A few days ago, I saw the Sarah/ McSame Old Time Travellin Medicine Show roll its filthy bullshit caked wheels into Lebanon, OH and watched, for a few moments. Sarah Palin "shilled the rubes" with some of Grandpa's Gen-u-whine Irradiated Bullshit, and chucked some red meat to the faithful. Crypto platitudes, a bunch of "simple gal" posing. Anybody else get the impression she's the Celia Hodes of Alaska.
She's good, that's for sure, at this particular line of work. One which doesn't require too much in the way of conviction or belief. Look good, and throw the platitudes. The People will eat it up.
Which is something I don't understand about the contemporary variety of the so-called conservative, and its various sub-cultures: There is nothing in this rhetoric that can be called useful information about any positions. There is not one telling fact about who Palin is aside from the demonstrable lies that are supposed to make her seem human. The rest of the speeches that weird code word language that, apparently, are composed entirely of idiotic cliches about "government being the problem, not the solution", "Washington insiders", etc.
Let me clear this up right away: As it stands now, no thanks to the Republican George Bush, this is still more or less a representative democracy, thus, separating yourself from you government, while giving you the feeling that you, too, possess the coveted Cheney deniability , in fact only underscores that galling notion that you, we, are responsible for the mess we are in, because we elected them, and let them run amok, knowing they were crooked, while we stuffed out faces at Friday's and worried about crabgrass (or boys kissing each other, for that matter).
This has to be even more distressing for these so called "conservatives", knowing that good guy they all wanted to drink beer with has imperiled the lawn that so concerned you in 2000 and 2004, reduced your Friday's visits and, oh yeah, exploited the idealism of your children and their desire to do good, and planted their asses in Fallujah . By the way, they grew the government too.
Yet, some how, the cognitive dissonance continues. The biracial kid who went to Columbia and Harvard on his own steam, the one raised by his mother and grandparents, is the elitist, and the product of the Naval Academy is a "regular" guy.
Palin, on the other hand, is, ostensibly, more like regular people, because of her rather modest beginning, compared to McCain's Southern Aristocratic background. However, don't be fooled by that small town talk, and the "aw shucks" front. She is slick, and it is politically useful to exploit this.
See, you have every right to be pissed off, and to mistrust Washington, and wonder what the hell you did to deserve the rotten luck you've gotten. But this isn't luck at all, but policy, and this policy is Bush. This policy is what passes for "Conservativism" these days, but these people aren't "Conservatives" at all. They do not care about your rights. They do not care about the free market. They do not care about small government. They do not share your values.The only value you share is that they value your vote, too, and exploit your beliefs through pandering to get it. They do not care about your family. McCain is Bush. Palin is Cheney. Don't believe the hype.
We deserve better.
No comments:
Post a Comment