What I Want For Christmas: A Very Palin Wish

If I were suddenly confronted with the ghost of Christmas Present (always loved the implicit pun) and granted three wishes….wait, is that just for genies?… as soon as I convinced myself that I was not hallucinating, I’d tell him that I have only one wish: MAKE SARAH PALIN GO AWAY!!!

The only thing more distressing than putting up with Caribou Barbie is putting up with her frothing racist homophobe fundie fans. The Huff has a story up today about the new website erected in her honor. It isn’t just worrisome, it’s downright disgusting. This is the new face of conservativism? Some choice quotes from posters include:

When a blogger named James asks if anybody has bought the new Obama coins, SavantNoir responds: “[Y]es James, and i melted it down to see the look of agnoy on his face, made it a BB pellet and shot it into a pile of shit.”On one blog Heather describes Election Day as the “most terrible” in history and asks “how long until obama is shot??????” Josie responds: “There are plenty of people that would like to see Obama end that way.”

And about our new first lady?

Ava M: I have never actually HATED anyone in politics before now….She is stupid, mean, power hungry, manipulative, corrupt, essentially ignorant–a poster girl for Institutionalized Black Racism and Agression, a take-no-prisoners warrior for Political Correctnes aka Socialist Realism and a racially driven Communist fellow traveller. Let her go run an African country. She doesn’t fit in here with the American People.

I’m speechless. These are Christians, then? Christian sentiments? Michelle Obama IS American. She was born and raised here. She worked hard to get where she is. What is WRONG with you people? If anything, Michelle Obama has exhibited every trait Republicans insist Americans SHOULD exhibit: Hard work, dedication to her family and support of her husband. But because there’s a D after that husband’s name, she must be a “racially driven Communist”?

Conservatives, moderates, Fiscal Republicans, I have said it before, and I will say it again: It is time you took your party back. The nation needs the conservative party like a car needs a good set of brakes, to rein in the excesses of Dems. If you do not do this and do it soon, your party is doomed to be no longer the Grand Old Party, but God’s Own Party, fueled by hate and ignorance and directed by extremists like Sarah Palin. For the sake of all you hold dear… drop her and drop her now.

Michelle Obama and the Separatist Movement of Illinois

It’s interesting how certain things affect our consciousness, isn’t it? The wife of a prominent politician of the Democratic party, and a separatist organization bent on political and physical secession of their state from the union. Chances are, if you’re thinking about this and you support Obama, you don’t believe the two have any relationship whatsoever. Chances are, if you support “anyone BUT” Obama, you’re now desperately hoping they do.

Let me relieve you all of your suspense. There is no such relationship. To my knowledge, there is no such group in Illinois. Why did I bring up such an inflammatory subject? As a thought experiment. Allow me to explain.

In another blog entry, I explained that we are all, whether we like it or not, in some small way…bigoted. We all harbor negative feelings of “the other.” Whether it’s racism, sexism, homophobia, nationalism, religion…. we all have those feelings and thoughts, and we all respond to them either consciously or unconsciously. It’s an evolutionary tool called “tribalism.” Anyone not of our tribe is initially feared, rejected. Recognizing that, questioning it and being honest with ourselves about its existence goes a long way toward eliminating it. But people KNOW racism/sexism/etc. are bad, so their first knee jerk reaction is “NOT ME!!” To which I reply: “everyone.”

Sorry. I’m keeping you waiting. I have been flummoxed of late. People who claim to love this country to the point of fighting for it, waving flags for it, sacrificing for it, and loathing those who say a word against it….are embracing a candidate whose spouse was, until very recently, part of a fringe political organization whose purpose was the physical secession of their state from the union. No, it was not Michelle Obama. Nor was it Cindy McCain. It was Todd Palin, and up until 2002, he belonged to Alaska’s separatist movement. You are now having a reaction to that. Depending on several things, you are outraged, chagrined, defensive, or exasperated (because you’ve heard it to death).

And if you’re exasperated because you’ve heard it to death… can you then explain to me why…back up there when you so hopefully clicked open this blog entry…you WANTED to believe the same about Michelle Obama? And why it would not, regardless of reasons, been okay for her to have done the same? If it isn’t racism…so be it. But it’s at the very least “other,” under the header “liberal.” And that’s at least as bad, because you just torpedoed your own ethics and principles and justified them away for a candidate you know next to nothing about. All to make sure a “liberal” doesn’t win.

Ethics and personal principles shouldn’t be that easily sold to any political party.

Letting go of Palin

The time has come, the Walrus said, to speak of many things….

For a couple weeks now, the neocon faithful have been giggling like school girls on meth that Karl Rove’s tactic to use Sarah Palin as the GOP poster child has worked. And it has, brilliantly. Dems have been completely thrown off message by John McCain’s running mate.

Fortunately, Sen. Obama has recovered fairly quickly. Whether the rest of the party responds is yet to be seen, but it cannot be stressed enough: Sarah Palin is not important. No, really. She isn’t. Slimy she may be, and Dick Cheney in a skirt…but she isn’t important. John McCain is the candidate on whom we should be focusing. He’s so desperate to keep us from focusing on him, he’s giving us this shiny thing (Sarah Palin) to look at…and we’re doing it. Why?! We need to knock it off. It’s time to let it go.

Repeat after me: Sarah Palin is not important. Yeah, I know, but it’s true. She isn’t. The only thing Sarah Palin represents is John McCain’s total cluelessness when it comes to female voters. Time we went back to what this election is supposed to be about: beating John McCain. That’s easily doable.

Why Palin is All You Hear About, or Is That You, Karl?

Has anyone noticed that we’re not really hearing from or about John McCain anymore? Just his “handlers.” We don’t really know what his campaign is about; everyone is too wrapped up in all the juicy details and lies about his supposedly “fiscally conservative” running mate. Can it be you’re not wondering why yet?

The answer is fairly simple. Karl “Fart Blossom” Rove, Machiavellian slimeball extraordinaire, is playing no small part in the McCain campaign. As I predicted back when he “retired”, there was simply no way the man would be able to stop himself from returning for the presidential race. Rove is many things; stupid is not one of them. He’s well aware that the best way to lose this election would be to allow John McCain to run on the issues. What he needed was a running mate. One who could capture the heart of the American conservative base (aka: sheeple) while reeling in some of the disenfranchised middle. Enter Sarah Palin.

Really, it was a stroke of brilliance on Rove’s part, one which woke me up to the fact that McCain has now completely abandoned his core principles. There is no way John McCain would have harped about Barack Obama’s lack of experience for months and months and then turned around and chosen someone so completely lacking themselves. But John McCain is no longer calling the shots. In desperation, he swallowed what was left of his pride and turned to the man who, with lies and distortions, torpedoed his 2000 presidential run.

In return, Rove has delivered. I’ll say this for the man, he knows what people want. An uplifting, heartwarming story. A pretty, plucky small town girl working her way up from beauty queen to reporter to politician, all while raising a family (the Down’s Syndrome kid must’ve been what sold it). Make sure she’s an outsider, so the “maverick” label will stick. Any character flaws or issues can be waved away as “sexism,” thanks to Hillary, or “elitism” thanks to Pat Robertson.

As a result, we have been concentrating on Sarah Palin. Who won’t even be president, should she and McCain be elected. John McCain has sold out every standard and principle he once held for himself and himself alone. He has aligned himself with the people he once denounced, although those people have not changed.

Let us be clear. Karl Rove does not care about the country, about the people his candidates claim to want to help, or about ethics, responsible government or transparency. Karl Rove couldn’t bring himself to care about anything but winning.The fact that the evangelical base has forgotten all about the false promises of Rove of 2000 and 2004 (remember way back to 2006? Y’all weren’t all that happy with the man.) and have duped themselves into believing it all over again. Fool me once, shame on you…fool me 200 or so times, just shoot me, I’m too stupid to live. The fact that these same people are actually lining up to be fooled says something about the American right that I don’t even like to look at too long for fear it’ll rub off.

If Barack Obama has been paying attention at all for the past eight years (and I have to assume he has, although you never know), he will NOT underestimate the depths to which Karl Rove will sink. And he’s going to have to do something that, thus far, he has tried to stay above. He’s going to have to fight fire with fire. It’s going to be ugly, it’s going to get very, VERY dirty. But no less than the fate of our country hangs in the balance. And in the end…Karl Rove needs to be tried for treason.

Americans Questioning Religion in Politics

According to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal, fewer conservatives believe that religion has a place in government.

Four years ago, just 30% of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50% of conservatives express this view.

The new survey finds that conservatives’ views on this issue are much more in line with the views of moderates and liberals than was previously the case. Similarly, the sharp divisions between Republicans and Democrats that previously existed on this issue have disappeared.

There are other signs in the new poll about a potential change in the climate of opinion about mixing religion and politics. First, the survey finds a small but significant increase since 2004 in the percentage of respondents saying that they are uncomfortable when they hear politicians talk about how religious they are — from 40% to 46%.

This holds a great deal of significance. The poll was taken prior to Sen. McCain’s announcement of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Will these numbers change now that the evangelical base is appeased? Do fiscal conservatives still feel evangelicals have too much say in their party?

It has long been the contention that in order to gain the presidency, one must be conspicuously religious. I find it encouraging that the right is starting to recognize the drain fundamentalists are wreaking in their party. Moderates who would otherwise have voted Republican are either joining the Libertarian or Democratic parties or simply not voting. Too often, public and fiscal policy with which they disagree is instituted, and out of a sense of party loyalty, they feel the need to support it.

Fiscal conservatives….small-government Republicans: Take your party back! We need good conservatives in office, just like a car needs a good set of brakes, to keep the social programs from excess. Balance is important in our political system; those checks and balances are there for a reason. We have many, many problems. It’s time to put the religious ones aside and concentrate on making our country stronger. We have two wars, and are currently in a fiscal spiral. Whether or not we remember God every day is not a governmental issue. It’s a private one. We need to stop wasting time on it.