A friend of mine posted a link on her Facebook page last week that showed the above photos. On the same day as Sarah Palin's ghostwritten "memoir" is released, another book full of newspaper editorials about Palin from a variety of writers will also be released. This can't be good news for Sarah Palin, since the titles are similar, as are the cover photos. Because Palin seems to attract "low information voters" as her fan base, they are likely to confuse the two and pick up the wrong book. What's a Palinista to do?!?
My friend (Tamara) inspired a debate with this. Or maybe my comments did, because it provoked comments from the lady (Cindy) I knew from church who de-friended me on Facebook a few months ago for what she calls my "toxic" criticisms of Bush, Cheney, and Palin. She had no time for "negative energy" in her life. Only one other lady (also a church member) on my Facebook friends list has also complained about my liberal comments. It makes me laugh because everyone else just lets it go if they disagree. I have a diverse range of friends. One guy posts at least ten anti-religious article links a day. I mostly skip over his stuff. I don't understand why these two conservative ladies who criticized my comments can't do the same. It tells me that they can't tolerate any idea that goes against what they believe.
When I was in the Navy and at BYU, I heard nothing but anti-Clinton and anti-Gore talk from everyone else. I would listen to the criticisms for any useful information or else ignore the more outrageous critiques. Some criticisms had merit and were worth looking into. I'm not a blind follower of anyone. I love balance. I think it says a lot about a person who can't deal with hearing criticism of the leaders they follow. This debate (which I included below) makes me think of what Barbara Ehrenreich said at the booksigning on Thursday. Some people can't stand to hear anything that they consider "negative" that they prefer to lock themselves in some happy bubble that bounces back negative news. Bush was notorious as a finger in the ears, blah-blah-blah-I-can't-hear-you, child. And we are living with the results of someone who could not deal with a reality that resulted from his making decisions that were based on neo-conservative fantasies that had nothing to do with the truth.
On the 2012 Draft Sarah Committee on Facebook, one devoted Palinista made me laugh by her exuberant claims that she knows the reason why Palin quit the governorship. She wrote that Sarah knows where the oil is hiding beneath the Alaska tundra and will reveal the location and thus save our country from having to import any more Middle Eastern oil! When I read that, I could not believe the depth of ignorance and devotion this lady had to the beloved Quitter Queen. It truly is a cult among Palinistas! When I mentioned that Palin had quit her job at Alaska Oil and Gas, I was told by another Palinista to "go away!" They aren't interested in the truth. They just want to live in their fantasy world that Sarah Palin will manage to do for them what Bush and Reagan failed to do. What could that be? I'm thinking that they want nothing less than a full scale culture war, with liberal casualties, until America becomes a Christofascist dictatorship with Queen Sarah as the ruler of all!
Over my dead fucking body!!!
The Palinistas are stricken with the belief that anyone who criticizes Sarah is "afraid" of her, which only makes them love her even more. Cindy (as you'll read below) mentioned the fear that liberals supposedly have of her, which tells me that she's a Palinista herself. To be fair, Cindy is a spiritual woman and I like her. But there is a reason why I never spoke politics with her. My parents told me who all the Republicans at the Atlanta North Community of Christ congregation are, so I never talked politics with any of them. So, not many of them knew that I'm a loyal, liberal Democrat. Not just any kind of Democrat, but in the mold of Paul Wellstone, Russell Feingold, Howard Dean, and Barbara Boxer. And proud of it!
It saddens me to see people in our church duped by the demagogues of the right. If they understood the ulterior motives of the people they support, I don't think they would be supporting them. Or if they would, even after learning the truth behind the motives of the rightwing demagogues, they should be asked to leave the church. I know that's a harsh thing to say, because our church is truly open to all and that's the way it should be.
However, what these conservative church members seem to ignore about rightwing demagogues is that the underlying dream for our country is a full scale Christofascist government, with a conservative, evangelical Christianity as the state religion. Reading what some of the leaders of this movement want, you would think that they were members of the Taliban. They advocate the U.S. Constitution to be replaced with the Ten Commandments, that the verses in Leviticus would be the rule of law. They would stone to death homosexuals, women who have abortions, liberals, atheists, humanists, adulterers, fornicators, and basically everyone who does not live a repressive, ultra-conservative lifestyle.
That's not a country I want to live in. That's not a country Jesus would advocate as the ideal. I don't think most members of my church would like that kind of country either. Especially since conservative evangelicals consider our church to be a cult. We would be on the list for a deadly stoning.
Sarah Palin grew up in the Assemblies of God church but attends an evangelical mega-church now that is part of the "Dominionist" movement, which believes literally in the end-times prophecies of the Book of Revelations. That means apocalypse, rapture, tribulation, the Anti-Christ, and the mark of the beast. In other words, crazy ass shit. We've seen the dangers involved when a president (who has the nuclear access codes 24/7!) believes in doomsday prophecies that precede Jesus's return. Bush supposedly told French President Jacques Chirac that he needed to join the coalition to oust Saddam from Iraq because God told him to invade Iraq. Bush also supposedly told evangelical televangelist Pat Robertson that God told him that there would not be a single American casualty in Iraq.
Sorry...but if your religious views lead America into disasterous wars of your choosing, you don't belong in the seat of power. Because Bush violated spiritual laws, it wasn't a surprise to me that his presidency was an epic failure. The law of karma is reality, whether one believes it or not. Your actions will always come back to you sooner or later. The quote I love that sums up karma is: "First you create the experience, then you experience the creation." So if you create chaos, devastation, pain, and death, it'll come back eventually. If you create peace, tranquility, cooperation, and life-affirming policies, you'll reap the rewards of that.
In the Facebook debate, I kicked it off by asking Tamara (who lived in Alaska during Palin's first year as governor) about the rumours that I keep reading about on several anti-Palin blogs.
Nicholas:
So...did she fake her pregnancy?
I was not there I don't know and I don't care.
Its an issue with some people...because if she wants to run for national political office, it does matter. I thought you might have heard such stories when you were up in Alaska. I've been reading a lot of strange things about her lately. Someone should give her a reality show as a consolation prize, just so she can stay out of politics.
Oh, of course, I heard the gammut of rumors about Trig and I do think she will resurface to run for Pres or something. I think she is most likely underground so she can become "educated" honestly, however, that isn't going to help her foreign policy, but then again Obama didn't have much foreign policy under his belt either. It's hard to say what her game plan is right now. Only serpents hide under rocks... that's all I know.
Tamara, I guess you haven't picked up any rocks lately... and aren't there snakes that live in trees ( a boa comes to mind )??
All I can say is the Liberals must feel really threatened by this woman or else they would not spend so much time trying to destroy her. She isn't even in public office but is still under attack! Why can't she just live her life and raise her children like everyone else?
I don't think disagreeing with the things she says in public is necessarily 'destroying her'.
Cindy, liberals AND moderates are not threatened by this woman ( her approval rating is less than 30% ).She seems to self-destruct so why bother to attack her! Believe me she doesn't raise her children like everyone else! Parents of a child with Downs Syndrome KNOW what to do and the major factor is the child must be with the mother for the first 3 years of it's life... not having Mom running around the country opening her mouth to prove how stupid she is! The fact she was flying in a jet in the last stage of her pregnancy says it all ( and odd she kept her pregnancy a secret... you are not suppose to be in a pressurized cabin flying for one ).
Sorry, just don't think anyone has earned the right to judge her lest you have never done anything wrong or stupid in your life! If you haven't then, fine, pick up the stone. . . . .
I do think it is funny, Cindy, that she was the one that said she didn't want anyone talking about her children and yet at every phot op she had her children on her hip and at her side, but don't talk about them. On the campaign trail you hardly ever, ever saw Obama's girls. Quite the contrast. I am not saying she got what she deserved, but she has burned a lot of bridges and she is the one who lit the match.
I don't think she ever claimed to be perfect, either. Nobody deserves to have their life under a microscope for the whole world to see----I think you would agree. and I just think if we spent less time pointing out other people's faults, there would be more hope for the Kingdom to come here on earth.
Cindy, what about when Palin goes around the country accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists", telling her loyal fans that he's "not American" like they are, and that Obama plans to set up "death panels" to kill grandma and her special needs people like her son? She reaps what she sows.
Palin is simply unfit to become president. And her story about how she gave birth to Trig is simply the most incredible story you'll ever hear a person give. It doesn't make logical sense. If we go by what she claims, that means she put two flights at risk, which could have inconvenienced a lot of passengers had she went into labor on the airplane. To me, that kind of selfish act should disqualify anyone from being given the most powerful job in the world.
Second point, she quit her office mid-term and that would not reflect well for a commander-in-chief. Our military can't serve half of their contract and decide to quit when the going got tough.
I agree with Tamara. I don't think Palin has any intention of running for president. She hasn't ruled it out, because the moment she does, she'll lose her supporters, who she needs to finance the lifestyle she's become accustomed to. Believe me, I am all in favour of her resuming private life to focus on being a good mother to her children. Trig deserves his mother's full attention.
*Oops, Tamara, I thought that you wrote that you believed she would not run for president. I read that wrong.
Cindy, I have ever right to "judge" Sarah Palin... one, she is a public figure and two, as a gay man SHE has already judged me!
I am not trying to defend Sara Palin nor is she running for President that I am aware of. I am trying to make a point that this continual attack on individuals I cannot in any way condone (whether it is an attack on Obama or anyone else). I have always said you can disagree strongly with someone's political views and actions without trying to destroy their character. And yes, you do reap what you sow, so why worry about what someone else does when we will be judged in the same way that we judge others.
"Why worry about what someone else does when we will be judged in the same way that we judge others"?Other than that statement makes NO sense, we have every right to truthful exam what our election officials say and do... we are American citizens!
It is not destroying her...it is educating people on things Sarah has said herself. This woman would be a complete disaster as president. Much worse than Bush. People need to learn more about her. Jesus did tell his followers "by their fruits ye shall know them." Sarah is passing off bad fruit to her loyal fanbase.
I don't know how anyone could look at her rallies last year and not see the hate and ugliness that people displayed. Some even shouted out "Kill him!" in reference to Obama, while one old man carried a Curious George doll with an Obama sticker. She was practically encouraging her fans to hate Obama, look at him like a foreigner, a Muslim, who is friends with terrorists, and wants to destroy our country.
So, yes, I think by Sarah's words and deeds, she invites scrutiny and deserves it until she decides to retreat to private life in Alaska and not send messages to her fans that the president wants to set up a death panel to kill her baby. That kind of talk is dangerous. With the amount of death threats against the president, its the equivalent of putting a loaded gun on the table and daring some crazy person to use it. I don't want to see Obama end up like JFK, RFK, or MLK.
Cindy, the only one who can "destroy" Palin's character is Sarah Palin herself. She speaks of family values, but parades her children out on the campaign trail. To deny the rumours that she faked her pregnancy, she publically revealed that her daughter was 5 months pregnant (why not let her daughter stay behind in Alaska instead of parading them before mass audiences?). Palin talks about how great special needs babies are and vowed that she would do everything she can for them, but then as governor slashed funding for things like the Special Olympics.
When there is a gap between what a person claims and what they do, it is right for anyone to look at it and scrutinize it. I expect it for Obama or anyone else. Its part of holding public officials accountable.
I'm sure a lot of Palin's scrutiny is the residue of people feeling like Bush didn't get the intense scrutiny he should have in 1999. Too many people were hurt by the policies he enacted, so they don't want the same thing to happen again. If Palin does run in 2012, I will be voting in the Republican primary so I can give Mitt Romney or Charlie Crist my vote.
Mitt Romney deserves a thread of his own... like how out sourcing of American jobs has made his companies little bit more richer!
Dale, none of the Republican prospects are good choices from a liberal's standpoint. But one of them would be a complete disaster for our country. I know that Palin fans seem to think liberals are "scared" of their beloved queen, but Americans need to seriously analyze why the Bush administration was such a failure. Doing so is not a partisan thing. Carter's presidency was not considered a success.
What I don't understand about Palin supporters is how willing they are to be swept away by surface issues (she hunts! she has a lot of kids! she looks great!) and ignore the deeper issues (her general ignorance and disinterest in global issues). Knowing what we now know about Bush, we have no excuse to let that happen again. The thing that scares me is that Palin shows even less knowledge and interest than Bush. To her, the presidency would be a title that puts her in the history books as the first woman president. There are far more qualified Republican women that I'd rather see break that glass ceiling: Kay Bailey Hutchison, Christie Todd Whitman, Olympia Snowe, or Condoleeza Rice.
I'd rather see Bush return as president than to see a President Palin. No matter which way I looked at it, a Palin presidency would be unacceptable under any circumstances. Our troops deserve a commander in chief who won't quit on them.
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The debate moved into another topic (regarding Condoleezza Rice).
Here's my view about Palin. Its not that I'm afraid of her, because I don't fear her at all. She's a shallow, ignorant woman whose motives for wanting to be president have nothing to do with wanting to make our country or world a better place. Its a desire she has to enshrine herself in the history books as the first woman president. It's the "title" and the glory of being the first that she's after. How do I know this? Because of her pattern of behaviour. She operates as though she has a chip on her shoulder, which probably stemmed from high school. She was a beauty queen and probably wasn't taken seriously. She's been trying to prove herself ever since, but coming up short (going to five universities? Quitting jobs after two years? Unable to answer a simple question about what she reads?).
People accuse Obama of wanting to be president since Kindergarten (because he wrote on a class assignment that he would like to be one someday). There's nothing wrong with presidential ambition. But the path Obama took did not seem like it would lead that way. After all, he turned down job offers on Wall Street in the mid-80s to be a low wage community organizer on the mean streets of South Chicago. Palin mocked his community organizing experience in her debut Republican National Convention speech (to much applause in the audience), but what he did as a young man is admirable. That's not an easy job by any means. The hours are long, the wages low, and the achievements tend to be insignificant to the big picture. It has a high burn-out rate, because you're dealing with chronic poverty, government red-tape, exploitation and indifference by owners of the low income housing complexes.
Palin supporters deride Obama, saying things like he lacks experience (but so did Bush and that didn't stop their support of him in 2000), that he reads the teleprompter (duh! So did Bush, so why is that an issue now?), and that he's too foreign or "un-American" (which is the reason why he is popular around the world). In contrast, they want an ignorant woman to be president and anyone who criticizes her is "afraid of her."
As I stated before, I don't fear this woman because there is nothing to fear. Her vapid ignorance and nonsensical way of speaking makes her hard to take seriously. She's like the country's court jester. A reality show contestant who overreaches her abilities. When Palinistas make the claim that God wants her to be president, I usually comment that if God wanted her to be president, why did God give her a special needs baby? If she became president, little Down's Syndrome Trig will not have his mother's full attention. What's more important? Palin as President or Trig having a mommy who takes care of him and doesn't leave him to nannies or older sister Bristol? But, I don't expect "the party of family values" to actually live their family values. There's too much evidence to the contrary.
If by some strange fluke Palin did become president, I would hope that there would be an open rebellion against it. She would be the most ignorant person to ever hold that office, surpassing George W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Calvin Coolidge. The people around her would take advantage of her ignorance, just as Cheney did of Bush. Also, her personal dysfunctions would come to the forefront and serve as a distraction. We've already seen what happens when a president can't keep his dysfunctions from overruling his talents (that would be Bill Clinton, of course). America would once again become isolated in the world, because other world leaders would learn really quick just how ignorant Palin was. She would easily be manipulated by shrewd leaders (like Putin's puppet Medvedev and Iran's Ahmadinejad).
Americans were kept in the dark about how Bush came across to other people around the world. Many leaders learned quickly that he wasn't a smart guy. He was also unpopular, as people avoided him. And photos of a drunk Bush at the Beijing Olympics last year brought to mind the drunken embarrassment that Russian President Boris Yeltsin brought to G-8 meetings during the Clinton years. I don't know why the American media does not reveal the truth about how our leader is perceived around the world. Conservatives tend not to go out of the country, so they easily fall for scare tactics that foreigners are all bad and want to kill us (this view is even preached from the pulpit of the church my brother attends). And they believe Fox Propaganda Network's lies about Bush being liked and respected around the world.
I've known plenty of people who traveled Europe during the Bush years and they all said the same thing. When the Europeans they met learned they were American, they got bombarded with questions about why they "voted" for someone like Bush. Some mentioned wanting to put the Canadian flag on their clothes just so they didn't have to explain our domestic political situation. I wish conservatives who love Bush and Palin would travel outside our country for awhile. It would change their views somewhat, I think. At my place of work, I have the most problems with the people who have never been out of the country. The closest friendships I've made at work all have foreign travel in their background experience. I don't think that's accidental.
Its not a sense of fear that I dread the prospect of a President Palin. I love our country too much to see such a divisive and ignorant person lead us. I try, try, try to understand her appeal among evangelical Christians and I just can't. I knew why they liked Bush, but I just can't figure out what it is about Palin that appeals to them. She's so transparently phony its like you truly have to be willfully ignorant to not see what a disaster she would be. I truly think that to be a member of the Republican Party these days, you have to check your brain at the door. Intelligence does not matter. They keep supporting candidates who are dumber than their previous presidents (Palin is dumber than Bush, who was dumber than both his father and Reagan. Reagan was dumber than Ford, who was dumber than Nixon). This is not the kind of evolution that will make our country a better place.
All Palin will do is extend the culture wars, which are stupid. The way to win the culture war is through economic boycotts of programs you don't like. You vote with your dollars. Washington politicians don't have any affect on what Hollywood produces. You'd think conservatives would learn this by now. After all, they supported an actor for president, who was once president of the American Motion Picture Association. If Reagan couldn't change Hollywood, what makes them think Palin would be able to?
I will say it here and now on my blog...I will not accept a President Palin under any circumstances. I hope that whatever skeletons she's hiding in her closets in Alaska will surface before 2012 and that she will be exposed for the shallow and phony fame-chaser that she is. Some liberals call her a "grifter", which I think is funny. We've seen the kind of damage a person can do to our country because too many people were conned by Bush's phony "compassionate conservative" talk in 2000. Everything about Palin reveals that she would be much much worse than Bush. If Republicans want to make history with a woman president, then I would support a Condoleezza Rice or Christine Todd Whitman candidacy. Both women are more intelligent, more experienced, and more presidential than Sarah Palin could ever dream of being.
Finally, I want to tell any of my fellow church members who might like Sarah Palin. If you support her, learn the facts. She's part of a church that believes our church is a cult! Make your choice now. Do you choose our church or do you choose the politics of religious divisiveness? Is diversity, tolerance, and PEACE more important to you than some supposedly "religious" woman you think you like based on superficial "character traits" (gun-toting, moose hunting, big family, anti-abortion, special needs hockey mom)?
I'll tell you right now...there's nothing about Palin that would inspire peace. She's all about keeping the culture wars going and unleashing armaggedon so her church can have a front seat to Jesus' second coming. It is imperative that members of the Community of Christ reject demagogues who seek to divide our country and increase intolerance and ignorance. Jesus did, after all, warn his followers about false prophets and explained how to recognize them: "By their fruits, ye shall know them." To know Palin, all we have to do is look at her personal history and we will see a disturbing pattern of petty vindictiveness, a flaky tendency to quit when things get rough, and more dysfunction than a Jackson family reunion. We owe the people of the world only the best person to lead us. Is that too much to ask for?
I'm not a fan of the horror film genre, but in honour of Halloween, I wanted to see a scary movie. There's actually few in this genre that interest me, and I consider the Saw series not only to be "torture porn," but downright EVIL. I refuse to watch any of those movies. I've never been into the graphic violence of the slasher flicks.
This is the kind of movie where I had to read several reviews before deciding if I wanted to see it. All the reviews I've read were kind of cryptic about the details. All I knew was that many reviewers were calling this film "one of the scariest movies ever made!" and that the intensity only grows as the movie goes on. Some reviewers mentioned that this is the kind of film that one must see in a theater, just for the audience reaction. That claim sold it for me, otherwise I would've waited until DVD. But, if audience reaction was one of the things that enhances the viewing experience, waiting until DVD was no good.
