[Peace-discuss] Sarah laughed to herself

Mon Feb 8 08:12:22 CST 2010

I think in fact it's simpler.  The question is, Why do liberals respond with 
such fury to Palin?

The answer seems to be her class background (and her gender).  If a man with the 
right class indicators (Harvard Law school, say) were saying what she does, it 
would hardly be noticed.  But she doesn't know her place, as would be said in a 
more honest class system than ours.

And she thereby raises the one topic unmentionable in US politics since the 
drafting of the Constitution, a topic finally more dangerous to the Republic 
than slavery: class.

James Madison said the point of the government devised for the US was "to 
protect the minority of the opulent against the majority." At the end of 50 
years of increasing and accelerating concentration of wealth, which brings us 
back to the levels of 1929, Sarah Palin threatens the comfortable liberal 
ascendancy in the US with the specter of social revolution.

Maybe they should be scared.  --CGE

John W. wrote:
> 
> I don't see why the reaction to Palin is such a profound mystery.  My 
> problem with her is this:
>  
> 1) She's unbelievably ignorant and uninformed, and almost seems to revel 
> in her ignorance in the finest traditions of American 
> anti-intellectualism.  At the same time, she's not really a populist, 
> but only pretends to be one.  You're probably more of a populist than 
> she is, Carl.
>  
> 2) By extension, anyone who would vote for her or take her candidacy for 
> the highest office in the land even remotely seriously is unbelievably 
> stupid, and/or unbelievably unconcerned about the future of our nation.
>  
> 3) Since so many people seem to take Palin seriously, one is 
> discouragingly reminded of how many truly stupid people there are in the 
> United States.
>  
> Trust me, Carl....it doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.
>  
>  
>  
>  
> On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 11:28 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu 
> <mailto:galliher at illinois.edu>> wrote:
> 
>  
> 
>     [My political opinions are anarchist - or if you prefer libertarian
>     socialist - in the tradition of Rudolf Rocker and Noam Chomsky.
>     They're related to the sort of thing Lenin attacked in "'Left-Wing'
>     Communism: An Infantile Disorder" (1920). (For an account of the
>     position in relation to 20th-century authoritarian socialism, google
>     "The Soviet Union versus Socialism.") So I'm not much impressed by
>     Roger Kimball's politics.  But he's on to something here, viz. why
>     it is that liberals are driven so nuts by Sarah Palin, a point I
>     continue to find interesting and even significant. It can't be
>     Palin's political ideas in themselves, such as they are; so he's
>     right to look for something else. --CGE]
> 
> 
>            Roger's Rules - http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball -
>            Small earthquake in la-la land, or, Why is Sarah Palin Smiling?
>            Posted By Roger Kimball On February 7, 2010
> 
>     There is a great story about the journalist (and Communist) Claud
>     Cockburn [FATHER OF ALEX & BROS. --CGE] that while working at The
>     Times in the 1920s, he won a competition for devising the most
>     boring headline that actually made it into the paper. His winning
>     entry: “Small Earthquake in Chile, Not Many Dead.” According to
>     Wikipedia [1], the story is apocryphal, but I long ago placed it in
>     the sacred category of “too good to check.” Besides, when I first
>     heard it, Cockburn won the competition while at The Observer, even
>     though (as far as I know) he never worked there.
> 
>     Anyway, notwithstanding the veracity of the story, I find myself
>     often reminded of it. Just today, for example, when a friend sent me
>     a piece on Sarah Palin from the Huffing and Puffing Post, sometimes
>     known as the Huffington Post. It’s by Stefan Sirucek, “independent
>     journalist and foreign correspondent,” and bears the arresting title
>     “EXCLUSIVE (Update): Palin’s Tea Party Crib Notes [2].”
> 
>     So what startling revelation does Stefan Sirucek, International Man
>     of Mystery, impart?  Why, that Sarah Palin, when she delivered her
>     speech [3] to the National Tea Party Conference last night had
>     actually scribbled a few words on her left palm.
> 
>     Stop the presses!  What a scandal. According to HufPo’s  intrepid
>     reporter, Palin’s notes to herself are ominous, ominous:
> 
>        Closer inspection of a photo of Sarah Palin, during a speech in
>     which she mocked President Obama for his use of a teleprompter,
>     reveals several notes written on her left hand. The words “Energy”,
>     “Tax” and “Lift American Spirits” are clearly visible. There’s also
>     what appears to read as “Budget cuts” with the word Budget crossed out.
> 
>     “Budget cuts”?  Crossed out? Tell me it isn’t so. If HufPo’s answer
>     to Carl Bernstein is to believed,
> 
>        This would mean:
> 
>        A) That she knew the questions beforehand and the whole thing was
>     a farce. (Likely.)
> 
>        and
> 
>        B) That she still couldn’t answer the previously agreed-upon
>     questions without a little extra help.
> 
>     Where do we start?  First of all, President Obama’s addiction to the
>     teleprompter is eminently worth mocking. The teleprompter breaks
>     down, so does the President [4]. He apparently can’t even address
>     sixth-grade school children [5]without the device. (Even Jon Stewart
>     [6] made fun of that.)  Second, pace our ace reporter, the fact that
>     Palin jotted some notes on her hand does not mean that  “she knew
>     the questions beforehand” or that “the whole thing was a farce.”
>     Nor, since we don’t know whether the questions were agreed upon
>     beforehand or not (and what if  they were? So what?),  does it mean
>     that she “still couldn’t answer them . . .  without a little extra
>     help.”  What the notes do mean is that she prepared for the session
>     and thought to remind herself of something. In other words, good for
>     you, Sarah.
> 
>     The hatred and contempt lavished upon Sarah Plain, from certain
>     conservatives as well as from the Left, presents a dispiriting and,
>     to me, hard-to-fathom spectacle. That is, I understand that the Left
>     would regard her as a political threat and would therefore dislike
>     her. But why the contempt? And why the contempt (and hatred) from
>     the Right? I have several times explained why I admire Sarah Palin
>     [7]. Please note that I did not say I want her to run for the
>     Presidency. But what (a locution that comes up often among her
>     admirers) a breath of fresh air she is! Here you have a woman from a
>     working-class background who, by dint of her own energy and
>      ambition, becomes Governor of her state—a good Governor, too, by
>     all account not tainted by The New York Times. She espouses good
>     conservative principles: self-reliance, fiscal responsibility, a
>     strong national defense. And, on top of all that, she is a
>     courageous and loving mother to a passel of children.
> 
>     What’s not to like?  That she chose to keep and love a Down Syndrome
>     child? That sets the teeth of many on edge, I know, though they are
>     loathe to come right out and admit it. Granted: She’s not a lawyer.
>     She’s not from the Ivy League. She’s not part of the Washington
>     Establishment. Heavy liabilities, what? I acknowledge that her
>     performance in front of Katie Couric and other barracuda-like
>     interviewers was poor, embarrassing even. But put that and all the
>     other charges in the scale on one side, then put her virtues on the
>     other: which side wins out? Stefan Sirucek thinks he can simply
>     indite the name “Sarah Palin” and all right-thinking (that is,
>     left-leaning) people will scoff and hold their noses. Maybe they
>     will. But the aroma of rancidness and decay you sense is not
>     emanating from Sarah Palin’s side of the aisle. The question is,
>     when will the left-wing commentariat notice that the winds of
>     opinion, to say nothing of the winds of political energy, have
>     changed decisively against them? Scott Brown should have told them
>     something. But Scott Brown was an impossibility. Or so they told
>     themselves.
> 
>            ###
> 
> 
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