(no subject)

[fpb]

British media, including the supposedly conservative ones, are supporting Obama and (especially) hounding Sarah Palin, with a ferocity unknown even to their American counterparts, and looking more like the Daily Kos than anything, so to speak, human. This is appalling in itself, and may well end up being disastrous if by any chance McCain and Palin win. These creatures are planting poisonous ideas in the average British reader, which will take decades to weed away. And incidentally, it does nothing to disprove my view that at the roots of all serious modern political conflict in the West there is abortion; for the British media and establishment, including the so-called conservatives, are completely sold on the practice, and anti-abortion forces are marginalized to an extent unknown and hard to believe in Italy or America. This goes back a long time - Margaret Thatcher always voted in favour of abortion. Now, Sarah Palin, simply by being who she is, is a living rebuke to all the abortion-is-necessary crowd; and this explains the ferocious hatred and the avalanche of pathological lies with which this attractive, polite, competent female politician has been welcomed. Find me another explanation that makes sense! It also accounts for the complete silence that has been enforced on anything that might make Obama, the most pro-abortion candidate in history, look bad or even moderately dubious. It is not about race; if Judge Clarence Thomas were running for President, he would be treated like Palin has been. It is not even about party; if Condoleeza Rice had run and got the Republican nomination, you can bet your life that she would have had a much smoother ride than Palin. She, after all, has no children. You cannot underrate the power of repressed and concealed guilt feelings, crawling under the skin of all the career women who got rid of unwanted babies in order to please bosses and boyfriends, and indeed among all the men who were complicit in their crimes or even demanded them; when faced with a brilliantly successful career woman who not only had five children, but opted against aborting even the disabled one. (I don't suppose it helps that she is beautiful and looks ten years younger than her age. The sheer unfairness of the distribution of beauty is salt on any open wound, and the wound in question is painful enough in the first place.) Sarah Palin is a mirror who tells them the truth about themselves; and it is a truth that they cannot bear to see.

Comments

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

This, sir, was not an incredible outburst, by any stretch of the imagination, but as it behooves you to characterize me as hysterical or overwrought, then by all means, carry on.

The killing of millions of unborn babies is critical to me. What is not clear to me is how supporting a party that has done nothing to stop it, despite all their promises, will save a single life. If the sum total of your efforts to end abortion is to rally around a party that is manipulating your dream for political gain, I don't think you have much room to lecture me. The GOP, even if they have a President and two thirds majority in both houses, will never end abortion because it would mean an end to their base of power. Speaking of nakedly and brutally manipulative.

And for the record, I never said boo about Obama. You held Palin up as a shining light, and I called you on it. Asking what newspapers one reads is only brutally manipulative if the interviewer knows that the target doesn't read any, otherwise it's a slam dunk question for the interviewee. "Oh, I read Time and Newsweek and the Anchorage dailies, and the Washington Post and New York Times online." See how easy that was? Easy. She failed an easy test. She bricked a slam dunk. You can say all day that Couric goaded her into bad answers, but that doesn't make it true.

But hey, whatever makes you feel like you're doing something for the cause.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I did NOT hold Palin up as a shining light. I did say that the British media were murdering her and raising the already high tone of anti-Americanism into the process. If you insist on putting words into my mouth, you will have to go and do it elsewhere; I am fed up with partisan morons treating me as a mirror for their own insecurities.

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

when faced with a brilliantly successful career woman who not only had five children, but opted against aborting even the disabled one. (I don't suppose it helps that she is beautiful and looks ten years younger than her age. The sheer unfairness of the distribution of beauty is salt on any open wound, and the wound in question is painful enough in the first place.) Sarah Palin is a mirror who tells them the truth about themselves; and it is a truth that they cannot bear to see.

That's "shining light" talk.

Oh, and do read this. Wooten was investigated and reprimanded. The "tasing of an 11 year old" is not so nearly as horrifying as you'd choose to portray it. But keep trying. I'm sure, somehow, you'll be able to find a rationale that puts the weight of evidence on the other side, rather than Palin just using her power to settle scores.

I am not, by any means, a partisan moron. But, again, if it helps you to sleep better at night to think of me as such, then by all means, carry on.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

If you insist on using the same media I keep saying have done their utmost to demonize Palin as reliable and trustworthy sources, you will do nothing but confirm your partisanship. Of course they will want to cleanse the abominable Wooten; we would not want to imagine that Palin had any reason to complain, would we now? That would be unreasonable.

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

They were quoting and summarizing a report. That Wooten was not fired after an investigation is indisputable and not subject to "liberal media bias." That an investigation took place, that a report was filed, and so on and so on is indisputable.

If you would like to dispute that the use of the taser was aggressive or abusive, I'd be interested to see your sources. Irresponsible, no question, but no one seems to be stepping up with evidence that it was at all malicious.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. There was an investigation. And investigations are sainted objects with which nobody ever tampers and whose results are never set in advance to please lobbies (such as, say, the troopers' union). And I would raise pigs, but they keep sprouting wings and flying away. No matter what bromides the so-called enquiry used, this man used a taser on a child. End, in the eyes of any reasonable person, of story. And firm evidence that you are not being reasonable.

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

You're going a long, long way to try to say that Sarah Palin was impartial in a process that involved her own family. You've impugned journalists and peace officers with how much evidence, exactly? Seriously, can you back this up with anything?

According to the State Police report, Wooten used a fraction of the power of the Taser on his stepson, little more of a jolt than you'd get by licking a battery. Your effort to paint the incident in the starkest terms possible only demonstrates my point and frustration: your candidate's enemies can do no right, your candidate can do wrong. The essence of naked partisanship.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And you trust the State Police to investigate ITSELF?? Boy, do you have those bridges comin' to you.

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

I trust it a far sight farther than I trust you to know what the hell is going on from Britain.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Well, go on trusting it, then. Meanwhile, I am tired of this nonsense and declare this thread closed. You are welcome to insert any comment you think proper on your own blog, but mine will not receive them.

[blue-sky-day.livejournal.com]

Since you think the report is untrustworthy, I'm curious what inaccuracies or spurious claims you found in the report when you read it.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I do not accept the police investigating itself, on principle. Anyone who accepts it is a moron. End of discussion. And if you insist, just study the events about the murder of Jean Chafles de Menezes.

[blue-sky-day.livejournal.com]

*shrug* Suit yourself.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Let us take it in order. That Sarah Palin is beautiful is a fact. That she looks younger than her age, ditto (and is at the root of much of the patronization she has received). That she is a successful woman in her field is beyond argument - she rose from town councillor to state governor in eighteen years, which qualifies as success by anyone's standards. That beauty is unfairly distributed is a fact - think of all the wonderful ugly people out there. As for the statement that pro-aborts hate SArah Palin because of her testimony to their lies, that does not even bear on her at all, any more than the invention of a fabulous FPB who has nothing whatever to do with the person writing this has to do with me. If I am idealizing anyone, I am reverse-idealizing - demonizing, that is - the abortionist forces. None of this idealizes Palin. Success does not imply moral virtue; in fact, it has been said that "God's opinion of money can be seen by the kind of people He gives it to". Beauty, likewise, is wholly unrelated to any personal merit. I have said elsewhere that I do regard her as honest - perhaps too honest for her own good (someone less honest would not have entered the lair of a rattlesnake like Couric). I did not say it here, and you are simply putting words in my mouth. Or else so completely and utterly in thrall to the media that you are incapable to see what is obvious. It comes to the same thing anyway.

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

Honest?

"Which newspapers do you read?" "All of them."

ALL of them? All?? She replied to honest questions with verbatim talking points, when she wasn't floundering as with the above question. That is neither competent, nor honest. That is being a puppet.

For me to be honest, I would have to say that my media consumption is limited, at most. When I can, I watch raw CSPAN footage, or otherwise find the stuff presented in its entirety online. But, again, if you feel like you need to make stuff up about me to explain why two reasonable people might disagree, that is your problem, not mine.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You really do cling like grim death to one quotation from an obviously pawed about and viciously edited interview. Do you have any other arguments? BTW, I, too, read all the newspapers - meaning that I have no favourites and pretty much look at all the ones that reach me.

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

Sorry, chum. I watched the interview. That particular question and answer were not edited. They were walking backstage or something at a rally with a single camera that never cut away from them.

And yes, when it's obvious you have no rebuttal to it other than to bluster and blow smoke, it's fun to cling to it.

All the newspapers? So tell me all about Kwame Kilpatrick, if you would, if you are so well-read. Link some things you've read about him.

All the newspapers, indeed. What do you do with the three minutes that are left in your day, once you are done reading them all? They increasingly rely on wire services and such, but it's not gotten that bad yet that reading one is much like reading another.

And speaking of which, are the newspapers where you get your information on American politics, or do you have some other, sainted, unbiased sources?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You are talking as if I had not repeatedly criticized and attacked the Republican party, as if I had not pointed out their repulsive hypocrisy and their evident contempt for their own voters, as if I had not quarrelled with a number of REpublicans. You are so partisan that you cannot even begin to see beyond the party label, to realize that both McCAin and Palin have made their way as insurgents against the party establishment, that the party establishment hates both and has done everything in their power to destroy them, that they have destroyed the favoured establishment candidate (that sleazy deal-maker Mitt Romney, the man of a thousand faces) at the same time as they held at bay the creationist Huckabee (another person I am on record as criticizing severely). You are so scarily partisan and so scarily in thrall to media lies that you do not even seem capable of seeing the difference between a thoroughly pro-life ticket such as McCain-Palin - McCain having one of the strongest anti-abortion records in the Senate - and the most pro-abortion Senator in the whole Senate, a man who did not have any objection to the killing of babies born alive and who voted in favour of partial-birth abortion and against parental notification. Perhaps you did not even know that, so wholly in the grip of partisan passion you are. To you, a Republican, any Republican, will always and inevitably be wrong; a Democrat, any Democrat, will always and inevitably be right. And people complain when I curse and execrate the party spirit.

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

McCain would not have gotten the GOP nomination without the backing of the party elite. Period. They felt they needed to tack toward to the center from the beginning or they would not stand a chance in the general election. Palin was the acknowledgment that he had alienated too much of the party base (despite being, as you say, the most anti-abortion person in the Senate), especially among Evangelicals.

When Karl Rove goes on television and praises the hell out of Sarah Palin, when he had lambasted a Democratic candidate with a similar resume as being "too inexperienced," you know she and McCain have the backing of the party elite.

And for the record, I am a registered Independent, voted for Bush in 2000 and lambasted Kerry as a fool in 2004 (though I would vote for no one on account of coming home from Iraq to a different state than I left and not being registered in my new home--not that I would have voted for either one). In 2006 I voted for my state's Democratic Governor but our Republican Attorney General and Secretary of State.

Keep up with the ad hominem, though. It really casts you in a good light.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Bullshit. Have you even paid any attention? The Republican leadership pushed Romney like mad, and fought McCain every step of the way. They fought to have Romney as Veep when it became clear that McCain had won, even though the two men detest each other. The nomination of Palin was, among other things, a total defeat for the whole party leadership. And your use of Karl Rove as a kind of shorthand for Republican depravity is so typical of the dimmest kind of Dem talking point, it beggars belief.

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

I'll say it again: the McCain nomination was a strategic move by the GOP. If he had been capable of getting the nomination entirely on his own, without their blessing, he would have done so in 2000 when his "maverick" credentials were much less sullied by eight years of kowtowing to Bush and his appeal to the middle much stronger. In 2000, the party elite buried him, and they were more than capable of doing it again this year. But they looked at the polling, saw that McCain was the only hope for swaying the centrist 20% and went with him, with the full understanding that McCain was also, essentially, disposable. If he lost, he didn't hurt the chances of anyone else (like Romney) to take a shot at making the Dem winner a lame duck in 2012.

The Palin nomination was a cynical play for the evangelical vote, while also making a stab at the PUMAs in the Democratic Party who swore not to vote for Obama. She energized the base, which was otherwise looking like it might not show up at all for McCain (or, for that matter, GOP Congressional candidates, which is where the base is also badly needed for the GOP). Plus, she was a shock selection, generating much more conversation than Romney. I can't count the number of conversations that revolved around the notion that history would be made in the US no matter who won, and that's the kind of attention the GOP can't buy.

But seriously, who do you think makes up the party elite if not Bush, Cheney, and Rove? Who stands atop the party and pulls the strings, if not them? Where on Earth do you get your information, if not from the media whose bias you detest so much? Conservative online echo chambers?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

From someone who believes that the police investigating one of their own amounts to immaculate proof, this is a really remarkable display of cynicism. Bordering, in fact, on conspiracy theory. Which always appeals to very naive people.

[daveamongus.livejournal.com]

The ad hominems just keep rolling.

A political party is a conspiracy, by definition. Generally not an illegal one, but a conspiracy just the same.

Nothing?

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

Pres. Bush's judicial choices (barring the Meiers debacle, which boggles the mind) are all stout respecters of the constitution, having no truck with penumbras and emmanations.

So long as an unlimited right to an abortion, even a very late term one (which is an atrocity) is enshrined by the U.S. Constitution, no politican of any party can pass a law banning it.

To the extent that Republican governors and Presidents continue to propose judges who respect the U.S. Constitution, the Republican Party can be said to be "owned" by the far-right (i.e. the anti-abortion rights crowd). Because only then can Roe v. Wade be successfuly challenged by a Republican lawmaker.

To my shame, I am more exercised by the mutilation of our Constitution than I am by the culture of death. But there you are.

Re: Nothing?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I am sorry, but I declared this thread closed. And while your response certainly does not displease me, I have to have one law for everyone. Please do not post on this subject again.