The Politcal Rancor of Sarah Palin

The political conventions have concluded, our long national nightmare of eight years in which among many other things our country was attacked, a surplus from the previous administration was turned into an insurmountable deficit, a crime against peace was committed by waging war with a sovereign nation based on deceit and deception, the constitution was violated repeatedly, our civil liberties were further eroded, terrorism became an acceptable method of treating prisoners, our economy is in a shambles and yet no one was held accountable.

After two years of campaigning to lead this country the surviving candidates from the two major parties now claim the mantel for “change” which I must presume means changing the politics as usual which is in large part responsible for our present day decline from leader of the free world to rogue nation. The 2008 election provides us with an opportunity to really change politics as usual or prefer more of the same while calling it change.

One of the reasons provided by the McCain campaign to explain the selection of Sarah Palin as his VP choice was that she represented “change” yet when she ridiculed Sen. Obama’s experience as “community organizer” I was disappointed, disturbed and rankled to rant and rail against “the big lie” that the McCain/Palin represents any substantive “change” from the politics as usual that of divide and conquer.

To be sure “the big lie” is supported by little white lies that when they get repeated often enough become “the truth” like John McCain is the original maverick yet you can’t find “maverick” and John McCain in the same sentence prior to the mid 90s not to mention that his selection of Sarah Palin hardly added to his maverick status by caving in to the Christian Conservative base and other little lies like Sarah Palin telling Congress no thanks to the millions of pork barrel for building a bridge to nowhere yet she got the money, the bridge didn’t get built and she still has the money.

When I saw the response of hysterical applause and shit eating grins from the sheepeople in the Republican herd to that which could be considered hate speech it occurred to me that if eighty percent of the country believes we are headed in the wrong direction the only rational basis to explain why Palin’s speech was so well received is the same rational basis for describing why the poles indicate a much closer election for only those who do not know, are unaware or ignorant of what a “community organizer” does could applaud such a demeaning and truly elitist position.

For those who didn’t already know community organizing is a process by which people are brought together to act in common self-interest. Much community organizing is in the pursuit of a common agenda e.g. coordinating programs of different agencies so as to best meet community needs for health and welfare services. In addition many community organizers seek populist goals and the ideal of participatory democracy. Community organizers create social movements by building a base of concerned people, mobilizing these community members to act, and developing leadership from and relationships among the people involved.

They also facilitate self-help programs initiated by local common-interest groups, for example, by training local leaders to analyze and solve the problems of a community. Among other things a career as a community organizer is an option for people who want to become politicians, make a difference, are concerned about political issues or social inequities, and are interested in community solutions and empowering people.

So just what did Palin find so contemptuous about “community organizer” that she publicly mocked it and to wild ovation no less by those nasty little ignorant minds in attendance? Was it the concept of “common self-interest”, “populist goals…meeting the community needs for health and welfare” that outraged her or perhaps “concern about political issues or social inequities” or was it “participatory democracy” or “empowering people” that offended her provincial palate? Palin’s contempt for democratic principles was delivered without shame.

Whether she wrote the speech or not that she was more than comfortable reading it should cause concern for those who intend to vote in this election because Sarah Palin was using the same repugnant appeal to fear and ignorance that the Republican Party utilized to seize power during the Nixon/Agnew years and as recent as 2004 by using old videos of Osama bin-Laden.

At the very least Palin’s speech or more accurately the speech which someone else wrote for someone else to read from a teleprompter was extremely condescending not just to Barak Obama but to all fellow citizen that her party’s presidential candidate is claiming to be reaching across the aisle to work together and claiming to put country first with a straight face.

Indeed Gov. Palin’s words were those of the partisan rancor which John McCain embraced on stage all week in Minnesota the same sort of partisan rancor that he now wants to end. Why does the press appear to be so timid in his presence that they fail to point out the dangerous hypocrisy of an ideologue that runs a campaign based on fear and ignorance and thereby participates directly or indirectly in the partisan rancor that is characteristic of the politics of division?

After Palin’s speech if John McCain was really against partisan rancor don’t you think he would have called her on it? The reality is the 2000 McCain Straight Talk Express has in 2008 become the arrogant Bullshit Express in 2008 where this thin skinned media created maverick and war hero with an air of superiority is offended that the free press would actually dare ask him a relevant yet uncomfortable question about his selection of Palin.

The truth is the McCain/Palin ticket isn’t even different from the Nixon/Agnew Administration that used fear and ignorance to divide the American people with their southern strategy. Her verbalized contempt and disdain for the media, the intellectual elite and her ridicule of community organizers was less colorful but no different than Sprio Agnew’s description of the opposition as “an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals”.

Just as the power seized by the Republican Party in 1968 was based on divide and conquer today’s Republican Party seeks to maintain that power for them and theirs by continuing to divide and conquer the rest of us as evidenced by the constant ad-hominem attacks and blaming the press as messenger while providing absolutely no viable policy solutions that will unite this country to address a weakening economy and fix a foreign policy predicated on preemptive strikes to seize the natural resources of countries and claim it’s in our national self interest.

The John McCain and Sarah Palin ticket doesn’t really represent anything new. It’s the same old divisive politics of playing on people’s fears and ignorance that’s been characteristic of the Republican Party for the last 40 years. Indeed there were no policy solutions to be offered by any Republican speaker at their convention for those who are living from paycheck to paycheck, or trying to get student loans, or trying to make ends meet etc.? When it uses fear and ignorance to maintain and extend its political power it represents more of the same divide and conquer approach that supports the status quo.

When eighty percent of the public believes that this country is headed in the wrong direction choosing McCain/Palin will be an historical testament to the ignorance of the American electorate and compel the cynic to more fully appreciate Franz Kafka’s observation that “there is hope but not for us” should that ticket of frauds convince the public to accept the comfortable lie that they represent the “change is coming” rather than the uncomfortable truth that the party of inolerance represents more of the same politics of partisan rancor as usual that divides us through fear and ignorance while claiming to do it for God and country.