(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

[hobsonphile.livejournal.com]

I would respectfully submit to the interlocutor above that Sarah Palin currently has an approval rating in her native state that exceeds by more than 1000% the current approval ratings of both President Bush and the U.S. Congress. What can this suggest but that, in her gubernatorial capacity, Palin has accomplished enough to earn the approbation of her fellow citizens?

(I can already hear the rejoinder, though - something to the tune of "There's Nothing in Alaska" sprinkled with a generous portion of "Alaskans Are All Knuckle-Dragging Rubes" and "[Insert Phony-Baloney Palin Scandal Here]." If you want to pinpoint the source of the populist strain in GOP politics, this is it. Denigrating large swaths of the American population is the surest way to inspire ordinary people to be belligerently proud of their ordinariness.)

[calendae.livejournal.com]

Actually, speaking as an Alaskan, Palin has abused her power as governor for her own personal means and her approval rating, which has been as high as 80% in the past, has fallen rapidly with the last at about 63% as she allows the McCain campaign to interfere with Alaskan politics. If you don't believe it's an actual scandal, you don't know many Alaskans.

I believe also, there's plenty of people, like myself that are fine with her level of competence as governor in an admittedly unique and very small state, that don't believe that experience is at all transferable to a national stage.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

"About 63%".

An approval rating for which every other politician alive would prostitute their grandmother. It takes a considerable amount of nerve to treat that as bad news.

And I am guessing you did not vote for her in the first place.

More to the point, you ought to reflect on the level of insane anti-Americanism that is being fostered by the BBC and related animals. As an American, it ought to concern you whoever you vote for.

[calendae.livejournal.com]

Actually, I did. Her approval rating is directly linked to the fact that she came into the office of the governor directly on the heels of a governor with the worst approval rating ever, on a platform of open, transparent government. Her continually falling approval rating, of which the bottom has not yet been reached, is a direct result of her "Open, transparent" government promises not being kept. She was elected to keep out the "old boys" club and has instead started one of her own.

I think a Sarah Palin vice presidency would do very little to stop anti-Americanism, seeing as she is Bush part two in terms of knowledge level and policy-wise.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That is beside the point. My point is that the media in this country are using the made-up version of Palin invented by near-insane bloggers and repeatedly disproved by facts, ignoring the facts, in order to foster anti-American prejudice. The day you come here you will find out. It is sickening. As for the Bush III nonsense, if you think that you are past arguing with.

[calendae.livejournal.com]

As someone who has known Sarah Palin, much, much longer than the 5 weeks she's been in the international eye, I think I know much better what a Palin administration would look like. But if you want to think you know better because you've read opposing blog viewpoints, you're probably beyond arguing with too. :)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I have also known her for far longer than that. If you knew my blog, you would know that I have commented on the folly of the Obama campaign in being surprised at her choice and having nothing on her in advance - I had heard of her months before and checked her out.

The point that shows your total irrationality and your adhesion to the lie factory version of events is where you criticize her for putting her own people in positions of authority. What, in the name of Heaven and all the Saints in Paradise, do you suppose that a change of authority means? Did you suppose that she would just keep the same people in charge? Or obediently let the media (whose corruption makes the Corrupt Bastards' Club look like a convent of nuns, and which at any rate knew nothing about Alaska till five weeks ago) pick them for her, like they wanted to do for McCain? Or from the Democrat roster? You voted for change, but you evidently did not really stop to think for one minute about what change really means. No wonder the media have you where they want you.

[calendae.livejournal.com]

Hey, I don't think she was wrong for hiring people and putting her own people in positions of authority. My concern comes when she puts real estate agents in charge of multi-million dollar failing state dairy ventures whose only qualifications are that she loved cows growing up.

And you may have known her for months, but I've been living under her administration for 2 years. So, you know, more authority than you. :)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

But you have taken a position where you are only listening to her opponents, and which is clearly influenced by non-local considerations. I do not believe for a minute that you would be shocked by her appointments in the matter of a dairy - which, if I remember correctly, she shut down after six months when it was proved not to be workable - if John McCain had not called her to be his running mate in opposition to the Anointed One.

[calendae.livejournal.com]

That is a pretty big assumption to make. The Matanuska Maid Dairy was actually supposed to shut down until Governor Palin refused to accept the recommendations from the agricultural board and instead pour more money into a failing venture which she then had to close down 6 months later after appointing her friend as commissioner and wasting an additional $500,000 dollars of state money. So, yes, I was very concerned back then. This came on the heels of her dismissal of Monehgan (which I do not dispute, she had the right to fire him) and hiring of Charles Kopp as the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, who she had to let go ten days later (with a $10,000 severance package!) because of his history of sexual harassment. So, you know, I was pretty concerned months and months before her appointment as McCain's VP.

But that's what comes with actually knowing a candidate's experience and the players personally, not listening to just what they've heard from right-wing blogs. :)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

All right, I spoke without knowing your facts. I take back what I said about national reasons. However, I still say that if you are surprised by matters like that, you do not know what happens when power changes hands.

And I would suggest to you that I certainly knew more from such "right wing blogs" as Wikipedia than the average mass media consumer (or the Obama campaign) knew from network TV and establishment newspapers. To criticize my view without taking into consideration the avalanche of gross, basic, elementary lies that keep being repeated day after day by supposedly respectable news corporations whom people listen to is either evidence of partisanship or of inability to tell a mote from a beam.

Any further post will be unanswered for a while, because I have to go out now and will not be back for the rest of the day.