Advertisement
My Blog
Blogs > jeffpilot > I Am Not The Barber Of Seville
I Am Not The Barber Of Seville
  
If Liberals really hated America, we'd all vote Republican.

I don't promise to know what I'm talking about.

Your indulgence is requested & appreciated.

Rightwingers, please burn no crosses on my lawn Sundays.
Title View |
R. F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast: the GOP has already stolen the 2008 election Oct 18, 2008 7:54 am
506 Views
This may explain why thousands of U.S. troops have quietly been moved back here for purposes of "crowd control." See excerpt from Army Times article below the Rolling Stone piece.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Kennedy, Palast: 2008 vote already stolen

From Rolling Stone magazine

Investigation by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast released today Don’t worry about Mickey Mouse or ACORN stealing the election. According to an investigative report out today in Rolling Stone magazine, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, after a year-long investigation, reveal a systematic program of "GOP vote tampering" on a massive scale. -

## Republican Secretaries of State of swing-state Colorado have quietly purged one in six names from their voter rolls. Over several months, the GOP politicos in Colorado stonewalled every attempt by Rolling Stone to get an answer to the massive purge - ten times the average state's rate of removal.

## While Obama dreams of riding to the White House on a wave of new voters, more then 2.7 million have had their registrations REJECTED under new procedures signed into law by George Bush. Kennedy, a voting rights lawyer, charges this is a resurgence of 'Jim Crow' tactics to wrongly block Black and Hispanic voters.

## A fired US prosecutor levels new charges - accusing leaders of his own party, Republicans, with criminal acts in an attempt to block legal voters as "fraudulent."

## Digging through government records, the Kennedy-Palast team discovered that, in 2004, a GOP scheme called "caging” ultimately took away the rights of 1.1 million voters. The Rolling Stone duo predict that, this November 4, it will be far worse.

There's more:

## Since the last presidential race, "States used dubious 'list management' rules to scrub at least 10 million voters from their rolls." Among those was Paul Maez of Las Vegas, New Mexico - a victim of an unreported but devastating purge of voters in that state that left as many as one in nine Democrats without a vote. For Maez, the state's purging his registration was particularly shocking - he's the county elections supervisor.

The Kennedy-Palast revelations go far beyond the sum of questionably purged voters recently reported by the New York Times. "Republican operatives - the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics," report Kennedy and Palast, under the cover of fighting fraudulent voting, are "systematically disenfranchis[ing] Democrats."

The investigators level a deadly serious charge: "If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat McCain at the polls - they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering." "Block the Vote" by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast in the current issue (#1064) of Rolling Stone.

Note - Kennedy and Palast are releasing, simultaneously with the Rolling Stone investigative report what they call, the vote-theft 'antidote': a 24-page full-color comic book, Steal Back Your Vote, which can be downloaded or obtained in print from their non-partisan website, StealBackYourVote.

************

From the Army Times:

Brigade Homeland Tour begins Oct. 1

3rd Infantry’s 1st BCT trains for a new dwell-time mission. Helping ‘people at home’ may become a permanent part of the active Army

By Gina Cavallaro - Army Times Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Sep 30, 2008 16:16:12 EDT

The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.

Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.

Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.
16 Comments
Committee to prosecute Bush revs up Oct 15, 2008 2:12 pm
388 Views
Committee To Prosecute Bush Revs Up

By Sherwood Ross

Massachusetts law school Dean Lawrence Velvel will chair a Steering Committee to pursue the prosecution for war crimes of President Bush and culpable high-ranking aides after they leave office Jan. 20th.

The Steering Committee was organized following a conference of leading legal authorities and scholars from the U.S. and abroad convened by Velvel on Sept. 13-14 in Andover, Mass., titled “The Justice Robert Jackson Conference On Planning For The Prosecution of High Level American War Criminals.”

“If Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and others are not prosecuted,” Velvel said, “the future could be threatened by additional examples of Executive lawlessness by leaders who need fear no personal consequences for their actions, including more illegal wars such as Iraq.”

Besides Velvel, members of the Steering Committee include:

Ben Davis, a law Professor at the University of Toledo College of Law, where he teaches Public International Law and International Business Transactions. He is the author of numerous articles on international and related domestic law.

Marjorie Cohn, a law Professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, Calif., and President of the National Lawyers Guild.

Chris Pyle, a Professor at Mount Holyoke College, where he teaches Constitutional law, Civil Liberties, Rights of Privacy, American Politics and American Political Thought, and is the author of many books and articles.

Elaine Scarry, the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University, and winner of the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism.

Peter Weiss, vice president of the Center For Constitutional Rights, of New York City, which was recently involved with war crimes complaints filed in Germany and Japan against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others.

David Swanson, author, activist and founder of After Downing Street Coalition, of Charlottesville, Va.

Kristina Borjesson, an award-winning print and broadcast journalist for more than twenty years and editor of two recent books on the media.

Colleen Costello, Staff Attorney of Human Rights, USA, of Washington, D.C., and coordinator of its efforts involving torture by the American government.

Valeria Gheorghiu, attorney for Workers’ Rights Law Center.

Andy Worthington of Redress, a British historian and journalist and author of books dealing with human rights violations.

Initial actions considered by the Steering Committee, Velvel said, are as follows:

# Seeking prosecutions of high level officials, including George Bush, for the crimes they committed.

# Seeking disbarment of lawyers who were complicitous in facilitating torture.# Seeking termination from faculty positions of high officials who were complicitous in torture.

# Issuing a recent statement saying any attempt by Bush to pardon himself and aides for war crimes prior to leaving office will result in efforts to obtain impeachment even after they leave office.

# Convening a major conference on the state secret and executive privilege doctrines, which have been pushed to record levels during the Bush administration.

# Designation of an Information Repository Coordinator to gather in one place all available information involving the Bush Administration’s war crimes.

# Possible impeachment of 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jay Bybee for co-authoring the infamous “torture memo.”
13 Comments
Breaking News: Osama Bin Laden's corpse found in postman's basement Oct 10, 2008 1:11 pm
492 Views
Corpse of Osama bin Laden found in "disgruntled" N.J. postman's basement.

In a turn that could radically alter the 2008 election, the body of notorious terrorist Osama bin Laden was discovered today in the basement of a Newark, New Jersey, home owned by a postman described as "disgruntled" by Postal Service authorities. They said a huge amount of undelivered mail was also found.

Reached at his campaign headquarters, a furious Republican presidential candidate John McCain said, "That's a clever liberal trick, my opponent hiding and playing possum like that. I told you you couldn't trust that one, that Senator Osama or Obama or Joe Mama or whatever stupid name he's calling himself now." An energized McCain then kicked his press secretary in both shins.

Republican vice presidential candidate and avid hunter Sarah Palin had taken the day off to slaughter a herd of baby seals. Repeating a pattern familiar to reporters, Palin was not available for comment.

In a joint statement, President Bush and Vice President Cheney said the discovery of bin Laden's body showed they had been right about everything all along. Both men said it was unwise to replace what they called "the most successful White House team in history--us." They called on John McCain and Barack Obama to suspend their campaigns and support a third Bush-Cheney term.

Vice President Cheney attributed the apparent misdirection of bin Laden's body to "faulty intelligence." This was the same cause Cheney had blamed for Bush's mistaken 2003 Iraq invasion. The invasion failed to discover WMDs, the reason given by the White House for invading in the first place.

Questioned about this claim by reporters, Cheney angrily explained, "Damn right it was faulty intelligence. By stashing Osama in his basement, that retarded @#$% of a postman made us lose Congress in 2006. Look at McCain's poll numbers. Now that idiot bastard's about made a Muslim president."

Cheney concluded his remarks by commenting that with regard to the upcoming third Bush-Cheney term, he liked Cheney-Bush better than Bush-Cheney, but that he was eager to be "reasonable" about it all.
13 Comments
Beware the Big Bad October Election Surprise.... Oct 7, 2008 2:04 pm
530 Views
The Surprise is coming, the Surprise is coming!

Today, the day of the second Presidential Debate, John McCain's campaign appears to be in trouble. With the country's attention riveted on economic troubles, Barack Obama leads or is tied with McCain in some crucial battleground states:

OH: Obama 50%, McCain 47%
NC: Obama 49%, McCain 49%
WI: Obama 51%, McCain 46%
NH: Obama 53%, McCain 45%

McCain leads in Indiana, 51% to Obama's 46%. But for now, four weeks to the day before the election, the wind is at Obama's back.

In Electoral College projections, the Democratic Party leads the Republican Party 298 Electoral votes to 185 Electoral votes. To win the presidency, a candidate needs 270 Electoral votes.

These are the biggest leads yet attained by either of the candidates. And it's the Republican Party's biggest obstacle yet in its quest to hold the White House.

Suddenly, McCain is cratering. He always sounds pissed-off. People don't trust him on the economy. He kinda looks like he died last Wednesday.

What can our Self-styled Maverick War Hero Republican candidate do to fix this? (Side question: Does a true maverick or a true war hero go around telling everyone he's a maverick and a war hero, like McCain does? Isn't that supposed to obvious?)

McCain will engineer an October Surprise. That's right. He'll jerk our minds off the economy and stick 'em right back where they belong. On scary hairy Muslims coming to kill us in our sleep. Or on the golf course. At Walmart. On the crapper. Anywhere at all, any time of day or night.

How's he gonna do that? Easy. McCain and his Republican pals will make sure something scary like a terrorist attack or a military confrontation happens somewhere in the world shortly before the election. You should believe they can do this because they can.

Think that sounds crazy? Wait and see.

This Scary Event probably won't happen in the U.S. That could backfire on McCain and the Republican Party. They're the ones who keep telling us if not for them we'd all be dead already. So, nix to any actual terrorist attack in the U.S., because it'd make the Repugs look bad. They're trying to scare us into voting for them, not for Obama. Same as they've scared us for the past 8 years into voting for George W. Bush, a semiliterate fratboy who had no more business being president then than McCain has now.

Not surprisingly, Bush and Cheney will be happy to use the U.S. military and intelligence services to help McCain pull it off.

The last Presidential Debate is next Wednedsay, October 15. After that date, stay tuned.

Sometime, maybe during the third or fourth week of October, there'll be Breaking News. Probably but not certainly from some far-off place. There'll be a Sudden Emergency. I don't know exactly what kind of Sudden Emergency. But a terrorist or military related Sudden Emergency, another instant, unexpected, Terrifying Event that leaps up out of nowhere.

BOO!!

That'll be your cue to go vote for McCain. And vote yourselves another four years of Republicans and their lies and their oil wars and their institutionalized robberies. Another four years of darkness exactly like we've had for the last eight.

In the immortal words of Sarah Palin at last Thursday's debate, Say it ain't so, Joe....

If Election Day comes and no October Surprise shows up, then I'm wrong. You can tell me I'm wrong, and you'll be right. But take a look at McCain's suddenly plummeting poll numbers. In the big scheme of stuff, even Sexy Sarah Palin and Her Big Loud Garbagemouth don't seem to be helping.

Tell me McCain doesn't think right now he's gonna need a big stroke of good luck to win this thing.

And you know what they say....

They say, People make their own luck.
15 Comments
McCain, Palin & Violent Rhetoric: Republican crowd threatens Obama's life Oct 7, 2008 11:10 am
559 Views
As Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin promised us, the McCain campaign's gloves came off yesterday in Florida. Deepening Republican anger over John McCain's expected election loss to Barack Obama is exploding into outbursts and threats.

From the HuffingtonPost. For the original piece, see Dana Milbank's column at the Washington Post site. (that's washingtonpost dott U-Know-What)
-----------------------------------------------------------------

I say those Republicans who threatened Obama yesterday at the Florida Palin rally should immediately have been taken into Secret Service custody. What do you think?

-----------------------------------------------------------------
McCain Campaign Amplifies Violent Rhetoric, GOP Crowds Threaten Obama's Life

by Jeffrey Feldman

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank reported an incident at a Palin rally that should open America's eyes to the central role violent rhetoric now plays in the McCain campaign. Milbank describes how Palin told the crowd in Florida that Obama has close associations with a terrorist who sought to bomb the Pentagon and the U.S. Capital, in response to which the crowd responded with a threat on Sen. Obama's life:

*****

"Now it turns out, one of Obama's earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers...And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" Palin continued.

"Boooo!" the crowd repeated.

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

*****

Palin went on to say that "Obama held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers's living room, and they've worked together on various projects in Chicago." Here, Palin began to connect the dots. "These are the same guys who think that patriotism is paying higher taxes -- remember that's what Joe Biden had said. "And" -- she paused and sighed -- "I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America, as the greatest force for good in the world. I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as 'imperfect enough' to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country."

Palin's new rhetorical strategy signifies an alarming new development in the 2008 Presidential election, and one that has been not only been documented by such high profile newspapers as the Washington Post, but confirmed by the McCain campaign itself.

"It's a dangerous road, but we have no choice," a top McCain strategist recently admitted to the Daily News. "If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we're going to lose."

The 'dangerous road,' however, is not just a generic attack on Sen. Obama's trustworthiness or honesty. Rather, the McCain campaign has chosen to stand before campaign rallies and accuse Sen. Obama of hiding sympathies with domestic terrorists--to accuse their opponent, essentially, of being a terrorist.

With the McCain campaign now using the Palin stump speech to accuse Sen. Obama of hiding a terrorist agenda, the McCain campaign has staked its future on rhetoric that skirts the boundary between character assassination and incitements of actual violence against their opponent.

Meanwhile, while McCain is not yet accusing Obama of terrorism in his own stump speech, the crowds at his rallies are.

In a recent video clip from MSNBC, McCain asked a rally, "Who is the real Barack Obama?" In response to McCain's rhetorical question, a voice from the crowd can be clearly heard to shout in response, "Terrorist!"

Since the start of the election campaign well over a year ago, voters have been subject to ongoing smear campaigns in emails and push polls accusing Sen. Obama of ties to and sympathies with domestic and foreign terrorist groups. No matter how many times these smear campaigns have been exposed, they continued. Now that John McCain and Sarah Palin have echoed these accusations--the idea that Sen. Obama is secretly a terrorist has the stamp of approval of a presidential campaign, but of a multi-term U.S. senator and a U.S. governor.

One wonders at this point how the various agencies charged with the responsibility of protecting the Presidential candidates from violence will respond to this latest tactic from the McCain campaign. If, for example, a McCain supporter threatens the life of Sen. Obama by shouting 'Kill him!' at a Palin rally, should Sen. Obama's Secret Service contingent launch an investigation? Having been accused of terrorist ties by the McCain campaign, will Sen. Obama's name be put on the 'No Fly' list, effectively making it impossible for him to engage in normal airline travel?

An even more basic question, perhaps: Is Gov. Palin trying to incite violence against Sen. Obama as part of an ill-conceived campaign strategy to change the topic from the economy at any cost?

Time will tell how law enforcement will respond, but one thing is already certain: the more Palin and McCain incite calls for violence against Sen. Obama, the more their chances of achieving a victory in November disappear.
25 Comments
Is VP candidate Sarah Palin saying humans and dinosaurs coexisted OK with you? Sep 30, 2008 11:09 am
909 Views
The italicized section is an excerpt from a Los Angeles Times news story.

"Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct -- the teacher said.

"After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students in June 1997, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said, he asked the young mayor about her religious beliefs.

"Palin told him that 'dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time,' Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said 'she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks,' recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska."

The idea of a 'young Earth' -- that God created the Earth about 6,000 years ago, that dinosaurs and humans coexisted early on, and that Satan placed fossils on the earth to drive humans from faith in God -- is a popular strain of creationism."

Palin says she's seen "pictures of human footprints inside the [dinosaur] tracks." So what? That's easy to explain. I watched "The Flintstones" and I bet you did too. Any idiot knows unless he wanted a house full of dinosaur crap, Fred Flintstone had to take his pet dinosaur Dino out for a walk now and then. Obviously, Sarah saw pix of some gen-yoo-wine Fred Flintstone and Dino footprints.--JP

But seriously,

Question: Do these fundamentalist beliefs being held by Sarah Palin as she runs for vice president and asks you to place her in position to assume the U.S. presidency and possibly to declare war and order the launch of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, make you less likely to vote for the McCain/Palin ticket?
Yes.
No.
36 Comments, 44 votes
Governor Bambi McMooseburger versus Miss Teen South Carolina! Sep 26, 2008 12:34 pm
592 Views
I'm not making this up. Both of these are real quotes. The object of this poll is to match each gem of wisdom with the genius what has done said it.

Question: Which quote is from a somewhat confused and flustered Alaska Governor Bambi McMooseburger, who is potentially the next Vice President of the United States, and which quote is from a similarly confused and flustered Miss Teen South Carolina, who is dumb as a box of rocks?

Quote #1:

That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in.... But ultimately, what [it] does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh — it’s got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This ... is a part of that.

Quote #2:

I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh…people out there in our nation don’t have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and…I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., err, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children.
Quote #1 is from Miss Teen South Carolina
Quote #2 is from Governor Bambi McMooseburger
Quote #2 is from Miss Teen South Carolina
Quote #1 is from Governor Bambi McMooseburger
God help us all.
God doubly help S.C. They may wind up with them both.
Can the veep be impeached for not knowing s**t from apple butter?
What this country needs is a good ejection seat.
16 Comments, 29 votes
US Senator Sanders Sep 23, 2008 12:27 pm
447 Views
This is an open letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders. The letter includes suggestions for how any Wall Street bailout bill might help protect U.S. citizens from being stolen blind by corporate crooks. Actually, we've already been stolen blind by corporate crooks. To be more accurate, Sanders' letter includes suggestions on how we might avoid being stolen blind again by these er, individuals.

Bernie Sanders is an Independent U.S. Senator from Vermont. He is neither a Republican nor a Democrat. In my opinion, Sanders is one of the very few good guys in big-time U.S. politics.

This letter appears on Senator Sanders' website and is available for co-signing by members of the public. Including you, if you'd like to sign it. SFF will delete this post if I write out his full web address. To get there, just go to Google and type U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in the search window.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Open letter to Treasury Secretary Paulson
by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

Dear Secretary Paulson:

As a representative of the Bush Administration, you have proposed a financial bailout program of $700 billion – over $2,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. We are appalled that your proposal puts the cost of this bailout on average Americans; that it contains no provisions reversing failed deregulatory policies; that it allows executives at these failed institutions to continue to make exorbitant salaries and bonuses, and that your proposal contains no help for average Americans who themselves are facing severe economic hardships.

While the Administration has quickly rallied to help Wall Street, it has ignored the needs of the declining middle class. Since President Bush has been in office the wealthiest people in this country have made out like bandits and have not had it so good since the 1920s. The top one-tenth of one percent now earn more income than the bottom 50 percent of Americans and the top one percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. Incredibly, the richest 400 people in our country saw their wealth increase by $670 billion during the Bush presidency.

Having mismanaged the economy for 8 years while continually insisting that, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong,” the Bush Administration, six weeks before an election, wants the middle class of this country to bail out Wall Street to the tune of one trillion dollars. Meanwhile the wealthiest people, those who have benefited most from Bush’s policies and are in the best position to pay, are being asked for no sacrifice at all. This is absurd.

Any plan to clean up the mess on Wall Street must:

1. Ensure that middle income and working families are not the ones who are paying for this bailout by

--Imposing a five-year, 10 percent surtax on income over $1 million a year for couples and over $500,000 for single taxpayers. That would raise more than $300 billion in revenue over five years;

--Ensuring that assets purchased from banks are realistically discounted so companies are not rewarded for their risky behavior and taxpayers can recover the amount they paid for them; and

--Requiring that taxpayers receive equity stakes in the bailed-out companies so that the taxpayers’ assumption of risk is rewarded when companies’ stock goes up.

Taken together these three provisions will substantially reduce the likelihood that this bailout will end up on the backs of average American taxpayers.

2. Include a major economic recovery package which puts Americans to work at decent wages. Among many other areas, we can create millions of jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and moving our country from fossil fuels to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Further, we must protect our must vulnerable families from the very difficult times they are experiencing.

3. Repeal the disastrous de-regulatory legislation that facilitated this crisis.

4. End the danger posed by companies that are “too big to fail,” that is, companies whose failure would cause systemic harm to the U.S. economy. If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. We need to determine which companies fall in this category and then break them up.

In closing, we believe it is appropriate to act quickly to address any systemic danger to our economy. But that does not mean that we need to give a blank check to the financial sector.

Sincerely,

Senator Bernie Sanders

&

Citizen Co-Signers
14 Comments
After the economic meltdown, you still want to privatize Social Security? Sep 19, 2008 1:33 pm
392 Views
Well, do you?
Yes! Them Republican deregulator heroes are the salt o' th' earth.
No! Them Republican deregulator jerks is doing what Hitler, Stalin and bin Laden couldn't.
Dunno nuthin' bout no Social Security. But I bet bin Laden is tickled watching America dissolve from within.
Hey! Didju hear that Hershey's took the cocoa butter outta most of their candy bars?
What economic meltdown? I dropped my contact lenses.
2 Comments, 13 votes
Obama and the Palin Effect Sep 9, 2008 3:21 pm
624 Views
Deepak Chopra (Hindi: दीपक चोपड़ा; born October 22, 1946) is an Indian medical doctor and writer. He has written extensively on spirituality and diverse topics in mind-body medicine. Chopra says that he has been influenced by the teachings of Vedanta and the Bhagavad Gita, as well as by Jiddu Krishnamurti, and by the field of quantum physics. Deepak Chopra has had a profound influence on the New Thought Movement that has embraced him in America.
-------------------------------------------------
Obama and the Palin Effect
by Dr. Deepak Chopra

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin’s pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and turning negativity into a cause for pride. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of “the other.” For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don’t want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.) I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin’s message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision

Look at what she stands for:

Small town values — a nostaligic return to simpler times disguises a denial of America’s global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
Ignorance of world affairs — a repudiation of the need to repair America’s image abroad.
Family values — a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don’t need to be needed.
Rigid stands on guns and abortion — a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
Patriotism — the usual fallback in a failed war.
”Reform” — an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn’t fit your ideology.

Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from “us” pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of “I’m all right, Jack,” and “Why change? Everything’s OK as it is.” The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness

Obama’s call for higher ideals in politics can’t be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow — we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.
22 Comments
1 2 3 4 5 ... 10 ... 23 24 25

To link to this blog (jeffpilot) use [blog jeffpilot] in your messages.
58 M
Guidelines
November 2008
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
            1
 
2
  		3
  		4
1
5
1
6
  		7
1
8
 
9
  		10
  		11
  		12
  		13
  		14
1
15
 
16
  		17
  		18
  		19
1
20
  		21
1
22
 
23
  		24
  		25
  		26
  		27
  		28
  		29
 
30
  		           

Recent Visitors
VisitorAgeSexDate
Chicka2006 60F12/3
arabella5959F12/2
SunSet222 62F12/1
LiberalArts63F11/30
Poetdancer_ 49F11/28
mtman4u 69M11/25
RickySpin01 58M11/24
bigmig52 56M11/22
DrsVandB76/76C11/20
Roxy194662F11/20
Most Recent Comments by Others
PostPosterPost Date
GOP faithful like Palin, Romney, Huckabee for 2012Poetdancer_Nov 28 6:58 am
Texas grand jury indicts V.P. Cheney and ex A.G. Alberto GonzalesPoetdancer_Nov 20 9:49 pm
Stuff George W. Bush should regret but probably doesn'tPoetdancer_Nov 20 9:33 pm
Finally, an elected president...howjeffpilotNov 14 6:49 am
Breaking news: Palin once greeted McCain staffers dressed only in a towelbigmig52Nov 7 5:55 pm
McCain headed to defeat that marks the end of the Republican erajeffpilotNov 5 12:34 pm
Palin a "Whack Job," top McCain advisor saysjeffpilotNov 4 11:47 am
Banks hoarding bailout money, buying smaller banksCatlady1943Oct 30 10:49 am
Republicans: please read here what General Powell said about Barack Obamachomsky88Oct 26 2:15 pm
Breaking news: Will the next Joe the Plumber be YOU?ThunderBirdWomanOct 23 11:17 pm
R. F. Kennedy Jr. & Greg Palast: the GOP has already stolen the 2008 electionjeffpilotOct 22 11:22 am