Credit: Sylvia Karl-Marquet from the art collection of (O)CT(O)PUS
Our media is again abuzz with non-stop crapola, and this time the subject is Sarah Palin’s latest book, Going Rogue. I prefer to avoid talking about Sarah Palin as I prefer to avoid talking about pneumonic plague or Pain-in-the-Neck-Beck, Cayenne Coulter, Gumbo-Limbaugh, and other vile creatures of the reactionary fringe. These loudmouth louts deserve no clout, no stage upon which to spout their reactionary stupidity.
Yet, mainstream media, and the liberal community especially, continues to fall sucker to blather and prattle. Why do we always bestow the legitimacy of public attention upon a lunatic fringe that deserves nothing more than to be marginalized to the bottom of the Sargasso Sea?
If there is at least one interesting thread amongst the hullabaloo, it is this article by Andrew Sullivan (h/t to Michael) who rains the blame mainly on McCain:
The only reason we even know about Sarah Palin is John McCain. He picked her so carelessly, and his thought process was so cynical, that he should stand in the dock of public opinion before Palin does.
Cynical, feckless, and reckless, the choice of Sarah Palin was an opportunistic move to grab dispirited Hillary voters and appeal to the radical fringe of the GOP while raising to national prominence a VP candidate who represented the very opposite of women’s aspirations.
From the beginning, the God-Fearing, Wolf-Shooting, Caribou-Barbie, Soccer Mom from Wassila was anti-choice, anti-environment, anti-healthcare reform, anti-rights, anti-science, anti-everything but not against fear mongering, pandering, and demogoguery. Sarah Palin is no more analogous to Hillary Clinton than Clarence Thomas would be considered a worthy successor to Thurgood Marshall.
How quickly we forget this website, Women Against Sarah Palin, and the tens of thousands of voices who reacted bitterly to the nomination of Sarah Palin, such as Texas Mom who said:
Thank you, Gov. Palin, for being the ideal example of how maliciousness, pettiness, manipulativeness, and viciousness can hide behind an appealing, friendly smile and look and sound a lot like people you can trust.
Yet, here we are a year later. McCain/Palin lost the election, Alaska has a new governor, but Sarah continues to hack like a bad case of chronic bronchitis. A year later, look at the Hobson’s choice that has been forced upon us: A Healthcare reform bill with a Stupak amendment … all because we forfeited control of the public debate to Sarah and her teabagging rabble. Nice going!
Anti Intellectualism is alive and well...it also stands tall in the figure of Sarah Palin.
ReplyDeleteShe is going to be involved in Presidential Politics just like Harold Stassen was....
To McCain she was just a cynical ploy on his part to pander to a base and realistically that is all she will ever be within the Republican Party....of course her supporters will be to focussed on screaming at the top of their lungs to notice that she and they are being used.
What you really need to be focussing on is why can't the Democrats develop such a following? With all the people without healthcare and or who want healthcare reform why are there no marches for this?
Where are the teabag marches for justice, against the wars, for equal rights, for fairness in our economic system?
Its because intellectuals have allowed themselves to be painted into a corner where economic justice is socialism, where justice is being soft on terrorism, where being anti war is being anti American, and where equal rights leads to pedophilla and beastalisty.
Why can't the democrats tap into the same emotionalism that the reactionary right has? Why can't democrats talk about America as the country of hope, the shiny city on a hill?
Obama appealed to this emotionalism with the concept of Change and Hope....
You would think that the democrats would realize that...that they would realize that Obama represents to them the same thing that Reagan represented to Republicans...
Has any liberal attempted to make the argument that healthcare reform will save us money and make us more competitive? Has any liberal made the argument that our court system is JUSTICE and exactly what we promised the terrorists they would get once we went after them?
No, liberals have allowed the puppets of the right entertain the public and take center stage...
It might help to back away from unions and talk to people....it might help to quit looking at every things as special interest groups and rather talk directly to the public...
That is the biggest difference between Reagan and Obama...
Have you seen the news? Harry Reid grew a spine and put a stronger public option in the Senate bill.
ReplyDeleteAll the Teabagger Fail accomplished was delay, which does not guarantee victory and often multiplies defeat.
Octopus:
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on most of what you said. I disagree that talking about the right gives them an undeserved degree of exposure. The idea I have is that we should ridicule their ridiculous ideas, which is to say, virtually their entire platform.
Sarah Palin is a venal hack who makes Harold Stassen look like a statesman by comparison.
"Why do we always bestow the legitimacy of public attention upon a lunatic fringe"
ReplyDeleteI don't think we do. Like much if not all of popular culture, it's something we buy and the round-the-clock opinion shouters are selling it like junk food. It's Fox and CNN who "went rogue" and sold us the idea that roguery is attractive.
Nowhere else on Earth does she get attention.
Ridicule and mockery are the best weapons to use against poseurs like Palin and Beck.
ReplyDeleteThere will always be a portion of our population that is transfixed by personalities that are like Xmas tree ornaments: shiney and pretty on the outside; nothing on the inside.
There was a time when Heckle and Jeckle were a pair of cartoon characters, not candidates for the highest office in the land. As you can surmise from the tone of my post, I am fucking tired of the ignorati bringing ruin and shame upon us. Instead of sitting behind our computers, perhaps we should be out in the streets matching teabaggers shout for shout ... and more if necessary.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget Flotsam and Jetsam.
ReplyDeleteCan I match them shout for shout while floating in the pool? Do they give Senior discounts at the sign store and can I get back in time for the early bird special?
Up the revolution! (oy, my back)
Captain, shall I order an armored wheelchair with handicap access and a Gatling gun?
ReplyDeleteI hope I'm still a few decades away from the wheelchair, but as soon as I'm back from the chiropractor I'll be ready to be a revolution of one.
ReplyDeleteI'll fight them in the bingo parlor, I'll fight them at the shuffleboard court and I'll get that wascally wabbit - - um just what was the revolution about?
I think I'll take a nap.