[Peace-discuss] Sarah laughed to herself

Tue Feb 9 11:46:58 CST 2010

Or as they say in the Palin Drome, "AMOR = ROMA":

R adix
O mnium
M alorum
A varitia

I mean of course the new Rome, on the Potomac (where they buried the Tiber 
underground).  --CGE

E.Wayne Johnson wrote:
> This is a good point you make about Sarah Palin and
> it is accurate.
> 
> But I perceive the Palin mystique to be purposeful and contrived and 
> backed by deep pockets.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "C. G. Estabrook" 
> <galliher at illinois.edu>
> To: "John W." <jbw292002 at gmail.com>
> Cc: "Peace-discuss List" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> Sent: Monday, February 08, 2010 8:12 AM
> Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Sarah laughed to herself
> 
> 
> 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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