understand her positions."
"They are stark differences between these two candidates," said Smeal. "John McCain has a 26 year record of voting against issues important to women."
Smeal cited McCain's opposition to a bill that would afford equal pay to women, his opposition to abortion funding and a vote he cast against breast cancer research.
The new Obama pay equity ad says that "women work to help support their families but are paid just 77 cents to a dollar a man makes. It's one more thing John McCain doesn't get about our economy. He opposed a law to guarantee women equal pay for equal work, calling it too great a burden on business.... A burden on business? How about the burden on our families."
McCain's campaign quickly countered saying McCain's pays women on his senate staff better that Obama does.
Not Every Woman Supports Women's Rights
August 29, 2008
Statement of NOW PAC Chair Kim Gandy on the Selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain's Vice Presidential Pick
Sen. John McCain's choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate is a cynical effort to appeal to disappointed Hillary Clinton voters and get them to vote, ultimately, against their own self-interest.
Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women's rights, just like John McCain.
The fact that Palin is a mother of five who has a 4-month-old baby, a woman who is juggling work and family responsibilities, will speak to many women. But will Palin speak FOR women? Based on her record and her stated positions, the answer is clearly No.
In a gubernatorial debate, Palin stated emphatically that her opposition to abortion was so great, so total, that even if her teenage daughter was impregnated by a rapist, she would "choose life" -- meaning apparently that she would not permit her daughter to have an abortion.
Palin also had to withdraw her appointment of a top public safety commissioner who had been reprimanded for sexual harassment, although Palin had been warned about his background through letters by the sexual harassment complainant.
What McCain does not understand is that women supported Hillary Clinton not just because she was a woman, but because she was a champion on their issues. They will surely not find Sarah Palin to be an advocate for women.
Sen. Joe Biden is the VP candidate who appeals to women, with his authorship and championing of landmark domestic violence legislation, support for pay equity, and advocacy for women around the world.
Finally, as the chair of NOW's Political Action Committee, I am frequently asked whether NOW supports women candidates just because they are women. This gives me an opportunity to once again answer that question with an emphatic 'No.' We recognize the importance of having women's rights supporters at every level but, like Sarah Palin, not every woman supports women's rights.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Mai Shiozaki, 202-628-8669, ext. 116; cell 202-641-1906
Statement of NOW PAC Chair Kim Gandy on the Selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain's Vice Presidential Pick
Sen. John McCain's choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate is a cynical effort to appeal to disappointed Hillary Clinton voters and get them to vote, ultimately, against their own self-interest.
Gov. Palin may be the second woman vice-presidential candidate on a major party ticket, but she is not the right woman. Sadly, she is a woman who opposes women's rights, just like John McCain.
The fact that Palin is a mother of five who has a 4-month-old baby, a woman who is juggling work and family responsibilities, will speak to many women. But will Palin speak FOR women? Based on her record and her stated positions, the answer is clearly No.
In a gubernatorial debate, Palin stated emphatically that her opposition to abortion was so great, so total, that even if her teenage daughter was impregnated by a rapist, she would "choose life" -- meaning apparently that she would not permit her daughter to have an abortion.
Palin also had to withdraw her appointment of a top public safety commissioner who had been reprimanded for sexual harassment, although Palin had been warned about his background through letters by the sexual harassment complainant.
What McCain does not understand is that women supported Hillary Clinton not just because she was a woman, but because she was a champion on their issues. They will surely not find Sarah Palin to be an advocate for women.
Sen. Joe Biden is the VP candidate who appeals to women, with his authorship and championing of landmark domestic violence legislation, support for pay equity, and advocacy for women around the world.
Finally, as the chair of NOW's Political Action Committee, I am frequently asked whether NOW supports women candidates just because they are women. This gives me an opportunity to once again answer that question with an emphatic 'No.' We recognize the importance of having women's rights supporters at every level but, like Sarah Palin, not every woman supports women's rights.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Mai Shiozaki, 202-628-8669, ext. 116; cell 202-641-1906
Monday, September 15, 2008
Obama Vrs. McCain/Palin (Apples to Apples?) See and compare:
I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....
* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're exotic, different.'
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.
* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well
grounded.
* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become
the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter
registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12
years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State
Senator representing a di strict with over 750,000 people, become
chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee,spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing astate of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving
on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's
Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city
council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000
people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000
people, then you're qualified to become the country's second
highest ranking executive.
* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while
raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches,
you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left
your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're
a Christian.
* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education,
including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the
fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with
no other option in sex education in your state's school system
while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very
responsible.
* If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position
in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner
city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's
values don't represent America's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one
DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to
vote until age 25 and once was a=2 0member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely
admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're exotic, different.'
* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American story.
* If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well
grounded.
* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become
the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter
registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12
years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State
Senator representing a di strict with over 750,000 people, become
chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee,spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing astate of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving
on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's
Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city
council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000
people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000
people, then you're qualified to become the country's second
highest ranking executive.
* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while
raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches,
you're not a real Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left
your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're
a Christian.
* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education,
including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the
fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with
no other option in sex education in your state's school system
while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very
responsible.
* If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position
in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner
city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's
values don't represent America's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one
DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to
vote until age 25 and once was a=2 0member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely
admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
The Palin interviews: Ignorance in the service of the ultra-right
By Bill Van Auken
15 September 2
WSWS.org
ABC's broadcast over three nights of the interview between the network's anchorman Charles Gibson and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin served to expose the candidate's ignorance and ultra-right politics, while skirting around some of the most crucial questions underlying her improbable candidacy.
Equally revealing has been the reaction of the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party, which have given Palin a pass on everything said in the interview except her attempt to once again identify herself with the runner-up in the Democratic primaries, Senator Hillary Clinton. An angry reaction issued over the name of Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz had more the character of a protest over brand name infringement than any substantive response to Palin's positions.
Ignored in the Democratic response was Palin's presentation of political views that are significantly to the right of the Bush administration, including foreign policy positions that pose the clear threat of a nuclear third world war.
In its tone, the interview was undoubtedly one of the most peculiar exchanges to be staged in recent American political history.
Gibson's approach often resembled that of an impatient and skeptical professor quizzing one of his failing students. For her part, Palin came off as semi-robotic, clearly feeding back talking points which Republican campaign operatives have crammed into her head in the little more than two weeks since her surprise selection as Senator John McCain's running mate.
There is little doubt that many of the nearly 10 million viewers who tuned in to the interviews did so at least in part out of morbid curiosity, watching to see if the untested and virtually unknown governor of Alaska would seriously disgrace herself on national television.
Palin fumbled some questions and had an evident "deer in the headlights" moment when asked about the "Bush Doctrine," something with which she was clearly unfamiliar, even after Gibson helpfully explained it to her.
Behind the packaged image, the qualities that Sarah Palin brings to American politics are religious-based bigotry and hostility to democratic rights, anti-intellectualism, phony right-wing populism and unwavering support for American militarism, in short, the stock and trade of the Republican right.
The dangers posed when this kind of ignorance, backwardness and reactionary outlook becomes fused with state power became clear in the ABC interview.
After Palin declared her support for the admission of the former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia into the US-led NATO alliance, Gibson asked her whether this meant that the US would be obliged to go to war against Russia if Moscow again sent troops into the region.
"Perhaps so," replied Palin, in a matter-of-fact tone that suggested that war between two countries controlling stockpiles of nuclear weapons capable of incinerating the world was the most obvious, common-sense solution to a geopolitical crisis. "I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help," she continued.
She repeatedly described Russia's action in Georgia as "unprovoked," when even the Bush administration's State Department has claimed that it warned Georgia not to attempt an armed takeover of the autonomous, Russian-aligned regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Asked about what insight she had concerning the country against which she is so blithely prepared wage war, Palin claimed-erroneously-that one could see Russia from part of Alaska.
Similarly, Palin was asked what attitude Washington should take towards a decision by Israel to carry out airstrikes against Iran's fledgling nuclear program.
"Well, first, we are friends with Israel and I don't think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security," responded Palin.
While Gibson pressed her on this point, she clung doggedly to this position, twice repeating the phrase about not "second guessing" any action by Israel.
That Washington must routinely "second guess" such decisions-despite the undeniably inordinate influence exercised by Israel and the Zionist lobby over US foreign policy-apparently never occurred to Palin. Nor, apparently, that such an Israeli attack would almost certainly result in Iranian retaliation that could include attacks on US occupation troops in Iraq, including her own son, who deployed there on September 11.
Then there was the exchange on the "Bush Doctrine," about which much has been made in the media. Palin's initial fumbling was understandable. Gibson asked her "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine," and she replied by indicating she believed he was referring to "his world view."
When Gibson went on, however, to indicate that, no, he meant "the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war," it became clear that Palin had not a clue that he was referring to the doctrine of "preventive war" by which Bush arrogated to US imperialism the right to militarily attack any country in the world that it saw as a potential threat to its interests.
Palin babbled on about her agreement with Bush's effort to "rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation" and affirmed that any "mistakes" or "blunders" in the process could be corrected with the election of new leadership.
Nonetheless, even from her standpoint of ignorance, Palin's responses made it clear that she embraces the essence of the "Bush Doctrine"-unrestrained American militarism.
Asked about whether the US had the right to carry out cross-border attacks against Pakistan, without the permission of that country's government-something that is already taking place on the orders of the Bush White House-Palin responded: "In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target."
So emerges the Palin corollary to the Bush doctrine: go anywhere and target anyone, just don't blink.
On domestic issues, the combination of ignorance and duplicity continued to characterize Palin's responses. Asked about her recorded differences with McCain on global warming, she denied the existence of any such disagreements and asserted her belief that "man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change."
Just last year, however, she faithfully echoed the line of the extreme right and the oil lobby, telling an Alaska newspaper, "I'm not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity."
Palin reiterated her well-known opposition to abortion rights, calling for the overturning of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision and stating her belief that abortion should be banned even in cases of rape and incest. While Palin described this view as her "personal opinion," Gibson made no attempt to press her on the fact that she favors merely a state-by-state approach to abortion, but advocates making it illegal everywhere, regardless of the sentiments of the pro-choice women she claimed to "respect."
Gibson asked her about the well-established fact that as the newly elected mayor of Wasilla she had pressured the town librarian about banning of books deemed unacceptable by the Christian right. Her denial-calling it "an old wives' tale"-was left unchallenged.
Significantly, what went entirely unexplored in the Gibson interview were Palin's extensive ties to the extreme right and Christian fundamentalism. There was no question about her relationship with the Alaskan Independence Party, which her husband joined and whose conferences she herself attended and addressed. The party, which calls for Alaska to secede from the United States, is an affiliate of the Constitution Party, an ultra-right electoral party whose program incorporates the outlook of a Bible-based fascism.
No question was asked about Palin's attitude towards dominionism, the doctrine of the Christian fundamentalist right that the US is a "Christian nation" and that all of its laws and institutions should be run according to Biblical law.
The only reference to Palin's religious-political views came in Gibson's question about remarks made to her church to the effect that the US troops fighting the dirty colonial-style war in Iraq are "on a task that is from God." Gibson asked her if she believed that the US is "fighting a holy war."
The candidate's improbable response was that she was merely echoing a statement made by Lincoln. While the Republicans regularly drag Lincoln's name through the mud, this is rather extreme, given his oft-stated contempt for organized religion.
Neither the media nor the Democrats have any interest in exposing this dirty secret of American politics, that the most significant popular "base" of the Republican Party-the most consistent defender of the corporations and finance capital-is composed of extreme right-wing and fascistic elements, including the most reactionary tendencies within Christian fundamentalism.
Under normal circumstances, Palin's ignorance of international relations and limited political understanding would have disqualified her for the vice-presidential nomination of one of the two main big business parties. The sole reason for McCain's choosing her as his running mate was the desire to "energize" this ultra-right base.
The Democrats have chosen to ignore this issue entirely. Nor have they issued any response to Palin's statements regarding war on Russia and Iran. Having embraced the "surge" in Iraq, Obama is running not as an antiwar candidate in any sense, but as the advocate of a more strategically thought-out and even more robust form of American militarism. As such, he has issued his own bellicose statements against Russia, Iran and Pakistan.
That Palin could even be considered as the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate is testimony not only to the extreme right-wing trajectory of this party itself, but also to the spinelessness of the Democrats and their inability and unwillingness to wage any serious attack on either the Republican Party or the ultra-right.
There are clearly some misgivings within the American ruling elite over this strategy and the pitfalls of having an individual like Palin a "heartbeat away" from a presidency occupied by a 72-year-old man with significant health problems. The Washington Post published an editorial on the interviews describing them as "unsettling." Her performance, the paper stated, was "not disqualifying, but it was also far from comforting."
15 September 2
WSWS.org
ABC's broadcast over three nights of the interview between the network's anchorman Charles Gibson and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin served to expose the candidate's ignorance and ultra-right politics, while skirting around some of the most crucial questions underlying her improbable candidacy.
Equally revealing has been the reaction of the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party, which have given Palin a pass on everything said in the interview except her attempt to once again identify herself with the runner-up in the Democratic primaries, Senator Hillary Clinton. An angry reaction issued over the name of Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz had more the character of a protest over brand name infringement than any substantive response to Palin's positions.
Ignored in the Democratic response was Palin's presentation of political views that are significantly to the right of the Bush administration, including foreign policy positions that pose the clear threat of a nuclear third world war.
In its tone, the interview was undoubtedly one of the most peculiar exchanges to be staged in recent American political history.
Gibson's approach often resembled that of an impatient and skeptical professor quizzing one of his failing students. For her part, Palin came off as semi-robotic, clearly feeding back talking points which Republican campaign operatives have crammed into her head in the little more than two weeks since her surprise selection as Senator John McCain's running mate.
There is little doubt that many of the nearly 10 million viewers who tuned in to the interviews did so at least in part out of morbid curiosity, watching to see if the untested and virtually unknown governor of Alaska would seriously disgrace herself on national television.
Palin fumbled some questions and had an evident "deer in the headlights" moment when asked about the "Bush Doctrine," something with which she was clearly unfamiliar, even after Gibson helpfully explained it to her.
Behind the packaged image, the qualities that Sarah Palin brings to American politics are religious-based bigotry and hostility to democratic rights, anti-intellectualism, phony right-wing populism and unwavering support for American militarism, in short, the stock and trade of the Republican right.
The dangers posed when this kind of ignorance, backwardness and reactionary outlook becomes fused with state power became clear in the ABC interview.
After Palin declared her support for the admission of the former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia into the US-led NATO alliance, Gibson asked her whether this meant that the US would be obliged to go to war against Russia if Moscow again sent troops into the region.
"Perhaps so," replied Palin, in a matter-of-fact tone that suggested that war between two countries controlling stockpiles of nuclear weapons capable of incinerating the world was the most obvious, common-sense solution to a geopolitical crisis. "I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help," she continued.
She repeatedly described Russia's action in Georgia as "unprovoked," when even the Bush administration's State Department has claimed that it warned Georgia not to attempt an armed takeover of the autonomous, Russian-aligned regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Asked about what insight she had concerning the country against which she is so blithely prepared wage war, Palin claimed-erroneously-that one could see Russia from part of Alaska.
Similarly, Palin was asked what attitude Washington should take towards a decision by Israel to carry out airstrikes against Iran's fledgling nuclear program.
"Well, first, we are friends with Israel and I don't think that we should second guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security," responded Palin.
While Gibson pressed her on this point, she clung doggedly to this position, twice repeating the phrase about not "second guessing" any action by Israel.
That Washington must routinely "second guess" such decisions-despite the undeniably inordinate influence exercised by Israel and the Zionist lobby over US foreign policy-apparently never occurred to Palin. Nor, apparently, that such an Israeli attack would almost certainly result in Iranian retaliation that could include attacks on US occupation troops in Iraq, including her own son, who deployed there on September 11.
Then there was the exchange on the "Bush Doctrine," about which much has been made in the media. Palin's initial fumbling was understandable. Gibson asked her "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine," and she replied by indicating she believed he was referring to "his world view."
When Gibson went on, however, to indicate that, no, he meant "the Bush doctrine, enunciated September 2002, before the Iraq war," it became clear that Palin had not a clue that he was referring to the doctrine of "preventive war" by which Bush arrogated to US imperialism the right to militarily attack any country in the world that it saw as a potential threat to its interests.
Palin babbled on about her agreement with Bush's effort to "rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell bent on destroying our nation" and affirmed that any "mistakes" or "blunders" in the process could be corrected with the election of new leadership.
Nonetheless, even from her standpoint of ignorance, Palin's responses made it clear that she embraces the essence of the "Bush Doctrine"-unrestrained American militarism.
Asked about whether the US had the right to carry out cross-border attacks against Pakistan, without the permission of that country's government-something that is already taking place on the orders of the Bush White House-Palin responded: "In order to stop Islamic extremists, those terrorists who would seek to destroy America and our allies, we must do whatever it takes and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target."
So emerges the Palin corollary to the Bush doctrine: go anywhere and target anyone, just don't blink.
On domestic issues, the combination of ignorance and duplicity continued to characterize Palin's responses. Asked about her recorded differences with McCain on global warming, she denied the existence of any such disagreements and asserted her belief that "man's activities certainly can be contributing to the issue of global warming, climate change."
Just last year, however, she faithfully echoed the line of the extreme right and the oil lobby, telling an Alaska newspaper, "I'm not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity."
Palin reiterated her well-known opposition to abortion rights, calling for the overturning of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision and stating her belief that abortion should be banned even in cases of rape and incest. While Palin described this view as her "personal opinion," Gibson made no attempt to press her on the fact that she favors merely a state-by-state approach to abortion, but advocates making it illegal everywhere, regardless of the sentiments of the pro-choice women she claimed to "respect."
Gibson asked her about the well-established fact that as the newly elected mayor of Wasilla she had pressured the town librarian about banning of books deemed unacceptable by the Christian right. Her denial-calling it "an old wives' tale"-was left unchallenged.
Significantly, what went entirely unexplored in the Gibson interview were Palin's extensive ties to the extreme right and Christian fundamentalism. There was no question about her relationship with the Alaskan Independence Party, which her husband joined and whose conferences she herself attended and addressed. The party, which calls for Alaska to secede from the United States, is an affiliate of the Constitution Party, an ultra-right electoral party whose program incorporates the outlook of a Bible-based fascism.
No question was asked about Palin's attitude towards dominionism, the doctrine of the Christian fundamentalist right that the US is a "Christian nation" and that all of its laws and institutions should be run according to Biblical law.
The only reference to Palin's religious-political views came in Gibson's question about remarks made to her church to the effect that the US troops fighting the dirty colonial-style war in Iraq are "on a task that is from God." Gibson asked her if she believed that the US is "fighting a holy war."
The candidate's improbable response was that she was merely echoing a statement made by Lincoln. While the Republicans regularly drag Lincoln's name through the mud, this is rather extreme, given his oft-stated contempt for organized religion.
Neither the media nor the Democrats have any interest in exposing this dirty secret of American politics, that the most significant popular "base" of the Republican Party-the most consistent defender of the corporations and finance capital-is composed of extreme right-wing and fascistic elements, including the most reactionary tendencies within Christian fundamentalism.
Under normal circumstances, Palin's ignorance of international relations and limited political understanding would have disqualified her for the vice-presidential nomination of one of the two main big business parties. The sole reason for McCain's choosing her as his running mate was the desire to "energize" this ultra-right base.
The Democrats have chosen to ignore this issue entirely. Nor have they issued any response to Palin's statements regarding war on Russia and Iran. Having embraced the "surge" in Iraq, Obama is running not as an antiwar candidate in any sense, but as the advocate of a more strategically thought-out and even more robust form of American militarism. As such, he has issued his own bellicose statements against Russia, Iran and Pakistan.
That Palin could even be considered as the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate is testimony not only to the extreme right-wing trajectory of this party itself, but also to the spinelessness of the Democrats and their inability and unwillingness to wage any serious attack on either the Republican Party or the ultra-right.
There are clearly some misgivings within the American ruling elite over this strategy and the pitfalls of having an individual like Palin a "heartbeat away" from a presidency occupied by a 72-year-old man with significant health problems. The Washington Post published an editorial on the interviews describing them as "unsettling." Her performance, the paper stated, was "not disqualifying, but it was also far from comforting."
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Listen to Sarah Preaching to Her Church
Is this a leader that we want for our VP or God forbid, president?
Palin Gives First Interview as GOP VP Nominee
Palin has appeared in her first interview since joining McCain’s ticket. Speaking to ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, Palin was pressed on foreign policy issues including the recent unilateral US attacks in Pakistan.
Charles Gibson: “Is that a yes, that you think we have the right to go across the border, with or without the approval of the Pakistani government, to go after terrorists who are in the Waziristan area?"
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin: “I believe that America has to exercise all options in order to stop the terrorists who are hell bent on destroying America and our allies. We have got to have all options out there on the table."
Palin was also asked about Russia’s recent conflict with Georgia over its two breakaway provinces.
Gibson: “What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?"
Palin: “They’re our next-door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”
Gibson: “You favor putting Georgia and Ukraine into NATO?”
Palin: “Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes, and Georgia. Putin thinks otherwise. Obviously, he thinks otherwise, but—”
Gibson: “Under the NATO treaty, wouldn’t we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?”
Palin: “Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is, if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.”
Charles Gibson: “Is that a yes, that you think we have the right to go across the border, with or without the approval of the Pakistani government, to go after terrorists who are in the Waziristan area?"
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin: “I believe that America has to exercise all options in order to stop the terrorists who are hell bent on destroying America and our allies. We have got to have all options out there on the table."
Palin was also asked about Russia’s recent conflict with Georgia over its two breakaway provinces.
Gibson: “What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?"
Palin: “They’re our next-door neighbors. And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska.”
Gibson: “You favor putting Georgia and Ukraine into NATO?”
Palin: “Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes, and Georgia. Putin thinks otherwise. Obviously, he thinks otherwise, but—”
Gibson: “Under the NATO treaty, wouldn’t we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?”
Palin: “Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is, if another country is attacked, you’re going to be expected to be called upon and help.”
Community Organizers Fight Back! The Sarah Palin Action Fund
http://organizersfightback.wordpress.com/
Community organizers across America, taken aback by a series of attacks from Republican leaders at the GOP convention in St. Paul, came together today to defend their work organizing Americans who have been left behind by unemployment, lack of health insurance and the national housing crisis. The organizers demanded an apology from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for her statement that community organizers have no “actual responsibilities” and launched a web site, http://organizersfightback.wordpress.com, to defend themselves against Republican attacks.
“Community organizers work in neighborhoods that have been hit hardest by the failing economy,” said John Raskin, founder of Community Organizers of America and a community organizer on the West Side of Manhattan. “The last thing we need is for Republican officials to mock us on television when we’re trying to rebuild the neighborhoods they have destroyed. Maybe if everyone had more houses than they can count, we wouldn’t need community organizers. But I work with people who are getting evicted from their only home. If John McCain and the Republicans understood that, maybe they wouldn’t be so quick to make fun of community organizers like me.”
Though many people are unfamiliar with community organizing, the job is both straightforward and vital: community organizers work with families who are struggling–because of low wages, poor health coverage, unaffordable housing, and other community problems–so that collectively, they can fix those problems and make government respond to their day-to-day concerns. Organizers knock on doors, attend community meetings, visit churches and synagogues and mosques, and work with unions and civic groups and block associations to help ordinary people build power and counter the influence of self-interested insiders and highly paid lobbyists at all levels of government.
Scorn for community organizers has been a prominent feature of this week’s Republican convention. On Wednesday, three Republican leaders mocked community organizers:
-Former Governor George Pataki said: “[Barack Obama] was a community organizer. What in God’s name is a community organizer? I don’t even know if that’s a job.”
-Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani said: “On the other hand, you have a resume from a gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a community organizer. What? [Laughter]…I said, OK, OK, maybe this is the first problem on the resume.”
-Governor Sarah Palin said: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.”
Community organizers were quick to fire back.
“I have ‘actual responsibilities,’” said Jacqueline del Valle, a community organizer in the Bronx. “If Mayor Giuliani and President Bush cared more about working people instead of just people who can hire high-powered lobbyists, maybe I wouldn’t have so much responsibility. Maybe working people would have an easier time in America today. But that’s not our reality, and they don’t have to mock us while we’re trying to clean up their mess.”
The community organizers launched a new web site, http://organizersfightback.wordpress.com, to defend themselves against Republican attacks. They emphasize that their work will be necessary as long as lobbyists have undue influence over American government and the economy continues to fail people who work hard and still struggle to provide for themselves and their families.
Community organizers across America, taken aback by a series of attacks from Republican leaders at the GOP convention in St. Paul, came together today to defend their work organizing Americans who have been left behind by unemployment, lack of health insurance and the national housing crisis. The organizers demanded an apology from Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for her statement that community organizers have no “actual responsibilities” and launched a web site, http://organizersfightback.wordpress.com, to defend themselves against Republican attacks.
“Community organizers work in neighborhoods that have been hit hardest by the failing economy,” said John Raskin, founder of Community Organizers of America and a community organizer on the West Side of Manhattan. “The last thing we need is for Republican officials to mock us on television when we’re trying to rebuild the neighborhoods they have destroyed. Maybe if everyone had more houses than they can count, we wouldn’t need community organizers. But I work with people who are getting evicted from their only home. If John McCain and the Republicans understood that, maybe they wouldn’t be so quick to make fun of community organizers like me.”
Though many people are unfamiliar with community organizing, the job is both straightforward and vital: community organizers work with families who are struggling–because of low wages, poor health coverage, unaffordable housing, and other community problems–so that collectively, they can fix those problems and make government respond to their day-to-day concerns. Organizers knock on doors, attend community meetings, visit churches and synagogues and mosques, and work with unions and civic groups and block associations to help ordinary people build power and counter the influence of self-interested insiders and highly paid lobbyists at all levels of government.
Scorn for community organizers has been a prominent feature of this week’s Republican convention. On Wednesday, three Republican leaders mocked community organizers:
-Former Governor George Pataki said: “[Barack Obama] was a community organizer. What in God’s name is a community organizer? I don’t even know if that’s a job.”
-Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani said: “On the other hand, you have a resume from a gifted man with an Ivy League education. He worked as a community organizer. What? [Laughter]…I said, OK, OK, maybe this is the first problem on the resume.”
-Governor Sarah Palin said: “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities.”
Community organizers were quick to fire back.
“I have ‘actual responsibilities,’” said Jacqueline del Valle, a community organizer in the Bronx. “If Mayor Giuliani and President Bush cared more about working people instead of just people who can hire high-powered lobbyists, maybe I wouldn’t have so much responsibility. Maybe working people would have an easier time in America today. But that’s not our reality, and they don’t have to mock us while we’re trying to clean up their mess.”
The community organizers launched a new web site, http://organizersfightback.wordpress.com, to defend themselves against Republican attacks. They emphasize that their work will be necessary as long as lobbyists have undue influence over American government and the economy continues to fail people who work hard and still struggle to provide for themselves and their families.
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