[Peace-discuss] Paul Street's Reflections on the Palin Nomination

[Brussel Morton K.]

Paul Street's take on Palin, and a Democratic response.

One Heartbeat Away: Reflections on the Palin Nomination


Sep 16, 2008 By Paul Street


Paul Street's ZSpace Page / ZSpace


"COUNTRY FIRST"

John McCain's selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the  
Republican Vice-Presidential candidate is one of the most  
transparently crass and cynical moves in United States political  
history.

"Country "First" was the white-nationalist rallying cry at the  
Republican Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota two weeks ago.


"WHAT WOULD SHE DO TO THE NATION?"

The slogan is coldly contradicted by McCain's chilling proposal to  
put a remarkably inexperienced, arch-secretive, vindictive, petty,  
distant, and ignorant politician one heartbeat away from the presidency.

Lyda Green is the Alaska state senate's Republican president.  She  
thought it was a prank when she heard that Palin had tapped for her  
party's presidential ticke. "She's not prepared to be governor.  How  
can she be prepared to be vice president?" asked Green, who comes  
from Palin's home town of Wasila. "Look at what she's done to this  
state.  What would she do to the nation?
(Cockerham and Loy 2008).

Green's concerns were richly validated by Palin's recent interview  
with ABC news anchor Charles Gibson, where she revealed amateurish  
misunderstanding of basic facts of U.S. policy and economic life (ABC  
News/Huffington Post 2008).


"WHERE'S SARAH?"

Here are some interesting reflections from a recent front-page Palin  
profile in the The New York Times:

"Since taking office in 2007, Ms. Palin has spent 312 nights in her  
Wasila home, some 600 miles to the north of the governor's mansion in  
Juneau...As state legislators debated one of her pressing priorities  
- a long-sought gas pipeline - some legislators became so frustrated  
with her absences that they took to wearing yellow 'Where's Sarah?'  
pins."

"Many politicians say they most often learn of her initiatives - and  
vetoes - from press releases, including her decision to veto $237  
million in programs from last year's budget."

"Mayors, from the state's larger cities to tiny cities along the  
southern fiords, are even more frustrated.  Often, their letters go  
unanswered and their pleas ignored, records and interviews show."

"Last summer, Anchorage mayor Mark Begich, a Democrat, pressed Ms.  
Palin to sit down, as his city was running short of state funds to  
operate its traffic lights.  At one point, records show, state  
officials told him the city should turn off a dozen traffic lights."

"Ms. Palin agreed to meet with him when he threatened to go public  
with his anger, sources with direct knowledge said."

"At an Alaska Municipal League gathering in Juneau, mayors across the  
political spectrum swapped stories of the governor's remoteness.  How  
many of you, someone asked, have tried to meet with her? Every hand  
went up, recalled Mayor Fred Sheilds of Haines borough.  And how many  
of you met with her? Just a few. Ms. Palin soon walked in, delivered  
a few remarks, and departed for an anti-abortion rally" (Becker,  
Goodman, and Powell 2008)

Speaking of Palin being "one heartbeat away" from the oval office,  
the Melanoma-afflicted "war hero" (shot-down and incarcerated for  
bombing Vietnamese women and children) John McCain, is 72 years old.   
If elected he would be the oldest U.S. president ever inaugurated.   
His father died suddenly from a heart attack at age 70 and his  
paternal grandfather did the same at 61.  The highly ambitious Palin  
would be in a very strong position to become president in the not-so- 
distant future.


"I COULD PULL THAT LEVER"

Some European observers will be puzzled that someone like Palin could  
be moved so close to the top of the U.S. political class overnight.  
But there's nothing mysterious about why McCain selected "Sara  
Barracuda" for those who understand the powerful role of evangelical  
Christianity, racism, and other atavistic forces in U.S. political  
culture. It's all about getting America's millions of white  
"Christian fascists" (Hedges 2007) on board with a presidential  
ticket that had not previously scored well with the religious right.

Palin is a passionate Pentecostal Christian who fiercely opposes  
abortion even in cases of race and incest.  She is a dedicated enemy  
of gay rights, sex education, environmental protection, and social  
justice.  She is pro-gun, pro-censorship, and pro-creationist. She is  
a messianic-militarist who has suggested that George W. Bush's petro- 
imperialist invasion of Iraq is "a task that is from God" (Johnson  
2008).  Palin recently sent her young Christian solider son off to  
the Holy Occupation of Mesopotamia on the seventh anniversary of the  
9/11 jetliner attacks - the events that Evangelical Warrior George  
the Second and Darth Cheney exploited to launch a New Crusade against  
Southwest Asia and the Muslim world.

Palin is an effective hit-lady who half-jokingly refers to herself as  
a "pit-bull with lipstick."  When she holds the stage and is not  
being put on the defensive by supposed "liberal" elites like Charles  
Gibson, Palin knows how to viciously attack liberals and Democrats  
below the belt.

These proto-fascistic attributes make Palin highly attractive to a  
critical part of the Republican coalition. The powerful U.S.  
religious hard right has had serious problems over the years with the  
insufficiently evangelical and pious McCain. "Conservative"  
evangelicals were threatening to sit-out the 2008 election,  
especially when the Democrats failed to nominate the far-right's She  
Devil Hillary Clinton and opted instead for a candidate who has gone  
out of his way to make nice with the religious right.

Palin has fixed this problem for the GOP. The leading Christian- 
fascist Ayatollah James Dobson (president of "Focus on the Family")  
has signaled his newfound readiness to get behind Mad Bomber McCain.  
"I would pull that lever" (for McCain-Palin) says Dobson, who earlier  
proclaimed that "I cannot and will not vote for Senator McCain."

This is no so small coup for McCain.  Four years ago, Dobson put his  
potent propaganda machine to work for a second Cheney-Bush term.  His  
efforts contributed significantly to Dubya's winning margin.  If  
McCain wins next November - a distinct possibility that has liberals  
shaking their heads and rolling their eyes - hard-right religious  
support will provide no small part of the explanation.


ARE OBAMANISTS READY TO RUMBLE?

There's more behind the Palin selection than a desire to energize the  
"conservative" religious base. The Republicans are trying to use  
gender identity politics to recruit female Hillary Democrats and  
independent women. The GOP is playing up Palin's "executive  
experience" (as a mayor and governor) and her supposed "working  
class" identity as part of their efforts to reach white workers and  
discredit the Democrats as elitist, do-nothing carpers. The  
Republicans are also using her "outsider" status and nontraditional  
(for presidential and vice-presidential candidates) gender to steal  
the aura of "change" and novelty that Obama's skin color and  
nomenclature have given the Democrats this year.

Will it work?  So far the Republicans have reasons to be ecstatic  
about the results.  I won't depress liberal and progressive readers  
with the latest polling data here, but it's becoming clearer every  
day (I am writing on September 15th) that momentum has shifted the  
Republicans' way.  The  dangerous and extremist GOP's presidential  
ticket has a serious chance of prevailing. Never mind the astonishing  
damage two straight hard-right Republican presidential terms have  
done to the country's domestic health and image abroad. Never mind  
that most Americans claim to prefer having Democrats in power and  
support policy positions that are closer to (actually to the left of)  
the Democratic Party.

The arch-reactionary shit lurking in the shadows of U.S. political  
culture has really hit the historical fan.  Warrior McCain has shown  
his true colors and his desire to win at all costs.  Look at his  
recent, deeply dishonorable television commercial absurdly accusing  
Obama of supporting comprehensive sex tutorials for kindergarteners!

Will the bourgeois Democrats overcome their historical reluctance to  
supplement their all-too marginally superior(from a left or true- 
progressive standpoint)policy positions with serious populist appeal  
and a willingness to fight? Do they want to win or are they content  
to nobly suffer yet another "undeserved" loss on the model of Gore,  
Kerry, Dukakis, and Adlai Stevenson?

McCain is vulnerable as a transparently elitist agent of plutocracy  
and arch-militarism.  He's vulnerable as a mentally unstable hothead  
with a legendary temper and as a decrepit, forgetful buffoon. He  
should be attacked as a reckless son of privilege (his father was a  
top military official) who graduated form the bottom five of his  
class at the Naval Academy and who almost died (in 1958) because he  
couldn't bother to read a basic  manual on how to eject in an accident.

There are serious problems that could be raised about McCain's "war  
hero" narrative, including the claims of some his fellow POWs that he  
received and enjoyed favored treatment as an admiral's son.

He should be savaged for picking a transparently unqualified vice  
presidential candidate who has cheered on a right-wing third party  
calling for Alaska's secession from the United States.

The Obamanists I know (including Obama) don't seem predisposed or  
equipped to wage the sort of sort of bloody battle that is required  
to effectively exploit these and other McCain-Palin weaknesses.

They would be well-advised to "man up." Take it from someone who  
lives in a contested and partly Red State: you don't just argue the  
issues with the Republicans and roll your eyes when they advance  
horrible positions. You have to beat them into submission and rip  
away at their flesh - like a Barracuda.  It's not enough to debate  
Republicans.  You have to kill them, so to speak.


Paul Street (paulstreet99 at yahoo.com), a writer and speaker based in  
Iowa City, IA, has been demystifying the Obama phenomenon on ZNet  
since July of 2004.  His latest book is Barack Obama and the Future  
of American Politics, order at www.paradigmpublishers.com/Books/ 
BookDetail.aspx?productID=186987
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