Sarah Palin - The politically correctedness has gotta out now....

jebus cripes on a scooter.

I think my brains just fell out of my head.

"Ummmmm, I think the government, and the mainstream media.....has been playing a role in, well........gosh.......".

"well, you know....its marxism.  leninism.  socialism.  you know"

"compromise is for people that are WRONG"......................

"we need to get the polar bears off the endangered list so we can drill there"  (!!)

Okay I know it's edited to make these people look like real doofuses (doofi?) but damn it's funny.  And it appears they supplied some pretty good material.

I will never get that 8:22 of my life back.

Ha ha! Gotcha Caissa!

To be fair...you could probably have done the same thing to Obama supporters. :)  I know I hate being put on the spot and have a hard time thinking and speaking with a mic in my face too.

This is exactly why Churchill said that Democracy is the worst of the political models, except all those other ones.  A few centuries ago the masses would have given their eye teeth for the opportunity to have an equal say in who governs them.  Fast forward to now, when the masses are content to vote for a pair of stylish frames and an up-do.

As Joe Bageant explains it in Deer Hunting with Jesus:

"It's going to be a tough fight for progressives. We are going to have to pick up this piece of road kill with our bare hands. We are going to have to explain everything about progressivism to the people at the Royal Lunch because their working-poor lives have always been successfully contained in cultural ghettos such as Winchester by a combination of God rhetoric, money, cronyism, and the corporate state. It will take a huge effort because they...in many respects accept it as their lot."

Well, except for the part about removing polar bears from the endangered list.  Even put on the spot I would give that a pass

Yes, Michelle but these people consented to being interviewed on camera. The intelligent thing to do when you have nothing to say is to decline.

Ha, I guess they would have after the fact agreed to have the thing aired too?  Not sure how that works.

Robin Williams on  The View,thios morning when asked when he started drinking....

" In Alaska, when I was not at the ends of the earth, but I could see it from there".

Sarah Palin meets Marg Delahunty

Thanks for that, Doug. 

 that was too funny last evening,  glad to see Marg round about again....

Michelle, you're right. If you search at youtube under interview Obama supporters and variants (interviewing Obama voters, interviews with Obama supporters, etc.) you can find lots of similar videos. I prefer not to post links here, since a lot of this stuff is posted by right-wingers I don't want to advertise. But you could probably do the same thing with NDP supporters, etc., especially when you can take all your footage, edit out anything intelligent, and only include the stupid stuff.

I think Rick Mercer pretty much owned this whole concept with "Talking with Americans". And regardless of whether it comes from the right or the left, it is somewhat frightening to see the mashup of strongly held convictions and general ignorance.

Anyone remember the petition to "End the Suffrage of Women", and all the people cheerfully signing their name to indicate their believe that women have "suffred" long enough, and something must be done to stop it?  I really have a hard time placing too much significance on any petition after that.  If you don't actually know what "suffrage" is, it would seem to me a bad idea to suggest that it's your firmly held belief that we should get rid of it. 

It's just kind of generally scary overall.  I couldn't ever suggest that only the smart should be allowed to vote, but still.

Actually, I really hate this kind of "blame the voter" schtick. All of our politicians have made careers, indeed, an entire vocation, out of voting for sentiment and shadows rather than principle and policy. How an Obama supporter, who follows a campaign desgned entirely on platitudes of "hope" and "change," who put their liberty in the hands of a man rewarded for what he "might" do, can turn around and laugh at blue-collar caricatures that believe in "conservatism" and "realness" is hypocritical to say the least.

This is what democracy looks like. We've made sure of that.

Exactly!  It would've been interesting to ask Obama supporters during the election, "What does Obama stand for?" 

Or better yet: "What are Obama's policies?"  They'd have had to make shit up to answer that one, since I'm pretty sure Obama didn't have much to say beyond "Hope!"  "Change!"  "Hope for Change!"  "Change is the change we're hoping for!"  "Hope for the changing hope!"

So Catchfire, how do we achieve the engaged citizenry that is truly required in a democratic society?

You just blamed the voter!

Caissa, I'm a critic, not a policy maker. That's someone else's job. ;)

Obviously it's a big question. The big answer would be: end capitalism yesterday, but that gets us about as far as putting our hopes in "hope." Personally, while I do feel the effects of electoral politics, mostly because I work in a discipline habitually targeted by conservative ideology, I'm pretty cynical about its potential to enact real change. The places where I've seen real work done is always local action and community solidarity. So that's where I would start. Join a community garden, start a local restaurant or pub co-op, action for local homeless shelters and fight state violence locally. Sometimes your local MP can help with that, sure--but wtf is Michael Ignatieff or Peter MacKay going to do to change my life in the particulars? Although I've always been fortunate in that the places I live have always had a strong community spirit and a forceful tradition of local action: Plateau-Mont Royal in Montreal, Leith in Edinburgh and now Commercial Drive/Strathcona in Vancouver. I recognize that unionizing in this way is far more difficult in different areas of the same city. It's an uphill battle anyway, made far more difficult.

Re: Snert--maybe (prolly) your comment was in jest, but I think it's important to draw the distinction. I am a voter, but I am also a consumer, a reader and watcher of media, a worker, a family member, a friend, a subject. Like Walt Whitman, I contain multitudes. So when I say "We," I'm talking about society--the ideologically-impelled force that navigates History. Voters are a particular kind of subject with a particular social function--the subject that votes is different from the subject (and other forces) that constitute society.

"This is what democracy looks like. We've made sure of that."

The most inadequate and misleading word in the political lexicon is "we". Politicians use it all the time to suggest that they are part of the great misled, just one of the folks. But of course, that is not true.

The Conservatives have taken great pains to manufacture voters who identify themselves as  taxpayers and consumers. The idea of "citizen", the only meaningful concept in a democracy that identifies responsibility - to know and to act - has become quite lost on them, and I think quite lost on you, catchfire.

You guys sure know how to take the fun out of poking fun at people.  Really, I would have posted it had it been Obama supporters, Harper supporters, Mother Teresa supporters, Layton supporters.  The funny part is people totally and wholeheartedly supporting............whatever it is that this person stands for.  Not sure what that is, but BOY do I support it.

Going to wander off now and seriously contemplate something. 

So you don't think you're helping undermine the "citizenry"--drawing a fissure between you and them--by calling them the "great misled," George?

We are society, the citizenry, George. We. We the people. We are not we and them.

ETA: I thought it was funny, Polly. Of course I did. Only after it percolated for a day or so did I respond with more sober analysis. Sorry! That's just what happens here on babble.

Perhaps you can identify someone in history, catchfire, who identified so closely with "the people" as you and Walt Whitman, the apologist for emerging capitalism in America, the original bourgeois "thinker" in that country. And what would you call ...say...Voltaire and the folks who followed in that "most perfect of all worlds" (Candide).

Aww, Polly, I thought it was funny too.  :)  But that kind of gotcha thing also makes me cringe a little - because I just know that even though I'm a relatively intelligent person, I could easily be caught by some enterprising videographer hemming and hawing too. :)

Karl Marx was an apologist for emerging capitalism, George. As was Voltaire, of course. While I don't really get your Candide  reference, I'm sure Voltaire would conclude that  "we must cultivate our garden." You know, in the plural.

I supsect your objection to my above post comes from some sort of personal, rather than philosophical dissonance, but I'll answer it anyway. I used "we" to implicate myself in the way society has come to represent itself. You remain content to withdraw from society and sully the "great misled." Fine. But it's difficult to build consensus and solidarity that way. I would actually like to see more of this kind of inclusion expressed by our politicians. On the contrary, I find the neo-liberal tendency is towards division and hierarchy. "I feel your pain," says Bill Clinton. But it's our pain, Bill. Because when injustice endures it infects us all.

The question was, catchfire, can you name someone who IDENTIFIED so closely with "the people" as to use the "we"?  I think not. They all used a critical mind. And now it's a tool of the politician.(and I guess "friends, Romans, countrymen" has always appealed in time of war).

To me it's not so much that they hem or haw, or aren't instantly articulate. It's that even when they can't think of a single policy of Palin's, they're still ready to die for her.

True.  But Obama supporters were the same way.  It's like he was the second coming of Jesus or something.  He was a rock star!

And catchfire, there is nothing "personal" as in "personal dissonance" involved. Even old Mark Twain could be critical as hell of his society. He would not be caught dead quoting Leaves of Grass.

And that's a bit frightening too. Though any moderately quick-witted Obama supporter could always say "I can't afford to take my child to a doctor", if asked why they support Obama, and down there they'd come off as a PoliSci major. I'll agree that a lot of Obama's campaigning was vague, but it's not like he had zero concrete plans for change. I should also think judges would be forced to accept "we've had 43 white men in a row" as a valid reason.

Honestly, I don't really understand your objection to the statement of mine that you quoted. We seem to be changing focus, going from the above quote. But to answer your question, I guess you missed my allusion to this document earlier:

Or, a variation [35]:

I don't see the distinction between "we" and a "critical mind." Perhaps you still adhere to the Great (White) Man theory, so that could explain your issue here. Of course we can only speak as individual subjects--many c-20 writers tried to beat this restriction through multiplicity: Joyce, Dos Passos, Grassic Gibbons, etc.; but their attempts always come back to an irreducible, inviolate subjectivity. When I think of writers and thinkers who tried to approach this problem dialectically--i.e. we are both subjects with individual intention and socially-mediated exigence--I think of Brecht, Pynchon, Sarah Kane, DeLillo, etc. But I also suspect that both modes of interpretation are symptoms of their (our) historical moment. You can validate the primacy of a "critical mind" (whatever that is...presumably it lies out of the "great misled's" reach) all you like, but it's a fantasy.

I don't know, I'm sure that any of these people in the right context would come up with "Immigrants are taking my job," 'Democrats don't know how to run the economy," "Government is getting too big," etc. And many of these don't actually apply to what Palin can/will do for them, of course, but neither will Obama fix Health Care in any meaningful way.

It looks like Obama will just be able to add 30,000,000 folks to the list of whose who can "afford" health care in  'Merica. And I think Snert has identified why he could not get the whole enchilada.

And while you quote the constitution, "critical" minds in the U.S. today (i.e. Susan Jacoby) explain the huge GAP in the average person's understanding of their political system today, the the framers of the constitution.

I just the other day used the "white man's burden" idea of Kipling's time, but, of course, it has nothing to do with how I view the unthinking, unread, uncritical, consumer/taxpayer today. These folks have been "created" by those who lead them into war in places around the world, waving their goddam flag and making pious sounds about "God and country". You have one strange idea of what drives our political economy, mate.

And of course the society of France and America before revolution (Voltaire's France) would not have compelled him or Thomas Jefferson to think in terms of "we", except as an idea of an idealized future.  As Jacoby points out, such ideals mean nothing for folks who refuse to (or cannot) read.

I've been going over your list of literary figures, catchfire, and can find none that did not write out of a critical appraisal of their society - did not simply buy the "we the people" idea that is the distinguishing, ingratiating language of the snake oil salesman.

And among the folks of Winchester, Virginia, the supporters of Palin,As Joe Bageant explains it in Deer Hunting with Jesus:

"It's going to be a tough fight for progressives. We are going to have to pick up this piece of road kill with our bare hands. We are going to have to explain everything about progressivism to the people at the Royal Lunch because their working-poor lives have always been successfully contained in cultural ghettos such as Winchester by a combination of God rhetoric, money, cronyism, and the corporate state. It will take a huge effort because they...in many respects accept it as their lot."

Seems to me he explains the differences between Obama supporter and Palin quite well. To begin with, acceptance of the status quo seems a definite Palin propensity, as distinct from working for change.

Pretty much, but these would be the cream of the crop.

I can't follow your thinking, George. You are bringing too many disparate writers into this conversation with no gesture towards cohesion. Are you suggesting that someone who makes a "critical appraisial of their society" can't conceive of solidarity? That anyone mentioned in this thread (except for me, of course) are simply derivations of Maggie Thatcher's "there is no such thing as society"? A very strange prospect. Honestly, I don't know what to conclude from your posts except expunge the first-person plural pronoun from the English language. I certainly take your point that the "hometown-ness" of someone like George Bush Jr and Sarah Palin is a smoke and mirrors show meant to project a class consciousness and commensality that has no basis in reality, but that strikes me as a perversion of 'we', not reason for its dismissal.

Or maybe you just don't like Walt Whitman. Fair enough, I guess.

Let's see, catch. You toss in Joyce, dos Passos, Gibbons, Brecht, Pynchon, Kane, LeLillo and the preambles to the American and French constitutions and you accuse ME of "bringing too many disparate writers into this conversation woth no gesture towards cohesion."

I don't want to talk about writers, catch. I just want you to name me one so brain dead as to not engage in critical analysis of their society. You are not Maggie, for sure, but you are in thrall to the idea of society as a homogenous, non-stratified, mass of humanity, Rousseau's ideal of our beginning in a state of nature.

Your politicians don't manipulate, but only provide a benign guidance to the flock that is constantly sorting itself out by some amorphous process. Their choice of language, the use of "we" (i.e.) could never be from nefarious motives, just as the current electoral crop could not be the product of Madison Ave and the materialist culture. High-mindedness is assumed. Goebbels is history.

You asked me to name writers, George. I did. That was when I was trying to take you seriously, but now this is getting stupid. Goebbels! I have no idea what you are talking about. You criticized me for using the word "we" (again, !) and now apparently I don't believe in engaging in critical analysis. What drift!

Here: I'll never use the word "we" again if you promise not to read it.

George, with respect, can't you get the flock out of here and try to talk about "the people" with a little more humility?

I think catchfire's reference to Whitman's "I contain multitudes" argues against this accusation.

Giant vortex of crazy to land in Nashville in February - Sarah Palin headlining

This is going to be worth making some popcorn for!

As usa 99 said:

"Have you Palin haters seen the polls lately? Bad news for you. Palin is within 5-7 points of Obama in approval numbers. His numbers are in a free fall and her poll numbers are climbing. What does that mean for 2012 if she decides to run for Prez? You do the math. Should mean another historic election for the country..."

As U said:

"George, with respect, can't you get the flock out of here and try to talk about "the people" with a little more humility?"

"Humility"? Like you U? Say, I'll bet you believe that Joe Bageant is just putting on superior airs in his description of life in Winchester, Virginia. Looking down on folks around him. Not as sympathetic to their feelings and needs as their political idol, Sarah. That must be it. And that's why farmpunk said:

"I thought about putting up a discussion on the book but didn't think it would babble friendly."

Turns out, the language is babble "unfriendly", so much so that folks won't give Deer Hunting a gander. I will "flock out of here" U. I quite give up on your ever understanding the Sarah Palin phenom, which "we" all understand is transitory anyway.  Right?  Or is there light in the hills, beyond Jesus?

Can this woman finish anything?

She participated in a 5K race to benefit the Red Cross on Thursday morning, surrounded by a crowd of cheering fans. She didn't finish the race, opting to leave early to avoid more crowds, said Kennewick police Officer Michelle Pitts.

And as Bageant says in yesterday's blog (again describing Sarah country):

"When World War Two started 45% of Americans lived on farms or in farming based communities. Ten years after the war only 12% remained on farms, and not much later it dropped to six percent. And believe me, they did not all leave willingly.

"The result is that we are into our third generation of underclass whites -- around 60 million of them. At one point in the 1950s when unions were at their peak, a large portion of these people briefly constituted a legitimate working class. Since then they have been ground back down into a malleable disposable work force with no real contours, no vision, no philosophy or principles of labor, zero negotiation regarding the price of their labor, and no avenues for self determination as individuals or as a class.

"They are that great white unwashed that educated liberals just cannot get their heads around. Liberal audiences ask me,  "Why are so many working class Americans non-union or anti-union?" Sometimes I reply that if you kick a dog hard enough and often enough, the dog will do any goddamned thing you want, whether it is "in his interests" or not. If the dog doesn't bite that union organizer, the poor fucking beast doesn't get fed at all.

Educated urban liberals never seem to grasp that most Americans no longer have access to the levers of self-determination. But then, I never expect the bourgeoisie to understand the legions of industrial serfs outside the gates. Nor do they much bother to try. After all, they've "got theirs." Education, safe working conditions, negotiable wages, access to real culture if they choose, progeny who will more or less continue their class patterns, even if on a somewhat lesser scale. When they look around their affinity groups and communities, they see only people like themselves. "Naw, we're not elites," they conclude.

"But the sheer gravitational pull of 60 million people circling the drain is starting to draw these elites who do not know they are elites toward the drainpipe. So now we are seeing academic papers with titles such as "Does a white American underclass really exist?" Lemme see now, are there any clues? Well, about 49.1 million people, most of them white, went without food at various times in 2008 (USDA). This is called "food insecurity" in government and academic circles. I suppose the 3.1 million folks sleeping under bridges, in cars, in shelters and cardboard boxes are experiencing "housing insecurity." This includes the 1.4 million homeless children attending our public schools. I suggest they start by asking these people if there is a white underclass in America. You know, get it straight from the horse's mouth. You don't know if you don't ask. I mean, hell, these people might all be just hobo-ing for a lark!

Whatever the case, I read a slew of these studies in the course of writing the new book. My conclusion is that the academic elites can hustle a grant out of any damned question you can think up, then write 70,000 words that not only do not answer the question, but lay the groundwork for further research into other ways to not answer the question.

Scary?  You betcha!

I noticed how some of those in the video were critical of "The Mainstream Media" and "Government" as if their view of the world hasn't been affected by the mainstream media and eight straight years of Karl Rove's machinations.

And what's with their comments on Czars?  They don't seem aware that the godless Commies got rid of their Czars.

As "some Republican guy" said in the CNN story comments:November 25th, 2009 2:42 pm ET

"I'd like to wish a happy Thanksgiving to all you narcisstic Obamabots, Obamatrons, Oprah watching union thugs, illeagle aliens from ACORN, socialistic Hollywood elitists, terrorist-sympathizing libtards, grandbabies, death panel members, birthbaggers, neoclowns, townhallers, real Americans, greedy insurance executives, too big to fail capitalist pigs and even Chay Guevarro and Ayn Rand, wherever they may be. And God bless our troops. Have a nice Thanksgiving!"

So what's the solution George?

Should that Kucinich fella hire a PR manager who understands what Ivy Lee knew a century ago; that if one wants to endear himself to the US electorate, he should be someone who "speaks
the language of the man who rides on the trolley-car, who chews gum and who spits tobacco juice"?

Well, you have seen how Bageant describes how the mess developed, Al? Lots of folks came in from the farm, began work in industry, got blindsided by globalization, don't read or follow the news that isn't prepared for them by talk radio, etc.

Bageant says it's a matter of upgrading educational opportunity, but has no idea how that could be brought about (not that I can find it in Deer Hunting, anyway). And they are not going to rush out to support an African-American pres.  Bageant does suggest a lot of things to cut their aggravation with elitist, liberal, wealthy, Wall St. goings on. And I guess the picture here on babble itself is one of folks who are, to say the least, rather leery of even reading about Bageant's "redneck" culture - his description. Which makes me despair of the great "out there" coming to terms with the huge "underclass" that is certainly only going to build in importance as the economy continues to shed jobs and hope.

Do you think those innately conservative folks are going to seek anything but a populist route out of their misery?  I've tried to stir interest in construction of a rational approach to it, but just wind up proposing putting economy and society on a wartime footing, with all of its constrictions, but with the objective of bringing about an end to the need for growth, and the complete redefining of what it means to be a functioning, producing, consuming human being on Earth. Sort of a return to 1941, with other outcomes in mind. And really level the social playing field again. That's about as optimistic as I can get, and shows my underlying authoritarian tendencies.

Well, anyway, Al, you asked.  ;)

George, I think you've raised some very good points.  It's too easy, and shamefully cruel, to simply ridicule an underclass for the cultural symptoms of their traumas and their oppression. I'm going to look for a copy of Deer Hunting With Jesus.

I found it enlightening and entertaining, but rather maddening due to the absence of prescription, Michael. I'd really like to know how that mind retreats from the popular understanding of the meaning of scientific developments and the impacts of the larger world on our own. Is it fear that turns it away from access to learning so very muich more from the IT world? Today's hillbilly has no excuse.

I'm looking forward to the new book now in the works. I'll bet Palin appears.

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Thanks. I've just been reading the Gore, Jacoby and Reich "trilogy", explanations from their liberal perspective. I think you'll perhaps find Bageant is "What's the Matter with Kansas" set in the hills of Virginia. I must find out.

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I had a gf in Winchester - the birthplace of Patsy Cline - and used to visit often. Beautiful place, although also quite a contrast between the well-to-do and the less well off.

Patsy Cline singing Willie Nelson's "Crazy", has to be about as good as it gets, eh, Boomer? Leastwise, it brings back lots of memories for this old sentimentalist. What was "good" about Winchester?(besides the scenery ;) nudge, nudge. Seriously, when was Winchester starting to look like the WalMart leftover that Bageant describes today? Or was it just the "old" American contradiction of rich and poor...out of which the great, unschooled ignorance grew quite naturally?

I've been noticing the old school buildings around this part of Ontario, lately. They were built like castles, a century back; obviously with great expectations for their products.  Of course, the Houses of Industry (one of which still remains) were impressive edifices too.

Barack Obama has today become Sarah Palin's greatest weapon.

Gee...

The cult of personality bing revealed as empty...

Quelle surprise!!!

Thanks for the Truthdig link, Michael.  Bageant is almost as concerned as Hedges, about the prospects for change. I wonder why, however, getting too close to that culture - and Sarah - always slides over to Obama, hereabouts?  Too painful?  Too difficult a target?  I sometimes think that the precursor to a fascist eruption, anywhere, must look a bit like this.  Fear of discussing the real world as developing social rality?  Leaders as easy targets. All faith is somehow reposed in leadership taking us out of the mess by some magic formula that discounts the real life situation of a people under the gun?

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MN: "Wolf's work has its problems. She doesn't acknowledge that Black and Indigenous Americans have long lived under quasi-fascist rule, she doesn't examine the role that previous administrations have played in setting the stage for the Bush regime, and she doesn't acknowledge the roles played by corporatism, widespread social dislocation and the radical Christian right in the rise of a fascist American zeitgeist. Despite this, The End of America needs to be read by as many people as possible."

You are going to enjoy Deer Hunting, Michael. This "hole" in Wolf's account is where he informs. But did Ms Wolf really explain the degree to which the vast majority of people have also been drawn into the action by their dependency on the market for their old age? Pension funds are going belly up. What are people going to require of "the state"? It seems to me that that can be the "tipping point" (with apologies to Malcolm Gladwell).

Your sentence lacks a subject (who or what slides over to Obama?), which makes it a little difficult to interpret, but if I read you correctly, you're wondering why Obama's name pops up in discussions about Palin.

How about this? The clever sophisticated liberals who inflicted Obama on the world are no more politically sophisticated than Palin supporters. In a sense, they're worse, since Palin appears to take a stand on an issue here and there, while Obama with his nebluous "hope and change" is the American Hologram personified.

She's a 'birther' now.

I'll try again, Al.

"I wonder why, however, DISCUSSION getting too close to that culture - and Sarah - always slides over to Obama, hereabouts?  Too painful?  Too difficult a target?"

If you are truly happier with the prospect of the dingbat as pres., that's your - and the folks in the hills - prerogative. As we see from North Report's latest report, she's right into another vital question - the president's birthplace.

They would both be puppets so who cares.  Reagan and Bush II didn't make any big policy decisions they just followed the advice of the people holding their strings. Palin would be no different. Bush I was somewhat different since he was already part of the inner circle of the elite that controls the real power in the US.  Clinton proved his mettle to the real powers by almost immediately bombing a pharmaceutical lab in the name of protecting freedom and liberty for Americans. As it turns out Obama is no different either. I am to old to have faith in a candidate running on hope alone.  I thought his handling of his pastor's comments during the campaign was the largest clue to his future as an agent of change and I was unfortunately proven right. 

So I gather the books above try to answer the question, "does it really matter who is President or is it all just smoke and mirrors?"

The only good thing about Palin is that people will start to look to see who actually is at the end of the strings.  With Obama he still hangs on to the illusion that the strings are invisible.

It isn't a question of being happier with a dingbat as president, it's that Obama is proving himself to be rather similar in deed to a dingbat.

Don't you want someone better than EITHER of those two?

Such a person isn't on offer and if they were, definitely wouldn't win.

Sarah Palin has a "Gee, thanks Dad!" moment:

Palin's Father: She Left Hawaii Because Asians Made Her Uncomfortable

Palin is a symptom - there has never been a shortage of dimwitted charismatic types available for public office and attention.  If it wasn't Palin it would be someone else in the same role for the authoritarian right.  I am more worried about whomever comes after her.

Obama's campaign was also a symptom of the same problem, which is that the issues and problems facing the world and the individual are complex, interrelated and all but insurmountable.  Anyone who tries to begin explaining or talking about solutions runs into the inevitable complexities of the issues, and gets bogged down.  Not to mention derided as weak and indecisive etc.

So we end up with simplistic icons and catchphrases rather than policy discussions.  Anyone who doesn't use them doesn't win, simple as that.  Which is a serious problem - but try explaining it without being tuned out.

Obama is no hero of the people, but anyone who can't see a difference between him and the likes of Palin is in denial.  Personally, I think nation states - especially big sprawlers like the US, are becoming unworkable.  And as such I focus much of my energy and effort to the local level.  But that may just be the politics of despair.

Nice to see you around here again, arborman!

I have no use for Obama - none - neither his actions as president, nor his offensive words and promises while he was campaigning.

What I don't understand about your post is this:

Why is it simpler and more decisive to say and do the wrong things rather than the right things?

Why would you think U.S. voters have an easier time understanding, "We'll chase the scumbag terrorists into Pakistan!!!!!!!!" than "We ain't gonna study war no more"? Is the latter more complex - less "decisive"? Why did Obama need to condemn his spiritual mentor and leave his church when his pastor told the truth about racism and the Middle East? Why is it easier to sell "Israel is heaven" to U.S. voters than, "We will hold Israel to account?"

What's complicated about this: "There will be single-payer health care from Jan. 1 on, and it will cost the U.S. far less than it does now?" How many voters are so in love with the status quo that such a catchphrase won't appeal to them? Of course, they never once heard it from Obama, so we'll never know.

Why do the "simplistic icons and catchphrases" which are so essential that "anyone who doesn't use them doesn't win" have to be the icons and catchphrases of white supremacy, homophobia, imperialism, aggression, and unbridled capitalism?

Neither Obama nor McCain nor Palin seeks approval of the voters as first priority. They seek approval of those who run the economy and who manufacture public opinion. If you're saying that that's the way it is, then there is indeed no difference between Palin and Obama. As some babblers here have said, you can't blame Obama for being totally unable to do one single significant progressive thing so far as president. He's only one person, after all.

At bottom, what is reflected in these excuses - in these tired attempts to find differences between Bush and Obama, for example - is a profound belief that the people of the U.S. are all Sara Palins at heart. Even when they prove otherwise - by voting for the chimera that is Obama - no one listens to their plea for change.

Hi Unionist.

At root I agree with you.  The kinds of changes needed are radical (as in a big leap from the status quo) on many levels.  Conservatives (and Naomi Klein) know that radical change can only be effected in times of crisis - real or imagined.

Obama definitely inherited a lot of crises, real and imagined.  He could and should have used them to make radical changes.  He likely would have been blocked by the Senate, but maybe not if he had done it decisively enough and used his considerable charisma and support to push it through.  It isn't like the Republicans haven't given a long lesson in how to marginalize opposition and to present concepts simply and appeal to basic values.

Sadly Obama, and many of the rest of the thinking world, is an intelligent, reasonable and careful person.  He will think at length about what is needed, taking into account all the various issues and perspectives, and make a careful and pragmatic choice that balances many perspectives and interests.  Which will be the wrong choice, and not enough - because there are major crises happening which require decisive action.  It isn't like there is a dearth of empirical literature or historical examples which demonstrate what happens to overextended, massively indebted empires and their populations.

He is a charismatic, intelligent, thoughtful person who should know better.  But, like Carter, he is going to think himself in circles, accomplish little and change less.  He is not like Bush or Palin - who lack the intellectual complexity to harbour doubts or consider alternative points of view.

Palin and her ilk don't need to think - they know they have the answers before they have the questions.  They are hostile to rational, careful and pragmatic thoughtfulness.  Actively hostile to intellectual consideration of issues.  Reagan was much the same, or at least he and his handlers knew how to pander to those people.  They know that if people are scared enough, worried enough, confused enough they will support anyone who claims to have the answers.  Where Obama fails is in that he likely does have some of the right answers, but he is too reasonable and pragmatic to actually implement them.  Palin and her fellow travellers are not reasonable and definitely not pragmatic.

So no - I don't like either of them.  But they are wrong for different reasons - pretending otherwise is to be in denial.  From where I sit, as a non-American, I mostly just want the least batshit crazy person possible to be close to the nuclear button.  And Obama beats Palin hands down on that particular scale.  

A very rational, logical and well-thought-out conclusion, arborman.

But what about the folks who devotedly follow the less-than-rational, illogical input of Obama's chief antagonists?  Doesn't THE quesion become: How do we rational political activists ensure that they do NOT come near that bloody button?  Beyond continuing our support for Obama by default.

Easy as hell to toss brickbats at the pres. for his failure to somehow, magically lead Congress and the people out of the wilderness, right?  But there is no political meaning to such morally pure flights of fancy.  This is what we've got to work with. Let's not aid the enemy. I believe we're on the cusp of ALL coming to realize that radical action will be needed to extricate not just Americans but all of humanity from the pathalogical condition that materialist cultures have allowed to develop through ignorance and greed. The passge of time is making it obvious in Canada that even the super-smooth, manipulative Conservative "economist"  doesn't have the answer. Religion has become the crutch for these people, everywhere.

There just might be time left to bring it off when a collectivist answer comes to be seen as the only solution for a crowded, increasingly polluted and resource-poor planet. At least, one hopes that there will be a subject to measure the sanity of a nation - and political thought - post Palin.

Thanks for the very thoughtful post, arborman - did I mention it's good to see you around here?

I was nodding my head for the most part until I reached your conclusion (above).

Harry S Truman pushed the nuclear button. Ronald Reagan never did. Which one struck you as more batshit crazy?

John F. Kennedy organized the Bay of Pigs, threatened nuclear war over the missile crisis, and together with LBJ escalated the Vietnam war to proportions unknown since WWII. Even G.W. Bush couldn't rival those feats in Iraq and Afghanistan - and he actually tried harder to manufacture an excuse. Were JFK and LBJ more "batshit crazy" than GWB?

Jimmy Carter invaded Iran (in a Peter Sellers kind of way, but still...). Every Republican since then has threatened - but no more. Would you be really that shocked if Barack Obama announced an attack on Iran (say) next month - given the right pretext? I wouldn't.

So you see, even when you set the bar as low as: "Who is more likely to unleash a nuclear holocaust?" - I think I'll need lots more convincing evidence before I can pick between Obama and Palin. History needs to be our guide.

The people at Information Clearing House report that 44 per cent of Americans "want Bush back." It is not surprising, then, that Sarah has a chance in taking a run at it.

Those folk tend not to be good in interpreting the big picture. And if concerns seep down from the centres of debate such as Copenhagen, there's always Jesus. But I'll bet that the leaders in Washington have some concern as to whether the game is ever going to be the same, some thoughts along the lines of Monbiot's this week:

"The summit's premise is that the age of heroism is over. We have entered the age of accomodation. No longer may we live without restraint. No longer may we swing our fists regardless of whose nose might be in the way. In everything we do we must now be mindful of the lives of others, cautious, constrained, meticulous. We may no longer live in the moment, as if there were no tomorrow.

"This is a meeting about chemicals: the greenhouse gases insulating the atmosphere. But it is also a battle between two world views. The angry men who seek to derail this agreement, and all such limits on their self-fulfilment, have understood this better than we have. A new movement, most visible in North America and Australia, but now apparent everywhere, demands to trample on the lives of others as if this were a human right. It will not be constrained by taxes, gun laws, regulations, health and safety, especially environmental restraints. It knows that fossil fuels have granted the universal ape amplification beyond its Palaeolithic dreams. For a moment, a marvellous, frontier moment, they allowed us to live in blissful mindlessness."

John McWho? Sarah Palin gets caught wearing blacked out cap from her VP campaign.

God bless Canada.

http://www.torontosun.com/news/world/2009/12/18/12204771-qmi.html

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Thanks for the book idea, Michael. Looks like a great primer on the monstrous mental workings of frightened, terribly dangerous people appealing to others by offering a Jesus crutch. 

Just heard Martin Selegman doing his positive psychology thing in audience with the Dalai Llama. Would love to see the reaction of Sarah's folks exposed to such super-rational ideas. Another Buddhist philosopher told his audience that the "basics" of his belief depend on the assumption that such introspection is possible only after the necessities of food, clothing and shelter are assured - and this suggests a stable political/working environment... among the things threatened or missing in the lives of increasingly marginalized, angry people joining a political movement.

Speaking of which, how are you coming on Deer Hunting With Jesus? I think that understanding the Palin phenom starts among those folks.

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Mr. Bageant's tome - in paperback - is a mere $11.51CAD at Amazon.ca

[link deleted by moderator. They don't need the free advertising.]

Please try not to buy books from amazon or any other chain.

Support independent bookstores.

Thank you.

Yep. WordsWorth Books gets all my book orders...and they will continue to, even though they screwed up on my Christmas order of The Prince and the Bag of Frozen Peas. Nobody's perfect.

To the nameless and faceless "moderator" quoted above:

There was nothing untoward in what I posted, which makes your editing seem a tad aggressive, to put it nicely. If you had a problem, perhaps a better way of handling the situation would have been to let your thoughts be known rather than leaping in with both storm trooper boots on. Gosh, who knows? I might have even seen the error of my ways.

Hi Sandy,

We have a habit of not linking to large corporations here on babble. It's related to being alternative media. I didn't mean to imply you had done something untoward.

I also have a particular hatred of large bookstore chains. How's about I'll leave my storm trooper boots off next time okay? But you can't take away my Ewok ears though.

Hey Maysie. I've been hanging around Babble for quite a while now, and it never dawned on me there was any such policy. Now, I know, and will act accordingly in future.

Nice ears, BTW...

It's not a policy, it's like Maysie said, a habit.

"Storm trooper boots" eh? I'll have to forget I ever heard that one.

Maysie explained the forum's position gently and adequately, but the fact of the matter is, when posts are edited by a third party to reflect and enforce said "habit", it is no longer simply that, and the line is crossed into policy. Nevertheless, as I said before, I am now fully informed and happy to acquiesce.

Perhaps it should have been, The Princess (not Prince) and the Bag of Frozen Peas.  The difference is fundamental (for Freud, and other discerning readers).   Edit.:  It's the PACKAGE of frozen peas, not bag. And it's put out by Scholastic so not readily available elsewhere.

And I hope you enjoy Deer Hunters, Sandy.

Enjoy it I did George. I read it a couple of years ago -- and I got my copy from the LPL... ;)